All stories › Short fantasy stories for adults

Short fantasy stories for adults

One small piece of magic in an ordinary life, with one rule and one price, and about ten minutes a story.

If you are looking for short fantasy stories for adults that you can finish in one sitting, this is the shelf for it. Every story here is complete, three episodes of about eight hundred words each, free to read from the first line to the last, with no account and no locked chapters.

The fantasy on Wrendell is small and close to home. There are no kingdoms, no chosen ones and no maps at the front. Instead there is a piano tuner whose customer’s old upright plays on its own when she works slowly, a crossing guard whose stop sign holds the whole street still for thirty seconds, a tin box of recipe cards that brings someone back to the table when a dish is cooked exactly as written, a one-chair grooming shop where the poodle in the tub asks for a favor, and a pawn counter where a young man trades away his luck one month at a time.

Each story is built the same way. The impossible thing happens early, on the page, in an ordinary place. It follows one rule, and it costs the person using it something real. That price is paid in the first episode, so by the time the last episode arrives you already know exactly what the final choice will cost.

Underneath the magic, these are stories about work and family: a father and son who stopped talking, a brother and sister who each want a different recipe card, a pawnbroker keeping a late father’s counter open one rent day at a time. The magic is how the trouble shows up. The people are why you keep reading.

If you like your fantasy quiet, grounded and finished, start with any of the stories below. They can be read in any order.

Every fantasy story on Wrendell

A Hair Sharp by Paige Oberlin — Fantasy, 3 episodes, about 10 minutes, complete and free. The old upright in Mr. Stockdale’s front room has not been played in nine years. When I tune it slowly, it plays anyway, and it always stops in the same place.
Feet on the White by Calvin Truax — Fantasy, 3 episodes, about 11 minutes, complete and free. When I shove my stop sign up at a speeding car, the whole street freezes for thirty seconds. Now the city has a camera on my corner, and it keeps losing exactly thirty seconds.
Exactly As Written by Renee Dufresne — Fantasy, 3 episodes, about 11 minutes, complete and free. My great-aunt left me a tin box of recipe cards. When I cooked my grandmother’s pot roast exactly as written, she sat down at my table and asked for the end piece, and now my brother and sister want different cards.
Clean and Dry by Mitchell Haas — Fantasy, 3 episodes, about 11 minutes, complete and free. The poodle in my tub cleared his throat and asked me, very politely, to say yes. I run a one-chair grooming shop, and nobody warned me what yes would do to my nose.
Thirty Days, Not a Month by Lorraine Petty — Fantasy, 3 episodes, about 10 minutes, complete and free. On the first of every month, a young man lays his hands on my father’s glass counter and pawns a little more of his luck to make rent. A man who buys from me is waiting for it to forfeit.

Short fantasy stories for adults

Every fantasy story on Wrendell

More stories tagged family secrets