WELCOME

Hello and welcome to my virtual writing desk, over the years it changes, depending on what I'm writing at the time but I hope you will find links to my books, excerpts, short stories and posts about my writing progress.

Friday 15 December 2023

Inside the Quiet Spaces, Again

This collection of my poems, mainly written while living in Kent (UK), is now available as a Kindle Unlimited Edition with an updated cover featuring one of my pencil sketches. 

Click HERE for a free Kindle book preview.



The poems feature everyday events like trips to museums and beaches, family walks, garden observations and more personal poems dealing with dreams, thoughts and meditations. This is the second edition of this set and I have added a couple of extra poems which belong to this period of time.




Lockdown Flowers, sketched during the COVID pandemic, irises, forget-me-knots and dandelions.




Friday 27 October 2023

The Skeleton Key ( A Short Story for Halloween 2023)

 


By P L Herlihy. All rights reserved.

 

I stare at my palm; I have been gripping the key so tightly it’s left a perfect imprint there. Barrel, teeth, the ornate scrollwork. I rub my hand to get the blood returning and then turn my attention back to the estate agent, still fiddling with the heavy door lock, unable to open the front door.

‘I am so sorry; this normally does not happen! This house is very old and has been empty for some time, I think the door might be jammed…’ She jiggles the key again but the door does not budge.

‘Maybe if I try?’ I step up and take the key from her hand and then, with my back blocking the agent’s view, I swap it for my key. It fits the lock and I can feel the tumblers move sweetly under the key’s turn. The lock clicks and the door slowly sweeps open, dry hinges squeaking in protest as it moves. I hand the estate agent back her key and pocket mine.

‘Oh well done! There’s always a knack to these old locks. You clearly have made friends already with the old place! I shall take that as a good sign. Now don’t forget your hard hat, the roof is not in the best repair. Let’s see if I can find some lights. Ahh, here we are!’

I settle the bright yellow hard hat firmly on my head and, taking a deep breath of the chill autumn air, I step inside the house.

I can barely remember a time in my life before the key. It sat on the rich red velvet lining inside its ornately carved little oakwood box, demanding my attention. While my great-aunt owned it, it wore a bright red silk bow and stayed where she had put it, on her dressing table, out of harm’s way. A pretty trinket for me to play with as a child.

‘Now you mind young lady, that key does not fit any of the locks in this house so don’t try it. I don’t want to have to call a locksmith out to fix it if you jam up a lock. I will deduct the cost from your visit treats. It will mean no sweets for a year!’

‘What lock does it fit aunt?’ But she is always too busy to answer my question. Busy talking to my parents and making tea. Adult conversations that drift over my head and leave me free to run and play.

At the far end of my aunt’s garden is an old greenhouse. Layers of flaking white paint on a rusted metal frame holding up jagged glass panes, like snaggly teeth over a pair of old potting table gums. The glass panes are green with algae and the potting tables sag under the weight of stacked up clay pots and dusty cobwebs. Brambles crowd the brick walls below the frame and catch at my socks. I figure if the key isn’t for any of the doors in the house, maybe it is for the greenhouse door, the lock looks as old as the key to me.

I make sure the adults are busy, absorbed with their tea and talk and then I take the key on its red ribbon from the pocket of my shorts and carefully turn it in the lock. The door to the greenhouse opens and I step inside. The scent of tomatoes almost knocks me over. Tall green stems, arching with prickly leaves, have great trusses of red tomatoes spilling over the deep boxes they are growing in. At the far end of the greenhouse I can see my Aunt, not shrunk with age, but young and tall, tying in the trusses with deft movements. I stumble slightly and trip backwards, falling back out of the greenhouse and landing in a patch of nettles by the door. I can still see inside at the clean glass windowpanes, the freshly painted frame, the riot of tomatoes.

‘Time to go home!’ The shout from my mother reaches me at the end of the garden and I grab the key from the door and turn, running as fast as I can to return it before anyone notices it is gone from the house. My legs sting from the nettles and my head whirls with what I’ve just seen. I glance back at the greenhouse but it is the empty, broken, snaggly teeth frame it usually is.

Thirty years later the key sits in its little carved box on the desk in my study.  The ribbon has long since frayed and broken and has been replaced with a sturdy silver watchchain. The key was left to me by my great-aunt but she never once told me it’s secret and I never once told her I knew. Now I know it was not just the key to the greenhouse lock but to any door lock with a bit of age to it. A way to glimpse a past beyond it, step back in time to whatever happened behind that door. Sometimes a few years, sometimes centuries.

I have seen so many moments from so many lives that I started writing them all down. My study is lined with an impressive set of notebooks, chronicling every door, every vision. And I write stories flowing from these visions imagining the lives from the scenes I see. Of course I have to be careful, never visit the same estate agent again after I’ve viewed the property I’m interested in. Make sure security cameras don’t catch me when touring stately homes and old houses on open days. Abandoned factories, castle ruins, museum visits, even high street shops and hotels can have old doors. I have written several bestsellers, volumes of ghost stories and have a yearly lecture tour on the history of domestic interiors. I am a success and I have the key to my success with me in my pocket.

The house I have chosen to view today is a grand Victorian townhouse, set back in its own grounds on a tree-lined avenue in a country town. I have chosen it deliberately after taking some time to research my family’s history. My publishers want to me write my autobiography and so I thought I would start with a little research. This was the house where my great-aunt was born. I have travelled for a few hours to get there but the estate agent can understand why a move from the city to the country is right for me now. With my large glasses, nondescript raincoat and a scarf covering my hair she does not recognise me. Or maybe she’s never read one of my books, either way, the hard hat completes my disguise today.

I breathe out and my breath hangs in the icy air in front of me, fogging up my glasses momentarily. I glance back at the doorway where the estate agent is still standing, perfectly still, hand on the light switch, frozen in time. I move forward, the house is warm, furniture stands polished, windows reflecting candlelight. I hear a noise and turn to find an old lady descending the grand staircase, one hand gripping the banister, the other gripping a silver-topped bamboo walking stick. She stares at me as though she can see me and then asks. ‘Is that you, Viola, where have you been? I have been waiting for so long. Your supper will be quite ruined. Your parents are expecting you to say goodnight!’

I am taken aback. Firstly, can this old lady see me and secondly, Viola was my great-aunt’s name. Before I can think about what to do next the old lady reaches me and deftly slips a hand into my raincoat pocket, retrieving the key on its silver chain. ‘Ahah! I thought as much! Here it is as usual, it is not your plaything Viola. This is my key!’ The old lady scolds, clipping the key back onto her chatelaine while raising the bamboo cane and whacking me on the leg with a practised hand before I can move out of the way. The cane makes stinging contact and, like the first time I used the key all those years ago, I stumble backwards in shock and fall back through the open door; sprawling on the wide stone steps leading up to the porch.

‘Oh my dear! Are you OK?’ the estate agent reaches out a hand. ‘I’m afraid these old houses can be such a nightmare to show round, trip hazards everywhere. Are you hurt? I didn’t see you stumble; I was just turning on the lights…’

‘I’m fine, really, just caught my foot on the doorframe. Clumsy really. No honestly, I’m fine.’ I tap the hard hat to reassure her and glance beyond her into the house but it is lit with the bright glow of modern lightbulbs and I can see peeling wallpaper and bare wooden floorboards. I check my raincoat pocket but there is no key there. I search the steps around me but there is no sign of it. I scramble to my feet and check all my pockets but there is only my phone, my purse and a train ticket. The key is gone.

‘Are you sure are OK? Have you lost something?’

‘Oh! No, no it’s here.’ I retrieve my train ticket and wave it at her, ‘Thought I’d lost it for a moment.’

‘Well, if you really are OK shall we carry on, I have a viewing straight after this across town.’

I nod and follow the estate agent into the house, not sure now there will be anything more to see.

 

The End

Wednesday 25 October 2023

Seasonal Treat! free Kindle eBook this weekend.

This weekend, from Saturday 28/10/23 to Monday 30/10/23
Welcome to Whispering Ravine (a science fiction horror short story) will be free to download as an Amazon Kindle book.


Just click on this link to get to the Amazon page this weekend.


Tuesday 24 October 2023

Amulet of Tears Book One Paperback Now Available; Book Two update





Book Two of this series is underway and I'm pleased to be on Chapter Two already, it's great to revisit these characters and plot the next steps on their adventures. 

I'm also delighted to say you can now buy Book One as a paperback on Amazon: you can find it here:


or click on book cover in the sidebar.















Wednesday 21 June 2023

Space Zombie Holiday and Sil's Bar updated for 2023

I'm really pleased to have designed and updated the covers and edited the content on these two short stories. You can find them both available as Kindle Unlimited Editions across a range of Amazon platforms and my next step will be to publish the two together as a paperback later in the year. You can find them on my author page, P L Herlihy, in the Amazon Kindle section or click on the images and follow the links below.





Sil's Bar (Space Zombie Holidays Book 2) eBook : Herlihy, P L: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store














Monday 15 May 2023

New release! Welcome to Whispering Ravine

 


Ned and Jenny Gilbrand are rangers who patrol the High Moor above Torcombe Bay on the Bristol Channel. Ned has long been fascinated by the Whispering Ravine, a hidden valley on the moor that runs to the coast and its mysterious wreckers past. Then, a storm unexpectedly rolls in, trapping a group of hikers and kayakers in the ravine overnight and, before the rangers can reach them, the storm turns into something much, much worse as the secret of the Whispering Ravine is revealed...

A science fiction and horror short story now available on Amazon Kindle Unlimited here.

Saturday 8 April 2023

Now you can follow my Author page on Facebook for updates and short stories



I am delighted to say you can now find my Author page on Facebook where I will post up links to my books on Amazon, write the occasional short story or flash fiction and keep you updated with story progress. Just click on the link image above or the link below:

P L Herlihy | Facebook