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Melinda Madrigal

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2020

Stories (258)

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136 Followers

36 Following

258 Stories

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GIFT OF LOVE 1943

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #335

GIFT OF LOVE 1943The snow fell softly in the narrow space between Christmas and New Year’s, that quiet suspended week when time seemed unsure whether to move forward or linger. In December of 1943, the war had made that feeling sharper-life paused between dread and hope, breath held between telegrams and prayers. Julia Bennett stood at the kitchen window of her mother’s house in rural Pennsylvania watching the frost lace itself across the glass. Outside, the world looked peaceful enough to forget that across the ocean, men were sleeping in m...

0 likes

AURORA

Melinda Madrigal

The spindle didn’t look dangerous. That is the first thing people get wrong. They paint it as a jagged blackened tooth, but in the dim light of that forgotten tower, it glowed like a sliver needle. It was delicate. It was mesmerizing. And for the first time in sixteen years, it was a choice that belonged entirely to me. The Weight of Gold and Gauze My life was not a fairy tale; it was a curated exhibit. I grew up surrounded by “soft.” Soft skills so I wouldn’t scrape my knee, soft words so I wouldn’t learn of the curse, and the stifling soft...

1 like

LAVENDER HONEY PIE

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #333

LAVENDER HONEY PIEEmma Hart had bult her small bakery the way some people build hope-carefully, quietly, determinedly. “Sweet Briar Bakery” sat on the corner of Willowbend and Clairemont where the wind always seemed to carry the smell of sugar and where the bell on the door chimed like someone whispering welcome home. She’d spent the last year learning the rhythms of the place: the hum of early-morning ovens, the soft sigh of dough as it rose, the way the first light of dawn slipped through the front windows. The townspeople had quickly fall...

14 likes

THE WIND AT WILLOW STREET

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #332

THE WIND AT WILLOW STREETWillow street came alive every October, but only in the way small towns know how-gently. The lanterns strung between lampposts glowed like captured fireflies, vendors set out jars of spiced honey and apple butter, and the old record shop spun vinyl’s of jazz guitar that threaded warmly through the air. Nora Weston liked the festival for one reason: no one expected anything from her there. She didn’t have to smile because someone was watching. She didn’t have to pretend she had her life mapped out. She could just flic...

9 likes

BENEATH THE FROSTLINE

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #331

BENEATH THE FROSTLINEThe wind on silver reach Glacier never simply blew-it howled, curling around the jagged peaks like a living thing searching for warmth it would never find. At the glacier’s center, where the ice was older than recorded time, a pale blue light shimmered faintly beneath layers so compacted they were nearly stone. Most people never noticed it. Most people never came this far north. But Aria Kestrel had followed that glow for three straight days, guided by rumors that the ice here hid something priceless-not treasure, not in...

11 likes

THE NIGHT THE STARS LEANED IN

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #330

THE NIGHT THE STARS LEANED IN The Summer Felt like Forever If anyone ever asked me when everything changed, I would point to that last week of August-the week when the air smelled like warm asphalt and sea salt, when the sunsets bled gold and pink like someone had spilled water color across the sky. The week when the carnival came to town. And you. You, with your quiet laugh and untamable hair, showing up everywhere I least expected and most hoped for. That summer had slipped through my fingers too quickly. Maybe that’s why we spent so much ...

9 likes

LOST IN THE MEMORIES

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #329

LOST IN THE MEMORIESI remember the way the sunlight used to fall across your face, golden and forgiving, as if it could soften all the sharp edges of the world. I keep replaying that memory like a favorite song, each note tinged with the ache of knowing I can’t press pause and step back into it. I lost you before I understood what it meant to truly hold on. I thought time could mend what distance had broken, that absence could be soothed with letters and phone calls. But even the words I wrote felt hollow, ghosts of something real, and becam...

10 likes

THE LAST ORCHARD

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #328

THE LAST ORCHARDTimeline One-1942 The evening sun rested low over the apple orchard throwing gold light across the rows of trees. The air smelled of leaves and ripening fruit. Evelyn Harrow ran her fingers along the rough bark of a tree she’d known all her life. This orchard was her family’s pride-and their burden especially know that war had taken the men away. She heard boots crunch behind her. “You disappear out more than you should,” said a familiar voice. Evelyn turned to see Lieutenant Daniel Whitaker, his uniform jacket draped across ...

12 likes

MIDNIGHT’S PROMISE

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #327

MIDNIGHT’S PROMISEThe first thing I ever remember is the sound of her voice. Soft as moonlight, steady as an old song. “Hello there, little one,” she said. “I think I’ll call you midnight.” I blinked open my tiny kitten eyes, and there she was-Elara, a young witch with hair the color of autumn leaves and eyes full of kindness and secrets. She smelled like lavender and old spellbooks, and from that moment on she was my world. **Life in the cottage was simple, warm and full of magic. Elara and I lived at the ed...

9 likes

THE REFLECTION THAT BREATHED

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #326

The mirror had been in Clara’s family for generations-a tall, silver-framed monstrosity that stood in the upstairs hallway like a sentry. No one remembered who bought it, or why it never reflected quite right. When Clara moved into her grandmother’s old house, she kept it only because it wouldn’t fit down the stairs to throw out. The first time she noticed something was off, it was small. She brushed her teeth one morning and saw just behind her shoulder in the mirror’s reflection, the faintest fog of breath against the glass. She turned aro...

8 likes

THE WIND KNOWS

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #325

THE WIND KNOWSThe breeze touched my skin like a whisper-cool, deliberate, almost curious. It carried the scent of pine and wet stone, the kind of scent that clings to the skin long after you’ve left the forest. I paused, one boot half-sunk in moss, my crossbow slung low against my hip. The wind ways shifting. That meant he was close. I’d tracked him for three nights. Through the ravine where the moonlight pooled like sliver blood, across the ridge where the trees bent like old men and now here in the hollow where the wind spoke in riddles. T...

10 likes

SKYFISH AND THE SEA GODDESSES

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #324

The Skyfish AccordTold in three voices: Thalassa, Nymira and CorraThalassa, eldest, Keeper of CurrentsWe first saw her tangled in kelp, gasping. Not drowning-no she was not ours. She had fallen from the sky, a creature of feather and bone, not fin and scale. Her wings shimmered like the surface at dawn, and her eyes held the panic of something misplaced. "Like a fish out of water," Nymira whispered, circling her with curiosity. But I saw no fish. I saw a sky-being, torn from her element, flung into ours. She did not speak our tongue, but she...

5 likes

THE BALLERINA'S TRADITION

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #323

Told through the eyes of the Ballerina Every performance begins with a ritual. I arrive two hours early always.The theater is empty, the stage still asleep. I unlock the dressing room with the key I've kept since my first solo-its brass teeth worn smooth by years of nervous fingers. I light the candle. One wick, unscented, white. It burns beside the mirror, not for luck, not for ghosts, but for the silence it brings. I need that silence before the music begins. I lay out the shoes. Three pairs each with a ribbon stitched by hand. I choose th...

12 likes

THE BALLERINA'S TRIUMPH

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #322

The BallerinaAs told by by her dresser, MinaThey don't see the way her feet bleed. Not on stage, not under the lights. They see the turn, the lift, the impossible stillness mid-air. They see the Swan Queen, the final bow, the bouquet. But I see the moment before-when she's crouched behind the curtain, trembling, her hands pressed to her ribs like she's holding herself together. Tonight was the gala. The one they said she wasn't ready for. Too quiet, too inward. Not enough fire. But fire isn't always loud. Sometimes it's the way she rehearses...

6 likes

ASHA AND THE POISONED FOREST

Melinda Madrigal

Submitted to Contest #321

The Root that Refused to DieAs told by Asha, Forest Goddess and keeper of the Verdant SilenceThey call me protector. Goddess. Warden of the green hush. I do not mind the names, though none are mine. I am not named-I am known. By the moss that curls around the bones of fallen deer. By the wind that forgets its direction when it enters my woods. By the roots that whisper secrets too old for language. I have stood here since before the first axe was carved. Before the first fire was begged to stay. My forest is not large, not famous, not mapped...

10 likes