Opening Lines

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Add your opening lines for this photograph.

Barb: The leaves rustled with each foot fall and cold water wicked up the legs of my jeans. I chanted as I ran, to keep my pace, to keep from screaming, “I have to get away. I have to get away. I have to get away.”

Edith/Maddie: My pounding heart couldn’t drown out his footsteps thudding ever louder on the boardwalk above the marsh. What a time for my hip to go out!

Jessie: This was the fifth body of water Miranda had considered and it still wasn’t quite what she was looking for. Why was it so hard to find just the right place to stage a drowning accident?

Sherry: Memories of what I’d done here, what I buried here drew me back again and again.

Julie: The sneakers peeking up from beneath the pile of leaves cut into the idyllic New England scene.

Readers: Add your opening lines!

Published by Edith Maxwell

Agatha Award -winning author Edith Maxwell writes the historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries (Beyond the Page) and short crime fiction. As Maddie Day she writes the Country Store Mysteries series and the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries (both from Kensington Publishing). She lives north of Boston in an antique house with her beau, where she writes, gardens, cooks, and wastes time on Facebook.

33 Thoughts

  1. I hadn’t been back to the old cabin by the pond in almost ten years. Nothing had changed. And yet, everything had changed.

  2. Admiring the serenity the family pond through the trees, a place that had always brought her peace, she couldn’t take her mind off the fact that someone was trying to destroy her family and take her out in the process.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

  3. The air was cold and the water looked frigid. No ice, but close. I wondered how long it would take to die if I jumped in.

  4. The day began gloomy as I peered out the window, now the fog was lifting over the pond. I was struggling to walk on the muddy path as I read the note that was left stuck to my door. How could
    He find me here after all these years? I had been so careful never leaving any signs of who I was, changing address, to POboxes taking cash so no social security trail. Now a scribbled note and he was threatening my life again.I won’t let it happen.

  5. There was no sound in the cold, still air, not even the call of a crow. The dried leaves only made a sound when trod upon, but I had stopped before reaching the bend in the river. Something told me not to go beyond the fence, but I could not stop my curiosity, and I climbed over.

  6. Spirit Lake was well named I thought as I drove by that fall morning when everything changed.

  7. As I drew the canoe closer to the shore I kept repeating lines from Lady in the Lake until I realized it was an omen of what I was seeing.

  9. He drove past the lake every morning, wondering if today was the day they’d find the body, and his life would change forever.

  10. The lake. The leaves. The trees. It was an idea fall morning. Only the dead body kept if from being picture perfect.

  13. The sheriff stopped at the fence and shook his head. Why did the killer choose his favorite fishing hole?

  14. More trees grew here now, but she knew this was the place. This was it, the exact spot where she had watched her sister drown.

  15. Jessie & Julie – love those opening lines. Still chuckling (wickedly), so I can’t write one of my own.

  16. She was tied to the upright and panicking as she heard the fighting dogs get closer.

  17. The silence was deafening. Where was the usual bird song? The scolding chatter of squirrels scurrying through the dead leaves? There wasn’t even a ripple from fish feeding on the surface. It’s as if Mother Nature knew something she didn’t. And then she heard it.

  18. She never thought she’d return to the place that haunted her dreams for so long.

  19. “This is where I last saw him” , she whispered to her friend , as they both looked as far as their eyes could see. “I have no idea where he could have gone after that, unless, unless he had a canoe hidden somewhere in the bushes, which sounds just like what he would do!”

  20. I’ve always loved this spot. My soul finds the stillness it craves here. I leaned against the railing, breathing in the dampness and the dank scent of rotting leaves. I heard, before I saw, a flight of geese arrowing in to land in the stream. “Goodbye” I whispered, as I turned and walked away.

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