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welcome, stranger! welcome, stranger!
first, rest your weary eyes; first, rest your weary eyes;
then choose your door: then choose your door:
it matters not which, it matters not which,
for—just as one skeleton for—just as one skeleton
is the same as another— is the same as another—
these, too, are almost the same, these, too, are almost the same,
leading you to one room. leading you to one room.
come in, and come in, come in, and come in,
you are welcome here! you are welcome here!
on that singular chair, sit: on that singular chair, sit:
and I will tell you a secret. and I will tell you a secret.
you must divide yourself you must divide yourself
from yourself, and submit, from yourself, and submit,
to find what was never to find what was never
meant to be found: meant to be found:
a third room, in a third room, in
the two-room suite the two-room suite


Lucy Harlow grew up in England and Hong Kong, and currently lives in Philadelphia. Her fiction and poetry have appeared in Strange Horizons, Aliterate, Bracken, and others. She is a PhD candidate in the English department at Princeton. Her website is www.lucyharlow.com.
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3 Aug 2026

I had a daughter and then I didn’t. I woke in the cradle of midnight, shivering from a supernatural cold. I thought at first that she was crying, that she had woken me, like so many midnights before. But there was silence all around me. I sat up on one arm and peered into her crib. She was gone. In her place was wrapped a sallow, horned little boy. His eyes blinked open. I look at him. He looked at me. Changeling, I thought. Then he started to scream. “Why weren’t the windows
The deads are punctual. They arrive exactly when there is nothing left to distract us.
survival is a fungus
In this episode of Critical Friends, the Strange Horizons SFF criticism podcast, Amritesh Mukherjee and Abigail Nussbaum join Dan Hartland to talk about literary awards.
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By: Aimee Ogden
Podcast read by: Jenna Hanchey
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