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Author on Reedsy Prompts since Jun, 2020
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...
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 ...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Submitted to Contest #320
A forest tale told in the voices of three Nymphs-Ashen, Liri and ThistleASHENI speak first because I am the eldest and the trees listen best to me. My roots are deep-not in soil but in knowing. I do not move quickly. I do not speak often. But when I do, the moss hushes, and the wind stills. We are not guardians in the way humans imagine. No swords.No spells. We do not fight. We endure. The forest is not a place. It is a rhythm. A breath. A long, slow exhale. I tend the rhythm. I walk the perimeter each dusk, touching bark, whispering to the ...
Submitted to Contest #319
"I Am the Crack Between Stone"I do not begin. I do not end. I am the pressure that splits granite, the breath between tectonic sighs. You call me Earth, but I do not answer to names. I am not the soil you till or the mountain you climb. I am the tension beneath both. I move slowly. You do not see me move, but you feel me. When your walls shift. When your walls dry. When your bones ache before the storm. I am there, not watching-being. Above me, wind dances. She is restless, always brushing, always whispering. She Calls me Brother, though I d...
Submitted to Contest #318
In the northern reaches of the forest, where the wind speaks in cedar and the moss remembers every footstep, there lived two flames: Solen and Brin. Solen was the sun's chosen-bright, golden and revered. She danced across the canopy, kissed the river's skin and was summoned by every sprouting seed. Her warmth was the promised of growth, her light the signal of day. Brin was the second flame. Not lesser, but later. She came when Solen left-when the sky turned indigo and the trees whispered secrets too shy for daylight. Brin was the hearth fir...
Submitted to Contest #317
In the underbelly of New Geneva, beneath the humming monorails and flickering neon lights, there was a district known only to a few: the Quarter of Forgotten Trades. It was here that Elian worked as an apprentice to Master Virek, a Clocksmith whose shop was filled with ticking relics and impossible gears. Elian had no illusions about the grandeur of time. He didn't philosophize about fate or destiny. He simply liked machines-especially ones that obeyed rules. One evening, while repairing a fractured regulator from a 19th century marine chron...
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