KAT'S TIC TOCC 8

On the rocks you find a smashed ceramic container. Inside there is a rolled piece of parchment. Most of the words have been damaged; washed away by the sea spray. But there are three words visible. They are: Garnet * Blood * Magic

I feel uneasy. Could this be a link with the suicide girl, washed up only three days ago half a mile down the coast? Karen had just told me about her. She hadn't been long in the water, yet no one had come forward to identify her. Long, black hair, body thin and white- as if drained of blood; the news reader had reported sombrely. Most strikingly, she had a tattoo'd crown on her shoulders. Surely someone would have recognised her description?

I remember when I first came to East Cornwall, marks scrawled on the doors of outhouses fronting on to overgrown lanes.

“Witchcraft.” My father said. “You see evidence of it in these wild areas. I remember Worcestershire in the fifties...”

I pooh-poohed him then, but now I shudder a little. The shards that remain of the container seem to be made of serpentine from the Lizard.

“What was the girls tattoo'd crown like? Did they say?”

“Very ornate, spikey, set with rubies I think.” Says my friend Karen, returning to the surf after a perfunctory glance at my find.

In the evening the weather grows threatening and we struggle back up along the short, steep cliff, taking it in turns to carry the surf board. At the top I look down and see there's a door open in the old tarred hut with it's nets. There's been a fire there, blackened thorn bushes surround it like a sad parody of Sleeping Beauty's palace. Someone, it's an elderly woman; has a little fire going outside, heating soup by the look of her.

“Bless!” Says Karen. “I wonder if she owns that place? I've never seen it open before.”

“We could talk to her if we come back next weekend. Maybe she saw something...”

As I speak she looks up. I expect a smiling weatherbeaten face, twinkling eyes under her scarf.

I see a shadowed, hook nosed face with eyes that glint red in the sinking sun under a black, heavy hood. Her lips draw back and I jump, heart suddenly pounding, as she turns away, bends to lift up the soup bowl and twists round to thrust it to her mouth. She drinks and pulls the bowl away.

I back away, back towards the car, my eyes fixed on the serpentine bowl where dark scurrying clouds reflect on the remains of her - soup. Then I look up - the woman looks as if she has a dark, curdled beard of blood, dripping, running down her curved chin, dying her sharp, long teeth red.

***

480 words

I seem to enjoy these Tic Toccs more every week. Please see the picture called “Kingsdown” early in my Blog, for the inspiration behind the witches hut, (obviously I moved it a few hundred miles down the coast for Kent to Cornwall for the story, but that's what prompts are for!)

NB I dont usually like stereotypical evil witches as most real witches are lovely, but couldn't resist a scary touch for this one.

Kat's Tic tocc 7.

This was so enjoyable! Thanks again, KatKAT'S TIC TOCC 7 724 words. Cheated horribly with this and spent 55 minutes on it!

The executor of the will placed four things on the table. An elaborate floral brooch, pair of miniature shoes, a CD and a sealed envelope. What does the envelope contain? What's on the CD? What's the story behind the shoes and brooch?

“IS THIS SOME SORT OF JOKE?” Cassie's voice, more used to screaming down the long yard at the stable lads, makes my ears want to bleed. The small solicitor cringes and raises his hand, but Celery interupts. Her eyes are alight with interest.

“It's a code isn't it!” She always was cleverer than us. She isn't really called Celery, but Cecilia. Clever, neat, mind like a calculator. Back in the seventies when they'd just come out she could work things out nearly as fast.

Cassie sits back.She's still in her stable gear, tweed jacket, jods and wellies smelling of dung. Pooh! She's so unfeminine, like a sack of spuds.

I look down at Celery's immaculate attire, the subtle black rough cut diamond on a fine chain, I know for a fact she saved up for that for five years. The Kurt Gieger suit she got from a charity shop, what luck that was. Jimmy Choos; plain courts of course. These clothes send out a subtle message to others with values like hers. They say; she thinks, Class. I just think she's a nobody with pretensions.

Crispian reaches out and lifts up the package. He shakes it. His own hand is shaking, I notice. Missing his lunch time drink, or drinks. I look at him disparagingly. Always was a wimpish type. No good in business. Boozed up a lot of the time. He could be good if he just had some confidence, they used to say.

“Feels like a sort of hard case, about eight inches long.” he frowns. His eyes flicker away nervously.

Celery turns the CD over. She's smiling as she reads the back.

“Got it!” She reaches out and picks up the ornate brooch. It's a cheap thing from the sixties glinting with paste stones. She pins it on herself with a smile and pats it gently.

“I'll wear it always!” She says, a bit like the old Nursey in 'Black Adder' when she was given the old sea captains revolting ginger beard as a keepsake after he died. (It was about as incongrous as that on Celery's understated jacket.)

I dont understand. But Crispian takes the CD and reads it out loud.

“It's got to be put in the computer. It's a DVD! But I think I know what it's going to say.”

Cassie reaches out for the tiny shoes. She looks down at her smellie wellies and gives a slow smile.

“I get it too.”

They all look at me.

“Well, what are you on about? “ I hear myself bluster resentfully. I pick up the package. I feel the contents. I'm none the wiser. The solicitor has fed Crispian's DVD into the computer.

“What do you think it is?” he says to Crispian, his finger hovering over the start button.

“I know it's from a spiritual retreat centre in Southern Spain. I think its a chance for me to try and clean up my act. A sort of last chance to make something of myself, give up booze, find some belief in myself.”

And he was right.

Then they all looked at me, expectantly.

“Come on, Christine. We've all got our inheritances. You'll miss out if you cant guess. I think I know what it is now I've felt the package too. Can I tell her?” Celery turns to the solicitor.

“I'm sorry. Madam must guess for herself.”

I couldn't guess. We sat there for two hours; then he told me that, unfortunately, my time was up as decreed in the will, by our Mother. So nothing for me.

We all left, awkwardly, the others making sounds of embarassed sympathy. Bastards!

I sat outside on a bench, there in the shadows as dusk fell. I was still holding the package but it meant nothing to me. A ridiculous, cruel joke.

The case contained some unwearable spectacles with pink lenses. I'd love to know what they meant, but actually I dont wish to see those dull, grey, smug people who call themselves my brother and sisters EVER again.

This is a very dark story from 7 years ago, I wrote the sequel to it recently

                                                          WILLOW FARM            ....Before

11^th February 2004

Later, raking through the coals he found the just recognisable remains of the belt. He thought of it flicking through the air, the memory of its’ shadow like the black crackle of a firework’s dying sparks.

Led by the bright buckle it would seem to dance, teasing him with a bow to the left then a quick cut to the right, leaving blackcurrant coloured arrows on his legs and back, and sometimes his face.

It had been the first thing he’d seen when he’d found the old man hanging from one of the ceiling hooks in the cold room, a snaky mass of electrical wires coiled around his bull neck. Beside him hung the gleaming white carcasses of cows and sheep, beautiful and innocent in their nakedness, while he hung above a reeking puddle, his checked shirt and crumpled jeans speckled with old blood. The belt still held them up and the drooping buckle flashed fire in the light of the torch as the body swayed gently in the draught from the opened door.

He straightened up, balancing the blackened relic on the end of the poker. The ambulance, the police, the Doctor had been and gone, taking the body with them. His mother sat at the table passively, as she always had done, whilst the activity went on around her. She had the bankruptcy papers in front of her, and occasionally made little moans of fear and disbelief.

He picked up his bag and went to the door, where he turned and flicked the belt on to the table in front of his mother before flinging the poker back onto the hearth with a terrible clatter that made her jump and clasp her ears. The belt landed in an awkward coil reminding him of a curled foetus. He opened the door and went out into the night. Beyond the concrete yard he saw the full moon golden through the willow trees and the river moving slowly below. He looked back at the building already merging into the shadows, though it’s one lit window showed a square of hard white light. A tawny owl called softly.

Then he walked away.

Kat's Tic Tocc number 6. by mooncake lizzie 723 words

I have no idea how to transfer drawings, etc to some form that can be uploaded so am sticking to writing. I will ask someone how it's done though maybe for next week.

• Meanwhile, for three letters I pointed ( while looking elsewhere,) to pages in a book, B, A, M.

• Three words came to mind; Bird, Animated, Men.

                                          THE MARVELOUS ALMANAC

“I like this almanack, Alphonso. It would look very attractive in the dressing room. You see, it is unusual in that it has coloured images, a different one for each month? Imagine, if we can bring ourselves not to peep, how exciting it will be each time on the First, to turn over a new image!”

“Indeed, it is a curio. Rather different from Old Moores' almanac, or the small advertising billboard that the grocer sends out at Christmas under the pretext of honouring our custom, in such a condescending manner.”

Mary glanced at Alphonso, he was twisting his moustache in a way he had when he was interested. She had already leafed through the almanac and seen flashing impressions of beautiful images from the Far East, reminiscent of japanned boxes in her old employer's study.

Of course, Alphonso would not hear of the almanac going upstairs in the dressing room, as they liked to call the little back bedroom in their two up two down cottage. This was merely a starting point, a roof over their heads. One day they would be rich and important, Alphonso was sure. He already planned to invite his chief, Mr Rogers at the Bank round for afternoon tea; the almanac would seem a fortuitous talking point. Mrs Rogers would be bound to comment on the fine art work within. It would go up above the mantelpiece in the parlour.

Alphonso and Mary were thrilled to buy the beautiful object so cheaply. Perhaps the shop had mispriced it? But it was not their place to suggest such a thing. They paid and slipped it into the basket almost guiltily.

At the weekend all was frenzied preparation in the attempt to look as if they had not prepared. Mr and Mrs Rogers would think that they lived like this all the time. Cultivated, controlled people with good taste and exquisite manners. Alphonso would be considered worthy of promotion, his wife the perfect hostess. The almanacks turning pages would mark, as surely as the earth turned around the sun, their progress into the Upper Middle Class.

Mrs Rogers looked at the almanack closely, Mary didn't want to spoil her own personal surprise and sat opposite, smiling and nodding as Mrs Rogers described Animated birds; cranes and swallows and men fishing with cormorants. It gave them an immediate talking point as Alphonso had predicted. After twenty minutes Mary felt she would be able to engage in any form of discourse with Mrs Rogers once invited back to their home. The journey had begun, assisted by the wonderful almanac with its evocative glimpses into lives of another race hitherto undreamed of, but perhaps symbolising their own evolution, as Mr Newton would have said...

Mrs Rogers sighed with relief as they climbed into their motorcar (the only one in Connaught Avenue.)

“Heavens! Dont take me there again! I had to look through last years calendar all afternoon it seems!”

Mr Rogers looked sideways down his long nose and she continued,

“I had Ruby put it on top of the dustbin on Boxing Day but she saw some urchin take it off immediately. He must have sold it to the Curiosity shop in town. I knew it was ours because it still had some notifications written on it for last December; your appointment with the Surgeon for your gout for one. That ridiculous man Alphonso must have thought we'd be impressed.”

“Well, I was thinking of promoting him, but a fellow that can't tell one year from the next is not the type I want in the firm. I think I'll give him his marching orders instead.”

He signalled to the boy, who cranked the starting handle. The engine juddered into life and the boy walked in front, waving the red flag as they chugged back to Connaught Avenue, Alphonso and Mary's beautiful images of another world quite forgotten.

Great Grandad Underwood

477 words Story from a daydream of 9^th 0ctober 2010, idea from Jenny Alexander.

Think up an image, then an action.

I closed my eyes, the image that floated into my head was, for no reason,a village papershop

action; someone was coming out of a building.

The Thursday morning rush for pensions and benefits is over. Janet cashes up and locks the Post

office cubicle. She glances out at the weather - big grey edged clouds pass quickly by - she checks

her 6 year old daughter, who has fallen asleep by the window. Beths clutching the old felt bear

first given to Janet's Dad when he was little, by Great Grandad Underwood before he

died in 1935.

Janet has time to carry on with the washing; it's a great drying day. She opens the back door and

heaves the big basket out to the line.

Beth 's eyes fly open, she's aware of movement. An old man is coming out of the cottage across

the lane, heading slowly over. As he gets nearer Beth can see him smiling under the shadow of

his brown hat. His hands are stiff, with slightly swollen knuckles, holding a little basket and a

fishing net. He waves and tilts his head towards the river Bourne across the Green.

Beth jumps up and opens the door carefully so the bell wont ring.

'We'll need a jar if it's water shrimps today' she whispers loudly. Scanning the lowest shelf, she sees

that the jar with the horrid sweets,Winter mixture, is nearly empty. Hauling it down she slips

outside.

She gets to carry the net, and he takes the jar.

'We'll tip those away,' She tells him. Then she takes his hand and skips along beside him. Big

cloud shadows race, shining watercress leaves grow thickly at the edge of the stream. She gives a

little sigh of satisfaction as she settles down and watches as he shows her how to skim the net

across the ripples. The small brown shrimps swim round the jar. Later, they'll tip them back and

walk back in a circle, through the copse where she'll pick kingcups and milkmaids for him to take

home to the cottage, as Janet wont want wild flowers in the house.

'You've had a long sleep, Beth' says Janet later.

'It's done you good too, you've got some colour in your cheeks.' She shuts the shop and lifts Beth

out of the wheelchair, carries her through to use the toilet and feed her. Beth swallows the soup

with difficulty, her breathing harsh in the quiet room. She's aware that people are sorry for her

because they think she cant do much, and also that she has an illness that makes people whisper and smile only with

their mouths..

But she feels happy, Janet has lit the fire and the room is warm and full of flickering light.

Beth is sleepy and curls up on her mum's lap.

Above the fireplace is the framed sepia photograph of Great Grandad, smiling down at them from

under his broad brimmed hat.

Hare Girl picture that inspired 'The Girl from Harley's wood.'

short story inspired by internet image search for 'HARES"

934 words THE GIRL FROM HARLEY's WOOD.

Three times this week she has stepped out of the wood, hesitated, looked around then ambled towards him, loping, long legged, brushing back her long lick of barley coloured hair with elegant, bony hands. This time she hops up on the stile at the end of the moorland wall, where it skirts the road. He stays in the high garden of the Tovey's Hotel. He's meant to be chopping more wood but stands as still as he can; she wont come nearer but she will talk to him now. It's taken months, since the winter He calls gently,

“All right?”

She watches him indirectly, still smoothing her hair. The sun is setting and casts long shadows so that her hair appears to be flying behind her, and her eyes! Her huge wideset eyes shine, they're so green, lashes so golden. His throat catches, he swallows back shyness.

He's never had a girlfriend, or any friendships that lasted, moved about with his parents in the RAF, then a childrens home after the divorce and his Mum 'running off' with a fitness Instructor. Dad disinterested, visits tailing off, then stopping when he remarried.

He's thankful for the rough tolerance of the Toveys but, for the first time in his life he is aware of his potential for love; overwhelmed by the feelings he has for this girl. It leaves him yearning for more than being grateful to clean the small but famous dartmoor hotel, lay cutlery and chop wood.

She half turns to him and holds out her hand. He wants to run, but makes himself walk, across the road. He nears her, she's wearing a thin brown dress with leggings underneath and her feet are bare. He notices scratched toes, but skin as clear and soft as pear blossom. He takes her hand and holds it gently. She is the same height as him and near enough for him to kiss her. His head is swimming, he has to close his eyes, moves towards her then-

She's away, pulling him behind her, they're over the stile, running across the ragged field to the small wood of twisted, ancient trees. The sun sinks beyond, winking orange through mossy branches.

'Service! Blast the boy,where's he to?' Mrs. Tovey, red faced, red handed, caught with the ommelette pan and two walkers wanting light suppers. The Inn door still leans open, the breeze, fresh from the moor, clattering brown streams and bell heather, dips down to absorb the scent of sizzling butter and melting cheese.

Her mouth turns down, thin, displeased. Should be grateful to have a job, God knows, the boy has nothing going for him.

Upstairs the best room has an amber flamed fruit wood fire lit, bed turned down, towels folded. Mr. Tovey smooths the white counterpane gently, looks along each surface of the polished furniture for dust. Log basket, still empty. He pushes up the window and leans out,

'Boy! Where's that wood?' then shakes his head, irate. Useless! Thank God his own son has made something of himself, a Systems Analyst up in London. He's not entirely sure what that is, but the name prompts raised eyebrows, a respectful murmer.

Later, the bar has finally closed, the last guests have gone to bed, but the Celebrity who wanted a roaring fire and moorland air checks out. Still unable to sleep, and muzzy with diazepam and pain relief. Her helicopter whisks away but as it rises, she leans her cheek on the cold window and sees, quite clearly, a figure running towards the road, shadow streaming at first behind, then circling as the helicopter's beam blanks the moon.

He's been running, searching for her, doubling back and around. Now aware of flashing light through closed eyelids, a sharp pain and then numbness in his arm. His eyes flicker open to take in the doors of an ambulance, paramedics moving over him. At his side Mr Tovey, crouches in concern. But he doesn't want to see Mr Tovey's face.

'No!' He thinks and tries to struggle. 'I've lost her, lost her.' A tear rolls down his cheek.

'Clear the way please!' and Mr Tovey moves out of his line of vision, he is gently, expertly manoevered onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. The paramedics are doing something, he cant see what. A yellow jacketted policeman climbs up but is waved away..His eyes close. Numbness spreads.

Then he's back in the dark place, ears and eyes straining for a sight of the girl. There's a faint light all around. He's kneeling on a huge granite boulder, with thin branches of oak and thorn patterning the stone with shadows. He doesn't see the brown hare crouching motionless beside, long ears laid down its back.

'He's got no common sense you see.' Mrs Tovey tries to sound dispassionate but her voice shakes and she turns away, as a tear might be seen, shining in the dark.

'He made off this evening, without a word! He cannot stay out of those woods. Hare-brained, that's what he is! And to run back at such a speed, straight into the road you say?' She turns to the motorist, sitting shakily on the stile, who shrugs his shoulders, raises his palms. Then starts to cry, silently, as the blanket is finally pulled up over the lifeless face. Helpless.

Now he moves easily, a little shiver of joy. Now he can see her and feel her softly against his side! Pressed close to him down the length of the long moon shadowed stone.

THE END

Kingsdown

Kat Wright Tic Tocc 2

Tic tocc 2 696 words by mooncakelizzie

In the day this stone circle is a place passed by walkers and visited very occasionally by enthusiasts of megalithic stone circles.But....

What happens here at night or/and when no-one is watching? Who or what can be found here then? What changes occur?

Behind the stone circle lies a quarry, disused now. If you walk back down to the carpark and head Northeast you'll come to a track that leads to this old quarry. By day it looks innocuous enough, a bit brooding and grim maybe. Hard to imagine that it once teemed with men and women at work, noise, dust, the clanking of carts carrying granite to the railway.

There are always stories of ghosts around places like this. The quarryman whose son died in an accident haunting the rocky heights, calling for his boy. Or maybe a girl, dressed in grey, who killed herself for love. Look down into the brooding green water, it could hide anything.

More difficult, then, to imagine something much more everyday and unromantic being the scourge of such a wild and austere place. Look harder. Let's say you're standing looking North, where the track curves off to the right and you've taken half a dozen steps straight on to the edge of the pit, where the steep sides veer down to the water. See that bit of rusting metal sticking up, under cover of the bracken and reeds? Most people think it was part of the old machinery from the quarrying. But if the water was to drain away you'd see it was once an ice cream van. It might even have 'Tonibell' still faintly visible on the side. Traces of the greeny blue paint remain. When I was a kid, swimming in the quarry, I dived down and saw it there. We weren't allowed to swim, so I couldn't tell anyone. (I'd have been kept in for a month.) I pulled off the big plastic icecream that was still stuck on the roof. It lit up once I suppose. I've got it in my garage now.

But after a few years of odd happenings and a lot of people being really scared out of their wits by horrible noises up there at night, I found out that in my Dads day, the 1960's, old Norman was a regular sight round the villages, selling 99's and mivis' and such. He married a Betty Coney, from over Tavistock way. Norman hadn't got a lot going for him in the looks department, but he was a good old boy, Dad said. And he was devoted to Betty, proud. She was his dream girl.

Shame she soon got tired of him, ran off with a man from the garage in Tavi, old flame from school days apparently. Met up with him at the Goosie fair and never came back to Norman. Well- he took to the drink. Used to go up to the Circle and sit up against the stones, knocking back whisky and crying. Kept on for a few more years, then one day he parked up on the moor and stumbled out of the van with his whisky, passed out in the heather. Next morning the van was gone. It wasn't found for a couple of days, and neither was a young boy, one of Dad's school mates it was.

His Mum said he'd gone up camping on the moor for the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme or something. He must have seen the van empty and drove it off down the track. You can guess the rest. Norman thought it was his fault, and while they were dragging the pool for the boys body he went to Boots and bought the biggest bottle of painkillers he could. You could get as many as you liked in those days. Took the lot and no one thought to look for him.

Two days after that the boy came back. He'd met up with one of his mates who lived on a remote farm and gone to stay with his family for the rest of the week. Told them his Mum wasn't expecting him back.

So how did the Icecream van get driven into the pool then? No one knows. And no one knows what might still be down there. Something ancient maybe, that took offence at old Norman's boozing up there in the sacred circle.

So, in a roundabout way, that's what I'm trying to tell you. The ghost of a sad and mad icecream man haunts the stone circle on summer nights and what makes it all the more scary; on top of his groaning and roaring and regrets; is the tinkle of the ice cream bell rising up from the water. Because- who is making that bell ring?

***

Kat Wright Tic Tocc 3

Tic tocc 3 702 words by Mooncakelizzie

Whilst fetching in the dry washing from the line something catches your eye that certainly wasn't there when you pegged out the laundry that morning. Nearly hidden behind the last items you see.........................

I happened to be reaching into the center of the rotary clothesline for the bits and pieces; you know the sort of things, socks, bra's, bits of cut up shirts used for dusters. Well, a movement caught my eye from the upstairs window of one of the flats beyond. I was quite hidden behind the sheets and big items on the other side so felt at liberty to stare as nosily as I liked. Normally I wouldn't even glance over there, if you can imagine what it's like you'd understand why.

Let's see... My place is on the ground floor so it's easy for me to use the bit of garden. Most dont bother and stick to their tumble dryers. The flats opposite are about twelve stories high and all the windows angle down onto our block. We have to keep our nets over or blinds down all the time. Out the front the main bus route between St Austell and Truro goes by so you can see, there's no privacy. We just get used to looking at a place beyond, sort of unfocussed, I mean beyond eye contact, recognition. It's kind of tiring to be catching people's eyes all the time. Mostly they stare as if you didn't even exist. I dont know which is worse, that or having to nod or make some kind of gesture of recognition.

You might ask, why dont I move? Easy, where else would I go? My kids say they want me, but realistically, who really wants an old woman with lung disease, bloody great oxygen bottles in the rooms that I use regularly, especially after the effort of getting my washing in and out. But I like to do as much as I can. At night I lie comfy in bed, which has a lever to pull it about into different positions and one of those soft mattresses. Like being on a cloud. I hear the rumble of traffic from the main road and the individual noises of cars and busses going past down the side. Then there's the sound of footsteps next door, faint voices and other people's telly's. On all night some of them. It's all right. It's comforting. I couldn't be doing with living with Martie or Jenny, making myself a burden. They wouldn't be keen on me carrying on doing things for myself. Too much of a risk I might keel over.

So, now you get the picture, you'll see that I'm a stubborn old woman, maybe a bit sorry for myself at times, but making the best of things. So it was odd to see an angel standing in the window of the third floor end flat, just looking out. And before you say it was some kid in fancy dress, I can tell you it certainly wasn't. What do you see behind someone looking out of a window? Especially if there's no second window behind them. Just black isn't it? Well, behind the angel there was a beautiful summer sky, speckled with tiny clouds that had taken on an apricot colour from some hidden sun. It certainly wasn't sunny out here with mizzle just starting and the sky as black as your hat.

I thought at first it might be a statue, it looked a sort of ivory colour with big wings, bobbed hair, it's hands outstretched. Couldn't tell whether it was male or female. But as I watched, one hand on the post and one keeping the tea cloth from The Giants Causeway still so it wouldn't keep flapping in my face; the angel turned it's head. It looked straight down at me and smiled.

Beautiful! We just stood still, staring at each other. I was breathing quite normally, just lost in time. When I went in I was suddenly sure I was doing the right thing, staying put in my flat and doing my own thing, as it were. Then I had a funny thought: I wondered if the angel had been as pleased to see me as I was to see it? I think it was. An angel appeared, just to me, and smiled!

Now that's really something to discover when you're getting the washing in.

Kat Wright Tic Tocc 4

TIC TOCC 4 3/05/11 500 words

by Mooncake Lizzie

“Whilst admiring the peaceful sunset vista it was hard to imagine that the beach had been shut to the public all day following the unexpected.....”

Morgan glanced quickly up the beach. Some people, no bigger than matchsticks at this distance, bobbed about at the edge of the cliffside railings. He moved, protectively shielding the body from prying eyes and the telephoto lenses that even the smallest of mobile phones seemed to have. He had already covered her with his own coat, so no one could stare. Her dead beauty should not be revealed.

“Close off the beach.” he decided. Timmins looked doubtful.

“Really? Is it so important that we need to keep everyone away? Dont forget the Boardmasters is on and there's an overspill to these other beaches in the area. People will have no where to go if they're not into the music.”

“It's not up for debate. Do it. And keep everyone away until the specialist from Gweek comes. Everyone.”

Timmins shrugged and walked briskly off, waving his arms and speaking into his radio. The old Chief Inspector was a funny sort. He often wondered about him. Time he retired really. Ah well...

Morgan stared after him until he was well away then he turned and looked at the body. His professional mask slipped and tears welled in his green eyes. When he was well and truly alone he began to take off his clothes, quickly, all the while looking toward the top of the beach for the arrival of intrusive emergency workers. He realised with relief that they would be delayed by the heavy traffic of the music festival.

When the shoes and trousers came off his tail stretched and twitched into life, silvery scales sensing freedom as the constricting Mans clothing was pulled away. He lay gently down and wrapped her in his arms. Her beautiful face was almost transparent already, soon she would fade away. The fatal injury, where she had been hit by a dredger over in the harbour, formed a strange pattern, not of the sea, but reminiscent of land, metal and wood, like the man made vessel that had killed her.. A filigree of deep red leaf shapes was etched into her brain and down her back.

He held her close, tears flowing into her hair.

I should never have left you, he whispered into her pearly ear; with words of love she had waited so long to hear, but he had been interested only in pursuing career onland. Now, she never would hear them, unless- unless he went back...

A second, a tiny flash of recognition. The tide had turned. Long Atlantic breakers soon rolled in, thirty feet at a time, eating up the ridged wet sand. Painfully, he inched towards the water, every muscle straining, his tail gleaming with strength while hers faded further until the first curl of white water lapped at her sides. Then it shone with an illusion of life.

When Timmins returned with the team there was nothing left, not even a mark in the sand, even Morgan's clothes had been washed out to sea, wrapped around a barnacled chamber in a wreck out in the bay.

Kat Wright Tic Tocc 5

Kat's Tic tocc 5

What unexpected thing do you discover inside this dusty old copper kettle?

The cat came out of the garage, licking his lips and trailed by a little breeze carrying a swirl of tiny feathers. Oh No! Not another bird. Everything looks the same, rows of of paint cans, cardboard boxes from an abandoned house move project, the project Cabriolet shrouded in old curtains.

Ah... a copper kettle lid lies upside down on the floor and a few more feathers. I look inside the kettle fearfully expecting a ravaged nest. Probably a robin, they're renowned for making picturesque nests in kettles, just as they like to stand on snowy spades for Christmas cards... But no, there's only what looks like a toy mouse inside. Then I jump and nearly drop the kettle. My first instinct is pure survival, I put it back on the shelf and back away to the door. An echoey voice suddenly says,

“Hey, now you're here, can you get me some food?”

I look around, the voice is high pitched with a Donald Duck, cartoon like sound. Only the echoey, metallic ring makes it sound as if it were coming from inside a... kettle.

I take a step nearer. Two beady eyes surface from the rim of the kettle and observe me with friendly tolerance.

“OK, you've seen me now. I've had a bad fright from your pampered pussycat there. He's finished off my foster family, so now I'm in my own.The least you can do is get me something to restore my strength.”

“Are you a cuckoo or something?” I ask idiotically, as if the creature's species were more remarkable than the fact that it was talking to me. In English too. What are the chances of that?

“Or something.” it said, without enlightening me further.

“You dont seem very upset about your foster family? And why didn't he eat you too?”

“It's hard to relate to four blind bags of feathers with bad breath and a female robin with an attitude problem and Tourettes syndrome. I told the cat to GET DOWN very assertively, and it did as it was told. Now, food PLEASE, quickly.”

“What do you want?”

“Oh,a petal from the flowers that grow in the mountains of the moon.No,only joking; a slug of good olive oil'. And some linseeds tomorrow. That should just about do it.”

This went on for three days and the thing grew and grew. In the end it was just perching on top of the kettle as if it were a bar stool. On Friday it asked me for firelighters. It said it liked the taste of parafin!

In the middle of the night I was awoken by a crackling, ominous sound. I leaped out of bed, I've slept badly all week and felt over alert. Not surprising really. I opened the roof window and peered out to the garage, which has a half glazed door I can see from the bedroom. For an instant I thought there was a fire, but the amber, dancing flames in there suddenly died down.The door burst open and an apparition sailed out, flapping huge, glistening wings of gold and scarlet and blue. It flew up to the top of the third oak tree and looked at me for a moment, a cockade of black feathers nodding on it's head.I gasped. It was the most unearthly sight, especially as an enormous half moon was out in the summer sky, which was an almost tropical velvet blue. The eyes were the same, beady, sardonic. Then it flew off, straight towards the moon. It was too much for the cat. With a low growl he ran downstairs and through the cat flap. I had a feeling of de ja vu, watching him surounded by an eddying breeze of feathers. But this time they were red gold, and shone in the moonlight with an inner fire.

In the garage, I put the kettle back on the shelf and replaced the lid. It was not at all the worse for wear. Only ashes remained, of course.