The lamp went first. A cracked and swinging oil lamp, clasped in the thin hand of a stumbling girl. Her breath came quick, quavering; hushed for fear. Her dirty turnshoes scuffed over the rough and dusty floor, halting. Behind, hobnails crunched and clacked slow over the tile. Five pairs, laced to the armored legs of […]
Just outside the lamplight, there sat a man in grey. An impassive gaze, sconced neath the lip of a bowler hat. Bright specks in felted dark, and a curled lip below. "Describe them again, please," he said, unblinking. Across, over a broad desk and sallow pool of a green-shaded lamp, there shifted another fellow. His unshaven neck bobbed as he […]
They crept through an autumn wood. Two men in green coats and stalker's caps tugged over black hair. One young, the other old, bearded. They carried lever guns in the crooks of their sleeves, stepped lightly round dry stands of elderberry and the musty detritus of fallen leaves. A hound walked before them, nose whuffling […]