SHORTS FROM THE SHELF features short serialized fiction by author Shannon Muir, administrator of SHANNON MUIR’S THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF, that may be later released as part of e-book or print collections. The story line featured currently is “Darque Designs,” the sixth installment of the Myanna Moore serial, which will run over the next several weekends. This is Part Five.
Myanna knew it would be a disadvantage to completely trust Duana, in fact to trust anyone. She had been betrayed so often. However, to alienate Duana might burn her last chance at finding out what she needed to know.
“Because you’re my grandmother,” Myanna told her.
“That doesn’t match anything you’ve just said, and you know it. What game is this?”
“No game. It’s all about Truth. Firinne Knox – Truth – showed me love without knowing I wasn’t her child by blood. I was taken in and raised with others with whom I had no blood connection, and we formed a family. Yet, I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that there was more about where I came from than I ever knew. Duana, you’re my last link to some of that. I want to know. I need to know. There’s so much information only you can give. I have to believe with all you’ve done, you wouldn’t want to physically hurt your granddaughter. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have set me up and left me to survive once I had a child. Somewhere inside, you have to care. I believe that, Duana, even if I am not sure what else to believe about you.”
“I will tell you what you need to do, my dear. Find the four who will stand with you, through thick or thin. They will be your army. Only together can you defeat Edana and my son.”
Myanna could not resist laughing out loud in mockery.
“Back to that again? The old power of four thing? Edana haunted Firinne Knox with that, and now you pull out the same old card trick? It’s getting old, Duana.”
“It’s not old and tired, it’s old and true. True to the dawn of the ancients. That is what you have to do. If you are willing to do this, only then can you align with my plan. Can I count on you? I question it, after the amount of doubt you have just displayed.”
“Forgive me if I question you.”
“You need look only to your own past to believe. Do you remember Verna?”
