The MagicLand Chronicles — Fiction
Mary Catches Fire for Free
The Gath had nearly destroyed us. Then along came Mary.
Chance is so old she wears her skin as if it could all peel off tonight in her sleep. But her stories make us happy enough we’d die to protect her. And her peeling skin.
“For centuries, our people were at the mercy of The Gath,” she is telling us tonight around a large fire. “But this is changing. The firecatchers have found a way forward. They have met an impossible challenge. It is as if they have reversed the horizon of the setting sun or added another moon to our skies. It is as if they have changed the nature of the atom itself.”
She’s talking, of course, about the nukes. The Gath built huge cities away from ours. What few we have. And then… Well, I’ll let Chance tell it.
“The story really begins with a young girl,” says Chance, chewing on a long reed coated in sugar. That’s her thing. Reeds of sugar.
“She didn’t know much, this girl, truth be told. Some thought she was as dumb as a mule’s tailbone. Not a whit of wit. Stone cold stares like she couldn’t think a word up for nothing. Just a young thing, too. Couldn’t a been more than ten, eleven.
