Topic
Fantasy (catch-all)
Fantasy has occupied the human mind from time immemorial. Not all of it will fit into neat little cubby holes, no matter how many we define.
Dragon Rising
Alex came from a good family--the kind that sits straight-backed in the front pew at church and makes it very clear that they are listening properly to the sermon. Their father was a banker, who was very fond of meetings. Their mother volunteered for a charity for disadvantaged…
Someone Call Shadow Control!
Culver hauled the sack of chittering shadows to the back of his truck. "Now, now," he said. "None of that. Y'all should know better than to nest in a Light lady's bird feeder." One of the shadows said something about the possibility of a dog in Culver's mother's ancestry. "Now,…
Cold Hands
Legere Lake was named for the Legere family, white settlers who came to Mi'kma'ki in the late 1800s. They built their house on the banks of what was then called 'Grand Lake' by the English, using local aspen trees for the walls and bird's-eye maple for the floors. In time other…
The Third Kind of Prophecy
We rang in the new year at Jessie's, jam-packed with a dozen of our old crowd and two bar carts. I'd had a Manhattan and a gin martini by the time we flipped on the TV for the countdown. By that point, my social reserves were spent. I lingered by the snack table, staying quiet…
Phoenix Fate
The woman in crimson phoenix robes stood barefoot on the frozen river, her long black hair streaming in the icy wind. Hairpins and bangles wrought of the finest mutton-fat jade traced a littered path back to the snowy shore. Barely visible against the crest of trees, the glow of…
Memories in the Kitchen
Ruthanne has gone down into the basement, but she can't remember what for. She glances around, but the cobweb over the storage bins and the dusty shelves don't jog her memories. There's wet laundry in the washer, anyway; she bends to haul it into the dryer. Her jeans, Ben's…
Fair Aliquant
In fair Aliquant, where the soils are rich and the brooks clear, where the woods are filled with game and the mountains silver-veined, where the laws are just and all citizens are treated as equals, the executioner stands beside her scarred block. Behind the executioner, the…
Dragons and Drabbles
They say dragons despise drabbles, deeming a hundred words a derisory allotment to tell any tale worth the telling. Hardly surprising. You have the advantage of time. Centuries upon centuries, coiled on the cold coin of your hoards. We dragonhunters don't have time to waste. You…
Apocalypse in Yellow
When the sun pops, we watch hand-in-hand from the wold. "So this is how it all ends," you say, as molten gold erupts through the blue. I try, as I always do, to find some silver lining: "Perhaps it's how something better begins--who knows?" Cosmic fire coruscates over your…
The Faces and the Masks
In every labyrinth in Vraszan stand the Faces and the Masks. They differ in their materials: some wood, some clay, some metal, some stone. They differ in their details, though the general appearance is the same: the abundant petals of the Face of Roses, the shattered pieces of…
The Gang Assembles
I tried to sneak out of the attic under cover of the air raid sirens, but a cold little hand grabbed mine and wouldn't let go. I couldn't have Precious wake up the others, so we tiptoed downstairs. Precious was dressed in every layer she had and wore shoes. That meant she'd…
In the Enchanted Forest
Thick as Honey was the one who discovered the man in the glass coffin. She was on her way to the mines with her six dwarven sisters, but decided to cut through the forest to check on her clay pits She had a pottery project she wanted to work on, and she wondered if the pits were…
The Tempest in the Glasswork
Dr. Bell swept through the shop door in a huff. Winter winds swirled his coattails and scarf, and snowflakes danced all around him. His eyes darted over ships in bottles, glass-orb terrariums, and ant farms, before landing on the shopkeeper, Madame Delia. She squinted at him,…
The Alchemies of Time
When the new king was crowned, and the feast finished, his court gathered around him and asked him what he believed to be the largest threat the kingdom faced, and he told them: Time. Time, he said, will do more damage to us than any invader, than any war. Time will ruin us and…
Excavation
Eyes aglow, you tell me where the dragon is buried; so early one morning, before the autumn has waned like the moon, we go to dig it up. You are more excited than I am, brightly singing as you walk, lamp already lit, shovel swinging in your hand, and your smile, your radiant…
To the Graduating Class of '22
Decorative sabers and top hats. It was not an internationally popular graduation dress, but Hans Gutenberg had seen a century's worth of pictures of boys like him getting ready to face the world dressed to the nines. "We're going out in style," Lillian Geissman whispered. It was…
Departure
I sat on the bed and watched my slender, curly-headed, seventeen-year-old brother Darwin pack a suitcase. He was leaving the farm. People under eighteen never did that unless they were cast out. Darwin had many gifts. He could gentle animals, find water, and coax plants to…
Flesh of my Fin
After my father passed away my mom sat me down in her kitchen and told me she was going to go live in the ocean. She was a mermaid, she said, but she'd stayed in her human form all these years for mine and my father's sake. Now, with dad dead and me grown, she'd be returning to…
A Stirring of Wings
Occasionally, the castle shifts in the night. Not that anyone could perceive such a tiny motion, you understand, but I can hear it. The sound sits somewhere between a weary creak and a desperate sigh. Nestled high on its hill, Castle Adjura is dark and muted now, home to nary a…
The First Drowning
"Do the drownings get better?" I ask Amber. She weaves her fingers together, shakes her head down toward her hands. "It fades a little, you know? Becomes routine, just another part of everything." At sixteen, I'm old to be having my first drowning. I've been sheltered so far by…
How to Win a Dragon's Heart
"See you next visit," Rtl'en called to his customer. Rtl'en is a dragon, which, yeah, of course. No one but a dragon has a name like Rtl'en in Mineskeep, and no one but a shapeshifting dragon has the scaly pattern of dusky purple on their human-shaped cheeks, forehead, and…
Request Letter from Orpheus to Pluto
Date: VII Mensis Sextilis MMMXXI From: Orpheus Musician, Poet Employee No. 230125 To: Pluto Executive Manager Underworld, Tier 1 Subject: Request for Salary Increase Dear Master Pluto, I would like to request an increase in my salary. I understand that you rejected my first…
Knights and Knaves
It had been a busy day for the Guardian of the First Door; no fewer than three heroes had come his way. That was often how it happened, though. Centuries could pass with barely a tomb raider to break the monotony, then some king or other would set a quest and suddenly,…
Final Warnings in Open Fields
1. Plants want you dead. Don't waste time wondering why they turned against us. It is what it is. 2. There are no more herbicides. Fire has failed us against living plants. You are gardeners now, our first and only line of defense. 3. Make certain your suits are fastened and…
Things Remembered At Thirty Thousand Feet Above Sea Level
1. A pair of hand-knit red gloves. 2. My mother's face. 3. Posing for a commemorative photo on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, with windburned cheeks and a smile that was already wearing thin with grief. Saving the photo and printing what felt like a thousand copies. 4. A…
Murky Waters
As the ruined ship settled on the ocean floor it sent eddies of silt swirling, creating a grimy underwater mist. The anglerfish swam through the cloud, curious as to what caused such a mighty ship to sink so deep. It found the answer when it spotted a siren watching from a…
Boughs of Holly
She hovered over the deep green leaves before deftly pricking her finger on a spiked edge. Turning it over, she found only emptiness where blood once welled. Sighing, she lifted the heavy sack and continued her ordeal. She had known, before, why the leaves were so important,…
Paper Horn
The paper cone I'd taped together from an old piece of algebra homework slipped off the pony's forehead and landed in the clover at her hooved feet. Mallory laughed derisively and said, "What were you trying to do? Play unicorn?" The pony, Tulip, turned her head away, abashed,…
Customer Feedback (Secondhand Alchemical Goods)
Dear Sir or Madam, I write to express my sternest dissatisfaction with your SoHo, Manhattan location. I stopped by to ask after a Philosopher's Stone. A stone that turns lead into gold. Simple. No questions asked. What your man gave me was a Psychologist's Stone. "This also…
Skin
You shed your skin for the first time on New Year's Eve. You are ten years old, and you are surprised at how much it doesn't hurt. Your mother helps you remove it. In the dim light of the fireplace, the dead skin has a wet, silvery sheen to it. You long to touch the limp petals…
Different Kinds of Heroes
The lizard, Lunnie, clung with tiny claws to Bron's ham-like shoulder. "Heroes and their plot armor!" she meeped indignantly. "Plot armor?" With great daring, Bron had snuck into the lich's dungeon, seeking its magical crown, and was now squeezed into a niche off the main…
Perilous Blooms
I had almost become accustomed to the stench of sickness, horrible as it was, but I could never accept the sight of my small granddaughter perched bedside as she clutched her mother's limp hand. Nezra's brow was furrowed, eyes squinted shut as her lips mouthed breathy words.…
Warrior
This is not your name--neither by your baptism, nor confirmation in the church. But from the time you grew older and met it on the lips of Dada, your granny, you instantly loved it. You met it in the smile of your Pa too, in the way he would drag you into his bosom once he…
Burning Bright
"Just look what you've become since you left home!" Mara's cousin jabbed an accusatory finger at the colorful, cartoonish paintings of lions and tigers that lined the nursery walls. "All the magic you'd gathered, all your skills and your fortune--you were the strongest of our…
Last on Santa's List
The chief elf kicked open the workshop door. "Boss, we got one!" Santa checked his calendar. Christmas Eve? They had little time. "Ho-ho-ho?" The chief elf saluted and then whistled, pulling elves from the woodwork. "Make everything! Dolls, video games, even a lump of coal just…
Sunlight-Golden Treason, by the Candle's Waning Light
The assassin waits in Serekha's chambers until she returns from her evening meal. Serekha removes her headdress and sets it aside. Her hands clasp behind her back when she stands over the assassin. Their tray is spread out on the floor before them, and Serekha's quick black eyes…
Goldfish and Tea
The White Lady will receive us in the honeymoon suite. The elevator groans and stutters getting us up. I'm afraid it's going to fail and crash, and I can't tell Dad because I know he won't listen to me anyway. Or maybe we both kind of want that to happen and I don't want to see…
No Time For Guilt Now
"Did you know mayflies live only a day?" Helena asks. When I don't reply, she continues, "And the Atlas moth emerges from its cocoon without a mouth--can't feed or drink until its death. It's funny, if you think about it." We're naked in a bed of moss-soft velvet, our hair…
The Shapeshifter Unraveled
Marie was thunder and lightning, a tornado tearing through the plains, weaponized rage consuming everything in her path. And I was a mouse clinging to a stalk of grass in the distance, watching her, trembling in the wake of her glory. Envy swallowed me. I wanted to be her, a…
My Father's Head
Mama told me, "Chike here is what you should expect: when you get there be well composed. Do not put on a cloth that will make them look at you like you fell from Mars. Be simple, no shiny shoes. Your father's head shouldn't be hard to find, his temples are always sunken in;…
The Last Rider of the Apocalypse
The Riders fled, and Porcaleo followed. Pestilence attempted to make the long, cold crossing to Andromeda. Some million light years into the void, Porcaleo overtook the fleeing murderess, and released the billions of cures he had accumulated over the millennia, until Pestilence…
Waiting in the Weeds
Ambrose had pressed another bulb into the freshly turned soil when the ground shuddered and sent a fresh ache through his gnarled fingers. The heliocentric dome of tinted glass that covered the palace's garden rattled overhead, and the cries of soldiers on the outermost walls…
Crow's Test
I used to be a crow but now I am not. I have shed my wings and feathers, given up beak and claw. I have grown and stretched and expanded. I have ten toes and ten fingers and dark hair on the top of my head and between my legs. They tell me that I'm a person now. This puzzles me,…
Collecting Ghosts
Evan's hobby was collecting ghosts. He had puppy-ghosts, lizard-ghosts, playful wispy kitten-ghosts, even an ethereal, shy fox-ghost he'd found whimpering outside. Ghost-making was easy. You buried their bodies in your backyard, and they'd be yours for life. Simple. Easy enough…
Clouds Gleam Across Her Eyes
I held my newborn in the hospital delivery room, and I saw fluffy cumulus clouds billow across Ivanova's eyes. Right then, I knew. Already, she looked to different worlds. A week later, Mom visited. "Yes, she's like my mother." Grief rattled in her voice. "You'll need to watch…
The Ladies of Lethseme
The miniature city struck the ground and burst into splinters of wood. The self-opening xdoors, the tiny clocks that moved by themselves, all were destroyed. "Irini!" her mom gasped behind her. Irini stepped back from the display table. "It was an accident." She had been so…
The Inquisitor's Chair
There's a joke the Ja'deen used to tell, back when they first broke past the smoking ruins of our city walls and claimed our land their own: How many rebels does it take to make wood bleed? The answer, of course, is however many the Ja'deen inquisitors can get their hands on.…
It Will Be Under the Next Stone
She is the best. Not only can she overhear a conversation between spirits in a gurgling brook or overturn those rare rocks with djinn correspondence carved on the bottom; she also catches wisps of stories from the gods themselves, songs as old as time with messages so eternal…
Delicate like the Traces on a Carbon Privateer
The faded blackbird circles the ship, searching for a path to land. Squint and I can discern the sharp-edged folds giving her avian form, but our crude impressions flatter the expectant eye. Raven buckles in the headwind. Another gust will tear her. She looks that pale and thin.…
Fifteen Notes
Six of the rioters were hung from the branches of the oak tree in the square. How they jigged to the Devil's tune! When their struggles ceased they dangled by their necks; heads at perverse angles; dirty toes pointing to the ground. We gathered stones, of course, us children,…
Tasting Notes on Three Vintages of Poison
"...and this one, sigliare, is a red widowmaker from the Uvaldi region," Maggio explains, as the client raises yet another glass to his lips with exaggerated care. A young nobleman of the third rank, Gonyaire was warned not to swallow any liquid that touches his lips while…
Resignation in a Bottle
From: Captain "Long Beard" Johnson The Island at 34 degrees longitude, 86 degrees latitude Atlantic Ocean June 4th or 5th-- or maybe the 6th? Dear Mutinous Crew, I would like to inform you that I am resigning from my position as Your Captain of the Sea Wench, effective…
A Dragon's Nature
The raiding party piled out of the tunnel in a cacophony of heavy breathing, weaponry, and increasingly exasperated hushing noises. I dragged myself from my slumber atop the highest mound in my hoard to sniff out their scent. Dwarves. Who else. Sighing, I reached for the bottle…
What Could Be
My mother was from the sea, raised by the Pacific Ocean that laps at both China and the United States. When she rose salt-crusted from that amniotic love, she found that she could never stay long on either shore, that she needed to be traveling between them. She was more…
The Price of Small Joys
"Was he worth it?" She puts down the dao; traces the flat of the blade with a callused finger; feels the pitted steel, the runes brocading its surface; breathes out. This is not hers anymore. But its voice knifes through her gut, nonetheless, hot with accusation, the shriek of…
A Ladies' Guide to Collecting Mermaid Love Songs
Imagine standing on a sandy sleeve jutting into the Atlantic. In the hazy distance where the sea meets the horizon, the mermaids sing, their voices dancing like strands of silver and black seaweed in a tide pool. The fluid harmonies draw you to the water's edge. This is the…
Dragonbone
The dreams had become no less difficult to weave, no less painful. Her hands were already raw and sore each morning, burnt in places, sometimes still oozing a bit of blood, well before she reached for a strand of dream. By the time she stopped, she could hardly bear to move her…
Company for the Holidays
"There's nobody else, Aunt Phyllida," my niece Alice said over the phone. "You have to take Sam for Christmas." "I can't. I absolutely, positively can't," I said. I set down the golden candleholder I was carrying and glanced around my living room. The windows were covered in…
Lilacs Out of the Dead Land
The seed cost a year's salary. It arrived in a small wooden box, packed in pearl-colored satin. He turned it gently in his palm, where it stuttered against the glint of gold on his finger, polished and nut-brown, with swirls of lighter color. He unfolded the onionskin directions…
Will It Fly?
--Will it fly? What do you think, Yammet? --Well, Sis, the lifthold is full of wist, so at least it will rise. --You mean wish, right? --No. Wist. Not wish. Wish was enough for the 1/27 scale prototype, but for the real thing you need wist--the stuff of knew, as in the old "wist…
One Entry Per Person
This is what you find when you return: 34 leaflets and newsletters, plain or glossy paper with no moon runes, ink-chants or scarenocks. None of them folds itself into an origami puffin or a kangaroo when prodded with a finger. 1 post-it note on the door, about an electricity…
Castles in the Clouds
The Fortress of Omn hums in the heart of a cumulonimbus cloud. We are the warriors who bring the lightning and the storms. "A cold front," say the duped meteorologists on the surface world below. The warpath, say we. Every generation has its radical philosophers, but mine has…
Tin and Mercury, Gilt and Glass
42 facts about my wife, Marie: 1) Marie was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1984. 2) She has blue eyes, and brown hair that falls just below her shoulders, not quite wavy, not quite straight. Her features are regular and even, though her upper lip is a little short and always…
High Enough
One floor below the penthouse, the elevator slid open. Ben, pressed against the mirrored wall like he wanted to climb it, mashed the button marked "P" before my husband got his shaking hands and drew him away. "Come on, buddy. Time to get out." "The penthouse is higher," said…
Spirit Board
"It's not real!" The Ouija board rested between them; six hands still resting on the planchette. "It can't be real--there's no such thing as ghosts or spirits." The other two girls sat silently, staring at Kelly as she spoke. "We're the ones controlling it. Like, we must be. I…
The Hand
A hand of five trumps--a rarity indeed. I held The Lovers, signifying a choice between two paths, and The Tower for misfortune. The Wheel, which spun fate. The Magician, poised with promise, and The Moon, which masked turmoil behind illusion. "Will you trade?" the Dealer asked.…
Closet
There's a mystery light in my bedroom closet. Kind of bluish-white. It comes on shortly after I turn out the lights. The first time, I turned on the lamp to look around, and saw nothing. I turned the lamp off, and it was dark. After a bit, the light came on again. It's bright…
Grass Girl
The other girls are made of driftwood, but I'm made of bamboo that whistles in the wind. My bamboo makes a hollow thud when the other girls kick pebbles at my legs on our way to school. "Bamboo isn't wood, it's grass," Sylvia says. She isn't kicking pebbles, and I can't tell if…
Seven Reasons Why You may not Have a Rhinoceros as a Pet
1) They can't be housebroken. Who is going to clean up after him? Fifty pounds of dung per day. Hadley has his hands full with the unicorns. You can't expect him to go chasing around after a rhinoceros. Not even a baby. 2) They are loud. We can hardly stand the sirens and the…
The Pixie Game
The rain has stopped shortly before the dismissal bell rings, and the ground is spongy and quivering with worms. Someone taps Gage's shoulder. He spins around and sees Dasha, her mouth upturned at some private joke. "We're playing the pixie game. Want to come?" It's the third…
The Haunted Snail
The Snail ride was haunted from the beginning, and what made it worse was that it was the slowest ride in the entire amusement park: an hour and a half of crawling along the track. The architect had meant it to be a clever postmodern play on a haunted house ride, a…
Mermaid's Purse
"What's that?" I ask her. We're walking along the beach at the high tide mark and I spot a dark brown rectangle with corners that end in tendrils. I push it with my toe--it's lighter than it looks. "Do you want science or romance?" she asks, looking up into my eyes. I live and…
Best Served
There was a monster in Hannah's kitchen. She had invited it in, but that did not make it any more welcome. It leered at her from above a brown paper package, and from within it: a long-faced man presenting her with a lean, red cut of meat. "Mermaid," the man said. The bloody…
The Wizard
A cruel winter wind raged outside the crooked hovel, battering its empty boarded up eyes and howling through its broken stone teeth. The wizard could hear their impish laughter in that wind, out there in the dark, and he shivered in his bed. They used to keep their distance,…
The Nixie Revels
When Mom died, I inherited my childhood home. I have good memories attached to the place: fairy tales and Saturday morning cartoons, tea parties and lightsaber duels. In those days the house felt like a castle, and I imagined dragons in the cellar and elves in the ceiling and…
Clasp Hands
The smallest witch hung over the banister, her whole body forming an arc of yearning, as the first of her mother's friends arrived for their annual feast. "Bella!" It was Aunt Calliope, bursting into the house in a cloud of snow, wrapped up in a six-foot scarf. She was already…
Nine Lives
She sits in front of the screen long after he disconnects. Her gaze drifts over to the window, to the bubbly city below. Millions of happy citizens are starting their weekends, taking walks, shopping, enjoying leisurely brunches with friends. She's wearing her nicest clothes,…
Current and Still
I am in love with a man from the current. My mother thinks this is foolish. She wants me to settle down with a boy from the still. She doesn't understand. She met my father when they were in the current. Otherwise I wouldn't exist. The man from the current lives his life in…
Xuan the Tiger
Winter came to the mountains, and Xuan walked home through the snow. Her family lived in a yurt on the northern slopes of Changbai, nestled in the shelter of an overhang. Her father was a fisherman, and spent the winter next to holes carved in the icy river. Her mother was her…
The Seventeen Executions of Signore Don Vashta
One Of the sixteen recorded executions featuring Signore Don Vashta as the subject, I have been present for three, and I have read detailed and verified accounts of two more. In addition, I am known as a man who has an interest in such things, and thus I am a man to whom all…
Saltcedars
Today they will burn our tamarisk trees to the ground. It's a quick, hot fire, and the flames light the sky bright enough to read by. I've seen it before, with other people's trees. But this year, it's mine they're burning. A few of my yearmates are like me--stupid and…
The Keepsake Box
For this spell, only the most powerful magic will do. The glass tubes full of air magic jingle like wind chimes as she takes them off the shelf, the iridescent gases swirling inside. Next she moves the heavy clay pots filled with earth magic and then wrangles the jug of water…
Slumber
She wakes hungry. He knows this, now. He greets her sleepy smile with bread and honey, with blueberry pancakes and salmon jerky, with the last of the jelly made from the wild grapes. He covers the table with food--once, twice, three times--until she groans and pushes it away.…
The Final Seam
She turned the head back right side out. She smoothed the features into place as she worked the stuffing in. She positioned the eyes, popped them into place, then adjusted the eyelids and lashes around them. After adding the last of the stuffing, she lined up the edges of what…
Why Women Turn To Stone
Tom tried to show interest in Miss Collingsworth's flower arranging as she blithered on about some dance in the next county, but he kept finding himself distracted by the statue under the arbor. Bent in a posture of world-weary resignation, the subject did not appear regal or…
Remembrance In Stone
Fire sings of pain: the tingling victories and the scorching failure. When Badra calls on fire, her skin lights up in sympathetic memory. When she gets her scars too close to the flame, they prick the way they did the first time they were burned. The scars recall the wound. Fire…
Book of Love
I came in from the snow, curses rolling around in my head. A day didn't go by without me wondering how I'd come to this. A once-upon-a-time god reduced to trolling for humans desperate enough to believe in something that surely sounded crazy. There was a man sitting at the bar…
The Girl with Flowers for Hair
Holding the laundry basket, Gina paused in the doorway of Adam's room. It looked just like it had the day he hadn't come home for dinner, though the police had combed it for clues. Five years now. She knew she should turn the room into a guest room, but every time she thought…
The God of Rugs
***Editor's Note: This is a story for adult readers*** My mother worshipped the god of rugs, which gave her peculiar powers, and gave me the conviction that I needed to find a god of my own. "Well, Karen," Mom said, "so glad you finally decided to visit." "You make it so…
The Velveteen Rabbit Says Goodbye
There once was a rabbit who had been made of velveteen. For many years now he'd been Real--not just Real in the eyes of the Boy who loved him, but real to the world of grown-ups and rabbits with twitching noses and springy hind legs. The Rabbit's hind legs weren't as springy as…
The Matchmaker
Don had been delivering mail to Ruthetta Bell's house for almost thirty years before she finally asked him inside. It was the day he'd been waiting for, but never had the courage to make happen. Now, though, it wasn't like he imagined. He'd waited too long. Ruthetta received a…
Seaweed
She wakes to find seaweed in her bed. Never the same, this tangled weave of salt and slime and leaves: sometimes glistening red, sometimes dark green, sometimes dank brown. But always, always, there, entangling her feet, her hands, sometimes even sliding across her mouth, so…
For Sale by Owner
Ron allowed himself one shallow breath before gripping his cane and creaking to his feet. There was no need to rush. More than a century before, he had counted the steps that would take him from his watching-chair, across his living room, through his front door, off the porch,…
Squeak
When I was young I dreamed of becoming a lioness, but when the moons turned and I became a woman, the gods made me a mouse. My brother, who had been an antelope (and with those legs, everyone had guessed well beforehand) had laughed and picked me up in his dusty hands. For the…
An Exodus of Wings
***Editor's Note: Adult story, complete with adult language*** The Shower Before Heidi came along, Michael did everything he could to keep the damn faeries out of his apartment. Every night he washed and dried his dishes, never left one dripping in the drying rack. Always fished…
The Taking Tree
***Editor's Note: This is an adult fable, not for children.*** The boy, who was an old man, did not stay long. As he hobbled out of the forest, the tree, who was only a stump, watched his cane of burnished wood. Her wood. It all came back to her: the roaring of the chainsaw, sap…
What Merfolk Must Know
I saw my first deathship when I was only ten migrations old. Mamma and I had swum up to the ocean's surface to play with a pod of dolphins. We were leaping and spinning and dancing in the waves when she caught sight of white sails on the horizon. The dolphins abandoned us,…
Shadow Play
Every time the shadow puppets play, someone is saying, goodbye. Someone is saying, please don't go. Someone is saying, if only, please. Someone is saying, I remember when, and laughing. Every shadow play is a memory. I am an old shape-shifter. I cannot transform the way I once…
Coffee Pot
"Don't you ever sleep?" she asked, and he shook his head. No, she thought. He never will, and he's going to keep you here forever, in this soft white bed, like some fairy princess. He was a thing of black moods, black shadows, black smudges. As if the thick, greasy coffee he…
The Little Helper
The first time her parents left her home alone, Elvira was good. The second time, she managed to behave, too. But the third time, the temptation was too great. That Friday night, the instant her parents were gone, she ran down to the basement and entered the Forbidden Workshop.…
The Refugee
When the other boys ran out of rocks they vanished into the thickening night. Henry came out of the trees and made his way carefully through the dunes down to the shore, where she was washed up in a bloody serpentine knot. He dug a hollow in the crush of sand and shells and laid…
Under a Sky of Knives
"I'll kill him," Helene says. "I'll rip out his heart and throw it to the crows." Autumn winds tear at her hair, lashing her face with black tendrils. We stand, my sister and I, simultaneously together and apart, her hands clenching the cold stone of the public garden's only…
Shattered Amber
She gave me the amber right after I had kissed her for the first time, right after I started to confess, well, everything. Nothing. The sort of things you say, or don't say, right after you have just kissed her for the first time, and you are convinced this means something. "So…
The Safe Road
"Do as I do," Mama tells me, "and you'll be safe. We walk this road together." The road is seven feet wide and four billion years long. All my ancestors walk ahead of me and my progeny follows behind. Today the road is a pair of tractor ruts in a field of screaming-psychosis…
This Place From Which All Roads Go
They come to study us. Not to help. They watch my father struggle his way through his chores and make notes in their notebooks, too busy charting our future to join our present. In any case, I've no reason to believe their help would be of use. Their essence smells…
X Marks the Spot
I nudged the corpse with the toe of my boot. "Looks like he froze to death, poor sod." "That's what you get, wandering these mountains unprepared." Ranulf snagged the corpse's rucksack and began rifling through it. Shivering, I tucked my hands into my armpits. Spring was well…
Ballad of a Hot Air Balloon-Headed Girl
I knew a girl who tied a hot air balloon envelope to her shoulders, just in case her head should ever burst into flames. It was homemade, sewn together from stolen scraps of Dacron, mottled and gaudy. It was as wide as her shoulders and it hung down to the small of her back like…
Wishes
She came into the used bookstore. She didn't know what she was looking for, exactly. She wandered up and down the aisles, through every section from computers to romance. She combed through the clearance section. At last, something caught her eye. A slim green volume poked out…
The Tome of Tourmaline
"Come, come!" the attendants at the gate of Tourmaline call to you. "Come and bathe your feet." The water is refreshing, ice cold, straight from the glaciers on top of the mountains far to the west. You wash away the dust of your long journey across the desert, and marvel at the…
One Childhood of Many
Almost exactly one week after the last day of seventh grade and one week before her thirteenth birthday, Sylvia stomped through the house, flung open the sliding door to the back porch and stood with hands on hips. The Sunday newspaper was not extremely captivating that day, nor…
The Sacred Tree
There was a time when the Yakima tribe lived in peace with its surroundings and its neighbors. We welcomed the changing of the seasons, the migration of the birds, the spawning of the fish. We harvested our crops, hunted for meat when we desired it, paid tribute to the sacred…
Don Sebastian's Treasure
"There are no railways on Ceftanalo�a," Isabella the tour guide insisted, cutting the conversation dead. Rob wondered why her sullen monotone had suddenly erupted into vehemence. "This area is for Transport Museum staff only." She motioned him away from the workshop full of…
Sand-Child
On the first day of building her Sand-child, Abi took grains from the Jurida Desert, breathing joy into their tiny souls. On the second day of building her Sand-child, Abi found grains at the base of the Nieradka Range, breathing anger. On the third day, Abi drained silt from…
Where Sea and Sky Kiss
Illness skulked about the village, hiding in the alley fish-rot and grasping at coats in the fog. The sea misted up and smothered the houses, as if already holding the island in its embrace was not enough. People coughed and hacked and died in their sleep. My father found one…
Dragons
"I really hate my job." Arlen stretched his arms and tried to loosen his stiff neck. "That's nice. I hate my stinking job too." Every "s" the guard spoke came out as a hiss. Arlen glared at his reptilian captor. "That's easy for you to say. You're the one with the stick." "Three…
The Girl in the Wooden Dress
Emmett saw a small head hovering where darkness met sunlight filtering through leaves, caught glimpses of pale hands and feet shifting in shadow. He thought these hints of feminine body were simply light itself, figments of his own desires for a world outside of woodsheds and…
The God of the Poor
In the beginning of the world, the gods considered all those things which did not have their own gods, to decide who would have responsibility and rulership. "I will rule all flowers that are sky-blue in colour," said the Sky-Father. "I will listen to the prayers of migratory…
Cloaks and Gloves
As far as cloaks went, Rall had to admit that Verenisse's were good ones. She had fooled him more than once, and he expected her to walk abroad under guises. One time she'd crept up to him as a barely adolescent boy, all shaggy dark hair and bright curious eyes, and he'd talked…
Shards
Now that they have come for me, banging on the trapdoor above us, there are many things I want to tell you, Son. I want to tell you that I loved you, regardless of what I am. You should know that despite all you may learn in school, or from books, or from other children, I was…
Song of the Laughing Hyena
"And that will make her love me?" The hag inhaled the acrid smoke that rolled off the roasting carcass of the pure-white lovebird. "It will bind her heart with threads of steel," she rasped. "She will do everything for you, but I must impress upon you the importance of it being…
A Ribbon For A Shaman
When the shaman was done tying his ribbon around the middle of our pig, my father stood and watched the old man doddering off down the lane for a long time. A few months ago I would have expected my father, the notary of our little town, to have berated the old man, but now I…
The Voynich Variations
Yes, it was an obsession. I can date its inception quite precisely: the evening of 15th May 2010, when my latest work was premiered by the Quadrivium Ensemble to critical incomprehension. This soon became, in the prose of those stunted creatures, bile. When even Mario Zucotta,…
A Song Never Tasted
Akorsa lurked beyond the reach of the firelight, where darkness swallowed the bold pounding of the villagers' drums. Like the drunken young men who gorged themselves on hunks of meat torn from the harvest festival's spitted lamb, Akorsa watched the unwed women dancing around the…
Late Homework
"Miss Linderman," said the voice--it sounded like the principal's secretary--"there's been an accident. Two of our students were killed driving home from a haunted house. Cathy Jackson and Melinda Cranford." Miss Linderman held the phone tight in the dark room. On the dresser,…
Heartbeat
Ariana's heartbeat echoed the last word of the spell: dub-dub. The tugging began, as though invisible gremlins had grabbed her arm. Yara's shriek made Ariana swivel her head. Yara was being pulled in the opposite direction. Cloth ripped as the single dress with two necks was…
Cruel Mountain
"Just how old are you, Mrs. O'Malley?" May gave Jason a hard look because it was the only kind she had. He was a good kid for all that he dyed his hair blonde and punched metal through his skin. Most kids that made it out to college didn't come back for summer break, let alone…
Azencer
Sisters, they sat across the table from each other. Sendell, younger, meticulous, wise and quietly implacable. Danzor, instinctive, impetuous and charismatic. Lost concentration meant death, the victor winning the queendom of Azencer--and the man. Their hands on the square table…