Wide-open Spaces Book Novels & Stories

Chloe opened the book and her eyes widened. This book... She scanned the pages and then let out a huff of disbelief. Why are there empty pages?

Making my way to a nearby table, I carefully laid the book down, anticipation bubbling within me like a dormant volcano ready to erupt. Opening the book, I was greeted by the sight of intricate maps sprawled across its pages, each line and contour telling a story of the land it depicted. The Five Courts of Lyria unfolded before me, a tapestry of hills, valleys, lakes, and rivers stretching out like a canvas waiting to be painted. My fingers danced across the paper, tracing the topography.

But instead of getting mad at Lex, Liam just smile at him. "I may have the simplest life to live, that is okay with me. I maybe a poor or a farmer in the land, at least I am happy." Liam exclaimed while still staring at Lex with his satisfaction looking face. "As long as you are happy in what you are doing that would be enough. Mother Tree created us to help the people not to control them." Liam continues with his very deep answer to what Lex had said about him. "Tsk! Tsk!" Lex shake his head off while he walks away with him and stand up at the center of all the Alpha's.

Then Xavier would find a new way to comfort me, and I would forgive him. That was until that birthday. He was about to leave when I finally cried out, "You actually like her, don't you?" He froze with one hand on his coat. Then he sighed and turned to me. "Maddie, when will you finally understand that there's more to my life than you? I have my career and other people who rely on me. "I could tell you the same thing. There's more to your life than me, so stop clinging. Open relationships are popular these days, right? Why not be more open yourself? Explore the world. Explore yourself. It would do you a lot of good."

It was still there, but it was fading, blending into the brown, becoming just a quirk of his biology rather than a beacon for the Syndicate. ​They weren't "Open Source" to be famous. They were "Open Source" so they could be Common. ​The Final Full Stop: Permanent Ink ​As the evening shadows lengthened, Nora picked up the blank journal Christina Wilder had given her. She sat in the fading light and wrote the final lines of the 180th chapter. ​She didn't write about the Wilder Syndicate or the God of War. She wrote about the way the light hit the moss on the stones. She wrote about the sound of Julian’s laugh when he finally got the fire to stay lit.

Caiden went directly to a shelf he knew, which confirmed the return visit, and came back with a book he handed to her without explanation. She looked at the cover. A collection of essays about cities — specifically about the spaces in cities that had no official purpose, the leftover places, alleys that went nowhere, courtyards that were technically public but felt private, stairwells in buildings that no one used because they were beside the elevator. "This is for me," she said. "I thought about you when I found it." He said it plainly, the way he said things he'd decided to stop managing. "The in-between spaces. The farmer's market photograph. The exhibition." He paused. "You have a thing

He was scared of the unknown. It was almost like the very second he opens it, a new set of problems were going to resurface and unlike the last time, they just might consume him. Either way, he had to do it. He had to open the door, go to his room, meet his roommate and other friends perhaps late in the evening and pray things went well. The door squealed softly as it opened. Harold Girard walked into it with his travelling bag before him and just as mildly as he had opened the door, he closed it behind him.

And one day, someone will love you—not in spite of your fire, but because of it. Until then, keep going. Step by step. Light by light. Breath by breath. You're doing more than surviving now. You’re arriving. She closed the journal with a soft sigh. No tears tonight. Just exhale. Just clarity. Just peace. The next morning, Sophia woke to a knock at her door. A package sat on her doormat. No name. No return label. Inside: a book. The Art of Holding Space. No note. Just a pressed blue flower nestled between the first pages.

He was reading a novel, which was what he did when the space was clearing. Ernest went to the east wing door. Don looked up. "The book is gone," Ernest said. "The book is gone," Don said. He held Ernest's gaze. "The space is empty." Ernest came in. He sat on the bench. They looked at the county through the east window — the January county, the honest landscape, the bare trees and the dormant fields and the specific quality of winter that was not absence but preparation. "The empty space is the condition," Don said. "Not the problem. The empty space is the condition of the next thing arriving."

Because she needed to understand what it was before she tried to explain it to someone else. She understood on Sunday. She was sitting in the courtyard of the gallery. The renovation crew had gone home for the weekend. The space was quiet and dusty and slowly becoming what she had imagined. Elena was in the carrier on her chest, asleep in the afternoon sun, and Lia had the notebook open on her knee. She was reading back what she had written and she realized it was a book. Not finished. Not even close to finished. But the shape of a book was there. A real one. The kind that started with a woman deciding to take her life back and ended somewhere she couldn't quite see yet but knew the directio