Issue Nine: Blood-Bound

ISSUE NINE

WINTER 2024

BLOOD-BOUND HAUNTED WORDS PRESS

Haunted Words Press Issue Nine: Blood-Bound

Published digitally December 2024

Edited by Halle Merrick

Cover artwork by Ting Loh-Trerise: ‘Threads’

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

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

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

CONTENTS 4

Introduction Young Adult Allow Me to Introduce You... to You

YA | HORROR | DEMONS

5

YA | WITCHCRAFT | KINSHIP

9

Alba Sarria

The Basket of Fruit I Leave on Your Doorstep Sophia Adamowicz

Immortal Kira May

Evangeline Below Briana Michelle Meyer

untitled Yuu Ikeda

The Dutiful Descent Ben Sherman

Incantation Precious Chidera Harrison

1

YA | LITERARY | HUMANITY

12

YA | SPECULATIVE | ROMANCE

13

YA | LITERARY | DESIRE

25

YA | FANTASY | REVERENCE

26

YA | SPECULATIVE | OGBANJE

29

Sacred Sacrifice

YA | ROMANCE | PACT

MK Trahan

my sweet serpentine

YA | GOTHIC | DESIRE

Yvonne W

Every Show, Every Day

YA | HORROR | PACTS

C Sarah Strafford

Evidence

YA | LITERARY | RESILIENCE

Jennifer Choi

Briar & Ivy Phoebe Bush

Recipe (Remastered) Marisca Pichette

Anything Allison Hillier

witch bottle Jawn Van Jacobs

This is Mercy Priscilla Kint

2

32

33 34

47

YA | HORROR | REGRETS

49

YA | LITERARY | NOSTALGIA

54

YA | HORROR | FAMILY

55

YA | FANTASY | HEX

58

YA | HORROR | WRATH

59

YOUNG WRITERS’ FEATURE Not My Blood

YA | GOTHIC | TURMOIL

Phoebe Robinson

The Lingering Consequence of Death

76

YA | HORROR | DEATH

81

YA | GOTHIC | SISTERS

84

YA | SUSPENSE | SPIDERS

95

YA | HORROR | BLOOD

100

MG | SUPERNATURAL | GRUDGE

103

Rosie Kersley Williamson

In the Mist Bella Westbrook

Ring of Roses Bella Tiley

Borrowed Crimson Violet Berriman

Saul’s Promise Sophia MacNamara

110

Author & Artist Bios

3

INTRODUCTION To everyone reading this, thank you. Whether Haunted Words has been a magazine you’ve followed since its conception, whether you’ve just stumbled onto us in the void and decided to take a look, or somewhere in between, we could never keep Haunted Words going without you. Just like with every other magazine out there, we need you guys - readers, contributors, ghosts and ghouls - to keep going. Otherwise, this would be a blank page, and nobody would be reading it. So thank you, so much, for reading Issue Nine: Blood-Bound, our 2024 winter issue.

Issue Nine is a collection of work from twenty-two wonderfully talented contributors from around the world who’ve chosen to home their work with us, something we’ll forever be grateful and astounded by. There’s short stories, flash fiction, poetry, and visual art, all brought together for the theme ‘blood-bound’, for young adult readers.

There’s family sacrifices, losses and lovers, memories, promises, and so much more.

And, for the first time, we have a Young Writers’ Feature in this issue, featuring work from six amazingly talented writers after a workshop with them at The Writers’ Block in Cornwall earlier this year, and we’re so thrilled that we get to share their work with you.

This issue is brimming with talent, and we are, as always, completely in love with it all.

We hope you adore it as much as we do, and so without further ado, welcome to Issue Nine: Blood-Bound.

- Halle Merrick, Editor in Chief

4

ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE YOU... TO YOU ALBA SARRIA YA | HORROR | DEMONS How long have you been standing there?

Fragment after fragment after

fragment

broken between dark plum-tender eyes, cupid lips split runny like dark rivers trickle through chipped rock.

The dying overhead bulbs—yellowed and buzzing—are praying hymns for Beelzebub their lord.

And don't you feel rotted enough for the feast already?

The flies are close to swarming, legs tapping incessant clawed hooves doubled in the mirrored glass.

Little prey, why do you run?

Do you not tire?

The universe has grown smaller.

5

You’ve run out of worlds to hide in and yet still you go- drive aimless: dive bar gas station crumbling motels stained old with blood from torn open runners just

like

you.

When did your life stop being your own?

You tumble in the bottle,

Was it when the stars started to go out?

bounce

one by one, then ton after ton?

between line dividers and road signs.

Was it your first demonic kiss?

The surrounding bulbs blow out and your face is left echoing,

Uh-oh, memory calls to master.

highlighted hollow under the last beams of yellow

in a chasm of slow flushing toilets.

You can feel the kiss now still, can’t you?

Wet warm lips opening like a wound,

What did He promise you?

each movement bloodier than the last.

Was it lasting love?

Power?

The single light flickers, leaving seconds empty of you.

The dark is a welcomed place to hide, but prey does not stay concealed forever.

You push His memory aside and the light snaps on opening like a sickly eye.

6

Do you see me?

Something dispersed -all eyes, all arms, all watchingin the muggy Georgia day.

No. Of course not.

Instead, You think was the gap between your front teeth always so pronounced?

It’s a cavern you don’t see yourself through Endless A space between what is You

and

what is nothing but empty air.

You want to fold inside crumple in it like a spider pulled through a vacuum.

You want good food You want sleep You want to run.

They’re catching up.

Who knows how long now before the Lords and their dogs catch scent.

You’ve stayed too still.

7

The reflection bares your scarred face, hollow with fear and calling to its master.

The gasoline pumps outside won’t hide your stench forever - flesh burned through with brimstone.

Sweat rancid with Old forgotten magic.

Your blood is a sparked match for hungry twisted things.

Behind you a stall opens, clattering like hoof beats.

Hadn’t that stall been empty?

‘Empty?’

‘Hey man,’ the voice echoing in the dark is twisted, smiled teeth sharp - starved.

‘You done yet? Your blood’s filling up the sink.’

8

THE BASKET OF FRUIT I LEAVE ON YOUR DOORSTEP SOPHIA ADAMOWICZ YA | WITCHCRAFT | KINSHIP A blood orange—so that life may burst with sweetness. A kiwi that reminds you of the stubble on the face of the man you love. Cherries without stones, because there should be no hardness in our hearts. And, to top it all, the apple of my eye.

I ring the bell and slip behind the oak tree. A moment passes, and you step out in your red dressing gown, the tie dangling like an umbilical cord. The early morning light is low in the sky, and with the sunbeams in your scrunched-up face, you look so much like you did on the day you were born.

When you see the fruit basket, you jump back, as if dodging the strike of a snake.

It’s only a green ribbon, my darling. There’s a label attached. Read it.

Happy twenty-first.

You clap a hand to your mouth, slam the door and lock it. The breath I’ve been holding shudders out. I hope this gift won’t go straight into the garden waste bin, like the roses.

*

9

After a week or so, the blood orange has shrivelled. The kiwi is pulpy. A blue-white bloom spreads across the cherries. The apple of my eye has lost its crunch.

Do you know how much time and effort I spent preparing the perfect arrangement? And is this the thanks I get? I’d never have brought you up to be so spoiled.

While you’re out at work (the manager still hasn’t caught wind of the fact that you’re stealing from the till), I empty the contents of the basket. Taking care not to prick myself, I pluck the sewing needle from the apple and then stamp the fruit into a mulch, juice and flesh oozing between my bare toes, until the smell of rot turns my stomach.

Later, I watch as you scrape the remnants of my gift into the compost.

*

Roses with thorns have failed to hook you. Fruit hasn’t tempted you. If not flora, then what? Fauna, of course. Nothing so crass as a mewling black kitten, though its sharp claws would do the job.

I opt for something that can scuttle into the house unseen. As long as you open the door, you’ll be the one to invite it across the threshold—and the rest follows naturally.

I scoop up a black house spider from under my bed and sharpen its fangs to two skinpiercing needles. Don’t worry, you’ll barely feel it nipping your ankle.

It’s an obedient little creature. I tell it to flatten itself into the crack of a rock by your step, and once you’ve opened the door, to unfold itself and scurry inside. It carries out the instructions quite precisely.

But your eyes, tired as they may be after nine sleepless nights, skewer it with the sharpest of gazes. You scream and wield a chunky-heeled boot. My heart stutters. I can’t let this creature die, and so I reveal myself.

10

I’d like to think you recognise me from all those years ago, before I gave you to your human family. We have the same eyes - grey, violet in some lights. Mine fill with tears.

Yours widen in terror.

I reach a hand towards you, and what a hand it must be if you’re used to five fingers.

‘Darling,’ I say. ‘You’re of age. It’s time to come home.’

You stagger back. ‘Get away from me, freak, or I’ll call the police!’

The words sting, but it’s all right; you’ve just forgotten who you are. ‘And won’t they be interested to hear that you’ve been helping yourself to extras at work?’

I clasp hold of your wrist as you trip over the boot and fall backwards, pulling me over the threshold. My nail nicks a vein and at last, a drop of your blood weeps into the scabby webs between my fingers. As I shed blood for you during your birth, so you have shed blood for me during this re-birth. We are bonded. I kiss the wound, tasting the tang of copper. The rope that has bound me to you all these years pulls tight around my heart.

You whimper, tears leaking from under your closed lids.

‘Shh,’ I say, stroking your hair. ‘I’m here.’

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, child. I’m here. And I will give you everything.’

A smile trembles on your lips. Then, like a newborn, you open your violet eyes to a world ripe for the taking.

11

IMMORTAL KIRA MAY YA | LITERARY | HUMANITY

To be destroyed is the closest a human can get to feeling immortal When the endlessness feels effervescent And waking feels insufferable, The mundane slipping into an ever-expanding hallway.

Whilst your entire self feels as though you have been meticulously picked apart By some unforgiving grace - a punishment for loving and living too hard, Only then can we begin to grieve for the unimaginable suffering That is caused at the thought of immortality Or staying the same forever

We are bound to a dying planet full of dying people No prophecies are needed to tell us that Yet we still yearn to live forever.

12

EVANGELINE BELOW BRIANA MICHELLE MEYER YA | SPECULATIVE | ROMANCE There’s darkness in you.

That was what my grandmother said about the day I was born. Or so I’ve been told. But what does darkness even mean?

I sit on the bench at the bus stop. My bus is late so that means I will be late for class. I hate being late. I don't like to panic when I’m late. But when I do, I start to feel sick. My stomach usually turns into knots, and my hands clam up. There’s a mark on my arm that I’ve had since birth, and when this happens, it starts to burn.

Like right now.

It’s 8:55 am.

My first class is at 10 am. I have time. I can make it. It just means I won't be able to go to the library and study my notes for my presentation in History 301 today. I practiced it at home so that it would be fine.

I’ll be fine.

I hear a thump next to me, and I turn. It's a man around my age, maybe older. He has white hair. Odd. Most people I know at university don't have white hair. They are black or blond or red. The normal colours. Not this person. He's attractive, too. He sits up tall, shoulders back, graceful as ever.

13

Have I seen him before at university? This is the university bus stop. No one else takes it but those who live far from campus.

‘Hello,’ the man says. His voice echoes in my ear. It sounds so familiar, as if I’ve heard his voice in the past.

I’ve seen him before. I know I have, but the question is when and where.

‘Hi,’ I barely mutter. What kind of magic is he having on me? ‘I’m sorry. Have I seen you before?’ I tug on my shirt sleeve, hiding the mark on my arm so he can’t see it. It’s burning up even more now.

He nods, his Adam’s apple responding in kind. I take a hard look at him. His face is well sculpted, with high cheekbones, thin eyebrows, and piercing blue eyes. His jaw is welldefined as if it could cut glass. He looks like could have walked out of The Witcher.

He smiles at me as if he knows I’m checking him out.

Which I’m not.

‘I’ve seen you around campus, Evangeline Meadows.’ He chuckles. ‘But you’ve never seen me.’

There’s darkness in you.

Those words come back into my head. Only, it isn’t my grandmother’s voice this time.

The mark on my arm throbs. It’s his voice.

‘Who are you?’ I ask.

14

‘Ah,’ he says, raising a finger to his lips. ‘That is for you to find out.’

‘How-’ I start to say, but the bus arrives, interrupting me. The door swings open, and the bus driver waves for me to board.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he says. ‘Accident down on Burleigh.’

I nod as I scan my card. I walk down the aisle of the near-empty bus and sit in my usual spot. I lean my head against the window and close my eyes. If there’s been an accident, I might be late to class. The window is cold, and I move my arm to lean against it.

I hear someone sit next to me, and I open my eyes.

It’s him.

The bus is practically empty, and he’s sitting next to me.

‘You’re wondering why I’m sitting next to you on this bus, even though it’s virtually empty,’ he says, arms folded.

‘How did you know that?’ I look at him, astonished.

‘I can hear your thoughts, Evangeline Meadows. I can sense them.’

A shiver runs up my spine, and I feel the hair on my arm go up. My mark burns once more, the pan getting more and more painful. This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.

‘You’re scared. I get that,’ the man says.

His voice is so low it’s a whisper in my ear. I struggle to breathe. Who is this man, and

15

what does he want with me?

‘I’m not here to harm you, Evangeline Meadows. I’m here to protect you.’

‘Protect me? From what?’ I ask him, my voice as defiant as I can make it. If he could hear and sense my thoughts, he would know how scared I am.

‘There was once a girl born with fiery red hair and green eyes like emeralds. She was born on the first of May at 7:07pm when a storm came through town. Her birth brought death upon her household, as not even a day later, her father was gone. Two years later, her grandmother. And four years after that, her mother.’ He taps his fingers against the seat in front of us and smiles. ‘But the darkness in her wasn’t meant to stay. It was meant to explore.’

‘There’s no darkness in me.’ I don’t believe the words he’s telling me. My grandmother’s tale has always been that - a story.

Never mind the strange mark on my arm that’s burning into oblivion.

‘The moment you get off this bus, you and I will be engulfed in darkness. We’re going to be entering the Below.’

The Below? What on Earth is the Below?

‘You ask so many silly questions,’ the man tells me.

I forgot. He can hear my thoughts.

‘What is your name?’

16

He laughs, and his face brightens up. ‘It took you this long to ask me my name. Oh, Evangeline Meadows. You are truly one of a kind.’ He’s smiling at me. His teeth look normal, at least.

‘I’m asking questions because I don’t understand what you’re telling me. What is the Below? What do you mean I’ll be there once I get off the bus? Why do you know so much about me?’ I’m shaking now, my entire body vibrating as I try to stand up. But I can’t.

I want off this bus.

‘What did I tell you, Evangeline Meadows? You get off the bus, and you enter the Below.’

‘And if I stay on?’

He frowns as he takes my hand. They’re as cold as ice, or do they feel like that because I am so afraid? ‘You won't. If you stay on, you can never leave.’ He looks at me. ‘Your arms are burning up.’

Am I in Hell?

I look outside and see that I am no longer in the city, heading to the university. I'm somewhere else entirely. How did this even happen? Was I so distracted by this mysterious man with silver hair that I didn't realize I was no longer in Milwaukee?

‘Where am I?’ I barely choke out the words. I can hardly see anything outside of the bus.

‘Please. Tell me where I am.’

‘You wish to know my name?’

I nod, and the man smiles, his lips spread across his face.

17

‘Then get off the bus so we can play a game.’

Suddenly, I'm off the bus, and my feet are on the ground. Black clouds surround me, and the air is thick. I can hardly breathe. I don’t even remember walking off the bus. It just disappeared.

‘What's this game I need to play, Silver Man?’ I call out into the void.

‘It's easy,’ he replies, his voice echoing around me. ‘There are three questions you must answer correctly. If you get all three, you will be free from Below and never have to return.’

‘And if I get one wrong?’ I ask.

He laughs, and the echo rings out throughout. ‘Then you are stuck in Below with me.’

‘What type of Hades and Persephone bull is this?’

‘Evangeline Meadows, on August 7th of last year, you were at a concert,’ the man says.

I nod. He can't see me, so what's the point? ‘I was.’

‘Who did you see, and what was the final song they played?’

I smile. I remember that night all too well. My friends and I flew out to California to see The Eras Tour. It was one of the best nights of my life, surrounded by Swifties. The phrase ‘This is girlhood’ kept going through my head that night.

‘I was at Taylor Swift for The Eras Tour.’

18

‘And the song, Evangeline Meadows?’

I take a step forward, and the path around me clears up. That's what I have to do. Each time he asks a question, I need to step forward so that the clouds clear. If they clear, there will be light.

‘Karma, extended outro,’ I reply.

I hear him clap, and the clouds around me disappear. He’s not in front of me at all. No one is. ‘Excellent, Evangeline Meadows.’

‘Why do you always say my full name?’ I start walking ahead. There are dead trees all around me. The ground below feels like dried mud, making a soft sound as I walk.

Whatever happened here Below is sad. There had to be life here before.

‘Oh, but I never said you could ask questions,’ he says, laughing again.

‘I think it's only fair. I need to know who you are since you know so much about me.’ I tug at my shirt sleeve, willing it to grow longer.

‘Very well. I call you by your full name because that is what I have always heard you call.

Your grandmother would say your name all the time.’

My grandmother. The one who said I had darkness in me. She died before I could have memories of her. I heard the stories from my mother before she left me, too. I was six when she died.

Evangeline Meadows. Orphan.

Forced to be raised by relatives who had no care for her in the world.

19

‘What’s your next question?’ I ask. I want to get to class and do my presentation.

Thinking about the past will get me nowhere. What’s passed is past.

‘In high school, you went on a date with a boy in your class. It didn't go well. What happened?’ I still need to find out where the silver-haired man is. He’s close by. If he can feel me, I can feel him too. It feels like—no. He can hear my thoughts.

‘Did you seriously have to bring this up?’ It could have been a better memory. I went on a date with Kyle Walters because he asked me to go to the movies. He tried to kiss me, and I pushed him away. Then he told everyone I wouldn't hold out, and half the class mocked me. It was absolute hell.

It hits me then and there. I’m the game. My own life is the game I have to play to leave this Below.

I know what I’m asking him next.

I stop walking and clench my hands together into a fist. ‘Kyle Walters. The movies. He tried to kiss me, and I refused. He ended up telling a lie to the entire class, and I was mocked.’

The clouds ahead fade away, and I see these trees have life. Flowers are starting to bloom. But it's silent. Birds should be here. Or maybe other animals. Water. There should be water.

‘What is darkness?’ I ask him.

‘What do you mean, Evangeline Meadows?’

I laugh. ‘You and everyone around me say that I have darkness in me. I mean, everyone

20

who knew me as a baby. But those people are long gone. So, what is darkness?’

‘Darkness is tricky,’ he says. ‘It’s a trick of the mind. Sometimes, the brightest of places have darkness in them.’

The brightest of places. The brightest of—

‘When was the first time you saw me?’ I ask him. Ask him questions. Humanize him.

Make him believe. Something. Anything, Light. The brightest place I remember was my mother. She felt like warmth whenever I was around her.

‘But that will ruin my last question for you,’ he tells me. He's in front of me now, standing just inches away, the clouds slowly fading. His hair is tied back, and he's staring at me with eyes that want to pierce my soul.

Darkness.

Light.

Brightest place.

‘Then,’ I say, taking a step closer to him. ‘Ask.’

‘What is my name?’ he asks me.

‘I don’t know.’

He laughs as he clasps his hands together. ‘But you do know, Evangeline Meadows. You need to think. And I mean really think.’

21

‘How?’

‘Just close your eyes and try to remember,’ he tells me, his voice soft. ‘The brightest of places.’

I do just that. I close my eyes, and I try to remember. I touch the mark on my arm through my sleeve. But there's so much of my life that I don't recall. I remember the stories my mother told me, those of my grandmother and father. My mother left me when I was six. My mother wrote so many stories for me to read as I got older.

She wrote a story about a boy near me as a baby. She said that he wanted to make sure I was okay. He was four at the time. He was called away, but Mom heard his name. It was—

My eyes snap open, and I look at him. He's closer to me now, his arms close to touching mine. I feel the coldness in him.

‘What is my name?’ he asks me.

‘Tristan. Your name is Tristan. You asked my mother if I was safe. I was a baby. It was because you felt the darkness in me, too.’

‘It took you long enough to remember,’ he says. His face is close to mine, close enough to graze it.

‘There's no way for me to stop the darkness because it's in you too. That's why you wanted to know if I was safe.’ I take his right arm and pull up his sleeve. His veins are dark blue, and there's his mark.

‘Where's yours?’ He looks at the arm I tugged at earlier. I feel his fingers push up my sleeve. My matching mark is right there. We both have a mark of two circles interwoven

22

together. I touch him, and it’s as hot as mine.

‘We’re the same. But you’ve known about this longer.’

He nods, his face sullen. ‘You and I are both children of the Below. Only you were raised Above. I was raised here. This is my home. It can be yours too.’

‘What if I want to stay Above? I have a life there.’

I don’t know how I can be a child of Below. But maybe that was part of the mystery of my life; I will never know.

Something’s telling me no.

There’s darkness in you.

It’s not my grandmother’s voice. It isn’t my mother’s, nor is it Tristian’s. It’s my own.

The darkness in me is calling me home.

But darkness can be in the brightest of places. I don’t have to live Below. I can go back Above. There must be a way.

‘Can I kiss you?’ I ask Tristan.

‘Why?’

‘Because if we both have darkness, maybe together we will become the light.’ I take his face into my hands and kiss him softly. He pulls me in closer, tighter. His lips are pressed against mine, harder now. I feel the air around us change. There's no more

23

coldness. There's warmth.

There's light. His arms wrap around me, engulfing me.

I have known him my entire life. I just never saw him before. And now? Now, the light is calling us back to someplace else.

I pull away as Tristan steps back, his arms dropping from me.

We’re no longer Below but back Above. I'm at the university. He's staring at me as if I am the only person in the world. I hear chatter from students around me, but I can't understand their conversations.

Nothing Above matters anymore.

‘Are you okay?’ Tristan asks.

‘Are we—’

‘Alive? Yes. But there’s still—’

He doesn’t need to finish as he touches my arm. I already know the answer.

There’s darkness in me. It will never leave.

24

UNTITLED YUU IKEDA YA | LITERARY | DESIRE

she craves to paint midnight the color of her blood. so, the moon is gazing at her. she smiles at the moon, like a child does. she craves to be a part of midnight by her blood. so, the moon is watching over her. she falls asleep, like a child does.

25

THE DUTIFUL DESCENT BEN SHERMAN YA | FANTASY | REVERENCE

I hugged the sweet shade of the shadows knowing any breath might be my last. The Wailing Witch had come today, and the temple burned beneath her cursed sun.

No amount of warm and eternal darkness could fend off her piercing radiance; no canopy was thick enough when she echoed her charge. Even bound in black and veiled, the Mourning Star shed her searing light as she stalked the temple halls.

Run or risk getting slagged by her heavenly smite. No one would blame me.

And yet I crept from pillar to pillar—followed her haunting figure like I was a Fang with no name. Curiosity burned me from within as much as the occasional bit of sun smouldered me from without.

Her broken wings flickered and crackled, the once brilliant runes which made them were now made of nothing but fractured fragments tinted with slivers of black. The only hints of her metallic skin were the strange appendages poking from her sleeves. Her soft, rounded, not-claws were the complete opposite of my own. Part of me wanted to laugh at the terrifying stories the elders told, but it was hard to laugh in the face of death when her very steps slagged the stone floors.

Every door she pushed open melted at her gentle touch. The air sweltered. My hide frothed and it was hard to breathe. Descending down the stairs and after her was

26

madness.

No pillars. No cover. No shadows. All she had to do was turn around.

But she didn’t, and I couldn’t blame her. The tomb below was worth giving complete and utter focus. It was why I was here; I tended to it. The tomb was the only reason for her to be here.

While my tail lashed and my wings rustled with a feral instinct to run, she kept on with her slow and somber pace—singing a lullaby to the dead.

There was a horrifying beauty—both to the sound and sight. The way her voice wavered on the verge of tears knifed into me with a twisting thrust. She showed such reverence and respect to the sister felled by her own blade.

How could my soul not resonate with her words? How could I not be enthralled and drawn into the depths?

It was my job to sing the nightly dirge. My life and duties were bound to tending the tomb below.

No amount of maggots writhing in my stomach could compare. No fear was stronger than that enchanting melody. The sun sang, and for the first time I understood why daydwellers talked of sunshine and rainbows like they did. There was no hunger, no burning, and no turning to solid stone. The hollow and haunting echoes could not hide the tattered fragments of compassion.

Curse whatever my clan and fellow nightkin thought. My soul was already sold. I could only mutter a prayer to the Nightmother and beg for her protection.

27

There was no doubt. I was about to follow the long line of fools who thought themselves capable of lifting the veil from the Mourning Star.

The Wailing Witch had come, and I was at the whim of the fickle fates woven by the stars above. Either I was bound to leave a humble servant of moon and sun, or I would end up naught but slag on the stones.

28

INCANTATION PRECIOUS CHIDERA HARRISON YA | SPECULATIVE | OGBANJE

I Didn't we blame iba for your earliest visitations?

Didn't we rush into the bush to gather herbs?

The night you died even the door couldn’t keep you out.

Morning, and you slithered in like smoke through the thatched roof.

Now every year, a door wide ajar.

The storms tarried and so did the white cascade of the silk-cotton tree.

In the shadows, a woman drowning in the gloam of grief; her agony bleeds in body language, brims an hourglass.

II Ozoemena, she named your fifth visit.

Isn't your life a dirge, a rigmarole of verses heavy with a refrain of dusk, where the anaphora of dawn (leading into a sunless morning) is a crescent moon, a sickle looming above the tender cataphylls of a morning glory?

What music do you intend to make of your mother’s sorrow?

Ungentle spirit serenading behind her window.

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I hold all your years in my palm like sand and it crumbles into a chorus of footfalls.

Your life is a poem where death is an end rhyme —a ritornello of mourning: of ghosts garbed in green; the bland bluster of flowers that will never see noon?

III Your names like beads on the strings of time tell the agony of a mother wincing beneath the shadow of death.

All your names stringed together, an epitaph; an apellation of unripe fruits.

But stay, stay with us.

Gutless worm that despises the smiling touch of sunlight.

Tell me, Who delights in an unripe harvest?

So let the fruit ripen this time.

The green ghosts of bluebirds suckle the dew, their low birdcalls labial like the rustle of dead leaves.

A cat moonwalks into dusk garbed in the solipsism of the moon.

IV When will you end your habitual eating of dust?

Or don’t you hear her nightly cries or it falls on your ears, cold and deafened by constant touch with death?

The toothless fowl yearns for an abode in the clouds.

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Snake slithering spineless, stealthily in the grass, sloughing off and into skins.

We shall dig into Àlá’s womb and unearth the riddle of the road.

We will erect a pier to wall in your gladiatorial traipses.

V Some day your feet will grow heavy with pity.

After you have filled the moat with your excrement.

Mother will clutch faith like a lost, returned lover.

She will watch you grow, but also watch your candlelight waning from the ghost hands tugging at the edge of your appendage.

She will watch too light and darkness breaking into and through your body.

This body, breathing under the shadow of death.

The spiteful cat keeps getting into the bag.

Wanderer that once only knew the voice of the road, now learning how to call a body home.

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SACRED SACRIFICE MK TRAHAN YA | ROMANCE | PACT

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MY SWEET SERPENTINE YVONNE W YA | GOTHIC | DESIRE

‘From thy lethal lips and thine alone, love would I drink, as dew from poison-bloom.’ — Clark Ashton Smith, Love Malevolent

my sweet serpentine swing down your twisted thorny vines slither gently hither and hiss your enchanting melodies into my ears hook me with your tendrils and enthral me with your perverted tales lull me with your berceuse and entrance me with your sweet-scented besos loop yourself around me and constrict me in a loving deathly embrace unlock your mighty jaws and claim your ghostly pound of flesh offer me clementines serpentine for i am yours

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EVERY SHOW, EVERY DAY C SARAH STRAFFORD YA | HORROR | PACTS

The crowd engulfed Marrel on all sides, making escape impossible. The guys in front of her were so tall that she couldn’t see the stage and could barely see the screen recording it. They stunk of BO and she was armpit height to most. Panic sweat covered her forehead as well. She was abandoned. Last she’d seen her two friends, they were giggling behind their hands and watching her. It had to be some shared inside joke she was on the outside of.

‘Maybe we should see Sleeping With Harpies? They’re at the purple stage soon,’ she had asked them.

They gave her little shared smirks, ‘Really that band?’

‘You can’t be serious?’

‘Ugh, you look so sad. Fine!’

‘The other bands at that time are lame anyway.’

It was a small miracle that they agreed and headed over to the stage. The few jokes they made at her expense were a small price to pay. They got to the stage as the band was on their second song. Her friends whispered to each other and gave her sideways glances as they pushed to the middle of the crowd. The next song was high energy and the

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crowd jumped along. Awesome, she’d made it in time for one of her favourite songs! She held her phone high to get a video. Mostly she tapped the back of people’s heads. It didn’t matter, she got the video and could post it on her socials later. As she double checked how much of the song she got, her screen went black.

‘No, no, nooo!’ she mumbled under her breath. She looked around, but her friends were nowhere in sight. ‘Hey!’ She called for them but got no reply.

How did she not realize her phone was dying? One of her friends had the charger and she had no way of contacting them. The band left the stage and she couldn't remember which band her friends were headed to next. She was stuck in the cramped crowd while the roadies set up for the next act. Big burly guys appeared in every direction and kept blocking her way out. The next band must be something broey. Their name across the banner behind the stage wasn’t familiar.

The crowd in front of her cheered. Likely the band just walked out. A metal sounding guitar riff cut through the air.

‘I want you to open up a pit!’ the frontman screamed.

Every person around her obliged and formed a circle. Then ran and jumped aggressively all as one. She was caught in the middle. They pushed her forward and she tried to keep up. But she was small and easily swallowed up in the sweaty mass. She shuffled to the sides and attempted escape, just to be jammed back in. Something clutched her elbow and pulled.

‘You look like you needed it!’ an emo girl with long teal highlights yelled over the music and smiled down at Marrel. She had on a black and teal tank tops layered over each other and a mini teal tutu over ripped tights. The older girl’s look was all close to the body and neon compared to Marrel’s black cargo jeans and oversized band shirt. The

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look was almost costume-like in how referential it was to old scene queens from the early 00s. Marrel’s friends would have called the older girl’s look cheugy, but she thought it was vintage cool.

‘Thanks!’ Marrel yelled to the older girl. Teal Girl looked to be a junior or senior in high school, whereas Marrel just finished her sophomore year.

‘I love this band, but the pit is always nuts!’ the other girl called, ‘Good energy though!’

At least now Marrel had some breathing space; it’d be easier to enjoy the set and try to leave after. The teal emo girl was singing and dancing along. She knew every word.

Marrel wished she could sing along so freely. Her friends said her voice was terrible and shut her up when she tried to sing along at shows or in the car.

The crowd chanted the chorus back and the teal girl matched every word at the top of her lungs. Marrel muttered along once she caught what they were saying. Teal Girl took her hand and nodded for her to join in. Marrel slowly smiled back and they screamed the chorus together. A thrilling sensation overtook as she heard her voice as one with the thousands of people and felt it in her chest. She jumped and fist pumped along with the teal girl as the song sped up.

It all ended too soon and she instantly wished there was more.

‘So, so good right?’ asked Teal Girl.

‘Yeah,’ Marrel said, ‘Sorry, I just...need to get out of the crowd.’

She twisted and turned, but couldn’t figure out which direction to go.

‘Need help?’ Teal Girl asked.

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‘Kinda. I don’t wanna bother you,’ Marrel said. She felt like a baby whenever she asked her friends for help. They usually obliged begrudgingly with a little added joke that she was so needy or stupid. Teal Girl offered help in such a natural way that it seemed like something she enjoyed doing.

‘Just hold on to my bag,’ Teal Girl said. Marrel grabbed the strap of her messenger bag and Teal Girl pushed forward and expertly found just the right spots to squeeze through, ‘I’m Allie by the way.’

‘Marrel,’ she replied in a low voice, ‘I’m looking for my friends...my phone died.’

‘I’d offer my charger, but,’ Allie waved around her phone, some ancient sliding contraction in a neon teal that almost matched her hair.

‘Woah, so Y2K.’

‘Everyone keeps saying that!’ Allie said and led her to a big open area away from the stage. This section had narrow rows of food stalls and porta potties at the ends. A few people were seated at picnic tables under a large purple canopy where the rows converged. There was also a seven foot blow-up skull with a mohawk in the centre for people to take selfies with.

‘Well, I’m headed to see Days Destroyed,’ Allie said.

‘They’re one of my favs,’ Marrel mumbled, ‘Wish I could go, I really need to find my friends.’

‘You can head over with me in the meantime,’ Allie offered, ‘Maybe they’ll be there?’

‘I doubt it....they hate that band,’ Marrel said.

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‘Your friends have garbage taste,’ Allie said, ‘come on, it’ll be epic! You can always find them later.’

‘Yeah,’ Marrel said, ‘We said we’d meet their parents at 7.’

‘So you’ll be fine!’ Allie said, ‘Come on, let’s not miss them - I want barricade!’

Allie led the way and jogged ahead. They got to the stage on the other side of the festival grounds quickly. Allie claimed they were looking for a friend and kept pushing forward until they miraculously were pressed up against the barricade with the stage only a few feet ahead.

Marrel’s friends would never believe it!

‘Holy shit,’ Marrel mumbled when she put her hand on the cold metal of the barricade, ‘I never get this good a view.’

‘It’s my specialty!’ Allie said.

Marrel nodded, ‘Yeah, it’s awesome...I could never.’

‘Well that’s why we’re friends now,’ Allie said and smiled big. The music started up and she screamed for the band at the top of her lungs.

Marrel’s friends never helped her get this close to a band she liked. If it was one of their favourite bands, they always found a way to get a good view but never so close they had a completely unobstructed one. This was one of the coolest things she’d ever seen. One of her favourite bands was only a few feet away. She could see the sweat on the face of the cute frontman!

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Guilt overtook excitement during one of the slow songs. The joke had gone a bit too far and Marrel should look for her friends. Or at least ask someone else if they had a charger. Then again, why should she let her friends ruin her fun? They wanted to leave her. They were probably laughing right now about her freaking out! This wasn’t the first time they’d abandoned her at a mall or anime convention, only for her to miss everything she was looking forward to until she found them again. No more. Let them freak out for once that she wasn’t looking for them. Allie was nice and liked all the same music she did. She didn’t make fun of Marrel’s music taste or leave her out. And besides, Marrel could just lie to her parents that the original group had stuck together the entire time - like she always did.

The set ended and Allie asked who Marrel wanted to see next. Marrel mumbled what bands she was looking forward to and Allie agreed to almost all of them. A band they both liked was at the same stage in twenty minutes. They stayed pressed against the barricade and chatted. Allie knew so much about every band. She could name each band member, talk extensively about their drama and lore, or who they were dating. And she’d seen every band Marrel liked multiple times over.

‘Hey like, can I ask you something?’ Allie asked.

‘Sure,’ Marrel said.

‘Why are you friends with those two if they just abandoned you like this?’

Marrel looked down at her hands and back up at the stage, ‘I don’t know. They like a lot of the same stuff as me...sort of.’

‘Sort of? They make fun of everything you like!’

‘Yeah but,’ Marrel bit her lip and tried to find the right words, ‘Not a lot of people in

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school like the kind of music I like and anime. It’s nice to not...be alone.’

Allie put her arms around Marrel’s shoulders and squeezed, ‘You’re not alone now. You deserve better friends than that!’

That might have been one of the nicest things anyone ever said to her.

‘I think they just like having a doormat around to wipe their feet off on,’ the words tumbled out of Marrel all at once, ‘And, and I just let them. I want to be included. I want them to like me. So it’s better if I just put up with it.’

Allie frowned, ‘No it’s not.’

The band was coming on and the pre-set music drowned out whatever words Allie said next. Did Marrel deserve better? There weren’t a lot of options at school. She watched Allie headbanging along. Her teal highlights thrashed back and forth in the wind. If the coolest girl she’d ever met thought she deserved better, then Marrel deserved better.

Before she knew it, the sun was setting and her ride would soon be there to pick them up. Allie and Marrel walked to the gates and chatted about every band they’d seen, ranking which was their favourite set and who had the best vocalist and bass player.

They were almost to the front entrance now and she could see the red car she was supposed to meet her friends at, parked two blocks away.

‘I had so much fun, this was the best festival ever!’ Marrel said.

‘Def the most epically awesome of days,’ Allie agreed, but her voice sounded solemn.

‘Can we hang out again?’ Marrel asked and went red in the cheeks. She sounded so desperate, but she didn’t want to let go of her new friend.

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Allie just laughed, ‘Yeah, of course.’

She pulled out her ancient sliding phone and put in Marrel’s contact. Somehow, Allie’s expression was sad.

‘This was really the best day ever. I definitely want to do it again,’ Marrel reassured Allie. Did the older girl think Marrel didn’t like her or was lying?

‘Yeah, same,’ Allie sighed and put her phone away.

‘I wish I could do this everyday,’ Marrel said. She desperately wanted Allie to understand and smile again.

Allie’s eyes shot wide open and she grabbed Marrel’s hands, ‘You mean it?’

‘What-’

‘You really mean it? That you wish you could do this everyday?’

‘Yeah, I mean - this was like the best day ever. I wish I could go to a music festival everyday.’

Allie squeezed her hands hard, ‘Every day? You wish you could do this every day?’

‘I wish I could go to a concert every day!’

Allie let out a long sigh and let go of Marrel’s hands. A big wide smile spread across her face.

‘I’m so relieved to hear that. So, so relieved! You don’t even know,’ Allie said, ‘Like, thank you so so much. You are like, truly the best ever!’

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Now Marrel’s face was completely red and her smile was so wide it hurt. She’s never been told she was the best - she was nowhere close to anyone’s favourite. It made her whole chest feel warm and fuzzy. She might even cry her black eyeliner off.

‘I’ll see you soon?’ Marrel asked eagerly.

Allie looked briefly sad again and gave Marell a big hug, ‘Yeah, of course.’

Allie ran towards the gate. She got to the other side and danced around in a little circle.

She looked so insanely happy. Clearly, she was still elated from the awesome day and ran in the opposite direction Marrel needed to go. Marrel kept waving until Allie disappeared around a corner.

She stepped forward towards the gate, then stopped. Her foot hit something hard and solid. But when she looked down, there was nothing there. She waved her hand where the object should be. The object felt solid, but she couldn’t see it. People were watching her now and stepping around her. Weird. She moved to the next gate opening and there was another solid invisible object in her way. She couldn’t get around it.

‘Hey, can someone help me?’ she called. Everyone ignored her and just walked past.

What was happening? She walked to the next exit and it was the same thing. There was a heavy invisible object blocking her way. Others didn’t notice and walked right through, some going directly into the objects that were blocking her. What was going on?

Her friends were on the other side and headed towards the red car.

‘Hey!’ Marrel screamed at the top of her lungs to get their attention. They kept walking and got into the car. She watched and desperately ran forward, but couldn’t get through

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the gates. Tears blocked her vision. Was the car driving away? What kind of prank were they pulling on her now?!

Through nervous tears, she watched the night turn black and the final concert goer leave. Staff came through cleaning and disassembling tents.

‘Can someone help?’ she called towards the workers coming through. No one looked her way.

There was an emergency exit backstage she snuck to. It was the same - something blocked her way. The stages were being taken down now. Her heart pounded hard in her chest and her breathing sped up. What was happening? What could she do? No one saw her, they looked right through her. Huge lights were strapped down into trucks.

The last one left and she blinked.

Another crowd engulfed her on all sides. They cheered for a band coming on stage.

Someone she knew and liked. This wasn’t the same festival though - the air felt different. Humid and heavy when yesterday was dry. The band wasn’t on the lineup of the festival she paid for. Yet she felt refreshed, as if she’d gotten a full night’s rest and had the big breakfast she enjoyed the day she left for her festival. She checked her phone and it was still dead.

A pit formed in her stomach and next to her. What was happening? Even the ground was different. There was sand under her feet instead of black top. A girl got stuck in the dancing pit close to her and Marrel pulled her out. She turned away fast, shook her head, and slapped her cheeks.

‘Wake up, wake up!’ she told herself. This had to be a dream right? She pinched herself.

Nothing. Exit, there had to be a working exit.

Everyone cheered and she looked up to see a guitarist on screen left of stage she adored.

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A band she loved was about to play.

‘Ohmygod, I never thought I’d see this band,’ she whispered to herself.

Would it matter if she waited another hour? If it was a dream, what difference would it make if she watched another band? She could enjoy just one more set.

One set turned into two, then five. Until the day went by and the festival ended. Night took over. The stages came down and her eyes closed. Then opened to another festival with different air and bands she’d never seen before. The dream continued and repeated itself.

‘This can’t be real,’ she told herself most days, ‘Right?’

She tried other ways to wake herself up. One time, she snuck behind one of the food stalls and submerged her entire arm in a fryer. Her skin cracked and bled till her arm was a golden brown. The pain was so intense she couldn’t hear herself screaming. As she was rushed to the medic tent, she fainted from the pain and woke up at the next festival. Her arm was completely blemish free. Pristine even.

Maybe she was losing her mind. Festivals were designed to be distractions and she had long lost her grip on reality. There were so many bands she loved and tons she hated.

She became an expert at navigating crowds and talking to strangers. At some point she stopped panicking. There was no point. That’s when time stopped affecting her. What happened to finding a charger? Did she even know what day it was? What year? Why was no one wearing baggy clothes or bows in their hair, save the older fans?

As fun as it all was, it was also grating. There was the same greasy smell of fried food and BO each day. The chairs and picnic tables were always uncomfortable. Every festival was insanely crowded, no matter the theme. Privacy was something that didn’t exist for her now, save an extended stay in a porta potty. The crowds were just one blob to her

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defined entirely by their genre. Emo festivals had the most girls screaming. Metal was too much crowd surfing. Alternative ones, the smoke was the thickest in the air and she couldn’t stop coughing. EDM the crowd was out of their minds and on another planet.

Slowly, she was forgetting what her life was before the music festivals. What did her bed feel like again? Or her mother’s hugs? Festivals didn’t happen every day, yet they did for her. Sometimes there were crowds that didn’t even speak English.

‘Is this what Allie went through?’ she asked herself whenever she caught a band she’d seen with the older girl. Members of those bands now had laugh lines on their faces and gray in their hair. The heat of betrayal would bubble up in her chest at the mere reminder of Allie. Her friends were the worst, but Allie was a demon. In a way, Marrel pitied her. How long had Allie been stuck? Marrel had lost track of how long it’d been for her. The only hints of what year it was were the occasional dates on festival merch.

How many victims had Allie attempted to trick before her? At least Marrel learned from Allie and didn’t let anyone else walk all over her. She practiced the older girl’s method and mimicked Allie’s confidence and enthusiasm for the music, even at festivals for genres Marrel hated. People were easily drawn to her but never stayed.

Until one day, she found a girl abandoned by her friend and lost in a big crowd in front of a stage.

‘I love this band,’ she said to the girl, who’s shoulders relaxed just a little at her words.

‘Me too, I really want to watch their set but,’ she bit her lower lip, ‘I super need to find my friend.’

‘I’m sure you can find them after,’ Marrel offered, ‘I don’t mind helping when the set is over.’

The girl smiled shyly and Marrel felt nervous beats of hope in her chest. Maybe this time

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her trap would work. She lost more of herself to the music with each passing day. Till one day, all she knew was her name and that she needed someone to tell her just the right wish. The same way she told the teal girl hundreds, maybe thousands of festivals ago.

She smiled warmly at her prey, hoping her expression came across as reassuring.

Maybe this girl would be the one to finally say it. If that happened Marrel could go home, finally escape.

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EVIDENCE JENNIFER CHOI YA | LITERARY | RESILIENCE

things that are already too broken to fix, & the moment you touch them, they fall apart even more— objects that crumble at the slightest pull.

today, a city breaks, today, a house, today, a family, today, a mother, today, a father.

in the stationery shop, Nana twinkles from inside her little box. the doll my mother made has tangled hair, its neck stiff & hard to turn.

i never threw it away— the doll whose name i forgot long ago. i wonder when it will start to wear down, while Nana keeps twinkling & dancing in the box, & i hold on to everything.

a newspaper drops with a soft thud at dawn,

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& i know you’re somewhere asleep waiting to stretch with the morning light.

today, a family breaks, & the dolls i make— one by one, their edges start to tear. i feel my lips, my ears, my hands folding in slowly, bit by bit.

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BRIAR & IVY PHOEBE BUSH YA | HORROR | REGRETS

The mouth of the woods gapes wide.

It goes deep – deep enough that there seems no end to the rows of trees.

It is intimidating enough that I remove my spectacles and clean them on my waistcoat, delaying the inevitable moment where I would have to venture inside.

But I have to, if there is any chance of finding George.

Not that I told Father that was my plan. No, I had gone rattling into town that morning in my carriage, tipping my hat at passers-by and even stopping to buy a green carnation for my button hole. But my attention, as always, had strayed to the end of the road.

To the Blacksmith, where George once toiled, each morning.

The ache in my chest swells. As do the rain-laden clouds above, ones that are soon obscured by a canopy of green, as I take my first strides into the treeline.

It had been three weeks since George disappeared.

Mother and Father were already trying to replace him, of course.

Every eligible young woman in the county had, but their fan-masked giggles only sought

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to remind me of his boisterous laughter, their hungry looks of his wine-softened winks.

The memories spur me onwards, even as branches snag at my coat, and mud spatters my boots. Each obstacle reminds me that I am unwelcome, here.

‘We own the wood, Percival,’ Father had scoffed. ‘What on earth is there to be afraid of?’

Too much, I think. Not that it stopped George and I.

Hand in hand, we would walk the winding path back to my estate, unafraid of strange noises and stranger individuals lurking somewhere in the night.

Then again, everything seemed easier with his fingers twined with mine.

‘Come along, Percy,’ he would say. ‘Nothing to be afraid of.’

A crunch sounds beneath my boot. A dead mouse is curled in my path, flies swarming upwards from its half-crushed corpse.

Fumbling for my smelling salts, I wonder if I should have remained in my rooms, writing poetry and drinking tea. The idea grows more appealing, the further I walk. The woods lambast me: thorns swipe at my face, roots rise to trip me.

And yet this is all a trifle, compared to the night I lost George.

Or, at least, what I recall of it. There had been a path. A path, its end stretching further and further from reach, whilst branches curled over me like an arboreal womb.

Rest, the wood had crooned. Lie down and rest, Percival.

Clothing torn, blood-splattered, I had somehow staggered back to my estate.

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Not that I remembered how. But the undergrowth had been thicker, the ground less even. And the trees. The trees had been as twisted as the contortionist George and I had once seen, at a travelling circus.

A smile tugs at my lips. That was the night George had finally caught my chin with calloused fingers, and brought his lips to mine. It is probably why I chew at them: a meagre comfort, as my mind spins into doubt.

Perhaps this is wrong? I think. Perhaps I took a wrong turn?

Then, the path twists, and I am proven wrong.

Half the tree curls inwards, black and splintered. It had been magical, the night George and I found it: his lips at my throat, his fingers fumbling at my cravat.

Now, it only seems desolate.

No, not desolate. Lonely.

I press my hand to the bark, knowing that this was where George’s hand had been, as he pinned me there and hid me from view. One dazed moment later, I noticed why: the distant glow of lantern light, the cries that accompanied it.

‘Percival?’ a voice had shouted. ‘Master Cavendish?’

My name. Panic had flooded me. I apologised, I think, and blubbered until George place a firm hand on my shoulder. ‘Run,’ he had told me. ‘Run.’

And I had, turning and hurtling through the undergrowth.

Not that I realised I was alone.

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Not until the creaks and screams began.

I sigh at the blackened trunk, wondering if it had been tricks of the night, if what Father told me the night before had been true.

We had been in his study, another talk concerning marriage going sour.

‘If there was a search party for me, why not him?’ I cried.

‘That boy is precisely who you need saving from!’ Father shouted. ‘You shall not tarnish the Cavendish name with that...that filth.’

He brought his fist down on the table, the matter closed. But not for me. It had left me with one final, desperate option. The woods. The place that would confirm my worst fears: that it had all been in my head, that George was gone.

Now, before this tree, those fears are coming to fruition.

Tears prick my eyes, as I glance up at the ruined branches and marvel at how one half of the tree can bear to grow, when the other half is dead. I doubt I could ever do the same.

I would rather be hollowed out.

A slithering comes from the undergrowth. There is a tugging at my ankles, and I glance down to see vines winding around my legs. Thorns prick at my skin.

Rest, the woods whisper. Lie down and rest, Percival.

I begin to struggle, when a groan reverberates through the ground. It comes from the trees. Their trunks and branches lean, parting for an approaching figure.

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Yes, I think, followed closely by: No.

There is moss in his golden hair. Ivy twines around his torso and limbs, what remains of his bloodied vest and torn trousers. Dirt is crusted under his nails, buried between his teeth. His eyes, once soft brown, are empty sockets overflowing with fungi.

The vines tug at my shaking legs, bringing me to my knees.

Rest, the woods whisper. Rest, Percival.

What remains of George approaches, and kneels.

‘George.’ My voice breaks on his name.

His expression is serene, as he reaches out and cups my cheek. The gesture is familiar. I find myself leaning into it, so willing to pretend, willing to ignore.

‘Forgive me,’ I sob, as vines twine around my torso, binding my arms to my sides.

‘Forgive me. That night, I should never have left you. I was a coward.’

He comes close, close enough to kiss me, and brushes his lips against the shell of my ear. His hand nestles in my hair. The wind holds its breath, the leaves go still.

And George, my dear, darling George, whispers to me.

‘Rest, Percival. Lie down and rest with me.’

He puts it so softly, so certainly, that I can no longer find it in me to refuse.

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RECIPE (REMASTERED) MARISCA PICHETTE YA | LITERARY | NOSTALGIA

Rising through kitchen beams passing window screens and tree limbs, bark and ash and burning fat tinged in autumn brown and winter gold, like the earrings from Colorado, with their tiny feathers and adamant suns— shifting pigments tickle my hairs, urge me ever forward—recalcitrant heels trailing in the birch mulch of wasted hours and coveted minutes.

Chemical explosions and reactions of taste, each beautiful step and each lonesome tick, click, keep it at 350 so the centres aren’t soft like me.

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ANYTHING ALLISON HILLIER YA | HORROR | FAMILY

I lock my bike outside the abandoned church. Every instinct tells me to run, to get as far away from this place as possible, but... I can’t. The rumours might be true. And if they are, then it’ll be worth it.

‘Pull yourself together, Lila... you can do this,’ I whisper, hoping the words will steady my nerves.

Dry leaves crunch under my feet as I climb the crumbling stone steps. St. Martin’s has been abandoned since the fire, the entire place condemned and left to rot. But there’s a rumour that clings to the halls of my high school. St. Martin’s will grant you a wish... at a cost. I’d pay anything if it means Anna will get better. Diagnosed with a rare brain cancer, my younger sister is barely holding on. This might be my only chance to save her.

Gripping her favourite toy tightly, a small, worn teddy bear, I push the creaking door open and step inside. The inside of the church is worse than I’d imagined with dust and grime caking every surface.

The rumours say you have to reach the altar by midnight. I step carefully over broken glass, toward the altar. Each step makes my chest tighten.

In the eerie silence, I begin to whisper, my voice trembling, ‘Please... I’m here for a wish.’

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Nothing happens. I bite my lip, wondering if it’s all just an urban legend. But then, the air thickens, and I feel a strange presence, and I know I'm not alone.

Then, from the shadows, a voice echoes through the church. ‘But are you willing to pay the price, Lila?’

How does it know my name? ‘I need my sister back. I need her to be healthy,’ I say, my voice wavering.

A soft laugh rolls through the darkness, echoing throughout the church. ‘The stronger the wish, the greater the sacrifice. What are you willing to give up?’

I swallow hard, thinking of Anna, the tubes and wires, the way she used to laugh. If I lose her, it’d be like losing myself. ‘Anything,’ I say, louder this time.

The voice purrs in my ear, ‘Very well. I want your most cherished memory.’

I hesitate for a moment. My most cherished memory? The one thing that fills me with happiness, with love. I think back to when Anna was born, the way she’d smile up at me, the sense of fullness I felt with my family. But if I give up this one thing, she’ll live.

‘I accept,’ I say, sealing the pact.

A sudden rush of air whips around me, and I feel something tear apart inside my chest. I stumble back, and the energy shifts. I’m alone once again. The deal is done.

I run out of the church and I hop on my bike and pedal home, clutching Anna’s toy like a lifeline. It should feel comforting, but my fingers feel numb against the fabric. I try to focus on Anna as I peddle, but when I picture her, it’s like there’s a fog around the memory, something I can’t quite reach.

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I finally make it home, toss my bike aside and rush inside. I spot Mom and Dad, who are holding each other and crying.

I follow their gaze, and there she is. Anna, sitting up on the couch, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright. It’s really her, just as I’d hoped.

‘Lila!’ she squeals, her voice filled with the warmth I thought I’d lost forever. She scrambles off the couch and races toward me, arms wide open. I did it. She’s really here.

But when Anna wraps her arms around me, I feel... nothing. The warmth I’d always felt holding her, that deep, protective bond, it’s gone. I force myself to squeeze her tighter, to feel something, anything, but my chest is hollow, like I’m hugging a stranger.

Anna pulls back, looking up at me, oblivious to the ache building in my throat. ‘Did you bring Mr. Tibbles?’ she asks, reaching for her toy.

I hand it to her, trying to smile, trying to act normal, but my head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton.

I try to picture us together, laughing and playing, all the times I’d watched over her, but every time, the memory slips away, like smoke through my fingers. I know I love her—I know I should love her—but I can’t feel it. I traded that part of myself for this.

‘Are you okay, Lila?’ she asks, frowning. ‘You look sad.’

I swallow, pushing down the panic rising in me. ‘I’m... I’m fine, Anna,’ I whisper. ‘I’m just... tired.’

She shrugs and curls up on the couch with Mr. Tibbles, happily talking to herself. But I stand there, watching her, feeling like a ghost in my own life, hollow and haunted.

And I realize then, horrified, I saved her... but lost myself.

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WITCH BOTTLE JAWN VAN JACOBS YA | FANTASY | HEX

i mix the ashes you left of me into grains of blackened salt – soon it’ll pile high enough to retire even the sun

i etched your name into a candle & burned it to a scab that’ll cover your burlap skin after all of my pins & pricks

i have a jar i placed your image in then hid it like you did me – now all you’ve done will come back to you exponentially-– by three!

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THIS IS MERCY PRISCILLA KINT YA | HORROR | WRATH

Leóni looked out over the valley where she’d lived for the past twenty-three years, and watched her home town dissolve into flame. The Sancti Ignis had shown no mercy.

Conlis stood like a threat in the distance, the top of the mountain still erupting bursts of lava. What looked like rivers of mud rolled down the hills, taking away everything in their path; the school, the farms, the well, the square with its green-and-white market stands, Leóni’s bakery and everything inside of it – even the very streets where the children of Fortunus had skipped stones and played tag just a few hours ago.

Now, those same children stood at the edge of the cliff surrounded by their families and friends. Their silent silhouettes looked strange against the perpetually moving clouds and layers of smoke in the sky.

Some of the survivors were clutching each other’s soot-covered hands, crying into each other’s shoulders. Some were making mumbled plans, conversing about nearby towns, relatives they could stay with, the valuables they’d managed to grab at the drop of a hat.

But most were silent, like Leóni: they simply stood and watched.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Pol said next to her. An old man with the eyesight of a pigeon, he was perpetually squinting to make out the names on the mail he delivered at the start of each week. His eyebrows were so thick they were almost exact copies of his moustache: vibrant grey and bristled. There was a dark smudge on his left cheek, stained with tears, although Leóni couldn’t tell whether those were from pain of from the heat.

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‘Me neither,’ Leóni said. ‘I don’t even want to think about the state of my bakery.’

‘Probably covered in smoking lava.’ Pol huffed, and then his face soured. ‘I’m glad we managed to evacuate everyone in time. Imagine what would’ve been lost if you hadn’t been so insistent.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed, feeling for the leather gloves in the pocket of her trousers. ‘Everyone.’

‘I just cannot fathom it. Why would the Sancti let this happen?’ Pol shook his head, not expecting an answer. If Leóni had wanted to, she could’ve mentioned how the gods worked in mysterious ways, how the divine was beyond their comprehension. But she didn’t. The truth was simple: the Sancti would take what they were owed.

Leóni rubbed the fabric of the gloves together, mourning the pies she’d been baking and would never get to finish.

*

Her fingers worked tirelessly on the dough, kneading it with practised movements. The voice of her aunt, who’d pretty much raised her from the age of five, floated through her head. That’s right, Little Le. Do you feel that texture? That not-quite-sticky stickiness?

That’s what we want for the crust.

Leóni forced the corners of her mouth into a smile. Today, she had a big order. The Adrian family was having a party, and they’d need twelve pies by that evening – all fresh, of course. A lot of work, but it’d be worth the money.

Perhaps today was the day she’d break even.

The dough felt perfect underneath her hands, and she rolled and folded it over a couple

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more times. Her crooked fingers left dents in the bottom as she flattened it. She’d been born with them - the index finger of her right hand bent at an odd angle, the ring finger of her left longer than all the other digits - yet people always seemed to cast her strange looks when they noticed. As if she was carrying some sort of disease that she’d impress on their bread somehow. Never mind that she wasn’t ill. Never mind her hands functioned perfectly normally, not an ache or strain in sight. They just looked a little different.

With her pie crust prepared, she went to fetch the mixes. She’d prepared some strawberry filling, a pumpkin version, bramble and blackberry, and she needed to make sure the pecan was ready in time, as well.

She fixed her hair, making sure all of her brown curls were tied back. Then she entered the back room, where a giant second-hand ice box took up at least a third of the space.

The rest of it was filled with boxes, some half-empty buckets of paint, and lots and lots of flour.

Before she could grab the ice box’s handle, she saw that it was already open. ‘For the love of Conlis and its Sancti, not again,’ she muttered to herself. She opened the door, grabbed the bramble and blackberry jelly she’d prepared, and closed the ice box with a solid, certain push.

It clicked, but slid right back open when she let go.

‘One day,’ Leóni promised herself, ‘one day I’ll have the funds to buy a proper cooler.’

With that, she grabbed a thick, metal chain from the top shelf and secured it between the ice box’s handle and the rack next to it. She pulled it tight, then locked it in place, taking the key with her. It was a temporary solution, but it’d have to do.

Filling and closing the pie was her favourite step. There was something about seeing the

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different parts come together that filled her with pride. Here she was, making pies in her own bakery, with its teal-coloured shelves and seats and the walls the exact soft orange she’d always dreamt of and her name on the window. The place looked cheerful and fresh, ready for any order the Adrians or anyone else in Fortunus could possibly throw at her.

Before she knew it, she had six of her twelve pies finished – and it was only eight in the morning. She had hours to spare.

Just as she turned to wash her hands and grab those pecans, a shadow at the front door startled her. She pasted her best how-can-I-help-you smile on her face – and then the door was thrown open.

Gavriel stood in the doorway. The freshly painted handle collided with the wall and left a teal mark on her soft orange walls. ‘Leóni,’ he panted, ‘I need your help.’

She walked over and rubbed at the damage on the wall, careful not to leave any apple crumble in her wake. ‘You’re gonna need to pay me for that, you oaf.’

‘No, you don’t understand.’ Gavriel was a short guy – compared to Leóni, at least. His brown hair, which reached just above his shoulders and was usually tied back, was a big, tangled mess, as if he’d just gotten out of bed. The way his white t-shirt seemed to be inside out and his jacket was only covering one of his shoulders supported that thought.

He stepped closer to her, his face pale in the shallow morning light. There were freckles all over his nose, but the birthmark underneath his right eye stood out the most. ‘I need help.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘It’s the Sancti, Leóni. They’re coming.’ He shuddered. ‘And I can’t reach my father to stop them.’

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Leóni let out a huff. ‘Your... father?’ The idea that their gods would rise up and take a stroll through town was one thing, but for Gavriel’s dad to be the one to stop them, was truly ridiculous. She knew the man: big mouth, small ideas. Just last year he’d been caught forging loans so he could afford a nice house near the pond. He and his wife had disappeared not long after that, leaving a shamed Gavriel – who’d known nothing about any of his dad’s fraud – to fend for himself.

‘Yes! My father!’ Gavriel pressed his hands to the side of his head, massaging his temples.

‘Okay, one thing at a time.’ Even after being up for many an hour and already having prepared many a pie, Leóni was positive it was too early for this nonsense. ‘Why would the Sancti be coming?’

‘Because my dad stole from them.’

She blinked. ‘He what now?’

Gavriel chewed his lip. ‘He stole from the passion flower fields. That’s why he and mum left.’

‘What the fuck, Gavriel!’ The passion flower fields were the meagre patches of earth on the side of the mountain Conlis. They were sacred, as were the flowers themselves.

Picking them was an insult to the Sancti. And the passion flowers themselves – a special kind with red, long petals that folded outwards like a lily, with a crown of purple anthers and multiple bright yellow styles in the middle – were said to have special powers. They could cure heart disease and heal burns in seconds. They were also incredibly rare and therefore valuable.

‘I don’t know! He’s a criminal! This is what he does!’

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‘Criminals steal peaches from the market, they don’t pluck the most sacred plant known to mankind like it’s a common weed!’ Leóni groaned in frustration. ‘When did this happen?’

‘Last year. He’s probably made a fortune off of them by now.’

‘Where is he?’

Gavriel raised his shoulders. ‘I don’t know! He hasn’t exactly been keeping in touch since he skipped town!’

She frowned, leaning back against the bakery’s counter. ‘So, why are you worried? Your dad will suffer the consequences soon enough. Might’ve suffered them already, for all we know.’

‘That’s just it, Leóni,’ Gavriel muttered. He pulled down the collar of his shirt – and there it was, in the centre of his chest. A triangle with a circle around it, connecting the corners. The Sancti’s symbol was red, shining like scar tissue, and undeniable. ‘They’ve marked me.’

The world seemed to still.

Everyone knew that mark. Everyone had learned to fear it, for those who were marked by the Sancti had been marked to pay for the sins of the world.

She remembered Gavriel and herself at just eight years old, staying up past their bedtimes in the clammy darkness of autumn, crouching together in their tree hut at the edge of town. They’d drawn the triangle on each other’s arms, giggling, threatening with the circle to finish it, but never actually following through. And now it was there anyway, staring back at her.

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‘You’ve got to help me, Leóni. I don’t know what to do. And you always do. You always know.’ He sounded so small, so broken.

‘I…’ Leóni had no idea how to solve this – if there was a way to solve this. ‘I can try.’

*

She ran through her shop, leafing through the Litterae Sanctorum, the holy books that every single household had on their shelves. They contained all the stories, the omens, the promises of prosperity. The covers all bore an image of a red passion flower, which suddenly didn’t seem as gorgeous as it had before.

Every page was as familiar to her as the back of her own hand. She read about Justin the Prophet, who was the first to arrive at Conlis and see the peculiar flowers on its glowing hills. She read about the godly signs being left on the grain fields of Fortunus’s enemies, the triangle and the circle, just days before a flood had wiped the cities off the map. She read about Mariah, who’d disrespected the Sancti and found it impossible to outrun them, the Mark appearing in the clouds and chasing her wherever she went.

Leóni’s pecans lay forgotten on the counter, half the pies had long since cooled down on the racks next to the oven while the other half still needed to be made.

For hours, she leafed through the books, walked to and fro, penned down words and key phrases without reaching any worthwhile conclusion.

All the stories said the same thing. The Sancti would offer wealth and fortune to those who respected them, who loved them, who prayed to them. But if you crossed them, they’d be unforgiving. Once you’re marked, the Sancti won’t let you go. It was like the North on a compass: the Sancti would always find you, no matter what. And if the Sancti wanted to get even with Gavriel’s dad, they’d make sure to pluck Gavriel from the

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ground with roots and all.

There was one possible positive: None of the stories stated how long it took for the Sancti to find you once you carried the mark. For all she knew, she’d have days – weeks – to figure out how to help Gavriel. They could ask others for help. They could track down Gavriel’s family, make his father get the flowers back and bring them up to Conlis.

Even if he’d sold them already, he’d know who had them. Perhaps there was a chance they were still whole. Perhaps they could be returned.

Leóni cleared her throat and closed the book. That would be her story, then. The moment Gavriel returned with his candles, walnuts, and sage (she’d sent him on an errand for a possible prayer cycle) she’d tell him this plan. She hoped that, by that time, she’d sound more confident than she felt.

Perhaps now she could get back to her pecans and—

A tremble shook the earth, almost causing Leóni to trip face-first into her next pie crust. She clutched the counter, fingers looking fragile on the stone surface, but the shaking persisted. Pots clattered to the ground. Glass shattered.

She dove under her countertop, wrapping her arms around her legs and curling in on herself. She felt the deep rumble of the world moving in her very bones. She heard things falling, crashing – outside, something heavy fell with a huge bang. And she could do nothing but wait as her bakery appeared to be falling apart around her.

Then, from one moment to the next, the ground settled, and only Leóni was left shaking.

She stayed where she was for a little while longer, then got out of her hiding place to take in the mess. One of the glass panels behind the counter had broken. Her floor was covered in glass splinters. The dirty pans she’d used to cook the fruits for her pies were still rolling across the floor, smears of blueberry and strawberry staining the tiles.

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With her limbs like pudding, she opened her front door. Her apron felt too tight around her middle, and she loosened the knot on her back.

Other faces appeared in the street as well. Her neighbours had their arms around their little daughter Maeri, who had her thumb in her mouth and tears rolling down her dark cheeks. Pol from the post office looked up and down the cobblestone road, scratching his head. Dogs were barking – some close by, some farther away.

Leóni did her own sweep of her surroundings, but didn’t spot anything off apart from a few fallen-over carts and another broken window.

‘How strange!’ Pol exclaimed, looking up at the sky.

‘An earthquake?’ someone else suggested.

‘Thank the Sancti it’s over!’ a third voice said.

‘Is it?’

‘Benny, clean up the mess in the kitchen.’

‘The Sancti will protect us. No need to worry.’

‘But dad! I didn’t even break anything.’

‘Do you think they felt it all across town?’

‘Let’s go back inside.’

‘No buts, my boy!’

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And that was it. People continued speaking over each other as they pulled out brooms, stacked broken crates, and closed their front doors. Everyone seemed so absorbed that they didn’t hear the rumble in the distance, like an oncoming thunderstorm.

Leóni cast her eyes at the sky, which was clear and a striking blue – save for one spot to the north. She walked down the street, her eyes on the dark clouds.

There it was. Between the roof of the café and an old three-story house that’d once been a school, she saw Conlis. And she saw the smoke forming above it.

*

‘This is bad.’

Gavriel entered the bakery, the teal door slamming shut behind him. The earth had trembled three more times, although not as badly as that first time. There’d been talk about rips in the earth, close to Conlis, where heat and gas was escaping in relentless bursts.

‘This is very, very bad. This isn’t my fault, is it?’

Despite his words, there was a strange smile tugging at the corners of his lips. A nervous tic, perhaps. It had to be.

He planted a netted bag filled with walnuts and sage on the counter, then pulled off his gloves and laid them down beside it. ‘Tell me you know how to solve this.’

Leóni stood frozen. A poignant smell had made its way inside along with Gavriel – something rotting, something disastrous. The smell of the street – or not. Perhaps it was a sign. A definite smell coming from the one person this was all about.

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She stared at Gavriel, ignoring the urge to gag as she breathed in. ‘I know how to solve this.’

He relaxed, his shoulders dropping as he let out an open-mouthed laugh. ‘Thank the Sancti.’

‘Don’t just yet.’ She let her fingers trail over the walnuts, feeling the hard wooden-like ridges, taking note of how white her skin looked compared to the pale brown of the shells.

‘I’m ready,’ Gavriel said. ‘Whatever we need to do, we’ll do it.’

‘We’ll do it,’ she echoed.

She knew about volcanoes. She knew it wouldn’t be the streams of lava that would kill the citizens of the valley. It wouldn’t be the molten rock coating their bodies that’d steal their last breath. No, they’d be dead long before that, once the clouds of gas and ash would come rolling down the hills, choking and burning everyone in their path.

And it’d smell exactly the same as Gavriel did right now.

‘I... I need something from the ice box.’ Leóni straightened her back, looked directly into her best friend’s green eyes. ‘It’s a bowl with mixture in it. Could you grab it for me?’

‘Sure.’ He made his way to the back, and she followed him closely, muttering something about needing extra candles.

Gavriel sauntered to the ice box. He placed one hand on the handle, the other on the rack next to it, right above the unlocked chain hanging there. He pulled it open. ‘Which bowl? There are like a gazillion in here... And they smell great, by the way.’

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She moved quickly. One swing, and the chain was around his wrist. Another, and it locked shut to the rack. A final turn, and she’d tightened it.

Gavriel’s brow was furrowed as he stared at his bound arm. ‘Leóni?’ He rattled the chain. ‘What the hell?’

‘You’re what it wants.’

‘What?’ Gavriel’s eyes studied her in confusion.

Still, Leóni couldn’t help but feel a sense of calm as she spoke. ‘If we hand you over to Conlis, the Sancti will have their revenge. If not, they’ll just keep chasing you. And they’ll destroy everything and everyone in their path.’

Gavriel stared at her, his mouth open. ‘You can’t mean to…’

Outside, something like thunder shook the window panes. Leóni took a step backwards, the sweet smell of sugared peach and cherry mixing with the sulphur in the air.

‘No, wait – Leóni! What happened to helping me out?’

‘I’m helping the town.’

‘By giving me up? We don’t even know whether—’

‘Of course this is the Sancti’s doing!’ she hissed, gesturing towards the street. ‘You woke with the mark this morning. Conlis started acting up this morning. It’s basic logic!’

‘So what?’ he huffed, pulling at the chain. ‘You plan to save the valley by locking me up here?’

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‘Not the valley. The people.’

His jaw set. ‘You think Conlis will just take me and retreat?’

‘I’ll evacuate everyone.’

‘They all think their Sancti will protect them from harm. They’re basically sitting ducks.’

Their Sancti. ‘I’ll convince them to leave.’

‘So take me with you! I’ll get out same as everyone else.’

Leóni shook her head. ‘Once marked, you’re done for.’

He froze as a loud crash sounded outside. Leóni’s heart was in her throat, but she forced herself to stand tall. She had to leave – soon.

‘I thought you were going to help me,’ Gavriel glared at her, his skin ghostly pale. ‘You said you were going to help me.’

‘I tried.’ She turned away from him. Looking him in the eye for too long would break her, she knew. Then she’d be remembered of all those evenings in their tree hut, all those times he’d smiled at her as she’d talked about pies and recipes he never cared one bit about.

‘Please, Leóni. Don’t leave me here.’

She needed to leave.

‘Please. I’m begging you.’ He tried to lower to his knees, but the chain kept him. Still, he

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folded his hands into one another, pressed his forehead to them. ‘Untie me. Come on, Leóni.’

‘I can’t do that,’ she said, trying hard to keep her voice steady, and then she watched him change. His round, panicked eyes narrowed, and his mouth curved down into a snarl.

‘Coward!’ he shrieked. ‘You’re a coward, Leóni!’ Gavriel’s voice thundered through the backroom of the bakery. Of her bakery, the dream she’d had for years finally a reality, only to be taken away from her so swiftly. All because of the actions of one man. ‘I swear to the Sancti, Leóni, untie me – now!’

Something hissed outside, followed by another bout of thunder.

‘Do you have any idea what you’re condemning me to?’ Gavriel pulled at the chain, the metal clattering against the rack.

‘I have no other choice.’

He reached for her, but she stepped farther out of his reach, her back up against the wall. Frustrated, he changed tactics, his hands clawing at anything they could find. The cooler was still open, and he chucked the insides in her direction.

A bowl with bramble and blackberry jelly clattered to the ground at her feet, splattering up against her ankles. That was followed by a glass container of milk that smashed against the wall. A net of apples that she had to duck to avoid. A stick of butter that thumped to the ground and stayed exactly in place, one corner flattened.

‘You can’t just leave me here!’

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Leóni didn’t speak. Standing in that growing mess of wasted ingredients, she felt any doubts she’d had wash away. With every passing second and every insult thrown at her, it became easier to walk away.

‘If you’re gonna be the one to doom me,’ Gavriel screeched, ‘at least have the guts to offer me up to the Sancti yourself!’

‘I would’ve,’ Leóni said, ‘but it’s too late. Conlis is coming. There’s no way up there. Not anymore.’

‘Leóni—’

‘For what it’s worth, I am sorry.’

‘Leóni, you can’t…’ Gavriel looked at her, his brow coated in sweat. ‘We’re friends.’

If he was going to state facts, she’d do the same. “This is mercy.”

He bared his teeth, let out an actual growl. ‘I will haunt you. I will haunt the fuck out of you for the rest of eternity. You’ll have my blood on your hands, Leóni. You’ll never, ever be able to wash it off.’

‘I won’t need to.’ Leóni’s footsteps echoed on the tiles as she walked away. From the counter, she took Gavriel’s leather gloves. ‘I’ll carry it proudly.’

*

The cloud of smoke above the valley was so big it looked like it contained the entire sky – the entire world. Conlis wasn’t done yet: the ground still rumbled and the air was still filled with the sulphuric stink of danger. The floods of lava hadn’t stopped, creating layers upon layers of deadly destruction until there was nothing left of the town

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beneath.

Only the tip of the clock tower remained visible – a mere pinprick representing the countless lives that had been lived here. The one life that had ended here.

It’d been a huge undertaking to get everyone out of those streets and up to higher grounds. Pol had helped. People always trusted him and his wise words, and this time hadn’t been any different. Once he’d convinced a few people to take up their things and leave, more and more had followed. Leóni had gone from door to door, making sure no one was left behind, untying dogs and horses as she went. Finally, as the last person to walk out of Fortunus alive, she’d made her way to the top of the hill.

‘I just cannot fathom it. Why would the Sancti Ignis let this happen?’ Pol wondered, shaking his head.

Leóni rubbed the gloves in her pocket between her fingers, the fabric soft and smooth.

‘The Sancti will take what they’re owed,’ she said.

He looked up at her, grey eyebrows pulled together in a question, but she turned away.

The village-less community around them had started to move. Little Maeri from nextdoor pulled at her father’s sleeves, her cheeks tear-stained and her arms up, waiting to be carried out of this nightmare.

A group of determined men and women had gathered on the field a little further down the hill. Bits of conversation drifted through the air. Talk of contacting help and getting the children to the city and perhaps some things are still salvageable?

Leóni couldn’t listen to it. She knew when a case was lost, and didn’t want to hang around until the rest of these people came to the same realisation. ‘I’m leaving,’ she announced, just loud enough for Pol to hear.

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‘Where are you going?’ Pol asked. She could hear the raspy coat of smoke that’d been draped over his voice.

‘To find a new bakery.’ Leóni slid the gloves over her fingers, admiring the way her hands no longer looked like her own.

She cast one last look at the valley. The clouds of ash had thickened even more, covering the entire sky. They moved, circling around each other slowly, morphing and changing until—

You’ll have my blood on your hands, Leóni. You’ll never, ever be able to wash it off.

His voice was in her head, nibbling at her confidence, as she took in the symbol in the heavens. A circle of black, surrounding a triangle.

She walked away, her heart hammering and her gloved hands feeling the back of her neck.

The Sancti will always find you, no matter what.

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NOT MY BLOOD PHOEBE ROBINSON YA | GOTHIC | TURMOIL

As I lay on the operating table, the rhythmic beeping of the machines wove a haunting lullaby, reminding me that life could be both a fragile gift and a harrowing burden, stitched together with the blood of another. In that moment, filled with the essence of an unknown stranger, I found myself on the precipice of existence, where the threads of mortality and hope intertwined in vivid hues of despair and resilience. With each pulse, I pondered the weight of my new life, grappling with the aching truth that survival often demands a reckoning with the darkest corners of the heart. A heart that now pumped somebody else's blood.

The days after the surgery were a blur. I was cocooned in a haze of painkillers and profound fatigue, shuttled between the sterile walls of the hospital and the flickering shadows of my own mind. My body felt alien; each movement was accompanied by a sharp reminder of the life I had snatched back from the clutches of death. Yet I was more aware than ever of the void within me, an echo of instability where my mother’s love had once thrived, now consumed by sorrow. I thought constantly of the person whose sacrifice had allowed me to breathe, to feel, to exist. Who were they? What did they look like? Did they have dreams unfulfilled, a family waiting for them to return?

It was this haunting curiosity that drove me to the hospital’s records department after my discharge. I pushed past the thin veil of recovery and, emboldened by desperation, I demanded answers about my donor. A nurse frowned at my request but eventually relented, revealing only the barest details. ‘A young adult, healthy, tragically lost in an

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accident. The blood was a last-minute donation, administered during a critical shortage.’ I felt emotions dance within me—gratitude twisted with grief, warmth entwining with cold despair. This revelation ignited a spark: I needed to find their family, to piece together the story of the soul who continued my own. The soul that had once belonged to the girl named Clara.

Days turned into weeks as I scoured social media, local news articles, and community boards, searching for more fragments of this person’s life. My determination grew, fueled by a phantom pain that throbbed alongside my heart—an ache begging to connect, to fill the chasm of loneliness that seemed impassable. The words ‘tragically lost’ resonated within me; I felt an intimate kinship with that loss, as though our lives were parallel lines converging into one point.

With each passing day, I learned about their family—their names and faces lingering in my thoughts like whispers of the past. I discovered that they were a kind and loving family, supportive and tight-knit. Their home was a place filled with laughter and warmth, a stark contrast to the cold isolation I often felt in my own world, shadowed by unfulfilled grief. I wanted to implore them for forgiveness; I wanted to show them that their loved one wasn’t merely anatomical: they had given me life.

I finally gathered the courage to reach out, penning a letter. I detailed my journey, laying bare the impact of their daughter’s gift on my existence. After what felt like an eternity, I received a response—a hesitant invitation to meet. My heart fluttered, pounding with potential joy mixed with fear. Would they blame me? Would they mourn further?

The day of the meeting arrived, cloaked in a shroud of anxiety, and I arrived at a small but loved house adorned with colourful flower beds. The mother opened the door, her eyes shimmering. The air was thick with unsaid words, each moment stretched taut as the weight of what hung between us. We sat across from each other in the living room,

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the silence punctuated only by the occasional rustle of leaves outside, whispering secrets of their own.

As the conversation unfolded, I learned more about their daughter's intricate and beautiful personality and life, more about who she had been before the accident robbed her from the world too quickly. She had been vibrant, a vivacious spirit with dreams of traveling the world and painting. Each piece of information weighed me down. I painted a picture of my life pre-surgery—filled with rage and sorrow over my mother’s passing —the murky depth within which I had found myself. They listened, expressions morphing from sympathy to a deep well of understanding.

Their acceptance felt like a balm to my battered soul. Yet, as the sunlight faded outside, so too did the buoyancy I had felt. I realized that Clara’s absence was a gaping wound for her family. They had lost everything; and here I was, an unwelcome reminder of their pain—a thief, thriving from a stolen life.

I returned home that evening, the weight of reality dragging me down with each step.

Clara's family had shared their grief with me, their sorrow now entwined with the very essence of my being. The shadows within me grew darker, and the air became thick with despair. I was neither fully alive nor able to embrace the warmth her family afforded me. Julian, her younger brother whom I had shared a laugh with, called and offered to take me out for coffee. I dutifully accepted, but deep down, I felt the darkness creep back in.

As I lay in bed that night, I grasped the knife I kept hidden beneath my pillow. It glimmered with cold promise under the moonlight, an unspoken ally in my deepest moments of despair, a feeling which I succumbed to that night, feeling Clara’s spirit wrap around my own—a comforting embrace that beckoned me away from the world that had offered little. I had believed that someone else’s blood coursing through my veins could bridge the chasm between life and death, but now I understood the stark

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truth that love and survival did not always flourish in harmony.

In the early hours, in a dance with shadows and whispers, I was pulled toward the forest at the edge of town—a place which Clara’s spirit seemed to grow stronger within, a place where her family had told me she liked to wander and dance, the place where she had also passed away. The trees loomed like sentinels, their gnarled branches reaching up to the sky, a constellation of possibilities trapped within the darkness. My heart raced as I stepped deeper, feeling lighter, that weight, that burden I had carried for so long, beginning to ease.

‘Clara,’ I whispered into the night, the knife heavy in my hand, a promise of reunion that felt inevitable. I longed for her spirit to wrap around me like a protective quilt, leading me away from the brokenness of this world. I wanted to apologize for taking the life that was meant for her—the life that should have been a vibrant tapestry flourished by dreams, laughter, and love.

As I stood there, engulfed in the silence of the forest, something stirred in the periphery. It was the memories bubbling to the forefront—flashes of laughter, the warmth of my mother’s embrace before sickness robbed me of her. I thought of Julian’s laughter, the flickering hope shining in his eyes as we shared stories, even if it was marred by grief for his sister. Those ephemeral moments of connection whispered for my attention even as I felt the blade against my skin, urging me toward peace.

Just before I succumbed to that alluring darkness, my tears began to flow—tears for Clara, for Julian, and for my own past shadowed with solitude. I felt an urge to live, to tell their stories and fill the gaps with light. I remembered Clara's dreams, which were now trapped within her family’s grief. I couldn’t take myself away from the world so easily, not when there were lives intertwined with my own that should be honoured.

Contemplating my choice, I crumbled to the forest floor, dirt mingling with tears. I

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longed so desperately to escape the heartache, to unite with my mother and Clara, but I could feel the warmth of their memories urging me to stand tall amidst the pain. I understood, in that moment, that I was loved, not just by blood, but because I carried their light within me—an ethereal connection, binding us together.

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THE LINGERING CONSEQUENCE OF DEATH ROSIE KERSLEY WILLIAMSON YA | HORROR | DEATH His mouth gaped towards the sky, as though he were wailing at the heavens, but of course, dead men can’t speak. The blood bubbled from his throat, trickling down and blooming across his white shirt. He stumbled, his legs folding like a hastily dropped doll as he fell to the tiled floor.

Her father was dead.

Selene couldn’t blink. Her eyes were held open by the sinister fingers of horror, her gaze caught by his broken body. She was stiff, as though death had decided to take her too. The hands that killed him were heavy with thick, dripping blood. Scarlet drops fell to the floor, each plink the ticking of a clock. She took a ragged breath.

‘Oh God.’

Her feet started to take her, walking backwards and away from the cosy cottage lights.

Away from the house where he lay. Away from his rasping breath. Away from all the blood. Selene’s tears began to flow as she was welcome into the growing darkness. She sobbed and brought her hands up to wipe her face, only to flinch when the crimson flesh got too close. Those cruel betrayer’s hands: crooked and dishonest. Selene had

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never wanted to use such extreme measures. However, the choice between her father and her life’s work had been too easy to make.

Selene shuddered and turned desperately in the evening light, searching for salvation even though she knew it was hopeless - nothing was powerful enough to undo all of her sins. A patch of glistening green caught her gaze: perhaps that could help.

Her knees gave out as she grasped for those dewy green blades, trying wildly to rub away the blood, the pain, the death. She closed her eyes to clear the haunting image of his body as the grass rasped beneath her shaking hands. Once Selene was sure that she had offloaded her guilt to the uncomplaining grass, she let out a long breath.

‘It’s okay,’ she whispered.

She pushed herself up to standing, wiping the damp grass from her palms onto her jeans. She tucked away a stray blonde hair, the blood smearing across-

The blood?

She brought her hands back in front of her face.

‘No.’

Selene sank back into the grass, viciously scrubbing her palms once more. She held them up again. ‘Please, no!’

She thrust her hands in once more, wiping them over and over against the weary blades only to turn her palms over and gaze at the crimson still coating her skin. She glanced down. Not a single red smear had been transferred to the grass.

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‘No!’

But her desperate wails did nothing to wipe away the glistening blood that clung to her hands. Even in death, her father lingered.

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IN THE MIST BELLA WESTBROOK YA | GOTHIC | SISTERS Heavy is the air as heavy is the heart, a deep fog of longing does descend to shroud the unlucky souls trapped on the long-forgotten moor, devouring their hopes and dreams to leave an eternal lust for something more.

Claudia’s gaze fell swiftly to the garden below, sorrow tracing the deep lines of thought etched onto her youthful face. They were soon to be wiped away in place of a statuesque doll with perfectly sickly porcelain skin and ink tainted curls that swallowed up all light that dared cross its dismal path. It would be indecent to be caught with such signs of humanity and life etched into the artwork. Claudia’s husband stood tall and leering behind her, seemingly appearing out of thin air. A permanent sneer was plastered sloppily onto his face, every inch emitting power, wealth, and total control. She couldn’t help but think that no man with such energy should ever own such art, yet they always seemed to be the collectors and highest bidders.

No kiss was spared as he told her he was going, leaving for a trip on which he hoped for wealth. You could see the avarice boiling in his eyes.

Does God celebrate the sinners? Gregory VanDine would disagree wholeheartedly, would say religion is righteous and is a true guide to the moral principles of life, as is science the guide to discovery and prosperity, and that we must never lose sight of the core principle of our gods in our new devout journey of enlightenment. Of course he would say that. And of course, you thought that was the perfect, most eloquent answer ever uttered, didn’t you? But that wasn’t the question, was it?

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The question was: is Gregory VanDine, a man led by the pull of his loins, a man who frequently abandons his 17-year-old wife for gambled fortunes and whores, a sinner? Is he a celebrated sinner? If a grotesque demon of unimaginable horror stood before you and proclaimed himself a Christian would you adorn him with angel wings? The majority of society would. Morality is not a question of right and wrong but rather simply who’s the judge. Because God does not judge in this mortal life and that leaves only the inconceivably evil little cretins known as humans, and their weighing scales are so very different.

Men such as Gregory are ranked as the pinnacle of humanity, wealthy and commanding, with an accessory so beautiful that the heavens and life itself tremble at her mention leaving only Death itself to dare to meet her abyssal gaze.

And yet the fool still sloppily caresses her cheek with a sourness that would burn for a thousand years, apathy filling the air as he bid Claudia farewell and promised to see her in just a few days. A lot can happen in a few days. Such as him ever so randomly tripping and falling comfortably into a brothel.

A single tear fell from Claudia's charcoal eyes as her husband was once again swallowed up by the primordial monster lurking within the fog.

*

The manor was so very lonely, whether her husband was present or not. Claudia wasn’t always this isolated of course, but ever since the untimely demise of her sister the little essence life had, has been so very hard to capture. Or at least, presumed untimely demise.

Two months prior 15-year-old Cassandra Hart had been alive and well, ever a picture of innocence with cascading blonde hair and crystal-blue eyes as large as tennis balls, with

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lengthy lashes that she would bat and flutter to bend all those around her to her will. It was a habit that unearthed such cruel hatred in Claudia but now, she would do just about anything to have her be there again, and she would act as her indentured slave for all of eternity if it meant another second with her beloved sister. Cassandra was the stars that shone into her night, filling Claudia’s void. Now the void stands barren, a mirror to the wasteland of the moors.

Cassandra would always bother her about Gregory, ever eager to know all of the gory details of their relationship, always trying to find a flicker of passion among the arrangement. She would claim that he should be making declarations of such love you should only find it on the pages of a novel.

Cassie would always say, ‘...Ever the gentleman. Tell me Claud, does he shower you in adoration, is he on his knees professing his fortune to be with someone as beautiful as night itself, would he exclaim in such passion that, ‘You are mine, Claudia, your flesh is carved from my own, if you were to leave the world shall go blind, for my fire shall consume them all.’ Does he ever tell you anything remotely igniting, or does he just throw water on the fire of your soul?’ Ever the romantic. Claudia would always tell Cassandra that that just wasn’t how their relationship worked. Those conversations would always end the same, a shared dream of escape from the withering manor forever guarded by clouds walking the earth.

Cassandra Hart was an enigma, a something in a world of nothings and yet somehow…

When their parents ever so tragically passed away in the years prior Cassandra sought refuge in the VanDine manor. Gregory was sweet on her, and Claudia was guiltily grateful to have her sister join her in isolation, to have something to dull his anger with.

But that is the past. The ever so gut-wrenching truth is that Cassandra Hart one day took a stroll into the all-encompassing cloud, she entered the mouth of the goliath and never returned.

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Sometimes Claudia can’t help to think that her sister is still in the manor. Ripples of her laughter echo through the decaying halls, the rotting portraits in rusted frames pulse with unknown breezes, floorboards creek with the ghosts of footsteps but alas it is just poor naive blind hope. Claudia would rather share the house with a ghost than come to terms with what she is; completely and utterly alone. She has been abandoned and left to rot with the other art. Some days she awakes thinking she is sure to find maggots in the place of her eyes. Secretly she does not want to wither away along with this ancient house. Secretly she has lusts and longings, all captured and stored by the fog. As they should be, it is no place for a woman to want.

It’s funny really, everyday Claudia walks past the blackened and ivy ridden stonework, the cracked, grimy windows that no groundsman had ever bothered to scrub, all while the weather weighs in, stealing her breath away to the winds. And every day she dreams of something more. To be able to leave and know she’ll be okay. A victim of her era, one could say. And that longing for the unattainable truth of freedom is what on this day shall finally break, well, free.

*

Cassandra always wanted to leave Westville Hall. She once whispered in the dark of night, ‘I am to leave tonight, my dear Claudia, for I cannot endure this torture any longer’.

Claudia had been taken aback by this proposition for she always could only fathom leaving in her wildest dreams. Surprise and apprehension dripped through her response, ‘Cassie, I love you, but you know I cannot. And honestly, I thought we were to endure the darkness together, but you seem to have been blinded by false light.’

Cassandra, to no surprise, thought her sister arrogant and fearful but God did she want to set Claudia free as well as herself. ‘I know you are scared of what the future may

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bring away from this place, but we shall be free, caged to these chains of expectation no more. I want to live, breathe without such weight. Please, I beg you to accompany me, I cannot be free alone.’

Claudia had declined with all her might, fear paralyzing all longings that coursed through her soul. Cassandra had been enraged and had stormed out in a huff.

And she never came back.

*

Now Claudia's bloodied gown swept around her ankles, the black lace cascading and weaving itself around her figure to the floor as she strode along the dishevelled corridors, purpose reigniting a glint of flame among her charcoal eyes. The slightly puffed sleeves of her dress toppled as she hugged herself, grasping the concept of what she was to do. The day had finally come. Claudia VanDine was to be free, one way or another. She could not live in regret any longer, she could not bear for her every thought to be ‘what if I had gone with her, would my soul be as free as hers, doomed to roam the moor forever more but away from this damned manor?’

She could bear the weight of these possibilities no longer, so for the first time in her life Claudia VanDine had made a decision for herself. She was going to see her sister again.

*

The weight of capture easily becomes too heavy for one’s mind. So heavy in fact that it pins down the very soul of a person. How can survival be expected in such conditions?

How can one expect a pristine persona while still playing personal puppet? That’s the thing about dolls, they crack. So, it is no surprise that Claudia VanDine after years of capture finally cracked. It’s no surprise when she was surrounded by land free for

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exploration, rolling mounds of earth holding the world's greatest secrets yet to be discovered. And she cannot. She has no means of exploration, no carriage, no horse, no money to hire any of the such. Her husband leaves into the mist to be swallowed up by the spirits everyday while she is trapped listening to their whispers. She is as free as a bird and yet somehow trapped in a bird cage. The expanse of barren land drives its way into her mind, restricting her freedom from even there. She is eternally trapped. And when she passes her spirit shall roam the desolate moors and out to a desolate world, and maybe her soul shall finally be free to see what is right in front of her. Maybe, it is right to set it free.

*

What’s that phrase, blood runs thicker than water? Claudia and Cassandra have always been bound, the strings of fate suffocating them since they were small. Or maybe they were nooses? Life can often seem quite suffocating, especially to certain people. After all, art cannot breathe. Or maybe that ability was simply stolen away from it, leaving all but a hollow statue behind. Hearts surely can’t be expected to beat when you’re a painting, even if it has its arteries gouged out, the scarlet life force works well as fresh paint.

Her laugh chased her through the halls, echoing off the portraits, taunting Claudia ever still. It was when she saw the tint of her golden curls flicker like a candle in the distance she knew she must be surely losing her mind. Cassandra beckoned her still, the coy little giggle emitting from her velvet lips. Claudia dove after the fragments of Cassandra, forever split in mind and body. The glimpses of her iridescent pearl nightgown swaying around her opaque figure grew the closer Claudia drew. It could not be… the heavens would not relinquish such wonders from their grasps, for the brightest star dare not look upon the shining soul of Cassandra Hart. If God himself placed the pawns how did one manage to break so far astray, a crack in the face of existence. No sister of Claudia’s could she be for no blood can course through transparent veins. And yet the apparition

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wandered further still, leaving Claudia’s fading figure to trail after her.

Cassandra's ghastly frame paused outside the attic door before motioning to enter. How odd, Claudia thought, for she was permanently banned from exploring this entire wing of the manor, let alone the attic. She thought she may combust there and then. She never did like the punishments that followed the sweet sense of freedom. The spirit continued to guide Claudia deeper into the room. Suddenly Claudia couldn’t remember how she got there, in fact she was certain the attic door had always been locked to keep her further caged.

‘What a peculiar dream…’ she mused aloud, for that was the only thing this odd experience could be. Thor let out a roar to split the sky causing such a terrible boom.

Funny, she thought, as she hadn’t remembered it being stormy, she actually couldn’t remember much at all, she couldn’t even remember entering the slumber that seemed to have placed her here.

‘This isn’t a dream.’ Cassandra’s voice was laced with almost boredom as she addressed her, before stating through enlightened lips, ‘The mist is clearing, dear sister.’

Claudia was taken aback at first before questioning, ‘Cassie… Oh Cassandra, is that really you? …Or are you just another falsehood sent to plague my mind?’

‘Falsehood? FALSEHOOD?!’ Cassandra exclaimed, anger seeping from her pores. ‘I am as real as the night from which you were born! And you dare to question my existence when you were the one that put me here!’ That threw Claudia. How was she to blame for the sorry state of this horrid hallucination, however much it may be her sister?

‘How am I to blame for your distorted nature? We may be bound by blood Cassandra, but I did not spill yours.’

Cassandra’s hair began to float in a halo of fire around her crown.

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‘You may not have been the one to spill it, but you are still the reason it fell.’

The audacity. A fragment of Claudia’s own mind dare call her a killer, dare to try and play on those sharp stings of guilt. A cruel trick Satan, but Claudia shall not admit to her sins just yet.

‘Well then possess my flesh and make it your own, take my vocal cords and pull them like puppet strings. You claim I am to blame for your murder? You wish to escape this ghastly enterprise? Then use me to do so.’

If Cassandra wanted vengeance she could take it. The guilt had turned cannibal on Claudia’s brain and had just about had its fill. If she wanted Claudia’s body she could take it. It wasn’t going to be of much use anymore anyway.

‘I do not want your flesh, and even if I did it would still be a mere impossibility.’

‘Why? Because you're as weak in death as you were in life?’

‘You insolent bra-’

‘Your halo is cracking.’

‘And your horns are ever sharp, Claudia.’

Suddenly Cassandra threw herself into her arms, clinging to Claudia with all the might of the scrap of life left within her. Great sobs wrenched themselves from her throat as the great gods clapped above.

‘Oh, how I missed you my dear Claudia, and how I hate you now I’m fuelled by such petty pain. We were twins, a flicker of light dancing around each other in perfect unity.

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The only person to ever see the world for what it truly was, was seeing it with me. But then, when it mattered most, you stopped looking. You chose to stay in comfortable cruelty rather than leave and experience such dangerous joy. Maybe if you would have come with me that night I would have been safe, maybe your husband wouldn’t have caught me. We always knew he was sweet on me, and that he would never have let me leave. Maybe he wouldn’t have been so sweet if you were there, maybe his cruelty would have dissipated in the face of his darling wife. But I doubt it. Instead, he was sweet in all the worst ways. He sent me away from you while caging me here forever, my final sight was his apathetic eyes. Oh, Claudia…’ A gut-wrenching sob ripped from Cassandra’s throat, still cradled in Claudia's arms as she tried to process the new wave of crashing emotion, ready to overwhelm her stunted nerves.

*

Claudia held Cassandra for what felt like an eternity, as wave after sordid wave crashed upon the trembling girl. Finally, Claudia had the courage to whisper, ‘Cassie… why are we here?’

Cassandra gazed at her through glazed opaque opal eyes. Every syllable she said shook, just daring her to break.

‘This is where I… um… this is where he…’ her sentences broke off to be enveloped by more sobs, but the message was clear enough. The attic of Claudia's own home was where Cassandra Hart was murdered. ‘I have you now though.’ Claudia was struck with confusion for as wonderous it was to have her sister back in her arms together again there was a small snag. Her sister was still dead. Of course, she never stopped to consider how she was in fact holding her, but alas, that is a problem for the living.

‘What do you mean?’ Confusion and concern laced Claudia’s brow and voice, art no more, brought down to the standards of mortals.

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‘Well, you’re like me now, silly! The strings of fate have been cut, the weave of time has left you behind, heavens hands yet to come and collect their debt.’

‘You mean to say I’m… I’m.. dead?’

I would like to say Claudia’s heart was beating out of her chest, but I suppose she doesn’t have one anymore. It all came flooding back to her though. The blood in the bathtub to make up for such a failure with the rope. The relief that flooded her lungs at the ease of the crushing weight of expectations. The doll skin left lying there to rot.

‘It's time to go, you know.’ Cassandra wouldn’t let her gaze fall upon her sister, the gouges at the wrist too much to bear. ‘All you have to do is walk through the front gate and into the light.’

‘Why haven’t you left this hellscape then?’

‘I would never leave without you my dear Claudia; we’re bound together forever.’

*

Two translucent forms glided towards the front gate of Westville Hall, halos of golden freedom shining out from every pore. Sunlight inched with trepidation across the dishevelled courtyard towards the exit.

Cassandra eyed Claudia curiously, ‘Are you scared?’ she questioned in an attempt to cover up her own fear.

‘No,’ Claudia answered, peace etching its way into her mind, ‘Death is often viewed as a demon like no other, a beast that appears as if it had crawled its way out of the depths of hell itself. But it saved me. Something that appears so monstrously cruel cannot be for its heart glows gold. It set me free.’

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‘It set us free.’ Cassandra corrected.

The ethereal light was getting closer now, enveloping the field of vision as a sense of tranquillity began to wash over the two.

‘Cassie?’ Claudia sought for one final answer as the divine spread further, ‘Do you think God celebrates the sinners?’

Cassandra smiled with radiating warmth, ‘I think if he didn’t, Heaven would be empty.’

Cassandra’s words were the last to be heard as the peaceful waves of divine light stole away the last fragments of the sisters’ souls, no longer bound for all eternity.

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RING OF ROSES BELLA TILEY YA | SUSPENSE | SPIDERS I try to ignore it, but I can’t.

Noises at night, the typical childish fear. I feel so naive, lying in bed, stiff as a corpse, my insides quaking like a leaf in the wind. Tomorrow, the sun will spill over the horizon in a blaze of golden reassurance and chase the moon across the sky until day is finally here.

Then, I will think back to this moment and despise myself for it.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

My heart jerks violently as the sound comes again, but I shake myself sternly. This noise has bothered me all my life, and every day, it becomes just a fragment louder. Faster.

More urgent. The sound comes from the floorboards beneath, drumming like the rain which lashes incessantly at the window panes. Shadows reach their long fingers into the corners of my room. The melancholy moon casts eerie shapes across the walls, some of which dance and flicker like memories long forgotten. I watch the memories twirl and flutter across my bedroom until they become my own memories. Sleep weighs down my eyelids as soon as the door closes, but not before the tapping sounds mockingly from below.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

*

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Darkness still envelops the town when I leave this morning. All is black besides the dewdrops glistening in the light of the moon. One particularly large spider web is stretched between two majestic oaks, clearly illuminated by the silver glow. Everyone I know is terrified of spiders, particularly the Arachnelle, a lethal one which can leap incredible distances and finish you with one snap of its venom-tipped fangs.

However, this web does not belong to an Arachnelle, so I tentatively stretch out my hand and stroke the length of the web, marvelling as the dewdrops fall like diamond tears.

‘Beautiful,’ I whisper, lost in the simple glory of nature.

Suddenly, a flurry of movement catches my attention on the neighbouring tree. A dark, ominous, eight-legged shape. Emitting a stifled shriek of terror, I stumble backwards, away from the Arachnelle which watches me vigilantly from its forest home. No hair sprouts from its vast, spindly frame, but its legs are long and gangly with miniature spikes running the length of each. Multiple amber eyes flicker eerily from under heavy lids, and its hooked pincers click rhythmically, almost like the tapping under the floorboards.

A sudden surge of fear grips my chest like an oppressive fist clenching around me, sending chills through my blood.

‘Hello, Cleo,’ hisses a dry, raspy voice. I turn swiftly to be met with darkness. Despite how ill the speaker sounds, I can tell that she is female.

‘Hello?’ I call back, nervously, ‘How do you know my name?’

A piercing giggle splits the air like an alarm. ‘You should have guessed by now. I am you, Cleo, and you are me.’

Frowning, I turn to the source of the voice to find... nothing. Again! ‘What do you mean?’

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I inquire nervously, ‘Where are you?’

Something whistles past my left ear, and I leap back as the rock hits a tree instead. ‘Nice reflexes,’ taunts the voice, ‘But that would never have helped you in 1346.’

For a few heartbeats, I am forced to rack my brain for the importance of 1346. I’ve heard that before. But where? Suddenly, it dawns on me, clear as a cloudless sky.

‘The Plague!’ I gasp, catching on to her words, ‘Of course reflexes would not have helped me then. What of it?’

A loud scream reverberates through my skull, and I manage to catch the words: ‘The heartbeat under the floor will give you what you deserve!’

Petrified, I turn and flee back down the path. When I reach the house, I slam the front door behind me. But, as soon as I turn to lock the door, I scream and leap away. An Arachnelle is hunched ominously on the door handle, snapping its pincers aggressively.

I whip around to be met with more enraged clicking and hissing. Amber eyes, boring down on me. Unflinching, unforgiving, unmerciful.

‘Help!’ I screech, sprinting up the stairs and flinging open my bedroom door.

More Arachnelles drag their limbs laboriously across the ground, chattering loquaciously as they near. Desperate, I fling myself into bed and drag the covers up over my head – the underside is coated with them. As I resurface, a tide of eight-legged fiends flows over me. I nearly scream, but then my blood freezes.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

The tapping is almost like a dance this time, pounding into my skull like a hammer to a

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nail. With a jolt, I realise that the tapping matches my heartbeat. Precisely.

‘Hello, Cleo.’

The familiar, grating voice clashes against my eardrums like nails being dragged down a blackboard, and I look sideways. I am greeted only by the dark shadows flitting across my wall. All at once, the spiders disintegrate into piles of ash. The ash then swirls up in a cloud of sorrow, regrouping into a tall, black figure with a pointed mask like a crow’s face.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A weeping family clothed all in black stands around my bed. The man in the black mask shakes his head in sorrow, and I feel a strange, falling sensation. As I hit the floor, all the breath is knocked out of me, and I realise that the floorboards of my bedroom are being closed over me, and a new girl is walking above my cheap grave, pretending not to hear my tapping heartbeat.

She will pay.

Bang!

Suddenly, the girl who has lain dead under my bedroom floor for so long is standing at the foot of my bed. Her snow-white skin clings to her hollow cheeks and sharp chin.

Her eyes are sunken pits of amber flame.

‘Cleo,’ she hisses, nostrils flaring, ‘I died in your bedroom many centuries ago, and was buried here because there was no room in the graveyard. Every night, I have lain here as you go about your everyday life, and you do nothing to answer my tapping. I died here in 1346, and have not left since!’

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The Arachnelles scrabble closer, and I pull my knees up to my chest. ‘I’m sorry.’ I apologise, batting the spiders away, ‘But I have nothing to do with you!’

The girl’s eyes harden, and memories echo on the walls once more; the black-masked doctor diagnosing my death, lying alone in the cold, sinking into the floorboards and knowing that my heart still beats.

‘You are a part of me, Cleo,’ hisses the girl, and suddenly, every hallucination vanishes except her, ‘I passed myself onto you when you moved in. And now I’ve driven you insane.’

My heart feels like a caged bird attempting flight when I see what dangles from her hand, inches above my face. When the Arachnelle sinks it fangs into me, the girl drops me into her grave under my bedroom floor and says: ‘These spiders were made by me.

My name is Arachnelle.’

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BORROWED CRIMSON VIOLET BERRIMAN YA | HORROR | BLOOD I breathed heavily. Or I tried to. Every time I took a breath my lungs became tighter and so did my throat. It was like my whole body was closing in on itself.

I thought this was the end. Sweat clung to the palms of my sun-kissed freckly hands. My strawberry blonde hair swept across my face, obscuring my vision. Before I could pull it back, I dropped to the floor and hit the ground violently but did not feel anything. Like the pain had suddenly numbed. Then not long after, my mind went to. I stopped thinking. I was dead to the world.

When suddenly I woke up. Was I dead? Was this my next life? I stared at my surroundings, wide eyed. I scanned around the room. My eyes were blinded by the amount of white I saw- white beds, white sheets, white walls. What was the cruel sterile environment? And then it struck me. I was in the hospital. I looked around again and it made sense. Busy doctors rushing around and scribbling on clipboards. Sick boys and girls in gowns. My body felt pinned to the metal frame of the bed. It was cold in here and somehow that made the room much bigger and emptier.

I thought back as far as I could, searching desperately for a reason to be here until I was abruptly distracted from my thoughts by a sharp pinching sensation. I scanned my body. My eyes creeped from my fingertips to my elbow where I saw the culprit: A huge white plaster bearing the invasion of the needle and an unfamiliar tube leading to a crimson red bag that hung from a towering metal stand. And then I understood it all. I lay in this hospital bed with my arms and legs outstretched. Where was my blood, where

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did it go?

Someone would die for me, was it important to know who? Would they be willing?

Someone else’s blood: a part of them, containing almost everything about them would become mine. I would not fully be myself. In a way, I would be someone else. This mystery blood does not belong to me and never will, no matter how long they send it rushing through my body. I felt the bitter coldness of the strange new blood inside me, slowly replacing the comfort of the warm blood that was mine. I was so scared that I was shaking. I felt stupid for that, blood transfusions happen every day, everywhere.

Routine, lifesaving, simple, or so I had heard.

That night I had a deep sleep, a good one. When I woke up, still half asleep, it was all over. Or so I thought. I felt different. A strange sensation flooded my every bone that made me twitch and shiver. I had new blood, and I felt it in the rivers of my veins.

‘But who from?’ I cried at a passing nurse.

She did not answer but instead stared at me blankly. I was mid thought and did not realise what I was doing. She walked away and soon after I felt like I was the only person in the room. Before long, it was dark again, as if the entire day had been wasted away. I was tossing and turning for what felt like the whole night. My heavy eyes wanted to close desperately but my strange feelings would not let them.

I tried continuously to fall asleep into the dream world but before I could get anywhere near, I let out a scream of agony. Fighting with pain, I wondered if I’d ever win. My whole mouth throbbed as I frantically rolled around on the rock-solid mattress that I lay on. I could not take it anymore. I didn’t even know how I felt and where: it seemed as if all the pain in my body had combined and entangled. I turned to a glass window beside me and as I saw my reflection the entire world stopped.

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The pain, the thoughts, the feelings, and the thinking, all gone.

I stared into the cloudy reflection. I was scared but I could not stop looking. Was it me staring back? I saw a pale frightened girl with hair as black as the night. She looked haggard and gaunt, something I’d never seen before. I tentatively opened my aching mouth and felt my ice-cold lips. And then I saw it. Two tapering fangs hanging from either side of my mouth. I gasped.

That was the moment I realised who my blood donor was.

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SAUL’S PROMISE SOPHIA MACNAMARA MG | SUPERNATURAL | GRUDGE Hazel gazed around her mother’s old room, desperately searching for some source of comfort among the thick curtains and dusty mirrors. The air felt suffocating, like a fog of gloom, so she wandered over to the window. Fresh morning air streamed in, and she let out a deep sigh of relief. The gentle aroma of roses had been all that kept her from forgetting her mother altogether. It had been so strange - the woman had been colourful and bursting with life, but then she just started… to fade away. A lonely tear welled in Hazel’s deep brown eyes, but she wiped it away in an instant, determined to stay strong.

Suddenly, the room around her went cold, causing her to shudder. The stench of rot crept up her nose, and a sense of unease gathered in her stomach.

‘I’m so sorry for your loss. It must be so hard, losing someone you love,’ A deep, gruff voice hummed through the room.

Hazel searched her brain for some sort of reply, but needn’t have bothered. The bedroom returned to silence once more, and the cloud of cold dispersed.

*

Over the next few weeks, Hazel struggled with both her grieving mother and mulling over the strange encounter. Eventually, she dismissed the thought as a hallucination, as

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life started to turn back to normal. Sympathy letters from neighbours and friends were becoming less frequent, and her father had started returning to work again. But nothing could lessen the constant torture of those hours spent alone every day. Once home from school, Hazel had to face two whole hours of loneliness and grief before her father returned. All the memories of her mother would come flooding back and there was nothing to stop her sinking into a deep state of misery.

But not today.

Hazel was sobbing on the kitchen table, when she heard a faint whistling sound. Every now and again, the whistler would pause as if trying to remember the lyrics, then grunt in frustration. The noise grew louder and closer, and the hairs at the back of her neck rose. She momentarily stopped crying, paralysed by a natural fear she couldn’t explain.

‘Why are you crying, little girl? I expected you to be stronger. Grief dissolves over time.’

The whistling had stopped and she shrieked in shock at the sight before her.

There was a… ghost? It was tall, with a thin head and pale, cold eyes. Wrapped around the see-through body were baggy, tattered garments. It arranged its face in what it obviously assumed was a comforting smile, but made Hazel fall backwards in fright at its decaying teeth and black lips.

‘Don’t be scared! Saul is here to help!’ He studied her intensely, although she noticed that he avoided looking her in her eyes. After a few minutes of eerie silence, he smirked again, but this time with satisfaction.

Suddenly, the lock of the front door rattled. The creepy man gave a wink and disappeared, this time leaving behind a tang of rot.

Hazel was left staring gormlessly at a blank wall.

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*

Saul’s visits became more frequent and lengthy, often occurring when she felt the most vulnerable. Hazel began to feel a bit less afraid when around the ghost, but nothing could stop the creeping sense of unease she felt around his presence.

A year passed, and eventually she built up the confidence to ask Saul about his past. His face had twisted into a grim line, making Hazel nervously think that she had said the wrong thing, but he let out a raspy cough, as he usually did before a long speech.

‘My past? You are certain?’ He did not wait for her to reply, continuing after a split second. ‘Let’s start from the very beginning…

I had a… dirty profession. No details needed.

Well. There was this pretty woman, see? She seemed so… angelic. I stole a few kisses with her, but eventually her father found out. He was a cruel man - one of those toffs who think they’re above everyone and everything.

I thought it would be the end of me, but he made a promise; do his dirty work for him and I would have the girl. Being young and foolish, I agreed. Got the work done. Turned up at the manor in all my bloody glory. Expecting what we had agreed.’

He let out a series of coughs, spluttering profusely. Hazel’s eyes widened in alarm, and started to back out of the room, but Saul immediately jolted forwards, stopping Hazel in her tracks.

‘Don’t try to run away. Remember, Saul is here to help!’ he repeated, ‘I’ll finish the story another time. Stay safe.’

He was gone again.

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Hazel wrinkled her nose in disgust. Every time he left the stink of decay and rot lingered for longer than before. It was like his presence was getting stronger. Waving away her uncomfortable thoughts, she picked up a book, feeling a longing to leave her current position and be somewhere else.

*

Hazel gazed around the attic and sighed. The time had come for her to clean out the mouldy boxes and creaky floorboards.

Brushing aside cobwebs, her hands hovered over an especially big wooden chest. That was strange… she swore that she had never seen this box before. Hazel went to open it, but stopped herself. What if this was private? After a moment’s consideration, she decided that since everyone on her father’s side of the family was dead, and her mother’s side didn’t visit anymore, it wouldn’t hurt to take a peek.

She frowned. Something was preventing the container from opening. Sliding her fingers down the smooth chest, she connected with a thick page. It easily slipped into her grasp.

Overcome by curiosity, Hazel slowly flicked through the book.

Glossy pictures of family members, going as far back as black and white photos, smiled up at her. As she turned through the newer pages, familiar faces appeared. She could see her grandma and grandpa, her aunts, her mother and father! The last picture was of her as a baby, with a scrawly handwriting written over it.

At closer inspection, Hazel realised that it was her mother’s handwriting - the weird messy one she had used just before her death. Squinting in the dark attic, she attempted to make out the words.

‘May she be the exception.’

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She gawped in confusion. What on earth did that mean?

Suddenly, the truth dawned on her. Every female member in her family had died.

Whether it be caused by stress, suicide, or simply wasting away like her mother, they were all dead. But why? And what made her different?

Mind-warped in bewilderment and terror, she stumbled down the attic ladder, urgently needing to get fresh air. However, the air was anything but fresh.

It stank, and a faint whistling sound could be heard from the distance. Hazel groaned.

Saul was the last person she wanted to see - she was not prepared for any more of the worry that piled up whenever he was around. In an attempt to avoid him, she curled up in the boiler cupboard, hoping that the noisy pipes would smother the sound of breathing.

‘Hazel… where are you? You aren’t hiding from me, are you?’ she could hear him next to her bedroom, crooning softly. ‘Hazel! Come out of hiding! Come on… I’ve got the rest of my story to tell you.’ His tone was getting colder, with a hint of danger at its core.

Hazel’s heart beat with the speed of a hummingbird, and chills ran down her spine.

‘Hide and seek? Okay then. I’m coming to find you. You can run but you can’t hide!’ he said. His voice was getting louder and angrier, although she could sense he was trying to mask it with playfulness.

She felt the cupboard go cold as he silently floated past her, to the attic. He stayed there for quite a while. When he emerged, his mask was lost and pure spite seethed from his tongue. ‘So you know? You saw the picture?’

Through a hole in the cupboard door, Hazel could glimpse the ghost. He had removed

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his baggy coat, and pultruding from his chest was a dagger. Even worse were his hands.

They were stained a deep crimson, and caused blood to drip down his arms, onto a crumpled page. Hazel gagged, then gasped as she realised the paper in his hand was the baby photo of her.

‘Well, seeing as you’re going to die soon, I might as well tell the full story. Saul is here to help, after all…’ She could sense his malicious grin, even though there was a thin door between them.

‘My ‘dirty business’ was assassination. I swore I would do anything for the lord’s daughter, and he held me to that. Killed a few men. Easy. Went to the manor for my reward. He led me to his daughter’s chamber. I thought that she would kiss me, or something along those lines. She did the opposite.’ His voice softened in grief as he continued, ‘she clutched me and whispered ‘Did you really think it would be that easy?’

Then she thrust this through my chest.’ He gestured to the dagger, ‘In my last dying moments, I swore that I would kill off every last one of her ancestors.’ He cleared his throat and whispered to me. ‘I’ve waited long enough for you.’

His ghostly body started to filter through the crack. Hazel looked around for an exit in horror. She hadn’t known he could get through gaps! All too soon, he was directly beside her. Wrapping her in an icy embrace, he began to squeeze with all his supernatural strength. Hazel writhed, attempting to escape, but he was holding her too tightly. She gasped for air, limbs failing. His eyes met hers for the final blow.

CRASH!

Hazel collapsed on the floor, panting. Saul was staring down at her in astonishment and distress.

‘You have her eyes…’ his eyelashes fluttered as he floated towards the ground and

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receded into the fiery depths below.

The dots connected in Hazel’s mind. It was her eyes! That’s what made her different from everyone else in the family. It was her eyes. She was the only one with brown eyes, just like her namesake. She gazed doubtfully down at the floor. Was Saul really gone?

Hazel would never know the answer to that question. But her mind would always be at peace, knowing that he would never bother her family ever again.

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AUTHOR & ARTIST BIOS TING LOH-TRERISE Cover Artist - Threads Ting Loh-Trerise is a Cornwall-based illustrator who’s ironically terrified of everything except drawing her own horror. Fuelled by an unhealthy diet of escapism and an overactive imagination, she turns her jumpy nature into dark, fantastical art. Her goal is to weaponize her nightmares by turning them into illustrations. For business enquiries, email: tinglohtreriseart@gmail.com.

ALBA SARRIA Allow Me to Introduce You... to You Alba Sarria is a poet & flash fictionist fascinated by all things eerie and disquieting entangled in folklore. You can usually find Alba wandering old cemeteries at night keeping flower-less graves company. Alba is the 2018 CSPA Gold Circle Free Form Poetry recipient, the 2021 CSPA Gold Circle Short Fiction CM, the 2021 William Heath Award recipient, and a 2024 GBF Featured Author. To contact Alba, fog your bathroom mirror at 4:13am and write their name backwards in blood. All inquiries & gossip will be replied to through cryptic temperature changes and light flickering. Or, you can find her on Instagram @albasarriawrites.

SOPHIA ADAMOWICZ The Basket of Fruit I Leave On Your Doorstep Sophia Adamowicz is a tutor and writer who lives in Suffolk, UK, with her partner and cats. Her work has appeared in CUNNING FOLK, CROW & CROSS KEYS and HAVEN SPECULATIVE among other publications. She also delivers workshops across East Anglia through Artemis Writers and plays the guitar for fun. You can find her on Twitter/X @SophiaA_writes, on Instagram @sophia_adamowicz, or on BlueSky @sophia-adamowicz.bsky.social.

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KIRA MAY Immortal Kira May (she/her) is a Cornish aspiring poet who enjoys exploring nature, everyday life, and wider philosophical themes within her work. Poetry and the arts are spaces that Kira feels passionately should be inclusive and accessible for every voice. Just as her poetry is a site for her own exploration of self, politics, and the ties that bind us all, Kira believes that this important form of expression and exposure should be diverse and barrierless.

You can find her on Instagram @km_bookss.

BRIANA MICHELLE MEYER Evangeline Below Briana Michelle Meyer is a 32-year-old who spends her days selling books at a bookstore and her nights writing stories. Previously, she spent 6 years as a Native English Teacher in South Korea. When not writing or working, Briana enjoys reading in coffee shops, researching history, and studying the works of Sally Rooney, Nora Ephron, and Greta Gerwig.

YUU IKEDA untitled Yuu Ikeda (she/they) is a Japan-based poet and writer. She loves mystery novels, western art, sugary coffee, and the Japanese animation “呪術廻戦 (Jujutsu Kaisen)” and “ブルーロック (Blue Lock)”. She writes poetry on her website https://poetryandcoffeedays.wordpress.com/. She is the author of poetry collections Seasons Echoing Around Me, Phantasmal Flowers in the Eden Where Only I Know, A ChainSmoker at Midnight, and more. You can find her on Twitter/X and Instagram @yuunnnn77.

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BEN SHERMAN The Dutiful Descent Ben Sherman is a self-published author interested in writing small scale, character driven fantasy stories that look at how characters in high magic worlds live their lives. He is also a fan of xenofiction, and often likes mixing more non-human creatures and PoVs into his work.

PRECIOUS CHIDERA HARRISON Incantation Precious Chidera Harrison is a poet and artist born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He was shortlisted for the 2024 edition of the Chukwuemeka Akachi Prize for Literature. He was an honorable mention in the inaugural Rhonda Gail Williford Prize, 2023. He has works published or forthcoming in BLEATING THING MAGAZINE, THE MUSE: A JOURNAL OF CREATIVE WRITING, EUNOIA REVIEW, BRITTLE PAPER, FERAL JOURNAL, IHRAM PUBLISHES, SWIM PRESS, and SPRINNG.

MK TRAHAN Sacred Sacrifice MK Trahan, also known as Miasmatik, is a queer horror illustrator focused on making art that intersects the creepy, comedic, and cathartic. Inspired by vibrant colors and the naturally macabre, they work in a variety of media spanning digital art, traditional ink, and handmade comics and zines.

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YVONNE W my sweet serpentine Yvonne W is a writer and poet. Her work explores themes of identity and community.

Drawing inspiration from personal experiences and cultural narratives, she seeks to amplify marginalized voices and challenge oppressive structures. Her work has been published in UNSTAMATIC MAGAZINE, THE KALAHARI REVIEW, WOMEN’S MEDIA CENTRE, and more. You can find her on Twitter/X @yvonnewabai.

C SARAH STRAFFORD Every Show, Every Day C Sarah Strafford is a New Jersey based writer and book publishing professional. She’s currently working on a novel inspired by monsters, emo bands, and toxic relationships.

Most weekends you can find her at a concert or comedy club. Weekdays, she’s usually trapped under a pile of books until her failed service dog saves her and demands a walk as compensation. You can find her on Instagram @straffywrites.

JENNIFER CHOI Evidence Jennifer Choi is a passionate high school student. Her work has previously been published or is forthcoming in ALTERED REALITY MAGAZINE, ACADEMIC OF HEART AND MIND, and CULTERATE MAGAZINE, among others. You can find her on Instagram @jenn_iferchoi.

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PHOEBE BUSH Briar & Ivy Phoebe is a writer from Essex, who graduated from the Warwick Writing MA and now works as an Administration Assistant. She has been published by MIRK MAGAZINE and CROW & CROSSKEYS, but hopes to turn writing into a career, if she is not too busy getting lost in books or her local forest. You can also find her book blog on Instagram: @the_bees_books.

MARISCA PICHETTE Recipe (Remastered) Marisca Pichette is a queer author based in Massachusetts, on Pocumtuck and Abenaki land. Her work has appeared in STRANGE HORIZONS, CLARKESWORLD, VASTARIEN, FANTASY MAGAZINE, NIGHTMARE MAGAZINE, and others. Her poetry collection, Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker and Elgin Awards. Her first novella, Every Dark Cloud, is forthcoming in March 2025 from GHOST ORCHID PRESS. You can find her on Instagram @marisca_write, on Twitter/X @MariscaPichette, or on BlueSky @marisca.bsky.social.

ALLISON HILLIER Anything Allison lives in Montreal and spends her time drinking iced coffee, reading too many books and is always looking for a new world to fall into. You can find her on Instagram @allisonwritesstories.

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JAWN VAN JACOBS witch bottle Jawn Van Jacobs is a spitfire South Jersey poet who holds back nothing in the name of poetry. His work has appeared in COOL BEANS LIT, MOONDAY MAGAZINE, and PAPER DRAGON. Jawn’s poetry explores the raw and untamed narratives of outlaws and mystics, shedding light on the lives of those living on the fringes of society. His writing is steeped in magic and myth, blending the natural world with a sense of otherworldly wonder. Follow him on IG @jawnvanjacobs.

PRISCILLA KINT This is Mercy Priscilla Kint (she/her) is a Dutch author of short stories and Young Adult fiction. She completed the MA Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and has had work published

by LUNA STATION QUARTERLY, SLEY HOUSE, BAG OF BONES PRESS, and INKLING OF THUNDER. Most recently, her work was part of the LGBTQIA+ charity anthology Not/Coming Out. Her stories usually include headstrong teenagers and a hint of magic.

She also dabbles in spoken word poetry. In her spare time, she likes to cuddle with her dog Balou and pretend she can play the piano. You can find her on Instagram: @priscilla.kint.

PHOEBE ROBINSON Not My Blood Phoebe Robinson is a young aspiring writer with a passion for Gothic fiction and poetry.

They’ve made their mark in the literary world with contributions to three published books: Fright Club, Annual Showcase, and The Beautiful Truth, all part of THE YOUNG WRITERS competitions and publication opportunities. Currently, they’re working on an exciting new project titled An Anthology of Shadows and Stars. With a flair for the dark and mysterious, Phoebe would love readers to explore their unique storytelling in this publication and others.

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ROSIE KERSLEY WILLIAMSON The Lingering Consequence of Death Rosie Kersley Williamson first entered the world of creative writing at a young age, and has since become a confident explorer of various creative outlets. Whenever she’s not curled up with a good book, Rosie often combines her many passions, turning her experiences into stories and artwork. She often receives a helping paw from her feline collaborator, Mabel. Rosie’s heartfelt poetry has been published in both the 2022 and 2023 LIVE CANON CHILDREN’S ANTHOLOGIES.

BELLA WESTBROOK In the Mist Bella Westbrook is an autistic 15-year-old writer who lives on the wild north of Cornwall. She is an introvert who enjoys writing and philosophy and aims to include philosophical concepts and arguments into her work. In this piece Bella writes with a morbid curiosity for the darker and hauntingly melancholic in life. You can contact her through her email, bellawestbrook68@gmail.com.

BELLA TILEY Ring of Roses Bella Tiley is a 13-year-old writer. She has wanted to be an author from a very young age, and has always been inspired by nature, animals, and the weather. She has three cats, who are the stars in most of her short stories and has recently taken an interest in Gothic Fiction and Classics. She lives in Cornwall with her parents and identical twin sister. Her other interests include cross-country running, piano, guitar and hamsters.

Her favourite books are Warrior Cats, The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Serafina.

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VIOLET BERRIMAN Borrowed Crimson Violet Berriman is an 11-year-old budding writer from the beautiful North Coast of Cornwall. She has loved writing creative short stories from a very young age. Recently, Violet was selected for a mentorship with THE WRITERS BLOCK within Cornwall and is very excited to enter the world of publication. When Violet isn’t writing, she is rehearsing with her local amateur dramatics theatre company, performing in shows within Cornwall.

SOPHIA MACNAMARA Saul’s Promise Sophia MacNamara (12) lives in rural Cornwall, and takes inspiration from the nature around her. She is passionate about spreading magical experiences and making her readers feel strong emotions, through genres like fantasy, horror, and adventure. While balancing writing with schoolwork, Sophia’s favourite time to write is late at night, and she prefers to do so while wrapped up in lots of blankets! If you would like to see some more of her work, visit @sophiawrites on YouTube.

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K Y N O A U H T

www.hauntedwordspress.com