This one's not for the faint of heart. Over the course of the story there will be death, suicide attempts, a fair amount of physical and mental abuse, some egregious torture and a hefty dollop of foul language, but hopefully a happy ending. Actually, the last bit's a given since it's me doing the writing, but between here and the end is a rocky road, so please if any of the above is likely to be triggering for you, please, please think twice about reading.

Laura recalls some of her experiences in this chapter, and quite graphically. I’ve marked them in red in case you prefer to skip.

This one's not for the faint of heart. Over the course of the story there will be death, suicide attempts, a fair amount of physical and mental abuse, some egregious torture and a hefty dollop of foul language, but hopefully a happy ending. Actually, the last bit's a given since it's me doing the writing, but between here and the end is a rocky road, so please if any of the above is likely to be triggering for you, please, please think twice about reading.

This one's not for the faint of heart. Over the course of the story there will be death, suicide attempts, a fair amount of physical and mental abuse, some egregious torture and a hefty dollop of foul language, but hopefully a happy ending. Actually, the last bit's a given since it's me doing the writing, but between here and the end is a rocky road, so please if any of the above is likely to be triggering for you, please, please think twice about reading.

This one's not for the faint of heart. Over the course of the story there will be death, suicide attempts, a fair amount of physical and mental abuse, some egregious torture and a hefty dollop of foul language, but hopefully a happy ending. Actually, the last bit's a given since it's me doing the writing, but between here and the end is a rocky road, so please if any of the above is likely to be triggering for you, please, please think twice about reading.

Chapter 12

Jen and I went for a walk before dinner. No surprise, we had a couple of soldiers following us, rifles in hand. They remained at a discrete distance but did a good job of showing themselves to us.

“You could probably get away if you tried,” Jen said, keeping her voice low.

“Let’s reserve that for if and when it becomes necessary,” I muttered back. “If I get away once, they’ll increase the number of guards, and probably arm them with tranquiliser guns.”

“Don’t you think that’s what those are?”

Chapter 11

Mum appeared in my room about ten o’clock with the perfect cup of tea, which almost made up for only seven hours sleep.

“Your father’s been telling me what an amazing daughter we have. I’ll be honest, dear, I didn’t understand half of what he said, and the other half scared me out of my wits, but I couldn’t be prouder.”

I wasn’t so sure. Those didn’t look like tears of pride. I put the tea down and put my arms around her.

“Oh my,” she said after a very long moment. “Thank you for that, dear. I rather needed that.

Chapter 9

I took the shoes from her and sat next to her on the bed. There was a box of wet wipes on the bedside cabinet. I took a few and started cleaning off the gore, taking extra care around the sharp edges and points.

I’d about finished when a quiet but distinct tick sounded against the window. I opened it and reflexively caught the two heel sheaths that came flying through the gap.

“Thanks,” I said quietly. He’d already demonstrated how good his hearing was.

I had a moderate level brain fart when posting chapter 6 and ended up putting 2 copies of it on both the home page and my stories page. I have the impression it caused a few headaches to sort out, and from the number of hits this week (400 compared to last weeks 800+) I'm wondering if some people may have missed it. If that's the case, here's a direct link to chapter 6.

Helping Mum wasn’t as dire as it sounded. She took charge, which was only right since she knew a lot more about the running of her kitchen than me, and preparation for lunch took less than half the time it usually did. The happy bonus being that Mum calmed down rather than becoming her usual frazzled self. With twice as many hands available, it was easier to wash up as we went, so there wasn’t much in the way of dirties in the sink by the time we were ready to serve up.

Parking in the village was never an issue. The drive took place in stony silence with Dad’s grim expression inviting no conversation. There was something I needed to say before we went much further though.

“This isn’t going to do any good, Dad.” He glowered at me, but I pressed on regardless. “He was as surprised and upset as I was by the changes in my appearance – more so. He’s not going to have any idea how to reverse this. Besides, even if he does, I’m not going through with it.”

“Irish Dancing? Isn't that the rubbish where they keep their arms straight by their sides?" Nick peered myopically at the bulletin board. The poster actually showed a line of girls high kicking in unison, ponytails flying and, yes, arms held rigidly at their sides.

I shook my head, more to myself than anything. It really was a mystery to me how he'd made it to college with so little going on between his ears.

A morning's musings from my muse.

Fool. From the French fol (or folle for the girls) or Latin follis meaning mad. There are other possible root words, but they seem unlikely.

But what is madness?

Einstein famously said, ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,' which is – typical of the man – genius, but it doesn’t quite work.

Did you know, some infinities are larger than others?

Yeah, I had much the same reaction. As in dude, what are you smoking, and where can I get some?

It’s true though. The proof goes something like this:

Integers are whole numbers which can be positive, negative or zero.

The smallest positive integer is one and each subsequent integer can be found by adding one to the last.

If there is a finite number of integers, then there has to be a finite number that is the largest integer. We can call this n.

Maeryn Lamonte Copyright ©️ 2024

“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming tonight. I realise it’s a little bit of an imposition for me to ask you..."

Everyone laughed politely, which only seemed to confuse the Old Man. I mean this was the New Year’s party, wasn’t it? And he’d all but told us attendance was obligatory. So surely he must have expected a good turnout.