(Opal.)I flew above the clouds and through the windows of the old mansion. I wanted to be home before the storm. I hated storms.It reminded me of the day I died."Would you be needing anything else, Miss. Bloomfield?"Doug asked as the door opened."No thank you Doug."With that, he closed the door. I knew where he was going, as I looked through the windows and watched the clouds turn as black as a phantom's robe. Doug loved storms.It reminded him of the day he was given life.Why had I returned to the mansion?I asked myself. Yet after so many years, I felt compelled to come home. I grew up in this small town with its Ferris wheel by the ocean and endless fields of golden corn. I could hear the engines on the neighbouring farms shutting off from a long day of raking the soil for planting.Shutting out the sound, I wondered if anyone would recognise me. If they did, which Bloomfield woman would they associate me with?Looking up at the walls I saw pictures of the Bloomfield generat

(Catching The Past.)As we drove down the highway I remember when there were more houses than trees and skinny, one lanes that horses had to squeeze by on as dust flew up into the carriages. I watched the world and watched it change before my very eyes. I saw war, peace, then war again, boats, cars being made, and then the invention of planes. Telephones, computers, microwaves, humans got really smart. Ball gowns became skimpy dresses, jeans emerged, ballroom music replaced by rock and roll, then pop music and yet this continuous change in the quest for a better way of living brought us down roads of destruction. I looked out the car window as Doug drove, trees became only decoration on the lawns of expensive, show houses.Finally, after half an hour, we started to enter the heart of Mala. Mala is a small island folded neatly at the edge of the world, at least that was how tourists described it. The land creased the borders of a sea frothing at the mouth, appearing like beer trapped in

(Buttercup.)I lived in a place where majestic trees reached up to the clouds and leaves covered them all the way to the trunks, like fur covering an animal so that you are unable to see the colour of the skin beneath it. To see the trunks and branches, one had to part the leaves with their hand. The leaves went down to the pebbled-covered ground, where there was no dirt, no soil. The pebbles crunched under your feet, a smooth, pink source of minerals that nourishes the land. They had the cracking sound of many eggshells breaking. Yet they never break nor burst, they bend, twisted then bounced back into oval shapes, once your feet have lifted off them.These pebbles held the magic of Fairyland together and could only be crushed once it was wet, and then dried to a powder. It never rained in Fairyland, but the rivers from the natural world would run underground, bridge the gap between the supernatural world and the natural world, and flow through Fairyland. The water took many paths an

(Saint and Isabella.)Sometimes when the heart is crying you will see no tears, just the cracking within like wood set ablaze in a bonfire, or the cracking of ice over a frozen lake as spring arises. That's how Isdabella felt, the first time her heart broke.Isabella had met Saint on one of her walks around the city. It was a pleasant day. The type of day where the sun and wind playfully rivalled in the atmosphere, none overpowering the other, but settling down into a cooperative flow. Isabella had let her hair unwind and drop below her shoulders. She had spent hours with a hot comb to get those curls just right, heating the hot comb over the coal and feeling the heat of it wrinkle her scalp as it curled each golden strand. Curls were the beauty standards and she tortured her straight hair until it twisted to conform to what was now socially acceptable for a respectable woman of her era.She should have worn a hat to protect her curls and the milky white of her skin, but she had not

(The Secrets We Keep.)"My love, I am going to the study to take care of some business ventures.""Sure darling."Isdabella replied looking out the window. She was already living in the evening to come.Saint stood and went to his study, where he would read those history books that were like comics to him. He had lived in the past eras, so he found it funny how wrong the human account of written history was. He would leave Terry and Isdabella alone to do what women did best, decorate and plan how to spend even more of his money.It was dark when Saint emerged from his man cave and he was not sure he was in the same house. In wonderment, he looked around the large living room. Vases of flowers had taken up every available surface, bright ribbons were hung around the room, and the long dinner table was loaded with trays of juice pitchers, cups, cooked and baked goodies. Candles burned in every corner from the candle holders. He was in another dimension, the dimension of females only. He