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My journey as a baker is deeply rooted in my love of family and home. I first encountered this recipe going through an old attic belonging to one of my many great-aunties, and you can imagine how excited I was: a whole recipe book, full of old-time favourites! Auntie Jay was a passionate cook and a pillar of her local community � it was a byword that you never argued with Miss Jay. The book was older than Auntie Jay and every recipe inside was new to me, though, ...

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Since I troubled the wolves, they made me wear the moon in my eyes. There’s only one day of the month, full moon, where I can see with my whole vision. Then the moon wanes gibbous and a little slice curves off the edge of my sight. It shifts to its third quarter and I can only see the left side of anything, and by the time it’s waned crescent I’m all but blinded. Then it starts to come back. My eyesight waxes again. More of it becomes mine.Ìý

I shouldn’t have gone into the woods.

Wolves can se...

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They say in my village that this is how Stupid John died. Or sometimes they do; Stupid John dies many deaths in many stories. But my granny swore she saw this one with her own eyes. It’s why she never let my grandpa go fishing on a Sunday.Ìý

Once upon a time Stupid John let his Sunday dinner burn. There were no vegetables in his garden, for he’d been too stupid to plant them, and no chickens left in his coop, for he’d been too stupid to close the door. So there was nothing left to do but dang...

When the angry mob broke down his door, they discovered how a man could keep a book locked within bird-cages.Ìý

Robert Watts was not supposed to have the spellbook, and the book had tried its hardest to make that felt. A witch’s grimoire has a will of its own, and if you want to use it freely then it must come to you freely. It had belonged to Anne-O-The-Blackthorn, a generous woman as witches went; she’d work her cures for the kindly asking, and it took a lot of provocation before she’d curse...

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The oak wasn’t always lonely, but after the goblins moved in the other trees picked up their roots and walked away.Ìý

They didn’t go far, of course; a tree is weighed down by its hundreds of years, and after more than a couple of yards they had to stop and rest. Their roots settled back into the soil with a sigh, and the oak stood alone, its branches zigging and zagging across the empty air just far enough from the beeches and elms around it that no goblin could jump the space. Trees will ...

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There’s a number you can dial if you have a secret. Of course nobody answers; that’s the game. In this area code you have to dial at least eight digits, and this number has only seven. You stop while the line is still silent, and you whisper into the listening aether.Ìý

I kissed my best friend’s boyfriend.

I stole the petty cash at work.

When I said I loved him, I lied.

The reason I set it up is because my familiar creature eats secrets and there was only so many of them I could create for myse...

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The chickens were beautiful: copper feathers edged in snow, with mad blood-red eyes gazing at us in hopes of a treat. Jill and Toby jumped around me, and I said, ‘Go on, guys, you can throw the feed now. Give the chickens their lunch. It’ll be good luck � some people say chickens bring fortune.�

‘The chickens can give me my lunch,� said Dad. ‘Let me rip a leg off right now. I don’t know why the hell you want to feed your kids this sentimental nonsense.�

‘Dad,� I said, ‘city farms are ...

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There’s a Great Horned owl nesting in the tree outside my hide. I hear it sometimes, booming deep chuckles into the night.

It’s not why I’m here, though. Since the toadstools started leaping, I took a vow to watch them. If they get beyond the bounds of the forest and into our village â€� well, I’ve seen what they did to that deer.Ìý

That’s how I saw them first. I was out here after venison. I call it ‘venisonâ€� now; I never say ‘deer meatâ€�. Even ‘deerâ€�. This forest’s infected with words.Ìý...

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‘I have to go to space tonight,â€� Bobby told me.Ìý

‘Oh, are you? That’s exciting! Are you going in a rocket?� He didn’t have any spaceship toys out, but it was good to see him have a flight of fancy. Usually he was such a sober boy, even literal-minded; I wanted to encourage his imagination.

Bobby chewed his lip. Maybe I’d made him feel pressured to perform; he looked worried at my response. ‘He didn’t say about a rocket,â€� he said.ÌýÌý

‘Who said, darling?�

‘The spaceman.�

I set him on my lap and he...

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You can buy pinkies in bulk online: little baby mice and rats, naked as eyes, pink as palms, nicely dead and vacuum-sealed. I kept them boxed in my freezer, and when it was time to feed, I put one in the fridge to thaw. After that I warmed it in water, ready to eat.

I mean, they don’t ask you if you have a snake before they sell you feeder mice.Ìý

One of these days I was going to go to the hunter and beg him to cure me. They said it can be done, but what it involved . . . he’d drown you in r...