Havok Publishing

Tag - sentient objects

Night of the Living Scarecrow

The biggest problem with being a scarecrow brought to life was the publicity. Memories of my prior existence in the zucchini patch remained fuzzy, but I was fairly certain there were no interviews, cameras, mobile phones, or TV crews before the kid worked his magic.
“Come on, Edgar. It’s one night.”

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Pages and Prejudice

The pen is mightier than the sword, they say. What they forgot to add is that the pen is often meaner, too.
“You wench! Do not put me beside that foul beast.” Pride and Prejudice squirmed in my hand, its pages fluttering as though it wanted to fly away. In honor of Canadian Library

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Put Me Back!

Heart pounding, I scanned the abandoned castle courtyard where ancient stones lay scattered like forgotten memories. The harvest tournament would begin any minute. Should my foster brother enter without a sword… I swallowed hard, reconsidering whether to bring Sir Kay something that might imperil my own neck. He’d likely have my head either way.

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Confessions from an Unlikely Source

If I were the chatty type, I could share with you a great many stories. I was beautiful in my youth, rare and prized. There wasn’t a soul that did not desire to hold me. At first, it was thrilling. I held a power over others that few possessed. I could make a law-abiding man guilty, capable of committing the worst offense.

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Just Desserts

Everyone knows you’re supposed to exchange sweets with loved ones on Valentine’s Day.
What no one had ever specified—probably for lack of a reason—was that those sweets probably shouldn’t be sentient.
My bad.
“Broomsticks and baubles!” I stood in the middle of the kitchen of my magical boarding school,

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Mount Rushmore Mania

I have never lived through a wilder time than the summer when the guys of Mount Rushmore—George, Abe, Tommy, and Teddy—decided to form a boy band. I worked in the visitor center, and as far as any of us knew, the boys had never heard pop music. Yet one night Abe started belting out

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Wanted: Leading Star

Helios gripped his resume. After an hour of waiting, the paper was somewhere between crumpled and wilting.
He attempted to smooth it out on his lap. It didn’t help. Maybe the Boss wouldn’t notice…
He glanced over the details listed under Education and Activities. Graduated from Celestial Gasses Academy—middle of the class.

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Miss Kobe

Nadia had slept three nights in the house she’d inherited from her grandmother, and every night she had the same dream. Nightmare, really. She heard crying coming from the attic, and when she went to investigate, she found a three-foot-tall Japanese woman trapped in a wooden crate. Then the dream shifted,

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The Tree of Souls

There once stood a tree at the Edge of the Earth where oceans cascaded into the void of the Beyond. The magnificent tree’s cloud-white branches spiraled miles into the sky, glowing with ethereal light.
Though beauty generally fostered happiness, his effervescent limbs swayed with melancholy rather than joy over the Garden at the

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The Hundred-Year-Old Bowl

I’m focused, minding my own business, quietly eating my breakfast of rice, miso soup, and grilled salmon in the dining room. It’s what I do every morning while studying my book of ancient Japanese history.
I’m so entranced that I almost miss the crackling female voice. “Why aren’t you married yet, Airi?

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Teatime Therapy

Very few things surprised Aoi, considering she was a witch. But she certainly hadn’t expected to be attacked by a sentient teapot when she entered her great-grandmother’s home.
Aoi huddled behind a couch as the tea caddy rolled on its own. The kettle and saucers clattered angrily on top, sloshing their boiling contents onto…

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Bainteimātzu

I stand anxiously near the cliff’s edge, not daring to look down.
“What a sight to see, eh son?” My father slaps me on the back. I grasp the metal railing with all my strength, my hands sweating and my knuckles turning white. He reaches up and adjusts his hearing aid. “Time to take

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