Bearlodge Writers

Kathy Bjornestad

Get To Know Kathy

Quote:

""Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."

-Langston Hughes

Kathy Bjornstad Bio

Kathy Bjornestad holds down a day job teaching secondary school language arts and writes on the side (mostly during summer break). She is a wife, the mother of four children, and, at 39, a young grandmother (thanks to a stepdaughter who is 24). Kathy has been writing ever since she can remember and completed her first book, a fantasy, in fifth grade. Since then she has experimented with poetry, young adult suspense and historical romance but has always gone back to fantasy.

In her spare time she enjoys reading, karate, bowling, soaking in the hot tub, and exploring the Black Hills with her younger boys. Currently she is searching for an agent to represent her novel, Poison Eater, and editing a sequel called Servant of the Necromancer.

Publication Credits

In the Shadow of the Bear Lodge, Many Kites Press, 2006

Excerpt of Writing

Prologue

“Please, no more.” The child in the bed turned her head from her tormentor, a bulky woman with fiery hair and eyes the indomitable gray of granite.

“You must, for your own good.” The woman bent close, the vial she held descending.

The girl pressed her lips together. Her skin had taken on the hue of parchment, but green eyes surrounded by dark lashes blazed in anger. “I was well before I took your medicine. It has made me sick. I will drink no more!”

A gasp escaped the girl in the next bed, a blond-haired, blue-eyed angel of frail beauty. “You mustn’t speak so to Lady Baptista, Tela,” she managed weakly. She was little older than the green-eyed girl, but an air of quiet dignity surrounded her.

“I will die if I have to drink any more of her poisons.” Despite her bravada, tears glistened in Tela’s eyes.

Lady Baptista straightened, her shadow falling like a shroud over the small form. Behind her, torchlight flickered across the stone walls of the austere room. Several beds flanked by small chests lay empty near the two occupied ones. Bare clothes hooks lined the far wall. A narrow window opened onto an empty courtyard.

“If you do not take your medicine, one day you will regret it. When you are a poison eater for the Valhanas, it may well save your life.”

“I do not wish to be a poison eater.” Tela bore Lady Baptista’s look of affronted vexation without flinching, but in the end her gaze faltered, and, narrow hands playing with the counterpane, she whispered, “I want to go home.”

“This is your home now. You have no other. You should be grateful that you were brought here, where you will always have warm shelter and food in your belly.” Lady Baptista raised the vial she held. “This will inure you to the most common poisons used against the royal family. Do not drink it, and one day you will likely meet a horrible death.”

“Why does everyone want to kill them?”

Lady Baptista sighed and lowered her heavy frame onto the edge of the bed. “Too many questions. Will you drink it, or must I force it down your throat?”

Tela hesitated, then nodded. Silent tears streamed down her face as Lady Baptista poured the vile contents into her mouth. The Poison Mistress turned to an older girl standing near the door. She was dressed all in black and wore a silver choker at her throat. “Leila, care for her when she becomes ill.”

The girl curtsied at Lady Baptista’s retreating form.

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