Strange Noises Fiction by Rachel Greenham

... in not noticing there were comments awaiting approval for some time. I'm approving the non-spam ones now - sorry those that posted for my cluelessness beforehand. I ought to install a kaptcha thingy at some point. In any case now that there's a release cycle again I'll be keeping a closer eye on my site.

(All the unpublished comments were posted by "Anonymous". People with registered accounts can post without moderation.)

Some were posted direct to story pages which shouldn't have been possible as I deliberately didn't want those to have comments on them. As Drupal doesn't seem to want to let me move them, I'll paste them here:

I'm sorry there's been such a long loooong gap, and I promise never ever to do it again, honest! Suffice to say I held back on releasing chapter 4 because I wasn't sure about the track I was taking for much of the last year - and eventually (after ten chapters (ie: up to chapter 13)) I decided I was right not to be sure. There was some nice writing in there, but it took the story down the wrong path.

It's not all wasted. A lot of the material in the chapters I wrote in the last almost-year will still make it in, but I've essentially reverted to the original plot for this story.

Anyway, Nathan's Story, chapter 4, will appear here on Friday sometime.

In the meantime I have already put up slightly-edited versions of the already-released chapters. They're really corrections rather than big changes, and certainly nothing that would qualify as a rewrite, but it's been such a long time you might like the refreshment. If you don't, click on read more to see a basic summary of the changes made.

I've noticed there are still a lot of guests watching this site any time I check. Wow. :-) (Or maybe they're just RSS readers...)

I'm just coming up for air to say, I'm really sorry there's been such a huge gap since Nathan's Story 3. There is more on the way, I promise. I was ill for a while, and work has been busier for a while, but mainly, and perhaps out of a lack of self-confidence, I'm writing to first-draft stage a little way ahead before prepping Nathan's Story 4 for release. I'm currently near the end of Nathan's Story 8 and I think I need to first-draft a couple more yet, so hang on in there. There's plenty more coming. :-)

To keep you going, here's a little taster scene from near the start of Nathan's Story 4, carefully chosen to not give very much away. :-> Also, note that this is pre-proofing, and may not appear verbatim in the final version.

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The lazy double-beat of the train's wheels ran over the joins in the tracks. Sara was sketching something quietly. Jack knew this moment. "What is it?" he asked. "Nothin'." "Okay." He sat with her for a while and watched her draw. Sara was easy company; happy to get on and do her own thing. There wasn't much of a view to look at, the carriage windows having been scratched to translucency long ago, but Sara seemed to be drawing something else anyway. Two figures: A little dark-haired girl looking up at a tall, elegant lady. "That's Áine, the fairy queen," Sara corrected him.

Nathan felt warm and immensely comfortable. He didn't want to open his eyes yet. The room was bright with sunlight, but it wasn't shining directly on him. He was lying curled up on his side, which wasn't how he normally slept, but he didn't mind. There was a cool breeze from somewhere, and the distinctive sound of someone typing on a laptop keyboard. It was a comforting sound, like home. He opened his eyes.

"Stop giggling!" Jack complained. "She'll hear." Danny said, "But that's _silly!_" "It's true! My Granny told me, they really used to do this. The fairy folk're always on the lookout for little boys, she said. They come an' take you away when the grown-ups in't watching an' put their own sick kids in their place, and no-one would know any different 'cept you got sick and din't get any better." "So they'd really dress 'em up in girls' clothing?" "Yeah!" "_Really?_"

There was no such person as Jane Thompson. There never had been. All the events of the past year were a delusional fantasy, a symptom of her illness. So Valerie had been told, and told, and told again, ever since Val had disappeared. It was as if the people who had seen them both together had just got together and agreed that because it _couldn't_ have happened, it _didn't_ happen. She couldn't blame them: who else but a Tucker would be dumb-stubborn enough to insist on a story in defiance of obvious reality, and keep insisting until they got time on a psych ward?