‘Stolen Song’ by Kirsty Campbell

Myth and Music

From Pulp Literature Issue 50, enjoy an excerpt of ‘Stolen Song’ by Kirsty Campbell, and wander into a world of myth and music. To find out what happens next, be sure to read the rest of this story in Issue 50, Spring 2026!

Stolen Song

by Kirsty Campbell

There are no doors between worlds.

But there are places where the borders are thin.

Never was there a love so great as that between Estel and Coll, who lived together in a world that knew nothing of misery.

Hand in hand they roamed the places that never die, in a time that never ends, in a world that never changes.

And Coll desired to please Estel, because she awoke in his heart a joy that never faded. So he composed for her a song, with a melody that matched her moods and bearing, with words that wove poetry from her every feeling.

When folk heard the song in the world that never changes, they were lost for words, for it swelled with Coll’s undying love for Estel, and it captured the radiance of Estel’s heart.

The song was a gift of grace that lifted the hearts of all.

It was not meant for the ears of mortals.

And yet.

Places exist where the edges of two worlds meet. Where they touch so closely that a mortal from the broken world might glimpse stars that never dim, like light hovering behind dark clouds.

In such a place, a mortal might hear a song of grace, like a whisper on the wind.

To the ears of Alagon, a man who was drawn by Coll’s song into the undying lands, venturing where few mortals ever set foot, the melody was like nothing he had ever experienced. It filled him. It felt like every part of him was shining. But the footfall of Alagon in the world that never changes was as a dirge tolling the end of things for the two lovers. For it was not enough for him to hear Coll’s song once, a fleeting sigh on the wind. He wanted it for himself. And so he lurked, unseen, in the grove where Coll was singing for Estel, until he could repeat the song to himself. Then he crept away, on the path that took him back into the broken lands.

There, Alagon sat alone, apart from his kind, and contemplated the music that he had stolen from the world that never changes. Deep in his heart it worked its magic, filling him with light. Its radiance made him feel weightless and free. He felt like he could soar.

Read the rest of this story in Pulp Literature Issue 50, Spring 2026!

The 2026 Kingfisher Poetry Prize is now open! Find all the details, and enter, here.

Kirsty Campbell is a writer, singer, and teacher. Kirsty’s folk albums, Coming Home, In Pieces, and an eponymous EP, are on Spotify. She teaches courses on fantasy, SF, and fairy tale narratives at John Abbott College in Montréal. Published and forthcoming writing includes stories in Sword and Sorcery Magazine and Savage Realms, and the novel Sandpiper Wings. Her moving story inspired by Romane Bonnier, ‘October Nineteenth’, won Pulp Literature’s Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize in 2025 and was published in the Winter 2026 issue. Visit her at kirstycampbell.ca.