The Talking Sword – Chapter 2 (post 1)

Time passed slowly at first, each day punctuated by little things that insisted on reminding Dawn of her father.

His favourite coffee mug, chipped and stained. The theme music to the seven o’clock television news, the one show that he had always watched. His toothbrush still in the cup in the bathroom, because she could not bring herself to throw it in the rubbish.

Then there was the way her grandfather smiled at her. She had never really paid attention to how much he looked like her father, not until now. Now, she could see her father’s eyes smiling out from her grandfather’s face.

Several weeks after the funeral, she asked him the question that had been at the back of her mind since meeting the three strange men at the house.

“Granpa, those men at Dad’s wake. They called you something – was it a name?”

He looked at her over the steam from his freshly poured cup of tea.

“A name? What are you talking about?” But Dawn knew that he was avoiding the question, he always answered with a question when he didn’t want to answer.

“They called you Sorder. At least, that is what it sounded like. What’s a Sorder?”

He snorted as if to dismiss the question, then sipped at the still too-hot tea.

“Granpa, I’m not a little kid any more. Who were those men and how do you know them? They sure know you. And they knew Dad.”

*** To read The Talking Sword – Chapter 1, click here ***

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