He Lies Beneath by Marissa Farrar - February Femmes Fatales

So wonderful to be able to welcome such a talented author as Marissa Farrar back to February Femmes Fatales. I'm not the only one to have read the first in her Serenity series ALONE - a powerful vampire paranormal romance - this year. The sequel, BURIED is smouldering away on my Kindle waiting to be read.

I urge readers to visit Marissa's blog to discover her work; I can assure you - you won't be disappointed. He Lies Beneath is proof of that.

HE LIES BENEATH

Image (c) Marissa Farrar

The warmth of his steady breath attracted her. Like smoke, she dissipated and slipped through the open crack of his window. Inside, she reformed in her feminine guise; eyes so large and black, should any man wake to see her, he’d glimpse only holes in her head.

She hovered above this one and smiled with pleasure. Still young, perhaps only in his late twenties, he slept on his back, a white sheet draped across his narrow waist. His well-defined arms rested either side of his head, his lips parted. Long, dark eyelashes lay upon his cheek and stubble shadowed his cut jaw.

“Aaah...” she sighed, her breath frosting the night air. The sight of his naked torso pleased her and a shiver of excitement trembled through her form.

She dipped lower and pressed her cold, pale lips against his. His head twisted slightly, sensing her. She kissed him, insistent and, even in sleep, he responded. Her black, pointed tongue flicked into his mouth, dancing, tracing the inside of his lips and teeth. His lips moved against hers and she tasted the faint hint of mint.

Suspended above him, she moved from his mouth, planting feather-light kisses across his jaw and down his neck. His pulse beat steadily just beneath the delicate skin of his throat. The warm scent of copper filled her nostrils, but it wasn’t blood she was after.

Her lips worked down his body, stopping at the tight buds of his nipples to grate her teeth over the erect, sensitive flesh. Her slick, black tongue laved the peak in lascivious circles.

The beautiful man squirmed beneath her and lower down she felt him begin to rise, tenting the sheet.

Focusing her energy, she willed the offending material away. It slid from his body and dropped to the floor beside the bed. His naked body exposed, she slid her fingers down to circle his expanding girth. She squeezed him tight, eliciting a moan.

The blood-tipped nails of her other hand scratched down his chest and across the ridges of his abdominals, leaving five red lines in their wake. His head thrashed from side to side, his lips moving, muttering in his sleep.

He grew hard beneath her caresses and the response made her smile; a wicked expression. Her long, slim fingers worked his length and he uttered a groan. Moving lower still, she brushed her cheek against his manhood, like a cat nudging an owner’s leg. His skin felt like silk and she marvelled at the combination of hard and soft. Holding him at his base, she brushed her lips against him, sneaking out her tongue to leave a trail of wet saliva along his length.

She took him between her lips, stretching her jaw to accommodate his size. She tasted musk, his scent filling her senses. She swirled her blackened tongue over the head, drinking in the salty droplet she found there.

Closing her lips around him, she bobbed lower. He swelled in her mouth as she moved up and down, keeping a regular pace, her tongue swirling across his smooth skin.

His eyes shot open and in the dim moonlight filtering between the curtains, he caught sight of her. She knew her high cheekbones appeared skeletal, her eyes gaping holes, her skin white. His mouth stretched in a scream, but even as he shrieked, his hips jerked. Hot seed spilled down her throat and she sucked and swallowed, draining him dry. He cried out with both the force of his orgasm and the horror of what he’d woken to. But despite his turmoil, he couldn’t run; her dark magic kept him pinned to the bed.

Overwhelmed, his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell slack against the mattress.

She lifted her head and licked her lips.

In the morning he would only remember a dream of contrasts—of pleasure and pain, of terror and lust. Exhausted, he’d blame the nightmare, and in some ways he’d be right. Though it wouldn’t be the lack of sleep that had affected him but the energy she’d stolen.

Perhaps she would return to this one. She moved up his body and stroked his cheek. He flinched in his sleep. Yes, he pleased her. His restless nights and exhausted days would continue...

_________ The End _________

Bio: Marissa Farrar was born in Devon, England, where she now resides with her husband and two children. She is the author of the dark vampire novels, The Serenity Series, and several stand-alone horror and fantasy books.

If you want to know more about Marissa, please visit her facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/marissa.farrar.author

The Firewood Collector by A J Humpage - February Femmes Fatales

If you've read AJ Humpage you'll already know how she can take the fiercest of human behaviour - love, lust, hate - and lay it bare. She will scrape your face with it, tear out your soul with it... and break your heart with it.

Ally's ability to describe atrocity with the poetry of senses is unique. Read The Firewood Collector and just tell me it doesn't touch and chill you to the bone...

THE FIREWOOD COLLECTOR

Green over umber; these colours filled Reuben’s vision, vibrant and deep, reminding him of childhood summers spent in the Rhine valley. Childhood aside, he had lived and worked in Berlin most of his life, until the war began, and now everything had changed - his life and his world had transformed immeasurably.

Sweet smelling moss and pine laced the mist around him as he followed the soldier along the path. The sky had turned grey, as though drenched and degraded by an unwelcome fear. Another soldier followed behind; soft steps, deceptive.

Reuben collected firewood every day for the camp, had done so for three years. It was a hard task, finding enough to stoke the furnaces and power the machinery. He dragged along a large cart which he had to fill with wood. Sometimes he made two or three collections during the day, which left him exhausted at night, although not as exhausted as some of the younger men in the camp.

Exhaustion meant he slept well, cocooned from the nightmares.

They moved further up the hill.

Mist clung to the trees like a cloak and veiled the crows hiding among the branches, but Reuben knew they were there, he could hear them. The air was still, damp and somehow heavy, and each crunch underfoot seemed to carry across the forest.

He looked out from the hillside, saw the camp below. Square shaped huts dotted his vision, the darkened roofs reflecting the rain which must have fallen during the night. A large funnel of grey smoke billowed from the chimney of a nearby building, the smoke stack rising high into the air. The stench from the smoke stack didn’t reach the hillside, and instead it drifted across the forest to the east, drenching the surroundings with a chalky coloured powder, slightly sticky to the touch. Reuben was glad he couldn’t smell it. He knew what they burned to make it so nauseous. Some days it left a greasy residue in the lining of everyone’s noses and throats, and the thought of what laced their tongues made some of the men physically sick.

He looked to his right, saw the railway track leading up to the gates of the camp. The forest was silent today, but tomorrow there would be more people arriving, crammed into the dark wooden carriages. More men and women, more children. More misery.

He had seen the neglected flesh and bones, the sunken faces, the twisted piles of humanity forming a mire of decay. He had seen grown men wet themselves with unimaginable fear, he’d seen the aftermath of soldiers rounding on the women. Tears and semen formed a milky dew on pale, deathly skin, while the unborn stagnated in their mothers’ dead wombs.

Movement brought Reuben to.

The soldier in front stopped, lit a cigarette. He exhaled slowly and grey smoke swirled around his face like a serpent.

Reuben’s brow drooped. Lines in his once fresh face deepened. He pointed. ‘There’s no wood here. We have to go up to the clearing to get the best wood.’

The soldier smoked, shook his head. ‘No, here is fine.’

Reuben rubbed soiled hands down his striped clothes. ‘But...there’s no wood here...’

The soldier smoked, watched Reuben carefully with retentive blue eyes. Reuben’s grey expression slowly turned dark. Afraid. He knew that look; he had seen it so many times. Behind him, he heard the other soldier moving about and it made him turn, the sensation of fear scuttling across his skin.

The other soldier stood near a muddy patch of ground, his foot resting on a large boulder, his rifle slung around his shoulder. He stared at Reuben with dark, almost black, cloudy eyes, as though they had lost sheen and no light could penetrate them.

Reuben shuddered, turned to the soldier in front. The clouds in the distance undulated and churned, it looked like more rain was coming.

‘There’s no need for you to collect firewood anymore, Reuben,’ the soldier said. The soldier lifted his rifle. ‘I’m afraid you’ve outgrown your use.’

Reuben shook his head. ‘But I don’t understand...’

The soldier coughed as though he had grit stuck at the back of his throat. ‘I have my orders.’

Reuben’s insides contracted with fear. ‘No...I’ve been a good worker, I’ve broken no rules.’

‘We know that,’ the other solider said from behind Reuben.

Reuben looked at him. ‘You need me. Who else is going to collect the firewood?’

‘The boys will do it,’ the soldier replied, indifferent.

The little boys, all without mothers, who picked around the camp, clearing up the detritus and the dead. There were always more of them coming in every other day.

‘But I know all the best places for wood,’ Reuben said.

The soldier pointed the gun at Reuben’s head. ‘The boys will find new places.’

‘No, please...I’ll do anything you want...’

‘We don’t need tired old men,’ the other soldier muttered.

Reuben stared at the young soldier; saw the man’s knuckle turn white as he gripped the trigger, poised. Wonderful memories shot through his mind - family dinners and parties, evenings around the piano, going to work alongside his father at the furniture factory on the outskirts of Berlin, getting married, having children...but then the dark memories rose up and smothered him; memories he had fought hard to forget, like losing his wife the day the soldiers came for them, losing his children. All three boys murdered on the blood-sullied streets of Berlin, cut down by a shower of bullets. All these elements, all that he was, all that he knew, had gone.

He blinked at the shale coloured surrounds of the cold austere forest that enveloped Auschwitz.

Memories frittered.

The shot scattered crows skyward; filling the greyness like a black vapour.

Reuben slumped to his knees and fell forward, his shattered face buried in the moss, red over green.

‘Shame,’ the German soldier said, nonchalant. He flicked his cigarette. ‘I liked him. Still, he was a Jew nevertheless.’

_________ The End _________

Bio: A J Humpage has short stories and poetry published in anthologies like 6 Sentences, Pill Hill Press, Static Movement and many e-zines, and has completed her second novel.

She offers writing advice at http://allwritefictionadvice.blogspot.com.

Her work can be found at http://ajhumpage.blogspot.com and you can find her on Twitter: AJHumpage

Lily's Friday Prediction

I'm having a Banshee moment. I caught something on BBC4 about Siouxsie Sioux and have been thrown into a whipped-up sea of reminiscence.

I can't count how many times I saw this extraordinary woman perform. I love everything about her - her look, her voice and lyrics but perhaps most of all her determination to be herself in a very greedy and narrow-minded music business. Hail Siouxsie Sioux!

(Oh and I'll always remember getting thrown out of a friend's parents' snooty Golf Club dinner/dance for my personal performance of Mad-Eyed Screamer back in Siouxsie's Creatures days. It made my, and the DJ's night.)

Talking of highly-talented women, please don't forget to read the incredible dark fiction in this month's FEBRUARY FEMMES FATALES showcase. Several Predictioneers are sharing their work and would love your feedback.

And Gentlemen, just because the showcase pieces are written by women it doesn't mean the stories are only for women - please dip in and support your fellow writers. You can flip back through the posts here on the Feardom, or go to the FFF page where the posts are listed in date order as they go live.

Thank you!

Winner of Last Week's Prediction Challenge

A healthy pot-load of Prediction entries last week despite that 'mangle' word! We have one - my hubby uses it for print-making.

I've read and re-read your wonderful words - even with fewer entries than the previous weeks it doesn't make it any easier to chooser a winner. But the job is done:

My winner is Jack Holt with the atmospheric and intriguing vignette Fallout. This strange nameless woman and the even stranger location stayed in my mind for days. Is this a derelict casino? And what is she about to do? Do tell. Oh, and congratulations!

Runner-up, with Big Boys Don't Cry is AJ Humpage. The vivid description of this horrendous accident is so powerful you can smell the carnage. Well done AJ.

Words for 10 February 2012

I've rambled on for England so I'll make this quick...

This week's words are:

• Conserve 
• Hare
• Crucify

(All verb and noun forms accepted on the first and last words).

Good luck!

Rules

The rules are: 100 words max flash fiction or poetry using all of the words above. Please add your entries in the Comments box below. You have until 9pm UK time on Thursday 16th February 2012 to enter.

The winner will be announced on Friday 17th February. If you can, please tweet about your entry, using the #fridayflash hashtag, and blog if you feel like it. Do give feedback to your fellow Predictioneers - we all appreciate it.

Slide down your Helter Skelter and finger some great fiction. I want to be left Spellbound...

___________________________________

Party Guest, and I Cling Inside the Border-Wall by Amber Taitague - February Femmes Fatales

Amber Taitague is new to the February Femmes Fatales feast. Regular readers and contributors to my weekly Friday Fiction Prediction challenge will better know Amber as MuckieDuckie.

Amber's writing delivers naughty wickedness, a dark and dangerous outlook that makes you smile - in guilt. Here she revisits two of her Prediction challenge pieces. They are well-chosen and present her intriguing style so well.

Little dabbles with delicious drabbles. Read on...

PARTY GUEST

Balloons drift limply to the floor; the party decorations hanging haphazard throughout the house. A dazed girl in a torn party dress wanders about, wincing at the loud music. She ignores a platter of congealed London broil on the dining table, making her way to the front door.

Her head cocks in puzzlement at the bottleneck she finds. Bodies with empty eye sockets that glare red are piled about like pillow shams.

Softly singing Portishead’s “All Mine” she grabs a jar off the floor, smiling at the eyeballs it contains.

Marie is a collector and she has only just begun.

_________ The End _________

I CLING INSIDE THE BORDER-WALL

When love’s rotation gyrates on fear’s axis, the strain of years doesn’t strengthen the glue of you. The toll bears down heavy.

The cracking you hear is not of bones breaking but of self shattering.

His angry face is on again. He shouts the words that show the border between us and little pitchers hear; small eyes shimmer soft as the television tries to hypnotize.

I’m ice to his flame, no more moved by his rages.

The border-wall recedes, but the space between us is different. We’re half-remembered strangers or half-forgotten friends, but I cling.

Cling to keep us whole.

_________ The End _________

Bio: Amber Taitague has been writing since she was a child, dabbling with short stories and poetry. She recently fell into flash fiction and has been working many years on a novel, however she's guilty of procrastination. She can be seen in 5x5 Issue Four: Smoke.

The Colour of Murder by Dorothy Davies - February Femmes Fatales

Dorothy asks the big question today, "What colour is death, would you say?" Answers at the end please. But read this disturbing narrative first and see if it changes your mind.

Dorothy's speaker is not someone you'd like to meet, worse - is not someone you'd want to discover you actually know.

A chilling, worrying mind to...

THE COLOUR OF MURDER

What colour is death, would you say?

Let us consider the tramp, the vagrant, the homeless, the complete waster/loser in the doorway over there, life’s detritus, - I know not why he is there, nor do I care. He will do well for my synonym right now.

Take a good look at him, if you can bring yourself to do that. He is dirt. He is ingrained dirt, ground in, muddied, worn, grey. As grey as the face you will wear when in your coffin for a short time. When colour goes and preservatives are swilling round your long dead veins, you will go grey.

We can safely say grey is the colour of death.

What colour is life, would you say?

This is more difficult. Looking around, I would say pink is the colour of life, if you take notice of the young girls in their pretty little tops and shorts, with pink bags swinging by their side, pink bows and other fal-de-dals in their hair. Pink princesses, every one of them. Who would want to harm them, I ask, unless of course their demands as princesses become too much and the money will not extend to buying yet another pink thing on demand and then, yes, you could. Do you really think child killers kill only for sexual reasons? No, they take out the whining demanding divas before they become older whining demanding divas. And save us the job. We should praise them, not incarcerate them. They do a public service for the rest of us who cannot stand the whining and demanding.

We can safely say pink is the colour of life. For some.

What colour is love, would you say?

Love is two colours – black and gold.

Love is gold when it is fresh and new, when there is nothing but lust instead of love, when the adored one is everything, when that chasm is breached, the last stronghold of the one against the other – you know of what I speak? Sex, of course. What else drives this human race but sex? Even money doesn’t rank alongside the power of procreation.

And love is black when the lust dims and the loved one becomes familiar and there is a new and exciting gold love just around the next road where you can go and be accepted and invited into that deep chasm which is exactly the same but you fool yourself it is different and the love will never become dim and the loved one become familiar. Oh how we fool ourselves with our desires!

The fallout from the discovery that it is just the same after all makes black the colour of love.

I think sometimes it is the only true colour of love, that the gold is a mere fleeting fantasy which lasts perhaps a whisper away from the white wedding and the new home.

What colour is murder, would you say?

Ah, here we can range over many colours. Silver if there is a blade used, brass perhaps for a blunt instrument, bullets come in all colours, take your pick.

But the true colour of murder is red.

You see … and here come the secrets, which every killer spills in the end, do they not? She – that hussy/slut lover of mine – had a special message for me. Red slinky dress with the longest zip down the back, underneath the red bra cradling creamy globes of delight and red briefs covering the portal of delight.

The dress would slide carefully gently sensuously to the floor, the bra would follow, the briefs a moment later. The red pool on the floor indicated It Was Time. Once, twice a week the red pool would gather on the floor and we would be locked in the timeless embrace of lust.

Then it became once a week, then once a month and I, being the deluded fool that I am, took several months to realize this was happening. Why did I not miss the red pool earlier? But I didn’t.

And then it stopped. Completely.

A further two months went by and I discovered why – another man, of course, one for whom the gold light glowed and the lust was strong and of course he would never become familiar, would he, as I obviously had.

She began to wear pink. Pink dresses, pink underclothes -pink! A reason to kill, if ever there was! Anything but pink! No little girl stuff for me, thank you!

I trapped her in her lies and confronted her with the evidence, photographs, texts, timed calls on the landline, everything. She said she wanted to go and I saw black. The endless black of loneliness and depression of being without her. Of imagining her with another man.

I said fine, go pack. I followed her into the bedroom and watched the packing, watched the red dress and the red underclothes go into the suitcase. When she turned away to get something else, I took out the red bra and the briefs. In a moment I had her helpless, stuffed the briefs into her mouth and, before she could scream them out, strangled her with the red bra. I left her in her own red pool. Blood gushed from her as she struggled, something I didn’t expect. Seems the damn catch on the bra sliced the jugular vein. Perhaps I needn’t have pulled quite that hard. Perhaps I should have made it slow and painful instead of fast and furious. Shows what happens when you lose control. I think about it now; wonder what I would do given another chance. I leave you to decide.

And now she is grey. I made sure of it, made sure she was buried, not cremated, so the beauty would go grey and wrinkly and old and tired long before I did.

The prison cell is pretty much grey too, but nothing I can do about that. I can live with grey. I can even tolerate the occasional flash of pink as the sun sets and the gold of the morning. Pretty much I live with the black of solitude, of being without the woman I loved.

Just don’t ask me to tolerate the colour of murder.

_________ The End _________

Bio: 

Dorothy Davies is a writer, editor and medium who lives on the Isle of Wight, just off the south coast of England. It is reputed to be the most haunted place in the UK, which may explain why she has done nothing but write horror stories since she moved there.

She is an editor and contributor with Static Movement and Red Skies Publishing.

Spangles by Lily Childs - February Femmes Fatales

I originally wrote Spangles for Pill Hill Press's Daily Bites of Flesh 2011 anthology, a huge volume that brought together 365 short horror tales. I have the book on Kindle and still dip into it whenever I need a short, sharp shock of the dark stuff.

Spangles was one of those deviant tales that started with a single sentence; I had no idea where it was going but it wrote itself in the end. I do hope you enjoy it as the narrator might have some other stories up her sleeve, or elsewhere...

SPANGLES

They found sequins in my knickers. The silver disks filled my crevices, finding their way into folds of flesh where they cut and sliced me raw. The question the cops asked themselves – did a killer place them there, or did I?

Hudson swore as his boss gave him the best job of all; standing between my legs to catch the corpse as they cut me down. The wind was ferocious. My body swung in circles from a creaking oak, a pendulum. Hudson danced like a girl, trying to avoid the spillages splattered over the forest floor beneath me. Evacuation - the elegance of death. He caught my thighs and held me tight, gagging as the gales whipped my skirts up to cover his head. His rough-shaven cheek nestled against my cold skin. And that’s when he saw me sparkle.

I whispered at him.

“Touch them.”

Hypnotised, he reached into my torn, stinking panties. He probed gently. The tiny jewels sprinkled into his hands, reflecting the darkness and a thousand skewed versions of his own expression. He gathered them as they fluttered into his fingers. Above me the rope was slashed. I fell, heavy yet empty into his face. We slipped, entwined in carnal embrace to the ground.

*** 

Before the leap, I had already drunk my hostess dry. Her blood and fluids nourished me for six long months until she began to tire. As did I. The taste of her – muted and banal – was no longer heady as darkest California wine. At the edge of the woods where walkers and joggers parade their skinny bones and yapping dogs I arranged a most spectacular end to her life. It was my way of offering up grateful thanks to the woman I’d only ever known as Rambling Rose.

Together, with her hands and my mind we shoved the sequins into her most secret of places. They were a tease, an enticement. She laughed as she jumped from the tree. She smiled as she died.

*** 

Burial of my former self was planned for the following day. Hudson visited the mortuary for the final time, no longer disturbed by the cuts and the collapsed state of Rose’s belly. Her leeched organs, hard as nuts, had been removed. The detective bent over her face. I waited patiently inside the husk, drawing Hudson closer to me with unheard promises. Mouth to mouth.

“Kiss me.”

*** 

With my help Hudson has chosen to travel for a while; the job was getting him down. He wants to see new horizons; feels that something new and lush is burgeoning inside him.

He is strong. His flavour is of Merlot and beef stock. I have gorged myself on him.

Hudson and I cross the state line and set out on the journey, a backpack stuffed to the seams between his shoulders. He is fitter than he has ever been. Freedom weaves through his heart. Sucking his soul in pulses I lie hidden in a purse of silk, bathing in six hundred silver sequins.

_________ The End _________

Bio: Lily Childs is the author of a growing number of short horror and dark fiction stories that have appeared online and in print. Watch out for the first volume of a new collection coming out on Kindle this Spring.

Horror Editor at Thrillers Killers 'n' Chillers, Lily is also a Spinetingler Award 2011 nominee.

The first two short novellas in Lily's Magenta Shaman dark urban fantasy series are available to download from Amazon, with the third book planned for the summer of 2012. She is currently completing her first supernatural novel.

Lines by Laurita Miller - February Femmes Fatales

I'm so excited that Laurita Miller has joined the Femmes Fatales again this year. Her superb fiction and poetry aside Laurita has a lot say about writing itself. Her blog Calling Shotgun is packed with well-considered, almost conversational posts on the craft; she digs deep into topics and lays her thoughts bare. I admire that.

In Lines, her first of two February Femmes Fatales pieces, Laurita tests your comfort levels from the very outset. Let this story move and unnerve you - for it will. And then some.

LINES

The steady, droning buzz was his focus, like a mantra. He never got used to the needle, the little pricks of pain that merged to create a more significant agony. He needed it that way.

He glanced at his arm, at the progress. It wouldn’t take long; just one line this time, stark black on his pale flesh. Little dots of red rose to the surface, mingled with the ink, and he looked away. He didn’t like the sight of his own blood.

When the buzzing stopped he looked down at the finished product, the horizontal slash that crossed four existing vertical lines, a set of five that matched the one above it. Ten. It seemed like a small number, until he saw them grouped that way. He knew the suffering that went with each line.

He paid and left as soon as the work was done. Outside, the evening had cooled. He didn’t bring a jacket, didn’t want the fabric against his throbbing arm. It was really aching now, and there was a heavy knot in his gut.

The cold felt good.

He reached for the crumpled pack of smokes in his pocket and pulled one out with his lips.

Damn.

He took it from his mouth and threw it on the sidewalk, tucked the pack back into his pocket. Just in case.

There was an all-night diner on the corner. What he needed was a good strong cup of coffee, maybe some of that awful apple pie with the cardboard crust. Something to ease his mind, keep his hands busy.

A young waitress pulled the door open just as he reached for it and she almost walked into him.

“Oh! I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you there.” She offered a smile and stepped around him.

“That’s alright,” he whispered, and watched her run across the street to the bus stop, pink skirt and red ponytail swinging.

He found a booth at a window, ordered his pie and coffee without taking menu. It was warm in the diner, uncomfortably so. He drummed his fingers on the table, focused on the drawl and twang from the juke. Outside, the waitress stood underneath the bus stop sign, illuminated by the streetlamp. She pulled her sweater around her and bounced a little on her toes. She craned her neck, looking for the bus. A stray dog wandered over to her, stuck his nose to her leg. She patted him on the head. He thought about the lines on his arm. The ten.

His pie and coffee came, dumped onto the table by a surly middle-aged waitress. The coffee was strong, the pie soggy and flat. He turned back to the window. The young waitress was just climbing onto the bus. Tonight she would relax and prepare for her long shift tomorrow.

He rolled his shoulder, felt the ache in his arm, felt a sob rise in his chest.

She would be number eleven.

_________ The End _________

Bio: Laurita Miller lives on a rock and and collects lines of her own. She sometimes comes out of her basement for coffee. Her work is scattered all over the web, like flies. She blogs here – www.ringkeeper.blogspot.com