The little boy rubbed the two coins together in his palm, generating a faint scraping sound. The noise was unfamiliar because he’d never before possessed so much money. Not until this morning, when he’d spotted them hidden in the dust. He’d been observing the plant merchants setting up their wares when the glint of metal… Read more Two Coins for a Flower
(Creating humans) Soul, sentience and sense Odin, Vili and Vé embroidered rough knots into muddy, half-dark, dregs two husks of drifted ash The brothers salted shadows stitched their turf-cut emblems into form, softened knitted flesh man and woman, oil treated smoothed out Ask and Embla Bombarded by night voices they dreamt a first tongue saw… Read more Vili and Vé
Staring at the open maw of the cauldron, all she wants is for it to be over, to be free. She throws in anything she can find, everything she had carefully saved: The mangled black feather from the windowsill The moonlight reflecting off the snow beneath her window The translucent blue sheen of spilled milk… Read more White as Snow, Red as Blood
The Predatory Animal Ball was an exclusive affair and a lowly field mouse would never have intentionally received an invitation. On heavy cardstock, like an old-fashioned scientific illustration, intricate sketches of animals snarled back at her. The scientific names of these members of the animal kingdom in cursive. The Latin made it all the more… Read more The Predatory Animal Ball
Ingredients: 2 starved children (variety: hungry will do, unloved taste sweeter) 1 dusky forest, poorly marked and overgrown 1 gingerbread house (pre-fabricated acceptable, but guests will know) Coat the starved children in tattered rags and lies. Lead them to the edge of the dusky forest, their trust as thin and brittle as the apologies of… Read more Recipe
Hickories spin in jaunty nuisance, flipping their wet, golden strands into the mud. They stick to her shoes. My daughter, climbing fences. Little cockleburs. The bears were curious, out walking through the misty morning while porridge cools on their spoons. No one fastens the doors. At home, our fire burns low. The ashes hold out… Read more Goldilocks’s Mother
“You have to see it from my point of view,” she said. “You are a little late, aren’t you! I was only supposed to be asleep for a hundred years. I went to sleep in this bucolic dream of meadows, farmland and castles when I touched that spindle and I wake up in, what kind… Read more Sleeping Beauty and the Lockdown Awakening
Not long after Tahi’s birth he was infected with one of the diseases the Pākehā had brought upon them. His mother nursed him for several months until the creeping yellow retreated from his face, his hacking cough disappeared, and he regained appetite for kai. The Rangatira grunted when his wife Hine brought him the news.… Read more Rivals for love
Alfie held out two pieces of pale blue sea glass, rumbled smooth by a thousand tides. ‘These are the souls of fishermen lost at sea,’ he said. ‘My da was lost at sea,’ Cathy said. ‘I don’t remember him at all.’ Alfie looked doubtful, but she had already crouched down on the sand again, so… Read more Sea Glass
Inspired by Kate Crackernuts Shame sits hot and sticky beneath her skin Knowing the truth of her bloodline Knowing her own mother—not stepmother— Believed she wanted this Wanted her dearest, her other half To wear a sheep’s head In another world, Kate and Ann Might have been lovers They grew up together, curled up in… Read more Fairy Fury
