SHADE AND SHADOW 

Visiting her deceased mother’s ancestral home in the Low Country of South Carolina,  Randy hears about two decades-old mysteries that still haunt the family. First, there’s her elder aunt’s twin sister, who vanished over forty years ago. Then there’s the matter of her uncle’s wife, who committed suicide in the treacherous marsh behind the somber old house. Randy decides to delve into the family secrets. If nothing more, it’ll help pass the time. The only trouble is, someone in the old house doesn’t want these secrets uncovered. He or she would even kill to keep them hidden.

                           CENTAURI SERENADE 

Dreams of a colorful sea world, where music fills the senses like the very air, plague Annie Wren. She finds herself yearning for a place she is certain cannot exist: a world far beyond hers in the awful infinity of space. Annie is convinced that sometime in her past, something utterly inconceivable happened. Consumed with this bizarre realization, she finds it more and more difficult to keep calm, keep focused. How does one talk about something like alien abduction without being laughed at or thought insane?

WIND WHISPERER  

I'd almost made it around the mammoth trunk when I spotted it. A place large enough for a person to fit in. Above my head—higher than I could reach—a gaping hole about four feet high and two feet wide waited in mute testimony to the inexplicable. I had to climb up the twisting roots—find toeholds and places to grab—before I could get a look inside. A tree-cave. The "floor" consisted of decayed wood, moss and lichens, and felt spongy under my feet. In fact, I got the willies thinking I could sink right through; never getting out.

Hannah and her cousin, Jonah, take a walk into a primeval world of shadows and awsome silence. One behemoth tree snags their attention. A staggering facsimile of a cedar, it stands on octopus-like legs—caused by roots grown from seeds, germinating on a decomposing log—and draws them  like a moth to a flame. Jonah, taking a closer look finds an amazing hollow area in the tree, large enough for a man to stand in. He eagerly climbs up the twisting, serpentine roots, and disappears.