Category: Story

Blaze the Fire Monster

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Hot Chocolate for the Unicorn and Other Flights of Fancy

“I think Blaze could smell the cruelty rising off Alex’s skin as soon as he saw him tripping his way through the forest.”

The Unicorn stretches his snowy neck, leaning his nose down to taste the dark liquid in the mug before him.  He’s been blowing on his hot chocolate, quietly nickering, to cool it, but it must be too hot still.  He lowers his translucent horn to the surface of the drink.  Cold suffuses.  With the lightest touch, the chocolate is cool enough to drink.

“Will you tell me a story?” the Unicorn asks. Continue reading “Blaze the Fire Monster”

Seven Riders and Six Horses

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Hot Chocolate for the Unicorn and Other Flights of Fancy, December 2024

“It would carry Jyan through the air without asking anything. It would neither share joy nor bring pain.”

Seven riders on six horsebacks and one mechanical contraption, each of the seven blessed with wings, flew toward the sea.

The horses’ wings were made of tawny feathers, golden when the sun hit them right, downy and angelic.  The mechanical contraption’s wings were less wings and more of a spinning rotor in a tarnished shade of silver, held above the rider by a jointed, metal arm, heavy with bolts.  It didn’t look air-worthy, but it was. Continue reading “Seven Riders and Six Horses”

The Dancing Swords

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Hot Chocolate for the Unicorn and Other Flights of Fancy, December 2024

“You cannot see. You cannot think. Or remember. The pain is everything now.”

First, you tear the eyes out, digging your fingertips into the sockets around them, squishing the bulbs to get your fingers under them. They’ll be slippy, and you’ll have to squeeze hard while yanking out, or the eye won’t come.

Once you have the eyeballs pulled out of their sockets, rip quickly to tear them from the gooey threads still connecting them. When they come free, throw them at the floor. Stomp on them with your boot.  The heavier the boot, the better. Continue reading “The Dancing Swords”

Birthday

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Every Day Fiction, June 2017

“All I want to do is not deal with this question, get through one more day without crying or yelling in front of Layla.”

“If you could do anything in the world for your birthday — anything at all — what would you do?”

My daughter, Layla, mirrors the question that I asked her last month about her birthday when I was looking for clues as to what I should give her, what kind of party I should throw her.  She’s only five, too young to be looking for clues. Continue reading “Birthday”

The Third Wish

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Aoife’s Kiss, Issue #33, June 2010

“Charles heard the page’s words, but he twisted them around in his brain until they meant something quite different:  Bryen does not think you are worth wasting a wish on.”

The shore bubbled and frothed under Bryen’s sotto voce chanting.  His hands trembled, conducting currents in the air, and he squinted his eyes tight.

“Knock it off!” Charles yelled at his brother.  “How will I ever get a fish to bite if you keep that up?”  He kept preparing the boat as he grumbled.  “Bunch of rubbish,” he said.  “Scares all the decent fish away.” Continue reading “The Third Wish”

The Grafting

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Collie Commander, November 2024

“It was as if the Cetazoids had found a way to flirt with the line between a high tech future and a low tech past in the same way as they flirted with the line between the purple ocean below and the blue ocean above.”

The social heart of the Tri-Galactic Union starship Initiative was a wide room with windows all along one side that looked out on the yawning void of space, sprinkled with the bright points of the distant stars.  Tables were scattered around at a comfortable density, and a synthesizer bar worked by an uplifted rabbit named Galen stretched along the opposite wall.

Galen was a mysterious figure who loved listening to the woes and travails of the mostly canine and feline officers of the Initiative when they came to her bar, which she called the Constellation Club, but she rarely opened up about herself or how she’d come to be the only rabbit on a ship full of dogs, cats, and the rare exchange officer from another world. Continue reading “The Grafting”

Treegadoon – Part 2

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Animal Voices, Unicorn Whispers, October 2024

[Part 1]

“If the curse were true, then Treegadoon would be gone soon. Gone for years and years.”

Alone in his boat on a clear sea in the glow of early afternoon, Elijah found he could almost believe the whole morning had been a daydream, perhaps caused by nibbling on a psychotropic jellyfish tentacle.  Were there jellyfish whose flesh could cause such hallucinations?  Elijah wasn’t sure, but perhaps one of his mothers would know.  As he sailed onward toward home though, he realized:  there were still two sacks of nut-butter sandwiches and joiberries in the boat with him, and that was hard, physical evidence that he had met with someone out here on the sea this morning. Continue reading “Treegadoon – Part 2”

Treegadoon – Part 1

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Animal Voices, Unicorn Whispers, October 2024

[Part 2]

“The sunbeam cut through the grayness and landed on a tussled pile of green like a spotlight. Where it shone, trees rose out of the ocean, as mysterious and unexpected as a shooting star.”

Elijah’s small boat rocked with the storming of the ocean.  Gusts of wind blew sharply against his thick, dense fur, and his clothes — even though they were made from special quick-drying fabric — were completely soaked.  Waves slapped and splashed against the small boat, threatening to overturn him.  Elijah didn’t mind the idea of swimming home.  He was a river otter who had been raised among sea lions on a small island near the coast.  He was used to swimming, and he was used to the ocean’s whimsy.  But he’d spent the pre-dawn hours hunting jellyfish, and now as the sun was about to rise, his little boat was chockfull of delectable delicacies.  There were moon jellies, sea nettles, and — even better — he’d finally caught a lion’s mane jellyfish.  He’d wanted to catch one since he’d been a little fellow, still afraid of the water. Continue reading “Treegadoon – Part 1”

Jellyfish for Dinner

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Animal Voices, Unicorn Whispers, October 2024

“She’d never been afraid of water before Elijah almost drowned. It was a strange thing to be afraid of something so prevalent, so all-surrounding.”

When Arlene and Angelica married, they never expected to have children.  Arlene was a river otter inventor; Angelica was a sea lion artist.  And they were very happy together, sharing their lives and their passions, but theirs was the kind of union that bore fruit of the mind, not the kind of union that produced children. Continue reading “Jellyfish for Dinner”

Frond Farewell

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Animal Voices, Unicorn Whispers, October 2024

“Other rabbits may have faced horrible fates there, but she had no fear.  The other rabbits had already beaten it out of her with their cruel words and cold shoulders.”

Pollen floated on the unseasonably warm spring breeze like glitter, glinting golden in the late afternoon sun.  Each speck a tiny grain of hope, most to be left unfulfilled, for this pollen dispersed from a plant that didn’t belong on the mundane plains of the British countryside.  It didn’t belong anywhere on Earth at all, and its root-mates had already wreaked havoc across all the great cities of Earth, leaving them empty.  The cohort of carnivorous plants had been a catastrophe for humanity, but the wilder parts of the world… those hadn’t fallen prey to this pollen’s particular magic yet. Continue reading “Frond Farewell”