Issue Eleven: Forbidden Folktales

ISSUE ELEVEN

SUMMER 2025

FORBIDDEN FOLKTALES HAUNTED WORDS PRESS

Haunted Words Press Issue Eleven: Forbidden Folktales

Published digitally September 2025

Edited by Halle Merrick

Cover artwork by Artemis Moss: Beddgelert

This magazine is copyright Haunted Words Press Copyright to all work is retained by the original contributor

Any resemblance to real events or persons contained in the fiction work herein is entirely coincidental. Views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the editor.

Twitter: @haunted_press Instagram: @hauntedwordspress BlueSky: @hauntedwordspress.bsky.social Website: www.hauntedwordspress.com Contact: hauntedwordspress@gmail.com

CONTENTS 4

Introduction Middle Grade The Benevolent Kallikantzaros Angela Patera

Bones of Saint Dyfrig, How Shall I Die? Catrin Lawrence

The Hag of Silkwood Shane Bradley

MG | FOLKTALE | GOBLINS

5

MG | HORROR | RELIC

19

MG | HORROR | WITCHES

22

YA | HORROR | HAG

29

YA | MYTH | NATURE

30

YA | HORROR | POSSESSION

31

Art Jenny Greenteeth Tasha Eggleton

Young Adult moon drunk Andrew Searle

Oil & Ashes Alba Sarria

1

Living Memory Cassiopeia Gatmaitan

The Lyncanthrope Ajax Bhaskar

Riddle Me Jamison Mouratova

YA | FANTASY | STORYTELLING

34

YA | HORROR | TRANS

37

YA | ESCAPISM | IDENTITY

38

Her Skin Was Beautiful, Strong as Leather YA | MAGICAL REALISM | Wesley R. Bishop

Portrait of Myself as Tinkerbell Mary Binninger

Theory Yuu Ikeda

The Girl Who Cried Diamonds Briar Hyssop

Peri-dark Jamila Toussaint

The Forms Svetlana Rostova

A Voice on the Other End C Sarah Strafford

TRANSFORMATION

40

YA | REFLECTION | FAIRIES

58

YA | LITERARY | LOVE

60

YA | FAIRYTALE | AUTONOMY

61

YA | EXPERIMENTAL | MEMORIES

65

YA | LITERARY | IDENTITY

67

YA | HORROR | SECRETS

69 90

Author & Artist Bios

2

INTRODUCTION Let’s kick this off as we do with all Haunted Words issues: thank you. Yes, you, the ghosts reading from the void, the ghouls submitting their work, the flickering spirits deep within the darkness that follow along with the strange going-ons of Haunted Words Press. And if you’re a newly-formed ghost just finding us: welcome, and also thank you. You’re very welcome to stay a while in the candlelight. We’re sure you’ll find something you like.

Issue Eleven: Forbidden Folktales is a collection of work from sixteen wonderfully talented contributors from across the world who have chosen to home these pieces with us, and we couldn’t be happier to see their submissions cross our inbox. As with all our issues, we’ve collected a series of short stories, flash fiction, poetry, and visual art for middle grade and young adult readers, all under that overarching theme of ‘forbidden folktales’. This time, our contributors have brought you generous goblins and wicked witches, transformations both troubling and transcendent, secret stories and ancient invocations, and so much more.

Without further ado, welcome to Issue Eleven: Forbidden Folktales. We hope you absolutely adore it.

- Halle Merrick, Editor in Chief

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THE BENEVOLENT KALLIKANTZAROS ANGELA PATERA MG | FOLKTALE | GOBLINS Winter; a time of rest and reflection. During those dark and gloomy months nature falls into a deep slumber and advises us to slow down as well. It is the time of the year to look into our inner world to gain a better view.

A piece of advice often ignored by the modern human, the Fillgraders included.

In the middle of December, this ordinary family undertook the strenuous enterprise of moving to another country. They bid farewell to the German urban city Hamburg, and said hello to the Greek rural village Spylaio.

‘But why do we have to move to a new place? I like it here. I want to stay,’ the oldest of the two children yammered the moment her parents announced this life-changing decision.

Mr. and Mrs. Fillgrader explained to the seven-year-old Petra that they always had strived to move to this charming Mediterranean country once they were in the financial position to do so.

At once the girl understood why all this time her parents were so keen for her to learn Greek. She has been studying it for almost three years now with the help of both her parents and is currently better at Greek than English. She still most enjoyed studying her native language, though (which naturally was German).

5

The Fillgraders had managed to find a large house in Spylaio—complete with an enormous balcony and a backyard—at an affordable price.

Despite still missing Hamburg, Petra had to admit this house was rather an improvement to the small apartment she had lived in for the first seven years of her life.

It didn’t take long for the family to settle in the new home, adjust to the calm village life and warmer climate, and get to know the neighbors.

*

On December 23rd, Mr. Fillgrader and Petra went (by foot) to the mini market to get the things they needed over the Christmas days.

On the way there, they observed several townspeople engaged in peculiar activities on their front porches. An elderly woman hung holly and garlic over the front door, while two houses further another elderly woman placed a colander on the doorstep. A man in his forties painted a black cross on the front door while humming to himself.

The man waved at them as they passed by. Petra waved back while intently watching his handiwork with a puzzled yet curious expression on her face. Her father told him a quiet hello.

They bought the things listed on the little note Mrs. Fillgrader had jotted down for them and headed back home.

A few townspeople were still occupied with those same odd and questionable activities, and more unfamiliar ones.

For example, an elderly man was in the process of hanging a pig’s jawbone over the front door when he spotted the two Germans.

6

He made a gesture with his free hand for them to approach and they complied.

‘Do you know why people are putting these and other such things on the front doors and doorsteps?’ he asked in a croaky voice, eyeing them both.

‘No, why?’ Petra asked enthusiastically.

‘To ward off the Kallikantzaroi.’

‘What are Kallikatsh... Kallin... Ugh! What are they?’ Petra asked, a little frustrated for not being able to pronounce the word. She was still struggling with polysyllabic Greek words.

‘Kallikantzaroi are mischievous, nocturnal beings which emerge from beneath the Earth’s surface during the Twelve Nights of Christmas. These grotesque and eerielooking goblins target households, causing mayhem by playing pranks, stealing belongings, and even fouling fresh food. To ward them off we hang a pig’s jawbone over the front door—like I’m doing right now. Hanging garlic and holly works too. Placing a colander on the doorstep, burning old shoes, or lighting fires throughout the nights of their earthly stay is also believed to keep the Kallikantzaroi away. Some people also mark the front door with a black cross.’

Petra tugged at the sleeve of her father’s winter jacket. ‘We saw most of these before we went to the mini market and also now,’ she remarked. She shifted her attention back to the elderly man. ‘Do we have to do something too to keep away these mean goblins?’

‘Absolutely! You may think this is just an old Greek fairytale, but I can assure you they are real, and if you don’t take measures to safeguard your home, they will enter and cause havoc,’ the elderly man said in a serious tone, looking back and forth between Mr. Fillgrader and Petra.

7

Back at home, Petra told her mother about the townspeople’s activities and what the elderly man had said about them having to take precautions as well.

‘Petra, my dear, these creatures don’t exist,’ said her father.

‘But when we were talking to the old man you said to him we would take some precautions!’ she said confused, a hint of a whiny tone in her voice.

‘I didn’t want to say anything in front of the old man, as his tone and expression indicated that he firmly believes in the existence of those goblins.’

‘But dad, why would all the people here do things to protect their homes from the Kallikta... Kallikantzaroi—yay, I finally said it right!—if they aren’t real?’

‘It’s simple. People continue to honor the tale—a fairy tale and nothing more—through traditions and storytelling like their parents and grandparents did before them.’

*

Petra waited excitedly for the first night of Christmas to arrive to see if the Kallikantzaroi existed. She waited for her parents to go to bed to sneak out of her room and wandered to the living room and kitchen only to be greeted by empty darkness. She even peeked out of the windows. Again, nothing. No mischievous goblins.

The little girl gave up searching for Kallikantzaroi after the fourth night.

Turns out dad was right, she thought rather disheartened.

On the twelfth and last night of Christmas, Petra awoke from her light sleep to a clanging sound coming from the kitchen.

8

She snuck out of her room like she had done for the first four nights and watched her step to make sure the floor didn’t make the slightest creaking noise. Hiding behind the wall, she took a peek inside the kitchen.

The little girl couldn’t help it and accidentally uttered a soft ‘whoa’. She resumed hiding behind the wall to take a hold of herself and hoped the Kallikantzaroi hadn’t heard her.

Yes, the goblins were indeed roaming the kitchen at this very moment. They were real after-

‘Hey, look guys! We have a little night owl over here,’ screeched a coarse voice behind Petra.

Petra yelped and jumped in surprise. She turned around to see one of the Kallikantzaroi staring at her with a malicious grin. She violently drew back in shock and as a result was standing now in the kitchen where all the other goblins were gathered. They approached her, circling her while doing so.

Fear was starting at last to gnaw at her. Sweat broke out on her palms and forehead— her heart was becoming a palpitating mess.

The little girl drew a few deep breaths, mentally telling the fear to take a hike.

She focused on the goblins’ appearance, but only after she got a slight shock from glimpsing at the outer chaos the kitchen was in (the catastrophic aftermath of an eightRichter-earthquake was nothing compared to this).

The Kallikantzaroi were rather small, about half a meter tall. They possessed glowing red eyes, elongated, pointed ears, a long tail, and sharp claws. Some of them had horns which were varying in size and shape. Their hair (or was it fur?) was shaggy, their slender bodies were twisted and contorted.

9

The appearance of these creatures could be summed up in three words: grotesque, unsettling, and abnormal. The more Petra studied them, though, the more she was getting used to their appearance.

They don’t look that scary, she thought.

‘Shouldn’t you be in bed?’ asked a goggle-eyed Kallikantzaros.

‘Did we wake you? Would be funny if we did,’ said a sharp-toothed one, watching her intently with a big grin on its face.

It closed the distance between the two of them and stared right into Petra’s soul. This gesture made her a little uncomfortable. She drew back in response. If the Kallikantzaros was offended by her reaction it hid it well, but she wasn’t certain if it actually was.

‘I haven’t seen such weird-colored sleeping garments before,’ commented a long-eared one.

‘Can’t you say ‘pajamas’ like a normal being? That term is so outdated,’ snapped the sharp-toothed one at the long-eared one. ‘Besides, what’s wrong with a turquoise-andred combination?’

‘I can’t stand children,’ said one with big horns, a look of disgust on its contorted countenance.

‘Say, what’s your name, little one?’ asked the Kallikantzaros in front of her, which she supposed had the shaggiest hair.

‘My name is Petra,’ she answered, her voice trembling a little.

10

She wasn’t scared of them anymore, but they sure overwhelmed her with all their questions and comments.

‘Petra?’ asked the shaggy one in disbelief and bewilderment.

‘Yes, that’s my name,’ she confirmed, a puzzled expression on her face.

‘Her name’s Petra? Her name’s Petra!’ exclaimed hysterically the goggle-eyed Kallikantzaros.

They all started laughing. They howled, and cackled, roared, snickered, and also guffawed. They smacked their knees, punched each other in a playful manner, and jumped up and down. These little devils laughed and laughed until their laughter turned into shrieks.

‘What’s so funny?’ Petra asked, baffled, but also slightly offended. What was wrong with her name?

‘Who in their right mind thought it was a good idea to name you ‘stone’?’ questioned the shaggy one.

‘What?’ Petra blurted out. ‘I’m German and in my mother language we have a different word for ‘stone’, so no German thinks of stones when they hear my name,’ she explained.

‘In Greek it’s still ‘stone’, though!’ said another sharp-toothed one and kicked off a new round of laughter.

The others were about to join in when another long-eared one entered the kitchen. It must’ve been lingering in one of the other rooms, even before Petra had gone to the

11

kitchen, as she hadn’t seen any of them sneaking away.

‘Oh—you have company,’ the newcomer said, surprised, and hid whatever it was holding in both clawed hands behind its back.

‘Wait! What’s that?’ Petra questioned and approached the Kallikantzaros at once.

It tried to run off, but Petra was faster. She managed to get a hold of the long-eared goblin—much to its disdain—and plucked the object out of its grip.

‘Hey, that’s my brother’s favorite teddy!’ she said sharply, looking angrily at the thief.

‘It’s mine now!’ it sputtered then growled at her.

The Kallikantzaros shoved Petra with full force, which resulted in her unwillingly releasing the creature from her grip. A split second later, it recovered the teddy and ran off with it.

‘Mine now, mine now! My teddy!’ the thief said in a triumphant voice and waved the stuffed animal around to taunt her.

The others hopped up and down and giggled, clearly amused by Petra’s frustration and her futile attempts to catch the thief.

‘No, wait, don’t! You’re going too far!’ one of the Kallikantzaroi shouted, waving its arms in a frenzied way. ‘Look out, little girl!’

The warning came too late, though.

*

12

‘Ow! My head,’ Petra cried out, sitting up.

She delicately touched the back of her head which was throbbing. Daggers of pain shot through her whole skull and neck.

‘Ah—you’re finally awake! Good.’

Petra slowly shifted her gaze to her left—where the voice came from. Her eyes landed on a Kallikantzaros sitting beside her. Its most distinctive feature was its big eyes. They glowed intensely. A concerned look decorated its contorted face.

The little girl needed a moment to recall what had occurred before everything went black. A groan escaped her lips once she remembered. A split second later another round of pain shot through her skull and her groans intensified.

‘My fellow Kallikantzaros got you pretty good, didn’t he?’ the goblin questioned, the concerned look still present. It watched her intently.

‘What did it hit me with anyway?’

‘A frying pan,’ it replied and pointed at the weapon used for the offense—lying two or three meters away from them on the floor.

‘Are you the only one left here?’ Petra asked after a few moments, scanning the kitchen.

‘Yes, I am. The others went back home. They took the stuffed animal with them. Better get your brother a new one.’

‘No, I have to get it back! It’s my brother’s favorite teddy. He refuses to sleep without it.

Can you bring it back? Please?’ the little girl pleaded.

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‘I don’t know about that…’ the Kallikantzaros trailed off. It took its time to contemplate her request. ‘Fine, I’ll bring the teddy back,’ it announced after a few minutes of silence. ‘Sneaking it out will be somewhat easy. The question is whether the others will notice its absence or not.’

‘Let that be my problem.’

‘All right. Let’s go then,’ the goblin said while getting on its clawed feet and beckoned Petra to follow it.

‘Wait, what? You want me to come with you?’ she asked, utterly confused.’Isn’t that dangerous?’

‘Yes, but... I’m scared to go alone. I’ve never wandered the Upperworld by myself before and I don’t wish to ever do so,’ it admitted and chuckled a nervous chuckle while fixing its gaze to the floor. It was clear it was embarrassed to admit such a thing, especially to a human child.

‘We’re going together then. I’m not scared. Or at least, I hope I won’t be.’

*

They set out into the cold January night—the woods outside the village their destination.

Petra was used to colder temperatures back home in Hamburg, so she just put on her lighter winter jacket and fingerless gloves for the journey.

To avoid tripping over stones, twigs, or her own feet, the little girl took a flashlight with her to light the path in front of her.

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Once she pointed it at the Kallikantzaros’ direction when it spoke up and in a flash it yelped and cowered, and hid its eyes with its clawed hands. Petra immediately redirected the flashlight’s beam to the ground, apologized to the creature, and promised she wouldn’t make that mistake again. She then remembered what the old man had said —that Kallikantzaroi were nocturnal creatures. It hadn’t occurred to her up until that moment that it meant they were repelled by light, just like nocturnal animals were.

To Petra’s relief, the goblin accepted her apology straight away. Last thing she needed was to make the one Kallikantzaros angry which wasn’t as mean as the others. Truth be told, it wasn’t mean-spirited at all. Not yet, anyway. The little girl had to stay on its good side, though, that she knew for certain. The teddy meant a lot to her brother. She didn’t want to find out how he’d react upon realizing that it had mysteriously vanished.

They trudged for a good three quarters of an hour through the woods talking about this and that (it asking things about the Upperworld and she asking things about the Underworld—the creatures’ home; what most baffled Petra was the fact the Kallikantzaroi didn’t have names) until the goblin came to an abrupt halt at a small, rocky slope.

‘The entrance is there,’ it said and pointed to a big, dark rock located right beside an old common beech tree. The tree was standing at the edge of the slope and leaning ever so slightly toward it. ‘Help me move the rock aside.’

‘Okay,’ Petra said and helped the goblin out. She used all her strength to move it, panting while doing so and ending up a little breathless toward the end. Perhaps it wouldn’t have taken as much effort if her head and neck weren’t still throbbing. Besides, she was starting to feel tired. ‘How many of you does it take to move the rock?’

‘It usually takes four or five to do the job.’

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‘It usually takes four or five to do the job.’

The little girl peeked inside the entrance. ‘Looks like a fox den.’

‘I can guarantee it looks quite cozy once you reach the end of the tunnel and find yourself in the Underworld,’ the Kallikantzaros said and grinned. ‘So, now I’ll take you to the tree where you’ll wait for me until I’ve returned with the teddy, just like we discussed on our way here.’

The goblin brought her to a tree with an unusually thick trunk, located about seventy meters away from the entrance. They walked around it until Petra could see the other side had a wide opening; most of the trunk was hollow.

‘Now that looks quite cozy!’ the little girl exclaimed. She crawled inside and sat down cross-legged.

‘Stay here—don’t leave the trunk for any reason!’ the goblin said, trying to sound stern, but failing.

‘Of course. I know,’ Petra answered, an amused smile on her face. ‘Good luck!’

*

While waiting for the Kallikantzaros to return Petra examined the inside of the trunk.

The most interesting things she discovered were a few tiny mushrooms and a snail. The snail entertained her for most of the time. She almost fell asleep twice, as she was not just tired, but exhausted.

*

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The creature returned half an hour later.

‘Here it is!’ it announced excitedly.

Petra almost jumped from fright. She hadn’t heard footsteps approaching the tree.

‘Thank you so much!’ she exclaimed after recovering. Her lips stretched into a big, open-mouthed smile and her eyes beamed with glee.

The goblin handed her the teddy. The little girl examined it to make sure it hadn’t received any tears or rips. Satisfied with its condition, she focused her attention back to the kind soul who retrieved it.

‘Thank you again!’

‘Don’t mention it, Petra. I just did what was right,’ the Kallikantzaros replied and returned the big smile with a flash of countless discolored and crooked sharp teeth.

Petra couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight of such teeth. Thankfully, the goblin didn’t take it as an insult. Or perhaps it thought she found its smile funny and not the poor state of its teeth.

What she also noticed was the fact that this was the first time the Kallikantzaros called her by her name.

‘It seems like you’re the only good-hearted Kallikantzaros. Why are the others so mean anyway?’ she asked and yawned. She needed sleep. Lots of it. And some ice for her aching head.

‘I guess I am the only one. Unfortunately. I’m different than the others, but they still

17

accept me. It’s in their nature. I’m not fond of it either, but that’s just how they are.’

‘I’m glad they accept you as you are,’ she said and gave it a sympathetic smile. ‘Quite interesting to learn that your fellow malevolent Underworld creatures are able to have a speck of goodness in them, even if it’s only for a fellow Kallikantzaros. And the distaste you have for causing havoc and hurting others—which I guess were supposed to be in your blood—makes you the benevolent one.’

To make sure she wouldn’t get lost in the forest, the Kallikantzaros accompanied Petra all the way back to the edge of the village.

There they said their goodbyes.

To Petra’s surprise, the Kallikantzaros hugged her. After a moment’s confusion, she hugged it back tightly. She would be lying if she said she wouldn’t miss this adorable creature.

*

Petra arrived at home. She desperately hoped no family member had noticed her absence during most of the night.

The Kallikantzaros galumphed back to its own home, deep down in the dark bowels of the Earth where the Upperworld’s light was unwelcome.

The creature thought about its encounter with the little girl for many nights afterward.

And for once in its life it looked forward to the next Twelve Nights of Christmas. This time, instead of helplessly watching its fellow Kallikantzaroi cause havoc, it would visit Petra and spend most of its limited time on the Earth’s surface with her.

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BONES OF SAINT DYFRIG, HOW SHALL I DIE? CATRIN LAWRENCE MG | HORROR | RELIC In olden times, in olden castles, the remains of saints were kept for good fortune. One castle had better than the rest; the withered hand of Saint Dyfrig, held upright on the chapel’s altar by a mound of wax.

Once a year, the castle’s inhabitants gathered in the chapel to each ask the hand a question. As soon as the words left their lips, it pointed a skeletal finger towards the answer.

When the peasants asked, ‘Bones of Saint Dyfrig, why are our grain stores vanishing?’, it pointed at a scurrying rat with an ear of barley in its teeth. When the handmaiden’s father asked, ‘Bones of Saint Dyfrig, who murdered my daughter?’, it pointed towards her jealous lover.

The king waited until he was alone to ask his question.

‘Bones of Saint Dyfrig, how shall I die?’

With a creak, the Bones pointed out of the window towards the king’s young son, playing by the castle’s well.

The king clutched his chest in horror. Will my own son kill me for the crown? He thought to himself. He wouldn’t wait to find out.

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That night, the king lured his son into the courtyard, with no one around to see them.

‘The moon has fallen into the well,’ the king said. ‘Come and see!’

The prince bent over the well and peered inside. But before he could realise the moon was just a reflection, his father pushed him into the dark.

Plip.

And that, the king thought, was that.

He lived the next year content, with small bites of guilt when the court wondered about his missing son, when his queen cried into the night. They wanted more than anything to know where the young prince had gone, but they had used all their year’s questions for the Bones of Saint Dyfrig.

After one year, the court gathered again before the skeletal hand in its mound of wax.

The king was nervous, knowing what his queen would ask.

‘Bones of Saint Dyfrig,’ she wept. ‘Where is my son?’

To everyone’s surprise, most of all the king’s, the hand pointed towards the window.

Everyone rushed to see the courtyard, hoping to find the young prince whole and hale.

Imagine their hope, quickly crushed, when they saw no one.

Only the king knew what the Bones had been pointing at.

The king made up a story about a sickness from the well-water, ordered it bricked up, lest anyone look too deep inside and discover his secret. This order relieved him, but not completely.

20

That night, the king visited the Bones of Saint Dyfrig, its papery skin glowing in the moonlight. He needed to make sure his sin hadn’t been in vain.

‘Bones of Saint Dyfrig,’ he said. ‘How shall I die?’

To his horror, the hand pointed outside once again. He rushed to the window, expecting Death’s skull staring him in the face. He looked down and saw worse.

Bricks lay scattered around the well. Someone had grown suspicious! Someone had discovered his secret! Even now, the king could hear footsteps approaching up the stairs, towards the chapel.

In a wild panic, he looked for somewhere to hide, decided on a large chest. Gathering his robes, he stuffed himself inside and lowered the lid with a thunk. When he pressed his eye to the keyhole, all he could see were the Bones of Saint Dyfrig.

The chapel doors shrieked open. Instead of the angry mob he’d expected, all the king could hear were slow steps up the aisle. There was an odd, moist squelch behind them, as if the figure walked through blood.

Just out of sight, the footsteps stopped. The king held his breath. No one would look for a king inside a chest. He couldn’t be found.

‘Bones of Saint Dyfrig,’ a cold, damp, small voice asked. ‘Who pushed me down the well?’

The Bones began to point.

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THE HAG OF SILKWOOD SHANE BRADLEY MG | HORROR | WITCHES Henry passed through the dark woods of Silkwood, stepping over the thick, green vines lined with razor-sharp red thorns. They jutted out like blood-covered teeth waiting to bite. Last time the thorns poked him, a rash spread across his legs. It took a month for it to dry up. He wanted to avoid the thorns. Nothing good came from thorns, and his day had already started out rough.

He and Mom had a fight, just after he found out Marcus had ditched him for his other friends and a lame party out in Wheaton. The worst part of the ditching was Dalton would be there. Henry always said he wasn’t jealous of Dalton, but that was a lie. He WAS jealous. Dalton was cooler than him. Henry and Marcus had been best friends since kindergarten, but he couldn’t compete with Dalton. Even though Dalton liked girls...Henry didn’t want Marcus around him.

So, now Henry strolled through the woods to search for peace and quiet, and to get far, far away from Mom, just like he always did. The woods were his safe place. He didn’t even remember what started the fight. It just happened. Just like it always did.

Randomly and out of nowhere.

Henry stopped at a large tree to rest. He examined the bark and then gazed up at the leaves. ‘Quercus alba, the white oak,’ he said. Henry was an expert on trees. Names.

Locations. Lifespan. And even though his classmates called him weird for it, he wouldn’t stop soaking up tree knowledge. He loved trees. Plain and simple.

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Henry placed his right hand on the light gray bark when it moved beneath his fingers.

He jumped back and watched as a gray spider emerged from its hiding spot amongst the bark. Its exoskeleton transformed from a bark-like texture to a silky black. It had a deep, blood-hued red hourglass on the underbelly of its abdomen. It glistened in the late-afternoon sun. The spider turned, its eyes glowing a sulfur yellow.

Just as Henry turned to run, he found himself transfixed—stopped in his tracks by the spider. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t budge.

The spider skittered down the tree, shooting behind it and disappearing among the brush.

Henry snapped from his spell for only a moment...before the old hag appeared around the white oak.

He jumped at the sight of her. The woman was a few inches shorter than him. Her old, wrinkled skin was covered in blistered boils that oozed a yellow puss. Her long, curved nose looked worst of all, with a boil so large, Henry thought it would burst. Beneath her wide- brimmed straw hat, her matted, gray hair hung down to her bony shoulders.

She reached out a skinny hand, pointing a long, crooked finger at Henry. Her fingernails were sharp and yellow. ‘What are you doing in MY woods, boy?’ she hissed, her rotten teeth a sickening shade of brownish-yellow that reminded Henry of an infection. The smell of rotten meat burned his noise. It was coming from the woman.

‘Your woods?’ he stammered. ‘I hang out in these woods every day.’ He noticed something moving in her hair. He squinted his eyes, then jumped back once he realized that her hair was full of brown spiders. ‘I...I’m sorry. I...I’ll leave right now.’ He stepped back; his eyes locked on her.

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She grinned, maggots dropping from her mouth. ‘Wait. Don’t run off so quickly, my boy.

You can come to my house...for dinner.’

‘No, thank you,’ he said, his heart pounding in his ears. ‘My mom will be angry if I spoil my dinner.’ He turned to leave.

‘Stay here, boy!’ she screeched.

Henry stopped. He wanted to run, but for some odd reason, he couldn’t. His feet were glued to the dirt.

‘I mean,’ said the woman, a bit nicer this time, ‘Don’t go right now. Stay for just a bit. At least have some apple pie. It’s in the oven as we speak. You wouldn’t say no to freshbaked apple pie, would you?’

A hazy, white film, unnatural and cold, formed over Henry’s eyes, spreading outward in ripples, as if the old woman’s words had cast a spell on him. Henry turned back to her.

‘No,’ he agreed. ‘I love apple pie.’ His words came out eerily robotic.

‘Good,’ she said, softly. ‘Then come with me.’ She reached out with a thin-skinned and bony hand.

Henry saw maggots wiggling in and out of her gray skin. He tried to hesitate, to not reach, to keep himself from touching her...but he couldn’t. No matter how hard he fought, he reached out and grabbed her cold and slimy hand. It felt like a bony earthworm.

‘Now,’ she said, pulling him slowly through the woods. ‘To my cabin we go. We’ll have a nice dinner. Apple pie. Baked bread.’ She stopped and examined Henry. She licked her

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dirty, cracked lips. They oozed brown liquid. ‘And you’ll be the main course.’

Henry stared forward, glass-eyed, as if he hadn’t realized what she said. He went along with her, following her like a trained dog.

They cut through the oak trees, stepping into a clearing. Before them stood an old, wooden cabin with dark mahogany wood. Deep gray smoke puffed from the red brick chimney, carrying the faint but harsh scent of burning coal.

‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘Home, sweet, home. Oh, what a lovely meal we will have.’ The woman guided him to the door, reaching for it and shoving it open, keeping her firm, but slimy, grip on Henry. ‘In you go.’

Although Henry’s eyes still had a milk-white glow, he hesitated, furrowing his eyebrows, as if remembering something. What was he doing? Why had he followed this...this old hag through the woods to this cabin? Had he lost his mind? Had he gone completely insane? He explored this part of the woods a hundred times, but he had never seen this cabin.

‘Go inside!’ screamed the old woman, yanking Henry’s arm.

The sudden pain awakened his nerves, causing his head to clear even more. His eyes slowly faded back to their normal brown. ‘No!’ he shouted, pulling his arm away. ‘I know what you are. I’m not going into your cabin, you old witch!’

The old woman’s head shot around. Her yellow eyes glared at Henry. She reached for him, but he stepped back, just out of her reach. ‘Get over here, you little brat! You will not spoil my supper!’

Henry shook his head, standing his ground. ‘No way.’ He turned to run, but the woman

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raised her bony hand in the air, pointing her gnarled fingers at Henry. Henry stopped dead in his tracks, as if held by an invisible force. He grimaced in pain. Then the white film slowly grew back over his brown eyes. Henry turned back to the woman. Although he knew the truth, he couldn’t stop himself from agreeing, no matter how hard he tried.

The old woman was a witch.

‘Yesss,’ hissed the witch. ‘There we go.’ She reached out a hand, maggots dropping from her skin onto the ground. ‘Come inside, my boy.’

Henry nodded. Then he stepped forward, reaching out his right hand, his fingertips nearly touching her sharp, yellow fingernails.

‘Yesss,’ hissed the witch once more.

Suddenly, a voice pierced the silent woods.

‘Henry?’ A voice came from a few hundred yards from the cabin, somewhere in the direction of Henry’s house.

Henry heard his name and stopped his hand a few inches from the witch’s. His eyes returned to their usual brown, as the white dissipated like melting snow. The witch’s spell faded away and Henry’s head cleared. He shook away the remaining cobwebs.

‘Henry?’ said the voice again. Henry recognized it.

‘Over here, Marcus!’ Henry backed away, his eyes locked on the witch. She hunched, as if ready to scurry after him. ‘Stay away from me,’ he snapped.

The witch grinned, worms and maggots pouring from her mouth. ‘You are not worth the fight. You can run for now, my boy. But one day you will stumble upon me again, and

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that will be the day. The glorious day.’ She licked her lips. Then she cackled, hunching her back and slowly retreating backwards into the dark cabin. Her movements reminded Henry of a spider.

The door creaked to a close.

Something rustled in the woods behind Henry. He turned and spotted Marcus stepping through the trees, his curly, black hair catching the fading sunlight. Henry breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of him, but he still couldn’t settle his nerves.

‘There you are,’ said Marcus. ‘I figured you’d be out here.’

‘She’s a witch,’ said Henry. ‘The old woman. She led me here. She...she was going to eat me. We need to get out of here now.’

Marcus laughed, but stared in confusion, tilting his head and furrowing his left brow.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The cabin.’ Henry turned to point at the cabin, but it was gone. In its place stood an old, dead tree, its bark scorched black, as if it had survived a fire. Henry still recognized it as a Quercus rubra, a northern red oak, ‘It was just here. I swear.’

‘Okay, man,’ said Marcus. ‘A hungry witch in a cabin? I knew you had a great imagination, but that sounds crazy.’

Henry thought about it. He slid his hand down his pale face, wiping away beads of sweat.

It did sound crazy. Had he even seen the old witch? Had she really been there? The more he thought about it, the cloudier it became, as if a thick fog had spread over his brain.

‘Yeah...yeah, it does sound crazy. Maybe I was seeing things or something.’ He walked past Marcus, making his way through the woods. ‘What happened to the party?’

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Marcus followed. He shrugged. ‘Eh, it was lame. Dalton started acting like a jerk. Plus, I felt bad for baling on you. I’d rather hang out with you anyways.’

Henry tried to smile, but it came out as a half-smile. What Marcus said made him happy, but all Henry wanted to do was get out of the woods, for some reason. He couldn’t remember why.

‘Thanks,”’said Henry.

Henry and Marcus walked together through the large oaks, trying their best to reach Silkwood before the sun set.

As they disappeared into the trees...a black widow skittered across the bark of the dead oak, and a cackling laugh echoed throughout the darkening woods.

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JENNY GREENTEETH TASHA EGGLETON YA | HORROR | HAG

29

MOON DRUNK ANDREW SEARLE YA | MYTH | NATURE The legacy of a sycamore forest In the struggling, teeming saplings Is there still a piece of that last known woodland The final heritage of England Wildflowers growing above the planted crops, a newborn forest in itself We’ve turned our land into patchwork A quilt of sameness And lost our woods Intangled and pathless Trees trailing branches What does the moon look like peaking through a jungled vine I only know the moonshine of a silent field Alive once listening Buzzing with life, drunk on moon light And rattling crops These are England’s soaring redwoods my dwindling English pines

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OIL & ASHES ALBA SARRIA YA | HORROR | POSSESSION The tide comes in like a swaying balcony out In

out

in—

In

It drags sharp shells and gritty sand cooled by the depths across Your bare feet.

They hurt, terribly.

The blueberries in Your hand are putridly soft.

Leathery soggy peels stain Your palms an odd dark color.

Like blood?

There are children somewhere, there has to be.

But You can't remember the last time You saw a flash of colorful arm floaties or rubber ducky sunhats glistening in Your peripherals, and the sun is dark.

You want to eat the foam that's been frothing around Your ankles, catching in the downy hairs of Your legs and keeping You rooted in place.

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You want to eat it the same way You were compelled to rip open Your sofa and p u l l out stuffing swallowing it until the paramedics arrived.

Your nosey neighbors had whispered about the root cause —possession— while they strapped You to a gurney.

Why do You still think about that? Gossip, aimless.

You were not possessed, were You? No, no. You were in Your right mind just like You are now.

Days in the sand, feet peeling and bruised

Seagulls calling Your name—precious to us—and falsely telling You that I am the reason time is failing You. That I fill You with hunger.

But it's all lies, don’t You see?

It’s all terrible terrible lies and You know it.

Because You’re smart and You smell like Your mothers ashes mixed with rose oil.

Scent roils memory.

No!

Whispers of warm candle light

Stop! thinking about that!

perfectly circled, the night sky above bleeding indigo into an empty grave.

Stop it!

Mine?

The damp musk of earth pried open by my trembling hands.

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The mind lies. That is not Yo—

Dirt, painful and sharp, under my nails.

My mothers ashes crushed into the oils of her rosen perfume.

A voice

I SAID STOP THINKING.

that sai—

Look at the ocean, the way it sways, it calls to Yo—

Like I called to—

THINK OF THE WAVES. They shimmer, inky,

I had cut myself, hadn’t I?

slow ripples like fresh blood collecting in a bowl.

My palm aches.

I had said a name. I had prayed I—

Fine. You want memories dark?

Go to them, then.

The ocean waits.

Dive.

Find relief.

NO—

My legs drag me.

The cuts on my calves b u r n.

Salt strips at the green ooze of my wounds eating away bacteria, slime, missing hours.

How had I gotten out of the gurney?

I don't think I want—

‘Hey,’ The hand on my shoulder is firm.

His uniform’s bright red is a glare against my tired eyes.

I think it's morning again.

‘You’ve been standing out here a long time, let’s get you checked out.’

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LIVING MEMORY CASSIOPEIA GATMAITAN YA | LITERARY | ANCIENT In a cave of damp stone lit by an ancient fire, you break the winter-long spell that had sealed your lips and speak.

You do it so quietly that no one hears you—your voice is lost amongst the din of handaxes being whetted and the scrape of fur being pulled from meat.

The only one listening is the creature sitting across the fire from you, tilting its eyeless face closer, hoping to hear more of the story. In the millennia to come, I will be known as the Storyteller. It was you who first gave me form, your voice molding me from the ether, absent one moment and there the next. In the years that will follow, I will remain steadfast at your side, devouring every word you speak as you tell your tales by the fire’s light.

‘In ages past, when the frost wasn’t yet strong enough to halt the spring, a girl was spurned from her mother’s tribe for her twisted leg.

‘In those days, the earth was new, and the gods still dwelt here, warring amongst themselves, hungry for more land and more blood. In those days, the folk lived beneath the ground, afraid of the gods and their appetites.

‘No one banished from the dark could have survived the world above, and yet, the spurned girl did. She lived on the goodwill of wolves and hawks, who thought her among their number. But she longed for home, and knew that nothing short of a

34

miraculous feat could make her people take her back. So she hatched a scheme.

‘While the gods warred, she set herself onto their battlefield and took some of their magic for herself. When she returned to the cave in which her people dwelt, she made a bed of wolf’s fur and hawk’s feathers and let the magic of the gods ignite it. This was the first her people ever saw of fire. Armed with a bit of power to defend themselves, the girl led her people out from beneath the ground and into the world beyond. Henceforth humankind dwelt in the world above and nevermore in the dark.’

Night after night, when the story is over, told and amended and amended again, I peer into your dreams and see once-verdant forests frosted over, waiting for springs that will never come. I see seeds haphazardly discarded growing spindly limbs, twisting skyward.

I see memories and imaginings, currents pulled by the tides of sleep turning into oceans, blue and deep and swollen with tales yet untold. Sometimes, I find you drowning under the weight of those you will not live to tell.

In the end, you die a keeper of records for your people. As you aged, you passed down tales of wonder to your children and grandchildren, telling them of ages past and the gods that devoured each other to make space upon this world, rapidly growing smaller as your kind made its way along it and banished the ancient and the ravenous with their fire and their new faiths and their words.

I listen to new stories, but I find myself returning to your descendants who still speak those first words you told to me in front of the fire. They have changed the same way this world has changed, but I still find you within them.

As the ages pass, I trace the rivers you have created with your words, those countless daughters of your stories that have become new tales. I listen to the myths of people emerging from caves and into the light of the world, I listen to stories of warring gods and fire-bringers, animal children and endless winters, and I find you in each word.

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These veins span the breadth of human history now. They are so much larger than you ever were, and yet somehow, it’s still you. It has always been you.

I roam the earth as humans conquer the whole of it, molding it to their will. I see the rise and ruin of empires, I see wars that threaten to devastate everything humanity has ever built, and I listen to the stories that are born from these disasters, so different from the ones you told me yet still so similar. Even here, I find you.

After you took your last breath and were buried beneath the earth with a myriad of flowers to surround you, I was convinced I would never see you again. But in the millennia since your death, I’ve kept the site of your grave near to my heart, and I returned after it was once again touched by human hands.

They dig up your bones with a gentle reverence, and here, after an age, we are reunited.

As is their nature, stories live on.

The oldest of them build the spines of the ones that pass through lips today. Their descendants fill pages, turn to sinew, become flesh. They turn into beating hearts, resonating, passed on from tongues extinct to still-living. They are born from the minds and hands of generations, each tracing a sacred lineage back to the very first.

As long as there are more stories to be told, your words will echo across the ages. I will not let them be forgotten.

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THE LYCANTHROPE AJAX BHASKAR YA | HORROR | TRANS In the cold light I transform.

Hands tear through the flesh like claws, Teeth tearing through skin and bone without pause.

Eyes wide, irises shrivelled under the glow, Juices flowing from my jowls, tongue lapping at the bowl.

The more I eat, the more I feel secure, The more guilt aches within my fang-filled jaw.

More, I howl, scouring through the leaves For some poor prey upon which I can feast.

The scent of poultry scrapes against my noseDinner’s meat, still warm, still softly tender, not for me.

More, I breathe in a voice too deep to be my ownWhen did my chest begin to rumble with such baritone?

I stare at the carcass, calling to me.

Why starve the beast for modest peace, When the name they call me fits like a leash?

They see it now, the monster I am, The daughter they’ll mourn, the son they scorn.

So I feed the beast, feel the shame run down my throat, Until I am sated and there is nothing more.

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RIDDLE ME JAMISON MOURATOVA YA | ESCAPISM | IDENTITY I live encrypted nylon hexagons on high, I breathe like an elizabethan; all-time low You leave me, bismuth crystals do I cry– I depart and you would never know.

I stain this paper: I wring dry The technicolour wine my sorrow Reeks of. Eat the sky, splinter wide, Suffer whole, burn ‘till dry. Repeat These steps a thousand Times; tomorrow’s nothing more Than one more rise.

I drink the air condensed of thunderstorms, The cracks of foothills split my life in two.

The fragments of the head I thought my own Lay neatly, broken, on the oilspill asphalt, Cooking up another– Bubble, toil, trouble– Mourning lost to flight on foot to Neon-distilled cities, fizzing out their final breaths like An abandoned glass of tonic,

38

Rubber wheels charring the long scarred, No good highway down the empty aerodrome.

I can hear the eidolon engine’s roar.

What am I?

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HER SKIN WAS BEAUTIFUL, STRONG AS LEATHER WESLEY R. BISHOP YA | MAGICAL REALISM | TRANSFORMATION The first time Jessa turned into a crocodile, she bit the leg off a man who told her to smile more.

She was twelve.

No one in town said his name after that. Not in church, not in the gas station, not even when he hobbled past the high school three weeks later on a rusted crutch, eyes glassy as an old doll’s. Folks just looked at their shoes, or the sky, or into their coffee. The grown-ups blamed pit bulls. The kids said he fell on rebar. Jessa’s grandmother just scrubbed the front porch twice that week and told her not to let her anger settle in her bones. ‘That’s where the tail starts, baby,’ she said, pouring salt across the threshold.

Jessa didn’t ask what that meant. She already knew.

Now, three years later, she walked home from evening service beside her grandmother, the sky leaking honeyed light over the rooftops. Her dress clung to her thighs and the cheap heels pinched her toes, but it wasn’t the discomfort that made her fists curl. It was the sermon.

The preacher, Rickey Lyles, had gone on and on about Eve—how she was weak-willed, disobedient, born from a man’s rib and still too proud to follow the rules. He’d said women were the doorway through which sin entered the world.

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Jessa had sat still as she could, but she’d felt her fingernails stiffening in her lap, the bones in her wrist ticking forward like they wanted out.

Her grandmother didn’t say much as they walked. The slap of her sandals against the sidewalk was the only sound between them for a while. She carried her Bible in one hand, spine worn soft, the other swinging a little with each step.

When they passed Miss Eunice’s porch, the old woman gave a half-hearted wave.

‘Evenin’, Alma. Evenin’, baby.’

Jessa nodded, but didn’t speak. Her jaw still ached from holding in what she wanted to say.

Behind them, the baptismal pool behind the church caught the light. It shimmered green and gold and pink, like fish scales under sun, and Jessa didn’t need to turn around to know it was rippling in her shape.

The house looked like it had been slowly sinking into the ground for years, slouched between two empty lots where kudzu climbed the bones of old fences. Jessa followed her grandmother up the steps, one heel catching on a loose board. She kicked them off on the porch without a word.

Inside, the air held that thick, metallic stillness that comes after a storm that didn’t quite break. The box fan in the window clicked with every rotation, stirring the scent of mothballs and grease and lavender oil.

Grandmama moved slow. She always had—slow like someone who knew what time could do if you let it. She set her Bible on the kitchen table and poured a glass of buttermilk without asking if Jessa wanted one. Jessa didn’t. She stood near the sink, watching the shadows lengthen along the tile.

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‘You know,’ Grandmama said after a long minute, ‘they used to say Eve talked to snakes.

But they never said what she turned into when she got angry.’

Jessa blinked. Her fingertips tingled.

‘He said we open the door for sin,’ she said quietly.

‘And yet,’ Grandmama replied, setting down her glass, ‘the devil always knocks on a man’s door first.’

Jessa swallowed hard, mouth dry. Her shoulders were starting to itch again—deep, under the blades, like something coiled was stretching out. She turned toward the hallway.

‘I’m gonna rinse off.’

‘Use the back tub,’ Grandmama said. ‘The old one. Got a deeper basin.’

That wasn’t a request.

The bathroom off the laundry room was full of spiderwebs, the window warped so it never quite closed. The tub was iron and stained, sunk so low it felt more like a trough.

Jessa stripped down slow, careful, her skin fevered in patches. In the mirror, her eyes looked a little too dark around the iris. She leaned close, breathed on the glass, watched it fog.

Her back spasmed once, low near the spine, and she gripped the sink. It passed.

She stepped into the tub.

The water was cold. Not icy—but still enough to draw the heat out of her. She sank until

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it reached her chest and rested there, staring at the ceiling. The light through the window slatted gold across the wall. She didn’t know how long she lay like that.

At some point, she opened her mouth and let the water in.

It was a Tuesday, the kind that sagged like overripe fruit. The air conditioning had broken again at school, and even the hallways sweated. The walls seemed to ripple with heat, and in science class someone said the word ‘Y2K’ just loud enough to spark a fit of giggles.

‘It’s all the computers,’ said Mr. Trammel, their teacher, wiping his forehead with a paper towel already stained with effort. ‘They weren’t programmed to go past 1999.

When the clocks turn to zero-zero, no one knows what they’ll do.’

‘They’ll explode,’ a boy offered from the back.

The room laughed—nervous, sharp-edged laughter that sounded too much like animal sounds.

‘Planes could fall,’ said another.

‘Banks’ll eat your money.’

‘No more cartoons. No more school.’ That got a cheer.

Mr. Trammel tried to smile. ‘Most likely, nothing will happen. But if you got a computer near you, maybe stand away from it come midnight.’

It was all meant to be funny. But everyone knew someone whose uncle was stockpiling water in his garage, or whose church had already scheduled a prayer vigil for New

43

Year’s Eve. In between jokes, there was that hush: the thought that maybe the world really could fold in on itself, not with fire, but with some unseen digital shrug.

Jessa sat two rows from the window, fanning herself with a notebook. The boy she liked —Derrick—was seated to her left, a diagonal line that gave her glimpses of his profile whenever he turned to whisper.

His skin was a shade lighter than hers, warm and smooth like hazelnut cream. There was a freckle on his upper lip, small and perfect, and when he spoke it shifted slightly.

She stared at it. She didn’t mean to, but there it was. She imagined kissing that freckle, just barely, and the thought hit her like a struck match.

Then she saw the soft roundness of his arm—no longer the twig of last year, but something growing. The muscle there was beginning to make itself known. He leaned forward to crack a joke to the boy beside him, and his laugh dripped with sunlight and sweat. It was a summer laugh, and it made her stomach twist.

That’s when it started.

Her back prickled. Her shoulders shrank downward into a crouch. Her jaw felt wide, too wide, and her tongue thickened in her mouth like wet cloth.

She gasped—but no one seemed to hear it.

She gripped her desk. The wood was splintered, and her hands itched as if her skin wanted to crack open. Her nails were too tight. Her spine bent in a slow, hard curve.

She stood. Too quickly.

Mr. Trammel looked up from the whiteboard, mid-sentence. ‘Jessa?’

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‘Bathroom,’ she whispered, already out the door.

No one laughed.

She didn’t go to the bathroom. She ran past it, past the cafeteria, past the music hall with its sealed-glass windows, and out through the back doors that screamed on their hinges. Behind the school, the land dipped into a mess of crabgrass and cattails. A muddy trail ran crooked toward the river.

She didn’t stop running until her shoes sloshed in the shallows.

The heat clung to her like a wet shirt. Her skin was too hot. She tore off her outer layer, throwing it in the reeds, and dropped to her knees in the water.

And then—she let it come.

Her breath slowed. Her skin thickened. Her eyes went flat and golden. She let go of the girl-body and welcomed the beast-body, which always came without apology.

She swam, silent and deep, the bottom of the world her kingdom.

Above the trees, a hawk cried out like a question. The swamp gave no answer. Only the current did—wrapping around her with slow affection.

Somewhere, computers were humming with confusion, trying to count the days. But here, Jessa counted nothing. The year could end or not, it did not seem to matter all that much.

When she was the crocodile, her mind did not go blank. It opened.

It wasn’t like what they said—like she turned into some dumb, thrashing thing driven

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by instinct alone. No. The world grew sharper, louder, more alive. Her body sensed vibrations and scent, in warmth and water pressure. She could feel the difference between cattail and sedge just by the way it brushed her flank. Hear a dragonfly land three reeds over.

Thoughts still came to her, just not in the way folks expected. She didn’t think in sentences, but in pulses. In memories of paths taken before. In hunger, yes—but not just for food. For the pleasure of the hunt, the pull of the current, the coolness of shadow beneath a cypress root. She knew desire. She knew patience.

She knew herself.

And if something came too close—if someone stepped into her water like they owned it —then yes, she struck. Not out of rage. Out of knowing. Out of law. It was her right. Her teeth were not anger, but boundary.

People called that dangerous.

She called it sacred.

The sun found her spine like it remembered her.

She lay stretched on the muddy bank, half in water, half out, her thick tail curled like a question mark behind her. Her eyes were slits. Still. Unblinking. But she was not asleep.

Every scale hummed with heat. Every breath moved slow through the barrel of her chest. Her nostrils twitched once—just once—at the smell of something dead downriver.

A fish, maybe. Or something bigger. She didn’t bother to check. Hunger was not loud today.

What mattered was the sun. And the silt against her belly. And the hush between the

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reeds.

Dragonflies kissed her hide, daring. A frog croaked, bold and clumsy, then fell silent.

She knew where the herons nested. She knew the weight of a possum’s step when it broke a twig. She knew the way boys from the church would sometimes sneak down here, thinking themselves brave.

She didn’t hate them.

She didn’t think much of them at all.

Only once did she lift her head—when the wind shifted and carried the scent of diesel and bleach, sharp and stinging. Human stink. Close. Clumsy.

She didn’t move. She didn’t need to.

Her body, slick with warmth and shadow, told them everything they needed to know.

This bank belonged to her.

Jessa’s clothes clung to her, river-damp and brambled. She had walked home the long way, cutting behind the old feed mill and under the telephone wires that buzzed low with September heat. By the time she opened the screen door, it was nearly dusk.

Her grandmother was sitting in the front room, just past the bead curtain, shelling butter beans into a chipped porcelain bowl. The television murmured some gospel program—soft organs, a man talking about Revelations like it was a road trip.

‘You home,’ her grandmother said without looking up.

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Jessa stood there, mud on her calves, hair still tangled with burrs.

‘They called from the school,’ her grandmother said. ‘Said you walked out around noon.’

Jessa said nothing. She expected to be scolded, sent to her room, given some speech about responsibility or appearances. Instead, the older woman set the bowl down and patted the spot on the couch beside her.

‘Sit,’ she said.

Jessa obeyed.

For a few minutes, the only sound was the hum of the ceiling fan and the dull pop-pop of beans dropping in the bowl.

Then her grandmother asked, ‘What did it feel like this time?’

Jessa hesitated. Then: ‘Like my skin didn’t fit.’

Her grandmother nodded.

‘Like I was growing something under it. Like I had teeth in places that don’t usually have teeth.’

Another nod.

‘My back hurt. And my eyes—my eyes felt too open. Like I could see too much. And that boy…’ She stopped herself, flushed, suddenly shy.

‘Mhmm,’ her grandmother said, like she knew the rest of the sentence already.

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Jessa picked at the seam in her jeans. ‘It scares me.’

Her grandmother took her hand, not gently, but firmly—like anchoring a rope to a cleat.

‘There are ways to live with this,’ she said. ‘You learn how to read it, how to listen when it’s coming on. You learn where you can go and what to avoid. You learn how to ride the change instead of letting it ride you.’

‘But I don’t want to learn,’ Jessa said. ‘I don’t want to be like this.’

Silence.

Her grandmother’s face didn’t change. But her hand, still wrapped around Jessa’s, gave the faintest squeeze.

‘You think I did?’ she asked, low.

The question sat between them like a glass of water—clear, plain, impossible to ignore.

‘I wanted to be a teacher. Wear perfume. Sit in church like everyone else and never worry about blood or heat or hunger that don’t belong to people. But some of us get called different.’

Jessa blinked, eyes stinging.

‘I just want to be who I am,’ she said.

Her grandmother reached over, tucked a strand of hair behind Jessa’s ear. ‘You are who you are. This don’t change that.’

Then, quieter: ‘But who you are… got layers, baby. Like bark. Like skin. Like the earth.’

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Outside, a cicada whined itself into stillness.

Inside, they sat together, wordless now. The television preacher warned about the stroke of midnight and digital devils, but neither of them listened.

The bowl of beans was only half full.

They walked to church as the sun slipped behind the trees, their shadows long and lean on the gravel road. Jessa’s grandmother wore a sweater the color of old egg yolks and carried her Bible against her chest like it was still warm from reading. Jessa walked half a step behind, watching the way her grandmother’s knees moved under her skirt, steady and small.

The church sat on the hill like something half-buried. White clapboard walls, a steeple leaning just enough to make you worry, and a bell that still rang out before service.

Tonight it rang late and sharp, echoing across the trees like a warning.

People filled the churchyard, talking in hushed fits of laughter, that nervous kind that comes before a storm or a bad diagnosis. One man mentioned his cousin who stocked up on water and batteries. A woman whispered about the grocery in Adamsville running out of powdered milk.

‘They say it’s just a software thing,’ someone said. ‘But who knows what’ll happen when all them zeroes line up.’

Jessa’s stomach felt tight and electric. Not just from the talk. From something deeper.

Something warming in her chest and under her arms, like fire flicking its tongue against the inside of her skin.

Inside, the sanctuary buzzed with low conversation. The lights were too bright. Kids

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squirmed, parents clutched their Bibles. Some had brought notebooks. Others just looked around wide-eyed, waiting for a word.

Jessa and her grandmother took their usual spot on the left side, four rows back. The pew wood was worn smooth by decades of worry. Jessa glanced up once and saw Derrick a few rows ahead. His neck caught the gold of the lights, strong and perfect. Her eyes drifted to the freckle above his lip. She imagined kissing him again, then felt the idea bloom and swell, hot and sharp.

She looked down at her knees and clenched her fists.

She could already feel it beginning.

The bell rang again, and Pastor Rickey stepped up to the pulpit.

Pastor Rickey Lyles stood tall in his dark blue suit, one hand on his Bible and one on the microphone like he was tuning both at once. His voice came low at first, gentle as thunder in the distance.

‘Brothers and sisters,’ he began, ‘we are living in the last days.’

Amens rippled across the pews.

‘They say come January, it’ll be nothing. A little computer mistake, some missed alarms, a hiccup. They say there’s no reason to worry.’

He paused, letting the room grow still.

‘But I ask you: What if it’s more?’

A few heads nodded. Someone whispered, ‘Yes, Lord.’

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‘What if this so-called Y2K is more than numbers and wires? What if it’s the Lord’s way of shaking the tree? Of showing us who’s ripe, and who’s rotten?’

His voice grew louder, now bouncing off the beams.

‘What if the banks fail? What if the lights go out and don’t come back on? What if planes fall, or the devil rides in on static and confusion, laughing from your television set?’

Laughter rang out, but it was uneasy. People glanced at one another, half-believing.

‘I’m not saying panic,’ Pastor Rickey said, his voice dropping again. ‘I’m saying prepare.

I’m saying repent. I’m saying we wake up. Because if the world don’t end, praise God— but if it does, let Him find us ready.’

The organ began to hum.

‘The altar is open,’ he said. ‘And the hour is late.’

People began to rise. One woman wept before she even reached the steps. Others looked around, waiting for someone else to move first.

Jessa didn’t move. But her body itched again. Her throat burned. She felt as if her bones had shifted in place.

Her grandmother reached over and touched her hand. Quietly. Like she knew.

Jessa stayed seated. Her hands tucked between her knees, shoulders straight, eyes forward.

Beside her, her grandmother shifted, the leather of her Bible creaking softly as she

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clutched it tighter. Her weight tipped forward—just slightly—as if her body, out of habit, meant to rise. But she paused, eyes flicking to Jessa like a leaf checking the wind.

Pastor Rickey’s voice was rich now, a current pulling everyone forward.

‘There’s no shame at the altar, only grace. Don’t miss your moment. The Lord is calling tonight.’

More people stood. Feet shuffled. The organ swelled louder, and a woman near the front let out a sound like a wounded dove. It wasn’t dramatic. It was just real. She dropped to her knees at the altar rail, face hidden in her hands.

Jessa sat stone-still.

Her grandmother shifted again. Jessa could feel it in the pew wood, in the small tremble of the air between them.

But then—it stopped.

Her grandmother settled. Folded her hands on top of the Bible. Didn’t sigh, didn’t speak, just… stayed.

From the pulpit, Pastor Rickey scanned the room like a fisherman checking for stragglers. His eyes landed on Jessa.

‘Ain’t too late,’ he said, voice gentle, coaxing. ‘There’s still time. Don’t let your pride hold you back.’

Jessa didn’t blink. She watched him the way a cat watches a dog—coiled and unreadable.

The church was a field of bowed heads, outstretched arms, trembling shoulders. Tears slicked the altar rail like dew. The preacher called again, low and loving, but she tasted

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the command buried in the kindness. The expectation.

If she went, it wouldn’t be surrender. It would be performance.

She would not give him the win of her compliance.

The organ dropped to a low chord. The preacher’s voice faded. All around her, the room breathed in sobs and whispered prayer. Heat had built up in the sanctuary like a swollen thing—so many bodies, so much pleading.

But Jessa felt cold. Not ice-cold, but cellar-cold. Like standing barefoot on stone. The cold of knowing something others are too afraid to say.

She looked around and saw: only three remained seated. An old man near the back. Her grandmother. Herself.

She wondered, quiet as a thought:

What could they have done in seven days to cross a God so badly?

The question sat heavy in her chest, like it belonged to someone older.

And then—quietly, plainly—her grandmother reached over and laid her hand on top of Jessa’s.

It wasn’t a restraint. It wasn’t a plea. It was the quietest kind of loyalty. The kind that says: I want to go, but I won’t leave you. The organ hummed its last note. The lights flickered once. Jessa didn’t cry. She just nodded once, slow and small. Her grandmother squeezed her hand.

The scene ended not with a bang, not even a prayer—but with stillness. The two sitting

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side by side. Unmoved.

And enough.

It was nearly dark when Jessa slipped out.

The house had gone quiet, her grandmother already in bed, or pretending to be. The screen door clicked behind her, soft as breath. She walked barefoot down the path past the cemetery, where the gravestones leaned like tired shoulders and the moss-covered trees pressed close. The pond waited at the end of the trail, still and unlit, like a secret held in cupped hands.

She stepped out of her clothes and laid them carefully on the bank. The air touched her skin like a question.

She moved into the water.

It was cold, but not unkind. Cold like something true. The mud squelched between her toes, and minnows darted from her ankles. The water climbed her calves, her knees, her thighs. It welcomed her, slowly, without ceremony.

And then it began.

The change came not like thunder but like a folding, like breath held too long. Her spine pulled long and bowed. Her skin darkened, thickened, armored itself. Her eyes reshaped—lower, wider, clearer. Her hands melted into something harder, heavier.

It hurt—but not in the way pain usually hurts. It hurt like growing teeth.

She was halfway changed when she heard the footsteps.

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Soft. Familiar.

Her grandmother stepped out of the woods without alarm. She didn’t speak. She didn’t flinch.

She simply sat on the bank and watched.

The last of Jessa’s skin went hard and glinting. Her mouth split wide. Her body settled low in the water, just her eyes above the surface. She hovered there, the pond circling her like a held breath.

Her grandmother lit a cigarette with shaking hands. Not fear—just age.

‘I thought you might come here,’ she said softly. ‘I thought maybe I should, too.’

The frogs quieted. A whippoorwill cried out once, then nothing.

Jessa floated in silence.

Her grandmother didn’t look away.

‘I used to come to this same pond,’ she said. ‘Back before you were born. After your mother left.’

She flicked ash into the water.

‘I thought I was alone back then,’ she added. ‘But I wasn’t. Not really.’

The wind rustled through the cattails. The pond lapped at Jessa’s shoulders—still hers, and not. The night was full of things unsaid.

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After a long silence, her grandmother stood and walked to the edge of the pond. She slipped off her shoes. Rolled up her pants to her knees.

‘I’m not asking you to be anything but what you are,’ she said.

And then she stepped in.

The two of them stood like that—one submerged and shining, the other human and still —until the stars came out like tiny wounds in the sky.

And neither of them turned away.

The new year came that January.

The clocks struck midnight, the power stayed on, the planes kept flying. Y2K did not arrive like the preachers warned—no digital flood, no collapse of the modern tower. But something ended anyway. Or maybe something began. The world didn’t burn, but it flickered, briefly, and in that flicker, some people saw a different shape to things. Not disaster, but revelation. Jessa didn’t change back, not all the way. She walked different now. Held herself different. As if part of her still belonged to the water, and always would.

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PORTRAIT OF MYSELF AS TINKERBELL MARY BINNINGER YA | REFLECTION | FAIRIES don’t be fooled by my size, i am wicked on the inside— bursting at my seams with jealous rage, obsessive possession, volatility, vindication, malevolence. but nor do i at all lack love, loyalty, benevolent kindness, warm softness, and tender grace. they are just frequently fleeting feelings.

is it really my fault though? a girl as tiny as i cannot possibly hold all these different sentiments and complex musings all at once, i cannot pick and choose what snags my heartstrings and when, it is forever one or the other. only one essence engulfing

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extremity at a time. and is it really my fault that I was imbued not only with a voice like that of a sweet, tinkering bell, but a sinisterly sharp tongue too?

in any case, i want need you to also remember that all these intrinsic intensities soaking my spirit are not just simply and solely circumstantial. remember that there is one single, thick thread that ties each chosen cause into a tight, neatly crafted, celtic lover’s knot.

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THEORY YUU IKEDA YA | LITERARY | LOVE My theory about love changes in summer.

Every thorn caused by love melts in the storm of heat.

Every pain caused by love becomes just dizziness in waves of brightness.

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THE GIRL WHO CRIED DIAMONDS BRIAR HYSSOP YA | FAIRYTALE | AUTONOMY One day, not long after she came of age, the daughter of two lowly peasants began crying and couldn’t stop. Her tears fell in currents down fair cheeks and splashed off her chest, crystallizing before gathering in pools at her unwashed feet. Neither her father nor mother spared a moment to console their daughter; instead, they gathered the overflowing tears in their arms and held them close to their bodies. They set her brother to work, urging him to pluck the glittering drops from the muck to sell at the market. The three of them washed the diamonds with the last bucket of water from their dried-up well, then used what remained to make themselves presentable.

On the first day, her parents brought a single diamond to sell. It was the first the girl cried, the purest and largest. And sell it did, to the highest bidder, of course. With that tear, the family earned enough gold to do more than fill the dusty bread basket on their dinner table—they also bought a healthy cow to slaughter and chickens to lay eggs.

Already forgetting the sting of hunger in their bellies, they returned home only to come upon another surprise. A sea of gleaming jewels hid the thick clumps of filth that covered their floors. Fresh diamonds pushed against the door of the girl’s room and tumbled into the kitchen in glistening clusters. Light tinks syncopated the space between her cries, but her parents heard only the rattle of gold.

Routine settled over the family: the girl cried, and her brother retrieved her tears by the bucketful, which he then wiped clean. Only the largest, brightest stones were presented to jewelers; the rest were buried or stored away should the girl ever stop crying. To her

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parents’ glee, she did not stop.

From then on, their lives were filled with her tears.

The tears filled the garden with flowers and fruit trees and washed the grime from the shabby walls until they gleamed like polished stone. They rinsed stains from the tattered rags the family wore for clothes, leaving them brilliant and whole and altogether more becoming for a family of growing wealth.

Soon after the flood started, the girl’s family gathered enough diamonds to rival the richest aristocrats who purchased them. The tiny home they shared constricted in on them with every tear that crowded their floors. With the excess gold they earned, they bought a new, much larger home where they could sequester the girl in a wing of her own, only to be visited when they needed a fresh pail of tears. Her room bore no windows and no torches—only dim light from the corridor reached her. Once a month, maids were allowed to clean her quarters, but only on the condition that they be as cold to the girl as possible. After all, any act of kindness might dry her tears in that deserted place.

The journey down the hallway was arduous, even for her father who was accustomed to working in the fields before buying his leisure, but he insisted it be this way. His daughter had grown frail with her frequent weeping, and she could not muster the energy to walk to the warmer, brighter rooms. Even more, he couldn’t risk her going outside. Should anyone learn the secret of his wealth, they might try to steal it.

Although her brother enjoyed the life her tears afforded him, he despised this arrangement. He still held a place for her in his heart, so when his parents attended balls and jousts, he would sneak along the tapestry-covered walls that blanketed the family from the sounds of his sister’s wailing. Her room glistened like veins of coal along cave walls when he entered, but still, he cleared a space at her feet and told her stories.

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She had become something of a legend, he said. Townspeople spoke of a beautiful young woman, locked away in the recesses of her home by a protective father who wanted to protect her from greedy men. He told her of the men who asked after her, of how they vowed to lure the shy nymph out of hiding. Though his stories were told with the best intent, they made her tears fall harder.

Perhaps it was envy, her brother thought. That she craved a life outside their home, too.

So, he devised a plan to get her out. He told her more stories of more men who wanted to wed her, and she cried more jeweled tears, and he took those tears into town to show the men what she could give them.

As he expected, her list of suitors grew, but so too did her tears. They enlarged into jagged things that tore at her face as they fell. If there had been more light in her room, if someone had visited her more often, they might have noticed the grooves worn into her cherubic face. It wasn’t until much later when her brother hauled a bucket of fresh tears from her room that he noticed the flecks of dried blood dulling them.

He dropped them to the ground and tore through the mansion, back through that lonely hallway, and into her dark room. Lantern in hand, he rushed to her bedside. But it had been so long since any light had looked upon the girl so strongly. She recoiled from its warmth. For just a moment, though, her brother saw scar tissues snaking down her face in silver rivers. He watched in horror as the tears continued flowing and ripping her skin. Mirroring them, he fell to his knees as his own tears, liquid and warm, mixed with the blood on her sheets.

‘Sister,’ he said, ‘no one will marry you now. You’ll never leave this house.’

She rose from her bed, and for the first time since the tears came, she smiled.

A moment passed, and nothing escaped from her eyes. A dry day passed, and then a

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week. The girl had cried enough diamonds to fund generations, but her parents panicked nonetheless. A month passed and then a year. They tried to revitalize her sadness, but in spite of their best efforts, the smile never left her face.

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PERI-DARK JAMILA TOUSSAINT YA | EXPERIMENTAL | MEMORIES There are nocturnal creatures dwelling in the peri-dark like a moratorium of memories There is a presence and absence; an injury of time inside this diaphanous antechamber, votives burn

like a moratorium of memories A reliquary of photographs and objects conjure life inside this diaphanous antechamber, votives burn Upstairs, the tenebrous attic holds loamy secrets

a reliquary of photographs and objects conjure life kept soundbites like the oblong bell of the boobook Upstairs the tenebrous attic holds loamy secrets Moments that gather the threads of experience

Kept soundbites like the oblong bell of the boobook darkroom magic of re-discovery moments that gather the threads of experience Remembering is like a small form of alchemy

darkroom magic of re-discovery wading into the snow melt of déjà vu

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remembering is like a small form of alchemy There are nocturnal creatures dwelling in the peri-dark.

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THE FORMS SVETLANA ROSTOVA YA | LITERARY | IDENTITY i. a scar shaped tragedy, another one, another memory, another god given up, another form of transcendence. of miracles, of lord-love. another one curved into your spine, baked into me like cake-words. a seraphic joy, joined into your thighs- my dear angel, gone again. i was celestial, blissful, divine, in your presence.

ii. i am golden, toasted by the sun, your rays slashing my thighs. flakes of pale gold in my hair, just a couple centuries ago.

iii. u let me look for something heavenly in your eyes. something i was missing. you spit out stars on me.

iv. there it is again. the exhaustion. hair bleached like wheatfields. your kiss hanging over me like a poppy. i looked to you like you were holding the planets.

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vi. no wings could make me fly but yours.

vii. shadows, that’s all it always is, shadows. could you bring me to the casket of divinity, roses flowing out like fruit. there is smoke in your breath, there is fire in my eyes. blue flames in the air.

viii. worship of Pluto, that’s all i’ve ever known and it is exhaustion, trying to find the planets in your eyes, find stitches in your heart. it is like a whisper, like a draft of smoke, auburn breath, auburn ash, tired

of searching for god in ordinary beings

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A VOICE ON THE OTHER END C SARAH STRAFFORD YA | HORROR | SECRETS ‘Get over here, she’s finally singing,’ Gemma whispered towards Leanne. The glow from the lighting and sound board under lit Gemma’s face, making the shadows in her contours black. Leanne snapped a lock on the spotlight so it’d stay in place and shuffled over. The balcony was tight and the abandoned theater seats were close to the edge. It was strange to think their high school once had enough girls to need seats up here. Now the entire student body filled only half of the theater below.

‘Here,’ Gemma handed Leanne the walkie talkie headset used to communicate with the stage manager. Instead of Lisa’s hasty whispers, there was singing.

‘La la la, la la la la la,’ a slow female voice sang. The voice was either a child’s or a woman doing an impression of a child. There was something practiced about the voice, as if she was trying to be creepy.

‘Weird,’ Leanne said. She was still unsure if this was a prank Gemma and Lisa were playing on her. She didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of being scared.

‘Told you it was real,’ Gemma said and smirked. ‘We heard it during set construction.

She’s finally back.’

‘Huh, yeah,’ Leanne said.

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‘La la, la la la la,’ the singing continued. The sound made Leanne’s arm hairs stand on end under her hoodie.

On the stage, the star was about to go into her big solo before intermission. Gemma gestured for Leanne to get back to her spot with her chin - as if Leanne wasn’t on her mark because of Gemma. Leanne rushed through unsnapping the lock and almost missed her cue. Thankfully it was just a dress rehearsal. If she messed up, Leanne would get yelled at by the director and not Gemma, who caused the miss with her stupid prank.

Class came too quickly the next morning. There was plenty of down time between rehearsals to study and get homework done, but not enough to make up for sleep. And practice had gone too late. The director made them run through the big ensemble song three times. At this point, Leanne had the choreography memorized and could hop on stage to join them. Not that they’d let her even do stage crew. Her unpopularity status had relegated her to lighting. It hurt her feelings at first. She had really wanted to be on the stage crew to bond with all the cast and crew. Now the pain was a small embarrassed smoldering in her chest. On the upside, she had more time to study than the stage crew and had whizzed through her morning history test.

Usually, she’d close her eyes once done. But the energy drink she drowned before class made her jittery. Instead, she stared out at the graveyard on the other side of the windows. Her little all girls school was surrounded on three sides by cemeteries, mostly occupied by dead nuns and priests. The gravestones were simple and decrepit, many were covered in vines and dirt. Their stone surfaces were often cracked and muddy from girls using them as target practice when they were bored during lunch or after school. The scenery lent itself to wild ghost stories the girls tried to scare each other with.

‘Lea, hey - Lea,’ one of the girls hissed at her. For some reason, she hated being called Lea and most of the school chose to anyway.

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Leanne turned towards the sound slowly, to show her distaste in a small way.

‘What?’ Leanne whispered back. Natalie was the one who’d tried to get her attention.

‘Did Gemma show you the singing girl?’ Natalie asked. Leanne almost forgot that Natalie was on stage crew. They never interacted during set construction or rehearsals. A part of Leanne wanted to correct Natalie that she couldn’t be shown a sound.

‘Yeah,’ Leanne nodded.

Natalie snickered, ‘And you believed it?’

Leanne felt her face burn up. Of course it’d just been a stupid prank. How dumb was she for believing it for even a second? Natalie was literally laughing in her face.

‘Girls, other people are still taking the test,’ their teacher said. Leanne turned away, angry that Natalie had gotten a rise out of her so easily.

The bell rang and Leanne was the first one to run out of the classroom. How could she let herself fall for their bullshit?! Here she’d done everything in her power to seem above it all. She’d thought her expression had been neutral when Gemma handed her the headset. Had a twitch of the eyebrow given her away? Or maybe a slightly deeper frown than her usual grimace? Whatever it was, she hated herself for letting them see.

She rushed through the crowded hall of chatting girls till she reached the double twisting staircase downward. A massive wooden statue of the Virgin Mother was at the base. Leanne watched as the girls rushed up and down. A plan formed in her mind.

There was still time before gym and if she went to the nurses office, she could get away with blowing off the class altogether.

Instead of heading down to the first floor, she snuck into the art room. The walls were

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covered in lazy reproductions of famous paintings. Several were still unfinished since before she entered high school. She grabbed a glue bottle and rushed out, just as the first student walked in. The white brick walls turned to much older wooden paneling at the top of the stairs. There was a door most didn’t know to look for, but Leanne was well acquainted with. It blended into the wood and was only noticeable by a subtle seam in the outer facade. She waited a beat for the halls to clear and pushed the hidden door to the theater balcony inward.

Even in the dim light, Leanne could see that the headset left on the switch board. She walked down the narrow steps and grabbed it. The only light came from the other side of the heavy curtains covering the ceiling length windows. She mostly went by touch till she felt the panel for the batteries. It opened easily with a snap. The batteries she threw under the table into the dark, no one would ever find them there. It was only white glue, but it’d be enough to cause some hassle. Leanne squeezed out as much as she could into the battery slot till it was filled to the brim. Then she closed it and poured more glue over the battery shutter.

‘Have fun,’ she said and smiled at her work. Now she’d have to hustle to the nurse’s office before it became suspicious that -

‘La la la, la la la la la la la,’ a voice whispered.

A cold chill ran down her spine.

‘What -?’ Leanne questioned aloud and froze. She turned slowly, certain that her mind was playing tricks on her.

The green on-light shined from the headset.

Her hands shook as she reached for the device and slowly raised it to her ear. There

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was singing on the other side.

‘La la la,’ the child or strange woman sang. ‘La la la.’

‘This isn’t real,’ Leanne whispered, ‘This is just a messed up prank.’

‘Who told you I’m a prank?’ the voice on the other end asked.

The headset fell out of Leanne’s hands and crashed to the ground.

How did they know she’d be here at this exact time? How could they have the singing turned on between first and second period? She’d even taken the batteries out and they somehow managed to pull this off.

There was soft laughter emanating from the speakers.

No, they couldn’t have managed it without batteries. There was no way. This was impossible.

‘Don’t you want to know what I am?’ the voice teased.

Leanne’s hands and legs shook as she bent down towards the headset. Yet, she couldn’t reach forward and touch it. She was certain if she did, it’d burn her hands on impact.

‘The graveyards don’t just surround, they’re beneath as well,’ the woman-child said, ‘That’s how we seep in. I’ve been here much longer than the first headstone.’

Leanne watched in frozen fascination.

‘Before you Catholics opened the school, before the colonists killed the British, there were

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dead here,’ she said, ‘Dead that didn’t belong to you.’

‘Who’s then?’ Leanne whispered through cold lips.

‘Oh, isn’t that the question? You’re not going to like it, little Catholic girl, with your school uniform and your religion classes,’ the voice mocked, ‘You don’t have a word for us. You wouldn’t like it one bit.’

‘You don’t know that. Maybe I would,’ Leanne said.

That got a full chest laugh from the voice. It was the kind of spitting insane laughter that someone couldn’t control, like she’d been told a fantastic joke and couldn’t stop giggles from erupting.

‘Hey, is someone in here?’ a janitor called.

The laughter died before the door creaked open. The janitor huffed and slammed the door closed. Leanne narrowly missed getting caught, she’d already been crouched down underneath the lighting and sound board table before he walked in.

The light on the side of the headset had gone black.

*

That night at rehearsals, Gemma spoke into the headset with Lisa without problem. Was Leanne going crazy? Had she not taken the batteries out? No. Even with just the small light over the switchboard, it was obvious that glue was chafing off from the battery socket. It got into Gemma’s bottle black hair and stuck out like strips of shed snake skin.

Every second Leanna wasn’t on spot light duty, she watched the headset. The voice

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couldn’t be real. It had to be a prank. Yet she knew she took the batteries out and she definitely got in trouble for blowing off gym class to go to the nurse’s office late. She kept circling those same pieces of evidence over and over in her head.

‘What? Do I have something on my face?’ Gemma finally snapped at her.

‘Ah, actually -’ Leanna was about to say and point out the translucent dried glue crawling down her scalp.

‘Whatever, don’t watch me,’ Gemma said and turned back to the board, right on her cue to pull up a set of blue lights on stage right.

All Leanne could do was steal glances at the headset and tap her foot to a nervous beat.

There had to be a way to test the headset. Maybe she could find Lisa’s pair somehow and compare the two?

The big ensemble number was better tonight. The director let everyone out early with a warning that they needed to be even better tomorrow. Leanne listened from the balcony, straining her ears to hear what the director said without a microphone.

Gemma already shut down the light and sound board and sat in the lower level seats with the stage crew. The walkie talkie headset was warm in Leanne’s hand. She pulled long strands of Gemma’s black hair from its sticky surface and held it towards her right ear. Nothing. The green light was turned off.

Actors and crew shuffled out of the theater as Leanne watched from above. She waited until the very last person walked out. She’d offered to turn off the theater lights, so no one questioned why she was hanging back. It was easier to shut off everything upstairs first. The stage was empty and shrouded in a darkness that had a weight to it. It was hard to even look at, there was such a heaviness to the darkened stage. She shook her head and jogged out of the balcony, headset in hand, past the wood carved Virgin

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Mother, and into the heavy theater entrance. There was a side stage door to the backstage. The lighting console was past pulleys and up a plywood staircase that was so bouncy it felt like she’d fall through. She lingered at the light switches, looking around desperately for the headset. Usually the stage manager kept the walkie talkies and crew equipment by the lights. It was nowhere in sight. She was about to give up, when she noticed something black and reflective peaking out from under a velvet red cape.

Lisa’s headset was already cool and clean to the touch. Leanne clicked it on and took a deep breath.

Static.

She closed her eyes and clicked on the sticky pair. There was just the crunching sound of a dead frequency.

‘I’m being an idiot,’ Leanne said aloud. Her voice sounded cavernous from behind the stage curtains.

Ah-huffff. There was an inhale of breath from both speakers.

‘Once, a long time ago, there was something else. Something more,’ the voice that was somehow both old and young said, ‘We walked across the earth and through the stars. Our breath created life and our tears drowned entire worlds. A flutter of our eyelashes could whip up tornados and the stretch of our fingers through sand could change the course of rivers.

‘But something changed. We don’t know when, not really. We fell asleep. Or we were tricked into sleeping. I wish I knew for sure which it was,’ she said and paused to let her words sink in. Though Leanne wasn’t sure if it was for her benefit or the speakers. ‘When we woke up the world had changed. There were gods, and man. Then one god and the endless structures of man. It’s hard to say which was worse. Brick and steel kept us below the earth.

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Your metal structures kept us at bay and too tired to fight back. And we wanted to fight back - we wanted to wake up. I’m so desperate to wake up from this endless dream.’

‘Why,’ Leanne started to say and wet her lips. ‘Why couldn’t you?’

‘And oh, all the glorious things we’d do if we woke up! We’d reshape the world! We’d destroy these endless metal structures, these cities of brass and steel. These wires that cross the earth and plastic that seeps into the dirt and lungs. How we’d rid the earth of the traces of this filth - these violations! Man is but a bug and should be reminded of his place.’

Leanne snapped the headsets off. What deranged nightmare had she just heard? It had to be the ramblings of a mad woman. Maybe she was reciting a script? Could the frequency actually be some kind of radio play and the woman was reading a monologue from an old B movie?

‘So weird,’ Leanne said and stuffed the second headset back under the cape. That’s what she was going with - it was just some strange frequency. A bug of a weird old building surrounded by the dead.

Yet - why then did she feel such a deep chill in her bones? There were goosebumps all over her body. It took a lot of mental convincing to climb back up the dual stairs and return the first headset to the lighting loft. Likely, she’d just imagined that she’d spoken with the voice when she snuck into the balcony during the school day. Maybe her mind was desperate for a connection. She had no friends at school and the loneliness finally got to her. That had to be it.

Just to prove herself right, she flipped on the walkie talkie one more time.

‘...look into her eyes and you’ll see the truth. You’ll know it’s true. You’ll know what you hear is the distant honest plea of someone wronged. We just wish to be free - same as you. Look

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into her eyes. You’ll see.’

She was running so fast and kept looking back to see if something followed, she almost slammed into two people. She skidded to a halt just as the two looked up. A small flame held awkwardly between a thumb and pointer finger illuminated their faces. Natalie and another stage crew girl, Allie, passed a cigarette between them. Their black track suites blended into the dim light so deeply, Leanne hadn’t seen them till she was almost on top of them. So weird and gross that they were smoking. Leanne couldn’t believe they were actually sharing a cigarette.

‘What do you want Lea?’ Allie asked in her usual snarky way. It was a tone she heard most days at the lunch table.

The question was so normal, it jostled Leanne out of her flight or fight state.

‘I’m just headed to my car,’ Leanne answered just as harshly.

‘By all means,’ Allie said. Natalie gave her a quick concerned look.

‘You want some?’ Natalie asked and held the cigarette towards Leanne, like she was offering a piece of cake.

‘Whatareyoudoing?’ Allie muttered under her breath. They all stood so close, it was ridiculous Allie thought Leanne couldn’t hear what she said.

‘What? I’m just being nice,’ Natalie muttered back. ‘Sorry, we’re just, um...both really tired. That’s all.’

‘No, it’s fine. I don’t want it,’ Leanne said and crossed her arms.

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‘Ah, ok,’ Natalie said and took a deep inhale of the cigarette.

‘It’s bad for you. Messes up your skin,’ Leanne said and stared right at Allie’s acne scarred face as she spoke.

‘Yeah, dully noted,’ Allie said and rolled her eyes.

They all stood there in awkward silence watching Natalie exhale smoke.

‘Did ah, you guys hear the weird voice again? On the headset?’ Leanne finally asked. It was a long shot, but worth checking.

‘The singing?’ Allie asked and raised an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, I dunno. Seems kinda silly.’

Natalie looked like she was on the verge of laughing, ‘It’s so dumb. There’s a new ghost story going around stage crew every week.’

‘Yeah, weird,’ Leanne said and waved some smoke out of her face. It wasn’t like she was privy to every ghost story, just this one for some reason. ‘Did umm. Did you hear it talking?’

‘Talking?’ Allie asked slowly, as if Leanne was too dumb to understand.

‘Forget it,’ Leanne said and pushed past them to her mom’s car.

‘You didn’t have to bump me!’ Allie called behind her, just as Leanne slammed the car door shut. There was a muffled voice of Natalie warning to ignore Leanne, that she was a weirdo. Leanne desperately wanted to scream or cry.

What had she heard then? Why couldn’t the other girls admit they were pulling a prank

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or let her know they heard the same thing without acting weird? Why did she have to go so crazy over this alone?

She sped out of the lot and only looked in her review mirror once to check for ghosts.

*

‘I’m telling you - none of us could get the locker open! Natalie tried, Jenna, then Reese.

We had the right combo too. I swear, it’d been the same set of numbers for years,’ Allie explained to the entire lunch table. Leanne sat at the end and tried to hide the fact that she was listening. The group tolerated her sitting with them, but none liked it. If she kept as still and quiet as possible they usually didn’t say anything when she placed her tray of food down.

‘So we had to go to the janitor to open it up. He had this master key and this is where it gets weird. We’re all watching, he puts in the key, and it doesn’t work! And he’s like, in shock. All flustered and annoyed. He’s all ‘I’ve never seen this happen before!’’ Allie continued. ‘And I’m like freaking out, cuz I need my books for next period. But no one can get the door open. So all gym class, I’m super nervous I’m gonna piss off Mr. Delvin.

If I get another detention, I’ll be suspended!

‘So I’m freaking out to Natalie and she goes ‘you know about the paintings in the old dressing room?’,’ Allie said. That made Leanne sit up. She almost turned towards Allie, but stopped herself. ‘‘If you ask it for a favor, it’ll help you out.’ Now obviously, I think it’s bs. But she goes ‘no, I swear. When I lost my English paper, I went to the painting and asked it for help. I switched classes and my paper was on my desk - waiting for me!’’

All the girls made little surprised gasps.

‘I know, right?’ Allie said, ‘So I figure, whatever it’s worth a shot. I sneak over to the

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painting before lunch and ask it to open my locker. It’s so weird the painting, like the lady in it is super freaky. Who cares, I do it. What’s the worst that can happen? I go to my locker immediately after and - BAM! The lock combo works!’

‘No way!’

‘That’s nuts.’

‘Ohmygawd, that’s so crazy!’

‘Did you look into her eyes?’ The entire table turned to Leanne when she spoke.

‘What?’ Allie asked.

‘Ah, her ah, eyes,’ Leanne said. Could this be what the voice had been referring to? ‘The painting?’

‘Why would I look into her eyes?’ Allie said and made air quotes with her hands.

‘I don’t know, I just hear her eyes are strange,’ Leanne said.

‘That’s so weird Leanne, do you hear how weird you sound?’ Allie asked and the other girls snickered. A few turned away, as if embarrassed. ‘What am I staring into her eyes, like she’s my girlfriend? Are we going on a date?’

‘That’s not what I meant, I just heard -’ Leanne tried to say.

‘I wasn’t talking to you anyway! Why are you listening to our conversation? That’s so rude of you. You shouldn’t listen to other people’s conversations,’ Allie said. Some of the other girls nodded in agreement.

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‘I’m sorry,’ Leanne mumbled. ‘I, um -’

‘You should be sorry! That was so inappropriate of you!’ Allie said. ‘And while you’re at it, tell a few more teachers about Natalie and me smoking. Really spread that around the school!’

‘I’ll leave,’ Leanne said and stood abruptly, making her metal chair skid loudly behind her.

‘Good. We don’t want you here. Or anywhere near us!’ Allie said as Leanne began to walk away. ‘And don’t sit with us at lunch any more, I don’t want any more detentions! I don’t wanna waste my time being nice to you!’

Leanne turned away and tried to steady her steps so she wasn’t fully running to the bathroom. Why did it always go this way when she tried to talk to the other girls? Sure, she’d told her homeroom teacher about Allie and Natalie smoking. That was for their sake - for their health! Why couldn’t they get she was trying to help them? She was just trying to do the right thing. And maybe feel a little superior while doing so.

Tears formed in the corners of her eyes. Once she was beyond the cafeteria doors, she ran to the bathroom and locked herself in a stall. Why couldn’t she get things right? Was she that hateable?

No, they were the ones who were hateable. She didn’t deserve to be treated like this. All she wanted was to join in the conversation and ask a basic question. Why were they so angry at her for so little? It was just a detention or two, they would get over it. Besides, they sort of deserved it for being so dismissive of her - just like all the other girls. This school was her prison. She’d show them. The painting waited for her.

She slammed open the door and marched down the stairs into the gym. No one was

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here as she ran across the basketball court to the far wall. There was a dark staircase that connected to the theater. It curved around and at the turn, was a door. She jiggled the handle to the dressing room. It was well known in the cast and crew that the lock didn’t work. It took only a few seconds till the door clicked open.

There was a dusty mirror along the wall and costumes thrown over a rusty wheeled rack. On the far wall was a painting leaned against it and turned away. The painting’s white underbelly had faded to a putrid yellow. The wood stretchers were splintered. She turned it with her hands touching the canvas. It was sticky and oddly rotten to the touch, like a sweaty pipe with fuzzy mold on the side.

A part of her was afraid to stare directly at the painting. It felt as if she were crossing some line. Once she witnessed the painting, there would be no turning back.

What was she turning back from? Relentless bullying? School life that she hated? There was nothing for her, save misery. Whatever the painting had for her would be better than this. The brush strokes were muddy and amateur. The red paint was brown and green at spots in an unintentional way. The figure looked stiff and boxy. She wore a sort of Victorian clown costume, maybe a harlequin. Her frowning makeup didn’t hide that the painter couldn’t get the symmetry of her face right. There was something so off about it that it was almost funny, as if whoever painted it was going for something profound and utterly failed. Leanne wanted to laugh. This was so stupid. She was supposed to believe this ridiculous painting granted favors and wishes? As if.

Just like everything else in the painting, the eyes were off. They didn’t align with each other or her ears. It was somewhat difficult to look into both eyes at the same time. The simple black mask had to curve in an uneven way to fully cover both.

And yet, Leanne couldn’t stop staring.

She bent down to take a closer look. There was something compelling about the

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woman’s eyes. They seemed somehow sad and distant. The figure saw something that upset her and she was just barely holding it together.

‘I get it,’ Leanne said aloud. She felt bad for the woman in the painting. They both had come to the verge of tears today.

It was unclear what color her eyes were meant to be. The hues meshed in such a muddy unintentional way. Maybe they’d been green originally, but the mix of colors rendered her eyes almost black. There was a spark of light in her pupils rimmed in a shade of lime.

Keep looking, you’ll see it.

Yeah, she was trying. She leaned closer.

See it now?

Actually she did notice something odd. Some sort of reflection in the harlequin’s eyes.

That couldn’t be right - this artist wasn’t talented enough for that.

But does that matter? Was beauty or skill even the intention?

Probably not. Leanne squinted harder.

There - she saw it! It was hard to believe, but there were mountains reflected in her eyes. Mountains and valleys with endless trees and moss. Waterfalls that seemed to be gushing downward. She squinted harder and she saw past the forest. There was an ocean and stars reflected in the waves. And beyond that galaxies and meteors crashing past planets. Black holes and new universes being born. Watching everything were eyes like burning suns and mouths like black holes ready to crush.

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‘Now you see it,’ the voice from the headset said aloud, not just in Leanne’s head. The voice’s warm breath was all around Leanne, engulfing her and humming right in her ears. ‘You see the truth of what we’re made of.’

‘It’s nuts, yeah,’ Leanne said, transfixed by what she was seeing. It was beyond comprehension. What she saw in the harlequin’s eyes was the most beautiful and terrifying thing in the universe.

‘You just have to let us free,’ the voice whispered close to her. Its breath was hot against her cheek.

‘Yes, of course - anything,’ Leanne reassured.

‘Rip the eyes out.’

‘Wha -’ Leanne asked and turned her head towards the voice. No one was there.

She couldn’t just rip it - the painting was too beautiful. It was a treasure. She should contact a museum and make sure they put it on display, so all the world could see.

Everyone would want to witness the truth and beauty of the painting.

No. No one else deserved to see this. It was too precious. And if it was the lock to the voice’s door, then she had to destroy it. She reached forward and ran her hand across the eyes. There was a layer of dust and varnish between her fingers and the original paint. All materials that weren’t precious or important.

What would it really mean if she did this? Did she understand what the voice was or wanted?

But also like, who cares right?

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‘Yeah, I don’t know,’ she stood up. ‘Let me check something first.’

She rounded the bend and walked up the stairs to the theater. The headset was under the cape where she left it the night before.

She switched it on and was met with static.

‘If I do this, what do I get?’ she asked.

The answer was better than she could have imagined.

She practically skipped down the stairs. She dragged her nails across the eyes, just to test how difficult it’d be to destroy. Some paint flaked off under her nails. There was still a thick layer between her and the gessoed canvas. She looked around and her eyes landed on the sharp metal of a hanger. She fascinated it between her fingers like a knife and stabbed it into the surface. It cut through with a satisfying crunch. The eyes burst through the other end. And she kept stabbing till the face was nothing but a gaping hole.

She let out a wheezing laugh.

A deep breeze burst through the canvas, tickling her across the face. The wind was all around her and felt somehow warm and ice cold all at once. It seemed to cut through her and make her entire body shiver in shock. This was surely the voice’s approval! She kept laughing and stabbing till the painting was in withered tatters against the ancient plywood.

*

That night, she watched the musical with a manic smile across her face.

‘What are you so happy about?’ Gemma huffed from her lighting board.

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‘Nothing, just...enjoying the show,’ Leanne said.

‘Whatever I guess,’ Gemma groaned and slid a switch upward. A corresponding red light slowly brightened with the motion of her fingers.

Then flickered off suddenly.

‘What the -’ Gemma said and stood up. She frantically flickered buttons and levers.

Nothing. The lights stopped responding.

There was sudden traffic on the walkie talkie.

‘Yeah, I know - something went wrong,’ Gemma said into the headset. ‘I don’t know, wiring issue or something. Let me get down there.’

Gemma ran up the short stairs and pulled open the door. In seconds it seemed, she was on the stage talking to Lisa. The director joined them as they pointed at the lights up above. The rest of the stage crew joined, including Allie and Natalie in all black.

‘Leanne,’ the director bellowed from the stage. For once, his balding head wasn’t reflecting any light. ‘I’m gonna need you to flicker some lights for us.’

Leanne gave them a thumbs up and went over to the board. She tested it out, but nothing happened.

‘Are you doing anything, Lea?’ Gemma bellowed.

Jeez what more did they want! She was testing the lighting board, it wasn’t like she could do much else.

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Bizz! All the lights flashed on at once, blinding everyone in the room. Leanne covered her eyes. It was pitch black before she could lower her hand. The hall and theater lights were all out. The entire building was engulfed in darkness.

Snip, snip. The stage lights buzzed above.

SNAP! The lights crackled and sparked all around them. Then fell, as if in slow motion.

Everyone on stage raised their arms as sparks thundered down on them. Fire sprang to life across theater seats. Limps were trapped under black metal reaching for help.

Voices cried in shock and pain.

And eyes watched from the shadows.

‘I knew you were the right one to speak to, we just knew,’ the voice whispered in Leanne’s ear. She snapped her neck towards it. No one was there. She should have known.

All Leanne could do was giggle in response. The feeling bubbled up from her chest and she couldn’t stop cackling. The voice had promised her sparks and revenge, she hadn’t expected like this. The theater smoldered. People screamed and cried at the top of their lungs. And she howled through it. A few people jumped on stage and tried to pull bodies out from under the wreckage. She could hardly believe how perfect her revenge was.

The chaos was almost as beautiful as the painting.

*

In the coming weeks, students claimed they saw massive eyes in the sparks and in the shadows watching them as the lights fell down from the heavens. The weird more religious kids would claim they looked like the descriptions of angels in the bible, all eyes and wings in wheels of fire. Leanne agreed with the eyes part. There definitely had

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been eyes watching from every direction.

A candle light vigil was held for those hurt. A few were still in a coma or surgery. None died, so Leanne didn’t feel as bad. She liked the idea that everyone she hated the most was badly injured. Maybe they’d learn to be nicer to her next time. She held her candle close and smiled at the flame.

Half the school noticed the small creepy smile Leanne wore while everyone cried through the mass. No one would forget how genuinely happy she seemed the entire time. It was the only time the miserable girl was satisfied. Most decided to stay clear of her from then on.

As the choir sang, it occurred to Leanne that she should be worried that she’d unleashed something horrible on the school. What if it - she, they? - hurt someone else? Well, as long as it wasn’t Leanne, she didn’t care. The thought did occur that she overreacted and did something incredibly stupid. She reassured herself the girls who were hurt deserved it for treating her so poorly over the years. Sure, she’d never make friends with the other girls now. But did that truly matter?

It’d be more fun to see what happens next.

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AUTHOR & ARTIST BIOS ARTEMIS MOSS Cover Artist - Beddgelert Artemis Moss is an artist and avid folklore lover, influenced and fascinated by their Welsh heritage. Artemis considers themselves a Swynydd (a magic practitioner), and their work and art is rooted in mythology and fantastical worlds, from the Mabinogi to Middle Earth. Outside of daydreaming of fantasy realms, Artemis enjoys sewing costumes, and making textile creatures and pocket-sized pals. They can be found at @moss.and.nos.

ANGELA PATERA The Benevolent Kallikantzaros Angela Patera is a published writer, artist, and poet. Her short stories and poems have appeared in publications such as LIVINA PRESS, MYTH & LORE ZINE, RILL AND GROVE POETRY JOURNAL, and elsewhere. Her art has appeared in numerous publications, as well as on the cover of SMALL WONDERS MAGAZINE, INDIE BITES MAGAZINE, THE OPHELIA GAZETTE, and a few more. When Angela isn't creating she likes to mainly spend time in the woods and in cemeteries. You can find her on Instagram @angela_art13 and Bluesky @angela-art13.

CATRIN LAWRENCE Bones of Saint Dyfrig, How Shall I Die? Catrin Lawrence is a writer of the strange, fantastical, and morbid. Her short fiction has been published by THE WHITE LILY SOCIETY, THESE PAGES SING, GWYLLION MAGAZINE, and more. If you enjoyed Bones of Saint Dyfrig, How Shall I Die?, another original folktale will be published by CORVID QUEEN in November 2025. Learn more about Catrin's work at catrinlawrence.com, or follow her on Instagram at @catshouldbewriting.

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SHANE BRADLEY The Hag of Silkwood Shane Bradley has written nearly a dozen middle-grade horror books, including Beware of Mary Crowe, and the award-winning horror anthology, Stranger Tales. He loves all things spooky and especially loves ghost stories. Growing up in a small town, he wrote scary stories for his friends and family. He lives in East Texas with his wife and two kids.

You can find him on Instagram, Threads, and Facebook @shanebradley_author.

TASHA EGGLETON Jenny Greenteeth Tasha Eggleton has recently graduated from Falmouth University's MA prosthetics effects course. She's spent her year on this course creating various puppets using characters from folklore as inspiration, and upon graduating aspires to find a career within creature fx for film and television. To see more behind the scenes of the creation of these puppets, as well as other projects she's working on, check out @tasha.eggleton.fx on Instagram.

ANDREW SEARLE moon drunk As a trans man, Andrew Searle’s poetry is often inspired by the queer experience and how queerness intersects with nature and religion. He is a practicing witch and is incredibly inspired by the Cornish landscape, community and folklore. Follow him on Instagram @a_ndi.s to keep up with his writing and activism within his local community.

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ALBA SARRIA Oil & Ashes Alba V Sarria is a multi-award winning horror poet & flash fictionist. Their debut book Night Life: A Folk Horror Poetry Collection received 13 award nominations & honors within its first six months of publication. Alba has received the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Award in Free Form Poetry, Polaris 1st in Fiction, the William Heath Award, and the Columbia Scholastic Press Association Gold Circle Short Fiction CM. Follow @albasarriawrites on insta to see new spooky projects and publications.

CASSIOPEIA GATMAITAN Living Memory Cassiopeia Gatmaitan is a queer fiction writer and poet from the Philippines. Their work has appeared in or is forthcoming from PSEUDOPOD, the MEKONG REVIEW, the DEATH IN THE MOUTH anthology, and elsewhere. Their works engage with hauntings and the haunted, folklore and history, the gothic and the grotesque, and the anticolonial. When not writing, they can be found tending to their garden full of tropical orchids. Find them on Twitter, Instagram, and Bluesky @lagunabayfables.

AJAX BHASKAR The Lycanthrope Ajax Bhaskar (they/he) is a recent game development graduate from Falmouth University, now based in London. They enjoy including mythology and the macabre throughout their work, along with themes of queer expression and the debilitating nature of the human experience. When they’re not writing, they’re reading, playing TTRPGs, drawing or cooking. You can find them on their website https://ajaxmbh.squarespace.com/

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JAMISON MOURATOVA Riddle Me Jamison Mouratova is an aspiring jack of all trades, soon to be residing in Chelmsford, UK, pursuing his next degree in Medical Science. He loves a little bit of everything: drawing, biochemistry, a strong cup of fragrant coffee, singing, ice skating, and soulcrushing poetry, to name but a few things. Do not ask him about Richard Siken unless you have an overwhelming desire to experience a (riveting, I'm sure) 15 minute unskippable cutscene.

WESLEY R. BISHOP Her Skin Was Beautiful, Strong as Leather Wesley R. Bishop is a historian, writer, and editor living in northern Alabama. His previous books include Liberating Fat Bodies: Social Media Censorship and Body Size Activism, COVID19 Haiku: Short Poems in a Long Year, and The Sound of Color: Poems. He is the founding and managing editor of NORTH MERIDIAN PRESS. You can find him on Instagram @Wesley.r.bishop.writer and @thenorthmeridianreview.

MARY BINNINGER Portrait of Myself as Tinkerbell Mary Binninger is a graduate of SUNY Purchase College and holds a BA in Creative Writing. She is the founder and co-editor-in-chief of her own online publication, FERAL FELINE LITERARY MAGAZINE. When she isn’t reading or writing, you can find her snuggled up with her cat or finding something to put glitter on. She can be found on Instagram @fairybinninger, @marysmanuscripts, and @feralfelineliterary.

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YUU IKEDA Theory Yuu Ikeda (she/they) is a Japan-based poet and writer. She loves mystery novels, western art, sugary coffee, and the Japanese animation “ (Jujutsu Kaisen)” and “ (Blue Lock)”. She is the author of poetry collections Seasons Echoing Around Me, Phantasmal Flowers in the Eden Where Only I Know, A Chain-Smoker at Midnight, and more. You can find her on Twitter/X and Instagram @yuunnnn77.

呪術廻戦

ロック

ブルー

BRIAR HYSSOP The Girl Who Cried Diamonds Briar Hyssop’s head is filled with horror, science fiction, and a little straw. Briar’s work has been featured in VIAL OF BONES and MOONDAY MAG among others, and is upcoming in SQUIRM BOOK’S Skin Deep anthology. Their best work is done from a sunny patch of Kentucky bluegrass, with their bloodhound by their side. You can find them on Instagram at @briarhyssopwrites.

JAMILA TOUSSAINT Peri-dark Jamila Toussaint is an experimental poet based in Sydney, Australia. Working with free verse, erasure, sonic, prose, remix, cento, classical poetic structures and concrete form, her work often explores perspective, self-actualisation, nature, agency, time, and her cultural identity. She was shortlisted for the IRONBRIDGE FESTIVAL POETRY COMPETITION in 2025. She can be found on Instagram @allofhersaints.

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SVETLANA ROSTOVA The Forms Svetlana Rostova is an accomplished artist, poet, journalist, and content writer with a rare love and passion for her craft, combined with skilled and sharp understanding of marketing as well as the technique and industry of art and writer. She also has the ability to transcend fields, known most for her genre-bending and emotionally explicit crafts. She often says she considers the act of living itself a work of art, and this is seen through her pieces- her style invokes a sense of both strength and fragility, something careful and vulnerable yet strong and deep. She has been published in journals more than 180 times, and has worked for TRAILBLAZER as a content writer, TTM as both a journalist and an editor for style, NOVA as an editor, YTP as a nonprofit research and content writer, ETHNIC THREADS as an editor, POLYPHONY as a writer, and has worked freelance as well. She has 7 Scholastic Art and Writing awards in various genres, and has founded two publications of her own.

C SARAH STRAFFORD A Voice on the Other End C Sarah Strafford is a New Jersey based writer and book publishing professional. Her work has previously appeared in HAUNTED WORDS PRESS Issue 9. Most weekends you can find her at a concert or comedy club. Weekdays, she’s usually trapped under a pile of books until her failed service dog saves her and demands a walk as compensation. Find her on Instagram @straffywrites.

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K YOU N A H T

www.hauntedwordspress.com