Con had snatched a kiss from Francis before he’d abandoned her in the Imagination Correction Facility and she replayed the memory as she waited in the check-in room, half watching a middle-aged woman setting out new clothes and books and toiletries for her.
Author Archives: kraxon
House of Witches : Seven
Con had snatched a kiss from Francis before he’d abandoned her in the Imagination Correction Facility and she replayed the memory as she waited in the check-in room, half watching a middle-aged woman setting out new clothes and books and toiletries for her.
That bloody arse. He should be getting his own damn daughter out of there, not leaving it for her to do. She shouldn’t have kissed him. It had only cemented something between them, some sort of bond. He’d probably manipulated her somehow – taken advantage of her stupid sentimentality. Except that she had initiated it. She had kissed him and that silly, confused half-smile on his face afterwards could only have come from an innocent man.
Bollocks to it. It was still his fault she was in there.
She collected her new belongings, listened to her ‘welcome’ in silence, and followed the woman down one of the clinical corridors to her room with a set jaw and a frown on her face. Then the woman handed her an itinerary and left, with the brief instruction that lunch was at one and to ask a member of staff – the ones in blue – if she needed anything.
Con dumped her stuff on the bed, vaguely aware that a thin mattress was better than no mattress, and went to look out of the window. Her room was on the second floor, overlooking a tennis court. Beyond the dome, the forest seemed impossible to reach.
So what now?
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New short story by Jo Zebedee
Prosecutor General Eve Marshall – the meanest cross-examiner in the courts of New Scotland.
Just my luck to get her on my case.
A Crime of Intelligence
* Winner of the 2014 Story of the Year Award *
Prosecutor General Eve Marshall – the meanest cross-examiner in the courts of New Scotland. Eyes that glint when she goes for the kill, a mouth that tightens at every lie, a manner that pulls jurors in and makes them believe.
And a babe; long hair practically to her waist, glasses she looks over the top of just so, and a way of sucking a pen that keeps men awake at night, and plenty of women, too.
Just my luck to get her on my case.
The jury were hanging on her every word. Sixteen fine upstanding citizens, chosen for this, “the trial of the year”. All of them watching Eve stick her little tongue out, all of them riveted as she put me through three days of questioning.
Three days where I hadn’t cracked, not once. Three days where question after question got hurled at me and I found the right answer. All I needed to do was survive this day and I’d be home and dry.
“So,” she said, in her lispy, false-cute voice. “You can’t tell us where you were the night of the murder, Oskar?”
“No, ma’am. Just that I wasn’t in the Five-in-a-Line store.” Continue reading
Sixth House of Witches story by E.J. Tett
Trees groaned and creaked on either side of the road and dark clouds loomed overhead. Con hoped for a storm. If a tree blew over and blocked their path, she could escape.
House of Witches : Six
Trees groaned and creaked on either side of the road and dark clouds loomed overhead. Con hoped for a storm. If a tree blew over and blocked their path, she could escape.
She spotted Francis looking at her in the rear-view mirror and she stuck out her tongue at him.
“Mature, as usual,” he said.
The forest the road ran through was dark and dense – easy to get lost in if she could just get out of the car. “You’re being an arse. I don’t know why you’re doing this to me. To me. With our history?”
Francis sighed. “I have to. It’s my job. Besides, it’s your own fault – if you hadn’t killed that man—”
“That man was a scumbag.” She sat forwards in her seat and rested her cuffed wrists on Francis’s shoulder. “Pull over, Fran, yeah? Let’s have a little fun before you turn me in.”
It wasn’t far now until they’d reach The House of Witches. Everybody knew it lay just beyond the forest – out of sight and out of mind. If she could stall him, maybe make him change his mind…
The clouds burst and the rain came down hard and fast, hitting the car noisily. Francis turned the wipers on. “I know what you’re doing,” he said. “It won’t work.”
New short story by Stephen Palmer
I didn’t realise that Sheeps were so large until they crowded around me and I got small and scared. We were inside a square wood home made by the Two-legged, and I went in by mistake because the chief Herder told me to, or at least I thought they told me to. It turned out that was wrong.
Sheepthing
I didn’t realise that Sheeps were so large until they crowded around me and I got small and scared. We were inside a square wood home made by the Two-legged, and I went in by mistake because the chief Herder told me to, or at least I thought they told me to. It turned out that was wrong. I regret now that I didn’t understand what they meant – the Two-legged rulers, not the Herders. At the time I was new to everything, including what to do and what not to do, so what happened really was an accident, and not deliberate at all. I also didn’t know that the Two-legged command the Herders.
You know that strange effect when you see your reflection for the very first time, and you know it’s a reflection of you, and you’re really disappointed because you’ve imagined yourself like a superhero? I felt that when – inside the home – I looked at the eyes of the nearest Sheep and saw myself, and realised that the reflection was myself. There was a kind of nighty-night darkness to my body, a small head-ness, and tiny white eyes with metal inserts. I was a small, gleaming version of the Herders. Big ears though, which was odd, because Sheeps have quite small ears compared to mine. So there we were, inside the wood thing, and I was scared and I didn’t know what to do.
Fifth House of Witches story by E.J. Tett
Listen to the music. You’re in the ocean. Floating. Floating.
House of Witches : Five
Dora didn’t like meditation. It was boring and stupid, and she wasn’t any good at it anyway. She had to sit in class with five other girls and listen to whale song and pretend she was floating in the sea, or walking through a meadow, or something equally as silly.
She opened an eye and took a peek. The other girls were still, legs crossed, palms resting on their knees. The teacher, Miss Thompson, murmured instructions to lead them through the meditation. Her eyes were also closed, and she moved her hands slowly by her sides as if conducting an imaginary orchestra. Dora had the biggest urge to take the woman’s spectacles – or the handkerchief sticking from her sleeve.
Miss Thompson opened her eyes and Dora closed hers a little too slowly.
“Concentrate, Dora,” the teacher said. “You want to be able to control your ability, do you not?”
“Yes, miss.”
The sooner Dora could get her power to glow under control, the sooner she could get out of the facility. She already shone less than when she’d arrived, so she was confident it wouldn’t take much longer. She didn’t want to end up like Paula – stuck there for years because she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, control her imagination. Continue reading