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Jun. 2021 (Issue 68)

In the June issue of Fantasy Magazine: Original fiction by Rajan Khanna (“Your Ticket to Hell”) and Cara DiGiorlamo (“A Gift from the Queen of Faerie to the King of Hell”); flash fiction by Catherine J. Cole (“Dos Coyotes”) and Christine Tyler (“The Port of Le Havre, Night Effect”); poetry by Donyae Coles (“Echidna”) and Colleen Anderson (“Magic Carpet”); and an essay by Effie Seiberg.

The Port of Le Havre, Night Effect, 1873

Mermaid stories and selkie stories, mother Eve stories, they always start the same way: with curious girls who want to know. So they leave their homes and lose themselves, but only for a time. Mermaid stories and selkie stories, mother Eve stories, they always end the same way: heads bowed, hearts heavy, they go back. They go home.

Author Spotlight: Cara Masten DiGirolamo

There’s a lot about identity in this story—when fairies steal your name, what does that mean?—and tattoos are a way to tie yourself to yourself, to mark your sense of yourself and your history on your skin. Flowers also felt right for these characters; flowers are the rock stars of nature—flamboyant, dramatic, and unexpected, which was the vibe I wanted for the world of faerie they inhabited—a punk rock version of the natural world. Flowers are also incredibly genderqueer.

A Gift from the Queen of Faerie to the King of Hell

The designs weren’t in the window or in any of the shop’s sample books, but I caught sight of the tattoo artist tracing stencils onto transfer paper. I’d been looking for a place to finish my sleeves, and though the tumbling spike-thorn roses weren’t what I’d pictured, I could see them winding between my birds and beasts, viny tendrils and jagged rocks, the buds tempting and lush, the thorns sharp and deadly.

Echidna

She didn’t cry when it happened. / She knew before the news told the story. / She knew in the way that a woman knows

Dos Coyotes

Three more big swallows should keep the beast inside. Lupita sat against the wall, on the kitchen floor littered with broken glass, panting from the pain, clutching the canteen in one hand, the bottle cap in the other. Her body screamed for her to stop drinking the liquid fire that would keep her human for another day.

Editorial: June 2021

In this issue’s short fiction, Rajan Khanna takes us on a literary trip that Dante and Milton would envy, in “Your Ticket to Hell”, and Cara DiGirolamo invites us to a perilous party in “A Gift from the Queen of Faerie to the King of Hell”; for flash fiction, Catherine J. Coles describes the dangers of a . . . transformative life—but with a lovely twist; in “Dos Coyotes”, and Christine Tyler’s “The Port of Le Havre” explores home and identity; for poetry, we have “Echidna” by Donyae Coles and “Magic Carpet” by Colleen Anderson. Plus essay “How to Steal a Million Dollars Dragons” by author/sculptor/fantastical cake maker Effie Seiberg. Enjoy!

Author Spotlight: Rajan Khanna

That’s always the trick of it all; as a writer, even if you feel like you captured the feeling you were hoping to capture, it’s not a guarantee that the story will evoke that same feeling in a reader. That said, I don’t need the reader to feel exactly what I felt writing it, but I do want them to feel something.

Your Ticket to Hell

Your journey to Hell begins on a ferry. You clutch your ticket and line up in the stinging rain, waiting for your chance to board. You remember something about a river in Hell, and a ferryman, but in your memory, he rowed a boat more like a canoe in exchange for gold coins. You’re lined up to board a ship, a modern ship, the kind that might take you to an island.