PodCastle 630: A Cruelty That Cut Both WaysAuthor:
Aimee OgdenNarrator:
Elizabeth GreenHost:
Setsu UzumeAudio Producer:
Peter BehraveshPreviously published in the
Hidden Menagerie Vol. 2 anthology and reprinted in The Dark.
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Content Warning:
Content warning: domestic violence, violence against a child, gore
Show NotesRated R.
The thunderbird had left two carcasses by the barn overnight.
Ezra refused to call in the hands to help. It was Sunday, after all, and their God-given day off, whatever the devil’s own bird might have done. It was only divine providence that the rest of the cattle hadn’t escaped when the bird ransacked the Greens’ barn — the blank-eyed creatures stood and stared from where they’d crowded at the back when Ezra cleared the wreckage of the door and let in the morning’s light. He and Sarah cleaned the two dead cattle while Liza read the Bible to herself in the kitchen and prepared the Sunday meal. Sarah had assigned her daughter the story of Ruth and Boaz for today, and she could hear her daughter’s voice drifting out through the open windows in between the rap of the knife on the wooden counter. She struggled over certain words — Moabite and guardian and foreigner — but her voice was clear and true as she sounded out the story of faith and patience rewarded. Sarah hoped she took the tale to heart.
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