blue and brown.
“Noh, Dokta. I be free from da bad juju of dis place. But tis yew I cum ta see.”
Her words carry no threat of harm or dreaded curses - not that I believe in curses - but the look in those eyes almost bring me to my knees.
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Available for purchase here:
https://michelledaltonauthor.com/books/simple-truths/
Forget Me Not
LOST & FOUND - BOOK TWO
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Prelude
Queensland in February is like sitting in a sauna with all your clothes on.
Isabella Irish flapped her T-shirt to and fro, hoping to create some airflow and cool off. She came to stand beneath the blooming poinciana tree which created a canopy over the open-air stage. The popular Eumundi Markets were as crowded on a Wednesday as they were on Saturdays. It’d been months since she’d visited the busy Sunshine Coast bazaar. Her stall, which had showcased her art, had sat not too far from where she was now—before Mark had secured her first break.
Two men and three women stepped onto the stage and positioned themselves with their traditional indigenous instruments.
The earthy Australian music drifted out of a didgeridoo and flowed through her body, the player’s circular breathing imitating the rain and the wind in his songs of the earth and the sky.
A hand drum soon joined in and Issi found herself carried away to a distant place as she rode the rhythm and sound of the song.
The fog which always clouded her fractured cognizance lifted, and a clarity she had not experienced since the terrorist attack, seeped into her damaged brain. She closed her eyes and shut out the hustle and bustle around her, enjoying the brief reprieve from a mind which had lost so much.
A deep bassy tone emanated from the instrument as the player worked the mouthpiece with his breath. The sound painted a picture of the elements, and kangaroos hopping across a vista—boing, boing. A third instrument joined in, adding a crispness like dry grass brushed by the wind . . . It drew her away from the present and into an open space of land, her heart echoing the beat of the drum. Reds and golds unfurled around her. The music drew her back to an ancient time . . .
“Hey. You enjoying the music?” Jeff leaned in with his chin on her shoulder.
“Geez!” Issi slapped a hand to her chest as she jumped.
“Sorry, lovely.” He proffered a handsome smile along with his apology.
“Yeah. It tells a story if you listen closely.” She returned the gesture to show him she was okay. “Where’s Sam?” She leaned past Jeff. “I can’t see him,” she asked her ridiculously tall friend.
“Two rows down. He’s discovered a stall that sells exotic food and art.” Jeff rolled his eyes. “And I swear the stallholder’s accent is just like yours.”
“I don’t have an accent.” Issi waved off Jeff’s odd comment. For a born-and-bred Australian, she sounded nothing like one. But her different way of pronouncing words, according to the specialist doctors, could be due to her acquired brain injury.
“Come. We need to save that man from himself. I can see him buying a truckload of foreign foods I know I won’t eat. I mean, what in the holy heck is paap?” Jeff’s lips tried to wrap themselves around the foreign word. The outcome was hilarious and Issi bit back her laughter.
He slipped an arm through hers and guided her to where Sam stood tasting food and peppering the short, plump stallholder with questions.
“Are you still tasting?” Jeff nudged his partner, who nodded and swallowed.
“This pap is good once you put some honey in it,” he replied.
“What is it exactly?” Issi pointed to the bowl of what looked like bleached polenta.
“Haai. Why don’t you know what pap is?” The woman’s astonished expression caused Issi to pause.
Taking a step away from the table she shook her head.
“It’s a maize porridge.” Sam graciously drew the vendor’s attention back to him. “Really, you both need to broaden your palatable horizons.” He winked at Issi.
“Ja. So this is Achar,” she said, glancing at Issi once or twice more. “And you can eat it with a lot of stuff, especially wif your p-ah-p.” She pronounced the word slowly. “It gives it this really lekka . . . erm, wat is nou die word vir smaak . . . taste. Ja, taste! I make it from mango, curry . . .”
“Okay your accent isn’t quite like that, but it shares a similarity. Even she thought you were a South African,” Jeff whispered teasingly into Issi’s ear, but she barely acknowledged him.
An uncomfortable sensation made itself known, as though someone had wrapped a lasso around her midriff and was tightening it with every passing moment. Disembodied voices fought to break free from the shattered fragments of her broken brain. She’d understood the woman’s foreign words—but how? And then she spotted the easel standing center to the background of the stall. On it, an artwork . . .
A familiarity Issi couldn’t put her finger on filled her head and stirred something in her heart. The style, she knew it . . . but like the foreign words spoken by the stallholder, she was not sure how.
She rubbed the scarred skin behind her left ear. The part of her brain devastated in the bomb blast ached, pleading with her to access what she had lost. Instead, nausea roiled in her belly and left her mouth dry and her vision blurred. Issi instinctively reached out and gripped Jeff’s shoulder as her world turned.
“Lovely, are you okay?” Jeff stroked a stray lock off her cheek as Sam came to stand beside her.
“You’re white as a sheet. Getting another migraine?” Sam rubbed a caring hand on her back.
Issi nodded, then pointed to the artwork. “How much?” was all she could get her stupid mouth to articulate.
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Available for Purchase here:
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https://michelledaltonauthor.com/books/forget-me-not/
Other Books By Author
Available for purchase here:
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About the Author
G’day, howzit, sanibonani, goeie dag.
My readers know me as Michelle Dalton and my friends, as the call-a-spade-a-spade-South-African.
Originally from Pretoria, South Africa, Michelle Dalton and her family fled the rising violence taking over her beloved country and now lives near Brisbane, Australia with her husband and triplet sons.
While juggling a nursing career and teenage sons, she loves to escape into her fictional world. Michelle has a deep love of horses and enjoys weaving them into dramatic stories with honourable men and strong women.
Her other hobbies are gardening (usually trying to save her precious herbs and bulbs from an overactive miniature Jack Russell), painting, and reading. She’s also a huge Star Trek and Marvel Comics fan, and as of recently a wee fan of DC too.
You can connect with Michelle Here:
http://michelledaltonauthor.com
https://www.facebook.com/MichelleDaltonAuthor
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