Running Wild Novella Anthology Volume 9 Book 1

EDGE On parent-teacher conference day, in an urban context of regular kidnappings and violence, a boy learns that his estranged, but kind-hearted father has returned and would like to meet him secretly after school. The anxious boy has been warned about this possibility. When his teacher hears about the father's plan, it prompts her to hide the boy in her classroom. The boy's father searches for his son at dismissal and then goes to the principal. Together they head to the teacher's classroom... THE KITE FLYER AT CHIMERA ISLAND is a magical realism tale of two brothers who have been banished to a prison island to collect a mysterious substance called the Light. Memory, myth, and the powerful binding force of family come together in this dark yet touching story. THE NECROMANCER It's Valentine's Day and Silver Nightbrace's parents are coming to dinner, expecting to meet the suitor Silver has dutifully told them of in her letters home. Unfortunately, Silver doesn't actually have a suitor. On her break at the apothecary, where she works as a barista, she decides to raise a boyfriend from the dead. Necromancy can't be that hard, right? TESTIMONIES AFTER THE FIRE In a town governed by customs and not spoken laws that go back centuries, numerous testimonies narrate a vile act taken place against one of the residents and the terribly violent and tragic response that, more than teaching a lesson, destroys the residents' lives forever. Crossing the limits of reality and fiction, this choral narration is born as a scathing metaphor of freedom and coexistence, where nothing or nobody is what it seems and where the truth has as many faces as voices claim to possess it. THE SPIDER AND THE BIRDHOUSE The author wrote The Spider and the Birdhouse sleepily not knowing what I was dreaming. I found it years later and understood it, having realized the dream. THINGS UNRECKONED When an ice-mining transport in the outer reaches of the known universe stumbles across another ship of its same kind, they detect abnormal patterns in the temperature and humidity measurements that might indicate a living organism on the abandoned vessel. Strange: this other transport had been lost decades ago, and all crew were presumed deceased. When strange patterns begin to manifest on their own ship, affecting the very fabric of all things great and small, a living nightmare about forces not understood by humankind unfolds.