Walking Off Heaven's Shore

By Charlotte Henley Babb

A Ten-piece Bucket of Southern Fried Flash Fiction

Walking off Heaven's Shore: A girl is washed in the flood of knowledge of good and evil
Intervention: Mothers and daughters - expectations and communication with new awareness
Turning Point: A cup of coffee and a decision for a Friday morning
Kitchen Witchery: The art of female bonding across generations
Walk the Dog: Who is holding which end of the leash?
The Fire Inside: It's what's inside that burns.
Pachelbel's Canyons: In the aftermath of sleep tape programming, the subject takes charge.
Quantum Physics: Same Stuff Different Universe
Storm Front: Revenge served cold is slippery when wet.
The Last Time I Dated a Serial Killer: A literate man is hard to find.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charlotte Henley Babb
• Release date: Aug 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463479827

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

Walking Off Heaven's Shore

By

Charlotte Henley Babb

Other books by Charlotte Henley Babb

Fantasy Set in Faery

Maven Fairy Godmother: Through the Veil

Maven's Fractured Fairy Tales

PumpkinEater

Adventures of Silicon Jones (for mature audiences)

Set in the Real World

Just a Smidgen of Magic

In the Still Midwinter

Walking Off Heaven's Shore

Coming soon – Set in Alternate History

20 Hours of Charles Town – a steampunk adventure

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Walking Off Heaven's Shore Copyright ©2014 by Charlotte Henley Babb

Second Edition: July 2018

ISBN: 9780463955819

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 except for brief passages cited in a review.

Published in the USA by Smashwords

Cover and book design by Book Design Magic.

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 registered trademarks are the property of the respective owners and are used within guidelines of fair use.

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 person you share it with.

Dedication

Donna, Unc B, and Rachel

Table of Contents

Walking off Heaven's Shore

Intervention

Turning Point

Quantum Physics

Kitchen Witchery

Swamp of the Soul

Walk the Dog

The Fire Inside

Pachelbel's Canyons

Storm Front

The Last Time I Dated a Serial Killer

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About the Author

Other Works

Maven Fairy Godmother: Through the Veil

Excerpt of Maven Fairy Godmother

Free Short Story: The Red Stilettos

Walking Off Heaven's Shore

Ginny Mae's wide feet were crammed into new white shoes with pointed toes. She walked towards the river in the heavy, white robe, waiting her turn to have her soul washed clean forever.

If heaven's like this, I'd ruther not go...

She stopped herself; she couldn't let the bad thoughts in. But they sneaked in anyway like she and Billy Wayne sneaked out at night. Billy Wayne was bad, Momma said, but talking to him made her feel so good, so happy. That was bad, what he wanted; it made babies. Thinking of him brought the deep, red pain in her belly, but Jesus would wash it away inside like she washed it off outside every month.

She looked up from her aching feet to the congregation gathered on the shore, listening to the preacher standing waist deep in the muddy river. Everybody else's feet must hurt too, and they couldn't doze off standing in the sun, not resting as usual on the hard pews in the shade of the church. Being saved was very serious; she could tell from how they looked: eyes squinted, mouths set, lines of care etched in their faces even as they sang the hymns. Salvation was forever; it took away the evil that made them lighthearted and carefree. She knew she needed that washing because she wanted Billy Wayne so much. The Holy Spirit would quench the fire that burned within her, that consumed her soul.

The baptisms began. First Crystal waded in, pushing her robe down into the brown water, then Sue Ellen, then Jamey. Each one came back up on shore, quiet and shivering, not like themselves, but like the angel figures in the manger scene, molded in white and a little dirty in the creases.

Ginny Mae slipped off her shoes to go next. The clay was cold, relieving the pain in her toes. She waded in, the water rising slowly like Billy's eyes from her ankles to her