Twenty years…. How has it been that long? I look at that old faded photo of my smiling little girl. She'd been six the day she disappeared without a trace. We spent weeks searching for her. Nobody knew where she went. Her teacher had marked her as on the bus. She should have gotten on the bus.
Becca was a smart kid. She always got on the right bus and I was waiting for her at the stop…. But when the bus stopped, Becca wasn't on her bus. She wasn't on any of the buses.
Her teacher had told...
Umbrella Stories Archives
“Daughter, it is high time you marry. I won't have my oldest daughter become a spinster," her father told her one day while she helped him clean.
She laughed. "But Papa, if I left, who would help you?"
"Silly girl, I can afford to hire help." He patted her head like she was a child. "It is my wish, and it was your mother's wish to have you wed. You were so helpful in finding your little sisters’ husbands. Now it's your turn." He started to head toward the sitting room.
"But Papa, I really...
Belle came in every day at 9 am sharp. She always found something to straighten up even though she was the one who closed the night before.
"Good morning, old girl." Belle would pat the antique cash register. "Ready for another day?" she’d say with a giggle. Then she'd flick on the radio and turn on the open sign.
Then she'd wait. Sometimes she'd pick up a book from the shelf and read, or she’d work on her own novel. She'd also do the bookkeeping and whatever else needed to be done. She took...
Camilla woke up with a checklist on her mind.
Go to work
Pick up groceries
Make cupcakes for Mom’s birthday
Wrap gift
Sleep
Simple enough. She had a hop in her step as she got ready for the day. She was out of the house with ten minutes to spare. Just enough time to get coffee before going into work.
That was her first mistake. She bumped into the man in front of her. "Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry - head in the clouds."
He looked her up and down. "I can tell." He turned away gruffly, his coffee...
"Love?" Alex calls out. "I'm going to go through the attic to see what we can donate.''
"Sounds good, Babe! I'll go through the garage. Meet for a break in two hours?" Jarad shouts back.
"Sounds good!" Alex ascends the ladder to the attic. "So much dust.” She quickly finds the light and plops herself in front of a box. As she pulls back the cardboard, the smell of old, worn leather fills the small space. "Oh man, I loved this jacket in high school! I wonder..." She quickly puts the jacket...
An old warrior was sitting near the river, enjoying the peace of the day, when the Leader came to see him. “I have a mission for you.”
“Oh?” The warrior raised an eyebrow.
“I have a child who needs help getting to her family.” The Leader looked over to the woods. “She doesn’t have an easy path, and I don’t want her to travel alone. Will you accompany her?”
“I will. What do I need to know?”
The Leader gestured for him to follow and showed him a young family. “They don’t know what’s about to...
Peter considered himself a cool kid. Not that he was the top dog at his school, but he was definitely in the cool crowd. He had a good group of friends, his teachers loved him, and he was considered a role model at school.
One day he and his group of friends were at the park, and they saw Matty. Matty was not in their circle and was kinda an outsider at school, seemingly by choice.
Matty was setting up a picnic. "Yo, Madster!" One of Peter's friends called out, while his other friends...
For as long as James could remember, every time you went to Papa's house he took your height and marked it on his wall. Papa liked seeing how his kids and grandkids grew. James loved looking at that wall, dotted with little lines followed by names and ages.
He also loved that when one of the in-laws became family, their height got added to the wall. Because there was only one rule: this wall was for family only. James had seen just a few of his closest friends get added as a show of...
The Writer stands on the edge of the valley full of puddles. She takes it all in, all the words she's raced through, writing little worlds into existence. When was the last time she slowed down and just walked through the valley? Her lungs aren't quite empty, but she's tried. Her breaths are long and slow. Her legs are growing weary, not shaking, not going to collapse under her, but they could not keep going.
Her notebook has thousands of pages of handwritten stories. Now all typed up and...
Everyone loves the idea of time travel, and Toby was no different. He devoted his life to making it happen. And eventually, he did - he built himself a time machine. However, on the day he tested it, something happened that he had not counted on. He triggered something he could only describe as a time loop. And he was perpetually stuck.
At some point, he discovered a pattern: he would go into the time machine and travel somewhere new; and when he stepped out of the machine, and back into...
"Where is that girl!" Andrea sighed. "She was with us at the hotel, right? We never should have let her take her own vehicle!"
The other girls nodded in agreement. Each of them had tried texting and calling her, and they took turns calming her mother down. Promising she hadn’t run away. Little did they know that Rose was in a bit of a bind.
- 40 minutes earlier -
"Don't worry girls, I'll be right behind you," Rose assured them. She watched as the girls left her alone. She looked at herself...
What a stupid idea, you think to yourself as you walk the snow-filled path. Or at least, you think it's the path. It was a path when you started, but the deeper you have gone into the woods, the deeper the snow has gotten. Now that you think about it, that makes sense. It's the week after Christmas - nobody has been out to clear the trails.
But, you're stubborn. So you keep walking. This path is supposed to lead to a gorgeous view of Lake Vallor. And after the mess of a holiday season that...
Jennavieve had always loved theatre; since her mother had taken her to a kid's concert, she had been hooked. Not only did she watch plays, but she acted in them too. She loved being on stage. She did school plays and community theatre, and she also went to drama camps.
That was why this year - her senior year of high school - she was looking forward to having a decent role in the school play. She didn't need to be the lead role, but she was hopeful that she wouldn't be in the ensemble.
So,...
Alice had lived a good long life, so she wasn't sad to go. She knew she was dying. Or was she dead? She honestly wasn't sure. She had been having really vivid dreams as of late. And now she was on a tree-lined path and it smelled like spring.
She couldn't help but start walking. She followed the brick path and soon came across a doll that had been left behind. It seemed vaguely familiar but she didn't know why. She bent down and picked it up. As she did, the trees in front of her bent away...
Gracy was helping her grandfather clean out the attic. It had taken a few years of discussions, but Grandpa was finally ready to move in with her and her parents. She was looking forward to having him close by. He had the coolest stories and had always been a great help on her school assignments.
Sure, hanging out in a dusty attic wasn't every high schooler's idea of fun on Saturday. But she didn't mind. Her grandma had been a collector and now Gracy got first dibs on anything she wanted....
"You're early," says Death with a hint of surprise. “Not that I'm complaining, though."
"Surprise, Dad!" his daughter Beauty smiles at him.
"Why are you back early, dear?" Normally when she joined him, the family of three made a day of it, as their paths hardly crossed anymore.
"I'm not staying, but there's someone I want to greet and guide to the river. Mother figured you wouldn't mind and would understand." Beauty waves her hand, and her robe turns from a yellow and green background with...
Kathy sat in her old rocker watching her grandchildren play with building blocks. She loved it when they came to visit for the afternoon.
Soon her son came to pick up his kids. "Hey Mom, did you know you got a package out here?"
"A package? I didn't order anything…." By the time she got up, her son had made his way to her dining room and set the package on the table. She glanced at it. "Maybe it's another gift from a friend. I'll look at it later." Kathy shuffled to the table, where she and...
He swore to himself he wouldn't give in but his friends wouldn't let it go. "Fine! I'll go ask her, but you all owe me a drink when she says no deal?" His friends all gave half-hearted agreements, some cheering that he finally was making a move. He rolled his eyes and left the coffee shop, heading back to work. She was the secretary at the office next to the building that he was doing construction on.
Apparently, her boss was moving the company next door, so she had come over a few times to...
I was built in 1946 near the end of the year, as many soldiers returned from the war. My bright, new, red bricks, the freshly-painted walls and the cookie-cutter rooms made me a home for many. At first, only soldiers filled my numerous rooms. Some stayed only for a few months; others stayed for life. I have watched many couples come and go, some families start, and others families fall apart.
One young man came just after the war ended. He always had a lady or groups of friends over. Yet as...
They came back every year to this same spot. This little coffee shop on a corner of Main Street, in the small coastal town where their families vacationed for the summer. Ally had gotten there two days ago and she couldn't wait for Betty to arrive. Their holidays didn't line up perfectly this year, but they had still rented a cabin together.
Betty was supposed to get here in time for lunch, so they had agreed to meet at the coffee shop. While she waited, Ally sat with the sun warming her...