The first Valentines Day they were together he bought her lilies. A huge bunch of wickedly expensive lilies. She hated lilies, but she was too polite and too much in love to say so.

She lived to bitterly regret her maidenly politeness, as he bought her lilies on every special occasion. Even insisted she carried the horrors in her wedding bouquet.

For better than forty years, the cloying scent of stargazer lilies dogged her footsteps. 

The day she awoke to find him cold and still in their bed etched itself on her brain with just three words. 

‘No more lilies.’

©️jj 2020

Alice dressed with neatness and propriety before carefully coiling  and pinning her hair. She was aware that her neighbours thought her an oddity to bother with her appearance when she would see nobody from one day’s end to the next. Her immediate neighbour, she knew, spent all day in a dressing gown and could be heard singing maudlin ditties as the gin took effect.
Alice thought of it as ‘lock-down fever’, and although she could halfway understand the desperation of the lonely people who surrounded her, she had no intention of succumbing to temptation. She reckoned routine was the antidote to madness so she showered, dressed, and groomed her hair before breakfasting at the table dressed with an embroidered linen cloth and her pretty china.
This particular morning she looked critically at her reflection, wondering when she had become so old before walking carefully into her tiny kitchen and putting the kettle on. 
As she ate her toast she remembered that today was Wednesday. Which meant an uncomfortable Skype conversation with her daughter. It had, she privately thought, been better before lock-down when her daughter’s elastic conscience could be placated by a monthly coffee in Waitrose’s cafe. But now, of course, it would look bad if they didn’t speak at least once a week. 
Wednesday at eleven o’clock had been fixed on as a time that would be convenient to both. Or, to be more accurate, convenient to Chloe, who still managed to be frantically busy when nobody was allowed to go anywhere.
But before then there was a table to be cleared and dishes to be washed. 
With her few simple chores done, Alice powered up the laptop it had taken her the best part of a year to master. She had an hour to play Scrabble against the world and relax her mind before the frustration of the weekly duty call.
The big surprise when she tried to find her game was that it wouldn’t come up. Instead the familiar face of her errant husband smiled at her from the screen.
“Hello Alice.”
“Jim?”
“Yes it’s me. How are you, love?”
“Not so bad. You?”
“As you see me. Just the same as ever. But. Alice. I want to say sorry.”
Alice shook her head, but she found herself smiling. Jim could always make her smile. 
“What are you sorry for?”
He looked uncomfortable. “You know, love.”
“Maybe I do.”
“I was being an idiot.”
“Not for the first time.”
“But I never meant to leave you.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you meant it or not. The result was the same.”
“It was, love. And I’m so sorry.”
Alice smiled at him, thinking how handsome he looked, and how much like a schoolboy caught out in a prank.
“What do you want me to say, Jim?”
“I don’t know. Maybe that you still love me. Even though..”
“Of course I still love you, Jim. You can’t stop loving a person just because they behaved stupidly.”
“Are you lonely, Alice?”
She suddenly felt cross. 
“Of course I’m lonely. Bloody lonely.”
“Sorry. That was crass of me. But there was a serious point to my question. If you could be with me again, even knowing what an old fool I can be, would you do it?”
Alice dashed the foolish tears from her eyes.
“Of course I would. You may be an old fool, but you are my old fool.” 
He smiled at her and it seemed as if the years fell away leaving him the brash young man who she first fell for all those years ago.
“Right then girl, you get to choose. Self-isolation or throw in your luck with me.”
“I’ll come with you please, Jim. Wherever you are. Just tell me what to do.”
“You put your hand in mine like you did on our wedding day.”
Alice was wondering how she could put anything in anything when a big brown hand appeared to come out of the screen. It was a leap of faith, but Alice found the courage to put her own hand on his palm. For a moment she felt foolish as she was touching nothing, but then the flesh beneath her fingers solidified and she felt herself being pulled gently out of her aged flesh. As her head fell forward onto the table her heart soared in gratitude.
“I’m coming Jim,” she cried. “I’m coming.”
They found her with her perfectly coiffed head resting on her folded arms and a smile on her lips….

©️Jane Jago 2020

The collected ‘wisdom’ of seven decades on this planet condensed into limerick form. Certainly not philosophy to live your life by…

A poet was feeling so screwed
That he tore all his papers in two
The dread seventeen 
Was turning him green
Coz he just couldn’t write a haiku

©️jj

Welcome to the craziest and most inconsequential of lives…

Bearing all before them

Obviously I have my own opinions on fashion. I am a believer in the old
saying that, ‘A gentleman wears his clothes, they do not wear him.’ This has the advantage of explaining why my jacket and trousers need not necessarily match and occasionally hang more loosely than the current style dictates.
When it comes to hair, I get it cut occasionally and try to ensure that it
neither gets so long that people assume I am a musician, nor so short I am mistaken for one of the criminal classes. 
For the ladies it is obvious that those who reach a certain level of affluence must needs keep a far closer eye on fashion than ever I do.
Indeed, necessity ensures that I am more up-to-date on women’s fashion than I am with regard to men’s. After all I have to be prepared to reassure a hostess or boost the morale of one of her guests. Indeed with some of my patrons I might even, in some small way, play a minor part in setting the fashion for the coming season. After all a short verse can remain in memory long after some sartorially inspired rant has faded from mind.

Chiffon and lace
Can grace
Any lady.
Advance apace
Embrace
This mantua in navy.

But I confess that when it comes to how a lady should dress her hair I remain obdurately silent. I am willing to praise the end result. I am fluent enough to talk about how the hair ‘frames’ the face, but otherwise I can feel entirely out of my depth.
Yet I have noticed over the years that styles will slowly get more and more complicated until the crescendo eventually reaches a climax and suddenly all is simplicity again.
This has happened comparatively recently. Over a period of years hair was not merely worn ‘up’ but was plaited to within an inch of its life. Then there seemed to be a burst of spontaneous madness. Whereas hair might be kept up with pins, other ladies obviously had different ideas. I saw one lady who had her maid weave her hair around a small basket containing a rather elegant flower arrangement. Well that opened the floodgates. I saw ladies whose coiffure included mirrors, stuffed animals, a ship in full sail, and in one case a birdcage containing a singing bird.
The problems these hair-styles imposed upon the lady displaying them were many. Obviously a skilled maid, with assistance, could create it. The lady merely had to walk with a straight back, move with stately grace, and sit down and stand up with care. It must be confessed that those ladies who could ‘carry off’ these styles were ladies of magnificent deportment and elegance. But even with these natural advantages, actually getting to the ball to which you had been invited was a major exercise. The timing and execution had to be with a precision senior condottieri captains could have studied to their advantage. Let us take as our example, Madam Twell. Four hours before the time she needs to leave she is dressed and her maids make their assault on her hair. Three highly skilled young women labour mightily and Madam Twell sits motionless, save to obey their instruction to, “Tilt  a little to the left,” or, “Now raise your chin.” At times Madam is invisible, hidden behind a forest of stepladders. 
Then she is ready. The sedan chair awaits. But obviously no ordinary sedan chair can carry Madam. The one summoned has no roof. But what if it rains?
Fear not, the procession sets off. There is the chair with the two bearers.
Madam is protected from the elements by what might be regarded as a canvas marquee. It is supported by a pole at each corner, and a maid carries each pole. Around this centrepiece are deployed half a dozen burly footmen, their purpose is to stop anything impeding the advance of their convoy. A path is cleared through the traffic, small boys who might throw horse dung are kept outside easy throwing distance, and rival coiffurists are prevented from gaining too close a look at the edifice before it is revealed in all its glory at the ball. Making up the number is the butler and under-butler.
Then comes the arrival at the ball itself. On the invitation itself the hostess will normally pen a number in the top left corner. This is the height of the ceiling in the principle room. Thus if the number is, for example, fifteen, the lady knows she can safely wear her hair up so it is twice the height of a man. But beware, what if the grand entrance is only ten? Or the corridor one processes along a mere nine? In this case Madam is forewarned. Her maid reconnoitred the venue and Madam Twell, the shrewd campaigner that she is, is prepared. At the main entrance the under-butler steps forward and places a wheeled tray on the ground under the sedan chair.
Gratefully the bearers lower the chair onto the tray and together they wheel the chair down the corridor into the ballroom. 

Like a woodman hauling his cart down the grundle
Sturdy chairmen sweat and swear
Cursing a misjudged stair
As madam to the ballroom they trundle

Once there, Madam Twell is handed from her chair by her husband. (This latter gentleman left half an hour after her to ensure that he was in time to provide this invaluable service.) He escorts her to greet her hostess. (Again under these circumstances I would always recommend that, should the hostess have a husband, he too is present. I have found that the presence of one husband might temper any mordant comments, but the presence of both seems to guarantee good behaviour.)
Honour satisfied, the husband will drift off, unobserved, to sit with his cronies and comment unfavourably on modern fashion, the failings of the young, and other topics which guarantee mutual agreement. 
Supernumerary gentlemen thus disposed of, the dancing may now commence.
Less than a week after the events I have described, the youngest Mistress Hamdwill appeared with close cropped hair which accentuated her gaminbeauty. A week later, throughout society, bewildered husbands discovered they had longer hair than their wives. 

And now a brief note from Jim Webster.

It’s really just to inform you that I’ve just published two more collections of stories.
The first, available on kindle, is

More of the wit, wisdom and jumbled musings of Tallis Steelyard. Meet a vengeful Lady Bountiful, an artist who smokes only the finest hallucinogenic lichens, and wonder at the audacity of the rogue who attempts to drown a poet! Indeed after reading this book you may never look at young boys and their dogs, onions, lumberjacks or usurers in quite the same way again.

A book that plumbs the depths of degradation, from murder to folk dancing, from the theft of pastry cooks to the playing of a bladder pipe in public.

The second, available on Kindle or as a paperback, is

Once more Tallis Steelyard chronicles the life of Maljie, a lady of his acquaintance. Discover the wonders of the Hermeneutic Catherine Wheel, marvel at the use of eye-watering quantities of hot spices. We have bellringers, pop-up book shops, exploding sedan chairs, jobbing builders, literary criticism, horse theft and a revolutionary mob. We also discover what happens when a maiden, riding a white palfrey led by a dwarf, appears on the scene.

Emily poured Theo his Earl Grey tea in a delicate cup. It always struck her as funny, how someone so large and so intensely male could so enjoy the ritual of afternoon tea. But he had always loved everything about it, and because she loved him she had learned to love it too.

As he ate she watched him, storing memories for yet another lonely year.

The clock struck four and their precious hour was gone. But he didn’t waver and disappear. 

“You can come with me if you will.”

Emily stepped out of her body and took his hand. 

©️jj 2020

From ‘Dying to be Fleeced’ one of the bonus short stories in The Second Dai and Julia Omnibus  by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago which is FREE to download 6 – 10 May 2020.

“Sheep.”
Dai pointed to the tussock pocked hillside that veered up sharply from the bottom of the valley. These sheep were a hardy local breed with grey-white fleeces and small curling horns. They moved with agility over the rocky slope, their flock spread out into groups, pairs and singletons.
It was early morning and the report of a new theft had them driving through the wild country that formed the hinterland between Viriconium and the coast.
“The first question I have,” Bryn said, his own gaze firmly on the narrow road ahead as it wound along beside a stream at the bottom of the valley, “is how do you take sheep from a hillside like that? I mean it’s not like they are in a field and you can just wave your arms at them and back up a trailer to the gate. You couldn’t bring something big enough to carry all those along a road like this anyway.”
They were heading out to the small crofting farm which had been the victim of the last sheep rustling incident, in the hope of gaining some insight into who might have known where the flock was when it was stolen.
“Dogs,” Dai said, wondering if he was right. “Or maybe people on quads?”
“At night?” Bryn sounded doubtful. “And over this terrain?” He gestured with one hand to the high-lifting hills on either side.
“Drones, then maybe? Though no one seems to have seen any around that shouldn’t be there, I did the checks. It does make you wonder.”
They reached the main farm buildings after a bumpy journey over a potholed mud and gravel track that led up from the road. Two skinny herding dogs with lolling tongues and high lifted tails followed the woman who owned the croft out of the door of the small cottage, built from local stone. She stayed by the house as Dai and Bryn parked up and got out, the dogs now sitting beside her. For a moment Dai was reminded of Canis and Lupo sitting beside Julia. These dogs had an owner not much taller than Julia was, but maybe a decade older. She stood, back held stiffly straight and chin lifted with an almost defensive pride, brown eyes fierce, her dark blonde hair half hidden under a woolly hat.
Bryn gave her a friendly nod as she looked between them. “You’ll be Hyla Edris, I’m SI Bryn Cartivel. We’re here…”
“About last night?” The woman’s voice sounded taut.
“That’s right. I was hoping you could help me understand a few things about what happened and then we might be able to get your sheep back more easily.”
Hyla Edris shook her head, and Dai was sure he could see an extra brightness of moisture in her eyes.
“No. You won’t be bringing my girls home. They’ll all be dead by now. But the fools that took them have no idea what they did.”
“What they..?”
“My girls weren’t bred for eating They were all bred for their wool. Five different rare breeds I had in my flock, from three different provinces. They were worth a lot, lot more than just meat on the hoof.”
“You’ll have insurance for them?”
“Oh, for sure, there is a man due out tomorrow to talk to me about it. Seems there was some problem with my paperwork. But that won’t bring my girls back, will it? And even though the money will help, my business is ruined.”
“You can get more sheep,” Dai said. “Surely even rare ones?”
The woman shook her head as if he was missing the point. Then she gestured towards a recently re-roofed outbuilding. “My business is spinning and weaving. I keep the sheep because I can’t buy in the wool I need. It’s not so simple as you think. But then you lot from Viriconium, you know next to nothing of what life is like for us here in the hill farms. We’re not all inbred yokels chasing round a few sheep, there’s some of us with a bit more going on.”
Dai spread his hands in a gesture of apology. “I promise we will do our best to bring those who took your sheep to justice.”
Which was when she saw the silver band of Citizenship on his finger and her face changed. A quickly hidden mix of fear and anger.
“Roman justice. Killing people for entertainment. That’s not going to help me… dominus.” She made the honorific sound more like an insult.
Bryn cleared his throat.
“I need to ask you a few questions about what happened. Where were the sheep last night?”
The woman drew a tight breath as if to get herself back under control.
“I had them in the low field because I was supposed to have them microchipped today.”
“So it would have been relatively straightforward for someone to steal them? No need to go all over the hills for them?”
“Very.”
“Who would have known they were in that particular field?” Dai asked and almost winced at the ferocity of the look the question earned him.
“Most everyone in the area.”
“Local gossip is that good?”
This time there was more of contempt than anger in her face. She put a hand into the pocket of the long coat she was wearing and pulled out a much-folded sheet of paper which she thrust into Dai’s hand. He opened it out noting the Demetae and Cornovii administrative area official logo at the top. It was a notice of compulsory microchipping of all sheep in the district. It included a list of names and dates for all the farms in the locality.
Dai passed the letter to Bryn who read it quickly.
“At least one other farm on this list has had their flock stolen,” he said.
“Now isn’t that just the coincidence.” Hyla Edris sounded bitter.

The Second Dai and Julia Omnibus  by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago which is FREE to download 6 – 10 May 2020.

The collected ‘wisdom’ of seven decades on this planet condensed into limerick form. Certainly not philosophy to live your life by…

It’s amazing how tarmac and gravel
Can muck up your holiday travel 
On a motorway an
Overturned caravan
Will cause all of your plans to unravel

©️jj

Star Divers: Dungeons of Bane by Stephen Landry at its core is about losing a friend and finding faith in others. It tells the story of Breq a 17 year old kid living in the 2070s who works as a ‘Corpse Diver’ in a VRMMO called Bane. It’s a story of trust and vengeance.

The walk back to the shuttle was silent. Neither Nel nor I said a word to one another as I strapped myself in and programmed a course back to the planet Apus where the other Corpse Divers would be waiting for me. I already had a call from Cass asking me where the hell I had been. I lied and said I went to explore Alpha-3 Euthenia in quadrant 2, a low-level dungeon where newer players went to grind. When I first started it was a requirement to spend several days a week levelling up your character and traversing different environments. In the beginning it was a blast. The game world felt fluid and the enemies were over- whelming. Each kill was a rush. I can still remember having chills the first time I slayed a Wraith boss. I would have to hack the shuttle’s navigation and history before I logged out but that was easy. Hacking was one of the few skills I had that I was actually good at.
It would be another twenty minutes before the shuttle was close to Apus in Alpha-1…I had to speak to Damien. Nel had to be lying.
Logout
There was no one waiting for me outside my pod. No interns, no doctors, not even security marching up and down the halls. I unstrapped myself and pushed my headgear to the side. ‘How did Damien die?’ I wondered aloud, standing up, ready to ask him where it was he had gotten himself killed.
Next to me was an empty pod with a ‘Do Not Use’ sign taped on the front of it. I walked down the hall. I felt alone as I felt the cold air brush against my cheeks. I was wearing normal clothes…a graphic tee and some cargo pants. Nothing warm, even though the weather outside was changing. Anyway, Keen Industries were supposed to deliver me a jacket with their logo, so I didn’t see the point in buying anything new. Each of us were given what we needed and even assigned specific pods to use. They were ours, paid for by the corporation as another incentive for us to hand over everything we found in the game. Technically they didn’t have to pay for us to have our own pods but as much as they made selling artefacts it was cheaper for them than having players not able to login from broken dives at home.
Damien played for the love of the game. He didn’t need it like I did. He had a loving family, a home to go back to while I stayed in the shelter at the complex with several of the others, sleeping on a dirty cot. Sometimes I crashed at his place. He had his own personal pod too…maybe he had stayed home. Corporate were always doing maintenance on the pods, so maybe he had tried to come to work and couldn’t. No. It was rare if ever he would use his pod at home for anything other than personal gaming.
As I continued to wander through the complex my mind began to fill with terrible ideas. Nel couldn’t have been serious. Damien couldn’t be dead. Not really. He was already level 52 and had just purchased his own personal fighter with a bonus he made during Operation Two to Tango.
‘SIR!’ I yelled, finally spotting someone.
‘Kid? What are you doing wandering around here?’ said the attendant. It was a security officer. I could see he had a small fire- arm attached to his hip and he was wearing a bulletproof jacket over a t-shirt and name tag.
‘Do you know if Damien Walker came in today?’ I asked.
The security officer looked at me and down at the floor. ‘You’re on his team aren’t you,’ he said at last. His eyes looked hollow.
‘Yes sir, I’m a Corpse Diver, zeta-one-nine,’ I told him my in-game profession and call sign, as if that would mean something to him.
‘I’m sorry,’ the officer said, ‘it was heart failure about half an hour ago.’
You can only imagine my reaction. Damien was gone.

A Bite of… Stephen Landry

Why do you write? Money is an acceptable answer.

To create. To explore the unknown. As an escape from my own depression. I wrote my first little book when I was 12 and called it ‘Avalon’ it was bad sci-fi with superpowers and mechs. Not much has changed but my writing style has gotten a bit better. I’ve also been writing poems and song lyrics since I can remember. I’v always had a big love for cinema, books, and video games.

Facing your demons? How much of what you write could be classed as therapy?

Funny enough ‘Face your demons’ is something I have written in several of my novels. Every novel is therapy, without creativity I wouldn’t be able to function. I have poured my heart into every novel, every story, even the smaller ones are sprinkled with themes of hope, issues with depression, fear.

How much of your writing is autobiographical?

Since all of it takes place in the future none of it really but events, emotions, those are all real. Almost all of my main characters are musicians because I am as well. Music actually plays a huge role in my novels even if it’s subtle. Breq my main character in Star Divers also has a familiar names Aiko whose personality is a combo of my German Shepherd TT and Rottweiler Sadie.

Have you ever written somebody you love into a book?

Yes. Sleepers, a novel I wrote for NaMoWriMo is based on myself, my fiancée, her brother, and several of my friends.

Stephen Landry is a science fiction / LitRPG author known best for Star Divers: Dungeons of Bane and the sci-fi/survival horror series Deep Darkness! He is also a graphic designer, artist, musician, and film producer. He lives in Nashville with the love of his life, two rescue dogs, and a cat named Neelix. In his spare time he enjoys films, reading, hiking, kayaking, and playing video games. You can catch him on Twitter, support him through Patreon, or find him at home on his blog.

The kitten was sitting in the gutter, in the pouring rain, crying piteously. It was the work of a moment to pick her up and slide her inside his coat.

Once home he handed the dripping thing to his wife.

Once dry, warm and fed, the kitten climbed into his lap and looked adoringly into his eyes.

“I think I’ll call her Dearest,” he spoke with rare gentleness and his wife sighed.

In bed that night he was tender. 

They never discovered what suffocated his young wife in her sleep, although the post mortem found ginger hairs in her throat.

©️jj 2020

Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook . Sometimes we walk the edges of realty…

A scream went up which penetrated soul-deep, the sound shaking the very foundations of the underworld and the roof of the cavern began to fall. Stones, dropping around her and the low rumble that presaged its final collapse. Then Annis was there, gripping her wrist..

“How did you know?”

Something was gone from her, as if a horror had passed and she looked more child again than feral being. Jessica pulled her close into an embrace, as if her own weak flesh could protect the child from the collapsing cavern. Eyes closed they clung together.

“It’s alright,” Annis was saying, her voice almost happy.

The rumble faded like summer thunder and Jessica became aware of a slight breeze on her face. She was standing with Annis and the two huge cats in an empty field, under the fading stars as dawn was breaking. Her car was pulled up nearby, beside an open gate. Jessica’s phone played a few bars from Dvorak’s ‘New World’ and she reached to answer it without thinking.

“Jess, I’ve been worried about you.” Uncle David’s voice sounded as if it belonged to another life, in another galaxy. 

“It’s – it’s alright. I’m alright,” 

“Your Aunt was sure you were in trouble, you know how she is. Ever since that Roald didn’t show up for dinner.”

“Yes, Look, I’m coming home. I had engine trouble. I’ll be back soon.”

“Long as you’re alright, lass.”

She put the phone away and looked back at Annis. The girl was bending down, grabbing at something gleaming in the grass.

“I think you should keep this,” she said, holding out the necklace of silver ammonites.

Jessica took it and for a moment she had the fleeting sense of Hild, smiling and she realised she felt whole again at last, more fully herself than she had done for a long, long time. She undid the catch and slipped the necklace around her neck to lie on her breasts, Then she turned her attention back to Annis, her indomitable young friend.

“Thank you, I don’t know how you got us out of there.”

Annis shook her head.

“You not understand, we not there. Never. It never happen. You – unmade it.” She reached out and kissed Jessica quickly on the cheek.

“I thank you. You take demon from me – free me. Make it never happen.”

“I – I am not sure I understand,” Jessica said, but then she was not sure she understood any of it. “What happens to you now?”

Annis smiled and it was the saddest thing Jessica had ever seen,

“Nothing happens to us Jess. We died before we were born. Only we never knew we was dead…I am just a dream of hope in the darkness.”

As Jessica watched, Annis and her cats grew more and more insubstantial until she could see them no longer. She thought she felt small fingers and a rough tongue on her cheek until the morning breeze blew even that away.

Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

There will be a new Sunday Serial on the Working Title Blog from next week…