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  • The Crow Keeper

    Emmaline hesitated to ask the girl what was wrong. Far too often it led to a game or trick being played on her, but Nadia’s distress appeared to be quite real.

    “What’s wrong?”

    “Claudia has been gone for nearly two weeks. She should have been back by now.”

    “She’s a clever girl. I’m sure she’s fine.”

    “She’s not. I can feel it.” Nadia shook her head vigorously as she searched the dark void above them.

    There was no use arguing, a crow keeper and their wards were bound together in a union created by the glowstones. If a keeper said their ward was in danger, it was simply a statement of fact.

    “Then we should go.”

    “You are going to help me?” Nadia’s question was full of suspicion.

    “If I don’t who will?” (more…)

  • Cat in Heels

    Cat pegged the young man as a sucker even as he approached the gate to the Magic City. He’s my mark for sure, she thought, regarding his honest face. Then he opened his mouth and removed all doubt.

    “You can’t come in without life insurance,” the guard said to the honest-looking farm boy.

    “What?”

    “Life insurance, pal. You want to seek your fortune? You gotta be insured. Otherwise, you better go back to the provinces.” The guard paused. “Actually,” he said in a softer voice, “You’d be safer if you did go back.”

    The young man looked so darn lost and sweet and innocent that most decent folk would feel compelled to help him.

    Dammit, thought Cat. Now everyone’s going to target him.

    She moved fast. She clipped toward him on her four-inch high heels, hoping the kid fancied girls.  Cat’s looks were her third greatest asset. (more…)

  • November Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Hello, friends. We hope you enjoyed our line-up of stories that featured a child in need last month. We also hope we adequately warned you about the creepy/sadness of some of them. What did you expect, after all? It was the month of Halloween.

    We’re continuing the Halloween-ish feeling this month, as well, as we make our way further into fall. Our prompt this month was trickster tales. The Confabulators wrote tales featuring a trickster of their choice for this month.

    We hope you’ll visit us every Friday in November for fresh, free fiction. Here’s this month’s schedule:

    Friday, November 4: “Cat in Heels” by Emily Mosher
    Friday, November 11: “The Crow Keeper” by Anita C. Young
    Friday, November 25: “The Whispers Within” by Eliza Jaquays

  • The Dragon Lore

    I wonder how much longer we can go on like this, Elder Eidald thought as he surveyed the town bathed in the soft orange light cast off from numerous glowstones. He stood and massaged the stiffness out of his shoulder. With the dwindling supply of glowstones, the moths are venturing closer and closer to town to get the fruit.

    Reports from those attempting the coming of age trial were grim. Some reported as few as a dozen of the life-giving fruit growing from the Great Vine.

    Waldomar refuses to listen to reason, but I fear that soon the decision will be made for us… His dark musings were interrupted by a tug on his cloak.

    “Kenan, my boy, what brings you to my gardens? Have you come for some of Emaline’s favourite nectar?”

    “No.” Kenan folded his chubby little arms over his tiny chest. The boy was just six cycles old, but he could be oddly serious at times.

    “Have you two been fighting again?”

    His frown was out of place on a child so young. “Tell me a story.” (more…)

  • My Half Hour Child

    There it was again, the ghostly tug at my skirt. Every day at precisely half past five, it was there. I could set my watch by it—and I had before after a power outage.

    “There’s a glass of milk on the counter along with a PBJ and a banana.”

    The pressure relieved on my skirt and a few minutes later I heard the heavy scrape of the chair and the clatter of dishes. The sandwich raised and lowered without any bites disappearing. The milk sloshed over the edge of the glass, spilling onto the chair and dripping down to the floor each time my ghostly child tipped it back for a drink. (more…)

  • Find Me Tonight

    The boy watched the pink foil helium balloon hover listlessly in the moonlight. It was the last remnant from his sister’s birthday party earlier that day. During the party, it had been perky, dancing happily in the breeze. Now, enough helium had escaped that it had begun its inevitable slump toward the ground.

    It had been a lovely party. Full of sunlight and laughing, presents and cake, and kids running around in the grassy field playing ball. Or tag. The boy didn’t know.

    He had been distracted by something else.

    Behind the park shelter was an old railroad track choked with dense trees and bushes. He’d seen a glint, though. Something shiny was calling to him from the dark undergrowth. His mom and his aunt were too busy wrangling all of the other children to notice him, so he hopped off the bench and made his way over.

    When he got close enough, he heard laughter. He looked over his shoulder, to his sister and her friends chasing each other around the playground. Had one of the older kids slipped away? The boy wanted to play with the older kids rather than his sister and her friends, so he chased after the laughter in the trees.

    Once he ducked through the tree line, he immediately tripped and landed hard on the old metal tracks. Tears stung his eyes as he looked at his hands, scraped on the rotting railroad ties.

    “Get up, boy. Those scrapes won’t kill you.” (more…)

  • October Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Crunchy leaves, hot tea, pumpkin spice everything, sweaters, boots, crisp and cool days, pumpkins, apples, Halloween, ghosts, children dressing up like creepy things, children being creepy in general…

    It’s October here at the Cafe! Our prompt very much lends us to the creepiness of the season, although not all of our writers embraced that for this prompt.

    The October prompt is a story inspired by a situation: a little kid runs up to you, tugs on your sleeve, and says…? What does the child want or need?

    Confabulators didn’t have to use this exactly, but the story had to be inspired by the prompt, so the stories will all include a child in need. It’s up to the individual authors what direction they went with that need…

    Join us every Friday for a new, free story. Here’s the schedule:

    Friday, October 14: “Find Me Tonight” by Sara Lundberg
    Friday, October 21: “My Half Hour Child” by Eliza Jaquays
    Friday, October 28: “The Dragon Lore” by Anita C. Young

  • Not Actually Very Funny At All

    Terry is a Joke. And a bad one, too. But Terry is bringing home a new roll of Certs from the Kwik Shop because he is going to help Amanda find a new job. His breath must smell better than normal so that she won’t send him away when he opens his mouth.

    On his way back to his apartment building, Terry passes some real people on the street. Compulsory chuckles escape this man and that woman. Real people never find him humorous, but it strikes them as impolite not to laugh at the young man’s existence.

    Oh well, Terry thinks as he dips his head to accept their recognition. (more…)

  • Laying Down The Law

    “Come on Grandma, we’re going to be late!” Alexandra Underwood called up the stairs to Jean.

    “Oh quit your fussing, there’s still an hour before the concert starts,” Jean’s disembodied voice floated down.

    “Yeah an hour for you! I have to get there and get set up. This bad boy doesn’t tune itself.” She tapped on the cello case.

    “Perhaps you should consider meditating to prepare?”

    “Grandma, seriously!”

    The phone chose this inopportune time to begin ringing.

    “Of for-”

    “Language!” Jean interrupted the curse as she appeared at the top of the stairs.

    “Don’t answer it!” Alex grabbed the phone from the little decorative table whose only purpose seemed to be to hold Jean’s two phones and keys. (more…)

  • Awkward Silences

    ‘I am so tired of disappointing you.”

    “Why do you think that?”

    “The way you look at me, I can tell.” He jingled the change in his hand. Nervous habit.

    She looked at him and laughed, a forced kind of laugh. “I didn’t know you were such an expert in body language.” Then she gave him the kind of look he feared.

    He debated commenting on it, but he knew the results of such chatter never turned out in his favor so he focused instead on the nickels and dimes in his hand.

    A long silence followed, made awkward by the worldly silence around them. The change became an uncomfortable distraction and he slipped the coins into his pocket. He wished he would have flipped on the television before he started this chat yet again.

    “Awkward.” He tried to smirk when he said it. He failed. (more…)