How to Come Back to Yourself

by Audrey Zhou

Lilin is the kind of small divinity that doesn’t invite notice.

She isn’t one of the gods that has to hide deep away from civilization, to avoid the notice of humans; Lilin’s only anchor to divinity is her shadow-self — her shadow in mostly the traditional sense, if shadows had their own minds — which she tries not to think about. Lilin keeps her home on the edge of the forest, down the path from a village she used to do business with.

Of course, it’s been a long time since she’s gone to the village. It’s been a long time since she’s been brave enough to do business.

It’s been so long that Lilin figures herself forgotten by anyone that would bother to look for her, so when the young man emerges from the forest, she forgets to pretend to be anyone other than herself.

“I hear you are a prophet,” he says.

He looks her age — he looks human, even: tanned skin, dark hair falling into his eyes, broad shoulders. But he’d managed to find her, and his eyes are golden like pale sun, and there is a sureness to his voice that makes Lilin suspect he’s tangled up with divinity, just like her.

“Of a sorts,” Lilin says, because prophecy is a loose word for what she divines through her shadow-self. “But it’s been years. I’m not — I don’t do that anymore, not really.”

“Are you sure,” he asks, “that you can’t be convinced?” (Continue Reading…)

Closing Aperture

By A. E. Lanier

The shapes and colors in the picture solidified and the pile of fur in Maria’s lap came fully into view.

“Aster?” she whispered, her voice catching as she began to cry.

Like many clients, she had been skeptical of the Polaroid camera, but this was why I used it. It felt more intimate to see the photo develop in real time. Connection with the dead was fleeting, and I liked my work to reflect that. I didn’t need records of every haunted house and ghost tour I worked with and neither did they.

But this was no ghost tour.

“Hello, little fluff,” Maria whispered, her fingers gently tracing the still-developing image. (Continue Reading…)

The Washerwoman and the Troll

by Julian Mortimer Smith

Bunchunkle was magnificently ugly. The trollmothers said there hadn’t been such an ugly child since Grimshik’s day, and Bunchunkle wore it with the pride and mirth befitting a troll. He could pull a face to make you void your bowels and howl with terror. He had a genius for mischief that rivaled even that of old Quillibim, the Arch Rascal of Moldy Stumps. There was much speculation about what would happen if a human ever laid eyes on Bunchunkle, but as far as anyone knew it had never happened, for Bunchunkle was as quick and sly as he was ugly.

When the faefolk decided it was time to drive the old washerwoman from the Blinking Woods, they did not come to Bunchunkle immediately. He was reclusive and cantankerous and did not like to be disturbed. Besides, they were loath to seek him out for fear of laying eyes on his revolting face. But nobody doubted that he would succeed if all else failed. They knew he was there as a last resort.

Read the full text in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #57

A Thousand Finer Foldings

By Claire Jia-Wen

1.

Phoebe’s mom calls her while she’s in the self-checkout line at Safeway. “I’ve found a solution for your apartment problem,” Mama says.

“I told you, I’ll just commute to San Francisco on the weekends,” Phoebe replies, stepping out of the warpath of a kid barreling a shopping cart towards the snack aisle.

“Aiyah, San Francisco is so far from Berkeley —”

“It’s not really —”

“Anyway, Sagan Liang is renting an apartment in San Francisco and he doesn’t need it on the weekends. I already talked to his mom, she said you can stay there then.”

Sagan and Phoebe’s mothers go to the same church and play pickleball together three days a week. Sagan and Phoebe don’t really talk anymore. “And what did Sagan say?”

“He listens to his mother. You should listen to your mother more. The Liangs won’t even ask for money. He makes so much money now, not like you. You could still go to medical school like him if you wanted.”

Phoebe sets her basket next to the checkout. “Sure.” (Continue Reading…)

Revolutions, as Told by a Humble Rice Farmer

by Lia Lao

When the Azure Dragon Emperor, conqueror of the nine lands, abhorred tyrant and most exalted strategist in the history of Jiuzhou, dies, Li Shen is farming rice.

On the other side of the country, there is great upheaval. The Dragon Empress sobs so ardently her tears turn to pearls, and she throws herself into the ocean. The White Tiger Emperor — newly anointed and soaked in silver blood — lets out a cry that will reverberate through history. His men hoist him above their shoulders, stamping on the Great Dragon’s corpse, crushing cyan scales underfoot.

And all around Jiuzhou, scholars write furiously, their brushstrokes turning, twisting, contorting. Trying to capture the tale unfolding as they breathe.

None of which means anything to Li Shen. (Continue Reading…)

The Grief Eaters

By Erin Keating

There was a time when grave dirt could summon grief eaters from the Isle of the Dead. As the midnight bells tolled across the lagoon, they’d fly on ravens’ wings to mourners’ windows. With hands of bone, they’d clear minds of sorrow, feasting on memories until there was no remembrance left to mourn. But not all who called them to their side left with the dulled edges of forgetfulness. Grief eaters were hungry. Call them on a night when they were famished, and they’d leave you without so much your name.

Nunzia knew this. Still, she stuffed her pockets full of grave dirt before the priest had finished reciting the “Ave Maria.” Heads bowed beneath fluttering black veils, as though death were a kind of wedding: a marriage of body and earth. As they lowered her grandmother into the soggy ground, the priest spoke of ashes, and dust, and of rest so peaceful, Nunzia was half-tempted to follow after her.

After the funeral, the procession rowed from the Isle of the Dead back to the village. Cries of grief echoed through the settling fog. Voice called to voice, letting them know they were still there. Nunzia’s stomach roiled with the bobbing boat. Beside her, her mother, a pillar of black lace asked, “Are you well, Nunzia?”

Nunzia, never skilled at lying, managed, “Yes, Mamma.” (Continue Reading…)

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…)