Janice Croom
Athena's Daughters Vol. 2
Maze running executioners, menopausal super heroes, psychic scientists, precog nuns, sentient crows . . . These are just a sampling of the diverse ladies that will enthrall, excite, and entertain you in this anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories written by women.
Edited by Maggie Allen and Janine Spendlove, the second volume of Athena’s Daughters includes my short story: The Phoenix.
They say the phoenix is a mythical bird. They're wrong. It’s not a bird, and it’s not a myth. Sixteen-year old Fanta's encounter with the phoenix will either bring her untold riches or death.
Excerpt: The Phoenix
The seventy-eight tarot cards lay face down completely covering the table. I took a long time deciding which one to choose. If I’d paid more attention in math I’d probably be able to figure out the odds against it happening again. They had to be bananas.
I flipped over the seventh card. Seven was supposed to be lucky, right? Death, a skeleton riding a horse, stared up at me. As if the picture wasn’t enough, the top of the card said death in English and on the bottom, la morte, death in French.
It’s not like I really believed the cards could predict my future. I was just passing time until I could scare up another customer. No matter how I shuffled the cards or cut them or which card I picked, it always came up death. After six times in a row, maybe the universe was trying to tell me something.