Two new pieces of fantasy flash fiction for you now on our new-look Grievous Angel zine. Both stories – Four Christmas Miracles by Rachel Rodman and The Longest Night by Gerri Leen – have an appropriately seasonal feel to them. (Although who knew the Trojan Horse had a festive dimension!) And, please spare a thought for our authors who have had to wait months from acceptance until the Holidays Season came around and we finally published their tales.


Four Christmas Miracles
by Rachel Rodman

1. Three wise men, copulating in the straw, father a thrice-wise child. They dress him in gold, anoint him with myrrh, then remodel his forehead, using scraps borrowed from Frankenstein's monster. Later, taking the name of Ramses, the boy will singlehandedly construct the City of Rome, while passionately declaring, “Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite!”

2. A snowman, brought to life by action of magic top hat, passes unharmed through the Magic Fire. Then, he claims his Valkyrie bride, who sleeps on the top of the mountain. In consummating their union, he begets twins upon her: one, an extraordinary deaf-blind girl, whom an astonished world will afterwards call Helen Keller; the other, a philanthropic boy, fixated on fruit, who will take the name Johnny Appleseed.

3. A wealthy miser is visited by a series of ghosts. The first, the scarecrow, forces him to revisit his agrarian childhood, and the trauma of the Irish potato famine. The second, the tinman, confronts him with the evils of the Industrial Revolution, which occupy his present. The third, the lion, warns him of a disturbing future, in which genetic manipulation has so blurred the distinctions between humanity and other life that animals can talk and men assimilate their nutrients via root-like limbs, extended into the soil.

4. A woman cuts her hair in order to purchase a watch chain. Her lover sells his watch to purchase a set of hair combs. “How tragic!” they cry. Then, with a coordinated heave, they cast their useless gifts into the embers. The action produces a massive fireball, which whooshes up the chimney. In the blaze of it, the Big Bad Wolf is incinerated, together with the One Ring of Sauron, and Odysseus' Trojan horse. A contingent of Greek soldiers, badly burned, tumble onto the grate, yodeling like sugarplum fairies.


* Rachel Rodman writes weird fiction and equally non-fiction. You can read more at http://rachelrodman.com


The Longest Night
by Gerri Leen

He can feel it. The moment the old god dies – the longest night of the year.
Staring into the darkness of the cave, he fingers the handle of his athame. The darkness mimics the gray murkiness that’s dogged his life ever since the summer solstice.

He lost his wife on the longest day.  

“I’m here,” he thinks he hears the wind breathe. It’s a chill wind – he should have worn his heavier cloak, should have drunk his wife’s chamomile tea to keep the fasting from making him dizzy.  

He’s lost without her. He fails as surely as crops do with no sunshine to make them grow. His magic withers, his tinctures lack potency, and even her old cat hisses and bites him.

He wonders how long before the people search for a wise one who is not so broken.  

The moments pass. The ritual is done and he’s been lost in thoughts of things long gone rather than what is to come. He quickly says the closing words –what he does is for everyone so he must pay attention. 

The athame pulses in his hand as if it’s a living thing.  One quick thrust with the blade and he could be with her.

He puts the athame on the altar and moves by memory around the block of stone. He’ll gather up his things later, when death by his own hand does not seem so tempting.

Outside, a half moon shines. He’s hungry but lacks the will to eat. He will go to bed and if the gods are kind, he won’t wake up, but lately the gods seem far from kind.

As he trudges home in the cold, he hears a soft cry, a mewling sound ahead of him. Just off the path, he finds a kitten, small and dark, shivering as it wanders. He picks it up, feels it burrow into his neck, and lets it crawl under his robe. He grimaces as the kitten kneads his skin with its needle-like claws.  

But then he smiles as the sound of its purr vibrates into his skull.

He’s never had a familiar of his own. He never needed one. He had his wife.

Peeking under his robe, he asks, “Are you for me?”

He barely makes out the kitten’s eyes, but the purr gets louder.

He hurries home and puts the kitten on the chair next to his wife’s cat, who hisses at him then at the newcomer, then turns and faces the other way and goes back to sleep.

He realizes the kitten must be hungry, and probably the cat is too, although it would be beneath her dignity to ask him for food. He finds some bread and cheese and takes them over to the chair and shares the cheese with them.

The cat only bites him once. The kitten eats happily.  

He forgets to think about his wife for a moment or two.

It’s a start.


* Gerri Leen lives in Northern Virginia and originally hails from Seattle. She has work appearing or accepted by: Nature (Futures), Flame Tree Press’s Murder Mayhem anthology, Daily Science Fiction, Escape Pod, Grimdark, and others. She recently got the editing bug and is finalizing her third anthology for an independent press. See more at http://www.gerrileen.com

It's the shortest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and, as we head into a long dark night, we've a selection of new poetry for you from Beth Cato and Lauren McBride, who've both previously appeared in the Angel...


At the Very Least
by Beth Cato

at the school for witches
every teacher
every textbook
echoed that there was no such thing
as a love potion
or any kind of spell
to change the heart
of the unwilling
yet Ava tried

the other girls teased
teachers rolled their eyes
as she unearthed musty tomes
from the library basement
shivered the dust
from fairy wings
for her spellwork
practiced her Latin
to memorization

when the spells failed
she turned to yellowed photo albums
old family cookbooks
diaries
happy memories of bygone eras

anything, everything
to make her parents
fall in love again

or at the very least

pause hating each other long enough
to remember their love for her 


* Beth Cato is the author of The Clockwork Dagger steampunk fantasy series from Harper Voyager. Her website is www.BethCato.com



By Lauren McBride

​
Supernova

for supernova
expeditions
critical to
correctly calculate
minimum safe distance


Hiking the Abandoned Road
 
The sound was like R2D2
or a meadowlark
back on Earth –
 
this alien bird
sipping alien flowers
in a truly foreign land


They Left
 
Their machines
carefully abandoned
 
in ordered rows
as if they meant
 
to come back
for them.
 
Frozen now
to the ground
 
with the death
of their sun.


He Said, It Said
 
"I gaze into your eyes,
expecting no love         
from wires and circuit boards"
 
//each time I see you,
my circuits light up
like neurons//


* Lauren McBride finds inspiration in faith, nature and science. She shares a love of laughter and the ocean with her husband and two grown children.

Two new short flash fiction stories now, both darkly humorous, starting with Greg Beatty on how science fiction can make us human – except when it doesn't! Followed by Carl Jennings on a Faustian pact that didn't turn out quite as expected.


Science Fiction Makes Us Human
by Greg Beatty
 
She was stunning. He was young, and male, and so he postured, as young males of many species do. He tried to get her attention, talking about his interests, hoping they’d draw her closer.

He expounded on money and fitness without response. He moved on to futurism, launching into a summary of something he’d recently read. “—and I’m telling you, science fiction makes us human. The act of imagining ourselves forward into the future is essential to species self-identity.”
           
She leaned in and said. “I don’t like science fiction.”
           
It was a warning and a rejection, but since she had leaned in, he read it as encouragement. “What’s your genre? Romance?”            

She walked away. “Romance enables desire. Romance makes us…animals.”
           
Hooked, he was followed her out the closing door into the alley. Where she was drawing a large and gleaming knife. “Now, horror – horror makes us divine.”


* Greg Beatty lives in Belligham (Washington) with his wife, and a dog called Drake.When not writing, he teaches college online, and does some freelance writing, and walk my dog Drake. He says his main hobby is martial arts, so he should be safe if he ever encounters a woman with a large and gleaming knife! you can find more at http://www.greg-beatty.com/


Faustian Sweets
by Carl R. Jennings
    
The young boy stamped his foot petulantly on the linoleum floor, the resulting draft from his flapping, fuzzy black bathrobe causing the cinnamon apple scented candles flicker.

“But why, demon?” he demanded, his voice cracking with frustration and the first overtures of puberty.

“Look,” said the demon’s head. His tone was one of patient explanation. “I know you put a lot of thought and effort into this but it just can’t work out.”

“I summoned you didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did. And you got really far for a kid, but there are some elements about this that are seriously wrong.”

The young boy now had a mingled look of indignation and worry, but he crossed his arms and glared defiantly at the floating head surrounded by ferociously blue flames, all the same. “But why?” he said again. The demon continued.

“Okay, first, it’s the setting,” the demon said, not unkindly, “A kitchen isn’t the place for this sort of thing. It should be a darkened study, its walls lined with books of the occult and grimoires that have lived infernal lives of their own. And look at this chalice you put me in. Is it made of plastic? Did you get it from a Halloween party supply store? Also, it’s sticky and smells like soda. There should be a certain ceremony about this kind of thing, you know.”

The young boy looked down at his feet but still spoke defiantly, even if the defiance was beginning to wane. “Well, I can only do so much.”

“I know,” said the demon, sympathetically. If it had arms it would have patted the young boy kindly on the shoulder. “And that’s the other point: You’re just a kid. How would it look if I gave unlimited knowledge of all things to a child? I mean, I’d be laughed out of Pandemonium! Learned, long bearded sages are supposed to do this sort of thing. It makes it all the sweeter when their arrogance causes their downfall because of their hubris and my clever misleading. Doing that to someone like you wouldn’t be sporting at all, or anything to brag about.”

​The young boy’s shoulders slumped. He looked so miserable that the demon felt compelled to cheer him up a bit.

“Hey, don’t look so down,” he said. His voice became bright and chipper. “How about this? How about I fill this... cup with some sweets after I leave? Would you like that?”

The young boy looked up, hopefully. “You will?” he said.

​“You bet! All the way to the top ‘til it overflows!”

“Will they be powerful, demonic sweets formed in the bowels of Hell itself?”

“No,” said the demon, “they’ll be sugary sweets. From the shops.”

“Oh,” said the boy, his shoulders slumping once again.


* Carl R. Jennings is an author, a self-described International Man of Misery. His stories are dark and depressing, overflowing with black humor and horror. He adds that by day he is a thickly Russian accented bartender in Southwestern Virginia. More at https://www.facebook.com/carlrjennings.author/

Three new ​poems for you today from three new (to us) poets and all having a distinctly urban fantasy flavour. Our contributors are Amy Grech, Gillian Daniels, and Liu Chengyu.


Machine Gun/Latté
by Amy Grech

Poised and ready, 
a tall, lean 
National Guard 
Soldier, dressed in 
full camouflage regalia,  
stands at attention 
on the main concourse
of Penn Station in 
New York City.

In his right hand
he clutches a latté, frothy and warm, 
in a white 
Starbucks cup.

His left hand 
hovers above
a machine gun,  
slung over his shoulder,
cold and commanding, 
sleek and menacing.

His trigger finger twitches, 
roused by a jolt of caffeine.
Fuel for the fight.


* Amy Grech has sold over 100 stories to various anthologies and magazines including Apex Magazine,  Dead Harvest, Detectives of the Fantastic, Fright Mare,  and many others. New Pulp Press recently published her book of noir stories: Rage and Redemption in Alphabet City. Amy is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association. Visit her at her website http://www.crimsonscreams.com and also follow her at https://twitter.com/amy_grech

​
Tourists of the Undead
by Gillian Daniels

In Paris, we walk catacombs edged with skeletons
from graveyards that overflowed,
the smell curdling milk in the old market.
Now here are plague victims
and merchants who traded in salt and ivory,
teeth all picked out in acid orange light.
Here’s a drum of femurs.
My friend’s guidebook says they have had masses here
to remind congregations of their mortality
and once a chamber orchestra on a dark, Victorian whim,
but these bones are quiet.

On the street, there are map vendors for Père Lachaise
where the case around Oscar Wilde’s gravestone is marked with kisses.

In Golan Heights, 
a continent away in a hot Israeli summer,
we look over at Syria from the top of Mount Bental.
“They have been at civil war since 2011,” says our guide.
“It happened to Egypt recently. It’s just how things are here.
At night, you can hear explosions.”

On the top of the mountain, it’s loud.
A group of IDF soldiers take photos.
Ukranians pose with over-large signs, 
“This way Jerusalem,” “That way Damascus.”
Smiling tourists, bright lips,
teeth all picked out by sunlight.


* Since attending Clarion UCSD in 2011, Gillian Daniels' poetry has appeared in Apex Magazine, Strange Horizons, and Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, among others. You can find her at http://www.gilliandaniels.com and https://twitter.com/gilldaniels


A Neatly Folded Napkin
by Liu Chengyu

In my basement, there is
an obsidian box in the trash can
never opened, never taken out.

Today, I look through the keyhole. There is
a neatly folded napkin inside it, gracefully sitting,
glossy black, quiet. I feel the blue fragrance
and sound of drifting leaves, wood pieces,
floating petals on a waterfall, so far away
devil-may-care.

“Take me to Miss Tanpatsuke.” it requests.
“A polite girl with bright eyes, scarlet irises
and long black hair to her waist.”

With its magical oath
the Snow Land melts, the Water Land dries,
the Sunny Land covered, the Rainy Land embraces
sunshine again, and we finally stand

in front of a deserted palace,
where a Medusa is strangled by red elf vines.
Her lichen-covered mailbox says
“Miss Tanpatsuko.”

“This is not her home...” the napkin sighs.
I think for a while and take out my marker,
change the 'o' to 'e'
“No, this is.” I open the gate and walk in.

“You should come with me,
a girl's name will not be forgotten,
neither is a neatly folded napkin.”


* Liu Chengyu came from China six years ago and is currently living in San Diego. He says he loves poetry and doing research on biomolecules.