My story “The Kiss of the Blood-Red Pomegranate” is now available in print magazine Aoife’s Kiss. You can order a copy here for $8 plus $3 shipping and handling (they sell subscriptions, too).
The original inspiration for this story was a dream I had, of walking down a mysterious, dimly-lit stone stairwell. There was something ominous about it, and as I got farther down, the stone walls had Egyptian hieroglyphs carved into them, making me think of old tombs. The final story did keep the stone stairwell, but everything else in it was dreamed up while I was conscious.
Adam, the protagonist of my Prairie Fire story “Woman Moving to the Country” (published earlier this year) shows up again in this one, though this time it’s not from his viewpoint. I actually wrote “The Kiss of the Blood-Red Pomegranate” first, though it takes place later, so I guess “Woman Moving to the Country” could be considered a prequel. It didn’t have any speculative fiction elements though, and “The Kiss of the Blood-Red Pomegranate” most certainly does!