There is a constant buzz that is very nearly comforting.

23 June 2018

Tabitha Sin’s “The Donor,” from Broad Knowledge, and Kathryn McMahon’s “The Honey Witch” (from which today’s title comes), from Sharp & Sugar Tooth, both explore the horrific side of preservation. In both, organs are taken over by something else, something that is supposed to keep them safe from harm or injury, but at what cost?

In “The Donor,” an organ harvester discovers a donor who is supposed to be freshly dead, but who comes alive in an extremely unsettling way:

In “The Honey Witch,” a beekeeper tries to help her ex-lover with honey and beeswax, but the two women discover the danger of the magic she tries without fully understanding what she is letting into her home.

Kathryn McMahon writes:

I get a lot of inspiration from nature shows or articles. I like to take something real and warp it, and when writing horror, I play with it and stretch it out until it’s grotesque. In the case of my story “The Honey Witch” in Sharp & Sugar Tooth, I’d come across an article about a saint’s remains preserved in beeswax. Beeswax and honey are incredible materials that have almost an immortal lifespan as long as they are pure. Archaeologists have discovered honey made by bees in ancient Egypt that is still edible today. And anything preserved in beeswax or honey lasts a long, long time. Honey is also used in the treatment of wounds and has a variety of health benefits. It’s no wonder that it has been viewed as possessing magical, curative properties—but what if that magic was misused?

Donate now to pre-order both anthologies!

 

About the Authors

Kathryn McMahon is an American writer living abroad with her British wife and dog. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Baltimore Review, Crack the Spine, and Necessary Fiction, among others. More of her writing can be found at darkandsparklystories.com. She tweets as @katoscope.

Tabitha Sin is a speculative fiction and hybrid memoir-fiction writer. Her science fiction works have been published in Dear Robot: An Anthology of Epistolary Science Fiction and Amok: An Anthology of Asia-Pacific Speculative Fiction. Her hybrid memoir-fiction pieces can be found in Side B Magazine and Moonroots zine. She is a VONA alum and a mango fiend.

Entry filed under: Anthology, Fiction, News. Tags: , , .

There, just behind his teeth, is what I’m looking for: ugly thoughts, viscous as boiled tendon. There’s a slight green sheen. Not from the lichen or whatever, just normal rot.


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