The Journal of Mythic Arts: Fiction

Half Flight by Shweta Narayan

The boy with one wing does not fall asleep. He rises into sleep, lifts into sleep, sleeps high, high above the muck and drizzle. In sleep he soars over rippled clouds, wrapped in clean and comforting sky. The ground is an occasional patch of brown and green below. Until he wakes.

She has caught him in nettles and his feathers are falling, falling out.

The swan with one arm falls awake.

The boy with one wing loves his sister, who spun and wove and sewed for him, voiceless as any swan. The boy with one wing understands primogeniture, understands why he was last, understands that she loves him no less for that. The boy with one wing likes to wrap that wing around his sister, a hug like a cloak...More>>>

About the author: Shweta Narayan is a writer, academic, and cultural crazy–quilt. She was born in India and lived in Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, The Netherlands, and Scotland before moving to California, and she grew up reading folk tales and fairy tales from all over the world...More>>>

La Serenissima by Catherynne M. Valente

 

I remember, when I must remember anything, that it was always wet. Never since I was a girl did my feet grace a stair but that the embroidery of my shoes was soaked through, red thread to black, green to black, blue to black: rain–sodden, rimmed with street–mold. The doused hems of my skirts lapped behind me, leaving a trail of old rain, and I moved through the city like an exotic snail. I wore combs of bronze crab–claws in my hair, which was even then more silver than blonde, and on my fingers were knuckle–rings of coral, and around my waist was ever a belt of pearls. Yet still I walked alone on those jagged streets and no man would hinder me, for the snail of Venice moved through her city in the days of the eleventh Doge, the Idiot Soldier, who could neither read nor write, who compressed an incomprehensible cosmos of parchment beneath his great silver seal, and who was also my father. He called me Uliva, for the endless dusty groves of olives that waved in the sea wind, and it is Uliva who writes these things, who writes these things in the dark, upon strips of birch bark flattened with iron, who writes these things in cuttlefish–ink and sturgeon blood, whose shoes are now brighter than any she owned on the canal–bridges, but still wet, as wet as they have ever been.... More>>>

The Green Children by Kevin Brockmeier

 

They say I was the first to touch them. When the reapers found the children in the wolf–pits — a boy and a girl, their skin the pale flat green of wilting grass — they shuddered and would not lay hands on them, prodding them across the fields with the handles of their scythes. I watched them approach from my stone on the bank of the river. The long, curving blades of the scythes sent up flashes of light that dazzled my eyes and made me doubt what I was seeing — a boy and a girl holding fast to each other's garments, twisting them nervously between their green fingers, their green faces turned to the sun. The reapers nudged and jabbed at them until they came to a stop at my side, where the river's green water lapped at their shoes. I allowed myself to stare.... More>>>

The Daughter of the Sun by Carolyn Dunn

 

I could read her mind, sitting here across the room from her, her back turned to me, shutting me apart from her life and the blood that flows within. God, I love this woman, I'm thinking. If I sit next to her long enough I pale in her shadow, become less human in her light.

Or her darkness. She's that dusky maiden, that child of darkness they insist we all are, that near–extinct noble savage living in tipis and hunting buffalo. Carlisle Emmanuel, a real life Cherokee princess. Living with a Muskogee half–blood, me, Wesley Harjo Jr.

The dominant culture resents us Indians for still living. The only good Indian is a dead Indian, General Sheridan once said. "Holocaust never happened here," Mrs. Heller told me in 11th grade history class. "There was no such thing as genocide against American Indians. I should know. I'm an historian."

"Well, Mrs. Heller," I said, "I'm an Indian. It did happen." Needless to say, I didn't pass U.S. History in 11th grade.

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The Boy Who Was Born Wrapped in Barbed Wire by Christopher Barzak

There was once a boy who was born wrapped in barbed wire. The defect was noticed immediately after his birth, when the doctor had to snip the boy's umbilical cord with wire cutters. But elsewhere, too, the wire curled out of the boy's flesh, circling his arms and legs, his tiny torso. They didn't cause him pain, these metal spikes that grew out of the round hills of his body, although due to the dangerous nature of his birth, his mother had lost a great amount of blood during labor. After delivery, the nurse laid the boy in his mother's arms, careful to show her the safe places to hold him. And before her last breath left her, she managed to tell her son these words: "Bumblebees fly anyway, my love...." More>>>

The Princess and the Ghost by Jessie Suk Roy

There once was a princess," Rose says, "who was under a curse from the very day she was born. She grew to be seventeen and was very beautiful, but the curse made her prick her finger on a — a funny spinning thing like a rose thorn, and fall asleep." Rose doesn't know what the spinning thing was called, but it hardly matters. She still remembers the prick and the sudden dizziness as clearly as if it were yesterday.

"When she woke up, she was trapped inside a tower with only a white rose for company — the only white rose in the world. So every day she watered it and waited for her prince to come. All around the tower grew hundreds of wild thorny rosebushes whose thorns killed anyone who tried to pass. But after a hundred years had passed, a prince with a heart as pure as a white rose came riding by. He, too, tried to reach the tower, and because his heart was so pure the roses bloomed for him and let him pass safely."

Ah, the ghost says, recognizing his own part in the story. And what then?

"The princess," Rose says, then catches herself. "I don't remember," she lies... >More>>>

Briar Rose by Kim Antieau

She opened her eyes to white and realized she knew nothing. The nurse was white, too.

"Good morning, sugar," the nurse said. "Do you know who you are?"

She shook her head and wondered where the window was. Maybe if she saw the sunlight, maybe if she saw the world really existed, she would know. Silly thought. The world existed. It was she, she was certain, who was not supposed to be.

"Turn over," the nurse said. Her voice was as pretty as anything she could remember. Though that wasn't much. She turned over. The nurse threw off the covers and pulled up her hospital gown. "Lookie here, girl," the nurse said. "Maybe that will jar your memory."

She looked down at her own bare ass, twisting her head and arching her back. A small rose bloomed on her white butt, its red petals surrounded by a crown of thorns.... More>>>

Going Ironside by Holly Black

La lala la. That's part of the song. I don't remember it all right now, but it's okay. Cally remembers the rest. So we can go back to the hill soonsoonsoon. La la. When our bellies are big as moons. Then Bucan Jack will play his fiddle and there'll be nettle wine and the Queen will ask me to tell this story a hundred hundred times.

But right now, the wall is cold against my back and I can feel the bricks shredding the gold lami off my skirt. La lala la. The rain is cold too. Making my mascara run. I jam my hands in the pockets of my jacket, feeling the grit and the nasty tissues at the bottom.

I do a little dance, but nobody sees.

When we first came Ironside, we tried to make money out of leaves, but we didn't know what money looked like and we did it wrong. The lady at the counter started yelling, "This is Monopoly money!" Her getting red in the face just made us laugh. We thought we were so smart. We stole everything right under people's noses. Plastic skirts and dolls and lipsticks. Piles of magazines and apples with a bitter, chemical taste.

Food was the hardest. The milk tasted like iron and even the bread was bad. But now we eat caramel corn and licorice and Jolly Ranchers until we're sick.... More>>>

Cassie Says by Gwenda Bond

...The vision happens as soon as I touch the metal.

Storm clouds swim across the sky with violent speed. Lightning strikes near Dad's feet, too near. He's soaked with rain, but running, running hard enough that he doesn't look up; he doesn't hear it coming until the roar seems more like a sound effect than reality.

The funnel cloud swirls like water going down a drain. It's right there, diving toward him and the soggy green of the golf course. He gasps for breath, even though the wind is all around him. . .

I drop the club. It bashes his foot.

"Are you trying to kill me?"

He's still playing around. It didn't hurt that much. Not like what's going to happen to him.... More>>>

Cooling by Elizabeth Genco

   

Fire is my friend, and it has been this way for as long as I can remember. Everyone said that my mom had fire in her, and that she passed a little of that fire on to me. Even my dad, when he said anything to me at all. So after the mucous pooled in her lungs, drowning her from the inside out, and after they set her in the damp earth, deep where the fire could never go, the flames inside me rose up. It was only right that they got their share of what was left.

This is exactly how she would have wanted it. Don't go trying to tell me otherwise....  More>>>

The Tale of the Mountain King and His Sky Bride by O.R. Melling

   

When springtime thawed the white frost of winter and everything living bridled with new joy, the Mountain King's people would call out to him.

"Will you not marry?" chirmed the birds.

"Will you not take a wife?" hummed the bees.

It was a question they always asked and one to which his answer never wavered.

"I am waiting..."  More>>>

Bittersweet by Steve Berman

 

The boys ordered the greatest hot drink ever meant for a glass: Vietnamese coffee. The base of ivory condensed milk. The top of so–brown–it's–black chicory coffee. The boys marveled at the dichotomy. Only one coffee shop in Philly offered their favorite. Posters and flyers covered nearly every wall. The latest single from the Red Caps, a remix of "Hungry Like the Wolf," way overplayed, hung in the air.

Dault watched Jerrod tip his glass, the lip pale from steam. Doughy and pale, Jerrod didn't like to break margins. He must have been the first kid to color within the lines. The sort that regretted spooning peanut butter first from the jar.

"Would you date a gingerbread man?" Dault asked. The distraction afforded him the chance to plunge a spoon into his own glass and stir.... >More>>>>

Red Rock by Terri Windling

This is a hard land. Breeds hard women," Creek tells me. He likes pronouncements like this, eyes narrowed Clint Eastwood style, a cigarette dangling from the side of his mouth. His angelic face betrays his youth, so he hides it behind long red dreadlocks. He blows out smoke and floors the truck through the hairpin turns of a mountain road. He steers with one hand, casually, as though it's all under control.

The land around us is hard and dry. A forest has grown from this unlikely soil. Live oak. Sycamore. Cottonwood. Pine. He names them all as we fly past and I think: So it's true then. He comes from this place. It's not just another bullshit story.... More>>>

The Shape of Things by Ellen Steiber

    

Nonie tells me she's going to die. "I'm going to go out soon," she says. She sounds perfectly casual, like she's telling me she's going to the store.

"You're crazy," I say.

She gives me this sad smile. "I wish. Look, I don't know how it's going to happen. Or when. I just know I'm not going to be here much longer...."

Nonie can tell certain things like that. She sees things other people don't. Ever since we met, when we were five, we've played this game that Nonie made up. It's called The Shape of Things, and what you do is try to see the shapes hidden inside.... More>>>

The Thief of Dreams by Will Shetterly

   

A tiger dreamed of gazelles running free across the plains. Then the tiger woke, its dream gone. It saw a gazelle and leaped upon it to make the gazelle its breakfast.

A serpent dreamed of a city overgrown by the jungle. Its walls were strong, and its wells were full of cool, clear water. A child came. The serpent told it, "I guard this city for you and your people. Take it, grow strong, and help others."

Then the serpent woke, its dream gone. A child passed nearby, walking toward the city. The serpent sank its fangs into the child's ankle.... More>>>

The Man Who Owned the Moon by Celia Bell

There once lived, in a city by the sea, an old man who owned the moon and kept it in little glass jar on the top shelf of his closet. Every night he fetched the moon down from the closet and set it on his windowsill before going to bed, and every morning at dawn he dusted off the glass jar and, with the aid of a three–legged step stool, returned the moon to its place on the closet's top shelf.

It had never occurred to the old man that there was anything at all strange in keeping the moon at the back of a closet. He did not show the moon to visitors, but then he had few, and had never been of a boastful disposition. The moon was no heirloom in his family: he had bought it from a traveling salesman who had whistled old songs and claimed also to sell water from the fountain of youth, and a mirror that would show the face of one's true love, and dreams of flying.... More>>>

The Guardian of the Egg by Christopher Barzak

My sister was the girl with the tree growing out of her head. You've probably heard of her. You might have seen her on TV. Her picture was plastered all over the place for a while. That shock of wheat ruffling around her face like a great golden mane, the weeping willow tree growing out of the top of her head, her skin white as chalk and smooth as porcelain, those tiny tiger lilies that grew between her eyelashes. And all of those geese she kept under her mossy cloak! A freak show, really. I understand why everyone thought she might be working with a foreign government, or that she'd been irradiated by the local nuclear power plant. But, really, she was just another ordinary teenager under all of that flora. I know because she was my older sister. A lot of people might find this hard to believe, but it's true.... More>>>

A Few Things About Ants by Jeffrey Ford

Tonight, on the drive home from work, it was raining like mad. Torrential rain, so that the wipers were on high and everything in the dark world beyond the windshield was severely warped. I'd hit these giant puddles I couldn't see on the side of my lane. They'd throw a momentary curtain of water up in front of me and push the car toward the oncoming traffic. Along Route 537, passing through the farm country, I drove blindly into a puddle so huge, I almost stalled. At the last second, I saw that there were two cars abandoned in it, and I performed a snaky maneuver of the wheel around them I'd never have been able to do if I'd had time to think about it. Somehow my car kept running, and as I climbed the hill beyond that sump, Elvis came on the radio, singing, "Love Me Tender." It was right at the top of that hill that I started thinking about ants. Why? I don't know. It started with a memory of the fat ants that climbed on the peach trees in the backyard where I grew up, and before I knew it there was an infestation of ants between my ears.... More>>>

Jack Straw by Midori Snyder

The first time I saw Jack Straw was in the winter. I was sick. Very sick. Mama had kept me home from school, just hoping the fever I'd caught would take care of itself. That week there was a blizzard, and the snow would pile up in huge, white drifts beneath my window. The thermometer outside kept dropping, while the one in my mouth just went higher. Mama wasn't sure which way to go, keep me dry at home and hope for the best, or take me out in the damp cold and risk the long drive from our farm to the hospital. I heard her talking one night to Daddy and Granny Frank. "Just wait a little longer," Daddy had said, "just wait a little longer." So they waited, one after another in my bedroom, sitting in the old rocking chair and watching for hopeful signs. Granny Frank's knitting needles clicked and clicked like a worried bug caught on the window pane.... More>>>

Meet the Elms by Alan DeNiro

The doctor diagnosed my father with Dutch Elm disease on the day the fall color turned. I was with him at the time of the diagnosis. Considering the news, my father took it calmly. I took him there earlier in the morning after he complained of a slight seizure in his legs.

"Dutch Elm disease," the doctor repeated, shaking his head. "I haven't seen anything like it."

My father said: "I believe that one of the requisites for contracting Dutch Elm disease is to actually be an elm tree."

The doctor cracked his knuckles. He looked worried. "You would figure that, wouldn't you?" ... More>>> 

Familiar Birds by Karen Joy Fowler

   

...The year I was eleven Daisy explained to me how she came to know so much about nature. She said that it spoke to her. She had conversations with birds and trees, just exactly the same as she did with people. They could talk to anyone, those birds, those trees. But mostly they didn't want to. They had to really trust you.

I was immediately suspicious. I'd caught Daisy in lies before (look at that ridiculous one about not liking television) and this, if true, seemed too big a secret to have kept so long.... More>>>

A Fox Woman Tale of Korea, translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl

In the village of Yosu, there lived a man named Song, whose daughter was a great beauty. Her name was Panya, and she was known far and wide for her willowy grace and elegance. All men adored her, and she was the object of much desire. It was only natural that Song should receive offers for her hand in marriage, but Panya was so dear to him that he refused all suitors, hundreds of them, telling them that he would not permit her to marry until her sixteenth birthday.

But when Panya reached her sixteenth year, a great misfortune befell her family.

Day after day the suitors came to Song's house, and one after the other they knocked upon his door and were admitted. But none came out alive, and it was said that any man who entered Song's house desiring Panya was destined to come out a corpse.... More>>>

Coyote Goes to College by Gregory Frost

One time Coyote decided he should go to college. It wasn't because he needed to learn anything. In fact, teaching Coyote would have been difficult for anyone to do, because he never listened or learned until it was too late. No, as usual, Coyote decided to go to college because he wanted something he didn't have.

Coyote was the inventor of the consumer society. He always wanted what he didn't have, and always talked himself into reasons for needing it. Most of the time, this involved women, because that's what Coyote had the least experience with. Had anyone consulted the women Coyote had approached over the millennia, they would have said it was because he always lied to them. Coyote would have countered that they wouldn't have anything to do with him otherwise. It's just possible that both observations were true — however, as Coyote always lies, we'll never know.... More>>>

Two Tales of Uncle Tompa, the Legendary Rascal of Tibet, translated by Rinjing Dorje

Uncle Tompa was very good at weaving woolen fabrics for making clothes. Tibetan families often invite weavers into their homes to weave for them. Once Uncle Tompa was invited into a family where there was only a mother and daughter. The daughter was a virgin and very pretty.

Uncle had been weaving for several days. He tried to seduce the virgin girl a few times, but he could not manage it. At last he figured out a way.... More>>>

King Rat by Karen Joy Fowler

...I decided to go to the basement where the animal lab was. My father might be there or one of his students, someone I knew. I took the stairs as far down as they went and opened the door.

The light was different in the basement — no windows — and the smell was different, too. Fur and feces and disinfectant. I'd been there dozens of times and I knew to skirt the monkeys' cages. I knew they would rattle the bars, show me their teeth, howl, and if I came close enough, they would reach through to grab me. Monkeys were strong for all they were so small. They would bite.

Behind the monkeys were the rats. Their cages were stacked one on the next, so many of them they formed aisles like in a grocery store....  More>>>

Godmother Death by Jane Yolen

You think you know this story. You do not.

You think it comes from Ireland, from Norway, from Spain. It does not. You have heard it in Hebrew, in Swedish, in German. You have read it in French, in Italian, in Greek.

It is not a story, though many mouths have made it that way.

It is true.

How do I know? Death, herself told me. She told me in that whispery voice she saves for special tellings. She brushed her thick black hair away from that white forehead, and told me.

It happened this way, only imagine it in Death's own soft breeze of a voice. Imagine she is standing over your right shoulder speaking this true story in your ear. You do not turn to look at her. I would not advise it. But if you do turn, she will smile at you, her smile a child's smile, a woman's smile, the grin of a crone. But she will not tell her story anymore. She will tell yours.... More>>>

My Shadow by Kate Bernheimer

   

Once upon a time, I came into the world without breathing. As my mother tells the story, suddenly a window shade opened, all on its own; a golden light spread over the room, and I breathed. There was a huge sigh of relief, but then everything darkened. A shadow covered the room. It was my shadow, a curse I would learn about later.

On my birthday, I weighed only four pounds and looked like a blind little rodent, I'm told (by my mother), or like a featherless bird (by my father).

My shadow learned to walk when I learned to walk, and her first word was also my own. When I lost my teeth, she lost her teeth too. The Tooth Fairy left me a quarter; my shadow left me her teeth — under my gums. Over time they grew in. I always found my shadow a comfort, though she bothered me some. There was no getting away from her, that much I knew.... More>>>

Midwife to the Fairies by Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

   

..."There's a fellow here looking for you, Mary. He says it's urgent."

"What is it he wants? Sure I'm off duty now anyway, amn't I?"

I felt annoyed, I really did. The way people make use of you! You'd think there was no doctors or something. I'm supposed to be a nurse's aide, to work nine to five, Monday to Friday, except when I'm on nights. But do you think the crowd around here can get that into their heads? No way.

"I think you better have a word with him yourself, Mary. He says it's urgent like. He's in the hall."

I knew of course. I knew before I seen him or heard what he had to say. And so I took off my apron and ran my comb through my hair to be ready....  More>>>

Jubilee by Tim Pratt

   

Rough hands shook me awake, and I swam up out of my dream — bodies pressed against walls, people stampeding across a train platform, Sara torn away by the crowd — into the darkness of my childhood bedroom. I wanted to say "You shouldn't shake someone with post–traumatic stress syndrome and survivor's guilt awake in the middle of the night," but all that came out was a sleep–choked nonsense syllable, "Muh?"

"Andy, come on, now. Jubilee, just past Barefoot Creek." ... More>>>

Canyons by Beth Meacham

Bay stopped to catch his breath on a foot-wide ledge about four feet up the narrow canyon wall.  The wind had picked up, cooling his sun-baked skin but blowing his long black hair into his eyes.  He'd been working his way through this narrow east-west passage for what seemed like an hour, marveling.  The canyon had originally been carved into the rock by water, but it had been shaped and polished by the wind into satin undulations of saffron and terra cotta.  Each curve and fold of the rock revealed a new play of light and shadow; it was as if he had strayed into the secret flesh of Mother Earth.... More>>>

How Master Madman Came to Ch'ing Feng Temple by Heinz Insu Fenkl

    

It is said that during the reign of Cheng Yuan (785–804 A.D.) of the T'ang Dynasty there lived in Chang–an a young man by the name of Yang. He was just fifteen and yet learned far beyond his years. He was graceful, his complexion clear, his eyes bright, his hair of fine luster. He had the beauty, the grace, and the elegance of a girl, and yet he conducted himself with the bearing of a warrior prince. He had about him all the qualities of the superior man, and yet he had a terrible flaw: he was proud, arrogant, and selfish. The official T'ang histories say that Yang met a tragic end at the hands of barbarian bandits and that his younger brother became a famous Royal Minister like their father.

But histories are always incomplete. This is the tale of how Yang came to learn that he inhabited a world of delusion and began to seek the virtues that would, in time, earn him the title “Master Anatman,” also known as “Master Madman.” It is taken from a manuscript once housed in the archives of the Collection of Antiquities at the National University Library of Shanghai.... More>>>

The Parade of You by Barth Anderson

Take a cold, translucent candle from the child in the bulb-eyed fish mask, and pray for your beloved to die. Light the candle from a torch at the woodland path's gate. Say, “Burn.”

Behind you, your city shines, but the forest is dark, and the night is damp as the freeze of winter encroaches. Your candle drips as you walk past musicians in the rainy forest. Gauze winding sheets shroud musicians playing violins and quiet drums, lit by the stream of your many candles. All of you leave a trail of wax drippings on the forest floor.

Please. Sit. Once you have spread your blanket on the dead grass and drunk a draft of sweet beer, your ritual will begin.... More>>>

How to Bring Someone Back from the Dead by Veronica Schanoes

1. Pain
It hurts to come back from the dead. And it hurts to bring someone back from the dead.

2. The Journey
There is always a journey and it is often long. You will have to take the path of pins and the path of needles. You will walk on the pins and your feet will bleed. You will walk on the needles and your feet will bleed, red like your jacket (You must always wear bright colors when you go to the underworld). This is your body mourning. It hurts to bring someone back from the dead.... More>>>

Miss Carstairs and the Merman by Delia Sherman

The night Miss Carstairs first saw the merman, there was a great storm along the Massachusetts coast. Down in the harbor town, old men sat in the taverns drinking hot rum and cocking a knowledgeable ear at the wind whining and whistling in the chimneys. A proper nor'easter, they said, a real widow-maker, and they huddled closer to the acrid fires while the storm gnawed at the town. It ripped shingles from roofs; it tore small boats from their moorings and flung them against the long piers. Strong gusts leaped across the dunes and set Miss Carstairs' tall white house surging and creaking like a great ship.

High on the bluff above the town, Miss Carstairs was sitting by the uncurtained window of her study, watching the lightning dazzle on the water and peering, from time to time, through a long telescope. With her square hands steady upon the telescope's barrel, she watched the wind-blown sand and rain scour her garden and pit the glass of her window. In kinetoscopic bursts, she saw a capsized dinghy scud past her beach and a gull beaten across the dunes; and at about midnight, she saw a long, dark, seal-sleek shape cast up on the rocky beach, flounder for a moment in the retreating surf, and then lie still.... More>>>

Silver and Gold by Emma Bull

Moon Very Thin sat on the raised hearth—the only place in the center room out of the way—with her chin on her knuckles. She would have liked to be doing something more, but the things she thought of were futile, and most were undignified. She watched Alder Owl crisscross the slate floor and pop in and out of the stillroom and the pantry and the laundry. Alder Owl's hands were full of things on every crossing: clean clothes, a cheese, dried yellow dock and feverfew, a tinderbox, a wool mantle. She was frowning faintly all over her round pink face, and Moon knew that she was reviewing lists in her head.

“You can't pack all that,” said Moon.

“You couldn't,” said Alder Owl. “But I've had fifty years more practice. Now remember to cure the squash before you bring them in, or there'll be nothing to eat all winter but onions. And if the squirrels nest in the thatch again, there's a charm—”

“You told me,” Moon sighed.... More>>>

The Color of Angels by Terri Windling

...Deer Chapel stood among crooked old oaks, built of grey stone with a mossy tin roof. It was small, not quite two storeys high, with less floor space than her London loft. A single arched doorway led into the building, with long, narrow windows on either side. Above the door was a carving in stone of a woman, a deer and three oak leaves--the carving so weathered she had not made it out until a neighboring woodsman explained it. Deer Chapel was older than Deercott Farm, but no one knew the chapel's age, or who'd built it, or who'd worshipped here. For years it had housed a couple of cows until Tat bought it off old Bertie and Bill, the brothers who worked the next farm.... More>>>

How the Ocean Loved Margie by Laurie J. Marks

       

Margie had a lot of practice keeping secrets from people. She had taught high school English in Somerville, Massachusetts for nearly fifteen years without anyone, not even her cappuccino buddies, suspecting that she was a lesbian. When she arranged for a year's sabbatical no one, not even her mother, knew that she was pregnant by donor insemination. And when she disappeared abruptly shortly after the last day of school, no one except she herself suspected that she had gone mad.... More>>>

King of Crows by Midori Snyder

The day had been hot and dusty, the sky a wide bowl of blue overhead, when Johnny Fahey walked into the canyon. His parched lips parted in surprise at the sudden sweet taste of water in the air. Along the high walls of the canyon, the wind whistled in the deepening crevasses and scattered drifts of pink sandstone. Johnny smiled and then he sighed, his exhalation a dry puff.

He’d walked much of that day and the day before, always on the lookout for the mining camp, the lonely settler, and the small towns with their weddings and wakes. Johnny Fahey had left home many years since, left the green of his own country to wander across the sun-bleached West, the dry flat roads of the plains, and the dark rugged mountains. But no matter where he traveled, stranger though he was, he was never at a loss for words, for he needed none. The music of his fiddle spoke for him, and it was welcomed wherever he went.... More>>>

Wolf's Heart by Tappan King

Once, long ago, a woodcutter and his wife lived in a cottage by the edge of the wood with two young children, a daughter and a son. The couple was very poor, and there was barely enough food to keep body and soul together from year to year. One winter, a fierce snowstorm came up, cutting the woodcutter's cottage off from the road that led to the town. The woodcutter could no longer sell his wood, and so the couple's meager store of food dwindled.

One day, the woodcutter said to his wife,"Wife, I am hungry and sick to death of porridge. Go and kill the chickens and we will feast."... More>>>