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    Timeskip
    Timeskip
    Timeskip
    Ebook28 pages25 minutes

    Timeskip

    By Charles de Lint

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Its opening sentence, "Every time it rains a ghost comes walking," is the perfect start to this beautiful, bittersweet story about the hesitant first steps of a relationship. Featuring Newford fiddler Geordie Riddell, it's a gentle story of love, loss and the bonds of friendship.

    First published in Post Mortem edited by Paul F.Olson and David B. Silva, 1989; also appears in Dreams Underfoot and The Very Best of Charles de Lint.

    Timeskip is where Newford began: "Newford was not planned out in advance. It started (unbeknownst to me) with“Timeskip,” a short story that I wrote for an anthology. I wanted to set the story somewhere other than the Ottawa area where most of my stories had taken place, but I didn’t feel comfortable writing about a city that I couldn’t physically visit. So I decided to use various aspects of large urban centers that I had visited, and create a fictitious setting."
    –Charles de Lint, from an interview with FairyRoom.com

    "I can never recapture the feeling of first arriving in Newford and meeting the people and seeing the sights as a newcomer. However, part of the beauty of Newford is the sense that it has always been there, that de Lint is a reporter who occasionally files stories from a reality stranger and more beautiful than ours. De Lint also manages to keep each new Newford story fresh and captivating because he is so generous and loving in his depiction of the characters. Yes, there are a group of core characters whose stories recur most often, but a city like Newford has so many intriguing people in it, so many diverse stories to tell, so much pain and triumph to chronicle."
    — Challenging Destiny

    Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint's vivid, original world. No one does it better.
    — Alice Hoffman

    Charles de Lint writes like a magician. He draws out the strange inside our own world, weaving stories that feel more real than we are when we read them. He is, simply put, the best.
    — Holly Black

    De Lint is probably the finest contemporary author of fantasy
    – Booklist, American Library Association
    Unlike most fantasy writers who deal with battles between ultimate good and evil, de Lint concentrates on smaller, very personal conflicts. Perhaps this is what makes him accessible to the non-fantasy audience as well as the hard-core fans. Perhaps it’s just damned fine writing.
    – Quill & Quire
    De Lint’s evocative images, both ordinary and fantastic, jolt the imagination.
    – Publishers Weekly
    It is hard to imagine urban fantasy done with greater skill
    – Booklist, American Library Association

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCharles de Lint
    Release dateFeb 28, 2015
    ISBN9780920623541
    Timeskip
    Author

    Charles de Lint

    Charles de Lint and his wife, the artist MaryAnn Harris, live in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. His evocative novels, including Moonheart, Forests of the Heart, and The Onion Girl, have earned him a devoted following and critical acclaim as a master of contemporary magical fiction in the manner of storytellers like John Crowley, Jonathan Carroll, Alice Hoffman, Ray Bradbury, and Isabel Allende.

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    • 4/5
      I shelved this big little story under fairy tales because I'm too lazy to make a ghost stories shelf, but that's where this really belongs. it clocks in at just under 20 pgs for 99 cents and each one rewards you so what are you waiting for? That's a hell of a deal for a quiet story that packs a nice little punch.

    Book preview

    Timeskip - Charles de Lint

    Timeskip

    by

    Charles de Lint

    Copyright © 1989 by Charles de Lint

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    for MaryAnn

    Every time it rains a ghost comes walking.

    He goes up by the stately old houses that line Stanton Street, down Henratty Lane to where it leads into the narrow streets and crowded back alleys of Crowsea, and then back up Stanton again in an unvarying routine. He wears a worn tweed suit—mostly browns and greys with a faint rosy touch of heather. A shapeless cap presses down his brown curls. His features give no true indication of his age, while his eyes are both innocent and wise. His face gleams in the rain, slick and wet as that of a living person. When he reaches the streetlamp in front of the old Hamill estate, he wipes his eyes with a brown hand. Then he fades away.

    Samantha Rey knew it was true because she’d seen him.

    More than once.

    She saw him every time it rained.

    * * *

    So, have you asked her out yet? Jilly wanted to know.

    We were sitting on a park bench, feeding pigeons the leftover crusts from our lunches. Jilly had worked with me at the post office, that Christmas they hired outside staff instead of letting the regular employees work the overtime, and we’d been friends

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