Fiction Vortex - July 2013

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  James E. Chaucer was written in golden cursive across the front of his office door. Samantha burst in, her blue and green skirts fluffing about her, making Chaucer jump at his desk and knock over a tower of scrolls.

  He fixed his glassed hurriedly. “I beg of you, knock!”

  The bouncing Fairy sat down in the chair across from Chaucer, beaming and brimming out of her corset. “I have a CM.”

  “Who?”

  “The most misfortunate serving girl in the whole world, Chaucer. She’s positively wretched, and I’m going to make her a queen!”

  “How did you find her?”

  “Milling about London, ready to tip back a bottle of arsenic. Oh, she’s perfect.”

  “You really should wait to be assigned a case by the Bureau,” Chaucer said.

  “Time is of the essence! If I turn this girl’s life from rags to riches, it will be the ultimate good deed, a fairytale — if you’ll excuse the term — so decent I’ll surely win my case!”

  Chaucer, always the patient Druid, took off his glasses, wiped them on his herringbone vest, and tapped one of the little horns nestled in his curly copper hair. “How do you propose to do it?”

  “By the book,” Samantha lied.