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Pishtaco: Lord of the Lost Inca Gold

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by Mark Patton

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ABOUT THE BOOK GENRE:   Historical Fantasy   Paranormal Fantasy     KINDLE     KOBO     NOOK     i-BOOK     google PLAY     APPLE Audio (TBA)     Paperback     Hardback E-BOOK: ISBN: 9781770532243 EPUB, MOBI $5.99 US Audio Book: ISBN: 9781770532342 $ (TBA) US $ (TBA) CDN Duration: (TBA) File size: (TBA) Paperback: ISBN: 9781770532250 Trade Paperback 5.5" X 8.5" $14.95 US $19.95 CDN 212 pages Hardback: ISBN: 9781770532304 Hard Cover 5.75" X 8.75" $29.95 US $40.95 CDN 212 pages BISAC:   FIC009030   FIC009050

Pishtaco: Lord of the Lost Inca Gold by Mark Patton Copyright © 2023 by Mark Patton Chapter One The Spider Sunlight poured through the dormer windows of her bedroom. As Miss Penelope Farquhar's pupils adjusted, she saw a small speck hovering just above her bed, as though it was floating in the light. The sight of it provoked enough curiosity in her so that she gave up any further attempt at getting more sleep. Throwing her sheets aside, she got up to investigate. The bed was a four-poster. What Miss Farquhar discovered was a newly woven web anchored upon two posts at the foot of the bed with a spider contentedly seated in the middle of its orb. Though it was a smallish spider it had managed to produce an enormous web. There were often lots of conversations going on in Penelope’s head. However, on this occasion it was only her own voice that she could hear as she thought, Its relaxing now but what an undertaking for this little fellow. It must have spent all night working on the construction, traveling great distances, spider-wise, to accomplish this task. Perhaps its ambition is greater than I suspect? Perhaps it has no desire to snare a housefly or an errant moth that had been lured into the bedroom last night from the glow of my reading lamp? Perhaps it had been staring down at me for quite a while and just couldn’t muster enough gumption to give it a go and try its luck at catching me? The idea of being the spider’s prey amused Penelope so much that she got back into her bed and raised her hands and feet into the air as though she was a dead fly. But the spider didn't move. Penelope was laughing at her own antics and was wishing the spider could too, when her attention was directed to her fingernails and toenails, which she was still dangling above her. They were fabulously done. She had had them painted black at Carmen's Get Nailed, Spa and Beauty Salon. Carmen had adhered special decals to them — the ones with skull and crossbones. Penelope was a stickler about her nails and her appearance in general. Once she was out of her bed not a yellow hair on her head would be allowed to independently seek its own direction. It was her body, and it was all going to be under her control. Her weight was permitted to range between one hundred and twenty-five pounds to no more than one hundred and fifty pounds. She would have ordered her body to grow a bit in stature but realized that there were just some elements of her existence that she couldn't control. Short she would always be, she couldn’t change that — but in her dreams…well that could be quite a different story. That's why the skull and crossbones. They were her signals. "Had a talk with my brain last night." Penelope had decided to continue with her joke and engage her new spider acquaintance in conversation. She loved animals, insects, reptiles, plants; around these creatures, she felt at home. Around people...not so much. She could never get away from them. The presence of this spider did give her a little cover. And in the scheme of things talking to a spider was saner than the conversations she normally had with herself. "Yes, I had a talk with my brain just before I fell asleep. Way overdue, if you ask me. I mean, my brain is mine and it's supposed to represent me. After all, I'm the one who goes about using it... well, most of the time. And no, I don't care to hear your opinion on that topic. I assure you that I'm doing my best with it. Guess I could have gotten a better one, but this one is okay as far as brains go... a little eccentric…still, it is a very smart model. But that’s only during the daylight hours. One of the problems with this brain of mine, and I’ll grant you that there are some doozies, is its singular lack of imagination when it goes to sleep. “Do you think that is because of some sort of union regulation that governs brains? I mean an official time when they're not required to think?" Penelope paused, allowing the spider some time to venture a guess, and, when it didn’t, she giggled and took up where she had left off. "I bet that it is a union thing. Must be where that required eight hours rest comes from. Mine goes on strike if I don't get enough of the stuff. I suppose it is all about some kind of contractual agreement with the rest of my body — official time off for brains so that they can go out and play with all of those thoughts and emotions that they have had to put up with during the course of their workday. “But it's not like I ever place great demands upon my brain. You know, I don't force my brain to conjugate Latin verbs. Okay, I do make it apply itself to an occasional differential equation, but I’ve never forced it to devise a theorem for supersymmetry or extra dimensional space-time. Uh-uh, no way, that’s because I'm easy going on it. I just keep my thoughts relatively simple…nothing above college level. I’m just trying to get along with the damn thing. But how does it repay me for this conciliatory attitude towards its over exertion? I’ll tell you — With contempt! “As soon as it the lights go out, it's free to do what it wants. Then, it comes up with the most irksome dreams and sends them rambling through my head. This is inexcusable! And you know, I believe anything it tells me while I'm snoozing. Such a sadistic prick. “So, last night, just before I hit the hay, I had it out with the old gray matter. “Noodle,’ I said, ‘you've been mucking about with my school days far too long. I mean, how often must I endure stomach acid bubbling into my esophagus because you find placing me in an introduction to number theory class, for the first time, on the last day of class, during the final, to be a great source of amusement? Or what about this penchant of yours for having me walk into the Texas Division of Motor Vehicles office to be confronted by some pigheaded bureaucrat over some nonsensical rule, which I apparently have violated on numerous occasions?’ “These things are no basis for a good relationship. Okay, I’ll grant you that I do like the dream with the old mansion filled with hidden passages leading to rooms with beautiful antiques, but you've sung that tune to me too many times. Couldn't the two of us turn a new leaf? We have such great potential together. Why waste it on drivel?’ ‘Listen to me, with just a little scripting, things can get spiced up. All you have to do is follow my lead and we'll be having a blast together. I'll tell you what, tonight make me an Italian starlet living in a villa on the Island of Capri. You know the sort of thing… flowing wine, ebony cigarette holder, some handsome male lead, perhaps sneaking off with him after a cast party? All you have to do is fire up those synapses of yours and off we'll go to the Gulf of Naples. What fun! Shall we give it a try?’ "Well, I heard no complaint from the old squash, so I assumed everything was all set and within no time I was fast asleep. "So, Spider, how did things work out last night, you might ask. Well, a woman wearing bifocals found that I had been delinquent in returning three sets of plates from my various vehicles, the university lost my diploma and finally I ended up mucking about in some swamp... imagine I was in the Bayou with a bunch of dead people floating by on their way down the Mississippi. Come on! That is not my idea of the good life and it certainly didn't look anything like Capri. Penelope then smiled at her spider, as it remained indifferent in the center of its web. "You know, I just got a glimpse of one of my fingernails in that damn swamp. Strange, that after you've had a dream, you often don't know much about it by the time you've woken — just have some kind of after taste of it in your head. But this time I thought I had it. I can remember that I had seen the skull and crossbones. Doctor Hernandez had suggested that I look for a color. He suggested blue. And if that didn’t work, he said to get myself to glance down at my watch. It is a prearranged signal to myself to let myself know that I must be in a dream. Blue or a wristwatch? How is that going to catch my interest? That’s why I thought of these neat skulls and cross bones. They work like flashing neon signs. YOU ARE DREAMING…YOU ARE DREAMING…YOU GOT THESE THINGS TO LET YOU KNOW YOU ARE DREAMING…THIS IS THE SIGNAL…TAKE OVER THIS DREAM NOW! ABOUT THE BOOK

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