When we were first setting up the Working Title Blog, this was the first piece ever posted before we launched to see how this whole blog thing worked... You might have missed it back then so here it is again for you to enjoy!

“It is entirely in your own hands archbishop,” the slender red-haired woman in the huge gilded chair spoke coldly and deliberately, “but you and your confederates have ensured that the majority of the populace believes in one virgin birth so I fail to see your problem.”

The ancient, and cadaverously thin, prelate stared at her for a long moment while the muscles in his jaw worked. He obviously wanted to say something but in the end he lacked the courage and subsided into fulminating silence.

“And you Master Cecil. Do you have nothing to say?”
The richly clad figure of Her Majesty’s spymaster in chief bowed floridly.
“This, your Majesty, is either a master stroke or the biggest mistake a reigning monarch ever made. With the greatest respect, we will not know which it is for many months yet.”
“Agreed, there is an element of risk but I would know whether you are with us in our great endeavour.”
Cecil dropped his world-weary pose and bowed his head.
“To death and beyond, Majesty. To death and beyond.”
“You can serve us best by remaining alive,” the Queen spoke with some asperity although her narrow dark eyes warmed a little as they rested on Cecil’s beaky face.

The third man came forward and bent the knee before his sovereign.
“Parliament will uphold whatever your majesty chooses to do.”
“My lord Essex was ever the gentleman,” the Queen laughed although it was a mirthless sound. “The lords temporal range themselves alongside us, as does Master Cecil’s organisation, which just leaves the lords spiritual to declare.”
Essex looked at the cleric with something akin to loathing.
“You are either with us, my lord archbishop, or you are against us. We have no time for you to mull over your decision.”
The stubborn old man in the cope and mitre stared at his queen.
“Do you even begin to know what you are asking?”
She regarded him for a long moment.
“We are perfectly well aware. But what would you have us do? Marry England to some foreign prince? Elevate one of our noble families above the others?”
The archbishop looked at her marble pale features with dawning respect.
“No, Majesty, I would have you do neither of those.”
“Then give me an alternative.”
The old man bowed his head.
“There is none. I stand corrected. The church ranges itself beside you.”
“Good.You may all leave us now.”

The three men bowed themselves out of the room and as soon as they had closed the door behind them the figure in the huge chair allowed her shoulders to sag just a little. A large sandy-haired man, dressed plainly in leather and homespun, stepped out from behind the rich hangings and came to kneel at her feet. She smiled down at him.
“It appears,” she said carefully, “that our plan has the support it needs. Now it is for you to do your part.”
He lifted one small foot in his large, calloused hand and brought it to his lips.

In due time Gloriana, the virgin queen, gave birth to a strapping red-haired son. She called him Henry after her great father, and he ruled wisely and well as did his own son and the son of his son, and the son of the son of his son….

© jane jago 2017

An extract from A Time of Need by Brent A. Harris an alternative history in which Washington is a hero - but on the British side...

Point of Departure
Braddock’s Road, Monongahela River, British America
July 9th, 1755.

In retrospect, General Edward Braddock realized that he should not have survived. Maybe the French ambush had gone awry. Maybe someone had been out of place. Maybe he had just gotten lucky. He experienced, if only for a fleeting instant, a feeling that things should be different. But now, he was engaged in the chaos of battle, on the brink of defeat. Retreat was his only option.
Personally, the French and the Savages could have the damned Ohio Valley and the damnable heat that went with it. His red woolen coat stank, and his white uniform blouse had long since turned yellow. His red silk sash wrapped loosely around his chest. The summer humidity made his buff breeches sticky, wedging uncomfortably under his saddle.
Despite this, his allegiance laid with his uniform and he would not betray it. Braddock held his hunting sword high. He wove between cypress semi-evergreens and massive white oaks. On some of those trees, scalps of his men were hung like trophies. He passed them and his stomach tightened. His mount was his fifth, the others had been shot out from under him. His men had lost the will to fight. Many were dead, of those who lived, most fled. Still, Braddock rode on among his remaining men.
As far as he was concerned, everything around him—the undrinkable water of the Monongahela River, mosquitoes, venomous vipers and Savages—was literally trying to kill him. Those things weren’t to be found back home in Scotland and his nice thick uniform would have actually served him quite well in the highlands. But, like everything in the British Colonies, what served well at home was often a hindrance here.
He spied his aide-de-camp, a young Yank—sweaty and flustered—not meters away, returning from the head of the column to the rear. Braddock rode to him, then quickly recoiled and reared his head back in disgust. “You smell like the wrong end of a horse.” George Washington cut an imposing figure when on horseback. But not today. Up close he looked pale and wet. Several folded blankets padded his saddle, most of which were soaked in a slick, brownish mess.
“We are overrun, sir. We cannot hold,” Washington said. Sweat poured freely over his face, but his mouth and eyes remained dry. “The Ottowan and Potawatomis Natives are breaking our ranks. The French are keeping us penned-in.”
The Scotsman gave it one last thought, then said, “If we cannae hold them here, then we must fall ba—”
His horse bucked, as if stung by something sharp. Braddock grabbed ahold of the reins, but it was too late. He couldn’t get a tight enough grip on them. He felt light, then the sensation of flying. His sword flew out of his hand and his sash came undone. He was off his horse and falling through open air. He heard the snap in his leg before he felt himself hitting the ground. His right leg, below the knee, twisted sideways against the momentum of his fall. Then, his beast fell dead on top of him and crushed Braddock’s broken leg. He let out a bellow of pain which rivaled that of the cannon firing nearby and matched the haunting war whoops of the Savages encircling his men. The next thing Braddock knew was that two of his men held him propped up by the shoulders.
“Do I have your orders to call for retreat?” Washington was above him, still on his horse.
Braddock’s leg was about to overwhelm him. Everything felt distant. He managed to nod slowly. “Aye.”
“Very well, I shall carry the orders myself to the men and drag them away if necessary. If we cannot have victory, we shall at least share no shame in our withdrawal.” Though Washington was very nearly on his deathbed, Braddock thought, he didn’t act the part. Washington actually shot him a look of concern, then spoke to the two men. “Get the General to safety.” With that, Washington turned away.
The two men attempted to haul the wounded General back up the road, keeping the weight off his leg, but it was little use. Braddock gasped. “No lads, let me rest a bit.” He turned a finger behind him, “there, get me up on the rise, steady as you can.” He grunted with each step.
A moment later, he looked down, just in time for him to see his aide-de-camp fly down the hill. Braddock heard two distinct shots fire, both muzzle flashes aimed at Washington. If either of them hit, Braddock couldn’t tell, but Washington rode on. Bloody ‘ell that luck.
Braddock was a General in the best equipped, best trained army in the world. One British soldier was worth ten savages. Or, so he thought. The wilderness challenged that assumption. Washington pushed him to accept that things were different here. Braddock had at first sneered, as if a Yank knew anything about proper British soldiering. What Washington did not know or understand was that Braddock had changed. He had adapted his method of soldiering to face the peculiarities of the New World. Apparently, Braddock thought, as he saw the destruction of his army all around him, he had not changed them enough. Perhaps, in the future, he should take his aide’s advice closer to heart. Maybe Braddock had underestimated him.
Later, when the British had made good on their withdrawal, he was not surprised to learn that they owed much of their orderly departure to the work of Washington. The sickly, flux-riddled Yank had performed more admirably then even some of Braddock’s best Generals. They would all live to fight another day as they made their slow and arduous way to Ft Duquesne to liberate the Ohio Valley from French invasion. Thanks largely in part to George Washington.
Braddock would not have believed it had he not borne witness to it himself. Maybe the Yank had enough British blood in him yet to make a proper soldier. Braddock raised an eyebrow as he tried to envision the youth in a bright red British uniform instead of the Colonial rags he wore. In his head, the result was smashing. “Hmm,” he said to no one in particular. “Who would-ev’ thought?”

Time of Need is available now for just 0.99!

Cover designed by Ian Bristow.

A year ago today the Working Title Blog took its first teetering steps into the world as a daily blog with the mission statement of providing a short read every day to go with your coffee or tea break. We had no idea what we were doing (to be honest we still don’t) but we have grown to getting over 700 views in a month, and this was the piece that we started with…

'The Harkeran Forest' from Times of Change, which is the second volume of Transgressor Trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook.

At the edge of the carefully cultivated parkland which surrounded the summer palace of the rulers of Harkera, just outside the white-walled city of Cressida, lay a huge expanse of woodland in which nature was given great freedom of expression in return for allowing the monarchs of Harkera and their chosen guests, the privilege of hunting there. Not that the privilege was granted freely – it had to be earned. It was a playground for those whose reactions were fast and whose sinews were strong – those who wished to be tested against the wild.

Karlynne knew that it was not a proper wild forest because there were men who took care of it – vergers and warders, gamekeepers and huntsmen, employed to make sure that the main paths were always kept clear and that there were always plenty of wild game to be hunted by the monarch’s noble visitors. But it was almost a proper forest, such as the ones she had read about in her books where winged ponies and talking animals lived. She had been told never to go there because it was home to dangerous animals, tizarts, therloons and seminarls and dangerous men – land-pirates Turla called them – men who would come to steal the animals and who would be just as happy to steal young girls who were foolish enough to wander into the hunting park alone.

But today the forest did not look at all menacing or dangerous and it would not be the first time Karlynne had ridden there alone with no one any the wiser. It beckoned to her, mysterious and inviting beneath the early summer sky and Turla was sitting in her room resting her aching bones having told Karlynne she should do as she pleased for the afternoon.

With a brief and ephemeral flash of guilt, she reminded herself that was not strictly true. Turla had told her to take one of the grooms if she went riding, but when she had got to the stables to find her favourite pony, Mischief, all the grooms had been busy. Being far too considerate to interrupt their work for her own pleasure, she had sent one of the boys for Mischief’s tack and had saddled him herself, riding out unnoticed.

It was a glorious feeling to canter across the park alone, she who was never allowed anywhere unescorted, and the simple joy of freedom made her laugh aloud. In truth, she had not really intended to go into the forest at all that day, but once she had reached the edge of the open parkland, the fringe of trees with its inviting paths had beckoned her in. Now, she rode beneath the canopy of leaves, thrilling at her own daring and filled with a delicious excitement. Her books and Turla’s tales from nursery days onwards, had always been full of enchanted forests, with magicians, talking animals and handsome young men who always turned out to be the long-lost son of some noble who invariably needed rescue from a dire enchantment, by the hands of a beautiful princess. After which they would fall in love and live happily ever after.

Karlynne decided that she was the perfect heroine for such a romance. Turla had often told her that she looked just like her mother, who everyone said was beautiful, so she must be beautiful too and at nearly twelve years old she was certainly young. Every credential met, she was bound to find adventure, romance and true love sooner or later – and where better to look than in the forest? Not that she expected talking animals and magicians here, of course, they were only in stories – but you never knew and the forest certainly seemed a place for adventure.

Huge thanks from Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook to all those who have contributed to the Working Title Blog thus far, whether as guests or as readers. Here's to the next year!

The Awakening (Eve of Redemption Book 8) is the eighth instalment in the Eve of Redemption series by Joe Jackson, introduces a new cast of characters. It focuses on a massive undead uprising and the band of strangers who come together to combat it, and how the companions become swept up in a conflict that spans multiple worlds.

Audrei straightened up. “Wait, that smell…” 

Max whirled around suddenly. “Dragon!” 

There was a deep intake of breath in the darkness, and the friends scattered every which way they could as a blast of fire came from what proved to be the center of the chamber. A gate fell shut behind them, sealing off the way they had come. Though the dragon’s breath didn’t hit any of the companions, it set the door aglow with the intensity of its heat. Then the creature, still barely visible in that dim light, reared up and let forth a roaring laugh. 

“Welcome to my humble lair, mortals!” it boomed. “Know that you will never leave.”

Yiilu gestured toward the glowing metal door and called out a prayer to the Earth Mother to give them light. The glow faded from the metal bars but formed into a ball that shot to the top of the cavernous chamber as though fired from a bow.  There it perched and grew in intensity, until it had formed a miniature sun that shed light on the entire room.

Leighandra froze for a moment. Though not as impressive in stature as Hastucilliara, the green dragon was still titanic in size. It spread its wings out in the openness of the chamber, which served to underscore just how large a cavern it had carved or otherwise created. It begged the question of how the dragon had gotten in here; was there truth to the tales that some of them could take the forms of men?

The dragon’s bright red eyes inspected each of the men and women before it, and then it laughed again. “I must say, I am going to eat better tonight than I have in years! And I suspect with a fair deal less dirt and poison mixed in – the fur notwithstanding.”

“Who are you?” Audrei asked, no doubt hoping diplomacy might settle the creature down the way it had with Fireblade. “What is your name, mighty dragon?”

The beast grumbled and swept Starlenia and Delkantar in front of it with its wings.  “If you must know, my name is Cetudolinashu, the Heart of the Viridian Splendor, the Dryads’ Nightmare, the Lord of the Emerald Flame. Do not bother telling me your names, mortals. I do not care. You will not live long enough for them to be of any importance.”

“Wait!” Max cried. “We are not here to fight you. We have come for the seal only.”

It was of no use. The dragon took in a deep breath, and the companions scattered as much as they could again. Max stood firm and actually advanced at it, and Leighandra wasn’t sure if she screamed at him or not. The dragon’s fiery breath engulfed him, and Audrei shrieked in terror even as she skidded across the floor. It was as if time stood still after that, Leighandra’s heart stuck between beats as the dragon completed its exhale and the world stopped spinning in the wake of their loss.

A bite of... Joe Jackson

Q1: How much of you is in your characters?

Most of my characters have a bit of me in them, but none really have a lot.  My MC has a little in common with me, but even some of the things we have in common are not exactly the same.  I think when I began writing her, I was more concerned with her having one major thing in common with me: the ability to grow and change.  I think it’s one of the most important characteristics of an MC.  

The married couple in The Awakening does resemble my wife and me in many ways, but they’re not meant to be representative of us.

As for the villains, well, I can be an ass at times.  We have that in common.

Q2: Facing your demons? How much of what you write could be classified as therapy?

Quite a bit.  My MC suffered abuse as a child, and even thirty years later she still has an occasional moment of panic or weakness where the wounded side of her responds rather than the strong side.  Readers who’ve had an abusive past may find strength and inspiration in the way Kari grows throughout the books, but it’s not an instantaneous thing.

The amusing thing is she’s a demon hunter, but the worst demons she faces are often internal.

Q3: How much of your writing is autobiographical?

Going back to the answer to the first question, I guess I write from experience fairly often.  But again, none of my characters are “me” inserted into the story.  None of the events of the book are meant to chronicle or parallel my life.  I think there are a lot of things people have in common that they don’t ever really think (or want to think) about, and it’s no different with our characters.

Joe Jackson in his own words:

I’m an accountant by trade, writer by night or when I have down time at work.  I live in Rhode Island with my wife and two daughters.  I just recently passed the CPA exam, so now things are really going to get interesting.

I’ve been writing little scifi/fantasy stories since I was in fifth grade.  I wrote my first novel in 2009 but didn’t release it until 2015.

You can find Joe Jackson on Twitter and Goodreads and his own blog.

Sunday morning arrived too quickly for Sam. He was rousted out of bed at eight o’clock.
“Up you get sleepyhead. Grab a shower. I’ve had mine. I’ll wake the mad fishermen and go make bacon sandwiches.”
Sam sat up and shook his head.
“OK,” he said around a furry tongue. “Too much wine last night. After breakfast I need a walk.”
But he was talking to thin air. Anna had already whisked out of the room, and he could vaguely hear cursing as he woke Danny and Paul.

Twenty minutes later, he was in the kitchen eating a huge sandwich of bacon and portobello mushroom. Danny and Paul weren’t far behind him.
“Okay. Would somebody mind telling me why I have been unceremoniously ousted from my bed at sparrow-fart on a Sunday morning?”
“We have visitors arriving at eleven, and stuff to do before they get here,” Anna said firmly.
“Who?” Danny looked vaguely interested.
“Rod and Jim.’
“Oh well. Good. I think. Does this mean you will be back in touch with Patsy?”
“Yes. I can handle her now.”
“You sure?”
“Yup.”
“Then it is good. I was sorry to think you weren’t talking, although I understood why. We telling them about the wedding?”
“No, but we’ll invite them to the ‘birthday party’. All of them.”
Paul sighed theatrically.
“And for this she hauls me out of bed…”
But once Anna put doorstep sandwiches and bucket-sized cups of tea beside them, he even grinned.
“We forgive you,” he said magnanimously, then groaned with delight as he took his first mouthful.
“What beats me,” Danny said meditatively, “is where he puts it.  My beloved eats like a horse and never puts on an ounce. If I didn’t love him so much it would piss me off deeply.”
“Yeah,” Sam agreed with some feeling. “Anna’s the same, although in her case we do know why. But that ain’t much consolation when I’m slogging away in the gym. And don’t say I could diet. I defy any red-blooded human to do that when Anna is cooking.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Paul said happily. “Anna’s food is probably the only thing in the world worth being straight for. And I don’t even have to do that – being attached to her favourite brother.”
Anna patted his head.
“Berk. Now. Do you want to hit Waitrose with me? If so we leave here at nine-fifteen sharp. I wanna be there when they open the doors at half nine. And at the checkout when it opens at ten.”
“Yeah. Sounds like a plan. I need to stock the camper. But what will the fat boys be doing?”
“Walking Bonnie.”
“Fair enough. Now don’t anybody talk to me until I have finished this sandwich. It’s far too good to mess up with conversation…”

Anna aimed a blow at his head, and poured about half a stone of potatoes into the utility sink. Sam, who had finished his sandwich, got up.
“You want help with peeling?”
“Yes please love.”
He grinned.
“Whyn’t you let me peel the spuds. I’m sure there’s more technical stuff requiring your attention. And I’m quite good with a knife.”
Which proved to be more than an idle boast, as the potatoes were peeled at top speed, but also with extreme neatness. Danny patted Sam’s shoulder.
“C’mon you. We’re supposed to be walking Bon Bon. Leave the kitchen to the girls.”
He wasn’t quite fast enough to duck the very wet dishcloth his sister threw at his head. Sam dragged him out of the room before he could get himself into any more trouble.
“Get your boots on Marshall. Let’s give Bonnie a good walk.”

They went, bickering amicably, with Bonnie at their heels. Paul stood in the kitchen doorway and watched them go.
“It’s nice to see Danny so at ease with someone outside our gay circle. But I really, really wish he wouldn’t call me a girl.” Anna grimaced.
“I know. Why’d you think he got the wet  dishcloth? He’s an insensitive bugger at times, ain’t he? But I guess we still love him.”
“We do. Would you be an angel and help me make a list for the camper. You know what space there is.”
“Yeah. Sure…”

By eleven o’clock everyone was back at the house, and Anna had three legs of lamb roasting, plus what seemed to Sam to be enough vegetables to feed a small city. Then he thought about Rod’s appetite, and Paul’s appetite, and…

He crossed the room and put his arms around Anna from behind. She turned in his arms and lifted her face for a kiss.
“What did I do to to deserve that?” she asked happily.
“Nothing. Except be yourself.”
He bent to kiss her again and was interrupted by gagging noises from the doorway.
“Piss off Danny,” he said amiably. “I know you don’t get it with girls, but that don’t give you an excuse to mess it up for those of us who do…”

What Danny would have said in reply was lost in the sound of a very loud set of air horns.
“Rod,” Sam said. “You all stay here, but Bonnie can come to the door with me if she wants.”

She did want. So one man and one dog went out and opened the gates to a brand-new muscle truck – in eye-watering scarlet with black wolves painted along the sides.
“Nice truck,” Sam said, as Rod jumped out to thump him between the shoulder blades. “Did you break the old one?”
“I most certainly did not. I just fancied this one! And since when did you have a dog…”
Jim came out of the passenger seat a bit more decorously. “That’s not ‘a dog’. If I’m not very much mistaken it’s Anna’s Bonnie.”
“So it bloody well is. Hello Bon Bon.”
Rod bent and smoothed the elegant dark head, then smote Sam’s shoulder one more time.
“You crafty little bastard!”
He sprinted into the house.
“C’mere Marshall…”
Sam put his hand on Jim’s bicep and looked him in the eyes.
“I just want you to know that Patsy being kept in the dark is none of my doing.”
Jim grinned.
“No. It wouldn’t be. It’d be Anna. She needed some time outside Patsy’s orbit. They love each other like sisters, and that’s the rub. Like sisters they don’t always agree. Until recently, Anna used to let Pats have her own way all the time. But she’s grown up at last. Pats needs to learn to accept that before they can be close again.”
Sam frowned as he thought that one through.
“Yeah. I kinda get that. Anna’s a bit like me. We don’t like rows.”
“No. I can understand that. Now let me go see Anna. I’ve missed her too.”
Just then, Sam heard Anna squeak.
“I guess Rod just caught up with my intended,” he grinned.
Jim held up a hand. “Listen.”
Rod’s voice was next.
“Ouch. Ouch. I give in!”
“What’s she doing to him?”
“Pinching his ear. She always does. It’s all part of the game.”
“Yeah,” Sam grinned. “Rod’s a big softie when it comes to girls. Shall we go in and rescue him?”

Jane Jago

There are times when old age is the pits
When it totally lacks pleasant bits
It does in your head 
When you roll out of bed
And promptly trip over your tits

©️ jane jago 2018 

Please tell me what jogging achieves
Apart from a pain in the knees
It jiggles your bits
From the bum to the tits
And it makes you go purple and wheeze

©️ jane jago

Here we go again.

Yes, it’s me Jacintha Farquhar, and not – as promised last week – my son, Moons.

I had hoped that I’d not have to come up with another one of these. I was kicking back with a Pernod and Pimms spritzer enjoying the blazing sun in the back garden and admiring the abs on my new next-door neighbour as he was up a ladder fixing something on his roof, topless. But then the peace was broken by a call from that pompous prat I have the misfortune to have to claim as my son. He is back to being his obnoxious self as if nothing had happened to dent his massive ego.

The good news is I am spared his presence for another week, as he has decided to take a short ‘cultural cruise’ of some other Greek islands with someone called Stavros. The bad news is that it means I have to get out my iPad and come up with something vaguely intelligent to say to you lot.

I hope you bloody appreciate it!

Life Lessons for Writers – Three: People

And by ‘people’ I also mean aliens if you write that science fiction stuff Moons is so fond of. They are people too. And so are those elves and dwarves – and vampires. In fact, any character you ever write, even a talking computer, is going to be people. So you might as well listen up as too many of you wannabes don’t have the first idea about any kind of people except those who are exactly like you.

Oh yes, you might write about some poor orphaned starveling who is abused by the world, but does she think and act like someone who’s been through that kind of experience? Or just your weak and idealised imagination of what it might be like? I mean, how many genuinely damaged people do you count in your close circle? If the answer is ‘Well, Olivia’s parents divorced and she had to give up her horse riding lessons which left her traumatised for life’ or something similar, then you need to rethink writing that starveling. You. Have. No. Idea. And if you don’t, then no amount of effing imagination is going to fill in the gaps.

And, no I’m not saying you can only write about your own level of privileged life, I’m saying get out there and meet the kind of people you want to write about. Go to that dive bar, visit that job centre, help out at that homeless shelter, and find out what the people you want to write into your stories are really like. And the same the other way around. You want to know how the better off think, go along to the local posh golf club and listen in on their banter, hear what they really talk about. A useful tip here is go volunteer to visit an old people’s homes – chat with them. You’ll get the full monty on life across the spectrum, I promise you.

Don’t be like my naive and self-righteous prig of a son who firmly believes that he understands all people because he is one.

Oh, if you can’t bring yourself to actually go to those places and interact with real people, then you can at least read about them. That’s what the more precious twonks amongst those who call themselves writers (yes Moons, I’m looking at you) that I know seem to do. Most are too bloody afraid of real people to go out and actually talk to them.

Right. I’m done. If my sodding son is not back by next week I’ll be posting cocktail recipes with naked pictures of me drinking them. You have been warned.

Now bugger off!

Jacintha Farquar, long-suffering mother of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

Adoring Fans can join his Facebook Group but please don’t as it only encourages him.

Even on a crowded beach she brought her bone-chilling solitude with her. It wrapped her in its grey tendrils leaving her unable to feel the sun, or hear the sea or the children’s laughter. Instead, she sat with her thin arms wrapped about her shins and stared into the water. 

It was as if by staring enough into the green depths she might see him laying on the shifting sands with his pockets weighted with lead and his pretty throat slit by the unkindness of a knife.

The weekend went on around her unseeing eyes and unhearing ears, and after a while her abstraction rendered her so insubstantial that the playing children ran over her and through her without either knowing she was there or disturbing her reverie. Day drew into night and still she sat watching as the sun fell and the moon rose, delineating a silver pathway from the breaking waves beside her cold, bare feet. 

Called by some voice from who knew where, the woman rose and walked into the silvered water. It was, she found, surprisingly warm even as it grew deeper and her skirts began to float about her like the petals of a drowned flower.

“Where are you?” she whispered in a voice grown thin and pallid from lack of use.

For a moment, she thought she heard familiar laughter in the salt-laden air,  then she became sure this was just one more illusion. But it didn’t matter anyway. She was too tired for any of it to matter any more. It would, she thought, be a blessing when the waves closed over her head. The madness would pass then, and she might no longer be alone. 

She pushed her face into the water, trying to suck the killing waves into her lungs, but she felt her face lifted by cold rough-skinned hands.

“Be brave,” the voice of her dead love spoke in her ears and that was the last thing she heard before the sea accepted her sacrifice and drew her thin, cold body into its heaving bosom.

And was her love awaiting her in the ever shifting deeps?

Who knows…

©️jane jago 

The call of the wind on the darkest night
The whisper of summer breeze
The sound of a skein of geese in flight
The movement of leaves on a tree
The dance of a barefoot child at play
The tears of the sorrowful and strong
The piper greeting the close of day
Are all notes in my lady’s song
Where hands on strings make music bright
Where nightingales serenade the light
Where unseen orchestras play
Where dancing demons skitter by
Where eagles dip their wings and fly
Where the goddess has feet of clay
The whisper of breath across my cheek
The touch of a sound like a bell
Is my lady strong or is she weak
Is this heaven or is it hell
I no longer know and I no longer care
As the song in the winter wind ruffles my hair
And I follow my lady so bright and so fair
And the sound of her singing strips my soul bare
The call of the wind on the darkest night
The whisper of breeze in July
Her song is why I stand and fight
The reason I live or I die

© Jane Jago 2017