Posts Tagged ‘teen protagonist’

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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…)

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Cast of Wonders 621: Bodies of Sand and Blood (Staff Picks 2024)

First published in Cast of Wonders 580 in April 2024

Transphobia, abusive parents

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:03 — 41.3MB)

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Bodies of Sand and Blood

by Plangdi Neple

Sneaking into your father’s shrine is one of the most stupid things you have ever done, yet you feel entirely at home among the hanging masks and horsetails. Lanterns beside the doorway and at the opposite end of the shrine cast the faces of the other boys around you in an orange glow. The excitement on their dark, ruddy faces can’t match yours though, and your cheeks hurt from smiling too much.

You are seated on the bench furthest from your father’s big bone chair, hoping to be obscured by the shadowy darkness of the corner. The first three benches are crammed with boys jostling for a better seat yet unwilling to move to the empty benches behind. You scoff at their stupidity but pray they don’t stop clamoring for those seats. In your heart of hearts you belong with them, but you know the further away you are from them, the better. (Continue Reading…)

silhouetted horses against a backdrop of the starry sky

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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)

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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…)

stately home garden distorted by a kaleidoscope

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Cast of Wonders 618: Beneath the Unreal Gardens of the Virtual Villa

Cast of Wonders 618: Beneath the Unreal Gardens of the Virtual Villa is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:12 — 63.5MB)

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Beneath the Unreal Gardens of the Virtual Villa

By M.K. Hutchins

Self-defense class in the virtual reality sim is supposed to be safe. My green dummy-partner lumbers toward me like a particularly unthreatening zombie and grabs my throat. I clasp my hands together, crash down on those green elbow joints, then strike up at its nose with everything I have, just like Mrs. Rodriguez showed us.

Green blood sprays all over me.

I cough, splutter, stagger back. Who’d program a dummy that way? Several girls gape in horror. Two guys start laughing. No one else made their dummy gush blood.

Mrs. Rodriguez smells wounded social prey like a great white shark—Carcharodon carcharias. She hurries over with a plastic-fake, angelic smile. “As you can all see, Anne has gotten into the spirit of things! Excellent work, Anne!” (Continue Reading…)