silhouette of horses against a backdrop of the milky way

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Cast of Wonders 577: Fording the Milky Way

Cast of Wonders 577: Fording the Milky Way is a Cast of Wonders original.

Abusive relationships, dysfunctional families

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:37 — 32.4MB)

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Fording the Milky Way

by Megan Ng

There’s a festival celebrated in China that’s dedicated to young lovers. It is not one celebrated here, but Ma tells me about it all the same. Storytelling is our way of killing time as she makes supper for the ranch hands or patches Pa’s shirts, and whenever she’s sitting comfortably with her hands full I know I’m about to hear something interesting. Ma’s stories aren’t like the ones in books– hers seem more thrilling and real, even though I know she’s making most of them up.

She tells me a story about a beautiful weaver girl who lives among the stars and falls in love with a human cowherd. She tells me about a vengeful mother goddess who rips the sky in two with a hairpin to keep the lovers apart forevermore.

On the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, the Jade Emperor takes pity on them, Ma says. He allows all the magpies of the world to form a bridge between the heavens, so that the weaver and her cowherd can see each other for a single night. (Continue Reading…)

ice flower

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Cast of Wonders 576: Little Wonders 43 – Young Authors

Cast of Wonders 576: Little Wonders 43 – Young Authors is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:17 — 22.4MB)

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At the Edge of Nowhere

by Peter Gooley

It saddens me to look out my window and see the secrets lying sad and broken across the dusty road. The sprays of wind toss them along, scattering the letters among the little, cream-coloured chunks of gravel. I think that sadness was what made me first start collecting them. I gather the tiny, sparkling thoughts from the dew-painted ground each morning as I tend my garden, like manna from heaven. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 575: Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills (Staff Picks 2023)

Originally published as Cast of Wonders 560, 27th October 2023

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:44 — 55.3MB)

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Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills

by Prashanth Srivatsa

I was the only one among my friends who did not get the letter. Which is a real shame, because I was the only one who could snap a finger to conjure a flame. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 574: Printed in Ink and Ashes (Staff Picks 2023)

Originally published as Cast of Wonders 557, 14 October 2023

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:26 — 55.5MB)

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Printed in Ink and Ashes

by Priya Sridhar

In the basement, scant lightbulbs sputtered in and out. The single torch, propped on a shelf, shone on the pages as I reviewed my copy: The plight of the Hindu laborer must be addressed on a societal level. He is forced to face his burdens alone, often without friends or family.

Typewritten stencils, leaving corpses of plastic letters on the ground. Mildew sprinkled the walls and released a foul odor. When I opened new ink, that stink would mix with the mildew.

Rage filled me as I pressed the keys on the typewriter. When I visited my father, he hadn’t even offered me a cup of coffee or asked how I was. Instead, leaning on his store counter, he told me about his latest backaches and arguments with his tenants. When I hinted that I was parched but wanted to pay for a soda, he offered me a cup of white Ovaltine. Its taste reminded me of how I missed my mother’s chai, how it would always soak the tongue with spices.

Father owned a candy shop in Seattle by a trolley stop; it also sold sodas and tobacco for those interested. He would curate newspapers and magazines for travelers and offer hot coffee to loyal customers. For children, he would boil sweetened Ovaltine powder in milk.

“You have grown too fast,” he’d grumbled in Tamil. “And you are eating too much, Shyama. How much money are we sending for your education?” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 571: The Raven Princess (Staff Picks 2023)

Originally published in Cast of Wonders as episode 543 on 5 August 2023

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:32 — 35.0MB)

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The Raven Princess

by Dani Atkinson

“Oh no,” Clarinda muttered, fluttering to the body of the fallen prince. His limp form lay sprawled at the base of a willow tree, the fine embroidery on his clothes gleaming in the shifting patches of sunlight cast between the branches. A basket lay near his feet, and an empty wine goblet lay toppled near his hand. Clarinda pecked his fingers. “No no no…”

Notchbeak flapped down to join her. “Who’s this? Are you going to eat him?” He started pecking the other hand. “Dibs on his eyes.”

“No!” Clarinda cried, hopping to the man’s chest.

Notchbeak ruffled his feathers in a shrug. “Well, fine, we can split the eyes. He has two, after all.” (Continue Reading…)

A girl crouched beside a tree, inside of which is a cosy living room

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 569: The Woods in the House (part 2)

Cast of Wonders 569: The Woods in the House (part 2) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:10 — 41.8MB)

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The Woods in the House

by Amanda Cecelia Lang

(part 1)

Finally, I had a decent guess about the cog-works of the witch’s magic. The theory swamped my head until it became my only thought. But how to test it?

Sneaking down 13th without eyes on me became impossible. The beat cops, my kryptonite, manifested whenever I stepped outside. Dad stopped working double-shifts to warden me to-and-from school. On weekends, he locked the apartment and grumbled about sacrificing the overtime. Restless days passed, countless awkward hours cooped up together—watching the boob-tube, fixing meals from cans, pacing grimy ditches into the carpet, back and forth, back and forth, silently missing Tina. Missing our girls. It felt weird not feeling so afraid inside his shadow. But I had other villains to worry about.

How bonkers was it that I felt thankful for that? (Continue Reading…)

A girl crouched beside a tree, inside of which is a cosy living room

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 568: The Woods in the House (part 1)

Cast of Wonders 568: The Woods in the House (part 1) is a Cast of Wonders original.

death of a parent, corporal punishment and neglect

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:13 — 44.6MB)

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The Woods in the House

by Amanda Cecelia Lang

Those magic-duped beat cops warned me not to return to Old Lady Sybil’s brownstone. They ordered me to leave the odd-bird alone, let her totter about her dying years in peace. Said the myths us punks on 13th Avenue spread about her were just that. She didn’t skin alley cats for bubbling potions or hex the afternoons with yellow smog. She didn’t whisper haunted prayers and open portals into other realms. Her house was just a house.

And she didn’t kidnap Tina.

The whole neighborhood agreed—from the bodega owner to the apartment rats to the sidewalk gossips. Something wretched had happened to my little sister. Just another big city statistic. Kids like her go missing every day, run off, tumble through cracks, take ill with sinister luck—same as alley cats and treasured parents. One thing the cops promised me: telling wild lies about lonely spinsters was never gonna bring Tina back.

But I know what I saw on Halloween. (Continue Reading…)

light bulb with bright sparks

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Cast of Wonders 564: Little Wonders 42 – Flash Fiction Contest Winners

Cast of Wonders 564: Little Wonders 42 – Flash Fiction Contest Winners is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:14 — 29.2MB)

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A Girl Bikes Home Alone at Night

by Georgie Morvis

Pina didn’t want to bike home that night from the party, she told the officers. Dad had texted 10 minutes before he was supposed to pick her up. No can make it. Had too many green bottles. He had been like this since the lung cancer spread through Ma’s body like wildfire.

The bike wasn’t even hers, but Lani’s haole family had just moved to Kona from Denver, so there were plenty kine for her to choose from. She would have brought a helmet and worn brighter clothing, instead of the black tank top and ripped jeans she had on when the officers found her. (Continue Reading…)

Image of a derelict overgrown blue car

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Cast of Wonders 562: One Last Broken Thing

Originally published in The Dark, February 2021

Swearing (two f-words) & homophobic slurs

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:09 — 48.2MB)

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One Last Broken Thing

by Aimee Ogden

In elementary school, the other kids called Liv’s home that haunted house out on Barnhill Road. Liv herself has never seen a ghost there, but not for want of trying. They called her father lots of things: Freddy Krueger, Charles Manson, David S. Pumpkins. Now that she’s in high school, the other kids call her the spooky girl: to her face, on ugly pieces of paper smashed up small and pushed through the vents of her locker. Stay away from me, spooky girl. Don’t talk to me again in English, spooky girl. I saw you looking at me in the locker room, you spooky fuck. (Continue Reading…)

A group of people wearing grotesque festival masks

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Cast of Wonders 561: All Good Children Come Out To Play

Originally published in khōréō magazine, September 2022

Episode image by Rodolfo Pimentel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Death of a child

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:23 — 49.7MB)

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All Good Children Come Out To Play

by Karlo Yeager Rodríguez

For longer than I could remember, we had been Lázaro and Marta. We should have been celebrating our ninth birthday together.

Instead, my twin brother was laid out on our table. He looked so small and still and pale: the silent point around which our family and neighbors swirled, dancing and singing and laughing. Abuela Trini held me in her lap and cradled my head in the crook of her arm. Her reedy hum meandered through the cuatro music until my tears dried and my sobs shrank to hiccups.

I never meant for any of this to happen when I slipped away to bathe in our secret pool the day before. The one only Lázaro and I knew about, the one nestled in a clearing up the mountain and surrounded by yagrumo trees, the one we had splashed around in, the one with chilly spring-fed waters, the one where the freshwater shrimp tickled our legs and nipped at our feet.

All I had wanted was to be alone. (Continue Reading…)

decorative image of a pink abstract hexagon

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 560: Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills

Cast of Wonders 560: Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:34 — 55.0MB)

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Crystal Hexagons on Windowsills

by Prashanth Srivatsa

I was the only one among my friends who did not get the letter. Which is a real shame, because I was the only one who could snap a finger to conjure a flame. (Continue Reading…)

Girl with balloons walking on a landscape made out of an open book

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 559: Libricide

Cast of Wonders 559: Libricide is a Cast of Wonders original.

Arson, burns

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:20 — 27.9MB)

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Libricide

by Rachel Linton

When he woke, the air tasted of ash.

For a moment, he contemplated not getting up. There was a physical weight to smoke-filled air that went beyond the actual density of the particles. It crushed him; his throat closed up beneath it. It was never a good day when a neighborhood of ideas was consumed by fire. (Continue Reading…)