A knife. He took a freaking knife. Haris shook his head while panting uphill. The knife, suspended from a string on his backpack, slapped his side, spurring him on. “Who are you kidding? You buy your bread pre-sliced,” he said to himself. He did it loudly, just as the articles on hiking in the wild advised. This dark forest shaded too many rocks that looked bear-shaped. “You,…
The four of them were talking all at once and gesturing wildly in the basement of the palace: the professor of history and art, and the other three – not quite humans, one of whom was currently blaming another for a leak in a massive vintage water heater. “Pip, you sure you’re an engineer?” The Captain lowered her thick-rimmed glasses to stare at the slim man in front of…
Every morning Momo is awake before the sun creeps up above the mountain ridge. In summer, when the largest number of yachts rest in the harbor, this is a very early hour. Momo doesn’t mind. He doesn’t sleep well, anyway. The person in the mirror looks like his father used to look, the sick and withered version, not the hulking bull. A thought comes to Momo. What if his son looks in the…
Things didn’t go right from the very beginning. Mr. Valerian Tudori, his baby face shaved squeaky clean, his dimples ready, hopped down the aircraft steps, and almost moaned with pleasure as the soles of his shoes bounced against the tarmac. It must have been the whiff of that wilderness and freedom – the slogan of his own creation – that leaked into his brain. For the thing was, Mr.…
She was turning into a fish, she said. This had been going on for days. Couldn’t he see? Couldn’t he smell it on her? She smelled of the sea. She found two fish scales under her pillow! Mira jiggled her bracelets above his head. Her voice alone would not get his attention. Tomo raised his newspaper, pulled his head in – a tortoise retreating into its shell. “Just look at them,”…
A girl was born in the North. They named her Snowy, because she was white like snow and her hair shone like flakes on a frozen lake. She was tiny and very quiet. Her parents worried about her: she didn’t play with other children and she ate nothing but snow. When she went outside, they couldn’t distinguish her from the rest of the winter landscape – she became one with it. She sat outside…
The pile of rocks as sharp as dragon teeth rose at the end of the dirt road that was used only in summer. In winter, the place was white and endless like empty dreams. Only the winds kept singing melancholic tunes inside the rocks, just a few notes but they stopped wolves in their tracks. The few locals who still lived nearby said the stones were the tomb of an ancient king’s daughter. She died…
“If you can’t fit in with the crowd, fit in with the trees,” the Eldest sister said. They’d lived among those trees before first humans walked the Earth. They’d known those trees before they knew people, before those people reduced their forest to a little patch of green near the sea. The sisters looked like people, talked like people, walked like people, and yet they…
Down the whitewashed road he ran, full of joy. For the first time ever, his grandfather had given him permission to take the boat alone. He was going to check the net, his own now, even if only for a little while. The sea was calm, like thick bottle glass. The light went right through it, into infinity below. He reached the open sea quickly and with no problems, but then something heavy hit below…
People built their village close to an ancient forest that fed and protected them as long as they took no more than they truly needed. Lua lived with her mother and her uncle Mauro in the house that was the closest to the forest. Mauro was different from everybody. The elders said his soul was cracked like an old clay vessel, so it could hold no peace. Mauro always wanted more. In the forest, he…
“We came from water, and to the water we will go.” Did he say this aloud? The old man wasn’t sure. And there was nobody he could ask. There was the dog, though. It didn’t speak, but it would pull its ears back when spoken to. The dog listened. It hardly ever looked at him, but it never interrupted either. The huge ears were at the back of the head now. He had said it aloud, after all. The river at…
That winter was so cold that blinking felt like sliding eyelids over frozen marbles. I missed my train. Back then, the train station was just the concrete platform above the glossy rails. Steam mixed with cigarette smoke hung above the platform. Cold seeped into my knees through the three layers of clothing. The next train would come in twenty minutes, each minute would form another tiny icicle on…
Their island had been baked deep in the heart of the planet, the locals said. There, in the heat, it swirled and twisted, loop after loop. Then it emerged, their home, their island, their giant basalt snail. Layer upon layer the island rose towards the sky, without a single corner, a wonder of nature. But visitors bypassed the place. The island trembled constantly, several times a day. “Plate…
That tribe had the most cattle and they were the strongest. They crossed mountains no eagle could fly over. They carried the cattle on their shoulders over crevasses and snow. People said no other tribe possessed the force to harm them. And it was true. The only force that could harm them lay deep within each member of that tribe. The tribe knew of their fame. They took pride in their name. They…
Witches lived in the mountains. Nobody ever saw them, but people knew something magical was happening on the mountain peaks. During the day the cliffs were dry like chalk but at night people could hear a waterfall. At night the witches called their water from the stone. They drank and bathed and played in the water before dissolving into the dawn mist. The last witch to leave would seal the stream…
Three things distinguished Alba from other people. The first was her tattoos. Her arms and legs were covered in lines: stripes, zigzags, circles. Her skin looked like a sketchpad of someone who fell asleep halfway through a drawing. Sometimes, even Alba wasn’t sure what her tattoos meant. She felt they moved at night. The second thing was her job. Alba designed houses for cats: little beds,…
Alejandro lived in a small town near the jungle. He was obsessed with hiding. He hid in abandoned huts, ditches, barrels and even shadows. No other child could disappear so well. He played hide-and-seek all day long. When other children got tired of the game, he kept on playing by himself. Because for him, it wasn’t just a game. Since his dad disappeared, Alejandro had been trying to find…
In the desert, where even the dunes complained about the heat, a man was walking alone. His robe was flapping like a torn sail, following the rhythm of the scorching wind. Every step was careful, as if he were walking on the Sun itself. The soles of his sandals hissed every time they touched the sand. The smell of melting rubber rose to his nose. He sneezed and almost stepped on a snake.…
Once, very deep in the mountains, near a river, there was a village that no one could find. No new person ever came, nobody ever left. Why leave, after all, when you have everything you need? The forest provided food and shelter. The stream, even in the scorching summer noons, never ran dry. And everyone took what they wanted, there always seemed to be enough for all. But something strange had…
Eliseo couldn’t pay his taxes. He was a shoemaker in a city whose laws changed faster than people changed their shoes. Now he owed money that he couldn’t pay, and soon the authorities would come to arrest him. “We have to go away from here, to a safe place,” he told his wife, “where they can’t find me.” His wife, Lina, said, “I dreamed of dragonflies again. They said we could follow them. They…
Once upon a time, there was a brother and a sister who could never meet. The brother was called Light, and he could play only during the day. The sister was called Shadow, and she could play only at night. Their mother loved them, but she was exhausted from the lack of sleep. She started crying so much that she turned herself into a river. The river flowed day and night. She did not have to sleep…
Wherever the Gray Coats appeared, people would disappear. One moment someone was there, and the next they were gone, pressed between two Gray Coats in the depths of a car the color of swamp. Never again would music come from their houses and no speck of undeclared color would blossom in their gardens. People learned not to wear anything bright, not to speak loudly and not to look neighbors in the…
Seizures returned with the heatwave that was now baking the island. Lilith stood in the corner behind her bed, rigid, unblinking. Her parents had laid cushions all around the floor, in case they failed to catch her once she fainted. “Go away,” Lilith said. She wasn’t talking to her parents. She fixed her eyes on the opposite wall. Her pupils were ink spots, round and large. “Go away. Move.…
Thaleia was a witch with a lopsided crystal ball, and a heavy heart. Nothing could change the ball – the dragon who was making it sneezed during the condensing process, solidifying the current shape. Yet something had to be done about her heart. If only her lopsided crystal ball would give the answer. She needed to know how to free Elias from the burden of daily fishing. This way Elias would…
Ino saved a mouse from his mother’s mousetrap. He had to crouch all night in the shed where the trap had been set. His palms sweated against the surface of the jar. When the mouse appeared he darted after it. His fingers slipped and the jar landed over the mouse not exactly the way he had aimed. The rim pinched the mouse’s tail. It squeaked in a voice so desperate it sounded human. “I’m sorry, I’m…