I stared at the rocking chair on the porch and wondered if things would ever be the same again. I used to love to come here on holidays when Granny and Grandpa were alive. My brothers and I played football on the lush lawn, waiting for Thanksgiving dinner or outside, showing off our new toys at Christmas. But we’d grown up and had families of our own, and our father and grandparents died years ago and our mother four months ago. No one had been here in a long time—until today.
And nothing would be the same again.
As the oldest and executor of my parents’ wills, the disposition of the cabin and land fell to me. I figured a bit of paint, lawn care, and new gravel on the drive would spruce up the place, so I took off this morning to determine what needed to be done. The drive to the lake along the narrow, windy lane brought back many memories. It was a four-hour drive, and Mom would always pack snacks, and we’d play games while Dad would tell us tales of his travels to the cabin as a young boy.
Life had taken different turns in the ensuing years. I owned a CPA firm, and Daniel owned an insurance agency. The youngest, Randall, disappointed our parents, Dan and me. He had gotten into drugs in college. Nothing unusual there. Neither Dan nor I were Boy Scouts— we’d smoked weed. But Randy decided selling it was the way to go and ended up in prison. We had no idea where he went when he got out and hadn’t seen him in years. Good riddance, I guess, but his absence left an emptiness where he should have been.
About an hour from the house, hunger pangs hit me. Fortunately, the area was not as remote as it once was, and I came across a diner/gas station. It was crowded, so the locals thought it was good. An autumn chill greeted me as I stepped out of the car, and emotions from the last time we drove here for Thanksgiving as a whole family roared back. Randy had not yet dropped out of college, but on the trip, he was sullen, clearly not wanting to be there. The weekend proved difficult, and he never returned with us, and then he couldn’t when he was in prison.
Wood-paneled walls and a wood stove glowing with a warm fire created a cozy dining area. I ordered chili and cornbread and picked up a discarded newspaper from the table beside me while I waited. The headline was about the five women who had gone missing from the area. Hikers found the bodies of two of the missing women, and fears grew for the others. The server who brought my food nodded as she placed my chili before me.
“We’re all pretty scared around here. Harry, the owner, been taking us home and picking us up.”
“That’s horrible. Police have no leads?”
“Nope. Those poor girls were found near the Crayton Lake marina. But the police don’t have a clue who took ‘em.”
I finished and drove on. A road sign for Crayton Lake reminded me of when my dad took us out on a boat from that marina. The lane leading to the cabin was soon in front of me. I admit my heart raced as I turned onto the gravel road.
As I pulled next to the cabin, I started noting things that needed to be done—new gravel on the drive, painting, and shrubbery trimmed. I parked and got out, letting the cool breezes wash over me, and the fresh air fill my lungs. I turned to climb the steps and came face to face with a rifle barrel.
“Well, big brother, you are the last person I expected to see here.”
Breathing became difficult as I realized Randy held a weapon aimed at me. “Randy…. What are you doing here?”
He stared at me, his eyes icy pools of darkness. “I don’t want to kill you, Ben.”
“What are you….” The last I saw was the rifle butt swinging toward my head.
~~~
I came to, lying on my left side, my head pounding. I could feel the tightness and smell the metallic odor of dried blood on my face. I tried to move but realized my hands and feet were bound with duct tape. I groaned, then flinched as someone spoke.
“He took you too.”
I rolled over to see three naked young women, each chained by one wrist to the overhead pipes—the missing gals. I looked around in the dim light and realized we were in the storeroom in the cellar.
“Yeah.” I had to think of a way out of here.
The door creaked, and my companions whimpered as Randy walked in. He grabbed the brunette nearest him and unchained her.
I tried to move. “Randy, let them go. You’ve got me.”
He flashed a maniacal grin. “I do have you, and you’ll have to die too.”
The brunette screamed as Randy dragged her from the room, the other gals sobbing. “Girls, listen, no time for that. We need to get out of here. You’ve got to get me loose.”
One looked at me, squinting through tears. “How?”
I was on the other side of the storeroom from them. I’d have to roll. So, I rolled, not easy for a forty-five-year-old man whose exercise consisted of an occasional round of bad golf and dog walks. I managed to wiggle around some boxes and kick some dried-up paint cans out of the way, but I got to them. The gals worked with one hand each to peel back the duct tape. They finally got the wrist tape peeled away, and I ripped the tape from my ankles and stood, wobbly from lack of circulation and the blow to my head.
I needed a weapon and spotted an old rusty shovel. I grabbed it, told the gals to be quiet, and eased open the door into the furnace room and up the stairs. Didn’t take long to find him. He was in my grandparents’ bedroom.
The door sat open. Bile rose in my throat as I saw he had the gal lying on her stomach, limbs tied to all corners of the bed, and a long whip in his hand.
“One more, and then more fun. I know you love it when I… “
“Randy, stop.”
He spun, rage emanating from his wide eyes. He drew back the whip to strike me, but I was quicker. I slammed the shovel against his head, and my brother crumpled to the floor.
~~~
I walked to the rocking chair and sat. Randy was dead. I freed the gals, put them in a spare bedroom with water, and told them to stay as they were until the police arrived—no showers. The police would want evidence. I searched until I found my phone and dialed 9-1-1.
Faint sirens drifted from a distance as I looked at my hands covered with blood from the gals, myself, and Randy. No. Nothing would ever be the same again.
Written for a weekly prompt What’s Next?on Writers Unite! on Facebook. The site provides a prompt image and the first sentence, and you tell what’s next.
Images are free use and require no attribution. Image is by Waylin of Pixabay.
Four young friends, intrigued by a mysterious woman in the woods, seek out who she is.
A Cuppa
D. A. Ratliff
She lived in a little cottage up the lane. You know the place. A narrow leaf-strewn path through the woods glowing from dappled sunlight shining down. At the path’s end, a stone wall seemingly built before the dawn of time—the stones worn and pitted, moss in the crevices, and ivy creeping over the top—enclosed a tiny cottage. The arched wooden gate with openings in the slats allowed you to peek into the small flower-filled yard.
As a child, I remember hearing the adults’ hushed voices speak of Madame Idella Enstone. They warned us to stay away from the cottage as they considered Madame Enstone eccentric. Again, you know children. We went anyway.
I always blamed Derrick Jones for the trouble we got into as kids. He was a year older than we were but in our year at school. Taller and older made him think he was in charge, and we let him. That we followed him anywhere was a testament to our youth.
We were a motley crew—four fourteen-year-olds who became fast friends the summer before and were inseparable. My best friend, Pandora Fox, was the Vicar’s daughter and quite the dichotomy. She was at once daring, but just as quickly, remembering her father’s position pulled her back to reality. Derrick Jones’ dad owned the pub in town, and his parents worked twenty-four hours a day. At least, it seemed like that. Derrick was on his own most of the time and got into trouble often. Magus MacGregor’s mother opened a veterinarian’s office, and his father served as the headmaster at our school. My name is Agatha Lane. My father is the police detective inspector for the area, and my mother is a nurse. We were normal kids, but things around us were not always normal.
We first snuck to Madame Enstone’s on a cold October day. We followed Merrie Lassiter, who was eighteen, four years older than us, as she hurried down the path. Merrie was a plain girl who cared for little besides books, but rumors around the village were that she was also crazy about the hot local rugby player, who never spoke to her. Darting in and out of the trees, we tried to keep from giggling as we shadowed her. She hesitated momentarily at the gate before opening it and entering the garden. Once she disappeared, we approached the gate, hiding behind the stone wall, taking turns peeking through the gate to look into the cottage.
Pandora leaned over my shoulder. “Can you see?”
“No. There’s a lamp on and a cat in the window. I can’t see anything else.”
Derrick motioned to Magus, his best friend. “Shimmy up that tree and tell us what you see.”
“Me? You climb the tree.”
A sharp look from Derrick and Magus scurried up the branches, high enough to see into the cottage. He whispered from his perch. “The old lady is serving her a cuppa.”
The wind picked up, and a thin tree branch slapped Magus in the face causing him to lose his grip on the tree limb where he had perched. Quick thinking by Derrick broke Magus’s fall, but Magus cried out as he fell, disturbing the forest’s silence. Afraid the old lady had heard, we ran down the path as fast as we dared, taking refuge in the vicarage at the opposite end.
Pandora led us to a guest bedroom on the second floor that offered a view of the path, and we waited for nearly forty-five minutes before Merrie appeared and headed into the village. As it was almost dusk, Derrick, Magus, and I headed home with the mystery of Madame Enstone unsolved.
It was a week after Christmas when Pandora pounded on my front door. My parents, older brother Quinton, and I returned from visiting my grandparents in London that afternoon. My mother opened the door, and Pandora raced past her to me. Then realized my mother was still present.
“You seem quite excited about something, Pandora.”
My friend glanced at me and then at my mother. “Oh, just happy to have Agatha back, Ms. Lane.”
“Good.” Mother slipped on her coat and grabbed her purse. “I am off to the market. We need a few things. The tin with your grandmother’s cookies is on the counter if you two want a snack.”
The second my mother closed the door behind her, Pandora grabbed my arms. “Remember Merrie, who went to see Madame Enstone?”
“Yes. What?”
“My older sister and her friend were talking on Boxing Day. Seems as though Merrie and that rugby player are getting married.”
“Really? The guy who wouldn’t even talk to her?”
“Yes, Matilda and her friend said that on All Hallows Eve, they saw Merrie and the guy together, and now they are engaged.”
I plopped down on the couch. “Do you think those stories about Madame Enstone being a witch might be true?”
“I don’t know, Agatha, but Matilda said something about a love potion.”
“We need to tell the guys. Derrick and Magus won’t be back until after the new year. Then we need to check this out.”
The New Year came, and we spent much of our free time watching the lane for who came and went to Madame Enstone’s over the winter months. We saw four people visit in that time and snooped around to find out that all four of them had troubles that seemed to disappear after they walked down the path. It was the beginning of March when we had gathered at the vicarage on the pretense of studying, but we were staring at the lane, waiting for Kenny Walmsley to show up.
Derrick overheard Walmsley tell someone at the pub that he was at his wits end with his dairy and cheese business. He was losing money and needed new clients. He didn’t know what to do, but he needed help with two kids and a new baby on the way.
It was past five, and we were about to give up when Walmsley appeared and headed toward Enstone’s cottage.
I looked at Derrick, who had his face pressed against the window. “How did you know he’d go see her?”
“He was talking to Mr. Tom. You know, the old guy who found that old wooden box of rare Roman coins that turned out to be worth some money. He told Walmsley to see Madame Enstone, and she could help. That she’d helped him.”
Magus pointed to the path. “You think he’s going to ask her for help?”
None of us knew, but we waited. When Walmsley returned an hour later, I could have sworn he was smiling. We vowed to keep an eye on what happened to him.
By the beginning of June, Walmsley was the talk of the town. At the Founding Fete held each year in April to mark the village’s founding, he set up a cheese stand, and a chef from London tasted his products. Within a month, TV stations and the London newspapers ran features on his cheese, and his sales skyrocketed. We sat on the pub’s patio, drinking orange juice and discussing what had happened.
Pandora shook her head. “What do we know about her? Whenever I ask my parents, they tell me to stay away from her and change the subject.”
“Yeah. I get the same thing. I did hear my dad say she had been seen in town walking with a couple of women that no one knew, a ginger and a brunette.” I drank the rest of my juice. “We need to find someone who knows.” Then it hit me. “I’m going to talk to Merrie.”
~~~
I loved the library. Every time I walked through those heavy wooden doors, I felt euphoric, transported into an inner sanctum created especially for me. It wasn’t, but to a fourteen-year-old, it was all mine. I didn’t feel that way when I walked in to talk to Merrie. My hands shook. I had never spoken to her before and was about to ask about visiting Madame Enstone. What would she say if she didn’t want anyone to know?
The librarian at the desk told me where to find her, in the history stack returning books to the shelves. I cleared my throat, and she turned and smiled at me.
“Can I help you?”
Taking a breath, I spoke the words I had rehearsed. “I am Agatha Long, and I’m doing a paper on interesting characters who live in the village.”
Merrie seemed surprised. “You can’t mean me?”
That threw me a bit. “Uh, no… I want to know what you can tell me about Madame Enstone.”
Her eyes widened briefly, then softened. “Ah… Madame Enstone. I wasn’t aware anyone knew that I had spoken to her.”
“I hope you don’t mind my asking. Someone saw you heading to her cottage, and they told me when I asked about her.” Her right eyebrow raised, and I added. “My friend is the Vicar’s daughter. She saw you enter the path to Madame Enstone’s a while back. Told me maybe you had an interesting story.”
She smiled again. “I have no interesting story. I felt a bit down and heard she was a good listener. I visited, we chatted, and she served me a cuppa—the most delicious tea in the loveliest china cup. I left feeling wonderful, but truly no story of interest. Just a nice chat.”
She turned toward the shelves again, and I sensed she didn’t want to talk any longer. I didn’t mind as my courage waned. My dad might be a detective, but I don’t think I’m good at it.
~~~
We struck out as amateur sleuths. For weeks we waited for someone to visit the cottage. Derrick thought we weren’t vigilant enough, but we’d spent so much time at the vicarage Pandora’s father joked he had adopted us. Our fixation with Madame Enstone seemed abnormal even to us, but it was a small village, and we had to entertain ourselves somehow.
School was out for the session, and we had gathered again at the vicarage but in the rear garden. We were playing croquet when Magus motioned to the path. A man approached and turned down the narrow lane. We exchanged excited glances, dropped our mallets, and followed him.
The warm early summer brought thick vegetation, and staying off the path proved difficult. We held back, trying to be quiet, and reached the stone wall after the man entered the cottage. Derrick glared at Magus and glanced upward. Magus groused but climbed the tree for a better view.
Crouched next to the gate, we relied on our outlook to tell us what was happening, and Magus motioned that he couldn’t see anything. We waited for what felt like an eternity before the man emerged. Magus had no time to climb out of the tree, so he pushed back against the trunk. We slipped around the wall to blend into the vegetation. The gate creaked, and we held our breath while the man walked past and out of sight.
Pandora grabbed my arm. “We still don’t know what’s going on.”
Derrick stood. “Only way is if we just knock on the door. Pretend we’re lost.”
He had a point, but I was nervous. I started to tell Derrick how nervous when Magus fell out of the tree.
He landed with a thud and a loud grunt. Before we could get to him, a voice rang out.
“Who’s there?” The gate opened, and Madame Enstone stood before us.
She wasn’t at all as I expected, and from the open-mouthed stares of my friends, they thought the same. Madame Enstone was about my grandmother’s age, thin, with mousey brown hair lightly streaked with gray, wearing a tweed skirt, white blouse, and jumper. She reminded me more of one of my teachers than whatever she was. She nodded to Derrick, who was helping Magus up.
“Bring your friend and come inside. I want to make certain he is not hurt.”
Her voice affected us as it was mesmerizing and soothing. We did as she said. I helped Derrick support Magus, and we entered the cottage with Pandora following.
The cottage interior reminded me of my Aunt Ester’s—filled with plants, flowers, and chintz upholstered furniture. I had to admit that I expected a dark, ominous room, not one filled with light from a sizable, beveled window at the rear of the long parlor.
Magus eased onto the couch, and Madame Enstone bent over him. She peered into his eyes and placed her hand flat on his chest before standing up. “He appears unharmed, only bruised. I will make him a special tea so he will feel better.” She paused. “And I will make you tea as well.”
She disappeared through a swinging door. We looked at each other and took a collective breath. Pandora plopped into an overstuffed chair, and a fluffy ginger cat jumped into her lap. “I can’t believe how pretty this place is.” She was smiling as she stroked the cat’s head.
Derrick stood at the window. “This looks like my grandmother’s yard in Devon. I loved going there when I was little.”
I joined him. The stone wall encircled the entire yard that held flowering plants and vegetables. An alcove in the wall had a cushioned bench, chairs, and a brick fire pit. “Your grandmother’s garden must be lovely.”
“Was lovely. She died when I was six, but I loved playing in her garden.”
Before I could say more, Madame Enstone returned with a tray of teacups, biscuits, and a teapot. Another large cat with sleek black fur followed her into the parlor. “Please have a seat.”
We sat, and she handed Magus an already-filled cup. “Drink this, laddie. It will keep you from hurting.” He took the cup and sipped it as she poured tea from the pot into cups for us.
“Now help yourselves, children, and have a biscuit.”
We all grabbed a teacup. I held mine, admiring the fine bone china and the lovely Asian design, much like the service my grandmother had. She taught me about tea services when I was eight and even held high tea for my friends and me. I looked up to find Madame Enstone watching me. She tilted her head slightly as she glanced at the cup and saucer.
“You seem to like the teacup.’
I nodded. “It is lovely.” I reached for a biscuit to hide my nervousness and bit into the best shortbread I had ever eaten.
“What brings you children to the cottage?”
A glance at my friends and I knew we were frozen, not knowing what to say. Pandora saved us. “Oh, we were chasing my cat who escaped the vicarage. Magnus thought he saw him in that tree and climbed up. Lucky that he wasn’t hurt when he fell.”
That she rushed her words seemed not to surprise Madame Enstone. “I see. Well,” she patted the two cats now sitting beside her, “I know a few things about cats. I am sure your pet will come home when he is hungry. Just put some food outside by the door.”
Pandora murmured, “Yes, ma’am.” Madame Enstone began asking who we were and how we enjoyed our summer. When we left about an hour later, she knew a lot about us, but we knew little more than we already did about her.
I remember the walk home that afternoon. Each of us was smiling and content. Pandora’s mum said she could hear us laughing before we left the path. We never went back to the cottage after that day. Our curiosity sated, or was it something else that kept us away?
~~~
Sixteen years passed, and the four of us remained friends. I married a police officer Martin Gray, who became a detective with my dad, and we had two children, Liam and Elyse. Derrick and his wife ran the pub now that his parents retired, and Magus had become Vicar and married with three children. Pandora’s dad became a Bishop, and her parents moved to London.
Pandora remained my closest friend and nearly my sister-in-law if my older brother Quinn had his way. But it didn’t happen, and she married Dennis Cravatt. How can I put this politely—a most despicable man? Pandora had gone to nursing school and returned to the village to work in the regional hospital. She had not married for years after turning down Quinn, but after traveling to Brighton on holiday, she returned with Cravatt. They had been married for six years, and the marriage was nothing but trouble.
How much trouble I didn’t realize until Pandora appeared on my doorstep one night at nearly midnight–her lip cut, dried blood caked in the corner of her mouth, and her left eye swollen and bruised. The years of verbal abuse had escalated into physical abuse, yet she refused to leave him.
I was happy and couldn’t bear to see my friend this way. She had begged me not to tell my husband as she was afraid he would arrest him, and he would have. I couldn’t keep that from him, and he went to talk to Dennis, a chat that resulted in his hitting her again.
What could I do? Marty couldn’t arrest him unless she pressed charges, and she refused. That he would hurt her more the next time petrified me. And there would be a next time. I wracked my brain, trying to think of anything I could do. Then when putting away the teacups, it dawned on me. Where did people go when they were in trouble? They went to see Madame Enstone.
She was still around. I’d even seen her in the village with the two women who accompanied her in the past. Funny, I never had the urge to speak to her. Until now, that is, and that was what I was going to do.
The following morning after Marty left for work and the kids for school, I drove into town and then walked to the vicarage. Magus’s wife was quite the gardener, and the grounds had never looked lovelier. The opening to the lane was trimmed and surrounded by beautiful spring flowers, and the aroma of hyacinth, freesia, and lilac wafted toward me as I passed.
A feeling of deja vu caused me to shiver as I walked along the path. I could feel Derrick, Magus, and Pandora with me, but I was on a mission and put them out of my head. I reached the cottage as nervous as I was at fourteen but more resolved. I opened the gate, walked through the lush spring plants, and knocked on the door.
Shock was my first reaction upon seeing her. She looked as she had years ago. She smiled and waved an arm for me to enter.
“Please have a seat, Agatha. Let me make you a cuppa.”
She remembered my name, and that made me more nervous. I sat on the couch, soon joined by both cats. The ginger one climbed into my lap, purring. Madame Enstone returned with a tray of tea and biscuits and sat across from me. As she poured, she nodded to the cat.
“I see Rune has taken to you. She always senses when someone is troubled. Raven is the warier of the two. She likes to know what the problem is before she becomes involved.” She handed me one of the beautiful cups from the first visit. “Now, I sense you are troubled by a friend’s situation. Tell me.”
I sipped tea, and I talked. I talked more than I ever had to anyone about Pandora. About how my brother had loved and lost her and the horrible situation she was in now. When I took a breath, I realized I felt calmer and more resolute about helping her.
“Madame, I do not know why I came here. I’m sorry to have troubled you.”
Her brilliant green eyes sparkled. “You know exactly why you are here. You have always known. I find myself able to solve issues that keep others from being happy. I usually see those in need and not their friends, which tells me you have sensed who I am but refuse to admit it.”
“I don’t know what you mean?” I suspected that I did but was too frightened to say so.
“Yes, you do. The fact is, I cannot make things change, but I can influence outcomes. The results are always the choice of the one in need. Your friend is in need, and I will help.”
She left the parlor not for the kitchen but through another door. I nibbled on another cookie, and the black cat she called Raven decided to lay next to me. She must think my cause worthy. I jumped a bit when Madame Enstone returned to the parlor. My nerves were still a bit on edge.
“Serve him this.” She handed me a handmade tea bag. “But remember, what he does is of his choosing. This will only make him reveal his true nature.”
“Him? You mean I should serve this tea to Dennis?”
“Yes, but only to him. To no others and burn the teabag after brewing.”
“But what will it do?”
“We will not know until it is done.”
I left Madame Enstone’s cottage with a tea bag and a plan.
~~~
As I feared for my friend, I didn’t wait. What concerned me was her comment that his true nature would be revealed. I knew if his true nature were worse than we had seen, it would be horrid. I invited Pandora and Dennis to dinner on a night when I knew Marty would be gone to London for a Met meeting. I would tell them he was called away on a case. The kids would stay with my mother.
My nerves had never been more frayed as I opened the door with a smile. Dennis barreled into the house as if he owned it, pouring himself a whiskey without asking. The evening went as I expected. He monopolized the conversation telling us about his latest conquest. He was an estate agent and talked himself up more than he talked up the property. I could tell Pandora was on edge but knew she was safe as long as she was with me. After dinner, we retired to the parlor, where I would serve dessert and tea.
As I dropped the special teabag into a teacup and poured hot water to seep, I admired the beautiful bone china. When I bought it, I loved the Asian design, much like my grandmother’s. Now it reminded me of Madame Enstone.
I served the tea and cake, petrified that I would accidentally serve the tea to Pandora or myself, but I didn’t. I tried not to stare when he drank from the cup. I suppose I was waiting for him to throw a fit or something. However, he just remained his obnoxious self. When Pandora asked for another cup of tea, I was sure she wanted to extend her stay. I diverted him from more tea with a drink from Marty’s favorite Scotch.
Pandora wanted to stay, but I could not delay them from staying past ten. Dennis wanted to go to the pub. I hugged my friend and closed the door, tears spilling down my cheeks. I had done all that I could.
~~~
The call came at four in the morning. Pandora was hysterical, and I rushed to her. Dennis had dropped her at home, saying he didn’t want to be saddled with the likes of her. He wanted to have fun, and she would be in the way. The constable with her told me that Dennis had gotten totally out of control and yelled that he was tired of being something he wasn’t. He had been drinking heavily at the pub. Derrick tried to stop him, but he sped off in his car. He lost control and plunged off a bridge into a river and died.
As I held my sobbing friend, the constable recanting Dennis’s words replayed in my mind—he was tired of being something he wasn’t. He was finally being his true self.
~~~
I stood with my husband and children at the graveside service as Magus led the mourners in prayer. Mourners. Dennis had no family, and I imagined no one present shed many tears for him. As the service ended, my heart warmed as Pandora turned to Quinn, who walked her out of the cemetery.
We followed, and then I noticed Madame Enstone and her two friends, the brunette woman and ginger-haired woman, standing on the edge of the churchyard. With a slight nod, her green eyes twinkling, Madame Enstone and her friends departed. She had been right all along. I did know who she was but did not know what to call her. I will call her our fairy godmother.
The twin suns of the Icai system were beginning to peek over the horizon as Renata Ledger raced toward the ancient viaduct. Since arriving on the planet, when she was twelve years old, she had met the sunrise on the ancient bridge. Running to the highest point, she stopped, dropped her backpack, leaned on the stone ledge, and watched the orbs rise, one slightly behind the other, and bring light to the day.
The river below her was pristine and clear, and the air filled with a musky smell of rich soil and fragrant wildflowers. She breathed deeply, pulling oxygen into her lungs as she turned her face to the rising warmth. Having spent the first twelve years of her life on a space station or spaceship, Renata relished every moment of living in the open air.
Activity by an archeology team on the pier jutting from an old building into the river caught her eye. The building, built approximately two hundred years ago, remained a mystery to the scientist and engineers among the colonists. Her older brother Zeno was an engineer, and he speculated that the building was a water purification plant, but no one had found a power source. In the distance, a city’s ruins stood against the sky.
Renata turned to leave the viaduct when she heard splashing water. She rushed across the bridge to see concentric ripples spreading across the still surface. A fish? But there were none. One of the reasons the Etherian Colonists Consortium chose the planet was that there was no animal life or harmful pathogens present. She leaned over the wall peering into the dark water. Peculiar, she thought. She would tell Mr. Harmon, the school director, about it. Maybe they could arrange a field trip.
A chill ran down her spine as she heard a sound, like a soft garble, as she turned to leave. She spun around, but no one was there. A tad unnerved, she ran off the bridge and back to the compound.
Renata hurried to the metal pod where she and the twenty-two other children in the colony attended school. At fifteen, she no longer thought of herself as a child but as a young woman. Too bad no one else did.
Slipping into the pod, she sat next to her best friend, Unika, who was fourteen. She started to tell Unika about the bridge when Mr. Harmon called the class to order. She pulled her tablet from her pack and tapped the lower corner of the transparent pad. The day’s lesson plan was projected into the air as Mr. Harmon began. Renata smiled. Mr. Harmon was a cheerful man and a good teacher. Scientists and engineers often visited to give lectures on science and math to enhance his curriculum. Once she graduated from the colony school, she could take the university modules stored on the servers or leave the colony to attend a physical university. But that would prevent her from returning to her family for several years. She shivered. Maybe she wasn’t as grown up as she thought. She didn’t feel prepared to leave the colony without her parents and Zeno just yet.
As she walked home, she thought about Mr. Harmon’s reaction to mentioning the ripples on the river’s surface. He had become serious, asking her several questions about what she saw and heard. He quickly said no when she asked if they could go on a field trip and check it out—that they had better things to do.
After school, Renata headed home to a stainless-steel structure, part of a housing cluster. There were several clusters scattered within the walls of the gated compound. As a family of four, the Ledgers lived in a two-story unit. Before they arrived, they lived on a space station in far less space. Renata entered her room and opened the window allowing fresh air inside. She never wanted to live on a space station again.
She had just finished her homework when Zeno knocked on her door. “Hey, Mom says time for dinner.”
“Now? It’s early.”
“Yea, a bit.. uh.. we have a meeting to go to this evening—so, early dinner. Come on.”
During dinner, Renata noticed her dad, the compound director, and an astrophysicist, was not as talkative as usual, and her mom seemed distracted. Zeno kept the conversation going talking about an upcoming sports competition. She decided to tell her parents about the incident at the viaduct. Their reaction surprised her.
‘Ren, why didn’t you tell us this earlier?” Her father’s stern voice confused her.
“I told Mr. Harmon today. I thought he might like to take a field trip to the river and check it out.”
“Terrance, Ren did what she should have.’ Her mother flashed a reassuring smile. “How about we have dessert after we get back from the meeting?”
“Can I come?” Renata asked, knowing what the response would be.
“No, not this time, dear. Just routine issues we need to discuss.”
She offered to clear the dishes while they left. Her mother sent a message for her to have dessert without them. They would be late.
~~~
Renata rose before daybreak, dressed, and went downstairs to find a note from her mother that breakfast was in the warming tray and to go straight to school and not leave the compound. Not to leave the compound? That made no sense. She went to the bridge each morning and was going today regardless of her mother’s request. She grabbed her breakfast sandwich and her bag and headed out the door.
Her heart began beating faster as she noticed more sentries than usual at the gates, which were open as teams overseeing the farming operations and research teams exploring the city’s ruins were leaving. Renata slipped into the middle of a group of geologists and exited the compound.
She ran to the bridge, arriving as the first light from the prime star broke into the dawn, followed by the secondary star. The spectacle of the twin suns rising mesmerized her. In the distance, she could see dust rising from the wheels of several rovers as they headed toward the ancient city.
A leaf drifted past, flowing underneath the bridge on the calm water. Renata bit her lip. She was feeling anything but peaceful. Mr. Harmon didn’t act as she expected, and now her parents were behaving out of character. She scoffed. Why would they tell her? She was only a kid.
“They will come.”
A voice? Heat flushed through her as she swallowed hard and turned slowly. She gasped and backed up against the viaduct wall. A ghost? She eked out, “Who are you?”
The apparition, floating above the roadway, appeared to be a young girl about her age. The image fluttered, repeating, “They will come,” but disappeared before she could respond.
Renata sank to her knees, shaking. What was happening? She had to get back to the compound. She rose to her feet and ran.
Throughout the school day, she felt uneasy. All of the adults appeared distracted, whispering when they met. Was she too hypersensitive after seeing a ghost? Maybe so, but something was wrong on the compound, and it frightened her.
She was quiet through dinner, but no one seemed to notice. Zeno received a message and left mid-way through the meal, and her parents retired to their room after dinner. When she went upstairs later, she heard their muffled voices.
As she closed the door to her room, Renata vowed to visit the bridge in the morning. There was no school, and she could stay as long as necessary. She needed to talk to a ghost.
~~~
Rain pelted the ground as Renata slipped out of their quarters and made her way to the gate. The rain hindered and helped her as fewer people were outside, but fewer were going through the gate. She hid behind a water storage tank waiting for an opportunity to get past the sentries. It came when the convoy of rovers set out, heading for the ancient city. With the sentries distracted, she slipped behind them and ran for cover behind a grove of trees. Satisfied that no one saw her, Renata headed to the viaduct as fast as possible.
She stood in the center of the stone roadway as the river, now swollen with rain, flowed rapidly below. Her nerves were raw. How did she summon a ghost? Calling to it seemed ridiculous, but she did.
“Please, if you are here, come talk to me. I know something’s wrong. Please, tell me.”
She waited. Nothing. The rain, now driven by the wind, stung her face. Tears dissolved into the wetness on her cheeks as she was about to give up.
“They will come.”
Renata spun to find the girl standing in the center of the bridge, appearing as a translucent shimmer in the downpour. “Who is coming? You have to tell me.”
The apparition floated closer, and Renata noticed bony ridges on her forehead and temples. The ghost’s words resonated in the rain.
“Find the answer under the bridge. Look for the crescent. We left it there.”
“Left what there?” Renata raised her voice over the din, but the ghost faded into the gray sky. ‘No, come back. What did you leave?” She continued calling for the spirit to return but gave up and headed home.
She changed out of her wet clothes and began to dry her hair when she heard footsteps pounding on the stairs. Her door flew open.
“Renata, were you outside the compound today? And don’t lie to me. Someone saw you and called me at the clinic. I had to finish with my patients before I could come home.”
“Mom, I just went to the viaduct. You know I go every morning.” Her mother’s anger frightened her, and she was scared to tell her about what she had seen.
“We told you not to go outside the walls, yet you did.”
“Why can’t I go the bridge?”
“School is out for three days. I don’t want you outside of these quarters.”
“But why? I wanted to study math with Unika.”
Her mother rose. “Just stay here, so we know where you are.” Her mother left, closing the door behind her. Renata expected to hear the lock engage to keep her in the room, but she did not.
Once again, her parents and Zeon left after dinner, and her father reminded her she was not to leave the house. She stomped to the couch and flopped down. This was ridiculous. She needed to talk to the ghost again. Her parents would never believe her unless she knew more than they were coming.” She needed to talk to someone. She pulled her vidcom from her jacket pocket and tapped Unika’s icon.
“Ren, hey, what’s going on? My parents just left and told Gem and me not to leave the house.”
“I don’t know. Mom, Dad, and Zeon left for some meeting and told me the same thing.”
“I heard Mom telling Dad that what they found could be dangerous. Something I think they found in the old city. What was it, do you know?”
Renata sucked in a breath. She had to tell someone. “Uni, I was on the bridge a couple of mornings ago, and I….”
The vidcom went silent. “Uni…? Are you there?” Only silence. Renata shivered. Why would the coms go down? What’s happening?
~~~
The answer to what was happening came in the middle of the night. Renata woke to hushed voices in the hall. She heard footsteps on the stairs and hopped out of bed. Stepping into the hallway, she gasped. Blue light flooded the house.
“Mom, Dad, what’s happening?”
Her mother answered. “Renata, you should go back to bed.”
“No.” Zeno shook his head. “Mom, it’s kind of hard to miss that there is blue light in the house from the artifact. Renata needs to know what we found.”
Terrance stared at his son for a few seconds, then spoke. “Layna, Zeno’s right. She is old enough. Let me contact the command center, and then we’ll talk.”
Minutes passed as Renata, sitting at the dining table, waited for her father to end his call. She had tried to get Zeno to tell her what was happening, but he said that Dad should tell her. She had something to tell but wondered if they would believe her.
Terrance ended his conversation and joined his family. He cleared his throat, which sent a chill through Renata. He only did that when he had terrible news.
“Renata, as you know, the last supply ship also brought a team of xenoarchaeologists to begin exploring the city’s ruins and the rest of the planet. They had been here only there for a couple of days when they found a chamber under the fountain in the square. In that chamber, they found an artifact. A large carved stone pillar that had some sort of mechanism inside. They had no idea what it was. Zeno’s been there and thinks it is a communication device.”
He paused. “While one team was in the city center dealing with the artifact, another team checked out a few buildings on the city’s periphery and made a horrid discovery.” He swallowed again. “They found a mass grave filled with the remains of humanoid bodies that don’t appear to be the inhabitants of the city. The statues we found reveal taller humanoids but with large heads, prominent noses, and no bone ridges like the bodies we found. We think…” He stopped. “Renata, what’s wrong?”
Renata gasped and covered her mouth with both hands. She shook as she asked her father about the remains. “The ridges,” she sucked in a breath, “were they straight across the forehead and then little wing-like ones by the ears?”
Her parents exchanged glances, and Zeno put his hand on her shoulder. “How do you know this, Renata?”
“I told you that when I was on the viaduct two days ago, I thought I heard something. So, I went back yesterday and a, I don’t know… a ghost appeared. She was about my age and said, ‘they will come.’ I couldn’t see her very well, but I went back this morning. She came again and moved closer, and I could see her features… pale and transparent, but I saw the ridges.”
Renata was trembling, and her father took her hand. “Take a breath. Did this ghost say anything?”
She nodded. “She said we could find the answer under the bridge. To look for the crescent that they left it there.” Tears spilled from her eyes. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d believe me.”
Terrance squeezed her hand. “Of course, we believe you.” He turned to Zeno. “When it gets light, take a couple of sentries with you and check that bridge. With that beacon going off last night, we need as much information as possible.”
Renata pointed to the window. “Dad, what is the beacon? It’s causing this blue light?”
“About an hour ago, the mechanism under the fountain turned on, and a crystal on top of the sculpture in the center of the fountain began to glow blue, sending a beacon into the sky. We think it is a signal of some kind.”
Renata looked toward the window and the blue glow. “She said they will come.” Turning to her dad, “Are they coming?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll be ready.” He rose. “Your mother and I are going to go to the command center. Zeno, make sure she gets breakfast and contact Daniella, Unika’s mom, and tell her we want Renata to stay with them this morning. We’ll be back.”
~~~
It was nearing daybreak, and Zeno had called for sentries to meet him at the gate. He was about to contact Daniella when Renata came downstairs, no longer in her night clothes but dressed. Zeno laughed.
“There was no chance I was going to the bridge without you, was I?”
“No, I have to go. She might not come there unless I am there.”
“Okay, I’ve been in trouble with Mom and Dad more than a few times. One more time won’t hurt.”
As they neared the bridge, Renata ran ahead. Zeno directed the sentries to launch the rubber dinghies the sentries had brought earlier and search under the bridge before joining his sister.
“You love this bridge, don’t you?”
“Yes, I love the view and the fresh air.”
“I know, living on space stations, even with the holorooms simulating the outdoors, it isn’t the same. Can’t simulate real air.”
“Look, Zeno, the first sun is coming up.” They stood in silence as both suns rose.
“You are right, little sis. This is a beautiful place, but….”
She finished his thought. “We may not be able to stay.”
“No, we may not. Come, let’s help look.”
Zeno and Renata got in the empty inflatable and joined the sentries as they worked toward the bridge’s center. It wasn’t long before a sentry yelled out, “Over here.”
Toward the top of the center arch was a stone with a crescent carved into it.
“Zeno, it’s real.”
“Never doubted it. Now let’s figure out how to get to it.”
A sentry returned to the compound for ropes and more people to help. They strung a rope across and under the bridge and attached a pully. A sentry in a harness went over the edge and pulled himself to the spot. With a bit of coaxing, he pried the stone away and pulled a metal box from the crevice. Back on the bridge, he handed it to Zeno.
“Now we see if we can learn something from whatever’s inside the box.”
As they left the viaduct, Renata looked over her shoulder and saw the wispy image of the ghost before it faded away.
~~~
Several anxious hours went by as the engineering and cyber team worked to make the alien tech compatible with their own. It was dusk before the oblong box with rounded corners flickered to life. Zeno contacted his father, and the council met in the command center.
Though her parents told her to stay home, Renata shadowed them and slipped into the meeting hall, hiding behind a pillar.
Zeno set the metal box on the desk. “We approached this problem assuming that this is a communications device. We have reason to believe this is a message from a race that once lived on this planet. We finally found a workaround to activate the instruments using hologram technology we got from the Cuzsar. Fortunately, there seems to be a universal translator included in the data crystals.”
Terrance nodded. “Then let’s see it.”
Zeno pushed a button, and a life-size image of a woman with the same ridges on her head as the remains found in the city appeared. The meeting hall fell silent as she began to speak.
“If you are seeing me, then you are in grave danger. We are the Tomarons. Our home world became overpopulated, and we sought other worlds to colonize to reduce the burden on our planet’s resources. Before I tell you more, the data crystals included contain information on our home world. If you could somehow get word to them to let them know what happened to us, we would be grateful.
We discovered this planet and were thrilled as it suited our needs. The air was clean, the soil rich, and shelter was available until we could build our own. We moved into the city, and all was well until children playing in the square found a hidden door on the fountain base that led to a chamber. We thought it might be a mechanism for turning on the water flow to the fountain, so some of our people worked on it.
That was not what it was.
Three nights later, the crystal at the top of the fountain began to shine a blue light into the sky. Thirty-seven cycles later, they arrived. A large ship hovered above, and they came to the surface in smaller vessels. We learned they were called the Reuti. They were tall, with large heads and noses, yellow eyes, and scaly skin tinged green. At first, they seemed friendly enough, but soon we realized that they were only trying to determine the location of our home planet. When we started to ask questions, they became violent.” She stopped to compose herself.
“We tried to escape on our ship, but they had disabled it. We fled deep into the city, trying to hide from them, hoping they would leave, but they didn’t. They hunted us down. We never saw those captured again, except for a few who managed to escape. That is how we learned about this planet.
The Reuti bragged about their clan heritage and that this was sacred ground. They would allow no one to live here. Many eons ago, two tribes of the Reuti lived on this planet, but a civil war broke out. The Reuti-suan lost and fled their world. After they left, a plague struck, killing all inhabitants and animals and leaving only the vegetation. When they returned, they found their clansmen gone and vowed that no one would live on the planet again. They installed the beacon so they would know when visitors violated their homeworld.
She took a breath. “Only a few of us are left and have taken refuge in the water plant we were building on the river. We knew we would die, but we hoped to warn others. Our race can linger on a celestial plain after death. If you have seen one of us, then we have succeeded. If you unknowingly activated the beacon, evacuate immediately. It is your only hope.” She reached out, pulling a young woman into the hologram image. “I am Cetate Yneu, and this is my daughter Oolara. We wish you life.”
As the hologram faded, Renata yelled. “That’s her. That’s the girl from the bridge.” She ran to her mother, who hugged her tightly. “That was her, Mom.”
Her mother whispered, “We wouldn’t know what we were facing if you hadn’t gone to the bridge. You saved us.”
~~~
Terrance contacted Etherian Colonists Consortium, forwarding the message and data from the other crystal discs in the box. The Consortium instituted emergency evacuation orders and informed him that the Etherian Alliance Force sent a starship to help with evacuation and security.
The EAF directed all traces of the colony removed so the location of Etherian and her allies and any technology did not fall into hostile hands. A monumental task lay before them. If they were lucky, they had thirty-plus days to break down the camp.
Renata and her friend Unika packed Unika’s belonging before coming to Renata’s room to do the same. Unika sat on the floor, putting data crystals that stored books on them into a storage box. Unika sighed. “Ren, do you think we will get out of here?”
“Yes, I do. Zeno said if it takes over thirty days to travel here from wherever the Reuti live, they don’t have stardrive yet or are very far away. The EAF ship should be here in four days, and they will be able to protect us while we pack.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to find another place where we can all live?”
Renata shrugged. “I don’t know, Unika. I hope so. I loved it here.”
“Me, too.”
“Let’s get this done, and then I promised Mom we would go to the clinic to help her box up supplies.”
~~~
Four days later, EAF Starship Griffin arrived in orbit. Captain Harku Moya and his officers transbeamed to the surface, greeted by relieved colonists. They gathered in the meeting hall to discuss the situation.
Captain Moya stood before them. “Dr. Ledger, we wish we were here in better circumstances. As we approached the planet, its beauty revealed the appeal for you to colonize it. However, beauty is often an illusion. We are here to provide security and assist in the compound’s disassembly. We have an ETA on The Latimer. She will arrive in ten days, giving us ample time to remove the structures and your belongings.”
“I have a lot of anxious people here, Captain, who would like to know what measures you have taken to protect the colony?”
“The Griffin will remain in a fixed orbit above the colony, and we will have shuttles patrolling the area. We have also placed sensor buoys around the planet, so we will not be surprised by a ship approaching from any sector.”
“We’ll be sad to leave here.” Terrance stared out the window at the dark sky. “I was looking forward to celestial research.”
“We’ll map the stars for you, Dr. Ledger.”
~~~
It was day twenty-nine of the evacuation. Between the colonists, and Griffin and Latimer crewmembers, parts of the physical colony disappeared daily. Now, the non-essential colonists had transbeamed to the Griffin, and only the essential staff remained on the planet. Renata had begged to remain, and her parents allowed it as long as she stayed with Zeno at all times.
The behemoth cargo/maintenance ship that served the colonies was in low orbit over the planet and visible to the naked eye. They watched in silence as the last of the containers and the disassembled building units were tractored onto the ship.
“Ren, almost time.”
“I know.” Her shaky voice betrayed her sadness. She would never see a sunrise on the viaduct again. Zeno started to hug her but was interrupted by shouting from a Griffin crewmember emerging from a shuttle.
“Sensors have picked up a fleet of ships headed this way. ETA ten hours. Captain wants everyone onboard in one hour.”
Zeno turned to take Renata to the shuttle, but she was gone.
~~~
Renata had planned to go to the viaduct one more time before she left, but time was running out. When Zeno looked away, she ran past where the compound’s walls once stood and slipped into the trees so no one could see her.
Her heart raced as she ran onto the bridge. It would be the last time she would stand on it. She gripped the railing and gazed at the old city on the horizon, the afternoon light from the binary suns casting a golden glow. She sensed Oolara before she turned to face her.
“Oolara, we found the box. You were right. They’re coming, but we’ll be gone before they arrive.”
“We are glad you will live.”
“We would have died without you. My dad promised to find your planet and tell them what happened to you.”
Zeon had caught up with her. “Renata, we have to go.”
Tears spilled onto her cheeks as Oolara’s image faded, and she turned to her brother. “Did you see her?”
“Yes.” He hugged his sister as tears ran down his cheeks as well.
~~~
Space Station 227 was now their home, at least temporarily. Most colonists had chosen to stay there while awaiting the decision to colonize a new planet. Meanwhile, they had assimilated into the station research departments.
Renata was enjoying school, thankful that Unika and her other friends were there. She was sitting in a forward observation area studying when her parents and the commander of the Etherian Alliance Force on the station approached her.
Terrance and Layna smiled, and her dad spoke. “Captain Jeffers has something for you, Ren.”
The captain handed her a polished rectangular wooden box. “Renata, we contacted the Tomarons to inform them of what we learned about their colonists. We kept the stone they carved to mark the hiding place of data crystals as we thought they might want the remembrance.’ He paused. “They were thankful that you communicated with one of their spirits and asked that we give this to you as thanks for providing a way for them to know the colony’s fate.”
“Why didn’t they come looking for them, Captain?”
“They did but found remains and debris from their ship in space near the planet. The Reuti must have planted it there to keep anyone from landing on the planet. A scan of the planet revealed no life, so they assumed all had died on the ship.”
Ren opened the box to find the worn stone with the crescent carved on the surface. She looked up, gazing out the viewport at the myriad of stars. Someday, she would breathe fresh air again.
Images are free-use and do not require attribution. Image by hartono subagio from Pixabay
Fix This
D. A. Ratliff
The dragonfly landed on a budding branch, glanced around, then flitted away as I wished I could. I watched the diaphanous winged creature fly toward the next perch as the chatter from the garden party guests returned to my head. Time to join the real world again, if one could call this pretentious gathering orchestrated by an equally pretentious man–my father–real.
The center of attraction stood among his adoring crowd, the hangers-on who had never worked a day in their lives, spending their time playing tennis or yachting in the bay. They gave him money for causes, and he celebrated them as patrons of the arts, or the downtrodden, whatever cause was the flavor of the month. There was always a mark.
“Look at him.” I turned to find my sister, Camile, standing behind me. “He sure loves the limelight.”
“Always has, and when it doesn’t come to him, he manufactures it. Today, he is celebrating raising five million dollars for a children’s hospital. A noble cause but last time I looked, Cami, you did all the work.”
“Laurel, since when did that matter to him? He had nothing until he married Mom. It was all her family’s money.”
I watched my father climbing the steps to the small stage erected on the top level of the patio. Martin Pollack was formidable. Charismatic, brilliant, and a total con man. I hated him. Blood was not thick in our family. Camile and I and our brother Lawrence hated this man who gave us life. And we had reason–he killed our mother.
Across the yard, I watched Lawrence and knew he was seething. Our mother had been dead for five months, and yet, instead of grieving, “Dad” had a new friend, Monica Saunders, a socialite who had outlived two husbands to collect a large estate. She was twenty years younger than dad, not much older than me, and we knew she was angling for her third husband. When Dad motioned for Monica to join him at the podium, Lawrence lunged forward only to be held back by his wife. I knew how he felt. It took all that I could not to rush to the stage myself. Then he spoke.
“Ladies and gentlemen, friends, so wonderful to have you join us on this momentous day. Nothing is more rewarding than knowing that your generosity will benefit many ill children. The Charlotte Clayton Pollock Foundation’s impact is legendary. As you know, Charlotte is gone now, but I am pleased to announce that Monica Saunders is joining the Foundation as the spokesperson. I offer a toast to you, our patrons, the Foundation, and the new face of the Foundation. Cheers.”
Through the chorus of cheers, I heard Cami gasp and felt her hand grab my arm. She whispered, “Laurel, what’s he doing?”
I patted her hand. “Don’t worry. We’ll fix this.”
And fix this we will.
In the late afternoon, true to form, my father, who hated suits, headed upstairs to change into casual clothes. Fifteen minutes later, a scream came from the rear foyer entrance, and a guest ran onto the patio.
“He’s dead. Martin fell down the stairs. The banister gave way. He’s dead.”
I locked eyes with my sister and brother. We could have sworn he had the banister repaired after my mother fell to her death in the same manner. At least, he thought he had.
With satisfaction, as the stunned guests reacted, I watched Monica Saunders’ expression turn from smug to panic as she realized her gravy train lay dead at the foot of the stairs.
Something flitted in front of me, and I saw the dragonfly land on the branch beside me. I smiled. He didn’t get away with it, Mom. We made sure of it.
***
Author’s Note: I wrote this micro-fiction story for What’s Next?, a weekly writing workshop exercise on Writers Unite!, a Facebook writing group. WU! posts a photo image and provides the opening sentence, and the writer tells What’s Next?
Images are free-use images and do not require attribution. Image by maxwell-andre from Unsplash.
Publish or Perish
D. A. Ratliff
A Detective Elijah Boone Mystery
Dr. Mortimer Lane was about as dead as anyone could be. He was as dead as someone with daggers plunged into his left eye, heart, and lower abdomen, which was pretty dead.
I turned toward the campus police officer who was first on the scene. “Who found him,” I said, squinting at his name badge, “Officer Devers?”
“His administrative assistant, Iliana Perez.” He gestured toward a young woman standing in the corridor. “She arrived about eight-thirty this morning and knocked on his door. When he didn’t answer, she thought it surprising because his car was in the parking lot. She walked in and found him.”
I heard a grunt and turned to see my partner, Hank Guidry, enter, followed by medical examiner Julia Marrow and two CSU technicians. Despite being a homicide detective, my partner Hank always displayed a visceral reaction to dead bodies, one of disgust. His response to this body was no different. His nose wrinkled, his upper lip curled upward, and his eyes narrowed. I never needed to look at him to know his expression.
“Good heavens, Eli, a bit of overkill, don’t you think?”
Marrow laughed. “Somebody wanted him good and dead.” She flicked her hand. “Tight quarters here, gentlemen. Could you give us some room?”
I nodded my head toward the door, and Hank followed me. I was about to talk to the secretary when a tall, thin man in an impeccably tailored suit entered the outer office. He strode our way, a look of exasperation on his face.
“What is going on here? Campus police called me and said someone found a body in Dr. Lane’s office. I demand to talk to the officer in charge.”
I silently muttered to myself, “I hate this job,” and then spoke. “I am Detective Lieutenant Elijah Boone of the New Orleans Police Department. My partner, Detective Sergeant Hank Guidry. Let’s start with who are you?” His eyes turned to daggers as I suspected he was offended that I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t.
“I am Dr. James Adair Delong, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Is the dead man Dr. Lane?”
“We are waiting for the ME to confirm identity, but his admin identified the body as Mortimer Lane.”
Dr. Delong sucked in his chest. “Great. He’s the Archaeology and Anthropology Department Chair. I don’t need this now, but it saves a lot of paperwork.”
I bit my tongue but couldn’t resist one little snark. “I doubt he’s happy about this either. When was the last time you spoke with or saw Dr. Lane?”
“I spoke with him by phone on Thursday. I was off campus from Friday through Sunday for a wedding.”
“What did you talk to Lane about?”
“I called him to discuss an issue with a student who was making a complaint about his work.”
“Friendly conversation?”
“A business conversation, and no, any conversation with Dr. Lane was hardly friendly.”
“Why was that?”
“He was a tedious, pompous man. Brilliant in his field but, in my opinion, had been slacking in his responsibilities. He has not published in a very long time, and the Regents are unhappy. You know the rule, publish or perish. Now, I must inform the president about this—matter. You may reach me in my office if you have further questions.”
Hank whistled low as the dean walked away. “I guess they take that publish or perish thing seriously around here. I think the good dean personally knows all about tedious and pompous.”
I chuckled. “Indeed, they do, and he certainly didn’t seem to like our victim.”
I spotted Iliana Perez in the hallway talking to a group of people. Word travels fast in halls of academia. I walked to the door and called her into the office.
“When did you last see Dr. Lane?”
“Friday afternoon, about four-thirty. He said he’d be working late and I could go home. He wouldn’t need me.”
“Did you go home and stay there all night?”
“Yes, I didn’t go out again until Saturday afternoon to the grocery.”
“What happened when you arrived on Monday morning?”
“I spotted his car in the faculty lot this morning as I turned into the parking structure and thought he was already at work.”
“Was he having any issues with a colleague or a student?”
Perez hesitated. “Dr. Lane argued with a lot of people. He wasn’t known for his patience.”
“Can you…”
Shouting from the hallway interrupted, and Perez stepped into the doorway. Hank pushed her aside as we stepped into the hall where two campus officers were restraining a young man.
“Is he dead? Tell me he’s dead.”
“I’ll talk to you as soon as you calm down.” He swallowed hard and nodded. I motioned for the officers to let him go.
“Name?”
“William Hawke.”
“Why are you here?”
I just wanted to see for myself if he was dead.”
“Why is that?”
Hawke’s upper lip curled, and I thought flames might erupt from his eyes. “Because he stole my discovery and planned on publishing it as his own. Tell me who killed Lane. I want to give him a medal.”
Marrow came to the door. “Eli, have a prelim for you.”
I nodded. “Hank, get this guy’s info and find out where he’s been all weekend.”
The CSU techs were busy collecting evidence as I entered. “So, what’ve we got besides the obvious?”
“Victim is Mortimer Lane, age fifty-eight, according to his driver’s license. Body is out of rigor, and considering the ambient temp and condition of the body, I would say he’s been dead since Friday night, roughly between seven and ten. Not sure I can get it any closer. “She pointed to the daggers, now in separate evidence bags.” The murder weapons are from a collection of daggers. Two are still on display.”
I walked over to a polished wooden box hanging on the wall. There were brackets for displaying five knives, but only two daggers remained.
“Killed with his own knives. Any idea which stab killed him?”
The ME pointed to blood that had seeped into the victim’s clothing around the stab wounds, the cloth now dried and stiff. “I think he was stabbed in the abdomen first, the heart next, and what likely killed him instantly. The stab in the eye looks like rage to me.”
“Yeah, that it does. Wrapping up here?” She nodded. “Good.” I looked at one of the CSU techs. “Get more techs here. I want everything on his desk logged as evidence.”
I looked over my shoulder at Hank. “Get me a search warrant for this office, any research labs, his home, and his car. Tell the judge I want the warrants now.”
~~~
I stopped by NOPD headquarters to check in with Captain Lourdes, head of Major Crimes. I like this man. He hates the bureaucracy we have to deal with and finds a way to deal with it in stride.
I sat down. “No need to tell me. Tenured college professor, department chair, next thing you will tell me is that there’s going to be a movie about his life. I imagine the mayor is in a tizzy.”
Lourdes laughed. “Not the mayor, but the university president is in a tizzy. He wants this solved now. Any leads?”
“Maybe. Lane wasn’t well liked. Pretty certain the dean of his college would have gleefully strangled him, but he has an alibi. There’s a disgruntled post-doctorate claiming Lane stole his research, but that’s it so far. Have search warrants for the obvious places and the Crime Scene Unit at all sites. We have uniforms doing door to doors where possible. Hank is interviewing people at the college. I requested the surveillance tapes.”
“That’s a start.”
I chuckled. “You’re never satisfied, Captain.”
“That’s what they pay me for.”
~~~
Warrant in hand, Hank and I went to Lane’s house accompanied by a CSU team. Hank called the alarm company to disarm the alarm. We found a keychain with two door keys on Lane’s office desk, and I tried one. It opened with the second key. Ordering the others to wait, I slipped on booties and gloves and walked into the house alone.
The professor lived in an older upscale neighborhood. The house was clean and sparse, except for bookcases of artifacts that covered numerous walls in several rooms. His office was tidy and also full of artifacts and books. I shuffled through the papers and journals on his desk, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. That didn’t mean much. I was no archaeologist, and what I looked at was gibberish.
As I flipped through a journal, Hawke’s claim that Lane had stolen his discovery echoed in my head. I needed to find out exactly what that meant. The NOPD had a forensic anthropologist on retainer, and I decided to call her to either shed some light on what all this paperwork meant or put us in touch with someone who could.
On the second floor, Lane’s bedroom was as spartan as the first floor but also crammed with books, many stacked on the nightstand. The other doors in the hall were open except for one. I tried the doorknob, locked. I tried the second door key, and it worked.
A second office had photographs of a stark rustic site with stone monoliths rising from the ground tacked on the walls. I picked up a notebook with William Hawke’s name on the cover. Lane had hidden Hawke’s research in a locked room. Motive? I intended to find out.
~~~
The following afternoon, Hank and I updated Captain Lourdes on what we knew. Hank went first.
“We’ve interviewed Lane’s colleagues, students, and staff. No one liked him but most respected his knowledge. Have the squad running down alibis, but we have quite a few we can’t corroborate.” He paused, looking at his pad. “Three people—two students and a professor—seem to hate Lane the most. William Hawke, who claims Lane stole his work. Jessica Wilson, who Lane turned down for a post-doctoral position, and Dr. Jeremiah Constantine, a professor in Lane’s department. None of them have alibis that we can prove. Hawke said he was at the library, but no record of him coming in or out. Constantine said, and I quote, ‘I hate the son of a bitch. I wish I’d killed him. Fitting the daggers that killed him were the ones he always bragged about.’”
Lourdes stopped him. “What do we know about those daggers?”
I answered. “I asked Dr. Frazier, the archeologist we have reviewing Hawke’s research. He said they were medieval Rondel daggers. I learned from Lane’s secretary that the British Museum gave him the set for all the work he had done for them.”
Lourdes nodded. “So, we have three suspects. Any guesses?”
“My bet is on Hawke. His anger is palpable.” I shrugged. “We don’t have enough to put any of them at the scene. There’s been a glitch in the security software, and we haven’t gotten the security footage from the university. A forensics IT guy’s there helping retrieve the video. We had a uniform canvass the area surrounding his residence and the entire building where his office is. No one saw anything.”
“Autopsy results, forensics, trace, anything?” The captain glared at me in frustration. “We need some answers. So far, no screaming from the university or the mayor, but that’s coming.”
“Cause of death, stab wound to the heart, the other wounds from rage, as for trace, zilch. Fingerprints don’t help, either. Too many people in and out of his office. No print we found didn’t have a reason to be there.”
“Nothing on the daggers?”
“Only Lane’s fingerprints. His assistant said he loved to take them out of the case and show them off.”
Lourdes nodded. “Keep me informed.”
~~~
Dr. Cameron Frazier was working in an interrogation room. It was late afternoon when he called me to come down. I grabbed Hank to join us.
Frazier sat at the table, photos and notes spread about him. We sat opposite him. “What do you have, Doctor?”
He turned his laptop toward us, displaying an image of the upright stones. “This is an area in Scotland called Orkney Island, an archipelago just north of the Scottish mainland. It’s known for the remarkable number of ancient sites on the islands. This site is the Ring of Brodgar, a neolithic site and one of the few henges in a complete circle. These stones date back as far as 2500 BC, but the site’s exact age has been elusive. Data from an expedition in the early 2000s to determine its age remains inconclusive.”
I pointed to Hawke’s journal. “So, what did Hawke or Lane find?”
“No structures have ever been found inside the large ditch built to hold the stones. One reason we can’t determine the exact age.” He picked up the journal. “Two years ago, the British Museum funded an expedition to Orkney to search for structures. Dr. Lane, an expert on these ancient sites, was tapped to lead the expedition. Dr. Hawke was his assistant. They added several students and spent the last two summers on Orkney. From the data, it appears that Hawke followed an idea of his own and began to search the terrain by comparing site elevations taken over the years. Lane’s approach was to use ground sensing radar to look for structures.” He paused. “It’s a big area, Detective, and searching using radar is tedious. It appears to me that Hawke’s method worked. He targeted certain spots by considering how the land settles over structures or open areas. He found a structure, and that’s where it gets dicey.”
“What do you mean?”
“Lane amended his journal. He scribbled notes in the margins and inserted them into his final notes after he’d completed his report. It’s easy to see where and when he amended the text. Hawke’s claim that Lane took credit for his work appears valid.”
Hank whistled as Dr. Frazier continued. “Now, understand, Lane was in charge of the expedition. The entire team shares in the discovery, but the main credit goes to the person who made the find. I can see here that Dr. Lane changed all indications to show that the terrain observations were his and his alone.”
“So, Hawke is right.”
“Yes, in my opinion, this discovery should rightly go to Dr. Hawke. And, Detective Boone, while I’m associated with a different university, Lane’s reputation is well known. This isn’t the first time someone accused Dr. Lane of coercing his students or colleagues to allow him credit for their discoveries. He offered doctorate study and teaching positions in exchange for his accolades.”
We finished with Dr. Frazier and caught the captain up with the findings. It was nearly six, and Hank and I hadn’t eaten all day. After checking in with the forensic IT tech working on the security cams, we headed to Mama Leone’s for dinner.
Something about Mama Leone’s warm atmosphere settled my soul. Mama hugged us, gave us my favorite table, and told us not to order. She had a special dish for us. We chatted with Uncle Matteo as we waited and were not disappointed. Mama brought two steaming plates of Gnocchi con Gorgonzola, Noci, e Pere.
Hank stared at his plate. “It smells delicious, but what is it?”
Uncle Matteo rose and slapped Hank on the back. “It’s gnocchi with gorgonzola cheese, pears, and walnuts. Buon appetito.”
One taste, and Hank didn’t speak until he’d consumed half of his food. “I gotta think Hawke’s our killer. Young dude like that finds a big discovery that will make his career. He had to be livid.”
“I agree, but remember what the dean said. He was calling to discuss a student with a complaint. If Delong thought he had something on Lane, he’d jump at the chance to remove him. So that takes the wind out of Hawke’s immediate wrath.”
“True. So, where does that leave us?”
“Nowhere unless we get lucky.”
~~~
We got lucky. As we left the restaurant, the forensic tech called. He had retrieved the video. We met him at headquarters.
“Took some doing, but we figured out the problem. There are cameras on all sides of the building, but no entry except the front entrance at any time. The other doors are fire doors and only open out. I checked those cameras, and no one came out during your requested time frame.”
The tech clicked on start, and we sat quietly, watching people come and go from the building. Around the six-p.m. timestamp, traffic slowed, and I had the tech speed up the vid a bit, stopping only when a figure appeared. At six-forty-seven p.m., William Hawke showed up.
Hank scooted closer. “That’s Hawke for sure. He said he was at the library.”
As Hawke walked up the steps, a woman wearing a hoodie ran up behind him and grabbed his arm. He jerked his arm away, spoke with her briefly, and then left. The woman stood for a moment before she hurried into the building. We couldn’t see her face.
“Hank, bring William Hawke in.”
~~~
Forty minutes later, a ticked-off Hawke sat fuming in an interrogation room. As Hank and I walked in, he jumped up, but the officer guarding him pushed him into the chair.
“What the hell am I here for? I told you I didn’t kill Lane.”
I sat down across from him and laid my tablet on the table. Hank leaned against the wall behind me. I formally opened the interrogation—date, time, and those present. Then I asked one question.
“Why did you lie to us?”
“I didn’t lie to you.”
“Yes, you did. You told us you were at the library. We checked. You weren’t—you were here.” I turned the tablet toward him, and the image clearly showed him at the scene.
“That’s you entering the archaeology building at six-forty-five p.m. It also shows you leaving at eight-seventeen p.m. Plenty of time for you to kill Dr. Lane.”
“Oh man, I didn’t lie. I didn’t think about the name. The library is what we call the resource room. Past students donated books about archaeology and anthropology and created a collection. I was in there looking for some information on other stone structures around the world. I didn’t think you would assume it was the main library.”
“I’m going to ask you again. Did you kill Dr. Lane?”
“No, I didn’t.” His eyes tracked to the still image on the screen. “Man, why don’t you ask her? She’s always following me, trying to get me to have coffee with her. She said she could prove Dr. Lane stole my work, but I didn’t believe her. He’d never share anything with her. I told her to go away and not bother me again, and I walked off.”
“Who is that woman, Dr. Hawke?”
“You can’t tell? That’s Iliana Perez.”
~~~
Hank once again brought a suspect into the station, and we repeated the interrogation process. Iliana Perez sat in front of us, hands clenched and shaking.
I didn’t mince words. “Ms. Perez, we know you lied to us. You returned to the department on Friday night. We have you on the security cam entering the building at approximately six-forty-seven p.m. and leaving thirty-four minutes later. Enough time to kill Dr. Lane.” I pushed a printed still from the video across the table toward her.
“That’s not me.” Her voice was on the verge of panic.
“Yes, it is. We have a positive ID. That is you, and you killed Dr. Lane. It will go easier for you if you tell us the truth.”
Tears spilled from her eyes. “I didn’t mean to, but he was so vile. I knew he took William’s research for himself. I saw his paper before he added all the lies. I tried to tell William, but he didn’t believe me. I wanted William to like me as much as I liked him. I went to Dr. Lane to beg him not to do this to him.”
“Tell us what happened.”
“He laughed at me. Told me I was nothing. He said I know you have a crush on William, foolish girl. He’ll never like a girl like you. Not smart enough to get into graduate school. That William was his assistant, so the results belonged to him. He pushed me, and I fell toward the cabinet. I spotted those daggers that I dusted every week, and I grabbed one, spun around, and stuck it in his belly. He lurched toward me, saying he’d kill me, so I grabbed another and stuck it in his chest.” She was gasping for breath through sobs. “He fell on the floor, not moving, but I wasn’t satisfied. His eyes were still open. So, I grabbed another dagger.” Her sobs turned to laughter. “The dean was pushing him to publish or perish. I stabbed him in the eye. Now, he perished, and William gets the credit.”
~~~
It was past seven p.m. before we wrapped up the paperwork. Hank and I were tired, hungry, and about to leave when Captain Lourdes caught up with us.
“Great job. You two didn’t want to join Major Crimes, but you’ve been an asset.”
“Thanks, Captain.” Hank nearly choked up.
“Eli, what’s that restaurant you love so much?”
“Mama Leone’s.”
“Don’t know about you, but I’m hungry. Let me buy you guys dinner.”
As we walked to the SUV, I smiled. Mama was just what we needed.
This story was written for the November 2022Write the Story! prompt. The Write the Story! project is a monthly prompt provided by Writers Unite! It is intended to give authors writing experience and outreach to grow followers to their Facebook pages, blogs, and websites.
Images are free-use images and do not require attribution. Image by Pexe;s from Pixabay
Eleanor’s Journal
D. A. Ratliff
Images are free-use images and do not require attribution. Image by Kathrynne from Pixabay
Eleanor Longwood had always been a strange child. From the moment she entered kindergarten, her teachers had whispered about her. She was brilliant, wise not only in knowledge but in manner, well beyond her years. During recess, she would sit quietly reading a book. Usually, a book more advanced than her peers would be reading. She never appeared aware that no one interacted with her, nor did she seem to care.
She lived in the old Algonquin Manor House with her parents and a younger sibling. Her parents, mind you, were a tad eccentric but quiet, studious, and always attentive to school functions. Once during a Parent-Teacher “meet and greet” at the beginning of her fourth year, I found myself at the dessert table with her mother, Agatha Longwood. I attempted to make small talk centered around an exquisite necklace she wore—similar to one my grandmother left me that I always wore. I assumed the stones were opals like mine, but she offered the slightest of smiles and said the stones were moonstones and hers, like mine, was a family heirloom. Surprised, I stammered that they seemed to glow from within. She offered another sly smile and replied, “Because they do, Ms. Spencer.”
Agatha had glided away from me, and I didn’t speak to her again until Eleanor entered my sixth-grade English class. She and her husband Gerald, Eleanor, and her younger brother Ambrose toured my classroom one evening before school started. The funny thing is I remember being aware of the family’s presence yet could not remember my interaction with them.
I loved teaching English, both grammar and composition and was enjoying this particular group of children. They were bright, enthusiastic, and challenging. At times, it felt like I was teaching middle-school students since kids at that age loved to challenge their teachers.
We had finished the unit on expository writing, and today, October 17, I introduced the unit on descriptive writing. In addition to descriptive writing and character development assignments, I assigned a daily writing exercise—to keep a daily journal. Hands were raised about the room as my students asked how descriptive I wanted them to be.
Eric laughed as he raised his hand. “Ms. Spencer, you want me to describe how bad my mom’s cooking is? I won’t get into trouble?”
“Be as descriptive as you choose, and I promise we won’t tell your mother.”
I was surprised when Eleanor’s hand went up. She always answered when called on but rarely offered any comment. “Eleanor, your question.”
“Ms. Spencer, I was wondering if you wish us to be truthful about our lives outside school.”
A little chill flew down my spine. “I want you to treat this exercise as a means for learning to write descriptively, and that’s often easier when you are experiencing the visuals and the sensations of the events as they occur. I do not expect or want you, any of you, to write anything personal or embarrassing about your family.”
Another little chill passed down my back as Eleanor gave me the same sly smile as her mother had done before. I tamped back a sense of unease and continued.
“I would like you to write each day’s entry on the assignment file in Classroom and then submit the doc to me on Fridays. Please write down your activities each day and be descriptive. Don’t write, ‘I had dinner.’ Describe what you had and how it looked and tasted. This assignment will also help you develop the habit of writing daily. Now, let’s open the textbook to the first exercise on character descriptions.”
~~~
After school on Friday, I went home, fed Clyde, my orange tabby cat, and settled on the couch to read the journals of my two sixth-grade classes. I had three hours until my mom said she would call, which gave me enough time to read the students’ journals for the last four days. I hesitated, my fingers resting on the mouse. Did I click on my classes in order, or did I start with Eleanor’s entry? I was itching to read what Eleanor had written but forced myself to stay organized and read the classes in order.
~~~
My first class had done well, and I was pleased, but when I clicked on the assignment folder for Eleanor’s class, I decided to read the other students before I went to her file. Not exactly sure what I anticipated, but I held my breath as I finally clicked on hers.
October 17
As the instructions require, let me tell you about my family and where we live. My PaPa, Gerald, is an artist who paints portraits, among other subjects, and is also the Gatekeeper. My MaMa teaches the arts at a private school in our hometown of Crystal Hollow. My ten-year-old brother Ambrose does have his usefulness, but mostly, he’s annoying. We also have a pet, a cat named Giles, my best friend.
We moved to Algonquin House when I was four and Ambrose two. The Gatekeeper before my father retired to tend to his pumpkin patch. Being Gatekeeper is an enormous responsibility for PaPa, and we must act accordingly.
I love it here. The manor house is enormous, and Ambrose and I have spent many hours playing hide and seek in the wings. I especially love the winding staircases and stained-glass windows. I would make up stories about our ancestors, immortalized on the windows, who lived in this house so long ago when our kind walked freely among the outlanders.
On this first day of my journal, my routine was as always. I came home, changed into jeans and a sweater, and retreated to my favorite spot in the large tower to do my homework. Giles went with me and quizzed me on my history chapter, as I have a test tomorrow.
I am excited. I will attend the Joining Celebration held during the Halloween Ball in two weeks. At dinner, my mother served my favorite, lasagna. She embraced Italian cooking, and I loved the gooey cheese and spicy sauce. She told us we were traveling to Crystal Hollow tomorrow after school. Aunt Esme wants to do the final fitting of our dresses and Ambrose’s cloak for the celebration. The Joining is a special day for me as I will join my mother’s coven, a huge honor for someone so young.
PaPa and Ambrose threw a football in the front yard while MaMa worked on a sculpture, and I read. Bedtime at nine-thirty came too soon, but Giles and I talked in the dark until I finally fell asleep.
I trembled as I clicked on day two of Eleanor’s journal. I had never known the child to lie but what I was reading was worrying. I read on.
October 18
Ambrose and I rushed down the long driveway from the bus stop to the house. We hadn’t been to Crystal Hollow in several months, although we had many visitors. MaMa insisted we do homework first, so we got that out of the way as quickly as possible and waited with Giles on the back steps for our parents so we could go.
Finally, we passed through the iron gate at the edge of the grounds onto the path through the woods. Outlanders who wandered into the woods would only see a thick forest as a spell concealed the path. As the glow from the portal appeared, my heart began to race. Giles jumped into my arms so that I could carry him through. The glow soon enveloped us, and a sentry stepped out of the light. He greeted us and motioned for us to enter. Ambrose let out a yell as he jumped into the portal. Giles loudly meowed as I stepped through, loving the warmth that caressed my body, and within seconds we were in Crystal Hollow.
Choruses of hellos greeted us as we walked down Main Street. My father was well known, and many members of the Coven or Pumpkinists stopped him along the way. Yet all did not seem jovial, as some people appeared agitated. Near my aunt’s house, PaPa left us for a meeting at the Council House while we continued to my aunt’s.
I loved Aunt Esme’s house. It was four stories with rickety walls and crooked towers, surrounded by sunflowers, apple trees, and a pumpkin patch in the backyard. And as soon as the door opened, the smell of pumpkin bread and hot apple cider wafted into my nose and warmed me more.
The fittings went well. Ambrose looks so grown up in his cloak. MaMa will wear a traditional green velvet dress adorned with glittering jewels. I will wear the burgundy color of novice Coven members.
My father joined us, as did Aunt Esme’s husband Simon, and Nikan, a Pumpkinist council member. Over dinner, a discussion about the fate of Crystal Hollow became heated, and MaMa sent us from the room. Ambrose and I had heard the rumors about the rift between Coven members but didn’t realize it had gotten so intense.
Shortly afterward, we hurried home, MaMa insisting we go straight to bed.
A chill swept through me, and I pulled the afghan across me as I pondered what I had just read. Eleanor must be playing a joke on me, but it was so unlike her. She was studious and reserved, always polite. This was so out of character, but I read on.
October 19
Ambrose and I got off the bus and slowly walked home. We sensed great tension in the house as we left for school. Giles met us halfway, warning that visitors had been coming and going all day, and PaPa had scheduled a meeting tonight.
When we got home, MaMa met us, sending us upstairs to the sitting room to do our homework. She brought dinner, and the door closed behind her with instructions not to leave the room until bedtime.
We ate the hearty homemade soup and pumpkin bread, but neither Ambrose nor I enjoyed it. Not even the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies helped the pall we felt lingering over the house.
Giles realized MaMa didn’t order him to stay in the room, so he snuck out as only cats can and left to see what he could overhear. We watched TV until Giles returned and told us what he had heard.
A faction in Crystal Hollow wanted to reveal our existence to the Outland, where witches and wizards were not welcome. Others feared the dangers of the past when we did walk together. The Pumpkinists were doubly frightened because they were different and feared being outcasts. Giles said that my father was a leader of the group who wanted to move into the Outlanders’ world and that he was in danger.
MaMa came to us at about ten and ushered us off to bed. Sleep did not come easy.
I scrolled down to the next entry.
October 20
Neither Ambrose nor I slept well. He came into my room around three am, and we talked until we both fell asleep. On the way to school, we decided to behave as if nothing was wrong, but we left Giles to spy on what happened during the day.
When we returned home, MaMa greeted us and sent us again to the upstairs sitting room, where we would have dinner. This time, MaMa had ordered Giles not to leave, and he obeyed her. We went to bed, listening to the arguing from downstairs.
Eleanor’s words stunned me. I was either dealing with a child with a fantastic imagination or a delusional child who needed help. I couldn’t comprehend that her words might be true. I sat staring out my patio door, my mind reeling. Only the call from my mother brought me back to the present. I shook off my thoughts and turned my attention to the call.
~~~
I spent a restless night, waking up intermittently between dreams of pumpkin-headed people and witches circling me. As the morning wore on, I became increasingly worried about Eleanor and Ambrose and curious about the portal. By midday, I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I got in my car and drove to Algonquin House.
I parked outside the gate and pressed the buzzer on the call box—no answer. Now what? I debated on going home but decided against it. Feeling somewhat foolish, I decided to try the gate. I grabbed my phone and keys and locked the car.
The gate was at least ten feet tall, as was the stone wall. Timidly, I wrapped my fingers around the cold wrought iron handle and tugged, then jumped back. The gate swung open with ease. I blew out a deep breath and entered.
The cobblestone driveway was long and lined with stately trees. It was chilly and dark under the canopy of thick limbs, and fallen orange and yellow leaves crunched beneath my feet. I wrapped my sweater tighter around me to ward off the chill.
As I got closer to the manor house, I was shocked at its enormous size, three stories with three towers, one quite large with a turret, more a castle than a house. I climbed the long expanse of steps, admiring the well-tended gardens. A brass doorknocker on ornately carved wooden doors gleamed in welcome. I rapped the knocker several times, but no one answered. What next? I knew what was next—find the path to Crystal Hollow.
I hurried down the steps and followed a narrow brick path around the house. The backyard was enormous and inconsistent with what I had read in Eleanor’s journal. My idea of witches did not include a patio, swing set, and swimming pool. At the rear of the yard was a gate identical to the front entrance—time to find the path.
The rear gate opened with a slight tug, and a thick dark forest lay before me. I couldn’t see a path, but I pushed on. It had to be here. I walked about twenty feet past the tree line when I noticed a parting in the trees. I headed toward the open space, and as I passed through the opening, a path began to widen before me.
I can’t explain the sensations that flooded me. I was anxious but compelled to continue as if my will was no longer mine to control. The dark horizon began to glow, and the trees seemed to move farther apart as I walked on. As the pale glow became a deeper, brighter orange, I felt something warm against my chest. I looked down, and the opaque white stone of my necklace was glowing. My heart thumped in my chest. What was happening to me?
The portal filled my vision—its surface swirling in shades of orange. I reached out to touch it when two men burst through.
“Who are you?” One man glowered at me.
“I’m Nora Spencer. I’m Eleanor Longwood’s teacher. Who are you?”
“We are the Sentries of the Gate. You will come with us.”
Each man took me by the arm, and we stepped through the portal. The warmth Eleanor described flowed around me like a cocoon. Then abruptly, we were standing on a street resembling a children’s book illustration. Quaint red brick buildings with colorful trim sat along the tree-lined avenue, where stalls selling vegetables and flowers sat on the street corners. People wearing clothing reminiscent of the early 1900s stopped as we passed, no doubt curious about me.
We came to a store with “Apothecary” on the sign above the door. A man exited, and I uttered a startled oh, taken back by the shape of the man’s head, which was round with lobes like a pumpkin. His skin was pale with a slight orange tint. This man was a Pumpkinist, as Eleanor mentioned in her journal. His yellow eyes widened at my reaction, but he bowed his head and smiled, continuing on his way.
We entered the tallest building on the block—with portraits of humans and Pumpkinists covering the lobby walls. The sentries ushered me up a flight of stairs and into a large chamber. A wall of windows framed seven people sitting behind a bench on a raised dais. In the center was a raven-haired woman. She waved her fingers—her black lacquered nails glinted in the sunlight. “Bring her forward.”
The sentries took me to a platform in front of the bench. Indignant, I spoke. “I need to know who you are and what this place is.”
The raven-haired woman left the bench and approached me. “I think the better question is, who are you?” Her eyes fell on the necklace I wore. “Where did you get this?”
“Please tell me who you are.”
Anger flared in her emerald eyes. “I asked you where you got this necklace.”
“I inherited it from my great-great-grandmother.”
“Her name?”
I hesitated. “Her name was Nora Crane.”
A gasp erupted from those in the chamber. “Your name?”
“Nora Crane Spencer.”
“How did you find us?”
“I just… stumbled onto the portal.”
Anger flared again in her eyes. “No one stumbles onto the portal.” She whirled toward a sentry. “Find me the Gatekeeper. I know he is here.”
I stood silent and shaking for ten minutes before Gerald Longwood arrived. As he stood by me, his eyes widened when he recognized me. He addressed the woman. “High Priestess Rowena, why have you brought me here?”
“Why is she here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do not lie to me. Do you know whose great-great-granddaughter she is?
Gerald glanced at me. “I don’t.”
Rowena descended from the bench again and stood before us. “She is the descendent of Nora Crane.”
He swallowed. “We suspected she might be of our blood, but we had no idea.”
“No idea? Yet you are lobbying for us to reveal ourselves to the Outlanders, and you do not know?”
“She’s my daughter’s teacher. My wife sensed her power when she saw the necklace.”
“Her ancestor tried this many years ago, openly practicing witchcraft, good witchcraft, I might add, and it nearly got her burned at the stake. Now you lead the effort to do the same and led her to us. I should have you punished for sedition.”
My body trembled so intensely I feared I couldn’t speak, but I had to tell her. “He has said nothing to me. I read about this place and became curious, so I came looking for it.”
“Read about it?” Rowena’s voice rose. “Where?”
I intended to lie about Eleanor’s journal to protect her, but a voice interrupted me.
“I told her.”
Eleanor stood in the aisle. “Ms. Spencer gave us the assignment to write about our home life. I had overheard my father talk about revealing ourselves to the Outlanders months ago. I decided to tell her and see her reaction so I could tell my father.”
Rowena turned toward me. “This is why you came, based on what this child told you?”
“Yes. I was concerned that she was safe as her journal entries were so unusual. I didn’t expect to come here.”
“You should know something. The skill to locate our realm must be strong, and you possess those skills. Now that you are aware of us, what are your thoughts about our becoming known to your kind?”
“I’m overwhelmed. Fear of the unknown is powerful and clouds judgment, but I think given time and handled well, they would welcome you.”
Gerald reached for Eleanor’s hand. “Priestess, I came to Crystal Hollow to deliver a petition. We have collected more than the required number of signatures to activate an inquiry into contact with the Outlanders. Those who visit the other realm love the people but recognize that it will be difficult. All we are asking is a chance.”
Rowena nodded. “We will take up your petition, Gatekeeper. You may leave and take this Outlander with you.”
I went with them to Aunt Esme’s home, where we shared a meal, and I met Nikan, a Pumpkinist council member. After dinner, he approached me. “I’m certain you would like to know how we came to be.”
“I am curious.”
“Many eons ago, a dark-arts witch decided to conjure an army of pumpkin people. She cast a spell on several humans and pumpkins to create one creature. It worked too well, and the Pumpkinist came into being. The only problem is the spell she cast was a permanent one, and while we have managed to undo part of the spell, it left us with a rather pumpkin-shaped head, pale orange skin, and yellow eyes. Do you feel your fellow Outlanders will accept us?”
“I’m not going to lie to you. It will take time.”
He smiled. “Then we’ll take the time.”
Gerald approached us. “Time to take you home. We hope you’ll help us in our quest to join your world. I promise we have eradicated the dark witches, and it’s time to move forward.”
“I want to learn more about my relative. I’ll be happy to do what I can.”
I left with an invitation to attend the Halloween Ball.
~~~
The house felt eerily silent as I closed the door behind me. I had left that morning not knowing what I would find at Eleanor’s and returned home stunned by what I had learned. The knowledge that a world of witches, wizards, and Pumpkinists existed and I was now involved in helping them join my world was overwhelming.
I needed coffee and headed to the kitchen. As I was scooping coffee into the filter, Clyde wandered in and jumped on the counter. I scratched his head. “Clyde, you will not believe my day.”
The next moment stunned me more than the entire day had. Clyde answered me.
“I could tell you were upset when you left. Tell me about it.”
I stumbled backward. “What—what…? You talk?”
“I could always talk, but you could not understand me. That appears to have changed. Tell me why.”
With my coffee cup in hand, I curled up on the couch, Clyde beside me, and told him about my adventure. An adventure that was only beginning.
This story was written for the October 2022 Write the Story! prompt. The Write the Story! project is a monthly prompt provided by Writers Unite! It is intended to give authors writing experience and outreach to grow followers to their Facebook pages, blogs, and websites.
An October Fest of Halloween-inspired horror, paranormal stories, and poems written by twenty-five Bewitching Writers from Writers Unite!
The stories and poems are a collection of past stories submitted and stories written for various exercises and prompts offered to the members during the month.
As you wait for your ghosts and goblins, witches and warlocks, and monsters to arrive, enjoy great stories to put you in the Halloween Spirit!
This Anniversary Edition of short stories and poetry has an All Star cast of writers that will take you on adventures that test your endurance and are certain to haunt your dreams! Join these twenty-nine talented and diverse authors for the “Journey of your life!”
This anthology includes my story “Night Strings.”
An excerpt:
Unnerving sensation for a captain.
I had walked too many decks for too long not to miss the ever-so-slight vibration from the stardrive. It wasn’t there. Not for five months and twenty-seven days. Not that I was counting.
Every night as I walked the deserted corridors of the ESA Lassiter, an Astro-class cruiser, from bow to stern, the events of that day, six months before, played in my head.
Images are free-use images and do not require attribution. Image by Harut Movsisyan from Pixabay
Night Visitor
D. A. Ratliff
There were moments when I regretted volunteering to monitor the experiments overnight. The bio-science building, bustling with techs during the day, became an eerie tomb at night. There might be a few people in the main building, but my lab was in the restricted area where government contracts fueled the research. Cue the men in black suits, lapel buttons, and sunglasses lurking in the dead of night. Not saying it was aliens—but it was aliens.
Maybe not aliens, but cutting-edge stem cell research, and if the tissues growing in the lab were any indication, definitely something out of a science fiction novel. I was a lowly post-doctorate hired to do research as further training. My job at night was to continue processing stem cells for the docs in the expensive lab coats (you know, the tailored, pressed, and unstained ones worn over a dress shirt and tie) to play with the next day. A gal has to start somewhere.
My shift, which lasted from eleven pm to five am when the early day shift arrived, suited me fine. I usually took a nap early evening, showered, grabbed dinner, and headed to the lab. Home by five-thirty, I ate breakfast and slept until nine. I lived next to the beach and would spend a couple of hours sunning and reading, then home or errands until I did it all over again. Boring, but hopefully worth it when I applied for a teaching position.
I arrived ten minutes early for my Thursday shift to find Dr. Elliot Rosenthal in the lab. He was the special projects director, and I admit he made me nervous. He pointed to a stool next to him, and I sat as ordered.
He began formally, as was his fashion. “Dr. Claire Winslow, we haven’t had a chance to chat lately. I was working late and decided to check in on you and to tell you that your work is exemplary.”
My hands trembled, and I stuck them in my lab coat pockets so he wouldn’t notice. “Thank you, Dr. Rosenthal. I appreciate that very much.”
He picked up my logbook, which contained the data collected from ongoing experiments and my notes. “Let’s take a look at these.”
We talked about the data for a while, and then he handed me a blank notebook and withdrew a small vial from his lab coat pocket. I recognized it as the vials we used to store stem cells. He handed it to me.
“Dr. Winslow, I have a very sensitive government project, and I need your assistance and cooperation. I would like you to process these cells as you do the others, but record your data in this notebook and on this program.” He handed me a flash drive, a blank notebook, and a ring binder procedure manual. “Label all specimens with the special code on this vial. You will be working out of room 457. A security officer will unlock the door when you arrive for your shift. You will press the red key to arm the lock and securely close the door when you leave. Answer no questions about this project—you will only discuss this with me. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. The security officer in the hall will escort you to the new lab. Please do not open the procedural manual until you are there. I will check on your progress in a few days.”
Without another word, he left, and the guard waited for me to gather my things and escorted me to the new lab, where I reviewed the project specs. A shiver of uneasiness crept up my spine as I read the unusual processes employed, offered as innovative approaches to developing stem cells into tissue for therapeutic application. Innovation was one thing, but some of these processes departed from proven scientific methods. Despite my concerns, I began to study the process thoroughly. After all, Rosenthal was the boss.
~~~
I closed the incubator door and leaned against it for a few seconds. I was tired. It had been five months since Dr. Rosenthal assigned me to this project, and I had taken only a few days off early on. Now for nearly seventy days straight, I had worked every evening, a schedule that taxed my energy and what little social life I had—past tense. My boyfriend of two years had bolted a month ago with a few choice words about my caring more about my work than him. In retrospect, I couldn’t argue with that. My best friend had taken a post-doc position on the east coast, and my nonexistent social life had become extinct with no family other than a cousin I had never met. In many ways, it was liberating, with no one to answer to but a very intimidating boss.
A ding from the coffee pot pulled me out of my funk, and I stopped leaning against the incubator and headed to pour a hot cup of coffee for support. I sat at my desk, my favorite spot in the lab because I could see the outside world. Not that there was much to see now. I had watched the construction of the university’s newest facility, a football stadium. Construction had become a twenty-four-hour effort as the fall semester loomed. Now only an empty stadium stood surrounded by a gigantic parking lot of fresh black asphalt. White-painted parking space stripes gleaming like neon under the full moon greeted me out the window.
I was about to sit down to record the night’s data when something caught my eye. A figure, appearing to be male, stood in the parking lot. He had not been there a second ago, and before I could register his presence, he was gone. I hesitated to say he ‘winked’ out but had no other explanation. Did I imagine that? I think so, but I found myself glancing at the parking lot for the remainder of the night.
Watching for the figure to reappear became an obsession, and he did three days later. This time long enough to turn toward the building. He lifted his arm, and a few seconds later, he was gone.
My breathing came in rapid and shallow bursts, and my knees bounced uncontrollably. He was there. I had to believe that. If I didn’t, I would have to admit I was hallucinating.
~~~
Over the next month, I saw the figure three more times. Each appearance brought him closer to the building. On the closest sighting, I could make out a large satchel hanging from his shoulder and, in his hand, a small device that he pointed toward the building. He was visible for no more than five seconds and then vanished.
Rapid footsteps echoed in the hall minutes later, along with shouts. I glanced at the door keypad and saw it blinking, meaning someone was accessing it. I hurried to a lab bench and pretended to work as two security personnel entered the lab.
Acting startled, I stood. “What are you doing in here? I have sensitive experiments underway. Please use the com to let me know you need access.”
The guard I knew as Jana, normally civil, only stared at me. Her voice was gruff. “Did you see anyone in the parking lot?”
I hoped she didn’t notice that adrenaline flushed through me. “No. Who was I supposed to see?”
“You saw no one in the parking lot?”
“I am working, and I’d like to continue.”
They left without another word. I trembled as I realized one thing—I wasn’t hallucinating.
~~~
The mystery of the man in the parking lot became secondary to me a few days later. He had not appeared for days, but aspects of the experimental processes I was being asked to perform continued to concern me.
The lab I worked out of was large, with a locked interior doorway along one wall. When I arrived, I was surprised to find the door slightly ajar. I assumed I wasn’t allowed in that room for a reason, but I knew work went on in my lab during the day. I pulled the door back ever so slightly and peeked into the room. It was dark, illuminated only by emergency exit lights and lights inside banks of enormous glass cases. I slipped into the room for a closer look. The cases contained many Petri dishes of varying sizes. My heart raced as I approached the larger of the dishes. They contained what appeared to be brain matter and a tiny beating heart, and a yolk sac.
I hurried back to my lab, carefully closing the door behind me, only relaxing when I heard the lock engage. I wandered to the window, wishing the man would appear. At the moment, despite the mystery surrounding the night visitor, he seemed more plausible than what I had just seen.
As I calmed a bit, I visualized the tissue in the dishes. Stem cells can develop into human tissue. I received my master’s in aspects of that process. That wasn’t what concerned me. The approach I was supposed to work on as a post-doc was to develop a more effective means of isolating stem cells from bone marrow. The new assignment Rosenthal gave me had nothing to do with separating cells but creating tissue. What concerned me was the nature of the tissue I saw in the other room. Human heart tissue wasn’t blue, and human brain matter wasn’t yellow. What were they growing?
Sleep didn’t come easy that morning. I catnapped and finally gave up, spending most of the morning researching the latest information on cloning and tissue. I found nothing regarding existing heart or brain tissue in the color I saw or anything that could cause tissue to turn those colors. What I saw stymied me.
Walking into the building that night, the increase in security was noticeable. Several uniformed security guards were in the lobby, highly visible where the suits with shades usually kept a low profile. I said good evening to the one stationed by the elevator. He acted as if I weren’t there.
I don’t think I took a breath until I closed my lab door behind me. My eyes immediately tracked to the doorway to the adjoining lab, and I shivered. I was either involved in innovative science or part of something—I simply didn’t know what.
Determined to stay focused, I dove into my work, aware of the open window at my back, wondering if the mysterious man would return. I was recording data a couple of hours later when the building’s alarm system activated—two short bursts of a claxon followed by a longer tone—signaling a warning to shelter in place. I wondered how anyone could get in with the security in the lobby.
Although my door locked automatically, my instinct was to check it anyway. As I neared the door, I heard yelling in the corridor. I unlocked the door and peeked through the crack to see the security guards with guns drawn, yelling at a man in the hallway—the man in the parking lot. As I started to shut the door, the man looked directly at me and vanished.
I pushed the door closed, but hairs stood up on my neck. I could hear breathing, but before I could react, a hand clamped over my mouth while an arm restrained me.
“Please, I’m not here to hurt you. You must believe me.” I nodded, and he let go of me and stepped away.
“Who are you?”
“I am Peter Damon. And you are Claire Winslow, doctor of bioengineering.”
“So, you know me, but I still don’t know who you are.”
“This will be tough to take in, but I’m from the future, one hundred and four years in the future. I came here to your time to save humanity in mine.”
My heart fluttered in my chest. Scared? Yes, I was, but I watched this man disappear several times. I needed to listen, but I could hear yelling in the hall.
“They’re searching for you. They’ll come in here. Can I meet you somewhere later?”
“Where?”
“Let me give you my address. Can you find it?”
He held up what looked like a transparent smartphone. “Downloaded your GPS.”
As soon as he had my address, he winked out none too soon. The guards were pounding on my door. I let them in, adopting my most innocent demeanor. The next couple of hours were nerve-racking as I waited to go home.
~~~
My fingers trembled as I unlocked my door. He was sitting on the couch. I didn’t know what to say, so I asked if he was hungry.
“I’m starving.”
“I made pizza yesterday. I’ll warm the leftovers up. While I do that, you talk. First, who are you, and how do you know me?” I took a beer from the refrigerator, opened it, and handed it to him.
“I am a bioengineer, like you, and work for the Consortium Science Department.”
“Consortium?”
“Things have changed, Dr. Winslow. I have to be blunt. Ten years ago, in your timeline, Earth was visited by an alien race. A not-so-benevolent race of humanoids, part of a scouting party, or so it was thought. Earth’s leaders felt they were a threat and executed them, conducted autopsies, and preserved tissue and blood specimens. Their DNA is a ninety-nine-point-seven percent match to ours. Minor differences exist, like hemocyanin carrying oxygen, making their blood green. It seems the human form is not unique to Earth.”
“That’s amazing, but what does it have to do with me.” I had an inkling of what it had to do with me, but I was afraid to think about it.
“We spent many years investigating what came next and discovered a group of globalists and scientists felt executing the aliens was the wrong way to establish relations, especially if there were more of their kind who might follow. The program you now work for is the secret program to accomplish two goals. To not only produce clones of the aliens but to create human-alien hybrids. They thought that if the aliens returned, the hybrids would be Earth’s salvation, a connection to the visitors, and they would spare us.”
“What happened?”
“The program was successful, producing clones that resulted in hybrids.”
“That’s amazing, quite a feat of bio-engineering.”
This man who claimed to be from the future locked eyes with me, and I shuddered from the intensity of his gaze. “You should know, Dr. Winslow. You made the breakthrough that allowed this to happen.”
“I did?”
“Yes, three years from now, you unlocked the genetic key that allowed the species to merge and reproduce.” He handed me the device I had seen him use earlier.
“What is this?” I held up the device.
“My phone.”
I stifled a laugh while he spoke. “Dr. Winslow data.” The screen displayed my photo and a story. I read it while he ate pizza.
When I finished, I saw he had eaten half of the pizza I had made. “Enjoy that?”
“Yes, very much.”
I was still processing the information about me that I had just read, so I asked him about something he had said earlier. “Why did you say, ‘or so it was thought,’ when you mentioned that they were a scouting party?”
“Because they weren’t.” He finished his beer. “They were the last of their kind—a handful of warriors from a race defeated in battle in their solar system. What we did was hand them the keys to world dominance. The hybrids enslaved us, and they are building spaceships to take them back to their solar system and engage in war. They’re a merciless race, and we must stop them. A group of us decided to steal their time travel device and travel to this time.”
“To stop us before we’re successful.”
“Yes.”
“I saw you appear in the parking lot.”
“It took us a few tries to figure out what we were doing and exactly where we were.” He reached into the bag he carried, withdrawing a round device. “We do have a plan. This is a quantum bomb. It will destroy the lab and, unfortunately, the building. I need your help.”
My career was about to be blown up, and I had to decide if I believed this man. I did.
“Let’s do this.”
~~~
To say that I was nervous was an understatement. I was petrified as I walked into the lab. I wasn’t expecting Dr. Rosenthal and another doctor on the project to be there. I fought to hide my emotions.
“Ah, Dr. Winslow. We stopped by to tell you how pleased we are with your work. Impeccable technique. Because of your exemplary work, I would like to ask you to attend a meeting with my senior staff tomorrow. We want to expand your role on the team.”
He shook my hand and walked toward the door, his aide following. I hurried after them and caught the door before it clicked shut. I was glad I did as Rosenthal stopped his companion.
“Someone is on to us. We need someone with Winslow’s skills if we have to move this project to our funder’s country. Checked her out—no family, no boyfriend. We can disappear with her with no questions asked, if necessary. Tell our contact we need those trucks ready if we must move out in a hurry.
I closed the door, my heart thudding in my chest. Peter was right. We had to destroy this project.
We decided to explode the bomb at four in the morning. The cleaning crews were gone by then, so there would be a limited number of souls in the building. We agreed to plant the bomb after I placed a phone call to security to tell them to evacuate and get far clear of the building.
At the prescribed time, Peter popped into the lab. “You ready?”
“Yes. I have all the data logs I have done in my bag. I’m going to tell security I’m leaving because I have to meet Rosenthal at noon, and I want to get some sleep first. They should believe that. Then I’ll make the call. Meet you in the parking lot?”
“I’ll be waiting where you first saw me.”
~~~
When I arrived at the deserted parking lot, for a moment, I feared Peter wasn’t going to show. Just as the security alarms in the building sounded, he popped in beside me.
“We have three minutes.”
“Are you sorry?”
“About what?”
“Losing all the advanced technology you have from the aliens.”
He smiled. “We hope we have that covered. Ever wonder why I have this huge bag with me?” I nodded. “Inside is the control unit for the time jump and crystal drives compatible with computers used before the aliens took over. The drives contain tech specs of the alien equipment. We think we should be able to access these drives. We hid several computers in public places and included the locations in the personal handwritten letters I also carry from the people involved in the rebellion to prove what happened. If we are lucky, we will come out of this with the alien tech, but no aliens.”
I watched people fleeing the building. “How about an eyewitness who can back your story up?”
Peter smiled. “I was going to ask if you wanted to come.”
“I would.”
“Good.” He placed an arm around me. “One condition, you remember how to make that pizza, right?”
“I do.”
As the building exploded, Peter pressed the display on his wristband. We disappeared, leaving a dark, deserted parking lot behind. I chuckled. It was aliens, after all.
This story was written for the September 2022 Write the Story! prompt. The Write the Story! project is a monthly prompt provided by Writers Unite! It is intended to give authors writing experience and outreach to grow followers to their Facebook pages, blogs, and websites.
No other word evokes more emotion than love, be it romantic, familial, or platonic. The Writers Unite! authors explore the passion, joy, hate, desire, longing, pain, and affection that represent love in all its forms in this collection of short stories and poems.
My arrival in Hawaii was not what I expected it to be. I expected to disembark the aircraft into the warm sunshine, a beautiful lei placed around my neck. Instead, I shuffled along a jetway, crowded with passengers as weary as I was after such a long flight. Twelve hours of flight time for me, and all I wanted to do was get to the hotel and sleep.
I broke away from the throng, sidestepped the jaded-looking airline personnel handing out leis, and headed for baggage claim. Please don’t let this take long.
It took too long. Thirty-five minutes passed from when I arrived at baggage claim to when the red light and buzzer flashed. Even for a college friend’s wedding, flying to Hawaii was not worth this. I collected my two bags, attached my tote to the larger bag, and went in search of my ride.
A man in a gray suit stood near the door holding a sign with my name, Brielle LeBlanc, and a lei. I wanted to kiss him for rescuing me, but honestly, I only wanted to sit down. I identified myself, and he draped the beautiful tuber rose and purple orchid lei around my neck.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He took my luggage and gestured for me to exit the terminal, where a gray Town Car was parked. He expertly blended into the chaotic traffic and headed toward The Maui Seasons Resort.
“Just Like in the Movies” from Dimensions of LoveVolume Two
Please check out my other stories in Volumes One and Two.
D. A. Ratliff Author 