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Cast of Wonders 637: Calling on Behalf of the Dark Lord

First published in Translunar Travelers Lounge in February 2020

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Calling on Behalf of the Dark Lord

by Catherine George

It’s only part-time — you can always quit if you don’t like it. That’s what you told yourself when you were hired, and that’s what you tell your friends, too, when you meet down at the pub to buy them all drinks, for once, because apparently the Dark Lord pays on time and by direct deposit. Which, honestly, is more than you can say for your last couple jobs.

“It’s not that bad, really,” you say, grabbing another lukewarm potato skin. “It’s inside” — that matters to you, ever since the winter you almost got frostbite in your fingers selling hot chocolate to ice skaters on the canal — “the chairs are comfy, and it pays more than minimum. Plus, there’s a bonus each month for the person who signs up the most followers.” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 623: The Cat That Worked From Home (Staff Picks 2024)

First published as Cast of Wonders 583, April 2024

Image by Aleksandar Cvetanović from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:46 — 35.4MB)

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The Cat That Worked From Home

by Dan Peacock and Rachel Peacock

Macaroni’s workstation is set up just the way he likes it. He has a little laptop with little buttons for his little golden paws, adjusted to a comfortable height. His scratch post is within easy reach; all he has to do is lean over his mousepad and mouse and

Mouse!

Macaroni tackles the computer mouse and rolls around with it until he is sure it has been sufficiently killed. Satisfied, he returns to his work. It’s a good day to be working from home; the sun is coming through the window just right, and a warm rectangle of light is spreading across the carpet, ready for his lunch break.

Macaroni stops. There’s a noise from outside. He jumps up onto the windowsill and sees Gingerbread, his next-door nemesis, clambering over the garden fence.

Macaroni runs downstairs and out of the cat flap. The orange fur on Gingerbread’s back rises, but he quickly relaxes.

“Clear off,” Macaroni says. “This isn’t your garden. I’m trying to work from home here.” (Continue Reading…)

a small gingerbread man in a bowl of gingerbread

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Cast of Wonders 619: A Properly Spiced Gingerbread

This story was originally published in DreamForge Magazine in March 2022 and later won the 2022 Critters Readers Choice Award for “Best Magical Realism Short Story.”

Image by Slava Sidorov from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:07 — 18.0MB)

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A Properly Spiced Gingerbread

by David Hankins

Run, run, as fast as you can. You can’t escape the Gingerbread Man. Granny had warned that magic could kill, but Lucy hadn’t expected to die at the hands of a cookie. (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…)

three happy pumpkins on a woodland path

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Cast of Wonders 614: T-Rex Tex-Mex

Cast of Wonders 614: T-Rex Tex-Mex is a Cast of Wonders original.

Implied murder

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:01 — 17.9MB)

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Show Notes

Additional audio production by Summer Brooks of EscapePod

Trick-or-treaters: Rebecca Ahn, Amy Brennan, Katherine Inskip, Samuel Poots, Ryn Richmond

531 words

T-Rex Tex-Mex

by Sarina Dorie

“Whoa! Hold on, partner!” the host of the party asked with his fake Texan accent. “What is that costume supposed to be?”.

Of all the insufferable things, he was wearing a cowboy hat on his green, scaley head.

Dinosaurs did not wear hats. (Continue Reading…)

sinfully delicious chocolate cake

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Cast of Wonders 609: Devil’s Food

Cast of Wonders 609: Devil’s Food is a Cast of Wonders original.

Bullying

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:18 — 59.5MB)

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Show Notes

Image by Dennis Wilkinson

Devil’s Food

by E. M. Dasche

Tristan was not what you might call a traditional evil sorcerer.

For one thing, he didn’t quite look the part. Most evil sorcerers do not wear Star Wars backpacks, or shoes that fasten with Velcro, or short-sleeved button-downs tucked into belted-up shorts.

For another, most evil sorcerers lived in exciting, exotic places. Brimstone castles with ghouls for guards. Ice palaces with magical moats. Underground crypts and catacombs crawling with spiders and slithering, slippery things. Most evil sorcerers do not live on cul-de-sacs, in the stumpy roots of suburbia, surrounded by kids on scooters and corgis on leashes and middle-aged men on put-puttering lawnmowers.

Lastly, and most importantly, most evil sorcerers could cast spells. Tristan could not. Not while anyone was watching, at least. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 603: Three Wishes to Save the World

Cast of Wonders 603: Three Wishes to Save the World is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:49 — 43.7MB)

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Show Notes

World CleanUp Day

Three Wishes to Save the World

by Rebecca Zahabi

It started, like most of these things do, with a magic lamp.

Eden placed the lamp on the little Ikea table of their student housing and brushed their hand in one swipe from snout to handle. The burnished copper lamp turned to gold under their fingertips, glowing as if newly made, then began to rattle and puff silver-grey smoke.

The genie emerged with a hastily plastered-on smile. Contrary to popular belief, he was grey, not blue. He was wearing pointed shoes and a bright red tunic, through which his skin billowed out.

“Greetings, young…” The genie paused, hovering between ‘sir’ and ‘lady’. He had never had trouble identifying someone’s gender before. In the end, he settled for: “… young master.”

As a matter of fact, the genie was also what people would have called nonbinary, but lacking traditional female attributes, he had been considered male for so long that he now assumed he had to be a man of some sort.

Eden wasn’t awed by the genie’s sudden appearance. After years of witnessing a wilder, weirder, and worse reality on TV, and having also inherited their parents’ stiff upper lip, they greeted the genie with a thumbs-up. “You can call me Eden.” (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 583: The Cat that Worked from Home

Cast of Wonders 583: The Cat that Worked from Home is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:27 — 35.0MB)

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Show Notes

Image by Aleksandar Cvetanović from Pixabay

The Cat That Worked From Home

by Dan Peacock and Rachel Peacock

Macaroni’s workstation is set up just the way he likes it. He has a little laptop with little buttons for his little golden paws, adjusted to a comfortable height. His scratch post is within easy reach; all he has to do is lean over his mousepad and mouse and

Mouse!

Macaroni tackles the computer mouse and rolls around with it until he is sure it has been sufficiently killed. Satisfied, he returns to his work. It’s a good day to be working from home; the sun is coming through the window just right, and a warm rectangle of light is spreading across the carpet, ready for his lunch break.

Macaroni stops. There’s a noise from outside. He jumps up onto the windowsill and sees Gingerbread, his next-door nemesis, clambering over the garden fence.

Macaroni runs downstairs and out of the cat flap. The orange fur on Gingerbread’s back rises, but he quickly relaxes.

“Clear off,” Macaroni says. “This isn’t your garden. I’m trying to work from home here.” (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 556: Nine Goblins (part 9)

Originally published by the author

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:35 — 54.5MB)

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Nine Goblins

by T Kingfisher

Episode 1 – Episode 2 – Episode 3 – Episode 4 – Episode 5 – Episode 6 – Episode 7 – Episode 8 – Episode 9

Their bonds had been loosened and they had been given water. When the goblins were retied, the elves let them keep their hands in front. Nessilka debated requesting the teddy-bear again, then decided not to push her luck.

“Do you think he believes us?” asked Murray.

“No.”

“He has to know we couldn’t have killed all those people. And they’ve been dead for days.”

“He doesn’t have any way to know how long we’ve been here.” Nessilka sighed. “Think it through, Murray…” (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 555: Nine Goblins (part 8)

Depictions of dead bodies.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:53 — 61.8MB)

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Nine Goblins

by T Kingfisher

Episode 1 – Episode 2 – Episode 3 – Episode 4 – Episode 5 – Episode 6 – Episode 7 – Episode 8

The village square felt agonizingly exposed. The goblins clung to the shadow of the buildings as long as they could, and then there was a water trough for horses partway there, but after that there was nothing to hide behind except bodies.

It was not the first time in Nessilka’s life she’d hidden behind bodies, but if the great gibbering gods were kind, it’d be the last. She thought the smell might follow her for several lifetimes. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 554: Nine Goblins (part 7)

Originally published by the author.

Descriptions of dead bodies

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:45 — 47.8MB)

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Nine Goblins

by T Kingfisher

Episode 1 – Episode 2 – Episode 3 – Episode 4 – Episode 5 – Episode 6 – Episode 7

Sings-to-Trees did argue, but it seemed to Nessilka that it was more a matter of form. The encounter with the cervidian had shaken him badly, and what he really wanted was to get home and send a pigeon to the rangers as quickly as possible.

“You don’t have to go,” he said. “We could all go back. We’ll let the rangers handle it.”

The notion that someone higher up the chain of command would be more able to handle anything was so foreign to Nessilka that she couldn’t really get her head around it. Could elves really be that different?

Naaaah. Elves were elves, but the military was the military. There was something immutable about it. Orcs were pretty different from goblins, too, but their military worked almost the exact same way, except that at the higher levels you were answerable to the priesthood, and nobody ever said anything nice about orcish gods. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 551: Nine Goblins (part 6)

Originally published by the Author

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:58 — 49.5MB)

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Nine Goblins

by T Kingfisher

Episode 1 – Episode 2 – Episode 3 – Episode 4 – Episode 5 – Episode 6

The goblins approved of the zucchini, in goblin fashion. They sat around the table on barrels, crates, and anything else that would hold them, complaining happily.

“This is terrible!”

“Worst zucchini I’ve ever seen! Looks like baked dog turds!”

“And they’re gritty! Did you even wash them?”

“What’s with this bread? I could use it to fix my boots!”

“I think this butter’s about to turn.”

The Nineteenth polished off three bowls apiece, five loaves of zucchini bread, and Mishkin and Mushkin were licking the casserole dish clean. (Continue Reading…)