The Island of the Nine Whirlpools

by Edith Nesbit

The dark arch that led to the witch’s cave was hung with a black-and-yellow fringe of live snakes. As the Queen went in, keeping carefully in the middle of the arch, all the snakes lifted their wicked, flat heads and stared at her with their wicked, yellow eyes. You know it is not good manners to stare, even at Royalty, except of course for cats. And the snakes had been so badly brought up that they even put their tongues out at the poor lady. Nasty, thin, sharp tongues they were too.

Now, the Queen’s husband was, of course, the King. And besides being a King he was an enchanter, and considered to be quite at the top of his profession, so he was very wise, and he knew that when Kings and Queens want children, the Queen always goes to see a witch. So he gave the Queen the witch’s address, and the Queen called on her, though she was very frightened and did not like it at all. The witch was sitting by a fire of sticks, stirring something bubbly in a shiny copper cauldron. (Continue Reading…)

Kin, Painted

by Penny Stirling

Watercolour.

I brush water in thin lines down my right arm before adding green pigment. Colour spreads down each lane. I twist my arm to surface tension’s extent and then past it, letting the paint escape.

Think how lovely I could be covered in watercolours. Gradients with geometric patterns, perhaps, or precise stripes with thought-provoking colour-mixing drips. Now and then a performance piece, using my own sweat to blur and degrade my body’s art.

No I sloppily write in water across the smeared lines as disrelish seethes inside me, shaking my arm — no — and washing the brush — no — and writing no until my arm is clean.

I am running out of paints to try. (Continue Reading…)

Chesirah

By L. D. Lewis

“It is almost time.” Chesirah smiled despite her screaming fingers. They were a blur, working feverishly to finish lacing together the last of her dark braids before Nazar the dollmaker made it home. She wove one braid into a dozen others and then a dozen more until she wore a high crown of them pinned in place by the dollmaker’s thick needles. She needed them to make her escape.

Fenox, as a rule, were kept creatures, usually by those of means, influence, and the odd eccentric streak. They needed a safe place to burn and someone to keep their ashes. Their keepers needed a conversation piece: something subservient and entertaining. By and large, it was a shit life, and Chesirah had a tendency to run, so she spent thirty of her adolescent years in the city of Kirjan, caged. (Continue Reading…)

Properties of Obligate Pearls

By L. S. Johnson

You have to know what to look for. Younger, definitely — stones from the elderly are heavy and black, decades of layers dulling the luster. No one wants the weight of a grandmother’s worries around their neck.

Take the young woman sitting across from me. I saw her in the supermarket, late on Friday night. She should have been out partying, or on a date; instead, she was pushing a cart that was equal parts cat food, stew meat, and adult diapers. Everything about her spoke of exhaustion and embarrassment.

Even under her jacket, I could glimpse the fullness of her torso, that hint of bloating directly beneath her sternum. (Continue Reading…)

When Shadow Confronts Sun

By Farah Naz Rishi

[Allah] will say, “Enter among nations which had passed on before you of jinn and mankind into the Fire.” Every time a nation enters, it will curse its sister until, when they have all overtaken one another therein, the last of them will say about the first of them, “Our Lord, these had misled us, so give them a double punishment of the Fire.” He will say, “For each is double, but you do not know.” (7:38)

The paan seller’s cart has a very particular smell: burnt roses, sugar syrup, cumin. Spicy and sweet, like Nani’s sticks of sage, the ones she burns every Sunday after fajr to ward off jealous eyes and jealous spirits. But I am hungry and I breathe it in, letting the newfound familiarity of the fragrance settle into my bones. (Continue Reading…)

Rabbit Grass

by Kelly Stewart

Mama says, “Never let Rabbits into the garden, Aril, or they’ll eat up everything.”

This makes working in the garden troublesome because there is almost always a Rabbit sitting just on the other side of the fence. The fence isn’t nothing fancy, just old dry timber trussed up with wire.

But Rabbits won’t come in unless they’re invited. No one would invite them, except they have their ways of smoothing things over with the folks around here. For one thing, you’d hardly know them from any old Person, except for the long ears perched atop their heads, all covered with velvety fur and turning this way and that to listen for things. They dress nice, too. They can be real charming. That’s how folks around here get their gardens et up. (Continue Reading…)

Never Yawn Under a Banyan Tree

By Nibedita Sen

The moment I swallowed the pret, I knew I should have taken my grandmother’s advice. Never yawn under a banyan tree, she used to warn me. A ghost might jump down your throat. Well touché, grandma. I’m sure you’re shaking your head at me in heaven, but consider this: Was it really fair to expect me to believe not just that ghosts were real — and lived in banyan trees — but that they liked to cannonball down people’s throats? (Continue Reading…)

One Day, My Dear, I’ll Shower You With Rubies

by Langley Hyde

“Elusia Cooper,” she said. “I’m the only child of the accused, Verus Bloodrain.”

Her father, clean-shaven and dark-haired, sat at the defendant’s bench. He looked exactly as he had when Fort Beatitude had fallen, about thirty years old, but then magic would do that. He even wore his iconic red leather robes, though his sabre sheath and gun holster hung empty, and no torture implements glittered on his utility belt.

He smiled at her. She smiled back. (Continue Reading…)

Burning Season

By C. L. Clark

It was burning season in Rashid. Again.

Even in the shop, I could smell the smoke. Can you believe I used to like the smell of burning paper? With my eyes closed, I can still see pages glow red before they burst into flame and curl into ash until they crumble.

I clerked at a small sundries shop in Commercial. The owner was a Duchies woman, one hand peach-pale, the other brown as her shop counter. She had no love for the All-King, who had toppled her Grand Duchess, but you don’t need love to run a business, just enough money to buy mercy. After that expenditure, though, she couldn’t afford to hire a licensed Translator. Coincidentally, I couldn’t afford a license, so she paid me a little extra to quietly broker transactions from the non-Duchies customers and shippers she couldn’t understand.

I am an Omniloquist. Some say we’re a curse the last true Rashidan king put on his enemies before he died, so that we’ll never flounder helpless under a conqueror. More say we have no true power, just an uncanny ability to pick up foreign sounds quickly. Until the All-King came, I was inclined to think the latter. We were a skill with a guild, like any other. And then he came, with his Collectors. There’s nothing natural about them. Maybe there’s nothing natural about us. (Continue Reading…)

A Fine Balance

By Charlotte Ashley

My mistress, Shoanna Yildirim, was the greatest shot in the city.

Each morning, according to her wishes, I cleaned and loaded her revolving pistol. I oiled the clip on her holster and checked the stitches in the leatherwork. I strung a fresh sash of weighted bullets and laid it by the vanity over her scarves.

“Your pistol, Mistress,” I would say to her as she rose from the mirror, her wide, brown lips and dark, sly eyes painted to perfection.

“Thank you, Emin,” she always replied. “But I will not need it today.”

Each morning, she left the gun where it lay. Mistress Yildirim was the greatest shot in the city, but she hunted Kara Ramadami with a blade. That was just one of the many rules of sahidi. (Continue Reading…)