An Impossible Desert Flower

When the World Goes Strange

Connie's first time in the desert sends her into sensory overload.

So seeing and smelling the unusual comes as no surprise.

But when her suspicion turns from unlikely to impossible, Connie brings in an expert.

And realizes odd doorways pass into worlds she never imagined.

What secrets does the desert hold if you know how to look?

An excerpt from An Impossible Desert Flower:

Where the Strange Seems Ordinary

Connie resisted the urge to bring her smartphone out yet again to make sure she still wasn't getting any signal. At the moment it was a remarkably expensive digital camera, holding the dozens of plant photos she'd already taken on this trip.

She turned herself out toward her personal undiscovered country and kept going.

After a few minutes, she stopped, hands on her hips, raising her nose to scent the air like a good hound dog. She'd tried to pretend she'd imagined it earlier, but now she'd smelled it too many times.

A campfire, clear as anything, with something that had to be meat roasting. And now...horses, as if she'd wandered into a sensory recreation of an Old West movie.

But she'd never seen any old rancher or cowboy movie that featured an enticingly sweet scent, much more like a lilac than anything that should be growing out here.

And yet again, just like that, the odd smells disappeared.