There he was, round saucer eyes, nose waggling like a sausage hot in the pan, spiky black hair reaching every which way. True, I couldn’t really see him, but I knew he was just around the corner in the upper hallway of the Hold, laughing his slow, goofy laugh. Continue reading
troll
Countdown
Boxes lay along the curved perimeter of the silvery dock. A slender figure darted around them, stacking smaller boxes on medium, turning some toward the shoreline. The healer and her intern had placed three large boxes on the further, forested side, long before the observers had arrived. The dock rocked, slapping the water; the beasts were restless.
Twelve boxes total, counting the one in her belly pocket.
The crowd quieted as dawn softened, red to apricot.
She raised her arms. “Z!” The intern unlatched the largest box and stepped back as a silky black panther padded toward the trees.
He turned his head once, flashed his canines in farewell and disappeared into the shadows. Continue reading
Wrestling with the Midnight Muse
Somewhere up above the viscous fog that rolled and knotted itself across the meadow between fen and family farm, the moon shone full, a cold silver shield in the night sky. Continue reading
Emergency Delivery
She’d traversed the mountain, her skis crackling and sparking as she streaked down the final slope. Just a few kilometers more across the icy flatlands; she would reach the Hold before full sunrise. Continue reading
Tale from the Land of the Midnight Sun: Hjordis
A single star streaked through the wind-slashed northern night, highlighting the ice shards that skittered across the glacier and collected on the pelt of Magnhildr. Shivering, she howled as another contraction rippled through her body, and dropped to her knees. She panted and leaned against the single granite outcropping that pushed through the otherwise flat, blue expanse, broken only by shifting dunes of snow. Continue reading
Valley of the Trolls 