Prayer For a New Year

Red sunrise over ocean horizon

Source: Matt Fraser

I meant well, sending her off on an impossible quest for the Silverword Cascade, hoping she’d find distraction and joy during the painful waiting time until her childhood friends return to her; No Baba Yaga am I — my magic is limited to perception only of magic’s heady limerance, and I hadn’t felt her subtle glow. Continue reading

Old World Charm

Kittelson mountain and sea

Solveig had gathered nearly everything Old Baba had asked her to bring for their midnight meeting on the strand and underneath the clear-night crescent of the new moon; the girl had yet to find the final potion ingredient, water scooped in a wooden cup, from the Silverword Cascade, a waterfall rumored to be located in the third chamber of one of the many caves on the far side of Hidden Cove.  Continue reading

Town Hall Meeting

Woman, early 50's, in a pillbox hat, intense eyes

She perched, edge and center, on the metal folding chair, ankles crossed and angled toes barely touching the floor, her SoftRose painted lips pursed, her eyebrows raised even higher above their normally penciled boundaries, a single vertical line deepening between those brows, but slightly favoring the left, while two small circles of color heated each cheek, as if they’d been purposefully applied with a sable brush.  Continue reading

Who Wrote the Book of Love, Again?

The book lay before him, splayed open and heavy, the archaic lettering spidery and so faded in places, the necessary ingredients for the desperately desired results were difficult to read and translate in the tallow candle’s light. Up above him the shadowed shelf contained what he hoped was the correct final ingredient; if he’d read the spell book correctly, the results would be abiding love, but if he had not, the potion would deliver never-ending death. Continue reading

Well, Why Not? (Part 3)

The twins pushed the net over their heads, flinging it to the side. “Well Mam-Duchess, why DON’T you marry one? We’re still just kids, after all!”

Sister Indelicata tipped her head, as she gathered up her seal-hunting net. That was the most grown-up thing they’d ever said. Perhaps those girls had promise, after all. Continue reading