Stories

Flight by Charlie Sorrenson   Now They are coming out of the woods when Mateo grabs one of Maggie’s wings and tugs, hard. This has long been his way of getting her attention and she has always let him do it, wanting to be a good mother, reminding herself that this is a phase, that […]

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 […]

The Book of May By C. S. E. Cooney and Carlos Hernandez From: Morgan W. Jamwant To: Harry Najinsky Date: January 22, 2015 12:58:59 p.m. est Subject: Death Is the Tree Eliazar, Dude. I wanna be a tree when I die. Make them put me into one of those urn-y things. The biodegradable ones with the seed […]

Squalor and Sympathy by Matt Dovey Anna concentrated on the cold, on the freezing water around her feet and the bruising sensation in her toes. So cold. So cold. So cold, she thought. A prickling warmth like pins and needles crackled inside her feet. It coursed through her body to her clenched hands and into the lead alloy […]

Housing Problem by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner   Jacqueline said it was a canary, but I contended that there were a couple of lovebirds in the covered cage. One canary could never make that much fuss. Besides, I liked to think of crusty old Mr. Henchard keeping lovebirds; it was so completely inappropriate. But […]

Quest of the Starstone – Part Two by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner Yarol landed on his feet like the cat he was, gun still gripped and ready, black eyes blinking in the starry dark. Smith, hampered by the terrified Jirel, sank with nightmare ease to the ground and rebounded a little from its sponginess. […]

D.I.Y. By John Wiswell   People ask how Noah could possibly turn down the Ozymandias Academy. All they know about him is the headlines, and they think he’s ungrateful. What you don’t get is that attending Ozymandias was Noah’s dream. Noah wanted it worse than anyone. Do you know where he was when he was […]

Amma’s Kitchen by Rati Mehrotra   I can always tell what dish my customers will order. Knowing what the dead crave is my gift. Or my curse. It’s hard to know which. This girl, for instance. Brown, like me, but pale, as if the color’s been leeched out of her skin. Dark, staring eyes, weeds […]

Against All Odds By Anna Mikhalevskaya Translated by Elvira Rizaeva   Time is slipping away drop by drop, along with sweat on deceptively calm faces. He runs through the shafts of stairs, through abandoned tunnels. Seeps through the ceilings into echoing hangars, stumbles upon crooked figures, shakes oilcloth curtains, rolls empty mugs, beats metal on […]

The Golem Lover by J.H. Siegal     I have learned of a lace that runs through my little village. Geilevska, nestled within the bosom of nearby hills, rests upon these strands, sewn around the fertile patchwork of letters learned in the men’s yeshiva, through the words traded by merchants, beneath the whispers of the […]

The Sound of Children Screaming by Rachael K. Jones     THE GUN   You know the one about the Gun. The Gun goes where it wants to. On Thursday morning just after recess, the Gun will walk through the front doors of Thurman Elementary, and it won’t sign in at the front office or […]

Pirates by E.F. Benson     For many years this project of sometime buying back the house had simmered in Peter Graham’s mind, but whenever he actually went into the idea with practical intention, stubborn reasons had presented themselves to deter him. In the first place it was very far off from his work, down […]

The Aunties Return the Ocean By Chris Kuriata Auntie Roberta landed badly on the roof of her escarpment house, scraping her knees across the flagstone shingles and splitting her pantyhose. Her arms were too full of black water to keep her balance so she nearly slid off the edge. She carried so much ocean she […]

The Mountain and the Vulture by Nick Douglas   “High in the North in a land called Svithjod there is a mountain. It is a hundred miles long and a hundred miles high and once every thousand years a little bird comes to this mountain to sharpen its beak. When the mountain has thus been […]