Limestone, Lye, and the Buzzing of Flies

"Limestone, Lye, and the Buzzing of Flies" by Kate Heartfield
Published in Strange Horizons, February 16, 2015
Description, from Lois Tilton (Locus): "When Daphne and Tom were kids, best friends, they liked to visit the old Fort Garry museum, where the smith once told them that the smithy fire had been burning since 1815, as protection against the smith’s wife. “She came here first, tried to claim this place and all the souls in it, but he followed her from across the ocean. As long as he has this fire and red iron in it, she’ll never have dominion here.” As teenagers, they both got jobs there as reenactors; Tom became the new smith, while Daphne was one of the housewives. But as she worked pouring tallow into candle molds, a rhyme came into her head. Soon more rhymes came, and with them, a sort of moral authority over the other workers at the fort, until Tom the smith saw what she was doing."
Category:Best Short Story