I'm delighted to announce that the first issue of the Sirens Call E-Zine is out now; and to celebrate its release, you can download it for free for a limited time only, or pick up your first year's subscription for the special rate of just $6. How can you possibly resist? Head on over to our
website to check it out.
And if you need any further persuasion, here's a teaser excerpt from a short story of mine that's included,
Shades of Grey.
Eden paused only to impulsively pick up the diary before she wandered over to the dust-covered mirror that sat on her grandmother’s beautifully carved dressing table. With a heavy sigh, she straddled the stool in front of it and leaned forwards to wipe the worst of the dust away.
The locket had nestled itself into the curve of her cleavage, the metal unnaturally cold against her skin. She glanced down uneasily as she touched it again; convinced, for just a moment, that she had felt it faintly pulsing. It stayed still under her hand, though, and Eden supposed that it must have simply been the racing of her heart that she had felt.
A sudden gust of wind through the open window wrenched away her attention, for it had blown open the diary where it lay in front of her. An irrational feeling of unease built inside her as she fingered the musty pages and flicked through them as her eyes darted across the page. Seeing nothing of interest, she closed it again with another low and miserable sigh.
She shivered as the chilled air flooded into the little room. Eden made to rise from the stool and shut the window, but before she could do so the locket twitched again; this time, there could be no doubt about it, for she had seen the movement in the hazy reflection.
Unable to stifle a gasp of fear, she frantically tried to wrench the locket free of her neck, but the delicate chain that it hung around proved surprisingly sturdy. It refused to give way.
The locket was still gently twitching against her breasts, almost as if it was impatient for something. Blood rushed through her veins and brought a stinging flush to her skin as her head rolled to the side.
Eden ceased trying to break the clasp and instead, of their own accord, her fingers moved to caress the locket and try to push it open. The cold metal was stiff and unyielding. The locket seemed to have become stuck shut over time, but she could not stop her fingers from desperately working at it and trying with all their might to force the two halves apart. Finally, it gave way and sprung open to fall back against her chest.
The locket was empty. Eden slumped down into the stool with a burst of disappointment and gave a shaky laugh, unsure what it was that she had even expected to find. Clearly, her mind, strained by the loss of her beloved grandmother, had allowed her vivid imagination to run away with itself. She reached up to wipe away the solitary tear that had been clinging to her eyelashes; but as she did so, she realised that something was very wrong.
The colours in the room were fading away. All that was left were shades of grey; the only things in the room with any colour remaining were Eden herself and the golden locket. Even the clothes that she wore were paling in front of her, the red shirt already dulled and lacking entirely in colour. She blinked her eyes and rubbed them hard in case it was some strange trick of the light, but when she warily re-opened them, it was still the same.
Eden stared at the reflection of her terrified face, her blue eyes round and wide with fear. Nothing seemed out of place in the room that was reflected behind her – nothing out of the ordinary at all, nothing but the utter lack of any colour or life.
The reflection she saw told her very clearly that nobody was in the room with her. She was entirely alone in the colourless room– so why was it that she could now feel a pair of arms snaking possessively around her waist, embracing her and drawing her back into the heat of another body?
Kate ;)
