It’s a Wonderful Carol

by Heather Shaw & Tim Pratt

“Who the hell are you?”

The man is standing in my walk—in closet. Except he’s not. He’s also standing at the foot of my bed. And he’s sitting in my window, languid like a pampered cat. Everywhere my eyes go, there he is. He’s so beautiful my teeth ache when I look at him, like I just bit into a piece of cake that is too sweet to taste good. Then he speaks, and my ears shiver in a glorious golden aural bliss.

“I’m your muse, Colleen.”

I want to scoff, deny his existence, refuse to believe him. But I do believe him. His voice rings truth like a perfectly tuned fifth.

Yes. That’s my muse standing there beside me, and sitting beside me on my bed, and flipping through the sheet music on my vanity chair.

“Damn. My muse is hot.”

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That Seriously Obnoxious Time I Was Stuck at Witch Rimelda’s One Hundredth Birthday Party

by Tina Connolly

So, reason number 572 why living with a wicked witch sucks? Sometimes it’s a gorgeous summer Saturday, and instead of getting a well-deserved break from Sarmine’s weird witchy chores like dusting the dried newts, you end up as an unpaid babysitter for a party full of little witches.

I set out the plates and forks for the birthday cake while surveying the swimming pool full of witch-kids. From up here they looked like any small children having fun—laughing and splashing and squealing and biting. Except, if you got close enough, you could hear them threatening to turn each other into frogs.

Around me, Witch Sarmine and all her nasty witch friends hovered around the pool like we were the first course at this birthday party. In a way, I suppose we were.

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Madame Félidé Elopes

by K. A. Teryna translated by Anatoly Belilovsky

1.  Madame Félidé and the Smile Merchants

On Friday Madame Félidé bought all the smiles the local merchants had for sale. Merry and sad, shy and modest, childlike and old, tender, happy, polite, ugly, warm, soft, villainous, ironic, open, timid, grudging, obsequious—every single one. Shopkeepers dug through their deepest cellars to find silly grins that rarely sold and usually gathered dust amid bits of obsolete gossip and jokes peeled off the floor after they had fallen flat. She emptied the display cases of fleeting smiles and gullible smiles and especially made sure to acquire every single sincere smile in the entire town. She also bought two ounces of contagious laughter and half a pound of good cheer. For change, the sales clerk gave her a tulle sachet full of pointed double entendres.

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Sweeter than Lead

by Benjamin C. Kinney

I stood atop the wall and stared at the shifting black towers of the Nameless City, as if this time I might spot the shadows of its bygone masters. I flexed my toes against the rampart’s top, the basalt as cold and solid as ever. Only the wall and my vigilance held the City in check, but one of those would not last. Two months remained until my mandated retirement: the end of my prophecies, the end of my power.

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Betty and the Squelchy Saurus

by Caroline M. Yoachim

Betty was hanging wet towels on the clothesline when a faded blue Plymouth Roadking came up the drive. Someone had donated the car to the Six Sisters orphanage back in 1952, and Sister Mary Margaret was the only nun who knew how to drive it.

A new girl got out of the car–maybe five years old, with brown hair and lots of freckles. Skittish little thing, probably terrified of monsters. It’d be no problem getting her to follow the rules. Betty hung the last towel and wiped her hands on her skirt.

“Since you’re done, you may show Catherine around the orphanage,” Sister Mary Margaret said.

“Yes, Sister.” Betty grabbed Catherine’s hand and pulled her inside. “Come on. You’ll be sleeping on the third floor, but you gotta learn the rules first.”

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Golden Chaos

by M.K. Hutchins

Being near Ingrid was the only good thing about living in a God-neglected frozen wasteland. Her face was round as the moon—a soft, pleasant face that suggested her cooking encouraged second helpings. Her face didn’t lie: light rye breads, sweet poached fruit, elk and wild onion stew that made my beard grow. Well, the bit of a beard I had. Ingrid always laughed and teased when she caught me finger-combing the handful of hairs sticking from my face. Her laugh—that was pure silver. For too long, she’d slaved away under Arbiter Elof’s guardianship. The day I signed a contract with Elof and became Ingrid’s betrothed was the happiest day of my life.

The next day was the worst.

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Archibald Defeats the Churlish Shark-Gods

by Benjamin Blattberg

My Dear Professor Stern,

While we’re all impressed with Georgie’s little scholarly article on Pacific Island folkloric sea life, with all of its precise details and analysis and whatnot, I fear she left out the thrilling heart of the matter. To wit: how I saved countless Hawaiians from gruesome death. Because of my quick thinking and pluck and heroism and charm and grace and quick thinking, I not only saved Hawaii from an oceanic scourge beyond the imagination of modern man, but also deserve a passing grade for this quarter’s Independent Study in Applied Folklore (PhD track).

I also must insist that my name be included on any further papers that Georgie writes on the subject, as co-author or co-researcher, as my contributions were essential to the project. After all, I rented the boat.

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Responsibility Descending

by G. Scott Huggins

The Century Ship burned.

From her mainmast cell, Responsibility heard the screams, and the roar of the flames. Flames engulfing square miles of sailcloth and rope. She scrabbled at the trapdoor, but it was bolted shut.

Outside, her mother burned the ship, searching for her.

Responsibility peered out the tiny windows, but smoke filled her eyes. She tried to cry out, to shout to the dragon that she was here, was burning. But what good would it do to shout that name? Her mother knew it not. Her mother had called her…

Responsibility hid under her wings from the flames, vainly trying to remember the name that would save her.

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Tumbleweeds and Little Girls

by Jeff Bowles

They had the tumbleweed ambassador on the news a month before the big battle. The news guy and news girl said he was intelligent, and then a local representative of the Plains and Wildlife Service translated for him because tumbleweeds can’t talk and must sign everything by rolling and hopping and what not.

“We mean your people no harm,” said the Plains and Wildlife Service guy. He spoke kind of slow and choppy. I guessed he wasn’t actually, what do you call it? Fluent in tumbleweed?

He said, “The war has started, whether you realize it or not. The Prairie Queen has an army of deer and antelope and coyotes. She’s got the power of fire. She murdered our Wizard Father and made her castle from our dead tumbleweed brothers and sisters. The crazy bitch!”

I winced at this last word. I’m only twelve years old, after all. My dad used to talk real rough like that. He used to cuss and laugh and say to me, “Don’t repeat that to your mother, Amie Masterson. I don’t want to fight no little girl.” Then we’d roughhouse a bit. My dad died last year, though. Some kind of cancer. Mom never told me which.

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