Skip to content

Home
Blog
Recent Publications
Bibliography
Non-Fiction
Press Kit
- Newsletter
- Contact

Month: December 2011

Sand-child on Daily Science Fiction

December 2, 2011

My story Sand-child is now available as a free read on Daily Science Fiction’s site.

4 Comments Sand-child on Daily Science Fiction

Follow on WordPress.com

Newsletter Signup

Twitter
Instagram
Facebook

Upcoming Events

WorldCon (Seattle) (2025)
Flights of Foundry (2025)
Capclave (2025)

When you turned the conversation back to my diving, to ask if I'd ever dove beneath the driftcity, felt its bulk above my head, the weight of it pressing down, down on my shoulders, you had a strange lilt to your voice. You wanted to know if I felt wrong, felt off…felt as if I didn't belong to this world any longer.
~ "Dates Around a Driftcity Where We Used to Roam" (in The Dérive)

Then the goodwill witching spread. Not like California wildfires. Like ladybugs. Crawling into people’s houses via their mailboxes, with goodness hidden under their stamps and well-wishes printed out every fourth letter in the mundane notes.
~ "Like Ladybugs, Brights Spots in Your Mailbox" (in Diabolical Plots #104)

1. Be careful. I have to say that. Otherwise the words will worm in my mind forever, insisting you’re hurt somewhere I can’t find, all because I did not remind you, once more, to be careful.
~ "Instructions for Bottling Tornadoes: Please Read Before You Leave" (in Flash Fiction Online)

The day our mother calls to tell me Noah had disappeared again, I buy a frappuccino at my local coffee shop, the plastic sweating before I step into the burgeoning summer humidity. Maybe, just maybe, the drink is close enough to flavored ice that I’d taste something different on my tongue. Something powerful.

Something that would allow me to sense my brother through all the miles that may or may not separate us. Find him.

But I taste nothing but sugar and coffee and the stale air from the limp whip cream.
~"The Ethereal Nature of Superpowers" (in Apparition Lit)

All I could claim as remembrance, for Hima had been too young—still only a child, with only a child’s two-part name—for a stone carving to hold her spirit. Too young for even an apprentice like Mahivo to bother setting to stone, as practice. Her shade, if it still existed, had been too small, too thin to be bonded with a carving for a second-life.

So she’d never received one.
~ "Turn to Stone Ourselves" (in Beneath Ceaseless Skies)

They left me to drown, sea salt clinging to the back of my throat.

I could hear the rolling rhythm of their rowing chants, drowning out my cries as succinctly as the sea would soon drown me.
~"All the Boys in the Sea" (in Fireside)

Sometimes, and I’m stressing the sometimes, wishes muttered within my hearing come true. I’ve invested in a good set of earbuds, noise-cancelling headphones, and have an over-spilling jar of earplugs, yet accidents still happen.

“Wish you’d always be my Dasher,” this young guy in a neon orange slouch hat says and I swear if he could blow me a winky-kissy-face emoji he would.
~ "Delivery for 3C at Song View" (in Diabolical Plots)

We had a grave sitting in the middle of our house that only we believed in.
~ "Your Space Between" (in Apex Magazine)

Later, Kec would wish she'd never found those old stone steps. She'd wish she'd never touched the moss and discovered the small sigils of a language she didn't speak. She'd most of all wish she'd never gone back for her herd.

But all that came later. As regrets normally do.
~ "Secrets Locked in Metal Scrap" (in Luna Station Quarterly)

Blog at WordPress.com.

Subscribe Subscribed
- mariecroke.com
- Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.