Metaphorosis February 2022

By Carol Wellart and Metaphorosis Magazine

Beautifully written speculative fiction from Metaphorosis magazine.

All the stories from the month, plus author biographies, interviews, and story origins.

Table of Contents

• A Lie in the Sand - Devin Miller
• Heartbeat of the Seasons - B

• Language: English
• Publisher: Metaphorosis Magazine
• Release date: Feb 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781640762220

Book preview

Metaphorosis

February 2022

edited by

B. Morris Allen

ISSN: 2573-136X (online)

ISBN: 978-1-64076-222-0 (e-book)

ISBN: 978-1-64076-223-7 (paperback)

LogoMM-sC

from

Metaphorosis Publishing

Neskowin

February 2022

A Lie in the Sand — Devin Miller

Heartbeat of the Seasons — Brian Hugenbruch

Freely Given — Connor Mellegers

The Diary of Thisne Ome — Thomas Ouphe

A Lie in the Sand

Devin Miller

The trees at the edge of the beach lean away from the water. They could have been blown back by a powerful sea wind, but Haworth is certain the trees are simply trying to get as far from the beach as possible. She wants to lean back too.

What the fuck is this? Haworth asks. Her breath mists in the damp-cold air. They could have been on the ship home to Tirucal by now.

Aristalo, hands in her pockets, surveys the beach calmly. Haworth’s boss is maybe fifty (unconfirmed, since she’s not the kind of person you can ask to tell you their age), and being a traveling bard that long is a surefire way to become unflappable. It’s a beach full of sand castles, she answers. Watch your language.

Haworth, about to call profanity-prone Aristalo out on her massive hypocrisy, looks back at the beach and crosses her arms instead.

Fog billows over the water, thick and grey, but it does not touch the land. As far as they can see along the beach, the sand is formed into shapes that could, if you happen to be a connoisseur of the understatement, be called sand castles. They’re nothing like the sand castles Haworth’s younger cousins used to make. They’re as tall as Haworth, and Haworth is five inches taller than Aristalo. An unbroken line of walls marks the border of the sand city. She can barely see the water’s edge past the densely built towers and battlements, despite the slope of the beach. The dark grey sand looks so solid that it’s hard to imagine the incoming tide washing the castles away. They are definitely magical, or supernatural, or at the very least uncanny.

There is something threatening about the sand castles. It’s what makes Haworth want to back away, what makes her think the trees are leaning away from the beach and not the wind. Maybe it’s the stillness, maybe the empty windows in the sandy walls.

Are they haunted, or what? Haworth asks. She’s encountered hauntings before in her apprenticeship, mostly at a distance. Aristalo seems to think Haworth is too green to deal with the uncanny shit. The closest she’s gotten was dealing with a suspiciously sentient library’s opinions about which stories she told the citizens of Diosco.

Aristalo hmms, and slings her pack off her back. She rummages around in the outer pocket and pulls out a blue knit hat, which she jams over her close-cropped grey hair.

Where did you get that hat? Haworth demands, distracted.

Aristalo grins a dirty little grin. The waitress at the pub in Imbricata gave it to me.

Impressed, Haworth subsides. How is it that this cranky, butch old lady gets pretty women giving her knitwear all the time? Is this a skill Haworth can apprentice herself to like the storytelling and singing? Haworth doesn’t really like hats, but still, it’d be nice to get the occasional scarf as a memento. She could use a scarf right now. The air off the water is heavy with cold, the leaves on the trees frozen crisp.

Why are we here? Haworth asks. We could have gone straight to the ship with Captain Setosa. He’s an old friend of Aristalo’s from the last time she visited Imbricata, and he’s agreed to take them to Tirucal. Haworth’s home, which she hasn’t been to in two years. Which she could be getting to sooner, if Aristalo hadn’t insisted on this little detour. As much as Haworth likes and respects her boss, sometimes she wants to shove Aristalo overboard. She can swim, she’d be fine; she just deserves a good dunking.

He’s picking us up here, the ship’s out in that fog somewhere.

Er, picking us up how? There’s no path through.

Your turn. Aristalo puts her pack back on and gestures for Haworth to go ahead. Figure out how to get us to the water.

Haworth groans internally. Of course this is a test. Aristalo loves tests. Especially when they’re mildly life-threatening.

The castles are tall enough that climbing across would be a pain in the ass, and there’s no way Aristalo would do it, so that can’t be the answer. Haworth tugs her collar up around her neck and frowns. Maybe this is why Aristalo is cranky all the time—the bard she apprenticed to probably made her do shit like this, and now she’s passing it on.

Actually, Haworth realizes, that might be exactly what’s happening. Captain Setosa has obviously known Aristalo a very long time, long enough that she could have first visited this region and encountered the sand castles as a young apprentice.

Could they ram their way through? Haworth looks around at the trees. If she got a branch big enough, maybe she could use it to shove sand aside and clear a path. But she isn’t sure she could break off a branch that would be strong enough to do the job. And anyway, there is nothing normal about a beach full of gigantic sand castles. A normal solution like shoving sand aside isn’t going to cut it.

Tentatively, Haworth steps up to the border of the sand city and peers over the wall. She half expects to find the city occupied by hermit crabs or sea turtles or something, but the courtyard below is empty. It has an odd floral scent, mixing unpleasantly with the scent of salt water. There’s no way any flowers are blooming in this cold. Haworth reaches out and shoves one of the conical sand towers with both hands, just to see what will happen.

The sand shoves back.

She stumbles, loses her footing in the loose sand, and sits down hard on her ass. The sensation of the shove, not quite like hands, lingers in her shoulders.

Aristalo snickers. You asked for that.

Haworth glares and dusts off her hands, then gets up and dusts off the seat of her pants. She knows better than to push Aristalo, but still she says, We have to do this now? Just for once, we can’t take the direct path so I can see my family sooner? Aunt Deline is probably already baking fish cakes.

Aristalo makes a face about the fish cakes, but she doesn’t chide Haworth for trying to get out of this test. You’ve done four years of your apprenticeship, she says, the way one might say ‘you’ve done four years of your six-year prison sentence’, and you’ve got the skills. Wouldn’t you like to be able to tell your cousins the story of the time you handled a beachful of spooky sand castles?

Huh. Alright, yeah, Haworth does want to tell that story. She grew up telling her cousins stories, when they were little and sad because the Tirucali kids all thought they were too weird to play with, with their Baselban food and Baselban family. It’s how she got the itch for bardcraft, what led her to her apprenticeship with Aristalo. And she mostly made up the stories she told her cousins; it would be novel to tell them a true story about how awesome she is. Damn Aristalo for knowing which carrot to dangle in front of her.

Aristalo said she has the skills. That suggests that somehow crossing the sand castle city is a problem to which Haworth can apply the skills she’s learned during her apprenticeship. She’s an apprentice bard, though. Maybe if she plays the hand drum just right the sound waves will cause the castles to spontaneously fall down? Using brute force is clearly out of the question, so she can’t use the lute as a sand shovel. The tower she shoved looks totally unaffected.

But destruction is the wrong approach anyway, she realizes. You could tell a great story about someone fighting their way through a