It is not often one is granted insight into the mind of one’s parent through the medium of literature. But so it was that I came to understand Mumsie’s tendencies to overindulge in aspects of culture most regard as less desirable – sex and booze.

It was last summer and I had gone into her ‘retiring room’ to see if she had, yet again, absconded with my iPad as I had a hankering to take it and compose bucolic pastoral poetry whilst sitting in the garden. I needed something to provide the quintessential inspirational imagery so lacking in our squalid backyard, whilst I committed the consequential flow of rhyming commentary, contemporaneously to paper with pen.

Instead, I wound up reclining in the garden reading with interest a volume I had found poking out from under her favourite chair. It even reminded me of Mummy in appearance being much handled, rather fat and dog-eared. Surprisingly it had a Biblical quotation for its title, not something I would normally associate with my mater. There were also many self-revelatory notes in my mother’s long-lost youthful hand, highlighting passages or underlining phrases.

I later learned it is also a science-fiction classic.

My review of Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

There is much written nowadays about supernatural beings like vampires and angels and this book falls neatly in that category.

In this book, the angel called Michael Smith comes to earth from Mars. He is fabulously wealthy and naturally has magical powers. He lives in a commune where everyone runs around naked and has sex with everyone else and they eat dead people. He is eventually killed and comes back as a ghost to explain that he is going to take over the world with a new super-race, by evolving his followers. In the end, it turns out he was really an archangel.

I found the story by turns cloying, disgusting, strangely sensual, often all three together and always puzzling.

Three stars for the intriguing footnotes and marginal commentary from my maternal parent.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Summertime and the livin’ is wheezy
Nose is runnin’ and the pollen count’s high
Oh, your daddy’s face is no longer good lookin’
So hush, little baby, just you nebulise.

Most every morning
You’ get to rise up coughin’
Yes, you cough so bad
When the pollution is high
Mm, the weather man says
The very air can can harm you
Yes, with daddy and mommy standin’ by

Summertime and the livin’ is wheezy
Nose is runnin’ and the pollen count’s high
Oh, your daddy’s face is no longer good lookin’
So hush, little baby, just you nebulise.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…

Chapter Seven – Warring Weres

We sorted ourselves out into the vehicles, with ourselves in the first. My three kidnappers, now hooded and roped together, were in the middle one being guarded by half a dozen female dragons who didn’t like them at all.
“Where to?” Mandrake looked to Moth who grinned.
“Moth knows.”
She flitted to the shoulder of the young dragon who was our driver and spoke in his ear. I was impressed that he didn’t flinch. He just grinned at the impudent fae as he engaged a gear.
“How long a journey?”
Mandrake was in full commander mode, and I didn’t know whether to be impressed or kick his shins. In the end I did neither, although I did share a rueful look with Purslane.
Moth and the driver were engaged in a low-voiced conversation and after a minute or two he spoke up.
“It’s about ten miles to the Lyon country estate. In the normal way of things that’d be about a quarter of an hour – even in this beast. But my friend here smells a blizzard on the way, so we can reckon on an hour at least.”
“Okay. You just set a safe pace.”
The driver laughed. “Will do, uncle.”
Mandrake aimed a laughing cuff at his head.
In the end it was closer to two hours because the storm that came screaming in from the east was of the sort that has to be waited out and the three all-terrain vehicles lined up with their backs to the howling dervish of a wind. Instead of snow, this wind brought ice – long daggers of killing ice that hammered against the armoured vehicles as if determined to get inside. I shivered.
“You’re safe in here,” Mandrake said.
“I am. I’m just thinking about the car I was in not so long ago. I have a feeling that me and the rat would have died out here – even if the bears could survive.”
He frowned, then a shiver of his own crossed his whole body and he pulled me into his arms.
“I could have lost you,” he said thickly.
I put my arms around him. “But you didn’t. You rescued me. You and Moth and our dragon friends.”
The tension went out of his body. “We did. And you are warm and in my arms. Although I did want to kill the scum that had you. Was it them who took you from the college?”
“No. It was not. But I wouldn’t bother hunting for whoever did. I think they are probably dead.”
“Dead?”
“Yes. As in dead men tell no tales.”
“That figures.” Then he chuckled. “The bigger bear isn’t at all happy with us. He is swearing vengeance with every indrawn breath.”
I shrugged. “He is a dead thing walking. And if he isn’t bright enough to work that out for his own self…”
“Are you going to kill him, loved one?”
“Probably not. Much though I would like to. My money is on Leonard Lyon.”
Purslane chimed in. “Unless there is a senior bear at the place we are headed. They really don’t take too kindly to failure.”
Mandrake pushed out his lower lip in thought, then nodded briefly.
One of the younger dragons put up a tentative hand, almost like a child at school.
“You have a question, Nettle?”
“I do, sir. If the lady will be so kind.”
“Ask away.”
“If you knew that the bears had the wrong woman, why did you not tell them?”
“In a normal situation that would have been the correct move. However, by the time I realised who they thought they had in their hands there was already a trail of dead bodies behind us. It was pretty clear to me that if they found out I wasn’t the woman they were being paid for they’d have slit my throat and left me for the carrion crows. This lot really don’t care for loose ends.”
Nettle swallowed audibly. “So you were in their power, knowing they were taking you to be killed, and aware that it didn’t matter to them who you were?”
“That about sums it up. Except, of course, I had Mandrake and Moth hunting for me and both are formidable hunters.”
“They are indeed.” Nettle nodded.
By which time the ice storm had blown away and we could resume our journey.
The Lyon estate was ringed with razor wire fencing, which is fine against normal modes of transport, but our vehicles just pushed over it as if it wasn’t there. The guards that piled out of a couple of low, stone buildings were armed with rifles and heavy clubs – neither of which is any use at all against an armoured vehicle weighing several tons. They weren’t stupid, and most of them went back inside out of the snow which was falling thickly again. A couple of the younger, fitter lycanthropes trotted along beside us like a sort of an honour guard. I hoped the house wasn’t far, because it had to be fragging cold out there.
It was only around ten minutes at jogging speed and the three all-terrains formed up into a chevron in the courtyard. We waited.
A few guards formed up around us and one knocked politely on the door of the frontmost vehicle.
We ignored him.
A tall figure in the uniform of some sort of ceremonial guard came out of the portico and stood looking at our silent vehicles. When he had looked his fill he smiled thinly. He took something out of his pocket and aimed it. Mandrake pushed a button on the dash and dark screens came up across our windows. The flash of light would have blinded us had we not had the protective screens, but we did have them. The screens dropped as the functionary with the weapon hit the ground. He seemed to have grown something strange on his forehead – closer inspection discovered it to be the vanes of a crossbow bolt right between his eyes.
“Nice shooting, whoever,” I said.

Jane Jago

Writing inspired by the art of Ian Bristow

About his feet the little people quaked and cried. He curled his lip in scorn. 

He felt a strong desire to cook the soldiers in their metal cuirasses but chivalry demanded that he kill only where necessary so he reined in his fury.

Instead, he turned his face on the invading king and allowed himself one roar of rage.

The man fell to his knees and covered his eyes.

“Die infidel.”

As the king grovelled, a ballista twanged thickly and the iron bolt buried itself in Draco’s noble heart.

His dying flame razed a swathe of death a mile long.  

Jane Jago

Ian is an awesome artist and cover designer, you can find his work at Bristow Design.

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

When old Agnes died, the rest of her seven did what was necessary. They buried Agnes, gathered together her books, and burned her vardo. Young Mary was surprised when Agnes’ cat heaved his impressive ginger bulk onto the oldest wicca’s cart.

“He will stay with us until we find a human seventh. Without seven the magic would be weak.”

It was almost a year later when the seven found a young whore working in a backstreet stew. 

She was thin and fearful, but the magic filled her.

The ginger cat slowly faded until all that was left was his grin…

Jane Jago

Ginny decided she had come out much too early to see the bats, either that or she had mistimed exactly when ‘sunset’ really was. From her ‘bat hide’ behind some bushes, but with a clear view of both the church and the belfry – at least she assumed it was a belfry – she saw the vicar. He was making his way through the churchyard and looked rather odd wearing a long duster-style coat as if he had stepped out of a spaghetti western or a Fields of the Nephilim video. He had a tank of something on his back with a spray gun in a holster. He also carried what looked like some sort of a gun. 
Ginny was no expert but it looked like the kind of gun her cousin Bradley had posed around with shooting tin cans from the garden wall one summer holiday in her early teens. Bradley had used it to shoot at pigeons too. That had been the summer she’d become vegetarian. So she was pretty sure the gun was nothing very dangerous unless it caught you in the eye.
Or unless you were a bat. 
But, surely not? This was a vicar not some crazy teenage cousin like Bradley. And Bradly was a semi-retired investment banker now. But the tank of chemicals on the vicar’s back spoke otherwise. 
Frozen to the spot by indecision, Ginny realised that even if she called the police the vicar could kill all the bats before help arrived. 
She wasn’t even aware she was up and running until she heard some mad-woman shouting abuse and realised it was herself and that she was running into the church behind the bat-hating vicar.
By the time she was inside he was unlocking the door to the belfry and he spun round. The lighting in the church must have been a bit odd because he looked as if his front teeth were too big to fit in his mouth properly and the whole of his face seemed to project towards her and she could have sworn his nose was twitching in anger. Then he stepped towards her and the strange effect was gone. His long coast swung back as he moved and she saw a wicked-looking hunting knife in a sheath on his belt.
“Ah, Virginia, so sorry but it’s a bit of a bad time. If you would like to join the flower arranging rota you’ll need to speak to Dolores St.John. She’s always keen for new recruits.”
As he spoke Ginny realised the gun – whatever sort it was – was pointing towards her.
“Uh. No. I wasn’t planning on–”
The vicar smiled, but instead of his usual rugged good looks, his mouth seemed rather narrow and in the subdued light, Ginny got the strangest impression of – fur.
“If it’s about writing a piece for the parish magazine, that would be wonderful. Thank you.” He took a step towards her which felt decidedly menacing. “You really should go now, Virginia, I have something important I need to do.”
“You’re not going to kill the bats.” Ginny had intended it to come out as a firm denunciation, but instead, it emerged from her mouth as more of a strangled squeak.
The vicar giggled.
“You’re not going to kill the bats,” he echoed mockingly. “Well that’s where you’re wrong Virginia Creeper. That is exactly what I am going to do. I’m going to eradicate every last flying rat from this belfry and you should leave right now.”
“But they’re protected!”
The vicar looked around theatrically.
“Doesn’t look like it to me. Not at the moment anyway.”
Common sense was sternly lecturing Ginny that this man was clearly deranged and that her best course would be to run from the church and call for help. But she knew if she did that the bats would indeed be unprotected. Instead, she took out her phone and started filming.
“If you do anything to the bats, I’ll show the world what kind of monster you are.”
Which was perhaps the worst – as well as the last – mistake of her life.
“Why did you say that, you stupid woman?”
The vicar seemed to bound across the distance between them in a single jump, knocking the phone from her hand. His face, thrust right into hers, was no longer human, but covered in soft brown and black fur, with round doe-like eyes. What had been his hair was now long ears.
The vicar was a giant rabbit.
The impossibility of that stunned her as the force of his bound hit her in the chest and Ginny was thrown backwards. She just had time to see the long yellow front teeth and the barrel of his gun caught the last rays of the setting sun through the narthex window as she fell, then her head hit the stone flags stones of the church floor and there was nothing.

Part 14 of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and Eleanor Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

Because life happens…

Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.

Dinner

The secret of living is this:
You don’t need ecstasy and bliss,
You just need a good man
Who knows how to – and can
Do the dinner when you are half-pissed

Eleanor Swift-Hook

There are some books one remembers distinctly from childhood because of the immense impact they had at the time on the developing individual. I have memories of A Wizard of Earthsea bound up in blood and trauma.

I was gifted the tome by some long forgotten maiden aunt of my pater’s who had included a hand scripted note saying how she thought the cover looked like it was ‘a good book for a little boy’. I should probably add that said maiden great-aunt was profoundly immersed in art deco, dadaism and surrealism. Left to myself I would not have opened the thing and would have slipped it into the bag of items Mumsie always kept for The Less Fortunate and shipped out to a charity shop once full.

But Pater had other plans. It seemed I was required not only to write a loquacious and sycophantic thank you letter to said maiden great-aunt, it was also required that I first read the wretched thing and pass comment upon how profoundly it had moved my innocent young soul. In other words, a review.

From the wisdom and experience of adulthood, I can look back fondly on my child-self and laugh at my puerile folly in thinking this was some show of esteem and affection for his aunt from my father. As I recall the inheritance netted him enough to double his investments overnight.

I still have the review, which I wrote with a cartridge pen on the back page of the book and in the process inflicted a paper-cut on my innocent childish fingers. My first ever.

My review of A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin.

A boy called Dunny, or Sparrowhawk or Ged is good at magic and goes to a kind of Hogwarts on an island. There he learns magic and gets in a fight with the school bully. He loses his shadow and he and his best friend have to find it again. 

It was a very annoying book because the boy could have won by using the magic stone but for some reason decided not to.

Stars: One and a half. 

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

In Devon, the railway runs right by the beaches
Past small sandy inlets and bright golden reaches
Then follows the river whose tides are so steep
Over salt-smelling marshes and waters so deep
In summer the sea is as blue as the sky
And reflects the white seagulls as they hover by
But in winter the waves crashing over the line
Carry the feeling of wildwind and brine
And over the railway the white salty spume
Collects in a way that defies any broom
In Devon the railway runs right by the sea
Which is almost as nice as you think it might be

Jane Jago

Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…

The emotion was getting a bit much for me when a sharp whistle announced it was time to put our plan into action. Somebody passed me an intricately embroidered fur parka to go over my cold weather suit and Moth smoothed my hair around me. Thistle proffered a pair of snow goggles and kissed his fingers.
“My brother is a lucky dragon.”
I grinned and Moth touched my cheek. “You do look beautiful, dear one.”
“Stay in the warm, beloved,” I said to her.
I stepped out of the van into about six inches of snow. It was going to be a bitch of a day for travel, but for now the snow clouds had blown over and the sun on the whiteness made me very glad of the smoked glasses.
The first sign of my erstwhile captors was the sound of booted feet crunching in the snow.
“I’m glad we don’t have far to go. This stuff is a bitch to drive on.”
I recognised the driver’s voice.
“If you’re such a wuss let me take the controls.”
That was the one who had been sitting in the back seat next to me.
The one I had thought of as the boss, with whom I now had an even more personal score to settle, spoke in his cold, pitiless baritone.
“As I have no wish to end up in a ditch, you will be in the back with the consignment.”
“You’re in charge.”
“I’m so glad you remembered that.”
They passed us, barely looking our way, and I saw three bulky killers. There was something not human about the way two of them walked and I understood them to be weres who rarely used human form. Bears if I wasn’t mistaken. The third was much more used to his human body. I pegged him as the driver and a were rodent of some sort. They were all hard, tough-looking specimens, and there might even be a fight here. I felt the call to arms singing in my blood and ruthlessly pushed it down.
Backseat thug was first to their vehicle. He pulled open the door and stuck his head in.
“Boss. She’s gone.”
“What do you mean gone? She’s just slid onto the floor.”
“No. She ain’t here.”
Cold voice wrenched open the door beside where I had been sitting. He stared into the empty vehicle.
“She didn’t get out on her own. Who has dared interfere with the business of the bear?”
This seemed as good a cue as any and I spoke into the cold air.
“I’m here. Come and get me if you are man enough to face a woman not drugged and manacled.”
The three spun around as if I pulled them on wires.
“Who helped you?” Cold voice was angry in a dangerously cool-headed way, and I needed to push him over the edge to a place where he had less control of his beast if we were not to have to kill him where he stood.
“What’s the matter, teddy bear? Can you only cope with women if they are tied so you can smack them around to your heart’s content?”
“You gonna let her talk to you like that boss?”
“Talk is cheap.”
But I could see him clenching and unclenching his big hands as the bear claws slipped in and out of the ends of his fingers.
“Talk may be cheap. But it’s less cowardly than stealing women and keeping them drugged and barely alive.”
He took a step forward and immediately there were a half a dozen dragons at my shoulder.
Mandrake spoke in a voice laden with contempt. “Was there something, bear?”
A cruel smile twisted cold voice’s face. “Thank you for holding my prisoner for me. We’ll be on our way now.”
“What makes you think that is going to happen?” Purslane made her voice light and mocking.
“The word of your Queen.”
“Saying what?”
“Saying that no dragon shall intervene in the dispute between house Lyon and house FitzRoy.”
Purslane laughed. “What does that have to do with anything here and now?”
“Don’t act any stupider than you are, female. That’s FitzRoy’s daughter being delivered to Lion for his justice.”
“Well. One of us is stupid,” Purslane placed her words as carefully as arrows, “but I don’t think it’s me. This lady is most certainly not the Lady FitzRoy. She is the mate of the battle dragon who stands at her shoulder. I’m sure you know how the whole of Dragonheart feels about anyone laying hands on it’s own.”
The bear was brave, but he was also outnumbered. He took a step back.
“We’ll say no more about it then.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Do you really think it will be that easy? You owe me a blood debt at the very least.”
“I owe you nothing. What business of a bear lord is a whore who spreads for a dragon?”
He had probably spent all his life thinking himself quick, but compared to an enraged shifter he was as slow as a running tortoise. No sooner had the word whore left his lips than I leapt on him, extruding four tiger claws on my left hand as I did so. He was uncomfortable enough in his human form to allow me to bear him to the ground in my initial rush. I slashed his perfect face once with my clawed hand, then retreated so fast that neither he nor his cohorts had any chance to lay hand on me.
I wasn’t even breathing heavily, but he was as he dragged himself to his feet. He touched the bleeding cuts that decorated his cheek with a shaking hand.
“I will kill you.”
“I doubt it, teddy bear.”
And that settled his hash for him. He lost it and his beast demanded to be set free. When he gave in and began the change his cohorts joined him.
Fools!
Every lycanthrope ever born knows it is folly to make the change when surrounded by enemies. But sometimes anger overrules common sense.
As they reached the vulnerable state between human and beast, two dragons grabbed each and bore them to the ground, pulling their arms behind their backs and affixing silver manacles to their wrists.
And there they were, trapped halfway between forms and powerless to do anything except what they were told. I turned my back and walked away.
Moth awaited me with a grim smile. “Bear will carry your mark for his life.”
“However long that may be.”
A rumbling roar announced the arrival of three hugely muscular tracked vehicles and the rest of the wing. All of whom looked to be spoiling for a fight.
Mandrake inflated his chest and blew out a column of violet-coloured flame. The dragons settled down.
Moth spoke urgently in my mind. ‘How do he? Why he does? I never sees dragon flame in human form before.’
I hastened to reassure her. ‘It’s because he’s a true fire lizard. He flamed then to remind the other dragons who is boss.’
‘Is good then.’

Jane Jago