Miguel Flores - The Hungry Ghosts

There once lived a wily young world that did not like to be told what to do.

Their name was Arrett.

Wild magicks pulsed through all living things on Arrett. They beat deep and thick in the mountains of the Giants Teeth. They echoed softly through the green hollows of the Needsy Woods. They cursed harsh and violent in the cascading waves of the Delfin Sea.

Magicks in Arrett liked trouble. They stirred it up in every windsneeze, pebble, and toe.

Why, you ask?

It all started many years ago with the South Wind, who one day in his mischief-making found the heart of Arrett brimming with magicks alone in the middle of the sea. He demanded to know why Arrett wouldnt share. Arrett responded that no one could handle the weight of magicks, and so they bore the burden alone. But the wind called Arrett selfish and thought they had more magicks than they knew what to do with. So, the South Wind came up with a game.

The game was this: the South Wind would carry prayers from all around the worldfrom every green hill, half-stone, and childand bring them to the heart of Arrett as tithes. If Arrett didnt fall in love (or pity) with these little magicks-less peoples living on the world by the time the South Wind had brought a thousand prayers, then the game was lost. Arrett could die from a magicks-congested heart for all he cared, and the South Wind would promise to stop running amuck and causing so much trouble.

But, if the South Wind won, then the heart would have to spill its magicks into the sky and share its great fortune with all the people who lived there. Arrett agreed immediately.

Now, Arretts heart may have been selfish, but it was also delicate. It lost the game at the second story, a story about a small giant named Ovid.

With a loud hoot, the South Wind called upon the other three great winds and all their reckless little siblings to spread magicks to those with little hope or in great need. In return, the heart asked for nothing but more prayers. Prayers with enough weight to balance a curious heart.

Since then, the winds found purpose for their running. They traveled the world and traded prayers for magicks. To anyone, anywhere, in all corners of the cornerless world.

Until, of course, the prayers stopped coming.

The South Wind had forgotten that most hearts are selfish. That hearts are often full of much want and little give. Arrett grew worried. They knew their magicks were too much for small hearts to bear, that the more a heart grew and grew but never gave back, the easier it would be for a heart to burst.

But well get to that later.

For now, I must tell you about the town that kept on prayingeven though it had very little reason to and saw even less return on investment. It lay fractured and broken, a place that no longer sang or danced or made any kind of merry.

Shabby little West Ernost.

As far as municipal districts go, West Ernost was not an interesting place. It was plotted with more roads than houses and housed more rice farms than trees. It was so boring that it was commonly considered worse than East Ernost, which didnt even exist. West Ernost was widely agreed to be a place for passing through, not for staying in. Which is unfortunate for a place teetering on the edge of the world: theres not much left to go to.

The most interesting thing about West Ernost was that it had developed a bit of a shadow infestation. No one was quite sure where these strange things, otherwise known as gripes and gobblers, had come from, though many suspected that the witches had cursed the land right before the last of them vanished. Although largely benign, the shadows had become pests. They tunneled through farms and made late-night snacks of herb gardens. They were harmless, shapeless bodies with nothing more than appetite.

But all in all, West Ernost was perfectly boring.

There did, however, live a funny little house on top of a flat hill by the edge of the cliff. His name was St. Georges Home for Wayward Girls.

St. Georges front door faced most of West Ernost, which consisted of rice terraces stacked on top of one another. Behind him was a smooth slope that led down to the cliffs of the Delfin Sea. St. Georges boasted two floors, five and a half walls made of bamboo-slatted windows, a red-faded-to-brown thatch door, a squash garden, one sleeping moss-bull, fourteen orphaned girls, and an old headmistress named Doris Barterby.

When St. Georges had been nothing more than a middle-aged broombranch tree, he had prayed to leave the Needsy Woods. He asked to be a boat. He wanted nothing more than to discover the seas secrets, to trade his roots for an anchor and listen to Delfin sing her raucous songs.

One day, a funny little woman named Doris arrived in his forest. She had wiry hair twisted into a messy bun and a glint in her left eye. St. Georges had never before seen a woman with head leaves so wild or a chest song so lively.

Doris came to his woods with nothing but a metal saw, a green moss-bull, and a sled as wide as his very self. For an entire month, she put her saw to his trunk, determined to cut him apart piece by piece to make a house.