I’d overslept that morning and had run from the house with wet hair and an outfit only one oatmeal-colored cardigan away from being everyone’s mental image of librarian-chic. My mad dash screeched to a halt only a few miles down the highway. And now I sat, trying not to let my frustration at the stalled hover-carts bobbing all around get the best of me. Somewhere up ahead, the dwarves had…
Faery Tale
Within the Castle Walls
Beauty could no longer remember how long she had lived in the Beast’s castle. It had been late winter when she came; she was sure of that, for it had [...]
After the Lake
“Do you believe in ghosts, Gram?”
“Why, child?” The old woman looked up from her knitting in the sun. “Spirits troubling you?”
“I don’t know.” Rue tucked her legs up under her, [...]
The Dragon’s Breath Seed
In the province of Henan in China, a long time ago, there lived a kindhearted baker named Shen. From baskets full of golden eggs, dusty bags of flour, and glittering [...]
Diminishing Returns
It all started with three beans. Three little beans, dark brown with white speckled spots. Three little beans, simple enough in form and function, but what a function! Who knew [...]
A Man Needs a Reason
Lorcan raised his red right hand as the young man stumbled down the dusty road. “I canna let ye pass, lad.”
The man—cheeks gaunt, eyes sunken—stopped. “I have no quarrel with [...]
Absence
It had been two weeks since the wailing wind blew through the tiny island town, slamming the shutters against the worn brick and rattling the floorboards of the rickety porch. [...]
The Road to Ever After
Once upon a
Time again. Coachman hears one of Folk calling, rises up out of pondwater, falls down from moonlight, makes use of rat or toad or whatever dark, secret creature [...]
Ivory Tower
The white stone tower stood on the edge of open moorland at the head of a green valley full of birch and pine. A tiny stream cut its way out [...]
The Tale of the Scorpion Prince
The desert has a way of holding you.
The sands are treacherous, each a little weight bound to my ankles with cords of stratus clouds and cactus needles. They cling to [...]
As It Happens In Such Stories
Once upon a time, not very long ago but in a place far removed from our own, there lived a family with an eldest daughter. This family lived in a [...]