The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Teatime TealPhotography by Maggie Winters Photo Brushes by Jenn's Sanity Featuring Adrienne Kerr & Luna Lark QuailBellMagazine.com The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
A Door in the Floor of the GroundBy Erik Berg QuailBellMagazine.com It was afternoon when the boys lowered themselves from the ridge and onto the soft soil beneath the shade of the beech trees that grew over the hillside. Not many of the children had gone beyond the ridge because the trees there were very thick, and the noises were unfamiliar in the shadows, and one could get lost very easily. And exactly for these reasons, too, was it the perfect place for young boys to play. They lowered themselves in a non-careful way from the rocks that made up the ridge, and when Jacob touched ground he took off quickly. The grass was still damp in the parts of shade, but in the patches of sunlight it was dry and very green, and Peter followed in pursuit with the stick in his hand, hitting at things they could only see. —I think they’ve gotten away, Peter said. —There they are! They’re getting away! Get ‘em! The forest floor dropped many times in small divots in the hillside, and they used these divots to jump like bandits from one ground to the next, hitting at things that moved, or didn’t move, or sometimes at both. Their shouting had become far off through the trees, and the ridge was not there any more behind them. At certain places, the larks and the partridges gathered in the trees and watched in curiosity at the inaccuracy and the ruckus of the sticks. The boys were uncoordinated, and the attack turned out to be a mistake in the end, and finally when the boys figured they weren’t hitting anything but their own bare arms, they fell into a rise of the hillside to draw up new plans. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The WoodsBy Sylvie Beauvais QuailBellMagazine.com When the battle-hardened warrior we ironically call Little Red Riding Hood speaks to me, I have to notice--I’ve been lied to. She is really tall and slightly menacing, sword at her side. She slouches and leans sideways to talk, but as soon as she’s not dealing with peers, superiors, or press like me, she stands straight and has that determined, efficient walk found in athletes and trained soldiers. She could be pretty if she wasn’t so damn scary looking. She stares me down for a moment, as if she is evaluating how much I will slow her down when the battle starts. Her eyes are startling, so clear and purple blue, like a falling night, that I look away to see her scar, like a deep long dimple, on the left side of her face. Miss Hood? (No one knows her real name except the Queen.) Call me Red. All right, Red. How long have you been in the Army? A few years. What made you join the Night Corps? I like to run at night, always have, figured it would be safer if I had a pack with me. This was an insufficient explanation for going through the most badass training possible. So I pushed her. And the killing? I’m here for the mission—I like to get things done right, fast, and quiet. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Burgundy GirlsPhotography by Helen Georgia Stoddard Poetry by Christine Stoddard Featuring Erica Breig & Luna Lark QuailBellMagazine.com Siomi and Sybil, Sybil and Siomi--the burgundy girls bound by the blood that spurted from their wrists and pretty fingers that white winter afternoon. Forever--to be--forever clever, forever chaste, forever lovely in their lace. Only kiss gentlemen. Never stomp through the snow. Plan for each bridge. We are ladies, sweet, stylish ladies, who worship dolls, books, and bows. The exterior reflects the interior, so always brush, braid, polish, and powder. We know no lows, only angelic highs, only rich dyes, only the custom size, only letters, only dreams, only the belief that Elegance is what she seems. Siomi and Sybil, Sybil and Siomi--the burgundy beauties of fine breeding. They force their pocket watches to make time for grooming AND reading. Bound by titters, bound by tea parties, bound by yesterday's silver wishes, bound by lilac, bound by grace, bound by their own type of strange faith... The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
Anna Collide (The Morpediera)By Giamco Lee QuailBellMagazine.com Anna Heat plays tricks with the mind, its tics. Grazing by the ferns, hiding, I was 17, my eyes assembling through a collage of green beyond the path this: two legs stood like poles at the end of flatland, the rest of the torso missing, covered in khaki trousers with the belt still on. Their feet in black shoes faced one way as I walked the other, taking in all that was new around me. l fell asleep cos of the afternoon heat, like I still do now. Anna was hiding from her family, who moved here when their province was uprooted for intersecting highways. ‘We’ll be closer to the city’ the governors would say through mother. It was true - the village lay by the basin of the valley, fourty minutes on wheels through the mouth into the metropolis. Sound plays tricks with the mind. Mother would tell me things, secrets the village had bestowed onto her, just her hushed words and the bare bulb and the tics of the crickets in the dark beyond, working it all hours. How could I sleep with an open window after? So I saw the legs, thinking of the goatfucker, the boy who may have gassed himself by the cascade, the local pimp. I never thought of the Morpediera, silly omens seen by silly villagers like these, a bundle of wings flapping past windows or struggling in your crops, Creatures like these appear to warn you off from a bad choice you’re about to make, in love or business, a reckless journey in the trees or a stranger’s crops you consider with a scythe in one hand. Where were these monsters for us, when the orders came through for our family? Any monsters are the ones we whisper about, if anywhere else. The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
The Breadcrumbs widget will appear here on the published site.
RubricBy Benjamin Nardolilli QuailBellMagazine.com Heroes easily become trapped inside a cast For others to enter in and fill on their own, Their journeys are easy to observe and market, But difficult to take, every hero spawns A hundred lesser imitators, thousands of followers, And millions who observe the hero passing. Heroes can be worshipped, but better For them to make something of an example, How to walk calmly through the fire, Worship elevates them and we forget All their weaknesses and their mortality, The thing which made them want to be immortal. Heroes that are worshipped find themselves Dying again, but in a another time, Some are passed over like a bridge or ladder, What inspired them gets the attention, Others become new altars, new names for prayers, Either way, the hero becomes a eunuch. |