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Cast of Wonders 704: The Fourth Hero of Ouroboros

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:10 — 46.9MB)

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The Fourth Hero of Ouroboros

by Erin Keating

The scholar travels with books on her back and tales on her tongue. The Charlatan King had tried to claim the books with flames and her tongue with threats, but she’d saved both by slipping from the city. Only the moon saw her go.

For weeks, she has walked from the gleaming glass of the capital out into the farther reaches of the Fourth Kingdom of Ouroboros, where the world feels emptier, wilder, older. In each town along her journey, she calls herself only the scholar, because to speak her true name would summon kingsmen armed with false accusations.

So, the scholar walks and, unbeknownst to her, the librarian waits. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 703: Your Magic School Admittance Letter Never Arrives

Cast of Wonders 703: Your Magic School Admittance Letter Never Arrives is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:59 — 61.8MB)

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Show Notes

Image by Mystic Art Design from Pixabay

Your Magic School Admittance Letter Never Arrives

by Maya Prasad

SPRING

The admittance letters to the various magical universities have been rolling in, and your friends are celebrating. But yours never arrives. Your parents are Very Disappointed.

“It’s not about talent,” your mother insists. “You simply don’t apply yourself.”

“Perhaps if you spent less time playing hoverball and goofing off with your friends,” your father says, “you could have taken a harder course load. You could have taken that MTAN practice class. Well, I suppose you can apply again next year.”

Next year, indeed. When your younger sister will probably show you up with scads of acceptances.

You nod meekly, not mentioning the hours you spent alone in your room with your wand after hoverball practice and on weekends. In truth, your purported laziness is less humiliating than admitting you never possessed enough magic in the first place. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 702: A Starry Sort of Hope

Cast of Wonders 702: A Starry Sort of Hope is a Cast of Wonders original.

death and grief

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:23 — 43.1MB)

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Image by Mollyroselee from Pixabay

A Starry Sort of Hope

by Torrance Elizabeth

Danika knew Astraea’s starship would never reach the stars.

It was a cardboard box, after all.

Even so, Danika stood on the shore at the edge of town and waited for the launch. They looked out at the silvery sea that stretched on long enough to reflect thousands of constellations from the inky sky above. Shh, shh, whispered the waves, curling in to kiss Danika’s bare feet before tip-toeing away again in an eternal game of peek-a-boo. Danika watched various townspeople mill about, all here to watch a loved one be sent into the stars. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 701: His Voice is a Beast, Wild it Runs

First published in Frivolous Comma in January 2024

fist-fighting, hunting scenes, domestic violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 37:24 — 51.4MB)

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His Voice is a Beast, Wild it Runs

by Nathan Susnik

I.

Berit’s voice is a beast. Cunning and clever, it runs on sinewy legs. He has only ever glimpsed it once – barely a breath long, not enough time to have raised his bow. He pictures it now in his mind’s eye: sun penetrating the spruce and oak, glinting over its black fur. Its four paws hide long talons as sharp as fishhooks. And in a flash, it is gone, disappearing as silent as lightning.

He hunts it, or it hunts him. Berit is never sure. His stomach turns, exhilarated as a predator, as apprehensive as prey. He and his voice share a connection, an adversarial kinship through which they are drawn together, bound to destroy one another. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 700: Perfect Statues And Their Broken Shapers

Cast of Wonders 700: Perfect Statues And Their Broken Shapers is a Cast of Wonders original.

child abandonment and abuse, war, deliberate injury, scenes of surgery

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:09 — 52.4MB)

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Show Notes

Image by Glass Art Animals

Perfect Statues and Their Broken Shapers

by Adrian Ward

My domain is one of beauty, of brightly colored statues and their dark inhabitants. On the bench before me figures form, carefully cast from molten glass.

At the other workbench Aki lords over a domain of hammers, sends glass-shards spinning with each cracking blow. The glass at his feet whispers murder as he stamps down, iron-booted, and grinds its inhabitants to dust.

Across my workbench, the day’s labor waits: a line of plaster molds, each holding a fortune-frog’s glass-cast facsimile. Statues meant to bring prosperity, the sort that can be found on shop counters or for sale from roadside peddlers.

Curiosities, all. False magic, sold only to the desperate and the gullible.

Ours are no mere baubles. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 699: Little Wonders 53 – Doomed Relationships

Cast of Wonders 699: Little Wonders 53 – Doomed Relationships is a Cast of Wonders original.

post-apocalypse; prejudice

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:43 — 52.0MB)

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Petrichor

by Eleanor Lennox

The golden hour had begun, that time of honeyed sunshine and veiled shadows. Painted horses raced in perfect circles, their eyes unseeing rubies. Blue ribbons flapped on pies and pigs, jellies and quilts, all those strange, forgotten miracles. Waiting for the Ferris wheel, I saw him: a boy almost a man, looking out to the forest.

I approached.

“You’re not from here,” he said without turning back. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 698: The Green Man’s Guest

First published in the collection Different Times and Other Places from NewCon Press in 2024

Image by Ken from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:00 — 56.3MB)

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The Green Man’s Guest

by Juliet E. McKenna

Trees die, like every living thing. Left to their own devices, they’ll gradually succumb to old age after decades or even centuries. If they’re not so lucky, a storm or a nearby tree toppled by strong winds can bring them crashing down. These days, if they’re really unlucky, some spreading blight can make felling them essential.

However it happens, whoever’s in charge of that back garden or public park or private woodland faces the same question. How do we get the stump out? What do we do about the hole? Even a smallish tree has a sizeable root ball.

Or… how about doing something else? I don’t know who came up with the idea of turning tree stumps into sculptures instead of grubbing them out, but as soon as I came across it, I wanted to give it a try. I did a load of research online and watched a lot of videos. I bought some specialist power tools and taught myself to use them on scrap timber from various projects. I’ve been taking care of the estate’s woods at Blithehurst Manor for the past few years, so I reckoned I’d get my chance sooner or later. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 697: Little Wonders 52 – Modern Myths

Cast of Wonders 697: Little Wonders 52 – Modern Myths is a Cast of Wonders original.

Airline Security

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:12 — 39.4MB)

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Jars and Bags and Boxes

by Rachel Gutin

When Dora asks if we can swap carry-on bags, I almost refuse. I know her history with jars and bags and boxes. “What are you hiding this time?”

She flashes me an innocent smile, flaunting her perfect, adorable dimples. “Nothing against the rules. I promise! It’s just… they always stop me for extra screening. You, they’ll let right through.”

My instincts are shrieking at me to say no, but when I lost my job last month, Dora was the only one who stepped in to support me. She planned this trip, and even paid for my ticket, just so I’d have something to look forward to. No one else stepped up like that. Not my former colleagues. Certainly not my family. Dora’s friendship is all I have left. I can’t afford to lose it.

So when she catches my gaze with those puppy-dog eyes, there’s only one answer I can give her. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 696: The Purpose of a Pyromaniac Descendent

First published in Tales & Feathers, February 2025
Episode art by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:21 — 23.8MB)

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The Purpose of a Pyromaniac Descendent

by Wen Wen Yang

I don’t know why I expected the afterlife to be different from my beforelife.

In fact, I hadn’t expected an afterlife at all. As the youngest person in dìfǔ, with no descendants, I certainly didn’t anticipate gifts. I was a first-generation American who had a vague idea of the Chinese holidays, but stopped paying attention as soon as I left home.

I woke up in my grandparents’ home. My chest felt hollow, and I realized I didn’t have a heartbeat. Congenital heart defects are bullshit, by the way.

Nǎinai and Yéye greeted me with much hand-holding. We didn’t hug while living. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 695: Goldenrod

Cast of Wonders 695: Goldenrod is a Cast of Wonders original.

Non-graphic body horror

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 16:55 — 23.2MB)

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Goldenrod

by A. James

It was Krissy who loved the old McCarson house. I didn’t see the appeal. It had a frightening precarity to it. The house’s powder blue paint peeled and flaked in the front like lichen, and its front pillars were stripped back to the wood. Its steps crumbled like clumps of dry soil. During storms, the broken shutters thrashed and the rusted fence wailed.

It was also Krissy who concocted the plan to sneak over the orange-tinged chainlink fence. We went around to the back of the house so no one would see us. On this side it looked nicer. The back door swung open to our touch on screeching hinges. Inside, the walls and floors were cloaked in translucent sheets of plastic that crackled as we walked. Well, I walked. Krissy bounded and twirled, her mouth stretched in maddening glee. She scurried from one space to the next like an eager little mouse.

“Sid, come look at this!” Krissy cried from another room. The house groaned as I made my way across the hall. Krissy sat at a large piano. The translucent sheet of plastic that had protected the instrument lay in a crumpled heap on the ground. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 694: Ready to be Seen

Cast of Wonders 694: Ready to be Seen is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:16 — 48.4MB)

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Show Notes

Image by 1234hadar from Pixabay

Ready to be Seen

by K. J. Isley

My Soul-Ripening ceremony is over at last. The cake has been eaten, though not by me. The last guest bids me harmony and my mother politely ushers them out the front door. Since I had no list of friends to offer up, she invited my whole age set. I begged her not to, but she swept away my objections like so much unwanted clutter.

“The revelation of adulthood only happens once, Firin. I’ve watched you grow. Known you better than you know yourself all these years. This day matters.”

Even so, my mother demurred when they asked if she’d be presenting my Soulpiece during the gathering.

“Firin has always been modest. She will decide for herself who she wishes to share her soul with, now that she is eighteen.”

That’s when my fears coalesced into certainty. Whatever my Piece reveals about me, it must be terrible. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 693: Twenty-Four Hours

First published in Clarkesworld, June 2024

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:59 — 56.3MB)

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Twenty-Four Hours

by H H Pak

Six hours left.

“What do you want to eat sweetheart?” She looks at me expectantly, holding out her phone to show me the menu. “It is your special day. I’ll get you anything you want.”

I smile, shake my hands. “Eomma, it’s fine. You don’t have to do this.”

“I know. But this is your favorite restaurant. Why not indulge a bit?” She hums as she scrolls through the options. “It must have been hard to get anything authentic out there. I can’t imagine the cafeteria on the base was giving you anything half edible.”

“It wasn’t bad,” I laugh. “Mostly processed stuff. They couldn’t import very often across the desert.”

She sighs.

“Well, you’re here now and that’s all that matters. You’re here, and I’m going to get you anything you want. How about this set?” (Continue Reading…)