Margaret had been chatting to a delightful young woman, Clarice, who often joined her for lunch on the park bench. They would talk about the headlines in Margaret’s paper. She bought a paper every day as she had never yet got the hang of that internet thing and at ninety-three she was sure she never would.

Today’s headline was about men who wanted to be women.

“I quite understand that,” Margaret said. “I’ve always wanted to be one.”

Clarice gave her a strange look.

“So are you a trans or cis woman?”

Margaret smiled vaguely.

“I’m an old woman, dear.”

E.M. Swift-Hook

“Don’t go you by the Castell Blighe
And if you go by, run!
Don’t go you by light of the moons
Go by light of the sun.
Don’t listen to the voices there,
Don’t hear what they do say,
Or you will find you stay behind
Until your hair turns grey.”

The four girls chanted and clapped, stepping to the side and swapping places in the familiar ritual of the rhyme. Tani, the youngest and smallest, squealed with delight as the other three scooped her up and turned her half upside-down at the end. She could see her own long hair escaping from under a bonnet, trailing on the grass and glinting copper-bright in the thin rays of the late springtime sun.

“Tani!”

The other girls set her back on her feet and they all turned as the man strode into the sunny meadow, he looked almost cross, coming right over to the group and grabbing Tani’s hand.

“We was just playing, Uncle,” one of the other girls protested.

The man’s face lost its hard expression for a moment and he gave the girls a brief smile, but it looked too tight. Tani felt her heart sink. Her Da was carrying his big pack and the bow, unstrung, like a stave. He would be going hunting again up in the Heights and she would be left alone, staying with her cousins for a moon at the least. Every spring, when the ice broke and the streams ran free, the whole village would move up to the summer pastures so the flocks could eat the new grass. But even the very highest of the pastures were well below the Heights.

“I know – I’m sorry. But I need Tani,” her Da was saying, stooping down beside her, one hand gently brushing her hair back and straightening the bonnet. Voice low, he spoke so only she could hear him: “We need to go, Little Chick – right away – to the Heights. Those bad men I told you of? They are coming – looking for us.”

He had told her last night after he tucked her in bed. There were stories from down the mountain, he said, men asking after him by name and even offering coins if any had word to sell. But, he said, the Folk would never sell their own, they were not like the Lowlanders. And so, he said, the Little Chick could sleep safe in her bed.

But something must have happened because there was that sadness in his eyes again. 

The sadness she had not seen in Da’s eyes since the winter before last, when Ma and her new baby brother went away and he told her they would not come back. Tani had been very small then, not even seven summers old, now she was in her ninth summer, much more grown up and she knew her Ma was dead.

Her Da was still looking at her so she nodded, hoping that was enough to show she understood. He smiled after a moment and squeezed her shoulder with his hand.

“That’s my brave Little Chick,” he said and straightened up, looking over her head to the other girls. “Tani has to come with me now, and you should all be for home – your Ma asked for me to tell you that.”

The start of the story Changeling Child by E.M. Swift-Hook, a Fortunes Fools story from the Inklings Press anthology Tales of Wonder. 

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Drawn on Eyebrows 

I thought I had seen every possible eyebrow, but boy was I wrong.

Plucked, arched, thick, thin, fine, winged – pale into insignificance beside felt tip brow.

The brown or black scrawl halfway up the orange face. It’s as if somebody appended a couple of slugs to a persimmon and managed to persuade the young and clueless that this was attractive.

It’s not. It even frightens passing birds.

I have been sighing sadly, and putting it down to the folly of youth.

But wait. A (forty-plus by the neck) makeup ‘designer’ actually claims to have invented ‘the brow’. 

Ye gods…

The Ascension Machine by Rob Edwards is a scifi superhero adventure yarn aimed at young adults of all ages. It launches on 1^st September 2020 and I am very excited. The story follows a teen grifter who accidentally cons his way into a superhero college. To his surprise, he finds a place he can belong, if only it wasn’t all based on a lie. His lies get more complicated as he tries to stay at the Academy until finally… well, that would be telling, right?

The students from the Metropolitan had joined a larger throng gathered at the base of the ramp. I set my shoulders and walked across to join them, concentrating on the scuffing sound my shoes made on the sand as I walked. The sky was there above me, waiting to claim me, but I wouldn’t let it take me. A railing flanked the ramp, and I placed myself beside it and held on. I hadn’t floated off the planet yet, but the gravity felt lighter than 1G standard, and I was taking no risks.
Seventhirtyfour forged through the crowd to join me, two other students followed in his wake. The Brontom beamed at me. “Thought we’d lost you there for a minute. Look who I’ve met! This is Pilvi and this is Dez, they just came in on the Fawcett, from out east. Pilvi scored top three percentile on the science section of the entrance exam, and Dez…”
“Didn’t,” said Dez. She was comically short next to the giant Brontom; I didn’t recognise her species, but she was reptilian, all angles and scales, her tail flicked constantly as she spoke. “I didn’t score well on any of the book stuff, but that’s okay, I’m going to be more of an action superhero, I expect.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
Dez looked up and up at Seventhirtyfour. “You’re so lucky. Testing positive for psychic ability! You could have actual superpowers. All I can do is lightly swat things with my tail.”
“Just because you don’t know what kind of hero you will be, doesn’t mean you can’t be one,” said Pilvi. She was human, about my age, blond, with a quick smile. “We’re all here to learn; that’s what counts. They’ll find ways for all of us to be heroes, you’ll see.”
“She’s right Dez,” I chipped in “How does the advert go? ‘Phooey to that!'”
Seventhirtyfour laughed. “That was just like Captain Hawk! Hey, maybe you have super-mimicry.”
Ouch, that was a bit on the nose. Maybe turn that down a bit. “But joking aside Dez,” I repeated her name, committing it to memory. “Don’t tie yourself up into knots about it on day one. Unless that turns out to be your superpower.”
Pilvi nodded. “Quite right,” she said and flashed Dez a smile. “Hi, nice to meet you…?”
“Mirabor Gravane,” I lied. “But call me… Grey?”
“Oh, nice,” said Seventhirtyfour “That’s halfway to a code name already. You could be the Grey Ghost or the Grey Avenger?”
I laughed. “Hard pass on both of those. I’m further behind than Dez. I don’t even have a tail, and the only half-decent score I got in the entry exam was for Maths.” 
“Ah, that solves it then,” said Pilvi “Enter: The Grey Accountant!”
Oh well, at least they weren’t talking about my mimicry skills now.

The Ascension Machine is out tomorrow but you can pre-order it right now!

A Bite of… Rob Edwards

How much of you is in your hero/villain?

That’s an interesting question for this book. Grey has the potential in him to be a superhero, he’s physically adept, brave, and smart. Modesty forbids me from drawing too much similarity between us on those qualities. Grey’s relationship with the truth is complicated and distant, while I am a terrible liar. But, for all that, Grey’s genesis comes from a D&D character I played a long time ago. The section of the book that takes place on Bantus is drawn from events that my character instigated in game. It all plays out differently in the book of course, but Grey and I have that one scheme in common, at least.

Is it important to include all shades of belief and sexual orientation in a book?

Oof, not going for the simple questions here. Look, I don’t know if I have a great answer to this. The book is tightly first person and we really only see the world through the lens of what interests Grey. He is straight and has no strong faith, but it doesn’t matter to him if you’re different. I don’t show different belief systems in the book because Grey would never think to ask anyone about theirs. Sexual orientation is slightly different. It does come up, a bit. Grey is straight, but his best friends Pilvi and Seventhirtyfour are not. Pilvi is gay, but we won’t meet her girlfriend until book 2 (spoilers!). Technically Seventhirtyfour is from a clone race without sex or gender; he identifies as male and loves everyone equally.
At the end of the day, the central ethos of the Justice Academy, and the book, is that everybody has the potential to be a hero, in the right place, at the right time. And that was the important thing for me to include.

Would you rather be James Bond or Batman?

Ah now this is more my speed. Batman. Without hesitation. But I’d be really bad at it. 
It would kind of suck to be either of them, really. They both have pretty awful things happen to them on a regular basis. Sure they both get lots of fun toys to play with, and get to visit interesting places, but most of those places turn out to be dangerous, and I can’t imagine I’d enjoy getting shot at, or the amount of exercise I’d have to put in to be an international superspy or masked vigilante. There are more similarities than differences between the two. For me, I need people. I think of myself as an introvert, and I do tend to hide in the corner in large gatherings… but I need people and while both characters are typically considered loners, for Batman, that’s just not true. There’s Alfred, Dick, Jason, Tim, Stephanie, Damian, Duke, Barbara, Luke, Lucius, Jim, Selena, and, depending on continuing Carrie, Helena, Terry, and Harold. And that’s without getting into his teams or love interests. For Bond he has, what? Q, R, Q, M, M, M, Moneypenny and Felix. Sorry, I’ll take the Bat Family every time. For when I get shot on my first mission out and need people to bring me comics to read while I recover if nothing else.
Also, my book is about superheroes, and I’m a DC Comics fan, I couldn’t say James Bond.

Rob Edwards is a British born writer and podcaster, living in Finland.  His podcast, StorycastRob, features readings from his short stories and excerpts from longer work.  His work can also be found in the anthologies published by Inklings Press and Rivenstone Press. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook and blog, or watch him on his YouTube channel and listen in on his podcast.

Adana was the always super-happy kind of person that Tanisha would avoid if possible. But it was impossible when she was your boss. 

“Good morning, Nisha, another wonderful morning!” Adana gushed.

Tanisha, who’d overslept and been late dropping the kids at school said nothing.

Mid-morning Adana came in with a punnet and tipped it into a bowl.

“There. Healthy and sweet. Life is a bowl of cherries.”

Tanisha wondered why it was Adana always got the ripe ones and herself the sour. So she forgave herself for having a little smirk when Adana chipped a tooth on a cherry stone.

E.M. Swift-Hook

‘Much Dithering in Little Botheringham’ is an everyday tale of village life and vampires, from Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.

Em heard footsteps and Agnes grinned at her with the sort of evil anticipation that might have earned a clip across the earhole – if there had been time. But given the imminent appearance of their new seventh Em contented herself by snarking at her oldest friend.
When the door opened Em at least had the satisfaction of winning the private bet she had with herself about what Ginny would choose to wear.
“Come in and sit yourself down.”
She waved Ginny to a chair and Agnes sat opposite her. Em poured Bloody Marys for the three of them, keeping the glasses hidden from view while she added an unconventional ingredient to the one she put in front of Ginny.
“Bottoms up,” Agnes said cheerily, downing half her drink in one gulp. 
Ginny Cropper seemed less keen, stirring the thick red mixture with its accompanying celery stick and looking about her with slightly narrowed eyes.
“Do you not care for Bloody Mary?” Em took a slug of her own drink and gave Ginny her least threatening stare.
Ginny stared back then seemed to reach some sort of a decision. “Oh well,” she muttered, “in for a penny.”
She all but upended the glass over her nose, draining every last drop before she crunched the celery. 
“Seems to me that I’m being led someplace, and I find I don’t much care so long as somebody feeds me.”
Em went over to the Aga and took three plates of food out of the warming oven. The plates held large slices of tortilla with grilled tomatoes and mushrooms on the side. There was also a dish of bacon and a basket of warm rolls. The three of them set to with good appetites.
They had about cleared their plates, when Ginny broke the quiet with a tiny, genteel belch. “Oops. Sorry about that, but I think it’s been twenty years since I had anything other than granola and almond milk for breakfast.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “Would somebody please tell me what the hell is going on?”
Em found herself feeling the tiniest tad of respect for an odd, wispy female who was far away from what she had any hope of understanding, but was keeping her chin up.
“Yes. I suppose somebody does owe you an explanation. But where to begin? How much do you remember about last night?”
“I remember following the vicar into church. I knew he was after the bats. I remember him screaming at me and pushing me to the ground. And I think I remember a rabbit – but that might just be a consequence of hitting my head on a stone floor.”
Agnes took over with a smoothness that Em could see wasn’t lost on Ginny. “We were about a minute behind you. Or Em was. I’m too fat to run. The vicar completely lost it, and he shot you in the neck. When we had subdued him sufficiently to be able to look at you, your heart had stopped…”
“That’s perfectly possible. I have suffered with a vagal arrhythmia for most of my life. I’m just glad there’s a defibrillator in the village. Who shocked me back to life?”
“There is a defibrillator in the foyer of the village hall,” Agnes said, “but nobody thought of that. Em Fed you with her own blood…”
There was an appalled silence.
“Fed me? Blood? Shot in the neck?” For a second Ginny teetered on the verge of hysteria, but then her fingers found the scar where the pellet had been. She flinched, but made a visible effort to hold herself together. “Is this some sort of Twilight thing?”
Em’s respect was growing. “Sort of,” she admitted. “But the difference is we’re real.”
Ginny studied her hands for a moment then gave Em a glare. “Okay, if I buy this, and I’m still deciding whether I do or not, what was in the Bloody Mary? The moment I drank it I felt as if I saw a lot of things clearer, and I also felt physically stronger than I have for years.”
Agnes chortled.
“Shut up Agnes.” Em ducked her head to disguise her own amusement. “Well, Ginny, it was a Bloody Mary. A real one. Yours just contained a thimbleful of blood. A drop from each of your six sisters to welcome you to our seven.” She watched Ginny’s face carefully as she dropped the last piece of the puzzle into place. “Virginia Cropper, vampire. How does that sound to you?”
Ginny shook her head as if to clear it. “Would you mind saying that again?”
“Virginia Cropper. Vampire.” Em and Agnes spoke together.
Ginny dropped her head into her hands then looked up with an exasperated expression. “But I’m a vegetarian…  Doesn’t there have to be a joke in there somewhere?”
Agnes was obviously making up her own jokes, so Em leaned over and clipped her smartly over the ear before she could share them.

Part 18 of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

They took our hopes
They took our dreams
They took our freedom too
They took the laughter
Took the tears
Took ‘me’ away from ‘you’
They took the sun
They took the moon
And painted oe’r the sky
With heartless lies
They clipped our wings
So we would never fly
They spoke of ‘us’
But we were ‘them’
Across a great divide
They built a wall
With just one gate
And us on the outside
They set the goals
We could not meet
They barred the way ahead
They took our future
They took our past
They commandeered our dead
They took our wealth
They took our world
And thought that they were done
But they couldn’t take
Our hearts and minds
So they have never won…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Alice’s Choice by Jane Jago is out today

When Alice Lancaster woke up on the morning of her twenty-third day of widowhood, she felt as if she had somehow pulled herself out of an uncomprehending fog, and into the pitiless brightness of sunlight. Although this awakening sharpened the pain she welcomed it as a sign of returning life. Alaric was gone and she had to somehow create an existence without him. She dressed herself in the unbecoming clothes that were all she currently owned, and frowned at her reflection.
During an uncomfortable morning, being watched by her husband’s family, Alice considered her options. She could remain in the family home, under the eye of Alaric’s mother, who disliked her, and his brother who liked her rather more than was comfortable. She could go back to her father’s house, but she now had a stepmother younger than herself. Or. She could stand on her own two feet.
None of it appealed, but striking out on her own, although both frightening and confusing, felt like the least of a fistful of evils. Tapping her fingernails against the wooden arm of her chair, she thought grim thoughts. Mother-in-law turned a perfectly coiffed head, atop a long neck decorated, as always, with a six-strand pearl choker – whose ruby clasp shone almost as balefully as Mama’s basilisk stare.
“Will you stop making that infernal noise!”
As this was nominally Alice’s sitting room, it would have been both easy and satisfying to snap back. But she didn’t; instead, she got up and left the room. Picking up her coat and handbag, she walked out of the front door, past the hovering porter, and down to the street corner where she hailed a taxi.
“Where to, love?”
“Hildebrand and Watkins on the Strand, please.”
When the cab dropped her outside the scrupulously whitened office steps, her courage almost failed her, but the thought of ‘Mama’s’ cold gooseberry green gaze stiffened her spine. The stiffly coiffured receptionist spared barely a glance for the hatless young woman who came in so timidly.
“Visitors by appointment only,” she barked.
For some reason, this rudeness emboldened Alice far more than kindness would have and she stalked over to a handsome door that bore the name Augustus Hildebrand LLB. She tapped twice and walked in, leaving the receptionist gobbling like a turkey in her wake.
The man at the desk looked up from his newspaper. His incipient frown changed to a smile.
“Hello, Uncle Gus,” she said softly.
“My dear Alice. Come in, sit down, and tell me how I can help you.”
Alice went to one of the wing chairs beside the fireplace and folded into its cushioned embrace. Her host wrinkled his forehead before going out to reception. His deep voice contrasted with the receptionist’s staccato counterpoint but she was too weary to even try to make out what was being said. Instead, she laid her head against the snowy whiteness of the old-fashioned antimacassar and let her thoughts drift. When she came back to herself, her mother’s only surviving brother was in the other fireside chair watching her with concerned eyes. She summoned a smile for him.
“They told me,” he said, “that you didn’t want to see me.”
“Oh. Which ‘they’ would that have been? Mother-in-law and baby brother?”
He nodded. “I rather think they are hoping to keep you under their thumbs.”
Alice pushed her hair away from her face with a shaking hand. “I’m beginning to think that myself. However, ‘Mama’ can’t resist pinching and poking at me. Thinks that because I won’t argue she can push me around. Only she can’t. And today, it came to me that I have had enough.”
“So, you came to me.”
“I’m sorry for that. If it’s going to cause trouble I will go.”
He held up a hand. “Don’t be silly. We aren’t living in the dark ages. They have no hold on you. You are of age. And besides which, even if there was trouble, you are all I have left of my dear sister so I would help you anyway.”
Tears pricked the back of her eyes. “Alaric always said I should come to you if anything happened to him.”
He smiled and his face lightened. “What took you so long then?”
“I had to get over the shock of losing him first. I rather thought he was immortal, you know.”
“He always behaved like he thought he was immortal too.”
“Maybe he did.” She sighed. “Maybe he did.”
Uncle Gus remained quiet for a while, then spoke gently. “What can I do to help you?”
“I need somewhere to live. I decided just now that I cannot spend another moment in that house.”
She waited for him to tell her not to be dramatic and to just go home and get on with it. But he didn’t. Instead, he nodded his leonine head.
“We can’t do much about finding you a home today, and I’m not exactly set up to receive guests.”
His cheeks pinked, and Alice laughed.
“Do we have a young lady in residence Uncle Gus?”
“She isn’t that young, and she’d be very insulted to be called a lady.”
“I’d like to meet her, then. She sounds as if she would be the perfect antidote to the stultifying pretended gentility of Alaric’s dreadful Mama.”
His bark of delighted amusement made Alice feel much better about herself. When he stopped chuckling, he looked at her for what seemed like an age.
“If you really mean that, then by all means come and stay with us. You would certainly be safe under Gabriella’s wing.”
“Safe?”
Uncle Gus sobered.“Yes, Alice, safe from the machinations of a woman who is already hinting that Alaric’s untimely death has left you mentally unbalanced.”

To keep reading Alice’s Choice, click here!

Is that the rainbow bridge
He asked
And if I cross, my life
Is past
And if I go
And if you stay
I hope we’ll meet
Again someday
I’ll put my feet
And I will climb
To wait for you
Until your time

©️Jane Jago 2020

Money. When was the last time you saw any actual cash money?

Me neither.

Until.

The other day I had to waddle down the village to the post office (now tastefully housed in a very hygienic corner of the funeral director’s hushed premises) and acquire some actual moolah, because the plumber very kindly knocks off the vat if you pay him cash. The little girl behind the plexiglass screen very sweetly shoved the notes into a brown envelope I provided, so it wasn’t until I got home that I discovered  that twenties are now plastic.

I laughed so much that I right about pissed myself.

You aren’t going to tell me that you missed that little irony are you?

You are?

Okay, then, let me elucidate.

All around me are females (and a few very put upon males) of a certain age. Many of these bloody fossils are vociferous in their condemnation of the cashless status of society.

In the days when a game of euchre and a pasty was a possibility, the lounge bar would be full of these crusty old naysayers. I see them now, bellied up to the bar and waving fivers at the sorely harassed barmaid.

“You’ll never see me paying with plastic,” is their mantra as they waste hours counting small denomination coins into piles on the scratched mahogany of the bar.

Seems as if karma has caught up with them good and proper. You declare your aversion to ‘plastic’ Mrs Frobisher I think to myself, and then you go and wave a note above your head never once seeing that it is ‘plastic’ too…

That is seriously funny. Or maybe not.

Me?

I run up a modest bar bill and slap my card on the screen before tottering home singing immodestly.

My mate Mabel watched me do this for about three months then bit the bullet. She still don’t have a credit card, as the silly old moo would get in a right mucking fuddle, but she slaps her contactless debit card with all the je ne sais quoi of a  Kardashian in a high-end boutique.

In a rare moment of sobriety, I conducted a straw poll of the halt, the lame, the feckless and the demented as they sat their asses down for the last village OAP dinner before Armageddon.

Being asked why they don’t like to pay by card I got the following responses.

“I won’t know what I’ve spent.”

“I will run up a huge bill.”

“I like the feel of money.”

“My son/daughter/other ‘concerned’ family member doesn’t want me to.”

Struck me as so sad that I bought the buggers a round of sov blanc.

In a nutshell then…

On very rare occasions progress is A Good Thing. This might be one of them. 

It’s liberating.

I no longer need a purse or a handbag.

Got my phone in one pocket. My keys in the other. And my American Express card up me knicker leg.

Oh yes, you sad lot.

Have plastic. Will travel…