Breakfast was a happy meal in the tiny apartment. Although the three of them could barely fit around the table they always managed to eat and laugh together.  First up from the wreckage was twelve-year-old Tanith, who stuck a pink tongue out at her father.
​“You are outnumbered Dad, so just give up.”
​Tom waved a lazy arm. “School, child. At least you are outnumbered there.”
​Tanith grabbed her school bag.
​“I need a coat, Mum?”
​“Not today. But tomorrow you will want your high boots…”
​The door banged behind their beloved child and both parents watched indulgently as her coltishly long-legged figure leapt gracefully onto the private walkway that would take her to school.
​“Do we do wrong not the have a sibling for her?” Anna wondered softly.
​Thomas smiled his kind and reassuring smile.
​“She is happy, well adjusted, and loved. So no.”
​Anna briefly touched his face then got up and stretched until her bones cracked. ​“It’s going to be a long day. Overtime. I’m called to the centre of the Dome to do a sunset. Spectacular of course. One of the wives is having a barbecue (whatever that might be) and a beautiful sunset is essential to the endeavour.”
​“You be careful then. I know what the rich are like..”
​“Oh. I’m not pretty enough or young enough. And they badly want this sunset.”
She picked up her work bag and sauntered off.
He watched her with a little worry at the back of his eyes before clearing up the slip of a kitchen and setting out to his own place of work.
Much later in the day, Anna’s identification was being carefully checked before she was permitted to leave the central walkway. She was escorted to the weather station by a couple of respectful security operatives who were darkly suited, but with suspiciously bulging armpits.
​“What is it precisely that you do madonna?” ​The question was phrased politely, but Anna was in no doubt that her reply was essential to her wellbeing.
​“I’m a sky painter sir. The astral plain above our heads is merely the underside of the Dome. We control the weather, and we control how the ‘sky’ looks. Normal skies are computer programs. And I write the algorithms. For special occasions I can create a skyscape live.”
They still looked a bit pensive.
​“Can you show us?”
​She nodded. “See that perfectly plain blue sky over the purple-leaf trees.”
Anna tuned her light brushes to the frequency for just that square of sky and began the exquisite dance that is sky painting. What she did not see was how her work lit her small, plain face and how the beauty of her movement was enough to steal the breath. By the time she had finished, the men were enchanted – both by the artist and by the tiny skyscape she had created just for them. The larger of them bowed his head.
​“I think I am your slave forever madonna.”
​Anna blushed. “I thank you sir. It is enough that my work is enjoyed.”

From ‘The Sky Painter’ one of the incredible short stories in pulling the rug iii by Jane Jago

The humans were happily drawing water that the myora kept fresh and sweet for them.

Rescued from a dying world, the oddly appealing humans couldn’t shape reality mentally, lacked telepathy, and had an irrational urge to over-procreate. Some myora even considered humans to be sapient. Those who watched now didn’t care. They were here for entertainment.

The signal came and the culling began, with the smallest humans screaming as they were caught.

This way of managing animals came from the humans’ own history. And since the population had to be kept in check, why not have fun doing so?

E.M. Swift-Hook

“I know we’re not on Temsevar anymore,” Durban said. “If I played the dance tune there it was only because I knew the place much better than you and sometimes it would’ve taken too long to convince you that I was right.”
Avilon inclined her head very slightly as if acknowledging at least part of his point.
“Although there is the minor issue that you weren’t always right. Either on Temsevar or since.”
“Maybe we have both learned a little humility in recent times,” Durban suggested, his tone pitched to be modestly rueful. “I’m a very different person than I was when we first met. You’ve said as much yourself, more than once. You aren’t the only one who has changed. Maybe you should allow me that.”
“Maybe,” Avilon conceded, “but, I’m still waiting on your answers to my questions: what are you really trying to achieve, and why did you go to such extremes to restore me to life?”
Durban summoned a smile.
“I don’t see why you should find it so hard to believe that my motive wasn’t simple human friendship. Especially as I felt very responsible for you being in that place.”
“Except you’re not simply human,” Avilon observed, her tone growing acidic. “And you seem to forget, I know you were willing to literally trade your life for mine. I saw the state you were in after, and I helped bring you out of it. I didn’t really think much about it at the time. I had too much else going on with this new body, and then I had two years with just one thought driving me— getting back to the Legacy. But, these last three cycles I’ve had a bit more leisure to think it through. And when I did, a lot of things I noticed just didn’t add up. I started wondering why you even went through what you did trying to get me restored. That wasn’t just paying a debt or some kind of guilt thing. It went way beyond any degree of friendship you and I ever had. You were literally throwing your life away.”
Avilon stopped talking and Durban let the breath he had drawn in escape in a sigh. It was a scene that had played out in his mind only in nightmares and for once, he had no idea what to say. For a frozen moment the sea-blue eyes held his gaze, acute with accusation. Durban gave the smallest nod of acknowledgment.
“I hear and understand,” he said, simply.
“But you’re not going to say anything to it?” Avilon made a contemptuous sound and shook her head. “Why am I not even slightly surprised? It’s always been the same with you, Durban, from the first day we met on Temsevar. A one way street on trust and information. Well, maybe I’ve got to the point of no longer caring enough to even force it out of you. You saved my life on Temsevar at great personal cost and I’ve saved yours on Skapandir at great personal cost. And now, again, on Dyfrax. I think that seems a very good place to call it quits and end our association.”

E.M Swift-Hook

You can snag your copy of  Iconoclast: Not To Be now!

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks – with free optional snark…

I am old, and the young think me rude
For I laugh really loud and throw food
I am never PC
And I never drink tea
But I do like to swim in the nude

© jane jago

Tater Ham Chowder

You can use any kind of potatoes you like here. Another nice variation is to use sweet potatoes, or a combination of white and sweet. This is definitely a hobbity soup, so I used the Middle-earth word for potato (see Westron, or the Common Speech…).

1 tablespoon salted butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 ounces cooked ham, diced
2 cups carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped
2 cups celery, coarsely chopped
2 cups red onion, coarsely chopped
1½ pounds potatoes, cut into ½ʺ cubes (peeled or not; it depends on the variety of potato you use)
3 cups cabbage, coarsely chopped
1 quart low-sodium chicken broth
1¼ teaspoons salt
1¼ teaspoons marjoram (2-3 tablespoons fresh, minced)
1 teaspoon black pepper

Optional Garnish:

Minced fresh chives
Cooked and crumbled bacon
Sour cream or crème fraîche

Coat a 4-quart saucepan with cooking spray. Melt the butter and olive oil over rather high heat. Add the ham, carrot, celery, and onion and sauté 10 minutes, stirring often. Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Cook on low heat 20-25 minutes, covered, until vegetables are tender. Stir a couple times. Puree 3 cups of the soup, then add it back to the pot. Season, if desired. Garnish, as desired. Cover and chill leftovers; don’t freeze. Serves 4-6.

Vegetarian Options—Change the broth to vegetable and substitute about a quarter-pound of diced turnip, rutabaga, or parsnip (all should be peeled) for the ham. Or you could simply increase each of the already-required vegetables.

Spicy Options—Green Chile? Of course (I live in New Mexico!). I’d recommend about 4 ounces. Your favorite variety of salsa would also be delicious.

A Bite of… Astrid Tuttle Winegar

1. What gave you the original idea for a book of recipes based on a fantasy world?

My first cookbook, Cooking for Halflings & Monsters: 111 Comfy, Cozy recipes for Fantasy-Loving Souls, grew out of an undergraduate course on Tolkien. I’ve always been cooking and baking, so using Middle-earth as an inspiration was a no-brainer. But other worlds, such as Narnia, Westeros, and the Final Frontier often inspire me as well.

2. What were the hardest bit and the best bit of collecting this second volume of recipes?

The hardest bit of recipe development happens when I get an idea to pursue that doesn’t pan out. Sometimes it’s hard to abandon something that should have worked. But once abandoned, I resign myself to the loss and move on. The best bit? We eat LOTS of delicious food around my house!

3. If you could host a dinner party with any three people, real or fictional, who would you invite, which of the recipes in this book would you serve them and why those ones?

Well, if I hosted a dinner party with real/fictional people, I would invite J. R. R. Tolkien for learned conversation and anecdotes. I would also invite Brian May, the guitarist from Queen, because I’ve had a crush on him since my teenage years. Since he is Dr. May now, he and J. R. R. would get along well, though Tolkien’s astronomical references might need some tweaking. Finally, I would invite Lisbeth Salander, the heroine of the Millennium series, to make everyone just a bit uncomfortable.

From my latest cookbook, A Year of Comfy, Cozy Soups, Stews, and Chilis: Cooking for Halflings & Monsters, Volume 2, I would cook up this comforting hobbity soup recipe,  bake a gorgeous loaf of bread from the aforementioned cookbook, and have some beer, whisky, and water available. Everyone would get along great and my husband would go to bed early. All good!

Astrid Tuttle Winegar is the author of Cooking for Halflings & Monsters: 111 Comfy, Cozy Recipes for Fantasy-Loving Souls, which was a finalist in the 2018 New Mexico/Arizona Book Awards. Astrid has been cooking, baking, and reading fantasy (and plenty of other literature!) for over 40 years. She has a bachelor’s degree in English and Latin and a master’s degree in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of New Mexico. She has loved C. S. Lewis since childhood and J. R. R. Tolkien since middle and high school. She also loves all Star things, both Trek and Wars, all things Whedon, and many other things besides… She lives in the enchanted city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her husband; she is also a mother and a grandmother. For more information, go to astridwinegar.com. You can follow her on, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Aunt Artemisia had long been the repository for family secrets. Telling her something, was as safe as talking in your own head. A visit to her house. A nice cup of tea. Sharing the burden.

It even continued when she moved into residential care. Until one day, while sharing marital issues, Jack got a shock.

“Yes dear. Marianne hates you shouting at the telly.”

Secrets were no longer sacrosanct it seemed.

This changed the family, who started talking to each other.

“Such a shame. Her mind’s gone,” they said.

Artemisia smiled inwardly. She had wanted to do this for years.

E.M. Swift-Hook

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

She sensed this was indeed a ritual, though not one of any religious kind. Things were passing hand to hand, bottles of water and white cider. It was a scene she had witnessed a few too many times in her career. In her previous career, she mentally corrected and felt the small inner lurch of loss that always left in its wake.
Then someone moved right behind her and a pair of hands gripped her shoulders.
“Hey bros, look what I just found.”
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. 
No. It doesn’t. 
It really doesn’t.
Not when it breaks you inside.
That was all Jess could think, standing, paralised by her past. There was not even a conscious sense of fear, though she could feel her heart rate slam up and the floor drop away. It was as if her conscious mind had shot out of her body and hung suspended, mid-air, above it. There was nothing she could do. It was going to happen again.
The yelp seemed to come from a great distance away not from right behind, but the moment the grip was gone from her shoulders, it was as if she were restored. Restored to a body in panic. She would have run blindly, but there was a gentle touch on her arm and a girl’s face, looking at her. They ran together.
Jess had no idea where they were going, past half demolished buildings, and broken metal structures that reared like scaffold dinosaurs, against the moon-lit sky. The ‘bros’ were either more worried about what had happened to their companion or already too out of it to be able to give chase, because after a few shouts and some sounds of running feet, the night closed behind the two of them into quiet.
They went past the barrier with an old height restriction sign on it and cartoon-like pictures of stick men standing up in cars on a roller coaster, or leaning out, circled in red with a bar through the image.Then they were clambering over a heap of twisted metal beyond. It was not a hard scramble the way her guide was going, or a long one, which was as well because the shooting pains had started up in her legs as they reached what looked a bit like a metal box, buried in the middle of the debris. 
The girl touched her hand again, then opened the door making some kind of sounds, as if reassuring an animal. Then a small glow of light came from inside and Jess went in. 
She was not really sure what she had expected. But not this. It was almost obsessively neat and very clean. For a moment, Jess was thinking of paisley furniture and over-polished wooden floors, then chastised herself for assuming that the homeless could not also be house proud. For that was clearly what this was, a homeless person’s private shelter. There was a counter top along two sides and a closed fire on the third wall opposite a comfortable bed. It was more of a sleeping platform really, covered in an odd variety of multicoloured fleece picnic blankets. Two very large cats were curled in the middle and watched her with wary feline eyes.
Jess took it in then looked at her rescuer. The girl looked to be in her mid-teens, a runaway maybe. That realisation pushed Jess out of her bubble of self-concern and she mustered a smile.
“Thank you, I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t been there,” she said. The girl said nothing, just glancing briefly to the cats and then back to Jess. So she tried again:
“My name is Jessica Monday, what’s yours?”
The girl kept looking at her, but the silence went on.

Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

Part 5 of Maybe will be here next week…

If rough and tough rhyme with blind man’s buff
How come that bough rhymes with now?
And if you amble through the morning dew
Why is it more thorough to stride across the borough?
If you cough at a toff it will put him right off
And it’s nice to be slow when kneading dough
This is stupid stuff and I have had enough 
English can rhyme on its own bloody time…

©️jj 2019

The opening of Gribble’s Geek, the new fantasy from Jane Jago   

The door of the staff dining room banged open and the handsome figure of Launcelot Gribble stood in the doorway with his romantically tousled head held high.
    “I think I’ve just broken my geek,” he announced.
    The Bursar sighed and looked up from the column of figures she was conning. “Again? And what makes you think this one is broken?”
    “He’s just sitting staring into the middle distance and making strange sheep-like noises.”
    Matron gave the dramatic figure in the doorway a look of deep dislike before grinding out her evil-smelling cheroot and heaving herself to her feet. She headed for the door, and as she passed Gribble she smacked him solidly across the back of the head with one large red hand.
    “Ouch. That hurt.”
    She didn’t even bother to answer him, just stalked along the dusty corridor like a vengeful leviathan.
    Gribble dropped his pose of romantic ennui and ruefully rubbed his head.
    “Why’d old iron tits decide to smack me around the head?”
    Democratic Runes looked up from the volume of arcane verse he was studying and regarded his colleague in disbelief.
    “Why wouldn’t she? You break geeks and she gets to fix them. How many is it this year?”
    Gribble studied his feet and muttered something unintelligible.
    “Come again?”
    “This one is number thirteen.”
    “Who else is egotistical enough to break geeks at that rate. Thirteen down and it’s only the ninth moon. You are a fucking liability, my friend.”
    Gribble hunched a shoulder and turned his startlingly green gaze on the sturdy figure of the Bursar.
    “I’ll just go choose another geek then, shall I?”
    “No. Indeed you will not. There have been complaints. The University has generated a memo. Allow me to read it to you. ‘It has come to our attention that the Chair of Ancient Scrolls is somewhat careless of the technicians who assist him in his work. This is unsatisfactory. Should any more instances occur, the choice of assistant is to be removed from his remit’.”
    “What are you saying?”
    “I’m saying that you don’t get to choose. You will be assigned a geek. And proper contracts will be signed.”
    Gribble bridled. “I don’t sign contracts. It’s an honour to be chosen to help me.”
    “As of now you do sign contracts. Because if you don’t, you don’t get a geek. And shut your mouth – you look stupid with it half open.” The Bursar got up and jerked a thumb at the gaping professor. “My office. Now.”
    In the skinny, cluttered office, Gribble looked around for a seat. He found no surface that wasn’t covered with paper.
    “Why do you have so much paperwork? Surely most of your accounts and stuff could be done on the computer.”
    “It could, if the University was not averse to The Motherboard knowing all our business. But we aren’t here to discuss my conditions of employment, it’s the conditions under which you employ your geeks that are in dispute.”
    “Dispute?” Gribble pushed out his lip in a show of boyish petulance, before he remembered that the Bursar was not of an ilk to be cajoled or seduced by the likes of him. Instead he hunched a shoulder. “Where do I sign?”
    “I thought you might see sense,” her smile was just on the acceptable side of smug. But only just.
    Scrabbling about in the teetering pile of paper on the windowsill, she dragged out a sizeable parchment and unfolded it.
    “You sign here, here, here and here.”
    Gribble pulled a pen out of his pocket and signed as indicated. The Bursar inserted the signed document in a slot in the wall and after a few seconds a disembodied voice filled the air.
    “Contract duly witnessed.”
    The unwieldy parchment slowly reversed out of the slot to fall unnoticed to the floor.
    Gribble eyed the Bursar.
    “Right. When do I get my geek?”
    “Tomorrow morning.”
    He opened his mouth to argue, then his face caught up with his brain and he snapped his teeth together.
    “Good thinking. Now cut along. I’ve got work to do.” The Bursar waved a wrinkled hand in dismissal.
    Even an ego as colossal as Gribble’s recognised the pointlessness of arguing with a tetchy female colleague who was not only senior to him in the University hierarchy, but who also disliked him quite a lot. He left the dusty confines of the office, shutting the door behind him with exaggerated care before stomping along the disorienting curve of the corridor cursing and kicking random pieces of furniture.
    Behind him, the Bursar listened to muffled swearing and assorted crashes. The smile that spread across her face made her look like a crocodile that smells fresh meat.
    “You, my temperamental young colleague, ain’t seen nothing yet.”
    She returned to her figures, obscurely comforted by the hard lesson Gribble was about to be taught.

Click here to keep reading this unusual fantasy story from Jane Jago

She’d take it back if she could
The words were out
Then she saw his face.
The cut so deep that blood shed.
But it was done.
Spoken.
Said.

Nothing could be changed
The words were out
Their wounding complete.
No tears can wash out that pain
The hurt ricochets
Inflicting
Silence.

The one most on her side
Then words come out
Tearing them apart
The one she trusts, knows her best
Knows just where to strike
To hurt.
Snarls.

Now, as intimate strangers
The words come out
Weaponised by choice
Lovers become enemies
Each no longer hears
Pain filled
Cries.

E.M. Swift-Hook