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    Tales from the Puzzle Store
    Tales from the Puzzle Store
    Tales from the Puzzle Store
    Ebook82 pages1 hour

    Tales from the Puzzle Store

    By Richard Freeborn

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In the spirit of classic science fiction, Tales from the Puzzle Store takes you to places and times both strange and unexpected.
    Mac's career concentrated on absolutes. What he could see, feel and touch. Without his help, Mac's store rescues those who need help, leaving him to explain the unexplainable.
    When life upends you, and even when it doesn't, take a trip to the Puzzle Store. Browse the shelves and see if a puzzle picks you, just as it does in the five original stories first published in this collection.

    • The Tolling Bell
    • The Turbulent Priest
    • The Pirate Puzzle
    • A Woman Who Dared
    • Pieces of Silver

    Tales from the Puzzle Store ensures you'll never look at jigsaw puzzles the same way again

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRichard Freeborn
    Release dateMar 2, 2021
    ISBN9781393585626
    Tales from the Puzzle Store
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      Book preview

      Tales from the Puzzle Store - Richard Freeborn

      Tales from the Puzzle Store

      Tales from the Puzzle Store

      Richard Freeborn

      Contents

      Introduction

      The Tolling Bell

      One

      Two

      Three

      The Turbulent Priest

      One

      Two

      Three

      The Pirate Puzzle

      One

      Two

      Three

      A Woman Who Dared

      One

      Two

      Three

      Pieces of Silver

      One

      Two

      Three

      About the Author

      Also by Richard Freeborn

      For Jackie

      Introduction

      You know how your footsteps echo in those concrete stairwells that lead from the parking lot to the inside of the building and make you wonder if someone else is in there with you?

      Between Christmas 2020 and New Year's 2021, I had that experience. As I reached the landing midway between floors, I looked up to find the other person there. No-one. Then I looked down.

      Lying close to the railing and almost hidden in the covering of dust and grime was a single lonely piece from a jigsaw puzzle.

      My first thought was how upset someone was going to be when they finished the puzzle and found a piece missing. It’s happened to me. A single missing piece shouldn’t stop you from seeing the overall picture but does.

      My second thought was, Don’t touch it!

      I wasn’t worried about contamination or exposure to something contagious.

      Inside my head was the idea that once I touched the puzzle piece, it would transport me into another world or dimension, and that remote watcher I imagined I’d heard in the stairwell above would claim another victim.

      Senior moment? my wife asked with raised eyebrows as she stepped round me and onto the second flight up, her flip-flops echoing up and down the stairwell.

      I followed her, and in my head the piece of jigsaw followed me.

      Suppose that puzzle piece acts as a portal to take you somewhere else? Where would that place be?

      Why pick me? Why choose you?

      The idea germinated for a few days, and I wrote a story that became Pieces of Silver. The finished story ended up taking place in a puzzle store on the Florida panhandle with a central character who needed a reset in his life, even though he didn’t realize it until the end.

      Once I had Pieces of Silver completed, I wondered how Mac came to own the store, and began that story.

      Something like two thousand words in, I realized it wasn’t working. Only Travis McGee wins big things in card games, and I didn’t like the person Mac was becoming. Mac wasn’t the same man as in Pieces of Silver, and the story didn’t quite fit the idea I had that he needed something resolved in his life.

      I put that attempt in the discard for now and look at later folder and started again.

      This time the story flowed a lot better. It came out much as I hoped, and The Tolling Bell tells how Mac comes to own The Puzzle Store.

      These two stories bookend Tales from the Puzzle Store, and in between are three more never published stories that take you to England, California, and the Mediterranean.

      And if you’re ever driving along I-98 between Destin and Santa Rosa Beach in Florida, keep an eye on the south side of the highway. Mac doesn’t have a sign up, but you’ll recognize the building, and he’s always got coffee brewing.

      You never know what you might find there.

      The Tolling Bell

      One

      I’d played a solo round of golf as the sun came up, hitting the ball through the light mist and dew-soaked grass, and watching the resort slowly come to life. I grabbed a coffee from the urn in the pro-shop, then got in the car and drove west along I-98, leaving Miramar Beach behind and going with the flow until I got to the Alabama state line.

      By that time the coffee was cold, and I’d driven eighty miles without being fully aware of my surroundings.

      I’d done that a lot in the last three months. Living in a haze like the mist blurring the greens that morning. It will take time, the doctor had said, but he hadn’t held his dead wife in his arms. I parked in the lot of a restaurant and sat watching the low slow rollers come up the Gulf and curl lazily onto the narrow strip of sand the restaurant advertised as a beach.

      After I’d laid Beth to rest and dealt with all the legal and administrivia that goes with the death of a spouse, my life was empty and without purpose. I’d been fortunate enough to step away from regular day-to-day work four years ago, and now I wondered why. Not that I wanted to go back to it. The industry had changed and technology had moved beyond my desire to catch up.

      A pair of gulls cruised the surf line, floating along on the breeze. They spotted something, folded their wings and dived, barely making a splash as they entered the water. I envied their purpose, even if it was just for food. On cue, my stomach growled, reminding me that cold coffee wasn’t a good source of nutrition.

      I didn’t want to stop and eat so compromised with a chicken sandwich from a drive-thru and managed not to dribble mayo on my

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