Beautifully written fantasy
They were eight when he first wrote her name in dew. They’d met at recess, each wandering alone on the edges of the playground until they bumped into one another. His pockets were filled with acorns and stones; his hands held fallen twigs. He had no interest in joining the other boys with their ball games and imaginary light saber battles. Her pockets were filled with pine cones and pebbles; her hands clutched autumn leaves. …
Are you here for business or pleasure?” Do they even ask that anymore? Standing outside this door, in this dark hallway, fifteen miles from the airport, he can’t remember if they ever have, of him. Perhaps they simply see him coming, always in his fine grey suit and pale blue shirt, his briefcase swinging in one hand, his smartphone in the other; the latter switched expertly out for his passport, battered and creased with regular …
Before he went by Solomon, the stranger’s name was Shlomo. He seemed at first unremarkable, apart from being new, and in palpable need of a wife. Yutke’s mother began to snoop as soon as she noticed that he did not wear the tallis which marks a married man. “How do you know that?” asked Yutke. “I saw, at shul.” “And what were you doing, that you could see whether he was wearing a tallis or …
There’s a bench I like to sit on, with my legs tucked up, pretending I’m just another student on break from university. People always have a smile for me—a young woman in the sun—until they see the sores and the thin wrists and then their eyes slide up and away, up and away as if they have just remembered something important. I grin at them and pick at the scratches on my arms, mindlessly or …
The scribe met the knight on the old stone road. The castle was a couple of hours away. Three, at the speed his donkey was trotting. He’d meant to deliver his news of no news and stumble off to a bath and, if he were lucky, into a warm bed with a warm wench. Instead he found himself conversing with a knight who hunkered in a smear of blue-violet twilight. Cloaked in shadows, he looked …
The wheat died three days after Elin’s skin began to itch. The itching started as a rash on the backs of her hands, little round bumps standing out from her skin. She ignored it at first, went to work at the diner as always. But by the third day it had spread up her arms and started on her feet. She came downstairs early in the morning after a sleepless night, knowing her parents would …
