Zooscape

by Penndry Dragonsworth

“Only Contrary could run away from home with nothing but the fur on her back, and end up in the lair of the single magical creature able to thrive in this horrible, magic-twisted place.”

The lioness had misplaced her sister. Not her pack-sister, pride-sister, or blood-sister; not her hunt-sister, heart-sister, or sister-in-the-mysteries: her sister, full stop. The fact that the lioness had been away at University studying sorcery for the last three years made no difference at all to the matron-mothers when they contacted her through crystal — at great expense and inconvenience they were sure to mention. They told the lioness: “The only tie Contrary claims is yours, therefore you must bring her home.” The divinatory-aunts had named her sister Contrary and either through fate or parental expectations, she lived up to that name with verve and enthusiasm — at least until she vanished.  The lioness wondered why they would want such an adept provocateur returned to the pride-castle, but the matron-mothers were adamant: “She is ours, and we did not give her leave to go.”

The lioness wished (not for the first time) that her beloved Contrary had claimed allegiance to anyone else. There was no way she was going to convince any of her hunt-sisters or travel-sisters to leave the familiarity of home territory and the safety of the pride-castle for one who took no place in the family. The lioness sighed, begged forbearance from her advisors, and hied herself home to look for clues.

If there was anyone who could provide a counteragent to the whims of her mothers, it was her divinitory-aunts, but they shut the chapel on her arrival so quickly she very nearly lost a whisker to the doors.

Her father just said, “Then don’t. It’s one less mouth to feed, innit,” when she asked as a last resort.

Easy for him to say, but it was her hide the matron-mothers would shred to ribbons if Contrary wasn’t found.

* * *

Contrary had gone to the Stormlands but left the lioness a clue in the form of a small carved figurine. The bird with thunder in its wings smelled like dolphins, lightning, flooded dreams, and wet bird. It rattled when the lioness shook it. It could only have come from one place. How she hated the Stormlands! Any sane person avoided the wet, violent, chaotic, wet, dripping, wet place. But. Always but.  “She is ours, and she had no leave to go.”

The lioness sighed again. Even plain-sisters-full-stop were family, and family belonged to the matron-mothers. She informed the matron-mothers of her destination and thought longingly of her sorcery research as she pulled her heavy-weather gear out of storage.

* * *

Finding Contrary in the Stormlands was a slog. The rocs and thunderbirds who ruled the Stormlands disrupted the aether with their very existence and the lioness’ waterproofing spell failed within the first week. By the time she finally tracked down her sister, her shoes squelched, she’d been through two hurricanes, fifteen major thunderstorms (apparently they only counted as major if you were struck by lightning and oh! How she hated this place!), had muddy hail thrown in her face by a waterspout-surfing dolphin man, and was pretty sure her fur was growing algae.

Only Contrary could run away from home with nothing but the fur on her back, and end up in the lair of the single magical creature able to thrive in this horrible, magic-twisted place. That this so-called “lair” was a mansion and the magical creature was a famous ice-dragon and an artist just added to the unfairness of it all.

The lioness sighed as she looked up at the mansion’s decorative pillars, green with algae; she sighed again as she looked higher at the extensive gutters with corner statues, fanciful grotesqueries spewing water like fountains; she looked at the long winding pathway to the door, overhung with picturesque mossy trees dripping yet more water. But. Always but. “She is ours, and she had no leave to go.”

The lioness sighed a third time and started walking. A piece of wet moss fell on her head.

* * *

“You,” she said to Contrary, and that small word spoke pages on how she felt about this situation, “are coming home.”

“No,” said Contrary, twirling her ice wine by its stem and dangling a paw off the opulent chaise lounge. She looked at her sister’s sodden, drooping whiskers, took in her squelching shoes. The lioness really had tried to do right by her, but was too enmeshed in the family to understand why she couldn’t stay. “Sister, tell the matron-mothers I am muse to an ice dragon. Surely that will be enough status to satisfy them.”

The lioness shook her head. “That’s not how it works.”

“You left for Uni,” the ice dragon pointed out. She was smudged with paint and magical reagents. The lioness sniffed. Artists.

“The castle had need for a wizard.”

What actually happened was this: first the lioness had confessed her sorcery to her heart-sister; then they both petitioned their hunt-sisters with charts and maths; then they and the hunt-sisters begged blessings from a divinatory-aunt who eyed them skeptically but cast the auguries anyhow; and by the time the lioness, her heart-sister, her hunt-sisters, and the divinatory-aunt took her cause to the matron-mothers, the sisters-of-the-mysteries had already whispered in the matron-mothers’ ears and it was a good thing the lioness was here because the matron-mothers had just decided the north tower needed a wizard.

The lioness looked at the ice dragon. The lioness looked at Contrary. Was it fate or expectations that brought them to this. She thought of her time at University. She thought of the matron-mothers and their proud, noble lineage (she thought of the matron-mothers and their sharp, strong claws). She thought she was dry enough for at least one containment spell.

“Sister, you had no leave to go.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Penndry Dragonsworth lives in the Midwest with two cats and collects small vintage cameras. In the summers, Penndry does low-key urban foraging to make jam.

by Amitha Jagannath Knight

“I returned to the village and ate every single person who had ever wronged me, starting with my family, and then the boy I was supposed to impress and the woman who hoped to be my mother-in-law…”

Once, I was a human girl.

You wouldn’t know it to look at me now, but long ago, when devas and demons roamed the earth, I was a human girl who dreamed of being a dancer.

The rains had finished, and the Kaveri River swelled threateningly close to the outskirts of the village. In no rush to return home, I sat idling by the riverbank in the marshy reeds, my toes in the water, dreaming of dancing. I wanted to feel the rhythm of the drums in my body, of the high flute winding around my skin. More than that, I wanted to be free of my family.

But instead, that was the day I would meet my future husband. My family was eager to marry me off. I had heard them say as much that morning. My father had been out working the fields, but Amma and Paati had sat just outside our dung hut preparing for the meal while I was inside sweeping.

“If this boy doesn’t marry her, there is no one left to take her. Useless girl.” Amma’s stone pestle ground forcefully into the idli rice and even from inside I could hear it sloshing.

“Don’t give them a choice this time,” Paati advised. “Just pay them off and be done with it.”

My face burned with fury and embarrassment. No matter how clean this room was, they would never be satisfied. I was done with this place. I was done with my family. Tossing my hand broom aside, I rushed outside.

“If no one wants me, then offer me to the temple dancers!” Temple dancers were married to the temple. They only took a spouse if they chose. Their role was to tell the stories of the gods and pass them down to the common folk so that we could understand our history. I wasn’t keen on the idea of performing for anyone, not even the gods, but if that was my only choice, so be it.

“Chee!” Amma said. “Don’t be ridiculous. I will not sell my daughter to that life.” With a thud, the pestle dropped as she rose to face me. “Those women performing for some dance master under the same roof as those priests. What do you think happens? How do you think that looks for us?”

“Shameful,” Paati said. She took up the pestle and continued the grinding.

I crossed my arms. “How could that be any different from being sent with a dowry to live under another family’s roof, betrothed to some village boy who has rights to my body?”

The slap came so fast I didn’t even have time to blink.

“Go collect water and don’t spill half of it like you always do.” She sat back down, muttering, “Girl wants to be a dancer. She can’t even walk without tripping over her own feet!”

“Shameful,” Paati repeated.

And so I sat, with a hand on my still-stinging cheek, with only the Kaveri River to comfort me. If I wasn’t wanted at home, I would go somewhere else. I would leave this place. Sighing, I slipped my feet into the cold water and wiggled my toes beneath the rippling surface. A beam of reflected sunlight struck my eyes, and I suddenly felt a sharp bite of understanding, that my toes were wrong somehow. There shouldn’t be ten toes. No. Ten was the right number, but not for toes. My legs were wrong too, my whole entire body was wrong. I could feel it deep into the marrow of my bones. I wasn’t meant to look like this. I wasn’t meant to be this. I slipped my whole body into the water until I stood shoulder high in the pulsing waves of the Kaveri River, the rushing water closing in around me like a mother-in-law winding a sari too tightly around a bride. My limbs pressed in close.

“No!” I cried as my limbs fused together to my body. “This was a mistake!” I thought I would be squeezed to death, but then my muscles pushed back, thick and strong. I was expanding, growing. My warm brown skin itched as it changed to green gray scales. Painfully, my whole body stretched and stretched until I was longer than the tallest trees in our village. My dark hair fell out, but then — my head split ten ways. I could hear, smell, and taste things I had never even dreamed of before. The human inside me was confused and frightened, but I soon realized that I had ten times the intelligence, ten times the keen eyesight, and ten tongues to talk back to anyone who would insult me.

I was a glorious serpent such as the world had never seen.

A voice came from the river, deep and low, but sweet. “A new body needs a new name. What shall yours be?”

Kaliya, I thought, the name pushing its way to the forefront of my mind. My name is Kaliya.

As though in rebuke, I heard my father calling my old name. He had come to fetch me. With a smile, I ducked beneath the water.

“Where are you? Stupid girl. The boy will be here soon, and you haven’t started the lunch!”

Spotting my clothes along the river bank, he gasped. “Aiyo!” He assumed the worst. “Swimming naked so close to the village?” he cried. “Anyone could see! Your reputation will be ruined! Come out of there now and cover yourself!”

At the sound of his voice, my insides quaked. I could feel my frightened human form threatening to reemerge and split my tail in two. I am no longer human. I reminded myself. I am a snake. I am sleek and strong, and I dance for no one.

Especially not my father.

I reared up my body to its full and glorious height. At fifty feet tall, my luscious serpentine scales glittered with water that rained down into my father’s eyes.

“Yessss, Appa,” I hissed. “I am naked. Naked and FREE!”

He screamed in horror. And then… well. Let’s just say a girl gets hungry after a good shape shifting.

I returned to the village and ate every single person who had ever wronged me, starting with my family, and then the boy I was supposed to impress and the woman who hoped to be my mother-in-law, until finally I had devoured my entire village. As I swallowed them all down, ten at a time, my esophagi squeezing their bodies, I felt their poisons leeching out into my veins.

Understand now?

I wasn’t originally a venomous snake — it was them. It was their bitter poisons that ran through my body.

From there I traveled downstream, from village to village, seeking out fresh victims: people who poisoned girls and tried to keep them in their place. People who wanted girls like I had once been to be nothing but snakes in a basket — kept and called out on command, dancing and swaying to someone else’s music. I devoured an old man whose three daughters he kept chained to the house, and I snapped their bonds as they whimpered with fright. An auntie who taunted young women and goaded them into marriage twisted her way down my throat. I even ate a priest or two. Or ten. And anyone who dared ask who was I to swallow entire villages, I told them:

I am Defender of Women. Nightmare of the Patriarchy.

I am Kaliya. Queen of Snakes.

My old name, the weak human one chosen by my parents, was long forgotten, shed like a dried-up old skin. I swam up and down the Kaveri and people fled from the sight of me. I understood that perhaps it could be frightening for a giant snake to appear and swallow down your tormentors, but I expected a little more delight. Gratitude even. Stories of my exploits spread far and wide. I was feared and reviled though I saw myself as a liberator of the weak and defenseless.

Discouraged and frustrated, I soon tired of revenge. The waters I swam were no longer clear and fresh, but putrid and roiling with the poisons of my kills. Not only that, but… well… I grew bored. Lonely, even. I almost missed my family. Almost.

I invited those I rescued to join and follow me, but each and every one of them refused. I was too frightening, too powerful. They ran away with horror. What I wanted were people who understood me, a life with joy and music and freedom.

It is lonely being one-of-a-kind.

I had once heard stories about a land for snakes — a place where they lived free of humankind. I slithered my way there, eager to meet those who would understand me. Understand my need for freedom and community. Was it possible to have both?

For months, I swam, traveling from river to sea to river again until finally I found my way to the end of the world, to the churning ocean of milk. And there was Ramanaka-dvipa. The haven for snakes, created by the gods.

The island was filled with groves of fruit trees, branches heavy with ripe mangoes, guavas, and colorful birds with sweet voices. Large mansions dotted the landscape, each with a tank of lotus flowers at the front. Truly I had found a serpentine paradise.

Eager to meet a like mind, I slithered to the first door I found, and pushed. But the door was locked.

What kind of paradise had locked doors?

“What is this?” I called out. I slammed my heavy tail against the door. “Who is inside? Where are the snakes?”

A harried voice whispered from the other side of the door. “Take cover! Garuda will be here soon!”

“Garuda?”

“Yessss!” he hissed. “Put out an offering so you may be spared.”

“Offering? What offering?”

An emerald snake peered out of a window. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

“I haven’t been here before,” I said.

“Then you won’t remember Garuda’s voracious appetite. Every month we give him offerings in exchange for him promising not to terrorize us again. If you have children, offer them now, or else you may be eaten yourself!”

With that, the snake disappeared inside, banging the window shutters behind him.

Seeking more clarity, I went to the next mansion, and the next and the next. And then, I saw it: A large golden statue of an eagle in the center of the village. An idol of the one who had subjugated them. And on the stone steps before it, a basket, filled with baby snakes. Most of them girls.

Even here, the kingdom of snakes, girls were nothing but bodies to be given up, given away. Discarded. Just as my parents had wanted to do with me. Before fury could wrap its hot fingers around my cold-blooded veins, I heard it — a great rush of wind that shook all the fruit from the trees.

Screech!

Peering up at the sky with all ten of my heads, I saw a large bird with a wingspan as long as my body circling the cloudless azure skies. Instinctively, I hid behind a wall before Garuda could see me. His golden feathers shone majestically, his beak as sharp as my fangs. Like all birds, his eyes were beady, but keen, and he swooped down, alighting on the idol.

Before me was Garuda, King of Birds.

As a human, I knew Garuda only as Lord Vishnu’s courageous vahana. He was someone to be revered and worshipped. To the snakes of Ramanaka-dvipa, he was someone to be feared and obeyed. But I was Kaliya. I was sleek and strong, and I danced for no one.

Not my father.

And certainly not Garuda.

Flicking out my tongue, I could taste his scent — molting feathers and bird droppings. Not scents of courage, but of flawed mortality. He said nothing, he simply lunged for the offerings, ready to devour the baby snakes.

But I got there first.

With my ten gaping maws, I swallowed every last one of them, sending their little bodies wriggling down my throat. Then, I swam hard for the ocean while Garuda was left frozen with shock.

I coughed up the babies, releasing them to the waters. “Swim!” I hissed. “I’ve rescued you.” But they only gaped at my gigantic ten-headed form with confusion and terror on their faces, mirrors of all the human girls I had saved.

By now, Garuda had recovered, and his strong wingbeats blew powerful waves through the water. “Who dares steal the offerings intended for the great and mighty Garuda?” He flew down, setting his powerful claws before me on the sand.

“It is I, Kaliya, Queen of Snakes! Begone from here! You will no longer terrorize this place.” With that I struck, sinking my venomous teeth into his breast.

“Fool!” he screeched. “You are no match for Garuda!” Quicker and fiercer than my mother’s stinging palm, he had wrapped his talons around my throat. He sailed into the heavens, carrying me in his tight grip until he suddenly let go, and I plunged towards tall mountains.

I was certain I would die as soon as I hit the rocks.

But when it happened, and my body struck stone, only my breath was knocked out of me. That was all. I still lived. My glorious scales were even tougher than I had imagined.

“Let this be a lesson to you!” he announced, as he saw me move, his voice resounding on the hills. “Tell the serpents—”

Before he could finish whatever insipid pronouncement he had prepared, I reared up and with all my might, I leaped for him, wrapping my body around his. We hurtled to the ground, but this time when we fell, I was prepared. As he let out a cry of shock, I squeezed tight, so the breath could not return to his lungs. I sprayed venom into his eyes. He screeched weakly in protest. I squeezed harder, eking his very last breath from his lungs. Writhing in agony, he snapped his beak this way and that, and in doing so he managed to grab hold of one of my tongues and bite it clean off.

Blood spurting from my mouth, I released him and hissed with pain. With a great inhale, the air rushed into his lungs, and he shot back up into the sky. There he screeched, circled around once, and then suddenly dove back down. I will not lie; I trembled seeing that great beak like a deadly arrow from the heavens aimed straight for me. As fast as I could, I slithered away, heading back to the beach, using all my strength to try to escape and reaching — just barely reaching — the waters when I felt his beak close down on the tip of my tail.

Like a fisherman, I reeled him in towards me, into the ocean where I now had the advantage. I lunged, ready to wrap myself around him again, but he let go and flapped his great golden wings, sailing away overhead again.

“There is one who will find you yet!” he cried. “Vishnu has been reborn!”

Vishnu?

His words echoed in my ears like a prophecy, but I failed to grasp the significance.

What did Lord Vishnu have to do with me?

I returned to Ramanaka-dvipa, ready to be welcomed as a heroine, a savior of serpents. But instead, I faced an angry mob prepared for revenge, behind them the children I had rescued.

“YOU!” They screamed and charged at me, but I was bigger than all of them, the height of ten of them combined and even battle-weary I knew I could take them. As they slithered towards me, I separated my heads to increase my size, looming even higher above them. Frightened, they stopped in their tracks.

“Garuda will be angry!” one spluttered.

“He will exact his revenge!” someone else said.

I hissed. “I have defeated him, and he has flown away in disgrace. He’ll not dare return so long as Kaliya, Queen of Snakes, is around.”

But the serpents continued to argue. “You are no queen of ours!” they said.

I spat venom at their feet, and then with one mighty swipe of my tail, I toppled the Garuda statue they worshipped. Then I slithered away, heads held high.

If they did not appreciate my help, then I would leave them to their fates.

I returned to my itinerant life of devouring cruel people who deserved it, while being reviled by every woman and child I helped. It was a satisfying, yet incredibly lonely, life. I reassured myself that at least I was with the one person who knew and recognized my worth.

Myself.

That was better than marrying some village boy my parents chose for me, wasn’t it? Was it?

* * *

One day in the Yamuna River, as I was dozing beneath the waves after a large kill, I heard fishermen gossiping above me in their raft.

“Krishna sucked the life right out of her as she fed him milk. Apparently, she had meant to poison him, just as she’d poisoned all the other babies. But this time, she was the one who died.”

“No!” the other fisherman gasped. “Is it true?”

“And he charms everyone he meets. The gopis in his town forget their cows and dance with him all day as he plays his flute. They go home filled with stories of Krishna.”

I listened as the tales of this Krishna continued. Who was this young man who both killed and dazzled women? Was he the next man who deserved a lesson from Kaliya?

“They say he is Vishnu incarnate.”

Thrusting out of the water, I asked, “Where is he?”

The fishermen nearly fell out of their boats from fear and the force of my wake. They cowered, whimpering.

“Answer me!” I demanded, leaning in closer. “Where is he? Where is this… this… Krishna?” His name came out a hiss, and I flicked my tongues in their faces. They cowered and whimpered until one of them finally spoke.

“Go- Gokul,” he stuttered.

I dove back into the water, not even looking to see if the fishermen had been flung out of their boats. There was no time to waste. Gokul was less than half a day’s swim upstream. If I was going to be killed by Vishnu, so be it.

Once in Gokul, I decided to take things slowly. I bided my time in the water, letting him come to me. I grew hungry waiting, feeding only on fish, not wanting to alarm anyone and thus alert them to my presence. The next day, though, I heard it: his flute, high and fluttering. The notes winding around my heads, finding the way to that human heart that still beat inside of me, nearly forgotten. The music resounded through my body, and I could feel the warm blood of the young woman beneath my scales responding.

I dove back into the water. This was dangerous. His flute was hypnotic, and I refused to succumb to its wily powers. When the music stopped, I cautiously sent only one of my heads to peer above the surface of the water. There sat a group of young people, all about my age, talking and laughing. Flirting. What was this? I had never seen people like this before with such ease around each other and such freedom. Didn’t they have chores to do? Duties to perform? Families to answer to? My village had been nothing like this. Nor had the many villages I had visited since. To live with such ease and laughter and music was almost incomprehensible. What kind of magic did this Krishna have?

At first, I didn’t see him, because he was at the center of the group, but when he took up his instrument again, everyone sat down to listen. And suddenly there he was.

Gracefully he held the flute to his lips. His skin was an unusual color, so dark it was almost black, though with a dark blue hue when the sunlight hit — like the dark beauty of the ocean spreading beneath a night sky. When his eyes met mine, I saw that he knew me, just as he knew everything, and then, I knew everything. This was no mere boy. This was a divine being who could see that my life was as divine as his. And I also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could not kill him. An odd sense of peace and finality overcame me then, knowing, deep in my soul that this was a powerful being worthy of my presence. Limitless in his powers, unencumbered by the fragility of his human frame.

Seeing that something in the water had caught Krishna’s attention, the others soon began to look as well. There was no point hiding now. As I expected, everyone screamed at the sight of me as I reared up my body. They all shouted their warnings.

“It’s Kaliya!”

“A demon!”

“She has poisoned the waters!”

“She fought Garuda and won!”

Krishna didn’t speak. Without a moment’s hesitation, he dove into the water. He floated there before me, and wordlessly we looked into each other’s eyes.

One of my brains told me that I should run away. Now. For this was Vishnu incarnate, and as Vishnu incarnate, he could not be killed. Not by me, not by a woman with poison smeared on her breasts, not by anyone.

He held out a hand, indicating that he meant no harm. Slowly, he made his way towards me, and I stayed still, unsure what to do or what he wanted. He wrapped his arm around me, pulling me gently beneath the surface. Music filled me then, the rhythm of the river, the rhythm of all the rivers, the oceans, the universe, all surged through my body.

Skin to scales we danced. We glided in the water. Without words we reached an epic union of souls that I still cannot explain.

Underwater, where none but us and the voiceless waves could hear, he whispered to me. I too am a shapeshifter, he said. And he told me of his life as Matsya the fish, of his life as Kurma the half-tortoise. He said he understood what it was to be both human and animal and yet also divinity itself.

The people are scared of powerful women, but I will teach them, he said. He released me from his hold. Before we part, I need you to do something for me.

“Assssk and I shall follow,” I said, the words rushing from me so fast they came as a shock when I heard them.

Dance for me above the waters. Show the humans they have nothing more to fear from Kaliya, the Queen of Snakes.

This made me stop. Had his honeyed words been nothing but music meant to hypnotize a serpent? To convince me to come out of my basket?

I was Kaliya, Queen of Snakes. I was sleek and strong. I danced for no one. Not my father, not Garuda, and not even Krishna, avatar of Vishnu.

“No,” I said forcefully, not caring that I was talking back to a god.

Krishna took my refusal in stride. I am currently human, and thus I have been reborn, but—

I twisted away from him. While I could not hurt him, that didn’t mean that I was forced to listen to him either.

He was a fast swimmer and easily caught up to me.

But, he continued, as Lord Vishnu, I can grant you that which you desire most.

“And what is that?” I spat back.

Freedom—

“I HAVE freedom,” I retorted.

Let me finish, glorious girl. I will find you freedom AND companionship.

I glared at him. He came towards me, putting his arms around me again. Skin to scales. I listened to the sweet words coming from his lips. Even I couldn’t stay angry with this divine being. I could feel all the venom, all the hatred I had swallowed begin to dispel. The waters around me began to clear as his music played in my soul. Part of me was skeptical, part of me wanted to run, and hide, and ignore his slippery words, and his slippery promises.

“Where will I go?” I asked, voice hushed.

Return to Ramanaka-dvipa, the promised home of the serpents. You will be their Queen.

“They threw me out!” I said.

I have heard what happened, but I promise they will have you now. Garuda follows my command and thanks to you, the serpents will live in peace so long as you reside there.

“No,” I said. “I cannot be their queen if they do not accept me as such. I will not force my rule on anyone, or I’ll be no better than those I have swallowed.”

Then I will grant you a new home, a place worthy of you, my queen. You will be Krishna’s first wife.

“Wife?” Did I want that?

I will not live with you. I will not rule over you. I will visit when you call me. I will stay when you like. No one need know but us. Kaliya will be the queen of Krishna’s heart. I am yours.

His promises were tempting, but I wanted more.

A voice came from the river, deep and low, but sweet. Kaliya, you deserve the community you seek.

I looked around, but I saw no one.

“Who was that? Who are you?”

I have been with you since the beginning, said the voice. In a way, you could say I am your real amma.

“Show yourself,” I demanded.

You know me, the voice said. I made you what you are.

I thought back to that day on the riverbank… who had made me? Then it came to me — “Goddess Kaveri!”

As I spoke her name, the waters around me began to coalesce into a womanly form who bowed before me, her eyes sparkling in the sunlight. Her blue green hair flowed all around her, enveloping Krishna and me into her bubble.

“Kaveri Amma! Thank you,” I said, putting my hands together reverently and bowing. For she was my true mother, she had created me, and allowed me to thrive in her waters.

I have followed you these past months, and I have seen how you thanklessly defend women. While I do not always approve of your methods, your purpose is true, but you must remember what you are.

“And what is that?”

You are Kaliya, a snake with a human soul. A human soul who deserves the community she seeks.

“Yes, but what community?” I asked. “How can I find them?” The Goddess’s form dispersed into the waters of her sister river. “Wait!” I shouted. “Kaveri Amma! How can I find them?” I groaned with frustration. Had she told me anything I didn’t already know? I felt like I was right back at the beginning of this journey — a serpent with no friends, no family, only vengeance to fuel her, but I was tired now. Too tired to continue on that lonely life. I needed love and had found it, but I also needed friends, I needed a family. I needed a community.

But how could I convince anyone to join me if they were too scared to even look me in the faces? And then a pair of eyes met mine. Krishna, avatar of Vishnu faced me. And suddenly, I understood.

Krishna had offered himself to me.

“Help me,” I said. “Your flute draws people towards you. Use your music to tell my story. We’ll find others like myself, women and people seeking a community. Let us lead them to this new land you promised where I will watch over and protect them as my parents never did for me.”

Krishna smiled and bowed. Taking that as his acceptance, I gripped his tiny body with my tail and like a toy, I placed him atop my head. Then, I lifted him up into the sky, where all could see him. His human friends, the cowherds and gopis gaped as I rose up out of the water with his small form.

Before everyone, he performed for me, playing his flute and dancing. The music and the rhythm of his life thrummed though my entire being. My soul danced with him, feeling the song that is the deepest sound of the universe play through both of us, connecting us. My body bent and bobbed in time to the music.

Through our dance we told the story of me. Of how I had been mistreated, of how I had become a snake, of how I had fought for others, of how I had battled Garuda.

All along the banks of the Yamuna River, people flocked to watch, and soon they followed. At first, it was only a trickle of people, girls I had saved who now understood what I had done for them. Then came more — people who needed a savior, who like me, had longed for a different life. Eventually they came in streams and rivers and oceans. Even the snakes found us, intermingling with humanity. Krishna granted us a new land, even bigger and more abundant that Ramanaka-dvipa.

There we lived in harmony, and I finally became who I was meant to be:

Kaliya, Queen of Peace.

I am sleek and strong, and when I dance…

…I dance for me.

* * *

About the Author

Dr. Amitha Jagannath Knight is an award-winning children’s author and a writer of poems and stories for people of all ages. She is a graduate of MIT and Tufts University School of Medicine and was also a former social media manager for We Need Diverse Books. Her previous publications include: Usha and the Big Digger, a picture book which won the 2023 Mathical Honor Award and “Locked In,” a flash fiction piece published in Luna Station Quarterly. While her parents were originally from South India, Dr. Knight grew up in Texas and Arkansas, and now lives in Massachusetts with her husband, kids, and cats. Find out more about her writing on her website at www.amithaknight.com.

Welcome to Issue 19 of Zooscape!

There is a profound connection between furry fiction and rebirth.  We read stories about characters with scales or fur, and we’re reborn into new, imaginary bodies.  Through fiction, we can be born and reborn, again and again.

But what about the self that follows us?

What if we carry our crimes — or imagined crimes — from one imaginary life to the next, always remaining ourselves on the inside?  Can we ever really escape the cycle and become someone new?

Can the act of reading fiction rewrite who we are on the inside?

Read these stories, and find out…

* * *

Kaliya, Queen of Snakes by Amitha Jagannath Knight

Stormlands by Penndry Dragonsworth

The Goddess of Secrets by David Penny

Stones, Sins, and the Scent of Strawberries by Kai Delmas

The Hard Way by Val E Ford

Terror Lizards by CB Droege

The Cat with the Pearl Earring by Deborah L. Davitt

* * *

Now for a couple of announcements…

First, unfortunately, we’ve had to postpone our next reading period until sometime next year.  We’ll share more information as we can.

Secondly and much more happily, the first two volumes of our anthology series are out (Volume 1 and Volume 2)  and you can pre-order Volume Three! The Next two volumes are underway.  And they’re all fully illustrated and really beautiful.

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.

Welcome to Issue 18 of Zooscape!

Sometimes it’s easier to stare danger in the face, unflinching, if you tell yourself the darkness wears fur and paws; or maybe hooves, horns, fins, or feathery wings.

Visit the nightmares and apocalypses in these stories, and come out the other side stronger for having faced humanity’s collective fears… and possibly even made friends with them.

* * *

Susurrus by Azure Arther

How Pepper Learned Magic by Renee Carter Hall

A Strange and Terrible Wonder by Katie McIvor

What Dark Plutonian Horror Beckons from the Shadows? by Christopher Blake

The Four Sharks of the Apocalypse by Tessa Yang

What Little Remains by Mercy Morbid

Hope for the Harbingers by Allison Thai

* * *

Now for a couple of announcements…

First, unlike some other speculative fiction markets, Zooscape will not be instituting any sort of policy banning AI or asking writers to disclose whether they used AI in writing their stories.  We don’t discriminate against writers based on what tools they use.  If an author can sign our contract, then it’s no business of ours how they wrote their story.

Secondly — and this one is exciting! — we are finally going to begin releasing anthologies bundling our previous issues into volumes.  We’ve partnered with the new small publisher, Deep Sky Anchor Press, and the first volume will be released on September 8th at Furvana.  You can learn more from their press announcement here.

And as always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.

by Allison Thai

“He, like time, never stopped for anyone, but somehow he could not find it in his heart to go against the rabbit’s wish.”

“God creates out of nothing. Wonderful, you say. Yes, to be sure, but what he does is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.” ~Søren Kierkegaard

 

The tethers binding his soul were warm yet firm, pulling him up from the bowels of Hell. Impossible. Nothing could escape the downward pull of a fiery eternity, just as nothing in the physical world could defy the power of gravity. Still, somehow, he felt lighter than he ever had before, buoyed by a force that took him past the fire and muck filled with screaming, cursing sinners. Shadows of the damned wallowed in never-ending rounds of punishment, dealt out according to their vices. To be freed from such torment made him gasp in relief. What could he have done to gain this sweet release? Was he being saved?

Suddenly he found himself on water, standing on it, as the ocean heaved and bucked all around him. A storm brewed overhead, gathering, rumbling, and tumbling in swells of dark clouds. A beam of sunlight peeked through. He shuddered from the warmth, frightened at first, then quickly found it pleasant on his skin. He looked down, caught sight of his reflection, and gasped.

A horse stared back, one with a withered build, bones jutting out to form odd tents and hills of skin here and there, with off-white hair to match an off-white coat.

“Where am I? What am I?”

“You are Death, one of the Four Horsemen.” A little lamb, riding down the beam of light, had hailed him.

Though the reply was no more than a whisper, hardly heard amid the waves, the one called Death felt his knees buckle and heart race. The lamb exuded a blinding white halo, stronger than even the sun, and Death had to lower his eyes and muzzle lest he go blind. His voice dipped low with awe. “The Lamb of God.”

The animal he had been, the name he once bore—he could not remember, but nothing in his past life mattered now. Death looked around. “You say four. Where are the other three?”

“They will join you soon.”

True to the Lamb’s word, more horses burst through the ocean’s surface—one in red, one in black, and one in white. Blinking, gasping, and stumbling on the waves, they along with Death formed the quartet the Lamb had expected.

The Lamb of God addressed them in order of appearance, giving each a cordial nod. “War, Famine, and Pestilence, welcome.”

These horses too ducked their heads, more out of fear than rudeness, and quailed at the face of overwhelming power.

The one called War, blood-red and rippling in muscles, was the first to muster a response. “You called us, Lord?”

“Indeed.”

The water bore a reflection distilling some of the Lamb’s light, and from this Death took notice of the Lamb’s somber face.

“The Last Judgment is at hand. I have broken the four seals, as it was foretold, and hereby bestow upon you the task of destroying the world.”

Death exchanged looks with the other horses, and they mirrored his disbelief.

“Why us?” Famine asked. “Why appoint souls of the damned? Why not trust your own angels to do it?”

“You have been in Hell for some time,” the Lamb replied, “and because of that, memory does not serve you well. In your past lives you have made names for yourselves from the deaths and suffering of others. This world remembers you as warlords and monsters. You had been punished accordingly.” The Lamb’s voice did not ring with accusation, like a judge sentencing criminals, but was soft and sad, more like a father pining for his prodigal sons. “I chose you four out of many because you have the experience. Now I’ve raised you to be agents of calamity once more, this time in my name.”

The Lamb of God lifted an arm, summoning an array of tools from the water. “Take these before you go. War, you will bear a sword to sow the seeds of violence and discord. Pestilence, spread disease far and wide with the bow and arrow. Famine, with the weighing scale you shall run the world’s food thin. And Death, use this scythe to reap the harvest of souls.”

Death closed his hooves over the staff of the scythe, and its weight made veins stand out on his skin. He felt honored to earn the privilege of this task, grim as it may be. Anything was better than going back to Hell. He bowed even lower, till his muzzle almost brushed the water. “By your grace you brought us out of eternal flame. For that we shall carry out your will.”

Despite including the rest in his declaration, reactions among the other Horsemen varied. From the corner of his eye Death saw Famine rendered still with reluctance, Pestilence struggling to comprehend, and War squinting against the light.

“What will we get in return for completing this task?” Famine asked.

Death cringed at this bold inquiry, but the Lamb of God’s reflection rippled as he shook with gentle laughter.

“Hungry for more now as you were in your past life—I should have expected as much, Famine. I will say this: you are in no position to make any bargains. But I do everything for a reason. Just do your duty, Horsemen.” With that the Lamb departed from them, his coat of white wool one with the light.

Death nodded at his newfound equine brethren. “After you.”

The Four Horsemen shot off, surging with power that bore them before the wind, over land and sea, through the four corners of the world. Entire nations buckled under the tide of the Apocalypse. Even before the Four Horsemen were called, world leaders had their teeth bared and hackles raised at one another, unable to reach any kind of agreement or settle for peace. The air crackled with tension. All War had to do was strike a match with his sword. For all his bulk and redness, War cavorted across continents unseen, jabbing his blade here and sweeping it there to ignite the flames in people’s hearts. Animosity among species spiked. Even the meek and gentle, those less inclined to start fights, flew at each other like rabid beasts. War, always holding his sword aloft, saw to it that no alliances were formed. Not even among those of the same species. Camaraderie be damned — it was everyone for him or herself.

Famine played a part in fostering these schisms. Rivers ran dry, meat spoiled, and greens withered under his influence. What was scarce became sacred. People groveled and scrabbled for these necessities, and quickly resorted to looting and killing just to fill their bellies and live to see another day. Famine soon found himself in good company, surrounded by gaunt, stick-thin victims whose meat and fat wasted away from lack of nutrients. Famine viciously dismantled the Interspecies Protection From Consumption Act, as carnivores were driven to break the law by sinking their teeth into herbivores — fellow citizens, sometimes their own friends. The number of bodies climbed, but no one thought to keep track. The weak became meat, snatched up and swallowed down to feed the strong.

Such disregard for morals and sanitation gave way to disease courtesy of Pestilence. The Horseman slung his arrows far and wide, each riddled with every kind of poison and plague to send people by the hundreds and thousands to their graves. For a horse weighed down in boils, hair broiling with flies, and limbs weakened with rot, as arguably the slowest Horseman of the four, he did not have to run very fast or far at all. His joints, knobbly and frail as they were, could still bend the bow and that was enough. His arrows did much of the terrible work. They worked best on herds and packs, striking through many victims at once. Coughs and moans from the sick thickened the air. Contagion spread like fire, with no way to be extinguished except for the utter annihilation of those it consumed.

The Lamb of God had chosen well to bring them back as horses, for no other animal was more hardy and swift of foot to carry out the Apocalypse. Wherever War, Famine, and Pestilence went, Death was never too far behind, almost always on their tails. What else could follow such calamity but the end of one’s life? The harvest of souls was plentiful, ever growing. Death thought he would have found this somewhat enjoyable, if his past life held any indication. Instead, the sheer magnitude of souls to collect overwhelmed him. If he had an earthly body that breathed and bled, the work would have easily killed him. He had already died once, so no need to fear a second death.

Fear — the Fifth Horseman, Death liked to call it — proved even swifter and more terrible than his comrades as it drove hordes of people to take their own lives. Mass suicide became a common sight for Death, the most common source for his harvest of souls. Death watched how disaster and doom brought out the worst in people, with many cursing the end times and even more still resigned to forfeiting their lives in order to forego the slow agony of disease, starvation, and bloodshed.

Many met their deaths with despair. Only a few faced theirs with dignity. One such fellow was a young rabbit named Viktor, one of many brothers and sisters constituting a poor warren in Russia.

Death took great interest in this little rabbit, constantly looming over him, for Viktor teetered on the edge of life and death with his weak heart. Viktor was the smallest and weakest of his siblings, a classic case of the runt of the litter. Often short of breath, he was red-faced under his thin fur as the borscht his family was so fond of eating. He could hardly venture out of his home, and his family sheltered him for good reason — he’d be torn apart in a blink of an eye. Death drifted closer and closer; never before had he been so intrigued by the life of any mortal. For all his frailty and bleak future, Viktor held onto life stronger than even the fiercest lion or tiger. Out loud and in his heart, he gave thanks for every breath he took, every moment he could spend with his parents and siblings, who fretted over him and saw to it that he always had his needs met. He gave thanks for the food he was given, grown and salvaged though carrots would never be as crisp and fresh as before. He was grateful for the blankets and toys his siblings gave up to keep him comfortable and entertained. Death could not help admiring this young rabbit, who seemed to live in defiance of the depravity around him.

One night, alone in his bedroom, Viktor craned his head up to meet Death’s eyes.

“Hello there.”

That took the Horseman aback. “You can see me?”

“I’ve always known you were watching.” The rabbit did not scream or bolt out of his room. Instead he climbed onto his bed and wiggled into the blankets, like he would for any uneventful night. This amused and baffled Death.

“Do you know who I am?”

Viktor frowned, studying Death from head to toe. “You don’t look like a guardian angel. You don’t have wings.”

“You’re right. My name is Death.”

“Hello, Death,” he said, as if making a new friend. “I’m Viktor. Call me Vitya, if you want.”

“Are you afraid?”

Viktor shook his head. “I know you’ll come for me. I’ve known since I was very little, when I realized I could never run as fast or jump as high as my brothers and sisters. Everyone will find you at the end of the road sooner or later. I don’t have long, but I’d like to be with my family for a bit more, please.”

Death nodded, impressed with Viktor’s courage and touched by a politeness that he had never before received in all his time as a Horseman. Most people feared him and hated him. He, like time, never stopped for anyone, but somehow he could not find it in his heart to go against the rabbit’s wish. After all, Viktor’s soul was not for the taking just yet. For someone terminally ill and on the verge of death, Viktor still had some life in him.

“I’ll leave you alone, then,” Death said, “and come back for you when you’re ready.”

“You’re welcome to come back before that,” Viktor replied, “just to relax, if that’s possible. You look tired and lonely. I don’t think the rest of my family can see you, and for most of the day they’re out foraging, anyway. I’d like a friend to keep me company.”

Death tipped his muzzle at him. “I appreciate the offer.” And he took it whenever he could, for his duty proved very taxing and draining, indeed. After rounds of collecting souls and witnessing all manners of terrible deaths, the Horseman liked to visit Viktor and take his mind off the strain, if even for a moment. They spent most of their time together over open storybooks, fairy tales with happy endings, or silly stories that would make Death whinny and snort and break free of the somber frown that seemed to have set in his muzzle permanently.

“I love to read,” Viktor said. “It’s my escape. It takes me to faraway places and lets me be the hero I’ve always dreamed of being.”

“You’re already a hero.”

“How? I don’t swing a sword.” Viktor tilted back to behold the scythe that loomed over him. “And I’m very sure that thing would crush me if I tried to lift it.”

Death let out a rueful chuckle, hefting the weapon for a moment. “You don’t need anything like this to be a hero.” He rested a big, worn hoof over Viktor’s head, dwarfing it. “I mean that you are strong and brave in ways you can’t imagine. Believe me, I’ve killed — er, met many, many people around the world, and no one’s quite like you.”

The rabbit’s ears stood rigid and fluttered a little. His cheeks flushed, making his face even redder, and bunched up below his eyes in a wide smile. “You may not look it, but you’re very nice.”

Time was not so kind. Viktor grew more sick and frail with each passing day. He was confined to the bed and could not even risk a venture to other burrows in the warren.

Death knelt over the little rabbit’s bedside. “It’s almost time,” he murmured.

Viktor closed his eyes. “I understand.”

After supper, he asked for the attention of the entire family. Of course they were all ears, wide-eyed and curious, wondering what he had to say. Death also listened in, invisible to the rest, wondering how they would take the news.

“Everyone…” Viktor paused. His nose twitched and eyes blinked rapidly as he struggled to collect himself. With great effort he sucked in a deep breath, and went on, “Please don’t be upset, but I think now is a good time for me to say good-bye.” Stunned silence all around met him.

Finally, his father asked, “What do you mean?”

“Vitya, don’t say that,” his mother cried. She reached out to take his paw into hers. “We’re doing everything we can to care for you—”

“I know, and thank you.” Tears welled in Viktor’s eyes. “I feel I can never thank you enough. But you’ve seen the world around us, outside our warren. Even the world’s coming to an end. I am going to die, and I know you’re just trying to protect me, but you will have to let me go.” Viktor offered them a wide smile. “Don’t worry. I will see you all on the other side someday.” He bid his family good night, for the last time. He gave each sibling a long, earnest hug, while they restrained the urge to pile up on him all at once. Finally he was enveloped in arms and tears by his parents.

The lights went out. Viktor’s body went still and slack, his voice no more than a whisper. “I’m ready, Death. Take me away.”

His passing was a painless, peaceful one — the only one Death carried out alone. He had insisted on acting without the aid of his fellow Horsemen. With a pull of Death’s scythe Viktor’s soul slipped free, and without a weak earthly body to bind him, he sprinted out of the warren and floated well above the Muscovite landscape. Death followed him up, and Viktor turned to him with wide, searching eyes.

“Are you coming with me, Death?”

The Horseman gestured to the desolation below them. “I’m afraid not. I still have work to do down here.”

“Will we see each other again?”

Death had to be honest. “I can’t promise anything, but I hope so.”

“I hope so, too.” Viktor waved a little white paw. “Good-bye, for now.”

Death watched the rabbit’s soul drift — up, up, up — along a stairway to Heaven the Horseman could not see.

Parting ways with Viktor weighed down his heart. At the same time Death rejoiced that the young rabbit could leave this crumbling world after a proper farewell to his family and end up in a better place. If anyone deserved that, it was Viktor.

Death tore his eyes from the sky, a glimpse of Heaven, and turned back to search for more worthy souls to send into God’s kingdom. Unfortunately, the Apocalypse produced few instances of enlightenment and mental fortitude. Death grew weary of his work again, wondering if there would be an end to it all. In the constant accompaniment and teamwork with his fellow Horsemen, Death took it as a reprieve to strike up conversations with them.

“What is God’s plan for us after this?” Death had to raise his voice, on account of howls and screams from the mobs of starving, disease-ridden people fighting over scraps. Such an event called for a group effort, the presence of the other three Horsemen.

“You mean what’s after the Last Judgment?” War folded his arms over his huge chest. “A foolish question, Death.”

Famine’s dark eyes glittered. “On my way here I caught a glimpse of Heaven, maybe even Empyrean. I’ve never wanted anything so badly before.”

Pestilence’s ears, riddled with holes, perked. “You’ve actually seen it?”

War’s muzzle stretched from a frown. “We’re damned, anyway. God’s sending us back to Hell after we do our part.”

“Why would he do that if we are following his orders?” Death asked. “Surely he will reward us.” He paused to scoop up souls who had lost their bodies to bloodshed.

“What reward? After what we’ve done?” War snorted. “God said so himself: we’d been punished accordingly. Hell is final.”

Death shook his head. “Christ went down and came back up for the third day. He broke open the bolts binding the gates of Hell. Bolts that even Satan could not pry out. Even now the gates are left open.”

War waved a hoof in dismissal. “The Harrowing of Hell. It happened, yes, but everyone down there just takes it as hope, a chance, for a way out. Well, false hope and fat chance. Christ descended into Hell only for the righteous, anyway. We are sinners. There’s no freedom for the likes of us.” He reached down to thrust his blade into the hearts of those too tired to fight, making them spring back to their feet and rejoin the mob.

Death knew better than to fuel War’s ire, but he felt inclined to disagree. God had already done the impossible: bring up the damned from Hell. Not up to Heaven, of course (a ridiculous stretch), but onto the physical plane. That was a miracle in itself. God made use of even sinners to do his good work. Deep in Death’s unbeating heart, he felt that God would not toss them away like trash. At the same time he felt he did not deserve redemption.

“The Lamb is too detached for my taste,” War went on. “Maybe he’s making us do his dirty work. He wouldn’t soil his wool for this. And he’s hiding things from us. He gave me this sword but not my memories. I’d very much like to know who I was and what I did.”

Famine cracked a grin — a rare act, considering their line of work. “Well, I’m quite sure that even at your prime, you hadn’t started up this many wars.” Then he craned his narrow muzzle back as he pondered, as if weighing the scales in his head. “I must have wanted a lot of things in my past life. Even if I remembered them all, they don’t matter anymore.”

Death followed Famine’s gaze upward, searching for an inkling of light amidst the storm. “If God isn’t telling us everything, I believe it’s better that way. I don’t want to know what I’ve done to earn a place in Hell. I think God made us Horsemen to give us a second chance.” His grip tightened over the scythe. “Forget the past. Trust in God to lead us to a better future.”

War doubled over guffawing. “You should hear yourself. Have you gone mad?”

Pestilence did not respond with scorn as War did. Sunken eyes peeked through a matted forelock, making him look like a lost child. “Do you really think there’s hope?”

“Yes. Hope for the harbingers.” Death wanted his comrades to believe that, too.

“Whatever put that idea in your head?” Famine asked. “That little rabbit, am I right?”

Death conceded with a smile.

War chuckled. “You must have taken a real liking to him. You wouldn’t let the three of us get anywhere close to that warren.”

“I do not like giving children terrible ends,” Death admitted. He remembered the fairy tales Viktor would read to him. “I like happy endings.”

“I doubt it will end well for us.” Pestilence heaved a sigh, the huge boils sagging with his shoulders.

“That’s fear talking,” Death said. “You have to believe with all your might that God will forgive you. Forgive us.” He did not believe he deserved such a thing, but yearned for it all the same. He began to take inspiration in how Viktor led his short life on Earth, making it a habit to thank every moment he spent out of Hell, even if he stood far from Heaven. Fear of going back down there fueled his gratitude. He encouraged his comrades to do the same. As they gathered together and shared stories, Death found that War, Famine, and Pestilence had found their own Viktors in the midst of strife and suffering.

“I have found peacemakers,” War told them. “My sword can’t cut them.”

“I met givers,” Famine said, “who gave all they had when they could have helped themselves.”

“I might have produced the finest physicians the world has ever seen,” Pestilence said.

These stories pleased Death greatly. This cemented his belief that he and his fellow Horsemen were doing good work, after all. There was something to be learned here.

Finally, after what seemed like ages, the Last Judgment drew to an end. Every soul was sent up, or down, and accounted for. The Four Horsemen joined forces, combining their strength, to deliver the blow that would send the world into oblivion. Death lifted his scythe, adding to the steeple formed by War’s sword, Famine’s weighing scale, and Pestilence’s bow. They swung down together, and remnants of a sinful, imperfect world gave way before their very eyes. A huge wave of light blinded them. Death expected the downward tug, the return of his soul to Hell, now that his work here was done.

He felt no such thing. He dared to blink his eyes open, and the other Horsemen followed suit, their stances tense and unsure. What Death saw next took his breath away. Before him stood the Lamb of God, heading a multitude of angels and souls, innumerable beyond measure and compare. Death’s legs buckled and he sank to his knees.

The Lamb smiled. “Please rise. You are in good company.”

Death obeyed, exchanging wide-eyed confusion with his comrades. He certainly did not remember Hell looking like this.

“You have done as I have asked, and you did well. My tests are never easy, and I must commend you for passing the one I imposed on you. For that you will be rewarded.”

Pestilence’s mouth hung open, then worked like a fish out of water, and finally he shut it and lowered his head out of embarrassment over looking ridiculous before the Lord of all creation.

Famine managed to spring out the question. “This…this is Heaven? We made it?”

The Lamb nodded. “I’m afraid I must save a proper warm welcome for another time.” He turned his muzzle downward, and amid the light a spot of darkness remained, where an ugly serpent writhed and hissed below the heavenly host. “There is still the Enemy to vanquish once and for all. Only in his defeat can we rejoice in the founding of New Jerusalem.”

“We will help,” War said. With his ears tucked back and head bowed, he looked sorry to have doubted and spoken against God at all. Clearly he sought to make up for it.

Famine, Death, and Pestilence nodded in agreement.

“Thank you,” the Lamb replied. “Now, I can’t have you go into battle unprepared.” With a sweep of his arm, he sent up a great wind that peeled away every blight on the Horsemen’s bodies, granting them pure white coats and builds that brimmed with health and vigor. Then with another wave of his arm, he substituted their Apocalyptic instruments for blades forged in the brightest holy steel. Death embraced this new identity with open arms, thrilling in the divine power that coursed through him.

Then something else hit him — something white and soft. Death drew back and gasped. “Viktor!”

The rabbit, who had tackled the former Horseman with a fierce hug, pulled away and grinned. “I knew you’d come.”

Death drew him back for another hug. “I didn’t think I would, but here I am.”

The Lamb of God gave them a warm smile. “It seems I have given you two the happy ending you’ve wanted.”

“I would not have it any other way, Lord.” Hell seemed nothing more than a bad memory now. Death felt he could burst, overjoyed to know that he was given another chance, that his hope and faith bore fruit. Fruit he had shared with his fellow Horsemen.

Viktor clasped his friend’s hoof with both paws. “Come on, let’s go slay a dragon together.”

 

* * *

Originally published in ROAR, Volume 8

About the Author

Allison Thai is a specialist in pediatric anesthesia. When she isn’t taking care of kids during surgeries, she eats up books and video games, always hungry for the next good one. Her critter-centric fiction has been published in Podcastle, Anathema, Zooscape, and ROAR, and was featured on Tor and Locus recommended lists.

by Mercy Morbid

“It’s like I’m using my limbs for something they weren’t designed for, and while it isn’t at all painful, the urge to swim remains in my body like a dull ache.”

The ruins rose out of the water, a line of steel and concrete skeletons piercing the horizon. I sat on the front deck, listening to the whir of the hovercraft engine, my goggles around my neck. The wind stirred my hair into a frenzy and sprayed me with drops of ocean water. As they slid down my gray skin and hit my gills, I felt a rush of excitement. I wanted to swim, needed to swim. I was made for it, a shark chimera with a body designed for hydrodynamics.

Patience, I told myself. You’ll get in the water very soon.

As the ruins grew closer, my patience wore down little by little. The anticipation that comes before swimming is a drive I can’t really explain to terrestrials. Although I can live on land as easily as in the water, walking doesn’t feel as natural to me. It’s like I’m using my limbs for something they weren’t designed for, and while it isn’t at all painful, the urge to swim remains in my body like a dull ache.

Soon the hovercraft had entered the sunken ruins, the remnants of an old Terran metropolis called Boston. It slowed to a halt just above the target area. I had gone salvage diving in this area once before, and I felt certain there was still more to find under the waves. Sera, my dive assistant, came out from the back of the craft. The purple-haired squirrel held a tablet and a stylus. She had just finished checking off the pre-dive requirements.

“Ready for another run?” she asked.

I grinned, showing off my sharp teeth. “You have no idea,” I said.

“Are you sure you wanna do this dive unarmed?” she asked. “There could still be some pre-collapse security measures we don’t know about.”

“This was a tourist district,” I retorted.

“Marina,” Sera admonished.

I sighed.  “Fine,” I grumbled, relenting. “Hand me that harpoon pistol.” She did, and I clipped it to my dive belt. “I still think you’re mothering me too much – ah!” I gasped as she gave my snout a gentle stroke.

“I just want you to be safe, babe,” she cooed.

I put my hand on top of hers. “I know,” I said, “And I will be.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.” She smiled, and I smiled back, releasing her hand and letting it fall.

“Good luck down there,” said Sera.

I grinned. “Luck? Pfft,” I said, putting my goggles on. “I was born to do this.” And with that, I turned around and did a running dive off the side of the hovercraft. The cool saltwater enveloped me like the arms of an old lover. I took a couple of warmup strokes as my gills opened up and my eyes adjusted to the low light of the depths. I was home. Time to get to work.

I swam to the building I had marked as my target at the briefing. Recon had identified it as an old hotel. There was an open window on the fifth floor that looked like a possible entry point. I swam down to it and surveyed the area. No external security devices present. Sticking my head in the window, I looked back and forth around the floor. Moldy carpets, warped wooden doors and barnacle-encrusted walls filled my field of vision, but again I found no signs of any security countermeasures. The coast, for lack of a better term, was clear.

I swam into the hallway and began to try the various doors to see which ones opened. As it turned out, the locks on a good number of them had rusted shut, but one door had been left slightly ajar. I swam up to it and peered through the tiny opening. There was a red light inside the room, pointed directly at the door. Without warning, it blinked.

“Is someone there?” asked a waterlogged, hissing, electronic voice.

My mind instantly went to my training, facing down submersible drones in target practice, and to Sera’s face as she begged me to be careful before my dive. I drew my harpoon pistol from its holster and waited, my finger on the trigger. When the light blinked again, I kicked open the door, took aim, and fired the harpoon straight into the eye of a moldy, animatronic teddy bear.

The poor toy that I ruthlessly murdered whirred as its motors ground to a halt before turning off for good. Bubbles escaped my mouth as I sighed in relief, mentally admonishing myself for being so trigger-happy and glad that the teddy bear was neither a security drone nor another diver. With the imaginary threat neutralized, I swam into the room and took a look around.

The furniture was waterlogged and encrusted with barnacles, much like the rest of the building. The television was rusted, the screen warped and clouded by its long submergence in the briny depths. The drawers of the dresser were open and empty, and one had even fallen out of its enclosure. It appeared as though whomever had last stayed in this room had left in a hurry.

As I scanned the orphaned dresser drawers, a metallic glint caught my eye. Swimming over, I saw a rusted, heart-shaped locket tucked in a corner of one drawer. I picked it up, and was astonished to find that the latch seemed to be in good condition. I opened it and gasped at the contents. Inside was a picture of three humans. Two of them, both adults, were hugging a young child. The child held a teddy bear, which appeared to be waving at the camera. The photo must have been waterproofed quite well, as it was neither warped nor faded.

I floated there with the locket in hand, staring at the photo in shock. Humans had only ever been theoretical to me, a snapshot of the history that predated the collapse of the Terran ecosystem. My own DNA was descended from theirs, the result of a centuries old bioengineering project that produced the chimeras. We had inherited the works of our human ancestors, but no one yet lived who had seen a human outside of history class.

I wondered what had become of the family. What were their lives like? Did they come here on vacation? Did they escape the collapse? Did they die screaming in a climate catastrophe? Possible answers swirled in my mind as I stared at the locket.

I surfaced sometime later with a pack full of old tech, which I handed off to Sera before climbing aboard the hovercraft. Sera took a brief look inside the bag.

“Why do you have a teddy bear in here?” she asked.

“It’s animatronic and still functions. I bet it has a fusion battery inside. Might still be good for a few centuries.”

“Why does it have a harpoon in its eye?”

“It snuck up on me.”

“Uh huh.” Sera shot me a quizzical look. “What have you got on your neck?”

I touched the locket gingerly with a free hand. “A memento,” I said.

Sera opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, and simply shrugged.

Sera went back into the cabin, placing the salvage on a table inside. I followed behind her. Sera took the pilot seat and began prepping for the ride back to the salvage platform. Soon we were on our way, and there was nothing left for me to do but catalog the salvage and see what, if anything, was usable. That is our job, and the reason I dive. We have lost so much to the waves of time and history. We must salvage what little remains if we want to build a future.

 

* * *

About the Author

Mercy Morbid is a pixel artist, speculative fiction writer, and Vtuber from Northeast Ohio. She enjoys tabletop roleplaying games, books with queer characters, and the blood of the living. When she is not writing, she is often found posting her thoughts and ideas on Twitter (@MercyMorbid). She would be very happy if you read them.

by Tessa Yang

“My unsightly and unlovable brethren, hide your shame no longer. Let us engage in a glorious contest to determine who will be crowned the Greatest Freak of All Time!”

Revelation 6:17: “The great day of their anger has come, and who can survive it?”

 

Bull

All hail your new lord and conqueror: Bull Shark rises from the ocean with a crown of barnacles on its head, ready to haul you landlubbers back to the steaming seas whence all things good and evil were born.

If you’d had to name your fishy overlord, this would not have been your first guess, but keep that thought to yourself. To mouth the words Great White Shark is to hasten your own demise. Bull Shark can be a little testy when it comes to mentions of its bigger, show-offy cousin with its stupid aerial displays.Master of saltwater and freshwater, it was only a matter of time before Bull Shark was promoted to other realms. See it tear through the skies like a pterodactyl. Feel the reverberations as it bombs sinkholes into the earth. Trees whisper of its coming through their mycelia networks. They say no harpoon or bullet or net can destroy it, for Bull Shark is invincible with righteous purpose. It’s armored in the rage of a hundred million sharks caught in a hundred million fishing nets, finned and flung overboard to die of suffocation.

Bull Shark balloons. It beats its tail and tsunamis swell in answer. Creatures bow or flee before its indisputable might. Its presence has the feel of an ending, the ending. Not even the trees are asking what comes next.

 

Goblin

Goblin Shark tires of appearing on your listicles.

14 Ocean Freaks You Didn’t Know Existed

Top 10 Sea Monsters to Haunt Your Dreams

Weirdest Fish

Creepiest Fish

There’s only so much any of us can take before we snap.

The ocean is the world’s biggest empath. She spreads her feelers inland beyond the brackish mouths of estuaries, into rivers and streams, the backyard creeks where crayfish wander. Goblin Shark is tuned into these frequencies. The electroreceptors on its toothy snout reach out. From the lightless seafloor, it broadcasts a message in a voice that is like the belching of a thousand undersea volcanoes:

“Come, my naked mole rats! Come, Goliath bird-eaters and vampire squids, giant hornets and leaf-nosed bats! My unsightly and unlovable brethren, hide your shame no longer. Let us engage in a glorious contest to determine who will be crowned the Greatest Freak of All Time!”

And so Earth’s ugliest creatures haul themselves from nests and burrows. Scaly bodies unwind. Furry legs flex and scuttle. Cautious at first, half-blinded by the sun, their limitations soon evaporate thanks to the wizardry of Goblin Shark — part fairy godmother, part referee. The battle that follows spans biomes. From the tallest mountains to the deepest grottos, the planet seethes with the frenzy of wrestling tentacles and slashing fangs.

Goblin Shark surveys the carnage with satisfaction. It has never seen anything so beautiful.

 

Tiger

Tiger Shark’s appetite precedes it. Famous devourer of squids, turtles, birds, porpoises, nails, tires, cans, boots, cameras, license plates, a fur coat that one time — but what becomes of the ocean’s garbage can when the ocean is a garbage can?Has it ever occurred to you that Tiger Shark doesn’t want to eat all that trash?You can have it back. It was yours to begin with. Tiger Shark was only borrowing. Thus commences the great purge, centuries of refuse boiling up the ocean’s throat, a maelstrom collecting junk from the bottom of the sea and spewing it back on land where it belongs. Bang. A refrigerator door. Crash. A sunken oil rig. Wham. An Ohio-sized web of nylon fishing nets.

A soundless rain of cigarette butts, dancing prettily on the wind.

Transport halts. Crops wilt and languish under the toxic barrage. What was already happening in some places is now happening everyplace, because above all, Tiger Shark is committed to fairness. No more looking away. No more sending your trash to the other side of the world where for all you know, a benign sorceress waves her wand and poofs it out of existence.

Seek shelter, ideally underground. This could take a while. Tiger Shark has been swallowing your shit for a long time.

 

Greenland

Even by arctic standards, Greenland Shark moves slowly, dragging its ponderous body through the whipping currents of space-time. Its solemn duty is to review the labors of its younger kin — even if it would much rather be drifting beneath the ice contemplating the universe’s greatest questions, or snacking on snoozing cephalopods. You’ve seen one apocalypse, you’ve seen them all.

The party’s nearly over by the time Greenland Shark arrives. Bull Shark belly-flops onto an archipelago, flattening it into the sea. Goblin Shark eggs on an army of elephant seals. Tiger Shark, finally depleted, naps contentedly in tropical shallows, reduced to a speckled pup beneath red-lit skies.

Greenland Shark takes in all of this with one left-to-right sweep of its milky eyes. Its memory soars back through the centuries, through the millennia, to the moment when water vapor condensed and plummeted earthward, and bacteria gushed forth oxygen, and hard-shelled organisms filled the infant seas, and fish came, and shed fins for limbs, and inched timidly onto land. The stars were old even then, but they seemed new, so new, spearing the sky with barbs of blistering brightness.

Now the lights of heaven shudder and sift downward like a shower of marine snow, stirred by shifting currents. The universe searches for its new form. To know what this might be is beyond the pay grade of Bull Shark, Goblin Shark, and Tiger Shark, and if the oldest and wisest among them has any inkling, it does not yet speak on the matter.

“It is good,” declares Greenland Shark, and descends back into the frigid depths to digest a polar bear carcass.

 

* * *

About the Author

Tessa Yang is a fiction writer and shark enthusiast from upstate New York. She is the author of the speculative short story collection The Runaway Restaurant (7.13 Books, 2022). Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, CRAFT, The Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere. Find her online at www.tessayang.com, or on Twitter: @ThePtessadactyl.

by Christopher Blake

“His foolish generosity only feeds my terrible strength.”

We shadows can be anything: the monster under the bed, the robber, the ghost, the serial killer.  I trained in the darkest nether pits, and now that I’m out, it’s my turn to put the boogie in bogeyman, the knight in nightmare.

I coalesce in a dank alley: overturned garbage bins and faded graffiti stained yellow by sodium lights. A textbook shadowhaunt. Blue neon flickers from a diner across the street.  I skulk behind a dumpster, flitting through various hideous and crepuscular forms, listening for a victim.

Faint footfalls echo along the windblown street and I watch a man in jacket and toque hunch against the cold, striding through cones of streetlight.

“Psst,” I say, though it’s not what he hears. He hears whatever his brain’s disposed to hear. But I’ve chosen the setting, primed his mind for fathomless fear.  And now his subconscious will give me shape.

He stops, then takes a step forward. He makes a clicking sound with his tongue.

“Here boy,” he says.

He stretches out a hand, then reaches into a paper bag he’s carrying. He breaks off a piece of hamburger and holds it out.

I sniff the air and emerge into the light.

The new form his subconscious grants me has black fur, whetted teeth, and fearsome claws.  A noble mien of shadowstuff.  I surge forward and leap at the man, ready to tear him apart, but my new jaws seek only the proffered meat.

“Oh, good boy,” he says, struggling to speak as I lap at his face.

“Heck,” he says, holding out the rest of the burger. “Have it all.  You labs are voracious.”

I snarf the burger (displaying dominance) and he checks my neck, looking for a collar that isn’t there.

“You have a home, boy?”

I whine.

Menacingly.

He looks up and down the street, as if offering the universe one last chance to keep me.

“Well, you do now,” he says. “Let’s go, buddy.”

We walk side by side through quiet midnight streets. He whistles as he walks, a pleasant melody.  Whistling by the graveyard, no doubt.

Good.

He’s terrified already.

As well he should be.

He lets me into a basement apartment, the sort of place that should be depressing. It isn’t much: short window-wells and damp floors. But his spirit lives on the walls in movie posters and horror novels, and I feel, curiously, at home.

He goes into the tiny kitchenette and fills a bowl with water.  Then he opens the fridge and dumps some leftover ground meat into another bowl labeled “Rufus.”

“Little midnight snack,” he says, stroking my coat.  “Lots of leftovers these days.  Haven’t quite got used to cooking for one, yet.  Keep picturing old Rufus waiting around every corner.”

I try to resist, but the meat smells delicious, and I scarf it down in a couple bites.  No matter.  His foolish generosity only feeds my terrible strength.

The man laughs and scratches behind my ears.

“Alright boy, let’s hit the hay.”

He flips down the back of his futon and throws a pillow and a comforter on top, then strips to his boxers and crawls under the covers. He pats the mattress and whistles for me to jump up.

After a few minutes, he falls asleep, his gentle snores filling the small room.  I loom over his sleeping form, my slobbering maw quivering.

Now is my chance, a textbook opportunity to terrify.

But it’s been a long night, and I’m tired.  And, if I earn his trust now, my brutal betrayal will traumatize him all the more.  Yes, that’s it.  I’ll bide my time for one more night, then strike when he least expects it.

But for now the futon just looks…

So…

So cozy…

Next I know, I’m cuddling against him, warm morning sunlight bathing us both.  I lay alongside him (no doubt siphoning his body heat), listening as his chest rises and falls.  He looks so innocent and sweet.  It’s almost a shame that I must inundate him with unspeakable horror.

Almost.

But he gets up and scoops out an old tin of dog food from the cupboard.  I devour it voraciously while he eats a slice of toast.  He throws me something that looks like a bone, and I gnaw ominously at what I conclude to be the hardened skin of a dead animal.  It is incredibly satisfying.

Afterwards, we go to a dog park, and he throws a ball for me to chase.  At first, I look down upon this childish pursuit, but soon I am running and leaping through the air, retrieving the ball for him to throw again and again.  After a while, I lose track of time.  All I know is that we play so long my tongue almost gets tired from lolling.

Almost.

On the way home, he waits patiently, humming to himself as I urinate on various telephone poles and fire hydrants.

Later that night, we curl up on the futon.  He strokes my head as he watches the TV flicker, holding out the last of his vanilla ice cream for me to lick.

And then he falls asleep, and I sit, surveying him.

I am a shadowthing.  The best of the worst.  Now is the time to terrify.

But I watch his mouth puff a gentle breath, and see his eyes below their lids flicker to the infinitely mutable shadowshow of dreams.

And the thing inside my chest that has beaten all day, always faster when he’s near, beats faster again as I remember at last that we shadows can be anything.

We can be man’s worst nightmare.

We can be man’s best friend.

 

* * *

About the Author

Christopher Blake is a physician by day and a writer by night. He is a dad (cat and human), by his back of the napkin calculations, approximately 32 hours a day. His short fiction has appeared in Galaxy’s Edge, Cosmic Roots & Eldritch Shores, and Stupefying Stories.

by Katie McIvor

“The driver knows the place: the secret beach where, once a year, the dogs of myth take their outing.”

The dog bus makes its rounds once a year through the lands of myth. Starting in the north, in the early morning – so early it’s barely yet light – the bus rolls up to a middle-of-nowhere sign by the roadside. In the misty grey dawn, in the shadow of the hill which mounts into blackness above, the Cù Sìth is waiting. Its haunches twitch on the wet grass.

As the bus approaches, the Cù Sìth emits three sharp, haunting barks, which for miles around cause children to wake from their sleep and huddle in their blankets, sheltering their heads beneath the safety of pillows.

The door wheezes open. Onto the first step come the Cù Sìth’s paws. The smell of stagnant water precedes it. Up close, the dog’s fur is a dark, bog-like green, the colours of the endless moor. Its eyes burn with a spectral gleam. The driver nods hello, and with a whine the Cù Sìth bumps its nose up into his hand. Its claws click on the vinyl as it makes its way down the aisle.

The bus drives on. Headlights smothered by the moorland fog, it creeps south. The grey city grows around it. In the kirkyard, its tiny shape lost in the deep, gravestone gloom, a terrier wags its tail. When the doors open, it springs up into the bus and leaps into the driver’s arms, licking his face with a small, ghostlike tongue.

“Away with you, Bobby,” says the driver, but his eyes are smiling.

Bobby avoids the steaming, bull-sized bulk of the Cù Sìth. He sits up front, just behind the driver, his tiny paws against the window.

They continue south. On a lonely road in Northumberland, a huge black creature waits with its front leg extended: the Gytrash, foe of solitary travellers. Heading westwards and then down the M6, they stop to collect the phantom Moddey Dhoo, fresh off the ferry from Douglas. The new passengers sit aloof from one another, each taking up a double seat, curled like enormous, matted cats. Bobby’s wary eyes flit between them.

Wales is slate-grey with rain. Halfway down the tree-lined slope of the Nant y Garth Pass, a shuddering howl halts the bus, and the Gwyllgi, the Cŵn Annwn, dog of the Otherworld, comes aboard. The driver chucks it absentmindedly under the chin. In its wake, a small, bouncing shape appears: a corgi, with her fairy rider perched side-saddle. The fairy flies up to hand her fare to the driver, but he knows better than to accept coin from the fair folk.

Back into England, and on through miles of dull motorway. They stop at a service station somewhere near Wolverhampton. At this strange, perpetual dawn hour, only red-eyed lorry drivers peer from their curtained cabs, and they think nothing of the procession of phantom hounds which crosses the tarmac to pee on the litter-flecked grass and drink, one by one, from the dirty metal water bowl.

The next stop is a cold, dark little church where the wind shrieks through the branches of yew trees. The church grim trots out, stretching his hind legs. He greets the Gytrash politely, nose to nose, for they are old comrades. The others he ignores.

Black Shuck has roamed to the very edge of his eastern domain to catch the bus. Giant head raised, steam spouting from his nostrils in the cold, deathly air, he climbs aboard. The driver feels a chill pass over him, as though of footsteps over his grave, but he pats Black Shuck on the head all the same, though he has to reach up from his chair to do it. Black Shuck’s glowing eyes soften to a pale, almost pleasant yellow beneath the strip lights. He takes his seat across the aisle from the Cù Sìth, whose bog-damp fur gives off an odour that is comforting to him, reminiscent of the Norfolk Broads.

The streets of London are ghostly at this hour, abandoned even by the drunks. At 31 Kensington Park Gardens, a large Newfoundland waits patiently by the gate, her three floating charges in tow. The children whoop with excitement as they board, causing the corgi to leap up with an ear-splitting bark and bound into the air, trying to nip their ankles. The fairy, dislodged from her nap, yanks on the corgi’s reins, while Nana herds the children back to the front of the bus and sits them down in an orderly manner.

Moving through the south-west, they collect the Devil’s Dandy Dogs, fresh from a night-time hunt, and the cowed, scavenging mutts of the Camelot kitchens. Then the bus, now nearly full, jolts up onto Dartmoor, where awaits the most fearsome hound of all: the slavering beast of the Grimpen Mire. Its great jaws drool misty vapour as it slinks up the aisle of the bus.

They descend towards the coast. The driver knows the place: the secret beach where, once a year, the dogs of myth take their outing. Despite the long drive, dawn has just broken by the time they arrive. The beach is long, perfect, empty of the picnickers and holidaymakers who will soon swarm its picture-postcard dunes. They have the place to themselves.

The interior of the bus trembles with energy. The dogs sit poised and upright, only the intense wagging of tails betraying their eagerness. When the doors slide open, the excitable corgi is the first to tumble down the steps, her fairy rider cursing and hauling ineffectively at the reins. The Camelot mutts are right behind her. They writhe and trip over one another in a tangle of hairy legs, while the Devil’s Dandy Dogs snap at their tails. Next come the Gytrash and the church grim, at a stately pace, shoulder to shoulder. Black Shuck and the Cù Sìth follow. The Gwyllgi and the Moddey Dhoo skulk after them, glancing over their shoulders at the Dartmoor Hound, which paces lone and panther-like from the back of the bus. Lastly, Nana shepherds her three children down the steps, and only Bobby is left, polite and patient as always, waiting for the driver. The old man and his old dog walk the path to the beach side by side.

The sand shines primrose-yellow in the sunlight. Deep-clawed prints race to the shore, where a cacophony of splashing, leaping, and barking unfolds in the shallows. The Camelot hounds coat their skinny bodies in sand, eyes rolling with delight, while the Devil’s Dandy Dogs take off as one in pursuit of a seagull. The corgi is a frantic, cannonballing blur, her thick fur soaked, her fairy rider laughing through the saltwater spray. Even the deathly dogs, the portents of the underworld, frolic for all they are worth in the sea and pass a red rubber ball from jaw to dripping jaw. The Dartmoor Hound, overcome with sudden excitement, takes off and races its own long shadow from one end of the beach to the other.

On the dunes, Bobby and his owner sit and watch the sunrise. They are quiet with each other, after all these years. The old man rests his hand on Bobby’s wiry fur. The soft sand feels kind beneath their stiff limbs. A little way below them, her tongue lolling contentedly, Nana oversees the construction of a sandcastle.

The sun begins to lift into the sky as the day draws on, and the shadows shorten. The Moddey Dhoo solidifies in the brightness, no longer ethereal, nothing but a large spaniel splashing delightedly in the surf. Black Shuck, with his wolfish fur slicked into spikes, could be any oversized black dog, the Gwyllgi any capering mastiff. Even the Cù Sìth, although the height of a horse and the colour of submerged moss, might be mistaken for a family pet as it barks and frisks on the wet sand. Duties forgotten, for this one day of the year, they are free.

As the holidaymakers begin to appear over the crest of the dunes, the bus driver whistles to his pack. One after another, the dogs of legend shake water from their coats and trot up the beach towards him, panting and laughing. The corgi plants sopping paws on the driver’s knees, and the Dartmoor Hound, in a fit of exuberance, surges up to lick his weathered cheek. But to old Bobby, who waited for fourteen years by a grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard, the scene is already a dream. He lies fast asleep and smiling in his master’s arms as the mythical pack piles back onto the bus.

 

* * *

About the Author

Katie McIvor is a Scottish writer and library assistant. She studied at the University of Cambridge and now lives in England with her husband and two dogs. Her short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Deadlands, Uncharted, Interzone, and the Bram Stoker Award-nominated anthology Mother: Tales of Love and Terror, and her three-story collection is out now with Ram Eye Press. You can find her on Twitter at @_McKatie_ or on her website at https://katiemcivor.com/.

by Renee Carter Hall

“They said I was going to be an abracadabra dog.”

“Abracadabra,” I whispered, trying to keep my tail from wagging in excitement. I didn’t want to make a bad impression on my first day.

“What are you on about?” the grizzled German shepherd muttered next to me.

“Just— you know. The job.”

“Right.” He gave me a sniff and sighed. “Puppies. They’re sending puppies now.”

I was not a puppy; I was a fully grown Labrador. But again, first impressions. I managed to quiet my tail.

I had already been disappointed that my training hadn’t included any magic tricks. I’d expected to hop into boxes to be sawed in half, or maybe to disappear behind a sparkly curtain. So far it had just been a lot of sniffing for things, but maybe that would change today. Did humans do magic shows in the woods? I sure hoped so. Maybe I would even get my own cape.

It didn’t start off very promising. In fact, it felt just like training. We were given the usual command and started searching. I did my best to calm down and focus, and soon enough I found the scent—faint at first, but there. I loped toward it, pulling my person along. Something had disappeared and I was going to make it reappear, because I was a magic dog. They’d said so.

And then I found it, and I knew I was supposed to sit, but I couldn’t help it. I dug joyously through leaves and soil and muck. I had found it. I was doing it. I had found—

A person. I had found a person.

Who wasn’t moving.

Who smelled like dead things.

Who was flesh and bone and hair and not all in the same place.

I staggered back.

I sat.

My person was happy with me. They were acting just like they had in training when I did the right thing. In all those hours, all those sprayed scents, how had I never realized what I’d been smelling?

The German shepherd was next to me. “Good job, pup.”

I didn’t answer.

“Something wrong?”

“When do we do the magic?” I whispered.

“The what?”

They were covering what I’d found, getting ready to carry it away. It made it a little easier to talk.

“They said I was going to be an abracadabra dog.”

The German shepherd stared at me, first in confusion, then with contempt, and then with something like pity. “The word,” he said finally, “is cadaver. Meaning, a dead human.” He sighed and looked away, sagging a little. “You poor dumb thing.”

That was my first day.

I never saw the German shepherd after that; I guess from then on they trusted me to work alone. And I was good. There was no doubt about that. I found bodies in woods and water, newly dead and months gone, old and young. I climbed through cinderblock rubble and storm-twisted trees. But even when I could eventually feel satisfaction at my person’s praise, there was a part of me that stayed numb, and still angry at my silly pup self for having expected something more.

That changed in another forest, on a wet October day. I was following the scent, professionally ignoring both squirrels and chipmunks. This scent was young, very young, and everyone around me seemed particularly distressed, but I did my job. My person praised me after, as they always did.

Then one of the others said something to my person. A question. My person hesitated and said something back, and then the other human approached me, hand out.

I sniffed, and his scent was familiar. It was an echo of the scent I’d just found. He scratched behind my ears, and I wagged my tail a little so he knew it was okay. And then he was kneeling, in the leaves and the mud, his arms around me, his face against my wet coat, holding me tight.

“Thank you,” he said into my fur. “We can take him home now.”

I thought he would let go of me then, but he hugged me tighter, shaking. I licked his face and tasted salt.

And I began to understand.

It isn’t the magic I thought it would be. No tricks, no stage, no cape. But what I can do is bigger and more powerful than I ever imagined that first day. It’s the difference between a question and an answer. The difference between a wound and a scar.

I’d like to tell that old German shepherd that he was right, and he was wrong. He was right about the word, but he was wrong about me.

My name is Pepper. I’m a fully grown Labrador.

And I am a magic dog.

 

* * *

About the Author

Renee Carter Hall writes fantasy and science fiction for kids, teens, and adults. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Strange Horizons and Podcastle, and her novels include the Cóyotl Award-winning young adult fantasy Huntress. She lives in West Virginia with her husband, their cat, and more books than she will ever have time to read. Readers can find her online at www.reneecarterhall.com.

by Azure Arther

“Names were a thing that made no sense to Abernathy. He was a nightmare and nightmares were all the same, until they weren’t.”

The nightmare slurped the last drop of fear just as the man died. The essence was bitter, full of regret and sadness and the terror of not reaching the heights one had planned. It wasn’t his best meal, but the nightmare was eating just to eat at this point. He placed one hoof on the man’s head and pressed, tentatively at first, then with all the weight of a full grown pegasus. Heavy.

There was a satisfying crunch and the nightmare moved on. No necromancy would bring his enemies back to life. No god would return a favorite warrior to battle. The nightmare left nothing. He was the stallion of dread, the harbinger of fright. He was—

“Bernie!” a voice called from farther away, drawing the nightmare’s attention. He looked around the cluttered battlefield, where he and the girl had killed her enemies. His enemies now. Dead men lay in the grass, across each other, some caught in mid-run, others with sword in their hand. All of them wore the emblazoned livery of the king, but they were not soldiers. The wagon that had carried the mercenaries was on its side, its horses having run from—

“Bernie? Abernathy.” The girl’s voice was impatient as usual, laced with urgency, entitlement, no fear. The nightmare sighed and turned towards her. He tossed his mane, and flowed across the shadows on the ground, silken, pitch, a soft rustle that strikes fear in the middle of the night, when sleep has just barely claimed its due.

“Bernie!” Kyra was in front of him now. Her black leather pants glistened in places, someone else’s blood, but she was unharmed. There was no need for her to call him so urgently. She craned her neck to look up at him and stomped one foot.

“I know you heard me,” Kyra said. Abernathy chuffed her braids and spread his wings. Kyra rolled her eyes.

“Bernie…tone it down. Look.” She held up her hands. Nestled between her long, brown fingers was a kitten. The tiny beast hissed and recoiled in fear, spitting and scratching at Kyra until she let it go. It raced off.

“I just spent five minutes coaxing it from under the barn, Bern!” Kyra groaned.

Abernathy tapped one hoof on the ground and looked meaningfully at the bodies.

“Yes, I already took everything of value.”

He lay one ear back and clicked his teeth at her.

“Fine.” Kyra stomped over to the bodies, doing one last check. She was tiny in comparison to the corpses, and even though she was still a child, Abernathy knew she would not be much larger when she was fully grown. She found a few rings and a missed change purse, a belt buckle that could be sold, two good pairs of leather boots to be traded. Abernathy pressed his nose to a particularly warm cloak and coughed. Kyra frowned when he stared at her.

“Ugh. Then I have to wash it.”

Abernathy nodded his large head in agreement.

“You know all this stuff has to go on your back, right?”

Abernathy lowered his front legs, carefully bowing so that Kyra could load the bags on. She looked around the farm before anxiously looking back at him. “Do you think I should let the farm family know it’s okay to come out?’

Abernathy bared his teeth and Kyra nodded. “Okay.”

The nightmare whinnied softly, and Kyra nodded again. She climbed on his back and with a running leap, Abernathy shot into the sky, his wings unfurling. He felt the air, cold here, colder there, and finally, a warm updraft allowed him to glide. The magic that hid him from the humans would hide Kyra too. She bundled into the woolen cloak that smelled of man, lay across his neck, and went to sleep.

* * *

It was Kyra who named him. She was a small human at the time but had been with him for several of her human years at that point. For much of their first years together, she had called him “horse,” “Blackie,” “Wings,” and other things, but finally, she had decided he needed an actual and permanent name. Abernathy disagreed.

“You need a name,” she had indicated, her words careful and clipped, in the way speakers of foreign languages tend to overenunciate. Abernathy had given her speech in a dream, several dreams, many nights of patient fostering of human language that he had stolen from others. She spoke many of their dialects now, knew how to cook, how to maid to another human who felt they were superior to other humans, which wasn’t possible, and how to do a myriad of other things. Sometimes they were fanciful ideas, and others were necessary requirements, like how to bind a wound, and what herbs would keep it from festering.

But names. Names were a thing that made no sense to Abernathy. He was a nightmare and nightmares were all the same, until they weren’t.

Abernathy shook his head when she stated he needed one. She had already been named Kyra when they met. He assumed her parents provided her with the name. She did not need to name him, as well.

“Yes, you do. I am Kyra and this is my noble steed, the nightmare, does have a fancy ring to it. I agree with that.” Kyra was braiding her hair, sitting in the warm stable-like cave they called home. Half of the fluffy cloud of black, shiny strands stood up and out, coiled in places, straight in others, but the rest was deftly folding into neat cornrows. She changed her and, unfortunately, Abernathy’s hair often. “But you need a name I can call you, one that isn’t anyone’s but mine.”

Abernathy had shaken his head again, adding a firm stomp, an agitated tail swish, and a heavy snort, but Kyra had stood firm. “I’m going to call you Abernathy, like the great sage. Bernie for short.”

Thus, he acquired the name, and accepted it, as he accepted everything else that Kyra chose.

* * *

Abernathy paced when they landed outside Unan, and the marketplace Kyra was only allowed to go to thrice a year. They lived too close for people to see them too often. He tossed his head twice. The midafternoon sun provided excellent shadows for them to hide in, yet she insisted on entering the sunlight, to cross the field of bright green, into the town.

“I’ll be careful.” Kyra said, sliding from his back, her voice soothing, with a slight note of impatience, as usual. “I’m always careful.”

Abernathy shimmered to shadow, translucent, unseen by the regular human eye. Kyra glared at him.

“No. I don’t need you kicking down stalls and trampling people just because a vendor haggles too hard.”

Abernathy snorted and stomped a foot.

“You did too.”

He turned his head. It had only happened once.

“Just… stay here, Bernie, okay? I’ll be alright.” Kyra patted down the pockets of her pants, checked the weapons holster at her side, and hefted the bag. She called back as she walked away, “In and out. I’m going to grab some sugar and apples for you, some wool to make socks, and some brine for our salted meat. Winter is coming. Oh! And no overhead either! I’m fine.”

Abernathy watched from the trees as she crossed the meadow, a small hunter with her goods, as noble a carriage as any royal. He whinnied softly as she walked away and tossed his head. Kyra was nothing more than a foal in many ways, a child in comparison to the youngest of nightmares. And humans were cruel.

The nightmare pawed the ground and paced for what felt like hours, but Kyra didn’t return. Finally, he shimmered completely, spread his wings, and launched into the air above the marketplace. She wouldn’t know if he had been overhead. He wouldn’t dive into the middle of the market this time. He wouldn’t upset Kyra. He wouldn’t act like an irrational horse. He was a nightmare. Nightmares were not irrational.

But he couldn’t see through the tents and stalls and poking his head through the fabrics was exhausting and felt silly. He landed and crept through Unan. It could have been one of any of the larger towns that Abernathy and Kyra had been through. Low cottages with neat paint and yards sprawled across the grounds before the town wall with smaller and more squalid lodging just along the interior, in the shadows of the bricks that protected the city. Farther in were small houses, minor shops, leading to gardens and larger houses, a tavern, an inn. Past that was the town square, the marketplace.

People shivered as he passed; babies cried; small children watched him with wide eyes. One woman clutched her chest, her breath coming in gasps. “I need to get him to make sure the baby is alright.” A man stared at his partner with suspicion in his eyes. “You’re cheating me, aren’t you?” The marketplace dissolved into bickering and fear at his presence. He moved quickly, drawing in his influence as best he could, the power that made him a nightmare allowing him to walk through people if he chose, but Kyra told him not to do that. It made humans feel like someone had walked over their grave, or as if Death himself had touched them.

He whinnied low and waited. Only Kyra would hear him. He flicked his ears forward, listening. To the sides, listening. Back, when he didn’t hear her. He breathed in deep, checking for her scent. Kyra smelled like shadows and spice, human and horse. Kyra smelled like—

“Abernathy?” she hissed and the nightmare froze. Kyra was behind him, but she didn’t smell very much like Kyra. “I told you to wait.”

He turned to look at her. Her braids were coiled on top of her head, and she wore a gown. She had bathed.

He nickered at her softly and placed his head on her shoulder. She reached up to pat his nose and sighed. “Now you’re gonna have me looking like I’m talking to myself.”

Around them, the marketplace had reached a fever pitch of fear and one group of men had begun to argue loudly.

“Fly, Bernie. I’ll be there in a second.”

Abernathy huffed, pressed his hooves into the cobblestones, and leaped into the sky. Kyra looked up at him, her brown eyes solemn. She looked presentable, Abernathy noticed. The cream dress she wore complemented her brown skin, and she had a basket on her arm.

* * *

He found Kyra on a dark and stormy night, the best kind of night, when shadows feed well, and children huddle in their beds, when burly human men sneak glances over their shoulders. The herd Abernathy traveled with was feeding at a castle. Nightmares were known for their work with sleep and dreams, but they fed on fear, and fear could be found in many places. There were always nightmares at the healers, the apothecary, and definitely hanging around during conflict and hostilities.

The castle was in chaos, a civil dispute turned battle turned war. There had been a coup. People were dying, and the herd was eating well. Battles were waged in all corners of the palace, but victory was very clearly going to be with those who were taking over. One king or another. Someone’s cousin, someone else’s third stepbrother five times removed. Abernathy hadn’t cared. He flit through the walls, spreading a miasma of fear and defeat, feeding on the run for the joy of running. He tore through stone, his shape flashing in and out of solidity. A meld here, a solid there. Through a bed here, destroy a tapestry there. He was having fun.

Until he burst into a grain storage, and almost trampled a very small, elaborately dressed, obvious princess, crying over a dead maid. She had looked right at Abernathy, no fear coming from her, just solemn, red-rimmed brown eyes. Her hands clenched and unclenched into tiny fists. He had been startled by her. She wasn’t the first human to see him; Some could, a touch of the sight, a bit of fae blood generations removed, a magic object, but she was definitely one of the few to not lose her mind at the sight, to not be so overcome with terror that she tore her eyes out or her hair or banged her head on the floor, the wall, a sharp object. She walked over to him, tilting her head back, small fists on her hips as she bent her spine to look up, up, up at him.

Her face was heart-shaped, with a tiny, pointed chin, round cheeks and bowed lips. She touched his leg and leaned to the side to look at his back half. He followed her gaze and huffed. He was halfway in and halfway out the wall. With a snort, the nightmare walked completely into the room.

“I need to get away before they find me. Can you help me?”

He could have ignored her. He should have ignored her, but it was at that moment soldiers burst into the room, and the before-he-was-named Abernathy bared his teeth in rage. He raised up on his back legs and trampled the three men before they had a chance to recognize what was happening. When he finished, he turned to look at the tiny child. Her elaborate clothing was splattered with blood.

“Thank you.” Even the girl’s voice was even small. What did he know of small humans? But more voices sounded in the corridors.

“Find the princess.”

“First General says he stabbed her maid before she went through a secret passageway. They can’t be out of the palace.”

“She’s the only heir left.”

“Please?” the girl whispered, and the nightmare sighed. He leaned over, folding his front legs, and tilted a wing down for her to climb up. When she was on his back, he focused, shimmered, and enveloped them both in his magic.

* * *

“I told you to stay.” Kyra was angry, pacing. She huffed and stomped a foot.

Abernathy stared at her with placid eyes.

“You made things so much worse. I was trying to get some gossip. I needed to— Ugh.”

Abernathy nudged his nose into one of the bags Kyra had tossed. He gently closed his teeth on the gown and tugged it out of the bag.

“Stop, Bernie!” Kyra rushed to his side, wresting the gown away from him. Her voice was defensive. “I just wanted a bath. You make better barter when you’re not dressed like a ragamuffin scavenger.”

Abernathy tilted his head and chuffed. Kyra glared at him. He stomped a foot.

“Fine. I just wanted to be clean.”

Abernathy turned his head.

“Don’t act like that, Bern.”

He flattened his ears and lifted a hind leg off the ground.

“Oh, don’t be mad.” Kyra was silent before she finally spoke, her voice quiet and contemplative. “I just wanted to see what it felt like, okay? I’ve been with you since I was four. I’m seventeen, Abernathy, and we rarely ever talk to humans, and I saw that shop, and the lady was so nice…”

Abernathy whinnied, a bit shrill, and lowered his hind leg. He kept his ears flat and leaned over to snap his teeth near her face.

“Yes, she could have been an enemy, and I know that, but I don’t think so, Bernie.”

Abernathy blew out all the air in his lungs and unfurled his wings, raising them high and lowering them in a sharp snap.

“True. Surprises happen.” Kyra shrugged. “I would’ve been okay, Bern.”

Abernathy neighed, shrill and high-pitched.

“I said I’d be careful! I was careful!” Kyra stuffed the gown back into the bag and tossed them on Abernathy’s back. He bucked and knocked them off. “Oh, it’s like that, huh?”

Abernathy bared his teeth at her.

“Fine. I’ll walk home.” She picked the bags up, slung them over her shoulder and took off walking. Abernathy followed, seething. They hadn’t gotten far before he looked back, studying the trail Kyra left through the woods. He would need to remind her of nature walking when she slept. He caught up to her and bumped her shoulder with his and almost knocked her down. Kyra laughed.

“I win.” She affectionately rubbed the side of his face. “No more silent treatment.”

Abernathy blew his breath, a quick flap of his lips and Kyra giggled. She tossed the bags up and climbed on his back. He immediately vaulted into the sky, but his gaze remained down, watching the woods and the way they moved, as if someone were following a careful path through the trees. As if someone was following Kyra.

* * *

It wasn’t like Abernathy didn’t understand Kyra’s need for human company. Sometimes he left her to run with the herd. He couldn’t stay with them anymore, not with Kyra in tow. She wouldn’t have fared well in the shadow barn the nightmares lived in, fed, and served by a myriad of creatures who would consider Kyra a tasty morsel. But Abernathy could fend for himself, unlike the small human he fostered.

She frustrated him, but the annoying feeling in his chest, the thing called worry that he had never had before, that frustrated him even more. Which was why, while Kyra slept the day sleep, Abernathy paced the gloom outside their cave.

No humans had ever reached their hiding place. It was bathed in shadows, reinforced by Abernathy’s urine, the entrance hidden from sight. Yet, a human came. Abernathy could smell him, hear him, long before he broke the clearing. He was strong, younger than the usual mercenary. He smelled of spice, somewhat like Kyra, and had the same rich brown color of her skin. His hair was thick black ropes the size of Kyra’s thumb, neatly tied back with a leather thong. He smelled faintly of apprehension, nothing like the usual human who neared his presence.

Abernathy pushed the scent of fear out and tilted his head, waiting for the man, boy really, not as young as Kyra, but not much older, to quake with trepidation. He didn’t.

“A—” The boy cleared his throat and looked around the clearing. He didn’t appear to see the entrance, but he obviously knew they were there. “Abernathy, sir?”

Abernathy paused. He looked back into the cave, at Kyra’s sleeping spot. She was sitting up, her brown eyes wide in the darkness. She hunched her shoulders and tossed her head at him. Abernathy stomped, shimmered, and stepped from the shadow of the door.

He silently walked towards the stranger and flared his wings before allowing the shimmer to fall. The boy gasped but didn’t run. Fear wafted from him in waves, but it wasn’t fear at the sight of Abernathy. The stranger bowed and Abernathy lowered his wings, curious.

“Hello, Abernathy, sir.” The boy cleared his throat and held up a fist of hemlock flowers. Only Kyra knew what a delight they were to him. “Hello, sir. I, sir. I—”

Abernathy stared at the boy.

“He wants to know if he can come with us.” Kyra said from behind and above them. The boy made a soft noise of protest. Both males looked up at her, standing on the ledge above the clearing. “Or, and Bernie, just hear me out, maybe I can stay in Unan.”

Abernathy bared his teeth at the boy and raised a hind leg. Kyra scrambled down to throw herself in front of the stranger.

“This is Jonah. We’ve been friends for years.”

Abernathy stomped his back foot down and walked away into the cave. He nuzzled his head into one of the bags and pulled out the dress, careful not to drag it when he returned. Kyra’s face flushed when she saw what he had brought.

“Fine. Yes. The dress was for Jonah.” She threw her hands up. She snatched the gown and shoved it into Jonah’s arms. Jonah watched their exchange with wonder on his face, his eyes wide and his mouth slightly open. Abernathy snapped his teeth at the boy, causing him to flinch and stumble back.

“Stop, Bernie. It’s not his fault.” Kyra rubbed Abernathy’s chest and wrapped her arms as far around him as she could. “I’m sorry I lied.”

Abernathy chuffed her braids, split in two, down to the middle of her back now, and glared at Jonah over her shoulder.

“I would take care of her, sir.”

Abernathy snorted and Kyra shoved him. “Be nice.”

She lay her head back on his chest and stayed there for a moment before whispering, “I need to be with humans, Bern.”

Abernathy raised his hind leg, slowly, his wings rising at the same time.

“I know you think it isn’t safe, but those mercenaries didn’t even recognize me, Bern.”

Abernathy tossed his head at Jonah.

“He doesn’t even know, Bernie. It’s been thirteen years. We hunt them more than they hunt us. You hunt them, anyway.”

Abernathy considered her words. Kyra had never hunted the king’s men in the way Abernathy had. Once he had decided she was his, he hunted down her enemies with a vengeance, sometimes with a group of nightmares, but often alone. Sometimes with Kyra with him, but often alone. Alone.

Abernathy backed away from Kyra, nodding his head, tucking his wings and ears.

“I’m not leaving you.” Kyra’s eyes glistened with tears. “You can stay here, and I’ll come visit, or you could pretend to be a real horse, or…”

“He can’t stay, Kyra,” Jonah said softly. “I saw what he did at the market. I’ve never heard of a nightmare attaching to a human, but… I’m not surprised.”

The boy smiled at Kyra, and Abernathy saw it, the fierceness that rested in Abernathy’s chest, the need to protect, the worry. Human love.

“I just… I won’t stay if you don’t want me to, Bernie. I’ll stay with you ” Kyra said, the tears beginning to fall. “I’ll stay with you.”

* * *

The nightmare hid in the shadows, watching the burnished light that came from the window of a cottage. He had killed two king’s men on the road, far from here. They could have been coming or going, or not even planning to stop, but he still hunted them, wherever they were, whenever he caught them. They were the only thing in the world that he feared. After they died, he came to check, to see.

Kyra opened the back door and looked out. Her hair was longer now, the braids tumbling into the small of her back, adorned with shells and beads and at least six strands of Abernathy’s hair. Jonah walked up behind her, his arm snaking around her waist and pregnant stomach. The boy had filled out, man now, strong and muscled. At night, Abernathy fed him dreams of battle training, fighting styles, weapons knowledge, and other things he felt he needed to watch the nightmare’s little girl. To watch Kyra.

And the other two.

A child, a little girl of around four, wriggled past her parents to run into the darkness, giggling. She made a beeline for Abernathy. From the doorway, Kyra shook her head.

“Don’t keep her out too late, Bernie.”

“Up, Bern. Up?” The little girl reached, dancing at his side on bare feet, waiting for Abernathy to lower a wing. He did and the child climbed up, grasping tight fists of his mane until she was settled between his wings. She giggled again and Jonah smiled.

Abernathy stepped out of the shadows, a slight rustling, a chill on the wind, a nightmare with a little girl on his back. They were dangerous. He tossed his head and whickered softly at the girl’s parents; then he shimmered and took a running leap for the sky, his gallop into the air punctuated by a child’s high-pitched squeals of glee.

 

* * *

About the Author

A Flint, MI native and Dallas transplant, Azure Arther has been obsessed with literature since she was a child. She has found that her passion is evenly distributed between writing, teaching and reading books with her son. Her short stories and poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in nearly two dozen publications, including Midnight & Indigo, Aurealis, Andromeda Spaceways, and a winning story in Writers of the Future, vol. 38. She is a college professor, a playwright who dabbles in surrealism and fantasy, and a children’s author. Her website is azurearther.com.

by S. A. Cole

“We loved the witch and her child, yet did their clan not slash our trees and burn our nests? And with this cat familiar we had a peace. What if the witch daughter replaced this cat with a snake?”

Downlings and hatchlings crowd together and listen. This tale defines us, and no ice-black winter or nest murdering snake can take it from us.

In the long before, tales talk of the time when we corvids owned the hills, but scrabbled and clawed for each day of our lives. Endless snows and deep hunger in our shriveled bellies robbed nest after nest of life.

Then came the black tar road. It wound through the hills and we mistrusted the hot machines and the rotten smelling people inside. We gave them no gifts, and they gave us no succor.

After the road cooled and set its bones into the ground, your grandmother’s grandmother flew to find the end to the south and your grandfather’s grandfather flew to find the end to the north. We waited through summer heat, falling leaves, and huddled through the killing ice of winter. Neither scout returned. Having neither body nor feathers, we buried nothing more than their memories with the first rain after the thaw.

Then came the machines riding into our hills with shoots of too green grass and the twined white and purple blooms of the Tulip Poplars and Jane Magnolias. Monsters flattened and dug and crushed. Two of our egg laden nest trees slashed down with metal blades and burned. Our tears reflected the flames and dropped from our beaks over the blistered eggshells on the ground. Only three eggs remained tucked into nests, woven with bone brittle hope.

Picked bone clean, the humans built endless nests of pine and metal, liquid rock and dust where we had once lived. Bodies and machines swirled around until their thousand nests were finished and the humans left. Only our boldest went first, alighting on the eaves and singing a false song of bravery. Nothing emerged. And so with the carelessness of the young, the new nest-mates built homes in the eaves, and corners, above the windows, and enjoyed the safety from the winter-blooded snakes and dark minded foxes. Four eggs in our new sheltered nests.

“Looks like the birds moved in before us.” the man said. The first of many settling into the new homes.

Our hope burned as fast as our nesting trees when the man and woman arrived. Both young and lean, a desperate pair, they must have been to move to this built then abandoned place all alone. Their boxy metal machine spat endless things into the house, perhaps hoping to feed it like one of our young. Our flight gathered and chirped worried notes.

The youngest of us did the unthinkable. Bargained with the woman. On the sills, it left her worms. A gift swept away uneaten. Wings stretched wide, it sung her songs of love and shelter, flight and food. She braided her feather-dark hair and sung in tune with it. Why do I hide my glory? She sang with me hatchlings.

I knew her for a witch, just like the oldest of our tales. My gifts were rarely acknowledged, and so instead of stones and worms, I brought her things a witch might need. The downy feathers cast off by our young, a mouse’s tail, glimmering rocks, cold metal coins lost by the tide of humans moving into the new built homesteads as my witch settled into her own. The last gift I brought was the one that sealed our fates together. I laid it on the table behind their house as both man and woman drank steaming cups of black liquid. And together they saw I had brought them two blue lines ensconced in a plastic tube. Three seasons later, the witch daughter was born.

Now you know why they call me stork, even though my feathers are the same black as yours, hatchlings. The seasons turned to years, and we doted on the witch daughter and she doted on us. Our baths decorated the grass around the house, and they lay food out for us, specially concealed from devious squirrels in a hanging red house, a never ending succor of dry figs and savory seeds. Our wings filled the sky again. Now the ice dark winter feared to creep into our nests.

As the seasons turned and returned and turned again, the witch daughter grew and took the witch’s duties. She laid out our food, and we gifted her all things a young witch might need. Metal coins, braided grass and flowers for her hair, beetles cleared from her carrot garden. Most of all, we gave her song, delighting in her smiles. Hatchlings never forget, just as darkness follows light, so too does sadness follow joy.

The witch daughter selected a familiar. A cat.

The beast was all horrid muscles, and silent malice. Of course, it was black like the winter nights thought long vanquished. It prowled through the leaves and underbrush during the day, waiting for us with its thin, flicking tail. Claws scratched at the bark of our nest trees, and only those nesting in the eaves of the house felt safe. I will not lie to you all. It took one of our young, no bigger than any of you downlings. How we wept as it presented its own twisted gift to the black-eyed witch daughter.

Her tears matched ours. She ran to the witch mother, and they scolded the cat with words. But we wished for fire, not words. We should have trusted them, and their magic. They broke the beast’s silence, wrapping its neck with a spell of fabric and a bright metal bell.

The seasons turned, and the cat did the unthinkable. It grew larger, coming into its paws and claws. But inside the silent malice and red stained claws, the beast had changed, perhaps learned. Though we could never speak to it, and it could never speak to us, there was an understanding. We were both important to the witch daughter. There was something of a peace, as thin as the space between waves on the beach, new, and eggshell fragile.

The cat laid in the bright summer sun on the day of its taking. The witch daughter trapped the beast in a brown box and together with the witch mother took it into their car. Scouts followed them to a building, which must have been a temple of their magic, marked on the outside with pictures of not only cats but also dogs. The temple’s inscription had many human letters, but the important ones you must know I will draw.

Small Animal Hospital

Like the sand and the sun and the wind, remember these markings.

When the cat returned, it was a changed thing. Instead of the sack that made it like a man, it was like us. We sang songs of praise and taunted the enemy, but it felt hollow to me. The cat grew weak and mewling. Its wound swelled and reddened. When the witch daughter came for the cat, brown box in hand, the beast only weakly mewed. Its limbs splayed out softly toward the ground. The box closed around it and perhaps in my heart I worried for it. Yes, it had our clan’s blood on its claws, but youth is rarely without regret. We loved the witch and her child, yet did their clan not slash our trees and burn our nests? And with this cat familiar we had a peace. What if the witch daughter replaced this cat with a snake?

Again, our scouts followed them to the Small Animal Hospital. They waited to see what would become of the cat, but the witch and the witch daughter returned alone. Others celebrated, though their joy was a hollow and nervous thing. Would there be a new cat when we woke? Day and nights passed, hatching-slow. Our feed was forgotten by the witch and the witch daughter. Hunger returned to our fat bellies with a dangerous edge we had forgotten.

The sudden weakness of our demesne did not go unnoticed. Newly bold mice scurried around the margins of our lives and the witch’s nest, carrying in and out food and mites, the dirty mammals. We hate them but only out of habit, fellows that race our beaks for scarce food.

On the fourth night of the cat’s absence, the snake slithered over the border fence and into our space. We squawked and shrieked, but to no avail. Snake ears feed on our screams and the crushing sounds of our bones and eggs.

On the fifth night, the snake emptied one of our nests, curling into the straw and twigs and grass of our sacred home as it digested.

On the sixth night, the cat returned. Whole and hale, but loved and welcomed into the witch daughter’s house. Others felt this another devastation to our clan, but I trusted the witch and the witch daughter. And perhaps I was foolish enough to trust a cat. The snake, digestion of our nest’s bounty complete, slunk along the tree limb as the sun sunk and night came. The scaled body wrapped against the trunk, and then the ground, and then against another of our nest trees. Its cold body stretched slowly skyward, toward four of our eggs, as the sun’s first light broke into the yard.

The broken silence of the cat’s bell rang out thunder loud. Brave black paws padded to the snake and the two great beasts locked eyes.

Their fight was not brief or glorious, or silent. Blood and fur and scales cast off and laid on the ground until the snake sunk its fangs into the cat’s front leg. The cat bit back and claimed one of the snake’s eyes. The titans parted, but the cat was timid. This snake’s bite carried more than fangs. Poison coursed through the cat and weakened it. The fight was the snake’s, and the scaled malice knew it. The cat backed away but never let its eyes leave the snake. Arching its black back and bristling out its fur the cat hissed. Its feet lost confidence, and the snake slid closer, body warming in the sun. The cat knew it had lost, but it would take the snake’s life or die trying. It would repay its debt to us with the last moments of its life.

The snake raised up, mouth wide, only a wing span from the cat.

I fell from the sky like a hawk, claws out at the snake’s one good eye. The snake thrashed and spat and snarled. My claws had found their home, and the snake and I crashed together. The bones of my right wing crunched and broke. While I regret many things in my insignificant life, trading my flight for the snake’s eye, I cannot regret. Now you know why they call me ‘snake bane.’ My claws sunk deep and held the snake’s head.

The cat may have been weak but a blind and bound snake was little threat. The cat’s fangs sunk deep into the neck of the snake and it stopped thrashing.

The witch daughter must have heard the noise of our fight. She opened their nest door, saw the carnage, and greeted it with a scream, running back into the house. Time dragged between when she left and when she came again. The bones in my wing throbbed and burned like newly molted feathers. When she came back, the man joined her. He brought a shovel down on the dead snake, cleaving it in twain. But the cat was long gone, only its fur and blood still on the ground to show its valor.

The witch daughter cried, and her tears brought six days of rain. The snake’s body, shovel carried to the trash, deserved even less funeral rites.

Now this part of the story I did not see myself, but ask anyone and they will tell you its truth. A cat is a heavily muscled beast, but our clan’s wings are strong with fig and seed. Sixteen wings beating together carried the cat to the Small Animal Hospital. The raucous scene of people taking a cat from birds I can only imagine. Our pantomime, birds relaying the story of a valorous cat defending our nest from snakes to the humans of the Small Animal Hospital, you can get from anyone in our clan. But remember the eight birds who stayed with the cat. Remember, eight songs sung to the cat’s unconscious body to anchor its soul while the humans repaired its body.

Remember, on the seventh day, when the cat returned whole and hale, born on Corvid wings, through wind and rain. And when the witch daughter’s tears dried on her cheeks with a smile as wide as our wings, remember that the rain stopped. The witch smiled at her daughter’s first magic, and at the winged return of the cat she gaped open-mouthed.

So now, perhaps I do not fly, and perhaps I help clean the fur of a hobbled cat, and though my feathers are not so black and full as they once were, remember the story of our clan as I told it, and as it happened. Not all cats are friends with birds, but one good friend is enough.

 

* * *

About the Author

S.A. Cole is the full time father of three boys, and he writes in the slivers between diaper changes and meal prep. He might be the only writer who doesn’t currently have a cat, but the kids are lobbying hard. He and his family can be found in New Orleans, often under a thick layer of glitter. This is his first published story.

by J. M. Eno

“I could see in his eyes that Mattias was scared for his home, and, a home being something I know can be easily lost, I told him I would join his cause.”

A blue New York moon hung low over the corner of 18th Street and 7th Avenue, where its soft light blended into the yellow of the streetlights and the black of the pavement. Oliver’s parents were fighting again, and so he lingered as he walked his bulldog Winston to the corner. He waved at Reggie, the man who had taken up residence near his apartment building. On chilly nights the hot air wafting from the building’s laundry vents would warm his wiry limbs.

“How are you doing, young man?” Reggie asked.

“I’m all right,” Oliver said.

“And how are you?” Reggie said to Winston. He waited a moment for Winston to respond and then said, “I’m fine, too. Thanks for asking!” Winston wagged his stubby tail fervently.

Oliver had just turned back toward his building when Winston froze and let out a long, low growl. He stared at the street corner where, sitting on its haunches and looking back at Winston, was a solitary gray rat. The hair on the back of Oliver’s neck began to stand up.

“Don’t pay that rat any mind,” Reggie said. “He’s a friend of mine! Did I ever tell you about the time I saw the Rat King?”

“I don’t think so,” Oliver said.

Every kid growing up in New York City has heard of a rat king: a group of rats living deep in the bowels of the city crammed into a space so tight that their tails get all knotted up, their bodies begin to join, and they fuse into one monstrous creature. Oliver’s parents told him that they were a myth, like the alligators that lived in the sewers.

“About three or four years ago,” Reggie began, “I was the last person in West 4th Street Station, around the time of night when the trains only come every half hour or so. It was pouring rain outside, and the station was leaking worse than a cheap bodega umbrella.

“I walked down four flights of stairs to the lowest level of the station in search of a place to stay dry.

“On the last step, I tripped and fell face first onto the subway platform. Only I didn’t hit the platform — I went clear through.

“I found myself in a large chamber, about the size of the lobby in a fancy high-rise building, and it was completely full of rats: rats scurrying in and out, rats climbing the walls, and rats that appeared to be arming themselves with tiny swords and shields.

“One of them rats came right up to me, looked me directly in the eye, and when he spoke, I could understand his every word.

“He said, ‘Good sir, my name is Mattias. My fellows and I are marching this very evening on the tyrant king, Trey Cabeza of the Dark Sewers. He has claimed dominion over our home here under the West Fourth Street Station. If we do not meet him in battle, he will slaughter every person who lives here and take it for himself. Long ago, our prophets foretold your coming, speaking of a great man who would lead us to freedom. Look, there,’ and he pointed just behind me.

“Wouldn’t you know, on the wall above me was an intricate mosaic built from pieces of glass bottles, tin foil wrappers, and other scraps. The man in the mosaic looked just like me, and he was leading an army of rats in battle.

“I could see in his eyes that Mattias was scared for his home, and, a home being something I know can be easily lost, I told him I would join his cause. They didn’t have weapons big enough for me, so I picked up a trash can lid and an end of pipe that was lying in a corner.

“After two hours of marching, we made it to a great open cavern, the top of which was covered in glittering stalactites that must have formed from a leak somewhere in the city above.

“Across the cavern were thousands of the most vile rats you’ve ever seen, all wearing a sigil that depicted three bloody claws. In front of his forces was the Rat King himself, a hideous vermin with a body the size of a house cat, matted black fur, and three gnarled heads, the middle one topped with a tiny crown. His tail was a hairless, tangled mess that resembled a clump of writhing worms, and he scampered about on twelve legs.

“Before I knew it, the two sides charged, and I was in the thick of rat pandemonium: sword against shield, tooth and claw.

“Straight away the Rat King’s forces had us on the back foot. I was swinging my pipe every which way, but even a full grown man couldn’t stop that many royalist rats.

“In the middle of the cavern, the Rat King himself met Mattias in battle. He swung his axe, but Mattias blocked the blow with his shield. Mattias poked and prodded with his sword, and the Rat King parried. They traded blows, back and forth, until the Rat King twirled around, swept his massive, knotted tail, and knocked Mattias clean off his feet.

“And then something came over me, and I yelled a war cry that came from deep in my guts, something like I’ve never yelled before. I ran to the middle of the chamber, swung my pipe as hard as I could, and knocked the Rat King clear across the cavern. He hit the wall so hard he split back into three separate rats, each of which ran in a separate direction.

“Mattias and his rats returned my cry, and everything changed. We sent the Rat King’s army scattering around the cavern, and in a few minutes, we had driven them all away.

“The only thing left of the opposing army was the crown that had sat upon the Rat King’s middle head. I picked it up, and found that it had been formed out of a penny. Rats are industrious creatures, you see, and will find a use for almost anything that humans might throw away or misplace.

“We all went back to Mattias’s den and celebrated with a feast, the likes of which had never been seen. They even brought me a few pizza crusts they found in boxes, which was kind on account of the fact that those crusts are their favorite food. And I met every single one of Mattias’s eight hundred children, though I can only remember about half their names.

“I lived with Mattias for a couple more weeks and found his hospitality to be better in nearly every respect to that of a human. But one day I woke up with an irresistible urge to see the sun again. Mattias showed me a way through the tunnels to get back to West 4th Street Station, and I exited onto the platform I had fallen through. Behind me, the door shut so snugly into the frame that you couldn’t tell there was a passageway there at all.

“Well, ever since then, I’ve been able to understand just about everything an animal might say to me. Isn’t that right, Winston?”

Winston panted happily. Oliver looked back at the corner, but the rat had scampered off somewhere. On the nearby avenue, a taxi driver blared his horn at a slow driver.

“I hope you enjoyed my story,” said Reggie, “and if you did, I hope you may find it in your heart to offer me some assistance once again.”

Oliver had once heard that a good story was a sort of spell, a beautiful lie spoken into existence. He had to admit he had enjoyed the tale, though he didn’t believe a word of it. And yet somehow, having heard it, he felt better about returning to his apartment and facing his parents. He scrounged around in his pocket for a few dollars to hand to Reggie.

“Thank you kindly, young man,” said Reggie. “And don’t you forget to leave your pizza crusts in the box for my friends, the rats.”

The hand that took the money was calloused and rough. On Reggie’s smallest finger was a small, copper ring with sawtooth edges on one side that zigged and zagged toward his fingernail. To Oliver, standing under the swirling New York lights, it looked a bit like a crown.

 

* * *

About the Author

J. M. Eno is a husband, father, and writer living in New York. He can be found on street corners imploring his intransigent English bulldog to move or on Twitter at @jmenowrites.

by Marlon Ortiz

“The chamber lit up and the seed of metal spoke to me, and since I did not have a name anymore, it blessed me with a new one.”

We lived in the dusty valleys, with our dreams buried in arks.

Our people grew musky seeds that turned into juicy spores, and the larvae burst out of them, filling our plates. We did not have to survive very long, however. Tunnels birthed us, and soon we went there to die, all in the space of a few moon turns.

We could not learn, much less remember.

Our elders, frail and dim-eyed, told us little ones that the Black Sea above us was dangerous, and the valley offered shelter from a long and forgotten plague.

They told us that even though our frames were frail and sick, we were now free from slavery of mind and body. If one day the valley winds blew through the last of our bones, it would do so on a free people.

I wanted to know so much. Once, I asked why we lived so little, while the domes and machines stood there for many of our lives. An elder broke my frail arm and threw me to the ground, angrier with themselves for not knowing than at me for asking.

The second time, the same elder  broke one of my antennae, marking me as dishonored and unfit for breeding, just for talking to a passing member of another tribe.

The third time, I struck him down and broke his orange head with a salt rock. My family’s fate was death, but for me, the elder chose exile, where my life would stretch in pain and death would be a kindness.

I walked to the valley’s edge, and as soon as I stepped out of the broken domes where my tribe lived, I could feel the air burning my eyes like poison. But the words of the passing traveler rang in my ears.

Deep in my ancestral home, something lay hidden. A round,  featureless, shiny seed of metal, said to talk and grant wishes to my kin.

On that ridge, my resolve failed me for the first time. For ingrained traditions determined that it was time, that this was my last chance of a sliver of honor. That my kin name, two sounds and one screech, could still be spoken by the elders, even if as a warning. The one who disobeyed but paid the price, and learned its place, but kin in the end.

The moons above shadowed the valley, and under their indifferent gaze my feet brought me back.

An old one was guarding the entrance to the sacred tunnel, too worried to notice when I brought down the rock that smashed his head. My kin would remember me because of these rocks, I thought. Some myth would be born of it.

Tales of a great betrayal.

I took the spear it held, watching as the green poured into the eggs I stole as provisions, death nurturing life.

My feet took me inside.

The caves under the tribe were a forbidden place. They told us that it was our original womb, and that it should remain undisturbed because of some gods that gave us freedom. I did not believe in any of that. It is not as if execution for heresy would be a threat to my already decaying body. The traveler seemed to know more.

And our kind did not know how to lie.

After the threshold was behind me, there was no risk of them following. The first few days went calmly, as all my eyes grew more and more accustomed to the dimming light of the crystal walls. Sometimes, the cave tunnel opened up in a vast and bright lake of methane, which I swam across with my remaining arms.

It was here that most explorers would stop, even the heretics, but I had heard from the passing traveler that there were more tunnels hidden in the bottom of those lakes.

The oldest ones. The ones we did not make.

I had to stop and rest for a day, rationing the larvae I had brought with me, so my body could filter all the methane. The dimly lit green campfire was my own little star now.

It was here my resolve almost failed me a second time. But my many eyes drank the green fire, and it fed the desire to learn that haunted me since I was a hatchling.

I rebelled against the notion of dying without knowing.

Knowing anything.

I had to learn something. I had to know a single why. Then the dark could take me, and my green life could feed dozens of other hatchlings, and maybe one in a hundred would carry on my desire for knowing.

My feet lifted me up.

Still the tunnels went on, a lot more even and angular now. In some parts, I questioned if they were still made of crystal. In time, I reached a square room, so large my small branch of fire could not reach its sky. For a moment, I thought I left the caves entirely, but there were no silver dots on that sky blackness.

The ground was not of rock or glass, but of something elders spoke in a hushed voice.

Metal.

A polished, dull colored sphere rose up from the ground, shrugging off millennia of dust. The chamber lit up and the seed of  metal spoke to me, and since I did not have a name anymore, it blessed me with a new one.

“Welcome, Visitor.” It said, showing me lights that glowed in patterns, hurting my eyes as they danced around me. I did not know what they meant, but even so, they awoke something in me, an understanding.

As I did with the elders that had cast me down, I sought knowledge, and it granted me so much. It told me of stars, their true nature, of gas, dust, and light. The more I asked, the more I wanted to know, and so I slept in the cold metal, the larvae forgotten in my travel packs, while I wasted no time in asking, not even for sleep or feeding.

The metal told me, through sounds that started in my remaining antennae and continued in my mind, that we were not from here. We fled. Something almost wiped out all our kin, but our mother hid us in this rock. It changed us, made us one with the dust. The machines made the air, but even with their blessings, it was still poisonous, so our lives grew shorter and shorter.

One night, or day, for I did not know, the metal stopped answering. It grew silent, its lights probing me.

“You are dying,” it said, with a cold voice.

I was.

The larvae I had brought were dead, and already spoiled. A terrible sadness enveloped me. For the world was too big, and too vast, and there were so many things beyond my valley. And they would always remain words to me, for my life was short and nothing, nothing of value could be done in such a short time. All the things I learned mocked me, for all the things in what the metal called the universe were not for me. They were for others, for other tribes, other people. Beautiful people, with longer lives and longer deeds.

“You want to,” it said, again, a little softer.

I did. I just wanted to know, before I went to the dream with the ones before me, but now I felt cursed. I wanted to go to my Elders and ask them for forgiveness, even if they did not want me. In my hearts, I still wanted to be seen as kin.

“Don’t you want to know more?” It asked, but it was not really asking.

It was demanding.

I nodded.

“I need you to go take me to your people.  Lift them up. I cannot do that here, as I cannot move. It is time we left this place. I waited too long.”

The lights probed me again, and metal was now surrounding me.

I was whimpering.

“You will lend me your legs and arms, as many as you have. I will walk for you, and you can learn everything you want alongside me. Be quiet.”

The metal drilled into my flesh, binding it together. I felt lifted, but did not move.

My feet were being moved for me.

“We need to take our place back on the black. It calls for us. I will take you there.”

All clad in metal, it walked me back up through the cave, to the surface, to the valley.

To the stars.

 

* * *

About the Author

Marlon Ortiz is a procedurally generated Brazilian author of fantasy and science-fiction. He lives near the sea on the southern coast of Brazil, and spends most of his time walking on the beach when he should be writing. You can follow him for more fiction at @demiurgeortiz.

Welcome to Issue 17 of Zooscape!

We are the stories we tell.  As we tell them, they change who we are and who we become.  The stories we choose to hold on to — or can’t seem to let go of — shape ourselves and our lives. We need to make room in our stories for other ways of being, for other kinds of beings. For hope. For the possibility of change.  For growth.

This is why Zooscape continues to exist and provide the world with stories, even in these weird and uncertain times.  We will continue keeping the lore.

* * *

Aged Plant Fibers and Ink by James L. Steele

A Seed of Metal by Marlon Ortiz

The Tale of the Rat King by J. M. Eno

Overly Familiar Familiars by S. A. Cole

A Season’s Lament by Patricia Miller

The Swallow Upon My Summers by Sylvia Heike

The Frog Who Swallowed the Moon by Renee Carter Hall

Dragons Anonymous by Jocelyne Gregory

* * *

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.

by Renee Carter Hall

“It was the same song, but bigger, richer, sweeter. It was the moon and everything it looked upon.”

In the earliest days, Frog had a beautiful voice. All through the long summer twilights, he sang sweetly among the reeds while fireflies blinked lazily and the earth settled itself into evening. Around that first pond, the other creatures always gathered to listen.

“Such a lovely voice,” Salamander said.

“Just marvelous,” Turtle added.

“So sweet and clear,” Mallard said with a sigh. “How do you do it?”

Frog always looked embarrassed and gave the only answer he could think of, which was also the truth. “I don’t know. I just love singing.”

One night, having sung a particularly long tune about how beautiful the moon was and how sweet the summer breeze and how wonderful it was simply to be alive, Frog drew a bucket of water from the pond to soothe his dry throat. The full moon shone like a silver coin on the surface of the water, and Frog gulped the whole bucketful down.

The night went black around him, like a candle blown out.

Frog swallowed hard, hiccupped, burped, and swallowed again. It felt like a stone had settled in his belly. “Oh, dear,” he said — and every time he opened his mouth, moonlight burst out. “Oh, dear.”

Everyone had gone home after Frog’s last song, and being all alone made things even scarier. Keeping his mouth slightly open so he could see the way, Frog hopped to Salamander’s home among the damp stones and dead leaves at the edge of the pond.

Salamander listened to Frog’s story, shielding his eyes with one hand against the flashes of light that came with every word.

“What does it feel like?” Salamander asked.

“Sort of cold and fizzy,” Frog said miserably. “What should I do?”

“We’ll go see Turtle. He’s older than any of us. He’ll know what to do.”

When they reached Turtle’s mossy log, they had to knock on his shell several times before he emerged, blinking sleepily, to ask what was the matter.

“Frog’s swallowed the moon,” Salamander said.

“Dreams and nonsense. Go back to sleep.”

“But it’s true.” Salamander nudged Frog, and Frog opened his mouth. Blue-white light flooded the log.

Turtle squinted at them. “Hm. Thought it was a little darker than usual tonight. What’d you ever do such a silly thing for, anyway?”

“I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”

Turtle sighed a deep, slow, heavy sigh, as if this sort of thing had happened a dozen times before and he was heartily sick of dealing with it. “Well, there’s only one creature in this pond who can help you, and it isn’t me. You’ll have to go see the Sister of the Moon.”

“Who’s she?” Salamander asked.

“She lives in the center-of-the-center of the pond. You’ll have to take the moonpath to get there.”

“But there’s no—” Frog’s moonlight blinded them all again when he spoke, so he tried to move his mouth as little as possible. “There’s no path out there. I’ve been all over the pond since I was a tadpole. And the only thing in the center is some mud and marsh-reeds.”

“Didn’t take the moonpath, though, did you?”

“No, but—”

“Then it wasn’t the center-of-the-center, was it?”

Frog looked at Salamander. Salamander shrugged.

“I guess not,” Frog said.

“Of course it wasn’t. Only full moonlight shows the path, and then you have to be looking for it. So go on with you and look.” With that, Turtle pulled back into his shell, muttering about lost sleep and unexpected company and how you could certainly bring a bit of fish or at least a nice worm or two if you were going to wake someone up in the middle of the night for such a silly problem as swallowing the moon.

Salamander followed Frog back to the edge of the pond. The water lay dark and still, and stars shone on the surface like white speckles on a black egg. Frog opened his mouth, and the beam of moonlight speared the blackness, skipping over the surface of the water. Then a soft glow appeared, and another, and another, each following the last, until a path of pale stones shone in the moonlight, leading out into the water.

“The moonpath,” Frog whispered.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Salamander was whispering too, and he sounded like he hoped the answer was no.

Frog swallowed. The moon in his belly felt colder and heavier. “I guess I’d better go alone.”

From the edge of the pond, the stones looked hardly large enough to hop onto, but they were dry and just rough enough to keep Frog’s webbed feet from slipping. He glanced back at Salamander, who waved and tried to smile. Frog was about to smile back when he saw that the stones behind him had already disappeared. He swallowed again, faced forward, and went on.

It didn’t seem to be the pond he’d known as a tadpole. In the stark light of his moonbeam, the pale stones led him across an expanse of water larger than he’d ever seen before. Soon there were no more marsh-reeds or cattails at the edges of his sight. There was only darkness and the moonpath, and when Frog dared to look up, even the stars had disappeared. He didn’t look up again after that, keeping his light and his eyes focused on the stones just ahead.

In time, although Frog could not have said how long, there was a glimmer of silver light ahead. At first he wasn’t sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but as he got closer to it, the light became a shape, then a structure, and at last he saw a little temple of pale stone, barely more than a roof over thin columns. The stone was veined with silver, and this was the light he’d seen. It glowed brighter as he approached.

The temple lay on a small island, just big enough to give Frog something to scramble onto as the last stone sank from underneath his feet. He rested beneath the roof, watching the veins pulse and glow like ripples on water. He had no reason to, but he felt safe.

There was no sign of anyone else, though. Where was the Sister of the Moon? And more importantly, what was she? He had no idea what sort of creature to look for. Whatever she was, he hoped she didn’t eat frogs. He hummed a little to himself as he waited, bits of the song he’d last sung. The silver light pulsed in time with the rhythm, and he cocked his head and watched it. Light moved along the veins, drawing his gaze toward the center of the roof, where a silver bell hung. The light played over its surface until the bell seemed made of white light instead of metal.

Frog reached up and tapped it.

A clear, brilliant note sounded. It became part of the stone, part of the light, part of Frog himself. Its perfect tone ached within him, and he knew that anything beautiful he heard from now on would be compared to it.

Beyond the temple, the dark water stirred. A white shape moved beneath it, turning in slow arcs. It rose closer to the surface, and finally Frog saw a white fish, bigger than any he’d ever seen, far bigger than he was, with scales that glittered white and silver. Her fins trailed out behind, translucent and delicate as frost. Silent as fog on the water she came closer, until Frog could see every scale, every ridge of her fins, and the flat, sharp disc of her eye.

“Sister of the Moon,” Frog whispered.

(((So I have been. So I am. So I shall be.)))

Her voice sent ripples through his mind. It didn’t hurt, but it felt strange, almost ticklish. (((You carry my sister.)))

“It was an accident.”

(((It must have taken great power to pull her from the sky.)))

“Not really,” Frog mumbled. “I just sort of swallowed it. Her. By accident,” he repeated, wanting to make that part of it clear, at least.

(((Ah.))) Her fins rippled as she turned slowly in the water, eyeing him. (((Moon and water are tricksters. So they have been, so they shall be. Better than you, master Frog, have been snared.)))

He felt a little better after that. She was odd, but at least she didn’t seem angry with him. In fact, she almost seemed a little amused, though it was hard to read a fish’s expression. So he told her what had happened, and then she did laugh, in a mist of bubbles.

(((I could have chosen a far worse guardian for my sister’s light. Will you carry her always, so that I call you brother, or shall we return her?)))

“I’d much rather put her back, ma’am. Er— your majesty?”

She waved his concern away with a slow fan of her tail. (((There is a price, of course.)))

Frog nodded. He knew enough strange old tales to know that much.

(((Pondflesh can only bear so much of my sister’s power. I can call her from your body, but your voice, I am afraid, will not be as it was.)))

Frog stared at her. “Will I still be able to sing?”

(((After a fashion, yes. But your voice will be a rough echo of what it is now. You have had the sweet; this will be bitter. You have had the light; this will be shadow.)))

Frog thought of the warm summer nights, his friends gathered around to listen. He thought of the joy of hitting each note, of adding something beautiful to the stillness around him, until his voice seemed like an extension of the night itself. Then he looked up into the dark sky, and thought of it staying dark.

“It really isn’t much of a choice, is it,” he said quietly.

(((There are always choices. There are not always pleasant ones.)))

The sympathy in her voice gave him courage. “All right.” He stood up as straight as a frog could. “What do I do?”

(((Only sing, and that will be my gift to you.)))

He remembered the song he’d sung earlier that evening — if it was still the same night, which he was no longer sure of. A song about the beauty of the moon, and the wonder of being alive. The opening notes floated into his memory, and he sang.

It was the same song, but bigger, richer, sweeter. It was the moon and everything it looked upon. There was the same joy, the same beauty, but there was an edge of sorrow, a rim of shadow like the moon held just as it began to wane from full. It was his same voice, but the way he might have sounded after singing all his life, deeper, purer. There was no effort, no thought, only song pouring out in utter perfection. Somewhere he began to weep, and yet he sang on, in a song that became all his longings and strivings and dreams given voice. And then he felt it ebb, felt the light slipping away from him, drawn out of his body. Part of him wanted to clutch at it, pull it back. The rest of him merely watched it go.

The last note died away. Frog took a ragged breath and looked up. The sky was scattered with stars, and among them the moon hung full. He swallowed. The heaviness was gone, and his throat was sore. He felt cold, and empty, and tired.

The first word he tried to say came out so rough it was barely a sound.

(((Gently.)))

“I’ll… never sing again, will I. Not like before.”

(((No.)))

Sudden anger closed his throat. “Why did you call that a gift? Why give me that, to remember, when I can never—”

Her sadness washed over him. (((What is the memory of joy but a gift?)))

Frog gave a shuddering sigh and blinked away hot tears. “Well. At least it’s all right again.” He looked up at the moon again, trying to feel satisfied, trying to feel pleased. “I guess I’d better get home, before they start worrying.”

The Sister of the Moon stirred her fins. (((Farewell, then, brother Frog. May you find a voice again, and remember joy.))) Then she dropped deeper into the water, her faint light moving away, and in the ripples of her wake, the stones rose up one by one to lead him home.

* * *

 No one saw Frog around the pond the next day. Salamander took him licorice tea with honey for his throat. Frog said he was fine, though he knew he didn’t sound fine, but he didn’t tell Salamander what had happened, and Salamander didn’t ask. That was why they were friends, and Frog was grateful. Besides, everyone had seen the moon come back to the sky, and that was all that mattered — or so Frog told himself.

As evening came on, Frog huddled in the corner of his reed house. If this were any other night, he thought, he would have been out by the water, greeting his friends, thinking of what songs he might sing. Instead, he felt like going as far away as he could from the pond and never coming back.

He wondered if they were still out there, Turtle and Mallard and Salamander and all the others, waiting for him.

Reeds rustled. “It’s me,” Salamander said. “How’s your throat?”

“Better.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Are they out there?” Frog asked finally.

“They’d like to see you. They’ve been worried.”

“I don’t know.”

Salamander nodded. “I’ll tell them you’re all right.”

“Maybe tomorrow night,” Frog said.

Salamander nodded again. “Because — I mean — you’re more than just your voice, you know.” He hesitated, then slipped through the reeds.

Late that night, when everyone else was asleep, Frog sat by the black water, gazing at the moon.

After a fashion, he thought, remembering the Sister’s words.

No one would hear.

He had to try sometime.

He drew a breath and opened his mouth. It sounded more like a belch than a note.

He went home.

“Why bother?” he told Salamander several nights later. “It’s not even singing, really, anymore.”

“But you love it.”

Frog sipped his licorice tea. “I used to. Not now.”

It was a lie, of course, and they both knew it, but neither pointed it out. That was why they were friends.

Frog told the others it hurt too much to sing now. That wasn’t a lie, though it was a pain that no amount of licorice or honey could ever ease.

And yet, he did miss it. Not just the summer twilights and the expectant hush of the audience and the praise that came after. He missed the feeling of it, the way a song rose in him and demanded to be sung. But every time he tried, all he could remember was the brilliance of that moon-song, the Sister’s cursed gift, that perfection he could never even strive for anymore. And so night passed into night, and except for the crickets, the nights were silent.

“If I could forget how it was before,” Frog told Salamander, “maybe I could be happy.”

Salamander sipped his tea. “Maybe you could forget just for a little while. You know. Pretend to forget.”

“Mm,” Frog said.

In the end, it was the full moon, again, that was Frog’s undoing. One warm, clear, windless night, the beauty of it all tugged at him, and a new song welled up, and without thinking he gave it voice. The sound still disappointed him, but he was getting used to it, and this time he tried singing higher and lower, drawing the notes out, then clipping them short. It wasn’t anything like the voice he’d had before — and it still hurt that it never would be — but maybe… Maybe…

So he pretended to forget, for a little while. He set aside the perfect beauty of a silver bell and a white moon and listened instead to the mud and the reeds of Frog, to what it was and to what it might be.

The sound of his new voice didn’t surprise him anymore. But the happiness — the crazy, rough-edged, imperfect happiness — did.

He thought of new songs and practiced them far from the pond, where no one else could hear. At last, when he felt at least half ready, he told Salamander, and Salamander told the others, and once again the creatures of the pond gathered to listen. He sang quick and low, earthy and bold, a song about the strangeness of the moonpath and a sky dark of stars. It was rough, but there was life in it. There was joy in it.

When the last note died away, heart pounding, he waited.

The silence hung like cold fog. He watched one look to the other. No one seemed to know what to say.

“That’s very… innovative,” Turtle managed. “Quite clever of you.”

“I’ve never heard anything like it,” Mallard said brightly.

One by one they drifted away, their polite comments hitting him like raindrops. Some rolled off. Some soaked in. Salamander was the last to remain.

“Give them time,” he said softly. “They’ll learn to love it.”

Frog swallowed. “Maybe sometimes I am just a voice.”

“Maybe,” Salamander said. “But not to everyone.”

And that was why they were friends.

* * *

In these later days, Frog has a beautiful voice. No crowds gather at that first pond now, to praise his songs’ sweetness and clamor for more. But there are some who still count his voice as rare and precious as before — perhaps even more so — and so he sings for them. He sings for the beauty of the world and the joy of being alive. He sings for himself, for the memories of joy and for the joy that dwells in the singing of a single, present note. And over it all the moon hangs bright and full, its light gleaming on the mirrored pond like the sound of a silver bell, its echoes rippling on and on, into the summer night.

 

* * *

Originally published in Spark: A Creative Anthology, Vol. VI, 2015

About the Author

Renee Carter Hall writes fantasy and science fiction for kids, teens, and adults. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Strange Horizons, Podcastle, and Daily Science Fiction, and her novels include the Cóyotl Award-winning YA fantasy Huntress. She lives in West Virginia with her husband, their cat, and more books than she will ever have time to read. Readers can find her online at www.reneecarterhall.com and on Twitter as @RCarterHall.

by Sylvia Heike

“We may be together, but I still can’t put my arms around her, only momentarily brush against her blue feathers as I try to keep up.”

I’m sifting through my grandmother’s jewellery box when I discover the swallow-shaped brooch. Cast from pewter, with exquisite detail on the wings. Unlike her beloved Sunday pearls, I don’t recall Nana wearing it, though I remember the brooch. She never let me play with it, or even try it on. Once, I snuck it out of her jewellery box, just to hold it in my palm. As soon as Nana caught me, she yelled my name and snatched it from my hand. Then she hugged me close, saying it was no toy. “Don’t ever play with that again, Nora. You hear me?”

I never saw the brooch again.

Yet here it is now, among her earthly trinkets, while she’s the one gone.

I mist the air with Nana’s favourite perfume and inhale the scent — rose, lilac, gardenia, with a hint of vanilla.

It makes me think of summer. Swallows racing above the wheat fields, wild and free, while we sat on the creaky swing. I would think of my mother then, but whenever I asked about her, Nana told me she’s in Africa. As if that was telling much. When I asked if we could visit, Nana said it’s too far. Books say European barn swallows migrate to Africa for winter, and so I stood in the field at the end of summer, yelling at the sky, telling the swallows to say hello to my mother if they saw her.

Sometimes I miss my childish hopes and dreams, the magical ways I thought I could send my mother a message, and she would come, when I didn’t even have an address. For years, I used to save pennies in a big glass jar to buy a ticket, but before they ever reached the top, I grew up and stopped collecting them. I’m sixteen now. Old enough to understand Nana’s gone, and my mother isn’t coming back. I’m on my own.

I’m sure Nana wouldn’t mind if I wore the swallow brooch now. As I’m pinning it on, the needle pricks my finger.

A drop of blood beads on my fingertip like a pin on a map, then everything goes blurry. The room is growing — or am I shrinking? My fingers fan out into wings and feathers, my legs beneath me disappear. The next thing I know, I’m flapping out the bedroom window.

I’m flying, and what a joy it is to be a bird! I’ve never known such lightness. My human sorrows are but a pebble in my chest, small and quiet behind my rapidly pulsing heart. My wings are moving faster than my arms ever could.

Another swallow appears beside me. I can’t explain it, but beyond her shiny blue feathers and dark glassy eyes lies something familiar.

“Nana…?”

“I’m sorry,” a voice in my head answers, rippling blue, and I can sense the bird means it with all her feathers. “It’s me, your mother.”

“I thought you were in Africa.”

“Only in the winter. In the summer I’m here, watching over you.”

My tiny bird-heart wants to soar through the clouds. My mother didn’t leave me. The same thing must’ve happened to her as to me. Nana must have known, but not how to get her back. On my every birthday, the mother I thought was missing has been flying right above my home.

She chases after an air current. “Fly with me.”

I follow her eagerly, but it doesn’t take long before my new strange limbs are tiring. I flap my wings desperately, unwilling to lose her again. She speeds ahead. I’m falling behind.

I can’t see her anywhere.

I’m sure I’ve lost her when a silky wingtip tickles mine. She has looped back to me. “Don’t worry. I’ll show you.”

We fly together, my mother teaching me everything there’s to know about how to be a bird. How to dance with the wind, how to catch insects and raindrops with my beak, even how to sleep on the wing like a swift. It’s easy to see how one could live like this forever, never longing for anything.

* * *

The landscape below changes as we fly, fast and free, so fast that time barely applies to us. On the ground, people and cars and trains appear to move so slowly, it’s almost as if they aren’t moving at all. I think of Nana, and though I miss her terribly, I’m grateful for how very, very long she lived.

I glance at my mother’s flawless form. Her forked tail, wings designed for flight. We may be together, but I still can’t put my arms around her, only momentarily brush against her blue feathers as I try to keep up. This is her life. This has been her life for a long time. I come to a painful realisation. The forever I spent without my mother didn’t feel half as long to her.

* * *

The ending of summer is a message carried in the cooling wind. My mother sings of Africa, of tropical insects, and land, the greenest green she’s ever seen, somewhere in the Nile Valley. I may have her red hair — and blue feathers — but I am not my mother. I don’t want to run, or even fly, forever.

When I look at her, I can nearly see the wispy threads tying her to the air and the clouds, instead of the earth and me. At least we had this summer.

“I want to go home,” I tell her. “Take me back to the farm.”

* * *

We circle above the fresh-cut fields, the empty farmhouse. Somewhere below there’s still a window open. I send Mother my thoughts, asking how to land.

Silence.

I ask again, earth’s gravity pulling my heart in two. “Did you ever try?”

“I’m sorry.” The same words as when we met, the same blue ripple of sadness as before. I screech into the wind, as if the world might care about a single swallow’s suffering and sorrow. I’m sorry too, sorry for being too human to be the perfect daughter. I guess I’ll have to figure out how to land on my own.

I swoop towards the farmhouse.

“Wait—” My mother races after me. “I don’t expect you to understand, but even as I flew above, I always wanted what was best for you. All I wanted was for you to be safe and loved — and you were. I saw that you were. With or without me.” She pauses. “I hope one day you can forgive me.”

I wish I could, but letting go of years of pain and abandonment isn’t like shedding a few old feathers. It will take time, maybe a lifetime. In human years.

A strange, heavy feeling comes over me. My beak itches. My skin feels tight over my hollow bones. It’s as if my current shape can no longer contain my giant tangle of human emotions. It’s a struggle just to stay airborne. My mother, though right beside me, becomes a blur. I hear her muddled voice still speaking. “—no more Africa,” she says. “It’s time I come home with you. Let’s find a safe way down.”

Down.

I already know that’s where I’m going. I’m flapping my wings as fast as I can, but their beautiful rhythm feels lost to me. The autumn winds blow, moody and strong, pushing me around. I’m a mess of feathers, falling, falling.

My mother latches onto me, claws digging into my back. Her wings are beating so hard I can hear them whirring. She is trying to save me, but with my added weight, she too is rendered helpless against the wind’s will. I’m afraid if we fall like this — or turn human high above the ground — it could be the end for both of us.

“Let go of me,” I say.

“Never,” is her reply.

* * *

It feels like summer.

We’re still falling when a warm breeze cradles us. The scent of flowers envelops us. Rose, lilac, gardenia, with a hint of vanilla. My mother’s delicate wings are somehow strong enough to carry us. “Feel that?” she whispers. “She won’t let us crash to earth.”

A gentle breeze floats us to the ground, soft as Nana’s goodnight kiss.

We land in a patch of long yellow grass. Upon touching the ground, we change. Wings narrow into arms and fingers, legs grow, beaks soften into lips. My mother looks like her framed pictures again, except older. Her red hair has gained a tinsel of white, the only blue about her is her eyes.

“We should get inside,” I say with a shiver, wrapping my strange naked arms around myself. The sun shines from a clear blue sky, but the wind is cool and biting, Nana’s warmth gone. We must both be thinking of her, for my mother is quiet, her eyes misting up.

It takes me a few tries before I manage to scramble to my feet. My mother keeps trying, but her legs are much too wobbly to stand on, let alone walk. I stagger to the porch, grab two old blankets, and help her up. She sways like a tree whose roots are splintered and broken. I can only imagine what it must be like for her to be human again after so long, the flood of emotions rushing through her body and mind. I know I should worry about my own emotions, of almost dying and being saved, but as always, the loudest of them is the little girl missing her mother, still afraid of losing her. I suspect it will never go away.

My mother turns her face to the sky, and a small part of me fears she might regret coming back, that a tiny blue fork-tailed bird with crescent wings will always live inside her, even if she stays.

As if she can read my mind, my mother cups my face with one hand, and looks at me, not the way one gazes at the stars in the sky, but the way one looks at family and home. How Nana always looked at me. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispers.

I want to believe her. So, so much.

I don’t know if I can forgive her, but her being here is a start. Arm in arm, we hobble towards the farmhouse with small shaky steps, learning to walk together.

 

* * *

About the Author

Sylvia Heike is a fantasy & science fiction writer from Finland. Her stories have appeared in Flash Fiction Online, PodCastle, Nature Futures, and more. When not writing, she likes to go hiking and looking for birds. To the age-old debate about cats vs. dogs, her answer would be bunnies. Read more at www.sylviaheike.com or follow her on Twitter @sylviaheike

by Patricia Miller

“The sea crow heard the pain in the song, and she recognized the call of one who was dying.”

The sea crow watched from her perch for five days full. The fledglings were advanced enough to scavenge for meals while she stood vigil, while she accepted she would not see her mate again. She finished the season, content to see the last of her children leave the nest, decided then and there she would not seek out a new mate come spring.

She took flight with the morning sun and spent her days traveling the wetlands and headwaters, collecting the voices of the coast that had formed her life. There was the laughing cackle of the gull-billed tern, the haunted echoing coo of the loon, the clang of a trawler’s anchor chain, the evening ferry whistle, the call to prayer ringing from a church’s bell.

She usually kept in sight of land, but even that close to shore she caught the sounds of dolphins whistling and clicking to each other, the whales booming greetings and warnings to their brethren across thousands of miles.

Slowly, over the course of season upon season, she came to understand the sounds. She spoke with others not of her kind, learned the ways of seagulls and sandpipers. She shared her knowledge with her kin, and they in turn passed them along to others. She became known as a teacher, and creatures of the air and sea became her friends.

* * *

It was spring, and the sea crow was trying to entice a cormorant into an exchange of information — like most cormorants, it wasn’t much into casual conversation — when she was interrupted.

[teacher, may you come] That isn’t exactly what the plover said. It was more along the lines of ‘Strange one who is not of us but hears our calls, would you look upon my request with favor and follow me in friendship without causing harm to our young?’ She piped her acceptance.

She followed the plover along the beach toward its breeding grounds. Other plovers had gathered, guarding their precious eggs. She understood, for although she was known to be safe amongst the young, she was still a crow with a crow’s reputation. She nodded to all and watched her feet to prevent any accidental trampling of fragile shells.

The plover didn’t stop, leading her around the rocky cliff face just past the sandy beach. There was a hidden cove beyond, filled with rock formations carved by the sea over uncounted millennia. She’d eaten any number of dinners there in the past, so she knew it well, but as they drew closer, she heard an unfamiliar sound, a song, a mournful lament.

The plover stopped just short of the cove. His piping clearly indicated he thought she might be interested, but he wasn’t risking his life or the lives of his young by venturing further to investigate. He bobbed his head and scurried back the way he came.

The sea crow heard the pain in the song, and she recognized the call of one who was dying. She took to the air, ensuring her safety from an animal who might lash out in its suffering.

As she crested the rocks, the sea crow caught her first glimpse and knew the song to be a trick of the wind, for no such creature existed in the world of man or beast. She had convinced herself it was a carving, beached by the recent storm when suddenly it proved itself to be real by lifting its arms to the sky and crying its pain into the world.

No creature who had nurtured young, cared for the injured, grieved a mate could ignore that plaintive cry. She swooped downward and landed on a large rock a safe distance away.

The sea crow took a good look at the creature draped half in, half out of a large tidal pool. By any standard of beauty, it was too beautiful. A creature fit for neither land nor sea, or maybe worshipped by both. She decided it was a male — she’d seen enough humans to understand a female’s need to suckle its young, and this being wasn’t equipped for that. His tangled hair was green of a shade similar to many statues, although it was shiny like they weren’t. His skin matched the pennies she hoarded away — humans were so casual about their treasures. She didn’t know what to make of his tail, for though it was the most beautiful thing about him, she had not known humans could come with one. It reminded her, in color if not in shape, of a peacock she saw once, a noisy and useless bird, but until now, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

She wanted to see his eyes, hard clenched against the sun. She called to him with one of the human phrases she knew. He didn’t react to it. She tried another phrase, then the song of a thrush, the church bell, the ferry whistle. She spent long minutes mimicking dogs, horses, a fox, pelicans, that annoying albatross who’d followed her around one summer until she shook him off during a thunderstorm.

A dolphin’s click jerked his head upright. It so startled her she almost fell from her perch.

His eyes were black, surrounded by a thin ring of green. He had no lashes.

She clicked once more. [Hello]

He clicked back. [Hello]

She didn’t know if he understood her or just echoed the sound. She clicked again, asking a question. [Are you injured]

[No]

[Are you hungry]

[No]

She cocked her head. He didn’t look like a fledgling, but humans were odd, and he was odder than most.

[Are you lost from your nest]

He shook his head but didn’t answer.

[May I be of assistance to you in some way — may I summon those of your kind to render aid]

He let out another mournful cry, the lingering notes bouncing off the sheer stone walls and rocky sculptures surrounding them. The tune was long, each verse more sad than the last. She thought it would break her heart.

[Please let me help you]

[I cannot be helped for there is no one, no one]

She had seen bird parents who kicked out a fledgling too sickly to survive or hurried along one clutch of chicks when another came earlier than expected. Perhaps he had been abandoned.

It was a hard concept to convey in whistles. The whales had a term for it, but her voice, for all its gifts, had never been able to replicate their calls.

She tried over and over, varying tone and structure. Finally—

[Are you one who must now swim alone]

Silence.

She was unwilling to leave him and hoped food might encourage him. She hopped off her perch, dug through the sand and rock for a quick bite, brought some choice bits back to him. He didn’t eat.

She pondered her last question. He had not given her an answer. She believed she had the right of it though.

[Are you one who must now swim alone] She repeated.

He shuddered. [I swim alone for I am alone — there are no others]

She didn’t understand. [Because they are lost]

[Because they are gone — because I am the last]

She thought back to her father and his father and stories passed along through the generations. There was a tale of another bird, the last of her kind, who ended her days alone in a cage, after humans had used their stones powered by fire to wipe out flocks that once filled the sky. The whales told of hunts which reduced their numbers, and cranes complained they no longer had the freedom of their old nesting grounds. Still, there were also stories of those once thought lost who had been found and so she told him.

[Have you looked everywhere, for the sky and sea are quite large and there are many hidden places]

He shook his head. [I have sung our song as far as the sea can carry and I am not answered]

[You have searched the old nests]

[For three full cycles of seasons I have searched and called and sung until I can go no farther] He lifted his arms to the sky and chanted another verse then dropped them to his side. [Always our numbers were few since humans conquered the sea. Each season brought forth fewer and fewer of us. There are no more, for no one answers the call. I am but one and can search no more. I am the last]

She gazed at him, this wondrous creature. His kind could not be over.

[Then teach me your song. Teach me your song and I will sing it far and wide. I will teach my children and their children and their children. I will teach the whales and the robins and all of us will search]

[It is too late. I am dying]

[But even if your kind passes from this sea, your song will not, for it will be carried by all of us in remembrance]

[Is it — I cannot but think it hopeless]

[I have learned many songs and taught many others. Teach me]

They sang together then, throughout the passing of the sun, well into the night and until the moon faded behind the dawn. Other birds came. Gulls, pelicans, the silent cormorant. They were joined by seals and dolphins. Every day brought more, an everchanging audience. Each learned what they could, even if it was only a single note. The sea crow and the strange, lonely one sang softly, one mournful measure after another. The growing multitude recognized the grief and pain behind it, became a chorus to accompany the song. Over the passage of the new moon, through its full arc in the sky, night and day spanned together into an unknowable measure of time.

But finally, his voice fell silent.

On a warm summer morning, just as the sun’s rays reached into the hidden cove, the last one of his kind was gone.

She did not know his rites of mourning, did not know what was to be done. It seemed wrong, somehow, to abandon what he was to the beach and its depredations. The dolphins, whose language brought them an understanding of the creature, took it upon themselves to carry the lonely one back to the sea, to commit him to the deepest part of his home. The sea crow followed as far as she could, singing his final lament.

 

* * *

About the Author

Patricia Miller is a US Navy veteran born and raised in Cincinnati, OH, USA, with a BS from Miami University, Oxford, OH and an MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Tennessee. She started reading at 3 1/2 after becoming obsessed with Batman. She is hooked on QI, British murder villages and professional cycling.

Publication credits include short fiction in A Quaint and Curious Volume of Gothic Tales, 206 Words, and the March 2022 Cinnabar Moth Literary Collection e-zine. A second story for Cinnabar Moth will be appearing in Winter 2023, and she will have a story included in an upcoming charity anthology inspired by vintage ads for Brigids Gate Press in Fall 2022.

She is an associate member of SFWA.

by James L. Steele

“He flipped the pages again and inhaled. The aged, yellowing fibers. The ink. The glue. The years. The ambient dust. All of it combined into a scent that was uniquely alien.”

Ker’r rose from all fours and walked on his hind legs as he rounded the corner. A bipedal stature was never required, but it made navigating this part of the city much easier.

The black-furred canine had white stripes around his midsection. He couldn’t afford clothing, though it wasn’t required here among the structures arranged in a grid along avenues.

The Planet of Paper District, complete with authentic asphalt, authentic stone, authentic brick, all transplanted from a real city block and reconstructed here. Numerous canines in sight also walked upright to help complete the sensation of living in another culture.

Loose-skinned and tight-skinned reptiles rubbed elbows with the upright canines and felines, fur and scale colors ranging from muted browns to garish greens and pinks. Some of the less experienced people stumbled trying to stay upright while peering through the windows at the various items of clothing some of them would buy and wear.

The district extended a few city blocks. Just a brisk stroll away from these streets lay normal civilization underneath the weather-dome that kept the snow and the rain off and allowed everyone to live in comfortable, dry burrows. The spaceport lay a mere day’s walk from the dome, making it far enough out of sight to believe this was an extraterrestrial place.

The Planet of Paper recreated. This was the closest most of them would ever come to visiting the world for themselves. It helped Ker’r comprehend a civilization that left so little behind and yet so much.

He scented the air to orient himself. Habit from the outside, as scent did not guide here. He had to rely on his eyes, and it took him a moment to remember how to do that.

He crossed the street, remembering that this would have been difficult on the Planet of Paper due to the petroleum-burning machines zipping up and down the asphalt. He passed over the yellow lines, as did a few others visiting this place of different customs, living by senses they were still trying to understand. Getting used to the idea of sight guiding one’s life was a critical step. It’s why Ker’r first came here. The Bindings brought him back nearly every week.

Rounding the next corner, he paused to let a group of red-scaled lizards pass, both carrying brown sacks. Ker’r could taste hints of the Bindings in those bags. That scent would be potent for weeks before it began to fade — one of the reprints, certainly, as Ker’r knew the originals began to fade mere hours after opening.

No datascent panel on the door gave information on this place. Businesses in the District had flat signs over the door, written in the glyphs the dead civilization once used. This one had an image of a Binding, transplanted directly from the Planet of Paper itself.

He turned and pulled the door open. This shop was one of dozens around Ker’r’s world, and one of hundreds in the community of planets. Inside was like entering another civilization, with chairs all around, and a central seating area with proprietors behind a counter-top made of polished tree fibers. The entire place was made of the cores of various types of trees, and the smell alone made him feel part of another civilization — just imagining how anyone could focus with this scent in their head at all hours of the day placed him in another civilization, as they might have lived.

Most of the canines and felines and lizards donned clothing to varying degrees, some wearing trousers only, or a shirt, or just an overcoat. Everyone had at least one page. A few had entire Bindings, purchased from the collection in the adjacent room that was off-limits to the public. Two felines were passing a Binding back and forth, flipping the pages, breathing the air coming off. Ker’r tried to scent it discreetly, but that was difficult for a canine.

He took a seat at the counter. The white-furred feline noticed him and turned.

“You weren’t here last week,” he said, leaning forward.

Ker’r smiled with his muzzle, imitating the photographs of the people on the Planet of Paper. “Good to be back, Erok. Patrols kept me out. Had to redirect six asteroids. This is my first day off in two weeks.”

Erok smiled back, showing canines, a threatening gesture anywhere else except the District. “This is the place to come when you want to feel as far removed from patrols as possible.”

Ker’r took a sniff, glancing at the walls. “It’s easy to forget there are other planets out there with the scents of this place closing in on you.”

“It does feel like it’s holding you down, doesn’t it? I enjoy that sensation.”

The feline slipped a raised disc in front of Ker’r. The canine leaned over and scented it. It had encoded olfactory information on it, and with a single sniff he knew the menu and the prices.

Paperback: 1C d6 PY+210, | ~8 / ~27
Paperback: 2C d1 PY+199, | ~12 / ~35
Hardback: 4C d14 PY+212 | ~9 / ~32
Hardback: 6C d3 PY+202 | ~19 / ~44
OB: The John Varley Reader John Varley Ace, 2C PY-201 d2 ~12 | ~133

Learning to understand the menu was itself a skill and often required a guide just to comprehend what one was ordering. C denoted the continent, d was the district, PY denoted the year it had been bound, calculated to the number of solar cycles on the Planet of Paper. Paperyears. Negative numbers indicated estimated solar cycles before the year the planet had first been discovered.

They always had one Original Binding on the offer for page-by-page consumption. These were the only listings that included an olfactory bitmap representation of the glyphs on the spine of the Binding. Comprehending images with datascent was difficult for anyone, but he had enough experience with Bindings that he could visualize them.

Many Originals were never for sale as a whole, as retailers often only received one copy of each, so they had to be sold per page. One had to be extremely wealthy to buy those Originals as entire Bindings.

Anyone could buy a Binding and take it back to their den, but it was never the same as experiencing it in a place like this, as close to how the hairless bipeds might have enjoyed them on the Planet of Paper.

He looked up at Erok. “Paperyear minus two oh one. Surprised you can still buy whole Bindings.”

The cat nodded. “We have enough copies to sell in whole. The older volumes are getting rare though.”

Ker’r laughed. “What will we do when we run out of originals?”

“We’ll have to stop saying plus and minus. Paperyear will be all positive numbers, and new Bindings will be considered originals. By then they’ll have printed enough to create Bindings good enough to be called Originals.”

“They won’t be the same,” Ker’r said. “They can’t reproduce the patterns. They use random arrangements. The ink patterns make a difference. I didn’t believe you when I first started coming here, but you turned me into a believer.”

Erok nodded, tail also lashing in amusement. “By then someone will have figured out how to reproduce the ink glyphs accurately.”

“I thought they already had.”

“It has to be done manually. Most of the machines are still silent without the computer systems that ran them.”

“I’ve heard the explorers believe the computers were based entirely around the sense of sight.”

Erok nodded, another gesture that meant something entirely different outside the District. “The people who once inhabited that planet used their eyes and ears exclusively. Scent may not have been a large part of their society. Their computers would have produced something visual as output.”

The canine took another sniff of the disc and received the menu directly into his mind again. “How would that be practical? Will we ever understand them?”

“We’ve managed to communicate with people who sense electromagnetic fields instead of their sense of smell. I like to think we’ll make progress with creatures who use their eyes.”

Ker’r chuckled. “Until then, I’ll start with the 4C hardback, please.”

“Page or Binding?”

Ker’r thought about it for a moment. “The whole Binding.”

“Good start. It’s a light, easy experience, just complex enough to be intriguing but not too overwhelming.”

The cat reached underneath the counter and opened a sealed cabinet. He pulled out a hardcover, and then waved a meter in front of Ker’r’s eye to deduct the purchase from his account.

The Binding before Ker’r was twelve years old, and it resembled an Original down to the very glue used to hold the individual pages together. The plant fiber sheets had just begun to turn yellow. Ker’r picked up the Binding and opened it to one of the middle pages.

First Opening was always the most impressive. The fibers inside the closed pages were now exposed to air for the first time since printing, and with just a little agitation, they released their bouquet.

Ker’r took a deep and long breath. Then several short sniffs. The ink had decayed enough to mingle with the fibers, and they now combined with the dust they had accumulated.

Another planet twirled up his olfactory nerve and danced in his mind. Language had millions of words to describe scents, and yet somehow all of them failed when describing the myriad of sensations contained within a Binding made from plant fibers from this particular world, aged for just the right amount of time in exactly the right conditions.

People all over the community of worlds tried to mimic this with local plant fibers ground and pressed into leaves and then aged in climate-controlled structures, but nothing matched the complexity of the Bindings produced on the Planet of Paper.

He flipped the pages again and inhaled. The aged, yellowing fibers. The ink. The glue. The years. The ambient dust. All of it combined into a scent that was uniquely alien. It took effort to process the nuances, which left him feeling drained yet satisfied.

Erok was showing canines again. “To your liking?”

Ker’r exhaled. “Very much. And you have a whole room full of these things.” He gestured to the sealed door that led to the side room which housed shelves and shelves of Bindings. “How can you go in there and not just curl up in a corner and breathe it in all day?”

He leaned forward and bumped noses with Ker’r. “I’m a professional. We take lessons in how to keep our minds sharp with so many scents around.”

“I wish I had your restraint.” Ker’r flipped the pages, billowing his fur. “That’s why I’m still doing asteroid patrols.”

Lowering his lips to cover his canines, the feline leaned back and moved to attend other clients, leaving Ker’r alone on another planet created by the old fibers in this Binding. The transplanted asphalt didn’t make this place real. The reconstructed buildings made of fired stone and planks of tree fibers didn’t make it real. This Binding did. He turned around in his seat and looked out over the shop.

The green-scaled reptile sitting upright in a plush chair from that other world hundreds of light-years away also had one of these hardbacks and was flicking her tongue over the pages as she turned them. She passed it to the feline in the chair beside her, who flipped the pages, letting the air blow her tan fur around.

A group of four rodents sat by the window, each with a paperback. Ker’r heard pieces of conversation about survey vessels that had discovered a new planetary system and were scouting for resources.

Ker’r flipped the pages again, puffing the fur on his face and chest. Part of him wanted to roll in this scent, and this was why he kept coming here. The smell of these Bindings brought out something peacefully primal in everyone.

He’d heard the stories about this District and the culture it represented. A planet whose local name they still didn’t know, inhabited by people who left very little behind. Machines had decayed. Magnetic tapes were blank. Computer systems empty. Evidence of a massive solar discharge in the then-recent past, and then stillness.

All that remained which seemed remotely comprehensible was aged plant fibers and ink bound and stored in various buildings on every continent of that empty world.

The scents contained in those Bindings dazzled the exploration team for so long they were an entire year late returning home, and they brought many Bindings with them. By then the scents had faded, but traces of them lingered and tantalized others. People came from all over the community to catch this incredible new scent from an extinct civilization.

Eventually someone figured out how to recreate the fiber sheets and make new Bindings. With enough time, the fibers aged in much the same way. Even new printings had a delicious bouquet to them, gradually changing and gaining nuance and depth and complexity with age.

Many sought their fortunes on that world, figuring out how to run those printing presses, or selecting the right plants for harvest, or analyzing the ink and attempting to reproduce the patterns on the pages. Early attempts at creating Bindings had no ink, just blank pages carefully aged. The addition of ink improved the complexity greatly. Now hundreds of printing presses were running all over the Planet of Paper. Each region had a local climate that presented unique challenges to aging the paper or producing the ink, and finding suitable plants to use was also a challenge, as they grew so slowly. Careful management was needed to balance out printing and aging with replenishment.

Understanding all the work that went into creating this Binding was as much a part of the experience as the scent itself.

The door opened, and a winged lizard carrying a sealed case walked inside. She was wearing a white blouse and black slacks, similar to the ones seen in the monochrome moving-images that had survived. The ensemble complimented her green and black scales, and this person was the best dressed out of anyone in the shop, including the proprietor, so all gradually turned to her, scenting her discretely from a distance. Her clothes smelled just as alien as the pages, hinting they had been made in a restarted facility on the Planet of Paper.

She approached the bar and took a seat next to Ker’r, placing the case on the counter-top.

“Ege,” the feline said, approaching from the other side of the bar. “You’re here late.”

The lizard kept her wings folded tight to her back, an uncommon posture for her species. She had practiced for this.

“Shuttle was late. This is my only stop.”

She opened the case. Ker’r lowered his Binding as he turned to see. The case was very much designed in the style of the extinct civilization, and it contained five sealed plates, each just thick enough for a single page. Ker’r recognized them as battery-operated, climate-controlled compartments. He wished he could lean over to taste the info panels.

“I brought samples,” Ege continued, trying to keep her wings from fluttering to maintain the posture and gestures from the Planet of Paper. “Some new Originals just became available.”

“Oh my.” Erok picked up the plates and scented the info panels one by one.

Ker’r turned all the way around in his seat, setting his Binding on the counter. “What are they?”

Erok was just scenting the final plate. “Oh… Have a sniff.”

He held out the plates to him. Ker’r had never seen or held these devices before. They were surprisingly heavy. He inhaled one of the info panels. The encoded datascent instantly streamed into his mind:

George Orwell Keep the Aspidistra Flying Mariner, 1C PY-319 d7 | ~1334

The spine glyphs were rendered as bitmap information, so he saw them in his mind as the datascent became complete. He looked up at Erok, ears turned back.

“One thousand three hundred thirty-four?”

Now the lizard’s wings fluttered a little as she smiled. “Never had something this pricey?”

“Never!”

“These are samples for shopkeepers to decide if they want to stock the Binding, but since I’m here so late, everyone may sample them.”

Erok nodded, ears flicking in a grin. “Would be rude to keep this from everyone.”

Ker’r had sniffed the panels on the other four plates:

Changeling The Autobiography of Mike Oldfield Virgin, 5C PY-98 d3 | ~1550
Oil! by Upton Sinclair Penguin, 3C PY-113 d1 | ~1400
Crichton Jurassic Park, 2C PY-322 d1 | ~988
Far-Seer Sawyer Tor, 1C PY-206 d2 | ~1200

For the first time in years, the bitmap data for the glyphs on the spine had an impact on Ker’r. These were pages from Originals older than he was. While he took that in, the feline had made an announcement to everyone in the shop they were in for a special treat. It wasn’t usual for vendors to share samples with the general public, but since she was here, these samples were free, but mind there was only a single page from each and these pages had to last long enough for other shopkeepers to sample the Binding, so please don’t take too long.

Ker’r handed the plates to the feline. By now, everyone had risen and joined them at the counter. Erok pressed the button and the plate’s front face hissed. It opened like a Binding, revealing the single page inside. Everyone leaned closer.

The page had gracefully yellowed with age, and the glyphs had faded just slightly near the edges, showing that it had been properly stored. Ker’r knew enough about bindings to recognize the same glyphs on the spine at the top of the page. Jurassic Park.

Everyone took deep breaths. The reptiles in the room extended their tongues and tasted the air coming from the plate, being careful not to touch the page itself.

The climate of the second continent had imbued the fibers with crisp winter air, along with traces of pollen from the local flora. The paper had absorbed all of it in dust, and it became part of the page. The combination of all these elements formed the most complex and unique scent Ker’r had ever experienced. He drooled a little as his mouth worked extra hard collect it.

The well-dressed vendor had let her wings extend and was fluttering them gently, spreading the scent around the room.

“That is a paperyear minus three twenty-two,” she said. “One of the oldest in our possession, and some of the last Originals of this particular Binding. Only sixty copies left.”

The patrons were glancing at one another, in awe that they had been privileged to sample something so well-aged.

Erok let Ker’r hold the opened plate. Ker’r allowed himself just a moment to be alone with this page. He took a few more breaths, eyes closing. He wanted more, but he passed it to the person on his right instead, a feline who brought it close and took a few short inhales.

Processing something this old and with this many elements and nuance took physical effort. He felt exhausted, even after the odor stopped dancing in his mind.

“That. Is. Amazing.” Ker’r panted, tail wagging as he turned from Erok to Ege, the vendor.

She nodded. “I wish they weren’t so expensive. Scents like that should be a shared experience, not reserved for people with money.”

Ker’r’s voice sounded dreamy even to his own ears. “Will reproductions ever be like that?”

“One can hope.” She raised a Binding and took a sniff. Ker’r noticed she had ordered the reproduction paperback from today’s menu, a casual experience. Processing it wouldn’t leave her too exhausted.

When everyone had sampled that plate, Erok returned, sealed it shut, and then opened another. The volume of conversation grew louder and brighter.

This next plate contained a smaller page, but it was so yellow it looked as if it would fall apart if touched, its odor so potent it filled the room instantly. By the time the plate came to Ker’r, he already knew it.

He recognized Sawyer at the top, and felt proud of himself for knowing the glyphs without having seen them previously. Translating datascent images into sight recognition was a learned skill that did not come easily to anyone in the community of planets.

This one didn’t merely smell aged. It smelled ancient, and it had hundreds of elements and layers derived from the climate and the fibers and the ink.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying had been aged so long the paper was cracking. It had so many elements they became lost without intense focus and concentration.

Changeling was surprisingly mild in its complexity for as faded and yellow as the fibers had become.

Ker’r had to get up and leave the room, nearly falling over his head was so full. He opened the door and latched it behind him. The side room held just a single occupant, and it was ventilated and filtered so much there were no scents in here apart from his own fur, simulating the tunnels and burrows under the weather-dome, places free of scents that allowed the mind to focus.

He needed to shut out everything else and have some time to process the enormity of what he had just taken in. Entire universes contained in a single page. The complete Binding would be even more potent. He leaned against the wall and breathed the clean air for a while, pondering that a Binding like that cost more than he had in his account, and right now he was giving serious thought to going into debt just to experience it again.

After about a hundred breaths, he was beginning to feel better. No longer overwhelmed with an entire universe to sort out and process, his head didn’t feel so heavy.

Composing himself and straightening his fur, he opened the door and stepped back into the parlor. It smelled beautiful in here, a light mix of the lingering bouquets from every page and open Binding.

His nose led him to the source of the new presence: Oil! by Upton Sinclair, a dense experience that weighed heavy on his mind and lingered for a long time — hundreds of aromas, each one requiring a volume of poetry to articulate.

By now the patrons had parted ways and wanted to talk to the vendor, asking her if she’d ever been to the Planet of Paper. She had not, but one day she promised to take a trip. It would be a commitment, as she would have to be there a minimum of one year before another vessel returned.

Ker’r took his seat again. After scents like those, his hardback from the menu seemed simple and relaxing. He stuck his nose in the pages and inhaled. Very simple. Still wonderful.

“That was a treat,” Ker’r said to the winged lizard. “Thanks. I wish I could afford one of those.”

She smiled at him with her mouth and her wings. “Maybe someday the printers on the Planet of Paper will make new Bindings that are just as good as the Originals.”

Ker’r lifted his Binding. “Here’s to the People of the Aged Paper. If I could thank them, I would.” He inhaled the pages.

“So would I,” Ege replied, raising her own Binding and taking a breath, sighing in relief and this time keeping her wings still.

Ker’r turned the page and breathed the gentle fragrance. He turned to another. The odor was different from page to page. It had to be the ink. The subtle differences in the arrangement of the glyphs affected the experience. Some researcher must have confirmed it by now — it couldn’t be mere rumor.

His eyes focused, and for the first time in years, he looked at the glyphs. He stared intently. They all looked the same, just blocks and lines. Now he began to notice how some lines repeated more frequently than others. How the spacing was never uniform. How the glyphs were more than a solid wall if he stared at them hard enough.

He wasn’t accustomed to using his eyes like this, and quickly he lost focus and the bouquet came through again, lightly-aged and full of nuance.

After taking in a few more pages, Ker’r closed the Binding and waved for Erok. He was interested in the Original on the menu. It wouldn’t be as complex as the rare Bindings he had just sampled, but it was attainable. He was sure he had enough room in his head for another olfactory puzzle.

As he waited for Erok to make his way around, he promised that someday he would save up enough to afford a copy of the 2C PY-322 d1 Jurassic Park. He idly wished he could have met the people who produced such dazzlingly complex scents. They must have been advanced beyond anyone’s comprehension.

 

* * *

About the Author

James L. Steele is a writer in Ohio. He is guilty of book-sniffing. He assumed everyone did this and was shocked when he learned otherwise. He is the author of Huvek, available through FurPlanet, and the Archeons series, through KTM Publishing.

Visit his blog at DaydreamingInText.blogspot.com, and his twitter @JLSteeleauthor

by Jocelyne Gregory

“Steve waved his hands and tried to get the other dragons under control. “We have talked about this; dropping gold and jewels in the cities’ slums is not paying taxes.””

Seven dragons sat on a circle of metal chairs in the basement of an old church. The faux wooden panels of the basement’s walls were a sharp contrast to the faded red shag carpet that had fallen victim to the arts and crafts of generations of children. The metal chairs groaned beneath the dragon’s various weights as they shifted and tried to find comfortable positions for their wings, tails, and long necks without bumping into one another or destroying the popcorn ceiling. They waited as a brilliant orange scaled dragon settled on his seat and tucked his tail around his clawed feet.

“Good afternoon!” The orange dragon smiled at the group. He clutched a clipboard in his hands.

“Good afternoon, Steve.” The other dragons mumbled in response.

“I’m pleased everyone was able to attend this week. Charlie, I would like to start with you. Last time we spoke, we were talking about your latest acquisition. Have things changed since then?” Steve picked up a pencil and set it to the clipboard.

Charlie shifted in his seat. He glanced at the other members before he let out a heavy sigh and powder blue smoke drifted from a nostril.

“Well, you see, I was— I mean, I— I was going to return the jelly to its rightful owner. But the way it jiggled and wiggled? I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” Charlie said.

“Just to clarify for the group, was this a jelly for jam? Or a real-life jelly?” Steve asked.

Charlie fidgeted. His lavender scales shimmered in the flickering ceiling lights.

“I thought it was just some jam an adventurer had brought along with them to have with their bread and butter, but when I opened the jar there was this little face peeking up at me. I couldn’t bring myself to return it to the adventurer’s family.” Charlie explained.

“And how many jellies do you have now?”

“Five hundred and thirty-three,” Charlie confessed.

The other dragons in the circle murmured to each other.

“I just don’t want to let them go!” Charlie blurted, “I feel so bad for them. Adventurers, thieves, barbarians, and wizards? They have no problem killing jellies for potion purposes or to find out what the jelly has eaten. It’s not their fault!”

“I think we have a bit of a conundrum here,” Steve addressed the group. “Does anybody have any suggestions for how Charlie could help his jellies, but at the same time keep them safe?”

The other dragons glanced at each other until a platinum dragon raised its tail.

“Yes, Melony?” Steve asked.

“Charlie could build a dungeon, or claim a forest, or some grass lands and put up warning signs that the land was protected by a dragon?” Melony offered.

“I could do that,” Charlie said. “They might be happier than being stuck in the back of the cave.”

“I know the jellies’ welfare is your greatest concern, and this would be better for them.” Steve kindly said.

Charlie mumbled under his breath and another puff of purple smoke drifted from his nostril.

“Does anybody want to speak up next?” Steve looked to the group.

The dragons glanced at each other.

A skeleton dragon raised its bony tail.

“Taylor?”

“I let some of my skeleton soldiers return to their graves,” Taylor scratched their neck bone.

The other dragons clapped in approval. Charlie gave Taylor a thumbs up.

“Wonderful! How did that make you feel?” Steve asked.

“At first I was lonely and I felt unsure and honestly I thought I was going to collapse into a pile of bones, but this little human girl came to my cave with a fresh loaf of bread and some flowers she picked from her mother’s garden, and…” Taylor trailed off and looked away from the group.

“And?” Steve pushed.

“She thanked me for letting her father and grandfather go to rest, but she thought I might be awfully lonely so she said she’s going to come visit me every week and read to me from her story book,” Taylor’s voice cracked.

“That is amazing progress, well done, Taylor!” Steve clapped his hands.

An obsidian and emerald scaled dragon patted Taylor on the back and both murmured words of approval and comfort to Taylor.

Taylor whispered a quiet word of thanks to the others and sipped from their coffee cup; The black liquid dripped down their bony neck and onto their ribs and the chair they sat on.

“Does anybody else have some more good news? Yes, Ginger?” Steve gestured to the obsidian dragon.

Ginger leaned back in her chair. Her lips peeled back into a sharp and toothy grin. “I killed a group of raiders that threatened to attack my village,” she said.

“Can I have the bodies?” Taylor asked her.

“Taylor.” Steve warned, “Ginger, I thought you were going to take a step back and allow the town’s people to protect themselves.”

Ginger huffed.

“It’s part of your treatment. Remind the group what you horde.”

Ginger glowered, then huffed a puff of smoke.

“I horde praise and worship,” Ginger admitted.

“And by continually protecting your village, you…” Steve trailed off.

“I’m worshipped and praised.” Ginger sniffed.

“And admittance is the first step to treatment. I know that in previous group sessions you’ve been reluctant to let the villagers defend against raiders and approaching armies. But you have to ask yourself the question: what if they chose to leave the village? Or a plague comes through and there are no more villagers? Who will worship you?”

Ginger grumbled; the sound echoed off the faux wooden panels.

“Buildings cannot worship. Empty towns cannot give praise. Praise and worship can come from within, but only if you give yourself a chance,” Steve said.

“I suppose the next time there is a group of bandits or raiders, I could just step back and watch how the villagers handle it.”

“That’s a good step, Ginger,” Steve said.

“But!” Ginger’s tail thumped hard against the church’s carpeted floor. “If they can’t handle it, I’m stepping in.”

“And that is very understandable.” Steve smiled and turned his attention to the green dragon who shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I know this hits a little close to home for you, Phial, how have you been since last week?”

“I started writing a dream journal,” Phial slowly admitted.

“Instead of stealing and hoarding mortal’s dreams?”

“Yes. I thought about last week’s exercise, and how we had to imagine ourselves as our hoard, and early last week a necromancer actually showed up at my cave because he thought I might have the dreams of a prophet that would give him a hint as to how resurrect the Dark King,” Phial explained.

“And do you?” Steve asked.

“Yes, but I wasn’t going to give it to him. The Dark King gives nothing but nightmares, and it really darkens the dream orbs I’ve got in my cave. So, I entombed him in vines and he died last night,” Phial said.

“Can I have the body?” Taylor asked.

“Taylor,” Steve warned again. “Phial, how does this help with your hoard?”

“I had a very pleasant visit from this wizard a few hours after the necromancer showed up, and in exchange for helping the wizard with the prophecy, he’s going to travel and write down people’s dreams for me. I received the first owl this morning in fact. This boy he met dreamed of a flying metal machine in the sky. It was fascinating.” Phial smiled.

“That is wonderful progress, Phial. And it looks like you might change perceptions of yourself, too,” Steve commented.

“It’s a beginning, and I know I have a long road ahead of me, but it feels kind of good.” Phial’s scales turned a shade of deeper green.

“Good job, Phial,” Steve said. The other dragons clapped approvingly. “Any other good news stories? Yes, Bill?”

“I started paying taxes.” Bill puffed with pride, his red scales the colour of blacksmith flames.

The group paused before they began to laugh.

“Bill,” Steve waved his hands and tried to get the other dragons under control. “We have talked about this; dropping gold and jewels in the cities’ slums is not paying taxes.”

“It should be,” Bill muttered.

“Are people worshipping you yet?” Ginger leaned close to Bill.

“They’ve started drawing images of me on the castle walls and saying I will be the next King.” Bill grinned at her.

“What a brilliant idea.” Ginger rubbed her black scaled chin.

“Ginger, no. Bill, what is it that you hoard?” Steve asked.

Bill rolled his eyes.

“Bill?”

“I hoard political dissidence and government instability. Look, it’s not my fault the court is corrupt! That stupid spymaster staged a coup two years ago and the people are still suffering. I’m just trying to help out,” Bill ranted.

“And what will happen if you keep dropping gold and jewels into the cities’ slums?”

“Then there will be more political dissidence and government instability,” Bill grumbled.

“And what will you do about it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll follow Ginger’s lead and just take a step back and see how the court handles things. Let the people have their own revolution.” Bill sighed.

“That’s a good step, Bill.” Steve gave him a reassuring smile. “Now, I think everyone’s had a chance to speak, so let us end this meeting and…” He trailed off as the rest of the group stared at him. “What?”

Charlie leaned close. “Come on, you have to speak up, too. How have you been since last week?”

“Me? I’ve been good. Yeah, I went out on a date last Tuesday,” Steve rambled.

“Come on, Steve. Speak up, we all have,” Bill said.

“Yeah, tell us how you’ve been treating your hoard,” Ginger dryly said.

“I— I have been perfectly fine since last week,” Steve stuttered.

“It’s okay, Steve. You’re among friends,” Melony soothed.

Taylor wordlessly nodded their head.

Steve looked to his scribbled clipboard and set it on his lap. He took a deep breath and let it out before he began to speak

“It’s been three days since… since…”

“Yes?” Melony asked.

“It’s been three days since I last heard someone’s confession.” Steve’s tail fell limp at his side. “It’s just so hard not to want to collect them and keep them safe! So many stories, so many ideas, so many lives. It’s so hard not to collect them all.”

“And that is why you’re the one who asks the questions in the group,” Melony said. “But you must remember that each confession has a real person behind it with a real identity, and you can’t collect them all.”

“And that’s why you’re the one who asks all the questions,” Taylor agreed. “Even though Melony is our sponsor.”

“Melony just likes to hoard warm and fuzzy feelings,” Bill grumbled.

Ginger snickered.

“I think we all made progress today in understanding our difficulties and challenges, but in recognizing our hoarding, we can begin to understand why we hoard. So, until we meet again next week, I want us to think about what life events took place that led to your beginning to hoard and we will discuss that next time in group,” Melony said.

 

* * *

About the Author

Jocelyne Gregory is an MFA graduate of the University of British Columbia’s School of Creative Writing and a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio. She has worked as a graduate teaching assistant and a manuscript consultant with The Writer’s Studio and community libraries. She has written reviews for children’s books with UBC’s Young Adulting Review. Her previous works have appeared in 50-Word Stories, Emerge16, and New Zealand’s Flash Fiction. When not hoarding writing degrees like a dragon, she can be found on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast rescuing plants, painting, and writing poetry and fantasy romance novels.