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Cast of Wonders 709: The Last Halloween, The Halloweens After

Cast of Wonders 709: The Last Halloween, The Halloweens After is a Cast of Wonders original.

COVID19, Bereavement

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:00 — 46.7MB)

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Show Notes

Image by Майя Щедрина from Pixabay

The Last Halloween, The Halloweens After

by Daniel Roop

The COVID Halloween of 2020 had been the saddest, weirdest Halloween of my life. Every year prior to the virus, the streets of our neighborhood had been packed sardine-tight with face-painted toddlers, plastic-masked elementary-aged goblins, and harried, hustling parents bumping into one another, apologizing in a huff, weaving through the crowds to keep up with their candy-crazed children.

But the COVID year had been different, with less than half the people out, and everyone keeping their distance. Mrs. Jenkins, who always gave out full-size candy bars, wouldn’t let the virus ruin her tradition, but she wasn’t taking any chances. She’d had her husband construct a long, makeshift chute from their upstairs bedroom window to the end of the driveway. Kids would line up, Mrs. Jenkins yelling at them to stay six feet apart, their bags stretched open at the red plastic slide’s end while she’d sent Twix and Snickers tumbling down. Mr. Pittman, 50 years old at least, white, and balding, had donned a Lakers jersey and stood on his front porch. He’d made kids stand near his mailbox, while he’d tried to shoot Twizzlers and Whoppers into their bag, yelling, “Kobe!” before each inevitable miss. As they’d picked up their dented candy, he’d yelled, “Good hustle! Way to rebound!”

It had been a surreal night, but I remember it fondly, since that was the last year my older sister Quinn took me trick-or-treating. I was eleven, she was seventeen, and she took me only because my dad had insisted. Mom was in the hospital, no visitors allowed thanks to the virus, and Dad, while determined I wouldn’t miss the holiday, was beyond busy with his plumbing business and keeping the house running. So, Quinn drew the short straw, which she was gracious enough to remind me of only a few times that night. I dressed up as Rey, and despite Quinn’s occasional grumbling, she did an amazing job fixing me up with that impossible Jakku hairstyle. I was Rey, and Quinn was, in her words, “Rose’s put-upon sister who’s too cool, and too busy, and too mature, to dress the hell up for Skittles.” (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 708: Standing in the Shoulders of Giants

Cast of Wonders 708: Standing in the Shoulders of Giants is a Cast of Wonders original.

Swearing (f-words), unsafe workplace

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:14 — 87.5MB)

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Standing In the Shoulders of Giants

by Adrian Ward

“Lotta rain clouds today,” Teru says. I look up to find him standing on the balcony, spyglass pressed to his face.

I walk over, lean on the railing next to him, follow his gaze down to the clouds. It doesn’t take a spyglass to see the tides of dark gray, swirling where Iapetus’ legs disturb them. Vedimar hawks, made tiny by distance, circle somewhere around the titan’s stomach, picking at anyone foolish enough to poke their head out. As I watch, a hawk’s body drops, then slowly rolls towards Iapetus, snagged on a reelbow line that’s too thin to see from up here. Its fellows circle angrily, then scatter as a redtail drake pierces through the cloud bank and takes aim at them.

I point it out to Teru, and he begins rattling off facts about the drake, excited to the point of stumbling over his words. He wanted to be a biologist at one point, but failed the university entrance exams. I wanted to be a copter tech, but Iapetus makes everything small, even dreams. I think that’s a half-clever line, and I start to tell it to Teru, but he’s not paying me any mind. He whoops, grabs me by the arm and shakes it, points eagerly as the redtail drake dives. It comes up clutching a hawk, tears its wings to shreds before plummeting back through the clouds, meal in tow. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 707: The Discipline of Small Evil

Image by Henning from Pixabay

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 35:46 — 81.9MB)

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The Discipline of Small Evil

by Arthur H. Manners

Big evil is cheap, lazy, unimaginative. Release a deadly plague. Steal a continent. Shoot the moon with a giant laser. Everyone pays attention, everyone screams, and the supers come and there’s a showdown and a monologue and sharks.

Blah blah blah.

Where’s the art in that?

Supervillains always fail. They invite heroes to rise, invoke Newton’s Third Law: action, reaction. The trick is to slip unseen through society, widening cracks in the psyche.

Big evil is just a cry for help. Look at me, validate me, for the love of God someone save me.

Real evil is small. It’s turning all the pictures in someone’s home just a little askew. It’s using show bathrooms at hardware stores. It’s pineapple on pizza. Leaving the seat up. Puns.

Real evil is talking in the cinema. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 706: The Little Free Library at the End of the World

Cast of Wonders 706: The Little Free Library at the End of the World is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:01 — 27.5MB)

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The Little Free Library at the End of the World

by Sally Sultzman

Reader didn’t know they’d stopped until he ran into the back of Singer, who turned to steady him even as Collector ran into him, struggling under the weight of the Collection bag.

What? Reader signed. Maybe it was water. They hadn’t found any fresh water in days—and Leader had said last night that no one could drink until Tracker found more, or they stopped for the night.

Even through the mask, with his ears shielding his eyes, Reader’s throat was heavy with dust. He, Singer and Collector were always at the back of the pack and he was so, so thirsty.

Don’t know, Singer signed back to both him and Collector. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 705: Trade you for the Beans

Cast of Wonders 705: Trade you for the Beans is a Cast of Wonders original.

Bullies, Colonisation

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:40 — 90.8MB)

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Trade You For the Beans

by Kehkashan Khalid

When Mammy drops me off to school on the hottest day of the year, no one bullies me. I stand there in the schoolyard, letting her I love yous wash over me, and when she drives away, I close my eyes.

It’s okay Asghar, I tell myself. They’ll punch you a few times, and when you don’t react, they’ll get bored. You can handle that.

But nobody comes. I stand there like an idiot with my eyes closed and my sweaty fingers gripping the spine of Grammy’s copy of Lord of the Rings until the bell rings. Nobody reads such old stories anymore, and they especially don’t carry them around like bricks. But I don’t want to download my stories into a cube that’ll summarize them for me. I like the rustle of the pages and their musty scent and holding them impossibly open with a thumb while I eat and read at the same time–Grammy would turn over in her grave, Asghar! Mammy would say. Grammy liked her books to look all perfect even after they’d been read. Too bad she left them all to me, who likes to make notes in the margins and leave big ol’ mango stains on the pages. It’s like they hold a little bit of who I am. And they’ll hold it long after I’m gone. It’s the closest to magic I’ll ever get. (Continue Reading…)

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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…)

Genres: ,

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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Show Notes

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…)

Genres: ,

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…)