Funk-N-Fiction

Happy Friday, flash fiction fans!! Today, Heather Silvio is bringing us a sneak peek into her Doctor Danger Mysteries series with this “spells” inspired scene from her 2026 release!

Fiasco in Florida
Flash Fiction By Heather Silvio
Inspired by the image Spells

Fiasco in Florida features a mermaid, a ghost pirate ship, and a cursed Egyptian god’s mug. Oh, and some gators in the Everglades. Check out this preliminary draft (please excuse any typos!) of a scene when supernatural sleuth Sarah Danger realizes the team’s run-of-the-mill stolen property case is anything but typical:

“Feel that breeze,” I said, holding my arms out to my side. My boss, Jeffrey McCarthy, and I stood before a waterfront ranch home in Santa Barbara Estates, one of the most upscale sections of Pompano Beach, Florida. The serene neighborhood belied the trade in illicit foreign antiquities we believed originated behind the home’s understated exterior. Okay, that was melodramatic. We thought we’d traced a stolen ancient Egyptian mug to the homeowner’s private collection.

Jeff and I strode to the front door, and I peered in the large front windows into the home’s interior as he knocked. A sense of disquiet rolled over me, and I hissed through gritted teeth.

A middle-aged woman with a mouth twisted in worry answered in seconds, distracting me from my odd emotion. I wondered if she’d been waiting just inside the door for our arrival.

“Mrs. Tober?” Jeff held his hand out at her curt nod, and she delicately shook his fingertips, releasing quickly. “I’m Jeffrey McCarthy, and this is my assistant, Sarah Danger.” Jeff introduced us to her backside as she retreated into the home. We hurried across the marble floor behind her, his broad frame hiding my petite one.

I politely coughed into my hand when the citrus and coconut scent of burning candles hit me. My allergies were manageable, but candles risked sending me over the edge. Hopefully, I wouldn’t need my inhaler!

Mrs. Tober stopped at a huge curio cabinet spanning the length of a tan wall on the side of the living room. I glanced out the sliding glass doors, intending to steal a moment of enjoyment at the incredible view of the Intracoastal Waterway beyond. Instead, the edges of my vision blurred and darkened. I wasn’t having an asthma attack, was I? Before I could complete my thought, it cleared, allowing me to focus on Mrs. Tober standing in front of the cabinet. She twisted and untwisted the bottom of her blue blouse as she spoke.

“I’m not sure I understand,” she admitted. “When you called and said I had a stolen object in my collection, I couldn’t imagine how that was possible.” She released the crinkled hem of her shirt to gesture at the curio of curiosities. “These are just interesting antiquities and occult objects. It’s not like they’re—” Her voice dropped to a dramatic whisper. “—magical, or spelled, or c-c-cursed.”

Interesting. We hadn’t said anything about a spell or curse. My unexpected reactions in the home struck me as worthy of further consideration.

Her hands dropped to her sides. “I bought the mug from my typical source. He’s never sold me stolen items before. I can’t imagine he did now.”

A shiver raced up my spine, and I failed to prevent my body from shuddering.

“Sarah, you okay?” Jeff asked. His slight Boston accent, normally softened and slowed from years in Florida, strengthened.

“Just a weird chill,” I answered, not meeting his eyes. He’d wondered before about my reactions to people during cases, but I’d never told him the truth. Now, I peered closer at Mrs. Tober. Could she be the source of the physical and emotional experiences I’d been having since entering her home?

“In here?” The homeowner lifted sculpted eyebrows along with the inflection in her question.

“I can be sensitive,” I offered, the closest thing to the truth I planned on divulging to this stranger. In my peripheral vision, I didn’t miss Jeff’s concerned expression. Perhaps it was time to tell him that I was a clairempath. Like most people, whether or not one believed it existed, he understood the term clairvoyance as the ability to sense information about future or past events. However, there were several lesser-known related psychic abilities, including clairempathy. In simple terms, it meant that I sensed others’ emotions. 

Mrs. Tober’s fussing with her blouse’s hem, struggling to maintain eye contact, and displaying jerking arm movements suggested nervousness. But the feelings I sensed seemed like more. “Why don’t you show us the mug?”

Jeff’s client had hired our private investigative firm to find a stolen Egyptian artifact. It took some doing, but we’d traced the missing antiquity to Mrs. Tober. When Jeff called her to tell her she might have received stolen goods, she freaked out. That wasn’t surprising. Nobody wanted to be associated with illegal activity when they just wanted to collect cool antiquities and occult items.

“Of course, of course, it’s in here.” She lifted her hand as if to open the curio, then it fell back to her side.

With confirmation that the mug was in the curio, I tried to find it myself. My reflection in the glass backing of the cabinet caught my attention. I blanched at my appearance, and it took me a second to discern why. On the surface, nothing stood out – long, curly auburn hair framed bright green eyes in a pale heart-shaped face. I wore my standard jeans and t-shirt, as expected for a graduate student working on their PhD. I ran cold on a good day, but this was South Florida in the summer. Even I didn’t need long sleeves today. Although why then had I shivered earlier? And why did I now possess such a haunted look? Darkness swarmed at the edges of my vision again. I shook my head to dislodge the void. Wait. What? The void? That was certainly vivid.

“Sarah?” Jeff’s sharp tone made his worry unmistakable.

And it grounded me back in the real world, albeit shaken by the unexpected intensity of… whatever that had been. “Is that the mug?” I asked Mrs. Tober instead of answering Jeff’s question. Between an esoteric-appearing Tarot card deck and a blackened glass scrying mirror sat a rather unusual mug.

At first glance, the mug appeared to be brownish clay pottery. Short—maybe only the size of a small vase—rather than the size of a contemporary mug. In the spotlight Mrs. Tober had trained on the mug, we saw the unmistakable visage of Bes, the ancient Egyptian god who protected the common people. In fact, Mandie, our team’s researcher, had found that this was a god that people liked for all his positive associations, everything from mothers and their children to music and dance. I recognized the front-facing gigantic head, protruding tongue, and bulging eyes from the description the client had provided Jeff.

This was our stolen mug of the popular protector deity.

Why, then, did I feel bereft? I glanced at Mrs. Tober, wondering again if she was the source of these potent emotions. It seemed unlikely. An idea struck me.

“Mrs. Tober, do you mind if I inspect the mug?” I kept my voice even, but still Jeff quirked an eyebrow at my question. If anyone was going to inspect the mug, he would, as lead investigator. I was just the assistant, after all. But he trusted me in that role, which was no doubt why he responded by giving me a small nod of assent.

Mrs. Tober wordlessly opened the curio door, then reached in to ease the mug from its velvet home. She turned and placed the small mug into my cupped hands. Years before, my mother had taught me to build a stone wall of protection as an internal barrier against the sensations of others. My clairempathy was quite strong, and I sometimes struggled to differentiate my own experiences from those of others. The local library had offered little additional explanation, but the interwebs told me that was unusual. I didn’t know any other way to be. I double-checked that my wall of protection soared to my internal heavens and then braced myself for what I suspected was about to happen.

It wasn’t nearly enough.

The moment the rough clay mug touched my palms, I rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet, steadying myself from the onslaught. Terror gripped me as the darkness that had frayed at the edge of my vision now consumed it. I widened my legs, finding my balance in the complete blackness.

I was blind. A whoosh sounded in my ears. Acrid smoke choked me. I swallowed the almost overwhelming need to cough, my internal wall of protection at least helping me recognize that these physical sensations were not my own. The whooshing in my ears faded with the smell of smoke. Emptiness subsumed me. I no longer felt rooted in the physical world.

Lights flashed in the void. I needed to fight back before all was lost.

All what?! I cried out silently into the emptiness.

A new sound.

I strained to hear, to understand.

Faint, so faint.

Tendrils of fear wrapped themselves around my mind in the blankness.

The sound grew louder, almost audible, triggering a recognition.

Chuckling.

Chuckling as the void spread. Rolling waves of nothingness. It would move beyond me, encompass the world. 

It bumped into my internal wall of protection, found a small hole, and tried to squeeze through.

No! I screamed. My protection barrier would hold. I’d find my way back from the desolation.

“Sarah? Are you okay? What’s happening? Sarah? What’s going on?”

I heard Jeff through the darkness asking increasingly frantic questions. I latched onto the sound and used it to pull myself back from the void. The emptiness drained away, and my vision crept in. I identified I was fully present in Mrs. Tober’s living room, grasping Bes’s mug as if my life depended on it, tears streaming down my face. When my trembling hands passed the mug to Jeff, my watery eyes locked onto his widened ones.

“We are in serious trouble.”

Note that the above scene takes place in the not-yet-written Fiasco in Florida (A Doctor Danger Mystery Prequel), releasing in 2026 exclusively to readers who subscribe to my newsletter. If you want to be among the first to read the prequel, subscribe today. If you’re not ready to commit to my weekly newsletter, you can always grab the first book in the series—where this case gets a brief nod!—Hazard in Hawaii, available for free everywhere books are sold.