Roguing Thieves is a previously unpublished Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook.

Trailing in the wake of the two men, Pan found herself in a spacious underground docking bay. There were five docks in this underground hanger. Three were occupied, one by their own ship. It had a rotating floor which was moving slowly to bring another vessel in line with the launch doors overhead. A glance was enough to tell Pan that it wasn’t the ship she was here to fix. This one was an ex-military conversion. A systems interceptor. Small, limited cargo capacity, built for speed and maneuverability in normal space. The kind of thing a wealthy dilettante might pick up as a fun toy.
If this belonged to Dekker and his friends, she didn’t see that they could have too many money worries, but perhaps it was just visiting like herself and Tolin.
Tols.
She had never heard him called that before. He’d always been quietly insistent on people using his full name. ‘Tols’ and Dek were just vanishing through a door that she assumed led into the rest of the settlement. Deliberately holstering her anger at being pretty much ignored, she headed over to the third ship in the dock. She could agree with Dekker on one point at least, the sooner she got started the better. Then she could get the job done and they could go. Maybe as soon as Tolin got back from his male-bonding session.
Of course it wasn’t that simple.

By the time Tolin reappeared she was starting to get genuinely frightened. He came into the cargo hold of the damaged ship, where she was still running diagnostics through the direct-access engineering port. He was clutching a meal-synth carton for her and looking strangely diminished, as if all his self-confidence had been leeched away.
“I come bearing food,” he said, holding out the carton almost as if he was making an offering to some ancient wrathful goddess, which right at that moment felt pretty appropriate to Pan.
She didn’t take the carton, instead she pointed at a pile of crates stacked up in the corner of the hold.
“Have you seen those? Crates of restricted tech with shipment tags three cycles out of date.”
Tolin didn’t even look and there was no surprise on his face, just a sick expression. He put the carton of food on the open service panel, as if it was a flip down table and avoided her eyes.
“You knew?” Pan found herself struggling for words. “If we get caught having anything to do with stolen restricted tech…” She couldn’t even bring herself to finish the sentence “Your friends seem to be smuggling this stuff.”
“It’s not like that,” Tolin protested, but his voice lacked conviction.. “I mean, Dekker and his friends are not like that. They’re not angels and they are sort of roguish, yes, but then so are most freetraders. And they’re not smuggling those crates. They have buyers.”
“If they have to deliver it to those buyers they will be smuggling. You can’t land that stuff anywhere legally,” Pan said hotly. Another thought occurred on the tail of that. “Did they steal it too? Are they just smugglers or smuggling thieves? Or maybe you’d call it ‘roguing’? Roguing thieves? You prefer that?” Pan tried hard to keep the contempt from her tone, but knew she was failing. “And have you seen the hull of this ship? From what I’m seeing here, the reason the engines are out is because it took a burn from the outside. Do you know what that means?”
Tolin said nothing and was studying the exposed engineering port with an intensity it didn’t merit.
“You knew all this sort of thing about Dekker before we came here, didn’t you?” Pan shook her head. Anger morphing into fear and back again, like waves pounding a beach. It felt like a betrayal.
“No one will know we fixed the ship,” Tolin said, still avoiding her eyes. “No one will know we’ve even been here. You just have to fix the ship and we can go.” He made it sound so easy and reasonable.
“Did you see that system intercept conversion out there? I had a look at it just now. The weapons systems have been reinstalled.” She paused to try and swallow down the enormity of what she needed to say. To turn the unspeakable into spoken words. Tolin continued to stare at the engineering port as if it was a puzzle he needed to solve. The silence between them stretched out painfully. “Your friend Dek isn’t a rogue, or a thief, or even a smuggler is he? He’s a pirate.”
“And a very successful one too,” Dekker’s voice came from behind her and Pan spun around.

There will be more Roguing Thieves next Sunday…

We’ve done it together, including the fights
When both of us know that we are in the right
The slinging of insults, we each do our half
Til we roll on the floor trying hard not to laugh
It’s the laughter that heals us as much as the rest
As knowing we’ve something that’s stood all the tests
We’ve cried, hand in hand at the side of a grave
And the faith in your eyes is the reason I’m brave
You’ve always been there, understanding too much
But I’d wither away were it not for your touch
So what if the wrinkles have come to your skin
It’s not on the outside, the trick is what’s in
So what if my ass is so wobbly and wide
That you call it the moon, say it changes the tides
So what if the romance went off long ago
We have something better, a truth we both know
We’ve done it together, we’re useless apart
You’re the half of my soul and the whole of my heart

©️jj 2022

It was midnight in the stacks, and the air was filled with tiny rhythmic noises of a sort that the fanciful might have thought of as books snoring. The young woman busily shelving books was obviously not fanciful though, as she worked efficiently, serene and undisturbed by the night and its secrets.
She positioned each volume carefully – tutting occasionally as she unbent dogeared corners and removed unsuitable objects being used as ‘bookmarks’.
It was right at the end of her task when she was briskly dealing with the ugly temperament of a couple of grimoires that something outside the usual caught her attention. Being of a methodical turn of mind she completed her task before investigating the source of an undefinable disquiet.
It felt as if the source of the problem, whatever it might be, was the children’s literature section, so once she had replaced her trolley in the storeroom she walked that way on quiet feet. The closer she came to the area dedicated to myth and legend for young readers the more she understood there was definitely something needing her attention.
As yet she had no notion what was afoot, but whatever it was, it was sufficient to disturb the serenity of the sleeping books, to the extent that they were huddling together in clumps. Once she set foot in the aisle between the worst affected volumes, she could hear a susurrating sound as if a breeze moved through the pages. The books were actually shivering with fear.
“Calmly now,” she said infusing her voice with both confidence and command. “Calm yourselves. I am here.”
It was as if a sigh of relief ran through the shelved books.
A small black bird flew from the pages of a venerable volume on the topmost shelf. It was pursued by a set of snapping teeth which were rapidly gaining as it flapped its tiny wings in near desperation. The Night Librarian held out a small freckled hand and the bird clung to her. The snapping teeth stopped in their tracks before a voice laced with menace spoke.
“I am hunger.”
It was joined by another voice, and another and another…
“I am cold.”
“I am fear.”
“I am pain.”
More and more voices joined in until a cacophonous litany of pain and anger filled the night air.
The night librarian waited a beat then spoke a single word of power.
There was silence.
“Better. Now who speaks for the displaced ones?”
The voice that answered her was colder than a north wind and angrier than a volcano.
“I speak for all. And if you let us drink your blood and eat your story we will leave the dry books to their desiccated little lives.”
The librarian put her free hand in the sagging pocket of her cardigan.
“Show yourselves then.” She spoke with quiet dignity.
The angry one laughed. “I do enjoy a courageous meal.” Then it began to laugh. An insane, humourless sound that beat against the venerable timbers of the library. When it regained its breath it spoke sneeringly. 
“Do you have any idea what you are asking.”
“Several. Now show yourself if you don’t fear me.”
The very air seemed to hold its breath.
“Me. Fear you?”
Came a bang and a flash and a dark figure stood in the aisle facing the librarian and the terrified bird. It made to snatch the feathered one, but failed as the young woman simply twitched her hand out of reach.
“There is nothing for you here. Go home.” She spoke without inflection, but even so the darkling shuddered right down to its misshapen shoes.
When it answered her it sounded fretful.
“I shall go nowhere. You cannot banish me.”
“Can I not?”
All around there was a sound as of rushing wind, or rustling leaves and the whispers started up again.
“You can not banish us…”
The librarian took a knobbly stick from her pocket.
“Can I not?” she repeated softly.
The winds about her grew fiercer and whipped her skirts and sandy hair into disarray.
“Not even with your little wand.”
“Shall I banish you by name?”
It was as if a hurricane blew the pages of the shrinking books and tried to snatch the knobbly little stick from its owner’s grasp.
“Nooooooo…..”
The librarian sighed and concentrated.
“Rumplestiltskin. Begone.”
The darkling went leaving behind only a sour smell and the memory of fear. The librarian soothed the books before going back to her unending round of the tasks the day librarians thought themselves too beautiful to be worried by.

‘The Story Eaters’ is one of the stories in The Night Librarian by Jane Jago

We ran today through budding flowers
The Mad March Hare and I
O’er meadows green, through wooded bowers
We danced beneath the springtime showers
And counted not the passing hours
The Mad March Hare and I

We strode the primrose path together
The Mad March Hare and I
And didn’t mind the changing weather
We just ran on hell for leather
Through rain and wind and both together
The Mad March Hare and I

We picked the daffodillies lightly
The Mad March Hare and I
And when the spring sun shone down brightly
We bounded on our way so sprightly
And didn’t mind it even slightly
The Mad March Hare and I

E.M. Swift-Hook

Admirable advice from Madame Pendulica’s mystic moggy!

Ah the felicitous joy of being the feline companion to a self-professed woman of wisdom. I get to sleep on a velvet cushion as she parades her predictive prognostications. Well, I say sleep, you can be sure my ears are still perked to hear what torrid tangle her current client is seeking advice on.
Today we had a love-lorn civil servant, the owner of a very small machine tools company about to go bust and my favourite, if only because of the delicious aroma he brought with him, a chef who specialised in sea-food.
However, the beneficiary of my forward-thinking feline advice was to the company owner who seemed to think that Madame Pendulica (did I mention her real name is Doris Brown?) was going to somehow provide him with the information he needed to save his precious company – and to listen to the man his marriage and maybe even his life as well!
Well, seriously, is it surprising that his business has wound up in the litter tray if his idea of hiring a consultant is going to an astrologer to have his own and his company’s horoscopes cast? Yes, I do not jest, this apparently quite rational human being (although I do have to say that is something more often an illusion than a fact) thought a batty woman who believes huge dangly earrings add to her gravitas, with her faith in the stars and her patchouli and sandalwood incense sticks was going to give him better advice than anyone else on how to turn his financial fortunes around.
Can you believe it?
I couldn’t and I promptly sat up and told him so.
“Oh don’t mind Ailuros, she’s having a mystical revelation,” she says in that horrible husky fake generic Eastern European accent she puts on with the clients.
Mystical revelation? My furry butt!
I was telling the deluded dwerp that what he should be doing is going to see a financial advisor at his bank and using whatever money he might still have to hire a business consultant who actually knows something about the possibilities of diversification in an economically challenging time. I suggested he investigate 3D printing and considered taking some of the design aspects of his offerings in house so he could hire out that as a service too.
“There, sweet Ailuros says you need to cleanse your unit on the industrial estate with Clary Sage smudge sticks and put Amber and Amethyst crystals under every window to attract good fortune.”
Sweet Ailuros had enough at that point and abandoning the foolish plonker to the grasping claws of her mistress (which although fake are an impressive two inches long) she sashayed elegantly from the room. I mean there is only so much crap a cat can take without needing to make a fresh deposit in the litter tray herself!

Ailuros the Mystic’s Mog predicts she will be offering more advice next week!

Next morning, a fitful sun shone on at least a score of unconscious nomes. Brenda had found a pair of dolly sunglasses with which she sought to dull the pain in her head.
“What the frag?”
Granny showed her greenish dentures. “You’re hung over, you are.”
Brenda looked at her belly. “No more so’n usual.”
“Nah. It’s what the biggers call feeling ill coz of booze.”
Brenda cast an unloving gaze at the figure of Oisin as he lay on the grass with his mouth wide open.
“Why do I think we’ve not heard the last of poteen?”
Granny sniggered.

©jj 2022

…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.

She punched in a number and was quickly deep in conversation with the dispatcher at the nearest manned police station. Leo went off to fetch their guests, and Mike hied her to the kitchen where she unearthed a couple of cases of Ben and Jerry’s. By the time the back door opened, to admit a dozen scared-looking teenagers and two greyish mouselike women, she had the kettle singing and was assembling mugs. As each teenager passed her she handed out a tub of ice-cream and a spoon.
‘Sit. Eat. Try to relax.’
The kids obeyed her, squeezing onto the benches either side of the big oak table. The two women were less at their ease. One finally found her voice.
‘Is this a Godly home?’
Ro breezed in and looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘And if it isn’t?’
The woman looked at her muscular torso and collection of tattoos with something akin to loathing. She opened and shut her mouth a few times but discretion won, so she said nothing.
Ro grinned nastily. ‘Leo and the chief wardress are waiting for the cops. I said we’d mind the babies if that’s OK.’
Mike grinned. ‘Stop winding people up Ro. Now. Tea? Coffee?’
Misery Mouse found her voice again.
‘We don’t take stimulants and neither do the children.’
‘Decaf then. Now sit down and shut up or I’ll let Ro off the leash.’
Once everyone had a mug of coffee, Mike sat down at the head of the table and engaged the girls on either side of her in conversation. The two mouselike women sucked up coffee and nibbled on digestive biscuits in disapproving silence. The youngsters started to relax under the influence of ice-cream, coffee and inconsequential chatter. Mike had the impression that their keepers would have dearly loved to intervene somehow, but lacked the courage to brave Ro’s basilisk stare.
By the time the door finally opened to admit a grim-looking Leo and two WPCs, the Misery Mice were looking as disapproving as it is possible for a pair of human beings to look, and Mike was having to hold down the desire to box their ears for them.
‘Mike’ Leo said. ‘Is it okay if the girls and these two policewomen stay here until the kids’ parents come for them? Miss Molloy and Miss Carpenter are needed to strike camp.’
Mike lifted a shoulder, and Ro hustled the depressing duo to the door.
‘Out through the gate’ she said brightly. ‘And don’t worry about thanking Mrs Johnson for the coffee and biscuits. We understand that godliness exempts you from the need to be polite.’

From Shall we gather at the river? a hard hitting murder mystery thriller by Jane Jago which is available for 0.99.

Because life happens…

For life is a garden of flowers
With each bloom that you pick for your bowers
The right colour or scent
Just has to be meant
Then the finished display you empowers

E.M. Swift-Hook

I sit in the remains of the house as the winds howl by. It is shelter, but the calm days are few now so there is little chance to find food. All that grows is usually flattened before it fruits by these cursed winds.

There was a time I laughed at those who spoke of ‘man-made climate change’. I mean, who would believe that anything we did could really impact something as huge as this planet? Besides, God gave us this world to use so nothing wrong with doing so.

Them scientists with their fancy words, no one really listened – and even those who believed never did anything much about it that I ever saw.

I still remember that big TV debate when they were saying that all the energy in the atmosphere was what was making the high winds and the warming that melted the ice off the poles. All them poor people having their homes just flooded away, that were so sad. But I didn’t blame them other countries for shooting all those millions of refugees. I mean, you couldn’t take in that many people could you?

And here in the UK, when I were a kid, we never had winds like this. ‘Extreme’ weather meant we got a few feet of snow some winters. We used to talk about the weather and complain at a bit of rain.

I miss those days.

Still, I don’t think them scientists were right though – I just think God hates us all.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Brenda turned her back on the nakedly capering Oisin and waded through the nomes who were fighting over the hooch. She slapped a few and grabbed the bottle.
“It don’t say Po-Cheen anywhere.”
“It wouldn’t.” That was Grandmother. “That’n is shop bought. Poteen is home made.”
“Home made booze. Why have I never heard of it before?”
Granny indicated what was rapidly becoming a war with one rather grubby thumb, and Brenda nodded.
“Anyway, stop hugging that there bottle and pass it this way.”
Brenda took a pull and her eyes watered. She coughed and passed the bottle across.

©jj 2022