A queer Latina living in Iowa, Lisa M. Bradley writes everything from haiku to novels, usually with a speculative slant. Her work has appeared in many venues, including LeVar Burton Reads, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Her first collection is The Haunted Girl; her debut novel is Exile. Recently she coedited with R.B. Lemberg the Ursula Le Guin tribute anthology, Climbing Lightly Through Forests. On Twitter, she’s @cafenowhere. Learn more at lisambradley.com
Ynes doesn’t remember the marigold, but she has a recurring dream in which she accidentally swallows an entire tangerine. She grows very warm and realizes it was not a tangerine at all but a small sun. She knows if she tells her mother what she swallowed, there will be a panic. So instead, she keeps her mouth shut. The sun sits warm in her belly and shines tendrils of light down her arms and legs. When rays escape her fingertips, she puts on mittens.
