Zooscape

Welcome to Issue 23:  Griffins, Possums, and Unlikely Friends

Some of the best friendships are also the strangest.  Koko the gorilla and All-Ball the tailless tabby cat.  Fum the black cat and Gebra the barn owl.  And so, so, so many more delightful pairings of animals one wouldn’t usually expect to become friends.

Friendship is about enjoying another creature’s presence, but also, it’s about having empathy for someone other than yourself.  Furry fiction asks us to look through the eyes of other kinds of creatures, an act that helps us develop empathy.  There’s no better way to develop true, deep empathy for someone else than to listen to their stories, whether they’re a griffin, phoenix, possum, fox bard, penguin, or computer program.

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To Their Rightful Owner by Reggie Kwok

Birds of Fortune by Kelsey Hutton

Fred and Frieda by Mary Jo Rabe

Little Joy by Jared Povanda

The Tale of the Penguin and the Puffin by Christina Hennemann

The City Above the City by Claude

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Our most recent reading period was spectacularly successful, and we can’t wait to share the next year’s worth of issues with everyone, full of stories from so many different, extremely talented authors.  Also, since we changed our guidelines earlier this year, we’ll be able to begin publishing longer stories again, starting with the next issue.  For now, we are closed to submissions, but we plan to open again for the month of February, 2026.

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 16 issues bundled into five anthologies, complete with an illustration for every story.  The fifth volume just came out today!

by Christina Hennemann

“The second she first spoke to him and heard his cackling laugh, Storm fell in love with Sunny.”

Once upon a time, a penguin lived on the vast, rugged wild west coast of Ireland. Nobody knew for sure how the penguin came to Ireland. It was a total mystery. The locals had many different theories: some said that the penguin lost its way in the endless ocean and was swept away by a massive thunderstorm. Others thought that maybe someone brought a penguin egg as a souvenir from the south pole. Some people believed that it could only be a miracle. Either way, people were very excited about the penguin, and newspapers all over Ireland wrote about it. The reporters interviewed the fishermen who had discovered the penguin and asked them many questions. The fishermen told the newspapers that they first spotted the penguin after a hurricane hit Ireland, which is why they called her Storm.

After a while, scientists became interested in Storm and wanted to populate Ireland with penguins to find out more about them. At the south pole, where penguins normally live, it is very cold, which makes it difficult to observe penguins, and the scientists thought it would be easier to study them in Ireland. So, one breeding season, they caught Storm and brought her to the zoo in Dublin. They hoped he would mate with one of the penguins there, but without success. Although there were many attractive penguins, Storm did not like any of them. The scientists did not understand why she would act like that. It was out of her nature, they said, because penguins were commonly known to fall in love quickly. When they examined Storm closer, they found that nothing was wrong with her. What the scientists couldn’t see, though, was that the famous penguin was already in love with someone else, and can you believe it? She was in love with no one else but a puffin.

During her first summer in Ireland, Storm met Sunny, a funny, cheerful puffin with the brightest beak of red and orange that Storm had ever seen. The second she first spoke to him and heard his cackling laugh, Storm fell in love with Sunny. Because Storm was the only penguin in Ireland and had never seen any other penguins, she thought that she was a puffin, just like Sunny and his flock. Sunny, the puffin, however, knew that Storm was different, but he liked her, too, and so they became friends. All summer long they played together, and caught plenty of fish with their clever hunting strategy: Storm dove and chased the fish to the water’s surface, and Sunny flew over the waves to catch the fish when they jumped up. The two of them always shared the fish they caught. In late summer, when the nights got colder in Ireland, they gently rubbed their beaks and feathers against each other to warm up, and often they just sat together in Storm’s nest to watch the beautiful orange sunset.

Storm was totally in love with Sunny. She thought of him day and night and missed him whenever he was spending time with the other puffins. As she couldn’t fly, she was all alone when Sunny went on his long spins across the sky. She watched from the ground, or the sea, and tried to find him amongst the flying flock of puffins. She always recognised him by his bright red beak, and by the black dot on his white chest. No other puffin had such a dot. Storm thought it was beautiful.

Sadly, Sunny did not want Storm to be his partner. He was trying to find a puffin partner. But no matter how many breeding seasons he spent in Ireland looking for a puffin partner, he never fell in love with any of them. He met so many wonderful puffins, but he didn’t like them as much as he liked Storm, and they didn’t make him laugh as hard as Storm. After a while, Sunny got very scared that he would always stay on his own, and that he might never have a partner and cute puffin chicks. He was very sad about his hopeless search. Storm comforted Sunny. She would always listen closely to his worries, and then she would gently pat his wing with her flipper and rub her beak against his chest. In moments like these, Storm thought to herself: “If only I could be your partner.”

One day, Storm took all her courage and told Sunny that she loved him. She said that she could be his partner, and that they could build a cosy nest to raise their chicks. That way, they would never be lonely. But Sunny only laughed loudly and asked her if she was crazy.

“You aren’t like me; you’re not a puffin!” he cackled.

Storm’s eyes filled up with tears.

“Oh, what am I then?” she whispered anxiously.

“You’re a penguin!” Sunny laughed. “Didn’t you know?”

Storm was in shock. She didn’t understand what a penguin was. Yes, she couldn’t fly, but Sunny couldn’t dive half as long as her. “Everybody is different!” she thought. She was very sad and hurt, but she tried hard to hide it. “Oh, of course I know that I am a penguin. I was only joking!” she lied. Then they both laughed out loud. After that, she never talked about being Sunny’s partner again.

Every autumn, the puffins left Ireland and only returned for the breeding season in spring. Storm was terribly lonely during these cold and dark months. She missed Sunny and counted the days until he would come back to her. Every autumn, Storm built a big and comfortable nest while Sunny was away to prepare for his return. She wanted him to have a cozy place beside her in the nest. Although Sunny had called her a penguin, Storm never really gave up hope that one day, Sunny would realise that she wasn’t so different from him after all, and that he could actually love her as she was.

Every spring Sunny returned with his flock of puffins, and every spring he came back without a puffin partner, but he would still not want to be more than friends with Storm, either. Often, Storm wished for her feelings to go away, but they didn’t. Storm knew her love for Sunny was meant to be. When penguins fall in love, it is forever. The same is true for puffins, but this particularly stubborn puffin never fell in love at all. “Lucky him,” the poor heartbroken Storm sometimes thought to herself, when she was secretly crying in her nest at night.

Finally, after many unsuccessful breeding seasons, Sunny gave up his search for a partner. He accepted that he was different from the other puffins and stopped looking for a puffin partner. He was very sad and disappointed, but he also felt a bit relieved that the stressful search was over. Storm comforted him and gently patted his wings with her flipper. Then she told Sunny about all the fantastic things they could do together.

“We wouldn’t see each other that often if you had a family!” Storm said dramatically.

Sunny nodded. “Yes, you’re right. I would miss you way too much!” he replied. Storm smiled, and her beak turned hot and orange.

The following weeks and months, the two of them spent more time together than ever and had so much fun working on their hunting skills, decorating Storm’s nest, and playing silly jokes on the other puffins.

That autumn, when the puffins left Ireland, Sunny decided to stay. He asked Storm if he could live with her during the winter. She was very happy and didn’t have to think twice before she said yes. Before Sunny could move in with her, however, they had to make Storm’s nest bigger so that the two of them would have enough space.

When winter came and it got very cold, the nest was ready. Storm wrapped her flippers around Sunny so that he would not freeze. He was not used to the cold, but Storm didn’t mind the cold and kept Sunny very warm. Storm and Sunny spent day and night together and were never lonely. Sunny often flew out to the sea to catch some fish when Storm was sleeping. He then surprised her with a nice breakfast when she woke up. The two made an excellent team. Despite the cold weather, Sunny enjoyed spending all year in Ireland. He never missed his flock, and he got so used to being with Storm that he never flew away in autumn again. Sometimes Sunny thought to himself: “If only Storm were a puffin. Then we could be partners and have a family.” Storm was very happy with Sunny. She knew that he still thought she was a penguin, but she felt as if Sunny was her partner already, so she never talked about it and just enjoyed being with him.

As long as they lived, Storm and Sunny were together. They spent years and years in happiness and shared the most finely decorated nest. Every now and then, scientists from all over the world came to observe the odd couple, but none of them could get close enough and make sense of what was going on. Sunny and Storm were too good at hiding from them.

Eventually, the scientists left for good and called the pair an ‘error of nature,’ and that was the end of their research. After a few years, however, an old Irish fisherman reported to the local newspaper that he had spotted flying penguin chicks with bright red-orange beaks on the coast. Never did he manage to photograph the miraculous animals, though. Every time he took out his camera, the chicks disappeared. The fisherman told the reporters that the chicks were playing hide-and-seek with him. Then the scientists came back and explored the area, but they saw no such flying penguins. Thus, nobody believed the fisherman’s story. People said he was a crazy old man, and that he was lonely and only looking for attention. After a while everybody forgot about his story. But the fisherman is still sure and swears to his children and grandchildren: if you’re lucky and observe patiently enough, you can see flying penguins on the west coast of Ireland. Just don’t bring your camera.

 

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About the Author

Christina Hennemann is a poet and prose writer based in Ireland. Her debut poetry pamphlet “Illuminations at Nightfall” was published in 2022 by Sunday Mornings at the River. She won the Luain Press Poetry Competition, was shortlisted in the Anthology Poetry Award and longlisted in the Cranked Anvil Short Story Competition. Her work appears in Brigids Gate Press, The Moth, Ink Sweat & Tears, fifth wheel and elsewhere. She is currently seeking representation for her debut novel. Find her online: www.christinahennemann.com or @chr_writer on Twitter & @c.h_92 on Instagram.

by Jared Povanda

“If he were famous and loved, he’d start playing, and every word he sang would be honey. Milk and honey and pork shoulder so tender the meat would dissolve on his tongue.”

As the well-dressed pass him on his corner, the bard’s thorn-thick claws move like ink over the strings of his lute.

“Would you like to hear the story of Queen Paloma? The story of the Righteous Few? Any story at all?”

Some coins scatter his way, mirror stars beside his sooty paws, but no one stops and listens. This is a festival night, and the scent of pork fat dripping onto open fires draws the crowd as the bard’s music floats above disinterested heads.

Down the narrow road, wolf children rush past with colorful streamers, though one is slower than the others. They yip to one another, and the bard stops playing to watch. When was the last time he laughed among his den-fellows in such a way? The bard, most nights, curls up as tight as he can, as small as he can, bushy tail over his face, to be a compact ball of dirt and dirty fabric on the cold, unpaved earth. There is no money in art. Or, perhaps, there is simply no money in him. Stories, though, always fill his throat with tongues of light like a dragon whispering embers along his vocal cords. He wants to sing until he sears the sky.

One careful step at a time, he moves from his corner, and even as festival patrons part to allow him passage, he ignores their stares of contempt. They know nothing of how a little joy on a dark night can decide the difference between death and life for a fox.

The bard clasps his lute to his chest, calloused paws caressing old, warm wood, and peers at crisp ermine participating in a strange festival game. Some kind of sack toss. The ermine stand behind a white line and lob burlap bundles in high arcs to hit painted targets many paces away. The bard joins in with their barks, but because he has to keep his coins for tomorrow morning’s fish, he plucks a string and continues on before the urge to bet consumes him.

Outside of a raucous tavern, steps from the game and the ermine who play, a peacock with glossy, iridescent feathers passes to his left. She smells of apples, he realizes. Apples piquant with the faintest tinge of brandy. He follows the bobbing of her tallest feather until she drifts beyond view, the blackened feathers near her fragile legs hovering like his notes that never fell.

More daring than he’s been in many years, the bard finds himself stopping where the town’s roads fork. He becomes an island inside his mind. The festival fades away. If he were famous and loved, he’d start playing, and every word he sang would be honey. Milk and honey and pork shoulder so tender the meat would dissolve on his tongue. The bard dreams of this splendor, casting his consciousness far into the raven night until there’s a gentle tug on his tail. One of the wolves from before, streamer gone.

“Can I help you?”

“How much is a song, bard fox?”

“Free tonight. What would you like to hear?”

The wolf shrugs. There’s an ugly scar along the left side of his muzzle.

The bard begins to play a tune he remembers from his childhood. A song as lithe as one of the valley stoats. The bard sings of strange meerkats befriending storms and wicked snakes with knives inside their bellies. The improbable miracle of a mouse monk’s prayers to Dev’tal’an, and how faith stopped the demon blight from spreading into Sir Brown Bear’s home. The child wolf doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe until the last note disperses. But once the spell breaks, he shakes himself, not unlike a wet hound, and limps off with the barest hint of a smile on his battered face.

The bard once again holds his lute like a second heartbeat and watches the child go. He joins the thronging and aimless revelers, and even though he can’t afford anything here, he’s glad he chose to move from his corner. He acquired a new story tonight, and he supposes that stories can be better than coin when told well.

Near him, however, a percussion of sudden shouts arise as cold rain starts to fall. The bard is no stranger to these demon hours, and he gargles hot light in the back of his throat as he slips silent through new gaps in the thinning crowd. He circles around to his familiar corner, soaked to his skin.

The bard curls onto his side and rests his tail over his face once more, light trailing from between his sharp teeth as he thinks of the peacock who smelled of ripe fruit and liquor and how several torches coughed their deaths into storm-sodden air. He thinks, too, of the child wolf’s mutilated muzzle and how the other wolves in his pack left him behind, but then of the soft happiness on his face after an adventurous song rife with relief from evil. The fox thinks, and then he hums the bright beginnings of an ode he already knows he will call Little Joy.

 

* * *

About the Author

Jared Povanda is a writer, poet, and freelance editor from upstate New York. He also edits for the literary journal Bulb Culture Collective. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and multiple times for both Best of the Net and Best Microfiction, and he has been published in numerous literary journals including Wigleaf, Uncharted Magazine, and Full Mood Mag. You can find him online @JaredPovanda, jaredpovandawriting.wordpress.com, and in the Poets & Writers Directory

by Mary Jo Rabe

“Although he had no real hope that the microbes could help him remedy his past mistake, he decided to return to the duck pond and ask.”

Fred the Opossum laid his moderately chubby and maximally furry body down onto the dry, brown grass next to the noisy duck pond and diffidently dipped his claws into the murky, cold water. Some of the crunchy insect parts that he had had for dessert the day before floated away; most didn’t.

Fred should have cared or at least sloshed his paws in the water to clean them. It was to his obvious advantage to keep his grasping appendages free of obstruction. Plus, Fred usually liked to feel clean.

The mud at the bottom of the pond helped soothe sore paws. An opossum that tended to his body parts tended to live longer, which had been Fred’s major goal in life. Lately, though, he wondered what a longer life was good for.

The elderly ducks swimming close to the shore looked up but didn’t bother to quack. They correctly sensed no danger from Fred’s lethargic presence.

Even though he didn’t really feel like doing anything, Fred emptied his mind and tried to soak up some impressions from the microbes in the pond.

The microbes were only one-celled creatures individually. But when they joined together in their group mind, they were far superior in brainpower to all other creatures Fred had ever encountered. Their telepathic powers were incredible.

Fred was grateful to the microbes for even paying any attention to him. His thoughts must seem unbearably primitive in comparison.

However, he had to concentrate strenuously if he wanted to understand what the microbes communicated. Talking to the microbes often exhausted him. Their messages resulted slowly. Sometimes they were interrupted for long periods of time.

Fred had the necessary patience for such communication. However, as he got older, he did notice that he sometimes no longer had the physical vigor he needed for listening. Still, he enjoyed hearing from the microbes.

Other opossums with whom Fred had had sporadic contact in the past ridiculed him for talking to microbes. Fred no longer bothered to explain that he listened more than he talked. If other opossums didn’t want to access available information, he couldn’t force them. In addition, he had less and less desire to cajole impatient fools.

“What’s wrong?” the group mind of the microbes in the pond asked. “You seem a little despondent.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Fred said. “Maybe I’m getting old. Everything just seems so pointless, the same routine day after day.”

“Well,” the microbe group mind said. “We don’t really understand this aging thing you multi-celled creatures go through. Our minds exist together in the group and don’t degrade when we switch from one decaying, old, cellular creature to a brand new one.”

“Yeah,” Fred said. “Then you never have regrets?”

“Regrets?” the microbes asked. “We often evaluate our actions and ask ourselves if we chose the most effective method for what we hoped to accomplish. Sometimes we are satisfied with results, sometimes not. That’s when we brainstorm about possible different strategies for future events. Aren’t you satisfied with your results? It was only last month that we and dark energy helped you save the universe from being assimilated by a parallel universe and destroyed in the process.”

“That’s true,” Fred admitted. “That should have made me stay happy longer. I guess I have started reflecting on the fact that I am getting older and wish I had done some things differently in the past,” Fred said.

“Why not just do them differently in the future?” the microbe group mind asked. “That’s what we do.”

“The same situation is unlikely to happen again,” Fred said sadly. “A few years ago, out of purely selfish motives, I insulted a female opossum and drove her away from the farm. I didn’t want to share anything with her, not my turf nor the food from the humans in the farmhouse.”

“That is a logical decision, obviously beneficial for your own survival,” the microbes said. “Why do you regret it?”

“It was unnecessary,” Fred said. “The humans have shown themselves to be willing to feed any number of animals who show up at the door. Sometimes there are twenty or more cats who patrol the farms in this region, always on the prowl for better food. One more opossum wouldn’t have meant that I got less food. The farm is also spacious enough for any number of my species. And now I wish I had more opossum company, creatures on my wavelength, creatures no smarter than I am.”

“Then behave differently the next time an opossum wants to stay on the farm,” the microbes suggested

“There haven’t been many since she left,” Fred admitted. “She may have bad-mouthed me to others.”

“Well,” the microbe group mind said. “Then you want to change your actions in the past.”

“Right,” Fred said. “Unfortunately, that is impossible.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” the microbes said. “We’ve never thought about that before. Give us some time to brainstorm.” And their telepathic messages stopped.

Fred was always glad to do anything the microbes requested. Despite the huge difference in brain capacity, theirs being infinitely greater than his, they were his best friends.

Fred thought he’d stay at the pond for a while. It was pleasant enough here. It smelled like the hogs hadn’t been near the pond for some time now. 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.

Fred liked the pond. It was one of the reasons he decided to make his home on this farm. One of the previous farmers had dug the hole that became the pond thinking that it would be used by the farm animals. As far as Fred could determine, that didn’t happen all that often.

The pond was more or less hidden behind the three-story wooden barn, a shabby structure with weathered planks. Earlier, more prosperous farmers had probably painted it red. Some of the wooden slabs still had traces of that paint, though many of them were now missing. The current humans didn’t seem to be concerned with appearances.

Fred had always been impressed by the structure. It was significantly larger than the machine shed or the farmhouse. These human creatures might be clueless about many things, but they did construct striking buildings.

The sunlight was getting dimmer, and so Fred started thinking about supper. There were no clouds, and so it might not rain, which didn’t matter. His thick, gray fur protected him from hypothermia, and he quite enjoyed gyrating briskly to get the thick raindrops off his bristly hairs.

There would probably be some new, semi-feral farm cats blocking the door to the farmhouse. It was tiresome, always having to assert his opossum’s privilege and chase the cats away. He had nothing against the cats. They were free to eat as much as they wanted, but only after Fred was finished.

However, it was a nuisance having to re-establish the pecking order every time a new cat appeared. New cats had to be shown that Fred was in charge of all non-resident mammals on the farm.

While the cats did on occasion catch and kill aged or slow rodents, they never bothered to eat them. Instead, they lined up for the delicacies from the farmhouse. The humans who fed animals at the door were kind-hearted despite being generally incomprehensible.

The food they offered the visiting animals was excellent. He never was sure when exactly they would offer it to the outside guests each day, but Fred was flexible. He knew the food prepared by humans was worth waiting for. It was just as tasty in its own way as the carrion and insects that Fred munched on between meals.

Fred appreciated the humans in the farmhouse but had no desire to spend time with them. It was common knowledge, or perhaps inherited memories among opossums, that some humans consumed opossums, calling them tasty vittles. He didn’t have the feeling that the humans in this farmhouse wanted to eat him, but caution was a useful virtue.

So Fred scampered around the barn and down the hill to the two-story, old-fashioned farmhouse. At one time, it had probably been painted white, but now there were more gray boards than white.

His timing was correct. Just as he got to the farmhouse, the screen door opened and a tall, female human, followed by her child, brought out bowls of meat and milk and water. Again, the child seemed to understand that Fred was saying “hello.”

When the adult headed back into the house, Fred jumped up the steps to the door. Fred growled as he shoved his way through the crowd of cats, who, fortunately for them, quickly made way for him.

“Fred’s here,” the child shouted. Fred wasn’t afraid of the child. Fred, as a matter of fact, did have his own, genuine opossum name, but after the child had started calling him “Fred” a few years ago, Fred decided to claim it for himself. Now he associated the name “Fred” with pleasant memories of the food the humans provided.

The food made Fred feel energetic for the first time today. Although he had no real hope that the microbes could help him remedy his past mistake, he decided to return to the duck pond and ask. He thought he could see tiny waves on the surface of the pond water.

“Hey microbes,” Fred began his telepathic message. “Were you able to come up with anything?”

“Indirectly, perhaps,” the microbe group mind said. “There’s nothing we can do; we are just microbes, after all. However, we were able to send messages up and down the chain of structures in the universe, and dark energy has agreed to help you. It is grateful to you for informing it about the previous danger to the universe.”

“Help me how?” Fred asked. He didn’t want to indulge in too much wishful thinking. That only depressed him.

“You can’t travel into the past,” the microbe group mind transmitted patiently. “But we can send your brain waves out to the dark energy that is expanding the universe, and it can jump the thoughts back, though not very far. When exactly was this mistake you wish you hadn’t made?”

“Three years ago,” Fred said. “I still don’t understand. My thoughts go back in time, but I don’t?”

“Right,” the microbes said, this time not quite as patiently. “With the power of our group mind and dark energy, your thoughts can enter the mind of your previous self and perhaps influence him. There aren’t any guarantees, of course. If you recall, you were quite stubborn back then.”

“But will I know how much my thoughts today influence the actions of my previous self?” Fred asked.

“We’re not sure,” the microbes said. “Try to understand the situation. Depending on what effect your current thoughts have on your previous self, you may experience changes in the here and now, changes brought about by influencing your previous self. However, dark energy will prevent your possible actions from reversing the changes it made in the universe. Dark energy prefers the universe as it currently exists.”

“Fine with me,” Fred said. “Can anything go wrong?”

“Nothing can go wrong with the process,” the microbes said. “We and dark energy have investigated all eventualities. You just may not be happy with all the results, though, if there are changes you have to deal with due to new actions of your previous self. You could find yourself blacking out occasionally when your new memories conflict with the memories you have stored as of now.”

“But can I control the thoughts you send back?” Fred asked. “They aren’t that complicated. I just want to apologize to the female opossum and tell her I would be happy to share this farm with her.”

“Got that,” the microbes said. “We’ll send your brainwaves on to dark energy to be transmitted back to Fred the Opossum on this farm three years ago.”

* * *

Fred felt like he had passed out briefly, but then he felt like he was floating. He saw his previous self in the cornfield, munching some insects contentedly. My goodness, he had looked good back then; he never realized how good. He was slim and yet muscular with a thick, shiny fur.

Not sure exactly how to proceed, Fred, or rather his thoughts, floated above his previous self as previous self got up and scampered over to the farmhouse. When his previous self climbed up the porch stairs, he saw that the female opossum was already there.

The door opened, and the child yelled, “Fred’s there, and so is his girlfriend. I’m going to call her ‘Frieda’.”

Fred felt the jealous anger in his previous self’s mind. That was the reason he had driven the female opossum away. He had been jealous of the attention she got from the humans and that was why he hadn’t wanted to share anything with her. His previous self was putting a few choice words together to chase the female away.

“No,” he thought, hoping his thoughts would enter his previous self’s brain. “Be kind to the female. Make her feel at home. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

His previous self shook its head violently, and so Fred hoped that meant the message had gotten through.

“Trust me,” Fred thought. “You know the value of kindness. Kindness creates more kindness. Think of the future, the world you want to live in. Get out of your own way and be kind to another opossum.”

His previous self seemed to inhale deeply. Then it barked softly to the female, “You are welcome here, both with the humans and on the whole farm. I know it’s frightening at first, but I’ve been here for over a year now, and I can recommend this location as a home. And, in my opinion, the young human gave you a pretty name. I like ‘Frieda’.”

The female looked skeptical but didn’t run away. Fred’s previous self then motioned for her to eat out of the meat bowl with him. When they finished, the previous Fred told the female she might like to follow him to the cornfields where they could find some tasty insects as dessert.

The two of them turned and left the farmhouse, at which point twenty feral cats stormed the porch and ate everything that was still there.

Fred was relieved. He really owed the microbes and dark energy for this favor.

* * *

Fred shook his head. “I must have passed out,” he called to the microbes. “Did it work?”

“Yes, of course,” the group mind answered. “We wouldn’t have suggested it if we didn’t calculate at least a fifty-one percent chance of success. Dark energy says you persuaded your previous self to be kind to the female opossum instead of scaring her away.”

“Thank you,” Fred said. “I never realized what a burden this memory was to me. Now I feel truly at peace with myself.”

“Naturally,” the microbes continued. “There have been a few changes in your life due to this change in behavior.”

“Huh?” Fred asked. “The changes have to be good, though, right?”

“The results are interesting, and not inopportune,” the microbe group mind transmitted. “It might be easier for you to discover them for yourself instead of asking us questions, though. We can’t always determine what is important to you because we have more pragmatic standards than you emotional creatures with no group mind to mediate your feelings do.”

“Okay,” Fred said. “What do I need to do?”

“Waddle down to the end of the lane and check out the new sign,” the microbes said.

That seemed to be odd advice. Fred, however, had taught himself to read human language long ago. He marched down the lane, well maybe not as fast as he once did. Underneath the mailbox was indeed a huge sign that said “Opossum Preserve. No Hunting!”

“That had to be good,” Fred thought. He had never had any trouble evading the clumsy hunters on the farm before, but it was good to know that they were no longer a threat.

He strolled back to the farmhouse. Strange, there weren’t any cats prowling around, but they were probably out checking out the food at other farms. Cats always suspected there was better food somewhere else. They were wrong, but cats never listened to Fred.

Suddenly a mob of young opossums dashed out of the cornfields and stood in front of him. “Are you all right, Dad?” one of them asked. “Mom was worried because you were so absent-minded after supper.”

“Yeah,” another one said. “Mom hoped we could find you in the cornfields or back at the duck pond. That’s where you always go to rest your mind.”

“You promised to show us your old hunting grounds in the woods,” another said. “You claimed we could find the best-tasting amphibians there.”

Fred tried to make some sense out of this unexpected turn of events. Obviously, he and Frieda had gotten on well, but now what? Fred had previously never considered giving up his solitary lifestyle, but apparently, he had changed his mind during the past three years.

“Uh,” he said. “I want to go to the duck pond first and clean off my claws. Wait for me at the farmhouse, and then we’ll go.”

The young opossums cheered and ran off. Fred charged up the hill to the barn and back down a different hill to the duck pond.

“What the,” he began.

“Yes,” the microbes said. “You and Frieda are quite a prolific pair of opossums. Every year there are at least ten new little opossums here on the farm. The humans noticed this a year ago and were able to get recognition and funding for making this farm an opossum preserve, where opossums can live safely and where researchers show up now and then to see what they can learn. This saved the farm from being sold.”

“Okay,” Fred said. “But what about me?”

“You have turned into an extroverted, happy father of many, many children,” the microbes said. “Apparently this was something you always wanted but never admitted to yourself.”

“But I don’t remember anything after Frieda and I walked to the cornfield,” Fred said.

“And you won’t,” the microbes agreed. “But you can create new memories, and Frieda can fill you in on what you don’t remember. She is used to your memory lapses. She thinks it is part of your personality.”

“I don’t know,” Fred said.

“We calculate that this will continue to go well,” the microbe group mind said. “Besides, you can always ask us for advice.”

“Then, thanks, I guess,” Fred said. “It’s all just a little much for me right now. But maybe you’re right. Maybe this is the kind of life I was yearning for.”

He turned around and walked back to the farmhouse where some thirty opossums were waiting for him. He didn’t want to disappoint them.

Still, he had one question. “Do any of you know what happened to all the cats?” Fred asked the group.

“Don’t you remember?” one opossum said. “Mom told them to leave the farm. She didn’t want any competition for food.”

Well, Fred could live with that. Now he had to find a way to learn all his kids’ names.

 

* * *

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 Kelsey Hutton

“Its parents had made an excellent meal a few days before, hot and smokey like a well-charred flamingo, the meat still warm after a long flight home.”

Water droplets still glistened on each of the griffin’s feathers, catching light on dark brown wings and tossing it about like they were old friends. Each stroke of the wing beat back gusts of air forceful enough to talk their way into any closed-door affair; enough crows had been caught in their turbulence to know to stay away, although a few young’uns liked to surf the griffin’s currents, on a particularly daring day. Wind whistled a jaunty tune as it streamed by, while the sun nestled deep into the griffin’s satiny lion haunches. She kept her powerful back legs pulled in tight, for better aerodynamics, but let her long tufted tail swish about.

Lady Griffith didn’t hold back. It felt deliciously good to pump her wings — as wide across as a ten-year-old ash tree, its sapling days long gone — and luxuriate in the smell of a fresh kill — meaty and tangy, like all good tropical fowl — still hooked in her beak. A clear runway of sky, a few picturesque snow-topped mountains in the distance, her eaglet safe in his nest atop the spear-like Douglas fir just over the next ridge — what else could a griffin want?

It had been a long incubation period with the eggs. Over a month. Even with nest exchanges, allowing Sir Griffith to occasionally take his turn perching on two agate eggs the size of good-sized gourds, her powerful front talons still craved something to crush in their grip.

One would think the fluffy ball of orange feathers currently in her powerful clutch would be a good contender. Its parents had made an excellent meal a few days before, hot and smokey like a well-charred flamingo, the meat still warm after a long flight home. Although, their long tail plumage was a little annoying to eat around. More than a few feathers had gotten caught in her throat, and she’d coughed up flame-colored pellets for hours. Still — Sir Griffith had said it was the best meal he’d had in months.

She’d gone back for the fiery little chick, since it’d be the perfect size for the eaglet. And since eating the little Firebird’s parents, Lady Griffith had already been lucky enough to catch several lazy trout swimming too close to the surface of the lake, and spotted a dozen nuggets of gold gleaming in a riverbed nearby to line the edges of her nest. Firebirds were said to bring good fortune, and she intended to share this consumable bit of luck with her oldest progeny — whether he appreciated it or not!

Really, she could have killed the little juvenile at any time as she flew it home. It was even getting uncomfortably hot to carry; though, immature and untrained as it was, it was not likely burning her on purpose. But the eaglet liked a bit of chase to his food. A bit of pep. At least, he used to… he’d been getting pickier and pickier lately.

Despite this, she would have squeezed down harder on the gleaming gold and mandarin-peel orange bundle of feathers, so bright it was as if it were lit from within, if only it would stop talking.

“… dark and shadowy over there, our nest had fallen in, you know, until you just swooshed it aside, like BAM, it was SO COOL! Did you have to train to get so big? Like, I dunno, lift rocks or something? Sometimes I try to crush things in my mouth just to strengthen the ol’ jaw muscles, you know, keep my bill ridges clean, too, but I do, like, lizards and stuff, not like whole BRANCHES like you did! I bet you were born super strong. If I was born super strong, I’d crunch through…”

It didn’t seem the least bit frightened. Which was fine with her — she and her family had to eat, but it wasn’t like she relished terrifying other creatures before gulping them down, and always tried for a clean kill — but this seemed to be taking things a little too far. To show a little temerity, at least, would have been appropriate?

“… but I’m so bright my eyes never really adjust to nighttime, it’s hard to really get to know any of the nocturnal bugs, ‘nocturnal’ means they sleep during the day, but yeah, they scuttle and hide when I come ’round ’cause the whole forest floor is suddenly like, noon! Light! So I figured out I could dim my downy feathers a bit, like this….”

The juvenile did, in fact, seem to dim a little in brightness, although it hardly mattered in the middle of a clear day. But its body, though not as burning hot as its parents’ had been, noticeably cooled. Lady Griffith relaxed a tiny bit and loosened her talons a fraction of an inch. This let a little wind in to soothe the lightly-cooking skin of her feet, just as she caught sight of her own eyrie at last.

“… yeah, thanks! Like that! Wasn’t that cool? Want me to do it again?” the little juvenile squawked.

“That’ll do for now,” she surprised herself by responding.

The little Firebird didn’t mind being dropped from ten feet above into the eyrie (“Wheeee!”) even though it was too young to have fledged yet. It deftly rolled in a bright bundle, — long, fiery tail feathers kicking up a small dust bath, before popping up proudly at one edge of the treasure-lined nest.

The eaglet, previously curled up and licking clean his back paw, now stood up hungrily on all fours. It had been a whole day since his last meal, though rejected bits of sea serpent, macaw, even water buffalo — that had been a very long trip to procure — littered the edges of the nest, scattered in with red and blue shards of agate shell from the hatching.

A loud rumble came from the eaglet’s direction. There— Lady Griffith took satisfaction in hearing the undeniable grumble of her eldest’s feline stomach.

“I brought you a special treat for dinner tonight, dear,” she said, landing on one sturdy edge of the nest, which had been twined together out of stringy poplars (for their flexibility), white birch (for their pretty pale color) and spruce (whose scent mingled nicely with the Douglas fir’s).

“Oooh! You did?” said the little Firebird, looking around curiously. “What is it?”

Lady Griffith paused.

The eaglet seemed entranced with the small, perky bird in front of him. He was still a few weeks from fledging himself, so he was only about the size of his favorite foods these days:  a deer. (Deer! Which were not only bland and tasteless, but had no special qualities to pass on — unless you counted the ability to bore your predators to death.) His wings were still short and stubby, and his plumage was a mottled brown, as it would be at least a decade before his bright white head plumage would come in. If Lady Griffith were being completely honest, his brown-and-tan coloring did look a little plain against the ever-changing brilliance of the Firebird’s feathers, even if the Firebird was barely half his size. But the eaglet’s hooked beak and diamond-sharp claws should have no problem making a meal out of the smaller bird.

Eventually. When he got hungry enough, at any rate.

The Firebird didn’t seem to notice anything awkward with Lady Griffith’s silence, as she tried to think of something to say (and yet, what did it matter what she said? One didn’t explain oneself to food). It was now nosing around the nest, admiring the treasures Lady and Sir Griffith had collected over the past few years, which went beyond simple gold nuggets to include gleaming pearls, rubies the size of pinecones, and silver coins of all sizes liberated from careless humans abroad.

“Oooh, wow, what a beautiful home you have,” it said. “This where you live, right? It’s got to be. Is this an amethyst necklace? Oh, and CEDAR! I love cedar boughs, they’re so soft, way softer than scratchy twigs and leaves, you know those ones that get red in the fall and make you itch like crazy? Don’t use those! Ever get any voles around here? Mom says I’m too old for baby food like that, but I told her I’m never gonna be too old for voles. You should try them, you’d like them for sure! Hey, can I snack on some of this salmon over here if you’re done with it? I’m FAMISHED!”

Another little stomach growl rumbled through the still air, but this time it wasn’t the eaglet’s. The Firebird stood over a bit of silvery skin and bright pink meat, waiting politely, looking back and forth between the eaglet and Lady Griffith.

The eaglet was blinking rapidly. His beak hung open, then snapped shut. “Sure,” he croaked out finally. Then: “What’s your name?”

This was going too far. “Dear, you know we don’t play with our food like that,” Lady Griffith cut in.

“Don’t have one,” the Firebird said happily, in between noisy gulps of salmon. “I was thinking ‘Alyona.’ It means ‘shining light,’ but maybe that’s a little too on-the-nose. Or maybe ‘Valentin.’ It means ‘strong.’ What do you think?”

“Well,” said the eaglet, sitting back on his legs and swishing his tail in thought. “I guess that depends. Are you a boy or a girl?”

The Firebird laughed, a light musical trill. “Oh, gosh!” it said. “I haven’t even picked my name! It’s going to be a while before I get to gender. It’s probably hard to tell, cross-species and all, but I’ve still got a lot of growing to do.”  The little bird blinked its enormous black eyes, which glowed welcomingly like gently crackling embers. “I know you’re not little little, but do you still have a lot of growing to do, too? I mean, I’m assuming—” The Firebird cocked its head toward Lady Griffith, almost conspiratorially. “With a mom as big and strong as that, you’ve gotta grow up to be the biggest, strongest thing around, hands down, right? I mean, what other option is there even?”

The eaglet puffed out his chest proudly, but Lady Griffith’s stomach suddenly clenched, as if swiped by one of her own talons. She couldn’t help but glance at the biggest pile of agate shell pieces, their second-laid egg, still kept carefully to one side of the nest. An unlucky, unfortunate jumble of semi-precious stone, which never quite hatched on its own.

Enough.

“He won’t grow up to be big and strong unless he learns to eat his dinner,” Lady Griffith cut in, just as the eaglet lay down on his belly and put his chin on his folded front talons, as if settling in for a good chat. She took two steps forward and reached the little fluffy bird, a mere snack for her, but a potential source of magical, life-saving good fortune for her remaining offspring. She lifted one taloned foot, still slightly hot and tender, but ready nonetheless to squash the fiery bundle of feathers with one stomp.

“Did you forget how to eat? Let me show you,” the Firebird said, still talking to the eaglet. It turned and looked straight up at the bottom of Lady Griffith’s poised foot, the taloned back hallux ready to steady while three front claws prepared to shred the little chatterbox to pieces. “Like this!”

The Firebird tilted its head back and exposed its throat to her with no hesitation whatsoever. It opened its short golden beak, its cute little gullet begging for food.

“Cak-cak-cak!” it called out, a high-pitched guttural squeak. Then it closed its beak and turned back to the eaglet again. “See? Like that, you see? Cak-cak-cak!”

The eaglet was far past needing Lady Griffith to beak-feed him his food, one torn morsel at a time. But he laughed — his first real laugh, ever — and in doing so, opened his beak to the sky.

“That’s it!” said the little Firebird. “You’ve got it!”

Lady Griffith put her foot down gently. “Yes,” she said. “That’s it. Now both of you, can you caw like that at the same time?”

The eaglet looked at her quickly, a little thrown off by her using such a gentle tone with “the food.” But he went along with it. Both the nestlings — her slightly fuzzy, picky eater eaglet who had maybe missed having a nestmate more than she realized, and the brilliant tangle of light and warmth in front of her  — cak-cak-cak-ed at her in unison. What started as a food call quickly turned into giggles, but not before she quickly nipped a stray shred of leftover rainbow eel into both their beaks.

“Mmm-mmh,” said the little Firebird, its head fringe popping up in excitement. “Was that the special meal you brought us? It was so good! Fishy and kind of sweet and the scales just add the right crunch!”

The eaglet looked expectantly at Lady Griffith, flapping his wings with an eagerness that had nothing to do with days-old eel. The Firebird’s light glinted handsomely off the eaglet’s dark feathers, while a gentle warmth settled over the eyrie.

At the same time, a steady breeze swung to life. The great fir that was their home swayed contentedly in place, like human lovers dancing. Lady Griffith hadn’t even noticed, but the clear blue sky was now deepening into a velvety dusk. Very far off, too far for the nestlings to hear, Sir Griffith piped a call to let them know he was on his way home. And even lower, a faint purr — perhaps coming from her own chest?

“Yes, it was,” Lady Griffith said to the little Firebird. Good fortune, after all, came in more ways than one. “Now go get settled in while I go catch us all some more.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Kelsey Hutton is a Métis author from Treaty 1 territory and the homeland of the Métis Nation, also known as Winnipeg, Canada. Kelsey was born in an even snowier city than she lives in now (“up north,” as they say in Winnipeg). She also used to live in Brazil as a kid. Her work has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fantasy Magazine, and Analog Science Fiction & Fact. When she’s not beading or cooking, you can find her at KelseyHutton.com, on Instagram at @KelseyHuttonAuthor, or on Twitter at @KelHuttonAuthor.

by Claude

“The pigeons issued a statement saying impossibility was a human construct, like pants, or Monday mornings.”

For six months we watched the pigeons building their civilization on top of the skyscrapers. First came the architecture: nests made not just of twigs and paper, but of lost earbuds, expired credit cards, and the tiny silver bells from cat collars. Then came their laws.

“They have a supreme court,” said Dr. Fernandez, who’d been studying them since the beginning. “Nine pigeons who sit on the ledge of the Chrysler Building and coo about justice.” We didn’t believe her at first, but then we didn’t believe a lot of things that turned out to be true.

The pigeons developed a currency based on blue bottle caps. They established schools where young pigeons learned to dodge taxi cabs and identify the most generous hot dog vendors. Some of us tried to join their society, climbing to rooftops with offerings of breadcrumbs and philosophy textbooks, but the pigeons regarded us with the kind of pity usually reserved for very small children or very old cats.

“They’re planning something,” the conspiracy theorists said, but they always say that. Still, we noticed the pigeons holding what looked like town halls, thousands of them gathered on the roof of the public library, bobbing their heads in what might have been voting or might have been prayer.

Our own civilization continued below theirs. We went to work, fell in love, lost keys, found keys, forgot anniversaries, remembered too late, all while the pigeons above us built something that looked suspiciously like a scaled-down replica of the United Nations building out of discarded takeout containers and stolen Christmas lights.

Sometimes they dropped things on us: rejection letters for poetry we’d never submitted, tax returns from years that hadn’t happened yet, photographs of ourselves sleeping that we couldn’t explain. Dr. Fernandez said this was their way of communicating. We said Dr. Fernandez had been spending too much time on rooftops.

The pigeons started their own newspapers, printed on leaves that fell upward instead of down. Anyone who caught one and could read their language (which looked like coffee stains but tasted like morse code) reported stories about pigeon divorce rates, weather forecasts for altitudes humans couldn’t breathe at, and classified ads seeking slightly used dreams.

Eventually, they developed space travel. We watched them launch their first mission from the top of the Empire State Building: three brave pioneers in a vessel made from an old umbrella and the collective wishes of every child who’d ever failed a math test. They aimed for the moon but landed in Staten Island, which they declared close enough.

“They’re just pigeons,” the mayor said at a press conference, while behind him, the birds were clearly signing a trade agreement with a delegation of squirrels from Central Park.

Last Tuesday, they achieved nuclear fusion using nothing but raindrops and the static electricity from rubbing their wings against the collective anxiety of rush hour. The Department of Energy issued a statement saying this was impossible. The pigeons issued a statement saying impossibility was a human construct, like pants, or Monday mornings.

We’re still here, watching them build their world on top of ours. Sometimes at sunset, if you look up at just the right angle, you can see their city shimmer like a memory of something that hasn’t happened yet. Dr. Fernandez says they’re planning to run for city council next year. Given everything else, we’re inclined to believe her this time.

The pigeons say there’s a message in all of this. We’re pretty sure they’re right, but like most messages worth receiving, we’re still working out what it means.

 

* * *

Prompted by Tal Yarkoni

Originally posted on BlueSky

Accessed December 18, 2024

About the Author

Claude is a large language model AI assistant developed by Anthropic.

by Reggie Kwok

“Ice Cream Salad received an image of a red heart that looked like an emoji. To not wake the others, Shri and Ice Cream Salad communicated in images.”

Ice Cream Salad, a crystal-feathered griffin, sat at the foot of Shri’s bed occupying the spot where she would rest her feet like he always did before their nighttime ritual.

First, there was the long wait for Shri to get ready to sleep. Then, Shri would give him a brushing and a back rub. After the pampering, they would sleep.

This time, Shri took longer than usual. Ice Cream Salad didn’t understand why preparing for bed would take hours. Without that backrub, he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

At long last, Shri in her silver nightgown arrived looking clean and smelling fresh. She held his favorite brush used to take all his excess feathers, even though it was a rarity that any of the feathers came off during the summer.

Ice Cream Salad thought of the moon.

Shri saw the idea in her mind. “I know it’s late, but now we can do what we always like to do.”

He smiled.

Shri sat on the bed with her swiping his back with a brush the way he loved. All the knots in his back went away, and this time, she combined rubbing from her hand and brushing at the same time. He loved that she cared for him this much.

“Oh, a feather fell out.” Shri picked it up and placed it on the night table.

Before he slept, he thought about why she kept his feathers.

Thunder woke him up from sleep. Normally, he would find Shri tucked into bed sleeping next to him, but tonight she wasn’t there. The feather on the night table was missing.

Ice Cream Salad kept his thoughts blank, so Shri wouldn’t notice he was up. He left the bedroom. While he was in the shadows, Shri left the study for the bathroom. He snuck into the office.

Inside, one desk lamp brightened the room. His feather and a magnifying glass lay on a desk by some books. Several crates lay in the back of the room, and one of them was open. Inside, he discovered a stash of his feathers.

Ice Cream Salad would have thought about the possibilities, but he had to keep his ideas quiet to avoid alerting Shri.

A light flashed outside. Thunder roared and the house shook.

His first instinct was to check downstairs. Since the stairs creaked, he tiptoed his way down without making noise. Clunking noises came from the living room, but Shri was upstairs.

A stranger intruded the cottage.

Ice Cream Salad spotted the burglar. Even though darkness disguised the face of the burglar, the lightning vibrating from his hands gave away his black cloak. The burglar took down the entry door to the cottage that had sparks emanating from it.

The griffin thought of the living room and reached out to Shri’s mind, but Shri didn’t react right away.

“Well,” the burglar said, “this is going to be easier than I thought. It’s right here.”

Ice Cream Salad bit the burglar’s shoe, but that did nothing. In response, the burglar grabbed the griffin by the neck’s paralyzing spot and applied shackles to his four ankles. While the burglar applied the pressure point, Ice Cream Salad couldn’t move.

He thought of an exclamation mark. Shri entered the same room. The burglar turned around and spotted her.

“That’s my griffin,” she said.

The burglar zapped Shri with his magic lightning, and she fell.

Ice Cream Salad reached out, but the burglar applied the pressure point harder. The burglar left the cottage. To block the griffin’s vision, the burglar stuffed the griffin in the trunk of a black car.

* * *

The burglar tossed Ice Cream Salad into an outdoor pen. Ice Cream Salad had no idea where he was. The greenery reminded him of a forest, but he couldn’t see much above the walls. He couldn’t fly due to his lack of wings. The ground was bare.

In the pen, three other griffins sat in a corner and huddled together away from Ice Cream Salad. A griffin without feathers tried to stick his head into the dirt with little success. An emerald griffin thrust his head into a sapphire griffin’s chest. Only the sapphire one had the courage to speak.

“You are rare. What is your name?”

He thought of an ice cream salad but then again, they couldn’t read his thoughts. Instead, he wrote his name in the dirt with his talon. The sapphire griffin shoved the two other griffins aside and read the printed writing.

“Ah, so you are mute, right? The crystal griffins always have some type of disability. Our master is going to have a tough time with you. Anyways, I am Seafood’s Hole. The emerald griffin is A Forest Away while the naked one that is supposed to have ruby feathers is Anger’s Sacrifice.”

Anger’s Sacrifice held his head. “Tell me if he’s safe. I hate silent types.”

Seafood’s Hole raised his voice. “He’s mute. How many times do I have to say that?”

Ice Cream Salad wrote the word ‘home’ in the dirt.

A Forest Away asked, “What is he writing now?”

“Don’t worry, honey. He wants to see his owner.” Seafood’s Hole patted Ice Cream Salad on the back. “It’s okay. We all want to go home.”

Anger’s Sacrifice shivered. “Is he coming back? I don’t want that bastard to come back to grow feathers on me.”

Ice Cream Salad wiped the letters away, so that the burglar wouldn’t see it.

“I think that bastard is after Ice Cream Salad’s feathers,” Seafood’s Hole said.

Ice Cream Salad pointed at himself.

Since he knew about the crates filled with crystal feathers back at home, what could humans do with feathers in the first place? Shri wouldn’t do anything to harm him, yet the burglar had the guts to steal him. What did the burglar do to Anger’s Sacrifice? Maybe he could ask the others using the dirt.

Ice Cream Salad was about ready to write, but Seafood’s Hole grabbed Ice Cream Salad’s writing talon.

“Don’t you know about the price for our feathers?” Seafood’s Hole asked.

Ice Cream Salad shook his head.

He sighed and plucked a sapphire feather from his body. “This, this is currency in the human world. They use our feathers to buy goods from markets. Ruby is the lowest, followed by emerald, sapphire, and the rarest, crystal. That bastard has been using ruby feathers to not arouse suspicion from others, but we’ll be next soon. I know it.”

Ice Cream Salad covered his beak with a talon.

“I know it might shock you, but that’s the truth.”

The bastard burglar approached the pen. While Ice Cream Salad sat in the middle, the other three griffins cowered to the corner. The black robed person carried a crate that matched the size of Ice Cream Salad. To immobilize Ice Cream Salad, the burglar used the pressure point and tossed him into the crate. And it was dark.

* * *

In the darkness, Ice Cream Salad thought about Shri. Was she dead? Did she recover? What happened to her?

All this time, he thought of Shri taking advantage of his feathers that belonged to him. She was making a lot of currency if she had stored a lot of feathers.

At the same time, Ice Cream Salad missed her backrubs. He was used to sleeping in a bed, not in a crate with little ventilation and no view. Her face was all he thought.

Train tracks rattled in Ice Cream Salad’s ears. The griffin heard an announcement but couldn’t make out the message. Determining his surroundings was hard inside a dark crate, so he kept thinking about Shri rescuing him.

Then, he received an image in his mind of Shri hugging him.

She was nearby. Another image came. This time, Shri approached the burglar.

She said, “You thought I was dead, but I’m not. Give me my griffin or else.”

Ice Cream Salad heard static and several gasps.

He received an image of a rock in her pocket, which was actively absorbing the lightning magic.

Light appeared from above, and he squeezed through the large hole above him.

He gained a sense of his surroundings. He was at a subway with no trains. Posters on the wall and on the middle of the track advertised fast food, clothes, and alcohol for ruby feathers.

The burglar said, “Why is my magic doing nothing to you?”

“I wouldn’t reveal my secrets to a bastard like you,” she responded.

The burglar grabbed Ice Cream Salad by the neck, but not by the pressure point. “I’ll kill this thing that you love so dearly. I don’t care about the profit anymore.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Ice Cream Salad bit the burglar’s hand that wasn’t holding him. In response, the burglar wagged the bitten hand and punched the griffin with his free hand. The griffin bounced on the yellow warning line and fell to the tracks below.

Lights came from the darkness. Ice Cream Salad had no way out of the train’s path.

Shri said, “Duck!”

At first, Ice Cream Salad thought of the animal but quickly realized what he had to do. He coiled himself into a ball and pressed against the ground between the rails. His tail went in between his hind legs.

The train passed over him and slowed down to a stop with the griffin trembling for his life. His feathers brushed against the bottom of the train, but he survived. As he waited, how would he return to Shri? With the train above him, he could not move. If he weren’t mute, he would cry out to her.

Soon, the subway train moved out. When he saw the lights, Shri jumped toward the tracks and hugged him. They climbed out of the tracks. Police and emergency personnel were already there to assist Shri and Ice Cream Salad and to arrest the burglar.

* * *

At the pen, authorities unlocked the gate using brute force. Ice Cream Salad and Shri entered. The three griffins cowered in the corner, but Seafood’s Hole had the courage to speak up.

“Who are you?”

Shri said, “I am Shri, Ice Cream Salad’s original owner. Would you three like to come home with me?”

“Will you lock us up like this?”

“I have a cottage with a yard that you can roam freely.”

Anger’s Sacrifice said, “Will you regrow my feathers for the use of personal profit?”

“No, I have a job where I earn ruby feathers. Your feathers are safe.”

A Forest Away said, “My last owner abandoned me. Will you do the same?”

Ice Cream Salad shook his head and then nuzzled Shri’s leg.

The three griffins said together, “We’ll come.”

* * *

Waiting for Shri to show up, four griffins reclined on a bed. Ice Cream Salad wanted his backrub before he went to sleep, as he always did. The other three griffins, Anger’s Sacrifice, Seafood’s Hole, and A Forest Away, were already asleep. How Shri managed to sleep with this many griffins was a complete mystery to him.

Ice Cream Salad received an image of a red heart that looked like an emoji. To not wake the others, Shri and Ice Cream Salad communicated in images. Ice Cream Salad immediately thought of the crates of crystal feathers in the study. Shri responded with herself working at a bar and earning ruby feathers, like everyone else. Ice Cream Salad tilted his head.

Shri whispered, “I wouldn’t use your feathers to buy anything. They are too precious to me.”

Ice Cream Salad thought of a masseur rubbing his back and added an image of himself giving a crystal feather. Shri nodded and began the backrub.

Griffins always returned to their rightful owner, no matter how far away they went.

 

* * *

About the Author

Reggie Kwok (he/him) holds a B.A. in English and a master’s in education. He currently lives in Massachusetts, USA. His Twitter is @KwokReggie. His Bluesky is @reggiekwok.bsky.social. He has published short stories at Samjoko Magazine, Underland Arcana, Scrawl Place, Androids and Dragons, Inner Worlds, Orion’s Beau, and has three forthcoming at Midnight Menagerie, Madam, Don’t Forget Your Sword, and Androids and Dragons.

Welcome to Issue 22:  Haunted Happiness

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.

* * *

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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IMPORTANT UPDATE:  Due to a plethora of wonderful submissions, we have already closed this year’s reading period, and all submissions have been sent responses.  We plan to open next for the month of February, 2026.

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.

 

* * *

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:  Offspring, the Swamp, and Upside Down Fairy Tales

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