Posts Tagged ‘growing up’

A fairy in a jar

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Cast of Wonders 498: Field Biology of the Wee Fairies

Originally published in Apex Magazine, September 2018

Misogyny

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:42 — 32.5MB)

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Field Biology of the Wee Fairies

by Naomi Kritzer

When Amelia turned fourteen, everyone assured her that she’d find her fairy soon. Almost all girls did. You’d find a fairy, a beautiful little fairy, and catch her. And she’d give you a gift to let her go, and that gift was always beauty or charm or perfect hair or something else that made boys notice you. The neighbor girl, Betty, had caught her fairy when she was just nine, and so she’d never even had to go through an awkward adolescent stage; she’d been perfect and beautiful all along.

Not all fairies were equal, of course. Some of them would do a much better job for you. The First Lady Jackie Kennedy, for example, had caught the fairy queen. Or so almost everyone said. “So keep your eyes open,” Amelia’s mother told her.

“I don’t want to catch a fairy,” Amelia said. “If I did catch a fairy, I’d keep her in a jar like my mice and study her.” (Continue Reading…)

woman with colourful wisps of light

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Cast of Wonders 491: Little Wonders 33 – Dreams & Identity

Cast of Wonders 491: Little Wonders 33 – Dreams & Identity is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:56 — 19.6MB)

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Show Notes

“In the Library of Longing” was first published by Daily Science Fiction, February 2021

Sleep Tight

by Mark Joslyn

You were right, you know. When you were a child.

I was hiding under your bed.

You knew it, even though you couldn’t prove it. Even after your mother kissed your cheek, and tucked you in, and told you there was nothing to be afraid of. Even after your father knelt and checked and told you there was nothing hiding down there. Even when you summoned up all your courage and looked for yourself, hanging off the edge of your bed, your trembling flashlight shining on nothing but forgotten socks and lost toys. You still knew, that somehow, someway, I was down there. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 483: Armed With Such Stories, I Roamed Into The Woods (Staff Picks 2021)

Original published as Cast of Wonders Episode 456 on June 13, 2021

Multiple profanities

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:30 — 43.2MB)

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Armed With Such Stories, I Roamed Into The Woods

by Evan Marcroft

Never trust a wolf’s promise, Atticus, my mother once told me. Remember the tale of Smiling John and Baron Icepelt. They lie between fangs, and their promises will only ever lead you into their belly. She was full of such morsels of wisdom. There was a fable for every lesson I should know. Not all pertained to talking wolves, but this was most relevant to my task. Remember how Smiling John escaped. If you should find a wolf at your heels, throw meat behind you. Wolves are clever but lazy creatures. They will stop for the easier meal.

Armed with such stories, I roamed into the woods to save her life. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 482: In Real Time (Staff Picks 2021)

Original published as Cast of Wonders Episode 465 on September 12, 2021

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:12 — 30.8MB)

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In Real Time

by Avra Margariti

The kites frozen across the sky dapple the lawn like stained glass. Human statues dot the park, caught mid-motion: picnicking, dog-walking, sun-bathing. They might have been unnerving, once. Now, the utter stillness and silence soothes me like nothing else. In Frozen Time, scents are amplified tenfold. Grass, flowers, sugar. I drop a few coins into a vendor’s tip jar, then fill a clear bag with candy worms, chewing as I stroll down the small hill.

When a shape weaves between the stationary people, I think it’s only an optical illusion. A vase, two faces, now a vase again.

I blink, and the silhouette has drawn closer. It belongs to a kid not much younger than me in appearance, although there’s really no way to tell with people like us, who know how to manipulate time. The kid nods at me, casual like we’re meeting in the street and not in a frozen world, then steals a fistful of my candy.

“Who are you?” I ask once my tongue unglues itself from my palate. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 465: In Real Time

Cast of Wonders 465: In Real Time is a Cast of Wonders original.

Drug use (marijuana)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:34 — 29.3MB)

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In Real Time

by Avra Margariti

The kites frozen across the sky dapple the lawn like stained glass. Human statues dot the park, caught mid-motion: picnicking, dog-walking, sun-bathing. They might have been unnerving, once. Now, the utter stillness and silence soothes me like nothing else. In Frozen Time, scents are amplified tenfold. Grass, flowers, sugar. I drop a few coins into a vendor’s tip jar, then fill a clear bag with candy worms, chewing as I stroll down the small hill.

When a shape weaves between the stationary people, I think it’s only an optical illusion. A vase, two faces, now a vase again.

I blink, and the silhouette has drawn closer. It belongs to a kid not much younger than me in appearance, although there’s really no way to tell with people like us, who know how to manipulate time. The kid nods at me, casual like we’re meeting in the street and not in a frozen world, then steals a fistful of my candy.

“Who are you?” I ask once my tongue unglues itself from my palate. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 457: Just Like the Speeding Heart

Cast of Wonders 457: Just Like the Speeding Heart is a Cast of Wonders original.

Neglect

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:10 — 13.5MB)

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Just Like The Speeding Heart

by Osahon Ize-Iyamu

It’s seven A.M. and you’re making akara and tea, just for yourself and not for the two of us. You ask if it’s time, and it is, but I won’t tell you that. Let you be silent and make your tea and not speak. Let you be as you are—unhearing as ever, keeping this energy as I keep this information from you. Mama—Let you be blissful in ignorance, and let’s keep the silence of the morning as a beautiful thing, a hallowed memory.

Let this be true.
(Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 456: Armed With Such Stories, I Roamed Into The Woods

Cast of Wonders 456: Armed With Such Stories, I Roamed Into The Woods is a Cast of Wonders original.

Multiple profanities

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:09 — 40.9MB)

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Armed With Such Stories, I Roamed Into The Woods

by Evan Marcroft

Never trust a wolf’s promise, Atticus, my mother once told me. Remember the tale of Smiling John and Baron Icepelt. They lie between fangs, and their promises will only ever lead you into their belly. She was full of such morsels of wisdom. There was a fable for every lesson I should know. Not all pertained to talking wolves, but this was most relevant to my task. Remember how Smiling John escaped. If you should find a wolf at your heels, throw meat behind you. Wolves are clever but lazy creatures. They will stop for the easier meal.

Armed with such stories, I roamed into the woods to save her life. (Continue Reading…)

alien and human

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 455: Little Wonders 30 – Not So Alien After All

Cast of Wonders 455: Little Wonders 30 – Not So Alien After All is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:48 — 25.4MB)

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Toward the Sploff Zone

by Brenna Harvey

“Kids, you’re switching bodies today!” said Coach Sningarax.

Our whole gym class groaned.

“Why?” I asked.

“To build character! Now, what’s the number one rule of neuroswapping?”

“Respect,” we droned in unison. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 440: Velocirapture

Cast of Wonders 440: Velocirapture is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:04 — 23.4MB)

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Velocirapture

by Jennifer Lee Rossman

Zairiss was going to kill the asteroid, the last of three the skywatchers insisted would annihilate all dinosaurs on her planet.

She had to; there was no other choice, not if she wanted to finally, officially, until-the-end-of-forever ask Jax to be a bonded pair. And she did want that, very much so. (Continue Reading…)

episode art: 424

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 424: Like Faded Joy

Cast of Wonders 424: Like Faded Joy is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:22 — 36.5MB)

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Like Faded Joy

by Ashley Bao

We were born during a lightning storm, thunder cracking a whip through the hospital walls. Lei came first, not even crying when her head popped out. She pulled me by the ankle, and I tumbled and bawled as I left the comfort of the womb.

Our mother cursed in Mandarin when the nurse brought in the paperwork for the birth certificates. We were one month early, and she hadn’t picked out names yet. Our grandmother, our wai po, piped up from her stool next to the bed.

“Xiao Lei, Xiao Yu. Little Thunder, Little Rain. The thunderstorm brought them here tonight,” wai po said, leaving no room for argument.

Our mother wrote the names in crisp English letters. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 421: We Sang You As Ours

Originally published in Issue 49 of The Dark Magazine, June 2019

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:51 — 36.9MB)

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We Sang You As Ours

by Nibedita Sen

The new egg was going to be a boy.

Cadence had overheard Mother Reed and Mother Piper saying so in the kitchen, last night, after they were done singing to it. She didn’t know how they could tell–it looked just like her little sisters’ eggs had. Maybe a bit bigger than theirs had been at three days old, but otherwise the same: fat as a pumpkin and ribbed like one, flushed with the faintest hint of venous blue. It looked like the dead jellyfish that would sometimes wash up on the beach, plump and gelatinous, clear near the surface and fibrous white at its heart, making you want to dig your fingers in, or maybe take a bite. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 416: The Wolf and the Woodsman

Originally published on the author’s blog

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 45:32 — 42.2MB)

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The Wolf and the Woodsman

by T Kingfisher

Here. Listen.

I’ll tell you a story.

Listen.

Once upon a time there was a girl. She was probably about twelve or thirteen, but that was an age when children were older than their years and expected to do real work and help with the harvest, so perhaps she was only nine or ten.

Her hood wasn’t red. Red dye is expensive and doesn’t hold well, and nobody who had to dye it themselves would make a red cloak for a child who could be expected to outgrow it by autumn. That was added later because it alliterated. It wasn’t a riding hood, either—the only horse she ever rode was the broad-backed giant that drew her father’s plow. Still, we make do. (Continue Reading…)