“The Debt” by Ania Ahlborn
In her short story “The Debt,” Ania Ahlborn weaves a modern fairytale. Karolin is an 11 year old girl, supposedly visiting her grandmother in Poland for the first time, but her grandmother is nowhere to be found. She’s traveled there with her father, both of them still reeling from the death of Karolin’s mother one year earlier. Karolin is enchanted by the quaint town and the lush dark green forest that surrounds it. The forest is a magical place, but that magic turns dark when Karolin loses her way and can’t find her way out. Can she survive the forest and the evil that lurks there?
Recommended in this episode: Swarm on Amazon Prime and Lockwood and Co. on Netflix
UP NEXT: Chesya Burke’s “Haint Me Too” from the same anthology Hex Life
Read more about Mel’s thoughts on fungal horror here. Or read more Baba Yaga stories here. To vote for 13 Minutes of Horror: Sci-Fi Horror (or see the Rondo award finalists), see this list here. Voting ends April 23, 2023.