Author
Shannon Fay
http://toomuchsugarnotenoughwriting.blogspot.com/
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…
Thirst Trap
Cara sits in the hotel restaurant, laptop open and back to the wall so that no one will see she is photoshopping scantily clad pictures of herself. She looks hot in all of them, but they still need some polish before she uploads them to her dating profile. There is only one…
Table For One
Amalda dodged heavy snowflakes as she flew towards the cafe. The cafe door was slowly closing behind a centaur and she managed to zip through before it shut. More places should have a fairy door, she thought as she shook the snow off her wings. Just her luck that, on the day she…
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…
The Red Queen
"I've come to say goodbye, old friend," Princess Cardena said to the unicorn. The sunlight made the creature's white flank sparkle. Oh? The unicorn said. You are going away? "No. But I am to be married." Cardena blushed, not wishing to speak plainly of how she'd soon no longer…
Meat Off the Bone
There was a myth about mermaids: if you ate their flesh you would live forever. Whenever the men of the village caught a mermaid, they would cut out chunks of her tail and eat it raw as she flopped and screamed upon the deck. They'd carve enough for themselves and their family…
Eat you Up
Bree's knife sliced through the chicken cordon bleu as smoothly as if it were dipping into water. As she cut a piece, she speared chicken, swiss cheese, and ham all onto her fork,, making sure her first bite had a little bit of everything. She paused, letting her camtracts get 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…
Eyespots
She was the only other girl in Entomology 101. When it came time for introductions, she smiled widely and said: "Hello, Earthlings. I'm Aurea, from the Antennae Galaxy." "She's a weirdo," Mark G. said a week later. "Even when we were on a date, she kept up the whole alien…
Familiar Ground
"Rina, when are you going to put down roots?" her relatives asked as they passed salt and gossip around her parents' dinner table. Framed photos of Rina's cousins and their families beamed down from the walls around them. Rina had sent her parents plenty of pics: Rina riding on…
Just Another Day
Just five more minutes, Lani thought, her eyes closed tight even as the pre-dawn mist traced her cheek. As soon as she opened her eyes the day would begin. The mists would consolidate into matter from which life might emerge. It made for an interesting morning: Lani always…
Heart Seed
The Queen had been in control all her life. She had conquered any enemy nation that had posed a threat, had crushed dissent within her kingdom with the thoroughness of a wildfire. The only thing she feared was death itself; surely her land would fall into ruin without her. So…
The Most Okay of All Possible Worlds
"Brad, we don't have a chore chart, we don't have a motherfucking sticker sheet," Martin was saying. Bits of long hair had come loose from his ponytail and every now and then he'd huff at them in annoyance. "We just trust that all three of us will pick up our shit around here."…
Wayfarer
The elf's name was Sakorin and she had never met a human before. She asked if I would walk with her a little while, and I agreed. Together we traveled away from the rocky coast and through the marshlands, bridging our two worlds with stories of our childhoods. We became lovers…
The Steady State
"So, how does a nice girl like you become a faceless jackboot?" The prisoner managed to look comfortable despite her handcuffs. Her name was Kori Melsung. She was a high level Disruptor, I was a low-level Steady. The two of us were sitting in the back of the armored automated…
Fight for the Stars
Jenna's breathing was so ragged it drowned out the roar of the crowd. Her opponent was being merciful, giving her a moment to recover after a brutal blow. She had known Cal for years but it was their first time facing each other in the arena. She had often wondered how she would…
Prodigal Daughter
Becks stared at me, her bright eyes meeting my angry glare. From her laptop a man's voice read out a series of numbers. His words were cut and spliced together, the auditory equivalent of a shattered mirror. "It's called a numbers station," Becks explained. "They've been…
A Seed in the Ground
I was the one who told Rhiz about the Folx bush. "It flowers in the spring, little pink blossoms that sit on thick, knobby branches," I said, placing the seed in Rhiz's hand and folding her fingers over it. "When you try and trim it, it just grows back stronger. Tearing one out…
Goes Both Ways
It took several blows before the monster stayed down. Even then I kept swinging, the axe head moving like a sped-up metronome. I didn't stop until my knees started to buckle. Only then did I put the axe down and survey my work. The red stain on the floor was a familiar scene,…
To Give you the Night Sky
For her 16th birthday Jessie asked Murphy for the stars, to see them as their parents had, a little bit of dark around a million points of light, the milky way splitting the sky like a ribbon tied around a big ball. They tried leaving the city but they could not escape the…
Readymade
Though there was a bowl of hammer pills in the living room ("Hammer pills! For a quicker than liquor buzz!") Cora elbowed her way through the crowd and went into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of wine. Getting drunk the old-fashioned way always calmed her down. It gave her…
A Special Day
I looked up from my bio notes to see some blonde girl grinning at me. "Yo, Moria!" she said. "Fancy meeting you here." She had long, straight hair and just the right amount of blue eye shadow. A ski pass dangled off the zipper of her winter coat. I pegged her as a snow bunny who…