The Best of Beneath Ceaseless Skies Online Magazine, Year Three by Richard Parks & Steve Rasnic Tem & Genevieve Valentine

Author:Richard Parks & Steve Rasnic Tem & Genevieve Valentine [Parks, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Firkin Press
Published: 2012-09-10T00:00:00+00:00

J. Kathleen Cheney is a former teacher and has taught mathematics ranging from 7th grade to Calculus. Her works have been published in Fantasy Magazine, The Best of Jim Baen’s Universe 2, Writers of the Future XXIV, and previously in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Her website can be found at www.jkathleencheney.com.

GONE SLEEPING

Heather Clitheroe

PEOPLE LIKED TO SAY that Messir Wong was not quite as wide as he was tall, but when he rode his donkey down to market in his red coat, it sometimes looked as though a great apple was perched atop it, and it made me laugh.

From a distance, at least. He came to the market regular-like, but he always stopped at my house where my mama sold him the meat pies baked in yellow pastry just the way he liked them. She always gave him a discount, of course, because Messir Wong was an alchemist and she said it paid to be on friendly terms—in case somebody got ague or my uncle had another attack of gout. I heard it said he was a witch, too, but I’d had a good look at his hands when my mama handed him a packet of twelve meat pies—he had a good appetite, he said—and I didn’t see any backwards thumbs. Everybody knows witches have those. Even my mama said so.

The last witch we had on the island was a hundred years ago—maybe more, because nobody ever talked about it if they could help it—and that witch was burned in the town square, outside the mayor’s house. No grass grows on that spot now, only red moss, and nobody walks on it, because magics can do bad things if they touch you. So it’s good not to do witch things, Messir Wong says, because even just wanting to do ‘em is bad enough, even if nothing ever happens from the wanting.

Today the sky was dark and thick and the air hung heavy with the fog that rolled in off the sea, and I didn’t see him until he was just at the edge of the porch, his donkey peering up at me with its brown eyes.

“Messir Wong!” I yelped. He gave me such a start. I hadn’t been wanting to do nothing, but he always looked at me like maybe he thought I was thinking in my head about witching things.

“Ai,” he said. “All the fog and the rain. It’s soaking into my bones. Amina, is your mother ready for me?”

“No,” I said. My mama was inside, fanning the coals so the meat pies would finish cooking. “The wood was too damp today.”

“You’re a naughty girl,” he said, and he groaned and puffed as he slid off the donkey. “You should do a better job of bringing it in.” But he was teasing me, I saw, because he reached into his jacket and pulled out a hard candy wrapped in a bit of bright paper. “Take your medicine,” he said, and he flipped it to me. I caught it. “To make you sweet.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.