Author Archives: (Not actually a Lady) Ruthless

It was three moons ago the kelpie had me, and he will not yet take me back. They had all warned me from such beasts, the women of our village, vowing my hands would stick to its watery back and condemn me to drown for the dream of touching so beautiful and treacherous a thing.Continue reading “The Kelpie’s Wife”

I shouldn’t have gone home that night.The party would have trailed on for at least another three hours; drinks were still flowing copiously, and as I attempted an Irish exit through the front door half a dozen hands caught me in an attempt to coax me back into their raucous company, all present red-faced withContinue reading “The Deep”

Myrtle had been strange since she’d gone to live in the bog lands, all the villagers said so. They themselves had long learned to avoid those waters, whose miles wore death and weirdness like a shining coat on their backs. It was thought an Old God resided there, or else it was the bog itselfContinue reading “Shinny O’ The Bog”

“You wanna hear how I know there’s something after you die?” I didn’t. It was the night after our best friend’s funeral. Anna Tavera. Car flipped on a wet road. Dead instantly, age twenty nine. That was the news report, and forever how I’ll remember it. The service was nice, but the wake was better,Continue reading “After The Wake”

“Let us in,” said the children. “We are cold, and hungry. Let us in.” They knocked their fists against the window panes, the doors, the walls, scratching with brittle fingernails until they splintered like wafer on the brick. Still the old woman left them to endure the elements, drawing the bolt fast across the frontContinue reading “HOUSE EATERS”

“You must take my brother,” said the girl, to the old woman. “I will leave, after, if you like. But you must take him from me.” The young woman and the ancient one sat at opposite ends of the hearth, watching one another through the yellow darkness. The fire smelled sweetly of sugar and cinnamon,Continue reading “HANSEL”

The chrysalis hung as Thomas had left it, quiet and unmoving in the humid darkness of the basement. The room had been a wine cellar back when the farm was still up and running, and on warm days it still smelled thinly of fermented apples, the ghosts of enterprise past. Now the weather was turningContinue reading “THE LEPIDOPTERIST”

The day Laney discovered the ouija board in the attic was the first and last time she would ever play with it. It wasn’t even a board at all, precisely, merely a grid of letters chalked beneath a flap of loose carpet. A floating ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ sprung in an arch over the configuration, eachContinue reading “THE BOARD IN THE ATTIC”

The sun bled, eviscerated, across the skyline as the Crone climbed the mountain to visit the Storyteller. Skulls on fraying strings of rags swept the ground in her wake, and at the cave mouth the clansfolk awaited her like crows come after the dead. The old woman paid them no mind. They all knew ofContinue reading “Dark Spirit”