Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

If you’re old then the process is clear
You must give up on romance and beer
It’s no longer fashion
To have a high passion
Stop flirting in bars, do you hear?

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

I do remember the fifth of November
When fireworks recall a plot
To blow up the whole bloomin’ lot

I do remember the fifth of November
When kids called ‘Penny for the Guy’
At the people as they walked by.

They’d make them before the fifth of November
From old clothes with newspaper crammed
Then sat in an old go-cart or pram.

But now we remember the fifth of November
As a day for fireworks planned
Displays both modest and grand.

But kids don’t make guys for the fifth of November
They no longer put up that cry
Instead ‘trick or treater’s come by…

Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
And what should we do with him? Burn him!

Eleanor Swift-Hook

A tale of angels, demons and dragons…

For a brief time they stood handfast before Aeva spoke again.
“Will it offend you to stand behind me? Close enough so I can lean on your strength.”
“If you tell me that is what you need, how should I be offended?”
“Thank you.”
Aeva took up a position on the hot white sand with Adamo behind her.
“Closer,” she murmured.
He closed the space between them so her back rested against the hard wall of his muscles.
“Ware downdraught.”
As Aeva spoke, the sky darkened and it seemed that a vicious wind picked up around them, spinning sand into vortices and flattening the trees about the oasis. Aeva was pleased that Adamo stood firm at her back while she narrowed her eyes and studied the skyline to the south.
The seeming wind died down, and the sky overhead took on the hue of molten copper. A fiery comet in the sky slowly came closer, and took draconic form. It was a Queen Dragon and she was as metallic and gleaming as the sky from which she came. Lower and lower she spiralled, until it would have been easy to believe her about to bury her aristocratic snout in the sand. But she pulled back at the last second, cupping her wings and landing with minimal disturbance.
“Aeva Darkstar. What brings you to the singing sands?”
“Guardian business, bright one.”
“How so?”
“They have mislaid a Messenger and his draca partner.”
“I have heard of no missing draca.”
“Precisely…”
The dragon chewed on that one for a moment, then she snarled deep in her chest.
“This Messenger is a mortal male?”
“He is.”
The dragon growled again.
“Do you suggest that the draca have borrowed it?”
“I suggest nothing. I merely offer a possible explanation for the disappearance of the Messenger.”
The saurian head dropped to the sand so that the dragon’s multi-faceted eyes were level with Aeva’s.
“Tell me, Invigilator, why is a Messenger of sufficient value to have the Guardians send one such as you to hunt for it?”
“Because it is the only male offspring of Freja Gunnarssen.”
The dragon recoiled as if slapped, and huffed out a gout of flame which set a burning bunch of twigs and tumbleweed rolling across the desert. Aeva pointed a single finger and the flames died. As the dragon gathered herself to leap into the air she spoke one word.
“Tomorrow.”
Then she was gone, upwards into the unforgiving sky.
Aeva turned to face Adamo.
“Now we wait?” he asked.
“Aye. We wait, and hope the draca don’t grow bored with their plaything.”
“Because?”
“Because if they do they are liable to eat him.”
Adamo winced. “That really would not be a good outcome.”
“No indeed. But for now we had best rescue your men from Gudrun’s evil fingers and see about setting up camp for the night.”
By the time the sun fell beneath the horizon Adamo’s fighters had set up an encampment around a biggish fire in a pit lined with rocks. After a meal of campfire bread, and honey from the fighters’ seemingly bottomless packs, supplemented with desert creatures roasted on twigs from a certain tree that gave the meat a delicate smoky flavour, Gudrun and most of the half-demon males sat on the floor playing a game of chance with pebbles and sticks. Aeva watched for a few moments – long enough to decide that nobody was going to come to any harm – before slipping out of camp and heading to the edge of the trees.
It was dark in the thicket, but the desert itself was bathed in silver light. For a brief while, the beauty of it calmed her, but not enough so that she could ignore the worm of unease that wriggled in her gut. She shivered and wrapped her arms about herself. A change in the texture of the air told her she was no longer alone and, for the second time in a very few hours, she allowed herself to lean on another’s strength. Of course it was Adamo, and he rubbed his chin on the top of her head. She shivered and burrowed into the warmth that he carried.
“Are you cold Aeva Belladonna?”
She turned in his arms and lifted her face to better see how the moonlight gilded his skin.
“I am cold,” she admitted, “cold to my soul. Will you warm me?”
He put a gentle hand on the back of her head.
“Do you know what you are asking?”
“I do. The question is whether you will or will not.”
He laughed and bent to find her mouth in the moonlight.
Much later, as she lay across him he stroked her shaven head with a tender hand.
“Why did you not tell me?”
“That you are my first?”
“Yes. That. I would have been more careful with you.”
“That’s part of the reason why I didn’t say. I didn’t want careful. I wanted unbearable heat. I wanted teeth and sliding sweat. I wanted everything you gave me. Thank you.”
His hands moved down to her back and his fingertips lightly touched the scars where her wings had been. “It is I who should be thanking you for such a precious gift.”
And that should have been that, but it seemed he had other ideas, though she made no argument when he stood up with her still clasped to his chest and walked to where his blankets were laid out ready.
Aeva slept like a babe, waking with the sounds of those small creatures who ventured out of their burrows before the sun rose high enough to fry the unwary. She turned her head to see Adamo feeding a mouselike animal with crumbs. Aeva laughed, and the creature looked at her with accusation in its eyes.
“My apologies, desert dweller, I meant no offence.”
This seemed to pacify the little visitor sufficiently to finish its meal before scuttling off about its business.
Aeva looked at her lover to see his face shuttered and bleak. “What? Why do you look at me so?”
“Because you do not believe me capable of kindness to a harmless creature.”
She understood immediately, having lived most of her own life under the very same stigma. But how could she break through years of hurt and mistrust?
“Adamo. Look at me.” He did as she asked, although she could feel the rawness of hurt in him. “My handsome lover, it pains me to see you so hurt. And I need to make you understand that I am not like whoever hurt you. I know how kind and tender you can be. I have trust for you in my breast.”
“Then why did you laugh at me?”
“I did not laugh at you. It was the small one’s enjoyment of his meal. Made me remember that there is more on earth than the affairs of monsters and mortals.”
She felt him weighing the truth of her words and saw the moment he understood that she was sincere. He took her hands in his and raised them to his lips.
“Tell me what kind of a fool I am, bright lady.”
“All kinds. But perhaps…”
“Perhaps what?”
“Perhaps not so much a fool as a soul damaged by life.”
“Perhaps indeed. And will you hold that soul in your tender hand?”
Aeva was demon enough to understand the importance of that question, and to find, to her surprise, that her own damaged heart leapt towards him. She lowered her head as a tear crept down her cheek.
“I will hold thee dear, if thou wilt be my strength and safe harbour.”
He bent his knee and placed his hand on her breast. She reciprocated and they were joined. It was as simple, and as complicated, as that. To Aeva’s surprise, his fighters gathered about him punching his shoulders and ducking their heads to hide emotion.
“He has been too long lonely.” Gudrun spoke from behind Aeva. “His fighters revere him, but they fear his beast. Are you strong enough to bear his burdens as well as your own?”
“I have to be. He is mine.”
And with that admission Aeva Belladonna Darkstar sealed her fate.

Aeva’s Challenge by Jane Jago will continue next week.

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

Now I have your attention, let’s think about Halloween.
This is the night when, according to superstition, the veil between here and wherever is at its thinnest. So what do people do? They dress little Testosterone and Menopause in ‘supernatural’ costumes and they send them out to knock on the front doors of total strangers crying ‘twick or tweet’.
In what alternative universe is that a good idea?
Has nobody read Hansel and Gretel?
The opportunity for deeply disturbing adult behaviour is there for all to see. But no. What does the great British public do? It opens its fricking door and dispenses sweeties willy-nilly.
Then, just as you are fifty quid lighter for the night, and at last even the most persistent of winkie has been put to bed, the door knocking becomes rougher in character and the local teenage males come out to do a bit of extortion – with menaces.
These bastards don’t bother to even pretend they are in costume, and they really won’t be satisfied with a mini Mars bar. Mostly they want ciggies or beer, although one or two will expect a fiver in their greasy palms in order that they won’t throw eggs and flour at your front door, or accidentally key your car, or tie a firework to your cat’s tail.
From the depths of my armchair this seems too close to blackmail to be acceptable, and I determined to put an end to such behaviour once and for all.
I am in the fortunate position of: one – being wholly nerveless; two – having more hefty grandsons and nephews than you could shake a shitty stick at,
Conceive of the scene, my friends, local thugs beat a tattoo on elderly lady’s front door. It opens with an eerie creak and a huge figure with a gimp mask stands in a sulphurously lit hallway.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” it says in a voice like a winter hailstorm. “Do come in…”
Exit thugs stage left. Pursued by creatures whose faces gleam green in the streetlights.
We don’t see trick-or-treaters after dark these days…

A darkling drabble offers a shiver of horror in a hundred words…

A ghostly fairground on Walpurgis Night. The girl pressed on through the sights and smells, careful to touch nothing in her passing. She knew her goal, and music pulled her onward to the place that would test her fortitude and prove her a true witch. There it was. The horses pranced and the music screeched and groaned. Each waltzing horse had a laughing child on its back. Until you looked closer and saw that the pink mouths were stretched wide by agonised screaming, not laughter.

Moved to pity, she was glad of an empty stomach as she stood and endured.

Jane Jago

In an effort to educate the nominally literate and inform those with sufficient humility to understand their own lack of comprehension, Esme offers the correct definition of misunderstood words…

Misconstrue

1. (noun – pronunciation note: miss-cons-true) A successful female fraudster. Example: After she vanished with his life savings, Roger realised the woman he loved was a misconstrue.
2. (verb – pronunciation note: misc-on-strew) Spreading various random items over a surface. Example: She emptied her handbag onto the table and misconstrued them to try and find her lipstick.

If you have any words whose meaning escapes you, Esme Crockford is always happy to share her lexicographical knowledge and penetrating insight into the English language.

In a modern-day Britain where the Roman Empire never left, Dai and Julia solve murder mysteries, whilst still having to manage family, friendship and domestic crises…

It was pleasant bowling through the winter countryside with the thin sunshine turning the dead bracken orange. and a pale blue sky overhead. Julia revelled in a moment to just sit.
“You don’t get a lot of down time do you, domina?” Bryn observed.
“No. And I sometimes wonder if it was wise of me to take this job alongside motherhood and the rest of it. But I have good people around me. And I think I might go mad if domesticity was the whole of my life.”
“That’s what Gwen says about you. Reckons your mind is too busy to be satisfied by just running a house. She’s much the same, but she has her healing and the Druid stuff.”
“I know Gwen understands. But Dai’s mam can’t. I think that’s why she pokes and prods about how I’m bringing up Aelwen and Rhodri.”
“That’s also what Gwen says. She’s been tempted to interfere, she and Olwen being good friends, but she thinks you have it in hand.”
“ I do. I just ignore it. But it hurts Dai. Though it may be going to stop because Gallus has promised to have a word.”
“I reckon that’ll turn the trick. Olwen is not an easy woman in a lot of ways, but he manages to love her and live with her.”
Julia laughed. “Yes, well, what she refers to in her son as ‘Llewellyn angst’ could just as easily have come from her.” Bryn grunted. “Very probably. But, domina. We seem to have acquired a tail.”
Julia looked in the rear-view mirror. There was a shiny muscle truck barrelling along behind them, and,  judging by the black smoke from its exhaust, it was being driven as fast as it would go. She showed her teeth.
“So we do. That was quick.”
“It was. Maybe too quick for it to be a decision from on high. I mean, all a car chase is going to do is bring whoever into even clearer focus. And that’s stupid.”
“Yes. As you say. Stupid and knee jerk.”
Bryn made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “If I had time, I’d go back and bounce my pacifier off his thick head.”
Julia laughed. “I reckon it’s an inept attempt at intimidation. They mean to put the frighteners on us. Run us into a ditch and clear off. No real harm done. Just frighten the little woman so she backs off.”
“Yeah. Somebody doesn’t know you very well, do they? What do you want to do? I’ve no great fancy to be chasing up and down the Mawddach with some idiot trying to run me off the road.”
“Me neither. Are you game for a bit of rule bending?”
“Always.”
Julia slid a hand under her armpit and brought out her trusty pistol.
“Submagistratus Llewellyn, you aren’t carrying a concealed weapon are you?”
“I am and as I’m both a citizen and technically a Vigiles, it’s fully legal. It’s what I propose to do with it that’s a bit irregular.”
“Tell me more.”
“Even chummy’s favourite muscle truck is going nowhere on shredded tyres.”
Bryn’s grin was every bit as appreciative as she had hoped it would be. “What’s the drill?”
“Next longish straight bit of track you speed up. Then slow right back. We see how our tail reacts. If we think he really is following us, I shoot out a couple of his tyres.”
Bryn chuckled. “On it, domina.”
As he spoke the track widened, flattened, and became arrow-straight following the line of one of the roads built by Julia’s ancestors. Bryn increased speed and Julia turned in her seat.
“The stupid irrumator is only trying to catch us.”
She knelt up. “Slow down now Bryn, but reduce speed gently.”
As Bryn eased up on the speed their pursuer kept on coming. Julia raised her pistol and put two rounds in his left front tyre. The vehicle lurched violently to the left, and as the driver fought his bucking bronco of a vehicle she gave the right front a similar treatment. That rather put paid to any further pursuit.

From the The Dai and Julia Mysteries, Dying for a Present, a novella by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

If you’re old then the rule really is
You have to like cribbage and bridge
Your idea of fun
Should be tea and a bun
Not neat vodka straight out of your fridge

Eleanor Swift-Hook

It’s Halloween and I am feared
To walk the woods tonight
The creatures who avoid the sun
Have by the flight of hags been cheered
And they my sorrows slight
And though the night has just begun
Wind whistles in the forest beard
While eldritch flickering light
Pursues me as they have their fun
Their voices sibilant and weird
Echo strangely, and the fright
Dictates I lift my heels and run

Jane Jago

A tale of angels, demons and dragons…

One of the forest gods screwed up her leafy face. “What does it matter which mortal is missing? They are of little account anyway.”
Lucifer bulked his shoulders dangerously before looking at Aeva. “Now you see what I am up against. Most of this lot are as stupid as stumps. And capricious with it.”
“At least you are not stupid.”
He grinned at her and she couldn’t help smiling back at him.
“Aeva Darkstar, are you sure you are only half demon?”
“Probably.”
Lucifer sobered abruptly. “Why have you never asked me for anything?”
“I promised Mama I wouldn’t. She always said one of us making a bargain with Shaitan was sufficient.”
“What did she…” Lucifer wrinkled his brow as he thought, then he nodded once. “Oh yes. I remember. But that was such a tiny thing. I only asked for payment to make her feel better. She was a proud mortal, and I rather liked her. I was wrath with your father when she died.”
“So was I. But he never learned to fear either of us.”
“He knows now. He is chained and he will stay so.”
“Until some other demon frees him.”
Lucifer showed his many rows of teeth in a death’s head rictus that bore little relationship to the smile that had spawned it.
“Nobody will be setting him free this time. I locked the manacles with my own hand, and the collar about his throat. He goes nowhere.”
Gabriel had been in close conversation with one of the animal-headed deities of the Nile and he cleared his throat.
“Seti here says the words the acolyte remembers sound like the language of the desert to him. And the name Water is often used as an alias by the desert draca.”
“Thank you. And now I think it is time me and mine were not here.”
As Aeva bent to draw a portal in the raked sand there came a bang, a flash, the smell of burning incense, and the sound of creative swearing. A large female mortal fell in a heap at the centre of the amphitheater and scrambled to her feet, glaring around her. She was about seven feet tall with hands like washboards and the shoulders of an ox. She wore a pointed helmet with a heavy nosepiece, a leather breastplate and kilt, and her greaves and vambraces were of polished brass. On the other side of the coin, the braids that all but reached her knees were bright gold, her eyes were startlingly blue, and her face looked as if it had been sculpted by a master.
Aeva sighed. “Gudrun. What are you doing here?”
“You may well ask, Invigilator. Mother and Grandmother were fretting that not enough is being done to find my misbegotten whelp of a brother – and I think one of the old magick wielders decided to help. One minute I’m sitting in the great hall listening to them pair going on and on and on. The next I’m here.” Gudrun bulked her muscles. “Right. Now I am here, I’ll just be taking over the job of hunting down little brother and kicking his arse for him.”
Aeva sighed again. “No. You are taking over nothing. And if you don’t calm down you won’t even be coming with us.”
The silence in the place was profound as even the gods held their breath waiting for the giant berserker to lose control and throw herself at the slight figure before her. Only it didn’t happen. Instead, Gudrun grinned wryly.
“Do you tell me that you are mistress of the hunt Aeva Darkstar?”
“I am.”
“Grandmother is so not going to like that. She is having a hard enough time with the life debt we already owe you.” Then she spat in her palm and held out a large hand. Aeva spat too and they smacked palms.
“Just remember who is in charge.”
“As if I could forget.”
Aeva snorted and bent to the ground. She carefully drew the sigils that would have her portal come out precisely where she needed to be. Carelessness in this matter had cost others of her order their lives or their sanity.
“Join hands,” she said and her group formed a human chain before following her into nothingness.
Invigilator created portals are an uncomfortable way to travel, but after a moment of extreme sensory deprivation one and twenty creatures stepped out into burning sand under an ochre coloured sky. Aeva led the way to a stand of strange looking trees whose spiny trunks and sharp leaves offered the benison of deep bluish shade. Gudrun looked out over the harsh landscape of stone and sand and shivered.
“I don’t much like this place.”
“Me neither, but with only average luck we won’t be here too long. Now just sit down and hush. I am going out there with one other and I need the rest of you to stay put no matter what. You are going to see weird things. But. It will all be illusion. Sound and fury. It cannot touch me. However it will not be safe for anyone else to leave the shade. Can you be trusted?”
Gudrun looked into Aeva’s face and whatever she saw there convinced her. “Yes. I can sit on my beast for however long it takes.” She smiled brightly at the half-demon Fighters who surrounded her. “I’m sure me and the boys can find something to occupy us.”
Aeva shook her head before turning her attention to the de facto leader of the guard detachment. “Will you accompany me out there? It isn’t going to be too much fun, and I cannot actually guarantee your safety, but I need an anchor.”
He smiled. “You did not have to ask, lady. I am yours to command.”
“I will not command you to put yourself in danger. That is not my way. I will only ask.”
To her surprise, every Fighter raised the back of his right hand to his forehead and bowed low.
“What?”
It was Gudrun who answered her. “Fighters of every kidney respect courage, and the command of one who puts herself in danger first.”
“That is so,” the blue-skinned giant concurred, and his approval warmed Aeva’s soul.
Deeming there to be no time to explore that strange emotional pull, Aeva put it to one side and bent to remove her boots.
“Shall we?”
He came to her side and they walked out onto the burning sands together.
“Will you not burn your feet?”
“No. And the connection is necessary. But I thank you for your concern.” She looked up into the shuttered darkness of his face. “My friend. May I have the holding of your name?”
His face lightened. “If I am indeed your friend.”
“You are. Do you not feel it?”
“I do, but I was afraid it was only in my breast.”
Aeva put her hand in his, where it looked small and fragile, and he gently folded his fingers around it.
“My name is Adamo.”
“And I am Aeva Belladonna.”

Aeva’s Challenge by Jane Jago will continue next week.