Ravens Excerpt: Five Weeks Out

She had rings on her fingers and bells on her toes and business to tend in the heart of the city. In dark, litter-strewn alleys, her jingling steps echoed from close walls of molting brick so that, even in their ecstasy-induced madness, the rooftop ravers could hear the sound.

Lights from distant skyscrapers blinked on and off, and the occasional flare of a match sent sparks shooting from her fingers where silver rings clacked against each other like skeletal birds in flight. Rats scuttled out of her way, their eyes small stars lining the gutters. She paid no heed to them, nor to the dancers above, and on the broken sidewalk her feet never faltered...

- from "A Tithe for the Piper," by Erzebet YellowBoy



Art by Echo Chernick





Five weeks today, almost to the hour, a crazy raven hatched in my brain and went cawing around our living room. This week, that project heads into Sherry's steady hands - and from thence, to the printers, and then out to you.

Cheers!