Tag: fantasy

Still Waters

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Excerpt

The car, a 1953 Cadillac convertible, stood in front of the Tournquists’
house. Red and shiny, it had gleaming white wall tires. Tyne
had not seen it there on any of her previous visits.
As Cam drew his Buick alongside, she said, “Your parents must
have visitors.”
“I don’t think so, honey. There’s no car here except what belongs
to the family.”
“Oh, did they get a new ….” She stopped, realization dawning. “Oh
no, Cam, it can’t be … not mine.” Stunned, she remained seated until
he came around to open her door.
“I’ll let them tell you.” Cam helped her out, and led her up the
front steps. At the top, she put her hand on the wrought iron rail and
turned to look back. “Oh, my goodness,” she murmured.
The car was indeed hers, Arthur Tournquist informed her a few
minutes later.
“But, I can’t let you … really, it’s too much ….”
“Tyne, will you please stop mumbling and accept our gift graciously?”
Arthur smiled at her, but Tyne sensed his impatience.
What did one do in a situation like this? She didn’t want to refuse a
gift. On the other hand, this gift was much too extravagant, the most
she had hoped for being a second-hand older model something. She
had no idea what she had expected, because she knew little about
cars. But this … even if she was to be their daughter-in-law, she could
not accept a gift like this.
And that’s just the point, she thought. If Cam and I were already
married, it might be a different matter. They could have waited …
they should have waited.
She thought about Moe and the humble little television set from
her future in-laws. She would give anything to be able to trade places
with Moe right now, or at least be able to trade gifts. Since that was
impossible, she craved the next best thing – to call Aunt Millie and
ask her advice.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763068

Straits and Turns

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Excerpt

Necrophilia

…“I’m going out. I’ll be back in two hours. I don’t want to find you
here when I get back,” she said in a stern voice and left.
He sank into his armchair in a world that had collapsed around
him. His wife didn’t want to see him again. Where could he go? His
life was a big question mark. His life was so arranged and well set up
until this morning. His life of order and security has suddenly become
chaos and disarray, a gigantic open mouth ready to swallow him. His
orderly life has turned into a disorderly one. How could he live now?
How could he face his co-workers on Monday? Could he talk to someone?
Did he have anyone to talk to?
A quick thought flashed through his mind, and he felt shivers
travelling through his whole body. He walked upstairs to their bedroom.
Everything seemed to be in place. Then why does his life feel
upside down? He stepped into the closet. His clothes hung orderly in
it. On the top shelf, he groped for the box. He took it down. Went to
the bathroom. He placed the box on the counter. He opened the box:
he looked at his service revolver. He hadn’t cleaned it in a while. Like
a zombie, he loaded his pistol with ammunition. He stared at himself
in the mirror. The code. Yes, he remembered the code they all followed,
their protocol. That dark thought ran through his mind again, and this
time it didn’t make him shiver at all. He felt peaceful. He felt better. The
code was what he had followed all his life. A code, a protocol, the secure
way of a CIA agent. It’s the same code he had to follow to the bitter end.
When everything goes into disarray, and everything becomes nothing
but chaos, the code must come into place. Tears flowed down his cheeks
as he stared at his face and then faced the pistol in his hand. Suddenly,
a euphoric sense of well-being overtook him as if someone was protecting
him. He felt strong, good, and comfortable. Heroic. He smiled at
himself. He winked at himself. What would she think when she found
him? Would she cry? Would she laugh at him exiting this way? His
eyes filled with tears, and somehow, he felt an inexplicable warmth,
as if in a different state of mind, in that dimension that various books
described. He put the barrel of the pistol in his mouth and, following
the example of so many others before him, Bradley pulled the trigger.

(If this excerpt spoke to you, you can find more about this book in the following links)

https://draft2digital.com/book/4250839#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763866

Redemption

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Excerpt

He walked back to the rented room and settled in his new home. It was
a small room with a table, a chair, a closet for his clothes, and a single
bed. The size of the room was no more than three by four meters,
with paint cracks all over; some paint had peeled right off the walls.
He didn’t really care about its condition. It was a very cheap room.
A small window with shutters opened to the street, and Hermes
saw a small garden. He took out his clothes from the suitcase and
hung them with care in the closet. He, then, sat down on the bed and
thought it would be a good idea to write home and let them know he
had arrived and was okay, three letters to three different addresses.
Realizing he had no paper, he walked out to the closest corner
store, where he bought some paper, a small jar of coffee and a small
rectangular box of sugar cubes, which he encountered for the first
time in his life. He went back to his room and sat at the desk to write
his first letter to his uncle and untie. He described in detail that his
trip was very good, the city was beautiful, and he felt enthusiastic
about the university. He wrote with intense feelings, particularly
in the second letter, addressed to Magdalene. He signed the letters
and sealed the envelopes. He would post them first thing tomorrow
morning. Hunger took over him. He got up, knocked at the
door of his landlady and asked where he could find a restaurant to
eat something. She informed him that “Black Cat” was the closest
restaurant to the house and told him how to get there. Hermes got
out and walked the few blocks to the restaurant. The server brought
his coffee. Hermes understood that coffee was served each time, even
before an order was given to the servers. He looked at the menu, but
he couldn’t understand the words; therefore, he didn’t know what to
order. He had his coffee and a cigarette. The girl refilled his cup and
looked at him with questioning eyes. He pointed to the menu and
said, “I don’t know what these are…” his finger travelling down the
list of food items. The young server asked him,
“What language does he speak…” He said, “Greek,” she called
him to follow her. He got up and followed the girl through a hallway
to an opening that connected the restaurant to the kitchen.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4172538#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763858

The Qliphoth

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Excerpt

She kicked the crotch of the guy who always calls me Fuckbeard when
Jago’s back is turned, but they managed to hustle her out,along with tearful
Cedric who’d turned his back on the whole scenario.
Now that all is quiet in the dorm, with Wolfbane locked away in solitary and
his supporting cast tranked down safely in their pits, I can safely itemise matters
relating to the Order of the Brazen Head. I’ve gobbed out today’s input of
sleepy-time, thanks to Simba throwing a shrill tantrum that distracted Jago at a
crucial moment of the dosage ritual.
So now, around midnight, in the little cone of bedside light, I am the only
sentient being in the Creation, an archivist of the Akashic scrolls.
Pol Pot’s revolution may have destroyed my artifacts but not the cellular
structure of my memory. Of course she ransacked our home, looting, pillaging,
laying waste . . . But I have the Lore by heart. I’ve copied it out laboriously
over the years, filling a whole series of these black books. Jago pretends to
humour me in this, but I still won’t reveal my stash as his own humours are far
from consistent.
For example, only last month he had a sudden pre-breakfast purge of our
“traumatic memorabilia”, our “hoard of faecal souvenirs” as he called the contents
of our bedside lockers. “This is the dark body of the Madonna you must
destroy!” he shouted at Eamonn and Cedric, sweeping away their framed photos
with his fat hand, grinding the pics underfoot, those saintly mothers and
martyred wives, whoever, it’s all the same to Jago whenever the neo-Freudian
fit hits him.
Yet he was only inches away from a lost knowledge more subversive than
any of his primal infantile soap-operas. I declare this is the Gnosis of the Brazen
head and these are the lost letters of its Lore:
73 Harsnett Road,
London SE 27
March 8, 1943
Dear Firestone,
What a pleasure to receive your letter! It displays a grasp of occult scholarship
which is impressive for someone still in their first year of undergraduate
studies, albeit in the shadow of the Bodleian Library, near the banks of Isis. I
myself took my first degree at Cambridge before my brief scholastic period at
the seminary in Rome and my later researches in Vienna. But the cloisters of
Oxford must still be charged with ancient potency, even in these dismal times.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562839

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0978186508

Redemption

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Excerpt

…at their destination, and they should fasten their seat belts. Hermes
looked down from the window. It was a cloudless night. He had a
superb panoramic view of the city, full of lights flickering in the dark.
He could distinguish the streets and the tall buildings as the aircraft
slowly descended.
They landed, and Hermes got up to take his carry-on bag from
the overhead compartment, stepped off the plane, and said goodbye
to Tom. An airline official led Hermes down the long hallways to the
baggage area. He found his suitcase from the appropriate carousel
and made his way to the arrivals area, where people waited for their
friends and family members. Happy voices were everywhere; people
embraced one another, kissing, laughing, and crying. He turned
around as if to see someone he knew. There was no one there, he knew
no one, and this was his first bitter moment of realization that he was
so far away from people he loved. He wished Magda were here. He
then sat on a bench and wondered aloud,
“And now, where are you going, Hermes?” A question justified
under the circumstances, a question he had no answer to, only the
sense of loss, of abandonment, of forlornness, and fear crept into his
heart. Then, as if from the great source, he felt he heard a voice that
whispered to his heart, not to his ears. And it was the voice of his new
motherland that said,
“Welcome, Hermes, you are here in Vancouver now, go out
there, find your way to do your studies and get your diploma. Your
folks are waiting for you, back in Greece. They look forward to seeing
you back. Your diploma is your goal and nothing less…” were the
words he felt he heard, and the voice wasn’t any other but the voice
of Canada, his temporary motherland, which, like a mother, took
another orphan off the streets and gave him a chance.
Suddenly, the fear he had just felt vanished, and a jolt of enthusiasm
took over his senses. Hermes stood up. His eyes ran around the
space of the large airport hall when his glance met the old woman
whom he had helped in Montreal; she saw him too. At the same
time, a very tall man with a good-looking woman approached…

https://draft2digital.com/book/4172538#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763858

Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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Excerpt

As the companions travelled, Keallach, Bjorn and Ari hunted small game and
sometimes they fished. Rordan, Ula and Yamka gathered edible mushrooms and dug
for roots and, following a full day’s trek, prepared the evening meal. Rordan was
quite happy to join the girls in a task normally left to women.
Bjorn, Ari, and Fire Maker emerged from a forest of alder, maple and birch, between
two mountain slopes, into a flat river valley partially shrouded in scatterings
of early morning mist. In the foreground was a wide meadow rich with new grasses
and spring flowers in yellows, purples and whites. Beyond the meadow, a reed-filled
marsh partially surrounded a sparkling lake.
The three had set out ahead of the others with lines and a net to catch trout for
breakfast. In the distance, Finten rattled off morning prayers with Keallach and Ailan
while Rordan, Ula and Yamka sent joyful laughter echoing through the boulders
of the steep mountainsides. Fire Maker walked in silence and didn’t seem to mind
that Bjorn and Ari conversed in the language of the Norse.
“She is wonderful,” Ari said. “If I were to spend the rest of my life with one person
… What I am trying to say is …”
Bjorn didn’t wait for Ari to finish his sentence. “Maybe, when we arrive at Fire
Maker’s homeland, you should ask Ula to marry you. Have you asked her if she feels
the same?”
“She is always with Rordan.”
“Why would he mind? His kind do not marry; they have a vow.”
“I know that, but I do not think Rordan is bound to that vow.”
Fire Maker signalled a silent pause. A cow moose lifted its gigantic head from the
morass of bulrushes, trailing a steamy clump of dripping swamp grass. Slowly chewing
her mouthful, the animal was content to observe the interlopers.
“If you really want to be with her,” Bjorn continued, “take her by the arm and lead
her away from Rordan, then tell her how you feel about her.”
The conversation was over as Fire Maker, who had walked a little way ahead, came
to a stream wide enough for good fishing. Bjorn and Ari hurried over to join him
with lines in the water.
Whenever the sun crossed the hills and mountains to set in the west, Fire Maker
and Finten became the campfire storytellers. With an apparent knack for language,
Father Finten was already fluent in the Mandan tongue. He related his stories from
the Old and New Testaments in ways both monks and laymen could relate to. He was
determined to make many converts when they reached the Mandan Nation. It was
his sacred mission.
The best stories belonged to Fire Maker. Everyone listened carefully when the
chief spread his hands to begin a story. In his deep, soft voice, he wove his tales with
expressive hands that cast wild animal shadows in the flickering light of the campfire.
“Long ago and long ago and long ago, the gods who made this land fought a
mighty battle to see who was strongest. Spirit of the North covered the land with
snow and ice. All the plant life went to sleep. The living creatures travelled many
moons south along the edge of the great salt water.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562826

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763106

Wellspring of Love

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Excerpt

…friends she made last year – two teenage girls and a younger boy who
lived next door to Pa with their widowed mother. They’d grown very
close over the summer, and Rachael had been excited at the prospect
of seeing them again. What she hadn’t anticipated was that Pa would
marry the widow lady and take on those two girls and boy as his own.
Rachael kicked at a small rock and sent it flying into the ditch. She
wouldn’t even have Lyssa here this summer because her cousin was
leaving in a couple of weeks for Vancouver.
Lyssa had told Aunt Ruby she was going for a holiday to see the West
Coast but would come home in the fall. Rachael didn’t believe her. When
Lyssa got to the big city, she probably wouldn’t ever come home. When
she had learned that Rachael couldn’t go to Ontario, Lyssa had tried to
talk her into going to the Coast with her on the bus. How she would love
to do that, but her parents would never let her go even for a few weeks.
Seemed they didn’t want her to have any fun at all anymore.
Thoughts of Lyssa made Rachael remember the party at the
Harrisons’ tonight. It would be in full swing, and where was she?
Walking alone on a dusty highway on a beautiful evening at the end
of the school year. Oh no, she wouldn’t be allowed to go to Vancouver
– she wasn’t even allowed to go to her cousin’s grad party.
She heard a car approaching from behind but paid little attention
until it slowed and pulled up beside her. She looked up, expecting to
see one of the district farmers or a hired hand on his way to town. But
a thatch of red hair above a freckled face made her stop abruptly and
stare. Kevin. She had not seen him since the disastrous night of the
dance at Spirit Lake.
“Well, hello, sweetheart.” He grinned at her from the open window.
“Fancy meeting you here, and on a Saturday night. How come
you’re not at Lyssa’s party? Or is that where you’re heading? Hop in,
I’ll give you a lift.”
“No thanks, I’m not going. I have too much to do to go to parties.”
She started to walk on.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562917

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763327

In Turbulent Times

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Excerpt

Ian buttoned his jacket, lit another cigarette and waited. His feet were sore and his calves ached. He shifted his position every couple of minutes. He thought: They can’t sit all this time on that concrete wall without their arses getting sore. He lit another cigarette. At his feet a litter of butts and grey ash messed the pavement.
The sky was darkening to sea-blue. A few stars twinkled.
At last they moved. While applause for the performance died to silence, and a low buzz of conversation replaced it, Nora and her friends slipped stiffly from the wall and stretched and put on cardigans. Ian saw Nora’s large bust below her blouse. She turned to the sallow man and said something. He replied and waved a long, skinny hand. The three girls walked away together along the path by the sea-wall and out on to the main road. They turned to the right in the direction of the Drumard Strand Hotel.
Ian followed until they had sauntered past his car. When he himself reached the car he climbed in and drove to the hotel by a side road that passed a row of private houses with gardens extending to the beach. It led him by the railway station and the bus terminus to the driveway of the hotel. He parked the car, combed his hair in the rear-view mirror, straightened his jacket and then walked casually into the plushy ambience of the hotel. It struck him as being somewhat old-world and serious but comfortable.
He entered the leathery den of the Slieve Corragh Room, where he had first met Nora and her friend. The bar was busy but not full. He stood in the doorway for a moment while the muted hubbub of voices and laughter and the warm smoky air drifted past him into the thickly carpeted lobby. He looked at the coffered, wooden ceiling, the white upper walls above dark, varnished wainscoting. A large painting of Slieve Corragh hung on the wall to his left. He felt at home here. This was his milieu. He strode across to the bar and sat on an empty stool beside a naval captain who had his back turned half towards him as he talked to a lady with a blue rinse in her hair.
‘Scotch and water, please. Glenfiddich.’
He waited. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the doorway. The anticipation and the Scotch and the aftermath of a mixed grill were teasing his stomach maliciously. He was acting like an adolescent, like a seventeen-year-old boy suffering his first unbearable love for the girl up the street, the skinny little girl in pigtails who had suddenly, without his noticing, grown into a woman. Ian’s knees were trembling. He gulped down the Scotch and ordered another.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562904

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763270

Jazz with Ella

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Excerpt

She took the elevator down one floor, intending to ask the dezhurnaya the location of Chopyk’s room but for some reason, that floor was unguarded. It took another 20 minutes of getting lost in a maze of hallways, returning to the lobby, inquiring and returning to Chopyk’s floor, only to find that he was not in his room. She rode the elevator back to her own floor, and the doors opened on a pleasant domestic scene.
The dezhurnaya no longer sat alone. On two straight-backed chairs sat a young man and a woman with her arms around a gangly child of about ten who pointed her toes, first right, then left, pressing her sandals into the worn carpet. The man looked up eagerly when the elevator doors opened. She caught his eye for a second, took in the freckle-faced child and petite mother who sat in the shadows, then sped on up the hall. But she could feel the young eyes boring into the back of her head.
“Attention! devushka, woman,” shouted the dezhurnaya. “You have guests.”
Even before Jennifer turned to face the family, it was a moment of knowing, a sense that already on this first night in Moscow profound changes would take place, and this was only the first of them. She stared. Yes, the man did look familiar in a comfortable way. The woman—his wife?—was a stranger. The child was awkward and cute at the same time. The man walked toward her, smiling, his arms outstretched in greeting. He struggled with her name in thickly accented speech.
“Do I know …?” she began and stopped.
“Mikhail Alexandrovich Abram,” he said, grasping her hand. The woman tossed a mane of glossy black hair and approached smiling. “And this is my wife, Marta, and my daughter Nadya.” The child stood knock-kneed, bowed slightly and touched the red Young Pioneer scarf tied around her neck.
“We are your family.”
Jennifer was thunderstruck. “But I have no family here…” she finally responded. She didn’t want to appear rude but she was quite sure that her mother…but then there was a lot she didn’t know about her mother’s background.
“Yes, you do. You are shocked,” Mikhail continued. “I beg your forgiveness for our sudden arrival. May we enter?” He indicated the hotel room.
“Certainly. Go in.”

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562892

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763246

Small Change

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Excerpt

Rick looked disconsolately through the second-storey classroom
window at sheets of freezing rain, the weathered fence of the Pennsylvania
Railroad coal yard and the blackened struts of the steel bridge that
shuddered ever so slightly when a train passed over it, then back at Sister
Assunta who was preaching, again, about The Immortal Soul as she paced
back and forth in front of the blackboard behind her desk, slapping the
pointer against her palm like a riding crop.
“Pagans!” she was saying, “You were all born pagans and you must
be taught to fear (her pointer hissed and snapped loudly against the desk
blotter) the power of Almighty God.”
Silence. Some of them lowered their heads to avoid her stare. But
Rick was puzzled. That kind old man who lived forever in the sky was
merciful and just. He was love itself.
Why should anyone be afraid of him?
He raised his hand. Forty-two pairs of eyes swung toward the front of the
room, afraid for him, but excited by the drama that might be about to
unfold. Sister Assunta merely glared and went on pacing, her voice hoarse
with a nearly demonic fierceness. Rick took his arm carefully out of the air.
“Daily, you neglect your immortal souls. They may already
be lost
to eternal damnation.” She stopped precisely behind her desk chair, her
florid minutely wrinkled skin drawn into a tight smile.
Rick tried to look inside himself. There wasn’t much light. After
a while he became concerned. Where was his immortal soul, anyway, why
couldn’t he find it? Then something
round and flat like a communion
wafer came into focus. It was tilted, like the head of a snare drum, and it
was so clean it glowed. He began to understand. When you did bad stuff,
soot fell on it out of the dark, then, if you confessed and said five Hail Marys,

five our fathers, and an act of contrition, an invisible power swept
it clean again. And immediately, almost automatically, his pubescent mind
reached for what he knew to be forbidden.
The kids called her The Beauty Queen. Her dad owned the bar and
grill at the corner of Monmouth and Fifth. She spent a lot of time with
her followers in the extra lot next to her house her grandparents
had made
into a large garden surrounded
by hedges, and dotted with trees. When
she came out for a walk, all the guys stopped what they were doing and
watched her tight pedal pushers, her graceful careless moves…

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763157