Catherine Hill

“Witches of Woodlawn” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #190

[Pronunciation help: Dáithí - DAH-hee; Siobhán - Shi-VAWN]Nora entered the spacious pub on a corner of Katonah Avenue at midday on Monday, an hour before the bar opened. A guy about her age, mid-twenties, with a button down shirt and neatly combed hair was waiting for her at a booth next to the bar. Seeing Nora, he climbed out of the seat and shook her hand.“Nora?”“That’s me. It’s nice to meet you. Joe, right?”“Yep.” Joe gestured to the booth and Nora sat in it. She was holding a folder with her resume and some references from other bars she...

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“The Dream Guide” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #189

The boy had ran through the woods of this pine forest so many times, it never occurred to him that he could get lost. He could not get lost here, any more than he could get lost walking from his bedroom to his kitchen. And yet, the fallen knotted pine that marked the middle of the trail never materialized. “Shoot,” the boy said, crouching down to the forest floor to take a momentary break. His parents would be worried about him soon. He looked to the tops of the trees and moved his body this way and that to find the sun; if he could loc...

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“Phoebe in Dreamland” by Catherine Hill

I wrote this for contest #268 (set your story at the boundary between two realms), but missed the deadline by seconds. Please enjoy! For an entire year, Jamie came back to me in my dreams. He’d knock on my door and say, “I messed up.” And just like that, we were back together. The dreams were so real. Nothing Jamie said, nothing he wore, nothing he did was so much as a sliver off of real life. During those dreams, all of the pain I’d been carrying would melt off of me. It was, for a year, the only time of the day I felt anything close to h...

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“A Very Coveted Parking Permit” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #116

Congressman Mark Ledbetter (D), MA was in trouble with the Virginia Department of Taxation and needed to sell his townhouse. He had bought it fifteen years ago and hadn’t spent more than twenty nights in his district since. The last time he’d laid his head in the poorest congressional district in the state was four years ago when his mother died. His job was actually in Washington, not Massachusetts, and he had staff to work in the local offices. But the Department of Revenue didn’t seem to think these were good enough excuses for him to cla...

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“Smoky Memories” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #98

The empty cigarette boxes piled three high on the cafe table. He’d given a few of them away to other people at the cafe, but the rest he smoked himself. With each puff he heard his wife’s voice, “If you widow me with all these kids, I’ll kill you.” That’s why he smoked them, because they conjured her, and, maybe, if he smoked enough of them fast enough he could be with her again, and the kids. But it had been ten years and he was still fit as a fiddle. His body was surviving to spite him. When he first left America and came here, everyo...

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“Leap of Faith” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #95

Unlike my sister, Stella, my magic didn’t show itself until I was almost a teenager. From the time that she was three and I was five, until Halloween of my twelfth year, I’d assumed I was like my older brother, my twenty-two older cousins, and my mother and her seven siblings: ordinary. Whatever magical DNA had made my ancestors witches and mages and healers had dwindled over the centuries until it was my great-great grandmother, Dorothea, her youngest granddaughter (my grandma), Lila, and her youngest granddaughter, Stella. We were still ra...

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“Samill the Trickster” by Catherine Hill

🏆 Winner of Contest #87

I’m not sure how long it was before I realized that the shuttle train never stopped, probably about the time it dawned on me that the people who had gotten on with me were gone. The train is supposed to run from Grand Central to Times Square, one stop, five minutes at the absolute most. But it had been… how long had it been? I don’t know, I was reading my book. I can space out pretty bad sometimes. Family lore has it that I slept right through a freak tornado that ripped off our roof. But the bluish fluorescent lights on the train flickered ...

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“Pandemic Problems” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #84

Anthony Fauci was smiling on the television in a large crowd of people who were gathered in an enclosed space. It was the perfect TV moment. The president gave a short speech about the strides they’d made globally with the pandemic and a new, adaptive vaccine that is effective against all SARS viruses, but the star of the show was Fauci, whom the camera followed as though he were the bride at a wedding. He shook hands and leaned in to speak in people’s ears.Jenna didn’t look at her phone. She knew she’d be flooded with texts. Fauci said...

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“The Covered Sky” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #77

       “Fiona! Ginny! Come now, I have sandwiches!” Lauren called out to her two children, who were squatted down at the edge of the ocean, catching the lapping waves into their buckets. All morning they were shouting about the imagined mermaids and sharks and octopuses that made their way into their little plastic buckets. Ginny would pretend to wrench them from the bucket and throw them back into the ocean and Fiona would run back to about the halfway point between the water and her parents to inform them...

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“Closing Line” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #74

One. BANG! Willow crumples on to the flagstones. I can see her arm laid about above her head, the grey linen sleeve slowly dyeing red with blood. She decided not to jump. I’m not surprised. She was always skittish, hesitant; she didn’t have what it takes. Not like me. Two. No bang, instead a strange, visceral scream; involuntary. Aspen jumped. Again, I could have predicted this. She was Oak’s deputy and she’d done most of the legwork for our plan; mapping routes, figuring out where we could tunnel, where we could climb and where we coul...

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“The Blood Mandelas” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #72

Wojcik sat across the heavy metal table from Thomas Dyson, staring into his mismatched eyes, one bright blue, the other dark brown. That’s what did it; the genetic profile revealed that the perpetrator had chimerism, two unique DNA profiles. Wojcik remembers the call from Rodney Chiles in the crime lab. It came after almost 9 months of no leads and 8 murders. The killer left his DNA at the crime scene, his own blood, intentionally.“It’s a long shot, but he could have mismatched eyes or hyperpigmentation of the skin. It’s not much but it’s so...

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“Home for the Holidays” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #69

Two weeks to ThanksgivingTake time to yourself every day. Keep your boundaries. Remove yourself from situations where there is bait. Amanda was repeating everything she’d gone over with her therapist the past two sessions as she white knuckled the steering wheel of her little blue Honda Civic. “What are you afraid is going to happen,” Dr. Wittes asked, “if you spend a month at your parents’ house?”“I guess,” Amanda began, “I just don’t want to be infantilized there. Every time I go there it’s like we all fall into the same roles we...

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“The Anniversary” by Catherine Hill

Submitted to Contest #68

MorningThis was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. “Not just an event, but a beginning,” said the elegant priest. The cavernous church was packed. The smell of the lilies and roses wafted among the crowd, mingling with incense. Light shone through a pane of stained glass that ran from the floor to the ceiling; ancient dust floated sleepily in the sunbeam; eyes were brimming with happy tears; an organ played the mass parts while a small choir sang. But Delia hardly heard the words or noticed the tears. She was in a different...

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