The curses were the loveliest, and most satisfying, to paint. She could see them in her mind, even before she picked up a brush, pulsing and glowing with color in careful, delicate patterns.
Read MoreAn Assault of Color
Every lining has a cloud, be it a worn spot, a mended seam, or an unraveled thread. They are neither perfect nor impenetrable, no matter how much we wish it so. People will tell you that damage makes the fabric stronger.
Read MoreGrey in the Gauge of His Storm
I nestle the video camera on its makeshift tripod, carefully centering my daughter’s image. She tucks her hair behind her ear and gives a strained smile. She is sixteen, and that hair is long and golden–kissed light brown and straight; she has the gangly grace only teenagers have, that sleek gazelle form. She is wearing khaki shorts and a striped tank top, and the bite mark on her arm is already putrefying.
Read MoreBecca at the End of the WorldSaskia leaned into the darkness above the stage, only vaguely aware of the wood rail against her hips as she retied the left headstring on her marionette. On the stage below, the Snow Queen’s head eased into balance.
Read MoreBody LanguageOnce far ago and long away, in a sleepy little village on the edge of nowhere, a small town turned commuter-zone city-suburb, miners’ houses swallowed into Seventies schemes of pebbledash matchboxes, Lego blocks of buildings nestled soulless on winding roads all lined with parking bays and patches of grass trimmed lobotomy neat…
Read MoreThe Boy Who Loved DeathMike was there when Pavi’s kidneys failed. He was there when her liver, swollen and scarred, shut down. And her heart. He floated in her thickening, clotting blood, pressing all the conscious focus he could fit into the nanites permeating her body, killing her.
Read MoreTurning the Whisper
Athéne — the Athéne who was never mine — used to say that I was always slow to catch on. Even if it wasn’t true to begin with, it’s become true, and so I guess it makes sense that I didn’t understand how serious the tether break was until the consequence ran smack into me. I doubt she’d appreciate the irony.
Read MoreSomeone Like YouIt didn’t take with me, the world and its rules, the things it expected of me. In the end, that’s the only reason why I find myself still here after all these countless years, and still I refuse to leave the scene. If you drop a beat, I’m on it. If I hear the slightest scratch, I’m ready to spin.
Read MoreSister Twelve: Confessions of a Party MonsterJacob stared at the pyramid he had not built.
Read MoreA Matter of Shapespace