Life in the Clouds

By James Field

Rub shoulders with the privileged elite and the dedicated staff who keep the hamlet's heart beating. Love and murder entwine, as fortunes are forged and shattered. Here, greed dances with generosity, and envy is overshadowed by the spirit of charity.

These tales are more than stories; they are keys to unlock your imagination, taking you on a thrilling journey through a labyrinth of mystery. You'll find yourself on an emotional roller-coaster, from fits of laughter to poignant tears, all the while gaining a fresh perspective on life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Field
• Release date: Nov 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9788293174820

James Field

I was born in Essex, England, in 1951.My early days of work as an engineer led me to Norway where I met my future wife Kari. She moved to England where we married and raised our two daughters. We moved back to Norway in 1985.My wife and I now live far in the north, well within the Arctic Circle, in the land of the midnight sun. Life here is slow and comfortable, blessed by unspoilt nature and its magnificent moods.Being creative in the written form gives me vast pleasure. I hope, dear reader, you will take a break from your world and lose yourself in one of mine.

Book preview

Life in the Clouds

A compilation of weird novellas

James Field

Copyright © 2022 by James Field

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Foreword

A Special Gift Just for You!

Dear Reader,

In thanks for choosing this book, I have a special gift for you – a complimentary ebook titled What on Earth: A Compilation of Short Stories. These stories hold a unique place in my heart, and I'm delighted to share them with you.

To claim your free ebook, simply click HERE

If you're into science fiction, fantasy, and all things weird, then these short stories will be right up your alley. - With a mix of humour, surprise endings, and a pinch of the bizarre, this book is perfect for those looking for something different.

Your support means everything to me, and I genuinely hope these short stories add an extra layer of enjoyment to your reading experience. If you find the time, I would be incredibly grateful for your thoughts and feedback, on both Life in the Clouds and the free ebook.

Reviews are a wonderful way for authors to understand readers' perspectives and improve their craft. However, what matters most is that you enjoy the stories, and your honest feedback is truly invaluable.

Thank you for being a part of this literary journey. To claim your free ebook, simply click HERE

Happy reading!

Warm regards,

James

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Fetch your FREE copy of 'What on Earth' HERE

Contents

1.Eerie Eve

2.Enchanter on the roof

3.Gamblers who Cheat

4.Evil Portent

5.Twin Cheats

Afterword

Eerie Eve

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Lance sat on his potting shed steps and breathed slow and easy. Tonight, despite the fearsome legends, he would prove his manhood. He marvelled at the late summer sunset, the reddest he'd seen in years, as if some heavenly spirit had cut its finger and smeared its blood across the horizon. Then he closed his eyes, tipped his head back, and smiled. At times, his wife, Sibyl, expected him to do the weirdest of tasks. There would be a full moon tonight and she would want him to traipse through the woods at midnight in search of toadstools.

Apart from the glen by the lake, and the widespread lawns in front of the Cloud Mansion, and Lance's gardens, forest covered most of the Cloud Estate. A busy London road bordered one side of the property, The Stables bordered another, and a narrow belt of public parks surrounded the remaining two sides. Inside its impenetrable boundaries, the estate enjoyed a life of its own. Untouched and ancient, generation after generation had handed it down from the time of King Richard the Lion-Hearted.

Mansion life had many advantages: privacy among the best. Lance gazed around the garden in his care; it had been a good year; no hobgoblins to ruin his prize vegetables. With eyes half closed, he chuckled at the idea of hobgoblins and the such. His garden thrived because of his skill, and in the unlikely event it should fail he wouldn't blame his misfortune on imaginary evil spirits, like some people he knew would do.

The thought of rambling around in the forest late at night didn't worry Lance. He could camp in a tent, beside the estate's small lake. Years had passed since he last camped out, and with silver moonlight bathing the landscape, the night proved to be fascinatingly mystical.

He strolled around the vegetable beds, past the herb garden, and into one of the mansion's back door. It opened into a cavernous kitchen. Thinking he'd surprise Sibyl by remembering this special night, he said, Make me a good packed supper, Woman. Tonight I shall go to the forest and pick those enchanted toadstools for you.

Sibyl, who stood by the kitchen's stone sink, spun on her chunky legs to face her husband. No, you mustn't. Not tonight.

But… Lance slid his hands from his pockets and held them wide. Isn't this a full moon on the ninth day of September? Isn't this the only night in goodness knows how many years those toadstools you're always on about will sprout?

Sibyl strolled across the tiled floor, wiped her podgy hands on her pinafore, and stroked Lance on his chin. You're a kind man, and what you say is true. But this is also the night the lady troll, Husminx, will be out looking for them.

Lance sucked in his potbelly and stretched to his full height, backbone straight as one of his garden rakes. Even so, the top of his head only reached to Sibyl's broad shoulders. He took a step back, lifted his heels, and laughed. There are no such things as trolls, especially in this part of the world.

Yes there are, and you don't want to mess with this one. Husminx is pretty, but if she thinks you're after her toadstools she'll tear your throat out and leave you for dead.

Lance brushed at the air as if dismissing an irritating fly. Don't you go worrying about me, sweetheart. If I should meet a troll, it'll worse for her.

With a mammoth rucksack strapped to his back, and a wicker basket dangling in his hand, Lance staggered off towards the estate's lake. On his way, he was unlucky enough to meet Alf, one of the Cloud Estate's two security guards. Alf was a giant, with bulging muscles and a battered head as featureless and flat as an old leather football. A dumpy little robot stood by his side, about the same height as Lance.

Where are you going? asked Alf, a smile playing across his scarred face. Mushroom picking?

Toadstools, if it's any of your business. Lance had a nasty suspicion that Alf was a nosy parker, with his cauliflower ear at keyholes and open windows. How else could he guess about the toadstools?

I wouldn't dare go into the woods tonight, said Alf. They say trolls are out and about.

Lance stiffened and glared up at Alf. How do you know? Who says?

Alf tapped his forehead. I hear the rumours.

Where? How?

I see and hear it all in here. Ask young Master Trevor, it was him who modified me third eye. It ain't my fault if I can see and hear through walls.

Lance snorted. Nitwits surrounded him on all sides. Apart from Alf's idiocy, Sibyl believed in ghosts and magic, and young Master Trevor fiddle-faddled with technological humbug. Lance considered himself a down-to-earth sort of chap: a professional, first-class gardener. All this talk of trolls is nonsense. I'm off to spend a peaceful night in God's magnificent nature. That's all.

And pick toadstools for Sibyl.

If you know so much, why ask? Lance shifted the weight of his rucksack, almost toppled, caught his balance, and trudged on his way.

I like to be out in the nature too, said Alf, stepping in front of Lance. But not when there are trolls about. He raised his arms, wiggled his fingers, and gave his impression of a ghost. Whooooh! The sound ended with a little chuckle.

Trolls don't sound like ghosts, said Lance, irritated.

How do you know? Have you ever seen one?

Lance grabbed his rucksack's straps and tugged them away from his shoulder. His knuckles whitened. You might be frightened, he said, marching away as fast as his heavy load and short legs would carry him, but not a real man like me. There are no such things as trolls and ghosts. And I think the reason you know so much about my private affairs is because you're a snooper. Good-day.

Alf sucked in his bottom lip and shrugged. Hope you come back alive, he called. Take care. He flexed his muscles and sent a mental command to his little robot friend, Crusher. It peeped agreement and bustled away to their gatehouse cottage to put the kettle on.

Lance is a strange man, thought Alf. Despite the gardener's small stature he carried an air of stout-hearted authority, of a soldierly quality, and many people from the local community respected his points of view and advice.

In Alf's opinion, Lance was too high-and-mighty for his boots and he wondered if this might be an ideal opportunity to test his manhood. Maybe I'll take a trip down to the lake too, he thought, and smiled from ear to ear.

He couldn't help but chuckle at the plan forming in his mind. There was no hurry to set it in motion, so he strolled back to his gatehouse cottage and flipped a bloody beefsteak into a frying pan. Him and his little robot friend, Crusher, were on perimeter duty tonight, making sure the Cloud Estate's alarms were in order. If he hurried, he'd be in time to sneak down to the lake before midnight where Lance had planned to make camp.

At midnight, Alf knew that Lance would search for toadstools, and despite the warnings, the pompous little man didn't believe that trolls would also be out looking for them. Alf sneered at the idea of trolls too, but that wasn't the point. Lance needed to have his manhood tested, and Alf was about to make sure the test would be tough.

Giving the beefsteak no more than a minute on each side, Alf wolfed the juicy chunk of meat. He gulped a mug of creamy tea and threw himself on a sofa for a little nap. The night would be long, and much more fun than usual.

Lance marched along a narrow dirt-track path, mighty trees pressing on both sides. All the idiotic talk about trolls had annoyed him at first, but now he rambled with a spring in his step and whistled a jolly tune. Hadn't his wife, Sibyl, said the troll was a lady? Yes, Husminx. His imagination pictured a slightly clad temptress with long flowing hair and figure-of-eight figure. Wouldn't that be a fitting encounter for a fine Don Juan like me?

Just as the sun grew too weak to see by, the path opened into a small glen, exposing the remaining daylight. A small lake boarded one side of the glen, tangled trees crowded around the other sides. In the fading light, Lance hurried to assemble his tent. He looked up at the sky. Dark clouds gathered and it looked like rain.

Sibyl had said the toadstools only grew on Trollop Knoll in full moonlight, which meant, because of the clouds, that he wouldn't be picking any tonight. Whatever the weather, he didn't mind. Slumbering by the lake and listening to fish jump, rain patter, and trees whisper in the breeze would soothe his soul like balsam. Pooh to the idea of trolls!

After assembling the tent's framework of bamboo poles, Lance stretched the heavy outer canvas over the top, spread a tarpaulin across the ground to make a dry floor, and hung the cotton inner liner. His faithful tent stunk of mould, but held together at the seams. Once up, he had room to stand inside the main section, and a spacious fore tent for his camping table, chair and picnic bag.

There was no point searching for Sibyl's toadstools before midnight, so he made a pot of tea and spread the supper she'd made for him across the table. There was homemade bread, mutton, mustard and a thick slab of fruitcake. The clouds that had threatened earlier began to melt away and the full moon would be rising soon. Lance leaned back in his chair, folded his arms and breathed a deep, satisfied sigh. Cheers! he said, holding his cup to the entrancing evening. All he needed now was the company of a dainty lady troll.

Alf, who knew Lance had camped by the lake and would spend the night searching for toadstools, decided to have a little fun with him. He'd already started his night patrol, made a circuit of the Cloud Mansion, and now jogged around the estate's boundaries, checking the fences and high stone walls. Crusher trotted by his side and Alf kept nudging its shoulder, trying to make the little robot lose balance and topple. You make for boring company, chortled Alf, but we'll soon be having us a belly laugh.

Reaching the end of his round, and satisfied all was well, Alf darted off through the forest toward the glen by the lake. The evening was dark, and dense trees stole most of the remaining light, but he didn't need a torch. Young Master Trevor had adapted a titanium plate in his brow that, among other marvels, stimulated his pineal gland. Now, even if he put a bucket over his head, wore a blindfold, and scrunched his eyes shut, he could still see where he was going with the aide of his third eye.

Crusher followed in his heels. Although nimble, the little robot wasn't stealthy and its hydraulics made a faint whine. Before putting his plan of terror into action, Alf would have to leave Crusher hidden.

He stopped behind a large boulder, sent a mental instruction to Crusher to form its body into that of a chair, and sat in its lap. Having made himself comfortable, Alf spied on Lance with his third eye. As hoped, the gardener was still in his tent, eating supper, unaware of the terror that was about to befall him. Alf blew on his hands and rubbed them together; the show could begin.

As the evening grew dark over the Cloud Estate's deathly silent forest, a damp mist curled up from the lake and Lance noticed his knees tremble. A skin of moist covered his tent, but he knew the damp and cold weren't the only cause of his shivering. With the sun set, and the moon shining bright, it was hard not to think about what might be out there in the spooky forest.

A fox cried out somewhere in the black woodland and bats flew across the rising moon. Lance dug a torch from his rucksack, a modern affair with a beam that sliced through the gloom like a laser beam. It bolstered his courage, but not by much.

The time had come to venture into the trees in search of Sibyl's magical toadstools, and his chest rose and fell with rapid breaths. His wife was desperate to obtain a few for her potions, and they were rare. According to her, they only grew during a full moon on the ninth day of September. Even so, she had warned him not to venture into the forest on this night, because, according to folklore, a pretty but wicked lady troll named Husminx would also be after them.

Lance didn't believe in trolls and all such nonsense. After all, despite his small stature, he was a man among men and didn't frighten easily. Right now though, he wished he'd brought a machete with him: just suppose there were such beings as trolls.

The clouds had begun to clear, and a bleached-white moon gave the wooded landscape an eerie glow. Alf had to admit, the forest had a freakish atmosphere that he'd never experienced before. Some small animal darted from a hole in the ground and ran around his boots. A flush of adrenaline tingled through his body, making him curse and kick out.

No need to get jumpy, he rebuked himself. This wasn't the first time he'd heard poppycock legends of trolls in these woods. But this was the twentieth century, not the dark ages. On this night, the only troll to stomp through the forest was the one he'd have to mimic himself, which is what he'd planned. He clenched his fists and bunched his muscles; Lance was about to witness the dreaded troll.

At long last he saw Lance leave his tent and grope his way into the forest. In his left hand, he carried the wicker basket, and in his right, a torch with a piercing beam. A fox howled somewhere close and Lance stopped dead. He shone his torch in all directions and Alf could see that his nostrils were open wide, as if to catch a whiff of danger. Ha! He doesn't feel so sure of himself now, thought Alf, and rubbed his hands with glee.

Alf followed Lance at a safe distance and glanced at his watch: five minutes to midnight. The moon had risen high and shone with an uncanny brightness. He watched as Lance shook the tension from his shoulders, shamble deeper into the trees, and then clamber to the top of a hillock known as Trollop Knoll.

Then, at precisely midnight, around Lance's feet, the moss-covered ground began to shift and rustle. Alf stared wide-eyed. Toadstools pushed up through the mulch, growing with unnatural speed and glowing with a soft fluorescence. When they had reached the size of saucers, Lance picked a few and placed them carefully in his basket. Within two minutes the basket was full.

Alf crept closer. He crossed a piece of spongy bog and hid behind the trunk of a large oak tree. Legend said that Merlin had stopped here once on Trollop Knoll and trimmed his beard, the little tufts of hair swallowed by the earth. Could that have something to do with the strange toadstools? wondered Alf. Twaddle!

And yet, Lance's wife, Sibyl, the Cloud Mansion's governess and self-proclaimed white witch, wanted the toadstools for her potions. Although Alf considered Sibyl a canny woman, with almost as much gumption as him, he worried she might poison someone with her brews. What worried Alf even more, was that Lance had actually found the toadstools: making the pompous little git a champion!

The best for all, reasoned Alf, is that Lance goes home empty-handed. Time to act a troll and put the fright of hell into him.

Alf didn't know what sound a troll might make: perhaps the deep-throated grunt of a bear, or the rumbling hiss of a crocodile, or the angry trump of an elephant? Could a troll speak, or at least utter basic words? He drew a sharp breath and let out a husky growl, the noise so hostile and ghastly that the hair on the back of his own neck rose.

Lance, who still stood atop Trollop Knoll, whipped his head around, tendons on his neck taut as rope. His mouth hung open and his eyes looked as though they would pop out: staring but not seeing. For a moment, Alf wondered if Lance had turned to stone, like an ugly gargoyle perched on the gutter of some ancient building.

Alf followed his success with the blubber and bawl of all the dangerous animals he could think of. He thought it best to reach a climax straight away; and what a climax it was. If any normal person had seen him, they would have carted him off to the loony bin. Leave - my - toadstools, he blabbered, and then lifted his chin and screamed like a wolf with a thorn in his paw.

Lance dropped both basket and torch, and dashed back to his tent, so fast, that dry leaves leapt into his slipstream and danced in the air behind him.

That goes to show what a chicken Lance is, thought Alf, laughing quietly into his hand. He strolled up onto Trollop Knoll and picked up the gardener's basket, still full of toadstools. After switching Lance's torch off, he slipped it into a pocket. In a day or two he'd give it back and challenge him with his cowardice.

Wispy clouds had gathered again, shading the moon and making the night dark, which was no problem for Alf. With his third eye, he could see as if it were the middle of the day.

A satisfied smile crossed Alf's face. If the toadstools were valuable, Sibyl would pay him well and appreciate how much braver he was than Lance. Not that there was any doubt. Yes, it had been worth his time to come out here tonight.

He crept back to his hiding place by the glen, opened his third eye, and gazed inside Lance's tent by the lake. The little man had drawn the zips tight and stood in the glow of a lamp. He'd buried his fingers in his hair and rocked on his feet like a boxer waiting for the bell. Despite the cold, sweat glistened on his brow.

The gutless man worries that the troll will follow and attack him in his tent, thought Alf. He chuckled, hunched his shoulders, and stomped to the campsite. Yes, unfortunately, trolls could be nasty at midnight this time of year. Time to give him one final dose of my troll impression. He bent forward, swung his arms like a gorilla, and clumped around the tent, scratching and kicking it; all the while screeching his cacophony of animal impressions. Acting the troll was more fun than he'd had in years.

When he next gazed into the tent, he figured Lance had endured enough. The wimp had fallen to his knees, head bent, hands