Idyllic farmhouse? Well, appearances can be deceiving, I suppose. If the For Sale sign in front had said, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," we might have been more wary. As things stood,, when we signed on the dotted line we had no idea what we were really buying into... or signing away. The funny thing about souls, you don't really notice them until they're gone.
The lamp wouldn't turn on.
Strange, she thought, I just changed the bulb yesterday.
Feeling her way through the dark living room, Camille passed into the dining area and saw the stairs leading to the second floor were lit with tiny tealights. Following them up, she called out, "John?" No answer. A little louder, "John, are you home?." At the top of the landing, more candles lit a path from the stairs and into the hallway. Camille started down the hall but paused when she passed the closed bathroom door. Thinking John might be inside the bomb shelter-like walls, she...
Vanquished.
I was confused. This isn't how I expected the novel to end. Who committed the crime? Where was the last chapter with the explanation, the satisfying ending the reader could ponder on when the final lines had been read?
This book looked identical to the others in the bookshop the next day but twenty pages were missing at the back. I was waiting in line to exchange the book when I had a strong mysterious feeling not to.
Returning home I sat on the battered red leather sofa and opened the last page again.
More words than I expected....
There is a crow somewhere in the trees, unseen but seeing all. There are a million tiny eyes beneath the grass that feel our footsteps and send out warnings.
Somewhere in the world is a man who would do us harm if we were to cross his path at this moment. It's midnight. A few cars drive past us, and each might contain a demented murderer.
The moon shows its bellyful of craters, and some of the stars are planets. There are a million tiny eyes up there somewhere looking out at us.
This is the eve of something momentous....
Matilda was the first woman he'd ever dated that had been a cat before surgery. She told him at the end of the third outing, to the Italian restaurant, a night of sexual tension, sweaty waiters, mixed up menus and his clumsiness knocking over the carafe of white wine over her lap. She smiled, pink lipstick still intact after a meal of coiled pasta and mince. No leaping up off the chair in horror, running to the bathroom, telling him to F O and never call again.
Matilda held his arm as they left the restaurant and stood looking over...
She kept her eyes down, on her shoes. People brushed past her, maybe impatiently. She didn't move, she didn't walk.
She waited for someone to take her hand, to try to talk to her, to lead her away. It didn't happen. No one looked at her. Nothing happened, and she heard nothing. Better that way, because how could she explain anything?
Making the decision, she walked over to the bench, sat down at the very edge, across from a display of vacuum cleaners. Still, she stared at her feet.
Without warning, he was standing in front of her, cheeks still...
Fish meant for market was found dumped in a bin outside the school. The mother believed the rotting smell would disguise her hidden bundle beneath. Her post-birth addled brain forgetting only papers were supposed to be in that container and what she tried to dispose would be eventually found.
Margarita wasn't a bad person. She did what she thought best at the time. Took her baby to the church and left her on the steps timing so the priest would find it. The bloody towels, rags, her own clothing stuffed below the fish. She kept the umbilical cord and placenta....
The man in the yellow shirt entered the elevator and pressed the lowest button, which was marked 'B3'. The light next to the word 'DOWN' lit up, and down we went.
"Down?" I exclaimed in confusion. "I don't want to go down. I want to go up. I pressed 31. Why is the elevator obeying you and not me? I was here first."
"It likes me better," said the yellow-shirted man.
"Why would it like you? You're ugly looking and your shirt is stupid."
"How do you know what an elevator thinks is ugly? Maybe it likes my shirt."
I...
As he wandered through the countryside, he couldn't quite believe he'd done it. He'd done it. Gene Black had actually done it. Finally. And although it had been something he had been planning for months, years, maybe his whole life, he didn't feel quite as good as he thought he would.
He had dreamed of being a murderer for as long as he could remember. He had wanted to feel life draining away in his hands, to watch as the soul departed the body. If it did. It was all about experimentation and, perhaps understandably, there was nothing he could...
In the darkened room, the bishop waited, staring out of the window into the dying sun. In the half-light, the Gothic buildings of the Old Town appeared as if bathed in blood. They would be soon.
The princess would come. Oh she might have sworn an oath of loyalty to her brother but in the end words were meaningless. Actions were what really counted. And in a kingdom where son could kill father, could sister not kill brother also?
She had already proved her ability. It was well known that she was one of the most able poisoners in the...