This spellbinding short story from the award-winning author of The Reformatory reimagines the Wild West through the eyes of a young Black girl with a gift.

1871: Ten-year-old Lucy Freeman and her family flee threats in Kentucky for a new life in the post–Civil War frontier. Their refuge is Zipporah Ranch, a hidden settlement founded by Black women and children that thrives, if the folktales are true, on magic. But a mob of bounty hunters is bringing hell to paradise, and it’s Lucy’s own secret magical ability that may be the only defense.

Tananarive Due’s Battle of the Round House is part of the Magic & Mystery collection, puzzle-box mysteries from top fantasy authors. They can be read or listened to in one enchanting sitting.

Tananarive Due has won an American Book Award, an NAACP Image Award, and a British Fantasy Award, among other honors, and teaches Black Horror and Afrofuturism at UCLA. Her most recent novel, The Reformatory, a New York Times Notable Book, was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Chautauqua Prize, Bram Stoker Award, Shirley Jackson Award, and World Fantasy Award. Her upcoming novel, Mazywood (September 2026), is a literary thriller.