Grow
“Grow, and live,” I whispered to the glass butterfly in my hand. I kissed it and placed it into the dirt hole in front of me.
“Now cover it,” my mother said. “Everything must die and return to the earth before it can grow.”
Fantasy
Salt Upon the Eastern Gate
Under my hand, salt breaks away from the gate in thick, crystalized flakes. Reus giggles. He reaches out his chubby baby fingers, but I yank him back, pressing his face to my cloak when his laugh turns to a startled wail.
“Shh…” I hold him closer, my heart pounding as I look over my shoulder.
The Lightkeeper
Cold air burns my throat as it rushes in and out of my lungs, my feet pounding across the snowy shore in rhythm with my heart. My eyes are locked on the lighthouse, on its strangely muted glow. Gemma would never let the stars outshine it.
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Scales
Aria stared at her arms. Her scales were showing again. This time, they were dark blue. She squinted daggers at them.
Go away!
“Aria! Are you ready for school?” Her mom yelled. School. Ugh. She was one in one million, someone who held dragon
And Your Brother
Forgonath finds me in the Staggering Tavern, hanging over the table like a limp sack and polishing off my fourth flagon of ale. The others arrive shortly later—Borduain pats me on the back and calls for his own tankard while Lorovan slides into the chair across from me
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From the Ashes
Maire strode through the center of the war camp, head held high, one hand resting on the pommel of her sword. The phoenix crest on her scarlet robes identified her for anyone who still hadn’t heard the stories, and murmurs trailed behind her as people bowed and
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Daphne’s Dramatic Day
I stumbled into Kansas in a flash, choking on a cloud of dust. “Too like… Morrisa’s… dramatic entrances,” I coughed. Waving my free hand about my face to clear the air, I frowned and regarded the wand still grasped in the other. Why had it
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Lullaby Burn
The peeling front door gaped like a yawning mouth. The large windows stared like hollow eyes.
Lyle’s lungs heaved from running, his bare feet creaking on the front porch of 13 Onyx Lane. Weeds growing through the slats brushed against his ankles.
When Dragons Could Be Slain
Ebenezer Scrooge was not fond of dragons.
For one thing, they reminded him too much of himself, though he wouldn’t have admitted so for the world—although he might have considered it given a sufficient sum of money. No, Scrooge was not fond of dragons, and he looked down at the boy on the other side of his narrow desk with distinct displeasure.
Aves Folium
The sun scattered glimmering rays of life throughout the leaves and branches of the forest. As the trees swayed in the cool breeze, the light danced on the forest floor in a brilliant show.
Aenid, unfortunately, didn’t have time to appreciate the light.
A Christmas Catastrophe
Oh, humbug, humbug, humbug!
Down the street Scrooge sprinted, leaving a trail of paw prints across the thin blanket of snow. Windows aglow blurred by as he passed apartments and houses.
Bah, Fred! Why do you reside so far!?
He veered onto Fern Street.
Invitation to the Manor
The XO-76 Mindwarp “Bookmobile” touched down on page 89 of Charles Dickens’s Best Stories (Hanover House, 1959) with its usual finesse, which is to say that all the bit characters who watched it crash into an unluckily placed fruit stand
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