Nightmare “The Seconds Between Light and Sound” by Ozzie M. Gartrell
“and its place remembers it no more” by Neal Auch
“They Say” by Matt Dovey
Reviewed by David Wesley Hill
“The Seconds Between Light and Sound” by Ozzie M. Gartrell, the June offering of Nightmare, takes us to the magical isle of Uxxe, set in the Phian Sea and guarded by a region of “Eternal Storm.” This isn’t merely a zone of bad weather—it’s the physical manifestation of “the Goddess,” who long ago had transformed herself into a hurricane in order to protect her people (“the Uxe”) from the “scaleless foreigners from the mainland.” At the start of the story our protagonist—I’ll call her “You” since the tale, bafflingly, is told in the second person and I couldn’t find her name mentioned—well, at the start of the story You is about to embark on a “holy pilgrimage” to “the tiny island that holds the Goddess’s temple” in the heart of the Eternal Storm. The journey is perilous, and not all who attempt it return alive, a number that includes You’s older cousin, Sindr, who vanished during a visit to the Goddess years earlier, and “whose name has been stricken from all family annals.” Worse, You and Sindr had shared a guilty secret, which may or may not impact how You will be received by the Goddess when they finally meet…. An interesting fantasy compromised by an unfortunate choice of narrative voice—and some creaky world-building.
Despite the inexplicable decision to lower-case its own title, “and its place remembers it no more” by Neal Auch is a queasy little fable about a truly despicable man, Franz Sieber, who gets his comeuppance in a delightfully gruesome manner. Not every detail works in this tongue-in-cheek (-skull?) allegory, but enough do to make it an enjoyable short read. Not for the squeamish.
It probably isn’t a good idea to publish a 137 word authorial preamble to a story that weighs in at a mere 497 words1. It’s probably a worse idea to do so when said preamble includes the author’s interpretation of the work that follows. Unfortunately, such is the case with the flash fantasy tale “They Say” by Matt Dovey. Take this reviewer’s advice and read the story before the introduction. It’s actually a rather moving little piece, and does not need further explication.