Diarmit leaned back in his throne.

“What did my cousin do now?”

Seachta hesitated.

“Well?”

“He took the book. He’s gone.”

Anger rolled across Diarmit’s face like a winter storm sweeping across frozen fields. He glared at Seachta. Yet there was silence.

“We’ve begun the search,” Seachta continued. “He likely left in the afternoon with the girl. They could not have kept at it all night. They m...

“Suzy, you really can’t let them do this. It’s embarrassing for you. It’s embarrassing for me.”

She looked at him in this place that was all his. His books. His pictures. His knick knacks and memories from his successful life in film and teaching. She felt small.

Susan remembered being here as a student. She was so excited. She had so many hopes and ambitions. Back then, every corner of his offi...

Colm surveyed the scene before him. Beneath a darkened and drizzling sky, mist swirled over the bodies. So many bodies. Their forces had won. They whooped and shouted, moving among the fallen. They removed their valuables, picking the carcass of a dead army clean. Colm felt sick to his stomach.

“I made a mistake,” he said.

“But we won,” Síofra said.

“Did we? Look at what I have caused.”

Síofra...

I discovered the bus on the trail. How it got there, I didn’t know. It was old and had obviously been there for quite a while. Sure, there had been an old road here at one time, now grown in with blackberries and brush. It had probably come in during a much better time when the patch was clear and before a scrabble of tough grasses had replaced gravel. But now it sat in dappled moonlight, down the...

Siofra could hear it drifting an the mist. A low keening that came and went with the clouds scuttering across the moon. She looked across the fields but they were empty. Only tall grasses swaying with the wind in the moonlight. And still the sound came, lifting and swelling in volume before it collapsed and evporated. When she was uncertain where it was coming from it was at its loudest. About the...

It lay onthe grass, sparkling. It was crafted of gold and silver so fine Siofra felt as if it would shatter if she was to breathe on it. Fine fronds spun away gently from a central core like spider webs in the morning dew. She picked it up gently from one end as wings of woven metal draped themselves across her fingers. They flowed as if they were liquid. It was the most beautiful thing Siofra had...

I am missing an arm. It sounds so careless. I didn't set it down and lose it like some treasured thing that I didn't look after. No it was stolen from me. The Cata took it right at the elbow. But I got even. I took it back.

I don't miss my arm. I'm sure everyone who is missing a hand or a leg or anything would say that. In my case it is true. It happened so long ago that I have grown accustomed t...

"Get down from there right this second, you sh*t head!"

The Pirate looked down. Mr. Jeffries was right below him at the base of the ladder. This was not going according to plan.

"What are you doing up there?" Jeffries barked. It really was a question but the Pirate knew what he was actually saying was "you had better not be be messing with our mascot or I am going to kicking your ass into next w...

"It's different than that," he said. "I can't just turn in on when I want."

Siofra was silent for a moment. She studied him.

"I do know when it it useful. I have this twinge an I find myself reaching for something that I know will fulfill that. And I've had training."

"Training?" Siofra asked.

"Like you, I was young once. I had a mentor. She showed me how to reach down and pull it up. I wasn't...

“But I don’t want to go to bed, the man with no eyes is waiting for me in the closet!”

Ann turned slowly and looked at Gretchen.

“Who?”

“The man with no eyes.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a man with no eyes. He’s in the closet.”

Ann stepped slowly away from the closet. Everything inside her told her to jump forward, grab something as a weapon, and face the closet. Instead, she eased for...