To Give you the Night Sky
by Shannon FayDecember 22, 2016
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 grid's glow. Too many lights, too many people.
On her birthday Murphy took Jessie to a hill overlooking the town. When the bombs went off at the power station, the world flipped: the city was plunged into darkness and finally the night sky came into full view.
About Shannon Fay
More from Shannon Fay
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…