The Train of Lost Destination and New Found Hope

Part 5 With Part 4 attached!

Part Four
Ecrits Blogophilia Week 52.16 – All the King’s Horses
Hard Bonus: Incorporate a lyric or song title from Depeche Mode/Ghosts Again
Easy Bonus: Include three “secondary” colors or variations of their hues

Written by Christine Wichman c. June 28, 2025

*********

1995 London, England

Celeste was tossing and turning, thrashing in her bed as All the Kings Horses seemed to be chasing her in a dream. Grey and black equine shadows turned purple, green then orange as they galloped along a familiar Scottish beach, and he was there, the handsome one. The one who tells her things she needs to know and protects her from the shadows. His eyes piercing through her soul as she reached out to take his hand. Jolted awake before they could make contact, she heard another familiar voice. This one distant but real.

“Celeste wake up, you are having another nightmare!” Roland was pushing her shoulder gently.
Slowly she opened her eyes and saw the concern on his rugged face.
“You ok?”
She did not want to be here, she wanted to go back and stay in that place between wake and sleeping. That place with the handsome one. But she owed Roland an answer.
“Ghosts again,” she whispered, turning away and pressing her face into the pillow willing herself back to sleep. But his interruption continued. “You need to get up Love, you have a meeting with your publisher at half nine.”

“Publisher?” Why did that sound foreign to her?
“I’ll make you a tea, you need to wake up and get a move on.” Roland hoisted his well fit naked body from the bed and looked back at Celeste with a cheeky smile.

She closed her eyes and the dream was lost, replaced with a pressing need to get up and live this life with Roland, in this quiet flat that smelled of Earl Grey and old leather books.

*****

London 1995

Part 5
Ecrits Blogophilia Week 30.17 – A Higher Calling

Hard Bonus: Quote or paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. (The time is always right to do whats right)

Easy Bonus: Include a postmarked letter

Written by Christine Wichman c. January 21, 2026
*************

Celeste put on her long black boots and short black leather jacket. Rimming her lips in a plum liner and her eyes with a midnight blue pencil. For a moment she stared wondering why these bright colors jarred her and why she felt strange in her own body. Looking around her surroundings, as if for the first time, she carried on out the door and down to the bus stop, making her way toward West London.

Glancing the call buttons, Celeste pressed “Mockingbird Publishing” and waited to be buzzed in the door. The building was an unassuming residential space and had a homey feeling that was quite welcoming. Dominque Morris, a simple and to the point woman welcomed Celeste with open arms.
“Sit down my Love I have the book dummy ready to show you. I think you are going to go mad for it.”

“Great,” Celeste nodded reaching across the desk to look over the mock novel.
It was a thick glossy red hard cover with nothing but a pair of seductive lips mouthing the title, “Secret Words” by Celeste Stone Illustrations by Simon Winterbourne.

“Wait, who is Simon Winterbourne?”
“Don’t you remember Dear I told you I was going to find an Artist to illustrate your prose.”
“Have I met him?” Celeste suddenly felt her body buzzing and her mind spinning.
“Not that I know of, he lives up North and only agreed to do your book as a favor, told us he has a Higher Calling than Art these days.”

Celeste flipped open to a random page, the chapter title was The Red Queen. And the illustration hit her to her core.
“I know this person,” she whispered under her breath.
“Well I hope so,” Dominique smiled, “You wrote her into existence.”

The Red Queen

Celeste arrived back at the flat still in a daze and full of questions. “What is going on? Why do I feel like I am not who I am suppose to be? Why do I feel like a puzzle piece with the entire puzzle missing?

Just then there was a knock at the door, “Post for Miss Stone” a voice called out.
Celeste opened the door and took the postmarked letter.
Ripping it open she found a thin sheet of red paper with the typed words:
“The time is always right to do what is right”
and in frail handwriting it was signed at the bottom……find me, S

To be continued.