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Write a story about discovering a lost manuscript. It can be from a famous (or infamous) author, or an unknown one.

Posted in Mystery on May 17, 2024

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✍️ 65 stories

The little one

Submitted to Contest #251

My grandfather always kept a little brown leather journal in his chest pocket. It was his constant companion, the one I would see in the evenings and the one that, at dinner time, peeked out of his shirt, playing hide and seek with me. I always wondered what secrets it held, what adventures it chronicled, and what cheeky details of adult conversations it concealed. But he did not write that; all he wrote were lists. He did not write about anyone or anything that had happened. There were no fantastic stories to tell me about. He wrote the thi...

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Time's Unlikely Gift

Submitted to Contest #251

Anna stood, suitcase in hand, in front of the old white farmhouse, as the caseworker drove away, kicking up dust in her wake. The front door swung open and Aunt Betty stepped out, hand raised in greeting. Having been raised the only child of a mother who preferred alcohol to her daughter, Anna was quite used to being dropped off at unfamiliar homes, with unfamiliar people. She never quite felt like she belonged anywhere. This was no different. Aunt Betty, as she was known, was a sweet old lady who opened her home to many foster kids ove...

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Chapter 4: The Floating Barbican.

Submitted to Contest #251

Like a group of hooligans after a close scrape with the law, they were all giddy with adrenaline. Once the laughter had died away, the three of them clinked their glasses together, downed their drinks, and allowed themselves to slip into a more somber mood. Though she saw the professor snatch the mysterious black folder with her own eyes, she eyed Norman’s larger, battered acquisition: A fat, wrinkled, stained, bulging ream of handwritten pages. A manuscript. Cathy addressed Norman directly, as the Professor looked on. “So, what did you get...

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A Novel Encounter

Submitted to Contest #251

Strangely, when Andy saw the house, he felt a little easier. He’d expected something more grandiose and manorial, but this was something that could belong to a nouveau riche music idol; imposing flashy and tasteless. The edifice clung in gaudy splendour to the verdant sides of the Malvern Hills, beset by neighbours of a more conservative appearance. It seemed that, whether a nouveau riche author or pop star, there were no differences, having simply become wealthy through a different medium. In his considerable research, Andy  disco...

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Love Story

Submitted to Contest #251

Jack originally took the job at the bookstore because he really needed the money. The joy of graduating with a degree in English composition was short lived, as he soon realized the career path for people with that degree was to get another degree and then another one on top of that. He didn’t want to teach, so, he was regretful of his collegiate decisions. Mr. Lyons, the owner of “Papyrus,” was a nice enough boss. Odd, but nice. It was a mystery to Jack how the store broke even since the customer traffic was, to be generous, sparse. The cus...

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The Hawthorne House Mirror

Submitted to Contest #251

Evelyn Harper stood in the middle of her new, old house, hands on her hips, surveying the chaos around her. Dust motes danced in the rays of the late afternoon sun that filtered through the grimy windows of Hawthorne House, a crumbling brick 150-year-old Tudor-style home she saved from demolition a month ago. Like her, it had seen better days—weathered by time and neglect but still standing, resilient. The house was a reflection of her current state: aged, weathered, but not without hope for restoration. Recently divorced after 25 years of m...

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Lost Manuscript

Submitted to Contest #251

Errol died suddenly. He left a neat apartment packed with creativity and no living soul to appreciate or own it.His motor bike collided with a bus and death was instant, but he had not left a will or any directions about the distribution of his belongings. Errol had many interests, including oil painting and drawing, he was a talented pianist and read extensively. How little we really knew about our friend and was revealed to us when we entered his apartment with a key from the landlord. Eve and I had been Errol’s closest friends and the onl...

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Dreamscares

Submitted to Contest #251

“Toss it here!”Cleo jumped up with every ounce of vigor she had and landed on a large patch of grass, which, although normally described as being plush and soft to land on, was quite scratchy and bumpy. She got up and brushed herself off, inspecting the beginnings of a small bruise on her elbow.“I think that’s enough fun for me. I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”Cleo picked the ball up off the ground and threw it to her friend who was halfway in their car already.“I’ll call you later!”Cleo wandered around the open baseball diamond a little whi...

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The Remains of Time

Submitted to Contest #251

Thomas moaned and groaned as his eyes fluttered open, waking up to start another day. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his face, feeling the rough stubble on his cheeks. With a sigh, he made his way to the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror and flinched at the reflection staring back at him. An old man, weary and lined with age, gazed back. “When did I get so old?” he murmured to no one in particular. After freshening up, Thomas dressed in his usual attire—a comfortable shirt and trousers—and exited his room. T...

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The Cusp of Chaos

Submitted to Contest #251

CW: This piece contains religious themes that are not meant to accurately follow holy texts. It also includes profanity. Viewer discretion is advised.*All of the characters in this piece are entirely fictitious and are not based on real people. Any character that resembles any person— dead or alive— is purely coincidental.  “There is no god.” I read the opening line of the old manuscript aloud, its pages coated in dust and creased several times over from being buried in an old library until tonight. I don’t want to even look at the fol...

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Hemingway's Lost Suitcase

Submitted to Contest #251

In December 1922, Ernest Hemingway’s wife Hadley lost his suitcase filled with all his written work – what he called his “juvenilia” in a letter to Ezra Pound – in a Paris train station. It has never been found until now.            I bought an old house on the north shore of Long Island with a view of the sea. A fledgling writer, I had come into an inheritance and hoped that this place would be conducive to getting my creativity flowing. I certainly imagined myself capable of doing any...

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Hidden

Submitted to Contest #251

Hope got an unforeseen call that changed her life forever. “Good evening, am I speaking with Ms. Ellis?” “Yes, this is Ms. Ellis. Who may I ask is speaking?”“This is Mr. Whittaker from Gregory Whittaker & Associates. Are you able to speak at this moment? And do you have some where you can have this conversation in private?”As soon as Hope heard the voice and the introduction of his name she knew.“Yes, I have some time now to speak?”Hope had just gotten home from her two-week trip to beautiful Scotland and was unpacking her belo...

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Tome

Submitted to Contest #251

It had to be mine, for I had to know the truth. I had journeyed for months before I received even a humble hint of the tome’s existence. The sun scorched me as if it held a grudge against me, the wind whipped my face like a scourge, and all streams of water fled from me. I should have understood and listened to these signs, these obvious rebukes of nature, yet in my quest to find the truth, I could not keep my legs from marching onward with a foolish determination.I had first travelled through the desert in search of the oasis, for it was th...

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To Diana, Love, Dale

Submitted to Contest #251

CW: groomingHead in my hands, I stare down at the phone in my lap, willing it to ring. The hospital staff insisted I go home to rest, but sleep eludes me. How can I, when the only family I have left lies unconscious in an operating room? The life of the man who helped raise me is in someone else’s hands.  Pushing to my feet, I pace my brother’s study. His house is closer to the hospital and I find solace from being in the place he inhabits. The map I gave him several Christmases ago is centered on the wall, pins mark over a hundred...

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E.A.P.

Submitted to Contest #251

As the wind whipped across the sand, stirring up bits and pieces of broken seashells, the waves crashed against the rocks in the distance. But there was another sound – a strange sound. It wasn’t necessarily strange, but it was strange for my location. It was a sound I’d heard before, but not on a remote Massachusetts beach. It was the sound of pages turning very rapidly in a book. Almost as if someone was looking for something in it.  It was early. The sun was barely starting to peak over the water’s edge. I knew I was likely the only ...

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