Departed on St. Patrick’s Day.

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Gillie wrinkled her nose. “It’s not magic.” What she meant was, the delicious taste of spring flowers and green hills was missing from her St. Patrick’s Day oatmeal.

“It’s green,” her father said.

“Did you dye it?”

He swallowed hard. “Sorry.”

“Where’s our leprechaun friend?”

Her father produced a note from his pocket.

“I’m off to the motherland. It’s not safe here.”

“Did NICE deport him?”

“The witch hunts are over. Now they’re hunting leprechauns.”

Gillie pushed the bowl away. “They’re not nice. It’s opposites day every day.”

Her father wrapped her in a warm hug, powerless to do more.

Fairy Dust

The village wise woman was sure he was a changeling. “He was kidnapped by fairies.”

They took the boy to the middle of the forest on the night of a blue moon, left him in a clearing, then hid themselves. He disappeared in a puff of smoke. They heard a baby cry.

”How will we know if it’s ours,” the father said.

”What if it’s not?” The mother burst into tears.

They picked the baby up, a beautiful little girl, and brought her to the wise woman. “Raise her well. She’s been touched by magic; soon she’ll take my place.”

Smoking on a Wet Evening

You know the way it rains at night after the dogs been out. After everybody settles near the fireplace, shoes kicked off, feet warming. That kind of night when, like as not, a banshee’ll slip in through the cracks in the ceiling and make herself at home.

Don’t disturb her. She’ll get loud, then. Nobody dies if she stays calm. Don’t be alarmed when she squats, knees up around her head, haunches down on the floor. Offer her a pipe. The one you’re smoking. It’s likely why she came. After a heavy drag, she’ll nod and disappear up the chimney.

If Hans Christian Anderson Were Writing Now

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Atticus Finch had never represented a bird. “So, let’s get this. You want to sue your adoptive parents.”

“I had a terrible childhood. Bullied, teased. They called me Ugly Duckling.” The swan had tears in his eyes.

Maybe they were real, maybe it was just good acting. Horatio Swan was a highly popular leading cob. His beak was a fixture on Netflix and HBO.

Atticus leaned back in his chair. “Why now? You’ve said publicly your tough childhood led to the success you enjoy.”

Horatio trumpeted, “I’ve learned things in rehab. The price I paid. My inner cygnet is traumatized.”

Rusalka’s Story

Water coursed through Rusalka, around her slippery body, into her memory. The pagans called her a sweet thing, a beautiful maiden, a boon to forests and fields. Handmaid of Spring, she spread life-giving water to the crops.

Baptismal waters washed away that myth. There was no room for Rusalka in the new religion. She was demoted, maligned, branded a seductress. Some still believed she brought water to the fields as always. They became a minority, old thinking, out of date. God’s people cursed Rusalka. They didn’t deny her existence. They changed her story.

The Collective

She came straight from weeding her small plot of land in the community garden.

The fiery redhead marched to the podium and gaveled the meeting to order. “The first item, the only important one, is the proposal to buy a mill to grind the wheat.”

A large man barked. “No one else grows wheat.”

The crowd quacked their approval.

Her feathers ruffled, the redhead said, “You eat the bread I bake. Let’s turn the garden into a wheat field and mill our own flour.”

A catlike woman spoke. “Hannah, dear, we thought you liked baking. We don’t.”

Better Buildings With R&D

The three Porcine brothers inhaled their lunch. It was nerves. If they killed on this presentation, business could be very sweet. Their R&D guy hadn’t shown up yet, so Arthur was sweating that. He checked his watch. “It’s time.”

A gale force wind blew the three pigs through the hall and neatly deposited them at the podium. Henry Wolf made his entrance dressed in a white lab coat. Arthur made a thumbs up sign.

The auditorium was full of chattering suits. Henry huffed them silent. “Listen, our buildings are guaranteed not to blow down.”

Arthur went to the first slide.

Cut Before the Chase

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Yeasty fresh rolls wrapped in rough textured linen, unpolished like the girl who carried the basket. Mist rose from woody ground to fill the heavy air. The young girl parked herself to rest under a tree.

Behind her, a rank smell rose. A wild laugh accompanied the odor’s owner, a creature of the forest who embodied all that tangled in trees and clung to rocks. “Tired? I have a shortcut for you.”

“Where am I going, then?”

“Give something, get something.”

“I’ll give you what for.” She pulled out an ax from her red riding cape and cut things short.

King Arthur’s Dog with a Lesson on the Resilience of Culture

Creative Commons: *Road bridge over Caban Coch* by Nick Mutton

I lived in Wales where Arthur dwelled before England took him for their king. His favorite hunting dog, I was. All that’s left is a print of my paw cast in stone atop a cairn. Maybe you have the strength and courage to climb the craggy peaks of Cam Gafallt. Look but don’t take. The rock finds its way back from those who steal it.

So many things the English took from Wales- stories, language- as if defeat could erase our spirit. My paw print will never disappear from Cam Gafallt, nor will our people’s differences hide behind a common culture.

A Tale of Intrigue, a Talking Bird and a Lesson for the Sultan

I, the Talking Bird, saw the story unfold. Innocent children abandoned to die, then saved. Lying sisters who ordered them set afloat like baby Moses. The foolish Sultan who believed the Queen Consort’s scheming sisters and cast her out.

I left the palace for a high mountain where I resided with the Singing Tree and the Golden Water. A dervish warned off visitors. Only the sweet Queen’s daughter was clever enough to bring us home.

Once there, I told the shame-faced Sultan of his injustice to his Queen.

When Scheherazade told the tale to her sultan, did he have regrets?

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