She beckoned to me with a crooked finger.
I stepped into her tent, dropping coins in a box.
Fanning the cards in front of me, she smiled an evil smile.
I chose a card then, hopefully, held it up.
She reached into the box and handed back my coins.
Candace Kubinec wrote this story.
The butterfly hit the windscreen, but rather than splatter on the glass it seemed to filter through into the car in a burst of colour, then just vanished and everything for a second was still.
He looked across at her, took her hand and smiled.
They were no longer afraid.
N.F. Barlow is an English writer living in Friuli, Italy.