A Death on My Porch

by Julie Coulter Bellon

Well, as Stephanie mentioned, I had a birthday yesterday, (thank you to the three people who made awesome wishes for me. You’re my new best friends) and it was one of those milestone birthdays that makes everyone want to ask how you feel about it. (Don’t even try to guess in the comment trail how old I am. It makes writers like me cranky if you guess high and then I’ll be insecure about what people think of me and have to use my writing as therapy---it won’t be pretty, so just restrain yourselves, okay?)

So anyway, back to the point. I had this very mysterious thing that happened to me right around my birthday. (Or I just see creepy mysteries everywhere now since Stephanie’s Methods of Madness book has me totally spooked.) On our porch there is a little step before you get into our house and we found a fat little furry mouse lying there on my welcome mat covering the step. Dead. Just lying there like he was having a little nap before he came into the house. Except he was dead.

I know! Did you think like I did, that is was a message of some sort? I mean, who finds a dead mouse on their doorstep? Especially a fat one neatly arranged as if he were sleeping on a welcome mat. Happy birthday to me! Was someone trying to tell me I’d be dead soon? Were they trying to say “Welcome to death?” Was the fat little mouse supposed to represent me? *shudder* I admit that it crossed my mind that perhaps Stephanie had suddenly come to Utah and was experimenting with new plot ideas. She was probably hiding in my bushes waiting to see what my reaction would be to a dead mouse on my welcome mat. Which is wrong, Stephanie. Very, very wrong.

However, I did come up with another theory. The little dead mouse could also represent my writing career. Anyone who knows me, knows my story of how my career was almost over before it started. After three rejections, I gave up (I know, I was a crybaby!) and put my manuscript under my bed. I left it there for a year before I decided to revamp it and resubmit it (with some gentle nagging from another author friend.) Of course that decision changed my life since I got a contract and became a published author with the revamped manuscript. But I was almost like the fat little mouse---so close to getting what he wanted by being inside my warm house, but dying on the doorstep within inches of his dream. If I’d let that manuscript gather dust, my writing dream would never have been realized. But who would want to remind me of that? Stephanie wouldn’t want to remind me of previous failures so I’d get all depressed and stop writing, would she? Maybe her next book is about how an author sees how far she can influence her writer friends into giving up writing so she has no more competition and the entire Seagull store is full of only Stephanie Black books. Piles and piles of Black books that eventually take over the world. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I can totally see that happening after reading the subtext in Methods of Madness.

My final theory was that it was a death by natural causes. Since there was no blood, it seemed this poor little mouse managed to get on my step, and perhaps was so winded that when he felt the soft bristles of the welcome mat beneath him he thought he’d take a little rest. His right arm/leg was sort of hurting him, and he needed a breather. But before he could lie down, his little mousy heart just gave up and he had a heart attack. (You know, after you’ve had a birthday, sometimes you think of those sorts of things.) Or, Stephanie knew that Rob was coming over and had him gas the poor little rodent and arrange him on my doorstep. Getting him to do her dirty work would be brilliant since no one would expect something so devious from innocent-looking Robison Wells. That Stephanie has some tricks up her sleeve for sure. I mean, look at her novel! Creepiness personified.

So as I’ve contemplated my new age and the mysterious death on my porch, I’ve come to the conclusion that the general public should not read Stephanie Black’s book when it’s near your birthday because dead animals may or may not appear on your porch. If you disregard my advice you do it at your own risk because there's something about her book that will make you want to steal your kid's nightlight. It is seriously that good. I’m almost to the point where I can’t read it at night and I don’t want to read ahead because I know I’ll scare myself even further. It's not horror, though, just very well done spine-tingling mystery. I don’t know who the villain is yet, but I do know this. Stephanie isn’t who I thought she was. And whether she was directly or indirectly involved in that death on my porch, I know it’s some sort of message from her to me, to my subconscious in a conscious way. Spooky.

And here's one more thing I do know for sure. If I’m ever with you, and not feeling well, please, please, please don’t find the nearest welcome mat for me to die on no matter how much Stephanie begs for you to recreate the mouse's death scene. And if I die with bushes anywhere nearby, please check them. Just to make sure that Stephanie isn’t hiding there taking notes.

Thank you.