Christmas Lights

By Brian Delaney

Millie Harkness's mother has died. Leaving her and her father alone and grief-stricken a week before Christmas,
Now Millie must deal with indifferent in-laws, a depressed father and her own crushing loneliness.

Until the night she meets a wood nymph named Tikiram and everything changes.
Millie and her new friend must embark on a desperate quest to find the treasure she and her people need to survive.

A new take on the world of Faerie

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brian Delaney
• Release date: Apr 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005272272

Brian Delaney

Born in New Zealand but have lived in Australia for over twenty years.After a successful career in the technology sector, my wife and I bought a farm in country Victoria where I am free to indulge my triple passions of Painting, Photography and Writing. Although I have written many short stories, only recently have I finished my first full-length novel, "Other Peoples Problem" which is the first book in an eventual trilogy.

Book preview

Christmas Lights

By Brian Delaney

Chapter One

No one ever noticed the little sun-splashed churchyard along Courtney's way, or if they did, just hurried by, especially if they spotted a small knot of mourners sprinkled among the old gravestones. Not wishing to have their perfect spring day infected with the grief of strangers. However, had they lingered, they would probably have been a little taken aback by the woeful number of mourners in attendance. Three adults and a teenage girl. Even if one included the indifferent priest and the burly grave diggers, who chatted amiably under a large tree, several respectful feet away, the numbers only swelled to seven. But these observations would have been fleeting as the person drifted along amid the beauty of the day. For the young girl at the graveside however, this Spring day was anything but beautiful. in-fact as far as Millie was concerned it was an absolute affront, an abomination even. Sunny days were for boat trips and picnics, love and laughter, they were wholly inappropriate for events such as this. Funerals are sombre affairs and deserved the dignity afforded by gloomy overcast days, especially, if like Millie, you were burying your beloved Mother. She tore her eyes from the open wound in the earth, into which the piano black coffin was being lowered. Tears burned her cheeks in a now well-worn track down her face. To be honest, until this moment she didn’t believe there were any tears left to cry, but of course, that was simply wishful thinking. There would be many more before the day was out. She let her gaze wander around the unhappy scene; it wasn’t much of a turnout, but then they had expected little. Her mother was orphaned at an early age and had no other family. It was while staying at the orphanage she had met and fallen in love with Millie’s father, himself an inmate after losing his parents to a car accident. Although boys and girls were segregated, they came together during outings or other arranged entertainments. So it was during one of these, a trip to the zoo, they had met. Seeking each other out at every subsequent opportunity. When John, Millie’s father, had turned eighteen and been released. He had waited patiently for a year until Carol came of age. He had waited at the bus stop across from the Orphanage for her with a potted Orchid and a marriage proposal, both of which were enthusiastically accepted. Millie loved that story and had heard it many times. However, as she thought of it now, it bought no joy, merely added to the heavy mantle of pain and loss that clung to her like a shroud. She looked up at her father, usually a contented, cheerful man. Since the accident, he had become bleak and withdrawn even towards his daughter. She understood that he still loved her, but something inside had broken, allowing his native vigour and lust for life to seep away, leaving nothing but a pillar of agony and despair. He hadn’t just lost his wife, Millie mused, but his confidant, his history and soul mate if you believe in such things.

Unlike her mother, Millie’s father had a family. They just didn’t want him. After the accident which had claimed his parents the authorities had contacted all of Johns family no matter how distant and asked them to take the boy. However all had declined, so he became a ward of the state and institutionalised. Unwanted and unloved, he had haunted the orphanage utterly friendless until he found Carol. Some years after leaving the orphanage, his long-lost cousin Peter had come looking, and while Uncle Peter was nice enough, he had come as part of a package deal with the self-absorbed and self-serving Joan, his wife. It was Joan, Millie refused to call her Aunty Joan, who had organised the funeral and although neither Millie, her father or her late Mother were religious had insisted on a catholic burial. She had also insisted on the wake which was to follow and had populated it, as far as Millie could tell. With the weak sycophantic members of the woman’s group she terrorised as chairperson. All her father’s workmates and her mother’s few friends were mysteriously absent from the guest list. Unless, of course, the situation had changed since the previous day when Millie had directed Joan’s attention to the oversight. Although she didn’t have high hopes, as Joan’s only response at the time was to huff derisively and produce a hand full of bills about funerals and wakes, demanding payment on pain of cancellation. Millie snorted, she was all for telling Joan to cancel, but her Father had meekly paid the account. Anything for a quiet life, probably. Millie glared across the grave, Peter wore a sombre black suit but the hateful Joan had opted for a canary yellow jacket and short skirt, with matching high heels to show off her legs. Positioning herself next to the priest for maximum impact. Apart from the five of them, no one else had shown up. Perhaps they had better things to do, or more likely Joan had discouraged their attendance. She looked round to make sure there were no late arrivals, seeing only a young man, some distance off, who quickly walked away, when she caught his eye. ‘A gawkier." She decided, returning her attention to the service. The Priest was winding it down. Eager no doubt to move on to more important things.

That’s what Mums become, she thought, an inconvenient afternoon. The coffin finished its journey into the earth and the pair of men with shovels sprang to life. Eager to remove the fake grass from the ill-concealed mound of dirt next to the grave to refill the inconvenient hole. There was a round of meaningless thanks and limp handshakes before Joan’s incessant, and pointed tapping on her watch face with the tip of her manicured nail, drove them to the car-park. Millie’s last view of her mother’s resting place was that of one workman flicking his cigarette butt into the hole, followed by the first spade full of dirt. They shuffled to the car park, waiting in silence as Peter brought the car around, however when Millie and her father tried to climb in the back of the spacious jaguar Joan stopped them, sighting a recent car valeting she’d had done for the funeral insisting they return the way they had arrived, by taxi. Matters were further complicated when Millie’s father revealed he hadn’t bought his phone and Peter’s was dead, Joan insisted she didn’t have hers with her either, but Millie could have sworn she saw her talking on it when they’d arrived. Eventually, Peter and Joan drove off and Millie and her father trudged up to the vicarage to use their phone. Afterwards, they stood on the road outside the churchyard hand in hand, touching but not connecting.

By the time they