Beth’s Christmas Wish by Kimberly Wolkens

Christmas used to be Annie’s favorite holiday. This year she dreaded it. She tried to muster up even a tiny bit of enthusiasm, but it just wasn’t the same. Nothing had been the same since her best friend died last spring in a car accident.

Letters to the Body I Lived In by Danie Shokoohi

1.

Later, you’ll say it was like rosemary.
Like clean. Like lavender

in the bathtub.

Sundown Town by Richard Wayne Horton

+++++Those are big horses out front. Never seen horses like that. Course we’re your average tourists passing through. You get a bunch of us I bet.

Imaginary by Marie Lightman

Wooden planked floor,
soaked in decades-old urine.

Emily new friend soaks in the bath.
I hide behind the mirror.

Baby Blue Eyes by Paul Speller

A splash, followed by a giggle and those baby blue eyes lit up.

A Demon’s Favor by Karen Thrower

Tranur appeared in a ring of fire, large, black and ominous. He immediately saw the one who summoned him, kneeling just outside the circle.

Juan Ponce de Leon by Bridget Clawson

I read to five clients, at the moment. One is an unusually tall, angular woman my own age, forty-two, who believes she is Juan Ponce de Leon.

Prayers from Dunwich by James H Duncan

Father, I’ve prayed
the noisome breathing
coming down the chimney
to stop, please stop,
I’ve prayed in your name
and mine