Rusty Fears 7 - Roses by Abi Kinsella
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What is the story 'Roses' about?
Hi there, Billy Hindle here, the voice of Alice in the Magnus Protocol. I'm here to let you know that Rusty Quill will be attending UK Games Expo at the Birmingham NEC this May 29th to May 31st. We are hosting two free shows, along with our friends at Montecut Games and Indie Boards and Cards. If you come along to the Monty Cook Game Stand at the Expo, you will be able to demo the Magnus Archives role-playing game and the Magnus Protocol Mysteries game and grab a copy for yourself. You can find out more about our shows at rustyquill.com forward slash expo, that's rustyquill.com forward slash expo. You will need a ticket for entry to the UK Games Expo, but once inside, Rusty Quill shows and demos are 100% free on a first-come, first-served basis.
Hi there, Jonathan Sims here. And before today's episode, I wanted to tell you about From the Library of Jürgen Leitner, an upcoming The Magnus Archives prequel novel available for pre-order right now at www.rustyquill.com forward slash novel. Return to the world of the Magnus Archives in From the Library of Jurgen Leitner, an official prequel novel written by Nebula, World Fantasy, and Aurora Award-winning author Premi Mohamed, with the help of yours truly. From the Library of Jurgen Leitner explores an infamous organisation from the Magnusverse for the first time, the perilous private library of the enigmatic collector Jurgen Leitner. from the Library of Jürgen Leitner will be published on October 27th, 2026 and is available for pre-order now as a hardback, audiobook and e-book.
Visit www.rustyquill.com forward slash novel for more information. That's rustyquill.com forward slash novel or click the link in the show notes of this episode.
Roses by Abbey Kinsella Violet Steele, eleven years old, bright under Fresnel, and cradled in a thousand strong gaze, holds hands with a ghost. She had landed in Chicago seventeen hours previously, and slept six since then. curled under Othello's cloak like a sparrow in a nest. Othello had not been performed since the previous November, and the cloak smelt stale, but the man who had swaddled her in it had sad, kind eyes that shone like a hazy moon and had glinted at the prospect of offering her a place to rest. So she had not complained, and had dreamt bleeding watercolour dreams of being high up in the treetops. She is Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden, and an unconventional choice. The antiquated Englishness she carries isn't soft and rosy-cheeked, not teapotted nor gingham.
She has instead the Englishness of nursery rhymes, those things sung softly and unscrutinised to dozing babes. Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye. Four and twenty blackbirds. Oh. Oh, that's actually rather dark. She has large brown eyes and hair that oil spill black of corvids. She's clever like them, too, calculated in her blocked forays through plastic and canvas-built foliage. She needs, after all, to be careful in her movements, light-footed and mindful of obstacles, and not just for the audience. The ghost does not like passing through objects. In the outstretched palm of her free hand, a tiny polystyrene robin perches daintily. It is suspended from the ceiling by transparent twine, pulled taut so it bounces and quivers and does not fall.
A thing stirring down below, in the dark in that garden where he lives, she asks, with wide-eyed, solemn reverence. Yes, whispers the ghost, louder somehow than the scripted gruntings of her weather-staff, a native New Yorker wrestling nobly with the Yorkshire accent. Things are always stirring, everywhere, but especially in the dark. Violet nods, and a flower falls from her hair. She stares at it a moment, curling under the lights. The ghost nudges her, and though the line is not quite right, she gasps, Roses! There must be roses! The ghost chuckles, and later, when she has showered with those very things, it laughs right from its belly. The ghost holds her hand a week on as she is ferried back across the Atlantic, sipping orange squash in business class.
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