A Change in Fortune

The child's pleading eyes and outstretched hand dug at painful memories John had worked hard to bury. When he turned away, stern eyes and hands on hips awaited him. "You can't even spare a smile for that boy, John?" John blew out a tired sigh. "To what end, Mary? That boy's fate is as meat for the predators out there. Or meat for the Magistrate's axe – just like what happened to Jimmy."Three splendid short stories full of black cats, Halloween and even a little romance. Another anthology from Hera B. Magic and the authors of the Here Be Magic blog. 23,000 words. “Kit’s Cat” by Cindy Spencer Pape. Kit’s life has gone downhill and then downhill some more, and she can’t even get a good night’s sleep. When she realizes the stray cat that’s been caterwauling outside her window is injured, saving it will take her life on some ups and downs no one could ever have predicted. “The Tenth Life of Vicky Torres” by Shona Husk. Seth expected the world to end in wars and bombings, not in a plague. When he obeys his dying father and heads for their secret cabin in the mountains, he gets lonely so fast that he’s willing to share his meager food with the stray kitty that appears in the woods. But is the cat what it appears to be or is it something else entirely?“The Night Shift” by Angela Campbell. Hailey Crawford has finally got her life in order, and it’s unfortunate that it doesn’t have much space left for sisters, nieces, or boyfriends. It definitely doesn’t have space for vagrants hanging around her florist shop...until one night when an accident involving the vagrant changes Hailey’s outlook on everything. In fact, she wakes after the tragedy to find her outlook has gotten very close to the ground. Cat close, in fact.