Title: Summer of Love
Publication Date: 2001
Number of Pages: 14 pages
Theme: Horror, Short Story
Excerpt: read
Summary
In the 60s era, Simon, our beloved vampire from The Silver Kiss, finds love once again through a stray cat.
Klause's Commentary
"I don't think I have a story," I told Jim Howe over the phone when he first invited me to contributed to this anthology. I didn't have one already written on the them of loss, and I didn't know if I had time to write one--my mind was too full with a novel that I was trying to coax into existence. As much as I was thrilled to be asked, I seriously didn't think I could do it. Then the follow-up letter came, and in it he quoted a line from my novel The Silver Kiss and eloquently placed it in context with loss of part of the human condition. Well, that puts the pressure on, doesn't it? One has to contribute to an anthology when something one wrote is given as an example of universal truth--the sneaky devil. But I didn't have a story.The next morning I was staring out the window after a later breakfast, procrastinating as usual, drinking an extra cup of coffee, daydreaming, anything rather than get on with the day's chores. Loss, I thought. The most recent loss in my was that of our cat, Mr. Tumnus, to cancer. No matter how many times you lose a loved pet, it never becomes easier. He'd put up a successful fight for a year, but the cancer came back worse than ever, and my husband and I had to make that terrible, final decision. One death seems to make all the others fresh again in memory. The Silver Kiss was also fresh in my mind because of that letter. Did Simon, my vampire, ever have a cat? I wondered, almost jokingly.
That's when my brain took off.
Maybe he did. When was it? What happened? Ideas came so fast and furious, all mixed up with my own still-aching grief.
I'd better jot these ideas down for latter, I thought, or I'll forget them. I ran upstairs to my computer to crate a file and toss in those notes--five hours later I had a story, a story about somone I never thought I'd write about again, and a tribute to Mr. Tumnus, Stella, Siegfried, Tobette, Jenny, Wolfbane, Tobermory, and Zoë.
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