The first they knew of their visitor was when Sofia saw him lope around the outside of the house as if stalking something. She darted from room to room, tracking his progress. She hissed to Stephen to get his attention and they watched the stranger – a dishevelled-looking man with hair in long, lank ringlets
The degree to which a gentleman reveals himself to another is a curious state of affairs at the best of times, though I suppose the holding of a razor to one’s throat helps. That said, I doubt anyone would be the slightest bit surprised at a gentleman’s willingness to betray the confidence of another, whether
Mesmerised, her eyes locked onto the images on the screen. An earthquake in the ocean, its magnitude measuring in at ‘twenty-three thousand Hiroshima sized bombs’ causing a tidal wave forty foot high, its watery fingers grasping at the shore, breaking with the puissance of a racehorse, moving swiftly round the corner, taking the final hedge
I came across the troll yesterday, quite by chance. I’d been clearing the loft, and there it was at the bottom of a tattered box containing miscellany from my youth, that impudent smile I hadn’t seen in many years. Finding it brought to mind a much larger troll, for want of a better word, an
Cassandra heard Dean rough-housing with the dog upstairs—the barking and clomping were louder than the rumble of the dryer—and when she emerged from the basement with a loaded laundry basket and glanced through the front hall to the living room, her mouth dropped open. Her fiancé (clothed, thank God) was behind Koshi, their yellow lab,
Franny always said our pastries had the consistency of dried paper mache. At night we’d wrap the leftovers and leave them outside for the homeless. Not even raccoons would go near those things. One by one we had to let our staff go. We consulted a financial advisor, who said our best course of action
Maureen decided we’d redecorate the lounge. Our decor was no longer “chic”. I didn’t know what that meant but I argued it was quite chic indeed if it meant I didn’t have to tear up a perfectly good shag carpet. “It’s very ‘65, you know,” she said with disdain as if ’65 was universally agreed
It was a beautiful baby blue that made the walls look like an icing covered birthday cake. Ella enjoyed making shapes with her brush, a beach scene with a starfish, then a palm tree on a desert island, before sweeping the scenes away with a big roller. With each stroke, she felt a little more
Consuelo has always regarded herself as a fortunate woman. Just look at my life, she’d say, if anyone asked her. She’s spent her seventy years living in the same corner of the same Spanish city. Let other people roam the world, she thinks, if she catches a travel documentary on television. Let other people rush
On December 22nd, her father’s birthday, Mila Sloane tightened her jacket around her neck as she climbed the steps to enter the annual Christmas banquet as her dad’s guest. With temperatures plunging into the teens during the night, a light film of frost had carpeted the small coastal town. Inside the beach-themed office of the
