At Speculative Chic, we feature a lot of authors who share everything from their favorite things to the inspiration for their work. Today, we’re introducing a new column called Fiction Friday, where you’ll be able to sample the fiction of a variety of authors, including those who write at Speculative Chic! For our very first column, we’re featuring Judy Black, who writes for us under the name of Andrea Judy. Aside from providing Speculative Chic readers great tips for Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, Judy has just released the third novella in her Shadow Archives series, The Sound of Silence.
About the Book
The Sound of Silence (2019)
Written by: Judy Black
Genre: Historical Horror
Pages: 102 pages
Series: Book #3 of Finnegan Family Cabinet of Abberations
Publisher: Falstaff Books
Still on the hunt for her missing father, Hazel, supernatural hunter and sideshow owner-slash-illustrated woman and her entire show head to rural North Carolina on a hunch. There she meets a familiar face and joins another show for the first time.
While Hazel tries to learn who is friend and foe with this strange combined show, she must hunt a silent hunter deep in the mountains. Death is lurking closer and closer as the Finnegan Family Cabinet of Aberrations tries to survive the Sound of Silence.
The Shadow Council Archives are historical novellas set in the universe of the Quincy Harker, Demon Hunter books. They are the tales of folklore and legend collected by The Shadow Council in the centuries since their founding.
Currently Available from: Amazon.com
Catch Up on the Series
The Sound of Silence Excerpt
Chapter 1
After the smooth, quick ride on the train, going back to horse and carriage seemed to take an eternity longer than it usually did. The only saving grace was the view of the mountains crested in early morning fog as we finally rolled up to our latest destination in a town just near the bottom of the Smokies. Half the caravan still slept, and the sun hadn’t yet fully peaked out from behind the mountains. For the moment, peace lounged over us.
Marshall and I rode together in a carriage, both of us curled over our respective cups of coffee. It might’ve been summer, but that didn’t mean a chill didn’t hang in the air. That was one of the things I liked about the mountains: it never seemed quite as hot here as it did closer to the coast. And when you had to wear enough clothes to hide most of your skin, that heat got downright unbearable.
The town itself still seemed to be sleeping; nobody ran into the streets to greet us or sneak to catch a peek of one of the freaks from the show. Then again, they might not even know we were coming. I had no idea how far Dad had gotten with spreading the word about the show before he vanished. We might be the biggest surprise since Christmas morning. Or we might find out we didn’t even have a space reserved for us to set up.
We rolled into the open fields just outside of town, and our tent team got to work. Those boys moved fast, with the memory of doing this a thousand times before guiding their hands. When you moved as much as we did, it all became an old trick, something you could do nearly in your sleep. It certainly made the trips a lot easier once you got used to it. That seemed to be the thing that stood between the people who lasted working with the show and the people who left after a week. If you couldn’t handle not having a place to call home, then you weren’t going to be around for long.
We were only about a quarter set up when another set of wagons started pulling up. It wasn’t enough stuff to be one of the big shows, and I didn’t recognize the insignia on the cart. It all looked near brand-new, and I doubted it had seen more than a month or two of travel. That caravan stopped, and a few people got out. I glanced at Marshall.
“Guess I better see what that’s about,” he said, putting down his coffee.
“I’ll go with you,” I said and got up. If there was going to be trouble, I wasn’t going to let Marshall face it by himself.
We’d barely gotten out of the wagon when a familiar face began crossing the field toward us. Eclipse, the woman from the train station back in Arkansas, looked mighty happy to see us.
“I didn’t anticipate running into you two,” she said. “What brings you to this part of the woods?”
“This is part of our touring section,” Marshall said.
“That is interesting; I’m set to be here this week. Right here in this lot where you’re setting up,” she said.
Well shit. No one ever came to this nowhere town; I never figured someone else would have this lot booked, but I guess that’s what we got for being cocky and not having a showrunner organizing things right now.
“You’ve traveled a long way in a short time,” I said. “That’s impressive. Is this your first stop?”
Eclipse smiled and petted the side of one of her horses. “It is. We had a few dropouts along the way, but we’re still ready to put on a good show.”
“What kind of show you run?” Marshall asked.
“An all-in-one kind of show. We got some medical displays, and that big skeleton you gave me.”
Marshall and I looked at each other. That wasn’t nearly enough to be a full show, and I’d wager that she didn’t know that.
“You got two things?” I asked.
“For right now. We’re hoping to get more soon. But everyone’s got to start somewhere, right?” She asked with a shrug.
Marshall tilted his head slightly toward the wagons with Eclipse and then toward our caravan. It only took me a second to gather his meaning. Our show was still a little down from the loss of the Duncans, and we could use a booster. Besides, we needed to be here; I felt that in my bones. Something called me here.
I gave Marshall a nod, and he looked back to Eclipse.
“I have an idea,” Marshall began. “What if our shows worked together this one time?”
Eclipse looked pretty taken aback by the idea and not quite sure how to process it.
“It’d be a great way for you to see how we run our show up close and personal,” Marshall added.
After a few seconds of silence, Eclipse said, “I think that sounds agreeable. Just for this one town, this one time. After that, we’re going our separate ways.”
Marshall smiled and offered his hand. “It’s a deal.”
She reached out, and they shook on the deal.
Marshall whistled, and several builders came over. “Y’all boys are going to be helping Miss Eclipse here. Make sure she gets everything laid out nicely with our show.”
Eclipse looked surprised but grateful for the help. She, Marshall, and the tent builders all went over to her side of the field and started going over supplies. I headed back over to the wagon to finish off my coffee.
Alma walked out of her carriage, breakfast in hand, and motioned to Eclipse. “What’s going on with that?” she asked.
“We’re going to have some neighbors for the show. Shouldn’t mean anything too bad.”
“Isn’t that the lady that bought the skeleton from you?”
I nodded. Looking over at the wagons I couldn’t tell where the skeleton was. But as I thought that, several bigger wagons started pulling up and I could just make the shape of an oversized femur sticking out of one of them. “That’s my boy,” I said, laughing.
Alma shook her head. “I do not understand you, Hazel.”
I smiled and headed into the carriage; Alma followed me and sat down across from me. I poured her a cup of coffee before sitting back with mine.
“Why exactly are we here?” she asked. “This is supposed to be one of our last stops for the season, and we’re only halfway through summer.”
For a second, I debated lying to her. Tell her some nonsense about schedule changes or anything like that, but there wasn’t any reason to lie to Alma. Besides, she’d see right through me.
“I think Dad might be somewhere around here,” I said, keeping my hands curled around the warmth of the mug.
“He still hasn’t gotten in touch with you or anything? No letter, no message, nothing?”
I shook my head. “We haven’t even got people who’ve seen him or some sign of him, aside from that trunk of his we found in Arkansas. It just ain’t like him to up and vanish like this.”
“I know. He might not be the most organized fella I ever met, but he keeps to the season tour schedule like a stopwatch. And vanishing in the middle of high season doesn’t make any kind of sense. You think something happened to him?” she asked softly, seeming almost afraid to put the question out there.
“The only reason I can think he wouldn’t get in touch with us is that he’s in trouble. I just don’t know what kind. Or where. Or how to help. I don’t know nothing. And that’s the worst part of this whole damn thing. I can think until my brain’s about to sludge out of my ears, and it doesn’t do me a damn lick of good.”
Alma reached over and put her hands over mine. “We’re going to find him.”
I tried to believe that. But right now, I needed to not think about Dad anymore. “What’s going on with you and Clarence?” I asked.
Her cheeks darkened just a touch. A blush didn’t show much through her brown skin, but I knew her well enough to recognize it when I saw it. She pulled her hands back into her lap.
“He’s a nice guy. He’s the kind of guy I never thought I’d meet at a show like this.”
“We do seem to attract some terrible guys, don’t we?”
“We sure as sin do,” Alma said.
Alma and I both laughed at the remembered series of unfortunate men that had come to the show. Jonah had by far been the best in years, aside from Marshall and Dad of course.
It always amazed me how Jonah wasn’t married. Now, most of the girls who came to the show looked a lot and had been polite, but there was no way any of them could’ve gotten approval to marry Jonah. I never even heard him talk about a girl that caught his eye.
Then again, he had the attitude of a preacher and the holiness with it to boot, so maybe he just wasn’t interested. But a godly man most of the time ended up married. I sure wasn’t going to pester him about it. He’d been a solid staple in the show for way too long to start giving him a hard time now.
“Clarence is nice. He’s a good guy. He’s got a good head on his shoulders; didn’t panic at all during that whole fire in the train.”
“I suppose that’s a good sign after all,” I said. “Don’t want someone who’s going to panic over everything. This show’s a little too wild for that kind of problem.”
Alma shook her head. “It truly is. We’re really going to team up with this lady who doesn’t know what she’s doing?”
“Everyone’s got to start somewhere, right? We’re only working with her here; it’s not like we’re joining our shows up for good. She didn’t have enough to draw a crowd at all, but she’s got the stake on this place. We’ll work with her for now and move on when the time’s right.”
Alan nodded and stood up. “I’m going to go make sure they don’t put our dressing area somewhere stupid.”
I waved her off as I made myself another cup of hot coffee.
About the Author
Judy Black is a writer who makes her home in Atlanta, Georgia. She loves games, books, cats, and most things with caffeine. Her current series, The Finnegan Cabinet of Aberrations, is published with Falstaff Books. You can watch her Tabletop RPG group on Roll For Trouble.
Thank you for sharing a peak into your books! You’ve been blessed with such lovely covers!