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Waking Rynn will release fall 2024, and it follows the band of misfit first responders serving the hidden mythological community of the Inners.
About Becca Wood
Becca is recovering from being a literary non-fiction writer by embracing urban fantasy like towels fresh from the dryer on a cold and rainy day. She's an ER doc, former medic, former 911-dispatcher, and former director of a suicide hotline; twenty-seven years of dealing with other people's emergencies created a deep well of crazy night shifts, ecstatic joy, and crushing pain to turn into stories. Her work celebrates the morally grey and chaotic-neutral heroes amongst us, and explores what it means to find one's place and come of age as an adult.
She lives in the Texas Hill Country outside of Austin to maximize her 'tree to people' ratio and access to breakfast tacos, and is proud to be the only person she knows to have earned a hospital discharge diagnosis of 'caffeine toxicity'.
The Magpie and
the Wobegone Wizard
By Jilleen Dolbeare
The Magpie and the Wobegone Wizard by Jilleen Dolbeare
Deciding it’s better late than never at thirty-odd years of age, Oliver summons a familiar so he can attend wizarding school. But he never expected the trouble the magpie would bring!
Chapter One
Oliver Franklin stared at the window. The magpie stared back at Oliver. The bird looked young, maybe freshly on its own for the first time. It was marked with the typical black and white feathers, although it was thin, and a bit scraggly. This couldn’t be the familiar he’d called for, could it?
He almost turned away, ignoring the bird, but the keen intelligence in its eyes stopped him.
He wasn’t a great wizard. In fact, to say he was “fair to middlin’” would even be a stretch. He had power, but training? He hadn’t been able to afford wizard school. He’d scraped along with whatever learning he could find. Usually from books, although most of those were fakes. He’d had a wizard friend in high school that had shown him a few things, but he’d moved to the lower forty-eight and Oliver never saw him again...
At slightly over thirty years of age, he should have had a familiar long ago. He brushed his hand through his hair, leaving it standing up. Resigned, he opened the sash, and said, “Come in.”
The magpie hopped through, landing on the sill. It cocked its head as though awaiting instruction. Oliver blinked at it. He scrambled back to the kitchen to the spell he’d marked in the library book. It had worked, he’d called a familiar, so it was probably a real magic book. Too bad he’d have to return it.
He read the passage again. He still needed to complete the bond. Did he want the magpie to be his familiar? He stared at it. He’d been hoping for something impressive, like a bear, or a wolf. But cut-rate wizards should expect cut-rate familiars. His shoulders sagged.
Then he straightened. Even if magic was generally known and accepted, not many people would be comfortable around a familiar that was an apex predator. He’d be limited where he could go with a bear. The magpie was a smarter choice, and a much better familiar for apartment living. Plus, corvids were bright, right? Right.
He looked back at the bird. “You up for this, bird?”
It tilted its head the other way, even though the bond hadn’t been completed, it seemed to understand.
“Here goes nothing!”
He read the spell out loud. Nothing happened. He looked back at the instructions. “Ah, I forgot the blood.”
This time, he pricked his finger. He approached the bird. “I need to rub this on you, don’t bite, OK?”
The bird didn’t answer of course, although he’d heard most corvids could be trained to speak. He squeezed his finger until a ruby drop appeared, and he hurriedly wiped it down the magpie’s feathers. It turned its head, and he snatched back his hand to avoid a bite. The bird just seemed curious; it didn’t attempt to peck him.
“OK, here we go again.”
He intoned the spell. The bird squawked loudly, and he felt what seemed to be a searing hot pain through his heart. It flared and retreated so fast; he was left gasping. The bird hopped up and down and fluttered its wings. It must have felt the same sensation.
He rubbed his chest over his heart with the palm of his hand. He stared at the bird. He should be able to understand it now and communicate with it.
“Uh, do you have a name?” he asked.
Nothing.
