It was nine o’clock on Halloween night and the rain had stopped. It had been a cold, needling rain, the kind that turned the streets black and glossy and made every jack-o’-lantern look as though it were floating in a puddle. Dorothy Reynolds was on her way home from a gathering at a friend’s house […]
One autumn I went to stay for the hunting season with some friends in a chateau in Picardy. My friends were fond of practical joking, as all my friends are. I do not care to know any other sort of people. When I arrived, they gave me a princely reception, which at once aroused distrust […]
Dusk shrouded the landscape in dense shadows as the moon peeped through the cloud cover on October 31st in the Pacific Northwest. It was a night rife with the mysterious. “Halloween!” shouted young children, moving stealthily, like criminals, down the sidewalks of the rural conclave of Mercer, Washington. In each little hand was clutched a goodie […]
Drayla, aged 6, carefully made her way down the steep concrete steps leading to the backyard of the home that her parents had just purchased. Arriving safely at the base of the flight, she looked out curiously at the dense verdant woods fronting the property. At her approach, flocks of starlings fluttered into the azure […]
Here it was, almost nine o’clock already, thought Otto, an old man living on a pension in Edgewood, Washington, a small hamlet south and east of Seattle. Observing that it was inky black outside at this time of night, Otto flipped on the back porch light and waited for “them” to arrive. He shuffled to […]
Molly was roused from sleep in her chair at the computer by a scruffing sound arising from the fireplace. Something was amiss. She looked around first for her pet cat, Freya, but found her asleep on the bearskin rug before the hearth, snoring softly. Some watchcat, thought Molly with mild annoyance. But, at least Freya […]
The bees’ knees were clattering noisily as they leaped from one flower to the next. So noisy were they that Tofu, the inimitable squirrel, who was the king of all he surveyed, was distracted in his search for acorns and nuts. “Silly Bees,” he scoffed impatiently. “What’s wit’ you, squirrel?” asked Darvon, a bumblebee, annoyed. […]
When I was younger, I lived by a wide canal. In the mornings, the sun rose like a long gold ball on the water. The drawbridge was next to my house and when the bridge went up, the cars lined down the road waiting for the bridge to close. When the bridge went down, the […]