It was his grandmother’s final wish, formalised in her will:

And to Mungo, I bequeath the contents of my safety deposit box, provided he keeps his word to me and marries within the year.

Mungo, the eldest son of a duke and in his thirties, hadn’t shown interest in marriage, although often seen with various celebrity women but now speculation mounted.

A year after his grandmother’s funeral, at a private ceremony, Mungo married his secret commoner lover of many years. The ring, his grandmother’s, had been in the lockbox.

Mungo proudly introduced his new husband to the family soon after.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Take this exclusive opportunity to explore the mysteries of the zodiac through the wisdom of the esoterically enigmatic Madam Pendulica…

Aries. 

This sign sheepishly admits to being peopled by lovers of light opera and Europop.

Favourite tune: Fernando by Abba

Taurus.

Slow and stately, this sign is fond of Germanic opera of the sort that takes most of a day to listen to.

Favourite tune: Welch’ wunderbar Erwarten  from Das Liebesverbot

Gemini.

Any kind of a duet will suit Gemini. The soppier and more romantic the better.

Favourite tune: Save Your Love by Renee and Renato 

Cancer.

In spite of the characteristic sideways scuttle of this most crepuscular of signs they are drawn to the musical excitement of the female marching band.

Favourite tune: Congratulations – played on the xylophone 

Leo.

Lions are creatures that deeply value their sleep therefore any lullaby will do.

Favourite tune: O mio babbino caro

Virgo.

The primness of the Virgo psyche is perfectly matched by the innocence of nineteen fifties popular music.

Favourite tune: Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzenellen Bogen By The Sea, by Max Bygraves

Libra.

Weighing up the relative merits of styles of music has been a Libran preoccupation for many years culminating in a passion for Amazonian nose flute terpsichory.

Favourite tune: Anything nasal

Scorpio.

The Scorpio affinity with fast motorcycles, black leather and bad boy sex means that nothing but rock will do.

Favourite tune: Born to be Wild by Steppenwolf  

Sagittarius.

The Sagittarian equineness predisposes them to the enjoyment of intensely rhythmic music. Notably that of Germanic extraction.

Favourite tune: A Walk in the Black Forest by Horst Jankowski

Capricorn.

Capricorn is the rock and roll sign, and the zodiacal goat can be pacified in almost any situation by the application of Elvis Presley.

Favourite tune: Jailhouse Rock by the above gentleman

Aquarius.

Aquarians like smooth flowing watering music. 

Favourite tune: Orinoco Flow by Enya

Pisces.

Pisceans have surprisingly catholic musical tastes. They will listen to anything as long as it is loud and immersive.

Favourite tune: Brown Sugar by The Rolling Stones

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return…

Today our amble took us to the tops
Where yellow gorse like honey spikes the air
Below, the grumbling tractors tend their crops
Up here the land is quiet, wide and bare
And no one walks this pitted granite street
Except we two beneath a hazy sky
It almost seems that ours are the first feet
And, looking outwards, ours are the first eyes
The turf, now coarse and springy, bears no sound
Until a calling kestrel silence splinters
A sudden breeze comes spinning round and round
An echo of the killing wind of winter 

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…

Chapter One – Taken (part two)

After an appreciable time Seth spoke. “It really is dead. Just leave it where it is and get the rest back on the bus.”
I heard the sound of a gun being cocked and hoped whoever would at least go for a head shot. The sound of a blow was much louder than the metallic click.
“What the frag do you think you are doing you motherfragger?” Seth sounded furious.
“Jest making sure it’s dead.”
“Well don’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because if we leave it where it is and how it is, somebody is going to find it and it’ll be easy to reckon it froze to death somehow. You stick a bullet in it and they gotta investigate.”
“Oh. I guess.” The voice was grudging, then it changed to thickly lustful. “Can I just?”
“No. For frag’s sake it’s only a kid. Leave it. Find a willing one from the rest. And get the bloody females back on the bus right now. We wasted enough time on a deader. The males are already half an hour ahead, and now it’s started snowing again.”
I smiled internally at being described as a child. I’m actually somewhere around eight hundred years old, but I’m slim, soft skinned and peachy enough to easily be mistaken for a teenager – unless you look into my eyes.
While the hustle and bustle of departure went on around me the snow fell, at first lightly but it soon became a blinding blizzard. I was beginning to think I really might freeze to death beside this rough road when I felt a touch on my skin. I was being wrapped in something that looked like snow – only it wasn’t it was snowbird feathers warm from the sun. My bond partner, Moth, had found me and I called down silent blessings on her tiny head. As my body came back from the edge of freezing, I watched the loading of the bus through half closed eyes. It was time to gather evidence.
I used my camera implant to photograph Seth, his stupid companion, another hefty guy with a rifle, the plant, the bus and as many of the females as I could.
The engine started, and after a moment or two belching noxious fumes the bus moved away. It didn’t seem to me to be moving fast enough and I idly wondered if the engine might be sick. But then my brain woke up. The bus was waiting for someone. The question was who? Moth had obviously come to the same conclusion, because I couldn’t see, hear, or smell her. He broke out of the woods in his animal form: the biggest wolf I had ever seen. As soon as his feet hit the rutted tarmac he made the change. There wasn’t a break his stride as the grey wolf became a lean, tanned human. Naked and as fine as he could be. He leapt into the cab of the bus, as I took the necessary photographs of the one who betrayed his own.
I knew he would be unable to leave without assuring himself I was really dead and so did Moth as the snowbird quilt disappeared. The cold was almost harder to bear this time and my head swam. What dragged me back from the edge of oblivion was the knowledge that the double-dealing bastard would have won if I let my hold on my faculties slip. I dragged my mind back to pinpoint sharpness and held breath. Just in time as somebody jumped lightly out of the bus and walked over to where I lay in the snow. I could feel the cold burn of his eyes and I knew if I looked up I would be skewered by their blueness. However, I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.
Eventually he spoke, and the voice that had seduced a thousand women had lost none of its potency, but I was armoured by anger and all I could hear was the treachery that underlay his beauty.
“I guess you really are dead. In which case.”
Some instinct forewarned me what the tiny sound of a zipper portended and I composed myself. The stream of urine was at least warm as he directed it over my face. When he had finished he laughed although it was a harsh, tearing sound that held no amusement.
“You always said you’d kill me before I scent marked you. Seems like I killed you instead.”
I heard him turn away as the acrid smell of him filled my nostrils. I mentally added his name to the list of those who wouldn’t see the next dawn. I didn’t dare open my eyes as the sockets were filled with piss, but I the sound of him whistling as he walked away pierced me like a Toledo blade.

Jane Jago

Somewhere high in some mountains near you lives the Oracle…

The sort of afternoon where bees drone lazily and even geeks feel the pull of nature. The oracle and Watson had just enjoyed scones and cream donated by the wife of an important man who had had his certainties shifted by the old woman and her mountain.
Watson stretched lazily. “You never did finish telling me how you came to stay here.”
“No. I didn’t, did I?” She grinned and he was put in mind of a crocodile in a zoo that had terrified him when he was a small child. “Now where was I?”
Having come to understand that the oracle possessed a mind like a gin trap, Watson wasn’t actually surprised when she homed in on the exact moment when she broke off her story.
“Yes. Right. Anyway. Once the consortium that owns this place understood I was preparing to up sticks they came in with a much better offer. So I stayed.”
“Do they pay you?”
“Yup. I’ve got a nice little nest egg against the day winters up here get too hard for me. Plus, of course I get good food delivered and my living cave is snug and cozy…”
She stopped talking at the sound of laboured breathing from the vertiginous path from the valley gate.
“Scram, boy. And remind me to find out why the bell ain’t working properly.”
He shot into the cave where he composed himself to listen.
The head that appeared over the ridge was balding and red, and glistened with sweat. The rest of the figure was spare and muscular and dressed in the serviceable gear of a well-to-do working farmer. Watson thought he looked rather more sensible than the average supplicant. But looks can be deceiving.
The man bowed and put the basket he was carrying at the oracle’s feet.
“Fresh bread. Our best cheese. Honey from the apple orchard.” Then he stood and sort of scraped his boots on the gravelly ground.
The oracle’s laugh wasn’t unkind, and when she spoke it was without her usual mockery.
“What can the mountain do for you?”
“A man needs a son.” He blurted it out then said no more.
“We could debate that point, but if we pretend I agree with you how is that the business of the Oracle of High Places?”
“Because my wife has given me only daughters.”
“Five, I believe.”
He nodded. “But a man needs sons to carry on his name. It don’t matter if he loves his daughters they say. It don’t matter if he…” He stopped speaking and his face was a study in misery. But he pulled himself together and carried on though it obviously cost him dear. “I have been advised to put Bertha aside and take another wife.”
The oracle hissed. “Advised. By whom?”
“My neighbour. Who put aside his barren wife and took a young widow. She was brought to bed of a fine son last month.”
The oracle sighed and Watson saw the second she rolled her eyes back in her head, because the farmer lost his ruddy colour. She spoke in the rolling cadences of the oracle and her voice echoed around the hilltop.
“Beware the advice of fools. Your way does not march with that of a man who is giving his name to bastard seed.”
She stopped speaking while the man in front of her squawked and shuffled his feet.
“But. But. But…”
“But what?” The oracle was using her normal person acerbic voice.
“The mountain said…”
Then he bethought himself and closed his mouth.
The oracle chuckled. “Oh. One of them things was it?”
He nodded mutely. “Seems like I won’t be getting a son to leave the farm to.” He sounded as if the news weighed him down greatly.
The oracle laughed. “You’ve years in you yet. Go home and await the birth of the tribe of grandsons I see in your future. Don’t be blaming your wife for what fate decreed.”
Watson saw the farmer smile. “That’s true. And me and the old girl have been through a lot together. I wasn’t looking forward to life without her.”
Then he bowed deeply before hurrying off, a much happier man than when he arrived.
The oracle turned her spectacularly gummy grin on Watson.
“You’d have thought a farmer would have a better grasp of biology…”

Jane Jago

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

On Friday its good to remember
Monday was just yesterday
Life jumps from May to September
While sand in the glass drains away
Grab every smile and each sorrow
Squeeze from life all that you may
Nobody’s promised tomorrow
Only the gift of today

Jane Jago

A dear friend, who I shall refer to henceforward as Adonis, seeks to improve his grasp of the English tongue by reading the ‘classics’. He chose this particular tome on the recommendation of the drunken harridan that is one’s own distaff parent. One read with him from a sense of solidarity, but rather wishes one hadn’t.

My Review

Overview: A man with a preposterous name thinks he is somebody he isn’t. There is a convict, and a madwoman who insists on wearing a motheaten wedding dress. And none of it makes any sense.

Adonis cried at some of the words this author put in the madwoman’s mouth. In particular this, which he quoted for day upon boring day: ‘I stole her heart away and put ice in its place.’

Myself, I am made of sterner stuff and found it difficult to understand why the ‘hero’ is so poor spirited as to put up with the treatment he receives at the hands of the icy Estella.

No, mes amis. This book is not for one. It is convoluted and confusing and it doesn’t even feature a decently happy ending.

One reluctantly awards it two stars for the sparkle of tears in Adonis’  cerulean blue eyes.

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.

The village bus used to run twice daily. Most days the bus was half-full. Then, to save money, it was made twice weekly – in one direction on Monday morning and back again on Thursday morning. Which was no good for anyone.

A year later they stopped it.

The Councillor gave me his vague political smile.

“We would reopen the bus service, but there is no demand. No one used it. If people wanted a bus service they’d have used it.” 

Irrefutable logic.

Then he got in his Mercedes and drove off.

Marie Antionette would have been so proud of him.

Eleanor Swift-Hook.

Take this exclusive opportunity to explore the mysteries of the zodiac through the wisdom of the esoterically enigmatic Madam Pendulica…

Aries.

Aries needs a lot of cold fresh air to keep that prodigious brain and fiery temperament under control. Always live in a house with large opening windows and air conditioning.

Ideal Location

Halfway up a mountain preferably in the Andes, Alps or Appalachians.

Taurus.

Taureans dislike change and usually die in the same town – often the same house – where they were born.

Ideal Location

The Bull should avoid Spain for obvious reasons. If you can persuade one to move, try to make it somewhere the architecture has preservation orders on it.

Gemini.

Gemini is always in two minds about the best place to live. Their Mercurial natures are never satisfied with where they are and seek to move frequently to somewhere completely different.

Ideal Location

There is no such thing for a Gemini. I suggest having a home base in a large and populous city and several time-share holiday homes in many and varied environments around the globe.

Cancer.

Home loving Cancer carries their home with them wherever they go. It is Cancer who will tell you that home is a state of mind, not a place. Which only goes to show they are not the brightest bunch in the astrological bouquet.

Ideal Location

An island suits the crab.

Leo.

The lion needs sunshine and lots of it. Be sure to decorate your lair with primary shades and plenty of bright foliage. A large hearth for the winter is essential.

Ideal Location

Africa. Where else would you expect?

Virgo.

You can tell you have walked into the home of a Virgo because everything is in its place and there is a place for everything.  Spouses and children quickly learn where their place is and take care not to leave it – ever.

Ideal Location

An ultra-modern minimalist tower-block just about anywhere.

Libra.

Librans seek balance in all aspects of their life, so their homes will be both practical and creative, clean and messy, well-maintained and falling to pieces. Do check the furniture before you sit on it.

Ideal Location

Belgium

Scorpio.

Scorpians are children of the desert. Therefore they require sun and sand in equal measure. If those are lacking a house themed on the orange-through-yellow aspect of the spectrum might suffice – and access to a large bucket and spade.

Ideal Location

Scorpios are suckers for the exotic so their desert climate needs to come with romance attached. Marrakesh or Samarkand spring to mind.

Sagittarius.

The horse needs to run and wide open spaces are essential for Sagitarrian well being. Single-floor dwelling is best, hooves don’t so so well with stairs, so keep with a bungalow or a ground floor apartment.

Ideal Location

Somewhere in the middle of the Great Plains – North Dakota looks ideal. Failing that Cambridge.

Capricorn.

The goat has to have hills and high ground. Buy that house at the end of a precipitous, narrow, driveway or the one accessed only by five flights of steep stairs from the street and Capricorn is in heaven

Ideal Location

The very top of a mountain is best. If you can’t manage that, try Switzerland or Nepal.

Aquarius.

Aquarians need psychedelic decor, floor cushions and beanbags. They will probably have their walls plastered with posters of strange astrological symbols and views of sacred sites.

Ideal Location

Glastonbury or somewhere in Wiltshire not too far from Stonehenge.

Pisces.

A fish needs to swim. Wherever a Pisces might make home it must include a pool – or failing that a large bathtub.

Ideal Location

A beach hut.

Madame Pendulica predicts she will return…

Hope springs eternal, but, for why?
It’s magic lending wings to fly
Lifting hurt hearts upto the sky
To sink again when truth comes by.

Hope springs eternal like the flowers
Called forth by each seasons powers
Building schemes into strong bowers
Until the truth its scheming sours.

Hope springs eternal from the rocks
Of grim reality’s brutal knocks
Its key the door of dreams unlocks
And from those dreams the waking shocks.

Hope springs eternal, as the stars
But an unfaithful lover mars
The lives of those whose touch it tars
When truth the whole illusion jars.

Hope springs eternal, weaves a rope
With which we bind ourselves to cope
With all that life throws in our scope
And this illusion springs from hope.

E.M. Swift-Hook