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Kathryn Mattingly

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Kathryn Mattingly

Tag Archives: Fractured Hearts

Morney from Fractured Hearts

18 Tuesday Feb 2014

Posted by Kathryn Mattingly in Blog Post

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Dark Discoveries magazine, Fractured Hearts, highly original, Kathryn Mattingly, short fiction, superb

Fractured-Hearts

From the review of Ghosts at the Coast by Jonathan Reitan in Dark Discoveries Magazine: “Kathryn Mattingly’s Morney in the anthology Ghosts at the Coast stands out as being superb and highly original. It is a spooky tale about a mysterious gypsy girl in Rome.” This story can be found in Ms. Mattingly’s newly released book, Fractured Hearts (a volume of short fiction) with Winter Goose Publishing. It is available through all major book sellers. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
fantasy
 
in my head
i am holding you
in my arms
in my heart
i am aching for you
in my reality
i am living
in my recent past
 
your thoughts
your smile
your gentle touches
are more real
than anything I know
you are but a dream
a mere fantasy
 
our time spent
together
haunts me now
and always will
for I have
known your magic
and it has
transformed me
 

I’ve come to Italy to nurse my wounds, having lost another child and knowing it will be my last attempt to bear children. My doctor and friend, Grant, tells me that it takes more courage sometimes to give up and accept fate, than to try and change it. He’s lent me his late aunt’s house here in Rome near the Piazza Navonna, to help heal my frazzled nerves, which have made me painfully thin. Each morning after a sleepless night I carelessly tie my blonde hair in a ponytail, throw on my jeans and a sweater, and sit at this outdoor café in the Piazza.

I silently pray the late April sun will warm my numb heart as I sip on a cappuccino and think about the children I will never have. I cry behind my sunglasses and wipe away tears before they can escape down my cheeks. On my third day of this ritual that does not soothe my agony, a young gypsy appears out of nowhere. I think surely she is an angel, with eyes as dark and deep as God’s richest earth, and curls the color of mahogany bark. She peers up at me while holding an enormous white cat in her arms.

“Have you some change?” she asks.

Her English is decent and I find myself charmed by her confidence. The round eyes stare at me innocently. A little red tam on her head matches the plaid woolen skirt she wears. I think she looks more like a porcelain doll than a beggar, for her skin is pale and undernourished.

“I do have change,” I tell her, “but why don’t you sit with me a minute and talk?”

Her dark eyes look puzzled as she nervously pets the cat.

“I’ll buy you some milk, if you’ll just sit for a while,” I plead.

After a glance in each direction she sits down and the cat lets out a mournful meow. It jumps from her arms and crouches under the metal chair. The gypsy child doesn’t appear at all concerned that her cat will bolt. And it doesn’t. The feline begins to lick its paws contentedly.

“What’s your name?” I ask boldly.

“Morney,” the gypsy angel says.

“Is that Italian?” I inquire.

“No. My mama is American. Her mama was a Morney, until she married grandpapa. I think Mama misses them… her family in America.”

Gelato-Gelato

I ache for her soul that is wise beyond its years. “Is that why you speak English?” I ask.

“Yes, Papa does not speak it.”

A waiter appears and I order milk for my little friend. The waiter looks skeptical, with one brow arched. I look him straight in the eye, even though he can’t see my eyes behind the dark shades. He nods and leaves quietly.

“Well, it’s a beautiful name. Where did you get that big fluffy cat?” I sip the cappuccino, never taking my eyes from her thin, angelic face.

“She is fluffy, isn’t she?” Morney swells with pride for her enormous feline friend. “I find her one day, making screechy noises. Poor thing… so tiny, and starving.”

Not unlike this child before me, I think to myself, as she turns her head of tangled curls and points toward the cobbled street behind us.

“There, in the side street. That’s where she was. Papa let me keep her.” Morney looks at me, her eyes serious. “But now he says she is too big and eats too much and I must take Chintzy to the cat place.”

“The cat place?” I ask, amazed.

“Yes… in the ruins, where Caesar died. It’s not far from here.”

“Why do they call it the cat place?”

“Because there are many many cats. Maybe a hundred.” Morney reaches under her seat and pets Chintzy while the waiter places a glass of milk in front of the child and disappears, not a smile or a word crossing his lips. After one gulp, she stares at the saucer beneath my cup. I offer it to her and she pours the milk into it carefully, placing it in front of the beloved pet. Morney is kneeling beside the chair and I smile at her red knee socks and little loafers. Someone has mindfully kept this enticing lure for pity from becoming too shabby.

Every day she comes, holding her large white cat, all the while stretching her hands out from beneath the feline to receive coins. The rich tourists at the cafés along the Piazza ignore her and I marvel at how they can be so complacent. Who could resist giving change to this brave little struggling spirit, a mere ghost of a child, with dark shimmering eyes and messy curls beneath a red tam?

I find her scrappy courage contagious, and somehow the pain of my loss is less suffocating. After nearly two weeks of this daily ritual with the child and the cat and the milk, the gypsy angel comes on a warm sultry morning without Chintzy.

“Papa took her to the cat place,” she moans sadly. “He says she drank the little bit of milk we had for my sister Lydia.” The stoic child hardens her eyes rather than cry. “I will visit Chintzy, every day maybe.”

“I’m so sorry Morney,” I mutter, thinking how often have I heard these words myself, and not found them helpful.

“I hate begging!” Morney announces. “But if I do not beg… then Lydia will have no milk, even though the milk is made bad with the drugs.” Her tone is sharp with anger.

“Lydia has drugs in her milk?” I ask, bewildered.

“Yes, it is to make her sleep, so Mama and Papa can beg and she will not cry. I wish…” she confides in me, “…one day to have many coins, so many, I never will beg again. Then Lydia can have milk that is not drugged, and she can be like other babies, shopping with their mama’s.”

I nod, unsure of how to respond. “Perhaps one day, Morney, you will grow up and earn money in one of the shops where you see the mothers with their babies.”

“Perhaps,” she replies, and leaves hurriedly without touching her milk.

One day Morney brings her baby sister in a carriage that is tattered and worn, and asks me to care for her because her mother is too ill to beg and her father has not returned from the bars. Nervously I look about, and see not a soul taking any notice of this battered pram housing a dark-haired darling like her sister. Hesitantly and with many misgivings I concede and tell Morney I will watch Lydia while sipping my cappuccino. But she must return for her by midmorning. As my little gypsy friend runs off into the cobbled side street of the Piazza, I see a woman looking sickly and frail well beyond her years looming in the distance. I wonder if she is Morney and Lydia’s mother.

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Amidst odd and perplexed looks of pedestrians strolling by and café waiters gawking at my table, I study the little one placed in my care. She never opens her eyes fringed with curled lashes. Lydia’s face is round and smooth like Morney’s, another cherub with mahogany hair, and I wonder if her eyes are as dark as her sister’s. When no one comes for her I reluctantly stroll the sleeping Lydia across the Piazza and ask about her family in the shops. In one store on the corner of the narrow cobbled street someone knows her parents. The shopkeeper tells me the father and mother have probably run off, because the father is wanted for killing a man in a bar brawl.

“Rapheal is a violent one, when he has been drinking.” The little man uses heavily accented English. “He and that woman Isabella are like shadows of the night, always working the back streets.”

The shopkeeper tells me he hopes they will pay for the crime, having shamelessly overdosed their young daughter, addicted to the drugs almost since birth. I anxiously peer down at Lydia, but she is waking up from her drug-induced sleep. I can’t help myself as I reach for her, to cradle the toddler in my arms. She is so light I wonder what there is of her beneath the shabby blanket.

The storekeeper stares painfully at the baby and tells me it will also die from the drugs in the milk, which are too strong. “Rapheal and his woman have less sense than most.” He shakes his head sadly. “They are so young, and the mother… she takes the drugs. But Rapheal… he is just a thief and a drunk.”

“What do you mean I ask?” looking at him puzzled and confused. “Is this not the child you feared was overdosed? See… she’s fine!”

“No. Not that one, not yet anyway. The other one, with the cat.”

“Morney?” I whisper, staring helplessly into his bushy-browed eyes.

“Yes… that’s her name… Morney. She is dead a year this… this month I think.”

“But how can that be?” My mind races backward. I remember the pale woman in the shadows, the blank stares of the waiters and their non-recognition of my little gypsy friend, who has visited me every day for two weeks, begging coins while stealing my heart. I remember Grant telling me I have hallucinations because I am not well… the drugs, the tests, the pregnancies, the lost babies, the strain of it all. I must take a long vacation. And now this, discovering Morney has died well before she could have brought me her sister Lydia this morning.

I decide to leave Rome. I will reside in Milan. There is nothing to return to the States for. Unsuccessful pregnancies have taken their toll on my marriage. Before I go, I visit the cat place Morney spoke of. It is indeed a refuge of partially-restored ancient ruins, right in the middle of the city; one story beneath ground level. The whole area is overrun with cats of every size and shape. The felines vary widely from fat and sassy to haggard and frail. A big white cat sits like a queen among them and it is Chintzy. I am sure of it. Dusk is settling in and the lights play tricks, but I swear that in the shadows I see Morney, in her red tam and plaid skirt, waving at me. She is kneeling by the huge white cat, stroking its soft arched back with her free hand.

Racing down the cement steps with her sister still in my arms, I shout out… Morney …but only the cats respond, with wild guttural meows. Sitting down on a large stone in the ruins, there among the whining, growling cats, I cry into Lydia’s mahogany curls. We sit for hours in the darkness, huddled together for warmth, but Morney never reappears.

At home now in Milan not a day goes by I don’t think of the little ghost-child and her huge white feline. But thankfully, the voices and illusions within me have not come again. And I have a daughter who needs me, since her father was imprisoned for life, and her mother is dead of malnutrition… or perhaps a drug overdose. No one could be sure. But I am sure of one thing. It was Morney who brought me Lydia, an orphaned gypsy no more, but a child of my own at last.

images

Visit Amazon’s Kathryn Mattingly Page

Visit Kathryn Mattingly at Barnes&Noble

Visit Kathryn Mattingly at goodreads

Visit Kathryn Mattingly at WGP

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Once Upon a Time

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

Posted by Kathryn Mattingly in Blog Post

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

2014, Colorado, Fractured Hearts, moving, new beginnings, Oregon, Sacramento

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Once upon a time I moved to California for a new job, and truthfully, a new life.  It wasn’t that I didn’t like Portland, Oregon. It’s actually a gorgeous city full of great restaurants and bars with the most ambiance I have ever known restaurants and bars to have. And then there’s the waterfront setting – as beautiful as it gets.

But I needed a change.

Although Dennis is the love of my life and the narcissist in me believes God created him solely to be my soul mate, we were experiencing rough waters like all marriages will at one time or another. Of course, soul mates are destined to reunite, and so we ended up once again blissfully cohabiting.

I must admit the short separation brought some much needed appreciation for one another back to the marriage. Ever since then it has been a decade filled with new places and faces, opportunities and challenges. All in all I’d say it’s been anything but boring.

I have made some lifetime friends here and reached some personal achievement milestones, with finding a publishing home and becoming a novelist. Reflection about California Dreamin’ is bittersweet to say the least, but it has certainly been worth the ride. Whether smooth sailing or rough waters, we have weathered it all.

And now our ship is setting sail for new seas.

We are Colorado bound in just a few short weeks, and couldn’t be happier about the news which has been incessantly prayed about, discussed, wished, and wanted. Dennis has accepted a Director of Marketing position with Trans Aero Ltd. in the Fort Collins/Loveland area.

We plan to live in Fort Collins where I will teach at the University of Phoenix. I am thrilled beyond words (odd for a writer, I know). Ironically, when first married we planned to live in this exact location, but of course, fate has a way of playing its own hand and for us that was a side trip to Eugene, Oregon where Dennis got a job after graduating college. I transferred to the University of Oregon and we stayed to raise our family there, moving to Portland after they left home.

So, here we are full circle, poised to begin the adventure we had originally planned for ourselves. Writers dream of new plot twists. Nothing sparks creativity like discovering all there is to know about a new city, making memories in a new home, developing new friendships, getting involved with a new community and communing with new wonders of nature.

Ever since the New Year everything seems to have magically changed, not unlike a Disney film. Our careers of passion and preference are looking up for both of us.  My publicist is off and running with a marketing plan for my books, while my husband is once again in his happy zone of marketing helicopter service to federal, state and private companies. I can only hope that every month of this New Year will be as significant in a good way.

Well played, January 2014, well played!

Thank you to those friends out there who have stuck with us through thick and thin, and have been rooting for us to dig our way out of the sunken economy we fell into. Of course I plan to visit this area a couple times a year to meet with my publisher, and to hold book signings in this community where I have built a presence, albeit a small and humble one.

Email and FB will keep us connected with those we care about between visits, and I truly hope everyone who has said they will come see us – will. The Rocky Mountains, afterall, will be in our backyard. That should thrill you with new terrain to hike and ways to be inspired while we catch up on our lives and reminisce about old times.

It is going to be a whirlwind next few months to be sure, what with moving, Dennis beginning a new job, me teaching that first creative writing course at the University of Phoenix in Fort Collins, and my short story collection Fractured Hearts being launched. How exciting is all of that?

I am grateful beyond words for the opportunities now forming for our future. God is indeed good, and although we have been greatly blessed even prior to these new developments, knowing our persistence and faith in God has gotten us through some difficult times of late makes us confident that we can meet any new challenges looming before us in Colorado.

Among our first challenges, without a doubt, will be experiencing less than 70 degree weather on a near daily basis in the dead of winter (something we have begun to take for granted and that will now end abruptly), trying to find a church that will energize and inspire us as much as Bayside in Granite Bay has done, and missing every one of you that we count among our dearest friends.

Mainly, this writer is hoping they have some inviting coffee houses in Fort Collins. Everything else can be worked out, with latte in hand.

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Fractured Hearts is coming soon…

03 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Kathryn Mattingly in Blog Post

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

award winning author, Dark Discovery Magazine, Elizabeth Engstrom, Face in a Book bookstore, fiction, Fractured Hearts, Jon Reitan, Kathryn Mattingly, new release, short story collection, Tina Ferguson, Winter Goose Publishing, Writers Digest Magazine

Fractured-Hearts

Winter Goose Publishing would like to announce the upcoming release of Fractured Hearts, a collection of short fiction by Award Winning Author Kathryn Mattingly.

“Not for the faint of heart, these timeless tales deal with every type of love that drive us to do what we do—for better or for worse. Whether whimsical ghosts in love with art or cats transformed by the full moon, you’ll wonder if even the most unbelievable is somehow true. From a gypsy child in Rome to a widow in Aruba, the stories transport you to faraway places.” ~Winter Goose Publishing

Kathryn will be at Face In A Book in EDH Town Center Saturday February 8th from 4-6pm signing copies of Fractured Hearts, which includes 5 pieces recognized for excellence as outstanding literature.

Her love stories are guaranteed to pierce the heart and move the soul, and would make a perfect Valentine’s Day gift for the avid reader in your life or a unique offering for someone you’d like to impress romantically.

Stop by to browse the exceptional bookstore Tina Ferguson manages through her love and passion for reading, whilst nibbling chocolate, regardless of whether you indulge in purchasing Kathryn’s witty, whimsical, and wisdom-ridden words as told in the tales of this original volume.

Kathryn would like to give a special thanks and recognition to her good friend Dr. Virginia Simpson and daughter Sasha Mattingly for helping edit this collection to shine in its Sunday best, and to her long time friend Ladd Woodland, who created the cover art for Fractured Hearts.

Here is what other authors, publishers, editors, and professional reviewers are saying about the pieces in this collection:

From the Editor of Writer’s Digest in reference to award winning short story Cheating Paradise: “This year’s contest attracted close to 18,000 entries. Kathryn Mattingly’s success in the face of such formidable competition speaks highly of her writing talent and should be a source of great pride.”

From Best Selling Author Elizabeth Engstrom in reference to Kathryn’s body of work: “Kathryn Mattingly’s fiction has always shown great depth of character and emotion, with simple, yet clever plots. Her characters live and breathe in my mind for a long time after reading about them. I hope she keeps writing short stories and novels forever.”

From James A. Beach, Editor in Chief of Dark Discoveries Magazine in reference to several stories from the collection: “Kathryn Mattingly’s story Half Moon Cay is wonderful, and very moving. Her stories make me feel as if I am there. Skyward from the reading at Powell’s bookstore and Light of the Moon from Ghost Writers weekend are two such stories.  Kathryn’s writing is very powerful.”

From Eldon Thompson, Author of the Fantasy Trilogy Series Legend of Asahiel in reference to Kathryn’s body of work: “Kathryn Mattingly weaves sensory magic with her words. Whether writing about vengeful ghosts, forbidden love, or motherly sacrifice, her elegant prose offers seamless transport into the lives and hearts of her characters. Once swept away, you may not want to come back.”

From Jonathan Reitan’s book review in Dark Discoveries Magazine regarding the story Morney, which has been reprinted in Fractured Hearts: “Kathryn Mattingly’s Morney in the anthology Ghosts at the Coast stands out as being superb and highly original. It is a spooky tale about a mysterious gypsy girl in Rome.”

From Tracy Saville, CEO of Possibility Publishing and Editor in Chief of The Possibility Place in reference to Kathryn’s body of work: “Kathryn Mattingly’s writing has an elevated literary aesthetic ‐ a kind of obvious writerly quality that critics point to as gold standard.”

For a sneak preview of the stories within this collection, visit the Edgy Fiction page http://penpublishpromote.com/short-fiction/ of Kathryn’s website penpublishpromote where a few pieces from Fractured Hearts have been displayed, or peruse her WGP author page at: http://wintergoosepublishing.com/authors/kathryn-mattingly/

Face In A Book is located at: 4359 Town Center Blvd, El Dorado Hills, CA 95762

Visit Amazon’s Kathryn Mattingly Page

Visit Kathryn Mattingly at goodreads

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