(All these interior illustrations are by Marge Simon)<\/p>\n
[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_5,3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.rhondaparrish.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/6-Better-Angels-scaled.jpeg” title_text=”6-Better Angels” admin_label=”Better Angels image” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n
Excerpt from “Better Angels” by Angela Slatter:<\/strong><\/p>\n Fionnuala returns to her vigil. Outside the French doors, out in the garden, close to the house is a silhouette, which she fails to notice because her husband sits up, straight from the waist. The pillow falls to the floor. Patrick twists his head on his neck to face her, but at least she can\u2019t see that terrible wound. She blinks, swallows, clutches at her own throat.<\/p>\n \u201cI know what you did, Fionnuala,\u201d he vomits the words. She knows from examining him that he\u2019d bit his tongue in the fall, almost taken it off, so it\u2019s no surprise that forming sounds is so hard for him, so discordant. Fionnuala closes her eyes, hard, counts to three before she opens them.<\/p>\n Patrick is lying down again, the pillow beneath his head still; the fabric on which he lies is untroubled. But now a trickle of blood leaks from the corpse\u2019s nostrils, and out from under his lids too. Fionnuala rises, takes hesitant steps to the table. She stares at the crimson-black, then looks at the doorway that Donovan\u2019s left not long ago.<\/p>\n The blood bubbles as if there\u2019s breath behind it, but Patrick\u2019s chest doesn\u2019t move, he\u2019s not alive. There\u2019s just the echo of his words in her ears: \u201cI know what you did, Fionnuala.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d she says softly, \u201cyou don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Thorns text” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Excerpt from “Thorns” by Gabrielle Harbowy:<\/strong><\/p>\n It had been their one-year anniversary present to each other. They\u2019d gotten inked together, though they hadn\u2019t gone for anything as cloyingly sweet as identical designs. Body art had been a common interest and needles had been a common fear, so they\u2019d faced both together.<\/p>\n The fortune teller in the cramped storefront at the corner of Main and Spring had been first; as if her single needle was somehow a warm-up for the hours in the tattooist\u2019s chair… Or maybe it was that they had sought the safety of needles in greater duration to chase the finality of that other, more frightening single sting away. She\u2019d been at her craft in the same little shop for over a hundred years, people said\u2014one of the Transhuman Collective, who\u2019d taken the age-halting treatments before the serum had proven to have unpredictable effects. Supposedly she could tell, from rubbing a drop of blood between her fingertips, how a person would die. Supposedly, she had never been wrong. Cryptic, perhaps, but never wrong. They walked away from her scarf-strewn parlor in silence.<\/p>\n They\u2019d decided on their tattoos en route. Celia had gotten the briars, protecting Sleeping Beauty\u2019s castle.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.rhondaparrish.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/7-Thorns-scaled.jpeg” title_text=”7-Thorns” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_5,3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.rhondaparrish.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/8-Anime-Gamelle-1-scaled.jpeg” title_text=”8-Anime Gamelle” admin_label=”Anime Gamelle Image” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Excerpt from “Anime Gamelle” by Sara Dobie Bauer:<\/strong><\/p>\n What a shame to have to destroy someone so brutal. He is gorgeous, too, which I remember from when we first met, years before in my father\u2019s court. I would not have predicted an army general to be without blemish. He stands before me now on this hellish plain in Calabria, shirtless and sweating, perfect as I recall.<\/p>\n The spattered blood on the side of his head belongs to the unconscious man on the ground. This is a game he plays, my General Devlin. He welcomes the challenges of his soldiers to prove his worth. He has beaten his own men almost to death as a reminder that he deserves to lead them in battle. From what I have gleaned, he has never lost. Anything.<\/p>\n I have only been the queen of Albion for two months\u2014a battle in itself to prove that a woman can rule alone. I have traveled weeks to get here. The ground still teeters beneath me from time spent in my carriage. I smell nothing but horses and smoke as I preside in all my queenly adornments. Soldiers surround us, whispering, staring. I see only Devlin: this man who would ruin me.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Excerpt from “The Marriage of Ocean and Dust” by Alexandra Seidel:<\/strong><\/p>\n The searing copper is an ocean without end.<\/em><\/p>\n The sky was trying to drown me. There were many thoughts that came to me in the white delirium of blood loss and sheer fatigue, but that is the one that stuck, something blue among all the white. I must have spent almost two days lying there, dying in a puddle that smelled of wetness and metal. The light that came through the ghost-of-summer leaves clinging to the trees made all the earth around me look wet; so red with me, this earth of copper, this earth so coppered.<\/p>\n Apart from becoming a little obsessed about the sky drowning me, here\u2019s a revelation I had about why alchemists are a dying breed: they have all these strange rules, like for example don\u2019t make a golem, but they don\u2019t bother giving a reason. Perhaps if somebody had told me that golems are blasting strong, very nearly uncontrollable, and angry all the time, I wouldn\u2019t have lost my right arm that day.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.rhondaparrish.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/9-The-Marriage-of–scaled.jpeg” title_text=”9-The Marriage of” admin_label=”Marriage image” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”2_5,3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.rhondaparrish.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/10-The-Hermit-scaled.jpeg” title_text=”10-The Hermit” admin_label=”Hermit Image” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Excerpt from “The Hermit” by Joseph Halden:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAre you all right, Ainsley?\u201d<\/p>\n Ainsley winced as she crossed the parking lot, unsuccessful in her attempt to outpace and avoid Jared. She\u2019d spent the day avoiding people because she knew small-talk would probably delve too close to the topic of her mother. After the holo sim visit last night, it suddenly felt far too raw despite it being almost ten years since Mom\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Murder<\/em>, she thought, correcting what she\u2019d tried to deny for quite a while now. Murder.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAinsley?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes, sorry,\u201d she said, her voice cracking a bit from having been used so infrequently throughout the day. \u201cI\u2019m just a bit stressed, is all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sorry to hear that.\u201d He caught up to her, pushing his glasses up and scratching at his buzz-cut. \u201cIs it anything I can help you with?\u201d<\/p>\n She sucked in a breath. \u201cI don\u2019t think so, Jared.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAll right,\u201d he said. \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to bug you. I apologize if I held you back.\u201d<\/p>\n Ainsley closed her eyes. She wished she knew more about socializing, all the rules that others seemed to read so easily in the unspoken. She was hurting right now, and she knew friends could, in theory at least, or on the shows she watched, help her through the pain. However, she couldn\u2019t imagine telling him about her mother.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”3_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Mysterious Text” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n Excerpt from “The Mysterious East (Fredericton, NB)” by Greg Bechtel:<\/strong><\/p>\n Andrew\u2019s first fare was a writer whose day job was the night-shift at Cendant, a local call centre based in a dying mall on the Northside and dealing with worldwide car rentals. (When looking for work, Andrew had drawn the line just this side of a call centre job, the only other sure-fire employment in this town if you didn\u2019t work for the government or the University.) The guy said he hated the place, all the people he worked with, and every single idiotic customer he\u2019d ever talked to. He never showed anyone what he wrote, though. He didn\u2019t want them to get the wrong impression, what with all the graphic, extended torture scenes incorporating his co-workers and assorted call centre clientele.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, you\u2019ve got to write what you know, right? But it\u2019s all, like, imaginary. Nothing autobiographical. \u2018Cause that\u2019d be, like, seriously fucked up. Still, gotta put all that pent up frus\u00adtration somewhere, right?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo once you\u2019ve written it out, does that mean you\u2019re not frustrated any more?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot really, no.\u201d<\/p>\n That first day, Andrew made fifty dollars for a twelve-hour shift: four dollars and seventeen cents an hour. To celebrate, he bought bagels, instant noodles, eggs, coffee, and a pack of smokes. Rent could wait at least another week. The sage stays behind, thus he is ahead. <\/em><\/p>\n …<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”2_5″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/www.rhondaparrish.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/11-The-Mysterious-scaled.jpeg” title_text=”11-The Mysterious” _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.9.4″ _module_preset=”default”]<\/p>\n If you enjoyed these excerpts and want to read more, pick up a copy of Arcana<\/em> which is available now:<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rhondaparrish.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/ArcanaFrontCover750x519.jpg\")
<\/p>\n