Summer in Orcus

by T. Kingfisher

Raise the stakes, they always say. Raise the stakes! We must always have the fate of the world in the balance, never one person’s happiness, and we must always arrive at the eleventh hour. No one wants the small stories any more.

Perhaps you should not have that skill at your age, but the world is unfair, and sometimes we must use that unfairness to our advantage.” She rocked back and forth. “It would be a good day for the world if I could not find a child who knew terrible adult things. But I will be a great deal older before that day comes, I think.”

In the chambers of Summer’s heart, there was a word written on the wall, and she was afraid that word was YES.

To get out from under someone else’s fear?”

I loved Narnia with a vast, hungry passion as a child and when I finally worked out that it was really about church, I felt betrayed as only children can feel betrayed.

In my head, when I was a child, I had filled in so much space between the pages.

So many of us right then felt like we were bailing the tide, like the world was breaking beyond any of our ability to fix.

I think I worry that it’s getting worse