Magic | Paula Cappa

Tag Archives: Magic

October 7, 2014 · 10:19 am

Dark Autumn Birds and Their Magic

The Magic of the Loons by Paula Cappa (2014)

The Birds by Daphne du Maurier (1952)

Tuesday’s Tales of Terror October 7, 2014

The feathered race! You might recall fairy tales about birds: Grimm’s The Golden Goose, The Raven, The Seven Ravens, The Three Crows, The Ugly Duckling, Russia’s The Firebird. Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds was an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s The Birds, a novella about how birds attacked people in Britain (after WW II). In du Maurier’s story, the birds are revolting but we don’t know why. Same with Hitchcock’s version, the birds’ behavior is unexplained, although who could forget that last scene with the caged lovebirds.

This week’s two tales of terror are in the same category but very different in nature and scope. If you’ve never read du Maurier’s The Birds, this novella is suspenseful with evocative prose, and so perfect for a Halloween read.

On December the third, the wind changed overnight, and it was winter. Until then the autumn had been mellow, soft. The leaves had lingered on the trees, golden-red, and the hedgerows were still green. The earth was rich where the plow had turned it. … Black and white, jackdaw and gull, mingled in strange partnership, seeking some sort of liberation, never satisfied, never still. Flocks of starlings, rustling like silk, flew to fresh pasture, driven by the same necessity of movement, and the smaller birds, the finches and the larks, scattered from tree to hedge as if compelled.

On the more contemporary side of our feathered friends, my own short story The Magic of the Loons is published in the October issue of Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine. My story is more edgy fantasy: a little bit sexy, a little bit magical realism, a lot of mystery. Come meet the Loon Woman, Kai:

Kai dressed up as his Loon Woman with a string of black and white shells coiled about her neck, silvery veils twisted skin-tight on her arms and legs. She pinned back her hair into a long twisted tail, all blue-black and lustrous. Feathers framed her face with eyes elaborately painted smoky red. Absolutely ravishing. What man could resist her spells and tricks? What man wouldn’t thrill under her bewitching attention?

I’m so pleased to have my work published in Dark Gothic Resurrected as they were named one of the Top Ten Best Fiction Magazines by Preditors and Editors in 2013 for content, art, and covers. They offer short stories, author interviews, art and poetry.

Begin this Halloween season with two stories about the birds of dark autumn.

Read The Birds at NexusLearning.net

Read my Magic of the Loons (page 84) at Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine

(available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon.com)