The Other Shepherd

Avram was terrified when the light and the noise burst out of the night sky. He was eight years old, and his uncle Samael had taken him along for the first time to tend the sheep for a full night’s watch in the hills above Bethlehem. Avram had been helping to look after the family’s

The Pied Piper

Many years had passed since the day the village of Hamelin lost its children. The bereft parents had more children to replace those who’d been led under the mountain by the piper in the multicolored jerkin, and those children became parents themselves. Hamelin grew from a village to a town, and prospered nicely, becoming the

Bumps In The Night

Bumps In The Night It was Halloween in the little town of Wayne Bridge, New Hampshire. Spiderman; The Wicked Witch of the West; Dracula wearing a cape, with plastic fangs in his mouth; The Grim Reaper in a hooded black robe and a very realistic skull mask, carrying a sickle; Wonder Woman; and Batman were

Grimalkin

Grimalkin 1.Bump In The Night Every Saturday night, after finishing his shift at the basket factory, Sam Grant would head for the Bantam Bar and Grill and knock back whiskey until he was half in the bag. Then he’d drive back to the little house on Cavender Road, very carefully – he used to brag

The Second Day

The Second Day Terce The same boy who had brought the Senhor’s summons and the strange instrument woke them early. He was a cocky little fellow, Jannequin thought, with something of the catamite about him, and as he rousted the musicians awake he made it clear that he was an important personage. “Senhor Bernier has

Three Years Later

Three Years Later The First Day Nones “He’s crazy,” Geraut said. He was hunched next to Jannequin, both of them wrapped in their cloaks with their hoods pulled down to their noses, backs against the rough front slats of the cart, trying to doze as the old mule plodded along. Eastertide had come late that

The Fisherman and his Wife

There was once a fisherman and his wife who lived together in a hovel by the sea-shore, and the fisherman went out every day with his hook and line to catch fish, and he angled and angled. One day he was sitting with his rod and looking into the clear water, and he sat and

The Duppy, Part One

The Duppy Part One “Wanda is a bit of a handful,” Mrs. Beaton warned Melda when she hired her. “We try not to spoil her, but she’s at that difficult age, you understand, just coming into her teens.” Melda did not understand. In Jamaica she’d been the fourth child out of six, and she’d been

Han and Gret

There was once a traveling peddler who got lost in a vast forest on his way to a market town. He ran out of food, and was faint with hunger and thirst when he finally spotted a little cottage nestled in an open glade. It had a steeply-pitched roof, a single chimney at one end