Review: Wardings by Kev Harrison

Warding by Kev Harrison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this short story from Kev Harrison. It's a supernatural tale relating to witchcraft and the occult, throwing in demon possession and witch hunters too, with nice ties to rituals and folklore. It's packs a scary punch too. I read it over three nights, worried that it would give me nightmares, but fortunately I slept like the dead - although in this book that might not be so restful. It gives beating hearts a whole new perspective, especially if black.

Grab it if you dare.



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Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 280

This week's picture comes from Andy Poplar, who makes these incredible bottles, at Vinegar & Brown Paper - do have a look, there are loads of others, also household bottles. Brilliant idea. I can't find this pic on his site, but I suspect it used to be there as it dates back to 2017 (when it was first shared), and the page people link to is not found on his company site. I wonder if he sold this as a print as he does some of them. I love the colour contrast and the reflection in this one. 

This one went dark - like the bottle. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Corrosive

Debbie popped the cork on the funny shaped bottle of port and poured another large one into the glass. Her buzz was beginning to fade and she needed to refresh it. She gulped down half the glass and poured more in.

She was sick of being the one that made all the compromises. She did all the things he wanted to do, but he never did the things she wanted to do.

‘I’m not interested in the things you’re into,’ he would reply. ‘I don’t care about the things you care about.’ 

So why the fuck am I with you? she would think to herself. And indeed, she did wonder why she kept on tolerating it. Was it hope that one day he would turn into the lover she’d thought he was going to be? Was it the safety he’d provided? A roof over her head, a warm bed, and no expectations – emotional or physical. But the longer it went on the more resentful she felt, and the more angry she’d become.

Debbie hadn’t been angry when she’d met him. She’d been carefree and living her own life, enjoying her independence. But he’d been fun and sociable, and she felt comfortable with him, which had drawn her on. And she’d hoped that maybe this would be the one.

And he sort of had been for a while.

Then he’d started to do more and more of his own thing, and caring less and less if she joined him. Eventually they were living separate lives and just sharing a house. And the longer it had gone on, the more frustrated she’d become. And the more she’d tried to talk to him about it, the more he had stonewalled her.

She’d fly into rages and he’d shut down and fuck off out the front door, saying, ‘I’ll be back later when you’ve sorted yourself out.’

She’d been so furious she’d sometimes fucked off herself, making sure she wasn’t back until after he was – but he didn’t care; he’d be in bed snoring his head off like any other night and pretend the next day like nothing had happened.

And recently he’d been particularly belligerent and offhand, treating her with disrespect and distain, contempt in every eye roll and sigh. She’d ranted a few times at him already this week.

Debbie downed the last of her drink, drowning the spark of rage that tried to ignite, dowsing it with regret. It felt like heartburn – quelling one fire and creating another. She sat up and pushed her fingers against her diaphragm as though that might cure the unpleasant sensation.

She should have left years ago. It hadn’t been good staying, not for her or for him. They’d both tolerated more than they should. She wasn’t quite sure why. Hope maybe, or having already put so much time in – neither of them were quitters.

But they should have been, oh how they should have been.

She glanced over at him still sitting at the dining table. His eyes had glazed over, but the lids hadn’t shut. His head turned slightly as though watching telly, but he wasn’t. His mouth had dropped open too, as though amazed at something on the screen. It had opened when he’d gasped in reaction to the fork being shoved into his throat.

He’d uttered those dreadful words in such a condescending tone, she’d just lost it.

‘You are so fucking irritating; you turn everything into an argument, so tiresome. I just wish for once I could eat my fucking dinner in peace!’

A dinner she had cooked; a dinner she’d bought the ingredients for; a dinner she would clean up after, as though he was the only one working in this household.

It had been the final straw – or in this case, fork.

She popped the little cork on the bottle and poured another large glassful – not that she needed it. What she needed was a plan. What was she going to do? Disappear or call the police? She’d be on the run for the rest of her life. If she confessed how long would she be in prison for? Is there any way she could make them believe it was an accident? She was drunk and hadn’t called for an ambulance straight away … she could say it was shock.

Fuck. She took another swig of port and glanced at him.

‘Yeah, you get the last laugh, too.’

Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 279

This week's picture prompt is all over the web and on all the wallpaper websites, but despite hunting for several hours, I can not find a name credited to it on any of them, or find out where it is taken, which is a great shame. I still hope for the day that all pictures can be embedded with their creators name. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Waterlogged

When Lauren broke the surface of the water she was surprised to find her path to shore lined with waterlilies. The resort in the distance had no doubt planted them as decoration.

She hadn’t been told anything about the assignment, which was the norm; she had a name and a picture and that was all Lauren needed to complete it. They’d dropped her off in the ocean and told her to swim to shore, so she had done.

As the water became shallower, she stripped off the wetsuit and tank leaving it on a rocky outcrop, out of view of the beach she would be coming in on. Underneath, her black swimsuit made her less visible among the brightly coloured bikini’s on the beach and no-one paid her any attention. She absorbed all the faces as she headed towards the resort.

Lauren walked up to the bar and ordered a drink. The barman treated her as every other guest and she paused, looking back at the open ocean she had just traversed, taking a well earned breather.

Her target was here; she’d already spotted them as she’d walked across the beach. This might be one of her easiest jobs yet, and the beauty of it was she had the rest of the day to enjoy the facilities.

No one questioned Lauren’s presence in the Wellness Spa in the resort, or on the beach, and the buffet restaurant made it easy for her to take a plate and sit away from the guests so no one tried to engage her in conversation, or question why she was here alone in a couples resort.

She sat and enjoyed the sunset on the beach as she prepared for the final step. She had tracked the movements of her quarry and planned when to strike. She planned on being out of here before the bar closed; if it was too quiet it would be more difficult to get back into the water without being noticed.

Lauren got up and dusted the sand off her legs. Wrapping a complementary towel round her waist, she went into the main building. She’d been sent the layout and done a recce so knew where to go; the master keycard she’d been sent with the photo in hand. Other guests would just think she was walking to her room.

The card gave the green light and she carefully opened the door, listening for the sound of the shower. The cascading water was running and it masked her entry as she had anticipated. This particular guest was a creature of habit, and despite being on holiday, liked to go to bed early and read, even though her partner was downstairs enjoying himself at the bar.

Lauren slipped into the bathroom, careful not to be seen in the mirror, and in one swift movement stepped in and twisted her neck. The woman hadn’t even registered Lauren’s presence making it easier. She dried the body off and took it out of the bathroom, dressed it in night attire, then rolled it under the bed.

Then she rummaged through the suitcase and found another night dress and took her place in the bed, making sure only the bedside light was on. She picked up the book from the nightstand and waited. It wasn’t quite to Lauren’s taste; she wasn’t a fan of romance, especially not historical, but she had to play the part.

She heard the partner fumble the lock to the bedroom door and moved down further under the covers, bringing the book up. But he stumbled in, reeking of alcohol, not once looking at Lauren as he undressed and used the bathroom. And when he slid under the covers towards her, reaching out, she took the opportunity to turn and jam the spine of the book into his throat, cutting off air and sound. While he flailed she raised herself up into a more powerful position and twisted his neck too. It was over in seconds. Mission complete.

Lauren didn’t waste any time, and pulled out the other body arranging them both in bed as though curled up together sleeping. She prepped the room, wiping everything she’d touched and then exited the same way she had come in, having removed the night gown and returned the towel to her waist.

Although things were quieter outside, they weren’t yet dead, and she took her time, having another drink before strolling along the beach, the moonless, starlit night having been part of the planning. She wandered off into the green foliage at the side, making her way across the rocks to her wetsuit and tank where she had left them.

Once re-suited, she slipped into the water and used the outline of the waterlilies to lead her back out to sea, and the bouy where she’d be picked up.

A Year Among the Stars by M.T. Decker
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book, but it's extremely hard to write a review for it, as it is so difficult to describe - especially without giving a lot away.

It's written in a diary format from one person's point of view. The main MC is a convict who has decided to sign up to a fleet for deep space exploration to find other liveable planets. It sounds pretty standard trope, but the events in this are completely different to anything else that I've read in the sci-fi arena.

I love concepts of other dimensions, universes and planes of existence, and this covers them all. The female convict, Kat James gets involved in mending, building and piloting space craft, and it all feels very standard for the first half, until the first landing party discovers the rusted-out hulk of one of their landing craft and even see the dead bodies of those are still living back on the ship, it all changes. We are introduced to aliens on other planes and in other times, and different civilastions of aliens, and a type of wormhole, which is also a timehole, Kat can eventually open up at will, called The Well. It descends into warring between nations until another large threat brings them together.

I really enjoyed this book, and if you like sci-fi from a different angle, this might be for you.

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Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 278

This week's pricture prompt is by Cyril Rolando, a French digital artist over on Artstation, and they make some incredible art, the surreal but yet understandable art I love, worth a look. They call this one 'You Belong To Me'. 

I didn't want a standard fairytale, so I twisted this one slightly. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Legend

‘Legend has it he lifted the lid on all those bell jars that night, killing the lot of them. He believed that if none of them belonged to him, he wouldn’t let anyone have them.’

‘But they were just roses, Gran, surely they needed the air to help them grow?’

‘Oh no, my dear Michael, you misunderstand, they were far more than just roses, and they needed the glass to protect them. They were fragile and precious and full of magic. Exposing them killed them.’

‘But they’d grow back, wouldn’t they? Like all roses on a bush, they die off and then they grow again the next year.’

‘But these roses weren’t ordinary flowers. They represented a different woman, one with knowledge beyond that of any mortal person, a woman with gifted powers.’

‘Witches, Gran?’

‘Hush boy! Don’t be using that word around me! I’ll not have it! Just because a woman is gifted with more power than a man could carry in his little finger, doesn’t make them bad – the opposite in fact. Men liked to use such names to belittle and demean women, making them out to be monsters, to incite the killing of them – which they did plenty of on their pyres later.’

Michael was surprised by his Gran’s reaction, but still smirked. She was getting quite carried away with her tale, one a simple picture he’d found in an art history book had inspired.

‘Like the Salem Witch Hunts?’

‘Oh that was the tail end of it, my dear, far worse had gone on centuries before all over the world, but especially in Europe. That last showdown in the Americas was the start of the awakening.’

Michael frowned not quite knowing what she meant and was about to ask when she tapped her long fingernail on the page.

 ‘Oh no, women holding their power and themselves in flower buds went all the way back to long before the crusades – maybe centuries before that, no one knows anymore; books were not a thing back then, only word of mouth. And him,’ she tapped the page again, ‘he was the one that began the downfall. Before him, women were in charge and things were balanced and harmonious.”

‘You talk like you met him, Gran.’ Michael wondered if she had drifted into the land of make believe which she did sometimes.

‘Oh I never got to meet him, no; he was way before my time. But I met many like him. They made the world a dark place for many a century they did.’

‘And it’s not dark anymore?’

‘Oh no, dear, it’s been on the rise for a good couple of centuries now.’ Michael gave her a disbelieving side look. ‘I know your generation might not think so, with all this uproar going on and all this corruption coming out into the light. I know it seems like they don’t care and have all the power, but that’s not true. We have to see it all, you see, to be able to do something about it.’

“But no one is doing anything about it, Gran.’

She tapped the side of her nose. “That’s what you think, but we are.’

‘Who’s “we”’?

‘The roses that have been in hiding and gathering; they’re on the up rise again now.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Who do you think is keeping them safe?’

She winked at him and he stared at her, his mouth dropping open.

  

Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 277

This week's prompt photo is an unknown. I had saved it from twitter, but the account it came from is no longer there. Usually Google image search, or Tin Eye give me a lead, but this time there were zero matches. I could choose to use a different photo of the same thing, but something about the shadows and the blue light inspires me more than any others of the same location I've looked at, because this is a famous location. It's a stone colonnade in Park Güell, a stunning park in Barcelona that was designed by Antoni Gaudí. Should you see this and say, this is my photo - give me a shout and I will give it full credit. I look forward to the day that all digital pictures can carry the name of their creator. 

This week a clandestine conversation. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Disappear

“We can’t hide here forever.”

“What other option do we have?”

Daphne strolled with Darien through the ancient colonnades of the partially ruined castle on the Duke’s grounds. Her eyes were full of fear and her jaw tense, as he glanced at her striking profile.

“We have to get you away from here before Earl Harrowith returns.”

“But I am not sure I can desert this land and my people–”

“They are no longer your people, they have made that clear.”

“They’ve had their minds twisted by Lord Cannon. He provides endless false claims and manipulates others into deluded thinking for his own ends.”

“He wants our riches alright, but pretends to others that he is liberating them from us as though we have some special power over them – when the reverse is true. But we can not fight him, not here, not now.”

“Tell me where and how?”

Darien laughed. “That day has not yet come, my beloved, first we must depart and let the world die down. We need to find a safe location where you won’t be found or recognised and where we will live a very different life.”

“And is there such a place?”

“Yes, I believe I have found it.”

“Where?”

“I have entrusted no one with that information, and I don’t dare tell even you. I have made plans though, for each stage of our journey, so no single person can work it out.”

“But we will be followed, surely? We haven’t been able to take a single step out of here, since we were ousted from our home.”

Daphne stopped walking and stood wringing her hands as her eyes searched the gardens between the columns for the glint of sun on lens glass.

“That will change tonight. I have arranged disguises and papers for our trip.”

“Disguises? Do you think they will work?”

Darien was pleased to see a glimmer of hope spark in her eyes.

“Yes. I do.”

Later that evening, after the Duke of Redmaine hosted the annual dinner for over a hundred clerics and nuns from more than fifty parishes, no one noticed two additions leaving with the rest of the attendees. The car they left in was a slightly different model and not chauffeured, but no eyebrow was raised as the Queen and her consort drove out of their public lives into oblivion.

Mid-Week Flash Challenge - Week 276

This week's Picture prompt is by Jeannie Ann Numos aka i-am-JENius over on Deviant Art, and she calls this one Take Me Where Dreams Are. This is not the first picture of Jeannie's I have used,  I used another on Week 172, and also Week 159. 

A little bit dark, but that's normal for me, and a story written only in dialogue. It's good practise to describe the events of the story through dialogue only. 

The General Guidelines can be found here.

How to create a clickable link in Blogger comments can be found on lasts week's post here. 

There is also a Facebook group for Mid-Week Flash, if you fancy getting the prompt there.

Angels

‘I’m going to look for mummy.’

‘No, you mustn’t!’

‘It’s okay, no one will see me.’

‘You can’t leave me alone!’

‘Then come with me.’

‘We mustn’t.’

‘No one will know.’

‘Daddy will know.’

‘How?’

‘He always knows.’

‘He isn’t here.’

‘You don’t know that; he might be watching us.’

‘He hasn’t been here for ages.’

‘Neither has mummy.’

‘Which is why we have to find her. Come on.’

‘Daddy got cross with her.’

‘I know.’

‘She usually goes to her bedroom.’

‘I know, but look she’s not in there.’

‘Where do you think she is, then?’

‘Maybe she’s in the garden. She likes to go there when Daddy gets cross.’

‘He gets cross a lot.’

‘I know, come on let’s take the back stairs.’

‘He’s been shouting lots more lately.’

‘I know.’

‘Where do you think he has gone?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’m scared.’

‘Don’t be. I heard a car. I think he’s gone away.’

‘I hope so.’

‘Look the doors are open, mummy must be out there.’

‘I can’t wait to see her and hug her.’

‘Me too.’

‘She needs a hug after how angry daddy got.’

‘She does.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that angry.’

‘I told you to shut your eyes. You did, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, but the loud bangs made me jump.’

‘They made me jump too.’

‘There’s a big hole in our bedroom door.’

‘A really big hole, but let’s go find mummy. She’ll make it better.’

‘Yes, she always makes it better. The garden looks so pretty from up here.’

‘It does. Look there’s mummy! She’s waving at us.’

‘She looks so pretty up there on that cloud, like an angel.’

‘Because she is an angel, like us.’

‘Daddy’s not here.’

‘No, Daddy’s not allowed up here; he was so cross he turned us into angels, so he has to go to the other place.’

‘Poor Daddy.’

‘Not really. It’s better that way. Mummy will be happy now.’

‘She’s smiling.’

‘She is. Mummy!’

‘We’re so happy we found you!’

‘My darlings.’