Angels

Leo McNeir
Works of: Fiction

Four short novellas, different from each other in content, but linked by a single theme as works of fiction. Some might say they are dark tales. They are certainly sinister.

The first novella, ‘Love of the Dead’, begins with a difficult – perhaps unanswerable – question, which becomes an obsession for the central male protagonist. He tries desperately to come to terms with it, but in his weakened state of health he struggles even to make it from one day to the next. As the story arrives at its unexpected conclusion, the central character believes he has resolved one mystery, but has he answered the question posed at the beginning? That is his hope, but it is really for the reader to judge, if that is possible.

The second novella, ‘Scarlet Woman’, has at its heart a strange alliance between two women, who would not normally find themselves in harmony with each other. These strange bedfellows are thrown together by circumstances which neither could have foreseen, but which for both of them is a mutual interest. When a third woman enters their lives, neither is prepared for the repercussions that follow. Is she what she seems? Does she have a hidden agenda? Nothing about her is clear, though her manner is calm and unthreatening. Is she in fact a scarlet woman at all? She is certainly a mystery.

The third novella, ‘Black Widows’, brings together a group of women united both by grief at their bereavement and by a strange circumstance which gradually reveals itself to their complete surprise. Someone in the background is manipulating their lives, and they have reason to believe that this has been going on for some considerable time. In fact, they come to suspect that the situation is still continuing. There seems to be nothing they can do to remedy what has happened in the past. But can they make an impact on what is happening in the present?

The fourth novella. ‘For ever and ever’, describes an unhappy situation that arises when one member of a family sets out, for various reasons, to destroy another member. A plan which seemed initially perfect, at least from one person’s point of view, is suddenly turned into a nightmare when the principal beneficiary of the plan has a change of mind and seeks to undo everything retrospectively. The technique employed is to try to turn every other member of the family against one person. However, another member of the family, who is supposedly dead, decides to intervene with deadly effect, aiming to remedy the situation once and for all … and for ever.