Waving Mrs Rightmore off, more convinced than ever she'd made a great decision in moving to this village, she turned to her front door and turned the key in the lock. Even though she'd been in and out of it numerous times over the past few weeks, visiting it, negotiating the contract and finally moving …
Thunder scratched at his jaw, clearly searching for words. Lorsan calmly moved around the kitchen, tweaking and tidying. Lydia cocked an eyebrow at him but seemed to understand and moved cautiously back to a seat at the table, near the door and well away from Thunder. The twins merely switched perches and looked on avidly. …
Sophia strode through the forest, smiling a greeting at a friendly raven and tossing some scraps collected from breakfast to both her and the uncertain little furballs in the undergrowth. She wasn't sure what they were, the island collected mythical animals that had lost their belief along with everything else, but they were cute and …
She'd made the train with minutes to spare, thankfully it wasn't full. She was easily able to find room for her suitcase and a window seat for herself. The advantage of moving to more internationally-focused hours for work, she was able to do things, like the big final move to her new home, during quiet …
Lorsan heaved the bags he was carrying onto the kitchen table and turned to retrieve the basket from Lydia, who sidestepped and put it on the table herself. He was aware of buying rather a lot, but it was rare to have a visitor and this one needed feeding up and strengthening for as long …
One of the exercises at the CityLit course I did a few weeks ago was to write a piece about only having half an hour to pack, that focused on the senses. It was my first inkling that Ally and Chris had plans to take over large portions of my brain at unexpected times. Ally …
The forest was old, revered and not one to suffer fools. Thankfully Sophia had been properly introduced before starting on its paths and it was cautiously approving. She made sure not to blunder through the overgrowth or trample fragile new flowers and the paths stayed clear of thorns, if rather narrow. She got the rather …
This came from a prompt 'the rain is full of ghosts tonight' and it turned out to be a conversation between Marcus and Sariya, with the usual interruptions. Marcus looked towards the window from his comfortable corner of the sofa, "The rain is full of ghosts tonight." "What's that supposed to mean? It's creepy." "It …
This is another round of the three doors exercise, but I forgot what the time limit was and went for fifteen minutes per door. Turns out it was only meant to be five. I like the longer one. Door 1 Walking down the hall, choosing a door at random. It's dark wood, almost black, very …
This is the first of the prequel pieces to The Wooden Chest and an early warning this story was getting ready to run away with me. The next scene (chronologically) was my first warning the characters had a lot more to share than a random shopping encounter in a field. Ally breathed deeply as she …
The DNA of Stories 