Swimming with Salamanders

A word from the Author and Review by Tom Rapp
While travelling the Camino Compostela, with a searing 40 Celsius falling from the heavenly glare, I stumbled into a mountain village asking if there was river or lake where I could cool off. They said only at the bottom of the mountain, other than their drinking well which they forbade me to swim in. I found the well and plunged within the coolness, only to rise to the breaking sunlight and when reaching the surface, my body immersed in a sensual tingling. Looking down into the water, broken with shafts of streaking sun, my body was being caressed by hundreds of salamanders, their transient colours were mesmerizing. I almost never escaped the well as when I tried to grab the grass, it just tore away. They say one in a billion swim with the Salamanders, and when they do magic is imparted. I later found out that legendary folklore says, 'they are immune to fire as they are born in the flames of the in-between'.
These small amphibious creatures can regenerate body parts, breathe through their skin and although the Spanish Newt is highly poisonous, never harmed me in anyway.
Their facial appearance, almost human blessed me on that appointed day and my escape from that magic pool was due to their intervention. We live in an imperfect world, where the vibration of other worlds sometimes enters our dimension in the form of earthquakes, volcanoes, famine, and contagious virus. When all is said and done, I wouldn't go near that house on the hill.

Review by Tom Rapp
In the same hook and twist of Roald Dahl's 'Tales of the Unexpected' or 'Tales of the Crypt', radio presenter Shiloh Noone brings another edge to the mystery files with his 'Tales from the In-between'. Elements of the 'Twilight Zone' come to mind, yet the stories, sometimes gory and out of this world, embed mind and fantasy and remind us that we need to be aware of the unseen that hovers in-between. Tom Rapp