Jane’s Addiction, a snippet and a story
I get asked about Jane’s Addiction, the sequel to Love and Rockets, regularly. The book got stuck between option clauses and changes in Ellora’s Cave’s print program, and so it sat on my hard drive. These things happen in publishing. But reading PBW’s blog about buildings and their exteriors this morning reminded me of this scene from the book, which I love. Here is Jane, being Jane, determined to exert her will over real estate. She and Eldon are no longer dating at this point in the story; he was a project for her and she’s a bit too much for him, but they stayed friends. She’s already met the man she can’t manage but he doesn’t appear in this scene.
Due to changes in publishing and freedom from option clauses, maybe Jane can actually see the light of day sometime. Things I consider doing with Jane: publishing a chapter a month on my site for free, putting it out on Kindle and making it a phone app, putting a print version on Lulu, send it to Samhain except that splits two books between publishers which presents difficulties. But there are options that didn’t exist a couple of years ago when I was told Jane was Doomed, which is nice.
Excerpt from Jane’s Addiction
copyright 2010 Charlene Teglia all rights reserved
“Are those gargoyles on the roof?”
Eldon’s voice was not enthusiastic. Horrified was a better description. The kind of fascinated horror that kept people staring at car crashes had Eldon riveted, staring at the house as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and didn’t particularly want to go any closer to find out if it was real.
Jane sighed, ran a hand through her short cap of curly brunette hair and then linked her arm with his. “Be supportive, Eldon. You’re here as an accountant, not a location scout for a horror movie. Never mind how it looks, I need you to help me evaluate the financial possibilities.”
“So you do realize it looks like The Bates Motel crossed with Dracula’s castle.” Eldon pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose and gave her a worried look through the lenses. “You’re going to live here? Alone?”
“Yep.” Jane grinned at him. “It has atmosphere, doesn’t it?”
“Atmosphere.” Eldon directed another horrified look at the house. “You could call it that. How many of the previous owners committed suicide?”
“None. I know it’s a little gloomy but with some paint and landscaping you won’t recognize the place. Come on. I want you to see the inside.” Radiating cheery confidence, Jane tugged him off the curb and up the walk. “Of course it needs work, inside and out. I have estimates for you to look over. But the space is terrific. So’s the location.”
“It’s getting close to night. Are you sure we shouldn’t wait and do this in the morning?”
“The power’s on. We’ll have lights.” Jane kept going forward, relentlessly dragging him along with her. “It’s not haunted. At least, I don’t think it is.”
Eldon came to a full stop. “What do you mean, you don’t think it is?”
Jane stopped with him and ran her hand through her hair again. “Well, there’s a family rumor about the place, but it’s just one of those things that gets dramatized and blown out of proportion over the years. Old houses creak and make weird noises. Nobody’s ever actually proved that it’s haunted. Of course, I intend to use the family story as a draw, but that’s just marketing. People pay big bucks to stay in haunted houses.” She gave him a winning smile and patted his arm reassuringly. “I really don’t think you’ll see a ghost.”
“Marketing,” Eldon echoed. He did not sound reassured.
“Right. It’ll be listed as a haunted B&B. Regular bed and breakfast listings are too generic, I needed something special to make it stand out and make people want to stay here instead of an established hotel.”
Jane gazed up at the gothic monstrosity and envisioned it filled with vacationers. Retirees, families, and singles out to see all the attractions Maine had to offer. And she’d be in the middle of all the noise and bustle, telling spooky stories, serving up a continental breakfast buffet, banking the receipts.
She needed a new project. It was time. It had been a month since the wedding, and she was bored, restless, and itching for something to throw herself into. And this was a big project, something she could really get into, something that would challenge her for years to come. She’d been looking for something to focus her energy on, and when Great-Aunt Agatha unexpectedly left the sprawling old house to her, Jane had seen it as A Sign.
Eldon sighed. “You really want this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Okay, then. Take me inside.” He moved reluctantly forward, dodging overgrown shrubbery that threatened to swallow the walkway and places where the cracked concrete needed repair and had heaved up over itself like a miniature study in plate tectonics from seasonal freezes and thaws. “You know, if you didn’t fix the landscaping you’d have a built-in burglar deterrent. No self-respecting criminal would risk his life getting closer to that house, and nothing in that house could be worth stealing.”
“Very funny.”
“Except you, of course,” Eldon offered in the spirit of gallantry.
“You’re sweet.” Jane patted his arm.
“Tell me more about how it’s not haunted.”
Jane fished out the key as she led him up to the front door. “well, mainly it’s because of the fireplace. The story goes that some of the stones came from Mystery Hill.”
“Mystery Hill?” Eldon’s eyes bulged behind his lenses. “As in, America’s Stonehenge? Didn’t some historian prove that was a site where they used to perform ritual human sacrifice?”
“I don’t think that was ever proven, actually,” Jane said. She privately thought it more likely that the ceremonial aspects of the site ran to fertility rituals. She pushed the door open now that she had it unlocked and led the way inside. “Despite various theories about the colorful history of the place, practical New Englanders saw it as a source of building material. Until it became protected, many local structures incorporated a rock or two.”
“So how did it end up here?” Eldon asked, not being geographically challenged.
“The fireplace and chimney were salvaged and moved here from a house that burned down,” Jane said. “Waste not, want not. Reduce, reuse, recycle.” She stepped back and waved Eldon inside. He came with visible reluctance, and she suspected he was only doing it because he was too chivalrous to leave her in there alone.
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