FROM THE BLOG:A lonely old woman befriends a trick-or-treater who doesn’t seem to age....And that’s about as much as I can tell you by way of summary, so as not to spoil this spellbinding short story. I loved reading “𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐜𝐡,” even though I’m not entirely sure I understood it as a whole. In any case, author M. Rickert’s prose is beautiful enough to make up for any discombobulation one may feel. I found the way she wrote scenery particularly breathtaking, with vivid, poetic descriptions...

What a curious and delightful read for any time of the year, but especially for Halloween. This tale delivers a twist, one that keen readers will anticipate with guilty pleasure. Afterword, the story lingers and marinates in the mind. There's a lot to unpack in this short tale. Also, the narrator's observations often made me laugh out loud--this is fantasy-horror laced with playfulness. Highly recommend!

Really enjoyed this creepy fable about wanting power, having power, and losing / giving up / peacefully transferring power. And with an all female cast! Also love the cover art.

https://www.tor.com/2020/10/28/the-li...oh, this was nice and a little sad :( and i really love that banner/cover!

An almost sweet story of a woman who become obsessed with her yearly trick-or-treat visitor - a little witch who wears red boots.

An older woman notices that the same little girl dressed as a witch visits her every year without any evidence of aging. After these encounters begin, strange and mysterious things start occurring. This story is quite creepy and mysterious.

Trick or Treat!One little witch wearing red boots makes an annual Halloween visit and always takes more candy than is allowed. What's fascinating and uncanny is that the little witch doesn't age. The elderly woman sets out to find more about her and her guardian but arises suspicion from neighbors when she questions them about the little witch. But when the little witch shows up at the elderly woman's house, she stays there and learns some everyday things but never takes off her hat and also sti...

“…those who pretended they were from the other side, and those who pretended they weren’t.” -- M. Rickert For a short story, there are a lot of layers in this story. It’s a twisty, spooky, melancholy read. There’s quite a bit of horror between the lines. Most of all, it seems to me, to be a story of moving on peacefully and on one’s own terms. (view spoiler)[It appears the witch or the old woman can bring about events by telling stories, mostly to herself, since she appears to be a loner. T

I spent the next day getting to know my neighbors. It turned out I had been right to ignore them all the years before. They were rude people. Even the woman who lived in the darling yellow house with the swag of autumn leaves draped around the door sneered, as if I wore garbage for perfume, when I asked if she knew anything about the little red-boot wearing witch.“She comes every year,” I said. “Her name is Alice.”“Well, what do you want with her?” Ms. Yellow House asked.“I don’t know exactly,”

I am very sorry to admit I basically didn't understand anything about this novel: not its plot, not the setting, and not the meaning behind it.

Each year, an old woman is visited by one trick-or-treater who never seems to get any older... I expected something shorter, and more directly a ghost story, but the strange shape this takes has its own power. I especially liked the ghostly cat, mithering for food it's physically incapable of eating.

I'm confused..

Nice

Whimsical, eerie, unsettling Halloween short story with all the appropriate Halloween vibes. I'd rate this story a PG.Read it here: https://www.tor.com/2020/10/28/the-li...

I have always found the Tor.com short stories to be worthwhile, a special treat when taking a break from printed tomes. This year I resolved to read more supernatural, as opposed to fantasy, stories so this little Halloween gem by M. Rickert hit the spot.It is narrated by a local resident in a town where one can feel the chill of October and the changing colours of Autumn. Handing out candies one Halloween, she meets a little trick-or-treater dressed as a Little Witch. Even though admonished to

It took me several hours, working in shifts, (view spoiler)[to dig her grave, positioned so I could keep an eye on it from the kitchen table. The ground was hard, though not yet frozen, the flurries that fell the day before mostly melted by the time I finished. I collected my tears in a small cloth cut from my quilt to wrap Gerta in. Several mornings I saw her sitting on that mound of dirt, but then winter fell in earnest and her cold little spirit moved into the house, where I spied her watchin...

It's spooky season and I've collected several short stories to read this year! First up is The Little Witch by M. Rickert and it can be read here: https://www.tor.com/2020/10/28/the-li...An eldery woman hands out candy each Halloween to the children who arrive at her door. Only a few remain dimly in her memory but one that she can never forget is the little witch in red boots who appears year after year and never seems to age. One Halloween, the woman leaves a bucket of candy on the front step a...

i love halloween and this was perfect for a quick halloween-y break from homework.

This was a perfect read for me - a beautiful and scarred combination of next-door witchery, hidden guises, and the friendship between witch child and a older women who may be more than she seems. It's a little bit sad and happy at the same time, and feels perfect for the family in autumn. Loved it.

A weird little story. I have mixed feelings. It was quite well written narratively -- though there were some turns of phrase that jerked me out of the narrative at places by being too self-aware or composed. There are types of horror I love -- I like unsettling; this was unpleasant. The protagonist was unpleasant, the things that happened around her/that she did (it was unclear) were unpleasant, the incidental (in character) gender essentialism was unpleasant, the (view spoiler)[surprise animal