What’s in a Name
“What do you mean, ‘no?’” I said. “We have a deal. I kept my end, now you have to keep yours.” She showed me the face of a willful child. “I’m not doing it.” Then she turned her back and summoned the royal guards.
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Fantasy Fiction
Look at the Moon
We drove out to Joshua Tree for the star party—a gathering of amateur astronomers under a clear, dark sky. It was Holly’s idea, an impromptu adventure on a Friday after work: “Hey, Lou, do you want to go look at the moon tonight?”
Mud Maidens Rise
At first, it was the not-quite-hidden things. Worms suspended from sticky silk, tree-trapping the unwary. Glassine jointed lines, half-helical, hardly seen vitreous shadows. Diamonds caught in fallen leaves.
Between Above and Below
Next war, the angel decided, he was going to sit out. Before the dust settled, before hosts rose and fell depending on their actions and inclinations, he fled. Cowardice, maybe. More like pragmatism, he rationalized.
A Guide on How to Meet the Deity of Many Faces
Here’s a list of items/materials you need for this journey. Please note that these items vary from the purpose of your meeting. Below is a breakdown. — If you have suffered hurt from a miscreant, plunderer, been swindled in trade, or assaulted in any manner, this section is for you. Buy either a three-month-old native brown broiler or a seven-year-old he-goat.
The Red Queen’s Heart
Anything can be bought or sold at the Night Market. A dozen hummingbird tongues curled like tiny snails, basted in honey and chili oil and served on a silver tray. A mermaid’s song, caught in an antique bottle of smoked glass. A gleaming dagger carved from the ivory of the last true unicorn-whale. Gowns of moonlight and mist, trimmed with sea-foam lace. The lost diaries of one’s youth.
Songs of the Sorrow of Thorns
The ballads of grief are sung in the moonlight. You were a minute old when you knew this story predates your mother’s mother’s mother’s birth. But the knowledge within was older still, notched inside you like food through the umbilical cord. And there it had coiled since you were but a seed, pulsating under your navel and releasing into the air on the sharp crescendo of your first cry on the eighth of Shaʽbān. The window panes shattered. The town mourned.
The Weight of Salt
We’ve never been so busy. The cave where we work used to be calm and, if not entirely devoid of sound, then split only by the crash of waves at high tide and the occasional cry of a woman who didn’t listen when we said listen this will hurt this will hurt this will hurt.
In the Hands of the Mountain God
The towering granite shoulders of the mountain god braced against the blue heavens above. Eero’s eyes remained closed beneath his glacial mask, his body swathed in a cloak of green trees. Halfway up the mountain’s body, jutting out of a gray cliff, stretched his wide, verdigrised hands.
An Otherworldly Cat Tells You the Secrets of the Universe
There are a near-infinite number of strange and marvelous worlds in this Universe, and in all of them there are Cats. I see that you are an ordinary person and not a Cat; thus, I can ascertain that you know very little about the Universe.
