Category: Fantasy Publisher: Wings ePress
ISBN-10: 1613096097
Type: Fiction
Pages: 222
Copyright: September 1, 2019
ISBN-13: 9781613096093
“We are such stuff as dreams are made on…”
The chance meeting with Gabi in Queen Mary’s Garden, Regent’s Park, is only the start of a series of unworldly events for aspiring writer James Cockburn, which will involve him first in a murder investigation and treasure hunt in St Ives, Cornwall, and then in the increasingly frenetic machinations of politicians and mobsters in both the human dimension and fairyland.
Excerpt
It was the very same night while Stephanie and the brats were asleep and snoring in her bedroom—the brats’ room had been vacated to accommodate James and Gabi—that James crept from beneath the sheets and went in search of the murder weapon. All over the tiny house he hunted, peering in cupboards, foraging under couch cushions, poking his nose into any crevice he could find that might house the bloody scimitar, but nothing did he discover. Not even a knife sufficiently large, sharp, or serrated to chop off a fish’s head let alone that of a six-foot human like William.
Having exhausted the house, he tippy-toed out into the minuscule paved garden which sported a few wilting geraniums in pots plus a lean-to shed leaning so much it was about to fall over and so small it could barely have contained a mower for the lawn that didn’t exist anyway. It was the sort of shed an elf would have been happy to inhabit, that was about the size of it. But there were no scimitars in there either, not even one carefully wiped of blood and presumably bits of skin tissue. No scythes, no outsize secateurs, no monster scissors, nothing capable of the hideous crime for which he was still under the suspicion he was hoping to disprove forever. Not that he would lay the blame on Stephanie should he find the murder weapon, of course. That would be too dastardly. But he could put it somewhere so far removed from his or his sister-in-law’s environs as to render its use by them in the killing of William at the very least improbable. Possibly also tie a little note around its handle saying, “It WoSn’T JaMeS wOt DuNniT.
“Hrrrmph,” he said, peering up at a milky full moon, the man in which returned his gaze with a supercilious smile. “Humans and their sad little lives,” he appeared to be implying.
“Sod off,” James told him, and was glad to see a passing cloud wipe the smirk from his face.
After that there was nothing left for him to search so, yawning, he headed back to the house. “Headed” as if James were on some Texan ranch. In fact it only took two or three paces for him to be back in the kitchen-cum-diner-cum-family room-cum-lounge, which could only have measured a dozen square feet. The sort of space you might have expected from the latest London housing development of micro apartments based on the Japanese model of coffin hotels.
“Still, unless she’s hidden it somewhere nobody will ever find it or chucked it off a cliff into the sea or something,” he whispered to himself, “that pretty much lets Stephanie off the hook.”
Such was his immediate conclusion, although this was his first ever sally into the art of sleuthing and he was aware there could be other potential explanations for Stephanie’s involvement in the crime. Some covert lover she’d taken to punish William for his frequent straying from marital vows by cutting his head off, although his willy might have been a more appropriate organ even if it didn’t kill him. A family member with insanity issues and an expertise in scimitar wielding she’d paid off to free the planet of William. A local art critic so enraged by William’s dystopian abstract nudes he’d allowed himself to be encouraged by Stephanie to do the dirty deed as a means to ensure there would never again be another Cockburn dystopian abstract nude exhibition in St Ives. The list of potential doers went on…
It was as James was contemplating these further what-ifs while peering hopelessly around the “kitchen” that a peculiar grinding noise started up behind the ratty chinz curtain that separated off the sink and cooker.
“What the…?” he said, drawing the curtain as the grinding continued, now accompanied by what sounded like footsteps in snow or mud. Squelchy.
It was only then that the horrible thought, the one that practically froze his heart, struck him. In a word: the cellar. It had never occurred to him such a tiny house might contain a cellar.
“Shit,” he said as the floor beneath him began to open and someone—the “mysterious presence” Stephanie had mentioned?—said, “Hello James.”
He didn’t look up because he was already on his knees, hanging his head and praying for forgiveness to the God he’d so brazenly denied in all three of his failed novels.
~*~
“Don’t be shy,” said the voice as the squelchy footsteps approached and then James felt finger-like things, possibly even flippers with toes, grip his shoulder. “Look up. You can’t stay that way forever.”
“Aaaagh, grrng,” he said as the toed flippery things took to squeezing at his shoulder. Gently.
“You will probably not have seen a creature of my kind before and to you as to any human I may appear monstrous beyond your limited comprehension, but try to expunge from your mind such value judgments. Because a person is different doesn’t mean s/he is to be feared,” said the voice.
“Unggrah, ung,” James said, as the shoulder squeezing morphed into a kneading he was beginning to like. In some arcane way the terror that had been rattling through his body eased, to be replaced by something resembling comfort. How this could have happened he didn’t know. And didn’t care. Even when he briefly wondered if he were being put under some kind of a spell he didn’t care. Maybe this was what morpheme was like. Or marijuana. Or heroin. Or LSD. Never having used any of those drugs, he had no means of comparison. The kneading was nice though, consoling.
“Just a little peek?” said the voice, as the massage moved to the other shoulder and then down his spine.
And so it was that James raised his head.
If you’re not a fan of the paranormal, I would perfectly understand should you set this book aside right now and watch TV instead. Not that there’s much on these days apart from cookery programmes, sport, and past their sell-by-date cop shows. Should you be of the inquisitive type prepared to tolerate the idea however, this is what James saw as he turned to meet what he’d come to think of as “the phantom from cellar”: an elf. The sort of being he’d imagined as living in the minuscule lean-to in the garden, tiny in the traditional way of elves therefore with a long beard and pointy ears. At first sight at least. On closer inspection however, this one, who introduced him/herself as Koleen, didn’t feature only regular elfin masculinity but beneath the long beard and pointy ears also sported breasts and legs of which Marilyn Monroe would have been proud. Think androgynous sex kitten elf here. And the fingers/flippers that had been massaging James? Were flippers, hence the squelchy. S/he was wearing a diaphanous red shift.
“Kuh-kuh-Christ,” said James.
“As you wish,” said Koleen, morphing into a passable image of the saviour whom James—like Peter, Thomas and Judas—had so frequently denied in his three novels. One way and another, everything was getting pretty spooky.
“No, look, I didn’t mean…” he said. But Koleen just smiled.
“My dear, I can be anything you want me to be,” s/he said. “But always remember I have a mind of my own. Whose powers I suggest you accept without question. Meanwhile, I am at your disposal for assistance in your current dilemma. Like a bridge over troubled water, all you gotta do is call, you’ve got a friend,” s/he added in a bizarre mishmash of Paul Simon and James Taylor songs.
Then, just like that, s/was gone in a puff of smoke and James was left alone in his ex-brother’s kitchen. Fat chance of any sleep in the remainder of that night, so he just paced…and paced…and paced around the bedroom, waking Gabi who wanted to know what the hell was wrong with him all of a sudden.
“Oh, you know, things on my mind. Difficulty sleeping, that sort of thing,” he said, climbing back into the bed in which Gabi had already returned to snoring. Mind you better that than being obliged to admit to having just met a friendly bisexual elf and having his sanity interrogated in the wee small hours when it was always at its least reliable. Maybe he had gone temporarily bonkers what with the recent stress and everything, and tomorrow would be a brand new day. He sort of doubted it, but hope springs eternal, does it not?
I can see that you have been very productive lately by all of these new novels. And successful, I hope. Like you propose in this excerpt, I should, "put down the book right now," because I'm not fond of paranormal, supernatural or fantasy things. But you have such an intriguing way of writing that impels the reader to read on. A real gift.
In this case, James Cockburn, failed novelist, is trying to help his sister-in-law out of the potential accusation of killing her husband. In his path brief search of "what ifs" he suddenly discovers a subterranean creature, a bisexual elf, that is quite pleasing in demeanor. After reading what you have written, my conclusion is that the novel may be psychological. Perhaps the elf is all in James's mind (certainly in Paddy's mind). Perhaps not. Hence the tendency to want to read on.
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