Spinning Tales
Maggie McShay wants a little magic in her life. Something more than the drab existence of going to work and coming home to a cat that barely tolerates her.
When she spontaneously replies to a want ad asking for someone to take care of a fairy tale cottage, it turns out magic wasn’t as far away as she thought. Maggie discovers she wasn’t who she thought she was either. Recalcitrant fairy tale shepherd and ladies’ woman Kody Wilk shows Maggie a world she knew nothing about…a world they need to save before the villains of the world’s fairy tales take over New York City.
It’s up to Maggie, her grumpy, shape-shifting cat, a dwarf hell-bent on finding romance, and Kody to set the fairy tale world to rights. The big bad wolf has nothing on Maggie McShay.
What Reviewers Say About Brey Willows’s Work
Fury’s Bridge
“[Fury’s Bridge] is a paranormal read that’s not like any other. The premise is unique with some intriguing ideas. The main character is witty, strong and interesting.”—Melina Bickard, Librarian (Waterloo Library, London)
Fury’s Choice
“As with the first in the series, this book is part romance, part paranormal adventure, with a lot of humor and thought-provoking words on religion, belief, and self-determination thrown in…it is real page-turning stuff.”—Rainbow Reading Room
“Fury’s Choice is a refreshing and creative endeavor. The story is populated with flawed and retired gods, vengeful Furies, delightful and thought-provoking characters who give our perspective of religion a little tweak. As tension builds, the story becomes an action-packed adventure.The love affair between Tis and Kera is enchanting. The bad guys are rotten to the core as one might expect. Willows uses well placed wit and humor to enhance the story and break the tension, which masterfully increases as the story progresses.”—Lambda Literary
Fury’s Death
“This series has been getting steadily better as it’s progressed.”—The Good, the Bad, and the Unread
Chosen
“If I had a checklist with all the elements that I want to see in a book, Chosen could satisfy each item. The characters are so completely relatable, the action scenes are cinematic, the plot kept me on my toes, the dystopian theme is entirely relevant, and the romance is sweet and sexy.”—The Lesbian Review
“This is an absolutely excellent example of speculative dystopian fiction… The main characters are both excellent; sympathetic, interesting, intelligent, well rounded within the context of their situation. Their physical chemistry is great, the slow burn romance which follows behind is a wonderful read, and a great cliff-hanger to match the will they/won’t they of the Chosen. Whether you like fantasy or not you should give this book a go. The romance is spot-on, the world building excellent and the whole is just speculative fiction at its best.”—Curve
Spinning Tales
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Spinning Tales
© 2019 By Brey Willows. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-315-4
This Electronic Book is published by
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, New York 12185
First Edition: March 2019
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Cindy Cresap
Production Design: Susan Ramundo
Cover Design By Jeanine Henning
By the Author
Fury’s Bridge
Fury’s Choice
Fury’s Death
Chosen
Spinning Tales
Acknowledgments
Thank you as always to Rad and Sandy at Bold Strokes. I’m always so proud to say that you’re my publishers. Thank you to Cindy for the great feedback that keeps me writing and learning. And thank you to all the readers, reviewers, and other writers who have made this life of spinning tales so much fun. And to my wife, thank you for every minute and for being my biggest cheerleader.
Dedication
To Robyn, who keeps rewriting the fairy tale with me.
Prologue
The door crashed open, ancient wet wood splintering under the glinting axe that split it through the middle.
The woman huddled against the wall, cradling the baby in her arms. Her husband stood in front of them, head held high.
“You didn’t need to make this so difficult.” The captain of the Red Guard looked around the little house and sniffed disdainfully.
“You can’t take her. There are laws—” He backed up when the captain pointed at him.
“We can, and we will. You have no power now, and the laws are being made to suit those of us with more ambition.” The captain nodded at a guard. “Take the child.”
The woman held on to it, nearly curling herself around the sleeping child. “No. You have no right. She’s royalty. How dare you attempt this.”
The captain yawned and motioned the other forward. “Yes, yes. We know. We’ve heard it for centuries. The aos sí are the keepers. The aos sí are in charge. What the aos sí say, goes.”
The guard wrestled with the woman, and the captain pointed his sword at the man’s throat when he tried to help. She cried out as the guard took the baby from her and strode from the house.
“Not only are the aos sí no longer in charge, you’re no longer anything. And when the child is gone, we’ll be free from your kind forever. You can live in your little mud mounds and molder away for all we care. You should have hidden the child when you had the chance.” He turned away as though they were no longer of interest and joined the other guards outside.
The man and woman rushed out after him, and when the woman saw who was holding the child, she nearly crumpled to the ground. He barely managed to hold her up.
The man clad in armor so black it killed the light that touched it was looking down at the child, his heavy gloved hand over the infant’s head.
“Please, don’t.” The man dropped to his knees, the woman beside him. “She’s just a child. She hasn’t done anything wrong. We won’t ever tell her who she really is. We swear it.”
The child looked like a bean in the giant’s hand, and it began to squirm and cry.
“Your kind can’t be trusted. The child can not live.” The gravelly voice was low and hard. His hand, still hovering over the child’s head, closed in a fist.
The crying stopped.
Chapter One
Wanted: SWF, 52, 4'10", seeking other SWF for 37-hour relationship. Must be 6'2", 140 lbs, with sadistic sense of humor and four cats. Ability to swallow whole pineapple chunks a must. Get in touch after 11p.m. so as not to disturb the alpaca. xxiguanaLady26
Maggie McShay set the newspaper down and took a sip of chocolate tea. The personal ads had long been her favorite reading material. People’s personalities, their quirks and desires, were on display for the whole world to see. And, potentially, to respond to. Would someone who could swallow whole pineapple chunks respond to Iguana Lady? And why twenty-six? Were there twenty-five others ahead of her? What could be accomplished in exactly thirty-seven hours? In an age of social media, where people could connect on a superficial level in an instant, there wa
s something about printed personal ads that felt both antiquated and more intimate.
She’d often considered placing one herself but couldn’t fathom what she’d say. She fiddled with the paper and wrote it in her head.
Wanted: someone who can bring magic to life, who isn’t boring, and makes romance novels pale in comparison. Must like femmes with no fashion sense and who can’t cook. Me: tall, unruly redhead with bad tempered cat and crappy apartment.
She looked at the cat in question and snorted. Great ad. I bet I’d get so many responses I wouldn’t know what to do. The cat farted and snored at the same time, nearly startling itself from its precarious perch between Grimm’s Fairy Tales and How to Be Happy by the Dalai Lama. The cat wasn’t hers, really. It had shown up at her window about a month after she’d moved in and had apparently decided not to leave. It didn’t really like being petted, ate its weight in whatever it could get its mouth on, and walked around looking generally put out by having to share its abode with a roommate. It was a sad testament to her life that the grumpy little bastard was her most consistent company.
Glass breaking on the street below made Maggie move to the window and look down. Old Canker, the man who lived in the bus shelter on 179th, had been on a bender for the last week. He was usually pretty good about not leaving a mess, but it looked like tonight wasn’t going to be one of those nights. She was about to turn away when she heard voices.
“I told you, old man. You asked my lady for money again today, and she felt so sorry for your old ass she gave it to you. Now we ain’t got money for me to go out with the boys tomorrow. If you don’t have it, I’ll take it out of your sorry old ass.”
Maggie looked down again and saw what she’d missed the first time. A big, young guy stood in the shadows facing Old Canker, a broken bottle in his hand.
“Oh hell no.” Maggie grabbed the baseball bat she kept by the door and bolted barefoot down the two flights of stairs. She stormed outside brandishing the bat. “You back off, right this damn instant.” She stepped in front of Old Canker and pointed the bat at his assailant.
“Go away, Red. This ain’t about you.” He crossed his heavily tattooed arms. “’Less you want to give me the money he owes me?”
Maggie glared at him. “Your girl gave him that money because she’s a better human being than you. Instead of bullying him, you should give him some, too.”
He threw back his head and laughed, an ugly, grating sound. “Maybe all you crazy people live over here. But you got some guts, I’ll give you that.” He looked over her shoulder at Old Canker. “Don’t be askin’ my girl for money no more, old man. Big Red here isn’t going to be around to help you next time.” He sauntered off, whistling, his pants sagging below his butt.
Maggie had a desire to take the bat to him anyway but curbed it. Instead she turned to Old Canker. “You okay?”
He shook his head. “Girl, you got to stop stepping out in front of trains like that. One day, you’re going to get run over.”
She rested the bat on her shoulder. “Not today. You eaten?”
He shook his grizzled old head and looked at the ground.
“Good. You can help me eat this.” She motioned at the delivery car that pulled up beside them. When the driver got out she blew him a kiss. “Hey, Rick. Perfect timing.”
He handed over the pizza and took the money she pulled from her pocket. “Good to hear, Maggie. If you ever learn to cook, the business will have to shut down.”
She hooked her arm through Canker’s and turned him toward the building. “Who says I can’t cook? Maybe I’m just lazy.”
Rick laughed as he got back into his car. “No way. No one likes to eat as much fast food as you do if they know how to do something with boiled water.”
He drove off, and Maggie held the door open for Canker. She’d had him over several times before. The first time he’d looked like a bird in a cage and hadn’t been able to settle for longer than it took to scarf down the Chinese food she’d shared with him. After that he seemed to believe it wasn’t a terrible trick of some kind and took the time to actually chew his dinner. Last time, she’d gotten him to take a shower, something that seemed to do wonders for his emotional state. She had no idea why she felt such an affinity for the gentle old homeless man, but she didn’t bother to analyze it. That was the way she did things. She felt them in her gut, and she went with it. It hardly ever led her astray. Except for that girl from the bar who smelled like a coconut ashtray. She shook off the thought. When it came to women, her instincts weren’t always spot-on.
She opened the apartment door, and he waited until she’d set the pizza down on the coffee table. “Come on over. Take a load off.”
He sat on the floor in front of the couch, as he always did. He gave her a soft thank you when she handed him a plate with several pieces of the best greasy pizza to be found in the Bronx. She opened a soda and set it next to him, then dug into her own piece, trying not to drop any of the toppings on her new floral print skirt.
They ate in silence, and once he was done he gave her the special shy smile she always loved to see.
“I met my wife through a personal ad, you know.” He tapped on the newspaper sticking out under the pizza box. “Best three dollars I ever spent.”
Maggie laughed. “Tell me.”
“It was in seventy two. I was posted to a high-end base. One with lots of perks, including a dance hall.” He looked as though he was off somewhere far away. “She was the prettiest thing you ever saw. She had on this blue dress that made her stand out of the crowd like a butterfly among moths. And damn, could she dance. She was so free, so proud. I got two dances with her, and I knew she was something special. But I got orders to ship out two days later, and I didn’t get to see her again. Soon as I got back from overseas, I put an ad in the local paper, mentioning the date and what she was wearing.” He looked at Maggie. “We were married six months later, and those were the best years of my life.”
Maggie didn’t have the heart to ask what had happened to her. Or what path had taken him from being a war veteran with a loving wife to an old man living in a bus shelter. She just squeezed his shoulder on her way to the bathroom. She got a fresh towel and threw it to him. “Shower is all yours. Throw your clothes into the hall, and I’ll wash them real quick. Razor is in there too, if you want it.”
He took the towel and lightly touched her arm on the way to the bathroom. “Why are you so good to me, Maggie? A woman like you should be busy building a life with someone. Not having dinner with homeless old men.”
She swallowed the lump of emotion that rose when she saw the raw vulnerability in his eyes. He was more genuine than most any person she’d ever known. “I think building a life where you help people instead of getting drunk and sleeping with strangers is far better. Don’t you?”
He shook his head and headed to the bathroom. “Darlin’, that’s a pretty jaded way to look at what life has to offer. It’s not an either-or situation. You could do both. And more.” He looked at her before he went in. “You could have magic in your life if you wanted to.”
She waved him off. “Magic is for books and movies. Not Q-tip redhead accountants living in the Bronx.”
He closed the door behind him, and she picked up the remains of the pizza, piling it into a plastic container so he could take it with him. She grabbed the clothes he pushed out the door and ran them down to the laundry room. On a quick wash, they’d be done by the time he got out. She’d assured him last time to enjoy it and knew he’d spend plenty of time washing up and enjoying the luxury of hot water. Though he’d been on a bender, he certainly didn’t seem drunk tonight. Her heart ached for him, for all of humanity who so often got looked over or taken advantage of by unscrupulous people. Her ex-girlfriend had said, and not in a flattering way, that Maggie had a hero complex. So what if I do? Better a hero than a villain. Her ex had wanted a sweet, doting femme. What she’d got was a femme who wasn’t afraid to take a baseball bat to some g
uy’s head when she caught him bullying someone. No wonder it hadn’t lasted. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and put the bat back by the front door.
She thought about Canker’s story of his wife. It was way better, though perhaps less exotic, than the one requiring pineapple chunks. True love. It probably existed for a handful of people in a generation. That kind of magic wasn’t meant for her. But what she was meant for she had yet to figure out. Surely life couldn’t be this gray forever. Some nights she woke with an intense feeling of expectation, like something incredible was just about to burst through the door and sweep her into some kind of adventure.
But it never did, and by morning the feeling was buried under beige oatmeal and burnt toast as she headed to work.
As she made her way back upstairs, Canker’s words came back to her. There could be magic. She shook her head. Not for me.
* * *
Maggie winced and pressed her nose against her forearm to avoid the pungent aroma emanating from the man’s armpit in front of her as they both held onto the metal rail in the subway car. The closest she’d ever come to immersing herself in nature involved Central Park and Coney Island, and right now she wished she was in either of those places instead of on the subway pressed body to body between a guy who clearly spent too much time in front of a mirror and a woman who preferred perfume to air. The moment the door opened at her stop she practically leapt from the car and darted around the hordes of other commuters to get to some fresh air. Lately it was as though the city was beginning to smother her, and it felt like her next move needed to be one away from humanity.