Sweetlings: A Tor.com Original

By Lucy Taylor

"Sweetlings" by Lucy Taylor is about a small enclave of people living on the shrunken east coast of the United States, surviving and evolving as Earth’s seas rise.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: May 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9780765396525

Book preview

The night before my mother walked into the New Sea carrying my six-week-old brother, I heard her and Papi arguing. Even with the wind screaming past our tiny squatter’s house on the cliff, the rage in her voice slashed through the thin wall.

It’s not right! I’d rather smother the boy in his sleep than do this!

But you must, Papi said. His voice was firm and deliberate, the way he sounded telling me to take a dose of foxglove to ward off Blister Rot or refusing Mama’s entreaties to leave this lonely, wind-battered place and take our chances inland. Kind, but unyielding. The child is suffering. See how he struggles to breathe. I’d carry him into the water myself, but my legs are too weak … and I won’t ask Mir to do it.

Then don’t ask it of me!

It’s not in our hands, don’t you see? We’ve got to accept what this new world is becoming, not torment ourselves with what we’d like it to be.

His words reminded me of Jersey, who even now—two years later—has a kind of mad optimism that sees the Great Inundation and the ensuing havoc and death as some kind of exciting adventure, a new start for humanity instead of a long bitter trudge to extinction.

Mama’s sobbing played counterpoint to the howl of the wind.

We were fools to have another baby! Not in these times. We shouldn’t have had Mir either. Look at her! Maybe it’s her I ought to take into the sea!

There’s nothing wrong with our daughter, Papi said. "She’s thirteen. Shy about her body and starting to think about sex. A difficult age at the best of

Reviews for Sweetlings

[a9shelf9apart · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A deliciously, skin-crawlingly dark short story.Hit all my ‘fuck yes’ buttons with regards to post-apocalyptic body horror.