Gothic Fiction

  • Streindarke – Six – Devenir Gris

    Rhett Bormis flees through Streindarke’s forgotten transit tunnels after refusing to hide the truth of Charlotte’s death. A stranger named Dove pulls him into the dark.

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  • Pegwyche Goes Down

    Pegwyche Goes Down

    Chosen, blessed, sky-called. The village sings Pegwyche’s name as she rises toward the floating Rookery of Ninelast. But going-up is not a marriage. Mister Talp, the blind mole groundskeeper, knows what it really is.

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  • The Apportionment of Slyne Birch

    A tithe surveyor arrives in an Oxfordshire parish in 1843 to map every field and account for every acre. The older records name a settlement called Slyne Birch, cleared by a local lord four centuries earlier. The dead do not want remembrance. They want someone to finish their paperwork.

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  • Streindarke – Five – To Shy From The Rain

    Nightporter Lysand DaVivi carries three people out of their lives in a single shift. The third warrant changes everything he thought he had accepted.

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  • Mistress Grimshaw’s Purse

    In St Barrow’s, Mistress Grimshaw’s charity opens her purse only for those who beg aloud before the parish. Judith Cox, widowed and cornered, finds a way to make the purse answer the want it knows best.

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  • Streindarke – Four – I Spill It All

    Regan was trained never to spill a thing. The night she spills Angel-June Nair’s wine, she spills far more, and the so-called ‘meadow’ behind the Academy is listening for exactly that kind of girl.

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  • Streindarke – Three – Arrange The Symmetry

    About a 14-minute read or 22-minute listen. In Streindarke, Ballion, known as Civic Quiet, navigates the intricate balance of power and duty while investigating the disappearance of Lord Suze Ben-Sashe.

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  • Streindarke – Two – Under a Yellow Moon

    About a 15-minute read or a 23-minute listen. Rhett lifted the brush, then stopped. Charlotte’s face lay beneath the lamp, pale and beautiful, but not at peace. The docket said ‘Cerebral Haemorrhage’. Her skin said otherwise. For ten years, Streindarke had trusted his hand to soften truth. Tonight, for the first time, he meant to…

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  • Raven’s Sacrifice

    Raven’s Sacrifice

    1,518 words · About an 8-minute read. In 1899 the photograph, ‘Horse Training’ was shot by French photographer, Felix Thollier. Said to depict free lunging, no other context was ever given and neither horse nor trainer were ever named. Until today.

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  • Streindarke – One -His Pretentious Love

    1,440 words · About a 7-minute read. In Streindarke, love is refined rather than suppressed, as Registrar Albrecht Baus discovers through his daily duties. While he certifies bonds, he grapples with the implications of his work and the weight of unrecognised love.

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