The Prayer Box

My husband's first love had been trapped in a car for an hour. After they pulled her out, his rage shifted onto me. “It’s your fault she got hurt,” he spat, his eyes blazing as he grabbed me. Before I could make sense of what was happening, he forced me into a wooden box, slamming the lid down with a deafening crack. “You’re going to feel every ounce of the pain she went through,” he hissed, nailing it shut. I pounded on the walls, my screams tearing through the air. “Please, I didn’t do anything! Let me out!” My throat burned with the effort, my fists aching, but nothing stopped him. “Stay in there until you’ve figured out how to act like a decent human being,” he said, his voice cold, dripping with contempt. Hours passed. My body twisted unnaturally in the tight space, bones throbbing as blood smeared the wood beneath me. I whispered into the dark, the pain unbearable. "Please… just let me out…" But he didn’t care. A week later, he returned, his laughter echoing with hers as they entered the house, carefree from their trip. He finally opened the box. But by then, I was already gone. The woman he locked away was no longer breathing, no longer pleading. Just a cold, silent corpse.

My husband and I scratched off a five-million-dollar lottery ticket at a lottery shop. Before we even had time to celebrate, the rosary I had worn since childhood suddenly snapped, a single bead cracking clean off the chain. Without another word, I grabbed him and tried to buy tickets that very night to flee back to the southwestern mountains. The lottery shop owner stared at me in shock. My husband clung to the metal shutter and roared, "Have you lost your mind?" But I gripped that broken wooden bead tightly. "We leave now." My husband flung my hand away, his eyes bloodshot. "I'm claiming this prize today. If you dare run, we're getting divorced!" I nodded without hesitation. "Fine. The five million, plus the used car at home, all go to you. I'll leave with nothing... "But tonight, I have to leave this city."

THE ALTAR WE BURNED- Synopsis We burned in silence. We sinned in shadows. And in the house of God, we made a bed of ashes. Every time he pushed me away, I came back craving more. Every time he prayed for forgiveness, I found another reason to fall deeper. What started with longing turned into obsession and the line between salvation and damnation vanished. But loving him comes with a price. He was a man of God. I was the girl who shouldn’t have looked twice. Father Arthur Harper; the parish’s miracle, young, striking, and painfully devoted to his vows. They whispered about how he turned down wealth, women, and a powerful life just to serve behind the altar. But beneath the collar was something dangerous. Magnetic. Something that set fire to every quiet confession and holy glance. I shouldn’t have been drawn to him,but I was. He saw me; Isabella Luca the troubled soul who came to church for peace but stayed because he made my heart race, One touch, One stolen moment, One kiss,That’s all it took to unravel us. The Altar We Burned is a fast-burn, emotionally intense, and sinfully steamy forbidden romance that explores the cost of desire, the power of temptation, and what happens when love crosses the ultimate line. Prepare to confess… because this story doesn’t play by the rules.

Across time and continents, a mysterious violet Door appears to those in their darkest hour. It is not just an escape; it is a summons. In modern-day Tanzania, Resipicius ("Ressi") is a young man crushed by poverty and aimlessness. When the glowing portal tears through the wall of his crumbling hut, he steps into the void, leaving his world behind. But the mystery of the Door began long ago. In 1921, twins Mwanamalundi and Mwajuma were born with the power to command the storm and the earth. Destined to protect their people, they built a sanctuary against colonial oppression. However, their rise provoked Baraka, a jealous rival who betrayed them to German forces. In the ensuing battle, Baraka found redemption in a sacrificial death, but tragedy struck the twins. Mwajuma fell into the Chozi la Ardhi—a mystical pond that defied gravity to become the very first Door—and vanished into the stars. Now, the Door has opened again for Ressi and others across the globe. The prophecy foretold that help would come from other worlds. The scattered heroes are being gathered, and the true war is about to begin.

A priest has shown up at my first birthday party. He claims that I'm a cursed soul—that my presence will bring doom to those close to me, and my existence itself can snatch everyone's luck. The only way to counter this is to give me up to an orphanage and let me live a life of poverty and suffering. Without a family, I'll be able to overcome my fate as a cursed soul. Daddy has the priest cast out of our home immediately. Meanwhile, Mommy hugs me tightly. "My son is the luckiest boy in the whole wide world!" But everything has changed when my younger brother, Andy Lawson, has fallen off the 20th floor. His body is completely shattered from the fall. I can only stand by the window uneasily. Fear is evident in my eyes as I wave my hands with all my might. "It wasn't me! It really wasn't me!" The wind that day is very strong, but it can never drown out Mommy's cries. Daddy hoists me up and stuffs me into Andy's coffin. I keep latching onto the sides of the coffin to the point my fingers are all bloodied and trampled over. At the same time, I keep screaming for Mommy. Mommy stares at me blankly at first. But her hollow gaze is soon filled with hatred. "Why aren't you the one dead? That priest told us that you'll have to stay in the coffin for seven whole days and nights just to atone for your sins! Only then can Andy's soul rest in peace! "This is your fate and your sin, Adam!" The heavy lid slowly covers the coffin, soon sealing my hoarse cries and screams away. A long time later, a few voices ring out amid the sorrowful melody played by the organ. "Why is there a tiny gap in the coffin? Hurry up and nail it shut! We can't afford to have misfortune spread to us!" When the final nail is bolted onto the lid, I close my eyes. Mommy, Daddy, I'm no longer a cursed soul.

The tale of a widow's harrowing journey through grief and peril into the cold remnants of a dead world. Damon Sharpe had in part found victory, he believed, in his battle to unearth a truth obscured by time. By autumn, he was dead, leaving to his wife Anne a house of unfulfilled wishes, remnants, and the key to the enigma of his obsession, the Mourner’s Cradle. A journey through grief and peril delivers Anne Sharpe from her home in St. Charles to the faraway skeletons of a long-dead civilization where she will find the desperate answers she seeks…or die trying. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing