Author Archives: lizziebarratt

My ex-husband wasn’t stupid when I married him, but he became so through dogged determination and years of practice. I have no idea why he chose such a project, unless it was because he knew he could succeed. In the end, he blamed our failed marriage on a haunted house. I suppose it was inevitableContinue reading “Haunted”

We all lived close to each other, in the community. There were no predators in paradise but we were alert, nonetheless. In our sightless world, we found our way with sounds and clicks, with shapes that loomed when they came close to us, dark grey on light grey and grey on black. We knotted longContinue reading “Normal”

Let’s start with once upon a time. Once. Once upon a time, once upon an island, once upon the shining sea. Once under a silver-grey sky, once there lived a child and once that child was me. I lived on a hill crowned with an abbey so large that the rest of the town gatheredContinue reading “Once”

The owl hovered high up, its brown wings stretched wide as if to gather all the air towards it. Susanna knew it would have a white mask for a face and darting, hungry eyes but all she could see from this angle was the sun flickering and flashing between the feathers as it turned. SheContinue reading “Where the bee sucks”

Long ago before the Thaw, when I was just a cub and the Queen ruled at Cair Paravel, and all was right with the world, I met Her Majesty. Narnia was so beautiful then. The snow was crisp and deep and lay in soft drifts so that you could walk and tumble for miles andContinue reading “Snow Queen”

Driverless cars were fashionable when I was a child. I was lucky enough to have forward-thinking parents who bought one of the first mass-produced models, so that, while my peers were all working towards their licenses, I was already mobile. It made me briefly popular, and I got invited to parties. When eventually I rememberedContinue reading “The muster”

‘Call me Cindy.’ She tried it out in the mirror; off-hand, with a bored sideways look, then coy, then direct. She wasn’t especially convinced by any of them. Would he be? ‘Hi, I’m Ella. Nice to meet you.’ Ella. Cindy. Cinda. Rella. Should she just try her full, over the top, embarrassing name? ‘Cindarella’s myContinue reading “Glass slippers”

She stood in her kitchen in the low light of a winter morning, waiting for the kettle to finish. Outside, the world was waiting to be formed. River mist filled the valleys. The sleeping hills were still. Dawn crept, silently, towards the horizon. In her bare feet, she felt the cold of it entering herContinue reading “Wild and precious”

My grandmother once told me that she was homesick for the past. It was before I was married; I didn’t even know what homesickness was. The past is like a place, she told me. There are people there that you love. Your body feels familiar, there. The air smells like home. No-one is missing andContinue reading “The Trap of Time”

Detective Johns arrived late to the scene. Evening had come and gone sometime during his last interrogation; he’d entered the dusty grey meeting room in daylight but when he walked out again, the streets were dark, and the sky was the colour of a fresh bruise. Another day over. How many did he have left?Continue reading “Crime scene”