Posts Tagged ‘teen protagonist’

illustration of a motel and parking lot

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Cast of Wonders 645: Chloe Chew and the Museum of Undead Art

Cast of Wonders 645: Chloe Chew and the Museum of Undead Art is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:07 — 45.5MB)

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Show Notes

Image by Camila Denleschi from Pixabay

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…)

a sword hilt with dragon embellishments reflected on a mirrored surface

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Cast of Wonders 643: So You Want to Kiss Your Nemesis?

First published in Lightspeed in April 2023

Image by Bruno from Pixabay

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 11:09 — 15.3MB)

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So You Want to Kiss Your Nemesis?

by John Wiswell

The next girl through the door was Robin’s prototypical customer.

She trotted in with her chin up, her posture so rigid she definitely had back problems. Her dress jacket was the color of newly hatched cardinals, and it was doubtless self-tailored, the material wearing out at the seams. Likely she was one of those academy girls who was paying their own way—so she was definitely shopping for a blade. (Continue Reading…)

West Pentire headland, in sepia tones, with thrift in the foreground and waves crashing against the rocks

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Cast of Wonders 641: Bells Long Silent

Cast of Wonders 641: Bells Long Silent is a Cast of Wonders original.

violence (including gun-violence) in a historical setting, and the death of a relative

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:58 — 48.0MB)

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Bells Long Silent

by J. A. Prentice

All this happened long ago and even then, things were coming to an end. The great days of smuggling were behind us and the Revenue was tightening its noose. All tongues spoke of their new man, Captain Bray, who had hacked off a smuggler’s head with a single swing of his sword.

I lived with my mother and uncle in a white house with small glass windows that bent the light. I had of my father no memories and no inheritance save my features, which my mother said were the very model of his. Mother told me he was a fisherman, but often I suspected she lied, and he had been a smuggler. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 639: Window Boy

First published in Clarkesworld in August 2023

 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:21 — 47.2MB)

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Window Boy

by Thomas Ha

The tenth time Jakey broke the rules, he put a sandwich in the mailbox where the window boy could get it. Mom had taken her sleep-quick pills and gone to bed after dinner, on account of her headaches. And Dad was dozing in front of the TV, chin on his chest and a half-empty glass clutched in his hand. It got still enough that the only sounds were Dad’s shows and the hum of the house filters, so Jakey slipped into the kitchen and put together a ham and cheddar on a plate, then placed it in the parcel chamber near the front door. He sat by the parlor window for a good long while after, curled up at the bench cushions, and his eyelids drooped now and again until he began to see the shadows move.

The window boy showed up, just like all the other times.

Out from behind the telephone pole across the street and then through the moonlit front yard. He crawled on his hands and knees across the wet grass to the edge of Mom’s miniature garden, careful to avoid the lawn sensors, then pulled himself to the window frame to peer through.

“Folks passed out?” (Continue Reading…)

teddy bear reading a book, against a light blue background

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Cast of Wonders 638: A Spell of Grief

Cast of Wonders 638: A Spell of Grief is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:59 — 23.3MB)

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A Spell of Grief

by Rae A Shell

The library was closing in ten minutes.

Lucas stared at the picture books, paralyzed by both indecision and nostalgia. Hurry up! he screamed at himself. If he was late, if he screwed up the ceremony again….

Sure, Lucas would be hardest on himself. Aunt Meg was more likely to comfort him than scold him, but the two of them had agreed, were adamant, that this year, this year he would succeed. (Continue Reading…)

pink gerbera daisy and dust on a black background

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Cast of Wonders 636: Whatever Remains of the Dead

Cast of Wonders 636: Whatever Remains of the Dead is a Cast of Wonders original.

Gun violence, aftermath of a school shooting, grief.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:35 — 48.9MB)

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Whatever Remains of the Dead

by Lyndsey Silveira

I fish a black dress from the back of my closet, all bunched up and wrinkled after its long exile. I get out the ironing board and try to iron it without burning it. Mom comes in as I’m cursing under my breath at a wrinkle that won’t go away. This small struggle is a nice reprieve from…everything. I don’t even want to go to the funeral, to any of them, but I don’t have an excuse. I wasn’t injured.

She watches me for a moment and says, in that quiet, gentle tone that’s beginning to grate on me, that everyone seems to use around me, “You don’t have to go, you know.”

“I do,” I reply. “His family isn’t going to any of the funerals. Not going makes me look guilty.”

“No one thinks you’re—”

I cut her off. “I necromanced their children’s corpses.”

She winces. It probably wasn’t the best choice of words on my part.

“And you saved your classmates.” She says it with conviction, like she’s proud of me, and it makes me wish I could find it in me to cry.

“Not all of them.” A beat. I stare down at the black fabric, smoothing it down. “I’m going.”

She nods. “All right. While you’re at it, you can iron my slacks.”

“That’s a bad idea.”

She smiles, probably thinking that if I can still banter, I must be doing okay.
(Continue Reading…)

sea cave, dark, with an obscured swimmer

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Cast of Wonders 635: What the God Mouth Wants

Cast of Wonders 635: What the God Mouth Wants is a Cast of Wonders original.

Homophobia, body horror, risk of drowning

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:10 — 38.7MB)

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What the God-Mouth Wants

by Ryan Cole

They call it a homecoming: when your own severed tongue finds its way back into your mouth; when it slides all slippery and wet onto the stump that your parents cut out when you were six years old; when it gives you the power, the freedom to say what your lips never could. All in exchange for a decade of silence.

Dallas doesn’t care. Tongueless for years, he’s ready to be whole again no matter the cost. Better to say what the God-Mouth wants than not be able to say anything at all. (Continue Reading…)

a girl diving underwater, reaching out for an object

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Cast of Wonders 634: Pearl Diving

Cast of Wonders 634: Pearl Diving is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 18:53 — 25.9MB)

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Pearl Diving

by J L Akagi

Makoto Matoba is enduring her third ever “scaly day” when her mother drives her down to the shore. She hasn’t yet adjusted to the itchy-scratchy rash covering her legs. Nor the tight agitation crawling over her entire body. Even worse, the Los Angeles pollution is thick today which irritates her developing gills.

Mako doesn’t get periods—she’s not that kind of girl—but she imagines this is what cis girls feel like when they do. Cramping and urged to retreat into themselves like hermit crabs.

When Mako and her mother arrive at Toes Beach, the sunset shines through the thin haze stretched over the California sky. Mako lowers her feet from the dashboard to sit up a bit at the sight of the pink sky meeting the flat, gray line of the ocean.

They clamber out of the car, and Mako eyes the water, scowling. “Mom, don’t make me pearl dive today. I can’t, I just can’t.” (Continue Reading…)

abstract phoenix in flame tones

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Cast of Wonders 633: Born in Flame and Song

Cast of Wonders 633: Born in Flame and Song is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:39 — 60.0MB)

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Born in Flame and Song

by Jameyanne Fuller

They will tell me, later, I was born singing. I wasn’t. I was born like all children are born, in one bloody, wailing, messy push. But I was born on fire. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 631: Sometimes It Happens That Way

Cast of Wonders 631: Sometimes It Happens That Way is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:23 — 48.6MB)

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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 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)

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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…)

a dark haired girl underwater, surrounded by bubbles

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Cast of Wonders 629: The Otter Woman’s Daughter

Cast of Wonders 629: The Otter Woman’s Daughter is a Cast of Wonders original.

Off-screen historical domestic violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:43 — 53.2MB)

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The Otter Woman’s Daughter

by Eleanor Glewwe

In the stories, when the selkie finds her skin, she always leaves her children behind. When I was little, I was terrified that would happen to me. After it didn’t, I began to wish it had. Not all the time, but in brief, shame-stricken bursts, in the darkness underwater. (Continue Reading…)