Issue Ten: Rooted

ISSUE TEN

SPRING 2025

ROOTED

HAUNTED WORDS PRESS

Haunted Words Press Issue Ten: Rooted

Published digitally May 2025

Edited by Halle Merrick

Cover artwork by Lucas Hill: Rooted

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

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

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

CONTENTS 4

Introduction Middle Grade It Stares Back Daniel Gene Barlekamp

MG | HORROR | HOME

Looking Glass

5

MG | SPECULATIVE | TRANSFORMATION 24

Mikala Smee

Wishing Well Charlotte Razzino

MG | CONTEMPORARY | SIBLINGS

26

MG | SPECULATIVE | BELIEF

40

YA | HORROR | GARDEN

48

YA | THRILLER | REGRET

51

YA | HORROR | NIGHTMARE

53

Inheritance Barrett Festen

Young Adult Dig Deep Katrina Lemaire

The Boy with the Blackened Heart Laila Papas

Seven Minutes in Hell Arabella Jain

1

I’m Here Remi Beach

The Quagmire Jasmina Kuenzli

A Weed’s Farewell Lizzie Elliot-Klein

Us Yuu Ikeda

Definitely No Flowers Andrea Green

Empty Nest Gabriel Elvery

April’s Haunting Lullaby Avilasha Bhowmik

Purpose of a Seed Zoe Davis

Flourishing Jemima Bishop

YA | HORROR | FAMILY

54

YA | FANTASY | GRIEF

57

YA | LITERARY | BELONGING

74

YA | CONTEMPORARY | IDENTITY

76

YA | HORROR | DEATH

77

YA | UNCANNY | MILLENIAL

80

YA | EXISTENTIAL | FICTION

92

YA | LITERARY | SACRIFICE

95

YA | SPECULATIVE | DEATH

96

99

Author & Artist Bios

2

INTRODUCTION As with each and every Haunted Words issue, collection, or anthology, I’d like to start with a thank you. Thank you, for reading the wonderful work within these pages. Thank you for submitting the wonderful work within these pages. Thank you for being your fantastic, spooky selves and following a strange little lit mag at the edge of the void - we wouldn’t exist if you didn’t, and we’re really quite happy that we exist. And if this is your first time reading a Haunted Words issue: welcome. We hope you like it here.

Issue Ten: Rooted is a collection of work from sixteen incredibly talented international contributors who made the very lovely (correct) decision to home their work with us, and we are filled with joy every time they do. There’s short stories, flash fiction, and poetry, all brought together for the theme ‘rooted’ for middle grade and young adult readers. We’ve got siblings and sacrifices, deaths and regrets, revelations and contemplations and so much more.

We’re beyond thrilled that we get to share the fantastic work here with you, and we can’t wait for you to devour it just like we did when they submitted it to us. So, without further ado, welcome to Issue Ten: Rooted.

- Halle Merrick, Editor in Chief

4

IT STARES BACK DANIEL GENE BARLEKAMP MG | HORROR | HOME

‘Would you like to see the basement?’ the real-estate agent asked.

Without waiting for an answer, he grabbed the doorknob and tugged. The door didn’t budge.

‘The door sticks,’ he said, acting like he’d expected it. ‘It’s this humidity we’ve been having.’

He yanked the handle, and the door popped open, rattling against its hinges. Maggie could only see the first four or five wooden steps before the rest descended into darkness.

‘Make sure you leave it open behind you, especially when there’s no one else home,’ the agent said. ‘There’s no other way out of the basement.’

‘There’s no bulkhead?’ Maggie’s dad asked.

‘Nope,’ the agent said. ‘There’s a shed out back for your lawnmower and other gardening equipment.’ He pulled a string that illuminated a single bare bulb. ‘Ladies first,’ he said, gesturing for Maggie and her sister, Toni, to go ahead of him.

‘I like it,’ Toni said, dragging her long black fingernails along the rough concrete walls as she took the lead. ‘It’s perfectly creepy.’

5

With her dyed-green hair and heavy eyeshadow, Toni was obsessed with all things horror. She watched horror movies, read horror novels, and listened to bands with names like the Dearly Departed and the Coffin Rats. In picking out their first house as a family, there was one thing, and one thing only, that mattered to Toni: the spookiness factor. So far, this house had plenty of it.

Maggie felt the stairs creak beneath her feet. The basement was damp and unfinished, with an uneven floor, some old shelves nailed haphazardly to the walls, and heavy beams running the length of the ceiling. They stood in the center of a large square room —all of them, that is, except Toni, who clapped her hands and skipped gleefully across the floor to inspect an ancient wine press that sat in one corner. It seemed to grow out of the floor like a giant screw, rusty and caked in cobwebs.

‘How cool is that?’ she cried. ‘It looks like a medieval torture device!’

Maggie’s dad cleared his throat. ‘Where are the washer and dryer hookups?’ he asked, hoping to draw attention away from Toni and her morbid curiosity.

‘I’ll show you,’ the agent said. ‘They’re easy to get to. There are a couple smaller rooms back there, too,’ he added with a jerk of his thumb.

‘Sweetie,’ Maggie’s dad said, ‘check out those rooms and let me know if you see any moisture. I want to make sure we won’t get water down here.’

Maggie had no doubt that her dad was talking to her. He knew better than to trust Toni with anything practical. She took a few steps toward a narrow doorway in the other corner of the main room.

‘Make sure you turn on the light when you get in there, Maggie,’ Toni called after her.

‘This is a great place for ghosts.’

6

Maggie’s cheeks burned as she walked away. A lot of things scared her, and Toni loved to take advantage of it. Maggie acted like it didn’t bother her, but it was embarrassing.

As she felt around in the dark for a string that would turn on the light, she imagined herself upstairs in one of the cozy, well-lit bedrooms, unpacking her books.

The back room was smaller than the first but otherwise similar: more crumbling concrete and dusty shelves. The walls were dry as a bone. At the far end of the room, Maggie spotted a closed wooden door covered in thick, white paint lurking in the shadows. She knew she should open it to keep checking for water, but she hesitated.

‘Maggie found a secret room!’

Maggie jumped at the sound of Toni’s voice behind her.

‘Oh, yeah, that’s the smallest space in the basement,’ the agent said, joining them. ‘It’s kind of a bonus room.’

He elbowed past Maggie and opened the door. It groaned against the floor as if it was too big for its frame. Behind it waited a room with no light of its own. Toni thought the house just kept getting better, but Maggie didn’t think this room looked like much of a bonus. Without stepping in, she could make out some kind of bench, or bed, carved out of concrete. It had four iron anchors, one in each corner, through which someone could run a heavy-duty chain. The room looked like a jail cell.

“Definitely one of those odd old-house things,” the agent said. “One of the previous owners probably locked up their dog down here or something. Look.”

He kicked the inside of the door. The white paint on the lower half was shredded, as though an animal had torn at it with its claws.

‘Love it,’ Toni sang. Then she pointed to a square opening low on the far wall, near the

7

floor. ‘What’s that cubby-hole thing?’

‘Looks like a laundry chute,’ the agent said. ‘Maybe the water line ran in here back in the day. The opening on the second floor has a grate over it for safety.’

‘It’ll be the only way out if anyone ever gets trapped in here,’ Toni mused, nudging Maggie in the ribs. ‘Right, Maggie?’

‘No one’s getting trapped in here,’ their dad said, putting an arm around each of his daughter’s shoulders and ushering them out of the room. ‘Can we get back to the rest of the house now? You know, the part we’re actually going to live in?’

*

A little more than a month later, Maggie sat in her new bedroom unpacking books by lamplight, just as she had imagined. It was their first night in the new house. The place was old and kind of small, but Maggie didn’t mind. It had character, and it was in the same school district as their apartment, which meant she and Toni didn’t have to change schools partway through the year. She hadn’t stepped foot in the basement since move-in day, and she’d almost forgotten about the lonely room all the way at the back.

As Maggie alphabetized books on the shelf, she heard a scratching sound, followed by the jangle of metal. She paused and went to listen at the open window. Nothing. She went back to organizing, but a few minutes later she heard the sound again. It wasn’t coming from outside.

It was coming through the grate next to her bed.

‘Dad!’ Maggie called.

‘What is it, Sweetie?’ her dad asked, coming into the room.

8

‘I thought I heard...I don’t know, weird noises,’ Maggie said.

‘Weird noises?’ Toni said, appearing in the doorway. ‘That’s my jam.’

‘Weird how?’ their dad asked.

‘Like...like scratching, and someone jangling metal.’

‘It sounds like someone’s got their dog chained up in their yard,’ their dad said.

‘But it wasn’t coming from outside,’ Maggie said. ‘I checked.’

‘Where was it coming from?’

‘The vent.’

‘You’re both right,’ Toni said. ‘It’s the ghost of the dog the people who used to live here kept locked in the basement.’

Maggie shivered, remembering the room.

‘Come on,’ their dad said. ‘The Sitkoffs next door have a dog. They put it out at night.’

Toni couldn’t contain herself. ‘Yeah, but you forgot to tell Maggie that’s not a vent next to her bed,’ she said, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet.

Their dad shot Toni a warning glance.

‘What do you mean?’ Maggie asked.

‘It’s an opening to the cubby thing. The laundry chute,’ Toni explained. ‘I checked. It

9

runs straight from your room all the way down to the basement. You know, the cell.’

‘What were you doing in my room?’ Maggie demanded.

‘That’s enough, both of you,’ their dad said, raising his voice.

Maggie looked down at the book in her hands. Toni turned away, grinning. She knew the seed had been planted. Maggie wouldn’t sleep at all that night.

Their dad caught Toni by the arm when she was most of the way back to her own room, forcing her to face him.

‘Toni,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘You know what.’

Toni didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. She knew what was coming next. Their dad was going to defend Maggie as though she was his only daughter and Toni was some kind of villain.

‘We haven’t even been in the house for twenty-four hours,’ he began.

‘So?’ Tori said, twirling her hair and examining the dented boards of the hardwood floor.

‘We’re all trying to start over. I don’t want Maggie to develop negative associations before she has a chance to settle.’

‘What about me?’ Tori asked. ‘This is how I settle, by finding the spooky stuff.’

10

‘That’s fine, but you don’t need to drag your sister into it. She’s been having a tough time without mom.’

Toni wondered whether their dad thought she was having an easy time, but she let it pass.

‘She needs to lighten up,’ Toni said.

‘I said knock it off.’

Without another word, her dad went back downstairs to finish the dishes.

As she returned to her room and the movie she’d been watching on her laptop— tonight’s feature was the classic Mortuary Massacre—Toni gave herself a point. She must’ve gotten Maggie good this time.

Sure enough, Maggie couldn’t sleep that night, though she tried to push Toni’s stupid stories from her mind. Even before their mom left, Maggie had always had trouble relaxing in a new environment. She told herself that, by the following weekend, she’d be sleeping fine. Until then, she just needed to ride out the unease. She lay on her side, watching the shadows of the oak leaves outside her window dance on the wall in the glow of the streetlight. That was when she heard it again: the frantic scratching, punctuated by the metallic rattling. It rang out from the duct by the head of her bed, like she had a tinny old speaker on her nightstand.

Maggie gripped her sheets and listened, hoping the sound would stop. It didn’t.

‘Dad!’ she cried.

‘What is it? What’s wrong?’ Her dad stumbled into the room, still half-asleep himself.

11

‘It’s there again. The noise.’

They both listened.

‘I don’t hear anything,’ her dad said.

‘It was there,’ Maggie said.

‘I believe you heard something,’ her dad said, ‘but…’

‘But what?’

‘This is an old house. Old houses make noises. It’s not a solid block of brick like our apartment building.’

‘This wasn’t just any noise. It sounded like…’

‘Like what?’

‘Chains,’ Maggie finished, finally allowing herself to say the word.

Her dad hesitated a beat before answering.

‘There aren’t any chains in the house. Not that I know of, anyway.’

Maggie’s eye flicked toward the door and Toni’s room across the hall. Her dad noticed.

‘Toni’s asleep. She’s not sneaking around the basement, scaring you.’

‘How do you know?’

12

‘I would have heard her go past my room. You know these floors creak.’

Maggie had her doubts.

‘Will you look anyway?’

‘Where?’

‘In the laundry chute.’

‘The laundry chute? What do you think I’m going to—’

Maggie’s dad caught himself. It was useless to argue. He popped off the metal grate and shone his phone’s flashlight down the chute.

‘Nothing there,’ he said. ‘Just an empty shaft. And a dusty one, at that.’

‘Can you see the bottom?’ Maggie asked.

‘Yep. Nadda.’

He switched off the flashlight and replaced the grate.

‘Listen, Sweetie,’ he said, smoothing Maggie’s hair. ‘This wasn’t a big move, but it’s still an adjustment. For all of us. Just try to relax, OK?’

‘But Toni—’

‘I had a talk with her earlier,’ her dad said, pinching the bridge of his nose. He was tired, and not just from being awoken in the middle of the night. ‘I told her to stop teasing you. I know you don’t like it.’

13

Maggie thought that was putting it lightly. Her dad stood to go, then paused in the doorway.

‘I promise, Sweetie, darkness is just darkness, whether it’s coming from a laundry chute, a basement, or anywhere else. When you stare into it, nothing stares back at you.

So you might as well not even give it the time of day.’

He shut the door after him and went back to his own room.

Maggie lay awake the rest of the night, thinking about what her dad had said. She didn’t hear the scratching or the jangling anymore. Maybe darkness was just darkness. The hiss of the wind through the leaves kept her company as the glow of the streetlight on her wall faded in the early morning sun.

*

‘...biped,

like

us...similar,

but

not

identical,

skeletal

system...opposable

thumbs...humanoid, you might say. Margaret, can I get you anything? A blanket, maybe a glass of warm milk?’

Maggie jolted upright at the sound of her full name and looked around. The lab’s fluorescent lights felt too bright against her eyes.

‘What?’ she croaked.

Most of her classmates guffawed. Others looked down at their desks, embarrassed for her.

‘It seems our lesson on primates put you to sleep,’ Ms. Gillers, her science teacher, said.

‘I’m sorry you find it boring.’

14

‘N-no,’ Maggie stammered. ‘I’m sorry.’

A weak apology was all she could manage. She had known she was about to nod off minutes before it happened, but she had been powerless to do anything about it. Maggie normally needed lots of sleep to feel her best, and the night before had been anything but restful. Then Ms. Gillers had dimmed the lights and opened a PowerPoint presentation on the morphology of primates, and that was all it had taken. Now the lights were back on, and Maggie was in trouble.

‘Well, wake up,’ Ms. Gillers said. ‘I’ll be calling home about this.’

Maggie’s friends Henry and Kasy weren’t in her science class, but the story had traveled quickly.

‘Wow, you still look half asleep,’ Henry said. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Nothing,’ Maggie grumbled. ‘Just haven’t been sleeping well.’

They ambled down the sidewalk on their usual route home from school. Maggie didn’t feel much like talking, but Henry didn’t know how to do much else.

‘How’s life in the new house?’ he asked.

‘Pretty much the same as life in the apartment,’ Maggie said, her gaze fixed on her sneakers.

‘You don’t sound too excited about it,’ Henry said.

‘Why should I be?’ Maggie snapped.

Henry flinched. Maggie tried to backpedal.

15

‘It’s fine. I mean, I like my room. But Toni keeps going around trying to scare me, saying the place it’s haunted.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Kasy asked.

‘How would I know?’ Maggie asked.

‘Do you believe in that stuff?’ Henry asked.

‘No. I mean, not really.’

‘I bet you’d find out if you went in the basement,’ Kasy said. ‘Have you been down there?’

‘Once,’ Maggie said.

‘What’s it like?’

‘It’s just a bunch of concrete rooms. One of them is really small and has this kind of bench or shelf thing. The guy who showed us the house said it used to be a washroom or something.’

‘That must be where they kept him,’ Kasy said with an air of mystery.

‘Who?’ Maggie asked, regretting the question as soon as it left her mouth.

‘Come on, Kasy, don’t be mean,’ Henry said.

‘I’m not being mean,’ Kasy said. ‘I’m just trying to educate Maggie about her own house.’

Maggie’s stomach tightened. She didn’t want to be educated. Even so, she recalled the

16

scratching and jangling noises echoing up the laundry chute. She had to know.

‘Tell me.’

‘So, it’s an old house, right?’ Kasy said, perking up. ‘They say the people who built that house had a son. At least they think it was a son. Something wasn’t right about him. He had this huge head and teeth like razors. Oh, and long, skinny arms, and big hands...with claws.’

Kasy raised both hands into the air, fingers hooked. Maggie thought of the scratch marks inside of the pantry door and shivered.

‘Every town has stupid stories like that,’ Henry said.

‘Yeah, but there’s more,’ Kasy said. ‘The family’s long gone, but if you go in that basement room alone, the spirit of that thing possesses you, and you become like him.

Like it.’

Maggie thought about how Toni had fallen in love with the basement during their tour.

She swallowed hard.

‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ Henry said.

‘I’m not saying it’s true,’ Kasy said. ‘It’s just what I’ve heard.’

They arrived at Maggie’s front steps. The house had felt small that morning, but now it loomed over her, blocking out the sun.

‘See you tomorrow, Maggie,’ Henry said with a wave. ‘Get some sleep.’

‘Yeah, sleep tight,’ Kasy called, grinning.

17

Maggie envied them, trucking down the sidewalk to their safe homes, homes without mysterious rooms, disembodied scratching sounds, and stories of monsters. Homes without sisters sneaking around, trying to scare them. A spark of anger flared in her chest as she ascended the porch. Why couldn’t everyone leave her alone? Why did Toni and Kasy get their kicks from picking on her? Why did she have to move to the one potentially haunted house in town?

‘How was school, Sweetie?’ Maggie’s dad cheerfully called from the kitchen as she burst through the front door. He was coming up from the basement, balancing two cardboard boxes in his arms, as though nothing unusual had happened. Ms. Gillers must have forgotten to call.

Maggie didn’t answer him. She dumped her backpack on the landing, charged up the stairs to her room, and slammed the door shut behind her.

*

Maggie was exhausted. She crashed by nine o’clock that evening. However, something pulled her back from sleep. A noise. It sounded far away, like it was coming from the bottom of a well, but it got louder, clearer, as Maggie drifted back toward consciousness.

It was the scratching and jangling again, same as the night before, but this time a new noise joined in the mix.

Laughter.

Maggie sat up in the dark and listened. The laughter was dry and high-pitched, like air escaping a helium balloon. Inside the steel walls of the laundry chute, it sounded like it was rattling around in a tin can.

At first Maggie was paralyzed with fear, but when she registered how her eyes ached with sleepiness, her fear boiled into fury. She snatched her phone from the nightstand

18

and checked the time. 3:00am. Toni’s games had gone too far. If Maggie didn’t get a good night’s sleep tonight, she’d doze off again in class tomorrow. Ms. Gillers wouldn’t forget to call twice. Would Toni take the blame for creeping around in the basement in the middle of the night, making weird noises? Maggie doubted it.

If their dad wouldn’t stick up for her, fine. Maggie stepped into her slippers and marched downstairs to catch Toni in the act, not bothering to poke her head into Toni’s bedroom as she passed it in the hallway.

After two tries, Maggie pulled open the basement door, then hesitated. The lights were all off—on the stairs and, as far as Maggie could tell, in the rooms below. Toni was really going for the full effect. For a moment something felt off, until Maggie reasoned that Toni probably didn’t want any light filtering up through the laundry chute into Maggie’s room to ruin the ghostly effect. Maggie pulled the string that lit the bare bulb and headed down the stairs.

‘Toni?’ Maggie called. She’d decided not to try to sneak down, since the steps groaned under her feet anyway.

Toni didn’t answer. Maggie turned on the light in the main room and listened. There wasn’t a sound—not a snort of laughter, not the shuffle of feet, nothing. The room was empty except for some stacks of cardboard boxes waiting to be unpacked. Maggie passed through the doorway in the far corner. This room was smaller, and the number of boxes dwindled. Their dad must have been working his way from back to front as he unpacked during the day.

‘Toni?’ she called again.

Still no answer.

Now deep in the bowels of the house, Maggie crept closer to the washroom door with its

19

thick white paint. She felt a surge of triumph when she noticed that the door was slightly ajar. She threw it open the rest of the way, dashed inside, and, with a cry of ‘gotcha,’ pulled the dangling string to the room’s only lightbulb.

Nothing happened. The room remained dimly lit by the bulb in the outside room. Then the door slammed shut with a dead clatter, plunging the room into absolute darkness.

Maggie spun around, banging her knee against the concrete bed.

‘Toni?’ she tried again, her voice now a shaky whisper.

Something was crawling toward her on its hands and knees. She could feel its presence closing in, could hear its claws scratching and rusted chains scraping against the floor.

Humanoid, Maggie thought in a brief moment of clarity, somehow conjuring the word from Ms. Gillers’ science class.

She retreated farther into the room until her back pressed into the rear wall. One hand brushed the opening of the laundry chute. With nowhere else to turn, Maggie folded herself inside, hugging her knees to her chest. Then she heard it again: the laughter, whiny and unearthly, up close this time, so close she could feel the warm exhalation on her cheeks.

The last thing Maggie heard as the claws wrapped themselves around her throat was a door creaking open somewhere in the house, the sound traveling down to her through the laundry chute from her own room two floors above. With her final breath of air, Maggie tried to scream.

*

Toni grimaced. Her bedroom door creaked no matter how slowly and carefully she tried to open it. Old houses had their creepy charms, but they also had their drawbacks. Her headphones hung around her neck. She had to go to the bathroom, but she didn’t want

20

her dad to wake up and catch her on her laptop at this hour, halfway through Mortuary Massacre II.

She padded down the hallway with her phone in her hand, pausing when she heard a faint noise from Maggie’s room. The door was open, which was odd. Maggie, who needed her beauty rest, almost always slept with her door closed.

Toni stood in the doorway and listened. Someone was calling her name.

‘Toni…’ It was Maggie’s voice, coming from the laundry chute.

What was Maggie, scaredy-cat Maggie, doing in the basement of all places? And in the middle of the night? Her curiosity piqued, Toni crossed her sister’s bedroom and knelt in front of the grate.

‘Maggie?’ she whispered, trying to keep her voice down.

‘Toni, help me,’ Maggie pleaded. ‘The door’s stuck. I can’t get out.’

‘What are you doing down there?’

‘Shhh, you’ll wake dad. Just come down here. I need your help.’

Toni sat back on her heels. On the one hand, an opportunity presented itself. Maggie was trapped. Toni could head to the basement, make sure all the lights were out, and terrify Maggie all night long. On the other, after her scolding the night before, Toni wondered whether she had taken her teasing of Maggie a step too far, especially on their first night in their new home. This was a chance to smooth things over. She sighed.

‘I’ll be right down, dummy.’

21

Toni snuck past their dad’s room and tiptoed down the stairs, one at a time. She didn’t hear the sound that slithered from the grate in Maggie’s bedroom behind her: a girl’s dry, high-pitched giggle, echoing off the walls of the laundry chute.

Even with the lights already off, Toni headed easily down the basement stairs, past the wine press, and to the small room in the back. The dark didn’t bother her. She embraced it. When she reached the heavy wooden door with the white paint, she tapped twice with her phone.

‘Hey, dummy, it’s me. What do I get for letting you out of here?’

Maggie didn’t answer. At first Toni was annoyed at her dumb sister for getting herself stuck down here, but her annoyance soon turned to fear. What if Maggie had hurt herself?

She grabbed the handle and pulled. The door wasn’t locked, but it rubbed against the rough concrete floor so that Toni had to use both hands. Finally, the door opened enough for Toni to slip inside the room.

‘Maggie?’

Again, no answer. Toni heard slow, wheezing breaths coming from the rear of the room, near the opening to the laundry chute. She took a step forward and flicked on her phone’s flashlight.

Maggie crouched beneath the mouth of the chute with her back to Toni and her knees to her chest. Feeling certain that Maggie was injured, Toni lunged forward and laid a hand on Maggie’s shoulder. Right away, she wished she hadn’t. Her sister’s shoulder felt bony, stiff. Maggie turned to face Toni with a shrill giggle. Her hair hung in her face. With a trembling hand, Toni lifted her flashlight for a closer look. As she did so, Maggie raised two hands with long, gnarled fingers and even longer nails.

22

‘Hey, Toni,’ Maggie said in a dry voice barely louder than a whisper. ‘Want to see something scary?’

With her slender fingers, she parted her hair to reveal her face. Just before her phone clattered to the floor, Toni saw two watery yellow eyes, a grin that reached from ear to ear...

...and far too many teeth.

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LOOKING GLASS MIKALA SMEE MG | SPECULATIVE | TRANSFORMATION

Since Irene had been a young girl, she’d known there were worlds within each other.

Some distant and alien, some as familiar as her own reflection. Despite loathing the beach, Irene always found herself drawn to the rockpools. It was the easiest way to glimpse another realm.

Today was no different.

She found herself abandoning the sand for the rocks. The path was hot beneath her feet and the harsh stone scraped at her skin, so she quickened, running across the basalt. Steps fleeting, she jumped from rock to rock, some dipped and slid beneath her weight, and she teetered for a moment but found her balance quickly.

She spotted her destination. Her rockpool nestled by the edge of the sea. Square-like in shape, and by far the largest. The most alive. She came to a stop and inched closer, now moving carefully over the soft cushion of slimy moss that coated the ocean of grey.

Irene knelt and peered into the pool. The sun glared at her, and her eyes struggled to adjust. She reached out to touch the surface but hesitated. Another day flashed into her mind. She could still smell the distraction, the buttery allure of caramel ice-cream, still hear her own bubbled bellow, still see the dark closing in.

Irene had always wondered if she was supposed to die that day.

24

Pushing it from her mind she pivoted. Just before she slipped into the water, she noticed a drop of red on a rock and a slight metallic smell tainting the air. She found a shallow cut on her foot, the little river wound down into the pool and disappeared, so she followed it, dipping her toes into the cold water, slowly inching deeper, holding her breath. It felt like a bubble lodged in her throat.

She swam to the large rock in the middle and there she perched like a crane, half in, peering down at those within. She spied scraps of shattered shells, so she pulled her feet in close, some creatures had the habit of nibbling on her toes.

Once she’d adjusted to the slight chill she bravely leaned back, and felt the water rush in, she clenched her eyes shut and focused. There's no danger. I’m in control. It was her mantra. Irene began to float; she could hear water trickling into her ears as it drifted around her, crawling onto her skin, lapping in and out. She was a buoy bobbing. She no longer felt where her body ended, and the sea began. Though she stared into the skies she was looking within, feeling where the water moved, how it sunk into every groove and notch in the rockface. The slight tickle as fish swam, the sand kicking up as crabs crawled across the rock bed.

She became fluid. Where her skin kissed the sea, she started to dissolve, sinking, only an echo of her former self beneath the lapping waves. She closed her eyes and focused on the feeling.

She felt where the sea lapped at the stone. She felt where she lapped at the stone.

25

WISHING WELL CHARLOTTE RAZZINO MG | CONTEMPORARY | SIBLINGS

He knew, without Rachel’s face in view exactly what her expression must be: pissed off.

Crouched behind his own bedroom door frame, Joel watched her discover the glue bottle, discarded and open on the covers of his bed. A huge glob had hardened over the fabric, forming a gross looking disk the size of a DVD. If left alone, it would take days to dry.

Rachel picked up the soiled pillow and stripped off its case, same with his comforter, and shoved his remaining sheets and blankets onto the floor. When she began plundering his collection of stuffed tigers, he very suddenly remembered what was wrong with this scenario.

Joel stomped his best stomp into the room. ‘You never let me come into your room,’ he scolded, ‘that means you can’t come into mine.’

Rachel spun around. He was right, she was majorly angry. Her bottom lip was clamped, near to bleeding, between her teeth, her nose scrunching like an ugly older-sister dog.

Joel yelled, ‘Get out!’

His tone didn’t seem to bother Rachel the tiniest bit. ‘Where is my jar?’

‘I don’t know.’

26

‘You’re a liar,’ Rachel decided all on her own. ‘What’s wrong with your arm?’ He quickly hid his left arm behind himself- then dragged it backwards through the arm hole of his shirt instead, cradling it against his chest. Rachel marched up and began wrestling with the hem of his shirt, which was orange and had Halloween Jacko-lanterns printed on the front pocket, trying to pull it up over his head. He fought to keep the fabric where it was, but Rachel had the size advantage- over a foot of it, and she all but lifted him off the ground to remove the garment. She succeeded halfway, so the shirt dangled off his right shoulder.

Rachel looked him up and down, comprehension alluding her for 10 entire seconds. She swore quietly, under her breath, the way adults never did. ‘What the hell Joel?’ Rachel loved to scold where it wasn’t her place, all teenagers must be horrible that way. He tried to hide his left arm again, but it did no good. She grabbed hold of his wrist and held it to the light.

Seventy-four pennies winked up at them.

Rachel was biting her lip so hard, Joel was sure her teeth would tear right through. Her anger wasn’t entirely justified; he’d done a very neat job, and the pattern he’d created looked shiny and intentional, like if a dragon had to put on its own scales every morning and was really good at paper-mâché. He’d begun with a circle around his wrist, like a bracelet, and from each link he’d pressed a line of metal radiating out to his elbow, with a rogue quarter pressing into the soft skin where his arm hinged. The top of his hand had been entirely filled in with coins. They armored the top and bottom of each finger and formed a frame around his palm. He was rather proud.

She twisted his arm, taking note of the shaky stripe of forearm not covered in loose change. Stray smears of rubber cement lacquered the spindly blue veins straining against his skin. He rolled his fingers, open and closed, and it made a sound like clinking china being muted by a floral tablecloth. The ruddy bronze made him feel less pale and

27

more alabaster (‘alabaster’ was a word Rachel had taught him. She didn’t teach him on purpose, but sometimes he thought she used big words just to goad him into studying).

Joel shook out his arm rather aggressively, to make a point, and not a single cent dislodged. This brought a brilliant grin to his lips, and a ferocious scowl to Rachel’s. ‘Of all the bugs and the flies,’ She began, taking deep breaths like she was trying to bottle up enough air to fill a hot air balloon, ‘And the worms and the dead crickets and the maggots and-’ She tugged his wrist hard and collapsed backwards so she was sitting on the pile of blankets she’d swept off the mattress, with her shoulders against the side of his bed. Joel was pulled down with her, so he was crouched between her knees. ‘And the cockroaches and everything else gross- you are the very worst!’

‘I am not gross,’ Joel protested, but Rachel ignored him.

‘Move,’ She commanded. She pulled his money-clad hand while shoving his opposing shoulder, forcing him to flip over and sit with his back to her front.

‘I’m not gross,’ Joe repeated.

‘Then tell me where you got them.’ This was the voice she used when asking a question she already knew the answer to.

‘I needed a battle strategy!’

Her thunderous expression did not waver. ‘You stole my jar of change.’

‘No I didn’t! That doesn’t mean I’m gross.’

‘You went in my room.’

This level of hypocrisy was certainly worse than stealing. ‘You went in mine too.’

28

‘Yeah, well I have to clean up your mess,’ Rachel seethed. She ran a palm over the fringes of his gauntlet and attempted to scrub coins away with the pad of her thumbnot that it accomplished much.

‘Get off- stop!’ Joel tried to elbow her in the jaw but couldn't get the angle right. Rachel scoffed, ‘Don’t hit me.’

Without prompt, she switched to using her nails on his arm, peeling away the highestreaching penny. She then began the torturous process of ripping off the pennies oneby-one.

Complaining (quite loudly) did him no good as, ‘You’re just lucky it’s me that got home first today- you’re lucky we have 20 minutes before Mom gets here.’ Neither did squirming, because, ‘the more you move, the longer this takes, and the more the glue will dry.’

‘It’s already dry,’ he reasoned.

‘The more it dries the more it will hurt,’ She sing-songed.

‘But it’s already dry.’

‘Just trust me on this.’

Joel absolutely did not trust her. But he sat, hollowing his cheeks against the sting of rubber cement tugging at the hair of his arms. When Rachel chided him and twisted his arm over and nearly backwards to get a grip, he kicked her in the foot. Her chin was hovering just above his shoulder, swaths of honeyed hair pressed against his cheek and spilled over his chest.

She was eleven pennies down (out of what suddenly felt like one thousand) and asked,

29

‘Can you explain this to me?’

‘I needed a gauntlet.’

‘You could’ve gotten into serious trouble.’

He shrugged and it collided with her chin, though not hard enough to hurt. ‘No, they don’t care, Mitchell hits people with stuff all the time.’

‘I’m talking about here, at home. Not Mitchell, you.’

‘He never gets in trouble- he hit Amanda with her water bottle today, and it’s made of metal.’

‘At school?’

‘During lunch.’ Rachel dug her nails under the lip of a coin that was all but obscured by a large wad of glue. She ripped hard and fast, the coin coming away and leaving a fat blanched welt in its place. Joel yelped, and Rachel craned her neck awkwardly around his side, blowing on the sting.

They resettled themselves.

‘So, you stole my jar of change?’

‘I was going to give it back!’

‘No one likes their money covered in half a craft store and shreds of stupid little boy skin.’ She gestured to the mounting pile of glue-muddied coins on the floor. He wanted to argue that he wasn’t stupid, but she never seemed to listen (but she also thought he was very smart, when it counted, not that he wanted to give her credit for it).

30

‘But now if he tries to start one with me, I can kill him with this!’ He flexed his fingers into a sudden fist.

Rachel’s hands stilled momentarily over his forearm. She was about halfway-to his wrist, the undersides of her nails already caked with driblets of glue and copper-rust.

‘Does he wear ‘armor’ too?’ Joel huffed, attempting to wriggle out of her grip, but she hauled him back. ‘I’m just saying, this seems a little unfair.’

‘Mitchell wouldn’t fight fair with me!’

Rachel was having trouble with a dime- the smallest of coins absolutely swamped in gunk. She scraped and scraped with her nails and tugged and tugged it ripped free of her brother’s arm - taking a large shred of skin with it. Bloody pearls welled up, as if the metal had laid roots which she had plundered. A tiny stream of crimson plotted its way through a gorge of silver and bronze, and she cupped her hands beneath it before it could drip onto the carpet.

Joel hissed at her (and stammered out all manner of filthy words he wasn’t meant to known at the ripe age of nine) and rolled away across the bed.

‘Stay here,’ she bade him, darting across to the bathroom. She reemerged with a pack of band-aids in hand, as well as some wadded up toilet paper.

She couldn't exactly apply the band-aids until she had enough skin-room, and that meant excavating more pennies. She patted the lip of the mattress with one hand, and he grudgingly sat where directed, feet on the floor. She knelt with his knees bracketing her shoulders to hold his arm at eye level. He complained all through her mopping up the little bit of red. She had about three rows of coins left before his hand, and he moaned about that too.

31

‘Stop it,’ he shouted suddenly, when another extraction drew a tiny bout of blood. She paused her work but not for long, still occasionally blowing cool breath over the wounds. ‘I said stop it!’ She was down nearly to his palm.

‘I can’t, you don’t want Mom to see this.’ she told him. She reminded him that it wouldn’t wash, soak or burn away, that’s what rubber cement was for.

‘You’re hurting me.’

‘Not on purpose.’

He swore at her, darkly.

‘Hey!’ She grabbed for his other, blessedly clean, wrist, where he had been about to shove her away. ‘Not on purpose. Listen- never on purpose.’

“Let go of me,” he raged suddenly (because older sisters were liars).

Her dark eyes were pinched, and her jaw worked soundlessly until he stilled in her grip.

‘Don’t say stuff like that, okay? We’re almost done-’

But she’d let her guard down, and Joel surged forwards, grabbing roughly at whatever was closest. They went tumbling down, Rachel backwards, Joel forwards. Her head struck wood, his knees luckily hitting the fringe of the carpet. His good arm was braced against her shoulder to keep their torsos from colliding. But his palm and fingers that were still constricted in metal were tightly gripping the base of her neck. The heel of his palm scraped against her collarbone, cool and sharp. One digit pressed into the swell of her throat, his thumb pinching from the side.

Rachel was perfectly still beneath him. Her expression had gone entirely slack, eyes blown wide and transfixed just over his shoulder, like she was seeing a larger shape in

32

the space above him. For several seconds she wouldn’t even blink, and then she let loose a tirade of them, lashes fluttering like a butterfly.

Joel shared her shaggy pale hair though not the darkness of her eyes; his were light as honey, flecks of sunshine poking through. They seethed at her for several long moments, but her supreme lack of animosity doused their fervor and gave way to shame instead. When he pulled away, it was as if through mud rather than air. Rachel just let herself breathe- as slow and controlled as she could manage. He watched the swell of tempered air slide down her throat. There, emblazoned (branded, pinched and pressed) into her flesh were several delicate, red- rimmed prints of Abraham Lincoln (In God We Trust).

His apology began as a muted stammer, revving the engine before a frantic burst. ‘I’m sorry- I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-’ But she hushed him. She sat back up and gestured for him to maneuver back up onto the bed, and he went willingly and he went crying, and she found dabbing at his tears was a much sweeter affair than his blood.

‘We’re almost done.’ She said, gentle and smiling. ‘We need to take these off before mom gets home- it’s really, really important. So, I’ll listen to you talk about Mitchell if you sit still.’

‘He hit Amanda in the head.’

‘What?’

‘He hit her with a water bottle in the head, on the side, and her earring hit her neck, and she started bleeding all down the back.’

Rachel squeezed his hand, gently. ‘Jesus. Is she alright?’

‘Mitchell didn’t even get in trouble.’ He held up his arm, ‘Armor.’

33

‘If you wanted to protect your head you should have glued them to your face- not a suggestion,’ She did her best segue, ‘Some people have idea’s beyond turning their skin into chain mail when stealing a bunch of money, you know.’ She began work on his arm again, peeling the coins away with determined gentleness.

‘It’s not worth that much.’ Her stash was an amalgamation of pennies and nickels, graced with the occasional dime and hardly seen quarter. The jar, in its entirety, might have been traded for a few simple dollars at the bank.

‘It’s good for other things too.’ When he grumbled his disbelief she continued, ‘Seriously. For wishing wells and things.’

Joel told her plainly that he’d never seen an actual well in his life. ‘They might as well not exist.’

‘But people use metaphorical wells. Like mall fountains and stuff.’ Rachel scrunched her nose for a moment, probably remembering there was nothing less magical than a mall fountain, erected in the center of a bustling food court, surrounded by strollers and tired parents catching their toddlers from falling in, and teenagers daring one another to purposely take a splash. She ploughed on anyway, ‘You throw in a penny, and you make a wish. With all the wishes you wasted you probably could have tricked god into beating Mitchell up himself or something.’

‘Seriously?’

‘No, no,’ she retreated, ‘But you could wish he’d leave other kids alone. Or wish he’d sit and talk with you nicely.’

‘Mitchell doesn’t know how to talk.’

‘Now, I feel like that’s an exaggeration.’

34

‘It’s not- he’s really stupid.’

Rachel rested her forehead against the side of his own. He could feel the drag of her lashes against his temple. Eventually, she said, ‘No stupider than this. Better to throw your money in a well because you saw a stranger do it then start hitting people because you saw your friend do it.’

Joel seemed entirely unimpressed with this. ‘Mitchell is not a friend.’ Rachel huffed, but it turned into a quiet laugh.

The coins on his hand came much quicker, and with less resistance. Soon muddied change was clattering back into the mason jar by the handful. Joel’s arm, where it wasn’t dotted in glue, was puffy and pink, a little like something freshly baked. She sent him to scrub it down in the bathroom. ‘Water as hot as you can manage, use your fingers before you use the washcloth. Just keep using soap- but not the bar.’

When he re-emerged, he looked like he’d spent the last twenty minutes in a sauna.

Rachel ran her fingers through his damp hair with a smile and gave him new band-aids where the first batch had been washed away. She had disposed of his bed sheets and scrubbed at any sticky patches in the carpet, and now she handed him a long sleeve striped shirt.

Then she handed him the penny jar.

‘Keep that some-place safe, okay?’

‘Wait- it’s yours.’

She shrugged, ‘You keep it. Your first little bit of savings- for your 401k or whatever.’

Joel looked at her like a lost woodland creature. ‘But what do I do with it?’

35

Her laugh was easy, though the throat it bubbled up from sported thin smears of purple and splotches of red. ‘Like I said, save it. Or…’ She trailed off, abruptly.

The front door was light on its hinges and rarely shut with any noise or fanfare. It was without warning that their mother appeared on the threshold of Joel’s room, a dark leather purse tucked under her arm, coat still on. ‘Rachel,’ Her tone was tired and unnaturally expectant, like they were jumping in halfway through a previous conversation. ‘Why is the washer running?’

The way Rachel’s shoulders climbed to her ears and her arms coiled themselves around her own sides, like a ribbon pulled too tight on a birthday box- it was all very unRachel-like in a way their mother never seemed to notice. ‘Had to do a load.’ Rachel said, ‘Stuff spilled on the sheets. It was super minor.’ Rachel continued on with her explanation, but Mom clearly wasn’t listening.

Their mother swept into the room and gestured for Joel to stand, which he did. For some reason she addressed Rachel, ‘Is he wearing a different shirt?’

‘Also spilled on,’ Said Rachel in a rush.

‘Next time don’t run the washer before I’ve had the chance to maybe throw things in.’

‘Okay.’

‘Hello honey,’ Mom knelt and kissed the top of Joel’s head. She patted one of his shoulders insistently, meaning she wanted a hug which he gave her, easily.

When he pulled away, she turned back to Rachel. ‘Come help me unload.’

Rachel relaxed a fraction, nodding and following their mother out of the room with light

36

trimmed steps. She didn’t look at Joel at all as she left, which bothered him for some reason.

The shouting match began mere minutes later. It was always a one-sided game, always significantly in their mother’s favor. The first line he properly caught was, ‘It’s a disgusting habit and it’s making you late.’ Rachel’s reply was muffled and served only as a catalyst to springboard their mother’s tirade to another level. Joel resisted the urge to roll his eyes- they landed instead on Rachel’s jar of coins. Most of them were still covered in cloudy glue; He doubted that any store, even any bank wanted money that looked like this, which meant it was no longer any good. And she’d wanted him to have it anyway... which left one option.

He pulled on neon orange sneakers and an additionally bright sweatshirt. In the large front pouch, he stuffed the mason jar, which felt like he’d grown a piggy bank baby belly.

It rattled as he walked, so it took the stairs at a tiptoe, so as not to disturb the women still in the kitchen. His mother’s voice was deep and rolled from the kitchen in sharp heavy slices, ‘Much as it might entertain you to not care, I don’t have time for your stalling.’

Rachel’s voice was downright shrill in comparison, though timid and choppy at present, ‘Nothing happened- he’s totally fine.’

‘How much longer might you’ve been if I hadn’t called you?’

‘Just another three minutes to help clean up-’

‘I don’t think so. You would’ve been an hour and left him to make even more of a mess than just his sheets.’

37

‘He’s alright, he’s smart enough to be on his own.’

‘He could’ve gotten into something worse than water.’

Rachel’s response came in the form of a mumble that didn’t carry out into the hall. It was too quiet for their mother’s taste who snapped instantly for Rachel to repeat herself. On occasion, their mother treated quietness like the 8th deadly sin.

He slipped out before Rachel managed to repeat herself at a more acceptable volume.

His name came up often in their conversations- hearing it traded back and forth in increasing volume made him feel like he needed to scrub down his skin with his rocks and metal and boiling water like earlier, only everywhere.

Joel couldn’t find a wishing well. He couldn’t drive himself to the mall, either, to reach the food-court fountain. But he could walk to the park several blocks away from his primary school. It was a fairy symmetrical, fenced in place, lined with tall fir trees acting like props, separating green stage from gray suburban reality. The park had four entrances, and the off-center crossroads where their paths intersected was marked with a shallow concrete pool. On one shoulder was a statue of a very tiny bronze tortoise riding on the head of a granite hare, accompanied by a plaque he couldn't read.

Joel opened his jar and threw a dirty penny into the pool. Then another. And again.

After the ninth penny he found himself inescapably bored, and ready to go home. He had resolved himself not to take the jar home empty, however, and as the area was deserted aside from himself, there was no one to ask for advice. A boy blessed with more forethought would have simply turned the jar on its head and dumped it out into the water, but Joel had proven himself to be no such creature. Instead, he resealed the lid, and with one mighty throw, chucked the entire package into the pool.

Sadly, it was a very shallow pond, quite man-made and solid, and the mason jar

38

shattered when it met the concrete base just half a foot beneath the water’s surface. The pennies slumped in a great pile, winking slightly, like treasure spilled from a sunken ship. The shards of glass were perfectly clean and translucent- invisible in the filtered pond water. Joel had thrown the jar quite near the pool’s middle, where it would be impossible to reach without getting soaked through up to his knees. He also couldn’t actually see many of the jar’s remnants but its lid, which gave him the satisfaction of knowing this problem couldn’t be seen and had therefore solved itself.

He went home. He told Rachel immediately of his adventure, of course. He couldn’t see the bruises on her neck anymore, but when he pointed it out, she couldn’t seem to smile.

*

What Joel didn’t know; Rachel returned to the park that very night. It was early March, and the afternoon chill had mellowed, though the evening’s had not. Teeth chattering, she stripped out of her socks and lace-up boots, shuffled into the pool. It was dim enough that her reflection had already gone to sleep. The jar’s lid, she found without problem. The first shard of glass found was rounded and smooth. The second she had to fish around for. It was small, and jagged, and sliced at the center of her palm.

It wouldn’t be the last to do so, slowly staining the wishing-pool red.

39

INHERITANCE BARRETT FESTEN MG | SPECULATIVE | BELIEF

‘What story shall we have tonight?’

It was the question Grandpa Morris asked Charlie every night. And every night, Charlie would carefully examine the shelf in his room. He had books about cars, about dogs, and even a book about a car that was slowly turning into a dog. But his absolute favorite was a small, green notebook filled with handwritten lettering. Every night, Charlie would extract his grandfather’s journal from its place of honor on his shelf and bring it to Grandpa Morris. And Grandpa Morris would read until his voice was sore, or until Charlie could no longer keep his eyes open, or until Charlie’s mom would come in and remind them both that Charlie had school in the morning, though Charlie wasn’t sure what that had to do with anything.

At school, Johnny had made fun of him for his nighttime ritual, because they were seven now, and according to Johnny, only babies needed a bedtime story to go to sleep. But Charlie didn’t care what anyone else thought. The stories in Grandpa Morris’s journal were filled with magic and wonder, with talking animals and fairy spells. They were the best part of Charlie’s day. He didn’t need them to sleep, he needed them to live.

And best of all, they were real.

*

‘Dad, he’s too old for this.’

40

Charlie stopped outside his mom’s office door. Her voice was low and serious, the way she talked to Charlie when he had done something wrong but she didn’t want to make a scene. Charlie peeked around the corner. His mom stood over Grandpa Morris, who sat on the bed clutching his green journal tight to his chest.

‘Too old? Too old? Bah, what does that make me?’ Grandpa Morris asked.

Charlie’s mother sighed. ‘It’s not healthy for a boy of his age. When he was little, sure it was cute, but now…’ She shook her head. ‘He’s already getting bullied at school, Dad. You’re just going to make it harder on him.’

Charlie bit his lip. He didn’t like where this was going. His mom had been eyeing that journal for weeks like it was a dog that had peed on her favorite rug.

Grandpa Morris stood up and pushed past his daughter. ‘Claire, just because you stopped believing, doesn’t mean Charlie has to.’

Claire sighed again. ‘He’s going to grow up, Dad. You can’t stop that.’

‘I know.’ Grandpa Morris answered quietly. He pushed the door open before Charlie could move. Charlie looked from his grandpa to his mother before turning and running down the hall. He ran to his room and slammed the door behind him. Charlie threw himself down onto the bed and buried his face in his pillow. He wasn’t getting bullied. It was perfectly normal to have to eat lunch with his teacher. That’s what Mr. Brooks had said.

There was a knock on Charlie’s door. ‘Go away, Grandpa.’ Charlie didn’t need to ask who it was. His mother never knocked.

‘Charlie.’ Grandpa Morris spoke softly through the door. ‘Don’t listen to her. She’s not like you and me. You and I...we know the magic is real.’

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Charlie buried his head deeper under the pillow. It felt heavy.

*

Grandpa Morris had been ‘like that’ since before nature had re-named him ‘Grandpa.’

Most of his friends called him quirky. Grandma Jean, may she rest in peace, had called him a goofball. His daughter called him crazy.

At seven, Charlie wasn’t sure what to call him. Most days he just settled for ‘Grandpa Morris.’

He’d been four years old when his grandfather had shown him the faeries for the first time. Grandpa Morris knelt in the garden, carefully tending to his begonia patch under a well lit night sky. He claimed plants needed attention at night, not during the day.

‘That’s when they get lonely,’ he said with a wink to Charlie.

Charlie expected to be asked to help with the watering, but instead, Grandpa Morris beckoned him over to a flower bed, with a finger raised against his lips. ‘Shhh.’ He whispered, as Charlie knelt down in the patch of dirt next to him. ‘You’ll scare them.’

‘Scare who?’

Grandpa Morris pointed down at the soil. Charlie followed his gaze, and at first, all he saw was the bright yellows and pinks of the begonias. He turned, intending to tell his grandfather that he couldn’t see anything, but was struck silent by the look on the older man’s face. His eyes twinkled and his mouth turned up at the corners; a secret smile that wasn’t meant for Charlie’s eyes. The lines on his face faded into the background of his features, and a youthful glow seemed to radiate from him. It could’ve been the lights from the stars, though. Charlie wasn’t sure.

He looked down again, determined to see what Grandpa Morris wanted him to. He saw

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the dirt and the roots that housed the flowers. He could see the empty shell of a snail, abandoned for a better home. He could see the fertilizer that had been sprinkled on top of the soil. No, he could smell the fertilizer. He wrinkled his nose and blinked rapidly.

But that was all there was. The soil, and the life that grew there.

‘You see them, Charlie? You see the faeries?’ Grandpa Morris asked.

I must not believe enough, Charlie thought.

Charlie nodded. ‘I see them, Grandpa.’ And he waited.

*

Charlie waited a long time. At four, he waited patiently, knowing he would be able to see magic soon. He lived off of the stories Grandpa Morris fed him, hoping they would sustain him until he had stories of his own.

At seven, he still believed. It was harder to do so, but that was why he did it. He was no longer sure when it would happen, but he knew it would.

At nine, he doubted Grandpa Morris. He doubted himself.

At eleven, he stopped believing. Charlie wasn’t sure exactly when it happened. He always thought it would be like a wave; a giant force he would see on the horizon, but be powerless to stop. He’d fight and scream and claw his way upwards, but the disbelief would drag him down until he drowned in it.

Instead, one morning, he went out to pick a tomato from the garden for his mother. As he walked back into the kitchen, prize in hand, he realized for the first time in his life, he’d forgotten to check for faeries. He stood frozen in the doorway, guilt turning his legs to stone.

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‘Charlie? You alright?’ His mother came up behind him and plucked the tomato from his hand.

‘Yeah.’ He blinked, and moved back from the door. ‘I’m fine.’ And he was. The sky was blue. The leaves were green. There were no faeries in the garden. And Charlie was fine.

*

Charlie didn’t want to keep lying to Grandpa Morris, but it just never seemed like the right time to tell him. He endured every wink, every knowing glance, each ‘But we know the truth, don’t we, Charlie?’ shared at the dinner table. And he waited for the perfect moment to tell his grandpa once and for all, ‘I don’t believe.’ But Charlie had become very good at waiting.

A year after Charlie stopped believing, he and Grandpa Morris both woke up with high fevers, body aches, and splitting headaches. Charlie’s mom took one look at them and declared, ‘Yep, it’s the flu.’

Charlie blamed his snotty classmates. Grandpa Morris blamed the faeries. Claire didn’t care whose fault it was, as long as they didn’t get her sick. She quarantined the two patients together and left them to their collective misery.

As soon as they were alone, Grandpa Morris produced a little green book that Charlie hadn’t seen in years. With a twinkle in his eye, his grandfather asked ‘Well, what story shall we have?’

For two days, Charlie’s body rested while his mind soared. In no time at all, Grandpa Morris’ voice transported him back to green forests and sprawling castles; to faeries and magic. He read all of Charlie’s old favorites first, followed by tales Charlie remembered only thinly. He was surprised that there were also new entries in the journal.

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After listening to one such unfamiliar tale, Charlie asked ‘When did that happen, Grandpa?’

Grandpa Morris smiled sadly. ‘Not too long ago. When you weren’t looking.’

Charlie took a long look now. He looked at the deep lines that made up Grandpa Morris’ smile and wondered how long his grandfather had been old.

Charlie got better long before Grandpa Morris did. He went back to school and his friends and his life. And he put the stories out of his mind again. Mostly.

It wasn’t that Charlie started to believe again, not really. He didn’t expect to see faeries in the garden, or hear the whisper of magic in the wind. But for the first time, he wondered if it all existed anyway, whether he believed it or not.

*

When Charlie was fourteen, Grandpa Morris took an afternoon nap and never woke up.

It was a Tuesday; Charlie remembered because on Tuesdays he had gym with Rebecca Stewart and on that particular Tuesday, Rebecca had worn her hair in long braids that reached all the way down her back. Every time the wind blew, they swung in Charlie’s direction and he smelled lilacs. Charlie did not normally notice people’s smells but lately he had started to notice Rebecca’s.

He was asking himself why that was when his mother came in with the news. Charlie tried to remember the last time he had spoken to Grandpa Morris. It had been last week, no, the week before? Oh god, why couldn’t he remember? All he could picture was Rebecca Stewart’s stupid braids and why hadn’t he called his Grandpa today?

Charlie wanted to call him now but it was too late and he wouldn’t pick up and his throat was so tight and he felt his mother’s arms around him.

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‘Breathe, baby, breathe.’

Charlie closed his eyes and did as his mother asked. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close. He breathed in her clean linen scent and wondered what faeries smelled like.

*

The funeral is a quiet affair. Charlie didn’t realize he was waiting for Grandpa Morris to speak until the service was over. It seemed odd that Grandpa, who always spoke his mind, had nothing to say about his own death. Charlie spends most of the afternoon holding his mother’s hand. He’s not sure who reached for who first.

There are speeches and tears and lots of stiff, black clothing, but one thing, one enormous, gigantic thing, is missing.

‘Mom, isn’t someone going to read a story?’

Charlie’s mother cocks her head at him, confused. ‘What story?’

‘You know, one from Grandpa’s journal.’

Charlie’s mother gave him a look, the one that was as loud as a harsh scolding. ‘Nobody wants to hear about that. We’re here to remember Grandpa.’

Charlie bites back his next words. But that was Grandpa.

Later, Charlie watches the coffin being lowered into the ground. He keeps watching; long past when the hole has been filled with dirt and mourners have wandered off to lunch or a show; some reminder that they are still the living. He watches as the sun

46

creates a shadow over the spot where Grandpa Morris, no, Grandpa Morris’ body rests.

His mom leaves to give him space and still he stands.

At first, he isn’t sure what he’s waiting for. He does not expect to see a spectral Grandpa Morris floating up out of the ground. But he keeps watch, all the same.

And then, just like that, he realizes. He’s looking for faeries.

*

Charlie’s mother lingers at the bottom of the hill. Everyone else has left, but she will wait for him. To someone else, it might look like her son is frozen; standing perfectly still over his grandfather’s grave. But Claire knows her son, just like she knew her father. If she looks closely, she can see Charlie’s head move slightly back and forth, as his eyes search his surroundings. She watches him watch the world. And so she sees it; the moment his eyes catch on something. He takes a step forward and leans down to get a better look. She watches her son smile.

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DIG DEEP KATRINA LEMAIRE YA | HORROR | GARDEN Not all of our bodies are buried.

Some still rot between the meat of heartbeats. Alive yet moulding around the corners.

Moss and salvia petals stick to the rough of my gardening gloves, heat from the greenhouse pricking sweat at my back as I worked. Afternoon sun started to set behind a cumulous of grey clouds, squelching out the warmth of light. Icicles speared down from the eavestroughs of the house outside, wintry winds carrying flecks of fresh snow.

Begonia buds brushed the soft expose of my arm, rose thorns needling nearby my throat as I crouched down over a bed of peat moss soil. I shovelled under beetle nests and creeping woodsorrel, almost smiling. Lavender Lilies would make a good blend here.

Ellerie used to pick where she wanted her flowers potted. We met years ago over the summer, at a horticulture workshop. Head to toe, she wore accoutrements of ladybug pins (my favourite aphids that controlled pest populations), flower patches, and crocheted variations of fruit bucket hats.

Metal clinked. The tip of my trowel hit the hard root of ivy. Slow to pull back, my brows furrowed. When did this start? Ivy vines webbed against the glass panes of the greenhouse above, hanging off the trellis Ellerie brought over.

‘Ivy isn’t all bad,’ she once said. ‘It’s a haven. It shelters the wild during the colder seasons.’

‘Still an invasive species, though.’ I remembered countering.

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Even though we both knew better.

Once we started on botany, it never ended. Not until one of us parted at the seams.

‘Time to go,’ I muttered. A pair of shears fitted between the hard curves of my hands, angling the blades to the ivy root.

‘Do you love me?’ Ellerie had once asked.

Dirt smudged across my forehead, feathered eyes sweeping the space of assorted flora, my nails pinched inside my gloves. Gripping my shears hard.

‘Do you want me to?’ I had asked in return.

Not long after that, Ellerie moved in— made blueprints for our new greenhouse.

‘I can’t wait to grow our lives together.’ Ellerie had said, kissing sunflower seeds in my mouth.

Shears sliced through the ivy root clean. Dark sap oozed out from the incision, thick and syrupy. My fingers wrapped around the edges, pulling with all my strength.

‘Why are you doing this?’ Ellerie had asked in watering tears.

‘Because you don’t want me to love you anymore.’ I remember saying.

A tangle of knotweed veins pulled free in my fist, buried limbs of ivy and barberry yanked out. Underneath the bed of peat moss soil, a finger of twisty fungi sprouts poked out.

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‘You decided to forget about me after you moved on.’ I recall my words as flies swarmed our home, beetles crawling over our old comforter.

Setting the shears aside, I grabbed the trowel I left on the tiled stone floor. I burrowed deeper into the bed of soil, earth worms wriggling out, fleshy and pink. Metal scraped against a gritty hard surface. I freed my grasp, digging now with my hands. An open mouth filled with larvae and dead debris screamed at me in a pitch of silence.

I rooved my fingers around the shape of familiar contours, sighing. Sometimes if we don’t look close enough, we can miss the signs of rot— and where it originally roots.

I grabbed the bag of sunflower seeds at my booted feet, pouring them down.

It was time to grow again.

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THE BOY WITH THE BLACKENED HEART LAILA PAPAS YA | THRILLER | REGRET He never knew why, the world never found a way, to tell the difference between a heart, pure and fresh as flower petals, from one of rot, withered like autumn leaves.

If he reached into his ribs, and ripped through his flesh, tore out his heart, he should see ink, dark as the night sky, dripping down his fingertips.

Instead he saw red, the blood of a man, when he knew he was a monster.

He always wondered why, he didn’t bleed black, oozing from his heart like oil.

Why his blood never darkened, deeper with every lie, dormant of remorse,

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until the scarlet no longer shone, bright and bold as hell’s brimstone.

How every smile, hid every secret, silenced his lies, and left his truths to die,

But he knew, within his rotten heart, that he would live to see the day, his hair faded silver as snow, skin withered like decay, and his heart stopped beating, without a knife, wedged between his ribs.

He didn’t have to wonder, why his blood never weathered, when he roamed the world free, stepping over the roots and leaves, of the trees he’d buried bones beneath.

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SEVEN MINUTES IN HELL ARABELLA JAIN YA | HORROR | NIGHTMARE

heat rises- scalded and foreign as a piece of burned meat. dark, explicitly - the sun rising like a scream; like the screech of a pan on the stove, the final yell of the old rust, turning copper with sweat. there is fire under your body, flames crawling up your spine; your body twists as the clock ticks; your neck snaps at the turn of midnight; the flames are getting louder now, circling your neck like a halo; your blood stains the sky red; your life is bleeding out of your limbs.

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I’M HERE REMI BEACH YA | HORROR | FAMILY

‘Love you. I’ll be back in two weeks,’ Mom said, exhausted. ‘Make sure to take care of Benjamin!’

I agreed, and Mom left the house. I did not want to stay here alone for two weeks, especially not with my 14-year-old brother, Ben. Even though I’m 16—I can drive, go to parties, basically do whatever I want—I know that this is going to be the worst two weeks of my life.

Mom is going on a business trip, and Dad—well, Ben and I haven’t seen him since we were little. I have no idea what happened to him. Mom knows, I know she does, but she doesn’t like to talk about it. Not since her accident, at least.

It was 11:00 PM, and Ben and I were still awake. The first two days alone were normal, but still pretty lame. Wednesday, however, was not. I was sitting on the couch on my phone. Ben was up in his room—doing whatever Ben does. BANG! BANG! BANG! DING! DING! DING! I jumped, my phone flinging across the room. Someone was at the door, and they sounded mad. Ben ran downstairs like he’d just seen a ghost, his face even paler than usual. I approached the door and answered it. Nothing. Absolutely no one was there. ‘Probably just some kids playing a prank on us.’

‘Yeah,’ Ben said, hesitantly.

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The next day, I heard another knock at the door—the same angry knock as before. Ben and I answered together. This time, there was a note. I’m coming, it read. Now, Ben was truly scared. I was even more confused.

The next day, another note. I’m coming, it read again. Ben was terrified. A day later, the note appeared once more. Who was leaving these notes day after day? I thought it might have just been a mistake, so I looked at the address. It was ours. There was also a name: Barbara Williams. That’s Mom’s name. Ben, this time, was too frightened to come downstairs.

I’ve had enough of this. I opened the door wide and screamed, ‘Who’s there!’

No response. Right when I was about to walk back inside, I heard a sound like the quiet rasp of an old man. ‘I’m coming,’ the voice whispered. I thought I was hallucinating.

‘Who’s there?!’ I shrieked into the darkness.

The same voice answered: ‘I’m coming.’

Petrified, I wailed, slammed the door, locked it, closed the blinds, and rushed to Ben’s room. Ben had heard my scream and was breathing heavily. ‘Ben, if you hear knocking again,’ I warned, ‘don’t answer the door! Look through the peephole!’

‘Ok, but why?’ Ben asked. ‘Did you see anything?’

I could tell by his voice that he was concerned. ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Nothing.’

Night came. We both slept on the couch, too scared to sleep alone. The next morning, the doorbell rang again . . . and again . . . and again. This time, I looked through the peephole. Nothing. I assumed it was safe, so I opened the door to check for a note. There

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it was. ‘I’m here,’ it said. I’m here? Terrified, I locked the door, barricaded the windows, and tried to warn Ben. He was nowhere to be found. I assumed he was already hiding. I tried calling the police to end this nightmare once and for all. But when I found my phone, it was dead. I plugged it in, but there was no time to wait for a charge. It was here. It was outside.

I checked the peephole again. For a second, I saw nothing. But, suddenly, there it was—a man! A tall, pale-faced man with large eyes and dark, scraggly hair. He was pacing around expressionless. Without warning, the man turned toward the peephole. As he walked closer and closer, a large grin appeared on his face. Inches from the door, he turned suddenly and ran away, his tall body and messy hair like a tree in a thunderstorm. I darted upstairs, grabbed my now-charged phone, and fled to the safety of my closet. Finally, I called the police.

They found Ben hiding in the basement. He looked less scared now, which was good news for a wimpy kid like him. The police called my mom. Worried, she booked the next flight home. ‘You two are lucky,’ the officer said. ‘This guy escaped the state penitentiary a few weeks back. Been looking for him ever since.’

‘Who is he?’ I asked.

‘The guy went nuts a few years back. Forgot who he was and everything. Almost killed his own wife,’ the officer said. ‘Man by the name of Tom Williams.’

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THE QUAGMIRE JASMINA KUENZLI YA | FANTASY | GRIEF

Francesca found her way into the quagmire for the first time on a rainy day, the day after she turned eleven.

February in the Texas Hill Country was always cold and wet this time of year, and Francesca had grown resentful of its change from Virginia, where she had grown up.

Her mother argued that she had hardly grown up in Virginia—she’d only lived there until she was seven—but seven was over half her life, and she still longed for the tall trees, the way the autumn leaves turned the entire world vibrant, how often it was that she would wake up to a fresh blanket of snow, and spend the entire day in the woods.

So on her birthday, rather than playing in the snow like she remembered, Francesca sat by the window, a book in her hands, watching the rain. She had been trying to read it for over an hour, but it couldn’t hold her attention. She’d planned to have a day playing outside with Natasha, but the roads by her place were flooded. Besides, what could they do in the rain besides wander around and make their mothers furious?

Francesca stared at the cover of the book, thinking of the knighted girl in its pages, wandering through the trees. In the first ten pages, she faced down a werewolf three times her size and remarked that she wanted the wounds to be in the front, so that he’d know she ‘died with honor.’

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The girl in the book was only thirteen, two years older than Francesca was today, and yet, her woods did not hold werewolves lurking around every corner, and she didn’t have a trusted man-at-arms to train and protect her, and at eleven she was just starting to realize that just because you wanted and imagined something, did not mean it would be yours.

The thought made her shudder to herself, and she got to her feet, letting the blanket her mother had draped around her shoulders puddle to the floor. Her mother was out on a grocery run, and Kyle was technically in charge, but he’d hardly notice if she took a step out the door. Kyle was only a year older than her, anyway.

Francesca let herself out the front door, her raincoat pulled tightly over her curls and her feet stuffed into her old, worn rain boots. They were a little small, but her own sneakers had gotten soaked walking home from the bus the other day, and other than flip flops, they were her only option.

She stepped carefully down the driveway, listening to the immense quiet, the nothingness that lurked beneath the steadily falling rain, the water dripping from the tree boughs. She felt curiously as though she were standing at a portal, about to enter something wonderful, but then she shook herself. It was high time she stopped fantasizing—there was no such thing as other worlds, there were only other states, Virginia and Texas and everywhere in between—she was eleven, nearly grown up. She knew better.

Francesca started across the narrow asphalt road that ran in front of her house, and then beyond to the stunted trees that qualified as woods, trying to make her feet as silent as possible across the leaves and the dirt beneath them, which had managed to coalesce into a sucking mud.

She took one step after another, her eyes on the ground, careful to avoid the occasional

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holes where something had burrowed, or the spiderwebs, strung across one particular set of close-clinging branches. The trees here were short and stunted, nearly devoid of any leaves in winter, but they were comforting all the same. Francesca felt quite warm in her rain jacket, hands stuffed into her pockets.

As she walked, Francesca was finding it more and more difficult to pull her feet out of the sucking mud. More than once she had to nearly pull her boot off to manage it, and she knew her mother would snap at her for the mess.

Finally, the inevitable happened. Her foot became stuck. She pulled and yanked and panted, but she could not get it free.

Francesca glanced behind her to look for help, but she could barely see the glimmer of light that was the road.

In desperation, she tried to slide her foot out of the boot, but they were too tight, and it only entrapped her further.

Francesca felt the first flutter of fear in her chest. The day was darkening, and as she was trying to free herself, the rain had started to fall more heavily. She suddenly felt a little colder in her jacket, her wet jeans clinging to her legs uncomfortably, and she was suddenly aware how incredibly foolish it had been, to come out here without telling anyone where she was going.

Francesca could feel the fear clawing up from her insides, and she closed her eyes, trying to recall the words of her favorite heroines. Courage, dear heart. She thought, taking the deep, calming breaths her doctor had taught her to control her asthma.

Courage.

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Suddenly, a twig snapped, and Francesca’s eyes opened.

*

She wasn’t in the mud anymore.

Her feet rested in a small puddle, a little pool of water over a rough, stone surface.

Francesca looked up and around, and her mouth dropped open.

She was in a massive cave, lit by golden lanterns suspended down either side. The ceiling stretched as tall as her house, and the surrounding area seemed to be a large room, from which several tunnels branched. There were stalactites and stalagmites protruding from the floor and ceiling, some of them emitting an odd, silvery glow.

Francesca stepped out of the puddle, wincing as her steps echoed on the stone floor.

She took another step backward, and suddenly the edge of her boot caught, and she slipped—

Soft, sure arms.

The lingering scent of salt and rock and damp.

A comforting warmth breathed into her ear as the hands deposited her gently onto her feet.

‘Thank you,’ Francesca said, turning to thank her rescuer. She jumped back at the sight of him.

The boy inclined his head, unperturbed by her fright. He was taller than her, but he

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looked to be only a few years older, with that scrawny air that young boys had, as though they had done a lifetime’s worth of growing in a moment. He had curls of blonde hair that frizzed around his forehead in a halo, and skin the startling color of granite, with flickering amber eyes, as though he was carved from the stone itself.

‘Are you alright’” the boy asked.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Good.’

Francesca had so many questions that they were fighting each other on her tongue, bubbling back into the recesses of her vocal cords. The boy stood as still as the stone around him, but for the rise and fall of his chest, watching. Waiting.

Finally, face impassive, the boy turned away, and Francesca blurted, ‘Wait!’

The boy turned back, the hint of a smirk curling up the side of his stone face. ‘Yes?’

‘Who are you?’ Francesca asked. ‘What is this place?’

The boy looked at her, from her still muddy shoes to her soaked clothes, frowning. ‘I don’t see why I should answer. You don’t even know what you’re asking.’

Francesca had dealt with boys who thought they were smarter than her before, and she didn’t tolerate it for an instant. ‘It’s my birthday,’ she said. ‘And I get one wish.’

The boy frowned, taken aback. ‘Your birthday?’

‘Yes. I’m eleven, and I get a wish. Eleven is a very important age.’ She went on. ‘Harry

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Potter found out he was a wizard at eleven.’

The granite boy was wearing a genuine grin now. ‘Did he?’

‘I deserve a wish. And I--I demand it.’

‘You demand it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then what is your wish?’ He leaned in so that he could whisper again, and she caught that same scent. ‘You may only have one, you know.’

‘I want you to answer my questions.’

He shook his head. ‘You can’t wish for questions to be answered. You have to choose one. So which is it—’ he turned from her, walking carefully until he stood directly in the pool of light that dripped from one of the lanterns. ‘‘Who am I’?’

He spun, and in the shadows, he nearly became unseen altogether. ‘Or ‘what is this place’?’

Francesca thought for a long moment, wondering what her heroines would do. “What is this place?”

As she said it, she could swear she heard him sigh.

But he remained in the shadows as he said, ‘Well, you ought to know that already. It’s the Quagmire.’

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Francesca could never recall how quickly it happened, but next thing she knew, she was sitting in her same spot against the windowsill, staring at the cover of her book. When she got to the front door, she found that her old boots were there, unmuddied, and her raincoat was perfectly dry, as though she had not been outside at all.

*

Francesca found the quagmire a second time at seventeen, just after her father’s funeral.

She had never felt Death up close like that. Seen it dissolve and shrink someone, until the man that had told her a thousand jokes and drawn her birthday cards pushed her hair off her forehead, shook the house with his voice, became a little square box in a columbarium, descending. Francesca’s voice had shaken as she’d spoken over the grave, trying to be grown up, desperate to be brave. But she was fading. She was fading, and she was afraid she couldn’t stop it.

Francesca ran home after, her stockinged feet slapping against the concrete, feeling the impact reverberate through her skeleton, and every punishing breath of air that she inhaled and pushed out, every thorn that stuck in her foot, every tiny rip, was a reminder that she was alive, that her details counted and were not blurred out, and it was just as she was running over the pond by her house, her feet echoing against the bare wood of the bridge, that it happened.

This time, she had to run through the tunnel a ways until she got to the chamber, or cavern, or whatever it was.

This time, the walls seemed more weathered, and one of the candles was flickering.

And this time, the granite boy was a young man, sitting with his head bowed and his feet

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dangling off a ledge.

He glanced up when she entered, panting, and his face was crossed with the sadness she saw when she looked in the mirror, as though he had suddenly become old, and could never be young again.

‘Are you alright?’

A half-grin crept the side of his face, a split in the gray. ‘I am trying to be.’ He said. ‘But time passes. Even the strongest boulder is worn down with the wind and water.’

Francesca walked toward him, trying to get her breath back. The run had not been good for her asthma, and the cold air was cutting.

She sat beside him and put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it, surprised to find that though his skin was the gray of granite, it had the warmth of human flesh. She could feel the rise and fall of it as he breathed, and for a moment, he laid his head against her hand.

Francesca felt her breath catch in her chest, then smooth out, as though her lungs were a wrinkled piece of linen that needed ironing.

After a moment, the granite boy took his head away, and Francesa removed her hand.

They sat there for a few moments, staring at the cavern. Francesa could feel the sadness rolling off him in waves, and she sent it right back, and they stayed like that, buffeted by silent grief.

Finally, the boy said, ‘Do you ever feel as though you are fading away? As though one day, all you will be is a collection of snapshots, from one moment to the next, and it won’t be enough to build you into a person?’

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Francesa looked at him sharply, wondering how he could so easily have echoed the thoughts in her own head. She thought of her father, green eyes shining in his wedding photos, hair on end in the morning, his love for Star Trek, the scent of cigarettes on his leather jacket.

‘Perhaps it is enough. Perhaps it’s like—a blueprint.’ She said, ‘Someone carves out the shape, but we get to keep the details.’

‘That’s the thing about blueprints.’ The granite boy said. ‘They have to be built first.

Even a body has a skeleton. But I—’ he looked down at his hands. ‘I fear that once the water runs over me enough times, I will fade and become shapeless. I will sink, and disappear.’

On impulse, Francesca leaned across the distance separating them, and laid her palm against his chest. She could feel the steady thump of a heart inside his stone chest, and when she closed her eyes, nothing about him felt granite at all.

She felt the touch of cold fingers against her skin, and the pressure of lips against hers, delicate as glass.

‘My name is Adonais.’ He whispered just before he kissed her. ‘And that is my shape.’

When Francesca finally drew away from him to draw breath, she was standing in front of her house, her stockings torn.

When she touched her lips, they came away dusted with rock salt.

*

Francesca didn’t go into the quagmire for a long while. Long enough that she started to

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consider it all a dream, a fantasy she had built for herself as a child, a coping mechanism.

She turned eighteen, and she left the woods across the street from her house. When she drove around the circle to visit home, she felt a curious pressure against her chest, like a call or longing.

She ached to tell Natasha, and she almost did once or twice. She convinced Natasha to follow her into the woods, until she could find that first spot in the mud, and she closed her eyes, and inhaled—

And she was in the mud, watching Natasha, who was perched on a tree outside the sucking mud, laughing as the sun hit her face and turned her hair golden.

‘Do you ever think—’ Francesca began, and she stopped. She couldn’t figure out what to say, how to phrase it without seeming crazy.

Natasha’s face softened. ‘What happened?’

‘I just—’ Francesca could feel her chest tightening again. ‘Do you think you’ll ever forget me?’

Natasha swung herself down from the tree and kissed Francesca on the forehead. ‘Not in a million years.’

‘What if we aren’t friends? What if I fade?’

‘That’s not how love works. We are not shiny pennies, doomed to dull and be melted down. We endure.’

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Francesca let Natasha lead her out of the clearing, and when she came back to the patch of mud, a set of bluebonnets had grown over it.

And eventually, Francesca forgot about the granite, and about Adonais. She forgot about impermanence and the rips in her stockings.

She forgot the Quagmire, except in the realm of childhood memory. She remembered it the same way she and Natasha had played spies, or cops and robbers. She remembered costumes and lines that were improvised a few moments before, and a boulder instead of a boy, lying in a river, whose tears were rivulets of water, breaking from the waterfall above.

*

Until one day, she was twenty-five, and there was something inside her pulling her down. She could feel the weight of it, eating her inside out.

Francesca didn’t think of the Quagmire this time.

She was twenty-five, and childhood had come and gone with her college diploma, the bills in her account that remained unpaid, the lingering glares of the customers at the grocery store, who saw her only as a manifestation of failed potential.

Francesca didn’t understand what had happened to her, either.

It seemed as though one moment, she was eighteen, and on the cusp of a thousand possibilities, coursing through her veins like birdsong.

And then she was sitting in her childhood bedroom with her diploma discarded in a corner, curled up amid a bevy of rejection letters.

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Nursing a broken heart that could not be healed, but could only fade with time, like her father’s voice, or the boulder she imagined beneath the waterfall, or the stories that had burned from her fingertips when she was a child, but now seemed old and disused, cliches upon fantasies upon cliches.

And when she was twenty-five, her mother died.

And the grief that had once been a mere childish specter, something had studied up close, but hadn’t truly fallen into, its gray-tinged fingertips clutching at her now and then, enveloped her. It drowned her, suffocated her like a thick, smoky blanket.

Francesca’s lungs were no longer the ones that had enabled her to run through asthma attacks, and dance with Natasha beneath neon lights.

She no longer held the breath that she had caught the first time she had been kissed, beneath a movie theater marquee with her date’s hands along her waist, when she had felt the figments of imagination start to slip away in her ever-aging hands, and known he was wrong, it was all wrong.

Francesca stood beside the grave, and said the words, and her voice did not shake, and tears did not trickle down her cheeks.

Her face did not crack into grief, but stretched into a smile like a balloon that has been aired up too much, swollen and threatening to burst at any moment. She shook the hands of the funeral-goers and buoyed up the grieving, and she and her brother shared glances of growing up and terror and longing for a week before, when they were children, when there were still stories to be told.

Francesca coughed on her walk home from the funeral, her heels held in one hand, her house key in the other.

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And as the grief clutched at her chest, she kept flashing back to being eleven, and walking out in the rain.

Being seventeen, and running into a cave that started with a question and ended with a kiss.

Adonais, the stone image of perfection, doomed to become nothing far too young, to fade away into only memory.

And was memory enough when it came to it?

Was anything?

Francesca stopped to catch her breath and closed her eyes, trying to focus on the breathing exercises she needed more and more now, and trying not to feel the ache in her shoulders and the tension in her neck that hadn’t been there a week ago, and trying not to feel like life was a series of tedious, meaningless interactions in the hope of finding a single, shining thread of meaning, like kissing a stone boulder and hoping that when your eyes opened, it would be a man.

*

Francesca opened her eyes.

And the Quagmire surrounded her.

It was a cavern larger than before, with less light, so that great swathes were cast in shadow. Or perhaps the cavern was the same size, and the shadows merely made it seem intimidating and impossible and endless.

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She dropped her shoes, and staggered as a wave of emotion, a sudden snap from the grey fog, coursed through her.

‘Adonais?’ she whispered.

And there he was.

The same granite man, sitting pensively on the ledge, frozen. One leg dangling, the other bent up so that he could wrap one arm around it. His jawline had thickened, his figure growing from the young man she’d once kissed.

His face was turned toward her, like he was watching her. A shaft of golden light shone directly on him, and she remembered that moment so long ago, when he’d spun into the light and shadows, dancing like a pebble on the road.

But now he was immobile.

He did not respond when she called his name again.

Francesca looked around frantically, wondering if this was where she ended. If this was the Quagmire, wouldn’t it be true to its name eventually? She would sink into it too long, and she would fade down, and drown…

Francesca gasped, then coughed again.

And she was moving toward Adonais before she could think, before she could hear the remonstrances in her head, of fading away and blueprints that never lasted and how she herself was simply a skeleton with a flesh curtain, meant to fragment and fade to dust, and how one day, even memory would not be enough to keep her alive.

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‘Adonais,’ she whispered. ‘I have heard the stories, and I know what power this has.’

She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, but she didn’t feel his cold granite suffuse with life, didn’t notice any type of sudden revitalization.

She kissed the stone man, and he did not awaken.

Francesca looked up at the lanterns, the tunnels that went along either side. ‘The Quagmire.’ She said. ‘Is this where we end? Beneath the Earth, with no one to care for us, and nothing to look forward to?’

She craned her neck back, trying to see beyond the lights. To the ceiling above.

For half a moment, she saw a flash of silver.

Francesca took a deep breath and ran her fingers along the edges of Adonais’ shape, tracing him, committing him to memory.

She looked at the cavern surrounding her. ‘This is the Quagmire,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t mean that it has to pull us under. This is the Quagmire,’ she remembered suddenly her mother’s face, still and peaceful. ‘But that does not mean that the ending is absolute—so what if I believe--we all have blueprints, but our skeletons will disintegrate long after we’re gone, and a kiss holds a magic all on its own, and memory might fade, but love—’ she thought again of Natasha, and her golden hair, and her hand clutched in hers, the way she had kissed her on the forehead like a child—’is foolish and naïve and cliched—and wonderful.’

She leaned down to Adonais again.

‘I’m going to wish anyway.’ She whispered.

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And she kissed him again.

*

When Francesca opened her eyes, she was standing on the wooden bridge near her house.

When she got home, Natasha and her brother were waiting for her, worry crossing their faces like scars.

Their expressions broke into relief like the ocean across the shore when they saw her, short of breath and alive. Natasha rushed to take her in her arms. And Francesca began to cry.

They held each other like that, and let the erosion begin, for even grief, like the most solid boulder, wears itself into softness over time.

*

Francesca never went into the Quagmire again.

But a few years later, she locked up the grocery store late at night, and noticed a bulb in the stockroom flickering.

When she went to change it, she saw a man teetering on a ladder beneath it. He had honey-brown hair swept back from his forehead, and there was something about him that seemed—heavy. Solid. As though he were the sort of person who, once he settled, could remain unmoved for centuries.

When he replaced the bulb and climbed down, he slipped on the last step, and

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Francesca leapt forward to help him up.

She knew it the moment her fingers slid along the hard skin.

And knew it more when she noticed that beneath the lights, his skin was not pale, as she had thought, but a deep, dark grey.

And when she looked into those amber eyes, she remembered again the cavern, and spinning from a pool of light into darkness, and holding wishes close to her chest.

‘Thank you.’ Adonais said, his eyes shifting. He squinted, as though trying to remember something. ‘Do I know you?’

Francesca grinned, and his own smile came a moment later, like a fossil unearthed by a careful hand.

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A WEED’S FAREWELL LIZZIE ELLIOT-KLEIN YA | LITERARY | BELONGING

Bolted, like a plant too eager to bloom.

Stretched out. Gone to seed.

Full of the bitterness of pressure and unpredictable weather.

Hack me back to my roots.

Let the wind carry my seeds of potential, ones I kept buried deep in my bones, and scatter them far, far from here.

May new roots explore the soils of possibility.

To weave, to seek, to build something bigger.

Let the water be plentiful and the seasons mild.

A haven to nurture this fresh beginning.

In your eyes, I was just a troublesome weed but all I needed was to find my own soil.

For my roots to be unbound from your limiting grasp.

To emerge into the ecosystem where I truly belong.

As you watch me come to life, leaves unfurling and crowned with flowers,

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I guarantee that you will finally see what I have always known.

In my roots. In my bones. In my quiet wisdom.

I was always wondrous.

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US YUU IKEDA YA | CONTEMPORARY | IDENTITY

a spider is gazing at me, at the corner of my room.

his blood-red eyes reflect only me.

it rains vehemently outside. the sun abandoned me.

clouds become darker and darker, and change my room into the darkest hole.

a spider and me.

destruction and escape.

death and despair.

we are resemble, and very different.

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DEFINITELY NO FLOWERS ANDREA GREEN YA | HORROR | DEATH The park was little more than a footpath running between a scrubby bunch of gumtrees.

People passed, she heard them talking on their phones, their joggers crunching on the gritty path as regular as a heartbeat. Look over here, she wanted to scream. I’m here on the ground under the tree. She heard dogs barking. Cars honked in the distance. A currawong pecked at grubs in the ground near her face. Bats began to fill the sky as she watched the sky grow dark.

The knife had felt like four hard punches in the back. Shock had made her nose tingle, and she’d crumpled to the ground as a damp feeling spread over her body. Marley had tried to scream but there was no breath in her lungs. She had discovered some shocks were so great that they leapt from the body in a shower of sparks. The sparks fused with the very fibres making up the fabric of time and space, and the trauma tangled around her body, rooting her in place. She couldn’t scream. She couldn't move. She could only watch.

It was her sister, Kate, who found her the next morning. A scream tore through the soul of the universe. Marley had never heard a scream like that before. The area around her grew crowded with uniforms, flashing lights, and police tape. Kate sat on the ground next to her, a blur of tears wrapped in a silver blanket. Marley strained with every ounce of her being to speak, to comfort her sister but before the words could form, she saw her body being zipped up and taken away, the silver blanket trailing after it.

After the uniforms took their photos and tore down the tape, the days passed slowly.

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Ants scurried over her face. Sap oozed nonchalantly down the trunk of the scribbly gum.

A dandelion sprung up only to be eaten by a rabbit that grazed one afternoon, its ears twitching this way and that, listening for danger, always alert. Clever rabbit. Days and nights and weeks went by.

Kate visited her every month. Never her father, and never her mother. Marley supposed her mother might visit the gravesite instead and take comfort in whatever garish cross and floral paraphernalia had been put there. If she’d known, she would have made plans. No cross and definitely no flowers. But who plans a funeral at twenty-one? Not many people. Definitely not her. Turns out she didn’t really care. Either way, the universe thumped on.

Kate sat down, back against the trunk of the tree, blissfully unaware that a dog had cocked its leg in the same spot only that morning. ‘I can feel your energy here,’ she said.

‘I just want you to know that we’re going to find the person who did this to you.’ She picked little pieces of grass and threw them into the wind. ‘Fucking James,’ she said punching the ground abruptly. ‘It was him; I know it.’

The single eye widened. Was it true her ex-boyfriend, James was a killer? Earth kept spinning and the moon kept orbiting while the roots grew thicker and more tangled around her.

A year had gone by. The air was crisp again. Heavy footsteps approached and with them a familiar scent. It was James. He stood there smoking, his breath making clouds in the morning. He didn’t speak. He just looked then threw the butt on the ground smudging it into the dirt with the heel of his boot. Marley knew the truth then. The rope binding her tormented soul constricted, gripping her even tighter than before.

Kate found the butt when she visited next. She took a photo with her phone then picked it up and put it in her pocket.

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‘I’m not giving up,’ she said sitting down. ‘I’m not letting the cops give up either. I’ve been working on a plan.’

Marley could hear her sister’s fingernails tapping on the phone screen and the whoop of a sent message. When Kate got up to leave, the screen tilted for a moment and Marley saw a flirtatious thread of messages to James from an attractive woman named Jenna.

As the days passed, and she lay there enmeshed by the evil that had been done to her, Marley thought about her sister. Kate had always been the clever one. The sassy gogetter. Marley remembered that universe-rending scream when Kate had discovered the body and wondered if she would ever be the same. Her sister had resolved to find the killer, but what would it do to her soul if the killer was never caught? Marley craved justice, for Kate’s sake especially.

It was a Wednesday, three hundred and ninety-one days after she died, when Kate’s footsteps bounced.

‘We got him,’ she said, slapping the tree trunk in greeting. ‘He finally slipped up and said something only the killer would know. He’s been arrested.’ She slumped down against the tree. ‘You’re free to go now,’ her sister said. And as she spoke, the roots around Marley began to dissolve like vapour. She began to rise. She floated upward. Up, up, up into the ether toward the great beyond. Marley only looked back once. She saw her sister smile.

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EMPTY NEST GABRIEL ELVERY YA | UNCANNY | MILLENIAL

Know-Star: Good afternoon @SarahLouise93, You feel like you’ve fallen behind, but all journeys begin with a single step— even if that step is backwards. Growth is still growth whether it’s above or beneath the surface: you must cultivate roots in order to flower.

Sarah moaned, turned over and slid her phone back under her pillow. The app was so much less fun when it told her things she already knew. She was hardly ready to be awake, and even less so to be lectured. Just as Sarah began to sink back into the fitful torpor that masqueraded as sleep, she heard an unwelcome voice. The slight shuffle of the shifting duvet must have drawn attention.

‘Sarah! Are you up?’ The door opened, hitting the side of the fold-out bed. Mother craned her head through the doorframe. ‘I need my lipstick.’

Sarah had suggested, gently, that it might be more convenient for Mother to move her things out of the box room. That it might be less trouble for Mother to have all her things on hand. Mother insisted that clearing the space was ‘pointless’ because Sarah would be ‘moving out soon anyway’. That was half a year ago.

Sarah searched tirelessly for a new place to live, at first. She had almost moved out so many times, but, yet again, Mother had deemed the last place she’d found ‘unsuitable’. If

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it wasn’t the area, the damp or the furnishings, it was the people. Sarah had thanked Mother for her kind advice and gently suggested that house-hunting wasn’t a good use of Mother’s valuable time, and that she'd be fine—really. But Mother insisted on coming to every viewing, then organising them. The kinds of places Mother suggested were out of Sarah’s budget. No landlord would touch a self-employed arts graduate working precarious hours and lacking a viable credit rating. It didn’t help that Mother lived in such close proximity to London—in an area that property prices had tripled since her family had laid roots. Sarah dreamed of moving away, but Mother didn’t like that idea.

Mother’s were a family that flocked together, though they didn’t seem to like each other all that much. By the time Mother was twenty-one, she had already purchased an apartment half a street away from her parent’s place. Because ‘that’s what working a real job gets you’ (so does using your parents’ money, but Mother considers such details negligible).

Sarah did her best to stay close. Her work brought in just enough money to support her. but she needed at least a year of wages to prove she was a viable tenant. Just six more months would give her access to housing Mother would approve of. Just six more months. Everything was going to be OK.

‘You shouldn’t still be sleeping at this hour.’

Sarah had explained, many times, that her work was flexible. Mother didn’t seem to understand. The night was the only time she could get anything done, because Mother constantly interrupted her. Sarah tried working at the library, but Mother always followed. In a pinch, Sarah would conduct imaginary meetings with clients to get enough time to herself to meet her deadlines.

‘You should practice getting up at a normal time: for when you get a real job.’

Sarah had explained, many times, that she worked multiple jobs, a few of which paid her

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very well (when they did, indeed, remember to pay her). This was why she could afford to save, as well as pay Mother rent and keep.

‘We are going to the shop.’ Mother said as she opened the dressing table drawer over Sarah’s head and rifled through her makeup.

‘Can we go a little later?’

‘Why?’ Mother squawked, slamming the dressing table drawer closed. ‘You’re not busy.’

‘I’ve got a call with a client pretty soon.’ Sarah felt uncomfortable with the ease of which the lie spilled from her lips.

‘Fine. You need the money.’ Mother left, leaving the door open behind her.

Sarah closed the door and pulled her suitcase from under the bed. She retrieved a clean(ish) set of clothes and tried not to hit her elbow against the wall as she got dressed. Then, she put the case away so she could open the door.

*

Sarah squeezed back into the box room, nearly spilling her cereal. It was her main diet these days as it required no cooking. When Sarah first moved back home, as well as cleaning up after herself, she cleaned the rest of the house every couple of days. She thought Mother would like it, that it was helpful. When she was a kid, Sarah cleaned the house frequently. Pretty normal for kids to have chores, it’s just that Sarah wasn’t very good at cleaning and had to scrub the same patch of floor over and over again to get it right. When Sarah didn’t tidy her room to Mother’s liking, Mother helped organise by tipping all of her toys onto the floor so Sarah could tidy them ‘properly’. It was so kind

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of Mother to teach her to be clean and tidy.

Sarah had learned that it was better to stay at school, in the library, for as long as possible, so that she had enough time to herself to get her homework done or read the fantasy novels she liked.

Now, Sarah found it best to avoid using the house except for sleep; she bought and ate only cereal, showered at the gym when she could, and re-wore her clothes as much as possible to avoid ‘hogging’ the washing machine. Mother still blamed her for the mess, so perhaps it didn’t matter either way.

Sarah set her cereal down on the dressing table—a narrow, but workable, desk—and opened her laptop to review her calendar whilst she ate.

Just as Sarah was about to take her second bite of food, the bedroom door opened.

‘What did I tell you about eating in here?’

‘It’s just cereal.’

‘Come downstairs.’

‘I have work, so I need to close the door.’ said Sarah. ‘Do you need something?’

‘I just came to get my hairbrush.’

‘Would you mind knocking next time?’

‘I’m not going to knock in my own house, Sarah.’

Sarah’s head ached. She took some paracetamol and rested her forehead on the edge of

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the dressing table. The bowl of soggy cornflakes was left on the windowsill, unfinished.

They tasted strange anyway.

*

Know-Star: Good morning @SarahLouise93, You want to create space, but forces are actively working against you.

Remember you cannot control everything, just take a deep breath and do what you can with the resources you have.

Sarah closed the horoscope and scrolled through social media to wake herself up. It was the best way to keep up to date with her friends’ lives, as their replies had become increasingly sparse. They seemed to be doing well. Sarah was happy for them. Natalie had just graduated from her Masters, Sophie was engaged, and Florence had been promoted. Sarah was so proud to have such accomplished friends. Both Natalie’s parents had attended her graduation and were supporting her whilst she finalised a début publishing deal; Sophie had been given a deposit on a London flat as an engagement gift, and Florence’s father was her manager’s boss. Sarah was so happy for them.

She wished that sleeping would get rid of her headache. There was a tightness there: not tension, but constriction. A strange sort of squirming. Her neck creaked like old wood—

‘Sarah!’ Mother crowed.

‘One minute—’

‘I need you now.’

Mother always needed her, but never seemed to want her.

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Sarah made her way downstairs, then was sent back upstairs to change before they left for the shops. Today, Mother’s chosen topic of conversation was Sarah’s clothes, and how her fashion choices no doubt impacted her unsuccessful love-life. The path of least resistance was lined with thorns. Sarah took some painkillers before leaving the house.

*

Know-Star: Good afternoon @SarahLouise93, You’re feeling particularly claustrophobic today.

What’s keeping you in this situation? Are the walls physical or emotional?

Sarah’s door opened.

‘Sarah,’ said Mother. ‘Are you sleeping again?’

‘I have a migraine.’

‘No wonder, you never leave this room. Come downstairs.’

‘If I wasn’t unwell, I’d be working. I just need to get a solid sleep.’

‘Did you look at those apartment listings I sent you?’

‘They’re out of my price range. I might start looking further afield—’

‘Further afield?’

‘Yes, the prices here are outrageous… It might be interesting to go abroad. Maybe I could teach English in—’

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‘Don’t be silly! You wouldn’t last a day. Come downstairs. We can look at the listings I sent you.’

Sarah’s chest tightened. The air felt dense, heavy with some kind of dust. Her eyes were blurry. It was hard to open them. Maybe she should clean the room again. She closed the window. Perhaps the pollen count was high. Her hay fever must be acting up again. So strange that it only happened when she was home… She guessed it must be something to do with the type of plants in the area. Sarah took a couple of paracetamol and an antihistamine. Her cereal tasted so strange, and it was a new box too. Maybe the milk was off? She was so very tired. As she began to drift, she was woken by a trill of laugher from downstairs.

“Sarah! Come and talk to Judith! Her son just got a first!”

*

Know-Star: Good morning @SarahLouise93, There are forces at work against you.

Why do you let people walk all over you like that?

Why be the cliff, when you can be the wave?

Sarah’s head still hurt. There was perfume in the air, like rotting flowers. She had managed to clean the small room, but it hadn’t helped. She must be the problem. She was always the problem. She wanted to have a shower, but she would have to speak to Mother and she was so, so tired. Too tired to be kind. Sarah sank beneath the weight of the stale air, bobbing in and out of oblivion.

*

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Know-Star: Good evening @SarahLouise93, Someone close to you is playing a vital role in the downturn of your wellbeing.

Be careful who you trust.

‘Sarah. Get up and come downstairs.’ Mother’s pointed face loomed large through the gap in the door, her beady eyes reflecting a sliver of moonlight from the curtained window. ‘You need to do some chores. You treat this place like a hotel.’

‘I feel so unwell Mother. I’m so tired. Please let me sleep—’

‘You’ve had enough sleep. Get up and come downstairs.’

‘It feels like I haven’t slept in the last three months! There’s always something you want, or something to do. If I could just get one night—’

‘Stop being so dramatic! You’ve always been such a lazy child.’

Sarah reached for memories that slipped through her fingers like loose feathers. Was she being lazy? When she lived in student halls, she’d always managed to sleep a good eight hours, stay active and get all her work done. How had things gotten so bad? Her good habits had all but withered away. She needed to make more of an effort.

‘I’m sorry. I’ll come downstairs.’

‘Good. I have more apartments to show you. Oh, and I wanted to tell you about Gail’s boy, Robert— he’s a real writer.’

Sarah felt sick.

*

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Know-Star: Good morning Sarah Louise, Remember: it’s not paranoia if it’s justified.

Sarah awoke with a strange taste in her mouth. That odd, musky fragrance that refused to wash away. The antihistamines had done nothing to clear the heavy feeling from her head, the mucus from her chest, or the gunge from her eyes. She needed to go for a walk, to breathe fresh air. Maybe, if she was quiet, she could leave without Mother noticing. She took her suitcase from under the bed to retrieve her clothes and started to strip when the door opened. Sarah slammed it shut on reflex. There was a tapping at the door.

‘Sarah! What are you doing in there?’

‘I’m changing!’

‘Let me in!’

‘I’m not decent!’

‘I gave birth to you. I grew you inside me. I know what you look like. Open the door!’

Sarah sat, half-dressed, with her weight against the door.

‘I need two minutes!’

The door rattled on its hinges. Sarah’s headache intensified.

‘Mother, why are you doing this? Please. Just give me some time.’

‘Calm down Sarah, you’re being irrational. Let me in.’

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‘No!’

‘Are you hurting yourself again?’

‘Leave me alone!’

The door opened, and when Sarah slammed it closed there was a crack, and a shriek.

‘Shit! Are you OK? I’m so sorry!’ Sarah opened the door to an empty corridor.

There was a deep silence unlike any Sarah had experienced.

Sarah sat, trying, and failing to take a full breath. After a few moments, she pulled on her clothes and left the box room. Soft light filtered through the window at the end of the corridor that illuminated tiny motes of dust. The light was cold. There was a feather on the windowsill. It crumbled in her hand. She heard a low rumble, like a bird call. Had one got in? She followed the sound into her mother’s room. There was nobody there.

The sewing room was also empty. She heard buzzing.

‘Mum… Where are you? Are you OK? I’m so sorry!’

Sarah padded downstairs. There was no one in the kitchen. Just a mouldering cereal box on the table, and a bowl of rotting fruit covered in flies. Sarah slapped at her clothes, frantic, as stray flies landed on her. Her clothes were covered in dust. Everything was covered in dust. She could hear worms in the walls. She could feel ants crawling over her skin. Her head ached. There was a buzzing in her head.

No, it was her phone.

Sarah pulled it out of her pocket, scattering leaves and twigs over the muddy kitchen

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floor.

Know-Star Good evening Sarah, It’s not your fault you’re broken. Some people are just made wrong.

Sarah tried to close the app. It was frozen. She tried to lock her phone, but the screen stayed on. She tried to turn her phone off. The app refreshed and new words scrolled across the screen.

Know-Star Good morning, Sarah, Your past is catching up with you.

Sarah needed to get outside. She was hot, she was dizzy. She couldn’t stop coughing. A voice held her back, called her deeper into the house. It was distorted by buzzing, or was the buzzing distorted by the voice...? A swarm given speech.

‘Mum please, where are you? I’m afraid.’

She walked deeper and deeper into the house, its corridors thick with vines. Thorns pricked the soles of her bare feet. She slipped on something wet.

‘Mum..?’

The smell on the breeze made her stomach churn. That sickly smell, sweet like dying flowers and fermenting fruit. Sarah reached the front door. Her hand hovered over the handle.

Her phone buzzed.

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Know-Star Good morning Sarah, If you run far enough around the world, you’ll end up back where you started.

For once, try standing still.

‘I can’t,’ said Sarah. ‘I won’t.’

Know-Star Then open the door, Sarah.

Sarah opened the door.

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APRIL’S HAUNTING LULLABY AVILASHA BHOWMIK YA | EXISTENTIAL | GRIEF An avalanche of cadavers, roll down the steep hill.

Jack and Jill, bathed in blood, are painted with survivor’s guilt.

A museum of corpses, sunken decedents that are disgustingly hollow; held down by glass mirrors, the dead were too, once: Flesh, Warmth, A mother’s first graveyard, Something.

The stench of life, of being so terribly alive, this haunting consciousness, one that devours as the lights go out, and the heart is lined with crescent moons.

In the womb, caressed with the curse of life, a seed blossoms, the first act is to yearn.

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Terrible ache in my ribs, the sinews, somewhere down the lining of my throat.

To build a skin that doesn’t bleed, every time someone mentions his name.

In the sea of April, sanguine hues disguised with drops of blood, tastes of liquid gold, devotion.

Truth wraps around my tongue like poison ivy, a warped lie with a disfigured face.

The poison bubbling on your saintly lips, catches fire, burns with agony, as you starve for flesh, but abstain and abstain.

Foam frothed mouth preaches of star battles, the ghost in the mirror, knocks at the glass thrice.

One, the Muses smile, teeth lined with shards of glass, the prophecy of a doomed ending.

Two, Dysmorphic, eerie shadows swirl, roads split open, a mouth screams, heart splattering onto the bathroom floor, tiles painted with a nauseous shade of red.

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Three, the soul goes up in flames.

In an intergalactic fusion of our paths, Fate carves the red threads of the universe, the nectar of what we could have been, has crippled me to sickness, a sweet, delirious fever.

People are never just nothing.

A cryptic translation of verses, once a shrine, now forgotten by devotees.

It is a Greek tragedy,

for your existence is only known, when the sadness is enough to stain the walls red.

The story of a being that flew too close to her slaughter house, lined with fleece, a fawn prays to the stars, the astronomers are talking, children who have nothing to lose, laugh as death marches, silver-lined rocks falling down from the sky, wrecking gardens, cemeteries, hearts alike.

To become is an act of undoing.

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PURPOSE OF A SEED ZOE DAVIS YA | LITERARY | SACRIFICE

She dug herself into the ground became an olla life-giver.

Give her greedy soil she will make it full of wonder. When rain forsakes duty

she saves sips of heaven arms wide receives a sunflower reaping.

Look! how tall I can grow when her legs are silver veins.

She smiles a thousand seeds

in high winds she gathers me she gathers me close. I germinate. Thrive as she sways.

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FLOURISHING JEMIMA BISHOP YA | SPECULATIVE | DEATH

It began in the heart - roots buried deep. Twisting tentacles emerged, clogging arteries with their stems and growing further. They wrapped like vines around the ribcage, thorns pressing into the organs beneath. Squeezing tight.

With each breath it drew tighter, each breath tainted with it. Each breath sent a shudder through the rest of the body. It let the pollen flow ahead, forging the path for the rest.

It went up first.

It leapt through synapses and dug in. The cells mutated, transforming the grey of the brain to luminous green.

The throat closed around the vines. They fought behind the lips, pressing against the barrier of teeth. They twisted the tongue into a knot. They beat against the sides of the mouth, drawing blood, moving with every shuddering contraction of the throat. The body tried to gasp out, but there wasn’t space for that any more.

It continued to grow in all directions. Along each limb, around every bone. The organs were wrapped in cocoons of woven vine. The skin seemed to pulsate with the constantly growing thing.

The body staggered across the room. The eyes only saw the world in dark colours - the

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deep brown of the creaking floorboards, the lifeless shades of the bedspread, the dim walls. The body reached out a hand and pulled the dull curtain aside. The eyes stared blankly out - the sky was overcast. The city was grey with concrete. The buildings loomed dark against the clouds. Even the lights that lined the street - the shop windows that had been florescent the day before - were etched in dull shades.

The eyes, unblinking, watched the world. Behind them, the vines chased and flourished.

They were running out of room.

The body moved back across the room and fell heavily into the desk chair, a marionette moved by the thing inside. The fingers fell onto the keys of the typewriter with a smack.

The letters on the keys were faded, some of them cracked. Splotches of ink hardened on the desk beneath. It was the only bright thing left. The space around the typewriter danced with iridescent light, snatches of colour like sparks leaping from a bonfire.

Vines tore out from beneath the fingernails, tethering the fingers to the keys. Vines wound about the wrists, digging into the veins that swarmed with more of them.

Then, the fingers begin to type. Ink clicked onto the page, blue and red and green.

More vines raced out onto the page, each tug yanking the body towards the desk. The fingers never stopped typing.

Blood dripped from one nostril and landed in beads on the back of the still-typing hands. The first drop slid over the knuckle and smeared between the thumb and forefinger. It continued to drip, merging with the vines and thorns, slipping between the keys.

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The vines grew from the nose and followed the bloodstained path. They poured from the mouth, taking cracked shards of teeth with them. The eyes that had stared blankly had become gaping wounds, the skin around them crusted, parts of the skull showing through.

Flowers bloomed from the empty sockets. Out of one, satiny roses, white with the radiance of a galaxy of stars. In the other, sun-bright carnations grew, drooping and covering the face until only the cracked lips showed beneath it all.

The body was as pale as a corpse beneath the flowers.

It fell forward as the last of the vines moved into the new world. The hands seemed to reach out, over the keys towards the colour.

The new world bloomed with bright flowers, wisteria blossoms and fields of red roses that danced in the wind. Somewhere in the distance was a dragon with scales of petals and a tongue that flickered with the power of the vines. A city of toadstools thrived somewhere in the new world, a forest that moved with creaking roots, and villages of ramshackle houses like upturned bouquets. The sky of the new world was streaked with tangerine and cherry hues - a sunset that bathed the world in an ethereal golden glow.

The glow reached out towards the hands, and the sallow skin gleamed. The flowers still glowed with the life of the moon and stars. The abandoned, twisted body appeared well again. If only for a moment.

Bit by bit, the brightness faded. The flowers that remained curled their petals at the edges and paled into pastel shades. The last of the vines were twists of straw that would snap if the body moved.

But it would not move again.

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AUTHOR & ARTIST BIOS LUCAS HILL Cover Artist - Rooted Lucas Hill is a second year Graphic Design student at Falmouth University with a varied background of work from Modernist to Renaissance Design and Illustration. He often gets so caught up in projects that he works through to the early morning, and enjoys messing around with as many mediums as possible, whether it’s digital, dry point or theatre sets four times his height.

DANIEL GENE BARLEKAMP It Stares Back Daniel Gene Barlekamp is the author of fiction, poetry, and audio drama for adults and young readers. His middle-grade ghost story The Curse of the Cat Man recently appeared in The Haunted States of America (GODWIN BOOKS/MACMILLAN 2024).

Originally from the U.S. state of New Jersey, he now lives with his wife and son in Massachusetts, where he works in immigration law. Visit him at dgbarlekamp.com.

MIKALA SMEE Looking Glass Mikala Smee has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Criminology and Writing from the University of Queensland. She was awarded a bursary to attend the 2024 John Hewitt International Summer School and a place in the 2024 Armagh flash fiction competition.

In 2023, she was awarded a place in the Express Media Fiction Toolkit program. She was recently long listed for THE POETRY SOCIETY COUPLETS COMPETITION and has had poetry and short stories published in numerous magazines, including POETRY IN MOTION, SWIM PRESS, NIGHTMARE FUEL, SWINE, EXPRESS MEDIA ZINE, and JACARANDA JOURNAL where she was awarded best in category.

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CHARLOTTE RAZZINO Wishing Well Charlotte Razzino hails from Connecticut, USA, and crossed the Atlantic to complete a Bachelor's Degree in Creative Writing from Falmouth University. She writes mostly about teenagers getting themselves into trouble and using little bits of magic to get themselves out, contemporary fantasy and middle-grade short-prose. Aside from writing, she spends her time reading comic books, following stray cats around town and chasing down theater tickets. You can find her on Instagram @cr.razzino.

BARRETT FESTEN Inheritance Barrett Festen is a California resident who does not enjoy long walks on the beach. She wrote her first short story at five years old and hopes she's gotten better since then.

When she's not writing, she can be found slyly trying to read while at work. Barrett often dreams of being crushed by her ever growing bookshelves.

KATRINA LEMAIRE Dig Deep Katrina Lemaire is an emerging Canadian poet and fiction writer who dabbles in fantasy, horror, and all that is uncanny. Her works can be found in CROW & CROSSKEYS MAGAZINE, PLENITUDE MAGAZINE, SOFT STAR MAGAZINE, and other peculiar places. You can find her on BlueSky @bookishmoons, Instagram @katrinalemlit, and Twitter @bookishmoons for the latest.

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LAILA PAPAS The Boy with the Blackened Heart Laila Papas is a fiction writer based in Canada, where she attends university for psychology. Her work has previously been featured with LIVINIA PRESS, THE ORPHEUM COLLECTIVE, and FOREVERMORE LITERARY MAGAZINE. When she isn’t writing, she can be found taking long walks and reading too many books at once. You can contact her at lpapaswriting@gmail.com.

ARABELLA JAIN Seven Minutes in Hell Arabella is a girl with a deep passion for art, writing, and all things creative. She is an accomplished poet with several awards in SCHOLASTIC and has been published more than 90 times. She is the founder and editor of folklore literary magazine and is a journalist for THE TEEN MAGAZINE. She would be honored to have the chance to receive publication and would appreciate it. She is based in the US.

REMI BEACH I’m Here Remi Beach is a 13-year-old writer from Ohio. She enjoys writing stories that make you shiver. When she's not writing, you can find her reading books, making songs on the piano, or hanging out with her friends.

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JASMINA KUENZLI The Quagmire Jasmina Kuenzli (she/her/hers) loves telling stories. Her recent publications include THE HOOGHLY REVIEW and UNDERSCORE MAGAZINE. When she isn’t writing, she can be found playing soccer, reading, and devising plans to land herself a villain role on THE BACHELOR FRANCHISE. You can learn about her adventures and her insights on grief, the fall of democracy, and true love on Twitter @jasmina62442, Bluesky @jasmina62442.bksy.social, and on Instagram @jasminawritespoetry and @jazztagrams.

She would like to thank Brenna and Sarah, who hear every story first, and Harry Styles, who is sunshine distilled in a human being.

LIZZIE ELLIOT-KLEIN A Weed’s Farewell Lizzie Elliot-Klein is a poet, nature connection guide and mother rooted in Plymouth, UK. She is a lover of nature beings, good coffee, loud music, cuddling cats, the thrill of a charity shop bargain and the smell of the earth after the rain. Her work is inspired by the natural world, matresence and the intricate connections that are woven in the Web of Life.

YUU IKEDA Us Yuu Ikeda (she/they) is a Japan-based poet and writer. She loves mystery novels, western art, sugary coffee, and the Japanese animation “ (Jujutsu Kaisen)” and “ (Blue Lock)”. She 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 Chain-Smoker at Midnight, and more. You can find her on Twitter/X and Instagram @yuunnnn77.

呪術廻戦

ブルーロック

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ANDREA GREEN Definitely No Flowers Andrea Green is an emerging writer based in Queensland, Australia. When she is not working, studying, or writing, Andrea is kept busy with her collection of succulents, a tall stack of library books, and her cat who takes every opportunity to create chaos. You can find out more at thegooseinboots.substack.com

GABRIEL ELVERY Empty Nest Gabriel Elvery is an elusive genderfluid writer and researcher, rarely seen in public.

They enjoy collecting ghosts, being cosy, and making friends with little guys. Their academic interests include video games, the fantastic and parasocial relationships with words found in GAMES AND CULTURE, FIRST PERSON SCHOLAR and SPRINGER. Their writing is as eclectic as their trinket collection, with non-fiction published in the BRITISH FANTASY SOCIETY JOURNAL, poetry in the POETIC SEXPLORATION ANTHOLOGY and the FURBY_HAIKU project, and their fiction in their interactive narrative I JUST WANT TO REMEMBER.

AVILASHA BHOWMIK April’s Haunting Lullaby Avilasha evokes the muses by summoning her green tea and ink stained notebooks. Avi's poetry is devoted to rage and misunderstood vessels of chaos. A lover of horror and grotesque poetry, she has been published across various magazines and wishes for her art to wreck hearts all around. She describes herself as a fusion of a celestial disaster and dark literature, a midnight museum of forgotten love letters and a Hozier induced high.

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ZOE DAVIS Purpose of a Seed Zoë Davis is an emerging writer from Sheffield, England. A quality engineer in advanced manufacturing by day, she spends her evenings and weekends writing poetry and prose, and especially enjoys exploring the interaction between the fantastical and the mundane, with a deeply personal edge to her work. You can find her words in publications such as: INK SWEAT & TEARS, STRIX, ROI FANÉANT, DUST and RED OGRE REVIEW. You can also follow her on X @MeanerHarker where she's always happy to have a virtual coffee and a chat.

JEMIMA BISHOP Flourishing Jemima Bishop is a writer from the part of England that feels like the setting of a cosy crime story, though the only mystery she has to solve is how to fix the plot holes in the first draft of the fantasy series she's writing. You can find her on Instagram @with_a.single.step

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K Y N O A U H T

www.hauntedwordspress.com