I’ll be back in 2016 for the third installment of The Chancellor Fairy Tales with “The Bee Charmer.” In that novella, we’ll find out why Rayne’s eyes have that special sparkle.
In case you missed the first novella in this series, you can find The Glass Mermaid on Amazon. The Chancellor Fairy Tales can be read as stand-alone works or as part of the larger series.
My newsletter recipients always get a sneak peek of my upcoming works, exclusive flash fiction pieces, and special giveaways. I’d love to have you join: CLICK TO JOIN.
Thank you so much for reading,
Cheers,
Poppy
About the Author
Romance author. Cupcake connoisseur. Certified herbalist. Beach bum. Fan of all things Starbucks. Holistic healing advocate. Surfer girl wanna-be. Lost guru. Maker of dandelion wine. Counselor. Paranormal buff. Etsy addict. Secretly Jedi. So not a geek girl. Gifted in sarcasm. Hot wife. Ninja mom. And now, I'm ready to share a whole head full of witty, mouthy, smart, lovely, heart-warming, and hot characters with the world. Are you ready?
Poppy Lawless is the author of the The Chancellor Fairy Tales. Poppy holds degrees in English and Psychology. She is a counselor in the field of mental health and is a trained herbalist. Poppy's new series blends the best of romance with a Practical Magic or contemporary Bewitched appeal.
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About The Witching Hour Collection
Good witch. Bad witch. White magic. Black magic. Kitchen magic. Pick your potion. Ready for Halloween? The authors of the Blazing Indie Collective, who brought you the Falling in Deep Collection, are brewing up something new. Check out all the novellas in The Witching Hour Collection:
Melanie Karsak: Witch Wood
Claire C. Riley: Twisted Magic
Eli Constant: Sleeping in the Forest of Shadows
Elizabeth Watasin: Charm School: The Wrecking Faerie
Erin Hayes: I'd Rather be a Witch
Carrie Wells: Playing with Magic
Evan Winters: The Witch of Bracken's Hollow
Minerva Lee: Spun Gold
Blaire Edens: The Witch of Roan Mountain
Poppy Lawless: The Cupcake Witch
Sneak Peek: Playing with Magic by Carrie L. Wells
Liza Scott can't be bothered with her obnoxious roommate. She’s far too busy enjoying life in college and playing video games. As a top notch, tournament-level gamer, life seems to be going great despite the questions of her childhood. That’s when she finds herself getting dizzy in the oddest places.
Those spells lead her to even odder situations, both in life and online, and spells of another kind entirely.
Faced with life-altering information about herself medically and metaphysically, and joined by her best friend Felix, Liza faces the changes in her life and her new role as witch royalty. But what she really wants to focus on is the gorgeous Fathom Burke who suddenly seems to know who she is. Maybe it’s coincidence, but maybe, just maybe, it’s magic.
Chapter ONE
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
The intercom sounded relentlessly, pulling me away from my video game.
“Yeah, what do you want?” I asked, expecting it to be my roommate. Ashley constantly forgets her dorm keys.
“Oops, sorry, Lizzie,” said a disembodied voice with a giggle. “It’s just me and Jake.”
“Jeez, Ashley. Knock it off. It’s midnight.”
“Like you were asleep.” Her snotty tone did nothing to lighten my mood. And she’d called me Lizzie, again. But, if I was lucky, she’d be downstairs making out for a while longer and I’d have the room to myself until she’d had enough. The last thing I wanted to deal with was my bubble-headed roommate and her newest fling.
As much as I hated it, she was right. I hadn’t been sleeping. I was working a new level of Urban Viking Raid, a video game I just picked up, and I hate pausing when I’m in the zone. Maybe I’d feel differently if Ashley didn’t habitually suck face with her man all over the intercom buttons, but she did. And really, even if it had been the first time, I’d be ticked off. It didn’t help that I merely tolerated Ashley, and only for Felix’s sake. My best friend had an odd crush on Ashley. It was made even odder by the fact that he’s gay. You’d think it’d be tougher for a sorority blonde to win over a gay guy, but she had him snowed with her shiny hair and squeaky, sweet voice. Me? I didn’t fall for it. Every ditsy bimbo is a little bit psychopathic if you ask me. Anyone who’s taken Psych 101 knows that. And Ashley is one broken nail from killing us all.
“She’s all kinds of perky and cute, Liza. How do you not love that?” Felix asked when he realized my roommate-focused discontent.
Ashley is exactly that, perky and cute. She’s only five feet two and her blondeness and bright blue eyes are hypnotic. She wears her traditional West Coast look like a badge in our drafty Boston dorm. She owns tank tops and high, strappy sandals. That’s all. It’s like she doesn’t realize she’s not on Venice Beach or Rodeo Drive, or wherever she spent her time in “Cali.” I hate when she calls it that. “Cali.” Gag. But, I would laugh last. She’d be freezing soon enough. Boston winters don’t like the weak nor the southern Californians.
She may be channeling Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde. Whatever the reason she looks and acts like she does, I don’t like her. Besides being perky and cute, she’s a prima donna. Ashley’s diva qualities—like hogging all the vanity space in the bathroom and offering me the smaller closet—don’t help dissuade me of my opinion.
“You only wear like, what, two outfits? I really need the room for my things. Good fabric needs to breath, you know.”
She didn’t even give me a chance to comment before she had my favorite T-shirt, an awesome, faded, vintage print of Janis Joplin, thrown on the floor. She continued to discard my clothes and busied herself hanging a flimsy slip.
“So, you need to hang your pajamas?” I asked.
“Pajamas? Are you kidding?” She laughed. Her bell-like voice tinkled in what I took as mockery. “This isn’t to sleep in. This is a four hundred-dollar slip dress. Don’t you read Vogue?”
It’s pretty obvious that I don’t. My long brunette hair has a wave to it, not the trendy soft curl or straight, shimmery curtain that everyone seems to wear. And most of the time it’s pulled back in a sloppy bun, a remnant from my childhood attempts at ballet. My wardrobe, if you can call it that, consists of jeans and T-shirts, a broken in cotton jacket I can wear all year, and a dress that Felix made me buy one day in case I ever go on a date. I won’t, but just in case I do, I have a dress that makes me not only uncomfortable but screams that I have breasts.
Felix knows me, and loves me, but he doesn’t always understand me. I’m a girl who keeps her boobs under wraps. The last thing I need on a date is to put them out there. It’s like false advertising really. The poor guy will expect that they’re out all the time and be extremely disappointed when he never sees them again.
Along with my fashion choices, I’m not sure Felix will ever understand my searing disdain for Ashley.
“I’ve tried to like her. I just can’t get past the prissy princess thing she has going on,” I’d told Felix about two days after we met my sophomore year roommate. “She’s more annoying than Barbie. She’s, well, she’s Skipper.”
“Skipper!” Felix laughed, and I watched his latest energy drink obsession come out his nose like watery blue snot.
“I call ‘em as I see ‘em. And I saw that on move-in day.”
“Well, Skipper is a perfect call. Wait. Isn’t there already a Barbie friend named Ashley?”
“No. It’s Barbie, Ken, Skipper, and Stacie, who was actually Kelly at first.” Embarrassed to know that information, I blushed and turned away. For the record, I remember the oddest things, and most of them aren’t worthy of knowing.
“First, how do you know that? Second, and more impo
rtantly, does that make me Ken? Oh, I could be Club Ken or maybe Ken has a hot Latino frat brother Juan. I’ll be him.”
I called him Juan for a solid week until explaining the name to other people became overly annoying.
I settled into my green corduroy beanbag and focused on the game. I closed my eyes, breathed deeply, and hit the play button on my controller. The bright lights and constant motion boosted my adrenaline and I forgot about Ashley.
Placing my noise-canceling headphones over my ears, I turned up my music. I avoid the headphones when I’m alone, but they are a dorm-dwelling necessity. At least now Ashley and buzzer boy would find it tough to compete with the driving bass in my ears. As my Urban Viking Raid character, a busty Brunhilde-type, launched into another round of kicking and leaping, I saw her path open. If I could lead her to the right, behind the dumpster, I would be able to climb the fire escape and avoid the sniper fire. I was able to lead her past the sniper and to the roof where she grabbed a ride on a helicopter and soared into the next level of play.
Not ten minutes later, the bass wasn’t the only pounding noise I heard. I took off my headphones and looked around confused. Realizing it was someone hammering on my door, I reluctantly paused my game. Felix ran through me as I opened the red door to room 327.
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
He shook out his hand, his knuckles red and puffy. “I swear. I was out there banging on the door for fifteen minutes.”
He always starts sounding pretentious when I annoy him. His southern boy charm wanes and he gets all worked up. He’s from Florida, but he says it isn’t part of the great American South like most New Englanders think. He says it’s more like a warm New York than a drawling, Confederate-flag-waving state of y’all users.
Maybe he’s right. I’ve never been there. I’ve never left New England.
Felix looked around the room, his eyes fixating on the television. “Playing again?” he asked, less than impressed with my hobby. Felix loved video games, but he loved socializing more.
“What did you think I’d be doing? I just got the game.”
“Any chance I can drag you out? I’m starving. I was coding all day. I need a break.”
Felix is a computer science major and a graphic art minor. He’s specializing in software development. On a perfect day, he uses his Mac to create amazing video game characters with so much detail that I find it hard to believe they aren’t real. On a decent day, he sits and types weird abbreviations and punctuation. On a bad day, he looks through all of the code to find the typos and things that aren’t in the right place. I couldn’t do it.
I’m a literature major. I don’t plan to teach. I don’t plan to write a great novel either. I like stories, so it made sense to go into lit. But, ultimately, I want to write story lines for video games. A company would take my characters and plot lines and combine them with someone like Felix’s amazing graphics and creative coding. Voilà, a winning video game.
For now I study the stories of the world and write a few here and there. I do that and enter gaming tournaments. Better still, I win gaming tournaments.
I know it can’t be my future profession, but it’s a good time. I like getting lost in the games, and if talk can be trusted, video games today are what movies were in the 80s and 90s. Who says art can’t be interactive, right?
The thing I don’t like about gaming is the male dominance of it all. Female video game characters are all the same. They either have humongous comic book breasts or they’re manga-like, doe-eyed, schoolgirl types, also with huge boobs. None of them ever look like me. But I suppose that’s part of the fun. It’s an escape. I just wish I could escape into characters who are a little less slutty.
Girl gamers aren’t typical, and the ones who win are far fewer. Each time I walk into a tournament, the talk starts. Lucky for me, the gaming community is huge. With so many games and platforms and categories, I’m not a celebrity or anything. I get my share of gawks and congratulations, but since I only play locally, I don’t have a following or even a reputation outside of Boston. But we have a bigger gaming scene than you’d think. Everyone knows about L.A. and New York, but MIT makes sure we’re on the map too. It’s a big enough group that even a girl who wins her fair share of cash can go without too much hassle. Granted, maybe that’s because I’m the only girl some of these guys have ever seen outside of a game. They’d never think of talking to me.
No one cyberstalks me for my key insight or looks to follow my social media feeds. Then again, since I hate most social media and couldn’t care less what anyone ate for lunch, I don’t tweet or insta-anything. If I did, it would be the “real me” and not my gamer self. You don’t use your actual name when gaming, after all. I’m no longer Liza Scott when I pick up a controller. I’m SnarkyGurl27 at that point. No one even knows my real name. Liza? Who’s she?
That’s fine with me. I don’t game for notice. I game because I like it, and I like the money. If you can make some quick cash with a talent, why not? That’s my motto at least. Granted, gaming is a cool talent and pays well. It isn’t like some athletic ability where I have to sweat. I just play and the money comes. My last three tourneys together grabbed me tuition for a year with room and board. Considering my swanky school, that’s a heap of cash.
You wouldn’t think a literature major would bother with a fancy college. The economic climate doesn’t even ensure that getting a degree in something useful like engineering or accounting will get you a job. But I hadn’t planned on Riegert College. I was set for Minute Man Community College, but I won a scholarship. No one I know is dumb enough to turn that down. Besides, I love Boston. It’s old and cramped, and it’s been under construction since before I was born, but amazing seafood, cool historical buildings, and great people with loud accents populate the place. People may favor New York, or Chicago, or even Miami, but they’re fools. Besides, the Red Sox make life interesting. Any team that worships a giant green wall and celebrates its own curse is worth rooting for if you ask me.
I knew I’d be leaving with Felix regardless of what type of fight I put up. Reluctantly, I turned off the console, making sure the game saved my spot, grabbed my wallet and keys, and joined Felix in the hall. He was commenting on my Dr. Martens before I had the door shut.
“Why, Liza? Why?” he pleaded with exasperation.
Feigning ignorance, I smiled at him. “Why, what?”
“Those shoes. Why must you wear those horrible man shoes? This isn’t London in the 80s, you know. You aren’t a Sex Pistol and you aren’t a Ramone. So, why would you wear those?”
“I don’t have a new answer for ya,” I said flippantly. “I like ‘em.”
“But with all the fabulous footwear options you have, why those? Do you know what I would give to get away with wearing a pair of Jimmy Choo Samba pumps? And you can afford them.”
I can, but only because of the tournament money. I put that away for the sure-to-come rainy day that would follow my graduation. I know I won’t find a job paying enough to live on for a few years, so the cash will come in handy.
“I’ll buy you some then,” I answered. “No reason for both of us to wear shoes you hate.”
“Hey now. I like my shoes, but Jimmy Choos they are not. So, where do you want go? The Cock?”
The Hancock Tavern sits right off campus. It’s close, but far too friendly and crowded for us most nights. When I want a burger, I don’t necessarily want to run into Ashley and her Beta Zeta sisters. Besides, The Cock was loud and the burgers were less than stellar.
“Nah, let’s hit Joey’s. I could go for a good cannoli. They close at two, right?”
“If we hustle, we can have two. And now that you said it, I need a cannoli.”
Suddenly a mass of red hair jutted out past a door frame. “Did I hear ‘cannoli’?”
“Hey, Darcy. Wanna come?” I asked. “We’re headed to Joey’s.”
“I’d love to,” she said brightly. “Let’s go!”
“You’re up pretty late tonight, Darce,” Felix said, teasing our friend. “Aren’t you good Catholic girls in bed by nine on Fridays?”
She smiled, used to his joking tone. While she looked like an Irish dairy maid, all bright copper curls and porcelain skin, her sass mirrored a true Bostonian, as did her reply.
“I’m normally in bed at nine,” she said in her sweet, dulcet voice. “I’m just not alone.”
Felix laughed audibly. It is pretty funny when the angelic Darcy says something like that. Especially when we know she is only half joking. She and her boyfriend of two years, Dante, a gorgeous Dominican soccer player and upperclassman at Riegert, spent plenty of time together in her dorm room. But, unlike Ashley, Darcy spent plenty of time alone and focused on her art degree too. Last semester she spent the whole term covered in clay, and even now she’d obviously been sketching as black charcoal covered her left hand.
“I’d never be in bed alone if I had a guy like that,” Felix admitted. “Keep track of that man. I love soccer players.”
“Me too,” Darcy added with a smile. “Sorry, Felix. You know he plays for a different team.”
I couldn’t help but insert my own comment at this point. “Players switch teams all the time, Darce. Maybe he’s ready to be traded.”
She reached out and punched my arm while Felix snickered and smiled broadly. He and Darcy had the same taste in men, both enjoying the long, lean athleticism of our soccer, crew, and lacrosse teams. And neither of them spends much time alone. It’s just that Darcy spends her time with one man, and Felix spends his time with many. Not that he’s promiscuous or anything, far from it. He’s just a flirt, and it works for him. I’m sure he was out at least three nights this past week, and that would be a slow week.
The Cupcake Witch: The Witching Hour Collection (The Chancellor Fairy Tales Book 2) Page 9
