2023 Retrospective and Award Eligibility

written by David Steffen

In 2023 Diabolical Plots published our second guest-edited themed issue, this time for the “Diabolical Thoughts” telepathy theme, guest-edited by assistant editor Ziv Wities.

We have been publishing the annual Long List Anthology since 2015. In 2021 there was a hiccup in the schedule due to WorldCon timing that pushed that year’s Long List Anthology into 2022, meaning there were two volumes of the anthology series in 2022. The entire basis of the anthology is the Hugo Award nomination statistics, so the work to compile the anthology cannot start until those statistics are published, and in 2021 WorldCon (when the statistics are usually published) didn’t happen until December. In 2023, although WorldCon was held in October, they have not published the nomination statistics yet–according to the WSFS constitution they are allowed three months to do so, which means they have until mid-January. This should mean we can get going on the Long List Anthology in January or February, and it will likely be another two-anthology calendar year.

In 2023, we published 23 original stories in Diabolical Plots.

This year we welcomed two new assistant editors to our ranks: Chelle Parker and Hal Y. Zhang (read our staff page for more info on them)

Diabolical Plots opened for general submissions in July. We read more than 1400 submissions and accepted 25 stories from the window. We were running a little behind schedule for publishing stories, so the last few months of 2023 we published one story per month instead of two to stretch the inventory a bit further.

It was a busy year in my personal life as well, including the passing of our dog Mikko who had been a member of the household for fifteen years. This is the second consecutive year that we had to say goodbye to a dog, so I’m hoping we will have a reprieve for a while.

The rest of this post is award eligibility, suggesting categories for major awards, as well as a full link of stories with snippets.

Magazine/Anthology/Editor/Publisher

Diabolical Plots is eligible in the Hugo Best Semiprozine category or the Locus Magazine category with our team of first readers as well as assistant editors Ziv Wities, Kel Coleman, Chelle Parker, and Hal Y. Zhang.

David Steffen is eligible as editor of Diabolical Plots.

I don’t know exactly how editor catogories are interpreted. But at least for Hugo Award for Editor, Short Form it specifies that they must have been “editor of at least four (…) magazine issues (or their equivalent in other media)”. Ziv Wities edited our special “Diabolical Thoughts” telepathy-themed issue, but has also edited many of our other stories. Even assuming we should interpret “issues” as ALL of the stories for a particular month of Diabolical Plots, Ziv Wities qualifies with the four most recent months being: August 2023, March 2023 (Diabolical Thoughts), January 2023, and March 2022.

I think that Kel Coleman might also qualify based on DP work depending on how an issue is interpreted. They have edited more than 8 stories for us, which is more than 4 issues of the usual size, but those were sometimes not entire months. (I think it’d be fair to count that though).

Diabolical Plots, LLC is eligible for Locus award for Publisher.

Related Work

We published just one nonfiction piece this year: “MOVIE ANALYSIS: Elemental (Pixar), a Movie About the Dangers of Government Incompetence” by David Steffen

The Hugo for Best Related Work has included websites before, The Submission Grinder is theoretically eligible for that.

Short Stories

“Dog Song” by Avi Naftali

So you want to determine whether dogs still exist.

First, our association of dogs with obedience. Is obedience dog-like? Or is it to do with horses now, or children, or hamsters. “Hamster-like obedience.” Dogs have retreated into the bodies of hamsters, maybe. They have a real knack for learning, we’re told, and for evolving themselves. There’s no reason they couldn’t take this extra step. Or maybe they don’t exist, dogs have never existed.

“Tell Me the Meaning of Bees” by Amal Singh

On a sunless morning, in the city of Astor, the word ‘caulk’ vanished.

The word didn’t announce its vanishing with trumpets or a booming clarion call. It faded away slowly in the middle of the night, like the last lyrics of a difficult song. The ones who didn’t use the word ‘caulk’ could not even tell what had gone wrong—the non-engineers, the artists and intellectuals—because for all intents and purposes, they would have spent their entire lifetimes not caulking anything.

“The Monologue of a Moon Goddess in the Palace of Pervasive Cold” by Anja Hendrikse Liu

Two centuries ago, I would’ve built thrones made of mooncakes in every room of my silent palace, would’ve filled hot tubs with the fruit sent up on festival night. Nowadays, storing and preserving and pickling feels like a losing race, like if I let even one persimmon spoil in the cold moon air, there won’t be enough to sustain me and Jade Rabbit for the year. 

“Devil’s Lace” by Julie Le Blanc

The demon and I had been crocheting for hours, in what appeared to be a sliver of space it’d created between Here and There. Around a plush couch floated pale, winter fog that obscured anything more than a few feet past the limits of the cushions.

“Rattenkönig” by Jenova Edenson

Kim was always having bright ideas. In sophomore year, he’d bought an honest to God stink bomb from the Internet and set it off in the math class hallway. A girl had an asthma attack, and Mr. Allen had to call an ambulance. You brought this up when Kim suggested driving up to Canada from San Diego and back in the span of a week. Kim laughed, and kissed your cheek. He told you that you didn’t need to worry so much about stuff that had happened so long ago. Besides, Evelyn had come back from the hospital with a brand new rescue inhaler.

“The Hivemind’s Royal Jelly” by Josh Pearce

The figure seated on the other side of the plain metal table has a blank look on its face, like its creator gave up halfway through forming its features. It is dressed in an orange jumpsuit, white socks, black slippers. The handcuff that secures it to the table cuts deeply into the waxy pale skin of its wrist.

“The Desert’s Voice is Sweet to Hear” by Carolina Valentine

Zazy tugged her hood forward to get a sliver more shade. Not today, my friend, she replied. She spotted the bonecrawler nest the desert wanted to convince her was a bubbling spring. Heat fatigue washed through her. For a moment, her eyes unfocused and the trickle of insects did resemble running water. Zazy closed her eyes. No, thank you.

“A Girl With a Planet In Her Eye” by Ruth Joffre

For the first thirteen years of her life, the planet was silent. No birdsong. No construction. Only the gentle sway of an ocean pushing and pulling against the aqueous humors of her left eye. Late at night, while her parents slept, she often lay awake and listened to the dense water solidify itself, the salts forming crystals, the crystals becoming pillars in a great, cavernous hall populated at first by no one, and then: music. A pure, high note so sudden it woke her from her slumber and conjured the image of a miniature flautist performing deep in the canal of her ear.

“Re: Your Stone” by Guan Un

Hi HR,
Just letting you know: I moved the artwork “Higher, Faster, Boulder” from the ground floor lobby up to the Second Floor Cafeteria as per Asset Movement Request #5340 from Asset Management, could you please let me know why it’s been moved back to the ground floor?
Thanks,
Sisyphus

“Bottled Words” by Carol Scheina

Unbottle a voice and it would vibrate through air, giving you one—just one—chance for your brain to turn those waves into recognizable words. But for me, it’s not like I could stop a bottled voice and ask, “Can you say that again?” There was no listening over and over, trying to see if I could recognize a new word here or there. There was no telling a disembodied voice that yes, I could hear it with hearing aids, but no, the sound wasn’t clear enough, or my brain wasn’t able to piece the sounds into words, or that I’d much prefer to read its voice on paper.

“Six Reasons Why Bots Make the Worst Asteroid Miners” by Matt Bliss

1. They think they know everything. Like your twenty years of mining experience is useless compared to a high-acting neural processing drive. Like you’re nothing but a softer, weaker liability, and the only thing you’re good for is greasing their joints and blowing out their compressors. Just one bot and one human to babysit them.

“Diamondback V. Tunnelrat” by Nick Thomas

All parties agree to the following facts. A skirmish broke out between the Diamondbacks and the dwarves during the Brass-Tree autumnal equinox fete. The fete is a centuries-old tradition, occurring every year and held in the foothills alongside the Cenen river. Brawls are as much a part of the festivities as the paper lanterns, the stewing of chicken heads, and the traditional weasel-peasel dance. Neither party makes complaint about the violence done to them or by them at the skirmish.

“They Were Wonderful, Once” by Lily Watson

Even by the third hot, sticky day into our road trip, the humans in the back of the transportation trucks remain fascinating. Theoretically, we know where our blood comes from. But this is different, seeing the little bits of them, poking through the slots on the sides of their container, pressed against the grates for lack of room.

“Interstate Mohinis” by M.L. Krishnan

Sometimes, I dreamed about flowing water. About where I would be—not here, anywhere but here—if my body had survived the accident. Mushed, but still recognizable. With its vestigial humanness that demanded respect, especially in death. My ashes would have been tossed into an ocean or a river in a coursing procession of night-blooming jasmine garlands, women who keened and thumped their chests, and drunken louts who gyrated around my urn until they foamed at the mouth. Until they collapsed in exhaustion or pleasure.

“Glass Moon Water” by Linda Niehoff

The afternoons are sprinklers in the backyard and ice-pops while our sisters and mothers watch flickering soap operas in cold, tomb-like rooms, cold from the AC cranked so low. The nights are sleeping out in the backyard in a tent or a sleeping bag unrolled on porches and decks or even in the grass and looking up at the stars. Listening to the AC click on and hum its silver song through the night.

“The Dryad and the Carpenter” by Samara Auman

Mortals slice us dryads open to count the layers of our lives; it is easier than listening to our stories. They slide their fingers over our rings, thinking that our texture, our shifts in coloration would bring them understanding of their own lives. In their minds, we exist to bring poetry to their sighs and serve as metaphors for longevity.

“On a Smoke-Blackened Wing” by Joanne Rixon

The transformation. The wind under the airplane’s wings buckles as the wings buckle, shake, separate into a beating of hundreds of wings. Out of the fog we come. This time, this first time, we are geese: black-brown wings and furious hearts. We fly awkwardly, at odds with the turbulence; we are newborn, but already the flock is forming as our instincts awaken in the air and we orient ourselves not against the ground or the stars but against each other.

“Shalom Aleichem” by Y.M. Resnik

Every Friday night the angels came, and every Friday night they freaked me the fuck out. Which is probably why I didn’t get a million-eyed, one-footed guardian of my own like the rest of my family. This was totally fine with me. I was in no way jealous that my siblings had angels to accompany them to college while I was stuck sitting alone in an empty dorm room. Who needed a creep-tastic companion whose face consisted of a bizarro series of interlocking cogs and wheels forever whirring?

“Every Me Is Someone Else” by Andy Dibble

I’m a medical assistant coming down the hall in polka dot scrubs. I’m walking on the other side, glancing at me. 

No, she. But a different she than my mother. It’s hard to keep track. Each is like an organ, involuntary functions only. My therapist says thinking like that is egotistical, but how am I supposed to care about others, when others is just something I tell myself?

“Requiem” by P.H. Low

This is dawn: fields shading from black to grey, flicker-fading starlight, our voices raised against the wind and the red scarves whipping our faces. Our song levitates us ten feet in the air, above dirt roads packed down by wagon wheels and chariots: Carl Lang’s Canter, an ode to unseen horses and sunrise and longing. When we sing—as long as we sing—our feet do not touch the ground.

“Like Ladybugs, Bright Spots In Your Mailbox” by Marie Croke

Someone began sending hand-written spellcrafted postcards out of DC in July of 2024. Those postcards made the rounds for a good nine months, under the radar, scarcely observed. That was, until the rash of good health, the proliferation of wealth, and the sudden uptick in good living coupled with a grand downtick in big socioeconomic issues the mayor was quick to claim as her own—such as suicides and unemployment—brought the situation to the attention of the East US Coven.

“In the Shelter of Ghosts” by Risa Wolf

They approach the house frame I’ve erected, set up where Dad’s old house once stood. They place the machine on a slate slab I’ve set up by what I hope will be the front door. I uncap my electrical source as one of the mediums puts on ceramic-weave gloves to connect to the leads. I tamp down a flare of worry, reminding myself that I’d just recharged the lead-acid battery at the solar station and redid its plant latex cover a few days ago.

“It Clings” by Hammond Diehl

Of course a dybbuk is flat. Flat as a blini. All the easier for that damn ghost to slip under your collar.

Of course a dybbuk is colorless. That’s why, when you say you’ve got a dybbuk, most people say, no you don’t. Go see Dr. Weiner. Spend a few days in Florida.

Diabolical Plots Lineup Announcement! (from July 2023 Window)

written by David Steffen

Hello! I am here to announce the original stories that were chosen from the general submission window that ran in July 2023.

First, some stats:
# of Stories Submitted: 1451
# Rejected (First Round): 1350
# Rejected (Final Round): 40
# Withdrawn: 32
# Disqualified: 2
# Rewrite Requests: 2
# Accepted: 25

This is not quite the most submissions we have ever received in a window (that was 1938 in January 2021), but it is the most authors we’ve received submissions from and the most submissions we’ve received since we reduced the number of allowed submissions per author from 2 to only 1.

This window did take longer than we usually like them to take to fully resolve–a little over 3 months after the end of submission window. I think we should ask for some additional volunteers to join the first reader team–we haven’t done a volunteer run for a few years and as people get busy some of them step down or scale back so we’ll probably need to build the group back up again periodically.

For this submission window we welcomed two new assistant editors: Chelle Parker and Hal Y. Zhang, who helped resolve submissions and helped make the final selections listed below. They join the assistant editor team of Ziv Wities and Kel Coleman.

This window marked a few changes:

1. This is the first window we’ve run since generative “AI” was available enough that people were routinely using it to write fiction. In response the guidelines were updated to ask writers not to submit fiction written using it, the submission form asked writers to affirm that they did not use these programs in writing their work, and for writers who received acceptances the contract required them to state that as well.
2. We had previously had a “Withdraw” status in the system, but the status could only be set by the editor so the writer would have to email the editors to ask to have it withdrawn. In this window we added the ability to “self-serve” a withdrawal. This was added partway through the window so not everyone saw it. When the confirmation email gets sent it includes a withdrawal link that the author can use to withdraw on their own without needing to contact the editor.
3. We added a “Rewrite Request” functionality in the last few days. We occasionally did rewrite requests before but they were done completely apart from the system by email. Now rewrite requests are supported in the system with an official status. When the email is sent for the rewrite request, it copies the requesting editor and assistant editor so the writer can reply to ask questions or discuss. It also provides the author with a one-time link they can use to submit the rewrite. This link can be used even when there is no open window. If a writer submits during an open window the rewrite using this link doesn’t count against their submission limit for the window.

We accepted 25 stories from this general submission window (one of which we announced separately and already published due to time constraints)

These stories will all be published in 2023-2024; I look forward to sharing them with you!

And here is the list, in alphabetical order by author name:

The Lineup

Level One: Blowtorch
by Jared Oliver Adams

St. Thomas Aquinas Administers the Turing Test
by Mary Berman

The Offer of Peace Between Two Worlds
by Renan Bernardo

The Lighthouse Keeper
by Melinda Brasher

It Clings
by Hammond Diehl

Ten Easy Steps To Destroying Your Enemies This Arbor Day
by Rachael K. Jones

Hold the Sea Inside
by Erin Keating

Batter and Pearl
by Steph Kwiatkowski

The Gaunt Strikes Again
by Rich Larson

Six-Month Assessment of Miracle-Fresh
by Anne Liberton

Phantom Heart
by Charlie B. Lorch

A Descending Arctic Excavation of Us
by Sara S. Messenger

Song for a Star-Whale’s Ghost
by Devin Miller

Eternal Recurrence
by Spencer Nitkey

Letters From Mt. Monroe Elementary, Third Grade
by Sarah Pauling

The Geist and/in/as the Boltzmann Brain
by M. J. Pettit

In Tandem
by Emilee Prado

Bone Talker, Bone Eater
by D. S. Ravenhurst

Dreamwright Street
by Mike Reeves-McMillan

This Week in Clinical Dance: Urgent Care at the Hastings Center
by Lauren Ring

BUDDY RAYMOND’S NO-BULLSHIT GUIDE TO DRONE HUNTING
by Gillian Secord

How to Kill the Giant Living Brain You Found In Your Mother’s Basement After She Died
by Alex Sobel

They Are Dancing
by John Stadelman

In the Shelter of Ghosts (already posted at the time this announcement is posted)
by Risa Wolf

Ketchōkuma
by Mason Yeater

DP Fiction #105: “In the Shelter of Ghosts” by Risa Wolf

edited by David Steffen

Content note (click for details) Content note: parental loss, wounds, face scars

When the mediums arrive, I don’t notice their scars. It’s their machine that grabs my attention, all pointed glass bulbs, copper wires, and metal rods. Like a four-foot square vacuum tube radio. I rub the belt buckle hidden in my tunic pocket as the six women in gray robes lug the machine up my gravel driveway.

They approach the house frame I’ve erected, set up where Dad’s old house once stood. They place the machine on a slate slab I’ve set up by what I hope will be the front door. I uncap my electrical source as one of the mediums puts on ceramic-weave gloves to connect to the leads. I tamp down a flare of worry, reminding myself that I’d just recharged the lead-acid battery at the solar station and redid its plant latex cover a few days ago.

After the machine is humming, the women look directly at me, and my stomach drops. All of them have scars around their eyes. One has deep pink lines through her crow’s feet into her temples; one has swirls like the silt in a riverbed along her cheekbones.

A voice breaks into my reverie. “— even if the séance works, Rory, your father might not want to save your house,” the medium in front says. “The dead are in a restful place, and some don’t want to leave.”

I’ve blanked out again. I debate asking her to repeat herself, but I know the pros and cons. Entity houses are part of my job.

***

The Housing Authority was a thick stone building that squatted like a pale pig rooting in the rubble of less fortunate buildings. It was once a bank, but when everything fell apart, it was pressed into more important service.

The line on the ramp outside was always long. Folks would file in politely after I unlocked the door, reveling in the cool air while I climbed into the booth at the center of the marble atrium and raised the window grate.

“Welcome to the Unica Housing Authority. I’m Rory and I’ll be helping you today.” The crowd quieted as my voice echoed over their heads. “Please remember there are no perfect living situations anymore and we might not have a spot that suits you, but we’ll try our best. When you approach the window, please only share conditions for which you have a high tolerance. Our tallied conditions are listed on the wall to your right.”

I pointed at the metal plaque with its etched and braille contents. ‘Cold’, ‘hot’, ‘dust’, ‘mold’, and many others: too long to read aloud. I couldn’t help taking a second glance at an item partway down: “ancestors”. I tapped at the screen of my glass computer with a magnetic stylus.

“Okay, who’s first?”

The person who strode up to the counter wore a sky blue dress and a long black leather-looking jacket, both spattered with crusty yellow leopard-pattern splotches. I suppressed a wince. It’d been a decade since the bug killed anyone, but it still hurt to look at. I forced a smile.

“Hi there! Tolerances?”

“Dark, cold, and noisy,” the person replied.

I entered the tags and the computer returned two options. “Great. There’s a steel warehouse on Parker and a stone mill house at the end of Chancel. Neither slot includes bedding.”

The person nodded perfunctorily. “The mill house is good.”

I tapped the screen to mark the slot as ‘taken’, then grabbed a slate marker and scratched the address on it with a metal stylus. I slid the marker under the window. “There you go. Thank you and good luck.”

I watched as the person walked away, the crowd pulling away from them like oil from a soap drop. The leopard spot on the jacket’s left shoulder had already spread. A sign of plastic clothing. I wondered where they’d come from, what kind of privilege they had, to still own any wearable vinyl.

***

My memory has never been great. I forget my own age sometimes. But one thing I do remember is the first time I saw those creepy yellow splotches.

I had a dinner date with Dad, but his monthly doctor’s appointment was running late. I decided to hang out outside the house, swaying in the worn swing from my childhood. The rope was frayed against my palm and had worn grooves in the branch, but it was a comfortable seat. As I pushed myself in a lazy circle, the late afternoon sun speckled the leaves and I saw the spots: phlegm-yellow and tissue-thin inside, gray ring outside.

My phone rang as I was examining one of the mottled leaves.

“It’s your father.” The nurse’s voice didn’t even shake. “He collapsed during his checkup and now he’s unresponsive.”

‘Unresponsive’. What a horrible word.

***

I fell into my job at the Housing Authority because Dad’s house was one of the first hit in our town. We’d figured out how to detect and treat the first wave of the fungus we now call “the bug.” But it mutated fast, and the most resistant strain fed on our buildings instead of living beings. It ate away siding and air conditioning and window casings. Alcohol sprays, systemics, antimicrobials, and antifungals all failed, so I stopped at Town Hall to get the plans filed for Dad’s house. To see how bad it was going to get.

“We need to warn people to the south,” the woman at the desk blurted while I was making copies. “I think they’ll believe it more from people with personal experience. You have a nice voice. Want a job?”

I thought about Dad’s bay window falling out of its dissolving casing. How the siding looked like Swiss cheese a year after I’d buried him. My throat tightened and I nodded.

I’d only been working there for a month when I first heard about an entity house.

“Hi, I’m calling to tell you about the bug that is destroying homes,” I read from the script.

“Oh no, dear, I’ll be fine,” the person replied, with a breathless giggle.

“My apologies!” I looked at their house plans. “We have on record that your house has wood beams and studs.”

“That’s right?”

“If your house has any wood, plastic, vinyl, or acrylic, the bug will attack it,” I said. “I can describe–”

“It’s okay, dear,” they interrupted. “Gramma took care of it.”

My heart leapt. Maybe there’s a solution. “What did your grandmother do?”

“She came back.” They giggled again. “Oh, she’s asking for her show. Gotta go.”

My phone clicked. They’d hung up.

Last I checked, the house was still standing, no leopard-spot marks in sight. They’ve also been generous. Filed four sleep slots with us. Tenants report that Gramma is noisy at 2 AM and is particular about kitchen cleanliness, to the point where she’ll wake them up with a frigid touch if they leave a mess. Otherwise, she doesn’t act like a ghost at all.

We’ve confirmed twelve entity houses so far. We’ve also heard other stories – folks who summoned a family member to help, only to have their relative’s ghost refuse and go back where they came from. It sounded like it hurt, to lose them all over again.

***

The head medium bows at me. “Do you have the ashes?”

I slide the silver urn from behind the new door jamb. I hold my breath as I break the seal on the urn and grab a pinch of ashes.

She points at the urn. “That should come as well.”

“Really?” I debate whether to return the ashes.

“He will be the fourth for the séance.”

“Oh.” I cradle the urn in my left arm. “Where should I put…”

I can’t bring myself to say ‘him’ or ‘it’.

The head medium gestures. “There, towards the west. The departed sit at the setting sun. You sit at the north, our guiding star.”

I place the urn where she indicated. Up close the machine purrs like a satisfied feline.

“Kasira, you sit at the east, the rising, and…” She cocks her head, as if listening. “Yes, Erius, you take the south, the brightening.”

The mediums, both young-looking and oddly aged, seat themselves. Kasira’s scars are jagged scores like broken toffee in the hollows of her eyes. Erius bears four white-silver furrows, two down each cheek.

“We do not control those we call,” the medium says. “Ancestors speak to us only if they wish to. We take these ashes to communicate that we are your approved emissary to the dead.”

I sprinkle the pinch of ashes into Kasira’s cupped hand. She presses a thumb into them and strokes her thumb across her forehead. She passes the ashes to Erius, who repeats the gesture, then shakes the remaining ashes into a metal cup at the center of the machine. They both grasp one of the metal dowels on the lachrymatorium with their left hand. The rest of the women back down the driveway.

“Where are they going?” I whisper to Kasira.

“This is no longer their place.” She winks, her broken-toffee scars bunching. “Now it’s up to us.”

***

“Okay, who’s next?”

The person wore an algae tunic and mycelium-leather clogs, their black hair short-cropped, small brown eyes glaring at me.

“Thank you for waiting. Tolerances?”

“Pollen,” they replied.

“Nothing else?”

“Why?” They sneered. “Where do you live?”

I hid a sigh. “My tolerances are dark, stuffy, and hard, so I’m in a shipping container park. I share my crate with three others.” Their brow furrowed, so I modulated my voice towards the perky. “My bedding is a myco mat. If you’re interested, there are slots left in my park.”

They deflated, the sneer replaced by a disappointed twist of lips. “I see. I’d be okay with bugs, steps, and height.”

“Fantastic!” I tapped it in. “Two treehouses have slots available. They have woven live-branch floors, leaf beds, and mycelium tarps in case of rain. One has a sunset view and one has a living vine wall to block wind from the south. It includes morning glories.”

Their eyes widened and I caught a glimpse of a grin. “Ooh, a vine wall! I’ll take that one.”

I smiled as I passed over the slate marker. It was rare to please someone in this job. I rubbed the belt buckle in my pocket and reminded myself to mark this moment down later.

***

Kate usually let me stay past closing to use the glass computer in the back office. I’d jot down things we’ve lost. Sometimes simple pleasures, like books and stuffed animals. Sometimes things I’ve never used, like Kevlar and mosquito netting. Sometimes I’d even mark down people who I’d briefly forgotten. 

Memory has always been a problem for me. Doctors had differing theories why. Maybe the trauma of losing my mom so early;. Possibly an attention disorder. All I knew was that I’d never been good with names or dates. But it wasn’t until Dad was gone that I realized how much I was forgetting.

When I arrived at the hospital, he was already dead. They gave me a bag of his things. Plaid shirt, canvas pants, steel watch, leather belt. A few weeks after he died, the leather belt grew a tiny leopard spot. I’d given the belt to Dad for Father’s Day. I realized I didn’t remember buying it, I didn’t remember him opening it, but I remembered him putting it on. I couldn’t remember the sound of his voice, but I remembered what he said: “It fits! How did you know my belt size, Roribell?”

“I didn’t, Dad.” I held out my arms in an ellipse. “This is how big you are when I hug you. So that’s how big the belt needed to be.”

I remembered his eyes filling with tears. He’d kissed the top of my head as I hugged him again, feeling his stomach hitching in quiet sobs. 

“I keep forgetting how short you are,” he’d whispered, making me laugh.

“And how long your legs are,” I’d teased.

We stayed in the hug for ten minutes.

I thought. I didn’t know for sure.

I did remember screaming over the leather as the bug ate it, that memory turning to shreds, then dust. I also remembered crying with relief when the gold-toned brass buckle remained intact, and how well it fit in my pocket.

***

Kasira leans towards me. “Remind us how to say your father’s name?” 

“Niven, like given, and Seinn like sine wave.”

The ash-prints on the mediums’ foreheads glow with a blue-gray iridescence as the machine sparks and Erius speaks.

“I call upon the spirit of Niven Seinn to grace us with your voice!”

A breeze kicks up.

Kasira repeats it. “I call upon Niven Seinn to grace us with your voice!”

Nothing happens. Kasira glances at Erius.

“You feel anything?”

“Not enough juice,” Erius replies.

I shrink under their gaze.

***

“Thank you for waiting. Tolerances?”

“Ancestors,” the frail person at the window replied. Their watery eyes were swollen and the ridges of their nostrils were chapped. The bones of old leaves peeked out from under their lank brown hair.

I raised my eyebrows. “Ancestors? Nothing else?”

Their gaze didn’t waver.

“Look.” I lowered my voice. “There aren’t many real entity houses right now. It takes a family loss and a very generous ancestor to make one. People claim they have a haunting, but the bug always gets them. You should choose something else.”

The person shook their head. “I’m allergic to a thousand things. It’s too cold for me in here and too hot out there. Anything hard, bright, or noisy hurts. Right now I’m in a sleep ditch off the freeway because it’s better than anything else.” They shrugged. “So unless you have a tolerance I haven’t heard of yet, ‘ancestors’ is it.”

“Okay. I’m sorry. I can add you to the waiting list but it’s fairly long.”

They pulled a square aluminum pager from their pocket. I scanned it and added the ID to the list, and they turned away from the booth, shoulders slumped.

I thought about the thing I was building, and I crossed my fingers and bumped their ID to the top before calling the next person up.

***

After Mom died, Dad took me along to his construction sites, first showing me how to sort tools, then how to lay bricks, then on to more complicated things. Everything he’d taught me was clear in my mind, even after everything else I’d forgotten.

When I started the house frame, I decided to take as many shortcuts as I could. No walls, no planing. The bug took months to hit new-cut wood, so I had some time, but not much. If the séance worked, the house would stand. If the séance didn’t work, it would fall anyway.

The doorway was last. Dad was always good with doors. I sawed the branch off the maple where my swing had once hung. The living branch still had grooves in it from the rope so I was extra cautious cutting it, preserving those grooves.

I sobbed while taking the bark off the branch. Wept like I was sacrificing one of the few memories I still had.

I was still working on it, sanding the jamb and hammering in the nail where the bell would go, when the mediums arrived.

***

Kasira reaches out to me. I hesitate, glancing at the machine.

“It doesn’t hurt,” she promises.

I slide my fingers into her hand, surprised at its warmth. Kasira squeezes my palm.

“Why have you asked us here today?”

“I want a better place to live,” I murmur. “I’m tired of my container.”

Erius shakes her head. “You could have built a steel structure.”

Kasira clasps my hand more tightly. “Why wood? Why here?”

A muscle in the side of my throat tightens, sending a sharp ache down into my collarbone. “I miss my dad. He was a woodworker. He built the house that used to be here, but the bug ate it.”

Erius scoots towards me. “But why did you choose something so fragile?”

“For… for memory.”

“Memory?” Kasira tilts her head. “Can you tell us more about that?”

I try not to sniffle. “The bug took all the furniture he built. It took everything he built. Those were supposed to be heirlooms. Now it’s all gone, so it’s like he’s all gone.”

“Why would he be gone? Doesn’t he live in your memories?” Kasira rubs her thumb over my knuckle. “Doesn’t everyone you’ve loved?”

I struggle to breathe. They’re watching me expectantly. Waiting for me to agree. I glance back at the doorway. Something clenches painfully inside my chest, and I can’t hold it anymore.

“No, that’s the problem!” Tears scald my cheeks like steam. “I should remember more, but I don’t. I don’t remember him on my sixteenth birthday. I don’t remember him at my college graduation. I don’t remember our last Christmas.” My throat spasms. “Oh god, and it’s too late! It’s too late to make any more memories with him! If I was smart, I would have written everything down. I would have made sure I’d never forget. But I’m not smart, I’m a selfish jerk, I’m a terrible daughter. I thought I had more time. I thought I had more time.”

I try to pull free from Kasira to cover my face as I cry, but she holds fast, a deathly stillness in her fingers. “There it is,” she whispers. “There’s the juice. That’s the grief he needs.”

The machine’s hum intensifies, vibrating in my skin. Electricity spits as the bulbs turn on. I squint, my tears cracking the world into rainbows, as Kasira and Erius chant together.

“We call upon the spirit of Niven Seinn to grace us with your voice!”

A white mist coagulates above the machine. The mediums continue. “Your daughter Rorius awaits you, Niven. If you consent, make yourself known!”

Something sizzles. I smell peanut butter and pepper – right, Dad’s lunches, on that wheat bread he loved. I’d forgotten them.

Then I hear a voice.

Roribell…

My stomach jumps. It’s been years, but I recognize it. Even though I couldn’t recall the sound of his voice, I recognize the sound.

I recognize it.

The smell. The sound. The memories were always there, deep in my gut. Exactly like the belt. Knowing his size not because it was in my brain, but because I’d hugged him so often my body knew it by heart.

Whatever my brain did or didn’t keep, the rest of my body recorded it all.

My shoulders wrench with sobs of relief as Kasira squeezes my hand. “Niven Seinn, will you share your afterlife on this plane, within the house your child has built, until such time as she departs?”

Do you need me, Roribell?

“I…” I stop. Am I being a terrible daughter again? Is it cruel to want him to stay with me? To leave the peaceful rest he deserves?

I flash on the person with the watery eyes. Their desperation. And how many other people might be in the same place.

I might not need him, but other people do.

“We all do. Please,” I manage, vocal cords tight with choked-back grief.

Then I’ll stay…

Kasira and Erius shriek as lightning crackles around the machine, then leaps into the lintel of the door with a sound like fireworks. Kasira clenches my hand hard enough to crack my knuckles before she lets go.

“Bless you, Niven, for your sacrifice. When Rory departs, one of us shall return to release you,” Erius gasps.

The machine’s hum fades. A wisp of smoke rises from Kasira’s face, a trickle of bloody pus seeping from a broken spot under her left eye.

“Shit!” I reach towards her. “Are you okay?”

She pats my hand, then blots the pus on her cheek with a graceful lift of her shoulder. “It hurts, but scars are remembrance.” She smiles. “Most people hide their scars, but for us, it’s an honor to bear this memory.”

As she and Erius undo the leads, Kasira winks at me and pantomimes crying. I rub my eyes by instinct, then jump at a sting under my right eye. A smear of blood pinkens the side of my index finger.

A wound, to turn into a scar. For remembrance.

I grin despite myself. Of course. Scars are the ghosts of past injuries, haunting our skin. It would keep my memory close to the surface, so that I’ll never forget.

I don’t know what my scar will look like, but I don’t care. It’ll remind me, every day, whether from other people’s reactions or from seeing my face in a reflection, that my memories live within me.

That my dad was never gone.

I lean on the maple door jamb and watch them gather up the machine and leave, their robes fading into the air as twilight deepens.

I like your house, Roribell.

I sigh. “Thank you, Daddy.”

I hug the jamb for at least ten minutes, then pluck the belt buckle from my pocket. I hang it on the nail that marks where the bell will go, and step under the lightning-struck lintel to start the walls.


© 2023 by Risa Wolf

3538 words

Author’s Note: This story came to me when I was processing several different kinds of loss at once. I’d gone to a memorial during the second year of the pandemic and as people recounted stories about the deceased, I realized that not only had I lost the person’s presence, I’d lost memories of them too. That memorial, plus the loss of access to the world around me, led me to an internal quest that I externalized to create Rory’s. (Many thanks to Cat Rambo for the title.)

Risa Wolf is a multi-gendered water elemental disguised as an ink-stained lycanthrope. (Don’t tell their spouse or their dogs; the disguise is working.) They come from the Burned-Over District in New York State, and they imagine houses for book-ghosts for a living. Their writing can be found in places like Apex, Clarkesworld, and Cast of Wonders. Visit them at killerpuppytails.com, on Mastodon at @killerpuppytails, or BlueSky at @risawolf.bsky.social.


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Submission Window Update: First Story Announcement and Schedule Info

written by David Steffen

Hello! I’m here to give an update on the general submission window where we were taking submissions from July 17-31. We received 1451 stories for the submission window. The first round is complete, so everyone should have received an initial response of either a rejection or a hold notice. If you haven’t received one, check your spam folder, you can check your status on the submission site if you have your confirmation name, otherwise you can query us immediately.

Normally I announce the story lineup all at once with all the months, but we are running a little later than I had hoped, and so I’m slipping in the first story announcement right here:

The November story will be:
In the Shelter of Ghosts
by Risa Wolf

We have a couple other acceptances in hand, and we are having discussions right now to finalize the rest of the list.

On a related note, because we are running a little later than we had originally planned, we are publishing one story a month for a couple months to connect the schedule up. But we’re planning to return to our usual cadence of two stories a month at that point.