BVC Announces Stories from the Left Hand World Book 2 by Jill Zeller
Stories from the Left Hand World
Book 2
by Jill Zeller
Book 2 from the Left-Hand World, where reality is never what you thought it was.
Hecate’s Collar of Bones
Death’s chauffeur takes a turn down a new road.
Little Bastard
A shard of James Dean’s sports car brings redemption.
River Brings All
A River saves a marriage.
Finding Them
A team journeys to radiation-ravaged Australia to uncover the fates of those who died.
The Iris Duet:
A rebellious sister guides a young girl into adulthood.
Dad’s A Bomb
Ditching Barbie
Target of the Well-Read
Banned books become valuable commodities in a future world.
The Terminal Bar
A woman follows her brother one step too far.
Entry into the Left-Hand World—Part 2 of the Left-Hand World
Stories from the Left Hand World series Book 2
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Author of numerous novels and short stories, Jill Zeller is a Left Coast writer, 2nd generation Californian, retired registered nurse, and obsessed gardener. Her works explore the boundaries of reality. Some may call it fantasy, but there are rarely swords and never elves. More to the point, she prefers to write as if myth, imagination and hallucination are as real as the chair she is sitting on as she writes this.
She lives in Oregon with her patient husband, 2 silly English mastiffs and 2 rescue cats—the silliest of all. For more, visit her website.
Buy Stories from the Left Hand World Book 2 in the BVC bookstore
Read a Sample
Hecate’s Collar of Bones
I am born to serve, my mother told me as she lay dying and Death dropped by. As we waited, I brought Death a beer and a slice of pizza from the kitchen. Death hired me on the spot.
Death is stunning. Her eyes are narrow and critical. She has arching brows, prominent cheekbones, her bottom lip is twice as full as the upper and she wears pink pearl lipstick. Her hands are small in wrist-length gloves. She never goes to a demise without her gloves. She wears a high-collared black dress with a skirt that flares as she walks briskly in her black heels. Her calves are strong in her seamed stockings.
She offered me the job of driving the cloud-gray Bentley with a white rose in its vase after she collected my mother’s soul. I said yes. I said yes to everything then, and it was easy to follow the ‘yes’ with a ‘ma’am’. She gave me a uniform: a cap with a patent leather bill, black suit and slacks, and instead of a tie, I wear a bolo bearing a skull’s head. I look good in it—women turn their heads. Death likes me to wear my hair long and I tie it behind my head in an ebony ponytail clasped by a silver band.
Death smells of dust and sage, with a tinge of pepper. She sweeps the city of its dead, her head swiveling as she gazes through tinted windows while I drive and steal glances at her through the rear-view mirror.
Once, just after I started, she acted like she wanted to seduce me. I knew better than to kiss Death but I wanted to as her hand slid down my lapel and across my hip and between my legs.
“Hal, you are a handsome man. The dying will see you and be pleased. I am pleased to see you every time you drive for me.” Death slurs her ‘S’s and her ‘L’s sound like ‘W’s. It is an endearing speech impediment and maybe that is why when she whispers whatever it is she whispers and she peels off her black gloves, the dying seem to sigh and give up and come to her.
Today I am thinking about her as I polish the Bentley’s hood. I woke up this morning wondering how I came to be Death’s driver; why she chose me. I was just a loser sponging off my mother as she died of cancer. I had lost my last job, my girlfriend Beth, and was too fond of beer. Maybe I was looking for something I didn’t know I was looking for. Maybe Death saw that I could walk onto the stage of her timeless play and look good to the audience.
Today, as I inhale the odor of wax and oils, the sky is a gray scrim to webs of empty trees. The air chills my cheeks. I’ve lost track of how long I have been Death’s driver; it’s been many, many years. Lately disquiet has gotten under my fingernails, which she stopped me from biting long ago. I am thinking of the future, for the first time in an infinitude of seconds. I wonder what I am doing here, where I am going next.
I think of my last girlfriend as she got out of my car a week before my mother died and told me she hated me. I didn’t know why. With Mom dead and Beth gone, taking a job with Death seemed like a great idea.
I am thinking of quitting. I want to rejoin the land of the living. I have been with the dead too long. I wonder what Beth is doing. How does one leave Death behind?
As if on cue, Death emerges from the house. Her black hair rolls sharply back from her head, making her face look as if someone is pulling her by the hair.
She approaches, high heels grinding crushed rocks on her driveway. I am a foot taller than Death, and she looks up at me, obsidian eyes glinting.
I am in my shirt sleeves, a black silk vest over my white shirt.
“Are you finished?” she asks, adjusting her gloves.
For a moment I think she wants to know if I am finished thinking about quitting. I say, “We can leave any time, ma’am.”
Her lower lip juts out. Maybe I sound a bit short.
“Then put on your jacket. It’s time to go.”
I never know what time it is. I only know that it is day or night. Maybe that is why I feel bitter at her words. I chafe at her orders, her smell, her ownership of me. Beth liked to give me orders. I usually like it when women order me around.
She seems nervous. I have only seen her serene, gliding from house to house and alley to alley, collecting souls and leading them to wherever she leads them. I never follow. I am not dead. I don’t know what I am.
Buy Stories from the Left Hand World Book 2 in the BVC bookstore