The Sky-Child and Other Stories (The Wilderhark Tales #6.5)By Danielle E. Shipley
Genre: Fairytale Fantasy
Age category: Young Adult
Release Date: July 7, 2015
Blurb:
Born into a world his heart knows as beneath him, an extraordinary boy becomes a man of music, hopeful that someday he’ll find a way higher.
As the first day dawns, a world comes awake, order and disorder striking a dangerous balance.
Under the stars, a princess and tailor trade age-old lore, little dreaming of the future that could trap them in the past.
All of it in, around, and far above the timeless trees of Wilderhark, the forest whose secrets reveal themselves slowly, if ever at all.
Tales of beginnings. Tales of quests for belonging. Most of all, tales of true love.
Once upon a time, you knew something of Wilderhark’s tales. Now for the stories that fall in between.
The Sky-Child and Other Stories
A Wilderhark Tales Collection
You can find The Sky-Child and Other Stories on Goodreads
EXCERPT:
A farmer’s life was
irreconcilably different from that of a traveling entertainer. It was the sort
of life where years were marked in seasons, not in miles; a life of sameness
where, rising morning after morning on the same piece of land, one got to know
that piece of land as well as one’s own self. …Assuming, that is, that one
could be induced to take any part in the never-ending tilling and sowing and
growing and reaping – all tasks in which Jackillen took no interest whatsoever.
For
the most part, his adoptive father would let him alone. Not so at harvest time.
During the late summer and autumn months, virtually every creature breathing
was called upon to do its share. And though Jackillen may have been able to get
by well enough with little food and sleep, breathing was an essential he was
unprepared to go without.
Jeromey
first assigned Jackillen the simple task of helping to dig up the ripe root
vegetables, but soon observed with dismay that the youth appeared to wilt a
little more with every row.
“It’s
this business of rooting about in the dirt,” Jackillen said droopily, when
questioned. “Everything focused down, down, and farther down… It’s torment. I
don’t want to burrow deeper into the earth, I want to be free of it – I want to
fly!” He tipped back his head to
stare with longing at the vivid blue expanse above him. “What I wouldn’t give
to reach the sky…”
In
all truth, Jeromey Gant understood his son as little as Jackillen did him, and
was at a loss in trying to comprehend how such a lively, sturdy body and
personality could coexist with such a strangely sensitive spirit. Whatever the
reason, it was at least clear that this particular aspect of the harvest did
not at all suit the lad, so Jackillen was reassigned to the barn, under
instruction to thresh the freshly harvested grains.
Hours
later, Jeromey thought he had better go see whether the boy found his new chore
to be more to his liking, or if he considered the dust of the beaten wheat or
the confinement of the barn to be killing him by inches. He got as far as
poking his head around the door. Then he froze, mouth agape, eyes blinking
repeatedly as they attempted to make sense of the sight before him.
Everything
in the barn was in motion. The grain swirled through the air in a golden
cyclone. Twirling in the center of it all, smiling and laughing with delight,
was Jackillen, a stout wooden staff a whirring blur in his hands. The spinning
staff stirred the air, holding the grains aloft, and rapidly rapped out again
and again, beating the wheat as it whirled past.
The
late afternoon sunlight slowly waned as the implausible scene continued until,
upon some variation of Jackillen’s extraordinary dance, the wheat rode the air
into the harvest sieve, the edible grain separating from the unwanted chaff.
Then at last, his work completed, Jackillen let the air go still and lowered
himself to one knee, visibly fatigued, but just as visibly pleased.
He
gave no sign as to whether Jeromey’s presence was a surprise or had been long
since noted, only announcing cheerfully, “Threshing’s done.”
Jeromey
stared at the boy in silence for another moment before remarking, “Most people
can’t do that, you know.”
Jackillen
grinned, the color of his eyes brighter and more erratic than ever. “Oh, yes, I
never doubted that. But I am not most people: I’m Jackillen Gant.” He leapt to
his feet and breezed through the doors past his father, turning to add in
casual afterthought, “I can do anything, you know.”
No,
Jeromey hadn’t known. And “anything”
was a big enough word that he wasn’t prepared to admit he knew any such thing
even now. However, he thought it reasonable to assume, if ever there were someone capable of anything, that
one would most likely be Jackillen Gant.
About the Author:
Danielle E. Shipley’s first novelettes told the everyday misadventures of wacky kids like herself. …Or so she thought. Unbeknownst to them all, half of her characters were actually closeted elves, dwarves, fairies, or some combination thereof. When it all came to light, Danielle did the sensible thing: Packed up and moved to Fantasy Land, where daily rent is the low, low price of her heart, soul, blood, sweat, tears, firstborn child, sanity, and words; lots of them. She’s also been known to spend short bursts of time in the real-life Chicago area with the parents who home schooled her and the two little sisters who keep her humble. When she’s not living the highs and lows of writing, publishing, and all that authorial jazz, she’s probably blogging about it.
Writing credits include: “Inspired” (a novel); short stories in paranormal, fantasy, and Steampunk anthologies via Xchyler Publishing; and, of course, her series of fairytale retelling mash-ups, “The Wilderhark Tales”.
You can find and contact Danielle here:
- Website
- Blog
- Goodreads
- Amazon
Thanks for signing on for the tour! I appreciate it. ^_^
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