Peach Tree Grove

    *Cough cough* Meghan wheezed and stumbled backwards, jerking out of the trunk.     " Ouch! " Her head banged against the lid, and two pewter statuettes and an ancient fan thunked to the floor inches away from her foot as her lungs worked desperately to drive the invading clouds of dust out of her throat.    "Are you all right sweetie?" Meghan's mother poked her head around a shelf.    "Yes," She wheezed out between coughs.     Her mother smiled and disappeared back into the shadows and dust that permeated the store. The front had been clean and well-lit by the display windows, but you could tell only a few rows out that the owners had lost the battle with the dust out on this frontier.     Meghan replaced the figurines on their lace runner and moved away from that deadly trap of a hope chest.     She and her mother were in an antique store, one of many that her mother loved to visit, but t...

   Erraline sat at her balcony looking out at the pearly sky and snowy peaks that surrounded her. Dove-gray clouds softened the stark black and white mountains that ringed the hotel on all sides.    This was her favorite space in her rooms, out here alone with the open sky and cold mountains. Being with them made all her frustrations seem very temporary, they cleared her thoughts and made her feel like something would come, something might change.    "Erraline?"    A voice wafted out from inside, and Erraline sighed. She lifted her head and enjoyed the wind against her face a moment more, skirts ruffling against her legs, stray hairs wafting away from her neatly done hair.    The balcony door opened with a chuk  and Erraline turned away from the wind.    "Erraline? There you are, it's time to begin your lessons."    Erraline followed Madame Oyena into the little library that served as her schoolroom. ...

   His footsteps echoed as they hit the dark marble and bounced off the walls. Crow would never understand why his mother had needed such a big castle-it was a little too warlike to be called a palace-when it had always been only her, his father, and the bare minimum of servants, and then him and Dryr near the very end. Maybe she had been planning to make her own court someday, people of her choosing to throw her balls and parties for. He couldn't see any other reason for such a big, gaudy ballroom.     He placed his palm on a gray marble column. There were cracks running through it, a few chips coming off where the divisive stone webs made crossroads. The rest of the room was full of dust, cobwebs criss-crossing the spaces between draped velvet and the walls and hiding in corners around the ceiling.     His eyes fell down to the crest above the double doors he had come in through. It had an enormous chunk gauged right out of its center, a wound j...