squanpie

Leo’s footsteps echoed through the empty rooms of his childhood home. Bare floorboards with sun-bleached outlines of rugs, now rolled up and waiting in the removal van parked next to his parents’ car on the drive outside. “Just one last look?” He’d asked them. One last walk through the home he’d grown up in, before leaving it forever. “We don’t have time for this,” Dad said. “You’ve said goodbye to all your friends at school, all your stuff is in the van; it’s just an empty house. There’s nothing left in there for you.” Mum shook her head and spun Leo round with a push back up the drive towards the front door. “Go on; just be quick.” It wasn’t an empty house. Not to Leo. And there were still two friends he owed one last goodbye. He found them in the corner of what had been the spare room. George and Jacob, crouched by the fireplace where an old mahogany dresser had stood for all of Leo’s life. “Leo!” George turned and beckoned. Sunlight streaming through the window turned his

She lived at the edge of eternity, eating the peaches that grew there and spitting their stones out on bare earth. When those trees grew, and flowered, and more peaches formed, she filled her pockets. She cast their stones beyond time, and with each stone she stepped on, out, up, to find whatever lay beyond.

“He died with a smile.” Prince Ellis read out loud the line from his mother’s letter. “At peace.” Jacob was beside him instantly. “What’d he have to go and do that for, the bastard?” Ellis growled. “The host of royal tag-a-longs will call a coronation and then that’ll be it for us.” He jumped and paced their camp. “I grieve for your loss,” Jacob said simply. Ellis whirled to face him through the sparks of their camp fire. His mouth worked, but no words came out. He wanted to rage, he wanted to scream, at his father, for dying too soon, at Jacob for his sympathy. He wanted to burst into tears and have his mother hold him and his father pat his head in his awkward way and tell him it would be alright. “Bastard,” he said again, not knowing or caring this time if he meant Jacob or his father. They were on the road before dawn. Jacob didn’t mention the tearstains on Ellis’ cheeks. When they passed a village at a distance, and heard the mournful tolling of the bells, Ellis broke into

You swing your pick in the blackness but it’s neither the clunk of rock nor the thud of clay that you feel as it connects this time. In your heart you know, but you reach out to feel your way anyhow. Fabric. A sleeve. Fingers in the mud, no longer able to respond to your grip. And you wonder: who is better off? That poor sod with your pick in his arm, face full of clay come crushing down, cutting off his life and his scream in an instant; or you, alone, digging through your mates’ bodies, unable to abandon hope while there’s air and strength enough left to swing a pick. But you’re three hundred feet below and you’ve gambled enough to know your odds.

Ram-Tam was counting sheep. Fuzzy forms floated past him, pale grey clouds in the twilight. Ram-Tam liked sheep. Wool on their backs, wool in their brains, and mutton in between; sheep made sense. They passed through the gate and into their new pasture. Sheep with white wool, sheep with black faces, sheep with mottled legs, sheep with… sharp teeth? Ram-Tam threw himself forwards to grapple the not-sheep, and he kicked the gate closed behind him. Thus began a wild ride through the night. The not-sheep leapt the fence with Ram-Tam clinging to its mane. Leaving a trail of wool scraped off on branches, they plunged into the trees and into darkness. Twigs grabbed at Ram-Tam’s shirt and swiped stinging welts on his arms. He closed his eyes to protect them, and clung tight with his face in the not-sheep’s foul-smelling ruff. When the undergrowth thinned, the not-sheep bucked and tossed but Ram-Tam held fast with his hands and with his legs. Up, down, around, the not-sheep and Ram-Tam

Snow sparkled among the trees. Frozen particles stirred from their rest by the breeze, to dance light as air between the trunks and swirl around figures that were never there. A line settling on shoulders, a twirl of a dress, invisible, elfin, they passed without prints. His touch was as cold as morning’s first light. His breath was a mist turning silver then gold as the sun rose to melt away the magic of early dawn. Yet it lingers still in the gooseflesh that prickles down my spine. And tomorrow, I will be waiting. And I will take his hand.

Wild firelizards swooped and dived through the cleft where Paet lay clutching his shoulder. Something had sent them into a frenzy; probably A’vdin’s Salioth, Paet thought. His friend’s blue dragon was always causing a stir whenever he was allowed out of the weyr to visit Paet. Hard to believe, based on the way the hold folk talked to see him now that A’vdin the dragon rider had once been clumsy little Alavdin, stumbling his way round their errands, with Paet always carrying more than his share of the load but never complaining – no never complaining. “Buzz off, you stunted dragonlings!” Paet hissed at the firelizards. “It’s your fault I fell. Go get help, why don’t you? It’s the least you owe me. Ala- A’vdin can show off how special he is now and I’ll eat all my words if he can get me out of here.” The firelizards dodged Paet’s ineffective swipes, and Paet winced as the movement jogged his shoulder. “Big blue dragon outside? Smug-faced dragon rider kid? Ring any bells? Come on you

You are alone in your submersible pod, trapped in a sump by a current that churns and turns but always inwards. never out. Will anybody find you? Under the earth and under the sea, will they hear your weak, weak cry for help? You hope not. For anybody close enough to hear, would find themselves sucked into the same whirling hell-hole as you. After all: you’re not the first to find this grave. There’s somebody else out there – and they’re long gone. A body washes round and around with you, caught in a macabre tango of lost souls, bouncing now and again against your porthole. Here a flopping arm, there a trailing flipper, wetsuit ripped but no blood; that’s confirmation if you ever needed it. This will be your fate too. In minutes, hours, or maybe days if you’re (un)lucky? You’ve turned off the lights, turned off all controls, but you can’t rest in comforting blackness. Not yet. Luminescent paint still holds life inside your pod, and in its glow you watch your dance partner

When Tars trotted back into their camp, riderless, they knew their plan had failed. “You should’ve let me put a proper tracer on him,” Talina said, pouting. Saphine ignored her sister, focussed instead on checking over the horse for signs of injury. Talina stamped a foot and folded her arms. “I told you. Now look what’s happened. We’ve lost the scrolls, and if we don’t get there quick, somebody’ll find Golly.” “We knew it was risky,” Saphine said, fed up with this same old argument. “But riskier still to have anything directly connecting him to us. What if it had triggered the wards?” “That dumb old library doesn’t even know how to make real wards. I know what I’m doing.” Saphine rolled her eyes and began removing Tars’ saddle. “Hey! We’ll need that.” Talina grabbed at her sister’s hand. “How else can we carry Golly back? We’ll-” Saphine’s frustration got the better of her. She shoved Talina away with both hands and far more force than necessary. “When will you just grow up!