Fiction

Fantasy

Mother Carey’s Table

My father says he’s saved my life nine times. Once at my birth, once when we fled master and overseer through rows of struggling tobacco beneath a sky choked with stars, and the other seven paid out over all our years before the masts of ten different ships. The oldest two I must take at his word, as I have no memory of either. The first of the seven was the time Pop shut me below when I thought to skip up the rigging to the topmost yard of the Barbry Allen in a near gale off Barbados, the decks awash and the sea yawning up before us.

In July 2019 (Issue 110)

Science Fiction

Miles and Miles and Miles

by Andrew Penn Romine

Author spotlight

Noah Stubbs eyes the large white pill pinched between his thumb and forefinger, remembering the first time he hit golf balls on the moon with Gord. “I wonder,” Gord says to him as Noah lines up on the tee, “just how far these suckers’ll really go?” THWACK! Noah swings. The little ball hurtles into the Lunar day, a pinprick of speeding light bright against the velvet sky. Long after the ball becomes invisible to the naked eye, his suit’s visor tracks its trajectory until it drops towards the ground. They parked the hopper at the top of the Virgo Escarpment.

In July 2019 (Issue 110)

Fantasy

Sand Castles

by Adam-Troy Castro

Author spotlight

They met day-drinking. It was cold and wet, not quite raining but threatening to, in the way that storms do even when they don’t then intend on getting on with it; and though they each might have spent the day in a bar anyway, this one lent itself to being spent indoors and the atmosphere just kind of lent itself to drinking. It was late morning when they began, the first customers in a small-town corner joint that still smelled of the night before. They were at opposite ends of the bar and what with one thing or another they struck up a conversation.

In July 2019 (Issue 110)

Science Fiction

The Mysteries

by Karen Lord

“Light, dust, and water are the alchemy of the universe.” Ritual words murmured softly by myriad voices, powerful as a roar, effortless as a whisper. “I will consent to be made and unmade.” An initiate must never walk in. Many elders raise the cocooned body high upon their hands and process into the open space, to lasers alight in a pin-and-string arrangement of bright green on dark velvet. “To burn to ash and dissolve in dew.” The elders guide the still, surrendered form up and into the core of the lattice of light. “I am but dust and ashes; for me the world was created.”

In July 2019 (Issue 110)

Fantasy

Song Beneath the City

by Micah Dean Hicks

For decades, the four plumbers had answered the call of old widows who’d dropped jewelry down their drains. Sometimes, the plumbers unscrewed the U-shaped trap under the sink, knocked out its splat of tobacco-colored crud, and fished out a golden ring. But other times, there was no reclaiming the lost diamonds and gold. They tumbled blind through the maze of pipes below the city, never to see the sun again. Whenever the plumbers left a house, the widows would ask, “Do you hear it too? The singing that comes rattling up from the pipes?”

In July 2019 (Issue 110)

Science Fiction

The Null Space Conundrum

by Violet Allen

Author spotlight

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” screams Aria. Her voice goes up raspily at the end of the exclamation, giving her the affect of a mewling cat, and she is embarrassed by the profound uncoolness of such a tone. She slams her fists on the Versa’s console to compensate, to physically demonstrate the depth and seriousness of her anger, causing the subtelar ship to rock violently in the warpwake. Don’t judge her; Aria Astra is usually a very cool person. She likes good food and knows a bunch about film and uses lots of swears and has great fashions.

Illustrated by Sam Schechter

In July 2019 (Issue 110)

Fantasy

Unpublished Gay Cancer Survivor Memoir

by Caspian Gray

Author spotlight

Sydney’s cellphone rang and she ignored it, on the grounds that it was either her mother or news that someone had died, and either way she was too high to handle it. Her phone went quiet, then started ringing again, and anxiety clawed at her belly and then up her spine. Maybe someone wasn’t dead, maybe they were just dying, and if she ignored this call she’d miss her chance to say goodbye at the hospital. Everyone else would be there, and she’d be the only asshole who hadn’t made it in time.

In June 2019 (Issue 109)

Science Fiction

Warhosts

by Yoon Ha Lee

The Warhosts sit in the lees of the starships while the sky grows less flushed with dawn, playing cards. At the same time, the regulators within the Red emissary and our own play their own game across a moist medium of flesh, chemical brew, and stench to determine where the next battle will be fought. We—the Purples—have been fighting the Reds for possession of this moon, jigsaw piece by slow jigsaw piece, as deliberately as a pavane or carved ice. The Reds have grown increasingly desperate. The moon has a certain strategic importance, and the Reds are very close to having to cede it entirely.

In June 2019 (Issue 109)

Fantasy

When Two Swordsmen Meet

by Ellen Kushner

When two swordsmen meet, no one knows what to expect. It’s a cold night in a cold city. Cold stone under cold starlight. He walks down a deserted street, sure of himself, sure of the weapon he bears. He’s not altogether surprised when the stranger steps out of the shadows. “Hey,” he says to the newcomer. “You hungry? I’m going to friends with a fire and a big pot always bubbling on it.” By which we see that it’s not just his sword that defends him, whatever he may think. The other stands very still. “You’re not what I thought you’d be,” he says flatly. “Why not?” the swordsman asks, curious.

In June 2019 (Issue 109)

Science Fiction

The Harvest of a Half-Known Life

by G.V. Anderson

Author spotlight

I’ll never forget the taste of my mother’s marrow. I think of it now, as I rub oil into the stiff, cracking heels of my shoes: how I scooped it still warm from the bone, like pale butter. How it lingered in my teeth for days after the harvesting. And I think further back, as I often do lately, to the way her hands jerked and fluttered close to her bony chest before she passed. She was too weak to shape her signs properly so I can only guess their meaning. Perhaps I’ve guessed wrong—Aefha thinks so—but I can’t forget. Follow the ghosts.

In June 2019 (Issue 109)