Laura Morrigan

CW: Attempted sexual assault Two things happened last summer. I kissed April, and I got bitten by a werewolf. I It started at a party. I was never invited to the cool kid’s parties, why would I be? But Giselle and I had been planning to crash, and even though her family had moved to another state, she texted me that night, telling me I should still go and tell her all about it. I went through my older sister Evie’s wardrobe, what she’d left behind when she went to college. She had been the cool one, the one who got invited to parties and fitted in. I found a trendy flowy dress, with the tag still attached. I was pretty sure she had shoplifted it, Evie could never resist a five finger discount. After I put on some makeup, I figured that if no one looked closely, I could pass as one of the in-crowd. I texted Giselle, “omw to crash” “Wish I was there its family game night ugh”, she texted back. I laughed. I had been friends with Giselle since the first day of primary school, her family wa...

This short story was based around the prompt "March Hare" More on Mythic March here , here  and h ere * “She’s absolutely mad!” Henry spat, slamming his beer down on the bar. “Now, now, you’re new to Meadowsweet, we have a lot of characters around here”, Lem the barman said, wiping up the spilled beer with a dirty looking tea towel. Lem was just how Henry would have imagined a small town bartender to look: big, beefy and balding, with an anchor tattoo on one bulging bicep. The fact that Lem preferred words over violence and had been faithfully married to his husband for twenty-six years broke the stereotype somewhat. “You think she’s a character?” Henry said, “She yelled at me for buying traps just today! Said I was a murderer!” This was only the last in a long line of insults that included treating his yard as if it was her own (“foraging”, she claimed) and laughing at him that time he split his trousers in town. “Ah, everyone is really into conservation around these parts”,...

Part One here Part Two here PART THREE It had been so long since I had seen the men of our village, I had forgotten them. How large and coarse they were, how they stank of sweat and alcohol, how they swore and laughed and beat their wives and children. And my father, leader of them all. Taller, and crueller than the rest. I had almost forgotten the feeling of his beatings. I had almost forgotten the sound of his voice. “Katya, come out! We know you are in there!” “Yanuschka! It has been over a year, how did they find me?” Yanuschka put her hand to her mouth. “Blood calls to blood, Maraya. Whether you like it or not you are tied to him. Remember?” It was such an innocuous thing, a silly accident over a week ago. I was cutting beets for dinner when I was distracted by a bird that had got into the house and was now being chased by Vanya. There was a sharp pain, like heartbreak. I gasped in horror at the finger lying on the cutting board, among the beets. Blood was flowing from my finger, ...

CW: Domestic Violence PART ONE   All my life, I had lived in a little house on the edge of a dark forest. The forest was said to be the home of a witch who ate children. Even the men only ever hunted on the outskirts of the forest. My mother was a housewife, cooking and cleaning, and trying to please my father. My father was a hunter, a drinker and a gambler. A huge, red-faced man who would make his displeasure known to all. Especially my mother and I. We often bore the brunt of his rages.   W hen I was sixteen , I went into the forest . I knew I had to get as far away as I could, so they couldn’t bring me back. I had tried to ask for help before, and no one had ever believed me. It was a quiet, peaceful little village that we lived in, where nothing out of the ordinary ever seemed to happen, and it seemed that they wanted to keep it that way. Even if it meant ignoring things that went on right under their noses. I wondered what else went on behind closed doors. I had tried to...