Raven
By Claire Massey

There was once a queen and she had a little daughter, who was as yet a babe in arms; and once the child was so restless that the mother could get no peace, do what she would; so she lost patience, and seeing a flight of ravens pass over the castle she opened the window and said to her child, ‘Oh, that thou wert a raven and couldst fly away, that I … Read entire article »

Snow White at the Automat
By Alex Dally MacFarlane

Coins pushed in
and the glass door opens
with a click.
Lunch, there,
on a plate in the slot
third from the left, seventh row up.

The napkins are thin and rough
like her bed sheets.

This is very different to before.

No mother
smiling dangerously at her
over tight laces and a comb.
No fine-dressed husband
offering shining cars, babies,
a beautiful five-course … Read entire article »

Afternoon Tale
By Patricia Russo

My niece asked me for a story. It was a hot summer afternoon, and she was bored with her toys and her books and her game screen. What kind of story, I asked. A story about heroes, she said. You mean, like the boy who killed the bear who had three heads, or the girl who returned the moon to the sky? No, no, my niece … Read entire article »

Fairyland 
By F.J. Bergmann

Glintfleur says hers can talk,
although I don’t believe her.
It’s the same size as mine,
but it wriggles more. Mine used to
scream when I pinched it
and covered it with pink flowers
but now it either whimpers
or doesn’t make any sound at all. 
Ashpuppet fastened his high up
in the storm-tossed branches of an oak
the first night he had it,
and what glorious music it made!
Its howling … Read entire article »

The Labyrinth and the Knight
By Rachel Manija Brown

Thanks to Dan Blum for the prompt.

The courtiers stared at me when I entered the throne room at the King’s command. They always stare, though they have seen me often enough to become familiar with my appearance: a knight in armor of unrelieved black from helmet to boots, without a patch of bare flesh visible anywhere save the window cut into the left side of my breastplate. … Read entire article »

A Correspondence from the Queen
by Annclaire Livoti

When word reached her of Rip Van Winkle,
Her Majesty summoned pen and parchment
and wrote him an epistle that began:
Dear Mr. Van Winkle, upon hearing of your plight,
I could not help but sympathize….
When a reply arrived, the letter was barely legible,
bearing the hesitant scrawl of one who had barely learned his letters
and who had never regretted it until now.
It became a … Read entire article »

Now and then
By Sabrina Vourvoulias

I.

Wind it around me, I say,
I can take it.

Only the young
and very stupid say this.

Or believe that magic will remain
butterscotch,
smooth and thick and
a joy to lick off the lips.

II.

Rosewater.
Rose petals.
Rose hips.
Rose of Castile. Wild
and briar rose.
Curses.
A hodge-podge list
from Larousse:
arcane gastronomy
or foreign spell book.
What kind of … Read entire article »

Alice’s Place
By Bruce Woods

It is a shelf, a bench, a level space roughly the size of a single bed, a bit more than halfway up the side of a hill. The mound upon which it appears is not by any means a mountain, being gentle-sloped and rounded and covered by greenery to its very peak, but it is quite the largest hill visible in any direction upon what is otherwise a region of lowlands, … Read entire article »

Chinese Rapunzel
by Rachel Lim

lowers her pinky fingernail,
curvaceously lavender, delicate
as a shell carrying the whispers
of the ocean within its depths.

there is no tower but her body,
and isn’t that worse, anyway,
to be trapped within strips of
silk—

      coda

grab ahold of the extended nail,
my prince, and climb me to
freedom. Perhaps the
summit will offer more than

my walled eyes can see, a
glimpse of … Read entire article »

The Other Road
by Alexandra Seidel

Little Blue Ribbon chose the other road.
Her twin, whom all call Red Riding Hood, was distracted by a wolf
and went off, plucking flowers, hunting butterflies,
but Blue Ribbon, the girl who was petite as her sister and had her wheat-golden hair,
stayed on the road that led into the woods where their grandmother lived.
Blue Ribbon carried a basket of wicker in the crook of her arm with … Read entire article »