Author: Storyteller-in-Chief

The Curious Leaf: Voyage to the Moon 009

TCL Cover“Ah,” the Moon Queen said, arching a brow, but not offering to take the apple “I see you have been to see my dragon. How does he fare?”

“He was hungry, Your Majesty,” Kya said, doing her best not to stare. Being a flower up until very recently, she had never had the opportunity to see anything more exotic than the oak tree growing outside the window or the flower freckled meadow down the way, and she found herself wanting to drink in all the strange beauty of the moon as though preparing her roots for a long drought.

“Yes,” the queen said with a faraway look in her eye. “It is in his dragonish nature to be so. Were he to stop hungering, the apples he guards would wither away into empty skins with dry, wrinkled fruit.”

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Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 008

MMCoverMira blinked into a slow eternity as her brain tried to make sense of what she had just heard. “Were you speaking to me?” she asked, as politely as she could. She glanced around, making sure this wasn’t some boyish prank. But her street was strangely empty, save for herself and the talking hairless cat.

It made a sound of exasperated annoyance. “Do you see anyone else around?”

Mira shook her head, wondering for a moment if her brain was rattling about inside her skull. Was she dreaming? Hallucinating? Suffering from a concussion?

First the old lady, and now this thing, whatever it was.

The creature tugged on its ears that were round and decidedly not cat-shaped. “Great Barnaby’s toads!” If it weren’t clinging so tightly to the branch, it might have been dancing in place with impatience. “Don’t you know anything?”

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The Faerie Thief: The Ruby Queen’s Garden 008

TFTcoverSuspended in the air as though she were floating in a waterless ocean, Gwyn laughed with delight as all the strange and wonderful objects in Lyra’s world turned a bright shade of violet before settling into various hues of much purpleness.

A clock that was half cat grinned at her from the mantle of a fireplace that had perched itself on a coatrack. A drop of purple fell to the ground and bled lilacs and violets, orchids and posies until there was a thick blanket of them so far as the eye could see.

Purple lanterns blinked into existence as they strung themselves along the silver elms encircling them. Gwyn smiled as dolls dressed in fancy purple gowns flew up to the lanterns and held a tea party while a cloud of pixies danced about them.

“It’s lovely,” she sighed, wishing she could keep the warm, open feeling in her chest forever.

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The Curious Leaf: Voyage to the Moon 008

TCL CoverThe apples glowed with a soft, milky light that lapped against the skin in Kya’s palms. Soothing. Relaxing. Refreshing. But even more than that, the light from the apples awakened something deep inside her. Something whose first language is of dreams and who isn’t afraid to wish.

Her heart grew with this knowledge, warm at first, but slightly uncomfortable as it forced her heart to stretch beyond its natural boundaries.

“You will care for my apples,” the dragon said. Not a question.

Wordlessly, Kya gulped and nodded. She placed them gently in the pouch that also housed Hearthorne’s silver bowl. They were perfect and unblemished, and she aimed to keep them that way. With only the smallest hint of regret, she selected a single apple and held it up by way of offering and of keeping her word.

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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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