{"id":1773,"date":"2014-04-18T06:00:58","date_gmt":"2014-04-18T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bestfantasynovel.com\/?p=1773"},"modified":"2014-04-18T06:00:58","modified_gmt":"2014-04-18T13:00:58","slug":"hood-and-fae-excerpt-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/2014\/04\/18\/hood-and-fae-excerpt-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Hood and Fae: Excerpt 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the next couple weeks I’ll be sharing additional excerpts from the novella\u00a0Hood & Fae<\/em>, the first of my new urban fantasy series\u00a0Daughters of Little Red Riding Hood. Hood & Fae<\/em> is currently available in the fantasy bundle\u00a0Faery Realms: Ten Magical Titles<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0Amazon<\/a>,\u00a0Barnes and Noble<\/a>,\u00a0Kobo<\/a>,\u00a0Smashwords<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Google Play<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Hood<\/a><\/p>\n

With a light tap, I pushed open the door to the bedroom. Cold air hit my face, raising goose pimples. The scent of lemons and wet dog fur was strong, but Granny Rose didn\u2019t have a dog. She said she couldn\u2019t keep pets out here because of the coyotes.<\/span><\/p>\n

She lay on her bed, on top of the neatly tucked bedspread. She wore a velour tracksuit and a headscarf over curlers. The real TV, a flatscreen, was in here, and blared at a volume suited to the hard-of-hearing. Reruns of Bewitched. Her face tilted away from me. Her body was so still, a chill chased my vertebrae. It made me think of Mom, eternally sleeping.<\/p>\n

\u201cGranny Rose?\u201d<\/p>\n

I approached slowly. My feet sank in the plush carpet.<\/p>\n

The bedroom had been decorated more recently than the living room\/kitchenette. Mauve and powder blue and lemon yellow daffodils covered everything. Kittens and kitschy quotes, embroidered by various goddaughters and framed ornately, fought for space on the walls. The most elaborate featured a Bible quote: \u201cFor the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.\u201d \u2013 1 Samuel 16:7. An air conditioner roared in one window even though it hadn\u2019t been particularly hot today.<\/p>\n

She still did not move, or turn to look at me.<\/p>\n

I edged around the bed so that I stood before her. Finally her watery blue eyes moved to meet mine. A smile dimpled her wrinkled jowls.<\/p>\n

\u201cHello, dear. I didn\u2019t hear you come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI put the pies in the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPies?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the bake sale?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, dear. Of course.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you okay, Granny Rose?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI love this episode,\u201d she remarked. Her eyes strayed back to the TV. \u201cDarrin sprains his ankle and Samantha gives him magic powers.\u201d She gestured dismissively. \u201cHe gives them back at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAll those sit-coms returned everything to the status-quo by the end of each episode,\u201d I said, but my heart wasn\u2019t in it. Everything looked so normal and felt so wrong.<\/p>\n

Granny Rose never calls me \u201cdear,\u201d she calls me \u201cdumbkof.\u201d Also, why didn\u2019t she ask (demand) to inspect the pies? Or offer a sharp tongued critique of my cooking? Or grill me about whether I used real sugar or some of that fake modern stuff she was convinced caused cancer in mice?<\/p>\n

When I looked at her I saw a second image flickering over her body, not quite visibly. I started to sweat. I slipped off my red jacket. She looked normal. I slipped my jacket back on, and the flicker started again.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t ever have the status quo back,\u201d she said. Her lip curled, showing yellowed teeth. \u201cOnce you have tasted true magic, you can never go back to what you were before.\u201d<\/p>\n

She met my eyes again, and hers gleamed like a predator\u2019s in the dark.<\/p>\n

I swallowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cGranny, why do your eyes look whacked?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI put some new eye drops in, to see you better, my dear\u2026\u201d\"Faery<\/a><\/p>\n

Hood & Fae<\/em>\u00a0is currently available in the fantasy bundle\u00a0Faery Realms: Ten Magical Titles<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>on\u00a0Amazon<\/a>,\u00a0Barnes and Noble<\/a>,\u00a0Kobo<\/a>,\u00a0Smashwords<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Google Play<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

WARNING: <\/b>This novel is only appropriate for older teens and adults, because it contains #$%*&@ words. Spelled out for real, though. Even that one that starts with \u201cF.\u201d Yeah, it\u2019s in there, in a couple places. Also, \u201cdumbkof,\u201d but that\u2019s in another language, so it won\u2019t bother you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the next couple weeks I’ll be sharing additional excerpts from the novella\u00a0Hood & Fae, the first of my new urban fantasy series\u00a0Daughters of Little Red Riding Hood. Hood & Fae is currently available in the fantasy bundle\u00a0Faery Realms: Ten Magical Titles\u00a0on\u00a0Amazon,\u00a0Barnes and Noble,\u00a0Kobo,\u00a0Smashwords\u00a0or\u00a0Google Play. With a light tap, I pushed open the door to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,549],"tags":[639,642,656,716,730],"class_list":["post-1773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daughters-of-little-red-riding-hood","category-urban-fantasy","tag-fairies","tag-fantasy","tag-hood-and-fae","tag-urban-fantasy","tag-ya"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/taramayastales.com\/bestfantasynovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}