Dead Lake

By Miranda Kate

Damn and blast! That rancid piece of excrement, Carter, has had her ransacked out of Clancy!

Tricky returns to her cottage to find it turned upside down. An action that means she’s got three days to leave the district or face punishment. Randolf Carter, head of the district, is spreading lies and suspicion about her kind, making life difficult. But it wasn’t just an ordinary ransacking – they were searching for something.

Using her gifts, Tricky traces the energy left by the men and spies another creature’s energy among it: a jackdaw. Swift and wily, it’s pinched her precious gemstone, a piece of black obsidian. But at whose bidding? Communicating with birds is a rare ability and she knows all who possess it.

Tricky wants her stone back, but coming up against people like Carter won’t be easy, especially when he’s got one of her kind in his employ. But she’ll handle it, oh yes she will. She'll just have to be careful and a little bit tricky. Good thing she is then, isn’t it?

Adept at working with energy and time as well as communicating with trees, Tricky is lured into something bigger than ownership of a gemstone, and finds out that sometimes it pays to be a little bit tricky.

Tricky’s Tales are a series of dark paranormal fantasy novels set a few hundred years from now in a post-apocalyptic world. After a massive shift of the tectonic plates decimated the world and its population, life on the remaining landmass has returned to simple living, with money, rulers and religion no longer tolerated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Purple Queen Publishing
• Release date: Aug 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9789083214009

Miranda Kate

Miranda started out life wanting to be a film director, but when directing people didn't work, she turned to words instead, finding them much easier to deal with – most days.Miranda has been featured in several Flash Fiction anthologies and ezines, and published several books, including three collections, four novels, and a novella. She writes across genres, which include Horror, Science Fiction Fantasy, Time Travel and Paranormal Fantasy, often mixing them together – the one constant being that they are all dark.Under the pen name, M K Boers, she writes psychological thrillers.Miranda Kate, spent her early childhood in Surrey, in the south of England, and her teens and early adulthood moving round the UK, but currently resides in the Netherlands.

Book preview

Collections

Mostly Dark

Slipping Through

Nocturnal Nibbles

Novella

The Game

Novels

Pool of Players (Sequel to The Game)

Unsailable Sea, Tricky’s Tales Book 2

By M K Boers

Novels

Sleep

Find out more about Miranda and where to buy her books on her website:

www.mirandakateboersauthor.com

Dedication

Michael Cooper

For his inspiration, faith in me,

and giving me the courage to write what I truly enjoy.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Tricky Tales Series

Author’s Thanks

Leaving a Review

Also by Miranda Kate

Chapter 1

Tricky knew there was something wrong before she reached her cottage and saw the front door was open. The energy was all wrong. Someone had been here, she could feel it – or several someones.

She rushed up the garden path, registering the red triangle painted on the lintel over the front door as she stepped over the threshold to view the destruction. Nothing had been left untouched.

The message was clear, as it always was: she was no longer welcome here. This wasn’t the first time. Her reputation had finally caught up with her. She thought it might, with Randolf Carter in charge. He was a rancid piece of excrement. Tricky knew it, as did everyone else, but they all lived in too much fear to oust him. He would stop at nothing to get his hands on all the power, and he was doing well for himself. He had control of three other districts beside Clancy, and he was priming for a fifth. If he reached five they’d all be in trouble, not just those of her ilk who were being vilified. He’d be looking to take over the whole landmass.

The days of rulers were over, but someone had to run things – at least that was what they said. Truth was no one wanted the responsibility. It took all their strength to scrape a living, with no defined seasons and random weather patterns making food scarce. People bartered and traded what they had, and that wasn’t much, so when someone like Carter came along taking ownership of things that weren’t his by brute force and using it to control others, people steered clear, kept schtum, did as they were told. People were like sheep: happy to graze and let someone run rings round them. The herd was safety. They only bleated when they were squeezed.

Tricky surveyed the mess that had been her living room. They hadn’t just emptied stuff out and tipped over furnishing, her hearth had been dug out too. And in the kitchen, shelves had been swept of their items but they were piled neatly in the corner. They’d made a mess but a deliberate mess, one covering a search.

Tricky took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She could see them, four of them, their residue energy shifting from place to place. The front door almost burned with it: there’d been a row, Carter hadn’t been happy, in fact he’d almost burst a blood vessel screaming at the men.

Tricky chuckled. Good. He hadn’t found what he’d been looking for. And neither would he. Tricky knew how to hide things. Tricky knew where to hide things. And Tricky also knew when. He had no clue what he was up against, but she wasn’t about to show him. Oh no, men like Carter had to be played, very, very carefully. Tricky knew careful. Tricky knew tricky. She might have earned the nickname but he was the one who wore it. You had to be careful where you trod, he had trip wires everywhere. Ears were easy to gain when you had money to pay for them, and clearly he’d had a few to be able to do this to her cottage.

She sighed. She’d liked this district, the people here had been warm and kind, and they’d accepted her, but now she had to find another home. People liked to think they were better than their ancestors, but truth was they’d gone backward; suspicion and superstition were one and the same. When people saw that mark on her lintel there’d be talk and backs would turn. Their shoulders would be very cold.

She began to gather her belongings, or the necessary belongings, others would be stored. She needed to find somewhere that couldn’t be touched and couldn’t be seen. She needed a place where she would be safe from prying eyes, and not just those belonging to humans. She wasn’t the only one who had tricks up her sleeve and could elicit help from other sentient beings. She was beginning to suspect Carter had access to such help, or at least someone that could wield it.

There’d been talk amongst her ilk, and she’d listened closely. People were corrupt and could be turned for glittery stones. She knew their names and she knew their strengths. She’d kept hers hidden. She needed to create a new space, this time one that could not be reached easily by any living being. She had an idea where she might find one, but it would take some time – time she could ill afford right now. Her cottage would be reassigned. She had three days to vacate, and if she was found here after that they’d have reason to string her up, although stringing was preferable to burning. She shuddered, remembering what had happened to her mother. She rubbed the tiny scar behind her ear; a warped piece of skin that had been the mark of her mother’s passing, shrunk now to a tiny bit, but that day it had been raw and scream-worthy.

No, for now she would leave, and she had the perfect place to bunker down – hopefully, if they hadn’t turned him.

Chapter 2

When she appeared at John’s door, he took one look at her and let her through. Tricky knew he was a good man, but wasn’t sure if he would go against the grain until that moment. He liked her; she knew that, but not how much. He was the tall, strong silent type – it was the silent that appealed to her. There was no fuss or nonsense, they satiated each other and that was that. There were no whispered sweet nothings and no sharing of secrets. But he was far from stupid, Tricky knew that, he understood exactly what was going on around him. He was aware of it all. He just chose not to judge. He was an accepting type.

So you know then?

Aye, I know.

And you still let me in?

He looked at her. There was a twinkle in his pale blue eyes that spread to his lips. I’ll never close my doors on you, girl. And not for some superstitious nonsense either. I know what you are and who you are, and it sits just fine with me. In fact I like how you sit on me just fine.

She grinned at him. That’s what she liked the most about him. No mucking, just straight to it. And he knew how to hold it up too, unlike many others she’d bedded.

He moved on her and she let him, and after they lay in his bed for a bit. Normally she was the talker but events seemed to have opened him a crack.

I heard Hugh from the house spouting off about Carter cracking down. I didn’t know he meant you. They’ve all got their heads twisted on wrong thinking all this witch nonsense. It’s like we’ve returned to the dark days, you know, before the shift, when they thought people that had gifts were dumb and evil. They were into killing anything they didn’t understand or anything they thought didn’t belong. Stupid days. I don’t want to return to those days. You’ve done more good since you arrived than any of them doctors that just pump everyone full of their tablets and potions.

It’s how they keep control.

Don’t I know it? I never thought we’d see us under the thumb again. Rich folk are evil, that’s what history teaches us. We need rid of him.

"But how? He’s smart and more tricky than me!’

John chuckled a deep throated chuckle. No one could be trickier than you, my lover.

He rolled over and lay on top of her. He nuzzled at her neck, pushing her long auburn hair out of the way as he went, but his voice still reached her.

He’s powerful I give him that … and there’s reason to fear him. But there’ll come a time where he’ll cross paths with the wrong person. Mark my words.

Oh she marked his words alright. She grinned as much out of pleasure as at the thought of how Carter had already crossed paths with the wrong person. It was just a matter of time. And if there was one thing Tricky knew a lot about it was time; she liked to play with it, and move around in it. She had gifts that would even freak John out.

He accepted and tolerated a lot for a simple blacksmith, but the things she had knowledge about would blow his mind. She giggled.

He raised his head and grinned at her, thinking it was in response to where he had been kissing her.

She put a hand to his forge-bronzed cheek and smoothed back his dark blond locks, and let him think that. He was ready again and so was she.

She looked forward to this night. It would be a while until there’d be another like it.

Chapter 3

Tricky made her way through the thick of the Fir Forest north east of the town to her secret place. No one would know it was a secret place; it wasn’t enclosed or something manmade or built, it was just a piece of forest that no one came into because it wasn’t visible to the eye. She knew about trees and their communities, and how, to the human eye, they might look firmly rooted, but they moved often. Their movements were too slow for people to perceive and they weren’t always in the dimension we lived in. That sounded like nonsense to many, but Tricky knew different. Tricky had experienced different. Her mother had trained her well. And now her mother would be impressed by her knowledge which ran much further than she’d been taught. She had befriended the trees.

Tricky knew all about energy and life force and wasn’t stupid enough to think that only humans possessed it. In fact humans possessed very little of it, but they were perfect conduits, and that was Tricky’s forte. It was her livelihood in fact; it was how she’d made her way in the world thus far. It helped heal, it helped convert, it helped manipulate and it helped conjure. All things she needed to stay alive, especially in these times. As John had said, things were getting darker, especially for those that had an ability like herself and used the arts as they were meant to be used, not for greed, lust or gluttony. And that’s not gluttony of food – oh for such a thing in these lean times – no that was gluttony in having or possessing. It revolted her.

Was Tricky a good guy? She paused at such a thought. She could be if it suited her. She wasn’t selfish per se, she just made sure her needs were met first. And if that helped others then so be it. Like with Carter; it would help others if she could find a way to be rid of him, but really it was for her own sake. And not just for her life and livelihood. If he got his hands on what she possessed, the world would really be in trouble. She had things to guard and protect, and they weren’t all the things she planned on guarding and protecting; she had more to gather yet. But if he got his hands on what she had now, and passed them to someone knowing, it would be very bad, oh very bad indeed. She couldn’t be having that, no not at all.

Tricky had arrived in the clearing. She closed her eyes and breathed in deep, pulling all the energy she could muster from within, and let it pour out of her into the clearing. She opened her eyes and saw it shimmer. Time did that when exposed. She stepped forward and into that shimmer. It looked no different inside; the ground looked the same and dug just as easily with the trowel she had brought with her. She didn’t need to go deep; she just needed to mark the top so she could find it next time.

She opened the bag of treasures, the ones they hadn’t found in the ransacking, and brought out each object, lining them up on the ground. No one would think much of them: a mix of stone and wood pieces, some cracked, some chipped, but you couldn’t find them here, not anymore. They had come from a time long past.

When the shift had happened and the plates of the world had moved, they had lost access to many special materials: minerals, gemstones, elements. Many could no longer be brought to the surface, or located at all, even though men tried – men would always try to get their hands on riches, ‘twas the way of the species. But these items were precious not only because of their rarity but for what they could create when combined with the new stones, minerals and elements that had surfaced after the shift and were now abundant.

The world had learned to encompass the new into their day to day, but few knew that the old and new could be combined. The energy they possessed together, it was mind blowing, sometimes literally, and revealed the truth of their dimension and place in space and time.

She paused when she got to the bottom of the bag. She was missing one, and the most precious one at that, the obsidian. A nasty worm began to crawl in the pit of her stomach. Surely he didn’t leave all the rest behind. He would have grabbed the bag if he could. Or would he? He was a sly one. That stone could be made to work with several of the new elements. It wrought manipulation of minds, as was his wont. It could bring delusion and illusion, depending which way you spun it. But how did he know? And when had he taken it? It surely wasn’t the day of the ransacking.

Tricky hurried the burial now, throwing the items back in the bag and pulling the drawstring tight. She threw the dirt over quickly, leaving her mark on the ground with a swish of the trowel end. She stepped out of the shimmer, and took a moment to release it from the clearing; the breathing helping her stay focused on what she now had to do.

As she rushed out of the forest her mind was already at the cottage, feeling around. No one had arrived to occupy it yet, she had a chance to retrace and find out exactly how that wily snake had got his hands on her stone. She was in no doubt he had it; that ransacking was for show with the side benefit of evicting her. It had been to cover something up. She thought it had