Spotlight: Once, by Ronel Janse van Vuuren

Damsels in distress, curses, echoes of faery tales and tragic love affairs swirl together in sixteen stories found in a dragon’s lair by a curious half-fae.

Unexpected changes to reality causes more than one damsel to turn into a strong, independent woman who takes charge of her own life.

A collection of short stories about Faerie and the fae that live in the human realm. A few of the stories had won competitions and all of them had enchanted readers.
Learn their secrets and enter the realm of the fae…

Title: Once... Tales, Myths and Legends of Faerie
Author: Ronel Janse van Vuuren
ISBN EPUB: 978-0-6399476-2-4
ISBN Paperback: 978-0-6399476-3-1

Out today!
Available on most online retailers.
Also available in Afrikaans as “Eens…”.

Excerpt:
Mortals cannot perceive the veil unless they are invited to – or extremely gifted. For centuries, Man and Fae have been kept apart, for nothing good ever comes from them mixing. The collection of The Adventures of Saphira the Faery Dog is proof of this.

Still, there are magical creatures that side neither with Man nor Fae.

Dragons are such creatures. They hold the knowledge of both worlds. Some even collect it in the written word, keeping it safe in their lairs.

An inquisitive half-fae once broke into the lair of a dragon known to hoard books. The knowledge she found was too much to keep to herself…

Here are a few tales, myths and legends from Faerie. Some may sound remarkably similar to legends held by mortals, while others are…  well… as otherworldly as the fae themselves.

About the Author: 
Ronel Janse van Vuuren is the author of New Adult, Young Adult and children’s fiction filled with mythology and folklore. Her dark fantasy stories can be read for free on Wattpad and on her blog Ronel the Mythmaker. She won Fiction Writer of the Year 2016 for her Afrikaans stories on INK: Skryf in Afrikaans. Her published works can be viewed on Goodreads.

Ronel can be found tweeting about writing and other things that interest her, arguing with her characters, researching folklore for her newest story or playing with her Rottweilers when she’s not actually writing.

All of her books are available for purchase on Amazon.

Connect with Ronel on:
Amazon: amazon.com/author/roneljansevanvuurenmythmaker
Twitter: https://twitter.com/@miladyronel/
Pinterest: https://za.pinterest.com/miladyronel/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+RonelJansevanVuurenMythmaker
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/17528826.Ronel_Janse_van_Vuuren
Ronel the Mythmaker: https://ronelthemythmaker.wordpress.com/

And now... a special interview with the author!

NL: When did you start writing? Did you always know you wanted to be a writer, or did you stumble into it later in life?

Ronel: I’ve always written a couple of stories to entertain myself, but I seriously started writing ten years ago. In that time, I’ve learned how to write properly, created entire worlds, did a lot of research into several folklore creatures, realised in which genre I want to write, and found my voice.


NL: What are your books about and who is the audience?

Ronel: This book, “Once…”, is a collection of short stories about how Faerie changed and the impact on the mortal realm when magic and fae infiltrated it. There are a few original stories steeped in folklore and a couple of fairy tale retellings with a Dark Fantasy twist. My intended audience is New Adult, but I’ve had readers of all ages for the Afrikaans version “Eens…” who bought it for themselves and enjoyed it enough to pass it on to their children and parents.

NL:  Do your stories carry a message?
 
Ronel: Absolutely. Dark fantasy is all about examining the human condition, looking at the consequences of actions and decisions, and how the beliefs we hold can change the way we see our world. I think “Rumour Has It”, “New Divide” and “Castle of Glass” depict all of this from different points of view about the same moment in Faerie history very well.


NL: Thanks for telling us about your book! Now tell us, what is the best thing about being a writer?
 
Ronel: Creating worlds, playing “what if?” and talking to my fictional friends.

NL: Yeah, we all like having a good reason to listen to the voices in our heads! Do you draft your books longhand or compose at the keyboard?

Ronel: Longhand. I find that there are fewer distractions when the computer is switched off – no quickly checking emails or updates, no playing around with inspirational images, etc. I then type it and store the original manuscript in a binder…

NL: You talked about doing research for the book. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve had to research for one of your books?

Ronel: I research a lot of folklore, most of it weird, so let me think… Probably the protein value of worms and if they’re a good idea for breakfast. The main character in “The Ashiest Princess” has them for breakfast every morning. Not all that odd: worms are a staple food in many communities.

NL: Well, the birds have worms for breakfast... Do you use a detailed outline before you start writing, or... ?

Ronel: It depends on the story. Some stories insist on being written before I can think about it – it’s like they’re already in my head, just waiting to be written down. Afterwards I do an outline and create a proper plot. Other stories insist on meticulous outlines and research.

NL: You live in South Africa. Since most of my readers are in the US or England, tell us a bit about that!

Ronel: Well, we have sun all year round which means I have to keep the curtains closed in my study or I’ll never get any writing done!

Once everything is dry in the winter months, a few crazies believe that they should burn everything down. It usually starts with a veldfire – and last year it ended with someone setting fire to my property (I live on an agricultural holding with horses, chickens, etc.) that we were lucky enough to stop before it destroyed everything.

There are horrible things in my country – like the endless attacks on farmers – but as long as you keep your head, stay alert and don’t act foolishly, there are so many things to enjoy and savour. We have gorgeous botanical gardens that are open year-round, each season brings its own beautiful plants and temperatures. If you’re an ocean person, we have the warm Indian Ocean on one side and the cold Atlantic Ocean on the other, and that wonderful sight where the two oceans meet and clash. We have forests, deserts, nature reserves, different biomes and animals to visit in their – mostly – natural habitat. You can turn every weekend into an adventure.

There’s so much more to say, but that will take an entire post ;-) In one of my stories in “Once…” I used the desert and forest elements, so it can almost feel like you’re in South Africa while reading “The Fae of Bremen”. Or you can run over a veld (field in South African terminology) with “The Field Mouse”.

Thanks for having me, Rebecca.
 
 Thanks for coming by! Your description of the country does make me want to visit, especially to watch the two oceans come together. 

Once... is available today, so check it out!

Halloween Bonus!

One more Halloween story from the archives, to celebrate the holiday. This one's from 2013, in 970 words.

Be Careful What you Read on Halloween

Don’t read fairy tales on Halloween.  Just don’t.  Trust me on this; I know what I’m talking about.

My name is Cara, I’m ten years old, and I like fairy tales. Correction: I used to like fairy tales. Mom is always saying fairy tales are good clean, safe reading for a kid like me, and things half the books out there are too violent, and half are too mushy. I kind of agree about the mushy part. Yuck. But none of the books she rants about is half so violent as Grimm’s fairy tales, and Mom ought to try reading them sometime.  But not on Halloween. Let me tell you.

It was while I was reading Cinderella that things began getting weird. I took a break to light my jack-o-lantern, and when I opened the lid a bunch of mice jumped out and took off, then sort of vanished. That was bad enough. I mean, mice are kind of cute, but not in my room, and not in my pumpkin. At least they hadn’t eaten it.  And if they vanished I wasn’t too likely to find them in my bed later.

But it was “Little Red Riding Hood” that pushed matters way beyond funny. Odd-funny, I mean. Even the mice weren’t laugh-until-you-wet-yourself funny. Just weird. I don’t really like scary stories, and I hated it last summer at camp when all the girls started telling ghost stories, even though they were mostly stupid. But I believed Mom about fairy tales being wholesome, and figured the Big Bad Wolf was scary enough for Halloween. And he was. Oh, yes. But he wasn’t all I got.

By the second page, when Little Red Riding Hood was walking through the dark and spooky forest to take her basket to her Granny, I could see—well, almost see—something out of the corner of my eye. When I turned to get a better look, it vanished. But long before we reached the cottage, I knew what it was. The wolf was there, watching.

I tried to stop reading. This was more spookiness than I wanted, especially on Halloween. But the book wouldn’t close. My eyes kept tracking the words, and the almost-seen wolf grew larger and more real. Then I got to the gory part. It would have been bad enough to watch the wolf swallow Granny whole. And if I’d stuck with the original Grimm tale where they kill the wolf and everyone stays dead, it might have been fine.

But Mom had decided that the Grimm fairy tales were too grim, and bought me a book of the prettied-up stories, where everyone lives happily ever after (except the wolf; he gets the axe either way). That was what I was reading, but the other story was in my mind, too. So I got it both ways.

By now I wasn’t even reading, anyway. I was just starting at the page and watching the story unfold in the corner of my eye. I wasn’t scared yet, not really. I thought it was some cool special effect they’d put in the book. They work so hard these days to make books compete with computer games.

I didn’t get really scared until Granny climbed out of the carcass of the wolf, which is what she does in the modern, non-scary version. They never talk about how that works. I mean, I’m pretty sure my book implies that the wolf swallowed her whole and she just sat in there alive until the woodsman let her out. Never mind how she managed to breathe in its stomach for a half hour or whatever. In Grimm, she doesn’t come back out.

Anyway, I should have known better, because that cleaned-up story doesn’t even make sense. No one could live in the belly of a wolf for a half hour, even if it swallowed her whole, and why would it? No, the reality was quite a bit different.  The wolf ate Granny. Not totally in little bits, but she was dead all right when she went down the gullet. Because he really was a giant wolf, totally unreal but there he was, or wasn’t, but I saw it, as long as I didn’t look.

He ate her. Tore out the throat, took a few bites here and there, and only then swallowed her mostly whole. So the Granny the woodsman set free shouldn’t have been alive, and she wasn’t. But she was awfully lively for a dead woman. An un-dead woman.

That was too much for me, and I finally managed to tear my eyes away from the book.

The images of Little Red Riding Hood and the woodsman vanished. But the body of the giant wolf stretched across my room, occupying most of the floor. And Granny stood there, bloody and undead.

Then she spoke.

“Brains.”

I screamed. The zombie Granny and the wolf—who also seemed to be showing signs of un-life—were between me and the door, so I went out the window. It’s a good thing my room is on the ground floor, because I’d have done the same if it had been the tenth floor.

But I didn’t think to slam the window shut behind me. So now she’s out there somewhere, Zombie Granny and maybe the wolf-zombie too. I wonder if he’ll eat her again, or if now that they’re both zombies they’ll work together?

I ran like crazy, right to the kiddie Halloween Carnival at the church on the next block. If I’m not safe here, I’m safe nowhere. And no one will believe me, but I’m not leaving here until morning. If then.

I can hear a scratching at the door. Can zombies even enter a church? 

I am never reading fairy tales again.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2013
As always, please ask permission to use any photos or text. Link-backs appreciated!

Like my stories? Please consider buying one of my books.
 In particular, Book 3 of the Ninja Librarian series is coming out Nov. 28! Preorders are now available from Amazon and Smashwords for the ebook. Preorder the paperback directly from this site and we'll pick up the shipping costs!

 

Friday Flash Fiction: The Slave of the Truth

This week's flash is based on a title from a random title generator. Here you have 997 words about...

The Slave of the Truth

Initially, Jardon’s parents thought he had been blessed. At the usual naming ceremonies following his birth, he received many of the standard gifts. Neighbors brought toys and food, clothing and blankets. The priests of four gods prayed for him to have courage and endurance and strength and skill.

And the witch known as Gertrude said that he would be ever truthful.

It is likely that even Gertrude thought that she was imparting a blessing. She had never been known to do harm to anyone, and usually was revered for her skill in herbs and medicine. She had, in fact, delivered Jardon safely through a difficult birth, and felt rather maternal toward him. She just wasn’t very good at thinking things through. Honesty was a virtue, and this boy should have all the virtues.

The trouble wasn't obvious at first. When Jardon was small, his parents rejoiced in having a truthful child, one who never lied about who had stolen the cream or broken a teacup. They boasted of his nobility and honor. The other children, who were often caught in misdoing by his words, might have been less enthusiastic, but for the most part they forgave him. They knew he couldn’t help it.

It was as he moved into adolescence that it began to be evident that the blessing might be a curse. Oh, there had been those moments in childhood when Jardon had announced before the whole village that Alvin the Miller had been spending nights in the barn with the neighbor’s servant-girl, or that Mistress Acolon’s pies were too sour to eat, but those were the indiscretions of a child.

But when he became a young man, Jardon began to have more trouble. People would ask him questions, and when pushed for a response, he had to answer with the truth. It wasn’t that they asked about difficult things—everyone in the village knew better than that. But they would ask the same teasing questions they asked other young people: what do you want to be when you grow up? Which of the girls might you want to marry?

Those were bad enough. To the question of what he wanted to be, Jardon always answered “a liar,” and people laughed. He didn’t laugh.

To questions about girls, he gave the truth of the moment. On one day, he thought he might like Alisoun. On another, Millie. When pressed about Katina one never-to-be-forgotten day, he answered that he’d like to bed her, as all the boys did, but wouldn’t marry a girl who would be comparing him to every young man in the village.

Unsurprisingly, by the time he was twenty Jardon found the village too hot to hold him, and had to move on. As long as he kept moving, he didn’t learn enough about anyone to be forced to give unwanted answers, though once or twice he sadly disappointed young flirts who wanted him to tell them they were beautiful. He also learned to keep silent, not to answer even the most pressing questions. That was hard, but not impossible. As he grew in wisdom, he came to understand that silence was always a truthful answer.

The magnitude of the curse struck him unexpectedly at age 25, when the ruler of the land heard of Jardon and took him into his service. Not that Jardon wanted to go. By that time he had grown to like the wandering life, and had seen enough of the world to know that rulers seldom made good employers. But he was taken before the lord in his fine hall by three burly men-at-arms.

“Would you not like to work for me as my official speaker of truth?”

“No,” Jardon answered honestly (as he must). The blessing of courage kept his eye steady and his voice calm, though he sometimes wondered if a bit of cowardice might have taught him to lie.

Lord Farnsworth laughed. “You do, indeed, have the curse of truth. No one would willingly answer so! But every ruler needs one person about him who will speak the truth without fear.”

“I am not fearless,” Jardon said. “It would not matter if I lacked courage entirely. I can only speak truth.”

“Whatever the cost?”

“Whatever the cost.”

Lord Farnsworth considered this. “Do you want the job?”

“No, Sire. But I do not think that I have a choice.”

The ruler laughed again, and Jardon considered that courage might be needed after all. Not to speak the truth, which he could not avoid, but to face what might follow. But why should he stay, a slave to the truth? He looked about, and took a tentative step away from the lord of the realm.

The three armed men stood between him and the exit. Jardon looked from them to the lord.

“You may not leave.”

“I see that.”

“I have too great a need of you to let you go.”

“I see that, too. Might I suggest, Sire, that you never ask me a question to which you do not wish to hear a truthful answer?”

“Yes, I can see that might be wise. Is there anything further you would like to say, Truthspeaker?” Lord Farnsworth liked titles better than names.

“A great deal.”

“And what would that be?” The ruler’s smile was thin now.

“I prefer not to say.”

“But you must, mustn’t you?” The smile was sly now.

“No.” For Jardon had long since learned he had gifts that helped compensate for the curse. “If I speak, I must speak truth. But I have the strength and courage to remain silent if I do not wish to speak the truth. This much I have learned since my youth.  Never will you hear a lie from my lips. But if pushed beyond bearing, I have courage to remain silent. Even the Slave of the Truth has will.”

And even the lord of the realm could be deceived by truth and silence.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015

Flash Fiction Friday: Trapped Aboard!

Another Wendig Challenge--a fairy-tale remix.  I had to cheat on this one.  Not only did I pick the fairy tale I wanted (which was within the rules), but I picked the sub-genre I wanted, since I just didn't feel like working with some of them, and had a lot of trouble figuring out how to take the story in other directions.  Then I ran over the 1000-word limit. I managed to cut it back to 1225, but any more and I'll lose the thread of the story.

I don't think the end result needs any explanation as to which tale or what sort of genre I used.

Trapped Aboard

Rapa wandered through the abandoned space station.  Only The Woman, who’d brought her there and hidden her long ago, had known she was there.  Now everyone was gone, and Rapa was trapped aboard.  The Woman had said that she’d come back to take her away.   Rapa didn’t know if she hoped She would come, or not.  She would die if left on the Station, of course.  But.

Rapa had spent a day finding a way out of the hidden room where she’d spent most of her sixteen years.  Then she had explored, as she’d never been able to when she was The Woman’s prisoner.

“You will let me in when I return,” The Woman had commanded before she left.  Rapa wondered if she would.  So many times she had unlocked the storeroom and let her in, these years as a captive.

She had been the tester for all The Woman’s potions and experiments and beauty products, and the only one that had worked was the one that counteracted one odd side-effect of weightlessness, and made her hair grow.  Once, all Spacers were bald, because hair wouldn’t grow in zero G.  Now, most sported close-cropped curls or a modest Mohawk, thanks to The Woman.  Thanks to Rapa. 

Rapa’s own hair dropped to her feet and beyond, or would have if there’d been any gravity to pull it down, rather than floating cloud-like about her.  If there had been gravity, the weight of all that hair might have broken her neck.

Rapa bore the scars of other, less successful efforts to make it big in the beauty industry.  The Woman had grown rich on the one success, and still she kept Rapa.

For years Rapa spoken to no one but The Woman.  When she had escaped her room at night and wandered the station, she had gone in terror of what would happen if she were found.  Now she turned on the comm unit and stared at the newsfeed that came up automatically.  Men and women came and went, talking of worlds unknown to her, but Rapa absorbed it all.

She didn’t know how long she watched, greedily taking in the life she’d never known.  It might have been hours or days.  It stopped because something interrupted the newscast.

The face of a young man came onto the screen, and spoke.  “Space Station Tower 1?  Is someone aboard?”

“Oh!” Rapa gasped.  She knew the man in the box spoke to her.  She was discovered.  The Woman would—

“Someone is there.”  He had heard her gasp.  “Please respond, Tower 1.”

The Woman had taught her to hide, as though it was to make her safe.  Rapa had long known that The Woman was evil and untrustworthy, and she had feared her since she was tiny, but that didn’t make all people evil.  The young man wore a concerned frown, but he looked kind.  “Come in, Tower 1,” he repeated.  “Please turn on the visual?”

“I—I don’t know how,” she said softly.

The man started.  “Who—who are you?”

The Woman had named her Rapunzel after the hair thing worked.  Rapa had shortened the name in her own mind.  “I am Rapa.  Rapunzel,” she added.

He gave a soft whistle.  “Rapunzel. . . and trapped in the Tower.”  He spoke almost as though to himself.  Then, to her, “The switch for Visuals is to the left below the vid screen.  Do you see it?”

She reached out and turned it on.

#

 Aboard the Starship ML King, William Prince drew a sharp breath.  A professional through and through, he schooled himself at once to a calm response and a face that gave nothing away, as he spoke of the need to get a rescue team to her.  But inside, Prince reeled.  So beautiful, and that amazing hair!  But the scars—on her hands, her arms, even her left cheek.  They marred her beauty only to emphasize it.

One thing the girl—Rapa—said jolted him back to full attention.

“She will be back.  The Woman said she would return for me.”

“When?”

“She didn’t say.”  She met his gaze.  “I do not wish to go with her.”

Prince heard himself saying, “I’ll be there first.  I must make preparations.  Leave this channel open, okay?”

She nodded.  “I have to go eat and—and things.”  She crimsoned and he nodded. 

“See the button labeled ‘call’?  If anything happens, press it and call for Starship King.  That’s where I am.”  He touched an emblem on his shirt, which she now understood to be a uniform.  “I’m Lieutenant Prince, William Prince.”

He reached toward the screen, and she could no longer hear him, though she watched him move away, and now she could also see that he was surrounded by other uniformed men and women, all busy.  She left to take care of her needs.

#

“Rapa?  Rapa, please come in.”

“I’m here,” she called eagerly.

“I am aboard the rescue vessel.  We’ll be there in a few hours.”

Tension flowed from the one to the other.  The Tower was scheduled to self-destruct in less than two days.  But Rapa’s mysterious Woman might return even sooner. 

An hour after her last comm with Prince, Rapa found The Woman standing before her.  And she knew that Rapa had revealed herself.  She had overheard the last communication with Prince.

“Come, girl.  We must leave at once.”  Her commands had never been met with anything but instant obedience.

“No.”  Rapa’s refusal stopped The Woman in her tracks.  But Rapa was no match for The Woman, and she knew it.  She turned and fled, but she was far less practiced at propelling herself through the tubes and halls.  Her only hope was to delay long enough for Prince to arrive, and to that end she twisted and dodged.

#

Prince felt a stab of fear when he saw the small vessel docked to the Tower.  The Woman had returned.  Still, she was still aboard.  He wasn’t too late.  Directing his pilot to remain aboard and prevent the other vessel from undocking, Prince left the 3-seater and cycled through the airlock.

He reached the cargo bay in time to see Rapa struggling with a tall, strong woman, who strove to force her into one of the cargo drones.  The long hair that had bound Prince to her from the first glimpse was being used now to imprison her.  She was wound in a cocoon of it.  Prince dove for the pair, tackling The Woman. 

She lashed out at him, slashing his face and his right eye.  Prince screamed in pain and fury, and managed one last, desperate blow that felled The Woman.  Staggering, he caught up Rapa, who shook herself free of her hair.  Together, they reached the cargo bay doors, and passed through.  Rapa closed the doors.  It might gain them a second or two.

“I’m—docked—airlock 2,” Prince managed.  He could see nothing.  His right eye, he was certain, was gone, the left swelling shut.  He let Rapa tow him, and only managed to issue the necessary orders to be readmitted to the rescue shuttle.

He had only one last order to give before he collapsed.  He could feel the soft hair brushing his face as she bent over him, stopping the blood.

“Destroy the other ship.  She must torment Rapa no more.”

###

 

(Just in case anyone wonders: Rapunzel, and Space Opera)

©Rebecca M. Douglass 2014