Favorite Excerpt of the Week!

It has been so long since I've done this! Mostly because I've been editing so much and realized what a shameful state everything is in. But, the following section from Chapter 9 of the manuscript is one of my absolute favorites. It is one of the few surviving passages from the original draft, and it is entertaining insight into the character of Wyndeling, a Hinge Forester with some serious concerns about humans. 

Wyndeling was injured while helping Tess and her friends escape a sticky situation. As a result, she finds herself earth-bound. A prideful animal, Wyndeling refuses to let that stop her. Enjoy!

It was deep into night as Wyndeling kept watch over a small camp from the upper branches of an ancient ginkgo tree. It took her nearly an hour to climb and claw her way up the branches of the tree, just so she could feel at home again. She unhappily followed the movements of what seemed like countless rodents, while her wounded wing twitched in its bandage, aching to feel wind again.

            An owl who does not fly is no owl at all, thought Wyndeling. The phrase echoed in her head, and the more it echoed, the more desperate she felt. A menacing growl rolled from her feathery belly as she spotted another morsel rustling under the fallen leaves.

            The state of Wyndeling’s stomach together with the demands of her pride eventually won out over common sense, and she decided to remove the bandage. The bandage, however, was too soundly dressed. Every turn was neatly tucked and every corner smoothly laid. It proved difficult for Wyndeling to track down a beginning or end to the grizzly thing.

Despite her sharp beak and dexterous neck, Wyndeling was losing the battle with her bandage. Her attempts at extraction became more and more reckless until the poor creature was practically assailing herself.  Then something happened which Wyndeling had not experienced since she was a small owlet learning to fly – she fell out of the gingko tree.