Miranda’s knees were locked and there was a slight tremble in her legs. Despite the cool weather, she felt sweat break out onto her back the moment they stepped into the clearing. The cold snap had settled in a few days ago. Fall was coming. This time of...
My sister Sally and I stood in our grandmother’s darkening living room staring at the wall. Staring at the painting to be exact. The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough or as I referred to it Nightmare Fuel. Our mother used to send us to our grandmother Rose’...
My parents were on a business vacation and we children were not eager to accompany them. My father convinced me to stay in our cottage where we have been spending our summer since the beginning of first grade. The cottage was located in northern Sweden, i...
I watched my copper mailbox dangle from the door of my bar through the blurs of my windshield wipers. The rubber gripped the glass, not a forgotten drop or streak. They were new. The car was new. The mailbox was rusted and tarnished. It was Sunday, I...
u·to·pi·ayooˈtōpēə/NounAn imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect Lines. Entry 1) I should not be writing, or feeling. They tell me that numbness is normal. They imagined the signs, they envisioned the nightmares, and they fear...
She awoke and was sleep walkingHer and her American Girl dollWhat she saw was rather shockingThere was blood dripping from the wallsWhose blood was it she thoughtHer mom and dad alive in bedShe was scared and distraughtPerhaps she had hit her headWas this...
"A mental asylum!" Sam's eyes grew wide and concerned at the thought of my new job offer. "Annie! You said no of course?""No, I took the job.""Annie! So you are as crazy as you look," he teased. Sam lightly nudged my arm and my heart leapt. I couldn't hel...
Social media. It’s a strange place.A place where an apology can result in being blocked by a so-called friend. Where mention of something proposed an ocean away can trigger an overreaction so extreme that a guy who always seemed nice and normal now comes...
And then I shot up from bed. The weather is acting up. I had a bad dream, but what was it? I can’t remember. . . Wait, where is she? Is she okay? I have to check up on her. I don’t know why, but I think she’s in danger! This is what the boy thought to him...
When we first moved into our new home, we saw we had endless woods out back. It looked so magical, like a fairytale. It drew me in immediately, but I was warned not to come into these woods. I was told repeatedly, they are just too dangerous. “Promise me,...
It was a cold, lonely Friday night in a small town in Indiana (Friday the thirteenth, to be exact). The wind howled with a cry like an anguished wolf, and made the bare limbs of the trees tremble like feverish invalids. It was the kind of night that fores...
Mallen's Bridge irishmik60 Tis a little known fact that there are literally hundreds of stone circles and mounds throughout the British Isles. Stonehenge being by far the most famous. Their arches and monolithic structures have astounded mankind from earl...
In June 2010 a freak fire gutted a 16th Century farmhouse in Hampshire. During the renovation following the disaster the owners found, concealed beneath the floorboards, the diary of one Joseph Mortimer; a thirty-seven year old land owner of modest holdin...
