The Back of the Hand to Everything

by James Parenti in Issue Eleven, October 2023

Inside the house is dark because the windows are all covered with plywood. Me and my sister Deb helped Dad put the boards up in the morning to protect the glass from breaking in the storm. Hurricane Daniel. Like me, but everybody calls it Daniel, nobody calls it Danny. The air is always damp and heavy here but on hurricane days especially you can feel it, thick and electric, sticking to your hair and clothes. Even the mosquitoes are weighed down by it.

I’m not big enough to use tools so Deb and me helped Dad hold the boards in place. He used the drill gun and the hammer, swinging... Continue →

For the Price of One Nightmare

by Natalie Kikić in Issue Eleven, October 2023

It came in through the keyhole.

Adrijan hadn’t plugged it up before going to bed despite the guesthouse host’s warning. Leave the key inside or stuff it with paper, the host had told him in the same voice he’d used to say no overnight guests and no smoking inside. There’s a mora who’s been stalking these shores at night. Feeding on men’s dreams, turning them into nightmares. They can turn into flies, you know, fly right in. The host demonstrated, weaving his arm through the air in sharp, jagged motions.

But Adrijan didn’t care; every day had felt like a... Continue →

Things Brought Home

by Lynne Sargent in Issue Ten, August 2023

When I was younger than I am now, I was a traveler: a woman with short calves and bones too close to the soles of my feet. In my country, we all are, for a time. We are sent out with joy in our adolescence, and our parents hope we return with respect, calluses, and perhaps a child of our own, or someone to make one with. Perhaps one in ten does not return. Much to my parents’ dismay, I am one of these.

The rules are thus: you must go until not a single person knows your name, and you may only return once you have obtained one of their songs, one of their meals, and one of their... Continue →

The House of Mourning

by Dana Vickerson in Issue Ten, August 2023

Lena’s still in the baby doll dress and Doc Martens she wore to Andrew’s house on the night she died. The floors in the House of Mourning are wet and sticky, like the rotting residue in some long-forgotten building, sucking at her boots as she walks the endless halls. There is only one door, but there are many mirrors. Some she can see into, some she can’t, though this is no fault of the mirrors. Most are cloaked in a darkness so deep Lena feels as though she could lean into it and be swallowed whole.

The mirrors hold the lives of everyone Lena has ever known. H er second-grade... Continue →

Monster of the Month Club

by Marissa Lingen in Issue Ten, August 2023

I always liked those boxes full of tiny jars of jam. Great present. And Advent calendars with chocolate, yes please. But when the shadow monster coalesced in my backyard, I didn't think of any of that. Why would I? I'd taken my dog Sancho out to pee before bed, and a rustling in the leaves resolved itself into a form of darkness. I only had time to disperse it with swipes of the rake, not contemplate gift subscriptions.

Sancho and I went inside, ate peanut butter cookies, and snuggled each other in a panic. And I thought nothing more of it, except, jeez, that was... Continue →

In the Empty Rooms

by Amanda Haimoto Rudd in Issue Ten, August 2023

The house breathes around me, curls in to cradle me, but will not let me go. Mother told me it was for my own protection, though from what or whom she never said. She's gone now. And the house cannot tell me. But how can I be safe when the danger is not out there, but here with me, trapped as surely between walls of red brick and thick glass as I?

A monster roams these halls.

I can hear it rumbling up and down the corridors as I sip my tea at the small table in the kitchen. The delicate china teacup rattles only slightly as I place it on its saucer. Heavy footsteps pound on... Continue →

Herbal Semifreddo for the New Queen

by Lindsey Duncan in Issue Ten, August 2023

Ingredients:

4 measures cream
1 hand sugar
3 fireswan egg yolks (can substitute 7 common hen’s egg yolks)
2 snips lavender
2 snips aurora root
2 snips fairybell flowers
3 drops fenimyre extract (sorcery purified)
3 sprinkles salt

Directions:

Begin in the morning. Prepare and line pan with baking cloth. It must be wholly smooth: any bubble or crease will imprint upon the semifreddo. Everything must be perfect for the new queen.

Using a firm hand, whisk the cream into high peaks. Reserve in ice storage... Continue →

A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Apocalypse Go Down

by A.D. Sui in Issue Ten, August 2023

January yearned for a beautiful end.

Passing a small convenience shop, he slowed his hurried steps. What was once the storefront now glittered with faint light. Sunset pinks, oranges, and blues danced along a cascading waterfall that flowed no place known. The light erased and cleansed the cityscape. It brought on the glitches that destroyed everything they touched—buildings, cars, people. Now, the light had engulfed Ms. Kim’s shop. It was a shame, really. Less so if Ms. Kim wasn’t inside when it happened. Alas, it wasn’t the first shop to be glitched out of existence by the light... Continue →

Touch of Ruin

by Timothy Johnson in Issue Nine, June 2023

Antoni kneels on the cracked pavement and waves his hand over a seam. A weed sprouts from the desiccated earth beneath, spreading its jagged limbs in praise to him, its creator. He brushes its leaves, allows its bristles to graze and nuzzle between his fingers, the mounds of his knuckles. He hears the high frequency at which it chitters its pleasure to be alive because, even here, it is grateful for the chance.

And then he tears it up, root and all.

The truth is he has only ever been able to create weeds.

“Would you like me to dispose of that for you, sir?” Enoch... Continue →

To Call My Own

by Jessica Cho in Issue Nine, June 2023

I was nineteen when the first holes appeared, just on the cusp between thinking I knew everything and realising I knew nothing. Walking home from work with Mellie, we turned onto Chestnut Street and found our path blocked by a crowd of people.

“Sinkholes,” a woman was saying. “Like the ones in Guatemala.”

“Nah.” This from a man with a small child at his side, gripping his hand tightly. “Burrows. We used to see this kinda thing when I worked out west. Them critters’ll burrow the ground right out from under you.”

“It’s the damn city, that’s what,” said an older man.... Continue →