I read a lovely little short story this week: ‘The Rental‘ by Liam Slade is well worth your time. Here’s the premise:
What if you got a letter one day informing you that you were only renting your body… and payment was due?
What’s particularly nice about it is the body positivity, and the way a piece of transgender fiction can be fun – y’know, as opposed to being grounds for a big ol’ moral panic. Have a look?
Meanwhile, I’m stuck waiting for Amazon to release ‘The Color of Deception’ to the online store, tragically refreshing my screen every five minutes and nervously hopping from one foot to another. You know what? A watched pot never boils: I’m going to bed.
I shouldn’t really be anxious: I’ve read the thing about ten times in the last two weeks – but if you manage to snag a copy of my story before I do, please be nice!
We’re getting closer to the release of my new book and I think it’s time to reveal the title. In fact, we can do better than that: here’s the prototype for the cover…
I already wrote something quite blurbish in the post titled (I kid you not) “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh…”, so grab your shotgun, invoke some protective wards and pop back to that one if you want to know what it’s about.
I think the title is suitably Lovecraftian. HPL wrote the wonderful short story, ‘The Colour Out of Space’, after all. (No prizes for guessing that the titular colour in my own story is a shade of blue.)
Want to see something from mine? Okay…
I’m keeping this account in the hope that it might prove useful, were something untoward to happen to me. Please bear in mind that these are the ramblings of a person already judged to be insane. Thus, if you find my story upsetting, throw it on the fire. Huddle close to the flames: warm yourself with my words and light the darkest corners of the room for a little while. Cherish your ignorance, just as we all do, in our little oasis of light amid the infinite unknown. Only the very strongest of us should attempt to peer out into the darkness – in case we should find something out there that chooses to meet our gaze.
I’m getting ahead of myself.
To my colleagues, I was Bartholomew McFadden, lecturer in ancient languages. Bart McFadden is no longer counted among the living, however, and I want to record what happened to him. ‘Missing’ is such an inadequate epitaph, don’t you think?
I hope you’ll enjoy your sojourn in Arkham, Massachusetts as much as I did. I suspect it’s just the first of many such trips in the years to come.
At Miskatonic University, they tend to do things a little bit differently…
Nothing to do with reviews! This is about something I tried for the first time with ‘Limerence’. In my other stories, you follow the main character throughout, either in first person or third person.
I wasn’t very far into the tale of crossdressing naval architect David Ferndale and his stalker when I realised that I didn’t want to tell it in an omniscient ‘god mode’. I sensed that it’d be a lot more interesting to see all the anxieties and misconceptions of both parties.
Thus, I embarked on my first ‘multiple POV’ project, and I really enjoyed it. I don’t particularly like comic books (are we supposed to say ‘graphic novels’ now?) but one thing that’s intriguing about that format is the “thinks” bubble. Those cloudy-shaped ones that allow the creator to reveal a person’s motivation; their fears; their flaws. (Here’s a great little article about multiple POV, by the way.)
Unless you want to write in a way that grants the reader special knowledge, peeping into the heads of any character when it’s necessary in order to advance the story, you only get to report on the perceptions of one, influenced by what they see and hear of others. (Will Hollington in ‘Ground Rush‘, for example.) With ‘Limerence’ I chose to have two points of view, and a strict format: David gets the odd-numbered chapters while the troubled Amelia gets the even-numbered ones.
In effect, I got to take a second ‘bite’ at a scene, any time I wanted it – to show how differently each character perceived the moments they shared.
From Chapter Three
From Chapter Four
David emerged into a world washed clean by the rain and he took a moment to enjoy the distinctive, earthy smell in the air. The storm had blown itself out during the night and the new day looked to be set fair. It demanded another eight hours of work in his windowless office, but for now he could enjoy it.
Amelia was there, reaching underneath his car for some reason. She looked embarrassed to be caught in a pose that had presented her bottom to him and she stood, fussing with her hair.
“David! Er… hi.”
He couldn’t help smiling – not least because of the view she’d presented him with, in her jodhpurs.
“Good morning, Amelia. Have you lost something?”
“It was a crisp packet. Not mine! I mean… the wind last night must’ve knocked somebody’s bin over, because there was rubbish everywhere. I’ve been picking it up.”
Now David was the one who was embarrassed.
“You really don’t have to pick up litter in my garden.”
Amelia did not have a good day.
First, there had been that business of getting caught with her arse in the air, like a cat’s mating display – which would have been nice if it had worked, but past experience had shown that the Beloved was unlikely to be swayed by such things. Amelia had tried being flirty before.
At least she’d picked up some of the litter from his garden. She liked to do little jobs for him. The habitual little frown that he wore was nothing but adorable, but she wanted to soothe it away if she could. If only she could prepare his packed lunches, or come in and mix him a cocktail in the evening so that he could relax while she did the washing-up, or something. Maybe offer herself to him for some sex, no strings attached.
Shit. Of course there were strings attached. She wanted to be Mrs Amelia Ferndale, the mother of his children. How many would he want? Three. That’d be perfect: a strong, tall son, a beautiful daughter, slightly younger, and an adorable little baby that made them both smile, sharing a joke as he or she gurgled.
When you consider how many secrets and lies are festering beneath these interactions, the second point of view was not merely useful, but very valuable. I found that Amelia grew as a consequence: I became much more sympathetic toward her, despite the chaos that she brings.
Limerence got a small update yesterday, fixing a few small errors and also giving the book a new cover. The original showed Amelia peeping from concealment, whereas the new version shows her in full. I’d love to know what you think.
‘Limerence’ is available from Amazon, like all my other books – but you can also check out the free stories hosted here on WordPress.
No: I haven’t broken another keyboard*. It’s just that I’ve been reading a lot of H.P. Lovecraft, lately. My next story is going to be a Lovecraftian one.
I’d been thinking about setting a story within the Cthuhlu Mythos for some time. It offers a rich, sinister backdrop and some fabulous potential for villains both home-grown and supernatural. Where better to be a damsel in distress than in the vicinity of Arkham in general and at Miskatonic University in particular?
Who knows what excitement you’ll discover at Miskatonic University!
When Bart McFadden, expert in ancient languages, attempts to save the life of his goddaughter, the result isn’t one he could have anticipated. Bargaining with the powerful, unearthly entity that absorbed her is only partially successful, resulting in a fusion of Bart’s memories and Matilda’s body.
Transformed against his will, Bart soon learns that any protests about his identity can only lead to him being judged insane. That’s a threat to everyone, because the monster is still there, biding its time in the ruins of the Blackwood Sanatorium. Bart knows he must defeat the thing – and for that he needs the resources of the library at Miskatonic University, which means Matilda will have to apply to become an undergraduate student…
A story with an H.P. Source.
There are parallels with ‘Egyptology‘, here, as we return to the world of Academia. Some people have asked me to write more about the adventures of Aisha Burnside, but I consider her to have reached her ‘happily ever after’. Matilda Hale, however, has plenty of trials still to come.
Dear diary, I’m worried about my roommate…
* Ah, yes… keyboard woes. In fact, I’m finding the keyboard on this little Framework laptop to be very good. After thirty-two years together, Apple and I have gone our separate ways. I wish I could say something nice, like “It isn’t you; it’s me…” but no: it’s all down to you, Apple.
If you’ve read the message board at Fictionmania in recent weeks, you’re probably aware that there’s a thief in our community; maybe more than one. Stories that were shared free of charge are taken, given a new title and bogus author details, and sold to unsuspecting readers. Another facet of the same crime is where stories are being fed through an AI voice program to produce ‘audiobooks’ – again, with the title changed and the author not being credited, in the hope that they won’t discover that their work has been stolen and take action.
It’s been going on for years, and it’s horrible to rub shoulders (online) with the kind of person who’s pleased to note the obituary of an author, because that serves to identify another easy victim.
In my mind’s eye, our thief is a person in a developing country. For one thing, certain nations that I won’t name have a very different attitude to intellectual property rights. For another, it’s got to be the kind of person for whom ten or fifteen dollars is “good money.” Crime does pay… but it doesn’t pay very well.
Unless, of course, you do it at scale.
If it takes me between six and nine months to write a novel… how long does it take a thief to go online, find a suitable tale, download it and then put it up on Amazon’s self-publishing platform, KDP? With AI tools now available to create the cover, I think a person with no morals could easily steal several stories a day. More, if they don’t care about quality.
The really despicable thing, here, is that the big corporations are happy to turn a blind eye because they benefit from the crime. Amazon, for example, have done a lot to enrich me (and vice-versa) in recent years, but they don’t actually care about me at all. Consider: they get the same 30% cut from the sale of an e-book whether you buy it from a genuine author or from a thief: it benefits Amazon not to notice when stolen intellectual property is offered for sale and it benefits Google not to notice when they make ad revenue on YouTube content that’s stolen.
Some of the biggest brands in the world benefit from theft.
In most cases, theives aren’t stripping Digital Rights Management from an existing ebook (though that’s not unknown), but simply taking a story that’s available for free and making it appear to be something you haven’t read before, so as to trick you into paying for it. At most, the really sophisticated thieves do a search-and-replace to change the names of the characters, sometimes with confusingly inconsistent results.
The people who buy stolen stories are victims, too: paying for something that they could have had for free. “Let the buyer beware,” you might say; a fool and his money are soon partying… but it poisons the well for independent authors in general.
It had to happen sooner or later: a prolific thief chose one of my stories. ‘Door Candy’, which you can find on Fictionmania, was made into an audiobook and put on YouTube – no author identified – with the rather dorky title of ‘This Drug Made Me Time Travel – audiobook’.
My story, in its stolen form
The ‘Fem Stories’ channel consists of thousands of stolen works, so I needn’t feel either particularly honoured or victimised here: it’s simply theft conducted cynically and on an industrial scale. I wrote to the thief and the story was removed within hours. No apology or anything; just a bland acknowledgement.
A braver person than me might go through YouTube’s copyright infringement process, but that’s very clearly designed to facilitate theft and to make life hard for the victim: you have to supply your real name and postal address, while being told that in the event of a legal action, this could be shared with the other party. (My circumstances mirror those of David Ferndale in many ways: it would not go well for me, were I to reveal my identity… so Google/YouTube’s policy exposes me to considerable risk.)
Meanwhile, I (and people like me, such as ‘Tigger’ who has also recently discovered that a well-loved story was stolen), must continue to play ‘Whac-a-mole’ with the story thieves. But do you know what most rubbed me up the wrong way?
This comment on the stolen YouTube ‘audiobook’:
I am going to finish the story since this writer does not do part twos I will Martha is the happiest woman ever now and she’s also sad for the real Martha that passed away she gets married to Jamie legally and they become husband and wife Jamie, yes hired by another pharmaceutical company and produced a better drug than even Martha got, but this time there is no going back in the future it transforms someone into the person they want to be example. If a man wants to be a woman that’s exactly what happens with this medicine if a woman wants to be a man that’s exactly what happens with this medicine, Jamie becomes a famous pharmacist and gives everyone that is transgender their ultimate desire not only does it transform your body it gives you everything about that person want it example if a man wants to be a woman he has now functional ovaries and uterus he has. It’s just like a regular woman he gets bloating and cramps for the woman she gets erections and produces sperm to put inside a woman to impregnate them. They also have the ability of gaining the strength of a man and anything else that a man has they have it just like the woman gets so the whole world thanks Jamie and Martha for what they have given them to so many people, and made those people very very happy that is the second part in my opinion of this story. Also, I am a postop for 21 years, and I never had a relationship with a man or a woman and I know this would be an ultimate desire for me and I know another person that is FTM. She would love this to be real to for him
Things like this (if you know my story, you might begin to appreciate just how utterly bonkers this ‘sequel’ is) are why I try not to read the comments that people leave on my stories. Ugh! Did this person understand anything of what they just read or heard?
Funny thing is, ‘Door Candy’ is a rare exception to my personal rule that I don’t serialise. At just ten thousand words in length, the original story sees Matt trapped back in the 1950s, in the body of Martha and forced to take the slow route back to 2012… but I did write more, detailing the adventures of Matt as he struggles to adapt to his new life…
Screen grab from my manuscript for Door Candy 2
Here’s the real question: why the heck would I choose to share it on Fictionmania if some dickhead on Skid Row is promptly going to steal it from me and start trying to sell it to people?
A short story by Bryony Marsh. All rights reserved.
It was a strange time to be a peacekeeper of any kind, because it was a shameful kind of peace to preserve. Multiculturalism had failed; polite society had ceased and democracy had mutated into the exercise of force through strength in numbers.
When Josie was growing up, people had spoken about the danger of “echo chambers”: online communities where like-minded people gathered. What began as mutual support could easily give way to radicalisation and extremist acts that extended beyond the information sphere.
The long proxy war that began in Ukraine and spread to include almost every nation had seen volunteers building drones to support one side or another. With time, plans to build a weaponised drone were widely available and it wasn’t long before their use became more widespread. Anybody who took a dislike to some other group could construct a fleet of drones in secrecy and send them on a mission of murder. In the United Kingdom, the first such act of domestic terrorism occurred in the summer of 2026, while Josie was going through her Police Constable Degree Apprenticeship: a traveller site in Wiltshire was bombarded by twenty drones, resulting in eighteen people killed and twice as many injured.
No prosecutions were ever brought.
By the end of the year, attacks were taking place with regularity. Few people dared to live on a traveller encampment, but there were new targets as well. A political gathering on the ‘far right’ end of the political spectrum, in Clacton, had been attacked; an evangelical church in Enfield; a hotel housing migrants in Dover.
A global civil war was beginning. The weaponised drone was ‘the ultimate equaliser’ a political columnist wrote. They were illegal, of course, but they were an anonymous means of attack and anybody could make one on a 3D printer. In Britain, those were restricted, too… but a 3D printer can make another 3D printer, so they were virtually impossible to stamp out.
Life changed. In 2027, a major football match had to be abandoned after a flight of drones attacked the players while they were on the pitch: the drones’ on-board sensors had been configured to hunt down players wearing the Manchester United strip. There were no explosives used, but sharp blades arriving at speed were almost as deadly.
If a drone could distinguish targets by the colour of their shirt, why not the colour of their skin? By the end of the decade, ethnic cleansing had become the norm across most of Europe. Minorities tried to hit back, launching attacks of their own, but the groups with the greatest spending power could deploy the most drones.
The United Kingdom in which Josie served was watchful and resentful. A place where it was dangerous to be different, because you never knew when somebody might decide to make you a target. Members of parliament operated under anonymity, only meeting virtually. The remnant of the Royal Family were in hiding; celebrity had ceased to be in any way desirable. If you were wise, you kept your opinions to yourself, except when it was necessary to prove your allegiance to your own group; the people who could protect you and avenge you if it became necessary. To display conspicuous wealth, or to be seen as a leader, was foolish in the extreme. Safety lay in conformity.
Josie’s patrol car was conspicuous, but it had to be. It featured panels of reactive armour, a suite of electronic countermeasures to jam guidance systems and a turreted laser that could burn down an incoming drone within seconds. Already, the vehicle had protected her several times. The message was gradually getting through: attacking the police was usually a waste of a drone.
She had to be careful about being seen when going to and from work, though.
The current assignment was one of those things that might be nothing, or might be the start of a full-blown turf war. A ‘disturbance’ had been reported on the edge of a housing estate – which could mean anything.
Josie disliked edges. Edges were where uncertainty reigned: in this particular part of Leicester, it might indicate an encroachment into the territory of the gang who called themselves ‘Slate.’ They had a monopoly on the drug trade, but they were tied in to protection via a complex pattern of allegiances that she really didn’t want to test – even though she was a local girl. With a sinking heart, she responded to the call and found herself the first on the scene.
For once, it seemed that there wasn’t much trouble brewing: just some pre-teens milling about and nothing more dangerous than a can of pop had been thrown. The kids were content to melt away when the patrol car crunched its way over old fragments of broken glass, to squat in the road, blocking the way.
Josie glanced at the threat screen, saw nothing to worry about and left the laser on ‘automatic’. She climbed out of the vehicle and the ‘oink oink’ noises that some of the children were making became wolf whistles.
She smiled at the closest of the kids, trying to project calm; keeping the peace. “Alright, mate?”
It seemed that none of the kids wanted to be seen talking to a copper – and didn’t want to get too close, in case it was an ambush and a bomber was about to come over. She couldn’t blame them for that. But if nobody was going to talk to her, what could she discover about the source of the disturbance?
Nobody appeared to be injured, so it hadn’t been a fight – or not much of one. Nobody was carrying anything more complicated than a skateboard, so it seemed to be a false alarm.
Still, something wasn’t quite right. The kids were melting away in all directions except one: nobody, it seemed, wanted to use the underpass. Why might that be?
She walked over to the entrance and peered inside. Long since vandalised: there were hardly any lights working. Could it be a trap of some kind?
Another patrol car was on approach, so she didn’t have to worry quite so much about being attacked. She pulled out a camera drone and sent it on ahead of her, through the underpass. The infrared showed that there was one person, huddled amid the accumulated litter. Small: a young teen, most likely.
Josie advanced, doing her best to ignore the stink of stale piss.
“I’m a police officer,” she said. “I’m Josie. Are you okay?”
The thermal image showed that the person had tensed: bunched up and ready to run.
“Don’t run,” Josie said. “D’you need help? Are you hurt?”
The voice shook with fear. “No, I… please: I don’t want anything.”
“You’re not in trouble – at least, not as far as I know,” Josie said. “I just need to see if you’re okay.”
“I’m… fine. They didn’t hurt me.”
Josie was closer now. The light from her bodycam revealed an elfin face, peeping out from behind an old pallet and some cardboard boxes.
She slowed, hoping she wouldn’t scare away the girl she’d seen. “So what’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
“Good,” Josie said. “I like it when nothing happens. Don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“So, are you gonna stay down here all day, or…?”
“I can’t see you,” the teen complained.
“Sorry,” Josie said. She tapped a couple of controls and her camera drone emitted visible light, illuminating her. “Is that better?”
“You’re… pretty,” the other said – voiced as if it were a complaint.
“I, uh, thank you – but I’m sure you’d be pretty, too, if you weren’t hiding in a hole and wearing that warpaint.”
Lots of people wore makeup in a blocky, synthetic pattern that made them look like a modern-day Picasso. It played hell with automatic facial recognition software, but it had also become fashionable in its own right. ‘The Dazzle’, they called it: and the kid in the tunnel clearly felt the need to hide from somebody, or their murder machines.
In a world where consequences were next to zero, everybody had an enemy.
They stared at each other for a long moment.
“Who are you hiding from, honey?” Josie asked, as gently as she could.
The kid just started to cry.
“I’m sure we can make it right,” Josie said. “Let me help you.”
“You can’t help me!” the kid wailed, tears starting to wash away her disguise.
“Whatever – whoever – it is, let me help you. Come with me: we’ll get you cleaned up and we’ll keep you safe. We have specialists who can offer conciliation between you and whoever –”
The poor kid just shook her head, her face a picture of misery.
“Try me,” Josie said. “You and me: we’ll walk out of here. I’ve got my car just over there. We’re safe.”
“I’m not,” the kid sobbed.
Josie put her hands on her hips. “Why not?”
At last the kid left the space where she had been hiding, to stand before her interrogator: a gawky child of perhaps fourteen years, in a threadbare cotton dress.
“I’m trans,” she said, simply.
“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Josie whispered, fearing for them both.
Here’s a little story that I wrote. Just 1,500 words, so it won’t take long. Afterwards, a little explanation.
Sidelined
It had been a long walk and the temperature had dropped. The lights of the Wolds Bed and Breakfast served as a fuzzy, haloed beacon as I made my way up the slope.
“We hoped the lights on the front of the house would help you find your way,” Helen said as she threw the switch to shut them off. “Missed the last train, did you?”
“No,” I said. “I wanted to walk. I got some great photos as the train pulled out and then I walked back along the footpath.”
Helen glanced at my muddy boots.
“Uh, sorry,” I said, and set about taking them off.
“Nasty bloody night to be out,” a man said, emerging from the kitchen.
“Have you met Dave?” Helen asked. “He’s my hubby.”
I shook my head. “Hello Dave.”
“Fancy a pint?” he offered.
I frowned at this, not relishing the idea of going back out into the cold. The pub had to be half a mile away…
Perhaps he understood my hesitation, because he pointed to the corner, where I hadn’t noticed that there was a tiny bar. “Black Sheep? Wold Top? Or I’ve got a selection of ales from Great Newsome, in bottles.”
I smiled. “I’m tempted.”
“Go on, humour him,” Helen said. “He always wanted to run a pub, not a B and B…”
I left my muddy boots by the door and felt the rough flagstones underfoot as I crossed the room. “Pint of whatever you recommend, Dave. Please.”
He smiled broadly. “Let’s start you off with a Wold Top, then,” he said. “In fact, I might join you.”
This, it seemed, was how he hoped to spend the evening.
“So what did you think of our little railway?” Helen asked, as Dave poured her a glass of wine.
“It’s a real gem,” I said. “It’s amazing that the line survived, when so many others didn’t.”
“It wouldn’t survive without the volunteers,” Dave said. “And the tourists, like yourself.”
“Well I had a great day,” I decided, feeling better about the whole business as I warmed up. “There were plenty of other passengers, too.”
“It’s less of a draw on weekdays, when they’re running one of those… what d’you call em? Diesels, anyway.”
I didn’t want to seem too much of a railway nerd, so I decided not to start talking about diesel multiple units, though I was prepared to defend them as a legitimate part of a heritage railway operation.
I cast about for some other topic of conversation. “Was there some sort of event on today?”
Dave looked at me blankly. “Event?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I saw this woman in vintage costume. I assumed she must be involved with the steam railway. This was when I was walking back. I wanted to ask her about it, but when I got a bit closer, she’d gone – which was odd. She was standing –”
“On the steps of the signal box at Meadow Gates?” Helen suggested.
“That’s right,” I said. “Does she do it often?”
My hosts exchanged a glance.
“You could say that,” Dave said, at last.
Even as a railway buff, engrossed in my favourite subject, I could tell that I’d said something wrong. It was impossible not to pick up on the change in the atmosphere in that little room.
“What is it?” I asked.
“It’s… just one of life’s little mysteries,” Dave said. “Please – everyone who volunteers on the railway would prefer it if you remembered the line and the trains, and not some silly piece of local folklore.”
I took a sip of my beer. “Malton and Driffield Junction’s a lovely railway,” I said. “I’m here for the choo choo, not the woo woo.”
“Nice one,” Dave said.
It seemed that Helen didn’t want to follow Dave’s suggestion, however. “What was she wearing?” she asked.
I floundered, this being outside my area of expertise. “I’d have to call it… Edwardian clothing. A full-length dress with a high collar. She wore a bonnet, too.”
“What was she doing?”
“Just… sort of leaning over the railing and looking up the line, as if she was expecting a train to come by – although of course, the last one was long gone.”
Helen nodded. “She does that.”
“So… it’s some local enthusiast, right? Living history sort of thing? I mean, obviously…”
“Yeah,” Dave said. “Got to be, hasn’t it? Obviously.”
Helen glowered at him. “Don’t be rude!”
“Funny how she’d disappeared by the time I got closer, though,” I said. “I mean, it’s not like there’s any houses nearby.”
“She does that, too,” Helen said again. “She always did.”
“She… runs away?”
Helen glanced at Dave, who was looking cross.
“This better not end up like that time I had to serve breakfast to eight ‘paranormal investigators’ while they tried to interview me,” he muttered.
“There’s only one of me and I promise not to interview you,” I said, intrigued.
He looked at his wife and sighed. “Fine! Go ahead and tell your ghost story: I can see there’s no stopping you.”
Helen paused and glanced between us – clearly for dramatic effect.
“It was a dark and stormy night,” she began.
Dave rolled his eyes.
“Alright,” she said. “It wasn’t really – although there was a storm. But that comes later.”
I shrugged. “I’m listening. Does this story have trains in it?”
“Loads.”
I drank some more beer. “I like it already.”
“The disappearing woman who stands on the steps of the Meadow Gates signal box isn’t a new phenomenon. It dates back to the thirties – only she wasn’t always a ghost, if that’s truly what she is – and she isn’t actually a woman. Or wasn’t.”
Helen was confusing me and the best I could do was to seize upon one thing that she had said. “Not a woman?”
She shook her head. “She was a man: a signalman called William Jackson. The way I heard it, he used to dress himself up as a woman and then wave as the trains went by.”
I frowned. “Really?”
“Yeah,” she said. “Really.”
When I didn’t say anything she went on: “Some men like it. The clothes, I mean. Bill Jackson must have felt that the job was ideal, because Meadow Gates is miles from anywhere and if the line was clear, the trains would be passing at speed.”
A fresh pint had appeared in front of me, Dave giving a little bow as I acknowledged this.
“So there never was a woman working there?”
Helen smiled. “No – but ‘Daisy’ was something of a sweetheart to the railway staff who passed by.”
“Daisy?” I queried.
“That was the name that William Jackson gave. If anybody asked about the woman who was seen outside his signal box, I mean. He said she was his sister and that she used to bring him sandwiches.”
I considered this. “So you’re suggesting that’s who I saw? A crossdressing ghost from the nineteen thirties.”
She was toying with her wineglass. “I haven’t finished. It’s a sad story,” she said. “Shall I go on?”
“Please do,” I said. “What happened?”
“You’ve been to the engine shed?” she asked. “Seen the tail fin from that German bomber, and the photos?”
“Yes,” I said. “I saw them.”
She nodded. “That’s what happened: the German aeroplane came. They were lost, you see.”
“KGR one hundred,” Dave said. “They weren’t lost: they were pathfinders. Probably following the railway line.”
Helen looked irritated. “Either way, the weather was getting worse. For whatever reason, they came down out of the clouds and crashed in the meadow: carved a deep furrow parallel to the railway line, taking out several telegraph poles.”
“And this William Jackson was manning the signal box?”
She smiled. “It seems that Daisy Jackson was on duty, if you catch my drift? Daisy flew into action, dragging two injured Germans clear of the wreckage before they could burn to death, having also ensured that no trains were allowed to move on that stretch of the line, in case the plane’s bomb load should go off.”
I grinned. “That’s quite a story to tell the grandchildren. Bit awkward for William, though, I expect.”
“Awkward for everyone concerned,” Helen said. “If Bill had been in his usual clobber, they’d have given him a medal – but he was still dressed as Daisy when the police arrived on the scene, so they had to throw the book at him.”
“I bet,” I said, imagining how much more prudish things must have been in the forties.
She stared into her wine. “Bill lost his job when they found out that he was the railway’s sweetheart – and that meant he wasn’t in a reserved occupation, so they sent him off to war. You can see his name on the war memorial in Driffield.”
“He died,” I said – which was rather stupid, since it wouldn’t be much of a ghost story if nobody had died.
“He died in Italy in forty-three,” she said, “but Daisy… Daisy’s still around. Just sometimes.”
–oOo–
Now… some notes from the Swamp:
Firstly, yes: I know that the Malton and Driffield Junction Railway doesn’t exist any more because it was axed in the fifties. Please don’t @ me. There’s no such thing as ghosts, either.
Now, the backstory. I’d dreamed up an idea and I didn’t know what to do with it. I toyed with the idea for a while, then shared it with the long-suffering Chrissy from TransScripts, who is often on the receiving end of such things. At the time, this was what I had:
The 1940s. A signalman is responsible for a lonely stretch of railway. He’s also a crossdresser; he indulges in his hobby for years, sometimes seen when express trains thunder by. ‘She’ is only brave enough to appear when the line is clear and the train is likely to pass by at speed, waving from the steps of the signal box. Sometimes a driver, fireman or guard asks him about the woman and he tells them it’s his sister, who brings him sandwiches – but nobody ever meets her up close.
Since I’m in the middle (okay, okay… first quarter) of my next novel, I chose not to do much with the idea. Just the story you’ve seen, above: a short story that’s shorter than the remaining stub of heritage railway at Fimber Halt.
I shared it with my colleagues at Frills & Swoon, inviting others to have a go at a tale based upon the same story prompt… and Tanya promptly ran up a tale of wonderful depth and breadth. ‘Mary Cotton Crossing’ is like an LNER Class A3, running at full speed, while my own little story is more like ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’.
Not to worry: they can’t all be winners, kid. But seriously, you need to read Tanya’s story.
If you’ve noticed a recurring theme in the messaging at TopShelf / BigCloset, it appears that the site is increasingly insolvent and perhaps at risk of disappearing entirely, so I thought I ought to make sure that all my stories are available elsewhere. Thus, I’ve expanded the “free stories” page here to offer access to everything that was shared on that site.
Perhaps you’ll find something that you haven’t read before? Enjoy…
The title refers to an involuntary, obsessive state in which one is infatuated with someone, usually accompanied by delusions of or a desire for an intense romantic relationship with that person.
Bad enough, but what if a crossdresser had a stalker?
Blurb:
Amelia Kane has discovered what it means to be ‘madly in love’. As soon as she met her new neighbour, she was infatuated. After months of waiting and hoping that he would acknowledge her, she’s become desperate.
David Ferndale, however, is a man with a closely-guarded secret. He considers himself to be disqualified from normal relationships and the only woman in his life is the one he sees in the mirror, when in the privacy of his own home.
As Amelia’s obsession deepens, she discovers that there’s nothing she won’t say or do to get what she wants – even though David isn’t quite the man she imagined…
I really ought to be trying to whip up interest in my next book, ‘Limerence’ (which will appear on bookshelves any day now…) but I wanted to say a little about book covers. You see, Chrissy doesn’t just assist me with copy editing. When a book is put through The Device (TM) one possible output is a mockup ebook that can I use for proofreading.
Sometimes, Chrissy provides covers as well – and what covers!
The above, I’m not proposing to employ for the Kindle debut of ‘Limerence’, but it was a nice try, I think. Possibly Chrissy getting her own back for my first attempt at a cover for her own book, ‘Special Inquiries’.
Then there was the time I wanted to offer an ebook version of my free story, ‘If You’re Done’…
Mine’s the last one – and yes: she calls me Biriyani Swamp. I’m seriously contemplating a severe pay cut. Try getting by on only fifty percent of nothing for a while, you disrespectful cow!
It’s not all bad, though. On one occasion, I received a very fetching collection of my stories from Fictionmania…
This, of course, is the Swamp. Even so, I’d be delighted if you choose to read some of those…
Finally, here’s my most treasured ebook of all. Not just a cover, but a short story featuring somebody who is strangely familiar: Bryony Marshland, head girl at St Trollop’s Academy and studying for her BDSM-Levels…
Leonie Lacetop-Stocking (a rising star in the world of tranny fiction, known only to Chris Archer, it seems) really nailed it, I feel. Too bad that you’ll never be able to read it. I hear ‘Limerence’ is good, though.
Meanwhile, back to the proofreading. I need eyes like a hawk: d’you know what I found in the latest version? On the front page with all the copyright information, where I put “Exclusive to Amazon” some utter scoundrel has added “(but some Cornish bastard’s got a baksheesh copy).”
This is why self-published books will ultimately destroy the print industry that has endured for no less than four centuries: we’re having so much more fun!
Sugar and Spiiice 