teddy bear reading a book, against a light blue background

Genres: ,

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)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

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…)

Genres: ,

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

First published in Translunar Travelers Lounge in February 2020

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:05 — 19.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

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…)

pink gerbera daisy and dust on a black background

Genres: , ,

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)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

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

Genres: ,

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)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

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

Genres: ,

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)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

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

Genres:

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)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

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…)

spotlights and fog, lit up blue, forming a ray of illumination from bottom right to top left against a dark background

Genres: , , ,

Cast of Wonders 632: Tongue is a Void

First published in the anthology Death in the Mouth: Original Horror by People of Color, in October 2022

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

intrusive thoughts

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:57 — 20.5MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Tongue is a Void

by P H Low

enter

Late at night, driving: highway lane lines spooled like cream beneath your high beams, fields of corn and hay undulating soft beneath pinprick stars. The last gas station has faded behind you; ahead, only mile markers, a firefly flicker in the velvet dark.

The echo of your father’s voice, thick with disappointment: I thought you loved musical theater.

And you do, you want to cry out—you dropped out of conservatory for this, love it with every atom of the wreckage that is your body—but when you light yourself on fire every night before a thousand pairs of watching eyes, there is only so long you can last before the wick burns low.

An indrawn breath from the backseat, a brush of shadow like feathers, but when you turn around, you only see the dark. (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)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

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…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 630: Poets of Painswick

First published in Augur Magazine issue 6.2 in December 2023.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:34 — 39.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Poets of Painswick

by Kate Francia

Monday, 1st of June

Dear Mama,

I am sorry to tell you that Fanny is out hunting Poets again. It’s such a bore. She’ll be tiresome when she gets back, obv. sans Poets. No good telling her we don’t have the right sort of climate, or that she’d be sorry indeed if she caught one. She’ll persist in calling that bit of meadow above the duck pond “the moor,” lying in the grass pretending she’s just been thrown from her horse. Papa won’t let her take the plow horse, so she pretends hers has run off.

Later: A bit of excitement. Fanny has contrived to twist her ankle out on “the moor.” It’s swollen to a frightful size. She’s mum on how she managed to walk home on it. (You mustn’t worry; she is perfectly well. Carrying on dreadfully, but you know how she is.)

Spoke to Papa after she retired, in re: something must be done. But as usual, No One Listens To Me. (Continue Reading…)

a dark haired girl underwater, surrounded by bubbles

Genres: ,

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)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

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…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 627: The Restaurant of Object Permanence (Staff Picks 2024)

First published in Diabolical Plots, April 2024, and as Cast of Wonders 604 in September 2024

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:29 — 21.3MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

The Restaurant of Object Permanence

by Beth Goder

Kazia files a folder of correspondence and closes the manuscript box. She leaves the archives as the sun is setting. Her head is filled with the collection she is processing, the papers of Elgar T. Bryce, noted American biologist. For eleven years, she has worked as an archivist, arranging and describing the papers of scientists, economists, and professors. She loves the quiet of the archives, the way folders line up in a processed box, tangible history in her hands.

Outside the archives, there’s a strange flyer on the bulletin board. The first thing she notices is the paper, a small blue square, probably acidic, attached to the board by the thin metal line of a staple not yet turned to rust. It’s an invitation to the Restaurant of Object Permanence. To go, one is instructed to eat the flyer.

She pulls the paper from the board and swallows it in one bite. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 626: Bokrug and the Boy (Staff Picks 2024)

Previously published by The Dragon’s Roost Press, December 2022, and as Cast of Wonders 601, August 2024

Episode image by intographics from Pixabay

 

Bullying; implied neglect

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:09 — 30.4MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | RSS

Bokrug and the Boy

by Liam Hogan

“You know we don’t care?”

“Yes. You’ve said.”

It wasn’t much of a beach. Estuary mud, littered with debris from both river and sea. A hulking, concrete sewage outlet, that only discharged at the minimum recommended distance from land when measured at high tide. Betwixt and between, neither ocean nor shore, even the seabirds avoided the area, as Samuel Pelsey trudged through the boot-sucking sludge, half-heartedly poking a stick.

No more than a giant step behind, the Great Old One lurked. Against the grey sky, reflected by the grey sea (or was it the other way around?), foregrounded by grey mud. The eldritch horror’s powerful limbs and webbed feet were better suited to the conditions than an eight-year-old’s short legs and hand-me-down, but still-oversized wellingtons, one of which had long ago sprung a leak, the cracked and weathered seals not up to the pull of the thick mud, rank water oozing in with every second step and soaking his doubled up socks. His jeans were turning the same dismal grey, caked layers that would only flake off when next he went to put them on, there being little point in being washed until the “holiday” was over. (Continue Reading…)