A Witch's Guide to Escape: A Practical Compendium of Portal Fantasies
ShortStory 4,900 words Recommended by 12 award/anthology sources
The narrator is a witch who works in a public library somewhere in the rural American South. Her job is to get patrons the books they need, but a lonely teenage boy poses a challenge.
Content warnings 4
child-abusedeath-of-a-loved-onemental-illnesssuicide
Quasar links out; the story lives on Apex, where the author gets the click.