For years she lay awake, listening for the return of fledglings burning the candle late. The turn of a key, the creak of the stair. Needing to know they were home safe before her own eyes could rest. Now flown, their phantom clicks and shadow steps still haunt her slumber.

Lesley also has short fiction published online at 101 Words, Paragraph Planet and Wensum Lit, as well as a number of competition anthologies. She grew up in the North East and now lives in Hampshire.