Once Upon A Broken Dream: A Creativia Anthology

by Richard M. Ankers

  Once Upon A Broken Dream

  A Collection of Short Stories

  Edited by Natalie J Case

  Copyright (C) 2017 Richard M. Ankers, Susan-Alia Terry, Leo Kane, Natalie J Case, J.W. Goodwin, Mari Collier, Chris Tetreault-Blay, Amber Gulley, Eve Gaal, Melanie Mole, Michelle Lynn

  Layout design and Copyright (C) 2017 by Creativia

  Published 2017 by Creativia

  Cover art by Cover Mint

  Edited by Natalie J Case

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Forward

  Sapphire Heartbreaks

  Suzanne Goes to Market

  “Goodbye”

  Jericho Jordan

  It All Comes Down

  Cyber Space Fairy

  The Ginger Man

  Starlight in the Willow Tree

  Texting at the Gate

  Blossom Shines At Buttercup Bay

  Red Belly

  Tenelach: Legends of the Tri-Gard Vol. 1.5

  Acknowledgments

  I want to thank all of my fellow authors for trusting me with your stories, and for taking a leap of faith on a new idea. Also, a big thank you to Miika Hannila and Creativia for letting me run with this.

  I also need to thank all of the many people who have encouraged my writing, especially those who helped me spread my wings and helped me think and create outside the world I lived in.

  And a big thank you to all of the writers out there who helped me hone my editing chops by letting me hack away at their stories.

  Forward

  This project began as an idea I had, something I took from some writing class or seminar I've taken over the years. With a base of writers as diverse as Creativia boasts, I knew that we could end up with an amazing group of stories that all began with a single premise.

  I gave the writers a prompt and then gave them free reign to interpret that prompt in any genre, in any style, to tell any story that the prompt inspired. The result is this collection of stories that journey through science fiction, steampunk, paranormal, fantasy, horror and more. It includes stories that teach us a lesson, introduce us to new worlds, lift us up and leave us wondering.

  The prompt all of the writers began with was, “Her/his life was no fairy-tale. There was no prince(ess), no talking animals, no happily ever after.” In some of these stories that prompt is easy to spot. In others, it's more the theme of the piece. Either way, it's an eclectic group of stories that I hope you all enjoy.

  I feel I should issue a warning here, that not all the stories in this mix have happy endings, and there is one that deals with suicidal ideation (It All Comes Down) and another that contains a violent rape and murder (The Ginger Man).

  Sapphire Heartbreaks

  by Richard M. Ankers

  An unpleasant evening for an unpleasant pursuit, Britannia echoed the mood of its ruler Queen Victoria: stormy; dark and ever brooding. In a seedy part of London ill-befitting their quarry, Mortimer Headlock, investigator extraordinaire and detective to The Crown, and his often accomplice, the beautiful Miss Grace Grace, are stood in the torrential rain. Neither are best pleased.

  “Rainstorms are meant for ducks and deserters, not English gentlemen.” The shadow lifted his dark collar and backed away from the dripping gutters and globular gaslights; the alleyway swallowed him in deepest night.

  “I told you to bring an umbrella,” quipped a voice of honeyed silk.

  “That is a parasol, Grace, not an umbrella.”

  “Same difference, Mortimer.”

  “Speaking as a man, far from it. And this area is unsafe enough to someone of my profession without drawing unnecessary attention through aquamarine accessories.”

  “Grump.”

  “Realist.”

  “Working by your philosophies, I should imagine this hellhole more dangerous to me than you. I am a lady, you know.”

  Grace batted her long, dark eyelashes although the darkness precluded the sparkling mischief beneath them.

  “Hm, lady, you say.”

  Grace prodded her associate with said parasol and grinned not unlike Mister Carroll's Cheshire cat.

  Mortimer Headlock was a man used to working alone, in silence, with nothing but his own thoughts and perhaps a sandwich. Yet, Miss Grace Grace, so good her father, Professor Grace, named her twice, provided a distraction he found welcome despite the rain, wind and midwinter misery they currently frequented. Her canary-yellow self, a colour she always wore regardless of the weather, never failed to bring a little sunshine into his day, or in this case, night.

  “Why don't you tell me exactly why we're here as seen as whatever we're here for is not,” Grace purred snapping Headlock from his daydream.

  “How can you be so sure it is not?”

  “You're looking this way.”

  “Ah, as astute as ever.”

  “So?”

  “It might be best if you don't. Vicky was specific.”

  “Vicky?”

  “Her majesty Queen Victoria, Empress of India and ruler of the whole the Britannian Empire.”

  “Queen Victoria should have sufficed.”

  “I like to be exact.” Headlock looked away to hide his smile.

  “May I speak candidly?” said Grace leaning in conspiratorially.

  “Please do.”

  “If you do not tell me why I am stood outside in the pouring rain at near midnight, regardless of what Her Majesty wishes, you might find yourself extracting a parasol from somewhere inappropriate the next time you visit the latrine.” Grace stamped her booted foot for extra effect making a point to angle the splashed water toward her companion.

  “Well, if you put it like that.”

  “I do.”

  Headlock inhaled as though resurfacing after a near drowning, beckoned Grace and her parasol to his side, whilst making quite sure he could still see the terrace houses opposite their hidey-hole.

  “I have spent the last three weeks, weekends and all, camped out at this spot at Vicky's, I mean Her Majesty's, request.”

  “Ooh, I'm intrigued,” Grace cooed.

  “Shh!” whispered Headlock. “Anyhow, as I was saying.”

  “Sorry.” Grace zipped her lips.

  “The man charged with maintaining Her Majesty's — alterations.”

  Grace shivered at Headlock's description. “You're talking about Robert Swift the inventor.”

  “Yes.”

  Grace nodded, then gestured for him to continue.

  “Since Her Majesty's alterations, she has become somewhat attuned to the world around her. Amazing actually, but that is a story for another day. Regardless, it was Her Majesty who realised the man who maintains her was being followed.”

  “Did he himself not notice?”

  “No.”

  “Not at all?”

  “Not a clue, apparently. Neither do I that he's actually here; he is an elusive soul. I have lost him nightly, which irks. In the circumstances, regardless of wher
e he may or may not be, though I suspect, it is best he stays metaphorically in the dark. Master Swift is delicate, to say the least, and no stranger to the poppy. And yes, before you ask, Grace, I have checked The Bohemia opium house prior to here. In both mine and Her Majesty's humble opinions, such a shock to his already frail constitution might result in something both he and she regrets.”

  “I see,” said Grace.

  Headlock saw by her furrowed brow, she did.

  “I have been charged with finding out who follows him and why. Each night for the period I have mentioned, I have trailed him to his door.”

  “And.”

  “He enters, then nothing: no lights; no sounds; no signs of life whatsoever.”

  “Apart from his visitor.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, why me?”

  “His shadow spooks.”

  “You are certain it is someone working alone.”

  “Of that, I cannot be certain, but it is only ever a lone spy.”

  “You have seen them?”

  “I have been as close as you and I are now.”

  “And?”

  “I lost it.”

  “You!”

  “Shh!”

  “But, Mortimer, you are the greatest of your kind. If they might evade you, then what chance has anyone else of capturing them. If you have chosen me for speed, I really should have worn different footwear.”

  Headlock pulled a face and shifted in his stance; rainwater poured from his bowler. “I am not making a very good job of this, Grace. The whole episode troubles me.”

  Headlock's hand shot out to catch the elbow of the gleaming beauty that was Miss Grace Grace. His words had staggered her in a way sights so extraordinary as to shock the hardest of men had not. In his way, he did not blame her.

  “Thank you, Mortimer,” Grace said once she'd got ahold of herself. ”It is just I am unused to you being troubled. I thought nothing could.”

  “Well, something has. I cannot put it into words other than this: I need help. Female help. I could think of no one I should rather have at my side in this most unusual scenario than you.” Headlock attempted a smile but the miserable conditions washed it away.

  “Of course, I'm flattered, honoured even, but I still do not see?”

  “You will, Grace, and soon.”

  Headlock put a gloved finger to his lips and pulled his companion close, lowering her parasol in the process and taking a step in front of her to best conceal her yellow self. Grace soon saw why.

  The figure came out of the night like a boulder on wheels. Moving with the steady motions of a languid ice-skater who'd overfilled on pudding for years at a time, the figure made menace of the almost derelict surroundings. Darker than the terraced brickwork, if not for the rain that bounced off its broad shoulders one might almost have mistaken it for a kiosk or a seaside chalet rather than a human being. The person, head withdrawn into its neck to protect against the elements, made its way along the cobbles; there was no pavement, until reaching the least decrepit house in the street.

  Headlock hadn't realised Grace held his hand until she squeezed it. When the giant glanced their way, she squeezed harder.

  Giving Grace a slight tap on the shoulder, he pulled her even further into the side street so their backs were almost against the mildewed brickwork. Yet even from their diminished viewpoint, their expected guest's sapphire eyes, gleaming like jewels even in the almost pitch-black, cast a vibrant blue across the deserted street. Like twin lighthouse beams made of a tropical sky, those eyes scanned for them. Only when certain it was alone, did it turn back to the terrace house and press its nose up to the window glass; it chinked.

  “Those eyes,” said Grace. “I cannot describe them.”

  “I told you it was hard to explain,” whispered Headlock.

  “Glasses?” asked Grace.

  “I don't think so.”

  “Could it be one of these new-fangled automata? I have seen such hulks piloting, or rather powering with their incredible strength, the Pegasus Carriages that fill London's daytime skies.”

  “No, they have no eyes nor need for them.”

  “Then what?”

  “In some way, they are their host's actual eyes but enhanced. What's more, I suspect them deaf, as once its gaze is averted it is almost totally oblivious to anyone around it. As I stated, I approached them so close as to touch, and not once did it detect me.”

  “You mean approached him, not it. That's twice you've addressed him as such. It must be a him, as an it cannot operate without instruction.”

  “I always mean what I say.”

  Grace pulled a face; Headlock remained unmoved.

  Edging closer again, the two observed the behemoth, for at such close proximity there was no other word for it. The giant swayed back and forth like a willow in a summer breeze silent as the grave despite its cumbersome shell.

  “It searches,” said Headlock. “It seeks our man. Every night the same.”

  If Grace was to respond, the imminent clatter of horse's hooves prevented it. Like some reckless charge of the Light Brigade, three speeding Hansom Cabs, more charioteers, or drunks, than reputable horsemen, shot past in a blur of dark shapes and foul language. When the proverbial dust of their passage settled, the giant had gone.

  “Damn it all!”

  “Shh!” hissed Grace.

  One velvet-gloved finger had pressed itself to Headlock's lips before he could argue, another steered his vision back from the coachmen to the supposedly deserted house.

  “The curtains,” Grace whispered.

  There were no questions, no whats or ifs, Headlock knew Grace too well. He turned his eyes back upon the house and spied what anger had prevented: a twitch in the fabric of the night.

  “Swift,” said Headlock. “Not so lost, after all.”

  Sliding along the mildewed wall, Headlock skipped across the alleyway, then beckoned Grace to follow. There the two waited in silence, and waited, and waited.

  Headlock had learned long ago that patience was the key to practical investigating. Senses honed over years, through notable adventures such as the Shangri-La incident and worse, had taught him that time was always the key. The seconds turned to minutes, then hours and still he remained gargoyle-like. Distant church bells rang midnight, one, two and more. Grace to her credit did the same even suppressing her normal urge to ask questions for this was no time for them. They were the hunters who'd lost one quarry and sought another; he obliged.

  Even in a full-length coat and wrapped for the season, Robert Swift was a man slender of body, yet still sharp of mind; he was more cautious than a cat. Only when sure of his isolation did he traipse off into the night head bowed, bowler hat balanced upon his head.

  “Is he always so stooped?” asked Grace.

  “No,” a terse response.

  The second Swift disappeared around the corner, Headlock was at the man's door, his own nose almost touching the floor.

  “Gads!”

  “What?”

  “The cobbles,” hissed Headlock.

  “What about them?”

  “They're cracked.”

  “So?”

  “They weren't before.”

  “Oh, my!” gasped Grace.

  A gesture to follow him and Headlock was off like a shot. And so the hunt began.

  London was a city of twists and turns, water and stone, and Robert Swift made a circuitous route utilising all that cover to the full. Headlock, however, was no ordinary thief or vagabond intent on a gentleman's purse; he was a man of purpose and professionalism. A ghost would not have known itself followed such stealth did Headlock employ. Grace followed in his wake equally skilled in the hunt, a girl to be reckoned with. The two pursued Robert Swift here and there, the inventor in a constant state of nervousness, his twitching as much a part of him as his shoes.

  For almost an hour, the two companions followed he who Her Majesty had claimed followed himself until reaching H
ighgate Cemetery and a gap in the iron railings to enter it.

  Headlock went first following the still wary inventor, Grace next. The rain came down heavier then, if it were possible; Swift seemed not to notice. It was Grace who pointed at the man, her intention all too evident.

  “Yes, he's more relaxed now,” said Headlock, his first words since the cobbles outside their quarry's home.

  A great rumble of thunder split the heavens followed by a flash of lightning so intense as to illuminate the whole planet. Swift appeared not to notice as he jinked his way through the haphazard tombstones.

  Signaling Grace to pause, Headlock pointed at a memorial larger than the others nestled between two warped oaks, which both took residence behind; Swift had stopped.

  The inventor had removed his hat and wrung it between his hands like a naughty child might its favourite teddy bear.

  Headlock look puzzled as another bolt of light made daytime of the graves. He pointed at his eyes and then Swift.

  “He's weeping,” whispered Grace.

  “Profusely.”

  The two edged a touch closer until Swift was clear to see. The man wept oceans enough for all the people of the world and before him the reason why.

  It was a tombstone taller than a man, almost as tall and broad as a kiosk or a seaside chalet, one might have said.

  “It is a golem, a clockwork golem,” Grace whispered in Headlock's ear, as two sapphire eyes lit the creature's would-be head, its gentle ticking audible despite the storm.

  There, before the world's foremost man of action might move, Grace did.

  In a swirl of canary-yellow and an upraised parasol, she sashayed her way to the distraught inventor's side and placed an arm around his shoulders. Headlock watched on. The girl whispered something to the man who fell to his knees. Grace then did something stranger still, she looked to the tombstone poor Swift had collapsed before, paced to the giant with the sapphire eyes, smiled, then kissed it on what approximated its cheek. She said something in its almost-ear, whereupon it turned and lurched away.

  There Grace remained just stood in the pouring rain until the thing had long gone.

  Only when Mortimer Headlock and Miss Grace Grace had delivered the inventor back to his home, assisted in packing his suitcase, then seen him to Charing Cross Station and waved him goodbye, did they speak.