Heroine Chic E-Book

James Webster

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 113

Beschreibung

"I am the girl the Lost Boys lost."

Queens and Scoundrels. Witches and Rebels. Grifters and Goddesses. These are stories about heroines.

Featuring 52 very short stories, Heroine Chic is a celebration of the heroine's place at the heart of science fiction, fantasy, and reality. Told with humour, daring, and gorgeous lyricism, these are tales of magic, love, adventure, SCIENCE! and much more.

Leseprobe

Heroine Chic

James William Purcell Webster

Published by Inspired Quill: September 2017

First Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. The publisher has no control over, and is not responsible for, any third party websites or their contents.

Heroine Chic © 2017 by James William Purcell Webster

Contact the author through their website:

strangelittlestories.tumblr.com

Chief Editor: Sara-Jayne Slack

Cover Design: Venetia Jackson

All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-908600-65-3

eBook ISBN: 978-1-908600-66-0

EPUB Edition

Inspired Quill Publishing, UK

Business Reg. No. 7592847

www.inspired-quill.com

To all the heroines who inspire me so often.

To those who soar on scales. To those who writhe in the deep.

I hope I have done justice to the wonder of your stories.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Long Ago

The Only Little Girl in the World

Morning After

Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl

The Girl With The Candle In Her Heart

Riddle Me This

Teacher

The Archive

Blowing Up

Good Morning

Straight Edge

The Gown

MAID

Banner

She Seems Wise

Red Day

Spinning Atoms

The Adventures of Shivkin

Lucy and the Snowman

Portrait

The New Student

Stealing Time

Firsts

Not A Witch

Voice

Magical Kingdom

Princess

Sulphur Girl

Vanity

Librarian

The Tree Who Wanted to be a Girl

Plant Yourself Like A Tree

The Knight and the Dragon

Autopsy

The ballad of Anastasia Cathy Jane Isabella Bella Stella Blanche Katherina Steele

The Girl With The Switch

The Devil Wears Body Armour

Well Emo

Cryptic

The Sculptor, The Sorcerer and the Golem

Lightness of Being

Changed

Lost

Scheherazade

Red

Hungry

Star-Crossed

Why Why Why

The Girl Who Punched The Sky

Deus Ex

Systems Failure

Second Star on the Left

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Long Ago

It was in the Long Ago

that we first dug our nails

into sharp dirt

when the frosts bit the air

and us

the earth starved

and the growing shadows

the deepening dark

gathered up and swelled to stalk us

cackling

growing their shadow teeth

learning to lick their shadow lips

in the Early Days when we were young and I was weak

and the cold and shadows clawed and sucked my flesh

’til I was barely there

skin taut over the drum of my chest

legs more ache and hope than muscled sure-steps

leaning on you

feet stumbling and eyes dimming

slowly filling with shadows

and you cut off your hair

and wove it into a whip

and the air streaked with gold

as you made sparks crack between frost

and you took one of my ribs

ripped it from the cave of my chest with bloodied grasping nails

sharpened it to a point with your teeth

it did for a knife

that made the shadows bleed.

You licked the wound that was my rib

flicked your tongue into the gap and tasted the life of me

and lapped at me ’til the pain faded

’til your hunger sated

and you opened me up

put me in the earth

and it hungered no more

the grey dirt turned brown

thawed by me

and the sparks of your hair warmed the air into the first summer

and the plants of the world grew out of my chest

and you walked

bloody

hunting in amongst the forests of my body

and people wondered

later

when we were ages old

why you sometimes kissed the trees.

The Only Little Girl in the World

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived alone in a forest, for she was the only little girl in all the world.

Where were this girl’s parents? Well, as they are not important to this story, it’s probably safe to assume they’re dead or evil or cursed or something.

Now, the forest in which the girl lived was dark and cold and full of monsters, so the little girl built a house out of logs and she was snug and safe inside it.

Shortly after she had finished it, there was a knock on the door. Who could be knocking? she thought. No-one even knows I live here yet.

And when she opened the door, all the monsters of the forest were crowded around outside in a sea of claws and eyes and undulous limbs.

Please little girl, said the monsters, it’s very cold and scary out here. Could we come in?

Alright, said the little girl, so long as you promise to behave.

We promise.

So the little girl let them in on the proviso they’d be on their very best behaviour.

And while they did behave, it was awfully cramped with all those monsters in the girl’s house, like a game of sardines where everyone’s mostly made of teeth. And the little girl wasn’t very comfortable, so she went outside into the woods.

The woods were still very cold and very dark and for a while the little girl was tempted to set it on fire; but while that would solve the problem, she felt like it would cause a few problems of its own so she didn’t do that.

Instead, the little girl took a few shiny stones from the earth, and she asked them very nicely if they wouldn’t mind sitting up in the sky for a while and sprinkling a few sparkles down on the forest.

They thought the girl was very sweet, so they agreed it was a capital idea and she threw them as hard as she could and up they went. They glitter there still.

As it was still cold, the girl went and spoke to the dragon of the forest, who was so big and so old that they weren’t afraid of anything.

And the little girl asked if maybe sometimes the dragon wouldn’t mind breathing some fire and keeping things warm.

The dragon didn’t really see what was in it for them…

So the girl pointed out the shiny stones she’d set in the sky and said, Dragon, if you give me just a bit of fire every day then they shall all be yours.

And the dragon said, They seem awfully far away.

But she had her answer ready: You have wings, dragon, you could fly up there and spread your wings across the whole sky and they could be your hoard.

The dragon liked the sound of this very much, so from then on they agreed to light up the sky with warm fire for half of every day. And that’s just what they did.

Feeling thoroughly satisfied, the girl went back to her house…

Where she was promptly eaten by the monsters, as she had been away so long they’d quite forgotten their promise to behave.

And all the little bits of the girl in the monsters’ tummies were furious. She had charmed the stars. She knew the secret of the dragon who became the sun. And she was displeased.

So she began to twist and turn and change the monsters from within and they all suffered the most terrible stomach aches that had them rolling on the floor in pain.

And when they got up, they weren’t monsters any more, but humans.

They spread out through the forest and began making houses and tools and bargains with other monsters in the lands beyond.

But, deep down, there would always be a little bit of monster left behind.

This is why most people can be quite unpleasant.

But even further down, is a little piece of the little girl who lived alone in the wood.

This is why most people are quite extraordinary.

Morning After

She woke with a pounding head and no memory of the night before.

Looking at the crater around her, the detritus of the cracked city still settling like snow, she came to the obvious conclusion.

“Must’ve been a cracking night.”

She curled up in her blanket of debris to catch up on her sleep.

And her dreams were all explosions.

Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl

He wasn’t sure where she came from; she’d first shown up during an eclipse at the exact moment the moon swallowed the sun, smelling of ozone and regret.

They’d had coffee. She told the barista her name was Lil and he misspelt it as “The Adversary” and she’d laughed so loud half the staff fainted. Halfway through the coffee date he noticed she had blood on her face.

“You’re bleeding,” he said.

“It happens,” she said.

The next time, she appeared during a thunderstorm and they had spiced tea on an abandoned rooftop café. It tasted like gems cut with fireworks, exploding on his tongue. As they sipped their tea she told him a story about a dance of ghosts and foxes that left him stunned. When he came to, she was gone.

Over the next few years, she came and went as she pleased. Once he tried to get her number, but she just cackled and when he next unlocked his phone the glass was cracked in the shape of a summoning glyph. For the most part it was ruined, except for the occasional pictures of lions, lynxes and leering dragons she would text him captioned with the word “KITTY!”

The second to last time he saw her was in the midst of a meteor shower. As rocks fell from the great vacuum of the sky and flowered into conflagrations on the city below, she popped out from behind a shadow.

“I have a free moment between odd jobs,” she said absent-mindedly. “I could take you out for sushi if you’d like?”

He did like and they exchanged witticisms over rice and vegetables amongst the flickering shadows, flames and debris.

The last time he saw her was beneath a forest of tall towers made of gleaming jet. Their jagged points dripped with dark ichor from where they pierced the sky.

“You’re bleeding again,” he said.

“No,” she said. “I’m not.”

You couldn’t call what she did next a smile, but there were definitely teeth involved.

The Girl With The Candle In Her Heart

There once was a girl with a candle in her heart.

And every day, when she got up, she would see the world was dark and cold and strike a piece of steel against her flinty chest (for she always kept her tinder box nearby). And her heart would splutter into bright, warm light, which lit up her little corner of the darkness.

In the course of her day, the candle would usually flutter and fade as various people jostled her. She lived in a very busy city, which made it very easy to see those around you as obstacles instead of people. So not many noticed the light of her little candle, and they would bump her and spill some of the wax from her chest onto the ground.

Other times, a great dark tide would descend on the city. Many were able to ignore it, for they were very busy people and could only deal with so much in a day, and they would row through its murky waters on rafts made out of “not my problems” and “oh that is very far aways” and “isn’t that terribles”. Sometimes, the girl was able to do this too. But other times, the shadowy waves would buffet her harshly and she would fall to the ground, weeping hot, tallow tears. On those days, you could tell where the girl had been by following the trail of dried wax.

But most often, the girl’s candle ran low because whenever she saw someone whose own chest had gone dark, she would press hers to theirs and let the flame of her candle catch the wick of their heart.

Sometimes these were people who had been jostled too many times. Others were those who, if they did not find their way, were at risk of being pulled beneath the inky depths. Sometimes their hearts had gone dark for no reason at all.

But whatever the cause, the girl gave them a little bit of her flame. Even though the act of doing so caused more wax to spill and sometimes made her world seem a very dark place indeed.

One day, when the girl’s own candle had dripped down to its stub, she realised she did not even have enough light to see outside her own house. So she spent the day inside, trying to scrape together enough tallow to bolster her meagre flame.

Then there was a knock at the door.

Standing outside were the people whose candles the girl had re-lit.

There were a great many of them.

“We just wanted to thank you,” they said together, smiling little embarrassed smiles. “For you have made us so warm and happy over the years.”

The girl felt an inferno flickering to life in her chest.

“So we got you this…”

From behind the crowd walked a strange, misshapen figure. It was made entirely of candle wax and a long, thick wick ran all the way through its body. Where it should have had a head, it instead had a candle flame that burned ever so bright. It was very handsome in its way.