Time

Magical girls grow up to be ordinary women. It happens slowly, as life gets busier, and disappearing at a moment's notice becomes harder, and reaction times get longer fraction by fraction. Tasks are delegated to the younger girls until one day they find that instead of worrying about the fate of the world, they're standing in a supermarket reading down a list of groceries, indistinguishable from any other woman in the place.

Sometimes, they'll even look up and see a familiar face – a comrade-in-arms or a nemesis grown similarly old. What happens then varies. They might nod to each other, or go for coffee, or pretend that they didn't see anything at all. Once in a while, if it's a nemesis, they decamp to the parking lot to do battle. And rarely, but every now and then, that nemesis walks towards them, takes them in their arms and holds them tight.

'You made it out too,' they whisper. 'You made it out too.'

And around them, the other shoppers politely ignore the two people crying quietly inthe bakery section.

Bridge

Bridges are liminal spaces. Between land and land, where the running water that witches can't cross resides. Between here and there, where the power of the magic is strongest. Fragile lines of connection or weakness, in the places where realms touch.

Alys stood on the bridge and looked towards the mainland, where the mass of the army was already drawing up. Hundreds of soldiers, pillagers, destroyers, fat with the fruit of the land they had marched over. Staring at her and the bridge that must be held.

Behind them, somewhere in the dark and the wild spaces, the warriors of her people who remained slipped down the hidden paths, nipping at the edges and the weak spots of the invading host, hoping to cut supply lines and communication lines. They were still there, she believed, she had to believe. All resistance was not gone. The invaders' confidence would turn out to be arrogance.

Behind her, out of sight on the island, her people huddled – harried, hungry, desperate for safety and sanctuary. They had scrambled east ahead of the snarling mass, all the time aware that they were being herded towards the end of the line.

Towards the bridge, and the last, desperate thing that they could do.

“Alys.” Beside her, Ferze, her fellow priest, looked out towards the army. “You don't have to do this.”

“We're out of options,” she told him, knowing that he knew.

“We can destroy the bridge.”

“And trap our people on the island. Let them,” she nodded towards the invaders, “sit there and wait while we starve. You know we can't do that.”

“We can raise the barriers, work in shifts, let them wear themselves out attacking, hold on until ...”

Alys looked at the priests and acolytes getting ready to perform the protective spells. Looked at how few of them remained.

“Until what?” she asked.

“Until the warriors get here.”

“And then what?” She looked at his frustrated expression. “You know we have no choice.”

“This could destroy your soul!”

“It won't. I believe that. And you have to believe that too.”

“And if it fails?” His voice was resigned.

Alys looked back towards the island. “Comfort our people as best you can,” she said. “Surrender. And pray that we're clansfolk in the next life too.”

A young woman joined them. “We're ready,” she said.

“Thank you, Johana.” Alys reached out and gripped Ferze's elbow. “It's time.”

Ferze nodded and went to join the others. The chanting began, and Alys felt the strange thump of the first barrier coming into being. For one moment more, she paused, breathed, felt the force of all of Ferze's arguments and her own certainty clash inside her. Then she walked forward into the cleared space at the middle of the bridge span.

The second barrier thumped into existence behind her. She centred her breath, rolled her shoulders, and reached for the power of the place, letting it flow into her. Then she lifted her hands and began to move the the slow, building movement of the sacred dance.

All around her, the demons woke.

The Spirit of the Place

The building was a ghost. A lost artifact of a time of weath, surrounded and almost swallowed up by trees. The facade was filthy, with places where the plaster had come away completely, exposing the brick beneath. There were only two windows intact. And there was bound to be structural damage hidden behind the surface. No one had paid attention to this place in well over fifty years.

The woman opened the door and stepped inside.

It felt like a return.

Throughout the house, the spirits woke, moved. They gathered around the woman, tracking as she moved from room to room, following the footprints she left on the dirty floors. They watched her turn in slow circles, looking at the decorated ceilings or the remains of the wall panelling. They floated after her, silent and invisible, gazing at her with wary eyes.

The woman returned to the hallway and stood, frowning at herself. This house was a white elephant. It was unlivable-in, even if the asking price was within her means. And the money it would take to fix would be ... this wasn't a fixer-upper she could do herself. She would need builders, electricians, people with machinery who knew what they were doing. This was an absolutely impossible idea.

And yet. And yet.

It felt like home. A home unlike any she had ever experienced, or dreamed of. But home.

She moved towards the staircase and began to climb, testing each step carefully before she put her weight on it. The estate agent was just taking a call outside, but she still didn't want to have to be hauled out of a hole half-way up the stairs.

The spirits drifted after her.

The woman stepped into the central bedroom. Behind her, the spirits halted at the threshold.

The woman stopped, not quite in the centre of the room. The energy here was different, uncomfortable, no longer the uncanny pull of belonging that had been downstairs. Something else was ruling here.

She was suddenly certain. Something terrible had happened here.

Clustered in the doorway, the spirits watched as She emerged. This was Her territory. She was malevolent, vengeful, filled with rage and pain. They watched her smile at the woman and shrank back.

The woman looked back at the thing she could not see.

'It's all right,' she said, 'I'm here now.'

'Sorry, what was that?' The estate agent appeared in the doorway, his phone call ended.

The woman turned to him and smiled. 'I'd like to make an offer,' she said.

The Night Flight to Zanzibar

He fell asleep on her shoulder on the night flight to Zanzibar.

Well, not Zanzibar. Milan. And he didn't so much fall asleep on her shoulder as fall asleep and end up on her shoulder, but Jessica wasn't going to entertain such quibbles. Not while she could feel his hair against her neck.

He was Will Scathlock, Jessica's sister's wife's considerably older half-brother. And they had just spent the week of Lily and Rhea's destination-wedding-slash-two-family-vacation (a terrible idea) in charge of the five children who had been dragged along. The argument being that as the only single siblings, they should give the parents a chance to have a break on the vacation.

It had been a lot.

At first, Jessica had been both skeptical and kind of mad about it all. Five was a lot of children, and Will was a stranger to her. He had travelled straight from a business trip, and her first impression of him was of a severe, frowning man in a dark suit and tie. Not the look of a man ready to shepherd five children around Sicily.

And then he smiled, and his entire face became boyish. And Jessica had always been a sucker for a pretty smile.

They spent four days herding the kids around beaches and historic sites. Which turned out, despite the ice cream smears on their clothes and the way at least one child always objected to the planned activities, to be the more relaxing end of affairs. Weddings were stressful things. And the brides couldn't be put to bed at eight thirty.

But the problems had untangled themselves, and the wedding had happened, and now they were all on the plane to Milan, where they would go their separate ways. Will had lasted maybe two minutes after take-off before he fell asleep. He slid towards her when the plane turned, landing against her shoulder before making a tiny, sleepy noise and curling into a more comfortable position.

Jessica, who never slept on planes, watched over him until it was time to wake him for the landing.

As they were making their way towards the baggage claim, Jessica's sister drew her to one side.

“I wanted to say thank you,” Lily said, “for dealing so well with the kids. It was an enormous help. And I hope it wasn't too hard spending all that time with Will. I know he can be ...” She paused, apparently searching for a word. “Cold.”

Jessica looked towards where Will was standing waiting for the baggage carousel to start moving. She thought about her first impression of him, and of the way he had scooped up a crying six-year-old who had just tripped and sung to her until her tears had eased.

“I'm going to marry him,” she said.

She grinned at her gaping sister and kissed her cheek. Then she turned and went to wait for her baggage to arrive.

Owls

There are owls in the forest. The normal kind, of course, but there are carved owls too. Made of wood and bark, they sit beside the trails and scattered through the undergrowth.

During the day, children run from owl to owl, shrieking as they reach them before their sibiling, or wailing as they don't. Adults think the owls are charming/whimsical/cutesy/insufferable (delete as appropriate), and wonder at the work that went into them. (Or why someone would bother, if they are at the cutesy end of the spectrum.) Teenagers, it has to be said, occasionally take swings at them, out of a desire for credibility or a need to get all the unnameable emotions inside of them out. (More than you might think also quietly put the owls back up on their stands once they're sure no one is looking.)

And at night – well, at night the forest belongs to things older and more enduring than people. And there's a reason why some of the owls face away from the edge of the woods.

And the Poor shall Wear the Crown

They had been known as the Diggers. In the chaotic world of the English Republic, groups of people had moved onto common land and begun to plant vegetables. It had been a brief spark of agrarian socialism, before they had been run out of town by the people who owned the land. There had even been a song.

In the world on the other side of the second civil war, Aiden stood in the hazy sunlight and looked at the stretch of newly turned earth in front of him. Behind him, the concrete mountains of the tower blocks stretched into the sky. In the distance, he could hear the voices of the others as they made their way towards whatever was for dinner. He thought about them, about the work it had taken to get this plot of earth turned, and about the two other plots that needed to be done, and came to a conclusion.

They were going to need a better song.

Boots

Thomas tipped his head back towards the sun and inhaled deeply. Around him, the sounds and smells of the woods enveloped and soothed him. The path beneath his feet was dry enough to be firm, but wet enough to provide the occasional satisfying puddle to stride through. His boots were perfectly broken in, and perfectly waterproof. His backpack was a comforting weight on his shoulders, a tangible reminder that he had prepared well and brought everything he would need. The glory of nature, the pleasure of movement, everything he could want was his in this moment.

Twenty meters behind him, Ella shifted her weight from one aching leg to the other, and took another gulp of water. She watched his happiness with a smile, and the knowledge that this relationship was doomed before it had even started.