Storied Endings
From Pulp Literature Issue 45, find the finale of Mel Anastasiou‘s paranormal mystery Take My Hand. Enjoy the first pages of the last instalment, ‘Enter Night’, below.
Here’s where we last left off:
It’s April 1991. Jamie Stewart, a night orderly in a city hospital, is pursued by the criminal Churley family, who long ago adopted her and now intend to recapture and imprison her. Hiding should be easier under cover of darkness—but night brings possession by Casey’s ghost, whose death at university back in 1937 robbed him of a future he’s determined to get back. When Casey makes a break for the past—with living kid Dylan in tow—and the Churleys close in, Jamie’s escape could cost her everything she cares about, including her new love Wes.
Take My Hand
Part 4: Enter Night
by Mel Anastasiou
Chapter 1 1
Wes paid for parking in the lot nearest the emergency entrance. He found Jamie cross-legged on the floor with her back against the wall of the crowded waiting room, with her spiral bound notebook open on her lap, writing. He slid down the wall to sit beside her. She turned the page and filled it swiftly with the ghost’s round handwriting.
He’d seen her in this state before, and her hard-edged isolation chilled him now as it had the last time he’d watched Casey’s ghost use her to tell his story.
Once the left-hand page was completed, Jamie’s hand slid her pen over to the top of the right. In a new development, the spirit’s writing appeared a little less careful than usual. Casey’s spirit was sacrificing legibility for speed.
Wes leaned closer and scanned the writing. Casey, through Jamie, was describing the door he saw as a threat to his existence: the light that cut, the voices that tempted him to open it into oblivion. Before Wes could read further, Jamie looked up and stretched out her legs. Her right hand moved restlessly, doodling words in the air.
A woman hurried through the crowded waiting room and nearly stumbled over Jamie’s legs. She crossed them again.
Jamie said, “Casey does some of this air writing when I stop, like when I phoned you. If I keep calm, he might even let me go to the bathroom.”
“What a guy.” Wes lifted one eyebrow.
Jamie smiled at him.
He had to remember, later, to tell her that this was the exact moment he began the rest of his life. But all he said was, “You must be exhausted. Do you want to leave? Maybe he’ll let you write in my car.”
“I’m fine where I am. I don’t dare move. You must have a book with you.”
He nodded. He always had a book.
“Then, if you’ll wait for me, we can read what I’m writing later on.”
Her gaze turned inward, and her pen found the paper again.
Read the rest in Pulp Literature Issue 45, Winter 2025!
Mel Anastasiou writes the Fairmount Manor Mysteries, the Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries, and the Monument Studios Mysteries. Winner of a Literary Titan Gold award and shortlisted for the Leacock Medal, Mel is also the author of two illustrated thirty-day workbooks on story structure: the steampunk-themed The Writer’s Boon Companion and The Writer’s Friend and Confidante. For news on published and upcoming works, visit her website, melanastasiou.wordpress.com.
Leave a Reply