PumpkinEater

By Charlotte Henley Babb

Three more adventures from Maven Fairy Godmother have her dealing with kudzu, Giants and a very large pumpkin. She brings her usual channel-the-chaos style to deliver the happily ever after her clients desire.

Kiss of the Kudzu begins just after the end of Maven Fairy Godmother: Through the Veil. Maven hasn't recovered from her first week on the job, but she has her hands full with the wishes of a sentient Palace.

In Beans, Maven follows her client up the beanstalk to raid the Giants and steal her way out of abject poverty, but the client finds out there are better ways to solve her problems.

In the title story, Maven mneets a kept sorceress and must find a way out for both of them or risk being kept forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charlotte Henley Babb
• Release date: Jul 3, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463188798

Charlotte Henley Babb

Charlotte Henley Babb has been writing since she was four, making up stories about fairies in the back yard and aliens in the forest. She has studied the folk stories of many cultures and wonders what happened to ours.She asks where the stories are for people over 20 who have survived marriage, divorce, child-raising, education, bankruptcy, and widowhood. She believes that the initiation of adolescence is only the first cut, not the deepest, and she continues to explore the second half of life for wisdom, thrills and the heck of it.She has taught writing for Greenville Technical College and the University of Phoenix. She's exploring the realm of steampunk and creative artificing.Apart from that, she hangs out in the Twilight Lounge, a nexus between the four dimensions of Faery, Mundane, Cyberspace and the HyperDrome.Charlotte is the author of an adult fantasy novel, Maven Fairy Godmother, released March 2012, which won a Sharp Write Book award for Fantasy in 2014, and Best Novel for Adults in the South Carolina Media Women Communications Contest in 2014. She has several fantasy short stories collected in Maven's Fractured Fairy Tales and PumpkinEater, as well as southern fiction in Walking Off Heaven's Shore, Just a Smidgen of Magic, and In the Still Midwinter. She wrote several stories in Port Nowhere, a shared world science fiction anthology, and random stories and articles. She presented "Fairy Tales and the Industrial Revolution" at Upstate Steampunk Con 2011, and has appeared on panel discussions at Dragon*Con 2011, ConCarolinas 2012 and 2015, Fairie Escape Atlanta 2012, and LibertyCon 2012. She presented at ConJuration in Atlanta in 2015. She has also presented at the Southeastern Writers Association annual conference.She loves fractured fairy tales for grownups and writes them for your enjoyment. Never miss a new release. Sign up for her mailing list at http://bit.ly/RedStilletos

Book preview

PumpkinEater

by

Charlotte Henley Babb

Also by Charlotte Henley Babb

Maven Fairy Godmother

Maven's Fractured Fairy Tales

Adventures of Silicon Jones

Just a Smidgen of Magic

Walking off Heaven's Shore

Coming Soon

20 Hours to Charles Town

* * *

Copyright © 2015 Charlotte Henley Babb

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 9780463188798

Publisher: Charlotte Henley Babb

Cover Artwork © 2015 by Charlotte Henley Babb

Edition: July 2018

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from author.

This ebook is 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 recipient. 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 or your favorite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Dedication

To Women Of A Certain Age everywhere

who know who they are and who they are becoming

Contents

Acknowledgments

Kiss of the Kudzu

Beans

PumpkinEater

* * *

About the Author

Other Works

Maven Fairy Godmother: Through the Veil

Excerpt of Maven Fairy Godmother: Through the Veil

Maven's Fractured Fairy Tales

Adventures of Silicon Jones

Just a Smidgen of Magic

Walking Off Heaven's Shore

In the Still Midwinter

20 hours to Charles Town

Free Short Story: Red Stilettos

Acknowledgments

The usual gang of suspects:

Bruce Cannon

Donna Hammett

Misty Massey

Jeff Mullen

Holly McClure

Phil Ross

Richard Spencer

Roger Stevens

Patti Thomas

Rachel White

Christopher Wilkerson

Kiss Of The Kudzu

Surrounded by the implements of mass cuisine, heaped high in the cavernous kitchen after yesterday’s feast, Maven, fairy godmother, turned her back to the banked embers of a huge fireplace. Shivering, she forced herself to relax, loosening any muscle that would loosen, searching for the dark warmth of slumber. Sleep did not come, and her mind raced like channel surfing through a million movies, all of which eventually came to show her standing alone amidst swarming crowds. Even surrounded by the many guests, and her two fairy godmother friends, sleeping not ten feet away, she was alone.

Her first week on the job had brought both her and Faery near the brink of extinction, and the morning – probably already today – would be accompanied by some type of retribution. She needed sleep to face her boss Fiona, Fairy Godmother Superior. She dragged her gossamer tighter around her chubby body and willed her mind to clear as she took a breath, deep and slow, and then released it. She knew if she did enough deep breathing, she'd have a hot flash and get warm, which might throw her into the throes of Morpheus.

Frigid air touched her cheek. Another chill flowed past her with a slight moan. She stretched the gossamer over her head, making it thick and plush. She breathed again, keeping her eyes closed.

The stone of the hearth shifted under her, dumping her on the floor. Maven rolled over, twisting into a ball like a cat, turning the gossamer into something now resembling more of a large fur pelt. Before she could resume snoozing, her wand, now poking against her hipbone, vibrated.

It's still dark. What does she want now? Squirming to free her wand, Maven held it to her ear expecting a summons from the Fiona, Fairy Godmother Superior, who had ordered her to report in the morning – surely still a few hours away. The buzz was not from Fiona.

In the echoing halls of the Palace, sounded a wail, like a baby far away prepping its lungs for a blood-curdling yowl of angry despair.

The wand oscillated with the sound, writhing out of her fingers. As she reached for it, it slithered, snake-like, towards the back door.

Maven clambered to her feet to make sure she wasn't dreaming. She spoke to the embers glowing softly in the fireplace. Please make me a cup of coffee.

The embers dimmed, and a mug appeared on the hearth, heavy mug full of a black liquid as cold and bitter as a jilted snow queen's heart.

She took a sip and shuddered.

The Palace was pissed about something. It had never made bad coffee before.

Her wand wriggled back to her and tapped on her foot. She bent over, careful not to spill the coffee, which might damage the stone floor, and picked up the wand. The wand stopped squirming, and hissing, when she put it in her pocket.

The back door of the kitchen swung open to pre-dawn darkness.

Illuminated only by starlight, the Palace was ethereal, beautiful in a way that no architecture of any material could be built back in Mundane, but this was Faery. This Palace consisted of the magic of