by Marisca Pichette
The first spell was white as snow, but of course no one has found snow in years. It melted the village into surf, sank our homes with the tide.
The second spell was red as blood–fresh, mammalian blood. Have you seen it? I did, during the war. I don’t like to recall.
The third spell was blue as ocean waves. Oceans of that kind are rarer now than snow. Only salt and sand remain. Circles of one, deserts of the other.
The fourth spell was green, green. Greener than algae and mold. Green like the air we used to breathe. (We used to breathe.)
The fifth spell was gray, until our sigils rusted orange and the barbed wire they used to bind us crumbled into dust. Here on an extinguished pyre I match them, body corroded by time. I’m not sure where rust stops and burns begin, whether skin or seashell covers my bones.
Daughter of all we once were: find the sixth spell, if you can. It may yet hold futures. It may yet remember pasts.
This spell is ending. It was always going to be my last.
Marisca Pichette’s work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Magazine, Room Magazine, Flash Fiction Online, Fantasy Magazine, and Plenitude Magazine, among others. Her debut poetry collection, Rivers in Your Skin, Sirens in Your Hair, is forthcoming from Android Press in April 2023. Find her on twitter @MariscaPichette & on Instagram @marisca_write.
