The Hanging Game
Sometimes a game, even a sacred game, can have far-reaching consequences. In bear country young Skye learns just how far she is willing to go to play the game properly in order carry on the traditions that came before her and will most likely continue long after she is gone.
This short story was acquired for Tor.com by consulting editor Ann VanderMeer.
The Ghosts of Birds
Published 2012 in Phantom Drift 2: Valuable Estrangements."The Ghosts of Birds" has been nominated for a 2013 Rhysling Award and has been short-listed for a 2013 Aurora Award for Best Canadian Speculative Poem.
The ghosts of birds are difficult to banish:
they know no religion, answer no priest
and are so close to their living selves
that they are hard to identify.
Passing noiselessly through backlit windows
thumpless whole bodies
snow-ball heavy
that never break on impact.
The ghosts of birds are thickest in autumn
when blood-red kites sit light
on telephone wires that never
sag beneath their weight.
They howl and shriek at midnight:
no change in pitch for the dead.
The dead and the living mate easily.
It does not matter if they cannot touch.
All birds are dead.
Dinosaur poltergeists,
flashing from earth to heaven
but lingering in the open space.
They are their own echoes:
of noise,
of life,
the shadow passing overhead.
