War is a dinner party. My ladies and I have spent the dregs of summer making ready. We have hung garlands of pennyroyal and snowberries in the snug, familiar halls of Laburnum Castle, strained cheese as pure as ice for weeks in the caves and the kitchens, covered any gloomy stone with tapestries or stags’ heads with mistletoe braided through their antlers. We sent away south to the great markets of Mother-of-Millions for new silks and velvets and furs.

Potemora in the Triad By Sara S. Messenger   There are always three: the father, the unfather, and the child. That’s why Vriskiaab threw my unfather off his back after she bore my baby sister, or so Vriskiaab tells me when he stops in the shade of a dune, his massive scales warm under my […]

Dip and Roll by Celeste Rita Baker On de largest beach of de smallest island in de Tania archipelago in de Caribbean Sea five shoreside metamorphic beachrocks sit chatting, as dey have done for de last hundred and sixty-odd years. “Hey, allyou. I leaving soon. You hear me? Dis place ain’t gon’ be de same,” […]