Tag: serial

Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 007

MMCoverThe old woman had lied.

The fairy doll shed glitter from her glossy pink ringlets like she had a pernicious case of sparkling dandruff. The glue holding the curls to the wooden head was already starting to pull away, and now that Mira was examining it closely, the fairy’s tutu was starting to shred along the edges.

“Bring me good luck?” Mira frowned at the doll lying limp as the dead in her hand. “Not likely.”

But still, there was something about the fairy’s face—two black dots for the eyes and a tiny rosebud mouth—that wouldn’t let her throw it away. A touch of whimsy that made up for peeling glue and clouds of glitter.

Besides, it had only cost her a favor and a quarter.

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The Curious Leaf: Voyage to the Moon 007

TCL Cover“One is enough to quench any hunger,” the dragon said, its voice strained as though it had been burned away. And rather than the fire Kya had been expecting, great pearly dragon tears welled up in the corners of its eyes and dripped down its cheeks.

Kya shifted nervously in place. She glanced down at Hearthorne, but the faerie-flower still had her petals wrapped up tighter than a locked door.

Tears were better than fire, weren’t they? At least they meant that she wasn’t in any immediate danger of being roasted and eaten, so long as she kept ample distance between herself and the dragon’s teeth glittering like a path of freshly sharpened sword grass. She managed to scoot back a little down the dragon’s flank before it collected itself and the tears stopped falling.

“That leaves one last apple,” it rasped.

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Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 005

MMCoverThe old woman grinned at her, and for a moment, she looked impossibly, heartbreakingly beautiful. Then the moment passed, and she was a harmless old woman once more.

Or maybe not.

The old woman wanted something from her, it was plain in the eager brightness of her eyes and the way she stood as though she was coiled and ready to spring forward. Mira glanced at the doll again, wondering if there was something wrong with it.

The cover of her book jabbed into her collarbone and ribcage, reminding her of other tales. Tales of princes or maidens meeting old women along the roads they traveled. Of what happened to the older brothers and the unkind sisters.

“I suppose I could come back with the money. How much is it?”

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Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 004

Old Woman

MMCoverMira hugged her book of fairy tales to her chest, willing herself to fall between the pages into a land where fairies were real and goose girls could become princesses. Where fifth graders could be out doing heroic and magical things instead of being forced to endure fractions, decimals, and figuring out where Timbuktu lived on a map.

“Deep in the forest,” she whispered to herself, “lived two sisters. One as fair as the morning, the other dark as night. They lived with their mother in a forest glen, these two sisters: Rose Red and Snow White.”

Her backpack bumped comfortably against her as her stride and the story weaving itself through her mind and across her tongue all fell into rhythm. Her favorite time of the day, besides that silver hour when the world held its breath in between day and night, was the walk home from school.

It was then when she could be any princess she chose to, fall into any fairy tale she fancied, with no one to look over her shoulder or eye her disapprovingly from the front of the classroom. There were no chores for her to do—not yet—and her homework could wait.

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The Faerie Thief: The Ruby Queen’s Garden 004

TFTcover“A rebel, Your Majesty?” Gwyn winced. Her voice was at least an octave too high and a shade too weak.

The queen didn’t say anything; she just looked at Gwyn, her eyes the color of night and twice as unforgiving. Auburn curls fell in soft waves against her face, the only part of her that was gentle. The queen’s poppy-red skirts unfurled about her legs like petals that had bloomed to their fullest.

And she smiled with scarlet lips that hid hungry teeth.

The yellow rose twisted in Gwyn’s hand, and she wished she’d thought to hide it away the moment her cousin had given it to her. Hope and beauty didn’t last long in the Garden, not without the Ruby Queen’s permission.

Permission she never gave to anyone but herself.

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