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Cast of Wonders 544 – Nine Goblins (part 1)

Originally published by the Author

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:31 — 72.2MB)

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Nine Goblins

by T Kingfisher

Episode 1

It was gruel again for breakfast.

It had been gruel for dinner the night before, and it would be gruel sandwiches for lunch, a dish only possible with goblin gruel, which was burnt solid and could be trusted not to ooze off the bread. It usually had unidentifiable lumps of something in it. Sometimes the lumps had legs.

Once, Corporal Algol had found an eyeball in his gruel, the memory of which he carried with him like a good luck charm and inflicted regularly on his fellow soldiers.

“Did I ever tell you guys about the time I found an eyeball—”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

Algol wasn’t a bad sort, really. He was bigger than usual for a goblin, a whopping four foot ten, with broad, knotty shoulders and enormous feet. He had the ochre-grey skin of a hill goblin, and he wasn’t all that bright—but then, he was a goblin officer.

Smart goblins became mechanics. Dumb goblins became soldiers. Really dumb goblins became officers. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 543: The Raven Princess

Cast of Wonders 543: The Raven Princess is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:29 — 41.1MB)

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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…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 541: Ashes and Buttercream

Cast of Wonders 541: Ashes and Buttercream is a Cast of Wonders original.

Warfare, refugee trauma

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:20 — 26.0MB)

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Ashes and Buttercream

by Malina Douglas

The domovoi is protecting them. Sofiya knows this, even as her mother’s dismissive remarks prod the fireplace like skewers.

When the flames burn to embers and the ashes in the fireplace thicken, she sees him. A miniature creature with short limbs and stubby toes, a round face and snub-nose, a burnt texture to his skin. He smells like crème brûlée just after the surface has been singed.

She feeds him crumbs from her dinner while he answers with titbits of stories that don’t quite make sense.

Where Sofiya sees blinking eyes and the flash of a grin, her mother sees flames and flakes of ash. She tells Sofiya off for staring into the fire too long. Then she sighs into a kitchen chair, takes out her phone and stares at the screen.

In her mother’s work there are great glowing hearths but no domovois. Sofiya has checked. Her mother stirs steaming pots and fills moulds with dark delights in a chocolaterie. They live in Lviv, where carved faces gaze from curved Art Nouveau archways and baroque façades brush against classical columns. City of stone lions, violins and chocolate. (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 540: That Good Night

Cast of Wonders 540: That Good Night is a Cast of Wonders original.

Bereavement

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:26 — 42.6MB)

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That Good Night

by Francesco Rahe

This is how the old pass.

Like fog on a sunny summer day. Like a gray cirrus cloud fading before the pearly moon. Like a brush of cool wind on a starry night. Like a snowflake melting upon a windowpane.

They pass in the night, silent, with a single peaceful breath. They pass in hospital beds, amid beeping machines, with a rattle of oxygen shaking free from their chests. They pass with families around them, with aged spouses clasping their hands, or they pass alone, with no one at all. They pass and they enter the shadowlands and no matter who is with them when they pass, this final step they take alone. They enter the shadowlands alone, they stride its craggy shore, they sail their coracles past the moonlit sky, and they do not return. (Continue Reading…)

Image by Freepik

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 539: Little Wonders 39 – Home Ties

Cast of Wonders 539: Little Wonders 39 – Home Ties is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:54 — 33.2MB)

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Show Notes

Minor Magics of Chinatown was originally published in Factor Four Magazine, April 2022

Park’s All-Night Ramyun and Snack Emporium

by Seoung Kim

After the stoplights go to flashing red and the bars make their last calls, Park’s All-Night Ramyun and Snack Emporium lights up, its warm yellow lanterns beckoning customers from the street.

The tiny dining area just outside the truck is already full: a rusalka who always leaves the counter wet; her girlfriend Ms. Llorona, who uses too many napkins crying but refuses to order less spicy noodles; the old yokai lady Mrs. Rokuro with her mile-long neck; and a jiangshi who isn’t eating but stares at every drunk club-goer who stumbles down the street.

Yujin Park crosses their arms and leans back on the freezer, checking their phone for the fiftieth time that shift. It seems like everyone is out enjoying the last summer before senior year — except for them. Their feed is full of rooftop parties and group selfies.

Even if they could escape from the drudgery of scrubbing moldy drains, the thought of showing up covered in a thick layer of grease is too mortifying to bear. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 537: More Real Than Real

This story was first published in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine in June 2021

Swearing: one f-word

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:00 — 70.8MB)

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More Real Than Real

by Greta Hayer

The marketing team’s representative met us at a tavern in-game. Or his avatar did, wearing a drab grey suit that stuck out in the high fantasy virtual world. He held a laptop and typed furiously as he walked toward KeeperX, Ovid, and me.

“Our team has put together your first promo video as sponsored players,” he said and set the laptop on the bar table. Without ceremony, he pressed a key, and it began.

In the promo video, KeeperX was wearing his best armor, all glint and gold in the sunlight. He’d been filmed for the advertisement at that perfect golden hour, and he looked like a hero.

I couldn’t help but laugh, elbowing the KeeperX standing by my side. (Continue Reading…)

old books, herbs, pestle and mortar

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 536: Little Wonders 38 – Advice

Cast of Wonders 536: Little Wonders 38 – Advice is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:02 — 29.2MB)

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A Letter to A Bully’s Mother

by Priya Sridhar

Dear Opal’s Mom:

This is Jem, Opal’s classmate. Last week, you asked my Magical Cupcake club to make two hundred cupcakes for Opal’s birthday–chocolate chip and peanut butter. Even though you pay well, I would have refused on behalf of the Magical Cupcake Bakers. The girls outvoted me since we need the money for new cooking equipment. My friends made all the cupcakes in the school kitchens and used my mom’s bakery ovens when we ran out of room in the ones used for cooking classes. That explains the taste you complained about on BakeHub this morning. As you wrote in your post, it was my special touch you were paying for–and that was missing.

Enclosed are a few extra cupcakes for you and Opal’s dad. These I did make, cardamom vanilla, with some hints of ginger from infused milk. This proves that I haven’t “lost it”, as you posted, my Jersey family baking touch. (Continue Reading…)

image of aurora in the arctic

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 535: The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen

This story was first published in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, issue 124, June 2013

Death, bereavement, harm to animals

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:52 — 59.9MB)

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The Girl Who Welcomed Death to Svalgearyen

by Barbara A. Barnett

In the town of Svalgearyen, on the thirty-third day of the months-long winter night, Grandma Marit abruptly cast her knitting aside and marched toward the door.

“It’s my time,” she declared—a pronouncement that elicited a whimper from Gunther, the bushy little sheepdog who had been curled up at her feet.

Her granddaughter, Adda, set her own knitting down with far more delicacy but also a great deal of surprise. “Where are you going?”

“Well,” Grandma Marit said as she heaved herself into her heavy winter coat, “I can’t die here, now can I?” (Continue Reading…)

dragon art

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 534: Lavender, Juniper, Gunpowder, Smoke

 First published in Apparition Lit Magazine on October 15, 2021

Bullying

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:48 — 54.2MB)

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Lavender, Juniper, Gunpowder, Smoke

by Alyson Grauer

They are always at my heels, this pack of girls who might as well be wolves. No matter how hard I try to ignore them, pretending they haven’t hurt my feelings, I can’t seem to shake them off. They stalk me in the hallways between classes, each girl smelling of plastic flowers, raspberry, and freshly applied nail polish. The scent chokes me in the school’s enclosed cinderblock halls. I miss the woods of home.

“Hick,” Marie’s voice whispers at my back.

I glance back to see Marie’s wide smile, her teeth white as the moon. Hannah, lean and narrow-boned, slouches beside her. (Continue Reading…)

abstract crown

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 531: Crown Prince

Cast of Wonders 531: Crown Prince is a Cast of Wonders original.

Ableism

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:15 — 23.5MB)

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Show Notes

Cerebral Palsy Awareness

Crown Prince

by Melissa Mead

Behind a gauze screen, Crown Prince Manu slumps in his cushions. He’s grateful for the screen, hiding his lapse from Father’s petitioners. It takes so much energy to maintain his Stupid Body in anything like a posture of alertness. The more effort he puts forth, the more it writhes about. The law says that he, the Only Royal Son, must be present at all official proceedings, but behind the screen no one can see him if he chooses to save his energy for listening. He always listens. And remembers. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 526: La Puerta (Staff Picks 2022)

Originally broadcast as Cast of Wonders 517, 11th December 2022

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:17 — 68.1MB)

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La Puerta

by Ren Braueri

La puerta siempre estaba abierta. Just in case Javier ever came back.

But let me not begin there, because…if I started there – I’d have to tell you how it was all my fault. Instead, let me start with the day Papá brought La Puerta home. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 525: And I Will Make Thy Name Great (Staff Picks 2022)

Originally broadcast as Cast of Wonders 495, 27th May 2022

Content warnings: religion, Abrahamic monotheism, God, mentions of war and genocide, religious humor.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:03 — 54.4MB)

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And I Will Make Thy Name Great

by Louis Evans

Abraham, the potter’s son, was sweeping out the workshop late one night, the air hot, the sweat beading on his brow, the kiln still radiating the baking heat it had absorbed over the course of the day.

This was when he heard the voice.

“Boy!”

Abraham looked around.

No source of the voice was apparent. No person had stepped into the shed, nor were the flames of a djinn visible. Four copies of the idol of Suen, god of the moon and chief among gods, were cooling on the shelf opposite the kiln, and sometimes Suen spoke to believers, but the idols were not yet consecrated and certainly could not host the presence of the god. No raven perched in the workshop’s eaves, croaking out an imitation of speech. Abraham was baffled. (Continue Reading…)