Fiction
The Priest Hole (March 31, 2007)
The sky was clear save for a small cluster of clouds – more ornamental than brimming over with sinister purpose. The sun was discreet; he did not ostentatiously command the scene, but neither did he make a timid entrance and huddle close to the horizon. The leaves rustled and made merry in the trees. Nature lay complacent and unknowing in the brisk autumn air of an English countryside.
He would not see it. He could not see it. He nested alone, crumpled, in a hidden room, behind an unseen latch. A hole. He had become a present absence, concealed from the relentless eyes of the Queen’s men. Read more...
The Letters of Magdalen Montague: AN EPISTOLARY NOVELLA
On 4 April 1947, a house on the Rue des Trois Frères, raided by the Nazis and left untenanted since the liberation of Paris, was sold. Records of past ownership had been destroyed during the occupation, and since memory is short in that district, little was known of the man who had most recently lived there. No stories were known to explain his departure. How could there be at a time when so many were dead or disappeared without a trace? He might have evacuated the city with so many others; he might have been imprisoned; he might have been dead. Read more...
The Game of Sean McTeague
(To be published in Dappled Things)
Sean McTeague was the sort of fellow who used righteous anger for everyday occasions. Had he lived in epic times, Sean McTeague certainly would have been an epic hero...or perhaps an epic villain. The trouble with epic times is that the difference between heroes and villains is sometimes rather vague. Take Achilles, for example—a more sorry excuse for a human being has never lived. One treasures the knowledge of his heel and waits with bated breath for the moment when someone will have the inspiration to tap the blighter’s hamstring.
Sean McTeague knew nothing of Achilles beyond Achilles Clark who owned The Blue Boar. No one knew why it was called The Blue Boar, and no one knew why its owner was named Achilles. But everyone knew that Sean McTeague had broken many chairs and shattered the big mirror behind the bar one Saturday night because Achilles Clark had laughed at the Protestant minister. The Protestant minister had not minded, and the Protestants of the parish had not minded, and Achilles Clark had not minded…at least, not until Sean McTeague had come into The Blue Boar with all the energy of the avenging angel to right the slight against Mr. Josiah Phiddlegree. Read more... | 
