Posts Tagged ‘teen protagonist’

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Cast of Wonders 695: Goldenrod

Cast of Wonders 695: Goldenrod is a Cast of Wonders original.

Non-graphic body horror

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:55 — 23.2MB)

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Goldenrod

by A. James

It was Krissy who loved the old McCarson house. I didn’t see the appeal. It had a frightening precarity to it. The house’s powder blue paint peeled and flaked in the front like lichen, and its front pillars were stripped back to the wood. Its steps crumbled like clumps of dry soil. During storms, the broken shutters thrashed and the rusted fence wailed.

It was also Krissy who concocted the plan to sneak over the orange-tinged chainlink fence. We went around to the back of the house so no one would see us. On this side it looked nicer. The back door swung open to our touch on screeching hinges. Inside, the walls and floors were cloaked in translucent sheets of plastic that crackled as we walked. Well, I walked. Krissy bounded and twirled, her mouth stretched in maddening glee. She scurried from one space to the next like an eager little mouse.

“Sid, come look at this!” Krissy cried from another room. The house groaned as I made my way across the hall. Krissy sat at a large piano. The translucent sheet of plastic that had protected the instrument lay in a crumpled heap on the ground. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 694: Ready to be Seen

Cast of Wonders 694: Ready to be Seen is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:16 — 48.4MB)

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Show Notes

Image by 1234hadar from Pixabay

Ready to be Seen

by K. J. Isley

My Soul-Ripening ceremony is over at last. The cake has been eaten, though not by me. The last guest bids me harmony and my mother politely ushers them out the front door. Since I had no list of friends to offer up, she invited my whole age set. I begged her not to, but she swept away my objections like so much unwanted clutter.

“The revelation of adulthood only happens once, Firin. I’ve watched you grow. Known you better than you know yourself all these years. This day matters.”

Even so, my mother demurred when they asked if she’d be presenting my Soulpiece during the gathering.

“Firin has always been modest. She will decide for herself who she wishes to share her soul with, now that she is eighteen.”

That’s when my fears coalesced into certainty. Whatever my Piece reveals about me, it must be terrible. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 687: Little Wonders 50 – Quest Tropes

Cast of Wonders 687: Little Wonders 50 – Quest Tropes is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:23 — 28.0MB)

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Show Notes

The Last Quest of Corbin the Coward was originally published in Factor Four Magazine, June 2022.

Incite

by Lisa Para

I’m sure of it. The universe thinks I’m destined to become a Main Character.

No way it’s because of my pink hair? But the day after I dyed it from my normal shiny black was when things started to get weird.

My public high school suddenly instituted school uniforms. When I walked in wearing my pleated skirt, a statistically unlikely number of boys got gushing nosebleeds and asked me to join their eclectic clubs. Um, no thank you.

The next afternoon, I had an honest-to-goodness meet-cute with a guy outside the library. I was so absorbed in my book I tripped on the water fountain’s edge. He snatched my novel from the air and folded me into his arms to steady me, but dropped his book in the water in the process. We laughed and our gazes met and it was like time stood still, with pink roses and shiny bubbles rising all around us.

Naturally, I punched him in the face and ran away before he could get the right idea. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 685: Sunset at the Western Front

First published in ZBN Presents & ZBN Presents Year 2 in July 2024

Image by Iris,Helen,silvy from Pixabay

War. Multiple f-words.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:45 — 60.1MB)

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Sunset at the Western Front

by Christine Lucas

Millie craned her neck from behind the rusted bench to scout ahead. The overgrown square before her was what, fifty steps across? Five steps to the demolished kiosk slightly to her left. Then another ten steps to the cluster of the ever-present varnish trees a little to the right. If she kept her head low, she’d make it to the downed battlebot at the other side without being noticed—or followed. Deep in the Dead Zone, this area was patrol-free at this time of night. However, other scavengers had undoubtedly heard about the crashed chopper near the enemy lines. She needed the loot from that chopper; she hadn’t had a decent meal in days.

So Millie ran. And hid. And ran again. And ducked, and crouched in the crook of the battlebot’s armpit, a shadowy little alcove beneath the dented plates of its pauldrons. Humanoid in shape but three times the size of an average man, it now lay spread-eagle on its back, its pincers and stompers limp on the broken pavement. A gutsy spot for a human to seek shelter while other species roamed as they pleased. The battlebot had been left here long enough for flash floods to deposit soil into the crevices of its body. Dandelions sprouted all over, centipedes crawled in and out of bullet-holes, and another varnish tree grew out of the blast hole that had almost severed its torso from its legs. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 683: Born of the Mountain’s Chill

First published in The Future Fire in May 2025

Image by Celio Nicoli from Pixabay

Colonialism

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:22 — 34.8MB)

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Born of the Mountain’s Chill

by Louise Hughes

I was born on a day of deepest cold, on a mountain wrapped in ice, and lived there without worry for the first fifteen years of my life. Then came the newcomers and their village, fires, and judgement.

They came up onto the high pasture in the thaw season and stood among our silk tents. They sat and shivered and said, “are you not cold?” a lot. They walked around making suggestions to my mother, who was our trader and went to market. She knew the most about talking to other people and she was used to shaking hands with them, which made the rest of us flush. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 679: Sometimes It Happens That Way (Staff Picks 2025)

First published as Cast of Wonders 631, February 2025

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:10 — 49.7MB)

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Sometimes it happens that way

by Jamie Lackey

I stood on the platform bundled up in one of my pa’s old work coats, its stained, fraying cuffs hanging well past my fingertips. The acrid stink of magic was thick in the air, rolling off the engine in hot waves. My ma took me by the shoulders and shook me, her fingers cold and hard even through the heavy coat.

“Your uncle lined up a good job for you out west,” she said, leaning close to shout over the steady rumble of the engine and the din of strangers’ voices. She smelled like the expensive formula my baby sister needed, powdery and sweet. “You work hard, and we can bring you back home in a few years.” She tucked my train ticket into my pocket.

I nodded. The thought of leaving home made my stomach curdle like old milk on a hot day, but I was almost twelve years old. I wanted to contribute. I was small for my age, and not strong, not like my older brothers and father. But my uncle had found me a job where small was what the bosses wanted. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 677: Your Hold is Ready (Staff Picks 2025)

First published as Cast of Wonders 658, October 2025

homophobia, censorship, fascist dystopia

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:00 — 19.2MB)

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Your Hold Is Ready

by Laura Duerr

The news is spreading. We try to keep working through our English tests, but it’s becoming impossible to focus. Laughter and drumming call us to join the crowds on the streets, as irresistible as Odysseus’ sirens. I imagine myself tied to my desk chair, ears plugged up with wax instead of noise-canceling headphones, and chuckle to myself.

Mr. Lanigan leans around his monitor. “Molly, did you just giggle?”

“Possibly?”

Two storeys down, the crowd erupts with cheering. The students nearest the windows peer out wistfully. So does Mr. Lanigan. He ought to be retired by now, but he’s still here, and we’re glad. He’s kept a lot of our secrets and we’ve kept his. At first it was weird to watch out for someone so much older than us, but he stood up for us every chance he got, and somehow, together, our ordinary classroom discussions became outlets for us to be ourselves: to give voice to the dreams and hopes that had miraculously survived not just high school, but high school under all this.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 676: A Siren Stranded in a Sea of Grass (Staff Picks 2025)

First published as Cast of Wonders 665, November 2025

Content note: transphobia and queerphobia, family intolerance

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:58 — 38.4MB)

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A Siren Stranded in a Sea of Grass

by Courtney Farr

1. Sowing

The Great Plains can be disorientatingly flat, feeling more akin to the distant oceans than to the forests or mountains of neighboring states. In a tiny oasis anchored by a gnarled old bur oak, two friends lay on a plaid blanket, the ripening wheat spreading out from them as far as the eye could see. The tree once identified the border between two fields, before GPS, satellites and computer mapping rendered the old markers unnecessary.

“I thought sirens lived in the sea?” the farm boy asked his companion. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 675: Habitat (Staff Picks 2025)

Image by Kohji Asakawa from Pixabay

First published as Cast of Wonders 652, September 2025

spider-like creatures

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:55 — 53.4MB)

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Habitat

by Juliette Beauchamp

The orb appeared on a Friday. Just popped up in the northeast corner of the horse pasture, out where the grass grew thin and the ground was spotted with gopher holes. It was black and not a bit shiny despite the heat shimmers dancing around it. From a distance, as Cole and I rode along the dry creek bed, it looked more like the absence of something. A blank spot in the air.

It wasn’t until we got closer that we realized there was something there after all: a giant, dull marble suspended about three feet off the ground. The horses didn’t like it, rolling their eyes and snorting, but they were ranch-bred and broke and used to doing things they didn’t like.

Cole slid out of his saddle and passed his reins to me. I held his mare as she pawed and swished her tail while Cole walked over to the thing.

“It feels funny,” he said as he got closer. I wasn’t surprised to hear it since the hair on his head had begun to float upwards. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 673: Chloe Chew and the Museum of Undead Art (Staff Picks 2025)

First published as Cast of Wonders 645 in July 2025.
Image by Camila Denleschi from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:13 — 47.0MB)

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Chloe Chew and the Museum of Undead Art

by Olivia B. Chan

In Chloe Chew’s suffocating hometown, there’s only one place fit for necromancy: the parking lot outside Em’s motel, where summer heat wavers above cracked pavement, blurring the darkness on the horizon. Forest fires have driven away all the tourists, so Chloe’s safe to prepare her resurrection materials between the yellow lines.

She presses her hands to the torn-up canvas as it flaps in the wind off the highway, Asperthbell’s skyline rippling in its peeling acrylic. Her victim is a painting she found in the back of Miss Plent’s classroom, wedged between old answer keys, entirely forgotten. Perfect for a resurrection. She recognizes Asperthbell’s gas station in its streaks of red, but besides that the painting’s portrayal of her hometown is unrecognizable—no ash. No smoke.

The painting’s ghost trembles in her hands. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 671: Poets of Painswick (Staff Picks 2025)

First published in Augur Magazine issue 6.2 in December 2023.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:05 — 41.3MB)

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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…)

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Cast of Wonders 668: The Sundress and the Serpent

Cast of Wonders 668: The Sundress and the Serpent is a Cast of Wonders original.

Death of a parent

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:51 — 32.7MB)

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The Sundress and the Serpent

by Craig Church

Tears burn my eyes as I crack open the sliding door and slip out the back of the house. I pull up the hood of my jacket and cinch it tight against the heavy, damp cold, looking over my shoulder to where the flickering light of the television illuminates Dad’s beer gut, rising and falling in time with his guttural snoring. At least one of us can sleep.

The sun will be up before long. I need to get a move on.

I know the path by heart after making this trek so many times, so the soupy morning fog doesn’t deter me. I stroll past the dark, uninhabited vacation homes dotting the shoreline and recall how indignant I was when Dad moved us into a cramped mobile home along this remote stretch of Oregon’s coast. He’d just wanted to run away after Mom died, and didn’t give a second thought to uprooting his teenage daughter. At the time I’d hated him for it.

Now, maybe not so much. (Continue Reading…)