Stories

Welcome to Issue 22 of Zooscape!

We have to snatch up the moments of happiness we can find, even when our lives are burning down around us.  Even if you’re a haunted house, maybe you can still make room inside yourself to host something better — something warm and fuzzy with a beating heart — before you go up in flames.  So, here are a few bright points of light, a few warmly beating hearts to cheer you on these endlessly strange days.

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A Colony of Vampires by Beth Dawkins

The Wolf, the Fox, and the Ring by Mocha Cookie Crumble

The Way the Light Tangles by Emmie Christie

Heron Went a’ Courting by Margot Spronk

The Pest in Golden Gate Park by Katlina Sommerberg

Where Life Resides by Patricia Miller

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As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.  Also, you can pick up e-book or paperback volumes of our first 13 issues bundled into four anthologies, complete with an illustration for every story.  The fifth volume will come out soon!

by Patricia Miller

“She was only a bat. She could not light a match. She could not douse me with gasoline.”

“This wasn’t my fault.” I say it and mean it. “It is as honest an answer as anyone can expect, and it is true.”

She listened with a seriousness I had come to expect from her. She was the matriarch of her clan, with a keen ear for details and an iron grip on the hundreds which made up the colony under my eaves. Countless generations of her kind had filled my dark cavities and were my only regular occupants, if just during the months they weren’t hibernating.

I had not planned to burden her with this, but the bright sunlight of the early spring day had given way to a night sky filled with flashing red lights and loud sirens. Most of the colony sought refuge in the dark midnight blueness of the neighboring fields, but she had returned after feeding and joined me to ask after my well-being. Her concern was welcome, her friendship treasured, and so I unburdened myself to my only friend.

I had done nothing to cause the calamity which overtook the house party. Indeed, I had done all I could to make it a success.

The rooms were airy, bright, and never smelled of anything but the gentlest hint of vanilla. The chimneys were well-cleaned with working flues to keep out unexpected pests and ill winds. The shutters didn’t rattle in the night; the floors and stairs didn’t creak and jolt anyone out of a peaceful slumber. The electricity hadn’t cycled off in the middle of a tense conversation. No odd drafts whistled around doors or through long hallways to cause a frisson of dread amongst my ten guests. The pipes didn’t bang and echo in shadowed bathrooms, and they provided only the freshest of water; never running rusty or bloody or rank. I had made certain the gardens were in full bloom, with no windblown branches to create any stumbles or provide any weaponry.

“And in spite of that, four people are dead, two more are missing, and the poodles have run away from the carnage so far and so quickly they are probably two counties over. I can find no trace of the missing couple. They have not left through the locked windows or doors, and neither is slender enough to use the old coal shaft. I must therefore assume they are simply bodies not yet discovered.”

The handful of guests who remained held at least one murderer in their midst. I knew who it was, and while it wasn’t the obvious suspect – it never is – it was her lover. At this point it no longer mattered, for I was no longer interested in that. I just wanted to know why.

Why did this happen and why this weekend? Why are four dead people stretched out in my icehouse? Why the elaborate setup, like something out of a Buster Keaton film, just to hit someone over the head? There are easier ways to crush a cranium than by rigging up a set of encyclopedias, a badminton net, three croquet mallets, and a life jacket.

“I don’t even own a croquet set! Don’t people just poison other people anymore?” I muttered.

So by my count, six deaths this weekend. Because let’s face it, those other two will turn up in some odd and utterly bizarre bit of cabinetry brought in by the rental agent who furnished the house for the week-long reunion. There was probably a magician’s chest with hidden compartments or a pool table with a false bottom or something which will only reveal their remains once hounds are brought in to trace the stench.

The three-hundred year old oak timbers which make up my frame shuddered, just a bit. I didn’t groan – I had too much pride to resort to that trope – but I’d had enough. I could trace my roots, quite literally, back to the ancient oaks; majestic, prideful, filled with life and sacred to those who knew them. I was felled and turned into this dwelling fifty years before the first shots were fired at Lexington and Concord. By the time those musket balls flew, five of my occupants had died before their time.

In the succeeding years the count grew: hangings, drownings, poisons, more guns, smoke inhalation, suffocation, a few strings stretched taut along a staircase, and numerous skulls bashed with candlesticks, a poker, and six years later, the shovel from the same set of fireplace tools.

“I’m not certain you can claim someone was defenestrated if they were thrown in a window or through the glass skylight over the ballroom, to be precise. Name a method of death, however bizarre, and I guarantee it has happened here. The death toll has reached 238 by my reckoning.”

Only twenty-three were actually considered murder by the authorities. The others they had classified as suicides, natural causes, and one highly unlikely accidental piercing of the liver by a broken pool cue which permanently stained my library floors and resulted in the installation of wall to wall carpet in a truly unfortunate shade of oatmeal. I suppose the color and commercial grade was the economical option since it had been selected twice more after other unfortunate events.

The matriarch listened patiently to my long recital, her black ears swiveling ever so slightly at my rumbles. She was nestled in a dark corner of my attic, behind a chimney which serviced a no longer used kitchen fireplace. The colony of Large Brown Bats had been driven from their other homes through fear and ignorance and had been seeking a winter shelter when they first entered my eaves. The colony and I reached an arrangement once the first matriarch overcame her surprise at holding a conversation with a former tree demanding to know what she and her children were doing in my attics.

The bats kept me free of beetles and termites, and I provided a safe harbor. They never fouled the air or floors. No trace of them was seen on the extremely rare occasions an occupant ventured into the oddly shadowed rooms. I protected her and the mothers who preceded her, and I would go on protecting the ones who followed. We had an understanding, she and I. We often spoke of the dark of night, the warmth of summer days, the encroachment of people and insecticides.

I didn’t want to bring death into our conversation, but I thought perhaps she might have seen something to explain what happened to me over and over again. She was wise and knew my bones well, not like the many charlatans the house’s human occupants had dragged over my timbers in the past; phonies and hacks who had attempted to connect with the spirits, cleanse auras, untangle ley lines, and banish the demons said to possess me. I wasn’t possessed. I wasn’t erected over a forgotten cemetery or battlefield or pagan altar. None of the 238 untimely deaths left spirits behind either.

“You have had a long, sorrowful time,” she said.

“A sorrowful time. I wanted to be a good house, a home. I wanted to be filled with joy and love, for what better hope can any tree have if they are not to live out their days under the Great Green Sky?”

“Green? The sky is blue, for I fly on its currents and eddies and know its every hue.”

“Air is blue, but the Great Green Sky, the Canopy of All, is lush and filled with life. Why would anyone wish to look overhead into empty air when they could exist under life itself? Had I been granted my full span, I would have taken my place amongst my brethren to shelter and nourish in turn. I would have gladly sheltered you and yours.”

“We would have relished that.” She hesitated then, and I understood she did indeed know something.

“I heard your current owner speaking with the others outside. He wants you dismantled. He plans to strip your fittings, moldings, copper pipes, windows, anything of value and sell them off to restoration and salvage companies. There’s a custom cabinet maker interested in your framing and timbers.”

“No! No! For I do not know how much or what part of me carries the curse!” And it must be a curse which burdens me so, although I do not know where or when it had been laid, or by who.

“Do you believe it could spread, then?” She was so kind and gentle with her questions.

“Can you promise me it will not?”

“I cannot.” I thought she cared. If she didn’t, she was a good enough actor to make me believe she did.

“Then I wish someone could consign me to the flames instead of the hammer. Let me burn.”

“Fire? Won’t that hurt – I mean, won’t that–” The shudder which coursed through her tiny frame made her opinion of fire obvious – most animals fear the flame.

“I have been violently sheared from my roots. I was split, planed, sawed, sanded, stained, painted, and polished. What could be more painful than that? All trees succumb to fire eventually. Fire or decay. In either case, it is a natural thing. Let me burn.”

She gave me no answer, but I could tell she was considering her options.

* * *

She was only a bat. She could not light a match. She could not douse me with gasoline. She could not short out my electrical panel or leave the gas valve open. She did, however, understand the smells and touch of a line of thunderstorms making their way down the eastern slope of the Taconic Mountains and their impending sweep toward western Massachusetts.

She summoned the colony and put them to work. They swarmed the roof, crowded along the pinnacle and swung, clawed, bit, pulled at an innocuous bit of wire trailing down the cupola, the valley flashing, and the exterior wall to a metal stake in the ground. They pounded at the weathervane and the copper spike on which it rotated. Their combined efforts bent it perpendicular to the roof, then knocked it well below the ridgeline.

She kept me company while her brood worked, and then called them to her side when the task was completed as best they could.

“I don’t know if we’ve done enough,” she said.

“You’ve done what you can. You always have.”

“You’ve given us shelter and for that we thank you.”

“At least I’ve been a home of sorts then.” We both knew that however much I’d enjoyed being of service, it hadn’t been enough. My primary function had never been fulfilled.

“Where will you go?” I asked.

“There is a new forest, a preserve to the south and east toward the rising sun. I suppose they have recognized their folly at last. They have returned those and other lands back to good green places.”

Oh, how I envied her. To see such lands restored to a time before their arrival. To see a newly born canopy. No wish of mine would see me there. “May a safe passage await you and yours. My thanks to you all.”

* * *

The wondrous storm reached me on a moonlit night. When one of its bolts struck my unprotected roof and decorative railings, Nature’s full fury was unleashed upon me and had nowhere else to go. Heat cascaded through my old bones, along the ridge cap and beams and studs. The flames started as small flickers in isolated corners, grew, merged into hot spots, finally joined into one single overwhelming conflagration. The rain which accompanied the thunder had no chance at all of containing it.

It was a searing, soaring heat, and I found such release in that. There were so few happy memories to recall of my days as a house (never a home), but I reached back through the rings of my seasons. I had memories of my leaves turning from bud to green to brown until they fell to blanket and nourish the forest beneath my roots. I remembered the chill of winter snow and the sun warming me until my sap ran free.

I gave thought to the many birds who had once nested within my branches, the other creatures who fed themselves and their young on my acorns. Some of those acorns became seedlings. Perhaps a few survived. I hoped so, for they would be my only lasting legacy. I will never take my place as part of the Canopy of All. Still, I will no longer be a vehicle for sadness and death. I gave myself up to the flame.

The fire consumed me. My roof timbers gave way first, and the weight of tiles and brick chimneys crashed through the attic floor, the servants’ quarters below, then all the way through to the cellars. Window panes shattered from the heat – the great expanse of the ballroom skylight refracted a million tongues of flame in a splintering rain. I heard sirens in the distance. They would not reach me in time to make a difference.

The rain stopped. The fire didn’t. It burned white hot. The air around me ionized and steamed. Old paper insulation could not stop superheated air driving smoke and embers inside my remaining interior walls. Timbers exploded, electric cabled arced, gas lines ruptured.

All that I ever was had been reduced to ash.

And then the wind changed direction. It blew hard to the south and east. A few sparks crackled though they did not travel far on the damp ground.

But I did.

I took flight in the wind amidst the smoke and the heat, following the colony’s path until I finally reached the reborn forest. I joined it the only way I could.

I fed my ashes to the Great Green Sky.

 

* * *

About the Author

Patricia Miller is a US Navy veteran, sixth of ten kids born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio and currently living in Wisconsin, Land of Cheese. She holds a BS in Education, an MS in Library Science. Patricia started reading at 3 1/2 after becoming obsessed with Batman and is hooked on QI, British murder villages, and professional cycling. She is a weaver, quilter, raiser of roses, and maker. Patricia is on the spectrum and considers that as an asset to her writing.

Patricia is a member of SFWA and CODEX and writes science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her publications include short fiction in numerous anthologies, Metastellar, Wyngraf, and Cinnabar Moth Literary Collections with upcoming short stories for Dastardly Damsels, 99 Fleeting Fantasies, and Stupefying Stories. She is currently in the query trenches with a middle grade ghost story

A complete listing of stories, occasional blog entries, and more info about Patricia can be found on her website at: https://trishmillerwrites.com

by Katlina Sommerberg

“…this is no ordinary catch, yet the sticky lines hold.”

In the branches of a lonely redwood tree, hidden amongst the flowering cones, Bitsy’s web quakes from an impact.

Hanging by a thread, the orb-weaver calculates her prey’s location from its vibrations. Her web shakes violently; this is no ordinary catch, yet the sticky lines hold.

The prey’s exoskeleton glimmers like an iridescent dragonfly. Its body is one section — missing the thorax — with four circular wings composed of blades.

When the vibrations stop, Bitsy’s palps reach for the not-insect’s shell.

Its bladed wings buzz to life and sever structural threads.

Bitsy jumps, lands on fallen needles upon the forest floor. She abandons her web to the microdrone.

 

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About the Author

Katlina Sommerberg is living xyr best queer life in a menagerie of stuffed animals. Previously a security researcher, xe burned out and quit. So far, xe hasn’t followed xyr grandfather’s footsteps by disappearing into the mountains, but xe is always tempted. Xyr work has previously appeared in Zooscape, DecodedPride, and other places. https://sommerbergssf.carrd.co/#

by Margot Spronk

“This was not the meet-cute she’d hoped for, but he had brought an awesome present.”

1. 1. The Courting

Gwyn sank into a Downward Dog, extending her claws to deepen the stretch, unfortunately slashing her purple yoga mat, and not for the first time. Her previously even breathing stuttered, as her feline brain popped up an errant thought: why wasn’t this pose named the Downward Cat? No dog could bow their spines until their elbows touched the ground like a cat could. Maybe a dachshund — but that would look ridiculous. Gwyn giggled, exposing her canines, then snapped her jaws shut.

Always…dogs. Never cats.

She shuffled her hind legs closer to her front paws and lifted her knees onto her elbows, precariously assuming the Crane Position. She balanced for a second, then dropped one foot back to the ground, hissing at the strain.

If it wasn’t dogs, it was cranes.

Wasn’t a heron the same as a crane?

Her whiskers twitched. Maybe yoga wasn’t for her after all. She flopped down into what she liked to call the Lambchop Pose — one leg pointing straight up — and licked her white furred belly with long, raspy strokes while intermittently staring out the living room’s French doors at the front yard.

Outside, rain had slicked a shine onto the green lawn, brightening the overcast early spring morning. Beyond the grass, a clump of alders stretched their bare grey limbs upward. Tiny spheres of water clinging to the furled buds that tipped the branches glinted like diamonds against a pearlescent sky. Below the interlocking alder boughs a great blue heron stood, still and silent, his long sharp beak pointed at the ground.

Gwyn’s pink paw pads broke out in sweat.

Was he coming here already? Stopping to hunt a vole on the way like a human suitor would stop to pick a bouquet of wildflowers for his sweetheart?

His beak struck the ground, neck stretched then springing back into its ‘S’ shaped resting state — a grey blob wedged between his upper and lower beaks as if it was a piece of sashimi clasped by two chopsticks. It wriggled and Gwyn involuntarily salivated. She imagined a shrill squeak and almost had to visit the litter box in her excitement.

Reiher strolled through the grass toward the glass doors, neck bobbing, head steady as if it were balanced on gimbals. His yellow eyes fixated on Gwyn, as if she too were prey.

Which… she supposed, she was.

Her Russian blue great aunt slunk into the room. Either she’d seen Reiher transiting the lawn, or she’d been expecting him. (If Gwyn had known the heron was coming, she would’ve gone to the 11 a.m. yoga class in town instead of setting up her mat in the living room and giving him an inadvertent show).

Auntie bounded to the door, a ghostly streak of gray, rushing to let the heron in before Gwyn did something foolhardy.

But Gwyn hadn’t even thought about locking Reiher out. Her attention was fixated on the furry bundle firmly clasped in his beak.

It smelled of iron and petrichor and looked plump and tasty.

Reiher strode across the threshold and dropped the vole in front of her. Gwyn thanked him while licking away some drool. He nodded — he wasn’t much of a conversationalist. She’d noticed that about herons before — their extreme and endless comfort with silence. And staring. Always the staring.

Auntie left to give the lovebirds a little privacy.

Love… birds?

Why not love-cats?

Gwyn recognized she had become a burden. At eight months she’d already put her thoroughly menopaused and fastidious great aunt through two estrus cycles. Twice Gwyn had rubbed, rolled and shed reefs of white fur while yowling affectionately at anyone who looked her way. She shuddered. So embarrassing. How did cats manage before vacuum cleaners were invented? Her elderly guardian was understandably anxious to ensure her next heat was someone else’s responsibility. Reiher was an upstanding member of the community. An expert hunter. And… Auntie was always talking up his plumy blue fronds and sexy white ruff.

Gwyn had to admit he was just as gorgeous as advertised.

Gwyn vowed to at least give him a chance. It wasn’t as if suitors grew on trees or were beating a path to her door. Reiher had been hatched “in” a tree, and he had just stalked to her door, so that had to count for something.

Reiher assumed his resting pose — totally motionless, one baleful eye turned toward Gwyn’s mouth.

Did he want the vole back?

Or was he fascinated by her sharp teeth?

This was not the meet-cute she’d hoped for, but he had brought an awesome present. She ripped out the rodent’s belly like the predator she was, wolfing down chunks of slimy organ and chewy muscle.

Wolfing?

Something clunked against her back molar. It wasn’t a vole bone as they were thin, flexible and perfectly edible. This felt pointed, impervious, like it might chafe her throat and abrade her intestines as it moved through her digestive tract. Spontaneously, she horked it up.

A gold ring, set with a moderately-sized solitaire diamond, dropped onto the carpet coated in a stinky bile soup speckled with bone shards.

Well.

That was done.

They were engaged.

2.  The Wedding

Gwyn tried to convince Auntie that she would’ve looked better in black, as the white silk of her wedding dress against her white fur was not a good look.

Also black would’ve suited her mood better, which surely Auntie knew but wouldn’t acknowledge. Gwyn sighed.

She slid a manicured claw under the dress’s delicate accordion neckline. Confining as a dog collar. Cats weren’t known for their patience, and Gwyn was no exception. She wished she could play the Chatte App on her tablet while waiting for the ceremony to start. Pounce on a few fish, squash some cockroaches and chase a laser pointer. But a few weeks ago, when she’d tried to include Reiher in the game, he’d cracked the glass screen with his beak. After the second time it happened, the person at the other end of her extended warranty’s 1-800 number denied her claim.

There was nothing to do but prowl back and forth. She peeked through the curtain into the nave of the church. Everyone who was anyone was there. Van Varken the heritage hog, accompanied by a passel of piglets — all rumored to be killing the computer science program at MIT. Paard the Carter — she’d parleyed her one-horse business into a major transportation conglomerate. Lapin Konijn, the porn star who apparently had a very large… hind foot, and Cuervo the crow, who’d made billions mining silver and gold and topped the Forbes 30 under 30 list five years in a row. Considering his entrepreneurial prowess, and that a crow’s lifespan maxes out at thirty, he was likely to be ineligible due to death well before he aged out. His sister Vorona, who was said (in whispers) to be a highly paid assassin and spy for hire, sat to his right. To his left, his trans-species mate, Raaf Raven, who was a social influencer famous for running Instagram scavenger hunts, took a selfie.

Gwyn’s abundant cousins were there, sprawled over the pews in a slinky riot of white, black, and marmalade. On Reiher’s side of the aisle, his Avian relatives loomed over everyone mammalian. Cranes, egrets, lesser herons, and a notorious Pelican bookie who kept betting slips in his beak.

It was a zoo out there. Fidgeting kittens and squirming chicks, startled colts and squealing leverets. And it smelled funky, like a barn on a hot day. No one had thought to bedeck the hall with fragrant flowers — half of the guests would have assumed they were part of the wedding buffet, anyway.

When the first plaintive notes of Saint Saëns “March of the Lions” rang out, Gwyn strolled down the aisle, her aunt preceding her (dressed in an aqua green satin gown that flattered her feline shape and blue-gray coloring). Reiher waited for her at the altar, following her progress with a piercing intensity.

Well.

That was done.

They were married.

3.  The Marriage

When you get right down to it, Gwyn and Reiher did have a lot in common. Both were somewhat nocturnal, with a fondness for voles, trout, and frogs. Both tracked their prey silently, then swiftly pounced — Reiher with his razor-sharp beak, and Gwyn with the whetted talons sheathed in her white paws.

Neither was very talkative — as much as Gwyn complained about the utter taciturnity of her husband, she was equally guilty. Neither of them liked peas. Reiher because they were so difficult to hold in his beak, and Gwyn because they tasted like fresh hay and hay was for ungulates.

But there were points of contention. Reiher complained that Gwyn was always sleeping. Gwyn countered with Reiher’s habit of ending an argument by becoming airborne. Reiher thought that Gwyn’s Cheshire smiles were insincere. Gwyn would’ve appreciated even the tiniest twinge of expression on her husband’s face.

Were they happy? The expression, “two cats in a sack” applied here, even if one of the cats was a bird. There was a lot of friction.

And due to the trans-species nature of their relationship, children were out of the question. They could adopt, Gwyn suggested. An abandoned puppy, perhaps? Maybe a dachshund so that she could laugh at his attempts at a Downward Dog?

But Reiher said no. He just couldn’t relate to an animal longer than they were tall, covered in fur and liveborn. Reiher really wanted to sit on a clutch of eggs.

Gwyn was not having feathers. How could she possibly groom her baby without tearing out the quills and shredding the downy barbs with her sandpaper tongue? Besides, baby birds were… tasty.

It was a stalemate.

Grooming was not negotiable.

Eggs were not negotiable.

They contemplated foreign adoption, but apparently, Australian platypus were decent parents, and very few of the monotremes ever came up.

Besides, platypuses loved swimming underwater. How could a cat mom supervise that? Dad-heron’s only method of corralling a diving platypus baby would be to stab them with his beak.

Why won’t you accept a baby bird asked Reiher?

Why won’t you accept a puppy said Gwyn?

As was typical, Reiher flew off with a great thumping of his huge wings, and Gwyn curled into a ball in front of the fireplace and closed her eyes.

Their divorce was granted on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. If you asked anyone who’d been in the church on the day of their wedding, they’d say they’d always known it wouldn’t last.

Gwyn and Reiher were too, too different.

Auntie didn’t seem too disturbed when Gwyn interrupted her Grecian holiday with the news — although that could be because she was too busy partying with her wild Santorini relatives.

Well.

That was done.

They were divorced.

 

* * *

About the Author

Margot Spronk (they, them) is a retired air traffic controller who finds writing to be just as stressful but less life-threatening. They graduated Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio in 2015 (Southbank 2014) and have previously been published in Pulp Literature. In real life, Margot is owned by Lucas the cat (AKA Agent Orange) and Remy the 80-pound doodle, who both rightly assume they are the center of the universe.

by Emmie Christie

“The tixi grew on the couch to the size of a human, and its fur fluffed even more, its softness enveloping him, gathering around him like wings, reaching for what jumbled up inside him, the tangled memories.”

When Jan reached four years into sixty, his daughter and her son flew off into the glorious first exploration past the Milky Way to somewhere called Z-1.

He waved them off like someone in Victorian England would’ve waved off a ship headed to the New World, smiling with cracked lips, his stomach riddled with resentment. He plodded home and stared down a bottle of scotch. The bottle won.

Drunk, he studied the way of things. The way the old wooden fence withered in the bracing space winds, those that had descended on Earth hungering for trees and mountains. He studied the way the light tangled like necklaces through the trees, much too jumbled to ever wear again.

His neighbors had long since edged closer to the urban center, the pillar dedicated to the rockets, hoping that proximity meant waiting list quality. Harjit dropped by every Monday at four to deliver groceries and a pitying smile, and Jan glared at him until the young caretaker left.

When the scotch wore off, he studied the way the rain grated against his window, like a visitor who didn’t understand the social cue of what slapping your knee meant in a conversation, accompanied by ‘well,’ and ‘it’s been fun.’ He closed the curtains. Why couldn’t they all just leave him alone?

The groceries Harjit had left — fresh fruit and asparagus from R-4, and some strange new pasta they’d grown on C-13 — waited and wasted in the fridge. He ate alcohol and beans. From Earth.

The ‘letter’ arrived a month after the expedition had left, scrolling large-sized text on his wall. “We’ve settled, Dad. It’s so great here. For us, only a few days! We wrote as soon as we could.”

“That’s great, Maddy,” he wrote back, tapping on his phone.

“Have you tried to get on any planet waiting lists?” Upbeat. Positive tones, but with underlying worry.

“Why should I? It’s not like the Earth’s going to die in my lifetime.”

“Dad—”

“I’m fine here. Really.” He studied the way the words from his daughter curled around the end table, arching into geometry.

“Well, we’ve sent you a gift.”

“I don’t want a—”

Something hurtled through the wall, something wrapped in fur and energy. It landed on his couch and opened wide eyes set in a furry face.

“Oh, hell no!”

“I think you mean hell-o!” The thing — it reminded him a fox with taloned feet — wrapped its obnoxious, fluffy tail around his leg.

A tixi. Great. These things proliferated on several planets. People obsessed over them just because they could talk.

“Maddy, baby, I don’t need a pet.” Jan extricated his leg from the thing and jabbed at his phone. “I’ve had enough of them over the years when you wouldn’t walk the dogs.”

“She’s not a pet. You’ve heard of them, right? There’s lots of them here on Z-1. They’re really helpful.” A pause. “Well, gotta go. Talk to you later!” The scroll flicked off on his wall.

“I didn’t ask for you.” Jan glared at the thing. Then at the wall, where the words had disappeared.

The tixi lifted its talon and poked at the air as if lecturing in a college classroom. It spoke with a trill behind every word. “I go where I am needed.”

Great. It would shed everywhere. He stomped off to the TV room. “Stay there! I’mma pass you off to Harjit when he comes on Monday, so don’t get too comfortable.”

The tixi lay at the foot of his bed the next morning. And then on his feet the next, creating a pocket of warmth after the chill night when the space winds had roared, and the rain grated on his windows. It had grown a bit in the night to the size of a big dog, but it shrank back down when it hopped off the bed and followed him into the bathroom. The creature didn’t shed at all, at least it had that going for it.

Harjit came and went, lecturing Jan to eat his vegetables. “Ah, you got a tixi! That’s a great idea.” The young man scanned the countertops, hands on his hips. “Good job keeping the place clean. Here, I got something for you. It’s from Y-12.”

The white plant curled in a sinister way, like a mustache on an evil Santa or something, and Jan shoved it to the back of the counter away from the light. The tixi watched him.

Dang it! He’d forgotten to give the creature to Harjit. Oh, well. He could do it next Monday.

That Sunday night, the tixi asked, “So, what do you do for fun around here on the old Earth?”

“Nothing, if you’re also old.” Jan popped the cork on another scotch. “Sit and wait around for groceries that we don’t eat.”

The creature nibbled at a talon, then brought in the paper and did the crossword. It puzzled for a while over a clue. “Alright, help me out here,” it said. “Red bird. Eight letters.”

“I didn’t ask to play.”

“What else are you gonna do? Red bird, come on. This one is supposed to be easy for humans.” The tixi sidled up to him on the couch, brushing its soft, glossy side against his hand. It grew a little bit, its fur fluffing out like it had dried itself on a heating vent.

He sighed but allowed it to stay next to him. “Cardinal?”

“Nice. That fits. Okay, what about this one. Six letters, the clue is ‘knot.’”

Jan almost said it, then his tongue tripped over the word, and his breath lodged in his throat. He reached for the tixie’s fur and buried his face in it.

The tixi grew on the couch to the size of a human, and its fur fluffed even more, its softness enveloping him, gathering around him like wings, reaching for what jumbled up inside him, the tangled memories.

Maddy, in her prom dress. His little girl, ready to leave for the big girl dance, bright-eyed and bright hoped. Grace would’ve known what to do, but he didn’t even know what to do with his hands. Had they always been so long and dangly?

She smiled at him and pressed a necklace in his palm. Giving him something to do, to fidget with while she got ready. “I’ll be alright, Daddy. Here, can you untangle this knot for me?”

He stayed for a moment in that moment, in that precious second that glimmered in his mind.

“Damn you!” He ripped away from the tixi, panting, fists clenched.

“Is something wrong?” Its growth paused. It still resembled a fox with those ears, but its fur had splayed out like an eagle’s giant wings. “Your eyes requested comforting, did they not?”

He staggered, dropping the scotch bottle on the carpet. It bled pale yellow on the carpet. First Grace had died, then Maddy had taken her son to space. They’d all gone so far away.

“Earth-man?” The tixi brushed a wing against his arm. “Are you well?”

“Does it look like I’m well? You damn well did this to me!”

“Should I alert a doctor?”

He sank into the couch cushion and covered his eyes. Tears slid between his fingers. “Just clean that up, would you? Can you do that at least?”

He fell asleep on the couch and woke up warm. Well, the tixi had slept on him. He grimaced, heaved the creature off — it had shrunk back again to normal fox-size — and lumbered to the kitchen to make coffee. The stain from the spilled scotch had vanished. “At least you’re good for something,” Jan said.

The strange plant from Y-12 that Harjit had brought seemed different somehow. It curled up like a swan’s neck, not sinister at all, but graceful and fluid. He pulled it out of the dark part of the counter, into the light.

He poured his coffee and huddled outside. The tixi preened next to him, tail curled around her talons.

The way the light tangled in the branches’ shadows…

He growled. Tears dripped down his cheeks, a few dripped into his coffee. He glared at the tixi. “Alright. What the hell did you do to me? Did you slip me some stupid pill?”

“We tixies specialize in comfort. You had a coating of pain over your eyes, and it seems that is now gone.”

He had heard the stories but had never believed them. “That’s a load of hippie space-trash.”

He trudged inside the house and reached for a vodka this time, something more potent that looked like water. He could drink more that way, pretending.

But the bottle had a wrongness to it; it bulged in a way that repulsed him. He slammed it back down and whirled on the tixi. “This is ridiculous. I didn’t ask for this — this difference in my eyes! I just hugged you!”

The tixi promenaded through the door and draped her tail around her talons. When had he started thinking of it as a she? “Cleaning and comforting are the same to us tixies and produce the same results. I cleaned the alcohol out of the carpet by comforting the floor, you know.”

“Bullshit! This is such bullshit! How dare she do this!” He grabbed the bottle of vodka, gripping it through the anger. Upended it in his mouth, forced himself to swallow.

It tasted like piss. Well, it always had, but for some reason, now it bothered him, and it bothered him that it bothered him.

What, he couldn’t even drink anymore? Maddie had stolen that from him, too?

Sober, he decided to cook some food. Harjit hadn’t come with a new batch yet this morning, and mold grew on some of the strawberries, but he could still use that C-13 pasta. He ate some of that with alfredo sauce, and it tasted good.

He hated that it tasted good.

He hated the way the fence outside made him want to fix it instead of letting it rot. He hated that he had dragged that stupid white plant into the sunlight on the counter. He hated the way that the leaves played in the space-winds, laughing and twirling like children. He hated the way Maddy had held her son’s hand and waved to him with the other, as if she could have both — even when she was the one who had left. He hated the way— hated—

He cried.

He loved her. He missed her. But he wanted her to be happy.

The tixi wrapped her tail around his feet. He allowed it.

“Guess you’re not really a pet,” he managed to say. “And you clean things pretty well.” He held out his hand. “You can stay, if you want.”

The tixi wrapped her talon around his hand and shook it. “I stay where I am needed.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Emmie Christie’s work includes practical subjects, like feminism and mental health, and speculative subjects, like unicorns and affordable healthcare. She has been published in various short story markets including Daily Science Fiction, Infinite Worlds Magazine, and Flash Fiction Online. She graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2013. You can find her at www.emmiechristie.com or on Twitter @EmmieChristie33.

by Mocha Cookie Crumble

“Now that the moment was here, everything seemed so simple.”

The restaurant Koda had chosen was beautiful — seating along the water, with fairy lights sparkling overhead and a rose on each table. With the sun setting over the ocean, casting a warm light over the earth, it was as romantic as you could get. So why was he so nervous? He resisted the urge to slick his soft ears back, instead facing them forward as he spotted Lilian.

Oh, she was beautiful, never more so than tonight. Her fur was sleek and orange, her tail fluffy and swaying as she walked. A tight black dress hugged her hips. The sunset played up the pink-red tones of her eyes. As soon as she saw Koda, though, she lit up like a beam of light and dashed over, nearly colliding with a waiter.

“I can’t believe we’ve been together a year!” she cried. Her paws did little tippy-taps on the edge of the table.

“Hello to you, too,” Koda said, laughing.

“A whole year. Feels like it was only a couple weeks ago that I poured soup in your lap.” Koda started to speak, but she was too excited and went on: “I got you a present!”

Koda grinned. “I, uh, I got you something, too,” he said. “Something small.” Very small. He could feel the weight of it pressing against his chest pocket.

“Mine first,” Lilian said. She presented a clumsily-wrapped box, about the size of a loaf of bread, with a big grin. “Open it, open it!”

“I’m getting there, slow down,” Koda said, laughing again as he ripped the paper. Since the start, she’d made it so easy for him to laugh, and it had never worn off. He reached into the box and pulled out… a plush cat.

It was covered in patches. The ears were new, the paw pads fresh, one of the eyes replaced with a shiny button. Koda’s hands trembled, and his eyes filled up with tears. “Mister—M-Mister—” He couldn’t get the words out, so he gestured tearfully.

Lilian beamed. “Your mom found him in a box in the attic,” she said. “I’ve been fixing him up for months now — it’s been so hard not to tell you! Good as new, right?”

Koda wiped his eyes and hugged Mister Softie close to his chest. The weight in his pocket was practically burning him. “Thank you so much, baby,” he said, leaning over the table to kiss her. “Do you— do you want yours now?”

“Yes! Yes, please,” she said, doing little tip-taps again. God, he loved those tip-taps.

Oh, god, this was it — this was the moment. He put Mister Softie down on the table and stood up, his ears flicking against his will. His heart pounded. He pushed his chair out of the way.

Lilian cocked her head. “What are you doing? Why—”

He got down on one knee.

“Oh my god,” she said, her eyes widening. “Oh my god, oh my god!! Are you proposing? Are you— I love you! I say yes!”

Koda couldn’t help but laugh again, and she giggled with excitement. “Baby, I haven’t even gotten the ring out,” he said.

“I know, it doesn’t matter, I say yes,” she said with a grin. “Sorry. Sorry, we should do it properly. Okay, go, you can start now.”

His hands were so much steadier now as he pulled out the box and opened it. A sapphire set in a silver band glinted up at Lilian, who put a paw over her mouth. Koda had practiced this moment a thousand times. Would he say her full name? Go on about how the last year meant so much to him? Talk about the best parts of her? Now that the moment was here, everything seemed so simple.

“I love you,” he said. “Marry me?”

She dove out of her chair to kiss him, sending them both tumbling to the floor.

 

* * *

About the Author

Why does this author sound like a Starbucks order instead of a person? Because Mocha Cookie Crumble loves the sweetest, coziest things in life! Mocha writes to give everyone a warm place to rest. She enjoys bringing fursonas to life via commissions and often writes outdoors. (Yes, she likes Starbucks. No, she didn’t intend to name herself after a frappuccino… but she has no regrets!)

by Beth Dawkins

“The colony mentions my notes, singing it over and over again, but I do not hear my mother’s song claim me as her daughter. “

My talons pierce the back of a Tsintaosaurus. I roll forward, sinking my fangs into its hide. The blood tastes unlike the sweet, life-giving nectar of yesterday. It is foul and sour with a stench that coats the inside of my nose. I hear a song of discontent from one of my sisters. Another song splits the air. I pull out my fangs, and my mouth tingles. There is a sandy consistency that covers my tongue.

We need the blood. The hungry and the young will die without it. We scream out frustration until I am sure our song will attract the Qianzhousaruses who watch over the Tsintaosaurus herd. Not that they can catch us, they lack wings with only tiny arms.

That does not stop them from murdering members of the herd. We only take sips of blood, leaving the creatures alive for another night.

It is what makes us Jeholopteruses.

A male calls us away. His song is demanding, and I open my arms to the sky, flapping with the others. Sandy blood is gathered in my mouth, and I let it sit, stinging my tongue. My mother’s song joins mine. I hear her flapping beside me. She is unsteady, and her song is hungry. I hear the cry of a sister who is falling, her arms tingling and uncontrolled. Would my wings refuse to work if I had any more of the blood? My heart cries out in a song that joins the colony’s. It pierces the night like the hundreds of stars above us.

“Do not turn back,” my mother sings. “Home, we must go home.” We join her chanting.

We have no blood to share. The young ones will lick it from our chests and mouths, but it won’t be enough.

The cool dark of our home is a frenzy of activity. The others rush to greet their families. My sisters come to us but hesitate when they hear our song.  “Wrong, wrong,” it cries. “The blood is tainted.”

My mother crashes at my side, and there is a sharp stab of pain in her song. I rush over to her as she straightens. One of her wings is hurt. The delicate membrane bleeds, and the little ones gather around the wound, waiting for sips.

“Get away from me,” she snaps at all of us.

“You’re hurt. I can help you,” I say.

“Why are you still here?” she demands, her voice sharp. “I have had enough of you.”

My sisters refuse to look at me. They stare at the floor and the walls, gathering little ones to them. Our father and leader is listening to a wife tell him the story of our hunt.

“Mother—”

“Am I? You are past the age to find your own family. You should fly away while you are strong, or maybe you should die in the day.” Her eyelids hang low, and she allows a few little ones to lick at her wound.

She’s never hinted at disapproval. I’ve always helped to feed the young ones on bad hunting nights, risking my own death in the daylight.

I take a step back, hoping for help from my sisters, but they stand at a distance. Their songs are silent. It is plain that they’re resolute in my mother’s decision to cast me out. Our father ignores what is happening.

I have nowhere to go.

* * *

Sunlight streams through the cave entrance. It is too bright and warm. My song is drowned out by cries of grief for those too weak to live. Suffering surrounds me as I grieve my family. My self-indulgence turns into sorrow that is edged with anger, like a pain in my chest that is echoed by the empty pit of my stomach. I was run out as if I were a brother.

The air is too hot, and the light turns blinding. The taste of bad blood lingers. I could fly into the day, but my limbs are as heavy as stones and I am tired. I climb onto a shelf, sheltering against the sunlight, and there is another body, smaller than me. She is shaking and curled around herself.

This is what happens when we don’t get enough to eat; we die.

“Are you hurt?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer me, but opens her mouth for her song of hunger. I nuzzle her, getting her to cling to my body. Her mouth touches my shoulder. Her fangs sink into my skin, and the pain is nothing but a sharp release of tension.

I close my eyes and run my thumbs through the stranger’s fur. Her fangs let go. She is careful, delicate. None of us is that delicate with the herd, only one another. I huddle against her, and we sleep.

When we wake the light is dim and colony’s song is soft. The melody refuses to rise or fall as our voices melt into one sound. The words of the song say, “I am here,” and “I am alive.”

There is an undercurrent of hope. “We will survive.”

My voice rises to sing about survival. The notes fill the pain in my chest. I had not died in the day. I’d lived.

A female climbs down the shelf and bends her head low to the one still sheltered beside me. “You fed her?”

“Yes,” I answer.

“Thank you.” She crosses the distance between us and wraps her arms around me, and her wings press me tight. “Would you like to hunt with us?”

I take a step back when she releases me. She smells of pine and mud.

“Is she there?” a male asks, climbing down.

I take another step back, but then wonder why I am concerned.

He is small, smaller than me. His hair is lighter and with dark spots by his eyes.

“She shared her food,” explains the female.

The male inspects me. He is their leader, but different from my father. These, I believe, are his wives. He’s young, maybe even younger than me.

The colony is coming awake. The song turns towards grief and hunger. Many died in the day, and now I too need to feed. Fear of the wrong tasting blood is ripe because we all must fly into danger.

“Will you hunt with us?” the female asks.

“Yes, but we must do something different. We can’t keep drinking tainted blood.”

“There are other herds,” the male says.

We can’t look at one another, because the only other herd is too far for our hearts and wings without food. The silence between us stretches into a song of hunger.

“We should watch the herd and find out what has changed,” I offer. They are ours, and maybe we have allowed others to care for our food for too long. “The old song says that we are better than the Qianzhousaurus,” I remind them.

For the first time I will not fly out of our cave with my mother or sisters. Do they miss me? Does my mother regret what she has done? The urge to sing lifts from my chest.

“Let us go,” I say to the others, and then reach for the sky.

* * *

The first dead body I had encountered was a fallen brother. Brothers leave the nest, eager to start families and become leaders. This dead brother fell from our perch before his time and did not get back up.

A few from every nest yearn to fly too early.

His mother stayed by his side, and my mother fed her in the early morning. I remembered his mother’s song and how his eyes stayed open. He smelled of blood, food, and had no song to sing.

We are creatures of song and sky, blood and pain.

I cling to a branch overlooking the herd. They gather by their watering hole while three Qianzhousaurus approach. Their tiny hands run across the herd’s flesh. The herd has lost their fear of the predator’s talons. There is a kind of beauty to the systematic cycle of birth and death between them.

The male at my side sings of life. The song is about only taking what we can use and letting the herd live longer. We are benevolent predators.

Other Qianzhousauruses come; one has something around its neck. They pass it around, spreading it on their tiny hands. It smells sharp, acidic. The Tsintaosauruses cry out in protest but let them rub the powder into their feathers.

Our song changes because we know what it is. “The Qianxhousauruses are trying to poison us,” we sing for those who are coming.

But we don’t have to drink from the herd.

“We drink from the Qianzhousauruses,” I say, my hunger curling in my stomach.

“They will kill us,” says the wife.

I shrug. “Some, but if the colony drinks from the herd many more will die. If we drink from the Qianzhousauruses more will survive longer. They have struck the first blow against us. We have to strike back, and maybe they will realize that we must share the herd.”

Would my mother be proud of my idea? What would she think when she heard our song, would she hear my voice in it? My heart fluttered with hope. She might take me back.

The male at my side is the leader of a new family. Young families had limited time to prove themselves in the colony, and if we pulled this off, their status would rise.

He sent the wife back to sing our plan to the colony. “Will you join our family?” he asks.

“I have nowhere else to go.” The words escape me, and my grief rushes out in a ballad of every near sorrow.

“Your mother was a fool,” he whispers and nuzzles my side.

I do not want her to be a fool. I want her to care for me, to hold me close. Her disfavor leaves me hungry, like the powder that stings my mouth and haunts us. I imagine her arms open to me, and she asks my forgiveness in song.

I shake the male off. “We should get ready.”

* * *

Mauve settles between the trees as the sun fades, making it easier to see. The Quianzhousauruses have finished spreading the powder over the herd. Even from our vantage the stinging powder tickles my nose. The colony is a distant song. I can almost make out the words in their melody.

“Now,” I command and lift into the air. I want to be the first to strike. If I perish, the others will still follow. They might ignore the song of the wife we sent, but they will not ignore three songs.

The Qianzhousauruses are smaller than the herd. Their bodies are slick with back legs made to run and teeth that come to sharp points. They do not have a song but squeak and purr in a language we cannot understand.

They have feathers like the herd, but unlike them their feathers are thinner in places. I’m close to one of their backs. I spy where an old wound has left this one featherless. They must see us, but they keep walking, unconcerned as I land.

I plant my back talons into the hide for purchase. There is a high-pitched scream that echoes into the night. The colony hears it, and their song changes. They are close.

I dig my fangs into its flesh, working my bottom jaw as life-giving blood gushes into my mouth. It’s warm and savory. My mouth tingles with a pleasant spice that follows the blood down my throat. Energy fills my limbs, but then everything moves around me.

The colony has arrived and splits into two groups. One group screams over the herd in confusion, and the other splits off, diving for the Qianzhousauruses.

The Qianzhousauruses twist and turn. My head slams back. My fangs tear at flesh, aching as they are ripped out. I cry as my back talons slice the hide. Its feathers are slick with blood as I rake my talons against it, searching for purchase. The wet feathers slip away, and I start to fall. I open my wings, trying to catch the air, but I am tumbling and rolling.

My breath is knocked from my lungs as I hit the ground.

I tuck my arms in as pain slams each bone in my body. I choke and cough on half-swallowed blood. The Qianzhousaurus massive back feet slam into the ground.

I run in the tall grass, ignoring the pain that throbs in each limb. I don’t know which way I’m running, but I hope it’s closer to the herd. The colony descended; their song is everywhere, refusing to tell me the direction of home or the trees. I only have the tall grass and my own song.

The male lands before me. “This way,” he calls, and I follow.

“It is too dangerous on the ground,” I protest.

His song changes into one of amusement with a healthy dose of fear and excitement. “You have changed us.”

No, I think. “Maybe they will stop putting the powder on the herd and share.”

We grow silent, climbing the bark of a tree to watch the colony feast. I shiver once we are on a stable branch. I close my eyes, listening for my mother’s song. The colony mentions my notes, singing it over and over again, but I do not hear my mother’s song claim me as her daughter.

The male presses his side into mine, and I bury my face into his fur. The colony is saved, but my family has not taken me back.

* * *

The colony gives us a new perch. We’re the smallest and youngest family that has ever been granted a perch this high within the colony. There are two wives, counting me. The third, the one that went on the hunt with us, died on the back of a Qianzhousaurus. My note in the colony’s song turns into a hero’s melody, even among grieving families.

I climb down to the perch where I lived before, worried for my mother. I see the outline of her back and hear her song. She is leaning over one of the young ones, making sure it has a full belly.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, when she hears my song.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

She would not have come to see me. My throat hurts and my heart breaks all over again.

“If I had not pushed you out, would you have saved us?”

Heat licks my belly and travels through my limbs. “Yes,” I spit. “We needed to eat; you had nothing to do with that.”

“I know you. I know you better than anyone. If I had not done what I had, then you would not be who you are now.” She stands taller, moving her shoulders back and making her wings twitch.

She is wrong. The realization is like being thrown out of the nest for a second time. She could not have known I would have thought to attack the Quianzhousauruses — I had not known.

“I made the right choice,” she insists. “I made you who you are.”

I take a step back. Forward is violence and breakdowns. There is a young one who gazes at me from behind her.

“She will never love you like you love her,” I warn the young one.

There is bitterness in my song as I turn away.

She calls to me, but I cannot go back.

My sister-wife, the one I gave blood to, licks my cheek as our mate huddles next to us. His song is tired and grief stricken, but it is also resolute, because we are together.

We chose one another, and we will make the same choice each day.

 

* * *

About the Author

Beth Dawkins grew up on front porches, fighting imaginary monsters with sticks, and building castles out of square hay bales. She currently lives in Northeast Georgia with her partner in crime and their offspring. A list of her stories and where to find them can be found at BethDawkins.com

Welcome to Issue 21 of Zooscape!

The world turned upside down, and everyone went scrambling, trying to hold on to the past or find a new way of existing in the turmoil.  The world does that sometimes.  It turns upside down, and you find yourself lost in a swamp of confusion.

One of the most surefire ways of turning your own world upside down is to have children.  They’ll turn your world upside down over and over again.

I started Zooscape when my younger child started kindergarten, and I suddenly had a lot more free time on my hands.  I put Zooscape submissions on a long-term, indefinite-length hiatus when I discovered my older child needed more help getting through high school than I’d expected.

My world turned upside down, and the rest of the world got Zooscape.  My world turned upside down again, and the rest of the world had to wait to see if Zooscape would come back again or not.  Meanwhile, I made sure to store a bunch of stories up to keep you all entertained while you wait…

* * *

Frog Song by Koji A. Dae

Don’t Cry by Ian Madison Keller

The Frog Wife by Rebecca E. Treasure

The Cloak by Erin Brown

How Fred the Opossum Mobilized the Microbes and Saved the Universe by Mary Jo Rabe

If Your Child’s a Dragon by Chad Gayle

* * *

…and now that everyone has waited so patiently, we’re happy to announce that Zooscape will be re-opening to submissions on January 1st, 2025.(Note:  These plans may have changed.  Sorry for the inconvenience.)

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.  Also, you can pick up e-book or paperback volumes of our first 13 issues bundled into four anthologies, complete with an illustration for every story.

by Chad Gayle

“…it isn’t easy dealing with the problems of a troubled young dragon, as you already know. I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to do it alone.”

If your child’s a dragon, there’s no need to explain your tattered clothes or the smoke rings round your eyes. We know how your eyebrows got singed, and we know you spent half an hour or more circling the parking lot because you really didn’t want to walk through those double doors. You didn’t want to take your place among us, to admit by your very presence that you’re afraid of your young dragon, nor do you want to acknowledge that the love you’ve always felt for the magical creature living in your midst is fraught, these days, with dread and disappointment. Most of all, you’d rather not divulge the secret that you’ve kept hidden from family members, friends, and coworkers for so long, the awful truth about the life you’ve been living, the fact that there have been moments, far too many now for you to count, when you’ve wanted to kick your dragon to the curb, to send them packing and to do your best, afterwards, to forget you ever loved them at all.

We know all about these feelings because our children are dragons too. We’ve felt your shame, your self-deprecating guilt, and your nauseating fear. Like you, we’ve all been burned so badly by our dragons that we thought our wounds would never heal.

And we all have our stories; mine’s probably not that much different from yours. Along with my partner, I pampered my dragon with love and affection, and together we tried to make sure she felt wanted, safe, and secure. As our dragon grew older, we told her how important it was to talk about her feelings, to learn to understand not only why she was happy but why she might be sad, and we did the best we could to help her figure out the place she wanted to occupy in this world. We tried to be there for our dragon; we did everything we thought we were supposed to do, which, as it turned out, was not enough.

What we didn’t see, or what we weren’t prepared to acknowledge, I should say, was the magnitude of the anxiety that beset our dragon as she matured. The first real sign of trouble came when we realized that our dragon had stopped attending flight school, which, as you are no doubt aware, puts a dragon at risk of becoming permanently dependent upon humans. At about the same time that we made this discovery, our dragon started smoking, and she smoked incessantly, filling our house with sulfurous fumes that kept me and my partner coughing for hours on end. Maybe you’re a member of the camp that believes dragons can quit smoking after they start. I happen to think that they can’t because I’ve spent the last two years administering anti-smoking punishments and potions and poultices to our dragon that never gave us more than a few weeks’ worth of clean air. But that’s my dragon — maybe yours is different.

Anyway, the smoking was the least of our worries. As her anxiety intensified, our dragon tore up the furniture and picked at her scales with her claws until her body was covered with sores. And she became bolder and more aggressive with me and my partner, thumping her tail menacingly against the walls or the floor as soon as we brought up her mounting absences from flight school.

Sure, it’s adorable when your dragon’s knee high and she whips your ankle with that little tail of hers, but it’s not quite the same when her head reaches the ceiling and a mere flick of that tail — which is as thick as a tree trunk — can break your femur or every one of your ribs. I don’t know if you’ve reached the point in your relationship with your young dragon where lines have been crossed and bones have been bent, but I’m sure you’ve had glimmers of how much worse it can get in the darkest of your dreams, nightmares in which you grapple with the questions I grappled with after I came home from the hospital that first time. Questions like, what if she hurts me again? What if she hurts someone else? I know these bones will mend, but how can the damage done to my heart ever be repaired?

I would love to say we worked out all of our problems on our own, that our dragon quit smoking, returned to flight school, and took a solemn oath never to strike me or my partner again, but the time for myth-making is over, my friends. As awful as it makes us feel, my partner and I had to admit that our dragon is better off living somewhere else for the time being, sheltered in a closed preserve with dragons her age where she can be monitored and privately tutored, and so we are in the process of finding a program where she can get the care that she needs without endangering herself — or us — any longer. Which isn’t to say that I still don’t find myself grasping at straws, searching desperately for reasons to keep her with us for at least a few more months, but I’ve accepted the recommendations of the wizard we consulted, and I’m committed to following through with this treatment plan because I know that we have to think not only of the health and safety of our dragon but of our own health and safety as well.

I’m sure you’re asking yourself, as you try to get comfortable in your seat, how any of this helps you, in your situation, which is different in various degrees from mine. The answer is that although our situations may be different, the problems that we face with our dragons are very much the same. That’s why we all meet here in this great cathedral every other Monday night — to tell our dragon stories and to lean on each other during times of crisis and conflict. Because it isn’t easy dealing with the problems of a troubled young dragon, as you already know. I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to do it alone.

We don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we do try to support each other however we can. We come to this sacred place from townships all over this kingdom because we refuse to give up on our young dragons, because we believe in the possibility of a better future for all dragons, everywhere. We’re dragon people, in other words, and we’re proud of it.

Well, as usual, I’ve stood behind this podium a lot longer than I’m supposed to, but that’s because I’m so happy to see all of these new faces here today. Now I want to welcome you all  and tell you how much I look forward to hearing your dragon tales and to walking the road to recovery with you. We really like to think of ourselves as one big family, you know — but, be that as it may, I’m getting that hand signal from my partner again; yep, I can put a sock in it and yield the floor.

One very, very last thing before I open it up to the new parents and give you all a break by sitting down: if your child is a gnome, my apologies — you want the green room at the end of the hall.

 

* * *

About the Author

Chad Gayle is a writer and photographer based in NYC. His speculative fiction has appeared in The Colored Lens and MetaStellar Magazine; his commercial photography has been featured in The New York Times and The Huffington Post. Husband to the world’s most talented veterinarian, he has witnessed countless stories of furry recovery and redemption that have given him a reason to believe in a brighter future and a better tomorrow for animals everywhere (humans included). He is also the proud parent of two amazing children and three rescue cats.

by Mary Jo Rabe

“Fred deliberately thought of nothing as he concentrated on soaking up impressions from the microbes in the pond.”

It turned out to be a perfect time for saving the universe. Fortunately, Fred the resident farm opossum was paying attention, as always.

After a long nap, some careful foraging activity, and resultant nibbling, Fred the opossum laid his moderately chubby body down on the brown grass and dipped the sticky claws on his front feet tentatively into the muddy duck pond.

The ducks flew off, quacking loudly in protest but acknowledging the potential danger of Fred’s presence. Completely unnecessary. Fred would never bother trying to kill a duck. Too much effort involved. Duck cadavers, marinated in the pond for a couple of days and covered with a crust of crunchy maggots, on the other hand, were a savory delicacy. He was more than content to let someone else take care of actually slaying the avian creatures.

To his relief, the pond water was more than satisfactory for his purposes today, both in temperature and in general viscosity. The air around Fred was cool and dry, which was pleasant since he was sensitive to temperatures for a few hours after waking up. Cool was better than hot.

Fred preferred cold water to remove the insect remains from his claws. His limbs were still quite agile for his advanced age, but it was to his advantage to keep his grasping appendages free of obstruction.

Mud was also quite useful as a soothing lotion for sore paws. An opossum that tended to his body parts tended to live longer, which was Fred’s constant goal.

It smelled like the hogs hadn’t been near the pond for a while. Fred’s pink nose on his long, thin snout couldn’t detect even a whiff of hog excrement, just overly ripened corn from the fields, a promising scent. There would be plenty of tasty, sated insects in the cornfields for dessert later.

The dark, deep pond — frequented by the farm animals but ignored by the human creatures — was hidden behind the three-story wooden barn, itself shabby with weathered planks that had been painted red in more prosperous times, now missing the occasional slab. The current humans weren’t concerned with appearances.

Fred found the structure imposing, if only in size. These human creatures were generally clueless about important things, but they did construct impressive objects for habitation, both for themselves and for their animals.

The increasing chill in the air meant that it was probably getting close to sundown. The sunlight was getting dimmer, which annoyed Fred somewhat.

There were no clouds, and he hoped that it wouldn’t rain. It wasn’t that he disliked rain. His thick, gray fur protected him from hypothermia, and he quite enjoyed shaking and shimmying to get the heavy raindrops off his bristly hairs.

However, Fred missed the light that clouds restricted. It was bad enough that the light receded every day, even though that made life safer for opossums. In the few hours Fred was awake during the day, he loved to watch the joyous play of sunbeams on plants and ponds, making their colors dance, a pleasure possibly unique to this planet.

Fred might be elderly, but he was certain that his body and mind were in excellent shape, if only because he kept both active.

There was still time before supper, and so Fred decided to slip into the pond for a quick, relaxing swim. He liked to feel supported by the water while he paddled around and opened his mind to discussions with the microbes who lived in the pond, probably his best friends on the farm.

As the ticks in his fur fell off and floated away, Fred swallowed each one with gusto. Crunchy ticks soaked in fragrant pond water made for a delightful appetizer.

Fred deliberately thought of nothing as he concentrated on soaking up impressions from the microbes in the pond. In structure, they were simpler creatures who, however, when united, far outmatched more complex creatures in powers of observation and analysis. He could only hope that he didn’t bore them with his thoughts.

The communication chain worked best top to bottom. More complicated creatures could send messages down to creatures with less complicated structures fairly easily. The less complicated creatures had no trouble taking these messages apart and analyzing them.

However, it demanded strenuous concentration for a creature with a more complicated structure to understand what the less complicated creatures were communicating. Their messages came slowly and were often interrupted. Fred had the patience and physical vigor necessary for listening. Plus, he enjoyed hearing from the microbes.

Most opossums ridiculed him for talking to the microbes. Fred got tired of explaining that he listened far more than he talked and that opossums were foolish to ignore sources of information.

Other opossums were just as receptive as Fred by nature, but they preferred to spend their time eating, mating, and sleeping.

Today, floating in the pond, Fred engaged in pleasant chitchat with the microbes, nothing serious, just comments on life in general. While listening to them, he thought he sensed something else, something not quite right in the universe, but nothing he could put his paw on. The microbes themselves had no worries they wanted to pass on.

After splashing around for many enjoyable minutes, Fred decided it was time to think about setting his refreshed legs in motion and joining the semi-feral farm cats for supper.

The felines did consume the occasional small rodent on the farm but also let themselves be fed outside the farmhouse by the somewhat capricious though kindly human creatures.

Fred and the cats got along well enough. It was only when a new cat arrived that Fred had to re-establish the pecking order ─ or, in this case, the order of growling, pawing, and slapping ─ for the feral but currently resident mammals on this farm.

Cats had to be reminded that opossums ruled. He had managed to acquire their respect one by one as they showed up at the farm.

For some reason feline tourism abounded in this area. Fickle cats always thought they might get better food at a different farm.

They were wrong. The occupants of this dilapidated farmhouse were quite skillful cooks. The repast they set out for visiting animals was always delicious; it just tended to arrive at varying times. Fred had long since learned to be flexible in his eating habits.

However, it was common knowledge, or perhaps inherited memories, that opossums shouldn’t go near humans, if only to avoid becoming a premature component of the food chain. Some humans were known to consume opossums, calling them tasty vittles.

The humans in this house didn’t use that kind of language, but a cautious opossum took nothing for granted.

Caution had its benefits, one of which was avoiding the necessity of “playing possum.” It was beneath Fred’s dignity to lie immobile, roll his eyes, draw back his lips, bare his teeth, and expel noxiously fumed secretions from his anal glands. It took far too many swims in the duck pond to rid himself of that stench afterwards.

Fred developed the habit of waiting for darkness before he approached the farmhouse to partake of the banquet the humans would offer. He always only ate after the humans returned inside.

It was getting darker, and so Fred swam toward the edge of the pond. Out of habit, he perked up his dark, rounded ears, not to listen to the motors of the tractors, combines, and harvesters on the farm, but to be open for any important information.

Opossums had a special talent for hearing, for listening to the grunts and lowing of farm animals, of course, but also for absorbing messages from other more complicated structures in the universe.

Most such data was boring, but every now and then Fred picked up on something useful. Way back when, his ancient ancestors had detected the behavior of an approaching asteroid and made arrangements to survive underground.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to warn the dinosaurs. They just didn’t listen to the pleas of primitive, tiny mammals. This was still the case today. Opossums couldn’t communicate with more complexly structured creatures because such creatures couldn’t concentrate on what the opossums said.

Right now, Fred could only be certain that he sensed powerful, individual thoughts from the six-legged creatures he intended to devour later. Flies, mosquitoes, and gnats, buzzing and humming contentedly, were busy selecting their own sources of nourishment in the cornfields.

Fred stomped out of the pond and shook the water off his fur. Feeling energetic again, he scampered around the barn and down the hill to the two-story, old-fashioned farmhouse, probably painted white some time ago but now displaying graying boards.

His timing, as always, was perfect. The screen door opened and a tall, female human, followed by her loquacious, diminutive offspring, brought out bowls of meat and milk and water. Today, as so often, the child seemed to understand the greetings Fred sent him.

When the adult headed back into the house, Fred jumped up the steps to the porch where the door to the kitchen was. Fred growled and then shoved his way through the crowd of cats, who submissively moved aside and made a path for him.

“Fred’s here,” the child shouted. Since the creature wasn’t even half the size of his parent, and since Fred only received benevolent telepathic thoughts from him, Fred wasn’t afraid of him, though Fred did feel more secure when the all the humans went back into the house.

Fred, of course, did have a distinguished opossum name, but after the child had started yelling “Fred” at him in such a delighted tone of voice a few years ago, Fred decided to claim it for himself. The name “Fred” brought about pleasant associations with the evening meal the humans provided.

However, survival instincts demanded that Fred wolf down the food and drink and then head for the cornfields before the humans could suddenly pose any threat. While his behavior might be considered rude, he consoled himself with the thought that the humans could always talk to the feral cats if they needed mindless repartee with their outdoor dinner guests.

Fred scurried over to the nearest cornfield, running until he was convinced that he was invisible to the humans. As expected, he found sufficient insects for his dessert crawling around between the muddy rows.

When he couldn’t eat any more of the tasty, crisp insects, Fred lay down between a few stalks of corn and looked up at the sky. This was the time of day when he was most awake.

Without the food the humans provided, he would have to be off hunting. However, with a temporarily full stomach, Fred could tend to what he liked best. As soon as the humans extinguished the toys in their house that lit it up, the cloudless sky gave Fred an excellent view of outer space.

He ceased all conscious thought, opened his mind to any impressions he might absorb, and concentrated on the stars.

Fred always loved those points of light, the hints of color in the black night. Fortunately, the air was dry and cloudless. He had a completely unobstructed view, which should have made him unreservedly happy, but he sensed something was wrong.

It took a while before he could comprehend the messages. He directed his full concentration upwards. The stars didn’t radiate their usual joyful contentment. A sense of apprehension pervaded, which was unusual for the stars and galaxies that generally moved with the abandon that the laws of physics allowed.

Although it was his habit to spend about an hour in the cornfields enjoying his dessert, this time Fred spent the entire night watching and listening. It took that long to make sense out of the feelings he was absorbing, to translate feelings into concrete thoughts.

There were just so many stars to listen to. Eventually he understood that they were all broadcasting the same message, however with varying details.

The universe was in danger because one of the infinite numbers of parallel universes was on its way to collide with this one. Since the parallel universe was larger, after the collision, the parallel universe would dominate the resulting, newly formed, compound universe.

The physical laws of the parallel universe were such that matter would be unable to form, and existing matter would quickly degenerate to pure radiation.

This prospect made the stars sad, which Fred the opossum could understand. Being an opossum on this farm on this planet occasionally had some disadvantages, but he had no desire to be turned into an unstable collection of meandering photons.

More to the point, however, how could this collision be prevented?

Fred knew when he needed to brainstorm. Whenever he was at a complete loss, he consulted the microbes in the duck pond. They always listened to him. Each individual microbe didn’t know much, but when they joined to a telepathic group mind, they often came up with excellent ideas.

Fred shuffled out of the muddy cornfield and, as soon as he was on firm ground, scurried over to the duck pond and dived in.

“Yo, microbes,” Fred began his telepathic message. “Listen up. We all have a problem.”

“One of the new cats steal your food again?” the microbe group mind asked.

“No, no,” Fred said patiently. “This is a real problem, unless you like the thought of losing your physical existence and being turned into pure energy.”

That got their attention. Fred explained that some stars at the outer edge of where dark energy pushed them had noticed disturbing changes.

Comparing observations, the shrewd quark stars came to the unanimous conclusion that a parallel brane of a universe was approaching the brane of this one. Collision was probable. The approaching universe was larger and would absorb this one, converting all matter here to radiation.

Fred sensed the uneasiness and uncertainty that this caused among the microbes.

“Any ideas on how we can prevent this?” Fred asked.

“Obviously this is more than microbes can manage,” the microbe group mind answered. “Tell your humans to build something or do something. They’re good at that kind of thing.”

“You know that they don’t have the patience to listen to me,” Fred said. “On their own, they won’t notice anything until it is too late. Then their building skills won’t help them.”

“Still, microbes don’t move universes,” the microbes said. “Maybe we should just go with the flow. Eventually this universe will peter out into nothing anyway. Why not be part of a radiant road show first?”

“Eventually is a long, long time,” Fred said patiently. “Think about it. You enjoy your one-celled existence, absorbing, expelling, moving about. You sense pleasure from the physical feeling when chemicals or life forms move through your membranes. I can’t imagine anything more boring than floating around in a cloud of nothing.”

“Hmm,” the group mind said. “Maybe you’re right, but we still aren’t capable of doing anything.”

“We have to come up with some idea,” Fred said. “Or else we lose it all. You microbes always have a solution to things. Find one for this problem.”

“We can’t do anything, but we might be able to function as intermediaries,” the microbes said after a long pause. “We’ll pass your news down to the molecules, they can pass it down to the atoms, and they can pass it down to the subatomic particles. We’re all forms of matter and, like you said, all have something to lose.”

“Excellent,” Fred said. “I could probably pass the message down as far as the subatomic particles myself, but I wouldn’t be able to hear their replies or suggestions. Just concentrating enough to listen to you takes a lot out of me.”

“Right,” the microbes said. “Each level of complexity can only easily understand communications from a maximum of one lower level. If we concentrate, we can hear the answers from the molecules, they can hear the answers from the atoms, and so forth. Eventually your message would have to reach dark matter and dark energy.”

“Perfect,” Fred said. “I’m sorry I have to involve you, but no one listens to the stars except me.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, though,” the microbes said. “There is a definite problem that the message could get garbled at every level or that it will turn out that no one can do anything.”

“Try anyway,” Fred said. “I have every confidence in you.” This wasn’t completely true. Fred knew that the microbes’ group mind had a capacity for thinking that was far beyond his. Unfortunately, microbes also had difficulties in staying with one project. They were spontaneous, more than a little flighty, and got bored easily.

He had no idea what to expect from subatomic particles all the way down to dark energy. Even if there was a general willingness to do something, Fred had no idea what could be done.

He could only rely on the microbes to initiate some action.

Actually, the sun was now fairly high in the sky, and Fred needed to find a safe place to nap. To get to the next little wooded area Fred would have to retrace his steps past the farmhouse. This seemed too risky. The child was already playing in the front yard. Fred could run fast, but possibly not fast enough.

There were a few thorn bushes at the back of the ramshackle barn. It would be uncomfortable for Fred to crawl between the barn and the bushes, but the location was unlikely to attract the attention of the human creatures. So, no choice.

“I’ll be back later,” Fred said to the microbes as he crawled out of the pond and walked reluctantly over to the bushes. Once he was between them and the barn, he felt invisible enough to sleep for a few hours.

Listening to the microbes and thinking about the fate of the universe must have tired Fred more than he thought. When he woke up, it was very dark, and he was hungry. He suspected that the cats had already consumed his portion of the supper banquet that the humans put out. He would have to survive on whatever he could forage.

First, though, there were more important things to take care of. He wanted to know what the microbes had accomplished, if anything.

He stumbled over to the duck pond and dived in. When he was physically surrounded by the microbes, it was less strenuous to listen to them.

“Yo, Fred,” the microbes broadcast into his consciousness.

“Yo, microbes,” Fred answered. “Do you have any news?”

“Yes and no,” the microbes answered. “We’ve been passing the news back and forth all day. We got answers and questions and then answers and more questions and then more answers. For the longest time, the only answer was that there was nothing that could be done. We’re completely worn out.”

“Thanks for trying,” Fred said. “I know this was hard work for you, always concentrating on messages from lower levels of structure. No wonder you’re exhausted.”

“We would have given up hours ago,” the microbes admitted. “But we didn’t want to disappoint you. You’re a good friend, Fred.”

“Thanks, but what is the current situation?” Fred asked.

“The short version is that it’s unanimous through the structures all the way down to dark matter. No one wants to let a parallel universe obliterate this one,” the microbes said. “Dark energy is still undecided.”

“Why?” Fred asked.

“Who knows?” the microbes said. “We’re awfully tired.”

“I know,” Fred said. “If the universe survives, it will be exclusively due to your hard work. The whole universe will owe its existence to you.”

“Yeah, well,” the microbes began. “Only if we succeed, and we are getting too tired to do anything more.”

“I know,” Fred said. “But could you make one more attempt? How about if you send down the thought that dark energy won’t have anything to do in the new universe. A universe consisting solely of radiation doesn’t expand. Any kind of energy would find itself paralyzed.”

“We’ll give it one more try,” the microbes said. Fred heard how fatigued they were. He hoped he wasn’t asking too much. He didn’t want to threaten their existence, especially if the whole attempt turned out to be in vain.

He waited and floated in the pond. He was starving, but it didn’t seem right to abandon the microbes after all they were doing.

“Success,” came the tired reply from the microbes. “Dark energy understood your thought that it had as much to lose as the rest of us. At this moment, it is calculating how it needs to steer the brane this universe is in away from the approaching one. It thinks it is doable. Dark energy just has to pulsate the rate of expansion instead of constantly increasing it. That should yank the universe out of danger.”

“Great,” Fred barked. “You really went to your physical limits and saved us all! How can I make it up to you?”

“To be honest,” the microbe group mind said. “We need reinforcements, additional, energetic microbes to support the group. Can you help us with that?”

Fred’s first thought was to sacrifice a few cats, but he quickly abandoned that suicidal prospect. If he attacked one cat, the others would make cat food out of him.

At that moment, a few ducks landed on the water. Ducks! The proverbial solution of killing two birds with one stone. Fred could attack some ducks and then dunk their cadavers into the pond for the microbes. Once sufficient microbes made their way out of the ducks, Fred could slaughter one duck for his own, long-delayed, evening meal.

Fred was tired as he quietly swam over to the first duck, tired but determined enough to swing a mighty paw and whack his first prey with his claws. It was no problem to then hold the creature under water for a sufficient length of time. The microbes deserved no less for saving the universe. Fred would eat later.

 

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Originally published in Pulphouse, Issue 18

About the Author

Mary Jo Rabe grew up on a farm in eastern Iowa, got degrees from Michigan State University (German and math) and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (library science). She worked in the library of the chancery office of the Archdiocese of Freiburg, Germany for 41 years, and lives with her husband in Titisee-Neustadt, Germany. She has published “Blue Sunset,” inspired by Spoon River Anthology and The Martian Chronicles, electronically and has had stories published in Fiction River, Pulphouse, Penumbric Speculative Fiction, Alien Dimensions, 4 Star Stories, Fabula Argentea, Crunchy with Chocolate, The Lorelei Signal, The Lost Librarian’s Grave, Draw Down the Moon, Dark Horses, Wyldblood Magazine, and other magazines and anthologies.  You can find her blog at: https://maryjorabe.wordpress.com/

by Erin Brown

“Her cloak held the warm, soft, stolen remains of all that the wolf had ever loved, all covered by a blood-red cloak and filled with that poison-sweet song, that venomous laughter.”

The wolf had the brambles to thank for the extra few minutes of life.  He had chosen to sleep in the tangle because it had grown a roof of snow, keeping him nearly warm through the winter night, as well as completely hidden.  As a result, when the smell of meat and spices and the sweetness of song roused his body in the early morning, the thorns arrested his instinctive pounce before his mind awoke enough to remember caution.  Then he recognized the voice.

The song was sweet as any sent to greet a morning’s sunlight, and the smell of the meat twisted his stomach into knots, but the voice made him curl up into a ball of aching bones and frost-tipped fur, and he swallowed a growl.  The song grew closer, and then he could see it:  the bright red cloak of the hunter girl.

The wolf glared as he watched her approach in her long red coat that dragged across the snowy ground.  Behind her, a fist-sized chunk of green and shining bacon was dragged along on the end of a thin rope.  It had long ago stopped marking a trail in juices and simply scraped its path across the snow, across her boot prints.  She walked slowly, singing all the while, and her crossbow hung by her side, pointed down, carried stiffly.  The wolf could barely tell if the ache in his belly was hunger, or hatred.  The words of her song silenced the few birds singing above in the bare trees.

Here little wolf, little wolf, little wolfie

Come to me, come to me

The winter is cold, and my gran needs a blanket

So I’ll never let you be.

The wolf restrained himself from snapping his jaws at the brambles, from tearing at the thorns until the way to her was as exposed as a throat.  As she walked, a bright red blotch against the whiteness of the world, black scratching the white sky all around by the barren limbs of the trees, her cloak flapped a little, and the thick grey lining showed itself.  The tops of her boots were fuzzy and brown.  The wolf knew them intimately.

Her boots were lined with the hide of his mother, the scent tainted by the girls own body scent.  Her cloak was lined with his brothers, their skins draped across her shoulders, or dragged across the snow.  The red hood on her head hid a mottled white fluff that had been the belly of his sister.  He did not know whose fangs made up her buttons, but to get close enough to find out was to get close enough to bite, and be bitten.

His mouth filled with bitter saliva, and it drooled down his jaw and froze in his fur.  The bacon, as hungry as he was, barely mattered.  The girl was stout and strong, and her smell healthy and hot.  But her cloak.  Her cloak held the warm, soft, stolen remains of all that the wolf had ever loved, all covered by a blood-red cloak and filled with that poison-sweet song, that venomous laughter.

There had been so many winters without his pack, his family.  All of the other packs had been chased away.  He was so alone.  Food would not stop his misery, just prolong it.  Only the cloak was home.

With the memory of love of family warming his hide like weak wet winter sunshine, the wolf stifled a whimper of desolation, but not enough to fool a hunter.  The girl stopped and spun around, and looked right into the bramble. She crouched down slowly. His brothers’ skins bunched beneath her, against the snow. His mother, his sister, all dead skins curled around her, to keep her warm.  It was intolerable.  The girl in the cloak laughed to hear him growl, and set her crossbow across her knee.  And smiling right into the wolf’s eyes, she sang.

Here little wolf, little wolf, little wolfie

I see you, I see you

The winter’s so long, and I’m cold and I’m lonely

I’m bettin’ you’re lonely, too.

She laughed at him, her mouth wide and pink, her white teeth so small.  She tugged the bacon forward and swung the rope so that the meat landed just a bound away from the brambles, and she laughed when she heard him whine.  But she misunderstood the source of his misery. When she had tugged the rope, the reddish-brown fur over her arm showed itself, and the smell of it caught the wolf by the throat.  It was a familiar hide, it was family, but the wolf could not remember who.  He was forgetting family, love, warmth, life.  He was forgetting!

The furs called like howls to his heart.  The girl kept singing. But the wolf only heard the silent songs of his family, all warm panting snarling playful recollections, loping across his memories of life before this red demon had appeared to them for the first time, so long ago.

There would be no more winters, either for himself or for this horror and her bow and her cloak.  This would end.  One of them would laugh, would sing the winter hot as blood again.  Only one of them.

The girl swung her crossbow up just as the wolf exploded out of the snowy brambles.  She had aimed for the bacon, where she thought the wolf was going.

But he was aiming for home.

 

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About the Author

Erin Brown is a black, neurodivergent author of horror, fabulist, and fantasy short fiction. She has been published in Fantasy Magazine, FIYAH Magazine, The Deadlands, Midnight and Indigo, The Los Suelos CA Interactive Anthology, and 3Elements Literary Revue, with work in the anthology It Was All a Dream: An Anthology of Bad Horror Tropes Done Right. Erin is also the recipient of the Truman Capote Literary Trust Scholarship in Creative Writing for Spring 2022.

by Rebecca E. Treasure

“I suspected he’d make a dreadful human. Something in me needed to know, needed to see.”

The bastard left me. Kissed the first pair of pert red lips under a tiara he found. Not a care for our hundreds of children, some of them still without legs, if you can believe it. After all we’ve been through. After all I’d done for him.

The jerk flouncing away with that princess is nothing like the frog I met. Found him moping at the side of the pond, his ribbit a pathetic ribbon of noise barely worthy of the name. When he hopped away from me, that wild look in his eyes, he nearly toppled into the mud sideways. I thought it was endearing — a frog so terrible at frogging.

More fool me.

I took him under my webbed toes, I guess. Showed him how to use his tongue for flies and moths and other things in the dark of the pool. Taught him to jump, leap, splash. The first time we clutched, our croaks filled the cattails and swamp grass with ecstasy.

It wasn’t until we’d been hopping around together for a few seasons that he changed. Just little things. He’d tell me some story or other about his past — before he came to our pond — and then get real quiet. Then he’d be extra nice to me for a few days, going out of his way to tell me how smooth my skin was, how bulging my eyes, how desirable the pinkness of my tongue.

When the tadpoles hatched, he showed such interest I knew something was wrong with him. Even thought the nasty, fish-like things were cute. As they grew legs and came out onto the muck, that most un-froglike pride in the twist of his lips faded to more natural disinterest. But a sadness, too, a sadness I could never explain.

I confronted him, just before winter when we would burrow into mud and shiver-dream away the season of ice and cold before emerging wet and hungry to the spring warmth. I didn’t want to hibernate next to a liar.

He came clean. Well, as clean as a frog can be. A human, he said, cursed by a witch.

Repulsive. Humans captured our children, shook them in jars, cooked their legs and called it a delicacy. Humans were disgusting.

He assured me he could never change, that I was his true love, that being a frog wasn’t as bad as the witch seemed to think. I believed him, that earnest gleam in his shining eyes, and snuggled close.

More fool me.

And then he did change, and he left me one late autumn. Dusk sheltered the pond in a golden glow, the bugs casting long, delicious shadows among the mist. I watched our children hopping among the stands of swamp grass, along the mossy logs, leaping gracefully into the deep-green scum of the silvery water. They were good frogs. They didn’t need me anymore.

He’d been a reasonably good frog — he fertilized my eggs, he seduced me with song once I taught him how. I suspected he’d make a dreadful human. Something in me needed to know, needed to see. What about two legs and endothermia had been worth abandoning everything we had? Abandoning me?

I croaked out a quiet goodbye to our children — only the nearest of them heard — and set off.

It wasn’t an easy journey, though he was simple enough to follow. That bastard had been a frog long enough his footprints dug into the soil as he leapt from step to step. My soft toes blistered after leaving the swampland, my skin cracked and bleeding before dawn spread across the now-rocky road. My croaks grew weak, my eyeballs drying out until I could barely see.

Early afternoon, a castle loomed out of the distance. Even with my fading vision, the spires and balconies caught the sunshine and demanded recognition, attention.

For a moment, I am ashamed to say, I envied them. Imagining the feasts and the comforts, the winters with the heat of a fire washing over me, perhaps in a lukewarm bath instead of the icy mud. But I didn’t cling to the moment, the daydream. What would my ancestors have thought of me, considering giving up the security, the predictability, of our pond for the temporary luxuries of humanity?

I came to a fork in the road. I suppose a human never would have noticed, but my parched vision saw the signs. To the left, in the woods, the call of magic. Lightning and cinnamon, sparking cold fire into the night sky.

The witch.

Why had she picked frogs, of all creatures? I wanted to know, maybe give her a piece of my mind for saddling me with the prince when all it took was one sympathetic pair of lips for him to abandon me. I gave the castle one more derisive glance and leapt into the woods.

I hopped into her hut from beneath the door. Odd, that. The door had such a gap it might have been made to allow small creatures to enter uninvited. Within the hut, there was lovely moisture in the air. My skin cried out, pleasure and pain as I began to moisten. I paused, healing, unsure why I had come.

A wrinkled hand scooped me up. Bulging eyes — unusually attractive for a human — inspected me.

“So. He found a princess after all, did he? I’m sorry he hurt you in the process.” She sighed. “I miscalculated. I thought, as a frog, he couldn’t hurt anyone. I was wrong.”

I resisted the urge to hop in anger, my broken heart thrumming rapidly against her palm.

“Perhaps he learned his lesson about manners?”

I licked my eyeball. All the answer she needed, as she sighed and set me on the worn pine of her workbench.

“So why did you come?” She bustled around, taking up a pewter bowl with tall spindly legs and a great arching handle. She dipped it into a barrel of water in the corner and set it near to, but not quite by, the fire.

My first thought was vengeance. Turn the bastard back into a frog. Turn him to a fly so I could devour him whole. Turn his princess into a fly, and him a frog… the thoughts soured before I gave them voice.

Would I let him drag me so low? He’d given me generations of beautiful children, after all. Joy in the evenings under the dancing stars. Many seasons of pleasure and companionship and pride in the help I’d given him.

The anger flared. True, but in the end he had betrayed me. If not vengeance, then perhaps a lesson — to teach him his place in the world, and the value of others.

The witch was testing the water in the bowl, now, with the back of her hand. She rummaged around on the overcrowded shelves, batting away a buzzing mosquito, and retrieved a smooth sunstone, brilliantly orange. This, she settled in the water.

What lesson could teach him his place if not to be such a perfect creature as a frog? Yet he’d still given all that up, our rich meals, our languorous days, our firefly evenings of clouds and chorus. He would never learn. I snatched the mosquito and, chewing, croaked in conclusion.

More fool he.

The witch, apparently satisfied with her odd creation, turned to me, hands on her waist. “You seem a perfectly capable frog, are you not?”

I croaked, confident, pleased she had noticed.

She shrugged. “Then what do you need the bastard for? Good riddance, I say. I know the princess, you know, and he deserves her.”

She cackled at my cringe. Nobody deserved him, I wanted to say.

“No, you misunderstand. She’ll turn him out. She knows her worth.”

I blinked both sets of eyelids, reassured. She rather had a point. There was little I’d miss, except someone to shiver with in the frozen months.

My worth was no less than a princess, after all.

She gestured at the pot and the stone, near to but not quite by the fire. “I have a bug problem and could use some company in the winter.”

I leapt across the space, catching the sunstone with my tired toes and dipping sore limbs into the perfectly lukewarm water. The stone had caught the warmth of the fire, or had a heat of its own, and soothed my spine.

The bastard may have left me, but it’s not like I was going to miss him. A deep flush of pride for our children pulled a satisfied smack to my lips, but the love was for them. Not him.

With a croak, I settled in for the winter.

 

* * *

About the Author

Rebecca E. Treasure grew up reading in the Rocky Mountains. After living many places, including the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Tokyo, she began writing fiction. Rebecca’s short fiction has been published by or is forthcoming from Zooscape, Seize the Press, Galaxy’s Edge, Air & Nothingness Press, The Dread Machine, Flame Tree Publishing, WordFire Press, Galaxy Press, and others. She is the Flash Fiction Editor at Apex Book Company and Magazine, a freelance editor, and a writing mentor for young writers. She currently resides in Stuttgart, Germany, where she juggles children, a corgi, editing, and writing. She only drops the children occasionally.

by Ian Madison Keller

“A healing spell tumbled from her lips by sheer instinct, and she held trembling hands over the head of the closest seedling.”

With a thought and a wave magic flowed from Queen Seuan’s hand and into the wood of her throne, reshaping it to a more comfortable configuration.

“Continue.”

The supplicant droned on, and she stifled the urge to abandon her royal duties and merge minds with her bonded, Tukura, who was out romping through the ornamental gardens. The blossoms at the end of her vine-hair curled open in pleasure at the thought, but her duties… always her duties first.

The sunlight tasted of autumn harvesting. Her seedling-children, growing tall in her hidden nursery plot, were almost ready to pull up their roots and become sproutlings. At least, all the seeds she’d bothered with. Not all her seeds got planted; cracked or blackened seeds never grew right.

A spark of panic through her bond jolted her out of her reverie, and she mentally left the throne room and linked her thoughts with Tukura.

Tukura sniffed the ground outside in the hedge maze; her hackles raised. <Intruders.>

<My seedlings?> Seuan sat up in alarm, the supplicant forgotten. Not again. She’d inherited her throne right after her first blossoming and was the last of her line, yet every year her garden was poisoned by saboteurs.

She came back to herself and signaled to her adviser to halt the proceedings.

Seuan didn’t wait; she stood and strode away. As soon as she passed through the vine curtain separating the private corridors from the public areas she broke into a run. A guard trotted after her although she ignored him.

<I’m sorry, Seuan.> Grief stabbed her but she couldn’t concentrate enough to see through Tukura’s eyes.

The maze passed in a blur of green and cobblestone paths. Her garden was tucked in a dead-end around a blind corner. A stone archway guarded the entrance. She’d spelled the arch to inform her of intruders, a spell which now hung in tatters.

Tukura crouched on the cobblestone by the tilled dirt, her ears splayed and tail curled around her feet. The double row of her seedlings, which just the night before had been tall and green now drooped to the ground an unhealthy shade of brown.

Seuan slid to stop on her knees in the dirt. Her fine court robes would be ruined and her adviser would scold her, yet she was beyond caring.

A healing spell tumbled from her lips by sheer instinct, and she held trembling hands over the head of the closest seedling. Her palms glowed deep red, the same color as her own blossoms, but the magic pooled with no-where to go. Dead.

She tried again and again, a dozen times, but every time the result was the same.

The sap in her tears stuck to Tukura’s chocolate brown fur. She hadn’t even known she’d started crying or when Tukura had embraced her.

“We’ll try again next spring,” Tukura whispered into her vines.

Seuan trembled. “I don’t have the strength for this.”

“It’s your duty to produce an heir. Succession fights will tear the Empire apart.”

The guard looked around, ears pressed flat. “Your Majesty, you should return to the safety of the palace while we investigate.”

Tukura pulled a sobbing Seuan to her feet and led her towards the archway.

“Momma, no cry,” a high-pitched seedling’s voice said.

Seuan stopped and looked around. Her children remained brown and still in the middle of the square.

“Who dares!” Her tears dried as her anger grew. She might be young, but she was still Queen and would not tolerate tasteless jokes.

“Momma!”

The voice was close. She peered into the green growth on the edges of the garden. Movement caught her eye, and she headed towards it.

The guard’s outstretched paw stopped her. He bounded over and roughly shoved aside the leaves of a broad-leaf thyme revealing the smiling face and shining eyes of a seedling.

Her mind jumped back to planting. She’d had thirteen seeds originally, but one had been black; she’d tossed it away into the bushes and forgotten all about it.

The seedling looked up and wriggled his fingers at her, struggling to move but still rooted. With a determined look he tugged one leg free and then the other, tottering in his new freedom.

Seuan scooped up her newly sprouted child, giving thanks to the Sun God while she cried tears of joy.

 

* * *

Originally published in Flower Buds.

About the Author

Ian Madison Keller is a fantasy writer currently living in Oregon. Originally from Utah, he moved up to the Pacific Northwest on a whim a decade ago and never plans on leaving. Ian has been writing since 2013 with nine novels and more than a dozen published short stories out so far. Ian has also written under the name Madison Keller before transitioning in 2019 to Ian. You can find more about him on his website, http://madisonkeller.net

by Koji A. Dae

“I said it felt like a butterfly, then a hummingbird. But when I was alone, singing to my growing bump, it was a tadpole.”

The pains start as little things. Stretching and hardening. Slow and steady and quite manageable. So I pass the morning breathing and walking.

“Like a fly ‘at can’t find a spot to land!” Mama complains and shoos me from the kitchen. I’m surprised she doesn’t take the fly-swatter to my behind.

Honestly, I don’t mind being shooed. Part of me wants my mama, especially as the pains start twisting and pulling, as if something rotten has settled low in my belly. But I’m determined to keep this secret for as long as possible.

Mine.

I put my hand over my abdomen and waddle to the porch.

The first time I felt the baby flip, it was like a tadpole bumping up against reeds. Such a funny, ticklish feeling.

Mama was horrified. “No Becca. Babies are beautiful things. A butterfly flitting from flower to flower. That’s what you feel.”

Ever obedient, I tried to imagine the baby as a winged creature, but the extra weight in my middle definitely felt sloshy. The best I could conjure was a rainbow trout whipping its shiny tail around. I said it felt like a butterfly, then a hummingbird. But when I was alone, singing to my growing bump, it was a tadpole.

So you can’t blame me if I want to keep this as my own for as long as possible. It’s not selfish. Not exactly. It’s just Mama has a way of twisting things, and⁠ once she voices her opinion, it has a way of drowning out any other reality that might be fighting to blossom.

Take this house. It’s a fine house, sure, but Granddad was willing to give me and Jackson Uncle Sammy’s old house as a wedding present. It’s a bit drafty but a perfectly good house with two more rooms than this one.

Mama wouldn’t hear of it.

“Too close to those swamps. You’ll never get any sleep for all that croaking.”

She had a point. The north side of Evergreen is a big marsh, which is different than a swamp, but heaven help you if you correct Mama. During mating season, the frog song echoes all the way to the town center, sometimes cutting off the preacher if he goes on too long. But was it enough of a reason to make Papa build an entirely new house on the south edge of town while Uncle Sammy’s sits empty?

The real reason came out after I told her I was pregnant.

“See. Could you imagine having a baby so close to the swamp? It could just toddle off and die.”

She had a real reason with that one. When I was twelve, I nearly drowned in the marsh. Maybe I had gone for a swim, but Mama wasn’t hearing any nonsense about her baby girl swimming in a disgusting swamp, so the official story was I slipped in. Either way, I was underwater so long I almost died. When they pulled me from the marsh, I was covered in algae. Some had gotten in my lungs, the doctor said, and I had a strange infection the hospital couldn’t make sense of. I slept for a week, and when I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything. Not about the pond or my life before it. I also had bad jaundice that yellowed my skin. My blue veins looked green beneath the new coloring, and that green spread all over whenever I blushed. The other kids in town took to calling me frog-girl.

The color never went away, and I never got my memory back. Maybe that’s why I was never afraid of the marsh⁠ — I couldn’t remember it doing anything bad to me. If anything, that strange body of water called to me.

But Mama wouldn’t hear of me venturing near it, so I appeased myself by straining to hear the comforting lull of frog song on summer nights until she moved me too far away for even that.

Now, I settle into the rocker Papa made when he learned about the baby. It has a long, smooth motion that soothes me. I close my eyes and listen to the chirping of crickets and the lazy near-silence of summer.

* * *

A pinprick on my left side jolts me from my daze. It’s sharp but manageable at first, but it keeps spreading. Soon everything is tightening. I breathe. Short, short, long, the way the doctor taught me to breathe whenever I had an attack of nerves.

These attacks were so normal to me, I had thought they were common. It wasn’t until I started high school in the nearby city that I realized the sudden wheezing, and muscle weakness was something to be ashamed of.

“Frog girl, frog girl,” the kids would call in the corridors. The nickname had carried over with a few kids from my town. “Watch out, she’s going to croak.”

And I would please them by wheezing in and out⁠ — something that definitely sounded of a croak.

When the seizures started, the school recommended Mama “stop the silliness with that country doctor and take me to a specialist.”

The specialist, funny enough, was called Dr. Greene.

* * *

How can something tighten and stretch at the same time? It’s like being ripped in two. I push my feet on the legs of the rocker to stop the motion, lean back, and let out a long, low groan. One that sounds like a croak more than my wheezing ever did.

There’s a clatter in the kitchen that would usually concern me, but it sounds distant beneath my moan, which vibrates my entire body.

Mama’s at my side. I don’t know when she got here, but she’s pushing my hair back and patting my hand and saying comforting words that cool me like sweet tea on a summer day.

Gradually, her words make sense. “That’s it, Becca. Good girl. Almost through it.”

The pain dissipates like sugar, and my whole body relaxes. The chair rocks beneath my sudden weight.

“It’s started.” I can hear the excitement of Mama’s smile. “Why didn’t you come get me?”

I flutter my eyes open. The world is just as still and bright as it was five minutes ago. “I like the rocker.”

She pats my upper arm. “Then you stay here. I’ll go in and get some water to keep you cool. You want anything else?”

I shake my head. It doesn’t matter what I say. Mama’s in charge now, and she’ll come back with whatever she thinks I need. I should be annoyed, but today, it’s a comfort to have someone else in charge. Let her call the doctor and Jackson. I’ll just sit here and become one with all that summer buzzing.

I do wish Jackson was here. He would hold my hand the way he used to outside his father’s office.

Dr. Greene’s office was fancy, with heavy furniture and a dark rug. I remember thinking it was like waiting for my baptism. It had the same old, polished smell as the church. But there was something else. At fifteen, I had felt like a giant among those eight- and nine-year-olds. But Mama had insisted I do it again.

“If you can’t remember your first time, it doesn’t count.”

I wondered if that was true. If so, did none of my life before I was twelve count?

The preacher had given a sermon, but I wasn’t half listening. I had this feeling that I’d be a completely different person after the baptism. The preacher would dunk me, and he’d pull me out changed. I started wheezing and croaking, asking myself if I wanted to change.

I swallowed it down, though, because the actual baptism was held in a pond near the church. When the preacher finished, we walked to the pond singing a low hymn, and one-by-one he dunked us in the water.

Mama wrung her hands the whole time, but her faith was more important than her fear. It was the only time she let me in the water. I nearly slipped on the wet bank, and I heard her sharp intake of breath as I wobbled and steadied myself. I splashed into the water before she could change her mind.

It was cold, and my dress clung to me in some places and floated up in others. The sensation of buoyancy made me grin. The preacher pushed me back, his pressure firmer than I expected, and there was a moment of weightlessness that took away all my fear.

But Dr. Greene’s office was more like the church part. Stiff and stuffy and what if I didn’t want to become the healthy young woman he was supposed to turn me into?

Mama sent me to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face. I calmed down the best I could and was coming out wet and splotchy when I ran into Jackson carrying a box.

I apologized and waited for some harsh comment about my green face, but it never came. I suppose the son of a psychiatrist was raised to be nice to patients, but it didn’t matter why. He was the first boy to be nice to me and, baptism-be-damned, I was determined to fall in love with him.

* * *

I’ve already forgotten the intensity of the last pain. I could almost stand up and go for a walk, but I’m afraid the next one is just around the corner.

There!

No, that was just a twitch. I adjust my position, easing the ache in my lower back.

Mama comes out with a bowl of water, an already wet rag hanging over the side, and a tray of snacks. The baby twists defiantly at the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I grab the cup of water and take a deep gulp.

“Easy with that. You don’t want to get a cramp.”

I nod but take another gulp.

“You should eat something.”

Another twitch in my stomach.

“I’m not hungry.”

She sets the tray on a nearby table and pulls the wooden stool next to me. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll need your strength.”

“Did you call Jackson?”

She wrings the cloth out and pats my forehead. “No sense worrying him yet. You’ve got plenty of time.”

I want to ask what makes her such an expert. She’s only had one baby, and that was twenty- three years ago. But still, she’s had one more baby than I have.

Another pain comes. It’s like a wave rushing over me, building and building and refusing to crash, and I’m grateful for Mama’s comforting hand and the cool rag.

Then it’s finally receding like algae parting when a frog jumps off a lily pad into the water.

I give a final groan, and Mama hands me the water. I sip instead of gulping.

“The world seems brighter,” I say.

“Too bright? We could move inside.”

“No. I like it outside.” What I don’t say is I have the strangest urge to go to the marsh.

It’s not the first time the craving has struck me. Other teens would sneak into the city to see a film or go dancing. Me and Jackson snuck off to the Marsh.

It was my idea. Being near that forbidden water excited me as much as his nervous lips on mine. We found a willow tree whose canopy hung out over the water. We leaned against its trunk, and he held me for hours.

“Why do you love it here so much?” he asked me.

“It calms me. The water is so deep and still. It’s relaxing just being near it.” I hugged him, listening to his teenage heart thunder. “And I like sharing it with just you.”

Somewhere in the distance a bullfrog gave a deep belch.

“Well, and him.”

We both laughed, then kissed.

That night Mama noticed the mud on my shoes and the wet seat of my pants. She forbade me from ever seeing Jackson again, but she seemed more concerned with where we had been than with what we were doing.

I suppose she had a reason for that, too. My face swelled up that night. The next morning my eyes were nearly swollen shut and my skin was a deep, leafy green with pustules opening, secreting a light fluid like tears down my cheeks and neck.

Back to the hospital. They said I was allergic to a protein in some human saliva. No kisses for me. No marsh. No frogs. No boyfriend.

* * *

Mama helps me stand and ushers me around our front yard. She assures me that walking will ease the pain and help the baby come faster. But the next contraction brings me to my knees.

I pant hard, and she rubs my back. I go down on all fours and notice every blade of dark green grass. Jackson keeps our yard trimmed, and they’re all cut blunt at the top. If it weren’t for the pain, I’d want to cry. Instead, I cry out. This scream can’t be mistaken for a croak. It’s loud and pure.

“It’ll pass, it’ll pass,” Mama’s saying. And it does.

I collapse back onto my heels, my knees spread in a V to accommodate my low-hanging bump. The sun is too hot on my head, but I’m too wiped out to move back to the porch.

“Tell me about your birth,” I say.

“My birth?”

“I mean mine. Yours with me. What was it like?”

Mama moves my hair from my brow. “There’s not much to tell. You were in my belly, then you were born.”

“Was it day or night? Did it hurt like this?”

She cocks her head to the side and considers, then stands over me. “You don’t want to hear about that. Let me go get some water.”

I’m suddenly back in the pew before the baptism. She’s sitting behind me, whispering. “If you don’t remember, it doesn’t count.”

Looking at all those young kids, I thought, “I’ve never been that young.”

This is what I told Dr. Greene in our first session.

“And do you believe your childhood doesn’t count?” he had asked.

“I just wish my parents talked about it more. Everything they say makes me sound like the perfect daughter. No kid could be that good.”

He chuckled. His eyes were the same shade of blue as Jackson’s, and I thought it would be nice to make him laugh.

Mama comes back and wipes the sweat from my forehead and cheeks. I must be fully green now. Mrs. Becca Greene. Mama used to make me tan for hours in the summer, because brown was more becoming than green. Like she could hide me. Even now, she lowers her eyes instead of looking at my skin.

* * *

When I’m able to stand again, I move down the driveway, away from the house.

“We shouldn’t go too far,” Mama warns.

“I thought you said I have plenty of time,” I huff. Maybe too much irritation comes through my words, because she winces and falls a step behind me.

“Where are we even going?” Her voice is full of false cheer. Beneath it there’s a familiar reverberation. The same waver her tone held when she told me I couldn’t see Jackson or couldn’t go to the Marsh. It’s the same fear she had when she sent me into the city on the bus my first day of school.

By the time my next contraction hits, we’re well down the tree-lined lane, and I know exactly where my feet are taking me. Maybe the idea of the destination gives me a boost of adrenaline, or maybe the contractions ebb and flow naturally. Either way, this one doesn’t bring me to my knees. I brace off of Mama’s shoulders, and squat a little into the buzzing pain in my abdomen.

“Breathe,” she commands.

And, ever obedient, I do.

The pain passes, and I gasp. My gasp turns to laughter. I’m going to make it through this.

“Let’s turn back,” Mama says.

We’re close to the houses at the lower edge of town. People can probably hear my moans. They can see me sweating and squatting.

Mama doesn’t like when people see me as different.

“We’ll have to pull you from school,” Mama had said when I returned from the hospital. “Once this gets out, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

“But Mama, I just have another year!” I whined. “What am I going to do without a diploma?”

“Plenty of women get jobs before they finish their education. You’ll find some place that will accept you for you.”

“I’ll be fine,” I insisted. But she wouldn’t hear of it, and in our house, her word was final.

My only hope at that point was Dr. Greene.

“You’ve got a right to an education,” he explained in our next session. “She can’t keep you home against your will.”

“I can’t go to school knowing she doesn’t want me to,” I said, “She wants what’s best for me, and I can’t hurt her like that.”

He nodded gravely. “And Jackson?”

That’s when I learned that not everyone hated me for being different. Jackson still wanted to date me, even if my allergy meant we couldn’t kiss. At the end of the session, I rushed up to his apartment to find him. We hugged hard, and he held my hand. I felt the overwhelming desire to kiss him, but we just hugged each other tighter.

“You still want me?” I asked.

“My frog-girl? Of course,” he grinned.

It was the first time I didn’t mind turning green. I let a blush run through my full body and relished the heat of it.

That evening, I packed a bag and told Mama I was staying with Jackson and his family. “They’ll take me in until I’m finished with school.”

She grabbed my wrist and spun me around. “You can’t do this to me. I created you.”

I shook her off of me. “If I can’t remember it, it doesn’t count, right?”

Now, I shake her hand off of my arm again. I straighten as best I can and march down the middle of the lazy street. Let the neighbors look.

Mama sighs heavily and scurries after me.

* * *

We’re well past the church, and my contractions are stopping us at least once a block. I’m past the point of leaning on Mama. Every time the tightening starts, I drop to my knees. I end up on the pavement or in the grass, on hands and knees, whining and bellowing like some kind of animal. I grunt and groan and push Mama off when she tries to comfort me. The contractions are coming faster together, but they aren’t as drawn out. It’s an intense minute of squeezing death, then relief. I am quick to pick myself up and keep walking.

When we pass the turnoff to Granddad’s street, Mama realizes where I’m heading.

“No, no, no,” she grabs my elbow. “You can’t be serious, Becca. Not there.”

I want to tell her that I’ve read stories about women in Europe giving birth in pools of water. The baby just slips out of them. It’s supposed to be less traumatic for both baby and mother. But words are beyond me at this point. All I can do is breathe and walk, and hope the baby gives me enough time to reach the marsh. Because somehow, I know that’s where it must be born.

I’m kneeling again, and I look up to her. “Tell me about my birth.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t. That’s what you want me to say, right?”

She wipes frustrated tears from her eyes.

They’re so much like the tears that fell when she finally said, “Fine, you can go to school.”

Those tears weren’t of surrender though. Her allowance was accompanied by a list of rules so long I couldn’t help but feel I was the one who lost. I was to continue living with them. I could see Jackson but only with a chaperone.

She sealed the new deal by kissing my forehead. The site swelled and blistered, reminding me that life was going to be difficult, and I was going to need my Mama to get through it.

“Tell me,” I pant.

She drops to her knees, pretenses-be-damned. “I found you in the swamp when you were twelve years old. We couldn’t find your parents, so we agreed to take you in. The doctor thought it would be easier for you if you just thought we were your parents. You had almost died. You didn’t need to know your parents had abandoned you.”

My head aches. I stand, this time pulling Mama to her feet.

“Let’s go home,” she whimpers.

But I continue walking north.

* * *

“You got everyone in the town to lie about who I am,” I huff after my next contraction.

My defiance sounds the same as it did the day I told Mama I was marrying Jackson.

“You can’t marry that boy,” she had said. “Marriage is about family. How are you ever going to give him babies? You can’t even kiss without swelling up like some… some frog!”

“We’ll figure it out,” I said. By then I had finished school but hadn’t been able to get a job. The potential employers were not as cruel as the school children, but they didn’t want to hire a green-skinned receptionist.

“The doctor thought it was best,” she says again, as if it will excuse half a lifetime of feeling like I didn’t belong and not being able to understand why.

“Did Dr. Greene know?” I bite my lip. Tears blur my vision. “Did Jackson?”

The next contraction tears through me, and my scream goes low and guttural. It sounds too much like a bullfrog. No wonder the children always called me frog-girl. They weren’t wrong. To them I was an oddity from the marsh, not a human playmate they had grown up with.

“Jackson didn’t know.”

At least there’s that.

I get up and continue walking. The blurry edge of the marsh is in view.

* * *

I don’t make it quite to the weeping willow. The contractions start coming too fast and hard, and they take me down by the edge of the water about a hundred yards from the tree. Each one sets my skin on fire and shakes my bones. I weep and cry out and croak.

There’s no one around to hear, which Mama is probably grateful for, but I don’t care. I scream louder. Let them hear my frog song.

There’s a shift in my belly, and a slipping, and I feel the incredible urge to exhale and let the baby drop from me.

“Almost there,” Mama coos. She’s holding my hand and standing behind me, letting me lean against her thighs as I squat deep.

Another tightening and another woosh of exhale. Then a burning between my legs like the preacher’s sermons of hell.

Another.

Then a pop, and it’s over.

A beautiful, grayish-pink baby slips from me. I fall back, Mama lowering me to the wet mud as I reach for my baby and bring her to my chest. She covers my dress with blood and other liquids, and she’s squished up almost too bad to look like a baby, but she’s beautiful.

I cry and hold her to me, and Mama sits in the mud beside us.

“You did good,” she says.

I nod, but I don’t really hear her. Blood still rushes in my ears.

I bend my head to my baby’s. I nuzzle against her, smelling her newborn scent.

“Becca,” Mama says, “Don’t.”

I kiss my newborn’s head.

The pinkish skin turns gray. Then green. It puckers and welts. Her arms flail, then change, webbing growing between her tiny fingers. Her legs fatten. Her head fuses to her tiny body. She stares at me a minute longer, then hops off my stomach.

She’s small for a baby, but large for a frog.

She hops twice, then splashes into the water.

Mama cries. Real tears. Heavy, sobs. Surrender.

I don’t know how I’ll explain this to Jackson, but I do know that if you remember it, it counts.

 

* * *

About the Author

Koji A. Dae is a queer American writer living long-term in Bulgaria with her husband, two kids, and cat. Her writing focuses on relationships, mental health, generational trauma, and parenting. More of her writing can be found in Clarkesworld, Apex, and her website: kojiadae.ink.

Welcome to Issue 20 of Zooscape!

It’s easier to stare trauma in the face when it has the face of a cat. Art Spiegelman knew this when he chose to tell his father’s story, Maus, in the form of a graphic novel featuring mice, cats, pigs, and dogs rather than normal humans. It’s hard to look straight at the horrors and atrocities humans commit. Throwing in a little fur softens the hard edges, making it possible for us to reckon and wrestle with the harshness of reality.

Most of the stories in this issue wrestle with the darkness we have to face in this world, but they’re also beautiful, occasionally funny, and if you stick it out to the end, you’ll find one that’s just outright fun.

* * *

The Unbearable Weight of a Photograph by Jelena Dunato

The Last Life of a Time-Travelling Cat by A.P. Golub

Night in the Garden by Marshall L. Moseley

Proper Pedagogy by Jessica Cho

Rusty by Steve Loiaconi

Honey Harvest by Spencer Orey

The Three-Piece Giant by Gabrielle Steele

* * *

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.  Also, you can pick up e-book or paperback volumes of our first ten issues bundled into three anthologies, complete with an illustration for every story.

by Gabrielle Steele

“The top badger was terrible at playing its own game.”

Alana stood one step shy of the quaint stone bridge, gripping her sword as she stared at the furry red leg that stuck out from beneath the frayed edge of the giant’s shirt. The battered clothing suffered an abundance of arrow holes, and its original owner had clearly met a rather gruesome end. A shiny black nose was poking through one hole mid-torso.

“I say, giant, can you hear me all the way up there?”

“We– I can hear you just fine.”

The voice coming from the shadows of a heavy hood was far too high-pitched for a giant. How had the villagers fallen for it? It was bad enough they only had one bridge leading to the spring paddocks. But it wasn’t Alana’s job to point out such foolishness. Her job was simply to remove the so-called giant. Honestly, a real giant would have been easier to deal with. They didn’t have magic. The large red and gold puck badgers of the fae forest did. They were weak when docile but dangerously feral if offended. The safest action was to play along.

“Mighty giant,” Alana said. “This bridge is surely too small for you, and the villagers think it best you find somewhere more suitable.”

“We’re quite happy here, thank you.”

Alana fought the urge to roll her eyes. The top badger was terrible at playing its own game. “The villagers need to reach their paddocks. If you like it here, you can fish just as easily from over there.” She pointed at a rock jutting out from the riverbank like a small pier.

The top badger whispered something down to the middle badger, whose muffled whispers seemed aimed at the bottom badger. With as much grace as possessed by a newborn foal, the pillar of badgers turned towards the rock. Two snouts appeared – one from between shirt buttons, the other above the waistband. Stern whispers passed up and down the column, then the extra snouts disappeared, and the badgers shuffled back to face Alana.

“It looks awfully cold,” the top badger said.

“What if the villagers offer you a blanket?”

“That would be kind,” the giant’s chest said.

“Shut up, Rusty,” the top badger hissed; then he looked at Alana with narrowed eyes. “That shan’t do. We like this bridge. It’s pretty, and the fish don’t notice us so much.”

“Someone as skilled at fishing as you could surely escape the notice of a few fish. Now though, this might interest you. I hear the fish around here can’t resist creeping close to listen in on a good song.”

If there was one thing Alana knew well about puck badgers, besides their extreme dislike of being laughed at, it was that they loved the sound of their own voices, especially in song form. The sound had been deemed so terrible, there were tales of it shocking birds so badly they fell dead from their perches. Listening to an overtired child screeching for hours would seem a joy in comparison.

The giant turned to confer with itself; then it wobbled about, its clothes sagging and bulging as if a huge deathfly larvae were about to burst out. Just the thought made Alana’s hand shift towards her sword. The undulating stopped, and when the giant turned back, a different badger had taken the top position — it had much rounder, friendlier eyes, as well as a large golden hoop hanging from its left ear.

“What songs do the fish like?” the badger said, who sounded like Rusty, previously the middle badger.

“Tales of the open ocean, my friend. They long to swim in it, but alas, the salt shrivels them until they’re nothing but sea slugs.”

“Those poor mites,” Rusty said, looking sidelong at the river. “I’ve the perfect song to soothe their souls.”

As he closed his eyes and opened his mouth, Alana did two things. First, she shoved wax plugs into her ears which, being one of a problem-solver’s most important tools, she kept tethered around her neck. Second, she tossed a piece of stale bread upstream of the bridge, in a place where some scree blocked the swift current. Not a crumb escaped the gluttonous fish, whose dark shadows now filled the calmer channel.

Rusty closed his mouth, and Alana plucked her earplugs free before he opened his eyes. He whispered to the middle badger, who whispered to the bottom badger, and the giant staggered to the bridge’s low wall. It would have been easy to push them in and earn her coin, but Alana wasn’t interested in murdering such harmless creatures — harmless to those with the sense not to insult them, that is.

Leaning forwards, Rusty peered over the wall. “Well, I’ll be a–” But Alana never got to hear what, for Rusty’s foot slipped, and the giant’s head went tumbling into the river. The giant’s chest and legs screamed in horror, and each jumped separately to stand on the wall.

“Brother!” the shirt and trousers shouted together.

The pieces of clothing went flying, and both badgers dived in after their brother. In truth, Rusty would have been better off had they not. He’d already caught hold of a thick root and was busy pulling himself to the bank when his brothers slammed into him. He lost his grip, and the current caught all three of them. They thrashed about, making it painfully clear they didn’t know how to swim.

With a tremendous sigh, Alana unbuckled her sword and leaned it against the bridge wall with her pack. She pulled off her boots and socks, shirked her tunic and trousers, then dove into the frigid water wearing nothing but her smalls and the cloth that bound her breasts. Her chest froze, but she forced herself to breathe through the chill. Cold shock was the danger of rivers, one that had almost cost Alana her life as a child and that now had the badgers flailing as if they felt suffocated. All they did was waste their energy.

A fair swimmer, Alana caught up with the three silly creatures easily enough, but she had no way of hauling them all out together. She looked about and tried to form a plan, but the moment she was within reach, the fools caught hold of her. Two grabbed her arms, while Rusty wrapped his little arms around her neck, his vicious claws sinking into her flesh. Unable to move her arms, the weight of the badgers dragged Alana under.

It didn’t pay to be kind. She should have let them drown, given it was their own stupid fault. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to push them away to save herself. With all her might, she kicked her legs, driving them back to the surface.

Alana sucked in a chest full of air. “Kick your legs, you little weasels.”

Rusty’s claws bit deeper. Full of anger, the badgers would surely find the stubbornness to survive. Alana only hoped they would forgive her once they were safely ashore.

Together, the four of them kicked, churning the water like the flesh-eating fish of Murir. Alana steered them towards the left bank, where a thick root stuck out into the river, and beyond it… By the gods. It wasn’t the river that near deafened Alana. It was a waterfall.

“Make a chain if you want to live, weasels,” Alana shouted over the roar.

In a surprising display of intelligence, the badger holding her left arm shuffled down to her hand, followed by Rusty, who pulled himself around the other badger’s back. When the third badger didn’t move, Alana ducked him beneath the water for a few seconds, then bared her teeth at him. He soon moved across, settling between Rusty and the other badger instead of taking the end position. Coward.

“Grab the root, Rusty,” Alana yelled.

Hearing his name seemed to spur Rusty into action. They all kicked and stretched as they sailed towards the root with terrific speed. Rusty grabbed hold, sinking his claws in, but the speed of the river wrenched his paw away.

Alana searched the bank for anything else they could grab. There was a thin root just before the fall — their last hope. She flipped onto her back and started kicking against the current, hoping to slow them. The badgers did likewise, but their little legs were slowing. Even Alana felt drained, frigid as the river was. She kept kicking, pushing herself even as her chest burned for more air.

Alana wanted to shout at Rusty to grab the root, but she hadn’t the breath. He stretched his arm out anyway; then Alana did what she needed to. One by one, she prised the claws from about her hand, then pushed that badger towards the bank. Exhausted, she gave herself up to the river. Rusty stared at her with wide eyes, his paw wrapped about the root. Then the world tipped, and Alana took a deep breath before she struck the water far below.

Lost in darkness, Alana couldn’t tell up from down, or if she were conscious at all. Numbness had claimed her body. Her head struck something; then she faded into true darkness, the metallic taste of blood sharp in her mouth as she went.

* * *

“Is she dead?”

“Can we eat her?”

“Rats, the pair of you. She saved our lives, and you’re thinking about eating her?”

“I only asked.”

Alana groaned as her eyes slowly opened. Blinding light made her head pound, so she closed them again.

“Did you see that, Peapod?” Rusty said. “You can’t eat something that’s still alive.”

“What do we do with her then?”

“She looks badly hurt,” Rusty said. “I don’t think human legs are supposed to bend that way, and her head’s bleeding an awful lot. Say, Walnut, go fetch Old Willow. He’s not far downstream.”

“Right-o, brother.”

The world went blissfully quiet again, save for the hushed whispers of Rusty and Peapod. It sounded as though they’d moved away, or perhaps it was Alana who was far away. She couldn’t feel her body beneath her neck, and her head hurt so much she wished she’d drowned beneath the falls. A wave of nausea overcame her, and she vomited. With no way to turn her head, she began to choke.

“By the great lord’s fine stripes,” Rusty said.

“What do we do, brother?” Peapod said.

“I don’t–”

“Stand aside, stand aside,” said a deep, commanding voice. “Dear me, I’ve never seen one this injured before. My bag, little one.”

Over her choking, Alana heard the rustle of a jute bag being dragged over stone. Someone turned her head, bringing another wave of dizziness upon her. Her stomach emptied, clearing what had choked her.

“This is beyond my skill, my friends,” Old Willow said. “I fear to give her my pain tonic, for she has no control of her functions. You must call for the White Stag.”

One badger let out a little squeal of fright as another scurried away. Alana couldn’t blame them. The White Stag was infamous. They were both a stag of snowy pelt and a woman with unnaturally white skin, as if no blood ran through their veins. Indeed, that was probably true, because their favourite meal was the blood of men, particularly those who had recently dipped their wicks, be it in man or woman. Being a fair maiden upon a noble stag, it was easy for them to seduce any man. So Alana had heard.

The world seemed to get further away. Alana could guess her injuries. A broken neck and a cracked skull. There was no coming back from that. Old Willow would have been better to kill her himself than call for the White Stag, who was notoriously jealous of beautiful women. Perhaps Alana’s injuries were enough to protect her from a long, agonising life as a snowflake passing through flames and reforming in perpetuity.

Two badgers squeaked, and even Old Willow drew in a sharp breath. Swift hoofbeats sent bolts of agony through Alana’s head, but they quickly faded. Given how wet the ground was beneath her head, she must have finally bled out. It was a good life, but she shouldn’t have saved those damn badgers.

“Saving them is the only reason I’m healing you, human,” a melodic voice said.

As if by magic, which it probably was, feeling spread through Alana’s body. There was no pain, not even the ache in the tooth she’d been planning to have pulled. She opened her eyes and marvelled at the beauty of the stars above. Except they weren’t stars, for the sky hadn’t yet darkened. Laughter like the chiming of a tiny bell made Alana sit up and scoot away. Such a fair voice could only bring trouble.

“Humans are adorable when they’re afraid, don’t you think, Old Willow?” the White Stag said through the woman’s mouth.

Old Willow nodded quickly in reply, eyes averted. Alana couldn’t tear hers away. Both of the White Stag’s forms were beautiful. They glowed with a faint white light, and twinkling sparks of life floated through the air around them. Snowy felt coated the stag’s antlers, and the woman’s hair, even her eyebrows, were the same soft white. Her pupils, though… They were blood red.

Rusty sidled up to Alana and nudged her with an elbow. “You must thank them,” he whispered. Then he let out a whimper and scuttled away as the White Stag’s gaze moved to him.

“Thank you indeed,” Alana said, knowing one must always be polite and honest where fae creatures were concerned.

The woman grinned, and the stag snorted, tossing its antlers up and down. “It makes a pleasant change to find an educated human. There is a condition to your healing, however.”

Alana swallowed the stubborn lump in her throat. “And that condition is?”

“I rule the Araethan Forest here, so I have sensed you creeping within the border. You have always been respectful, which is why I have yet allowed you to live. I am sure you will soon find your healing to be a curse, however. You will live among us, solving our problems now, not those of humans. Stray from this task, and I shall undo your healing in an instant.”

Alana got up and lowered herself onto one knee, suddenly ashamed of her near-nakedness. “Your curse is a blessing, oh graceful one. To walk among magic folk and learn of your ways shall be a delight.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere with us,” they said. “Go with the brothers you have saved. They owe you a life debt, and it will take much work to pay that out.”

The woman climbed onto the stag, and they galloped away, lifting a hand in farewell.

“Well, I’ll be,” Walnut said.

“You’re lucky to have met her and lived,” Rusty said. He took hold of Alana’s hand. “Come now, lass. We’ll find you a place to stay. If we ask the trees nice like, they may give us wood for a cabin.” He tried to pull her along, but Alana tugged her hand free and turned to bow to the tall man-like creature who stood nearby.

“My thanks to you, Old Willow.”

“Off with you, lass,” he said, picking up his bag. “The White Stag will think you’ve rejected their gift if you linger.” He strode towards a willow tree downstream.

Rusty tugged on Alana’s hand. “Come now.”

Peapod took her other hand, and as they led her into the forest, Walnut danced ahead, singing a tale of the White Stag. If only Alana’s hands were free, she would have plugged her ears.

 

* * *

About the Author

Gabrielle Steele lives in Essex, UK with her husband and two mischievous younglings. She writes epic fantasy and speculative shorts, pitting poor souls against dragons, gods, and the occasional squirrel. You can view her ramblings on Twitter @eldris and find more about her writing on https://thellian.com

by Spencer Orey

“Bugs came in looking for a safe haven, then got so hooked that they’d pay anything to keep the honey flowing. I’d been one of them. I just hoped I wouldn’t be one again.”

It was late when she buzzed into my office in the shrub. This time of the year, I expected grasshoppers, maybe someone left behind in a migration. No such luck today. She was a mantis, same species as me, the kind I’d run away from before the cockroach war changed everything. These days, I didn’t see much reason to run. Better to sit still and let her eat.

“I heard you can find anyone,” she said.

Disappointing. But at least a job would give me something to do. “Sure,” I said. “When’s the last you saw him?”

“Her,” she said. “She vanished last night. After…” She ran a front leg up to straighten one of her antennae. “After she tried to eat me. I want her to know it’s okay. That I forgive her.”

Made sense. Some mantises got the hunger something terrible, couldn’t stop themselves from biting the head off of someone they cared about even when they knew they’d regret it later. Back before the war, I never would’ve understood something like that. Now, I knew we all had it in us to do something monstrous.

“Anywhere you think she’d hide?” I asked. But I already knew where to look. There was only one place any of us went when we messed up so bad that we needed to forget everything. The hive. The one place I never wanted to see again. It was always the hive.

* * *

By the time I glided in, it was late enough that even the fireflies were done flirting. They’d settled onto tall grass stalks, giving a final flickering show to some collector spiders in the shadows who were probably hoping for another chance at dinner.

I scuttled to the door, where two cockroaches accepted my entrance fee and waved me through without any questions. Maybe they still recognized me from the old days, or maybe I still looked hopeless enough to belong in a bad place like this.

Even from the doorway, the sweet smell hit me hard. Here I was, back in the trap, after everything I’d done to stay away. And the hive was one hell of a trap. Most bugs didn’t need to sleep, but staying outside at night wasn’t safe, especially when the weather turned cold. That’s where the cockroaches came in. After the war, when there was nobody left to stop them, they’d colonized a beehive and expanded it into a business. Bugs came in looking for a safe haven, then got so hooked that they’d pay anything to keep the honey flowing. I’d been one of them. I just hoped I wouldn’t be one again.

The front parlor was crawling with flies, most of whom wouldn’t see the sky again. I shouldn’t have blamed them for wasting their short time like this, but I did. Drinking sugar water until your legs curled was no way to live. And that’s most of what I tasted in the air, watered-down honey, dripping down the walls and into the troughs. Bigger bugs were in the back. A few locusts crouched around a trough of what was probably alfalfa honey, based on the flowery spice. I even spotted a wasp, slinking away.

“Ah, the private eye returnsss,” a voice hissed to my side. “What’sss bugging’ ya today? Heh heh.”

Roach. He ran the place. We had bad history together from the war.

“I’m looking for a mantis,” I said. “A dame. Seen anyone like that tonight?”

“Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t.” Roach’s wings twitched. He knew something alright. He always did. “What’sss it to you? Finally looking to get your head bitten off?”

Right, a bite. Just like in the war, when Roach led my friends into an ambush, and the wasps bit off their heads. Nobody had been able prove he’d led them into trouble on purpose. We all suspected the roaches of being malicious, but they kept getting away. Except, when the war ended, it turned out only the cockroaches had survived without taking heavy losses. The rest of us — wasps and mantises and all the other bugs who just so happened to be the cockroachs’ natural predators — discovered we’d had our numbers thinned out. Sure, we were furious, but we were broken. Nobody could fight anymore. Any talk of revenge died in places like the hive, where we all tried to forget what the cockroaches had put us through while we gave them everything we had left. But not tonight.

“Listen up, you larva.” I lunged forward and grasped Roach’s front leg, ready to snap it free. “How about you tell me where she is, and I’ll forget I saw you here tonight.”

“Maybe I sssaw a mantisss back in framesss,” Roach hissed, legs spindling around as he tried to slip free.

I let him go. “Good. Thanks.” If she was back in the frames, things were even worse than I’d suspected. I might even be too late.

“Wait. It’d be a pity to lose a good cussstomer.” Roach massaged his leg. “Surely it can’t hurt if she ssstays a couple more daysss. How about it, old friend?” He reached out with one of his legs, offering me money, a thick roll of bills.

A bribe. A good one at that, more than I was being paid for the job. More than I’d been paid in a long time. Whoever this dame was, she had to be a real high roller to be worth that kind of cash. That or someone was paying to eat a mantis, maybe a frog on the outside. Money like that could buy me a month of the good life. It’d be easy to do as Roach said, to back off and then come pick up whatever remained of the dame’s corpse. But I didn’t need anything else to keep me up at night.

“Keep your dirty cash, Roach.” I scuttled away, past a table of centipedes, all the way to the back wall, where a rhinoceros beetle guarded the doorway to frames. I paid him and went inside.

Most bugs either couldn’t tell the difference between sugar water and orange blossoms or just didn’t care. But anyone who stayed in the hive long enough developed a hard craving for something stronger. And that’s what you could get from frames.

It was a loud place and darker than the main floor. The far wall was packed with bee drones hard at work making honey for the cockroaches to sell to the rest of us. Below the wall, honey dripped down into a trough before it got piped elsewhere for dilution and distribution. But tonight, it wasn’t just bees buzzing. Something else buzzed too. Something familiar. Something bad.

I twisted away as a stinger darted at me from the side. A wasp. I raised my forelegs in defense, ready to strike back.

“Hey you two! Cool it before you anger the drones,” someone called from inside the trough.

“I recognize you from the war,” the wasp slurred at me. She only had one wing but kept buzzing it like she could still fly if she tried hard enough. Honey clung to the sides of her mandibles and her eyes. She’d eaten so much she couldn’t even see straight. I didn’t recognize her. Chances were, we’d never met. But she could still hate my species.

I raised my forelegs higher, ready to slash. It’d be a good fight, just like the bad old days.

The wasp wove to the side, looking for weakness. And as she moved, I saw the bug who’d called out from the trough. It was a beetle, blue shell resplendent against the thick orange of the honey. Next to the beetle was the mantis dame. She was in bad shape, drooping in place, wide-set eyes too heavy. No way she’d last another few days of this. The cockroaches had set her on a path to her death, same as they’d done to the rest of us. My fighting a wasp would just play into their plans. I had to get her out of here.

I lowered my forelegs. “We all did bad things in the war. Things we regret.” Even talking about the war made little memories flash up at me. Stingers. Broken eggs. Cockroaches hissing with laughter. “Right now, I’m here on a job.”

“What kind of job?” The wasp feinted striking at me a few times.

“I came looking for that dame over there. Someone wants her home safe.” I decided to try getting honest. “Someone who loves her. Someone who wants a fresh start.”

“Love, huh.” The wasp’s wing stopped buzzing. “Not a lot of love around here. Not a lot of fresh starts either.”

“Not enough,” I agreed.

I scuttled closer to the trough. The mantis dame had her head lowered into the honey for a long bite. Her legs were already shaking badly. It wouldn’t be long until the roaches fished her out and fed her to whoever was paying.

When she came back up, I said, “Your gal sent me to find you. She wants you home.”

“Home? I don’t deserve a home,” the mantis dame said, voice heavy and slurred. “I tried to eat her. I lost control.”

“No, you almost lost control,” I said. I looked over at the wasp. The two of us, we’d done bad things we couldn’t take back. But this dame, she hadn’t done anything bad yet, just come close. She’d found out she had limits, same as the rest of us, and it’d scared her. I said, “You almost went over the edge, but you stepped back in time. That makes all the difference.”

The dame slurred something I didn’t quite catch, except, “…safer alone.”

“How I see it is, you want to pass your life alone, that’s your business. You can do that after you get out of here,” I said. “But if you run away from too many good things just because you’re scared, you’ll end up like the rest of us, trying to forget your way through a bad night. And trust me, eventually, they’re all bad nights.”

The mantis swayed a little in place. I could see she was almost convinced. Maybe she’d been telling herself the same thing before the honey got to her.

The wasp buzzed closer to her. “Go while you still can. There’s nothing for anyone here but bad memories.”

I offered a foreleg. “Let’s get you back to someone who cares about you.”

For a moment, I thought she’d tell me to leave again. Nothing I could do about that. Sometimes, my pedantic lectures didn’t work, no matter how honest I let myself get. We all still got to make our choices, no matter how bad they could be.

The mantis took hold and stepped one leg out of the trough. I could smell the honey on her, wildflowers, always something special. I remembered my old sweet stupor and suddenly, all I wanted was to climb into the trough myself. But if I did that, the mantis dame would lose her courage. And I didn’t need any more drinking buddies.

We headed toward the door. The mantis stopped, then turned back to the wasp. “You should come too. We can find you a place to stay.”

“It’s too late for me, kid,” the wasp said. She gave me a quick salute, then buried her mandibles in honey. She’d made her choice, as much as I hated to see it. I saluted back.

I said, “Let’s get you home.”

Roach was waiting for us outside of frames. Then I found myself staring into the eyes of the rhinoceros beetle. Up close, she was ugly, sickly white with spots. Before I could tell her to move out of the way, a second beetle slammed into me from the side. I tumbled to the ground.

“Too bad you couldn’t sssee thingsss our way,” Roach said. “Girlsss, let’s give our friend a good long drink, on the house. I’ll take thisss other one to the collector.”

I twisted and slashed with my forelegs, but the two beetles held me with their horns and pushed me to the nearest trough. I kept fighting even as they shoved my face toward a honey trough. They pushed harder, and then I was sinking in. I twisted my head to the side, but that sweet stickiness seeped onto my face, coated my antennae. It was the cheap stuff, thin and runny. Sugar water. And it smelled wonderful. I tried to lift my mandible away, but the beetles pushed my head fully in, and warm honey seeped over my face and into my mouth, my first taste in far too long. I opened my mandibles and took a full bite. Then another. I stopped fighting, and when the beetles relaxed the pressure on me, I pushed myself the rest of the way into the trough.

I started eating the honey. Then I ate some more. I ate for a long time, letting it all fade, losing track of time, losing everything. I’d forgotten this bliss, how memories could fade into perfect empty sweetness.

Then someone ruined it. They pulled my head out of the trough, then pushed me out, onto the sticky ground. The mantis dame. She said, “Looks like you get a fresh start too.”

“Perhapsss we can come to an underssstanding,” Roach said.

She let go of me. I heard a buzzing of wings, followed by a hissing scream. With my vision still blurred from honey, I saw things in little flashes. The mantis dame bit hard into Roach’s head. Far away, a rhinoceros beetle had lowered horns to charge our way across the floor. I had to help, but I was weak and slow. I wouldn’t reach her in time.

One wing buzzed loud. The wasp leaped through the air and came down hard, stinging the rhinoceros beetle in the side. The beetle screeched in pain and slammed into a trough of honey. Flies scattered into the air. Hatches opened around the floor, and hordes of cockroaches came hissing out to keep the peace. Some of the other bugs poked their heads out of the honey in languid interest.

Roach was flailing in the mantis dame’s grasp. His head was gushing fluid from his bite wound, but he’d live. The mantis must have stopped herself from killing him.

She said, “Let us out of here now, or we’ll kill you all.”

My limbs were still sticky and heavy. I could barely stand.

“Let them go!” Roach hissed. “Get them out of here!”

The mantis dame released Roach and grabbed me, pulling me toward the door. The cockroaches made an aisle for us, hissing in anger. The wasp buzzed close with us, darting forward with her stinger whenever a cockroach came too close.

And then we were out in the night. I still wanted to sink into honey, away from all the memories flooding back. But I knew better than to give in. And this time, maybe not all of those memories would be bad. The night was full of predators, but right now, it was a night full of bugs who could still forgive each other. A mantis had forgiven herself enough to try living again, and somewhere out there, her lover was waiting for her to return. Maybe that was enough to earn me another day.

 

* * *

About the Author

Spencer Orey (he/him) is a writer living in rainy Denmark with his insect-loving family. He is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and his short fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Tales from Fiddler’s Green and Flame Tree Press’s Lost Atlantis anthology. He has a PhD in cultural anthropology, with academic interests in magic, mobility, and media dreams that he loves to weave into stories. You can find him online at www.spencerorey.com or @spencerorey on Twitter and Mastodon.

by Steve Loiaconi

“You’d be surprised what people will admit to when a mangy terrier is standing over them with a whirring power drill in his paws.”

Whenever there’s a crisis in Action Cove, the mayor calls in these jamokes.

Sparky is a labradoodle who tools around in a modified fire truck. Siren, the German shepherd, drives an excessively armored police car. Then you got Splash, a collie with a hovercraft; Slate, a boxer in a bulldozer; and Sting, a chow chow in a little yellow helicopter.

They take orders from Cash, an inexplicably wealthy 15-year-old with a good heart and a quaint notion of justice.

I got to hand it to them. Most days, those pups do a decent job of keeping the peace. Saving cats in trees, stopping petty crimes, putting out warehouse fires, and whatnot. Then they sing a little song and take a nap.

But a town whose entire law enforcement and emergency response apparatus is handled by talking dogs makes an attractive target for hardcore criminals. There are cases when they’re out of options, when the clock is ticking and lines need to be crossed.

That’s when they call me.

My name is Rusty, and I don’t mind getting my paws dirty.

I’m mostly Jack Russell with a hint of Doberman and a pinch of pit bull. Cash says he likes me like he likes his coffee: small, fast, and mean.

I don’t think he’s ever had coffee.

Half the time, I don’t even need to touch a guy. You’d be surprised what people will admit to when a mangy terrier is standing over them with a whirring power drill in his paws.

Up in the watchtower, I fill up my dish with black coffee. Slate is running an obstacle course; Sting is watching cartoons; and Siren is filling out some paperwork that she thinks is very important.

“Councilman Calamity is at it again,” Splash says, nudging the pages of the newspaper with his nose. Groans rise up from the rest of the team.

This stooge, Councilman Chatsworth Calamity, keeps looking for ways to shut us down. Whether it’s proposing budget cuts, advocating stifling new regulations, or — as today’s front page reports — signing contracts for some prototype robot dinosaur police force, the dude is a constant thorn in our paws.

“That city councilman is only still breathing because you twerps won’t let me off the leash,” I say, under my breath but loud enough for everyone to hear.

“We can’t just go around assassinating people,” Siren barks.

“Won’t isn’t can’t,” I say, lapping up a mouthful of coffee.

“Cash said no.”

“Yeah, well.” I glance out at the setting sun. “Cash says a lot of things.”

Sparky stumbles into the room.

“Everybody coming to my show tomorrow?” he asks.

There’s a chorus of of-courses and wouldn’t-miss-its.

Sparky is putting on a one-man show at the theater downtown. I’ve seen him rehearse. It ain’t Shakespeare, but it’s cute.

They’re always so damn cute.

“Any of you guys read my erotic Kojak novella?” I ask.

The room goes silent.

I emailed them all copies weeks ago, and it’s only 75 pages.

“Who’s Kojak?” Sting says.

It takes every ounce of restraint in my wiry little body not to leap across the room and rip his throat out.

The flashing lights on our collars break the tension.

“Cash needs us,” they howl in unison.

Everyone shimmies into their shiny uniforms and lines up for the briefing. I hang back by the window.

“We’ve got a problem, doggos,” Cash says, standing before a massive computer screen.

He taps his keyboard and brings up a mugshot and a map.

“This guy’s a demolitions expert from out west. The state police nabbed him speeding down Route 27 north of town. When they pulled him over, he couldn’t stop bragging about the bomb he placed somewhere in Action Cove. He said it goes off at seven p.m.”

We all turn to the clock on the wall. Quarter past six.

“Rusty,” Cash says, “I’ve been questioning him for over an hour and time is running out. It’s your turn.”

I nod and push past the other dogs.

“His name is–”

“I don’t want to know his name.”

I pick up my work bag with my teeth and slouch down the hall.

“Zap his nuts!” Slate shouts.

Always with the nuts, this guy. He doesn’t appreciate that there’s an art to this. None of them do. They just turn their heads, eat their yummy treats, and play their silly games.

I slide open the door of the interrogation room. Under a spotlight in the middle of the blood-and-dirt-stained linoleum, the thug sits chained to a metal chair.

He laughs when he sees me, like they always do. I lay my tools out on the floor, making sure he sees the array of knives, saws, and needles. That stops the laughter right quick.

This is the fun part. I spring back on my hind legs and swing my paw across his face. Then I hit him again and again. And again.

I wail away until hitting his jaw feels like punching a bag of kibble.

“Still not talking?” I grunt.

I retreat to the corner, and I relish the panic in his eyes when I return. It ain’t easy to carry a flaming blowtorch between your teeth without singing your fur, but it’s worth it.

“Stop,” he mumbles. “Please stop.”

My tail wags.

I power down the torch and sit attentively.

“It’s under the lighthouse,” he says, coughing a gob of blood and teeth on the floor. He gives me the deactivation code, and he tells me who hired him. I’m not surprised.

I march out of the filthy room, my head held high.

Cash lays out a plan and the rest of the team springs into action. They hurry down the slide to their vehicles. Action Cove is saved again.

“You’re a good dog, Rusty,” Cash says before he launches himself down the slide.

“No, I’m not,” I grumble. “And that’s the way you like it.”

As they race off to complete their mission, I curl up in the dark and weep.

 

* * *

About the Author

Steve Loiaconi is a journalist and a graduate of George Mason University’s MFA program. His fiction previously appeared in Griffel, True Chili, the Good Life Review, Samfiftyfour, and the Saturday Evening Post, as well as the anthologies Dracula’s Guests and P is for Poltergeist.

by Jessica Cho

“…they pulled strings from theories, tangled and untangled equations, sliced through Gordian knots with claws as sharp as Occam’s razor.”

When the doors of the Universities across the world first opened to them, the cats, for all their sheddings and shortcomings, took to those academic halls the same way they took to sunbeams and soft places.

They paced through their research with a hunter’s single-minded focus, ears high and alert for any sounds of interest, ferreting out facts like mice from the walls.

The linguistics department welcomed their nimble voices, well versed in a wide range of sounds, but even more their subtlety of jaw and gesture, their ability to communicate across oceans of silence.

From laboratories and lecture halls, they pulled strings from theories, tangled and untangled equations, sliced through Gordian knots with claws as sharp as Occam’s razor.

To all indications, they excelled.

But in the quiet depths of a building of cracked stone and creeping ivy, lies an old tabby, his body curled in proportions the envy of any Renaissance painter, who understands that chasing knowledge is an exercise as futile as chasing dust motes — imagined specks that disappear as soon as they’re grasped.

He sleeps undisturbed, a scholar in perfect repose, for he knows the key to understanding cannot be found in study or debate. The language of the Universe is neither math nor science, but rather the frequency that thrums in perfect resonance, the sound at the centet not a roar, but a purr.

 

* * *

About the Author

Jessica is a Rhysling Award winning writer of SFF short fiction and poetry. Born in Korea, they currently live in New England along with their cat Mushroom, who, as far as anyone knows, has no aspirations of higher learning. Previous works can be found at Fantasy Magazine, khōréō, Fireside Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, Daily Science Fiction and elsewhere. They can be found online at semiwellversed.wordpress.com and on Mastodon @jcho@wandering.shop

by Marshall L. Moseley

““Phoenix!” I said. “Mouse isn’t waking up!””

“Mouse?” I gently reached out and tapped him with my paw, but my little gray friend lay inert. Still.

We had been playing in the grass the way we always play. The game – you know it, I’m sure – was cat and mouse. Our respective species had once played it in deadly earnest, but over time, after the garden’s MedNanites gave us minds and we’d become friends, we played it for fun.

I hadn’t shaken him that hard. I’d shaken him harder before, and he’d always lain still for a moment, and then bounded up with a cheery “Good one, Cat!” and we’d go on with our play, or wander down to the stream to sip some water, or over to the food trees for some kibble.

The Phoenix would know what to do. I left my friend lying on the grass and ran out of the meadow and up the short grassy hill to where the giant bird was always perched on a rock at its top.  As I ran I looked up at the skydome, and its plates were no longer a bright sky blue, but darker, like I remembered dusk being before the escape. And there were cracks in them.

I ran up to the Phoenix and stopped. He no longer stared straight ahead, looking sleek and regal, awaiting questions or requests. His rainbow plumage was ruffled and sticking out everywhere, and his head was down.

“Phoenix!” I said. “Mouse isn’t waking up!”

“Fazzit… fa… failure… system,” the once regal bird said in a voice I didn’t recognize. Instead of his gentle baritone, he spoke in a monotone, almost like he wasn’t alive. “Neutron star… gravity well… MedNanites offline… gravity shear imminent…” He lifted his head and looked at me, and for a moment he was back. “I can’t fix it, Cat. I’m so sorry. It’s–” and then his head dropped.

He was gone.

I turned and ran back down the hill. I looked up; the plates were darker now, and there were more cracks. All around me I heard a faint creaking sound.

Mouse was where I’d left him. I looked up at the skydome one last time. Then I laid down and curled myself around him, and as the sky went dark and the wind howled, I mourned my friend.

 

* * *

About the Author

Marshall L. Moseley has been writing fiction of one kind or another for forty years. His screenplay, WILDCARD, placed in the top three of the third season of Project Greenlight, and he appeared in the show. He subsequently optioned it to Dimension Films, a division of Disney. His stories have appeared in ROAR 6 and Inhuman Acts, and he was nominated for a Cóyotl Award in 2015. He is a member of the Wordos Professional Writers workshop in Eugene, Oregon.