Chronicles of molly, p.1
Chronicles of Molly, page 1
Chronicles of Molly
Kerrigan Memoirs, Volume 4
W.J. May
Published by Dark Shadow Publishing, 2022.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
CHRONICLES OF MOLLY
First edition. June 20, 2022.
Copyright © 2022 W.J. May.
ISBN: 979-8201220563
Written by W.J. May.
Copyright 2022 by W.J. May
THIS BOOK IS LICENSED for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
All rights reserved.
Chronicles of Molly
Book 4 of the Kerrigan Memoirs
Copyright 2022 by W.J. May
Cover design by: Book Cover by Design
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.
Kerrigan Memoirs Series
The Chronicles of:
Devon
Angel
Julian
Molly
Gabriel
Rae
Have You Read the C.o.K Series?
The Prequel series is a Sub-Series of the Chronicles of Kerrigan.
The prequel on how Simon Kerrigan met Beth!!
Download for FREE:
THE CHRONICLES OF KERRIGAN: PREQUEL –
Christmas Before the Magic
Question the Darkness
Into the Darkness
Fight the Darkness
Alone in the Darkness
Lost the Darkness
THE CHRONICLES OF KERRIGAN
Book I - Rae of Hope is FREE!
Book Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gILAwXxx8MU
Book II - Dark Nebula
Book Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca24STi_bFM
Book III - House of Cards
Book IV - Royal Tea
Book V - Under Fire
Book VI - End in Sight
Book VII – Hidden Darkness
Book VIII – Twisted Together
Book IX – Mark of Fate
Book X – Strength & Power
Book XI – Last One Standing
Book XII – Rae of Light
THE CHRONICLES OF KERRIGAN SEQUEL
Matter of Time
Time Piece
Second Chance
Glitch in Time
Our Time
Precious Time
The Chronicles of Kerrigan: Gabriel
Living in the Past
Present for Today
Staring at the Future
Kerrigan Chronicles
Book 1 – Stopping Time
Book 2 – A Passage of Time
Book 3 – Ticking Clock
Book 4 – Just in Time
Book 5 – Time in the City
Book 6 – Ultimate Future
The Kerrigan Kids Series
Book 1 - School of Potential
Book 2 - Myths & Magic
Book 3 - Kith & Kin
Book 4 - Playing With Power
Book 5 - Line of Ancestry
Book 6 - Descent of Hope
Book 7 – Illusion of Shadows
Book 8 – Frozen by the Future
Book 9 – Guilt of My Past
Book 10 – Demise of Magic
Book 11- Rise of the Prophecy
Book 12 – Deafened by the Past
Find W.J. May
Website:
https://www.wjmaybooks.com
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Chronicles of Molly
THE PROVERBS SAY THAT absence makes the heart grow fonder. But sometimes the proverbs get it wrong.
Molly Skye has the life she always dreamed of. A ritzy penthouse in the city. A child she adores. A best friend to share in all her magical adventures, and a gorgeous husband waiting in her bed.
But the problem with dreams, is they vanish when it's time to wake up.
When Molly gets an urgent call from her mother, she's forced to return to the family home relocated in Scotland. But things have never been easy between the two women, and when tensions erupt between them, it's unlikely the little rural town will ever be the same.
A surprise visitor arrives to the cool those fiery tempers, but when a massive prison break shakes the foundations of the Privy Council, all bets are off. The friends make plans to race back to London, only to discover they aren't the only ones in Scotland and that trouble has already arrived.
What happens when the old world collides with the new? When the dust finally settles, will there be anything that survives? Maybe those proverbs got one thing right after all.
One way or another...there's no place like home.
Contents
Kerrigan Memoirs Series
Have You Read the C.o.K Series?
The Chronicles of Kerrigan: Gabriel
Kerrigan Chronicles
The Kerrigan Kids Series
Find W.J. May
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
The Chronicles of Gabriel
JULIAN’S COVER QUESTION
Kerrigan Memoirs Series
The Kerrigan Kids Series
TUDOR COMPARISON:
Find W.J. May
The Chronicles of Kerrigan
PREQUEL –
SEQUEL –
The Chronicles of Kerrigan: Gabriel
More books by W.J. May
Chapter 1
“Molly Elizabeth...Fodder.”
The girl perched on a chair in front of the vanity, studying her reflection with a curious expression, like she was trying it on for size. Long ripples of crimson hair cascaded down her back, and despite the fact that she wasn’t wearing anything more than a bathrobe, her tiny feet had been strapped into a pair of lethal stilettos. She rested her chin upon her hands, letting out a quiet sigh.
There was a stack of papers on the desk behind her—the stuff she usually avoided. Intake forms and other logistics. They had all been completed. But the line at the top was left blank.
Molly Elizabeth...?
The door opened and shut behind her. Despite all her training, despite the fact that she was sitting in front of a mirror, she didn’t notice. Her bright eyes had glassed over, and her gaze was fixed in the middle distance. The delicate point of her chin was imprinted into her hand.
“Nice legs.”
She whipped around, then lowered her gaze.
If she hadn’t spent the last few years living in the firm grip of the surreal and fantastical, she might have second-guessed her own ears. If she hadn’t spent the last few years raising a now seven-year-old boy, she might have wondered how a talking robot had found its way into her room.
She leaned closer, hands on her knees. “Excuse me?”
It stared back without expression, dented along the brow where Benji had used it as a shovel in an attempt to tunnel into the neighbor’s backyard. The mouth glowed and it creaked up a hand.
“Take it off.”
...my leg?
She lifted her eyebrows slowly and the robot glitched, like something had struck it across the face. A second later, it tried again, lowering those mechanical eyes to look her up and down.
“Your clothes,” it corrected. “Take off your clothes.”
What in the world?
Those years of training had given an edge to all her natural instincts, and a voice piped up in the back of her mind advising that this aluminum nightmare was most likely winding up to kill her.
But a rising suspicion quelled those dangerous thoughts, curving her lips with a smile. She pushed up from the chair and bent over so they were the same height, hands on her knees.
“You want me to take off my clothes?” she repeated lightly. “Is that what you dream about at night, you little creep? When we plug you into the wall to recharge?”
The robot had been a necessary incursion into the already impossible chaos of the happy little house. When a boy at Benji’s school had brought one for show-and-tell, he’d embarked upon an Irish hunger-strike until he’d gotten one for himself. After the second day finding him swaying dizzily in the confines of his closet, his parents had capitulated and ordered one of the approximate size and color. It was a decision they’d bitterly regretted almost every day since.
Her question went unanswered, as the robot stood before her with a blank stare. For a split second, she was convinced it had lost power. Then it capsized in a bizarre curtsy.
“Fair maiden,” it responded in a flat-monotone, “tell me of your dreams.” There was a pause as those yellow eyes fixed upon her face. “Or maybe you want music-time?”
The robot then attempted to dance.
I can’t un-see this...
She watched a few seconds, armed with the dreadful knowledge that this would most likely not be the strangest part of her day. Then it lifted its arms with a final instruction.
“Applause.”
That’s it.
Without another word, she stepped over the tiny machine and out into the hallway, taking only a moment to gauge her options, before yanking open the closet to find her husband kneeling on the floor. His head whipped up in alarm, and he hastened to hide the remote he’d been holding behind his back. When she reached for the tiny camera, he panicked and shoved it into his mouth.
She folded her arms slowly, flashing a dangerous smile. “Honey, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about a pervy robot hitting on me, would you?”
Demanding amputations and stripping.
“Some pervy robot is hitting on you?” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet and moving slight back, away from the camera. “I’ll kick its arse!” He raised both fists, before flashing the world’s most adorable smile. “Unless...you wanted music-time... with me, after all?” He lifted his eyebrows invitingly, swaying his hips in an absurd approximation of whatever dance the robot had been attempting to do itself. “We could always keep that option open—”
She jumped into his arms.
“How are you so freaking cute?” she demanded, kissing him wildly and wrapping her legs around his waist. “And weird, Luke! You’re SO freaking weird!”
He let out a breathless laugh, anchoring a hand behind her head, while kicking the door shut behind them. The closet wasn’t incredibly spacious, it was used mostly for storing extra winter clothes and linens, but they’d repurposed it for this sort of thing before. They had regular grips for balance, regular places to wedge their feet. They’d gotten it down to a science, except—
“Ow!” Luke jerked back suddenly as the heel of her stiletto dug into his leg. “Why in the world are you wearing those? Didn’t you just get out of the shower?”
She glanced down with a flush, having forgotten all about them, then lifted her leg with a mischievous smile—notching one of those lethal points behind his neck. “What...these?”
He caught his breath, running his fingers down the length of her leg. “I’ll never understand how you can stretch like that—”
“Spy school,” she interrupted flatly, staring at him all the while. “I enrolled in spy school, just to learn how to stretch like that. They taught me all sorts of tricks, gave me all sorts of cars...”
His eyes twinkled with silent laughter.
“Don’t,” he warned, biting playfully at her neck. “You know I can’t talk about cars when we’re like this. It’s overwhelming, I start to get faint...”
She did know. Last year at Christmas, she’d taken a picture of herself in her birthday suit, lying atop the hood of his favorite convertible, and slipped it into his stocking. He’d taken a single look, crossed himself, then vanished to ‘check on the air filters.’ He hadn’t returned for a long time.
“I just can’t stop thinking about them,” she whispered into his ear, slipping her fingers into the top of his pants. “The twin-turbo engines, the superchargers, the ignition control...”
He leaned back suddenly, looking profoundly touched. “Honey, did you learn all those things for me?”
Her eyes danced with mischief. “Oh, I’ve learned all sorts of things for you. Come here”—she pulled him a back again, biting his lower lip—“let me show you—”
The closet door flew open.
“There’s something wrong with my robot!”
The couple detached with a gasp, frantically pulling their clothes back together, as a furious red-haired boy glowered in the hall. He’d never understood why his parents sometimes disappeared into the closet. He wondered if they were checking for mice and ventured in by himself on occasion, looking for the same. But such curiosities were no longer of concern. The child had been sabotaged.
“Benji, can you just—” Luke raked back his hair, trying desperately to re-button the top of his pants. “Can you just wait in the living room? I’ll be there in a second—”
“It’s angry with me!” the boy interrupted, thrusting the robot between them. “When I tried to feed it breakfast, it told me to take off my ears!”
There was a pause.
“I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding.”
“Why were you feeding it breakfast?”
There were a few seconds of silence, wherein each of them replayed the last few sentences and the boy worried that he might have overplayed his hand. He shot a bracing look at his parents, still lodged awkwardly amidst the spare bedding, before bolting full-speed for the kitchen, sensing that if he didn’t manage to feed the robot now, he might never get a chance again.
The couple shared a panicked look, then scrambled after him.
“Benji, you get back here...” Molly trailed off in horror, sliding to a stop on the marble floor.
It had only been a few minutes that the child had been left unattended. Only a few minutes, yet the house had been transformed. Ribbons of toilet paper had been strung like garlands from the chandelier. A herd of dinosaurs had taken up residence upon the couch. There was a potted plant on the kitchen counter that she had never seen before, while the toaster was full of—
“Is that shaving cream?”
She reached out a tentative finger, and Benji let out a plaintive wail.
“It’s lava for my ice-monsters! Don’t touch it!”
Her eyes lifted slowly, falling on the interrogation chamber just beyond. At one end of the kitchen hung a noose made of designer neckties. Beside it lay a plate of untouched biscuits.
It seemed the robot had been given a choice.
“Benji, what did I tell you about putting magnets on the...” Luke trailed into silence, his bright eyes sweeping around the house. “...elevator.”
It had been a difficult adjustment, moving from the sparseness of a sixteenth century monastery, into the whimsical decadence of his wife’s penthouse. The walls had been covered in gilded mirrors and paintings. His clothes had been relocated to the attic to make room for her shoes.
It had been another adjustment when they’d had a child. Those same shoes were often covered in stickers. Everything else had been moved above the reach of seven-year-old hands.
A shock to the system, yet he was often called upon to be the voice of ‘reason’ in the house, to rein in his high-spirited, fire-haired family and provide a dose of sanity to keep things afloat.
“Lucas...do something.”
After triaging in terms of urgency, he paced toward the kitchen and unplugged the toaster from the wall. Then he dipped his fingers into the cream...and smashed it into his wife’s face.
“What?!”
On second thought, he’d never been too reasonable himself.
There was a burst of lightning, then she was upon him—swinging from the noose for leverage, before rocketing into his arms. He caught her with a burst of laughter, and staggered backward into the microwave. The chandelier swayed precariously above them, but didn’t fall.
