The Prayers of Penelope

Novelette

By: R. L. McCallum

Narrated by: Eleanor Walker-Jenkins

The cemetery is not a place where children should play, but that is where Penelope Piatt found Amelia and Billy, a sister and brother who poverty had carelessly displaced. Alone and dejected, Penelope, an unprepossessing spinster, prays constantly for two children to love, but after meeting the strangely oriented children she discovers that God has sent her wandering into a nightmare. Penelope routinely spends each Sunday afternoon at the Spirit Haven Cemetery where she ceremoniously manicures the graves of her recently deceased parents and where she encounters Amelia and Billy, who, though impoverished in appearance, wish to visit their father who lives in the privileged part of the city. Befuddled as to why two children with a wealthy father would live on the street, she takes the children to the big white on Fairview Avenue where she horrifyingly discovers the truth.

©2013 R. L. McCallum (P)2014 Carl Leon Catt