They broke through the jungle canopy at midmorning, damp with sweat and soft declarations of wonder. The jungle made everything softer. The air, the light. Even thoughts, if left untethered long enough. The air was thick with that sweet, vegetal stillness that only comes miles from roads, wires, and clocks. Every breath tasted green.
Continue reading “Aeris by Zachary Schwartz”
Growing up as a Nigerian meant that your parents filled your head with all sorts of supernatural phenomena. When we were children, my mother would tell us these euphoric stories, a lot of which kept us up all night, like they kept a lot of other kids around us up at night as they too were being told these stories in their own homes.
Continue reading “The Monster at the end of this Tale by Mohammed Babajide Mohammed”
No one can understand why Elena stays, and neither can I. If it had been me, I’d have left; there are plenty of other Cornish seaside towns to live in. Actually, if I really had climbed those steps and seduced a sixteen-year-old like Elena did, I’d have jumped from the watchtower onto the rocks below. They were discovered in the act by the caretaker, Jim.
Continue reading “Watchtower by Rebecca Klassen”
He hears the call, a long, low wail like a loon calling across the grey water.
The Kelpie is restless. The Kelpie has sat with him on long nights, soothing his hot, teary face with its cool tendrils. Its dark form will creep up on the beach again today, because he has been neglecting it. He’s been with his girlfriend now almost two years to the day, and she’s been the one to sooth his tears, wrap her arms around him when his shoulders shake.
But the Kelpie has been there always. He owes it. It is restless and eternal, vast and unending, a constant low murmur in his ear, like the sea. It is lonely, hungry. So now it calls him back. Calls him to make his choice.
Continue reading “Beach Walk by Phoebe Mullen”
“What can you tell me about Eustace Randolph? What sort of man was he?” I asked as I took out my notebook. Gillian Reynolds, Secretary of the Friends of Eagle House, let her excited smile slip slightly at the corners.
Continue reading “The Photographer’s House by Sarah Jackson”
Though he had spent two years as a ship’s doctor, Naudain had never in his life seen such a storm. The crew had not glimpsed the sky in two days, only dark storm clouds bombarding the sea with rain: a monotony of shadow, broken by thunder and the crawl of lightning.
Continue reading “Unbound, Toward Her Repose by Livia E. De Souza”
I didn’t think I would remember you.
I thought when the world changed I would change with it. And on the outside, at least, I did. Here I am, after all, in my Balenciaga coat and Jimmy Choos, striding along past ranks of fresh-built luxury apartments. Queen of the World. Only I made a mistake, top of my long, lifetime list, because inside I stayed the same. I remember how things were before. I remember every day of your life I was part of.
Bethany Frances Tate. My daughter.
Continue reading “Unfinished Business by Rose Banks”
Eastern B.C.; nestled in the heart of the thick-treed Kootenays; a small, mountain town; winters cause hands to callous, to bleed.
Twenty minutes from town there is a small log home. A child and a lycanthrope live there. She is small, ashen, could disappear into the snow if it weren’t for her dark hair. They once lived with a woman, too. The woman didn’t know what the little girl knows, that the man they lived with turned into something uglier and beastlier when the white moon grew fat.
literally stories 