Welcome to Short Fiction Friday! Most Fridays, Black Forest Basilisks will be shining a spotlight on a new short story, novelette, or flash fic in addition to our regular posts. These stories will usually be available for free online, but occasionally stories from published anthologies will also be featured.
This story is available online for free at: Uncanny Magazine. Click through to read!
I got up, filled an empty gin bottle with water, and put the cut flowers in it, arranging their spidery petals so they spread out just right. They were going to die no matter what I did. Maybe they were already dead. But it wasn’t like I could go back and tell the florist to un-cut them now—might as well make them last as long as possible.
If you ever wanted a love story across multiple reincarnations between an occult detective and a demon, well, here you have it folks. This is a beautifully realized, off-beat love story between two people with quite unusual tastes. As they connect and reconnect across their lives, their love grows ever deeper and ever stronger – two halves of the same rather unusual whole.
Together, they can build universes just for themselves. Even as the demon tries to protect the detective from the horrors that lie under her skin, the detective seeks them out and wants to understand her. Every inch of her, no matter the risks involved.
Past featured short stories can be viewed here.
About the Author
Vina Jie-Min Prasad (维娜·杰敏·普拉萨德) is a Singaporean writer working against the world-machine. She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Hugo, Astounding, Sturgeon, and Locus Awards. She is currently based in London.
Black Forest Basilisks 
I need to do a better job of reading short fiction. This was how I discovered Alix E. Harrow when A Witch’s Guide To Escape was published and I became an instant fan. Looking forward to more of your Friday posts!
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That’s actually why I started this series – I wanted to start reading more short stories! It’s been a great motivator.
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I plan on reading more short fiction this year. I’ve dipped in and out of Clarkesworld for a few years now but never consistently read it month to month. Would you recommend Uncanny Magazine as a good place to go?
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Absolutely! Uncanny, Clarkesworld, and Strange Horizons are the three I read most often.
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