Wapnintu’tijig: They Sang Until Dawn

By Tiffany Morris

In the time of fever, the marks of the animals changed. Waterbirds shone with new radiance: a bright blue iridescence clung to their feathers, glimmering, soaked with the sacred oil of daylight. Their language changed along with their plumage: the chirrup chirrup from their open beaks had transformed into a lilting sort of caw. A shiver jolted through Pi’tawgowi’sgw. As she worked her way through the swamp, she discovered that the world, her world, was newly alive with alien tongues, each one bellowed with an odd sense of certainty. It was as if the creatures’ mouths had always known these sounds, that these new sounds belonged to them entirely. Each odd caw and chirp formed the words that the creatures had been born to speak. The nighthawks, for their part, now screeched owllike into darkening sky, swooping and diving over the water in search of the tiny silver fish they so loved to devour.

It took special eyes to see the full radiance of the swamp. In weaker times she’d thought of it as her swamp, but Pi’tawgowi’sgw knew it was a place too ancient and vast to belong to her, or to anyone; rather, she belonged to it, sprouted up from the water the way the humans had the land. She had heard it said in their tongue: Weji-sqalia’timk, literally, the place they sprouted up from. She’d watched the one with silver hair threaded together tell this to the small ones gathered around the edge of the water, their eager faces murmuring words she did not know. She belonged in the deep stillness of the water. The many creatures in the water with her were not like her. The humans were, at least, sort of like her — more than the fish that shared the water, anyway. (Continue Reading…)

The Dragon Killer’s Daughter

by MacKenzie R. Snead

Gayamiza was no stranger to pilgrims, but these two were not welcome — an old man and his daughter, foreignness sewn into their clothes, engraved in the blades they carried. The city let them in, as it did all acolytes, but as if swallowing food it was not accustomed to and ’didn’t particularly like. It coughed and gagged, people on the streets looking the other way, mothers ushering their young indoors. There was something about this pair the city didn’t trust, something more than the peculiarity of the father’s beard and the daughter’s burning hair. Any village fool could tell that they carried misdeeds in their pockets, that their pilgrimage was dishonest.

The journey had taken months, and now the father was too tired to walk. His daughter pulled him down the narrow streets in a wooden cart, bumping across unfriendly cobblestones without so much as a stumble. The locals found her strength disquieting, staring from their windows as she pulled her father along like some aged product nobody would buy. Strength like that was not natural in a girl, and shouldn’t be encouraged.

The old man squinted through heavy eyelids at the shining buildings, stiffly adjusting himself atop the armor and longsword that served as his bedfellows in the cart. “Where are we?” he asked hoarsely.

“Gayamiza, Father,” his daughter panted, not turning around to look at him. “Don’’t you recognize it?”

“No,” he croaked after a moment. “I’ve never been here.”

She knew that wasn’t true. The countless times he’d ventured to this place when she was a child, only to return with bowed head to a home sunk deeper and deeper in disgrace and poverty. She tightened her grip on the handles of the cart and leaned forward with determination. Her father would know something other than shame before he died. (Continue Reading…)

Two Siblings, Seven Fish

by Rebecca Zahabi

Maybe this story started when Dad inherited the calabash; or maybe when my great-grandfather ran his thumb along its rugged surface, listening to the coins rattling within; or maybe even before then, when it was still green and growing, waiting to be plucked, carved and dried.

But for me, it started with an argument with my sister, Shadi. (Continue Reading…)

The Elixary of the Evanescent Market

by Marina Ermakova

Iris eyed the interior of the carriage with caution as the train came to a screeching halt. Potions clinked against the clamps which held them in their travel positions, but didn’t come loose in a crash of shattering glass. A wheeled cart smashed against the wall it was tied to, yet failed to dislodge from its bindings and turn into a bludgeoning projectile.

There was still the other carriage, the one that served as a workshop instead of a storefront, but Aunt was inside of it. Aunt had decades more experience with combustible potions than she did.

Which meant that everything had arrived intact, and Iris could allow herself to relax.

The creak of metal hinges signaled Aunt’s arrival though the carriage door. The older woman set a brisk pace for the glass cabinets, bolted in place. Iris rushed to help in unclasping the vials, knowing they had a small window of time before the train announced its arrival to potential customers.

“You will be on your own, so remember never to open the orange potions,” Aunt lectured her. “I specifically color the dangerous ones orange.”

“I know,” Iris said, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. She was not going to magically forget everything she’d learned in the past few years just because Aunt didn’t remind her.

“And if a customer becomes unruly — ”

“Aunt, I know.”

Aunt stopped loosening one of the clasps and turned piercing gray eyes upon her apprentice. “Iris,” she admonished. “You may believe nothing will go wrong. Most likely, nothing will go wrong. But there is a real possibility of danger, and if that should happen . . . what would you even do?” A glint of concern appeared behind her eyes. “Perhaps I should stay.”

Alarm rose within Iris. “No, no, I’m sorry! I am taking this seriously. I even have a list of all your instructions written down.”

What would she do if Aunt decided not to visit her friend after all? If she continued to hover over the shop, watching Iris’s work, she would intercept customers before Iris could handle them! How long would it be before Iris had another opportunity for freedom, where her every move did not need to meet with Aunt’s approval?

Aunt’s sharp eyes raked over her apprentice’s apologetic form. “All right,” the woman finally said, the words like a weight being lifted. “Hurry up, then, and get this dreary place decorated.” (Continue Reading…)

The Cinnamon Thread

by Beth Goder

Anna is grateful to lie on the bed in the cool house where there are no expectations, no labyrinthine thoughts to swallow her in the night. Outside, the wrens muck about in shallow water. Waves rush up against the sand. Dusk seeps in through windows thick with salt lines.

She sleeps, dreamless, hearing the ocean trembling against the shore.

In the morning, searchers glide by, crowding through the hallway, meshing into each other and apart again.

One stops to examine her room, a man with a trim beard and thick glasses.

“Which room are you looking for?” he asks.

“I came here last night,” she says.

“Do you know how the house works?”

Anna shrugs. The night before, she came upon a tangle of threads in the entrance and followed the one that smelled like cinnamon, the scent like a tangible fragment of her childhood, the kitchen with the cracked red phone, her mother’s famous cinnamon cookies. The thread led her to this room, where she slept, pulled into quiet unconsciousness, pulled back by footsteps in the hall. The skein of thread is now in her satchel, wound tight, along with a pair of scraggly mittens and a kitchen device that is only good for coring apples, this detritus of her life that she isn’t even sure how she acquired.

“You’ll want to have a strategy.” He points to a beige door. “You could try by color or by size. You could try every door until you get tired.” He pulls a hair out of his short beard. “Yesterday, I hiked all day and tried the last door only.”

“What did you find?” (Continue Reading…)

Candy Canes, Comics, and Christmas

by Gary McKay

I met Marlene atop Lily Hill on December 17^th 1983, two weeks after my tenth birthday. The news of the Harrods bombing — the IRA’s crime against Christmas — was all the talk in Ballykey that afternoon, but I was too young to understand. I’d popped out to get some sweets and on a whim, decided to climb Lily Hill while the weather wasn’t awful. This was one of my favourite places to read superhero comics in peace — at home, Ma told me I was filling my head with nonsense and at school, both the boys and girls teased me. It’s grown in popularity in recent years as a tourist destination, but back then, not many people came to Lily Hill, which suited me just fine.

I didn’t realise someone was already there until I rounded the final bend of the hill. It was a girl with short, blonde hair, dressed in a jumper and skirt. A necklace with a series of stars on it hung from her neck. I paused and considered retreating, but she’d seen me. The girl waved and skipped over before I could move.

(Continue Reading…)