April Steenburgh

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Excerpt

If I was a strange child, my sister was unfathomable. From her first tumble from the lowest branches of the butternut tree as she tried to climb up after the crows to the time she showed me the battered old cigar box she had started to fill with feathers, my sister was some sort of sprite that had wafted out of the forest, a changeling or demon, I didn't rightly know. I teased and taunted her by stealing feathers to tangle in my hair, chasing her around pretending to be a fierce Indian. My sister would run from me only until her temper snapped and her hands pulled, little fingers like talons, liberating just as much hair as feathers in her fury.

"Those are mine!" Face flushed, eyes bright and fierce, my sister was the brave one who should be out with the dawn challenging the crows.

"Fine. Keep them." We would go our separate ways, our stiff scrawny legs, sharp eyes, and small scowls an amusing mockery of the crows stalking around the yard, but I don't think we ever noticed the humor of the situation.

But as soon as Nana's blueberry muffins came out of the oven we crept close, drawn by warmth and familiarity and family. Butter still on lips slightly purpled with blueberry juice, we would curl up in our room and whisper our secrets to each other.

"Maybe they want to be us," my sister mused one morning as she lay on her belly in the living room, watching the crows out the cathedral window that let in enough light to have us sunning like cats, only half lucid in our laziness. "Maybe they want earrings and necklaces and fancy hats." She rolled onto her back, stretching with a scowl. "But that's stupid. I'd rather fly."

I bared my teeth in a slow sneer, wrinkling my nose in the disdain of the older and wiser in the face of a silly suggestion, but she never saw it, her attention caught and held by the trio of crows holding court in the yard.

Bio

April Marie Steenburgh was born in Rochester, New York, and graduated from Syracuse University. When not wrangling ferrets or raising her starling, she works as a librarian, reviews books for Library Journal and her personal review blog, and manages to write stories in her spare time.

Publications

"How Much Salt" in The Modern Fae's Guide to Surviving Humanity (DAW)
"Way of Sisters" in Fight Like a Girl, funded through Kickstarter

Writing Description

I write fantasy and urban fantasy influenced by skewed bits of world mythology and folklore.

Writing Goals

I plan to finish the main write-through of "Familiar," writing 5000 words a week.


Website

Writer. Librarian. Zookeeper


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