Divine Sympathies, By Kim McDougall. Prospero stakes his fate on a crippled boy and the Divine Sympathies, flowing in the veins of a tree. His apprentice, Edouard, has his own destiny and, after all, one tree looks much like another.

Fate: A Hypothetical Construct, By Graeme S. Houston. An antique copy of Dante's Inferno holds the truth of humanity's fate. Fate brings it into the hands of a scientist. With his foreknowledge, maybe he can stop it, the ultimate and terrible fate that awaits us.

Sometime Place, By Jane Toombs. Vada is lost somewhere at some time. The Nut Cracker Man stalks her, and the sand keeps seeping in.

Noble Sincere, By Jeff Jewett. Music is the taking of a soul when the body don't want to give it up, you see. It only means when that soul get up to go, the body wont have the know-how nor the strength to stop it.

A Nurse, Forever, By Lisa Logan. Staff and patients at St. Gertrude's hospital are plagued by a series of unexplained occurrences. Can head nurse Amelia Setzer get to the bottom of ghostly doings before mysterious Room Twenty completely unravels busy Unit Three West?

R.I.G.S, By Brian L. Porter. After centuries probing space, all but forgotten by its human creators, the Remote Intelligence Gathering System finally makes contact with alien life. But something incredible has happened on board the probe. R.I.G.S has evolved.

The Chain Forged in Life, By Jens Rushing. Right after the entire globe went up in a blaze of nuclear light, oceans boiling, mountains crumbling Chris Novacek, the shuttle pilot on the Multinational Orbital Observation Platform, MOOP, got a case of the giggles.

The Voice Within, By Brian L. Porter. A serial killer is stalking the streets of Paris. The police seem incapable of apprehending the man the popular press have dubbed 'The Butcher Beast'. Perhaps the greatest tragedy in this tale is not how The Butcher Beast takes the lives of his unfortuante victims, but why!

In the River, By Jane Toombs. When a jet crashes into New York's East River, the coffin of Truth's definitely peculiar ancestor goes down with it. But surely his bones, in or out of the coffin, are safely at the bottom of the river--aren't they?

The Real Miranda, By Rae Lindley. David Wright wanted a quiet place to work on his new novel, until he witnesses the murder of a beautiful woman, only to see her walking around the hotel the next day. Was it a hallucination or something twisted beyond his imagination?

Dangerous Creatures, By Terry Collett. Penny smiled. The recollection of old Chamberlain's fall was fresh in her memory. The last thing he expected from two beautiful young ladies, as he often referred to them.

The Festival, By Brian L. Porter. Driving on the Moors in Northern England, Simon and Clare get caught up in the Festival. The young couple soon discovers that all is not as it seems in the village of Bardley Magna.

Drumalla Calling, By Steve Westcott. Drumalla, the hall of the brave, were the only criteria for entry is that you die a heroes' death. But when the bravest thing Alwysyll has ever done is get out of bed in the morning, an invitation to mix with past heroes would seem like an aspiration too far.

REVIEW

All of these stories make you think and wonder at the vagaries of life, be it in times long past or times not yet here. There is no telling the different possibilities. I enjoyed them all.

**Note: Check out the review link for a review of each separate story.

Reviewed by: Kathy
www.coffeetimeromance.com
4/5 Cups!

EXCERPT

From "Divine Sympathies" by Kim McDougall

The reception room was uncomfortably warm. The light from the untrimmed candles flickered in the windowless room. A black and white spiral mosaic was the only adornment on the walls. If one looked at it long enough, the black helix snaked inward like a whirlpool. There were no leaflets to read.

The clients fidgeted, waved fans, closed their eyes against the nauseating candlelight. They had been waiting for hours. An appointment with the great Prospero was nearly impossible to win, and they would endure much for it.

I watched them through a cleverly devised window hidden in the mosaic. They were nearly ready. The show could begin.

“Master, they are primed,” I whispered to Prospero. Primed was the state of climactic anticipation needed for a body to accept the flux of Divine Sympathies.

Prospero meditated in his small parlor. He nodded, but did not take his eyes off the crystal orb in his lap. It was his gateway to the universe. He filled his veins with its power, readying himself to transfer that healing balm to his clients.

I brought the first patient, Lady Trafalgar, into the surgery. She was a large woman, exiled from London, while her husband paid tribute to his clients in Vienna.

I relished these small moments of wonder in Prospero’s service. Simple acts, such as leading Lady Trafalgar into the surgery. After hours in the reception room, the relief was plain on her face. She had long since stopped trying to hide the sweat on her brow. Greying hairs escaped from her combs in damp curls.

“Bless you,” she breathed. I took many such blessings in proxy for the great man.
The surgery, lit by mage’s fire, was unbearably bright after the dim parlor. It was a bare white room. A purgatory, with a feather bed clothed in crisp white sheets as the only furniture.

Lady Trafalgar shaded her eyes and nearly swooned. I held her arm firmly.

“Wait here, my Lady. The great Prospero will be with you in a moment.”

“But there is no chair,” she said, glancing at the bed.

“No, there isn’t.”

I did not need to watch what happened next. I had seen it a hundred times.

Lady Trafalgar waited alone for several long minutes, until her anticipation verged on a breakdown, and then Prospero appeared in a cloud of mist, a simple conjuring that never failed to impress. Prospero’s indigo gown rose around him on the wings of a mage wind. His hair, as white as the walls, was purposely unkempt, wild and billowing like a madman’s or an angel’s. Lady Trafalgar gave into her trembling and fell to her knees. Prospero’s silky gown enveloped her as his arms bound her into the circle of the Divine Sympathies. He shouted the ancient words of power, calling the universe’s humors to him. His fingers pressed her temples hard enough to bruise and she swooned, her eyes rolling back in her head. All the while Prospero shouted until the froth of his words lathered the patient’s face. He set her on the bed as gently as a mother with her newborn, and passed his energized hands over her body, once, twice and then again, until the shame of his touch was almost too much for the good lady to bear.

And then he was gone.

Lady Trafalgar waited until her heart slowed. She wiped the spittle of the great Prospero from her face and returned home, cured of her digestive difficulties and looking forward to her next invitation to tea so that she might revel in the glow of her sordid experience.