When launching a book don’t get corny
And don’t let your hero be horny
Even if slags
Are your natural bag
You can’t make a whodunnit porny

© jane jago 2017

 

She pushed the buggy briskly, half listening to the twins yakking away about whatever, and half making a shopping list in her head. That double concentration must have been why she didn’t hear the footsteps behind her. She certainly never felt the stunning blow to the back of her head. She dropped like a stone, but it can only have been moments before she found herself looking into a pair of concerned eyes. She tried to sit up, but the world began spinning and she felt very sick.
“The children,” she managed to whisper, “are the twins okay?”
“What children? There are no children here.”
She managed to push the nausea back far enough to scramble into a seated position and grab her saviour by the arm.
“The twins. Eli and Ahab.” She could hear her own voice skirling up towards hysteria. “They are in their buggy. I was taking them to the supermarket. They love the supermarket.”
The man who knelt beside her turned his attention to the rapidly growing crowd.
“Anybody seen any children?”
“The place is lousy with ‘em,” a coarse voice replied. “What children?”
“Twins,” the man said, “twins in a buggy.”
“What. Them weird kids? I seen them just now, with a bloke in running gear pushing the buggy. I just fort they ‘ad a new nanny. They gets a new one about every month.”
The man looked down at the obviously concussed girl and smiled reassuringly.
“The police are on their way. We called them when it became obvious you had been attacked.”
As if the very words had summoned her, a young policewoman pushed through the knot of onlookers to crouch at the injured girl’s side.
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“The children. Somebody took the children…”
“Your children?”
“No. I’m their nanny. But what does it matter who… You need to find them.”

On the other side of the park, a Lycra-clad figure pushed a double buggy out through the ornate wrought iron gates onto the street. He turned left and crossed the road via a blinking and bleeping pedestrian crossing. Five minutes later, man and buggy were in a multi-storey car park riding the lift towards the top floor.

When the lift doors opened a man’s body flopped onto the floor, half in and half out of the cabin. The doors attempted to close, but finding an obstruction remained half open. The two women awaiting the lift reacted in very different ways. One screamed and fainted, the other called nine-nine-nine.

Although the police arrived with commendable quickness, a knot of onlookers had gathered by the time two constables jumped out of their car. One went to the side of the woman who had fainted, while the other shouldered his way to the lift doors.
“Oh, shit” he said. “Oh very, very shit.”
His companion looked at his suddenly pale face.
“If you are going to throw up can you move away from the crime scene” she recommended serenely before uncurling from her crouch and going to look for herself. She was made of sterner stuff than her companion, but even so she didn’t look for long.
“Victor, bravo, delta to control. We seem to have an unexplained death here. One body, and a lift awash with blood and various internal organs. Also in the lift one upended buggy fitting the description from the incident in the park.”
She listened for a moment.
“Have I been inside the lift? No. And you couldn’t pay me enough to go in there.”
She listened again.
“Yes. We can secure the area and wait.”

Under the upturned buggy the twins eyed each other in silent congratulation. They could wait for rescue now….

© jane jago 2017

Mnemonics contain all the wisdom of men,
So every good boy deserves favour again.
Without them how could we know it was true
The year when Columbus sailed the ocean blue?
Unravelling the wonders of Taxonomy,
King Philip cut open five green snakes you see.
And the rainbow remembers the war and the pain
When Richard of York, gave battle in vain…

He ended the call and stared reflectively at the phone.

“That wasn’t easy. But I think they understood. It was helped by the fact that Jim’s mother had already said a lot of those things.”

“Oh. She would have. She’s amazing. Looks like she’s made of teak, but nobody understands children better. Now you do look exhausted. Recline your chair a bit and have a nap. I’ll wake you when we’re on the motorway.”

Anna drove for a couple of hours, then handed over to Sam who also managed a couple of hours before pulling off into a service area. Anna woke up.

“We stopping?”

“Yeah. Don’t think anybody is safe to drive much further. This isn’t the quietest place to stop, but…”

Anna knuckled her eyes. She pulled a book from the glove box.

“So. We’re here. There’s a pub about fifteen miles away that lets campervans overnight in its car park. And they do a good breakfast. Do you think we could make that?”

“Yeah. If we keep each other awake.”

“Right. I can book in on the Internet. Then we go.”

Thirty minutes later, Anna was showing Sam how to pull down the overcab bed.

She grinned wickedly at him.

“We’ll have to share. But I promise not to jump your bones.”

“You sure? I mean, we could wake Rod and he could share this one with me.”

“I don’t think we could wake Rod if we tried. But we should get Bill up for a wee, before we doss down. You do that, while I find the sleeping bags for this bed.”

Sam crawled over the comatose form of Rod and picked up the sleepy Bill.

“C’mon Bill. Wee wees.”

Once Bill had been sorted and inserted back into bed, Anna had hunted up two extra-large sleeping bags, and was spreading them out.

“Any preference for sides?” Anna asked.

“No. You?”

“Nah. Just take the nearest. I’m for the loo and a quick tooth scrub, then nobody better get between me and some shuteye.”

When she came out of the bathroom, he was already in bed deeply asleep. She crawled onto the bed next to him, grinning inwardly. At least, she thought, the stranger I’m sharing a bed with is a handsome hunk. With which comforting thought she drifted into sleep herself.

She was the first person to wake, and jumped out of bed to put the kettle on. Bonnie came down from her station on Bill’s feet and indicated a desire to go out, so Anna opened the door for her and stood in the doorway waiting for the dog to do her business. Bonnie was brisk, and returned to wait just inside the door for Anna to wipe her dewy feet and tummy. When she was dry, she leapt neatly back onto the bed where Bill awaited her with open arms.

“You are such a lovely dog, aren’t you?” he said admiringly. “But now I need to go wee too.”

“Crawl over dozy Rod and I’ll lift you down. Do you know how to work the toilet?”

“No.”

“I’ll show you. Then I’ll make a pot of tea.”

When Bill came out of the little bathroom, everyone had woken up and the overcab bed had been pushed back to the ceiling. Rod grinned and ruffled the small head.

“Morning sleepy.”

Bill poked him firmly in the kneecap.

“Not so much lip, you. I was asleep after you and awake before you.”

Rod picked him up and gently rubbed noses with him.

“You are feeling cheeky this morning. Shall I rub you with my bristly chin for your impertinence?”

“No thank you,” Bill said with some dignity. “And it wasn’t cheek it was facts. Like it’s a fact that your face needs shaving, but mine don’t – and neither does Sam’s or Anna’s. Why is that?”

Rod laughed and set Bill down on the edge of the bed.

“Your face don’t need shaving because you are only seven years old. Anna’s face don’t need shaving because she’s a girl. And Sam’s face don’t need shaving because he is a lucky bugger. You want a cup of tea?”

“Yes please.”

Anna put a mug of mahogany-coloured tea in Bill’s small hands.

“Careful not to spill.”

Bill nodded and took a deep drink.

‘That’s delicious. It is just how a cup of tea should be, isn’t it Uncle Rod.”

“It is. These here Gadjo have no idea how to enjoy proper tea.”

Anna shuddered visibly.

“Thankfully not. Breakfast is booked in the pub for nine o’clock. We all have time for a shower if we’re quick. I’ll go first while you lot drink your tea.”

She whisked into the bathroom before anyone had a chance to dispute her right to first shower. Rod grinned.

“Bill and Sam. You can be next. Together. I’ll just take my time waking up.”

By a quarter to nine they were all ready to set out across the car park. Sam watched Bill carefully as Anna locked the camper.

The little lad seemed nervous.

“Will Bonnie be all right on her own? Nobody can get her, can they?”

Anna crouched down so they were eye to eye.

“Nobody can get Bonnie. I wouldn’t let that happen. Didn’t I go all the way to Somerset to get the loudest motorhome alarm in the world?”

Bill relaxed visibly.

“You did. I was being a bit silly wasn’t I?”

“Never mind, love. Breakfast.”

The back door of the pub stood open, and Bill tensed again. Rod offered his hand as they went indoors and his nephew gripped on tightly. A young girl greeted them.

“Miss Marshall and party?”

“That’s us.”

“Your table is ready. It’s in the conservatory if you would like to follow me.”

They took their seats and the girl gave them menus.

“Would you like tea or coffee?”

Rod and Bill opted for tea, which they requested extra strong. The other two asked for coffee. When the waitress left, Bill handed his menu to Anna.

“It’s a bit too hard for me to read. I think it’s the wriggly writing.”

“Probably. It’s quite silly. Let’s do our order together shall we? Do you want cereal?”

Bill nodded.

“Do they got crispies?”

“They do. How about a sausage and some scrambled egg to follow your crispies?”

“That sounds most nice. Will there be toast and jam?”

“There will.”

“What you having?”

‘I’ll have crispies too. Then some bacon and mushrooms.’

“Sam?”

“Porridge, then egg, bacon and sausage.”

“Uncle Rod?”

“Porridge. Full English, and maybe a kipper on the side.”

Bill laughed.

“A kipper on his side?”

Jane Jago

You are old, let there be no dubiety
That the aged are a drain on society
You should spend your twilight
Being humbly polite
But you won’t even practice sobriety.

© jane jago 2017

by E.M. Swift-Hook and S Shane Thomas

It always began with an explosion.

Any explosion – any one of the hundred or more he had survived.

The explosion would lock him in, trap him, make him a prisoner of his sleeping mind. In the real world, he was safe in bed with a woman curled close beside him. Vel’s cousin, Lea, her body warm and sated. But it was not enough. The moment sleep claimed him the explosion would still come, shredding his sanity. Then the nightmare would run on, making him relive each episode, as vivid as life. Every thought, sensation, feeling, image, as clear as it had been at the time, pursuing him remorselessly until he could – somehow – scramble back to consciousness from the relentless abuse of sleep….

 An explosion crumpling the building to his right as if it were paper.

“I see them, sir,” a familiar voice reported.

“Everyone converge on Vekim’s location.” Jaz ran, crouched low, finger just off the trigger in its safety position. The Lattice guided his movements. It displayed his four soldiers closing in around Vekim and what appeared to be a full battalion of enemies. He strained past the reverberation of the explosion ringing his ears.

“Acknowledged.” Four voices clipped into the ringing. Just four.

“Pault?” Jaz swore under his breath, the Lattice knew the remark was private. It confirmed what any man who ran a squad in the Legion already knew. His new recruit was freezing up. He changed directions and bolted toward Pault. It was pointless to try keeping anyone alive, much less a rich man’s son whose fear could turn them from hunters to hunted.  

Jaz rounded a heap of rubble, then pressed his back against a crumpling wall to get a visual. Pault was backing away from something big. Flashes of sun bleached bone and a deep muddy red moved like a predator. Pault fired his weapon, but even the Lattice’s targeting assistance couldn’t make the mark. “Pault, drop now!”

The recruit turn and locked eyes with Jaz for an instant. Jaz read the expression of terror, a look that went beyond first mission jitters. Then he tumbled to one side and Jaz made his target with Lattice enhanced guidance. Two shots to the chest and a third grazed the head as the bone clad thing fell back. Its weapon clattered among the debris on the street.

Jaz was over Pault. The man was trembling, but looked otherwise unscathed. “Finish pissing your pants, kid, we’ve got work to do.”

Pault pulled in a few deep breaths, and shook his head. “Yes, sir.” His weapon was held at the ready, though his hands trembled.

Jaz gave the recruit a nod and used his connection with the Lattice to dose Pault with a drug cocktail. The weapon steadied. Jaz walked over to the dead thing.

It was wearing an armor of sorts. White bone protected the chest and limbs, save for the smoldering hole. Its skin was painted a dark red making the dead man’s face look inhuman.

“Two and a half meters,” Pault said.

Jaz pried the giant’s weapon from a hand that made his own hand feel child-sized. He grunted and heaved a massive wooden club upright. Bits of blood, bone, and hair clung to it. The weight of the weapon was nearly too much to bear. “This isn’t tech, it’s a bloody tree.”

“He said he was going to eat me.”

“All part of the game, Pault.” Jaz dropped the club and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Let’s take care of his friends.”

Jaz followed the sound of weapon blasts. He took a quick peek around a building and had to pause and process what he saw. His unit, side by side with their target, firing wildly into a horde of those bone clad giants.

“Too many…” Pault said while taking aim.

“Fire at will, Pault. Leave the gang alone for now and focus on…”

A sick squelching sound interrupted him. Blood spattered Jaz’s face. It tasted metallic as he spat. Pault’s surprised expression went slack. A crude spearpoint retracted through his chest.

Jaz fired his weapon though Pault’s remains and screamed. Another of the bone clad giants fell dead.  He scrambled through the chaos and rejoined his unit.  Two of the gang members they had come to hunt lay dead next to his four surviving Legion soldiers.

“Leader Four-Delta from Prime. Withdraw immediately.”

The voice in his ears at last.

“Acknowledged.”

Relaying the order to his team members, Jaz put down covering fire as they retreated. The Lattice was pounding him with information through his scalp implanted data-port, faster than he could absorb it:  numbers and location of the enemy, their armaments, expected movements, ground plans, suggested paths he could take. More.

“The gang called these guys Ghostkin.” Avilon said. Jaz’s friend and best soldier was covered in someone else’s blood. “They’ve been raiding this smuggling outpost.”

“So these giants are stealing the smuggler’s goods?”

“They are after the smugglers for food.”

Jaz opened his mouth, but paused before he could speak. Electricity crackled in a small circle, then widened until it offered an expanding view of bone clad men, lined up in what looked like a tree village in the jungle. Jaz turned his head to warn Avilon and his other two soldiers, but caught sight of another portal opening.

“Fall back! We need to get to the rendezvous point, now!”  

He focused on keeping up covering fire. It crossed his mind to wonder who he had pissed off enough so they chose him for this suicide run. If – when – he got out of this he would find out and make them pay. Then the thought occurred that it was probably nothing personal at all. When you were living out a death sentence, you shouldn’t be too surprised to be treated as completely expendable.

For every one of the bone armored giants that advanced toward his retreating band, another collected a corpse from amid rubble and disappeared through the portal. Jaz fired at the giant who dragged Pault’s corpse, but not even the Lattice’s targeting assistance could hit the mark at this range.

Screams over the com caught his attention.

“Jaz, it’s just you and me now.” Avilon shouted through the com.

He started running again.

Watching the environment.

Watching the screens.

Checking the Lattice data overlays.

A movement on the screen broke the profile of the low rise building beside him, some kind of accommodation block. Appearing on screen: ground-plans, elevations, positions of people, their predicted paths. The data projected into his visual field, augmenting his reality. He turned, raking fire across the facade. One of the massive figures dropped. Something heavy glinted as it arced through the air toward him and clanged on a wall nearby. Lattice visual was showing him six men in there. He knew he could take one or two, but their crude clubs and hand axes would overcome technology eventually. The energy threshold of his kinetic shield would be zero defence against that kind of power. Lattice data flashed up a helpful message warning him of the over-ride risk. Better late than never. He cancelled it and pumped more of the adrenalin based cocktail of drugs through the intravenous clip fixed into his torso. Speed was his only defence now and not much of one.

He ran.

Using cover.

Changing course.

His whole focus on making that speed.

The buildings ended in a high wall and as he made the final sprint towards it, he tried to decide between tracking along it for a break or scaling it and risking exposure. Checking Lattice screens for the information he needed to inform the decision.

Huge hands grabbed at him and Jaz slipped to one side, discharging his weapon as he passed. To have to grapple with one was a death sentence. The sheer strength of someone that could swing a club that weighed nearly as much as a man would crush him. Even if he got lucky and beat one, the delay would be enough for the rest to dogpile him.

Jaz ran until blood thundered in his ears. The Lattice showed Avilon as a dot holding their rendezvous point. He was getting close, but the labored breathing grew even closer. One of those giants was right behind him.

Then he heard it.

Distant sounds of a fire-fight.

All he needed was to cover some more ground. He saw Avilon and their reinforcements. Avilon’s eyes went wide. Then spots burst in Jaz’s vision and everything went black.

He hit the ground and stayed down, unable to rise, unable to think, his consciousness hollowed out by the pain.

Time fragmented.

 Awareness shrank.

The smell of the dark ground beneath his face, tasting musty and sweet – an alien soil. The beat of his heart timing the steady flick of numbers that counted down to the moment these giants would devour him.

“This food belongs to the Ghostkin! Your flesh will sustain us through the ash winter.”

“Not this flesh,” Avilon replied. Weapon fire drowned out the sounds of bodies in motion.

Something moving, lifting him, an arm under his shoulder. A voice – his brother’s voice – Avilon Revid.

“Let’s get you out of here.”

….. waking was always sudden and never easy.

Like ripping away flesh.

Then came the disorientation as the two worlds of the past and present battled for supremacy.

Which was real?

His mind was still caught in the snare of memory, vividly relived.  He could feel the cold sweat on his body and the hammering of his heart.  A face, vague in the darkness, then another voice, familiar and feminine, full of concern and compassion:

“You got it bad tonight?”

Lea was there for him as she had been the last time and the time before that. And he knew then, with a sudden certainty, she would be there for him every night he needed her. He reached out and her arms slipped around him drawing him close, holding him as he sobbed in relief, like a frightened child.

This 'Writer Battle' is based on the Fortune's Fools story Doubled Spirit and the Ghostkin from A Paleolithic Fable (An Anki Legacies Adventure)  and first appeared on S Shane Thomas's Website. Keep up with S Shane Thomas, the Anki Legacies, and all his Writer Battles by signing up for his newsletter. Sign up now and get his novelette, Rakshasa for free. 

Face the front, class and present your fingernails for inspection.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV is in the room. Your beloved pedagogue has arrived. For those, newly joined here, whose education may have skipped over the genius that is one, I am the orchidaceous creator of that classic of superlative speculative fiction ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’, and the selfless purveyor of wisdom whose tablets of stone bring you ‘The Thinking Quill’ – wherein one strives against almost overwhelming odds to bring to your dreary little scribblings some iota of the polished grandeur of one’s own published words.

It’s a lovely autumn day, and the crispy, crunchy leaves make your Teacher think of the golden flakes in his breakfast bowl, drenched with icy-cold milk. We were, if memory serves, going to discuss the essential points of cover art, but my mood is too lightsome for such an arduous task today and my spirit is too refined to be constrained by such febrile chains of commitment. In brief, I can’t be arsed.

Instead, we shall touch upon a topic so close to my soul as to be all but embedded in my skin. Yes, my children, rejoice, rejoice. Today we shall speak of verse…

Lesson 12. The Write Wrhyme

Oh what joy it is to write in the iambic pentameter. Oh how one’s soul rejoices at the birth of a sonnet. How the haiku spears one’s very vitals, and how the execution of the perfect marriage of rhyme and metre donates a pleasure as visceral as masturbation.

We shall begin with the haiku. Hands up if any child in the class can tell me what this exquisite word connotes.

Yes. The rule of seventeen. What joy. What bliss.

A flower petal
 Weighted down under raindrops
 Visceral delight

The purity of oriental form within that which enriches the soul must be expressed in seventeen syllables. Five. Seven. Five. With nary a drop wasted. The distillate of overwhelming emotion into a corseted form that screams of pain and coercion. Think, thou of forcing the white wobbliness of English thighs into the snug elastication of skinny jeans. Feel that pain, but think of the sculpted beauty that emerges from the chrysalis of dimpled flesh and apply that sharp constriction to your work.

Too difficult? Do not fret, mes petites, haiku is the quintessence of the poetic form and not a plaything for the amateur.

Very well. Let us look instead at rhyme and metre.

Hibiscus bloom of palest pink
 I have not words, I have not ink
 To speak of love’s bepetalled face
 Watch from afar who walks in grace
 Who walks in beauty as the dawn
 Who in my breast true love doth spawn
 Who shines like effervescent gold
 Who shall not wither, nor grow old
 Hibiscus bloom thy petals ope
 And face the sun and dash my hopes
 Hibiscus bloom of palest hue
 Who murders hope with lies untrue
 Hibiscus bloom of stainless steel
 Who stamps my love beneath her heel 

 

Read this, the least of my works, aloud and ponder my skill with the runaway horse that is metre. Admire my virtuosity as I wrestle the alligator of rhyme. Beguile your commonplace little intelligences with the mind-pictures drawn by a pen whose skill you can never hope to emulate. See how the hibiscus blooms in your very soul as you read and envy….

Then try a little verse of your own.

Should you be pleased with your tiny efforts then by all means post them on my Facebook page where I shall be sure to make the effort to read them. If I am not too busy.

Until a sennight. Dormez bien and ecrit bon.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

Adoring Fans can join my Facebook Group.

I wonder if I leave a body behind. In my mind, I imagine Will and Robert burying my remains, carefully so they don’t catch the plague from my lifeless body.

I don’t want to be added to the pile of unnamed dead in Will’s hastily dug ditch more than six hundred years ago. Maybe I vanish like I appear. I prefer that idea, but worry it might bother Will. Like I never existed in the first place. I don’t like that idea after all.

This is what I’m thinking as I sit in the doctor’s office staring blankly at the art on the wall, my fingers worrying the fabric on the arms of my chair. The picture is beginning to freak me out. The impression of a landscape has a skeleton in the centre made to look like a live horse. Is it meant to be real or dead? I can’t drag my eyes away.

“When did this first occur?” the doctor asks.

“She was ten,” Mum says from her chair next to mine. Her foot taps the carpet making me grit my teeth.

“Eleven. It was my eleventh birthday,” I correct.

The conversation continues as if I never spoke. I’m not even in the room. I’m in a halfway place with the skeleton horse. Breathing is becoming difficult. I think I want my body to have vanished. I don’t want to be another nameless pile of bones in a trench by a village church. I was there, wasn’t I? It was so real.

The doctor studies the pages in front of him. There’s something wrong with me. I don’t fit in. No one likes me. I’m sad, all the time when I’m not with Will. Tell me why I am so different from everyone around me. Tell me what is wrong with me as a person.

I don’t say these things out loud. The doctor and Mum aren’t interested. They’re looking for something they can see, something that can be fixed.

“This is the third time this has happened?” The doctor’s pen hovers over his note pad.

“Yes.”

“No,” I say at the same time.

I probably should keep my mouth shut so I’m not asked to explain, but I’m frustrated with being ignored. This is me they’re talking about. I’m not invisible. I’m here.

“No?” the doctor repeats.

“Stop being difficult, Lucy.” Mum turns to address the doctor. “Lucy has difficulty differentiating between reality and fantasy. After the first time she ended up in hospital, she told me a wild story about how she’d been living in Africa with a bunch of cavemen!”

I didn’t think she remembered that. I fold my arms across my chest and glare at her. At least it’s taken my eyes off the skeleton horse picture.

“So where were you this time, hanging out with the dinosaurs?”

“Like you care,” I throw back at her.

“I think we are getting a little off topic here. There have been studies of people in comas living entirely different lives in their heads, but Lucy wasn’t technically in a coma. She was asleep.” The doctor shuffles his paperwork before looking up at us.

“Isn’t there some sort of medication you can give her?” Mum asks.

“There is nothing to medicate. All her tests came back fine. I’ll give you a referral to a neurosurgeon, but there will be a wait for an appointment. They’re always extremely busy and Lucy’s condition is not affecting her adversely.”

The doctor types out the referral, prints it and slides it across to Mum who dabs her eyes with a tissue from the box on his desk. He glances at the door. I take the hint and stand. Mum continues to sit for a few more moments, reluctant to leave. She wants to fix me, but she can’t see that part of me is not broken. I don’t want my ‘dreams’ to be fixed. It’s the only way I can see Will.

If I Wake is written by Nikki Moyes.

Q1: Why did you choose themes many would find profoundly disturbing to make the focus of “If I Wake”?

I had severe depression while I was at University. I remember reading ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’ and being intrigued by a writer broaching the subject of suicide but also disturbed by the fact it glorified suicide and the main character didn’t even have depression. I wanted to write a story that could start a conversation about mental health while showing what depression is like. I wanted to make sure my story didn’t glorify suicide and instead it could show that as long as there is life, there is still hope.

 

Q2: What did you find the hardest aspect to write about?

The part I find hardest about writing is getting the ideas out of my head – to sit down in front of the computer and stop procrastinating. I actually surprised myself with how well the aspects of this story came together. The emotional aspects of this story came easily as they were emotions I was familiar with. I had to do a fair amount of research for this book as it contains multiple times and locations.

Q3: If you were going to choose an optimistic and upbeat topic to write about in a book in the same kind of depth, what would you choose?

I like books that make me feel – the ones that make me laugh or cry. I have a few vague ideas for some ‘funny’ books, but I haven’t started writing them yet. At the moment I am working on a Young Adult sci-fi/fantasy/romance series. The first book has a bit of a ‘Bachelorette’ theme going on which my critique group love. I’ve recently published a short story called ‘The Castle’ which reveals the backstory of one of the secondary characters. That character’s story will be continued in the prequel which is in a very-rough draft stage.

I normally write Young Adult Speculative Fiction, but earlier this year I published a travelogue style book about a 96 kilometre trek I completed through the Papua New Guinea jungle where my grandad fought during WWII. It’s called ‘Kokoda Trek:75^th anniversary’.

Nikki Moyes writes YA fiction and her first book, 'If I Wake' was published in 2016. She was born in Victoria and has moved around Australia amassing an eclectic range of occupations including tallship watch leader, apiarist, rose farm hand, and sandwich artist. In her spare time she learns tissu, static trapeze, and aerial hoop (she couldn’t decide on one) in case she needs to run off and join the circus. You can find her on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite living in Wilmington, Delaware for over a decade, Moira had never understood the point of Thanksgiving. She was a proud Scot by birth and she came from a long line of proud Scots. Not that she was unfriendly or anti-social, her knitting circle and reading group were always well attended and her role as librarian was highly respected.

She had moved to the US from Linwood in Renfrewshire when her husband died. Her only daughter being, at that time, herself a widowed single-mother in Wilmington. For a few years, Moira had spent Thanksgivings with her daughter and grandchildren, always a bit bemused at having another major family festival so near to the one she saw as more traditional – a secular Christmas. But, when in Rome, she told herself.

Then three years previously her daughter had remarried to another man in the armed forces and was off to live where he was based in California. Moira looked at the climate charts and decided that she was most decidedly not going to move to anywhere like that. She liked the climate in Wilmington, it made her think of her childhood home.

So for the last two years Moira had not celebrated Thanksgiving and had been happy to stay at home for the holiday, Skype with the grandchildren and catch up with her reading. This year, however, it was not proving so simple. Anna, who attended both Moira’s knitting circle and her reading group, started asking about what she would be doing for Thanksgiving.

“Oh, it’s not my festival is it?” Moira said, and gave a short laugh. “It’s for you who had ancestors here in sixteen hundred and frozen to death. The ones who had a big party with some local inhabitants who helped your ancestors survive. Or something like that. Nothing to do with me, really. I’m Scottish.’

Anna had put down her knitting, a sharply orange and cream acrylic and wool mix which she was turning into a bolero, and stared in disbelief.

“Now where do you get that from? My ancestors didn’t move to the United States until early last century. In fact, if only the descendents of those who were at the original Thanksgiving ever celebrated it then I would think it had died out as a custom long since.”

Moira’s lips twitched into a tight line.

“You have been brought up with it, Anna. You were born American.”

The other woman stared a little.

“Part of Thanksgiving is celebrating a welcome to those from other cultures – even Scots,” she added tartly.

“It is a classic family festival,” Moira said, “and my family is in California not Delaware.”

Anna looked as though she was going to argue but instead gave a small sigh and returned to her knitting.

Thanksgiving came and Moira had enjoyed a brief Skype with her family and was just wondering what to eat when the doorbell rang. A little irritated as today was not a day she had planned for visitors and so her usually immaculate bun was replaced by a cascade of unruly wavy hair, Moira answered the door.

Outside stood Anna, her husband their children and the grandparents. All of them burdened by savoury smelling boxes or bags. Moira opened her mouth to speak and Anna gently grasped her arm and led her back inside her house. As Anna’s family unpacked the well-cooked, Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings, Anna hugged Moira.

“The local inhabitants have come to save you and celebrate,” she said, “and we are not taking no for an answer.”

It was the best kind of Thanksgiving for all of them – but for Moira the first of many more.

E.M. Swift-Hook