Frances Hogg Lochow

“Evangeline” by Frances Hogg Lochow

Submitted to Contest #269

Jennifer Smythe was good at this. Good at being interested in something without appearing to be interested. It was a skill she had honed during more than thirty years of poking through attics and garage sales and attending auctions. With just a hint of a flared nostril, a downturned lip or a disappointed sigh, she could shatter expectations and lower hopes. She had carefully built her reputation as an expert appraiser of antique dolls and had even appeared on the Antiques Roadshow and a BBC documentary about the dolls of Princesses Elizabeth...

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“Owls in the Trees” by Frances Hogg Lochow

Dan woke up feeling bad. The worst he’d felt yet, as if there was a knife in his gut or some small animal in there eating him from the inside out. He dragged himself out to the porch to sink into his rocking chair and closed his eyes for a while, feeling the warm sun on his face. He knew he should eat something but he’d had no appetite for days. Dan looked out over his small world. Some barrels and the Ford truck sat in the clearing in front of the cabin. The woods that rose beyond it were backed by low mountain ridges that ch...

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“The End of Bliss” by Frances Hogg Lochow

Her Aunt Rosie had a camera that could do that. If you looked through the lens while you pushed a little dial with your finger, the image would get bigger. It took a little while for the picture to come back into focus—but then you could do it again, and the image would get bigger still. Tammy had always liked playing with the camera. Liked leaning with her elbows on the windowsill, peering at birds in the treetops of the woods behind their house. She was in those woods now. Without the camera. High in a tree. It was night but she wasn’t co...

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“The Call of Lawanda” by Frances Hogg Lochow

Submitted to Contest #184

Avi had once chided him about the GPS. “You can’t stand having a woman tell you what to do.” That little remark, made with love and in jest, nonetheless upset Jason. Because his insights about valuing the contributions, intellect and intuition of women and others was part of what had made the two of them wealthy men. So, Jason had grudgingly brought the GPS with him at Avi’s insistence, but he’d avoided turning it on until this afternoon when he realized he’d driven thirty miles in the wrong direction. He had been scheduled to speak at a hi...

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“DUST” by Frances Hogg Lochow

Submitted to Contest #160

It came up from the west—an angry, roiling black wall a thousand feet high and moving at sixty miles an hour. Clayton saw it coming and threw a tarp over the chicken coop. He put the mule and cow into the cowshed and tied grain sacks loosely over their heads. Olive stuffed damp tea cloths and sheets into the cracks around the doors and windows, though she knew nothing she did would be enough to stop the dust. As suffocating darkness swept over their little farmhouse, the husband and wife huddled together under blankets. Grit peppered the win...

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“The Inheritance” by Frances Hogg Lochow

Submitted to Contest #154

“For his grandson, Eric, I will translate,” said the white-haired lawyer.Eric felt embarrassed. Why was this old guy rubbing his face in it? Was it his fault that his mother died when he was a baby, so he had never learned to speak Chinese?Mr. Po settled his spectacles on his nose and looked at the document in his hand. “Chen Wang provides to Ling-Yu, his eldest daughter, the jade horse.” Everyone clapped as an assistant handed a statuette of a galloping green horse to the lady sitting across from Eric. Then another aunt received an ivory ne...

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“The White Woman” by Frances Hogg Lochow

Submitted to Contest #144

Antony hefted his equipment bags to his shoulder and watched the lights on the elevator panel tick upward. When the doors opened, he saw her at the end of the hall. She wore a long, black coat and held a shopping bag in one arm as she fitted the key into her lock. He was struck by two things—her abundance of platinum-white hair that fell past her slender hips, and the pure-white Afghan hound that waited patiently at her side. He was pleased to see that the new tenant was a woman, and wondered if she was single. He'd broken off with Ashley...

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