“Bone Carver’s Elegy,” a new dark fantasy flash fiction piece just published in Crow & Cross Keys!
Excerpt: “The art of poppet making is not only in the carving, in the animating force one wills into it; it is in the selection of materials, in their preparation. Flesh must be uncorrupted, boiled off the bones then carefully cured. Vital essence must be breathed into them, the herbs for the smoker gathered under a waning moon. And the marrow we extract for the bonding infusion must be preserved in honey to keep it from turning foul, as that in turn fouls the corpse’s movement, and leaves a rancid taste on the tongue.”
You can read the complete story here.