A Gateway to Dragons: Uncollected Anthology: A Diversity of Dragons

By Kari Kilgore

A New Life Hiding Just Out of Sight

 

Rick Griffith plans a long-wanted return home to St. Louis.
Then his beloved Memaw shares an unexpected surprise.
Changing Rick's understanding of the world forever.
But the crucial test of trust and acceptance awaits.
Will Rick find approval in his new role, or only disappointment?

 

Part of A Diversity of Dragons, an Uncollected Anthology

 

An excerpt from A Gateway to Dragons

A Secret Very Well Kept


Much to his surprise, Rick was indeed able to roll the big shelf to the side using only one hand.


And his jaw dropped at what he saw behind it.


The space wasn't huge, nowhere near as big as Memaw's library. If Rick didn't know this was the same level, he would have thought he was looking into someone's stone-lined basement.


But he'd never seen a basement where the gray stone walls glowed in violet streaks that gathered together in a pool spreading over the smooth dirt floor. Or one shaped like an oval, with the walls rounded toward the invisible ceiling.


Piles of what he thought were ordinary rocks had been stacked along the edges, with a much bigger pile along the far end of the oval. 


And in a depression in the middle of that pile rested two creatures he thought were huge lizards at first. Curled up together so he couldn't tell, but they seemed to be almost as long as he was tall.

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spiral Publishing, Ltd
• Release date: Aug 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223920571

Kari Kilgore

Kari Kilgore started her first published novel Until Death in Transylvania, Romania, and finished it in Room 217 at the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, where Stephen King got the idea for The Shining. That’s just one example of how real world inspiration drives her fiction. Kari’s first published novel Until Death was included on the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a First Novel in 2016. It was also a finalist for the Golden Stake Award at the Vampire Arts Festival in 2018. Recent professional short story sales include three to Fiction River anthology magazine, with the first due out in the September issue. Kari also has two stories in a holiday-themed anthology project with Kristine Kathryn Rusch due out over the holidays in 2019. Kari writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, and contemporary fiction, and she’s happiest when she surprises herself. She lives at the end of a long dirt road in the middle of the woods with her husband Jason Adams, various house critters, and wildlife they’re better off not knowing more about. Kari’s novels, novellas, and short stories are available at www.spiralpublishing.net, which also publishes books by Frank Kilgore and Jason Adams. For more information about Kari, upcoming publications, her travels and adventures, and random cool things that catch her attention, visit www.karikilgore.com.

Book preview

A Gateway to Dragons

A New Life Hiding Just Out of Sight

Rick Griffith plans a long-wanted return home to St. Louis.

Then his beloved Memaw shares an unexpected surprise.

Changing Rick’s understanding of the world forever.

But the crucial test of trust and acceptance awaits.

Will Rick find approval in his new role, or only disappointment?

Part of A Diversity of Dragons, an Uncollected Anthology

For everyone who watches the skies

A GATEWAY TO DRAGONS

KARI KILGORE

SPIRAL PUBLISHING, LTD.

A GATEWAY TO DRAGONS

In all his forty-two years, Rick Griffith had never visited a place more magical than his Memaw Griffith’s house.

The house itself didn’t seem like much from the outside, at least in the front. A modest, flat front yard, with a couple of maple trees and rows of red and yellow chrysanthemums along the sidewalk to break up the always-neat and green grass. That let the hundred-year-old gray stone walls stand out for themselves, along with big porches on the top and bottom floors, perfect for relaxing when the weather wasn’t miserably hot or punishingly cold.

Rick figured that left May and October as the finest months to visit St. Louis, so he was taking his October chance while he had it.

Memaw always said she didn’t see the point of spending all kinds of time and money out front when they could walk to the hilly, tree-and-meadow beauty of Forest Park, one of the most beautiful parts of St. Louis, in only a few minutes.

That was one of the few quarrels she and Papaw Griffith ever had, and their compromise led to a surprising oasis in the back yard. Much larger than you’d expect from the street, it was full of fruit trees and garden patches and flowerbeds, with a huge brick barbecue grill that was his pride and joy.

Papaw cooked a mean steak or chicken dinner with a huge spread of grilled side dishes out there any time Memaw let him out the back door with the groceries.

Even with all that—and a delightful swing set Papaw built himself out of redwood timbers—Rick had loved Memaw’s library room the best from the times of his first memories.

Years away living in Kansas City with his husband Dan hadn’t changed his opinion one little bit.

The big room took up a quarter of the first floor, giving it four huge, nearly floor-to-ceiling windows to let in sunshine that glowed off the polished wooden floor. And Memaw had stuffed it floor to ceiling with treasures.

Heavy rolled maps from all over the world, collected