FAIRY TALE FLASH - What Happened by Roppotucha Greenberg

Our ancestors didn't quarrel much,

but their child was a monster...

Our ancestors, transparent, caring, wracked with old pains, were at our wedding. They came to bless us, had a sniff of the champagne, slow-danced, fell in love and moved in together. I didn’t mind sharing with them at first. They kept a dog and a few chickens. You could hear the faint clucking on summer mornings. They didn’t quarrel much. She let a few mugs fall, and he made the air tingle a few times, that’s all, but their child was a monster.

It was not its fault. His parents had suffered too much injustice when they were alive. My husband’s ancestor was an illegitimate son of a rich landlord. There’s a song about it, the one with winter, and a small cold child, and the mother crying at the closed gate. My ancestor was worn out by war; in her village war came every year; people spoke about it like a season. To avoid conscription, you could try to change your name or chop off your finger, but it didn’t always work. She never complained. Their child, the monster, inherited their black anger. It rattled the walls, pulled out the plants from the flower beds and blew up and down the chimney. Late at night it whispered into my husband’s ear, and it made him mad. When he shouted at me for not doing the dishes on time or for burning the roast, I felt frightened. Our home became a dark and chaotic place.

I didn’t realize what was happening soon enough. The ancient spirits were too fond of their child to help me. Besides, it really wasn’t its fault. The old house is long gone, so the monster is outside; you can tell by the way the branches shake. We have split up, so I wonder: is there any point in looking to placate it and address the old wrongs? I have so little time now, because the monster ate up a lot of my years, but maybe I should make an effort: look for recipes in old folios and secret websites, leave out a saucer of milk perhaps? Or some toffee to ease the pain, even for a short while, just to stop shouting, take a look around, and begin to half-dream of other things.

Roppotucha Greenberg writes micro-fiction and flash fiction.
Follow her on Twitter @Roppotucha
and check her out on Amazon HERE

Cover: Amanda Bergloff

NEW RELEASE - Skull & Pestle: New Tales of Baba Yaga by Kate Wolford

Our favorite anthologist (and founder of Enchanted Conversation) Kate Wolford's new book was just released!

Skull & Pestle: New Tales of Baba Yaga is now out from World Weaver Press and available HERE.

In this anthology, Kate Wolford has collected seven unique tales of Baba Yaga, the iconic witch, that will transport you from a Tsardom far away beyond high white mountains and vast icy steppes, to a swamp in Alabama, to impossible paths lit by the supernatural eyes of a skull...and beyond.

In “Vasilisa the Wise,” Kate Forsyth tells the classic Russian fairy tale of a girl with a pure heart that encounters Baba Yaga and performs the impossible. Lissa Sloan’s “A Tale Soon Told,” is a bittersweet reflection on a life seen in three different phases under the subtle guidance of the all-knowing grandmother. “Baba Yaga: Her Story,” is author Jill Marie Ross’ take on Baba Yaga’s origins, of Koschei the Deathless and how lost souls can find one another and become family.

Set in a place where folktales and the horrors of World War II tragically meet,“The Partisan and the Witch,” by Charlotte Honigman, tells the tale of a girl’s bargain with Baba Yaga for weapons to kill three who cannot be killed. Here, the dead can help the living, and a blessing can scare even a powerful witch.

A mysterious old crone in the swamplands of the American South helps a motherless girl find her true calling in Szmeralda Shanel’s “The Swamp Hag’s Apprentice.” In “Boy Meets Witch,” by Rebecca A. Coates, doing impossible chores for a witch is the least of a boy’s problems once the spell he asked her for takes effect.

And the anthology culminates with Jessamy Corob Cook’s, “Teeth,” a tale of sisters, jealousy, guilt, sacrifice, and revenge.

So tell the hut to stop spinning so you can pour yourself a cup of tea from the samovar. Sit by the warm fire to enjoy these stories, and when you’re done, think of the favor or question you would like to ask, because Baba Yaga is waiting...

Baba Yaga knows all.

FAIRY TALE FLASH - The Old Woman Who Threw Dirt by Rhonda Eikamp

"What have you done, old woman?

What have you given them?"

"Only their heart's desire."

An old woman wished to enter the palace. She wore no finery and had no gold with which to bribe the guards. The guards tittered at her.

"I have cake," said the woman.

The cakes she drew from her vest were honey-soaked and seed-choked. One taste and the guards fought among themselves for more. She tossed cakes aside and they hurried to collect them, shoving at one another, while she hurried into the palace.

A courtier stopped the old woman at the throne room. He wore a pinched face and the fiery cloak of authority. "You've no right to be here," he snapped.

"I have meat," said the woman.

From her vest she drew a giant platter bearing a flank of roasted boar. The meat popped with juices. The scent of happiness, with a red center. Licking his lips, the courtier snatched the platter and huddled in a corner, tearing into the meat with tooth and nail, while the old woman hurried on into the throne room.

The king and queen sat upon their thrones. The king, young and virile, dozed, and his face in repose was that of a god. His queen sat lovely beside him, in glowing drapes of silk and damask. In her arms she held their newborn child. In all the land there was no happiness greater than theirs.

The queen frowned at the old woman. "Do I know you?" Her ears caught the sound of the courtier's gorging, the scrabbling at the main door, and her gaze hardened. "What have you done, old woman? What have you given them?"

"Only their heart's desire. They have so few desires."

"And have you something for me?"

"My daughter, I have dirt."

From her vest the old woman took a handful of dirt and stepping close she threw it in her daughter's eyes.

The palace vanished. Around them lay a dank cave, of spiderwebs and fungal drippings. Salamanders darted over the boulder that had been the queen's throne. The queen cried out. Her dress was sodden leaves, peeling from her. The child in her arms was a stick. She dropped it.

Beside her dozed a great brown bear, with old blood on its claws.

Lights faded in the young woman's eyes. "But, everything…"

"Come, my daughter."

"But how–"

"Quickly."

Out they went, through the cave's mouth, past a red fox that slunk away with a mouse in its jaws. "Who did this to me?" the girl gasped.

"Some enchantments are of our own doing."

They went past sparrows that tittered and fought over seeds. The girl's tears dropped on them. Hesitating, she turned to look back, and her mother waited. There lay the young queen's palace in its glory. The stick, the bear.

"My arms will ache now forever." Her voice broke the old woman's heart. "Why couldn't you have left me there, if I was happy?"

"Because one day he will wake up."

Rhonda Eikamp is from Texas and lives in Germany, where she works as a translator. In addition to her story "Unburnished" in EC, her work has appeared in Lackington's, Lightspeed and Unlikely Story. In the Welsh tale of The Woman Who Went To Fairyland, magic ointment reveals the true fairy world, but she began to wonder: what if the fairy world were the illusion?

Cover: Amanda Bergloff

SATURDAY TALE - Breadcrumbs by Jude Tulli

I don't like the path these breadcrumbs 

are leading me on...

Breadcrumbs! They're not my personal favorites or anything, but...mmm, nice and stale the way Little Coocoo likes them. What we birds do for our young; if I just swallow them whole real quick I can barely taste them now, but the regurge gets me every time. I'd much prefer the flavor of worms or grubs, but parenthood is sacrifice, as my mother always said.

           

Besides, Little Coocoo is so cute when he's all open beak, waiting. What daddy-bird wouldn't endure a sourdough burp or two for such a welcome?

           

Uh oh, I don't like the path these...what am I eating again? Oh yeah, breadcrumbs! I don't like the path these breadcrumbs are leading me too close to the wick--oh Coocoo Boy! Excuse me, Coocoo Boy, I could be wrong but you have the look of someone who's lost. Something in the wideness of your eyes is how I know. I've seen it before in lost Coocoo Children before they—oh, but I do so hate sad stories!

           

Listen, I would turn around if I were you. Coocoo Girl, tell the Coocoo Boy why I'm running around you both in circles; if you carry on this way you'll soon be—

           

Hush now, Little Coocoo, I'm coming! Listen, Coocoo Children, my own offspring is hungry, and I have these yeasty thingies I gotta go choke up for him. If you can just wait for me here, I'll show you the way back to your home if I can remember where I picked up this trail of bread...thingamabobs.

           

Waiting sort of requires that you stop walking, though, okay? Okay! I'll be back just as soon as I can.

Little Coocoo! I'm sorry I left you alone so long but here, I got you some of your favorite human crumbly bready...breadcrumbs!  That's what they call them. Breadcrumbs!

           

Relax, of course there's more. All right, don't gobble down faster than I can gag up your precious little dough-globs.  

           

There! That should tide you over until—you're still hungry?! Coocoo Mother must be laughing at me now from her perch up in Feather-Heaven. I can just hear it.

           

Oh good, here comes your own Coocoo Mommy now. Coocoo! Here, I'm getting up so you can land in the nest.

           

Welcome home, Coocoo! What did you bring for Little Coocoo?  

           

That looks good, but he'll never eat ant eggs right after the wheaty, lumpy...breadcrumbs! That's it, breadcrumbs! I just fed him his favorites.    

Well what do you know...he likes caviar now. Learn something new every day. Clearly you don't need me here, so if you don't mind, I'm going to go borrow Coocoo Sparrow's nest and take a little...what's it called? Oh yeah, nap. Been so long since I've had one I can't remember.

Coocoo Sparrow's nest was full up of young ones, so I suppose Coocoo Swallow's empty nest has to do, petite though it is.

           

Funny how I can remember words like "petite" and “caviar” when I need them just for myself but "nap" eluded...so...tired. . .

       

What's that? Who's there? Stop pecking at my eyes! Can't you see they're closed?!

           

Oh, hello Coocoo Swallow. I thought you'd abandoned this nest.

           

Less work to rebuild it than start a new one, eh? Well, these are troubled times, old friend. Troubled times, indeed.

           

Very well, I'm up now anyway. I'd better go home and check on Coocoo and Little Coocoo.

I've been gone how long?! Of course you would have woken me up Coocoo, but I was too tired to tell you I'd switched nests. I can barely get comfortable with Little Coocoo nuzzling my tail, let alone with several Coocoo Sparrow fledglings nipping at my wings.

           

Oh no!  I promised Coocoo Children I'd return to show them the way home! Coocoo, can you feed Little Coocoo while I try to find them? I'll take care of him for the next few days to make up for it, okay?

           

You're the coocoo sweetest.

Now where did I first find the whatsit? Oh yeah, breadcrumbs! Maybe if I start at the witch's house I can trace the trail of my beakmarks back to where those Coocoo Kids'll be safe.  

           

Oh, dear! Coocoo Boy, don't start eating the house, it's just a prelude to—

           

Coocoo Girl, tell him to stop. Oh no, not you too!

           

I'm too late! They've been invited in, and they don't have the coocoo sense to say no.

           

I don't know if I have the stomach to watch how this story's going to end. Especially after eating all those breadcrumbs.

Jude Tulli lives in the Sonoran Desert with his beloved wife Trish and a small pride of housecats. For quick links to his other works published with EC (including the recent Krampus anthology), his novelette Faegotten and more, you can visit him on Goodreads. 

Cover: Amanda Bergloff

FAIRY TALE FLASH - Weaver by Archie Leung

She gathers some of the moonlight and cold rain...

The jasmine petals fall when the Full Moon shines over a cold drizzle. I pick up the petals, and the flower’s fragrance too, and pull into my hands some of the moonlight and cold rain. All to my loom.

“The Weaver has lost it.” my tribespeople speak behind my back.

My hand dances on my device.

“She still thinks of the mortal, even though she was abandoned.” The elders conclude.

What they don’t know is, clouds of seven colors have sprung from my machine.

I lay layers and layers of the clouds over a little house, until it rains petals and moonlight and perfumed dew.

Down there a mother draws a child to her embrace. “See, your great-great-great-grandmother is blessing us again,” she says.

Archie Leung was born in Hong Kong. He has a great affection for fortune-telling and fairy tales alike. 

Cover: Amanda Bergloff