Originally published in Commander Annie and Other Adventures, November 2023
“As the blood and teardrops mixed with the sound of Heidi’s urgently whispered cursing, an electric chill filled the room. Heidi looked up to see a man standing in the doorway.”
Each stitch was a nightmare. Heidi stabbed her fingertip, jamming the pointy needle through the unruly fabric. Sometimes the fabric bunched up into a stiff, impenetrable clump under the needle’s point. Other times, the needle sailed through… only for Heidi to find she’d accidently sewn two layers of the ballgown together. Then she had to rip the stitches out, taking her further from the finish line. Continue reading “Rumpel’s Gift”
Originally published in Commander Annie and Other Adventures, November 2023
“The plesiosaur wasn’t showing up as an attackable creature. She flipped open her adventurer’s log and scanned through it, trying hurriedly to find the right quest text and read it.”
QuestCrusher20 zipped through the zone, zooming from one quest to the next without reading the text. She didn’t need to. Just follow the dots on the game map, and like breadcrumbs they led her from a cluster of satyrcorns to kill for their horns to an area strewn with mecha gears that the friendly robots of Robotica needed her to gather. Quest after quest, she could figure them out on the fly, and it only slowed her down to read the flavor text or listen to the NPCs tell their backstories. Continue reading “Speed Questing”
Originally published in Commander Annie and Other Adventures, November 2023
“Who are you?” Huckle asked, almost flubbing the words and saying to the imposter-reflection, “Who am I?”
The water splashed under Huckle’s boot in the most satisfying way. Repeated little stomps made smacking sounds and rapid ripples. Big stomps from running jumps made a slapping sound and spattered the water high enough to annoy his dad.
“Come on,” Terrence said, grabbing his eight-year-old son’s hand and pulling lightly enough to cajole the boy but not hard enough to hurt him. “If we hurry, we can make it to both Arrin Abbey and the Westle Church before lunch. Wouldn’t that be fun?” Terrence spoke with the tightness in his voice that meant he was trying not to sound annoyed. But he was. Huckle could tell. And Huckle decided to push at him. Continue reading “Huckle’s Puddle”
Originally published in Commander Annie and Other Adventures, November 2023
“She could be all the creatures the soul had seen and more beside.”
Once upon a time, there was a soul that wanted to anchor itself into the world. The soul watched all the creatures in the world, trying to decide what shape its anchor should take.
The mouse was small and could explore tiny places.
The deer had long legs and could run through the woods.
Originally published in All Worlds Wayfarer, Issue XII, September 2022
“The tentacled creature had become, in an instant, the measure by which she would judge the rest of the world, for the rest of her life.”
Eggshell cracked, and the dome of the world broke away, showing a whole other world, infinitely larger and more complicated, beyond the confines of the duckling’s natal home. It was time to lift her head — breaking the eggshell further, widening the crack in it — and then spread her wings, shaking out the scraggly, wet feathers plastered to her dimpled skin, letting them begin to dry into soft, yellow down. Continue reading “Stranger Than a Swan”
“How did you do this?” She was sure, deep under her fur, that the octopus was behind the snow. “And why?”
The thing that surprised Lora most about being an otter was that her face was round, and her nose was round. Everyone thinks of otters as long. With their sinuous spines, like weasels and ferrets, they’re big ol’ fuzzy noodles. But when Lora looked at her face — round. So round.
When Lora had been a cat, her face had been full of corners and edges; triangular ears, articulated muzzle; even the shape of her eyes had been filled with crescents and sharpness. Continue reading “Octopus Ex Machina”
Originally published in The Lorelei Signal, January 2023
“…am I truly a human dreaming of being a bizarre alien giraffe, shopping for groceries in an asteroid belt? Or am I the giraffe, dreaming of being a human?”
Franzi swung her long, giraffe-like neck from side to side, surveying the tightly filled shelves of the grocery aisles on this asteroid shop-mart. There were too many brands of jangleberries to pick from — she didn’t know which kind she’d like best, and somehow, the existence of so many brands made her feel like she shouldn’t have to settle for anything less than her absolute favorite type of jangleberry. Continue reading “Too Many Jangleberries”
Originally published in Beyond Wespirtech, November 2023
“If the stars had chosen her — somehow — to be their scribe, then it was not for her to turn the role down.”
It was so beautiful that the weight of it made her feel weak inside. She cried, and no one knew why. No one else could hear the music. But Brianna could hear it inside.
Brianna’s parents didn’t understand. They thought their child simply had an artistic sensitive soul, and perhaps, she was unusually susceptible to sunstroke. They tried to keep her inside on sunny days, especially in the middle of the summer. But Brianna craved the sun. It made her cry, but it also made her giggly and manic. Sunlight could make her happier than anything else — that voice whispering in her heart, rising and falling, raising expectations, holding out a moment longer than she thought she could stand, and then resolving. The music Brianna heard was the fabric of her life. Continue reading “The Girl Who Could Hear the Stars Sing”
Originally published in Beyond Wespirtech, November 2023
“She’d grown up on a normal planet with actual cities full of people, not some weird backwater world where literally every sentient creature had been created by one mad scientist, drunk with his own abilities, high on his own power.”
The ship shifting into orbit woke Tara up, but she kept her eyes closed, listening to her parents talk.
“It always scares me coming here,” Tara’s mother said. “Your dad makes such beautiful illusions for Tara. I’m afraid some day that she’ll choose not to come home.”
Tara was curled up on the ratty old couch on the back of their starhopper’s bridge. It was a loveseat and not meant to be slept on; she barely fit on it anymore. Her parents were sitting in the pilot and co-pilot seats, right in front of the viewscreen that must have shown the emerald and azure sphere of Grandpa Brent’s planet, Sylverra. Continue reading “Summers on Sylverra”
Originally published in Welcome to Wespirtech, October 2023
“Doesn’t it bother you that we live in a galaxy filled with all kinds of different aliens, but almost everyone here is human?”
The girl was science; chemistry personified, manifested in a physical form. This is not to say that the other scientists of Wespirtech were lining up in a snaky queue through the Daedalus Complex halls to see her, study her, consult with her like she was some sort of oracle. At least, Keida didn’t think so. Her new roommate, Rhiannon, was too quiet, and serious, to draw that kind of attention.
No, it meant Keida could see chemistry thoughts as they formed in Rhiannon’s brain. The evidence was perfectly clear on her face; a look that bespoke particles and molecules moving, joining, breaking apart and reforming in an abstract space she saw, approximately five inches above her own head. Keida was afraid to interrupt. A single word from her might break the spell. All those invisible molecules would dissipate and undo hours of silent work. Continue reading “Breathing the Air at Wespirtech”
