Author Archive
The sacred duty of every door spirit is to let in what must be let in, to keep out what must be kept out, and faithfully guard the threshold of all things. How well they uphold the integrity of the passage will be reflected in their next life. One The door spirit first came into […]
Reconciliation Dumplings and Other Recipes
For Jari — the adaptor and tester of these recipes, here’s to many more cooking-writing adventures together ~~~ A POTFUL OF LAKESIDE TALES Containing Twelve Recipes both Sweet and Savoury Said Recipes being paired with Strange Tales from the Northern Lakes by Mistress Ember of-Alder-House. Imprinted at Fairdon-town, by Marcus Scriven, for Cloudberry of-Alder-House. 1664. […]
Tiger-boy’s Theater of Shattered Truths
Content warning: sexual content, brief torture For years, rumors of past illusionists drifted in these planes of silt and gravel like faint breezes; tales of tricksters summoning spirits with shiny wands, of hags trapping ghosts into slabs of dark glass, of shamans conjuring images of an antiquity unknown through the tips of their metallic staves; […]
The Rainbow Bank
I – TOMATO DISTRICT Mezie adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose and tried to look inconspicuous as he stalked the back alleys of Tomato District. This side of town, apartment blocks were squeezed so tightly together they were often misconstrued for large living complexes. The congestion meant everybody knew everybody, and his […]
Sea Wolf
1. The Voru Throughout the four years I had photographed the Voru shapeshifter, Cuzwast, I never knew that he had another family across the galaxy or how they got word of his death. But they came looking for answers while I, on the other hand, had been looking for a way out of the rain. […]
Once Measured, Twice Cut
“They are so handsome, these soldiers, it’s hard to keep away from them.” “Well, see that you take precautions next time,” George Morris washed his hands as his patient buttoned up their shirt. “You don’t need a lecture on sexual health. At your age, no less!” “Perhaps I might need a remedial course. The […]
Old Seeds
When the ship restarts my newly thawed brain, the first thing I do is panic. I open my eyes and see the star-spattered void, and I pinwheel and tumble, trying to swim in microgravity like an idiot. I drift out of the open lid of the stasis bed, dizzy and nauseated. I finally manage to […]
Patterns in Stone and Stars
Szkazy forced her attention back to the candle, the flame weak and flickering in the breeze from the ship’s air duct. Somewhere in the computer bowels, the clock was ticking away her allotted minutes for kindling an open flame. She’d had the dispensation renewed last month—and yet it still felt as if the ship itself […]
The Etiquette of Mythique Fine Dining
The protestors are the same crew as yesterday and the day before. Ava doesn’t know any of their names, of course. She doesn’t know what happened in their pasts to make them so energized about keeping people from eating the food at Mythique, so wound up with vengeance as to embarrass people every single morning […]
Hunger’s Truth
1. “Hey sexy! Give us a smile!” Danyor had a handful of seconds to decide: a close-mouthed smile, and feel dirty all day; flash pearly white, hope against citizen arrest, and feel dirty all day; ignore, and feel dirty all day. She tongued her broken eye tooth, pressed her lips together, set eyes forward, and […]