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    Fausterella and other stories
    Fausterella and other stories
    Fausterella and other stories
    Ebook73 pages1 hour

    Fausterella and other stories

    By Kate Harrad

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    About this ebook

    Fausterella and Other Stories is a collection of nine stories by Kate Harrad. Discover a girl who sells her soul to go to the ball, the perils of adopting a pet zombie, a village which commits a misguided ritual sacrifice, a puppet shop with a secret, a Yorkshire trip with horrifying consequences, and what happens when your dead relatives just won't go away.

    Some stories have been previously published by magazines including Dark Tales and Shimmer.

    The stories have been variously described as "superbly original ideas", "brisk, funny, and entertaining", "fantastic and unsettling".

    Kate Harrad is a London-based writer whose first novel, All Lies and Jest, is being published by Ghostwoods Books. She likes kittens and rainbows, but for some reason prefers to write about dark fairy tales and mutated roadkill.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherKate Harrad
    Release dateJun 10, 2011
    ISBN9781458105974
    Fausterella and other stories
    Author

    Kate Harrad

    I'm a UK-based writer whose first novel, All Lies and Jest, is due to be published by Ghostwoods Books later in 2011.I like kittens and rainbows, but for some reason I prefer to write about misguided ritual sacrifices and mutated roadkill.

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      Book preview

      Fausterella and other stories - Kate Harrad

      Comments from others:

      On They're Not Dead Until They Stop Talking:

      …quick and smart and charming

      …superbly original ideas

      …brisk, funny, and entertaining

      On The Wood:

      …fantastic

      …so creepy!

      On The Kick Inside:

      … fantastic and unsettling

      Fausterella and other stories

      By Kate Harrad

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2011 Kate Harrad

      The Winter Tree was previously published by Shimmer magazine. Stepmother was previously published by ken*again. They're Not Dead Until They Stop Talking was previously published by Lenox Avenue. The Soho Puppeteer was previously published by Dark Tales. Thanks to all of them for permission to republish.

      The cover photo was taken by Simon MacMullen. Thanks to him and to the model, our friend Jessamy, for permission to use it; and thanks to Trish for proofreading the stories.

      Kate's website is at loveandzombies.co.uk.

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      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 recipient. 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

      They're Not Dead Until They Stop Talking

      The Soho Puppeteer

      Fausterella

      Not Just For Christmas

      The Kick Inside

      Stepmother

      The Winter Tree

      The Wood

      Squirrel Killing

      ~~~~~~~

      They're Not Dead Until They Stop Talking

      There was a ghost in the machine.

      But the machine was only an electric toothbrush. And the ghost was too recently dead to be a threat to anyone. She had passed away the day before, and what she was doing in the toothbrush was anyone's guess.

      Certainly I didn't know. My grandmother had been normal all her life and we had every reason to expect that she would be as conventional a ghost as the rest of the family. I know for a fact that my grandfather was decidedly disappointed in her.

      What the bloody hell is she doing in there? I could hear him muttering to himself as he wandered up and down in the kitchen cupboard. Didn't she want to see me any more? God knows there's enough space in the oven. We could have been in the same room for eternity. I would have had time to tell her all about my war experiences again. Grandpa had been too young for World War 2, but he had lived through Vietnam, albeit 6,000 miles away in a neutral country. He had always enjoyed relating his memories of watching the news throughout the '60s.

      Personally I was pleased with Grandmother's choice of home. I had never used the toothbrush much, whereas Grandpa's kitchen cupboard was needed for plates and saucers, which I was currently having to keep in the fridge. (It wasn't that they inconvenienced him, but after a few days in there they had traces of ectoplasm, and a ghoulish film settled on all the food.) Of course Great-Aunt Hilda was in the fridge, but she didn't seem to leak quite so much. And she had far better manners.

      I did have a couple of rooms to myself. Nobody was allowed to live in my bedroom except me, and my bathroom was also out of bounds. The ghosts had the main bathroom, a couple of bedrooms and the living-room - and the kitchen because I couldn't stop them. They seemed to feel better in there, it being warmer and cosier than the rest of the house: occasionally they'd cook for me but it was always burnt. Only someone with a ghost's skewed sense of cuisine could burn lettuce.

      No, they didn't scare me. Ghosts are ghosts, and they're just like humans only more transparent. Ghosts have intelligence, and they don't move much… and they have just the two legs, and they don't scuttle at you… well, it should be obvious that what scared me - the only thing that scared me in the house - were spiders. We had lots of them because they liked the ectoplasm: it made them bigger, blacker and, strangely, better at scuttling. Great-uncle Henry encouraged them, I know.

      They're just insects with spare legs, Jamie, he said in what he thought were reassuring tones. Why should you be frightened of eight legs but not of six?

      I'm frightened of six legs as well, Uncle Henry. I'm just thirty-three per cent more scared of eight.

      They're more scared of you than you are of them.

      That's not possible.

      And as the only live person in the house, I was assigned the task of cleaning it, thereby dislodging anything that happened to be, for example, weaving a web in the corner of the ceiling. Actually, that indirectly solved the problem; at least for a while. When a spider fell on my head once, I shut myself in my room and refused to come out until somebody had done something about either a) the spiders or b) my fear of them. Two days later I emerged to find that, by some ghostly magic, the house was completely free of anything with more than two legs. It was much later when Henry finally confessed to me that he had just

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