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  • The Strength of Winter

    There was too much summer in Winter when she met the other queens. Blackberry wine burned her stomach as Summer and Autumn approached, pale in the blue light of her palace. Summer shivered in her cotton dress, her sandaled feet ankle deep in snow. Winter understood the bitter touch of ice. Her wife was dead. The winter would not end by her choice.

    “Come to wrest power away from me, sisters?” Winter welcomed the hollowness the summer berries carved inside of her.

    “The winter months have long passed and Spring is due her right to rule in turn,” Autumn said beneath the carved arches.

    Winter laughed, gesturing to her ice palace around them. Windows of interlocking snowflakes, her crown of icicles, tapestries spun from frozen threads. All of her nice things. The rooms that her wife, Nadine, spent time in. The statues of her, carved in ice. Her face was already fading from Winter’s mind.

    “You speak of turns like we’re children? You would take everything I’ve built this season and leave me with a puff of frost amongst the dew.”

    “We want to help,” Autumn said. “We were sorry to hear of her death.”

    A flash of a memory burned Winter’s mind before she managed to freeze it back out. Dark skin against the snow. The warmth of her kiss. Rage bubbled up hard and cold. “You were against us from the very beginning.”

    (more…)

  • Bound in Blood

    Fire rushed down Vivian’s throat and pooled in her stomach, soothing her nerves. After tonight, she would be someone’s wife. She’d never been anyone’s wife before. The tight, gnawing sensation returned to the pit of her stomach. Just a nip never hurt anyone, her granny always said. She’d only had one nip. Over and over again. She took another sip from the bottle.

    A scrape on the other side of the door had her hiding the bottle away and hurrying to the washroom to brush her teeth. She wanted to be minty fresh for their first kiss. For her first kiss.

    “Vivian, darling?” Her future mother-in-law called from the other side of the door before it squealed open, setting Vivian’s teeth on edge. “You’re still in your robe? Darling, you’re expected in the chapel in minutes! Come here.”

    (more…)

  • March Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Hello, readers! Welcome back to the Cafe! Spring still seems to be dragging its feet, so pull up a chair by the fire and get ready for some entertainment.

    This month, the Confabulators were tasked to write stories in which a character’s magical powers do not work when the character is drunk (or otherwise incapacitated, whether overly tired, sick, has the hiccups, or whatnot).

    Two brave souls took on that challenge. Please join us this month to see where our Confabulators took the prompt.

    Here’s the March schedule:

    Monday, March 11: “Bound in Blood” by Eliza Jaquays
    Monday, March 25: “The Strength of Winter” by Dianne Williams

  • At the Edge of the World

    At the Edge of the World Dave thought it was a Tuesday when the stranger came. He’d tried to keep track, but it was hard. He was certain he’d missed days in his counting. There was no work week without civilization to insist on it. The world was gone and the only time that still existed was right now.

    From the window in the kitchen, he watched Jonathon out in the garden, trying to pollinate the cucumber blossoms without any honey bees left to do the job. Jonathon poked at each tiny flower with a dirt-covered finger, convincing them to give up their pollen. He looked up and gave Dave a goofy smile, smearing dirt across his forehead. Dave laughed, short and sharp. But it was gone quickly as the memories of the world pushed back in on him.

    Behind Jonathon, the laundry snapped in the warm, salt-flavored air, a soft contrast to the crusty ground and crashing waves beyond. Tuesday was always for laundry.

    In the distance, the silhouette of a man crossed the isthmus that connected their homestead to a larger piece of land. No one had crossed that land in years. Dave had finally stopped feeling that clench in his stomach every time he looked toward it and now his stomach dropped. He called out to Jonathon, who hadn’t noticed him yet, while he went to get the shotgun.

    (more…)

  • Like the Sun

    “His smile is like the sun.”

    Everything froze at those words and I looked about the crowded ballroom, trying to find him. The man who smiled the sun.

    He wasn’t here. It was foolish to think that he was, that he could be here and I wouldn’t have known. Still, I looked about the ballroom full of bright gowns and tailored jackets one last time.

    “It’s nothing at all like the sun,” I muttered as my gaze fell on the man across the room who was smiling our way. Smiling at me. And it was blasphemous to even suggest it.

    (more…)

  • February Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    February has arrived. A month where winter still holds on to our hearts, and we fight the chill by celebrating our loved ones on Valentine’s Day. And then hurry the month along by only giving it 28 days.

    Hopefully a couple of stories from the Cafe will help warm your days this month.

    The prompt: “Dance with me and pretend the world doesn’t exist,” he pleaded. And after that, there was no going back.

    Please join us on the following days to see what the Confabulators had to say about that.

    Monday, February 11: “Like the Sun” by Eliza Jaquays
    Monday, February 25: “At the Edge of the World” by Dianne Williams

  • The Myth of the Venerable Trauer Klouse

    by Cigan Cuk

    This is the Myth of the Venerable Trauer Klouse
    How his fame and story came to be
    Of his origin and acclaim
    And the fragments that are always left to see

    The year was two thousand and eighteen
    Winter holidays were selling in every store
    A jolly red clothed man was famous
    But behind this image there was something more

    Trauer Klouse lived alone
    He watched the world go slowly by
    His brother got all the attention
    Trauer was just like a piece of leftover pie

    Every year his brother was so famous
    And Trauer sat forgotten
    No one really cared about him
    His holidays and soul were often rotten

    Trauer had long white hair and a beard
    He looked like a mountain dweller that lived inside
    His appearance was derided by the judging masses
    And his eyes were dried from tears he had cried

    (more…)

  • In a Better World

    “Calling it. 7:38 AM for model AI-287B-017 – fatal error. Initiating shutdown procedures.”

    “No way,” Carter said, rolling his chair across the room, peering close at the shiny screen. Jones was always little too trigger-happy when it came to Shutdown. “Where?”

    “There,” Jones said, gesturing to a pulsating red frequency bar. “Inevitable resource overload.”

    The readout was admittedly complex, and the graphs never made as much sense to Carter as they did to the other Proctor. Jones lived for this stuff. They all did, really. Time was a finite resource just like all the other ones Earth was rapidly depleting, but unlike money or resources, it was not one the Firm could replenish. Still, a critical error was serious business. The boss was very picky about this stuff. (more…)

  • The Stylist

    “Nice costume!” The words flung themselves at me, punctuated with mocking laughter.

    This was not a costume party. I was not in costume.

    It was these children in their colorful suits and paisley prints and patterns stacked on top of patterns who were in costume.

    “How do you do it?” I asked the only person in the room even near my age, though she had at least another century on me. Probably quite a few more if her stories about helping Cleopatra smuggle herself into Caesar’s boudoir in a carpet were true. Still, even if it were true, she was closer to me in age than these children.

    “Do what?” Her voice was sultry and low and I knew she had to be high to resist all of this temptation.

    “Keep up with all of the latest fashions?”

    “It’s easy, sweetheart.” She pointed out a girl a few feet away from her that had a similar build to her. “Tomorrow, I’ll be wearing that.” She left me to approach the girl and with a single brush of her hand the girl acted as if they were bosom friends. In the morning she would turn up naked and dead and my friend would have her new outfit.

    (more…)

  • January Stories at the Confabulator Cafe

    Hello and welcome to the new year. And another year of stories here at the Cafe!

    This year, we have new prompts, new stories, and some new guest authors!

    For the first batch of stories for the new year, the Confabulators were challenged to write an origin story of their own (or their own twist on a an existing myth).

    Here’s the lineup for the month of January:

    Friday, January 4: “The Stylist” by Eliza Jaquays
    Friday, January 11: “In a Better World” by Greta Valentine
    Friday, January 18: “The Myth of the Venerable Trauer Klouse” by
    Cigan Cuk