I could make it if I tried, I closed my eyes, I kept on swimming”
– Josh Ritter, “Change of Time”
FICTION
⦿ “Drown You With Me” by Sidney Maris Hargrave
If I wrap my hand around his dainty neck, she thinks, and draw the blade across his throat, a garden will grow from the wound.
⦿ “A Natural History of the Cityherd and the Humantree Grove” by Paul R. Hardy
They were the first to find the sheltered valley, the first to sink their feet into the rich soil, and the first to stretch their arms to the sky.
⦿ “House of Wolves” by Gillian Daniels
The neighborhood watch complained when they all gathered under the moon and howled three nights after they came.
⦿ “I Was Meant to Live Another Thousand Years” by Matthew Sanborn Smith
Amara felt the ship ripple beneath her feet. This was it; Lucy was rupturing.
⦿ “Let the Buyer Beware” by Michelle Ann King
Its roughly printed label—Environment Expansion Kit! Need More Room? Create Extra Magical Space with this Quick and Easy Spell!—is now smeared with small, sticky fingerprints.
⦿ “The Stealing Gift” by Richard Ford Burley
The propaganda flyers rustle on the corkboard as the door closes, reminding her that even going to the seaside is a part of the War Effort.
⦿ “Bronze in Slow Motion” by Bo Balder
I walk on. My neck tickles and I look back at the statue. The eyes are still looking straight at me.
⦿ “Yaakov, Meyn Bruder” by Filip Wiltgren
Look into her eyes long enough, and you’d realize they weren’t there at all. But of course, by then, it was too late.
⦿ “The Hedge-Witch of Welland” by Ada Hoffmann and Jacqueline Flay
The Hedge-Witch’s magic is a mismatch, too: herbs and meditation, chants she makes up out of her head, charts and symbols drawn on the wall which correspond to things she cannot name.
POETRY
⦿ “Dracula Among the Ruins” by Mari Ness
⦿ “The Dinner Party” by Jennifer Bushroe
⦿ “The Light Market and the Language Market” by Jessy Randall
⦿ “Post-Metazoan World” by David C. Kopaska-Merkel and Kendall Evans
⦿ “Pwca” by James Lilley
ARTWORK
Cindy Fan is a Toronto-based illustrator whose work has previously been published in Strange Horizons, THIS Magazine, Anathema Spec, and more.
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