Ravenspell Book 3: Freaky Fly Day Read Online Free Page A

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    So the ape was hanged, and the village of Hartlepoole gained such a reputation for its stupidity that for the next two hundred years it became home to the world-renowned International Village Idiots’ Convention, a place where morons and imbeciles of all ilk could meet, frolic, exchange dumb ideas, and perhaps find some like-minded halfwit to marry.
    But as for the fruitcake—well, when the young wife was hanged, her grieving husband came home that night and found it with the note, so he gave it to his mother.
    She wisely refused to eat it, and regifted it—along with the handwritten note—to a friend, who placed it in her cupboard as a deterrent to rats.
    The following Christmas, the friend bestowed it upon a neighbor, who sent it to the far side of England to a sister who didn’t want it either.
    In fact, it was just that fruitcake’s good fortune that for 666 years it got palmed off from one unloved neighbor to the next, until at the very last it was given to a young movie producer in Hollywood, along with the yellowed parchment note that said, “I made this for ye in mine grand dame’s favourite manner. May ye be of goode cheere upon this, the Holiest of Days!”
    The movie producer, who prided himself on always recognizing a piece of dreck when he saw it, took one whiff of the mummified fruitcake and said, “This stinks!” and hurled it into his wastebasket.
    The fruitcake made it to a landfill, where not a fly dared land upon it.
    And yet, upon that very night, a miracle occurred in the fruitcake. You see, it had a bit of dried fig in it, and a few days earlier the fig had spontaneously formed a young maggot, just as in Aristotle’s day . . .
    The maggot had grown enormous and bloated, and eventually a shell hardened around it as it reached the pupa phase of its existence.
    That night, while Benjamin Ravenspell dared dream of fame and sat with his mouse friends scarfing down pizza, the hardened crust of the pupa shattered.
    That night, while reporters gathered around Ben’s house, something odd emerged—a fly as large as a crow.
    It crept out of its shell and spent long moments just shivering, silently regarding the cold stars above and the lights of jet planes that roared overhead.
    It climbed to the top of a junk pile, making its way over a patch of dried roses and through the remains of a broken television. As it dragged itself up the pile, it stopped to collect odd items along the way: a tube of used lipstick, some old enamel paint, a bit of eyeliner, and a child’s charm bracelet.
    At last its bloated body came to rest upon the ruins of an old fishing boat, one that seemed now to be sailing upon a sea of rubbish.
    There the fly sat, quivering, and shaking its wings as they began to harden.
    She was a huge fly, and in the cool starlight she cast a terrifying spell. She took all of her youth and bestowed it upon the bracelet, so that she could always keep it with her.
    The bracelet was white, with odd little things—plastic four-leafed clovers, sailing ships, and bears’ teeth—dangling from it. She put the bracelet around her neck, the elastic pulled tight.
    Afterward, she used a bit of burnished chrome as a mirror and began to apply the make-up.
    The great fly was a bright iridescent green in color, and its faceted red eyes shone like rubies.
    A little eyeliner helped bring out the color of those eyes, making them as red as blood.
    The sensory hairs around her mandibles stood up like horns. She used mascara to thicken these.
    The old model paints added a little blush to her cheeks.
    She sat for long moments, admiring herself in the mirror and enjoying her first taste of fresh air.
    But with the rising of the sun, she stood on the bow of the boat and called out, “Arise, my people! Waken from your deathly slumber. Break the shells that bind you. The End of Time is upon us, when all of the world shall wonder and despair!”
    The fly crouched for a long moment, waiting for a response, and