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”

An Otter’s Soul

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in The Lorelei Signal, July 2022

“When otters lose a friend, they comfort each other by saying that the friend’s soul has become a dragonfly…”

Quiley didn’t feel like anything was wrong.  She put one paw in front of the other; she kept moving.  She kept playing and splashing in the river like an otter is supposed to.  But everyone kept saying how sorry they were.  How hard it must be.  It was almost like they thought they knew something about her and Pia that she hadn’t known herself. Continue reading “An Otter’s Soul”

One Sheep

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Allasso, Volume 2: Saudade, April 2012

“She needed one sheep to jump through hoops, one sheep to balance on a giant ball, and one sheep to fly on the trapeze for her circus act.”

There was once a sheep that could have been a sheep with fifteen other sheep, all living on a farm.  But, one day, a man came and invited that sheep to live at the petting zoo with the pygmy goats, pigs, rabbits, and Shetland ponies there.  So, that one sheep joined the petting zoo.

Then, there were fifteen sheep left. Continue reading “One Sheep”