Bards and Sages Quarterly (October 2022)

By Lisa Fox, Lisa Voorhees, Shih-Li Kow and 4 more

Every issue of the Bards and Sages Quarterly strives to bring readers and entertaining and eclectic collection of speculative fiction tales by both new and established authors in the genres. In this issue: stories by Rick Danforth, Lisa Fox, Brad Goldberg, Michelle Ann King, Shi-Li Kow, Michelle Muenzler, and Lisa Voorhees.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bards and Sages Publishing
• Release date: Oct 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215097649

Book preview

Aunt Tessa’s Special Blanket

by Lisa Fox

THE BOX FROM GREAT Aunt Tessa’s house smelled like old mothballs.

Then again, so had Aunt Tessa. I got a good whiff every summer when Mom forced me to go visit her mother’s sister, a couple hours from us out in the middle of nowhere. Aunt Tessa lived alone in a tiny brick house that looked like it was built by the smartest little pig. Not a huff nor a puff nor a breeze would penetrate it; no matter how hot it got inside, Auntie kept the windows locked up tight and the shades drawn.

That house always felt like it was holding its breath, waiting for something to happen.

I was twelve the last time I saw her on a brutally hot August afternoon. Aunt Tessa’s tea had been weaker and more bitter than usual, her cheese sandwiches a stale and mushy mess on those frilly, ugly flower-petal plates she pulled out for company. Auntie scowled and said I ate like a barbarian when I tried scraping the bread and liquid cheese goop off the roof of my mouth with my index finger. But it was stuck there and she tsked at me, as if I were supposed to be grateful that her sandwich was making a papier-mâché mold of my teeth while choking me to death.

I wiped the ooze from my chin with the back of my hand and Mom kicked me under the table, a painful reminder to watch my manners. I could almost hear Mom yelling, inside my head, not a second before Aunt Tessa chimed in with her high-pitched, old-lady whinge:

My word! Keep those filthy, dirty hands off my lace tablecloth! It’s an heirloom!

But as many times as I wanted to laugh or cry or pass out in old Auntie’s living room, I never did. I’d even smiled and nodded politely when she showed me her rotting antique books, her teacup collection, and the rows of good little ceramic boys and girls standing at attention on her knick-knack shelves.

See this, young man? Aunt Tessa never referred to me by name. I was always ‘young man,’ or ‘sonny’ or ‘dear.’ I wasn’t sure she even knew my name was Jeremy. Mom never corrected her.

She pointed toward a glass figurine. I think she called it a Hubbel. Or was it a Hummel? The turtle is following the little redheaded girl to school. Isn’t that so special, dear?

Yes, yes, I said. So special. My mother glared at me; from my tone she sensed the eye roll that threatened.

But it wasn’t any more special than Aunt Tessa’s lace doilies or her multi-colored knitted blankets. She called them afghans, like they were something exotic. Yarn was strewn everywhere, as if the house had been decorated by a gang of mischievous cats. Auntie always walked around wearing one of her hand-made sweaters, complaining she was cold – even in the middle of summer.

Every year, my aunt made us each a pair of knitted mittens for Christmas. Mom took a family picture in front of our tree; we waved at the camera with our hands swallowed up by that thick, scratchy wool. My fingers always felt like they would suffocate, and my hands emerged red and sweaty after just a few minutes in the hateful things. After Mom took the photo, I’d stash them in the back of the closet behind my old jigsaw puzzles. Mom thought those mittens were just wonderful. To me, they smelled like stinky old lady breath. And they felt like death on my skin.

I’d reached my breaking point on visiting Aunt Tessa the day I noticed that toilet-paper-holding doll in her bathroom. It was the kind with the beady eyes that watched you while you did your business. Aunt Tessa had knitted the skirt in puke green. It stretched out over the roll of paper and was supposed to be clever and cute. I just thought it was creepy. I didn’t need some crazy-ass doll scrutinizing me while I wiped my behind. No, thank you.

When I’d told Mom that I wasn’t going with her the next time she visited, she nodded, smiling with thin lips. I was about your age when I stopped visiting Auntie, too, she said. But she’s a lonely little old lady. She’s not getting any younger.

Mom encouraged me to join her, saying I’d rue the day when it was too late to visit. (Rue was an Aunt Tessa word, somehow Mom picked it up along the way). She said that I’d come to appreciate Aunt Tessa and all her quirks, just as she had. But the decision was mine, and my answer was always no. After a while, Mom stopped asking. Maybe she finally realized my summers were better spent bike riding and playing video games than sitting in some stuffy little house with an old lady who raised her eyebrows if I breathed on her precious trinkets or spent more than two minutes in the bathroom.

Two years later, Great Aunt Tessa died. All that was left was a big old cardboard box of stuff Mom and Dad dragged in through our front door, after the burial. Dad had loosened his tie and tossed his jacket to the side and Mom was still wearing her funeral dress when they hefted the box onto the dining room table.

I had stayed home, even though Mom asked me to go. Aunt Tessa creeped me out enough when she was alive.

Cousin Leigh is handling Tessa’s estate, Mom said. She told us to take whatever we wanted.

I felt my nose scrunch up as I eyed the worn cardboard.

Please tell me Toilet-Time Dolly isn’t in that box.

A little respect for the dead, please, Dad said, wagging