Lightness: A Gaggle of Stories, #5

By Katharina Gerlach

Eleven playful short and shorter fantasy stories by Writers of the Future Semi-Finalist Katharina Gerlach

 

Free minds and unbroken spirits will find creative solutions …

 

With enough imagination, problems turn into opportunities. With enough creativity, the biggest struggle can be overcome.

A cat must overcome its fear of water to save the world.

A party-girl's dream of an early retirement evaporates as she gets involved with an escaped slave.

A young witch who pretends to be old falls for a truth loving magician.

When a young artist dreaming of grandness is demoted to kitchen duty, she gets creative.

There's no guarantee that the adventurers will survive their exploration of Softrock Mountain.

A young girl's move to the countryside proves more magical than anticipated.

When a desperate girl gets a chance to magically visit Australia, it might change her future.

A young student writes a very honest essay about the Salem Witch Trials.

Kissing a frog does have consequences after all.

In the kingdom of words, an insignificant nurse faces annihilation when she sets out to save the king.

A mistreated girl must protect her Halloween sweets from the school bullies or face her mother's wrath.

 

These lighthearted fantasy stories illuminate what it takes to enjoy life to its fullest, even if you have to start over. Writers of the Future judge Dave Farland told Katharina, "Your writing is excellent and you pulled me in from the start."

To read these stories, pre-order now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Bookworm
• Release date: Dec 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9783956811623

Katharina Gerlach

Katharina Gerlach was born in Germany in 1968. She and her three younger brothers grew up in the middle of a forest in the heart of the Luneburgian Heather. After romping through the forest with imagination as her guide, the tomboy learned to read and disappeared into magical adventures, past times, or eerie fairytale woods. She didn’t stop at reading. During her training as a landscape gardener, she wrote her first novel, a manuscript full of a beginner’s mistakes. Fortunately, she found books on Creative Writing and soon her stories improved. For a while, reality interfered with her writing but after finishing a degree in forestry and a PhD in Science she returned to her vocation. She likes to write Fantasy, Science Fiction and Historical Novels for all age groups. At present, she is writing at her next project in a small house near Hildesheim, Germany, where she lives with her husband, her children and her dog.

Book preview

Introduction

In the fifth volume of this series, I collected the counterpoint stories to the previous volume. They are meant to be fun. Don't take them too seriously. A lot of them are flashes that jumped onto paper inbetween bigger projects.

Some are also quite old. The story A Splash of Art for example was part of 2013's Holly Lisle's forum anthology, The Adventure of Creation whereas the flash story The Witch at the End of the Road was written for and aired on 2020's Halloween podcast.

I very much hope you will like these stories as much as the ones before.

Enjoy the short and flash stories of the fifth volume,

and please leave a review.

Cat-aclysm

Meow. Meow. Meow I want out! Out of this stuffy room that's reeking of my food-dispenser's nightly odors. The sun is already peeking through the gaps between the curtains. I knead my food-dispenser's duvet-covered belly. She grunts and turns over but doesn't wake. I jump off the bed, screaming my rage into the room, without result. Fine. If that's the way she wants it, I'll help myself. I don't need a door or a can opener.

With the door handle in view, I crouch low. My tail swishes to and fro as I gauge the height. The muscles in my legs tense, and I feel the power gather. Any moment now. I know I can do it. I've opened doors before.

I jump, stretching my front paws to the handle. The cold metal hits my nose, and I snort angrily but cling to it. Slowly – so very slowly, the handle gives under my weight. Maybe I should eat a few squeakers or some more of the dry crunchy bits I get as food. Would that make it easier to open the door? The handle moves steadily downward. Slipping, I scramble with all four paws. When I reach the handle's top, it gives reluctantly, and I slide off. Now it's only a matter of using a paw to open the door wide. My trip through the living room is uneventful although the babbling-machine is running. The sound is low, so I don't sing along. I double-check the couch, but my food-dispenser's kitten is nowhere in sight. Maybe she's using the litter box room. Strangely enough, my family has a separate room for their waste while my litter box sits in a corner in the kitchen. Maybe I should use it.

Nah … I'll dig a hole somewhere in the garden. That'll let the tom from next door know that he's not welcome here.

My first step into the kitchen tells me something's not the way it usually is. A scent of burnt sweetness hangs in the air. Although my path to freedom is clear, I decide it's better to check. I don't like bad surprises and this smells like one.

One jump gets me on top of the table. The food-dispenser's kitten is sitting in a chair, slathering something onto a slice of burnt toast. She's nearly as ugly as her mother, with no fur to speak of. Just a tuft of blonde curls at the top, but I like her eyes. They're deep brown, like my favorite sweets.

Most days the kitten is gone for the whole morning. It must be one of those days where she's allowed to do what she wants. And now, she's making a sandwich. I know what a sandwich is and shiver, remembering back when I insisted on trying the flabby white stuff. Disgusting. The white something the kitten puts on it however, is a different matter. I lick my lips and try a tentative yowl. The kitten pulls her plate closer. Miser.

I'm not interested in your food anyway. Lifting my tail, I ignore my growling stomach, jump off the table again, and march toward the door with my tail held high. The food-dispenser's kitten babbles something and follows me. Before I can slip through my flap, she picks me up. I spit but she's unperturbed, and I don't dare to use my claws. My food-dispenser has made it very clear that I'm not allowed to hurt her kitten.

The little one babbles something else and strokes my back. At least she's grown big enough now. I remember times when she dragged me around with my hind legs dangling on the ground. That was awkward. Today, I'm sitting more or less comfortably on her arm.

Meow. I complain, wishing she'd understand what I’m trying to say. I have to go outside. Some fresh air will do me good, and I'm hungry. Maybe I can find one of the diggers that live underground most of the time – they are always fun snacks. They taste better than the winged ones.

The kitten babbles something else and opens the kitchen door with her free hand. I try to get off her, but she's keeping a tight grip on me. She reaches for the one thing I really, really hate.

The harness itches as she clicks it around my chest. I'll surely suffocate. Please, not the leash. I want the garden … the neighborhood … I'd even put up with the tom as long as he stays three hours behind me. I'm not a fool. Like all hunters, I can do sequential territory sharing. But not this. I'm not a gnasher. I don't need a leash – truth be told, I don’t even need a food-dispenser. I need freedom! Freedom to roam.

I meow several times, but the kitten doesn't listen. She picks up a bucket with one hand and me with the other, babbles some more and carries me through the garden gate and down the street.

NO! This is the wrong direction. But when she hesitates for a second, the scent of a gnasher drifts in from further up the road. The toothy four-legged menace must have moved in overnight. I huddle deeper into her arm. She coos at me and sets out again. When we reach the path through the meadow at the bottom of the street, with the hard plants that all smell of sand and salt, she sets me down. My heart races, and I crouch low, scanning the area. Everything smells of a big female hunter, possibly a tabby and definitely without food dispenser, mixed with the scent of a much smaller gray, possibly striped. If they get me, they'll pull me apart. I know their kind.

I press closer to the kitten. She is so much bigger than I am that she might be able to protect me if one of the owners of this territory shows up. Close to her heels, I follow her to the beach. Here, the smell diminishes and sometimes even vanishes completely.

My species doesn't like water, so we tend to stay away from it. But I have no choice. The leash is short, and forces me to follow the two-legged kitten. Even the air tastes of salt. The sand sticks to my paws and I shake my back legs to get rid of it. The kitten approaches the sea.

Nooo.

I want to howl like a gnasher but only a strangled grunt escapes my throat. I dig my paws into the