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    Of The Bauble
    Of The Bauble
    Of The Bauble
    Ebook164 pages2 hours

    Of The Bauble

    By Debbie McGowan

    ()

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    About this ebook

    When nineteen-year-old Kieran O’Sullivan takes a trip to the attic for the Christmas decorations, it proves to be an illuminating experience.

    Box includes:
    - a hapless but not altogether helpless student
    - a pedantic supernatural being (or two, or...well, quite a few)
    - a funky older sister
    - the coolest mum in the world
    - a naughty rescue bunny and her easily led feline sidekick
    - an insightful ex-girlfriend
    - twinkle lights
    - tinsel
    - baubles

    * Warning – may contain traces of magic and a smidgeon of social commentary (hey, it's a book by Debbie McGowan – did you expect anything else?) *

    Of the Bauble is a young adult, biromantic/non-binary fantasy romance.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBeaten Track Publishing
    Release dateDec 15, 2016
    ISBN9781786451064
    Of The Bauble
    Author

    Debbie McGowan

    Debbie McGowan is an award-winning author of contemporary fiction that celebrates life, love and relationships in all their diversity. Since the publication in 2004 of her debut novel, Champagne—based on a stage show co-written and co-produced with her husband—she has published many further works—novels, short stories and novellas—including two ongoing series: Hiding Behind The Couch (a literary ‘soap opera’ centring on the lives of nine long-term friends) and Checking Him Out (LGBTQ romance). Debbie has been a finalist in both the Rainbow Awards and the Bisexual Book Awards, and in 2016, she won the Lambda Literary Award (Lammy) for her novel, When Skies Have Fallen: a British historical romance spanning twenty-three years, from the end of WWII to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Through her independent publishing company, Debbie gives voices to other authors whose work would be deemed unprofitable by mainstream publishing houses.

    Read more from Debbie Mc Gowan

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      Book preview

      Of The Bauble - Debbie McGowan

      Of The Bauble

      by

      Debbie McGowan

      SMASHWORDS EDITION

      * * * * *

      Copyright 2016 Debbie McGowan at Smashwords.

      https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/debbiemcgowan

      Cover Illustration: Decorous Anarchy Studios

      http://bit.ly/Dastudios

      http://www.beatentrackpublishing.com

      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.

      * * * * *

      This story is a work of fiction and the characters and events in it exist only in its pages and in the author’s imagination.

      WARNING: includes descriptions of illegal drug use and moderately explicit scenes of intimacy between consenting young adult males.

      * * * * *

      When nineteen-year-old Kieran O’Sullivan takes a trip to the attic for the Christmas decorations, it proves to be an illuminating experience.

      Box includes:

      - a hapless but not altogether helpless student

      - a pedantic supernatural being (or two, or…well, quite a few)

      - a funky older sister

      - the coolest mum in the world

      - a naughty rescue bunny and her easily led feline sidekick

      - an insightful ex-girlfriend

      - twinkle lights

      - tinsel

      - baubles

      * Warning – may contain traces of magic and a smidgeon of social commentary (hey, it’s a book by Debbie McGowan – did you expect anything else?) *

      Of the Bauble is a young adult, biromantic/non-binary fantasy romance.

      * * * * *

      Contents

      Acknowledgements

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Chapter Nineteen

      About the Author

      By the Author

      Beaten Track Publishing

      * * * * *

      This story is brought to you by the letters:

      B, Q and A

      * * * * *

      Acknowledgements

      Bec Bec – Thank you for your amazing support of Beaten Track, for your kindness, for the effort you put into every single review, for the candies, the owls, the pet name…and for giving me the kick up the backside I needed to get this story finished at last!

      (I started writing it in 2014!)

      Nidge – Fanx. BTDubs, haven’t heard you sing in Martian lately…

      Al – Superstar.

      Jor – Mr. Meticulous.

      Andrea – ‘Thanks’ really isn’t enough. Love ya, mate.

      Thanks also to the Daily Writing Updates crew for encouragement, feedback and – most important of all – companionship on this mad journey of ours.

      Lastly, thank you to Tom Holt (even though you’ll probably never see this), for many years of entertainment, and especially for Djinn Rummy.

      Jinn lore in this story is based on that presented by Rosemary Ellen Guiley and Philip J. Imbrogno (2011) The Vengeful Djinn: Unveiling the Hidden Agenda of Genies. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications.

      * * * * *

      Chapter One

      My torch turned itself off. I stumbled and fell forward into the darkness, stopped mid-tumble when forehead and timber collided, sending vibrations through my skull and down my spine.

      Ow. Understatement.

      I staggered backwards, realising too late that the softness beneath my foot meant—

      KIERAN JAMES O’SULLIVAN, IF YOU COME THROUGH THAT CEILING…

      I tried to shift weight to my other foot. The floor—or ceiling, depending on your perspective—creaked. Was still creaking, quietly at first, but building…building…I expected the roof to come down on me any second now.

      With an epic bang, the nails fixing the plasterboard to the joist pinged free, and I—torch in one hand, box of baubles in the other—plummeted in a plume of plaster dust. The force of my crash landing rendered me incapable of speech; I may even have passed out briefly.

      Down below, I heard my sister shriek. Key! What the hell?

      The shower stopped running. A box fell on top of me, the contents spilling into my lap, a tuneless metal clanging like the 8-bit song of the damned, followed by the pale, ghastly form of a baby’s arm, reaching out to grab me…

      I won’t lie. I was screaming like a boy-band fangirl—inwardly, at least. Outwardly, I couldn’t breathe, and, of course, my brilliantly dysfunctional torch, with its usual sense of perfectly brilliant timing, chose that exact moment to switch itself on again, illuminating my predicament. Brilliantly.

      Wet feet squelched across the tiles and stopped directly below. I peered down through the jagged triangular hole that was threatening to chop off my left leg at the knee. Cara—my sister—scowled up at me, mascara streaking her wet face, black hair dripping and bedraggled, a macabre bathroom banshee wrapped in a big pink fluffy towel.

      In that calm-but-angry tone she’d inherited from Mum, she demanded, What are you doing?

      I opened my mouth, all set with a comeback along the lines of dancing the Macarena, what do you think? instead choking on the dust and insulation material I’d kicked up in my downfall. That definitely couldn’t be a good thing.

      Is he in there? Mum yelled through the bathroom door.

      Um. Sort of, Cara responded with a snort. Within seconds, she was giggling helplessly.

      Are you decent? Mum asked. The bathroom door opened, catching the back of my leg. Good God above! What a mess you’ve made. That’s another small fortune to fork out. And in December as well. First the car, now this! Why is it always in December?

      I was suffocating on fibreglass, so I didn’t say it out loud, but if it hadn’t been December, I wouldn’t have been clambering around our cold, cluttered attic, flipping open box after box, hoping this one would contain the elusive Christmas decorations, and instead finding ghastly dollies twanging out spooky melodies on Fisher Price xylophones.

      Well, are you going to stay there all night? my mother asked ridiculously. Cara was still giggling. I heard her splutter an explanation that she was going to her room, followed by a further grunt of annoyance from Mum. I pushed the box of toys off me and attempted to lift my unstuck leg.

      Agh-uh-ah-ugh-ugh-ugh, I yell-choked. The pain in my knee was horrific.

      Come on, Kieran. Shift yourself.

      Funny, my mother. I’d have told her so, but, well…

      Kieran? Are you all right up there?

      Finally! Some concern for my well-being! I tried to move again, but it hurt far too much. I yelped. The bathroom door bashed my dangling foot, making me tense and sending another jolt of pain from my left hip. I swore inside my head, quite a lot. I should’ve told Mum to get the decorations down herself, but apparently, in this house of four females—two human, one feline, one leporine—and one male, being the minority didn’t exclude me from becoming ‘the man of the house’ when the need arose.

      To my right, the stepladder creaked as Mum climbed and poked her head up through the attic hatch. I shone the torch in her face. She pushed it away, and as she did, the beam of light fell on my bent right leg.

      Oh, God! Kieran! Mum gasped.

      Mum… I was going to throw up.

      I’ll go get Uncle Jonny and call for an ambulance.

      I nodded dumbly and was overcome by dizziness. Mum clambered down the ladder, and continued downstairs, calling back to my sister, Cara, go talk to your brother while I dial 999.

      My sister’s door opened. What?

      Kieran’s really hurt up there. Make sure he doesn’t lose consciousness.

      Lose consciousness? I hadn’t banged my head that hard.

      I put the torch down in my lap so I could check out the bump. It wasn’t so bad, but my leg…oh, my leg!

      My sister’s door closed again. I heard her below me, slamming drawers open and shut, muttering under her breath as she attempted to get dressed in a hurry. I tried to focus on the noise to distract myself from the pain, because now I’d seen the way my leg was bent and all that blood, it hurt more than anything had ever hurt before. My head started spinning, and I reached out for a roof joist to steady myself.

      The box of decorations toppled, baubles spilling from it. They bounced off my legs and stopped dead wherever they landed in the plush-yet-prickly insulation material. One came to a rest between my thighs, and I stared down at it, trying to focus. I was seeing double and I couldn’t get it to work, I was so tired. My eyes started to close, and I let them, drifting away on the waves of pain. Endorphins. What a drug, man…

      A growing warmness radiated outwards from my groin. Great. I’d wet myself, not that I cared. So what if I hadn’t peed my pants since I was in Reception class that time when I really needed a wee but was too shy to tell Mrs. Jones? It had been embarrassing, sure, but now, really, what did it matter? There was a big splinter of rotten wood stuck in my calf, and my knee was bent in the same direction as my ankle. I’d probably get gangrene and they’d have to amputate. Wet pants were the least of my worries.

      I waited for the warmness to turn to coldness, as it does, but that didn’t happen. If anything, it was getting warmer still. So warm, in fact, that it was…

      Hot!

      My eyes shot open. I looked down into my lap and couldn’t quite believe what I saw there. The bauble was glowing! I tried to move my legs to flip it onto the floor, but I couldn’t, although I also realised that I didn’t want to. At first, I thought it was my imagination, as the blue swirling glow momentarily became brighter and then dimmed away to the tiniest speck. Nervously, I caught hold of the little hook and lifted the bauble to eye level. It was the strangest light, like the blue of a hot gas flame, and it seemed to swirl faster the longer I studied it. The heat travelled up the hook to my finger; I swapped hands, unable to put it down.

      It was nothing like the rest of the baubles. Lucy and Juniper—our rescued cat and rabbit, for whose names we could not be held accountable—had a great game they liked to play, whereby Lucy-cat would bat a bauble from the tree and Juniper-bunny would kick it back. Visitors thought it was cute, but coming home to find the tree stripped of its decorations and the carpet covered in bauble-fall got tired after the first fifty times or so.

      Anyway, it meant that all of the other baubles, for reasons of safety and keeping vet bills to a minimum, were made of plastic, whereas this one was too heavy to be plastic. Nor was it round; it was kind of like an upside-down pear on a spike, about fifteen centimetres in diameter at its widest, tapered off to a point at the bottom, the narrow top capped by a gold clasp. Ignoring the burn, I brought it a little closer to examine the metal clasp with its ornate

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