EDIT: Given the fact that I've become a better writer (a girl can dream) since posting the original snippet of LAYLA: FAST TIMES AT MOUNT MYTHICAL, I'll post a scene from the latest draft instead. Without further (or, y'know, any) ado:
“I’m not a millionaire, you know.”
“Well what do you suppose we do?” Cam mocks. “Molt into butterflies and flit up into the ether?”
“Butterflies don’t molt.”
We’ve made it as far as the end of the driveway, grazed by a weeping willow on the sidewalk, where Cam stopped me when he learned I don’t have a car. I’m currently worth like thirty dollars; of course I don’t have a car. According to Cam, our plans are now ruined. I’ve also learned his full name is Sycamore. Sycamore.
He makes an odd face. “Yes they do.”
“I can’t believe your mom is forest spirit-y and you don’t know that caterpillars transform into their less fuzzy counterparts. Snakes molt.”
“Well, unfortunately for me right now,” he says, resting an elbow on our mailbox, “my dad was a god of the land, not of the air.”
“So you–” Oh. Shit. I just heard what he said. “You don’t mean that literally, right? Your dad’s a . . . land god, as in . . . a really great lumberjack or farmer or . . . something.”
Cam does that sheepish back-of-the-head-scratch thing in reply.
“But wouldn’t you think gods can’t –” I shut my mouth as quickly as I can, but I think he hears last word anyway. – die.
His muddy green eyes turn up to the purplish sky. “They can, as it turns out.”
That's it! Hopefully-Line is still set for Thanksgiving. . .
