Jessica A. McMinn

“They will be here before dawn,” Mayor Turncott said. He turned to Jacquelyn and gripped her by the shoulders. “You must take the boy and leave.”

Jacquelyn glanced down at the new born babe in her arms, swaddled warm in a woollen cloak.

“There’s a tunnel through the hills,” Turncott said. ‘Speak to the smithy. Tell him, ‘All the leaves have fallen,’ and he will show you the way. Follow the path until you reach the forest. And then, you don’t look back. Do you understand?”

Jacquelyn nodded. “I’ll protect him with my life.”

“No, my dear,” Turncott said gravely. “You are the Mother of Hope—it is you who must survive.”

A black business card tumbles to the floor as she’s slipping out of her bra. The man in the white tuxedo picks it up.

“Miss Murder,” he reads, loose-tied and champagne-drunk. “Named after the song.”

“No,” she says and reaches into her purse. “Named after me.”

One click and he was dead.

Judith checks the letter box twenty-five times a day and sometimes it’s still dark.

“Oh, I better check the mail,” she says, sitting down for a cuppa. Out she goes, down the front path, in her dressing gown and slippers.

“Morning Bob,” she waves.

Bob’s holding a stubby and paying the pizza delivery man. He gives an awkward nod and wave of his beer as Judith totters back inside.

Sitting down for a cuppa, Judith says, “Oh, I better check the mail. Might have bills to pay.”

Out she goes, down the path…