The entity living inside Callan's soul orphaned her at age eleven. By the time she's sixteen, it's ensured her being shunted from one foster family to another. Her thirteenth foster assignment should be routine. Except... it's not. A psycho in medieval armor kidnaps her and she ends up in a magical world. There, she accidentally discovers a secret her parents had kept until the day they died. Both actually came from this magical world, but left before Callan was born. To cover their tracks, they'd lied about everything. Even who they really were. Driven to find out where she comes from, Callan's trapped in a race for life and death. Walking away isn't an option, but if she stays too long, the entity will find its next victim. In this world where secrets are sacrosanct and grudges are remembered, finding the truth will be near impossible. Especially when Callan has her own homicidal little secret to deal with. A secret with a taste for destroying her life.

The story follows the main character Elizabeth Bennet as she deals with issues of manners, upbringing, morality, education, and marriage in the society of the landed gentry of early 19th-century England. Elizabeth is the second of five daughters of a country gentleman living near the fictional town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, near London.

Irwin Gilbert is a hoarder, a bookworm, and after a cosmic event leaves the earth void of all electricity, the owner of what might be the world's largest remaining cache of novels. Irwin has a dilemma, however, the world has turned cold and he has no idea how long it will last. When faced with freezing to death, can he dare to burn "his friends" and how will he choose which will be used to keep him alive. This short story originally appeared in "The End: Visions of Apocalypse" edited by N.E. White. I wrote it the weekend I learned of Ray Bradbury's death and is a homage to this master of science fiction.

The unfinished story of a talking cat. 🐱