Speculative Fiction and Poetry
Episode 59: Gretchen: An Unlocked Smartphone
I had been using cell phones ever since my time in Hamburg with the Rat der Mäuse. From the looks on Dichall’s face I could tell that using them was fairly new to him, and Eve, being not so long out of the campground,…
Episode 57: Eve: A Sparrow in Human Clothing
“So. Micean Council.” The crow gestured with her beak at my red bead necklace. “I see you brought some muscle with you—a Pomeranian!” She cackled with laughter. “Go lay an egg!” Waffles barked. Dichall stood up on the dog’s back and waved at the…
Episode 56: Eve: Stowaways
I opened my eyes to see the dog with a piece of pizza crust on the floor in front of him. “Thanks, Waffles!” Gretchen jumped down and ran to the crust, then began ripping pieces for our breakfast. We stuffed our faces, then shoved…
Episode 55: Eve: Recruiting Waffles
Dichall, Gretchen and I leapt down from the high tower, safely landing in the snow. We found a gull picking through a discarded food container. Dichall held out his red bead necklace. “Hello there.” The gull pulled her head out of the box with…
Episode 54: Eve: An Empty Storehouse
The growing stench of charred paper filled the air as we approached the library. We walked in to find scattered, burned pieces of paper on the floor, and a few exhausted mice trying to clean up the mess. A black deer mouse perked up,…
Eve: Something Rotten at the Council
Vivian went very still. “I don’t want to go home. I want to be a big girl.” “But Miss Magnitrude is a…” How do I say this? “Well, she’s a monster. She only looks like a woman.” Vivian fussed over the hair of her…
Episode 52: Eve: Trapped Girl
Waffles slipped silently behind and then past Gombree until we were out of sight. Although the building consisted of a continuous spiral floor going all the way up, it had been divided into a series of room-like spaces, some separated by walls with doors…
Episode 51: Eve: Magnitrude
Waffles walked forward and onto the window. We all looked down (to us) which was actually sideways (to the rest of the world) at the wall of the building next door. “Well that’s disorienting.” I twisted my head to see if it would help….
Episode 50: Eve: The Twisted Tower
I frantically looked around for a place for us to escape to. There! I yanked on Waffle’s ear, and pointed at a set of panels barricading a storage area under a building. “Look!” I don’t know if Waffles could see my paw or not,…
Episode 49: Eve: The Brutish Dog
Gretchen blinked up at me from out of the floof. “Do you see something?” “No, everything looks the same. But that bird was talking nonsense.” Gretchen crawled up next to me, Emerson fluttering on her shoulder. She looked up at the nuthatch. “Ma’am? Have…
Episode 48 Eve: Drawings from a Missing Child
As the desk fell to the floor, Gretchen leaped to the safety on the bed, Emerson briefly taking flight before landing again on her head. The pencils went everywhere, and papers from inside the drawer fluttered out all around us. I snipped the…
Episode 47: Eve: Vivian’s Room
Gretchen proudly showed me and Dichall her moth, her eyes glistening with joy and pride. I stroked the new familiar’s back gently. “Emerson…She’s beautiful, Gretchen. Congratulations.” She held the moth close and whispered to it. “I’ll never let anything happen to you.” Waffles sighed….
Episode 46: Eve: The Fire-Breathing Fox
The beast released a jet of smoky fire from the back of its throat. My back paws scrabbled on the wet stone. At the last second, friction took over and I jumped to the side then raced behind him, slashing backhanded with my sword….
Episode 45: Eve: Pananima
I climbed onto the dog’s head. “Waffles, when we get a ways in, you close your eye. I will steer you by touching your ears. I’ll tell you if you have to jump or if there is a stick in front of you or…
Episode 44: Eve: An Uneasy Alliance
My stomach sank. “What?!” Gregory nodded. “Ribeye had some deal with a faerie, looks like. was punished for his involvement. That’s how he lost his eye. Says here you can probably trust him.” He shrugged. I looked at Dichall, who shook his head, his…
43: Eve: A Visit to Gregory Bookkeeper
Gretchen turned back to Waffles Ribeye. “We are going to help you. We need to do some research, first, though. Where is your house?” “In Gatineau, 1210 Chemin de la Montagne. Near Pink Lake.” I knew roughly where that was. “That’s kind of far….
Episode 42: Eve: Waffles Ribeye
Beatrice looked from me to Dichall. “There’s a Pomeranian you can talk to outside.” “Beatrice!” I felt like my grin was going to push my whiskers out. “I’m going to have a litter!” Beatrice’s single, brown eyebrow rose. “That’s wonderful! You just found out?”…
Episode 41: Eve: Evelyn Farseer
Evelyn Farseer looked at me levelly. The bee on her shoulder did, too. “Just checking in on a wounded colleague.” My gaze flicked into the room, but Dichall was not visible from my vantage point. “I think I can take care of him.” Evelyn…
Episode 40: Eve: Coffee at Dawn
I woke from a haunted dream. Dichall and I were in the Insterstitium again, and the weir we’d used to get there turned out to be one-way. We were stuck there – scared, and hounded by faeries. We’d found a hiding spot only to…
Episode 39: The Daughter
You never really believe your mother will die. But when I woke, and saw a small, spinning bit of matter, no bigger than a human’s cerebellum, floating in the air in front of me, I could feel it. My mother, the great fae Yonya,…
Episode 38: Rules are Rules
Back at headquarters, I sat next to Dichall’s bedding and held his hand. He was bandaged and unconscious. I’d left him behind, and felt terrible about it, but it looked like he might survive. Gretchen was there too. With her quick on-scene first aid,…
Episode 37: The Forces of Good
Bracey the Talonted twisted in the air like a Snowbird fighter jet, avoiding the fae’s swirling, pointed limbs, and I held myself close to her feathers with four paws. We watched Yonya tear through my beloved woods. What have we unleashed on the world?…
Episode 36: Riding the Bear
I ran through the brush, careful not to clothesline the poor kid on my back with low-hanging branches. I’d never touched a human before today, let alone had one ride me, and it took me a few seconds to get the feel of it….
Episode 35: Hunter is Hunted
I was staring, agape, sword out, but Dichall put his hand on my shoulder. “Eve! On the owl! Now!” I slipped my sword in my belt and leapt atop Bracey. Gretchen followed as snow erupted with the impact of Yonya’s fin. Bracey spread her…
Episode 34: Scuttle and Scuffle
Nathan froze, halfway in and halfway out of the truck, staring at the black bear. I turned and whispered into Nathan’s ear from his shoulder. “She’s a good bear; she won’t hurt you.” She better not. Nathan turned and looked at his dad for…
Episode 33: Meeting the Bear
The next night we snuck into Nathan’s room for the last time. Guy had arranged for a visit with him, and we were going to accompany him. I invoked my veilring. “Nathan, it’s time to go. Your dad’s outside.” “I’m not sure I want…
Episode 32: A plan in motion
Bracey flew us to the Ottawa General Hospital where we tracked down Musk Muskmusk in the burn ward, eating pain from patients from beneath their beds. I clicked Grassblade on the tile floor. “Hi there, buddy.” Musk turned his heavy antlered head around as…
Episode 31: Man Against
The man stood, backlit from the door of his cabin, holding a shotgun and staring slack-jawed at four talking animals on his stoop. Finally, he waved us in. We went right to the fire. Bracey shook snowflakes from her head. The man turned around…
Episode 30: The Crazy Man in the Woods
At our request, Nathan gave us a cracker and I told him goodbye, we’ll be in touch, don’t trust faeries, etc. Out in the cold, I turned to my fellow Councilmice. “I think we should get in touch with an owl, and see if…
Episode 29: Children Can Be Frightened
A hideous claw snatched a single feather from Bracey’s tail as she hopped through the weir, carrying us on her back. She spread her wings and flew a short distance away, shouting “Get back! Get back!” Eventua reached through the weir, her sickly arm…
Episode 28: Entering the Interstitium
I followed Gretchen and Dichall through the portal into another world. Bracey the Talonted, our owl companion, followed. The sky was bluer than I would ever have guessed blueness could get. The snow was the whitest white. But the strangest thing was the lack…
Episode 27: The Weir
Hospitals, I learned, had so many faeries and so many dedicated Councilmice it was like a whole other social structure, with its own idiosyncratic culture. Technically, Beatrice Brownbrow was the ultimate leader in Ottawa, but in practice, the hospital Councilmice were pretty autonomous. Here,…
Episode 26: The Hospital
On our way out of Council headquarters Dichall led us to the food pantry. “If we’re going to get a bird to take us all the way to the hospital, we’re going to need to give them something.” We were procuring a small sackful…
Episode 25: Aggressive Negotiations
Imbingy, the faerie childhunter, had me pinned in the snow, his steely hands tightening around my throat. “Die, rodent!” He thinks calling me a rodent is an insult? I’ll show him! I pulled my hind legs between us, put my back paws on his…
Episode 24: Leak of the Lie
Gretchen, Dichall, and I sat on a box that used to hold matches, attending an emergency Council meeting. Beatrice cleared her throat to quiet everyone down. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have an informant who would like to brief us on something.” She turned to…
Episode 23: Luring the Child
I woke up swatting at something on my face, but felt nothing but air. Two little people fought on my chest, and a strange, wailing noise stopped—when I realized it was me. I sat up in bed and knocked the creatures off, still struggling…
Episode 22: The Crow Gentry
I entered the Mundane World through a secret weir near the ceiling of the Rideau Centre Mall, and flapped my faerie wings until I was on the ceiling. I changed my colour to stay camouflaged. Not that anybody looks straight up in a mall….
Episode 21: The Haunted Kindergarten
We pigeoned to the kindergarten early in the morning to beat the rush of children, but late enough to follow a teacher inside and snuck in through a door propped open by somebody on a smoke break. After making our way to the kindergarten…
Episode 20: Grassblade
I sheathed Grim’s blade, and leapt after the black faerie, running on all fours for speed, the tip of my weapon tapping the ground with every leap. Did you know that mice can reach a top speed of about seven miles per hour?…
Episode 19: The Pain-Eaters
We caught a ride on a gull. Gull feathers are a bit closer and tighter than pigeon feathers, and he had a little string tied around his body so we’d have something to hold onto. He dropped from the pigeon stand, circled north, then…
Episode 18: The Lesson
Dad drove me back from the diner, and Mom was waiting outside to pick me up. Dad lowered my window and beckoned to Mom. Mom came over, but she didn’t look like she wanted to. He leaned so she could hear him. “I need…
Episode 17: Beware of the Fae
“We have a faerie in custody,” Beatrice Brownbrow addressed the Councilmice, as she did every evening at headquarters. “That’s unusual.” Gretchen muttered while scratching her ear. “We usually don’t let them live.” “He came to us, claiming he has information.” Beatrice nodded to some…
Episode 16: The Acorn Trap
I peeked past the barely-open door at a little girl sitting cross-legged on a pink bedspread, paging through a picture book. A small child like I’d seen at the campsite, who was just old enough to run around and get into everything. Her…
Episode 15: The Cat in the Way
A while, and a short nap, later, the human reached into the handbag. We gingerly held up her keys, and as soon as she had the slightest grip on them, we let go. I must have been breathing hard, because Gretchen rested her paw…
Episode 14: Diplomat Dichall
We heard the muffled barking of Lolabelle through the leather: “Uh, be careful, there’s a cat in the apartment who’s not the biggest fan of the Micean Council.”
We glanced at each other, not quite so comfortable anymore…
Episode 13: From Disturbing Dreams
I’m Nathan Thomas. I’m visiting Ottawa because I’m giving a concert here in a few days. I play piano. I’m not the best in the world, but I’m only nine years old, so lots of people want to see me play. Problem is, since…
Dj Vie by Tyree Campbell
Dj Vie Tyree Campbell Through the Videx Effa could see that her little craft, no longer space-worthy, had come to rest at the shore of a lake, on the far side of which rose a great white wall. The window of thick plastic that…
Episode 12 When a Fae Drinks Spark
I asked various faeries where Yonya was, and eventually found her on the Interstitial manifestation of Elgin Street. She smelled me before she saw me. She turned her eyeless red head toward me slightly. “Imbingy. Speak.” “I have spark for you, my lady.” She…
Episode 10: Finding the Prodigy
I folded my faerie wings and hid under the little girl’s pillow until I could hear her sleeping. Then, I crawled out onto her chest and drained her spark. Yeah, I know, I’m the stuff of nightmares. Draining spark feels really good, for faeries,…
Episode 9: The Mission Before the Mouse
I needed to get the monster down from the wall. It panted, licking the wound on one of its arms – thinking it was safe. It was our job to make sure it wasn’t. Glancing around, I spotted some straws and pipe cleaners on…
Episode 8: Bogoloblin
Each of us held onto Reginald’s feathers with all four paws. The crow’s route was indirect, according to the emphatic directions that Dell Grim shouted, and Reginald ignored. The fearless bird carried us low into rush-hour traffic, weaving erratically between the cars. Darkness was…
Episode 7: Reginald Crazywing
We went out onto the nearest ledge to hail a bird, but there were already several mice in line at the pigeon stand. One mouse shivered beneath his black, speckled coat. “We’re freezing our whiskers off out here!” He shook his head….
Episode 6: Gearing Up
Beatrice Brownbrow dropped to all fours and wiggled through a hole into another passage. She poked her head back through and blinked. “This way!” I took her paw, squeezed through onto the top of a pipe, and, as I scurried after her, I glanced…
Episode 5: The Micean Council
The guards removed a wine cork from the outer wall, revealing a narrow hole. Dell motioned with his arm. “After you.” We crawled inside, and the guards replaced the cork, leaving us in warm, dark quiet. Snowflakes scattered from our fur as we…
Episode 4: They Sent an Owl
I woke from a months-long sleep in my tunnels to the sound of something large landing on the surface above me. I swiveled my ears and detected something much smaller landing near it. A muffled voice: “Eve? Eve Pixiedrowner? Are you down there?” THAT…
Episode 2: Crouching Mouse, Hidden Fish Hook
I gingerly explored the tackle box, trying not to get poked. A three-pronged fish hook, not too shiny, presented itself. I hefted it and smiled, then tossed the hook and some fishing line out of the tackle box, and jumped out myself. A chickadee…
The Campground Faerie
Video Reading Lots of people fantasize about having a home in the woods, living off the land, close to nature. I actually get to do it. I live in a small hole, close to a human campsite, in Gatineau park, a large, mountainous, wooded…
Grant Wilson Art
