CHAPTER 38
I managed to avoid another trip to the sluice room, but only just, and not for the first time I wondered how and why I had ended up in such a job. There was more, but Matt’s summary covered it rather neatly. Discounting the possibility of an utterly bizarre and complicated accident, our man had been beaten and badly wounded with axes. Not swords; Matt went into rather too much detail about the different wounds he would have expected if someone had been channelling some Japanese ninja film.

Smile

My father was admitted to the hospital and I, without any fight, was admitted into a cell at juvenile hall. I wasn’t as miserable as I thought I would be. I was held over the weekend without visitors.

It was a contentious meeting.

General Food Products was trying to acquire Matilda's, a leading name in the custom lingerie industry. The lawyers were negotiating while the principals sat there patiently trying to stay awake.

"It figures that someone would want me to tell the story of the fight with the giant cats again. I've told this one a dozen times or more now!"

Jarg was sitting on his homemade stump stool near the kitchen of Madame Benrime's excellent establishment, the Journeyman's Inn.

He had recently moved into a room behind the blacksmith's, sharing the living space with Vansel, his brother Argen and Vansel's wife Twist. Even with that, though, when Jarg wasn't busy helping the smith or the carpenter, he could be found relaxing in the inn over a mug of ale.

Webster’s dictionary defines Speed as the fallowing: the rate of change of position along a straight line with respect to time over a set distance. In other words, the quicker you can get from one place to another. The question is what do you, do when your family has spent the last two generations in search of ways to accomplish this goal faster and faster. Would do you do when the family business is the search for more Speed. For Robert ‘Robby’ McGuire the answer is easy. You grab your sister and strap on a pair of Formula One race cars then go for broke.

Cast of Characters in “The Siege of Fiddler’s Vale”

(Author’s note: To whet your appetite for my upcoming story, “the siege of Fiddler’s Vale, [which is a sequel to my "The Trio" stories] I thought I would first introduce some of the people whose lives will be affected by it ...)

Time on My Hands
Chapter 29: 273-285 CE: The Thebian Legion

Just after dawn 500 Palmyrene cavalry formed in the square. They carried unlit torches and buckets of burning charcoal to ignite them. Firmus emerged with his entourage to address the troops. As he spoke, gesturing for emphasis he stopped abruptly. Everyone was stunned to see the feathered end of an arrow had appeared in his mouth. As his body crumbled and twisted they could see the point was protruding from the back of his neck. His second in command was quickly down with an arrow in his heart. The troops reacted with shouting while seeking the assailant. Those on the steps with the now dead Firmus ran in panic. Six more high ranking officers were dropped before they reached cover. By then dismounted troops were rushing into the temple.

Please note: Grooming, as I use the term here, does not refer to keeping oneself clean, but to someone picking up young folks, telling them that they can have a good life if they come along with them, then the kids end up being coerced into becoming either thieves or prostitutes.

I'm not sure why, but I was pretty wiped out after the fair had shut down on Sunday evening, and soon wandered off to my bed.

CHAPTER 37
We were back in the office on January 3rd, and I spent the morning going through the parish notice e-mails, or, as we called them, after the head admin woman who issued them all, ‘Weller Deletes’. Open—scan—delete. Several were attached to a read receipt system, so I then took a while longer deleting the out-of-office auto-replies to the auto-replies to…

It filled the morning for me, between sessions of team brew-ups and runs out to the local supermarket for biscuits and muffins.

Dom had been asked by his parents to clean out the attic of his great grandmother’s mother’s place. His parents were thinking about selling the old farmhouse. He had asked a few friends to come over and give him a hand.

He climbs up the ladder into the attic and starts handing things down to his friend George and Casey. The small stuff was easy to hand down the stairs, however, there were like seven large pieces of luggage that looked to be from the early 1800’s. He had seen streamer trunks before, but nothing like these.

CHAPTER 36
I felt better after that, enough to talk at last to my husband. We lay in the darkness at Mam’s, our last night before we would decamp back to our old house along with the girls. Rhod was burbling away in his little pull-out bed, while I just lay wrapped around my husband, street lighting leaking enough around the curtains to see his expressions.

“Christmas, love. I had some news”

“That phone call?”

“Yeah…”

The beautiful, talented, and fabulous Imp is back to continue her adventures, both on and off the Whateley campus.

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