Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold by S.B. Divya   My parents taught me to lie as soon as I could speak. Before I knew the meaning of the words, before I understood heat or fire, and long before I felt the pain of singed flesh, I learned to tell strangers that I burned myself by […]

The Somnambulant by Sam W. Pisciotta   The moon sits plump within a windowpane as if plucked from the sky and framed for safekeeping. Bound by forces beyond our control, the moon and I share a yearning to pull free. I touch my finger on the icy glass and dream of leaving this place. But […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

An Anklet Broken by Chaitanya Murali   There is a man I am meant to love. He is the son of a sea-merchant, wealthy and well-connected. A friend of Karikalan, the Chola King. And this man is my husband and a wastrel. A sin it is for me to say these words, think these thoughts, […]

The Greenhouse Bargain by Tanya Aydelott He sent my mother’s ghost to deliver the terms of the bargain. I accepted; there was no choice. When I asked what to expect, she said, Ten good years. The Whipstitch Man had visited me twice, once to take my sister and once to collect my mother. The second time, […]

Scales By M. Stevenson The boy stands at the edge of the forest, bare toes digging into the cold loam. Mist curls between the trees like the breath of a living thing. As if the woods are alive. Monsters live in this forest, so it’s said. Demons of scales and teeth and fur, creatures that […]

Biographical Notes to “A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-planes” by Benjamin Rosenbaum by Benjamin Rosenbaum It is true that I had not accepted Prem Ramasson’s offer of employment — indeed, that he had not seemed to find it necessary to actually ask. It is true also that I am a man of […]

La Vitesse By Kelly Robson   March 2, 1983, 30 kilometers southwest of Hinton, Alberta “Rosie,” Bea said under her breath, but the old school bus’s wheels were rumbling over gravel, and her daughter didn’t hear. Rosie was slumped in the shotgun seat, eyes closed. She hadn’t moved since Bea had herded her onto La […]

Of the Body By Eugenia Triantafyllou     When Osarah and I finally lie sweaty in our bed that night, I know that when the three moons align we will have a baby. Osarah looks back at me. Smiling. The wetness of her face is lined by the cold light of the moon shining outside […]

The Girl Who Never Was Harold R. Thompson   I met Kate Krimple at a downtown coffee shop. Kate’s new children’s book was called Tayo and the Wolves, about a dog who claims to have lived with wolves for a week. I was to provide the cover and interior illustrations. This was the first time […]

As part of our 15th anniversary celebrations, we want to gather recommendations from you, our listeners, for favourite stories from our archive. We’ll read selected recommendations out at the end of our shows through the end of 2023; you just need to complete this short form, anonymously if you prefer, and we’ll take it into […]

The evolution of trickster stories among the dogs of North Park after the Change by Kij Johnson (It’s a universal fantasy, isn’t it?—that the animals learn to speak, and at last we learn what they’re thinking, our cats and dogs and horses: a new era in cross-species understanding. But nothing ever works out quite as […]

The Captive River By C.T. Muchemwa   It was Siba’s eighteenth birthday, but instead of having a party to celebrate, she was standing by the Zambezi River in a thin, white, cotton slip, shivering despite the hot October sun. It was Commitment Day, the day she would be given to Nyami Nyami, the River God, […]

Black Feather by K. Tempest Bradford Exactly one year before she saw the raven, Brenna began to dream of flying.  Sometimes she was in a plane, sometimes she was in a bird, sometimes she was just herself–surrounded by sky, clouds, and too-thin-to-breathe air.  In the dark, in the light, over cities and oceans and fields, she flew.  Every night […]

A Thousand Echoes in One Voice by Deborah L. Davitt   You’ve snuck through doors that should have been locked to get here. Here, the subway station is silent, the kind of silence that comes deep underground, isolated from the hum of the human hive overhead. No electric lights. No neon. No vibrations. No voices. […]

Never Yawn Under a Banyan Tree By Nibedita Sen The moment I swallowed the pret, I knew I should have taken my grandmother’s advice. Never yawn under a banyan tree, she used to warn me. A ghost might jump down your throat. Well touché, grandma. I’m sure you’re shaking your head at me in heaven, but consider this: Was […]

A Girl Is Blood, Spirit, and Fire by Somto Ihezue   Scattering through the bushes, blades of elephant grass swaying high above her, Njika could see the Sanctuary etched into the mountainside — she only had to reach it. Across the shifting streams and the trees once men, she made it to the mountain’s foot, […]

The Morthouse by Maria Haskins   In her forty-two years on God’s wide Earth, Gerda has read no books other than The Bible and Luther’s Small Catechism, but once, after Sunday service, she heard the sexton say that there are places where the dead traverse a river after death, paying a boatsman to ferry them across the water. Gerda […]

Yung Lich and the Dance of Death By Alex Fox   My Christian name was Thomas Kanfor but ever since that bastard wizard rose me from the grave I go by Yung Lich. On that moonless night he spoke some words from a tattered grimoire over my naked, somewhat-recently-dead corpse and voila, here I am. […]

Mama uat-ur By Z. K. Abraham   Pressing her forearms against the first-floor window’s metal frame, Temesghen watched aegean-blue waves splash against the concrete walls, searching for another flash of the being’s presence in the sea below. The stars were partially shrouded by the clouds; the sky was a milky greenish swirl like rotting leaves and […]

Wapnintu’tijig: They Sang Until Dawn By Tiffany Morris   In the time of fever, the marks of the animals changed. Waterbirds shone with new radiance: a bright blue iridescence clung to their feathers, glimmering, soaked with the sacred oil of daylight. Their language changed along with their plumage: the chirrup chirrup from their open beaks […]