15 Days of Harveys Day 5 – Christine King’s “The Child, The Witch, and The Werewolf”

The Child, The Witch, and The Werewolf

by Christine King

 
Grandmother was a witch.
Not for her the traditional image of a witch. She was not old and bent, with a hooked nose and warts. She did not boil the ears of bats in a huge bubbling cauldron, nor did she wear black pointed hats or ride around on a broomstick. She did have a cat though.
This grandmother was tall and slim and she wore elegant clothes which showed off her neat figure. If she ever cast any spells on herself, they must have been for youth and beauty as she did not seem to age, and where most women of her age had at least a few wrinkles and grey hair, Grandmother the witch had smooth skin and a mane of thick, rich auburn red hair.
She kept her hair safely hidden under a respectable bonnet when she ventured out of her cottage, and tucked away under a mob cap at bedtime. It did not do to advertise her charms too publicly, and she did not wish to either attract or antagonise any of her neighbours with her looks. She was not feared by the locals however, rather the opposite, in fact. She was revered and respected, and her potions were much sought after. No one’s livestock ever sickened and died, no crops failed, no lovelorn maiden stayed single for long once one of her potions had been brewed, delivered and drunk. She was a wise woman, a healer, a teller of fortunes, a seer, a sage.

The above is from Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 (the famous “No Dragons” issue) and you can read the rest of Christine King’s The Child, The Witch, and The Werewolf along with several other amazing stories between its captivating covers (and we both hope you do!).

Have you been Harveyed?

The kind, wise, and wonderful folks at Sixth Element Publishing included four of my flash pieces in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 and I’m repaying that kindness by showcasing the opening from each author’s work for the next few weeks.

 
Read

Next up, a taste of Chrysta Coburn’s .

Enjoy!

15 Days of Harveys Day 4 – Bruce Connelly’s “Hare Today, Gone…?”

Hare Today, Gone…?

by Bruce Connelly

 
Jack rolled out of bed at 6:30 on Easter Morning. “I can’t believe the kids aren’t up yet,” he muttered. “I’m getting the bathroom first!”
“Jack,” Nancy murmured, her face buried in the pillows. “Stay away from the baskets.”
“Do you think I’d steal candy from my own children?” he said, as he pulled on his robe.
“Yes, I do. Where did the Crunchy Crispy Candy Bars go out of their Trick or Treat bags?”
“Goblins. Where are my slippers?”
“And the Liquorice All Sorts out of their stockings?”
“Krampus. But you could make this a whole lot easier, you know.”
“How?”
“Give me my own Easter Basket!”

The above is from Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 (the famous “No Dragons” issue) and you can read the rest of Bruce Connelly’s Hare Today, Gone…? along with several other amazing stories between its captivating covers (and we both hope you do!)

Have you been Harveyed?

The kind, wise, and wonderful folks at Sixth Element Publishing included four of my flash pieces in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 and I’m repaying that kindness by showcasing the opening from each author’s work for the next few weeks.

 
Read

Next up, a taste of Christine King’s The Child, The Witch, and The Werewolf.

Enjoy!

15 Days of Harveys Day 3 – Alexandrina Brant’s “Cartography, Creatures, & Craquelin (A Melina Short)”

Cartography, Creatures, & Craquelin (A Melina Short)

by Alexandrina Brant

 
Everyone was of the opinion that cartography was not a woman’s work. Quite frankly, everyone was wrong and had been for quite some time. The female brain – from what Melina West understood of it, though she understood a deal more about most other parts of the female anatomy – was exactly what cartography needed for transforming points of worldly data into artwork that informed as well as beautified.

Find and follow Alexandrina on Twitter, Instagram, and on her blog.

The above is from Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 (the famous “No Dragons” issue) and you can read the rest of Alexandrina Brant’s Cartography, Creatures, & Craquelin (A Melina Short) along with several other amazing stories between its captivating covers (and we both hope you do!)

Have you been Harveyed?

The kind, wise, and wonderful folks at Sixth Element Publishing included four of my flash pieces in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 and I’m repaying that kindness by showcasing the opening from each author’s work for the next few weeks.

 
Read

Like what you read? Go get Harvey 8. In fact, get all the Harveys. We (the authors) won’t mind.

Next up, a taste of Bruce Connelly’s Hare Today, Gone…?.

Enjoy!

15 Days of Harveys Day 2 – Alex Minns’s “Sides of the Mirror”

The kind, wise, and wonderful folks at Sixth Element Publishing included four of my flash pieces in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 (the famous “No Dragons” issue).

 
I’m repaying that kindness by showcasing the opening from each author’s work for the next few weeks.

Read something interesting? Go get the Harvey. In fact, get all the Harveys. We (the authors) won’t mind.

And now…

Alex Minns’s Sides of the Mirror

 
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction as a rather clever guy once said. To put it another way, the universe likes symmetry. Although science will tell you that a system will always tend towards more entropy, more chaos, it’s hard to ignore the patterns around us. The golden ratio for instance, you’ll find it in plants long before some genius used it in architecture. So, to be fair, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that our world, our reality, has a twin – a mirror image so to speak, lying alongside ours. No-one has quite figured out what space it occupies, whether it has its own portion of space or whether we coexist over the top of each other. Neither do we know if one existed before the other. You can imagine the complex political jostling when it comes to dealing with both sides of the mirror. The actions of one can influence the reactions in the other. If you think Brexit was complicated here, you should see the chaos it caused there.

Read the rest at Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8

Read Day 1’s Adrian Bagley’s “The Beast at Bay”.

Next up, a taste of Alexandrina Brant-Graham’s Cartography, Creatures, & Craquelin (A Melina Short).

Enjoy!

15 Days of Harveys Day 1 – Adrian Bagley’s “The Beast at Bay”

The Beast at Bay

by Adrian Bagley

 
Beast threw back his head, bared his fangs at the encircling elves, and howled with rage. There would be no plunder this day. No spoils from the city whose walls gleamed, tauntingly, from across the river, gilded by the evening sunlight.

The above is from Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 (the famous “No Dragons” issue). You can read the rest of Adrian Bagley’s The Beast at Bay along with several other amazing stories between its captivating covers (and we both hope you do!)

Have you been Harveyed?

The kind, wise, and wonderful folks at Sixth Element Publishing included four of my flash pieces in Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 8 and I’m repaying that kindness by showcasing the opening from each author’s work for the next few weeks.

 
Next up, a taste of Alex Minns’s Sides of the Mirror.

Enjoy!