Click on image to enlarge.

	Regular				Club
You Pay:	$0.59				$0.50

eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: Mai Li really tried to be a dutiful and obedient granddaughter, though she didn't always manage it. But, even for her, getting herself turned into a fox was a bit much.

eBook Publisher: Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, Published: Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Worlds, 1998
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2008

12 Reader Ratings:

Great	Good	OK	Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [23 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [22 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [19 KB] , Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [168 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [20 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [48 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [91 KB] , hiebook (KML) [64 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [37 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [17 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [21 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [36 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [32 KB]
Words: 6328
Reading time: 18-25 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Tien Mai Li paused from her afternoon's labors to stretch and wipe the sweat from her face with the edge of her sleeve. Her thick straight black hair had come undone and her back ached from bending to cut the long flat grass that grew along the lake shore. But the grass, along with the thin supple young bamboo she had been lucky enough to find, were needed to repair the woven walls of the house she shared with her grandfather, and to make or mend a multitude of other things.

Though she had gathered only half as much as she would have liked, Mai Li saw that the sun had turned the surface of the lake into a golden mirror, signaling the onset of sundown. It was time to start dinner.

"Late again. Grandfather will not be pleased," she chided herself with a put-upon sigh as she cleaned, then carefully sheathed, the short curved blade she used to cut the tough bamboo stalks and lake grass. Her grandfather, the wood-carver Tien Lu Chen, was the very soul of punctuality and dedication, and though he was in all other respects the best, most tolerant of guardians, he hated the delay of a meal more than anything.

Tying her harvest into a neat bundle, Mai Li hoisted the load onto her back and set off down the winding path toward home. But after a few minutes of walking, she paused to look about in annoyance. The path was clearly marked and the light still good, so how could she have lost her way? Yet she must have done just that, for she was in completely unfamiliar surroundings.

Instead of the grasses, ferns and occasional willow that edged the lake, dense forbidding thickets of dark-leafed trees surrounded her in every direction and the light, which had been clear and warm only a moment before, shimmered and dimmed as though she were underwater.

Startled by these inexplicable changes, she turned back the way she had come, certain she must have turned in the wrong direction without realizing it. The path would take her back to the lake and, if need be, she could follow the shore north to find her way home. But the faster she went the more uncertain she became. She stumbled into a clearing, just as she feared the light would fail completely.

Laying her bundle on the ground, she sat down to rest for a moment on the large flat rock which stood before a small oak tree in the center of the strangely smooth barren piece of ground.

"How very odd," she murmured as she glanced around the clearing's edge. Thick white mist began rising from the floor of the wood, obscuring the trees and the path which had brought her there.

Alarmed, Mai Li jumped up and turned to run back the way she had come. But she could find no trace of the path. The wall of mist thickened as she watched, roiling ominously so that she shrank from touching it.

"What shall I do?" she gasped, heart pounding like a frightened deer's.

"Tien Mai Li, whatever is the matter?" a soft voice called from behind, freezing Mai Li in her tracks. It was a young woman's voice, gentle and soothing, and yet...

"I seem to have lost my way," she quietly replied, trying to disguise the fear that had gripped her. The compulsion to turn and see who spoke was nearly overwhelming, but her grandfather's friend, the wisewoman Chan Lin Ming, had warned her often enough that spirits lurked in the woods. She had never believed the old woman ... until now.