Cat Tales Issue #3
Page 6
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Additional Uncollected Anthology Stories
Check out the other fabulous authors and their stories!
Including our extra special guest, Steven Mohan, Jr.!
The Sufferance of Shark Gods
By Steven Mohan, Jr.
Matthew Panagopoulos is a loner, a Greek-American, a long-suffering fan of the Cleveland Browns, and a lieutenant in the United States Navy. He’s also one other thing.
A wizard.
The wizard thing isn’t his choice—he wants nothing to do with magic or the occult, but what he wants doesn’t matter. He was born with a gift—and there’s a strict no-return policy.
Matt’s the operations officer on a warship racing toward the Sea of Japan to avert an international crisis. It’s a new ship with an old name. An unlucky name.
Indianapolis.
In the closing days of WWII, another Indianapolis was sent to the bottom of the sea by a Japanese torpedo. The survivors of the submarine attack floated in the sea for days. During that hellish stretch of time, nearly six hundred men died of exposure, dehydration, and something else.
Shark attacks.
The new Indianapolis has the same bad luck. She, too, is destined to sink—unless a young wizard can overcome a wisecracking demon, a jealous Greek god, the worst storm to ever hit the North Pacific, and the echoes of a terrible childhood trauma to win.
Coconut Cream Magic
By Stephanie Writt
Who knew the epic fail of a cooking spell could lead to naked house demolition? And then could get so much worse…
I try to conjure a pie for my grandmother’s birthday. Heh. Right. That goes sideways in an explosion of wrong and coconut cream filling. But it might not be the worst thing that ever happens. Maybe. Maaaaybe. Because to get everything I ever wanted I will have to face down the most frightening and unbending creature on this plant. Naked.
So, that’s going to go real well. Oh yeah. Really well.
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Check out all of Steph’s UA writing at:
http://www.uncollectedanthology.com/the-authors/stephanie-writt/
Or check out her website at www.stephaniewritt.com.
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Tear Away (A Crossroad City Tale)
By Rebecca M. Senese
Faerie Maeve Hemlock, lead detective in the Spells and Misdemeanours Bureau of Crossroad City, confronts a wraith about a report of an unauthorized spell.
A routine disturbance. Until the wraith tries to bedazzle her.
Now Maeve must use all her magic to stop a spell and save her life.
Urban fantasy with an edge, the stories of Crossroad City weave tales where magic and the normal world collide. Where detective Maeve Hemlock and the Spells and Misdemeanours Bureau struggle to keep the law and the magic in check to save all.
Be sure to check out Rebecca’s other UA stories at:
http://rebeccasenese.com/series/uncollected-anthology/
Disrupt Magic (An Abracadabra Inc. Story)
By Kristine Katherine Rusch
Pascal protects magical items for Abracadabra Inc. But when he finds his latest job thwarted by disruptive magic, he decides to find its source.
Because Pascal knows how much powerful magic runs through Paris. Old magic. New magic. Wild magic. Dangerous magic, all.
Pascal thinks he knows what he will find when he tracks the magic’s creator. But what he finds might prove only the beginning.
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Kristine Kathryn Rusch is one of the best writers in the field and ‘Dragon’s Tooth’ does not disappoint…Rusch gives us a delightful tale here!
SFRevu on Dragon’s Tooth: An Abracadabra Inc. Novella
The Fixer
By Annie Reed
When Amelia botched her first spell as a kid, her parents grounded her. And then they enrolled her in an after-school program that taught her how to fix her screw ups.
She loved it so much she decided to open her own business helping people who can’t get their spells to work quite right.
Now the best spell reclamation wizard in the business, Amelia’s never run into a spell she couldn’t fix. Until now. And worst of all, the spell in question is one of her own, pirated by a shady online wizarding school out to bilk unsuspecting wannabe wizards and ruin Amelia in the process.
Return to the magical Pacific Northwest city of Moretown Bay in Annie Reed’s “The Fixer,” a story of good magic gone seriously wrong.
Read more of Annie’s UA stories at:
https://anniereed.wordpress.com/uncollected-anthology/
Avenge Me
By Michele Lang
By day, rookie lawyer Nicole Farmer runs a struggling solo practice in the tough town of Amistad, Connecticut. But Nicole hides a terrifying secret: by night, unquiet spirits call to her on the dream plane, seeking revenge and healing. Nicole takes on these special cases pro bono, despite the toll they take on her life and career.
When Lizzie, the spirit of a young woman, demands an audience, Nicole answers her call and takes her supernatural case. Now, Nicole must stop a killer bent on striking again in her daily world. A supernatural mystery in a spooky, otherworldly setting, Avenge Me will take you on a wild, emotional ride.
Read more of Michele’s work at:
http://www.michelelang.com/blog/
Releasing the Spell
By Dayle A. Dermatis
If you’re gonna buy a spell, go to someone legit. Bargain spells? Well, you get what you pay for…
When hapless Roberta comes to Portland hedgewitch Holly asking for help with a botched spell, Holly stumbles into the spell’s trap as well. Her best bet: find the witch who created the spell. In the middle of a snowstorm.
And in the process, figure out why Roberta’s boss scares her so much…
A new story in the spellbinding Hedgewitch urban fantasy series by the author of the Nikki Ashburne Ghosted stories.
Read more of Dayle’s UA stories at:
www.dayledermatis.com/uncollected-anthology-series/
About Knotted Road Press
Knotted Road Press fiction specializes in dynamic writing set in mysterious, exotic locations.
Knotted Road Press non-fiction publishes autobiographies, business books, cookbooks, and how-to books with unique voices.
Knotted Road Press creates DRM-free ebooks as well as high-quality print books for readers around the world.
With authors in a variety of genres including literary, poetry, mystery, fantasy, and science fiction, Knotted Road Press has something for everyone.
Knotted Road Press
www.KnottedRoadPress.com
Nine Lives
Copyright © 2017 Leah Cutter
All rights reserved
Published 2017 by Knotted Road Press
www.KnottedRoadPress.com
Cover Art:
© Makarova Olga | Dreamstime.com - Cat and fairy bird at night
Cover and interior design copyright © 2017 Knotted Road Press
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Created with Vellum
Electronic edition published by Twisted Root Publishing February 2012
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Coyotes, Cats and Other Creatures Copyright 2010 by Karen L. Abrahamson. First published in Strange Horizons, September 2002.
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All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction, in whole or in part in any form. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Cover design by Twisted Root Publishing
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For more information about Twisted Root Publishing, please visit our website at http://www.twistedrootpublishing.com
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Includes a sneak preview of Afterburn.
Coyotes, Cats and Other Creatures
"Let Agnes go," says Dr. Michael. "She's been dead a year. You have to move on."
I look at him, seated in his ochre armchair. "How can you expect me to let go of someone who joined her life to mine for forty years?" I ask. The tears come again, filling my eyes, coursing my cheeks. I sit back in my chair, daring him to respond.
Agnes, I still feel the brush of your fingertips, smell the scent of your herbal shampoo. It has only been a year since you . . . left me. But this -- this smooth-faced doctor my children hired to "heal" me -- how can he help? He hasn't lived. Hasn't watched death slip past his guard and take away his love. I look away from him, firming my jaw, wiping the tears. I don't have to do anything he suggests. But I would like to stop crying.
Dr. Michael leans forward in his chair, his voice smooth as his skin, honeyed as if he were cajoling a cat. He smiles with sharp teeth. "Will you work with me, Richard? I've got something I'd like you to try. Something to get you living again." His furtive hazel eyes flick across my face.
I won't fall for his tricks.
But I nod, not meeting his gaze, and fight to breathe. "What is it this time? Another hypnosis session? More chat therapy? I've been through it all with the other therapists."
Dr. Michael sits back in his chair. The autumn sunlight beyond the window pushes through the closed blinds in long bands of light. His florid aftershave scents the room. "It's simple, really. You said you go for a walk every day?"
I nod again, resentful.
"Then each time you go, I want you to think about one of the difficult feelings you have about Agnes. The painful things that make you not want to get up in the morning. I want you to carry that feeling with you and imagine it's something concrete, something you can see. Take it with you into the woods and leave it there. Focus on the feelings being left behind. If the same feeling comes back later, take it back out to the trails and leave it there again. Can you do that?"
I nod again, amazed at myself for doing so. How can I take the advice of someone who has lived so little? My hands carry the marks of years, while his carry the smooth color of his voice. "For all the good it will do," I grumble.
Dr. Michael ignores my petty resistance. "Good, then. Do it over the next week and we'll see how it's going next session." He stands. I shake his hand, wipe my tears, and leave.
But I do as he asks. Agnes stands by as I decide to start with the haunted feeling -- the sense that she waits in each room of the house. I take that feeling with me on my walk, like a pet on a string, and leave it in the forest.
It almost works.
But when I get home and unlock the door, the feeling has beaten me back to the house. Perhaps it entered through the cat door, but as I move around the house I know Agnes waits in the kitchen. In the living room. In the bedroom. I will take her back to the woods tomorrow.
And I do. And this time I take string -- a bit of Agnes's coloured yarn -- and tie it to a tree to hold the memory there. And it works.
Dr. Michael praises me for my work. I resent his congratulations, but the tears come a little less.
Agnes favored the fall. We'd go for long walks on the trails, long walks amid the discarded cottonwood and aspen leaves, and laugh at the rustling sounds they made. "Their voices," she would say. "Hear them whisper?" She'd stop and so would I. A soft voice on the breeze would say, "I love you, Richard."
I'd laugh and hug her to me. Her grey hair tossed around her blue eyes. "Whispering woman! I love you, too." That was then.
Now Agnes fills the woods. Bits of my memories I've left behind as Dr. Michael encouraged. Bits of my life tied to branches in bright yarn, to empty out my house, my mind. I breathe deeper now, my children say. I'm "more present," they tell me. More centered, Dr. Michael says.
"Centered," I huff to myself in the November wind. I may cry less. But my walks take me further into the forest, into memories of Agnes, and my left hand fills my pocket, fingering Agnes's glove -- the one I always carry. The cool air smells of snow. I walk the trails, listening to the leaves underfoot, to the wind in the stripped branches, to the rough cries of crows that watch me pass. They call warnings to something of my approach, just as they call warnings of the coyote to the small things of the brush.
The coyote moved in this fall. The neighbors tell me they have seen him. They whisper of old legends -- warn of coyote as messenger and trickster. With his coming, small pets go missing. Both of Agnes's cats disappeared last week. At first I thought they had simply tired of me, of my sadness. But the cat door no longer clatters in the night. Their warm bodies no longer dent the bed beside me. Their food remains untouched. It is an absence I don't care for -- almost a betrayal of Agnes. I know the coyote preys on the small loved ones of the area, so I look for him on the trails. I never see him.
But small movements in the underbrush catch my eye: the quick tremble of a leaf, a shadow that shifts swiftly, a hurried movement across the trail. Though squirrels and birds elude me, I see the movements. I see them more now than I ever used to when Agnes walked with me. The woods ripple with them.
Sometimes I even see them at home. As I read on the couch, something scuttles across the floor and I look up from the pages. A spider? But nothing stirs. The room stays still except for my breathing. Until I look back to the words. Then the movements begin again. Perhaps mice or some other small creatures have moved in, in the absence of cats. I will nail shut the cat door. That will keep me busy for a while.
It might stop me from being haunted by the memories of Agnes I don't want to lose. Dr. Michael says to heal I must let go of many more things. He says he has techniques that will work -- even on me -- and I believe him.
I have walked all winter, leaving my bits of memories as gifts to the barren branches. Agnes waited for me on the trails. Her two cats waited with her. They left delicate paw prints in the snow. And the unseen denizens of the woods scurried after as I followed the trail of my previous days' footprints. The winds chilled my cheeks and earlobes; the snowflakes caught in my hair.
Agnes, I thought each time, you would laugh at my salt-and-pepper mane. You would stroke the flakes from my face and eyelashes. You would kiss my cheek and make me warm.
I left the house often this winter and spent my time wandering.
And I stripped the house, until it no longer rang with memories or Agnes's laughter. "It's over," Dr. Michael told me at our last session. "You've done well, moved on, forward." He smiled his cajoling smile as I shivered in my chair.
I know I have quit crying. I know my children are pleased. I know Dr. Michael wears a satisfied expression. But I hate the house now that I have done what they asked.
Today I take my last walk for Dr. Michael in the snow. My bit of yarn will tether my fears of being alone. I say a prayer to Agnes-of-the-woods and seek a
likely branch for the bit of red wool I will use.
There. A willow branch swells towards spring. I remove my mitten and tie the wool in a neat bow and step back to admire it. Agnes, I think. The breeze whispers in the pines. My breath steams in the air. I smile. Agnes smiles with me.
Afterwards I hike the hill to Thurman Ridge, where I can look out over the valley and the housing development that encroaches closer to the old house and woods where I live; the places Agnes also lived. The birch and poplar gleam blue-white in the afternoon sun. The cedar and pine wear skirts of shadow beneath the loads of snow in their branches. The air parts around me. From the corner of my eye I catch something moving across the trail.
When I look straight on, it is gone. No footprints mark the snow where it passed. The wind stills. I breathe in and out and look around. There's a sudden movement of leaves cascading from the crutch of branches where they were caught. They loosen from the hollows of trees. I hear scuttling and I twirl around. Nothing. Just a slight movement amid the lichen. The sunlight glitters on the marred snow of the trail. Shadows pool in my empty footprints that lead back down the slope.