First, there’s "Locked Doors" by Stephanie Burgis, in which heavy responsibilities weigh on Tyler’s shoulders. With his mother having run away and his father in the grip of a strange, enchanted affliction, the little boy is the man of the house. How he deals with such supernatural pressures makes for an affecting story, naturalistic and transparently metaphorical in its simplicity.
The second January contribution, "Before Paphos" by Loretta Casteen, is more accurately a vignette or flash, rather than a short story. It addresses the plight of a servant who watches his melancholy artistic master, the beautiful but vacant lady of the house, and their succession of unnatural children. The allusions to the Greek myth of Pygmalion seemed obvious to me, but they may be too subtle for those who are not mythology nerds, and the vignette’s too-slight background deprive it of some emotional resonance.
Moving on to "Godtouched" by Sara Genge, we find a vividly depicted postapocalyptic setting and the disturbed (or "godtouched") country girl, Denise. Mostly a sketch of Denise’s raw and virulent world, the story boasts a small plot in the form of Denise’s choice—city sophistication or rural poverty?—but the atmospheric tale, promising enough for a novel’s lead, doesn’t need high-octane events to draw you in.
January’s final tale, "Three Days and Nights in Lord Darkdrake’s Hall" by Leah Bobet, is a spare and serious story. It follows a swordswoman matching her wits against her menacing captor, the forbiddingly named Lord Darkdrake. Why he has her, how she reacts to him, and how she (of course) escapes are all neat, satisfying twists in this compact, mordant story. Go read it and all its friends. Strange Horizons has lots of yummy archives, and it’s all free!