Posts Tagged ‘romance’

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…)

silhouetted horses against a backdrop of the starry sky

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 620: Fording the Milky Way (Staff Picks 2024)

First published as Cast of Wonders 577, February 2024

Abusive relationships, dysfunctional families

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:32 — 32.3MB)

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

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…)

disco dancers

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 615: Optimal Care

Cast of Wonders 615: Optimal Care is a Cast of Wonders original.

Content Warning: Terminal illness of a young person

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:40 — 29.8MB)

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

Show Notes

2076 words

Optimal Care

by Matt Tighe

“Hey T! You about?”

James rounds the corner of the kitchen, his dark hair lank, his face pale, his breathing all-too shallow.

Tenderbot is standing at the kitchen island bench. It pushes the sandwich and milk forward. The Home Care Unit has already scanned the boy and computed a 92% chance he will reject the sandwich, but Tenderbot always attempts to optimise care.

James sits down and opts for the glass.

“Your platelet count is down. Eat,” Tenderbot says.

“Oh, come on, T. You think a sandwich is going to save me?” (Continue Reading…)

silhouette of horses against a backdrop of the milky way

Genres:

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)

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

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…)

CoW 497

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 497: Hurricane Season

Cast of Wonders 497: Hurricane Season is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:17 — 20.2MB)

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

Hurricane Season

by Avi Burton

Amaya smelled like the ocean. Most Florida girls did, when they returned from the beach with new tan lines and salt-crusted hair, but Amaya was different. The ocean-brine was under her skin, a part of her that was ever-present, unignorable. She wore jasmine perfume to cover it, overpoweringly sweet, but I could always smell the salt underneath.

We met at the beach— she always seemed to be there, sitting silently and watching the tides. I was crouched over a tide pool when I heard the slip-slap of her lavender sandals approaching.

“You’re new, right?”

I looked up and saw her silhouetted in the sun, smiling down at me, and nearly fell into the tide pool. Her swimsuit had a spotted pattern that made her look like the selkies I’d read about in mythology books— lean-boned girls with dripping hair and fur coats, who belonged to the ocean and only haunted the land. (Continue Reading…)

rural landscape with city in the sky

Genres: , ,

Cast of Wonders 492: Stillwater

Previously published in Defy the Dark, Harper Teen, July 2013

This story touches on the generational impact of slavery in the US.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 56:23 — 53.1MB)

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

Stillwater

by Valerie Kemp

Nothing ever changes in Stillwater. Nothing. I get up every morning at the crack of dawn, in the blazing heat, and drive our pick-up all over, delivering eggs and milk and whatever else my daddy feels like selling, to the good people of Stillwater, population 413.

I work my way in a circle from the edge of town, where we live, to the center. I endure all the little old ladies who like to pinch my cheek when they tell me, “Why Pruitt Reese, you are becoming more like your daddy every day!” Like that’s a good thing. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 486: Eight Arms to Hold You

Cast of Wonders 486: Eight Arms to Hold You is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:20 — 13.5MB)

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

Eight Arms to Hold You

by Angela Teagardner

Oscar woke with the sun. He turned one glassy eye toward the tiny window near the ceiling where rose-gold light crept in. It was barred with a lattice of steel–steel currently scalloped with red paper hearts–but at least it faced toward the rising sun. He’d learned to wake as soon as that light, or maybe just the warmth from it, crept across his sensitive skin.

He stretched his limbs, reaching almost to the edges of his tiny cell. Today was the day. Operation Puddle Jump was a go. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

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)

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

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…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 429: The Curious Case of Miss Clementine Nimowitz – Part 5

Originally published in Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures, by Alex Acks, Queen of Swords Press, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:44 — 32.3MB)

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

The Curious Case of Miss Clementine Nimowitz (and her Exceedingly Tiny Dog)

by Alex Acks

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

Once he was out of the hotel, Simms decided to make his walk a long one. The night air was pleasantly cool, and the parks in this section of the city were quite well maintained. It was nice to, for once, be able to take a stroll on a level path and without having to carry a machete as a precaution besides. The streetlights had come on and the streets were beginning to surge with people headed to supper appointments as he finally turned back toward the hotel, Chippy still eagerly bouncing ahead of him. (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 428: The Curious Case of Miss Clementine Nimowitz – Part 4

Originally published in Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures, by Alex Acks, Queen of Swords Press, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:46 — 24.1MB)

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

The Curious Case of Miss Clementine Nimowitz (and her Exceedingly Tiny Dog)

by Alex Acks

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4

“…and I’ve written it all down here,” Simms said, offering a tattered notebook to the Captain. “After a while, all the speculation got so wild I couldn’t keep track of it all. There wasn’t a single name that showed up on the list more than twice, I checked.”

“Mmm.”

Simms waggled the notebook at her, trying to draw attention away from her gently steaming coffee cup. They’d met up in one of the many coffee shops they routinely used for that purpose. Captain Ramos had entered with an exhausted, panting Chippy tucked under her arm like a purse and set him in her lap as soon as she’d sat. The little dog had proceeded to fall into boneless sleep, the Captain’s hand idly tracing figures on his pale little forehead. It was all very odd, disquieting almost. In Simms’s years of knowing her, Captain Ramos had never showed any sort of interest in animals, let alone affection—and hadn’t she been all set to shoot the poor thing before?

Though far more disturbing was the fact that she didn’t seem to be listening to him, in a real sense, rather than that studied nonchalance with which she normally took reports, indicating her mind was working furiously.

“Captain?” (Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 427: The Curious Case of Miss Clementine Nimowitz – Part 3

Originally published in Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures, by Alex Acks, Queen of Swords Press, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:49 — 25.0MB)

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

The Curious Case of Miss Clementine Nimowitz (and her Exceedingly Tiny Dog)

by Alex Acks

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3

Simms had greeted his change of costume with relief, finding himself far more comfortable in the clothes of a lower-class laborer than those of a gentleman. He felt nearly buoyant after ridding himself of the hated collar and turned his energy fully to the task of finding out more about Clementine Nimowitz’s missing maid. Or as the Captain often put it, “Turning over all of the obvious and boring stones.” This was fine with Simms; boring was his loudly proclaimed preference. (Continue Reading…)

Genres: ,

Cast of Wonders 426: The Curious Case of Miss Clementine Nimowitz – Part 2

Originally published in Murder on the Titania and Other Steam-Powered Adventures, by Alex Acks, Queen of Swords Press, 2018

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:05 — 29.0MB)

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

The Curious Case of Miss Clementine Nimowitz (and her Exceedingly Tiny Dog)

by Alex Acks

Part 1 – Part 2

They met Elijah among the warehouses not too far from Union Station. He’d brought one of the more innocent looking railcars down from the mountains and thus was able to berth it along the public tracks. Elijah Masterson was a man of medium height and untidy habits, though today he seemed particularly untidy, perhaps because he’d been called down so abruptly. His brown hair stuck out in untamed curls and a shadow of stubble decorated his chin. He wore a rumpled brown-checked shirt, one sleeve half rolled-up, and a vest he hadn’t bothered to button, no jacket in sight.

Or, Simms thought upon a closer look at the younger man’s rather red eyes, today he wasn’t so much untidy as quite hung over. This really only served to affirm Simms’s decision to give him this task. It’d certainly keep him out of trouble.

Elijah still offered the Captain a snappy salute, after first glancing around to confirm that they were alone. “Sir, I was told you had an important task for me.”

Captain Ramos waved a hand dismissively. “Oh indeed, Mister Masterson. Simms?”

Obligingly, he held Chippy out toward Elijah. The tiny dog began to squirm, yipping excitedly at the prospect of making a new friend. “Here you go.” (Continue Reading…)