The New York Collection: Five Stories of Magic & Life: Geriatric Magic

By Stephanie Writt

The New York Collection: Five Stories of Magic & Life
New York City. A hub of life. A place for magic. Five New Yorkers tell their stories. How they lived the many decades of their lives. How they live their lives now. But most importantly, how a gift of magic changes everything. The last of life’s moments can be some of the best of life’s moments. And here are five tales to show you how.

"...original and stunning..."

The New York Collection is part of the Geriatric Magic universe, with foreword written by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The five short stories in The New York Collection are:
• Geriatric Magic
• A Touch of Jade
• Subway Drummer
• Streets of Light
• A Little Park Wind

The Geriatric Magic Short Story Series:  A hawk-face woman in a red dress walks city streets on a mission of magic. To find those with the indomitable spirit to live, though their bodies will shortly fail them. To each she finds she gives a gift. A gift of magic. And from the least expected of benefactors: Death.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wayne Press
• Release date: Apr 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386522027

Book preview

The New York Collection

The New York Collection

Five Stories of Magic & Life

Stephanie Writt

Wayne Press

Contents

Steph’s World

1. Geriatric Magic

2. A Touch of Jade

3. Subway Drummer

4. Streets of Light

5. A Little Park Wind

Read and be happy!

Free Story: 1st in Storyteller’s : Volume 1

Rebellion of the Princess of Argon

Want to read more in this collection?

[Novel EXCERPT] Preview: Love & Jinx

Part One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Love & Jinx: Want to finish reading?

Also by Stephanie Writt

About the Author

Steph’s World

Foreword by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

How appropriate that Stephanie Writt’s latest short story collection features a woman who searches for people in need of her magical gift. Because if you change the phrase from magical gift to "magical gifts," you’ll find Steph’s life mission.

Even though I know on the surface that Steph’s only been in my life for the past ten years or so, it seems like I’ve known her my entire life. She’s such a vibrant presence that I can’t remember what the world was like without her.

Tall, strong, and brilliant, Steph has an infectious giggle and a heart of gold. Her stories are also strong and brilliant. She has a unique vision of the world, and that vision makes her fiction unique as well.

I’m not sure when she came up with the idea for the Geriatric Magic series. I do know when I first read a Geriatric Magic story. WMG Publishing holds an anthology workshop every year on the Oregon Coast. Professional editors give writers prompts, hoping to compile an anthology from the results.

Steph wrote a Geriatric Magic story for one of those workshops. The magic system is original and stunning, and I still remember finishing the manuscript, thinking I’d seen something new in urban fantasy for the first time in years.

Steph’s first professional short story sale occurred at one of those workshops. Her second story sold shortly thereafter. So far, she’s appeared three times in our anthology series, Fiction River, with more stories to come. (Wonderful stories, too. I can’t wait to share them with you.)

I’d like to think that Geriatric Magic, both the short story and the series, came about only because of that workshop, but I know it’s not true. Because these stories are quintessentially Steph.

You see, she lived in New York, interned as an assistant teacher at the Lee Strasberg Theater & Film Institute, performed off-Broadway, and then gave it all up to move to the place of her heart, the Pacific Northwest. She lived other lives in Hawaii and San Francisco before settling in Portland, but those lives aren’t as relevant to this collection as her New York sojourn.

The bits of the City that you find in this collection are accurate. The bits of magic you find here are accurate too. Stephie magic. With heart and warmth and love.

I’ve never met anyone quite like Stephanie. Warm and giving and surprised when others even notice. She shares magic the way other people share smiles.

Steph gives gifts to everyone she knows. She even gives gifts to people she’s never met. You’re one of those people, Dear Reader. Because you’re about to discover the heart and soul of Stephanie Writt. Once you start reading her fiction, you’ll never want to stop.

So…what are you waiting for? Turn the page. Enter Steph’s world, filled with warmth and magic, and Stephanie’s big giving heart.

—Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Lincoln City, Oregon

March, 2017

1

Geriatric Magic

Central Park

New York City, NY

To drink coffee from a straw meant the first step in a downward spiral of social self-degradation. To treat a well brewed, quality beverage in such a way, well, blasphemy. Insulting. As the consumer, embarrassment to the very core. Of course, if my damn hands would stop shaking long enough to take a sip without giving myself, my table, and the entire outdoor café a dark roast shower, then I would not have to lower myself in such a way.

Praised be that spring had returned to my city. The winter compounded my already growing list of aches and hurts. Sunlight, golden liquid relief, shone down between our city towers, past window and ledge, past worker and homemaker, between tree branch and budding leaf, down to set my white table cloth to glow and my body pains to ease.

Table size square pools of white light edged the sidewalk, fenced in with a knee high border of rod iron and tasteful potted plants to protect the café patrons from the riff-raff that wondered aimless through the park. Anyone entering the cafe located in Central Park, New York City in our grand country of the United States, must first pass through the gatekeeper. A pleasant hostess to redirect those who did not belong back into the world. Standards, everyone should have them. Standards kept the world from falling into chaos.

So, when the pretty hostess (Jacqueline, even the names are of higher quality here) led me to my usual table, edged closest to the park side on the outside pavilion, to see my table rose had lost petals, thin velvet wafers the color of fresh blood, well…to say disappointment would be an understatement. A wilted flower allowed to remain on one of their tables? A lowering of standards. Quite devastating.

Of course, they did allow me to drink my coffee through a straw, so I did not immediately seek out a new venue. Near ten years of patronage in my retirement years alone. If anything, I felt a desire to assist. However, once I had decided to lend my said assistance, the morning rustle-bustle had poor Jacqueline hopping, and, by my usual request, I had been left alone once coffee (violated by straw) had been delivered.

The wilted flower looked at me. Like me. Once beautiful in its prime, now a withered remnant, a stain on the world to be swept away once the chance arose. Melancholy and morose a picture, yes, but I call a stone a stone. An old man an old man. And a wilted flower…well, sad.

My finger shook violently as I reached out to touch the last few petals that clung to a stem that drooped in a tired curve. All expectation lent to the final petals scattering on the table by my destructive shake. I hoped I would not knock the thin clear vase over, spilling water on the pristine white tablecloth. But I wanted to feel the soft pure velvet of a petal, the last vestige of its youth and life. The fallen petals lay too close to the base of the vase to grasp without surely knocking the vase over.

A steadiless reach, and I touched the petals. Which moved. I thought by my touch, which tingled with a pull sensation I had never felt before. But the petals moved up toward the sun, not down. The tingle grew as I willed the petals to continue up, their reach to the sun, a blooming in the morning light. And it did. Bloomed fresh and bright as if it was its first, a new bud. New petals grew and peeled back to reveal a blood red heart that kissed the air with a gentle fragrance. The scent of garden strolls, four star dinning, and sensual interludes.

I pulled my hand back and away. Shocked and amazed at what I saw. Had done? Maybe. But three wilted petals, brown edged and curling, lay below the towering beauty of the new rose. A testament to the change. What had happened.

What had happened?

Magic, Harold.

A hawk-faced woman with hard clear blue eyes lowered herself into the chair across from me, her tone sharp and full of power. The tan sleeve of her thin beige overcoat pulled back over a long thin arm as she hailed Jacqueline with a single wave of her fingers. Her back to the woman, Jacqueline still turned immediately at the summons, politely excused herself from the table she had been attending to, and wove her way to my table.

Hot chocolate, extra hot. As in I-could-sue-you-but-I-won’t hot. The hawk woman winked at Jacqueline, though her face remained severe. Jacqueline still giggled. Whip cream. Shot of raspberry. She dismissed Jacqueline with a nod and her attention shifted to me. Jacqueline scurried to fetch the childish drink.

I just stared at the strangest, most rude woman of my acquaintance.

You should try one sometime. A little sweet in your life would not do you harm, she said and absently picked up one of the wilted petals off the table. She rubbed it between her two fingers, then looked up at me. Her eyes pinned me to my chair. I shook, not just the Parkinson’s. Then shook it off.

My Lady, I started, since Miss seemed more than inappropriate to address her with. She shifted in her seat, eyes still on mine, and crossed her legs. Long, elegant legs. Her jacket parted at the knee to reveal her skirt edge, red. Blood red like the petal she rubbed between her fingers. My eyes darted back to hers