Tinsleberry Gate: Breadcove Bay

By R.S. Kellogg

Tinsleberry gate works like a charm . . . until it works too well . . .
    The Northernmost Hub Train Station protocols keep magic from making a mess.
Charms on the platform gates keep things running smoothly.
    But sometimes even the best safeguards fail to keep problems at bay.
    Five original fantasy stories—first published here—explore the magical portal of the Tinsleberry Gate.
    The Medic and the Enchanted Train Station
    The True Tears of a Fine Romance
    The Ice Queen's Shoes
    The Wishes of Norrit and Hale
    In Search of Debulon's Desires
    Buy this collection and read all five of the above stories, published for the first time in this book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebecca Kellogg International
• Release date: Jul 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781956123005

R.S. Kellogg

 R.S. Kellogg writes in the fantasy Breadcove Bay series, as well as exploring other story worlds and non-fiction topics.

Book preview

Introduction

IN THE CITY OF BREADCOVE Bay, magic can be fierce, unexpected, unforgiving.

Other times it’s balancing, and deeply nurturing.

And sometimes, it’s just a little quirky.

In this collection of short fantasy stories, I’ve explored what happens when one platform of a magical train station is more magical than the rest, how the staff of the station might scramble to manage such a thing, and how the extra-magical section interacts with magical and non-magical characters differently.

I’ve always been intrigued by spaces that have an extra something to them—we might call it the feel of a space, its personality, or its creative design.

But often there is something to a space that I can only describe as magical.

My grandmother was especially good at creating magical spaces—by pulling together colors, textures, materials, and antiques, she’d create spaces that felt like they may have been sprinkled with magic out of a fairy tale. Because she was two generations older than I was, I naturally assumed the antiques were from her own lifetime, and it wasn’t until a little later that I learned that she’d go to antique stores with my grandfather and seek out well-crafted pieces that were from an earlier time.

I was even lucky enough to go shopping with them a few times. Those were adventurous outings. We explored the magic of hand-crafted beautiful furniture from an earlier time at the shops we went to—before the years where she’d comment that antiquing had become popular and that it was harder to find good things.

She and my grandfather decorated the rooms of their home with their finds—and sometimes shared their found treasures with others.

Their beautiful finds graced private homes.

But sometimes magical spaces happen in public venues as well.

Magical, artsy, well-designed spaces in public transit fascinate me, because they could be (and typically are) so very utilitarian—tending to become, without intervention—the most boring of the boring public spaces.

There’s rarely the magic of the hand-made or the homey, but sometimes mass transit spaces do achieve a sense of magic or elevated consciousness of some form.

Like when a brilliant street performer graces a subway.

Or a public art display is installed at a train station.

The mere fact of this uniqueness in that context can make the encounter seem, in my opinion, even more magical.

It’s like an unexpected gift of beauty, in what could otherwise be quite mundane.

I explore something of the magical impact of a mass transit space, and the portal it becomes—in this collection.

Cheers,

R.S. Kellogg

The Medic and the Enchanted Train Station

by R. S. Kellogg

BANNING PULLED HIS gray stocking cap off his fair blonde hair in the windowless employees-only room that was located in the labyrinth of corridors and rooms beneath the Hub station, stashed the hat in his cubby, and carefully combed out his wispy fine hair while eyeing his reflection cautiously in the tiny mirror mounted inside his cubby door.

The static from his cap had the unfortunate effect of giving his hair lift on many days—and it appeared that today was one of them.

Banning sighed, blowing air out through his pudgy lips and making what his four-year-old nephew called his exasperated noise, then went to the dilapidated sink and turned on the one good handle with its customary squeak.

After a pregnant pause during which Banning hoped to high heaven the pipes hadn’t frozen, the water gurgled and Banning waited the requisite count to thirty for the faintly brown-tinted stuff to fade away and the clear water to come. Though the sink was very clean, so recently cleaned that it smelled like antiseptic pinecones, but it hadn’t been repaired nor the plumbing updated for probably these last several decades.

Banning dipped his hand under the freezing cold water, just long enough to capture some of the wetness, and ran his hand across his hair, plastering it down. He pulled the comb from its place on the far side of his meticulously organized cubby, and carefully combed the hair into place, feeling the fat teeth of the comb scrape his scalp as he conquered every last gravity-defying strand, and nodded to himself with satisfaction.

He needed to portray the image of respectability to the station.

Anything less, and it was highly unlikely that people who came to him for help would trust him to take care of their needs.

He allowed a perfunctory smile into the small mirror, noticing that his pale blue eyes still looked hooded and cautious.

He sighed. Get it together, Banning, he told his image in the mirror quietly. Just because they’ve been having trouble with the Tinsleberry Gate this week doesn’t mean that today there’ll be more incidents.

He grinned at himself.

It was a forced grin, and he took notice of the tension tightening his jaw, and worked his jaw back and forth, in order to release it. He shook his shoulders up and down, and then relaxed them, too.

It could be a perfectly normal day, he said to himself cheerfully.

He removed his dark gray over-jacket, hung it in the tidy cubby, and put on his tidy green medic overshirt. Giving himself one last wavering grin in the mirror, he closed up his cubby with a bang, and jumped to see Gregory, from the front information desk, standing some ways away.

He must have come in just as Banning was finishing up his getting-ready-for-work prep, but judging by the sardonic look on Gregory’s angular face and dark features as he sipped the last of the warming chocolate from his cup, he must have been standing there long enough to hear every word Banning had said.

Just keep telling yourself it’ll be a normal day and maybe we’ll all get lucky, Gregory said.

Gregory turned, pitching his cup in the recycler unit with a clang, and headed for the exit that led up to the surface, not waiting for Banning.

Banning scurried after him. You’ve got that look again, he said, falling into step alongside Gregory.

What look? Gregory said. Have I any look? He glanced at Banning, his face impassive. Can’t a man have the face his mother gave him without attracting questions from an inquisitive co-worker, that’s what I’d like to know.

Banning snorted. You have that look that you always get when the Hub agents have had a particularly obnoxious day.

Gregory grunted, shrugging one shoulder as if he could toss off the irritations of obnoxious Hub agents and stride on imperviously to his front desk, lofty and removed from all the fracas.

So what happened so far today? Banning prompted him.

The long hallway they walked through smelled earthy, the hard chiseled rock to either side of the passage way was roughhewn, and the scattered overhead lights lit the tunnel unevenly. It offered enough light for safety in the sloping corridor—but it created scattered puddles of light on the floor. The whole experience of walking up through the tunnel was like hitting a series of spotlights.

Gregory’s frown looked etched on his face as he walked through one of the light patches, and he sighed. Tamara tried upgrading the spells on the gates without the help of Thoudery again.

Banning groaned, and slapped his forehead. You’d think that at some point she’d learn not to mess with the programming. Was there anything off that led her to try?

Debulon got caught trying to haul some mystical creature through the back channels of the station, Gregory said. "He was arrested, of course, and he bribed his way free almost immediately, of course, but the creature got left at the station. The border guard didn’t want it and Debulon made himself scarce immediately after buying off the authorities. So that leaves one mythical creature, a bunch of people ignoring that it exists or denying responsibility for it, and an agitated Tamara, who’s sequestered the thing as best she can and is subsequently