• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

101 Words

101 Word Short Stories

  • Subscribe
  • About
  • Submissions
  • Volunteer

Within the Fold

August 28, 2020 6 Comments

Share28
Tweet2
Email
More
30 Shares

Every evening, she kissed the king’s tablecloth before he dined. Every napkin, every fold of fabric smoothed by many hands under watchful eyes, to ensure no poisoning could take place. The food tasters were the lucky ones, getting almost a full meal out of a parade of tiny nibbles from numerous platters. She felt safer, somehow, heading back to her room in the east tower before the meal was even over, until the one night she lay there looking up at the ceiling as a tingling overtook her lips and tongue, an invisible cold like icy fingers sliding up her neck.

By Stephanie King

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Rémi Savard says

    August 28, 2020 at 7:44 am

    Gripping. Well done!

    Reply
  2. Susan F. Reid says

    August 28, 2020 at 9:51 am

    Wow! It made me wonder who knew she kissed the tablecloth, and who wanted to harm her.

    Reply
  3. MaryEllen Carr says

    August 28, 2020 at 12:08 pm

    I enjoyed the story but that last sentence is really long. Having “And tongue.” as its own sentence might have added to the suspense. I think you needed a comma between cold and like, it doesn’t read right without one.

    Reply
    • CMF Wright says

      September 10, 2020 at 9:48 am

      I like it the way it’s written! Beautiful rhythmic prose.

      Reply
  4. Don Tassone says

    August 28, 2020 at 12:26 pm

    Intriguing!

    Reply
  5. Kelly Louisa Balliu says

    August 30, 2020 at 3:10 am

    Nice. Your story held me in suspense. Lovely description too.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search Stories

The end.