She trapped me with her jaundiced eye, and I couldn’t look away. Her tattered clothes and dirty skin seemed out of place here, an anomaly on Light Street among the tailored suits and eighty dollar haircuts. “Got any change, mister?” Her wrinkled face looked up at me imploringly from where she sat, a mass ofRead more…
Archive for the ‘Fantasy’ Category
One Year’s Worth of Woe
| by S.J.Hirons |
I The Maker of Narrow Houses stood and looked at the building for awhile, as though he were a returning visitor lost to fond memory; then he began the gentle ascent of the driveway that turned off the road and wound up to the house where it stood, half-hidden behind a grove of trees, atRead more…
Caribou House
| by Stace Dumoski |
Domar the Potter squatted on the floor of the mission house, his hands clenched together in an empty prayer, and asked to hear once more the tale of how his bride had been stolen by a god. It wasn’t that he needed to hear the tale again–the details were already ingrained within his mind. WhatRead more…
Beneath the Pear Trees
| by Teegan Dykeman |
My father loved pears. He craved them the way that anemics ache for ice to chew, the way that Rapunzel’s mother risked her own husband’s doom in order to have a plate of sweet, crispy lettuce. We always kept a wooden bowl in the kitchen filled with the fruit. When I turned seven, my motherRead more…
Sacrificial Doves
| by Leah Kohn |
Officially they were called foundlings. We called them freaks. They went to the same school as us, but we hardly ever saw them. They had their own classroom, on the other side of the building, which none of us had ever entered. They did not eat lunch in the cafeteria with the rest of us.Read more…
The Sound Thief
| by Francesca Forrest |
Samuel Conway was a clever man, and after being shown one of M. Daguerre’s silver plates, a portrait of the Irish opera singer Catherine Hayes, it occurred to him that if an image could be made to stick fast to a plate, perhaps a sound could be made to as well. And the adhesive medium?Read more…
The Grace of the Foolish
| by Jennifer Linnaea |
In the thirtieth summer of her life, the sacred clown of the goddess Aelmatia stood in the rain in the market square, laughing. Water ran in rivulets down her face; the bright blue and red cloth of her shirt clung to her arms as she slapped her hands on her body in an imitation ofRead more…
The Pig’s End
| by Julia Kelso |
He jerked awake, bloody, in pain. He rumbled in confusion. This wasn’t the pain he was used to. His blood not shed like this. He lurched to his feet and let out a bellow of surprise at the pain shooting through his legs and back. He could feel the sharp tugging of raw edges thatRead more…
Marshmallows
| by Catherine Cheek |
For Milana, meeting one of the Old Ones was like meeting a tiger in the woods. It was a rare, once-in-a-life-time story that might impress strangers at parties, but only if you survived long enough to repeat it.
The Lady and the Dragon
| by Chandelle Lance |
A dragon. Everyone was off to see the dragon, to give Mary to him. I was left behind, alone. Father said it wasn’t dignified for a lady to see Mary taken by the dragon. It wasn’t like I had never seen the dragon before. No one could miss his massive form when he came toRead more…
The Alchemist’s Wife
| by Paula R. Stiles |
My husband told me yesterday that I was pure silver. Some women would accept this as the greatest of compliments. “Some women” are not married to my husband. Late that morning, he ordered me down to the dank badger’s lair in the cellar that he calls a “laboratory”, crowded with curling tubes and decanters fullRead more…
Blackbird Pie
| by Autumn Canter |
When my mother had me out, she knew she’d been cuckolded as easy as a finger snap. She could look back on the very moment–in the market with a basket full of gutted fish hanging from the crease of her elbow and her son pulling at her free hand while swiping snot from under hisRead more…
Bequeathment
| by Therese Arkenberg |
It is said that the dead have no touch, no sight, no taste or smell, but only hearing. As a younger man I derided the belief as mere superstition. Now I know the truth of it — the last thing I saw was Aeswyth’s hand rising to close my eyes, and then the pain stopped,Read more…
The Sisters and the Seeds
| by Christopher King |
CHAPTER ONE: THE SEEDS Before there were hands to rip roots from the earth, blades to spill the juices of strong green stems, and minds to decide what was beautiful and what was nothing more than a weed, two seeds came into being. It is impossible to say what plant birthed them, for they wereRead more…
Swear Not by the Moon
| by Renee Carter Hall |
The wolf watches us from the far corner of the enclosure as the girl fumbles with her keys to let me inside. I don’t bother to call to him; his hearing isn’t as good as it used to be, and, besides, he won’t come near until we’re alone. In the brochure, they called the enclosureRead more…