It is a fact, little known in the human world, that every one of Scotland’s thirty thousand lochs has its own monster. Most people will have heard of Nessie, the creature that inhabits Loch Ness. Some few may also have heard of Morag, the beast infrequently seen on Loch Morar, or Lizzie, who patrols the… Read more Corbo

Doug sat at his kitchen table pulling splinters from the angry cuts on his hands. He’d counted five but he kept spotting more. He’d borrowed Mary’s tweezers and as he extracted each woody spine, he placed them carefully on a piece of kitchen roll he’d lain next to his mug of tea. “That tree put… Read more The Hazel Tree

Go to the red phone box in the harbour, the one incongruous for the town, with views of hills behind you. The one some artist plonked there as part of the festival, and now the only thing remaining from it when the paint has faded on houses and graffiti washed away by Seyðisfjörður’s town council.… Read more Instructions for getting the answer you need

Long ago in a village like most others lived a beautiful, but more importantly, kind woman. Truthfully, she hailed from a proud line of midwives.  While none had married, they all saw themselves through childbirth quite nicely. She lived comfortably as she much preferred her own company to that of a husband who would tell… Read more The Midwife and the Fae of the Mountain

I remember the first time I saw her. I was, I have to admit, jealous. There is little special about being dead, and I had become proud of my unusual position, the virgin wife. I am ashamed to say that I had become accustomed to sneering at those poor girls buried as brides of the… Read more The Virgin Brides

I walked for miles through the glade And went so far, I lost my way But found a clearing, where I lay Below a weeping willow’s shade. Reclining on the grass I lazed To gaze across a crystal lake Which shimmered in a gleaming jade Where mountains met the sweeping bay. The chipper sound of… Read more Beware The Lake

My granny once gave me a teeny tiny flare gun. It wasn’t the weirdest thing I ever received from her, not by a long stretch––but let’s just not go there, right? No, this was a teeny tiny flare gun in a pretty wooden box, and it sure was weird enough. It came with cartridges and… Read more Red

Laura was wandering, not entirely without purpose, but certainly without a destination. She couldn’t work out when things had gone wrong, at what point had the wheels come off her perfect relationship and landed her in a place where she was scared for her life? Had Prince Charming ever been… charming? Other people seemed to… Read more The Washerwoman

Two days after the crack in the floor of our barn appeared, they found Davie O’Hare’s body in the woods. Me and Sadie were up at the schoolhouse when they found him, so we didn’t get to see, but word gets around anyway. They say he was shriveled up like a raisin, all his blood… Read more We Don’t Go Out After Dark

AD 1892, Vosges, Alsace-Lorraine, Imperial Territory of the German Empire. Casper propped his axe against the fir’s trunk and mopped his brow. The forest was eerily quiet, the silence broken only by the chopping of his axe and grunts of effort, interspersed with the occasional bird call and chattering of squirrels. He was grateful for… Read more My, What Big Teeth You Have