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    Apex Magazine: Issue 22
    Apex Magazine: Issue 22
    Apex Magazine: Issue 22
    Ebook63 pages45 minutes

    Apex Magazine: Issue 22

    By Catherynne M. Valente

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Apex Magazine is a monthly science fiction, fantasy, and horror magazine featuring original, mind-bending short fiction from many of the top pros of the field. New issues are released the first Tuesday of every month.
    Fiction:
    "The Dust and the Red" -- Darin Bradley
    "The Speaking Bone" -- Kat Howard
    "Rats" -- Veronica Schanoe

    Poetry:
    "Quest" -- Jessica Wick
    "The King of Cats, the Queen of Wolves" -- Mike Allen, Sonya Taaffe, and Nicole Kornher-Stace

    This issue of Apex Magazine was edited by Catherynne M. Valente.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherApex Book Company
    Release dateMar 4, 2011
    ISBN9781458012791
    Apex Magazine: Issue 22
    Author

    Catherynne M. Valente

    Catherynne M. Valente is the New York Times bestselling author of over two dozen works of fiction and poetry, including Palimpsest, the Orphan’s Tales series, Deathless, Radiance, and the crowdfunded phenomenon The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (and the four books that followed it). She is the winner of the Andre Norton, Tiptree, Sturgeon, Eugie Foster Memorial, Mythopoeic, Rhysling, Lambda, Locus, and Hugo awards, as well as the Prix Imaginales. Valente has also been a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. She lives on an island off the coast of Maine with a small but growing menagerie of beasts, some of which are human. Find out more on her website and on Twitter!

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      Book preview

      Apex Magazine - Catherynne M. Valente

      APEX MAGAZINE

      Issue 22

      March, 2011

      Copyright 2011 by Apex Publications

      Published by Apex Publications at Smashwords

      COPYRIGHTS & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      The Dust and the Red Copyright 2011 by Darin Bradley

      The Speaking Bone Copyright 2011 by Kat Howard

      Rats Copyright 2007 by Veronica Schanoes

      Quest Copyright 2011 by Jessica Wick

      The King of Cats, the Queen of Wolves Copyright 2011 by Mike Allen, Sonya Taaffe, Nicole Kornher-Stace

      Publisher—Jason Sizemore

      Fiction Editor—Catherynne M. Valente

      Senior Editor—Gill Ainsworth

      Submission Editors—Zakarya Anwar, Ferrett Steinmetz, Martel Sardina, Chris Einhaus, Mari Adkins, George Galuschak, Deanna Knippling, Laura Long, Sarah Olson, Lillian Cohen-Moore, Patrick Tomlinson, Katherine Khorey

      Cover designed by Justin Stewart

      ISSN: 2157-1406

      Apex Publications

      PO Box 24323

      Lexington, KY 40524

      Please visit us at http://www.apexbookcompany.com

      To subscribe visit http://www.apexbookcompany.com/apex-store/subscriptions/

      Submission Guidelines are listed at the end of the issue.

      Table of Contents

      --Fiction--

      The Dust and the Red

      By Darin Bradley

      The Speaking Bone

      By Kat Howard

      Rats

      Veronica Schanoes

      --Poetry--

      Quest

      By Jessica P. Wick

      The King of Cats, the Queen of Wolves

      By Mike Allen, Sonya Taaffe, and Nicole Kornher-Stace

      --Submission Guidelines--

      The Dust and the Red

      By Darin Bradley

      I was ten the first time I saw the pearl. The soil had come loose in the Sweetgrass, and to protect the family, my father dug the pearl out of its niche beneath the jamb. He had to clean it, and, since we only had one room, he had no choice but to show us. Taking it outside would have defeated the purpose. Where the dust lived. Where the problems were.

      The plains were fast upon us, though I didn’t know it then. Only father knew. That’s why he extracted the pearl from its rusted tobacco tin By protecting it, he was protecting us.

      He buffed it slowly, evenly, so it would hold mother’s paraffin against the dust.

      There was no other way.

      Jonah was fourteen, and he watched our father. He watched the pearl.

      Father looked at me. Come closer, Caroline, he said.

      The tax man was sweating beneath his layers. He wore so many, in blacks: vests, jackets, a hat with curled rims. The landowners came in blacks, and so did the preacher and the lawyers. Black was an invasion. An outfit of shadows for coming inside. Black car, black book, black ink in the pen. Jonah and I stood against the wall, watching mother watching father. I didn’t know then that we had the pearl. Jonah had fire in his eyes. He was staring at father, staring at the tax man.

      The two men sat very still at our small table. The smell of the morning’s pork hung in the air. The stove hadn’t quite heated mother’s washing water.

      It’s the stock exchange, the tax man said.

      Father nodded slowly.

      Too many sales, the tax man said. Nothing left to trade. The tax man bit off the ends of his words as he spoke. Saving bits for later, maybe. Between him and my father, they tried to disturb the air as little as possible.

      The tax man glanced again at his black book. Father’s fingers were resting on its spine where the tax man had settled it in front of him. It was still closed.

      Father nodded again.

      Sign the ledger, the tax man said. Might not matter. Country’s gone broke. He looked out the window.

      Loosened the dust, father said, out on the plains.

      Most like, the tax man said. Nothing left of the war-cropping to keep that soil down. Too much, too fast. No time for rotation.

      Father nodded. His blond beard glistened where the light found it, oiled by sweat and sunshine. He’d been at the fields

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