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The Greeting Card Artist, Part 1

Harriet picked up her car keys from her dresser. From the second drawer, she took a new package of stockings. She’d need an extra pair later.

The smell of burning butter came from the kitchen, making her stomach churn.

“Breakfast’s ready,” Marge shouted. Cooking was what her stepmother did worst. Shouting in the mornings was a close second. For fifteen years, just after Harriet’s mother died, Marge had perfumed the air with her presence—first with Woolworth cologne that Harriet’s father couldn’t resist, then with badly prepared food.

Harriet was in no hurry to enter the kitchen, but with reluctant steps, she made her way down the hall. For all of her twenty-seven years, this had been her home. For three years, this had been her prison.

When she pulled her chair up to the Formica table, it wobbled. Like so many things in her house, this piece of furniture teetered near collapse. With a paper towel, she sopped up the spilled coffee, then tucked the matchbook back in place under the chrome leg. She promised herself to buy a new kitchen table once she’d paid off the mortgage,

“Here you are.” Marge slid the plate in front of her. The eggs jiggled. Harriet looked away.

“Now don’t give me none of that ‘not hungry’ business, girl. I got up early to make you this breakfast.” Marge, her face puffy and damp from medication, eased into the chair across from Harriet.

“Sorry.” Harriet either had to eat or argue. Eating was the lesser of evils, and so, she concentrated on the hours of escape ahead and didn’t look at the food while she scraped the cooling mass from the plate.

“Lunch is on the counter. Don’t forget it like yesterday. What time you coming home tonight?”

“Same as always.” For the past three years, Harriet hadn’t failed to return home after work. It was her fault her father was gone, so she was doing what he’d asked. She was paying the mortgage and making sure Marge had a place to live.

“Good. I need some new pills. We can go to the drug store when you get home.”

“Can’t I pick them up for you?”

“I need to get out once in a while, Harriet.” Marge’s face bunched up and her eyes disappeared inside folds. “All day you’re gone. The least you can do is to take me to the drug store.”

“I have to go, Marge.” Harriet started for the door. Freedom.

“Wait. Your lunch! You’d forget your head if it wasn’t fastened tight.”

Harriet tucked the grease-flecked bag under her arm and escaped to the Ford parked in front of the house. The winter chill had disappeared last month, but the motor still churned slow and sluggish on the first try. The second time, it cranked into action, tappets clicking until the oil coated the cylinders and let them slip silently up and down. It had been new in 1940, but in eleven years her father had put a lot of miles on it. His door-to-door sales route had covered most of northern California.

The flickering TV light came from the living room window. Marge was already camped out for the day on the couch watching soap operas.

Harriet arrived at the two-storied brick building across from the train station. She climbed the stairs that creaked in the predictable places and inserted her key into the lock.

Once she was at her worktable, she straightened the plaque reading, “H. Needham,” a gift from her father. Again, she felt the pang of losing him, and it was as sharp as it had been the day he died. She forced herself to take a breath and drew the Venetian slats up to let light through the streaked window.

She liked to watch the trains pulling in and out all day. The express streaked north to some wooded seacoast, then, later, one went south to glamorous, romantic cities with palm trees and beaches. That’s what she imagined.

“Good morning, Harriet.” Her boss, Mr. Purdy, a blotchy little man with small eyes, stepped past her and ducked into his office. The knobby glass in his door brightened with a fluorescent glow and his figure rippled behind the pane.

Harriet pulled a fresh sheet of paper to the center of her table, and nodded at the three other designers as they arrived.

Each had some specialty. Harriet was a St. Valentine’s Day specialist and shared the Christmas designs with Lois Goody. But Mr. Purdy had also assigned Harriet the new no-message seasonals, her favorites by far. It was a chance to create, shake loose from tradition and cookie-cutter patterns. Today would be exciting, because it was the deadline for the floral designs and she already had those nearly done. So, she could dabble, play her art like a jazz piece and see what excitement she could stir up.

On the paper, she drew a single black undulating line, starting in the center and extending to the right-hand corner. Then, with one broad stroke, she made a twin to the left corner. Red came next…for contrast, and she swiped her brush in a ripe circular pattern. Passionate. A hint of drums and of bodies moving together. Primitive. She knew that design was right when she set it aside, and her breath came in short gasps.

It was time for a change. She smiled as she experimented with circles, attempted hexagons, then cubes with foreshortened lines. But this last design threatened to turn ugly. Her mood leftover from the morning with Marge was most likely seeping into her drawings again. The patterns she laid down gripped the work surface in a rigid network of dark aggression. The table grew larger than usual, able to support tons. The passion had vanished, replaced by a slow simmering anger.

Harriet slapped a blank sheet over the sinister grid. At once, the table returned to its ordinary, wooden self.

I have Part 2 almost ready for next Wednesday. Off to write.

Most of my books are contemporary/realistic with young protagonists, but I have dabbled in a bit of the fantastic with a few stories. This one is for young readers, but I’ve gotten some interesting “fan” letters from older readers.

Kirkus Review: The folksy diction and lyrical, verb-heavy storytelling will leave readers turning the pages all the way to the end, where big surprises await and the real villains are revealed.

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON

Image by Riki32 from Pixabay

Who To Kill?

Johanna hadn’t brewed her morning coffee yet when a text alerted her to trouble.

Big trouble.

Do you recognize this check? $10, 250 was the message from her bank.

The numbers seemed to flash red, but that was her limbic system kicking in. Danger! Danger! She immediately saw nine-year-old Will Robinson on a hostile planet, a toothy predator just around the boulder.

“No!” She screamed while, with a twitching finger, she texted the same two-letter word to alert her bank.

She’d just transferred that amount into her account for taxes and insurance, but according to the statement she was now staring at, her balance was a nice round $50.00. She wouldn’t be able to fill up her car with that, and it was running on fumes.

When life ticked along in its rutted routine, the hours zipped past. It was eight in the morning, and the next time she looked, it was five and the sun was slipping behind the trees. That didn’t happen while she waited to hear if her text had reached the bank in time to retrieve the money. Each minute was thirty, so to keep from going mad, she did what she dreaded most.

She called the contact number for her bank and suffered through the sweet voice of their AI phone tree.

Please listen to the following option as…

Presione dos para continuar en español.

One moment please while…

Finally, please stay on the line to speak to a representative. Quickly followed by, “We’re sorry, but all our representatives are busy with other customers…”

She didn’t listen to the last part of that statement. Disconnecting from the call to the blue nowhere, she grabbed her keys and driver’s license. The bank would open in half an hour, and she would be at the door, in a bank manager’s cubicle, and getting attention or else.

Pressing the start on her Lexus, Johanna talked herself down to calm. “I’ll fix this. I know I will.” She’d “fixed” so many things over the past few weeks since her parents died, leaving her to manage everything. This bank catastrophe was just one more thing.

The car sputtered to life for a few minutes, then went silent. She pressed start again. Nothing.

“Of course,” she whispered. “Why not?”

She tapped the Uber number, but before she could confirm the pickup, her phone buzzed. “Yes?”

This is the West Coast Bank Fraud Department. Is this Johanna McNear?”

They went through a security check, then the agent gave some good news. Her funds had been recovered. Johanna’s heart rate fell into a steadier rhythm, and for one moment she felt a sense of calm.

Then the agent—his voice carrying an undercurrent of alarm—said. “Did you recently access your safe deposit box…July 10 to be exact?”

Johanna closed her eyes, trying to conjure up the past few weeks. The funeral home. The lawyer. The CPA. But not the safe deposit box. She hadn’t gotten to that yet, but she knew it had several million in bonds, and she’d have to manage that soon. Her very fiscally conservative parents hadn’t trusted stocks, so outside of the house, her inheritance was in that box. “No. I haven’t been inside the bank at all. Why?”

There was a pause that stretched from one side of the Grand Canyon to the other before the agent said, “According to our records, a Johanna McNear accessed the box, surrendered the keys, and signed the closure form. After today’s attempt to cash an unauthorized check, we did some investigation and found that the ID used to access the safe deposit box had indications of being counterfeit.”

Johanna didn’t hear the rest as she leaned against the front door of a house she could no longer afford, stared at a car that didn’t run, but had to be sold, and let thoughts of murder scroll through her mind.

If only she knew who it was she should kill.

The End

The first part about the check fraud is autobiographical. The second part about the safe deposit box is pure fiction. Thank goodness.

AMAZON

If you like my writing, my books are available at all of the major distributors. One of the themes in a recent book is still in the headlines, unfortunately.

These were written in response to a prompt with word limits set by . I haven’t been over there for a while, but hope to return for more microfiction fun.

Image by ImaArtist from Pixabay

Since I have kind of a beach theme going, I'll start with this story.

50 Words/ Dreaming

Hundreds of feet underwater, sending air bubbles to the surface. Dreaming? No. This is my real life. I lost the bet, and that sneaky siren is now a sandal-footed human while I can no longer walk. Of course, I do have a magnificent tail.

I swish it to admire the iridescence. Beautiful!

AND

Image by Michal Jarmoluk from Pixabay

70 Words/Pile

Innocent. Not too high. A footprint of two or three feet. But that was on Monday. By Wednesday, it blocked the light from the windows, and only the edge of the Aubusson rug poked out from under it. I sucked it up with the Electrolux. Friday, it returned, vengeful and bigger than before. The Electrolux was no match for it. The shop vac balked, then fizzled. The pile had won.

Happy Summer Reading!

If you like my writing, here’s my available work on AMAZON.

Image by AI-Hobby-Kunst from Pixabay

Chatterbox

Mara was a young girl with a gift, though most people in the small town of Bellridge would have called it a problem. She talked. Constantly. Endlessly. With a kind of cheerful determination that could wear grooves into the patience of the most indulgent listener.

She even narrated mornings to herself (“And now I’m going to brush my teeth—minty today, very refreshing!”), debated with her cereal (“You could try being less soggy, you know”), and held full conversations with passing dogs, who, in her opinion, were excellent listeners if not particularly insightful conversationalists.

At school, teachers learned to call on her sparingly, not because she lacked answers, but because each answer arrived wrapped in three anecdotes, a question, and a fun fact she’d read somewhere but couldn’t cite. Her classmates had developed strategies. Some nodded and smiled. Some slowly edged away. Her best friend, Lila, had mastered the art of inserting a single well-timed “uh-huh” every thirty seconds while doing homework.

But Mara didn’t notice her friends’ irritation or their need to employ survival strategies against her barrage of non-stop, one-way talking. To her, the world was too full of day-to-day happenings, and she was convinced that those events were so much more exciting when shared out loud.

One afternoon, while walking home, she discovered something new to talk to—an iridescent, pointy-topped box sitting at the edge of the sidewalk. It was no larger than a lunchpail, and on the lid was a latch without a lock. She stepped nearer to get a better look at the delicate silver filigree covering its surface.

“Well, hello there,” Mara said, crouching down. “You are lovely and quite mysterious. Are you mysterious? Because I’ve always wanted to find something mysterious, though to be fair, I once thought my neighbor’s cat was mysterious, but it just turned out to be grumpy—”

The lock slid up with a shushing sound like librarians make when you’re talking in a study area.

Mara froze mid-sentence. “Did you just…shush me?”

The lid popped open, and Mara jumped away. When the box didn’t do anything else out of the ordinary for boxes, she crept forward and peered inside.

It was empty—just a dark space that seemed deeper than the box allowed for.

“Oh,” Mara said, leaning closer. “You’re one of those metaphorical things, aren’t you? Like a symbol. I bet you’re a symbol. Of what, though? Possibility? Secrets? Snacks? Hopefully snacks because there’s nothing better than a nice—”

The box made a soft humming sound.

“Okay, that’s new,” Mara said. “You hum. That’s good. I like a good hum. I hum sometimes, though I’ve been told I’m better at talking than humming, which is fair—”

The hum grew louder and steadier as if someone was turning up the volume and pressing a constant play button.

“Are you trying to tell me something, because if you are, you’ll have to do more than just hum at me. Like my mom always used to tell me when I was little, “Use your words.” She took a breath and continued. “Or maybe…”

Now she took her time to examine all sides of this oddly behaving wooden box and the delicate silver tracery that covered it. She risked touching one side with a quick tap of her forefinger, and when it didn’t do anything strange or threatening, she moved her finger over the scrolls and swirls.

It didn’t take long for her to discover that those scrolls and swirls weren’t only decorative; they spelled something.

“Chatterbox?” She stepped back. “What an oddity you are. You’re something of a—”

And then, quite suddenly, Mara’s words—her actual words—began to shimmer in the air in front of her mouth. Tiny glowing syllables, tumbling out before diving straight inside the box.

With her silence, the words stopped appearing mid-air. She clamped her mouth shut, her eyes wide with shock.

Slowly, she opened her mouth again. “Hello?”

Hello floated out, glowed faintly, and slipped into the box.

Mara stared, for a moment, speechless.

“Well,” she whispered, then winced as “well” flickered into existence and vanished into that dark space, too. She pressed her lips together, thinking hard. Why were her words visible? Why were they disappearing like that?

“Stop…” That disappeared, too, and when Mara tried to finish the sentence, which she’d intended would be, “You are not supposed to steal my words.” There was a blank space where “you” and “are” were supposed to be. So what actually came out was, “Stop. …not supposed to steal my words.”

It was true that Mara did rattle on and on, but while she sounded like a featherbrain, she really did have a good mind. And confronted with this confounding phenomenon, she put that good mind to use at once.

Silently, she reviewed what she’d just said. Yes, for the first time, she carefully considered what she’d uttered in the last few minutes. Then she did a test. She tried to say “not supposed to steal” out loud again, but no matter how hard she focused on forming that phrase, she could not utter it. Then she tested “Hello.” But there was only the sensation of breath in her throat and silence.

This box was taking her words and locking them away. If she said much more to it, who knew what would be left of her vocabulary?

All her life, words had gushed out of her like a river. Now, for the first time, she could see them. Count them. Lose them.

She sat there for a long moment, silent.

It felt strange, like holding her breath too long.

Then, carefully, she said, “You’re… locking up… everything I tell you.”

All of that floated away, visible, precious, and then gone.

Mara considered the box. She considered how many words she used in a day. In an hour. In a minute.

“Maybe,” she said slowly, “___don’t need to say everything.” She’d lost “I,” so there was no way she could refer to herself with that pronoun.

The box gathered in those six words and hummed, but softer now, more like a cat’s contented purr.

Mara closed the lid gently and stood up, tucking the box under her arm. As she walked home, she was silent. She had some serious thinking to do. After all, she’d just acquired something magical that gathered up her words and imprisoned them. She wondered if they’d be locked away forever. That would be terrible.

She vowed to talk less from then on. When she did talk, it would be about important things, and she’d choose her words as if they were precious, because now she knew they were.

The box seemed to settle into her embrace as she had these thoughts. Then the lock slid aside, and all those captured words rose free like bubbles into the air.

Mara smiled, relieved. “Thank you.”

And in that moment, the Chatterbox vanished from her arms.

The next day when she met Lila at school, she smiled and said, simply, “Hi.”

Lila braced for the onslaught of one-way conversation, but when it didn’t come, she squinted at Mara as if checking to see if it was indeed her chatty chum. “Hi? That’s it?”

Mara grinned and nodded.

For once, silence felt like enough.

The End

And now for…

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can’t find you to comment back.

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

The awesome co-hosts for the August 5 posting of the IWSG are Shannon Lawrence, Diedre Knight, Liza, and Pat Garcia!

Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

Remember, the question is optional.

August 5 question - As a writer/author what is something you regret? Or something that you wish you’d done differently in your writing process?

I can’t say I regret anything I’ve done because each step in my writing process has taught me something—about writing, publishing, or myself.

I could have made my life easier if I’d stuck with one genre, but I love to experiment, so I didn’t. Instead, I’ve written Young Adult, Middle Grade, and Adult. Inside each of these categories, I’ve tried my hand at contemporary/realistic fiction and fantasy. I’ve written novels and short stories that range from steampunk to horror to some stabs at the literary.

Just try to market all of that!

So, no regrets, but I do shake my head at myself. Could you make things any harder, Lee?

Because No One Notice is once again echoed in the headlines.

When I wrote this book, I didn’t know the real world headlines would be so close to this imagined story. Unfortunately, they continue to show us what happens Because No One Noticed.

Five friends plan futures. One obsessed loner plots escape. The collision between them will come at a very dear price to everyone in the small town of Las Animas.

Available on AMAZON

Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3

Image by Ezequiel Octaviano from Pixabay

The Bridge

Part 4, The End

Attics are treasure troves for reporters, especially ones writing for a tabloid. I climb the drop-down ladder in my family home to explore what ours holds, and when I open the door, I’m relieved to find such a tidy space—one large 19th-century steamer trunk, a few stacked boxes—all labeled by year—and a wooden file cabinet. It won’t take long to go through what’s here.

The boxes are tax records and cancelled checks. The steamer trunk is empty. When I pull out the file drawers, they are all empty, except for the one at the bottom. It’s crammed with everything from sales receipts to old passports—my grandfather’s and my grandmother’s.

There’s nothing here to help me find more about that fire, so I’m about to close the drawer when I notice an envelope on the bottom. I remove some of the folders and retrieve it.

Across the front is “For Michael,” and the date on the paper inside is June 18, 1955. A week after the fire. My hands tremble as I read:

Dear Michael, I’m so sorry we argued. I only wanted you to understand how much it would hurt me if you left. And oh, how I regret what happened. When that gas can exploded, I ran, but you went inside. You saved students…our friends, Michael. And you never told anyone the truth about my part in this horrible tragedy. I don’t deserve what you’ve done for me. Glory

I stare at the signature. So Glory admitted to doing something that caused that fire. Her confession had been in this house for seventy-one years. And my grandfather knew the truth, but never said a word. He even hid her confession.

Later that afternoon, I drive to Glory’s house, and she opens the door before I knock. Her gaze moves to the envelope in my hand, and her lips press into a resigned smile.

“You found it.” Not a question.

“You started the fire, Glory.”

She doesn’t respond.

“My grandfather covered for you.”

“Yes.”

“Four people died.”

“Yes.”

The answers come so easily that she frightens me.

I expected tears. Remorse. A defense. Instead, she looks exhausted, like someone who has spent too many years carrying a boulder and no longer has the strength to pretend it isn’t heavy.

“Why?” I ask.

Her laugh is sharp, without any humor.

“Because I was seventeen and stupid and in love.” She looks past me toward the darkening street. I was angry that day when I found out about Michael’s scholarship. He was leaving. He belonged here. He belonged to me.” She shook her head. I never thought there would be a fire.”

“But there was.”

For the first time, there’s genuine pain in her face. “Every first day of every month I’ve gone to that bridge.”

“To meet the Glory Hayes from 1955?”

She nods. “The bridge connects moments between the past and the present. I never understood it. I met myself the first time I came here after the fire, so scared, needing someone to talk to, but knowing I couldn’t share what I’d done.” She takes a breath. “She was a comfort, but as the years passed, talking to her became a constant reminder of what I’d done.” She swiped at her eyes. “Still, I liked the company, and she…I avoided talking about that terrible thing that happened. Then yesterday…” Her voice became a whisper. “She dredged up that day, the stupid thing I did. It became as fresh as when it happened.”

I feel sorry for her, but the reporter in me has to know more. “What does she want?”

Glory smiles sadly. “Justice, I suppose.” She shrugs. “After all, that’s what I want before I die.”

The next morning, I return to the bridge alone. The river flows in the slow rush of late spring water; otherwise, I stand in silence. Then I hear a familiar young woman’s voice.

“You’re back.”

I turn quickly in her direction.

She’s in the middle of the bridge. Seventeen years old. Beautiful. Glory Hayes exactly as she appeared in the newspaper photograph.

For a moment, I can’t breathe.

“You can see me?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Good. She never believed anyone else would. Maybe you being here the other day helped make a connection. Or maybe it’s because of who you are. You look so like him.” The girl glances toward the river. “So do you know everything?”

“What do you mean by everything?”

“I told the police the can was empty, but I left out that when Michael and I argued, I don’t know why I did it, but…I dumped what was in it at his feet, then told him that I hoped he’d have a great life and he could go to Prom with anyone but me.”

Her smile vanishes, and she looks away as if she’s seeing that moment in her past. Then she faces me again. “Michael started the fire.”

“What?”

“Oh, it was an accident. He was distracted—really upset about our argument and the gas I’d spilled near him. He did something he rarely did. He lost his temper, kicked that can hard.” She stops for a breath. “We were by the utility room…uh…the water heater was…there.” She looks to the sky, letting the tears streak down her cheeks. “The pilot light….”

And then I see how that fire started, and the bridge seems to tilt beneath my feet. “No.”

“It happened so fast. Suddenly, we were surrounded by flames.” She’s having trouble breathing and takes in short gasps before she says, “The gym was old. The dry wood caught so fast. I ran, but he stayed and saved other people.”

What did that letter say? And you never told anyone the truth of my part in this horrible tragedy.

My grandfather hadn’t protected Glory. He had protected both of them by not telling how she’d supplied the fuel and how, with his angry kick, he’d “struck the match”.

The guilty truth had been split between two people and buried with one.

“Why is this coming out now?” I ask.

The young Glory looks toward the woods at an approaching figure. The old woman walks slowly, leaning on a cane, until she comes to where I’m standing with her younger self. They face each other across time.

“So he knows everything?” the old woman says.

The girl nods.

“Well, it’s long overdue.”

The younger Glory steps forward. “Are we finished?”

The old woman closes her eyes in a slow blink, then stares at her other self. “Yes.”

“Do you forgive me?”

“No.”

The answer hangs in the air, then the older Glory smiles. “But I forgive both of Us.”

The young girl slowly fades into a vague shape, as if she’s walking into a dense fog. “So do I,” she whispers before vanishing.

***

Three days later, Glory Hayes died in her sleep. The coroner called it natural causes.

I wasn’t so sure. I believed she willed her death so that I would feel free to write the story and finally tell the truth. And I did. Every word. The fire. Glory’s confession. My grandfather’s part. Even the bridge.

Bruno said that this story was too over-the-top even for the Wooten Monthly, and nobody would buy it.

I told him even if I was writing for this scandal-ridden rag, belief wasn’t my job. Truth was.

The article ran on the front page, and the issue sold out in two days.

A week later, I walked back to the bridge.

I stood in the middle and listened.

No conversations drifting through time.

Only the river flowed past.

Whatever force had connected the past and the present at this spot, it was finished.

After seventy-one years, justice had finally come at the bridge.

The End

If you like my writing, my books are on AMAZON as well as all major distributors. Here’s Not Guilty, one of my books that’s also about Justice.

One reviewer says, “When I picked up Not Guilty, I never expected that I wouldn't be able to put it down until the end of the book. There was just no ‘good’ place to stop for the night, because the story just kept me engaged and wanting to know more.”

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Part 3

Once I’ve listened to the conversation several times, I’m convinced I’m in a classic Rod Serling episode of The Twilight Zone. I’ve been left with questions I can’t answer: Who was on the bridge with Glory? Why couldn’t I hear her when I was only a few feet away? What more don’t I know about my grandfather’s past?

I drain the last of my beer and grab another one from the fridge.

I’ve been writing for this tabloid too long. I’m beginning to believe the weird and wildly impossible are true.

My biggest question is about the crime that voice mentions: Did Glory kill four people when she was seventeen and get away with it?

I’m a reporter. My mom and dad were reporters, and my grandfather, Glory’s 1955 prom date, was one, too. I don’t leave questions unanswered. That’s why I arrive at the police station the next day.

“1955?” The officer at the desk offers up condescension in a toothy smile. “Slow day at that rag of yours?”

“You got it.”

He leads me to a back room filled with shelves of boxed crime records that haven’t been digitized. Fortunately, Wooten is never in a hurry to get organized, so the box I need, while at the bottom of a stack, is there and waiting for my inquiring mind to sort through it.

“You can’t take anything out from this room.”

“Wouldn’t think of it. Can I use that for a few hours?” In the corner is a table and a chair.

He shrugs. “Whatever,” and goes to answer a phone call.

When I dig into that box of 50s history, I find that in Wooten, crime spiked in summer when the kids had too much free time or on the Fourth of July when the local bar served beer at half price. Otherwise, in that long-ago year, not much called the police into action…except the fire at Wooten High.

The reports give a thorough account of the grim scene, the victims, who got out unharmed, the condition and location of the bodies. When I come to “Witnesses questioned.” I sit down so hard the chair creaks under my sudden weight.

There are only three pages. Witness statements. Timelines. List of students in the building that afternoon decorating for Prom. The investigator’s notes in detail.

Janitor Earl Benson reported seeing Glory Hayes and Michael Davidson arguing in the back of the gym near the utility closet about an hour before the fire.

It feels eerie reading about my grandfather, someone without slumped shoulders, unscarred.

The investigator had starred one sentence: *Subject Hayes observed carrying a metal can. Witness Earl Benson thought it might be a gas can. He could not be certain.

There’s more: Glory Hayes admitted taking a gas can from her father’s garage. She claimed her boyfriend, Michael Davidson, asked to borrow it. According to her, he wanted to use it on his boat to make sure he had enough fuel for a long trip they and some of their classmates were taking after graduation. She denied that the can contained gasoline and claimed it was empty.

The next entry’s about my grandfather’s statement: Michael Davidson admitted he did ask Glory to borrow her father’s gasoline can because he planned the boat trip she’d mentioned. She brought it to him at school, empty.

The last notes are brief: Evidence insufficient for prosecution. Case remains open.

At the end: Unsolved.

I photocopy every page and slide the report back into the box. When I leave the police station, I know very little more than when I came, but I can’t let go of this story. I have to find out what happened that day in 1955.

End Part 3. Part 4 (The End) next Wednesday

I like mysteries, so in Shattered, I wove one into the story. Reviewers have commented that they like that aspect of the book, so I’d like to play around with mystery a bit more. Maybe that’s one reason I wrote The Bridge.

Image by RÜŞTÜ BOZKUŞ from Pixabay

The Bridge

Part 2

I spent the better part of my afternoon with Glory Hayes for nothing, but I can’t forget what I saw and heard, even if it makes no sense. I’m still rattled, so I pop open a cold beer and settle into my desk chair. This town isn’t a metropolis. The history is pretty easy to track, so I pull up my browser and enter the words: 1955, fire, Wooten, PA.

And there it is. The high school auditorium at the old Wooten High went up in flames. Cause? My fingers freeze on the keyboard.

Suspected Arson.

Three students died from smoke inhalation. One teacher succumbed later to burns sustained while trying to save people trapped inside. I stop reading when the name Michael Davidson appears. My grandfather. He was a hero that day, but it scarred him as he rescued several other students who’d taken shelter in a closet.

I’ve started down the rabbit hole, and I can’t stop now. The reporter described the scene so vividly that I cringe while reading. In a small town like this, everyone was affected by that disaster.

I type in: Prom, 1955, Wooten High. The headlines are: Prom Cancelled. Further down the page, up comes Glory Hayes, Queen and…I choke on the sip of beer I’ve just taken…Michael Davidson, King.

My grandfather’s name stops me again. The image of Glory and him is grainy, but I recognize them. They’re standing next to a boathouse, his arm around seventeen-year-old Glory, smiling down at her as if she were the one. His forever girl.

Now, I have to listen to what that old bag was going on about. I reach for my phone and play back what I recorded. Glory’s voice is clear, but there’s something else…a murmur in between what she says.

I go back and increase the volume, then hold the phone close to my ear.

“Hello. It’s Glory. I’m back! Where are you?”

“Behind you. Turn around.”

I jab the stop button, my hand shaking. I’d heard what Glory said, but this second voice…I had not heard at all. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and restart the playback.

“Oh, no. You! You’ve jumped backward, not forward like usual! What’s the year?”

“1955. You graduated from high school, remember? You were seventeen.” This second voice is calm and sweet.

“And how could I forget?” Even on the tape, Glory’s anger comes across.

“Whew. The queen’s frosted. You never used to let anything get under your skin.”

“Seventy-one years tend to change a person. I’m no longer the queen, and for your information, frosted means cold now, not angry.”

“Some things change, but others don’t,” the younger voice says with a tinge of sadness.

“So why are you here from 1955? I thought you’d be here from another time. You know, when I was on the city council or the president of the library board.”

“I can’t choose when you…or I…or maybe I should just say We appear in time. Maybe you’re coming to…sorry, the end, so whoever set this annual visit up thinks you need to take a look at the year you made your biggest mistake. We should all pay for our crimes, don’t you think?”

“Just shut up. Don’t say one word about that fire. That’s enough. Don’t ever come back. Hear me?”

“Whatever you say, Glory.”

The last of the message is Glory’s command to me.

“Stop recording. Now.”

PART 3 NEXT WEDNESDAY

If you like my writing, my books are on Amazon.

Image by RÜŞTÜ BOZKUŞ from Pixabay

The Bridge

According to Bruno, my boss, Ms. Glory Hayes might be an odd duck, but she’s the odd duck who keeps the Wooten Monthly afloat. Her father started this tabloid in 1929 during the Great Depression, when he described the publication as “Stories to take your mind off your troubles and think about someone else’s.” When he died, Glory took it over until she found Bruno, who needed work that didn’t require too much physical labor.

Now, she keeps our little scandal-sensation rag funded for sentimental reasons. That’s fine by me because that means she pays my salary, which I need until I can land a job with a real newspaper.

She called yesterday, saying she wanted someone to come see her and write a piece for next month’s issue. Her wish is Bruno’s command, and, therefore, mine.

I arrive on time. Knock on her door, and when she opens it, she’s putting on her coat. She’s a small woman with laser blue eyes that peer up at me from under puffy lids. She seems to be studying my face as if I remind her of someone and she can’t remember who.

“Hello, young man. It’s the first of the month,” she says as if I’d asked the date.

“Right.” I can tell this is going to be a challenge to understand what she’s talking about, so I click on my Voice Memo App. “Do you mind if I record this?”

She shrugs. “No, but I can’t explain what happens on the first day of the month. I have to take you along with me. Just don’t interrupt. In fact, pretend you’re in a theater watching a movie and being polite. Don’t talk. Listen and watch.” She pulls the door closed behind her. “Ready? We have a short walk to the river, less than a mile. Come along. Keep up.*

The woman is sixty years older than I am, but I have trouble staying with her. It’s my writer’s lifestyle, too much sitting.

We leave the street and start down a dirt path that leads into the trees. The sun is lower, and under the canopy, it’s hard to see. I switch on my cell’s flashlight and aim it at the ground. This is creeping me out—the silent trudge through the woods, the way she rushes ahead as if she’s late.

I’ve lost all sense of where we are when she looks back at me, caught in the beam of my cell phone, and points forward.

“This is it.”

We’ve stopped at the edge of Wooten’s last wooden bridge, its planks warped by many seasons of rain, snow, and sun. The handrail tilts out along the edges, close to plunging into the river. The metal plaque reads, Justice.

“It used to be called the Justice Hayes bridge after one of the early settlers, but they shortened it when they hanged the man for stealing horses.”

Since she asked me not to talk, I try to express interest with a nod.

She signals for me to wait and steps to the middle of the bridge, where she begins talking to herself.

I’d take off, but she is old, so it’s not right to leave her alone. And, without her, I can’t pay my rent. I hold out my phone with the record on and listen.

“Hello, It’s Glory, 2026. I’m back! Where are you?”

Glory turns toward me, so now I can see her face, but she’s not looking at me. She frowns and shakes her head.

“Oh, no. You! You’ve jumped backward, not forward like usual! What’s the year?”

Her lips part with a smile touched with regret and maybe a little fear.

Now, fear vanishes. She clenches her fists, and anger springs full force across her face.

“And how could I forget?” She grinds those words between her teeth.

Again, she pauses, listening to what I guess is a voice only she can hear. I lean a bit closer and cock my head as if I’m hard of hearing.

“Living a long time tends to change a person. I’m no longer the queen, and frosted means cold now, not angry.”

Glory shakes her head and glances my way. “Are you recording this?”

I hold up my phone to be polite. The woman’s a nut case. I have no way to deal with a loony octogenarian. I swear I need to find another way to make a living.

“So why are you here from 1955?” Glory asks what I’m guessing is her imaginary friend. “I thought you’d be here from another time. You know, when I was on the city council or the president of the library board.” Glory looks my way as if to make sure I’ve heard about her civic involvement.

Then suddenly, she steps back as if someone has tried to slap her. “Just shut up.” Glory stomps one foot. “Don’t say one word about that fire.” Once again, she talks to the air. “That’s enough. Don’t ever come back. Hear me?” Then she faces me and yells, “Stop recording. Now.”

I click off my phone and wait until she joins me. Her steps are slower, and she’s dragging that foot she so angrily punished against the ancient wood planks.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m fine. Forget that story. I don’t want any of it told.” She strikes off ahead of me, but I can see she’s having trouble walking. She seems to have gotten much older in only a few minutes.

When we reach her house, she goes inside without looking at me and slams the door.

I don’t know what the hell just happened.

Part 2, next Wednesday

Some of my books on AMAZON

I’m taking this First Wednesday off after a harrowing June. My friends know what has been going on, so they won’t expect much from me this week. But for others, the short version is that my bank account was compromised and lots of money vanished. HOWEVER…I’ve recovered the money, established a new account, and after hours, I’ve set up all my payments again.

I’m treating myself to a break, going to watch one of my kids pitch in his All Star game, and eat hot dogs.

Happy Fourth of July. See you next week with a new Weekly Dose of Fiction.

Image by Dimitris Vetsikas from Pixabay

The Choir

I was in luck.

The house was perfect in every way, and at a price this bachelor could afford.

The listing had appeared online on a rainy Tuesday morning. By Wednesday afternoon, I was standing on the front porch staring at the ocean beyond the dunes. The house sat at the edge of a quiet beachfront neighborhood where weathered cottages and modern vacation homes lined the coast. Most properties here sold for sums that made my head hurt.

This one was different.

Three bedrooms. Hardwood floors. A wraparound porch. Windows facing the sea. And somehow it was less than half the price of every comparable home I’d seen.

I should have asked questions.

Instead, I dreamily imagined morning coffee overlooking the white caps and signed the paperwork before anyone else could snatch it away.

Only later would I remember the realtor’s expression. The way her shoulders relaxed. The sigh that escaped her lips at the final stroke of my pen.

At the time, I thought she was tired after a busy morning. I was wrong

I was so excited about my big “find” that I chose to stay the night and arrange for my things to come later. I couldn’t wait for my first sunset stroll on warm sand.

As I returned, feet sandy and pant legs rolled to my knees, I paused to stare at my new neighborhood. It was strangely quiet. No children played outside. No dogs barked behind fences. Curtains twitched in nearby houses as I walked onto the porch, but when I looked directly, those curtains became still.

The locals were watching me. Hmm. I’d have to work on being a good, trustworthy new neighbor.

I only had the essentials that first night: a mattress, some clothes, a few dishes, and a bottle of Mums I’d been saving for a special occasion. The cork exploded, leaving a small dent in the ceiling—my first celebratory moment marked overhead.

“To new beginnings,” I said, lifting my glass and smiling up at that spot.

I drank the sparkling wine in the kitchen while moonlight spilled through the windows. Perfect.

By the time I’d drained my glass, the house seemed to grow warmer. At first I welcomed it. The ocean breeze carried a chill, and the extra heat felt cozy, but the temperature kept rising.

Within half an hour, sweat dampened my shirt.

I checked the thermostat. It read seventy-eight degrees, so I lowered it to sixty-eight, and the vents immediately blasted freezing air.

“Well, that’s not right.” The warmth vanished quickly, and cold crept along the walls and the hardwood floors. The corners of the windows sparkled with frost crystals.

I adjusted the thermostat again, and the screen flickered. When the numbers disappeared, the thermostat died, and silence inside fell over me like a dense blanket.

Outside, the ocean roared and plunged onto the sand, but the sound was too loud now —too close.

Around me, the cold deepened.

I retreated upstairs to the bedroom where I cocooned myself in the duvet I’d brought, and huddled, listening to the beams groan overhead, and the floorboards creak around me as I lay on the mattress. At first, it was almost soothing, but after midnight, the creaking turned staccato. I unwrapped myself and stood listening. It was soft at first, but the melody grew louder until I recognized what it was. A dirge.

It was heartbreaking, and I wiped tears away listening to the increasing number of voices. And then people appeared, and I froze in fear. I’d never believed in ghosts, but here I was surrounded by them.

A woman, arms thrashing as if struggling in high waves, seaweed tangled in her hair…A child in tattered clothes, dripping seawater, gasping for air…A fisherman reaching for a life preserver…never within his grasp.

More followed.

Men and women.

Children.

Seasoned sailors.

They passed through the rooms in a silent, grim procession toward the staircase, and then descended, never looking back.

I still couldn’t move. My breathing was so shallow that I felt lightheaded, but I couldn’t stop watching.

A little girl paused beside me, her skin a bluish white. “Being always cold is the hardest,” she whispered before moving on.

An old fisherman with empty eye sockets peered up at me. “Are you sure, Mate?”

A young woman, clutching an infant. “They have already noticed you.”

The strange messages continued.

Each spirit seemed more frightened than I was, and that terrified me most. They weren’t telling me about what had happened to them. They feared something else. The walls vibrated with that fear.

Finally, the last one beckoned me to follow, and despite every instinct screaming at me not to, I did. At the bottom of the stairs, I confronted a door I hadn’t seen during the tour. In fact, I knew it had not been there when the realtor walked me through. But there it was now, and the ghosts were vanishing behind it in a silent, endless parade of despair.

The moment I touched the door, I was caught up into a storm. I was aboard a ship driven onto hidden rocks. The screams of the dying, bodies facedown floated on the water. I was choking, drowning. And when that horrible image subsided, there they stood, two towering figures.

“Who…” I couldn’t finish asking, but it didn’t matter. Somehow I’d learned their story in the moment I’d imagined myself in that shipwreck.

They were the original owners of the house, she a grieving widow and who was mad with sorrow and loneliness after losing her husband at sea. She had spent years waiting for his return. Years singing to the ocean, begging it to give him back.

And then, something answered. An ancient voice from beneath the waves that promised she would never be alone again. It would send her beloved husband to her, but only on one condition. The singing had to continue loud and forever.

Their lips parted—more grimaces than smiles, and the hundreds of pale figures that had streamed past me were now a choir. Their song, that dirge so heavy with death it stopped my breath.

All of their empty eyes looked directly at me. At once I understood that the dead weren’t trapped there. They were recruiting. The procession had never been a warning. It was an invitation. A courtesy extended to every new owner.

I had one chance to leave, one chance to escape before I’d drown and become a part of the choir.

The widow took a step toward me.

The deadly sound of the ocean became deafening.

And from all around me, voices whispered, ”Stay.”

I ran.

I don’t remember reaching my car.

I don’t remember driving. I only remember that dawn found me miles inland, shaking uncontrollably at a roadside stop. From there I drove as far away from that house and the sea as I could, and I never went back.

The house sold again three months later. Then again the following year. And again after that.

Sometimes, when storms roll in from the ocean, I search property records online, and I’ve found that the house is always occupied—the owners always new

I escaped, but every so often, late at night, I hear a faint melody drifting through my phone speaker—a dirge.

It grows louder with every passing year as though the choir, like a steady rising tide, is creeping closer. Every year, I move farther inland.

Amazon

Image by minhtuyen tran from Pixabay

Part 2, The End

Even though it was the middle of the night, death was a good excuse to wake people--and she needed to be free from this freezing room. It continued to grow colder until her breath came out in ragged puffs.

Lisa reached into her pocket for her mobile, but her pocket was empty. She must have left the phone on the hall table. She remembered setting it down to lift the paintings from their hooks, but how had she forgotten to take it? She rattled the knob, yanked. Then, frantic, she searched for a key. There was none.

That was when she felt a slow, sharp pressure around her middle finger. The ring made it throb. Ice crystals began to creep across its ornate gold band and the circle of diamonds. Her chest seized, and she stumbled backward against the wall, then slid to the floor.

“Get off,” she whispered, tugging at it. But it wouldn’t budge. The cold burned now, biting into her bones.

Lisa screamed and yanked at the door again. This time, it opened so suddenly that she tumbled back. Scrambling to her feet, she ran, gasping, down the stairs, past the treasures she’d placed for quick retrieval, and out into the night.

In the weeks that followed, she went from being irritable to rude, to raging. There was the altercation with the grocer, followed by the hostile exchange with the lawyer who was managing her uncle’s estate. Each day, she was embroiled in combat with those she encountered. She recognized the change in herself. She was becoming like her uncle, but she couldn’t contain the anger. It rose like bile without any cause she could identify except the ring. That gold band made her finger throb without letting up, and no matter what she did, she could not free herself of it.

Desperate, she searched for a collector named Peter Henshaw. Jacob had spoken of this man often as being the most knowledgeable collector of 16th-century artifacts. A few weeks of research brought Lisa to his small, cluttered shop tucked into a crooked London alley.

Even in the dim light, Lisa didn’t miss the man’s slight recoil at the sight of the ring when she extended her hand.

He removed his wire-rimmed glasses and busied himself cleaning the already spotless eyewear. “You came by this when your uncle passed?” he asked, not looking at her.

“It slipped from his finger, so I…put it on. I didn’t want to lose…” She didn’t finish the lie. When she put the ring on, it was to take possession of something valuable. It was greed that had motivated her.

“Of course.” Peter Henshaw took his time fitting his glasses to his face again, then said, “The ring is a burial artifact, stolen from the tomb of King Henry VIII’s favorite physician.” Setting a folder containing a stack of old and torn papers on the counter, he went on. “Here. Read and weep.”

Lisa studied the fragile documents, all bearing bits of this ring’s morbid history. It had been crafted by an alchemist during the High Middle Ages from dead men’s gold. One tyrant or cruel master after another had worn it, only to let it slip from his finger at the moment of death.

Lisa closed the folder and looked up into Mr. Henshaw’s assessing eyes.

He nodded. “Not a ring for those whose hearts beat with kindness.”

“Will you buy it?” she asked.

“Absolutely not.” He drew back, putting more distance between him and her outstretched hand. “Have you tried to remove it?”

“Yes.”

“Any success?”

“No. Could you cut it off?”

“Not I. Not anyone.” His face grew sad. “The inscription inside that circle of diamonds is the reason you cannot take it from your finger.”

“I couldn’t read it. What does it say?” Lisa pushed down the anger that sprang to her lips and felt the crush of fear.

He removed one of the papers from the folder and handed it to her.

In the thick strokes of ancient ink were the words: “Donec more nos separaveit.”

Lisa looked up at Peter Henshaw. She dreaded asking, but she had to know. “I don’t understand. What does it mean?”

He hesitated, a man about to deliver terrible news.

“Please.”

“Until death do us part.”

The End

So there you have it. The old greed and evil ring brought together to make yet another story. Hop over to and her Scary Summer event to read other tales that are menat to send chills down your spine even though the weather is hot.

That Moonwater Witch is getting some attention, and it’s fun to read the reviews of a book that has been in my head for so long and is finally in print.

One reviewer says: “Overall, a cozy gothic paranormal fantasy with strong autumn energy and classic YA witch-story charm. Perfect for those who love atmospheric magic, secrets hidden beneath the surface, and stories where emotions carry just as much weight as the plot.”

AMAZON

Thanks to She’s on Substack with great help for writers. Sonia Antaki on FB and G. Foster—my stalwart critique group that helps me whip these doses of fiction into shape each week.

Image by minhtuyen tran from Pixabay

Until Death Do Us, Part 1

Death would come for Jacob Devine before midnight. After this determination, Dr. Moncrief scurried from the room under the pretense of having another patient in need.

The dying man’s niece, Lisa Devine, stood like a shadow in the corner of the room, silently watching the man slip through the door. The good doctor only wanted to escape. He, like anyone who knew her uncle, hated him, but out of fear, served him. Jacob had ruined careers and reputations. He’d striped the life savings of those he’d deemed disloyal.

She glanced at the antique clock on the shelf. Almost eleven. It wouldn’t take long for his heart to stop forever. Soon, she’d be released from all that welded her to his side.

Lisa Devine took a seat at his desk and, to keep from thinking about what she had to endure for this hour, began making a list.

Call the undertaker

Call the solicitor.

Arrange for the estate sale.

Put his Mayfair mansion on the market.

Notify the relatives.

Pick the cheapest coffin.

That last item seemed terribly callous, even under her circumstances. But her uncle had treated her family so miserably. He’d denied Lisa’s mom his love after she married a man he’d judged unfit. He’d turned down Lisa’s plea for help when she lost her job and needed a loan until she could find another. He’d used his money to coerce so many of his relatives into obedience. She could still hear his words at that dreadful Thanksgiving gathering. “Do it my way or forget ever seeing a penny of my estate.”

Lisa had done everything his way, and now she was here to be sure to have first choice of her miserable uncle’s treasures. There were many, and she deserved whatever she could take.

Again she was being callous. Just the way Jacob Devine would be.

She felt a chill, but dismissed the idea that she might be more like her uncle than she would like. Simple proximity could not turn her into a cruel monster like this man. She was merely taking what was her due. After years of suffering at his hands. Years of isolation from friends. No chance at companionship or love, she deserved to have whatever she wanted from what she had always considered a gilded prison.

She’d already put the Matisse and Van Gogh paintings and the 18th-century sterling silver tea set in the foyer. She wouldn’t be greedy, but she wanted the most valuable items secured before the rest of the family descended like vultures.

Vultures was the exact word Jacob Devine used to describe his relatives. Lisa remembered the day he’d thrown all of them out of this house. “Vultures! All of you,” he’d shouted at their backs. She had stood to the side and let his wrath subside before closing the door and helping him to his chair. A dutiful servant. A worthy heir.

His gasp startled her back into the dark bedroom. When she looked up, his hand was reaching for her in a last, instinctive attempt to cling to life. The ring that he never removed slipped from his finger and landed silently on the carpet. Cloudy eyes were fixed in her direction, but Jacob Devine was blind to this world.

For a fleeting second, Lisa felt a twinge of something, but it passed before she had time to name it.

She went to the bed and stared down at her uncle in death. There was only a remnant of the perpetual scowl, making his face somewhat kind. And there was something else. Relief. The burdens of life had vanished, leaving an almost youthful corpse—a profound contradiction between what she knew to be true and the remains she was staring at.

She stooped and picked up the ornate gold band, its ring of diamonds glinting in the dim light. He’d bragged about it since she could remember, claiming it had belonged to King Henry the something. He’d never been clear which one, but she’d research it later and turn it—along with the rest of the loot—into a comfortable retirement.

The ring was heavier than it looked, and when she slipped it onto her middle finger, it seemed to tighten as if seeking permanency. That was when the temperature in the room plunged sharply, and Lisa shivered. She pulled on her sweater and crossed to the door.

When she twisted it, the knob wouldn’t turn. Her hands were cold and clumsy.

Clenching her jaw, she tried again, twisting harder this time. Locked? Impossible. She hadn’t turned the key.

Uh oh! Lisa Devine might be in a bit of trouble. Part 2 arrives next Wednesday!

Launching a book has some nail-biting moments for me: What if I get terrible reviews? That’s always a question that pops into my head. Then I calm down and remember what Kurt Vonnegut said: “Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.”

Anyway, I’m not getting bad reviews, so no one has attacked my hot fudge sundae yet.

One reviewer says: “It was a brilliant read. I got immersed in the story right from the start. I highly recommend this.”

Amazon

Thank you, @SteveElliott, for jogging my memory with your STORY. You gave me this week’s dose of fiction.

Another Lifetime

Nate and I had been driving for hours without a break. When we passed a sign reading Nez Perce National Historical Park, my husband was as eager as I was to get out of the car and stretch, so he didn’t hesitate to take the turnoff.

Inside the center, I almost ran to the restroom, then settled into the air-conditioned luxury, surrounded by the history of the native people and their artifacts.

We often agreed that one reason our marriage had lasted so long was that on vacations, Nate and I were never in lockstep in museums, churches, or visitor centers. We gave each other time alone to explore, and then enjoyed sharing the experience over a coffee later. Other differences often made vacations a challenge. I loved the water. Nate did not. He loved to climb mountains. Heights terrified me. I joked about trembling at the thought of being on a stepladder, but the truth was I did.

In the center, I chose to walk counter-clockwise around the exhibits; Nate did his usual here-there-back-and-forth tour.

I was staring at a collection of intricately woven cornhusk baskets when I felt the brush of an arm against mine. I moved aside to give the man who had stepped close to me more room.

“Sorry,” he said. “But I get excited about their art. Exquisite.”

I wanted to agree, but at the sound of his voice, my words stopped in my throat, and I glanced up to see if this was some friend from my past. But no. While I knew his sound, he was a stranger. I’d never seen him before.

He glanced at me, then away, but back quickly, the way people do who are not sure they’ve seen something. Shaking his head, he focused on the baskets again. “They had a special technique for showing different patterns on each side of what they wove, you know.” His words were tinged with admiration, but also something I could only identify as sadness.

And suddenly… I’m sharing that feeling, not standing inside a visitors center staring at ancient baskets, but on a mountain trail, staring across acres of trees, a thin blue thread of a river cutting through the canyon below. Ahead of me, taking long, sure strides, is a man with a broad back, bare and sun scorched; behind, a single file of tired, but determined men, women, and children struggle to keep up.

A weariness seeps into me, and the weight of my body doubles, making my legs shake. I tremble as we creep along the narrow edge of the steep canyon, and then I’m falling before I understand that I’ve lost my footing. For an instant, he’s there, reaching out, his face terrible with fear. And the river rushes toward me.

“Ma’am?”

The word was wrong. The voice was right. Pitched low and filled with certainty, it was a leader’s voice. My lover’s voice. But no. That was impossible.

I blinked, registering the change in the light. I wasn’t under the sun; I was staring up at the glow of round ceiling bulbs. Conditioned air flowed across my skin, and I braced my hand against the display case, staring at cornhusk baskets, precisely labeled, intricately woven.

“Are you okay?” He was standing close, his hands out to steady me, but it was as if he couldn’t reach the short distance between us and knew it.

I knew it, too, and when I understood what that meant, tears stung my eyes. I pressed my fingers against my lids as the noise of the visitor center slowly returned and became a hum in the background: footsteps, a child’s question, the murmur of a ranger’s explanation.

“I—” What could I possibly say? I just watched myself plunge to my death in front of you a hundred years ago? We once loved each other?

He stared at me, searching as if he was close to recovering a memory.

“Have we met?” he asked.

I almost said yes, but instead, I shook my head. I was still having trouble thinking clearly, and speaking seemed foreign.

There wasn’t anything else to say to each other, but neither of us moved. Something was passing between us—something unfinished and important, but beyond reach.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I hope something hasn’t frightened you.”

“No. Not at all.” That wasn’t true.

He nodded once, and, taking reluctant steps, he was drawn back into the history of the exhibits.

I watched him go, that familiar broad back, that easy sure stride.

It felt right to follow him. I wanted to, but this was the wrong time.

Outside, Nate was waiting near the door, a paper cup in each hand. “There you are,” he said. “I was starting to think you’d moved in.”

I smiled and took the coffee. Our fingers brushed—familiar, easy, and right.

“Good?” he asked, nodding back toward the building.

“Incredible.”

He launched into something about the terrain, the distances, the difficulty of moving people across that kind of land. I tried to listen, but I wanted to tell him he had no idea about that difficulty.

We started toward the car, but as I stepped from the curb, that familiar vertigo I’d always experienced when changing even the slightest elevation tipped me off balance.

“Hey,” Nate said, catching me by the elbow. “Careful.”

“I’m fine.” That came out too loud, but it covered the fear in my voice and the shaky uncertainty that was now in my life.

Behind us, the door to the visitor center opened, and the man stepped out. For a moment I considered going to him. Instead, I climbed into the car, closed the door, and stared at his face, willing him to look my way. And then he did.

His stare was as intent as it had been in the Center, and then he gestured, only a slight touch of the hand to his heart. Unnoticeable if you didn’t know it so well. A silent greeting. I returned it, and with a nod, he walked away. The distance between us was far greater than the few steps from the car to the Center. It was a distance that could never be crossed.

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Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or a story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post, or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

Remember, the question is optional!

June 3 question - Do most of your story ideas come from one place (the news, dreams, etc.) or do they hit from all over the place?

Everyone. Everything. Everywhere. These are the sources for my stories. Now that I’m writing and publishing a short one each week here on Substack, I’m more alert than ever because I need ideas, and I like to explain where I get them.

As I said at the beginning of this post, Another Lifetime came from two places—a personal experience and a fellow author on Substack who jogged my memory. I’m my answer’s not unique. Authors are by nature observers. It will be interesting to read what others have posted about this question.

My newest book is now officially launched. I keep thinking this process of writing and publishing will get old. It hasn’t. I’m as excited about this book coming out as I was about my first one. I can’t be blasé even when I try.

Order Today

Oh, and with this tale, I joined Summer Scare at

Part 3, The End

The Magus confronts Mistress Mayhew and says…

“This All Hallows night, I am free. I could unmake this village stone by stone,” he said. “Call down rot into every plant root, sickness into every lung. Or I could take you—tear your spirit loose, let you wander blind in the dark between worlds.” He waited, his stare fixed. “But I won’t.”

“Your terms?” She was no fool. He had a scheme, and she already knew it would be a deadly one.

“Return me to life, this time for good. And not as I was. Better. Flesh that does not fail. Fortune that does not dwindle. Power that does not fade.”

She saw the future clearly if she bent to his commands. He would rule. He would grind the people down, curse by curse, demand by demand, until the village became a hollow thing that only remembered freedom.

“No,” she said.

“Then you choose ruin.”

“Not ruin. Delay.”

And before he could move, she began to speak—not in the language of spells, not in the tongue of the dead, but in something older in its own way. “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor.”

He blinked. Once.

That was all the opening she needed.

“Rich man, Poor man, Beggar-man, Thief…”

“What—” he started, but her words had caught him.

Not bound him—no, not yet—but caught, like a hook behind the ribs. Against his will, he now repeated after her. “Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, Chief.”

Mistress Mayhew did not stop. She moved as she spoke, swift and sure, emptying her purse, crushing herbs between her fingers, pouring, measuring, grinding. Repeating. Rhyming. “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor.”

Her voice became fluid, and his joined in. “Rich man, Poor man—” His hands twitched. “Stop,” he said.

She ignored him. “Beggar-man, Thief…”

“Stop!”

But the rhythm had him now. A child’s game. A counting rhyme. Harmless. Except nothing was harmless in a necromancer’s house.

“Doctor, Lawyer…”

Again.

And again.

And again.

The rhyme looped, each repetition binding him tighter than the last. “Tinker, Tailor…” His voice was raspy, restrained as if by a leash.

“Soldier, Sailor.” Mistress Mayhew’s hands did not tremble as she poured the final measure into the kettle. “Beggar-man, Thief.”

The brew hissed, then stilled. His eyes met hers, and for the first time, there was a shadow of fear in them.

“You cannot hold me,” he said, though his voice now rose and fell along with hers, captured by the rhythm. “Not forever.”

“I don’t need forever,” she said. “Tinker, Tailor…” She lifted the kettle and flung the contents at him. The liquid struck and shattered into smoke.

“Doctor.”

The smoke sank into him.

“Lawyer.”

His body arched.

“Merchant.”

The floor beneath his feet cracked like dry earth.

“Chief.”

“No!” he shouted.

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor.”

The cracks widened.

“Rich man, Poor man…”

His legs sank through as far as the knees.

“Beggar-man—”

He reached for her.

“Thief.” She didn’t miss the rhyming beat, and at last she’d trapped him.

“Doctor”—his voice broke into something inhuman—“Lawyer. You will regret this,” he rasped.Merchant…”

“Perhaps,” she said.

And then he was gone, vanished in a spiral of that smoke, and silence returned.

Mistress Mayhew stood alone in her cottage, the echo of the rhyme still threading the air.

From that October night on, at twilight, when the first shadows stretch long and lean across the stones, a whispered rhyme echoes through Crofton Village.

Soft at first.

Then clearer.

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier…”

Doors slam tight. Window shutters snap closed.

Parents tug children from doorsteps and snuff the lamps.

“Rich man, Poor man…”

No one walks the roads after sundown anymore.

“Beggar-man. Thief…”

Sometimes—only sometimes—the rhyme changes.

Just at the end. Just enough to hear the malice.

“Tinker, Tailor, Soldier…Slayer.”

And on those nights, footsteps sound along the cobbled street with a steady, knowing stride—counting, always counting—waiting for someone to break the rhythmic spell, miss the pattern, or answer. Waiting for someone to release him.

Mistress Mayhew listens.

And every night, she counts out the rhyme along with the Magus, silently.

The End

I hope you enjoyed this short story. It was fun to write something quirky and in the realm of fantasy. Below is an excerpt of my new book, which, while it’s filled with witchcraft and ghosts, is really about this quote:

Fear is the main source of superstition and one of the main sources of

cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom—Bertrand Russell.

Available for Pre-Order.

In this scene, Calista is entering the village of Stormhaven.

A cluster of village women, satchels filled with produce,

spotted her and drew into a tighter knot. They didn’t bother to conceal

their heavy-lidded suspicion and could have been the ones from last

week or last month or years ago. One leaned into the other, and Calista

once again thought she heard words like wicked, unnaturally tall, and Moonwater all murmured together. The conversations were never clear

so that she could understand them—just snorts and hisses and clicks of

disapproving tongues.

“Mean-spirited-ninnies,” she said under her breath. So what if

she was taller than most people in Stone Haven? So what if she lived

next to the cemetery? She was different, so did that make her bad? The

villagers were worse than mean-spirited-ninnies, they were closed-

minded, intolerant fools. She pulled her shawl closed at the neck and

pushed past the women who clutched their cloaks to their bosoms and

stepped back to avoid her touch.

Pre-Order Now.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier…Slayer

Part 2

Betwixt sunset and starlight, the beckoning finger of October’s chimney smoke wove into the air, and with the twitch of a rat’s whiskers, something stepped from the shadowy past into the dimness of the moment.

The Tinker bent to mend Mistress Kane’s copper pot. The Tailor cut a length of his finest wool cloth. The Soldier packed his kit and prepared for departure at dawn. The women at the well, their mob caps damp with sweat from the day’s labor, filled the last buckets of the day.

For a moment, the rhythm of Crofton Village shifted as each person paused, pulling their collars up against the sudden snap of cold before returning to their final chore.

If any of them had taken the time to glance outside, they would have seen the last rays of sun casting a lean, rippling shadow over the brick walls and along the stones underfoot. That of a stranger, yet not. By the sure, direct way he strode the cobbled street, then turned toward the Mayhew cottage without hesitation, he knew the village very well.

Cats darted for shelter as he approached. Dogs did not alert, but slunk away to barns or behind fences. A dusky stillness clamped its hands over the village’s ears, leaving only the stealthy tread of two feet, then the heavy sound of a demanding fist against the Mayhew door.

Mistress Mayhew brushed the crumpled herbs from her palms into the kettle and clamped the lid on tight. It was uncommon for someone to call on her after sundown, so this could be an emergency, or…

Unlatching the door, she peered into a face she had hoped never to see again. Before she could shut him out in the night, he shoved the door open and stepped inside. The silence between them was punctuated by the snap of her hearth fire, sharp as breaking bones.

The man confronting her smelled faintly of graveyard dirt. He fixed her in a stare from dull, dangerous eyes, his lips stretched like a rictus across teeth the color of old tea.

“You should be dust by now, Magus,” she said.

“And you should be wiser.” His voice wasn’t ghost-thin, but alive as it had been before—before he’d tumbled into the rain-bloated river and drowned. Before she’d restored his life, then took it away.

“I gave you a few more hours of breath.” Her hand drifted toward the herb-filled purse at her belt to assure herself it was in place. “Long enough to save the people and their land.”

“You tricked me.” His words were tinged with menace and frost.

“I did. Had you lived, you would have destroyed us with more curses.”

A thin smile crept across his face. “Yes.” No denial. No pretense.

“So you agree. I did not have a choice. Since you are not in the mood to deceive, why are you here? The truth, please.”

“I’ve come to be…reasonable.”

Mistress Mayhew had to remain alert and fearless in his presence. His honesty covered something sinister. Again, she touched the purse. The herbs in it might save her.

Part 3, The End, coming next Wednesday

Calista Moonwater isn’t a Necromancer. She’s just a village girl until she turns eighteen, and then she’s a witch. A novice witch who would prefer that the dead villagers leave her in peace. Well, that’s not what happens. Here’s a short scene between Calista and two ghosts who keep beseeching her for help. By this time, our witch has had just about enough, and she lets everyone know.

The squire came so close to Calista that she felt ice crystals form on her eyebrows.

“Before the witches arrive, I want to know who murdered me. It’s the least you can do.”

“Why is it always me, Squire Nielsen? Don’t you think I’ve done enough for people who treated me and my family like outcasts?”

“I did not.”

“Perhaps, but you did nothing to make the Moonwater D’Whites accepted, did you? And your very noble ancestors seemed to have turned suddenly blind while your villagers murdered my ancestors. Your grandfather was alive when they hanged my great-grandmother. Why didn’t he stop that?” In spite of the cold, she leaned into him and he backed up.

“My apologies,” the squire said.

“Oh, very nice, indeed. Apologies aren’t enough anymore, Squire. I’d like some of that justice for my family.”

“Please!” Mrs. Wilhelm shouted so loudly that the squire and Calista fell quickly silent.

“Thank you. Now let’s set to work to bring justice to everyone in Storm Haven, shall we? No partiality. Only fairness. And as fast as possible. Storm Haven should be free of as much guilt as possible before it ceases to exist.”

I still root for Calista at this point in the story when everything is bleak. But we’re coming to the end of her story, and next week we come to the end of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier…Slayer. Hope you’ll come back and see what happens.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier…Slayer

Part 1

The streets of Crofton Village flowed like muddy rivers. Water lapped over the top steps of shops and houses, while rising and falling tides eddied across barn floors with each new storm front.

In the chaos, villagers took to small boats and pulled the drowning to safety until their strength was spent and they couldn’t row against the cross-currents any longer.

As the last boat moved toward high ground, a man’s body floated alongside, and one of the rowers reached out to grab it.

“It’s the Magus!”

“Forget him. Too late anyways.”

The rower released the lifeless arm, but in the next second, he found himself in a vice grip of the Magus, a man everyone feared and avoided, the one who now had the look of death about him.

“Let go,” the man shouted, struggling against being dragged into the swirling water.

The Magus, having the bitter heart of the rejected, stared back through eyes dark with rancour. “If I die…Then you all die. Pestilence and famine…”—he choked—“…within the year.”

His grip loosened enough that the man could pull free and regain safety in the boat. He stared in dread as the body slid out of sight.

The rowers exchanged looks, the smell of their fear spreading through the wet air. The Magus’s curse should not be ignored. In silent agreement, they reached below the surface until they found him and hauled him on board, where he lay without any sign of life.

Later, when the rains had stopped and the floods receded, the men from the boat spoke with the Elders, telling them of the curse. The one the Magus had uttered last year ruined their well for months. He’d restored the water only after all of his demands had been met. Many believed these freakish storms were his work as well, along with the mysterious disappearance of several villagers. This time, the village faced pestilence and famine since they’d failed to save the Magus’s life.

“We cannot survive,” one Elder said.

“Perhaps there is a way,” another said, and all eyes locked onto the tall figure of the Elder known as Tor. “Mistress Mayhew.”

Those gathered around him drew in a sharp collective breath.

“Surely, not the Necromancer.” A murmur, barely audible, but laden with centuries of village superstition, hushed its way throughout the gathering.

Mistress Mayhew was the one people turned to when in dire and immediate need of help. She was also costly, but that was because she never failed to call forth the dead and achieve the results her clients needed.

It was decided that Tor should deliver the message to Mistress Mayhew. It had been his idea, after all, and he was the most prominent Elder in the village.

“Of course,” he said, and, gathering his cloak around his shoulders, he made his way to the Mayhew cottage.

Mistress Mayhew didn’t have clairvoyant powers. She didn’t need them. Crofton Village had a gossip network that outstripped any mind-reading talent. So when Elder Tor arrived, she was prepared to tell him…

“Absolutely, not.”

“But, Mistress, you know what he is capable of. Is there no way—”

“Of course, there is a way, but it is fraught with danger, more danger than any pestilence or famine.”

Tor paced her small cottage, head down, thinking of how to persuade her to work her dark magic. “The village might never recover. We may lose our lives or the lives of those we love. We will starve.” With a flourish and a plunk, he set a fat purse on her table and then spread the coins so they caught the candlelight. “Think of the children.”

“Generous,” she said. “But I will not take this.” She slid the purse toward Elder Tor. “I love this village and its people. You may keep your coins, and I will help you.”

So she did what her common necromancer sense told her not to do. She dragged the Magus’s spirit from the underworld, bound it, used it to reverse the curse, and cast it back into the darkness.

The following summer saw bountiful crops. The villagers grew plump eating fresh bread and butter. The fruit trees bore an abundance of apples, pears, and plums. The laughter of children filled the streets, but Mistress Mayhew didn’t join in the fairs or parties the villagers held to celebrate their good fortune.

If someone had been paying attention, they might have noticed that she was seldom seen anywhere after dark, and, after that business with the Magus, she never walked the path that took her past the graveyard.

Then winter descended, and in the tenth month, the veil between the underworld and the world of the living thinned to breaking.

Part 2, Next Wednesday

AMAZON . BARNES & NOBLE . SMASHWORDS . KOBO

Calista Moonwater is the main character in That Moonwater Witch. When she discovers Amara’s, her great-grandmother's, diary, she sets out to decipher its cryptic messages. They’re important, but she doesn’t have a clue why.

Calista ran her finger over the oddly spelled word, magyk . She was curious about why Amara had written it in this way here. She read on.

Harm no one.

Listen to the earth and her creatures. The earth will guide you onto the right path. Her creatures will counsel you into right action.

The ghosts that cling to it will have needs. Prepare for your part in setting them free from longing and old regrets.

Be true to yourself and honest in your dealings with others.

Be alert to any signs of The Vengeance. It will not be what is foretold.

Calista stopped at that last line. The Vengeance? Surely this didn’t have anything to do with that ridiculous myth about the giant perched atop the mountain ready to swoop down if any dared enter his domain. She wished she understood what this so-called Vengeance was really about.

Unfortunately, she will understand, and that’s only going to put her and everyone she loves in terrible danger.

Hope to see you next Wednesday!

I need some time to catch up on my short story writing and to launch my next book. I thought I’d use this time to show you some of my earlier writing. BTW, thanks to everyone who chimed in on the cover issue last week. The blue cover won, hands down. Now I’m working on regaining access to my Amazon seller account, so I can fix the mess I created. Wish me luck.

This quote was the scaffolding for Shawna, one of my main characters in Sliding on the Edge, my first novel.

“. . .it is said that there are four kinds of horses: excellent ones, good ones, poor ones, and bad ones. The best horse will run slow and fast, right and left at the driver’s will, before it sees the shadow of the whip; the second best will run as well as the first one does, just before the whip reaches its skin; the third one will run when it feels pain on its body; the fourth will run after the pain penetrates to the marrow of its bones.”

In Buddha’s mind, the fourth horse is the most valuable.

The Beginner’s Mind, Shunryu Suzuki

Here’s a clip from an early scene in the book with her and Kay, her grandmother, who is trying to understand this girl and failing. They’re in a dress shop, and Kay wants to buy Shawna clothes for school. Shawna says…

“You wear plaid. I don’t.” I stand inside the small dressing room cubicle, my arms crossed and my jaw set.

I’d said no to everything the clerk and Kay had brought in for me to try.

“Then get dressed and come out here and look yourself,” Kay says.

“There’s nothing in this crappy store that I’d be caught dead in.”

Kay waves the clerk out and waits in the doorway. “Fine. Then we’ll go someplace else.” She yanks the curtain closed. “I’ll meet you outside.”

“There’s nothing in this whole friggin’ town that I’d be caught dead in,” I say loud enough for anyone in the store to hear. I pull on my Bad Ass Attitude shirt over my head and jam my feet into my shoes.

A big part of this story is about these two people’s relationship, and both of them healing from past wounds while learning to love and trust each other.

And speaking of trust, here’s a group that values just that.

Join Us Today!

The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can't find you to comment back.

The awesome co-hosts for the May 6 posting of the IWSG are Jenni Enzor, Jemima Pett, Jamie of Uniquely Maladjusted but Fun, and Kim Lajevardi!

Every month, we announce a question for members to answer in their IWSG posts. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience, or a story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post, or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

Remember, the question is optional!
May 6 question - What was the most inspiring feedback you received from readers, including agents, editors, and beta readers?

I’ve been at this a long time, so choosing the most inspiring feedback is a challenge. A recurring comment I get in emails and reviews is that my teenage boys’ voices are authentic. That’s pretty inspiring, and it gives me the courage to continue to develop those kinds of characters in my books.

My biggest boost came from an agent who rejected me, but asked if she could use my query letter as an example of how to write a query letter. At least she wasn’t using it to show how NOT to do it, so I said yes.

The KINDLE VERSION of That Moonwater Witch is ready for pre-order now. Here’s a short video to give you a taste of the story.

AMAZON

This is how Shawna’s story starts:

Something’s wrong. It’s not a heart-grabbing noise like when somebody jiggles the doorknob to see if it’s locked. It’s not a bitter smell like the electrical short we had last month, when all the breakers popped. No. It’s something in the air, something like a ghost making its way through the room. And it can’t be Monster, not after last night.

When her mother abandons her (Jackie is not up for a Mother of the Year award), she leaves Shawna a hundred dollars, a bus ticket, and a note with her grandmother’s phone number. Shawna has never met or even heard of this woman, but she has nowhere to go, so she calls the number.

A woman’s voice is on the other end of the phone, but it doesn’t sound like a grandmother. It isn’t creaky or wispy. It sounds like it belongs to someone a lot younger. Oh, no. Mom gave me a wrong number.

“Uhh. Is…uh…this Kay Stone?”

“Yes.”

“Well—” I hadn’t thought exactly how I’d say this next part, but now there isn’t any time to choose my words. “My name’s Shawna. I’m sixteen, and my mom says you’re my grandmother.”

The phone goes silent

I decided that I’d tell this story from two points of view: the teen with the bad ass attitude who is a cutter, and her grandmother, Kay, the down-on-her-luck horse rancher. I was surprised to discover that I had two coming-of-age stories going.

Kay dropped the phone onto the cradle and stared out the kitchen window. Everything outside looked just as it had a few minutes ago. The horses grazed on the hillside. Kenny leaned into the gray mare and held her hoof in his knobby hand while he scraped thrush from under her shoe. Buster was doing canine yoga, rooting out the burs from his bushy tail and scratching behind his ear for the fleas that even sheep dip couldn’t kill.

But now nothing was the same.

As Kay sank onto the chair, she grasped the corner of the kitchen table. Once settled, she cradled her head in her hands.

Sixteen years. Such a long time, and no time at all.

When I took back my rights, I played with the cover to reissue this book independent of the publisher that had shut down the imprint. That was a mistake, but I got tied up with other projects and didn't clean it up, so this book has two covers. One of these days, I might fix it. Which one do you like, the one above or the one below?

AMAZON

Samantha Redstreake added a literary dimension, and authors were invited to write accompanying pieces for each musical contribution.

All sales went to the recovery effort.

I wrote this story for a very stirring piece called Aurora by Renan Javier Cabrera. I revisited and edited it, but it’s close to the original.

Listen to the musical score HERE while you read the story I crafted for it. Click the link, then return to this Substack page.

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Aurora

There was only silence. And night followed night. Because the Goddess of Early-Born light didn’t exist anymore, people drew away from openings and burrowed inside their shelters, waiting, while their hearts stretched to breaking and their minds wandered to madness.

The elders remembered when there had been sweet sounds and morning sun and tried to pass their memories to the youth, but the youth were deaf, and the youth were blind. Why did they need to hear or see in a silent, dark world?

Then, when the elders feared they’d come to the edge of their time, notes of change whispered through the air, and they sensed a faint promise of something returning. So they crept into the streets.

Hoping those faint strains would come together to create the music they once knew.

Hoping there would be an Early-Born light again.

Hoping these wonders wouldn’t be too late in coming.

In their old memories, they saw Her rose-tinted fingers spread wide across the East that had been her domain. Countless times, she had reclaimed it and sent her pale sister to the other side of the world. For eons, she had warmed the land and drawn life from the seed.

But that was before men destroyed their Earth. Before they hindered life and contorted the solar winds. Before they had given way to Old God Chaos.

Now, tentatively, these elders knelt in communion and lifted their faces in the direction they knew from the old days. And there they waited until the light stirred in their hearts. Out of the darkness came the stroke of a bow on strings and a gentle drumming and the lightest of musical key strokes. Then, for the first time in generations, a faint rosy line glowed on the horizon, and, as that light moved higher in the sky, shadows appeared. And the Elders fell back in fear before remembering what shadows meant. Once they understood, they wept. Once they saw what light revealed, they wept.

The remains of their cities.

The remains of their forests.

In the distance, they glimpsed a shimmer across a vast surface they had once known as Sea.

And then the Goddess of Early-Born Light fell over them and challenged them. “Teach your children about the music that comes with me. Let them hear. Let them see. Let them be human and kind to their world. There is another chance.”

The elders’ lives were close to ending. Only a short time remained to meet the Goddess’s challenge. With desperate haste, they drew the young from their shelters, and they began to teach the lessons of long ago. Lessons they prayed would open young ears, turn their eyes to the heavens, and restore the order that had once made the world a place of harmony and beauty, filled with sound and light.

The End

The villagers of Storm Haven hate her. The ghosts need her. Her ancestors’ quest for revenge threatens to destroy everyone and everything she loves.

Complicating her fight is Simon Pinehurst, a rogue and a thief, who threatens to entangle her heart. Facing impossible choices, Calista must summon every ounce of courage to confront her ancestors and her feelings for Simon Pinehurst before it’s too late.

COMING MAY 29

Image by Paul Brennan from Pixabay

The Architect

I knew I was in trouble the day Martin announced that our house no longer suited his image. He didn’t use those exact words, but the message was clear. He wanted—no, he absolutely demanded—something more impressive. To quote him, “We’ve outgrown maple and oak.”

I glanced at the Ethan Allen coffee table and the needlepoint pillow from Gran’s nimble fingers. “I don’t see anything wrong with the way our house looks, Martin. It’s homey.”

“I’m tired of homey.” He gripped my shoulders and turned me to face him. “Look, Kara, it’s important. In the next couple of years, I expect to make a full partnership, and I’ll need to entertain lots of VIP’s. This”—he gestured around the room with a sweep of his hand—“won’t cut it. At least give it some thought, okay?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good. And here’s someone to help you.” He produced a card from his vest pocket.

“Who’s this?”

“An architect. Brad Newberry used him, and his place is dynamic.”

“Dynamic.” The word came out like a wrong note in a song. I’d seen Brad’s house, and dynamic wasn’t the first adjective that leapt to mind. Sterile, on the other hand, was.

“You’ll call him next week, right?”

It was better to remain mute.

The following week, I found myself seated in a large room filled with chrome and black glass tables. Bright light flooded through a series of rectangular skylights and the floor-to-ceiling windows lining one wall. I removed my sunglasses only to put them back on again immediately.

The architect who sat across from me continued to try to impress me with his collection of successful designs. He called them “concepts.”

“Here’s one I think you’ll like, Mrs. Freeman,” he said, holding up an 8 x 10 glossy of what I at first took to be a white mushroom nestled under a protective wing.

“Interesting.” I nodded.

“Earth sheltered. Very dramatic and yet functional.”

During the past half hour, most of the houses he’d shown me from his files hovered near reality with only subtle hints of their orbiting capacities. This man definitely had a different view of housing design than I did, and the question in my mind became, “How am I going to turn this conversation back to mundane considerations like closet space and a separate dining room?”

“Well, I think you’ve seen enough to give you an idea of the kind of work I’m capable of creating for my clients.”

“Definitely. I don’t need more.”

“Fine. Then how do we begin?”

“Begin?” That came out as a croak.

“You’re nervous about this venture, aren’t you, Mrs. Freeman?” He smiled and peered at me from behind the white mushroom, which he still held up for view.

“A little,” I admitted as I shifted to settle more deeply into the chair that resembled a nesting crane.

“Need more time?”

“A little.” My needle seemed to be set to repeat. Perhaps it was because I was transfixed by the mushroom. It began to take on different dimensions during this part of the conversation. The sun had shifted in one of the skylights. A steady beam spotlighted the center of the picture, making the house glow. I stared at it as it throbbed, then puffed itself into a giant cloud and threatened to burst the confines of its 8 X 10 inch border. I tensed for the explosion and pressed back into the chrome and leather bird. At the last moment, the architect dropped the picture back into its file and we escaped destruction.

“Mrs. Freeman, are you all right?”

“Yes. Of course,” I said, snapping out of my trance.

“Why don’t we discuss our plans over lunch? You may feel more at ease if we take this project slowly over a nice glass of wine?”

“Excuse me. I’m sorry, but I want to talk to my husband about your...concepts.”

“Certainly. I understand. You do that, and then we’ll all get together.” He stood and walked around his desk.

“Thank you. That sounds like a good way to proceed,” I managed to say as I groped my way up from the clutches of the mutant crane and stepped backward toward the door.

“Give me a call when you’re ready,” he said, showing his teeth and shutting me out into the lobby.

Mushrooms and spaceships! Where was the Hoosier cabinet and the American eagle over the front door going to fit in? I’d need a special history hall.

That night, I explained to Martin that I didn’t feel comfortable with his architect, and after an hour of giving reasons why I couldn’t live in any house that the man designed, I ran out of things to say.

“So does this mean you’re quitting?” Martin asked.

“Quitting? No. Quitting is not the American way. I’ll find another architect.” But I sounded half-hearted.

“Kara.”

“I promise.” And I meant it.

I launched a careful search for an architect who lived and believed in this century and who wouldn’t laugh when I suggested a bay window. I finally found him on the 21st of May, 1995, at 12:02 pm.

That morning, I’d hopped into my Volvo and jotted down a list of architectural firms and a few errands before backing out of the driveway.

See two architects on Basin Street. Pick up shirts at the laundry. Get milk, bread, and dog food. Pick up Steven at soccer practice.

I’d driven a few blocks when I remembered I had something else to do, so when the traffic stopped, I held the list over the wheel and added, post office.

That notation shot off the notepad and landed along with me on the dashboard. Between Main Street and Grand Avenue, the trunk of the car ahead of me and my radiator had created an obsession for one another. Kevin Paterson and I had met.

He creaked open the door of his car, slowly sliding out from behind the wheel, then stepped onto the pavement and walked in my direction.

As the pair of Nikes approached, I was grateful he still had two feet; I hadn’t maimed the man. He stood next to my car, and I rolled the window down.

“Is this a Kamikaze mission?” he asked.

“Not an intentional one. I’m sorry. My foot must have let up on the brake. A matter of a slippery shoe?”

He looked me in the eye. I recognized a rare phenomenon—a man with a sense of humor.

“Your insurance agent or mine?” He smiled.

After we’d dealt with the realities of money and fault, we adjourned to Lupe’s, the best Mexican restaurant in town, for Margaritas. It seemed the civilized thing to do.

“You’re not!” I shouted over the buzz of conversations in the bar.

“I am,” Kevin affirmed. “I am an architect.”

“I’ve been looking for someone like you for months!”

“Here I am.”

I explained Martin’s idea and my problem with it.

“Hmm. So what kind of house do you want?”

There it was again. That question. The house I wanted, I already lived in. “You are asking the wrong thing.”

“Oh?”

“I can show you the house I want because I already have it.”

He sipped his drink, returned his glass to the bar, and took a deep breath. “This isn’t going to be easy, is it?”

“No.”

“I’ll need a large retainer.”

“Okay.”

He laughed, shaking his head.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I’ll design you a new house. I’ll design you one as close to what you already live in, but with Martin’s request in mind. Give me some clues to start.”

“I want something, you know, modern, but not too modern. No mushrooms, and if you ever say the word concept, we’re through.”

“I see. You’ve discussed this project with someone else. Are you difficult to work with?” He leaned back and looked at me from a different perspective.

“No. Not exactly.”

“Which means?”

“My husband says I’m old-fashioned. But when he says it, it sounds rather...bad.”

“Hmm. Do you always pick up architects by running into their cars, or am I a special case?”

I looked at the man carefully before I said. “I...” I began and then switched to a direct answer. “You’re special.”

“Good. You finally got an answer right to one of my questions.”

The house took exactly two years to complete from that first meeting. Kevin designed it, oversaw the building of it, asked me to marry him, then disappeared when I said I couldn’t. Martin. Our son. Fifteen years of marriage. My husband was right; I was old-fashioned, and from that time on, he didn’t mention it again.

We never moved into the new house. We sold it six months after it was finished, and made a nice profit. I didn’t hear from Kevin after that, and I felt a terrible loss. He was my friend. I think I loved him.

I know he loved me because the house was a three-thousand-square-foot love letter. Even Martin knew that, although he never said anything.

So, in the end, I had my way.

I stayed where I wanted.

The End

@Evernight Teen

My latest writing is about witches and ghosts in search of help. Quite the departure from The Architect, heh? But it does have a house that plays a prominent part, so there is one similarity. Here’s a short bit from That Moonwater Witch. It’s part of a scene in which the heroine has almost accomplished one favor for a departed villager. Calista, the heroine, has to hide to avoid being caught inside Minnie Wakefield’s, and apparently, stealing a diary, something this ghost didn’t want anyone to see.

If she got out of this mess, she’d tell all the other ghosts of Storm Haven she could not risk helping them. She imagined what her mother would say if she could see her shaking under Minnie Wakefield’s bed. Maybe nothing, but “I told you so” would be all over her face.

Please don’t check under the bed skirt.

She felt the stocks clamp around the back of her neck.

The diary! What if he notices the box missing? Theft.

Calista’s eyes watered from fear. They flogged people for stealing.