A Wintertide Spell (4 page)

“You shan’t give her anything like
what I got, will you?” Susannah asked the elderly fairy. “My presents weren’t all
nice, and then Mama and Papa had to make the bad lady go away.”

“Gary, Gary, Gary, Gary!” Calypso
chanted, hanging off the male fairy’s robes like a monkey. Pleasentia, a young
female fairy, smiled at Reginald and wiggled her fingers.

“We’ll give Peter exactly what she
needs,” Budbud assured the royal family. “And we will also give you a few words
of wisdom. Geneva, are you listening?”

Geneva nodded. “Yes, of course.”

Budbud cleared her throat
importantly. “Peter is not number three. She’s number four.”

“What does that mean?” Geneva
asked. “And why do you have to be so cryptic all the time?” Sometimes she
wished humans had never begun dealing with fairies. They were often more
trouble than the magic was worth.

But then she remembered Naudo’s
pain spell and held her tongue.

“Think about it, Queenie.” Budbud
slipped her wand out of a concealed pocket and gestured toward the new baby.
“But think about it later. Right now, I want to meet Princess Peter.”

~*~

Budbud watched the royal family
gather around the new baby with some degree of satisfaction. They had no idea
how important their children would be in the future. Tiny Kingdom Foresta, with
its flowers and its forests. Nobody would look to Foresta for change, which was
why it was perfect.

That’s also why she’d given the
Queen a hint about Peter being Reginald’s fourth great love. She couldn’t have Geneva
kicking the man out of her bed for imagined slights. He had a lot of work to do
there over the next two decades, and any estrangement between the royal couple
didn’t fit with the fairies’ plans.

It didn’t fit with them at all.

If she and Mali had to help them
out a little along the way—a tweak here, some interesting reading material
there—it was for their own good.

And the good of all humans in the
Middle Kingdoms.

~ * ~

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About the Author                                

Jody Wallace grew up in the
South in a very rural area. She went to school a long time and ended up with a
Master's Degree in Creative Writing. Her resume includes college English
instructor, technical documents editor, market analyst, web designer, and
general, all around pain in the butt. Ms. Wallace is published in romance
fiction under the names Jody Wallace and Ellie Marvel. She has always lived
with cats, and they have always been mean.

To discover other books by Ms.
Wallace, visit her website at
http://www.jodywallace.com
.
You can also find her at Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jodywallace
and Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/JodyWallaceAuthor
.
To discover meankitties, visit the cat’s website at
http://www.meankitty.com
.

About
Meankitty Publishing (MKP)

Meankitty Publishing is the self-publishing “arm” of author
Jody Wallace. MKP is not taking submissions, and it is not a formal company. It
is merely a label that amuses the author, and Meankitty, very much. The list of
all MKP releases and version information is at
http://www.meankittypublishing.com

Look for these other ebook
titles from Jody Wallace:

The Felidae Series
(paranormal romance)

1. “Cooley’s Panther” (MKP)

2.
Stalking Evan
(MKP)

The Realm Series (fantasy romance)

1.
Survival of the Fairest

2.
One Thousand Kisses

Single Titles (fantasy & paranormal romance)

Liam’s Gold

Pack and Coven

A Spell for Susannah

“A Wintertide Spell” (MKP)

Single Titles (light sf/f)

“Field Trip” (MKP)

A Mage by Any Other Name
(MKP)

As Ellie Marvel (hot romance)

Behind the Mask

“Birthday” in
Secrets 17

Claustrophobic Christmas

“Heat” in
Secrets 22

Megan’s Choice

“Strip-O-Gram”

What She Deserves

Single Titles (YA, w/a Ellie Marvel)

“The Worst Christmas” (MKP)

A little more about
A Spell for Susannah
by
Jody Wallace:

--A not ready for Disney fairy
tale

Princess Susannah is the eldest of
twelve sisters who discovered a land beneath their palace that definitely has
an edge over the Middle Kingdoms: the secret land is chock full of princes who
just love to dance. A fairy cursed the Middle Kingdoms nobility to bear no more
male children, and the human lands are on the verge of anarchy.

Susannah, alone among mortals,
discovers she can work fairy magic, but it's just another secret she has to
keep from her parents. When the King and Queen employ Jon Tom, a very handsome
detective, to discover where the princesses sneak and go dancing every night,
Susannah finds herself wanting to tell him all her secrets.

The problem is, when Susannah's
secrets go public, the fairies are going to come looking for her, and they
won't be happy.

Warning: this title contains the
following: hot sex, hot springs sex, hot-to-trot women and patriarchal
hardheadedness.
Length: Novel (105,000 words)

~*~

You can buy
A
Spell for Susannah
, which tells the story of Geneva and Reginald’s eldest
daughter, in ebook and paperback at many online vendors. Look for more
information and free excerpts of this story at
http://www.jodywallace.com/books/spellforsusannah.htm
 

“Field Trip” by Jody Wallace

Can a slightly cynical school teacher
survive a field trip, an interdimensional incident and a handsome tour guide
all at the same time?

A futuristic comedy of (little) terrors.

Third grade teacher Hazel James has been
escorting her students to the Space Station Freedom Museum and Amusement park
on their annual field trip for years. Somewhat dull years, all things
considered, but well within the budget of the Integrated Public School System
of Earth so she doesn't have to pay for the extras. This year, however, starts
out with an ominous fizzle almost as soon as she and her batch of darling
troublemakers enter the front door. The museum's shabby equipment malfunctions
during the shuttle simulation. The children are having some issues with the
whole paying attention business. And their usual tour guide has been replaced
by a good-looking Zhie male--who's completely incompetent at his job.

Or is he? Miss James knows something is up at
Space Station Freedom--whether due to budget cuts, poor management or one too
many unruly student groups--but she has no idea what an unusual turn their
annual field trip is about to take. Rated PG-13. 11,500 words.

***

Geiger, the little piss-ant, sat
behind me during the shuttle simulation and relentlessly kicked the back of my
seat. He’d picked that seat because it was beside Clarice, not because it was
behind me, his teacher, but that didn’t stop him from kicking.

“This is how astronauts used to
travel between planets,” droned the Zhie tour guide. He was obviously not used
to holding the attention of twenty Human and Zhie third graders from the
Integrated Public School System of Earth on their annual field trip. We were
only ten minutes into our day-long visit to The Space Station Freedom Museum
and Amusement Park, and already the kids were restless.

“The early Humans didn’t know about
dimensional cross points.” The guide, who’d introduced himself as Sergeant
Chamblin, flicked his eyes from left to right, as if he were reading cues. His
posture was as rigid as a post. “They used huge spacecrafts powered by
dangerous fossil and nuclear fuels to propel themselves beyond Earth’s orbit. The
ships were nothing like the sleek hep...hep...oh, hoppers. Hoppers of contemporary
times.”

So maybe he was reading cues.
Great. A newb. I resisted the urge to check the back of the room for any
writing on the wall...of the cue or the ominous variety.

“Trips between planets took months
instead of seconds,” our newb explained, “and travelers were hindered by
cramped living conditions, faulty gravity emitters, radiation, and, horror of,
uh, horrors, space rations.”

The folks in charge of writing the
speech presumably thought they’d get a response out of the kids with that worn-out
joke. And they did. A wad of gum flew across the room and stuck to the guide’s
podium, an incongruous green blip on the black and white logo of Galaxy Prime.

Behind me, Geiger snickered.

Chamblin’s lips tightened, and one
of his eyebrows arched. If he’d ever done an IPSSE tour before—I was starting
to have my doubts—he should hardly be surprised that kids horsed around.

“As I was saying,” Chamblin
managed, before an another piece of gum joined the first. The Galaxy Prime logo
now appeared to have eyeballs.

With a sigh, I reached for the belt
on my unpadded seat. If the first Human astronauts had had to squeeze
themselves into chairs like this, no wonder they didn’t progress any further
than their own solar system. Nobody wanted to be this uncomfortable for that
long.

The buckle on the worn strap jammed.
I struggled to disengage it as Chamblin asked, “If you’re quite finished
hurling indigestible food objects at me, we’ll continue.”

When nobody threw anything else, he
said, “Is everyone buckled up?”

No one answered. I could feel the
kids’ suppressed laughter like the steam before a teapot whistles and pulled
harder on the buckle.

“Are your backpacks stowed? It’s
time for take-off.”

Again, no one answered. Chamblin’s angular
face radiated annoyance. Literally. The reddish coloration started at his
irises and bled across his nose, cheeks and forehead until anyone looking at
him could tell this particular Zhie was ticked off.

The stupid buckle on my stupid belt
was obviously broken, trapping me in place. I turned my head so the kids could
see my profile. Too bad I didn’t change color like a Zhie.

“Class,” I said in my stern voice.
“Answer Mr. Chamblin.”

“Yes, Mr. Chamblin,” all twenty chirped
as one, punctuated by Geiger kicking my seat again.

“Sergeant Chamblin,” he corrected.

“Right, right.” I paused in my
struggle with the buckle to salute him. “Sergeant.”

What a downgrade. Last year we’d
had a General. With a sense of humor.

Chamblin, whose dignity and
coloration seemed to have been appeased by my salute, made a big show of
strapping himself into a seat modeled after a pilot’s chair. Slowly, he pushed
the red lever on the arm that would start the ride. I freed myself just as the
zero-g emitter coughed to life. My ponytail floated straight out from my head,
and I shoved a foot under the edge of the seat to keep myself from drifting to
the ceiling. All over the shabby cabin, items wafted into the air. The children
laughed, grabbing for slurps, backpacks and buzz comms, and in one case, a
shoe.

Chamblin fumbled with his seatbelt
too. “Miss James, for your own safety, I must insist you return to your seat.”

“Give me a sec, Sergeant.” I batted
a crumpled slurp out of my face, aware I didn’t present a very authoritative
figure in mid-air. “Who threw the gum?”

The kids sneaked glances at each
other, but no one aside from Clarice looked at me. It was too early in the day
for them to rat each other out.