Stories of the Seasons: A Collection of Tales Inspired by Favorite Holidays

By Darragh Metzger

And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring...
Until someone whispered, “Trick or Treat”.
Here are five more stories from the fertile imagination of Darragh Metzger, inspired by the magic of our favorite holidays:
The Return of the King: Mab, the Queen of Dreams and Madness, has devised a cunning plan to restore faerie to power in the modern world on April the First. There's only one problem....
Trick’ed Treat: When little costumed callers arrive on your doorstep on Halloween, it's never wise to choose the trick over the treat.
Dreams Come in Painted Clay: A woman in a house emptied by death and surrounded by memories of Christmas past learns something new about grief...and love.
Nutcracker Sweet: Julie returns to the scene of her glory days as a prima ballerina with her students in tow, only to be offered a double-edged Christmas gift by the strange and glamorous dancer who replaced her.
Cody’s Day: A dog's gotta do what a dog's gotta do. Cody has one chance to give his beloved master and mistress the best Valentine's present ever.
To be read aloud as well as enjoyed in silence, these tales are sure to delight any audience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darragh Metzger
• Release date: Mar 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781480245457

Darragh Metzger

I make my living in the world's two lowest-paying professions: acting and writing. While my resume includes stage and screen credits, I've spent the last several years wearing armor, riding horses, and swinging swords with The Seattle Knights, a stage combat and jousting theatrical troupe. My publishing credits include plays, non-fiction articles, and short stories, one of which made The StorySouth Millions Writers Award Notable Stories of 2005. I've written two short story collections and ten novels to date, sold three of them in 2002, and have now re-released them under my own imprint, TFA Press. My first non-fiction project, Alaska Over Israel: Operation Magic Carpet, the Men and Women Who Made it Fly, and the Little Airline That Could, came out in 2018. I also sing and write songs for A Little Knight Music and The Badb. If I had free time (which I don't), I'd spend it with horses. I'm married to artist/fight director Dameon Willich.

Book preview

STORIES OF THE SEASONS

A Collection of Tales Inspired by Favorite Holidays

by

Darragh Metzger

PUBLISHED BY:

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * *

The Return of the King: Copyright© 1993 by Darragh Metzger

Trick'ed Treat: Copyright© 2001 by Darragh Metzger

Dreams Come in Painted Clay: Copyright© 2002 by Darragh Metzger

Nutcracker Sweet: Copyright© 2001 by Darragh Metzger

Cody's Day: Copyright© 2005 by Darragh Metzger

Cover Design and Illustration: TFA Press

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

Other Books by Darragh Metzger from TFA Press

(most available from Smashwords):

The Strawberry Roan

Stories of the Season

The Triads of Tir na n'Og series:

Tales from Opa

Tales from Opa, volume II

Ironwolfe

Tales from Opa

The Triads

The Red Triad

The Green Triad

The Blue Triad

The Ironlords

The Gate

Short Stories:

Return of the King

And To All A Good Night

Masque of Moonlight and Shadows

A Box of Magic

Non-Fiction:

Alaska Over Israel: Operation Magic Carpet, the Men and Women Who Made It Fly, and the Little Airline That Could

For more information, please visit:

www.TFAPress.com

or

www.DarraghMetzger.com

Table of Contents

Title and Copyright Page

Other Books by Darragh Metzger (most available at Smashwords)

Table of Contents

Dedication

Author's Note

The Return of the King

Trick'ed Treat

Dreams Come in Painted Clay

Nutcracker Sweet

Cody's Day

Acknowledgments

Please Review this Book and Connect with Darragh Metzger

About the Author

Dedication

To Peter, Ava, Raymond, Warren, Kenan, and Elise, whose adventures continue to be an endless delight. I hope someday to read these to you. Or perhaps to your children.

Author's Note

(If you haven't read the previous volume, Stories of the Season—and please note the singular—be warned that, just as in the previous volume, before each story is a short note explaining the story's origins, etc. You might as well read through this one so you get used to it.)

As I've said before, I'm a novelist. Writing short stories is a lot harder. I hate having to spend all that time trying to decide what to leave out. Or having to cut several thousand words to fit a particular publication's limit, etc. Only one thing could make me do it.

For many years, I belonged to the Fairwood Writers Group; a group of professional and semi-professional writers, some published, some working at breaking in, who meet weekly to critique each other's work, share marketing tips, and generally encourage one another along the long, rocky, and too often lonely path every writer has to walk.

Every year, the group has a Christmas/Holiday Challenge, where all members must come up with a short story, to be read aloud at our holiday party. The length is anywhere from 1500-2000 words (which I almost never stick to), and we randomly select one or more characteristics that the stories all have to have in common.

Eventually, we got ambitious, and extended the challenge to other holidays. I didn't always write anything for them; only if something about the elements tickled my fancy. Anyway, that's where all the stories in this and the previous volume came from.

You'll notice that these aren't actually arranged in the order in which they were written. Instead, I decided to put them in order of the holiday that gave them birth.

I hope you enjoy wandering through my imagination. And Happy Holidays.

The Return of the King

This one is kind of a cheat; it was inspired by April Fool's Day, but there wasn't actually a challenge for it. In fact, I might actually have written this before I joined the Fairwood Writers…which is longer ago than I like to remember. Anyway, it was originally written about 1992 or 1993. I used to love to use titles from movies, songs, books, paintings, etc., on totally inappropriate stories as kind of a private joke. I've outgrown the habit, but this is one title I'm not changing.

I picked up