Missteps Perfecting the Shutterbug Strut by J.L. Michael

Author:J.L. Michael
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: 1920s adventure, female heroine quirky, offbeat fiction, 1920s historical fiction, adventure photography fiction
Publisher: Swanky Owl Press
Published: 2022-08-21T00:00:00+00:00

THE LIFESPAN OF A SNOWFLAKE in England was briefer and less mischievous than a poorly timed wink. As they walked the muddied grounds, Gunnar comprehended Alexandra’s account of how high the snow piled Montana. He had fought in Galicia, battling Russians and Romanians as a soldier in the Alpenkorps, and knew what a Carpathian winter looked and bit like. Alexandra could attain little sense of the fair-haired, enigmatic German. She had experienced the Great War still a child, reading about the Huns’ “Rape of Belgium.” Maturity had opened her eyes that the world was not as black and white as newspaper ink would have one believe, and that yellow journalism would stoop to no bounds to pry a daily nickel from a pocket. With each step shared with Gunnar, she became better aware that it might serve her interest for them to be allies rather than foes.

The property spread four acres. She jumped a small creek, needing to grasp Gunnar’s hand to avoid sliding off the far bank. She briefly hugged him during the conclusion of his rescue. After holding her stare into his reassuring blue eyes, she blushed and pulled away.

“Your wife seems a very spirited sort,” she noted. “Whyever did you agree to join in on this?”

“It sounded like a more interesting setting to play Parcheesi.”

Alexandra was finding some wry humor in him. The board game was religion in India and catching on in England. “Your friendship with Will is most unexpected, seeing that he pierced you with a bayonet. How does one reconcile that?”

“He could not pull it out, despite many kicks to my chest,” Gunnar recalled, amused. “When it finally popped free, with I left helpless, he looked me in the eye and let me live. A shell hit nearby, and then his arm landed next to me. Will helped me quit morphine. Simra patched me up. One does not easily forget.”

Alexandra smiled. “I suspect all of you are helping my brother with something very secretive.”

“He’s looking for a woman in France that...” Gunnar paused. “It’s not my affair to tell.”

They came to a shuddered summer house at the end of the property and headed back for the rectory along a stone wall. Alexandra jumped over the creek and stopped dead in her tracks.

A dark emptiness blurred the snowfall. A shadowy nothingness shaped in the silhouette of a woman. It was not imagined, as Gunnar had taken his cigarette from his lips to stare with alarm. Alexandra aimed her camera and managed a snapshot before the figure faded away. According to the report, this path was dubbed the “Nun’s walk.”

“We should return to the rectory,” Alexandra said, unnerved. “It’s none too holy out here.”

After warming up by the drawing room fireplace, Alexandra set up in a corner her mounted Victorian Hasselblad camera. Once night fell, attaining any photographs chasing ghosts within the house would be infeasible. A strategy was molded to lure any roaming spirits to her. She had no experience in using flash powder and reasoned an equal chance it would work out splendidly or spark an uncontrollable fire.

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