Author: marylowd

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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After all the pictures were taken, including every person milling around under the draping branches of the karillow trees in some combination or other, Am-lei’s grandmother held her arms up high and announced, “Everyone follow me!  It’s time for the ceremony.”  A broad grin spread across her wrinkled, human face, and she walked backward, carefully leading the group to a karillow tree with small twinkling, colored lights braided into its draping branches.  It looked like a million fairies lived among those green leaves. Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 20”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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Anno had traveled across star systems, spending weeks away from her chosen homeworld, to make it to Am-lei and Jeko’s wedding.  The whole trip, fundamentally, was about going to a wedding.  And now that the morning of the wedding had come, her family was running late.  There was nothing to be done about it.  The kits were always a whirlwind of chaos and disasters whenever she and Drathur needed them to be ready for something at a specific time.  There was nothing like a deadline to cause one of the kits to lose track of their favorite toy or put their clothes on backwards or get gum stuck in their fur, even though Anno couldn’t remember ever giving her kits gum. Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 19”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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After a week and a half on Crossroads Station, with only half a week left before it would be time to leave, the day of the wedding finally came.  Amazingly, none of the three kits backed out on their planned clothing trades, so getting them properly dressed and ready for the day was only the normal amount of aggravating and stressful.  Loi, who had so desperately wanted to wear the fancy gray tie, kept whipping it around the room like a banner, claiming it was a sparking eel, causing Mei and Darsy to chase after her giggling and failing to put their shoes on. Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 18”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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The intra-solar-system ferry flew between Crossroads Station and New Jupiter every couple of hours.  A whole network of cloud ports sailed around New Jupiter in quasi-permanent locations relative to the constantly shifting and roiling weather.  Some of the storms had been ongoing for centuries, since long before humans had established Crossroads Station in this solar system.  The cloud port that the ferry docked with — allowing passengers to get off before it returned to the station — sailed along a rift between a dark orange ripple and a pale yellow gash in the patterning of New Jupiter’s swirling clouds. Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 17”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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Loi seemed entirely unfazed by her earlier fear and how it had caused her to miss out on the bulk of an outing her two siblings spent the rest of the day talking about.  And somehow, with the sheer force of her personality and determination, she seemed to almost convince Mei and Darso that they’d missed out by not spending a couple extra hours at the playground they’d already spent hours playing at the day before.  Kids are weird.  Their priorities make no sense.  But Anno had faith Mei and Darso would remember their spacewalk for years to come, even if today, they weren’t sure if Loi was right and they’d have been better off skipping it. Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 16”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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“Loi, do you want to go back?” Anno asked, hating the words as she said them.  They were the right words to say.  It was the right thing to do, giving her daughter a way out of a situation she didn’t want to be in.  But Anno knew Loi would take the out, and then her own trip would be over.

“Yes, please.”  Loi’s voice never sounded that small and hopeful.  Loi wasn’t about hoping for things she wanted; she was all about demanding them, because she knew her worth and her rights and what the universe owed her… even if she was sometimes wrong, because small children have a way of thinking the universe owes them the fulfilment of every single desire that whimsically crosses their tumultuous young minds.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 15”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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The next morning, Anno awoke to a lot of messages hemming and hawing over whether her various siblings were interested in joining her family for the day’s activity:  it was space-walk time.  Anno wasn’t surprised by the switch from her siblings aggressively courting her attendance at their activities to their lukewarm response to the activity she’d countered with.  They all had lives of their own, and they all lived on Crossroads Station.  Doing a spacewalk around it wasn’t exactly a high priority on a random Tuesday, with only a few hours notice, when they could do it any day.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 14”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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As they’d planned, Anno and Drathur kept their first full day on Crossroads Station lowkey.  They wandered through the various districts, letting the kits drag them into any shop that had fun toys or treats on display.  They spent hours at one of the playgrounds, watching the kits play on the various climbing structures and bounce around inside the anti-grav bubbles.  Anno even let herself get talked into playing in a game of tag, chasing the kits as they all somersaulted through the air, scattering and squealing whenever she got close enough to touch them.  It was a good day.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 13”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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The brief moment stretched into the late afternoon, and the kids would clearly have been happy to stay well into the evening.  But Anno didn’t want to get trapped in her childhood home.  She wanted space.  Somewhere that was hers and Drathur’s and their kids’ and no one else’s.  Suddenly, in comparison to the chaos of her extended family — which used to be her nuclear family — her new nuclear family didn’t seem chaotic at all.  The previous week crammed into a tiny pair of rooms with her husband and three kits seemed downright peaceful, and she wanted to get back to that sense of serenity.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 12”

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to the next chapter.

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Kya grabbed Anno’s paw and dragged her out of the entryway, past several of the bedroom doors and down the hall to the large open area that was a kitchen on one side and living room on the other.  That part of the quarters hadn’t belonged to Clori when Anno was very little, when the only other children in the family had been Iko, T’reska, and their brother Lut.

Continue reading “You’re Cordially Invited to Crossroads Station — Chapter 11”