This week, I’m sharing a short fiction piece that I entered into the Writing Battle using their prompts (which were conspiracy theory, night watch, stamp). I was inspired by true crime and some of the most unsettling mysteries that have stuck with me over the years. The wordcount limit for entries was 1000 - this comes in at 997. It placed in the top 32.

Elroy had not shown up for his shift.

This was something that T.K. now had to accept as certain. It had been three hours, there was no sign of Elroy anywhere, and no one at head office had a record of him calling in to report illness or booking the night off. For one reason or another, Elroy was simply absent without leave, and he was not answering his calls.

A flat tyre out on a road where he had no cell service.

A fall down his stairs, stuck behind his own front door, no one aware he needed help.

An urgent trip to the hospital for a family member who was dying, no time to call work, the simple act of forgetting to pack a phone charger.

T.K. had no way of knowing, and that unsettled him far more than the possibilities did.

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This week, I’m sharing a short fiction piece that I entered into the Writing Battle using their prompts (which were cosy mystery, seashell, gardener). I was inspired by G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown and my recent research into crime fiction for my Masters degree, culminating in a kind of gentle send-up of the genre at large. The wordcount limit for entries was 1000 - this comes in at 998.

She placed the tiny white triangle down on the glass surface of the coffee table with a satisfying click. Of the six assembled people in the room besides herself, only two faces showed the minutest flicker of recognition, quickly stifled.

“What is that?” the boldest in the room, the young heir to the fortune left behind by his deposed father, asked. He peered over, his moustache bristling, assuming the right as the new master of the house to examine everything within it.

“This,” she pronounced carefully, “is a small fragment of what was once a much larger shell. I believe it to have been a conch.”

Heads swung around the room, aiming at one another like searchlights, accusing. There was a beat of silence.

“Confound it,” the doctor said at last. “I don’t understand what it means.”

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This week, I’m sharing a short story originally written as part of an assignment for my Master’s degree. This excerpt would be from a theoretical full-length novel centred around the lives and experiences of the women targeted by Jack the Ripper. Mary Jane Kelly is the last (of five) canonical Jack the Ripper victims and would therefore appear last in the book.

Mary leaned against the bedside table in her room, attempting to steady the swaying four walls as they moved around her. She grasped the edge of the table with a fierce determination to regain the stability of the world she inhabited, being a civic-minded young woman who could not let such a thing as a wobbling room upset the other inhabitants of the house in which she found her lodgings.

Upset they were, and often; but it was not her fault the room was only partitioned with a thin wooden wall, not her fault they’d sold off the buildings of Millers Court into so many small parcels that they could not help but to hear one another all day and all night long. She knew she gave more of a show than most. The singing, earlier: that had been one.

She smiled to herself and closed her eyes against the stubbornly lurching walls for a moment, recalling the melody in her head. When down in the meadow in childhood I would roam; no one’s left to cheer me now within that good old home

Mary’s eyes snapped open, and she sat on the bed with a level of force that made the thin mattress jump. She almost thought for a moment she would plunge down into the bath stored below, until the mattress ceased its moving and she realised it was only her own head still ringing up and down with the impact.

A good old home, indeed. Had she ever had one?

She looked at the door; might not Joseph come by again? He had visited earlier, in spite of their quarrel that had sent him out to other lodgings some two weeks ago, but he’d had no coin for her. She’d seen a customer earlier in the night, after all the drinking, but now her store was dry and it was late, and she needed one more drink to put herself to sleep. She was sixpence short.

She needed it. The song chimed in her head again, an irritation now, a mockery, unwilling to let her go from its cruel grip.

Father and mother they have passed away; sister and brother now lay beneath the clay

If only her mother and father were gone! Put them beneath the clay, yes, and Mary would not suffer for it. She clung to the edge of the bed, gripping the wooden slats with white knuckles, looking at the floor and hoping she would not fall on it. Just one more drink. That would do. She could lay down and rest her head, then.

But she’d no coin left, and Joseph had none to bring her.

A knock echoed at her door, jerking her head upright. She cursed the swaying and rocking inside her skull, pressing a hand to her temple, using the other to grope blindly for the table beside the bed so that she might stand. She levered herself to her feet and took several staggering steps across the small room, shivering in the draught from the broken window. Even blocked by one of Joseph’s heavy coats, the wind came in the depths of the night and chilled her.

Joseph: perhaps it was he. Who else would knock on her door in the early hours of the night like this? A past customer come for a repeat, perhaps? One of her girls, cold and scared on the street tonight and knowing she would give them a space in her bed if they asked?

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Trigger warning for this chapter: small reference to school violence

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Moss Pavements

Stepping outside of her front door, Ally set her foot down onto the moss, feeling the spongy ground flex under her. It had been a long time since it surprised her, though every so often she still found the time to marvel at it.

Ben was out somewhere, probably gathering dry wood for the fire. It had gone out inside the hut, and the rolling of grey clouds above had plunged their small living area into gloom, near darkness.

Soon the rain would come, but there might still be time. She just wanted to feel the wind in her hair, that blowing energy that always signalled something strong. If she could gather a few herbs, she thought, a few wildflowers, there might be time before the storm.

Ben didn’t approve, but that was his business. Ally knew what had to be done.

She’d known it for a long time, back before all of this started, when they still lived in a two-bedroom apartment on a paved city street. Along the way was a supermarket, and once after they fought she’d been mad enough to walk there alone and start looking for sage, thyme, marjoram, feathers. The first three had been easy. The feathers turned out to be harder than she had imagined.

Back then Ben had argued with her a lot. Now they existed quietly. Up ahead she saw him, a stooped figure with a bundle of thick, dry branches. The winter was just starting to drift away, and the trees had left them a good bounty of firewood now that the winds were falling silent.

“Need a hand?” she asked, and he almost jumped right out of his skin.

He turned to give her an accusing look, clutching the firewood tighter. “Nearly killed me,” he grunted.

“Got cold inside,” she explained. Not that it was warm out here. He eyed her threadbare shawl, scrunched tight around her shoulders, and grunted again.

They set off back towards the hut together, feet crunching softly across tiny twigs and cones. They barely got in the door before the rain started, and then they were glad. It came down like shining thread, long sheets that seemed to have no interruption. They bounced from the waving green fronds of the pine trees, unbowed yet despite the weight of the winter.

Ben worked the fire up again, blowing on a spark until it took and they could warm their hands. Ally rubbed the thin, worn fingers of her hands together. In some places, in the right light, you could still see marks from before – a purple scar, almost like a shadow, where she’d burned her wrist on an oven once. That was too long ago to count. Now, there was only the fire.

She took the kettle and boiled the water, thankful as she did so that the barrel out the back of the hut would be filling up again. When Ben wasn’t looking, she slipped a couple of new spring flowers into the pot, letting them boil along with the water. That would be a fine start.

“Anything?” he asked, nodding to a black iron cauldron hung on the wall, once he was done stacking the rest of the new wood up next to the door.

“Not much,” she said, shrugging. “Rabbit, potato.”

The rabbit was already half gone, taken from one of his snares the day before, and the potato was a small and unpleasant one. Still, it wasn’t like she could walk to that supermarket anymore.

“Ally,” he said, once the cauldron was full and sitting above the fire, and she nodded her head. She came to sit on his lap, twining her arms around his neck, feeling the sharp bone of his knees along the side of her thigh.

“I’m doing it tonight,” she said, and felt him stiffen and tense up under her. She knew he hated it when she called upon the craft of her fingers, but it had to be done. It had to be done.

The rain had stopped knocking on the roof, though with the day the way it was, it wouldn’t be long. “Might go hunting,” Ben said, somewhat reluctantly.

“If you like,” Ally offered. She knew it was pointless to insist. Ben liked to be out of the way while she did her work.

After dinner he slouched out of the door, shoulders set like a man with a weight on his back. He took a penknife and a rope, twisted up into a snare. At least they might have more rabbit for the morning.

Each day, Ally was starting to feel less and less like she wanted the rest of it back. Pavements and supermarkets and cars – she liked the feel of the moss under her feet. Still, it wasn’t about her. Not all of it.

She poured the rest of the water from the kettle – not much; she liked to make sure most of it went to her and Ben, protecting them from what might come. A few small, stringy herbs, the eye of the rabbit, and two more flowers went in the pot. Then she took a knife and cut the bottom off a lock of hair, the one that came down from her temple. It was already up by her eyes; the rest down by her ribcage, uncut all these years. Soon there was going to have to be some kind of result.

She watched the fire boil her ingredients, knowing it was all just so much hogwash. Her forerunners would never have needed any of this. But these days it was all she could do to call forth any life from her fingers, even with Ben’s strength.

She sat by the fire, closed her eyes, and plunged her fingers into the bubbling water.

It was her yell that made him run. He was always listening out for that yell, just in case. When she yelled like that, his heart leapt into his mouth, hammering so fast he thought he might keel over before he even got to her. The thought of her in pain sent nervous sweat down his spine. It was his worst nightmare.

He found her cradling burned fingertips, red and swelling already, where she had dipped them into the boiling water.

“I don’t understand,” she said, miserably, while he tore up an old shirt to bandage her hands. They had no cold running water out here to soothe the burns, and they would be yellow and tender before long.

“Maybe it’s not meant to be,” Ben said, as he always did.

Ally shook her head. “They work. All the spells work. Just not this one.”

Ben sighed, and held her hands carefully in his larger and more worn fingers. “I know. But maybe this one is wrong.”

Ally shook her head again, stronger, her hair dancing along her shoulders rapidly. “You believe in me, don’t you?” she asked, her voice almost begging.

Ben looked at her. He’d come out here to the woods with her, hadn’t he, when everyone else turned their backs? He’d stuck by her, even though it was hard to retreat from life like that, hadn’t he? “Yes,” he said anyway, knowing she needed to hear it from him.

It had not always been this way. Once, Ally’s spells had been easy: a few flowers from the meadow, a herb or two, and a little bit of the right kind of belief. She would dip her little finger into the mixture and bring out the promise of a promotion at work, an unexpected windfall, true love’s first kiss. They would visit her in her cramped second-floor flat and ask her to plunge her skin into that scalding water, astonished every time she came out without a mark.

That was then. They called her harmless, laughed at her tricks and called them false, and then called it the power of positive thinking when their wishes came true. That was fine by Ally. So long as they crossed her palm with silver and got what they wanted, everyone was happy.

The only time she ever burned herself back then was the first time she spelled something for herself. When she wished for Ben.

The herbs spoiled in the pot, and the flowers floated rotten to the bottom of the water. She ran the welt on her finger under the cold tap for twenty minutes. The next day, he asked her out anyway. She had never needed a spell for him.

Maybe that was why this spell wouldn’t work, either. Because it was against the flows of fate to ask for something that would benefit yourself.

The next night, Ben went out to hunt again, thinking she would be safe for a while. She didn’t like to hide things from him, not like this, but something had to be done.

Even if they’d chased her and pushed her out of town and ripped up her things, they were still people. They still deserved better than this.

Out in the forest, they were safer than most, but they still saw it all happen. They knew what it would mean, too. If they blamed Ally when the small things went wrong, she was in danger now that everything had changed. So they stayed in the trees, and waited, as moss grew along the pathway from their little hut to the outside world.

But there was an outside world. It was there, waiting, and they were all suffering. Ally couldn’t let that go on without at least trying.

Ally watched the herbs boil, and closed her eyes, and let her soul feel the way. She tore the bindings from her swollen and tender fingers, gasping with the pain, and let her tears fall into the pot along with the rest of it. Sucking down one last breath, she refused to hesitate. She plunged her arms into the water, up to her elbows, no longer afraid.

Ben wasn’t afraid of much, but he was afraid of this. Lights dancing along those walls, colours and hues intertwining in such a small space, and all of it crowding in front of you until you thought your eyes might die. Then the darkness, the final and complete blackness, that flowed through her and you and all of the rest of the world.

It was growing night, the wind whipping up again through the tree branches. He had no way of measuring, of course, but he felt like it must have been getting windier and windier every winter. The hope of spring was gone, too. It was only a respite now, a rest, no longer the promise of new life. Far as he knew, there’d been no new life since theirs shrivelled inside of her all those years ago. He’d put together a rock pile and carved a small stone, putting it out of the way of the hut where she didn’t have to see it.

The wind ran through his hair and beard, long and unkempt, though she did her best to keep it untangled when he let her. She’d have put some herbs together for it if he hadn’t protested. He was still afraid of the first time, the night when the lights had gone out too soon and she’d pulled her fingers from the water red and swelling. He was still afraid of the sound of her sobs. The way she’d gulped in not just pain but failure too. It had been a weight hanging over her till she could take the bandages off, and he never wanted that on her again.

He found nothing on his walk, then all of a sudden a rabbit, fat and wild. He’d never seen such a rabbit, not since before. It looked like it grazed in a sun-kissed meadow, not this wintered forest. Somehow he managed to catch it, and it sat docile in his hand, waiting for the snap. That was the oddest thing.

Ben took the rabbit in one hand and made for the hut. Maybe Ally was ready to cook, and he could show her their good fortune.

Something was glowing in the distance, and for a heart-stopping moment he thought of fire. Racing towards the hut he caught it again and again, flickering through the trees. Even this far out, you couldn’t tell the hut was there unless you knew.

Closer, he could see: there was no fire. This light was white, the glow of the moon.

Ally was standing outside of the hut. It was cold out; she shouldn’t have been there. There was a wind lifting up now, tearing through her hair and hanging it from the branches he had stacked up on the roof of the hut as camouflage.

The white light shone from the cauldron behind her, spilling out of the doors and windows, the same windows he knew he’d left covered over earlier. They had to hide, to be part of the forest. Standing out with the fire, or like this, was not an invitation for anything good.

He rushed forward and caught her as she fell, the light shining out of her eyes for a moment before they went dark.

“So?” he asked. They were sitting together on the bench, warming a mug of hot water over the fire, savouring the dry herbs and flowers he had crushed into it. His flowers, this time. No craft.

“I can feel it,” she said. She looked tired. Exhausted. “The life coming back.”

Ben nodded silently. He had felt it, too. A stirring in his bones. The promise of a new spring – a real spring this time. The rabbit lay limply across the floor by the firewood, fat and plump. Everything they had thought lost.

“Everywhere?” he asked, at length.

Ally took a sip from her mug, and nodded. “I feel it everywhere,” she replied. “Not just the woods. The towns too. The shore. Out in the fields. It’s coming back.”

Ben toyed with the handle of his mug. He didn’t want to ask, but the words needed to come. “And the cost?”

She sat quiet for a long while before answering. She took a deep breath once or twice to start an answer, then stopped. She moved her head almost like a shrug and gave up. “All,” she said.

He touched her hand and he could feel that it was cold. “All,” he muttered, feeling the word out on his tongue.

“Not you,” she said.

“No,” he replied, looking up and catching her earnest eyes. “Me, too.”

She laid an arm like ice around the back of his neck, and they sat there together, until the fire burned down to embers. Ben thought of the pile of stones behind the hut, hidden just out of her sight. All, he thought. A fair price to pay.

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For every $50 or £50 I earn from Substack alone, I will release a new chapter early.

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Trigger warning for this chapter: PTSD, military scenes (I’m adding TWs going forward, and will also go back to a few previous chapters)

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Trigger warning for this chapter: School/College attack

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Trigger warning for this chapter: Family loss

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Chapter 3

The wave crashed down over Ash and he gasped, for a second absolutely sure that he was falling, that they were about to be swept out to sea.

Then the water receded and it was just him and Evie, sitting there on the seawall, drenched to the skin.

He looked down at himself and how wet he was in horror.

“It happened again,” Evie said.

Ash looked up at her. “What?” he asked, only no sound actually came out of his mouth. Had he been knocked a little more by the wave than he thought, or was it the shock of the cold water?

“What the fuck,” Evie whispered, “is going on?"

There was water trickling down his arms inside his hoodie. Ash looked down at himself in disgust and jerked his arms up and down to slop water out of his sleeves.

“Three waves,” Evie said, which made no sense to him at all. And then –

“We should get up,” she said, scrambling to her feet on the seawall. “In case there’s another one.”

Ash swept an alarmed gaze back to the sea – was she right? – and hurried to get down after her. Both of their feet squelched as they walked, water pouring out of their shoes.

“What do you mean, three waves?” Ash asked. He touched his neck, his lips. Evie hadn’t turned around or acknowledged him, and he didn’t feel like he was actually talking at all. He couldn’t hear anything beyond the sound of his own voice inside his head. What was wrong with his throat?

An older man with his small terrier on a leash chuckled at them, shaking his head in amusement as if watching them get hit by a wave had been the highlight of his day.

“What are you laughing at?” Evie demanded, whirling on him as if she was going to start a fight. “You’ve already laughed at us once.”

What?

Something was going on.

Ash opened his mouth, thought better of it, and tapped Evie’s shoulder to get her attention. She spun to him, too fast, and then hesitated. She seemed angry, then anxious.

“Is there another wave coming?” she asked.

Only, her lips didn’t actually move.

Ash stared at her mouth.

Evie frowned. “What’s wrong?” she asked, with her lips this time.

Ash opened his mouth and formed the shape of a word, but once again, nothing came out. He couldn’t seem to force it out, no matter how he tried. Even clearing his throat did nothing.

He couldn’t speak.

Ash blinked at Evie, waiting for her to realize, to work it out. To help him.

But Evie only spun around in alarm, like she was looking for some invisible attacker, like she thought something was wrong with the world or herself, not realizing what he was trying to say.

There’s no bicycle, she was saying, somehow, only inside his head. I’m back where I started, like nothing happened.

Ash grabbed her by the shoulder and pulled her back to face him.

“Huh,” she said. “That’s interesting.”

This was all interesting, and not, as far as Ash was concerned, in a good way. Something weird was going on – something was happening to both of them. But, since she could speak and he couldn’t, and she didn’t seem to understand what he was trying to tell her in return, it had to be something different.

I stopped it, Evie said. And I went back – twice. I can do it. I can control time!

Ash stared at her, trying to read her face, his eyes scanning back and forth anxiously. Was she being serious?

His mind raced as she looked around them again, taking a gulping breath of the sea air. He could hear things that she wasn’t saying. Given the way she was acting, he thought there was a strong possibility that she also didn’t know he was hearing it.

Was he…

Reading her mind?

“Evie,” he said, but again, no sound came out of his mouth at all.

He tried to growl in frustration, but that didn’t work, either.

Think, Ash, think.

He had his phone in his pocket.

He grabbed it, finding it miraculously only damp – the inner lining of his pocket must have been thick enough to protect it – and quickly opened up a notes app.

I don’t think I can talk, he typed out, then grabbed Evie’s shoulder again and made her look at it.

There was a wide smile on her face, excitement and exhilaration, but it slowly faded as she read the words. Her eyes flicked to him uncertainly. Ash tried to speak again, demonstrating that not a single sound would come out.

Is he sure?

Ash nodded.

Evie blinked.

Ash gave a kind of rocking gesture with his head, took the phone back, and typed underneath: Also I’m pretty sure I can hear what you’re thinking.

Evie read it and her eyes widened.

Can you hear this?

Ash nodded, starting to smile in spite of himself. Yes, he was pretty concerned about the fact he couldn’t seem to make a single noise, but…

What about this?

Ash nodded again, smiling wider.

What number am I thinking of? Six.

Ash held up six fingers.

Evie’s eyes were wide, a matching grin spreading across her face.

I traveled through time, she thought. Like, I actually went back in time. Twice. And I stopped time and then when I started it again I came right back here, and I saw a guy flying, and the dog had his legs stuck in the air, and I don’t know where the bicycle went, and –

Ash held up his hand to stop her and rubbed his forehead. Now she was just thinking What’s wrong with Ash, why did he stop me, does he have a headache –

Ash pointed at his lips and then at hers, miming.

“You want me to speak out loud?”

Ash nodded. He tapped on his notes again and held it up for her. Your thoughts are very loud. And disorganized.

She frowned. “Jeez, sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think I was ever going to have to have neat thoughts in the private space of my head.”

Ash sighed. It’s a lot right now. I’m just trying to deal with this.

Evie took a breath. He’s your best friend, she was thinking. And, oh my god, his voice – “Did this just start after the wave?”

Ash nodded.

I wonder if it’s linked, Evie thought, and then opened her mouth to say the same thing, but Ash was already nodding and typing.

It could be. It happened at the same time. Do you have anything?

Evie did a mental check of her body with Ash listening in. I can speak, I can hear… I can feel the texture of my jeans… my legs work… I kind of need to pee and I’m a little hungry… my nipples are cold…

“Evie!” Ash tried to exclaim, but of course, no sound came out. He’d thrown up his hands at the same time, and she first shot him a guilty look and then flushed red.

“Sorry,” she said out loud. “Uh, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me. Not that I can notice. Maybe we should get you checked out.”

Ash frowned and opened his notes. Hospital?

Evie shrugged. “I mean, yeah, maybe. I guess if it’s something that can be fixed, they would know.” Ash couldn’t stop a worried look from passing over his face. Oh god, I shouldn’t have said that, I’ve upset him, he’ll be worried now –

Ash shook his head. Don’t, he typed. I was already pretty worried.

“Okay,” Evie said, looking around decisively as if trying to figure out the best route from here. “Hospital.” I wish I could teleport instead of stopping time. That would be more useful. I wonder if that bicycle is still there. Maybe I can move Ash myself so we get there quicker. I wonder if I just –

- Well, guess we just have to drive there.

Ash blinked. Did you just stop time? he asked.

“Yeah,” Evie said. “How did you…? Oh, you heard me thinking it?”

Did you try to carry me?

Evie laughed. “Yeah, but it didn’t work,” she said. She reached out for his elbow and wrapped her arm around it, turning so they were both facing towards the steps up off the promenade and starting them going. “Apparently, I can’t move you. And I checked. The bicycle was right back where it started. So, I guess I can’t move things around when I’ve stopped time. Just myself.”

Ash wanted to ask her what the deal was with the bicycle – he’d only been able to catch fragments of it as her excited thoughts danced around – but he couldn’t type and walk at the same time with her hanging on his arm, so he set his jaw in silence and walked back toward the parking lot where they’d left his car.

And as he listened to Evie’s private doubts that the hospital would be able to do anything for him at all, he couldn’t help but agree.

Whatever this was, it didn’t seem to come from a natural cause.

But there was no sense in not trying, because right now, the idea of a plan was the only thing stopping Ash from completely freaking out.

He’d lost his voice.

He couldn’t bear to let himself think that it might be gone forever.

The hospital was hell.

He could hear the thoughts of every doctor, every nurse. The ones that thought he was faking it for the pretty girl at his side (not realizing just how far off the mark they were, because it had never made any impact on Ash how pretty a girl was, except to be jealous that the pretty boys liked them more than him). The ones that thought he was probably psycho. The ones that didn’t care what was wrong with him at all and just wanted to finish their shift.

But they paled in comparison to the noise that streamed from the patients around him. In the waiting room, in triage, wherever they went, the screams followed them.

Help me

Why won’t they help me

Make it stop

Just give me something for the pain

I can’t afford this

Why did this happen to me

I could have died I could have died

Why won’t they help me help me help me

Oh god I don’t think I can handle it

I’m going to die

Over and over, constantly, until Ash pushed his hands against his ears and squeezed his eyes shut – none of which did anything to drown it out.

What’s wrong with Ash? What can I do? I just want to help him, but stopping time won’t help, and I don’t know what I would do if I went back…

Evie’s voice was like a balm in his head, a lifeline he could hold onto. He opened his eyes and looked at her, really looked at her, as if he could see inside her skull and read the words as well as hearing them.

Why is he looking at me like that what’s happening

Ash typed out, There’s so much noise here. Talk to me. I want to listen to your thoughts so I can shut out everyone else.

Evie blinked. For anyone else, asking them to direct their entire internal narrative your way might have been a big ask. But she was his best friend. They’d been best friends for so long.

He would have done anything to help her out, and he knew she would do the same for him.

So, when I stopped time, she started, I walked up to the next level above the promenade and started looking around. There was this guy in an alleyway and I couldn’t tell if he was dead or sleeping, but I couldn’t check because everything was frozen, so it’s not like I would be able to check his pulse or call out and see if he reacted…

And Ash sank back into her thoughts like a river, letting them carry him away, blocking out everything else for as long as he could.

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Chapter 2

Evie gasped in shock, holding her arms out to the side and looking down at herself. She was soaked from head to toe, her red hair plastered down against her skull and face. Ash was not faring any better.

He stared at her and his mouth formed the word ‘what’, though no sound came out. Wide-eyed, Evie agreed with a confounded nod.

“We should get up,” she said, scrambling to her feet on the seawall so that she could jump down to solid ground. “In case there’s another one.”

Ash swept an alarmed gaze back to the sea and hurried after her. Neither of them needed to discuss the idea. It was a minor miracle that they hadn’t been swept over by the wave, given that they were sitting on the edge of the wall with no railing to hold onto. They weren’t going to tempt fate by letting another wave get a second chance to drag them under.

“Oh, god!” Evie complained, her feet squelching in wet shoes with every step as they moved back towards the line of stores at the other side of the promenade. All of the businesses were closed at this time of night, their façades dark. An older man with a small terrier on a leash chuckled at them, though, shaking his head in amusement. He must have seen the wave splash up and over them, making them scream.

Ash tapped Evie’s shoulder. There was a kind of urgency in it, and she half-expected as she turned to him to see him pointing at another huge wave threatening to drench them a second time. Not that it would make much difference, at this point. Wet was wet.

But Ash was only staring at her, his mouth slightly parted, with a look of deep concern.

Evie frowned. “What’s wrong?” she asked. She touched her hair self-consciously, wondering if there was something in it – seaweed or driftwood or some tiny jellyfish that hadn’t yet stung her scalp.

Ash opened his mouth and formed the shape of a word, but once again, nothing came out. No sound that she could hear.

Wait.

Had she lost her hearing?

Evie cocked her head to the side. No – no, she could hear the sound of the waves, ever-present in the background and so much calmer now that the storm had died away.

She looked at the horizon with a frown. It had died away. So suddenly, too. Where had the lightning come from, if the sky was now clear?

What had just happened?

She thought about that moment, trying to decipher it, and…

Lightning hit the water –

And the water rose up, a rogue wave out of nowhere –

And splashed down on them, soaking them to the skin –

Evie gasped in shock, holding her arms out to the side and looking down at herself. She was soaked from head to toe, her red hair plastered down against her skull and face.

And she was on the wall again.

Ash was next to her, just as soaked as she was.

He stared at her and his mouth formed the word ‘what’, though no sound came out. Wide-eyed, Evie stared back at him. He’d already done that. And how were they back on the wall?

She looked back at the ocean. It was completely still.

“Where’s the storm gone?” she asked.

Ash swept an alarmed gaze back to the sea and then exchanged a frown with her. He looked up to the stars and down to the waves, as if the storm clouds were simply hiding.

“We already got up,” Evie said faintly. What was happening, here? Ash showed no surprise at the fact that they’d moved back across the promenade in an instant, as if nothing had happened, or at the fact that another wave had splashed down over them.

How had another wave hit, when the storm was clear…?

Evie thought back to that moment, to the crashing down of the water over them, and –

Lightning hit the water –

And the water rose up, a rogue wave out of nowhere –

And splashed down on them, soaking them to the skin –

Evie gasped in shock, holding her arms out to the side and looking down at herself. She was soaked from head to toe, her red hair plastered down against her skull and face. Ash was just as wet.

He stared at her and his mouth formed the word ‘what’, though no sound came out.

“What the fuck,” Evie whispered, “is going on?"

Ash only looked down at himself with a look of disgust, waving his arms up and down with a sharp movement that made water dredge out of the sleeves of his thick hoodie.

Evie looked back at the water.

Three waves was enough.

“We should get up,” she said, scrambling to her feet on the seawall. “In case there’s another one.”

Ash swept an alarmed gaze back to the sea and hurried after her. Evie’s feet squelched in wet shoes with every step as they moved back toward the line of stores at the other side of the promenade. All of the businesses were closed at this time of night, their façades dark. The older man with his small terrier on a leash chuckled at them, shaking his head in amusement.

“What are you laughing at?” Evie demanded. He’d already laughed at them once. What was he doing, standing around watching to see if they got wet again?

Ash tapped Evie’s shoulder. There was a kind of urgency in it, and she half-expected as she turned to him to see him pointing at another huge wave threatening to drench them a fourth time. Not that it would make much difference, at this point. Wet was wet.

But Ash was only staring at her, his mouth slightly parted, with a look of deep concern.

Evie frowned. “What’s wrong?” she asked. They’d been here before. All of this had been before. Her head was spinning. What was going on?

Ash opened his mouth and formed the shape of a word, but once again, nothing came out. No sound that she could understand.

This was all too much. The ice-cold water, three times now, and then the laughing man, and Ash being so weird and cryptic…

Evie needed it all to just stop. Just stop, for a minute, so she could think.

She opened her mouth to say so, then almost choked on her tongue.

The sound of the waves… it was gone.

Maybe she was going deaf, after all?

She looked back at Ash, to see if he was trying to speak still…

His mouth was open, wide open at a strange angle, like he was halfway through a word. His eyes stared straight at her, but seemed at the same time to see nothing. Evie moved from side to side, but his pupils didn’t swing with her.

She looked at the man with the dog, halfway to the next pool of light from a streetlamp. He was also frozen in place.

His dog was frozen.

Evie could believe Ash might play a prank on her by freezing still and pretending she couldn’t hear what he was saying. She could believe an old man down the street might stand still for a moment by coincidence.

But his dog – frozen perfectly with two paws on the ground, two paws in the air?

Evie turned in a circle, panic growing and fluttering in her chest like a caged bird.

What the hell was going on?

She stepped away from Ash, casting backward glances with each step to see if he was still there, and made her way cautiously back to the wall.

Looking over the side, she yelled in shock, stumbling backward.

The waves were still.

She spun in a circle, a cacophony of images hitting her eyes, shattering her mind. A lone late seagull, caught in flight, wings arched against the wind, hung suspended in the sky. Further down the promenade, a woman had stopped mid-gesture, throwing her scarf over her shoulder – and the scarf trailed into the air like the string of a kite. The bare-limbed November branches of the trees that sprouted down the middle of the promenade, planted seemingly in concrete, had no leaves to shake and shiver; in one of them, though, Evie saw now what she hadn’t seen when everything was moving – a tiny bat, wings spread but upside down, either just leaving or just returning to a roost.

“Oh, god,” Evie said out loud.

She’d gone back and relived the same moment three times, and now everything was still.

She’d thought hard about – mentally gone back to – the moment in question, and she’d wished for everything to stop, and both of these thought processes happened directly before the respective results.

Somehow – somehow – even though it seemed completely impossible…

Did she, Evie Alexander, somehow have the power to control time?

She walked back towards Ash and touched him on the shoulder, even shook him a little. There was no response, no movement.

She had no idea how to undo all of this – how to make everything move again. She had a sneaking suspicion that all she had to do was want it – but…

Everything was frozen. Why not see how far this went? If there was a boundary?

With a regretful look at Ash – she’d have taken him with her, but she couldn’t exactly haul him around on her shoulder – she set off for the steps leading up from the promenade to the town above. Here, at the northern edge of Crowhill Cove, the cliffs were steep and the streets followed them, crisscrossing higher and higher until the land leveled out again. The beach, then the promenade one level up, then more stores and restaurants above them, and finally, a tier back and up, the residential houses.

Right the way to the cliff’s top, which was reserved for expensive homes mostly owned by out-of-towners who came in only for spring break or a summer vacation.

A smile twisted Evie’s lips. Maybe she could go check out some rich idiot’s home. That would be something Ash would have loved to see.

She looked back over the edge of the railing, back to Ash on the promenade. He would still be there, waiting for her, when she started time again. All of this would still be here. She was sure of it.

And if she was wrong about how all of this worked, then there was no time to lose in exploring what she could while she had the chance.

The first level of the town was quiet, but deceptively so. Evie noticed a few people skulking in alleyways, including a homeless man slumped against a wall with his eyes closed – for a second, Evie thought he might be dead, but there was really no way to check, so she hurried on.

The world was eerie when it was frozen like this. Everything was so quiet. Even her footsteps had no echo, so that sometimes she actually had to look down at her own feet to make sure they were making contact with the ground. They were – she hadn’t, apparently, gained the power of flight.

She hadn’t.

But there was a scruffy-haired young guy who appeared to have floated out of a window in one of the homes on the level above her, and who wasn’t falling or looking afraid. His head was up, his eyes forward. He was too far away for her to make out precise details, but she could see his face, a pale moon against the night. Evie stopped and considered him for a long time – if time had any meaning here.

The thought jolted her. When things went back to normal, would time have passed? Was she wasting away hours, time in which Ash would no doubt be frantically looking for her, just to walk among all of this unnoticed?

She started walking on, hurrying, heading for the sloped street that would take her up a level.

As she passed an alleyway, a form took her notice – something from the corner of her eye, or maybe an instinct, made her stop and look. There was a man in the alley.

Except…

Something was wrong with his face.

Evie stepped closer, squinting, afraid in spite of the fact that she was fairly certain none of these people could see, hear, or do anything to her. What was that…?

His face was twisted to the side as if he’d been caught on camera on some zero-gravity ride, skin pulled back taut. But that was only half of it. The other half…

It was like there was another face growing out of the side, ready to take over, to slide over the skin on his head and replace it.

His body, too, was twisted. He was dressed warmly for the night, but one of his hands was white and male with a smattering of dark hair across the knuckles – but the other was slim and female, darker in tone and bedecked with crimson nail polish.

“What the hell?” Evie said out loud. Her words seemed swallowed up and muffled the second they left her mouth, as if sound could have no impact here. She reached out, but stopped short of touching him. Testing things on Ash was one thing. She did not want to wake this… thing up. She didn’t want to find out what was wrong with its face.

She stepped back, looked to the sky for confirmation that there was no change in the position of the moon or the degree of lightness, and hurried on.

Why was she going up there, anyway? Just to tell Ash she had?

Something stubborn inside her had decided on a course of action, and even now, as she began to question whether it was a good idea, she found herself plunging forward.

Let’s see how the other half live, a determined voice in the back of her head said, her feet forging a path upward.

She passed a bicycle leaning against a wall, its owner – some kind of courier – just about to lock it up for the night. That would help her get somewhere faster. She reached out for it, trying to wrench it away from the wall…

It came, quicker and easier than she expected, nearly knocking her to the ground.

Hah. So, not people, but things. She sat on the bike, tested the pedals experimentally, and set off, eating the distance between herself and the top of the cliff faster now.

This was so easy. As soon as she got up there and then away, she would set time going again, just by thinking hard about it, picturing it in her head, and then –

Ash blinked at her, like he was waiting for a response.

Evie spun around in alarm. She was there.

Back on the promenade.

The water was washing gently against the seawall behind her, the man and his dog were walking away, and Ash was grabbing her by the shoulder.

She looked down. No bicycle.

She’d thought about starting time again too hard, and it had happened.

And she’d been shot right back to square one.

“Huh,” she said. “That’s interesting.”

And Ash tilted his head at her – but the funniest thing was, he didn’t even look like he was asking what she meant.

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Chapter 1

Evie kicked her feet against the sturdy wall underneath them, her fingers grazing against the grains of sand that had blown across it. More was blowing now, snapping up into the air and tangling with the flyaway strands of her hair. Tomorrow morning, she would need a shower.

That was tomorrow’s problem.

She sighed, feeling the sound of it slough away from her and join with the susurrus of the waves crashing below them.

“Is this really how you want to spend the night before your birthday?” Ash asked beside her, swinging his own legs with more vigor and less violence.

“I like the energy,” she said, gesturing towards the waves.

Ash cast a dubious, sideways look at the horizon. “It looks… angry,” he pointed out.

He was right. The sky was roiling and black, not that it was easy to tell against the general blackness of the night. It was almost midnight, after all. Beneath them, the waves licked ever higher and closer, threatening to wet their feet. They would have the chance to move away before that ever happened. Besides, it wasn’t even raining yet – though in the occasional flash of light from a temporarily unshrouded moon, it was possible to see drops lashing down against the surface of the sea a distance away.

It wasn’t often that a wave rose high enough to wash over the beachfront wall, drenching dogwalkers and business owners who unwittingly braved the storm in one place that seemed relatively dry. If tonight was one of those nights, Evie thought she might like to see it anyway. Just… maybe from the safety of the parking lot, another level up the cliff behind them.

The thought of getting washed down, down, down into the depths of the water below them was not a pleasant one.

“Yeah,” Evie said, distantly. Angry. Maybe Ash was right.

It wasn’t what she felt. But maybe it was what she felt the world should feel about her. About how she was wasting her potential. Throwing her life away. All phrases she had heard recently from her darling mother, who was definitely coming down on the side of angry.

“It’s going to be okay, you know,” Ash said. He was quiet, but Evie could hear him above the waves, all the same.

She turned to look at him. Her best friend: the one person in the world she could trust unequivocally. His face was paler than usual in the scattered moonlight, backlit by the street lamps curving overhead in old-fashioned metal settings. His dark hair, usually an uncontrollable mess, was only visible by the way the wisps around his crown caught the light and cast themselves into silhouette. His brown eyes were wide, worried. Focused on her.

“If you’re trying to reassure me,” she said casually, “you should probably look as though you believe it yourself.”

A fleeting smirk crossed his face. Making each other laugh was the one thing they were reliably good at.

Especially lately.

“I mean it, though,” he said. “Dropping out of college… so what? No one’s even going to ask about this in ten years’ time.”

“Won’t they?” Evie asked, raising an eyebrow in reference to all the job applications that probably littered her future.

“Especially not if you go back,” Ash said, a little too quickly. “Try something else.”

“I’m not going back, Ash,” she told him, turning back to watch the sea.

Seven more minutes, and she would no longer be classified as a teen. Seven minutes until she was twenty years old.

Twenty, jobless, homeless, and no longer a student. Absolutely zero prospects, and not even any idea of what she wanted to do with her life.

It was a fantastic way to start a new decade.

Evie sighed and pulled one of her feet up onto the wall, hugging her leg against her chest – an unthinking barrier between the two of them.

Ash shifted back to face the horizon. After a long moment of silence, he reached out and put his hand on top of her arm. The small, tender gesture softened her, and Evie felt her shoulders relax.

“I am sorry,” she gave him. “I know we enrolled together, and we were supposed to graduate together. I just…”

“I know,” Ash said. He shot her a sad smile. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. Your birthday’s about to start.”

Evie checked her phone again. Two minutes until she was twenty.

“It’s going to be a good one,” she said, straightening up.

“Yeah?” Ash straightened up, too, his face brightening. “Yeah! And you’re going to smash this year. You’re going to do so much amazing stuff, I’m going to start wishing I dropped out.”

Evie shot him a sardonic grin. “Probably not,” she said. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“Hey, that storm’s getting pretty close,” Ash frowned, shoving his hands into his pockets. “It’s getting cold.”

A shiver traced over Evie’s skin at that exact moment. “You’re right,” she said, joining him in frowning at the horizon. “The sea’s getting a little higher. Maybe we should -”

And she never finished the sentence, except in a scream, because that was the moment when the lightning hit the water –

And the water rose up, a rogue wave out of nowhere –

And splashed down on them, soaking them to the skin –

And everything changed, in an instant, before the scream could get all the way out of her mouth.

Cairo was leaning back against the side of his pool, watching the momentary burst of moonlight shimmer across the surface, playing against the underwater lights. He took another sip of champagne and set the glass aside.

He turned his head casually, first one way and then the other: to the house, where scattered debris – empty bottles and cans; food fallen and crushed on the floor; a few items of clothing that had apparently not gone home with their owners – waited for his housekeeper in the morning. The faint sounds of some party playlist, still left running even though everyone was gone, reached his ears when he strained. Then, to the horizon, past the cliff that the house sat on, where a storm seemed to be sweeping over the sea.

It was far enough away. Cairo didn’t care, anyway. Rich kid zapped by God in his private pool after yet another awesome party. It seemed like a good enough headline to go out on.

Except that wouldn’t do, because he was only twenty-six, and that was no way to get yourself into the twenty-seven club.

He drained the last of the glass and hooked his elbows over the rim of the pool, thinking about hauling himself out. Maybe he’d let a storm take him in some incredible fashion next year.

Ugh, but he was tired. Maybe there was something lingering on the coffee table in there, something that could perk him up – but he’d have to go inside first – and, god, wasn’t there anyone he could call to bring it to him so he didn’t have to get up?

The lightning was so bright, so close, that it blinded him temporarily. He only had a moment to register that the water was suddenly hot – so hot – sizzling around him – before the flash was gone again, leaving behind only a momentary terror and the sudden surprise that he had not, in fact, boiled to death at all.

Or, perhaps that was not the only thing left behind.

Fletch eyed his boot wearily. It was only now, in the glow reflecting from the streetlight at the end of the alley, that he realized he’d put his foot down into a puddle when he chose this spot.

He hoped it was, at least, rainwater.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t have the energy to draw the boot back in towards himself, where he slumped against the dirty, cold, and rough wall of whatever dive this alley belonged to. He didn’t even care if it wasn’t rain. What was one more stain on a pair of boots that had seen far too many miles of road?

He tilted his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. He just wanted to sleep. It was cold. A storm wind was blowing off the water, but in a coastal town like this there were few places to hide from the sea wind – and even if he’d been able to get into a shelter, he didn’t trust places like that anymore.

He needed to sleep, at least for an hour or twenty minutes, before the rain started. Then, it wouldn’t matter what kind of liquid his boot had been in. It would all wash off, all the same.

He jolted to alertness again, a brief noise out past the alley catching his attention. He stared. His hand itched towards the other boot, the one that was drawn up against his body – the one that contained the knife…

Nothing else came from the mouth of the alley. It had probably been the wind stirring some loose garbage around. Even if it wasn’t, there was nothing much he could do. The knife was no longer in his boot. He kept forgetting.

And if there was someone out there in the street – let them attack him, anyway. What else did he have left? The only things that hadn’t been stolen were his boots, the clothes on his back, and his life. None of those amounted to anything much, and losing either of the first two would pretty surely do away with the third as well.

Fletch leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.

They were shut when the lightning flashed down, a few streets away, far enough that it was only the light that shot across his eyelids – even if they had been open, he wouldn’t have seen the actual fork.

But the water around his boot was boiling all of a sudden, or at least it seemed to be until he snatched it back –

And stared, because the water was flat and still once more.

Maxie stopped working on a particularly tough stain on one of the pans – what had the cook been doing, to be so distracted that the stuff was practically etched onto the base, not just burned on – and scrubbed the back of her arm across her face. All she succeeded in doing was moving a few strands of hair around – one of them even more directly into her eye than it had been.

She sighed with frustration and dropped the pan into the water, letting it soak a bit longer. She peeled off one of the ill-fitting yellow gloves so that she could push the sweaty hair back from her forehead properly – only to yelp in surprise as her ring came off with the rubber, landing with a plash into the water of the sink.

She scrambled after it without thinking, her fingers closing on it at the same time as one of the cook’s knives found her. The fingertip that grasped the ring as she pulled it out of the water was bleeding red, the color spreading down her finger and hand, tracing through the droplets that already lingered there until it was diluted pink.

Maxie swore, reaching for a band aid – the sole grace here being the fact that the kitchen was well-stocked with them, given how often they were needed. She slicked the blue sticking plaster over the cut, cursing how clumsy she had been. She was paid by the shift, not by the hour, and if it took her longer to get these done, she wouldn’t be rewarded for it.

The clock on the wall over the service window told her it was almost midnight. If she didn’t get home soon…

There was tomorrow’s shift to think about, and the one after, and the one after.

She pushed the hair off her forehead at last, feeling the rough texture of the band aid graze her skin, and reached with her eyes half-closed in fatigue to pick up the ring from the sideboard where she’d dropped it.

With a tinny chink and another mocking plash, it spun away from her and fell merrily back into the water.

Maxie set her jaw.

Not today.

She was not doing this today.

She reached for the ring –

Never knowing that outside a lightning bolt was striking the water –

And for a moment, it seemed like the water boiled around her hand.

She snatched it back, then looked again – and, seeing the water still, ran a hand over tired eyes to wipe the hallucination from them.

When the water in the tub around her began to bubble, Jasmine had been staring into it for so long that it had begun to cool. For a mad, over-tired moment, she wondered if she had managed to cry so much that it had actually changed the properties of the water somehow – like magic out of a fairy tale.

But when she blinked the tears back enough to look again, she realized she was wrong. There was no heat to the water. There were no bubbles.

There was only her, slowly losing her mind under the weight of everything that she faced.

Scott was scrubbing his hands hard, trying to get them clean, casting uneasy glances at the door as if it would burst open at any moment. If someone out there was waiting to catch him with the evidence all over his fingers, they were missing their moment.

The water scalded him for just a second, making him snatch his fingers away with a yell of discontent – only to test it a moment later and find that the uneven spurts coming from the crooked tap were just as cool as they had always been.

The moon hung heavy over Crowhill Cove, as the storm that had been building all night came to a sudden pass: the skies cleared, and clear silver light shone down across calm waves, illuminating a mostly-sleeping town.

Table of Contents | Next Chapter

Remember to like and comment on this post if you’re enjoying the ride - every push of a button helps me to grow my audience and shows your appreciation! What do you think is coming up next? No prediction is too wild!

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And by the way - if you see me making any glaring mistakes that do not sound American (remember, I’m British) - please tell me off in the comments so I can correct it and avoid the same mistake in the future!

For every $50 or £50 I earn from Substack alone, I will release a new chapter early.

Current progress:

• $92.67/$100

• £2.55/£50