The promised heatwave hit this morning. I opened the windows in shade, shuttered the ones in sun, and decided to spend the day indoors, digging through my old junk chest. It was less of a chest and more of a pocket dimension if I’m honest, and I never knew what would come out of it. …
Jax sipped her coffee and looked out of the kitchen window at the frost-covered world outside. She’d brought warm clothes for a country walk. She wondered if Sebastian had, or if he’d planned to spend the whole weekend indoors. He was tired, that much was clear. At his parents’ home, he was usually up at …
It’s morning, a nice one from the look of it, still cool from a bit of overnight rain but blue sky is greeting me from the windows. I putter through my usual morning routines, wash, breakfast, tidy. It’s best to tidy as you go, otherwise things pile up, then multiply when you’re not looking and …
It was getting close to dusk, and Mara had been able to bathe, change and enjoy a very belated lunch while waiting for her failed stalker to turn up. That the only place to bathe was the pool in the centre of the clearing mattered not at all. In her true form, clothing was an …
The house stood on a slope, the wide stone balcony commanding a wide view of the surrounding lands, now shadowed and silvered under the full moon. Near the house, the white gravel paths of the formal gardens glowed in the moonlight, surrounding dark flowerbeds, forming strange patterns. Runes perhaps, surrounding the house in a protective …
If only the strangest thing I had to deal with today was an argument between the cauldron of plenty and my singing tea kettle. The kettle was an earlier gift (I use the term loosely) from the double rainbow and has settled in surprisingly well. It sings as it boils its water and the melodies …
Scheherazade straightened her spine and moved down the corridor pretending confidence. It was the only weapon she had and she would hold onto it for as long as possible. At the end, she paused, took a breath, then pushed the curtain aside and entered the room. She curtseyed. “My Lord.” The figure at the window, …
On work-from-home days, Halley spent her lunch breaks in the park. Unless it was raining or otherwise evil weather – then she’d go to a café. It got her away from the computer, away from her flatmates’ work vents, away from the ‘could you justs’ and ‘if you have a moments’. It was her time …
Amy Tang trudged her way along the eight peaks of the Kowloon Peninsula. Legend was that if you traversed the eight dragons on the first day of the Lunar New Year, you might meet the ninth dragon. The legend was as true as most, complete fabrication, and this one more honest than most in its …
Ari kept to the shadows as she moved through the streets of the lower town. It was easy enough, this wasn’t the rich end of town, with its wide avenues and gas-lit street lamps. Here, a neighbourhood was lucky to boast a single, guttering lamp at the edge of whatever square held the communal well. …
The DNA of Stories 