Maryam sat with her back against the bole of an ancient olive tree and felt the warmth of the earth as a benison. She had stood, dry eyed, at the place of the skull until she was sure her husband was truly dead and then walked away. Walked until she could put one foot in front of the other no longer. She was very tired now.
Her swollen ankles throbbed, and the stranger in her belly moved so that a small hand or foot could briefly be seen pressing the loose linen of her robe. She felt a tear run down her face and wiped it away with her dusty fingers.
“Oh my love,” she said bitterly, “what of your promise now? Did you not vow to be mine for all our days?”
She thought she heard mocking laughter inside her head and recalled the smell of freshly worked wood in his father’s workshop on the day he told his parents he was going to marry her. His father had had smiled and nodded, but the woman who birthed him stared Maryam in the eyes.
“You won’t keep him, he’s not for the likes of you.”
And bitter Mary had been right. He was gone.
Gone, and if Maryam didn’t miss her guess they would be looking for her now. Her and her unborn child. The priests wouldn’t allow them to live to bear witness.
She touched her belly tenderly.
“I’m sorry little one. I’m sorry.”
Looking down the track she had followed from the place of crucifixion, she saw a cloud of dust in the bottom of the valley and knew the temple guard had found her trail. She shuddered with the understanding of the fate they had in store for her, and wondered if there was a way to kill herself before they found her and dragged her by back to the city by the hair.
But she had no way to end her agony.
Knowing herself beaten, Maryam looked towards the glory of the western sky in an attempt to store the beauty of the sunset to buttress her soul against what was to come. For a moment, she almost forgot her fear and sorrow in the splendour of the dying sun. Before the last streaks of orange dropped below the horizon she noticed a dark shape flying towards where she sat. It seemed unusual to her, being too big for any bird she had ever heard of and she stared as it came closer. Maryam caught her breath.
It was a great winged lizard and it flew purposefully towards her,
cupping its wings to land neatly on the grass before her. It dipped its head politely.
“Do I have the honour of addressing Maryam wife to Yesua of Nazareth?”
Maryam heaved herself to her feet and bowed.
“I am Maryam.”
The creature smiled reassuringly.
“My name is S’a’thur and I am a dragon. I am sent to offer you sanctuary.”
“Dragon? Sanctuary?”
S’a’thur gestured with his snout towards the column of dust now labouring up the slope towards the olive grove where Maryam rested.
She sighed. “They won’t let us live, will they?”
“No lady. They will rip the child from your womb and kill you both.”
“And you offer an alternative.”
“We do.”
“Why?”
“Because it amuses us to save the wife and unborn child of a man who was not supposed to have a wife, leave alone a daughter.”
Maryam looked measuringly at the creature then shrugged.
“It could not be worse than the Sanhedrin.”
The dragon bent a knee and the heavily pregnant woman clambered awkwardly into the space between his iridescent wings.
As they took off, the fittest of the temple guardsmen breasted the rise to see only the light reflecting on dragon wings. The man fell to his knees.
“An angel,” he said reverently. “I see an angel.”
Maryam laughed sardonically as her draconic transport turned on a wingtip and headed west.

© jane jago

The village well was running dry. Never in living memory – and some of the villagers enjoyed lengthy lifetimes – had the well ever been anything but brimful of sweet cold water.
What had happened?
A problem at the spring?
A band of hefty young men armed with shovels went to see. They returned puce-faced and angry. The precious water was being diverted to fill a lake her ladyship thought would look pretty in front of the Big House.
The vicar had a word, but returned empty-clawed and apoplectic.
He talked to Nanny. “Stupid woman doesn’t see how a village with no water is any of her problem. And himself is away at parliament until the middle of next month at least.”
“Oh well. What can be diverted can be undiverted.”
“Except she has men with guns guarding the valley.”
Nanny laughed and tapped her finger to the side of her nose.
Once she was alone she removed her boots snd socks and went to stand with her bare feet in the soil. She communed…
An hour later water started flowing into the well again.
“Thanks moles. The village owes you.”
She was answered by a deep laugh from somewhere underground.

©janejago

Dai pulled the man out of the computer chair. Njord might be big-boned but he clearly was not one to keep himself much in shape.
“The domina is asking you a polite question, Torkel. I am not quite so polite. I want to know how a virus that affects your security surveillance on two separate occasions could have got onto your system without you knowing about it.”
The blond man’s face had turned red as Dai’s grip tightened.
“I don’t know,” he gasped. “I told you. I didn’t even know it was a virus the first time. Even your people didn’t find that. I only found it after the second outage.”
Dai decided that as he was getting some degree of cooperation he could be generous and let go. Njord dropped back onto his chair again.
“So how could it happen?”
The blond man started pulling up information in streams that meant very little to Dai, but he could see Julia scanning it rapidly, her expression focused.
“Here,” Njord said and pushed a finger at a line of random numerals.
Dai tried to look as though he had some idea what it meant, but it was Julia who asked:
“So where is that? Have you a plan of the arena—a schematic to show where that is geographically?”
Dai saw the refusal form on the blond man’s lips.
“Torkel,” he cautioned, “I don’t need to remind you to be polite to the domina, do I?”
The blue eyes glared at him with hatred, but Njord pulled up a 3D schemata for the complex and stabbed his finger at a small flashing pixel on the lowest below-ground level. 
“It’s there,” he said.
“What’s there?”
“Absolutely nothing. It’s a blank wall.”
“So someone uploaded this whilst standing in that corridor.” Dai pointed to two clearly marked cameras even he could identify as such. “If we have the recordings from these for that time we—”
“You misunderstand,” Njord said. “If I am right and this is the signal that did it, then it was not uploaded from somewhere beside the wall—it was uploaded from somewhere inside the wall.”

The tunnel was an old one, dating back to the days they had fed people to the lions in the arena for denying the godhood of the divine Diocletian. When that had ceased to be a crime during the Enlightenment, the menagerie had become a place for keeping all the exotic animals a lanista might desire to put on interesting displays. But the animal fights had finally been outlawed throughout the Empire, along with slavery and discrimination on grounds of race or gender, a few years before Dai had been born. At which point the menagerie became a place to take your children to see the animals. The only deliberate deaths you could expect to witness in the arena nowadays were the public executions of traitors and murderers.
There was a popular joke that made much of the fact it was easier to get yourself accused of treason than murder. Even if you killed someone in front of witnesses you could get away with your life. But the slightest hint you might be involved in any anti-Roman activities and you would be arrested, tried and executed within the week. That was the usual job of the men Decimus had allocated to work with Julia and Dai, uncovering and arresting potential anti-Roman agitators, and Dai found it gave him an uncomfortable feeling between his shoulder blades every time he turned his back on them.
But it was their technology and their brawn which first found and then broke into the tunnel behind the wall and tracked along it in one direction to a manhole cover on the edge of the arena’s playing field and in the other to the menagerie.
At the menagerie end, it finished in a solid metal door. Whilst the Praetorians sent out for the appropriate equipment to break through. Dai and Julia left them to it and headed to the menagerie overground.

From Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. You can listen to this on YouTube.

Paddy Dog was never disobedient, on the contrary he was the epitome of good behaviour. He would come when called, sit on command, lie down and wait patiently outside the local shop for his owner.

And he hated water.

So when Paddy Dog jumped in the river, his owner was surprised, especially when Paddy Dog was pulling at something in the water and wouldn’t leave it even when called.

His owner, disgruntled, eventually went to see and found Paddy Dog trying to rescue a kitten which had fallen in the reeds.

Paddy Dog now has a friend called Tabby Cat.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Paris, 29 November 1642 (Gregorian Calendar)

In a splendid chamber of the Palais du Cardinal, which was one of the most splendid mansions in all of Paris, a man sat lost in deep reverie, his head resting on his hands as he leaned over a gilt and inlaid table, covered with documents. Behind him, a vast fireplace was alive with leaping flames. Thick logs blazed and crackled on brass-ended firedogs, their flickering brilliance combined with that of the wax lights set in the twin grand candelabra which illuminated the room.It occurred to him that if anyone had been there to see, and he thanked God they were not, they might have mistaken his cloak with its rich colour and golden thread for a gorgeous red simar, robes of office due to a cardinal. They might have thought that against all possible hope and expectation the owner of the Palais had risen to sit at this table and work.
But he had no time for such fancies. He creased his brow in anxious reflection as he bent over the list of names, grateful for the solitude of the suite of rooms he was in, relieved by the continued silence from the chamber beyond and aware, painfully aware, of the measured tread of the guards outside on the landing. They were there to ensure the safety of the master of the house. That thought made him shake his head. They could not any longer ensure the safety of a man who barely lingered now on the threshold of death, reluctant to release the agony of life for the promise of eternal bliss because he felt his work was not yet done.
And neither was his own work, the man in the red cloak knew. He had come to this room to find the document he needed, breaking into the private cabinet of L’Éminence Rouge, and now he had found it, a list of names. So it was merely a matter of choosing a name—choosing the right name. It was not a long list but from it he had to choose the name of a man with few connections in Paris, a man who had no friends in powerful places who might step in to defend him. He needed it to be one of the men on the list in his hand, because they were the only ones who could have had the right access—apart from himself, of course.
All the names were French and one or two he recognised, men he would very much enjoy seeing accused, humiliated, convicted, broken by torture and removed from life on the gallows. But he also knew they would have friends, family and possible patronage. It was not a risk he could afford to take.
Then he saw that there was one name on the list which did not belong to a Frenchman. A name he knew belonged to someone of no significance—someone who no one would stand up for, and no one would miss.
Smiling to himself, he replaced the list exactly where he had found it and left the room quickly before his presence there was noticed.

From The Physician’s Remedy, Book Four of The ‘Lord’s Legacy’ Sextet by E.M. Swift-Hook

Items of feminine apparel were going missing from washing lines. The summer sun and breeze was encouraging the washing of bed linens, winter clothing – and underwear.
But the underwear couldn’t always be found when the washing was picked in to be ironed.
Somebody somewhere was in possession of many pairs of linen bloomers, but nobody knew who.
The village constable investigated to no avail so he did what everyone did when something was above their pay grade – he went to see Nanny. The two of them sat in her fragrant garden, she was puffing on her pipe and he had a leather tankard of ale in one large pink hand.
“Us’v laid in wait, but when us does the he never comes. Un seems to know…”
“Then I suspect they does know.”
The constable scratched his head. “I don’t get it, missis.”
She patted his meaty arm. “Never mind. You just leave it with me.”
He finished his beer, belched quietly and left.
At sundown Nanny had a conversation with a friendly magpie before making her way into the forest.
She sat on a fallen tree.
“I’m waiting.”
Nothing happened for a while, but then a procession of strange little people came into sight.
Fauns wearing linen coifs and with white linen bloomers covering their hairily goatish lower limbs.
Nanny sighed. It was going to be a long night.

©janejago

Pigglety Pigglety Poo by Julie Kusma illustrated by Jane Jago

Pigglety Pigglety Poo is a cumulative tale with a formula-predictive pattern featuring a menagerie of silly animals. First, a purple pig in a petunia patch. Next, a few monkeys mucking about, maybe a frolicking frog or two, and the next thing you’ll know is you’re in the middle of the wackiest, wildest animal caper ever. Each line builds into an increasingly deeply-nested nonsense verse full of alliteration and repetition. It’s a fun Read-Aloud story beautifully illustrated by none other than the talented Jane Jago herself and edited by the gifted Jill Yoder.

This non-rhyming cumulative tale is for ages 3 to 6. It is comparable to other cumulative stories like “The Lot at The End of My Block” and “And the Robot Went.” As well as classics like “The House That Jack Built,” “There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly,” and “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”

A bite of the creators of this sweet little book…

Julie Kusma first:

Why a children’s book? It’s not precisely your usual stamping ground so what inspired it?

Great question, and yes, a children’s book does seem out of my wheelhouse. However, I wrote this story roughly five years ago during ENG550: Graduate Studies in the English Language. My final paper, The Power of Seussisms, discussed the significant role phonology and morphology played in creating neologism nonsense words in Geisel’s books. In fact, his mastery of linguistic elements generated the whimsical tone and the anapestic tetrameter that we all know as the voice and style of Dr. Seuss. I was temporarily overtaken and wrote this and three other children’s books that I plan to publish.

If you could meet one person (alive or dead) who would you choose? And what would you talk about?

Always a tricky question for me. My mother, I suppose. She died when I was nine, so it would be lovely to chat with her as adults. Of course, asking what the afterlife is really like would be at the top of my questions-for-her list.

Can you recall the first book that grabbed you by the gonads and shook your world?

So many books have influenced me, but the one that shook my world? Chariots of the Gods by Erich von Däniken. I was thirteen when my brother-in-law handed me his paperback copy. I read this book with fervor. My mind opened to the possibility that the world we think we know as true might very well be a story that others populated for their own purposes. Question everything, putting the writer’s “what-if” at the top of your list.

Now Jane Jago :

What was the best part of doing illustrations for a children’s book?

I think I enjoyed the idea of making animals accessible to children – by making them friendly and whimsical without being cartoons.

And what was the biggest challenge?

The zebra. All those stripes. Do you have any idea how complicated a zebra’s stripes are? They are neither straight nor uniform. But getting them nailed was a real head rush. And he sure is cute

I know you are not allowed favourites, but which did you most enjoy creating?

It’s just not possible to have one favourite from so many, but if I was pushed I might admit a fondness for the little bee.

You can find Julie Kusma on Instagram and Twitter and Jane Jago right here, or on Twitter and Facebook.

Autographed copies of the book will be available by June 1 from Julie Kusma’s Website.

It was a pretty thing with fairies, rainbows and unicorns. It had hung in the second-hand shop for as long as Merielle could remember. She loved it, but you can’t buy cot-toys when you’re a young woman living the life, can you?

When she fell pregnant, the mobile was still in the shop window, sparkling in the sun. Merielle got it cheaply, the shopkeeper said he was glad to see it go.

When baby Amelia was born Merielle hung the pretty mobile above her cot. Until one morning Amelia was gone – and all the fairies were gone from the cot-toy.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The adventures of Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson.

The creak of harness heralded the arrival of the strangest conveyance Bearson had seen in a long time. It was a large four-wheeled cart or covered wagon, with high curtained walls behind which there could be discerned the outline of stout bars. There was about it the rich smell of some carnivore and occasionally the barred sides shook. The equipage was pulled by a team of four heavy horses, whose driver was a short massively muscled man with a multiplicity of tattoos. When the walls behind him shook, he spoke comfortingly in a dialect beyond the understanding of even Homes.
The newcomer drew his strange vehicle to a halt at a careful distance from the hobbled donkey, which, even so, flared its nostrils and would have brayed loudly had not Yore leaped from his seat and grabbed it by the muzzle.
“Can you back off a bit, or I’m liable to lose this beast and the cart into yonder bog.”
The tattooed gent carefully backed his vehicle away and Homes left the donkey cart in to converse with the newcomer in a low voice.
“What do you reckon our skinny friend is up to?” Yore breathed.
“Honestly? I have no more idea than you. You know what he is like. Cards clutched to his scrawny chest until the last second.”
Yore grunted. “Well I’m keeping my hand on my revolver just in case.”
Bearson said nothing, merely displaying the grip of his own revolver for Yore to see.
The sun was just lifting over the eastern horizon when Bearson felt, rather than heard, a sound similar to the one Homes had made the previous night. Almost at once the tattooed gentleman’s cart began to rock alarmingly and whatever was inside it started making eerie ululating noises that ripped apart the quiet of the morning air.
Homes showed his teeth. “Yore, Bearson. Hold your fire unless you are in mortal danger.”
“Aye, aye, cap’n.” Yore spoke sarcastically, but Bearson understood that he would obey Homes.
The noises from the covered cart were becoming louder and louder and the rocking seemed almost fierce enough to overturn the equipage. Before the carriage was altogether overset there came a sound as if the paws of some great dog were slapping on the ground and all eyes turned towards the sound.
“What is it, man?” Yore was heard to ejaculate.
“You’ll soon see.”
The creature that broke out of the high bracken was enormous, and tawny striped with black. It was only visible for a very few seconds before the tattooed gentleman opened a door in his wagon and the creature disappeared.
“But. But. But…” Yore spluttered. “That’s not a dog.”
“No. It’s a tiger. An orange, bouncing tiger.”
Yore ground his teeth. “Orange, bouncing ‘dog’ to the old man. I see. But how did it get here?”
“You are about to find out, I think.”
The woman who followed the tiger out of the high bracken was tall and carried a curled stock whip in her right hand.
At first, Bearson thought it was the woman who had driven them across the muir the previous night, but then he realised this woman was older, and harder looking although there was an obvious resemblance.
She glared at the two carriages.
“I’m looking for my pet.” This woman’s voice was harsh and her accent was transatlantic.
Homes bowed. “Your pet, madam?”
“Yes. The pesky critter has a habit of escaping.”
“And frightening people close to death?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do…”
She laughed, but it was a sound that tore at the throats of those who heard it. “Doesn’t a man who abandons his wife and child deserve a little fright?”
Yore cleared his throat. “The game’s up. Old Sleepytown died last night. So the charge is murder.”
The woman laughed and dropped her whip. Instead of turning back the way she came she ran into the jaws of the bog.
Yore made to go after her, but Bearson restrained him. “Leave her. That’s a mire out there. You don’t want to end your life sinking in stinking mud.”
“But she’s getting away.”
“She won’t get far,” Homes said sadly. “The waymarker poles have been moved so the safe path through the mire no longer exists.”
He stood at the edge of the unnatural greenness as the sun rose and burned away the mists from the muirland.
Yore looked at the tiny figure of the great detective and shook his great head.
“Churches la fem,” he said sadly, “churches la fem”.

Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson may return with a new investigation later in the year…

Jane Jago

The month of May, the month of May
Time to see the lambs at play
Time to see the the buds bursting
As nature launches into spring

The month of May, the month of May
Time to go outside and stay
Time to watch the birds take wing
As nests they build new life to bring

The month of May, the month of May
Time to welcome each new day
Time the windows wide to fling
So the freshness can flood in.

The month of May, the month of May
Time to set aside the grey
Time to smile, dance and sing
For summer is icummen in.

E.M. Swift-Hook