Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Other Side of the Door
    The Other Side of the Door
    The Other Side of the Door
    Ebook107 pages1 hour

    The Other Side of the Door

    By Louisa Swann

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A blind date like no other . . .
    A contractor's not-so-perfect night. . .
    A cowboy's magic touch . . .
    Wild magic and monsters . . .
    A fish who wants to fly . . .

    Five fantastical tales that lift the reader from the everyday world and carry them
    to the other side of the door.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherEye of the Eagle
    Release dateFeb 9, 2013
    ISBN9781301954469
    The Other Side of the Door
    Author

    Louisa Swann

    Louisa is a professional writer living in northern California with husband, son, and a slew of critters, both domestic and wild. The family has been off the grid for over twenty years and keeps their carbon footprint small by doing without frig and water heater. Besides writing and caring for critters, both two-legged and four-legged, Louisa is the proud mama of a host of other little beings, namely veggies and flowers, who live in their 8′x16′ greenhouse. Springs fills the air with flowers and song while frogs leap merrily underfoot. Life is sweet!

    Read more from Louisa Swann

    Related to The Other Side of the Door

    Related ebooks

    Fantasy For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Thieves

      Apr 11, 2018

      Thieves
      25 min read

    • Article

      Sweet Sorrow

      Aug 19, 2019

      Sweet Sorrow
      8 min read

    • Article

      Water Under The Bridge

      Nov 10, 2022

      The sound of water coursing over rocks filled my ears. The creek banks reached out with lush green vegetation as if to grab and hold me, and the warm June air was sweet with the smell of honeysuckle. The creek was small. Four good jumps and I could g

      26 min read

    • Article

      The Leather Coat

      Apr 4, 2024

      The Leather Coat
      6 min read

    • Article

      Confessions Of A Hitman

      Oct 14, 2019

      Confessions Of A Hitman
      3 min read

    • Article

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS

      Jan 5, 2022

      Roger’s PROFANISAURUS
      5 min read

    • Article

      I Met Myself Coming Back

      Oct 6, 2022

      I Met Myself Coming Back
      6 min read

    • Article

      Dark Tales

      Dec 2, 2021

      Dark Tales
      6 min read

    • Article

      Community Of Peers

      Feb 10, 2021

      After the war, I travelled to a village in the south of the province. It was my intention to vacation for the weekend in an unknown land. I followed a small river that was alternately green beneath the foliage of the forest and blue while it coursed

      6 min read

    • Article

      HUNTING With The Ellements…

      Sep 13, 2021

      HUNTING With The Ellements…
      19 min read

    • Article

      The Man I Should Have Married

      Dec 29, 2019

      The Man I Should Have Married
      11 min read

    • Article

      Four Poems

      Mar 1, 2024

      I was trying to look a little less like myselfand more like other humans, humans who belonged, so I put on a skort.Purchased in another life, when I had a husband and wrote thank-you notes and held dinner parties,the skort even had its own little poc

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Straw Hat

      Aug 2, 2018

      The Straw Hat
      6 min read

    • Article

      Three Triptychs

      Jan 1, 2021

      Woke to the “meanerror,” of birds squawkinginside the blue-greyblackpolyphonies of whathappens when we losethe terminologyto determine how badthings really are. Wasthere no way to puncturethe agonizing filmthat kept us all corralledhere? I looked thr

      3 min read

    • Article

      Perv-O-Shine And Sleep Vaping: 23 Things I Learned About The World – And Myself – At Glastonbury 2023

      Jun 26, 2023

      Sure, sure, it’s hot, and you’re not going to shower, and this will force some choices at Glastonbury that you wouldn’t make in regular life: shorter shorts, for instance, or a hat. This doesn’t even come close to explaining the wild precision, the c

      7 min read

    • Article

      Rising Sign

      Feb 4, 2021

      Rising Sign
      10 min read

    • Article

      Watch Your Step

      Nov 19, 2020

      Watch Your Step
      5 min read

    • Article

      My Lucky Safari In Tanzania

      Jun 1, 2017

      My Lucky Safari In Tanzania
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Freshening

      Sep 15, 2018

      My cashier’s black hair was beautiful. Though not unlike mine, it was shinier and thicker, and hung glamorously down to her waist. It looked strong, too, like Christopher Reeve’s in the Superman movies. A strand of Superman’s silvery hair could hold

      21 min read

    • Article

      Maybe It Won’t Be That Bad

      Dec 9, 2019

      Maybe It Won’t Be That Bad
      4 min read

    • Article

      Mine

      Jul 15, 2020

      Mine
      2 min read

    • Article

      Summer Diary

      Jun 3, 2021

      Every day we are exploring more of the forest park across the road from us, relishing it in small sections, getting to know it like a friend. We have found secret paths among the jays and rooks. We have climbed banks of leaf litter, strayed far off p

      7 min read

    • Article

      The Night That Changed Me

      May 12, 2021

      The Night That Changed Me
      8 min read

    • Article

      ‘Every Writer’s Deepest Fear’: What Happened When I Gave A Book Talk Completely Nude

      Jul 12, 2023

      ‘So Nell, tell us a bit about how you became a writer …” I look down and see that, despite my legs being crossed, a significant amount of pubic hair is visible to the audience in front of me. I can feel my nipple brush against my wrist as I lean one

      3 min read

    • Article

      Five Poems

      Jul 1, 2022

      You have to go back to being immature,a timed regression essentialto running up a further lifetime of debt. I owe you, the polar bear says,an icy French OUI. A kiss on both cheeks,plus a wish to sit on a bench at the center of a green-painted park,yo

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Other Side of the Door

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Other Side of the Door - Louisa Swann

      The

      Other Side

      of the

      Door

      A short story collection

      by

      Louisa Swann

      A blind date like no other . . .

      A contractor's not-so-perfect night. . .

      A cowboy's magic touch . . .

      Wild magic and monsters . . .

      A fish who wants to fly . . .

      Five fantastical tales that lift the reader from the everyday world and carry them

      to the other side of the door.

      ~~~* * *~~~

      The Other Side of the Door: A Short Story Collection

      Copyright 2013 by Louisa Swann

      Published by Eye of the Eagle Press at Smashwords

      Smashwords License Statement

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      ~~~* * *~~~

      Contents

      Snap-A-Trap, Inc.

      Bubblegum & Eye of Newt

      Down Home Country Magic

      Three Toads and a Dragon

      When Fish Learn to Fly

      About the Author

      ~~~* * *~~~

      What do trolleys, bananas, and impudent fairies have in common? A fairy hunter named Zola and her newest blind date: Milton B. Flannigan, III. Unfortunately, dear old Miltie isn't everything he's been made out to be. He's more. Then again, so is Zola. Find out just how wrong a date can go in this laugh-out-loud tale from the streets of San Francisco.

      Snap-A-Trap, Inc.

      San Francisco, California. A city that’s been shaken more times than a Double-O martini and lived to brag about it.

      The city was shaking again today, but it wasn’t the Big One everyone was waiting for. Just enough of a shaker to make my current position—head and shoulders wedged under a wrought iron bench—rather uncomfortable.

      No need to brace myself. The shake, rattle, and roll faded away like a disappointed sigh, carrying with it the fear of 750,000 residents.

      Oh, well. There’s always next time.

      Right now I had a job to do. The same job I’d been doing for hundreds of years—catch mischievous faeries and send them back over the rainbow where they belong.

      I’d survived tsunamis, Mark Twain, and the stock market crash. Quakes were no big deal—except for days like today when I was out on a hunt. Tremors sent my quarry skittering for cover. One breath they were there; the next breath they were gone.

      I could swear I heard a giggle as I shoved myself further under the bench. Concrete bruised my knees and a pebble dug into my palm. Would’ve been easier to stretch out my legs, but the current flow of skateboards, roller blades, and dog owners jogging down the sidewalk turned a simple leg-stretching into a death wish.

      The stench of dead fish and rotting seaweed permeated the still fog. The park I’d chosen as hunting ground this morning was only a hop, skip, and jump from the bay. If I held my breath and listened, I could hear waves lapping against the Fort Mason piers.

      The bushes in front of me giggled again.

      I ignored the urge to slip an extra hand or two free of their corseted bondage. Ten hands - all mine. A veritable cornucopia of handiness. You’d think folks could appreciate all those hands, especially the guys, but noooo. All the men I’d tried to hook up with over the years had a thing about my appendages. Too many of them.

      In this city known for its tolerance, I’m the only one who doesn’t fit in.

      Go figure.

      I inched forward far enough to move the trap baited with ginger—faerie folk couldn’t resist the pungent root—into position, and started to slide my left hand into the stiff, thorn-laden bush growing wild against the bench.

      This was it. The decisive moment. Hunter against hunted. Trapper against trappee . . .

      Reggae music burst forth from the jacket tied around my waist, scaring the beejeezus out of both predator and prey.

      Cell phones. The curse of humankind.

      Hell’s bells! I shoved my hand deep into the bushes, hoping against hope to find the critter I’d been chasing half the morning frozen into a mound of quivering faerie jelly.

      No such luck.

      Another round of reggae beat its way through the fog-laden air.

      Phone’s ringing.

      The phone I could ignore. The breath—pungent as an overripe fruit stall—I could tolerate.

      But that voice—that smoke-laced, whiskey-sodden, I’m-dying-tomorrow voice coming only inches from my ear—sent me leaping clean out of my skin. Figuratively speaking of course. There was nothing figurative about the pain bulleting through my skull as flesh and bone smashed into the underside of the wrought iron bench.

      Ouch!

      Definitely the wrong move.

      I rebounded from the head bump only to discover a hunk of fog-frizzed hair—my fog-frizzed hair—had glued itself to a McKinley-sized mound of used gum. From the feel of the wad imprisoning hair to bench, park goers had been making contributions to this particular repository for years . . . decades . . . eons.

      The phone blared another round of reggae. Too bad I couldn’t find the darn thing—I’d heave it all the way from here to the Bay.

      You want me to get that for you?

      Who was this guy and was he talking about the phone or my hair?

      I’m fine, thanks. The only thing visible from my rather awkward position was bushes, concrete, and a pair of oversized penny loafers.

      Again with the reggae.

      Time to go cell phone diving.

      Whatever I chose as cell phone transporter—purse, pockets, even a holster on my belt—became this bottomless gorge the minute I dropped my cell phone in. Digging in my left pocket resulted in nothing but fifty more strands of hair being sacrificed to the goddess of used gum.

      I think it’s on the other side.

      A creepy-crawly insects-on-my-skin feeling wrapped itself cocoon-style from my head to my toes. Who was this guy anyway? Commuter? Tourist? Street person looking to spread out on my bench?

      Thanks, I said through gritted teeth. Rapidly shifting hands, I checked out my right pocket.

      Maybe I could try to move the bench?

      A wrought-iron bench bolted to a car-size slab of concrete? I don’t think so. If that guy decided to give his plan a try, however, underneath the bench was not the prime place to be. I abandoned the cell phone search, shifted into reverse, and shoved both hands against the concrete. A fist-size tangle parted from my head as my nether parts gained momentum. Then I was sitting on my derriere staring up at the longest pair of legs I think I’ve ever seen.

      The guy actually had the temerity to clap.

      I leapt off the sidewalk quicker than a monkey on speed, twisted my ankle, and landed—in a sitting position—on the bench I’d just been imprisoned under. Not a bad move, though totally unintentional.

      I dug the phone out of my pocket, and crammed it to my ear.

      This is not a good time, I said, trying to decide whether ankle,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1