Somewhere between the familiar and the impossible, a story is waiting for you. Listen to short fiction and unfolding novels by Francis Rosenfeld: strange worlds, intimate encounters.
The rain started so suddenly Claire barely had time to get in from the porch and close the doors behind her before the downpour delivered a deafening drum solo on the roof. Claire’s grandfather was rushing through the house, as he used to do under these circumstances, closing up doors, windows and shutters and making sure everybody was inside, safe from the storm. The young woman smiled, tracking his movements through the house by the noises he made - feet shuffling on the floor, sounds of doors opening and slamming behind him, footsteps up and down the stairs, the screech of the attic ladder being dragged on the floor in the hallway upstairs.
Claire’s grandfather was a force of nature, he blew rather than walked through the doors, in a motion more akin to a rushing wind than to a living breathing person. He never closed a cabinet or a drawer, and when he moved through a room small napkins and pieces of paper which happened to be left on the table got caught in his draft like leaves in the wind, stopped from trailing behind him only by the doors which invariably slammed shut after he walked through them. Claire didn’t even realize how much she had missed those noises. She spent a few minutes listening to this symphonic racket like she would to a fine piece of music, failing to notice she was standing in the alcove between the mirrors again.
📖 Found yourself in the middle of a story? Visit francisrosenfeld.podbean.com and select “Choose a Novel” to find the chapters belonging to each book. For more stories, poetry, and films, explore STORIES by Francis Rosenfeld.
30 Oct 2026
Between Mirrors - Chapter 1 - Ritual
She wasn’t used to seeing coffee in that cup, given her usual fare as a young girl which consisted of linden tea with lemon and honey or chocolate milk. It made her sad that there was a grown-up beverage in it now, especially since she hadn’t managed to figure out how to be a grown-up yet.
“Milk?” Grandmother offered, as if she’d heard her granddaughter’s thoughts.
Claire poured milk in the already full cup and made the coffee spill into the saucer in the process.
“For luck!” Grandmother dipped her forefinger in the saucer and smeared coffee on the young woman’s forehead, another one of the many customs Claire never questioned. One threw salt over one’s shoulder, ate beans on Wednesdays, wished on the first fruits of the year, wrapped up the outdoor activities at sundown. Life had different ways of marking the passing of time in their household - by the songs of the pigeons in the morning, by the height of the sun at noon, by the sounds of the old bell in the church nearby in the late afternoon. Seasons were announced by scents - the fragrance of the tree blossoms, the overheated aroma of the herbs, the sweet heavy scent of the harvest, the damp smell of the rain. The grandfather clock was the only exception in this world that marked its own time, as if it were brought there from outside just to make a point.
23 Oct 2026
Between Mirrors - Chapter 1 - Memories
“Get out of the doorway!”
The words boomed like thunder in Claire’s ears, now almost thirty years later, with the same intensity and pronouncement they carried the first time she’d heard Grandmother utter them, the first time of many. She smiled vaguely to the memory.
It was vast, this mansion of her grandparents where she had grown up, but Claire didn’t know it at the time; she never questioned what she saw because she’d never known another way of life, she’d never ventured past the end of the formal alley flanked by huge oak trees, hundreds of years old, which led straight to its front doors. For her the mansion and its garden were the world.
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