serial part 1

THE Janus Inn’s sign swung ominously in the gathering wind as Mairi and her bundle stood outside. Waiting for the coachman to appear, she looked towards the stout, ancient building, glad of the carous

WASN’T it you who used to work behind the bar at the Frog and Lettuce?” Susan Tallboys looked up. She’d been fastening the buttons of her overcoat, suppressing her dislike of its worn fabric and its m

THE toll of church bells was stifled by the winds. Sleet clawed my face as I pushed through the flurry. The orangery’s windows had shattered. Whichever way I turned, rattling, shaking trees bore down.

GOOD morning, everybody!” Miss Parver beamed, scanning her class on the first day back at Uppington Grammar School after the autumn half term. “I hope you’re rested, because, with mock exams in Januar

WOULD you look at the man!” Maggie said. She wasn’t much to look at herself, being as black as sin from the coal dust. She’d just finished a shift at the colliery screens, picking lumps of coal out of