Nancy’s Return
A Free Urban-Fantasy Short Story
A quick note
This newsletter explores faith, speculative fiction, and folklore through essays, reviews, podcasts, and original fiction. Not every post is for every reader, and that’s intentional. I publish several times a week, but readers are encouraged to engage selectively. The science fiction reviews can also be found on Mind Matters News, and the podcast can be found on YouTube, Rumble, and various podcasting platforms on the internet. Everything else is exclusive to Substack.
The short story below is free, stands on its own, and represents the kind of fiction I write here — including work connected to The Annals of S.O.L.M. and The Starward Exiles.
Nancy was never supposed to return alone.
This short story takes place between The Familiar and The Hunter in The Annals of S.O.L.M., a dark urban-fantasy series about vampires, Familiars, and the quiet moral bargains people make to survive.
Nancy has already crossed the line.
She is no longer human—but she is not ready to be a monster.
Haunted by a hunger she can’t silence, Nancy returns to the house she once shared with her husband, knowing she cannot stay. Gerome is coming after her, and if he reaches the house before she leaves, she might kill him. As she says goodbye to their home, her memories sharpen the hunger—and the thing inside her is learning.
Nancy’s Return is a canon interlude story—written to stand on its own, but designed to deepen the world of The Familiar.
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If you enjoy thoughtful, character-driven speculative fiction, you’re in the right place.
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