Author: Amanda Pica

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The Path Back

An Acorns Flash Fiction Feature

By: R.C. Capasso

Magda stared at the empty room. “Fitz, where are you?”

The cat was good at hiding, but with her powers Magda had never before failed to sense him. “I really don’t feel like playing today. I’ve got a lot to do.” She set down her basket of herbs, seeds, mushrooms. “It’s going to rain, you know. A good day to brew up some potions.”

The room remained silent.

“It’s not like I’ll ask you to help. Maybe remind me of an ingredient or two. Keep an eye out so nothing boils over.” Really, what was the point of having a familiar if they didn’t take part in your life?

A faint breeze blew a wisp of gray hair into her eyes. A window at the back of the cottage was open.

Magda crossed the cluttered room and peered out into the garden. Fallen leaves were beginning to swirl under the wind that would bring rain at any moment.

“Fitz! See to your needs and get back here. Now!” She was the mistress in this family, after all. The witch, if she wanted to pull rank.

A faint glow at the base of a tree caught her eye, and she squinted. A sign, like a breadcrumb, gesturing to her.

So he’d gone that way. Deeper into the woods? A funny choice to make with a storm brewing. Fitz was particularly ill tempered if his paws got wet.

But he was getting on in years, just as she was. What if he’d wandered farther than he meant to? She wouldn’t want to see him in real discomfort.

Grumbling, she snatched at a thick cloth. If she had to carry the little fool home, that should keep the worst of the rain from soaking him. She also grabbed her own cloak. It was a bit too warm for the moment, but the temperatures would drop quickly in the woods in bad weather. Hardly thinking, she gripped her basket as well. Maybe she’d find a deceased toad or something useful. Never go to the woods empty-handed; that had always been her motto.

She closed the shutters, glanced at the fireplace and instructed it to keep burning steadily and safely, then pulled and latched the door of the cottage behind her.

She went round the back of the house and headed for the faint light, the trace Fitz had left.

She liked the woods. Most of her magic came from it, her power, her assurance. The smell of the loam, enriched with dying leaves from countless years. The feel of bark under her hands, some crinkled and cracked like her own skin, some smooth and almost pulsing with life. The birds that grew quiet at her passing yet sang out before and after her. The vitality in the very air. The hidden wealth so easily revealed to her, the secret strengths and the frank dangers of the natural world. It was as much her home as the small cottage that she had created in a self-indulgent whim. And as a place to hold her supplies and her potions. Every professional needs an office.

The woods were cool and dark under the clouding sky. Personally, she liked a thunderstorm, but Fitz was more a creature of comfort. His whiskers must be twitching by now, the hair raised up on his back. What was he thinking?

She called his name out loud. Surely such communication was not necessary between them, but if he was going to act out in this way, she was going to exert her authority.

“Don’t make me come after you!” she shouted, which was idiotic since she obviously was trailing after the creature.

There was no footpath in the wood, just here and there glowing paw marks tracing Fitz’s passage.

What was he doing? This was no call of nature; he was going somewhere in a straight, purposeful line.

Ordinarily she might have enjoyed the walk, but it was no fun dragging along her cloak, the basket, and the cloth for her renegade familiar as the air grew humid and thick.

The trunk of a massive tree lay fallen before her, and she could imagine its positioning upright, how it used to stand, as a faint memory tickled her mind. If she was right about the direction, and she was never wrong….

Ahead she saw a slight lightening as the trees grew further apart. This must be the south entrance toward…She halted.

At the edge of the clearing Fitz sat on his haunches, smiling at her.

“What are we doing here?” She clutched her cloak to her chest.

“You’re wanted.” The cat’s smooth voice was always maddeningly persuasive.

“No, I’m not.”

Hadn’t been for years. Not since the argument.

Fitz’s voice lowered. “You’re needed.”

She took a step closer, so she could see the cottage through the last trees.

It did not look its best. Why did it appear so neglected?

A large crow dove down from the trees and landed on a stump a foot away from Fitz.

Magda gave it a long look. Birds never do show their age, magical or not.

“Scratch. Good to see you.” She had nothing against the other familiar.

“Please.” The word croaked out. Not an easy one to say, ever.

She took a tighter grip on her basket and headed toward the back door. The two creatures weren’t going to let her just turn and walk away.

She raised her hand to knock. In the old days the door would have swung open before her. Until that last time, years ago, when it slammed in her face. She couldn’t even remember the cause of their quarrel.

Not waiting for an answer, she lifted the latch and stepped into the dark interior of the cottage.

Hilda was sitting in a chair at least. Not prone on her old cot yet. She turned large eyes on her former friend and offered a hesitant smile.

“Right.” Magda thumped the basket onto a table cluttered with smeared dishes, wilted herbs and limp, dirt-covered roots. “Well, I just happen to have what’s needed. Let’s get your fire going again, shall we?”

She glanced to the hearth as a bright red flame sprang up.

A gust of wind battered the door, and Fitz and Scratch sped in through the open window. With a word Magda ordered the shutters to close just as the first heavy drops of rain pounded against them.

But the storm didn’t matter. Fitz was already padding around the cottage, laying claim to its welcome, weaving his spell of belonging, while Scratch perched on a high shelf and watched with bright eyes.

And she, Magda, had all sorts of healing in mind. Incantations, magic herbs and good long talks over hot tea. She was in her old friend’s home and in her life again. Their lives, their paths, wouldn’t be separated any longer.

About the Author:

A lover of all forms of literature, R. C. Capasso writes in a variety of genres, from ghost and horror stories to science fiction, steampunk and even the occasional romance. Flash and short stories have appeared in Bewildering Stories, Zooscape, Teleport Magazine, Spaceports and Spidersilk, Fiction on the Web, The Last Girl’s Club and parABnormal Magazine. Further works have also been published in online and print anthologies including Iron Faerie’s Flights of Fantasy, Red Cape’s A to Z Horror series, The Librarian Reshelved (Air and Nothingness Press), Home Sweet Horror for Black Ink Fiction, Through the Briar Patch for Hollow Oak Press, and Gypsum Sound Tales’ Thuggish Itch.

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Banned Books Week

As a writer, I want everyone to like my content. I want rave, five-star reviews and I want critical acclaim. Don’t we all, though.

I have had a lot of wonderful compliments on my writing—from beta readers to people who have read my published works to kind words from those in my writing group. I’ve had just as much criticism too though, and that’s okay. My writing isn’t for everyone. No one can write for everyone.

There isn’t a book in existence that is purely and completely loved by every person who has ever read it. No matter how fragile our writerly egos may be, this is a universal truth we must accept as writers. We tell the stories of our heart and we hope to reach our audience with them. It’s the real goal hidden behind the allure of star ratings.

That’s the problem with banning books, isn’t it. No one person or group should get to say what content can be read and what cannot because not every book is for every person. The themes and plots and characters that resonate with us as readers are subjective, but just because we don’t resonate with every book does not make it right for us to restrict others’ access to the books we don’t like.

Banning books means erasing someone else’s subjective experience. It takes away the ability for readers to find a piece of themselves in those works. Conversely, books give us access to paradigms that challenge our own lived experience. They help us see the world through the eyes of another person. They build empathy and understanding, and they enrich our lives by exploring perspectives different from our own.

There are books I’ll never choose to read but I will always advocate for others to have access to them. We all deserve the freedom to choose what we read.

This week, October 5th-11th, is Banned Books Week—an event that highlights the value of free and open access to information. At Hollow Oak Press, we hold that same value close to our hearts. We believe in the right to read, the right to access information, and the right to be our full and authentic selves in our reading and our writing and everything in between.

Book bans are attempts to control whose stories are told and what information can be accessed. I will never believe in limiting perspectives or experiences. If you’re local to Hollow Oak Press, please consider joining us at the Oil City Library’s event Speak Freely: A Poetry Night of Banned Books on Thursday, October 9th. I’ll be one of the readers at the event. If you’re not local, but you want to stand up against book bans, there’s still a lot you can do.

Happy reading, friends. Whatever it is you choose to read.

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What a Toad Buys You

A toad sitting on a stump at the edge of a forest

An Acorns Flash Fiction Feature

By: James Hobbs

The toad squirmed in my pocket as I knocked on the witch’s door. Her name was Granny Hexham, an old, withered woman, so hunched that her body was practically a hoop. She couldn’t move around too fast, so there was a lot of grumbling, banging, grunting, and growling before the door creaked open. Her watery eyes squinted at me as she scratched one of the hairy warts on her cheek with a long, moldy, yellow fingernail.

“Well, well, well, well, sweet, little boy, did you bring my fee?”

I was too scared to speak, so I just nodded, reached into my pocket, and held out the bundle I’d made from my handkerchief. You could see the toad inside kick and struggle as Granny Hexham brought it to her nose, almost as lean and crooked as her body, and took a long sniff.

She licked her skinny lips and hissed, “Yes, yes, sweet boy, this’ll do nicely.”

She ushered me into her crooked little cottage and hurried me to sit on a stool. It was dark except for the needles of light that poked through the gaps in the crooked boards of the walls. Then knotty fingers unwrapped the bundle, grabbed the toad by the leg before it could hop away, and slammed its head against the table until it stopped trying to escape. Then she took stock of the rest of her payment: a blue-shelled beetle; two small green apples; six hairs from the tail of a three-legged dog; and a small stone I’d kept in my shoe for three days and three nights.

“So, little man, you wanted someone cursed.”

“My new school teacher, Mr. Cospwattle. He yells at me all the time, when I can’t do my ciphering or forget my grammar lessons.”

She nodded, a look of exaggerated sadness twisting her wrinkled face. “A dreadful shame to be so cruel to such a dear, young child.”

She pulled a dented frying pan off the wall, tossed a pat of butter into it, lit a fire in her stove, and started frying up the toad with a pinch of salt and pepper.

“I…I don’t want you to kill him or turn him into a worm or anything. I just need you to chase him away, so they have to get a new teacher.”

Granny Hexham cackled to herself as she tossed the toad in the pan. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, I know many spells to vex him.” She flipped the toad onto a plate and started frying some eggs to go with it. “I can make it so that every time a Thursday falls on the seventh day of the month, if he wears black or green, a sparrow will drop its dung on his shoulder. I can cast a spell that will make his left wrist tickle perniciously before it snows. I can make him unable to spell the word ‘social.’ I can cause him to drop his favorite mug, so that it shatters into a thousand pieces, as long as that mug doesn’t have diagonal stripes on it. Do any of these little tricks strike your fancy, hmm?”

“Umm…” To see Granny Hexham, I had braved the dark forest, which my parents had told me in no uncertain terms never to enter. “Is there anything else you can do?”

She whirled around and glared at me. “I have other curses, little man. I can make him sneeze any time he meets the eyes of a two-year-old hog. If he has a fondness for fruit, I can cause pears to taste like slightly rotten apples. If that is not cruel enough for you, I can cause the knot of his favorite cravat to come untied twice as often as usual. Are any of these wicked enough for you?”

“Well…”

I have never in my life seen anyone take fried eggs from a pan with so much malice. She slammed her plate onto the table across from me and grabbed a two-tined fork so long I was afraid she’d skewer me with it, not her supper.

“Ungrateful boy. Don’t be so choosy. I haven’t tasted toad and eggs in a long time. I would rather eat them in peace.”

“Those curses are all really very wicked, but I thought—”

She stabbed the toad and bit off its head so forcefully that I shut my mouth with a snap.

After the lump of chewed toad made its way down her skinny throat, she licked her lips and said, her voice suddenly less hissing and mysterious, “Listen, I don’t know what you expect to get for a toad and a few measly trinkets. If you want better curses, you can go see another witch, but I can promise you nobody’ll cast a curse for cheaper than me.”

“But I’ve heard all about you. They said you were the wickedest witch this side of Glarmsby.”

She sighed and hunched over so far that her long nose almost dipped into the runny yolks of her eggs. “I was, little man. I was, but that was many years ago. In my prime, I could’ve had your teacher’s house eaten by termites or struck by lightning or given him the old yalping cough; howling aches; and the foul fustian flux. I could’ve filled his bed with hedgepigs and his breadbox with bog worms. I’d vex him. I’d well and truly addle him.” Then her voice rose and her jowls shook with anger. “But I’d like to see you do a better job of casting a curse when you’re a hundred and two, and your eyes don’t work, your back aches, and you set things down one minute and can’t remember where you left them the next. And for only the price of a toad.”

I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to her sudden outburst, so I fidgeted with the buttons on my coat and said, “What if I brought you another toad? Could you cast two curses for me?”

“Another toad, another stone from your shoe, and a fly’s left wing.”

I didn’t like the idea of walking around with an uncomfortable stone in my shoe for three more days, and flies are hard to catch, so I said, “My mom’s tomatoes are ripe. I can pick a couple of those to eat with your toad and eggs.”

She took another bite of toad and chewed thoughtfully for a minute, before saying, “You’ve got a bargain.”

So I went home and stole two oblong tomatoes and scoured the forest and splashed around until I had caught another toad and tied it up in my handkerchief. She told me she cast curses on Mr. Cospwattle that made his leg itch whenever he ate peas and that gave him a splitting headache in the morning of any day in October when a bird had sat on the roof of the schoolhouse the previous night. I guess it worked. I think I noticed Mr. Cospwattle scratching his leg sometimes as he ate his lunch out of a tin pail, and he did seem especially irritable in October from then on, but it didn’t drive him away. I doubt he noticed anything had changed. Finally, he got offered a better paying job teaching in the city and left. As for me, I never made another bargain with a witch. As far as I can tell, it’s not worth the trouble.

About the author:

Originally from Kansas City, Missouri, James Hobbs is currently a PhD student at the university of York, studying early modern history. He writes as a hobby in between doing research.

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Of Lost Boys and Stars and Sharks and Other Impossible Things

An Acorns Flash Fiction Feature

By: Alyson Tait

From low tide of the pirate cove all the way back to our camp, me and Peter ran, ignoring everything except each other and the traps we’d set because those weren’t for us. They were for grown-ups and other beasts: bear traps, swinging nets, and hidden pits with sticks we’d spent weeks sharpening. We didn’t stop until we reached our home tree. Staccato laughter punctuated gasps of air.

Peter boosted me, my foot pushing off his hands so I could grab a branch and climb. He jumped as if he weighed nothing and beat me to the top where we lay next to each other on thick branches and planks of wood, gulping air.

When we could breathe again, he turned to me, grinning. “They thought—” The rest of his sentence vanished beneath roaring laughter.

It’s impossible to know how long we stayed there laughing, catching our breaths, and talking in half-finished sentences about the raid on the pirates. The only marker of time was the sun disappearing, and in its place, the moon arrived, bringing friends with it. A hundred thousand million stars, and those were just the visible ones.

I asked Peter how many stars he thought there were. “Not just the obvious ones. How many total in all the universe?”

He shrugged. “Who cares? Wendy, you should leave that kinda stuff to the philosophers.” He stood and climbed down the tree, whistling a tune as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

And really, he didn’t. It was the best thing about him.

He didn’t care that he’d lost when we played cards that night, numbers barely visible in the moonlight—even when I’d played the queen of hearts. He never cared. Maybe because he never got tired, injured, or lost anything of great importance.

Sometimes, I wondered if he considered me of great importance. Was I worth him getting upset about? Would he grab that play sword of his and swing it at a pirate? Or a canyon if I fell in?

I almost asked but I knew what he’d say. The same thing he always said about questions like where the other kids were, how many stars there were, or why we never grew.

Leave it to the philosophers.

I didn’t need the philosophers for that one though—I just wanted his attention.

When dawn came, he didn’t sleep. Instead, he suggested we go swimming after breakfast.

The sun was bright overhead when our toes dipped into the water. I sat on the sand, nursing a stitch that pinched at my side because we’d traveled from one end of the island to the other with no dreams in between.

“The water’s warm!” Peter sang—taunted—from chest-deep in the lagoon.

“The water’s always warm!” I yelled back.

He shook his head. I could hear his thoughts. “Stop thinking so much.”

“So swim with me,” he said instead and grinned.

There was never any arguing with him, and I didn’t want to, I liked him too much.

So I swam.

We splashed and called out for the mermaids that liked to play sometimes and ignored everything else until my arms got tired and heavy.  When I was halfway to the shore, Peter yelled. I assumed it was about me leaving his game, but something sharp scraped against my leg.

I picked up my pace.

The sharpness came again. A thin burning pain ripped across my calf from some wayward shark that’d ventured into the shallower water.

My fatigue drained away—my tiredness vanished as if it had never even been there.

Water splashed behind me, and impossibly, my aching arms pumped faster despite my lungs burning from the effort until I was safe on land.

“Peter!” I screamed, voice cracking.

I didn’t see him anywhere. Not a limb, finger, or single strand of hair.

The water went still.

I held my breath.

“Come up.” My heart thundered in my ears.

Panic came in waves. My vision went dark at the edges.

I’d escaped. Was it because the shark had feasted on Peter instead?

That meant my guide—my best friend—was gone.

A choking sob left my throat.  “What do I do?” The thought was unfinished, swept out to sea with my heart and lungs.

Only the wind moved.

“Always so many questions, Wendy,” a laughing voice said behind me.

A startled scream tore out of me before I turned.

There he was.

My chest tightened and he grinned, as if the ocean hadn’t just threatened to take us away from each other. I slapped his arm for always scaring me.

His grin widened. “Too many questions, actually. Save some for the—”

“Maybe I’m the philosopher!” I said although I wasn’t sure what it meant. Not really.

I wanted to push him back into the water so he could feel fear too.

But then Peter laughed, and just like always, the sound took all my anger away.

When he caught his breath, we ran.

I ignored the scrape in my leg, and we ran all the way from the lagoon back to our tree. We didn’t slow down, not even to take a breath or watch the beasts that ran by. We tagged each other’s shoulders anytime the other got too far ahead, and both of us jumped over hidden pits, and we veered around the traps along the way so we didn’t get hurt because injuries meant less adventures—the worst possible thing to happen on Peter’s island.

When we reached the tree again, we flopped onto the grass, Peter laughing like always while I watched the sky. Clear, blue, and endless, like the ocean had been flipped upside down above us.

How many days of careless running did we have left? I glanced over, catching him staring at me with a grin. Maybe he was right. Maybe I didn’t need all the answers if I could still run with him, and maybe I should leave all those hard questions to the grown-ups.

And so with a grin, I decided I would.

About the author:

Alyson Tait was born and raised in the Southwest USA, where she walked alongside cactuses and scorpions before moving to Maryland. She now lives among the crabs with her partner, daughter, and multiple judgmental pets. She has appeared in (mac)ro(mic), HAD, and Pseudopod. She has chapbooks published by Querencia Press, Bottlecap Press, and Fahmidan Publishing, one book forthcoming with Graveside Press, and several novellas on Amazon.

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The Last Time I Saw You

An Acorns Flash Fiction Feature

By: Jake Stein

I called him by the waterfront, where the black river reminded me what I loved about the city and hated about the world. “I’m sorry for doing… what I did,” I said, between vaping my chemicals.

(Yeah, they were the bad kind of chems, but not the really bad kind.)

“Relax about it,” Beo said over the phone—always over the phone these days. “Nothing to apologize for.” And I could hear his wolfish grin, almost see it.

Almost.

I walked through the night alongside restless waters, puffing clouds. I chose not to check the reflection of my new haircut in a passing store window. “Well, just know… I won’t ever say those magic words again.”

“Never?” Beo sounded disappointed. “It’s not bad for me, at least.”

The spotlight of a streetlamp crawled past on the sidewalk, and I gazed down at the fading “X” on my wrist—an entry stamp from the last time Beo was in town, when I went to see his karate competition. But I couldn’t stare at that “X” on my skin, couldn’t think about what it meant, or I’d start crying again. “I just hate being this far away. I miss your face, and your hair. All of your hair—”

Ahead, someone stepped out of the shadows.

“Speaking of hair,” said this big stranger, who was attempting to block my path, “I really like yours.”

First off, I’m quick. You better believe I skirted around him, no problem.

Keep walking, keep walking.

But his footsteps grew louder. He was coming after me.

“Something wrong?” asked Beo, still on the line.

“Same old crap,” I muttered, picking up my pace. A glance over my shoulder told me Mr. Creep was fully giving chase, barreling through a cloud of his own chems—which, judging by the smell, were the reallybad kind.

“Get out of there,” Beo said, but I was already running.

“Didn’t you hear me?” the creeper called after me. “I love your hair! Can’t you take a compliment?”

Inhaling my chems, I turned onto a main street and waved down a cop, but he drove past. Probably figured there was no point in wasting his time on some chemmed-out low-life.

“Hey you!” This asshole was whistling and everything. “Don’t even turn around, I love how you look when you’re running away!”

Beo was panicking in my ear. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”

I didn’t answer, too focused on escaping this lunatic. Tearing along the waterfront, through an intersection, cars honking. No matter how much I tuned out the shouting behind me, I couldn’t tune out the footsteps, getting closer…

From thousands of miles away, Beo said, “The magic words. Say the magic words!”

I knew he was right, but as I swung around a corner, I blurted, “I can’t. It hurts me.”

“Hurts?”

“I mean, to only see you for…” But I was lost now, shooting through dark alleys, the kind where people don’t exist, only echoing sounds like the sound of the creep gaining on me.

He called out, “Don’t make me hurt you!”

And yeah, that was it. I took Beo’s suggestion.

Spinning on my heels, I dragged my chems, filling every little pocket inside me with sweet vapor—and released the cloud in my pursuer’s direction. In that split-second I felt like a dragon; I felt amazing. For once.

Before he even knew what hit him—or should I say, who—I spoke the words. The incantation I’d stumbled upon; the spell which was, I hoped, about to save my life.

The voice which fell from my lips was not my own, but the voice of a thousand sorrows, the not-sound before a car crash.

“I don’t want to call you my ex.”

For a second, reality refused to break. My cloud merely floated past my assailant, dissipating around him. No spell.

Backpedaling, I found myself up against a wall. This alley was a dead-end.

The big guy was close enough that I could smell his wheezing dumpster-breath. He had that chemmed-out look of a festered turd with raggy skin, and his bloodshot eyes were crawling all over me. “Don’t wanna call me your ex, huh? That’s skipping a few steps. I haven’t even told you I love you yet…” But he trailed off, glancing over his shoulder.

My exhaled cloud was reappearing, expanding to fill the alley like fog. From those vapors a shape emerged, taking humanoid form. The eyes appeared first, yellow and leering. Then came the snout, the ears, the whiskers. The lean-muscular body covered in hair. He was standing on two legs, tail whipping angrily, drool hanging from snarling lips. He looked even more like a monster than usual.

My monster.

“What the—” And that’s all this creep could say, as Beo emerged from the mist.

I don’t think it would have taken more than two punches, but Beo gave him three. Beo, the wolfman I’d met in a different city where we both used to live. The black belt who’d been waiting for this moment his entire life.

I didn’t blame him for taking the third swing.

It was enough to send the creep off with a limp and a trail of blood. Darkness swallowed him, and in that instant it was like he’d never existed. A passing shadow of a night which could have gone so much worse… a night which would probably never leave me. But I would pretend—until arriving home, locking the door behind me, and stepping into a hot shower—that this attack had been nothing more than a nightmare, no more real than this version of Beo standing before me.

Beo’s mist-copy turned and smiled, massaging his fist. “Funny, it stings like I’m actually there.”

“Thank you,” I managed, and that was all. My throat knotted with tears. Looking at the doppelganger of my boyfriend was like poking a raw wound inside me.

Always hurts to see someone you love when you know they’re about to disappear.

Indeed, Beo’s cloud was already beginning to fade. It never lasted long. “Hey, don’t cry,” he said, even as he evaporated. “I’m gonna call you right back, okay? This won’t be the last time I see you.” And his vicarious presence wrapped his arms around me.

But I felt no embrace, only condensation.

“I do these chemicals to fill the space between us,” I said suddenly, shocked by the truth of it.

“We are too far away, I agree.” His voice was becoming quieter, quieter. “But I can’t afford to move out there, and with your mom, you can’t come out here…” And the cloud finally dispersed, those last wet tendrils of my breath-spell slinking away.

Eventually I found the river again and followed it. Beneath a streetlamp I studied my hand, trying to find the “X.” But the ink seemed to have completely faded now, like my chem vapors had washed the stamp away.

Beo called me, but I didn’t answer. I was thinking about how he hadn’t mentioned my haircut. Maybe hadn’t noticed.

I took another hit of my chemicals, the bad kind, and kept walking.

About the author:

Jake Stein’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Lightspeed Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and Aurealis.

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The Orange Tree

A single orange hanging in a tree

An Acorns Flash Fiction Feature

By: Luc Diamant

Yes, child, here. Yes, I know what I have taught you. No, you need not worry. This place is different. Why? I do not think I can answer that. But I can tell you how it came to be so. It started with the sprouting of an orange tree.

***

No one knew where it came from. Oranges are not native to this region, not with the summer rains and the winter snow. What’s more, that year, no oranges had been imported to the region due to a trade embargo caused by the latest war. All the same, there it was, a tiny sprout outside the house where the girl with the deep brown eyes lived.

When the villagers asked, she said she did not remember planting it. She was not in the habit of planting, preferring to let her garden grow as it would, only maintaining the paths she needed to get around.

No one in the village remembered having had an orange seed, either. Even the boy who always lied was clearly telling the truth; his denial was not vehement but confused.

And who would lie about it? The villagers would not have punished a person for idly burying an orange seed. They would simply have been relieved to have an explanation. But no one remembered being in possession of an orange seed, much less planting it, and so the tree remained unexplained.

This did not bother the villagers too much. It was spring, and strange things sometimes grow in spring. The tiny sprout of citrus would live through the summer if it was lucky, then freeze to death in the winter, along with the herbs and the wasps and the villagers’ hopes of the war ending the next year.

***

But the tree did not die. Deep snow covered the village, and when it melted, the orange tree was still there, right among the snowdrops.

The girl with the deep brown eyes did not seem surprised by this—but then she rarely seemed surprised by anything. The villagers did not act surprised either, though they were. It must have been a fluke, they concluded. The winter had been somewhat less harsh than usual, come to think of it. Next year, when the real cold came, the tree would surely perish.

But the real cold came and went, and the tiny tree remained. And grew. And by the third year, the villagers no longer expected the orange tree to die. Some decided that it was not so strange, after all—that perhaps orange trees were hardier than they are generally given credit for. Others suspected that there was something unusual about this particular tree, but they mostly kept these thoughts to themselves.

***

Either way, the tree did not bear fruit, even after three more years, and the villagers all agreed that this was bad. The trade embargo held, and if an orange tree was going to grow here against all sense, this should at least result in oranges. Now, the villagers whispered, it was just a useless, discordant thing at best, a painful reminder of all the war had taken from them at worst.

They told the girl to cut it down, but she shook her head. The villagers tried to argue. The tree looked out of place, they said; it was the wrong shade of green compared to the other things that grew there. The tree grew too slowly. The tree was in an inconvenient spot, so that she had to reroute her small garden path. Surely, the villagers reasoned, she would be happier without it.

But the girl with the deep brown eyes shook her head, and the tree was on her property, so that was that.

***

That was that, until another three years later, when the tree—still small, but no longer tiny—grew a single orange. The villagers did not believe it at first, but as the fruit grew, there was no denying it: the orange tree was growing an orange. It was not the size of the oranges the villagers remembered from before the war. It was not even the size of a plum. It was, in fact, barely bigger than a grape. But it was an orange nonetheless.

Those who had previously whispered that there was something unusual about the tree now began to murmur it. This orange, small as it was, might well have special properties. The tree’s appearance and its subsequent refusal to die had been odd, but this was beyond strange. No, the villagers speculated, this was no ordinary fruit.

***

One day, some of these villagers went to the girl’s house to try and buy the orange. They offered good money for it, more than one could reasonably hope to sell a single citrus fruit the size of a grape for. More, frankly, than they could afford to buy a single citrus fruit the size of a grape for. But the girl with the deep brown eyes shook her head, and the tree was on her property, so the villagers slunk away.

The other villagers, upon hearing this, wondered. Many had been skeptical about the orange’s alleged properties, but this lent credence to the theory. After all, why would anyone turn down good money for an ordinary piece of fruit, in times like these no less? No, the orange must be special after all.

***

More villagers went to the girl’s house to offer more money. Each time, the offer increased, and each time, the girl refused. And the more money she refused, the more convinced the villagers became that the orange must be magical.

One by one they came to make offers, and to demand an explanation when their offers were refused. What powers did this orange possess, that the girl must keep it at all costs? And why was she hoarding the secret of this magic? Before long, the entire village was gathered around the girl and her orange tree.

***

The girl with the deep brown eyes looked around, sighed, then reached out and plucked the tiny orange from the tree. As the villagers watched breathlessly, she peeled it with delicate fingers, revealing the flesh of the fruit within. She held the small orange up to the crowd before putting it in her mouth and swallowing it whole.

Instantly, her eyes widened. Her breathing grew ragged. The villagers saw her hands reach up to her throat, but none dared to move until she fell to the ground. By the time someone rushed forward, the life had already left her deep brown eyes.

Among the villagers, the conclusion spread first as a whisper and then like wildfire: The orange tree was not just magical, it possessed the strongest kind of dark magic. Its own defiance of death would come at the cost of the life of whoever dared to come near it. This turned from theory to truth in moments. If anyone suggested that the girl with the deep brown eyes might have simply choked on a seed, no one heard.

***

The girl with the deep brown eyes was buried under the orange tree—or as close to it as the villagers dared dig. In the year that followed, the tree seemed to grow much faster than before. And the next summer, it grew not one but three small oranges. In another three years, thirty mid-sized oranges. Another three years and the oranges were too big and too many to count from the distance the villagers kept from the tree, and more tiny orange trees were starting to spring up. Over time, what had been the property of the girl with the deep brown eyes became an orange grove that to this day none of the humans dare touch. Even in the final years of the war, those faced with the choice chose starvation over the oranges.

***

And this is why we have come here, my child, so close to a human settlement. You are quite right: Normally this would be far too risky. You have learned very well how we only eat the fruit that grows in the very depths of the woods where the humans do not venture—or if a single one does get lost there now and then, who is to believe their tales when they come back? But this, my love, is the exception. The humans in this village are more afraid of this orange grove than of what lurks in any forest. They would not enter it for the world. And if they hear our laughter or catch a glimpse of the fluttering of our wings, well, it will only convince them further that this place is not for them. In fact, in a hundred years or so, when you are grown, there may not be a village here at all. Look: Already the orange grove has taken over some of the houses. And its fruit—why, it is the sweetest you will taste in all your life.

About the author:

Luc Diamant is a Pushcart-nominated writer from Amsterdam, where he lives with his partner and child and their imaginary pets. By day, he teaches Dutch as a second language. His writing has appeared in Small Wonders, Canthius, and Clarkesworld, among others. When not writing, he enjoys spending time with his family, watching the plants on his balcony grow, and thinking about lemurs. You can find him on social media @lucdaniel94.

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For the Love of a Bookstore

Books on a shelf in a bookstore

I feel most at home when I’m surrounded by books. Add in a fluffy dog and a warm beverage and I may never leave. Buildings filled with books where you can get lost for hours in the stacks are these beautiful liminal spaces where I both lose and find myself. After all, writers are just readers with a story to tell.

Mostly when I think of places like that, it’s a library that comes to mind. But as much as I love libraries, this post is about bookstores. Sometimes you just need to own a book. Or ten. Or endless shelves of them with one of those ladders that rolls along the shelves. Wait, maybe this post is actually about how to use bookstores to make your own library… No, no. Back on track.

Bookstores. Not all categories of them are built the same. There’s those Big Box Chains, flavorless as a rice cake, and the massive Online Retailer That Shall Not Be Named that’s not technically just a bookstore, but it started as one. It’s a place where lots and lots of people buy their books, and I get it. They may not have character, but they’re convenient, and I’m just as guilty of using them in a pinch as anyone is. Convenience aside though, they cannot rival the feeling of a small, independent bookshop.

These indie stores have moxie. They have vibes for days. Every one that I’ve been in has its own pulse—a reflection of the store’s owner, its customers, and its community. They aren’t meant to be a convenient way to impulse-buy the latest Colleen Hoover while you’re multitasking six other things. Independent bookstores are an experience.

These are places that not only sell books, but they curate them. Indie bookstores provide a more personalized shopping experience than any big box store or online retailer ever could. Every time I go in one of these stores, it’s so easy to spot either the owner or an employee who is willing and eager to talk books with enthusiasm. These stores serve as gathering places—they host book clubs, they hold author signings, and they serve as a hub for various local interests. They can be the epicenter for community activism or education. They, in turn, support local authors and artists and can help you discover stories an algorithm would never suggest, because they aren’t mining your data. They’re run by people who connect with you through conversation and community.

And have I mentioned the vibes? Some are moody and mysterious. Some are bright and cheerful. Others are cozy and comforting. Some have wide open spaces between shelves that set you off on an adventure and others feel like you’re combing through a vintage estate teeming with treasures waiting to be discovered.

If you love books (and if you’re here reading this, I’m guessing you do) I can’t recommend enough that you become a regular at one of these incredible places. Giant retailers aren’t going to notice if you bought the latest bestseller from them, but an indie bookstore certainly will. Money spent in these stores stays in your community. If you value convenience over vibes, no shame there. I multitask too. Did you know that you can buy books with convenience online through bookshop.org and choose which indie bookstore you want to support?

If you’re in the same corner of the world as me, check out the independent bookstores I’ve linked below. They’re locally owned, and each one brings a unique personality to book selling that I really enjoy. And as a bonus, they stock our books! Do you have  your own favorite indie bookseller? Comment below and tell us about them!

The Raven’s End: Books and Fine Art
Sparrow Books
Tattered Corners New & Used Bookstore
Fulmer House Books and Collectibles

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Yellowing

An Acorns Flash Fiction Feature

by: Amanda Pica

              Mabel wished the window would open farther, to let in a better breeze. She tapped her fingers along her collarbone, feeling for the fabric there that stifled her skin, but when she found nothing to tug on, she let her arm fall back into her lap.

            Evening light cut a line across the floor tile and bathed Cliff in marigold and amber. Mabel wished to embrace him. Wished for his arms to circle her waist again, carefree and weightless like those after-school days in the apple grove. She’d been slight and wispy, and he’d hoist her up with such ease she’d swear for a split second she’d taken flight. Mabel’s frame had filled itself out over the years, first through her baking skills and then through menopause, but had once again become slight. Had ground the life out of itself. Had once again become wispy, but this time, without the sun-kissed strength of youth.

            A single butterfly squeezed into the room through the small gap where the window should have met the sill. It fluttered around Mabel’s face, patterns of lemon and butter laced with black webbing, and she giggled, then rubbed her nose where its wings had tickled her.

            “She’s a sweetheart, isn’t she?” said the butterfly.

            “That’s my Mabel.” Cliff patted her knee and she turned her face to him to warm herself in his glow.

            The butterfly flapped, a papery sound followed by scratching. Mabel tilted her head but didn’t follow the sound.

            “Can she bathe herself, Cliff?”

            More scratching. Mabel furrowed her brow and let the smile on her face dip before pulling it back up. Inquisitive little insect. Cliff’s voice rumbled on in his beautiful butterscotch baritone, overlayed by a slight waver that had started a few years ago. She wished to talk to him about how some things should remain private, between a husband and a wife.

“How about toileting? Can she do that on her own?”

Mabel blinked a few times. Such an intrusive insect. The evening light shifted and the bright splotches on the butterfly’s wings shifted too, morphed with the light until they shimmered. Translucent now. Elongated.

            Mabel froze, not that she’d been moving much before. The warmth of the evening sun had tricked her. The 5 o’clock angle had been wrong, wrong, wrong. 6 o’clock. That was the time of fact. Even more? 6:30. Once the sunline had crossed to the opposite wall, that was when the canary sun sang its truth. That had been no butterfly. All this time, flitting about their room, masquerading in a beauty that didn’t belong to it. It was a mosquito, with too many skinny lines and not enough color, and a proboscis the size of a garden hose. Two drinks and Mabel would dry up into one of those mummies Cliff had taken her to see in Chicago.

            Sandpaper raked up the inside of Mabel’s throat and a dreadful noise filled the room. The mosquito in butterfly’s clothing focused its horrible eyes on her. Lens after lens after lens, layered like fish scales, glimmered a sickened chartreuse with the setting sun. 

            “Is this the beginning of one, Cliff?” asked the wretched mosquito.

            The beginning of what?! Swat it, Cliff! Swat it before it bites!

            The words stuck tight. Mabel shoved at those stone monoliths in her brain but they refused to slide toward her mouth where she could speak them. Instead, they slipped toward the ever-growing drain hole in her mind, where thoughts got eaten up and never came back. She threw herself at the immoveable words and her body trembled in response. The horrid noise infected the air, filled all the cracks and footholds between her and Cliff and left nowhere for her to grab on. She couldn’t get to him. Mabel flung her head back in a desperate try at dislodging the stubborn words, and when her head struck the back of the chair, golden sparks shot across her vision.

Cliff stood next to her now, one hand pressed to an ear and the other, somewhere else.

Where?

            Missing. Missing.

Cliff’s arm was gone, melted into nothing, digesting in mosquito bile. Mabel twisted in her chair and her arms flapped up and down, left, right, left again. She had never been good at swatting insects. Cliff would laugh at her unseemly pliés and leaps, rolled newspaper in hand, until he’d finally take it from her and with one whack, splat the offending bug into a jaundiced smear of guts.

            Her breath came in bursts and her own hands flitted about her head, sometimes bouncing off her own cheeks. How could he save her this time? One hand wasn’t enough. A newspaper wouldn’t be enough.

            The mosquito flew close and Mabel struck out, missing it like always, the clumsy ballerina who never hit her mark. And then, through the screeching noise, something else.

            Something doleful and sweet, a bite of mango sorbet that soothed her aching throat.

            “…you make me happy, when skies are grey. You never know, dear, how much I love you…”

            Cliff’s lovely voice didn’t waver, not even once through the song. He’d taken his hand off his ear and tugged her saffron dress back down over her knee. The terrible noise faded and when she felt Cliff’s other hand on her back, the screeching cut off entirely. He rubbed her spine with a light touch, just enough to know he was there. His arm was there. A miraculous touch, as he’d reattached it. He’d saved it. Saved them. Her Cliff could move mountains.

            “…please don’t take my sunshine away.” Cliff’s voice hitched on the last phrase of her little song and Mabel smiled at him. A breeze outside blew through the black-eyed susans that covered the trellis just off the window, and with it, the mosquito had blown away.

            Cliff met her eyes and her thoughts pooled together into a pot of warm honey.

“I love you, my dear. With all my heart. Excuse me for a moment? I need to attend to something, but I’ll be just outside the door.”

            Mabel smiled at Cliff, and wished to say she loved him too, just as she had in the apple grove that first time, when the words had brought lightning with them. She turned her head again to the window, where the buttercups danced in the grass. Someone spoke outside the room, but the muffled words wove into straw and cornsilk and caught themselves in the doorway.

            “I think she’ll be content with us, Cliff. We can manage her care, and she’ll grow to know our facility as home.”

            “I’ll miss her.”

            “Of course you will. You’re welcome to visit as often and for as long as you want.”

            Cliff’s voice wavered, in bigger swoops than before. “Could I paint her room yellow? It’s always been her favorite, after all.”

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Short(b)Reads: Fiction plus Food

Remember reading the back of the cereal box as a kid? By the time we were almost finished with a box, I’d be desperate enough to read the ingredients, just for some new content. 

*squints* Tri-sodium-phos-phate. Red dye #40. 

As I type out possibly fake cereal ingredients, I’m wondering why I never brought a book with me to breakfast. How did that never occur to me? Add this to my list of things I’ll tell my past self when I invent that time machine.

Anyway, I could go on and on about my common-sense shortcomings from childhood. I’ll save that for therapy and move into my announcement: The newest book from Hollow Oak! 

Coming this September is our new anthology of speculative short fiction, Short(b)Reads. Each deliciously entertaining story features food so enticing, we’ve brought it to life. Every tale was paired with a chef, cook, or baker who developed a recipe for what you’ll read—making this fictional food a reality.

Your job, reader, is to create the food. Teamwork.

You’ll find a forbidden ground beef burger that’s out of this world, savory green onion pancakes shared with love and longing, and a darkly sweet coffee cake woven from the magic of generations.

Follow the recipe (or trick a neighbor into cooking it for you—creativity takes many forms) and then eat your masterpiece while reading the story. Or enjoy it afterward, while reflecting on the story. Know other people who enjoy short fiction and delectable cuisine? Have yourselves a book club feast. It’s a little bit of dinner entertainment with a side of immersive experience.

I promise it’ll be much more entertaining than the fine print on a cereal box.

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Pride and Exuberance

Vendor table under a black tent with rainbow decorations on the sides in a park surrounded by trees

Yesterday I had the absolute joy of being a vendor at our local community Pride event.

All day, a steady stream of people came by my booth. We chatted about books, both as readers and as writers. We talked in excited tones about our favorite thrillers, we laughed about our unwieldy TBRs, and we discussed how isolating writing can be. It was a long, physically taxing day, and I loved every single second of it.

The day was hot, the park venue was muddy, and there were more bugs per square inch of air than I’ve seen in a while. Not one person among the hundreds I saw and spoke with seemed to care, though—me included. We came together in a place of safety and love, where everyone was free to be who they are and express themselves in the ways that felt natural. We accepted each other without question. We were—and are—a community.

As the world around us gets harder to navigate and as we find ways to weather the storms stoked by others, community is more important now than ever. The nature of what we do is isolative—we write alone. We read alone. And sure, we enjoy those things. But no matter how introverted we may be, belonging is an essential human need. Community helps insulate us from the ills of the world.

Reach out, friends. Join a writing group (if you’re local to me, I run one! Shameless plug: ask me about it). Frequent your local library and be among like-minded folks. If you’re already part of these things, invite others to join. Whatever it is you do, find your community and stick together. I know it can be scary to meet new people and be vulnerable enough to reach out, but we’re out there and we’re welcoming, and we can find each other if we’re all willing to look.

Friends, we need each other.