Happily Ever Awhile

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CONTENTS

Happily Ever Awhile

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Art Gallery

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Articles

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By Ruth Nestvold

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Fiction

20 June 2005

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Poetry

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Before Paphos by Loretta Casteen 8 January 2007 It starts again. The baby begins to cough and choke.

Everyone knows the story of the filthy girl Locked Doors who married the prince by not bleeding by Stephanie Burgis into a glass slipper, but not as many know what happened to her after the happy 1 January 2007 ending. Ellie was happy for a long time, make no mistake about that. She didn't You can never let anyone have to do dirty chores anymore, after all, suspect, his mother told him. That was the first rule she and the palace and the grounds were lovely, the white turrets and the blue tile taught him, and the last, before roofs reaching and reflecting the sky, the she left him here alone with It. colorful banners flying from the turrets Heroic Measures flapping merrily in every strong wind. She tended her garden with her own hands, by Matthew Johnson loving to see beautiful things grow at her bidding. 18 December 2006

Soon she bore the prince a daughter and Pale as he was, it was hard to then a son, Tabitha and Tobias, and the believe he would never rise o Donate four of them lived a calm, happy life from this bed. Even in the together. When the king died, they were darkest times, she had never o Bookstore sad about it for a time, but his time had really feared for him; he had come, and life and death were occurring in always been strong, so strong. o Merchandise the balance they should, just as the Love Among the Talus seasons did, as the flowers came and COMMUNITY went. by Elizabeth Bear o Forum But then the kingdom to the south 11 December 2006 o Readers' marched against them, wanting more than Choice the change of the seasons and the Nilufer raised her eyes to his. It contentment it brings. The young king her was not what women did to husband had to go to war, leaving her men, but she was a princess, alone in the beautiful palace for months at and he was only a bandit. "I a time. Ellie still had her garden and her want to be a Witch," she said. children, but it was all so empty without "A Witch and not a Queen. I deep male laughter, without smiles and wish to be not loved, but wise. looks and the fine things the dark held. Tell your bandit lord, if he can give me that, I might accept his And so she planted flowers and waited. gift." And watched flowers bloom and waited. And pruned roses and waited. And Archived Fiction Dating back watched flowers wilt and waited. to 9/1/00 SUPPORT US

Finally, in late autumn, when the leaves on the trees were turning from green to all the shades of fire and earth, the young king's army, smaller now than when it set out, returned from the south. Ellie flew down