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  VERY SUPERSTITIOUS: MYTHS, LEGENDS AND TALES OF SUPERSTITION is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Shannon Delany, Jackie Morse Kessler, Jennifer Knight, Stephanie Kuehnert, Marianne Mancusi Beach, Michelle E. Reed, Dianne K. Salerni, Pab Sungenis and Month9Books, LLC.

  Very Superstitious: Myths, Legends and Tales of Superstition

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America by Month9Books, LLC. Month9Books is a registered trademark, and its related logo is a registered trademark of Month9Books, LLC.

  www.month9books.com

  Summary: Charity anthology with a portion of sales to benefit SPCA International © containing dark short story retellings of myths, legends and tales of superstition.

  ISBN 978-0-9883409-4-7 (tr. pbk) ISBN 978-1-939765-75-8 (e-Book)

  1. Young Adult. 2. Children’s. 3. Superstition. 4. Myths. 5. Legends. 6. Paranormal. 7. Fantasy. 8. Teens. 9. Horror.

  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For information, address Month9Books, LLC, 4208 Six Forks Rd, Ste 1000, Raleigh, NC 27609.

  www.month9books.com

  Edited by Georgia McBride and Zohra Ashpari

  Cover Design by Stephanie Mooney

  Cover Copyright © by Month9Books

  Introduction by Georgia McBride, Publisher

  Welcome to the second annual Month9Books charity anthology of dark retellings of superstitions, myths, and urban and folk legends! VERY SUPERSTITIOUS is part of Month9Books’s Write Something. Save All.® campaign of giving through writing.

  While this year’s anthology is shorter than TWO AND TWENTY DARK TALES, it is no less powerful or dark. We hope you enjoy the stories, but also that you understand the reasoning behind them.

  We are all animal lovers and pet owners and we wanted to put our money where our mouths are. So we wrote these stories knowing that we would donate a portion of proceeds from sales of the first five thousand copies to SPCA International©, an organization that, according to its website, “assists animals in areas of conflict and disaster.” Join us in supporting this amazing organization by purchasing VERY SUPERSTITIOUS: MYTHS, LEGENDS AND TALES OF SUPERSTITION or making a donation in our name to SPCA International. The authors of this anthology have also donated their advances to either SPCA International or a charity of their choosing.

  Month9Books’s annual charity anthologies are our way of giving back. Write Something. Save All.®

  We dedicate this collection to police, military, and service dogs throughout the world and to pets worldwide!

  The dog rouses Andrew from his night's slumber with a whine and the nudge of a cool wet nose slipped beneath his quilt. Andrew groans a protest but heeds her. His broad feet slap down on the cool stone floor of his bedchamber, and he rolls his head on his neck, yawning as he faces the day.

  “Good morrow, Annie,” he addresses the red-eared hound. “God grant us both a fine day,” he says around another yawn, leaning into her face with his own, his large calloused fingers slipping into the short fur on either side of her jaw.

  She's a fine dog: long of limb as the deer in the King's wood and with eyes so bright no rabbit escapes her notice. The prize of his pack, she harries the others when their attention strays from their duty. Annie is the first to catch both sight and scent, the one who slips to the lead when speed is most needed, whipping after quarry as if her spine is naught but water.

  “Awww, but your breath!” he exclaims with a shake of his head. “Though, knowing what you eat and lick, it could be worse … ” He stands, stretches, and quickly pulls on his trews, wrapping a belt around his waist atop them. He glances at the dog's dish. Empty. His wife says he spoils Annie with her own crockery and a fine place to sleep.

  A mouse scurries out from the corner, seeking the shadows cast by the bowl and Annie stomps a paw down on the bowl's edge, flipping it over and trapping the mouse neatly.

  Andrew laughs. “Quite a trick, that. But now the mouse is safe. Here … ” He reaches down, lifts the bowl's edge and, grabbing the mouse by its tail, he carries it to his nearest window and leans out. He eyes the dark swath of forest not far from the foot of his home and flings the mouse away before racing down the stairs and into the kitchen to rummage for scraps for Annie.

  The cook shoves a wooden trencher across the table to him, already having gathered the bits and pieces. He leans over and kisses her cheek, laughing at the way she blushes, blusters and swats him away.

  Carrying his dog's breakfast, Andrew takes the stairs two at a time all the way back up. He empties the trencher and watches her nose the food.

  She steps away.

  “You have not eaten.” He cocks his head and appraises her skeptically. Does her coat look lackluster? Do her eyes appear less bright?

  He squints.

  It is surely nothing. This morning they will hunt again and she is always at her finest when they hunt.

  With the Holy Days fast approaching now is a time for stocking the larders and preparing for celebration. Andrew has much to celebrate this season with the recent birth of a fine young son — a first son! Such a thing is a momentous occasion for a young lord such as himself.

  And nearly as importantly, such a thing better firms his claim to his family's holdings.

  In the adjoining nursery — the room now shared by his wife and son — he hears his heir squawk his dissatisfaction. Andrew grins and jogs to the door, throwing it open wide; both his wife and the wet nurse jump in surprise.

  “The lad has fine lungs on him,” he declares, swallowing the space between them with a few long strides, Annie padding on near-silent feet behind him. “God grant you good morrow, my lady,” he says, nodding his head in the direction of his wife, Lady Kate. He winks in her direction and clearing his throat, sings,

  “Between both Lincoln and Lyndsay

  Norhampton, Carlisle, and Millaude

  Ne'er hae I seen so fair a lady,

  As travels take me far abroad

  Sweet and lovely Lehman, I pray

  Thy love surround me each and ev’ry day.”

  She smiles briefly. “Good morrow to you as well, my lord,” she returns with a polite curtsy. She shifts her attention to the yowling child in her arms, making soft cooing noises until the wet nurse swoops in and snatches the child away.

  Placing him in her older, thicker, and more experienced arms, she begins a swaying dance and slips her finger into the child's mouth. The crying stops as soon as the sucking starts and the wet nurse announces, “See there? All the wee one wants is some time at the teat!”

  Lady Kate blushes. “Dear heavens, Brighid,” she scolds, “I do sorely wish you dare not say such things. Mayhaps, when saying something requires you be daring, you should simply not say it at all.”

  Brighid's ample lips slide to the side of her large face and she dips her head in respect before waddling away to the rocking chair in the room's corner.

  “I see your true lady has accompanied you,” Lady Kate remarks, glancing at the dog who grins, her tongue lolling. Lord Andrew's hand massages the base of her ears. “She shares your bed chamber, accompanies you nearly everywhere. It was a wonder she wasn't there watching in that fae way of hers when we created little Geoffrey,” she complained.

  “She is a fine hound and makes certain we are kept well fed.”

  “You have a pack of fine hounds and they sleep and eat in the stab
les,” she returns. “You have a son now, Andrew.” She steps forward and rests her hand on his arm, peering up into his gray eyes, “I do not trust beasts around babes.”

  “She would never harm Geoffrey,” he responds, lifting his hand from Annie's head to cross his arms over his broad chest.

  “Well, just you be most certain that she never has the opportunity to prove you wrong,” Kate insists with a little sniff.

  His eyebrows draw together and his lips press into a fine line. He nods.

  “I must away,” his wife says, spinning from him so that her delicately appointed dress's hem swirls out around her ankles. “Braun is taking Sarah and I into town for shopping.”

  “You're taking the cook in for shopping? That leaves only Brighid at the house.”

  Kate crosses her arms over her chest. “Aye. It does. We must needs be away.”

  “Away from the woods,” he muses.

  She glances over her shoulder at him, lips tight.

  It is no secret she hoped to marry a lord with a fine home in town, or better — in an actual city. Andrew is young, his household spartan and small with only a few staff members. Perhaps someday he will own a proper house in a place she prefers, but for now his holdings and his home straddle both tamewood and its grim brother, the far darker wildwood. His realm borders the King's wood, his people his King's first line of defense.

  “Away for proper purchasing in town,” she corrects him.

  “Some day,” he assures, “you will have all you dream of.”

  Annie leans her head against his leg. He reaches down to her and she presses her nose into the palm of his hand. It is wet, but warmer than usual.

  His wife must note the change in his expression, for she says, “Oh, be gone with you and your hunting hound. You pay far closer attention to her than to me and mine.”

  He would protest, but she stalks across the room, plants a kiss on their son's head and leaves.

  With a groan, Andrew walks to where his boy lies in the arms of the wet nurse, suckling. “My brave, brave little lad,” he whispers, tentatively reaching down to brush his fingers over the back of the boy's head. His hair is just growing in, soft and brown, smooth as silk and as easily ruffled as feathers in flight. “You have quite the job,” he says to the nurse.

  “What? With this wee nipper? He's naught but scraps of flesh and fat. I've raised a half-dozen of me own. He's no job.” She grins and he never bothers saying that the job he refers to is dealing with his wife.

  Andrew nods and with one more look to his son, turns to leave the room. He reaches the doorway and stops, his fingers twitching in the air near his hip, wanting for something gone missing. Turning, he sees Annie, seated and staring at both nurse and heir, her attention fixed. “Come,” he says.

  She turns her head and looks at him, but the rest of her stays still.

  “Come.”

  She whines, but turns back to the babe.

  “She's an odd one, she is,” the nurse says with a dip of her double chin. “I like not the look of her. Best be taking her with you. Thems red-eared dogs are marked by the fae. It's why your younger brother nearly drowned her.”

  He snorts at both the mention of his land-hungry younger brother and the silly story. Everyone's heard the old wives’ tales before about hounds with red ears being fairy-born. It is true, when Matheson's dog whelped he drowned all the red-eared pups but Annie. It was only Andrew and his gift of persuasion (and all the coins he carried in his pouch that day) that let him rescue her. Every time one of his companions says anything about red-eared hounds and the fae, he responds with the same thing he says to the nurse now, “I'd rather have the fae on my side than against me.” He winks.

  A long low whistle slides out from between Brighid’s plump lips. “The fae are only on your side long as it serves their purpose. I'd have a care, ’twas I you. Even saying such things tempts them something awful.”

  Sighing, he knows neither logic nor education will win out against superstition with this particular servant. Servants and his villagers have a different understanding of their world. With no true schooling, no way or reason to question the strange and twisted things the generations before them have said. He cannot blame them for their ignorance.

  “Come,” he says once more; this time his voice drops deeper and the dog hears an alpha tone there. With a sorrowful whine she follows him, head, ears, and tail drooping.

  “Third time’s the charm,” the nurse whispers, eyes on the dog.

  Annie glances over her shoulder toward the child, but follows her master. Slowly. Sadly. Everything about her seems off and ill to him and reaching his bedside he stretches down to touch her snout again.

  She is hot as a roasting nut!

  He leans over, peers into her face, at large brown eyes normally glossy as polished coins, now dull and nearly black. Her tongue tumbles out of her mouth to lick him and nearly scalds.

  Not far below his chamber window he hears the clopping noise of horses’ hooves on hard packed dirt as his crew readies for the hunt.

  Annie flops to the floor with a sound only a hound can make.

  He has never seen her ill.

  Horse hooves clop outside the window.

  He's torn, stay with the dog he raised from a pup and who has always served him well or hunt without her, knowing winter will fast whiten tree branches and send prey to safe beds.

  The rough wooden shutters rattle, fighting their pins, and Andrew bows his head. There is no choice. Annie is a dog. And Andrew must feed his people — he must always and forever remember they are his priority. If he keeps them happy, fed, and safe, they will be more likely to obey his son when that need eventually rises.

  With a look to his child and his people's future, he pets Annie's head, straps on his sword, and strides from the room leaving her lying there, his mission clear.

  ***

  His horse waits for him, saddled and snorting, one of the household boys holding tight to its reins. It stomps a hoof in recognition as he approaches, and the other men — many also on horseback — call out to him. Milling around not far from the dancing horses are the hounds and the boys who hold the leads of the best dogs.

  The best dogs except for Annie.

  Lord Andrew looks back toward the windows. Does she still lie there in misery, knowing her master has abandoned her? His stomach twists at the idea but he clenches his jaw and mounts his steed.

  “Where's your bitch?” one of the men, Lord Hubert, calls.

  A younger man astride a dun mare gasps, whispering, “No matter what one thinks of the lady of the household, good cousin, one must keep his opinions to himself!”

  Lord Hubert swats at Roderick. “I would never insult her ladyship in such a manner! I meant his dog! The bitch Annie!”

  The better part of valor at this moment being to ignore his men's statements, Andrew merely says, “Annie is ill. Fevered.”

  Horses dance backward, their riders reacting to the odd news.

  “Ill?”

  “Fevered?”

  “She's never missed a hunt.”

  “This bodes bad tidings.”

  “Surely an ill omen for the hunt when the best dog is down … ”

  Andrew shakes his head. “It is no omen. The dog has never been sick and now, finally, she is. She is no pup,” he says. He takes a moment to truly absorb the words. She has been his for more than a half-dozen summers, and although she is still spry, she is no longer spritely.

  He sighs and tugs on his horse's reins, pulling his heavy head round to face the ever-encroaching forest. “It is no ill omen,” he repeats, digging his heels into his horse's sides, and they spring away, the hounds slipping loose of their collars and rushing forward fast as water.

  ***

  Three rabbits, two pheasants and seven grouse, and the men are getting loose about the lip. No big quarry has been found, and the hunt is starting to look a loss. Failure makes men talk, and Andrew is not ready to shush them like some
old woman; instead he wonders why the woods and small clearings are so silent today. His eyes scan the area while the dogs mill about, looking for something of interest to bring to bay. The words of his fellow hunters wash over him, but little drifts into his ears.

  “ … had to kill it, they say. Its mouth was spilling over with foam and it tried to attack everything that came near — even its master!”

  “Demonic possession,” Lord Hubert says with a wise nod. “Same thing happened to a dog in Brittleboro last month. Hellhounds claimed it. Had to be dispatched properly — cut off the heads and burn the bodies. Hellhounds walk into any building where a door stands open.”

  “At least the fae must be invited in,” Roderick mutters, “nearly polite of them.”

  “You invited a stranger in recently, did you not, Andrew?”

  Andrew's head snaps up. “Aye, I did. It is mete and right to do so. An old man wandering through the woods with nary a stitch of good clothing to his name. We invited him in, bathed and clothed him, and supped with him. Not the most pleasant of characters, I must admit.”

  “The fae seldom are,” Lord Hubert proclaimed.

  “He was not fae,” Andrew mutters, “merely old, near-crippled, and surly. Hospitality is our way,” he reminds with a shrug. “Some say the old gods still wander these woods seeking good-doers and rewarding them.”

  “Aye, some say,” Lord Hubert agrees. “And when was it he was your guest?”

  Andrew counts on his fingers, “Eleven, twelve … thirteen days past.”

  A slow hiss escapes Roderick's rubbery lips. “And now Annie falls ill?”

  Andrew shakes his head. “Nonsense. You are all speaking nonsense. He was as likely Dagda as he was fae and far, far more likely merely a crotchety old man with burrs in his beard.”

  “Aye, lad,” Lord Hubert says slowly, “but how would you know their difference?”