Scarlet Moon (Once Upon a Time) Read online

  “What is it?” Ruth asked.

  Giselle smiled enigmatically and then turned and removed one of the portraits from the wall. Ruth noted with interest that it was the portrait of the man who had brought the curse down upon William’s family.

  Ruth and William exchanged puzzled looks as Giselle walked across the room. “Grandmother, what are you going to do?”

  Without answering, Giselle suddenly threw the portrait upon the fire. Ruth flew forward with a cry, but William stopped her with a hand on her arm. Together, they watched as the picture burned. At last it was gone, and Ruth turned to look at the wall where it had hung.

  “Look!” she gasped.

  William spun around, and he saw it too. “They all look different, changed somehow.”

  Giselle smiled as she turned back from the fire. “They are, and so are you, William.”

  He turned completely white.

  “William, what is it?” Ruth demanded, totally bewildered.

  “You’re right, I can feel it. The curse is gone,” he whispered fiercely. “The curse is gone!” he shouted, picking her up and spinning her around.

  “How do you know?”

  “I know. I can feel it.”

  A surge of love and joy washed through Ruth. The days stretched ahead of them filled with sunlight, and the shadow was finally gone. She kissed William with all the passion in her heart, and he kissed her back.

  “Nothing can ever come between us,” he whispered.

  She laughed through tears of joy. At last she turned to her grandmother, who stood watching with a twinkle in her eye.

  “Grandmother, how did you do it? How did you break the curse?”

  “Magic.”

  Author’s Bio

  Debbie Viguié is the author of Midnight Pearls and the coauthor of the Wicked series. When not busy writing, Debbie spends her time visiting theme parks with her husband, Scott, and relaxing with friends and family, Debbie lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her Web site is www.debbieviguie.com.

  New adventures are just around the corner!

  Turn the page to read an excerpt from the next book in our fairy tale program …

  SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW by Cameron Dokey

  AVAILABLE JULY 2004 from Simon Pulse

  My mother was silent, gazing up at the light streaming out from my fathers room—silent for so long, I became all but certain she wouldn’t answer at all. Then, just as I was beginning to feel altogether wretched, she said:

  “Yes, we loved each other. Once. It might even be the case that we still do. It’s been so long since I’ve thought of such things that I no longer know. But I do know that your father and I have never understood one another. And without understanding—”

  My mother broke off, her eyes still fixed on the light.

  “Love is like water, Mina,” she continued, after a moment. “Water, in all its forms. It can squeeze between your fingers like your own tears. Burn and freeze your heart at the same time. It can evaporate before your very eyes in no more than an instant. Making a reservoir to hold your love is the most difficult task in all the world. You will never do it if you do not understand first yourself, and then your beloved.

  “Have you heard the saying ‘Still waters run deep’?”

  “Of course I have,” I said.

  “But do you understand its meaning?” asked my mother. “It’s the best way I know to describe abiding love. Remember that phrase when your father marches his parade of potential husbands by you. Look for the place within, the reservoir where love may reside until it fills to overflowing. Do not be dazzled by outside appearance, for that is merely what the sun does best: It shines.”

  “I will remember,” I promised.

  “Good,” said my mother. Then she turned and laid her hand against my cheek. “Go inside now. Sleep and have sweet dreams, my daughter, for tomorrow is a big day. You will be sixteen and I must take you to meet your father.”

  “Yes, but will you?” I asked, intending to tease, for my mother had never gone back on her word as far as I knew. Not to me, nor to any other. I knew that she would keep her part of the bargain made at my birth, no matter what it cost her.

  She laughed, but the sound was without mirth.

  “Now you sound just like your father. His greatest fear all these years has been that I’ll change my mind at the very last minute, find some way to keep you all to myself.”

  “He doesn’t know you very well, then,” I remarked.

  “On the contrary,” a new voice said. “I know your mother very well.”

  With a cry, my mother spun around, thrusting me behind her. Not that it did any good, for in the same instant, torches flared to life all around us as if the very ground had opened up and spewed forth fire. And so, in the space of no more than a few heartbeats, we were surrounded by my father’s soldiers.

  I think my mother understood what he intended at once, though I wasn’t far behind her. There could be but one cause for this: My father intended to take me away before the appointed time.

  “No,” my mother said—a statement, not a plea. “Not this way, Sarastro.”

  “It is the only way I can be sure,” the voice said, a voice I now recognized as my father’s. “And I’ve had almost sixteen years to think about it.”

  A figure stepped forward. In one hand it carried the largest, brightest torch of all—so bright, it made my eyes water and caused my mother to muffle her face inside her cloak. My first true sight of my father was thus obscured by tears, and I learned a lesson that I never forgot.

  Darkness may cover light, but that is not the same as putting it out. Whereas all light need do is to exist for darkness to be overcome.

  Yet even beaten back, my mother was not cowed.

  “This is not the way, Sarastro,” she said again. “There is no need to do this, and the day may come when you will be sorry you have made this choice.”

  But my father simply laughed, the sound triumphant and harsh.

  “Don’t think you can threaten me with words, Pamina,” he said. “It is simple. I have won, and you have lost. It was never much of a contest in the first place, really.”

  “It should never have been a contest at all.”

  “Enough!” my father cried. “I will not stand around in the dark and argue with you. Instead I will simply take my daughter and go.”

  At this, I saw him give a signal, and I braced myself. I expected several soldiers to try to drag me from my mother’s side. Instead a single man stepped forward. Even through the water in my eyes, I could tell he was the most handsome man that I had ever seen. Eyes the color of lapiz lazuli. Hair that shimmered in the torchlight, almost as bright a gold as mine. He extended one hand toward me, as if inviting me to dance.

  “Give me your hand and come with me,” he said. “And I swear to you that your mother will not be harmed. Resist, and there is no telling what will happen.”

  And, in this way, I learned a second lesson I never forgot: Beauty may still hide a treacherous heart.

  “What do you take me for?” I asked, and I did not hold back the scorn in my voice. “I will not give you my hand, for to do so is to give a pledge. This I think both you and the Lord Sarastro know full well.

  “I will not be tricked into pledging myself to a stranger. But I will come with you for my mother’s sake, for I love her well and would not have her harmed.”

  “Strong words,” my father said.

  “And a strong mind to back them up,” my mother replied. “I say again, you will regret this act, Sarastro. Thrice I have said it, and the third time pays for all.”

  “Step away from your mother, young Pamina,” the Lord Sarastro said. “I will not ask again. Instead I will compel.”

  And so I stepped away, pulling my hood down over my face, for I had begun to weep in earnest and did not want to give my father and those who did his bidding the satisfaction of seeing me cry. The second I stepped away from my mother, I could feel the wind begin to
rise, tugging on my cloak with desperate, grasping fingers, howling like a soul in hell.

  Over the scream of the wind, I heard my father shouting orders in a furious voice. Then I was gripped by strong arms, lifted from my feet, and thrown like a sack of potatoes over someone’s shoulder.

  The last thing I saw was the flame of my father’s torch, tossing like some wild thing caught in a trap.

  The last I heard, dancing across the surface of the wind like moon on water, was a high, sweet call of bells.

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  “Once upon a time …” is timely once again as fresh, quirky heroines breathe life into classic and much-loved characters.

  Reknowned heroines master newfound destinies, uncovering a unique and original “happily ever after….”

  Historical romance and magic unite in modern retellings of well-loved tales.

  THE STORYTELLER’S DAUGHTER

  by Cameron Dokey

  BEAUTY SLEEP

  by Cameron Dokey

  SNOW by Tracy Lynn

  MIDNIGHT PEARLS

  by Debbie Viguié

  Season Howe is a witch on the run for a horrible crime that happened three centuries ago—a crime so awful, her punishment will last forever.

  Daniel Blessing is the handsome stranger who has spent a lifetime hunting the evil witch.

  Kerry Profitt, an innocent college student, doesn’t believe in witches at all.

  But Daniel’s quest is about to bring Kerry and Season together in the strangest of ways—a way that will make Kerry believe all too well….

  Summer. Fall. Winter. Spring.

  Four seasons, one incredible adventure.

  Witch Season: Summer Available July 2004 from Simon Pulse

  Her love is trapped between night and day….

  In a time when the world was young and many things were quite commonplace that are now entirely forgotten, Sarastro, Mage of the Day, wed Pamina, the Queen of the Night. And in this way was the world complete, for light was joined to dark. For all time would they be joined together. Only the ending of the world could tear them apart.

  In other words, in the days in which my parents married, there was no such thing as divorce….

  Thus begins the tale of Mina, a girl-child born on the longest night of the darkest month of the year. When her father looked at her, all he saw was what he feared: By birth, by name, by nature, she belonged to the Dark. So when Mina turned sixteen, her father took her away from shadow and brought her into sunlight.

  In retaliation, her mother lured a handsome prince into a deadly agreement: If he frees Mina, he can claim her for his bride.

  Now Mina and her prince must endure deadly trials of love and fate and family before they can truly live happily after….

  SUNLIGHT AND SHADOW by Cameron Dokey

  Available July 2004 from Simon Pulse

  PUBLISHED BY SIMON & SCHUSTER

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven