Blueberry Birthday: Ghost Stories Collection

By Michael Lynes

An enchanting fairy tale for children. Grandmother has a secret! Will Zoe's Blueberry Birthday be the day she reveals all? A children's fairytale ghost story by Michael Lynes

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Lynes
• Release date: Jul 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393295747

Michael Lynes

MICHAEL LYNES is the Award-Winning Author of The Blood Series. To date, the series has won the New Apply Literary, Indie BRAG Medallion, Readers Favorite for FANTASY and most recently the IAN Book of the Year Selection for Fantasy. The series begins with the novella "It's in the Blood" and continues with Destroyer's Blood. NEW release Book Two - FIRST BLOOD is due out on November 1st 2019. Book One - "Destroyer's Blood"  Reviewed By Christian Sia for Readers' Favorite Destroyer's Blood: The Adventures of Devcalion: "a gripping fantasy with strong hints of Greek mythology." Meet Devcalion, "Dev," a demigod, son of Prometheus and nephew of Zeus. He has a telepathic sword and a very close friend called Betrayer, "Tray". When we encounter Dev, he and his friend are climbing up Half Dome. An encounter with Hermes changes everything, driving Dev to the last place he wants to be -- Mt. Olympus. Dev and Tray are pulled into a war they never bargained for. With the darkest power in the universe bent on wreaking havoc, do they have any chance of surviving?  Destroyer's Blood has been awarded the Silver Medal for Fantasy in the Readers Favorite Awards for 2019 and has won an Indie B.R.A.G. Medallion for Fantasy. It also won the Solo Medalist in the New Apple Summer eBook Awards for 2019. Book Two - "First Blood" will be released in November of 2019. His short story collection, "The Fat Man Gets Out of Bed", was chosen solo Medalist Winner in the 2017 New Apple Summer Indie Book awards.  His memoir, "There Is A Reaper: Losing a Child to Cancer", was an Indie B.R.A.G. Gold Medallion Honoree , a silver-medal winner Readers’ Favorite International Book Awards for Memoir, a medalist in the New Apple Book Awards for Memoir, and a finalist in Independent Author Network Book of the Year award and the Beverly Hills Book Awards. Most recently Mr. Lynes has been a Contributing Author to the 2019 Ghostly Rites Anthology. Mr. Lynes was awarded a BSEE degree in Electrical Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and currently works as an embedded software engineer. He has four sons, has been married for over thirty years, and currently lives with his wife and youngest son in the beautiful secluded hills of Sussex County, New Jersey.

Book preview

Blueberry Birthday

Ghost Stories Collection

Michael Lynes

Published by Michael Lynes, 2020.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

BLUEBERRY BIRTHDAY

First edition. July 5, 2020.

Copyright © 2020 Michael Lynes.

ISBN: 978-1393295747

Written by Michael Lynes.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Blueberry Birthday

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To my grandchildren. . .

Blueberry Birthday

At the bottom of the garden, next to the great road and right in the middle of a thorny briar, there was an old abandoned bird nest. It was quite hard to see. Zoe had to stoop and scrunch in just the right way, but she was the right size for that. Her bright blue eyes had spied it that morning, bare toes squelching in the mud from last-night’s rain, as she’d trodden towards the forest path to gather twigs for the cookfire.

She had smiled, because her mind had not been on birds, or finding nests. She was rather preoccupied in fact. Her birthday was today, and she was very excited.

"How funny. . . she thought. Today I shall be seven, and I’ve never been seven before! I wonder what Grandmother will give me for my present?"

Last fall, as the leaves had swirled and the ground frosted, sending the spiders deep into their tattered webs, she had remembered that this coming spring would be her Blueberry Birthday, and she had asked her then.

Grandmother. . .when the winter ends, and the bulbs swell and sprout from the damp earth, and my birthday comes. . .what gift will you give me?

The old woman had pretended not to hear. Grandmother, she had always called her, never Mother. She had lived with her in the Cottage of the Shining Glade since. . .since how long? Ever and ever and ever. . .her whole life it seemed. But she knew that she was not her