Cleo and the Scout

By Annie Reed

Cleo's superstitious neighbors think she's a witch. Cleo wants them to. She worked hard over the centuries to learn to disguise her true form beneath a ragged shawl and long skirts, and she's happy with her status as the neighborhood outcast.

Now if she could only get one determined Cub Scout on a quest of his own to leave her alone.

In CLEO AND THE SCOUT, award-winning author Annie Reed explores what happens when an ancient, imperious force confronts a youthful, immovable object, and the changes that confrontation makes in each of their lives.

BONUS: Includes a copy of Annie Reed's contemporary fantasy story "Homeless."

"The appearance of a new Annie Reed story is a treat. Try one and you'll be hooked." -- Dave Hendrickson, author of CRACKING THE ICE, forthcoming from WestSide Press.

Annie Reed is a prolific short story writer whose fiction has been published in numerous anthologies from Daw and Pocket Books, as well as in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thunder Valley Press
• Release date: May 17, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458078858

Annie Reed

Award-winning author and editor Kristine Kathryn Rusch calls Annie Reed “one of the best writers I’ve come across in years.”Annie’s won recognition for her stellar writing across multiple genres. Her story “The Color of Guilt” originally published in Fiction River: Hidden in Crime, was selected as one of The Best Crime and Mystery Stories 2016. Her story “One Sun, No Waiting” was one of the first science fiction stories honored with a literary fellowship award by the Nevada Arts Foundation, and her novel PRETTY LITTLE HORSES was among the finalists in the Best First Private Eye Novel sponsored by St. Martin’s Press and the Private Eye Writers of America.A frequent contributor to the Fiction River anthologies and Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, Annie’s recent work includes the superhero origin novel FASTER, the near-future science fiction short novel IN DREAMS, and UNBROKEN FAMILIAR, a gritty urban fantasy mystery short novel. Annie’s also one of the founding members of the innovative Uncollected Anthology, a quarterly series of themed urban fantasy stories written by some of the best writers working today.Annie’s mystery novels include the Abby Maxon private investigator novels PRETTY LITTLE HORSES and PAPER BULLETS, the Jill Jordan mystery A DEATH IN CUMBERLAND, and the suspense novel SHADOW LIFE, written under the name Kris Sparks, as well as numerous other projects she can’t wait to get to. For more information about Annie, including news about upcoming bundles and publications, go to www.annie-reed.com.

Book preview

CLEO AND THE SCOUT

Annie Reed

With complete bonus story

HOMELESS

CLEO AND THE SCOUT

Copyright © 2011 Annie Reed

HOMELESS

Copyright © 2010 Annie Reed

Published by Thunder Valley Press at Smashwords

Cover art copyright Dvarg Vasiliy at Dreamstime.com and

copyright Anna Velichkovsky at Dreamstime.com

Cover and layout Copyright © 2011 Thunder Valley Press

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

These stories are licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Cleo and the Scout

Homeless (Bonus Story)

Copyright Information

About the Author

Cleo and the Scout

Cleo's neighbors thought she was a witch. She thought that was rather ironic.

She did look a bit like the witches of old, what with her hunched shoulders, humped back, and long, stringy gray hair, not to mention the black shawl she always wore wrapped around her shoulders. She never wore designer jeans or fashionable boots like some of the other neighborhood women old enough to be grandmothers, and therefore old enough to know better. Cleo wore long, voluminous skirts and used a cane, more for affect than need. She'd learned long ago that people saw what they expected to see, and their expectations were always based on first impressions. If the neighbors thought she was a witch, so be it. She could live with a few evil eyes being cast her way whenever she made her way down the street to the corner grocer's or the bank where that nice young man with the nice young smile spent far more time than necessary explaining to Cleo how to use her ATM card properly so she wouldn't have to always come to the teller window to withdraw cash from her account.

It wasn't that Cleo was too old to understand how to use such a thing as an ATM card. She understood perfectly well. She just preferred not to. When a person got to be as old as she was, that person