Judy Suarez lit a cigarette and took a drag. Against her left shoulder she cradled a landline desk phone. In her right hand she clenched a screenplay lacerated with pen slashes.
“Hemingway once said to write drunk and edit sober. Honey, you should be writing sober.”
The screenwriter on the other end of the line said
Sounds of children at recess filled the midday air. Laughter. Creaking swings. The metallic ping of kickballs on asphalt. Lurking in the bushes, a lanky bunny hated every noise.
A cunning white Vienna rabbit, Braxton the Sorcerer had stalked these rotten school grounds for days. Watching. Searching. Binkying. The tiny emerald
Someone had to be in the attic, or else Alice Horton was mad.
Thick fog curled across the grounds, shrouding the vibrant gardens in ghostly white.
Alice’s head pounded from lack of sleep. The footsteps pacing above her room had kept her awake most of the night. She even thought she’d heard
“D’Aulnoy. Jacobs. Now.”
I enter Grimm’s office with my partner, Nero Jacobs, at my side. He shoots me a quizzical glance. I shrug back.
The lieutenant, never one for words, gestures to the chairs opposite his desk, then thuds into his own wingback chair as I sit and cross my legs.
“We’re risking our lives for a princess no one has ever seen,” I grumble, tossing my knife and catching it again. Ruddy light from the fireplace dances down its long, wicked blade.
Most people think it’s odd for a girl to be so fond of weapons.
But if I cared what most people
“If I see one more twig, I might burn this forest down,” Silas growled between clenched teeth.
His back and legs ached from bending and gathering. Even his fingers felt sore. Prying his grip open slowly, he let the small bits of wood tumble back to the earth.
“Oh, Silas, please don’t
The house sits in darkness except for the faintest orange glow seeping between the downstairs window blinds. Probably the boys watching TV, bundled in blankets, hoping their dad won’t come home tonight.
You have no right to those kids. By human law, they belong to Earth. So says the human government.
Tamrin’s prized pumpkin was missing.
Well, her second prized pumpkin. Her best one had vanished two weeks ago on the evening of Prince Charlin’s first ball. Then her second best one vanished the night of Charlin’s second dance. Months of hard work, love, and care down the drain.
It wouldn’t happen again. Tonight
The waves were hungry.
Adira’s stomach flipped against her swan-bill corset as she leaned over the balcony of the luxury steamship, imagining how it might feel to sink into those roiling depths. Behind her, an investigator from Maravel’s official detective agency interviewed a witness.
“Let’s walk through this again,” Mr. Bright enunciated
The red-brick houses behind Mick Scholmberg huddled together like prisoners awaiting a firing squad, hoping for a reprieve but at the same time sullenly resolved. Their only chance now was with their homeowners.
If Mick could prove that the mastermind behind the new development plan was a criminal, he could save
The clock ticked as Doctor K made a few perfunctory marks on her clipboard, then studied the hollow-eyed patient. “The man in the purple waistcoat… have you seen him again since the accident?”
The patient’s face spasmed at the mention. He shook his head with the short, sharp ferocity of a dog shaking
Halfway down 22nd Avenue, a linebacker wannabe nearly knocked me over. I twisted around him, threaded between a mother and daughter, and sidestepped a yapping fur ball. All the while, my focus never left the woman.
She stood with her back against a storefront wall, staring at me with purple eyes. Yep. Purple.
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