It’s not nice being called a ‘big girl’ every day of your life. Susannah had grown tired of it but the invitation to the masked ball came anyway.

Mother sneered.

“Surely you don’t intend…”

Father looked over his spectacles. “It’s not optional, my dear, the gel must go.”

Mother sighed, but Father’s mistress was rather more helpful.

The feathered mask and basque gave her a confidence she had never before felt.

It was a shame for all the pampered debutantes that the country’s answer to Prince Charming was a sucker for big boobs.

Princess Susannah was still a big girl.

©️jj 2019

Eritch Dragure was a large man in all dimensions. He stood by the corner bar which held real bottles, not a standard dispenser, pouring a small amount from one of the bottles into a delicate and decorative glass. As Avilon came into the room he lifted the glass towards him in a silent toast and then sank the contents in a single swallow and put it down.
“Ah. The simple pleasures, eh? I’d offer you one but it’d be a waste of a fine liqueur. I doubt you have the palate to appreciate it, son,” he said, his tone distinctly patronising. “So Vitos Ketzel, does your mistress know you are here?”
“No,” Avilon replied honestly.
“She not paying you enough? Or is your nose out of joint because you let Jaz Baldrik take your job? He’s quite bright is Jaz, knows how to land on his feet and then wedge them right under the table. That must bite.”
Avilon said nothing.
“Or am I just one of the options you are looking at? Your name has been linked with Durban Chola too. Now that is a very, very dangerous name to be linked with, son. I hope it is nothing permanent for your sake.”
“I have some dealings with him. I don’t work for him.”
Dragure nodded.
“I understand, I’m a man of business too. Which brings me to the simple question of why you are here.” He held up his hand. “No. Don’t tell me yet. I want to show you something. Give me your jacket.”
It seemed a strange request. Avilon shrugged the garment from his shoulders and handed it over. Dragure made a slight gesture towards one of the near-invisible crystal-plex walls which slid open, onto the lake.
“We keep the water here well stocked with fish,” he said and dropped the jacket. There came a frenzy of movement and the water churned. A few moments later there were shreds of fabric floating on the surface. “People have been known to just disappear,” Dragure observed in a pleasant tone of voice, then he closed the wall and turned back to Avilon. “So, you were about to tell me, why are you here?”

From Haruspex: Trust A Few a Fortune’s Fools book by E.M. Swift-Hook 

They had been plodding through the rain for days, horses mired over their fetlocks and people wet to the skin. Pa led the team, while Ma worried as she did her best with wet firewood, damp flour, and fractious children.

Food was getting short when Petey caught a brace of fat rabbits, and Joanne found wild carrots and alliums in the corner of an abandoned field.

Ma spoke urgently to Pa and between them they decided on an early stop to cook the much needed fresh provender.

As they breasted a fold in the landscape, a rainbow split the sky.

©️jj 2019

Rowena is in an alternate timeline, where the Roman empire was defeated in the second century AD, by a Celtic nation united by Daman. An archaeologist, Daman controls the future through his knowledge of the past, twisting the world into a never ending war. In this world, you are either a citizen, or a slave. The training Rowena is on will decide her fate…

To her dismay, recruits were ranked by social class ID, and there was a buzz of furtive whispers as she took her place at the front of the line. It had been the same at school. Her family’s ranking had been a source of envy and hatred – she would find no friends here either. Cursing inwardly, she held herself rigid, and wiped expression off her face. The heavy-set man next in line leaned toward her, his shoulder brushing hers.
“Welcome to training, my future bride. I am Sloane.” His hot, mint-scented breath fanned her cheek, and she quivered in revulsion, and slanted a glance at him. Tall, with massive shoulders and bright red hair tangled into short dreadlocks, his face was one of brutal, hard planes. She checked his number, confirming her fears. He was one of her suitors, and the white star beside it indicated he was destined for a leadership position. The Mistress in Charge barked a command, and Sloane snapped to attention. Rowena also focused. She didn’t want any trouble.
“I am the Mistress in Charge,” the woman bellowed.
Silence, while thirty recruits stared back at her.
“You say, Yes Mistress,” she snarled.
“Yes, Mistress,” thirty voices variously yelled or whimpered back.
Shaking her head, the Mistress in Charge paced up the line, peering into the face of each recruit. Rowena stared straight ahead when it was her turn, until the Mistress grunted and walked to the front.
“I’ve never seen a sorrier bunch of recruits. I wouldn’t give a cup of cold piss for the lot of you.”
There was a snigger from somewhere in the ranks.
“Find that funny, do you? See that white post?” She pointed, it was just visible at the end of the camp track. “Last one back fails.”
“Get out of the way,” Sloane yelled, pushing a smaller recruit face first into the mud. Rowena sidestepped out of the crowd as the recruits pushed each other and stepped on the man. She grabbed his shirt, hauling him to his feet, then took off herself.
Rowena kept to the side, overtaking people until she was in the front third. What were her chances of getting through it? Thirty recruits and three months. A regime of running through the mountains, camping in the mud, bare handed fighting, weapons practice, and career learning.
Ahead, Sloane elbowed another into a ditch, and Rowena flinched as the man’s ankle snapped. Twenty-nine.
School had been nothing but a pre-training program. The expensive boarding school her father sent her to prided itself on 100% success in their students gaining citizenship. Running, strength training and various forms of fighting had been a big part of the school program, so much so that Rowena sometimes wondered how many graduates could read.
Tapping the post, she was in the first three. Sloane and a lean, dark-haired recruit who hadn’t broken a sweat. Did she want to win, risk drawing attention to herself?
Sloane was panting now, his heavy muscular frame not built for speed. “Your place is either under me or behind me,” he grunted, pushing past with an effort.
Rowena ground her teeth and pelted down the track, cursing to herself. The dark-haired man kept pace beside her, loping along. They finished together and snapped to attention in front of the Mistress in Charge.
“Well done. Your father will be pleased.”
“Thank you, Mistress,” Rowena shouted.
As the recruits staggered back, guards smashed the last one to the ground and dragged him away. From recruit to slave in a matter on moments.
“Attention.” The Mistress in Charge glared at the lines of recruits, the thick, twisted scar on her neck shining white in the sun. “Let us see if you have learnt your first lesson in what it takes to be a citizen of Albion.”
What is the penalty for failure?”
“Dishonour,” the recruits shouted back.
“What is your choice?”
“Death.”
“What is the proud heritage of Albion?
“Death.”
What did our ancestors deal out to the Romans?”
“Death.”
“What fate awaits the enemies of Albion?”
“Death.” Rowena shouted with the rest, her throat raw.

Druid’s Portal: The Second Journey the long-awaited sequel to the original Druid’s Portal: The First Journey by Cindy Tomamichel is out now.

A Bite of... Cindy Tomamichel

Q1: Which three fictional characters would you most like to invite to dinner?

I love these questions, but they are always so hard to decide! I am going with some nostalgic childhood reading passions today.
I think a lovely and cheerful dinner would include Pollyanna. Her glad game and travel stories would be great to hear. Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House) is a bit of a cheat since she was a real person, but we could discuss homestead recipes. To round off, I think Dickon from The Secret Garden, and he is welcome to bring all his animal friends with him. Maybe Tumnus the fawn could pop in for a cup of tea and a scone?

Q2: Which authors would you credit as having the biggest influence on your writing?

Andy McDermott and Matthew Reilly for pace and action, RE Howard for being able to describe settings with such poetic imagery, and Peter O’Donnell for reminding me to create great villains.
But the ones that really help to improve and encourage are the ones in my local writing group, and also my critique group. I’ll give a shout out to the Scifi Roundtable Facebook critique group of E.M. Swift-Hook, Darren Handshaw and Zora Marie, all great authors and awesome readers of my turgid drafts!

Q3: What is your favourite fast food?

I think a vegetarian burrito is my favourite. Beans, capsicum, avocado all wrapped up in a tasty parcel. All those vegetables must also be healthy right?

Cindy Tomamichel is a multi-genre writer. Escape the everyday with time travel action adventure novels, scifi and fantasy stories or tranquil scenes for relaxation. Find a world where the heroines don’t wait to be rescued, and the heroes earn that title the hard way.

You can find Cindy on Facebook, Twitter and her own website.

When she was young, the name Poppy suited her as she was a vivid creature who seemed to be blown hither and thither by the wind. In middle age she had no time to think about her given name, being more accustomed to think of herself as ‘wife’ or ‘mother’.

Now she was old there was leisure to consider the irony of heedless young ‘carers’ calling her Poppy.

Then he came. 

He was about eighteen, she judged, fair-skinned and kind.

He said her skin was as delicate as the petals of a poppy. And life made sense again.

©️jj 2019

Dear Reader Who Writes,

At risk of preaching to the converted, I must first take the time to be sure you are all acquainted with me. I am Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV and acclaimed author of the millionth best seller science fiction and fantasy novel, ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’. As such I have been delving deep into my treasure trove of writing wisdom to bring a few of the more luminous gems of my experience to light.

It is true that young people today are not as they were. When I was a fuzzy-faced youth in my early twenties, awaiting the chance to shave for the first time, I would not have dreamed of behaving in the manner of my old-school chum’s son when he came to stay overnight the other week on the way to some foreign destination for a ‘Gap year’. He has just turned eighteen. Called Henry.

He swanned into the house and dropped his rucksack on my feet, gesturing imperiously upwards with one finger, no doubt to indicate that he expected me to take it upstairs for him. Then he caught sight of Mumsie, spreadeagled over the sofa as is her wont. His eyes widened and I heard him say: “Em. Eye. Elle. Eff.” After which bizarre incantation he threw himself upon his knees beside Mumsie and whispered something in her ear which made her laugh. Well, giggle.

I retreated to my writing room and when I emerged in the early hours I found the rucksack was still untouched downstairs. By the time I rose to breakfast, Henry had left for Peru and Mumsie was humming happily and dancing around the front room holding a half-empty bottle of Champagne.

It occurred to me then and there, that I should address myself to that phenomenon of recent literary note: the Young Adult novel.

How To Write A Book: The Write Approach to YA

The first thing to remember is that your heroine – and it almost always is a heroine – must be living a normal, but extra-miserable life. She must be the school social reject or the really plain girl wearing glasses and unfashionable clothes. She is probably poor, but if rich, must have an isolated and unhappy time as a result. In a science-fiction or fantasy setting, she will be an orphan, abused, beaten and downtrodden – probably enslaved. At best she may be allowed an ‘ordinary’ background within whatever world she lives. She can have one good friend. 

But, remember, no matter how bad you make her issues, on no account can she be fat.

Having established this dual point of miserable powerlessness and rejected loner, the author must then bestow upon this heroine a magical power or super ability which is linked to a mysterious family heritage. Or may be brought about by the discovery of an artefact – or both. This will then transform our dowdy underdog cygnet into a burgeoning youthful swan.

At this point, the romantic elements should be established. If her ‘one good friend’ was male, he now becomes a suitor and is joined by one or more other suitors all of which now adore the heroine and all want her to adore them. The degree of self-abasement you can portray for these unfortunate males will boost the popularity of your final work. No matter how much the heroine rejects them, or how rudely, they will return and grovel at her feet each and every time. Or storm off and then turn up to save her in the end.

Do be sure to make her suitors as various as possible. If you are writing fantasy or supernatural fiction, they can be an elf,  fairy, angel, fallen angel, demon, vampire or a were-something. If science-fiction then aliens of whatever variety. Be sure to make the nice ones rich and the not so nice ones poor.

On no account allow any long-term romantic liaison to become established between your heroine and any of these males. To do so will end the game and end the series because, of course, this first book will be just the start of a series.

Take this advice to your collective bosoms my dear students and fame and fortune will stalk your steps.

Until next time.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Morfa Diggins worked the graveyard. He tended the bones and argued homespun philosophy with the fragile spirits. He was the only living creature to see the bones rise and dance under the Walpurgis moon, and to hear the music of the singing bones as they played to the solstice skies.

There was no moon the night the necromancer came and danced his obscene dance on the oldest of the graves. The bones rose in sullen anger, and when there was an army about the dancer’s feet they rushed him.

Morfa was the only living creature that heard his death lament.

©️jj 2019

Dead pigeon on the roof of the shed
How did you get there?
How did you get dead?
Did a cat take you up there
Having brought you down?
Did you drop from the sky
When you were flapping around?
Or were you trying flight
Having just shed your down?
Dead pigeon on the shed, I have said enough.
Now, how the hell can I get you off?

E.M. Swift-Hook

These caverns had been mines in the past, long before even he had arrived, but mined out to the last dregs and scavenged over since. Finds were not common now. Once the people here would have brought him all they found and he could have paid them well for the finding, but now he had so little left to offer. It was getting hard to find enough to trade for their basic needs. So this had been a truly generous gift. He blinked and tried to recall who had brought it.
A face floated out of memory. The father of the present child. Dark-haired, burly, bearded, violent. Yris could not remember ever hearing his name mentioned but assumed he had one.
“Yuh ca’ have this,” he had said and dropped the nugget onto the workbench as if it was just a pebble. Yris could not recall what happened then, he had been thinking of his sanity and the time had turned.
He hoped he had thanked the man, it would have been remiss to forget something like that for a gift so precious. He held the nugget, gleaming black-silver and tried to decide how best to use it.
Unlike the things he had to deconstruct to make them of use, this was different. This he could mould to his will, shape it to fit where he needed. He pondered creating an alloy, wondering if that might eke out the precious properties or merely dilute them. Sometimes his own ignorance was his worst enemy.
He sighed and opened a tray on the refiner. Whatever he did with it, he would need to be sure it was free from impurities. He closed the tray again, but nothing happened.
“It might help if you turned it on first.”
He looked up to see a young woman standing there, one he had not noticed before amongst the students, interns and technicians. He wondered which she was and why she thought she had any right to speak to him unasked. Bright light streamed through the windows set high in the walls and caught the blue-black shades in her hair. Yris realized he was frowning at her. He shifted his augmented vision and turned the refiner on, then looked back to the woman – no, girl. She was so young. But then they all looked so young. It was sometimes hard to credit their knowledge and intelligence when they looked like children. She stood a little awkwardly now as if whatever courage that had inspired her to speak had renounced its hold and abandoned her.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
“I think I might be your sanity,” she said, “I get the impression someone needs to do that job.”
He nodded and felt the frown lifting from his face.
“I was not aware there was a vacancy – until just now. But the job is yours and we will see how it goes.”
She smiled as the refiner whirred on.
Yris focused his attention to the data it was providing.  He was irritated that his link seemed to have gone down and he was left reading the details from the visual display on the device itself. He turned back to ask his new assistant to find him a functioning link-device. She was not there, neither was the lab, the sunlight had gone and there was only the bleak, dimly lit cavern. For a moment, he was lost and disoriented, then he remembered. The bleakness without, distilled within.

It was later, much later, when he was sitting with the child teaching it to read, that he recalled her name. The child was rapt, small head bent over the handheld hard-screen. Yris could only see the top of its head, tousled black hair- but the same shade as its father’s, not the rich shimmering blue-black of its… what? Great-great-grandmother?
The small face looked up because Yris had stopped reading.
“Stos tha’, Gran’pa.” The dark eyes glared at him in accusation.
“Stop what?”
“Stos the dreamin’. I wanna story,” the child said, frowning.
“You can read most of the story yourself.”
It was true, this one was very bright.
“Yeah, bu’ I like you readin’ it, Gran’pa.”
Yris had to smile at that and then he realized the small face smiling back had turquoise eyes, not brown, squeezed up as she giggled.
They were sitting in the park, a child had come running up chasing a creature no one else could see, playing a game in augmented vision.  She swiped at something in the air between them.
“Got it!”
Yris watched her run off already obsessed by the next intangible she needed to track down.
“She knows,” Soraya said, as the child danced away over the sunlit grass. “She called me to account for my activities this last cycle.”
The pit of his stomach tightened and he looked at the woman sitting beside him, unsmiling. Her face was haunted by shadows of sadness and fear, beneath the sweep of blue-black hair. He reached out and gripped the two slender hands resting in her lap.
“Then we will have to go. I won’t lose you.”
“But -”
“But nothing. It is time to make a stand. My sister has dictated the course of my life long enough. I will not have her destroy the one thing that makes me truly happy.”
The shadows lifted from her face for a moment, and the smile was as sweet as life itself.
“She will not let us go easily.”
“I know. I’ve known her a long time. A very long time, more than four times as long again as you have been alive. So you must trust me when I say I know how to deal with her.”
The blue-black hair swung as Soraya turned her face away, watching the child running after her private ghosts. For a moment, Yris envied that unknown child, her freedom and potential had yet to be curtailed by life.
“I don’t know,” Soraya’s voice came from behind the veil of her hair. “I’m not sure we get to live happily ever after.”
“No ‘ever after’ is happy forever.”
It got dark as he spoke. The air was no longer crisp and fresh, but brackish and still. Shadows flickered from the weak lights.
“But ‘tsa story, Gran’pa. It says so – so they did.” The small dark eyes looked up at him from a face wearing a defiant expression. “Wha’s a tree?”
Yris shook his head. It would not help the child to know.
“Just something in the story,” he said. Then trying to distract the child: “You read it all yourself, that is very good.”
For a moment, the dark eyes seemed to study him as if doubting his words, then the small face smiled.
“You need to come for sleep time.” The child’s mother stood by the entrance. It was hard to know which of them she was addressing. The child of course, but Yris was tired. Recently, he found his sleep times more often matched the child’s than its parents.
He remained there, sitting with the story open, staring at its cheerful pictures of chubby clouds and a smiling sun painted across a pink-blue sky. Of course, he had many images and even VRruns of the real thing, but somehow these designs captured more of the essence of them. Someone had thought what the essential concept was for ‘cloud’, ‘sky’, ‘sun’, what symbolic place each held in the human psyche, and had created these images to project that sense of ‘sky-ness’ or ‘cloud-ness’.

From Toungeless Caverns a Fortune’s Fools story by E.M. Swift-Hook in the anthology Tales From The Underground published by Inklings Press. 

.

 Blue’s human often called him ‘old stoopid’, but Blue didn’t mind. He knew himself loved.

It was cold in the park, that day, and they were running to get home when Blue smelled a fun game happening in the woods.

He careered off, with his human swearing in his wake. 

“Blue, c’mere you eejit…”

But Blue was on the scent, and there was no stopping. When he saw the man and the girl rolling on the ground he jumped on the guy’s back barking happily. 

And that’s how big, daft Blue became the hero who caught the Central Park Rapist.

©️jj 2019