Welcome to this week’s installment of many micro stories, ranging in length from 100 words to 500 words.
With each story we hope to deliver a little whimsy into the lives of our readers.
HER BLOOD IN THE ICE
Deliverance spied the frozen heart-shape in a water-filled rut along the Arkham road, its frosty surface turned partly to ice in the November chill, late in the day, as she returned home from her market stall in the town. Her bundles of herbs and bottles of physick had not sold well, despite the farm families thronging the market. She laid the blame in part on the chill in the air, in part on a binding cast by her rival and former student, Sapphira. Not only had she cut into her livelihood, she had once stolen Deliverance’s lover. But two could play at opposing castings, one playing upon the other, point and counterpoint, spell and counterspell. No doubt this heart-shape had formed in the ice at Sapphira’s bidding, a sign to flout her power and taunt Deliverance’s weakened state.
She still had a snippet of her lover’s red-gold hair, hidden in a box beneath her bed, a token to recall the man and her sentiment for him, and a sample against his betrayal, in case she must return the favour. Returning to her cottage, she found it, taking strands from it which she wrapped twice about the base of her little finger. Venturing back into the cold and the fading day, she found the roadside rut, kneeling over it. Breathing on it once, twice, thrice, she warmed its surface enough to create a slick of water to form upon the icy glaze. Unwinding the hairs, she laid them upon the ice, and called upon the cold breeze to bend her way. The bare branches of the oak shading the road swayed; the breeze brushed her cheek, prickling in the sudden chill. She tapped the pondlet with a bare finger, finding it solid once again, the hairs embedded into the ice. Taking the bone-handled knife from her belt, she turned it handle downward and raising it, whilst murmuring her lover’s name, she brought down the knife handle. Once, twice, thrice, she struck the ice and once, twice, thrice, she spoke his name.
On the third pronouncement, the word on her lips rose to a scream as the ice broke beneath her strike, and a pain shattered her chest. She sank to the frozen earth, her cheek hitting the gravel and frozen mud. She would have laughed if the pain had not taken away her breath, if it had not already dimmed her eyes and slowed her heart. Too late she saw a reddish tinge in the mud beneath the ice. Some blood of hers, tokens to her lover and to her student. She should have expected as much, that the lovely sign also served as a trap. She should have expected her student would use such tricks. Sapphira had learned well, learned enough to entrap her teacher and end their partnership when the teacher had nothing left to give…
R.C. Mulhare was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, growing up in a nearby town, in a hundred year old house near a cemetery. Her interest in the dark and mysterious started when she was quite young, when her mother read the Brothers’ faery tales Grimm and Edgar Allan Poe’s poetry to her, while her Irish storyteller father infused her with a fondness for strange characters and quirky situations. Between writing projects, she moonlights in grocery retail. A two-time Amazon best-selling author, and contributor to the Hugo Award Winning Archive of Our Own, she has over one hundred twenty stories in print through dozens of independent publishers, with more stories in the works. She shares her home with her family, a vintage music-loving budgie, about fifteen hundred books and an unknown number of eldritch things rattling in the walls when she’s writing late at night. She’s happy to have visitors through her page at: https://linktr.ee/rcmulhare.”
If you enjoyed this story you can find it and more in the Hawthorn & Ash 2023 anthology.
Iron Faerie Publishing 