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Cast of Wonders 329: Widow Bones Makes Her Rounds

Cast of Wonders 329: Widow Bones Makes Her Rounds is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:08 — 29.2MB)

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Widow Bones Makes Her Rounds

by Gretchen Tessmer

“Brom Bones too, who shortly after his rival’s disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina to the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin, which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell.”

– The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,
by Washington Irving

 

With everything that happened, I don’t know that I would describe myself as blooming. Willing, I suppose, and certainly compliant. But a flower doesn’t need to bloom to be plucked.

After all, pretty is as pretty does, my father used to say. He didn’t say much else and I’m not sure if he meant it as a compliment or an insult. I’ve never really understood the phrase anyway. Are we predisposed to act in certain ways? If so, it would be a relief. My actions turned midnight-moon-macabre some time ago and I’d hate to think it’s all my own failing of character.

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Cast of Wonders 328: Ava Paints the Horses

Cast of Wonders 328: Ava Paints the Horses is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: Self harm; grief

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:26 — 34.8MB)

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Ava Paints the Horses

by Ville Meriläinen

It’s late into morning on a Friday, and Ava paints the horses. Her feet are bare despite the season, and she has buried them in a pile of leaves that rustles as she curls her toes in rhythm with her strokes. The scent of hot cocoa wafts up from the mug between her knees, mixing with the smell of summer grass that escapes her painting.

She sits on the porch of her home and sinks herself into her work, so she wouldn’t have to hear how close Mom is to tears when her parents argue about money. It’s a school day in September, but she hasn’t been to class for days. Everyone is understanding of her troubles at home, but no one asks where she would rather be.

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Cast of Wonders 327: Memories of Mirrored Worlds

First published in Daily Science Fiction July 5, 2013

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:46 — 23.2MB)

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Show Notes

Check out The Drabblecast Reborn!

Memories of Mirrored Worlds

by Barbara A. Barnett

At midnight on her ninth birthday, Alison Marie was crowned Queen of the Nightlands; she decreed that flowers should glow in the dark and that bats should dine with her at supper. At midnight on her tenth birthday, she was named Keeper of the Secret Word, which she whispered to her trusted steed, a giant frog who galloped through the moors. On her eleventh birthday, Alison Marie was worshipped as Goddess of the Sky. She spread her dragon wings each night and breathed the stars to life with fire. But at midnight on her twelfth birthday, Alison Marie became the daughter of a widowed man, and she made no more visits to her other lives.
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RSS Feed Update

Cast of Wonders will be moving its RSS feed to LibSyn at the end of October. And soon after, our episodes should be available on Spotify.

For 99% of our audience, the transition should be transparent – tech things will happen behind the scenes, and your podcatcher will continue to receive new episodes every week. If you’re using a hand-crafted podcatcher, you may need to update your feed location.

We’ll keep you posted as the change approaches.

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Cast of Wonders 326: Forgiveness

Originally published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, February 2015.

Content Warning: Partner abuse

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:02 — 29.3MB)

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Show Notes

The Long List Anthology, Volume 4, is Kickstarting now!

Forgiveness

by Leah Cypess

The day Michael came back to school, I was still wearing long sleeves.

Not because of the bruises. That’s what everyone thought, but the truth was, the bruises had faded weeks before. I didn’t know why I was wearing them myself, until Michael slunk through the front doors, and everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at him.

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Cast of Wonders 325: The Librarian (Banned Books Week)

Cast of Wonders 325: The Librarian (Banned Books Week) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:37 — 24.9MB)

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Show Notes

Check out The Drabblecast Reborn!

The Librarian

by Maria Haskins

The library hadn’t been there the day before, Ella was sure of it. That patch of dirt beside the rusting piles of spaceship debris outside the refugee camp had been bare, with nothing but weeds and rocks on it. Now, there was a library there. She knew it was a library because it said LIBRARY right on it, painted in glittery letters. The word was spelled out in the twelve most commonly spoken languages and dialects in the camp. Ella recognized them all from school, even if she could only read and understand five of them. .

The building was small and rectangular. It looked like a brightly painted version of one of the metal shipping containers Ella would see at the spaceport when she went there with her friends to scavenge for leavings. Of course, you weren’t supposed to go scavenging there, but everyone did anyway. You could find anything there – scraps of metal and junky electronics for the trader, even food, if you were lucky.

Ella squinted at the library’s sign. She was supposed to come straight home after school, but school had ended early since the power went out, and Pappa wouldn’t notice she was gone until later. And who had ever heard of anyone offering books around here? Better take the chance when it was offered.

Ella opened the door and stepped inside.
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Cast of Wonders 324: The Sound of Her Voice (Banned Books Week)

Cast of Wonders 324: The Sound of Her Voice (Banned Books Week) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:12 — 29.1MB)

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The Sound of Her Voice

by Jennifer Hykes

I saw her van as I turned the corner by the convenience store.  It was exactly as I remembered it: the coat of green paint cracked and faded now, but the logo unmistakable.  It was burned into my memory like a brand.

I moved before I even realized my old instincts were kicking in, pressing myself against the brick wall and slowing my breathing so the sound would not give me away.

Every nerve in my body tingled.  I watched. I waited.
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Cast of Wonders 323: “A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies” (Banned Books Week)

First published in Apex Magazine, February 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:34 — 49.6MB)

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“A Witch’s Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies”

by Alix E. Harrow

GEORGE, JC—THE RUNAWAY PRINCE—J FIC GEO 1994

You’d think it would make us happy when a kid checks out the same book a zillion times in a row, but actually it just keeps us up at night.

The Runaway Prince is one of those low-budget young adult fantasies from the mid-nineties, before J.K. Rowling arrived to tell everyone that magic was cool, printed on brittle yellow paper. It’s about a lonely boy who runs away and discovers a Magical Portal into another world where he has Medieval Adventures, but honestly there are so many typos most people give up before he even finds the portal.

Not this kid, though. He pulled it off the shelf and sat cross-legged in the juvenile fiction section with his grimy red backpack clutched to his chest. He didn’t move for hours. Other patrons were forced to double-back in the aisle, shooting suspicious, you-don’t-belong-here looks behind them as if wondering what a skinny black teenager was really up to while pretending to read a fantasy book. He ignored them.

The books above him rustled and quivered; that kind of attention flatters them.
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Cast of Wonders 322: Your Words There for the World to See (Banned Books Week)

Cast of Wonders 322: Your Words There for the World to See (Banned Books Week) is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:59 — 13.4MB)

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Your Words There for the World to See

by Aimee Ogden

The school library doesn’t have the book you want. No surprise there. There are a few dozen volumes on its shelves; plenty of other books are out there in the cloud, but the part of the cloud with your book is partitioned off too. It’s in the Premium Access tier and a Title X school in Ass-Nowhere, Wisconsin is not exactly Premium Access quality. The librarian apologizes for that, but apologies don’t put the words in your hands.
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Cast of Wonders 321: The Penelope Qingdom

First published in Mothership Zeta (December 2016)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:25 — 41.2MB)

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The Penelope Qingdom

by Aidan Moher

It was during the particularly frozen-solid Prince George winter of ’91, a few days after the new neighbours had arrived, that I first stumbled into the Penelope Qingdom.

“What are their names?” I asked my moms as they bustled about the kitchen getting ready. They’d invited themselves next door for a “Welcome to the Neighbourhood” dinner. We’d never had new neighbours before.
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Cast of Wonders 320: Presumed Dead (Part 7)

First published in the novel Presumed Dead (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, August 2016)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:47 — 44.8MB)

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Show Notes

Buy the full-length novel from Amazon!

Presumed Dead (Part 7)

by Rick Kennett

The Xenoid hadn’t tried to cover up evidence of its theft.

Her raft had been dragged out from behind the fungi bush and now lay on the white sand beach. Many of its locker doors hung open, their contents spilled on the floor. There was a gouged-out space on the control console where the computer had been.

It’d probably planned to use the raft after eliminating her, Cy guessed confidently. But, being a calculating creature, it had to secure the computer’s memory module when it had the opportunity. It represented a prize too invaluable to risk to the chance of failure.
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