Fictional Worlds

The Ant King: A California Fairy Tale by Benjamin Rosenbaum Sheila split open and the air was filled with gumballs. Yellow gumballs. This was awful for Stan, just awful. He had loved Sheila for a long time, fought for her heart, believed in their love until finally she had come around. They were about to […]

Lockdown Around the Christmas Tree by Heather Shaw & Tim Pratt   What a colossal crapstorm of a year, the third year of infinite garbage in a row, ever since the lockdowns started. The walls came down around Mischa in March 2020, and here they were, still standing, tall and impenetrable, for Christmas 2022. Then […]

[Note: This is Part 2 of a two-part novelette. Visit our previous post to read Part 1.] The Science and Artistry of Snake Oil Salesmanship by Timothy Mudie PART TWO   Portico. Threshold of the frontier. Jewel of the prairie. A town of graded roads and running water. At least, it had been in the […]

The Science and Artistry of Snake Oil Salesmanship by Timothy Mudie   Aloysius P. McNutt arrives in town one-and-a-half days after the snake, as per usual. Earlier would be too suspicious, and later risks that the settlers will have attacked the snake themselves, which simply won’t do. Aloysius needs to sell the snake oil to […]

Dying Rivers and Broken Hearts by Gabriella Buba   Manila, Philippines, 1936   Maria-Lucia had failed. In her hand, a freshly struck agimat burned. The copper amulet pressed with the image of the Virgin Mary was hot with the power the coven had gathered from the full moon. Golden light streamed between her clenched fingers. […]

The Witching Hour By Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki   I stood balanced at the top of the oldest palm tree, the one that grew at the south end of the village. I was in my element — pitch-black night. This was my dawn. The murmurs of glowing spirits mixed with the chitter of living insects. The […]

Hello everyone! Escape Artists is excited to announce that we are launching our first-ever audience survey between November 15th and 30th! We are interested in learning more about you, our audience, including how you engage with our shows, your access needs, what content you enjoy and want to see more of, and how you think […]

The Bone Pickers by Kelsey Hutton   My last day picking buffalo bones, stooping and flinging and splintering tibia among the tall grass, was the day I lost the smell of freshly tanned leather. The buffalo gave us so many gifts, but the finished hides were my favourite. Rich and musky-smelling, hair scraped off, with […]

The Tree Whisperer by Oluwatomiwa Ajeigbe   The trees are getting restless. I walk down the beaten forest path, trying my best to ignore their murmurs, but they are too many and their words crowd my mind. The green will perish . . . You must warn the people . . . Call down the […]

PodCastle is very proud to present Indigenous Magic, our special month of stories featuring Indigenous themes by Indigenous authors. Every week during November 2022, we will be bringing you a new Indigenous Magic story, and we can’t wait to share them all! We have five fabulous stories coming up: “Anu and the Vetala” by […]

Anu and the Vetala by Srikripa Krishna Prasad   The marble-tile floor of King Vikramaditya’s throne room is cold against Anu’s forehead. As she prostrates herself before him, body curled into a ball as her forehead meets the point of her hands, she can’t help the contempt that rises in her throat like vomit. Such […]

The Half Dark Promise by Malon Edwards The first thing Bobby Brightsmith told me when I moved to the South Side of Chicago from La Petite Haïti with Manmi was to run like a scalded dog if I ever saw zonbi la in the half dark on the way home from school. See, when Bobby […]

Harlequin Moon by Jennifer Hykes The man called Dirt was a master of riddles. It was his only gift. He was not a riddler himself. From the time he could speak, he always called things exactly what they were and nothing else. He had tried, once or twice in his childhood, to craft a joke […]

O Cul-de-Sac! by Tim Major   O neighbours! If only we might speak! Do you feel as I feel? Do you think as I think? Here we are, all crouching in our circle, so close to one another. It is maddening. I see your people come and go. I hear snippets of their conversations. They […]

Aurum & Indigo By LP Kindred   Aurum sits on a wooden stool, hunched over the oakwood bar, stained darker by shellac and low lights. In spite of them, he stares into his book while a second lies closed atop the bar. His feet dangle, kicking softly. Eyes rake over words but their meaning never […]

The One They Took Before by Kelly Sandoval   Rift opened in my backyard. About six feet tall and one foot wide. Appears to open onto a world of endless twilight and impossible beauty. Makes a ringing noise like a thousand tiny bells. Call (206) 555-9780 to identify. Kayla reads the listing twice, knowing the […]

Piety, Prayer, Peacekeeper, Apocalypse by Rati Mehrotra Soru Khara had been hunting her death for many years before she arrived at the crumbling old port of Tyron. She camouflaged her skimmer and stalked up to the rusty gates as the sun set over the citadel, the fishy tang of the sea sharp in her nostrils. […]

The Music on the Hill by Saki   Sylvia Seltoun ate her breakfast in the morning-room at Yessney with a pleasant sense of ultimate victory, such as a fervent Ironside might have permitted himself on the morrow of Worcester fight. She was scarcely pugnacious by temperament, but belonged to that more successful class of fighters […]

The Stars That Fall by Samantha Murray   When Sara asks me if I want to go doom-spotting I say yes. Of course I say yes. The Edge Lookout is dark and rocky and romantic, and I usually say yes to anything Sara suggests. And I’ve been addicted to doom-hunting ever since I was nine […]

We Are All of Us by Deborah L. Davitt   They wore white armor, sleek and chitinous — not the white of chalk, but the white of bone peeking through the skin of a mummy. The white of a grub writhing in black river soil. They dwelled in the deep desert, where few of the […]

Sungrass Girl by Uchechukwu Nwaka   My first memory of the Light is her face. Her round eyes that swelled in curious wonder and innocent inquisition. I remember the way the light from the incandescent bulb fell on her face, outlining her dark skin in paint strokes of shimmering gold that twinkled right into her […]

[Note: This is Part 3 of a three-part novelette. Visit our previous posts to read Part 1 and Part 2.]   ALIZARIN CRIMSON   I’m still fighting the ultramarine depths of despair some fifteen years later, when I meet Joshua at the Club DeLisa. We get to talking, a fragmented conversation to fill the space […]

[Note: This is Part 2 of a three-part novelette. Visit our previous post to read Part 1.] Colors of the Immortal Palette by Caroline M. Yoachim   COBALT BLUE   I paint the English Channel at Étretat, shortly after sunrise. The sun is a fiery vermillion and the water shimmers cobalt blue. It is roughly […]

Colors of the Immortal Palette by Caroline M. Yoachim   LEAD WHITE   I will always remember the view of Paris from his window. Snow, pure and untouched, softens the outline of the buildings and covers the grime of the streets. White, the color of beginnings. His canvas is primed and ready to be painted, […]

A Beautiful Memory by Shannon Peavey   On Thursday, a windsor-knotted businessman paid Anna three times her normal asking price for a quartet of thought-birds. She normally sold two at a time, because their growth was so slow. But he insisted. A bird of each flavor: contentment, melancholy, joy, fury. “A few of the guys […]

I Will You Back to Time and Space by Dafydd McKimm   You are ten years unborn on the evening of the day that will soon become known as G-day. I am washing dishes in the kitchen of our newly bought terrace, cleaning the residue of dinner from our finest boot-sale porcelain. I bring two […]

Ribbons by Natalia Theodoridou   Monday’s lover tugs at Jan’s ribbon with his teeth. Jan doesn’t yell at the lover to stop. The guy just received bad news from the front — a friend lost to a bomb, perhaps, a sibling blown to bits; Jan doesn’t ask. He tells the lover, instead, to be careful: […]

The Morning House By Kate Heartfield   “This B&B is frankly unacceptable,” Dad says. “I want to go home.” Sylvia freezes, runs through all the things she shouldn’t say. You are home, Dad. No, don’t argue. Never argue. Rule number one. Don’t dismiss. Get into his world, because he can’t get into yours. Don’t you […]