stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2009-05-25 09:16 pm
stevenpiziks) wrote2009-05-25 09:16 pm
Entry tags:
Witch Way?
I have a story in the very funny anthology Witch Way To the Mall, edited by Esther Friesner. It's just now hit the bookstore shelves. My story is titled "Witch Warrior?" The main character adopted two children from Ukraine, but it's sheer coincidence, I tell you, and the story bears absolutely no resemblance to my own life.
The knock exploded through the house. I bolted out of my chair and rushed for the front door. What kind of idiot? Eva had just gone down for her afternoon nap, and waking her at this point would change her from a darling, dark-haired toddler into a howling hurricane of death. Not only that, we have a sign out front that clearly says Solicitors will be hexed. This means you.
I reached for the knob, expecting to see Witnesses with Watchtowers or Latter-Day Saints with leaflets, and working myself up into a royal snit over the situation. I’m a tall guy, and rangy, with red hair, green eyes, and a fair Irish complexion. My wife Collette calls me her suburban Celtic warrior. Not quite the fearsome nickname most men want to hear from their wives. Still, I can get as ticked as the next guy when some overly-religious dickwad pounds on my door, wakes my daughter, and expects an on-the-spot conversion.
I yanked the door open and found myself staring at a big, saggy bosom.
I blinked. The bosom filled the doorway and threatened to spill over me like an avalanche of bread dough. This was a bosom that had never known the touch of elastic, and it was only a few inches from my nose. The expanse moved slowly up and down as the owner inhaled and exhaled. It slowly dawned on me that I was looking at a woman who was at least two heads taller than me. I slowly raised my eyes to her face. Old. Ancient. Paleolithic. You could have lost an SUV in the wrinkles. Moles sprouted hairs long enough to braid. Iron-gray hair scraggled in a hundred different directions, though a bejeweled golden comb was stuck in the mess as an apparent afterthought. Her lower lip hung down like a toboggan run. Two dark eyes gleamed like sharp shards of night sky. She wore a frankenstein dress made of a thousand patches, and I think her boots were soled with iron. An apron covered her waist, and a blue dish towel embroidered with little yellow fishies was tucked into the string. This wasn’t the grandmother from hell. This was the grandmother from hell’s second sub-basement.
“William McCrae?” she rasped in the voice of a professional cigar smoker.
I had to clear my throat twice before I could answer. “Yeah?”
“Hand over the children.”
Go buy a copy now, while they're still hot!
The knock exploded through the house. I bolted out of my chair and rushed for the front door. What kind of idiot? Eva had just gone down for her afternoon nap, and waking her at this point would change her from a darling, dark-haired toddler into a howling hurricane of death. Not only that, we have a sign out front that clearly says Solicitors will be hexed. This means you.
I reached for the knob, expecting to see Witnesses with Watchtowers or Latter-Day Saints with leaflets, and working myself up into a royal snit over the situation. I’m a tall guy, and rangy, with red hair, green eyes, and a fair Irish complexion. My wife Collette calls me her suburban Celtic warrior. Not quite the fearsome nickname most men want to hear from their wives. Still, I can get as ticked as the next guy when some overly-religious dickwad pounds on my door, wakes my daughter, and expects an on-the-spot conversion.
I yanked the door open and found myself staring at a big, saggy bosom.
I blinked. The bosom filled the doorway and threatened to spill over me like an avalanche of bread dough. This was a bosom that had never known the touch of elastic, and it was only a few inches from my nose. The expanse moved slowly up and down as the owner inhaled and exhaled. It slowly dawned on me that I was looking at a woman who was at least two heads taller than me. I slowly raised my eyes to her face. Old. Ancient. Paleolithic. You could have lost an SUV in the wrinkles. Moles sprouted hairs long enough to braid. Iron-gray hair scraggled in a hundred different directions, though a bejeweled golden comb was stuck in the mess as an apparent afterthought. Her lower lip hung down like a toboggan run. Two dark eyes gleamed like sharp shards of night sky. She wore a frankenstein dress made of a thousand patches, and I think her boots were soled with iron. An apron covered her waist, and a blue dish towel embroidered with little yellow fishies was tucked into the string. This wasn’t the grandmother from hell. This was the grandmother from hell’s second sub-basement.
“William McCrae?” she rasped in the voice of a professional cigar smoker.
I had to clear my throat twice before I could answer. “Yeah?”
“Hand over the children.”
Go buy a copy now, while they're still hot!