I can’t stand bloody freesias. Had them in my wedding bouquet. They were white and pink and smelled like summer and happy ever after.

Only I ain’t gonna get neither by the looks.

I’m stuck here in perpetual winter, and the asshole I was stupid enough to marry has sashayed off back to his momma in sunny Florida.

Last week he sent me the divorce papers I been kind of expecting. I signed them and found myself smiling for the first time in months.

This morning my big bear of a neighbour brought me freesias. These ones smelled like hope.

©️jj 2019

“When we were making our way down from Scotland, Rod got Bill talking about his family, and the things people call the twins came into the conversation.”
Sam laughed.
“Right then. Shitface and Dickhead it is. Do we know which is which?”
“Yes. Matt is Shitface and Cy is Dickhead.”
Patsy patted Anna’s hand.
“I dunno what’s to be ashamed of.  Tuesday afternoon when they were really getting on my tits I called them a pair of ugly-minded little bastards. They didn’t like that, and came to heel quite quickly. So… Names do have power. Even over those two hellions. Love them though I do there are some days when I’d despair if it wasn’t for Jim’s Mam. She swears that Jim and Rod were worse, and that they had beaten up just about every kid in a ten-mile radius by the time they hit secondary school.”
“Now there’s a surprise,” Sam said mildly.
“And that’s not all,” Patsy carried on although Jim was trying to put his hand over her mouth. “Jim is one of six. All males. Two sets of twins. It took me a while, but I now understand why Ma Cracksman looks like she was carved out of granite. It’s the strain of motherhood – principally the strain of not laughing when the little shits do something as hilarious as it is forbidden. Which only happens about ten times a day.”
Jim looked at Sam for a long moment.
“It don’t bother you at all, does it? The prospect of filling your home with our offspring, who strike fear into the hearts of almost every middle-class person who sees them, holds no fear for you at all.”
He grinned, obviously much impressed.
“You wanna tell me why?”
Sam grinned.
“One: I don’t see you and Pats letting them actually burn the place down. Two: If you two are their parents they must have some redeeming features. Three: I might not be as big as you, Jim, but I ain’t exactly a seven-stone weakling, and I’m perfectly capable of handing down any justice I see fit. Also from what I have seen of your kids I like them quite a lot. I find myself deeply bored by well-behaved middle-class children, but your boys are fun.”
Anna nodded emphatically.
“They are fun. And if you treat them like people, not little kids, they tend to respond well. Though I do expect you will have to belt the twins.”
“If he do, he do,” Jim said philosophically. “He knows enough not to really hurt them, and it would do them no harm at all to meet someone who isn’t called Cracksman who won’t tolerate their idea of clever. Now. Pizza. It’s much too good to let it go cold.”

Later that afternoon a certain shiny red truck was progressing majestically along the M4.
“Why we going so slow uncle Rod?” It was William who plucked up the courage to ask.
“Many reasons. First because I don’t want a speeding ticket. Second because I’m teaching you lot patience. Mainly, however, because I want to talk to you.”
“About?” the twins spoke as one.
“As if you didn’t know. What did Gran say to you when she took you aside just before we left home?”
“Told us to bloody behave.”
“You taking any notice?”
Jamie spoke up.
“I am. I like Sam and so do the little men. But what the gruesome twosome here will chose to do…”
“That’s what I thought. Right you pair. Talk.”
For a moment the silence was all but deafening, then Matt spoke.
“We know the family owes him, and as far as we know he’s OK. But we don’t like the thought of his hands on Anna. And he’s middle class and seems a bit soft. So we reckon he needs winding up, and we’re gonna give it a go. It’s no good telling us not to.”
“Wasn’t going to, but I will pick the holes in your reasoning. Jamie, would you care to enlighten your brothers?”
“I doubt they will listen.”
“They will. There’s going to be a quiz afterwards,” Rod said flatly.
“Right. The basics. Samuel Henderson, orthopaedic surgeon. Bone doctor to you two ignorant eejits. Mends broken people. He’s also not so middle class as you might think. Plus. I did hear he kickboxes.”
Cy spoke.
“You sure bro?”
“Yup.”
“That puts a bit of a different complexion on it,” his twin mused. “Wonder if he’s any good?”
He looked questioningly at his uncle.
“I’m not telling,” Rod rumbled. “But it’s a factor you two should keep in mind. If he belts you its liable to hurt. And there’s something else you all need to consider. You will remember last year when little Pete’s boy got knocked over by that hit and run driver. What you may not know is they thought the kid would lose a leg. But there was this surgeon – worked for five solid hours to piece him back together. He succeeded beyond little Pete’s wildest dreams, so much so that the kid is back playing football. I did hear that the surgeon is a genius, and a bloke what goes the extra mile to help his patients get well. And that surgeon is Sam.”
“Shit,” Matt said feelingly. “That means the family owes him again don’t it?”
“It does,” Jamie agreed feelingly, “I remember how mum and dad thought the kid would never walk again, and how surprised and thrilled they were when he got mended. I wonder if they know it was Sam.”
“Doubt it. I only know because I been seeing a nurse from where he works and he come up in the conversation. She said he’s the best there is, and mentioned little Pete’s kid as an example of how hard he works for his patients. I will tell your mum and dad as soon as I get a private opportunity. What you lot have to decide is how much the family honour means to you.”
Jamie spoke slowly.
“Means they got to behave don’t it?’
Rod nodded.
“As long as he is treating Anna right. Yes. Twins?”
“Can we swear?”
“Just this once if Charlie puts his fingers in his ears.”
Charlie obliged.
“Okay. Fuck it. In fact. Double fuck it. We’ll behave. Mostly.”
Charlie took his fingers out of his ears.
“You never know, you might even get to like him.”
“Why’d we do that Chas?”
“Because me and Bill like him and we know him better than you.”
The twins snorted until Rod put out a huge hand to cuff their heads.
“Listen to your brother you pair of fecking eejits. He has a point.”
“He does,” Bill agreed. “Like usual.”
Cy frowned, then grinned.
“Wouldn’t that just be the way. Everybody worried about how we will behave towards Anna’s man, and we go and decide to like him.”
Matt sniggered.
“Could even happen. Dad seems to like him. And he don’t like many people. What say we keep an open mind? And behave reasonable while we decide?”
“You do that,” Rod rumbled.

Jane Jago

Sandro Dubarry wrote stories. Of beautifully submissive females and darkly dominant males. He was suave and elegant, and his wife, Sybella, was a delicate patrician beauty. They were famously in a monogamous dom/sub relationship.

He finished writing for the day and saved the document. As he was about to close down, he felt a pair of hands on his shoulders. He sat quietly as his wife read the day’s writing.

She leaned over and breathed in his ear.

“You have been a bad dog haven’t you?”

He shivered in anticipation as she buckled the leather collar about his throat.

©️jj 2019

Memory is treacherous,
Catches you unawares.
Stops you when you’re ironing
Trips you on the stairs.
You wonder why it comes to you
That image from the past
The one you can’t keep hold of
Though in your heart it lasts
A smell, a sound, a whisper
A woolly jumper’s feel
Memory takes a photograph
And adds it to life’s reel
Then one day it slips a frame
Bright before your eyes
Sometimes memory makes you laugh
Sometimes it makes you cry

© Jane Jago 2019

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.

© Jane Jago 2019

 

They left the place of death hand in hand. Mariam rested her head against Yusuf’s broad shoulder.

“I suppose he belongs to the fanatics now.”

“Aye. And we are not grand enough for the likes of them.”

“It’s his poor little wife they will treat worst. At least he has to have had a mother.”

Yussuf touched her cheek, and Mariam felt his love ease the pain in her heart.

“It doesn’t matter what they say. Jesua will always be my baby. Even if they would turn a fat, happy wife into a pale, sad virgin”

Yusuf sighed. “Even if…”

©️jj 2019

A limerick’s good as a pet
I doesn’t need feeding, and yet
It will come to your aid
When you’re sad or afraid
And I’ve never been bit by one yet

© jane jago

The SciFi Roundtable's new anthology Gods of Clay is available to preorder.

God had abandoned them.
Or so Jakka’s brother Akari said. She lay back on an outreaching tree branch and contemplated the heavens. Streaking tendrils of orange and pink played across a vast sea of pale blue as the second sun sank beneath a distant wall of mountains.
So beautiful was the evening sky that it had always served to reinforce her devotion to Syri, as did many other natural wonders of her world. But the last season had been harder than any the Vandorian people had known, leaving many dead or battling starvation. Had Syri lost sight of them from his tower? Had they angered him? These and many other questions haunted her thoughts as she struggled to justify the blatant neglect of her people.
Rain hadn’t fallen for the better part of four cycles, and the crops they had counted on to sustain them into the cold times had not survived the drought. What was more, the local herds had all abandoned the region, making it impossible to hunt without an extraordinary cost of provisions and energy, neither of which Syri had granted the tribe’s hunters.
Ignoring the grumbling of her stomach, Jakka leapt down from her perch and started home. Reaching the safety of her village’s bordering walls before nightfall had become essential in recent times, as many dangerous creatures from the region, now desperate for meat, had taken to hunting Vandorians, who had traditionally been avoided for the dangers of tackling such a prize. But alone, equipped with only a few arrows for her bow and a single obsidian blade, she would be no match for several attackers.
She upped her jogging pace to a full run.
“There you are. Mother’s going mad with worry.” Akari was waiting for her by the gate and raised his hands with obvious impatience before ushering her into the village. “As if she didn’t already have enough to worry about, you seem to relish forcing her to contemplate whether or not you’ve become a meal.”
“I didn’t mean for it to get so late. Anyway, I’ve reached adulthood. It is no longer mother’s task to worry for my safety.”
“One who had truly reached adulthood would never say such a thing.”
“I … You’re right … of course. It’s just that I’ve always gone to the arct tree to think in the evening. I won’t let fear take that away from me.”
“No one said you can’t go there to think. The issue is that you wait until second sun has set before you come home. It’s too dangerous.” He grabbed her quiver and gave it a shake. “How do you expect to defend yourself with so few arrows?”
“Okay, I get it. I know you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
Exhaling her animosity, she closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes. I am. I would come home sooner but it has always been during the setting of second sun that I have felt the most connected to Syri. How can I hope for him to hear my pleas if I am disconnected?”
Akari’s expression hardened. “Jakka, Syri has—”
“—abandoned us? Yes, I know what you think. And you know I don’t believe you.”
“Look around. No god would allow their creations to suffer in such a way. If things go on like this, we will all be dead by the end of this rotation. We will not survive the cold if Enuni herds don’t return to this region.”
“The rain will come, you’ll see. Syri is just testing our faith. He gives us so much, and we give little in return. Is he not entitled to test our devotion to ensure we are still worthy of his gifts?”
“We did not ask for this, Jakka. Don’t you see? We were put here for his amusement, and he has grown weary of us. Do you not grow weary of things you once loved? When was the last time you wove arct branches?”
Hurt by his words and unable to conjure a valid response, Jakka stormed away. She entered her hut and ran to her mother, sobbing into the supportive shoulder that had always been there.
“Akari has lost his faith. The things he says are horrible.”
“I know, dear. I have tried to speak with him, but he is angry. Ever since starvation took your father from us, he has been cold and empty inside. His bitterness is all he has to feed on now.”
“Why won’t it rain? Why is Syri doing this to us?”
“Because we have become complacent; assumptive of his many blessings. Tell me, last rotation, how often did you feel compelled to engage in your dedications?”
Shame tugged Jakka’s eyes to the floor. She shifted her feet, searching her mind for a response that might shed a better light on her answer than reality would. Disgraced by the only reply available, she said, “Maybe once a cycle … if that … ”
“And you were not the only one. Many became complacent in the gifts bestowed upon us. Well—now we are made to pay for a lacking gratitude.”
“I have apologized so many times, though. I have beseeched him to have mercy—to forgive us for our many faults. And still, the drought continues. We will not survive much longer if things go on like this.”
“Perhaps it is his will that we die. After all, he gave us life, and he can just as well take it away.”
Too disturbed by her mother’s words to find a response, Jakka went to her bed and curled up, weeping fresh tears of fear and sorrow until sleep brought reprieve.

‘The Suns Set’ by Ian Bristow is one of the stories in the SciFi Roundtable‘s new anthology Gods of Clay which is available to preorder. Bristow Designs also designed that awesome cover.

It was a small unregarded painting in an small unregarded museum. It might have remained thus, was it not for a viral podcast on missing masterpieces. 

An internationally sought Flemish study of a cavalier sounded to the museum curator very much like a muddy little portrait he saw every day. 

He wrote to an acquaintance in the fine art world.

Two years later the restored portrait fetched a world record sum when it was auctioned in London.

The day the cavalier left England the museum fell down. 

There was no drama and little noise, the building simply sighed and collapsed.

©️jj 2019

Sunday lunch, and Caroline carefully masticated her roast lamb and over-cooked vegetables whilst attempting to tune out the carefully genteel tones of her mother-in-law, Marjorie, as she treated them to her own version of the Sunday sermon. Today it was immigrants. And the EU, of course. But that was a blessed relief from child care ‘hints’ and open criticism of the way she and her sister-in-law dressed, spoke, and, one very memorable Sunday indeed, even how they smelled. 

‘Yaddah, Yaddah’ she thought as she tried to push the two-hour journey home, with its inevitable sugar-induced tantrums and car sickness, to the back of her mind. She must have been doing quite well, because she was dragged back to the world of serviettes and Sunday best china by a derisive snort from her left-hand neighbour. She turned a polite face to her husband’s younger brother, who wagged his head at her. Tuning back into the Sunday homily she realised why even he was pissed off. Marjorie was busily assuring her grandchildren that of course the going rate for the tooth fairy had gone up in line with inflation.  About five pounds per tooth would be fair, she thought. 

Caroline sighed inwardly and decided she couldn’t face any more lunch. She put her knife and fork down and fished about in her head for something uncontroversial to say.

Before she had a chance to speak, and in an almost unheard of break from the rigidly enforced etiquette which normally prevailed, her husband leaned across from his seat on the other side of the table and whispered in her ear. 

‘Never mind the bloody tooth fairy. I’d rather like there to be a Shut up Mother fairy.’

In a rare moment of whimsy Caroline grinned at him. ‘You never know, there might be. But you have to invite her in.’

He grinned back at her, though the lines of tension that bracketed his mouth from the moment they arrived at his mother’s house until the moment they left were still etched into his skin. ‘I do, don’t I? Very well.’ He closed his eyes and spoke softly. ‘Shut up Mother fairy, I most humbly invite you into this house.’

He sat back in his chair, and the air filled with mocking laughter. At the head of the table Marjorie’s mouth kept right on moving, but now she no longer made a sound… 

Jane Jago