When Hisa was a baby, her mother called in a soothsayer to cast her daughter’s horoscope. The old woman pulled out her astrology charts and consulted them while incense turned the air blue with perfumed smoke. That day, the fortuneteller had a headache and was in a black mood. Though Hisa’s mother brought her a cup of hot, green tea and fanned her sweating brow, the old woman continued to scowl.

“This child will be too bold for her own good,” the fortuneteller grumbled.

“Is there nothing I can do?” asked Hisa’s distraught mother. “I could hire tutors to teach her the folly of brashness.”

“That is not sufficient.”  The soothsayer’s eyes lit upon the brimming teapot. “She must grow up to be a lowly tea girl.” (Continue Reading…)

The Illuminated Dragon

by Sarah Prineas

Rafe Greatorex thought he’d spotted a dragon. From where he stood on the cobbled street that ran between the leaning tenements, only a narrow strip of sky was visible. Rafe craned his neck. He was sure — almost sure — that something had flown by, above. A black shadow, an X against the distant blue.

He looked down again, rubbing his neck. No, it was nothing. Dragons had been outlawed thirty years ago. He must have imagined it. Sighing, he adjusted his glasses, took up the string bag of potatoes with one hand and the canvas bag of books and supplies with the other, and trudged on toward home. (Continue Reading…)

Gordon, the Self-Made Cat

by Peter Beagle

Once upon a time, to a family of house mice there was born a son named Gordon. He looked very much like his father and mother and all his brothers and sisters, who were gray and had bright, twitchy, black eyes, but what went on inside Gordon was very different from what went on inside the rest of his family. He was forever asking why everything had to be the way it was, and never satisfied with the answer. Why did mice eat cheese? Why did they live in the dark and only go out when it was dark? Where did mice come from, anyway? What were people? Why did people smell so funny? Suppose mice were big and people were tiny? Suppose mice could fly? Most mice don’t ask many questions, but Gordon never stopped.

One evening, when Gordon was only a few weeks old, his next-to-eldest sister was sent out to see if anything interesting had been left open in the pantry. She never returned. Gordon’s father shrugged sadly and spread his front paws, and said, “The cat.”

“What’s a cat?” Gordon asked.

(Continue Reading…)