Cadan’s chair went flying as he bolted upright, pushing her behind him, tense and ready, as he focused on the shadows in the doorway. Shadows who resolved into Matthew and Evan as they moved inside, eyeing Cadan with a mixture of surprise and caution. Matthew spoke first. “You’re alright then? We were fearing the worst.” …
“Most medicines can be as harmful as they are healing. It’s all to do with the affliction, the dosage, and the patient.” Nadira knew it was important to remember the two-sided nature of the cures they created, but did Healer Mentor Fong have to start every single lesson with it? And usually finish with it …
An exercise from Ursula Le Guin's Steering the Craft book - write a piece of narrative with no punctuation... People were all around her shouting dancing singing hugging kissing laughing and all she could see was the sky with its low grey clouds that wanted to rain but were being kept off by the blast …
Georgina looked at the diagram on the table. Leonard was clearly very proud of it, pity it looked like nothing so much as a square plate of spaghetti and meatballs. “So this is the layout for the ball.” Leonard puffed his chest out. “Yes. The door is there.” He pointed to one side of the …
I had the most delightfully strange conversation with the Queen Bee this morning. For those who don’t know, the queen of my sentient bees will occasionally decide to wander my garden, and the woods beyond, in something vaguely approaching humanoid form. Tall and thin, with a pale, pointed face, eyes of pure black, and small …
“You have to, you’re doing your Leaver’s presentation this week.” “Which is why I’m not going. What am I going to tell them? That I’m going to spend my future career pushing a broom around my Mum’s coffee shop?” Janet rolled her eyes, then propped one hip on the desk in front of mine, arms …
She found a low-backed wooden chair and set it by the hearth. “Take off your tunic and sit down. I want to see how bad your cuts are and get them clean.” He unbelted his tunic, then pulled it, and his undershirt, off draping them over the edge of a table to help them dry. …
Just a quick note to say I'm going to be changing the frequency of my posting. For the past few years, I've put stories and snippets up on Wednesday and Sunday evenings (my time). I enjoy sharing these and hope you enjoy reading them, but it's starting to weigh on me as other parts of …
Leanne winced as she heard the voice outside her studio, loud enough that probably didn’t need the phone she was speaking into. Geraldine was coming to keep her company while she worked, again. What that actually meant was that Geraldine would harass her with questions and opinions from the moment she opened the door to …
Alex breathed in and centred himself, if Grandma could chop wood, a hale and healthy man in his twenties would have no problem. The axe felt strange in his hands, warm, heavy in a way that spoke more of possibility than actual heft. The wooden handle worn smooth from years of use, the steel head, …
The DNA of Stories 