NOVEMBER 2015 TO OCTOBER 2016
Every year’s short stories (mostly) follow a theme. The overarching theme I aimed for in Year Three was the elements (earth, air, fire, and water) and the physical senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell). Many of the stories were inspired by and often in the form of myth and legend. Stories of phantom limbs, afterlife accountants, songs, curses, and magic fleeces.
Welcome to the third year of Storyfeather.
Below are the titles, primary genres, and taglines for each story in the order it was originally posted.
- READ button opens story post where you can read the story.
- LISTEN button opens podcast episode page where you can hear the story, narrated by Nila over music (and the occasional sound effect).
- GO TO THE END button jumps you to the bottom of the page. It’s a long way down, and depending on your device, important navigational links may be below the page or in the sidebar.
A couple of agents who investigate unusual phenomena track down what seems to be a distress signal and find (as expected) the unexpected.
High up in the mountains live an extraordinary people who deserve to be ruled by an extraordinary ruler.
As his apprentice watches on, a great wizard tests his powers by brewing a rare and mysterious potion. A potion that could be and do anything.
A humble wood-carver is a prince’s proxy to face a deadly contest to win the hand of the mysterious princess of the kingdom-by-the-sea.
A highborn lady’s unusual birthmark and a young lord’s unacceptable facial grooming habits form the basis for common practices.
One of the containers from Alora’s favorite take-out place has the power to change her fortune.
A woman dozes off on the subway, misses her stop, and ends up the reaching the same destination again and again.
A young detective has the uncanny ability to see into the core of a person.
Twenty years ago, a sailor lost at sea answered a dare, and to this day, he is haunted by the aftereffects.
A sorcerer creates a powerful spell to rescue a hero, but the spell might be too dangerous to use.
When a man gifted with a keen sense of smell is tasked with finding a stolen item, he finds something even more extraordinary than his gift.
A shepherd is given a fleece of rich black wool that imbues him with unique knowledge. When he passes the fleece on to his heir, she uses that knowledge in her worldly quest.
A thief with honor uses her magic scroll to help a villager from a lost village defeat a terrible enemy.
The Chief Engineer of a ship on a mission of exploration discovers deliberate malfunctions and a surprising source of sabotage.
Mynah’s four older sisters were born with extraordinary gifts. When she tries to discover if she too is gifted, she sets herself down a path from which she cannot turn back.
Three not-so-intrepid explorers are beta-testing a map application when they challenge the map to send them somewhere they know they can’t go.
A patient recovering from brain surgery experiences extraordinary aftereffects to his sensory perception.
A slighted sorcerer curses a girl, then dies. Now the girl’s only hope to break the curse is to summon the sorcerer’s spirit back from the dead.
A scientist invents an extraordinary biomaterial that can protect humans from the ravages of space travel, but the price for unlocking its potential is far too high.
An apprentice magic-maker loses his master and absorbs all her knowledge, but if he cannot control how the knowledge emerges, it may destroy him.
Three sisters are cursed by a jilted suitor, with an undying and forbidden hunger.
When Cantor’s enchanting voice changes from wonder to disaster, he becomes a hermit, until his voice is called upon to serve his kingdom.
A woman with super-hearing joins forces with a paranormal consultant to capture an invisible killer, but they find themselves up against a far more powerful and unknowable foe.
Three siblings are recovering from the chicken pox at home when they catch a rarer kind of pox that leads them on an adventure into another realm.
An initiate has just discovered a secret about his Temple’s holiest relic, a secret that might change the fate of his kingdom
Joe is a spirit tasked with counting the breaths of the living, but his new apprentice isn’t content with just counting the breaths.
A game show winner claims the show’s most valuable prize, the winner’s greatest desire. But every prize comes with conditions…and a prize isn’t always a prize.
With no experience or expertise, Dolores Potterson builds a device that she hopes will serve as a new power source, by harnessing dark energy.
Jorge Montoya has developed an unusual condition. He feels the presence of missing limbs where there shouldn’t be any limbs at all.
A man stumbles upon a mysterious box that seems to fall from the sky. Goaded on by the reckless voice in his head and ignoring the cautious voice in his head, he decides to open the box…
Once upon a time, the Lovelocke family gained great wealth, and then they found great fortune.
Amorphous…single-celled…all the amoeba ever wanted was to be more than what she was.
Cats are mysterious. An ancient myth might shed some light on this mystery. A rare myth about how cats were the first beings to possess intelligence and consciousness.
Lucine’s mother mastered spider silk and her stepmother mastered apples. To save herself and her kingdom, she too will need a talent to master.
The zodiacal lights are an optical illusion, like the appearance of a watery oasis on a scorching desert horizon. That’s what one person thought, before following the lights, and stumbling upon a deeper cosmic mystery.
Evil stalks the eastern forest. Evil abides in the capital. Only one person can stop it.
One brother came into the world weeping and the other came into the world laughing. What sorrows and joys will fall upon the boys?
There is something living in the forest. It is neither good nor evil.
The fisherman’s miserable wife rarely smiled, but once she began, her smile hid a fantastic secret.
Did Alfred MacAlastair truly discovery a flying plantman?
After learning the truth about the stars, Nova believes she has been chosen to carry one in her heart, but she will do much more than carry a star.
The mystery of magic in our world begins with the mystery of the magus node.
After making a snowman together, a father tells his children the story about the origins and customs of making snowmen, a story that warns of the mysteries and dangers of snow.
Trapped in the underworld, a man believes he can escape if he collects the blood of a tormented soul, blood that is both blessed and cursed by the gods.
A desperate mother cannot escape a bargain she made when she was a child, to sacrifice her firstborn.
“Beware the magician. At dawn, he wakes. Beware, beware, for your heart he’ll take.”
What does a nursery rhyme about a heartless magician have to do with a young technician who’s only trying to do his job?
With all the grown folk trapped in sleep, the children tend their town, and soon are called to defend it from a nightmarish enemy.
The great Elementals—Fire Air, Water, and Earth—weary of their own natures, wonder what it would be like to trade places…
A little girl asks her aunt for a peculiar gift: the soul of a fairy. But fairies don’t have souls…
Mira is a contract field investigator, and her job is to investigate the strange and the otherworldly. When planning her vacation, she stumbles upon something even stranger than a ghost, alien, or fairy.
Tortoise and Cheetah both claim to be the only child of Lightning. To prove who is the true child, they engage in a contest of quickness.
Surveyors uncover a buried mansion and wake a sleeping ghost.
When the Year of Elements was finished, I drafted this “thank you” post.