Tag: secrets

Mira Morganstein: The Pink Lemonade Club 014

The Pink Lemonade Club (Episode One)A smile crept into the corners of Mira’s lips. Did this mean that she only had one more year to go with the Pink Lemonade Brigade? In general, she had nothing against the elderly, but there had always been something different—off—with the old ladies in the Pink Lemonade Brigade. Something that belied the way they looked and hinted at mystery.

Secrets.

Their eyes were too bright, too knowing, and they never came all at once. Instead, they seemed to prefer to visit one at a time over the course of a week or so every year. Most of them had long hair they twisted up into intricate knots that were often hidden by the ridiculously large floppy hats with flowers stuck round the bands they always wore.Read More


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 003

TFTcoverThe pebble was, on its own, quite unremarkable. It was a smooth, anonymous dun color. The same shade the soil went when the sun and wind and rain had bleached the color from it. It was soft and smooth as sand, but for the tiny markings she’d carved into its surface.

Silence.

A beautiful word. A quiet word. A word the flowers feared more than anything else. More than the gardner with his silver-bright shears. More than winter with her frost and chills. But not quite as much as they feared a queen with poppy-red skirts and a temper to match.

“Indeed?” The head daisy raised a brow, politely incredulous. “All in the Garden may speak their minds—”

Robin stepped forward, “I’ve a mind—”

Gwyn put a hand on his arm, her eyes on the daisy who was the grand duchess of this particular flower bed.

“—And when laws are broken,” the queen’s pet gave them a look so full of disdain that Gwyn could almost taste it, “the right authorities must be alerted.”

She shook her head. The stone burned cold and hot in her hand, aching to be used. That was the way of runes—invoke a power, even if only by scratching out the name of it, and it’s going to want to do what it was made to do.

A lesson she’d learned early on.

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