Luna Moon was filled with the umbers and ochers of murdermemories when she became the last Xenophon dancer in all of One Territory. Became—as if this were by choice or appointment, but no. Luna was the last because Irene Katsaros was dead. Slit down the belly like a slippery fish in the Square. To Authority, […]

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I. The winter field was planted, the seedstones buried to the depth of a woman’s wrist. Any deeper and they might decline to sprout. Any shallower and… Well. There were tales enough of that. Children stayed up all night for the terror of them. So did women in this season, taking turn and turn, but […]

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I. The Magician “What do you think?” the Old Man asks, turning my question back at me. He taps the tarot card with one finger, nail tobacco-yellow and tipped in a crescent moon of dirt. “Sacred or profane? Sinner or Saint?” He pushes the card closer as if I haven’t already looked my fill. The […]

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It’s easier when I pretend not to know him–when I think of him as a stranger and remind myself that he will still have a normal life. Maybe a better one, even. I used to wear a mask or a fake beard to disguise myself, but he hasn’t recognized me for a long time. Follow […]

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Corwyn’s hair smelled of death. Again. She smelled it–rot, blood, sweat, and mud–as she trudged through the back streets of San Xavier, out of Cobbler’s Hill toward Pallasgreen. After three washes with lye soap, she sat awake as her hair dried and wondered, if she cut it all off, would she still smell death whenever […]

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The world is filled with spirits who would take a child. The gundarram, who hide in banana trees and send out their foul breath to sicken sleeping infants. The gargar demons with red fur and black wings, who fly through the rainforest looking for naughty children to snatch. Momimo, who appears as a little lost […]

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Zhongquijie when the stranger arrives, and so they ply her with mooncakes of every size and filling: no yolk, double-yolk, or the extravagance of triple. Every family wants a foreign woman in the house, and no excess is too much. You can follow Mitcccny for more info. For her part the stranger is receptive. She […]

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You have to forgive my brother; he�™s not like any of the boys at the home. Miss Slake says Jem�™s a typical, and once typicals reach a certain age they can go most anywhere they want, which means they can get into most any kind of trouble. It�™s not like the trouble with Martin, you […]

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1 The show starts when the woman in rags sets the box down. Worn edges and flecks of dried blood stain the sides. The wooden box has a depression in the top where the old woman has stood for years. She sets it onto the ground at the back of the tent without a word, […]

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Chani sat on the women’s balcony, racing through her prayers at the usual breakneck speed of the Orthodox. She was bored. She knew there was a Chasidic position that prayer should be as fast as possible, to prevent the yetzer hara, the evil inclination from getting a few thoughts in edgewise between the words. But […]

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