The Fable Online Issue 18 September 2016
Editor-in-Chief Sarah Kedar Associate Editor Heather White
Readers Steven Fischer Tim Tanko Mari Noeller Heather White Sarah Kedar
Š2015-2016, The Fable Online|Contributing Authors Cover created by ANM Designs.
Contents Poetry I Will Not Close My Eyes by Lauren Scapellato Monster Mouth by Raven Cole Tendrils by Lana Bella They Cannot Help by Lauren Scapellato
Fiction Carnival of Souls by Devin Gackle Mr. Smith Goes To Washington by T.R. North Selfies by Robert Dinsmoor The Isle of Glass by Philipp Mattes The Woman With the Wolf's Teeth by Gary Priest Wishes by Les Bohem
Poetry
I Will Not Close My Eyes by Lauren Scapellato
So yes, I die Looking up to the sky, Keeping my eyes open Until the last Or – if you took me away inside – Somewhere dismal, dank and dreary Still, my eyes will find The one point of light, color Will refuse to close – I will refuse to close them. This is the end of it all, All the choices, thoughts, things – And I will not close my eyes. Yes, I saw you come I saw the stick in your hand, I knew then. I thought, “Let’s do this” And did my best to hide, Knowing it was only a chance, That I must remember this all – This could be all that’s left. And when I saw your face again I knew it was. And I stopped And took it in And breathed And sighed And did not run anymore. I did not live in fear, I will not die in it either.
So you did your deed and moved on, And I lay here So tired And I will not close my eyes.
Monster Mouth by Raven Cole
Every morning,
and the gnashing of teeth
girl wakes up and climbs inside the open jaw
and bone
of whatever monster
and the girl,
is hanging around this time
god the girl,
She grabs hold of the right incisor
she is getting thrashed against boneyard
or maybe just a fleshy jowl
teeth and cheeks
and pulls herself up
a whirlwind of cacophony
She surfs over the tongue
and lamentation
gazes upon monster gums
body crashing
and wonders if today
around
is the day
in the everywhere
the monster swallows her
and the neverwhere
but it hasn't happened yet
of monster mouth
so she sits on the edge of a back molar
and just when she thinks she can't stand it
and politely asks the monster
just when she starts to think that maybe
if perhaps it could speak more softly
just maybe
this time
falling down this monster's throat
because she can't hear herself think anymore might not be so bad and it's been a particularly hard year
might even be better
and the monster
the monster gags
like every other monsters in her life
and spits her out
gives a throaty chuckle
and as she lays there,
then begins the screaming
chewed up. exhausted.
and the wailing
it tells her:
and the gurgling
she tastes awful
Tendrils by Lana Bella
The doorbell tolls, I am the invisible one on the other side within, I am the uncertain wind who is nothing more than streams of consciousness, into the foyer, I am the telephone which sits empty on the dresser to paraphrase pulses and rhythms that churn through the diaphragm, a steep ascent over the sleek handrail, I am the woman in a lace half-slip sitting in her boudoir, pulling aches from the bones with coffin nails are painted black, dark itself, endless dark,
I am the fear of obsidian knife that drags downward gravitating the blue tendrils, implacable-these are the tiny circular tricks inside my head that grow quietly away from the body, I am the apothegms and insatiable prose and forewarned cautions against my own murky rites into oblivion, it must be like a halving, myself splitting sideways after reaching up and folding whole, hands still touching what I cannot feel and no longer have.
They Cannot Help by Lauren Scapellato
They cannot help but call for the tyrant, Vote for the tyrant Cheer for the tyrant – They cannot help a fear so great, So vast, So deep That strength alone Trumps good and decent, Right and wrong. They cannot help believe What has always been before, Not understanding how very different That sameness has become. They are doing what they have always done.
Fiction
Carnival of Souls by Devin Gackle
My tickets are faded corn yellow and smell like mothballs. All around, the calliope music plays slightly off tune, and multi-colored lights twinkle as the sun goes down. The burntsyrup scent of sugar mixed with hot salt and butter and fried everything wafts and blends with the humidity of high summer. By all appearances, this carnival is ordinary. Children scream and laugh, couples hold hands and sneak kisses. But the farther I get from the entrance, the foggier it feels. Way in the back, past the Ferris wheel, and the carousel, past the skee ball, the fortuneteller machine, and the funhouse, is a game I’ve never seen before. The woebegone sign reads “The Game of Life” in dull orange bulbs. It’s crusted black with hints of rust, and looks like a sort of slot machine; there’s a slit for tickets to go in, a lever to pull, and three lifeless light bulbs in a row above the lever. The fogginess seems to narrow, and the air is decidedly cold. The game curator wears all black—slacks, button down shirt, vest. His skin is so pale it looks translucent, and his veins glow blue; one eye is pitch black, the other blood red. His voice when he asks Do you wish to gamble? sounds like cracks in a pavement. I tell him I’m not much of a gambler. If you win, he says, you shall have eternity. But if you lose, you must stay. I feel a little fuzzy, like the fog, and though I can’t explain it, I feel a sort of tug in my center: It seems to whisper, Play. I look down at my tickets—I don’t have much left. I remind myself I’d rather use them on something else, and my mind clears just enough. I think I’ll pass, I say. Skee ball is calling my name. I head back in the direction I came, away from the fog. An interesting encounter, I decide. The Game of Life curator’s costume was appropriately creepy, and the concept of winning “immortality” might appeal to some. I am not far when I bump into a woman; her hair is frail blonde, and the shadows under her eyes make her face unusually hollow-looking. But what strikes me is that her skin is just as translucent as the creepy game curator. She mumbles an apology and rushes into the fog. As I blink after her, a few more people
follow. I suddenly have no doubt where they are headed. Curiosity wars with dread and wins. I turn back to the fog; it’s easy to blend into the gathering crowd, and I find a small abandoned tent to hide behind as I watch. The woman I ran into holds out her tickets with a shaky hand, slips them carefully into the ticket slot; I could swear the curator’s blood-red eye burns redder. The machine sucks them in with a quick whoosh and the three bulbs begin to blink, slowly at first, then more rapidly. The woman waits—for what I’m not sure—then pulls down on the lever. The first bulb glows green. Then the second. The woman’s eyes widen in hopeful anticipation, and the machine rattles, a putrid smoke belching from its side. The last bulb blinks on red. Her face sinks, her whole body seems to sag—if I’m not mistaken, her skin loses another shade. The curator’s lips point in a twisted grin. Better luck next year, Caroline. He knows her, I realize. He knows them all. How long have they been here? I don’t know how long a year is in eternity. I start to feel that dangerous tug again, and this time, I run. This time, I will head to Skee ball and not look back. There’s nothing I can do to help them. They gambled their lives, and they lost. Their souls belong to the carnival.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington by T.R. North
“Let me be clear,” Smith droned, and Bel sighed and rubbed her temples. She’d prefer him brief and colloquial. Clear was a harder thing to spin. “My opponent may be a rat, but I have no desire to copulate with him. And this garbage does not belong—” The rest of his speech was lost to the white noise roaring in Bel’s ears. She stared at the bank of live cameras dutifully broadcasting Smith’s remarks and the row of reporters, most of whom were gleefully elbowing each other or grinning like hungry jackals, and tried to will the moment out of existence. Smith gave the audience the small smile that she’d learned was meant to be endearing, and the last of her self-control snapped like a long bone under a truck’s tire. Gus shrank back instinctively when she whirled on him, his yellow eyes huge and lidless behind his glasses. “Get me Asmodeus,” she hissed, “and get him now.” ‘Now’ turned out to be an hour and half a bottle of bourbon later. She’d locked herself in the nearest office, bodily ripped the monitors off the walls, and sulked in silence until the quiet, respectful knock on the door told her Gus had either done as she asked or meant to mollify her with good news. With any luck, she thought, their tanked poll numbers and appalling ratings meant that there wasn’t any margin in reporting on Smith’s unbelievably poor choice of phrasing. Of course, if any of them had any sort of luck, none of this would be happening. “Ah, Belial. So good of you to have left a few drops.” Asmodeus’s long ears flicked back almost to his gold-tipped horns, and he wrinkled his bovine nose at the liquor. Bel let her whipcord of a tail flick irritably as he poured himself a glass. The nerve of him, sneering at her choice of drink. It was top shelf, and he knew it. One of the many advantages of being loose on the earth was a far superior selection of booze at her disposal, and she’d be damned twice over if she was going to drink rotgut while running a campaign this bad. “Gusion said you needed my assistance with something.” “What I need is out of this contract.” She snapped her fingers, and a long parchment scroll fell into his hands. He unrolled it and read a few lines before snorting.
“My dear, half of Hell would claw the other half’s eyes out for a contract like this. All you have to do is deliver this man the presidency, and his immortal soul is forfeit,” Asmodeus rumbled. “You’d be the right hand of the Antichrist.” “Feel free to negotiate a new deal with him once you find a way to break this,” Bel growled. She tapped her talons against the glass and wondered if strangling Smith with his own tie counted as ‘indifference to his physical safety.’ So far he’d managed to wear the wrong color to three interviews, resulting in him looking like an idiot once after the production crew confiscated it and twice after they didn’t, leaving the green-screen projection to show up in the middle of his chest. It was difficult not to believe it was deliberate at this point. “Just make him president,” Asmodeus said, his massive shoulders rising in a shrug as he drained his glass. “If you don’t want to run things afterwards, I’m sure Gusion would be happy to serve as your lieutenant.” “I can’t just make him president. Lucifer himself couldn’t make people vote for this…this… this…” Bel broke off, trying to think. Smith reminded her of something very precise, but she hadn’t been able to put her finger on it yet. “He’s like if you took a human’s hide, stuffed it full of hagfish, and gave it a voice.” Her red eyes narrowed. “A particularly annoying, grating voice.” “Surely it’s not as impossible as that.” Asmodeus refilled his glass and leaned closer to the parchment, squinting. “I had to coach his own mother on how to act like she could stand being in the same room with him,” Bel said, throwing up her hands. “Someone started a fake rumor that he killed and ate the Lindbergh baby, and now a third of currently registered voters aren’t sure he didn’t.” “Humans routinely vote for worse,” Asmodeus said gently. “Really, the number of people who haven’t stolen a time machine to eat a toddler is only as high as it is because there are so few time machines available.” “Gus foresees an absolute bloodbath, and there’s no reason to question his predictions. The man just now accidentally implied that he’s sexually attracted to rats,” Bel told him, pacing. “On live TV, he did this.” “Who among us can truly say we’re not?” he chuckled. Bel paused and made a face. She didn’t actually know that Smith wouldn’t have sex with
a rat, given half a chance. It hadn’t occurred to her to ask, but now that she thought about it…. Asmodeus ran the edge of one thick nail under a line of text and glanced at her. “I don’t see an easy way to break this contract, Bel. Have you considered simply accepting it for the seven-month reprieve it represents and making the best of it?” She glared at him. If there had been an easy way to break the contract, she’d have done it herself. If she’d been interested in suffering through this train wreck for another seven months, she wouldn’t have sent for him. She was quite capable of imagining his condescending looks and patronizing tone, given she’d been dealing with them for practically an eternity. She didn’t need him there in the flesh to remind her why she disliked him so much more than her subordinates. “Enjoy the proverbial wine, women, and song,” Asmodeus said, spreading his hands. He snapped the contract closed again and gave it back. “If he’s as wretched a worm as you believe, we’ll be well done with him. Let the Host have him, if you can’t put him in charge of a nuclear arsenal. We’ll have another chance, I’m sure.” He tucked the bottle under his arm and turned to go. Bel let out a slow hiss and clicked her fangs together. If she was doomed to spend the rest of the campaign with Smith, she had no intention of letting the time she’d invested go to waste. “Send Andras, once you’re back in Hell. I have need of her.” *** Bel stroked her jaw and smiled, her tail curling absently around the ankles of a stray intern. He ignored it, the same way he’d been ignoring it when her claws punched through styrofoam coffee cups and her breath set things on fire. Her good mood evaporated the moment her attention shifted back to the soundstage. She wished the human capacity for strategic unseeing extended to whatever expression Smith was trying to make as the interviewer asked about his wife’s miscarriage early in their marriage. She supposed he was going for weathered grief or quiet strength, but it was coming across as barely-suppressed glee. Her lip curled. Maybe he had eaten the Lindbergh baby after all. “Have you seen the latest from the convention?” Gus asked, his eyes glowing with excitement. “Actual fist-fights breaking out between the delegates! Andras has outdone herself this time!” Bel nodded to the bank of monitors showing the footage, and Gus deflated a little. He’d clearly hoped to be rewarded for the news.
“What do you see if she can keep this up?” Bel asked. “We can win the nomination,” Gus said, squinting at the interview. “If he can refrain from being unduly off-putting for the next few hours, anyway.” A hedged bet if she’d ever heard one. Gus’s predictions were insubstantial things these days, reliant on a kaleidoscope of shifting circumstances and patterns in chaos. He’d gotten bored with double-edged prophecies and promises meant to doom the incautious a millennium ago. “And the actual election?” Gus’s nails dragged through the fine fur over the back of his neck, and he wrinkled his flat nose at the tiny electronic image of Smith, now smiling broadly in spite of the reporter’s manifest discomfort with his answer. “How do we feel about assassinating whoever he winds up running against?” Gus asked. Bel huffed a wisp of smoke. “How do I feel about running that prick against a martyr.” “We could assassinate them while they were doing something particularly unsavory,” he suggested quickly. “Or in a way that suggests they were complicit in some conspiracy.” Bel considered it. Flauros was still in her debt over the last time he’d needed out of a treaty. Of course, they’d need to be careful about it. The whole reason she was in this bind was because she’d dispatched Andromalius to gather her intelligence on Smith before signing the contract with him. A man running on a platform of righteousness and Christ-worship conjuring a demon to sell his soul in exchange for the presidency had, for obvious reasons, led her to assume he was as false in his dealings as he was in his doctrine. Andromalius had found very little, for a politician, in terms of outright corruption and graft. It had taken months for Belial to understand the depth of her miscalculation. Smith wasn’t, precisely, an evil man. He wasn’t even as completely feckless as he might have been. He was an ideologue with very little idea of how to rule, and he would make a disastrous president, but Bel had made dozens of such men potentates, then puppets, in the previous century alone. That he had no great vices exposing him to the ridicule of the populace or the hostility of prophets or even the contempt of other men of power should have made things easier for her. She had gradually come to understand that, whatever Smith’s habits, he made his fellow humans feel as if they’d stepped on a slug barefoot. Attempts to manufacture candid moments of warmth for the camera had failed. His demoralized PR team had given up
trying to edit footage into heart-warming ad-spots and promotional videos and released the raw takes, including the now-infamous scene in which Bel had tried to coax Smith’s mother into giving him a hug. Smith had insisted on dressing himself and using his regular barber until they’d been campaigning in earnest for several months, arguing that it made him look down to earth and modest. What he’d looked like was a child dressed up in hand-me-downs for Easter Sunday, right up until he abruptly hadn’t, because Bel had dragged him to a proper stylist by brute force. The sudden change had prompted charges that Smith had finally sold out, which he’d almost gloated over, oblivious to the fact that the sneering blowhards were railing against him and not her. It had also made it clear that the clothes and the haircut hadn’t been the real problem. Now Smith looked like a Ken doll come to life, all stiff hair and plastic smiles and the impression that his skin would be cool and slick to the touch. His attempts to connect with his party’s faithful had left everyone feeling that he understood what he was expected to say but not why he was saying it. Bel had become increasingly certain that he didn’t genuinely understand his own motivations. He didn’t seem to know why he wanted the office. His opponents were, rather blatantly, out to line their pockets or stroke their egos. There wasn’t even the pretense that they wanted to steer the country back onto solid ground, and if there had been any fairness left in the world, Bel could have used it against them to sweep Smith to victory on a tide of outraged voters and disenfranchised detractors. Instead, Smith was treated with suspicion. He didn’t appear to believe in the homilies he spouted, though Bel had found that he never seemed to stop spouting them, so she could only assume he did. He had no credible whiff of ambition, which people found disconcerting in a candidate. He didn’t have much in the way of plans for what he’d do with the office once he obtained it, waters which Bel had tested repeatedly in the hopes that he’d prove malleable. It was like the obstinate little golem had simply fixed on the presidency at some point and never stopped to reexamine his goals. Gus bared his teeth at the screen. “Did he just joke about murdering one of his opponents?” “Yes,” Bel sighed. “Yes, he did.” “So actually doing it is—” “Off the table.”
They watched as he pantomimed stabbing someone for the nervous reporter, and Bel flexed her fingers and imagined wrapping them around his throat. How one individual human could be so incapable of accepting her guidance, she didn’t know. Caligula hadn’t been this difficult, even after the fever that had given him delusions of godhood. She scowled. It was like he was doing it deliberately. Bel blinked, an idea striking like the vengeance of heaven. “What if we made it look like a normal medical problem?” Gus asked. “None of them are exactly spring chickens. Does Buer owe us any favors?” “No, and I’m not going into debt over this.” Bel smiled, showing two rows of very sharp teeth. “I have a much more elegant solution to this problem. As soon as he’s done wrecking every hope we had of a serious bid, send him to my office, would you?” Bel paced the repurposed closet she’d been working out of since they’d arrived, the first tendrils of joy she’d felt in weeks slowly curling through her veins. She was looking forward to seeing the expression on his face when he realized he was done. Smith wasn’t long in arriving; apparently, the anchorwoman had cut the interview short just to get him off the stage. He parked himself in the chair on the wrong side of Bel’s and unscrewed the cap on a bottle of water, and Bel’s talons itched. He couldn’t even have a celebratory drink like a normal person. She was going to enjoy this. “I have some bad news, Mr. Smith,” she said, steepling her fingers. “It seems our contract is now in breach beyond repair. As of this moment, consider it null and void.” “What do you mean, the contract is null and void?” Smith demanded, his waxen face paling. Bel couldn’t help but regret the money they’d paid the makeup artist if this was the best they could hope for. “You said you’d make me president!” “Yes. In exchange for your immortal soul.” Bel leaned across the desk, her palms burning prints into the cheap laminate. “Which you never intended to deliver on, if your attempts to undermine my good-faith efforts to perform are anything to judge by.” “You see here, Bel, I haven’t undermined a damn thing, pardon my French.” A blotchy flush spread over his cheeks, and Bel thought she’d never seen him so closely resemble a human cartoon. “I’ve done everything in my power to smooth your path,” she continued, her tongue flicking past her teeth as he began to sweat. “And what have you done in return, you tortfeasor? Tripped over stumbling blocks that were never there. You’ve antagonized the press. Alienated the electorate. Preemptively precluded all my opportunities to remedy
the matter. Every effort to help you has failed, and do you know why?” Smith crossed his arms and glared silently. “Because,” Bel ground on, undeterred, “you never wanted the presidency. The only thing you wanted was to plump your share of the votes to the point where the frontrunner would bring you on as their VP.” “I never!” “Simply put, Mr. Smith, you’ve been playing us, and Hell will not stand for such effrontery. Thanks to your tortious interference with our efforts to deliver as promised, and your blatant attempts to rig the outcome, you, Mr. Smith, are now on your own.” Bel carefully tore the contract into strips and then burned them to ash in her hands. “I don’t need you to become president,” Smith said petulantly. Bel dusted the ash over the front of his suit, and he scrambled back, brushing furiously at his bright white shirt. He left sooty smears over the fabric, and Bel chuckled. “You might not have before, but you certainly won’t win with us set against you,” she said. She swept from the room in a wave of darkness, then took a deep breath. She felt as if a great weight had slid from her shoulders, and her wings fluttered in anticipation of finding a project to replace Smith. Gus appeared at her side and glanced over his shoulder at the office. “Was he really aiming for veep this whole time?” he asked. Bel scoffed. “That would require him to have an original idea. And a spine.” “Are we really going to spend the entire campaign trying to sabotage him?” “Of course not,” Bel said. “We simply let the full force of his actions land on him, and he’ll attribute it to us anyway. All the reward, none of the effort.” Gus shifted his weight and frowned. “What if some of us had been rather looking forward to it?” Bel glanced from him to the rest of the staff, their eyes glittering like dying suns in the backstage gloom. They’d put up with a lot over the past few months, she had to admit. She hadn’t been the only one who’d routinely wanted to strangle him with his own entrails. They deserved a certain amount of latitude in this. “Who you volunteer for off the clock is your own business,” she said, shrugging. “At least until the end of the year.”
The chattering that began the moment she turned her back on them made her smile. It was going to be one hell of a campaign season that was for sure.
Selfies by Robert Dinsmoor
Terra and I are almost like identical twins. When I first met her, she was, like, nobody. Don’t get me wrong—like me, she had a bitchin’ bod and pretty face, but there was just no real personality shining through. I took her under my wing. Now I’m trying to figure out exactly how to tell her I’m through hanging out with her. Not that anything bad has happened between us. I’m just ready to move on. Whatever. You will not believe what happened that afternoon. We’re in our pink bikinis standing knee-deep in the public swimming pool and we look really hot! I mean, porn star hot. We both have pink iPhones and we’re taking selfies with them. I take a picture with the phone in my left hand while flipping my hair over my ear with the right. And Terra does the same thing. She’s learned a lot from me. It’s kind of ridiculous to be taking so many pictures of ourselves, so now we start to take pictures of each other now: Standing with our backs to the camera while looking back over our shoulders, so that people can see our cute faces and our cute butts at the same time. Wrapping our arms around ourselves to look like the water’s cold and we’re shivering. Looking off into the distance as if we’re longing for something and don’t know we’re being caught on film. I see a really hot old guy, like almost thirty, but he’s still got it together and he’s really ripped. I notice him noticing us. “Will you take a couple of pictures of us?” I ask, really apologetically, even though I know he’d chew off his own leg for the chance. His face brightens up. “Sure!” We have him snap us while we’re splashing each other—though not really hard because we don’t want to get our hair wet. And then I look like I’m going to pull down Terra’s bikini bottoms and she does the same thing to me. And then we’re rubbing each other with suntan lotion. We really get into it now that we have an audience. His eyes get that faraway look like he’s drifted off into a dream world. “Thanks!” I say, taking the camera back from him. “We should do some in a mirror,” Terra says. “Where do you see a mirror?” I ask. “The restroom? Duh!” Sometimes Terra comes up with great ideas. It’s probably from
hanging out with me so much. After a couple of minutes waiting in line, taking pictures, we go in together and lock the door. Terra walks up to the mirror over the sink, and I start to take her picture. “No, wait. There’s something I have to tell you,” she says. “I owe so much to you, so it’s really hard to say what I have to say now. Before I met you, I didn’t know how to dress or act. You showed me how. And I’m, like, soooo thankful for that!” she says, and I really hadn’t expected her to get so serious like this. “You remember you asked me where I was from, and you couldn’t pronounce the name of it? Well, it’s actually a planet in the star system of Alpha Centauri.” “I thought it must be in, like, Canada, or something!” “I landed here in a pod and when I hatched, I didn’t even know how to look and act human, so I had to learn to fake it. You’re the best role model I’ve had so far.” As if she doesn’t think I’ll believe her, her skin starts to turn a sickly green, her arms start to shrivel up while her fingers get longer, and now they’re like ten tentacles coming out of her sides. And her two eyes kind of melt together like one, her hair turns into scales, and now her feet are all webbed. All of this while wearing a pink bikini, and it starts to make me sick. “Gross!” I say. “Trust me. You really don’t want to look in the mirror right now!” “I just need to show you so you’ll understand—and I need to tell you now that I’ve learned everything I can from you—it’s time to move on.” “Sure, whatever,” I say. As if I want to hang out with a freak. “I’m going to assume your identity for a while, at least until some better identity comes along. I’m really sorry. I have to keep this a secret, so I’m going to have to eat you to dispose of the evidence.” She opens her mouth, which is now bigger than my entire head. Without thinking, I lift my iPhone and snap her picture. It is dark in the bathroom, so the flash goes off. Terra cups her hands over her giant eye. “Ow, you bitch! My eye’s not used to that kind of light!” And she’s carrying on, making such a big deal out of it. “Well, gee, maybe if you’d have told me you were this one-eyed scaly squid thing from hell, I’d have planned my day accordingly!” I say, unlocking the bathroom door. “By the way, just so you know, I’m posting this photo on Facebook and I’m tagging you!” “Noooooo!” she shrieks, and she is still shrieking when I step out the door to face a line of
other girls. “Trust me, you don’t want to go in there right now!” I tell them on the way back to the pool.
The Isle of Glass by Phillip Mattes Ynys Wydryn (Isle of Glass), known as Ynys YrAfalon (Isle of Avalon) Glastonbury Tor Brythonic Kingdom of Dumnonia Somerset County, UK Springtime, anno Domini 537 March/April 537 It was early morning and the frosty remnants of winter tried to linger as long as possible in the meadows and the nearby forest before they would have to retreat from the growing power of the spring sun. Ælla shivered in the biting wind, even more so because he was driving his horse to a fast canter. But it could not be helped, what he wanted to see was more important than these little inconveniences. “How far is it, Maelgwn?” he shouted to the man riding ahead. His British guide turned his reddened face around. “Not much longer, Saxon!” How he appreciated the friendly atmosphere of their journey. Maelgwn never tried to hide his hate of the Anglo-Saxons who had conquered nearly half of the British Isle by now. And, soon enough, the war would be over. As rumors had it, the most important British warlord, the dux bellorum Arturus, had dealt a fatal blow to a Saxon army in the Battle of Camlann and had received the same himself, in more than one way. As a Saxon, it was dangerous, but Ælla wanted to be there when the closing chapter of the British kingdoms would be written. To not appear provocatively, he only wore plain clothes and rode a gray mare on which no one would spare a second glance. He had also given up wearing any weapons except his seax, his short sword. They finally passed the forest, and Ælla gasped at the sight which revealed itself in front of him. Mist covered the flat land while an otherworldly shimmering mountain rose out of the gray vastness. “There, Saxon, Ynys Wydryn, the Isle of Glass!” Maelgwn grumbled. Ælla nodded, bereft of words. Maelgwn did not spur his horse again but turned to Ælla. “You really want to go there?” “Someone has to see it.”
“It?” Maelgwn hissed. “Stupid Saxon! You’re talking about the death of Arturus. What do you think the warriors of my people will do to you – us – when we arrive there?” Ælla tried to swallow, without success. “It has to be done. For, surely, at least one bard has to witness his death and tell the tale afterward.” “What kind of tale would that be?” Ælla looked at Maelgwn. “My tale about the dux bellorum Arturus.” “The tale of a Saxon about a British warlord, the best we ever had. I’m not sure if I want to hear that!” “You don’t have to. Just bring me to that place and all your debts will be redeemed.” Ælla was not sure himself, how the tale would be like. For him, Arturus and his wife, Gwenhwyfar, were nothing more than shadowy threats looming for decades over the Saxons. No more palpable than the mist before him, but omnipresent. One thing, though, he knew for certain: His tale about Arturus’ death would gain him fame even beyond his own death. In silence, they approached the all-devouring mist. After entering the gray blanket, it took them some more time to find the moving torchlights within it. When riding towards the lights, Ælla kept close to Maelgwn. His heartbeat increased and finally thundered through his head. There was no place on earth more dangerous for a Saxon than this one, but he could not turn around and flee. He had to see. “Who rides there?” a muffled voice yelled when they got close enough to make out the silhouettes of many men. All armed. “It’s me, Maelgwn, I come with a … guest!” the guide shouted back. Ælla’s thundering heartbeat stumbled when he noticed the short pause before Maelgwn called him a guest. He thought about his seax, but there were too many British warriors around him. He would not stand a chance. The torchlight revealed hard faces, drawn with tension, and painted weapons and armor in an unsteady orange hue. Like Maelgwn, Ælla dismounted in front of the men, but more slowly and with deliberate movements. “Why have you brought a Saxon to us?” a female voice asked, harshly. Ælla looked around before he noticed a woman with sandy hair and white tunic. She also wore a white cloak and was armed with a white painted shield and a spatha, the long sword of the Romans. Ælla could not help but stare at the pallid figure which seemed to blur in the wafts of mist. He got elbowed by Maelgwn, who bowed deeply in front of the
woman. Ælla hurried to honor her, too. “All good be with you, Gwenhwyfar,” Maelgwn said. Ælla nearly gasped, but controlled himself in the last moment. “All good be with you, Gwenhwyfar,” he murmured. “And may it be with both of you,” the woman responded. “Answer my question, Maelgwn. Which ghost has beset you to bring this man to this place?” Maelgwn cringed under her words. “Well … he’s a merchant and a somewhat famous storyteller. After he heard of the Cad Camlan, the Battle of Camlann, he urged me to bring him to you … and… well….” “… and to my husband, the dux bellorum Arturus,” Gwenhwyfar finished the sentence. “You can say his name without fear of causing pain. He is alive.” The way she said it caused Ælla to look up into her red-rimmed eyes, full of unshed tears, and he knew that the life of the famous warrior would not last much longer. “There are many songs about you and your husband, even in all the tribes of the Saxons and Angles. After I heard about your victory at Camlann, I rushed here to see you for myself, because, you see, some believe you’re nothing more than a tale.” A surprisingly awe-inspiring tale, he added in his mind when he looked her over. The woman laughed at that. “You don’t know what my name means in your tongue, do you? Gwenhwyfar means ‘The White Enchantress’. So it’s only apt to think of me as something of a tale, but now,” her voice grew colder, “you know better than that.” “Yes, Gwenhwyfar, neither you nor Arturus is a myth,” Ælla quickly said. He gathered all his courage before he pushed on. “If I may ask, what are you and your men doing here, in this strange place?” There was a pause before Gwenhwyfar answered. “While we battled the Saxons, Arturus was wounded. So we are bringing him away from the war to a safe place,” she gestured to the mountain. “Your chiefs will find out that Ynys Wydryn is not so easy to take. There, we can rest and take care of his wounds.” Ælla could not deny the security on that strange mountain, most men would probably not even dare approach it. But they could have fled to the opposite side of Dumnonia or to another British kingdom, where they would have been safer, while the Isle of Glass was only a few miles away from the tribes of the Saxons. She must have noticed his doubts because Gwenhwyfar continued. “This isle is famous
for its apple trees. With those orchards and the support of the peasants, we can last long there.” He met her gaze and shivered. “So you do not intend to return to the battlefields,” he finally whispered. A faint smile melted down the anguish on her face. “No. Ynys Wydryn, the Isle of Glass, is also called Ynys yr Afalon, the Isle of Avalon. Our old lore knows that Avalon is the gate to the land of the dead. When Arturus and I go to that place while we are alive and after such a great victory, how can we ever be considered dead? As you have said yourself, we are already part of tales and therefore will always be alive and offer hope to the people.” “Are you sure about it?” Ælla was doubtful. He only marginally wondered why he was suddenly troubled over the thought of Gwenhwyfar, one of the Saxons’ most feared enemies, giving up her fight. “What is hope, but an idea? If we also become ideas we can become akin to hope,” Gwenhwyfar said, confidently. “Arturus will not be seen dying and therefore will remain in the ideas of men as he was, as he is and as he always will be.” She looked past him and her face grew solemn. “The tide comes and the water will be deep enough for the barques to bring us to Ynys Wydryn.” Ælla bid her farewell and stepped aside as her warriors marched to the grassy shore where he just now noticed several roughly made boats. At that moment, the mist ripped apart and the morning sun revealed a large lake which seemed more like a plate of glass on which the mountain was floating. When the British warriors manned the boats, he saw a squad of them bearing a stretcher with a man lying on it, covered with a red cloak. The black beard and hair of the wounded man glistered with sweat and turned the pallid face deathly pale. But when the man’s piercing gaze met Ælla’s, Ælla was no longer sure if this would be the end of the tale.
The Woman With the Wolf’s Teeth by Gary Priest
I was in another self-destructive spiral. My insomnia had returned, and it re-opened the gates of nocturnal possibilities. That insufferable rob of replenishment enabled me to believe I could still be the glittering wastrel of years long since sunk, and so I set out into the corners that no one could see, seeking the pleasures of skin, bone, and blood. I knew I was too old to drink with demons until dawn, but there I was swapping possession tips and email addresses and pretending that they still had some kind of eternal bond to me through fear, alcohol, and loneliness. I would brag of the empires I had crushed between my toes, the bloodlines I had cursed into poverty or fame, and then crawl away to my own private purgatories when the sun began to rise and evil had to assume somewhat more subtle forms. I was well aware that I was too old for anonymous sex with trolls and troglodytes, but I still found myself at 3am hooked into it with some raving beast in a toilet stall, grinding out sex like sausage meat. I used to relish the sleaze, but now I saw it for what it was: just another way to pretend that time had not torn my heart out. Just another way to swallow the secret that stuck in my throat. It was about three months into my current descent when I saw the woman with bright white wolf’s teeth. The bar was filled with green smoke and disco lights. Her eyes shot through with a melancholy blue, her mouth dripping with a barbarous red intent. I knew I had to have her. I swaggered over, assuming my perfect masquerade of the master of all that dwelt in the shadows and sang to the blood moon. “I know exactly what you are thinking, beautiful,” I said in my best brimstone baritone, summoning up all my darkest charms to make her mine whether she wished it or not. She was silent for a moment. I expected her to fall at any moment, but instead, she surveyed me in the way a young thing surveys an old thing. That curious mix of apathy, pity, and curiosity how something so old could even be. She laughed and it broke into my skin hardened by millennia of misrule. It hurt. Those blue eyes lit up, her wolf’s teeth gnashed together as she continued to laugh and others joined her. They all fed on her mischief and their eyes looked upon me as they had never done
before. I was a relic. A shrunken idol devoid of threat. They all laughed and she rocked back and forth. I was nothing. I was done. I was devoid. Then she stopped laughing and tilted her head to one side. Her mouth full of perfect teeth. Her eyes full of a half-remembered legend. The rest of the bar followed her into silent appraisal and she spoke for all of them. “Wait a minute ... didn’t you used to be someone important? Didn’t you used to be the Devil?”
Wishes by Les Bohem
What are wishes, anyway? I wish, I wish, I wish I might get Michael Hamilton in my bed tonight. I wish I had two thousand dollars to spend at Urban Outfitters. I wish I had a new iPad. But what is that, a wish? A wish is more than a thought, isn’t it? I think about nice clothes, computers, Michael Hamilton. I remember a joke. Guy walks into a used car lot. Car salesman says, “Are you thinking about buying a used car?” Guy says, “No, I’m thinking about sex, but I’m gonna buy a used car.” But a wish, that’s got more, I don’t know, empowerment to it. It’s got a hint of magic. Thoughts don’t come true. Wishes do. OK. This is the thing. I got this new camera. The one I’m leaving this on. I bought it in that Little Saigon section of Chinatown, off Broadway, by where the train lets you off. An old woman, in that maze of shops. They’ve got luggage and bootleg DVDs and illegal fireworks and this weird pet store with all these sick looking lizards and birds that probably have that rotting chicken fever thing. Anyway, I had the last of my birthday money and I’m in one of those massively depressed sorts of moods I get into from time to time. Nothing seems worth doing at all and what’s the point? So I give this lady the last of my money. I’m gonna document my depression. I buy the camera. I decide to try it out. I take a picture of the lady. One of her stall, to see if the camera works, and I get this image of a jeans jacket. The jacket I’ve been wishing I had. The one I’m wearing right now, the one you’re seeing me in. Because listen. I walk outside. There’s a guy selling jackets off a truck. This is a two hundred dollar jacket, I’ve got like ten dollars left. I tell him that. And he sells it to me for ten dollars. My wish granted. It’s weird, right? Then I look on my camera. The picture of the jacket is there, but the one of the lady, it’s gone. I go back inside. I look all around. Can’t find her. Can’t find her stall. So I take a picture of the place where she was. This comes up. He’s handsome, right? You know who he is? Say it with me. Michael Hamilton. Impossible. I’m freaked. Is the guy stalking me or what? I don’t see him anywhere around the mall. But it’s later, I go home and who do you think comes over? Yeah, right. Handsome M.H. I almost keel on the spot. And he spends the night. My second wish, granted. All very weird, kind of cool. Who knows. This camera, the one I’m talking into right now, it photographs my wishes and then it grants them.
But now, my story gets a little deep and dark. Michael leaves and I get the big “so what” back again like you would not believe. I’ve got a lot of thoughts in my head and they’re all a little bleak, a lot bleak. Is that it? Is that the best life has to offer? What’s the point? I decide to take a picture of the empty bed. The ruins of our night of passion. No matter where you were, this is where you are. And this is, the thing is I have a lot of wishes. I wish my parents hadn’t been such assholes. I wish I was taller. I wish I could shut my head down when it goes to the bad place. But we all know the stories, we all do, and I’m kind of more than a little tweaked because I know a person only gets three wishes and here’s what I got when I took the picture of the bed. That’s me. Lying on the unmade bed. Staring, lifeless. A bottle of Vicodin in my hand. Freaky, right? But what are wishes, anyway? I wish, I wish, I wish I had a new jeans jacket. I wish I had Michael Hamilton in my bed tonight. And sometimes, I wish I was dead.
Contributors Devin Gackle graduated from Loras College with B.A.’s in Media Studies and Creative Writing. When she's not watching things like "Murder, She Wrote," she enjoys writing/performing songs for her song blog and writing stories. She also loves reading, sarcasm, flannel shirts, making movies, making up words, caffeine, and wearing mismatched socks. Her work can be found in Outrageous Fortune Magazine and The Limestone Review. Website: http://devingackle.wix.com/portfolio
Gary Priest writes short fiction and poetry, both of which have been published online and in print. He lives in the UK at the end of a dead-end road, which may explain everything. A Pushcart nominee, Lana Bella is an author of two chapbooks, Under My Dark (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2016) and Adagio (Finishing Line Press, forthcoming), has had poetry and fiction featured with over 250 journals, California Quarterly, Chiron Review, Columbia Journal, Poetry Salzburg Review, Plainsongs, San Pedro River Review, The Writing Disorder, Third Wednesday, and elsewhere, among others. Lana resides in the US and the coastal town of Nha Trang, Vietnam, where she is a mom of two far-too-clever frolicsome imps. Lauren Scapellato has written dozens of poems spanning more than two decades. A native of New York, she now lives in rural Pennsylvania with her husband and dog. This is her first attempt to publish. Les Bohem has written a lot of movies and TV shows including A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5, The Horror Show, Twenty Bucks, Daylight, Dante’s Peak, The Alamo, Kid, Nowhere To Run, The Darkest Hour and the mini-series, Taken which he wrote and executive produced with Steven Spielberg and for which he won an Emmy award. He's had songs recorded by Emmylou Harris, Randy Travis, Freddy Fender, Steve Gillette, Johnette Napolitano (of Concrete Blonde), and Alvin (of the Chipmunks). He is currently producing his series, Shut Eye, starring Jeffrey Donovan, KaDee Strickland, Angus Sampson and Isabella Rossellini for Hulu.
Philipp Léon Mattes lives in rural southwestern Germany and after completing a B.A. degree in Anthropology and Modern India at the University of Tübingen, he is now studying English and American Studies and International Literatures at the same university. In his free time, he is working as an editor for a publishing house. When he is not studying or editing he is reading, writing or walking with dog Peter.
Raven Jade Cole is a writer, book nerd, and high school English teacher. Her life revolves around critical pedagogy, community-based learning spaces, and the magic that is literature. In addition to working with Operation Pathways, Forward Arts, Inc., and Next Left Press, she performs spoken word poetry at the Eclectic Truth Open Mic and Poetry Slam in Baton Rouge. She currently lives in a gumbo pot in southern Louisiana with her husband and their dog.
Rob Dinsmoor, an author of dozens of articles on health and medicine, has also published humorous pieces in Nickelodeon Magazine, National Lampoon, Paper, and American Bystander.
T.R. North was born and raised in Florida and has never been featured in a “News of the Weird” column run in another state. Previous outbursts of short fiction have appeared in the Sediments Literary-Arts Journal, Lit Select's "What Went Wrong?" anthology, and the Flash Fiction Press.
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