Our Break A Spell contest is over, and a winner has been chosen.
The Challenge: Submit a short-short story (500 words maximum) about someone’s attempt – successful or otherwise – to break a spell, and receive a free copy of August Niehaus’s Spellbreakers short story collection (from her new series The Library Attic Collection Presents). Plus, the grand prize winner – chosen by August – will get their story recorded by her on professional recording equipment!
Below, you can read all the entries! Everyone showed us so much variety and originality. What a delight it’s been reading them.
GRAND PRIZE WINNER!
Cursed
By Matthew Christian
This audio version of Matthew’s story is performed by author and voiceover artist, August Niehaus. Hiswritten story is just below the video link.
The feeling of thousands of beetles crawled under Kieran Grimhart’s skin. Sweat beaded his gummy forehead and his outstretched hand shook the coins it contained – a sum only seen in this part of town for nefarious needs.
“Tha’s triple reagent prices, even on the underground market,” Kieran said, his body threatening to give up with each word. “Instant cast’ll do, Heaven’s Kiss perhaps, or Wrenlynn’s Comfort, even. Wha’ever you got, girl.”
The elf considered him in the dark of the alley, however, it didn’t take the advanced eyesight of an elf to reveal the addict. She supposed he, like many worn adventurers, had gotten a taste of healing magics through countless delves in every darkened corner of the world.
“You know as well as I what your people do to those with the gifts of the clerical order,” she said. “I am not cursed with such gifts.”
“Word on the street says otherwise.”
“And what does word say about you, Kieran Grimhart? Men like you – rats of the Cleansing Dawn sniffing out fuel for the stake. Though, I wonder, who is it you truly serve, the Dawn or your own insatiable affliction?”
She moved to pass but Kieran launched himself at her, pinning her against the stone wall. Though she stood a full head taller than him, his strength overpowered hers greatly, and she struggled beneath his grip. He brought a ruddy knife to her throat, and she froze.
“It didn’t have t’go like this,” he scowled. “You could have jus’ taken the coin.”
“What then?” Ashra spat. “I told you I don’t heal.”
“Godssworn, you’ll cast it on me or find yerself dead, by my hand or the Dawn’s.”
She glared at him and remained silent, the oily smell of his addiction permeating the air between them.
“Please,” he said, his aggression lessening, his grip weakening. Tears welled in his eyes. “Please, help me. You don’t know what it’s like to lose ev’rything and still crave it. I never wanted this, this… curse your like have placed upon me.”
“This curse is your own, it lived in you from the day you were born. There is nothing in this world that will save you from yourself.”
He wrenched her forward and slammed her against the wall, the stone thwacking against her skull. Her vision swam so much it turned her stomach.
“Go on then,” she said, “kill me, or take me to the Dawn. You won’t get what you want either way.”
He regarded her momentarily, then backed away until bumping against the far wall and sliding to the ground.
“Get out of here,” he barked through tears. “Leave me.”
Ashra hurried down the alley, it had taken everything in her to not give in, and she pitied him even though she knew he would happily see her burn at the stake. She looked back at Kieran, and promised herself she would pray for him.
Writer’s Block
by M. Carter
Writer’s block happens to a lot of writers, they say. But my block felt like a curse that I didn’t know how to lift. To call it a block was a misnomer. Rather than something inert, it was a miasma that swamped me, put the stink of failure on me that I couldn’t wash off, warped what little I do write into useless drivel. I’ve became increasingly desperate for it to be gone.
So when I saw the notebook, I was drawn to it immediately. Honestly, it looked like something that you’d get your 15 year old goth niece from Hot Topic – the fake leather distressed and molded to look like flayed skin, with bone-white masks of Comedy and Tragedy centered on the cover. It’s plastic and chintzy, but just looking at it filled me with hope. I knew it was nothing special, but I bought it anyway from the gift shop/cafe in the sun-drenched tourist trap I was visiting.
Like most other tchotchkes one brings home from vacation, the notebook was discarded in a pile in a dark corner of the apartment for several weeks, until I try to power through the writer’s block once again. After an hour of starting and stopping and typing haltingly on my laptop, I wanted to throw said laptop out the nearest window. To distract myself from self-loathing, I started tidying up and re-discovered the notebook, remembering that I hadn’t even bothered to open its pages in the shop.
I opened the book to a page near the center – only to drop it immediately due to a wicked paper cut on my middle finger that hurt like the devil. I sucked on the finger for a bit, then picked up the book from the floor. My finger was still bleeding, and a bit of blood smeared on the Comedy mask embedded on the cover. I felt something move beneath my finger – it was the masks, glowing and shifting as if animated, mouths stretching to roar with laughter or agony, but nothing came out. It only happened for a few seconds, and the book returned to normal – not even a drop of blood. I suddenly felt a compulsion to write. It was brief but powerful, and resulted in the best thing I’ve ever written, even though it was just half a page.
Over time, I experimented. The notebook did lift my curse and dissolved the writer’s block. All I needed to write was some blood. And as the compulsion to write became a full-blown addiction, I discovered that it didn’t need to be my blood to be fed to the notebook. Maybe I can finish my novel, after all.
The Unglamorous
by Mel Mason
“You’re the app designer?” said a girl’s voice.
“That’s right,” I said without looking up from my phone. The hack was working, and my score was becoming stellar … “Crowdon Breeth, at your ser … “
There was a heavy thud – a rucksack hitting the cafe table. That made me jump, and look up.
Seated opposite me was a girl, eighteen or so. Dark brown curls, bit flat-chested, small brown eyes … nothing remarkable. Not even cute. The sort you wouldn’t even notice.
“I need you to fix an app for me,” she said determinedly. “On everyone’s phone.”
“Can’t be done,” I said, looking back down at my own phone. “What’s the app, anyway? One of mine?”
“It’d be best if I showed you,” she said.
I sighed and put the game on hold. It was clear she wasn’t going to give me any peace until she showed me whatever she was beefing about.
“OK, whatever-your-name is. Show me.”
“Rhiannon,” she muttered, intent on her own phone. “There!”
She pushed the phone towards me, and I saw she’d opened her photo library to a picture of … Well, I guessed it was her, but this was a very different Rhiannon. Her hair was glossy blue black, her eyes were wide and slightly angled in her delicately shaped face, her lips were full, while her body … let’s just say that she had curves in all the right places.
“Great filter work,” I said appreciatively. “What are you using?”
She let out an exasperated sigh. “That’s the point. I’m not … Look, can you take a photo of me? Please?”
Well, I could always delete it afterwards. I swiped through to the camera, with a twinge of regret for that stellar score.
“No filters,” Rhiannon said quickly as I selected a good angle for the shot of her plain face.
“No filters,” I agreed, and took the picture.
“Now, check it out.”
I nodded, but actually I was already doing so. And when I looked …
“Wow,” I said. “How the hell do you do that?”
For there, captured by my phone, with no filters, was the stunning beauty once again. I looked between the two several times. Sitting opposite me in the cafe was Miss Boring Normal. Captured on my phone was … Miss Amazing.
And then I noticed a photo detail that escaped me before. Poking through the top of her hair were the tips of two … pink … ears?
“You’re an … elf?” I croaked.
“There’s no need to tell the whole cafe!” She was staring hard at me. “You’ve made photo filter apps, right?”
I nodded.
“So every fae in the mortal world is going crazy. We wear un-glamors so we can pass. Fade into the background, right?”
I nodded again.
“But digital cameras and phones don’t see the un-glamors. So we just look …”
“Glamorous,” I suggested. “And you need me to take that off … “
She learned forward and grabbed my wrist. “Urgently,” she said.
When Flowers Turn
by Nicole Saldi
It was September and the weather was starting to cool off in eastern Virginia. Cassie, a witch in her late 20s, had studied counter-curses in college and landed a job at the county Department of Magical Anomalies. However, the task she’d been given tonight was a literal pain.
“If I ever figure out who did this…” Cassie hissed as she was pelted with thorns from a nearby rosebush. At least this time she had put up a shield spell before approaching the belligerent blooms. Someone had put a homemade curse on a patch of flowers at the park which kept all manner of people and animals out, but let the rain and insects in. Ordinarily this would have been ignored or even welcomed, but the flowers had begun to attack anyone who got too close. Children and animals were being traumatized and her office had been called. Normally plants were the domain of her colleague Sandra, but the woman was away, working on a specialist team that was studying a suspiciously rapid tree migration taking place up in the Catskills.
She adjusted her rune-covered bracelet and tried to think. Trying this at night when plants rested should have made a difference, but these flowers weren’t showing any signs of fatigue and she wasn’t allowed to burn them to the ground, no matter how much she’d have liked to. She’d been at the park since ten trying every spell and counter-spell she knew and now it was already after midnight. Sap was spattered across her lightweight jacket and sweat trickled into her eyebrows. Clouds covered the moon momentarily, plunging the park into complete darkness. Behind her somewhere, she heard a shuffling through the grass. A murmured spell revealed the presence of a small animal. Regardless, she had been there too long.
She cast another shield and tried to remember something she’d read about two weeks prior, a spell she’d read about out of curiosity after Sandra had mentioned it. It was a gardening spell from a fifteenth century Welsh grimoire, a variation of which was later used by the English to keep people from disturbing their gardens. Working through the concepts and reversing them, she tried a mild version of a counter-spell, just in case it would cause more harm than good. The plants continued to wave their leaves angrily, but the attacks stopped. She’d have to thank her colleague later. Bolstered, she tried it again. The rose bush drew calm, as did several other flowers, leaving only a patch of menacing tulips. Once more and the tulips finally stilled.
As she walked to her car, a nondescript gray Honda, the need for sleep hit like the sandman had decided to sock her with a bag of the stuff instead of just a little sprinkling. Yawning, she slid behind the wheel, put down the windows and headed back home. She could hardly wait to get some sleep. But first, she’d put the houseplants in another room.
Yunwi Tsunsdi (The Little People)
by Michael Errol
In retrospect, I probably should have heeded all the warnings. The elders always said not to mess with the Little People, and I should have listened. I seriously thought all the old stories my grandfather used to tell me were just meant to scare kids. Yet here I am, running through the woods trying to get away from them.
My friend and I had been hiking in the woods near Lake Eucha when we came across several very small, hand size houses huddled together in a clearing. In front of them were various treats that had been left. Some gummy worms, a twinkie, and various other sugary snacks.
“Jared, what the heck is that?” I asked, pointing.
“Oh, that’s for the little people.” He replied.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, someone probably made those little houses and put them there, and people leave snacks and stuff to keep them happy.”
“Do you really believe that?” I asked.
“Hell, no. It’s just a story they tell to scare kids.” He replied.
I walked over and stomped on the houses, smashing them.
Jared laughed, and I picked up the twinkie. Just as I began to take a bite, a small figure appeared, looking angry. It waved a tiny hand toward me, and I went rigid, as if it had cast a spell on me. I tried to cry out, to no avail. It turned to Jared and jumped up on his shoulder and tried to crawl in his ear. Jared slapped at it, and it fell to the ground, stunned.
The spell was broken and without hesitation I began to run back the way we had come. I looked back to see Jared clawing at his ear and screaming in pain, as his eye began to redden and swell, and it burst as the creature emerged from the socket.
Which brings me to now, running for my life to get away from the Little People, or as the elders say, Yunwi Tsundi. I ran as fast as I could toward the lake, where more people would be, I remembered grandpa saying they only reveal themselves to one person at a time. I looked back and it jumped at me just as I burst through the foliage into a campground near the lake.
A man standing by a tent holding a fishing rod saw me explode through the trees.
“Are you ok man?” He asked.
“Is it still there?” I asked as I caught my breath.
“Is what there?”
“That little creature that was chasing me.”
He laughed at me.
“Are you high? There is nothing back there.”
He went back to his fishing pole. When he looked away, I swear I saw a tiny pair of glowing eyes staring at me menacingly from the forest. That’s the last time I ever make light of a Cherokee legend, I thought.
The Siren’s Curse
by Melody Lee Quinn
“You’ll pay for this, Capt’n!” Reanne vowed in between strangled breaths as she clung to the ship’s wheel.
A siren’s airy voice echoed above the waves, drew them higher, created mirages from the mist. It was impossible to know which obstacles were real.
Screaming in defiance of her own fear, Reanne set the ship straight again and jumped down to the mid-deck. She tightened the mainsail rope, checked on the bound sailors, paused to watch the boiling, honey-gold concoction that should have been their salvation, and raced back to the wheel.
The potion provided temporary deafness. A way for her male shipmates to withstand the siren’s curse. The liquid had to thicken and cool before she could pour drops into their ears. There wasn’t much time…
The ship lurched and spun from another collision as her hands closed around the wheel.
A dark form leapt above the mast. Slender, smooth-skinned, with a fish’s tale and —
Reanne squeezed her eyes shut.
The ship was tossed up high and crashed down again, spun completely around. The siren disappeared; the moans of despair coming from the mid-deck doubled.
She prepared to run back to the fire and the cure. But it was gone. The fire was doused, the cookpot washed overboard.
Tears gathered in Reanne’s eyes. She couldn’t block the siren’s curse, and without help manning the wheel and sails, they were doomed.
They’d all drown, but she’d be the only one aware. The only one cowering in fear.
“No!” Reanne took hold of the wheel once more and pulled herself to her feet.
They were sailing straight for a stone monolith. The siren’s wailing was whipping the waves into a frenzy. If the mainsail had been properly secured, she might have made it. But as the song rose to a crescendo, the ship swerved to face the monolith head on.
Reanne braced herself, head bent and thoughts scrambling to remember the sailor’s prayer.
Cold mist enveloped her. The siren’s song ceased. The waves quieted.
Blinking in the blessed light of dawn, Reanne turned back. The monolith was nothing but gray mist, the siren a dark-haired girl shivering in the water.
Reanne lifted a hand to her. The girl nodded, the faintest smile tracing her lips. Then the waves wrapped her in their greedy arms and, mouth opened in a wordless scream, she was pulled under.
Reanne’s heart stuttered. She nearly lost her feet again.
“Reanne?”
“Captain!”
Reanne rushed to his side. He sat up so she could loosen his restraints.
“We’re out? How?”
Reanne gazed back at the spot where the siren had disappeared. Who would believe her, if she described the sorrow and fear in its eyes?
“Keeping your tongue for once?” the captain joked as she started freeing the others. Catching sight of the damage, he paled. “Blackened cod fish! Reanne!”
“Sorry, capt’n,” she said, a hand on her hip and eyes cast out to sea. “But at least you have your life.”
Spellbroken
Greg Beatty
“Whew!”
Jack stomped his feet, clutched his hat, and tried to pull the door shut behind him against the gusting wind. It took two strong tugs, but he finally managed it, and shifted his attention to trying to get dry without soaking the patrons at the nearest tables.
“I didn’t think we’d see you tonight,” the coffeeshop owner said, handing Jack a towel.
Jack nodded his thanks, and started matting his hair. “I figured with the storm, I’d have a chance to be first up for open mic night.
“Well…”
“You’re shitting me. Somebody got here first. Is it Eddy and his harmonica?”
“Nah. Somebody new.”
As if by magic, a snapping started. Jack’s head snapped round in turn, to where he could see the fingers in question snap, snap, snap in the limited arc of the coffeeshop’s sole spotlight.
A woman followed her snapping fingers into the light, and voice followed form, beauty after beauty. Jack was so transfixed it took him a moment to realize she was singing Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’s “I Put a Spell on You,” but slow and ethereal, as if it had been reimagined as a dirge sung by Allison Krauss.
Jack forgot his drowned-rat hair, the towel in his hand, the guitar case slung over one shoulder, his name. He must have breathed, because he didn’t pass out, but he didn’t remember doing so, or doing anything else, until the song was over and the singer was taking her much deserved bows to the enthusiastic applause from the sparse crowd.
A gust of wind knocked the café door open again. It hit Jack from behind, and finally pushed him off the mat where he’d been standing, dripping and transfixed.
“You’re up.”
Jack made his way toward the mic, angry at the way she’d put him off his game, made him forget his set list, and tipped him most of the way to falling for her, already. She smiled at him as he joined her in the light, and he made a point of frowning in self-defense.
“Nice voice, but that piece really needs instrumental backup,” he said, setting his guitar on the bench.
“You are completely right,” she said. “Alas…”
She raised her other hand, the one that hadn’t snapped, to show him a bandage. “Maybe next week you can accompany me.”
Jack managed not to take and caress the injured hand, but only just, only barely. He tried pushing back against her enchantment one more time. “You could have changed your song, you know.”
“I do,” she said. “I did. I had planned to sing ‘My Lagan Love.’ Don’t know where that one came from. It just…came out. Like magic. I’m Beth, by the way.”
And Jack was done, though he still pretended he wasn’t.
“I’ll probably be busy next week,” he tried. “You probably won’t see me again.”
And though he started playing, and played wonderfully, as if to prove something, he wasn’t. And she did.
Pulled Out of the Hat
by Julie Brandon
Belinda was certain that she’d followed the directions in the book to the letter. Once everything had been assembled, she’d cleared her mind, closed her eyes, spoken her intentions to the universe and cast the counterspell. After counting to fifty, Belinda opened her eyes. Miriam was still a rabbit. A cute fluffy brown rabbit with a pink nose. Belinda gave Miriam another carrot and wondered if she should try the counterspell again. The book didn’t say anything about repeats. She hadn’t expected the original spell to work and was at a loss on how to reverse it. This was the worst thing she’d ever done.
Belinda hadn’t been a practicing witch for long. Growing up, she and her friends had unsuccessfully played around with love spells. She hadn’t meant to turn her sister into a rabbit. Well, not really. But that day, Miriam had been particularly troublesome. She’d complained about the weather as though Belinda could control it. She whined about the dinner Belinda had prepared. Basically, she’d been a pain until Belinda couldn’t take it anymore. She remembered seeing a spell in the new book she’d bought on how to transform people into animals. It was just a lark. A way to vent her spleen. Belinda was shocked that it worked. Perhaps she truly was a witch.
Miriam grew bored with the carrot and hopped around the room. With any luck, Miriam wouldn’t remember it when she when she was herself again, if she ever was. Then again, life would be quieter without her annoying older sister. Belinda could take the bigger bedroom. Watch whatever TV shows she wanted, stop catering to Miriam’s every whim. The more she considered it, the less inclined she was less inclined to try again. Belinda sighed. As a witch, she had a responsibility to do no harm. She pulled Miriam out from under the bed, carefully placing her on the blue rug in the middle of the room. Opening the book to the correct page, Belinda repeated the previous steps, but she knew that her heart wasn’t in it. This time she counted to one hundred then opened her eyes. Miriam wiggled her nose. Belinda shrugged. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. and went to the garage to build a rabbit hutch. Oh, and she’d better add carrots to the shopping list.