They Stand. They Watch. They Wait.

Digital drawing. The silhouette of a person facing forward stands at center with arms to the side. The eyes glow with the color of the sunny halo behind the figure’s head and torso. The figure stands on ground that is cast in dark shadows. The ground fills the bottom fourth of the image. Scarce shrubbery is visible to the left of frame. A bush or small tree is visible at the right of frame. All in shadow. The sky fills the top three-quarters of the image and is streaked with sunset colors.

“What would happen if I accidentally looked at one of them?” Adira asked. “Or if I spoke by reflex, before I could stop myself?”

She was the passenger. With a sudden swerve, the driver pulled aside. Ignoring the horn of the car that just missed side-swiping them, he gripped the wheel. His shoulders heaved in a single breath.

A Dream Unto Death

Digital drawing. Sketch of a structure roughly shaped like a tree but made up of disproportionately sized animal bones. The trunk is the bones of an elephant leg. Sprouting from above the foot bones are curled horns, labeled at right “horns of a markhor?” At the top of the trunk are the bones of a human hand, fingers splayed out in the suggestion of tree branches. Extending from some of the branches are the bones of cat tails and bat wings, one at right labeled “bat wings.” Capping two finger bones are the skull bones of a penguin, labeled at left “penguin skull (reminiscent of plague mask).” A third penguin skull sits atop the bones of a cat’s tail. The sketch is labeled “Tree of Death” at the bottom. Above the title and to the left of the sketch is written the following in a calligraphic style: 25 October. Her dreams grow ever more frantic, ever more heinous. I have attempted a sketch based on the details gleaned from her latest nightmare.

13 September
“I’ve been summoned to your side,” I said, taking a seat in the chair beside her bed. “In the hopes that I can help guide you back to the world of the living.”

She coughed, cleared her throat, smiled at me, and said, “I have been waiting for you.”

The waking dreamer was lucid on the day that I met her. Though she was lying propped in her bed, she didn’t even appear weak or pale. I was quite surprised. But then I looked into her dark eyes and perceived in their depths a hidden truth, a weary soul, and a cautious calm. She was indeed haunted by the journeys that her mind and even her body had made in the weeks prior.

The Shadow of Victoria Lockhart

Digital drawing. Silhouette of a figure in a dress with bell sleeves and a hoop skirt, holding up a parasol in the right hand, with a gauzy veil flowing to the right. Bright light shines from above and behind the figure. Extending below the figure is what appears to be a shadow. Leafy, bushy foliage frames the top half of the image, extending down either side of the frame into dark shadowy patches in the foreground and hazy patches in the background. The image appears to be right side up, but would still be so if it were flipped vertically.

Victoria Lockhart, like many of those in both the cast and crew of her feature film debut, had heard about their director. His genius. And his…moods. That’s what they were called back then. Moods. And only directors were allowed to have them. She’d been so excited on her first day. Even after she saw him throw a chair at one of the writers. Even after she’d seen him take a swing at the cinematographer. Even after she’d heard him say things to his assistant in front of everyone that made the woman crumple at his feet in tears. Victoria told herself that she would never trigger his ire. She would make him adore her, respect her, and treat her as gently as he treated that favorite suede jacket of his.

Storyfeather Year 8

Digital drawing. A castle at center with three main spires flying pennants, battlements, and flanking symmetrical towers. The castle stands in front of a cave opening through which light pours. Moss grows along the cave walls. In front of the castle is a bank of clouds.

Digital drawing. Art deco inspired poster. At bottom center, a terrier with a determined expression, wearing a collar, standing and facing left, seen in three-quarters view. Flanking the dog are the ghostly images of two modern vacuum cleaners. Behind the dog is an art deco marquee pattern of a fan set in a holder. Above the dog’s head is the title of the story. Above the title, at top center, is a vintage vacuum machine with the hose missing, facing front.

Digital drawing. Center, a winged horse facing viewer, seen from chest up, mane falling to its right. Partly extended right wing is shadowy and hazy. The left wing is raised and stretched out, and the feathers are defined. Emerging from the horse’s sides under its wings are two more flying horses whose forms are translucent. The horse on the left flank extends a wing and raise a leg. The horse on the right flank extends a wing and raise’s two legs. A glowing mist streams down from center top.

Digital drawing. Five figures arrayed in flanking formation. At center is a human woman facing forward. She holds her hands before her, facing each other. A glowing ball of light is suspended between her fingers. Along the forearm part of her left armband, a lightning bolt glows. She wears color-blocked exercise clothes. A humanoid lizard sits to her right and behind, raising her right arm as if in greeting. She wears a scarf around her neck, and a breastplate displaying circuitry. To the lizard’s right and behind is a giant seagull, wings outspread, head raised, and beak open, blasting out a ray of swirling circles. To the human woman’s left, a toad springs up and out, to the toad’s left and behind, a unicorn with a rainbow mane rears up, her horn blasting forth a ribbon of light.

Digital drawing. A humanoid figure stands at center, visible from the waist up, wearing a cap and veil behind which nothing is visible, with two mushroom caps emerging as sleeves from the left arm, and raising the right hand up ready to snap their fingers. The cap and veil resemble a bamboo mushroom. Patches of different types of mushrooms grow on either side of the figure that represent or resemble real mushrooms: inky cap, cage fungus, split gill, pixie cup lichen, and others.

Digital drawing. Cartoon depictions of anthropomorphized unicellular organisms in a line. From left to right, three filaments of cyanobacteria, a Stentor, a paramecium with flagella who’s wearing a fedora, a slime mold, and a dinoflagellate with glasses.

Digital drawing. Front view of the top two-thirds of a closed door. A hazy glowing light emanates from bottom left across the face of the door. Scattered bits of redacted text appear over and around the door. The visible words are as follows: Science…in its current state. Project Manager. Project No. Existent…charge and…key…fakery. The first letters of “project” and “existent” are cut off.

Digital drawing. A ship shaped like a submarine appears on the bottom half moving toward a glowing anomaly in the center of the image. Lightning, sparks, and gases emerge from the anomaly and stream outward. A zigzag pattern with nodes at each junction glows on the ship’s hull and is reflected above and below the ship. Lightning-like energy flows out from two dorsal thrusters.

Digital drawing of a stream cutting through a grassy meadow. Foreground bottom corners display glowing curling stems. On the left corner, a ladybug is perched on one of the stems. Bottom middle edge, a piece of paper floats in the water. To the ladybug’s left, a wooden sign juts up from the grass. In the upper third of the image, forests are visible through purple haze, and mountains even further back. The sky glows with sunlight.

Digital drawing of a partial view through a window. Lined along the inside, looking out are four gingerbread men. Three of them are iced with decoration and look angry. The fourth is smiling. In the window’s reflection is a giant gingerbread man wreaking havoc. His arms are raised and fingers curled down with menace. He is breathing fire down onto the ground.

Digital drawing. At center, a mouse riding a motorcycle down a glowing pathway, facing forward, left paw on the pedal and right paw holding a lit matchstick. Objects float in the space around the mouse. At top left, a screw. Bottom left a sock. Top right corner, part of some device with buttons. Below that, a toothbrush. Middle right, a yo-yo.

Digital drawing. At center, two little girls. The girl at left stands a head taller, with her right hand on her hip and her left arm around the other girl’s shoulder. She wears a skirt, a quarter-sleeve pullover, a band around her left wrist, and a barrette in her hair. The girl at right holds a book open in her right hand, and touches a page with her left. Sparkles surround the book. She wears a dress with a pleated skirt. The girls smile and gaze at each other. Behind them are lines of script with random letters bordered by a lightning pattern.

Year Eight is finished! As always, thank you to everyone who read even a single story. Thank to you everyone who liked or commented. Thank you for your time and interest, and for being a part of Storyfeather, especially Year Eight.

This was the Year of Revisitation, in which I went back to a story I’d already written and wrote a new standalone story based on a character, object, continuation of events, or some other (sometimes flimsy) link to the earlier story.

A lot happens in the eighth year stories. While investigating a murder, a single-celled detective is led into a world full of bacterial filaments, proto-multicellular colonies, and a new concept called “love.” The most popular wrestling show in five galaxies is somehow in danger of being shut down, but then the wrestlers—including the show’s first human—jump into action to save it. In the 400th story, six kids explore the possibility that dogs have been trying to warn humanity about a terrible enemy in their midst…the vacuum machines. And a kitchen mishap leads to the accidental invention of the most powerful ice cream in the world.

I did something new and made a year-end trailer for The Year of Revisitation. It’s posted here, and it’ll be on the Trailers page for a few weeks.

Music: “Space Discoveries” by Andrew Sitkov

I’ve written over 400 stories now, and produced over 200 podcast episodes. And yes, I do feel mighty. I do wonder if I’m repeating myself sometimes (I probably am, but maybe it’s okay if it turns out to be fun). It was more challenging than I expected to revisit older stories. Part of the challenge was that when I first started writing, I often added too many elements to a story. I still sometimes do that, but I believe I’ve gotten better at recognizing and streamlining. There were times when I wanted to revisit a previous story, or some element from the story, but in a longer work. Perhaps, in the future…

This year, I launched a few new features in the hopes of making it easier and more fun to navigate through all those hundreds of stories, and find the ones you’re most likely to enjoy.

Trailers page: The trailers for the most recent stories and podcast episodes, and links to older trailers.
Portals page: Buttons with images and taglines for recent stories. The buttons (portals) lead to the introductory pages for each story, which contain the trailer and more information. My hope is that I can add to these introductory pages in the future (more trailers, behind-the-scenes info, etc.).
You can also listen to the three most recent podcast episodes from either the Trailers or the Portals pages.
Hub pages for the current story year and podcast season, to make it easier to scroll through and read the titles and taglines of the stories, and either go directly to the story, or go visit the introductory page.

In case you didn’t know about all these pages, or just haven’t checked them out, the buttons are at the bottom of this post. I also ran a couple of showcase campaigns to highlight stories that shared a theme. I plan to continue this effort with more navigation tools in the next year. So if anyone has any suggestions or other feedback, please feel free to reach out.

Expanding beyond this site, I also launched a new online course to help anyone who wants to write short fiction, and I’ll soon be launching a new online store with merchandise that features artwork from the Storyfeather stories.

All of these new things are exciting (sometimes grueling) but the stories are still the core of this endeavor.

Storytelling is still my true love, still my destiny, still my path. Stories have been my hope and my haven all my life. First, the stories of others, and then my own stories as well. This year, stories and storytelling have also been my anchor.

Year Nine is coming. The Wheel of Fiction. The theme is a continuation of Year Eight’s theme, but with a twist (pun intended). Season Five of the podcast is coming soon. The journey continues! I hope you’ll come along.

I have stories to tell you.
Nila

Portal Button. Elongated rectangle with rings of colored light emanating from the center. Text appears over the rings, reading "Storyfeather Year 8" and below it in larger font, "Revisitation."

[Summarized Video Description: Trailer. Duration, 96 seconds. Music: “Space Discoveries” by Andrew Sitkov. Title card with the Storyfeather main logo and “Year 8” and the story title are displayed in front of the image from the story “The Union of the Spyglass.” The logo and title card fade. A watermark of the word “Storyfeather” appears at bottom right. Images from various other Year 8 stories appear and disappear in a series of wipes and animations. The following words appear and disappear, “Galactic! Microscopic. Hand pies! Aliens! Quests. Mischief. The 400th story” The video slows down as the image from the four hundredth story appears, “Attack of the Vacuum Machine Army.” More images and words appear and disappear, “Dreams. Visions. Other Realms. Horror. Magic. Myth.” The video slows again as the final image appears. The watermark fades as the logo reappears at center, and above it, the words “The Year of Revisitation.”]

The Final Monster I Fight

Digital drawing. Composite of several figures in silhouette. Bottom foreground left and center, two figures from chest up with various missing limbs and digits reach to the right. They are zombies. Bottom foreground right, a figure from chest up holding both hands against their head. Shadows representing gravestones lie at angles behind them. Left moving into frame is a ghostly cloud in which the outline of a face and a hand are visible. Right of frame, sitting on an outcropping, a werewolf howls against a glowing moon. Top center at a distance, floating in the sky, a vampire wearing a cloak and reaching out. At center from back, a hooded figure from torso up holding a long stake propped over the right shoulder. Upper left corner, a patch of stalactites.

The final monster I fight. It won’t be long now.

Curses and cures. Curses and cures.

I’ve tried everything. Like most people in my position.

Everything reasonable that is. I didn’t think I’d run out of options this soon. I only started seeing the signs a couple of weeks ago. Of course I’ve known it was coming, but I also hoped…I might be one of the exceptions.

There Lived A Crooked Creature

Digital drawing: Portions of a creature. At right, fourteen eyeballs with triangular pupils framed by a mane of shaggy hair and held up by a segmented neck that looks like a series of polyps. The neck extends to the left and out of frame. Along the length of one polyp a mouth that looks like a tear with rows of small sharp teeth. Behind the neck is the creature’s body with cricket-like legs emerging from the side.

“We think the northeast corner of Laundry Room Four is a nexus to a demonic dimension, and one of its native creatures managed to lay a few eggs in our dimension, and now—“

“Whoa! Whoa, slow down. ‘Nexus to a demonic’ what now?” I glanced between the three kids standing before me, blocking my way to the aforementioned Laundry Room Four.

One Wicked Warlock

There is a tall tower to the north. It is made of stone that looks a common gray from afar. But I have been close enough to see the stone shift hues, to glitter with the gilded veins of an otherworldly ore, to fade into a pale so utmost as to be nigh invisible.

A warlock once lived there, it is said. Now the tower is abandoned.

But that does not mean is it safe.

The Infernal Bargain House

Digital drawing. An oak tree at center whose six visible main branches spread in all directions, some dragging on the ground, some reaching upward, some reaching outward. Diffuse patches of green in the background suggest leaves sprouting from the thinner branches. A thin dark haze lays along the ground. A vaguely humanoid shadow floats beside the tree.

A gray shape darted past me to my right. I turned to the ragged bushes entangled with dried weeds. One of the stems shuddered and I heard a rustling. But the overgrowth was too thick for me to see what was moving around in there. Back home—my previous home—I would have guessed it was a lizard. But here, in my new home, it could have been a rabbit. A wild rabbit.

The Doorway of Disarray

My doorway was done. My masterwork of alchemy and carpentry. Humming with electricity.

It was done.

The Eye in My Ceiling

Digital drawing. Central figure, a woman, her top half, seen from below at an angle. She’s facing away standing in a room where the ceiling and parts of two walls intersect at her left, around waist level. The woman wears pants and a t-shirt and her hair in a ponytail. She holds a carving knife in her right hand, held down and behind herself. Her left hand reaches up towards a huge eye in the ceiling. Most of the iris and a small portion of the whites are visible.

I thought it was a reflection at first. Not the moon. Some streetlight or something, from outside, getting past my curtains. I was too lazy, too sleepy to get up and deal with it. But I do remember thinking it was strange.

Isn’t the light too bright to be a reflection? I thought, peeking up at the ceiling.

I do remember resisting the urge to rub my eyes. I wanted to take a closer look.

Did I just see something floating in the light?

STORYFEATHER

Long live stories!

Horror