Tuesday Tales: From the Word FOOLISH

Welcome to this week’s Tuesday Tales. I trust all of you who celebrated Thanksgiving on Thursday had a wonderful time with your families. It’s hard to believe that this is the last week of November. We’re only 3 weeks away from Christmas. Where has the year gone?

This week, our word prompt is FOOLISH. I’m continuing with Listen to the Stones, but I have another surprise for you. The story has changed since I began writing it and my cover artist agreed it needed a cover that reflected that. Listen to the Stones is a contemporary paranormal romance. Enjoy this week’s scene. I’m slowly but surely getting Marina out of that airport, but she has a lot of other adventures ahead of her.

“You’re just being foolish,” Marina muttered, the words seeming loud inside the empty room. Was the caretaker who’d ignored her watching her? She shuddered and stood. “This is ridiculous.”

Annoyed with herself and the situation, she resumed her pacing. hoping the activity would curb her imagination and take her mind off things. This wasn’t underground Edinburgh with its ghosts and hauntings, witches and covens, and who knew what other paranormal activities she’d encountered that had stolen three hours from her. Something had happened. There was no damn way she’d fallen asleep on a public bench after one glass of beer.

Shivering, she pulled her hands up inside the sleeves of her jacket. When that unfriendly old man had turned off the lights, had he lowered the temperature, too? She paced faster, counting out her steps as she did, hoping the exercise would warm her.

After what had to be the longest half-hour of her life, headlights pierced the gloomy room.

She stopped moving and jumped when the door opened.

Backlit by the car’s headlights, the man could easily have doubled for Hagrid in any of the Harry Potter movies.

Wee James, my ass—if this is him, and not one of the giants who roamed Scotland in the before time.

In Inverness, there’d been a book on the legends of Albion, the name given to Ancient Britain, in her room that had captured her attention. One of the articles, The Glastonbury Giant: Who Did the Mystery Bones of A Nine-Foot Skeleton Belong To? had intrigued her, and she’d read about the ancient race of giants said to have populated this island. No one denied that giants had roamed this part of the world. In 1962-63, Dr. Ralegh Radford, a distinguished archaeologist, examined the ancient giant’s remains and ‘confirmed that a prominent personage had indeed been buried there at the period in question.’ Whether or not the skeleton was that of the legendary King Arthur, no one could prove, but giants in England, Scotland, and Wales? The was no disputing that, and the man coming through the doorway had to be descended from them.

The man-mountain advanced, and she stepped back.

He stopped a few feet from her and bowed his head.

“Lady Fraser, welcome to Stornoway and the Isle of Lewis. I see Jock didn’t notice you sitting here. If he had, he wouldn’t have turned off the lights and lowered the heat. He tends to this place by memory if not by sight.”

That’s it. Come back next week for more. Don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.