Archive for Cast of Wonders Originals

a greyscale image of a ruined stone head

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 646: As Brittle as Granite

Cast of Wonders 646: As Brittle as Granite is a Cast of Wonders original.

Death of a parent

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:03 — 24.8MB)

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Show Notes

Image by darrenquigley32 from Pixabay

As Brittle as Granite

by Matt Tighe

Lisa’s father has a crack in his face. It isn’t even a small one, something that she could maybe dismiss as a shadow cutting through the warm afternoon light of the sunroom. It runs from his forehead straight down through his left eye, splits his cheek in half, and just touches the very corner of his top lip. The inside of the crack is grey stone with pale flecks of mineralisation.

“You have cracked, father,” she says. The words come out as they should, steady and measured.

When his eyes move to her, the part of the crack that runs through his eye also moves, sliding sideways with his gaze. He is calm.

“Tell your mother,” he says. (Continue Reading…)

Australian Billabong

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Cast of Wonders 642: Feeding Spirits

Cast of Wonders 642: Feeding Spirits is a Cast of Wonders original.

Friendly haunting, bereavement

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:39 — 35.2MB)

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Show Notes

Image by Daniel Burkett from Pixabay

Feeding Spirits

by Emmi Khor

What does one feed a hungry ancestor? Fish and chips, chicken parmi, or steak pie didn’t seem like something my recently deceased Popo would enjoy.

I’d just returned from my backyard swamp with a full trash bag, when the phone rang. The call bounced with around-the-world echoes and I’d barely said hello, when Ma started in on her visit to the medium.

“I asked your Popo if she was comfortable. Ai yah, Li-Li,” cried Ma, “she scolded me! She said: Twenty years my granddaughter doesn’t come home. I go all the way to Australia to visit and she doesn’t even offer me a meal.” The click of Ma’s tongue was like a slap. “You should respect your ancestors!” (Continue Reading…)

West Pentire headland, in sepia tones, with thrift in the foreground and waves crashing against the rocks

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 641: Bells Long Silent

Cast of Wonders 641: Bells Long Silent is a Cast of Wonders original.

violence (including gun-violence) in a historical setting, and the death of a relative

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:58 — 48.0MB)

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Bells Long Silent

by J. A. Prentice

All this happened long ago and even then, things were coming to an end. The great days of smuggling were behind us and the Revenue was tightening its noose. All tongues spoke of their new man, Captain Bray, who had hacked off a smuggler’s head with a single swing of his sword.

I lived with my mother and uncle in a white house with small glass windows that bent the light. I had of my father no memories and no inheritance save my features, which my mother said were the very model of his. Mother told me he was a fisherman, but often I suspected she lied, and he had been a smuggler. (Continue Reading…)

teddy bear reading a book, against a light blue background

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Cast of Wonders 638: A Spell of Grief

Cast of Wonders 638: A Spell of Grief is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:59 — 23.3MB)

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A Spell of Grief

by Rae A Shell

The library was closing in ten minutes.

Lucas stared at the picture books, paralyzed by both indecision and nostalgia. Hurry up! he screamed at himself. If he was late, if he screwed up the ceremony again….

Sure, Lucas would be hardest on himself. Aunt Meg was more likely to comfort him than scold him, but the two of them had agreed, were adamant, that this year, this year he would succeed. (Continue Reading…)

pink gerbera daisy and dust on a black background

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Cast of Wonders 636: Whatever Remains of the Dead

Cast of Wonders 636: Whatever Remains of the Dead is a Cast of Wonders original.

Gun violence, aftermath of a school shooting, grief.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:35 — 48.9MB)

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Whatever Remains of the Dead

by Lyndsey Silveira

I fish a black dress from the back of my closet, all bunched up and wrinkled after its long exile. I get out the ironing board and try to iron it without burning it. Mom comes in as I’m cursing under my breath at a wrinkle that won’t go away. This small struggle is a nice reprieve from…everything. I don’t even want to go to the funeral, to any of them, but I don’t have an excuse. I wasn’t injured.

She watches me for a moment and says, in that quiet, gentle tone that’s beginning to grate on me, that everyone seems to use around me, “You don’t have to go, you know.”

“I do,” I reply. “His family isn’t going to any of the funerals. Not going makes me look guilty.”

“No one thinks you’re—”

I cut her off. “I necromanced their children’s corpses.”

She winces. It probably wasn’t the best choice of words on my part.

“And you saved your classmates.” She says it with conviction, like she’s proud of me, and it makes me wish I could find it in me to cry.

“Not all of them.” A beat. I stare down at the black fabric, smoothing it down. “I’m going.”

She nods. “All right. While you’re at it, you can iron my slacks.”

“That’s a bad idea.”

She smiles, probably thinking that if I can still banter, I must be doing okay.
(Continue Reading…)

sea cave, dark, with an obscured swimmer

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Cast of Wonders 635: What the God Mouth Wants

Cast of Wonders 635: What the God Mouth Wants is a Cast of Wonders original.

Homophobia, body horror, risk of drowning

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:10 — 38.7MB)

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What the God-Mouth Wants

by Ryan Cole

They call it a homecoming: when your own severed tongue finds its way back into your mouth; when it slides all slippery and wet onto the stump that your parents cut out when you were six years old; when it gives you the power, the freedom to say what your lips never could. All in exchange for a decade of silence.

Dallas doesn’t care. Tongueless for years, he’s ready to be whole again no matter the cost. Better to say what the God-Mouth wants than not be able to say anything at all. (Continue Reading…)

a girl diving underwater, reaching out for an object

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Cast of Wonders 634: Pearl Diving

Cast of Wonders 634: Pearl Diving is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:53 — 25.9MB)

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Pearl Diving

by J L Akagi

Makoto Matoba is enduring her third ever “scaly day” when her mother drives her down to the shore. She hasn’t yet adjusted to the itchy-scratchy rash covering her legs. Nor the tight agitation crawling over her entire body. Even worse, the Los Angeles pollution is thick today which irritates her developing gills.

Mako doesn’t get periods—she’s not that kind of girl—but she imagines this is what cis girls feel like when they do. Cramping and urged to retreat into themselves like hermit crabs.

When Mako and her mother arrive at Toes Beach, the sunset shines through the thin haze stretched over the California sky. Mako lowers her feet from the dashboard to sit up a bit at the sight of the pink sky meeting the flat, gray line of the ocean.

They clamber out of the car, and Mako eyes the water, scowling. “Mom, don’t make me pearl dive today. I can’t, I just can’t.” (Continue Reading…)

abstract phoenix in flame tones

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Cast of Wonders 633: Born in Flame and Song

Cast of Wonders 633: Born in Flame and Song is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:39 — 60.0MB)

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Born in Flame and Song

by Jameyanne Fuller

They will tell me, later, I was born singing. I wasn’t. I was born like all children are born, in one bloody, wailing, messy push. But I was born on fire. (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 631: Sometimes It Happens That Way

Cast of Wonders 631: Sometimes It Happens That Way is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:23 — 48.6MB)

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Sometimes it happens that way

by Jamie Lackey

I stood on the platform bundled up in one of my pa’s old work coats, its stained, fraying cuffs hanging well past my fingertips. The acrid stink of magic was thick in the air, rolling off the engine in hot waves. My ma took me by the shoulders and shook me, her fingers cold and hard even through the heavy coat.

“Your uncle lined up a good job for you out west,” she said, leaning close to shout over the steady rumble of the engine and the din of strangers’ voices. She smelled like the expensive formula my baby sister needed, powdery and sweet. “You work hard, and we can bring you back home in a few years.” She tucked my train ticket into my pocket.

I nodded. The thought of leaving home made my stomach curdle like old milk on a hot day, but I was almost twelve years old. I wanted to contribute. I was small for my age, and not strong, not like my older brothers and father. But my uncle had found me a job where small was what the bosses wanted. (Continue Reading…)

a dark haired girl underwater, surrounded by bubbles

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Cast of Wonders 629: The Otter Woman’s Daughter

Cast of Wonders 629: The Otter Woman’s Daughter is a Cast of Wonders original.

Off-screen historical domestic violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:43 — 53.2MB)

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The Otter Woman’s Daughter

by Eleanor Glewwe

In the stories, when the selkie finds her skin, she always leaves her children behind. When I was little, I was terrified that would happen to me. After it didn’t, I began to wish it had. Not all the time, but in brief, shame-stricken bursts, in the darkness underwater. (Continue Reading…)

stately home garden distorted by a kaleidoscope

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Cast of Wonders 618: Beneath the Unreal Gardens of the Virtual Villa

Cast of Wonders 618: Beneath the Unreal Gardens of the Virtual Villa is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:12 — 63.5MB)

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Beneath the Unreal Gardens of the Virtual Villa

By M.K. Hutchins

Self-defense class in the virtual reality sim is supposed to be safe. My green dummy-partner lumbers toward me like a particularly unthreatening zombie and grabs my throat. I clasp my hands together, crash down on those green elbow joints, then strike up at its nose with everything I have, just like Mrs. Rodriguez showed us.

Green blood sprays all over me.

I cough, splutter, stagger back. Who’d program a dummy that way? Several girls gape in horror. Two guys start laughing. No one else made their dummy gush blood.

Mrs. Rodriguez smells wounded social prey like a great white shark—Carcharodon carcharias. She hurries over with a plastic-fake, angelic smile. “As you can all see, Anne has gotten into the spirit of things! Excellent work, Anne!” (Continue Reading…)

creepy vintage doll

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Cast of Wonders 617: Emily

Cast of Wonders 617: Emily is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:51 — 27.3MB)

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Emily

by Alexander Hewitt

The bell jingled as we left the creepy little doll shop. The store owner smiled from behind the counter, one of those off-putting, ‘I know more than you do,’ kind of smiles. Her old, crackly voice didn’t help.

“Take care of her now, won’t you?”

She was a witch.

She was absolutely a witch. (Continue Reading…)