by Julia Rios.
Read by Marguerite Kenner, of Cast of Wonders.
Originally appeared in May of 2012 as a handbound chapbook with illustrations by Erik Amundsen.

Rated PG.

Teeth:

“I am no witch,” Gretel said, but she was too much in the dreamy stage to be properly annoyed.

by Adele Gardner.
Originally appeared in the anthology Twisted Cat Tales, edited by Esther Schrader.
Read by Elie Hirschman.

Frankie watched, open-mouthed, as the cats soared up into the sky.

Frankie gaped at the spectacle of cats dotting the sky like a flock of
migrating birds. As the felines swarmed through the air, he glimpsed a
familiar gray leg. By instinct, he reached up to grab the striped
appendage, just as he might have done to spare the china. The skinny
leg jerked taut, and he found himself looking up into the startled
blue eyes of his Maurice.

Rated G.

by Rae Carson and C.C. Finlay.
Read by Nick Podel (recording courtesy of Brilliance Audio Books).
Originally appeared in Oz Reimagined: New Tales from the Emerald City and Beyond, edited by John Joseph Adams and Douglas Cohen.

Scraps, the patchwork girl, witnessed the wizard’s arrival. She sat beneath a tree watching the most spectacular show ever performed by a summer sky. White clouds swirled above an emerald colored sky like whipped marshmallow topping on a glass bowl full of lime jello spinning round and round and round on a potter’s wheel. She didn’t think it could get any more amazing when the clouds cracked open and sunlight burst through so blinding that she lifted one patchwork arm to shade her button eyes.

That’s when she saw the balloon.

Rated PG.

by Scott M. Roberts

Read by Dave Thompson

Originally published in Intergalactic Medicine Show.

I let her see my fangs.

The princess dropped the box-cutter.  She had just cut herself—shallow slashes that cried tiny, scarlet pearls.  Her blood smelled as sweet as cotton candy, but it was the scent of her destiny that had led me to her.  Spicy and cloying, the princess’s destiny made my mouth water, set an itch and tingle in my skin.  I inhaled it and let the city, with its bloated trash bags and filthy humans and miles of steaming asphalt, fade, fade, fade into the darkness.  The princess’s destiny was like Christmas morning: cloves and oranges, nutmeg explosions and cinnamon arias.  All bright; all clean.  A song in my sinuses, on the back of my throat, as pure as a child’s kiss, as sweet cream.

I bumped my nose against the window.  The twinge of pain brought me back to reality.  The city, the humans, the asphalt, all that.  And more, now: the stench of the princess’s mother downstairs, sucking on vodka and painkillers, stinking of booze and vomit.  

The window wasn’t locked; I rubbed my nose with one hand and opened it with the other. “Hello, princess,” I said.

Rated R: Contains violence and some drug references.

by Richard Bowes.
Read by Wilson Fowlie (of the Maple Leaf Singers).
Originally appeared in Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction March/April 2012.

“Silly Billy, The Sailor King,” some called King William IV of Great Britain. But never, of course, to his royal face. Then it was always,“Yes, sire,” and, “As your majesty wishes!”

He leaned out the window. “Or on a day of doldrums and no wind in the sails,” he roared as if she was up in a crow’s nest, his face red as semi-rare roast beef. “You’ll be the monarch and damn all who’d say you no.”

Rated PG.

Special thanks to M.K. Hobson – our Guest Editor and Host this week!

by Dirk Flinthart.
Read by Graeme Dunlop of Cast of Wonders and Pseudopod fame.
Originally appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine issue #25, 2006.

Your Grace:
I believe you are correct. Tomaso Dellaforte is the most dangerous man I have ever met.
I followed your instructions to the letter. Your information as to the whereabouts of the condottiere de Mortibus was accurate. It was with very little difficulty that I purchased the inn, and as a matter of goodwill, I was careful to retain all of the long-term tenants. De Mortibus lived in a room on the upper floor, and made a poor living as a teacher of weapons. I had expected more from the man who led the sack of Mallorze.
I allowed the passage of a month, in order to allay suspicion, before I began to administer the draft. Once again, I congratulate you on the accuracy of your information. Administered in wine, in precisely the proportions ordered, the poison produced in the man every symptom of a most terrible, wasting illness.
Though he had little money, to my alarm de Mortibus was afforded a chirurge by a patron: an old friend, I believe. I did not manage to ascertain who it may have been. In any case the chirurge professed himself puzzled, and bled the man profusely, to no avail. Indeed, I suspect his ministrations were responsible for a sharp decline in de Mortibus’ condition, and I was forced to reduce the proportion of the draft in the wine for a time. De Mortibus continued to fail.
Perhaps two months after I began this work upon him, de Mortibus confronted me in the kitchens. By this time he was much weakened, and could get about only with great effort. He had not been able to pursue his livelihood for some time, and had come to depend upon my charity, as I had planned. Therefore, something of trust and familiarity had grown between us, and I was not surprised when he sought me out alone.
“Take this, good Marotti,” he said to me, and pressed a sealed packet into my hand. “I beg you see it delivered to the hand of Konrad Heisenck, whose Free Company you will find in the city square this month. There is no other I may entrust with it, and I swear to you that it means more than my very life.” He forced the packet upon me, and even produced a gold coin which I made much
play of refusing. I promised his letter would be delivered, and sent him to his bed with a stoup of hot wine.

This episode was not rated by PodCastle staff.

Special thanks to Marguerite Kenner and Graeme Dunlop – our Guest Editors and Hosts this week! Their own podcast is the YA oriented Cast of Wonders.

by Pamela Rentz.
Read by Ada Milenkovic Brown.
Originally appeared in her collection Red Tape: Stories from Indian Country.

Violet Spinks checked her to-do list for the ceremony: canoe, plants, medicine cap, trails. List-making might not be traditional, but no one would blame her for needing a brain prompt. She set the list in her medicine book and picked up the TV remote. She clicked through the channels and stopped when she spotted a young man with a torso like polished bronze. He shook out a bundle of black rubber cables and attached them to a shiny disk. The camera zoomed in on his brawny arms and legs as they worked the cables with the disk spinning in the middle. He looked like he wrestled a spider. A notice on the screen said three easy payments of $14.99 plus tax and shipping.

Rated PG.

Special thanks to Tina Connolly – our Guest Editor and Host this week! Her own podcast is Toasted Cake.

by Matt Wallace

Read by Dave Robison (of the Round Table Podcast)

Originally published as a Kindle eBook.

Perhaps the greatest warrior the world had ever known was entombed in a brown cardboard box in the attic. The box was scrawled “Kenny’s Room” in bright red Sharpie pen and stuffed into a dust-covered corner one Spring-cleaning with several others. Some contained toys the children had outgrown, others contained electronics that were working but hopelessly out-of-date. All of them were quickly forgotten about.

Inside the cardboard box filled with other unwanted toys, Sundae lay in his miniature steamer trunk. The trunk’s once-fine leather was cracked and peeling all over, its many stamps painted with their images of post card lands dulled and faded by age. Sundae himself had not faired much better through the years (it had been almost a century since he was created in Magda’s workshop).

One of his eyes was missing, and the tear left by its departure had been sewn shut to keep the fluff from leaking out. A large patch of fur covering his right breast and shoulder was dark and brittle. He’d taken a tumble into a roaring fireplace while grappling with a particularly nasty beast back in the 70’s. The cover he’d fashioned from leather scraps for his left ear, to protect the pressed metal button that was the source of all Stenz bears’ power, looked worn and awkwardly stapled on.

There were other punctures and tears and rips. Some had been sewn like his eye, some closed hastily with masking tape that was now brown and furling at the corners.

Rated R: Contains violent Teddy Bears. Been a while since we did that!

Special thanks to Alasdair Stuart – our Guest Editor and Host this week!

by Amanda M. Olson

Read by Amanda Fitzwater

Originally published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Read it here!

For two weeks after she moved into our house, no one could convince me
that Aunt Victoria was not a ghost. With soundless steps, she drifted
from room to room in a dress the same blue-gray color as the pendant
around her neck.  When she cried, I heard nothing.  Once, as Mother
tried to calm her, Aunt Victoria opened her mouth as if screaming and
broke a plate against the wall.  There was no sound from the glass
until it hit the floor.

It was ten days past her coming-of-age ceremony when she came to live
with us, after a week of urgent telegrams and hushed dining room
conversations between Mother and Aunt Lily.  This _was_ a boarding
house, Aunt Lily pointed out, and Victoria would take up one of the
rooms without paying rent.

Aunt Victoria was bad for business.  In the early days, more than
once, we would find her in a room with a knife, hacking desperately at
the ribbon around her throat. It never took the slightest damage,
though Aunt Victoria managed to cut her fingers more than once.  Other
times, she would stand at her window and stare out, causing more than
one potential boarder to start at the eerie sight and promptly take
themselves over to the less-respectable Mrs. Harper’s.  I hid behind
Mother’s skirts when Aunt Victoria came into the room.  I remember
wishing that I, too, could move in with Mrs. Harper.

Rated PG.

By Paul Willems

Translated by Edward Gauvin

Read by Marguerite Croft

Originally Published in Tales and Legends of Belgium Illustrated by Naive Painters. This translation originally appeared in Scheherezade’s Bequest #15.

Many years ago there was a small fisherman’s house on the dunes of La Panne. Rik-the-Fisherman’s wife Marie sat at the window all day long, spinning thread as she watched the sea. She was tall and thin with a tanned face and blond hair, and her eyes, from watching the sea, took on the color of the waters: blue when it was fair, green when it was cloudy, and black when there was a storm. Now, one day when Marie’s eyes were black, one stormy day, the fishing boat sank and Rik was never seen again. Marie was so sad that her eyes stayed black. As the sea reminded her of her husband, she changed places and sat at the other window, which looked out on the Abbey of the Dunes.

Two months after Rik’s death, a little girl was born in the little house. Marie called her Rika, in memory of her father. Rika grew. She always played alone in the dune and on the beach, for her mother spun from dawn till dusk to provide for them. One evening (Rika had just turned six), Mari began to weep. She wasn’t earning enough money spinning and there wasn’t anything left in the house to ea. She told Rika to go out the next day and keep watch over the sheep for the monks of the Abbey of the Dunes. The monks would surely give her a big jug of milk each day for her trouble.

But Rika replied that she would rather go to the beach. Sometimes the sea tossed up precious objects she would gather and sell.

And so it was decided.

Rated PG. No, Really.

Special thanks to our friend Mr. Wilson Fowlie for guest-hosting this episode!