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Haunted Words Press Issue Fourteen: Crooked Creatures Published digitially October 2026 This issue created and edited by Halle Merrick and Charlotte Razzino Sonnet’s Young Writers’ Collection pieces edited by Will Alexander, Martha Jenkins, Amirah Walters, and Charlotte Wood Cover artwork by Lizzie Poulton: Crooked Creatures 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. X: @haunted_press Instagram: @hauntedwordspress BlueSky: @hauntedwordspress.bsky.social Website: www.hauntedwordspress.com Contact: hauntedwordspress@gmail.com

Contents Introduction

MIDDLE GRADE

Wolf Pit Carl Maslowski

The Forest Called

Twisted Sheets

The Gnome at the Window

Jasper and Creaky Bird

Lourdes Apresa

David Hershhorn Zach Cockerill

Andy Spearman

ART

Wolpertinger Angela Patera

YOUNG ADULT

i, the saint of all that spoils

Good Dog

Evelyn Vozar Julia Perez

The White Hare

How to Forge a Feather

An Ode to my Hatred of Geese

Hoopla

Bride of Rot

The Kelpie’s Kiss

Wolf Pelt

Mino

Sarah Das Gupta Robin J. Bartley Erika Joy

Christian Hendren May Garner

Haylee Walker Ashley Mina

Gemma Church

SONNET’S YOUNG WRITERS

The Autumn We Were Seen

The Realm of Fiends

The Ocular Express

105

My Maiden of the Sea

112

Author & Artist Biographies

125

Alayna Han

Reuben Tripp

Om Chatterjee

Ocean Newman-Beinart

Introduction I am so excited to share this new issue with you all. There’s twenty incredible contributors nestled within these pages, all answering our call for crooked creatures in strange and wonderful ways, and it’s just as exciting and amazing as you’d expect. We have werewolves, kelpies, gnomes, creatures of nightmares, fireside horrors, and of course, demon geese (see: all geese). There’s work for middle grade and young adult audiences, and we can’t wait for you to read it all and immerse yourself in these worlds. We also have four new additions to Sonnet’s Young Writers’ Collection, who have worked on their pieces with our writing mentors to create their fantastically gothic and strange worlds. I wish you all a peculiar, magical, horrific welcome to Issue Fourteen: Crooked Creatures, and welcome you to feast on the delicacies we’ve collected for you. Beware you don’t invite any of them into your own homes. Yours,

Halle Merrick Editor in Chief

Wolf Pit Carl Maslowski

Middle Grade | Fantasy | Gothic

he blanket fort began as a means to ward off the boredom and anger brewing after sixteen days of straight rain, and the structure grew steadily larger with every renewed deluge and every wasted summer day. Ruby was about to turn 12 years old, and she had always hated the rain, the grey, the sad and sorry. And she hated being stuck inside this countryside house with no allies or enemies to entertain her. And her mum was busy taking the train to and from Colchester everyday, doing mysterious and boring things that put an inattentive glaze over her eyes and bags underneath them. And so Ruby built and rebuilt her fort, improving and perfecting it until it spanned the entire front room, luxuriously furnished with every pillow, cuddly toy, cushion and duvet in the house. Her masterstroke was the metres long quilt that she found in the ground floor bedroom where her Gran had stayed. It was made from patches of blue patterned cotton, stars embroidered everywhere, and a moon in the centre. This served as both a padded carpet and, pinned to the outer blanket walls, decorated the interior. The fort had become like a rabbit’s warren, protected from the cruel outside world. Today, Ruby would bring light. In her exploration of the ground floor bedroom, she had also discovered a beautiful lamp with an intricate brass stand and a handcrafted red shade adorned with fringe and complex trims like arteries and veins. Ruby had never seen the lamp in use, nor noticed it amongst the heart monitor and other medical devices that used to crowd that room. So she took the lamp gently from its place on the bureau, and squirmed her way carefully into the blanket

fort with it. In the darkness of her fabric nest, Ruby placed the red lamp at the centre of the moon. Taking up the lamp’s cord, she began to crawl beneath the sofa and end table in search of the plug hidden there. The wooden floors creaked, and the socket glowed like a beacon at the furthest corner of the room. A sudden scratching sound made Ruby stop. A mouse? The cord dragging along the floor? The old radiators? No. It sounded like metal grinding against stone and something like a feather tracing along behind. Ruby tested her ears, snapping twice on either side. The mystery sound was gone, and so she continued on her mission, uneasy and shaky now. It was an old house and she had not lived in it long enough to know its secrets. Every so often it made a sound, a whistle, a squeak, that made her feel watched. Within reach of the socket now, Ruby leaned forward, prongs only inches away, but suddenly the sound returned, as if the volume were unmuted, and the floor gave way beneath her. It did not crack or crumble, but fell away as if it were made of just the fabric quilt. And so Ruby fell, like Alice in the rabbit hole, wildly reaching for anything to slow her descent. But her fingers only grazed what felt like sharp brick walls. Ruby landed hard, though with much less force than expected. Face pressed against stone, aching and struggling to catch her breath, Ruby lightly touched the surface around her. It was cold, hard, material she associated with castle walls and towers with dragons guarding them. The cold stone amplified her heaving breath and looking up, far up – but not nearly as far as she thought she fell – Ruby could see a circle of day glow from the front room. The cord had slipped from her hands in the fall and now it dangled against the stone walls of the pit. Scrambling to stand, Ruby tried to catch it as it swung back and forth, but her fingertips barely ghosted the stone one metre below the cord, despite her stretching, stretching – ‘It’s no use. You nor I are tall enough to reach,’ said a voice from the shadows. It was a voice that had a curl to it, something deeper than a hiss, as if it were escaping a mouth that was accustomed to longer words. ‘We are trapped.’

‘Who is that? Where – where am I? What is this place?’ Ruby moved away from the wall into the safety of the small circle of dim light from above. A pair of eyes glinted, grey blue like a troubled sky. ‘Silly questions. Does it really matter?’ ‘I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.’ A laugh, long and derisive. ‘Well then, we ought to introduce ourselves.’ Ruby did not respond as the eyes began to circle her. No other feature was discernible in the unusually deep shadows, although there was a soft clicking as the creature moved. And that same sound she heard above, the metal and the feather dragging against stone. ‘Come now, we must keep each other entertained. It will only get more and more dull. Trust me, time does not willingly move.’ ‘How long have you been down here?’ ‘How long have you been up there?’ The voice sounded amused. ‘We’ve lived in that house for three months. And before, we had a flat in Ipswich. And before that I wasn’t alive,’ Ruby replied. ‘Well I’ve been down here… it must be about 2000 years.’ ‘You’re lying.’ ‘If you think so,’ the voice said. ‘Then sure. Of course I lie.’ Flustered, Ruby cried: ‘My mum will be home soon!’ ‘No, she won’t. It’s only just gone half 10 and she won’t be back til 6. And that’s provided she catches the right train. Which she hasn’t been since last Tuesday.’ ‘How do you know all that?’ The eyes continued to circle until they stopped just below the lamp’s cord. They briefly disappeared to look up at it and then returned to stare at her. ‘As I said, it gets dull down here. It’s a stone box: there is not much room for things to happen; stories need space and air and variety. So I listen.’ Ruby’s hands trembled and she quickly hid them from the voice. ‘Why are you – why are you under our house?’ Ruby asked. ‘Why are you above mine?’ Ruby scowled. ‘I asked first. That means you have to tell me

first. It’s only polite.’ A low growl answered her: ‘Hmm. Well, I will. Provided you tell me a story in exchange.’ Ruby continued to frown. But finally she accepted this offer with a nod. Ruby was, after all, curious and practical, and maybe this could somehow lead to her escape. Maybe the creature was lying about them being trapped and she was meant to perform some word trickery, make up some story, in exchange for her freedom. Like Bilbo in The Hobbit, riddling with Gollum, asking what was in his pocket… ‘Good. Go on then, tell me your story.’ Ruby shook her head. ‘No. If I tell my story first, I don’t trust you to tell yours second.’ ‘And I suppose I must trust you?’ The voice huffed, and Ruby could briefly see a black nose, a snout. And then the creature disappeared back into the shadows. ‘We’ve reached an impasse, Ruby.’ She shivered at her own name. She thought for a moment, trying to concentrate, trying not to let the shadows of the pit infiltrate her mind. She could feel them though, like the ocean rising and retreating on the shore. This made Ruby think of the beach at Felixstowe, where her mum and Gran would take her on Saturdays to walk and to learn to swim, those incoming waves becoming like her now rising panic, the memory like a great weight. Ruby shook herself: ‘We take turns then. Back and forth. One part of the story for another.’ The eyes blinked at her. ‘Alright then. I will begin: to honour your polite ‘I asked first’’, the soft clicking stopped and the creature seemed to make itself comfortable. ‘When I was young, I was headstrong. I made my family go made with worry by running away at every full moon. I had no particular destination, just the need to run through the forest, follow the trail of some rabbit, seek the ends of every river into the sea. Your turn.’ Ruby had not expected it to be soon, and she did not have a story prepared. ‘Um. Oh I … I don’t know what to tell –’ The creature snapped, and for a second, their head appeared. A wolf ’s head with arrows sticking out of its neck like a metal and feather necklace, a fearsome snarl, and a blur of dark black matted fur. Ruby jumped and stumbled backwards into the wall behind.

And then the Wolf shot back into the shadows. ‘Apologies,’ the Wolf seemed genuinely remorseful, embarrassed even. ‘Perhaps you should tell me how you came to live in that house.’ Ruby looked upwards, seeing the underside of the sofa and her fort. Wobbly, she said: ‘Ok.Ok, I can.’ Ruby took a deep breath and dove in. ‘My mum and I lived in Ipswich. Before. It was a flat, not a house. My mum said we lived at the top of the world, but I’ve been to London. There are taller buildings. And my Gran lived in the same block but at ground level. And she’d bring over pierogi like her gran did in Poland and my mum would make sausages sometimes. Your turn.’ ‘On one of my moon outings,’ the Wolf began again, ‘I went north along the River Tas, deciding to disappear for a few days and follow my nose. Well, I suppose I did not follow the river directly. It was used frequently by your people then, Romans and Iceni, and although I was curious, I could not help but be wary of their loud business and their fire and their boats. Your turn.’ ‘About a year ago, I went home from school early because I had a fever. Usually I knock on Gran’s door if this happens and she comes up to watch me while my mum finishes work. But she didn’t respond to my knock, so I just went up alone, falling asleep on the sofa. That sofa actually,’ she pointed upwards. And both Ruby and the Wolf looked, its aubergine underside and light wood so unassuming. ‘Your turn.’ ‘One night, I found a camp. They were drying meat on a rack outside – perhaps it had been forgotten there. It was a welcome sight for me, having left my pack and the safety net of regular hunting. So I crept up to this rack, but was stopped by a small gasp. A child watched me from the shadows of a wild blueberry bush, dirty and stained face, thin.’ ‘My mum shook me awake and she said I had to go with her to the hospital. Gran had fallen and taken ill, but I still don’t really understand… she broke her wrist but it was… Well, anyway, I was still in my school uniform and mum practically dragged me out of the flat. I don’t think she remembered to lock the door. Then it was all bright lights and uncomfortable chairs and doctors and strange beeping.’ ‘I instinctively growled at the child, but the look in its eyes was so pitiful, so hungry. I was hungry too, but there was enough for both of us. I took up a piece of meat and tossed it to the child. It was then

that someone in the camp shouted, sounding an alarm. And when they saw the child beside me, they rushed to snatch it away. They began to throw stones at me. Dirty wolf, they said. I was frozen in confusion and fear, and a man kicked me in the jaw. This jolted me into realisation: it seemed they thought I was about to eat the child –’ ‘That isn’t fair!’ This bursted from Ruby’s chest. ‘You were helping –’ ‘Your righteous anger is a comfort. But still, you ought to be wary of anything with teeth. Continue your story.’ ‘But…’ Ruby clenched her fists. ‘There isn’t much else to tell. We moved here because Gran was sick and my mum thought it would be best to bring her somewhere she loved. This is the house my mum grew up in and Gran rented it out when she moved closer to us, I guess. It’s falling apart and boring and I hate it –’ ‘You’ve left out quite a few steps –’ ‘What does it matter? Gran’s dead and now we live in this house for no reason and I have no friends and nowhere to go but the closest stupid town called Woolpit.’ ‘You are trapped?’ Ruby breathed hard and fast. She couldn’t seem to catch it. She was furious and she looked down, away from the Wolf ’s suddenly sympathetic eyes. ‘I ran away from the camp,’ the Wolf continued softly, ‘leaving behind the dried meat and the child who howled in my defense. I ran into the forest, afraid of those cruel people, afraid of my own cowardice. I ran wildly.’ The soft clicking began again, and Ruby looked back up. The Wolf stepped into the light, their halo of arrows, their rough and worn coat, and they regarded Ruby with a weary tenderness. ‘I was blinded by my fear and their fear combined, and I fell into a trap made by those same people. It was this pit, a wolf pit where your Woolpit takes its name, made to keep my kind away from their tamed animals and their great civilising forces. I scratched at the stone for days. Go and feel my desperation,’ the Wolf nodded towards the wall. Ruby went to the shadows, holding her hand out, and she felt deep grooves in the stone. ‘I howled, howled for my family, howled for the child of the

forest I had abandoned in the arms of those heartless people. And then, finally after days of starvation, those people came to find me in their trap. But you look so troubled; I will spare you the remaining horrors.’ Ruby’s hand still stroked the wall. ‘But why? Why did they do this to you?’ ‘A threat. Always a threat to this or that, I suppose. What use is a wild creature in a world that is all paved over for human ease? Wolves have been extinct in this land for 400 years.’ Ruby turned back to the Wolf. They stood in the centre of the pit, looking up at the circular soft light like the sun shining down. ‘Now, Ruby, it is time for you to go,’ the Wolf returned their gaze to Ruby. ‘You will be able to reach that cord if you stand upon my back.’ ‘What? What about you?’ Ruby thought suddenly that she did not deserve freedom. Not as much as this Wolf. ‘Oh, I will remain down here as I have done for millennia and it will bring me comfort to help you. Come. You are young and full of energy. Go put it to use somewhere, explore, be free.’ The Wolf went to the wall below the cord and stood, ready for her. Ruby followed reluctantly. ‘Use the arrows on my neck to help you up.’ Ruby nodded and gently clutched the arrow, hoisting herself up onto the Wolf ’s back. The fur there was more matted and it was difficult for her to balance on the sliding masses. The Wolf pushed themself closer to the wall and Ruby was able to steady herself enough to grasp the cord above. It was a difficult journey upwards, sweaty and slow. But she finally made it back into the front room. Panting, Ruby looked back down into the abyss where the dark shape of the Wolf remained still. Ruby did not know what to do and she fiddled with the lamp’s cord. Looking down at the plug, Ruby decided to continue her quest. To sit in her hovel and feel protected. She did not know what else was possible beyond what she had already imagined of her afternoon. So she crawled around the pit to finally plug the lamp in and pressed the switch on, and the lamp, the beautiful red lamp, flickered bright like a new fluttering heart, making the moon below it shine. The full moon.

Ruby, filled with new inspiration, heedless of the fort, tore through the structure, destroying all the hard work of more than a fortnight. She ran to the front door, pushed on her rain boots, ran into the garden, to the small shed on their property, and flung the doors open with determination. There was a ladder at the back of it, she knew it, she swore. Ruby waded through the excess junk, side stepping hazards and the old rusty rake, and finally recovered the ladder. Summoning all the strength in her almost 12 year old body, she lifted the ladder and stumbled her way back into the house. She shoved the sofa away from the wall, revealing the circular pit to the full force of the front room’s light. ‘Look out, Wolf!’ Ruby paused for her warning to reach the creature and then she practically threw the ladder down into the pit. Ruby, once again out of breath, waited. Waited. She feared the worst. But then the top of the ladder began to shake and she could hear the steps of the Wolf rise up from the pit. And then the Wolf was blinking against the bright light of the upper world. Ruby, suddenly shy, could not look at the Wolf. They pawed at the floor and huffed. Still, Ruby looked down at her muddy rainboots, once again incapable of something she felt she ought to be doing, something she ought to say. The Wolf understood though and began to howl lowly, to coo. At the first note, Ruby looked up in surprise, in hope, and the howling grew, grew and morphed until the Wolf howled with all the strength of many thousands of wolves. Then the Wolf ran, and Ruby reached as if to catch them. But the Wolf changed from a solid animal to a spirit of some kind, its fur rippling and transparent as if made of mist, passing through her fingers with surprising warmth. The front door burst open and the Wolf disappeared into its liberation, into whatever wild space was left for it to roam, the echo of its howl reverberating throughout the house. Ruby ran to the door to catch the Wolf ’s departure. They were already gone though and all that was left was the quiet and damp afternoon, bright green trees, a bird somewhere calling. She looked down at her muddy rainboots. And back at the disappearing pit and the collapsed fort. Ruby turned her back on the deflated mess, took her raincoat

down from the hook near the door, and stepped outside into the rain. And she howled.

The Forest Called Lourdes Apresa

Middle Grade | Horror | Ghosts

liver hears the low whistle of his name fade into the wind outside his bedroom window. On cue, a pebble hits the glass and he sits up, catching a glimpse of the silver-veined crack formed under the pebble’s force. His heart speeds, afraid this would be the night when his tormentor would finally break the window and climb up the wall. Stop making yourself the victim, Oliver. A voice with his father’s anxiety-inducing harshness reprimands. He holds his breath, hyperaware of the movements of the night. The faint sound of the telenovela his abuela fell asleep to filtering through the paper-thin walls, the swaying of the tree branches, and the faraway rattling of laughter from the boy finding amusement torturing Oliver at night. The summer days fade into each other, marked by the darkening shadows under Oliver’s eyes. He sleeps during the day and stares out the window at night, waiting for the stranger who shows unpredictably to throw stones at his window. One night Oliver hides by the window when the pebble comes. Shards of glass fall at his feet, and he cuts his hand when he pushes himself out to stand. His plan fails. He sees no one, just the mocking faces formed out of the lush greenery of the trees that make Oliver’s body vibrate with fear. He will be blamed for the damage if he doesn’t

find the culprit, but as he searches for movement, all he finds is the distorted reflection of the moon over the lake. The pranks get worse. His abuela gets the neighbor to cover the window with plywood, but his bully manages to knock on it as if it were a door rather than a window. ‘Olirón,’ The whole house shakes with melancholy at his abuela’s nickname for Oliver and his brother. Once, they had been a one package deal at home, at school, and everywhere they went. Until they weren’t. Oliver went to his Abuela, who called him Aarón, as if Oliver had been the one who drowned, yet was Oliver interpreting her Spanish to the man looking to repair his window. The new glass wouldn’t last. The summer fast approached its end, and he wondered if he would meet his bully at school. Aarón never let anyone pick on him, he was the strong one, the popular one. Perhaps his absence was what made Oliver an easy target. He decides to stand up for himself, hiding in the trees dressed in black from head to toe, holding a baseball bat in his right hand as he keeps his eyes in the area outside his room. He hears a giggle that sets him in motion, determined to no longer be a joke. An easy target. Oliver stands tall and comes out of his hiding spot, but the shadow disappears among the trees. He chases. The forest is dark, a cruel maze of uneven terrain, greedy branches and tangling vines. In the dark, he sees the figure of a single boy cloaked in shadow. ‘Stop,’ Oliver screams. But stop what? Running? Tormenting him? To his surprise the boy actually stops and Oliver is set for collision with the momentum of the chase–except. Oliver closes his eyes in the brief moment he’s airborne, before spit flies off his mouth and pain travels through his body as his hip, shoulder and head meet the ground. The bat flies off his hand. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The tears come and his father’s voice reprimands his weakness. His mouth tastes of rust as he feels the pull that makes his hoodie choke him. He is being dragged to the lake, to suffer the same fate as his brother. No. ‘Let me go,’ Oliver pleads and begins to twist as his clothes soak

and he loses touch of the ground. The lake water claims him, until the starry sky distorts and the moonlight is blocked by his bully. Oliver aims his angry, desperate fists at him, the pressure in his airways implodes, a flash of light shatters the world as the pressure in his head becomes so overwhelming all he can think of is: I’m going to die. Was this how Aarón felt right when his foot caught in the branch deep under the lake? Air becomes nothing but a memory, as he is swallowed whole by the lake. Oliver was never meant to survive long without his brother, his twin. Yet in a haze Oliver wakes and feels foolish when his feet touch the ground. He stands and learns he was never in danger. His bully got what he wanted, and Oliver is afraid. The moon wanes in the sky and with its sparse light he sees his distorted reflection. He looks around in circles with the panic of a fool, and when he realizes he’s utterly alone. Oliver makes his way out of the lake and heads home. The walk is cold humiliation and wet fear dripping at his wake. As he walks home the day begins to break and he stops in his tracks when his window comes into view. The glass is unbroken, the curtains are drawn. A boy comes into view in first-day-of-school clothes. ‘Aarón,’ Abuela calls, with the car’s engine turning on in the driveway. The boy’s mouth curves into a smile, and Oliver is about to call his abuela for help–because there is an imposter in the house–but he chokes on swampy water before he’s able to speak.

Twisted Sheets David Hershhorn

Middle Grade | Horror | Monsters Underneath the covers creepy crawly and

curvy unnerve-y

there’s a creature crawling looking for me feeling

surely surly

hope to hear my parents before this creature finds me

waking hiding

in the closet in the shivering while the monster’s

corner warmer

curvy curly snaky hair unnerve-y twitching under there surely surly

it won’t find my head and all warm from bed

waking early allowed escape hiding in the closet I quake corner huddled holding breath warmer now from fear of death

The Gnome at the Window Zach Cockerill

Middle Grade | Fairy Tale | Gnome

he boy was sick, sick as a dog, as his father had said. His nose was so full he had to breathe with his mouth hanging open. His throat was filled with sand. His head ached, and every time he moved, flashes of light swam in his eyes. His mother had opened the window, allowing a breeze into the room. This cooled the red-hot fire in his head, but only just. He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore his discomfort. His blinks became longer and longer until he drifted off. His eyes opened at a smell so pungent it broke through the dam in his nose. The gnome sitting on his windowsill gave him a start. ‘Hullo,’ said the gnome. ‘What’re you doing here?’ ‘I live here,’ said the boy. ‘But what’re you doing here at this hour? I’ve never seen you.’ ‘I am sick, so I did not go to school. Why are you here?’ ‘I’m here to rob you,’ said the gnome. The boy blinked at him. ‘Is it you who has been stealing my socks?’ ‘Yes indeed.’ ‘That’s plain wrong,’ said the boy. ‘Now I have so many socks I simply cannot wear.’ ‘What do you mean?’

‘I cannot wear them because they haven’t a partner. I cannot—’ The boy coughed, causing the gnome to recoil and cover his nose. ‘Ah, excuse me. I cannot wear one sock at a time.’ ‘Here’s a thought,’ said the gnome. ‘Take two without a partner and put them together. One and one make a pair, after all.’ The boy thought for a moment, brow furrowed. ‘I suppose I could do that. But you have stolen seven socks. I would still have a loner.’ The gnome clicked his tongue. ‘Well, that is a predicament. I would come in and steal one more to even it out for you, but alas, I can’t enter.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Because you’re here.’ ‘But I cannot fight you or do anything else to hinder you. I am too sick.’ ‘If it were up to me, I would simply hop in, bound off your chest without a care, and be off with the sock. But pesky gnome magic prevents me from entering a building occupied by a human.’ ‘That is an inconvenient piece of magic.’ ‘But magic nonetheless, and therefore a law I have no choice but to abide by.’ ‘What if I invite you in? Like a vampire?’ ‘A vamp—? Psh. Equating me, a gnome, to a vampire. Absurd.’ ‘Apologies. I suppose you could simply wait a few days until I have recovered and all returns to normal.’ ‘I can’t wait a few days. A cold wind chills the air already and this night will see the year’s first frost.’ The boy, thinking this a peculiar line of reasoning, studied the gnome. He noticed for the first time that the gnome’s clothes, ragged and dirty, consisted of many socks, roughly stitched together. ‘You need new clothes then, is that it?’ ‘Not I. My daughter. She is a mere babe. I must fashion warm clothes, and your woolen socks are perfect, aside from the faint scent.’ The boy felt a little flutter in his heart imagining the gnome’s baby girl cold and crying and turning blue... He would give all his socks if need be. But the gnome could not come in. And the boy could not leave; he could scarcely move. But he must, he thought, he must. This will be an expenditure, thought he (he did not know what

that word meant, but it sounded to him like ‘adventure’). As he threw off his coverlet and received a piercing pain to his head and no small bout of chills, he fancied himself quite a selfless hero, pulled from the pages of the fairy stories his mother read him at night. With a great heave, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. He did not stop to think for he knew to stop to think would be to stop for good. He righted himself quickly. Perhaps too quickly. A thousand pinprick lights bombarded his vision, sending him backwards to his bed once more. His head was heavy and his knees weak. He tried to turn his thoughts back to that poor, shivering gnome with its beard (for all gnomes are born with beards), accumulating a film of frost. But that image flickered, overtaken by his own pain. The weakness in his limbs, the fullness in his head that prevented him from doing or thinking anything, angered him. It was that anger, rather than his compassion, which drove him to stand once more, that drove him to crawl after he fell and banged his chin and a skull-shaking jolt snaked down his back. When he finally reached the woolen sock, such a small, dirty thing, clung with dust, inconsequential on any other day, he let out a whoop of joy. He felt he had scaled a mountain, so stark was his triumph and so sharp was his pain. ‘I got it,’ he called. ‘I got the sock.’ He turned. ‘Your daughter won’t go col—’ The windowsill was empty. The gnome was gone. The boy sat alone, his triumph fading and his aches rushing into focus.

Jasper and Creaky Bird Andy Spearman

Middle Grade | Magical Realism | Grief

asper lived with her parents in a creaky old house that had a lot of personality. Her grandma usually lived there, too, but right now she was in the hospital because she was very ill. It was a big house, built more than a hundred and fifty years ago, mostly out of wood. The floors moaned, the stairs groaned and the radiators wheezed and clanged. Wind whistled through loose-fitting windows and mysterious scurrying sounds could often be heard from inside the cracked plaster walls. One day at the dinner table Jasper had said, ‘This house sounds like an old man complaining.’ ‘And you sound like a young lady complaining,’ her mother replied at the time. ‘Be thankful that you live in a house at all. Now eat your beans.’ Whenever the topic of the house came up, which was pretty much every day, Jasper’s father would put on a jolly face and say, ‘It’s not perfect but it sure has personality.’ Jasper agreed. She wasn’t complaining like her mother said. In fact she rather enjoyed the odd noises and crooked staircases and wonky doors that didn’t close properly. Jasper believed a house with personality made it feel more like a person. In fact she found the personality of their house more fun and interesting than a fair number of actual people she

knew. How boring it must be, she thought, to live in a house with no personality. It was Thursday but Jasper was staying home from school this week because she had the flu —just the tail end of the flu, but still the flu. Although she was feeling much better now, she had a slight fever and wasn’t well enough to visit her grandma in the hospital. Every morning this week after breakfast, Jasper and her mother had the same conversation: ‘When can I visit Gran?’ ‘When you’re better. Maybe next week. We’ll see.’ ‘But I’m better now.’ ‘Jasper, you’re not allowed in a hospital even if you’re a little bit sick.’ ‘That doesn’t make any sense! A hospital is where sick people go!’ ‘You know what I mean, young lady.’ ‘But I want to see gran!’ ‘Sorry, Jas.’ Lately, Jasper’s parents had been going to visit her grandma every day, and every day they’d stay a little longer. This week they’d been spending practically all day there, leaving home soon after breakfast and returning usually by dinnertime. They had arranged for Mrs Lambucket, a neighbour from across the street, to come over every day to make sure Jasper took her medicine and to make lunch and maybe tidy up a bit. Jasper liked Mrs Lambucket because she smelled nice, wasn’t bossy at all and fell asleep easily. Jasper’s father was at the sink doing breakfast dishes when there was a knock at the door. It was Mrs Lambucket. She wore her usual blue dress with a frilly apron tied round as if she were apt to bake an apple pie at any moment. So far, Jasper was sad to note, she had done nothing of the sort and probably wouldn’t. Jasper knew that shortly after her parents left for the hospital Mrs Lambucket would likely doze off in an armchair with reading glasses perched on the end of her nose and an open magazine on her lap. This was perfectly fine with Jasper, who was happiest when left alone. ‘Good morning, everyone,’ said Mrs Lambucket cheerfully as she entered the kitchen. Then she put a hand on Jasper’s shoulder,

lowered her voice and said with great concern, ‘And how are you today, my dear?’ ‘I’m fine,’ Jasper said. She folded her arms and shot a look at her mother. ‘I’m absolutely fine.’ Jasper rose from her chair, made a harrumph! sound and stomped up the crooked old wooden stairs to her room. The crooked old wooden stairs had something to say about this, too, and went shuckledunk with each step. The dishwasher added skookee-wish-whoosh and some unknown, unseen entity within the walls went floop floop floop. Jasper heard her parents shout goodbye from downstairs. The front door closed with a squeak and a bang. There was nearly a full minute of peace and quiet. Then Jasper heard something else entirely. It was a creaking sound unlike any creaking sound she’d heard before. Hmm, that’s different. Jasper thought she had heard them all. She got up to have a look. In the hallway she saw that the door leading to the attic had swung open and now creaked slightly back and forth on its hinges, as if an invisible person with an unsteady hand was holding it open. For as long as Jasper could remember, the attic door was always locked shut. Firmly, with a key. Some time ago, when Jasper had asked about the attic, the conversation went something like this: ‘You don’t want to go in the attic.’ Her father said it like only a fool would ever want to go in an attic, particularly that one. ‘Why, what’s up there?’ ‘Nothing,’ her mother quickly added. ‘Just dust. And spider webs.’ She pulled a face when she said it. Oooo, spider webs! Jasper’s heart leapt at the thought and wondered where they hid the key. She wouldn’t need a key now: the door was open as wide as it could be. The staircase was narrow and steep. The bare wooden steps creaked miserably. Halfway up she stopped and listened carefully in case she had disturbed Mrs Lambucket. Jasper could hear steady snoring rising from a comfy chair in the living room, and she figured it was safe to continue. It was immediately quieter at the top of the stairs and it felt completely different at first— almost as if she had entered someone else’s

home. Then she became aware of the usual house noises going about their clangy bangy business, though they sounded muffled and more distant from here, in this secret room crouching beneath the slanted roof. The attic air was perfectly still, like it was holding its breath, waiting for something. And her mother was certainly right about thick dust coating everything. Old-fashioned lamps, chairs, picture frames and taped-up cardboard boxes were strewn about at random. Jasper reached overhead and traced her fingers along many abandoned spider webs drooping from the rafters. She inhaled deeply and found herself curiously drawn to the room’s closed-in feel and musty smell. Something caught Jasper’s eye. She stepped across uneven floor planks to the far end of the attic, where a shaft of sunlight angled in through a small window and shone onto a steamer trunk. It was a massive piece of luggage, the kind that travellers long ago used when sailing between continents. Its ancient brass fittings glowed warmly in the light. Jasper crouched in front, wondering how to open it. A sudden flapping of wings broke the silence. She jumped when a bird landed on the trunk, inches from Jasper’s face, and looked her squarely in the eye. It was a shiny black bird—not a large crow or raven but something much smaller and more ordinary. The kind of bird you see everywhere. A starling, she decided. ‘Creeeeeeeak,’ said the starling, still staring at Jasper. It was not a sound she expected any bird to make. From the trunk it hopped onto the top of a wooden chair, then back onto the trunk. It went ‘Creeeeeeeak’ once more. The bird hopped a little closer to Jasper, nodded several times at the trunk and creaked for a third time: ‘Creeeeeeeak.’ ‘Oh, I get it, Creaky Bird,’ said Jasper, giving the bird a name. ‘You want me to open the trunk?’ Creaky Bird hopped up and down. ‘Creak!’ ‘So what’s inside, then, Creaky Bird—Halloween costumes? Pirate treasure? Skeletons?’ Creaky Bird jumped onto the chair and watched as Jasper fidgeted with the trunk’s crusty lock and latches and levers. Eventually the lock popped open. She undid the latches and carefully lifted the lid: creeeeeeeak went the hinges. Jasper felt a gust of frigid air and gasped at what she saw inside.

She leaned over for a better look. There, filling the bottom of the trunk, was an ocean. It looked exactly like a real ocean —it was a real ocean— but a tiny version of one and the waters were stormy. Jasper saw a miniature boat tossing in the wind and waves. The miniature passengers onboard looked helpless. Desperate. Fear was in their eyes. Dark clouds rolled across the top of the trunk, making it hard for Jasper to see clearly. She tried brushing the clouds aside but her hands went right through to no effect. Jasper felt a jolt of electricity as a lightning bolt struck a finger and she jerked her hand away. As the storm became more violent, the boat looked sure to capsize and the people would drown. Jasper knew she had to do something. She reached in but was surprised that she could not pull the boat out from the roiling sea. It’s held in by magnets or something weird like that, she thought. The lightning and thunder worsened. Jasper had an idea. She pushed the boat from behind with a knuckle, being careful not to tip it over. As Jasper nudged the boat along, the ocean at the bottom of the trunk scrolled past as if on a conveyor belt. After some time the clouds broke up and the storm passed. The boat sailed away on calm water. Jasper felt exhausted. Her hands were numb with cold. She licked salt water off her fingers then closed the lid of the trunk with a thud and a heavy sigh. Creaky Bird hopped onto the trunk, giving Jasper a start—in all the commotion, Jasper had all but forgotten about him. The starling held a plump blackberry in his beak. ‘Creeeeeak,’ said Creaky Bird, and dropped the blackberry into Jasper’s palm. Then he flew off to a far corner of the attic and disappeared into darkness. The blackberry was delicious. Jasper had lost track of time. How long had she been in the attic? She couldn’t tell if it was ten minutes or two hours. But it was definitely a good idea to leave before Mrs Lambucket came snooping around. She retraced her steps and went down the narrow stairs quickly and quietly. She stood outside the attic door for a moment, trying to decide whether to leave it open, the way she had found it, or to close it so her parents wouldn’t find out where she’d been. Jasper closed the door. It made a solid clunk sound. She checked the door right away but it had locked. Jasper let out a small groan. Then, just to rub it in, a radiator down the hall also went clunk.

No one spoke much around the dinner table that evening. Nobody ate much, either. Jasper could see the sadness in her parents’ eyes as they told her that grandma was not getting better. They explained that there was not much more the doctors could do. And still Jasper would not be allowed to visit until her flu was completely gone. * Friday morning, Jasper’s parents left for the hospital right after breakfast, the minute Mrs Lambucker and her apron arrived. ‘Good morning, Jasper,’ said the neighbour in her usual cheery way. ‘Later this morning I’ll bake a nice surprise to help you feel better.’ Fever or no fever, Jasper already felt perfectly fine – almost perfectly fine. But she was raised to be polite. ‘A surprise would be very nice, thank you, Mrs Lambucket.’ Jasper went up the creaky old stairs and on the way to her room she tried the attic door. It was still locked, shut tight. Of course it’s locked, she told herself and rolled her eyes. Maybe she had only imagined yesterday’s visit to the attic. Maybe her fever was still strong enough to give her strange dreams. It all seemed so real, she thought as she plunked herself down on her bed and opened a book. She had barely read a paragraph when she heard the same creaking sound as yesterday morning. Jasper was stunned. She tossed the book aside, jumped up and crept out of her room to look. Exactly like the day before, the attic door had swung open and now swayed on its hinges, making little back-and-forth scratchy sounds as if waving at her to come closer. Jasper didn’t want to give Mrs Lambucket any reason to come upstairs to investigate, so she made as little noise as possible. She knew from experience that it’s less creaky if you sneak along the edge of a creaky hallway, as close to the wall as you can, and not walk straight down the middle. As before, the air at the top of the stairs was stuffy and thick with dust. A ray of sunlight came through the attic window at the same angle as yesterday. Jasper picked her way between the boxes and jumble of junk, and just as she sat cross-legged in front of the trunk she heard flapping wings.

‘Hello again, Creaky Bird,’ said Jasper as the bird landed on the trunk and stared at her. ‘Creeeeeeeak,’ said Creaky Bird. Then again: ‘Creeeeeeeak!’ The starling hopped several times between the chair and the top of the trunk. ‘Okay, okay, what’s the big hurry?’’ Jasper knelt in front of the trunk. Creeeeeeeak went the lid as she opened it. Bright sunshine burst from inside the trunk, filling the attic with light. Jasper squinted and felt intense heat right away. Inside the trunk was a desert—it was tiny but as real as any desert Jasper had ever heard of, with dunes of golden sand and sun beating down like a miniature Sahara. Jasper spotted some movement. She peered in closer. She saw a man crawling, his clothes in tatters, lost between the hills of sand. There was no water, no shelter. How could Jasper help? Perhaps she could pick him up ever so gently and then ... and then what? She didn’t have much of a plan. But Jasper felt she had to do something and she reached into the trunk anyway. Creaky Bird immediately hopped onto her arm, dug his feet into Jasper’s skin, and pecked her several times on the back of the hand. ‘Owie! What did you do that for?’ Jasper pulled her hand back, rubbed away the pain and scowled at the starling. Creaky Bird hopped onto the chair, looked straight into Jasper’s eyes and said, ‘Creeeak, creeeak.’ They were sharper, more urgent sounds than Creaky Bird had made before. Jasper thought for a moment. ‘You’re right, Creaky Bird. I guess that wouldn’t work, would it?’ She told herself to remember that although the world inside the steamer trunk was in miniature, it was every bit as real as the world outside, down to the last detail. And so the people inside must be real, too, Jasper decided. She couldn’t just go plucking them from the ground like caterpillars. ‘Creeeeak,’ said Creaky Bird, nodding. It was a long, low creak that Jasper understood to mean, Yes, my young human friend, you are starting to get the idea. Jasper returned her attention to the desert in the trunk. Wind started to blow and whipped up the sand at the tops of dunes. It reminded Jasper of the ocean waves from yesterday, but at the same time it was the exact opposite. The wind blew harder and sand swirled like dozens of mini tornados. The little man stopped crawling in order

to shield his eyes from the stinging sand. Sand collected around his motionless body and soon his legs were almost buried. Jasper knew she didn’t have much time to think of a rescue plan. The wind blew other things across the landscape, too: broken pottery, items of clothing and uprooted shrubs tumbled past. Jasper figured there must be a settlement or village in that direction, hopefully not too far away. Palm fronds as large as the man himself skipped across the surface of the sand. I have an idea, she thought. Jasper grabbed one of the fronds and started using it like a broom to sweep sand away from the man. Creaky Bird hopped to the edge of the trunk and gave Jasper a stern look. ‘Creeeeeeeak,’ said Creaky Bird, shaking his head. It sounded more like a dog growling than a bird. Jasper knew it was a warning. Apparently she was breaking some kind of rule she didn’t quite understand. ‘But I’m not touching him, Creaky Bird. Not exactly. I’m just, you know … sweeping.’ ‘Creeeeeeeak!’ Creaky Bird growled the same growl again. ‘Okay, okay.’ Jasper stopped sweeping. But time was running out. Still holding the palm frond, Jasper had a new idea—a better idea, she hoped. She gathered together more fronds until she had enough to create a mat strong enough to hold the man’s weight. She laid the mat next to the man, who was now half buried in sand. With every last ounce of his strength, the man managed to crawl onto the mat and grab hold. Then he fainted in exhaustion. Jasper grasped the ends of the matted fronds and pulled the man through the sand like a toboggan in snow. Jasper pulled and pulled, and for the longest time it seemed they were getting nowhere. Desert landscapes scrolled past endlessly and her arms ached. After a while the wind died down, swirling sand settled and clear skies returned. They soon arrived at an oasis. It was a lush area encircled by palm trees, though several had fallen in the windstorm and had their fronds stripped away. In the centre of the oasis was a camp of tents. Jasper pulled the mat to the edge of the camp and moved her hand away. Somehow the man had been able to hold on the entire time. She could tell he was still alive but unable to move. She watched as people emerged from tents, gathered around the man and carried him to safety. Only now did Jasper realize how much she was shaking. Her

hands were scorched by the sun and reddened by the pelting sand. She took several deep breaths before closing the lid of the trunk. Creaky Bird hopped onto the trunk and, as before, held a plump blackberry in his beak. ‘Creeeeeeeak,’ he said, and dropped it into Jasper’s palm. Then he vanished into the shadows. Once again, the blackberry was delicious. Jasper crept down the attic stairs as quietly as she could. ‘Ah! There you are!’ said a voice. Jasper nearly jumped out of her skin. Mrs Lambucket stood at the base of the attic stairs. How long had she been waiting there? Jasper wondered. She started to mumble excuses for being in the attic, a place she was forbidden to be. ‘Never mind that—I’ve baked an apple pie for you.’ Mrs Lambucket pointed to the white flour smeared on her apron as proof. ‘Care for a slice?’ The aroma wafting up from the kitchen was irresistible. Jasper very much cared for a slice of warm apple pie and her stomach growled. ‘Yes, please!’ she said. Something inside the walls groaned as if it, too, would very much care for a slice of warm apple pie, though it was probably just some old iron pipes complaining about rust. Mrs Lambucket gave Jasper a kindly smile. Then she looked down and frowned. She grasped Jasper’s raw, reddened hands and held them up for a better look. ‘You poor dear! Let’s get some lotion on there before your mother comes home.’ Jasper held her breath, waiting for a scolding. But Mrs Lambucket said nothing and instead simply reached around and pushed the attic door shut. Jasper heard the solid clunk of the lock. The pie maker looked from the door to Jasper, then winked and said, ‘You can’t fix everything, my dear. You can only do what you can do.’ Then, as Mrs Lambucket led the way down to the kitchen, towards pie, Jasper wondered what it was, exactly, that she was able to do. * For breakfast on Saturday morning Jasper’s father made mushroom scrambled eggs and let Jasper have another slice of apple pie. ‘Weatherman says there’s going to be strong winds today,’ said Jasper’s father as he rose from the table and carried dishes to the sink.

‘Gale force winds. We’d better get to the hospital before the worst of it hits.’ As if to prove his point, a sudden gust of wind rattled the kitchen window and nearly blew open the back door. The house complained more loudly than usual with the wind pushing at it from all sides. ‘Be sure to rest again today, Jasper.’ Her mother almost had to shout to be heard over the noise. ‘Once you get rid of your flu you can come to the hospital with us to see gran.’ ‘Maybe next week.’ Jasper’s father gave a hopeful smile. ‘She’s been asking about you, you know.’ ‘But I want to see gran now!’ Jasper folded her arms and stamped her feet. ‘Sorry, Jas.’ There was banging on the front door. Before anyone could answer, Mrs Lambucket stumbled into the house and nearly fell over. ‘It’s a wild one out there!’ She patted down her hair which had blown in all directions simply from crossing the street. ‘Thanks for coming early today—and thank you so much for the pie,’ said Jasper’s mother. ‘That was very kind of you.’ ‘Anything to help young Jasper feel better.’ Mrs Lambucket winked at Jasper and Jasper smiled back, grateful that Mrs Lambucket had not mentioned the attic to her parents. Jasper said goodbye and went upstairs, passing the locked attic door on the way to her room. She heard the front door slam shut in the wind and from her window saw her parents’ car back out of the driveway. Then she heard a familiar squeaky creaking sound and a thrill ran up her spine. She went out to the hall and sure enough, the attic door was slowly swinging open. It was far from quiet in the attic this morning. Shingles on the roof overhead flapped in the wind like angry birds. Rafters groaned heavily like an old ship at sea. Cold air found its way into the room somehow, causing dust to swirl, and Jasper shivered in the draughtiness. Jasper tapped the lid of the trunk and wondered, What could possibly be inside here today? Creaky Bird appeared from nowhere and fluttered to a stop on top of the trunk. ‘Creeak.’ He paced in a small, impatient circle on the

lid. out.’

‘Silly old Creaky Bird. Of course there’s only one way to find

Jasper lifted the lid and a howling wind burst upward. She had to keep wiping hair from her eyes. Inside the trunk was a brick building. Nearby trees bent over in the wind and broken umbrellas skittered through surrounding streets like tumbleweeds. An electric HOSPITAL sign on top of the building flickered. Jasper saw a familiar car pull into the parking lot, then her parents got out and fought their way through the wind to the hospital entrance. The wind grew stronger—both inside the trunk and outside Jasper’s house. She looked up as the roof made a horrible twisting sound, making Jasper afraid that it would pop off and she’d be swept away like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Tree branches scraped their claws against the house and wind battered the little attic window as if a monster was desperate to get in. And today, no ray of sunshine illuminated the steamer trunk. Frightening as it was, Jasper tried to ignore the weather outside and turned her attention to the miniature hospital inside the trunk. She peered into each window until she found the room where her grandma lay in a bed, tucked under white sheets, surrounded by blinking machines with tubes and wires going in all directions. Her parents sat next to the bed. Three nurses rushed into the hospital room. A doctor soon followed. He spoke for a minute, though Jasper could not hear a word. She could see her parents hold each other and begin to cry. Jasper called out but her voice was swallowed by the wind. She felt angry and helpless. She reached in and wanted to pound the hospital with her fists but the wind inside the trunk made it difficult to even touch the building—and when she did, it had no effect. The hospital was miniature but built of solid brick all the same. She looked through the window again and saw the doctor switch off the machines slowly, one by one, then leave the room. Her parents remained at the bedside. Jasper felt like her heart fell out of her chest and landed on the floor. In an instant the wind stopped—both inside the trunk and outside Jasper’s house. Tree branches stopped clawing at the walls and the noisy monster at the window had disappeared. An unfamiliar hush

came over the attic. All the usual clangs and bangs went quiet, too, as if out of respect. Jasper closed her eyes and took deep breaths to calm herself. Jasper knew her grandma was very sick and that this day was sure to come at some point. Even so, she was caught off guard. Nothing can truly prepare you for that moment. She was surprised at how quickly her tears built up inside, ready to burst out. She looked around. Creaky Bird was nowhere to be seen—frightened by the storm, Jasper supposed. So with nobody watching, Jasper let the tears gush down her cheeks and she sobbed and sobbed. The phone downstairs rang. It was an old push-button phone attached to the kitchen wall that her parents kept ‘for emergencies and power failures.’ It hardly ever rang and the news was seldom good when it did. Jasper heard Mrs Lambucket answer the phone. Jasper stopped crying when the phone rang. With puffy red eyes and drying tears, all she could do now was wait for Mrs Lambucket to come up and deliver the news about Jasper’s grandma—news that Jasper already knew. With hardly a sound, Creaky Bird came back, landing gently on the roof of the hospital inside the trunk. ‘Creeeeak?’ said Creaky Bird, tilting his head to Jasper. ‘Yes, I’m fine now, thanks,’ she said. ‘Creeeak creak,’ said Creaky Bird. ‘You’re right, Creaky Bird, I can’t fix everything. I can only do what I can do.’ Creaky Bird held silent for a minute, then said, ‘Creak?’ ‘Yes, that would be okay. Go ahead.’ Jasper got to her feet and took a step back. Creaky Bird gave a signal and twenty identical black starlings appeared from the dark corners of the attic and flocked to the trunk. They lined up in a neat row and grasped the lid with their feet, then flapped their wings together and closed the lid with a firm, finalsounding thunk. As mysteriously as they had arrived, the starlings vanished, leaving Creaky Bird standing alone on the trunk. He held a plump blackberry in his beak. Jasper held out her hand and Creaky Bird dropped it into her palm.

Then, one by one, Jasper noticed the familiar noises of the house returning to normal. ‘Clung gung bung,’ said the grumpy old plumbing pipes. ‘Ticky ticky bat bat,’ said a cracked window pane. ‘Kergle-ping?’ asked the rusty radiator. ‘Flumpf,’ replied the roof. That’s when Jasper was quite certain that everything was going to be just fine after all. She popped the blackberry into her mouth. It was delicious.

Wolpertinger Angela Patera

Middle Grade | Folklore | Creature

i, the saint of all that spoils Evelyn Vozar

Young Adult | Horror | Angels and in sweaty palms upturned i conjure nothing i sculpted my sin into a maquette of grapevine and stomp smashed it but i know distant angels: my song is for you - troubled girls is goodness merely a reflection upon evil? - dry sinners alone in the pew is it true to be known is to be filleted? - fork tongued can you see wretchedness in a closed mouth? .. and above all, will my figs rot?

Good Dog Julia Perez

Young Adult | Supernatural | Nightmares

am a good dog. I know this because my creator says so. I can only assume then that all the other good dogs are just like me, large beings made of shadow and darkness, masses of murk that come together to have horns and claws and rows of sharp fangs. I assume all good dogs live the way I do, in the spaces under people’s beds, the downstairs, a barren land where it is always night, surrounded by vague lumps that will eventually become something or someplace. My creator says that I was once that, a vague lump, but I was eventually formed to become a dog. It says that I am the most dog a dog could be, which makes me the best dog. It always says that makes me the best dog for Sylvia. I have known Sylvia since she was four years old, and I see her now, all eighteen years of her and I still love her because she still loves me. I can see her every night if I wish, on the sidelines, where she can’t see me but I can see her while the other creations that were once vague lumps get to play with her. I still get the chance to play with her every once in a while, at least twice a month or so. I know this makes me special because not everything that was once a vague lump is around for as long as me. I know this makes me a very good dog. I know that I am a very good dog for Sylvia. I know that she’s a very good human for me. We play just the way my creator says we should, I growl and snarl as loud as I can, I bare my teeth, all eighty-four of them, so she can see how perfectly filed and pointy they are, and I drool profusely because my creator says that she doesn’t find that disgusting at all. My creator

even says that I can scratch at her, that it makes playtime better and, even if she doesn’t say it, she doesn’t mind the tears at her clothes or cuts on her skin. Whenever we play she screams at me to ‘get away,’ speeding away for as long as she can, which I know she does for my sake because she knows I love to run, but I always catch up no matter how hard she tries, and she wrestles with me, kicking at my jaw and grabbing hold of my paws to keep my claws away, because she knows I love to play fight. After Sylvia goes back upstairs, my creator always tells me that I am a very good dog. It’s always nice to hear, but I wish that Sylvia would call me a good dog, just once. Every other night, my creator goes upstairs, the place where Sylvia spends her time when she’s not with us. It says that the space upstairs is actually a whole other world, but it only concerns itself with what is directly above us, which is Sylvia’s bedroom, where she spends most of her time, and, most importantly, where she sleeps. It will take the vaguest of vague lumps and form it into a set of stairs to climb up into the sky, into the gray fog that separates the upstairs from the downstairs, dismantling the stairs so that I, along with the other creations, cannot follow. It says that going upstairs is a part of its job, to listen in on Sylvia so that it can figure out what it should turn the vague lumps into. It says we have no need to go upstairs, that the chances of being able to get a glimpse of Sylvia is extremely slim and not worth the risk of being seen by the other beings that live upstairs, so it is within our best interest to stay downstairs. Whenever it does go upstairs, I try to take a peak just to see what upstairs looks like. It is easy to tell when it has gone upstairs, as the opening it creates in the sky to go up brings down a warm, shining beam of white light. I always stand under it, attempting to just catch a glance of what exactly is up there, but it is too bright to discern anything at all. I have contemplated finding a way to go up alongside my creator, but as I’m less familiar with the layout than it, I’m not certain that I would be able to find a space to hide from it while avoiding Sylvia, so the risk is too high. My existence is most obviously owed to my creator, but I am Sylvia’s dog first and foremost, and I hadn’t seen Sylvia in weeks. When I asked my creator about her sudden absence, it didn’t seem too concerned. It believed her leave to be an unfortunate combination

of sleepless nights and nights of visionless sleep lining up in a row. It showed no concern, but the only thing I could focus on was the fact that she wasn’t down here, that I couldn’t see her. I’ve been told that her visits down here are not completely up to her, and that the process is random in a way I wouldn’t be able to understand, but that did nothing to ease my impatience, my worries. I planned my escape a few nights in advance alongside another being that was once a vague lump. She is the largest one here, with a round fuzzy body, though the fuzz only peaks out between the pure red eyes that almost cover her entirely, her body held up by eight long, sharp legs that pierce the ground wherever she roams. She’s like me, a being that has done their job so well that they have been around long enough to see Sylvia grow up, and she, who I hear my creator refer to as ‘Eyes,’ is only a few months younger than me. I see her with Sylvia some nights, entrapping her in the string she spits from between her pincers, the eyes that cover her body changing in shape and color to take on eyes that I do not recognize, but with how Sylvia screams, I can only assume that they are the eyes of her very best friends. The strings that Eyes spits out are strong and durable for being so thin and silky, and I only know this because I see how often Sylvia is entrapped by the webs she weaves, and I know how strong she is, so I can only assume that the strings have the strength to hold me. Through my barks and the clicks of her pincers, and on the condition that I would report back to her on Sylvia’s condition, we were able to devise a plan where she would shoot a piece of string towards the sky, a string that should return back to the ground after anchoring itself to either the bottom side of Sylvia’s bed or anything else that may be between downstairs and upstairs. Once she produces a long enough piece, she will wrap it around my mid section, and she will pull on the string to lift me upstairs so I can finally check on Sylvia. My creator must have had a great source of inspiration that night, because it had been extremely busy, too enthralled by its work to notice me being lifted up, but I soon disappeared into the thick fog. Even with my eyesight, it was difficult to decipher anything in its midst, but I was curious to see what was beyond the layer of fog. Suddenly, my back hit a solid surface. I turned my snout up and felt it again with the tip of my nose, and with the tip of my nose I could feel how warm it was, the

heat striking compared to the frigid environment downstairs. I clawed and ripped, clawed and bit until there was a hole wide enough for me to climb through, but it was difficult to even peer through the opening, my eyes struggling to adjust to the light, as there is rarely anything so bright downstairs. I also knew that this light would signal my disappearance, as it would be evident to anyone down below that someone made it upstairs. I shook out of the string wrapped around me and clawed up through my opening. The tunnel through was cool and rough, difficult for my claws to pierce through its surface, but it only took a couple of strides for my nails to latch onto a hot and fuzzy surface. I felt it with the tip of my ears, the scorching heat. The stuffiness wasn’t helped by the claustrophobic entrance, surrounded by various things, none that I recognized besides the spare socks and plush forms of various creatures strewn about, with the bottom side of Sylvia’s bed forcing me to crouch low to the ground. Sylvia’s bed appeared to be pushed against one of the walls of her room, and while I was eager to explore out towards the light coming in from the other three sides, I had to stay put as I saw a pair of feet land on the ground in front of me, shuffling around until they found a familiar pair of black slippers, and Sylvia began to pace around her room. I stayed close to the portal, my hind legs dangling into it, just in case I had to make a quick escape if she decided to peek under her bed. I couldn’t tell what she was doing due to my limited view, only that she was walking around the tight confines of her bedroom, covering every bit of floor that wasn’t taken up by furniture. She slowly began to mumble, as if speaking to someone, though she was the only one in the room. Her speech was barely coherent, as she spoke some phrases out loud, such as ‘don’t even know why I went,’ later saying ‘I didn’t even talk to anyone’ and then ‘didn’t even get anything done ‘cause of.’ I was forced to crouch down lower to the ground as she jumped onto her bed, a squeaking sound emitting from the springs. Her mumbles and broken speech then became more intelligible. ‘I don’t even know how I’m related to her, but I thought getting out of the house would get me out of my slump, but I could barely think with it following me around the entire time…’ I heard a clickedy-clack sound, and when I didn’t hear that, I

heard frustrated groans, and when it wasn’t one of those, it was a deep sigh. This pattern continued until she started her conversation once again. ‘And everyone just laughed as it followed me around, thinking it was so cute, even though I kept yelling at it to sit and stay. That’s the problem, if you’re gonna own one, at least train the damn thing!’ I thought that whatever this thing was, it appeared to be the most irritating creature if it was unable to follow the most simple commands. I wondered if I had been allowed to wander around upstairs more, if I could have been of help to Sylvia. I was sure I could have protected her, or at least scare the bothersome thing away. My ears perked up as she spoke again once more, her tone laced with distaste, ‘At least my parents had the sense to never get one. I don’t think I’d get anything done with a damn dog around.’ A cold, clawed hand grabbed hold of my tail as I was suddenly yanked down. Despite the distance, my ears took hold of her final thoughts as I was pulled back downstairs, the words sinking through the closing portal. ‘Of all the pets to have...I don’t know why I would ever want a dog.’ I couldn’t feel the impact my body made with the ground, but I could feel anger radiating off my creator as it still held on tightly to my tail, its clawed hand still wrenched around it to make sure I wouldn’t run off to cower behind whatever vague lump could conceal me. ‘What were you thinking, going upstairs?’ It screeched out through edged teeth, ‘Imagine what would have happened if she saw you! We would be left obsolete if she ever saw you or my other creations upstairs. You have known since day one that going upstairs is strictly a part of my duty, my job. No one has any need to go upstairs, and especially not you!’ Its reprimands quickly escaped me as my head was filled with more pressing thoughts. In all other instances, I had been good, a good dog that was made specifically for Sylvia. If I had been made to be good for her, then I could only assume that my appearance, my mannerisms, were all made specifically to please her, to make her happy. I assumed that I had been making her happy, that she liked it when I chased her around, that she liked how I played, and that she liked playing with me.

How could I be her good dog if she wanted nothing to do with them? I barked out my question. ‘Her good dog? You aren’t her dog, and being a good dog never had to do with her liking you. You’re a good dog for me, good for my purpose, good to follow my instructions the way you always have. That’s all that should matter.’ It spoke in a tone as if what it was saying to me was obvious, as though this had always been made clear to me. It seemed to remember the harsh grip it had on my fur, and steadily released me, making sure I wouldn’t run away once I was let loose. I stayed, hoping it would understand my discomfort and leave me with some words that may bring peace. It only let out a shaky breath and pat the top of my head. ‘I understand that you’ve been getting restless, but believe me, Sylvia will be back soon enough. I trust you’ve learned from this mistake. Don’t worry too much. You’re still good.’ I was continually told to believe that I was good though Sylvia viewed me as a damned thing. I am scheduled to see Sylvia again tonight. I will be accompanied by the once a vague lump who is known as Crowd, a long shadowy being that appears to be like multiple people stitched together, made of pure shadow so nothing is distinct about the various figures. They are never used standalone like I am, typically just to dress up a set when needed. Their job will be to watch Sylvia while I chase her around, and they will remain silent and motionless even though she may cry to them for help. My creator believes my presence alongside a passive audience will add to feelings of helplessness, which, in its own words, is meant to make tonight’s episode absolutely riveting. I currently await outside what will be Sylvia’s field of view for tonight, resting my head upon my paws. My creator is currently upstairs, making sure that Sylvia is almost ready to come down. She will wander around for some time, attempting to talk to Crowd with no avail, and then my creator will signal me forward to chase her. It suspects she will attempt to find an exit, as the setting is meant to mirror some location she has been to upstairs, but Crowd will block any possible exit. I will play my usual act until she tires and goes back upstairs. It didn’t take long for my creator to jump back downstairs, rushing to my side, excited to have Sylvia back tonight.

‘She’ll be coming down soon. She’ll need a second to collect herself, so wait for me to signal your entrance.’ Even though I had only been upstairs for a couple of minutes, it was easy to realize how different the real Sylvia was from the Sylvia I had seen every night. My view of her was limited, but it was still so easy to sense her, her steps carrying weight I could feel against the solid carpet floor, her body radiating heat impossible to feel downstairs, the smell of artificial fruit emitting from her person. Down here, I can see how easily she phases in and phases out, not solid or sure, her body moving in a single, fluid motion as opposed to heavy, measured steps upstairs, instead floating as she stood up from her curled up position on the ground. Right now she acts as if she is actually here, but in the end she is not entirely present, and she won’t remember everything with the same amount of clarity, which is why my creator always reminds me to play every second at one hundred percent. I watch her as she walks around, shaking and trying to talk to Crowd, but they stand still and stand silent, bodies constantly turning to face her wherever she goes, making her think they want to to see her, want to speak to her, but they remain as mute and as thoughtless as always. This is the Sylvia I had always known, much different from the one I experienced when I went upstairs. Her voice trembles with confusion here, eyes flitting about as she attempts to hide in herself, hunched over and as she makes short, unsure steps. It was a position I had seen her in multiple times, the one I had accepted as Sylvia’s natural state, one I thought was strange but was accustomed to because it was Sylvia. Ever since my trip upstairs, I was beginning to wonder if Sylvia wanted to be down here at all. My creator taps my back, urging me forward, ‘Now. Go into the frame,’ I don’t need much instruction or guidance for my act, as I am already greatly familiar with what I have to do, with what act is expected of me, but the thought of barreling in, snarling and barking wildly, while Sylvia is like this, it doesn’t seem right, not like the way it used to. I step into her field of vision, hide behind Crowd, and peek out from one of the individuals. She easily spots my snout, and once her eyes meet mine she runs in the opposite direction. Of course she would, she

hates me and views me as a monster, and its taken me years to realize that she runs not for my sake, not for my enjoyment, but to put distance between us, to protect herself from the danger she believes I may befall her, danger I have been inflicting on her for years because I assumed that was just how we were meant to play, not realizing that I was hurting her, scaring her. She has rightfully solidified her opinions on me, and I know I can’t change our relationship in one night, but I want to try. With Sylvia already on the other side of the set, my creator stomps on over to me. ‘I appreciate you trying a new approach, but now is not the time. You know what to do. Go.’ I do not storm after her the way I usually would, instead opting for a light jog, picking off the scent she typically gives off and following. All of my creator’s sets are limited, and she has reached a dead end, which should give me a chance to show her who I am, who I want to be for her. She sinks against the wall, practically begging for it to swallow her whole, and she shuts her eyes, having her entire body face away from me. As I approach, I can hear the shaky breaths she lets out, trying to calm herself. I can hear her heart thumping against her chest. I near her with steady steps, keeping my body low to the ground, attempting to bow. She doesn’t see me, trying too hard to pretend I don’t exist, so I let out a small noise. She shakes as if I let out one of my usual loud snarls, but she finally takes notice of me. I lay on the ground, sitting on my legs, attempting to make myself as small as I could, trying to hide my fangs behind my lips. I sink down to lay my head on my front paws, and I lay my tail down flat. She stands up straight, her eyes not leaving my form for a second. She must have been waiting for me to move, expecting for me to pounce or growl, but I try to stay small, and try to stay calm. I try to be good. We stay like this, me on the ground, and her standing against the wall, our eyes locked. She is waiting for me to do something, expecting me to hurt her, and I am trying to convey a message without words, knowing she can’t understand my barks, and any noise on my part will only make the matter worse. I can hear her heartbeat, and its rhythm never falters, hammering and hammering on against her chest, fear coursing through her. Sylvia can’t hear it, but I register the disgruntled screech of

my creator as it stomps towards me, and she soon fizzles out of sight, her consciousness going back upstairs. It takes down the set, the walls disappearing into the ground as it waves Crowd off to wander wherever, and once it finally marches over to me, it yanks me by the scruff of my neck. ‘You damn dog! What was that performance?’ It throws me to the ground, ‘I sat there waiting and waiting for you to do something, anything, but no, you just sat there like a dumb dog, like a pet!’ I half expected it to kick me while I was down, ‘You are not a pet! You are a dog, a beast, and I have half the sense to recreate you for that stunt of yours!’ I know it’s not telling the truth, as I have been around since practically the beginning, and my experience makes me too valuable to give up. Even so, my existence isn’t entirely guaranteed. I have seen creations that were once vague lumps become decimated by my creator as they no longer serve any purpose, crumbling and flying away as small particles of dust. Its eyes scan me, most likely trying to memorize my form and figuring out how it could recreate me to make a better dog. Its eyes rest on my face, where I’ve pulled my mouth into a snarl, exposing my fangs as I growl at its threats. ‘You seem to think showing Sylvia you care involves being soft, being docile. That’s not how it’s done. We show her we care by presenting her the worst scenarios of all, so she may confront her fear head on. If she can overpower you, overpower me, overpower everything down here, then she’ll fare better upstairs. That is the point. That is our purpose. Once you understand that, you will be a better dog, a better beast, a better...whatever Sylvia needs you to be.’ It walks away, and in my peripheral I can see it forming a structure to go upstairs, and as it does, it calls out to me, ‘You better hope she still fears you. If not, maybe you should appreciate what may be your final hours.’ I contemplate sneaking upstairs. Technically, it would be the best place for me to hide, a land where my creator would not be able to chase after me. It’s not stupid enough to go upstairs and risk getting caught, but I could be should the need arise. I contemplate sneaking upstairs knowing she would scream at the sight of me in her room,

alarming others in her home of my presence, and I’m not familiar enough with human practices to know exactly what would be done to something like me, a thing under her bed, but I also have the smallest amount of hope that maybe my last act was impactful enough to change her mind, that she could maybe accept me as her good dog. My creator returns. It ultimately decides that I still hold some value to it, and that while I may be retired for some time, Sylvia’s fear of me is still as poignant as it was when she was four. As long as that fear continues to hold up, the act of recreating me wouldn’t be worth the effort. Since my last attempt, I have improved my ability to sneak upstairs. I don’t need anyone’s help anymore, but if I leap high enough and use the other vague lumps around me, I can pass the fog just fine. I was made to be silent and stealthy when I am not barking or growling, so unless I make my absence obvious, my creator barely notices my escape. I can only remain upstairs for a couple minutes at a time, but I just make up quality with quantity, going upstairs practically every afternoon, right before Sylvia goes to sleep. I don’t move much, making myself as comfortable as I can with the available space under her bed, and for those few moments I pretend that I am a real good dog. Instead of a once vague lump that has to hide under a bed, that has to hide from Sylvia, I am a real good dog sat by the foot of a loving owner, and I protect and defend like a real good dog should. I can only imagine what Sylvia must face in the rest of the upstairs, if she is met with the likes of large, eye-covered spiders, monsters made up of the shadows in the corner of her room, and of course, me, almost every night downstairs. I cannot go out to protect her from the upstairs threats, so even though she may be scared of me, and even though she cannot see me, I hope she can feel how I care from down here.

The White Hare Sarah Das Gupta

Young Adult | Supernatural | Witchcraft It is midsummer night, the moon is bright and full. A white hare races through the forest, pine trees whisper secret messages, bramble thickets give willing refuge, rooks on high, croak loud warnings. The spirits side with their own. Pursuers are fast closing in, galloping horses sweat and strain. Angry riders whip and urge their steeds, a well-aimed arrow, lodges cruelly, in the back of the ghostly hare. Now over the open field, he runs faster still, despite the wound bleeding freely. The horsemen make a sprint to catch the fleeing devil A lonely cottage, looms ahead, the hare flies through the key hole. The oak door bursts open, an old crone sits in a rocking chair. Her black cat glares, amber-eyed.

They cannot see from her back a wound bleeds blood flows free. The white hare has vanished. Only red stains on the rush floor, show where it may have been.

How to Forge a Feather Robin J. Bartley

Young Adult | Literary | Manhood

tep One: Be a bird. Be a bird who lacks their feathers. Be a bird who has no others to go to, a man with no love to receive. Assume yourself as the village smithy, the man with a lonely tool, and be a bird who cares not for the liege or those with a golden plume. Know what it means to have a fancy feather, for it is exactly that which you lack. Know yourself and what feathers you would grow had you the ability to grow a feather yourself. Know that you can in fact grow a feather yourself, regardless of the baldness of your body and the paleness of your scales. Make yourself and your metal known to yourself and only yourself, for only alone can you defeat loneliness. To have a feather you must be a bird. Step Two: Find your preferred metal. Let it be mined from the richest of ores, the deepest of caverns and volcanic ashes. Be yourself in the mines, on the sidewalks where there are aluminum foils and lost wedding rings from which to smelt. Mind them yourself and find them a place amongst your forge and be free to sell your lesser crafts as you do so. Trinkets are worth more than you, your balding featherless self, and become prepared to make it known to others that you are alone and prefer it that way, especially if you don’t. To have a feather you must be a mining smith and to be a bird. Step Three: Work your craft until there is nothing more to work and accept that there will always be work to be forged. Spend a hundred

hours on a piece of smithing, a sword, a hinge, a nail made of nails, then a thousand more. Be prepared to work your talons rotten until nothing but callous and scales remain. Be a freak amongst other feathers, be the thing you lack, for it is in that which you will learn a knack for the skills required to forge a feather. Your ores must be mighty, your skill must be master-craft, and let all those with ramshackle polearms be jealous of your skill, yet let them learn should they ask. To have a feather you must work until you earn one, work on a metal refined and dignified, and be a bird. Step Four: Move away from the need of a feather. You must empty your mind of thoughts of the unobtainable, forgoing all desires and hopes that you know are fault until earned. Be absent in the gatherings that congregate wet feathers and be prepared to make your body hard against the anguish of that which is not found in the mirror on the callous self. Do not love the anguish but do not fight it by any means other than that which I am instructing. Do not sell yourself for a feather, and do not sell a feather for yourself, for you have too little feathers to give. Forget these instructions until you rediscover them in the dead of night, under the cloak of a lonely bed sheet. To have a feather you must never need one, you must work until it is earned, from a metal you worship and did not steal, and first be a bird. Step Five: Listen quietly to the wants of other birds. Be aware of what is desired, from those who you find desirable. Become that which is desirable, not by simply changing yourself but by grooming your unkempt unknown feathers into something both wanted and unique. Forge yourself as you do your metal into a shape you all desire, something you want too, not simply because others desire it or you, but because nobody else will do the work. You are the lone smith of yourself and must refine which God has given you. To forge a feather, you must be the smith who knows what feathers are wanted, you must never need the feather you craft, you must know the metal from which the best plume grows, and you must be a bird. Step Six: Value the feather you crafted. You have earned the feather, by being that who made it. You have found the feather and the character crafted from the very metal you plumed. You have earned that which you forgot to seek, and now you must give it away at the highest bidder. You have earned the seat beside whomever knows the worth of

the feather and yourself. Wear the feather where nobody can touch it and everybody will see. Take your time and do not hand your feather to those who are unworthy, those who would steal, defile, spit on or copy the design of your feather. That is your feather, your work, yourself. Do not let others tell you the worth of the feather because it is your soul incarnate, in your hand alone. You must find the bird who is willing to shoulder that burden, who knows it is not a burden but a privilege to have such a feather. Love them, fight them, grow together like the vineyard grapes of which your wines taste. Be the birds together who hold each other’s feathers in such a wealth nobody should ever share but you two will. To forge a feather you must have a bird worth forging for, you must know what feathers are desired and how to be that feather for yourself, you must never desire the feather more than the work that earns it, you must earn the title of grandest smithy with a skill all will desire, you must find the fairest metal to cherish and mine the ore yourself, and you must of course be a bird.

An Ode to my Hatred of Geese Erika Joy

Young Adult | Horror | Demons To the black, beige, white and gray avians, That lurk around the pond, Waddling with malicious intent Could you not think of more original colors to adorn Or perhaps your feather lack color So crimson may display itself better after you bloody the innocent You turn your head Your noodle neck of war bending unnaturally //Where are your bones?// Black beady eyes the depths of Tartarus A creature who lacks all empathy, Or fear of God The Lord does not make mistakes, But He must have had a real shitty day when He created you You honk your battle cry A dying kazoo before you reap, Displaying your razor teeth sharks envy,

You gather in military formation with your heartless brethren, Then attack, Feathered feet fast with killer intent

Hoopla

Christian Hendren

Young Adult | Horror | Superstition

he fire had burned down to something small and orange, reaching the comfortable stage where no one had to tend to it. In the cold October night, it felt less like something decorative and more like something necessary. Jack’s marshmallow had gone black, in a good way. Even as it bubbled through the blackened seams, the sugar still held its shape on the metal skewer. He yanked it back fast and blew, grinning up at his father with the unguarded pride of a seven-year-old who had not caught his marshmallow on fire. ‘Careful now,’ his father said. He was smiling too. Jack worked the marshmallow between two cinnamon graham crackers, each one loaded with a snapped square of milk chocolate, giving the job the concentration of something that could not afford to go wrong. He took a bite and chewed. ‘Tell me a story,’ Jack said, his mouth full of the gooey mess. ‘A scary one.’ Jack’s father leaned back into his lawn chair. He looked at his son from across the fire pit for a moment, then let out a small laugh. Not because anything was funny about the request, but because a laugh could buy a man a little time to think. ‘I’ve got one,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got to warn you. What makes it scary is that it’s true.’ Jack’s eyes grew wide with delight. ‘Grandpa Mark told me this one when I was about your age,’ his father said, nudging one of the burning logs with the poker. A fistful of sparks lifted above their heads, then was swallowed up by the darkness.

‘About a friend of his. I can’t remember his last name anymore, but your grandpa always called him Petey. Petey had a habit of getting in trouble. Nothing major. He was just the kind of kid who couldn’t leave well enough alone.’ ‘Like me?’ Jack said with a mischievous half grin. ‘A little bit.’ His father smiled. For a moment, though, Jack thought he looked somewhere else entirely. ‘Where your grandpa grew up, folks took old sayings as gospel. Little superstitions get handed down for so long that nobody remembers why anymore. Silly things like cover your mirrors, don’t leave a door open after sundown... never whistle in the dark. But Petey didn’t believe in any of that. Called it a bunch of hoopla. And that’s where the trouble started.’ Petey had a little brother who, like most young ones, believed that come nightfall the closet would come to life and grow teeth. Their mother was the kind who took those old superstitions seriously. Every night before bed, she would go close every door in the house. That night, after she told the little one to brush his teeth, Petey slipped into his brother’s room. He climbed into the closet and drew the door nearly shut, leaving himself just enough room to peek through the black seam. His brother came back a few minutes later. He climbed into bed and had barely gotten the blanket to his chin when the sounds started: a faint scratching against the inside of the closet door followed by a slow, wet growl. Petey’s brother let out a piercing scream. Before Petey could finish a second growl, their mother came running down the hall. She swung open the bedroom door and clicked on the light. She found the boy sitting rigid against the headboard, his small arm raised, a finger pointing toward the closet. She wrenched open the closet door expecting nothing but coats and shoeboxes. Instead, she found her oldest son crouched beneath the hangers laughing so hard tears stood at the corners of his eyes. Her face went a shade of red neither boy had ever seen before as she sent Petey to his own room. A few minutes later, she found Petey lying in bed. His hands were laced behind his head, the picture of a boy without regret. She began to lecture Petey, dredging up old transgressions before circling back to what he’d just done and ending with what would happen next

time. When she finished, she crossed to the doorway and reached for the light switch. Petey, unbothered by the threats, pursed his lips and whistled three low notes before twirling his finger beside his temple. She turned back toward Petey and paused. ‘You shouldn’t whistle in the dark,’ she said. Something in her voice changed. The anger was gone, replaced by something cold and flat. ‘Especially in front of an open door.’ She clicked off the light and pulled the door shut hard enough to rattle the framed Hank Aaron photo above his desk. Jack stopped eating his s’more mid-chew. Good, his father thought. That’s how he knew it was working. ‘Now your grandpa and Petey,’ Jack’s father said, ‘they had these walkie-talkies. Nothing fancy. They were the kind that crackled with static half the time but they would whisper back and forth across the neighborhood after lights-out.’ Petey clicked the push-to-talk button and let out a long, theatrical sigh. ‘What a loon,’ he murmured, keeping his voice low enough that it wouldn’t carry past the bedroom door. ‘She actually said don’t whistle in the dark. Like some make-believe monster’s gonna crawl out and get me. I oughta whistle right now just to show her.’ Static crackled over the walkie. ‘Maybe don’t test it, bud,’ Mark said. Petey looked toward the closet door. It stood open just a few inches, the same as his brother’s had. His mother, angry enough to forget her nightly routine, had left it that way. The nightlight beneath the windowsill cast a pale glow across the floor and toward the frame. It was enough to make the room feel less dark than it really was. ‘Test this,’ Petey said. He whistled. Loud. Clear. Straight at the partly open door. Petey held his breath and waited for a beat. Or two. The ordinary sounds of a thousand nights before filled the silence: pipes ticking in the walls, the cool autumn breeze brushing against the overhanging eaves. ‘What did I tell you?’ Petey said, grinning at the walkie-talkie. ‘Nothing but hoopla.’ ‘Bed. Now, Petey!’ Petey’s mom called from the other room.

He placed the walkie on his nightstand. A faint smile of victory lingered as he closed his eyes and pulled his blanket to his chest. A faint breathy note drifted from somewhere in the room. Petey opened his eyes and peered around. The room held its familiar shapes: the dresser, rows of little league trophies catching nightlight’s dull gleam, the closet door still slightly ajar. Seeing nothing had changed, Petey scoffed and settled back onto his pillow. Then three notes, clear and sharp, cut through the room. A whistle. The exact three notes he’d just given. Petey’s smile vanished as a chill worked its way down his back. The confidence that had carried him through the dare began to thin, replaced by something not quite fear yet. The hinges creaked as the closet door eased open with a slowness that made his stomach tighten. His nightlight’s glow stopped at the threshold of the frame, and what lay beyond no longer resembled the jumbled clothes and comic books he knew should be in there. The darkness inside deepened until it was almost a void, black enough to make the shadows in his room seem luminous by comparison. Something reached out from the black rectangle of the closet and gripped the edges of the doorframe. Its fingers, if you could call them that, bent wrong at the middle joints, each ending in a dark, hooked point that caught what little light the nightlight cast. Whatever those fingers belonged to remained patiently in the impossible dark, as if it knew Petey was going nowhere. Petey reached for the nightstand, snatched up the walkie-talkie, and pulled the blanket over his head. His breath came back at him hot and fast as his thumb searched for the push-to-talk button. ‘Mark. Mark, are you there? Please answer, man,’ Petey said, his voice coming out in a pleading whisper. Static hissed, then Mark’s voice came over the receiver. ‘What now Petey?’ ‘It’s real, Mark.’ The words tumbled out of him in a panicked rush, half swallowed by the blanket. ‘There’s something in here. The door. It opened and it’s got its hand on the frame, Mark. My mom, she was right. I shouldn’t have whistled, man. I really messed up.’ ‘Real funny, bud.’ Mark didn’t even sound annoyed, just tired, almost half asleep. ‘But I gotta get off and go to bed. I’ll see you at school

tomorrow.’ The walkie-talkie went dead in his hand. ‘Mark! Mark, no! Please!’ Tears stood at the corners of his eyes again. This time, he wasn’t laughing. He was alone now. His heartbeat thumped in his ears as he peered through the thin barrier of blanket. Through the home plate and crossed-bat pattern, Petey watched, paralyzed, as the black shape detached itself from the doorway and began crossing the room toward his bed. The shape inched closer until it loomed over him, one crooked finger reaching toward the untucked corner of the sheet. The fire popped. Jack shuddered for a moment then playfully shook it off. ‘That’s it?’ ‘That’s the last anyone knows for certain. Petey’s parents came in the next morning and found his room empty. The door was shut, the window was still latched from the inside. They told themselves he’d run off. Kids do, sometimes. Especially the ones always getting into trouble.’ ‘So they never found him?’ Jack asked. ‘Never.’ Jack let out a dismissive laugh. ‘That’s not real. You can’t just whistle and something come after you. That’s dumb.’ Jack’s father stood, his knees popping in the cold. He reached over and tussled his son’s hair. ‘That’s what Petey said.’ Jack tilted his head back, his face scrunching as if his dad’s words were a bitter medicine he refused to swallow. ‘Time to hit the tent.’ ‘Fine. Let me go pee first.’ ‘Go on. Hurry back.’ The house was warm. Jack took his time in the bathroom, making sure to wash his hands afterwards because his father would ask. He wandered past his bedroom on the way back out. The door was open and beyond it, the closet was too. Jack paused in the doorway, thinking of Petey and the story, and grinned. He pursed his lips and whistled three low notes at the six-inch black seam. Pleased with himself, he turned back toward the tent. From inside the closet, low and clear, something whistled back.

Bride of Rot May Garner

Young Adult | Horror | Transformation The elder women found me before the melancholy had finished rooting. They gathered white bark and flesh from fallen birches, weaving a bridal veil fine as spider silk after rain. When they lowered it across my face, the forest fell silent. Even the flies left the fox half-buried in ferns. My bouquet was still rooted to the earth; foxglove, hemlock, nightshade. When they placed it into my hands, the roots slipped beneath my skin, threading the blue rivers of my wrists until my body remembered it had always been unfinished soil. There was no groom. Only the great green hunger moving beneath us through root after root, after root,

older than vows, older than names. The crows stood witness. A stag emerged wearing antlers furred with lichen and white mouths of mushrooms. When they asked for my vows, my ribs opened like seedpods. Moss climbed the warm lattice of my sternum. Thin white threads stitched themselves through my heart, binding it to the slow pulse beneath the soil. I spoke, and my mouth filled with damp earth, hollow logs, green decay. The forest answered. A living vine flowered around my finger, its thorns finding my pulse before closing. It tightens whenever memory tries to bloom. Now, when lovers promise forever, I think of forests, how every one is only a cemetery that refused to stop growing

The Kelpie’s Kiss Haylee Walker

Young Adult | Romance | Kelpie

boy appeared in my room and he was young and handsome. He never spoke, just put his finger up to his mouth in a shushing motion and beckoned me to follow him. It happened four nights in a row, and the last time, I was about to open our sliding backyard door when I jolted awake, standing completely alone. That was the furthest I had gone until that night. I couldn’t tell if I had woken up yet or not, but I was standing on the bank of the Charles River. The bottoms of my pajama pants were slowly being drenched. My bare feet sank into the mud as I waited. I whipped my head around at the snap of a twig. No one was there. Another snap, and I whipped my head the other way. Still no one. But when I turned my attention back to the river in front of me, the boy was standing there. I let out a yelp and took two steps back, but he reached out and grabbed my arm, pulling me toward him. We were standing face to face when he spoke for the first time. ‘Eden Bridger,’ he said. His voice sounded warbled, like I was listening to it out of an old telephone receiver. His accent matched my own, thick with Scottish descent. For the first time since our encounters began, I was afraid. ‘Who are you?’ I asked the boy. He stared back at me. My hands were shaking and I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from fear. The boy was taller than I was, with broad shoulders and black hair that swooped low over his eyebrows. His green eyes were almost piercing, bright enough for me to notice even in the dark of night. He began to walk in a circle around me. As he did, I noticed

that a calmness began to fall over me, like a spoonful of molasses. I was slowly warmed. ‘I’m here to grant you a wish,’ the boy said, and I noticed my feet were no longer freezing, the bottoms of my pants no longer wet. I watched him in wonder. ‘Are you a genie?’ I asked, and the boy let out a barking laugh. He stepped even closer to me and wrapped his hands around my upper arms, rubbing them as if to warm me up. The boy continued without answering my question. ‘What is it that you want more than anything in the world?’ He asked, and I stared at him, my blue eyes meeting his green. I felt like I was floating. My thoughts began to drift. What did I want more than anything? I needed money for University in the fall. I needed to get at least a B on my Chemistry test this week. I needed a new pair of pointe shoes. As if he was reading my mind, the boy spoke again. ‘I didn’t ask you what you needed,’ he began, stepping around behind me. ‘I asked you what you wanted.’ The last part he spoke into my ear in a whisper and goosebumps spread across my skin. I could feel his breath on my shoulder and suddenly a different kind of want erupted in my mind. I thought of my best friend Erica and her boyfriend Grant, how he always had his arm wrapped around her in the hallway at school. I thought about my longtime crush, Tripp, and the way his large hands held his pencil. I thought about accidentally walking in on Candace and Henry passionately kissing at the after-school summer party last year. As these memories passed through my mind, I spoke words I never thought I would say out loud. ‘I want to be kissed,’ I murmured. The boy stilled behind me. I was nearly eighteen years old and had never been kissed. If there was one thing in the world that I wanted, in the deepest desires of my heart, it was that. Bolder than I had been a few minutes ago, I turned to face the boy. ‘I want to be kissed,’ I said again, this time with command. I watched the boy as he took in my request. He really was quite handsome. ‘I can grant you this,’ he said, his voice still weird and warbly, but that suddenly seemed much less important to me. The boy’s eyes scanned down to my lips and a small, mesmerizing smile broke across

his face. He gently pushed my blonde hair off my forehead. I opened my mouth slightly, taking in a breath. As I did, he leaned in closer. ‘Can I kiss you?’ he whispered. I nodded my head yes and his lips crashed into mine, firm and sweet. For a split second, it was complete bliss. But the next second, the warm molasses feeling that had been surrounding me fell away and everything was cold again. My bare feet slipped in the mud. It was raining and my pajamas were soaked through. A strong wind whirled around me, forcing my eyes open. In front of me, the boy was gone. Instead, a large horse-like entity loomed tall, its eyes matching those of the boy before. Its mane was wet and stringy, like seaweed. ‘Goodbye, Eden,’ the same warbled voice as the boys came out of the horse’s mouth as it took its large head and pushed me backward. My feet slipped out from under me and I fell backwards into the Charles River, letting out a scream.

Wolf Pelt Ashley Mina

Young Adult | Horror | Transformation All I did was put on a cloak A wolf pelt hung on a branch Warm to the touch and velvety. Thick dark fur tangled with my hair As I put its hollowed head over mine And for a moment, It kept the wind from my face Until it became my face And the leather melted into my flesh. Collapsing to ground, I twist Spine breaking, fingers shortening Claws extending. All I wanted was some warmth And now I find it spilling From my maw As a rabbit lay quiet It’s broken bones clinking Against my new teeth.

Mino

Gemma Church

Young Adult | Horror | Mythology

other would occasionally visit but, despite my pleading, she never brought me a mirror. She said that my face was one that haunted her dreams. She said that she didn’t want her little boy to have nightmares too. And she said this while crouching on the dusty floor, shouting down to me through the grate in the ceiling. Consequently, I grew up with only imaginings of my face. I didn’t blame Mother for not bringing me a mirror. She had my best interests at heart. In her strange way, she loved me. And because of her charm, I loved her too. It must have been a terrible thing for someone so beautiful to bring something so ugly into this world. Safe beneath the ground, I grew up in a cosy enough room with high ceilings. The walls were washed in lime and the floor was covered in soft straw that I pushed into one corner, so it was more comfortable when I curled up at night and stared at the barred porthole above me. From my oubliette home, I watched that minuscule circle of sky fading from cerulean to rose-pink to black every evening, imagining the Cyclops Arges, defeated by Apollo, closing his solitary eye for the last time. I was often awoken by people shouting down at me. They always came in groups, never alone, yelling horrible things, throwing rocks and filth through the grate. I was only a child but I quickly learnt to feign sleep, not moving no matter what they did to me. When they got bored and left, I would turn to face the porthole to calm myself, desperately trying to view Moon’s full face. But the porthole was too

small and, try as I might, I only saw fragments of that silvery orb. Moon’s twisted mouth. Deep-set eyes. Pockmarked cheeks. When she visited, Mother would tell me stories of the stars, those vast constellations who were once gods and goddesses, lovers, warriors, and heroes. I came to understand how man worshipped the gods but the gods loved their monsters. And when I asked if there were monsters in the stars, she told me how the gods only made constellations of their most fearsome creations. ‘Will they ever make a constellation for me?’ I once asked Mother. She laughed and laughed. ‘Mino, dear, you are a monster but you are not fearsome.’ And I remember how that assertion made my heart dip. Because I so desperately wanted the gods to love me. Because I knew no mortal soul would. As I grew older, Mother came to visit less and less. I suppose she found herself unable to tolerate my presence. I spent most of my time curled up under the grate, waiting for her. I didn’t care how many times people came to abuse me. I didn’t care when the winter winds came or when the heavens opened and fat-bottomed raindrops fell on my hide causing me to violently shiver or when the sun beat down, blistering the skin on my back, under its thick pelt. When she did come, Mother grew more taciturn with every visit, tossing food down from the grate, thick chunks of meat, showering me in them as I scrambled around in the dirt and ate hungrily in silence. She no longer told me stories. On my eleventh birthday, I was moved. The walls were higher but just as bare in my new home, which was not one room but a vast maze of winding tunnels and dead ends. When I was first thrown into that place, the guards tied me to a wall as they bricked up the doorway behind me and I screamed and cried for Mother. Once I had bitten through the ropes binding my wrists, I explored those corridors for days, hungry and alone until I found a central chamber. This too featured a porthole, much larger than the one in my previous abode, giving me a wider view of the night sky. The first time I lay back and saw the broad face of Moon, I wept and

wept with happiness as Moon stared dolefully back at me, framed in the constellations. The fragments of his face I had viewed from my first home were quite ugly but his full form was benevolent and mighty, settling my soul. Mother never visited me in my new home. Instead, young slaves would come to throw meat through the porthole, great slabs of it, still warm, more than any animal could give. I did not let myself wonder where it came from. Sometimes the flesh bore a brand, letters burned into what had once been skin. I did not understand their meaning back then. But I later came to realise they said things like ‘murderer’, ‘traitor’, and ‘thief ’. The people who delivered my sustenance came and went so quickly that I never had sufficient time to strike up a conversation with them. When I shouted up at them, my voice was cracked and my throat sore as if my body was forgetting what it was to converse with another being. Oh, how I missed Mother and her stories. One day, when the food fell, I spotted something shiny among it. It was a loop of silver, the circumference no bigger than that of my hoof but it was a thick band. More of a cuff than a bracelet, polished and smooth, sparkling in the midday sun. When I picked it up, I saw fragments of my face in the metal. My horns were no surprise. But my mouth was wide like a frog’s and my nose was broad and squashed, very unlike mother’s slender and pointed nose. The other snatches of my face I could make out were covered in dark, coarse hair. My eyes, black. Not blue like Mother’s. It was no wonder Mother did not want me to see my full countenance, I realised. Those reflected shards were terrifying enough. I could never imagine them piecing together to make something as spectacular as Moon. ‘Could you throw that back up? Please… sorry, I don’t know your name,’ came a voice from above, thin in my echoing chamber. ‘It was my sister’s bracelet and it’s still a little too large around my wrist, so it often falls off. Please, if you could just throw it back up?’ Keeping to the shadows so she could not see me, I craned my neck towards the porthole. But I could not see the voice’s face, only a pair of bare legs, hairless and caked in dust. She wore a pale tunic. The edges were frayed. ‘I will throw it back,’ I replied, taking care to form each word as

clearly as I could. It had been so long since I had spoken and the words were thick and sticky in my throat. ‘But first, can I ask your name?’ I was met with silence and felt my neck harden. Clenching my hand around the bracelet, I cleared my throat and spoke more slowly. ‘Did you understand me? I asked your name.’ There was a pause and I wondered if the girl had run away, as everyone else did. ‘I’m Circe. What’s your name?’ ‘Mother called me Mino. Everyone else calls me monster.’ Circe laughed. I did not see what was so funny. ‘A monster? You do not sound like a monster. Can I see you, Mino? I am not afraid.’ I beat my hooves on the floor, wondering if I should step forward and show Circe my true form. But I could not risk her leaving me as Mother did. ‘Mother said I must stay in the shadows.’ ‘Who is your mother?’ I opened and closed my mouth. Mother had never told me her name. Maybe in case I did manage to leave this place and decided to seek her out. Maybe because it did not matter because she knew I would never leave. ‘I-I don’t know,’ I said, slumping down on the floor. ‘Do you know why you are down there?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘I have been here for as long as I can remember.’ Circe sat down, her thin legs swinging through the grate. ‘Were you cursed?’ ‘Cursed?’ ‘Yes. The gods do so love their curses. They cursed my sister.’ ‘What did she do?’ ‘She did nothing. It was her husband who refused to do Poseidon’s bidding. Yet, she was cursed and tricked into doing the most hideous things and then her name was defiled by those gods that tricked her.’ ‘That is a cruel thing to do.’ I chewed the inside of my mouth, wondering on Mother’s stories. ‘Are the gods not noble and just?’ Circe let out a laugh that sounded more like a bark. ‘Noble? Just? No, Mino. You were right. The gods are cruel. And so is man.’ Her voice softened, sounding as fragile and beautiful as spun glass. ‘I once loved a man, a man who became a god. But he was just as cruel in both

forms. He is the reason I now clean the floors of the palace, instead of walking them with my sister.’ ‘I am sorry, Circe,’ I said as she continued to swing her feet through the grate. I felt my hand twitch and I imagined touching the sole of her foot. A sole that was covered in a delicate constellation of darkbrown specks against her white skin, resembling the night-sky in reverse. ‘A monster does not show sorrow, Mino. I do not believe you are what people call you. One day, I will show all the gods and men for the monsters they are and for you, dear Mino, I will find a potion to show the world your true form. Not one of monster but just of Mino.’ I did not know how Circe could claim such things. A person cannot change their form any more than Moon can become Sun. But I did not care. Those were the kindest words anyone had ever spoken to me. They glimmered with hope and I held on to them tight. That night, when I lay down on my stinking straw, I imagined my fur, horns and hooves falling away. I saw my eyes soften from black to blue and my face transforming into the countenance of a square-jawed hero. And I imagined myself and Circe as an entangled constellation of stars, running through the black of the cosmos where no one could catch us. In the weeks that followed, Circe delivered my food every day. Slowly, she adjusted my meals so they were not carcasses but wads of grass and hunks of vegetables and sweet-sweet fruits stolen from the palace kitchens. ‘They were trying to make you a monster by feeding you human flesh,’ she explained, remarkably calmly. I wondered how much cruelty she had endured to become numb to such things. I remained in the shadows, hiding as she spoke to me. She did not tell stories of great gods and goddesses as Mother did but of her lonely life in the palace. Circe had little time for the King of Crete, her words becoming barbed and brittle when she described how he was a merciless law-giver who punished errant souls most harshly. It was then I learnt the words branded onto those poor souls whose flesh was thrown through my grate. Circe’s voice only softened when she spoke of her sister. ‘But she is clever, my sister. She has found her own ways to

retaliate against her husband, and…’ Circe fell silent. She would often fall silent when speaking of her sister as if there were more words she would like to speak. ‘And what?’ I asked. ‘And one day, I will not just retaliate, I will seek my revenge on those that hurt me and then escape this place. And I will take you with me, Mino. We will be free.’ I closed my eyes but could not imagine what that would be like. The world seemed so vast. But with Circe at my side, I knew I could face whatever the world threw at me. Circe continued to tell me about her time in the palace. With her stories about the king, she not only taught me the ways of the gods and man but also taught me of their cruelty. I realised that I no longer craved the love of Mother or the gods. I only craved Circe’s love. The weeks went by but still I remained wary of showing Circe all that I was. She also seemed to avoid my gaze, keeping just shy of the porthole’s perimeter. I skirted shadows, looking up to catch flashes of her form. A leg here, an arm, a hand. Once, I glimpsed the left side of her face. There was only one commonality to all these parts: each one was covered in the same swarms of dark-brown spots I had seen on the sole of her foot, so numerous I could barely see the pale white skin between those marks. I had never seen anything like them before and, when I felt I knew her well enough, I asked her about them. ‘They’re just freckles,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t know why everyone insists on pointing them out.’ ‘Well, I think that a face without freckles would be like the night sky without stars.’ The words left my lips without intention, floating up and through the porthole. I wished I could have jumped up and grabbed them, shoving them back into my stupid, ugly mouth. The silence stretched out between us and I thought she must have left. My heart dipped. But then there was a little thump-thump as two objects hit the straw-strewn floor. ‘I thought you may like something to play with when I’m not here, just don’t tell anyone because I stole them from the room of the king’s son. He has more toys and figures than he knows what to do with. I wasn’t sure which one to take, so I took both. One for your mother, one

for your father,’ she said, swinging her bare feet and lower legs through the grate. And I glimpsed that now-familiar constellation of freckles on the soles of her feet. I plucked the pair of figures from the straw, each one fitting squarely in the palms of my hands. One was a woman carved in marble, bearing the resemblance of Mother. The other was a silver bull with hammered brass hooves and horns. Father. ‘Can I see you, Mino?’ Circe asked once more. ‘I know what you are and who you are. I always did. And it matters not to me.’ I took a deep breath and stood squarely in the centre of the porthole, looking up and squinting. Sun’s light blinded me but I was unafraid for the first time of someone seeing the completeness of my form. Circe moved her head forward to see me better, eclipsing Sun’s rays and allowing me to see her face fully for the first time as well, framed in bright yellow light like a halo. Our eyes locked. Circe held my stare, unblinking and unafraid. She was more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. I waited for her to scream or for the familiar look of repulsion that had crept into Mother’s face over the years. But Circe just smiled back down at me as if she was viewing the face of a long-lost friend. ‘Mino, do you remember how you once told me that everyone calls you monster?’ I looked down to the ground and nodded. ‘Do not dip your head, Mino. You are no monster. Real monsters are the ones hiding in plain sight, not those being forced to hide in the ground. They walk freely above you, these kings and queens, gods and goddesses, sisters, brothers, wives and husbands. They wear their masks of beauty very well but I see what truly lies beneath. Sometimes, they call me monster too because I do not conform to their ideas of beauty.’ I looked up to meet Circe’s stare. ‘They are fools.’ She smiled and nodded at my hands. She seemed to want to change the topic of conversation. ‘Do you like them? The figures?’ ‘Yes,’ I spluttered, trying to keep myself composed. I felt disappointment that Circe still saw me as a child who needed toys. But I was so young then, feeling the first flushes of love with no idea that love could be of many forms. ‘No one has ever given me a gift before. Thank

you.’

‘You’re welcome. There is something else, Mino.’ ‘What is it?’ ‘I need a tuft of your hair.’ ‘Why?’ ‘To complete my potion. Mino, I have found a way to change your form. Not just your form, we can both transfigure into unrecognisable versions of ourselves. I will be able to pull you up through the grate once you shed your horns. Then, we can slip past the guards. And we can start our lives anew. I have so much to tell you, Mino.’ ‘You have given this escape some thought.’ ‘It is all I have thought of.’ I felt as light as air, pulling a chunk of hair from my shoulder and tying it to a rock, which I threw at the grate. The rock landed with a thud and I heard Circe scamper after it. Then, she lay down on the grate and swung her freckled arm down at me. Her body pressed against the bars. I reached up with my hand, but I could not quite reach her. She smiled and stood. ‘Don’t worry, I will soon take your hand and we will leave this place, together. But I’d better go now, before they miss me back at the palace.’ ‘Until tomorrow then?’ ‘Yes, until tomorrow, Mino. Be ready.’ I barely slept that night. Under the latticed moonlight, I examined each figure, running my thick thumbs across every contour and crevice. I wondered if I should make Circe something. So, I twisted the few fragments of clean straw I could find into a dolly. I remembered how she said she loved to weave and I too weaved in my coarse brown hair between the strands of corn so the doll looked like it had freckles. When the morning came, I waited and waited. My stomach roared with hunger but it was my heart that thundered and screamed louder with each passing second. Eventually, I heard footsteps from outside, heavy and fast. Not the light-footed skipping of Circe. ‘Circe?’ I shouted. I dropped the dolly as I dodged the carcasses

that were hurled down into my chamber, their blood oozing out on the straw, staining the dolly crimson-red. I picked up the ruined figure and crushed it in my fist. ‘Where is she?’ I thundered. But no one answered my call. And so, I waited and waited for Circe to return with her potion and promise of escape. But she never came. I worried that the king had exacted the worst punishment on Circe but the carcasses thrown down at me were never covered in her constellations of freckles. They were bare and without wonder. They were not Circe. I refused to eat those carcasses, surviving on the rainwater and tufts of dry grass that blew through the grate. I threw the rotting meat back through the grate until no one came to deliver any sustenance to me. Starving and weak, I lay under the porthole and waited for Circe. Even the sight of Moon brought no peace to my soul. As the days passed, a seed of a fear unfurled in my heart, its thick stem growing up my windpipe, choking me. Circe had run away without me. She had abandoned me like Mother. I pushed down the fear. I tried to ignore it but it grew stronger with each passing phase of Moon until I could not breathe. And then, one night, there came a hammering and crashing over my head. I ran to the porthole, hoping to see Circe’s sweet face. But all I saw was the porthole being boarded up. I was plunged into darkness and roamed my labyrinth, wailing and growing thinner and sadder with every day. The thirst for water became unbearable, so much so that I gnawed at the damp stone walls, desperate for even a drop of condensation. I do not know how long I wandered in the dark, faint from hunger and thirst. My fingertips skimmed the walls of my home, finding the rough brickwork of the now-closed door that I had been thrown through all those years ago. With my last ounces of strength, I pounded my hooves against the stonework, praying to any god to let me free. Because maybe Mother was right and the gods did love their monsters. But the gods remained silent.

I too fell silent, becoming too weak to move or make a sound. Until, one day, the gods answered my call. There came a pounding from the other side of the wall. Chunks of masonry fell at my feet where I lay slumped against a wall. The flickering torchlight slowly came pouring in, piercing the dark. My eyes watered as they adjusted to the growing light. I clung back onto that hope that Circe had returned to me. That we would have our escape. I shouted out her name and, through the thuds and wails from the other side, a sneering voice told me of Circe’s fate. ‘That witch? You’ll never see her again. She was banished to some scorched island. Thank the Gods we never have to look on her face again!’ My heart surged with joy. She had not abandoned me. I slumped against the wall and watched as the men knocked a great hole in the masonry. There was a grate between us so I could not escape then. But I waited for a door to appear because I was convinced that this was the moment of my liberation. Then, I could leave this place to find and save Circe as she once found and saved me. But when the men had finished their work, there was no escape. There was no door. Only a gilt cage on the other side of the wall. The imprisoned men and women screamed on seeing my form, pressing themselves against the bars. Their wrists still bore the red marks of freshly unchained shackles, and their skin was branded with the same words I now knew too well: murderer, traitor, thief. An old, terrible hunger twisted in my stomach. But I pushed it down. I would not be the monster the gods wanted me to be. I did not want to be feared. I wanted to be loved. And I was loved. Not by a lover, as I once hoped. But by a sister. By Circe. She did not abandon me. She was taken from me. The cage door opened and I let the prisoners run past me, all screaming and searching for a way out. I did not tell them that their search was futile. That there was no escape. Instead, I closed my eyes and thought of Circe. But in my delirium, I could only remember fragments of her form. The constellation of freckles on the soles of her feet. Amber eyes. Lips so thin

they streaked her face like a pair of shooting stars. I wondered if she was thinking of me as I sank further into the blackness of my mind and walked into my forever-night, knowing I would never find a place in the stars. Because I would never be the fearsome monster that the gods craved, no matter what man might pretend in his writings. And I know they will make a monster of me in their simple stories. But I am no monster. I am loved. I am Mino.

Sonnet’s Young Writers’ Collection

The Autumn We Were Seen Alayna Han

Young Adult | Horror | Friends

y mom forgot to drop me off at school again, so I walked into class like nothing happened and took my detention slip. ‘Morgan, please see me after class,’ Ms. Jackson said, sighing. I didn’t respond, but I simply threw my bag on the desk and began my work. It was my junior year of high school, arguably the most important. Luckily, it’s only a study hall, I thought to myself. After study hall was over, I headed over to Ms. Jackson’s desk, bracing myself for the worst. I had been late to class so many times throughout the past couple weeks that I knew I was in trouble. ‘Morgan, I’m really worried about you; this is the fifth time you’ve been late in two weeks. Does nobody drop you off at school?’ Ms. Jackson asked, rubbing her temples. ‘No, my parents are just busy.’ I replied ‘I see. Would it help if you had a bike or a bus pass?’ ‘I have a bus pass, but I don’t have enough money to charge it,’ I said sheepishly, suddenly very interested in my sneakers. ‘Tell you what, I’ll give you $10 for next week, but I don’t want to see you late ever again!’ Ms. Jackson warned. ‘Sure, Ms. Jackson! Thank you so much!’ My spirits soared at the thought of not having to walk for an hour.

* I had a minute left until the bell rang for the second period, so I rushed over to the chemistry lab and made it just in time. As I walked into the classroom, everybody seemed to stare at me. Chemistry was the only class I had with my best friend, Lily, and the one I looked forward to the most. It was the only period where I wasn’t on my own, since I didn’t have many friends besides her. I looked for a seat, but as I approached Lily, she moved her bag onto the seat next to her, blocking my path to the seat and shook her head at me. For a second, I just stood there, confused. Lily and I had been friends since we were little kids. Since we had gotten into the same high school, we’d relied on each other for support. I waited for her to laugh and move her bag, but she didn’t and nerves started to hit my stomach as I realized she wasn’t joking. I slowly walked away from her and ended up at a seat in the corner of the room, far away from everyone else, rethinking our friendship and wondering where we had grown distant. I started to replay slight shifts in her behavior, such as when she would tilt her phone away from me to hide her texts, and how she never had time to hang out recently. I thought about all the memories we’d made over the past few years- going to the mall, sending memes, and binging Netflix. She was my only friend at school. Without her, I would have no one to sit with at lunch or text in the middle of the day to complain about homework. * ‘Hey.’

An hour and a half later, when class ended, Lily approached me.

‘Uhh. Hi!’ ‘Hey, listen. I know this is super abrupt, but I think the both of us should move on and get to know new people,’ Lily said, not meeting my eyes. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked. ‘I just feel like we’re no longer a good match. Olivia asked me to hang out with her this weekend and I think it’s a good idea for us to take a break from each other and make new friends.’ Her words drifted off

into silence. ‘Oh,’ I muttered. No wonder Olivia wanted to hang out with Lily, I thought. Olivia always had fresh nails, slicked back hair, and perfect grades. Lily always came to school with a new makeup look. Whether it was a smoky eyeshadow or a new lip combination, she could pull almost anything off. I, on the other hand, rarely wore makeup or got good grades. I could understand why Olivia would want to hang out with Lily and not me, but it still hurt to see Lily ditch me for her. When lunch rolled around, I decided to go to the library to eat because I didn’t have anyone to sit with in the cafeteria anyway. As I was taking out my sandwich I had packed in the morning, I saw the red apple I always packed for Lily. She loved red apples, but her mom always packed her green, so we would always switch at lunch. Red apples were my favorite too, but I didn’t feel like eating mine today, so I shoved it back in my lunchbox. I instead, took out my book, and started flipping through the pages. Strangely, I couldn’t focus on reading today and was simply flipping through pages mindlessly. I remembered how I always had to ask Lily to let me focus on reading except now, all I could think about was her. I didn’t eat a single bite of food for the rest of lunch, thinking about what I would do to tell Lily to be quiet and let me read one more time. The bell rang again, and I unwillingly left my cozy spot in the library and headed over to my geometry class. I trudged into the classroom and was hit by the smell of pencil shavings and Ms. Gonzales’ perfume—the one she sprayed around the classroom until it reeked of mint and eucalyptus. I took a seat in the second row, next to a girl named Veronica. I’d seen her walking around a few times before but we’d never talked. She looked at me, smiled, and then gasped. ‘Is that a TADC pin you have? You watch The Amazing Digital Circus too?’ She asked excitedly. ‘Yeah, I bought it at a TADC event I went to recently,’ I replied, startled. She and I spent the next few minutes talking about fan theories and it felt nice to finally talk to someone. ‘By the way, I didn’t see you at lunch. Where were you?’ Veronica asked, looking curious.

I considered lying but decided to tell her, since it would be nice to be able to talk to someone about my friendship breakup for a change. ‘Well, my best friend decided she didn’t want to be friends anymore, and I’m not that close with anyone else…’ I muttered, waiting for my teacher to start the lesson, so that I could escape the conversation. ‘You seem pretty interesting though! That TADC pin you have on your bag must mean you’re pretty cool! What’s your ex-best friend’s name?’ ‘Lily,’ I blurted out. ‘Lily? Are you kidding me?’ Veronica gasped. ‘Why? Do you know her?’ I asked, wondering how Veronica could know her since Lily and I were only friends with each other. ‘She was my friend from church, and we used to hang out pretty often, but she ghosted me after a while.’ Veronica said with a slight smile. It wasn’t like me to not do any work, but my thoughts were consumed by Lily and all the memories we’d made together. Was she really a good friend? * I took the bus home for the first time and was thrilled not to have to walk home. As I inserted the bus card into the slot and took a seat watching the autumn leaves fall, I thought that maybe this could be the turning point where I actually had more than one friend in high school! I walked through the front door, and my mom gave me a simple wave and continued looking at fall decor on her phone. For a split second, she seemed to want to say something but held back and continued scrolling through her wish list. An hour of homework later, I looked at the clock to see it say 6:00 p.m. I put on my slippers and went downstairs. I listened as the steps creaked and as the old wooden clock ticked every second away. Mom had made spaghetti, and we ate in silence until she finally broke it. ‘So, how’s school lately? Still friends with that Lily girl?’ she asked, looking at the clock behind me. ‘Why are you so talkative today? You are usually busy with work,’ I said, trying to drift the conversation away from Lily. ‘Hey, forgive me for trying to talk to my daughter,’ she said.

I stayed silent and helped her clear the plates. * In the morning, I was late and missed breakfast, but when I sat down on the bus, a girl named Cheryl offered me her granola bar. ‘Hey. You’re in my physics class, right?’ ‘Uh, yeah, what’s up?’ I asked, trying to remember who she was. ‘I heard about you and Lily. Sorry for your guys’ fallout. It happened to me too. I used to be super close with this group of friends, but then we started drifting apart, so I know how you feel.’ ‘Wait, how do you know about that?’ I asked, furrowing my brow and wondering how the news could’ve spread that fast. ‘Lily basically told everyone, and I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. Losing a friend can be rough.’ ‘Oh, she did, I guess. I didn’t know that,’ I said, looking down at my worn down sneakers, then outside the window, anywhere to escape the situation. ‘I’m here for you, though. Friendship breakups can be hard, I’ve experienced one with a group of friends, but this will pass eventually. Let’s go to class together!’ She said, grabbing my hand. It felt weird to be sitting with someone during a class other than chemistry, but I had to admit that the company was nice. Cheryl didn’t force me to open up about the friendship breakup, so we just sat in silence. I felt people staring at me, and whenever I looked back and smiled, they would look away. I was still processing how Lily told everyone about our friendship breakup. She’d always loved to be in the spotlight and get sympathy from others, but this? I checked my phone, which was buzzing like a ticking alarm clock from my bag, to see she had posted over 30 Instagram posts, talking about moving on from toxic friendships and whatnot. The comments all supported her and were trash-talking me, and I knew Lily was doing this on purpose to gain attention. Even knowing I still had Cheryl and Veronica, I felt a knot form in my stomach thinking about our memories together. The knot faded a little when I saw a text from Cheryl making a group chat with me and Veronica, making plans to meet up at the end of the school day.

We met by the bus stop. Veronica already had a worried look on her face, asking, ‘How are you feeling? Did you see the posts?’ I didn’t want to keep talking about my friendship breakup, especially because it already felt like everyone was in my business. People always paired Lily and I together, and that’s why when she started posting messages about toxic friendships and moving on, everyone knew it was between us. I didn’t ask for our business to be shared, and it felt like I’d been dragged into something I never agreed to be a part of. ‘I guess I just don’t want to be reminded of it,’ I said. ‘I get that. Must be pretty awful, having everyone knowing your business,’ Cheryl said. ‘Normally, Lily and I would be planning Halloween by now but…’ my voice trailed off as I felt the familiar feeling in my throat like I was going to cry. ‘I had a best friend who ghosted me for no reason. I still don’t know why, but feeling sorry for myself didn’t help,’ Veronica said, giving me a hug. ‘I know everything feels overwhelming right now, but I promise it will get better.’ Cheryl suddenly had a massive grin on her face ‘Why don’t we plan our own Halloween party? No drama allowed, just pure relaxation and lots of apple cider?’ I felt myself smile. I was looking forward to a night where I didn’t have to think about missing Lily and could focus on having fun with Cheryl and Veronica. We made a group chat and over the next few days, the chat blew up. Veronica’s house had a huge basement, so we decided to host the party there. Plus, her parents would be out of town, so we had the whole house to ourselves. We were gushing over spooky cupcakes, ghost decorations and arguing whether or not red fruit punch was superior to Gatorade. More and more people heard about it. Five more people ended up joining our party planning, and they were all people I’d seen around at school. We seemed to be avoiding the obvious reason why we were having the party in the first place. Cracking jokes, throwing confetti all over the room, and absolutely dying of laughter. Cheryl threw confetti all over the room while Veronica was roasting us brutally on our jokes, and I was laughing so hard that my ribs hurt. At the end of the week, I was feeling so much better about the whole situation, although it still

hurt. People shared their own stories about having to move on from friendships, which made me think maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t in this alone. The party date was set for October 31st, exactly on Halloween. It was the 21st, so we had exactly 10 days to get the party on. The word had spread, and it felt like the tables had turned. More people started talking to me, wanting to be a part of the party. At the end of the week we had almost 20 people, not including the five of us, who wanted to join. The number of people in our group chat grew and we started talking about creepy decorations. Someone suggested setting up skeletons, fake blood, making Veronica’s basement like a haunted house. I was actually someone now, with more than one friend in high school. I knew it was wrong, but I enjoyed seeing Lily’s face change as she realized I wasn’t under the bus, I was driving it. A girl named Tilly went on Facebook Marketplace and found this guy who was selling super realistic fake blood and skeletons for 50 bucks. We all chipped in $2, and we told the guy to meet us at Lincoln Street, 3 blocks away from our school. It wasn’t the best part of town, but we still pushed away the paranoia and met the guy there. He had chipped teeth and smelled faintly like cigarettes. He pushed this heavy box toward us and said it was super realistic and was of great quality. We gave him the money, and we took the box and left. We carried the box back to Veronica’s basement, joking around to shake off the weirdness and the smell of the decorations. We dropped the decorations off and headed back home, each of us going in different directions. When I got home, I was practically bouncing off the wall in excitement. I told my mom all about the plan, and she looked worried and nervous at the same time. ‘Are you out of your mind, Morgan? What kind of party is this? Why don’t you just do your homework at Lily’s house like you usually do?’ she said, furrowing her brow. My excitement drained away, and I started walking up the stairs to my room, not looking back as I told her, ‘I don’t hang out with Lily anymore.’ I didn’t look back to see if she responded. * Before I knew it, it was Halloween. My mom tried to ask me

about the party and the box, but I ignored her and kept doing whatever I wanted. It wasn’t until later, when we sliced open one of the fake blood bottles, that the smell of blood hit us. It wasn’t just corn syrup and stage dye; it smelled like decaying blood. Veronica’s parents were about to leave when they checked up on us. They warned us about being safe, but we just said, ‘Okay,’ and kept planning. We decided to skip school to set up the decorations. We were so scared because the skeletons seemed hollow and way too real to be fake. One slipped from someone’s hands, and the sound of it hitting the ground wasn’t hollow—it was solid, and it felt wrong. By six, Veronica’s basement was unrecognizable. We’d draped black sheets over the walls, hung glowing string lights, and set up the skeletons and fake blood in the corners. People started pouring in—first ten, then twenty, then nearly thirty kids crammed into the basement. Music shook the walls, laughter echoed off the ceiling, and the air smelled like sugar, cider, and cheap fog machine smoke. It didn’t take long for other people to notice. Someone from the baseball team said they saw skeletons fall off and that it smelled like real blood. People laughed it off, calling it ‘the best and scariest decorations ever.’ But when the power cut for a split second, plunging us into blackness, I swore I saw something else. A faint red light was blinking in the corner of the room. Three other people said they saw the same thing, but we just continued having fun. It was the best night of my life. Kids were joking, we were eating cupcakes and drinking fruit punch, and by the end of it, the basement was a disaster. We went trick-or-treating, had Coke chugging contests, and threw cupcakes and cookies into each other’s mouths. We had so much fun, we didn’t even realize how late it was. We checked the clock and it was 4 am. Everybody scurried home while laughing and holding fruit punch, while Veronica, Cheryl, and I stayed. We told ghost stories and demolished the stash of candy we had. Cheryl was still talking about what a legendary night it was. I still couldn’t shake the feeling of the skeletons being real; they seemed to pierce holes in my eyes when I stared at them for too long. Everyone else at the party came up to us and told us they had such a good time, and it felt like I had a huge group of friends for once. We didn’t know what to do with the decorations, though, so we dumped them behind a 7 Eleven and hoped that nobody would find them. News of the scary decorations

and the party spread through the school like lightning. In the next few days, half the school thought we were hardcore pranksters, and the other half thought we were criminals. It was honestly entertaining to hear all of the stories about how we got such realistic decorations. A few days after the party, we checked behind the 7-Eleven to see if the decorations were still there. The decorations were still there, and Veronica decided to get to the bottom of it. She picked up the skeleton and ripped its arm off. Instead of the usual plasticky material, it creaked like real bone. She jumped back, and we ran off, scared. At home, I saw that the group chat was blowing up with notifications about what would happen to the decorations and whether or not the guy was a dangerous person. Then, Veronica sent the most chilling message, ‘Guys, there were cameras.’ ‘What do you mean?’ I typed. I hadn’t seen any cameras, but everyone was fixated on how realistic the decorations were. Had we missed something? I ran down to the living room, where my mom was sitting with manicured nails and a cocktail in her hand, though it was still early in the evening. My phone buzzed as Veronica sent a follow-up message: Turn on the news. Before I could turn on the TV, Cheryl suddenly called the group chat. She flipped the camera to show a news article. Its title was ‘Halloween decorations get sold with cameras inside of them,’ and we were officially freaking out. I told my mom I was biking to Veronica’s house, and she just dismissively nodded, before suddenly sitting up. ‘Wait,’ she said, holding up a finger. ‘What?’ I asked, already halfway to the door. ‘Just…’ she hesitated, ‘be careful, okay?’ ‘Okay, whatever Mom.’ I was honestly sick of the act, her pretending to care. I grabbed my bike and started biking to Veronica’s house. Cheryl was already there, and we banged on her door with no answer. After 10 minutes of knocking, she finally opened the door a slight bit. ‘Come in, but be quiet,’ she said in a whisper. Cheryl and I glanced nervously at each other but went in. The atmosphere of the house was tense; Veronica’s parents were arguing in their room on the second floor as they found out that we got into trouble. She led us up to her room where she hid in blankets. We read

the news article together about cameras being hidden in vials of blood and skeletons. They kept rambling on and on about the details, but my mind went to other places. Had my mom been right? Had she known the whole time? Why hadn’t I listened to her and not gotten involved with the sketchy guy? * The next morning, everything felt weirdly quiet and strange. Veronica’s parents hadn’t come out of their office all night. By 8 am, Cheryl, who had gone back home to sleep, returned with muffins and a look of determination. ‘I couldn’t sleep last night. We have to report this,’ she said, slamming the muffins down. Veronica’s mom had already sent the footage to the police and they were investigating. The next few days were a blur of waiting and hoping. * On the following Monday after school, Veronica’s mom broke the news to us. There had been cameras in multiple skeletons, and the guy was now in custody. The footage hadn’t been used yet, so we acted early enough to save it. Later that day, two officers came by. They asked questions, took the box, and thanked us for cooperating. One of them, Officer Thomas, pulled all three of us aside. ‘You kids were lucky. Whoever did this wasn’t just trying to scare people—he wanted to watch them. We don’t know for sure what he was planning, but the videos he collected suggest he might’ve been trying to rob the house. And when people stop noticing the cameras, that’s when things get dangerous.’ I nodded, stomach twisting, thinking about what could’ve happened if we hadn’t seen the cameras. As Officer Thomas walked away, I slowly turned on my phone to call my mom and asked her to pick me up. She came shortly after and I waved goodbye to my friends as I got in the car. She was quiet as usual on the drive home before finally breaking the silence. ‘I’m proud of you,’ she finally said. ‘You made a mistake, but you

owned up to it. And… I should’ve been there more for you.’ I looked up at the rearview mirror and saw her face. She didn’t have her usual cold, distant demeanor. Instead, her eyes were soft and I could see the relieved expression on her face. So for once, I truly believed her. That night, our private group chat was quieter than usual. No spamming messages or memes. Just one from Veronica appeared, ‘Let’s never buy sketchy Halloween decorations again.’ Cheryl typed back, ‘Agreed. Let’s just carve pumpkins next year.’ I typed, ‘And next time when we want to try something new, we need to promise to keep each other in check.’ That weekend, we carved pumpkins. I still missed Lily sometimes and the way things used to be, but now I knew better. I had real friends, and even though things didn’t go back to normal immediately, this was a good start.

The Realm of Fiends Reuben Tripp

Young Adult | Fantasy | Family

‘H

ey, keep at it, we can’t have a hunk of bronze for a sword.’ Tan was on the bellows, his sandy brown hair dipping with sweat and his hazel brown eyes watering under the heat of the blazing fire. ‘This sword isn’t going to forge itself!’ his dad, known as Balin, called out over the banging of his hammer and Tan’s rapid breath. Tan’s dad, the blacksmith, was a large muscular man with broad shoulders and a bushy beard. He appeared to be stern and bad-tempered but really he was just a big cuddly bear on the inside. ‘Ahhh, good work son, maybe one day you might be as strong as me and have a go at hammering, ha ha ha!’, said Tan’s Dad whilst thumping him on the shoulder. Tan looked at the blade lying before him, the glistening edge was beautiful in the mid afternoon sun. ‘So it’s mine? As in, I can keep it?’ Tan stuttered. ‘Yes, it’s all yours.’ ‘Thank you!’ said Tan, wrapping his Dad in a bear hug. ‘Well, it’s just bronze,’ said his dad, ‘it’s nothing too special.’ ‘Shut up, it’s amazing!’ laughed Tan. ‘Yeah? You’re not going to use it anyway.’

Tan’s mum, Amata, rolled her eyes at the two of them squabbling. ‘Just remember, it’s not a toy!’ Tan and Balin chuckled. * Baron Gremstoke looked through the window before him, his castle’s spires, protruding upwards, seemed to scrape the heavens, The streets were bustling with merchants and people, the taverns were full and soldiers were being put to the test in the garrisons. ‘My Lord, we have visitors,’ said the servant, avoiding eye contact. ‘Come in,’ spat the Baron. The soldiers walked into the room accompanying a figure in rags. ‘My Lord, we have caught a burglar who has been thieving the poor for several weeks.’ ‘Name?’ asked the Baron ‘Walter,’ grumbled the criminal. ‘Out,’ said the Baron, ‘every one of you! You have wasted my time, a nobleman like myself has better things to do than spend time with scum. The thief can talk to me in private, the rest of you can get out of my sight!’ The door shuddered as it slammed closed behind his servants. ‘The next person who gets caught will be sentenced to death, you hear me?’ whispered the Baron. He had a look in his eyes that few people saw and lived to tell the tale. ‘My Lord, please accept my apology!’ pleaded the burglar. ‘I am forever loyal to you. We have more goods for you. They will arrive tomorrow morning in the usual way.’ ‘Well, sorry doesn’t cut it.’ A loud crash, like a mirror shattering, came from outside. The sound cut his sentence short. ‘What is happening?’ said the thief. The Baron rushed to the window, giant rifts were appearing in the field around the castle. As if the mirror of reality had been smashed and cracks had appeared in mid air

‘By the hair of my chinny chin.’ he gawped. The Baron felt a movement behind him and looked back to where the thief should have been standing. There was no one there, instead the doors to the room were standing open, and between them was a pool of blood. That’s a shame, thought the Baron. Crack! The Baron turned back to the window. Reality had been smashed, revealing a gateway with jagged edges, like a broken window. Then he saw it. The outline of the beast was vague but he could make out hunched shoulders and hind legs like that of a dog. The creature clambered out of the rift, gave a guttural cry and bounded straight towards the castle on all fours. A shiver shot up the Baron’s spine. He knew that there would be more, lots more, and he would need a kingdom of soldiers to save his people... but more importantly to save his own skin. * ‘Ha! Yah!’ Striking an old scarecrow Tan was full of frustration. Without any proper training he made up the strokes as he went along. His dad, Balin, wasn’t very enthusiastic about Tan trying to use a sword. ‘Tan, eventually you will injure yourself. Using a sword like this is dangerous.’ ‘Weapons are supposed to be used, not put on a mantelpiece for decoration.’ Unluckily for Tan, at that very moment a wasp stung him on the forearm and he dropped the blade to the cobbles. ‘Ten out of ten for foreshadowing Dad,’ Tan grumbled as he retrieved his weapon. His dad stifled a laugh. ‘Dinner’s ready,’ called Amanta and both of them trudged inside. The meal was nothing special, potatoes and some heavily salted mutton. The inside of the house was like you would expect in any other house, wattle and daub walls reinforced with granite slabs. Dust in every corner and a hearth in the centre of the room puffing smoke into the evening sky. The comforting crackle of the fire was replaced by a roar that sent shivers up Tan’s spine.

‘What was that?,’ said Balin ‘I don’t know but I don’t think it’s bunny rabbits,’ replied Tan. Quickly, Tan and Balin armed themselves. Tan with his sword and Balin with a hammer. Tan crept out the door with his sword up in a defensive stance and Balin followed, hammer raised ready to strike. The creature lumbered into view. It had long white eyes with slit black pupils. Teeth like daggers splayed in all directions out of its mouth. Its elastic skin stretched against its bones making it look even more wretched.The beast scraped its clawed nails along the coarse dirt. Tan locked eyes with the fiend, its narrow slit pupils were twitching. It opened its mouth and let out a horrid cry of anger and charged towards Balin on all fours, knocking him off his feet and leaving him sprawled on the ground. ‘Dad!’ cried Tan as the monster bounded towards Balin’s body. The beast loomed over his unmoving form and opened its mouth wide to devour him, or so he thought. The wretched creature, its jaws wide, started to suck. A little blue fire flew out of Balin’s mouth and the beast closed his mouth over the flames. Balin lay lifeless, unmoving. A terrible rage came over Tan. He gripped his weapon tightly and charged at the monster that had killed his father. ‘Ha! Yah!’ Tan grunted as he aimed his sword in an overhand blow, to what he thought was its heart. The creature blocked the blow and Tan’s sword sliced into its hand, cutting it off... But as he brought the strike down, the monster swiped at Tan’s chest, launching him into the air. The monster gave a howl of distress clutching at his severed arm in disbelief and turned to look directly at Tan’s house. ‘Noooo!’ Tan cried. He watched the beast lumber towards his house and rip off the roof, like a kid rolling over a log to find all the bugs hiding underneath. ‘Roar!’ The creature grabbed Amata’s petrified body and performed the same action as it had on his dad, sucking a blue flame out. Tan retrieved his sword and stabbed viciously into the monster’s back sobbing. The beast finally crumpled to the floor and dropped Amata’s body from its grip. Tan lay on the floor sobbing. A ball of red fire escaped from the beast’s corpse and enveloped Tan. *

It was chaos, the Baron was trying his best to organise his troops while the horrid screams of the monsters rang out across the battlefield. ‘You cowards, fight for our land or die trying, we will not let these foul creatures defeat us!’ cried the Baron, as he swung his sword in a deadly arc cutting a monsters neck, but, like some invisible force the blade deflected and barely pierced the beasts ghastly white hide. His horse reared up and turning, galloped back towards the beast. The Baron drove his iron sword with all his might into its spine. It instantly crumpled to the ground dead, however his sword shot straight back out of the wound like an arrow and bludgeoned him right in the shoulder, dismounting him from the saddle and clattering to the ground. ‘What?!’ He rubbed his aching shoulder. The Baron turned around and saw a flame hovering above the ground, next to where the slain beast lay. Carefully he edged away from the mysterious ball of flames, eyeing it curiously. Whatever it is, it does not look good, he thought. ‘Ahhh!’ Dazed, the Baron could hear the distant cry of a soldier being slammed to the ground repeatedly by a fiend with long muscular arms and short stubby legs. The monster had grabbed the man by his leg and was torturing him, as if for fun. Then the beast snatched up the unconscious soldier and held him to his mouth. The Baron watched as the monster opened his mouth wide and drew the soldier’s soul out of his body and into its own. A blue flame flew from the soldier’s mouth into the monster. Horns sprouted from the monster’s head, talons protruded from its fingers - it had evolved! Thoughts raced through the Baron’s mind. The fire, realised the Baron, the flames feed them and make them stronger! He twisted his head around to look at the red hovering flame that had been released from the monster he had just killed. Making his mind up, the Baron stumbled towards it. He opened his mouth and sucked at the flames, which flowed down his throat. He felt a searing pain all over his body. His muscles twitched and jerked, his head spun and his thoughts felt befuddled. When he came to, he saw the massive figure of a beast before him, the same one that had killed the soldier. Its fists were clenched

ready to smash him flat. With a new found strength he leapt away and sprinted to retrieve his sword. The beast howled and charged towards him, but raising his sword, the Baron sidestepped, just in time, running the blade along the monster’s leg. It dropped to the ground. He finished the creature off with a deadly blow. The fiend’s soul escaped and, burning brightly, it flew into the Baron’s grasp, he inhaled it as before. His pupils twitched and turned to slits. Streaks of white ran through his jet black hair. He was becoming a monster. * Slowly Tan got up and kicked the beast to check it was dead and carefully backed away. As he did so, he noticed the flames licking at his body. ‘Get off, get off, get off,’ he cried, thumping his chest and thighs. After the sudden panic, he relaxed and checked the facts. There are fiends that suck fire out of you, my family is dead and I am on fire, he thought. Tan realised that the flames were not hot or burning him and they were turning from red to blue, a mysterious blue that made him shiver. Tan woke to the pitter patter of rain gently tapping his face. He gazed at the corpse of the fiend. No it wasn’t a dream, he thought. He walked towards the form of his mum and checked her pulse just in case. ‘It can’t be,’ he whispered, ‘she can’t be alive.’ He rushed to his Dad, finding the same results; he was apparently lifeless but had a slight pulse. After an hour of waiting neither of them came around so Tan headed to the most knowledgeable place he could think of in search of answers... the University. ‘Hello, anybody there?’ He was greeted only by musty cobwebs. ‘Helloooooo!’ he called. ‘Yes, take a seat,’ said a voice behind him. Tan turned. He was short and elderly. Wrinkles covered his face and he only had a few wisps of white hair on his head. ‘Welcome to the university library, what can I help you with?’ the old man asked. ‘I was attacked by a monster, it had a gaping mouth, lots of

teeth, pale white skin and it killed my parents or at least I thought it had and there was this fire but it did not burn,’ garbled Tan. ‘I knew they would return,’ said the old man, ‘follow me.’ He walked into a small store room full of equipment and cobwebs. The old man opened a cupboard door concealed behind a sheet of linen and stepped inside. It was an empty room with no source of light. Tan could just make out a chest in the middle of the room with multiple heavy locks. ‘What is this place?’ asked Tan. ‘This is a chest containing many items that have helped me on my travels, an enchanted map, a knife of bronze and all sorts of other things.’ ‘An enchanted map! Are you crazy?! Wait ohh.’ * The Baron was checking the perimeter of a new fort that his men had constructed. It had eight feet tall pikes sticking upward around the edge of the site. At each corner of the fort, was a thirteen feet tall watch tower, so that the archers could spot threats from all possible angles. ‘My Lord, we have stationed ten foot soldiers and eight archers to defend the fort, the same for the other forts, each built around a rift. According to our natural philosopher these balls of flames are the souls of the beasts, we are calling them soul flames,’ said the advisor, addressing the Baron. ‘Where is it?’ questioned the Baron. ‘The rift?’ asked the advisor. ‘Yes, show it to me.’ commanded the Baron. ‘Follow me,’ said the advisor. They walked through an archway under a watch tower that led straight to the centre of the fort. ‘The rift is in here, my Lord,’ said the advisor. ‘The room doesn’t have a roof. It should.’ stated the Baron. ‘You will see why when they come through,’ said the advisor. The Baron did not like to be reasoned with or proven wrong. ‘Lazy!’ spat the Baron. ‘Is this the same with all the fort

outposts?’ ‘Yes my Lord,’ replied the advisor glumly. The Baron’s face turned white and his pupils dilated. ‘Do not question my instructions.’ The advisor was no fool and he apologised swiftly. ‘My Lord, I am so very sorry. I will get a handful of men to…’ ‘No... do it yourself, I do not tolerate lazy workers, leave me!’ The advisor hurried to a pile of timber selecting a length and carried up the nearest ladder. The Baron watched as he reached the top of the wall. He leaned nervously over the edge pushing the timber along the wall. Suddenly, a beast darted out of the rift, jaws wide, swallowing the advisor whole. A cry went up from the watch towers and the archers rained arrows down on the beast, which fell back down howling. A red ball of flame emerged from the beast and the Baron leaned over the wall hungrily ready to inhale the flame. Perhaps a roof is unnecessary, he thought with a grim smile. * Tan was hiding behind a rock. It was past midnight and he had one goal; to breach the fort and enter the fiend realm, where the monsters that killed his parents had come from. His plan was to pass through the rift and kill four of the most powerful fiends. The old man had given him careful instructions and told him to find an ‘old friend’, who lived in the rift. ‘Someone lives inside that hell hole?’ Tan asked. ‘Yes,’ said the old man. ‘You must find him before you return to our world if you wish to save your parents.’ Tan waited hours on end until he heard it. A hollow scream. It was the distraction he needed to divert the soldiers, although memories of that terrible night flooded his mind. There was no time to waste. Tan jogged to the fort with his heavy knapsack holding five days of salted mutton and a water bladder. He pressed his back against the outer wall. His heart beating rapidly, he crept through the archway. Now he needed to wait. The two archers on the watch tower were not very accurate in the darkness, so they descended to ground level to finish off the fiend.

‘It is dead now,’ said the guard, nudging the beast with his foot. ‘Alright, back to your posts,’ said their leader from the wall. Every muscle was tensed in Tan’s body, he was hiding in the tower and waiting for the archers to enter it so that he could knock them out. The first guard turned to climb the ladder. Thud! Tan used the handle end of his sword to knock the soldier over the head. He quickly threw the limp man out of the way and struck the second man who dropped easily. Tan ran as fast as he could across the clearing. There it was, the rift. It was like looking through a window with broken, jagged edges. Inside it and through the gloom, Tan could make out a dense forest of pine trees with slim trunks. ‘Hey, there is someone down there. Take aim…’ shouted a soldier on the wall. But it was too late, Tan had already leapt into the realm of the fiends. Tan looked around. He could make out trees in the gloom. The cries of soldiers died away as he stumbled beyond their vision. Everything froze... the trees stopped swaying, the wind stopped blowing... Tan felt as if every creature in the words was looking straight at him. He ran. Panting, Tan saw an abandoned, lonely looking hut. It’s worth the risk, he thought and took what he hoped was refuge inside. Parts of the walls had rotted away leaving only a timber skeleton of what had once been. The room was empty but something caught Tan’s eye, a few wooden boards laid across the floor. Tan threw the boards aside to reveal some stairs. He peered down the stairway and stepped down into the gloom. At the bottom of the stairs, Tan unsheathed his sword and crept into the centre of the cellar. Every movement sent an echo. Shelves lined the walls and storage containers were stacked in the corners. In the centre of the room Tan nearly knocked over a candle and stumbled to the side to take a closer look. Fwoooosh! The candle suddenly ignited. Tan fell backwards. He had heard stories of genies but nothing like this. Standing before him was a person, entirely made of flame. ‘Ok, now I’m definitely going mad,’ said Tan. ‘My name is Skifru, the flame genie, a bargainer of the fiend realm. I do resurrections, souls for hire and fiend extermination, what’s

on your mind?’ ‘What are you?’ Questioned Tan, oblivious of anything in the last twenty seconds. ‘Well excuse me,’ exclaimed Skifru. ‘What am I? I am Skifru, Bargainer of the realm of fiends.’ ‘I’ll say it again, what are you?’ asked Tan. ‘Hmmm, well I don’t really know, I just made that title up myself... do you think it needs work? So what brings you here and why?’ ‘Well my parents have died and an old man suggested that I come here to seek help, and here I am.’ ‘You said your parents are dead. Are their bodies in good condition?’ ‘A fiend sucked out their souls but they seem otherwise uninjured.’ ‘I can help you with that,’ said Skifru. ‘No, no,no I’m...’ stuttered Tan. ‘I do resurrections, does anyone listen?’ Skifru pointed to a rotting sign, ‘but soul retrieval seems more useful in this case.’ ‘So you’re saying I could bring my parents back?’ ‘Of course!’ sighed Skifru. Tan frowned. ‘When that sort of thing happens in fairy tales, it’s normally a trick. Will I have to sell my soul to the devil or something?’ ‘In short no, the prices vary but in your case it is 5 souls, 3 for each parent with a one time only discount!... I already sense you have one but that is from a lesser fiend - I am asking you for powerful ancient souls from the strongest’.... Skifru huffed with effort, ‘sorry, this is very tiring..’ The flame disappeared leaving a trail of rising smoke behind. Skifru’s words echoed through Tan’s mind. He gingerly picked up the candle which was strangely cold and dropped it into his pack. He curled up in the corner of the cellar, exhausted. He knew he needed to sleep and settled down for the night. As Tan trekked through the woods he noticed that there was no birdsong and it always seemed to be night. The old man said I needed 4 not 5! thought Tan. The place was deceiving and Tan could have sworn that the trees were shifting. He knew he had to kill some really powerful fiends. He realized that he hadn’t asked the genie what the fiends actually were. He ran through

some ideas, perhaps they were restless souls that never made it to the afterlife or maybe demons that could take physical form... he wasn’t sure. After an hour of trekking, Tan found himself in a sunny clearing. That’s weird, he thought, just a minute ago it was night and now it is day. Out of interest he walked back a few paces. Looking at the sky he saw the moon rapidly appear and the sun set. Hmm, so it is all an illusion, he thought. After his realisation he got back on track and explored the clearing. The ground was relatively dry compared to the rotting forest floor leaves. Tan felt like he was being watched. As he turned around he felt a great weight slam onto his shoulders. ‘Ahh! Oof!’ Tan’s knees buckled and he fell backwards, throwing the fiend off and hitting a tree. It cried out in pain but still launched itself at Tan for the second time, jaws wide, but the only thing it bit into was his blade. The fiend lay limp on the dirt, its soul emerged from its body and Tan timidly reached out his hand to touch it, making sure it didn’t enter his body through his mouth or nose. He watched it turn red to blue on his skin before it disappeared. That fiend wasn’t as ancient or powerful as Skifru wanted, thought Tan, maybe the next one will be stronger... wait, no, why am I hoping for ancient fiends to attack me?! ‘That was quite some feat’ exclaimed a mysterious figure. ‘Who are you and what are you doing here?’ asked Tan. ‘I am a bargainer,’ he said, shadowed by the gloomy trees. ‘That’s strange I already met a bargainer and he tried to kill me,’ lied Tan, hoping to uncover a fiend, but possibly frustrating an innocent traveller. ‘INCAPABLE BRETHEREN, I SHALL FEAST ANY HOW!’ The stranger’s legs grew, his spine hunched and an ugly grimace was painted on his face. ‘Umm, I think I may have found an ancient fiend,’ said Tan. The fiend charged and Tan sprinted to the side to avoid its bull-like horns. The beast readied for contact and reared up, Tan sliced at the fiends hide savagely angering the beast more. Tan circled around the fiend avoiding direct face to face contact. Tan realised he could not keep

it up forever and drove his sword into its side. The beast cried out once more and charged into the centre of the clearing dragging Tan along the ground with his sword still lodged in its side. The action dislodged the sword and left Tan sprawled on the floor. He made an effort to get up, screamed and crumpled back down to the ground. It appeared that his leg was broken. So this is how it ends, stupid boy tries to save his parents by venturing into a realm of soul sucking fiends. Wait! I may not have my legs but I do have my arms! Hopefully all those years of hammering will pay off! Tan lay still and waited for a perfect opening, the fiend opened its mouth and started drawing Tan’s soul out of him. Then Tan retaliated with a hammering blow to the head stunning the beast and leaving another opening for a back hand slash across its face. Tan awkwardly crawled away, creating distance between him and the fiend. Preparing for another attack, he raised his sword while the fiend recovered. Its forehead had mighty gashes and Tan’s blade had bitten deep into its cheek. The fiend was obviously nearly fatally injured so one swing could possibly destroy it. The beast reared up once more and charged. With his remaining strength Tan rolled sideways and swung at the fiends neck ending the brawl. ‘Well they don’t call them ancient fiends for nothing!’ Tan muttered. As the soul emerged from the fiend, the clearing became hazy, it was as if the soul was emitting an aura. Using his upper body, Tan crawled towards the wall of flames reaching out his arm towards the soul. The old man had said that hosting multiple souls was mentally draining but that he could gain physical abilities, although Tan noted he had not felt any strange effects. The soul soon flickered out after hungrily burning into Tan’s skin. Tan felt a strange sensation in his leg alongside the pain. He peered down to take a look and saw that his leg was regenerating, The gashes closed before his eyes and his bone clicked, returning to its normal state. At least I don’t have to battle more fiends with a broken leg, thought Tan. Now that his leg had mended, he felt energised and ready to go. After eating some mutton, Tan realised that if it was going to be an endless night and he had no place to hide, he could be easily ambushed.

He decided his best bet would be to find a cave to sleep in. Tan found himself aimlessly jogging in a random direction because he had no clue where the nearest cave or the nearest fiend was. He had no other option. No branches fell, no twigs snapped, it seemed to be quiet, too quiet. Tan fell over treeroots countless times, and he was sure that someone was controlling the wretched forest. He knew it. When he saw it, he thought that his mind was playing tricks on him, but as Tan got closer, he could make it out more clearly. It was a cave opening. Strange. I never actually thought I would find one, he thought. Its jaws were stalagmites and its back was granite. Tan shuddered to think what could be lurking in there. He peered in, not daring to make a sound. Slowly, Tan backed up, picked up a stone, and threw. The stone ricocheted off the inside of the cave echoing. Tan couldn’t bear to listen. After the echo had dissipated, Tan walked to the entrance, sword raised, scanning the shadows. He felt it before he saw it, a burst of wind passed his cheek. He looked to his right and saw an earwig-like fiend, pincers and all. The blow that nearly hit him came at speed from an dactyl club-like arm. In fact, the club missed and hit the cave wall next to him,which cracked. All Tan’s instincts suggested he should run. Run. You will become bad modern art if you don’t run away. And that’s exactly what he did. The fiend followed in close pursuit, scuttling along, although its legs seemed to only go so fast before stumbling. So, he’s not light on his feet, thought Tan. Maybe I could use that to my advantage. Tan took a sharp turn left, then right. The fiend’s legs lost balance and it rolled on its side, desperate to get up, its legs flailing. Tan turned back to admire his work. Underneath its rough tough shell was a second layer of smooth shell. Oh no. oh no. How am I supposed to kill it now? Its shell is too thick, he thought. And I can’t even attack from the back because of those pincers. There must be some way... It was only a matter of time before the beast rolled over and would be after him again, if only he could find a natural object that could take it out for him, hmm those stalactites looked pretty nasty, wouldn’t want one of those falling on my head! Tan walked over to the cave entrance and hacked at the stalactites, loosening them with every hit. As he finished striking the last and biggest stalactite, he saw the fiend emerge from the forest. Tan

picked up a sizable rock and waited for the beast to walk right into his trap. The scuttling sound came closer and closer until Tan saw the beasts head right in front of the entrance. Beads of sweat dripped down his neck. It’s now or never, he thought and threw the rock. Even though Tan threw as hard as he could, the rock bounced off harmlessly, although it dislodged the stalactite more than before. Tan gritted his teeth and realized the only way out was through the fiend. Tan knew if he got hit once then he’d be gone, he couldn’t even block its attacks. ‘Look at the wall for goodness sake!’ said Tan, recalling the damage that it dealt. Tan had noticed that after each punch the beast had to sort of reload and wondered if that could give him the time he needed to escape. The beast crawled closer, clubs raised and cocked back ready to finish off its prey. Tan wasn’t ready to give up just yet. I didn’t come all this way to lose to an oversized prawn, he thought. He raised his sword and charged the fiend as it crawlied towards him, Tan hopped to the side, slicing at the beast’s shoulder and trying to even the odds without hammering himself. The cave was quite spacious so Tan had room to evade when needed. The fiends’ reach was inferior to Tan’s sword but its speed meant it could close the distance between them. Tan had a crazy idea, but he wasn’t sure if it was sensible for the situation. After obtaining three souls, Tan was unsure of his physical ability, nevertheless he swung at the beast. The swing knocked both clubs to the side where Tan could take another swing towards the fiends eyes before leaping back and taking a breath. It appeared that the fiends eyes were nearly cut off and not capable of seeing but the beast could still work out Tan’s exact position. Tan strafed from side to side, curious as to why he was still being tracked. No ears, no eyes, how can it find me?, wondered Tan. Little did Tan know that its antenna could sense vibrations and a cave was a perfect place for that. Tan crept closer, he passed his sword into the other hand and BAM. like it was nothing, the rock hard fist of the fiend smashed into Tan’s sword hand, blowing it off entirely. Tan stared at his forearm on the ground some distance away, and then watched as the beast scuttled towards his fallen sword, punch after punch connected with it until there

was nothing left but mangled metal. A fear came over Tan like nothing before. Staring at the space where his hand had been and biting his lip in pain, Tan leapt into action. Blood spurting from his arm, Tan stamped down harder than he thought was possible on the fiends left pincer, snapping it off from its abdomen to use as a makeshift sickle. Razorsharp and deadly, Tan knew time was ticking. No way I lose to a prawn with pincers, Tan thought, regretting he couldn’t go on offensive due to the deadly clubs that the fiend wielded. The tension Tan felt was unimaginable but he still stood strong, he knew he needed that soul and wondered if it could possibly heal his arm. Tan heard it before he saw it, oh no not another one, he thought. The fiend swiveled round and dashed to where the sound was coming from. Tan crept behind the monster keeping his eye on the forest. A fiend lumbered into view, it was giant, as tall as the trees, it was at least 20 feet tall and wielded a tree trunk as a club, swinging it wildly at the approaching monster. Ever since Tan entered this realm he had assumed that the fiends would work as a team to hunt their prey but realised, why should they, I mean if they are so hungry for souls why should they share them? Hmm now we can really see how strong you are, thought Tan, eager to see if his enemy was capable of defeating a 20 feet tall mountain. The giant fiend prepared to swing its massive club at its opponent but it was too slow. The mantis fiend released its dactyl clubs with such force and speed that the giant was obliterated. Tan’s mouth dropped open, as flesh rained down over the clearing. H h h how is that possible!? There is nothing left of that thing, it only took it out with one punch! Agh! I will end this now! Tan’s thoughts raced as he sprinted faster than ever before at the fiend, ignoring all his instincts to hide, and stabbed. Dismayed, Tan looked at the blade, it had snapped off with the force of the thrust. The fiend turned around, Tan’s vision became hazy. If an oversized shrimp can destroy a fiend in one hit, so can I, he decided. ‘HHAAAAA YAAAAAA’ As soon as the fiends head was in range, Tan’s fist darted out, catching the beast off guard and stunning it. What about those antennas? They look sensitive! ‘GAH!’ Tan grabbed them and yanked them down. The fiend recoiled, giving Tan the

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opportunity to put all his remaining soul energy into a punch to the jaw. The fiend rose up once more and then crumpled back down in defeat. Before he could bleed out Tan snapped off the remaining pincer and finished it with a final blow. Psst, psst, psst. Blood spurted out Tan’s arm, turning the dirt beneath him red. The soul emerged from the fiend. Tan stumbled and fell to the ground. ‘The soul’ Tan groaned. All Tan’s energy felt like it was sapping away from him. Tan reached out his severed left arm and let the soul slowly travel across his arm eventually covering it with flames. To Tan’s dismay the effect only numbed the pain slightly and didn’t stop the flow of blood. No no no, Tan thought, I just killed a monster that can punch through stone and now I’m going to bleed out! Tan felt weak and rolled onto his back. He felt like all his well earnt power had slipped through his grasp, now he was just a blubbering mess. Gasp! Tan heaved in a deep breath and regained consciousness, looking around. Tan looked at his arm. ‘My GOD, what in the name ofWOW,’ he said. A blue tinted metallic substance now formed part of his arm, he flexed it, exclaiming, ‘Ha Ha Ha.’ Tan felt strong again but he didn’t have a sword. He walked towards the cave and looked inside. Tan saw the remains of his sword on the floor, picked them up and studied them. He stared at his arm again and wondered, how could something so easily take his physical form? Tan tested his new arm by tapping it and punching with it. Then Tan had a crazy thought, If the substance could take the form of his arm could it take other forms too? Tan imagined the sharpest, coolest looking blade he could... the material in his arm began to take a new shape. When Tan opened his eyes what he saw was extraordinary, a metallic blade, light as a feather and glinting in the gloom. 3 days later Yawwn... Tan opened his eyes and wiped the sleep out of them.

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‘Tan, Tan!’ ‘Who’s there?’ asked Tan. ‘The guy you kidnapped and presumably forgot about.’ ‘Ohh umm sorry?’ ‘Do me a favor and get me out of this bag!’ ‘Ohh sorry again!’ Tan scrambled to take the candle out of the bag. It was cool to the touch yet the flame flickered brightly. As soon as Tan set the candle on the ground, the flame lengthened and Skifru grew into his normal glowing form. ‘You do know that I’m the one resurrecting your parents right!’ ‘Yess…’ ‘THEN WHY DID YOU STUFF ME IN YOUR BAG LIKE A ...Sorry at least I’m being paid, it’s been a while since I’ve had any company.’ ‘Umm Skifru, do you know by any chance where your cellar is because I think I’m rather lost.’ ‘What a shame, why should-ohh I might have to then... Ok, um 45 degrees left in that direction, yes yes and keep on walking ,we will be there in approximately 10 hours!’ ‘Great.’ Tan checked his provisions, 3 slices of mutton left. ‘Urgh, how am i supposed to get back to the portal with three!’ ‘Karma.’ ‘Seriously?’ Over the last 3 days Tan had slain 3 more monsters, collecting a total of 7: 2 regular souls and 5 ancient ones. Tan had decided to make his way back to the rift especially as he seemed to be being attacked more often. Tan had barely looked for the last 2 souls before they were upon him, he seemed to have a massive target on his back. ‘Hey shicyshoe or whatever, I can see the- house.’ ‘Humpf it has seen better days.’ replied Skifru. ‘And my name’s not shicyshoe, it’s Skifru.’ ‘Alright but where is the rift? I think it’s behind that tree.’ Tan set the candle down on a tree stump and slowly peeked his head around the tree. He saw the fort wall with 2 towers and 4 archers. ‘Argh, I forgot to mention that there is a fort surrounding the rift where we are supposedly exiting from, guarded by foot soldiers and

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archers, sorry!’ ‘Well you had a lot on your mind.’ Tan pressed his back against the tree. They can see me as much as I can see them, he thought. Tan felt beads of sweat trickle down his neck and sensed his arm ripple in agitation. I am going to have to think outside of the box here. Suddenly, he had a brain wave. Why am I only using all this stuff to replace my arm? And he began to forge some armor with his mind. ‘Skifru I think I might have done some thing-’ ‘Tan, how did you...?’ Skifru looked admiringly at Tan. From head to toe, Tan was covered in shining metallic armour.... the only flaw being that he had sacrificed an entire arm to make it. ‘Yeah, umm... you’re missing an arm but who needs it when you have the strongest armour ever made? Wow, I would say you’re ready but remember I’m not doing this for free, I will need payment.’ ‘OK! I will take you to my parents, I’ll give you the souls, you’ll resurrect them and the-’ ‘Stop ranting, we are going to use my way. Now, you will give me the two minor souls you have taken. Pass them to me through your fingers.’ Tan placed his hand on the candle and felt his skin tingle and a pulling sensation as a blue glow melted from his fingers, into the candle. ‘So, I’m going to do a little ritual and you’re going to stand back,’ said Skifru. Tan shuffled back not knowing what to expect. Skifru thrust his hand to the sky and he seemed to glow brighter than ever before. ‘Three, two, one.’ A rift appeared in the sky and two flaming balls came out and descended towards them. ‘Go on then, absorb them!’ ‘Are these souls my parents?’ Skifru nodded. ‘No way, I can’t absorb them!’ Skifru sighed, It wasn’t the first time someone had refused to harbour the soul of a loved one. ‘DO YOU WANT TO RESURRECT THEM OR NOT!’ cried Skifru over the roar of the flames. Tan hesitantly reached out his hand and felt the souls flow up his arm and settle on his skin.

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‘Now go Tan, go and resurrect your parents and when you’re ready think of me and drain all the souls out of your body-’ ‘Hey who’s in there, we can hear you,’ said a rough voice. Oh no, the guards have heard us! Tan thought. Might as well make a run for it, no good if I get trapped in here! So without saying a goodbye to Skifru, Tan rushed back through the rift to finish his quest...

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The Ocular Express Om Chatterjee

Young Adult | Horror | Eyes

have heard the rumors. Everyone has. I told my mother I was sleeping over at a friend’s house, some innocent excuse, and never once let myself believe the rumor may be true. Still, as I sat on that strangely warm bench in that abandoned station, there was a unique smell in the air: sweet, then rotten, gone the moment I tried to place it. I heard the keening whistles and stared, unable to look away, as the train pulled into the station. Every instinct told me not to mess with the paranormal, but I stood frozen by awe. It was quite a marvel, with its gorgeous streaks of white dancing over the glossy black, which seemed to swallow the wisps of light around it. The steam’s hiss became quieter. The groaning of the machinery stopped, and the train slowed to a standstill. I tried to turn my head to look anywhere else, to run, but my eyes disobeyed me, refusing to budge even slightly. Then, after what might have been seconds or many minutes, the silence was broken by the creak of the train door, and darkness itself spilled out. It was a mass of lightless vapor, twisted into the shape of a vast hand. Bloodshot eyes of various sizes were irregularly placed over the hand; their pupils darted independently, searching another part of the station. Each eye was unique; not merely mismatched, but disturbingly individual. The majority of the eyes, glazed and clouded over, twitched in

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uneven, painful motions, as though something long dead was forced to live again. Several other eyes held vicious, content, and even melancholy looks. I knew that this spectral hand would likely find me. I stayed as still as a corpse, pleading to the name of every god I knew not to let these horrible eyes spot me. A few moments later, the searching stopped. One by one, the pupils ceased their frantic movement, until every eye on that horrible hand had turned toward me. My breath caught in my throat. But nothing happened. The hand did not move. The train did not creak. Even the faint whistle of the wind through the station had vanished. For one dreadful moment, a moment that has truly never ended for me; the entire world seemed to hold its breath. Still, the eyes stared. Hundreds of them, unblinking. I remember thinking that perhaps, somehow, the hand was looking at something else. Then the nearest eye, large enough to swallow my face in its stare, blinked slowly, almost deliberately. The fingers twitched. Several of the eyes narrowed. I tried to run, but only managed a single, feeble step. The hand crossed the platform so quickly that I never saw it move. One moment it was beside the train; the next, something enormous and impossibly cold was in front of me. The eyes near the knuckles seemed to be inspecting me, my arms, legs, before making their way to my right eye. I noticed several of the eyes seemed to be blinking frantically in unison, and I stared back. My eyes landed on a glazed, bleak-green eye with a red scar through the iris. More than the color, though, it seemed to be looking with malicious intent, as though it was made exactly for this. Then, another one caught my attention: a small, muddy-brown eye with a broad streak of green. I knew it from somewhere; yet for several seconds I could not recognize it. Then I remembered. It belonged to my teacher from last year. He was a stout and eccentric man who had gone missing last May. The eye started to blink violently. It spasmed so violently that the flesh seemed unable to hold it, and without warning it slipped loose beside my shoe. It clouded and shriveled almost immediately. A scream tore out of me before I even realized it was mine, and the hand instantly reacted, grabbing me viciously. As the fingers tightened around my body,

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something inside my chest gave a small, sickening click. My feet were wrenched from the ground. The station disappeared behind a swirling wall of black vapor, and I could see, through the narrow gaps between those colossal fingers, those bloodshot eyes staring directly at me, unwavering. None of them searched anymore. The same bleak-green eye I had noticed earlier was in front, staring daggers at me. A thin, offal-red tear slipped from one of the unblinking eyes, one that looked exactly like mine. I next regained consciousness in one of the train’s car seats. Something was wrong with the left side of the world. It was too bright, too sharp, and it kept drifting toward a dark corner of the car, one that I had no desire to look at. The current car was empty except for a lonely mirror. I stood uneasily and peered into it. Necrotic-tan walls stretched endlessly behind me instead of the train’s regular interior. My left eye was bloodshot. Its iris was green. Not my color. It was glazed like something left drying too long, with a thin red scar slicing through it. I lifted my hand toward it and stopped, just short of the lid. My breath fogged the glass in short, shallow bursts. It was not mine. I knew it the way you know, in the dark, that someone else is there in your room. While the right one scanned the unusual reflections in the mirror, the left one kept on drifting towards that corner, and took its time obeying me. Then, without any warning, I remembered the gaps between those fingers. Only I was not looking out through them. I was looking in on a small, screaming face, and that face was mine. My left eye hurt grievously, yet I could still see through it, much clearer than before. That eye, not me, finally showed me what it had seen: a shape with no clear outline, sitting motionless in that corner right behind me. Unnerved, I moved on from the mirror and inspected the car more closely. It seemed that the seats did not quite line up with the windows. Some seats were ravaged while others were in immaculate condition, almost too shiny and perfect. The landscape had changed drastically as well: from my small, humble town to a place with a peculiarly high amount of vegetation and wildlife. There was an overpowering smell where I had roughly seen the figure: a sewer or carrion sort of odor. It was thick enough to make me faint, but it vanished if I stepped a few feet away. I heard the wet hum of flies near that area, and noticed some blow and flesh flies enter from a crack in the

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wall between two cars. I had no intention or ability to investigate what was behind that crack. When I glanced back at the window, the dense trees had gone, replaced by a low gray fog that swallowed everything past a few feet of track. I could not tell if the window had changed or if I had simply misremembered what I had seen only moments ago. I needed an exit, and I hoped it would be long before I paid heed to that corner. ‘Don’t touch it. It spreads faster if you do.’ The warning was meaningless then. I whipped around, and saw something which is now permanently embedded into my mind. A man, the vague silhouette of one at least, stood before me with dozens of constantly changing eyes over his entire body. They seemed to be the same type of eyes as the hand’s, but they had striking shades of hazel, amber, and one even was an emerald green. His limbs and body seemed completely mangled. His head was vestigial. The features of his face were distorted and relatively unidentifiable, but I could clearly see his two oversized, bloodshot eyes. I gaped in utter horror, and knowing that running would not get me off this cursed train, I decided to try to communicate with this poor captive. ‘W-w-what happened?’ The flies’ buzzing swelled and they seemed to attack him, like he was already carrion. His body seemed like the perfect laying grounds. His eyes snapped at them, each one targeting several flies at once, and they immediately fell to the floor, stone dead. The disgusting odor pervaded the entire car, much thicker than before, making me resort to breathing through my mouth. It was some while until he spoke. ‘I was a human too. Several years ago I had been dared by one of my close friends to board this horrible train, and I had been taken by the Conductor, like you.’ He gestured towards an eye on his thigh. ‘This is what the disease left me with.’ ‘H-how long have you been here?’ One of his eyes rolled over. ‘Several years at minimum.’ He pointed with his shriveled hand to a corner of the car, where there were several thousand tallies, of all different amazing colors. ‘As far as I know, I am the only one it has kept alive this long.’ My fear had mounted too high for manners; I decided to ask

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him directly. ‘W-what can I do?’ He smiled warmly. ‘The next stop is close. If you can still walk when the doors open, I can help you escape.’ I became filled with anticipation. I perceived that his eyes were not looking at my face, but staring raptly at my right eye. Every single one of them; I turned my face left and right, and they followed instantaneously. The man abruptly broke my thoughts. ‘Has it always been that color?’ I was dumbfounded for a second. ‘What?’ ‘Your eye.’ I believed that perhaps he wanted to continue the conversation. ‘Yes, it has been like this since my birth.’ ‘Chestnut…’ He muttered under his breath and the amber eye seemed to blink quickly. I tried to change the slightly uncomfortable subject. ‘The Conductor gave you all of those eyes?’ He paused. ‘Gave me?’ He chuckled. ‘No. Your specimen is so exquisite that I must have the other. Those beautiful chestnut tones are not yet in my collection.’ I spent several moments processing what the man had just said, and instantly knew that I had to run, or at least try. Yet, when my brain fired the signal, my legs did not respond. The man chuckled knowingly. ‘I would not have been so frank if I was not absolutely sure of no escape. It just takes a few minutes for the transfer to be complete, and it is not very painful. You are functionless when your eyes are gone, so you will be let off, although I cannot ensure your survival.’ He stood up clumsily and looked out the window, where I noticed the great dunes of a barren desert. ‘Any other questions you have? The next stop is rapidly approaching, so it will be your last.’ He did not turn around. Not once. He had done this so many times that watching was no longer necessary. I tried my legs again. Nothing. Yet my hand rose from my lap without difficulty, and I stared at it as though it belonged to someone else. It kept rising towards my face. ‘Don’t touch it. It spreads faster if you do.’ That was the first

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thing he had said. Only now did I understand what he truly meant. I do not remember deciding. The sound he made was not anger. It was closer to mourning. ‘No. No, no, the color, you have ruined the color!’ He was on his knees beside me, dozens of eyes crowding forward, every one of them fixed on the thing on the floor between us. Eyes began coming out of the walls of the train. All of those pallid-white eyes stared at that thing in front of me and the whole train seemed to glow a deep vile red. Something warm was running down my neck and into my collar. He did not touch me. He would not touch me now. ‘Do you understand what you have done? There is nothing in you. Nothing left to take.’ His voice climbed and started to crack. The train started to rumble and shake violently. ‘It will want something. It always wants something, and you have made yourself empty, and I am the only one left on this train who is not.’ The eyes wept horrifying, clotted crimson tears, every one of them at once. The smell was so overwhelming that breathing through my mouth no longer helped. Pain and the stench together made my head swim. A rasp noise was followed by a shrill burr, and the train transmuted. The walls and benches took on that necrotictan color, which felt horribly like human skin. The insectile thrum was coming from the seats themselves, where corpses I had mistaken for pristine cushions lay. They were putrefying, thick with flies, close to unidentifiable as humans. The figure in the corner was beyond identification, brimming with maggots and huge clumps of glistening growth. It seemed more like a half-liquid mass. The only sign of a human was a fraction of the ribcage. The walls seemed to snake out endlessly, promising no exit at all. Yet, this all stopped a few moments later, quick enough for me to doubt if I had seen it at all, and the train returned to its original interior. My legs felt severed, convulsing violently. A chunk of the world had disappeared. Every step I made was off by several inches. The blood made sure that I did not stay on my feet for long. The train slowed. I felt it in my teeth before I heard it. The doors opened the way they had opened for me, unhurried, as though they had all the time in the world. No one stopped me. There

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was no reason to. I staggered out. Pain tore through me. The doors closed just as I heard several sickening crunches and a shriek erupted behind me. I will never forget it.

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My Maiden of the Sea Ocean Newman-Beinart Young Adult | Fantasy | Weird

‘T

he jetty no longer belongs to us because it has long been claimed by The Maiden,’ says Robert, and the sea breeze carries the far, putrid smell of old oysters down from the Salty Buoy some way down the road. The beach is rocky, and old, rusty shipwright nails have congealed into most of the stones, along with wet clumps of seaweed and a washed-up jellyfish further down near the shore. A few mussels and barnacles cling to their grey, slippery surfaces. Pockmarks pepper the beach where the seagulls have pecked apart their shells. I can see it now, that jetty that he talks about so often. I can see how the water bobs up and down, up and down, revealing black clumps of muck and other such oozes and rots congealing into the wood. I can also see slimy, green fingers, slick, slender and long, some of them grown fat and others already half-starved, gripping those long wooden poles and trying to bring them back into the sea. They are either very, very hungry or very, very lonely. Perhaps they merely want to feast on the wood, perhaps they just like it, perhaps they cling onto it, because they want some kind of echo of human company. According to the old man, She, The Maiden of the Sea, used to have human company, but now nobody seems to tend to her. One morning, he used to tell them, the entire jetty will be gone and maybe the beach will too, and the next some of the people because she wants their real, utmost company, their

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warmth (it gets cold down there, too) and the next day there will be nobody here and the island will just wait, and call out, just as it did to us. The Sea, and its Maiden, will call out, and others, just like us, will answer the call. ‘Like,’ began Tony, one of the many children who gathered around him after their Kipper Sundays’ in the cold, sea breeze, always beginning, ‘like a sea monster?’ He sniffled, and wiped his puggy, red nose. He looked up, his eyes watering from the salt in the air, and eagerly waited. ‘Well, y’see,’ continued Robert, his wrinkles shadowing as he scrunched up his nose against the miasma around the air, ‘they - we, even - we used to call her that, still do, but I think that The Maiden actually is the sea, herself. I’m still not really sure how it works, but it does work, in some way or other, and I guess we’ll never know, will we?’ There is no sun out. They all know that around ten o’clock, the sun will come out, but for now we’ll wait. I remember sitting there in my own youth, listening to Robert when he was younger than he is now but still considerably old for my young, unaccustomed perspective, but even now I still enjoy listening to Robert tell his story of The Maiden of the Sea. My favorite bit has always been the end, since I was little. So I just stand here, by the side of the seated children whose legs are no doubt aching just as the many have before them, including me. Robert realised that Tony wasn’t going to reply, instead content to sit and listen to the wind among the kids whilst they waited eagerly for him to begin his story. The children ranged from seven to ten usually, but this year there was anybody from four to thirteen in the crowd. Each and every one of them sits obediently, cross-legged - equals for one morning of the year. ‘So maybe She is the sea, maybe She is just a small part of it. I guess we’ll never know, really, will we? So we’d better just sit around and listen for a bit.’ He licked his finger. Put it to the air, and shoved it into his coat pocket for warmth. ‘It’s blowing from the right, just as I thought. You can hear it whistling, can’t you? Well, that’s Her. That’s The Maiden.’ There was a long moment when nobody said anything and everybody just listened to the wind. Listened to The Maiden. Listened to it twirl and dance about through the rocks, and skim across the open seas. I listened to her sing. ‘Go on, Robert, tell us!’ calls out Petra, a young child in the

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crowd. She must be nearly as old as Toby now. I remember when she was a baby… I wish I could watch them grow up over and over again, just as Robert does. ‘I will,’ he replied with a small glare, ‘and I’ll start from the start, then. So have any o’you ‘eard of Markus Windslow and George Addams?’ He looked around. Nobody had. ‘Well, it was Markus who first came ‘round here and decided that the island should start as a town. Apparently they were shipwrecked, ‘round ‘ere, and there weren’t nothin’ ‘ere- there were just pebbles, and a few bushes, and maybe a wee bit o’ forest. I think they lived well, tho’, because there was a tiny bit of fruit, I think there might have been a few apple trees, which was unusual for an island here, where it’s usually so cold, between Scotland and Wales, and they found apple trees!’ he paused, looking around. Nobody was particularly surprised by the apple trees. ‘Of course, at this point, it were nearing the winter time, so they ‘ad to eat all the shellfish they’d been savin’ instead. There were a good lot of oysters, really, so they thought they were set up pretty well, but there was still not much o’ anythin’ else. So they ate a lot of oysters, because it was easy; all they ‘ad to do was hit them on a rock enough times and slurp ‘em down, you ain’t gonna cook them, so it was good luck for them, so far. ‘Now, they also found some other things- they found some particularly large barnacles, the ones you can eat, they weren’t sure about the sea snails, they found mussels too, but they couldn’t make any fire because it was too cold. So they could only really eat the oysters, so they only did eat the oysters. They avoided gettin’ sick well enough, or so it’s told- we found their diaries, ye know, and so we know about all o’ this.’ They are the same words that he used before- it’s all exactly the same. ‘And so there came a time when there wasn’t going to be any help, and both o’ them knew it. ‘The oysters were runnin’ short, by this point, and of course all the apples were long gone. Now, I’m’a tell ye some of the gross, grisly stuff, right, and you can cover ye ears in ye wan’, so that’s your final warnin’.’ None of them did so. They were all too curious to cover their ears. What was it called? They always use it in books, when one is curious about something they probably shouldn’t be. It was morbid curiosity, that’s what they called it. ‘So the oysters were runnin’ short,

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the apples were all gone. So of course, other than hunger - which wasn’t really a problem, so I guess we’ll get to that later - there was their immune system, and the cold, and all o’ that. The apples in the spring were all very well, but now - and this bits the grisly bit, but it’s all true, and it’d’appen to any o’ you lot - without any apples, and only eating oysters from water that looked somewhat clear but without any way of knowing how fresh it really was, they just tried their chances, and mostly, they got sick. They grew very unwell from the oysters, really, because not all o’ them were ripe and ready yet, but mostly because down by ye shore there was always a bit o’ grit and algae. So they ate the oysters because it was all that they ‘ad left, really, and they got sick each time, because they had been ingestin’ in some o’ that water.’ A few of the children, the older ones, grimaced. The others scarcely knew what the word meant. ‘And of course, the oysters ‘ad been filterin’ and feedin’ off o’ that water, which I guess helped the water a wee bit more than it would have, but the oysters themselves ain’t gonna be in great health, are they? And they knew all this - it was in his diary - but they ate them anyway, because they threw them up each time, but they were determined to believe there was a wee bit o’ sustenance in them before that. ‘So that Markus, right, he already had the idea of the town big estate guy, lots o’ money, lots o’ interest, lots of political what-nots, always thinkin’ big - so this guy knows it would never happen, because there ain’t nobody there, and nobody gonna come an’ rescue them, but he still thinks it would be good. ‘A good supply of shellfish, firstly, and he said that he also thought he ‘ad seen a few really good, fat fish in there, but he’d been too weak to try and do anythin’ back then. And the apples in the summer, that grew there naturally, were very interesting for such a cold, rainy island. It’ll probably rain later today, too. ‘So he’s had the idea and there’s some light to it but it’s still impossible. He’s thinking that one day it’ll happen, but by no means will it ‘ave anythin’ to do with ‘im, because ‘e knows ‘e’s gonna die on this island. ‘Until, apparently, well… by this point, things get all weird, and we think it was a hallucination that ‘e had, but then we wouldn’t be here, and of course there are other possibilities, but this is the bit that they sometimes have open in the museum, when it’s not on his drawing of

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The Maiden. ‘So he’s sleeping on the pebbles, and apparently ‘e’s thinking that if he lets go of this oyster shell he’d just been eatin’ from he’d die or somethin’ like that, so he’d been cuddling it, and he’s sleeping with it on the pebbles- right there, where the jetty now is, see?’ and he points over to it. ‘Of course, there ain’t no jetty back then, but there would be at some point. So he’s lying there when he’d been woken up by what he calls singing. He says it wasn’t words as such, as sounds, like a high-pitched melody, and it sounds feminine but not really quite female because it doesn’t sound entirely human. An angel, he says. An angel is singing to him from the sea. ‘So he stands up, and he drops his oyster shell, which he finds on the beach later. So he looks to the sea. He says he got this tingling sensation, and he felt tired, he felt as if he weren’t hearing things rightbut this is a bit you oughta hear from the diary itself, ‘cause it’s so well, famous, y’know. Get up, move.’ The rocks beneath their feet crunches through hollow barnacle shells. I thought I could almost hear my bones creaking, and pins and needles seemed to saturate my senses for a while. Robert, with his slightly shambling gait, began to make his way, ahead of everyone else, to the edge of the beach. He took a step up onto the road, and the procession of children followed him to the other side, near Charlies, the fishmongers. They chattered quietly up the street. They seemed to be in some kind of trance, mesmerized by what they’d heard- so far, at least. Tony was talking to a girl his age (I didn’t recognise her), and I caught the words ‘Sea monster!’ Someone much younger - not the right time to hear the story - said, ‘I don’t understand- why was he hugging a shell?’ A few of them ordered a crab sandwich from the Salty Buoy, and had to run to catch up with Robert. A high sea breeze took up, ruffling our hair, and the waves took their toll on the pebbles. Nobody could hear anything else for a while, but before long we took a turn and came to a building - white cobblestone with black, polished wood - with a hanging sign, swinging in the wind; ISLE MUSEUM. Robert walked in, the little copper bell peeling around the polished, wooden space. A desk at the front, with a book of names and signatures. Robert took the pen lying strewn on the desk and scratched

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something illegible into the page. To the very left of the room were wooden benches, polished over and over obsessively until they became darker than they should, with cushions on them. Under glass stood the artefacts; there was a chalice that had washed up once, there was a piece of wood with a ship’s name, mostly washed away by time. LA AM A, was all that was left. On a small, wooden stand stood the diary. It wasn’t much; clothbound, with ripples all around and splotches where sealife used to crawl and scurry. When he opened it, the children oddly quiet in anticipation, we could hear grains of sand rolling and scratching about between the pages, and an odd shuffling as its string binding scraped across the holes in the pages. He picked it up and sat down on the bench. He pointed a finger at the door, so I walked over and turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED. The children were sitting around him uncomfortably, shuffling and stretching as far as they could without awkwardly hitting the one in front. Robert began to read. ‘It was like the kind of melancholic, static sound that you get when you’re underwater. When you can hear the waves crashing above, and you can hear the sand dancing in rhythm to the restless tides below you, shifting sediment, bit by bit changing the flow of the earth. So I looked up to the dark horizon, past the black sea. I can see the moon, full, at its peak in the sleeping heavens, and I can see the stars around it, shining brighter than I’d ever seen them shine before. I looked about, trying to decipher what was singing that beautiful tune. I thought it might be the moon and the stars, at first, but then I realised that it must be the sea because that gentle throb that had become the sound of the waves against the pebbles had changed its rhythm, despite the laws of the tides, it had actually changed its rhythm! It had disobeyed the laws of Nature! And I could see, not far off, a light, in the sea! The sea was actually glowing! It was this pink, dark light. I’m not sure how it was dark, really, but it just seemed to me that the glow was a dark one. It was unnatural, for sure, and looking at it shift and die out suddenly, then flare to life again, mesmerized me. I was enticed. All I wanted was to stand there, that night, forever, and just watch the muffled, indigo light dance about under the water. I remember how, that night, I had looked at it and

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thought that maybe the reason I had decided the pink, purple, bluish light was dark was because it might have obtained one of those colours that we cannot see. Maybe ultra violet, or something else entirely. So I decided I would wade through the water, confident that I could stand there, because I had the clear image in my mind of what a powerful sensation of placidity I might come across, just to be there, weightless, floating within the light. So I had walked through the water, with ease, my shoes still on, and I began to walk towards the light. And I realised, there, that it was deeper than I thought; I realised too that the salt water would sting my eyes, and I’d never really know what it was down there. But I walked on anyway, and when I came within a few metres from the light, the ground fell away and down I went, peaceful, weightless, just as I had thought I would. So I had my eyes closed, but it seemed to intimidate me, that kind of absolute darkness. I felt that it might have even been bottomless, and it wasn’t the thought of what could dwell down there, but the thought that such an abyss could go on forever and ever, and with the moon so far above me, and the tides now running to their own accord, violating Nature, it might suck me down and I would never reach the bottom. I’d just fall and fall forever. ‘So then I decided that I had to. I opened my eyes, and I knew that there wouldn’t be any darkness because I could still see the light dancing before my eyes. I opened them, in the water, and they didn’t sting as I had thought they would; instead they seemed to have some kind of sheath over them. So I looked around and I saw what was making the light, and oh Lord, they were so beautiful I almost thought I was talking to Poseidon. They were jellyfish, just as had been washed ashore plenty of times, but they rather seemed to be the spectres of jellyfish, rather than actually jellyfish. Their light was iridescent down here, with hues of purple and blue and green and something that you cannot see. They moved about very placidly, very slowly. They were so peaceful. They’d pull their glowing, translucent, eerie light into a kind of bell shape, and then they’d push out again, spewing a web of ghostly tendrils in the darkness, that would then drift and drift lazily behind them. I realised, then, after I saw Her, that I would welcome that eternal fall into the watery abyss with open arms and the sweet memory of that moment, when I could just be without myself, like a ghost, in the freezing, numbing water, with those beautiful, ghostly creatures. And then I saw Her, for the

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first time. I hadn’t noticed Her before because she was quite deep in the water, and because the jellyfish hadn’t drifted that far down yet. The first part of Her to be in that unearthly light was just her fingers. They were so pale, so timid, so young. I think that my fingers were most likely pruning by now, but Her, she who had been down there for far longer than I… her fingers were young and pale and healthy. Apparitional, even. You could go as far as saying ghostly. ‘Her skin was so pale that the light of the peaceful jellyfish seemed to dance about there and almost radiate off of her skin, just as the light from a pool does when the sunlight hits it right and its rays are filtered through it, becoming more concise and thin on the other side. The hand, with its fingers closed up and fidgeting about the water every now and again, soon became more and more visible as it drifted upwards and the jellyfish brushed by her. When they did, her ring, too, came into view. It was a golden loop, embellished with these small, little engravings that resembled vines around where it held the diamonds. A slightly larger one, in the centre, and then smaller ones spiraling out from it until it met an end. Glinting magnificently in the uncanny light. ‘When her face came into view I was not scared, but rather I pitied her. I remember how her hair moved so slowly, so placidly, in the water that it resembled those glowing jellyfishes so much I thought it was, at first, one of them. Even the little bits of seaweed and algae strung in there drifted within, in the rhythm to the tides and the jellies. ‘Her eyes were the colour of a clear sea. They were a very, very light blue that also glinted and danced with the phantom lights. I remember them, I remember them well. I always will. And I remember wishing that I could see both eyes, because the left one was covered by an enormous, red, spined starfish. Scaly, and shifting its position every now and again. And at the bottom of the right side of her cheek, near her chin, the shell of a barnacle was planted, bearded with seagrass. In odd patches of her left cheek little stubs of coral grew, some only specks and others a tiny stalk. More and more of her drifted into view, and more and more of her seemed to be covered over with these things. I remember seeing lots of small barnacles, the ones not big enough to eat, growing in white, bony clusters, and on her silver tail, scales glinting just as her ring, there was the odd patch of oyster, even. Plump shells. Mussels, even, and bits of seagrass. Anything, really. And I’m sure she looked at me.

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‘I remember not being scared, as such, but rather pitying her. She was the one singing, and I think she was singing a ballad. But just as I had thought of it, the jellyfish simply disappeared and so did the woman, and all was dark. I think I saw the abyss I had feared before. ‘I swam back urgently, I swam back making a trail of froth above it, and at one point, when I tried to put my foot down where pebbles were once, there was nothing, and I could see my foot was kicking at nothing; just black. I swam on, and when I found the stone bank, the floor was still gone, and I had to straddle up and stumble over rocks, gashing myself on various shellfish. I think there was even a starfish on the rocks. A red one, with spines and scales, shifting every now and then.’ ‘The rest of it ain’t so as important as is that part. What ‘appened was they stopped on the island and they built a jetty to dock their ships, and they had preserved foods, they had supplies, weapons, all of the sort. Eventually, when there came offspring, with the first child they realised that they needed to build. So the idea of a town came again to Markus, who told them nothing of the woman in the sea with her ballad, nor the ghostly jellyfish, and they essentially made a house there, a small bungalow. Of course, they didn’t want to go off to the War, by this point, and they had all they needed. Preserved food, seeds, growing materials, and some oysters, but he told them they’d be better next year and not to eat them yet. ‘His journal ends when one of them, a young boy supposedly, swore he saw a woman climb onto the rocks from the sea and pick an oyster off of the rocks and eat it. He also swore he had seen a mermaid and some very pretty light from the sea - a bit purple, pink, some hues of bluish. And there’s no more to the diary, really, so it’s some mystery there. Nobody even knows how we came to call her The Maiden of the Sea.’ So there’s some more silence. ‘Well, you can go off now. Prob’ly hungry, some o’ you lot.’ Without another word, they oiled their rusty joints and went off into the street in pairs of three and four. It was later, about dusk, that I came across Robert again. The clouds were now in bounds of crimson and purple and orange, and painted the seas that phantasmagoria of colour. He was sitting on the rocks, as he always does, just watching the sea.

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‘Hey, Robert,’ I said, walking up to him, smiling, ‘Have you ever seen her?’ ‘Aye,’ he replied. A moment’s silence. Not long passed whilst I passed the words over in my head. I thought of laughing, but didn’t, because it wasn’t funny, it was just strange. ‘When?’ I asked. ‘When I was a bit younger. Seventeen, say.’ Another moment. It was going somewhere else. His train of thought must have fallen off the tracks somewhere along his story. ‘What happened?’ ‘I saw her one morning sittin’ on a rock, like all mermaids do.’ ‘Is that it?’ ‘No, that’s not it. She was beckonin’ me with a smile on her face so I went out because I honestly thought I was in a dream, and I could do whatever I wanted.’ ‘And what happened?’ ‘She sang to me.’ ‘She just sang to you?’ ‘Yes. And I sat there and listened.’ ‘What did she sing to you about?’ ‘Oh, everything. I couldn’t understand it, I think it was in another language, really. Latin maybe. But I thought she was singing to me about everything… about the sea, about love.’ ‘And then what happened?’ ‘Then I go back to the house and I have breakfast and I’m thinkin’, oh, god, it ain’t no dream, is it? So then the next morning it happens, again and again, and every mornin’, three or four or five in the mornin’ this is, I go out and sit and listen to her sing. Sometimes on the rocks, sometimes on the jetty. I used to sit with her on the jetty and listen to her sing. She would splash ‘er silver tail in the water a bit and I wouldn’t care about all o’ that stuff all over her. I think she liked me for it.’ ‘And you really believe that it actually happened?’ ‘Yes, and I’ll tell ye why,’ he said, and his vision was cast over to the sea. On the horizon. ‘One time she stopped singing and we were talking, another we were close friends, and the next time, at three in the

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morning, we had fallen in love with each other. Can you imagine? This… woman, I suppose… covered in barnacles with one o’ those star-thin’s over one eye-’ ‘Starfishes?’ ‘Yes, starfishes. A red scaly one with spines, just as he had said. And I was in love with her. One day, we made love to each other, when everybody else was sleeping, and I remember because that was when I realised it was real, or at least not unreal. I’m still not sure it was real but I’m sure it wasn’t a dream. Somewhere in between… like standing on the top of the wall of sleep and trying my balance to see if I fall, and if I do, where I land. But I didn’t fall and I didn’t land and it didn’t matter to me whether or not I was waking or dreaming. So in the end I ended up just… I just kind of ended up living with that and not minding the uncertainty. It was all so surreal… I don’t really know what I thought. I remember, at that point, being even more sure I was dreaming. God, I remember… she was fearless, she was the kind of girl every seventeen year old boy dreams of. ‘Of course, it was strange, and it was different to how it probably should have been. With that tail, I remember, and all the barnacles… I remember thinking that it was kinda messed up but didn’t do anything about it. I think I realised it was okay that it wasn’t really okay after a while. ‘So one day she doesn’t come in the morning when I go out to look for her, and hell, I even swam out to the horizon looking for her, or so the townsfolk say.’ He took in a deep breath. ‘She came back the next day and her stomach had puffed up like a balloon and I didn’t question the short space of time it had taken because I was beyond questioning the strange and unnatural. I think anyone would be, anyway. And so she explains it all to me, and she is gone for a few weeks, and then she’s back… with a baby.’ There was more silence. ‘Of course Muriel doesn’t know about this. She’s gonna come visit sooner or later, and I ain’t gonna tell ‘er because she’ll think I’m crazy, but I can tell you because you know I love a good story to tell with my words and you may or may not even believe it, anyway. And I haven’t seen her since then.’ ‘...what did her voice sound like?’

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He turned to me. ‘Like the wind over the coast, like the one this morning that wafted down from the Salty Buoy.’ ‘So when you spend your whole day sitting here, and everyone wonders what you’re looking at, in the sea, all day and sometimes all night…’ ‘I’m waiting for her to come back. She never has, she might never, but I’m going to wait until the day I die, sitting on these rocks.’ I stared at him for a moment. Not long, because I also had my own plans at the Salty Buoy. But a while, anyhow. He didn’t turn to me. He just sat there, and he stared out to sea. The wind picked up again and some sand blew into my eye, and more so into his, but he didn’t seem to care. He kept them well open, and he didn’t even blink, just stared out to the sea. ‘Often I call her my Maiden of the Sea, you know. Nobody else knows any o’ that. Not even Muriel. Even when she would look outside her windows at night and say, ‘Daddy, daddy look, there’s something pink and blue glowing in the water, by the jetty,’ and I didn’t even tell her then. I remember I did tell her that the sea was magical and that was why you were called Muriel, and it was her mother’s idea. I told her what it meant. Do you know what that name means?’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘It means angel of the sea. I think that She was an angel, rather than a Maiden, but I’ll never really know what’s behind that.’ A moment of silence. ‘I often dream of her, and I dream of what she’s doing, where she is. I see those jellyfish often. And I always wake up and listen to the wind, in the rocks, by the harbour. I think she sings to me.’

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