THE WORTH OF ASHES

by Amanda Helms

Aselya retained enough of her sister’s ashes to hear them sing.

She trudged through the marketplace, the ashes secured in a pouch hanging from her hip, while the ghost of Firall’s mezzo-soprano harmonized with the marketplace din of stall owners shouting their wares, shoppers haggling costs, and arguments between both on the quality of this bolt of cloth, that basket of oranges.

Death had had little impact upon Firall’s personality, and so she sang not a ballad of her life, not a sweet lullaby the likes of which she’d used to urge Aselya’s children to sleep, or even a forlorn ode to how she’d died. No, Firall sang rude tavern songs in which aubergines and melons featured prominently. (Continue Reading…)

Kɛrozin Lamp Kurfi

by Victor Forna

Breath

KADE MAKASI: In . . .

ALL THE CHILDREN: Awt . . .

Storyteller

She tells the children to call her Kade Makasi, and if this was one of her stories, she’d describe herself as bent and wrinkled and spider-like for a touch of myth and poetry . . . but she’s none of these things . . . she’s tall, thick-browed, with two braided rivers of night on her head, and you’d have never guessed what she was: kurfi, dɛbul, demon, and that she stole my child.

(Continue Reading…)

Arachnomorphosis

by Beth Goder

At night, Olivia becomes a spider. She scurries down San Francisco streets, floats gently between cotton-candy-colored houses, and hides behind signs for trendy restaurants, like Trough and Instance.

By day, she works as a software engineer for a company that rents out kitchenware and other home goods. In her spare time, she edits a periodical called Non-Random Number Generator, which showcases the poetry of local writers, but only if the poems involve the number ninety-nine. They get a surprising amount of submissions.

It’s the night that’s tricky. She lopes eight-legged, her steps tapping out a metrical line. Spondee, spondee, spondee.

The city is no place for a spider. (Continue Reading…)

Parsley Girl, Parsley Girl, Let Down Your Trichobezoar

by Natalie Zutter

If I were your mother, I would share with you this cautionary tale:

Once there was a couple who yearned for a child. When the woman was finally pregnant, she craved naught but rapunzel. Unfortunately, this plant only grew inside a neighboring garden, walled off from the world. As the expectant mother began to waste away, her desperate husband stole into the garden and snatched as much of the leafy plant as he could. But he could not outsmart the enchantress, who protected the garden as if it were her own offspring. When she caught him, she demanded he trade her their newborn baby. He said yes.

After the birth, the enchantress whisked the baby away to a tower in the woods. Rapunzel knew only the walls of her prison and the daily visits from the enchantress, who climbed up by way of the girl’s impossibly long hair. Until one day a prince climbed up instead; they fell in love; the enchantress found out. She cut Rapunzel’s hair and cast them both out of the tower, the pregnant girl into the woods and the prince into a patch of thorns, blinding him.

But as the enchantress, the best that I can do for you is cast a spell. (Continue Reading…)