Interlude Earthside — The Quiet Between Stars
- Donovan Evans-Foto Dono
- Dec 15
- 7 min read
A Note from Foto Dono: This is the list I have for signed pre-orders of the first book.
Tom Evans and Lynn Culp Evans - Paperback
Flyer Chance - Hardback
Cara Vesely Harvey - Paperback
Savannah Rayn - Paperback
Cheyenne Skye - Paperback
Carol Evans - Paperback
Shelby Westlake - Paperback
Is there anyone else who wants a signed copy? Signed copies are $5 extra to cover shipping.
Otherwise, you can bag’em - either digital or analog editions at Amazon.
James Evans is waiting for the audible version. Keep dreaming, do you know how much those cost? I’d have to sell 500 hardcovers!
You can find the book available on Amazon here. https://a.co/d/gxn61Ai
Previously on The Queen of the Underverse…
The Memory Farm is burning, and Rebecca has made everyone pay...
Still, things are happening elsewhere, and elsewhen.
Ye saga continues…
Book 1 - The Queen's Saga - Eight Days After the Incident
Mark was woken by a shout. “Becca—?” The name left his lips like a reflex, a habit the universe hadn’t caught up to yet.
She didn’t answer. And then he remembered—she wasn’t going to be answering again for a very long time.
He sighed and rolled onto his side, facing the empty half of the bed. He remembered the time they’d switched sides, and she’d fallen out twice. She said she’d been turning to snuggle him in the middle of the night and had instead reached open air.
Still, he’d heard a shout… hadn’t he? He heard a knock from down the hall.
He sat up in the dark, the only light coming from the bedside clock. A photo of Becca floated in the dim glow—her inside the ISS Cupola, Earth shining beneath her on the dayside. Then he heard the soft crying.
It was the first night the kids had slept alone since Rebecca’s accident. They were in their shared bedroom, and he’d stayed with them until they drifted off. His parents were next door at the neighbors’, who had an extra room. He was grateful for their kindness.
Mark had insisted that they take his and Becca’s room—now his room—but he could tell they weren’t comfortable with that idea. The kids’ bunk beds weren’t really ideal for his parents. The neighbors, another couple about the same age as his parents, had wanted to help. So the arrangements had been made.
Sleeping alone had always been temporary. That thought stuck with him as he followed the soft crying to the kids’ room beside his office. Sarah and Paul were curled together on the lower bunk.
Their walls were a collage of drawings—Becca in her space suit, alien skies, and impossible creatures. Before the accident, he’d been telling them bedtime stories about a spacefaring adventurer named Zeta, a female alien astronaut who zipped through the stars having wild adventures. It was their favorite.
He’d based it on a story he’d written in school, where Zeta was male. He’d changed it for them—because of Becca.
Now, looking at the drawings, he wondered if that had been the right thing. There was a weird school bus filled with alien kids, and their mother was wielding a tree trunk like a sword. One picture showed a pink alien girl with horns—Paul had said her name was S’Rah. Well, if you squinted, it looked like a girl.
Sarah had drawn them first. Then Paul started to copy her.
He looked down at his children and saw tears on Sarah’s face. She turned, eyes half-open, and whispered, “Mom’s very sad. She lost a friend.”
The nightlight flickered once, and Mark could’ve sworn the air itself sighed.
She glanced at Paul. “Paul doesn’t know yet.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “Mom lost a friend?”
“Yes,” she murmured dreamily. “S’Rah. The dark thing with teeth took her.”
Mark blinked. “The girl in Paul’s drawing?”
Sarah nodded. “Mommy’s very sad. S’Rah had been nice.”
He didn’t know what to say. He’d written stories about grief before, but it was another thing to live inside it.
He reached out and rubbed her back. Sarah relaxed, settling down. She reached for Paul’s hand, and soon both were asleep again.
Mark sat there a long while, listening to their breathing, wondering if Becca could somehow hear it too.
Sarah Mitchel woke up. She thought she heard Becks crying. Instinctively, she lifted a hand to her face. Her cheeks were damp. The crying hadn’t been Beck's — it had been hers. She turned to Jenn, who was sound asleep next to her.
She and Jenn were at Jenn’s house in Ocala. Sarah still owned her place outside Cocoa, but it was too close to Mark and the kids. She wasn’t ready to make that call yet.
She felt cowardly about it—and that wasn’t like her.
Jenn stirred beside her, the sheets rustling softly. She’d come back to bed late after finishing a script due the next day. Jenn and Mark were writing partners in TV land, and Jenn had been picking up the slack while Mark dealt with… everything.
Jenn had spoken with him, but Sarah hadn’t. Not yet.
She rose quietly and went to the window. Beyond the glass, the yard melted into the shadowy sprawl of the Ocala National Forest. Jenn had joked when she first visited and stayed over: “It’s a little out of the way—but not too far from Starbucks.”
Sarah smiled faintly at the memory, then frowned. She’d dreamed of Becks again—about that old camping trip in Ocala, where the two of them had come to blows. Over a guy, she mused. No… over her heart.
It made sense, she supposed, that Becks would visit her dreams now. Becks had been more than a sister, more than a friend—her partner. For a moment, she’d even believed they could be more than that. She still remembered the ache when she realized Becks had zinged Mark instead.
She’d had her heart broken before, by other women, but this one still lived under her ribs.
She remembered when she met Jenn at the Emmys. Becks had insisted she attend in her place—eight months pregnant with her and Mark’s daughter, her god-daughter, also named Sarah. She chuckled, thinking about that. Becks was going to kill Mark if he didn’t stop fussing over her; besides, Mark deserved to go, she’d said. Sarah knew some of Mark’s Hollywood friends, but only in passing.
Becks, of course, got her way.
She had been starstruck by the celebrities. She kept catching herself sizing them up, wondering how they’d fare in a sparring match. It was Jenn’s laughter when she caught her mentally shadowboxing them that melted her heart. At first, she treated Jenn like a rebound. However, she knew after a week that it wasn’t a rebound.
Over time, she told Jenn everything. Not all at once, but piece by piece, until there were no secrets left. Jenn had already guessed most of it, waiting patiently for Sarah to find her own words. She knew Jenn wanted to propose. And she knew she wanted to say yes.
Her parents had never accepted her; their deep evangelical beliefs had carved an ocean between them. Mark and Rebecca had been her real family. Mark, especially—he’d been there when things got bad at home. He’d had a crush on her once, sure, but he never let it get in the way. Eventually, he realized she made a great wingman. She chuckled softly.
It was through him—and Rebecca—that she’d met Jenn. She placed her hand on the window. It vibrated like someone knocking.
She turned from the window and saw Jenn watching her, smiling. “You’re missing her,” Jenn said softly.
Sarah sniffed. “Damn, can’t have a moment, can I?” She brushed away a tear.
“Come back to bed.” Jenn’s smile deepened, the one that always undid her. She made up her mind. She’d lost too many chances waiting for perfect timing; Rebecca had taught her that.
“I want to get married,” Sarah said. “Sooner rather than later. Let’s hit the courthouse tomorrow.”
Jenn laughed. “Tomorrow’s Sunday.”
“Then Monday.”
Jenn arched a brow, mock-serious. “It’s not as sexy as the Caribbean, you know. But it doesn’t mean we’re not going. You still owe me a Mai Tai. Several, in fact.”
Sarah chuckled, crawling back under the covers. She kissed her. “You have a deal.”
Outside, the stars thinned, and the sky lightened to blue.
High above the curve of the Earth, where Florida slept beneath a quilt of clouds, something glimmered—a slow-turning light, folding in and out of itself.
The Doorwhere to Everywhere hung there still, keeping its quiet vigil between the stars. Colors shifting across it like breath through glass—green, orange, then blue.
A satellite drifted nearby, carefully monitoring it… waiting for orders.
Deep within the static, a single equation pulsed—half-finished, still trying to solve itself.
Epilogue
REBECCA LOPEZ, Vol. I — The Dancing Weapon
From the Archives of Questionable Accuracy located within the Unwritten Library
As Collected by Yuunral Naretar, Scholar of Banned Books
Ah, dear witnesses of improbable gravity—our story must, alas, pause here.
The editor complains about anything over a thousand pages, so that concludes the first installment of Rebecca Lopez, Vol. I — The Dancing Weapon.
What do you mean that’s not what the book’s called?
I’m in it! I know my titles.
It’s some of my best work to date—and I’ve been around.
Readers… hmmfph.
I’ve done my best to correct any falsehoods in the narrative, but Foto Dono is terribly sentimental. He cares about Rebecca. It’s that softness that will keep him from being a good author.
Rebecca Lopez—lost star-walker, breaker of promises, and newly christened Dancing Weapon—has vanished behind the smoke of broken memory. The amber fires of the Memory Farm flicker still, painting the night in mourning glass.
We at the Archives of Questionable Accuracy will, of course, continue to monitor these irregularities in the fabric of story-time (funding permitting). But for now, the reel runs out, the quill dries, and even the Unease requires an intermission.
What wonders—or catastrophes—await our heroine?
Will Chalky’s heart of stone crack beneath grief’s weight?
Will the Dente Nocturn’s shadow stretch across every tale untold?
And what of the Queen, the Doorwhere, and that trembling thing that calls itself Hope?
Stay attuned, my brilliant anomalies! Try not to disappoint me.
Our next scheduled disturbance will be filed under—Rebecca Lopez, Vol. II — The Quiet Cataclysm.
Until that time… keep your minds wide, your promises elastic, and your podcast tuned to the static between worlds.
Transmission terminated. You may wake up now.
Ye Saga Continues in Book 2 - The Queen's Option
Available January 15, 2026
You can pre-order Book 2 here — https://a.co/d/1wtGit5
Click here to buy ➡️ BOOK ONE now available – I’d love your honest thoughts on story flow and overall reader experience.
© 2025 Donnavon Evans
December 15, 2025
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