Reflection's Edge.

Reflection's Edge has their December issue out with six new stories. This issue is very heavy on fantasy (no complaints here). All are quite readable, though my favorite is probably "The Lunar Balloon." All available for free Here.

"Wintertide Surprise" by Ann De Carrasco
science fiction/fantasy

It's a disaster. Or it will be, if the family's Wintertide Surprise doesn't make it there on time. But Gary and Ethel find they may have to make a rather unethical bargain with the family clones if they want their Wintertide to go as planned - resulting in some very unexpected holiday events.

"The Lunar Balloon" by Shaylen A. Maxwell
Can a 4.4 million year old child find her parents?

"Once upon a time, the Earth was a sterile globe of molten rocks. My mother was up there, back then," she explains to you, pointing straight up. She lifts her eyes to the sky, and her overgrown bangs get in the way of her view. She brushes them to the side and stares. You gaze, following her fingertips. The moon's creeping up just over the hill, and it's no bigger than a sliver. "The moon is hungry," she says softly.

"Desert of Sharp Sorrow" by Michael Kelly and Jonathan William Hodges.
A dark fantasy of pain and Joshua trees.

She remembered Ian, when he’d seen the picture on the back of the album, snorting derisively, claiming it blasphemous to use that image, to listen to that music, because the tree was named after the prophet Joshua from the Old Testament. How the tree mimicked Joshua’s upraised arms as he beckoned his people to the promised land.


"A Winter Solstice Sun" by Daniel Ausema.
A fantasy of the far north.

Puu walked quickly over the frozen ground. No sun yet, but his arboreal eyes didn't need sunlight to see. He shook snow from his needles and pressed on.


"The Cave of the Winds" by Joanna Gardner
There's a cost to getting rid of bad dreams.

When the dream began, years ago now, it had been just a blur of blind anxiety that she had never connected with the cave. Only recently had the dream become more clear, its focus tightening on the presence of a real place, one she knew. And then she and Ty had split. She could still see him sitting cross-legged on the living room floor that final night, elbows on his knees and his forehead resting on his palms.

"At the Alter of Pain" by A. C. Wise.
A moody horror piece.

He flashes me a smile and I know I should be afraid; a strange man, a lone girl walking through the park, even in the middle of the day. I should be afraid, but I'm not. It's my voodoo, it's my juju, and it keeps the fear at bay. It's my dirty little secret - I worry too much to ever be afraid.