Galaxy's Edge Magazine: Issue 2, May 2013 by et al. Mike Resnick Read Free Book Online

Rose. The tanner doesn’t know Rose anymore.
    He doesn’t know me. He never knew me.
    ***
    When I arrive the camp is a mess. The bear has returned and shredded my tent beyond repair.
    That night I sleep in the rain, huddled under a few gathered branches. The tanner is gone to me, so I wonder who I am supposed to be. I plant herbs for the harvest and find no pleasure in it. I gather a few seasonal plants to make tea and find no pleasure in that either.
    The only thing that brings me pleasure is watching the rain drain into the river, and speculating where it leads. I’m soaked in water. I’m connected to the water and the water to the river and the river to the ocean, and I feel relief to be part of something.
    ***
    Today I am me. I do not know my hair color or the tone of my skin.
    I’ve always wanted to see the ocean, so I pack. I’ve wanted to see the leaves turn in the valleys below the mountain. I’m planning things I’ve never planned before because I didn’t know my life was my own. I feel whole; the animal medicine is working.
    I stop by the tannery on my way out of town and leave a gift.
    I peek through the window before turning away, and I see him glance in the broken mirror. I wonder who he will see. What animal will the spirits bring to the tanner?
    The road out of town is damp from a mist of rain over the night. I walk until my feet are tired, and then I rest. I stare into the sky, finding shapes in the clouds. I see a rabbit. When I look again it’s a dog, then a cow with horns, and, last, a bear. I fall asleep gazing at the clouds, assured that when I wake, no matter what shape or color I wear, I will still be me.
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    Original (First) Publication
Copyright © 2013 by Tina Gower
     
     
     

Catherine Lucille Moore made her professional debut with the classic “Shambleau” in 1933, created Northwest Smith and Jirel of Joiry, and alone and in tandem with husband Henry Kuttner produced a series of classic stories that are still being read and reprinted.
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    HAPPILY EVER AFTER
    by C. L. Moore
     
    Cinderella and the Prince were married with a great ceremony. No one had approved from the first, and now more often than not there was a gleam of I-told-you-so behind the King’s spectacles, and the Queen’s three chins quivered with bitter satisfaction as her predictions were realized one by one. For Cinderella and the Prince were not happy. No one had really expected them to be. You cannot pluck a kitchen girl from the cinders and set a crown on her head and let it go at that; small feet are not the only prerequisite of a princess.
    To tell the truth, the step-sisters had played a large part in what happened. Cinderella never realized it, but if Darmar and Igraine, with their hauteur and their high-nosed, high-bred faces, had not led her out of the cinders and disdainfully acknowledged her as sister, the Prince might have never done what he did. But after he had made that rash proclamation about the slipper he had to carry it out, particularly with the herald bawling the news to the very doorstep at the time. And then, of course, she was quite charming.
    For a while, to do her justice, he was not sorry. Nothing could have been more bewitching than the Princess Cinderella in her billowing skirts, with the gold crown on her head. She had some secret difficulty in keeping it there, and used to practice before the mirror at night, but she never learned to manage the thing with true dignity. Once, when she bent to pick up a dropped handkerchief, it fell off and rolled across the floor. Now, a princess born would never have stooped for the handkerchief in the first place. Poor Cinderella blushed to her ears, and the ladies-in-waiting tittered among themselves.
    There were other things. She had a healthy appetite, and the delicacies of the royal table were far insufficient to her needs. She ate and ate until the court stared, and yet she was never satisfied. Her pretty fingers hesitated among