Wickedly Ever After: A Baba Yaga Novella by Deborah Blake

Author:Deborah Blake [Blake, Deborah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-01-19T05:00:00+00:00

Keep reading for a preview of the next Baba Yaga novel

WICKEDLY POWERFUL

Available February 2016

Chapter One

The early morning fog blanketed the area surrounding the fire tower, stippling the windows with condensation and cloaking the ground below in mystery. Even the twittering of the birds was muffled, as if the world itself had fallen away behind the mist.

To Sam Corbett, perched on a stool in the tower with his coffee mug gripped between tense fingers, the fog looked like smoke and brought back nightmares.

Eventually, he set down the cooling coffee and turned his back to the windows, doing push-ups and crunches and working with the free weights until he had an excuse for the sweat on his brow and the tremors in his hands, and the sun had burned away the fog and welcomed in a bright new day.

The radio crackled around the time he was going into service, and Tiny’s voice from down below gave him a head’s up to expect a scout troop within the hour. Sam scowled, feeling the scar tissue pulling at the skin on the left side of his face. He hated having people invade the tower; it was his space, his sanctuary. But of course, it wasn’t, not really. It was a job. And visitors were part of the job. Few of them stayed long anyway, after they’d met him.

At about nine-thirty, Sam heard the clatter of feet outside, along with the usual pre-adolescent griping about the absurd number of stairs that had to be climbed to reach the top of the tower. He grabbed his Yankees cap, a souvenir of a long-ago trip to the Big Apple—a place far, far away from these woods in the Black Mountains of Wyoming, both geographically and spiritually—and tugged it down low over his forehead. The shadow it cast didn’t so much hide as soften the effect of his disfigurement. For Sam, this fire tower was as close as he could get to hiding, and as evidenced by the gangly figures currently wandering around the catwalk outside, it wasn’t close enough.

Sam went out the door and greeted Dennis, the scout leader, and the two women with him, probably mothers to one or another of the shouting, laughing boys they were attempting to herd. He had met Dennis before, but the moms were new, and didn’t do a very good job of covering up their shock at the sight of his face.

“Hey, Sam,” Dennis said cheerfully. The scoutmaster was a thin, energetic man who ran the general store in the nearest town. He happily made up boxes of groceries and necessities for Sam and had them delivered to the tower so Sam didn’t have to come into town as often; the two men got along well. “This is Claire and Felicia. They’re helping me out today. Ladies, this is Sam Corbett. He’s manning the fire tower this season; it’s his second year here, so he’s practically an old pro.”

“Hello,” Sam said. He didn’t say much these days, not liking the

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