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PodCastle 935: Arachnomorphosis

Previously published in Strange Horizons, February 2025

Content note: spiders

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:20 — 67.7MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG

Arachnomorphosis

by Beth Goder

 

At night, Olivia becomes a spider. She scurries down San Francisco streets, floats gently between cotton-candy-colored houses, and hides behind signs for trendy restaurants, like Trough and Instance.

By day, she works as a software engineer for a company that rents out kitchenware and other home goods. In her spare time, she edits a periodical called Non-Random Number Generator, which showcases the poetry of local writers, but only if the poems involve the number ninety-nine. They get a surprising amount of submissions.

It’s the night that’s tricky. She lopes eight-legged, her steps tapping out a metrical line. Spondee, spondee, spondee.

The city is no place for a spider. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 934: The Inheritance

Previously published by FIYAH 33 (February 2025)

Content note for gore

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:09 — 53.8MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG-13

The Inheritance

by C. T. Muchemwa

 

Taona did not shed a single tear when his baba died. Not when he heard the news. Not when he greeted his father’s wife and she wailed at the sight of his face. Not even when they lowered his father’s shiny black casket into the grave and his sea of half-sisters wept.

Those who watched him at the funeral would say that Taona stood like a man. But he really stood as an only son whose father had never recognised him because his mother refused to be a mistress. She was holding out to be a second wife. A lot of good that had done her. She lived in poverty while her competition enjoyed the benefits of being the girlfriends of one of the richest men in Harare. So, no, Taona had not cried.

But now, standing outside Baba’s lawyers’ offices, a solitary tear formed in Taona’s right eye, and gently rolled down his cheek, a perfect drop burgeoning with feelings of absolute joy. For he was now holding the keys to a second-hand Honda Fit. It wasn’t new, but it was his. His inheritance. The bespectacled old man standing next to him told Taona the message his baba had left for him.

“Your father said this car will make a man of you,” the lawyer said. “It’s the kind of gift that forces you to decide who you want to be. Choose wisely.” (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 933: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – Ink

PodCastle 933: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – Ink is a PodCastle original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:02 — 46.7MB)

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Show Notes

Rated R

Ink

by Xander M. Odell

A woman stood at the tattoo parlor’s door. Small, damp from the storm, hair disheveled and slightly askew. Comfortable in her clothes, not her skin. The sight of her made Tiger’s chest itch, and his tattoos tingle. He turned down the stereo. “Can I help you with something?”

The woman looked at the shelves stuffed with pattern books, the posters of half­-naked men and women displaying their tattoos and piercings. “Is this Stars And Stripes Ink?”

Her voice had a touch of falsetto.

“That’s what the sign says in the window.”

She brushed aside her bangs, tugging her hair back into place in a way Tiger supposed he wasn’t meant to notice. “I would like a tattoo.”

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PodCastle 932: Carina

PodCastle 932: Carina is a PodCastle original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 44:51 — 61.6MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG-13

Carina

by Anna Kahn

 

“I’ve had a baby. Still feels strange that you don’t know that — I’ve been looking forward to telling you. She’s called Sophie, which you might have feelings about, and that’s OK. I want you to know I think of you fondly and often. I guess that’s everything.”

Sophie replayed the recording. Carina’s lovely soft voice.

“You just missed her,” the citadel’s newest receptionist said.

“I always do.” A baby? There was joy in that, behind the anger — not just normal existence-of-babies joy, but fiercer, an illogical, selfish joy that the Carina Sophie knew fighting and scrabbling through her twenties would have a baby.

“Can’t you catch up or something?”

Sophie hadn’t realised the receptionist was that new. She could already feel herself slipping away. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 931: Birds of Fortune

Originally published in Zooscape, Issue 23, April 15, 2025

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:30 — 33.7MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG

Birds of Fortune

by Kelsey Hutton

 

Water droplets still glistened on each of the griffin’s feathers, catching light on dark brown wings and tossing it about like they were old friends. Each stroke of the wing beat back gusts of air forceful enough to talk their way into any closed-door affair; enough crows had been caught in their turbulence to know to stay away, although a few young’uns liked to surf the griffin’s currents, on a particularly daring day. Wind whistled a jaunty tune as it streamed by, while the sun nestled deep into the griffin’s satiny lion haunches. She kept her powerful back legs pulled in tight, for better aerodynamics, but let her long tufted tail swish about.

Lady Griffith didn’t hold back. It felt deliciously good to pump her wings — as wide across as a ten-year-old ash tree, its sapling days long gone — and luxuriate in the smell of a fresh kill — meaty and tangy, like all good tropical fowl — still hooked in her beak. A clear runway of sky, a few picturesque snow-topped mountains in the distance, her eaglet safe in his nest atop the spear-like Douglas fir just over the next ridge — what else could a griffin want?

It had been a long incubation period with the eggs. Over a month. Even with nest exchanges, allowing Sir Griffith to occasionally take his turn perching on two agate eggs the size of good-sized gourds, her powerful front talons still craved something to crush in their grip. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 930: Parsley Girl, Parsley Girl, Let Down Your Trichobezoar

PodCastle 930: Parsley Girl, Parsley Girl, Let Down Your Trichobezoar is a PodCastle original.

content notes for pregnancy loss, post-natal depression, and second-person narration

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:35 — 56.2MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG

Parsley Girl, Parsley Girl, Let Down Your Trichobezoar

by Natalie Zutter

 

If I were your mother, I would share with you this cautionary tale:

Once there was a couple who yearned for a child. When the woman was finally pregnant, she craved naught but rapunzel. Unfortunately, this plant only grew inside a neighboring garden, walled off from the world. As the expectant mother began to waste away, her desperate husband stole into the garden and snatched as much of the leafy plant as he could. But he could not outsmart the enchantress, who protected the garden as if it were her own offspring. When she caught him, she demanded he trade her their newborn baby. He said yes.

After the birth, the enchantress whisked the baby away to a tower in the woods. Rapunzel knew only the walls of her prison and the daily visits from the enchantress, who climbed up by way of the girl’s impossibly long hair. Until one day a prince climbed up instead; they fell in love; the enchantress found out. She cut Rapunzel’s hair and cast them both out of the tower, the pregnant girl into the woods and the prince into a patch of thorns, blinding him.

But as the enchantress, the best that I can do for you is cast a spell. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 929: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – A Place to Grow

Previously ran as episode 558 and first published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 47:43 — 65.5MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG

A Place to Grow

By A. T. Greenblatt

Lillian was wearing one of her uncles’ old suits again. Her family always wore suits when they were going to tear down a world.

Trouble was that this world, unlike the dozens before it, had started to feel like home.

You don’t know that for sure, Lillian reminded herself as she strode through her dying garden, fists clenched at her side. You never had a home.

Trouble was, her uncles got bored of the worlds they built so quickly. So now the last of her daisies, tulips, and lilies surrounded her like sickly, wilting walls, praying for one last glimpse of sunlight before they died.

A useless prayer. Her uncles had dismantled the sun two days ago. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 928: FLASH FICTION EXTRAVAGANZA: Things Left Unsaid

“Peppermint Tea” previously published by Baffling Magazine

“Ghosts” previously published in Gingerbread House Literary Magazine. This story was originally titled “Recipe”

“Last Word” is a #PodCastleOriginal!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 34:08 — 46.9MB)

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Show Notes

Rated G

Peppermint Tea

by Rachel Gutin

 

Simi huddled in their borrowed coat and tried not to shiver as they reached for the stuffed roll their housemate had set out for them. No matter how many down coats and thick woolen sweaters Kari lent them, they couldn’t shake the chill from their bones. They ached to be back home, where winter never got this cold.

But home meant Gran, and Gran was gone now. Had it really been six weeks since she died? (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 927: The One Who Carries Abinakhee Has Died

PodCastle 927: The One Who Carries Abinakhee Has Died is a PodCastle original.

Content note for drowning

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:46 — 45.0MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG

The One Who Carries Abinakhee Has Died

by Jay Kang Romanus

 

I’m leaning in to kiss a stranger when the shooting star passes overhead. The sounds of people celebrating nearby swim through the humid air like the ancient turtle below us swims through the world’s ocean and the shooting star above swims through waves of night sky. I’m still breathing heavy from my performance, glowing from the warmth of so many eyes on me and the warmth of the stranger’s body next to me.

“Did you see it?” I ask, momentarily distracted from his well-shaped lips. He nods.

“My mother used to say they were the starships of those who left us behind.” He smiles at me with those extremely well-shaped lips. “I don’t think she was right about that, though.”

Cheering spikes through the quiet before fading away and it seems short-sighted to be spending the rare occasion of a funereal confluence with just one person, in the town I’ve spent my whole life in, on the back of the Great One whose shell has been the borders of my entire world since I was born. But he is a stranger, he wouldn’t be here without the confluence, and that’s my excuse for short-sightedness. (Continue Reading…)

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PodCastle 926: TALES FROM THE VAULTS – The Gold Silkworm

Previously ran as episode 423 and first published in Fantasy Magazine

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:29 — 58.3MB)

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Show Notes

Rated PG-13

The Gold Silkworm

by Tony Pi

When I first became keeper of the Spirit of Grass, she and I made a pact to never turn away one in need, whether they be rich or poor. Madame Ke was one of the rich.

She had heard of my skills in medicine from her sister, and asked if I would come to the Garden of Timely Rains. I accepted the invitation and arrived in the early afternoon, when the high sun gave glow to the garden pond and terraces. A servant escorted me to the Pavilion for Tasting Autumn Pears where a woman in her thirties awaited me.

Madame Ke, radiant in a dress printed with gold hibiscuses, bade me to join her at the tea table. Though eager to consult a woman doctor, she asked first for proof that I wasn’t a wandering healer. “Are you from the famed medical families of Feng, Mao, or Wu? What training did you have? Can you recite classical poetry to prove your education?” (Continue Reading…)