The spring she was thirteen, Annie taught herself to see dragons. She sat by the window in the hospital and looked out at the soft, strange Smoky Mountains, and the spreading gossamer haze that rose off them, and the white rucked clouds above. “I thought the old dragon was too mean to die,” her father …

“Goodbye!” “Bye, Miss Ninah!” “Goodbye, goodbye!” Ninah stood at the door, watching the kids head off to their parents in other parts of the ship. When the last one had vanished, she wheeled back into the classroom, ready for the bittersweet weekly ritual of taking down the art projects. The preschool classroom was small, carved …

There are people who await their ending, in their own beds, ready for the dust to sneak into their rooms and pantries, bedrooms and basements, to lie upon the old blankets, to fill their nostrils, …

Out there, in the darkness, a huge invisible animal stretched, expanding, taking possession of the air, the water, the fragile rock structure. A sudden blow, like the breath that extinguishes a can…

Scarlett accidentally wakes the dead in the bottom of a coat closet, with a half-naked boy pressed against her and a bottle of tequila she’s too drunk to drink.

They say they want you to catch the man in the moon, So they have you lay back and unravel your braid And look up.

Papi has joked before about buying a gun and shooting down the vultures: “una escopeta,” he says as he holds an imaginary gun aimed at the birds whose feathers adorn my bedroom window, “y PUM! desa…

The first thing I noticed about the boys was their eyes. Not their dark-skinned chests, arms glistening with moisture in the beach sun. Not the gold or silver teeth that winked in their smiles. Not…

This is a story about the myths built into our spines. You and I are chatting about work one evening in early September, the conversation of friends who, two decades after meeting in high school, still can’t quite grasp how to shoulder the weight of our world. Perhaps we both would rather talk about the …

With thanks to Stephanie Burgis, Fran Wilde and Kate Elliott It was a large, magnificent room with intricate patterns of ivy branches on the tiles, and a large mirror above a marble fireplace, the mantlepiece crammed with curios from delicate silver bowls to Chinese blue-and-white porcelain figures: a clear statement of casual power, to leave …

Computron feels no emotion towards the animated television show titled Hyperdimension Warp Record (超次元 ワープ レコード). After all, Computron does not have any emotion circuits installed, and is thus constitutionally incapable of experiencing “excitement,” “hatred,” or “frustration.” It is completely impossible for Computron to experience emotions such as “excitement about the seventh episode of HyperWarp,” …

1. October 31, 11:57 p.m. McKenzie shows up at the Spruce Street Guest House a few minutes before midnight, dressed all in black as if she’s some kind of ninja. She’s even got a black stocking cap pulled over her blond hair, which is sticking out from the bottom in a luminous sheet and ruining …

Vivian’s late grandmother was a witch—which is just a way of saying she was a woman of unusual insight. Vivian, in contrast, had a mind like a hi-tech blender. She was sharp and purposeful, but she did not understand magic. This used to be a problem. Magic ran in the family. Even her mother’s second …

Fifty-three percent: Water. Tasteless, odorless, almost colorless blue. A single oxygen atom with open arms, clasping hydrogen twins. The universal solvent, creating the specific you. Eighteen-and-a-half percent: Carbon. As graphite, soft enough to mark paper. In diamond, hard enough to withstand the pressure of six million atmospheres. In your body, the respiration of thirty-seven trillion …

Erika went west by bus until the names on the signs began to look alien and the other passengers spoke in a lilting dialect that was hard to understand. The bus climbed switchback roads up from the dry steppe and into verdant hills, gradually emptying of people until Erika was the only passenger. The bus …

Sunday, 1 September 1918 A Depot, A.P.O.S. 17, B.E.F. France Dearest of all Friends, There’s no sense being cross with me—you know better than most that an officer can’t give orders and then blame the soldier for carrying them out. And more’s the pity if that officer issued contradictory orders in the first place. You …

Summers in Shenzhen Bay last ten months. Mangrove swamps surround the bay like congealed blood. Year after year, they shrink and rot, like the rust-colored night that hides many crimes.

Entrance There’s a ticket booth on my tongue. Don’t look in my eyes, don’t plead curiosity, you won’t get anywhere with that. Try it and you’ll see your reflection in my sea-green gaze: your shadow sprinting through the heavy glass doors. You’ll smell a whiff of brine, perhaps something more volatile. You’ll be caught and …

Chapter 4 “But they’re going to kill you,” the woman said. Harkim sighed at her silhouette. “Of course they are,” he replied. Chapter 2 The car lurched again. Harkim looked up from his agent’s face on the backseat screen, wondering what on earth was wrong with his driver. “Luketon? Have you been at the …

For Jill and Julia Rios Emma Anne had a tin can attached by a string to her belt. Lots of things on strings bounced and banged from it: some useful (like the pocket knife), some decorative (a length of red ribbon longer than herself, looped up), some that simply seemed interesting enough to warrant a …

In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu farts in his sleep. If you’re dank like me, you gibber up the Old Fuck’s brainspout, crouch in there full gargoyle on his raggedy roof, wrap your gash around the slime-lung chimney, and huff that vast and loathsome shit like the space-curdled milk of your mama’s million terror-tits. …

Down on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, there’s a little bar called Cooney’s. It’s an old bar, with a tin ceiling and carved-up tables and a floor you don’t want to look at too hard and no air-conditioning to break up the historic atmosphere of stale beer and dusty upholstery and unwashed hair. No …

The black birthmark on his right cheek also changed, though it always looked like something that had fallen from a basket of produce. At first, it looked like a carrot, then later a cucumber. Its t…

It’s true that when anyone asks me what I’m doing here I get flustered, but given time I can make it all seem most appealing: I scatter flour on the work surface; I shape the dough before sliding i…

The directives for this were in our/my banks before our/my consciousness was. Simple instinct to unfurl the durable panels, like old sails, we/i always remind ourselves/myself. Simple instinct to g…

He stood with his back to us in his black trousers and white shirt, washing his hands. Flies crawled over the worktop and flitted into the pot of rice and peas on his stove. Mum and I exchanged a g…

I am undressed but it won’t matter soon enough, and besides, this era has retained its wise and founded fear of nude women appearing beside bodies of water, even ones as ancient and ugly as myself.…

Across the grainy darkness of the metal crate, white block letters are clearly visible: WENDIGO.

All women dream of rescuing Napoleon. For less ambitious girls, it is only a passing fancy. They imagine sailing across the Atlantic on a stolen ship, their hair flowing behind them like a flag. Na…