Read Online The Curiosities (Carolrhoda Ya) by Brenna Yovanoff Tessa Gratton Maggie Stiefvater - Free Book Online
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was making a joke.
I let him out through the back door and watch him go, waving from the porch steps.
After he’s over the fence and out of sight, I go down into the basement and stand at the workbench, sorting through my supplies. It’s nice, living alone. I can leave things lying out now. Taser-plus-piano-wire is very efficient, but I like cyanide for strangers.
The story of my sister was a risky move, hard to sound convincing. The memory is clear but featureless, gone over so many times I’ve worn the details off. I don’t even remember what it felt like.
I didn’t want to do this so soon after Dalton, but the neighborhood seems content to take that for the heartrending tragedy it was—her longtime boyfriend, poor girl—and I don’t see any other way. Some people just aren’t meant to live.
THE SPIRAL TABLE
by Tessa Gratton
I have a long history of despising Arthurian legend. Yes, I once wrote a trilogy that relied heavily upon it, but that doesn’t mean I had to enjoy it. So while I was thrilled at a common prompt, the idea of using King Arthur for it gave me hives. But I’m rarely one to shy away from a challenge, so I agreed. All I had to do was find a way to write this story without my hatred being visible. The answer was obvious after some thought: delete Lancelot and Guinevere. Have Arthur stand on a table. Add knives and murder. Ta-da! —Tessa
T he wizard asked her to help him build a table.
For all her seventeen years she had lived between nine crumbling columns at the pinnacle of a low hill. Spreading around her like a living moat was a ring of apple trees.
She crouches now over the earth beside the column she calls “Between All Things,” mixing a potion for the Queen of Faerie’s son, who is plagued by nightmares. There is no sun here; it is always morning or evening and only the color of the sky suggests which. Now the wide sky is purple-tinged, and she knows that soon it will be dusk-time and her herbs will have to wait.
Through the false gate between the “Never-going” column and the one named “Forever-falling,” the wizard appears. He wears the leather armor of men, an iron sword hanging at his hip. “Morgen,” he says, and the apple trees whisper her name back to him.
Without glancing the wizard’s way, she tips over the clay pot with mixed crushed lavender and valerian and skullcap. Like tea leaves, they whirl against the cracked stone floor as though swept by eddies of water, then fall into a pattern. She stares for a moment and then as she stands says, “Yes,” and sweeps her bare feet through the divination. “Whatever you have come for, the answer is yes.”
They face each other across the grove of stone: one lithe and young, her fingers stained blue and her braids as tangled as lake weeds, the other like a piece of driftwood too heavy to be swayed by the current.
“Your loyalty does you honor, child,” the wizard says, holding out a hand.
Thinking of her divination, she goes to him. Better for the wizard to think she makes her decision for love.
. . .
The first words from the boy-king’s mouth when she enters his hall spit with anger. “I will not, Cai, I will not stay here.” His hand slams onto the long table, rattling cups down the line.
“Sir.” A warrior pushes back his seat, a great bulk of a man with thick braids the color of tallow. “Here is the best place to keep the wolves from our door.” The gathered warriors bang their thick clay cups in agreement, drowning out the boy’s protests. By their bracelets and sword hilts and rings, Morgen knows them for lords.
The king says, voice strained with calm, “The fields here are over-eaten, and if we continue to force ourselves upon this valley, they will welcome the Saxons, Bedwyr.”
The wizard strides over the straw-strewn floor and bows. “Arthur.”
“Myrddin! Tell them we cannot stay here. They will not listen to me, because my words are meaningless to such warmongers and
I let him out through the back door and watch him go, waving from the porch steps.
After he’s over the fence and out of sight, I go down into the basement and stand at the workbench, sorting through my supplies. It’s nice, living alone. I can leave things lying out now. Taser-plus-piano-wire is very efficient, but I like cyanide for strangers.
The story of my sister was a risky move, hard to sound convincing. The memory is clear but featureless, gone over so many times I’ve worn the details off. I don’t even remember what it felt like.
I didn’t want to do this so soon after Dalton, but the neighborhood seems content to take that for the heartrending tragedy it was—her longtime boyfriend, poor girl—and I don’t see any other way. Some people just aren’t meant to live.
THE SPIRAL TABLE
by Tessa Gratton
I have a long history of despising Arthurian legend. Yes, I once wrote a trilogy that relied heavily upon it, but that doesn’t mean I had to enjoy it. So while I was thrilled at a common prompt, the idea of using King Arthur for it gave me hives. But I’m rarely one to shy away from a challenge, so I agreed. All I had to do was find a way to write this story without my hatred being visible. The answer was obvious after some thought: delete Lancelot and Guinevere. Have Arthur stand on a table. Add knives and murder. Ta-da! —Tessa
T he wizard asked her to help him build a table.
For all her seventeen years she had lived between nine crumbling columns at the pinnacle of a low hill. Spreading around her like a living moat was a ring of apple trees.
She crouches now over the earth beside the column she calls “Between All Things,” mixing a potion for the Queen of Faerie’s son, who is plagued by nightmares. There is no sun here; it is always morning or evening and only the color of the sky suggests which. Now the wide sky is purple-tinged, and she knows that soon it will be dusk-time and her herbs will have to wait.
Through the false gate between the “Never-going” column and the one named “Forever-falling,” the wizard appears. He wears the leather armor of men, an iron sword hanging at his hip. “Morgen,” he says, and the apple trees whisper her name back to him.
Without glancing the wizard’s way, she tips over the clay pot with mixed crushed lavender and valerian and skullcap. Like tea leaves, they whirl against the cracked stone floor as though swept by eddies of water, then fall into a pattern. She stares for a moment and then as she stands says, “Yes,” and sweeps her bare feet through the divination. “Whatever you have come for, the answer is yes.”
They face each other across the grove of stone: one lithe and young, her fingers stained blue and her braids as tangled as lake weeds, the other like a piece of driftwood too heavy to be swayed by the current.
“Your loyalty does you honor, child,” the wizard says, holding out a hand.
Thinking of her divination, she goes to him. Better for the wizard to think she makes her decision for love.
. . .
The first words from the boy-king’s mouth when she enters his hall spit with anger. “I will not, Cai, I will not stay here.” His hand slams onto the long table, rattling cups down the line.
“Sir.” A warrior pushes back his seat, a great bulk of a man with thick braids the color of tallow. “Here is the best place to keep the wolves from our door.” The gathered warriors bang their thick clay cups in agreement, drowning out the boy’s protests. By their bracelets and sword hilts and rings, Morgen knows them for lords.
The king says, voice strained with calm, “The fields here are over-eaten, and if we continue to force ourselves upon this valley, they will welcome the Saxons, Bedwyr.”
The wizard strides over the straw-strewn floor and bows. “Arthur.”
“Myrddin! Tell them we cannot stay here. They will not listen to me, because my words are meaningless to such warmongers and
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