It’s May and the first bloom opened on the rose. …It’s been five years since it happened but the thorns of each year prick my heart as sharply as do the thorns on Barbrianna’s briar.
A contemporary fantasy inspired by Child’s Ballad #84, “Barb’ry Allen.”
Chapter 25. SUN OF THE DESERT
The quiet of peaceful things enveloped them—a house not yet awake, a day not yet begun, trees not yet in bloom, a commitment to journey or war not yet made—and in the weight of the quiet, Flayme felt the waiting of something unquiet.
chapter 25 of the novel “The Weavers of Amirra,” part 2, The Fire Weaver of Highhold.
9. Something Lost
“…The chief Rhake dismounted and picked up the man’s sword. He turned to the bodies; his black boots stepped into their pooled blood. He leaned over and removed the woman’s sword from her dead hand…”
novel excerpt from “The Weavers of Amirra,” Part 1, The Song Weaver of Skyeborder
Chapter 9. “Something Lost”
Roadwork
“Blood pooled in the seat under the guy’s arm. How could blood come out of an arm that fast? How many beats in a life time? How many left?”
from the collection “Women Who Sleep With Dogs.” Published in Tales of the Concrete Highway, Blue Cubicle Press 2013
The White Seal
1998 Dell Award Story
“I was not of the sea but loved its blue-green presence as though I were one of its children. The sea murmurs constantly as it takes pieces of the land and breaks them, softens the rough edges, turns them to sand. Like sand, I am worn so no one can tell where I belong.”