A Box of Hair and Nail

By Geneve Flynn

Little Sister clipped the last nail from Big Sister’s slender toe and carefully placed it in the carved rubberwood box. She made sure she had twenty clippings and, although her club foot made it difficult to crouch, she checked that every piece of hair she had trimmed from her sister’s head was accounted for.

Big Sister snorted, not unkindly. “You don’t still believe that old tale, do you?” She examined her reflection in the pocked mirror on her bedroom wall. Even with the window open, both sisters were covered with a sheen of sweat: at least, Little Sister perspired; Big Sister glowed. “Bapa was only trying to scare you into behaving.” The young women shared a sorrowful glance. Their mother had passed six years ago from tuberculosis. Last month, their father had been killed in a logging accident in Sabah. Another piece of their shrinking family gone.

“No, it’s true,” Little Sister said, pushing the ache in her chest away. “If a man steals your hair and nail clippings, he can take it to the bomoh and have him cast a spell on you. Then you’ll be under the man’s control. You’ll have to be his wife forever.”

“I will be no one’s wife,” Big Sister said with a sniff. “I don’t care what magic the shaman does.” She shrugged out of her slip and pulled on the brightly coloured top and skirt of her kebaya. It was much more form fitting than their father would have allowed. She swept her thick, glossy hair up into a bun and applied a slick of lipstick. She grinned and headed for the door. “My life is going to be only kissing and fun.”

Little Sister watched as Big Sister walked along the path that led to the village, her hips swaying with each step. Any number of suitors would be awaiting her presence at the dance. Little Sister never went; no one could see past her deformity. She only ever left the house to visit the wet market or to buy fruit and vegetables.

As Big Sister rounded the bend and disappeared from view, the bushes behind her parted. Little Sister stared, breath held. There had been wild boars in the area lately. They could be dangerous if meddled with.

A thick-set, bow-legged man emerged.

The bomoh.

Little Sister frowned. Had she summoned him with her talk of love magic? What if he had overheard Big Sister’s disparaging words? She watched as he crept after her. Prickling cold ran down Little Sister’s spine. Even from her position at the window, she could see the avarice on his face. (Continue Reading…)

Nymph Of Darkness

By C.L. Moore & Forrest J. Ackerman

The thick Venusian dark of the Ednes waterfront in the hours before dawn is breathless and tense with a nameless awareness, a crouching danger. The shapes that move murkily through its blackness are not daylight shapes. Sun has never shone upon some of those misshapen figures, and what happens in the dark is better left untold. Not even the Patrol ventures there after the lights are out, and the hours between midnight and dawn are outside the law. If dark things happen there the Patrol never knows of them, or desires to know. Powers move through the darkness along the waterfront which even the Patrol bows low.

Through that breathless blackness, along a Street beneath which the breathing waters whispered, Northwest Smith strolled slowly. No prudent man ventures out after midnight along the waterfront of Ednes unless he has urgent business abroad, but from the leisurely gait that carried Smith soundlessly through the dark he might have been some casual sightseer. He was no stranger to the Ednes waterfront. He knew the danger through which he strolled so slowly, and under narrowed lids his colorless eyes were like keen steel probes that searched the dark. Now and then he passed a shapeless shadow that dodged aside to give him way. It might have been no more than a shadow. His no-colored eyes did not waver. He went on, alert and wary. (Continue Reading…)

The Coward Who Stole God’s Name

By John Wiswell

Who is the most beloved person alive? Is it one of those actors who plays superheroes? Is it a political leader? Maybe you’re a galaxy brain and say Beyoncé? No matter who you pick, you know you’re wrong. There’s always that better person who we love so unquestioningly that we forget they’re there. Sometimes, we forget why.

“Gavin Davenport?” I repeat into my phone. “You’re kidding me. He wants me?”

On the other end of the line, my editor York is practically squealing. “Apparently he reads your stuff. He mentioned The Redacted Man by name.”

I grab at my ribcage. Gavin Davenport read The Redacted Man? I’ve been reporting for twenty years but this is a chilling shock. I feel like I’m a teenager and my parents just found my browser history. The Redacted Man was so negative. I regret every phrase in it that could’ve been sharper.

I ask, “Is this a prank?”

York says, “I’ve checked with everyone. Davenport wants you to write about him. Sam, this is titanic. We’ve never done anything this big.”

My brain flails trying to contextualize the invitation. Years of absence broken—and by me? This is like being asked to write an extra chapter for the Bible. Nobody talks to Gavin Davenport. He’s barely let himself be photographed since the shootings.

I ask, “When do I go?”

“Today. You’ve got three hours.”

I grab for my keys. “Three hours?”

“Don’t be late. Remember the last person who disappointed him?” (Continue Reading…)

Chainsaw: As Is

By Gillian King-Cargile

All thirteen of us cousins and half-cousins and step-cousins were there that Memorial Day at my Grandma’s house when Dustin ripped into his leg with the chainsaw. This was in New Jersey. In the Pine Barrens. There were thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands—of trees to chainsaw. That’s why Grandma had the chainsaw in the first place. To push the Pine Barrens back. To keep away the trees and the things that hid in their needles. Things with wings and hair and hooves and scales and claws.

I was the oldest and the only girl in the mess of cousins, so I was supposed to be in charge. I was the one who lived the closest and helped Grandma the most—dusting her cobwebs, mowing her sandy lawn, turning the TV up louder and louder and louder so she could hear the Weather Channel and watch for nor’easters and hurricanes hurrying their way up the coast.

That day I was also make-shift mom to twelve boys, aged six to sixteen, who only saw each other all at once maybe once or twice a year. When they got together, they always wanted to do something big. Memorable. This year, they wanted to chainsaw down a tree or make a YouTube video about chain-sawing down a tree. I told them not to be stupid. I was the only one Grandma let use the chainsaw, and I was in charge, as the aunts and uncles said, because they didn’t want to deal with their monster kids while they drank beer and shooed flies away from deviled eggs and crab salad and burgers.

Dustin was the one who got the chainsaw out of the garage, off the work bench I’d left it out on like a dare. “I’ll show you how it’s done,” Dustin said. But he’d never touched the chainsaw before—never helped with yard work because of the ticks and the sunburn and the fact that he was only kind-of related to us because his dad married our aunt and he was only here on vacation. (Continue Reading…)