Serial 5: The Garden of Abracadabra, Vol 1 of the Abracadabra Series Lisa Mason #SFWApro

The Garden of Abracadabra

Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series

Lisa Mason

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

“Abracadabra” is a real magical spell formulated by Cabbalist magicians two thousand years ago. Originally invoked to cure mortal diseases, the spell has since been employed as the enabling word to cause the result of a magical operation. The spell can only be used to create good results, never evil (see E.A. Wallis Budge, Lewis Spence, and others) and is so powerful everyone in the world has heard of the word.

A Bast Book

Copyright 2012–2014 by Lisa Mason.

Cover art, interior art, and logo copyright 2010–2012 by Tom Robinson.

All rights reserved.

Serial 5: The Garden of Abracadabra, Vol 1 of the Abracadabra Series Lisa Mason

2

Sunset stains the sky lavender and orange by the time I crawl onto the parking lot that passes for the coastal highway. The slow-and-go affords me ample time to admire the restless gray bay and San Francisco’s enchanted spires on the opposite shore.

I take the westbound off-ramp at University Avenue and chauffeur Brand to Emeryville, an urban blight bordering Berkeley where he tells me his ex-girlfriend lives.

“Turn left,” he says. “At the next corner, turn right. At the second light, hang a left. Here we are.”

The ex-girlfriend rents the ground-floor unit of a shabby little town house slapped together decades ago of dingy stucco. Weeds thrusting through cracked concrete serve as her front yard. A graffiti artist has accomplished with cans of spray paint what government subsidies never could: given the town house some character. Lurid obscenities splatter the walls and weird, leering faces. A monstrous red eyeball weeps tears of blood, the sort of apocalyptic vision only a potent hallucinogen can inspire.

I’m jarred by the sight of rusty security grilles barring up every window and door. People in Buckeye Heights have boarded up the windows and doors of foreclosed houses but they haven’t barred up everything against the crowbar of a thief. Not like this.

The sight sobers me, reminding me I’m entering another world.

The world of Berkeley.

Berkeley, home of the original campus of the mighty University of California. Berkeley of nouvelle cuisine and Berkeley of research leading to the atom bomb. Berkeley of genetic engineering and Berkeley of needle exchanges. Berkeley of free speech and Berkeley of political correctness. Berkeley of the Tree People and Berkeley of Students Against Hippies Living In Trees.

Berkeley, a world of wonders, of enigmas.

I can feel it thrumming all around me: Magic. Black, White, and Every-Color-Of-The-Rainbow Magic.

The Garden of Abracadabra, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, is on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords. The Garden of Abracadabra, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, is also on Amazon.com in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.

The Garden of Abracadabra is also available in three affordable installments, beginning with The Garden of Abracadabra, 1: Life’s Journey.

Coming soon! The Labyrinth of Illusions, Volume 2 of the Abracadabra Series.

From the author of Summer Of Love, A Time Travel (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo. Summer of Love, A Time Travel is also on Amazon.com in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.

The Gilded Age, A Time Travel on BarnesandNoble, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Apple, Kobo, and Smashwords. The Gilded Age, A Time Travel is also on Amazon.com in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.

Celestial Girl, The Omnibus Edition (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) includes all four books. On Nook, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, Kobo, and Sony; Celestial Girl, The Omnibus Edition (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is also on Amazon.com in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.

Strange Ladies: 7 Stories on Nook, US Kindle, Canada Kindle, UK Kindle, Smashwords, Apple, and Kobo, and Sony. Strange Ladies: 7 Stories is also on Amazon.com in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, and India.

Visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website, Lisa Mason’s Blog, on my Facebook Author Page, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, at Smashwords, at Apple, at Kobo, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

If you enjoy a title, please “Like” it, add five stars, write a review on the site where you bought it, Tweet it, blog it, post it,, and share the word with your family and friends.

Your participation really matters. Thank you for your readership!