Peter approaches Jesus with a complaint. Although their group are popular speakers and draw big crowds, Jesus won’t let them charge anything. Now it’s tax time and somehow, they owe. Jesus tells him to go down to the sea, throw out his net and take the first fish that he catches. Jesus is insistent on this point: the first fish. Peter catches his first fish. There in its mouth is a coin that will pay the taxes for him and for Jesus. That’s the New Testament. Here’s the Tanakh: There’s something Jonah has to do. It doesn’t matter what, the point is he must do it, can’t put it off, can’t do something else instead. And he really, really doesn’t want to. So he doesn’t. Now he’s on the run, he’s all at sea, he’s a man overboard. He falls into the mouth of a fish. It takes him down into deep waters. But because of the fish Jonah doesn’t drown. Reflecting on this it comes to him, there in the fish, to agree with what must happen. Whatever that is. And when he steps out of the fish’s mouth, it’s onto dry land. From the chapter called “The Cave,” in the Koran. Moses is traveling in unfamiliar country. He meets someone going the same way and asks if they can travel together. The companion agrees on the condition that Moses not ask him any questions. As they cross a river Moses’ lunch, a dried salted fish, falls into the water, comes back to life and darts away. In midrash, and the Book of Enoch, and some translations of Job, mention is made of a fish so vast that it requires the entire ocean as its cover, that was at first a terrible monster, enemy of the world, later on a playmate pleasant and docile, and will at the end of time be drawn out with a hook and served as one course of a banquet for everyone there. In the Romance of Alexander, in the Babylonian Talmud, in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History and the legend of Saint Brendan, in Iceland and Greenland, in Chile and Persia and Arabia is the description of sailors making landfall, on a country of fruit trees, fresh water, everything anyone could want. Always the same: the sailors light a fire to cook their meal and the enormous fish, whose back they have mistaken for dry land, submerges. I learned to fish with my Uncle Johnnie on the waters of Massachusetts Bay. He taught me that the bay was full of fish that no one could see unless you caught one and showed it to them yourself. The first fish I caught was a small black bass. Uncle Johnnie demonstrated how to remove the hook, at the same time letting me see that the fish had a silver Walking Lady Liberty dollar in its mouth, which he said was very lucky. As he handed me the silver dollar he laughed and told me, “No one’s gonna believe this, Peter. But we’ll know it’s true.” About the author:
Peter Cashorali is a neurodiverse pansy living at the intersection of rivers, farmland and civil war. He practices a contemplative life.
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I fidget with my clothing as I make my way to the guardhouse. I’m not comfortable dressing so cumbersomely, but I’m told that’s what’s expected for such a meeting. When I enter the guardhouse, I’m met by a guard with a friendly smile who is sorting papers.
“Hello,” he greets me, “do you need help with something?” I freeze for a moment. I’m not prepared for him to ask that way, and my brain scrambles to rearrange my words without losing any important information or picking up anything extraneous. “Um… I’m Timothy of Thistlewood… I-I have a meeting about a job in the castle…?” “Hmm… ah yes,” the guard scans some papers before picking one out, “here you are. You can take a seat while we send a runner to fetch a clerk from the castle. I sit awkwardly for a time, as the guard at the desk busies about organizing things, but I quickly reach my limit for doing nothing. I fidget with my satchel a bit before I give in and retrieve my notebook to review some formulae. I lose sense of time as I’m engrossed in my reading until… “Timothy?” I start at the voice addressing me and scramble to put my notebook back in my bag, stand up, and shake the clerk’s hand all at once as quickly as possible. “Yes, that’s me… sorry…” “You’re alright. If you’ll come with me into the other room, we can begin the interview.” He leads me to an empty office, and we sit across a desk from each other. “So how are you feeling today?” “(I feel like I’m going to bleed out my ears, vomit, and pass out, in that specific order, but this isn’t a question I’m meant to answer honestly,) I’m fine… um… yourself?” “I’m good, thank you. So you want to be the court wizard?” “That’s right,” silence hangs between us, I desperately search my brain for anything else I could be expected to say in response to the question, but I come up with nothing. Eventually, the clerk moves on, “alright, well your letter of introduction didn’t mention your master’s name…” Silence again, I feel like I missed something, “I’m sorry, was that a question…?” The clerk looks up from his notes, “let me rephrase, who did you apprentice under?” “Ohhh,” relief washes over me with the understanding, “no one.” “No one?” Relief vanishes and inverts, “that’s right…” another expectant pause, “I-I’m self-taught (is that what you wanted me to say)?” “Alright then,” the clerk writes some more notes, “so why should we appoint you court wizard?” “Umm… Because I can do it (what else am I supposed to say)?” The clerk stands up and we shake hands again, “Well, it was nice to meet you Timothy. A runner will come and get you if we choose to move forward with your appointment.” As I return home, I replay the interview in my mind trying to find ways I could have improved, but in the end, I can only sigh heavily and admit I don’t know what I don’t know. Eventually, I make it back to my family’s farm and head to the house to change out of my nice clothes before doing my chores. Inside my mother is waiting. “How did it go?” “I don’t know… they said they’ll send for me if they want to move forward.” She must read my mood from my posture, “Well, for what it’s worth, you’re really good with the animals.” I hate working with the animals. They’re loud, smelly, and the work is dirty, but the work was easy to learn. I mask my disgust as I pour the slop in the pig trough, then I take a moment to watch the animals’ behavior for signs of trouble. I frown as I see the animals all seem both withdrawn and agitated. Everything from horses to chickens were circling their pens with their heads down, stopping occasionally with their ears darting around. I look to the nearby treeline and replay some recent nights chores in my mind. I hadn’t made special note of the noise from the woods, but I’m sure it was quieter today, as though the small game were all in hiding. “What are you doing!?” I flinch at the demanding voice of my father as he’s coming back from the fields. “I think there’s a predator prowling the area,” I reply, withering under his stare, “so I’m moving all the animals to the barn for safety…” “You can’t do that,” he sighs in exasperation, “there’s only stalls for the horses, everything else stays outside.” “(I’ve already planned around that) Okay…” I move the pigs back to the pen, then kneel in front of the gate with my knife and carve some runes into the wood which roughly translate to “Welcome, friend. Evil begone.” It’s a simple threshold charm I’ve cast on the house and the barn, but I’m not sure if it will be effective on a fence, or if a pack of wolves looking for something to eat really count as “evil” but it’s all I have the time and equipment to do tonight. In the morning I go to check on the animals, and sure enough, one of the pigs had been killed and dragged into the center of the pen. I lean on the fence and give a heavy sigh, could I have done something differently? I replay the previous night in my mind, though I know I’m just stalling until I have to clean up the mess. “I sense regret,” the voice is unfamiliar. I look around me, but my eyes are drawn to the dead pig and everything else slowly becomes… indistinct. It’s as though we’re the only things that matter in the world. “Who are you?” I force my fear down and project implacable calm through my words. “A Name is a powerful thing. If you want mine, it will cost you.” So it’s some kind of faerie creature, I’ll need to be extra careful with my words so I don’t accidentally agree to anything, “forgive me for misspeaking, I didn’t mean to ask for your True Name, but I need to call you something…” “I have been many things to many people… for you, I think, I should be Peace.” “Very well, and why have you come to me?” “Why, to help you, of course. You’re having a hard time of it, aren’t you? Held back because you can’t make connections.” “(I can’t deny that) So what do you propose? Are you going to devise a wizarding test for employers so I can prove I know what I know?” “I’m afraid such societal change is beyond me, but I can give you peace. I’m sure on some level you realize it’s your mind that keeps you separate from your peers. Your inability to act without understanding leads to obsession, perfectionism, and frustration. If you agree, I can take away your fixations, your need to understand, and just a touch of your ability to remember. All to normalize the way your mind works.” I have to think about that. Agreeing to this would completely change how I experience the world. What would that even look like? Would I be able to find the satisfaction others seem to hold? “No, thank you. I can’t deny it’s a hard life, but if I didn’t fixate, I wouldn’t have had the drive to learn half the things I know now. I don’t want to find satisfaction in thankless work, drink, and noise.” “A pity,” Peace sighs, “having your capacity to learn would have made me incredibly powerful. Very well, our business is concluded.” “Not quite. There’s still the matter of the livestock you killed to arrange this meeting…” There’s a sheepish silence from Peace for a moment. “Forgive me, I hadn’t thought of that. What is your price?” “Well… do you know anyone who would hire a self-taught wizard on your recommendation?” I looked into the fire of my wood oven, the flames encircling a small arm reaching out towards me, as a child screamed. I closed the oven door and walked away. Whatever my feelings were, I could not feel them; I kept them trapped in a mental lockbox and had thrown away the key a long time ago. I sat down at the kitchen table, burying my face in my hands. I was exhausted from the upkeep of the glamour. As I sat at the table, thinking about nothing while staring at the wall, the candy arches of the cottage dissipated, the walls of gingerbread returned to wood, and the house was as it was. As I knew it. My duty was done for the month. For the month. “It is ready,” Its voice said. “You may eat.” I walked over to the oven and opened the door. A seemingly endless expanse of nothing greeted me. The oven seemed to fit anything inside of it. Consuming anything it wanted, and it wanted children, mostly. A rack appeared with a small tin of ashes. “Eat it,” It commanded. I grabbed the tin, held it to my lips, and threw my head back, consuming it one go. At first, I hated what the tins meant. Now, I just hate the taste. “Good, my child,” It cooed. “This will give you the power you need for the coming days.” I wiped the ashes from my lips. In due time, I thought. This is all worth it. I trudged to my bedroom, my whole body feeling like a stone descending to the bottom of a lake. I threw myself upon my bed and slept. I told myself it was the consumption that always made me tired. I knew I was lying. I knew I felt guilty. “Sleep, child,” It said. “Rest well. You have done good. Until the next full moon.” # “Another child enters the wood,” It commanded me. “Two, actually.” I walked over to my window to get a glimpse of the children. I couldn’t see them, but I trusted It. I took a deep breath and conjured the glamor once more. A cottage of candy. At last, I could see the children out of my sugared windows. It was a boy and a girl. The boy was older, holding the girl’s hand as he led her into the clearing. They looked emaciated, their clothes baggy and dirty, and dark rings encircled their eyes. Sticks and leaves jutted out from their matted blonde hair. When they saw my cottage, their beady eyes lit up, and I felt a small ache in my heart before shoving it back into the lockbox. The children collapsed in front of my house, ravenously eating the cake walls that I knew was actually just cedar. I emerged from the house. “Oh, dear, you two look terrible!” The boy stood up. “Apologies, ma’am. We are so hungry that we didn’t realize someone might live here.” The girl also stood up, clinging to her brother’s arm. I forced a chuckle out. “Oh, that’s quite alright. I understand. Why don’t you two come inside? I can make you dinner and give you nice, warm beds.” “Much obliged!” The boy exclaimed. I led the children into the house, their faces lighting up at the tables made from wafers and the stools of lollipops. I led them into their room, a simple room with only two beds of marshmallows and a hard candy sconce for lighting. “It is not much, but do make yourselves comfortable,” I said with a fake smile that came effortlessly. “This is wonderful, ma’am,” the boy replied. “Thank you.” “You’re certainly welcome. Now, there’s a stream not too far from here. Please wash up before dinner.” I turned away. Two children this time. The famine was getting worse. “Fatten them up,” It said. “Not enough meat for me.” # I made them a rabbit-and-leek stew. Each bowl of a sea of yellow cream with potatoes bobbing up and down in them. The boy was eating it as though it were water while his sister slowly ladled spoons of it into her mouth. The boy was not paying attention to me or to his surroundings, utterly engrossed by a warm meal. The girl, however, never broke eye contact with me, her brown eyes piercing me like arrowheads. “Why aren’t we eating the candy?” The boy said with his mouth full of food. “Much tastier.” “It’s not nutritious, dear,” I replied. “Now, what were two children doing alone in the woods?” I always hated asking, but it got the children to trust me. “Our stepmother kicked us out, ma’am,” the boy answered. “There was not enough food.” “Oh, you poor things.” It was false sympathy, of course. Each child had the same story, it seemed, and I was growing numb to it. “Will you kick us out, too?” the girl asked, finally speaking. Her voice was high-pitched yet quiet, like the quiet howl of the wind. “No, dear, there is plenty of food here.” “I wonder what you’ll do when the food runs out.” She turned back down to her stew, and the remainder of dinner was quiet. Afterward, I escorted the children back into their room. I tucked the boy into his blanket of cotton candy, but the girl did not want me anywhere near her, thrashing her arms about if I did. I blew the sconce out and went to bed myself. “Still too thin,” it whispered to me, as I drifted to sleep. “I need more.” I had always been haunted by visions when I slept. The famine in my dreams grew worse with age, and soon, people would begin eating their infants. I was so tormented by these visions that I sought It. It told me that, for a price, It would give me the means to save everyone. It just needed food, and It ate children. I was growing desperate, and I obliged. The dreams went away, but they were replaced by the screams of the oven. Until I made my lockbox. The screams went away, but the famine dreams came back. They no longer scare me, though, and sometimes, I wish the famine would come sooner. # I put the children to work, as I was fattening them up. The boy was loud and energetic, so I knew I wanted to kill him first. The girl was quiet, and I could live with her for a while longer after his death, though not long. I made the boy do less strenuous tasks, ones that were away from me. I made him fetch water or sticks for fire. The girl and I, meanwhile, would tend to my garden. In silence, of course. One day, she asked while picking elderberries, “Where is your family?” “Dead and gone, dear. Dead and gone.” “Oh. I wish my stepmother was dead and gone.” I wagged a boney finger in her face. “You should never wish that upon another person.” We went back to picking berries in silence before the girl said, “Why are you alone?” I shrugged. “I outlived everyone.” The girl, never looking me in the eye, said, “I thought I was gonna die.” I felt a tug at the lockbox. This was why I was doing all of this— so people would not starve anymore. She and her brother needed to die to save everyone. I looked at the girl, with her small, almost black eyes. Her expression was unreadable, and I realized that she had a lockbox, too. *** “The full moon approaches,” It said. “Give me the boy.” I wondered if the boy was fat enough for It; he certainly was not emaciated, and he had gained the normal amount of fat that you would expect a child to. The girl was still bone thin. I wanted to keep her that way. I was not sure why. Perhaps I wanted to prolong the evitable for her. Perhaps I wanted her to work with me more. Perhaps both. I was growing attached. A key was in the lockbox, one I didn’t mean to make. It was sunrise. I woke up the children and helped them get dressed in simple clothes I had sewn for the others before them. I leaned down and grabbed the girl’s shoulders, giving them a small rub. “My dear, why don’t fetch us some berries?” I said in a sweet voice that sickened me. I knew that sweetness would turn bitter soon. “For a pie. Your brother and I will make the dough.” The girl furrowed her brows— she was so intuitive for her age— but said, “Okay.” She grabbed a basket and walked out the back door to the garden. I took the boy’s hand and led him to the kitchen. I opened up the oven and was greeted by the vastness once. A darkness that was both close and far. “I am hungry…” It growled. It sounded less like a person when It was about to eat. “Oh my,” I said with pretend shock. “I haven’t cleaned this in a fortnight. Could you clean it while I fetch the ingredients.” “Sure.” The boy was blissfully ignorant and hopelessly naïve. I was about to take away that innocence and this life. Both were precious, and as annoying as I found the boy, I knew he would never grow as I. His sister would be left without a brother as well, though not for long. He grabbed a brush and ducked into the oven. “I don’t see—” I kicked his back. He let out a scream, as he gripped the top of the stove, his finger turning white. I drove my boot further. I hated it when they struggled. My old bones had to exert themselves, my tendons burning with strain. His back curved under my force, but his pudgy fingers wouldn’t budge. I pulled his arms away. The oven was heating up, a tiny fire growing larger in the void. Then, my vision blurred. I keeled over and grabbed my head, feeling as though it was pulsating under my fingers, my rear hitting the floor. I saw the boy leaning against the oven, his chest rapidly moving while staring at me. I turned my head to see the girl, standing above me with a garden hoe in her hands. “You stupid girl!” I yelled. “I told you to pick berries!” The lockbox’s content poured out, as I screamed and cursed at the little bitch before me. My head throbbed, and with my old age, I struggled to get up without any support. I was at the mercy of a small child with a weapon. “So that’s who you are,” the girl said with tears in her eyes. “I thought you were different.” She raised the hoe above her head. “What are you going to do?” I jeered. “Kill me? Do it, then. You’ll be just like me. A murderer. Is that what you want?” A tear ran down the girl’s cheek, as she put the hoe down. I cackled— louder than I had since time memorial. “You couldn’t handle killing, girl. You couldn’t do what I do. You couldn’t handle It. You’re nothing like me.” The girl took a step toward me and said, “I can handle a little more pain.” She kicked with more force than I could ever expect. I fell into the vastness of the oven, her cold face peering out at from an ever-shrinking box. Then, the flames. The heat came slowly and then all at once. The most excruciating burning. I finally let out a scream, as if screaming would get the fire out of my body. I saw the girl’s piercing eyes staring at me between the flames, and I screamed for her, too. So, she would know she did this. She killed me, and I wanted her to never forget. She closed the oven. Darkness. I knew I had become nothing, and I was going to become ashes in a tin. Perhaps she would eat me and get power from the oven, and the killing and consuming would continue. Perhaps she was stronger and could walk away from the candy house all together, though I knew how delicious the taste of power could be. If she ate me, I would know my death had purpose and that she would become who I was twice more. About the author:
Christina Meeks is a second-year MA graduate student of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University. As a disabled, queer writer, her works often involve horrible people who are horrible outside of their marginal identities. She primarily writes narrative essays and speculative, dark fiction and resides in Flagstaff, AZ. Bug is sitting in the middle of the field, weaving dandelions into crowns, when Bee alights on her ear to tell her a story. Bug didn’t hear Bee approaching—of course—but she knows she is there by the tell-tale butterfly kisses against the shell of her ear, the gentle whisper of a sextet of legs curling up the arch to nestle between cartilage and Bug’s untamed tresses. A bird’s nest, her mother had always called her hair when she let it fly wild through the woods, catching twigs in the tangles. But no, it is not a nest for birds—Bee is who finds herself safely tucked away in the curls of Bug’s hair, settling there for a quiescent period or two whenever she needs a rest. In exchange, Bee shares all the secrets of the world with Bug. It’s true that Bee—who is not, in fact, a bee, but a beautiful monarch—can’t speak to Bug with words, but Bug has little interest in hearing anyone’s words at all. Human animals try to speak to Bug all the time, and she hears little and acknowledges less. Oftentimes, she would rather hear nothing at all. Instead, Bee tells Bug whatever she wants to know through insectoid means. Through scent and touch and dance—the latter, funnily enough, more commonly associated with bees—the little butterfly regales Bug with tales of gliding through the wind, of daring escapes from spiders, of which trees are bearing fruit and which are ready to shed their pines. Bug doesn’t know how it is that she understands what Bee tells her, and truthfully she doesn’t care to think about it—she follows adventure on butterfly wings through the woods. Today, Bee nestles into the crook of Bug’s ear, her antennae brushing against her, disguising her orange and black wings as a decorative earpiece. She could sleep soundly there, safe from any predator, and Bug would protect her. Today, her antennae tell a different story: one of her own curiosity, of wanting to know more about Bug and where she comes from. Bug is surprised—and hesitant to share her world with her friend who lives a much more exciting life than she does. “I’m afraid it would be boring for you, Bee. What would a little town have for a beautiful butterfly like you?” Bug feels Bee’s wings flutter, and she detects a wash of warm, living scent that tells her exactly what Bee is hoping to find: home, most of all. And how could Bug ever deny Bee the chance to learn something new about what it means to be home? Bug completes her dandelion crown and rests it in her wild brown curls. One weed-flower dips low to rest against Bug’s ear, and Bee crawls up to rest on that flower, always close by. I’ll be with you, Bug understands Bee to want to tell her. Don’t you worry. # It’s amazing, really, seeing one’s hometown from the multifaceted eyes of a butterfly who had previously been too afraid to leave the woods. For until today, Bug had always followed Bee to her home, through fields, along streams, and into the forest. Now, it’s Bug’s turn to show Bee the world—and what a different world it must seem, to such a tiny, delicate creature. To Bug, the town is small; to Bee, everything is like the giants of old legends. To Bug, the warm smell of fresh bread from the bakery is the comfort of home; to Bee, it is sugar and sweetness previously untold. To Bug, the cobblestone path is old, worn, and familiar; to Bee, it is a road untravelled at the end of which are more mysteries still. As Bug counts each step of each stone, making sure never to step on a single crack or fault, she can tell that Bee is observing everything around them, taking it all in and learning a new world. After a time, she understands that Bee wants to know more. She flits off of the dandelion crown in Bug’s hair and floats daintily by the well, swirling a dance in the air that asks Bug, What’s this? “It’s a well, for water,” Bug tells her. She wonders if a butterfly would understand. “We can’t drink from dewdrops like you can, so we have to get water another way. Sometimes, we make wishes on stones that we toss in.” Do they come true? Bug thought about it for a time. “Sometimes. If you want them to, and you make sure to pick out your pebbles with care.” Satisfied, Bee lands again on the flower crown, tickling Bug’s ear as she does, until the next curiosity. They walk through town like that—or Bug walks, Bee sits on her dandelion crown or on her ear, like a decoration in her hair—and Bug tries to explain anything and everything to Bee. How had she never put words before to why the church bells ring, why flowers are planted so precisely, why grass is cut to an exact length, why houses are always two stories but stores only one? These things had always bothered Bug, but she had nonetheless accepted them as rules despite her chagrin because she was told they must be. So why had she never put words to why it confounded her that money and stores ever existed at all? The latter question comes when Bug goes back to the bakery to buy a sweet loaf to share with Bee. The baker speaks slowly to help Bug follow, though Bug never has the heart to tell him that talking like the words are too big for his mouth makes it harder, if anything, to understand what he is trying to tell her. Bug immediately feels tired watching his mouth to try to make sure it matches what words she is sure she is hearing, too much energy immediately expended on just trying to understand how much she owes him for the loaf of bread and a pastry. There is a stirring against Bug’s ear. A rustling of butterfly wings. Once, twice, three times-- The baker’s eyes drift to the movement in Bug’s hair, surely landing on butterfly wings counting out an amount, but Bug flaps her hands to attract his gaze again and holds up her fingers to confirm the amount and the baker, dumbfounded, matches the number of fingers. It seems butterflies might not understand money, but they do understand numbers. Bug hands the baker the coins and turns to leave, but the baker makes a gesture that is quite familiar: Wait. He does not try to make her hear the word at the same time. Bug is very good at doing what she is told—she wasn’t always, but she has learned it’s what people want her to do—so she waits patiently, or patiently enough, for the baker to return. When he does, he holds a teaspoon measure of water, but there is a slight sheen to it, glazed with sweetness. The baker points with his free hand to the measure, then to Bee, he says something and makes a vague motion with his hand that he seems to want to indicate closeness. Bug isn’t quite sure what he is saying, but Bee lifts from her ear and dances through the air. A treat, she seems to tell Bug through her gesture, a language signed not with gesture but with her butterfly wings, for you friend. Bee lands on the teaspoon, proboscis flitting out to taste the sugar water. That’s me. Bug takes the teaspoon gingerly, balancing it as carefully as possible so that neither Bee nor her treat are disturbed. “I’ll bring it back,” she swears as an oath to the baker. “When she’s done with it.” The baker nods solemnly, accepting Bug’s truth. Outside the bakery, Bug walks only as far as she needs to in order to find a bench to perch on, holding the teaspoon for Bee to drink from to her heart’s content and with her sweet loaf cradled in her lap, using her free hand to pick away pieces to eat. “I never thought you could help me talk to people,” Bug muses out loud. Bee momentarily lifts off the spoon, fluttering in a dazzling circle around Bug’s head. She asks with her dance and with the sweet smells she emits, Do you want me to? Bug thinks about it for a moment, Bee floating patiently before her as she tries to decide. “I don’t know,” she admits. “Maybe sometimes, when I’m feeling ready to or like it will help me.” She breaks off a piece of sweet loaf and places it on a slat of the bench. “Trade?” Gently, Bee lands on the sweet bread to taste it, and Bug delicately dips the nail of her pinky finger into the teaspoon of sugar water. She tastes the light sweetness on her tongue and wonders why she had never thought before that something so simple could be so wonderful. # By the time the sun is nearly set, Bug is exhausted. It takes a lot of energy, she decides, to see the world in a way she hasn’t before. She wonders if Bee feels that way every time she maps for Bug the intricate patterns of a leaf’s vein, shows her which hollows of which trees house which animals, or how ponds can hide whole other worlds if you just look beyond the surface. She hopes it is worth it—for while it is tiring to see the world in a new light, it is also thrilling. And since Bee always shows Bug what magic lies among the trees, Bug hopes that now Bee can see magic in the brickwork of Bug’s not-so-little town. It has certainly helped Bug see more of that magic—for is it not magic, that the baker knew that Bee was special, knew just what to feed her? Is it not magic that well-wishes, when the stones Bug throws in are just the right shape and size, sometimes really do come true? At the edge of town, where the cobblestone gives way to tall grass and dirt paths cutting through the field, Bug holds out her hand and Bee crawls off her ear and flies to land on her fingers just-so. They stay together like that as the sun sets, before Bee is ready to go home and Bug is, too. They don’t need to exchange a word—not through voice or through butterfly dances—to express their gratitude for one another, the tired comfort they hold in their bones. They both will sleep deeply through the night. Bee flits up off Bug’s fingertips and grazes her nose with butterfly kisses to say goodbye before she flies off to the woods, to wherever butterflies might roost, and Bug embraces living in true silence and comfortable solitude once more. She knows Bee will find her way back when they are both ready to face the world together again. About the author:
Tyler Battaglia is a queer and disabled author of horror, dark fantasy, and other speculative fiction, who is especially interested in subjects that interrogate the connections between faith, monsters, love, queerness, and disability. You can find Tyler on social media at @whosthistyler and online at https://www.tylerbattaglia.com, where you can also find a full list of publications to date. Trigger Warning: Themes of Suicide A secret goodbye To you, to my childhood Chalk on the sidewalk Maddy’s dad had looked at what I’d drawn and laughed, like it wasn’t a beautiful smattering of semantics, but me pining—looking for someone to acknowledge the depth of knowledge I held at a young age. I didn’t care too much, just continued blending the chalk with my fingertips and damp sponges, creasing the colorful dust with my thumbs and smoothing the ridges with my index fingers. I followed the lines, the outlines of letters, with a careful precision, like an astronaut held moon dust; so intentional, so devout to its wellbeing. I moved my body with the chalk, the butt of my cheap Walmart jeans smudged with a pallet of pastel chalk colors; purple for lightness, black for darkness, and red for both hate and love. My chalk sticks were wearing thin, the tops of my fingers grazing ever so lightly on my square of sidewalk. My sponges ripped, their fibers tired down by my constant blending and shaping. I asked mom to get me more, but they were running out. The Berea Arts Fest was winding down as the summer sun dipped over Coe Lake, and the real artists were retreating back to their homes to paint about deeper things, and talk about deeper things, and exist on a deeper level. They weren’t being driven back to their dad’s house, forced into a tiny car for an hour where their mother would complain about all the things she had no control over, and when I dared to disagree with her—to let her know that dad is happy now and maybe it's time for her to be happy as well—she’d wind her Italian tongue, whipping me with her words: You are a child—what do you know? Life has been so forgiving to you; you have nothing to worry about. You know not of the suffering of this world. In those moments of a rage--a rage only a sad mother was capable of—I would've happily traded places with one of those artists. Oh, how badly I wanted to be one of them! Drinking their red wine, coexisting with the opposite sex (but not in a sexual way), renting a cheap house filled with beaded curtains, talking in deep conversation, expressing love for anyone who walked by. I was going to be one of them—someday—but for now, I drew with my chalk, giving life to the words in my child-like head. When I looked up, my cousin Hannah was there--the person that held the other half of my soul—and there was her mom, Aunt Rox. She looked hot, waving a piece of paper impatiently, her pursed lips zipped, her eyelashes curling up in their long, beautiful, black way. She wore jean shorts, and slightly arched flip flops with a tong, her bangs “poofed” in their normal 80’s way, her weight shifting slightly to one foot. She looked annoyed with my mom as they spoke—when did she not? —but when she saw me, her lips stretched wide across the ocean, her brown eyes so warm like coffee before breakfast, her jiggly arms wrapped around me as we forgot about the heat. She used to call me kiddo, or bear, or some other name that I had outgrown, but I secretly loved that she gave me my own nickname, as if it were our little secret—as if I was her own. I smell her fresh shampoo as I lengthen my body--the scent always clinging to her hair— standing on my tip toes, showing off my slender eighth grade volleyball legs. There’s been a shift, Hannah and I are both wearing bras—Maddy, not so much—but my choppy boat ride into the sea of adolescence doesn’t change my love for you. You let me and your four kids watch scary movies when I hop your fence and stay for a sleepover, you let me decide what to eat on my plate, you let me stay up too late and still make me do chores every Saturday morning as you dance on your green carpet and turn up Kenney Chesney. You’re the cool aunt, the one who lets me vent about mom when she’s being a you-know-what, the one who doesn’t question my weight, or my worth, or complain that I’m too much like my father. You ask about Sarah and John and the step monster, and you don’t add a weight of heaviness to your tone like mom does. You are cool, and accepting, and you let me be weird. I’m brimming with pride when I show you my chalk masterpiece. I watch you read it, swallow the words and squish them around like a red wine, like there are tiny tannins taking a seat at the edge of your tongue—each one of them lined up for a show. A single eyebrow shoots to the sky, just like grandma’s. It’s the Italian coming out of you and now I’m sweating like I’ve done something wrong. I read it aloud, so eager to show off, so eager to feel your approval: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” There’s a pause. “It's a quote by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.!” I continue. “I read it in my book. Isn’t that just a great quote?” I look at Aunt Rox expectantly; she knows how much I love words, even at a young age. I watch her eyes shimmer—they’re a little glossy—and then they turn to a blank stare, like she’s not really here, just merely connecting the dots to her daily routine of A to Z life—not living, just breathing. I recognize the defense, just like mom’s, but I’m young, and I can’t quite put my finger on it, can’t quite give that feeling a name yet. Her smile is sad, and her words don’t match what she means. And that’s it. I don’t remember if she hugs me goodbye for the last time, or what her last words were to me, or if she gave me a clue or a sign. She walks away with Hannah, and mom will drive me back to dad’s house soon and Maddy will go home. Next year will be the first year I don’t go to the Berea Arts Fest, in fact, I won’t go again until I’m a senior in high school with a college drop-out boyfriend. I’ll go back in 2016 and try to find that sidewalk square that holds an impossibly important memory, but I won’t tell my boyfriend what I’m looking for or why. It's my secret—our last goodbye, preparing me for a lifetime of them. They’ll have repaved the sidewalk by then, so things are off and god damnit life is just one hurdle after the other. I want to sink into that old sidewalk square, sink deep into the wet cement and encapsulate the last time we were together. I never want to let go of this moment. I want to sink deeper and deeper into that cement with you and ask you what you really think about this quote and the colors I choose. I want to ask you if you know that this is the last time you’ll ever see me. I want to ask you if you’ve really made up your mind. I want to ask you if you’re sad, or how long you’ve been sad, and what makes you sad. I want to ask you about your favorite color, and about the first time you kissed a boy, and the first time you smoked a cigarette. I want to ask you for your recipe for meatballs and apologize for that one time we made them together and how I didn’t eat them because I complained there were too many onions—I love onions now! I’d eat a whole onion raw to see you once more, your cheeks not pumped with formaldehyde, glutaraldehyde, and methanol, but with life. The news will greet me in a few weeks, how you’re gone. But for now, I sit in this cement and remember Dr. King’s words and I just wonder and wonder. I go crazy asking myself questions that I’ll never find an answer to. You left me, you left your kids, your family, your friends, your home, and I’ll never know why. My uncle will tell me and Hannah when we’re older that you used to hide train schedules in the kitchen. I picture it next to the dark green rotary phone hanging from the wall, right above your little bread box that I use to open and shut. Was it there my whole life and I never noticed? No one tells you to look for clues, for signs, for train schedules when you’re young. Instead, you draw with chalk, and you paint words that move your little mind, and you worry about your next volleyball game, and your bedroom posters. You don’t worry that someone you love so deeply will die by suicide and leave your life, hitting the pause button forever. You don’t grow up questioning whether or not you have loved enough in your lifetime, that maybe it was your fault she’s gone. How are you supposed to know what kind of love people need? How could I have been so selfish? How could I not know? You don’t grow up thinking that suicide is weird; you stumble upon that fact as those heavy bricks called grief drop from the sky, hitting you whenever and wherever they so please. You ache, you miss, you feel the sickening feeling in your stomach knowing that you’ll never feel true, unhinged happiness again. You’ll feel guilty for feeling too happy and you’ll remind yourself that the world is a sad place filled with misery and suffering, and the living are the fools. When you’re young, you just want your aunt to look at your drawing and tell you that it's the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen, how prolific, Rebecca—you have such a way with words! But she doesn’t, because she’s desperately depressed and you have no way of knowing. You’re just a kid playing with chalk. You’re just a kid, Rebecca, playing with chalk on the sidewalk. About the author:
Rebecca Cybulski is a midwesterner, through and through. She received her BA from Kent State University and works as a copywriter for a children's book company. In her spare time she enjoys playing tennis, annoying her dog, and spending time on Lake Erie. A paper silhouette fades into the light.
You move forward, carefully putting each step in front of the previous one. On the ground there are dirty papers lying around, pieces of plastic, and urine stains from yesterday's pissers. The light from a clothing store illuminates a window, a little further away, where rigid mannequins set up an absurd vigil, in order to display some sportswear there. Finally, a blind wall blocks the alley that you have just taken. So you turn around, and walk back your steps leaving this dead end littered with rubbish. Once on the avenue, you actually find yourself stuck in a compact crowd of people, made out of a mixture of passersby, tramps, and seated folks busy sipping their drinks at café terraces. You walk by a few dowdy couples, which seem to be just out there in order to set up some sort of a competition, about who will turn out to be the most ridiculous of the bunch, in the end. This to such an extent that it could almost turn out to be a deadly game for them, as we like to say it in French. You try to get out of all this mess by taking shelter in a park, not far away, where you also unfortunately find a multitude of playing children. They’re soon enough all around you as, out of sheer excitement, they keep running up and down, blowing clouds of dust into the air with their feet. While doing so, they usually utter high-pitched little screams that make you think of the ones of some sort of tiny eunuchs, or strange hairless dwarves. Sometimes they start off chasing unfortunate pigeons for no apparent reason, as if to test their power over their surroundings. Some of them tearing off leaves or branches from the trees too, with their little white hands, as they pass by them, holding them up a bit like trophies, to be discarded pretty soon. You can easily spot their parents slowly walking at a stately pace not too far behind, watching their offspring with a loving and an utterly stupid gaze. Many being dressed casually on this bank holiday, startlingly look like the mannequins in the store window seen by you earlier on in a street. Doing so, they also speak about trivial stuff, conversations usually revolving around all sorts of small things taken from their everyday life. After forty or beyond , they are usually showing off beer bellies and puffy faces, vaguely distorted, and perhaps a little bit like your own. You say to yourself that the majority of the parents of these kids do undoubtedly display quite an ugly scene here, and that one should be allowed to put a veil over their heads in order to hide them. The children, it must be said, are not all of them so good looking too, but at least they do not have the beer bellies sticking out from under their t-shirts, nor flabby flesh hanging down from their chins. A few graceful birds, geese, ducks or moorhens, keep drifting on the small lake lined with varied trees, located just at the center of the park. Finally, a breeze picks up and starts swinging the highest branches of the trees. There are now some gray clouds coming by the horizon, and slowly accumulating over the roofs. It will probably rain soon. You're not alone wandering out there either, as your woman is walking along with you, kissing you too, from time to time. But, despite all her love, a silence, or a void, strangely seems to surround all things out here, isolating them from one another. But it is you, above all, you alone, in this teeming park, who is isolated from all the others with these kind of thoughts, in the end. The devil was bored in hell nowadays. Absolutely nothing happened. The fire was burning high as usual but the heat was suddenly too dull. Somehow it was unbearable. The same fire every day and night, no change at all. Flames jumped up in the air and it was so hot. Sparks flew around and the wood crackled. The devil was alone and had nothing to do. Hell could really be hell sometimes. The devil knew that this place was his home and he had lived in there forever. The smell of sulphur was in the air and the lamenting of those poor souls was the same every day. Why did they not come up with new challenges? He could not stand the look of the scarlet-red and golden striped furniture in his chambers anymore. Surely these things were not modern anymore. When did he last have company and was not just lying lazily on his sofa? He was sluggish recently and not interested in anything. He had always been strong and tough but now he felt very weak. Could the devil actually have depression? He did not fancy change and adventures. He followed the advice of his personal physician and went to Earth to find out whether there was fun anywhere for him. The devil came to a town and there were a lot of issues with graffiti and carelessly thrown away litter everywhere. The people seemed to have slowly lost their sense for law and order. The devil liked it there but it was still boring in the long run. These crimes were not really severe enough to let the delinquents suffer in hell forever. He wandered around aimlessly and sat down in a corner and cried. It started raining immediately, heavy rain. His black garments fell into a puddle and sucked up all the wet mud. But the sun slowly came out again. ‘I don’t even manage thunder storms anymore,’ the devil thought helplessly. The devil felt let down by the dark forces. Suddenly, a creature in white stepped in front of him. It was wearing a rainbow-coloured crown that glittered in the sun. It was the almighty God who had watched the devil’s suffering from a cloud. ‘My friend, what’s wrong?’, God said. The devil looked confused and told him his issues. ‘Oh, I’m sad. Everything is boring.’ And God said: ‘You need innovation. The digital world is on your doorstep. Use it!’ The devil did not want to believe that at first and challenged God to a competition. ‘Show me what you can do! I wanna see it!’ the devil said with sparkly eyes. ‘Right. As you wish.’ A young man was just trying to snatch an old lady’s purse. Could God almighty stop him? Almighty God took control of the local public tannoy and also of the man’s mobile phone. He played a swift polka with full volume so that the window panes of the neighbouring houses rattled. The alleged thief suddenly had to dance and sing without stopping. He left the lady alone and she ran away, scared. The devil could not do anything about this all. Then, a fully complete aerobics exercise followed. The man’s hands moved up in the air just like a puppet and his legs bent. Then, he had to clap rhythmically for minutes. The potential delinquent was completely knackered and convulsed with pain. Sweat stood on his forehead and his face was as red as a tomato. In the end, almighty God played slow relaxation music and made the man perform simple yoga positions. For example, he had to stand on one leg for a while. Then, he got a harp in his hand and he had to play till his fingers were sore. The potential thief played the harp wonderfully. Finally, the man begged for mercy and almighty God ended the spectacle. The thief fell to the ground, completely exhausted. He wheezed. He had no breath left. It took all his strength to carry himself away and he would not rob good people anymore in the future. He would earn money by busking in the future using his harp. Perhaps he would be discovered for an orchestra in the future? God almighty’s capabilities and the good had won. ‘You need to move more and all the other people, too! Exercise keeps you fit!’ the almighty God said to the devil. ‘Music is best, it gives you a good mood. And until you are so exhausted that you feel great afterwards. Do this together with others and you will live again.’ God almighty made the devil try this himself and he loved it immediately. The devil heeded God’s advice and God was astonished. He was suddenly understanding and felt healed. ‘I thank you so much but I need to go back home again now.’ the devil said as a farewell and disappeared within a stinking cloud of smoke. Progress happened quickly in the underworld. Hell was fully digitalised now and technically completely up to date. Hell’s design experienced a refreshing makeover in natural blue and green tones, automatically adjustable according to the devil’s mood. From now on, he could choose daily between umpteen scents by the push of a button, for example breath-taking garlic and mercury steam. The devil could even choose a suitable music for this, classical guitar, clinking piano or smashing drum rhythms. Of course, everything was remote controlled and independent from the devil’s whereabouts. He had purchased numerous musical instruments and everyone in hell could sing their favourite song now. Completely new practices developed, for example, pandemonium and crazy dance. And the devil met remorseful sinners daily and amused himself splendidly during conversations and while making music and dancing and singing together so that there was no more boredom for him. The devil was happy again. And if humans are very quiet, they sometimes hear a muffled rumbling coming from the ground. That is the devil’s satisfied laughter when there is a wild party taking place in hell. About the author:
Antje Bothin loves writing and her poems have been published in several international anthologies and poetry magazines. She has authored an inspirational novel about a treasure hunt in Iceland featuring a character with Selective Mutism (SM) called 'Annika and the Treasure of Iceland'. When not being creative, she can be found doing voluntary work in nature or drinking tea. When in that fleeting truthful week three Thursdays came in a row once upon a time there was, there was... ...an old farmer who lived in a poor hut. This peasant had a suffering son, hunchbacked and hamstrung from birth, who was unfortunately called Fortunato. At the age of eighteen, Fortunato decided to leave his father's hut and set out to seek his fortune. He said farewell to his father, who blessed him with tears, carved himself a brand new pair of crutches and took the way towards the East, crossed mountains and plains, suffered hunger and thirst, always waiting for his luck to manifest. But luck wouldn’t come his way. One day, at dusk, darkness was catching upon him while he lingered on an unknown path cutting through a fir forest. He quickened his pace to reach some sort of shelter before nightfall, and he felt his heart leap with terror at the cries of the nocturnal birds and the howl of wolves. Suddenly, between the twigs and the trunks, he thought he saw a flickering light: he sprang forward as much as his crutches allowed him, reached a wooden hut, and knocked in the cold. The door opened: a tiny, bent, white-haired, wrinkled old lady appeared in the room, showered by the light of a fireplace. - Good woman, I am lost; welcome me in, for charity’s sake. - Come forward, my son. Fortunato entered the warmth of the hut. - I will share with you part of my dinner; you will be satisfied with the little I have. - Even a little will be too much kindness, mother. They sat down at the table and the old woman placed between them a plate and a tiny bowl, with a crumb of bread and two grains of rice. Fortunato looked at her in amazement. "She wasn't wrong," he thought to himself, "in telling me to be satisfied with little." But the old lady gestured imperiously with her right hand: and behold, the crumb grew, grew, took the shape of a sparrow, a pigeon, a chicken, a roasted turkey with appetising shades of gold. And there the bowl grew, turning into an elegant tureen where a sweetly scented soup steamed. Fortunato thought he was dreaming. He ate with appetite, amazed to taste that magical food under his teeth. And he looked at his mysterious host with different eyes. After dinner the old lady made Fortunato sit under the fireplace mantle, and she crouched against him in the warmth of the ashes. - Son, tell me your story. Fortunato told her of his illness, of his plight and of his vain pilgrimage in search of fortune. - Help me, you must be a powerful fairy. - I am no powerful fairy, my son, and my spells are few... I will help you by showing you a secret that everyone ignores: there’s a path in the forest, and it leads to the castle of desires... At dawn the next day, the old lady accompanied Fortunato through the woods, stopped at a crossroads, and showed him which path to choose. - Walk three days and three nights without looking back, no matter what you feel and hear. For centuries no one has dared to face the mystery of those walls. You will knock with this stone on the great door, and it will open by magic. You will cross courtyards and rooms, entrance halls and corridors. In the last room you will find a sleeping old man, standing with his arm outstretched, holding a green candle between his fingers; that is the talisman that you must steal and that will grant your every wish. The castle is full of magical frauds and diabolical horrors. But the necromancer, dragons and other spirits will fall asleep at noon and sleep till the strike of one. If you’re still there when the bell strikes, though, you will be lost forever... Fortunato took the stone, thanked the old woman and continued along the road on his crutches. Towards evening he heard a call from behind: - Lucky man! Hey, you, Lucky man! He didn't remember the old woman's warning and turned around in curiosity. And he was suddenly brought back to the limits of the forest, from which he had started. - Never mind: I’ll start again. And he undertook the way of the forest again, and again he heard a voice calling for him. - They'll kill me! Help! Young man, help me, for goodness' sake! He turned around in pity and there he was, brought back to the starting point again. He had a fit of anger, then patiently resumed his journey on his crutches. He walked for two days: at sunset on the second day he heard the clash of weapons, the trampling of horses; he turned around in fear and there he was, led back to the starting crossroads. - These are deceptions sent by that necromancer; but I will learn how to resist them. And he blocked his ears with flax tows and continued along the road calmly, unaware of the calls that were trying to distract him. After three days he arrived at the uninhabited castle. He waited for the stroke of twelve and banged with the stone. The immense door, sculpted with fabulous carvings, opened by magic. Fortunato recoiled, horrified. In front of him was a courtyard full of gigantic salamanders, toads, vipers, colossal scorpions. But everyone was asleep and Fortunato took courage and walked on his crutches among the slimy backs, the tails, the iron armour plates, the inert tentacles. He crossed courtyards, entrance halls, corridors, and eventually reached a room completely cladded with silver coins: struck by awe, thinking of everything he could do with such riches, he bent down and filled his pockets with them. He came to a second room full of gold coins: he bent down, tossed away the silver coins and picked up the gold coins. He came to a third room, cluttered with tall pyramids of gems: he emptied his pockets of gold and filled them with diamonds. He crossed other courtyards, other corridors, arriving in a final, immense and dark room. The decrepit necromancer, with his long, white beard, slept standing up, holding the green candle in his outstretched hand. Fortunato looked at him in amazement, and with equal amazement he inspected the thousand things in his diabolical laboratory. Then he remembered the time was passing, snatched the candle from the necromancer's hand, ran back, and got lost in the corridors. Dawn must have been imminent and if he couldn’t come out before that, he was going to be lost forever. He finally found the room again with diamonds, and the one with gold, and the one with silver, crossed the courtyard of the sleeping beasts, passed on his crutches between the slimy backs and tails again, and reached the immense door. The doors closed behind him with a dull crash. The touch of one resounded instantly. A frightening clamour arose behind the castle walls: croaks, hoarse and furious screams; they were the guardian monsters who noticed the theft. But Fortunato was safe outside the walls. He immediately lit the candle and commanded: - Let my legs straighten, let my illness be gone! And the hump disappeared from his back, and his legs straightened strong, and the pain melted away from his body. Fortunato threw away his crutches, put out the candle because it was burning very quickly, and headed for the city. He arrived there late at night, chose a spacious hill and lit up the candle again, commanding it to build a residence more beautiful than the Royal Palace. At dawn the citizens looked in amazement at the new marvellous building, its towers, loggias, staircases, terraces and hanging gardens that blossomed in a single night. Fortunato stood there on a balcony, dressed as a great gentleman, and bathed in their admiring looks. The King, who was an evil tyrant, burned with indignation and envy for the unknown stranger and sent out a valet ordering him to appear in front of the Court and explain his sudden arrival. - You will tell the King that I bow to no one. If he thinks it’s important, he can be the one to come to me. The King ordered the valet to be beheaded, and swore eternal hatred to the mysterious stranger. Fortunato lived the life of a great lord, eclipsing the king with a display of rich clothes, horses and riches: all he had to do was light the green candle for a few seconds and his every wish was immediately satisfied. But the candle was getting shorter and shorter, and Fortunato was starting to get restless and reduce his commands. And he wasn't happy. He felt that something was missing from his life, and he didn't know what. One day, riding through the city, he saw the King's only daughter in a loggia of the palace. The princess seemed to smile benevolently at him, but she was surrounded by the ladies and watched closely by pages and knights. The next day Fortunato passed under the loggia again and saw the princess among her women giving him a complacent smile. Fortunato fell madly in love with her. One full moon evening he stood on the highest of his hanging gardens, leaning on the balustrades that dominated the city. - Perhaps the candle could satisfy me in this too... And he pondered for a long time how to express his desire for her. - Candle, beautiful candle, I want the princess to be made invisible and to be transported instantly to my garden. Fortunato waited, with his heart beating strongly... And here the King's daughter appeared, dressed in a white tunic and with her hair undone. - Help! Help! Where am I? Who are you? The princess trembled, gripped by terror. She felt herself being lifted from her bed, and carried away through space. Fortunato knelt beside her, kissing the hem of her tunic. - I am the knight who passes under your balconies every day, princess, and if I had you transported here it was not with an evil purpose, but only to be able to humbly speak to you. And Fortunato declared his love for her and told her that he wanted to introduce himself to the King and ask for her hand. - Don't do that! My father hates you because you are more powerful than him. If you show up he'll have you instantly killed. After that evening Fortunato often invited Princess Nazzarena to his terraces through the magic of the candle. She appeared at Fortunato’s call, no longer pale and trembling, but sudden and smiling, like a celestial vision. They walked under the palm trees, among the roses and jasmine, and looked at the sleeping city. At dawn Fortunato commanded the green candle to transport the princess to her rooms and she found herself, a few moments later, laying in her alabaster bed. But a malevolent maid had noticed these nocturnal absences and reported the matter to the King. - If it's not true I'll have you hanged - the King said threateningly. - Your Majesty, you can verify this with your own eyes. The next evening the King hid behind the curtains, spying on his sleeping daughter. And behold, towards midnight, a very remote voice said: - Candle, beautiful candle, bring me my beloved Nazzarena! And then his daughter became invisible and the window opened by magic. The King was furious. And when at dawn Nazzarena reappeared sleeping in her bed, her father grabbed her by her golden braids: - Where have you been, you wretched girl? - In my bed, father: I slept all night. The King calmed down. - Then it is a curse you are unaware of, and that I will uncover its secret. He consulted a necromancer, who pondered around the matter in vain. - There is only one expedient, Your Majesty. Hang a perforated bag full of flour on Princess Nazzarena's robes: at dawn we will discover the path she takes. With the help of the treacherous maid, a perforated bag full of flour was hung above the princess's bed so that it would overturn as she moved. At dawn the King armed his entire guard, and with sword in hand he followed the thin white trail... And the trail led him to the palace of the mysterious stranger. He burst into Fortunato's sleeping room, where he was conversing with the princess. Before he could resort to the saving candle, the King had him tied up, transported to the royal palace, imprisoned in the basement, and awaiting punishment. He was condemned to death, and people crowded the large square on the day of his execution. On the balconies of the royal palace stood the whole Court, with the King, the Queen, and the pale and desperate Princess. Fortunato calmly climbed the scaffolding. The executioner said to him: - As is customary in the kingdom, you can express one last wish to His Majesty. - I only ask that a small green candle be brought to me, which I left back at my palace in an ivory casket. It is a dear memory and I would like to kiss it before I die. - May it be granted to him - said the King. A valet returned with the ivory casket and, amid the attention of all the people, Fortunato took the green candle, lit it, and murmured: - Candle, beautiful candle, may all those present here, with the exception of the princess, sink into the ground up to their chin. And the crowd, the Court, the King, the Queen, suddenly sank into the pavement. The square and the streets of the city appeared covered with heads staring and crying for help. Fortunato distinguished among the innumerable heads the crowned head of the King who rolled his eyes to the right and left, and imperiously commanded for someone to free him. But in the whole kingdom there was not a single subject left standing. Fortunato took Nazzarena by the arm and approached the royal head. - Your Majesty, I have the honour of asking you for the hand of Princess Nazzarena. The King looked at Fortunato with angry eyes and said nothing. - If you remain silent, I will depart with her today and leave you and your subjects forever buried up to your chin. The King looked at Fortunato, saw him young and handsome, recalled he was more powerful than him, and recognised he would be a good successor. - Your Majesty, I ask you again for Nazzarena's hand. - May it be granted to you - sighed the king. - Upon your Royal word? - Upon my Royal word. Fortunato commanded the candle to dig up everyone, and everyone soared from the ground by magic. And on the same day, in place of a ferocious beheading, a wedding was celebrated instead. About Guido G. Gozzano: Guido G. Gozzano, born in Turin on December 1883, was an Italian poet and writer and he belonged to the literary movement known as the "Crepuscolari" (Twilight Poets), which emerged in Italy during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Gozzano came from a well-established family and pursued classical studies at the Liceo Classico Cavour in Turin. In his early years, he was influenced by French symbolism and decadentism, and his poetry often reflected a sense of nostalgia and melancholy. Inspired by Leopardi and fierce political opposer of Gabriele d’Annunzio, Gozzano published both poetry and prose. His notable works include "La via del rifugio" (The Way to Refuge) and "I colloqui" (Dialogues). His poetry, characterized by musicality and refined language, explored themes of fleeting beauty, disillusionment, and the passage of time. During the latest years of his life he dedicated himself to delicate fragments of poetry called The Butterflies, segments of prose in epistolary form and, most importantly, the fairy tales published in this collection. They originally appeared serialized on the children's magazine Corriere dei Piccoli. His life was cut short when he succumbed to tuberculosis at the age of 32. His poetry continued to gain recognition posthumously, and he is remembered as one of the significant figures of Italian symbolism. About the translator:
Chiara was born and raised in Italy, and she always pursued a passion for the way fairytales and mythology speak to our innermost struggles. Her first published piece in a magazine was an angry article against Sophocle’s Oedipus Rex, her first published piece in a book was an essay on the aesthetics of Tolkien’s Goldberry. Her first non-fiction book included a build-your-own-adventure RPG-styled section. Her blog www.shelidon.it has been running in both Italian and English language for over 18 years and includes over 2000 articles on literature, folklore, art and history. Based on the poem “Erlkönig” by Johann Wolfgang von Goeth The father and the child walked together, arm in arm, through the great vaulted halls of the Interspace Headquarters. They passed many a portal to the left and to the right which bore signs such as “Virtual Training” and “Online Constabulary” and the like, yet their steps took them resolutely, without tarry or distraction, toward one particular destination which loomed large ahead of them as they drew close. Finally, the two pods came into view over which a largish sign was affixed which read, “Child Interspace Imprinting”. Upon reaching the twin pods, the father carefully eased the small boy into the smaller of the two machines. His large hands installed the headset upon the child and soon the small, blond head was crowned with a device out of which many wires ran this way and that. Having ascertained the secure placement of his son in the pod, soon the father too was seated in his own machine with a larger headset. The doors on the pods closed with a click and somewhere high above in the firmament of the chamber a technician pressed a few codes through on a keyboard. The lights in the pods darkened and both father and child closed their eyes and opened their inner views on a new world. A digital forest lay before them. Programmed as it was for the education of the young, the digital forest comprised within it all variety of visual illusion and optical confection. Within the inner world the father and son saw themselves represented by a larger and smaller pixelated figure respectively. The two figures walked forward toward the forest together. The father figure pointed from time to time at some distant configuration and the son’s small form responded to the prompts with cautious but not clumsy movements of his own. After a moment or two the father pressed through an arranged sequence and soon, his son with dutiful precision, followed his father’s keystrokes on his own smaller HUD. Then, before the two minds, twinned in pods though they were bodily, in the reflexive space of both minds, moved the two figures, a larger and a smaller, representing them both, to grasp one another’s hands. These two figures strode forward through the inner space toward the deeper forest ahead, and as they did, the figures crossed beneath a banner held aloft as though in the nanobytes of the digital air and read, “Who goes so late through night and wind?” The first moments of training passed with no ill report. The father continued to call forth his son’s attention to either side, to small brambles or tugging vines of distraction, and, prompted as he was, the son responded truly, avoiding the underbrush and stepping free of dark hollows and black regresses. Near soon the introductory sequences were logged and bound, and the father proceeded with the longer code. A darker section of the forest opened itself to them and soon they walked together into the blackened path, and when the child figure looked back he saw the path had closed soundly behind them and no glimpse of the entry portal from where their journey began could be seen. The son began to turn back toward the path ahead, but, in the split second before he lost sight of the way behind him, his attention was caught by a sudden flash of movement in the trees. A figure appeared behind him in the forest. The body was dark, but the face had a silvery shine. The face of the figure held still a moment, and then, horribly, a largish smile widened across the white face, as though it were a crack in the surface of the world. Though it was a smile it was somehow ghastly and the upturned lips suggested malevolent interest. The father felt the son twitch. He looked down at the small figure and saw a flicker of interference in the small body. At that same moment the father heard the crack of thunder and felt a subtle shift in the grounding of the program that governed the inner world. He perceived something change in the root code. When he bent his gaze down toward the child again he observed how the small one was resisting some outside force. He bent toward his son and quickly pressed out a message for his son to observe. “My son, wherefore tremblest thou?” The boy was still held in terrible and rapt attention to the dark figure behind him in the forest, but when he was able to seize control of his senses he sent back to his father an urgent message of his own. “Look, father, the Alder-King crouches behind! Dost see not it? Its crown and serrated smile?” The father, proven as he was with his own memories of the first digital steps he once took with his own father, mused to himself what his son must be seeing, unaccustomed as the young one’s eyes must be to the inner digital terrain. Often, he recalled, these digital educational pathways contained within themselves purposeful stations where caution was advised so as to better prepare the young for their future travels. This must be the cause of the thunder and the shift in the terrain, he mused to himself. He sent back a message of mollification to the child, “My son, tis merely the wraithlike mist of distraction rising up from the forest’s floor. Give it no further glance and fix thine eyes forward.” However, in spite of the father’s message no such calm could the child find, for a moment after the father’s words arrived, they were cast aside by the strangely pitched voice of the silvery figure behind him in the forest. The child shook as he heard the words unfold, both on his screen and also, somehow, within his ears and, indeed, in his very mind. The being spoke with a terrible firmness, “Come, thou dear infant! Oh, come thou with me! Many a game I have for thy mind." With a terrified sob the son tore himself free from the silvery words and rushed toward the figure of his father who had turned away and was continuing ahead into the woods. The child felt the Alder-Being behind him reaching for him as he ran. He stumbled in an ungainly fashion toward the father, and, reaching high up toward his father’s hand, he tried to grasp it while earnestly crying out a new message, “My father, my father, and dost thou not hear the words the silvery one breathes in mine ear? Thinking perhaps folly and childish mischief was afoot, the father made not to stop, but briefly checked his step. He looked down at the face of his son and allowed only the briefest of messages, “Be calm, dearest child, 'tis but thy fancy. 'Tis the sad wind that sighs through withering leaves.” By now the figure of the child was juttering, detaching from the main signal. His body was half in one place and half split into another. Nothing in the father’s words could bring respite to the child for in the very moment when the father’s message faded from his vision he saw with awful clarity behind him the marked shapes of, not one, but several silvery shadows trailing behind him. The boy’s steps betrayed him, for no matter how he tried to dash toward the distant figure of his father, his feet felt trapped as though in glue. He reached down to free his foot, but at that moment the awful smiling shapes behind grew monstrously and in each face was another and another of the gaping serrated mouths. The Alder-One was writhed and encircled with many more of its kind, each with their own smaller mouth, but each one snapping and smiling with intense interest. A high, frightful song came from the murmuring, silvery crowd of figures behind the boy, and, clearest of all above the terrible words came the voice of the Being, “Wilt go, then, dear infant, wilt go with me there, my love? My daughters shall tend thee with sisterly care. They have a bed prepared for thee. They'll dance thee, and rock thee, and sing thee to sleep." The child was now so terrified he could move his feet no further. He stood and felt his sight dwarfed by the rising figures as they approached. The figures were now close enough for him to see saliva and some kind of wet excretion dripping from their jaws. Unable to move but still with enough sense to cry out, the child pitched his message to the highest possible alert and sent it toward his father, “My father, my father, and dost thou not see how the Alder-One his daughters has brought here for me?” The father stopped. He felt the hairs upon his neck rise. He turned and no sooner did his vision fall upon his son when he, too, heard now, with terrifying finality and utter conviction, the somehow simultaneously high and low harmonic voice of a being from the inner world. The father, now with his eyes opened from the adult-world of benevolence, heard with his own ears a thudding convicted voice of awful sentence. He saw the Alder-King touch his son and heard the black words, “I love thee, I'm charm'd by thy beauty, dear boy! I’m taking thee now." A high-pitched cry now filled the writhing forest as the son felt his arms pulled from his body. He felt claws enter his mouth and eyes and feverishly dig therein. He vacantly marvelled that the cry he heard was his own. The father rushed back toward the horrible scene. He stretched out his arms and caught up the tortured body of his son and ripped it from the silvery shapes. He then turned and ran full force back in the direction of the entrance portal. As he ran he felt a violent shudder wrack through the body of the child and with each jerk of the entrails he heard, echoing in his mind, his child’s relentless message, pounding through his ears and out into the distant trees, “My father, my father, the teeth! They hurt me!” In what seemed like an eternity of frantic struggle though in what may have only been a matter of seconds, the father saw, finally, the entry portal rising up before him. He clutched his child to his breast as he plunged himself forward and dove out of the aperture. Immediately he was back in his physical space within the pod. The sequence ended. He tore the headset from his head. He kicked repeatedly at the door of his pod. There was splintering and breaking and finally he was out. He lunged out and scrabbled frantically at the pod door of the smaller unit where his son still lay within. Finally, with a breaking of plastic and a shattering of screens and circuitry, the father wrenched the final hinge from its mooring. Smoke and the high smell of acid poured out. He reached in to the twisted interior of the pod. The smoke cleared and he saw pale skin and wide eyes. The boy was dead. About the author:
Zary Fekete...
Lucille holds in her single hand a scrap of paper. The slip of permission granted. Domino sees the gesture and grabs it to read. This woman, here, sent by the witch LaCombe. She asks Lucille to sit, flashing eyes to the other arm, a ruin. The two find themselves opposite each other at a small round table in a darkened room, faint pink light with purple, the smell of mint and ginger floating thick on the air, odor rich like a mist, difficult to breathe. “Don’t worry,” Domino says, touching her lip, a long fingernail there, decorated different than the other nine. Her hair is red, her own, pressed to her forehead in the front with gel, the back an elaborate updo. Always she is careful with the hair, part of the mask of character. Yet still, some part is no mask at all. Some is nothing but the real. “How could I not? Not be nervous?” responds Lucille. She looks around with a twitch, as a bird surrounded by felines. The shop is wild and eclectic, full of the grotesque, the absurd, every shade of the occult laid out in obscure objects. Most near, a human skull is there with fire eyes that flicker. A holy pendant sits below it as a necklace, twinkling blue-black motes in the dim. Though there is much else to see, the skull and its subtle lights transfix Lucille’s gaze. She rubs the remainder of her right limb nervously, a habit, an itch. “Over here,” says Domino. The women place their palms upon the table, all three. A ritual will begin when they are ready. Forces from elsewhere pay mind to the potential opening of a gate, a heave to crack reality. Lucille sees the turning of the first card, one of a triad. Domino’s concentration is pressed forward, as an energy all its own. The women look down, expectant, anticipatory, lucid. They are one, briefly, an ephemeral bond of twinship. Domino shudders for her own fate, a beat. The skull cackles. Lucille jumps in her seat. “Ignore St. Meridius,” Domino suggests, knowing it’s near impossible. The long-dead saint is a mischievous sort who niggles at the boundaries of life, still, for his centuries, and the old priest knows something of what’s to come. His laughter is a warning, for he can no longer speak, all words lost in his slow decay. The skull rocks once from side to side. Lucille pretends she did not see it happen. Then, the tarot begins to tell a tale, ominous, the first card the Ten of Swords, so many piercings of the heart. Meanwhile, a ferocious entity, a named creature banned in the ancient treaties, waits just behind the door that could arrive. Lucille’s suffused fear may be enough, or the fact she is perpetually wounded. The hovering malevolence is Guul-Goodak-Gisii, or that is what the Toltec peoples did name him, a foul spirit of deep earth and caves. He is made of shadow, a feaster upon anxiety, and for all the eras of his skulking, yet longs to destroy. He wishes his taloned feet to be soaked once more in the liquid ruin of new-killed flesh. Domino pauses in the turn of the second card, the Tower, the prison in such a context, a mark of damnation. Lucille’s shoulders give a twinge. The skull, St. Meridius, the faded hero of lost worlds, makes another sound, a portent. There is a stink of candles burnt to the end, smoke of hair aflame; Lucille’s skin has been scorched for her left hand above the fire. She sucks on the burned digit to ease the discomfort, and Gool-Goodak licks his lips and fangs with the serpent tongues of his four mouths. He is hungry. The door may open yet. “I see here…” Domino pauses. “I see here signs of wicked things to come,” she says, with a tremble. Lucille shakes her head to know the truth, touching her chin with the wreck of her right arm, the memory of the awful attempt, a coma to starve flesh of oxygen for hours. In the wake of her accident, continuing to exist, she came to a reader for all profane things to be revealed. Her mind is weak and wandering, as if under the bridge of every overpass in the city, where her dreams live barely. Her hopes are metaphysically aimed, this time, to shoot soul heroin, the dope of despair. Even for her poor truthsight, Domino is keen. The woman before her walks the edge of the roof without a rail, seeking mercy, the alleviation of grief even it means a fall. Even a middling clairvoyant such as Domino knows well that when one is frail, the monsters salivate. “You were sent here by the white witch, Gizzy LaCombe,” Domino says. “Why go to her for help, then come to me?” Domino asks. The third and final card she holds in abeyance. Lucille feels only the pain, the phantoms that swirl in her body. “My mother died,” Lucille states. “She was all I had in the world. What’s more, Gizzy is not white in her ideals, more grey, sometimes crimson. She stinks of toad and turtle, perhaps as a witch should, but I was glad to be out of there.” “If that’s true,” Domino posits, “then I say tomfoolery. Why trust her? You don’t know me whatsoever.” “No psychologist or grief counsellor will tell me of fortune, when I’m near the worst,” Lucille contends, battling emotion just barely. Domino fingers the third card again, waiting, wondering what part hovers for the teller herself. No portal swings open without responsibility. There is magic in magic, doom in doom, and nothing holds back a destiny decided. Yet it remains wise at times to seek delay, a stitch in time to save all nine, or the teller’s skin if the game is rigged for blood. Domino knows there is risk if the candles blow a certain way. If the old saint and his skull will not be still. The third card waits beneath her touch. “Are you alright?” Lucille asks, sensing what simmers beneath, the third at the last. “No, no. I’m fine,” says Domino, a sweat, cold, a drip just below her hairline. The sheen of doubt must be visible, even in the murk of the shop, the darkness of illusions made real. Guul-Goodak snarls for the delay, understanding well the passkey. The Devil drawn as three of three will make for him the way, a venerable demon’s entrance unto the mortal world. Havoc awaits. “Should we turn the final card, then?” Lucille asks, and Domino gulps a bit of air to make sure her heart still functions as it should. The women breathe, every so light, both thinking on the rule of three, and perilous things that may come. About the author:
D. G. Ironside is an author from Canada, where they live with their lovely partner Stacey. Their work can be seen in Bewildering Stories, Dark Horses, and the premiere issue of Peasant Magazine, among other places. |
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