Happily Never After

by Kristen Duvall

  “Jadvyga?” Tiesa asked. “What are you doing here?”

  Jadvyga smiled, and took Tiesa's hands in her own, “I had heard Audra and Roza talking about scaring your petals off, and I didn't want to let them get away with it.”

  “So you helped me scare them instead?” Tiesa furrowed her brow. “But why? I thought you wouldn't have wanted to even see me again after I flew away in the middle of that conversation.”

  Shaking her head, Jadvyga brushed a hand down Tiesa's bare arm. “I know you were just shy, and feeling awkward. I like you, Tiesa. I want to get to know you better.”

  “So you want to help me find my mate?” Tiesa asked.

  “Yes, but one who actually suits you,” Jadvyga said, her lip turning up on the side. “I left mine because he wasn't right for me. Talking to you made me realise that was possible.”

  Tiesa felt ants crawling in her stomach. “So who do you think suits me?”

  With a smile that made Jadvyga's eyes twinkle, she said, “Me.”

  About Dominica Malcolm

  Dominica Malcolm is the author of Adrift, a speculative fiction novel about a 17th century female pirate who travels into the 21st century. Recently, she also published Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction, which includes 24 stories by various authors. She can be found online at her blog/web site, http://dominica.malcolm.id.au, which also links to other places you can find her. Aside from writing, Dominica is also a stand-up comedian, avid traveller, and has delved into filmmaking. Though born and raised in Australia, she spent five and a half years living in Malaysia with her husband and children, and is now based in California.

  Something Wicked This Way Spun

  by A.D. Sams

  In a small cottage on the edge of a flowered lane, lived a shy, but lovely young woman. Her name was Lilia and she was a most gifted seamstress. People came from far across the land to commission her work. Men, women, children, and even a stuffed bunny sought out her stylish and lovely designs.

  Lilia was a woman driven by her spirit. Her heart was as big as her talent which meant that she made beautiful clothes with warmth and inspiration. When Lilia was happy, her garments turned those that wore them into captivating and magnetic folk. On the rare occasion that she was sad, her clothes were a bit more moody and those that wore them became melancholy. They were something deep and beautiful together in a dance.

  She put the biggest parts of her heart, though, in the clothes she made for the Duke's son, Dmitri. He always looked perfect in everything he wore and she took extra pride in tailoring his things. Truth be told, Lilia loved Dmitri, and Dmitri, who was too absorbed in himself, barely took notice. The sight of him made her heart flutter and her hands became a pin cushion when he was near. She did not care about her hands. She only cared about this man who put her heart into a whirling dervish, the handsome Dmitri in the beautiful suit.

  “Lilia,” he would say while admiring his reflection in the mirror, “you know exactly how to dress a man.” While this was true, she knew his lines better than any other. Dmitri would leave her a small tip and walk down the lane in his brand new suit of clothes without ever looking back. Lilia would run to the window and watch him until even his shadow fell from her sight.

  One day, a woman brought her daughter to see Lilia. The daughter, Inessa, had never liked Lilia, or anyone else from what Lilia had witnessed. And even though she was a most beautiful girl on the outside, on the inside Inessa was bitter and ugly. Be that as it may, Inessa was engaged, and they had come to commission a wedding dress.

  As always, Lilia designed a beautiful gown. There was a classic touch to the elegance of the dress, one that would make Inessa the talk of every town within four days ride of the castle. The bride, however, felt it would be better with some modifications and forced Lilia to include her many gaudy suggestions. Gold gilded flowers where they didn’t belong. A sash that covered intricate stitching. Puffed sleeves large enough to make a separate gown. The dress had turned into a terrible mess, and it was not by Lilia’s doing.

  On the first day of fitting, Lilia brought out the the base of the gown so Inessa could try it on before the adornments were in place. She stood in front of the mirror, gazing at her own reflection and admiring her own figure. Her mother mindlessly praised Inessa until the girl finally seemed satisfied.

  “Mother, this wedding will be perfect! Now, he has asked that there be a salute during the ceremony, and I don't care how much he likes his friends, they are not going to be in my wedding. He has enough money to pay them to sit just like the rest of the guests. I thought that my plan would work much better, so I've had a salute of swords designed as part of the decoration. Since gold would look stunning with my hair, I'm having a row of swords dipped in gold that point to the sky and surround the back of the stage,” she rambled. Lilia noticed the tight expression on her mother's face as she said this.

  “Do you really want a row of gold skewers in your wedding, dear? What will the cost be for such a thing?”

  “Oh shut up, mother! It will be gorgeous. Dmitri will pay for whatever I want. Including this dress,” she said as she leered at Lilia from the corner of her eye. “Duchess Inessa,” she said with a smug expression, as if she had been repeating it since the day their marriage was arranged.

  When Lilia heard his name, the pin in her hand slipped and stabbed her thumb. A red dot immediately formed and threatened to roll off of her skin and onto the white fabric.

  “Watch it, you troll! If you get anything on my dress you will start from scratch and we will expect the price to reflect your mistakes. Of course, I could just go elsewhere.”

  “No, no. I'm sorry. It didn't get on the dress,” Lilia said, slipping a small bit of cloth around the wound on her hand as a bandage. She was in no way prepared for what she heard, and to lose her Dmitri to such a horrible girl... Lilia didn’t know what to do.

  “You don’t really think Dmitri would have ever fallen for you, do you?”

  Lilia felt her heart stop and a cold shard raced through her stomach.

  “Do you think people don’t know about your infatuation or how you watch him through your window? Do you think Dmitri doesn’t know?” Inessa laughed as a cruel grin spread across her lips. “You’re a joke to him. You and your long spindly fingers. Do you know what he calls you? He calls you the Spider Woman and he never thinks of you otherwise. You are nothing and no one to him. Remember that as best you can. Now,” she leaned ever so slightly towards Lilia, whose face had paled to a milky hue, “get back to work, seamstress, before I go and tell all of my wealthy friends that you ruined my wedding dress.”

  Lilia's heart splintered piece by piece and something inside her darkened under a shadow. She said nothing and continued working, her head down and her face burning. Her Dmitri would never say such things. He couldn’t have.

  Inessa and her mother finally made their way out, leaving Lilia shattered. She looked down at her hands, something she had never given a second thought to, and saw them in their long and skinny forms. She balled her fists, squeezing against the needles she was still holding and barely felt as the tips slid into her skin.

  She made the dress just as it was requested. Every evening she sewed and sewed, her hands ached, her tears dropped onto every thread. The night before the wedding, she cried until the stream from her eyes ran red. Still, she cried the red into an inky black poison. Her hands and face were covered with the dark liquid. It continued to run and cover her face. Lilia saw the dress across the room and before she knew it, she’d run her blacked hands all over the fabric and buried her face onto the front of the dress. It absorbed her until she closed her eyes.

  Lilia slept.

  When the morning sun touched her face, she sat up with a gasp. Panic squeezed her insides.

  “Please,” she thought, “let last night have been a dream.” As a knock at the door echoed across the room hard enough to cause her breath to catch, she finally allowed herself to look at the dress kn
owing she would have to explain the mess she’d made.

  It was pristine.

  Other than the garish style, it was perfectly crafted and exquisite. Having been through more fittings than she had the patience for, and underpaying Lilia just because she could, the bride sent her servant to pick it up before the wedding without slipping into the final product. He was waiting at the door as Lilia willed her body to move.

  The entire township had been invited, at least those that the bride felt were worthy, which certainly didn't include Lilia. She didn't care. Lilia had already decided to go and view the fruits of her hours spent with needle and thread. She had made clothes for most of those in attendance, so she knew they wouldn't think her out of place if she slipped in the back.

  Lilia arrived, just as she had planned, at the very last moment. She sank into the shadows and felt at home there. From here she could see Inessa's taste spattered across the decor, and then her eyes found him. Dmitri was in the front, dressed in the last suit that Lilia had made him. He was glancing at his reflection in one of the candelabras on stage. Lilia, surprising herself, felt nothing.

  “Spider woman,” she whispered to herself and cringed. She was sick with embarrassment. It was at that moment she almost turned to leave, but a commotion stopped her.

  A scream tore through the building, and as if on cue, Inessa burst through the doors with her mother running after. The bride was screaming down the center of the room. The sudden pains of a shattered heart had been thrust upon her, like that of a thousand pins digging into her skin. It drove her to the brink of madness, over the edge, and into the abyss. She ran down the aisle, tearing at her hair, her clothes, and her face. Dmitri watched in horror as his bride began to look on the outside just as she did on the inside. Before he could react, she had started to run directly at him.

  The crazed woman flung herself at Dmitri and the both of them fell, landing on a row of upturned, golden swords. Their bodies slid down to the floor and rested in a shining heap. The crowd was silent in their collective shock.

  "She was right," Lilia said quietly, "Her hair does look nice with gold." She turned and walked out of the church, cold and with a heart of grey stone.

  The next morning, a packaged was placed on her doorstep. The dress, the cursed dress, had been wrapped and given back to her. She stared at it from across the room with hollow eyes, seeing the blood, Inessa and Dmitri's blood together. She picked up the dress and put it on and felt her heartache once again.

  She had grown used to this feeling so instead of madness, she felt a shooting pain first on her left side, then her right. Two more areas on both sides burned and split open. Her blood mingled with the dark brown stains on the dress. Seams began to tear as she sprouted spindly legs. Lilia screamed at her reflection, her eight appendages quivered.

  Her body felt like fire and everything hurt until she thought she couldn’t breath. Lilia’s back began to harden into a protective skeleton and her face elongated enough to skew her lovely face.

  As the black liquid began to run down her cheeks for the second time, she ran out of the front door, leaving it open as if she planned to come back.

  About A.D Sams

  A.D. Sams is definitely a writer of southern fiction, probably a writer of dark, twisty things, and maybe a writer who hasn't quite reached a sense of potential. All of that is, of course, gross speculation. Seriously. It’s just tacky. Now, She’s in her mid-30′s living in West Georgia with an army of fur creatures and a very healthy Imagination. She keeps it in an igloo in the back yard. Her first book, Bayou L'Abeille, was released in November of 2012. It's currently available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions. She’s currently working on the next edition of Bayou L'Abeille stories as well as other anthology projects.

  Letters From The Belly Of A Whale

  by Calvin Mills

  Dear Brother:

  Thank you for your letter inquiring about my wellbeing, and thank you for expressing your concerns about my life here in the belly of a whale.

  First let me tell you that I have at last reluctantly embraced the fact that there will be no escape. You see, I would have written sooner, but I was completely focused on several consecutive escape plots. Unfortunately, each plan, not only failed to secure my freedom, but succeeded in adding time to my sentence and compounding my woes. However, I am led to believe that after a certain amount of time I will eventually be released (hopefully somewhere near land). I also understand now that I was not swallowed by this whale randomly but because certain charges leveled against me by the department of Fish and Wildlife. They claim that I was poaching lobster out of season, when in reality, I was only testing my new pots and intended to let all the lobster go after I figured out how well the new pots worked. I can’t discuss the case in writing, other than to emphasize my innocence. You see, everything I write to you will be reviewed, and they can use my own words against me. If anyone asks about me, please tell them I’m surviving admirably well and assure them that I am innocent, but that I could really use a good lawyer, preferably one with his own submarine.

  Regarding your question, “What the hell do you eat in there?” I have to say the only half decent thing I have access to is whale meat. I simply carve it from between the ribs with my fishing knife. As you have probably heard, I was out lobstering when I was “incarcerated”… in other words, swallowed by this monster. So luckily I have my knife. Sadly, like most everything you may want or need in life, whale meat comes at a great cost. The whale goes a little wild, as you can imagine, and I suspect that he intends to add time to my sentence each time I do it, so I try not to do it very often. The thing is that in my particular case I’m stuck in unit 5612, which happens to be a sperm whale. He eats mostly giant squid. I don’t know, maybe it’s just the time of year for squid, but I’ve only seen one fish in here—some kind of shark with an enormous head. I had a bit of that, but you know, with fish it’s all about freshness, so that lasted only a day or two, then I was back on the squid. And as you know, shark meat is pretty low on the seafood hierarchy.

  The worst thing about the squid is that by the time they get down here to the belly they’re pretty well chewed up, and of course they’re covered with whale spit and whale bile, not to mention the ink. I quickly carve out a piece of meat and rinse it with salt water. There is precious little fresh water here. I only get it when unit 5612 surfaces and it happens to be raining. I gather a few drops at a time from the blowhole. In the months I’ve been here already I’ve consumed very little fresh water. I assumed I would die of dehydration, but so far I have not been so rewarded: perhaps because of the high humidity in here? I guess it could be worse; some whales eat nothing but plankton. Though an orca would be an upgrade…a little salmon, a little seal liver. Maybe with good behavior I’ll get a transfer to another unit.

  I’ve saved the worst part about the squid story for last. When 5612 swallows them, they’re usually still alive. I have to be careful not to let the big ones get their tentacles around my neck. As for the size of these “colossal squid”, you’ve got to see them to believe them. It’s quite a show when one is squirming all around the belly in the throes of death, bleeding and covered in ink and whale spit, slapping the walls wildly with its tentacles. It’s enough to turn a person off sushi quality calamari. But you’ve got to eat it while it’s fresh or it goes nasty on you quick. You want it as fresh as you can get it here because before long it tastes exactly like puke.

  It already smells like puke here—not surprising I suppose. This is the belly of a whale after all. I won’t lie. The smell takes some getting used to. If you’ve ever smelled a nice ripe sea lion carcass on the beach, and if you’ve ever accidentally taken a big whiff of a dumpster behind a seafood restaurant on a sunny day, and if you’ve ever smelled the putrid vomity filth of a New Orleans French Quarter gutter on a Sunday Morning, and if you can imagine all these stenches simultaneously, you might begin to imagine how horrendous this reek really is. Curiously, the
re’s also a hint of cinnamon.

  In your letter you asked about my living quarters. My “cell” is a bit hard to describe. The first thing that grabs you is the darkness. Only when he surfaces do I get a burst of light through his spout. By the time my eyes adjust, it’s gone again. So what I’m about to tell you, I’ve gathered slowly, not all in one moment, or day, or week even.

  The most unique thing is the texture. The inside of the stomach isn’t perfectly smooth. It’s covered with these organic shapes. It’s a little like intestines or brains—you know, lots of curvy lines. But it’s overall flattish. It’s a little taller than my living room at home. I’m guessing ten-foot ceilings. Of course there’s no furniture to speak of unless you count the dead squid I sometimes use as a pillow, or a sofa, depending on its size. I experimented with a giant squid hammock, but it proved to be almost as impractical as it was unpleasant, and eventually it succumbed to the digestive enzymes and fell apart. In regards to the floor, it’s a damned lucky thing I was wearing my fishing gear when I was swallowed. I mean, I really lucked out on that account. I happened to be wearing my rubber boots. If I didn’t have them, I don’t know what would have happened. The stomach acid certainly would have eaten through the skin on the bottom of my feet by now. I bet the skin would go first, then the muscle. Finally I’d be walking around on the raw bones. And the sticky soft tissue I’m forced to walk around on all day, thank God I don’t have to feel it with my bare feet.

  Overall I guess you could say my living space is dark and grossly inadequate. There are none of the finer things, of course, no pictures on the walls, no kitchen, no television, no garage for my hobbies, but worst of all, there aren’t even any necessities. There’s no running water, no prison yard for fresh air and exercise. There isn’t even a bathroom. When it comes to bodily functions, I do my business in the back corner of the stomach where all the squid corpses have pretty much gone to mush. When I wake up tomorrow morning, the squid mush will have disappeared, my business having disappeared with it.