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Excerpts
The Ghost and Mrs.
Dunn
By Linda
White-Francis, with Megan Hussey
Prologue
The sheer brilliance of a Spellfire sun was a welcome beacon to
Rooney Dunn, who literally floated across the tree-lined avenues
that distinguished his childhood home.
After waving at a passing werewolf
who shared his stretch of road, he beamed warmly at the sight of
Sinful Sundaes; a favorite dessert shop formerly owned by longtime
friend Elektra Spellfire.
Yet it was another longtime friend,
Madeleine Moonlander, who welcomed his arrival to the shop. Like
Rooney, Madeleine had left Spellfire as a young adult, returning
last year to find true love with the handsome vampire Drake and lots
of sumptuous sundaes at their ‘Sinful’ date spot.
“Madeleine!” Rooney opened his arms
to greet his longtime friend with a warm, affirming hug.
“Rooney!” Drawing back, the radiant,
raven-haired Madeleine motioned her old friend toward a nearby
table. “Take a load off, my friend. It’s been so long since I’ve
seen you.”
“It seems like a lifetime,” Rooney
nodded in agreement.
Soon the two sat at a corner table,
reminiscing over a gourmet sundae that sent happy ‘ice cream chills’
down Rooney’s spine.
“It’s so good to sample one of these
famous treats, Madeleine,” Rooney smacked his lips heartily then
took a long, loving look around the interior of his friend’s
restaurant. “It’s good to be back home.”
Nodding, Madeleine reached across
the table to grace his hand with a reassuring squeeze. “It’s good to
have you back. I just moved back recently myself, when I married
Drake,” she cocked her head curiously. “I must say, though, that
something about you seems different. You seem…”
“Dead?” Rooney arched his eyebrows.
Madeleine snapped her fingers.
“That’s it!” Her eyes grew wide as she considered his words.
“Really, Rooney? Are you sure?”
“I had a heart attack,” her friend’s
tone was low and melancholy. “When I went to that place they so
dramatically call ‘the great beyond,’ they said I had the option of
coming home,” he shrugged, “literally, I guess.”
“And why not?” Madeleine winked.
“This was your birthplace, though I think your mom and dad left for
the Midwest to give you a more normal upbringing. Now as a ghost,
you fit right in!”
“Indeed,” Rooney laughed lightly. “I
was never comfortable bringing my wife Jane here. She’s such a sweet
and proper lady, and I didn’t think she’d be comfortable with all
the paranormal beings and strange goings on.” He shot an apologetic
glance to a vampire who sat at a nearby table. ”No offense, buddy.”
“None taken,” the vamp grinned
good-naturedly, displaying a fierce set of fangs in the process.
“Through the years, I did make it
back to Spellfire for an occasional visit,” Rooney gestured freely
around him. “It’s good to be home to stay, Madeleine. Even so, I
miss my Janie. I do have the power to visit her once in awhile, but
it’s just not the same.”
Madeleine clicked her tongue in what
seemed to be a gesture of sublime sympathy. “How is Jane, Rooney?
She must be devastated.”
Rooney shrugged. “She was, at
first,” he stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Slowly but surely,
though, she’s moving on.”
Linda White-Francis,
http://linda-lee6405.tripod.com
Megan Hussey,
http://goldenmuse.tripod.com
--------------------------------------------------
Hoops and Homer
By
Elizabeth Eden
“I had the damnedest dream last
night, Josh.” Brian Lindell cradled his cell phone between his jaw
and shoulder while he put jelly on a biscuit.
“What’s the matter? All the peace
and quiet of a small town getting to you?” Josh laughed at Brian,
and his tinny chuckles could be heard without amplification.
“That’s just it. That dream wasn’t
peaceful or quiet.” Giving up on trying to hold the phone in the
crook of his neck, Brian laid it on the table and pressed the button
to put it in speaker mode. Satisfied that he could carry on a
conversation and eat at the same time, he continued. “There was a
full moon last night, and I got home late. Took my Realtor to
dinner. Must have eaten too much or something.” A big bite of
biscuit stopped his explanation for a second or two. “I got
comfortable in bed, fell asleep quickly enough then this dream came
along. I dreamed I got out of bed and went to the window overlooking
the driveway because I heard shouting and laughing outside.”
Brian shuffled the morning edition
of The Spawn, the Spellfire newspaper, so he could see the
sports section. “The driveway is double wide but goes into a single
garage. Someone nailed an old basketball hoop at the point of the
roof. Dang thing looks like it’s a hundred years old. There were
people in my driveway playing basketball!”
“Basketball!” Josh sounded as
shocked as Brian. “Now what made you dream of that? We aren’t into
that sport!” Josh snorted while Brian nodded.
“You know what was the weirdest part
of the dream?”
“I hate to ask if you were dreaming
about basketball instead of baseball. That sounds more like a
nightmare to me.”
“A girl led with the ball down to
the bucket, and she made most of the points too.”
“No shit?” Even from a distance of a
thousand miles, Josh managed to sound impressed.
“No shit. She was dang good too. A
little smaller than the guys and younger. A few of the players
looked pretty old. But they moved well enough. Just not good enough
to keep her from scoring.” Brian grinned at the memory of the woman
weaving in and out among long legs and highflying arms. “The dream
ended when I opened the window and yelled at them to stop playing in
my driveway at two-thirty in the morning.” He paused long enough
that Josh called his name several times, asking if he was still
there. “Yeah, I’m still here. All those guys—and that woman—looked
at me like I was crazy. One of them asked if I could see them. I
yelled back that of course I could see them. Hear them too.”
“Sure is inconsiderate of them to
play after dark in someone’s driveway. They should have gone to the
city park. Spellfire has a park, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose. I’ll have to find out.
But in my dream, I sort of blinked, or maybe I fell asleep in my own
dream, but I could have sworn those people just…” The word refused
to come out despite Brian’s efforts. Silence fell over the
conversation.
“For heaven’s sake, Homer. Just
what?” Josh’s exasperation with Brian was apparent because he called
his friend by his nickname.
“Those people…. They just vanished.”
Brian felt better once he said the word. Even in the context of a
dream, looking out and seeing people in your drive one second and
nothing there the next was spooky.
“I don’t remember anything after
that.” Brian swirled his fork though his scrambled eggs and watched
a kid ride by on his bike. Having breakfast outside on the porch
helped him clear his mind of people vanishing.
Him shuffling through the newspaper
laid out on the table must have caught Josh’s attention, because the
conversation switched from a dream that neither could explain to the
latest sports news.
Readers can contact
Elizabeth at
Eeden2007@gmail.com
--------------------------------------------------
Bound!
By Ruth Bolin
“Good night, Miriam. Sleep well,”
the beautiful young woman said quietly as she scooped up her son
from the carpet in front of the fireplace. “See you in the morning.”
“Sweet dreams, Jenna. Bring
that scamp over here, and let me hug his neck,” the doctor asked
from where she sat nestled in the cushions of her favorite easy
chair. Laughing at the antics of the ten month old as his mother
brought him for an evening kiss and hug, she cuddled the sweet
drooling child, swatted him playfully on the rear and released him
back to his mama. “Night, you little mess.”
Jenna gathered her son close
for a minute as she stared at the doctor then moved with a smooth
gait across the room toward the man who waited at the door. He stood
in dark shadows that seemed to embrace him rather than swallow him.
Morgan Vance was no stranger to shadows and had learned to overcome
them. He was no longer afraid of them, but rather met them with
determination. His arm reached out to gather his wife and son close
as if he needed the assurance of their nearness. Before the trio
left the room, Morgan glanced back from where he stood at the door.
“Be safe, Morgan,” Dr. Miriam
Shapiro whispered in the darkness. The man nodded then pulled his
family from the room to the haven of their bedroom. Miriam sighed
after they left. How long would it be, if ever, before the pain and
memories of the past vanished from the couple’s faces? She thought
in some ways those experiences almost two years ago had left them
more vulnerable but twice as strong.
Light from the banked fire cast
fitful shadows across the floor at the doctor’s feet. It wouldn’t be
long before the warmth gave out, and she’d retire for the evening.
She was tired, but pleasantly so. The Vance’s summer home—a small
cabin by a lake—lay hidden in the Piney Woods on the outskirts of
Spellfire, Texas and offered the only peace Miriam found from her
busy practice. Their hospitality was always open to her. Her weary
eyes caught the flash of light off the glass on the picture sitting
on the mantle piece. Getting up, she reached out and pulled it to
her. Sitting on the edge of the ottoman so that she could see the
photograph better, she studied the family portrait.
“So much happened. So much pain and
degradation, so much humiliation,” she whispered. “Yet from those
times came this love like no other. Only trials of the heart can do
that.” She ran her fingers lovingly over the faces in the
photograph.
* * * *
The photographer had brought the
small family out onto the front porch of their winter home in
Montana and posed them at the corner by the railing. Morgan and
Jenna supported their son, Jacob, as he stood on the porch rail.
Morgan leaned against the corner post with his right hand around
Jacob’s middle. His other arm wrapped around his wife’s waist. Jenna
leaned into her husband’s shoulder with her right arm around his
narrow waist. Her left hand also supported Jacob as he bounced up
and down in his enthusiasm. One hand above the other…one tiny hand
lying on top of each as the child patted them.
No matter how the photographer
cajoled that day, he couldn’t get Morgan Vance to smile. Miriam had
been there and knew only Jenna, or their son, could coax a smile
from the man. Instead of a smile, Miriam saw a pleasant face with a
rather solemn expression. The deep gray eyes reflected a steely
glint, a deep burning determination to keep his family safe. She
doubted if that look would ever leave the man’s eyes.
Jenna smiled for the camera though.
Her spring green dress with wide white collar was the perfect match
for her forest green eyes and deep auburn hair. She still wore it
past her shoulders but had pulled it back in easy curls on each side
of her face. A stranger might have seen no trouble in her
expression, but Miriam saw the frailty in the woman’s eyes, a
susceptibility mirrored there as if she feared the winds of fate
might carry away the man she loved or the child she cherished. Each
was beyond precious measure to Jenna Vance.
Email Ruth at
mssubmissions@gmail.com
--------------------------------------------------
Becka’s Dream
By Leanne Strange
Becka Greenflower sped across the
Spellfire courthouse lawn searching for another glimpse of the one
thing in the whole wide world she never thought she’d see. How could
it be here, of all places, and now, of all times? If
it was here, what was she going to do?
Another glimpse, she thought, of
something she’d only imagined in her dreams. Yet, those dreams had
seemed so real. It—the dream cloud—had floated in the
daylight before her this time. She’d followed it to the middle of
the courthouse lawn, back around Sinful Sundaes and then across to
the park where the statue of a naked man had once stood, now
replaced by a new statue of some unknown ghost soldier.
She went across from the town circle
park to the one back near the library as fast as her sandaled feet
allowed her. She didn’t want to lose the last fading embers of that
runaway dream cloud. Those things were rare, and so her wishing to
see that one thing had to be real. It had to be real. She’d never
wanted anything more in her life than to actually hold one of those
in her hands.
Would she ever really do that?
Just as she rounded the south corner
of the library, she slammed hard into someone who was bigger,
broader, and more muscular than her, someone who caught hold of her
by the shoulders and swung her around with the momentum. The breath
left her body, and she gulped for more air as she tried to shake
loose from his grasp. The dream cloud was getting away, and if the
goon who held her didn’t let her go, she might never find it again.
While trying to get free, she
watched the dream cloud dissipate and poof out of her sight. Then
she turned angrily to the person who’d dared to get in her way. Damn
him! She looked upward at one of the tallest men she’d ever seen,
and she wasn’t short by any means. He had a strong square face,
dimpled jawline and the most incredible bright green eyes she’d ever
seen. To say he was muscular-looking even in that loose t-shirt and
baggy kakis stated his good looks mildly. His cinnamon brown hair
was long and straight, and tendrils blew haphazardly around him,
thrusting teasingly in her face and tickling her nose.
She ah-chooed right on his
left shoulder!
“Now, hold on there, little lady.
Where are you going in such an all-fired hurry?” His voice was deep
and rustic, like he’d just stepped out of a pasture full of cattle.
“That’s none of your darn business.
You imbecile. You just made me lose the dream cloud!” She finally
wriggled free of his hold, kicked him in the left shin and then
scrambled across the park to the place where she’d seen the cloud
disappearing near the woods.
Rowdy Woodcock scratched his shaggy
head of hair and felt bewildered. Now that was one ornery woman!
Might pretty, that was for sure, but downright temperamental, and
she wasn’t even a redhead.
“Hold on, now,” he called after her.
She had to have heard him, but she didn’t slow down or acknowledge
him in any way. He started after her, running to catch up. “Just
wait a minute. I got a whole passel of them clouds back at the
ranch.”
By the time she stopped dead in her
tracks, he bumped into her, knocking her off her feet. He reached
down to pick her up, entranced by the bouncing curls of honey blonde
that tousled across her perky breasts, also worthy of admiration in
that pretty, low-cut spring dress she wore.
Her soft blue eyes opened wide, and
she stared up at him in disbelief. “What do you mean you have a
whole passel of them? No one grows dream clouds. They’re elusive
and... and... who the heck are you and how’d you know what those
were?”
“I told you. I have a whole...”
Becka pushed back from him and
looked up at him. How could she believe he was telling the truth?
“Quit pulling my leg.”
“Honey,” that tempting lecherous
grin of his opened slowly, “pulling your leg isn’t what I’d like to
do to you right now.”
Email Leanne at
mssubmissions@gmail.com
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