​The old crabapple tree spoke first, loud
and clear, except listening takes expertise.  
Its crooked trunk and skeletal limbs
do their best to support apples
rotten to the core, hanging on
until they drop to death.
 
A bed of tangled weeds hides nests
of ground hornets that engulf
the fallen fruit, an arbitrary cemetery,
ignored. Burning bushes way past
glory days of crimson, look charred and sore
as though seeded on a volcanic planet.
 
Windows. Cleaned yesterday,
but within four days the glass will fade
into shades of gray, tainted with scents
of decay. Worse, the entryway mirror
is coveted by sheer madness since
it returns after being discarded.
 
Nothing hides under our beds, yet never
would arms or legs dangle, or dare
set foot upon aged floors after 3:17am.
Just pretend you exist on a tropical island,
drift into a warm place, sway on a hammock
while waiting for sunlight to break.
 
Basement. Do not consider looking back
at those etched glass doors once shut,
eyes ahead. Trust me on this.
And if the old man wearing a black hat asks
for a cup of tea, he prefers the pale yellow
mug displaying a pristine crabapple tree.

Author P.L. McMillan reads an excerpt from her upcoming horror novella, Sisters of the Crimson Vine. 

Sisters of the Crimson Vine Cover by Donnie Goodman

MUSIC
"Spring Thaw" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

"Shadowlands 1 - Horizon" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Author Caryn Larrinaga gives us a reading from her upcoming novella, Mouse Trap. 

Cover art by Donnie Goodman at Atonic Visions Design.​

Author C.M. Forest reads us a sample of his book, We All Fall Before the Harvest. If you like what you hear, you can grab a copy and read the rest!

The hinges of the music box creak, the first sound from the oaken object. As the lid rises, a dancing horse appears. Dressed as a ballerina, its front legs take opposing angles: one hoof-hand is near its head, the other at its waist, each leg-arm bowed out, forming two semi-circles. A faded pink tutu surrounds the animal’s waist, a doughnut of frill atop cotton-candy clad legs that belong more to a French prima ballerina than a common equine. The mechanism allowing the horse to dance makes no sound, but a song at once familiar and foreign emanates from an unseen portion of the box.

A crown of clover frames a mirror reflecting the spinning horse and the face of Mariah, the newest owner of the box.

“Are you certain, Gramma?” Mariah speaks, not needing assurance from her grandmother, but asking for it anyway. “Are you certain the box can be mine?”

“I am quite certain. My grandmother made it mine and said someday it would belong to my own granddaughter.”

Mariah’s eyes widen in her reflection, picturing a person old enough to be Gramma’s grandmother. She has seen pictures of Great-Gramma, Gramma’s mother, but cannot fathom time before then. “Is she… dead?”

“Oh, yes, dear. Long ago, soon after coming here from across the ocean, when your mother had not yet met your father.”

At the mention of Mama and Dad, Mariah closes her eyes. She refuses to cry. She refuses to remember. Gramma’s hand touches, then caresses, her back. She opens her eyes again; only Gramma’s arm is visible in the small music box mirror, the horse still spinning, dancing to the tune Mariah feels she should recognize.

“My grandmother and your mother barely knew each other, but look….” Gramma reaches out and closes the lid of the box, hiding the dancing horse and the mirror, silencing the melody Mariah almost had hold of. Gramma taps the carved center of the lid in the middle of a filigreed meadow. She whispers, “Mystical music box mirror, show Mariah her mother.”

As Gramma begins to open the box again, Mariah freezes. She knows Gramma is magic—Gramma had her favorite special macaroni and cheese ready before the men with guns told them her parents had suffered a tragedy—and some magic is scary.

The lid rises, and the dancing horse begins to spin again. In the clover-framed mirror, Mariah sees the face of her mother. “Mama,” she screams and turns away from the box, anticipating comfort from Gramma.

Gramma isn’t there.

The arms of her mother, one dangling precariously from her shoulder with white bone and dark black blood exposed, are open for an embrace. The face from the mirror is only half there, the other half burnt and bubbling, a smell like when Dad used too much fluid on the charcoal grill wafting off her.

“Let me sing you a lullaby,” Mariah’s mother says. She steps closer to her screaming girl, who can now not help but cry, too. “Let me hold you, my pretty little horse.”

Author M. Regan reads us a sample from her novella, 21 Grams. ​If you like what you hear, you can purchase the book by following the link below!