The coin felt like hope in her hand. Jessalynn smiled as she held it flat against her palm, rubbing it’s cold, bumpy surface with her thumb.  This coin – this was the first.  When the man handed it to her, so many years ago, it felt as heavy as the burden it implied:  murder.  Now it was light, and murder was child’s play.  She stretched out her legs and flipped her hair over her shoulder, watching the black and white television screen intently. The world she had come from was much like the one she watched now.  Dirty children on […]

  The Top of the World. Ellianne looked down from her cloud and smiled at the sparrows that were playing the grass below her.  The were little companions to her, the sparrows.  Like mice to sit in her pockets, only the sparrows were free to go where they pleased, anywhere at all.  And she would follow them.  She smiled and the wind pushed her blonde hair around her like a fuzzy scarf. She liked autumn.  It was her favourite time of year.  In fact, she liked it so much that she waiting until mid-November to fly south with the birds, […]

Thief in the Temple As Artemis’ moon hung big and round and orange in the sky, and Zandra hid behind the towering stone columns and glanced over her shoulders, down the steps of the temple at Delphi.  In the darkness, the streets were empty.  She clasped her hands close to her breast and felt the pounding of her heart.  It was so terrifying and different, it could hardly be her own.  She felt the eyes of Athena on her, and was unprepared for her wrath.  The Oracle was corrupt, and she took the sacrifices and indulges the people brought to […]

Acceptance Her eyes lurked in the shadows.  She saw the haggard man there and the scuffed iron pistol he held in his shaking hand, but she pretended she didn’t.  If Vengeance deemed she was going to die between these red silk covers, then so be it.  But she would die with dignity.  When the gunshot sounded and the burning metal pierced her soft bronze skin, she was ready. . Author’s Note: In both my writing courses this past year at college, my professors emphasized that a story doesn’t have to be long to be a story.  I recognize length as […]