- sci-fiEveryone
The Lending Library of Tomorrows
Behind the laundromat, where there had always been a plain brick wall, Milo found a little door no taller than he was. He ducked inside. A small clockwork librarian slid a card across the counter. Tiny gears ticked inside her chest. "We lend tomorrows here," she said. "Borrow one good day from your own future and spend it today. Just return it by the deadline on the card."
5 writers - fantasyEveryone
The Dragon Who Hoarded Names
People called her Girl, or Nobody, or Hush, because she had never made a sound and no one had ever given her a real name. The night the snow fell purple over the peaks, she packed a crust of bread and started climbing. Under the mountain lived the dragon Vesper, who did not hoard gold. She hoarded names, stacked in the dark like cold little coins. The girl wanted just one. Her own.
5 writers - fantasy◐ Teen
The Last Clutch of Emberfall
Nobody asked Wren if he wanted the job. The soldiers just pushed the kingdom's last dragon egg into his arms and told him to walk. The queen's order sat folded in his pocket: deliver it to the Cinder Tower, sealed and whole. So down the mountain road he went, the cold egg against his chest. Then, near a sharp bend in the trail, the shell started to warm. It shook in his hands. With a soft, wet snap, a crack split across it.
5 writers - comedyEveryone
Rise of the Sourdough
Nadia named her sourdough starter Gerald, the way you name anything you have to feed twice a day and slightly resent. This morning, taped to his jar in flour-dusted handwriting she did not recognize, was a note: WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE THERMOSTAT. Gerald had no hands. Gerald had no pen. And yet there it was, the tape still slightly warm.
5 writers - fantasy◐ Mature
Marrow and Marigold
The plague killed faster than Veska Tallow could bury anyone. The marigold beds outside her workshop were full, so the new dead waited in the yard. By candlelight she pressed her thumb to a femur and the bone told her its truth, the way bones always did: fever first, then drowning in your own lungs. She had read ten thousand deaths this way. But the rib in her other hand stayed silent. No fever. No drowning. Nothing at all.
5 writers - fantasyEveryone
The Lantern That Walked Home
By dawn the Lantern Festival was over. Wren walked the rows along the river, pinching out flame after flame. Every paper lantern died at her touch but one. It hung at the water's edge, glowing a steady gold no breeze could shake. When she reached for it, the little wick leaned away from her fingers and tugged its string, like it wanted her to follow.
5 writers - fantasy◐ Teen
The Cartomancer's Last Hand
Under the old stone bridge, Mireille reads deaths for spare coppers, and her cards never lie. Tonight the river fog smells like iron. When she deals her own hand, the Drowned Queen stares up at her, the card that means your hour is near. Then the painted woman lifts her chin and steps right off the card. Wet hair, cold eyes, a real woman now. 'You dealt me,' she says. 'So sit. We play until dawn. Win, and you live.'
5 writers - fantasyEveryone
Pocketful of Tame Wishes
Nana's wish shop smelled of cinnamon and warm brass. It was Wren's first morning as keeper, and the wishes woke up grumpy. Little glass jars glowed dim on the shelves, half-done and muttering, rattling against the wood. On the counter lay Nana's open ledger. Three names were underlined twice. Below them, in Nana's loopy writing: 'Mend these before the wishes turn, or they'll run wild by nightfall.' Wren swallowed and read the first name.
5 writers - fantasy◐ Mature
The Debt of Hollow Bells
Maren had rung the hollow bells over six hundred graves. Each toll dragged a dead soul up just long enough for one last word. She'd done it so long it bored her. But tonight the bell rang before she touched the rope. One cold iron note rolled across the frozen yard. She opened her casebook to write it down, and the page was already full, in handwriting that was not hers.
5 writers - fantasy◐ Teen
Threadbare Crown
In Veil, no king or queen is born to the throne. The Great Loom decides. Every few years it weaves a new tapestry, and the face in the silver thread becomes the next monarch. Mira, a seamstress's daughter, was sweeping spindle-dust in the workshop when the new cloth was unveiled. She glanced up and forgot how to breathe. Woven in living silver was a girl with her exact face. Hers. Before she could move, two royal guards stepped through the door and looked straight at her.
5 writers - horrorEveryone
Don't Wake the Library
Milo woke to a soft click. The last light had switched off. He'd dozed off in the beanbag, and his comic had slid to the floor. The library was closed, dark, and locked tight. It smelled of dust and old glue. Then he heard it: every shelf was breathing. Books slid their spines a half-inch out, then back, in and out. A voice whispered, "Stay quiet. Don't wake them all the way."
5 writers - adventure◐ Teen
The Map of Small Disasters
Grandma left me one thing: a folded old map. At first it looked like junk. Then I saw the stars — tiny ones, drawn by hand. One marked the playground where I broke my arm at six. One marked the corner where my bike flipped. Every place I'd ever been hurt had a star. But there was one I'd never been: far out at sea, alone in the blue. What happened to me out there that I didn't remember?
5 writers - fantasyEveryone
The Cartographer of Forgotten Coasts
The morning the sea turned to glass, Edda woke to total silence. No waves, no birds. From her window the whole harbor looked frozen smooth and shining. She sat at her desk and, almost without thinking, dipped her pen and inked a brand-new coastline onto a blank chart: cliffs, a bay, a row of sharp rocks. None of it was real. By the time the ink dried, a fisherman was pounding on her door, shouting that ships were sailing toward land that had never been there before.
5 writers