At any rate, I thought you might like a preview. To set this excerpt up…Taylor and her two friends were on their way to a vacation when they caught some teenagers hassling a little old lady – of course they came to her rescue. But it turned out the little old lady was a fairy godmother and granted them a wish as their reward. It was to be used for something personal, and the three wished to meet the men of their deepest desires.
The sound of a bird screeching brought Taylor awake with a start. She sat up cautiously, expecting a shaft of hangover pain, but nothing happened. Not that she was trying to borrow trouble, but if she drank enough wine that she passed out on some beach somewhere, why didn't she have a hangover? It was as puzzling as to the fact she'd passed out in the first place. They'd only had two bottles of wine between the three of them.
"Somebody must have spiked one of those bottles," she said, getting to her feet. "It's the only possible--where the heck am I?"
With the sand beneath her she'd assumed she'd wandered onto the beach at the resort about half a mile from the cottage, but looking around herself all she could see was sand. There was no hotel, no water, no ... anything. Just sand.
Taylor sat down again. She must still be drunk. The nearest desert was hundreds of miles away. There was no way she could just magically appear in the middle of one.
Magic! What was it that little old lady they'd helped said? Something about being a fairy godmother and no one believing in such things any more.
There was more ... she remembered sitting by the fire, passing the bottle of wine around, and she'd been just about to get up to get the makings for some s'mores when Eva spotted the evening star.
"No, that's ridiculous!"
When they saw the star they heard the old woman's voice again: "... whatever wish you make tonight upon that star will come true. But mind it's a personal wish, something frivolous that will benefit only you. None of that world peace nonsense. You will be touched by magic."
"Touched by magic," she repeated. They decided then and there to wish for their perfect mates. "No way!" she said, a little louder.
If there was one thing Taylor loved, it was old black and white movies, the older the better. And her absolute favourites were the silent movies. Douglas Fairbanks, Lillian Gish, Buster Keaton ... but the one she'd had the biggest crush on was Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik. So without even thinking about it, when it came time to make her wish she wished to be swept away by a desert prince.
"This can't be real," she said, getting to her feet for a better look around. There were no deserts in Canada, nothing even resembling a desert in the woods she had started out in. But there was no denying the fact that she was in the middle of an unknown desert. No sheik in sight, she was utterly alone.
1 comment:
Great start. I love the name realms. Realms is a draw into itself. This will be interesting. I can't imagine wanting to fall in love with a modern day sheik. But the Sheik of Arabie, Rudolph Valentino; I'll bite.
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