"Why did you bring me here?!" she asked, peering over her shoulder for a quick exit and back onto the streets.
"There is someone I want you to meet."
"Well, I don't want to meet them!" the girl was getting agitated.
"Calm down, Casey. There is nothing to fear, here."
"I'm not afraid!" she suddenly spat.
"Ok, Wonder Woman, prove it."
The challenge calmed her down.
No one spooked out Casey Lowe.
They rounded a corner and pushed open a glass door, entering a large lounge room. An old woman in a wheel chair sat at the end of a lounge and smiled, as they entered.
Casey was immediately taken by the depth of the old woman's blue eyes and she seemed to be surrounded by a peacefulness and warmth she had never felt before. Her smile drew Casey and she fought against it, closing her mind, not wanting to trust anyone.
"Casey, this is Aunt Tabbie."
*~*~*~*
Tabbie took in the sight of the young girl, perched uneasily on the edge of the lounge in front of her. She winced at the pieces of metal forced through the young, attractive, facial features, a sign of deep, self hatred. In her eyes reflected the hollow, destructive paths of violent storms, not too distant past.
The emptiness of a short life full of pain, etched in distrust and her story, written across her face.
"Casey, is it dear?" Tabbie asked quietly.
"Yeah!" she retorted.
"Would you like to tell me something of yourself?" Tabbie asked gently.
"Fat chance, lady!" Casey spat, looking around at Palmer.
"Casey…!" Constable Palmer chided.
Tabbie eyed the constable for a moment and then spoke.
"Mr Palmer, would you excuse us for a moment, please?" Tabbie pointed to the door.
Reluctantly, Constable Palmer rose from his seat, gave Tabbie a look of concern and started for the entrance.
"I'll be just outside!"
Tabbie followed him to the door, pushing her wheelchair with her skinny arms. Once he was outside the room, Tabbie locked it behind him.
A bewildered look on Palmer's face, as he rattled the door from the outside, made Casey laugh. She quickly brought herself back in check. She didn't want to find any reason to connect with this old lady.
Tabbie then wheeled herself directly opposite Casey.
"Now, if you can't tell me about you, would you allow me to tell you about me?" Tabbie asked, with a smile.
Casey eyed Tabbie for a long moment, finally coming to a decision. "Yeah, if you want. But I ain't saying nothing." Casey enforced her stance, by folding her arms across her chest.
She couldn't help notice Tabbie's rich, deep blue eyes, as Tabbie searched the ceiling, looking to find a place to start.
Read more of Aunt Tabbie's Wings
*~*~*~*
Exclusive Preview of Jack Dey's Novel
THE SECRETS OF BLACK DEAN LIGHTHOUSE
Adventure. Danger. Intrigue. Love. Courage. Redemption. Come on the journey but be warned, there is no turning back and the consequences will leave your head spinning. A haunting mystery with a sting in its tail.
Katie stood transfixed on the beach. Her hands shook slightly and her stomach tightly knotted. Her dark hair whipped around her face and stung her eyes, driven mercilessly by the approaching storm. This was the first time in years she had returned to Contention Island since... she pulled in a shuddery breath at the memory, hung her head in her hands and collapsed to the beach sand. The tears began all too easily again. The familiar ache returned as if it was just yesterday, let alone twenty years ago.
Maybe it hadn’t been long enough.
Curled in the cold sand and with her face buried in her hands, she thought she had overcome the demons lurking in her past and was ready to make sense of the circumstances that had so drastically altered her life. Sobbing, she castigated herself for being so stupid. Obviously she was wrong and this wasn’t such a good idea after all. She raised herself to her knees, her tear stained eyes searching the blackness of the sea behind the breakers. Searching, always searching, just like in her nightmares.
A blinding flash lit up the dark winter night closely followed by a deep, opulent rumble. The intensity hit her in the chest, making her scream in fear and cover her ears against the tumultuous cacophony.
She had come a long way in her recovery just to be standing in this place, the place that had haunted her sleep and stolen so much of her youth. Over the years, the relentless nightmares and cowering fear had faded, giving her a reckless sense of strength, but tonight, she was living her past again. She imagined she was strong enough now and if she confronted her tormenter, things would change. Things would become normal.
Whatever normal was.
But standing here on Contention Island, it was all too clear she had overestimated her strength and wasn’t ready to take such a drastic step. She still had a long way to go to reclaim her life.
It had been a night exactly like this, dark and imposing, raging at the foot of an unnatural storm. The rain began with such tenacity, it chilled her to her core and she began to shiver. Raising herself to her feet, she kept searching the sky beyond the breakers, her arms crossed over her chest against the teeming rain and wind driven chill.
Then she saw it, not once but several times. The walls of fear, undermined and partially dismantled by many years of absence from Contention Island, began to build its foreboding prison about her again. Katie grappled with the nightmare scene, clutching at her hair in desperation. Her mind refused to believe what she had just seen. It was still here, waiting for her to return.
To trap her again.
Her knees buckled under her and she collapsed to the sand, her mind shutting down under the immense shock.
*~*~*~*
From a place outside of her line of sight and buried in the night, another pair of eyes watched her motionless form with a cat-like stare. Stalking through the sand and leaning into the wind and rain, the figure stooped over the place she had fallen. Searching deliberately around the scene for prying eyes, he cautiously scooped the unconscious figure into his arms and effortlessly disappeared into the shadowy night without a trace, carrying his prey.
The sudden movement brought Katie around momentarily. She focused onto the black, cat-like eyes of her captor and screamed, but nothing came out. It was all happening again, as if history were repeating itself. She had been a fool, lured back into her past by the same events that had trapped her in her youth, seduced by the idea of gaining control over her nemesis and finally breaking free of his power. Her strength stolen – trying to stop the circle of events – her body went limp and she blacked out again.
*~*~*~*
A scream broke into his deep subconscious and activated his fight or flight sense. He sat bolt upright in his bed, ready to deal with any intruder. It took only a moment to realise where he was and what was transpiring. The dark room, only illuminated by the red digital numbers of the clock radio, was light enough to see the pained face of his wife battling in a nightmare.
“Becky, wake up!” he gently shook her awake.
The bedside lamp erupted, dividing the formidable darkness, paining their eyes and driving the world of fear back into the shadows. The confused look on Becky’s face, her brow moist from the battle, was an all too familiar indicator of the depth of her enchantment. Recognising the familiar world around her, she spoke, exhausted and in a low, perplexed voice.
“What happened?”
“It was Katie again, wasn’t it?” the concerned voice of her husband, Brett, enquired as he pulled her into his arms.
“She was back on Contention Island,” the worried frown deeply furrowed on Becky’s face, her voice muffled in her husband’s shoulder. Becky hadn’t dreamt of Katie for years and now, for some reason, Katie was troubling her subconscious again.
Katie had been a regular visitor into the young couple's lives at first. Unknown to Brett,
Becky had been plagued by nightmares of Katie throughout her life. Once they were married, Katie’s invasion of Becky’s subconscious lessened, but was regular enough for Brett to form a picture of Katie and her troubled adventures through Becky’s commentary of the nightmares she suffered. Becky had no idea how she came to dream of Katie. She had never met a girl named Katie in real life, let alone become friends with one. Katie’s arrival back on Contention Island was not a welcome revelation. Brett now knew enough of the nightmares to surmise Katie’s anguish was set to get deeper and Becky would suffer as a result.
He had to get to the bottom of these nightmares, and find out who Katie was and why Katie affected Becky’s dreams so profoundly.
Read more of The Secrets of Black Dean Lighthouse
*~*~*~*
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THE LEGEND OF ATANEQ NANUQ
When injustice and fear collide it has a name... Ataneq Nanuq. A disturbing mystery
A crisp command silenced the dogs as the weathered, leathery face pressed hard against the fractured window; a legacy from last winter’s trials. His faltering gaze followed the rocky shoreline of the bay through the broken glass and from the confines of the tired, dishevelled hut, keeping his aging outline pressed against the wall and trying to stay out of sight. His panicked hot breath steamed the pane, partially obliterating the view while two milky brown eyes, bloodshot and squinting from too many years exposed to the glaring icy landscape, traced the small ship’s progress as it entered the deepest part of the wilderness of Scoresby Sund.
A worried frown settled across his wrinkled brow. It had been nearly two years since he had glimpsed another European and by his reckoning, that wasn’t long enough. The fear rose into his chest and threatened to freeze the scene into a long buried moment in history he’d worked so hard to forget.
In the isolation of the wilderness, there was no one to impress or be judged by. Being alone was sometimes lonely, but it was far easier than feeling hunted by his own kind and required to perform or give an account of what he had done. There just wasn’t a plausible, easy explanation for what had happened able to satisfy him, let alone a civilised European court. He had evaded his hunters for well over fifty years, vanishing like a shy Arctic fox into the tundra and beyond the reach of their prejudiced form of justice.
He was bitterly aware, maybe even more so today than the day it happened... he was a fugitive: a wanted man.
Dwarfed by icebergs, floating lazy and majestic in defiance to the seasonal thaw and towering rebelliously against the smoky-blue backdrop of the late summer sky, the tiny ship appeared insignificant by comparison. The remnants of the winter sea ice, now scattered and breaking up over the surface of the warming water, playfully nudged the steel hull of the white ship as she pushed closer to the shore and his hut. The ship’s movement through the Sund created ripples that disturbed the tranquillity and betrayed the ship’s intended direction. As it came closer, he could make out the Russian name: MV Multanovskiy.
Momentarily distracted, his eyes diverted from the vessel and focused on a nearby berg. Desperate thoughts chased around his mind. Surely the Russians couldn’t have an interest in my history or a reason to pick a fight with me.
Just to be certain, he stayed well out of sight anyway.
Surrounded by a backdrop of rugged, snow capped mountains, the tortured old hut stood on crumbling brick pillars just one metre above the rocky tundra floor and only a stone’s throw from the Sund. The floor timbers sagged with age, complaining bitterly with every step the old man took while the fire had finally gone out in the old fireplace. He had used up the last of the seal blubber fuel and the gaps in the stone chimney let the windblown chill into the hut, something he would have to fix in what remained of this summer, before the ice storms of January. The roof above him was the strongest part of the hut, strengthened to support the weight of dense winter snow and the turbulent gales of the long Arctic night.
It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was home.
After the summer thaw had advanced and defeated the winter pallor, Salix glauca turned the once-white snow covered tundra into a rich red, giving the illusion of a living welcome mat sprawling across the landscape and leading to the rocky shores of the Sund, testifying that the long winter had indeed retreated and the short summer was now in command.
As he gauged the ship’s position once again, a sense of irony struck him. In the depth of the endless Arctic night, he had driven his dogsled clear across the frozen Sund on an iceshelf two metres thick to fish through a drilled hole in the ice, close to where the ship now cautiously picked its way across the fluid summer sea and towards his home. He watched in surprise as the ship executed a wide arc and came within fifty metres of his old dwelling. Seemingly convinced there were no signs of life, it turned unexpectedly and steered again for the entrance to the Sund, picked up speed and silently slid out of the fjord, bringing a sigh of relief from the old man.
From his position hidden within the shelter, the aging eyes struggled to focus on the departing vessel as it vanished from view.
The dogs began to whimper, eager to get back outside into their natural environment and leave the confines of their hiding place. He cautiously surveyed the scene outside the window, sweeping the barren landscape for any threats. His searching stopped abruptly, while his blurry eyes pressed shut and open again in an attempt for clarity, trying to focus on a large granite boulder some distance away. It was still there after so many winters and summer thaws, perched lifeless on the granite mound, weather bleached and staring in the direction of the fjord where Nanuq had slaughtered him: the skull of a muskox.
The hapless creature had wandered into a two day standoff between the old man trapped inside his hut and a hungry nanuq, keeping the human pinned down. The dogs had alerted the old man to the presence of the dangerous male polar bear, while Nanuq had watched every move from his hidden position, his fur camouflaged perfectly against the white winter environment. Unwittingly, the muskox had sacrificed his life and meandered into Nanuq’s patient trap, ending the ordeal for the old man. Nanuq struck with such stealth and ferocity, driven by hunger. His agile and powerful 600 kilogram frame, standing 2.7 metres tall, launched with deadly accuracy as his voracious, tearing jaws crushed the life from his victim. It was doubtless the muskox even saw him coming. His hunger then satisfied, Nanuq, the powerful male polar bear, had turned toward the hut and tossed his head and sniffed the air in a warning toward the old man. Nanuq’s dark eyes had set a deliberate challenge, daring him to do battle in a future time. One last huff and Nanuq had sauntered away into the depths of the polar winter, leaving enough of his conquest as a sign of his rank and stature among the polar bears, allowing the smaller, hungry subordinate bears to clean up after him.
After the altercation with Nanuq, the old man had left the skull of the muskox where it lay, as a chilling reminder and evidence of the ruthless fight for survival in a hostile and unforgiving frozen wilderness devoid of friendly human contact. One lapse in concentration in a powerful winter storm—where the temperature plunged to in excess of minus twenty-three degrees Celsius—or an unguarded moment flaunting his life in front of a hungry, prowling nanuq away from the safety of his shelter, could prove fatal. Still, he was more at home in the cruelty and isolation of the tundra where man, beast and the environment fought to the death only for survival purposes. When hunger and the depths of winter no longer threatened, man and beast lived together in an uneasy cohabitation, keeping a close, wary eye on each other. Unlike European society, where a fatal blow constantly lurked in every corner and every human being was an enemy and a target in a relentless drive to conquer and dominate each other. He shivered as he imagined society closing the door on his troubled freedom and trapping him in a crowded man-made nightmare.
Sensing the threat had passed, Akiak’s warm muzzle pushed into his empty hand, forcing his thoughts back to the present and reminding him his dogs needed to get outsid
e. She was his faithful dogsled team leader, wise in the things of the tundra, saving his life more often than he cared to remember. He stooped to ruffle her thick fur and then opened the hut door, the dogs bursting out into the warm sunshine excitedly barking and enjoying their sudden freedom.
The temperature this time of year was an exhausting one degree Celsius and there was much to do before the relentless winter night once again descended on his world, plunging him into the crippling freeze. The old man felt different in the bright polar sunshine, lighter in spirit and even a small sense of hope pervaded his thinking. A noticeable freshness drifted across the polar tundra leaving the threats of winter far from his mind, while his old enemy, Nanuq, had migrated further north following the food source associated with the permanent pack ice of the extreme Arctic pole.
For now he was content and an uneasy peace settled over his soul.
As he ventured outside, he bent to investigate the sled lying unused in the protection of the crawl space under his hut. He stiffly drew it from its resting place and examined its condition. The shaped timber skids had dried and split, but it was still solid and usable. The tow straps the dogs wore were stiff, but would soon become pliable once the dogs had worn them in again. A shrill whistle from the old man called the dogs to the sled and away from the serious play they had engaged in. They came barking and running, excited at the thought of pulling a sled again.
Today he would venture onto the edge of the vast tundra away from the hut to trade Arctic fox furs he had trapped during last winter. His buyer, Katu, lived fifty kilometres away and his store was an outpost for the remaining trappers living deep in the wilderness. He would trade for supplies for the coming winter and learn the grave news of the outside world. Katu was a native born Greenlander with no apparent interest in the history of an old European fugitive. The round trip would take two days and he usually stayed the night with Katu.