“What the Dead Birds Taught Me.” Horror story in Nightmare #118, edited by Wendy N. Wagner (Adamant Press, July 2022). Grieving her parents, art major and secret necromancer Mary accepts help from the wrong man. An angry modern retelling of “Bluebeard.” #Nightmare #Bluebeard #HorrorFiction https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/what-the-dead-birds-taught-me/

E’en now they live, with each her key, his door;
with each their secret room done up in blood –
each thinking that they know the one they wed.

(7 of 7)
#poetry #poem #sestina #horror #BlueBeard #FairyTale

chained him tight with turn of key –
his arms strung from the ceiling of her room.
The leer dripped down his face. No more he'd know
the world beyond that locked and silent door.
His world was knives and fish-hooks, pain and blood.
She made a corpse of him she had not wed.

(6 of 7)
#poetry #poem #sestina #horror #BlueBeard #FairyTale

Sound and secret was her room.
She carried all she needed through the door
and summoned one she nearly might have wed,
had he been happy; still she thrilled his blood.
“And where's your groom?” he asked. – “I do not know;
he hunts.” She led him up and turned the key –

(5 of 7)
#poetry #poem #sestina #horror #BlueBeard #FairyTale

Many were that house's doors.
The bride could choose her own. When thirst for blood
had sent the bridegroom hunting, one small key
came off the ring; the groom would never know
that it had vanished. Ever since they'd wed
she'd waited for her chance to claim this room.

(4 of 7)
#poetry #sestina #horror #BlueBeard #FairyTale

lace and ribbons, carved in blood.
Yet all of this the bride would never know.
His secrets were his own. She left the room
untouched; the groom was glad to learn he'd wed,
at last, a bride whom he could trust. The key
she held was proof against that deadly door.

(3 of 7)
#poetry #sestina #horror #BlueBeard #FairyTale

never, never would she know! –
what secrets dwelt within the man she'd wed.
She would not run them down. Behind the door
forbidden her (though well she held the key)
the bridegroom kept a secret bloody room –
his former brides, all dead, all dressed in blood –

(2 of 7)
#poetry #sestina #horror #BlueBeard #FairyTale

Joy was theirs, the night they wed!
That very morn the groom gave her the keys
to every door of her new home. The blood
within her rose; she danced through every room
that now was hers: save one. A single door,
he said, was his alone. She did not know –

(1 of 7)
#poetry #sestina #horror #BlueBeard #FairyTale

Literally #MyTopShelf - this ledge runs around the room over head-height the perfect depth for #books. I love the juxtaposition alphabetisation brings.

My childhood copy of #SwallowsAndAmazons fell apart in #eqnz - this is a replacement. #Shakespeare was a school prize. #Pratchett of course, and much other #fantasy (more #scifi elsewhere). The Necessary Beggar is #HopePunk. Mr Fox because I went through a #Bluebeard phase. Parker because #UnreliableNarrators are my jam.