I’ve a new story out today!
“Bone Length, Wavelength” can be found in issue 2 of Capricious, a new speculative fiction zine from New Zealand. It’s set in the same universe as some of my other stories – if you’ve read “The Mistress of Fishes”, for instance (or listened to it on StarShipSofa) then you’ll recognise the references to Carnival.
Like the other stories in this universe, “Bone Length, Wavelength” is set in a future New Zealand that is primarily concerned with ocean restoration after marine ecological collapse. This story looks at a family who, after death, use their bones to build a giant underwater organ to make music for whales. Enter Eli, whose bones are too twisted for song…
They’d been marked off, all of them, in the kitchen. On the door jamb, at every birthday, and every generation the wood would be removed to the shed to be nailed up along the wall and there they were, all of them, all of their large and extended family for the better part of three hundred years.
All of them but Eli.
There was no standing for him. He’d been born with useless legs, the bones all twisted and his femurs would go to the grave with him. He’d never stand, let alone walk, and when he died, it’d be the Carnival for him…
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