Issue Five: Wicked Woodlands

ISSUE FIVE

SUMMER 2023

WICKED WOODLANDS HAUNTED WORDS PRESS

Haunted Words Press Issue Five: Wicked Woodlands

Published digitally September 2023

Edited by Halle Merrick

Cover artwork by Nat Jacklin, entitled 'Lamp Light'

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 Website: www.hauntedwordspress.com Contact: hauntedwordspress@gmail.com

CONTENTS 3

Introduction Middle Grade The Wildings

MG | FANTASY | ESCAPISM

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MG | SUSPENSE | INTRUDER

6

MG | HORROR | FOLKLORE

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Pam Knapp

Invaders Stephanie Henson

The Mighty Sword Enda Mulholland

You Wanted to Save a Willow

MG | HORROR | REVENGE

Livia Hartpence

Witches on the Way

MG | SPOOKY | DEATH

Helen Kemp Zax

The Shadow in the Pear Tree

MG | FAIRY TALE | SPIDER

A.L. Davidson

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18

21

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Art Mushroom Fairy David M. Simon

Creepy Corvid Angela Patera

MG | FANTASY | FAIRYLAND

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YA | SPOOKY | CROW

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Young Adult The Cursed Wood, The Godmother Madison McSweeney

YA | FANTASY | TRANSFORMATION

Nocturn's Hollow

YA | DARK | NATURE

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YA | FANTASY | BETRAYAL

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YA | PARANORMAL | GHOSTS

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YA | FANTASY | HAUNTED

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YA | PARANORMAL | TRICKSTER

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Rebecca Riddell

Ring of Gold, Tale of Old Charlotte Brookins

Dusk Alexa Donley

Unearthing the Grave of the Woods Child Odi Welter

No Wolves in These Woods Caroline Lavoie

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66

Author & Artist Bios

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Issue Five: Wicked Woodlands. It amazes and astounds me that more and more wonderful ghosts and ghouls have found our little corner of the void, and continued to submit to us, read our issues, and support us in all your lovely ways.

Thanks to you, we’ve existed for over a year now, and we’re on our fifth digital issue.

Whether this is the very first issue of ours that you’re reading, whether you’ve been here since the beginning, or whether you found us along the way, thank you, so much, for supporting us.

For this, our fifth issue, we’ve collected work from fourteen fantastic contributors.

We’ve got short stories, flash fiction, poetry, and visual art, all established under our common theme of the ‘wicked woodlands’, and split for middle grade and young adult readers. There’s trickery and transformations, fairies and forest clearings, witches and weapons. Whatever peculiar and spooky motif takes your fancy, come and explore it in the Wicked Woodlands nestled within these pages.

There is so much talent in this issue, and we absolutely adore how it’s turned out, so we hope you do too. So without further ado, welcome to Issue Five: Wicked Woodlands. The trees have been waiting for you.

- Halle Merrick, Editor in Chief

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THE WILDINGS PAM KNAPP MG | FANTASY | ESCAPISM Children are taught to be wary of their wild. They are warned against the places their wild lives, especially in the cool, dark where the trees grow close together and their branches lattice across the sky. They're told that its shadowy cover is full all things dire and dreadful. It is known that their frightening, beautiful wild is loyal and longs for them, and waits just beyond the tree line.

The trees are kept from the playground by the old, weatherworn fence. Through dilapidated slats, their wild peers in, patient and expectant. When children spill out to play, their wild is energised, it makes the tops of trees sway and all the trembling leaves hush, brushing together in anticipation. Their wild hears the chorus of whoops and hollers bounding through the fence and into its waiting heart and it jolts alive, twisting and writhing to escape the confines of the trees, craving the children. Their wild calls from the depths of its squirming underbelly, a song irresistible, rousing the children to faster, glee-filled, giddy fervour.

Adults shoo away children who come too close to child-sized breaks in the boundary but the call of their wild is strong and the children cannot help but answer with leaping cries running free in dizzying circuits that return to where their wild presses to be with them. Children cannot be kept from their wild. With every cry, closer it comes to the playground and the children feel their wild thrust towards them from behind the fence, pushing and heaving against the weak border. The trees shake with the rush of their wild to peer through the gaps and to call, and call. The children’s frenzied squeals and flitting dashes spiral.

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Their wild swells and blooms, climbing high to breach the barrier. Thickening tendrils burst invisibly through the playground floor. Legs brush against whorls of their wild and the sensation agitates and fuels excitation, delight erupts, and the children are freed into daring and overflow with imagination, a place where boundaries were never built and time is endless. Life floods the air.

The sharp, tearing trill of the whistle brings all to a stop. Their wild retreats, low and sullen, melting back through the ground and slinking behind the fence.

Children conform to lines and silence.

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INVADERS STEPHANIE HENSON MG | SUSPENSE | INTRUDER At the edge of the emerald forest a band of light shines in the distance.

A grand community stands where lush landscape once lived, now homes of great stature inhabit the space.

The envy of all.

But perfect streets holds secrets— Where the creatures of the woods come together, to terrorise and spook neighbourhood residents.

A beady eyed bat flying in a flurry through beamed rafters, A ravenous raccoon devouring trash cans in yards, A slithering snake sliding through narrow openings, All emerge from the forest.

Ready to take on the night.

Out for revenge.

Worming and squirming their way into places they don’t belong, to hear their favourite song, the screams of the invaders of their land.

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THE MIGHTY SWORD ENDA MULHOLLAND MG | HORROR | FOLKLORE She always gets to wear the cape. It’s not fair. I’m the oldest so I get to pick first, she always says. It wasn’t even her idea to play Adventures, but she still got to the dress-up box first. And it’s my cape! Granny bought it for me. Just because it fits her better doesn’t mean she should get to wear it all the time. When I’m taller it will fit me perfectly. Mummy even said so. A knight needs a cape when he’s going on a quest.

We’re not allowed to go too far into the trees. Mummy says we have to stay close enough so that she can keep an eye on us from the kitchen window. But the garden is boring, there are no monsters to slay or castes to climb there – you need a proper forest to play a good game of Adventure.

Jane’s a witch again. She’s always a witch and she always has to be the most powerful one out of everyone. You can never beat her when we’re playing and if you do she just huffs and says she’s not playing anymore.

‘You can’t go too far in,’ she says when I crawl through the fence at the end of the garden. ‘Mummy will be cross at you if you do!’ Jane never gets in trouble. Even when she does, she just blames me and Mummy and Daddy always believe her.

‘I’m just going in a little bit,’ I say. ‘I can still see the house.’

The trees are bigger further away from the garden fence; perfect climbing trees. I want to build a treehouse here but Daddy says he won’t have the time until the summer. He says that every year. There are still leaves on the ground, even though it’s spring and

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there are daffodils in the garden. Some of them are dry and crunchy. I love kicking them up as high as I can into the air and watching them float down like dirty butterflies.

‘Stop that, Dáithí!’ Jane shouts. ‘Play the game right.’

Then I see it. The perfect sword, lying on top of a big pile of leaves. It’s long and thin, but strong enough to swing in the air without breaking in half. It must have fallen off one of the trees during the storm yesterday. I pick it up. The bottom of it is still wet from the ground, but it’ll dry soon. There are some small twigs growing out of it, but I’m able to break them off easy peasy.

‘Jane, look what I found!’ I bet she’s so jealous of my sword. It’s far better than anything in the play box. I’m going to look after it and keep it for ages.

‘That would make a really good magical staff,’ says Jane, staring at the stick in my hands.

I have to hide it behind my back, even though it's longer than me. ‘Well, it’s mine. I found it first.’

She reaches out her hand. The cape starts floating behind her in the wind. My cape.

‘Dáithí, give it to me. It’s too long to be a sword. It’s bigger than you. You can barely carry it.’

‘I don’t care. It’s mine!’

‘Dáithí, I’m not playing with you if you don’t give it to me.’

‘Fine. I don’t want to play anymore. I’m going to go on my own adventure.’ Let’s see how she likes it.

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‘Well, I’m telling Mummy that you’re not playing the game right!’ I watch as she pulls the cape from her neck and throws it down onto the ground. Then she stomps back towards the house, leaving me alone.

I crawl back through the fence, run to the cape and tie it around my neck. Actually, I’ve grown since I wore it last and it almost fits me perfectly. It looks so much better on me than it does on her. I turn around and go back through the fence again - it’s easier than climbing over it. Sometimes when I try to, I get to the top plank and get too nervous to climb down. I don’t like being too high.

Now I’ve got my sword and my cape I’m ready to go and find a monster to slay, all by myself!

It gets darker the further I go, but when I look up I can still see some blue.

The trees are really tall here and they stand together like an enormous army. Sometimes I think I can see faces in the wood, but I don’t stare too long in case I get scared. I remember when Daddy was reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to me. The trees talk to each other in that story; spy and whisper secrets about the heroes – some of them are even on the White Witch’s side. I stand still and try to see if they’re doing that now, but all I can hear is the wind moving through their branches. Some of them are starting to get buds. I hope the leaves come soon, they look sort of sad without them.

I keep going into the forest, pulling at my cape when it gets caught on the branches and swinging my sword, practising for when I meet the monster. If it’s big I’ll stab it in its legs first, so it falls over, then I’ll aim right for the head. But sometimes monsters have strong skulls, so I might have to put my sword straight through its eye instead. Or its mouth like Harry Potter does to that big snake.

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I think I can hear Mummy calling for me, but I ignore it. If I go back now she’ll shout at me for not letting Jane have my sword.

After a minute or two I can’t even hear the cars on the roads. There’s no noise, not even the bird’s chirping. In front of me, there's a big tree that’s fallen over. It looks old, like it’s been there for a while. I don’t recognise it. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever been this far into the forest. Especially not by myself.

There’s a small hole below the tree. I try to crawl underneath but it is too tight to fit and I don’t want to get my cape dirty. This isn’t going to be like the fence that I can go through. I have to go over it. I need to stand on my tiptoes to reach the top of it.

That’s when I see them.

There’s three of them, moving around in a circle and chasing each other. They keep barking at each other like grumpy dogs. They’re the same size as me, but they’re much older, with big bushy beards and crazy orange hair that’s platted like a girls and tied in knots just like my shoe laces. They’re wearing funny clothes too; red coats and green trousers, covered in dirt and stains and they don’t have any shoes on. Each of them have long tails sticking out below their coats, the same colour as their horrible hair.

‘Give me my knife! Come here this instant you little rat!’ one of them screams, reaching out and trying to snatch the tail of another that keeps running away from him, laughing and saying really bad words.

I can’t see the third one properly. I try to stand higher and I jump a little to get a good look over the tree, but it doesn’t work. I need to use my sword. I dig it into the ground and push myself up against it, kicking my legs like I’m swimming in the pool. My belly lands flat on the tree and I accidentally slide over the top of it, landing on the other side. When I look up, the three funny little men are gone. Then I feel something cold

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below my chin.

One of them is standing beside me, holding his knife under my head.

‘Kill it!’ The other two slide out from the trees in front of me and open their hands wide.

Their nails are sharp and dirty and their skin is grey. When they talk, I can see lots of fangs inside their mouths. ‘Our beards need fresh blood!’

‘No!’ I scream, trying not to cry. ‘No!’ ‘Kill it before it makes any more noise!’ One of them says.

I want my Mummy and Daddy to come and get me. I want to go home.

‘Wait!’ The one holding the knife takes it away from me and moves in front of my face.

His breath smells like one of Daddy’s bad farts and his nose bends into a hook like a bird's beak. He has so many wrinkles around his black eyes and mouth. ‘Is he one of us?’

The angry one throws his hands into the air. ‘Don’t be so stupid! He’s mortal!’

‘Are you certain? His garments are red and he carries a weapon! And he is of the right height.’

The one who hasn’t spoken yet moves closer to me now too. ‘Perhaps he has shaved his beard?’

‘You idiots! We do not shave our beards!’ The angry one drags his hand across a tree trunk, leaving big scratches in the bark. ‘He doesn’t have a beard because he is a boy! He is a mortal boy! And that is not a weapon, it is merely a stick from one of the trees!’

‘It is a weapon!’ I shout back. ‘It’s my sword!’

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The other two turn back to their friend. ‘See! He says it is a sword.’

The angry one folds his long fingers over each other and raises a bushy, orange eyebrow. ‘Fine. If he is one of us, then he can prove it.’

I swallow hard and try not to look too scared, grabbing hold of my sword beside me.

‘How?’

The angry one smiles at me, but I don’t think he is my friend. ‘You will do what we do best. Fight.’

The other two push me up on my feet. When I’m standing, I realise I’m a little taller than them.

‘But that’s not fair,’ I say. ‘I don’t know how to fight.’

The angry one screams, showing all of his teeth. ‘Then you are not one of us and we shall kill you for wasting our time!’

‘And we shall cut you open and pour your blood on the forest floor!’ says the second.

‘And we shall run it through our beards and hair until they are stained red!’ says the third.

All of them are walking towards me again. I lift my sword up and squeeze it tight. I’ve practised fighting monsters so many times before. I always imagined they’d be bigger, like dragons or mutant gorillas, not the size of one of Santa’s elves.

I swing my sword through the air as hard as I can. It hits one of them in the stomach and he falls onto the ground, grabbing hold of his belly and crying out. Another one of

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them grabs my cape, but I yank it from him and hit him hard on top of his head. He falls down too and the knife slides away, landing near the angry one, who lifts it and waves it at me.

‘So you can fight!’ he says, as he runs towards me, ‘but can you win?’

I walk backwards but I hit my back against the fallen tree. I don’t know what to do. I try to climb over it but I can’t reach the top from this side. I want to climb underneath it but I’m too scared I’ll get stuck and he’ll get me. I turn around and try to run, but he sticks his knife through my cape and into the log. It tightens around my neck and makes me fall over.

‘Ow!’ I shout as I land on the ground. My cape is so tight around my neck that it’s choking me. I have to untie it and move away so I can breathe properly. When I look back over my shoulder and see the big rip that his stupid knife has left in it. ‘No!’

‘Finish him!’ shouts the one still holding his stomach.

‘I want his blood!’ screams the one still rubbing his head.

The angry one pulls the knife out of the log and my cape falls down to the ground. ‘I told you he was nothing but a pathetic mortal boy! I will enjoy this!’

‘No. Stop! I don’t want to play anymore.’ I stand up and grab my cape, looking at the massive hole in the back of it. ‘Why did you do that? Jane is going to be so cross with me.

She’ll say it’s my fault!’

All three of them stand up and look at me, not saying anything. The angry one drops the knife in his hand.

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‘And she’ll tell Granny that I ruined her present and then she’ll just start buying me socks again for my birthday. It’s all your fault. I hate you lot!’

‘What is he doing?’ the angry one whispers to the others.

‘I don’t know. Is he crying over his garment?’ asks the second.

‘It must be very special,’ says the third.

‘It is!’ I shout back, rolling the cape into a ball in my hands.

‘And now it’s ruined!’ I pick up the knife from the ground and throw it into the trees.

‘How dare you! That is my favourite dagger!’ the angry one shouts. ‘The Morrigan herself gave it to me! I’ve had it for a thousand years. Why did you do that?’

‘How do you like it!’ I shout back at him.

‘I do not like it!’ he says, sending one of the others off into the bushes to find it.

‘Good. Now leave me alone.’ I try one more time to get over the tree, rolling on my belly again and landing on the other side. ‘I’m going home.’

One of them lifts my stick and shakes it at me. ‘Wait! You forgot your sword!’

‘I don’t care, I don’t want it anymore!’

I stump through the forest, back towards the fence. When I reach the garden it’s starting to get dark. Big purple clouds are in the sky. The lights are on inside the house and I can see Mummy standing at the kitchen window, making dinner. I don’t want to cry, but it’s

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hard not to when I look at the big tear in my cape. Everyone is going to be so cross with me and say it’s my fault for not sharing and not listening to the rules. I’ll get sent to my room and Jane will get to watch her cartoons. It’s not fair!

Just as I start to climb through the fence I hear a sound behind me; the crunch of dead leaves. ‘What do you want?’ I ask, looking at the angry little man standing in front of me, holding his knife and my sword. It’s much taller than him.

‘Your garment, can it be mended?’ he asks.

‘I don’t know.’

He drops his knife and my sword and opens his hands. ‘Give it me, boy.’

I throw him my cloak and fold my arms. He rolls it out from the ball and runs his dirty hands over the rip. He digs the nail of his thumb into one side of the hole and the nail of his finger into the other.

‘What are you doing?’ I shout. ‘You're making it worse!’

‘Hush!’ he says as he pulls the threads out with the hooks of his nails. He begins to sew them together like my granny does to my school trousers when they’re too long at the start of the year. In seconds, the hole is gone. It’s all patched up.

‘How did you do that?’ I ask as he passes it back to me.

‘All of my kind can do such things with fabric.’

‘That’s cool.’

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He picks my sword up again and looks at its brown bark and long, pointed tip. ‘This is a mighty weapon. Don’t you want to keep it?’

‘No. It’s just a dirty broken stick.’

He looks at me and frowns a little. Then he reaches across and holds out his knife. ‘Then why don’t you keep this one? You fought well and a true Fear Darrig must always have a good weapon to fight with.’

‘But I thought it was your special knife?’

‘It is,’ he says, looking back at my sword, ‘but I have many mighty weapons. And as I destroyed your garment, I am now in your debt and I do not like to have debts, so if you take this, I will be free of it.’

The knife in his hand is too small to be a sword, but it is long and sharp. It’s white and there are pictures on the handle. I can see the shape of a bird; it looks like a crow or maybe a raven. There are swirls and fancy designs too; lots of lines getting tangled up in each other.

‘It was carved from the bones of the Fomorian Balor.’ He lets me take it from his hand and hold it in mine.

‘Who’s that?’ I ask.

He smiles at me, showing his fangs again. ‘Have we a deal?’

‘Ok,’ I say, keeping the knife in my hand. ‘Deal.’

‘Good.’ He begins to walk back into the forest, twisting his beard with a long finger.

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‘Come and find us again when you’re ready for another fight, boy. We will not lose so easily next time.’

Before I can see where he’s going, he disappears into the trees.

‘Dáithí!’ I hear Mum shout. ‘Dáithí, it’s getting cold. Come inside and get some dinner!’

‘Coming!’ I shout back. Quickly I bend down and bury the knife in the soil behind the fence, in a place only I know.

This is one thing Jane won’t be able to steal from me.

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YOU WANTED TO SAVE A WILLOW LIVIA HARTPENCE MG | HORROR | REVENGE A cherry tree started to grow from Kirsa’s back. Flowers bloomed, and birds built nests in the crooks of the branches. She swayed with the weight, but she never fell. My work was perfect.

The villagers were troubled by her but not fearful. It wasn't yet time for fear. Most were indifferent, but a few were curious and asked her why and how. She would shrug and say, ‘I wanted to save my father’s cherry tree, and somehow, it became part of me. I don’t remember how.’

But as her tree grew, the village’s spring crops died. Whole fields looked soft with snow, like winter had never left, but it was a thick, white mould. Trees fell that had stood tall for decades, perhaps centuries. The earth rejected their mouldy roots.

Who knows who began the rumour, but some whispered a vengeful, evil spirit must have come to destroy them. And another began, scuttling in the shadows with its sibling, saying that an evil spirit had possessed Kirsa and the village must banish her to be safe.

Some villagers started to shun Kirsa.

Perhaps she could have found peace again in the village, but a boy named Klaus went missing, and there could be no peace. His parents cried and said the spirit stole him.

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I made sure to remember his name. His parents were amusing.

The village headman called the villagers to the meeting house. They tried to discuss the crisis, but there was no order or reason. The villagers were too fearful and angry. I watched the goodness leave them. It leaked from them as maple syrup does out of a tapped tree.

But all of a sudden, it seemed, the rumours scuttled out of the shadows. Somehow, it felt like certainty there was an evil spirit, that it had possessed Kirsa. It must have twisted her mind and made that tree grow out of her back.

A mob formed, and it found her. She ran to my woods, and the mob lost her in the darkness. The headman set up a patrol, armed with sage and salt, to keep her away.

When Klaus returned, the villagers took it as a sign of victory over the spirit. They were smug: Kirsa, who was strange, was gone, and the summer crops were healthy and extraordinary. Klaus insisted that he had just gotten lost, but the villagers only shunned him as they did with Kirsa.

Every day, Klaus ran away from the village he no longer understood and fled to the woods, sneaking past the patrols and coming back with leaves in his hair and sticks in his pockets. He didn’t believe there was an evil spirit, and that wasn’t what was waiting for him.

A year went by, and then I started again. Klaus found his favourite patch of wildflowers blackened and disintegrating. He cried for each one. He wanted to save them with all of his soul.

When he heard footsteps behind him, he didn't stop crying. Nothing scared him in the woods, not even when he blacked out and woke up with an unfamiliar weight on his head,

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the wildflowers gone.

He didn’t remember me. No one does.

When he emerged from the woods, the patrol caught him. They found his wildflowers growing on top of his head, and in the fields beyond them, the spring crop was blackened and disintegrating.

It was easier, that time, to make them afraid and think an evil spirit had come and possessed a new, willing child. They didn’t remember me in their fields, in the shade of their trees, in their meeting house. They didn’t remember all I did and won’t remember all I will do. I pulled Klaus into the darkness of my woods as I had with the girl. I made the summer crops grow even more glorious and extraordinary. The villagers were smug and satisfied, but there was no trust. After all, wouldn’t the evil spirit come back?

I will do more, and the village will destroy itself. Any strange occurrence, any wrong thing will be the work of an evil spirit. The suspicion, anger, and fear will tear them apart. It's my vengeance. Your village hunted the deer in my woods and slew all but me.

But that alone won’t satisfy me. The deer must come back to my woods. Why don’t you stay, as Kirsa and Klaus do? I will turn you into something better than a human.

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WITCHES ON THE WAY HELEN KEMP ZAX MG | SPOOKY | DEATH There are witches in the woods— cackling magic howls, casting late night spells keeping great white owls, ringing tragic knells.

There are witches out to get you . . . in the woods.

You need to be watchful. Please keep your voice down.

For the witches are making their way to your town.

There are witches in the night— riding fast bone brooms through the chill, dark heights past a still, stark moon in the last lone light.

There are witches out to get you . . . in the night.

Run up to your bedroom. Hide under your sheets.

For the witches are riding the night on your streets.

There are witches at your door— scraping gore-red nails

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on the cold lead panes, leaving bold blood trails.

Oh, tonight dread reigns!

There are witches out to get you . . . at your door.

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THE SHADOW IN THE PEAR TREE A.L. DAVIDSON MG | FAIRY TALE | SPIDER An old pear tree looked down upon the sprawling fields and rolling hills beneath it. It was old, as old as Mother Earth, and just as fickle.

The land the old flowering fruit tree sprawled upon was owned by a watchful axeman, known far and wide for his generosity and adventurous spirit. The kind hearted man lived in a humble cottage with his young daughter. She danced in the tall grass, swung from the towering trees, ate the gifts of the soil and made jewellery from its spoils.

Though the green expanse was her playground, her father only gave one command.

Never approach the pear tree, for evil things lurked there.

The young girl simply could not understand why! Her father was large like a mountain, furry like a grizzly, and wise as the elder owls that sung in the evening chill. The cottage was cleansed with sage and wrapped in security. Its brick façade was strong, and the honeysuckle plants in the windowsill shimmered with morning dew. She never felt the pang of fear, she wanted for nothing, and life was as lovely as a song. What was there to fear?

She listened, of course. Nothing good would come of angering her father.

Still, the pear tree that loomed in the distance was a curious thing. She could see it, perched in the distance on the highest hilltop, and it called to her like a siren’s song.

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Her father simply reminded her to resist its temptations.

In the sixth year of her life the winter gave way to spring, and the pear tree once again became green. Summer’s bright sun turned it white with blooms that, from her bedroom window, looked to be bigger than her head. Autumn would bring a bountiful harvest, the yield would be large and the fruit would shimmer like gold in the sunlight.

Father could feel the chill on the winds. He left early one morning to collect the wood needed to secure their safety for the cold season. The air smelt crisp. It would be a harsh winter. So, wrapped in his flannel and axe in hand, he left early in the hours to traverse the woods. He promised he’d be home soon and reminded his sweet child to mind the pear tree’s hill.

The young girl found herself growing mischievous. Her little black cat sprawled out in the sunlight, its paws clawed at the air as it dreamed of mice and balls of yarn. She swept the floor with the old, scraggly broom, kicking up specks this way and that. The dust was piled up by the kitchen table. Life seemed blissful as she ate her honeydew. Its colour made her happy. Yes, life was kind and warm and simple, but those pleasures were fleeting.

None of it satiated the intrigue of the old pear tree.

She was not scared. On the contrary. She was interested in its secrets. It was simply a tree. An easily burned thing with fruits that blessed bellies and flowers that scented the air. What could her father have been so uproarious about? What could have turned her unshakeable hero pale as the sheets out on the line? How curious indeed.

The tree would lose its leaves soon after the cold came. The fruit would fall to the ground one by one, taken by the decay and mould of time and insects. It seemed like such a waste. She decided it needn’t be so.

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Bundled in a coat of brown, the young girl stepped out of her home, closed the lopsided door, and set a boot down in the soggy grass. One step. Another step. And suddenly she was off. She traced the familiar paths she traversed so many times before, aiming for the highest hill on the horizon.

Mushrooms bounced happily as she stopped by felled logs. The wildlife stared in wide eyed wonder as she passed. The birds sung a tune for her journey. She could tell Mister Autumn was on his way. He would bring with him the smells of cinnamon and cloves, fig harvests and the crackle of the fireplace. He would turn the sprawling fields yellow and it would wave like a blanket of sunlight. She loved when Mister Autumn would come. It kept the smile upon her face the entire way. Perhaps, if she could gather enough of the mysterious pear tree’s golden gifts they could make a pie to celebrate Mister Autumn’s return.

The young girl was elated.

As the early afternoon sun crested the tallest hill, the pear tree turned to a blackened shadow from where she stood. She gazed up in awe and wonder at the silhouette of the mysterious monolith and started her ascent. The wind whistled. Its sound was harsh and loud with nothing to capture its call. The hill had nothing surrounding it. It stood alone against its peers with might and pride.

When she finally reached the peak, breathless and wide eyed, a smile crept across her flushed face. It was more than she ever could have hoped, ever dared to dream. She felt as though it would take a lifetime to climb to its tallest branch.

A skittering noise broke through the solace. A long, slender arm unfurled like a rolled parchment from behind the sturdy pear tree’s trunk. Black, sharpened, its pointed limb set down softly atop the bark. More followed. There was a shadow in the pear tree.

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‘Why, hello,’ the young girl said.

‘And a good morn’ to you, small one,’ the creature responded.

‘Are you perhaps a spider, ma’am?’

‘How truly observant you are!’

The large arachnid perched itself atop a sturdy branch, its front appendages crossed.

The spider’s fine hairs were black as the most starless night, but its eyes glistened like the silver of the fullest moon.

‘You are a long way from home, small one,’ the spider noted.

The young girl nodded, ‘I came to pick a pear to bake a pie for Mister Autumn!’

‘Ah, well Mister Autumn does indeed love his pears.’

The creature skewered a ripened pear, the colour of spices and sunsets, and tossed it to the ground. The young girl, excited for the new experience of a first taste of such a forbidden thing, gingerly took a bite. She savoured its juices, the soft flesh that covered it, and its cold touch on her tongue from lingering in the autumnal breeze.

‘Miss Spider, may I inquire what you are doing in the pear tree?’ the young girl asked as she took another bite. Juice dribbled down her chin.

‘Why, this is my pear tree,’ she responded with glee. ‘These are my pears, my flowers, and my bark. Each morning I spin my webs in this tree to catch the dew as it falls. Each night I sit upon the highest branch, then I reach up, up, up! Up into the sky and weave the stars into the evening with the dew I captured.’

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The girl’s expression was one of delight. She watched as Miss Spider clamoured down the side of the tree to a lower branch. Miss Spider was much bigger than her father. No wonder he trembled at the mention of the pear tree. The young girl was confused by the worry, though. Monstrous things in size did not mean monstrous of heart, and Miss Spider seemed so lovely.

She stayed until twilight. The sky became a menagerie of lavender and tangerine. Mister Moon would be saying his hello to Mister Sun soon as they danced circles around her isolated world. The wind whistled angrily and the young girl shivered. As Miss Spider spoke she wove a tapestry of golden webs, her limbs moved rhythmically and she worked.

‘It would seem Mister Autumn has come early. Come, small one, I have made you a gift to stave off his bitter touch,’ Miss Spider offered as she extended her long arms down.

As she moved, a shawl of golden thread unfurled. She urged the young girl to come forward and take hold of it.

Eye wide in wonder, the naïve young girl approached. Miss Spider looked on in anticipation. It had been so long since she last had the pleasure of company. The damned axeman warned the nearby populace with fervour, told them all to be wary, so travellers stopped coming to the pear tree. Her children were hungry.

When the young girl’s tiny hands grasped hold of the golden garment, the malevolent weaver’s fang-filled smile grew wide. The setting sun captured the rich threads. A bright, harsh light rolled over the girl’s innocent eyes. Miss Spider wrapped the shawl around her small frame.

Laughter, joyous in tone and harmony, escaped the young girl’s lips. Even Mister Sun would have been jealous of her glow.

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Wrapped up in her glee, she did not notice the pears begin to tremble. She did not notice the sharpened points of Miss Spider’s offspring burst through the skin of the fruit. She did not notice Miss Spider’s hands had not removed themselves from the coat around her, that the arachnid’s playful motions that spun her ‘round and ‘round like a shooting star falling to Earth had sealed her fate. By the time she noticed her arms were quite bound and her body was sticky with webbing, it was much too late and the fangs had engulfed her.

The young girl learned that day why her father told her to never approach the pear tree.

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MUSHROOM FAIRY DAVID M. SIMON MG | FANTASY | FAIRYLAND

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CREEPY CORVID ANGELA PATERA YA | SPOOKY | CROW

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THE CURSED WOOD, THE GODMOTHER MADISON MCSWEENEY YA | FANTASY | TRANSFORMATION I think I am a fairy now. I’ve certainly been here long enough.

I was a girl, once, until the day I plucked the wrong berries and a vengeful sprite sealed me inside this tree as punishment. The sprite is gone now, but I remain: a part of the woods. Perhaps I am the woods itself.

The tree rotted and shrivelled once I was inside it. Its leaves fell in the springtime, never to regrow, and the grass around my roots died, refusing to drink any of the rainwater that may have filtered through my branches. Even the birds and the wasps who had once called my sturdy boughs home eventually moved their nests.

Occasionally the sprite would come by to gloat about this: ‘See what you’ve done? And you thought I should let you roam free!’ She had pledged to stay in the woods forever, to protect them eternally, but that eventually became a lie. In the days after she left, I warped the forest into my own horrible image.

It wasn’t my idea.

One day, while the place still lived, a huntsman passed by, his young son straggling close behind. The boy stood transfixed before me, perhaps seeing the sorrowful outline of my face in the bark. I couldn’t read his expression, and in that moment I felt that I might be worthy of worship – an immortal forest spirit like the sprite.

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But the hunter clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder and pulled him away, his face haunted. ‘This tree is bad,’ he whispered. ‘It’ll infect everything around it, soon enough.’

I wanted to weep; my branches trembled and I shed the last of my leaves. But the hunter was right, in the end.

Nothing good grows here anymore. The other trees are black skeletons, the few leaves that do sprout brown and brittle, born to die. Clear pools have turned to foetid swamps, and the brightly coloured flowers all wilted and died, replaced by ugly blossoms in shades of pale grey and sensual, sickly reds. Vegetation is sparse, and the animals that feed upon it are emaciated and frail. Even humans, who are slower to notice alterations of nature, know to stay away. What was once a common thoroughfare for travellers is now forbidden territory – a place of curses and cautionary tales.

I am not all bad. They say witches’ familiars gain their freedom within me, and I have opened myself to all who are not welcome elsewhere.

The first was a wolf who was in love with a human girl. When the moon was full and he yearned to see her, they would meet in a secluded spot, the wolf dressed in a woman’s garb so no passers-by would suspect they were lovers. But one fall day they were intercepted, and a hunting party – led by the girl’s father – chased the wolf past the limits of the town, until a wall of brush stopped them. The wolf, perhaps knowing he had nothing left to live for but life itself, ran headlong through the undergrowth, until he collapsed, sobbing, at my feet. I sent a shower of branches to cover him and shield him from the cold, and he slept.

He is at peace here, I believe. And he makes short work of the few wandering girls who find themselves lost within me.

The second was the golden bird whose eggs were in such demand that she was allowed to do nothing but lay. She lived in endless misery, wings clipped, caged, until the day the

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merchant on his way to sell her made an ill-fated detour down one of my roads (he was a foreigner, and had not heard tell of the evil wood). Her eggs rotted inside of her the moment she entered me, which was a kind of freedom.

I have sheltered evil things. Murderers and thieves who entered me as they fled the law, knowing their pursuers would not dare cross my borders; men who shrivelled into trolls after weeks of drinking my water and breathing in my rot. Perhaps I am their punishment as well as their refuge.

Even so, I tried to help them - even if just to save them from themselves.

There was a handsome young man who came here once, clutching a sack of gold that surely did not belong to him. I watched as he lingered at the edge of my realm, his arms around a young woman who begged him not to leave her. He wiped a tear from her cheek and released her, his jaw hardening as he crossed my threshold. He walked backward so he wouldn’t have to take his eyes off his beloved, but he gripped the bag of coins more tightly than he had held her. When she took a step toward him, I shook my branches and made the log under her feet rot, so she could not follow him in.

She was so beautiful. She reminded me of myself, when I had been human, when I knew a man who promised to never forsake me.

He promised her they would only part for a few days, pledging to emerge at that very spot in three days time to run away with her. Those three nights he slept beneath my canopy, drinking the rainwater that dewed on my grass and hunting the sickly animals who crept along my floor. When the day came for the lovers to meet again, I forced him to take the path that led to a pool, so he could see his reflection.

Suffice to say, the man did not cross back over. He did not reunite with the beautiful young woman, and they did not run away together. He lives to this day by that pool,

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cringing away from the image of his hunched back and ravaged face, polishing his gold as if hopes the water will wash away his sins.

Yes, I think I am a fairy now. I’ve been here long enough.

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NOCTURN'S HOLLOW REBECCA RIDDELL YA | DARK | NATURE In the gap between the garden wall and where the briars begin there lives one with twisted hands and moonlight-mottled skin

He bides his time throughout the months ‘till he clocks a colder shadow and roots his hands beneath the trees to churn the ground to fallow

He weaves a twisted grove assured that children will not follow, nor fit between that haunted space that welcomes Nocturn’s Hollow

Noc sheds his sister’s bounty, leaves them crackling underfoot he chills small fauna to their beds and stops becks and burns abrupt

He weaves his blankets over fields and crafts his makeshift meadows that leave space for only Reynard and other hardy fellows

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Noc ferrets through the soil and pilfers things that shine fallen from the trees that bow and nod to Father Time

Though, while he culls the crops, pulsing poison through the soil and sews the dark within the day – some, he leaves unspoiled

For, often you will find him bent, huddled in shin-tangle, attending to his roses – or such that he can fangle

He wakes the heather on the hills, Galanthus crowds beneath his feet – Noc fosters those who prosper here while Earth is granted sleep

He respects the work of those before and what must surely follow, crafting beauty that only grows in the heart of Nocturn’s Hollow.

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RING OF GOLD, TALE OF OLD CHARLOTTE BROOKINS YA | FANTASY | BETRAYAL The first thing Jorinde noticed about the forest was that there were no birds. This was odd, for even in the darkest of woods there was always some sign of the creatures, either the rustling of wings against ancient branches or sharp calls that pierced the night air, sending chills down one’s back. In the pitch black of the night, the cawing would have been enough to make her shiver, but Jorinde found that it was far more frightening hearing nothing at all. She had never been this deep in the woods before, never strayed so far from home, especially at a time when there was not enough light to lead her back. The moon, a silver sliver hanging in the sky, provided barely enough light to walk by, and she had stumbled over wayward roots more than once already. Her boots were sturdy enough to withstand the constant obstacles, but the hem of her travelling dress, normally pale sage in colour, had been ripped and frayed along the journey. Even her thickest cloak, which she had brought along in anticipation of the nipping night, had torn a bit, creating more than a few holes along the lower border of the fabric.

Jorinde’s legs had begun to ache and she longed to pause for a rest, for even just a moment, but she trundled on, her fear of the surrounding darkness weighing heavier than her strained muscles. With one hand, she found the gold band on her left ring finger and absentmindedly began to fiddle with it, twisting it around beneath her knuckle. The metal had grown cold with the falling of night and her fingers were stiff as they maneuvered the ring. It began to feel strangely tight against her skin, and so she twisted it faster, increasing her pace as she did so. She tried to focus on the cool sheen

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of it instead of the wall of bark that only seemed to close in around her. Her chest began to tighten at the thought, giving the impression of another band closing in around her ribcage, her heartbeat quickening within it and batting at her bones, insisting on its release.

Jorinde did not make the conscious decision to break into a run so much as she realised she had done so, feeling the night air rush past her face. Her ears stung with cold, as did her hands, but she did not release her hold on the ring, pretending it was an anchor keeping her attached to herself. The branches of nearby trees tore at her as she ran, bony appendages reaching out to snatch her from her path and entomb her within their bark. She was aware that she may be running deeper into the woods, but the most prominent thing on her mind now was the need to escape, in any way possible.

In only a matter of moments, Jorinde’s right boot collided with a thick root coming up from the earth and she was sent sprawling to the ground with a sharp crack. With a cry of pain, Jorinde curled in on herself and clutched at the foot that had gotten caught, already feeling the flesh begin to warm as blood rushed to the source of pain and began to swell. The rapid beating of her heart warned her that she was not out of danger yet, though, and she forced herself back to her feet, hoping that her adrenaline would aid with the pain that was sure to come. Out of habit, she reached to twist at her ring, but the cool metal was not there. Her pulse stuttered as she saw the bare finger, with not even a dent in the flesh to show that the ring had ever been there.

Jorinde dropped to her knees once more, ignoring the growing throbbing in her foot. All thoughts of the forest’s dangers had left her mind, and she could only think of the ring, the ring, what had happened to the ring? Had it been flung into the air as she had fallen?

Was it somewhere among the crust of leaves surrounding her? She brushed through the dried husks, eyes sweeping for a flash of gold or the feel of metal upon her fingertips, but she found only the dry, crumbled dirt beneath her palms. Her panic was infecting her, and she could feel her movements growing more careless, her eyes going out of

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focus as they began to blur with tears.

But then there was the voice.

‘My dear, did you lose something?’

Jorinde whipped her head up toward the sound of the voice—it had come from only a few feet in front of her (but hadn’t the forest been vacant just a moment ago?). There, dressed in finery that seemed far too pristine to be found in these woods, was perhaps the oldest woman Jorinde had ever seen. Her skin, along with her hair, had faded to grey, and the lines in her face were like the striations within a tree’s bark—and she was just as solid-looking. She was a woman who had not fought the coming of age, but rather, had welcomed it long before it had intended on arriving. She and senescence had become old friends, and in return, age had granted her an ethereal kind of beauty.

What drew Jorinde to her most, though, was the small circlet of gold she held between the thumb and forefinger of one hand.

‘My ring!’ Jorinde leapt to her feet to grab for the ring—or rather, she tried to, but the moment she put her weight on her injured foot, she crumpled back down again with a whine.

‘Oh my word, you must be in pain!’ The woman’s voice, like her face, too reminded Jorinde of a tree with the way it groaned like branches in a foul wind. She shuffled over to where Jorinde had fallen and reached down with one gnarled hand. Jorinde had half a mind to hesitate, but she thought of the ring, her ring, his ring, in the woman’s hand, and she allowed her to help her to her feet. When she began to stumble again, the woman wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders and allowed her to lean on her.

‘Come now, let’s get you inside where I can make you well.’

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Inside? thought Jorinde. ‘But where . . . ?’ The question died on her lips before she could finish asking it. As the woman turned them around, where before there had been only a maze of trees, there was now an enormous clearing that stretched for further than Jorinde could see. The sound of birds had returned, and so too had the sight of them— dozens of the winged creatures seemed to swarm the place, alighting here and there upon the ground or the roof of the house. And the house itself was another thing—from a distance, one might take it to be any run-down cottage bearing the weight of time, but as they grew closer, the place seemed to grow in size. Its ramshackle windows rounded out and glimmered like crystal, and the spotty roof morphed into a collection of bricked turrets. It was, on the whole, magnificent.

‘What is this?’ murmured Jorinde. Then, a bit louder: ‘Who are you? Where is my ring?’

‘My name is Petja, and this is my home.’

Home. Home seemed to be far too small of a word to describe the estate that had stood before Jorinde. She had never thought it possible to be intimidated by an inanimate object, but the sight of the place sent another chill down her spine.

‘And your ring,’ continued Petja, heaving open the door of the manor with surprising strength, ‘is safe with me, not to worry. I will get it back to you as soon as I have your leg fixed up, hmm?’

Without waiting for a response, Petja guided them through the entry of the house, which appeared even more grand than its exterior, with a sweeping staircase winding its way up one side and a chandelier containing colourful lights hanging from the ceiling.

As they drew closer, though, it became clear that it was not lights that were held by the cages of the chandelier—it was more birds, these ones with colourings she had never

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seen before on a wild animal. here was one of the brightest red she had ever seen, another an emerald green, and still more in jewel-toned purple. They were as still as she had ever seen a wild creature be, only occasionally ruffling their wings or clicking their beaks.

She did not have much time to admire them, though, because soon Petja was guiding her deeper into the house and settling her on a wooden bench. They appeared to be in a sort of kitchen, but it was unlike any Jorinde had been in before. Like the entryway, it had a tall ceiling and even more hanging birds, but what drew the most attention was the centrepiece—an immense cauldron, at least as wide as Jorinde was tall and going up to her ribcage in height. Inside was the brightest, most burnished liquid she had ever seen, clear gold in colour and with a smell she couldn’t quite place, but couldn’t help inhaling. She didn’t take her eyes off of the mixture even as Petja began to bustle about the room, opening cabinets here and there and extracting various objects.

‘You like my potion?’ asked Petja, catching Jorinde’s steady gaze with a bemused smile.

‘Yes, it is my pride and joy. Still not quite finished, though.’

The older woman shuffled over to where Jorinde sat and began unrolling a long bandage. Breaking away from the sight of the elixir, Jorinde removed her boot and winced at the appearance of her foot: the right side of it had swollen to twice its size and a plum-coloured bruise was spreading across her skin.

‘Oh my,’ Petja tutted. ‘Not to worry, my dear, you’ll be quite all right.’ She wound the bandage around Jorinde’s foot with an expert’s skill and tied it off tightly at her ankle.

The pressure provided a small bit of relief, but now that she was no longer running, the ache was fully hitting her. Petja smiled sympathetically at her grimace and held up a bottle roughly the size of her forefinger. Inside was a murky green liquid. ‘It doesn’t look pleasant, I know, but it will help with the pain.’

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She held it out to Jorinde, who stared for a moment, unsure.

Petja laughed.

‘My dear, you are already inside a stranger’s house. Now is when you are going to get nervous?’

A voice in Jorinde’s head was begging her to be more cautious, but the combination of her distress in the woods, the sharp agony in her foot, and the lulling comfort of the old woman was too much to fight against. With shaking fingers, she took the bottle, unstoppering it and pouring it between her lips in one move. It tasted as unpleasant as it looked; it had the grainy feel of porridge that had been left out for too long and tasted like rotten lettuce. If it had been any more than just a mouthful, she would not have been able to get it down.

The effect was almost immediate: a warmth trickled from her throat down through her stomach and right leg into her foot, erasing the pain as easily as if it had never been there. Jorinde couldn’t help letting out a sigh of relief as it kicked in—the pain seemed so much worse now that she was no longer feeling it. She started to stand to test out her foot, but Petja pushed her gently back down. ‘Be careful! The pain may be gone, but the bone is still fractured—the effects of the potion will wear off eventually, and if you go on walking on it normally right now you’ll only make it worse later. You need to let it heal.’

Jorinde nodded, only to shoot up moments later. ‘My ring!’ The relief from the pain had returned her focus to her. ‘Where is my ring?’

Petja went to sit the girl back down again, but Jorinde shrugged her off with a look of suspicion. The woman relented, but the kindness of her face settled into irritation. ‘Not even a thank you?’

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‘My ring, please. Thank you for your help, but I must be going now.’

‘Going where, exactly? With whom?’ Jorinde baulked. ‘Whomever it is you were looking for does not seem so desperate to get to you, now does he?’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Jorinde shot back. The warnings in her head were going off again, telling her that arguing with a strange woman while in her house in the middle of the woods was a dangerous idea, but she pushed them down.

‘Don’t I?’ countered Petja. As if conjuring it out of thin air, she procured the ring between her fingers again, holding it out of Jorinde’s reach as she made a grab for it.

‘The other half of this set, that’s who you’re waiting on? The one with the matching ring?’

Jorinde did not answer, but her silence was confirmation enough.

‘Were you meant to meet here together, somewhere in the woods? Perhaps for a lovers’ rendezvous?’ Jorinde flushed pink, but Petja continued before she could interject. ‘Or maybe the promise of a new life? Did he tell you you would come here and run away together? Start a family?’ She flicked the ring and let it spin between her fingers. ‘Did you believe him?’

Jorinde clenched her jaw and stayed quiet, but her eyes were wet again and her lower lip was starting to tremble. Petja’s gaze softened and the warmth returned to her face.

‘Oh, sweet girl, there is no shame in it. Haven’t we all been fooled by the seductions of men at one point, only to be burned in the end? It is merely part of your path.’ Her voice sank to a whisper at the last two words and her eyes seemed to flash the same gold as that bubbling in the cauldron beside her.

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‘But you do not know him as I do! He would not—he would never—’ Jorinde cut herself off, feeling sick at the sound of her own desperation.

‘Ahhh, yes, I understand, I understand. It is hard to believe—I had trouble myself when I learned of the trickery of men. Allow me to show you.’ Petja took another step closer, and Jorinde did not back away. She watched as the older woman flipped the ring across the back of her knuckles and pulled it back into her fingers, a shimmering screen of pink now held within its perimeter. She offered it to Jorinde, and with shaking hands, the girl took it and held it up to her eye.

Within the little band, the pinkish mist began to swirl and convulse, shifting shades with each heartbeat, as if it weren’t sure what to focus on. After a moment, it settled on the dark green of the forest she had just come from, and in the very centre, there stood two figures. As the picture cleared, Jorinde’s eyes widened in horror and she brought a trembling hand up to her mouth. There, within the ring’s eye, was Joringel, her other half, his matching gold ring upon a hand that was now caressing the face of an unknown woman, whose lips were locked passionately with his own. Jorinde could not bring herself to look away and instead watched as the two melded together, bodies close and faces flush with emotion, emotion that Jorinde herself knew intimately, that she had thought to be reserved only for her—

The ring fell to the floor with a clatter as she tripped backward, landing once more on the wooden bench. The image had disappeared from the ring once it had left her grip, but it continued playing on the walls of her mind, their bodies so close, chests heaving and limbs agonisingly intertwined.

Petja clasped the girl’s now-empty hands, holding them tight in her grip. ‘Do you see?’ she said, hands shaking with emphasis. ‘Do you see now? He does not love you. He does not know you. He has no right to indulge in your beauty.’

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Jorinde responded only with uneven breaths, each one choked from her throat as if it were clawing to remain inside of her. She did not even pull away at the feel of the crone’s hands upon hers—she was too caught up in what she had just witnessed.

‘My dear girl,’ implored Petja, tugging on Jorinde’s hands and forcing her to look her in the eyes, ‘you must see now, do you not? He only ever wanted you for your looks, your innocence. You are no more worthy of love to him than a passing flower, meant to be trampled beneath his boot.’ The last word was practically spit from her lips, her face contorted in disgust. ‘Do you want to be trampled, child?’

She leaned in, her face twisted.

‘Or do you want to be the thing that does the trampling?’

*

Even in the darkest of nights, Joringel had never been so lost in the forest as he was at this moment. He had traversed it countless times, knew it as well as if it were the delicate hand of a lover, but now, with the moon hidden behind clouds and the air growing eerily silent, he was no longer able to avoid the thought: he was lost.

He was less concerned with his own safety than with Jorinde’s, though. He had been the one to insist on them travelling separately and meeting in the forest—he had thought it would be more romantic for them to begin the journey to their new life outside the walls of their old one, so he had brushed over her concerns and assured her that she would be just fine, that their meeting place was no more than a stone’s throw from the city walls.

Now, surrounded by the suffocating darkness of the wood, he felt the bitter taste of regret on his tongue.

It was the silence that unsettled him most of all—never before had he felt as though he

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were the only living creature in these woods. Even the trees, normally creaking in the breeze or ruffling their leaves, appeared dead this evening. Joringel seemed to be the only breathing soul amongst the branches. But surely not, because Jorinde must be here. There is no other place she could have gone, not without following a path, and there were no paths in this forest. She could not have gotten beyond the wood, so she had to still be here. If not...

Joringel broke into a run, swiftly dodging hanging branches and roots that had surfaced from the soil in search of a bit of moisture. He trusted his body to bring him to the right spot more than his brain, hoping that muscle memory would serve him where his eyes could not. The woods seemed to thin out the further he went, which was strange, because he should have been in the forest’s very centre. The space between each trunk grew wider, until he found himself at the mouth of a clearing that he knew with absolute certainty had not been in this place the last time he had stepped foot in the woods.

As unsettling as the glade’s appearance was, it brought with it another sign of life beyond himself: a bird, who descended from the sky and alighted upon a branch level with Joringel’s head, staring at him intently. It was a strange bird, with the brightest coat of feathers he had ever seen, a deep amethyst that stuck out starkly from the nearblack of the surrounding flora.

The crack of a foot trodding on a twig startled him from his reverie, although the bird stayed entirely still. Coming from the fog of the clearing was a solid figure making its way towards him. Joringel reached for the hunting knife in his belt, but it was no longer there, presumably jostled from its sheath in his sprint. Instead, he swept up the nearest fallen branch he could find, sturdy but rather short, and brandished it in front of him.

‘Reveal yourself!’ he said, his grip on the wood tightening. ‘I will strike, I swear it.’

‘Oh, there is no need for that,’ came a voice from the figure, creaking like the wood of an

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oak in a powerful storm. ‘I wish you no harm, I am but an old woman.’

And so she was—the fog seemed to dissipate from around the silhouette to reveal an elderly woman, stocky and worn by the years, though strangely unbothered by the forest’s chill.

‘Ah,’ sighed Joringel, and he lowered the hand holding his makeshift weapon. ‘My apologies. Have you happened to see anyone about these woods tonight? A young woman?’

The old woman’s eyes widened and her lips gave the barest of twitches. ‘Oh, so that was your girl who came through earlier?’ Her gaze flicked down to the gold ring that encircled one of Joringel’s fingers, and he flexed open his hand on instinct, dropping the branch. ‘Yes, she had a ring quite like that.’ There was a flash of gold, and another gold ring inexplicably appeared in her hand. Jorinde’s ring.

‘Where did you get that?’ Joringel started towards the woman, who flashed him a grin and pulled another object out of thin air and into her other hand: his knife.

‘Not so close, my dear. Wouldn’t want to get hurt, now would you?’

Joringel stopped, but only barely, his jaw clenched. ‘What have you done with her? I swear to you, I’ll—’

‘You’ll what? Break my heart?’ The bird gave a shrill caw from its branch.

‘What? What are you talking about?’

The witch—for surely that was what she was—smirked. ‘As if you don’t know. Was she truly so unmemorable, the girl you chose over your Jorinde?’ Joringel gaped, unable to

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process the sound of his fiance’s name in this crone’s mouth. ‘Oh, yes, the poor thing was ever so distraught when she saw the two of you, so passionately embraced—’

‘Stop this!’ Joringel cried. ‘Stop this, what do you mean by it? Where is she?’

‘You don’t see her now?’ she replied, bemused. ‘I suppose that would make sense—it’s not as if you seemed to see her before, either. Not as if you’ll be seeing much of anything soon…’

With another shriek, the jewel-toned bird rose from its perch and spread its wings, making it look ever larger. Its feathers were puffed out and rigid like individual blades, and it snapped its beak closed with a menacing click. Joringel still did not understand, and looked at the creature in bewilderment. But as the bird swooped closer, riding the wind over to the young man, he saw it, that gleam in its eye that only lovers can recognise, and he found himself choked with horror and tears.

Again, there it was, that voice like the creaking of an ancient oak bending against the wind:

‘So it seems love truly does make one blind.’

*

The amethyst-coloured bird flew from the prone, bloodied body on the forest floor, alighting upon the old woman’s extended limb. If the creature was having trouble adjusting to her new form, she didn’t show it; her talons were steady as they gripped the tired flesh. Raising her other hand to stroke the bird’s head, Petja looked down at the body before her and tutted. He would be another gift for the forest, nutrients to take in and absorb through the passage of time, and her place in the woods would be all the more secure for it. After all these years, she nearly felt like she was a part of it herself.

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Petja shifted her gaze upwards, to look into the bird’s beetle-black eyes. There was no trace of the frightened gaze the girl had sported earlier that evening, but she could recognize that familiar reddish glint that all her birds had. Its feathered head twitched, tilting to one side and looking back at Petja, its intent unintelligible. It was hard for the old woman to make out how much of the girls remained after they had been changed.

There wasn’t much that she could sense beneath the rage that kept their very hearts beating, that lifted them through the air with each pump of their wings. That was all right, though; in the end, the anger was all that mattered. It was all that Petja needed.

With one more lingering caress of the bird’s purpureus down, Petja turned and began the trek back to her home. She let the wind wash over her face as she went, the cool breeze refreshing her down to her roots. As she walked, from upon her arm, the bird began to sing.

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DUSK ALEXA DONLEY YA | PARANORMAL | GHOSTS The darkness breathes. It’s not silent, not the way the stories have always told him; instead, it has its own heartbeat. Its own life. There’s a lesson there, he thinks, about how it’s only a reflection of what he is himself at its core. How it has to exist for the light to have meaning, like his grandmother said when she told him stories about what lives in the night. What comes out when the world is asleep and the imagined and the real are one and the same.

There are no stories that can make the darkness less terrifying when he walks to the river’s edge and looks down into the water.

Nothing looks back at him. Of course not, the logical, rational part of his brain whispers.

He’s learned what animals are in this part of the forest and what lives in the river and there’s nothing that should be lurking in wait for him. That the river is empty is the right thing. A good thing, even.

And yet. There’s an ache in his chest like a spear’s been run through it. There’s a silence in his ears that is ancient and vengeful.

He should turn back, but instead he takes a step back from its edge, sits on his knees on its bank, and closes his eyes.

You don’t know what happens when you invite something ancient into your life, his grandmother would say, just like when she yelled at him and his brother for running

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into the forest at dusk without an adult. She was harsher than she needed to be, maybe, smacking him upside the head hard enough his teeth rattled, but she was right. When kids don’t understand danger, he’s learned, you make them understand consequences instead. Death is abstract and pain is real.

But he sits and waits. The air is silent; there are no birds singing before they sleep, no night predators starting their hunting. The in-between is where nothing natural lives, and that’s what he’s waiting for. He holds his breath, an instinctual thing, so that he hears nothing but the river, churning, snarling, breaking upon the rocks.

Breathing.

The water holds the memory of all those it has taken, he remembers, like something from a dream, as the pebbles in front of him shift like rattling bones. Something coming out of the water—not a predator, not prey, just in-between. And if you look into the river at dusk, they will drag you under and you will become one of them too.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

If you look, it will grab you, so he’s safe if his eyes are closed. His skin prickles, the back of his neck cold and exposed as he bows his head so he’s facing the ground. There’s something and yet nothing there, because it can’t make sense and yet it’s real.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The darkness is silent, but it watches him and waits.

Why does the river want to take people? He had asked so many questions when he was younger, but that one most of all. The night was full of things that wanted to take him and his brother, he was told, and they all had their reasons. Wolves needed to eat. Bears

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needed to protect their young. The forest needed spirits. What did the river need?

His grandmother’s eyes were sad. The river is just a river—but the people it took are no different from you or I.

A low chuckle from in front of him. It echoes between his ears, stabs at the back of his mind until his eyes are watering.

He swallows. ‘Hello, brother.’

It doesn’t speak, but he hears its silence so clearly, recognizes it. Drip, drip, drip, but underneath that it’s his brother’s breathing. His brother’s small habit of scuffing his feet on the ground when he was waiting that makes the branches break and crackle. His brother’s memory, his brother’s last breath, his brother’s blame that roots him to the ground. His brother, but not. Something in-between.

Open your eyes, he hears in its presence, in the chill that it casts over him as if he’s in the dead of winter. Come with me. Like you were supposed to.

He can’t. His eyes burn, but survival is a stronger instinct than he expected. His eyes stay shut, his hands stay in his lap, and he doesn’t move.

‘I’m…’ He swallows. Every time he starts, and every time he loses his nerve. ‘You missed a lot this month. Let me tell you what you missed.’

And he’s talking to empty air, but empty air that breathes. Empty air that drip-dripdrips on the top of his knees—the water doesn’t reek, like the stories he heard growing up, it’s worse that it’s the clearest water he’s ever seen, the stories call them monsters but monsters can’t be clean and clear and laugh like his brother—and stares into his eyes. Waiting. Waiting for them to open, so it can take him under the water, so the ache

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will stop hurting. He knows, now, that death is abstract and pain is real and when someone is gone they stay forever in-between the two.

He keeps talking, and the darkness listens.

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UNEARTHING THE GRAVE OF THE WOODS CHILD ODI WELTER YA | FANTASY | HAUNTED Follow me into the woods.

Bring a shovel, bring a spoon, bring your hands.

Follow me to grave of the woods child the one you dug yourself.

Take my hand, it isn’t far.

Your feet trampled this trail, they’ll remember.

It’s hidden under the plant skeletons, a graveyard path to a grave.

It’s lined with touch-me-nots.

Yellow flowers, jewelled stems, black seeds pushed against their skins.

Press them between your fingers, watch them burst like confetti.

The trees remember your name.

Can’t you hear them whispering to you?

The one you gave yourself, the one you forgot to keep.

Just listen and maybe you’ll hear them.

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There, look. there it is.

At the base of the hill that looked like a mountain, at the edge of the empty lakebed that felt like an ocean.

Don’t you see it?

It’s just there, under that tree, the one you used to climb back when you weren’t afraid of skinned knees or splinters.

The tombstone is blank.

A pile of stones dotted with quartz you thought were diamonds glued together with pine sap marks the spot with no treasure.

Crack through the moss, rip up the soft green blanket, watch it break to pieces.

Disturb the sleep of the soul underneath.

Get your hands dirty.

There’s nothing to be afraid of but the living treated like the dead.

You buried this casket first, just apologise to what’s inside.

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Break the lock, lift the lid of a casket made from sheaths of bark.

Don’t scream, don’t run from what you see inside.

The woods child looks at you with eyes like the backside of leaves. mosquitos and white moths burst from their ribcage.

Stay, don’t run, listen.

Don’t look away from their lichened bones and fungal adornments.

They’ve been waiting for you since the day you buried them.

When they open their mouth, fiddleheads and spider egg sacs tumble out with the words you heard the echo of first.

Where have you been?

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NO WOLVES IN THESE WOODS CAROLINE LAVOIE YA | PARANORMAL | TRICKSTER The metal door clanged shut behind Marcus, heavy as the leaden October sky. The last of a train of yellow school buses pulled out of the dirt parking lot, filled with no one he wanted to be friends with. After two months in this hole of a town, Willowvale High still sucked.

A chill wind numbed his hands. He shoved them into his hoodie’s front pocket and sidestepped filthy puddles toward the street. He had nothing better to do than take the long way home. One day soon, he’d keep on walking, past his crappy house and gameaddict dad, past the crappy Thanks, Come Again! sign at the end of this crappy town, and keep going forever.

Then, he saw her by the woods.

Once in a while, she cast him a sideways glance. The strange amber of her eyes was the only spell strong enough to make him stick around. This, and the fact that she gave no other boys the time of day, no matter how hard they tried. Losers.

She sat bent over a paperback on a picnic table carved with decades worth of crude hearts, initials, and profanities. A sudden gust swept her sandy hair, and the bare trees bent over her like grabby hands. She flipped the page, unbothered. Marcus didn’t like those decaying trees. Some sort of poplars, with bark riddled with eye-like knots.

Horror movie stuff.

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His feet changed trajectory before he could catch himself. He strode to the table, seemingly unnoticed. Dusty-green lichens filled the lines of an older etching on the tabletop. R.I.P Jake. He didn’t know a Jake, but he knew she was Ayla. At night, in the secrecy of his room, he practised saying her name like an incantation to get her to notice him.

He cleared his throat. She chuckled. A funny line on the page? He cocked his head to read the title, and perhaps, grab her attention. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Not the cheeriest novel out there. Was she snickering at him, then? Maybe she didn’t like boys, and he was just another loser. He should try to find out, and if he didn’t stand a chance with her, break the spell, take to the road, and never look back.

‘Bleakest thing I ever read,’ he said, then coughed, as if something fuzzy was lodged in his throat.

‘Hey, Marcus.’ She lifted her gaze, eye lined in black but didn’t lower her book. Her interest might wane any time. Nevertheless, she’d noticed he had a name.

He took a breath and jumped off the cliff. ‘Are you going to the Halloween dance tonight?’

‘I don’t dance.’ Her voice was rough at the edges, like she’d been to a rock concert and shouted too much.

Marcus cranked his mouth into what he hoped looked like an easy smile. ‘I don’t dance either.’

Not true. There always used to be a pretty girl to dance with before he became a nobody living in Nowheresville. But Ayla was more than pretty. She was something else.

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‘We could guard the snacks table,’ he ventured.

‘Listen.’ She stood, thrusting her book into her open backpack. ‘I kind of like you and everything, but the school gym isn’t where the real party’s happening.’

‘Oh.’

Marcus gave himself an imaginary slap on the forehead. She kind of liked him and everything, and he could find nothing better to say? ‘W-what are you going as?’

‘Furry.’

He imagined kitty ears perched in her silky hair.

‘Cute,’ he said, nearly passing out from handing her the compliment.

She shrugged. ‘You?’

‘Um…’ Until now, his only viable plan had been to spend the night alone in front of the television. ‘My fantastic self, I guess.’

‘That won’t do!’

Had she just invited him? His heart soared. ‘So... where’s the real party?’

‘In the woods.’

‘These woods?’ His mouth went dry. Nobody talked to Marcus much, but he’d heard the rumours. Over the years, random boys had vanished, never to be found again. Might be a serial killer on the loose, or some beast with a taste for human flesh.

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‘Aren’t you worried something bad might happen?’ he asked.

Ayla shouldered her backpack. ‘You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.’

His cheeks flamed. ‘I don’t.’

Those boys had probably been bored to death by this mind-numbing town and had run away, like Marcus thought of doing every single day. They might have stayed, had there been a girl like Ayla to bind them here.

Ayla hooked the fingers of one hand into his hoodie pocket. ‘If you come, I’ll dance with you.’

Someone had their mojo back! ‘What time?’

‘Nine-ish?’ She stood on tiptoes to speak close to his ear. Her minty breath and the pressure from her knuckles on his stomach vaporised all rational thoughts. ‘Don’t worry. There are no wolves in these woods.’

With that, Ayla swivelled on her Dr. Martens and strolled onto a barely visible trail between the trees. Her backpack bounced on her shoulders, and her little butt in skinny jeans wriggled. The sight of it did something to Marcus, made his body tingle all over.

He dug his hands in his pockets and wrenched his gaze away.

A party in the woods presumably meant booze and an older crowd. He’d better rush home and find something to wear if he wanted to make it there before some cool college guy snatched her.

*

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In the city, nine was early for a party, but out here in the deserted school parking lot, darkest night was right on time. Marcus’s guts twitched as he entered the trail down which Ayla had disappeared earlier that day. Thorny bushes grabbed at the hem of his flannel plaid shirt, and his phone flashlight barely lit the ground before him. He wished he’d found an axe to complete his lumberjack costume.

The tacky Halloween décor adorning the houses on his street came nowhere close in creepiness to the sprawling mass of shadows that were the woods. Wispy lichens hung from branches like petrified slime, and deep-green patches of moss dappled blackened bark, emitting whiffs of decay. The sound of an occasional passing car slid between the trees, but as he tramped deeper in and the woods expanded, an eerie silence fell, populated with a myriad of tiny squeaks and creaks, whistles and whooshes.

After what seemed like an hour’s walk but was actually seventeen minutes or so, Marcus still didn’t find any sign of an ongoing party. No glow from a campfire, no laughs and shouts. No music.

‘Crap.’ Ayla’s party was a prank. Was the whole school in on it, and everybody was currently laughing their head off? Or was this her sick way of saying get lost?

His neck prickled, as though a predator’s eyes watched him. Thoughts of serial killers armed with machetes, of body parts sticking out of shallow graves crawled inside his mind.

‘I’m done.’ He whipped around and headed back toward town, zigzagging between the trees, looking for the distant beacon of a streetlight.

A shrill whoop tore the darkness.

No wolves here?

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Ayla was a liar.

More howls joined in. The wolves would be crunching on his bones long before his dad put away his game controller for the night. He would assume Marcus had run away like he’d threatened to do too many times.

Marcus sprinted, his feet pounding the ground and his blood drumming inside his head.

The feral whoops sounded left and right, forcing him to change course repeatedly, herding him deeper into the endless woods.

A lightning-quick shadow zipped a few paces ahead. Marcus veered, bumping his toes on a protruding root. He pumped his legs to catch himself, but the ground came up at him and slammed into his face. His useless phone flew from his hand as red-hot lights exploded behind his eyes. Swallowing down a moan, he curled into a ball, waiting for the vise-grip bite of a killer.

Nothing happened. The creatures chasing him were now hushed, but tinny woo-ooos echoed in the forest. Marcus stood on shaky legs. Unnatural light slithered from tree to tree as the music played louder. Sympathy for the Devil—he knew that song.

A slight silhouette detached from the gloom, dressed in a fitted puffer jacket and skinny jeans.

‘Ayla?’

‘Hi, Marcus.’ Pointy ears—though not those of a kitty—adorned her long hair, and a bushy tail swung with each of her steps. At least, she hadn’t lied about dressing up.

‘What are you so scared of?’ Her slanted eyes flashed green as she slipped her stillplaying phone into her jacket pocket. ‘I told you there are no wolves around here.’

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‘There was... something else.’

‘Don’t worry. Safety in numbers, right?’ She smiled with small, perfect teeth. Her canines were sharp. Fakes, obviously.

Marcus should be excited to be somewhere alone with her, but adrenaline still tingled in his veins. ‘So... where’s the party?’

‘It’s you and me.’ She pinched his sleeve between her fingers and stepped backward, pulling him into a small circle of open space. ‘For now.’

Something crunched beneath her heel, and a bluish glow faded and died. His phone. The song in her pocket ended, then started again. Ayla wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close. Marcus couldn’t keep his body from swaying with hers.

She nuzzled his neck, her words warm on his skin. ‘I told you I’d dance with you.’

They slow-danced, out-of-sync with the music. Marcus banished all thoughts of wild beasts and pressed his lips into her hair. One of her pointy ears folded against his cheek, so soft, like real fur.

‘Marcus.’

‘Hmm?’

‘Do you want to be with me?’

‘Like, be your boyfriend?’ He nearly floated off the ground. ‘Yes.’

She brushed his mouth with soft, minty lips. He kissed her for the whole duration of the

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song, delicately at first, and then with increasing hunger.

Until she pulled away, slightly. ‘Forever?’

Did she mean that? His first girlfriend had written Marcus + Emmy forever all over her school binders. By the next semester, she was with someone else.

‘You don’t have to say yes.’ Ayla bit the corner of her lip. A drop of blood pearled from the puncture wound. ‘If you walk out, I’ll leave you alone.’

Forever was a long time, but Marcus was willing to try and see how long it would last.

Without her, he was lost anyway.

‘Forever,’ he said.

Ayla swooped in for a kiss, but instead nipped his lip.

‘Ow!’ Marcus yanked his head back. A warm trickle dripped down his chin. ‘Why’d you do that?’

Ayla smirked, lips smeared crimson. She reached into her pocket to turn off the music and said, ‘You can come out, boys.’

Leaves rustled in the dark. Damn. Marcus had been an absolute fool. He turned around, expecting to see his classmates pop out of hiding, phones in hand. Before long, his pathetic self would be all over social media. He’d never live this down.

Four lanky creatures slunk out of the dark. Sandy-coated, with narrow snouts and slanted eyes. Coyotes. Marcus jumped back. Even in the city, these rascals haunted parks and back alleys, snatching pets and passing on rabies.

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Ayla flicked her ears—her very real-looking coyote ears. ‘Come on, Jake, don’t be shy.’

A fifth coyote approached, head low and tail between its legs. What the hell? Marcus tried to articulate, but the sting of Ayla’s bite had spread to his whole face. A yowl spurt up his throat. His legs turned to mush, and he landed on all fours. He writhed in a body suddenly too small for him, every muscle caught in an electrical thunderstorm.

‘Shhh.’ Ayla kneeled on the ground, stroking the sides of his face. ‘It’s okay, Marcus, I love you too.’

The gentleness of her voice petrified him. She pulled the oversized and useless plaid shirt over his head and tossed it aside. Only in his wildest dream had he let her undress him, in the crappy basement bedroom of his crappy house, with his oblivious dad immersed in some video game on the floor above.

Not like this. Not out here.

Every single sand-coloured hair on his body stood on end. The night chill was nothing to him anymore. As he’d thought, back when thoughts still mattered, Ayla was something else. Not quite a girl, not quite a beast. Whatever she was, he belonged to her.

She stood, sniffing the air, eyes narrowed. ‘Let’s hunt!’

Forever smelled like crisp nights and frost-touched moss. Like deer musk and plump rodents. A wild, overpowering urge swirled within Marcus’s chest and burst from his mouth as a high-pitched whoop.

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AUTHOR & ARTIST BIOS NAT JACKLIN Cover Artist - Lamp Light Nat is a costume designer and illustrator based in Cornwall. Predominantly her focus is cosplay illustration and design, mostly looking at fantasy and historical themes and media though horror, sci-fi and apocalyptic works all feature in her work on top of this. She is available for illustration commission, email to discuss.

You can email her at nat.jacklin.costumes@outlook.com, and find her on Instagram @love.bug.costumes.

PAM KNAPP The Wildings Pam Knapp lives in the UK’s rolling countryside of the Sussex Downs, close enough to London to feel the heat, far enough away to avoid being burnt.

Optimism is her greatest asset. Her most recent writing can be found in Dreich Magazine, Green Ink Poetry, Owl Hollow Press, Vocivia and Pure Slush. You can find her on Twitter/X @Pamcountonwords.

The Wildings was originally published in Issue Six of Bear Creek Gazette in November 2021.

STEPHANIE HENSON Invaders Stephanie lives with her family in West Chester, Pennsylvania, but is originally from Central, New Jersey, where she has a degree in Communications and a Publishing and Professional Writing Certificate from Rider University. She has been published in print and online through various publications and online outlets. She has a Children's Poetry book released in affiliation with Experiments in Fiction, an independent publisher in the UK, which reached Number One New Release in Children's Poetry on Amazon (ebook). She also has an SEL Short Story Collection through Buzgaga Books and her second Middle-Grade Poetry Collection through the Alien Buddha Press. You can find her on Twitter/X @stepha_henson.

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ENDA MULHOLLAND The Mighty Sword Enda Mulholland is a writer and teacher from Co. Derry in Northern Ireland. In December 2020 he graduated from Queen's University Belfast with his Master's in Creative Writing. His work has been featured in Púca Magazine, Paper Lanterns YA Literary Journal, Divinations Magazine and The Summer Gothic Anthology by Panorame Press. He is currently working on his first short story collection, which brings elements of Irish mythology and folklore into the modern world. You can find him on Twitter/X @endamulholland and on Instagram @endamul.

LIVIA HARTPENCE You Wanted to Save a Willow Livia Hartpence (she/her) is a writer from New York with work published in The Passionfruit Review. She loves strange, complex characters, magic, monsters, and mysteries. When Livia isn’t writing, she reads and tries to guess who the murderer is before the detective does. You can find her on Twitter/X @LiviaWHartpence.

HELEN KEMP ZAX Witches on the Way Helen Kemp Zax is co-winner of the 2021 YorkMix International Children’s Poetry Prize, 2018 1st Katherine Paterson Prize MG winner, and 2019 finalist. Her poems appear in many anthologies including Things We Do, Things We Wear, What is a Friend?, What is a Family?, Hop To It, Imperfect II, Chasing Clouds, and Two Truths and a Fib, and in magazines including The Caterpillar, Dirigible Balloon, Cricket, Hunger Mountain, The School Magazine, and High Five. Helen received an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives in Washington, D.C. with her husband Leonard and their Aussie-doodle Huckleberry Finn. You can find her on Twitter/X @HelenZax, on Instagram @helenkempzax, and on her website www.helenzax.com

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A.L. DAVIDSON The Shadow in the Pear Tree A.L. Davidson (she/they) is a writer who specializes in massive space operas and tiny disturbances. She writes stories about ghosts, grief, isolation, space exploration, eco-horror, queerness, and the human condition. They live with their cat Jukebox in Kansas City. You can find them on Twitter/X @MayBMockingbird, and on Instagram, Threads, and TikTok @MaybeMockingbird

DAVID M. SIMON Mushroom Fairy David M. Simon is an ad agency creative director, illustrator and writer in sunny Cleveland, Ohio. His first novel, a middle grade fantasy adventure titled Trapped In Lunch Lady Land, was published in 2014 by CBAY Books. His writing and artwork has also appeared in children's magazines including Highlights. His first novel for adults, The Wild Hunt, was published in 2022. As an artist, he has done work for a variety of markets, including magazines, greeting cards, even wallpaper borders, and has a RedBubble shop with illustration work inspired mostly by iconic books, authors, and movies. You can find him on Twitter/X @WritesDraws, and on Instagram and Threads @writesdraws.

ANGELA PATERA Creepy Corvid Angela Patera is a self taught artist whose art has appeared in numerous publications, as well as on the cover of Selenite Press and Penumbra Online. Her art usually draws inspiration from the genres of horror and fantasy, but also from folklore and nature.

You can find her on both Twitter/X and Instagram @angela_art13

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MADISON MCSWEENEY The Cursed Wood, The Godmother Madison McSweeney is a horror and weird fiction writer from Ottawa, Ontario.

She’s the author of The Doom That Came To Mellonville (horror-comedy, Filthy Loot) and The Forest Dreams With Teeth(folk horror, Demain Publishing). Her poetry chapbook Fringewood was released in 2022 by Alien Buddha Press. You can find her on Twitter/X @MMcSw13, on Instagram @madison.mcsweeney13, and on her website www.madisonmcsweeney.com.

REBECCA RIDDELL Nocturn’s Hollow Rebecca Riddell is a copywriter by day, and a poet/wannabe novelist by any time past 4:30pm. Born and bred in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, she can usually be found writing feminist, queer, and neurodivergent poetry and prose, struggling to finish her first novel, or wondering where it all went wrong. She still hasn’t figured that last one out. She is published in a handful of anthologies, and is currently working on her first full poetry collection (scary). You can find her on Instagram @r.a.riddell.

CHARLOTTE BROOKINS Ring of Gold, Tale of Old Charlotte Brookins is an Iowa City-based writer who has been published by such organizations as Iowa City's Poetry in Public, Wilder Things Magazine, Ink Literary Magazine, the Afterpast Review, and more. When she isn't writing, reading, or getting lost in the woods, she enjoys spending time with her loved ones. You can find her on Twitter/X @chbrookins, on Instagram @cbrookinswriting, and on her website www.sites.google.com/view/charlottebrookins-writing/

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ALEXA DONLEY Dusk Alexa Donley is a fiction writer living in Federal Way, Washington. She writes primarily speculative fiction and fantasy. When not writing, she enjoys traveling and walking in storms. You can find her on Instagram @alexadonleybooks.

ODI WELTER Unearthing the Grave of the Woods Child Odi Welter is a queer, neurodivergent author currently studying Film and Creative Writing at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. They have been featured in Furrow Magazine. Crest Letters and Tabi's Flash Tuesdays by Litmora, and are scheduled to be featured in SPARK by Yellow Arrow Vignette, Bender Zine, Secret Words by VA Press, Hamilton Arts and Letters, The Coalition, Snowflake Magazine, WENSUM, and Broken Antler Magazine. When not writing, they are indulging in their borderline unhealthy obsessions with fairy tales, marine life, superheroes, and botany. You can find them on Instagram @o.d.i.welter.

CAROLINE LAVOIE No Wolves in These Woods Caroline Lavoie is a French-Canadian writer who spends her days on the homestead, growing food and improbable tales from seed. Her YA short stories appear in Cloud Lake Literary Magazine and the anthology Black Cat. She was also a finalist in CANSCAIP's 2022 Writing for Children Competition. Caroline lives in northern British Columbia and is a grateful guest on the traditional unceded territory of the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation. You can find her on Twitter/X and Instagram @lavoie_cwrites

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K Y N O A U H T

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