Almost Magic: #minithology

By N.D. Gray, Heidi Moone, M. L. Akin and Roan Rosser

WHAT MAGIC LIES BEHIND COINCIDENCES AND CLOSE CALLS?

A desperate wife flipping a coin. 

A bartender giving advice. 

A young woman keeping a family tradition amid war.

 

On these moments hinge the future, and the outcomes are quite a coincidence. 

Or perhaps they are magic.
 

You will always wonder...

 

Authors M. L. Akin, Heidi Moone, Roan Rosser, and N. D. Gray bring you four fantasy stories centered around coincidences and close calls that are magical to read, if not in origin. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: 3 Feathers Publishing
• Release date: May 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781947344303

Book preview

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

STORY ONE–STREET MAGIC

STORY TWO—THAT’S TERRIBLE ADVICE

STORY THREE—KETCHUP NEVER TASTED SO SWEET

STORY FOUR—A BROWNIE’S CHARM

COMING SOON

COPYRIGHT

INTRODUCTION

A PUSH OF A BUTTON and woosh! Out pops a cloth force field to keep the rain at bay or the sun off our skin. They are magical, these constructs we call umbrellas. Utilitarian and mundane. Yet, reflections of our personalities in their patterns and their hues. Essential for many. Afterthoughts for some.

How the first umbrella was invented has been lost in the mists of time. Literally. They have been around for thousands of years. There’s even evidence of collapsible umbrellas carved in ancient stone. Almost certainly, their invention was a deliberate act of engineering and not a happy accident. Someone surely held a leave over their head, then created the hands free version by poking a long stick through the large leaf. And the idea blossomed from there.

The stories in this #minithology are about coincidences and near misses, and seemingly have nothing to do with umbrellas. But I like to think of coincidences as the surprise umbrellas of life. Imagine showers of unpleasantness raining down upon us, then woosh! Coincidence erupts with the ting of a spring and the rustle of rapidly deployed fabric.

The lost key is found in the nick of time, the oncoming car swerves at the last possible second, a twenty-dollar bill appears in a pocket where it couldn’t possibly be.

Because the key is found, the life-changing interview happens. Doors open to a future hitherto undreamed.

Because the car swerves in the nick of time, the collision is avoided. The lives of the occupants continue on.

Because the money is discovered, the girl decides, rather than go straight to work, she will get coffee from her favorite shop, only to bump into—literally—the love of her life in the most scalding meet cute of all time.

Thus, the umbrella of coincidence and close calls protects us from the rains of what could be. Who is to say it isn’t magic?

An eldritch debt shielding the car.

Money coming to searching fingers because a generation before, a family member gave their last coin to help a crone in need?

Keys retrieved from where they’d fallen behind the couch because someone wore a gifted necklace inscribed with the words, What is lost will always be found.

In this #minithology, our authors tell of advice givers and desperate mothers with old coins. Of street performers and blind dates during wartime. And each story has a moment where life... spins... Where history could be written a dozen different ways, until the umbrella of coincidence pops open, warding off all paths, save one.

As you settle into your favorite chair, feet up, chilled beverage nearby, prepare to read stories of coincidences and close calls. Near misses so close, they are almost magic.

ND Gray

May 2022

Camp Verde, AZ

STORY ONE

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By her own admission, Heidi Moone is a hard-core realist, unswayed by ghosts, aerial phenomena, and other (potential) marvels. Despite this, she has had uncanny moments in her life. Moments she chooses to keep silent on.

How fortunate we are that she shares a fictionalized version of one of these moments. Like her main character, Heidi experienced an encounter with the tooth fairy. In adulthood, she came to believe the woman she met was her grandmother. But as a child, watching through sleep-hazed eyes, the tall, elegant woman touched by silver light was more than magical.

.

Izzy was late for her meeting with the lawyers.

Not that she was particularly keen to speak to the lawyers. Not that the lawyers would be anything more than exasperated with her, in all likelihood, as she’d been putting them off.

She straightened her little blue blazer, reluctantly bought for meetings like these, which matched her awkwardly-ironed pants and went well with the starchy, uncomfortable off-white shirt she’d put on.

Her dark hair had been tamed into something of a bun. Really, what could she do with it? And as it was, wisps were already beginning to escape from the dangerous pile on the back half of her head.

Yes, and her practical shoes, which squeaked in quiet places, but not in the middle of the busy city street she found herself on, waiting for a bus, had a smudge on them. Izzy wondered if these were the shoes one shined, but her boyfriend Eddy, who’d come up with them for her, hadn’t revealed those secrets to her, and she wasn’t sure if shoeshine people even existed as a job anymore.

Maybe they dwelt in the charming yesteryear of period movies.

She thought about texting Eddy to ask, but she did not. He was probably at work, and his phone wasn’t even on his person. Or he might be inclined to laugh at her in that way he had, when she asked him a question he felt belonged in the domain of a small child or innocent waif.

Izzy, you’ve gotta stop believing in Santa Claus, he was always telling her.

In reality, it was the Tooth Fairy who lurked in the backwater of Izzy’s guilty secrets. Hovering on the edge of dreams and nightmares at the age of twelve, she remembered, on that hot July night, a sudden chill breeze at her window, a shadow against the silver light of the moon, and a smell, indescribable, that came with a murmured voice that somehow still resonated like a bell.

Sleep, my lovely Izzy, all is well.

Her eyes had been half-open for a moment, there had been a swirl of vivid color, of blues and somehow oranges and yellows, swallowed up by the silver moonlight and the dark shadows a moment later. Izzy, twelve-year-old Izzy, had slept deeply, and awakened to a missing tooth and a small chain of white gold under her pillow, the color of moonlight.

Who could’ve left such a thing? Not her mother, who had been in the grips of a fight against her inner demons and her ever-expanding collection of whiskey bottles. Not her siblings—they were all younger than her, and they neither knew about her last tooth coming out, nor had stray gold chains in their possession.

It certainly wouldn’t have been her father, who’d been on the last leg of a long-haul trucking run at that time—not that he was ‘fussed’ about handling