Two Women and Some Books
I already know my place
within this world of ours
I know tis now technology
That holds all the powers
My phone demands attention
With a soft vibrating hum
My laundry is demanding
Singing to me it is done
By beeps and shrills and warbling
Their commands us enslave
I leap at once upon my feet
Summoned by microwave
I thought these things were once designed
To serve the needs of humankind
Instead, it seems that now we find
We must obey their calls
Being of the wizard race in a world where magic wasn’t supposed to exist wasn’t easy.
Any shop that sold supposedly occult books and magical paraphernalia was a source of amusement to Brandon Grey and having time to kill he’d gone inside. He was browsing in the bookshop, smiling at what he found, when a soft female voice with an accent that he had never come across before had gently interrupted his thoughts
“Is there something in particular you were looking for?”
Brandon had turned, curious to see the speaker, already very conscious of the carefully guarded psyche, something vanishingly rare amongst regular humans which his extended senses told him that this was.
He turned to see a woman who was neither tall nor short, was slender but not slight, with a face that seemed to hold both the wisdom of age and the promise of youth. Her black hair was long, curly and touched with silver, which seemed to gild its richness rather than diminish it in any way. But what commanded his instant attention were the arresting cornflower-blue eyes that met his gaze with a steady near-challenge.
For a moment he was left without anything to say. The psychic strength in this compact and self-possessed individual was unheard of. Such careful shielding bespoke someone who was skilled well beyond the norm and not just a rogue natural talent. But this was no wizard.
The woman smiled very slightly at his reaction and spoke again.
“I was just wondering if you needed help finding a book.”
Brandon shook his head, intrigued by this discovery. Words found him. “That’s kind of you but I’m fine thanks. Just browsing.”
“Ah, you are American.” The woman made it sound more like an explanation than an observation and that had made him smile.
“You have the advantage of me there. My nationality is in my accent, but I can not place you from yours.”
The woman’s blue eyes softened slightly and Brandon noticed the slightest dimple appear on one cheek.
“I am from Scotland – a Highlander.”
Brandon’s surprise must have been very visible because the promised smile appeared in response.
“I have never heard any Scots speak as you do.”
“Well, that will be because most you will hear are from Glasgow or the Lowlands – not true Gaels. And their accents owe as much to the English of the north as to any Celtic tongue.”
That was how he met Ishbel McCrae. It had certainly been unexpected and Brandon had no real ideas as to where he needed to take things.
Over the next few weeks, he had cause to visit the Old Town a few times and he always took the opportunity to call in at the shop. Ishbel had been a source of local information and had helped him find a few books of real value and interest rather than the volumes on candle magic, tarot cards and crystals, or reprints of sixteenth-century grimoires which seemed to be the most popular books she sold.
The spring was still holding summer at bay and although daffodils had turned the roundabouts and embankments to bright yellow, they were worn and weary flags in the brisk wind that blew in from the sea. The Old Town was wakening slowly from its winter near-hibernation and one or two of the tourist shops were only just getting themselves ready for the Easter trade soon to come.
Brandon walked past a few art shops and the inevitable antiquarian book shops exchanging the odd greeting with a few familiar faces who he had come to know in the last couple of months.
He even stopped to help an elderly lady wearing a tweed coat and tracksuit bottoms, fight her basket on wheels and small yappy dog down the small flight of stairs from one of the raised sections of pavement and was rewarded by a short conversation about the weather and the price of things in the shops today as he shared her walk to the post office. Normally such an encounter would have been a delight of human interaction for Brandon to savour, but today it had more about it of habit than pleasure and as soon as they had parted company he forgot about it completely.
His thoughts were fixed on his destination and if he were entirely honest, despite the preparation and the planning he was more than slightly apprehensive. Pausing by the shop door he stared’ without really seeing them’ at the book displays in the window and the trays of jewellery and wondered if he was going to regret this day. So much had changed so fast and now, what had seemed such a good idea last week was beginning to seem more and more hazardous.
But some calls came louder than others and this one Brandon felt the need to answer.
He pushed open the door and pushed his doubts firmly away as he crossed the threshold. A girl in her teens was putting some books on the shelves and turned to see who had come in. Her smile of recognition was cheerful and easy.
“Oh, Mr Grey! Did you enjoy that book? Have you read it already?”
“It’s Brandon,” he insisted gently and not for the first time. “Yes, thank you. I have been enjoying it and no I have not quite finished it yet.”
The girl was uncontrite.
“Ooops! Sorry Mr Grey – I’ll try and remember”
Then she was saying something else, but she no longer held his attention for his focus had gone to the back of the shop where he now saw Ishbel was standing, watching him.
Brandon wondered what she really saw. His lanky body, the rough and greying sandy hair, the eyes one lover had told him were the colour of lapis. It was not a bad body, even if it had seen out nearly five decades – two for its previous occupant and three for himself – and he did his best to keep it in trim.
Ishbel saw his attention shift to her and for a moment she held his look with her clear blue eyes. Then they softened with the warmth of a smile.
“It’s yourself Brandon!” There was a slight lilt in her accent which provoked a responding smile as she came forward to greet him.
“I’m not sure who else I could be.”
She laughed although the true irony could not be known to her.
“And what can we do for you today?”
Branon took the plunge.
“I was hoping you might do me the honour of letting me take you out for lunch. You have been so helpful these last few weeks I wanted to say ‘thank you’.”
He was rewarded by the faintest blush of colour and even through the high guards of her psyche he felt her shock and delight and allowed himself to know relief. It had been a long campaign and one he had been far from certain of winning. He noticed the girl smirking like a Cheshire cat and had a certainty that he had been the subject of more than one discussion between the two women and that this event was one that had been anticipated by at least one of them.
It was the girl who replied as well.
“That would be great. You go and have lunch. No need to hurry back either, I can finish things off and lock up.”
But Ishbel herself looked suddenly uncertain.
“Well, I have those orders to pack and get to the post and some more of those incenses to mix for Steph and Brian…”
The girl made a dismissive gesture.
“I’ll get the stuff in the post and you already said you can’t finish that incense until we get a new delivery of dittany. You go do lunch!”
Out of excuses and outflanked Ishbel finally gave in gracefully. She treated Brandon to a smile of genuine warmth and depth which illuminated her whole being. Brandon felt his heart pause at the beauty before him and something of him cried out for what he was doing.
Steeling himself against that, he led her to his car – and although she didn’t know it yet, to the beginning of a new life.
They burn and bomb
In their own name
There is no truth
But only blame
Our children cry
Their soldiers bleed
To die and kill
For an old man’s greed
Their broken promise
No surprise
When you look into
His dead fish eyes
You may well ask how one ever came upon this ‘literary classic’, as it is undoubtedly aimed at pre-pubescent females. However, it can also be aimed in a wholly different set of circumstances at the nodding cranium of a son who dares to fall into slumber when his beloved Mumsie is watching Kramer vs Kramer for around the four millionth time. One had been inveighed into the parlour by the promise of Mama Mia, and then let down with a bump by one’s perfidious parent so that one was unhappy, to say the least, but not stupid enough to attempt escape whist the turgid trash droned on and on and Mumsie sniffed and snotted unbecomingly. One had briefly succumbed to all but terminal boredom and allowed ones head to drop for a moment when ‘thwack’, a heavy leather-bound volume hit one’s forehead corner first, causing a large and purple contusion.
“You, Moons, are an awful little shit,” Mumsie declared in tones of doom. “You can just fecking well sit there and read quietly and stop spoiling my film.”
And thus I became acquainted with Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy.
Now.
My Review
Four sisters living in poverty during the American Civil War hardly seems a recipe for riveting entertainment, and in truth it isn’t a thundering good story. But it has some sort of something, because one was unable to discard the tome until it was read. The four girls have different characters, different dreams, different problems, but all are dealt with in some clever way so as to keep one reading. It seems dreadfully plain and unadorned. An yet… Motherly Meg, tomboy Jo, sickly Beth and beautiful Amy. Not all survive. Not all prosper. One laughed. One even cried.
One’s mater actually accused one of becoming ‘almost human’ as one read this old-fashioned morality story with sympathetic tears staining one’s cheek.
As she remarked. Perhaps one is closer to nineteenth-century female children than to one’s own contemporaries. Who understands.
Three stars reduced from four because of the bump on one’s cranium.
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.
Very little the biggers got up to passed without notice. The gnomes knew what the alpha male did to the female that used the writing machine, and what games Mother played in the dark shed.
They saw it as their place to say nothing.
But.
When the fat bigger with the hairy chest cornered a frightened young female, their neutrality deserted them.
They erupted from every bush and tree, biting and scratching and emitting eerie eldritch sounds. The fat bigger ran away as fast as he could with his garment around his knees.
The female kissed Big Eric, who blushed….
…for a moment the silence was blissful. Then the screaming started…
Writing team Leo and Mike Johnson have their day disturbed when a body turns up near their house.
‘Nasty piece of work that is’ Ro said when she returned. Then she sat and poured herself a cup of tea. Leo raised an eyebrow.
‘I found stuff out.’
‘Such as?’
‘The ‘church’ calls itself The Apostolic Gospel of The Lord. It seems to have originated in America. No surprise there, but what is surprising is that they now have control of three schools in the UK. There’s one in Somerset and two in Greater London, and the police are quite interested in them because there is some question of providing underage girls for a form of ‘marriage’. Or so I’m told.’
‘And how did you get told?’
She grinned. ‘Sex. That’s how I get told most things. Wasn’t even unpleasant.’
Mike laughed in genuine amusement. ‘Ro. You are bad! Who?’
‘A detective from the smoke. His name would mean nothing to you even if I could be arsed to remember it. But a combination of a blow job and a bottle of Ma’s sloe gin got him to part with all of his knowledge of the subject.’
‘You really should be careful’ Leo put in. ‘You can’t just go around importuning coppers for information.’
Ro grinned. ‘You’re right. I can’t. But I didn’t. He started it. I was helping out at the chippy when this long streak of piss comes in and gets all flirty. Uncle Bob gives me the high sign he’s a copper, so I agree to meet him for a drink. I reckon he still thinks he weaselled info out of me.’
‘About?’
‘The cage fighting scene hereabouts. Apparently the body in the river had been beaten up pretty badly before she died. The powers wondered if she could be a cage fighter. I said it weren’t likely as l hadn’t heard of anyone going missing. Seemed to satisfy mister slippy. But just to be certain I put the word out and nobody knows nothing, not even the dog fighting crowd what puts on the occasional real roughhouse.’
Leo frowned. ‘So somebody beat her up and drowned her? Nice.’
‘No. They certainly beat her up, but then they strangled her and threw the body in the water. My dad reckons they can’t be local or they’d have chucked her in below the dam.’
‘Unless they wanted her to be found. Though I can’t think why that could be.’
‘Me neither. And I gathered there was other stuff about the body. Something to do with very rough sex and ‘not quite human’ bite marks. My little friend was uncomfortable talking about that.’
‘I’ll bet’ Mike shivered. Ro’s face looked like she was eating something bad, but she pressed on. ‘The only other gem I wrung out of Constable Smalldick was that they are doing a facial reconstruction and the cops will be bringing it to all the houses on the riverbank to see what they can shake out. And they’ll be after DNA samples from the men too.’
‘Oh great’ Mike shivered and Leo put a consoling arm around her.
‘It don’t sound much like a Sunday school outing to me’ Ro said wisely, then she leapt up from the table. ‘Hoovering calls.’
When she had left the room and the roar of the vacuum cleaner could be heard from upstairs, Leo raised an eyebrow at Mike.
‘You reckon she knows?’
‘Not from me. But she has enormously good instincts.’
He considered that for a moment. ‘She does. And I wouldn’t at all put it past her to be tipping me the wink.’ ‘Me neither. Will it help?’
‘Yeah. I’ll get my head around it.’ He leaned his forehead against hers for a moment. ‘I dunno why you keep me’ he whispered ‘no possibility of children, and I’m a moody bastard.’
She grinned at him. ‘You forgot selfish. But I still can’t do without you – even after all these years and all the shit we’ve been through.’
His answering smile was a bit twisted. ‘And not even a pity fuck for at least a month…’
‘Do we do them? I thought our forte was hate fucks.’
This time he really did laugh before getting up. He wandered off, leaving Mike alone. She frowned, then got up and walked briskly into her own office.
From Shall we gather at the river? a hard hitting murder mystery thriller by Jane Jago which is available for 0.99.
Today, with her marriage, the truce would become full peace. There was no time to make the preparations, but standing with her commanders to meet the delegation, she realised that no preparations would have helped her anyway.
Their leader was young – younger than herself, but then this war had taken many older nobles.
“I come to fulfil the honour of my Clan, to bind the peace by marriage.”
She stepped forward trying to hide her true feelings.
“Then I welcome you – as my third husband.”
It was a slow way to expand her Empire, but it was proving remarkably effective.
The problem was an expensively printed ‘invitation’ at which she looked with some distaste. It was phrased politely but she knew a command when she saw one. Magistratus Sextus Catus Bestia and his wife Vassenia Cyofeth requested the company of Submagistratus Dai Llewellyn and his wife Julia Lucia Maxilla at a reception in honour of the new Submagistratus sent from Rome.
Once she swallowed the insult implicit in ignoring her decision to adopt the British custom of a woman taking her husband’s name there was still the little matter of the new Submagistratus. Which, she thought bitterly, was just what they needed – another idiot from Rome for Dai to bump heads against at every corner. Just as things had been better lately, with Bestia hugely occupied by his young, rich, pulchritudinous, and deeply silly new wife. She sighed and shook her head sadly, accepting there was nothing to be done except dress prettily, bully Dai into a toga, and turn up with the best grace they could muster.
Telling herself to put it aside she called her sleeve dog, Merch, to heel and pattered off to the nursery to visit her daughter Aelwen. After some very satisfactory cuddles and a rather splashy bath time she sat back on her heels and grinned at the tiny tyrant who was the centre of the household and patently knew it.
Aelwen’s nursemaid, Luned, looked shrewdly at her employer. “Should you be rolling round the floor in your condition?” she asked mildly.
“What condition might that be?”
“If I don’t miss my guess you are pregnant again.”
“Are you sure?”
Luned laughed. “No. But there is a way to make sure.” She went to a tall chest and extracted something from a cupboard. “This might help.”
Julia stared at the familiar cardboard box for a long moment before putting out a hand to take it.
“I am almost afraid to do this. With my history, Aelwen was a miracle. I certainly never dared hope for more children.”
“Would it help to do it here and now, with a bit of company?”
“It just might.”
Julia dived into the nursery bathroom before her courage had the chance to desert her. Having done the necessary, she carefully placed the plastic ‘stick’ on a shelf and retreated. By engaging Luned in light, meaningless chatter she managed to keep her eyes away from the clock. The girl was kind enough to play along and it was she who mentioned the time.
“You could go and look now,” she said gently.
Julia found herself unable to move. “I can’t.”
“Will I go and look for you?”
“Please.”
It was only a matter of seconds before a smiling Luned returned, although it felt like an eternity.
“Congratulations Domina Julia. It says more than three weeks.”
Julia let out her breath in a huff and took the test stick from Luned’s outstretched hand.
“Oh my goodness.”
The next thing she was really sure of was Luned’s strong arm about her waist as the girl guided her to a seat.
“Breathe domina. Breathe and relax.”
“Sorry. Back with you now. It was just…”
Sensing disquiet, Merch abandoned Aelwen and leapt onto her mistress’ lap. She put her snow-white paws on Julia’s shoulders and gazed intently into her eyes. Julia laughed and stroked the little dog’s soft fur.
Luned smiled as Aelwen crawled over to join the party. “Somebody may be about to get her pretty nose put out of joint.”
If she did but know it, Julia’s smile could have lit a whole concert hall. “Oh, I don’t think so. I rather imagine that her da and I have enough love to enwrap a whole harpastum team.”
From Dying on the Streets by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago
The gnomes were fascinated. They had no idea what the biggers would be about.
First they moved all the gnomes to the shrubbery. Putting planks of wood over the lawn, a crowd of strange biggers in heavy boots made a big house from flapping sheets.
Big Norma shook her head. “Got me beat”.
The strange house was furnished with chairs and flowers, before it filled with biggers of every sort.
To the sound of loud music the bigger they called ‘father’ escorted a small female, dressed fine, to where a man in a long dress waited.
“Dearly beloved,” he said.
What happens when the hunter becomes the hunted…
The images of Chola showed a well-presented man, average height, lots of curly blond hair. In fact, in Grim’s opinion, he looked a lot more like someone you might see on a screen trying to sell you hair care products, than someone you might find invading your premises and demanding a cut of your business profits. He had that sort of open, attractive face that you wanted to trust, with warm amber eyes that seemed poised on the edge of laughter at a shared joke. But then that wasn’t too much of a surprise. In his long experience of the breed, Grim had found many of the worst kind of criminals could pass themselves off as pretty nice people for much of the time. Right up until they had enough power it was no longer necessary for them to be nice.
“He was popular with his own, with a rep for being hard but fair,” the techie droned on. “Seen as consistent and reasonable — but with zero tolerance towards any who might oppose him. Hence the body we saw earlier. He sustained generally good relations with the other Names in the ‘City, avoiding any major wars and holding off the other Shame Cullen successor, Eritch Dragure, by a mix of cunning, diplomacy and threat. He was also the main force behind the establishment of a new suburb in the ‘City, creating it out of what had been a no-go slum area called Ignatius. At one point he was actually holding elected political office there and — by all accounts — represented the interests of the people who elected him very effectively.”
Grim raised a metaphorical eyebrow at the news. He had heard about the turnaround of Ignatius, but he had not linked that with this man. He doubted many had. It was too strange to think that a criminal boss would have any real humanitarian instincts so there had to have been some major profit in it for him somewhere. But at least, for once, it had benefited the community too.
“Jazatar Baldrik,” the techie went on. “Lots of background here.”
Grim made mental notes summarising the information he was being given: ‘City born. Excellent service record from the armed forces. Went mercenary for many years — all reputable work. High rep for professionalism.
“Then ten years ago something strange happened and he got involved in a terrorist attack on a data collection and processing installation in the Varn Sector. Totally out of character. The attack was intercepted and he was arrested, tried and sentenced to the Special Legion. He served the full five year term and was approved for release.”
This was more the kind of man you might think of as a criminal if you passed him in the street. Wary eyes set in sharp features, accentuated by the close cut black hair, which was worn longer at the back and pulled into a brief ponytail. There was an ugly scalp port visible behind his ear, the clearest mark of having served in the Special Legion. It was ‘special’ because you only got in if you were a condemned convict and you only got out if you survived five years with an exemplary behaviour record. Notoriously, the majority of the conscripts didn’t even get to survive their first year and the five year release rate was less than one percent. Which meant this man was exceptional.
Now that was the kind of history that made someone interesting in Grim’s eyes and he could suddenly see something here for him. He leant slightly forward as the data nerd droned on.
From Iconoclast: Mistrust and Treason a Fortune’s Fools book by E.M. Swift-Hook – which is only 0.99 to buy for a limited period.
Portrait of Durban Chola by Ian Bristow.
