Red in Tooth and Claw Snippet

Hey friends--I'm desperately holding on to the idea that in 4 days, I'll be on my writing retreat and get to focus on one thing and not be interrupted every ten seconds. Yesterday I had my mom texting me asking if I knew where her shoes were (she forgot to pack them), my oldest asking me for his keys (they were on the key rack) and my youngest wanting to show me his legos/describe his video game/keep up a nonstop commentary of his anime/complain that he was bored...and somehow I was supposed to work?

It's hard to focus when you're being interrupted, but I can usually manage...but I've been editing for three solid months now and It's broken my brain. Example, yesterday I spent 5 minutes looking for a bra. I was wearing it. 

I was hoping to be done with editing so I could focus on writing new things, like chapters for BTLN and the new YA book I'm pitching to my editor...but now I'll be wrapping up edits. However, I will still start on those other things. So you'll get a new chapter next week, come hell or high-water, as my grams would say.

Today, though, I have a snippet of Red in Tooth and Claw, the book I'm editing. Enjoy!

--Lish

Chapter 1:

My battered pocket watch was as dead as the body in the coffin, but that didn’t stop me from keeping it in a white-knuckled grip. After all, it was the only thing I could hold on to. I couldn’t hold on to Pops. All I could do was eye him in the coffin and tell him how sorry I was about this wretched farce of a funeral. Pops hated funerals.

But he loved a good wake.

Funerals were for wailing. Wakes were for celebrating and toasting a life lived where you savored every bite. My people loved a good wake. Pops said that the old gods, they were much more understanding about these sorts of things. New Retienne liked the new god and the new god liked proper funerals.

I’d never set foot into New Retienne’s ramshackle church until today. Pops and I only came into town every three weeks for supplies—four if we could stretch it. So far I wasn’t impressed. I’d been raised better than to spit on someone’s floor, but let me tell you, it was a close thing. This was a floor made to be spit on.

I wanted to spit on the mayor most of all. He had me boxed in at the front of the church, the hard bench behind me. I didn’t need him or his pack of minions and there were plenty of empty benches they could have taken. Only a handful of people attended the service, and I think most of them were there for the vittles the mayor had promised after the ceremony. Irritating, but I couldn’t blame folks for wanting to fill their bellies when someone else was footing the bill.

I recognized everyone there, except for one lady at the back. She was dressed plainly, but that only seemed to frame her beauty more strongly. She kept sending me sympathetic smiles. I kept ignoring them.

The mayor patted my shoulder, leaning into whisper in a way that didn’t disrupt the flow of words coming from the preacher. “He’s in a better place.”

I disagreed but bit my tongue.

Pops had always told me there was a sure-fire way to tell if a bureaucrat was lying to you. If their lips were moving, get your shovel ready. Nobody could unload verbal pucky like a bureaucrat. The mayor kept a hand on my shoulder, his two lawyer buddies flanking us. They were there to ‘support me in my time of need’, and every time they opened their mouths, I reckoned I should go get myself a shovel. I was going to be knee-deep in their pucky before long.

Pops had been a simple man. Didn’t mean he was wrong.

And now he was dead.

They were all dead.