Magenta Monster

It was cold and dank at the edge of the cave and yet they still drove us onwards, metal chain ladders with rungs only wide enough for one foot at a time were swung over the edge. The pit lead down to a great open chamber and they had allowed us 24 hours to pack. No one had managed to escape – we looked too different. I tied a crate to the end of a rope and lowered it to some unknown below who removed it and I hoped would not be stealing it. I had a rucksack on my back and various bags hanging off of me, I’d trailed a small sledge full of the crates.

The ladder swung precariously as I climbed down, slippery from the moister, the weight of me and the rucksack meant that I was leaning back into the dark void, I could smell lamps burning and I wondered how long we would have light for.

The Nesu were not bad people, I knew why they were doing this but at the base I saw what was to be our home or more likely our living grave and the children clinging to their parents. I hated them then, and I hated being a Suma. All I wanted was to go home.

The cold of the rocks seemed to be drawing the warmth from my body, and I feared that I was at the beginning stages of the illness.

To my surprise I found my stuff and move off deeper into the cavern, in the flickering stinking yellow light I saw gashed smiles embedded in the glittering cave walls, a steady drip drip drip, sliced into my brain, it was not the regular tick of a clock that can be ignored. I wondered if that alone would send us insane. It was said our ancestors had dwelled in such places, I already ached for the sky.

The lighting was dim but the cavern floor was not as uneven as I had expected, my sturdy boots added their own echos to the slowly building cacophony of noise, every whisper, every word, bounced and rebounded and seemed to grow in the strange moisture ladened air. I realised that it was not as chill here as it was at the mouth of the cave but it was damp and still not what I would have called warm.

I saw families setting up home in little alcoves around the central chambers, I saw groups puzzling how to pitch tents on stone, others had blankets and that was all, I had my sled. I kept moving, Kramish would be as far in as it was possible to get. I spotted them and trundled my way forward, I was tired and my shoulders aches from the weight I was carrying. They nodded to me and I took note of the large crates they had stacked in the middle.

‘We are sending out teams to explore and map the system,’ Kramish said to me, a look of subdued fear made the eyes hollow, I nodded.

‘We hope for a way out,’ that much I felt was obvious, we could not live here.

I paused knowing it was not really my place but these were different times, ‘could we dig our way out? Did they let you bring tools?’

A sadness seemed to linger in the air, and then, ‘we have tools, not as many as we would like. There is a chance that we could scrap through to the outside world we have no explosives and couldn’t risk them even if we have the resources with us to make them.’ I nodded understanding and feeling the icy wash of foreboding in my stomach.

‘Jenleg will organise a scaffold to the roof and we shall find the highest point to work on, the area directly beneath will have to be devoid of our citizens.’

I sighed and looked around for a place to dump my stuff, Jenleg called to me and showed me the little recesses, natural formations of the cave that they had been setting up for the various teams. I started at the realisation that our leaders had known of this travesty for more than 24 hours I and many others had known. I turned, ‘how long have you known?’ I hissed.

‘Two weeks, there was nothing we could do so we prepared, to tell the population sooner would have caused panic and we need as many of us to survive this as possible.’ Jenleg said, ears dropping down with emotional shame. I nodded curtly but felt angry that I personally had not been warned that such a thing was about to happen. If I was honest I knew that something had been occurring – I had wondered if we would all be burned in our houses by a mob.

‘What of the illness?’ I grunted as I deposited my stuff, the floor here was cover in soft squishy matting, the sort we normally used for the gym.

‘The progress is still as slow as ever, we are setting up a lab over there,’ I followed the gesture and saw a small opening in the cave wall, a hum of activity could be heard form it. ‘But the Doctors are worried, we are all going to be packed in here, if they block the entrance then there will be little air circulation, there maybe none at all, of course if that happens it is game over anyway but if we can still breath we will be breathing each others germs, we will be in close quarters and the illness is not the only health problem we will have to face.’

I shuddered and wondered how they were going to keep control of the population. Things could get very nasty if panic took hold.

‘Sort your bed out and came for a meeting and job allocation, it is going to take them days to file our population into this stinking whole.’

I nodded mutely there was nothing to say, I had been awake for more than 30 hours, first manically packing and then walking at gun point to the cave, my muscles ached and I was hungry. Jenleg squeezed my arm and then muttered something about making me a cup of stim, I didn’t respond but set to work staking out my area.

This month sees the first ever flash fiction day and I am hurriedly submitting stories to various places – there doesn’t seem to be anything in Gloucestershire but over in Oxford they are running an event which I shall be reading at 🙂

The day is the idea of Calum Kerr and will take place on the 16th May 2012.

I am very excited as I love things like National Poetry Day UK (which is what sparked the idea for Calum in the first place).

He is also writing a flash fiction a day! Which sounds an exciting writing challenge 🙂

Angular stared around the vast room, it was like nothing she had ever seen before, her father was crying and laughing and shaking the aid workers hand. The man was grinning, ‘I’m glad you like it! You will be sharing this complex with four other families I’m afraid so you might feel a bit cramped.’

Five other families? Angular thought, they’d just spent seven years sharing one apparetment with three other families and that must have been the size of this entrance hall. At ten years old that was most of her life! She wasn’t sure she liked the big vualted cieling or the insesant bobbing of the floor benieth her feet. Not that the apartement had been still but it only tended to shudder when heavy traffic went past – this… this was something else.

‘Unless by some small chance you happen to have farming experience there will have to be a set up team – who will be arriving in the morning.’ the man continued.

Her father was blushing, ‘I was a cow farmer… before…. he trailed off.’ the aid worker looked delighted – really? Oh fantastic – I assume that goats will be not problem then?’ her father shook his head he’d grown up with goats.

‘However you will still need to produce crops,’ he said curtly.

‘Mum used to grow wheat and veg and stuff,’ Jess interupted, the fifteen year old really was looking quiet fat and quiet ill, Angular was worried her sister had always been so full of vitality. Benji was holding the older girls hands looking frightened, he had never really known the farm, he was less than year when the solders had come.

‘Excellent, don’t suppose you had hydroponics?’ the aid worker asked.

‘We had some, but not lab ‘ponics’ her mother answered looking slightly glazed.

‘Brilliant! I think we lucked out on having you as the first family on board this one! We will be introducing a family to each seastead to begin with, to get them all started. I will show you where the weapons are and how the bilge pumps work ect….’

‘Weapons?’ her father whispered looking ashen.

‘There will be pirates – probably not in the first few years of the project but there will be.’

‘Oh,’ the family muttered together, but then how different were pirates going to be from the soldiers? And this time they would have guns!

‘Are there fish?’ he brother asked suddenly, he didn’t really understand about the guns.

‘No not yet,’ the aid worker said, ‘though the design has aqua-bulbs below it for algea farms – this will be important for base nutrients and water processing. The bulbs are made so that we can attach fish tanks later once our scientists have a steady population going that is!’

‘Fish real fish?’ her father said looking wide eyed, ‘I remember there were fish when I was really little, I think we used to eat them?’

The aid worker nodded, ‘yes before the biodiversity crash people used to catch fish to eat – seems incredible now.’

He showed them this and that but Angular begain to get board, Jess and …… thought it was a good idea to explore. There seemed to be rooms for everything, ones with tables and chairs and others with very large stoves in and far too many cupboards! And when the children looked they were full of tinned food. There were bags of rice and flour and so many things Jess seemed to half remember but Angular could not recall.

The Farm narrowed as you went higher, they were very much like giant flating pine cones, the aid worker reckoned it was to make them more stable in storms, Angular didn’t like the sound of that.

Half was up green houses begain to appear, most had little in other than sacks of soil and packets of seeds awaiting planting. But right at the top there was a domed room, there were tables and chairs on a little plinth and some brightly coloured things Jess called toys. ‘They’re slides and swings!’ she breathed as if it was the most wonderful thing in the world. Angular and her borther prodded them suspiscously. But best of all was what they where on – grass! Cool green, sweet grass, all three of them stood bare footed and wriggeled their toes drinking in the sensation.

Jess seemed to be feeling better, though she kept putting her hand to her stomache. They found their perants saying hello to the goats. The aid worker was filling in the paper work – though this was all done on a small device that looked like the e-reader they saved from the Farm.

‘Oh by the way, there is no family size restrictions on these Sea Farms but I suppose you were steralised?’ he asked their mother, she looked sad but nodded her eyes darting to Jess for some reason.

‘And your too young!’ he said cheerfully, Jess burst into tears. The aid worker looked startled.

‘The soldiers had special work for Jess,’ her father said.

‘She did dancing for them!’ Benji said.

‘Contaception doesn’t always work.’ her mother said, blushing. Angular and Benji looked at each other wondering what the conversation was actually about.

‘Don’t tell them Mum they’ll take it away!’ Jess wailed.

‘Ah I see,’ said the aid worker looking suddenly older than he had. ‘We aren’t going to take your baby away Jess.’

‘Baby?’ Angular asked looking at her sister. Jess looked away still crying.

The aid worker coughed, ‘I will have a cott and things put on board later in the week and a medic will check her out properlly.’

‘Noooo! They’ll kill it!’ Jess screamed trying to fight her mother off.

‘No Jess no honey – it’s ok now! We have a farm and there are no solders!’

Jess looked at the Aid worker with red rimmed eyes so large with fear and innocence, ‘I.. I can have my baby?’ she asked quietly.

‘Yes’ he said simply.

‘So it’s going to be ok?’ she said looking at her perants

‘We hope so.’ they said.

Angular hugged her sister and kissed her tummy her brother lent over and whispered, ‘you’ll be safe now.’ and did the same.

Angular packed a bag of mega belongings, amongst which was the rag doll she had manged to bring from their farm. She had little memory of the place but what she did have was coloured by her perants rememberings. The cows warm soft noses, the mollassis stodge in shiny pllastic buckets around the fields. Oh yes the fields she remembered them, longed for them in her dreams, grass. She wanted grass, its coolness benieth her feet.

She stuffed the toy in her bag roughly, angry, generations they had been here, it was their land! Oh not that exact spot to be sure, but they had been farmers on one side or other of her family for as far back as any of them knew. But the war had changed things, and land was needed for housing by the new regieme.

The solders had come to the house, her golden house with dark beams and had told her perants to pack. They had protested they were farmers – farmers where always safe, people always needed food. A camo arm had wacked her father across the face blooming his noise into a bloody mess. Jess had taken her hand and they had packed things important to them and Benji. Mostly they put in blankets and toys, and the e-reader.

This had been a dangerous thing to do, it contained a copy of wikipedia as well as other forbidden texts but it was in the hands of children so all subsequent searches assumed it to be school issue. The e-reader was now packed in Benjis bag he was still only seven, the rouse would probably work again they hoped. Besides this time they were being expelled from the country, some strange scheme, she was worried about it, so was her mum and dad. They looked so old, fingers blistered and burned from working in the PCB factory.

But why uproot them again? They had one room in a shared apartment – the whole thing was smaller than the downstairs of the farm had been. The room had become extra opressive recently as Jess just sat crying alot and putting on weight. How she was managing this was beyound Angular, they had very little food, the Asian bread basket had folded two years before. Around the time the solders had taken their mother away to be steralised, she had more children than she was allowed and it was only Dad’s hard working record that had saved him from the mines.

‘Mum were are we going?’ Angular asked suddenly, her mothers eyes brimmed with tears.

‘I don’t know.’ she whispered horsely.

Everything was packed, within two hours there wasn’t much, the soldiers knocked and escorted them out at gun point. Everyone from the little appartment had hugged and said good bye just in case. Mrs Cheryl had sobbed and pressed a lavander ribbon into Angulars hand.

They were herded into trucks with too many people in them, she felt the sweat of those around her seep through her cloths, smelt the fear and bowl movements of scared animals, she wanted to run, wanted to be free and there was just a crush. Her father and mother where taking it in turns to try and shelter them from the press of the crowd. Angular got angry, Jess was 15 why wasn’t she helping? At ten she was too small but Jess should help. But then she looked at her sister and saw the fatigue in her face, so pale, sweating. Jess must be sick – she was sure of it – why had no one said?

Bruised and battered they eventually left the truck and a reek hit them, salty, putried, rotting fish. She gagged. Another set of trucks sat before them, these ones were different somehow. It scared her and she withdrew behind her perants holding onto Jess and Benjis hands. They were man handled into a pen, where her mother wet herself, they stood and waited – the solders guns trianed on them. People from the other trucks came forward and handed over some boxes with a strange snake design on them. There were loud bangs and splintering noises as the crates were checked and then the solders were getting into their trucks and driving away.

Jess fainted.

People from the trucks ahead of them surged forward and surrounded Jess, Angular wasn’t going to let them kill her sister – she attacked, the man with the thin knife who was standing over Jess. ‘No!’ her father yelled and pulled her back.

‘They’re going to kill her daddy!’ she cried.

He shook his head, ‘No sweet heart they aren’t they’re not solders, their doctors! Doctors!’ he cried slumping to his knees. He begain to laugh and wouldn’t stop. To Angulars suprise they were helped onto the trucks and given seats!

The doctors looked her over and she squinted at them with suspicion. A lady smiled at her and gave her a t-shirt. And then they were getting off of the trucks, sky and sea and more putried salt greeted them. ‘What are they?’ her father asked pointing to what looked like an array of long pine cones bobbing on the sea, glinting in the sunlight.

‘They are your new homes, the UN built them, I think you’ll like them though you will have to deliver your freedom cost.’

‘Freedom cost?’ Angular asked.

‘You’re free now, we bought you out but with a deal that we would provide the Empire with medi supplies now and food later on. You will be helping with both – out there in your new countries.’

With that they were bundled into boats and on a rather bumpy ride taken to see the pine cones. ‘Greenhouses?’ her father asked.

‘There are traces and hydroponics, flower gardens and goats. We hope to get you bees soon so for now you’ll have to pollonate crops yourself.’

Her father burst into tears.

They stepped upon the sea farm, large and gleaming, ‘Mum?’ Jess asked, ‘will the baby be ok now?’

Mum squeezed her hand.

I was always in love with things that were beautiful and refined, I never could love normal women, they were too earthy, and no matter how I tried there was always some dark burning imperfection that nagged away at me. I found solace in lady boys for a while as their imperfections were little more than grey smudges on my soul but even they seemed to tarnish so quickly. Sex was out of the question most of the time as they took off apparel and revealed what they were and though I didn’t care for gender I did care about wigs and nails and pieces that needed to be removed.

I grew lonely and felt I had begun to fade, I would go out on stormy nights as the damp thunderhead and erratic lighting gave the city streets a new unblemished look, the streets would gleam with reflected jems of light from the buildings and I could loose myself to the rippled pattens and the patter of rain on my head.

The world was an ugly place to me on bright sunny days and I would weep bitter tears when I arrived home, on occasions I would collect a single perfect bloom but it would soon brown at it’s delicate edges and wither. I liked the first fall of snow giving the world a face lift, hiding the cities rubbish in pristine white but like the petals it soon turned to a brown and black flecked mess, dangerous and moleverlant.

The city probably was not the place for me, I should have been away in the country in some ornate cottage deep in the hills but I could never leave such a press of people until I had found the one I needed. I bought silver jewerlly intricate and smooth with little glinting diamonds nestled within – these were a joy – oh I could feel they were imperfect but it was so minute. I selected only the synthasised stones as they were as perfect as this existence could get.

Time washed over me and felt my light dim further. Christmas time came and I walked through the Christmas throngs loathing the very smell of the crowd, the putrid smell of the train tunnels, sweat and diseil and the press of humanity, none of them would ever provide what I needed. I needed to get out.

I went home and packed the clothing I had had handmade so that it fit as best it could. My thin fingers curled around the handle of a vile rolling suit case, expensive and gleaming with intricate swerles of colour subtily making up the case. I went and I hid, along the coast in a little cottage painted yellow and I would listen to the sea pound and slurp and rush, from high up on the cliffs it looked perfect, and sometimes if I could find a stretch of beach without the rotting remains of sea weed and tangled condom combinations, I could stare at the foam and the damp ribbons left by my feet and it was lovely and I approached a calmness but never happiness.

Sometimes there was a stone, so smooth and round and I would scoop it too me and clean the sand from it and know just how rare it was, sometimes I would cry, adding my salt to the brine of those waves that had delivered such loviness to me.

I begain to build a little crain of them, a little neat pile in the driftwood and sand that passed for a garden. The pebbles I found increased and the sea offered me gifts of beach glass worn smooth and glazed in the most delightful of ways. My plie grew and the structure become something unto itself. A form began to emerge and I laughed with glee at the silly little thought that they sea was giving me in bits that which I craved, I was sculpting perfection out of beach thrift.

By midsummer she lay there, my girl Moike, a long plait of rope splayed out from her perfect head and I wished so that I could scoop her into my arms and dance. I could not for she would collapse into nothing and I knew I could never rebuild her.

It was mid summer when I thought my new found peace was to be shattered, it started as the balmiest, heavy and wonderful day, I walked along the cliffs watching the sea gulls rise and fall and the there at the edge of the sea I thought I saw a yellow band, like liquid gold, shimmering and glinting. I hummed a low old tune I remembered from the cradle though the woman who sang it too me was nothing but a hazy silohette in my memory, the music had always impressed itself upon my bones. Notes could be perfect – sometimes. Seagulls sored grossly in the sky and a headache began to press upon me. I retreated to my little home but could not settle, I was still missing a piece of Moike, I didn’t know what it was but it was missing and I had to find it. The sea called me. I was half blind with the pressure in my head and stumbled down onto the beach, the tide was far out, there was mud and sand sink wholes that would suck you down to a watery grave between me and my saviour the sea.

In a kind of delerium and followed a path of glinting restlessness though the dangers I could not see to the glittering edge of the sea. And I did what I had never done, I stepped into the sea, I wadded deeper and deeper and the sea craddled me and fell into it. I plunged into the salty warmth with ice ripples and the sandy floor kissed my cheek and sent me upwards to the glorious air. I swam a little and then lay on my back bouyed up and calmness engulfed me.

The heat pressed down on me and I seemed to become nothing and everything. When I stumbled ashore again the tide in a fare way. I stumbled up the beach and flopped on the sand for once not caring that it was in my hair and on my skin, when I sat up to go I put my hand out to push myself up and there beneith my palm was an equisite butterfly crafted from warm golden pearls, they were irregualr shapes but fitted together to form the creater. I feared I had broken it, but I had not.

I rushed back to Moike and placed it at the end of her rope braid. She was finished!

A cold wind lashed at me and clouds so dark that black is the only description rolled in and swollowed the sky in a matter of moments. Lightning cracked from the sky to the sea in a purple blaze, then a green and a blue, lightning dancing over the waves. Waves tinged orange with a strange storm light, rose up in choppy mountings driven forth by the wind.

A storm was coming but this was not the city with is light gemmed streets this was raw nature and the forces and destructive power contained within were more than I wanted to imagine.

I watched the wind strip the beach of litter and looked at Moike, she would be washed away!

I screamed at the sky, I shouted my defience and called the sea to protect that which it had helped me make. I raged into the darkness and the storm pulsed around me. A plume rose from the end of the sea, gold and shimmering, a great cloud that seemed somehow the essence of the storm light, it swooped upon me. Golden butterflies! Thousands and thousands of them, like the Moike’s hair orniment but living creatures I watched mezmerised as they descended upon the stone lady I had made and I slumped and wept as she was buried in golden fluttering wings.

The rain began to pour down, not rain drops but like a tape had been opened in the sky, I felt sure the butterflies delicate wings would be ripped to shreds, but they seemed to just melt into a a strage liquid light that rose into the air, my stone lady was gone, just an imprint where she had lain was left.

A hollow of disbelief opened up within me as I watched the golden cloud spread itself out, the was the odd ghost of a butterfly trailing the apperition that was forming before me there is the storm torn sky. It melted into the form, that form, the only form I could love, long limbs and tailing hair in a braid, gleaming gold and bright in storm brilliance. It molded itself into long limbs and smooth face. Perfection spun in the air with a bloom of lightning at its core. A ring of plasma pulsing, the blast scoured my mind and I fell a dazed full unable to hear anything other than my own thunding heart and the rush of my blood that I knew in that moment was an old part of the sea.

Gentle fingers reached down for me and I rose to look into Moike’s eyes, her hair was drapped over her shoulder in a long auburn braid set off with the butterfly of pearls, I staggered back from her but she smiled, such a small sad smile and drew me into her. Rain washed my fears away and I stared into green eyes and saw myself reflected for the first time.

We vanished into each other, me and my Moike.

In The Attic (first published on Red Monster)

In the attic of number five Ermin Street there is an old trunk. Now this trunk is not the sort you could fit a body in, oh no, it is far far too small. However, what it does contain is the severed head of one Mr. A. S. Harding who was an accountant at some large and inhuman institution. He was married to a quiet, washed out woman called April.

A. S. Harding was a model citizen and like his suit a very grey sort of person.

However, he had a secret and this was that he was a very nasty and malicious man and used to beat his wife with a sort of remoteness born of calculation. He was very clever about it and no one ever suspected. Then one day he just disappeared and his poor wife was hysterical and sort of fell apart at the seams.

She kept saying it was all her fault but then his body was found in the local reservoir – just his body you understand, his head being in the attic. It was then discovered he was moonlighting as a dodgy accountant for a charity money-embezzling organisation known as the Mafia.

April got his life insurance money and his pension and went back to college to study art, a subject her husband had tried to beat out of her. April soon remarried and even had a kid but kept her old house neglected and empty. It was, after all, the house she had shared with Mr A. S. Harding and that was why she had kept his head there.

The head was in the old trunk that her wedding dress had sat in. You see there are only so many pre-planned beatings a woman can take and eventually he would have killed her, so she had taken precautions. This had involved severing her husband’s head from his shoulders – fortunately she had done this in the bathroom and the blood had all just washed away.

Of course she had been hysterical afterwards but no one had believed her and then his underground connections had come out and, well, the rest was history.

I always liked going on holiday to Wales, especially either end of the seasons, when the weather is wild and furious. The energy of nature pelting down on you, or freezing to solid stone around you.

It was during one such holiday and time of exploration that I met the King of the Goths, Alaric was his name and his namesake had sacked Rome in 410 AD. Dressed in his business suit he was every bit the Teutonic warrior with long, fine chocolate and gold spun hair, and a fine wire and muscle frame. His high check bones and strong noise had me captivated.

He had eyes of the spring dawn, shot through with cobalt-laths that stared at me from the pale moon of his face. I stood their dripping with the torrential rain I had just escaped; my waterproofs dark and glistering and my boots caked in bruised heather and mud. His eyes I felt follow me to the counter of the small mountainside café as I ordered a hot chocolate and the house special, beans and mash. I was chilled right through as the sills on my coat had given way allowing water to seep in.

The coal fire that I new would be there, guttered and spat at the other end of the room. I made my way over to its cheering glow, removing my sodden backpack as I went. I could still feel those beautifully cold and dark eyes on me as I settled onto the bench with my waterproofs drying and my finger thawing, gripped around the mug of thin brown liquid, which was pretending to be hot chocolate.

After a while I decided to retrieve my note books and sketch pads from my bag, to my relief they where still dry, I set them out upon the heavily scarred wood of the table and in the flickering fire light began to create the world of my moments whim and desire. Dark foreboding landscapes I’d sketched, not my norm, which where brightly coloured and abstract. Battles I drew with an accuracy I’d never before known and a thirst for knowledge that I thought had deserted me forever in those last few hellish months of uni with finales and the real world looming to swallow me whole.

I hoped feverishly that my scrap with the real world was at an end now, what with me selling the portraits and landscape that my imagination regularly spewed out and my hope of getting on a PhD course. I sketched faster and faster lost in the rhythm of the pencil and the grain of the paper but even then I could feel his eyes there, a fire in ice, gaining in strength and intensity though I could here the clacking of him at his laptop.

The picture finished I looked down to find that I had drawn him, a man I’d briefly glimpsed on my way in, wearing not his suit but animal skins and a crown, fire burned in this picture its light casting an eerie royalty to the figure. Embarrassed at the indiscression of my imagination and the heat of passion the portrait enlisted, I looked up only to lock eyes with the stranger. I never drew the real, it was somehow invasive and wrong, a simple curtosy broken.

Blushing I turned my face away, The waitress arrived with my food and saw the picture, to my dismay she whipped it away exclaiming its buity and worth and how I had captured his noble figure, assuming obviously that I knew the stranger at the other end of the room. She retreated back to the kitchen and I was left a scarlet flower fearing to look up for I could feel the pressure of those eyes upon me, would he be angry?

I felt the as pressure of his warmth as he came up beside me, ‘May I look?’ he asked in the gentlest of tones, startled I looked up and locked eyes again with those beautiful pools of blue now glittering with amber firelight. He was smiling gentle at me, lips that called to an inner heat; I was so entranced I failed to answer this polite inquiry. He lent down over me and I drank in his smell, not sweat or beer but something pleasant and arousing to me. I noticed the cut of his charcoal suit, hand tailored, this startled me as he was so young and did not have the air of a city type about him.

‘I wish I could draw,’ he said suddenly, turning his fiery eyes upon me, I blushed even more.

‘I didn’t mean to draw you,’ I blurted out, sounding young and childishly absurd. He laughed, a chocolate laugh rich and deeper than I had expected, ‘how do you know he’s me? Who would you say he is in his own right? This hero of your burning dark world,’ his eyes shone now with merriment and I wondered if he was making fun of me, if he was I decided he had a right, I had drawn him without permission, in some cultures I stolen part of his soul.

I gave a frightened smile knowing that I was about to sound both silly and over learned, ‘Ok, if you really want to know he is Alaric, king of the Goths, sacked Rome in 410 AD and the fire was so furious that metal coins fused into the pavement…’ I broke of abruptly his face had gone dark and he appeared angry, I shrank back in on myself, he was after all a stranger and therefore unpredictable in the extreme.

‘Yes and now your going to tell me how he is thought to buried under a river that they perhapsly diverted for him.’ He was very angry I was non-pulsed and impressed that he knew what I was talking about.

He stood up and backed away from me as if I had burnt him, ‘Which one of them put you up to this? Mike? Simon? Well.’ He demanded, there was a new authority and a faint trace of hurt in his voice.

‘Put me up to what?’ I asked confused.

He snorted and turned away from me, for some reason this blatant dismissal angered me, ‘Look I don’t know what you are talking about, this is why I never draw the real, except my field and specimen sketches, people act strange, its invasive, I know. I’m sorry it was an accident. But that’s no reason for you to be so rude.’ There was heat in my words and a buried venom, not being of a confrontational nature I didn’t really now how to handle the situation, besides he still held an overwhelming attraction for me.

I saw his shoulders slump suddenly and he turned back to me, ‘I’m sorry,’ he said with downcast eyes, the sight made my heart ache, I felt as though I’d just kicked a kitten. ‘Its not your fault, though why a wonderful artist like you should have to help with practical jokes I don’t know. Are you really that desperate, or did it just sound like a bit of fun for everybody?’

I really was perplexed by this point but most of all feared losing him though he was not mine for the losing. ‘I have no idea what your talking about, what joke? And well,’ here I blushed more, ‘I’m not actually an artist, I’m well… a physicist, or at least trying to be.’ His eyes flickered up and stared into me, boring into my mind and soul, seeking, searching, it made me shiver with a strange pleasure.

‘Are you seriously telling me, then that you do not have a clue who I am?’

‘No why would I? I’m on a walking and drawing holiday; I only came in here because it was the first building that I came to. Why are you someone special?’ I said the last part caustically because I had miss-preserved his reaction as arrogance; perhaps he was some actor or something and had thought me mocking a part he had played.

He smiled again and I felt my breathing rate increase, I was hit with a fine, giddying rush of adrenaline, I wanted him, I blushed again. ‘I suppose I’d best introduce myself, I’m not anyone one special, but I am an Alaric, named after the king of the Goths who sacked Rome in 410 AD,’ he was chuckling and it was my turn to feel angry and hurt.

‘ Now it is you mocking me, I feel!’ I think that if it had not just started hailing outside I would have left at that point.

‘No seriously, here, look I have ID.’ He fished out a swipcard of some type, it did indeed say Alaric. I started to understand his annoyance and jumped conclusion. He also extracted a business card, which he shyly offered me. I took it and carefully put it in my rail pass holder. ‘So how do you know of Alaric?’ he asked me gently, as if he feared I would bolt.

‘I was brought up by parents who thought Roman ruins etc… where the best things on Earth, and I wanted to be an archaeologist for a while too.’ I looked down at my feet and to my embarrassment blushed yet again, fearing he was soon going to think me a beetroot.

He put his hand on my shoulder and an electric jolt ran through me, I wanted him to kiss me; my body was desperately trying to move into him of its own accord. I looked into his eyes but then turned away shyly giggling much to my continued embarrassment. I heard him sigh, ‘would you forgive me and perhaps go for dinner? Urm, no strings attached..’ he finished lamely having realised that he had just asked a lone female he’d never met before, to dinner, my heart sank I desperately wanted the strings, though I was quiet inexperienced in these things.

My hesitation, made him think he was being too invasive and he quickly dropped his arm, I looked at him and smiled, ‘dinner would be nice, thanks.’ I knew this was dangerous, I knew nothing about him, nor his intensions or even if he was attached already, but the attraction was so strong that I just had to risk all.

We then spent the rest of the afternoon talking, and I became more and more drawn by him, he was a computer programmer but unlike others of his ilk I had met he was well, I wanted him and his nearness was driving me to new heights of desire, I had never felt this way before, and it scared me, I felt out of control, plummeting down and up again on a rollercoster. He had a keen interest in physics and maths and he could hold his own on Earth history and the like, he was techniqual minded and creative to an extreme, he like me had been writing science fiction and I began to love him more and more though I didn’t know a name for the strange ache in my heart. I could not be in love I was far to practical for that and certainly, not a complete stranger.

I missed my last bus back to the campsite, so in grossed was I, in our endless conversations. It was eleven thirty before, our lips finally met and my insides somersaulted, my heart pumped faster. It was only the need for air that stopped us, uncertainly he lead me up to his room, concuss of the fact that I was stranded, ‘I’ll sleep on the floor if you want,’ he asked both shyly and hopefully, I smiled at him, ‘what do you want to do?’ I asked squeezing his hand slightly.

‘I ,.. I want to make love to you,’ he looked away from me, obviously expecting rejection, and I felt my libido rise, I knew that I should not really risk this but I wanted him, I wanted to love him with my whole, even if I only had him for that night.

‘I think I would like that,’ I began, I hesitated and he stiffened, ‘but I well, I’ve only had sex twice with my last boyfriend over three yrs ago, so ‘ I became ashamed of my lack of experience, ‘I , I , might get scared and …’

‘That ok, you can back out at any point, I want to make love to you, if it ends in full sex it’s a bonus, if you don’t feel ready I’ll sleep on the floor, or in the same bed and not touch you,’ he shrugged shyly, I could see he was worried he’d pushed things too far too fast, I lent forward and we fell into another long passionate kiss, this time with wondering hands I was so moist by now I could smell my own muskiness. Then a dreadful thought struck me, my emergency condom was going to be out of date, would he have any?

He did. We rolled together, cloths flying everywhere and worrying about the people in the next room, as I tried to curtail my cries of passion, we lay together after, his continued pulsing causing the same in me, I was happy and content I never wanted the moment to end, looking at the floral decoration of his B&B room, the pinks and greens burning their way into my mind forever, I loved him, I wanted to keep him, but I knew that I had little chance, I was probably some one night stand to him and that was ok because I had these moments and I was catching as many of them for my memory as I could.

We lay together talking and hugging and kissing, each enjoying the warmth and companionship of the other, for most of the next day, but he had to go away he said for two weeks on a business trip. I wanted to believe him when he said that he wanted to keep me and that when he got back perhaps we could see each other properly but my courses side would not let me entirely full. We arranged to meet after his business trip and he made sure we had each others contact details, I thought he just might be being genuine, I hoped so. The last thing we did before we parted at the train station was go to a photo both, silly, but sweet and the photo I have even now.

Two weeks of agony passed but at last it was time for us to meet again, I had dreamt of nothing else, his arms, his eyes, his voice, all of him, I wanted to drink him in once again. I stood by the underground entrance at Paddington at the top of the escalator; he had made sure I knew exactly which entrance to wait by. I was early hoping to catch him as soon as possible, despite myself I had fallen, surely he would come.

The time approached and I became more and more egger and more and more shy, I scanned the crowds desperately but no sign I saw, the seconds dragged, I began to get pensive once he was fifteen minutes late, I could not believe he would let me down, there must be delays, I decided and carried on waiting, scanning the crowds harder than ever. I waited another twenty minutes before I tried to phone but I just got through to the answer phone, hearing his voice made me want to cry, had he stood me up?

He was now over an hour late, I felt small and abandoned, surely he would arrive soon? I kept telling myself I would only wait another ten minutes, I wanted to cry and once the two hour mark came tears escaped, burning like daggers at the back of my eyes. I tried phoning five more times but got only answer phone. I worried that if he was standing me up that my calling was making me look like a stalker, I still loved him and just wanted him to have a good impression of me. Still I stood there waiting, lost and miserable, hurt and in anguish.

I waited five hours in total, I felt foolish and small, convinced that the station staff had noticed me and thought it funny. I was angry with myself; of course he wasn’t interested in me how could he be? He was a successful businessman and I a student. I had obviously been just some holiday fun to him, what else did I expect. The tears rolled silently down my face most if the way home, I tried to hide them, but the drunks at that time of night never noticed or never cared.

I cried in my room, heart brokenly, accidentally I awoke my flatmates, they came with the chocolate and the tissues and the hugs but I was inconsolable, and scared of the powerful reaction this man had enlisted from me. My flatmates muttered about over reactions, but they didn’t understand, I knew deep down that he was my one true soul mate and I couldn’t understand why he had abandoned me, but at the same time knew this to be irrational and him a man of flesh and blood who probably had just needed the relief from his natural urges. I was obsessed and began to draw him, from every angle in varied landscapes, some fictional some historic, all beautiful and unrivalled by any of my other work. The rhythen or drawing, painting and creating was the only thing that bought me peace in this tme, I felt I had gone mad.

I was supposed to be hunting for PhD’s and or a better job, but then I became sick.

So tired, neusies all the time, flatmates yelled at me over not recognising depression and giving me the phone to call the doctors all the time, then the water infection hit, and still I continued to draw, though I couldn’t spend more than half an hour out of bed or out of the bathroom. Finally I went to the doctors, dragged by worried friends, it soon became apparent that the reason I was having these problems was not due to depression, though I was very down cast and moody, I was pregnant.

I should have panicked; I should have been terrified. I was on my own and pregnant, and I was these things but mostly I was, well, elated. My friends really thought that I had lost the plot and they were probably right. I had a little life inside me, that needed me and even if Alaric didn’t want me, I had something that was born out of that union. I tried to phone him, to tell him, but to my great sadness his number no longer worked, I wondered if I had phoned too much before and if he had changed it because of me. I composed email after email to him, only a few of which I ever sent. Just things like asking if it was a boy if I may name it Alaric, but no response I got. I felt really abandoned now, I had thought that perhaps he would at least want to see the child, but then I though that he may think me loose and not be confident in paternity, so I gave up my efforts on him and turned to organising my life.

I had lost my job, my crummy part-time job due to what I now knew was morning sickness, the PhD would have to wait, I could not ask my flat mates to put up with a squalling child, what was I to do. These thoughts kept me awake in the night, and cause more than few tears.

I was lucky, very lucky my friend Alicia had just started seeing a married man, who she brought to the flat, he turned out to be an art dealer and saw my sketches on the sideboard. He was only interested in the pictures of Alaric, in his gloomy landscapes and godly realms, they where my finest work, though I had to be talked into selling them to him and into doing more, I felt I had no right to sell them, I had not asked permission to place my King of the Goths in the pictures and I wasn’t sure how he would feel about strangers having him hanging on their walls, but I had to be practical and it was his child, I felt that it was him somehow contributing.

I could see now that I had been a fool and how I had let a stranger steal my heart. I thought that perhaps he would bost about me and laugh at my naivety to his friends at home, the other thought that I could not bear, was that he had forgotten me or thought I really was as, nothing. I felt that this was my ego trying to cope and it wasn’t very big and strong to begin with.

Baby cloths and equipment showered down on me from on high, my mother at first disapproving was ecstatic at me coming home to live with her, producing her first grand child, and fussed around me enough to drive me insane.

My pictures where selling like hot cakes, I was told, and the dealer wanted everything I had, sketch books the lot, but I felt that my sketch books were my working area, the tequnics and styles that I tried, new things that sometimes worked and sometimes turned into sublime mess. He had all my finished pictures though, all the weird abstracts that my mother had despaired over. I began to worry about what would happen when I ran out of pictures but I had lots of money behind me now. People, strangers began to phone for me, to go to gallery openings and the such, so when I got the phone call I thought it just another of those.

‘Hello, could I speak to Sue Richards please?’ came the gentle female voice that somehow was vaguely familiar to me.

‘Yes that’s me,’ was my tired response the baby had just started kicking and I was getting hardly any sleep because of it.

‘Hi you don’t know me but are you the girl who’s been drawing all the Romano-Goth pictures?’ the voice sounded excited and scared at the same time, this was when I started to think that perhaps she wasn’t from some art gallery.

‘Yes, that’s me,’ it was a weary response; there was something unusual about this phone call.

‘Oh thank heavens for that I’ve been trying to track you down for months, at least I hope its you.’ The excitement was brimming over; I was perplexed to say the least.

‘Could I ask why?’

‘Oh yes sorry, um, my names Cleo…’ the world fell from beneath me, how could this be, I knew now why the voice sounded strangely familiar.

‘As in Cleopatra? ‘ I whispered in response.

‘Yes, wow that’s right, listen I’m phoning because..’

‘Alaric’ the name escaped my lips before my brain went into gear, ‘your Alaric’s sister, aren’t you?’ I was shocked, hurt and confused, this was so strange.

‘Yes,’ the voice was sad now, ‘I was phoning to check that it was my brother in the pictures?’

‘Yes it is,’ a slight fear pickeled my skin, ‘Do you know where Alaric is?’ part of me expected her to say no that he was missing, that would explain things but was too horrific for me to face.

‘Yes.’ the voice was now quiet and hesitant, I miss understood it to be reserved and cold, I thought that I had perhaps scared him with phone calls and the such and that his sister had been sent to deal with me instead.

‘Oh ok, well, could you, could you tell him that ..’ my voice grew thick and choked me, ‘that I’m pregnant but that its ok, I have money but that if he wanted to see it, he could.’ I heard the intake of air form the other end of the phone, I thought that the girl had not been expecting this but then neither had I.

‘I don’t have to be there if he doesn’t want to see me,’ my voice broke and I felt retched.

‘Have you broken up with my brother then?’ she asked in a small distressed voice.

‘I assume so, he never turned up and hasn’t responded to any of the messages I sent, its ok, I’m sorry, why are you phoning anyway?’ I felt embarrassed and ashamed.

‘Erm.. well, erm, when where you supposed to meet up?’

I told her and to my alarm she broke into tears, ‘Are you ok?’ I ventured alarmed by her response.

‘I’m sorry it’s just the rest of the family thought that you must not have cared.’ I grew very alarmed at this statement.

‘What do you mean? Is Alaric ok?’ my heart had risen to my throat; I heard it thumping in my ears.

‘My brothers been in hospital, in a coma for the past seven months,’ I stood silent with my eyes closed, tears rolled once again down my cheeks, ‘we thought that he had broken up with you or something,’ her voice was cracking again.

‘Nonono,’ I whispered repeatedly.

‘He had a note and presents but when you never turned up at the hospital we thought…’ she broke off.

‘How bad is he? Where is he?’ I was urgently now scrabbling for a taxi card and bus timetables.

‘The doctors say there’s brain activity, he’s just not waking up, I thought that you might not had known about the accident and I couldn’t find anyway to contact you, then my friend bought a picture and when I looked Alaric was in it, will you come to the hospital? Please?’ I realised she had not heard my earlier questions; I finally got the hospital and ward out of her.

‘When did this happen exactly?’ I asked knowing the answer.

‘The day he didn’t turn up for you, he was hit by a car,’ the unhappy voice sounded eerie to me now, and I wondered if I should tell her that I had only been with him for a day, I kept quiet I felt it would cause more pain than was needed.

In tears I found my mother and father giving them the fright of their lives, I made them, drive the forty miles to the hospital, out side the white concert and metal extera Cleo stood, waiting for me, I recognised her at once, her similarity to Alaric was heart breaking to me. I dived out of the car as best I could, but being heavily pregnant I ended up having wait for assistance. Cleo’s face broke into a worried grin, ‘please may I?’ She asked, I knew that she wanted to touch my belly and allowed it, I didn’t care I just wanted to see him, I feared that he would be lost and I had thought him callous and shallow.

We walked through the hospital with its smell of soapy disinfectant and hoards of busseling orderlies and nurses, I grew pensive, Cleo explained that her family would all be there and that lots of them thought that I had broken it off with Alaric and that’s why he had crossed the road and been hit, even though the police said it was a speeder, that caught him.

I waddled out of breath towards the door, people bearing a resemblance to Alaric stood around the entrance to the ward and I noticed it said that no more than three where allowed in at any time to see a patient, I ignored the inquiring glances, and made straight for the bed with Cleo. I felt sick and light headed, there he lay like a crusaders statue upon the bed, skin waxy and pale, he looked like stone too me. ‘Who are you?’ demanded a middle-aged woman I assumed to be his mother, I ignored her and went straight to his side, I clasped one of his hands so cold compared to mine.

I began to cry, ‘Oh Alaric,’ I whispered over and over, ‘Forgive me I didn’t know, I thought, I thought you didn’t want me any more,’

‘Get out,’ hissed his mother, ‘you have no right to be here, he doesn’t want you,’ I looked up at her for the first time a was sickened by the hate I saw there, the middle aged man next to her looked at me, his eyes flickered to my stomach, distended as it was, belying my condition.

‘No dear,’ he said gently in a deeper version of Alaric’s tones, ‘I think she has some news for our son.’ His wife glared at him.

‘Alaric, I sent you emails and I tried to call, but you’ll never guess what? I’m pregnant.’ I whispered wishing the others where not they’re watching; I heard his mother gasp and Cleo was there at my side also, her hand resting gently on my shoulder as her brothers had done months before. I bent over him and kissed his lips, half expecting them to be hard and cold as stone, but they where soft and yielding, too yielding, but then to my surprise and hope, they kissed back. I straightened up to quickly and almost backed into a drip.

His eyes flickered open, blearily, still half dream-flickering, his mother thought him fitting and screamed for the nurses and doctors, his lips parted, ‘Sue?’ came a cracked voice, he could not yet focus.

‘Yes, its me,’ I said clasping his hand tighter.

‘I must tell you.. ‘ He began, I thought for a heart stopping moment he was going to dump me, but I was glade anyway, he was waking. ‘I looked at my other condoms they, they’re all out of date, you should get checked out, sorry.’ I realised he was not fully awake and obviously thought it just us there. Cleo I could here giggling slightly and I looked up seeking help and his fathers eyes where sparkling at me.

‘Erm, yes, well….’ I began, he tried to sit up as my response had alarmed him, ‘No don’t try to move, please, its ok. The condom was perished, its ok.’

‘His face looked confused and dropped into sadness, ‘No baby then?’ he asked, sounding slightly drunk, ‘I would have liked a baby, but only if you where ready,’ he added quickly, I smiled, he was being more honest than any of us had the right to hear.

‘That’s good because you’re getting a baby,’ he smiled dreamily up, and I worried he would not wake up form his long sleep properly. The doctors came and ushered us out at this point.

Within a couple of hours he was coherent again and the doctors said he was clear but had to stay in hospital for rehabilitation, I stayed with him, amazed at the events of our strange and coincidental love story, he did still want me, and all the babies I bore him. My Gothic King, and I his Lady consult.

Damn, thought Janny, it’s another code blue. She sighed. That meant it would be all down to her again. She hated this with a vengeance.

‘Captain Mystwood ma’am?’ Oh no, she had to answer this call. She pressed the blue com button whilst gliding the flyer into the hangar.

‘Received, I’ll be in the office in five, out.’ Grimly she sat there clutching the joystick, fingers going white. This would mean another trip home. The Deneb System, just great.

Back in the office she slung her flying jacket over the chair, but before her bum could hit the seat, the Super was storming over to her. ‘Get to conference room five. McKenly is there waiting for you. Bloody gypos, you’re all the same,’ he snapped.

‘I, sir, am first and foremost an officer of the law, so do not try that on me.’ Anger ran red hot in her veins but she buried it.

She opened the door to the conference room, took a deep breath and entered. ‘Oh High King of the Gypsy Province, descendent of the first Star Gypsy that led us to the new sun, how may I, Princess Janny, be of service?’ She heard the sniggering of her colleagues. Her blood boiled. The weight of her heritage demanded she punch their lights out, but she was a cop, and that ran deeper.

The King’s amber eyes rested on her, ‘The Cheenrows have stolen from the Leekway; the Leekway bay for blood. The Taro shows death.’ She sighed, it was always like this. Most officers didn’t understand their social system so couldn’t even begin to sort clan feuds out.

‘What’s been taken?’

‘The Galloway Crown.’

Damn!

‘The Crown worn by the first king to be hung by your so-called law,’ he said coldly.

‘Anything else?’

‘The Arrow of Elsmith that brought down the first Groundbuck of New Sun.’

‘Two of the Trinity? The gold and the bronze; what of the silver?’

‘The silver?’

‘Call yourself the High King? The Snake of Ameridia, without which, your family can no longer rule.’ He paled.

‘But the Cheenrows are art dealers, they wouldn’t just start a civil war like that,’ he gasped. ‘I think you’re failing to see that something from each of the three Tribes has been taken. But you are right, if it’s not sorted we’ll have a blood bath.’

‘Not three, two,’ he said. He looked worried.

‘So the silver has not been taken. Where is it?’ A shadow passed across his face. Oh no, she thought, he’s already given it to Elma.

‘Where is she?’ she demanded. She knew by his look that she had guessed right. She lost patience. ‘Come on man, we need to get to her as soon as poss!’

For once he didn’t argue, for once he wasn’t ranting about the police invading his home.

Back in the glider, this time with the High King behind her, she whizzed through all the space traffic to get to the emergency dock at the travel centre. They were on board a deep cruiser within the hour. She knew in her bones that when they got there the girl would be gone, but hopefully the trail would be fresh enough to follow. This stank; was it art theft? No, too simple, too much of a coincidence that the things being stolen were likely to cause a civil war. She really didn’t think that many of the major families would be rooting for war, so was it some idiot angling for power? Was it an attempt from outside to undermine the gypsy community because they were getting powerful in galactic commerce? Or some stupid conspiracy to unit them?

Her brain was rapidly looking at all the combinations; all of the options. No, this was deep, she’d bet on it. The trouble was, if it was too deep, she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.

‘Do you think Elma’s really in danger?’ he asked her quietly. She turned to look at him: there was deep pain in his eyes. She sighed.

‘I hope not,’ she said. She remembered Elma as a small toddler and she wondered what the thirteen year old looked like now. Was she still as sweet or had she picked up the diamond coating all gypsy women had?

‘Jan,’ he said, startling her. He hadn’t called her by her name for a long time. ‘Thank you for doing this, I…’ he looked away.

‘I would rescue any child, but Elma…’ she said, not quite sure how to say what she was thinking. ‘Well she is my niece; she’s all we have left of Teel.’ They sat and brooded, she knew the child would be gone but couldn’t afford to think of her sister. If she did that, she wouldn’t be acting like a police officer and then they would never find the girl.

They radioed in to the port to organise transport, but there was already a message awaiting the High King. He nearly collapsed at the news of a ransacked home and missing daughter. He turned to her, ‘Jan, this is your speciality, what should we do?’ There was a dark pleading in his eyes.

She took the speaking unit, ‘Close off the area, do not, I repeat, do not let anyone into the scene.’ She closed her eyes in semi-physical pain as they told her that dogs and supposedly concerned family members had been in there all afternoon. The scene would be a mess – what could she hope to find from that?

‘Ok keep everybody there, I don’t want anyone, and I mean anyone, to wander off, is that clear?’

She turned to see a grey-faced King, his mouth grimly set. She sighed and then put a consoling hand on his shoulder, ‘I will do my best, believe me,’ she said gently. They bowed their heads to each other, a sign of grieving kinship, and then set off to the flyer deck.

Once on the ground she made all the ‘visitors’ turn out all their pockets, their mouths and, in some cases, other bodily cavities. Surprise, surprise, a good number of them was trying to wander off with things. That sorted, she went to the girl’s bedroom. There had been obvious signs of a struggle downstairs but it had been much too obvious. She knew that most of the time obvious clues were just that, obvious clues, most of the time.

Mmm, this room had not been riffled, but it was too tidy. There was a picture of the girl in a party outfit on the mirror; she was surprised at just how mature she looked. So the Trinity had been stolen, but why? Was someone trying to start a civil war? Why? Were they insiders or outsiders, or one being manipulated by another?

Ah, the girl’s diary was tucked behind the headboard of the bed. She was obviously hiding it, but then that was nothing unusual. But… why hide a diary when all she appeared to have written was what she’d eaten for dinner each day? Where was the stuff about how horrible the world was, or music and boys? This was not a normal teenage diary. It wasn’t a normal diary at all.

She smiled grimly, the girl had made a hashed, no, several hashed attempts at secret codes. She flicked through, the last half of the book was blank but the pages looked like they had been wetted. She sat down to attempt the decoding. Oh dear, did the girl realise that eating fifteen apples in two days was a little strange? Probably not. Would she have realised that herself, if she hadn’t done a stint in the cryptography department? Damn, she was seeing a low clan boy – was she even old enough to have a boyfriend? The High King couldn’t have known about this!

But was this helping? Was she faffing with dreams when the girl was in danger? If she was seeing a low clan then it wasn’t surprising she was over cautious with her diary. To her frustration the code changed, and she could not work out what the new one was, if there was one! This was all sensible if boring stuff, and the handwriting was much neater, so perhaps the stress had reduced? No, wait, the handwriting was stupidly neat, and the change was sudden. Interesting, surely the girl had better things to do than steganography? She got out her decryption scan-pen. Nope, obviously not!

The gaps between the words! Oh dear, how had she had the patience to write her feelings this way? Shame the relationship was doomed. This really was pointless; it wasn’t helping her find the girl at all, but the investigator in her was intrigued. The entries stopped suddenly, just when the girl was talking about running away! Ah hang on, she thought, and rushed out the door.

She was relieved to see the house had been cleared. She found the High King sitting, dejected, in the kitchen, and he jumped to his feet when she came back. She told him what was written in the diary. Rage momentarily flashed across his face, replaced by relief, ‘So she’s safe?’ he asked.

‘Only if she ran off with this boy before they came to kidnap her’ she said. She bit her lower lip, ‘The last diary entry was quiet a while ago though, I find that surprising.’ She ran her fingers over the slightly crinkly blank pages. Perhaps it had got wet and she’d been waiting for it to dry?

She tapped the book absent-mindedly to her chin, and one of the pages grazed her lips. A sweet taste caught her attention. Sugar? Had she dropped it in something sugary or…no, surely she wouldn’t have used sugar solution as an invisible ink, how would she have found out about it?

Well there was only one way to find out; she strode over to hotplate in the kitchen and switched it on – heat was an activator. If she had used it as an invisible ink then she hadn’t known to heavily dilute it. Ah yes, words had appeared on the pages where she’d applied heat. The girl had become frustrated with writing in code and had written in sugar solution instead, as she’d just had to write her feelings down. However, she hadn’t realised that it could be developed and read.

She laughed at the cleverness of her niece, ah, they had stolen the artefacts as they and a friend had access to them all! How the young had been underestimated yet again.

The reason? A naive and lovely one, to show how stupid some of the traditions were in hope that their relationship would in the long term become acceptable. If they caught the kids before they got off the planet then all would be well. She grabbed the High King by the hand and, like all good officers, went after her quarry.

It is National Science and Technology Week so I have collected together some of my poems and science stories and written a song which I have put up on bandcamp.

I have produced an audio book which I am selling to raise money to buy books for my little ones School Library (they get the profit). The disc contains The Little Book of Easter Poetry, The Little Chicken Song and the story Ester Rabbit – there is even me playing the recorder 🙂 It costs £5 with £1 p&p. There will be an online order form eventually but you can send cheques made payable to Sarah Snell-Pym

50 Newton Avenue

Gloucester

Glos

GL4 4NU

There will be a download version soon too (it will be £3) – there is currently no print version of this and probably wont be until next year. I managed to buy two books with the taking from The Little Book of Festive Poetry which the school are very happy with but they do basically need to restock their whole library.

Obviously if you are going to see me before/around Easter just pre-order what you want 🙂

And if anyone has a shop or anything that wants to stock a couple then let me know 🙂