Embedded Files
"Pied Piper" by Camellia Paul
Pied Piper (ink on handmade paper) is my rendition of the German fairy tale as well as the poem by Robert Browning:
"in did come the strangest figure!
His queer long coat from heel to head
Was half of yellow and half of red;
And he himself was tall and thin,
With sharp blue eyes, each like a pin,
And light loose hair, yet swarthy skin..."
—Camellia Paul
There are several theories about the origin of the famous tale of the Pied Piper. Perhaps it's about the revenge of a ratcatcher denied his payment for ridding the town of Hamelin of plague-carrying rats. Or maybe it's about the 13th-century Children’s Crusade to the Holy Land. Or it could be it wasn’t children that were lured away but rather young adults, recruited to start a German colony in then-Transylvania, a part of Hungary, because there wasn't enough land around Hamelin for them to inherit. Since there are German-derived colonies in what is now Romania, this explanation is plausible. If some youngsters used the opportunity to run away from home, it could have turned into the story of a persuasive recruiter with a magic flute luring away “children,” never to be seen again.
And whatever does that obscure yet familiar name mean? In late 14th century Middle English, "pied" means variegated or parti-colored, as in a magpie’s glossy black-and-white plumage or the patterned hide of a piebald horse.
Curiously, "motley," also dating from the 14th century, can mean "made up of many different people or things" (like a motley crew), but its primary meaning is "variegated in color," (just like "pied") as in the traditional costume of professional fools like Harlequin, the Man in Motley.
FROM THE EDITOR
Hello N'Mythians, my old friends, I've come to haunt you once again...
NewMyths doesn't do seasonal issues as such, but I couldn’t resist putting together a goody bag of treats for you. Besides a tricksy tale from a Nebula- and Stoker Award winner, there’s a barnburner from our editor and publisher Scott T. Barnes (I can't believe I said that), a humdinger of a theatre ghost story (as an old theatre kid I guarantee theatre ghosts are the best ghosts: they’re the reason theaters put ghost lights onstage—no, I’m lying*)—and family ghosts, mythic ghosts, space ghosts, ghosts in the machine, ghosts of time, and to change it up, a unique twist on the zombie mythos.
Earlier this summer we sent you a survey to find out what you look for in NewMyths, and three quarters of you asked us to bring some of the stories and poems in our archives into the spotlight. Starting with this issue, we will be highlighting one previously published poem and short story in every issue. I've linked a couple of my favorites down below and hope you'll love revisiting them—or meeting them for the first time—as much as I do.
After you’ve gobbled up all the delicacies, take a look at the Readers Choice ballot, which is far from just another beauty contest: we've worked hard to make sure this ballot will reveal what you, our readers, really think about these nominees—three of which are right here in this issue. Winners receive a small cash prize and big bragging rights. You can only vote once. Be sure to make your choices known by October 15 so they can be announced in our soon-to-be released anthology The Janus Gates, which explores portals, thresholds and transformations—the future and past worlds of our dreams and myths. Who better to inspire such an anthology than the Roman god Janus, the original gatekeeper, the first god to open the portal between gods and men, the god who guarded every new beginning and ending, every transformation, the god you prayed to every morning before you could speak to any other.
Happy reading, happy voting, and as the theatre kids say, keep the ghost lights burning.
Candyce Byrne
Editor, Fall 2025
*A ghost light is a lighted lamp left onstage between shows so nobody blunders into the scenery or falls into the orchestra pit and breaks a leg. Nothing spooky (which doesn't mean theaters aren't haunted).
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
FICTION
“The audience see my characters, they watch my performance believing it is real. The skill of the actor is deception—knowing your character, getting under their skin. But you have deduced my presence behind the role. Well done. But beware, on the stage, nothing is what it seems.
“How do you make a naked singularity?” I asked her.
“You can’t. It’s impossible.”
“Hypothetically, wouldn’t it be dangerous?”
“Only to your career prospects if you told anyone.”
“How do you mean?”
“Black holes make for bad PR, that’s why we’re sitting out here in this recycled can rather than, say, downtown New York. But there’s no real danger. If someone hypothetically lost containment on a hypothetical naked singularity, it would evaporate. Explode.”
“That sounds dangerous.”
Nobody knows how the glyphs on the floor of the Nazca desert were made, or even what they mean. How they have lasted as long as they have is even more baffling. If you ever have a chance to see them in person, don’t ruin them. They are a message of love.
The earth was too real after dream space. He’d said that to his dad once and his dad had nodded in agreement.
“The world is too real,” Dad had said, “that’s what’s always been wrong with it.”
"Fire Bugs" by Scott Barnes
No one knew exactly what caused the blaze, though it appeared to be a copycat incident. A transformer had exploded nearby, setting the brush afire, and within hours flames had sprung up in a half dozen areas throughout southern California.
Arsonists? Surely.
Kids? Possibly.
Spirits? No one thought so at the time.
"Lest We Become Monsters" by Matthew Owen Jones
A great darkness flitted past them, silhouetted by the lightning for a brief moment, before it spun away. Nils stood agape. Whatever the figure was, it was far larger than their fragile craft. No bird, or creature known to man, could be so large and soar through the skies.
"Time Keepers of the Modified Earth" by J.D. Dresner READERS CHOICE NOMINEE
“It’s called a cigarette. Want one?” He handed me his last stick before I could refuse.
“Can I chew it?”
He began to cough violently, choking on his own saliva as he bent over. When he was able to calm himself he wiped away salty tears and shook his head at me. “You smoke it, kid. You breathe it in. What time period did you say you were from?” He lit my cigarette.
“The Daedalus Era.”
“Great. That’s all this bureau needs: another trigger-happy flying man from the year twenty-three-and-I-could-give-a-rat’s-ass,” he said to me (but, just so we’re clear: not all of us can fly). “You gonna take a puff or not?”
FLASH FICTION
POETRY
NONFICTION
Pity the poor AI. What a sad lot, to create with no dawning of awareness before, during, or after the act. To be a creator, lowercase, without the I AM...
The link between science fiction and mysteries has deep roots, and both genres were closely linked at one time. It all began in 1887 with Arthur Conan Doyle’s most famous character, Sherlock Holmes.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
FROM THE ARCHIVES
“Once and Future” by Dan Micklethwaite
This issue’s fiction gem is from our archives from Issue 39, June 2017. Dan told us a little about the creation of this story and what’s happened since we published it.
This story means a lot to me and has always been one of my favourites. As it has now been almost a decade since I first wrote it, I'm no longer entirely sure what put the seed of the idea into my head, but I do know that as soon as I had the image of Gordon sitting on a roof to watch the trains, his character became clear to me, and I felt as if the narrative was carried along on that same ceaseless, steam-circled track. It went through a lot of re-reads and rewrites (and rejections) in order to finally be ready, but I will always be grateful that it found its first and perfect home at NewMyths. It has since been reprinted at PodCastle, for which a few edits were made (mainly to fit their format; no change to the plot) and I'm very pleased with that audio version as well (https://podcastle.org/2021/05/12/podcastle-678-once-and-future/). But here is where Gordon's story really started, and I'm glad to think that some new readers will have chance to discover it, along with more of the other beautiful and thought-provoking speculative fiction the amazing team at NewMyths have shared with the world.
“The Yellow Snake” by Gene Twaronite
The poetic pick from our archives is from Issue 49, December 2020. We asked Gene to give us a little insight into the poem and, because this current issue includes his poem “Telescope,” to talk about what led him to write poems based on these two literary classics.
I’m an incurable bibliophile and my library shelves are filled with classics of sci-fi & fantasy as well as other genres. They are called classics for a reason, mainly because they illustrate notable standards of excellence for all time. The only books I own these days are those that I will reread multiple times. And each time I revisit the book, there’s always going to be stuff I’ve forgotten or some new little thing I missed completely the first time. It almost seems like I’m experiencing the book for the first time (one of the few benefits of growing older, I guess). And quite often there will be something that will inspire a new poem. The Little Prince is one of those stories that gets better and better with each rereading.
One of the things readers will notice about my poem “The Yellow Snake” is that the ending challenges the prevailing narrative about what really happened to the Little Prince. The assumption is that the snake actually bit and killed him. But I always found the ending somewhat ambiguous, only hinting that the snake actually bit him. And Saint-Exupéry has the pilot admit that the Little Prince’s body was never found. It was like the author was messing a bit with the heads of his readers. So I decided to mess a little with what actually happened and not have the snake bite him. I focused instead on how the pilot and the snake told each other a story. And the Little Prince’s story was so powerful that it transported him all the way home to his beloved planetoid and one silly rose. In a very real sense, a story can take us further than a ship, to paraphrase the author.
This story also appeared in my collection of sci-fi & fantasy poems, What the Gargoyle Sees, published by Kelsay Books (https://kelsaybooks.com/products/what-the-gargoyle-sees).
Also available at Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/What-Gargoyle-Sees-Gene-Twaronite/dp/1952326869)
Regarding my poem “Telescope,” upon rereading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, I was fascinated by Alice’s line, “Oh, I wish I could shut up like a telescope. I think I could, if only I knew how to begin.” Yes, how would you begin? As I thought and thought about it, a poem began to emerge. And as I played around with the ridiculousness of Alice’s predicament, it occurred to me that a limerick might work. And I found out how devilishly hard it is to write one.
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