Long after the last year of corn and well beyond when farmers abandoned the shattered husks littering grey-soiled acres, the three Baba Yagas planted a child seed in the still-rich dirt of their own secret field. The Baba Yagas had watched as men and women fled north and north, running from the world’s expanding belt … Continue reading The Child Seed by Joshua Phillip Johnson
It moves across your skin as though alive. The pelts, stitched neatly together as a single taut piece of elaborate fabric, squeezing, constricting, tighter, breathing vibrant gentle and alive. You flex under it, feel it flex back. One hundred percent organic and costs it. Admire how it clings to every curve. You move to ease … Continue reading Fashion by Genelle Chaconas
The storm brought the sea into the village. Waves rolled between the huts and rattled doors, gurgling, sucking, and slapping like some clumsy creature that wanted to come inside. Gilli could not stay huddled with her family. It sounded so alive she had to look. She crept to the door and opened it a crack, … Continue reading Sea Change by Robin Husen
Just after eleven on a velvet June night, the moon rolls like a pearl dropped from the sky. You and I hurry along Sycamore Street as it kisses down into the dark cornfields, the same place it chooses every month. Then we run, giggling. When you grab my hand, my heart skips a double-dutch rhythm. … Continue reading Lights That Shine by Aimee Ogden
Before time began. An island of exiled gods at the edge of the world. Here, earth is stars unwound. The god Basari has been here forever and a little more. His crime? Unable to bear the idea of death, he tricked the Queen of the Underworld into a boat that sailed for the end of … Continue reading A Wide Sky Multiplied by Suzanne J. Willis
The first time I found the hidden market, it felt like this— —an April morning, capricious sun flitting in and out of cloud, rain riding the breeze but I’ve no umbrella, of course; a sudden darkening of the sky and a quickening of the rain and it’s under my collar and obscuring my glasses and … Continue reading The Hidden Market by Lucy Harlow
In the years after your retirement, you’ll continue to make regular visits to the cafe where your wife once worked. This will be one of the two indulgences you still allow yourself. One such occasion will fall on a snowy afternoon in early December—you’ll push the door open with a jingle, stomp off your boots, … Continue reading A Shared History by Seth Marlin
i When the girl is nine a witch called Anna wrecks her sister, spells her into a swan and binds her in a cave. Charms stalactites to grow above her, dripping minerals into her gullet while she flaps and screams. Avian lives are short and transformation requires space, so the human sister turns her volume … Continue reading How She Lost Her Voice by Mary Scott
I live down in the pockets of the deep woods, where the crickets sing at dusk. This is where I’ve lived for a long time. A long, long time. Time in these mountains is a capricious master, sometimes shredding days like wheat fields under a scythe, sometimes keeping single hours captive like a gnat in … Continue reading Skin by Gretchen Tessmer