Tag Archive for: can’t pick your family

Growing Friendship

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By Suzanne Link

Patrice’s tiny hands smack the earth with finality. “How’s that, Mama?”

“Perfect.” My heart bursts with motherly joy. Farming runs in our veins, and Patrice is a natural.

“Time to feed ’em!” Patrice thrusts out her palm.

I drag my blade across her thumb. She doesn’t even flinch as blood drips onto the dirt.

“When’ll he be ready to harvest, Mama?”

 A muffled slurp sucks beneath the freshly turned soil.

“Not long. Our crops are fast-growing.”

The mound wriggles. A slick, embryonic finger pokes up from the ground. Patrice claps.

I stroke her hair. “You’ll have a new playmate soon.”

 

Suzanne Link

Suzanne Link writes short stories, screenplays, and elaborate to-do lists. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband, Jay, and their dog, Lulu. 

Family Rituals

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by Yvonne Lang

I cried when Grandmother strangled the baby. I sobbed when I had to cook and season its body. Grandmother insisted it was an essential part of my witch education. The baby potion would keep Grandmother from aging.

My pleas for them to take my sister’s boy fell on deaf ears; my son had been chosen. Grandmother thinks I’m weak and sentimental, so she underestimated me.

I poisoned the spell. She’ll be as dead as the baby soon. Then I will have to deal with my sister. She is going to be livid when she finds out I switched the babies.

 

Yvonne Lang

Yvonne’s work has featured in a range of publications, from Northern Life to Siren Magazine and Schlock. Her flash has appeared in The Drabble, Fairfield Scribes and Trembling with Fear as well as appearing in multiple anthologies. She resides in Yorkshire with her partner and an opinionated cat.

Website: yvonnelang.co.uk

Blended Family

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by Scott O’Neill

I awaken to paralysis. Blinding lights. Hospital smells.

I vaguely recall feeling dizzy at Mom’s wedding reception.

“You’re conscious.”

My new stepfather glides into view, wearing blood-spattered scrubs and a lunatic grin.

“Observe.”

He tilts my head right. I see my new stepbrother, Caleb, unconscious on a gurney. Gleaming surgical staples circumscribe his upper arm, above a Celtic tattoo like mine.

Exactly like mine.

My head gets tilted left. More staples. I see Caleb’s arm grafted onto my shoulder.

The tectonic plates of my sanity shiver and buckle.

“Now you’re really part of our family, and we’re part of you.”

 

Scott O’Neill

Scott writes reports and memorandums by day and speculative fiction by night, with short works published by various presses. You can find him on the socials as @wererooster.