Stories! More New Decameron stories

A Star Without Shine by Naomi Kritzer. A warmly satisfying story. via asakiyume

Once upon a time, in a very small kingdom, there was a king with one daughter. His wife had died, and he had not remarried. This is not the fairy tale where the king decides to marry his own daughter, don’t worry. This king was a completely different sort of terrible father: he believed that his daughter should earn his love, and nothing she did was ever good enough.

The Hemlock That Was Afraid of Heights by E. Lily Yu. I don't think this one emotionally earns its ending, but otherwise a great story. via jesse_the_k.

In the middle of a forest on the west side of the Cascades, halfway up a mossy slope that bloomed with chanterelles, orange spines, and black cup fungi every fall, there stood a fifty-year-old hemlock that suffered from a terrible fear of heights. Due to this fear, which sometimes caused it to quiver and shake even in the absence of a stiff breeze, the hemlock never grew more than nine feet tall.

Child Moon by Nalo Hopkinson. A thought-provoking story featuring a baby that drinks blood. I like the way the story treats the Other, and at the same time I'm not sure about the implications of the ending.

A noise wakes Amy. She sits up on the sleeping pallet she shares with her husband Dorin in their one-room cottage. The baby is in its basket, an arms-length away. It is chuckling to itself. It is holding its blanket between tiny hands and ripping it to shreds with small, sharp teeth. That's what had woken Amy up: the soft chortle; the sound of cloth tearing. Beside Amy, Dorin sleeps, oblivious.