They stood in companionable silence until Fox added, “Soon I’ll have another story to write.” He looked at her pointedly, “Of the brave knights who found the Pendragon and saved Britain.”
“Maybe... I could come back,” Maddie suggested, “For a guest performance.” She smiled. “Maddie Calvin, playing herself? I’m not much of an actor... but I’d like to see you again.”
Fox smiled down at the ground. “Maybe one day. But Maddie... I want you to know, there’s another.”
Maddie frowned. “Another…?”
“Someone else,” he looked back at her, “And it is not me.”
Maddie started to turn red. “Oh. Well—”
“Maddie!”
Bennett walked toward them. “Come on. We need to go.”
“Give me a minute.”
Bennett looked between them. “...Okay.”
Maddie looked back at Fox. “So, I guess that’s goodbye.”
“Hopefully, not forever.”
He was looking at her differently now, brow slightly furrowed, expression thoughtful. Maddie swallowed, willing herself to remember that she needed to go.
“Hopefully.”
She turned and started to walk away. Before she could get more than a few steps, there was a hand on her shoulder, spinning her back around to face Fox. Before Maddie could even ask what was wrong, he leaned down to kiss her.
He pulled away, smiling at Maddie’s shock.
“There may be another,” Fox explained, “but there isn’t yet.”
Maddie couldn’t help but smile back at him.
“Goodbye, Fox.”
Maddie turned and jogged lightly to catch up, Fox watching her go. She grabbed her horse, looking at the others.
They all nodded at each other. Maddie climbed on, and with a quick snap of the reins, Maddie, Bennett, and the Knights of Avalon continued their journey.
The End
CONTRIBUTORS
Victor H. Rodriguez is a talent manager, novelist, poet and short-story writer. He’s been a scriptwriter for HBO and published short fiction with Murder of Stortytellers, Jaded Books and White Wolf. He also has short stories in the upcoming anthologies Year’s Best Transhuman SF from Gehenna and Hinnom, and Hyperion and Theia from Radiant Crown.
L. Jagi Lamplighter is the author of the YA fantasy series: The Books of Unexpected Enlightenment. She is also the author of the Prospero’s Daughter series: Prospero Lost, Prospero In Hell, and Prospero Regained. She also has an anthology of her own works: In the Lamplight. When not writing, she switches to her secret identity as wife and stay-home mom in Centreville, VA, where she lives with her dashing husband, author John C. Wright, and their four darling children, Orville, Ping-Ping Eve, Roland Wilbur, and Justinian Oberon.
B. Morris Allen began his professional life as an environmental activist, and has spent several decades supporting democracy and good governance in developing countries. His stories, grim or light-hearted, imagine worlds where gender, race, and birth don’t determine success, and that, like himself, are thoroughly vegan. Find more about him at www.BMorrisAllen.com
Katharina Daue is a German actress, writer, and model living in Sarasota, Florida. She loves reading and writing about science fiction, historical fiction, and alternate history.
Joshua M. Young is an underemployed theologian (B.A., M.Div.) from Columbus, Ohio, where he lives with his wife, infant son, and a pair of neurotic cats. His two great loves are space opera and absurdly academic theology and most of his writing starts as an attempt to Frankenstein the two together. He is the author of multiple short stories and a forthcoming novel, Do Buddhas Dream of Enlightened Sheep.
Lela Buis is an artist, author and poet. She grew up in East Tennessee and lived for a long time in Florida, working in engineering at Kennedy Space Center and as a teacher of various subjects and levels. She began writing as a child and leans toward genre fiction in the writing, having published mainly science fiction and fantasy stories and poetry. When she’s not painting or writing, she looks after four barn cats and a part time dog.
Ben Zwycky is an English ex-pat living in the Czech Republic, a land steeped in beauty that has withstood the ravages of time and tyrrany. Before, during and after obtaining a master’s degree in chemical engineering, he worked as a hospital porter, research assistant, cleaner and server in a Salvation Army community centre, EFL teacher and currently works as a proofreader, editor, author and occasional singer/songwriter. He has published two novels and two poetry collections, is on the editing staff of Sci Phi Journal and Astounding Frontiers, a contributor to Superversivesf.com, and on the editing staff of Superversive Press. He has also had work published by the Society of Classical Poets. His work can be found at benzwycky.com.
Mandy Nachampassack-Maloney is the mother of two aspiring Amazon women, a blogger at mnmaloney.wordpress.com, and the author of Asha in Time. She’s delighted to be a part of the King Arthur Anthology.
R.C. Mulhare was born in Lowell, Massachusetts and grew up in one of the surrounding towns. Her interest in the dark and mysterious started when she was quite young, when her mother read the faery tales of the Brothers Grimm to her, while her Irish storyteller father infused her with a fondness for strange characters and quirky situations. When she isn’t writing, she moonlights in grocery retail. An emerging author and member of the New England Horror Writers, she’s fond of taking detours onto other fantastical paths, in particular the road to Camelot. She shares her home with her family, two small parrots, about fifteen hundred books and an unknown number of spooky things that rattle in the walls when she’s writing late in the night. She’s happy to have visitors at https://www.goodreads.com/matrixrefugee
Morgon Newquist started life by causing an international incident in Central America, and has been marching to the beat of her own drummer ever since. She grew up in the Rocket City - Huntsville, Alabama. After a stint at the University of Georgia to study Latin, she has returned to the place of her upbringing where she wrangles two dogs, a cat, and four children daily. Morgon has worked as a freelance writer off and on since 2007, and written for video game mythologies, table top RPGs, online game guides, and blogs as well as her own short works. She has several published short stories and is currently working on several novels.
Justin M. Tarquin has lived all his life in the Midwest, sometimes teaching math, sometimes programming computers. His talents include making gravies and cheese sauces, strictly amateur. He decided to get more involved in the new science fiction-fantasy movements after the 2015 Hugos. “The Kings of the Corona” is his first published story. He blogs at tarquinthehumble.blogspot.com and Tweets as @justin_tarquin.
KA Masters is a fantasy writer who specializes in twisted fairy tales and historic fiction. She attributes her passion for Greco-Roman mythology and Germanic folklore to her alma mater, Dickinson College.Her debut novel, The Morning Tree, was recently published by Indie Gypsy.
Bokerah Brumley is a speculative fiction writer making stuff up on a trampoline in West Texas. When she’s not playing with the quirky characters in her head, she’s addicted to Twitter pitch events, writing contests, and social media in general. She lives on ten permaculture acres with five home-educated children and one husband. In her spare time, she also serves as the blue-haired President of the Cisco Writers Club. Visit bokerah.com to learn more.
Jonathan Shipley is a Fort Worth writer of fantasy, science fiction, and horror who ranges from traditional fantasy to vampires to futuristic space opera.. Although he self-identifies as a novelist,it is short fiction where he has enjoyed success with sales of over eighty stories. He was a contributing author to the After Death anthology that won the 2014 Bram Stoker award, as well as a finalistfor the 2014 Washington Science Fiction Association’s Small Press Award. He maintains a web presence at www. shipleyscifi.com where you can find a full list of his publications.
Matthew P. Schmidt has been writing since he first dictated stories to his parents. Nowadays he uses a
keyboard, but his sense of imagination remains. He lives in Martins Ferry, Ohio, where he contemplates the universe and all within. He can be found at oandhbooks.com, or on his blogs, smithgift.wordpress.com and https://steemit.com/@smithgift/blog.
Jon Etter is a writer and teacher living in the American Midwest. His works have appeared in a number of anthologies and journals, including Uncommon Lands, Entombed in Verse: An Epitaph for Salem, and The London Journal of Fiction. For more information about him and his publications, visit him on the web at www.jonetter.com.
Peter Nealen is a former Recon Marine, a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, and something of an aspiring renaissance man. He has long been a reader of history, philosophy, folklore, science fiction, and fantasy, and is the author of nine novels and several short stories in the action adventure and fantasy genres.
Declan Finn grew up watching the movies “Excalibur” and “The Sword in the Stone,” while being exposed to the original soundtrack for “Camelot,” and has read Arthuriana from Mary Stewart and TH White, up to and including Peter David since he was 12 years old. He is the author of over a dozen books, the most popular of which include his Dragon Award Nominated Live and Let Bite urban fantasy quartet, and A Pius Man: A Holy Thriller, from Silver Empire press -- where he takes “the War on God” a little too literally. For his sins, he lives in New York City.
Anthony Marchetta is co-writer and editor in chief of “Tales of the Once and Future King”. Previously he edited “God, Robot” and is a frequent writer for the weekly Superversive column at the Castalia House blog. He has also published several short stories. If you think he’s just the bee’s knees feel free to email him at [email protected] and tell him yourself.
Mariel Marchetta is the assistant editor and co-writer of “Tales of the Once and Future King”. Her previous work can be found in “God, Robot”, where she was also assistant editor and wrote two short stories.
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Tales of the Once and Future King Page 37