The Siege

by Rudi Dornemann

By the time the first snow fell, none of us remembered if we’d been the ones to burn the bridges and mine the streets just inside the gates, or if that had been the enemy. Big flakes fell out of the dark like the ashes of the stars we couldn’t see and the city got even quieter under all the white. Out on the plain, the wind blew rolling drifts like slow waves and we saw the distant figures of the enemy scrambling to secure their tents.

My sister Rose and I laughed and watched until the cold metal of the telescope stung our eyes, then we went downstairs and had some of the soup that Mama Anna had made. It wasn’t much — just water in which a shriveled potato had simmered all day. Sister Zell called it “potato tea,” but she wouldn’t help when we tried to talk Mama Anna into having a slice of the potato in our soup.

“If you eat it now,” said Mama Anna, “it won’t be there for breakfast.”

“Let them have it,” said Sister Zell. She stared out the window where the snow was falling heavier than ever.

Mama Anna put the pot back in the hearth and told us a story about the old days, when the Engineer and the Poet and the other founders built the city. Rose and I tried not to slurp our soup.

Mama Anna was just getting to the part where the Prophet went sleepwalking every night and the Engineer followed him so that he could see where the city walls should be, when Sister Zell interrupted.

“They flogged the Engineer the other day,” she said. “On the city hall steps.”

“It”s time for bed,” said Mama Anna. “For all of us.”

There was a huge sound, even louder than then cannons.

“The river-moat froze over,” said Sister Zell.

There were three more sounds, like wood cracking, only much louder, and I thought I heard a faraway shout.

“What do we do?” said Mama Anna.

“We wait,” said Sister Zell. “They should be waking the dragon soon.”

The whole house shook like it did when the calvalry used to ride down the street, back when we still had horses.

“Isn’t it too cold?” said Rose.

“We’ll find out,” said Sister Zell.

Mama Anna started to cry. Sister Zell held her hand, and we all looked out at the snow.

A Mostly True Fairy Tale

by Kat Beyer

In the days when SUVs were small as doormice and organic vegetables were ugly, there lived a girl who could talk to machines. She had them bring her treasures: cappuccinos and camping stoves, software and silks. She taught them to make lovely things to sell that vanished the next day. But one day the machines came to her.

“Everything you make is gone the next day,” they told her. “And none of it helps other people. If you do not change this, your powers will disappear.”

Naturally she didn’t listen. So she lost her powers: no more silks and stoves. She sat alone in the dark, for she could not even speak to the machine that made the light.

One day someone knocked on the door. “Come in,” she said. In the doorway stood an old lady.

“I can’t stop long,” said the old lady. “Others to see about. Here,” and she held out a jewelry case.

The girl opened it and saw a necklace of strange letters. She asked the old lady, “What do I do with this?”

“You’ll either work it out, and get out of here, or you won’t and you won’t,” said the old lady, and left.

The girl thought this was really too much. First she cried, then she yelled.

Much later she took out the necklace again. She could only feel the letters in the dark. There were no “A’s” or “B’s” — not so much as a “Q.” They didn’t even feel like kana, or akshara, or anything like that.

Studying a long time, she found one letter that always spoke to her of birds, and another of mercy, and another of sunrise, and she learned that she could rearrange them without breaking the necklace, making letter-pictures that shifted and grew in the dark and did not disappear the next day.

One day she made a letter-picture that turned the light on.

After she got over her shock she noticed the door handle. It felt good to turn it.

Outside, the air was bright and smelled of coffee.

The girl lives out in the world now. Her letter-pictures pay off people’s debt and froth cappuccinos and do many other wonders besides. Machines and people like to come and visit her. If you have seen the old lady lately, maybe you could let her know the girl would like very much to thank her.