All the Better to Taste You

by Marisca Pichette

This morning I swallowed the Wolf.

I started with oatmeal — sweetened bitter by fresh maple syrup, sticky all the way down. On top I poured mead inherited from drunken bees bumbling through the windows I always leave open — wide, gaping, hungry.

I finished with the Wolf. He’s quite small now; time and peace have removed his claws, decades of sweetness have rotted out his teeth. An infestation of fleas conjured by my stepsister forced him to shave completely. His final years were pale, bald, shivering as I carried him from room to room.

At the end, all that remained to feed his once-formidable muscles were nightmares. First mine, then his — rousing him gasping at midnight. I brought him cocoa, warm milk with a dash of honey.

At the end, I slept soundly, snuggled in a bed that learned to fit me. I stopped having nightmares years before I swallowed the Wolf whole. (Continue Reading…)

This Wooden Heart

by Eleanna Castroianni

It starts with a seed in your grandfather’s beard.

Before you were born, when you and your brother were still seeds tucked deep inside your parents’ bodies, your grandfather dreamed for a while: of grainy bark, of sun-kissed leaves, of sweet purple fruit and of milky poison sap.

Your grandpa: you knew him for a while. He had the eyes of someone claimed by something bigger; the eyes of someone who has known secrets that take root deep below.

He had the eyes of your brother.

Your brother: you knew him for a while. His fire burned too bright. And everyone who shines brightly is sent to exile. To this day, your mother thinks her son — your only brother — is imprisoned on a faraway island.

She doesn’t know that your brother dreams of grainy bark and sun-kissed leaves. She doesn’t know that what started with a seed in her father’s beard has grown wiry roots and curly tendrils around this family’s hearts.

She can feel the thorns. She can hear the faint beating. She will clutch at her chest with every long breath. But she doesn’t know.

It starts like this. (Continue Reading…)

When the Giants Came Through the Valley

by Derrick Boden

When the giants came through the valley, they made footprints as long as the Santa Monica Promenade, as wide as Dodgers’ Stadium. They crushed dance studios, keto cafes, a waterpark. They left trails of steep-sided ravines with walls of stratified clay and crumbling asphalt, and this is where we now live. Sunset comes earlier down here, but it could be worse.

Our footprint is deep and arid and full of retooled strip malls. We dwell in the remains of Foot Lockers and tiki bars, tag our names out front in bold blue letters. Lazy Stan, Carmencita, Hot Hot Henri. We didn’t all live here, before the giants came through. We’re a product of collective chance. Grinding out another two-hour commute, heading for happy hour at The Village after working another double, the third this week. Some of us still have homes topside, in buildings the giants happened to miss. But that’s neither here nor there. The footprint is our home, now. (Continue Reading…)

The Museum of Living Color

by Ryan Cole

Red lust, as usual, comes in the morning. Red in the way that you whisper my name, in the tender caress of your fingers on my neck, where my dry skin soaks up your technicolor world. Where you are my brush, and I am your canvas: pliant, eager, ready to be drawn.

I smile as your scorched-earth skin comes to life. I swallow the vermilion heat on your tongue.

And I take. I steal as much of you as I can.

But it’s never enough. Not for me, or your family, or the portrait of us that they want you to create. The one that will hang in their gallery forever.

And you and I both know that your red never lasts. (Continue Reading…)

Mom and Dad At the Home Front

by Sherwood Smith

Before Rick spoke, I saw from his expression what was coming.

I said the words first. “The kids are gone again.”

Rick dropped onto the other side of the couch, propping his brow on his hand.  I couldn’t see his eyes, nor could he see me. It was just past midnight. All evening, after we’d made sure our three kids were safely tucked into bed, we’d stayed in separate parts of the house, busily working away at various projects, all excuses not to go to bed ourselves — even though it was a work night.

Rick looked up, quick and hopeful. “Mary. Did one of the kids say something to you?”

“No.” I had a feeling; that was all. They were so sneaky after dinner.

“Didn’t you see Lauren —” I was about to say raiding the flashlight and the Swiss Army Knife from the earthquake kit but I changed, with almost no pause, to “— sneaking around like . . . like Inspector Gadget?”

He tried to smile. We’d made a deal, last time, to take it easy, to try to keep our senses of humor, since we knew where the kids were.

Sort of knew where the kids were. (Continue Reading…)

Your Great Mother Across the Salt Sea

by Kelsey Hutton

 PART TWO

“And just like that, Endersby was eating out of the palm of my hand!” the queen crowed to Miyohtwāw a week later. Miyohtwāw still wasn’t entirely sure who the queen had bent to her will, but she understood he was important. From a neighbouring nation, perhaps?

They met in a small salon, this time a place of Miyohtwāw’s own choosing. She liked the large windows and the wheat-coloured wallpaper, even if it did still come with a faint smell of must. The queen had acquiesced.

“He is Gallish, you know, and has never truly forgotten the Hauthasan conquest of Gallish lands, generations ago. But I convinced him to let bygones be bygones. A woman’s touch, you know. We must all forgive and forget, don’t you agree?” the queen asked, her tone attempting to be light, but coming out forced instead. She paused intently, teacup halfway to her lips.

Miyohtwāw briefly allowed herself to close her eyes. She was tired; tired of this self-involved queen, and tired of this self-righteous land. She took another sip of her own weak tea, thinking of beaten-up kettles just starting to hiss over the coals; missing the smoky scent of leather stretched out to tan over the fire.

“If harmony and justice have been restored, then yes,” she said and tried desperately to suppress a sneeze. (Continue Reading…)

Your Great Mother Across the Salt Sea

by Kelsey Hutton

PART ONE

Kwayask nātohta. Listen carefully. There once was a woman who sewed clothes so powerful they made you become the person you needed to be. Children’s feet wrapped in her flower-beaded moccasins never stumbled. Otipēyimisowak orators, backs held straight by her finger-woven sashes, never lost a vote. Loved ones, buried in family robes storied with a thousand hand-dyed quills, were never forgotten.

This woman, called Miyohtwāw, used her gifts with bead and shell and calico and stroud to sew kin relationships together all across the Plains. Then, at the direction of the grandmothers, she was asked to do the same between the Otipēyimisowak and the distant Hauthasan kwīn.

Yes, she remembered their language from her time with the nuns. Yes, she could still count their coin and twist her hair up like a “lady,” though it was now touched with grey. A Hauthasan lord sailing home was even willing to present her in the Hauthasan court. This lord assured the Otipēyimisowak that his great woman leader across the salt sea was a compassionate and upright woman, who cared for the people of the lands she ruled from afar like a mother cared for her children. No matter how different they might be. (Continue Reading…)

Holy Banana Peel!

by Jane Brown

“Would you like underpants on the outside?” Celeste asked as she flicked her blonde curls out of her eyes and adjusted the tape measure.

The man’s body tensed. His green eyes darted around her shop, digesting the array of superhero outfits.

Celeste placed a hand on his shoulder. “Jim — was it? — I know it’s overwhelming. But you need to trust me. I’ll make you the perfect suit. I’m exceptionally good at my job.” She winked.

He looked into her eyes and laughed. “All right. I trust you. But no outside underpants, please.”

Celeste smiled. “It’s a bit old fashioned but you’d be surprised how many still request it.” She wrote down his arm measurements and began the inner leg. Underneath his baggy jeans and t-shirt his body was in good shape. Really good shape. Lean and muscular. With his thick black hair and light stubble, he was undeniably attractive and for a second her mind wandered before she shook herself back to reality.

“So . . . Jim, have you had your powers long?”

“A few months.”

“Radioactive spider bite? Magical ring? Experiment gone wrong?”

“I have no idea how it happened. I saw a lady getting mugged in an alleyway and before I knew it, her attackers were on the ground and I’d rescued her.” (Continue Reading…)