The Grief School

By Matthew Tait

As a man of chance, Myles Lacey understood all too well the whims of the universe, and that meant death was a constant in life. The sudden loss of his wife Linda was an inopportune advent – but at least it gave back to him the freedom to play underground gambler to his heart's content.

When a losing streak forces him to seek out a loan shark, Myles knows that the stakes are high. But what he doesn't understand is that his personal saviour offers a lot more than mere deliverance from a life of bad decisions and mounting debt. What Jango Ravana offers is The Grief School, and whether he deserves it or not, Myles soon becomes the unwitting pupil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dark Crib Publications
• Release date: May 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798223879855

Matthew Tait

A vociferous horror columnist since 2005, Matthew Tait published his first collection of dark fiction in 2011. Since then, he has won the the prestigious Shadows Award for the novel Deception Pass. Described as writing 'the sort of horror Clive Barker must read on his days off' Matthew's fiction often treads the line between the familiar and the fantastic.  

Book preview

The Grief School

Matthew Tait

The Grief School

Copyright © 2020 Matthew Tait

Third Edition

This book is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or photographs contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author or artist.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover Art: Greg Chapman

Editor/Layout: Shannon Gambino

First Printing: July 2012

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter One

For Myles Lacey, losing his wife contained little of the anticipated grief. Concerning loss, there were too many books in the world telling a person what to imagine, how to feel. And yet, Myles experienced almost none of the proscribed sentiments.

Linda Lacey’s story was over, her symmetry served. Now, for her husband, it was time for a new chapter to begin.

Not that anybody else hadn’t noticed his lack of bereavement; Linda’s family had been doting in their sympathies to a point where Philip, Linda’s older brother, pulled Myles aside one evening and politely asked under no uncertain terms if they needed to worry about him? Later, Myles ascertained this bromide in the broader sense meant: you’re not thinking about suicide, are you, Myles?

With a strange mixture of surprise and shame, Myles went home and laughed into his hands.

Of all the tribulation of losing someone like Linda – someone who, at the age of forty-three laughed like a schoolgirl – Myles Lacey still considered himself a wounded man. Through all the dirty relief following her heart attack, no person in their right mind was completely immune to the lesion of losing someone you lived with for nine years.

Myles recalled with clarity the day he found his wife.

***

After working the morning shift at Harrington’s boutique, Linda often preferred to spend her afternoons reading. Though many times, Myles returned home to find her engaged in other pursuits: needlepoint and embroidering; scrapbooking for