Muse

by Sarah Gribble

I noticed him on a Saturday morning. He was fingering tomato plants across the square, nodding every so often at whatever the stall operator was saying. His eyes crinkled when he smiled, but too much, like he’d read the cliché about smiles not meeting eyes too many times and decided to reverse the idea—his never quite reached his mouth.

He didn’t buy a tomato plant. I followed him the rest of the morning; he didn’t buy anything.

Whether or not I had been drinking that morning is of no importance. What is important is when I returned to my dilapidated two-bedroom ranch, I wrote more than I had in months. (Continue Reading…)

Robin’s Rath

by Margery Lawrence

‘So ye’re goin’ to buy Robin’s Rath, young lady?’

Ellen Vandermyl raised her arched brows with a touch of hauteur at the old man’s tone. Not the daughter of a hundred earls, but of one immensely wealthy pork-packer who could deny her nothing, even to the purchase of Ghyll Hall, she had, as have so many American women of bourgeois birth, the tiny feet and delicate complexion that is generally considered the heritage of the aristocrat alone. Now she tapped a smart brogued shoe with an equally smart cane as she answered old Giles’s question, with a little note of asperity in her voice:

‘Of course I am—I have—it goes with Ghyll Hall! Besides, when I get a path made it will make a perfect short cut to the golf-links.’

There was a sudden stir and rustle among the group of villagers; with one accord they looked at old Giles—and there was a pointed little silence. Flushing with annoyance, Ellen glanced from one face to another. Her one wish was to get on well with the villagers of this tiny lovely village, Ghyllock, which seemed to live in the shelter of the old manor-house, Ghyll Hall, for centuries the seat of the Ruddocks, and now passing, like so many other many-memoried old houses, into the hands of the stranger. An only child, her father wax in her hands, the pretty spoilt American beauty had passed through Ghyllock only once, on a motor tour, and seeing the wonderful old house set in miles of green woods and meadows and fields, had given her father no peace till he offered to buy it for her—much as he would have endeavoured to buy the moon, had she wanted it! The grounds ran down to a narrow belt of woodland, thick with undergrowth, the tangling green luxuriance that had never known shears or pruning knife—Robin’s Rath. Beyond lay the golf links, within easy walking distance of the Hall when the path mentioned should be cut—certainly it seemed a good idea, and there was some reason for Ellen’s puzzled annoyance at the sudden silence that greeted her remark. Even the landlord of the picturesque inn, The Goose with the Golden Eggs, lounging in the shadow of his own doorway to listen to the gossip under the great elm tree outside, put down his mug of beer and stared at her curiously. She spoke sharply, addressing old Giles, whose heavy white brows were drawn down over his intent old eyes in a heavy frown.

‘What in the world’s the matter? You all look as if I’d threatened to kill somebody!’ (Continue Reading…)

Half-Men of the Night Marie

by Robin Husen

Three half-men in a lifeboat drifted on the methane sea.  Her ship’s name, Night Marie, was written on the stern like a tombstone.  The ship, along with the rest of her crew, had sunk thirty hours before sunset. Sparks, the ship’s half-boy, crouched in the bows, his ears still ringing with the sound of screams, though the sea had long since swallowed them up.  Hobb, the mate, lit the lanterns.  Beyond their circle of light, the darkness was total, as though they sat inside a bubble in a well of ink. (Continue Reading…)