Satee Bhave-Hall

Long ago—on a night when the sky wore its deepest velvet and the stars were gossiping gently— the moon carried a mirror. This was not a normal mirror, oh no. It was a mirror crafted from the quietest silver, a gift from the first river that ever learned to dream. The moon used it for an innocent vanity: to admire her own reflection. Every night she would descend a little, tilt the mirror toward the lake, and sigh happily at her glowing face. The lake adored this ritual too— who doesn’t enjoy...

On the far side of a mountain ridge, where the wind behaved like an eccentric poet, lived a hermit in a hut no larger than a promise and no quieter than a sigh. What made him unusual— aside from his habit of talking to clouds— was his shelf full of jars. Not jars of pickles. Not jars of herbs. Not jars of mountain cricket chutney. But jars of storms . He had labelled them meticulously: ANGER  — swirling red like a temper tantrum doing kathak. JEALOUSY  — bright green, hissing like a snakelike...

A little girl carried a woven basket everywhere she went. Inside it lived her Fear —a creature she had never really seen, but one she felt constantly: it scratched, shuffled, whispered, and occasionally thumped against the wicker walls as if to remind her it was still very much alive. She took the basket to school. She took it to the playground. She took it to bed. She even took it to brush her teeth— and the Fear thumped twice in protest, disliking mint. One morning, in her hurry to catch...