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MAGIC CARPET BOOKS
HARCOURT, INC.
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Copyright © 1997 by Vivian Vande Velde
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"Past Sunset" copyright © 1996 by Vivian Vande Velde; originally
published in Bruce Coville's Book of Spine Tinglers (Scholastic Inc.) edited by
Bruce Coville. "Lost Soul" copyright © 1993 by Vivian Vande Velde;
originally published in A Wizard's Dozen (Jane Yolen Books/
Harcourt, Inc.) edited by Michael Stearns. "Cypress Swamp Granny"
copyright © 1996 by Vivian Vande Velde; originally published in
A Nightmare's Dozen (Jane Yolen Books/Harcourt, Inc.) edited by
Michael Steams.
First Magic Carpet Books edition 2007
Magic Carpet Books is a trademark of Harcourt, Inc., registered
in the United States of America and/or other Jurisdictions.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Vande Velde, Vivian.
Curses, Inc. and other stories/Vivian Vande Velde.
p. cm.
Contents: Curses, Inc.—Skin deep—Past sunset—To converse with the
dumb beasts—Boy witch—Lost soul—Remember me—Witch-hunt—
Cypress swamp granny—The witch's son.
1. Magic—Juvenile fiction. 2. Children's stories, American. [1. Magic—
Fiction. 2. Short stories.] I. Title
PZ7.V2773Cu 1997
[Fic]—dc20 96-24856
ISBN 978-0-15-201452-0
ISBN 978-0-15-206107-4 pb
Text set in Stone Serif
Designed by Judythe Sieck
A C E G H F D B
Printed in the United States of America
To Karen, in appreciation of all her help and patience.
(Besides, to whom else could I dedicate a collection
of witch stories and be sure she'd
take it the right way?)
Introduction:
About That Title... ix
Curses, Inc. 1
Skin Deep 45
Past Sunset 63
To Converse with the Dumb Beasts 82
Boy Witch 91
Lost Soul 105
Remember Me 126
Witch-Hunt 144
Cypress Swamp Granny 154
The Witch's Son 180
Afterword:
Where Do Ideas Come From? 219
I'VE ALWAYS HAD A HARD TIME thinking up names for my books.
When I wrote my first novel, A Hidden Magic, I found a publishing company that liked the story but not the title. The editor asked for a new one. I sent her a whole list. She didn't like those, either; she asked me to send more. Every time I wrote to her, I sent suggestions. Every time she wrote to me, she asked for more. But in the meanwhile nobody told the illustrator—Trina Schart Hyman—that the book's name was to be changed. She went ahead and did the cover, title and all. Once the editor saw it, she decided the title fit.
The second book I wrote was Once upon a Test: Three Light Tales of Love. It was the editor (a different one) who came up with the name.
Third came A Well-Timed Enchantment, a title my husband suggested.
I made up the name User Unfriendly for my next book. I thought It made sense. My mother—who doesn't use computers, and therefore has no idea just how unfriendly a computer can be—says it's confusing. Perhaps she's right: People are constantly miscalling it User Friendly.
When I had no title for book number five, another editor—Jane Yolen—named it Dragon's Bait for me.
Companions of the Night was my next book, and I thought the title—my own—was a good one, until somebody pointed out that it sounds as though the story is about a sleazy escort service—which, by the way, it is not.
So I was delighted to have somebody present me with a title for my next book before I even wrote it. I was talking at a school when one of the students suggested I should gather together all the short stories I'd had published in various magazines and publish them in one book. "You could call it," she said, "A Witch's Stew."
While I didn't think a collection of old stories would work, I liked the title so much I decided to write some new stories. I took a bunch of familiar fairy tales, turned them upside down, inside out, made the villains be the heroes, the heroes be the villains, created new endings, and sent the collection to Jane Yolen.
Jane said yes to the stories, no to the title. "It doesn't work," she said. "There aren't any witches in this witch's stew."
"But it's more the idea of a stew," I explained. "You know: a bunch of things thrown together."
"It doesn't work," she said.
"But did you see how I set up the table of contents like a recipe," I asked, "with the titles of the stories being the ingredients, and instead of saying pages I said tablespoons?"
"Yes," Jane said. "It doesn't work." She suggested Tales from the Brothers Grimm and the Sisters Weird.
Even my mother liked Jane's title better than mine.
I sulked. "OK," I told myself. "Jane wants witches; I'll give her witches."
And so I wrote this collection: evil witches, not-so-bad witches, witches from times past, witches on the Internet—a stew of witches.
If you have a good memory, or if you checked back to the cover, you will have noticed that the name of this book is not A Witch's Stew. Jane's work again.
Who knows? Maybe I'll write another book called A Witch's Stew, and maybe Jane will accept the book but change the title of that one, too. Maybe we'll keep on doing it. Writers use all kinds of tricks to get or keep themselves writing; maybe writing books not called A Witch's Stew will be mine.