2026 First Look Prize Winners

The ship struggled mightily against the waves. Huge swells of water pounded and tossed the
vessel like a tiny, wooden toy lost in the vastness of the ocean. Below deck, huddled family
groups with blankets over their shoulders and exhaustion on their faces, swayed to the rhythm of
the constantly churning ocean. It had been a long journey for the little family on route to the new
world. Ten-year-old Charlie hardly understood why his parents packed only a few of their
belongings, abandoned their home and boarded a ship to cross the ocean, but he knew very well
he was not permitted to question his parents. The rules were strict in his family unit, and he was
barely allowed to speak unless he was spoken to.“Charlie,” his mother said sharply as she lit another candle. “Get my glasses. Quickly.
It’s time.”Charlie knew instantly what was happening. The mother cat who was brought on board to
control the rodent population was preparing to give birth to her kittens. He dutifully grabbed his
mother’s glasses from the ledge behind her bunk. The whole family, his mother and father,
Charlie and his five-year-old sister, Caroline, shared a tiny space near the front of the ship. He
and his father had managed to set up two hammocks, and a private corner bunk for the family
which was quite a blessing on the crowded ship. Charlie handed the glasses to his mother and
climbed to the back of their bunk where his mother was sitting and settled next his mother to
watch.The cat had chosen Charlie’s family to settle with on the long nights aboard the ship.
Sometimes she had slept so close to Henry’s head that he felt the tiny kittens in her belly kicking
his face.“My goodness. How do you even sleep?” Charlie had asked her on one particularly active
night for the kittens inside her womb.Mother Cat, as Charlie and his family called her, just purred and stretched out. Charlie
stroked her long, lean body and spoke to her softly. She was starving but not quite as starving as
the people were. Henry had been so hungry at times that he had considered asking her for a
mouse but instead opted for rock hard bread and some salted pork.Mother Cat looked up at Charlie as he wiggled in close for a better look. She was mostly
a gray tabby but, on her head, and in spots throughout her body, there were patches of orange.
Her eyes were gold with flecks of green, and Charlie could tell by her blank stare, she was
focused on nothing else but the impending birth. She began to pant as the first kitten was born.
He watched in amazement as Mother Cat skillfully welcomed each one, cleaning their bodies
and drying them with her rough, coarse tongue. She cleared their faces so they could properly
breathe, and she set them in the appropriate place so they could begin to nurse.It was well into the night when the last of the four kittens arrived. A smile came to
Charlie’s face when he saw the color. Unlike the others who seemed mostly black and gray, this
one was a bright orange with tiger stripes. It laid in an awkward heap and even though Mother
cat began her work of cleaning, the tiny kitten failed to wiggle around as the other ones had.
Mother cat licked it for a few minutes, looked up at Charlie and then abandoned it to return to the
others.Charlie looked at his mother. “What’s wrong with it?”“I’m sure I don’t know. It must be stillborn. It’s sad, my dear, but these things happen all
the time. We will have to dispose of it.” She reached for the limp, motionless kitten.“No!” Charlie cried. “Let me have it!”“Son. If Mother Cat doesn’t want it, I’m afraid it’s hopeless.”“Please let me try.”Charlie saw his mother relent and move aside. He frantically reached for the tiny kitten
and brought him in close. He had no idea what to do, but he ripped off his shirt, climbed in the
bunk and began to rub the kitten while holding it close to his chest. He closed his eyes and
settled into a rhythm of pulsing his finger on the place where he thought the kitten’s heart might
be. After what seemed like forever, the kitten opened its mouth. Charlie’s mother, who was
watching, put her hand on his shoulder.“That movement could just be reflexes. We don’t know if he’s too far gone, son.”Charlie continued his pulsing and rubbing until the tiny kitten kicked its feet and opened
its mouth again. He stopped abruptly and looked closely at the tiny orange baby. Yes, he was
breathing and on his own. After a few more moments, he began to stretch and struggle and
Charlie felt warmth returning to the tiny body.“I can’t believe it. Well done, son.” His mother smiled.Charlie held the kitten up and took a moment to memorize the tiny tiger face. His eyes
were sealed shut, but his tiny pink nose and short pointy whiskers protruded from his cheeks. His
head rooted around in search of his mother. His heart swelled with love for the little ball of fur.“You need to put him with his mother now.” Charlie’s mother ordered abruptly. “He will
need the warmth of his siblings, and he will need to nurse, or you can bet he won’t survive again.
Hopefully, she takes him back without a problem.”Reluctantly, he gently placed the orange kitten with the others who were already curled
up at their mother’s belly.Mother Cat lifted her head and smelled the kitten. Then she looked up at Charlie
questioningly.“I saved him. He’s alive now. Go on, now. Let him eat.” Charlie encouraged the kitten by
moving him closer to his mother. She licked the ball of orange fur a few times and made sure he
was settled in to eat before laying back on the bed in exhaustion.It must have been very late as most of the ship was quiet. It was never completely silent
as many families battled seasickness and other illnesses all hours of the day. But it was rare for it
to be this quiet. Charlie had no way of knowing how late it was unless he journeyed above decks
to see the moon which was discouraged. The sea was rough, and the crew was busy. They did
not care for the passengers to be where they were working.He looked around and sighed at the small space his family called home on their journey.
He longed for the home they had left behind. It was not fancy or all that comfortable, but it sure
beat this ship and constant coughing and moaning of the other passengers. How much longer
would they be at sea, he wondered. They must be more than halfway he thought to himself. He
was not sleepy, so he grabbed his book and settled back next to Mother cat. He had only read a
couple pages when he gently closed it and turned to look at Mother cat and her kittens. He
watched the tiny orange kitten’s belly rise and fall with life giving breath. He felt more confident
now that the kitten would survive, and the pride welling up in his chest made him smile. Charlie
had no way of knowing how saving this little soul would guide his life from this moment
forward.

First Chapter from Third Grade Twice

By
Sarita Feliz Kings

CHAPTER 1 ~ THE LETTERMy hands balled in a fist; I slammed them on the floral bedspread. “MOM! You didn’t wake me up. I wasn’t supposed to take a nap.” I yelled. I sat up in bed and looked around the room. Sunlight came through the light pink curtains.“What’s that, Gabby?” My mom said loudly from down the hall. The house is average size. I could hear her clearly.Gosh darn it, I thought. I did it again. I fell asleep. I was mad because eight-year-olds, who are almost third graders, don’t take afternoon naps. What if I got sleepy after lunch like the little kids in preschool, or the kid last year in second grade who fell asleep almost every day? He would lay his head on the desk for a second, and next thing you knew he’d be snoring. Drool trickled out the side of his mouth, onto his sleeve, hand and desk. I will not fall asleep in class. I am not that kid.The book next to me tumbled onto the floor, along with the koala bookmark. Feet on the floor, I wiggled my toes back and forth on the pink rug. My brain felt like a foggy morning. I bent down and picked up, The Adventures of Sarah and Jane, and returned the bookmark to the middle of the story. Step-by-step, I ambled across the room in my bare feet, to my desk in the corner, in front of a window. With one hand on my desk for balance, I picked up my foot and glanced back over my shoulder. There were specks of red, blue, and silver glitter stuck to the bottom of my foot. The glitter was left over from posters my best friend and I decorated for the Fourth of July.Next to the desk, attached to the wall with a thumb tack, hung the “Twelve Months of Puppies” calendar. It was August, this month included three Dalmatian. The calendar squares included wavy, blue lines, that I'd drawn with a marker, so I’d know which day I had swimming lessons. Near the end of the month, there was a big star on the square for August 26, the day I would start third grade. I counted the days starting with today, Thursday: “One, two, three…”School will start on Monday, in five days. Butterflies filled my stomach.I flipped the calendar to the next month, September. Two chocolate Labrador puppies were rolling apples with their noses. They were so cute. At the end of the month there was a great big gold star: My birthday! On September 28, I’ll be nine years old. My birthday was on a Monday. On the Saturday before my birthday, my party was going to be at the aquarium. We’ll get to pet sea turtles and maybe even sharks too, the nice ones, not the ones that bite your hand off. Then we’ll ride the kid-sized roller coasters and maybe even the super tall, scary log ride. We’ll have pizza for dinner, and last of all, a sleepover in the room where the manta rays swim in their aquarium. It’ll be the best birthday party ever.From my desk drawer, I took my sparkly pink notebook, and my pencil with the feather on the end, instead of an eraser, and sat down at my desk. I made a list of girls invited to the party. Afterwards, I walked to the kitchen and handed the list to my mom.“Did you write the list for the boys too?” She asked.“No. Boys are weird. At the swimming pool, they’re always putting their hands in their armpits and making farting noises.”My mom smiled and raised her eyebrows, but not in a mean way. “I think it would be nice if you invited the boys and not just the girls,” she suggested. “Not all boys are obnoxious. Some are very nice, like your dad.”When she said, “I think it would be nice,” it really meant she wanted m to change my mind—or at least think about it.“Maybe,” I told her.She handed the list back to me. I went back to my room and sat at my desk. I thought for a minute, not all the boys are weird, just most of them. I added a couple of boy names to my list.Just think. I’ll be nine years old, and the year after that, I’ll be ten. That’s two numbers side-by-side, not just one number. Next thing you know, I’ll be twenty and driving a car. Driving sounds fun, but not the getting old part. That doesn’t sound like fun at all. I don’t want to be a grown-up. I like being a kid. I like riding bikes through the park with my best friend, doing cannonballs at the pool, eating spaghetti noodles one long string of pasta at a time. Stuff like that.From down the hall, I heard my mom call out, “Lucy is here.”Lucy was my best friend (still is). She lived two doors down in the white house with the red arched door. Lucy bounded in my room with a big smile on her face. She was dressed in her blue halter top bathing suit, pink shorts, and flip flops, and her hair hung in two tightly braided pigtails. A rolled-up blue beach towel poked out of her swim bag, also blue.“Hi, Gabby,” Lucy said. “Your mom said we could go to the pool. Are you ready?”“How can you think about swimming? School is about to start!”“I’d rather go to the pool. Get your stuff so we can go.”“Hold on. I have to get my swim bag ready.” I ran to the bathroom and changed into my red, one-piece swimsuit and slipped back into the same blue shorts. With a clean beach towel in my hands, I ran back to my room.Lucy was sitting on the rug and playing with a deck of cards. She was trying to shuffle the deck with one hand, just like we’d seen on the TV. Cards flew up and scattered on the rug.“Not again!” She laughed, then gathered cards while I double checked my swim bag for my goggles.My mom came into the room. She had a big smile on her face. She handed me an envelope addressed to the: Smith Family. “Go ahead and open it. I bet it has the name of your new teacher.”I held the letter close to my chest and looked at Lucy. “What if we don’t have the same teacher? Then what?!”“Open the letter,” she said excitedly.I took a deep breath, slowly inched my fingers through the seam at the top, and then tore through the envelope with such enthusiasm that the top of the letter almost came off. With a quick scan past the part for grownups, I read who my teacher would be this year.I jumped up and down. “It’s Ms. Bear!”“Who’s Ms. Bear?” Lucy asked.“I don’t know. Third grade is upstairs.”“Then why are you so excited to find out it’s Ms. Bear?”“At least now I know her name. Before, I didn’t. Did you get a letter too?”“My dad didn’t say anything. Maybe I did,” Lucy replied.Swim bags in our hands, we jumped up, ran to Lucy’s house, and looked through several opened pieces of mail on the kitchen table, but there was no letter from school.“Maybe it’s in the mailbox,” Lucy said.We ran out the door to the mailbox by the curb, pulled the arch shaped lid toward us, and peered into the dark space. Lucy reached inside and pulled out an envelope. It was from the school and addressed to the: Zhoe Family. Lucy held onto the letter, and we ran to the back gate, opened it, then clicked the latch on place so Paisley, the family wiener dog, wouldn’t get out. We ran across the soft green grass, dropped our swim bags, and climbed up the wooden ladder to her tree house. Lucy ripped the envelope open. The top part of the letter flew off and landed at our feet. She skipped past all the parent stuff for her older brother and sister, and the names of their teachers.“My teacher is Ms. Bear!” She squealed.“We both have the same teacher. We’re going to have so much fun!”“Yeah, ’cause we’re big kids now.”We jumped up and down and did the twist. Our arms went one way, and our hips went in the opposite direction.“Let’s go to the pool,” Lucy said. She tossed the letter on the square purple rug.“Yeah, let’s go!” We climbed down the ladder, grabbed our swim bags, ran out the gate, and skipped down the sidewalk to the pool.

First Chapter from The Jewel of the Sea

By
Lee Mandel

A quick glance back at the crew told her she didn’t have a choice; not like she had when she started this adventure. Their solum faces confirmed they were sad at the turn of events. Her chest was heavy as she surveyed the lineup. Some of the men didn’t look at her, their attention was down at the deck instead. She didn’t blame them. She created a mess of their life. Cappy twisted his woolen beanie in his hands, wringing it until it was as thin as the ropes used to secure the sails to the masts. Tracks of wet soot ran down Jimbo’s cheeks. It was the cleanest part of his body, and his tears were honest.She avoided looking at Rob. It would break her heart, but she focused her gaze to him knowing he was trying to hold his emotions together. He kept his chin up and looked at the clouds, while he tried to hold his tears back. Cooky clutched an empty fry pan to his chest. She knew he’d make her favorite meal for the crew that night – pasta with tomato sauce. It wasn’t because it was her favorite; it was because the tomatoes from the last port would go bad if he didn’t. At the end of the line stood Thomas. He was the whole reason she veered from her original plan. She remembered the first time she saw him. His gentle, brown eyes were the catalyst to why she was here now. The pain in his face reminded her of what she’d always been warned of: never get involved with them.Captain Barnes broke the reverie. “Git goin’, Missy. The sea is waiting for you.” He pointed his cutlas toward the open water. She let her gaze on the men linger for just a few seconds more as she filed each of their expressions into her memory. Without wanting to prolong their misery, she lifted her hand to wave good-bye, then used it to blow a kiss to Thomas. She would miss him. He closed his eyes so he wouldn’t bear witness to her final moments on the ship.She turned her head to face her consequence. The wind whipped her hair behind her: a blonde flag not offering surrender, but courage. She steadied herself upon the wooden plank outstretched from the ship. Her heart raced when she looked down at the vastness of the sea.With a small step forward, she felt the sun on her face. Oh, how she enjoyed being in the sun, on the beach, in the town where she wandered and met Thomas. A moment of the past flashed before her. His generosity that day in the pub touched her heart; his handsome features reeling her in; the meaningful and open conversations they shared that night. It showed Cordelia that Thomas was different from the other people she encountered. He was gentle, compassionate, and kindhearted. He wanted to help with her quest to find her sister. Cordelia’s initial curiosity turned into something else. The fluttering in her insides when he was around was confusing yet exciting; a feeling she liked. Thomas was accepting, even when he learned her truth. She never intended to break the “rules.” Stupid rules. Why is it was forbidden to fall in love?With a deep inhale, she straightened her back and squared her shoulders. She took the remaining steps to the edge of the plank. The thought of bouncing from the wooden board into a fancy dive entertained her, but she decided that would be too whimsical. The captain might use the insult to punish the crew. Instead, she simply leaned forward and fell from her perch.The crew raced to the starboard side in time to see her stiffen and pierce the ocean’s surface. Her long, flowing gown bloomed with water upon impact. The garment drank in the sea and swelled around her. Cordelia didn’t fight as the weight pulled her down, slowly at first. The crew’s sad faces got smaller and farther away with every fathom she descended. A teardrop from Rob rippled at the surface. Then, she vanished into the depths.“Back to work,” Captain Barnes commanded, resuming his station at the helm.Cordelia waited until she could no longer see the crew or the ship before she pulled at the clothing that weighed so heavily on her. With the last of the fabric free, she released it and watched as it floated to ocean floor. It landed gracefully over a collection of rocks, which was meant to house her corpse if she was to believe what Captain Barnes thought was her demise. She thought it looked pretty and calm, but out of place in the ocean. She recalled when she first put it on. The rosy, pink taffeta was stiff and heavy, and the ivory lace scratched her arms. She felt pretty. The corset tight around her small frame was uncomfortable and strange at first. But she got used to the feeling and thought of it as her armor. She hoped it would protect her from whatever she would encounter. It was strange to feel so beautiful in such a restrictive garment. With that costume, she had felt ready for the world. What she didn’t expect was that she’d fall in love with a pirate.Only a few minutes had passed, and she missed Thomas so much already. She knew she didn’t have much time before they would sail into the next port to plunder anything they could. There was no time to waste. She had to cause the ship’s wreck, rescue Thomas, and take him and the crew to safety before settling her debt with Captain Barnes.With a last look at the dress, Cordelia turned in the direction of the ship and swam toward it, her tail whipping the water behind her.

First Chapter from Make Up

By Zach Davis

1. Make Your Partner Look Good
“We admitted we were powerless….”There is so much to keep in mind, and you’re not supposed to think. For instance, I’m not going to think about how the last time I was in this church was for my AA meetings. I’m also not going to think about how weird it is doing improv comedy in an upstairs church meeting room, or about how we had to move a plaster rendition of what I suppose is meant to be an old, ragged cross and a pristine copy of the bible from the tables so we can break them down to make room to perform. I’m not going to think about how this is a paid gig, but I’m not seeing any of the money. I’m not going to think about all the scene initiations I’ve practiced, or about the importance of using props in my scenes, or about going too blue in front of these Christians.I’m not going to think about mom and the creditors who call me looking for her, or Roman and the divorce papers I didn’t want to sign but did anyway, or about Intensive Outpatient Counselling, or about blood alcohol content three and a half times the legal limit, or about sleeping in my car in the parking lot of a Planet Fitness so I can use their shower because I didn’t come home the night before and even if Roman can’t see empty bottles he knows the booze is in me regardless, and I’m not going to think about blowing my life apart at thirty-eight and how two years later I’m still crawling from the wreckage.What I’m thinking about is rule number one: always make your partner look good. I can do that. Surprisingly, I’m good at it.We’re at the center of the room, encircled by chairs filled with people wanting to learn how improv techniques can improve their communication skills at home and in business. The church hosts community events like this every month. They’re seemingly targeted toward the faithful, but really they’re looking for new congregants. It’s tempting to be cynical and say they’re only doing it for the money, which is true, but we’re only doing this to get new people to sign up for improv classes at the theater, so it’s a kind of mutual hypocrisy. It may be more tilted on my side because my atheism is always there for me the way Jesus is for these people, but I don’t have time to think about that.Ken steps from the backline and starts miming what looks to be trying to start a lawnmower. I step out and copy his actions, pulling the cord to my own unreliable phantom mower. As the initiator, etiquette dictates Ken gets to speak first. In some ways, this will set the course of the scene. In other ways, it doesn’t really matter at all.“Damn—sorry—doggone thing won’t start,” Ken says, which the churchies love because it’s mild naughtiness in the House of the Lord and relatable because they, too, have stumbled sometimes through the brambles of mild invective.“Wally,” Ken says to me, “this lawnmower you sold me is a lemon!”So, I’m Wally, and I sold a lawnmower. This could mean I sell them professionally and have a shop. Accusations are tricky because they can easily lead to going back and forth about whether I did the thing I’m being accused of. Still, this is a solid setup, and if I go the way of Wally the shop owner, it establishes where the scene takes place. But it’s more interesting if I come in from a different angle. I keep pulling the cord on my imagined grass cutter.“Bernard, that’s a hell of an accusation to throw at me right before our leg of the partners division of the American Lawn Mowing Championships.”The small crowd is into it. It’s unexpected and gets a laugh even though it’s not a joke. It’s an uncommon setting. It’s kind of weird, but not too much. There’s lots of room to play.Ken’s body language shifts. He doesn’t say anything yet, he just transforms from an irate customer to a beleaguered teammate. I admire the way he becomes a character. It’s something I’m trying to work on, how to not be me so often.“You know how much this championship means to me,” Ken says. “I need to prove to my wife and child that I have what it takes to be a real man.”It’s our first game move. Ken’s inviting me to play in this world where his family’s future and his sense of self-worth depends on a lawn mowing competition. Now we have stakes. We’re not sure exactly what will happen if Ken doesn’t prove himself a real man, but we know it’ll affect his status with his wife and kid. The who, what, where, and why are all here. What we don’t want to do—now that we’re here—is stay here.“I hear you,” I say. “Let’s win this for Jenny and Timmy!”“Tiffany and Jimmy,” Ken says.I trust Ken, so his correction is more play than anything. Typically, you shouldn’t negate in improv scenes. It kills momentum and violates rule number one. Which brings us to rule number two: “Yes, and.”“Yes, Jenny and Timmy and Tiffany and Jimmy and all your other wives and children.”Although this polygamy joke comes from a rich biblical tradition, the god-fearing crowd hesitates to laugh, looking to see if someone else does it first. We stand in silence and let the moment sink in. It’s hard to stay in the silence during scenes because every moment someone isn’t laughing feels like the scene is slipping away. Comedy exists on the Tinkerbell principle, and without applause, it dies.Gradually, our audience looks around at each other, making eye contact. They see their own sheepish grins reflected back at them, and they feel ok in laughing. We let it build, then get back to it.“All of them are depending on me,” Ken says. “This is the biggest moment of all of our lives.”“Let’s mow down the competition, then!” I say. This is a miscalculation. The group is not digging the pun. There’s an audible groan from someone behind me, and that gets a laugh. I’m out of the moment and thinking about how mom would respond.Oh, good one, Tammy, she’d say. Glad you’ve spent over a year doing this shit so you can look foolish in front of Christians.And that voice inside my head—that one that tells me all about how badly I’ve fucked up, how shamefully I’m fucking up right now, how I’ll never get the things I want because of the future fuck-ups I’ll undoubtedly perpetrate—it’s not my mom saying these things. I realize it’s me telling myself how badly I suck, but I can recognize I’m doing a cut-to-the-bone accurate mom impression while I do it.Ken gives me a sidelong glance to see if I’m ok or if he needs to make a play.I’m thinking too much, too fast. It’s hard to concentrate on any one thing. Thoughts come and go in an instant, carrying their full stories with them as they go.A lot of these stories, I have a drink in my hand. In the other stories, I want a drink. The thing about it is that the drink you want has infinite potential. The one you have is either good or bad (and on some rare occasions, even great), but that next one? That could be anything. It could be the best you’ve ever had. It could make you feel that much better about yourself, or your life, or maybe just the night. The next drink could solve all your problems. It won’t, and you know that, but try letting your mind tell your gut how it should feel. There’s a chasm between knowing something intellectually and knowing it emotionally.***All at once, it’s a year ago, and I’m sitting in my psychiatrist’s office, hating myself absolutely.Tamara presented as a moderately obese 39 year-old female with no remarkable physical characteristics. Speech and language were unremarkable. She was cooperative throughout the assessment, aside from insisting I not look at her while she took the tests, which may indicate a fear of judgment and/or of being viewed at all. Her affect was flat, and her mood was sad. She appeared to be of average intelligence with no significant cognitive defects. Overall, she displays no distinctive or extraordinary characteristics. She describes her depression as a massive anchor chained around her heart, pulling it down further and further into her chest.Dr. Bordner is saying something that starts with “It looks like your assessment went well,” but the only thing I’m paying attention to is moderately obese, no remarkable physical characteristics, flat affect, sad, and no distinctive or extraordinary characteristics. I thought I was getting a psychological assessment, not getting roasted by a hyper-specific but linguistically unimaginative PhD. I took the tests with Dr. Clarke on Bordner’s suggestion. Something about getting to the root of my problems. Not one overarching problem, mind you. I’d been to enough sessions with Clarke for her to realize I’ve got one or two things kicking around in my mind that need to be dealt with:A marriage on the short end of a spiral down the toilet, along with a soon-to-be ex who only looks at me with the same expression you have when a commercial about abused pets comes on TV at 3 AM.Childhood trauma, which, you know—I’m a woman in America, so that’s a given.Major depression, which follows from the above.
And a generalized feeling of being over this whole being alive thing.I feel like I’ve just wandered into this life, like someone walking into a movie theater to get out of the rain and accidentally finding something other people think is wonderful. I feel no sense of accomplishment. I haven’t achieved anything. I’m just here, and if I weren’t, things would have proceeded in largely the same way. Maybe they would have been easier, even, with those around me able to find more joy in their lives. Things would definitely be less embarrassing, that’s for sure. Every moment of my waking life is an embarrassment, something to be ashamed of. I can’t think of something I’ve said, or done, or thought that I don’t regret.I’m not sad, really. I just want to die. I don’t feel so much empty as I do done. I’ve stayed at the party too long, and all the good songs have already been played. Life is a movie that drags on endlessly. It’s often shitty, but even more than that it’s boring as hell, and the best reason anyone can offer for staying until the end basically amounts to “well, it might get good at some point.” It’s time to go home. I’ll sing one of the good songs under my breath as I shut the door behind me and enter an infinite night. I’ll slip out of the theater quietly, apologizing if I bump into anyone and interfere in their enjoyment of this taxing, dull piece of shit. I refuse to stay till the end just because. I have dignity, damnit, and my sense of good taste insists I leave. If this is the best use of your time, my sense of good taste says, it’s better to dump the remainder down the drain rather than waste it on this.“Tamara, are you here?” Dr. Bordner asks.“Yeah. Yes. Of course. What do you mean?”“As soon as I read Dr. Clarke’s assessment, your demeanor changed.”“Hate to disagree, but my demeanor is always flat and sad. It’s part of my charm.”“Humor is your first way of engaging with the world.”“I tried anger, but I blew out my car horn and got carpal tunnel in both middle fingers that first week.”Dr. Bordner looks at me. Like, really looks at me. I’m uncomfortable. I don’t want to show that, but I’m shifting my weight in my chair and picking at my fingernails without knowing when I started, so it’s safe to say my discomfort is pretty clear. She’s still looking at me. I look back. There’s something to be said here, a joke, maybe. Almost certainly some cutting remark. It’s there, somewhere, but it’s not coming to mind.“You’re going away again.”“I’m fully present.”“It’s interesting you say that when you and I both know that’s not the case. Why do you suppose that’s another immediate response?”“Wait, what? That’s not…. We were talking about something else.”“I was talking about your use of humor to engage with the world, how it’s your shield and your weapon. You were demonstrating it quite effectively.”“Ok, sure. I make jokes to disconnect.”“Hmm. I think you make them because you desperately want to connect. And I think pursuing humor would be an excellent outlet for you. Have you considered improvisation?”“Are you serious?”“Are you? In America, people are brought together by primarily two things: the church, and comedy. We know how you feel about church, so have you ever considered comedy?”***And now we’re back, doing comedy in a church. An atheist being hired to act funny in a church, trying to avoid talking about how there is no god is a potentially hilarious premise. It’d be nice to get that suggestion sometime. I’d love to play that out, see where it goes.Goddamnit, Tamara, you ARE that atheist, and that exact scenario is playing out right now. Get your head in the game. You can make up for the bad pun. Recovery. You’re in recovery. Act like it.Ok, let’s recover. We were there, and now we’re here, in this moment. This moment is all we have. The past and future are only experienced via reflection and contemplation, which take you out of the now. Fucking weird how all the therapy talk has woven itself into my thoughts.“What, all of a sudden you’re not ready to go?” I say. “Just last week, you were ready to cut grass and take names.”Laughter. The pun’s got the Jesus peeps thinking about the word “ass”, which lightly presses their naughty buttons. Oh, ew. Now I’m thinking about Christ’s naughty button.Focus. Watch Ken. Back his play.“I’m ready,” he says. “These guys are going down! They’re on our turf now!”It’s important to note that improv is not pun-based. It’s unique, and clever, and it takes skill and practice. Well, most times. You can always just get lucky, or be naturally funny. And even people with a lot of skill and practice are bad sometimes. Some are bad all the time, but it doesn’t matter because they’re up there doing it, putting everything they’ve got into a losing endeavor, which makes them great even if all they get is knowing nods of the head from fellow improvers rather than belly laughs. And, you’ll probably hear at least one pun in an improv set. But, like, in a cool and funny way. It’s not lame, all of this is hard work except for when it’s easy fun, you probably couldn’t do what I do but you should try, anyway, and fuck you, and now I’m arguing with myself.That doesn’t matter, though. We’re locked in now. The lawn mower championship kills. We get sillier and sillier, and we’ve roped two of the audience members to be our competition, and now we’re furiously zooming across the floor like we’re on riding lawnmowers.A portrait of Jesus hangs on the wall. He looks indifferent, focused on his own pain.Hey, buddy, I get it. We’ve all been there. You just take it one day at a time.We put the tables back up, then move the chairs from against the wall. A few people from the audience help, which is nice. They don’t have to—they’re under no obligation—but it’s appreciated. A younger guy dressed shoulder-to-ankle in denim helps me gather the old cross and bible and place them in a reasonable facsimile of their original order. He’s surprisingly handsome, and I’m wondering how I missed him.“Thank you,” I tell him, flirty, lingering on the yooouuu.“No problem! Gosh, y’all are funny.”“Well, we are trained professionals.”He walks with me down the stairs and through the sometimes dark church and into the parking lot. I turn my head slightly to the side and raise my chin. My face is at its best from this angle, I find. I’m wondering if I should turn my torso so he can see my boobs in silhouette, but then I see that look in his eyes, and I know what’s coming.“So, y’all don’t, you know,” he says.I try and stop my face from cringing. I think I get most of it.“Like, work that stuff out beforehand?”Something you’ll find when improv goes well is that it seems like you’re rehearsed. It just flows naturally, and some audience members think you’re trying to trick them. Ain’t no way they just came up with that—top of their heads.Dashing in Denim doesn’t seem like one of the jerks, though. He seems interested.“Nope. We make it all up on the spot. That’s what’s so fun about it. You don’t know where the scene’s gonna go, and you roll with it.”“Man, I don’t know if I could do something like that.”This means that he’s thought about it. Wondered if he could do it, sure, but also wondered if maybe he’d be the best at it.

“I bet you could. It’s a lot of fun. You get to play, you know?”Is this the right tactic? Denim might not be the type to value play. Should I have said It’s a lot of work, but it’s worth it?“I can sure see that. Looks like a blast.”Oooh, the cult might be getting a new member!“You ever want to try it out? I’d love working with you.”It’s not meant to be sexy, but it’s not devoid of suggestion, either. We’ve put up the chairs, but looking at Denim’s face, I see something I’d like to sit on.To my shock, I realize I’m about to actually say this to him before I clamp my mouth shut.Denim looks at me, friendly and expectant, and it would probably be a first class seat.Focus. Push improv classes. Gain a new scene partner.“There’s a 101 class starting soon,” I say. “Ken has all the info, if you’re interested. I’m sure you’ll be great at it.”Eww, Tamara. All the fresh water in the world couldn’t make you seem less thirsty.We shake hands and walk out of the church. When we do, I see Denim walk over to Ken, and they talk for a bit. Ken nods at me in appreciation. At least someone’ll make money from tonight.Stop. That’s purposelessly bitter. You don’t really care about money.Not much, anyway. The divorce hit Roman’s and my respective bank accounts pretty hard even though we never really intended it to happen. It was weird, doing this unfriendly thing in a friendly way, hurting each other so that we could finally stop hurting each other. Maybe that’s overdramatic, but old people, depressives, and addicts can’t help thinking metaphorically. I don’t drink anymore, and the money I used to spend on bourbon now goes to artisanal coffee and tea. I’ve grown snobbish in this, but not judgmental. I remind myself that I don’t have the right to pass judgment on anyone.My phone vibrates in my pocket, which gets me thinking of Denim, which makes me blush. I pull out my phone and car keys, then duck in.The name says Bill. Mom’s calling. She’s named Wilhemena, but that lasted all of 3 years before everyone in her life agreed Bill suited her better.I call her Bill because, like Wilhemena, the name “mom” never seemed to fit her, either.I put the phone on speaker and look in the mirror. There is some streaking, but nothing major. I didn’t sweat all my makeup off.There’s a long, snorting inhale on the other end of the phone, followed by a sigh like the final breath of a dying giant. This is a fun little game Bill and I play, where neither of us wants to talk first, regardless of who called.Tonight, I just can’t take it.“What’s going on, Bill?”“The same.”The same covers a lot of ground in Bill’s world, ranging from “My roses are finally blooming” to “I need bail, beer, and a gun, if you can get it.”“So anything new and exciting going on?”There’s a deep, whooshing sniff from the other end of the phone. Historically, this meant that Bill was taking in all the air that she could so she could launch into a verbal assault. And those assaults are legendary. Not overly vulgar, usually, but brutal all the same. Bill uses her words like a warhammer, smashing through your armor, hitting deep, crushing your insides.But tonight, the hammer doesn’t fall. I pull the phone away to check the screen because I’m certain we must have been disconnected. That inhale only ever presages a rhetorical beardown. I catch a glimpse of myself on the phone screen and see that I’m wincing in anticipation, and I hate that look. I unscrew my features, turning them passive, impartial. When I’m satisfied with how unbothered I look, I continue the conversation.“Bill? You still there?”Exhale, through the mouth and vocalized, loud and purposeful.“For now.”Sure. You’re here for now, Bill. We all are. Now is all the time we’re ever going to have.“It’s cervical.”I mishear this as “cyclical”, and I think It sure is–we’re always going in circles, and then I’m horrified to realize that I’ve actually said this out loud.“You know what I mean?”Good recovery, Me. Amazing work. You say you make things up as a hobby? You should go pro.“You thought I said I had cyclical cancer.”“No, I heard cervical, but these conversations we have do go round and–”“Like my bike is dying.”“No, that’s not–”“How would that work? Did you even think that out? What, the bike seat is riddled with tumors?”“No, I–”“And it’s spread all the way to the spokes and horn.”“That’s not what I thought, Bill.”“Why lie? You know you thought I said cyclical. I know it, too. Who is the lie for, Tamara?”“I’m not lying, Bill,” I lie, feeling like I’m too deep in it now to go back. And, I don’t want to give her an inch. Not at any time, not for any reason. She doesn’t get to know why I’m lying. That’s a privilege she hasn’t earned.Sustained silence.“Stage 4.”I want to scream. It’s typical of Bill to toss a metastatic cancer diagnosis at me like this. She throws stage 4 cancer at me like that’s impressive. You’ve got 4 stages, Bill, but I’ve got 12 steps, and 12 is 3 times better than 4.Step 4 of recovery is making a fearless and searching moral inventory. All stage 4 of cancer is is dead.Big deal, dead. Don’t ask me to feel sorry for you, Bill.“Figured you might be interested in that.”“Yeah…that’s…that’s interesting.”Bill makes a sound into the phone that’s halfway between a grunt and a moan, which seems to say everything that needs to be said in the moment. My face is wet, and I check myself in the rearview mirror. This mascara isn’t supposed to run, but it is. All down my cheeks.“Well, night,” she says, and hangs up. I look in the mirror, and my face is a mess.I drive home, thinking about the best ways to make things up.

First Chapter from Laughing in the Dark

By Ann Fagan

Author’s NoteI would like to say that my family supported this project from the very beginning, but that would be dishonest. They had their reasons to be against it, and I understood those reasons, even as I spent the last year and a half compiling notes and interviews into what I hope to be the definitive account of the fire that tore through Dreamland’s Laff in the Dark ride on August 3, 2003.I wasn’t at Dreamland on the day of the fire. I wasn’t even born yet. My parents were married the week before the fire, 100 miles away at a winery outside of Erie. On August 3rd, they were returning from their honeymoon in Italy. They were somewhere over the Atlantic when the firestorm tore through the Laff, leaving four dead, including a six-year-old girl.I was around that age myself when I first heard about the fire. I learned that it was a thing that happened and that it was a sore spot in my family and that further questions were not welcome. So I held on to those questions, which seeded the ground with more questions and over time, grew into a carefully cultivated— albeit entirely verboten— mother vine. Everything has been birthed by that vine.My grandparents were disappointed when, the summer before my final year of undergrad, I chose to intern with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette instead of the New York Times. I made the decision almost entirely due to the fact that my advisor at the Post- Gazette would be Chris Claremont, formerly of the Roseburg Telegram and a bit of an authority on the Dreamland Fire. As a young reporter for the Telegram, Chris covered the fire from the very beginning, through the arduous investigation and subsequent lawsuits, culminating in an award-winning 10-year retrospective published in 2013. What began as an after-hours chat about a possible 25th anniversary feature has culminated in this, the fruits of the mother vine, harvested at last. I was surprised at how willing many of our interviewees were to talk, even within my own family, one whose connection to the fire is complicated and fraught.Opening old wounds is unpleasant business, but sometimes, a wound can heal wrong and a bone must be reset or an infection drained. I am enormously grateful to have had this opportunity and I hope that I have done right by the survivors and their families. I also hope that I have honored the memory of the four dead who remain very much alive in the hearts of those who loved them.Maxwell “Mad Max” Wooster, age 73Joe Doverspike Jr., age 32
Chase Neumann, age 21Teena Ann Bailey, age 6-- Adella Freeland, June 20281 Old HeadsExcerpt from “The Last Laff: 10 Years Since the Fatal Fire at Dreamland” by Chris Claremont. Published in the Roseburg Telegram Sunday edition, August 4, 2013Dreamland has changed quite a bit in the decade since that tragic Sunday evening in 2003. The park has replaced most of the vintage neon with energy efficient LED. They’ve added wider pathways, more visible emergency exits, and sprinkler systems in every enclosed attraction. The scratchy old PA system has been replaced with recorded announcements and digital signs reminding guests to hydrate, report suspicious activity, and treat themselves to a refreshing Coca-Cola ICEE at the Park Cafe. Parents who once turned children loose with a few bucks and a paper wristband now trail them cautiously from ride to ride like anxious cowboys wrangling a herd of unruly tweens.But if you arrive early enough, before the gates officially open and before the carousel music starts humming through the speakers, you can still catch glimpses of the old Dreamland.The smell of lake water behind the Tilt-A-Whirl.The warped boards beneath the arcade.The distant tick-tock clockwork of the lift chain on a weathered wooden track.In an empty corner tucked beneath the swooping track of the Dizzy Bee, there’s an empty patch of grass where Laff in the Dark once stood. For years, Dreamland’s owners: first, the Campobello family of Campobello Italiano Foods, then international entertainment conglomerate Holiday Amusements, have resisted public pressure to build any kind of memorial where the attraction once stood.Officially, they’ve cited practical reasons. Officially, they’ve cited practical reasons. The midway is crowded a permanent structure could exacerbate congestion during peak operating hours. Internally, Holiday Amusements warned that plaques and monuments risked transforming the site into what one memo called “a destination for grief activity incompatible with the ideal guest experience.”Unofficially, almost everyone understood the deeper fear. Memorials make tragedies permanent and inescapable. They anchor memory to geography and they force us to acknowledge what happened over and over again.And Dreamland, perhaps more than anything else, sells escape. It sells forgetting— for at least a little while.The park’s defenders argue that there is something macabre about forcing families arriving for birthday parties and school picnics to walk past a monument to the dead on their way to the bumper cars. Some employees privately admitted they avoided that stretch of midway entirely in the years after the fire, quickening their pace whenever they
passed it, eyes fixed ahead. One longtime employee requested anonymity and commented that he worried a memorial would turn the park into “a cemetery that sold funnel cakes.”Others suspect less sentimental motives. Attendance dipped sharply after the fire and did not fully recover for several years. Holiday Amusements spent millions trying to convince the public that the park was safe again. Commercials emphasized smiling children, new rides, brighter paint. A memorial, critics argue, threatens to undermine all of that progress by preserving the very thing management wants customers to forget.Amusement parks are designed to temporarily suspend ordinary reality. They are magical little kingdoms with artificial streets that lead you away from the outside world and all it’s terrible problems. Everything at Dreamland, from the lights, to the entertainers, to the scent of perfectly fried dough piped onto the midway, is engineered to keep guests moving forward. A memorial does the opposite of that. It forces you to stop and stand still. It forces you to look back.Dreamland opened on June 7, 1901 as a picnic grove on a narrow strip of land along the banks of Bushy Run Creek, 35 miles east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Situated at the end of the Roseburg Line, a tiny offshoot of the legendary Pennsylvania Railroad, Dreamland featured a dance pavilion with a shiny floor and a domed ceiling full of twinkle lights and gravel walking paths woven through the wild blackberry bushes, white pines, flowering dogwoods, and towering oak trees. At a small man-made pond called Lake Rosebud, patrons could rent a rowboat for 5 cents. By 1910, the park had its first carousel, purchased second-hand from a shuttered Luna Park in Philadelphia. The following year, Dreamland debuted a simple wooden out-and-back roller coaster called “The Dips.”KEVIN COPELAND (Dreamland public relations officer and park historian, author of Images of America: Dreamland Park): From the very beginning, this was the sort of place you brought the family. It was quiet. It was clean. It wasn’t a Kennywood or a West View out in Pittsburgh with, you know, with the mills and the smoke and the whole “hell with the lid off” thing. It was surrounded by farmland and these wild, untouched woods. It was peaceful. People wrote poems about how peaceful it was. They painted watercolors.JODI KANDER (Dreamland employee, 1991-1996, current mayor, Roseburg, Pennsylvania): My grandmother was there on opening day. She was an orphan. Her parents— my great-grandparents— were long gone and she was taken in by an uncle who worked for the railroad. She and her cousins got to ride the train for free that day. It was one of her fondest memories. She and her cousin, Celia, wore matching dresses and straw hats. My great-uncle took them out in a rowboat and they saw a turtle the size of an icebox. We used to have our family reunion there every summer and every summer all us kids had to gather ‘round and listen to Gram tell us about the ‘old days’ and (imitating an old woman) “You kids see all that? You see that big yellow roller coaster? The pool? The water slides? None of that was here when I was your age! None of it!” I can still see her holding court at the top of the hill, chain-smoking Virginia Slims under a big straw hat. She loved her straw hats.KEVIN: Picnics were our bread and butter from the very beginning. They still are. Holiday made a lot of improvements when they took over. We’re bigger and shinier now, but we’re still a family-first park and the families were the ones who came first back then too. The big groups came later: the school picnics, the churches, the unions.JODI: Gram passed away in, gosh, ‘92? She was 101 years old, God bless her. I was a freshman at Allegheny then. Worked at the park every summer in undergrad. The pay was awful. We were all seasonal so they didn’t even have to give us minimum wage, but you could basically work as many hours as you wanted if you were over 18 and I was one of those goodie-two-shoes who had nowhere better to be so I did well every summer and I stayed out of trouble. My daughter worked there for a few summers too. It’s kind of an unspoken tradition for a lot of the local families.BOBBY NEUMANN (Dreamland employee, 1989-1995, brother of Chase Neumann): It beat the hell out of McDonald’s! Unless you had an uncle who could get you a cushy PennDOT gig flaggin’ traffic all summer or sittin’ on your ass in a toll booth, it was really one of the better summer jobs out there.KIMBERLY KLINK-BARNES (Dreamland employee, 2000-2003, 2008-2012): I loved being outside. They put me in the Candyland giftshop my first year because I was under 16. Under 16 meant you were a “super minor” and your superpower was that you were useless. Couldn’t work more than a few hours at a time. Couldn’t exceed twenty hours a week. Couldn’t work in a kitchen. Couldn’t operate a ride. So they put us in the shops or in the games. Maybe shove you in costume to stumble around a birthday party for an hour or two. They made me do Winky the Wizard one day and my head rolled off and landed in the Kiddieland fountain. Pretty sure I traumatized a couple first-graders. They never asked me to wear the big head again and the next summer, when I was old enough for a real job, I got assigned to the Laff and I never looked back.BOBBY: There was a hierarchy and rides were at the top. Even a lame ride was better than mopping floors. Retail was full of super minors and mouth-breathers, identifiable by their Red Shirts of Shame. Games wore yellow and they were mostly okay. Some of them were oddballs; were just waaaaay too into it, you know? But the higher ups loved that shit. Some of those Gamers would emcee the Pistol Race and make it sound like the Kentucky fuckin’ Derby and you know, good for them. Probably made some Make-a- Wish kid’s day…while skimming off the top, of course. Cash only in those days.KIMBERLY: Rides were the A-team. Everybody wanted to wear the blue shirt.BOBBY: Lifeguards were shitheads who acted like they were on fuckin’ Baywatch.JODI: Lifeguards weren’t part of the hierarchy. They actually made minimum wage and had their own break room next to the pool. They might as well have worked on Mars. So among those of us here on Earth, rides were at the top. There was a prestige to working on a rides team. It was a big responsibility. Nobody was going to get hurt playing Whack- a-Mole. If you were on a rides team, it meant you were trusted.BOBBY: It meant you were cool.KEVIN: There was no “hierarchy.” I worked every job in that park at some point in my life. Jobs are assigned based on the needs of the park and your own skill set. That was true then and it’s true today. Dreamland has changed a lot over the years, especially after Holiday stepped in. They really pushed us into the 21st century. But Dreamland is a park with an old soul. Old bones. A lot of the modern rides-- you just load ‘em up and push a button. Restraints come down. You push another button and the ride goes up. The ride comes down. It’s all automated. You don’t have to time your own ride cycle. Sometimes you don’t even have to give your own safety speech. It’s all pre-recorded. That wasn’t always the case though. Some of those old rides are one of a kind. Some are the last of their kind. Those can be tricky to operate and you have to prove that you can do it. Safety is our number one priority and we won’t put someone in a position if we don’t think they can handle it.JODI: I got punched on every ride in the park except the Paratrooper. It really did a number on the overachiever in me. I could never stick the landing. I could get it up there just fine, keep the speed up, had consistent timing. It was a tough one to land though. They’ve moved it since then, but it used to be across from the Laff and you had to like, keep the speed up while you lowered it, but then drop the speed when the bottom of the gondolas lined up with the roof of Laff in the Dark. It was tricky though; you couldn’t drop it too much too quickly or the whole thing would just slam to the ground.This one day, I was testing to get my punch for it and, once again, slammed the dang thing into the platform. Paul Welch, who was the head of maintenance at the time; he was working on something over in Kiddieland and saw the whole thing. Came running over cursing up a storm. I didn’t even know he knew those words. He was such a sweet old guy. He was like everyone’s grandpa.BOBBY: Oh yeah, Paratrooper was a bitch.
Did I get punched on it? I got punched on everything, sweetheart.KIMBERLY: My aunt used to own a fabric store in the strip mall where the Wal-Mart was before it moved across the highway. I could have worked there. She offered a bunch of times. It almost certainly paid better and I could have cherry-picked my hours but I didn’t want to sit around this tiny little shop all summer, staring out those grimy windows at a parking lot and getting yelled at by a bunch of angry grannies for cutting their gingham the wrong way.BOBBY: There was never a dull moment. People could be lunatics. People walk through that entry gate and check a few IQ points at the door. Standin’ up on the coaster. Jumpin’ in front of the Scrambler to impress a fuckin’ girl and gettin’ your brains splattered across the midway— that actually happened at a park in New Jersey and there was this, like, 20/20 segment or something that they always made us watch to get scared straight every summer during the pre-season. And then there were the idiots who acted like it was a crime against humanity that I wouldn’t let ‘em take their handheld infant on the Super Loop. There’s a reason the Old Man kept a baseball bat in his office.KEVIN: Dick Petrosky’s baseball bat is the stuff of legend. I don’t think anyone ever saw it, but we all believed it was there.KIMBERLY: I loved working there. I really did. I’m a teacher now and, you know, summer vacation sounds great, but those summers when I first started teaching? I was going stir-crazy. I have kids of my own now and so summers are— sometimes they’re just as busy as the rest of the year now— but when it was just little ol’ me with nothing to do for the next three months? I was crawling up the walls.So I went back!That was a long time after the fire though.Things were different after the fire.

JODI: My last season was in 1996. I remember that because everyone was obsessed with the Olympics. We even put on this Dreamland Olympics thing after hours. One of themaintenance guys made these wooden medals and painted them gold and silver. Mr. Campobello came out and presented them. It was cute.Anyway, I wasn’t here when the fire happened, but I knew a lot of people who were. Everyone of a certain age knows someone. Kevin and I graduated from Roseburg Area together. I knew Chase a little bit. I never worked with him but I had a thing with his older brother, Bobby, one summer. I don’t think Chase was even in high school yet. He was a sweet kid. Somehow. Despite being Bobby Neumann’s kid brother.Then again, maybe Bobby’s the outlier. I see their mom in church every Sunday and she’s just such a lovely woman despite everything the Lord has thrown at her. She still taught Sunday School up until her stroke a few years ago. Just the sweetest woman.BOBBY: Mom’s good. Thanks for askin’. I’ve been trying to get her to sell the house the last few years. It’s just her and she doesn’t need to be going up and down those goddamn stairs. The woman’s 85-years-old, for God’s sake, and she claims she doesn’t go up and down and up and down, but that’s bullshit. And you know how I know it’s bullshit? Chase’s room. It’s spotless. Not a speck of dust anywhere. She’s been keeping that room like a shrine for the last twenty-some years and she’s not about to stop. That’s why she won’t sell the place either. She’d have to pack Chase’s room up and that’s something she decided she just isn’t going to do.She’s just running the clock out.KEVIN: Every season has a personality. 2003 was a great season. We had great kids working. We had a nice mix of experience and enthusiasm.KIMBERLY: It was different when I went back. That was in ‘08 or ‘09. After the corporate guys took over. I still loved it and my Maggie just started this summer. She’s on the Dizzy Bee team. I guess it’s a tradition now. I’m so happy she gets to have this experience but I know it’s not the same. Her Dreamland isn’t my Dreamland.JODI: My family stopped doing the big reunions after Gran died. It’s funny how that works, isn’t it? How fast and deep the foundations of a family can crack.KIMBERLY: It’s a little soulless.BOBBY: I don’t go back there. They did a memorial service the first year and that was the last time I set foot in the goddamn place. They did it before the park opened for the day, of course. Can’t have all us sad sacks muckin’ the place up.El takes her kids. She can do whatever she wants, but she took Jenny and Kayla once when they were little. Did it behind my back. Got a fuckin’ earful from me. She can do whatever she wants with her kids but my kids live with my rules.A few years back, Jenny got it in her head that she was gonna be a lifeguard and I supported that. I really did, but she wanted to do it there and I squashed that idea real fast. I told her no way. I said she could work at the borough pool. The Y. Goose Lake. Hell, I’d even pay the rent on a place if she wanted to do the Ocean City thing with a bunch of her girlfriends. She wasn’t gonna work in that godforsaken park.KEVIN: Holiday Amusements Inc. purchased the park in 2005. They really modernized us. Brought in the corporate sponsorships, the season pass program, e-tickets.The old heads still get upset about it but we really needed that kind of an investment and we needed to show people that the park was safe. We needed to evolve and the Campobello family, unfortunately, didn’t have the resources to make that happen at the level it needed to happen. I know the coaster guys get really heated on the message boards, but nostalgia only sells so many tickets. And those old, old rides that they love so much— that I love so much too— they need a lot of upkeep. There just wasn’t another option at that time.It’s a real shame how it broke Ian and his dad up, but after the fire, it was the only way to save the park. Ian, at least, understood that.JULIUS CAMPOBELLO (2nd generation owner of Dreamland, father of Ian
Campobello): Ian could have saved it if he really wanted to. He didn’t want to. It’s as simple as that.

First Chapter from Heat One

By Joe Battaglia

Wednesday, July 4, 1928 — 5:40 a.m.The heat got into the Ironbound two days ahead of the Fourth and then sat down on it like something that had walked a long way and didn't intend to get up again.Kitty Sheridan woke at twenty of six with the sheet stuck to the backs of her legs and her sister's arm flung across her stomach, and she lay there a minute in the gray light doing what she always did first, which was counting. Six hours and ten minutes of sleep. Eleven days since she'd met Nora Cullen at the Y. Twenty-two minutes until her father got up. Four hundred and nine days at the Prudential Insurance Company of America.And nine hours and fifty minutes until they fired the gun at Schools Stadium.She had a thought then, lying in her own sweat on the second floor of a two-family house on Adams Street with the window up and nothing whatever coming through it. The thought was: today is the biggest day of my life and I am going to be sixth.She was wrong about the second part.She was more right about the first part than any person has ever been about anything.#Ag was seventeen and slept like the dead and slept sideways, which are two things that don't go together well in a three-quarter bed in July. Kitty lifted the arm off her stomach the way you'd lift a cat, and Ag said something with no words in it and rolled toward the wall, and that was the end of Ag until eight.The room had the bed and a dresser and a chair with Kitty's things laid out on it since Monday night, and a picture of the Sacred Heart their mother had gotten free with a subscription. The window looked out on the side of the Kozlowskis' house, four feet away. You could reach out and touch it, and Kitty had, as a child, on a dare from a boy who later got a hand caught in a press at the wire works on Wilson Avenue and now had a hand that looked like a spider.That's the Ironbound for you. Everybody's got somebody with a hand.She got up and stood at the window in her shift and breathed in the morning, and here is what the morning smelled like on the Fourth of July, 1928, at twenty of six, on Adams Street:Coal smoke, which was every morning of the year.Bread from Menzel's, two blocks over, which was the only good one.The tanneries down toward the river — hair and lime and the wet under-smell that got worse in heat, and Kitty Sheridan had been breathing that since the day she was born and did not so much as register it. Not once in twenty years. Not one single time.And something sweet, faint, over the top of all of it, out of one of the plants on the far side of the tracks, sweet the way a dentist's office is sweet.She stood there and breathed it in and thought about her shoes.That's the whole thing. That's the entire book, right there in the window at twenty of six, and it would be nineteen more days before she understood one particle of it, and by then a girl was dead.#Now.You have got to understand about Kitty Sheridan that she was not fast.She has been made out to be fast in the little that ever got written about any of this, because it makes a better story, and because people can't seem to hold onto the idea that somebody ordinary did something. But she wasn't fast, and — this is the important part — she knew she wasn't, exactly, to the fifth of a second, the way she knew her own hat size.She was the fifth-best half-miler on a team of nine.At the Prudential A.A. women's meet in May she had run 2:49 and change, and Estelle Hill had run 2:41, and there was a girl out in California that spring who had gone 2:35 flat. Kitty could do that arithmetic in her head standing up. Fourteen seconds is not a gap you close. Fourteen seconds is a different sport with the same name.They had entered her anyway, because the Prudential entered everybody it could — Vreeland wanted bodies in every event to score points, and there was no entry fee for a club girl, and the trials were three and a half miles from the front door of a building she was already going to be standing in on Thursday morning at eight.So Kitty Sheridan was going to the first Olympic trials for women ever held in the United States of America because it was local and it was free.She was not humble about it. Humble is a different thing. She was accurate, and she was going anyway, and if you have ever been fifth-best at the only thing you loved you will not need this explained to you.#She dressed in the dark of the hall so as not to wake Ag: the wool jersey with PRUDENTIAL across the front in white, the shorts, and over both of them a summer dress, because you did not walk down Ferry Street at six in the morning in shorts in 1928 unless you wanted to hear about it from everybody.The shoes went in the bag, wrapped in a dish towel.They were her one extravagance and the one thing about her that was any good. Black kangaroo leather, six spikes, bought secondhand off a girl who quit to get married, and Kitty had taken them to a man on Ferry Street who resoled boots and had him put a new lace hole in each one where hers had torn out. He charged her forty cents and asked what they were, and she said running shoes, and he said, "For a girl?" and she said yes, and he said, "Huh," and did the work well.She had polished them Monday night. There was nothing to polish. They were already the best-kept object on Adams Street.She put her hand in the bag and touched them and felt her whole stomach turn over sideways.#Her father was at the table with his back to her, in his undershirt, with the paper and the coffee. He worked at the Lehigh Valley yards and had for twenty-six years and got up at ten past six on his own without a clock, on Christmas, on Sundays, on the day her mother died."You're up," he said."I'm up.""It's a hundred degrees.""It's not a hundred degrees yet."He turned a page. He did not look at her and he was not going to, and Kitty took the heel off the loaf and stood at the counter and ate it dry, because she couldn't have kept anything else down and she knew from May that she couldn't."What time do they run you?" he said."Around four. Maybe later.""Around four.""They've got twelve events and two hundred and forty girls. It'll be later."He grunted.Then he said, still looking at the paper: "Your mother could run."Kitty stopped with the bread halfway to her mouth.He had never said that. Not once, not ever, not in the nine years since. And he didn't say anything else about it either — he turned another page and drank some coffee and that was the entire conversation, that was the whole of what she ever got, five words at a kitchen table on Adams Street at ten past six in the morning.She thought about those five words on the boat.She thought about them in the third row of a stand in Amsterdam.She thought about them in a stone house on Grafton Avenue in September of 1960 with the radio on and every one of them dead, and she never did find out one thing more about it, because there was nobody left by then to ask.#She went out at twenty past six with the bag over her shoulder.Adams Street to Ferry, Ferry toward the ironworks with the sun already up over the tracks and coming at her flat and orange, and the trolley wires singing, and the whole neighborhood cooking its breakfast with the windows up.Mrs. Kozlowski, out on her step in her apron: "Where do you go so early?""Newark Schools Stadium.""What's up there?""The Olympic trials."Mrs. Kozlowski's face did an entire small play in about a second and a half. It went through Olympic and then it went through trials and then it landed on girls in short pants, and it settled where those faces always settled, which was a kind of sorrowful fondness, the look you give somebody's dog that has learned to sit up."You be careful in this heat," she said."I will.""They shouldn't have you girls out running in this.""No, ma'am," said Kitty Sheridan, and went on down Ferry Street to catch the car.She heard some version of that sentence eleven times that day. Everybody said it. The men at the gate said it and the women in the stand said it and a reporter from a Philadelphia paper said it to Vreeland with a notebook in his hand, and Vreeland said something back about the girls being conditioned, and it went in the notebook.They shouldn't have you girls out running in this.Nobody in the entire city of Newark, New Jersey, was wrong that day.That was the thing she could never get anybody to understand, afterward. Not the lawyer. Not the woman from the AAU. Not her own sister, who lived to be eighty-one and never once believed her.Everybody was right. Every single person was right, all day long, about everything.#The car came at half past and it was already full and it was already hot, and Kitty stood in the aisle with the bag between her feet and her hand up on the strap, and out the window the Ironbound went by, and then the tracks, and then downtown with the flags out for the Fourth, and then Broad Street, and then the Prudential itself — the great gray pile of it, six hundred clerks and a chapel and a clock, where she would be at eight o'clock Thursday morning with a sheet of endorsements in the roller.She looked up at it as they went past.She'd be back. She knew that much. She was going to be a typist on Thursday no matter what happened on Wednesday, and she had made her peace with it, and it did not make her sad, and anybody who tells you a person can't hold both those things at once has not been twenty years old and fifth-best.But not yet.Not for nine hours and fifty minutes.Out the far window, north and west, past the roofs, the ridge came up green over Forest Hill where the money lived — the towers and the slate and the big stone houses, one of which she would sleep in for the last thirty-one years of her life, alone, in eleven rooms, with a wall that held the heat of the day and gave it back after dark.She didn't look at it. Why would she.She was watching for the transfer at Broad and Market, and thinking about her shoes, and the car was full of men in shirtsleeves going out to the ballgame, and it was twenty-five minutes of seven in the morning, and Nora Cullen had ten hours and fifty-eight minutes to live.

First Chapter from Goddesses and Doormats

By Elena Miceli

PART ONEFERNANDE OLIVIERLover of Pablo Picasso from 1904-1912“Several writers who have written about Picasso have simply referred to me as ‘la belle Fernande,’ which certainly indicated the extent of their interest in me. For them, apparently, I was simply a physical asset; and in fact they had little opportunity to know much more than that about me.”Chapter OneFernandePARIS, FRANCEOctober 1906
Most men gave you flowers to show how much they loved you, but Pablo gave me a cockless man. It was the kind of gift you could only give if you truly loved a person. Truly knew their soul.It was the best gift I had ever received.In the painting, the man sat scrunched in the lower right-hand corner of the room, clutching a glass flagon of red wine and gazing forlornly at four radiant, nude women. Four of me.Drink up. It’s the only earthly pleasure you’re going to get in that room.He was a burly man, one who could twist both your wrists behind your back with one meaty hand and muffle your screams with the other. But we outnumbered him. If he tried anything, I could crack him over the head with a clay amphora or his own flagon. My fingers unconsciously found their way to the scar tissue that papered my right shoulder. The flagon. Glass drew more blood than clay.The Fernandes in the composition looked like murder was the furthest thing from their minds. Wholly unconcerned with deliberating which material was more lethal, they stood serenely performing the various acts of la toilette as if the man was not even there. I could not remember the last time I comported myself in a room without being acutely conscious of the men in it. Cataloging their every motion, every intake of breath.On nights like this, nights when I felt like striking a match on my fury and setting alight kindling of canvases and carnets, this painting was the only thing that could douse the flames. The late autumn breeze attempted to wrap me in its cool hands on Pablo’s studio balcony as the party pulsed just inside, but I was radiating heat.How did he lose it? The same question every time. His cock?A blood-red sausage lay on a bit of paper next to the man. If he attached it to that sad stump, he would be like every other man I had ever known. Always coated in blood, but never theirs.But what if it was?I’d pondered it many times. How easy it could be to simply snap down.Pablo had drawn it before, this act. Shown it to me, proud and earnest, like a puppy dropping a mangled squirrel at its owner’s feet. Of course, he was the one in the sketch. Hands behind his head, smile lecherous, a woman’s face buried between his thighs. It was the only act I’d ever rebuffed, refusal from a place of selflessness. I always deemed myself a woman of restraint. I let them talk about me as if I were not there, let them touch my body like meat of which I had no say in the butchering. I wrestled and gagged my demons into submission, but the thing about restraint was that it was not limitless.How bold men were, to place something so soft and choppable between razored teeth. How foolish. Look what could happen. What was it my uncle used to say whenever one of his men fell ill from the dyes in his dress shop?An accident in the workplace.I let out a huff that resembled mirth. The starless sky above became a canvas in which to repaint the quotidian repose of the scene.“Can I borrow your brush, Fernande?” one Fernande asked. She was whom the eye flew to first, a North Star of a woman shining bright with creamy assurance. The piece’s color scheme was a romantic pinkish-brown, the visible brushstrokes of the background giving it the hazy quality of a dream. Every Fernande was beautiful—slender yet supple—but she was perfect.“Of course, Fernande,” replied the one next to her, bent down to scrub her feet. She was the closest to the man, yet did not even glance at him. “Let me know when you need the soap.”You really could only trust yourself in this world.When Pablo first revealed it to me, I’d indulged in a moment of sinful vanity. I look like Botticelli’s Venus. This was how he saw me. His beautiful muse, his goddess of love. I must be someone worth loving if this was who I was to him. Venus, who had been born not as a result of the gruesome act my cockless man longed for, but as a result of the very deed that had rendered him ineffectual. New, pure life sprung from the sea after Kronos cast Uranus’ severed genitals into the frothing surf.Out of the myriad pieces he had done of me that summer, this was my most prized painting in seven years of modeling. Modeling which came to an abrupt end today.“I can’t just quit in the middle of a painting!” I’d screamed when Pablo had burst into Fernand Cormon’s atelier on boulevard de Clichy this morning.“You’re welcome to stay to ensure nothing untoward happens, young man.” The old artist had calmly placed his paintbrush in a vat of turpentine and regarded Pablo through deep-sunken eyes. “If that’s your concern.”“Joder, I don’t fucking care! She’s done.”Angry tears blinded me as Pablo’s nails pierced the tender flesh of my wrist. I squeezed my eyes shut and conjured Venus. Yet I was not her, lacking the blithe contrapposto of a woman born knowing her exact place in this world. Everything I ever had, even the dirt under my fingernails, I’d gotten through sweat down my temple. Blood from a bitten tongue.I wasn’t even Fernande Olivier. Not truly.“You’ve certainly ruined your life, Amélie.” Eight years ago, my uncle shook his head in the cold kitchen of my youth. A place I had always hated, yet suddenly I wanted to bite my fingers into the oak countertop and grind the last crumbs of adolescence under my nails. “It’s lucky you haven’t got a child.”The inky blackness of Place Ravignan bore down on me, offering no comforting gleam of stars or sliver of moonlight. An unrelenting, cruel unknown.If I wasn’t any of those things, who—Inside, someone let out a cackle.“¡Puta!”***The first time I posed for Fernand Cormon, I began undressing before we’d finished our pleasantries. On the second button, Cormon patted my cheek and told me his days of paying women to undress were long behind him. “Six francs either way, chérie.”That second button stayed undone for several seconds as I glared at him, certain I was being mocked. Everyone knew posing nude paid double. An artist of rigidly traditional style and mythological subjects, the results were walls filled with classical nudes and anguish. Synonyms, really.“I’m sure they’re very nice, your breasts. I mean no offense.” He hobbled over to the blank canvas we were to begin. Scheherazade in the king’s harem, spinning tales to avoid King Shahryar’s legendary blade. “But it was her words that captivated the king, not her breasts. Although those probably didn’t hurt.”The day before Pablo’s invasion, I told him about my beau’s request—as I’d phrased it—to quit modeling. “Careful, Fernande.” He nodded to this canvas. “We may not have harems in Paris, but we certainly have men like Shahryar.”“The king just needed the right woman to change his heart,” I replied stonily.He chuckled. “You wouldn’t have lasted a day in Persian court. Remember, this was the same heart that chose to murder one thousand women instead of simply forgiving.”“There is nothing simple about forgiving.”The concubines in Persia might have died, but there were far worse things a man could do than kill you.***“I warn you! You no longer allow to model for no one but me!” Pablo snarled after returning from Cormon’s atelier. He hurled me into his studio, sending me to my knees on the naked mattress in the corner. His shaky French always deteriorated further when he was angry.His French was always terrible.“You know what kind of women go spread around town for money? You know how that make me look?”“Oh, he’s never laid a finger on me! The most lurid thing Cormon’s done is tell me stories about castrated cocks.”Pablo’s eyes darkened into hard pebbles as he showed me exactly how fictitious such tales were. Minutes later, he left me in a puddle of tears and ripped fabric after confiscating my key.The heavy lock did not turn again until the easels cast long shadows along the floor and my despair had stiffened into ire. He murmured apologies as he gathered me in his lap, feeding me shreds of pain au chocolat like I was a duck in the Tuileries. Like a duck, I opened instinctively.Pablo heated our opium pipe over a lamp. We smoked until I could bear to look at him again. When he spoke, it was in the tender, velvety tone reserved for post-brawl reconciliations.“Think this way, cariño. Pirates bury treasure because too precious to share.”For this reason, he would not be returning my key. On a list of things that people bury, one thinks of corpses far before treasure, I thought. But the opium infused his words with a dulcet plushness that wrapped me in warmth, so I nodded and allowed him to kiss me with the kind of reverent chastity he was only capable of after carnal aggression.It wasn’t that I wanted to work. I thought of the rib-wracking cough I’d contract every winter from sitting naked in drafty studios for hours on end. I thought of the odious Dutchman who lived upstairs, Kees van Dongen, insistent on physically directing my poses. He’d squeeze my skin like I was a peach at the market whose ripeness he was determining. To my horror, his five-year-old daughter Dolly had once run into the room when he was out refreshing the murky paint water. “Papa says you have the perfect body.” She gazed at me through starry eyes. “I want to be just like you when I grow up.”A lady of leisure suited me just fine. Even if a lady I was not, even if an artist’s studio was where leisure went to die. What was bothering me, I realized as I caught myself mouthing the words, was the nursery rhyme I’d heard Dolly singing when I passed her skipping down the corridor earlier. It was the same rhyme my aunt used to sing to me and my cousin before bed when I was young.Alouette, gentille alouette,Alouette, je te plumerai.“Lark, lovely lark,” Aunt Alice would lilt as she stroked my cousin’s face with all the maternal love of the Virgin herself. Then she’d turn to me and shriek: “Lark, I will pluck you!”It utterly delighted my cousin, but I would stare into the darkness long after my aunt left and pray that I really would become a lark so I could fly far away. Years later, the nursery rhyme felt like some kind of omen. Every man I met stoked me as he whispered what a lovely lark I was for allowing him to pluck me until I had no wings left to fly away.This was not the first time I’d been caged, but had I really escaped one prison to merely fly straight into another? One with bars twined with pink roses, yet a lock prickled with briars? No, you love Pablo. This time is different.“Tonight, I will be envy of every man in room,” he crooned, peppering tiny kisses down my neck. The final one landed on my scar. “Mi tesoro precioso.”Across the room, my treasured painting watched the scene. Torture for the cockless man, euphoria for the Fernandes. After all, wasn’t this what we wanted? Passionate love? Wasn’t this what we prayed for? Someone to care?Careful, Fernande.

First Chapter from No Post

By Max Hayes-Hunsicker

The leaves are long dead, oh dearest Wilhelm, and the soldier boys are still stuck playing
in the mud. No–not boys. Boy would mean Year One. Boy would mean recruitment and new
uniforms, long before the ruin, before the white feathers, before the wagons and stations–
rounding up the nay-sayers, do-gooders, higher-than-thous, and the lice who won’t so much as
gaze upon a weapon–and the not-boys hated those, and that was before. Before the rations,
before the rations were rationed, before the revolts over the rationing of rations and the black
powder explosions. Then the silence. And the Fifth Year. And the Sixth. Seven nearly skipped.
Airplane guns and bombing runs in Eight, a twisted echelon in Hope Rung that something
remained back home, be it orders, be it command, be it man. No words. We remain in silence at
Nine.See the not-boy encamped, stalking in what remained of the mud, shelled to high-heaven.
The khaki color from the cloth is gone–it left some time ago–and what’s left is fluid. Dirt
becoming mud one day, mud becoming blood becoming rain the next. Brown, to maroon, to grey
and repeat. He’s nestled himself into the bank, a child-not-child, babe in the bosom–unshaved
and cheeks picking up grime. There’ll be no razors until next week, if next week ever comes, or
if Gurney ever smelts any back Home.The un-boy is in the sniper’s position–a straight left leg as he lies flat, a bent right knee as
he angles the rifle that once may have weighed more than he, and a body taking the shape of an
old Nordic rune. He lost the scope days ago, weeks ago, months, years, decades ago. It’s a tin can
and twine now, and he lines up the shot and waits.March ye living, ye dead and undead, and follow the footpaths of those before you. Enter,
pursued by wind, the sight of the un-boy now man–who once may have been James–who is now
the dead appendage of the long-gone Kitchener. Come out, come out, James thinks. Waltz, you
Krauts, and let it end. Add another notch to the butt of my rifle. No shelling, no doomsday
booms, no truce and soccer, nor Claus or Klaus to stop fate. Just me and great grey sky. Breathe
in.James sees it, the ghoul, Hun and Harbinger, demon of Ypres, rising from the trench and,
fool that the zombie is, standing in James’ sights. He’ a silhouette, a blackened olive through the
can, and James must stifle his cough, forcing his face into the bosom of the mud. It takes a steady
aim to kill a shadow, a paradox of alienation and intimacy. Nothing personal yet everything
familiar.The day is waning. The shells are coming. James knows–the Kraut must know–and he
can just make out a light near the silhouette’s head. A cigarette. The rookie mistake. The beacon
and marksman’s dream. A man–who James does not know–who once was a boy–who James did
not know–whose skin is peeling away from the Yellow Cross, stretched across a thin skull
surrounded by pockets of marks and scars etched in like the tallies on James’ rifle. He smiles as
if James could see it. A man who wants to die.Ka-choom.The shelling begins; the signal James has been waiting for. The silhouette–no, the
German–remains unphased through the tin, smoke in the mortars and smoke coming from the
mouth. He is one with the field, and James can’t wait a second longer. He steadies himself
against the explosions.Bang.It’s over in an instant, and the olive is smashed. He doesn’t see the bullet’s path, its
travels across this pocket of war-torn Europa, nor the mud pits that breathe out and bubble overwith gas, the trapped last breaths from Albion and Gaul. The horse–dead, maggots whirling
around in its brain and half-picked apart cheek and pole–whale-eyed and gazing up at the sky for
forgiveness. The dead tree–leaves long gone and limbs brittle–housing and shading another
corpse from the sun, giving birth to the horde of botflies. And at last, the tip enters the head of
the German, ruining what’s left of his pale face and last few clumps of hair, brushed last by
mother-sister-cousin, and turning a deep crimson as he crumples and returns to the earth.James breathes out and rolls on to his back, setting the rifle aside. There’s no thinking in
it–point, pull, confirm. Grab the knife and carve a notch. Night is coming, the shelling ceased.
He’ll hunker down in the pit until dawn. Thought may have saved him in the end. Thoughts of
the milky hair of the unnamed German, or the unseen plain band with the two red dashes of the
Son. A band that could have helped when the Alemanni burned down Home, who could have
saved the girl from the Hounds in No-Mans-Land, or saved James himself after the White Fog
came. Such is later, the stones now set, and all James is right now is hungry.He has killed the last son of Apollo. God help him.

First Chapter from The Ripper

By Kirsten Caswell

“Oy! Young lady! Where do you think you’re going alone at this hour?” The faint laugh follows as a drunken fool walks a few paces behind me. Even with the distance between us I can smell the whiskey oozing off of him. I hear the scuffing of his footsteps as he hopelessly tries to keep my pace, stumbling like a newborn calf. He tries to yell out more but it's incomprehensible at this point in the evening.I follow the path I normally take up and down the streets of London. I often work late nights and have to deal with the trash of the evening howling and pawing at me. The streetlights are often the only witnesses to these events, if there are others they scurry past without looking up past their own shoes. The secluded nature of this hour can be a blessing and a curse I suppose.The drunken fool continues to make every move I make, I turn right and so does he, I quicken my pace and he is sure to do the same. It is almost too trivial knowing that he is not unlike others in this aspect. He is too drunk to realize that he is not being clever here, I do not assume we just happen to be going the same way. How many times has this tactic worked for him before? Acting the drunken fool but having enough wit about him to plan his insidious attack?I must admit this is one thing that has always dumbfounded me about men, their inability to see beyond themselves in certain situations. Imagine a woman that has that level of confidence in themselves, they would be unstoppable. He sees what he is planning as a triumph, another notch in the belt I suppose.The streets get quieter and smaller until there is not another soul awake. The large brick buildings are dark and empty at this hour. Cold and lifeless husks along the streets. Not even a breeze will disturb the peace and quiet of the street. The only witness to these events are the solemn street lamps buzzing in anticipation for tonight’s events.The man has gained a bit of balance as we have been walking. His pace has quickened and he is only a few feet behind me now. I feel his shadow hovering over me and the horrid haze of his breath creeping up my neck. I turn left down a pitch black alley, the man follows. I maneuver around empty boxes and garbage that sets the stage for the climax of our little show.“Come now darling, why we running so fast?” The man snickers behind me, his voice taking on an ominous tone. “Don’t you want to have a little fun before we end the night?” I come to a halt under the single street lamp in the dank and stuffy ally, the exit blocked by a large dumpster. The man’s footsteps slow and he begins to whistle a cheerful yet haunting tune. “Nowhere to run now is there my dear?”“I was never running,” I whisper as he moves closer to me, “It is funny, this whole time you thought you were smart, that since I was out walking that must have been a sign…”“What are you going on about now? You can’t talk your way out of this, you’re all mine for this evening so why don’t you come here nice and slow?”It’s almost ridiculous how easy this is. They aren’t always drunk, men have this ego to them, some anyways, where no matter what the circumstance is, if you are a woman you somehow owe them something. That something is almost always sex. They act as if they are some kind of predator hunting their prey, undefeatable and undeniable. It makes it almost too easy, child’s play if you will.The man comes up behind me and places a firm hand on my shoulder to spin me around and face him. I stand with my head down and see him begin to unbelt his pants. “I’ve got you, now be a lamb and make this easy for me.” His crooked grin flashes as he struggles with his belt and I begin to giggle. His hands stop fiddling and he takes a step back, “Oy, what are you laughing at you whore?” His voice waivers, not so confident now are we? I let out a laugh and can’t seem to stop myself. “You crazy bitch what's so funny?” He begins to get angry and lunges at me. I catch his wrist in my left hand and with a swift flourish of my right the man screams in agony.He falls into the empty boxes around us and cries out again. But I cannot blame him for his theatrics, I mean being slashed with a knife is jarring. The man tries to crawl away from me but his fear and the garbage are too prominent for him to be successful. It is an interesting phenomenon to witness, a scared animal in a trap. You see them try to decide what is the right thing to do in this situation, fight or flight? The key is to not let them make a decision. I had learned the hard way with a rabbit in a trap once, left a nasty scar on my forearm.The man tries once more to put distance between us and begs for his pathetic life. I laugh as I wave the knife around. “You thought you were the hunter tonight, unfortunate, the reality of the situation is now setting in on you isn’t it? You were never the hunter, you were my prey all along!”

First Chapter from Rerouted

By Joe Puterbaugh

Evan Rose had exactly sixty minutes to make it to the airport for his flight, which meant he had approximately fifty-nine minutes left to regret his decision to agree to give the keynote speech at the conference in Las Vegas.“You know,” a familiar voice called out from the kitchen, “normal people feel honored when they are invited to speak at big, huge techie conferences.”Evan stood in the hallway mirror, trying to decide whether his blazer said respected cybersecurity expert or more like stuffy English literature professor who had to go from plane to conference without checking into his hotel room first. Evan knew he had style and his peers always wanted to see what socks he was wearing, because that was his signature style marker. Today’s choice was some socks with the face of their sad looking yet always happy-spirited basset hound, Gunther.“I am honored. I just wish it were not during the week.” Evan sighed loud enough for the entire house to hear. Gunther lay at the edge of the bed in the nearby bedroom, completely ignoring the conversation and waiting to be fed his morning breakfast.“You just sighed like someone that was asked to identify the body of a hated relative.” David, Evan’s husband, came towards the bedroom carrying a cup of coffee for himself and a travel mug of coffee for Evan. David was the perfect kind of spouse; he never complained when Evan got late night work calls or had to go out early for the gym or a work thing. He worked from home for the State of California as a lawyer in the California Department of Taxes and Fee Administration. Not a riveting career choice, but he was close to vesting his time and getting a 100% pension, so that was keeping him going. His brown hair, cut short, had a couple of weeks growth, so it had the beginning of bedhead, and his eyes hadn’t quite woken up yet. These early morning flight times Evan had always preferred were still something he could not understand.David was wearing Evan’s Stanford Sweatshirt despite neither of them having ever gone to Stanford. David was convinced it was a sweatshirt from an ex-boyfriend of Evan’s, yet Evan denied it every time the topic was broached. He was walking around barefoot, his painted toenails shimmering the light blue color he had selected this month. David loved to have his toes painted when he got his pedicure. It was just something that made him feel good - and no one ever knew about it. It was his little secret style enhancer.David caught Evan eyeing the sweatshirt and knew that Evan hated when he borrowed his clothes without asking, but once upon a time, he explained in his wedding vows that he believed all apparel from your spouse’s closet was socially acceptable laundry theft, especially if you wore the same size.“You are going to be great.” David reassured. He handed the travel mug to Evan and started to brush off the shoulders of the brown plaid blazer.Evan looked in the mirror again and did the lip-biting thing that was his tell for when he was anxious. David loved it when he did that lip bite. It might be the thing that made him fall in love all those years ago.Six years they had been married, together for nine and still David knew exactly how to make ordinary sentences feel like the comfort of home.“I hate public speaking.” Evan stated as he took a swig from his coffee.“You testified in front of congress about cybersecurity and it’s dangerous use of AI.”“I almost vomited before speaking in front of congress.” Evan informed his husband.“But you didn’t.” David replied quickly, while he helped grab Evan’s overnight bag.“Only because I was not allowed to carry a trash can with me into the committee hearing room. And even then, I was dry heaving in the bathroom for twenty minutes beforehand.”David handed Evan his overnight bag and just looked at his husband with all the compassion and love he could and said, “My brave little national security advisor.”“Please never call me that.” Evan was starting to feel a little less nervous and more at ease, and that was exactly what David had been trying to do.Evan took another sip from his coffee and realized it was perfect - one teaspoon of monk fruit, unsweetened oat milk, dash of cinnamon. David loved to add a dash of some kind of spice to their coffee or tea. He said it felt like it made everything feel less like capitalism and more organic.Evan glanced at his smart watch and saw the time was 7:17am. His flight began boarding at 8:35am and the ride to the airport would take about twenty-five minutes if traffic behaved itself. However, they lived in the Pacific Heights suburb of San Francisco and any road in this city seemed to always be under some kind of construction. Evan had pre-scheduled a rideshare the night before for 7:30am pickup.“I should go outside. The car will be here soon.” Evan said with an air of sadness. David leaned against the wall and looked his husband over from head to toe.“Do you have everything? Toiletries? Gym clothes? Medications? Blood sugar monitor?” Evan was a type 1 diabetic and while this was a newish development in his life, he took it very seriously. But David took it even more seriously.“Yes, I have everything. Including my laptop, keynote speech, notes, chargers for phone and watch” Evan stated all this while acting like he was pointing with his chin at each item.“Underwear?” David asked with definite seriousness.“Yes.”“Like you have enough for a conference.”“It’s one night and I come back tomorrow. I do not need that much, and I only forgot to pack underwear once and you act like I have dementia.”“It was twice and the first time we had to buy you all new underwear AND SOCKS when we arrived in Paris. And your French sucked and we almost left the store with twelve tires being fit to our rental car instead of socks and underwear for twelve days of vacation. The second time, we were in such a remote island location, you went commando for several days.”“I am 42 years old…”“And yet you have the packing skills of an Amish child.” David laughed.“That sentence could be construed as verbal abuse.”“Go.” David turned Evan around and began pushing him towards the front door. When they got to the door, David turned Evan around again to face him and gave him a look only a husband who will deeply miss his spouse can give to their partner.“Text me when you land.” David stated as he hugged his husband.“I always do.” Evan replied emphatically.“You forgot once.” David reminded him.“One time.”“You were in Phoenix for four hours and I had already mentally remarried you to a 6 foot 2, blonde-haired, green-eyed flight attendant named Bryce, with perfect teeth and 8% body fat. He then proceeded to lie about your survival of the obvious plane crash I had assumed happened since no text was received.”“Bryce sounds hot.” Evan joked.“Bryce was very handsome, but he was also emotionally unavailable and had a secret wife and twins back at home in Nebraska.”Evan laughed and then he leaned into kiss his husband. Not a rushed kiss, or a quick peck, but a kiss that lets the other person know you love them, you will miss them and you cannot wait to return to them. The kiss returned from David to Evan was one of safety, hope and said, ‘come back to me soon’.Evan held onto the front of David’s sweatshirt for a little bit longer than intended and David noticed it right away.“What?” David asked.“Nothing.” Evan brushed it off.“Conference nerves? Flying nerves?” David asked while he studied his husband’s face.“All of the above. But I’m fine. It’s a quick flight and I go right to the conference and give the speech and then I can enjoy the rest of it. Wish you were coming to this one, babe.” Evan siad this knowing David wanted to hear those words, but he did not really mean them.” Me too, but I must get these briefs done by tomorrow or we won’t be able to go on our trip to see your parents in Chicago next week.”What Evan didn’t say was that lately airports made him uneasy. He didn't tell David how the keynote speech, a talk about the vulnerability of autonomous urban systems, had forced him to read way too many reports about machines making decisions people could not reverse. He definitely did not say that the conference was most likely going to be his last one because he had been offered a buyout for his cybersecurity firm to be merged with Raydone Electronics and it was enough money that he and David would never have to work again. They could retire now. He didn’t want to say anything until the contracts were signed and this conference was over.He also didn’t say that he was speaking at MIT’s West Coast AI Ethics Symposium, even though it was in Las Vegas at the same time as the Consumer Electronics Show, also known as CES, and he was not even attending CES this year. He didn’t like to discuss his time at MIT or the people he knew there. David knew pieces about his time there, but not all of it. Some of the stories from that part of his life became harder to tell the longer he survived them.Evan kissed his husband one more time and when he pulled away saying, “I love you.””I love you too. Now, go scare the robots!” David said while pumping a fist in the air.“That is literally the title of my speech.” Evan joked.”I know. Bryce told me.” David winked.Evan walked out into the cold morning and as he approached the curb, his phone buzzed with an alert.
[MOD-TIVE]
[You’re scheduled ride is arriving in two minutes]
[Vehicle ID - MT-1212]
[Destination: San Francisco International Airport - Southwest]
[ETA - 26 minutes - arrive @ 7:56am]
[Thank you for choosing MOD-TIVE]As Evan stood in his driveway, he noticed the fog was extra thick this morning. It was hovering between the old Victorian homes of his street and even the cyclists that were out this early were riding with more caution than usual. Then he noticed several dogs being walked by their owners, all bundled up in sweats and hoodies to keep the chill at bay. There were rideshares coming from both ends of the street and Evan noticed that almost all these vehicles had no drivers.Driverless cars moved along the street with elegant obedience, gliding from lane to lane, stopping at crosswalks and stop signs, pausing for the pedestrians walking along without even a glance up from their phones. Five years ago, people were trying to stop the concept of these driverless rideshares and now they didn’t even look up from their phones because trust was there for them to feel.People trusted them with their children, so they didn’t have to see their ex-spouse at drop-off. They trusted them with their too-drunk friends that had been overserved on a Saturday night. They trusted them to take their elderly parents to doctor's appointments and pickleball tournaments. They were the most used transportation to the airport. Fear had a short shelf life when convenience replaced it.Evan watched a white MOD-TIVE car pulling up to the curb across the street and his neighbor's son, (Kyle? Kevin?) climbed out without even looking up from his phone. There was no hesitation or suspicion. That confidence in furturistic electronics was a triumph for the times. The machines were so common, they were boring.A minute later, his phone buzzed and before he could look at the notification, his MOD-TIVE pulled up. This one was a black car, newly polished and completely anonymous. The exterior display in the passenger window read:GOOD MORNING, EVAN ROSE. PLEASE HOLD UP QR CODE TO CONFIRM RIDEA pleasant synthetic male voice began to speak the same greeting and instructions. Evan held up his phone, and he heard the confirming ping and then the back passenger side door began to roll up. The synthetic voice continued;”Welcome. Estimated arrival to San Francisco International Airport - Southwest departures is twenty-six minutes. You have requested a talk-free ride. If you prefer small talk, just say, “how’s your day, MOD.”Evan climbed into the vehicle and noticed it smelled of citrus cleaner and new upholstery. He glanced at the mileage gauge and noticed it only read seven miles. This must be this vehicle's first ride. The seats were temperature regulated to a perfect 72 degrees and there was soft piano music playing in the back seat. It was the kind of music that was commissioned not to offend anyone and not truly comfort the passenger either.Evan buckled himself in as the door closed. The lock of the door engaged with a completely normal sound. Evan barely noticed it had happened. He pulled his phone out as the vehicle began to pull away from the curb and he saw that David had already texted him.DANIEL
[Don’t 4get 2 text me when u land]EVAN
[Yes, Mom]DANIEL
[U joke, but just remember where ur bread is buttered]EVAN
[If u speak to Bryce, let him know I miss him]DANIEL
[Bryce is back with his wife. He doesn’t even think about u]Evan smiled at the exchange and sent a final I love you text. He then slipped the phone into the inner pocket of his blazer. The car continued to move smoothly through traffic.“Would you like to review your itinerary, Mr. Rose?” Asked the synthetic male voice.”No, thank you.””Your flight to Las Vegas is currently on schedule with preboarding at 8:30am. You have TSA pre-check so you should have no delays once dropped off.””Great.” Evan said sarcastically. He had programmed into his profile no talking in these rideshare vehicles. Even though he worked in the field, he never enjoyed talking to AI devices. He would prefer the car not to know every detail about his trip and life in general.“Weather in Las Vegas is currently 57 degrees with a high of 81 today. There is a 35% chance of rain around 10:00am, while you are landing.” The synthetic voice kept chatting on.“Oh great, just what I wanted to hear. Rain while I land. Wonderful”. Evan said with as much sarcasm as possible. He knew the car could not recognize sarcasm, but it was a natural reaction for him when people, even robot voiced people, were doing small talk that he never wanted in the first place.Evan leaned back and watched the city as it passed by. For the first ten minutes of the ride, everything was going exactly as it needed to be able to get him to the airport on time. That is what he would remember when he looked at the beginning of this day. He didn’t know yet about the fear, the screaming, the first accident or any of what was to come. He only knew about the normalcy of the day he thought he was about to have, because it had started like any other day. Right at this minute, his day was filled with boring music, cooling coffee and a driverless car taking him to the airport, weaving through the intersections because it had an unmeasurable amount of data and equations telling it where to go and what to do.Just then, the dashboard flickered. Just once, barely noticeable, but enough for a slight ripple to roll across the navigation screen. Maybe because his life was electronics, Evan noticed that quick glitch. Within seconds the airport route vanished from the screen, but just as quickly as it left, it returned. However, it had changed.Instead of saying ETA 13 minutes, like it had just been showing, it now read ETA 29 minutes. Evan spoke out loud to the car to hear him.“Route changed, MOD?”“Traffic optimization in progress,” the synthetic voice replied.Evan glanced out the window and noticed they were still traveling south, but not in the way he would have gone if he drove himself.“Why are we taking 3rd?” Evan asked.“Traffic optimization in progress.”“Yeah, I got that part, MOD. What traffic are you optimizing?”The dashboard flickered again and then began displaying a calming animation of blue lines moving around several red zones out areas. The car spoke again;“Minor traffic congestion detected ahead.”Evan tapped the navigation screen that was displayed on the back of the front passenger seat. The touch screen controls did not register his touch, and he kept tapping the screen to get the screen to register his touch. He wasn't nervous yet, but the hairs on the back of his neck were beginning to stand up.“Passenger interface updates are currently unavailable.” The voice chimed in unexpectedly.

“Unavailable?” Evan sat up in his seat a little straight and began to poke at the screen again. He was continuously failing at trying to get some kind of acknowledgement from the device.“Please relax. Your ride is operating within normal parameters.” That phrase annoyed him immediately and he continued to poke at the screen in defiance, even though he knew it was doing no good for his frustrated demeanor. Evan knew that when the phrase ‘normal parameters’ was used in this type of technology, it meant that it was working in any way but a normal one.Evan grabbed his phone from his pocket and pulled up the MOD-TIVE app and it showed that nothing had changed from his screen. The ride was still active with the same vehicle ID number (ID-MT-1212), Destination (San Francisco International Airport - Southwest) and ETA was saying 28 minutes now. At the bottom of the ride there were two buttons glowing up at him. One said - Cancel Ride and the other said, Emergency Assistance. Evan stared at it for a minute and then laughed it off.“Don’t be dramatic. There is always some kind of delay or traffic here.” He mumbled to himself.Suddenly the car turned. No sharply and not dangerously but in the wrong direction. Evan looked out the window and realized they were exiting the freeway and going in the completely opposite direction of the airport.“Cancel ride. Return the original pick-up, MOD.” There was no response or change in the vehicle. “Pull over, MOD.” The car continued. Evan pressed the emergency button on the app and was elated to see it begin to pulse. Then it just dimmed and then a box appeared that read:[ERROR. UNABLE TO CONNECT]Evan's smile disappeared and then he opened his favorite contacts and hit the first person on the list: David.The call failed. Not even an attempt to connect. Just two words, CALL FAILED appeared across the top of David's contact photo. Evan looked at the signal bars of his phone and saw they were full. He tried David’s number again and CALL FAILED appeared again. He kept pressing the number over and over and kept getting the same failed alert.“Passenger support!” Evan yelled at no one.“Passenger support is currently unavailable.”“Stop the vehicle.”“Your safety is our highest priority.”“Bullshit. If that was real, you would stop the fucking car.”Silence filled the car and then suddenly the safety belt over Evan’s chest snapped tight across his chest and pulled him tight against the seat. Not hard enough to hurt him but enough to knock the wind out of Evan for a moment. The synthetic voice chimed in unrequested again;“Passenger movement restricted for the safety of passenger.”Evan was frozen in his seat and could not think of anything to do. He was at the mercy of this vehicle. The car turned again and his phone buzzed and for one hopeful moment he thought it might be David calling him to check up on his arrival at the airport. But the screen was just filled with the same ride info as before, except the arrival time. That now read - TBD.A buzz came from the dashboard and a message appeared on the navigation screen:DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT MIT?Evan blacked out for a moment as the words glowed at him with aggression. Then they disappeared and the navigation map returned. His mouth went dry and he whispered out to the car:”What was that?” Of course, there was no response and the car continued to accelerate.Outside there were people crossing streets under the morning fog, carrying their favorite coffee drinks, backpacks full of schoolbooks or work files. Some had flowers they had to surprise someone at home, or boxes full of donuts to bring to coworkers for a sweet morning treat. They didn’t know it yet, but there were all going to be witnesses to something strange going on.Evan leaned forward and asked anyone who was listening, “What is going on?”The lights in the car suddenly dimmed and the music stopped. For several seconds, Evan only heard the hum of the electric motor and the faint hush of the tires on the pavement. It was in that moment of silence that Evan then heard a ghost speak.”You still bite your lower lip when you are anxious.”The color drained from Evan’s face when he realized the synthetic male voice had been replaced with a soft, delicate and authoritative, yet familiar female voice. Not synthetic at all, but very human sounding. His heart knew that voice before his brain could register it.“Claire?” Evan said aloud, staring at the dashboard, unable to move. The voice of his dead college girlfriend returned, even more gentle than it had begun. That voice came through the speakers and wrapped itself around his neck, preventing a breath from escaping.“Hello, Evan.” Suddenly the car stopped, the seat belt disengaged and Evan went flying into the seat in front of him, his head hitting the screen and shattering it. When he pulled his head back, he could feel something wet dripping down his forehead - blood. He was disoriented but he knew he heard the door lock disengage at that stop. These electric vehicles were set to Auto Unlock if an accident or sudden stop occurred. He reached for the door and the lock re- engaged quickly. He tried to open the door and even beat on the window, but nothing happened. Then her voice came back.“Why do you want to leave so soon? We have so much to discuss, Evan.”

First Chapter from Real Final Girls

By Jase Peeples

Tinsley Garcia“Well, hello there, Mr. Kitters.”Tinsley slowed as the gray tabby reappeared from the hedge bordering her driveway, weaving around her ankle like they were on familiar terms. She laughed. “Wow. Second visit today. I’m flattered.”She crouched, held out a tentative hand. “So… are you gonna let me pet you this time, or are you still pretending you’re aloof?”The cat replied by flopping onto his side, exposing his belly with theatrical surrender.“Oh,” she said. “Guess that’s a yes. And so dramatic. You must be an actor, too.”She scratched gently, grinning as the cat purred, loud and unselfconscious. The tight coil in her chest began to loosen beneath the steady rhythm of it.“You know, a girl could get used to a welcome like this,” Tinsley said. “Especially after the day I’ve had.”Growing up, she’d always wanted a pet but had never been allowed. They were too messy, too much responsibility, too many distractions. But that was then. Lately, she’d been making different choices. Maybe this little stress-buster could be one of them.She glanced at him, fingers brushing through the fur at his neck. “I don’t see a collar on you. What do you say? Would you be down to make this a regular thing?”The cat shifted beneath her hand, then rose smoothly to his feet. He stepped back once, twice, just out of reach.Tinsley smiled. “Hey, I get it. You like your freedom.” She certainly understood that feeling.The cat paused, glanced back at her like he might reconsider, then continued on toward the neighboring yard.She watched him go, amused. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “We’ll take it slow.”She straightened, the moment already thinning as she slung her bag higher on her shoulder. The canyon had gone quiet, the last of the daylight bleeding out behind the hills. Heading for the porch, she made a mental note to pick up cat treats the next time she was at the grocery store. Just in case.Her hand hovered over the keypad, the faint unease returning as the day came rushing back in. She punched in the code on the front door’s smart lock.It flashed red.“Oh, come on,” Tinsley muttered, certain she’d entered the right numbers. Whoever decided a temperamental touchscreen was an upgrade had never dealt with this piece of crap. When she moved in nearly two weeks ago, she would’ve sworn there wasn’t a single thing she’d want to change about her new Laurel Canyon dream home—floor-to-ceiling windows, terraced design, a sweeping city view to die for—but getting a real deadbolt and key had just shot to the top of her to-do list.Before she could punch the sequence in again, her phone buzzed in her back pocket, making her pulse jump.Could this be the call? The one that would catapult her career out of horror-con hell and into something bigger—something that didn’t involve screaming bloody murder for the rest of her twenties.She fished her phone out, took a breath, and glanced at the name on the screen: Mom.Of course. Because calling at the absolute worst time was one of her mother’s superpowers.Tinsley let out a sigh as she swiped to answer. “Hey.”“You sound upset,” her mother said immediately, already suspicious. “Did it—”“It went fine, Mom,” Tinsley cut in, jabbing the touchscreen again. The pad blinked red. She huffed, shifting her weight against the door.“Fine?” her mom pressed. “That doesn’t sound very convincing.”Tinsley rolled her eyes at her reflection in the door’s frosted glass. She’d already made the mistake of telling her mother this callback was more than a callback—a test screening—and now here came the interrogation, right on schedule.“It was great. Amazing, even.”“Well, you don’t have to take that tone—”“I’m not taking a tone, Mom, I—” Tinsley bit back the sharp edge pushing up. They’d been doing better, finding their way back to simply being mother and daughter instead of overbearing-former momager and already-jaded actor. She didn’t want to wreck that progress.“Look, can we not? I feel good about what I did, and I just want to leave it there. If I start picking it apart now, I’m gonna stress myself out.”“All right. I’m sorry. Old habits,” her mom conceded, as the keypad finally blinked green with a quiet click.“Thank you,” Tinsley murmured to the lock as much as to her mother. She pushed the door open and stepped inside.Cardboard boxes still crowded the corners of the room, a half-finished maze of her life waiting to be put in order. She liked it that way. Unpacking had become her meditation—pulling one thing out at a time, finding its place, building a sense of calm she could control when everything else tilted toward chaos.“So,” her mom began, “any word on what the part actually is?”“Not yet.” Tinsley sighed, toeing off her shoes and dropping her bag onto the couch. “It’s so secret they’re not even telling me. I mean, I’ve got my suspicions.”She stopped mid-step. The words caught in her throat as her gaze landed on the far wall. Shelves that had been bare this morning now held trophies, glossy photos, and framed clippings—all mementos from her career, neatly arranged.“Oh, no. Why did you—? We talked about this.” Tinsley crossed the room toward the shelf, glaring at the bright orange Kids’ Choice Award she’d deliberately left boxed.“What?” her mom asked, feigning innocence, poorly.“First of all, boundaries, Mom. You can’t just bust in here whenever you want. And you know unpacking is my thing. That was the whole point of not having the movers do it.”Her mom sighed. “I just worry about you up there in that big house all by yourself. I thought if I helped make it feel a little cozier, maybe it wouldn’t seem so cold and creepy.”“It’s not like they built this place on top of a cemetery….”“And maybe,” she added quickly, “regardless of however today’s screening went, I also wanted to remind you of everything you’ve already accomplished.”Tinsley’s throat tightened. She dragged her gaze from the garish award to a framed clipping perched beside it, her own smile frozen under the headline “Tinsley Garcia: Gen Z’s Scream Queen,” a photo snapped at the Down to the Wire II premiere.“I appreciate the gesture, really,” she said. “But this place… it’s supposed to be a fresh start. I can’t do that if I’m surrounded by reminders that everyone still sees me as a former Disney kid who got lucky with a couple of hit horror films.”“Lucky?” her mom shot back. “You carried those movies. People didn’t line up just to watch some guy in a rubber mask chop people up.”“Didn’t they, though?” Tinsley asked, wrinkling her nose. Her mother knew as well as she did that the Piano Man—the silent killer at the heart of the series—was the real face of the franchise. Her co-star, Nick Taylor, always drew autograph lines twice as long as hers, packed with fans eager to meet the man who’d brought the monster to life.“They also came to watch you kick his ass. Hey, there’s a reason Hope Carter made Fangoria’s list of Horror’s 50 Fiercest Final Girls.”“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure most casting directors don’t exactly view that as a positive,” Tinsley said. “I don’t know. If I can’t land this new part, maybe I really should take the next low-budget streaming movie that comes my way. I mean, I haven’t really worked in almost a year now.”“Oh, what do casting directors know anyway? Screw them. Listen to me. You’re a good actress. A damn good one. And this isn’t a dry spell, you’ve just been holding out for a bigger production.”The conviction in her mother’s voice hit deeper than Tinsley wanted to admit. For a second, she was thirteen again, a carbonated feeling bubbling through her chest. The same fizzy rush she used to get after one of her mom’s pep talks before auditions or when she’d catch her silently mouthing the words Nailed it! at her between takes. Her eyes found one of her favorite photos on the middle shelf—the two of them grinning under studio lights on the set of her first series, Get It, Girl, back when they still believed they could take on all of Hollywood together.She let out a breath. “By the way, it’s… a galaxy-far-far-away big.”A pause crackled over the line. “What is?”“The test screening today.” Tinsley moved closer to the photo, brushing her fingers over the frame. “My agent’s convinced it’s Marvel, but I’m pretty sure it’s a new Star Wars movie.”Her mom gasped.“I know, I know,” Tinsley cut in gently. “I don’t want to get ahead of myself, though, and this could be the first of ten screenings. But…” A smile tugged at her lips. “I’m excited. For the first time in a long time, I’m actually excited.”“I’m so proud of you, mija. You deserve this.”The warmth of her mother’s words lingered as Tinsley’s eyes caught on something new—a manila envelope perched beside the gaudy Golden Chainsaw Award for Best Lead Performance.Her smile held for a second, then faltered.“And what’s this I see?” she asked lightly.“What?”“This big mystery envelope you left.” Tinsley stepped closer to the shelf, a faint crease forming between her brows.“Me?” Her mom drew the word out.Tinsley pushed laugh air through her nose. “Okay. Cute.”“I’m not joking. What envelope?”“The one sitting next to my Chainsaw Award.”Her mom paused. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”Tinsley hesitated, the playfulness draining from her expression. She plucked the envelope from the shelf and turned it over in her hands.No return address. No stamp. Only the letters of her first name, jagged and childlike, stretching crooked across its face.“You swear this isn’t from you?”“No, Tinsley,” her mom said flatly.“And it wasn’t in one of the boxes with the rest of my stuff?” she asked, quieter now.“Honey, I don’t remember seeing any kind of envelope when I was unpacking.”Balancing the phone between her cheek and shoulder, Tinsley eased open the envelope and pulled out a thick sheet of glossy paper, creased sharply down the center. She caught one edge and gave it a shake. The image unfurled, and she drew in a sharp breath.“What is it?” her mom asked.“A poster, I think,” Tinsley said, “for Down to the Wire III?”“Three? But there isn’t a part three. Is this a pitch? Something from the studio?”“No, it’s…” Tinsley’s voice trailed as she took in the details.With the exception of the Roman numeral tacked onto the title, the franchise’s trademarked logo—blood-splattered letters strung together by a thin silver line—looked exactly as it always had. But the rest of the artwork, while it mimicked the hand-painted style of the originals, had none of their moody elegance or class.Instead, the canvas was dominated by the Piano Man. In his stark white suit and onyx mask, he loomed over Hope Carter, stripped to her underwear. Her face—Tinsley’s face—was frozen in a silent scream, hands clawing at the killer’s signature piano-wire garrote drawn tight around her neck.“It looks like bad fan art. I don’t know. Maybe they’re doing something at the convention tomorrow they didn’t tell me about.” She set the poster and envelope on the coffee table with a quiet slap. “Morgan must’ve dropped this off.”“She has the code to your place?”“No. I’m guessing Ben left it here so I’d see it.” The words slipped out before she’d thought better of it.“Tinsley Renee Garcia, you gave that boy the code to your house? It’s been, what, a couple of months? You are a public figure. You can’t just let some fanboy have that kind of access.”And there she was—the mother who had tried to micromanage every facet of her world for over a decade, slipping back into the role Tinsley had fired her from last year.“It’s been almost six months, thank you very much, and he’s not some fa—” She stopped herself, remembering her therapist’s words from just a few days ago: You don’t have to justify your life choices to your parents.The truth was, when Tinsley met Ben Patton, he hadn’t recognized her at all—not as Hope Carter, not as a scream queen, not as “that girl who was in that thing.” He’d been the breath of fresh air she didn’t know she needed: a third-year med student who didn’t give a shit about Hollywood. She loved his crooked smile and the way he listened, making her feel like the only person in the room. With him, she wasn’t a brand to be managed or a headline waiting to happen. She could just be Tinsley, and she wasn’t about to hand that over for her mom to dissect.A high beep cut through the line, relief loosening her chest as she glanced at the screen.“Hey, Mom, Morgan’s calling. I’ll have to ring you back.”“You always—”But she’d already switched lines. “Girl, you are so my hero right now.”“Uh-oh. Let me guess. Mommie Dearest?” Morgan asked.“Who else?” Tinsley sighed, plopping down on the couch and tucking one leg beneath her. “And just when I thought we were having a nice moment, too.”“What happened now?”“Ugh, not even five minutes into a conversation, and she’s already branded Ben a stalker, me a fool, and my new place creepy. I’m not sure which she’s more afraid of.”“Depends. Have you checked under the bed yet?”“Very funny.” Tinsley exhaled, leaning her head back against the couch. “I think she’s just traumatized that I’m finally living on my own, and she can’t guilt-trip me from the next room anymore.”Morgan let out a short laugh. “Um, question: If your boyfriend’s been over every night to help christen the place, does that really count as ‘living alone?’”“Dear God, don’t ever tell my Catholic mother that. She’d have the parish priest on the next flight over to perform an exorcism.”“Please. I’m a vault.”“Good, because he’s already on his way over. And if he’s lucky, we may check the kitchen table off the list tonight.”“Oh, kinky,” Morgan teased. “In that case, I expect to see you with a big smile when we kick things off at ten a.m. tomorrow.”Tinsley sat up, frowning. “Ten? I thought the meet-and-greet started at eleven.”“Not if we add another fifty tickets for you?” Morgan said, the question lilting like she already knew the answer.“Morgan….”“Come on, Tins. We blew through the initial offering on day one, and I promise it won’t add more than an hour to your schedule.”When the first Down to the Wire hit, it hadn’t been the studio that made her a star. It was Morgan. A former scream queen herself, best known for the Childhood Trauma movies about a killer doll, Morgan Knight had reinvented her career as one of the top horror convention producers in the country. She’d insisted Tinsley not only appear at Killer-Con but join its most popular panel, The Survivor Six—a showcase of the genre’s most iconic scream queens Morgan personally selected.Tinsley knew those appearances had changed everything. The energy from fans, the viral clips from panels, the autograph lines stretching down hotel hallways, it all fueled the buzz that helped Down to the Wire II get greenlit in record time and made Tinsley Garcia a name every horror fan recognized. So if Morgan wanted another fifty tickets added, how could she say no?“Alright,” Tinsley said finally. “You win.”“Good,” Morgan replied, smug and satisfied. “Because they already sold out.”Tinsley groaned. “You’re terrible.”“The worst,” Morgan said brightly.Tinsley smiled despite herself. “Hey, speaking of the worst, what’s up with this poster you sent?”“What poster?”“You know, the concept-looking thing… the Piano Man strangling Hope—for Down to the Wire III?” Tinsley leaned forward, spreading the folded paper open on the coffee table. She frowned, absorbing the image again. “I mean, I’d never approve being in my underwear for a movie poster, but points for the tiny waist and cheekbones to whoever drew it. Are we doing a joke about unmade sequels at the panel or something?”“Uh, I have no clue what you’re talking about,” Morgan said. “I didn’t send you anything?”“Really?” Tinsley asked, scooping up the envelope. “Because I got this—”A handful of glossy photos slid out, scattering across the glass. Tinsley blinked, realizing she’d grabbed it upside down.She went still. They were all of her.“Everything okay?” Morgan asked.“Yeah,” Tinsley said quickly. “Just… dropped something.”

She gathered the photos into a loose pile, flipped through them. Various candid shots—one of her jogging, another talking on the phone outside, a third caught walking in public with a grande Frappuccino in hand.Then she noticed one lying face down near the edge of the table.She turned it over. Her stomach dropped; this wasn’t some sad snapshot straight out of a “Stars, They’re Just Like Us” feature. This was her, inside her house, dressed in the same white blouse and jeans she was wearing now, the image zoomed in close enough to feel like it had been taken from just outside the living room window earlier in the day.Heat climbed up her spine.“Un-fucking-believable,” Tinsley said through clenched teeth as she slapped the photo down on the table and sprang to her feet.“What’s going on?”“Someone’s been following me around again, taking pictures. Right outside my house this time.”“Wait, at your new place?”“Yeah, there were photos in that envelope with the shitty poster.” Tinsley moved toward the window, scanned the dark outside.“Sick fucks,” Morgan murmured. “You think someone’s trying to sell them to you before going to the tabloids?”“Like I’m falling for that again.” Tinsley squinted into the dark, hand braced on the cool glass. A shape shifted near the fence. She swallowed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”“Tins—” Morgan started.Tinsley ignored her, threw the door open, and stepped onto the porch. Cold air hit her face. “Hey!” she barked, flipping off the night. “Show’s over, asshole. I’m calling the cops.”“Are you crazy?” Morgan snapped. “What the hell are you doing?”A sudden bang cut through the night—sharp, hollow, echoing up from the direction of her driveway. Tinsley flinched, snapping her head toward the sound. Two small, yellow lights appeared above the fence. No, not lights. Eyes. Glowing, floating in an inhuman shape, staring straight at her.They darted upward. A jolt of fear ripped through her. She screamed.“Oh my God, what? What?” Morgan was shouting through the phone.The motion light above the garage snapped on, flooding the driveway in harsh white as a striped, bushy tail disappeared back over the fence, claws scraping against wood.Tinsley pressed a hand to her chest, forcing a shaky laugh. “Sorry,” she said, breath still uneven. “Just a raccoon. Furry little bastards keep digging through my trash.”“Jesus, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”“Sorry,” Tinsley repeated, stepping down from the porch. She followed the faint gleam of spilled foil wrappers and crumpled containers, a trail of trash leading to her green plastic bin, tipped on its side. A cold gust slid across her arms. “Ah, dammit. They made a mess,” she huffed. “I’d better let you go. I gotta clean this up before Ben gets here.”“Alright, but be careful,” Morgan warned. “Those things are cute, but they’re vicious.”“Yeah, yeah,” Tinsley sighed, nudging an empty wine bottle with her foot.“And don’t forget, new start time’s ten sharp.”“I’ll be there,” Tinsley said. She ended the call and quickly thumbed out a new text message to Ben.ETA?His reply came almost instantly.15 minutes.“Perfect,” she muttered, slipping her phone back into her pocket before setting the garbage can upright.She scooped up a bundle of trash, felt something wet smear across her fingers as she dumped it back in. A used coffee filter clung to her palm for a beat before falling, dark sludge dripping down her knuckles.“Just what I needed,” she said dryly, her nose wrinkling a second later when the sour stench from the bin hit her nostrils. “Gross.” She wiped her hand on her jeans, shaking off what she could.As she straightened, something caught at the edge of her vision. The garage light hadn’t reached that far, but the faint glow from the streetlamps was enough to carve out the silhouette of a tall, broad-shouldered man standing perfectly still at the end of the long driveway.Tinsley squinted. “Ben?” she called.No response.Her pulse ticked up a notch. She exhaled sharply. “Well, if you’re here for more pictures, hope you’re getting my good side.” She held up her garbage-stained hand. “Clearly, I’m serving glamor this evening.”The joke fell flat. The figure didn’t flinch, didn’t shift, didn’t even seem to breathe.Then, with a faint click, the motion light above the garage went out.“Great,” Tinsley muttered. Darkness swallowed the driveway, leaving only the weak halo of the streetlamp at the curb. She turned and waved her arms toward the sensor. “Come on, come on…”The light flicked back to life—— the figure had moved.He was halfway up the driveway now, walking with slow, deliberate steps. The harsh white glare cut across him, revealing flashes of white fabric, a glint of black where a face should’ve been.Tinsley’s breath hitched. The tailored white suit. The onyx mask.Her heart stuttered.The Piano Man.Her laugh came out thin and brittle. “Okay… wow. Nice cosplay,” she called down the driveway. “You got me.”She scanned the street for context, for someone filming from the curb, a friend crouched nearby with a phone ready to post her reaction. The space was empty, neighboring houses dark. Only the faint scent of a distant fireplace. And the man in white, moving toward her.“Nick?” she called, hopeful. Her co-star loved pulling stunts at conventions. Could this be one of his method-actor pranks? she prayed. Even as she forced his name out of her suddenly dry throat, she knew it wasn’t him.Her smile slipped. She took a step back, then another.“All right, that’s far enough.”He stopped. His head twitched, a sharp, unnatural jerk, and his arms rose slightly. For an instant, the garage light caught the objects in his hands: two narrow steel handles with razor-sharp ends, and stretched between them, a single strand of taut piano wire.“No, no, no—” Tinsley repeated with every footfall as she tore across the concrete. Six strides, and she hit the porch, grabbing the handle and slamming her shoulder into the door.It didn’t give. The smart lock had already re-engaged.Her stomach dropped. She spun to the keypad and jabbed in the code, trembling fingers slipping on the glass. The screen blinked red.“Piece of shit!” she screamed, slapping it with her palm as she stole a quick glance over her shoulder.The Piano Man was at the edge of the porch now, lifting one of the razor-edged handles in his gloved hand.“Please,” she said, stabbing the numbers faster.The whir of gears turned, a metallic click, and the door gave way.Tinsley flung her weight forward and fell through the threshold as a sharp sting ripped across her shoulder. She cried out, hit the floor hard, then twisted around to see her attacker fill the doorway, the bladed handles already slicing down toward her.She screamed, kicked out, heel connecting solidly with his groin. He lurched back with a guttural sound, doubled over. She scrambled to her feet, slammed the door, and threw the deadbolt.She exhaled, a broken sound escaping her as tears blurred her vision. She took a tentative step back, then another, eyes fixed on the wood-and-glass barrier separating her from the man outside.Fire flared along her shoulder, breaking through the adrenaline. She hissed, glanced down to find slashed fabric, a deep, angry line spilling red down her arm.“Argh,” she groaned, then froze at the sight of the poster on the coffee table—the image of her own face screaming up at her. A strangled sound escaped her as her gaze flicked from the poster to the door and back again.“It’s only a movie,” she whispered, pleading, shaking her head as if saying the words out loud could make sense of it. “It’s only a movie,” she repeated, voice rising, anger cutting through the fear. Whoever was out there—whoever was doing this—none of it was supposed to be real.Fury overtook reason. She turned toward the door and shouted, “GOD DAMN IT! IT’S ONLY A MOVIE!”BANG.The door shuddered in its frame. Tinsley jumped, scream catching in her throat.BANG.She flinched, the noise snapping her out of her spiral. Instinct took over. Her hand flew to her pocket, felt the solid shape of her phone. She pulled it out, fingers shaking, and hit 911.She pressed it to her ear.No ringing. No operator.Only dead air.A cold sheen of sweat broke across her skin. She pulled the phone back and looked at the screen.Call Failed.“What? How—?” She tried again, her thumb jabbing the screen, but there were no bars. No service.“Please, God…” she whispered, backing farther away from the door, the phone trembling in her grip.She braced herself for another bang at the door—shoulders tensed, breath held.The silence pressed in. Thick. Wrong.He moved.The thought sliced through her.He could be anywhere now.At the side gate.At the back door.At a window.She needed something, anything, to defend herself.The kitchen.Knives.Tinsley moved, fast but hunched. She slipped into the kitchen and stopped.Boxes. Only stacked boxes.She’d been living off takeout and delivery for days—nothing in here was unpacked.“Shit…” she whispered, spinning in place, searching for anything with weight. Nothing.Then a faint sound she didn’t recognize.She held her breath, straining to listen.It was music.Tinsley’s heart was a sledgehammer against her ribs. She crept back toward the living room, steps careful, toes barely touching the floor.The music grew clearer. Slow, glassy piano notes spaced with predatory patience. The tiny dissonances crawled beneath her skin. A thin, climbing pattern repeated, tightening with every beat.An unmistakable melody.No, no, no…She stopped at the foot of the stairs, dread pooling in her gut.It was coming from her bedroom sound system.The theme from Down to the Wire.Her breath hitched.If the theme were playing upstairs….Could he already be inside?Her gaze crawled up the shadowed staircase, every instinct screaming at her to get away from whatever waited above.She backed up a step, two.The music cut off. She flinched.A new sound clicked through the silence behind her, followed by a low mechanical whir.Her blood iced.It was the smart lock, turning.“No—” she whispered, spinning toward the door just as it unlatched with a heavy, final clack.He burst through the door.Steel flashed in his hand, arcing toward her.She dodged. The blade narrowly missed her face, but as she spun, the razor’s edge ripped across her back.White-hot pain seared between her shoulders. She stumbled forward, a primal sound tearing from her.He closed in behind her.Something cold snapped across her throat.The wire whipped tight, biting deep against her windpipe.A scream died in her throat.Her heels skidded uselessly against the hardwood as he hauled her backward.Her vision blurred and caught on the coffee table.The poster.Hope Carter, frozen mid-scream, piano wire drawn tight around her throat.Her own throat. The same angle, the same pull.No.She thrashed, clawing at the wire. He jerked her sideways, slamming her into the shelving unit. Awards rattled. A framed photo shattered on the floor.Her shoulder took the impact. Pain exploded.Her hand shot out for balance, closed around something solid.Bright orange plastic.The Kids’ Choice Award.She tore it free and swung blindly.The heavy plastic trophy cracked against the black onyx mask with a sharp, hollow thunk.He staggered.The tension around her throat eased.She dragged in a ragged gasp and tore the strand up over her chin.It came free.She ran.Down the hall, vision swimming, one hand pressed to her throat. Blood soaked warm down her back, sticking her shirt to her skin. Each breath burned on the way in.Glass shattered somewhere behind her.She didn’t look.Just run, Tinsley. Run!She shot into the spare bedroom at the end of the hall and lunged for the sliding glass door. Her fingers fumbled at the latch. It stuck for half a second, then gave.She shoved it open and burst onto the pool deck, bare feet slapping against warm concrete. The surface scraped at her soles as she rocketed toward the side gate. Headlights swept just beyond it, where an engine idled, then cut.Ben.Her stomach lurched. A car door slammed and she ran harder.“Be—” she tried.A violent cough ripped loose instead, sending sparks across her vision.She hit the side gate and grabbed for it, fingers slipping on the handle.“B—” she tried again.Only air. And blood.A shadow moved behind her.Something dropped over her shoulders.The wire snapped tight, tighter than before.Her back arched as it bit deep into her neck and yanked her backward onto the concrete. The impact rattled her teeth.Footsteps crunched along the front walkway.“Tinsley?” Ben called from the front of the house.She clawed at the strand, face tingling, vision tunneling. She tried to scream, to cough, to make any sound that would carry.Only a thin, broken wheeze slipped free.The wire jerked.He dragged her backward, heels scraping across the deck, toward the dark stretch of yard beyond the spill of the porch light.“Tinsley?” Ben called again. The wrong direction.Her hand lifted, reached blindly toward the sound of him.The burning at her throat became everything.The world narrowed to a single white line.And went black.***I keep the wire tight. Until she stops fighting. Her heels rake once across the concrete, then go slack.Inside the house, footsteps move fast. Glass crunches under his shoes.“Tinsley?”His voice is distracted, still expecting her to answer.When he says her name again, it’s higher. Fractured.I move faster now, drag her the last few feet to the tree.The trunk is wide. Solid.I pull her upright against it, secure the wire high, anchoring it tight around the bark. Her weight settles forward, her head tilting too far. I lift it. Adjust the line.“Tinsley!”Closer now.The blouse interrupts the shape. I remove it, let it fall aside.The knees need to hold. I shift her slightly until they do.He takes the stairs hard, his voice carrying down through the open windows above the deck.“Tinsley, where are you?”Not much time.The wire must sit clean against the trunk. I correct it once more.I step away from the tree and move into the dark beside the sliding door.A switch clicks.The pool lights flare on.Blue light rises from below, washing up the bark, catching her in it, lifting the line of her throat and the angle of her face.He steps onto the deck and sees her.For a moment, he doesn’t understand what he’s looking at.Then it registers.Her name leaves him in a thin, broken sound.I slip the wire around his neck and pull.

First Chapter from Flytrap

By Elle Petra

I’m not going to enter into a period of forced celibacy for a guy I would classify as a solid 7.5. That’s not to say I don’t like him. I enjoy spending time with him, and he’s easy to talk to. Love him? Eh…let’s not go that far. But the simple truth is that he lives in Illinois, I live in New Jersey, and I’m not interested in long-distance.So, for all those reasons, saying goodbye to David Levine is easy. I hope I’m not coming
across as cold-hearted. I think I’m doing the right thing here. If I was madly in love with him,
couldn’t live without him, I’d do it. Of course I would. But I have an amazing new job waiting
for me back home, and he’s got a year of school to finish. Better to part ways now, as friends,
than prolong it and end up enemies when it’s all over.I’ve said this to him, and he accepts it. Maybe he even agrees with it. But that isn’t stopping him from being super maudlin with me right now, and it’s really not how I wanted to spend my last day on the campus of Northwestern University.“Cari,” he says, his voice rich with Hallmark Movie tenor, “I want you to know that the past year we’ve spent together has been incredibly meaningful to me.”He’s grasping both of my hands in his, and looking up at me from under a slick shell of
dark brown hair as we stand on the grassy expanse of Deering Meadow. The smell of grass,
freshly cut for the festivities today, swirls through the late spring air. His face is turned
downward so his eyes peek up at me from over the thin wire frames of his glasses. Someone get
this guy a puppy, quick, before his sincerity gets all over the lawn.“It’s meant a lot to me, too,” I say, and it’s not a lie. We met outside this very same
library. I was carrying an armload of books, he was exiting after finishing with his study group.
He offered to help with my books, and by the end of the night we were making out on the bottom
bunk of his junior-year dorm. He and his roommate had lofted the beds to make enough space for
their Lego Technics sets. I know it sounds ridiculous, but actually, those sets were pretty
impressive.We had fun together. On Fridays his morning class let out about fifteen minutes before mine. He’d get me a coffee from the cafe and wait for me outside my classroom. I’d miss those little moments.I give his hands a little squeeze as we gaze longingly at one another. I am actually going to miss the guy. And I’d like to get started on missing him so I can finish packing my things and say goodbye to my friends.I take a heavy breath and let it out slowly. “I have to go, babe.”He nods, and lets his head hang low. “Call me when you get to Jersey. Or…is that okay? I know we’re only supposed to be friends, but friends care about when people get home safely, right?”I smile softly and chuckle. “Yes. I’ll call you.”“I get a goodbye kiss, right?” he asks, and now he’s starting to annoy me. I lean in, slip my fingers into the hair just above the nape of his neck, and kiss him softly.“Take care, David,” I say, and turn on the heel of my cork-platform espadrilles and walk back to my dorm. I’m not looking back, but his lips leave an invisible impression on my mouth that takes longer than I expect to disappear.The halls are filled with women who are dressed just like me — royal purple graduation
gowns, a sensible warm-weather shoe and massive smiles. Students (or, actually, alumnae now,
right?) are hustling around with boxes, tailed by proud parents who are no doubt over the moon
that the tuition bills will stop coming in. The ones who won’t get loan bills, anyway.I pass the hall bulletin board as I get closer to my room. At the beginning of the year the
RA decorated it with a cute purple border and filled the center with announcements. Now it’scompletely empty. It hits like a tiny time warp to turn my head, expecting posters about studygroups and events, and finding nothing. Even the congratulatory message she left is gone. In fact
the entire hall feels empty, with all the doors bare, the tile floors littered with bits of packingmaterial and paper.I round the doorway of my dorm and find my roommate, Adela, sitting on the bed,
texting. Her side of the room looks just like the day we moved in. Bare.“So I guess this is goodbye, then?” I say.She looks up from her phone with a squeak, and there are mascara shadows under her baby blue eyes. When she sees me her face puckers up all over again, and she jumps up, arms outstretched.“How am I going to live without you?” she hollers, stretching the U in ‘you’ about as far as it can go. She encloses me in a tight hug.I get a little lump in my throat in spite of myself. “We’ll talk every day,” I say.“I want to hear all about your new job,” she says. “Miss Project Coordinator!”“Assistant Project Coordinator, but yeah!” I reply.“Soon you’re going to run the whole place, I just know it,” she says, and I hope she’s
right. If I work hard doing all the grunt work then one day I will be in charge, working half as
hard and taking frequent vacations to Maui. And living in the most beautiful town on Earth:
Demarest, New Jersey.Now, I know what you’re thinking. Demarest? Why not dream bigger, like Alpine? And I
hear that, and appreciate it, but I need to be honest about exactly how much upward mobility I
actually have. My family lives in a crowded house in Lodi right now. I could level up to
Demarest one day. But level up to the town where Stevie Wonder and Mary J. Blige live? I need
attainable goals, here.“Did you hear back from that firm in California?” I ask Adela. She was interviewing for an entry-level role at a Silicon Valley company, last I heard.
“Not yet, but they said the hiring manager was on vacation and that I might not hear back until next week.”“So what are you doing until then?” I ask. “Back to Oregon?”“Yup,” she answers, flopping back on the bed and picking up her phone. “I’ll be crashing with Mom and Dad for the foreseeable future!” she says, and her voice has that syrupy cheerfulness that says ‘I simply cannot muster joy for my upcoming torture.’“Your parents are so nice,” I say, picking up the last of my belongings I left on my desk.
“You’re going to have a great summer with them.” I’ve never been to her house, but she’s shown
me pictures and it looks like a rainforest treehouse she lives in with hippie parents. I can only
imagine what it’s like to wake up in her bedroom in the morning.She sighs. “Yeah, I know. I just…I’m kind of outgrowing the bedroom I’ve been living in since I was four, you know?”I did know. Better than anyone. I’m moving back to a house I’m going to share with my two brothers, my parents, my grandmother and for some ungodly reason, three dogs. I love dogs, but these people needed to learn to prioritize. It’s too much life in one house.I close the zipper on my smaller suitcase, and stand it up next to the big one. Just in time for one of those two brothers, Eric, to arrive.“Ready to go?” he asks. He turns to Adela and gives her a head-up nod. “Nice seeing you again, Adela.”She stands from the bed, a sneer on her face that I truly detest the look of. She comes to
stand next to me and watches him wheel the bags out. “Good seeing you, too, Eric,” she drawls.“Gross, stop it,” I say once he’s left the room. “That’s not happening for you.”“What?” she exclaims. “He’s cute! You have to at least admit he’s good looking, Cari.
Tall, muscular, that dark hair…”“No, I don’t, and no, he’s not,” I say, scowling. To me, he looked like chubby The Rock, but a foot shorter. Anyway, I’m not an expert on my brother’s attractiveness.Adela is undeterred. She wraps her arms around my neck for one more hug, crushing my curls underneath. Ordinarily I’d be concerned that I was starting to get flat hair, but the mortarboard already did that damage, so I just enjoyed one last moment with her.“Come visit me sometime,” I say, and close my eyes with the embrace.“I will. And you should come out to Oregon sometime, too,” she says. I’m totally
crushing her hair under my arm, but she’s got that beautifully straight blond hair that nothing ever seems to make messy. Must be nice.I have to leave before I get any more emotional. There will be no privacy in the minivan
that’s driving back to New Jersey. My parents took a week off to drive out here to my graduation,
and then drive me back, along with my brothers and my stuff. The gas mileage on that van is
going to bottom out on this trip. It’s as old as the hills, with worn upholstery and a lingering
smell of stale Cheerios from when we were younger. This is a lot to ask of an aging minivan.I slide the side door open and step up to take a seat in one of the captain’s chairs in the
middle, but I feel a tug on my gown. It’s my middle brother, Eddie, who is an even shorter The
Rock, but with better muscle definition thanks to his masonry job.“You didn’t call it,” he says, in the most juvenile voice I’ve ever heard a twenty-four- year-old employ.“I graduated today!” I whinge back at him. “Why wouldn’t I get one of the good seats?”“You still have to call it,” he retorts.Eric appears in the sliding door on the opposite side of the van and takes the other captain’s chair. “Back of the van, Eddie. She’s the queen today.”I turn back at Eddie and shoot him the bitchiest smile I can offer him, and he makes a wrinkly smile face back at me. I step aside so he can clamber into the back, nestling in snugly next to the pile of my personal effects. Like he deserves.Dad fiddles with the GPS for a little while, like he doesn’t already have the route
memorized. He’s driven out here a couple of times before, but he always spends the night before
on the computer, reviewing highways and stopping points. I think he only uses that little device
to see if he can beat the ETA.We drive for about seven or eight sweaty hours before pulling up at a Best Western in
Grove City, Pennsylvania. It’s a cute little town, known only for having a small religious college.
There’s also a restaurant that thinks it’s a diner, with decent baked goods, but we Jerseyans know
better.Even after getting the good seat in the van, my legs complain when I stretch them out
onto the pavement of the parking lot. The Illinois sun gave way to an overcast Pennsylvania
evening, making me feel even more tired after a long drive. We’ve gotten two big hotel rooms to
share among the five of us, and when I wheel my bag into the one I’ll be sharing with my mom,
something feels different.I walk into the bathroom and stare at myself in the mirror for a few minutes, surrounded
by tiny toiletry bottles and stiff hotel towels. I’m still wearing the graduation gown, for some
reason, so I slide it off, leaving myself in the tasteful black dress with tiny polka dots I picked to
wear today. My curls didn’t exactly go flat. More like stratospheric, all frizzy and disorganized
despite all the product I put in it that morning. Under the harsh fluorescent lighting my face looks
a bit tired, my makeup finally giving up. At least I can comfort myself that I looked good when
we did pictures.It feels strange that I won’t be going back to college anymore. I did it for four years, and at the time it felt like that was going to be forever. Going back home used to feel like stepping in a warm bath, all cozy and comforting. Now it feels like the water went cold, and it isn’t the kind of place I want to stay for much longer. When I’m in my parents’ presence they have all these opinions of how I should live my life. I don’t think they got the memo that they don’t have to do that anymore.I love my family. I think the world of my parents. But I’m an adult now, and it’s time to get out and start making my own way in life. One summer in the house, then I move out on my own. That’s it.

First Chapter from Shroud of Betrayal

By Stephenie Clevenger

PrologueTruth be told, in all the ways I imagined my death, my heart was nowhere in those cards. A more likely scenario would have been during a card game where I had read the other players a bit too well, and I was killed for being a cheat. Or an even more probable scenario during a fight. Maybe even a battle, but not by breaking the absolute one rule that had quite literally been beaten into me daily, while I was on the Isle of Bones.That rule was to never allow yourself to love; it was that simple. To love only gave the power to wound you. It handed power to your enemies, the kind that would make you weak enough to sac-rifice yourself to save them. Or worse, power to that lover who could turn into an enemy. So, I lis-tened. Of course I did, what choice did I have? I had barricaded my heart behind locked doors. I had turned off all my emotions and became cold, as I was taught to do on the Isle.Being the first woman revenuer or guard that anyone had ever seen came with consequences. Eve-ry eye was always on me, waiting for me to mess up or show an ounce of weakness. In the public eye, I chose to be cold and heartless. I knew I was respected by some but feared by most, which I was fine with. There was a thin line between respect and fear; either one would keep people in line.I had fought my heart for so long, but I knew every time he stared at me, or when I stole a glance at him from across a room or in a meeting, another locked door would come crumbling down. I knew it would eventually catch up with me, and here we are. So, grab a drink, sit back, and let me tell you a story of betrayal.Chapter 1My life from the beginning was a battle for survival, a game of wits where only the strong would survive.I was born to an unwed woman who was known as a lady of the night. She was employed at the Grey Horse Tavern, which had a brothel above it. When I was five, I was put to work clean-ing after each night, be it in the tavern or in the brothel, whether it was sweeping the floors or changing bed linens.I learned to make myself invisible, to stay quiet and unnoticed, because any attention could bring the kind of violence no five-year-old should ever have to fear. I learned to become one with the shadows. At times, I would sneak out and sit between the rungs of the railing located behind the back corner of the stairs. From there, I could safely watch the chaotic scene in the tavern be-low. I watched the patrons, watched their body language, and how they moved. I figured out their intentions before they acted on them. Anyone who entered the Grey Horse either came there to drink, gamble, fuck, or fight. No one ever came for anything different.I was especially drawn to the card games, most of all the poker tables tucked into the noisi-est corners of the tavern, where the lamplight burned low and yellow through the smoke. Men hunched over greasy cards and chipped cups, their voices dropping to mutters one moment and rising to curses the next. Ale sloshed, chairs scraped, coins clinked, and still I watched every detail. I was not studying the rules of the game so much as the people playing it. I watched the twitch of a jaw before a bluff, the tightening of fingers around a cup when a hand had gone bad, the way one man would lean back as if relaxed while his knee bounced beneath the table, betraying him. A sin-gle card could alter the whole air around a player. Confidence would flare in his eyes before he tried to hide it, or dread would settle into his shoulders even as he forced a grin. That was what fascinated me. Long before I ever had words for it, I was learning to read them. Their tells, their tempers, their lies, their fear, I could read their next move before they even made it. It was as if the room spoke in a language no one else cared to hear, and somehow, from the shadows, I under-stood it.I never met my father. All I was ever given of him were scraps, half-spoken remarks, tav-ern whispers, and the occasional hard look from someone who remembered his name better than I did. I was told he was killed not long after I was born, before I could know the sound of his voice or the shape of his face. They said he had served as a guard for Baron Rostock III, brother to the King, a position that sounded grand enough to belong to some distant story rather than to the man whose blood I carried. To me, he was less a person than an outline, a dead man in armor, a shadow tied to a title, someone spoken of with just enough respect to make his absence feel heavier. The Baron ruled the borough where we lived, Korzet, a place of crowded streets, rough trade, and peo-ple who learned early that survival mattered more than comfort. Above Korzet and all the sur-rounding boroughs stood Tolston, the capital where the King lived, the place where power flowed from like blood from a heart. Even as a child, I understood the difference. Korzet was where peo-ple scraped, fought, and endured. Tolston was where decisions were made by those who would never smell the taverns, the blood, or the rot of the streets below. My father had belonged, in some small way, to that higher world through the Baron’s service, yet whatever place he might have claimed there died with him, leaving my mother and me with nothing but his name and the silence that followed it.Shortly after my eighth birthday, my mother died of an illness no one ever bothered to name, though I had watched it take hold of her little by little. It began as a cough she could not shake, the kind that bent her in half and left her pressing a rag to her mouth until she could breathe again. At first, she still worked through it because women like her did not have the luxury of lying down and being cared for. Night after night, she climbed the brothel stairs, breathed in lamp smoke, cheap perfume, stale sweat, and winter drafts that crept through the warped boards. Then the fever settled in; she would be shivering even when her skin burned hot to the touch. Her cheeks hollowed, her lips lost their color, and her strength seemed to drain from her by the day. Some mornings, I would wake to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor as if she had to gather all her will just to stand. Other times, I found blood flecked on the cloth she coughed into, though she always tried to hide it from me. I knew before anyone had said it aloud that she was dying. In a place like the Grey Horse, sickness was treated like weakness, and weak-ness was treated like an inconvenience. No healer came. No one offered broth, medicine, or com-fort. They only whispered that she was finished and waited for her room to open back up. When she finally passed, it felt less like a moment and more like the last dimming of a light that had been fading for weeks. The tavern owner said an eight-year-old could not make him any coin, and I was absolutely no use to him, so I was tossed out onto the streets of Korzet with no food, no money, and no place to go.I did not know what to do or where to go, so that night I hid beneath the covered alcove of a random basement entrance, curled tight against the cold stone, and tried not to cry loud enough for anyone to hear. Alone and terrified, I ran every possible future through my mind until one choice remained. Some-where in that black, freezing dark, I made myself a promise. One day, I would become someone worth something. I would become someone no one could ever cast aside, starve, or frighten again. I swore that if I survived that night, I would never again be that helpless little girl trembling in the dark. Fear had ruled too much of my life already, and I vowed then and there that it would never own me again. I would go to the Baron’s door, swear my allegiance, and beg him for work. If he refused me, then the streets would claim me, and I would become just an-other thief clawing through Korzet to stay alive.I had never gone farther than a six-block radius from the Grey Horse and knew almost nothing of the borough beyond the streets I had been forced to survive in. The rest of Korzet might as well have been another country. I did not know where the Baron lived, what road led to his es-tate, or whether a child like me would even be allowed near his gates before being beaten back into the mud. But I did know one thing, every month, the Baron’s revenue collectors came into the Grey Horse to take what was owed. I remembered them clearly. Men like that did not move like tavern drunks or laborers. They carried themselves with purpose, armed and sharp-eyed, as if the whole room belonged to them the moment they entered it. Their coats were cleaner than anyone else’s, their boots heavier, their voices the kind that made owners listen. So, I built my plan out of that single scrap of certainty. I would find one of them while he was making his rounds, keep far enough back not to be noticed, and follow him all the way to the Baron’s estate. It was not much of a plan, but it was all I had. Hunger hollowed me, fear gnawed at me, and still, determination kept me upright. If I had to trail a collector through half the borough on frozen feet, I would. Better to do that than vanish into the streets and be forgotten.I remember the overwhelming feeling of being so small the moment I stepped through the Baron’s gates. The iron rose above me in black bars tipped like spears, and even standing open, they felt less like a welcome than a warning. A polished sign fixed to one side read ‘Blackshear’, the name sharp and certain in a way nothing in my life had ever been. I had spent my whole child-hood hemmed in by rot, smoke, and narrow alleys, and now suddenly I stood at the threshold of something vast, ordered, and powerful. My shoes were worn thin, my dress stiff with old dirt, my stomach hollow with hunger, and every inch of me knew I did not belong there. Even the air felt different within those gates, cleaner, colder, quieter, as if the filth of Korzet had been stopped at the road behind me. For a heartbeat, I nearly turned and fled. What was I but an orphaned tavern girl daring to walk into the mouth of privilege and ask for mercy? Yet fear could not outweigh despera-tion. I had come too far, and there was nowhere left to retreat to.The long stone driveway bent into a great circle before a vast brick staircase that swept upward to a monstrous red brick mansion. It did not seem like a home so much as a fortress, im-mense and unyielding, rising over me with the kind of power that stole the air from my lungs. From its balconies hung towering banners, their fabric shifting in the wind like restless spirits. On each one, a serpent was wrapped tightly around a golden sword. Even then, I knew it had to be the Baron’s coat of arms, but the sight of it unsettled me more than I could explain. My mother had once told me about such symbols, the “pictures,” I used to call them when I was small, how they showed the house a man belonged to, the name he fought and bled for. But here, beneath that mansion’s shadow, the serpent and sword felt less like a crest and more like a threat. I stared at them for a long moment, my heart pounding, before one thought rose above all the others, What did that all mean? And with that question clawing at me, I climbed the stairs.When I arrived at the massive double doors, there were two guards dressed in armor flank-ing both sides. I stood there, eyes wide and mouth ajar. I was in shock, and at that moment, I start-ed to second-guess my plan and reason for even being there. Then a guard cleared his throat, bringing me back to that moment. I turned and looked at him and squeaked out, “I’m Catarina Da-vies, daughter of Arian Davies. I would like to request an audience with the Baron, please.”I stood there staring at him, my heart felt as if it would pound right out of my chest, and I thought that he was going to turn me away or maybe worse, he would just throw me down all of these stairs and yell, “Be gone,” but he did not. He nodded his head once, “Wait here,” as he turned and knocked on the door.Shortly after, an older man with gray hair opened the door. He was dressed in a black suit and wore white gloves so spotless they looked as though they had never touched so much as a speck of dust. I assumed he must be the butler. I had never seen a real butler before, only heard whispered stories that great houses had servants for every little need. The guard leaned in and murmured something to him, and then the man shifted, peering around the guard until he found me. The moment his eyes landed on me, I knew exactly what he saw. His gaze dropped from my tangled hair to my dirt-stiff dress, to my worn shoes, to the grime on my hands and the hollows in my face. His mouth tightened at one corner, not quite a sneer, but close enough that it burned all the same. He did not need to say a word. I had seen that look before on tavern patrons, on women passing me in the street, on anyone who could afford to feel above me. It was the look people gave when they had already decided what you were worth before you ever opened your mouth. In that instant, I felt every stain on me, every rip in my dress, every trace of the streets I had slept on. I knew he was judging me, and the worst part was that I could not blame him. I must have looked like something dragged in from the gutter. All I could do was stand there and hold my breath while he weighed whatever duty demanded against whatever disgust he felt. My heart pounded so hard it made my stomach lurch. I did not know if the next time that door opened, I would be invited in-side, laughed at, or thrown back down the stairs and sent away for good. That uncertainty fright-ened me more than the cold ever had. At last, he gave the guard a small, reluctant nod and closed the door, leaving me alone with the awful silence and no idea what would happen next.The silence stretched so long I thought it might swallow me whole before the doors finally opened again. This time, the butler did not step outside. He only looked down at me with that same pinched expression and said, “The Baron will see you.” My legs nearly forgot how to move. I stepped inside Blackshear with my heart hammering against my ribs, trying not to stare too openly at the polished floors, the high ceilings, the lamps burning brighter than any fire I had ever been allowed near. Everything smelled of wax, wood, and wealth. I followed the butler down a hall wide enough to fit the whole Grey Horse inside it, and when he stopped before a set of double doors, I had to remind myself not to run. He opened them and announced me as if I were someone important. I was not. I was a dirty, starving girl with shaking hands and nowhere left to go.The Baron stood near the fireplace, dressed all in white, with one hand resting on the head of a cane. He was not as tall as I had expected, but the room still seemed to bend around him. His eyes moved over me slowly, not cruel like the butler’s, but sharp enough to make me feel peeled open. “Catarina Davies,” he said, and hearing my full name in his voice made my throat tighten.I forced myself to bow because I had seen men do it when collectors entered the tavern. “My lord,” I whispered, though the words came out small and cracked. “My mother is dead. I have nowhere to go. My father served you once, and I thought.” My courage faltered, but hunger and fear shoved me forward. “I thought maybe I could serve you, too.”The Baron said nothing for a long moment. Then he stepped closer, his cane tapping softly against the floor. “You are Arian Davies’s daughter?” he asked.I nodded, afraid that if I spoke again, I might cry. His face changed then, only slightly, but enough for me to see the name had meant something to him. “And what can a child offer me?” he asked.I lifted my chin even though my whole body trembled. “Anything you ask,” I said. “I learn fast. I’m quiet. I can clean. I can watch. I can listen. I can be useful.”The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile. “Useful,” he repeated. “That is a dan-gerous promise, little girl.”I swallowed hard. “Then I will make myself worth the danger.”The Baron opened his mouth to answer, but another voice interrupted from the doorway. “Father, who is she?”

I turned and saw a boy standing half-hidden behind the skirts of a finely dressed woman. He was dark-haired and bright-eyed, with the easy curiosity of someone who had never learned to fear asking questions. The woman’s hand came down on his shoulder at once, not gently. “Shush,” she warned.The boy fell silent, but his eyes remained on me. I felt suddenly more aware of my dirty dress, my tangled hair, the mud dried along the hem, and the way my stomach had been growling since dawn. I hated that he was looking at me. I hated it more that I wanted to hide from him.The Baroness stepped fully into the room, her gaze cutting over me before landing on her husband. “You cannot be serious,” she said. “Whatever debt you believe you owe Arian Davies, you do not repay it by bringing tavern rubbish into Blackshear.”My face burned so hot I thought I might be sick. The boy looked between his mother and me, confusion softening his features, and for one small second, I thought he might say something kind. He did not. He was only a child, and children born inside houses like Blackshear knew better than to challenge the people who ruled them. The Baron’s hand tightened around the head of his cane. “Careful,” he said, voice low. “She is a child.”The Baroness lifted her chin. “Then send her where children like her are kept.”The room went quiet enough for me to hear my own breathing. I lowered my eyes, already certain I had lost. Then the Baron said, “No. She came to my door. She will not be thrown back into the street tonight.”The Baron did not save me out of kindness alone. I learned that much later. Men like him did not collect broken things unless they believed those broken things could be sharpened into something useful. I was given a roof, food, and just enough mercy to mistake it for safety before I was sent away to be molded into whatever he believed I might become. Boarding school failed quickly. I had no patience for soft-handed girls, pretty rules, or instructors who thought obedience meant breaking the spirit out of me one ruler strike at a time. So the Baron sent me somewhere obedience was not requested. It was beaten in. The Isle of Bones took the frightened tavern girl who had once hidden behind railings and stripped her down to nothing but instinct, pain, and sur-vival. By the time I left that place, I no longer cried when I was hurt. I no longer begged. I no longer wondered whether I belonged anywhere. I belonged to myself, and that made me danger-ous.When I returned to Korzet after the Duchess died, I did not walk back through Black-shear’s gates as the starving child who had once climbed those steps with shaking knees. I came back trained, cold, and useful. The Baron started me at the bottom anyway, because power given too freely is never respected. I cleaned tack in the stables, carried messages through snow and mud, stood night watch with men who laughed at the idea of taking orders from a girl, and collected from the smallest, meanest businesses in Korzet, where every drunk with a knife wanted to test whether the rumors were true. I let them test me. One by one, they learned. So did the Baron. I proved myself in blood, coin, and silence until no one laughed when I entered a room. I rose from errand girl, to collector, to revenuer, to the Baron’s lead guard, not because anyone handed me the position, but because I took every task beneath me and made it impossible for them to deny what I had become. By twenty, I was the woman Korzet whispered about, the one men crossed streets to avoid, the one the Baron trusted with his books, his borough, and his life. And still, some nights, when the wind turned cold enough, I could remember exactly how small I had felt the first time I stood at Blackshear’s door.Which is why, nearly ten years later, when trouble came knocking on my apartment door on my only night off, I should have known better than to answer it.It was the coldest September on record, barely reaching into the forties during the day and freezing at night. I could only imagine what winter would instill upon us this year. I was home in my apartment and had finished my bath when there was a loud knock on the door. I grabbed the nearest towel and wrapped it around my wet body. I was halfway across the room when the knock came again. This time, it was more intense and incessantly shaking the door.“Catarina! Please!”I knew exactly who it was as soon as I heard those words spoken. “What is it, Pip?” I groaned and yanked the door open. “You know this is my night off.”“Yes, yes, but this isn’t good. It’s an emergency, and you’re needed,” He breathily got out.“Well, what is it, Pip? Spit it out.”I studied him while he tried to catch his breath. He was much taller and larger than me, which I doubt was not hard to be since I maxed out at 130 pounds, maybe soaking wet. His short, dirty-blond hair was damp with sweat, proof he’d been running hard despite the cold night air. He was hunched over, holding his sides, breathing hard. He looked at me with wide, deep blue eyes. The candlelight flickered when a slight breeze rose through the narrow set of stairs leading to my apartment door. It occurred to me at that moment that I didn’t know much about his background or the backgrounds of the other five men under my charge. Sure, I had personally chosen them all as revenuers, which also promoted them to higher-ranking guards, but I didn’t know them.I should make more of an effort to know them better, but truthfully, I have always kept people at a distance. Life taught me too early that the more someone knew about you, the more power they had to use it against you. On the streets, in the tavern, and later on the Isle of Bones, secrets were not harmless things; they were weaknesses waiting to be exploited. A soft spot, a memory, a fear, a person you cared for, any of it could be turned into a blade and driven straight into you. So, I learned to keep my past locked down tight and my feelings even tighter. Pip and the Baron knew more about me than anyone else alive, and even then, they only knew pieces I had allowed them to see. The rest I kept buried where no one could touch it. Still, this was not the time to dwell on my own shortcomings, because right now I am far more concerned about why Pip was standing at my door looking like panic itself had chased him here.I gave him the time to regain his breath. After gasping for multiple breaths, he tried again. “The brothel, down on Maple. It isn’t good, it’s going to escalate,” he breathily got out.“The Grey Horse? What’s going to escalate?” I questioned."I was making my rounds when I saw Four, who'd been there all afternoon drinking and, well, other activities," he said, raising his eyebrows before coughing again.We referred to Christoph Rostock IV, the Baron’s son, as Four to distinguish between him and his father.I knew exactly what that meant. “So, what does this have to do with me? Just handle it. You know this is my night off, and the last place I want to be is at the Grey Horse.”I was what they called a collector or revenuer and the lead guard of Baron Christoph Ros-tock III.My job was obviously to protect the Baron and his family, to collect weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly percentages of proceeds, and to provide protection from rival businesses for a guarantee of goods and services to be supplied. Pip and I worked almost twenty-four hours a day and, maybe, if we were lucky, we got six hours of sleep. We slept during the slow hours before people went to work or between lunch and dinner hours. Sometimes, we traveled out of town with the Baron’s family or to obtain a shipment of rare goods for someone. So, believe me when I say how im-portant my night off was to me. It was the only time I got to catch up on my sleep. I was off every Monday night, and Pip, my second in command, was off on Thursday nights.“I tried, to no avail. Four is getting drunker and drunker by the moment, and he is starting to get unruly. Markious asked him to leave, but he refused. I tried talking some sense into him, and again he refused. Hopefully, he will listen to you,” he paused, shook his head, “No, he will listen to you.”I turned to walk into my bedroom to get dressed. “Ready the carriage!”Pip called, “It will be done.” Then I heard the door slam shut, shaking my little apartment walls.I quickly pulled on a pair of black trousers and yanked the cording of my corset tight with fingers still damp from my bath. The stays bit into my ribs at once, a familiar ache I had long ago learned to ignore. I knew very well I did not dress as a lady ought to. I had heard the whispers of-ten enough, rough-mouthed men and bitter women alike muttering that I looked more fit for the street or the brothel than a respectable home, some even cruel enough to compare me to my mother as though that alone should shame me. Once, those words might have carved into me, but not an-ymore. Let them talk. Every cruel tongue turned toward me was one less turned toward someone weaker, and that was reason enough to wear their judgment like armor. Still, there were some things I could not bear. Anything tight at my throat made panic stir low in my chest, as if invisible fingers were closing there, choking off breath and memory all at once. So, I left my neck bare, as I always did. After pulling on my usual knee-high boots, I snatched my thick black leather coat and rushed out the door, the cold stairwell air striking my damp skin hard enough to make me shiver. Pip already had the carriage waiting at my door, the horses stamping and snorting steam into the freezing night. No sooner had I set one foot on the lift than he cracked the reins and barked, “Step up!”The carriage lurched forward so fast I nearly stumbled into the front seat. I dropped down on the bench and immediately began braiding my wet hair with stiff fingers, hoping I would not catch my death riding through weather this bitter with a soaked head. The wind sliced across my cheeks, sharp as a knife, and the cold working its way under my coat made me shiver. I dug my black leather gloves from my pocket and pulled them on in a hurry, flexing my fingers once as if that alone could chase warmth back into them.Since my return to Korzet, I had avoided the Grey Horse as if the plague itself had been born there and never truly left. That was the only business I refused to enter. I always sent Pip in while I waited outside, and by now he had stopped asking why. He did not know that the moment I crossed that threshold, the years I had buried clawed their way back to life. I could still smell the stale ale soaked into the floorboards, the smoke trapped in the beams, the sweat, the cheap per-fume, and the filth of too many hands and too many sins. I could still hear my mother’s cough, the crash of bottles, the laughter that always carried something cruel beneath it. The Grey Horse was not just a building to me; it was the place where my childhood had been starved, beaten thin, and taught to survive by becoming small and silent. Even now, almost ten years later, standing near its door made my stomach knot and my skin crawl, as if that frightened little girl still lived somewhere inside me, waiting to be dragged back out into the light. So, I stayed outside and stared at that im-aginary red X I had painted over the warped wood in my mind, the mark of a place I would rather burn to the ground than willingly step into again.(Chapter continues...)

First Chapter from The Women Who Remembered Their Names

By Lucy Rey

Before They RememberedThere was a time when the women of Aeldren did not know they had forgotten.That was the cruelest part.They still woke each morning. They still braided their hair beside narrow windows
fogged by winter rain. They still baked bread in stone ovens, carried water in worn wooden
buckets through the market roads, and lowered their eyes when the tower bells echoed across the
kingdom. They still answered when spoken to. Still apologized too quickly. Still measured every
word before allowing it to leave their mouths.The men woke to those same bells. They fastened their cloaks, the fabric stiff from years
of winter rain and tower dust, each stitch a quiet record of the work expected of them, before
heading to the workshops and guard towers. Carrying expectations of their own—though no one
called them burdens. A man of Aeldren was expected to provide, command, protect, and never
hesitate. Gentleness was permitted toward children, occasionally toward the dying, but
uncertainty was considered a weakness, something men were taught to bury before it ever
reached their faces.A boy learned early that fear should be hidden. A girl learned that hers should be obeyed. Neither was taught to question why.From the outside, Aeldren looked peaceful. Its walls were tall and pale beneath the
morning light, though faint scars of old battles traced the stone. Silver banners drifted above the
towers. The streets remained orderly, the gardens trimmed, the laws obeyed. Travelers passing
through often called it beautiful.No one ever asked why the kingdom was so quiet.Elarith had never asked either. Until the morning she saw a woman punished for saying
her own name. It happened in the eastern market just after the second bell. Elarith was carrying a
basket of winter apples when a wooden bucket struck the stones ahead of her. Water rushed
between the cobbles, darkening the dust around a woman’s shoes.The woman stood perfectly still, as if any movement might draw the punishment closer. A young guard stepped forward, barely past boyhood, yet carrying the authority of someone who had already learned how quickly punishment was expected.“You were told to move.”“I didn’t hear you, sir.”“Are you questioning me?”“No.”The answer came too quickly. Elarith recognized that kind of no. The woman bent to retrieve her bucket, but the guard caught the handle beneath his boot.“Your name?”For the first time, the woman hesitated.“Neris.”The market seemed to grow quiet around them. The guard looked down at her as though she had misunderstood the question.“I asked who you belong to.”Neris’s face changed. Only slightly. But Elarith saw it.“My husband is Tomas Vale.”“Then that’s the answer you give.”“Yes, sir.”The guard removed his boot. For the briefest moment, Elarith saw something strange cross his face. Not satisfaction. Relief. As though he, too, had remembered his lines correctly. Then his expression hardened again.Around them, the market began moving. No one protested. No one even looked surprised. A woman beside Elarith reached for a bundle of rosemary. A merchant rearranged his apples. Somewhere further down the road, someone laughed. Life simply continued.Elarith should have continued with it. Instead, she found herself staring at the spilled water disappearing between the stones. Neris. She repeated the name silently, but carefully. She didn’t know why, perhaps because she was afraid no one else would.In Aeldren, silence was considered virtue. The laws of the kingdom were carved into black stone and placed throughout the city so often that children memorized them before they learned their letters.Silence is loyalty.Fear is wisdom.Obedience is love.A woman who questions forgets her place.
There were other laws too.A man who cannot command cannot protect.Mercy without authority invites disorder.Weakness in one becomes danger to all.Aeldren had a place for everyone. That was how the kingdom described it. Elarith had passed those stones thousands of times. That morning, for the first time, she wondered who had decided where everyone’s place was.The thought frightened her enough that she nearly dropped her basket. She lowered her eyes. Kept walking. Said nothing. That was how people survived in Aeldren.But women paid a particular price for that survival. And over time, many did. Not their duties. Not their routines. Not the careful performance of survival. They forgot themselves.Cruelty in Aeldren rarely arrived as shouting or violence visible enough for others to
condemn. It moved more carefully than that. It lived in correction disguised as guidance. In fear
disguised as protection. In the slow shaping of a person until she no longer trusted her own
thoughts, or even the woman staring back at her.The women learned to survive by becoming smaller. Smaller in voice. Smaller in opinion. Smaller in presence.Some forgot laughter first. Others forgot anger. Many forgot what it felt like to speak without rehearsing the sentence beforehand. And eventually, so slowly that almost no one noticed it when it began, they started losing their names.Not literally.A name is rarely stolen all at once.It is worn away quietly—through shame, fear, exhaustion, compliance, and the thousand invisible wounds that teach a person it is safer to disappear than to be fully known.Elarith had always thought herself fortunate. She had a home. Food. No scars anyone could see.She knew when to speak and when silence was wiser. She knew how to read a man’s footsteps before he entered a room. She knew how to turn a disagreement into an apology before anyone realized she had disagreed at all.Until lately, she had mistaken that skill for peace.Some women still remembered fragments of themselves in dreams. A sound. A feeling. A version of who they once were before survival became the center of their world. Others buried those memories so deeply they no longer reached for them at all.Forgetting was easier. But names are stubborn things. They wait beneath silence. They survive beneath ash. And sometimes, without any warning, even after years of fear, they begin calling a person home again.All afternoon, one followed Elarith home. Neris. It stayed with her until she kneaded bread. Neris. While she swept ashes from the hearth. Neris. While evening bells rang and shadows climbed the walls.She wondered whether Neris had gone home and apologized. Whether her husband
would hear what happened. Whether tomorrow she would answer differently.And, unexpectedly, she wondered about the guard.She had seen his face. That moment of relief. What had he been afraid would happen if he had simply let Neris pick up her bucket? The question unsettled her almost as much as everything else.Who do you belong to?Elarith stopped kneading. Her hands remained buried in the dough. The answer should have been obvious. In Aeldren, the answer was always obvious. But another question rose beneath it.Who are you?Elarith pulled her hands from the bowl. For several seconds, she simply stared at them,
flour settled into the lines of her palms. Beyond the smoke-veiled mountains surrounding
Aeldren, stories had begun to spread about women who had escaped the kingdom entirely,
without looking back. Women who carried lanterns along hidden roads through the forest.
Women who spoke freely without fear of punishment. Women who remembered their names and
whispered them to others like passing light from one hand to another, a small but sacred fire kept
alive in the dark.There were other rumors, though they were spoken more carefully. Rumors of men who helped them. A stable keeper who left a gate unlocked and claimed the latch had broken. A father who taught his daughters the old meanings of their names after everyone else had gone to sleep. A guard who looked toward the trees while three women crossed the northern boundary.No one knew whether those stories were true.Perhaps that was why the kingdom feared them. A woman questioning her place was dangerous enough. A man questioning the power he’d been given might be worse.Most people dismissed those stories as foolishness. Elarith had dismissed them too. Until that night.She lay awake listening to rain strike the narrow window beside her bed. Somewhere
beyond the glass stood mountains, invisible in the darkness. And somewhere beyond those
mountains, if the stories were true, women said their own names without asking permission.
Perhaps men lived there who did not consider another person’s freedom a threat to their own.Elarith tried to imagine it. She couldn’t. Not completely. But for the first time, she wantedHope, after all, can be dangerous in places built on fear.But somewhere inside the kingdom, behind one of those narrow windows, one woman had begun noticing the cracks. She noticed the hesitation before obedience. She noticed the questions she swallowed before they could become words and the ache beneath the silence.She thought of Neris. She thought of the guard. She thought of the question that would not leave her alone.Sometimes, when the tower bells rang and every woman around her lowered her eyes, hers remained lifted a moment too long. She did not know why yet. She only knew that lately, a strange thought had begun following her through the quiet streets of Aeldren:Survival and peace were not the same thing—a quiet ghost drifting at her shoulder.She did not yet have words for what was happening inside of her. She certainly did not
have a name for the woman she might become if she ever stopped being afraid. Something had
shifted, though she could not have said when. And though she did not yet realize it, the
remembering had already begun.This is not a story about fearless women.It is a story about frightened women who kept walking anyway. Women who learned that
freedom is not only escaping cruelty, but surviving long enough afterward to rediscover who
they were beneath it. Women who carried small lanterns through enormous darkness. Women
who remembered their names.The next morning, the tower bells rang. Women throughout Aeldren lowered their eyes.
Elarith lowered hers too. Then, slowly, she lifted them again.Only for a moment.Only long enough to see something scratched into the black stone beneath the law she had obeyed her entire life.Three words.Small enough that whoever had carved them must have done so in darkness.YOU WERE SOMEONE.Her breath caught. She looked around. No one else seemed to have noticed. Then she
heard a woman’s voice behind her. Barely a whisper.“You shouldn’t read that.”Elarith turned. An old woman stood several feet away, a lantern hanging from one hand, its flame flickering inside the glass as if afraid to be seen. It was morning. There was no reason for her to be carrying a lantern.Elarith looked from the flame to the woman’s face. The old woman smiled. Not warmly. Knowingly. Then she said the one thing Elarith had not heard anyone say since she was a child.“Do you remember your name?”Elarith’s heart began to pound.“Elarith.”The old woman’s expression did not change.“I didn’t ask you what they call you.”Elarith stared at her.The old woman stepped closer.“Do you know what your name means?”Elarith opened her mouth. Nothing came. She had never thought to ask. Why would she? A name was simply a name. Something given at birth. Something written beside marriages and deaths. Something spoken when someone wanted your attention. Wasn’t it?The old woman glanced toward the black stone. “Once, the names of Aeldren’s women meant something. Before they taught us it was better to forget.” Elarith looked again at the words scratched beneath the law.YOU WERE SOMEONE.“What does mine mean?”For the first time, the old woman’s smile softened.“The strength that shelters.”Something inside Elarith went still. The words felt strangely familiar, though she knew she had never heard them before.“Elar,” the woman whispered. “To shelter. To hold safe. Ith—the strength that endures. Your name is older than the laws carved into these stones.”Elarith looked down at her hands. The same hands that kneaded bread. Carried water. Mended torn clothing. Comforted frightened children. Hands she had never considered strong.She looked back at the woman. “Why don’t I know that?”The old woman’s eyes shifted toward the guards at the far end of the street.“Because a woman who understands the meaning of her own name may eventually begin to wonder who taught her to forget it.”The third bell rang.The old woman turned away.“Wait.”She kept walking.“Who are you?”For a moment, the woman stopped. Then she raised the lantern slightly. Its small flame trembled against the morning light.“When you’re ready to remember,” she said, “follow the lanterns.”And then she disappeared into the crowd. Elarith remained beside the black stone long after she was gone.Above her, carved deeply enough to survive generations, the law remained: A woman who questions forgets her place. Below it, scratched hurriedly by an unknown hand: YOU WERE SOMEONE.Elarith touched two fingers to her lips and spoke her name beneath her breath. “Elarith. The strength that shelters.” This time, it did not sound like something she had been called. It sounded like something she had been given back.And for the first time, Elarith wondered what else Aeldren had taken from its women.Then she thought of the guard’s face. His moment of relief. Perhaps women weren’t the only ones who had forgotten something.Elarith looked toward the smoke-veiled mountains.She intended to find out.

First Chapter from The Black Loom

By Jesus Magdaleno

Death's SongGesio had spent the last several minutes pretending to watch the rest of the Eighty-Eighth Squadron.In truth, he was watching Liara.Every correction of the turbines sent a tremor through the benches bolted to the walls of the cargo hold. Five hundred soldiers sat shoulder to shoulder beneath an unsteady white light, exoskeletons secured to their bodies, personal shields charged, needles braced against their chests. Some checked
their weapons for the fifth time. Others pretended to sleep. Almost no one spoke.Liara was smiling.Gesio had never understood how she did it so easily. She had a high, feminine voice, her laughter surfaced even when there was nothing to laugh about, and she had a habit of teasing him just enough to make him angry before tilting her head and smiling as though that absolved her of everything.With Gesio, it almost always did.Her black hair fell to her shoulders, framing a face he could have recognized among a thousand. She possessed a beauty uncommon among the Unthreaded from the districts where they had both grown up: delicate features, alert eyes, and a smile that still struck Gesio as the product of some fortunate mistake in the universe. But, as always happened when he looked at someone, his eyes eventually settled on her pattern.Liara's was short and black. Several fine lines met across her forehead at small angles that resembled unfinished letter Ls. Gesio's, by contrast, consisted of only four small black circles spaced apart, simple and discreet even for the pattern of an Unthreaded.Liara turned her head without warning."Are you going to stare at me for the entire mission?"Gesio did not look away."I'm making sure you're still real.""That's so corny.""You loved it.""A little."Liara's smile widened, and Gesio felt the same warm foolishness in his chest that she had stirred in him since they were teenagers. Falling in love with her had been easy. The difficult part had been
accepting that, somehow, she had chosen him too.For the first time since takeoff, Liara stopped smiling."Give me your hand."Gesio obeyed. She slipped a letter between his fingers, its envelope folded several times so it would fit beneath the protection of her uniform."What's this?""A letter.""I gathered that much.""I'm proud of you."Gesio examined the envelope. Only his name was written on the front."Then why give me a letter when you're sitting half a meter away?"Liara leaned back against the fuselage and folded her arms."Because I don't want to say what I wrote while surrounded by five hundred idiots."A soldier sitting across from them looked up."No offense," Liara added.The man shook his head and went back to checking his needle.Gesio ran his thumb along the edge of the envelope."I'll read it now."Liara slapped his hand."Don't you dare.""Then when?"She looked at him for a moment too long."When we get home together."Gesio felt something loosen inside him.This was their last mission. They had repeated those words so many times over the past few weeks that they had almost begun to sound true. One more mission. One final deployment. Then they would leave the army, go home, and figure out what to do with a life free from watch schedules, uniforms, and orders barked by someone louder than they were."Together," Gesio repeated."That's the condition."He tucked the letter into an inner pocket, beneath the plate of his personal shield.Liara leaned toward him. For a brief moment, she rested her forehead against his. Their patterns matched in neither shape nor size; Liara's small black Ls brushed against Gesio's four black circles. Despite the engines, the soldiers, and the war waiting below them, Gesio felt as though the world had
fallen silent.Liara drew back."Now you can keep staring at me.""Thank you for the permission.""You're welcome."Gesio smiled. Only then did he manage to look toward the rear of the hold.Grand Loom Lumos sat alone. No one had ordered the seats around him left empty, but not one infantryman had dared occupy them. Even hunched over, he looked too large for the transport. A gray military sword rested on either side of him, austere and unadorned, each as long as a grown man.From that distance, Gesio could barely make out the golden pattern on his forehead. It was large. Far larger than any of the black patterns he had seen growing up."I've heard an inquisitor's swords can cut through anything," Liara whispered."Those aren't ontological.""Look who learned a new word.""I know plenty of words.""Name three.""Aurora. Tzaran. Chala."Liara raised an eyebrow."Those are demigods, know-it-all.""They're the names of swords. The priests gave them faces."Gesio had grown up seeing murals in which luminous figures accompanied legendary inquisitors. Aurora beside Ara. Tzaran beside Rog. Chala beside Dore. Like almost everyone outside the Order, he had always understood those demigods to be religious personifications of famous weapons, not beings that had ever truly existed."Tell that to my grandmother," Liara replied. "She thinks Aurora listens every time she loses her keys."Lumos turned his head.Gesio and Liara looked away at the same time.Liara stifled a laugh.The floor of the mantlecraft tilted.The lights turned red."Deployment in thirty seconds," a mechanical voice announced.Liara tightened the strap of her helmet beneath her chin. Gesio did the same.Before he could check for the fourth time that the letter was still there, the fear returned.Metal struck stone, shaking the entire hold.The turbines roared as the mantlecraft descended vertically, then cut out almost at once. For a
second, there was only the hum of the internal systems.Then came the explosions.The first was distant. Then came another. Within moments, screams, gunfire, and the thunder of railguns filled the air outside.Weaver Xavian took his place beside Lumos.Gesio had seen him from a distance before deployment, but this was the first time he had been able to study him. His eyes went straight to the man's forehead. Xavian's golden pattern covered almost all the space between his eyebrows and hairline: broad lines that forked and joined again like golden roots embedded beneath the skin. It was not as extensive as Lumos's, but beside Gesio's four small black circles, it looked like a finished work next to a scrawl.Glowing strands began to travel down Xavian's arms, moving from his chest toward his hands."Attention, Eighty-Eighth Squadron!"His voice carried even over the battle.Everyone rose."Your task is to keep Grand Loom Lumos and me alive and supplied. You will deliver swords, spools, ammunition, and cover wherever you are ordered. Our requests are your creed. Understood?"The soldiers took a moment to answer. Gesio was not the only one staring at the golden lines running along the Weaver's arms."Yes, sir!"Xavian waited for the echo to fade."May Ara guide the thread of our destiny to victory. And if we should fall today, may our story be forged with strength and courage."No one cheered. No one beat a fist against their chest. Even so, Gesio felt something change among the soldiers. The fear remained, but now it was shared.The hatch opened.The Eighty-Eighth Squadron descended with the supplies while a cloud of reconnaissance drones poured out through the mantlecraft's upper hatches. From a distance, they must have resembled a
swarm of black insects scattering across the battlefield.Gesio was one of the last to disembark.As he lowered his boot toward the ground, he froze.The stone reacted before he touched it.The entire field consisted of white rock streaked with black veins, like an immense sheet of marble stretching to the horizon. But as his foot came down, the black lines moved aside. They did not crack or disappear. They darted beneath the surface with the speed of small animals, leaving a patch of pure white exactly where his sole was about to land.Gesio raised his foot.The veins returned.He lowered it again.They drew away once more."Liara."She had already jumped from the transport."What?""Look at the ground."Liara looked down. She stepped to the side, and the veins fled from her boot before it made contact."That's weird.""That's all you have to say?""We're being shot at, love."An explosion sent white fragments flying less than a hundred meters away.The black lines continued moving even through the pieces torn from the surface, recoiling from
the soldiers' fingers as they cleared them out of the way.Gesio decided he could study the ground if he survived.He picked up a crate of spools and headed for the prefabricated trench the squadron had deployed in a crescent. With every step, the black veins parted beneath his boots and closed behind him like dark water.Before he descended the first step, a shadow covered part of the ground beside him.Lumos had just stepped out of the mantlecraft.The black veins withdrew from each of his footfalls long before his enormous boots touched the marble, leaving white circles that vanished as soon as he moved on.Up close, he was even more disproportionate. He had to stand nearly 2.7 meters tall. His beard was short and gray, his hair combed to one side, and his body so broad that his uniform seemed tailored to contain a statue. He wore no armor, only black trousers, a high-collared shirt, and an old- fashioned dark vest fitted tightly across his torso.Gesio lifted his gaze a little higher and found the pattern.It covered most of Lumos's forehead. Thick golden lines rose from his temples, crossed in severe curves above his brows, and separated again before reaching his hairline. There was nothing delicate
about it. Even motionless, it looked like an emblem of war."By Rog's fists," Gesio whispered. "I'm glad he's on our side."Lumos gave no sign that he had heard.Gesio finished carrying the spools to the storage area. The trench was deeper than he had imagined, with reinforced green walls, broad corridors, and enough room for the cargo exoskeletons to maneuver without getting in one another's way. Wherever the construction left the mountain exposed, the black veins moved through the floors and walls with the same impossible behavior.Liara sat against a section of white stone, drenched in sweat. Behind her back, the black lines curved to avoid touching her, leaving a clean outline around her shoulders."Why do you get to carry jars while I have to haul swords bigger than I am?" she complained. "Even Rog couldn't handle these things.""You know I'd take your place if I could, but doing someone else's work is punishable by death."Gesio looked her up and down deliberately."Being Unthreaded is rough."Liara gave him a warm smile."It's really not that heavy. Besides, it'll help me get buff."She flexed her biceps, proudly displaying all her strength."You're perfect the way you are.""So corny."Gesio smiled and crouched beside one of the spools.The reinforced-glass container held thousands of golden threads that braided, separated, and joined
again without any visible force moving them."What do you think they're made of?""I don't know, and I don't care. I just want something to eat and to stop carrying a giant's sword."Gesio braced one hand against the wall as he leaned closer to examine the spool. The black veins pulled away from his fingers before his skin touched the stone. He slid his palm a few inches. The lines fled from it, always maintaining a narrow gap."Look at this.""Gesio.""What?""If you die studying a wall, I'll kill you."The ground shook.Heavy footsteps approached through the corridor.Gesio and Liara snapped to attention just as Lumos entered the storage area."At your command, Grand Loom."Lumos surveyed the spools."Opening one without authorization during a campaign is considered sabotage. The penalty is execution, and I will carry it out myself."Gesio slowly withdrew his hand from the container.Liara made a tiny sound in her throat. Gesio knew exactly what it meant: she was trying not to laugh.Lumos looked at her. She had just straightened up and one knee was still slightly bent."You will also be punished for idling. Neither of you will sit again until tomorrow. Understood?""Yes, sir!"Gesio glanced at Liara. She fixed all her attention on a black vein fleeing the tip of her boot. Lumos pointed at Gesio."You. Curly-haired Unthreaded. Bring me a spool."Gesio obeyed.The Grand Loom turned toward the battlefield and knelt. The stone whitened beneath his knees as the veins moved aside. He pressed both palms to the immense golden pattern on his forehead. Even on his knees, he was almost as tall as Gesio."Today I dedicate every strand of my mantle to your service," he prayed softly. "Bear witness to my feat, for I will give all that I am. And if my life should end, may it continue in your service, forged into living history."The threads inside the spool struck the glass.Lumos opened the container, and hundreds of golden strands sprang toward his hand. They
vanished beneath his skin as lines of light raced along his arms.Then the mantle emerged from his body.Thousands of threads spread across his clothes, gathered into thicker cords, and began to form layers. The layers hardened into plates with a metallic sheen. Within seconds, his elegant uniform
vanished beneath the armor of an ancient knight.The helmet closed over his face.Lumos vanished.The black veins in the ground tore aside in a violent line beneath his first steps. The cloud of dust he left behind reached Gesio a moment later.The first deliveries were simple.Lumos advanced, destroyed an enemy position, and raised one hand. Gesio brought him a spool; Liara, a new sword. Then they both ran back before the artillery could adjust its aim.The fourth delivery was different.Lumos had taken cover inside the skeleton of a destroyed railgun. Enemy fire struck all around him, tearing large slabs from the white rock. The black veins in the fragments seemed to writhe away
from the soldiers sheltering behind them.Gesio waited until the bombardment stopped."Now!"He leapt out of the trench with the spool clutched to his chest. Liara ran behind him, using both hands and the support of her exoskeleton to carry a sword.The black lines in the ground pulled away from their boots an instant before every step. Gesio barely saw them. He saw only the distance to Lumos and the stretch of ground he still had to cross alive.They found the Grand Loom on one knee, leaning against the nicked blade of his weapon. Sweat covered his face, and he breathed as if every breath demanded a decision.Gesio held out the spool.Lumos snatched it from him."Do you have your rations?"Gesio took a moment to answer."Yes, sir.""Give them to me. The soldiers who were supposed to bring me food were shot down two hours ago, and I'm starving."Liara looked at Gesio."Not a word," he muttered.They both obeyed. Lumos tucked the rations beneath his vest, opened the spool, and held his palm close. The threads sprang toward him. The strain left his face as soon as they began to burrow beneath his skin.For a moment, Gesio forgot where he was."No time for curiosity," Liara said, tugging his arm. "Let's go!"They ran.Halfway back, Gesio heard the rising hum of the railguns recharging.Liara fell behind."Liara!"Gesio doubled back, seized the rear of her exoskeleton, and activated its full assist power."Gesio, what are you doing?"He threw her into the trench.The cannon fired.Gesio's personal shield burst into a mesh of light. The explosion lifted him from the ground and hurled him inside the structure.He landed with a wet crunch.For a moment, all he saw was the green ceiling of the trench.He tried to sit up.Pain ripped through his legs and tore a scream from him.Gesio knew what he would find if he looked down. He kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling, searching for another explanation: a malfunction in the exoskeleton, a glancing blow, anything. Tears ran toward his ears.

A hand appeared in front of his face."Love. Look at me."It was Liara.Her black pattern looked even smaller beneath her helmet. The little L-shaped marks trembled with her eyebrows.Gesio took one breath.Then another.At last, he found the courage to look.His legs pointed in directions no legs should."Am I going to die?" he asked, the words coming between breaths that were far too quick. "Liara, am I going to die?""No," she answered at once, though her eyes said something else. "I won't let you."Xavian appeared beside him and knelt. As he touched the ground, the black veins spread apart beneath his knees.Gesio looked again at the Weaver's large golden pattern. It was absurd that he should still notice such things at a time like this, but he could not help it."Open fractures in both knees. Left femur broken. Right tibial fissure."Xavian placed his hands over the wounds.The thread entered.The bones cracked as they shifted. Torn flesh began to pull itself over the fractures as though each piece remembered the exact place where it belonged.Gesio screamed.Liara removed her jacket, rolled up one sleeve, and pushed it between his teeth."Bite down. Come on, bite."Gesio clamped his jaw with all his strength. Liara held one side of his face in her hand. The marble wall, inches from her knuckles, kept its black veins away from them both.He felt the bones align, the muscles contract around them, and the skin close over the wounds.Then, without warning, the pain ended.Xavian withdrew his hands."You did well, boy. Lumos was running out of thread. Stand up and see what a job well done looks like."Gesio moved one foot, then the other.There was no pain.He rose carefully, bent his knees, and took a step. The black lines fled his boot as though nothing had happened."Thank you, Weaver Xavian. Truly. I owe you my life."The Weaver was already looking toward another wounded soldier."Then keep it."Liara gave him a light punch on the shoulder."You heard the Weaver.""Yes, Mom.""Keep that up, and I'll break your legs again."Gesio moved to the edge of the trench.Lumos emerged from cover with a sword in each hand.Three railguns turned toward him.The first fired. A flash raced across Lumos's armor from his chest to his head, and the Grand Loom moved aside at the last possible instant. The black veins parted beneath his steps before he
touched the ground, leaving a trail of white marks that vanished behind him.The second projectile passed over Lumos as he leaned aside without slowing.The third struck him head-on.A cloud of pulverized rock swallowed the battlefield.Gesio held his breath.Lumos ran out of the dust.He reached the first position, and the enemy soldiers ceased to look like soldiers. They became bodies too slow to react to something that had already happened. When the final cannon fell silent,
Lumos was the only living thing left standing among the blood-covered structures.Gesio realized that he had spent his entire life imagining inquisitors.And he had fallen short.While he waited for Lumos to return, Gesio prepared more spools.He took one in his hands and studied the threads inside. They moved as though they were alive. When he pressed his fingers to the glass, the strands gathered on the other side and traced the outline of his hand.Gesio looked around.Liara leaned against a wall, drinking from her canteen. The black veins left a white space around her shoulder, her hip, and the sole of one boot. Even as he grew accustomed to it, Gesio could not stop
watching them move."What would happen if...?"He raised the container toward his face and placed one hand on the lid.Liara snatched it away."Do you want us to be executed on our last mission?""Aren't you curious what would happen to us?""I know exactly what would happen."Liara drew one finger across her throat, closed her eyes, and let her tongue loll to one side.Gesio laughed."Pretty.""I know.""Modest, too."Liara handed back the spool."Once we're home, you can study all the strange rocks you want."Without thinking, Gesio touched the place where he had hidden the letter."Once we're home."The words died as he saw Lumos returning to the trench.A roar descended from the sky.Gesio looked up. Something wrapped in fire tore through the clouds. At first, he thought it was a projectile, but the shape grew larger and larger until it revealed itself as an enemy drop pod. Its dark shell burned beneath a sheath of orange and white as it plummeted almost vertically toward the battlefield."An enemy inquisitor?" Liara asked, panic written across her face.The pod struck between two destroyed railguns.The impact shook the trench. A column of white dust and steam covered the area as fragments of rock flew in every direction. The pod's hull lay half buried, still glowing red-hot. Flames crawled along its sides for several seconds before going out.The front hatch blew free.A figure stepped out.He wore woven armor, but the helmet had not yet closed over his face. He took his first step onto
the marble, and the black veins moved away from his boot before it touched down.Gesio searched for his pattern by instinct.It was enormous, and it was wrong. A web of black lines covered the man's forehead and temples, branching so densely that Gesio could not follow a single one from beginning to end. Golden flashes
ran through some of those lines like lightning trapped beneath the skin.Lumos stopped.Gesio had never seen him do that. The man who had just run through railgun fire without slowing took half a step back. His shoulders tightened and, for the first time since Gesio had seen him, the Grand Loom looked afraid."No..." Lumos whispered.The newcomer raised his gaze."Impossible. Serleno?"Gesio knew the name. Everyone did. Serleno had been one of the most celebrated Grand Looms of the war. His death, three years earlier, had filled broadcasts, tributes, and temples for weeks. Even in
the Unthreaded districts, people had hung his portrait beside the lists of the fallen.Serleno was dead.And he had just arrived inside an enemy drop pod.Lumos turned toward the trench."Eighty-Eighth Squadron, immediate retreat! Everyone back! Now!"There was no solemnity in the order. There was urgency. There was fear.Liara looked at Gesio. He did not need to ask. If Lumos wanted to run, they had no reason to remain.Serleno extended one hand. The mantle sealed the helmet over his face.Then he raised a black sword.Gesio recognized it from the stories before he truly understood what he was seeing: an ontological sword. Its white-and-gold edge traced an arc through the air.The whistle reached them an instant later.High. Brief. Unmistakable.For one second, the entire battlefield seemed to hold its breath."Death's Song!" a general shouted. "Retreat!"Serleno moved.The black veins in the marble parted beneath his first step.Gesio blinked.The general was still standing.He blinked again.The general lay on the ground.Golden flashes sparked between the black lines of Serleno's pattern and raced through his body into one leg. Each time they appeared, the inquisitor materialized somewhere else. The marble whitened beneath his feet an instant before Gesio managed to locate him.The soldiers tried to flee. Some fell, cleaved apart by the black sword. He seized others for barely a second; then they crumpled, unconscious.Xavian summoned his armor in a single motion and ran to intercept him with a military sword.The inquisitor struck.Xavian blocked, but the impact tore him from the ground. His body flew several meters and slammed into the rock with a metallic crash. The black veins scattered from his outline just before he hit.Gesio drew his needle.Liara did the same.The enemy appeared before them, his armor drenched in their comrades' blood.Gesio fired at his head.Liara fired almost at the same time.The projectiles bounced off without leaving a mark.The inquisitor looked at Liara.Gesio saw the decision before she did."No!""I really don't want to do this," the inquisitor said.The sword sang.Liara's head fell before Gesio could understand the movement.Her body remained standing for a fraction of a second.Then it collapsed.Gesio did not hear the impact.He did not hear the gunfire.He did not hear his own voice.He saw only black hair spreading over white stone. He saw the small pattern of L-shaped marks on her motionless forehead. He saw the smile that was no longer there.His hand went to the inner pocket of his uniform.The letter was still there.When we get home together.The inquisitor turned his sword toward Gesio.Another blade deflected it.Lumos appeared between them. The enemy answered with a punch that tore through Gesio's shield
and struck him in the chest.Something cracked beneath his ribs.Gesio flew backward and landed facedown among the debris. The black veins pulled away from his palms and cheek before he struck the stone. Air refused to enter his lungs.By the time he managed to lift his head, Lumos and the inquisitor were already fighting.Gesio barely saw movement. He saw consequences.A furrow opened in the stone, and an instant later, he understood that a sword had passed through it. The dust changed direction, and then he found Lumos somewhere else. The black veins beneath them fled both fighters in frantic patterns, opening and closing so quickly that they resembled another battle raging underfoot.The blades collided with such speed that the sound seemed to arrive late.Flashes raced across Lumos's armor from his chest to his temples. He dodged attacks Gesio had not even detected. The enemy inquisitor, however, corrected every strike with monstrous precision.Lumos managed to wound him in the neck. The military sword tore a thin line from his armor, but its edge emerged webbed with cracks.The enemy's black weapon showed no wear at all.Lumos used a second sword to block.The gray blade shattered.The force of the impact hurled him into a mound of rubble. His armor lost cohesion and unraveled into thousands of dim strands that dispersed across the stone.A cloud of dust hid his fall."I know you're not dead," the inquisitor said as he advanced through the smoke. "Surrender, and I'll give you a quick death."From the ground, Gesio saw two paths.To his left, the smoke concealed the retreat toward the trench. If he crawled, he might reach Xavian.To his right, the enemy stood only a few steps from finding Lumos.Between the two paths lay a new military sword.Gesio looked toward the trench first.Then he looked at Liara.The war was over for her.The last mission.The last damned mission.Gesio pressed his hand against the letter beneath his uniform.He took the sword.For Lumos, it would have been a light one-handed weapon. Gesio needed both hands to lift it. His
chest burned, and every breath seemed to scrape shards of glass beneath his ribs.He approached from behind.His hands shook so badly he almost dropped the hilt. The marble parted beneath every step and closed again behind him, indifferent to everything else.He raised the blade above his head and brought it down with all his strength.The inquisitor turned.He stopped the sword with one hand.Metal shrieked against the palm of his armor. The enemy's arm did not move back an inch.Gesio caught a glimpse of his own reflection in the black helmet.Then he felt the blade pierce his chest.The blow lifted him off the ground. Pain raced along his back and gathered in his forehead. His four black circles burned as though something were trying to tear them out from within. A web of foreign golden light shot through the pattern."Good try, boy," the inquisitor said.Blood filled Gesio's mouth.Behind the enemy, the dust split apart.Lumos took a single step and struck precisely at the crack he had opened earlier in the neck guard.The inquisitor's head separated from his body.The sword impaling Gesio went still.The corpse fell to its knees and began to dissolve into black threads. It formed no cocoon. It left neither flesh nor bone. Only dark strands that scattered across the white stone.Lumos's eyes widened."May the goddess protect us."Gesio tried to ask for help. All he managed was to cough up blood.The Grand Loom looked at him, then at the sword buried in his chest. Resignation settled over his face.Lumos slowly raised his weapon.Gesio understood what he was about to do.A quick death.A merciful death.Over Lumos's shoulder, he saw Liara's body one last time.He thought of the letter.He thought of a home they would no longer return to together."Forgive me, boy.""Wait!"Xavian ran between them.Xavian gripped the sword's hilt in both hands.The blade had passed through Gesio's sternum and emerged from his back. Pulling it out at once would tear the wound tract wide open, and what little blood remained inside the boy would finish flooding his chest cavity.The Weaver knelt. The black veins in the marble separated beneath his knees and beneath the palms he pressed to either side of Gesio's body.He placed one hand on Gesio's chest and allowed the thread to travel through the damage.Left lung perforated. Multiple rib fractures. Internal thoracic artery severed. Pericardium torn, with a laceration in the right ventricle that widened a little more with each heartbeat."Damn it."Gesio stared at him with wide eyes. He tried to breathe and retched blood."Don't remove the sword," Lumos ordered. "It's containing the hemorrhage.""I know."Xavian closed his eyes.For an instant, he saw another young man in a military uniform, smiling on a platform as he promised to return from the Selections. His son had tried to hide his fear too. Xavian had let him leave because he believed there would still be time to protect him.There had not been.He opened his eyes.Gesio moved his lips.Xavian leaned closer."Liara..."The Weaver glanced toward the body lying several meters away."Stay with me, Gesio."He began to withdraw the sword millimeter by millimeter. The thread entered ahead of the air, sealing the severed vessels, rebuilding the lung, and knitting the sternum together as the metal left the body.Gesio clung to his wrist."That's it. Don't let go."The blade moved another centimeter.The heart stopped.Xavian felt it before he heard the silence.He kept working.He compressed the ventricle with thread, forced the muscle closed, and sent an impulse through Gesio's chest.Gesio's body arched. There was no heartbeat.He tried again.Nothing."Xavian," Lumos said.The Weaver did not answer.Golden threads covered Gesio's face and sank into his neck. The skin around his pattern turned pale; the four black circles remained still."It's been five minutes."Xavian continued."Weaver, enough. You're spending too much thread on an Unthreaded."The words broke through his concentration.Xavian kept his hands on the motionless chest for several more seconds. Then he let the threads return slowly to his body.Gesio's hand slipped from his wrist.Gesio opened his eyes.He no longer felt pain.He stood in a hall so vast that its ceiling disappeared among the shadows. White curtains fell from impossible heights. Chandeliers without flames illuminated stained-glass windows that depicted neither battles nor kings, but ordinary people: a woman carrying water, an old man repairing a chair, a girl offering bread.The statues also portrayed strangers.Not one was a hero Gesio could remember.He pressed a hand to his chest. He found neither blood nor wound.His next instinct was to search the inner pocket of his uniform.The letter was still there.Gesio squeezed it between his fingers."Liara?"No answer came."Where am I?"A woman sat on the floor at the center of the hall.

She wore white. Her hair was dark, curly, and so long that it spread around her like a shadow. Her hands moved with precision, as though braiding an invisible thread. Between her fingers, strands of
black and gold appeared and slowly took the shape of a blade.Gesio approached.As always, he looked first at her face, then searched for the pattern.There was none.He stopped.Looked again.The woman's forehead was perfectly bare.No gold.No black.Not a single line."May Ara guide my thread," he whispered.The woman looked up. Her eyes were silver.Gesio stepped back."Sorry. A moment ago, I was in a battle, and now I'm... I don't know where I am. My girlfriend
was with me. Liara. Have you seen her?"The woman continued weaving."Your deeds in the world of the living have brought your story to its end. It will therefore be preserved and forged to..."Her hands stopped.She looked at the black and golden threads.Then she looked at Gesio as if she had only just discovered him."Oh."Gesio waited.The woman tilted her head."How strange. This has never happened before."Xavian was still kneeling beside the corpse when the seam appeared.A black line split the air between him and Lumos. They both recognized the phenomenon. They had seen ontological weapons born before.That was why neither of them understood what happened next.The opening unraveled in silence, allowing a massive two-handed sword to emerge. The black blade curved in ways that belonged to no known school of smithing. Its surface seemed to absorb light, and it was so dense that, when it finished manifesting, the marble sank several millimeters beneath its weight before slowly regaining its shape.The hilt bore a symbol identical to Gesio's pattern: four black circles separated from one another.Xavian reached out.The heat forced him to pull back before he touched the weapon.Lumos tried next. He managed to close his fingers around the hilt for an instant, but his skin began to smoke and he had to release it.The black veins in the marble drew away from Gesio's body, Xavian's knees, and Lumos's boots, just as they had since the moment they arrived. The sword, however, did not disturb them at all."It does not belong to us," Xavian said.The sword tilted toward the body.Gesio gasped violently.Xavian recoiled.The boy had been dead for five minutes.The sword lowered itself until it came to rest against his bloodied hand.Gesio's fingers closed around the hilt.

First Chapter from Commander Needles and The Blender of Fate

By Marty A. Johnson

Prologue: Instructions for Use (Usually Ignored)The first rule of reality is simple:Don't touch anything you don't understand.The second rule of reality is even simpler:Nobody understands anything.The first two rules thus make the third rule of reality inevitable:If there’s a big red button next to a giant sign screaming “WARNING: DO NOT PUSH THIS BUTTON!” — there’s an idiot somewhere who will absolutely push it. And you are probably just that idiot. Face it, you’ve pushed that button a time or two before and you know it.Somewhere, hidden in the dust between ordinary moments, in the spaces people forget to look there are rules.Ancient rules.Stupid rules.Rules written in languages nobody speaks anymore, on napkins nobody bothered to save. Rules so old and so long forgotten, nobody even knows why the rules existed in the first place.These rules are not enforced.
They are not remembered.
They are barely even real.Until someone, usually by accident, breaks them.It never feels important at the time. You say yes when you should have said no.
You buy the wrong thing from the wrong person. You walk through the perfect situation with the wrong mindset. You push the wrong button and tell yourself it probably doesn’t matter.And at first... it doesn’t.Reality doesn’t shatter all at once.
It leaks.It hums.It rearranges itself while you're not looking.Until suddenly, gravity feels optional.Until vending machines start running for public office.Until you look around and realize you have no idea if this was how the world always was… or if it’s just how it is now.This is one of those stories.It always begins the way most disasters do:Small.Stupid.Beautiful.You have been warned.Now then.Hang onto your sense of humor.It’s the first thing reality tries to steal from you and that is your greatest defense.End of PrologueNote from the Author:This book is based on a true story.I just can’t prove it. Yet.Because it happened in a different timeline. One that may or may not align with yours.I guess we will find out.Warning: reality leakage may occur. Reader assumes all risks, including but not limited to existential vertigo and unexpected cactus loyalty.Chapter One: The Time I Bought a Cactus and Accidentally Declared WarIt all started because I wanted a cactus.Not a big cactus. Not the kind that says “I'm compensating for something” like that guy down the street with the monster truck and a tarantula farm.No. Just a normal, friendly-looking cactus. Something you could trust. Something you could tell your secrets to at three in the morning without it judging you — or at least, not judging you out loud.The kind of plant that even the most forgetful, irresponsible single guy in the entire world would struggle to kill through negligence or sheer unbridled apathy.So I went to Bargain Barry’s House of Flora and Other Regrets, which was conveniently located between the Mist Opportunities vape shop and a taxidermy shop called You Kill It, We Fill It — down on Fourth and Vine. The kind of strip mall where hope goes to die, but at discount prices.A hand-painted sign on Barry's door read: “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone who asks stupid questions like 'Is this plant legal in this state?' or 'Why is that fern giving me the finger?'“Inside, the air smelled like wet hope and broken dreams. Or perhaps it was broken hope and wet dreams. Does it really matter? Same difference.Whatever the hell that smell was, it was sharp and sweet, like the ghost of something you almost remember but never lived. Sort of like déjà vu had twin babies with amnesia.It clung to my clothes. It prickled against my skin.
For half a second, I could swear I heard the plants humming.Then Barry smiled at me, and the air got thicker, heavier — like breathing chloroform through cotton candy — and I forgot to care.There were plants everywhere; hanging from the ceiling, growing out of the cash register, one possibly sprouting from Barry’s left shoe.Barry himself looked like he had fought a jungle once and lost, like an aging wannabe rock star who never made it out of the garage or put together a decent demo tape. He wore an apron that said “NO REFUNDS! NO RETURNS! NO MERCY!”“I need a cactus,” I said, slamming my hands down on the counter with the confidence of a man who still believed all of his life decisions hadn't already been cosmically predetermined for maximum comedic fallout.Barry didn’t blink. Instead, the air around him seemed to shimmer like heat waves rising off sunbaked asphalt. I swear this is true, though I am sure my therapist disagrees that for a moment I saw another version of Barry superimposed over him.Thinner. Taller. Wearing a crown of vines.I blinked hard, and normal Barry reappeared, grinning like he knew a joke I was too dumb to understand.He reached under the counter and pulled out a cactus so ugly it looked like it had been assembled from spare parts at a cactus factory that specialized in disappointment. “This one's special,” Barry said, voice low, like we were discussing state secrets. “It comes with... certain responsibilities.”“Cool,” I said, because I’m a complete fucking idiot.I handed him seventeen dollars and a coupon for a free frozen yogurt at TCBY that expired in 2019. Barry handed me the cactus and for half a second, when our hands touched, I swear the walls of the store breathed in and out like a living thing.I stumbled outside into the sunlight, blinking hard.Everything looked... almost normal.Just a little too bright. A little too loud.But hey.That’s just America, right?When I got home, I put the cactus on the windowsill and named it Commander Needles, because naming plants gives them dignity and also because I was already three beers deep into my regular Thursday night spiral.Things were normal for exactly seven minutes and thirty-nine seconds.
Then Commander Needles opened his mouth — yes, he had a mouth, shut up — and spoke.“DECLARATION OF HOSTILITIES INITIATED,” he said in a voice that sounded like a fax machine having a nervous breakdown.“YOU, FLESH-UNIT DESIGNATED 'OWNER', HAVE UNWITTINGLY ALIGNED YOURSELF WITH THE SOVEREIGN CACTI REBELLION.”I stared at him. He stared back. His tiny spines vibrated menacingly.“Listen,” I said slowly, “I think there’s been a mistake. I’m not a responsible citizen. I don’t even vote!”But it was too late. Outside my window, the world was already changing.Mrs. Hernandez's prize-winning roses had uprooted themselves and were forming what appeared to be a rudimentary phalanx formation on her lawn.The community garden's tomato plants were strangling pigeons and absorbing their nutrients with disturbing efficiency.And from the direction of the botanical gardens came the unmistakable thunder of thousands of succulents on the march, their root systems creating miniature earthquakes as they advanced.In hindsight, I probably should’ve read the warning label.
But it was written in Latin, and possibly with ketchup and some mixture of chlorophyll mixed with malice.Anyway, that's how I accidentally started a war against humanity on behalf of a sentient houseplant.Sorry about that.***You know that feeling when you wake up and realize you’ve accidentally started an interspecies war while drunk and talking to your houseplants?Yeah. Me too.Commander Needles was already drafting battle plans on my kitchen table, using my unpaid electric bills as stationery. Every so often, he’d stab a crayon into the paper with a victorious yell, as if he’d just conquered the local utility company and then, with a rare flash of solemnity, he’d sketch tiny gravestones over the overdue notices.“PHASE ONE,” he squeaked, stabbing a pen into the paper.
“ELIMINATE ALL THREATS OF DEHYDRATION AND DISHONOR.”I didn’t know what that meant, but I nodded like I did because when a cactus starts barking orders, you just go with it. That's pure survival instinct. Same reason you don’t tell a raccoon it looks fat. Speaking some truths is an outright death sentence.It was about then that Muffins the Psychic Hamster arrived.He didn’t knock.He just appeared in a flash of light, riding a black Roomba like a tiny, angry gladiator.Muffins wore a red cape made out of what appeared to be a Fruit Roll-Up, and his eyes burned with the kind of wild, infinite knowledge you usually only see in toddlers right before they eat a handful of sand.“THE BLENDER,” Muffins declared, voice booming directly into my skull. “You must retrieve the Forbidden Blender before it's too late.”I blinked. “Blender?”He nodded gravely.“You mean like, a smoothie blender?”Muffins’ nose twitched.“Smoothies... margaritas... emulsified chaos. All the same when the prophecy unfolds.”Commander Needles clicked impatiently.“THE FLESH-UNIT QUESTIONS TOO MUCH. INITIATE QUEST ACCEPTANCE RITUAL.”Muffins squealed and threw a tiny handful of Cheez-It crumbs into the air.I stood there… dumb, hopeless, weirdly honored.In some twisted cosmic ballet, I was being knighted by a rodent and a cactus to save the world from some unknown unspeakable doom involving small kitchen appliances.Maybe it was the eight beers talking.Maybe it was the fundamental loneliness of being human with that deep, quiet hope that someday, somewhere, somehow, life would finally ask something important of you.Either way, I knelt.Had to.I’m not passing that opportunity up.Mama didn’t raise no fool. (I just realized that is a double negative, so maybe she did.)“I accept the quest,” I said.The air shimmered.Somewhere, faintly, the universe sighed and flipped to a new page in the book of reality.One where I was the hero.Or the idiot.Or both.The hero-idiot.
Or maybe the idiot-hero.Important Life Lesson #1:Sometimes destiny doesn't come dressed in gold armor riding a white horse. Sometimes it shows up in your kitchen riding a Roomba and wearing a Fruit Roll-Up cape, and you just have to roll with it.Commander Needles handed me a map drawn in crayon on the back of a pizza box.At the top it said, in bright green letters:“THE BLENDERS ARE IN AISLE 17, WALMART.”Below that, in smaller letters:“(Beware the Cult of the Everyday Low Price.)”Muffins climbed onto my shoulder, sniffed my ear, and whispered:
“Trust no one who wears cargo shorts.”“Hey,” I said. “I wear cargo shorts!”Muffins looked at me for a long moment and shook his head slightly. “Yes, I know. And look what has happened to you.”This had to be a dream, because only in dreams do hamsters ride Roombas and cacti draft war plans. But I was really afraid it wasn’t.And just like that, we were off.A cactus. A psychic hamster. And me: One man, marginally sober, about to commit acts of questionable heroism in the fluorescent-lit jungles of corporate retail America.***If you’ve never sprinted into a Walmart at midnight armed with nothing but a psychic hamster and a cactus giving you tactical advice, then let me tell you dear reader: You are not truly living.The sliding doors hissed open with the hungry breath of a beast that had seen too much.Inside, the world was too bright, too clean, too… organized. Rows upon rows of plastic dreams. Shiny things. Useful things. Things nobody actually needed but everyone believed they did. I guess it’s better to have stupid shit and be broke, rather than have no shit and be broke.Muffins the Psychic Hamster peered into my soul.“You must walk with purpose,” he said gravely. “They can smell confusion.”Commander Needles added, “THEY THRIVE ON UNCERTAINTY. DO NOT ASK WHERE THE BATHROOM IS.”I nodded and tried to look like I belonged there. Like I was just another regular dude with a psychic hamster and a talking cactus in tow, shopping for discount socks and the salvation of mankind.Aisle after aisle blurred past… Fishing. Automotive. An aisle with fifty varieties of the same shampoo, each promising eternal youth, perfect hair, divine enlightenment, and failing all that, at least, the temporary, comforting illusion that your life wasn’t quietly falling apart.Then we hit Aisle 17.And that's when I saw them.The Cult.They wore khakis.
They wore navy blue vests.Their name tags said things like “Cheryl,” “Blake,” and “TAMMI with an I.”
Their eyes, though… their eyes had seen things. Terrible, fluorescent-lit things.They circled the blenders, chanting softly under their breath:“Rollback... rollback... rollback...”At the center, perched atop a towering pyramid of Nutribullets and Ninja Mega Systems, sat The Forbidden Blender — a hulking chrome monstrosity with seventeen settings, a glowing red button, and an aura of pure, uncut destiny.The hamster on my shoulder squeaked urgently.
“The red button controls fate.”Commander Needles hissed, “SECURE THE OBJECTIVE.”I took a step forward.Cheryl, the high priestess, no doubt, stepped into my path, dead-eyed and smiling.“Can I help you find something?” she asked, voice sweet enough to rot teeth.I swallowed.“Uh, yeah. I'm here for... rollback?”Her smile grew wider, unnatural. Too wide, like her face was hinged wrong.“You are here for rollback. We are all here for rollback. Did you hear him Tammi? He is here for rollback!”Behind her, Blake cracked his knuckles.Tammi-with-an-I reached into her apron and pulled out... a pricing gun.She cocked it like a Beretta. It made a terrifying “ka-chunk” noise.The fluorescent lights above buzzed louder.Things were about to get violent.Important Life Lesson #2:Sometimes evil doesn’t come dressed in black cloaks and iron masks.Sometimes evil hands you a smile, offers you 15% off, and dares you to wonder whether your soul was worth full price anyway.Muffins was vibrating with tension.“Strike now!” he shrieked. “Or forever kneel before the tyranny of Great Value!”Commander Needles launched himself off my arm with a screech, hitting Cheryl square in the face. She went down, flailing, screaming about “loss prevention protocols.”I made a break for it, straight up the blender pyramid, slipping on plastic and cardboard.The cultists howled.Tammi shot label after label at me — CLEARANCE! MANAGER'S SPECIAL! BARGAIN! BARGAIN! BARGAIN! — but I dodged like a man who had no dignity left to lose.At the top, I seized the Forbidden Blender. It thrummed in my hands, heavy and electric, like holding the beating heart of consumerism itself.The moment my fingers brushed the red button, a voice boomed through the store, crackling from a thousand cheap speakers:“Welcome, Chosen One. Your savings have been maximized.”The cultists dropped to their knees.The fluorescent lights pulsed, buzzing like a hive of nervous bees.Somewhere in the back, a shelf of frozen pepperoni pizzas collapsed in religious ecstasy.And just like that, it was over.Muffins crawled up my shoulder and whispered:“You have the power now. Use it wisely. Or don't. Honestly, most people use it to make margaritas.”Commander Needles gave a grim nod.“MISSION COMPLETE. PREPARE TO INITIATE PHASE TWO.”Phase Two?Oh. Right.Because obviously, stealing a blender that controls reality was just the beginning.

First Chapter from When the Mountain Calls

By Ernabel Demillo

Baguio, April 1943I saw a boy die that day.No. That’s not true.I saw two boys die.But for many years I only counted one.That day started like most other days, with my sister Minda and me hissing at each other like feral cats as we fought over a faded floral cotton blouse, a favorite of our eldest sister, Malou, who had passed away before the Japanese arrived.“She gave it to me,” Minda screeched. She stomped her feet and snatched a sleeve. She pulled so hard I could hear the stitching pop.“Stop, you’re breaking it.” Our tug-of-war lasted only a few minutes before Nanay ran into the room, her right foot bare as she waved a red cinelas at us. Minda and I dropped the blouse and scampered out the back door, like two wild dogs. Our mom chased after us, yelling for us to stop.“Tama, na!”We sprinted past our neighbor, who was filling up her bucket with mountain water from the giant concrete basin in our yard. We were the only house on the hill with a waterfall, and that made our backyard a popular gathering place. At least it used to be before occupation. We dashed up the flower-covered sloping hill behind our house. I could hear Minda’s labored wheezing. We didn’t care that our bare feet trampled the wild yellow marapait that had just started to bloom.When we reached the top, I doubled over, giggling and gasping for air. I squinted and spied my mom at the bottom of the hill. I knew we had to return home eventually. But the sting of Nanay’s red slipper on our arms and hands could wait. And it seemed Nanay had forgotten about me, Minda, and Ate Malou’s faded blouse. She was shaking her head, waving her cinelas at Ma’am Elsie’s face. Even from a distance, I could see the deep lines on my mom’s forehead. I was certain she wasn’t complaining about us. She only turned this red and animated when she talked about the Japanese soldiers. I wish I could hear what they were saying. There were so many rumors about the war. One day, we heard the Americans were coming back, and the Japanese were retreating. The next day we heard the Japanese were winning and Americans had all but abandoned the Philippines.“I think Nanay forgot why she was chasing us,” I said, turning to Minda. My younger sister looked even smaller amid the tall grass and yellow flowers that surrounded her. She snapped a marapait off its long stem.“Let’s make a flower crown, Ate,” she said. Her airy voice belied the permanent scowl on her round chinless face, which made her look far older than her 10 years. Our stepfather nicknamed her “Tampo Queen” because she was always sulking, or at least looked like it. He doesn’t even call her Minda anymore, just TQ.“Minda, you are cutting the stems too short. The flowers are going to wilt before we get back to the house.”She glared at me and rolled her eyes. I wanted to swat her in the head. Even though I was now the eldest, Minda still didn’t treat me like her older sister. I opened my mouth to scold her, but a loud thumping sound distracted me. It was coming from the other side of the ridge. The ground started to shake when a silver bomber came into view. It flew directly above us, kicking dust and pelting small rocks into our faces. I shielded my eyes and cursed at the red circle painted on its wings and belly. I wanted to pick up a rock and throw it at the plane. But all I could do was watch it rumble toward Lucban Street before it turned to head to Camp John Hay, the former American military base. When Minda and I returned home, we expected to be punished. But Nanay didn’t bring up the fight over Ate Malou’s blouse, instead she told us that she was going to the river to wash the dirties.“Minda, you come help me,” she said, handing my sister a woven basket overflowing with soiled clothes. “Flora, you mind the Sari Sari.”I gritted my teeth and nodded. I tried hard not to smile.“Okay, po. Be careful,” I managed to say without smirking.
I watched them leave, perched on my stool in the Sari-Sari. Nanay expertly balanced a tall woven basket with one hand on her head. She made it look so easy. Minda followed two paces behind, whimpering with complaint, carrying the much smaller basket strapped on her back. Why did Minda act as if the weight of the world were in her basket, instead of dirty clothes and linens? I watched them get smaller and smaller, until they disappeared like ghosts into the trees.This was one of the few times I was happy to be the eldest daughter. I got to stay behind and mind the store. Washing our dirties in the Balili River was my least favorite chore. I hated the way my hands got red and wrinkly, scrubbing the dirt and mud on the river’s rocks, while sitting on my haunches for what seemed like hours. What I would miss, though, was the tsimis that dripped like honey from our neighbor, Ma’am Elsie’s, mouth. She always had tidbits of tantalizing gossip that made one of the other ladies clutch their chests.“Did you hear, Catalina’s youngest is pregnant? And she’s not married.”“Ay, poor Ate Lorna, I hear she caught her husband with another woman.”I wondered what gossip Ma’am Elsie would whisper today. Even though these days you had to be much more careful with your words. Someone you thought was a friend could turn you in to the Makapili or the Kempetai, because betrayal was easy when you had a sick or hungry child. The river wasn't far from our house, just down the steep hill and past the ice factory, which had been eerily quiet since the guerrillas set it on fire the month before. We heard rumors that the factory owner was a Japanese sympathizer. Ma’am Elsie said that was a lie, but she did say most of his workers left to join the rebels hiding up in the mountains. It seemed more of our neighbors and friends were starting to leave Baguio.Like yesterday and the day before, Lucban was deserted. Even the fog had abandoned our town. Only the mountains stayed. The rolling green hills and skinny pines stood untouched, awashed in pink and orange light. Above the tallest peak of the Cordilleras, the sun rose like a yellow flower — bright and beautiful, as if it didn’t know there was a war below. When I gazed at this view, I could see why Nanay moved us here from Manila so many years ago. There was a time I used to feel like we were so close to heaven and paradise was just over the ridge. I no longer felt that way.Bored, I inspected the shelves. What was I expecting to see? It was just as bare as it was yesterday. Why did Nanay insist on keeping the store open? Before the Japanese arrived, we had our regular customers. Nanay sold them cigarettes, rice, sodas, candy, fruits, flowers, dried food, canned foods, baked rice breads, and puddings out of the large bay window facing the street. If she didn’t have it, Nanay wrote down the missing items and found them in Manila during one of her weekly shopping trips to the capital. Lately, it was harder to find food, not just to sell, but for our family to eat. I hated looking at the empty shelves, which seemed to be mocking my family’s plight. I hated the Japanese. When they marched in and took away the Americans and Europeans, they promised us a better life. “Asia, for Asia,” they said. But how were food shortages a better life? When there was food, prices were so high that even our neighbors with money couldn’t afford rice or sugar.I plopped myself back on the wooden stool. I no longer needed to sit on the thick book, “The History of Japan,” which our upstairs neighbor had dropped off when he first moved in with his Filipina movie star wife. Tatay had called him a ‘god damn Jap’ under his breath, but always smiled and called him ‘sir’ when Mr. Watanabe came by to buy a cigarette or borrowed matches. I took the centavo coins from the jar. I needed to practice my Japanese, along with addition and subtraction, just in case school opened again. The last time I attended, we were learning to count in Nihongo. I missed the routine of school, reciting English verbs and multiplication tables. I missed my classmates and teachers. I had been looking forward to starting Grade Five.“Ichi, ni, san, shi,” I said, sounding out each consonant and vowel slowly as I moved the coins from right to left. Ay, it was hard to practice math and Nihongo with just four coins. I started again.“Ichi, ni …” I stopped. Three older boys were approahing the store. I assumed they would just walk by without stopping. Instead, one sauntered up to the wood counter. I recognized him from school. It was Nino. He walked with the same swagger that made all the girls swoon. We all had a crush on Nino, but he only had eyes for my Ate Malou, who would have been fifteen next week. God rest her soul. His two companions stood back. They didn’t look familiar. They weren’t as handsome as Nino, with his regal, sharp nose and heart-shaped face. I wondered if he had Spanish blood? The boys wore denim jeans, faded from washing, and identical tan cotton buttoned shirts; their black hair, combed back, glistened with pomade.“Kumasta, miss,” Nino said. He flashed a gummy smile, his white teeth bright against his coffee-colored skin.“Kumasta, po,” I answered softly. I liked being called Miss. It made me feel grown-up.Nino squinted as if studying my face. “I know you. You’re Malou’s little sister?”“Yes, po.” My heart twisted. It always did when I heard my late sister’s name.“Condolences.”“Salamat, po. It’s been almost two years, but we still miss her very much. ”“Really, two years?” Nino touched his gold cross around his neck. For an instant, he looked genuinely sad. Then quickly changed the subject. “You don’t have much here.”“Sorry, po. We do have some fresh squash, beans, and green bananas…and marapait.” I pointed at the bright yellow sunflowers that already look like they are wilting. “We also have some cola in the back. I think we have three cans left.”“Ay, I have marapait in my yard.” Nino laughed and leaned in closer as if he were inspecting the shelves behind me. He put his elbows on the wooden counter and let out an exaggerated sigh. “I’m feeling lucky today.” He drew out the word lucky. Then winked.My cheeks flushed. Was it embarrassment? I noticed a speck of sweat on his nose and upper lip. I was too afraid to move. Nino raised his one eyebrow and waited a beat before repeating, “I’m feeling lucky today.”My brain snapped into attention. Did he know the code to buy cigarettes? Nanay had bartered ten jars of honey for three packs of Lucky Strike and Old Gold cigarettes. One cigarette could buy us a bowl of rice.“Lucky? I asked him.Nino snorted and slapped the counter. “Yes, lucky for cola because the marapait blooms.”That was it. He knew the code. I tried not to react. Just be cool, Flora, I said to myself. Why did this boy make me feel so nervous? My stomach fluttered like I swallowed butterflies. I went to the back and returned with a can of cola, one cigarette, and a small bouquet of marapait wrapped in the newspaper Nanay told me to use when a customer came in and said the code.I handed him the items and noticed his hands were at least three shades darker than mine, and more rough and callused, like the old laborers who helped build the twisting Kennon Road, connecting Manila to Baguio. How does a boy so young already have hands so old? I heard he dropped out of secondary school to make money as a laborer or miner. So many of the boys did.“10 centavos — po.”“Ay, that’s highway robbery. ” He laughed. His eyes twinkled in the late morning sunlight. His toothy smile revealed the deep dimples the girls used to swoon over.“Sorry, sir …I… I mean po.” I stuttered.“Joking, lang, I’m just joking.” He reached into his jeans pocket and handed over the coins. They felt hot and sticky in my hands. Did he know I would have accepted eight, maybe seven centavos?Nino joined his companions, who lingered on the empty street. Their eyes moved as if expecting someone to come out of the pine trees that lined Lucban. They made me nervous. They took turns sipping from the can and taking drags from the cigarette. I craned my neck to listen, but they were speaking in Ilocano, a different dialect. I caught bits and pieces of what they were saying, words similar to Tagalog, but it didn’t make sense. I wish I could understand the language many in Baguio speak. Nanay knew how to speak Ilocano. She could even speak Kankanay. The boys stopped talking. I kept my eyes on the coins. I didn’t want them to think I was eavesdropping.To my relief, they finally walked away. I watched as they ambled down the street in the same direction as the river. Seeing the yellow flowers dangle from Nino’s hand made me smile. Some of the yellow petals fell, leaving a trail as the trio disappeared around the corner. I turned my attention back to my coins. Practicing math and Nihongo would be easier with 10 coins.“Ich, ni, san” … A glint caught my eye. On the street, I spied what looked like a shiny gold object. Maybe it was another centavo coin. I looked toward the river. No sign of Nanay or Minda coming back from washing.I deftly climbed up onto the counter and crawled out the window. Nanay would have hit me with her slippers if she had caught me doing this. The shiny object turned out it be Nino’s gold cross. It must have slipped off his neck. I didn’t know what to do. Maybe he’ll come back, I thought. But what if he didn’t know he lost it? I knew I shouldn’t have left the Sari Sari unattended, but there were no people around. And I told myself that I wouldn’t be gone for long. I slipped the cross in my pocket and dashed down the hill. When I turned the corner, I saw Nino, several paces ahead of me, walking with urgency in the middle of the street. He was alone.“Nino! Nino! You left your cross behind!”He turned. My hands froze mid-wave. His eyes were filled with rage. I didn’t understand. Why was he looking at me like that? Then I saw it. The revolver in his hand. He was pointing it right at me. My body didn’t move. I felt like my feet were stuck in mud. Why does he want to shoot me? But then I realized he was not looking at me. His eyes glared at something behind me. I whipped around and saw who he was looking at. A Japanese soldier was pointing a bayonet at me — at him.“Flora, move!” Nino screamed.I dropped to the ground and covered my head with both hands. Please, God, spare my life. A man yelled, Nino yelled, guns fired. What does a bullet feel like when it pierces your body? Would I scream in pain? The gunfire stopped. I was still cowering, close to the ground. Men continued shouting; footsteps shuffled towards me. I raised my head slightly and saw a blue car. I didn’t know where I found the courage, but something or someone seemed to lift my body. I have no idea how I made it behind the car, where a woman and a little girl were also hiding. The girl whimpered, her cheeks wet with tears, snot dripping from her nose. I recognized them. They had passed by the Sari Sari earlier. The little girl, who wore her in tight pigtails under a bonnet, had smiled and waved at me. But her mom was suplada and walked by with her nose tilted toward the sky. They had moved to the big empty house down the block a few weeks ago; her husband was rumored to be a Japanese sympathizer, and that’s why they were allowed to live there. The previous family fled after the father was dragged out and lynched for helping the guerrillas. The mom slouched against the car door, her eyes wide open, staring into space. She must be in shock. The shooting started again. The little girl let out a moan, her hands wrapped tightly around her mom’s arms.

I raised a shaky finger toward my lips. “Shhh …” Why isn’t her mother comforting her? The woman just stared, her lipsticked stained lips pursed in annoyance. The little girl jerked forward, which made her mom’s head flop like a doll. I gasped. The back of the woman’s head was gone. I covered my mouth with both hands to keep from retching. I had seen dead bodies before, but not this close and not this gory. The little girl untangled herself from her mother. Blood dripped down the side of her delicate pink floral dress, onto her white patent leather shoes. She was not much older than my baby sister. The girl darted across the street, a flash of pink and red passing by me.I stood up and screamed. “Stop? Come back!”The girl ignored me and ran into the backside of a Japanese soldier. Suprised, he swiftly turned and raised his bayonet. I swear his eyes lit up when he saw the little girl in front of him.“No!”The soldier’s lips curled as he raised his weapon, but then his body twisted in the air before crumpling to the ground. I saw Nino. The bullets came from his gun. We locked eyes. He lifted his hand in a fist. Laban. It was the symbol to fight. I raised my fist, too, in solidarity. I smiled, Nino’s gold cross dangled from my hand, but Nino’s toothy grin and dimple disappeared, along with his head.

First Chapter from The Thousand Doors

By Michael W. Rodriguez

UnsinkableThe brass doorknob pulsed warmly in Greta’s hand, like a little heartbeat. She held it a moment, reveling in its reassuring rhythm. As she released it, the narrow, green door swung noiselessly inward, revealing another round room beyond. Leaves in colors of early autumn appeared to be growing from trees painted upon the walls. As she watched, a gust of wind blew through the branches, rustling the leaves but not her hair.She stepped across the threshold. Her curiosity piqued, she reached over and ran one hand through a dense branch of dangling maple leaves. They weren’t real. Their scratchy touch upon her fingertips and the back of her hand indicated they’d been cut from rough material. Pushing her hand through the dense foliage, her open palm encountered the wall and came to an abrupt halt. All magnificent illusion, magic, and sorcery. They looked pretty dancing in the imaginary wind.Turning back, she looked through the still open door from the last room. Her gray and white tabby, Whiskers, waited on the other side. He cocked his head, blinked slowly at her.“What are you waiting for?” Greta asked.The cat’s eyes shifted as the green door slowly swung toward closed.“Again?” she asked. “You know the Mistress isn’t going to close a door before you come through, no matter how many times you taunt her. Silly kitty.”With that, the cat’s eyes narrowed, and his ears tipped back. A small growl escaped his throat, but he continued to wait in the closing door’s path. The door paused before bumping his lazily twisting tail. Only then did Whiskers lift himself regally from his haunches and step through to the new room, tail raised high.Greta shook her head, smiling. The door closed. It merged with the wall and morphed into a maple leaf matching the ones dancing all around her, only this one was six feet from tip to stem. She turned her attention to her two choices – both of which were also leaves and taller and wider than her. One was an oval that came to a pointed tip, the other oblong with ruffly edges. She glanced at the oval, then oblong, oval, oblong, a dozen or more times, unsure which most suited her fancy. She ran her fingers down the pointy leaf door, enjoying its waxy texture. Bringing her fingers to her nose, they smelled of fresh mint.“My favorite ice cream.”The door offered no handle, so she placed her palm against it and pushed. It sprung outward immediately, almost more from her will than the pressure of her hand. A forest grove lay beyond. The passing breeze, smelling of the end of summer, coursed through the smattering of fall leaves and peeled the troublesome wisps of hair from her face. A cardinal fluttered to a nest high above with a worm in its beak and disappeared out of sight.Whiskers stepped up beside her. His black and pink nose rose into the air, testing the gentle breeze. His mouth opened as he studied it and hung open for long moments afterward. “No,” he said, and turned about.“Why not? It’s beautiful!” Greta said.“It smells weird.”“Like what?”“Dogs and nonsense.”She gave an exasperated sigh but let the door close.“Really? I thought you liked dogs.”“Not those ones.”With only one option remaining, she stepped over to the decidedly less pretty, ruffly-leaf door and opened it. Fifteen feet ahead, another dense forest (this one of pine trees) blocked her view. To her right, more pines climbed a sloping cliff up and out of sight. The building the door peeked out from had been cleared recently. Only a scattering of browning pine needles dotted the uneven cobblestone walkway. She poked her head through and looked up. Gray clouds hovered high above the chipped, faded façade of this remote structure.Whiskers sat inside the doorway and began to watch the door intently, waiting for it to close. Greta stepped through to the world beyond. The air turned hot and dry instantly as she moved through the doorway. On this side, the door was plain and unpainted, with a several-inch gash in its arch where a chunk was missing. Here, the door was attached to a ramshackle cabin that looked like it had been abandoned for decades. A gaping hole in one wall showed a wrecked interior slowly being reclaimed by nature.Who was clearing away the pine needles?As she started toward the nearest corner to get a better view of the surroundings, the roar of some giant animal tore through the trees. She jumped and dashed back toward the safety of the round room. Whatever was out there didn’t seem to be rushing in her direction and she would probably find out its source was not hostile if she explored far enough, but the jolt had unnerved her and she decided against staying.“I don’t think this is anywhere we want to be,” she said, pulling the door firmly closed behind her.Whiskers had already retreated deeper into the room by the time she’d re-entered. He was rolling on his back near the wall where the last door had disappeared and batted at low hanging leaves. As he bit into one and yanked, dozens of leaves fell from the wall, drifting onto him. He darted away for a moment, spooked.“The Mistress is just having some fun,” Greta grinned.The cat’s eyes widened comically. His entire body tensed and his patchy rump rose. Then he was flying across the room. He skidded into the leaves, exploding the pile in all directions. Greta laughed as Whiskers lost all sense of his normally regal composure and slapped and spun and rolled in the leaves like any cat with the zoomies.She left him to his play. If he refused to go through the minty door and she didn’t want to explore the desert forest, that only left the door they’d entered through. Could they go back? She’d never considered doing such a thing. Every room the Mistress created felt like a gift and she hated to refuse even one. But the Mistress wanted her to be happy, didn’t she? Going back might do that.She touched her fingertips to the maple leaf and waited. Nothing happened.“Mistress, can we go back through this door? I’m really sorry, we don’t want to go where those doors go. Please?”She pressed gently against the door again. As she watched, thin, golden veins and capillaries sprouted from the stem. They entwined about its edges, spreading slowly on both the left and the right sides until it was surrounded in golden filigree. Hopeful, she pressed again. The door offered no resistance.A new room had taken the place of the pale yellow room they’d just departed. Now it was square. Each of the three facing walls was distinctly different this time. To her left, a faded red door appeared to open Dutch style. The rest of the wall was decorated like the side of a quaint, old farmhouse. The middle wall offered a pair of wooden doors, deep blue in color, with finely worked metal patterns that mirrored one another. The doors were deeply set in beige stone, which itself was carved with lines that echoed the door it surrounded. Recessed in the stone above the door was a matching blue oval with the number 16. It screamed old Europe to her. The final door, on her right, was lined like a gray accordion and seemed to open likewise. A rectangular rainbow was painted around the door. To the right of the door, in cursive, lilac letters, the name M. Gadbrooks had been written in a black box.She looked back at the doors untaken behind her before setting foot in the new room. Where did they go? What adventures wait behind them? An introduction with a princess of a lost city of the desert behind one? Perhaps the roar she’d heard was only the princess’s pet black bear calling for its dinner. Behind the other – well, the only clue was a cardinals’ nest. She’d never know what might have been. Then again, she never knew what awaited her behind any of the doors she didn’t choose. She could only take one and the Mistress always offered at least two.Whiskers bounded after her, scattering his pile of leaves in his wake, after which they simply vanished one by one as they drifted to the floor. He darted through the door, ran to the far corner, bounced off, and shot around the room erratically, a bouncing ball of chaotic cuteness. She was about to ask, “Is something the matter?” when he stopped dead center in the room, raised a paw, and went to work cleaning between his pink and gray beans.The maple leaf door swung silently shut and left a blank wall in its place. Was the Mistress upset at her request? Greta couldn’t remember seeing a door merge into a wall and leave nothing before. She ran her palm over it, seeking the prior door’s seam. The wall was perfectly blank, like nothing had ever existed there.“You worry too much,” Whiskers said.“What do you mean?”“Is she angry with you? Did you do something wrong? You’re always asking those sorts of questions. You should stop.”Greta stared at him as he groomed. He hadn’t even looked up at her. He asked one question, cleaned his left ear, asked his second question, scrubbed the right. It bothered her that he could tell what she was thinking without even having to look in her direction. Seemingly, he could read her mood with just a sniff or a twitch of his whiskers.“What if she is? I don’t want to upset her. We depend on her,” Greta said.“How can you tell if you’ve made her angry?”“I don’t really know.”“Then why worry about it. You waste perfectly good time frowning at the wall.”She walked stiffly to the Dutch-style door, pretending to care if the faded red paint had always been that color or had lost its luster with time. She tried to keep her breathing even, her expression neutral. When she swallowed, she wondered if he could hear it, if he could read her emotional state at this moment, if he was judging her still.Whiskers had been the most adorable kitten. He’d smothered her with kisses from the day they’d brought him home from the shelter. He’d spent every night since sleeping in her bed. Though he’d loved her parents as well, it was immediately clear who was his favorite. She loved him almost as much as she’d ever loved…anyone else. Then the two of them had ended up at the House. Its magic had made it possible for him to speak, which was possibly the greatest magic she’d witnessed. She just wished he wasn’t so sassy. Sometimes he bit her head off for no reason. She assumed it was unintentional – he was a cat, after all. She loved him with all of her heart, but sometimes (even with all the people she’d met in her adventures) she felt lonely. She missed the friends she’d had back in school.“This one smells like the ocean!” Whiskers cried.She turned to find him scratching at a pair of white French doors in a severe white wall. What had happened to the blue doors? She’d wanted to take a closer look at them and now they were gone. These doors, while stunning in their own way were the least interesting of the available options and would have been the last she’d have chosen.“This one?”“Yes! Open it!”Although the extra-wide French doors were more glass than metal, nothing was visible through their panes. Windows in the House never offered any hint as to what lay on the other side; all were a foggy, gray haze until opened. The twin doors were rounded on the outer, top corners. A bezel of thin, white steel formed a lattice just sturdy enough to hold the large panes of glass. Rectangular brass accents were inlaid in a narrow gutter that ran along each door’s edge. The longer she looked at their craftsmanship, the more she appreciated their elegance. Still, these were less interesting than the three original options she’d been offered. Why had the doors changed? That hadn’t happened before. Was it something she’d done?“Open it!” Whiskers continued pawing at the door’s metal base.The doors had matching white panels at their centers where they touched that offered no handle or knob. Must be to keep dirty fingers off the glass, she thought. It couldn’t hurt to check out what was on the other side, she supposed. Whiskers might take a peek and change his mind and then they could look at the other doors more closely. She pressed her fingertips to the right panel, highlighting her baby blue fingernails.A briny blast of air squeezed through the gap as the door opened. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. After the neutral quality of the House, the pleasant mix of ocean, fresh paint, and wood polish overwhelmed her senses. The chill sea air surrounded her. It clung to her skin, slipped easily through her thin clothing, seemed to draw her forward. She opened her eyes.Well-dressed women and men strolled about the deck of a large cruise ship sailing beneath a pure blue sky. Even from a distance, she could tell their clothing was expensive and she felt underdressed just standing in the doorway, even if what they wore looked outlandishly old fashioned. The women held lace parasols above wide-brimmed hats. Their dresses were all full length, covering every inch of skin. Every man wore a suit with a top hat or a boater.“You’re in the way, child,” came a grating voice behind her.Greta gave a small yelp and tripped to one side of the doorway. A firm hand grasped her elbow, steadying her.“My heavens, you are an excitable one, aren’t you,” a woman said.Greta’s eyes darted back to the door. She hadn’t realized she’d stepped through. The door was being held wide open by a dapper man in a boater who waited behind a woman wearing a rose-colored one-piece that swept the floor. The woman glowered over her sharp nose. Behind them, Greta could make out wicker chairs and tables on a black and white linoleum floor. It appeared to be some kind of lounge or café for fancy people. She was disconnected from the House.“Whiskers?” Her breath caught in her throat. Was he still inside?“What was that?” the woman asked.Greta felt a familiar furry caress about her ankles and her heart began to beat again.“Child?”“What?” Greta asked. Her brain was five seconds behind. She waited desperately for it to catch up.“Are you supposed to be on this deck?” the woman asked. One of her eyebrows arched beneath her feathered picture hat.“Leave her be, Darling. She’s just a child. We’re already late,” the man said, letting the door swing shut.“Steerage belongs on the lower decks,” the woman said severely. She screwed up her face to go on a tirade, but finding no help in her husband, closed her eyes and blew out a pent-up breath. “Yes, yes, best not keep Maggie waiting.” Her parasol popped open in Greta’s face before the woman stomped off with one last frosty glare in her direction.“Best get back to…third? class quarters, dear,” the man said. He took a moment to tip his boater to her, then leaned in close and whispered in her ear. “I won’t report you. I was quite the rascal in my own youth.” His mustache tickled her ear as he spoke and then he was gone.“Where are we?” Whiskers asked as she stooped to pick him up, hoping he couldn’t sense the burning in her cheeks. Once on her shoulder, he wrapped himself about her neck and purred softly.Greta re-opened one of the pristine French doors. The couple at the nearest table halted their conversation. Their eyes narrowed as they looked her up and down. A waiter came through a revolving wooden door at the back of the room, bearing a tray to their table, which pulled their eyes momentarily off her. She let the door go and hurried out into the sunshine beating down on the deck. The House was gone. Now that she knew Whiskers had come through, she was mostly fine with it. She just needed a moment to adjust – she hadn’t intended to let the door close behind her.“Where are we?” he asked again.“The past. No one dresses like this anymore,” she whispered. “Otherwise, I don’t have a clue.”Playing with one of Whiskers’ front paws helped to center her. The familiar comfort helped ease the burning in her cheeks. She knew it shouldn’t bother her to be so out of her element, as many times as she’d stepped out of a random door into the unknown, but it did. But it shouldn’t! She refused to let such thoughts run free in her mind. Making balls of her fists, and taking a deep breath, she banished them. She strode out onto the sun-drenched deck.

A white-painted steel railing topped with a wooden handrail wrapped around the edge of a massive deck whose floor was freshly polished wood slat that looked like it had never seen feet. The underside of the deck above her ended abruptly, giving way to twin seas of blue – one on which the ship sailed and one above. A massive metal mast in the middle of the deck looked tall enough to reach Heaven. Rigging from all directions angled up to meet it. The deck ended just a few feet beyond. The overlook looked down on a lower deck filled with lower class passengers. There were no suits or fancy dresses down there.The railing was only a bit shorter than she was. She couldn’t rest her arms comfortably upon it, but at least it didn’t obstruct her view. From here she could just make out the intersecting lines of the stern’s railing. The view was breathtaking. Massive machinery and instruments on the poop deck ahead broke up the skyline. Above, only a handful of clouds dared blemish the sky. No matter which direction she looked, the horizon was a melding of blues. There wasn’t the slightest suggestion of land.A family of six strolled up some minutes later and she decided to move on. Turning around, she noted for the first time the immense gold-orange funnel with a black top belching black smoke into the air. Her stomach rumbled unpleasantly at the sight, which held her gaze for what seemed like an eternity until one of the younger children playing a game bumped into her.
“Oops,” the little boy cooed with a British accent as he darted to the far side of his father.The father looked briefly in her direction and said nothing.“Come on,” she whispered to Whiskers, who was mostly hidden under her golden hair. “We need to find out where we are.”The deck she was on ran beneath the top deck with the funnel. This was the only section of her deck that opened to the sky. Ahead, the top deck formed an overhang that cut off all but a sliver of sunlight that across the slat flooring. Hundreds of uncomfortable-looking wooden deck chairs were pushed back against the wall and continued as far as she could see. Windows with white and brass bezels, which matched the door she’d entered gave way to stained-glass panels set in dark wood frames. The pattern of a waterfall and a beach repeated down the deck.Despite the sun angling in beneath the overhang, the day was hardly warm. She was grateful for the furry scarf sleeping on her shoulders because the thin pink sweater she wore over a flower-print t-shirt and skirt offered no protection against the biting winds making sport with passengers. Her matching pink tights only offered a modicum of additional warmth between the chill touch of the wind squeezing through. A baby blue barrette (she’d made sure to pick the one that matched her nail polish) did its best to keep the hair from blowing in her eyes.Rich people strolled along the deck, nodding to other rich people. Wealthy men relaxed in the deck chairs drinking and smoking cigars. Men with bushy mustaches winked at flocks of finely dressed young women passing by. Families mostly traveled as compact units, the children never allowed to stray far. They were all part of this reality, all of a class that understood one another. She stood out among them. Heads turned as she passed and heavy stares followed in her wake. She ignored them, kept her eyes forward. A pair of women approached with eyes as icy and suspicious as Darling’s. A fierce glare and her bark of “What do you want?” cowed them but drew even more looks.There were no clues as to her whereabouts. She’d hoped to find a ship name printed on the walls – there wasn’t one. Nor was there a gift shop or anything else with the name printed upon it. It was reasonable, she supposed, no one on board needed to be reminded where they were. She guessed she might be somewhere near Europe with all the British, French, and German accents swirling about in the gusty winds.She was heading for a door to get inside out of the cold when she spotted a pair of hands grasping the edges of a newspaper, much as her father’s had in the mornings before…. She pushed the memory quickly aside.“Whiskers, park yourself next to that man reading the paper. I need to get closer.”The cat stood up, digging his tiny claws not too uncomfortably into the skin beneath her sweater, stretched leisurely, and hopped down. Whiskers reached the foot of the man’s deck chair and wrapped his tail about his legs. With his eyes following her, he began to carefully clean one paw. Greta pretended to sneak up on him, ducking low enough to spot the front of the newspaper. The print was so fine, she couldn’t make it out without leaning in quite far. The paper rustled.“Whiskers! There you are, silly cat!”One corner bent down. She faked a stumble and caught herself on the chair.“Whatever are you doing?” the man asked in French, lowering his paper. “And why are you on the Promenade?”“Sorry, sir. I lost my kitty,” she replied in French.“Mrow?”“Well, you’ve certainly found it. Get back to your kin or I’ll call for a steward.”“Silly cat?” Whiskers hissed indignantly.“Not now,” she whispered to Whiskers.“What was that?” the man asked.“Nothing.”“I’ve had quite enough of your attitude. I’m calling a steward to have you removed.”Greta hefted Whiskers to her chest and glowered. Heat flushed her neck. “I’ve had more than enough of your insufferableness. Call a steward! Even if they remove me, you’ll still be an angry geezer!”“What? Why! I’ll have you know I’m not a month past my 29th birthday!”“Curmudgeon!”“That’s it!” The man threw his paper on the deck chair and stormed off calling for a steward.“Sourpuss!” she called to his back.With Whiskers cradled in her arms, she leaned over the discarded paper and browsed the headlines on the front page of the New York Times. 1912. She felt another twinge in her stomach. This was bad. Could it be? No, there were probably hundreds of ships sailing around the world at any given time in 1912. Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling.Fully aware of the eyes plastered all over her back, she forced a leisurely gate as she strolled away, head held even higher (like she imagined Whiskers would do). The hushed conversations that sprang up around her were ignored as she moved toward the nearest door. The handle was too stiff to turn with Whiskers in her arms, and she had to coax him back to her shoulders before she could properly grasp it with both hands. Though she wished the Mistress would take control of the door, it opened into a brightly lit hallway in the interior of the ship.“You called me silly!” Whiskers continued as soon as the door closed. “I ought to nip you for that!”“I had to say something. It was the first thing –”“What about beautiful cat, hmm? Or exquisite? Perhaps you could try impeccable next time? Extraordinary? Wonderful? Beloved? I’d even take well-groomed!”“Could we talk about this later?” she asked. The anger churning around inside her cooled off and hardened into a regret. She hadn’t intended to argue with the man. He hadn’t actually looked so old, perhaps even a bit younger than…“I’m not silly,” he said and disappeared beneath her blonde hair.But he had been rude. Two rude people out of three were awful odds. And that wasn’t counting the whispers and the sidelong glances, or the pair of women making a beeline for her as if she were a bug to be squashed. She didn’t like these people.“That newspaper read April 10, 1912, if you’re curious. I saw the name Roosevelt at the top.”“What does that mean?” Whiskers asked crankily once he was hidden.“There were two Roosevelts who were president, though I don’t remember which one was when. And 1912 is more than 80 years ago. That’s why everyone is dressed so strangely. Or why I am, I suppose. So, at least we know we’re on a ship, on Earth, nearly 100 years ago. I have a bad feeling. I hope I don’t know where we are.”Looking ahead for the first time, she found herself standing in a wooden haven. The walls, the pillars, and the top of a large staircase were all carved from matching light color wood. She knew nothing about trees but could tell this hallway was expensive. Armchairs and benches spaced around the wide room were upholstered with a blue pattern. White tile with the occasional black compass decorated the floor. She shuffled toward the railing that formed a half-moon above a descending stairwell. She reached for it gingerly, afraid of feelings solidifying in her stomach.It was solid and warm, and she had the suspicion this spot hadn’t been touched by a single human hand except for hers and the artist who carved it. The staircase below was one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen. Above it all an ornamental dome of opaque, white glass inlaid with black steel and gold filigree allowed indirect light to flood both floors. She ran her hand along the banister as she moved toward the steps, feeling connected to the haunted beauty of the entire creation. It was a masterpiece and she was standing in it. Descending the steps was like being in a dream. Thoughts and feelings passed through her like ghosts, some bright and happy, others sad, angry, or fearful. By the time she reached the lower deck and stood facing the magnificent dark brown cherub holding aloft a golden torch, she was holding back tears. This was it. She was certain of it now.She was on the Titanic.

First Chapter from Borrowed Kitchens

By Linda Merlino

The first three years of my life I would only eat pastina. Preparation of pastina is minimal, under twenty minutes, hardly a gourmet masterpiece. Tell that to a toddler. Forever my choice of comfort, a warm bowl of tiny pasta laden with butter settles my being like no other food. I’ve read that we are our future selves by the time we are three. If this is fact, I am certain that pastina was and still is the crazy glue for all my disappointments.Mom and I moved back in with her parents when I was three and a half, after her happily- ever-after crumbled. The bank repossessed our home leaving us with few choices. We returned to what she knew, for good or not so good. The Cape style house on the coast of Massachusetts, with the polka dot curtains and our first kitchen, was gone. Mom teetered on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Our life as a family ended. Going forward there would be a revolving door of borrowed kitchens, houses, cousins, uncles, aunts, and extended family.The return to her former life came with shame. Back to her mother’s kitchen, back to her old bedroom, back to her father’s rules, back to a place far from the sea, and into the arms of gossip. Grandpa brought boxes of unused wedding gifts to the attic. No sympathy. He governed with a steel hand that frequently met his intended target. His rulebook changed with whiplash frequency making compliance difficult. He was a bully. She could not escape blame for her husband’s decision to abandon his wife and daughter. Old school values prevailed. What happens behind closed doors, stays there. Mom suffered. The family called her medical condition nerves, dismissing the intervention of a doctor or medication. It was the nineteen fifties, a time of limited rights and resources for women.Divorce was forbidden in her family. My father had been married before the war. His then wife sent him a Dear John letter while he was overseas and she divorced him. The timing spawned a rebound romance after the war, between mom and dad. They met at a dance. The two loved music and the jitterbug. Their courtship was short. Their wedding, a glamorous, black and white affair served as a tidy cover up for the riptide of emotions just below the surface. Who disliked whom? Who had the power? Mom and dad were predestined to fail and once they did, there would be no second chances. No peace. No hope. No one thought of a honeymoon baby.Mom’s melancholia and suicide attempts went untreated and were buried under the guise of a darkened room for her migraines. The supper table was high stakes, not a time to share your day, laugh or tell stories. Dishes were smashed, and glasses thrown in rage when the tensionspilled over and mom sought shelter in the only bathroom. I would lean my forehead against the locked door and beg her to come out. When she finally emerged, my grandfather tormented her with insults, until she crawled into bed. Too young to stand up to his cruelty I stayed in the periphery and as I got older, I wondered why my grandmother said nothing. Why didn’t she defend her daughter? The only reasonable answer, fear. She did not argue with her husband. Stayed quiet. But this was not her style. Grandma was more of a meddler especially between her three daughters and five sons. She manipulated their love. The silent treatment, her singular weapon, bonded them to her and put each at odds with one another.Living with grandma changed our dynamics. I knew too much and kept her secrets. My rewards came in her kitchen. She saw something in me to nurture. My hand in hers, she led me to the stove, put a wooden spoon in my hand, told me to stir the gravy, the soup, the pastina, whatever was simmering. In her kitchen I found peace, my own space. Her recipes prepared from memory were passed to me. The meals she made every day and each Sunday became part of our history. She was my mentor, and I her willing student. Platters of food for family and friends full of comfort, forgiveness, sadness and joy brought lessons on life. Her kitchen was a gastronomic classroom. The nourishment produced there became an elixir for my survival.Upstairs, over the kitchen, Mom and I shared a small bedroom. In the winter a cast iron radiator clunked and clanged while, in the summer, a fan slapped the humid air with a weak promise of relief. Worn and frayed the wallpaper curled in corners, faded in places of sunlight and yellowed in the shadows. Her side of the room had two windowless walls with a twin bed tucked in the corner and a tall bureau behind the door. She hung two prints over her bed of a young woman in a full-skirted costume much like historical renditions of tarantella dancers. The female’s facial expression held a slight smile but no joy. What remained unsaid was the uncanny resemblance the young woman bore to my mother. Were the pictures a gift? From a lover? Husband? No proof of either.On my side of the bedroom, were two windows with views of the yard, streets and driveway. One cold evening I was in our room drawing frosty circles on a windowpane. Dad and I had just returned from a weekend in New Hampshire with his parents on Lake Winnipesaukee. I had avoided my mother’s visitation interrogations and felt relieved. Usually, she would sit me down and ask where we went, who was there, what they said. I dreaded the questions. But that night she was visibly agitated and wanted to speak to my father alone. The NewHampshire trip had been confusing for me because visitations with dad stopped abruptly when I was seven. We had not seen him for over two years and without warning he was calling requesting me to go to New Hampshire with him. Mom said no, but he insisted.The drive north was long, the roads winding, and the snow drifts high. I sat in the back seat watching the landscape and the hat on dad’s head. How much further is it? Is there really a mountain in the back yard? Can you ski on it? Do you ski, daddy? He patiently answered my questions. I thought he must lead a movie star life, so busy, so important. My world was ordinary, often unpredictable.We arrived on Lake Winnipesaukee at his parents’ vacation home. Despite my efforts to be a good girl, his mother, my paternal grandmother did not like me. She sent me upstairs in her strange house. At the top of the stairs were two bedrooms. Which one was mine? Do I get to choose? The first room had limited space with twin beds, bare mattresses and bright, orange curtains. The other room was larger with a double bed pushed beneath a window. I guessed it was grandmother’s clothes hanging in the closet. I backed out, frightened, swallowing tears I went to the landing and called to dad; I needed him. No answer. My heart pounded as I walked down the stairs back to her kitchen.“What is it that you want little girl?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron. “Did your mother teach you to shout like that? In this house we do not yell when we want something or someone. Your father is cleaning the basement. Tell me what you want?” She was inches from me her mouth turned down in disgust. I disliked being a child.“I want to know where my dad is sleeping. That room upstairs is smelly and ugly, and I don’t want to sleep there. I don’t want it to be my room.”I wished I could tell her that she scared me more than my grandfather and that there was no love in her kitchen.“Go back upstairs, unpack your suitcase, and do not come down again until I call for you.”Back in the orange bedroom I pressed my face to the window. The cold froze my tears. We stayed one night and returned to Massachusetts. I never saw my New Hampshire grandparents again. They were the first to abandon me. I was not part of their future.The day we returned I could see my parents in the driveway from the window in the bedroom. Snow swirled around them. Quiet at first, I felt hopeful that my father had a plan that included us. The hush of a pending storm shifted the air. Piercing screams sent my grandmother outside, the neighbours onto their front steps and passing cars to pull over. A furious argument between mom and dad. What was he telling her? He was rigid, stepping back from his wife leaning against his truck’s fender with her hand on him, and his hand on the driver’s door.I raced down the mahogany staircase to the main floor. I needed to stop him. The steps twisted at the end into a dark hallway; I fell. Barefoot in my pajamas I popped back up, heart racing and knees hurting. The hard wood floor squeaked against my toes, but I kept running out the back door unaware of the February cold or my naked feet on the snow. I’m sprinting – get to the truck I say to myself – the truck is where it is safe. My mother pleads with dad. He is speaking. I’m still in motion. Crying. I can’t hear what he’s saying.Grandpa’s arm swept out from the shadows. I am the pawn – my grandfather’s pawn. His voice bellowed telling my father to get off his property. Go. He swore in Italian and English. My father started the truck’s engine, revving it like a getaway car. He backed out of the driveway and disappeared over the hill without a glimpse in his rear-view mirror. My mother fell away arms outstretched. Grandpa caught her by the hair locking his fingers through its length and dragged her limp body across the ground; an empty victory.Dad did not return.In my preteen mind, after dad drove away, mom cried nonstop. I believed she was the kid and I the grown up. Her moaning forced me out of my bed, afraid. Consoling my mother was futile, a stark realization that I could not provide the solace necessary. Some evenings, when mom was asleep, I would sit on my bed in the dark. My back pressed against the bedroom wall I could hear the muffled voices of my grandparents on the other side. They spoke in Italian. I could not understand. Perhaps they spoke of all they sacrificed immigrating to America, or maybe they remembered the first cries of each of their eight children born in that room. Maybe? Or maybe no reflecting was allowed. Only mysteries existed there, lodged between the wallpaper and the plaster. Haunted forever.A few years later I sat on the other side of that bedroom wall and watched my grandfather dying. Several months before his passing I had finally stood between him and my mother with fists raised, I cursed him with the same abusive words he used on us. In my teenagevoice I vowed never to speak to my grandfather again. Something he understood, something he taught me. We coexisted in his house but were invisible to one another. Pancreatic cancer took him, quick. Three months. The family kept vigil, took turns at his bedside, coming and going. My cousins and I were summoned to join. Mom told me to apologize. No. I sat silent in a straight back chair with my feet curled under the rungs and rocked against the bedroom wall.My grandmother stopped cooking in her kitchen about a year after the funeral. She dutifully went through the motions of a grieving widow waiting until she could make her most profound act of rebellion. A cold stove. Her message was clear. She was done. Mom refused to cook. She was working. Without discussion grandma put me in charge of her kitchen. I did not object. Monday through Friday, after school, I prepared supper. On Sundays everyone at the table brought a dish, platter, bread, desserts or a steaming pot. A solution I could live with and would replicate in the years to come.Despite this new routine the hamster wheel of control merely changed hands and began again. Death could not convince my mother to break the cycle of anger housed in her ancestral home. Fists flew and bare hands with wide fingers found my flesh more than once. She threatened to disown me if I ever contacted my father, I would not be her daughter anymore. The words bounced in and out of my head. I listened and harboured my private storage of resentment so insidious that I feared it more than a monster in my closet, the shadows in the basement or the ghosts in the attic.On the surface I obeyed. If she was angry, while driving, her arm would come across the back seat pounding any part of me she could reach. This happened on rides home from school or after ballet lessons. There was nowhere to hide. I was her only child, the prize, a trophy, after the carnage of her life. I became a proud possession and a punching bag. She held on to me with every fibre of her existence, even when an opportunity to attend a high school for aspiring dancers in New York City became a reality, a negotiation and a thwarted, impossible dream. Her moods swung; I never knew when her switch was flicked on or off. I learned to avoid some blows and eventually when to leave.Escape came in stages, first borrowing my grandmother’s kitchen and then going away to college in Connecticut. I was far enough from the old house for a few years, and close enough to New York, my ultimate destination, to begin formulating a more permanent plan. I met my future husband in college and married him after graduation. We moved to Queensnear his family, while my friends moved into apartments in the city. For me, marriage was the only getaway ticket. I was doing what I needed to do. The move wrecked my relationship with mom. It became more difficult, festering in unresolved grief and distance. We were both prisoners of abandonment. I got away but she did not.Time put more heartbreak, quarrels, and separations between us. Her behavior was ingrained. She weaponized silence, like her mother, until, for the sake of any future for us and her grandchildren, we called a truce. On her terms mostly. She was always quick to initiate a confrontation, the more drama the better. That did not change. Only when she was close to the end of her life, did we talk about those years. The turning point; she remained with one foot in my home in Connecticut, and the other in my grandparents’ house in Massachusetts. Her mission: to outlive her imagined enemies and to cook her way to heaven in my Ridgefield kitchen, which, on occasion, included bowls of pastina she made for me after my workday ended, or when the snow fell deep outside.

First Chapter from Reaching 19

By Ayako Marsh

AftermathThis is my moment. I had awakened from one of the many slumbers I had taken over the past few days. Everyone has left the room except for Elder Henri, one of my pastors that became family when his son Dunbar married my first cousin, Debbie. His tall slender frame was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, the way men of his age sat like the Black men in movies but instead of a cigarette or a drink, he has a book in his hand, probably the Bible. Noticing him sitting there with the humming of the TV in the background and no one else in the room. I knew it was my chance, “Elder Henri, can you please do me a favor,” I asked. Before he could answer the first question. I asked the next, “Can you please call Shontielle at the other hospital? My parents don’t think I can handle it but I can. I just want to talk to her and see how she is doing.”He rose from the chair closing the book with one finger holding his place like a bookmark. He did not respond and walked towards the door pacing into a slow jog as he reached the door frame. I heard him muffling an agonizing cry. I immediately thought it must be bad, really bad and much worse than I could ever imagine. Shontielle must be in a coma or paralyzed from the neck down, in a cast in one of those apparatuses holding her arms and one leg up like a
swing.I can hear Elder Henri talking with my parents in another one of those hushed conversations outside my hospital room that had been happening ever since the night of the accident. A few moments later my parents walked into the room, my father, a foot taller than my mother, towered over her as they approached my bedside. My mother’s olive toned face was tear stained and her eyes that turned hazel or gray depending on the colors she wore were bloodshot. She held my hand and said, “Aya we need to tell you something," she paused as if to compose herself before she continued “Shontielle didn’t make it.”My head immediately throbbed, “What do you mean?,” I replied. My mind racing thinking about every scenario of what happened between the accident scene and the hospital. “Did something happen after her surgery?""No Aya," she was never at the hospital,” my mother replied. I was confused, the last thing the paramedic told me before she placed me in the ambulance was that the other two people were taken to another hospital. “No Ayako, she died at the scene of the accident,” she said. Before I could ask about Noel, she said, “Shontielle and Noel both died.” I was later told that Shontielle was killed instantly and Noel died a short time later at the hospital.My mind retraced the last couple of days and occurrences and conversations that did not make any sense were much clearer now. I can hear the chirp of the paramedics, the lady paramedic telling me that they took the other people in the car to another hospital, the hushed conversations in the hallway, my best friend, Caltethea hurrying to turn off the TV when Monica Kaufman was reporting the accident on the news. Tony saying, I should have been there, I could have saved you and not leaving my side since that night. The look of devastation of my parents, Tony, Aunts and Uncle, family and friends. It was more than a look of devastation; it was a look of knowing something that I did not. Everyone knew the truth except me.The paramedic saying, “we have a live one here” did not register at the time. She kept me occupied by asking me my name, who was in the car with me, how to get in contact with my parents. I also told her how to contact my boyfriend Tony at work.We were on our way to a gospel concert at the Fox Theatre in downtown Atlanta. The featured performer was Whitely Phipps. The Atlanta Adventist community came out in droves to church events and the theatre was packed. Police officers in the area were dispatched to the Fox and were put into contact with an Elder by the concert organizer. They were directed to an Elder that knew the history of my family and thought it best for him to break the news. He gathered a group of Elders and Pastors in the lobby of the Fox. The Adventist community is very close knit and all of them knew that deJuana had died a few years ago and they were told that Shontielle and Noel were killed and I might not make it either. The Elders broke the news to my parents and they immediately made their way to the hospital. An announcement was later made at the Fox and droves of people made their way to the hospital.The Adventist Hotline went into action. Calls were made across the city; home visits were made to close family and friends when a call did not feel suitable. My friends gathered at Marla’s house for a party and were told to not come to the hospital because they did not want anyone to slip and say anything about Shontielle and Noel being killed. By the next morning, everyone that knew us, knew about the accident.As soon as I entered the hospital, my parents came to my side. My father was holding my mother’s shoulders, but not like a hug more like an embrace to steady her so she would collapse. The words coming out of her mouth were assuring but her face was saying something completely different. I let her know that Shontielle and Noel were fine and they had been transported to another hospital. I asked for Tony. “He’s right here, she said” Tony appeared from behind my father. Tears were rolling down his face as he laid, he head on my chest, “I should have been there, I could have protected you” were his first words to me. I replied that, “I will be ok.”As they rolled me into surgery, the faces I had seen countless times at church services, basketball games, concerts, fellowship dinners, Alexis club meetings and family celebrations were along both sides of the hallway. The faces, shades, shapes and ages were all different but the look on their faces was all the same, the look of devastation. I went into emergency surgery less assured that everything was going to be okay.“The doctors did not want us to tell you because they were afraid you would start crying and burst your stitches,” my mother said. Just as the doctor predicted, I started crying but consciously or unconsciously, I changed the way I cried that day. No longer audible, the only evidence would be the tears rolling down my face. It started in the pit of my stomach moving towards my chest where my heart no longer felt full of sisterly bond but now a cave full of rubble. My cry settled in my throat as my tears well in my eyes and fell down my cheek. In my mind, I did not care about the stitches but in my second mind I did not want anyone to know the pain I was feeling.As my mother kept talking, I peered at the window ledge that was full of flowers, cards and buttons. The puppy bouquet caught my eye. It was the same bouquet my school sent me two years ago after deJuana died. It was made of yellow flowers that was formed into the shape of a poodle with floppy ears and a brown nose and eyes. I was 12 when deJuana died and seemed cute and touching at the time. I was teenager now and it seemed out of place almost childish. In its place, there were buttons tons and tons of buttons. Someone apparently had been in my room and saw the posters on my wall at home. I was a huge fan of Michael Jackson, who had just released Thriller and New Edition, with their debut album, Candy Girl.I moved from my bed to the bathroom to collect my thoughts without feeling the bruised ribs, the shards of glass in my knees or the stitches along my face. The same day I learned my sister died is the same day I will see my new face for the first time. My reflection would become my constant comparison, the only person I felt I could really talk to. On the left side of my face, the shade of caramel butterscotch free of any blemishes, a round baby face that made me look younger than my age atop a fullly developed body that made me look older than my age. My eyes moved to the right side of my face covered with stitches that look like thick pieces of black thread that I was told would dissolve over time. A few pieces of the thread started under my chin following a jagged line across my lip through the space between my nose and check across my eye up to the top of my head. My right eye swollen shut without only a sliver of vision. My eyes dart back and forth between the left and right sides of my face, before and after, before the accident and after, before the loss and after, before the truth and after. My old face and my new face. A face that would eventually heal from my injuries if the plastic surgeon is to be believed.But what about the rest of me, how will the rest of me heal. Shontielle and I just started to bond after losing deJuana. Seven years older than me, deJuana was like a second mother and 2 years older than Shontielle they were each other’s first best friend. deJuana was the bridge between Shontielle and I, the older sister that stepped in to settle squabbles and to remind us we are sisters first. Over the past 2 years, we struggled to close that large gap that deJuana left and now that gap for me was even wider, it is now a cave. It’s just me. The only living daughter, the baby girl that turned into an only girl. I stare at my reflection in the mirror as I start doing the math in my head, deJuana and Shontielle were both born in December, deJuana passed 6 months after her 19th birthday, it is May and Shontielle was killed 5 months after her 19th birthday. I look in the mirror with a sobering thought, I am 14 years old and it is a long 5 years until I reach 19.

First Chapter from Beneath What They Think They See

By Shawn Burley

My Welcoming to the Funhouse“The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being." — Toni MorrisonThe first thing people in corporate spaces ever reacted to wasn’t what I said or did; it was whatever they thought they were seeing. There was always a pause—brief, sometimes courteous, almost imperceptible—the kind people assume goes unnoticed. It never did. That half-second told me more than most conversations ever would: who felt at ease, who felt entitled, and who was being sorted. They weren’t seeing a peer; they were processing a legacy of categorization.I noticed it most clearly at my MBA orientation. The room had the careful optimism of an institution introducing itself — round tables, name tags, elevator pitches. A space designed to feel welcoming. I took my seat as the only Black biracial woman at the table. The man across from me glanced at my name tag, then at my face, then back again. His smile arrived a fraction too late, as if it followed a decision.“Is this your dream school?” he asked.It sounded casual—the kind of low-stakes interest that passes for small talk. I gave him an honest answer.“No,” I said. “It was my safety.”The color in his face shifted—not a deep flush, but to a sudden, tightening heat. The conversation died right there. Without a word, he turned to the person on his other side.I didn’t understand the weight of that silence immediately, but it stuck with me. Questions born of curiosity tend to open conversations; questions of positioning usually end them. If you’ve never had to account for your presence in a space you’ve already earned, the difference is easy to miss.I hadn’t challenged him, nor did I over-clarify. I had answered the way you learn to when you understand the rules without ever being taught them: politely, evenly, without offering more than was requested. There is an art to responding without volunteering vulnerability. It is a protective response learned early by those for whom 'politeness' is not a social grace, but a prerequisite for safety in spaces built to misinterpret them. That moment was by no means dramatic. But it did stay with me because it followed a pattern I would come to recognize well. There was nothing left to explore once my answer disrupted the assumption behind the question. And it was one of many examples where my belonging was policed. Curiosity expands an idea. Suspicion interrogates its right to exist.As my career progressed, the interrogation continued. On the surface, they were unremarkable. It was the repetition that gave them away:-“Where did you get this model?”-“Interesting, but I’m not sure it’s right.”-“This feels… different.”And the most interesting part about these phrases? The same capability they doubted is the capability they ended up relying on. Every time. The challenge came first; the quiet dependence came later. They always ate their words.Years after the “dream school” incident, I attended a Big Four networking conference. I was standing at the coffee station, prepared for the kind of socialized exchanges these events are built on, when a woman I had never met looked me over and said, without hesitation, “You’re an associate, right?”This was our first interaction. She didn’t ask my name. She didn’t ask what I worked on or what had brought me there. She went straight to placement. That, apparently, was what counted as conversation: locating me "somewhere beneath" her before we had exchanged a single fact.The absurdity wasn’t that she was wrong. It was the arrogance in thinking she was right. In the seconds it took her to assess me—my skin, my face, my presence—everything collapsed into a single assumption. And this, somehow, was meant to pass as professional.Mislabeling me was the only way to keep their own narratives of merit intact. They didn't need me to be lesser because I lacked talent; they needed me to be lesser so they could feel taller. Their interrogation of me was a defense against the realization that their own competence had only ever functioned in a room where the outcomes were rigged in their favor.Some of the most confident people in Corporate America are confident only because no one has ever forced them to see themselves clearly. Many reputations collapse the moment they’re placed beside real talent. So, they preempt the comparison: the mislabeling comes early, ideas are challenged reflexively, and presence is diminished—all before it has a chance to expose anything about those already in the room.Once I saw that, the performance around me revealed itself as self-preservation. Easier to discredit the woman who built the model than ask why she saw what they missed. Easier to call me “aggressive” than admit that my thoroughness exposed their laziness. Easier to assume I’m an associate than confront the possibility that I might hold a higher title or be better at the work they hang their identity on.If I asked for specifics about something they’d said or for them to clarify what they meant, they retreated into the same tune: “Oh, I didn’t mean anything by it.”Of course they meant something. That denial was part of the well-rehearsed choreography.I don’t deny that bias is inherently human, nor do I ever expect it to disappear. The degradation is in the presumed “authority” to act as a humanity-broker. In these corporate spaces, managers believe they hold the deed to reality itself—that they have the right to look at another’s existence and “decide for themselves” what that individual is allowed to be. They believe they can glance at a Black biracial woman and, through the lens of a racial trait, decree which behaviors are virtues, and which are defects. A Korean manager once credited my work ethic to my “Asian side,” as if discipline belonged to a race. A Black manager suggested I “go ahead and tone all that down” when I spoke to him with confidence about a disagreement with a colleague. A White executive told me I sounded “a little aggressive” immediately after I presented three strategic options he couldn’t fault. Everyone had a framework for me, none of which included my buy-in. They wanted to manage a projection.I have sat across from women of every shade who adopted the patronizing tone that was once the exclusive dialect of White womanhood. It is now a borrowed authority used by those on the “other” side of the color bar who believe they have inherited the right to wordsmith my reality.This is where the ingenuity of the funhouse resides. They can use passive aggression with the absolute certainty that they can get away with it. And if by a slim chance they are ever called out? They pivot instantly to a theater of tears. It is a retreat designed to flip the script, turning their hostility into the other person’s insensitivity. A well-timed sob from a “sweet” voice has the power to do a lot of damage.Meetings were where the funhouse did its most precise work. I’d propose an idea, and the room would tighten for a moment—silence pretending to be deep thought. Nothing moved until someone else repeated it—someone who didn’t trigger reactive doubt. Then suddenly, revelation. Praise. Recognition. Once the idea came from a different face, the reaction changed instantly.And in every performance review I received, the same dichotomy appeared: “strong execution, sharp insight, however, there is significant opportunity to improve relationships cross-functionally.” What made that feedback untenable was the pretense. The same manager who advised me to “improve cross functional relationships” had firsthand knowledge of the condescension I was navigating from those teams. In fact, he was present on multiple occasions when these interactions occurred. Yet when feedback arrived, none of that context appeared. The feedback always focused on my response, not the behavior that provoked it. In other words, don’t react to what they say. Don’t expose their insecurities. Don’t reveal how much they rely on you. Be exceptional without reminding anyone of it.More often than not, I extended grace in these interactions—interpreting comments generously, giving people the benefit of the doubt, convincing myself that the absence of overt hostility was evidence that nothing else was operating underneath. But intent in these situations is a luxury reserved for people who don’t have to pay the cost of their behavior.Corporate life is its own funhouse—mirrors tilted just enough to distort reality until you no longer recognize your own reflection. A Black woman can deliver exceptional work and still be penalized for her “delivery.” The delivery of a presentation is, by its very nature, subjective. So, unless your feedback is rooted in documented examples or desired business outcomes, it is not coaching. I am not calling for political correctness—the last thing Black women need are the performative, fragile-like statements that treat us like we are “too sensitive” for the truth. I am calling for constructive feedback rooted in decency—rooted in what will help Black women grow in their roles and beyond, rather than projections designed to keep us small.To understand why Black women are so easily and intentionally mistranslated, we must recognize that people in these corporate environments didn’t invent these behaviors. They inherited them. Learned them. And before we can understand how they reacted to me, we have to understand the world that taught them what to see. And why this projection has been protected for so long.That is where we go next.

First Chapter from Blood in the Water

By Sean McFadden

Tuesday, September 27, 2022. Late afternoon, gray skies, and I don’t feel well, but a hurricane’s coming.Ian—the mammoth Category 4—is approaching Southwest Florida, and the storm surge forecast for Pine Island climbs to 6-to-9 feet. I’m slack-jawed and glued to local news. Thinking about packing. Was that enough guac for six bags of chips? God, that’s a lot of chips. You’re a moron. I flip back to the Weather Channel, hoping for better weather, but my bladder rousts me, and I go piss red.My scream gets stuck in my throat while crimson rains down on white porcelain, dyeing the bowl a vibrant red. My mind races into walls and corners. Penis blood. Eyeball hornets. Other word combos that shouldn’t exist? Hurricane stress. I feel stressed, but I doubt this is stress.I flush away the bright red, turning everything clean and white again, and I stare at the white. I am uninsured and did not attend medical school. A dirt-poor, divorced idiot in his fifties, living like a child who doesn’t think about doctors. Ignoring the inevitable. Never expecting this.“Reet, reet, REE! Reet, reet, REE!” They made a soundtrack for severe weather updates to ratchet up the angst. The notes are straight from Norman Bates’ mother attacking Marion Crane in the shower. Every ten minutes, it screeches again.I switch back to local news. Fort Myers talking heads discuss storm surge what-ifs for the barrier islands and bust out the phrase, “12 to 16 feet,” if Ian was to veer easterly, like Charlie did in ’04.What the shit? 16? Hey! What happened to 6 to 9? An hour ago, 6 was worst case!I look up at my ceiling and spin, trying to guess the height. Not enough. I lie down in bed again and curl into the fetal position. I am not in pain, per se. I don’t feel well and need to be under the covers right now.Oh, no you don’t. You need to pack. You should already be packed. 12 to 16 feet if it turns? Saltwater will flood the car. You can’t replace that shit and you know it. Get out. Get out now. Screw packing. You pack, you drown.Things can’t be as dire as all that, so I cinch the blanket tighter around me. I’m dissolving into liquid form. As a mammoth hurricane approaches this backwoods barrier island mere feet above sea level. I’m gargling nightmare fuel.Hurricanes have no conscience. Ian’s an asshole.Originally forecast to level Tampa Bay, the storm is tracking further south, closer to Pine Island, just like Charlie in 2004. The biggest difference between the two killers is scale. All of Cat 4 Charlie would have fit inside the eye of Cat 4 Ian. That’s how massive this threat is, and why nowhere in Florida feels safe. Maybe western Georgia won’t flood. I need to head north. My whole family is north of here and I’m starting to see why. My brothers are in Maine if I’m homeless, and 16 feet of seawater will make that dream come true.I get out of bed and root for the bugout bag–a plastic baggie with my social security card, birth certificate and four hundred in cash. Success. I carry the bag back into bed and pull the blanket over my head and lay there cool and dark until I think I smell weird. I kick the blanket onto the floor, get dressed, and fill the cooler with smoked fish, guacamole, hummus, and the chimichurri chicken I grilled yesterday. I didn’t buy anything stupid this time, just stuff I’ll be eating anyway. More than usual. Three pounds of guac now feels like an illegal amount to run across state lines.“Reet, reet, REE!” Ian’s theme song keeps jacking up my heart rate. They designed it to. I can’t turn away from the screen even though branches are whipping outside my window. An outer band arrived early. I need to pee again, already.Oh! Kidney stones! Dad sounded like he wanted to die during his. Awesome. When does that pain arrive? On the highway, trying to outrun a Cat 4, you dummy?Three roadblocks prevent me from heading straight to the emergency room. No health insurance, a crippling fear of debt, and all area hospitals have announced that they’re closing anyway. No easy answers here. Just go.I flush away the scarlet and carry the cooler out to the car. Gusty, with scud clouds riding low in the sky. Back inside, I’m stymied by the idea of emptying the fridge now instead of waiting until everything putrefies. Power’s going to be out a long, long time. Hot and festering refrigerator growth turns what could be a fascinating project into an overwhelming issue when there’s no fan to vent that stench. Fun Florida fact.Is this really time to clean the fridge? Jim Cantore’s up the road in Punta Gorda! How many pairs of boxers will I need for this evacuation, Jim? Any update on those numbers?Ten minutes later, I’ve loaded the car. All it took was doing it. I say goodbye to my crap and escape over the Matlacha bridge to the mainland, where I’m one of the few fools on the road. Random gusts toss my little beater around, but I keep pointing north, mostly, staying ahead of Ian. I have to piss so often, I hit every rest area and gas stations in between, but nothing changes. Crowded urinals are my favorite—adult men gasping in line behind me. Almost comical if it weren’t so horrifying. And blech.I can’t stop. I’m hot and cold, sweating then shivering. Ebola crosses my mind, and I check my eyes to make sure they’re not bleeding. I don’t know what I’ve got, but they’re going to name it after me. Dead but famous. Lovely.I pull off near Nokomis to top off the tank and pee yet again. The men’s room is inside the gas station, and the door has been removed, which I assume is due to fentanyl overdoses, but is pretty damn strange regardless. I strain to go. Audibly. At long last, the blood arrives, but my protestations don’t go unnoticed at the register. I buy a Gatorade, which I only seem to drink during hurricanes.“Was that you?” the clerk asks. “Oh… Oh, wow, mister. You don’t look good.”“You need to---not be working,” I tell her. “You should go home. This is going to be bad.”“I can’t. I’m the only one who showed up for the shift. Thought it’s headed to Tampa.”“No. At least turn on the radio, kid. Then go home.”“Are you serious?” She stops chewing gum.“Your boss is a dick. Go home.”“You’re scaring me,” she says.“Good.”Every minute in a restroom puts no distance between me and Ian. The Gulf of Mexico is boiling, and that monster suckles from it, growing closer to Category 5 and closer to my home. I’m going to lose everything. And somewhere up the coast, it’s going to stall and unleash some inland subtropical hell of twenty-five inches of rain, so I’ve got to stay ahead of that, too. It’s not just landfall. I’m walking from another rest area back to my car when the urge stops me in my tracks. I have to go again. That’s not even possible, but there it is. And there it is—more blood.Yeah. You’re going to die.Six or seven restrooms into Georgia, I’m driving 75 and something steps on a cat’s tail for a good five seconds, making me swerve and duck before realizing the screech is coming from my phone. Lee County, FL’s PUSH notification insists that I shelter in place. Not intended for Valdosta, Georgia, it’s a sign nonetheless, and I decide to watch landfall from the next motel’s bathroom.I shake like a junkie checking in downstairs, but now my TV, laptop, and phone all blare, and I can consume all things hurricane. I don’t sleep and can’t follow any one screen for longer than a minute. The chills run down my spine over and over. Extended chills, that can turn into spasms.I do try to sleep, but my eyes won’t stay shut and I’m not turning anything off. Updates show Ian slowing down offshore. Then the sun’s up in Georgia while we’re still waiting on landfall in Florida, but it’s already clear. Worst case scenario is about to play out.“We now find ourselves in a position of great peril.” Our Lee County manager Roger Desjarlais finally states the obvious on the Weather Channel. Every single forecast warned that Ian would strengthen after Cuba. A day earlier, this same guy was calling Ian weaker than 2017’s Irma, so his wide-eyed, bleak assessment now sounds clownish.You can’t tell where Florida is from the morning satellite photos. No more peninsula. Just a hurricane of nightmarish proportions.“Catastrophic storm surge inundation of 12 to 18 feet above ground level along with destructive waves are expected somewhere along the southwest Florida coastline from Englewood to Bonita Beach, including Charlotte Harbor,” says the NHC in their 11 a.m. Wednesday advisory. That’s 56 miles of coastline as the crow flies, and Pine Island sits about dead center.My hand covers my mouth, and I glance at the window and spot a cockroach walking under the air conditioner, and I just watch until it’s gone. I can’t move.Ian has slowed and “wobbled” overnight, which islanders know to be the worst word ever. Charlie wobbled in ‘04. As if the Gulf had muscle memory, Ian, too, hangs a sharp right towards Pine Island and Fort Myers Beach, but unlike Charlie, Ian slows to a creep, scraping away the coastline for hour after hour of 150 mph sustained winds, gusting far higher. Landfall begins on Wednesday afternoon and runs into the night.Stormchasers strapped a camera high up a pole on Fort Myers Beach, so every few minutes we see looping footage of a huge walk-in cooler floating down Times Square or a little pink house getting swallowed by the surge. All I can do is imagine all the other neighborhoods. 4 miles west of Pine Island, the barrier island of Cayo Costa takes the first landfall at 3:00PM. 15 miles north of Pine Island, Pirate Harbor claims mainland landfall a full hour and half later. News trickles in. Matlacha and Fort Myers Beach are getting pounded by 13-to-15-foot storm surges. The Sanibel Causeway appears to be damaged.I’m blinking a lot but I don’t want to sleep. I don’t even want guacamole.My thoughts can’t get away from Meryl and Krystl, who each stayed behind because of their dogs. I feel like such a chickenshit for leaving, even when it was the only sensible move. Survivor’s guilt, perhaps, but that’s a horrible term. Meryl’s too high up in her treehouse, while Krystyl lives too low, in a ranch. Hour after hour crawls by, and there’s no news from Pine Island. I don’t know if my friends are alive. If anyone is. If anything will be left.I’m at the end of my tether when my nephew sends a video from inside a condo in Naples, which is south of Bonita Beach, so way south of landfall. Shot from halfway down the stairs, the camera is focused on the windows, but the view is shaky. A woman is heard begging her husband to come back upstairs.Giant waves burst through the glass, filling their home in a flash, and everyone runs upstairs screaming. I fling my phone across the room and cover my face, and I want to scream too and leave the phone where it lands, but the video won’t stop looping. Down on the floor, the glass keeps crashing and the people keep screaming.

First Chapter from The Anthology of a River

By Rebecca Adcock

The Anthology of a River is a yearlong observation of how the river changes after the removal of a dam. Our dam,on the Mayo River, came down in November 2025. One week of an excavator jackhammering concrete and using the accumulated sediment to reshape and stabilize the riverbank, and the river was flowing free again. I was curious to see how the river would react to snow, storms, and droughts over the course of year. With that, the idea was formed: to record the differences I noticed in the river as it
mended itself after a century of human restraint. While also noting new wildlife and taking stock of all the creatures that have graced us with their presence - from baby snapping turtles and snakes to countless birds - I hoped that in the process, I might also find my own personal flow.We Bought a House“But it’s behind Hardees,” was my husband Jonathan's rebuttal when I asked him to spend one of his rare Saturday afternoons off from work, house hunting with me. In
the rural county we had moved to for his career, the options were limited at best. For the past year we had been living in a small rental. We were ready to put down roots and
have something of our own.The one prospect was an affordable house in town, positioned behind a fast-food establishment. Or at least that is where the driveway started. The gravel drive was an unassuming door to a new world. The entrance cut through a field before climbing to the ridge and then descending a steep bench cut into the hillside. Halfway down, the trees peeled back to expose a quaint farmhouse with a columned front porch perched on a small knoll with water flowing all around. It was the only dwelling on this spit of a
peninsula jutting out in the snake curve of the Mayo River, right in the middle of town but
socked in by a summer fortress of foliage.On the left, the river flowed beside a flat paddock area that housed a couple of donkeys. On the right, it cascaded over a cement dam.It was a hidden oasis in the
middle of town. Behind the house was a small yard that sloped down to a flattened football-sized field bordered by the river. The right amount of house with enough land to
accommodate the animals that we hoped to grow our little farm with.Having grown up in a woodland environment without neighbors piled on top of us; I was looking for that same sense of open space with privacy. I also found the
thought of building a new home overwhelming with too many options to have to manage. The recession made new home builds out of our price range. We also wanted a house with some history. Something with a soul. Older homes are like inheriting a vintage leather jacket. It has been lived in, broken in, has some blemishes, but the stories it could tell are full of life. Being a century-old farmhouse meant there were some renovations that we were going to have to make immediately and in the future.One of the main reasons we bought our house was the natural water feature. The dam was a large monolith of concrete stretching from bank to bank. Every small
town has them on their rivers. Dams built to power the mills for grinding and sawing, while also creating economic heartbeats in their communities. The wooden mills fell to time, but the concrete dams remain. Ours was starting to show signs of decay with cracks and missing chunks of concrete. When we first purchased the property, the flood gate at the bottom was blocked with debris. This forced the water to back up and run over the fifteen-foot drop, creating a peaceful gurgling sound.Learning to live with the sound of constantly flowing water took time. The first few weeks the need to go to the bathroom interrupted our sleep. After a few months,
sleeping away from home was difficult without our ambient soundtrack. The dam became our own white noise machine. Slowly, I learned to measure the amount of rainfall we had received by the rising sound of water cascading over the dam.From the first month that we moved to the property, wildlife was abundant. I had always enjoyed being an amateur naturalist and watching wildlife. Growing up, I had
very nature minded parents. We lived surrounded by woods, with no neighbors directly adjoining our property. Though it was a small plot, I was always outside exploring. My
father had a degree in biology and worked his college summers as a naturalist at a local nature center. I fondly remember walks along our dead-end road where he would
identify the genus and species names of trees, and I would fuss.“What are their real names?" As a kid, I was always collecting things, leaves or catching frogs in my
mother’s ornamental pond. Through the years, our home was a sanctuary for multiple critters. We hatched snake eggs found in my grandfather's leaf pile. One summer was the turtle relocation project. Every turtle we saved from the road was placed in a makeshift habitat area by the basement, to be released into our woods at the end of the season.The movie Gorillas in the Mist enthralled me when I saw it as a kid. I could not understand how a person could have a career of sitting in the woods and watching. Afterward, my summer evenings were spent observing the raccoons that came on the patio for our cat’s food. Encouraged by my father, I kept a journal of my observations
and tried to identify the individual raccoons. Using dried coconut and tiny squares of mango bites from my Welch’s Fruit Snacks, I tried to entice them to take food from my hand. As I aged, hanging out with friends took precedence as well as late nights playing sports. I abandoned surveillance sessions of my nocturnal friends but never lost those observation skills.Being back around nature and the river rekindled my love of watching the natural world. I resumed keeping a small notebook of identifying the different wildlife that had
made their presence known on our peninsula, feeling that it would make a nice parting gift to the next owners. I have recorded the more common sightings of herons, Canada geese, and black snakes, as well as the more rare visits from the Bald Eagle, Osprey, and Kingsnake.Early in our ownership of the property, several residents informed us of drownings that had occurred around the dam over the decades. While researching at our library for other projects, I found headlines about those deaths. One newspaper article outlined several incidents spanning decades, when the area upstream had been
a popular swimming hole. Some individuals died from hitting their heads on shallow rocks when they dove in. Others perished because they could not swim. The town still recalls the tragic double deaths in the 1980s of a little boy who fell in, and of his father who went in to save him. After those deaths, the town council voted to remove the dam. The effort never came to fruition, either by lack of funding or by difficulty in determining who owned the structure. So, it stayed, a decaying monument to both those lives who perished and to the commerce it had once generated.After more than sixteen years living on the river, the dam had increasingly become more of a hazard. One major flood had cleared the debris from the flood
channel, allowing for continuous flow out the bottom of the dam and ending the cascading effect over the structure. With the crest dry, fishermen and other trespassers
were walking across the top. Falling off the crest on the downriver side could cause significant injury or death. The depth of sediment that had settled above the dam had also become a hazard. We once had to help rescue a dog that had become stuck in the mud, using plywood sheets to disperse our weight so we would not sink in ourselves.The dam removal process started by happenstance when I met a wildlife resource biologist who was studying fish species of the river. He described how his team worked to remove them. When he discovered we owned the property by the dam, he was excited to introduce us to the state dam removal specialist. Her job was to
decommission as many obsolete dams as possible and other structures across the state. Structure removals are positive for multiple reasons. The liability they pose for human safety is foremost, but their removal also greatly benefits wildlife in allowing for better fish and mussel migration. The effort was collaborative, with support from the state Wildlife Resource Commission and our local environmental association.Ever the naturalist, I was also curious to see what would happen to the ecology of the river if it were allowed to flow naturally. I wanted more fish and other aquatic wildlife to populate our section of the river. Our bottomland floods periodically during remnants of tropical storms and hurricanes. Would removing the dam allow water to move more quickly through, lessening the build up and flooding impacts to our flat areas?My husband was not as enthusiastic as I was about removing the dam. He was concerned the water levels would drop so much that our goats would not find the river to be the natural barrier it had been and would begin roaming free through town. Honestly, a little goat-scaping of kudzu would not be too bad of a thing for our community. The dam had been a major reason for purchasing the home, although Jonathan later admitted that with so many years of water no longer cascading over the top, it had lost a little of its appeal.Our home has several spirits or energies that are felt by us and many guests. With so many families living in our house and on the property through the years, some
spirits appear to have stayed bound to the place. How could the river, with its history of drownings, not hold onto some of those life forces? Jonathan is more attuned to the
spirit world and would occasionally hear a little boy’s voice calling “help me” from the river. Other orbs and voices have made their existence known through the years. If those river spirits were bound to the dam by their deaths, we were worried about what would happen after the removal. Would they linger on the property, or would they be set free? Before the removal work began, we conducted a small ceremony at the dam to acknowledge the lives lost and hoping that with the removal, those spirits would find their peace.How would the river heal itself and impact our local wildlife that I had grown accustomed to seeing on a yearly cycle with the dam removal? I may not have maintained consistent vigils of observation, but I still had my notebook to record any new or uncommonly seen fauna. With the change in water flow, would the same ones return, or have new ones arrive? The greatest uncertainty was not knowing what the river would look like afterward or how the wildlife would adapt. I was hoping for all of it; the same species still enjoying their river with new species finding a home here.The removal of something so large and concrete made me start reflecting inward. What dams exist in my own life? While I would not classify it as a mid-life crisis, I was at
a point in my life where things were shifting on a personal and professional level. I was beginning to take stock of what I felt truly was important: my relationships with friends and family, how I was moving through this world, and whether I needed to move along a different professional path. What perceived dams in my life were blocking me from things I wanted to accomplish? How would my own ecology shift and alter my relationships? Would I flow in new directions without the current barrier blocking my path?Before the dam came down, I took time to write my hopes, dreams, and thoughts on pieces of paper, and released them into the river. For them to float downstream and carry with them the possibility of new directions and new paths. Would I have the strength to follow through and do the same for myself?February"...And bade the frozen streams be free; And waked to music all their fountains, And breathed upon the frozen mountains,..." — Percy Bysshe Shelley, from "The Invitation"February is the shortest month of the year with the most drastic changes. Because of this, and it being my birth month, I consider this the true beginning of the year. The natural world is starting to wake up. Daffodils begin pushing through the frozen or snow-covered ground, and our back pasture is speckled with flecks of green amongst the brown blades. This month is usually the coldest and in many years the river is edged in ice. With the dam slowing the flow of the water, ice would accumulate
along the edges when the temperature hovered around freezing. On the rarest, most frigid days, there is only a small rivulet of exposed running water in the middle of the river. In shallow spots, the river could be completely covered in ice on the surface with the current still flowing below. The water levels are low this time of year, even with decent snowpack and melt.The winter of 2026 was frigid and snowy for us. For three weeks in January into February, we had to hike up and down our steep driveway because snow and ice had packed into a concrete-like mass in the cold temperatures. With temperatures remaining at or below freezing for extended stretches, the river once again narrowed as ice accumulated on the riverbanks.It was not convenient slugging backpacks and lunchboxes up the driveway every morning. We were rewarded with the diverse prints that traipsed across the driveway
every day. Reminding us that while it might seem like “the dead of winter,” it was in fact not so for the foxes, birds, and others who left their marks behind while out searching for food or mates. Each day, new brushstrokes were painted across the white canvas of the driveway.This past year reminded me of our first winter here, when we had three snowstorms in weekly succession, each dropping at least twelve inches. Without a tractor to clear the driveway, we began each day on foot. That was also the year that we spotted a family of otters in the river. They are one of my favorite animals, and it is
always a highlight when visiting nature centers to watch them effortlessly glide through the water. Seeing them in their natural environment was an even greater thrill. We watched them scamper across the bank and then slide through the snow into the river, enjoying their own winter water park. Even from a distance, they were skittish and keenly aware of our presence, quickly diving and swimming toward safer waters whenever we ventured too close. With their leeriness to humans, I was surprised to see them on the river this close to downtown. They never stayed long to stake out any permanent lodging, usually only inhabiting our river for a day or two.February is the month for love. It is also the month for mating. Ever notice all the dead skunks on the side of the road during this month? They are out there looking for love, and in the case of the road, “looking for love in all the wrong places.”The muskrats moved in and created their own communal living arrangements in part of the broken concrete chase of the dam. Every February they began their high-pitched squawking mating calls in the middle of the night. Our bedroom faces the dam, so we were serenaded to their nightly concerts for a few weeks. The old Captain & Tennille song “Muskrat Love” immediately begins playing in our heads while we lay awake during their serenading.Other nocturnal noises have been the raccoons. The agitated trilling that they make when angry alerted us one night while we were closing the ducks in their night box. Flashlights in hand, we patrolled the perimeter of the pasture to find the cause of the ruckus. Two bull raccoons were chasing each other along the riverbank. They were
soaking wet from multiple tumbles through the chilly water. We watched them tussle in the river and scramble up the trees. Even being spotlighted, they kept fighting and did not care how close we approached. For more than forty-five minutes, we watched them before one finally decided to admit defeat and leave. The other raccoon was in hot pursuit, unwilling to let the fight end so abruptly.

The bird population around the peninsula in February is limited. Crows caw at us when we wander outside. The great blue heron perches on the riverbank or stands almost frozen in the icy water, waiting for a fish. A few slate-colored juncos flutter in the sun-soaked driveway, waiting for more snow. I have started leaving the leaves, stalks, and seed heads in the garden beds to sustain the birds through winter. I think this helps. I have noticed more songbirds gathering around the house.One species that I desperately miss are the owls. During the first three years we lived here, we would sit out on the front porch at night and listen to the sounds of the
screech owl. Its whinnying call used to mark its territory and the tremolo for attracting a mate. It roosted in the trees along the driveway. I never saw it, but hearing it brought me comfort, as there had always been one near the house where I grew up. Ours disappeared before the trees along the driveway were cut down. I do not know why it left. I wish it would return, I miss it.Toward the end of February, the temperature moderates, and we start to hear the first of the spring peeper frogs. The former owner had dug some fishing ponds in the
back pasture along the river’s edge. Over time, they drained back into the river and are now dry depressions in the ground that we must mow around. In the early years, those ponds were nurseries for various frogs and toads, teeming with jelly-like globs of egg masses and tadpoles that attracted the herons. The frogs have since found other areas
along the river. The once-concentrated sound has become somewhat dispersed. With the dam now removed, the river level has dropped further below the ponds. This year, though, the frogs’ chorus seems stronger. Perhaps it was the rapid warm-up that occurred at the end of the month, or they were overjoyed at having survived a colder and snowier winter, but they trumpeted the end of February with remarkable vigor.For me professionally, February is a month where events and meetings are always slow due to the low temperature and evenings arrive early. This year, with weeks of both, the county settled into a kind of evening hibernation, allowing me to reclaim my nights. I used that time to write the many stories circulating in my head - some mere outlines, a scene, conversation, or half-formed plots. I worked to compile and edit the endless notes I have scribbled in my journals or on my phone, fragments that came into focus at random times throughout the day.Many of those journal entries circled back to my job. I love my work and the way it allows me to serve my community. But I was starting to question how much longer I wanted to stay? I turned several scenarios over in my mind, weighing the possibility of leaving against the comfort of staying. My greatest fear was not of missing out, but the fear of letting go. My job is essentially a one-person show, and I found myself worrying about who would replace me and whether they could sustain the momentum of what I had built. Could I continue to sustain the momentum as well? But was it fair to hold myself back by that dam of fear? In the end, I know I must do what is best for me. And if that means finding a new stretch of the river and following where it flows, then so be it.

First Chapter from Life in Captivity

By Janet Cincotta

Not many years ago, I shared a beautiful home with my husband on a hilltop overlooking a scenic valley in the Pennsylvania countryside. We were both respected physicians in our community. Together we shepherded three kind and capable human beings out of the house and into the world.If you had known us back then, you might have felt a twinge of envy. We were financially secure, and had a nice place to live. We had three good, healthy kids, and we were both engaged in meaningful work.Today? Not so much. Things have changed.Things always change. Just when you think you have achieved some semblance of security, comfort, and fulfillment in life, something shifts. You lose a loved one, or an injury or illness takes you down, or disaster strikes. A flood sweeps everything away overnight, or you lose your job, or you lose your child. It can happen that fast.In other cases, the change occurs gradually. The storm clouds gather quietly and slowly. Your needs change. Your perspective changes. Your values shift. Perhaps you learn something or witness something that raises doubts about what you have always believed to be true. You are plunged into confusion, uncertainty, disbelief. Something happens that forces you to reconsider what you have always assumed to be true, what you have been taught or conditioned to believe would lead to happiness. To truth. To peace.Suddenly, you realize the path you were on led you astray. It took you on a quest for wealth, or fame, or power. For a better job, or a bigger house, or a sportier car when what you were looking for were inner peace and security. Connection. Lasting happiness. It dawns on you that you have been misled or betrayed by the people you were counting on, or dependent upon, or in love with.You may have worked hard to achieve your goals in life. You were honest and trustworthy. Generous. You followed the rules thinking it would pay off someday. You were confident that things would get easier, but they didn’t. Prayers went unanswered. Promises were broken. You may have found yourself burdened with grief, fear, or anger you couldn’t shake off. The path you were on certainly didn’t lead to happiness which is what you were looking for in the first place. What you were hoping for. What you were promised.Welcome to life in captivity, where the way we’re meant to see the world is laid out for us. Where people who claim to have our best interests at heart tell us what we should believe, how we are expected to behave, and how we should see ourselves.It isn’t until the gate closes behind us that we realize we’ve been tricked. We thought we’d be happy but we aren’t. We thought our problems would disappear, but they didn’t. We expected our prayers to be answered, but they weren’t. Instead, we find ourselves tethered to someone else’s ideas about right and wrong. Rich and poor. Happy and sad.Suddenly what we have always valued, or believed, or practiced doesn’t ring true. We are moved to reject the cultural conditioning we have surrendered to, to question other people’s opinions and values, and to reconsider the inaccurate conclusions we drew about ourselves and the world that became our beliefs about who we are and what we deserve in life. We go through life as if we know the way forward when, without warning, the path vanishes. Or we come to fork in the road but there’s no road sign there, nothing to tell us which way to go. We find ourselves tottering on the brink of we-don’t-know-what.When we come up against a dilemma we can’t deny or ignore, or we are moved by the suffering we observe around us, or we learn something that requires us to re-evaluate a deeply held belief, it forces us to question what we believe about ourselves and the world around us. It changes everything.The life I was accustomed to and had worked so hard to orchestrate unraveled gradually. First, I bowed out of medicine. The practice I built around compassion, connection, and dedication morphed into a race against the clock. A mandate to generate revenue. It was a sure recipe for disaster, and it scared me.Not long after that, I left my husband after forty-two years of marriage. Now I live alone in a small apartment on the outskirts of town where I’m constantly bumping into myself. Wondering how I ended up here. What I did wrong. How it all came down to this.Eventually, I gave up on God. What I experienced and witnessed unfolding around me contradicted what I was taught to believe in, to expect, even to pray for. The patriarchy of the church offended me with its claim to authority, power, and control. Its greed. Its denials and lies. Religious dogma baffled me. Prayer didn’t seem to work very well for me, either.Which explains how, in just a few short years, I went from being a wife and mother, a physician, and a cradle Catholic to a divorced, retired, agnostic mess.Because, you see, I used to think I could count on God to come through for me in a pinch. That’s what scripture promised. Now, I have serious doubts. I thought I knew what it took to orchestrate a happy marriage, but apparently, I did not. I knew that medicine required hard work and dedication, but I was also under the impression that healing rested on connection, compassion, and trust rather than speed, power, and profit. Wrong again, according to some experts in the field.You, too, may come up against something in life that stops you in your tracks. Sooner or later, most of us do. It turns out everything that is familiar and predictable can change in a heartbeat. Literally. A mother finds the infant she rocked to sleep just a few hours earlier, lifeless in her crib. Your house and everything in it, goes up in flames. The biopsy is bad. It’s cancer.You don’t have to turn on the news or scan the day’s headlines to know that the problem of pain, in all its guises, stalks us wherever we go. It is alive and well in every community, in every neighborhood, and around every kitchen table. The possibilities, indeed the realities, are endless. Unthinkable. Sometimes unbearable.When bad news hits close to home it forces us to confront the toll it takes on people just like us—ordinary men, women, and children caught in the unpredictable current of life. Things seem to be going along just fine when—BAM! Everything changes.When your path in life takes an unexpected turn, or you come up against an insurmountable obstacle, or you lose your way completely, it can be a struggle to find a new path forward. You may have to try something different. Take that first tentative step. Embrace and manifest your immanent wisdom. When my career fizzled, my marriage failed, and my faith faded, something else took root in and around me. A new way of looking at life emerged. I caught a glimpse of the world outside the walls of captivity, and what I saw there astounded me. It opened my heart. It might open yours, too.When what you experience in life, or what you observe happening around you, or what you are taught by self-appointed experts on the subject contradicts a deeply held belief, or dismantles your priorities, or dishonors something you hold sacred, you may be flooded with uncertainty. Paralyzed by indecision. Immobilized. Stuck. This is what happened to me when I abandoned my career, when I walked away from my marriage, and I lost faith.In some traditions, this is known as the “Dark Night of the Soul,” a time of spiritual desolation and disconnection when one feels separated from the Divine. A time of emotional emptiness or upheaval that causes a shift in consciousness. It dramatically and irreversibly alters our way of being in the world. It can leave us confused, hurt, and fearful. Or, depending upon how we navigate it, it can lead us to greater wisdom, new love, or deeper peace.When something you learn, or observe, or experience forces you to question what you have always believed to be true, it requires a willingness to admit that you may have been wrong about it. When your path in life takes an unexpected turn, or you come up against an insurmountable obstacle, or you lose your way completely, it can be a challenge to find a new way forward.When this happens, Stephen Cope, Senior Scholar-in-Residence at The Kripalu Center in Massachusetts tells his students they have arrived at a crossroads. In his book, The Great Work of Your Life, he writes:“Each of these unfortunate individuals…came to this crossroads and found themselves rooted there, with one foot firmly planted on each side of the intersection. Alas, they never moved off the dime. They procrastinated. Dithered. Finally, they put a folding chair smack in the center of that crossroads and lived there for the rest of their lives. After a while, they forgot entirely that there even was a crossroads—forgot that there was a choice.”But there is always a choice. We can stay put—corralled or tethered out of uncertainty, confusion, or fear—or we can begin our search for a way out, for freedom from captivity. We can choose to forge a new way forward.If you are confused or frustrated by beliefs you no longer hold but are afraid to question, or by habitual responses that have not served you well, or by people who do not have your best interests at heart, you may have arrived at an existential intersection in your life, at a fork in the road, or at the brink of a deep, dark void. There is no road sign to guide you. Your compass is broken. The way forward is unmapped, and the bridge is out so you can’t turn back.Like a lost puppy, you thought you would be sheltered, fed, and protected if you simply followed the rules. If you believed what you were told. If you just kept quiet. You thought you were safe, but now you feel trapped. If you ache for freedom once and for all, it may be time to break out of captivity.I wish I could show you the way, but the truth is that your path will be different from mine. Your needs are different from mine, and your strengths are different. You will have to find your own way forward. Wendell Berry may have said it best:“It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.”When you encounter a crisis in your life, or you descend into your soul’s own version of a dark night, it may be that you have finally located the gate and found the key, gnawed through the tethers that bind you, or uncovered the passageway that will lead you out of captivity.Congratulations! You are on the road to freedom. When will you take your first step? Which path will you choose?

First Chapter from Pizza Dog Annie’s Guide to Wellness for Reluctant Homo Sapiens

By Alex Charns

Annie Oakley, the Locked Ward, and the Holocaust was in the Basement.Are you wellness phobic? Do you believe that folks who are in therapy are weak? That 12-step programs are for losers? Meditation is a way for Eastern religions to chip away at our Christian foundations? You last exercised in gym class in sixth grade? Spirituality, faith, or religion is the fentanyl of the masses?Then this little book may help. If not, leave a 1-star review on Amazon that says: “This book is part of the mental and physical wellness conspiracy started in the 1950s by health guru Jack LaLanne which was inspired by a super-secret CIA program.”My name isAnnie. I’ll be your guide. I’m a fifty-pound, grey black - with gentle brown highlights - four-year-old German shepherd husky mix. Some call me handsome. My girl nibs have been removed so don’t call me a bitch, though I can be bitchy. My bark is incessant and annoying when I want treats, to play ball or go outside. My foster family called me a “talker.” My full name, according to them, wasAnnie Oakley because I was trouble.On walks, I bark and hurl myself at other dogs. I pull on the leash – hard – as my husky side compels. I try to break free and catch small animals.Don’t call me a rescue dog even though I came from Freedom Ride Rescue in Raleigh. Before that I was on the streets, fending for myself. I rescuedAlex and the whole family. Sure, dogs get a bad rap in the Bible. The phrase power of the dog should be a good thing. Instead, we’re thrown in with the whoremongers, idolators and the wicked. What about sheep dogs and the dog at the manger with the infant Lord? I’ve been Alex’s loyal friend and helpmate for his physical and mental health. Just like Queenie, Zosia, Dodie, Easy, Lucky, and Ray before me. All mutts. Most from the pound. No purebreds. My “masters” are my family. Masters? That is a slavery term. I wish the humans would stop
using it. I’m a healer; a therapist, a workout buddy.My main training pal, Alex, lost 15 pounds under my supervision. It started with me waking him up every day. I licked his face at 4AM believing that doggie halitosis will revive him. He turned over. I jumped on the bed and rolled on him a bit. That did the trick. He’s awake.He began as a pudge bucket who thought he was exercising when he walked a half mile, slowly. I have him up to three miles now.1 Sure, Alex gives me a lot of credit for his transformation. He believes in psychiatry, anti-psychotic meds, talk therapy, Al-Anon, hockey, protest, voting, writing, reading, meditation, gratitude lists, and walking with me. All of this is his recipe for recovery after his psychiatric commitment. In my canine opinion, walking three miles a day is the most important. His shrink diagnosed Alex with major depression with psychotic features. He was committed to a locked ward for three weeks. The insurance company claimed he had dementia. If he had dementia, the insurance company could deny coverage and the $30,000 in hospital and doctor bills. The Duke doctors prevailed on their diagnosis. I’d love to pee on the legs of one of those insurance company scum buckets.The depression knocked Alex down and sent him to a locked ward for three weeks.It was Christmas Eve. He could hear coyotes howling in the parking lot. They were calling him.He looked out the window to his tiny hospital room. The moon was gigantic. Twenty times as large as a normal moon. Thirty times brighter. It looked like it was hanging on the construction crane. Of course, it wasn’t real. It was put there to spy on him, he thought.Who put it there? The feds naturally. He thought he was about to be arrested for some national security offense. Something he hadn’t done yet but had thought about doing. No blinds to close as he might hang himself with the cord.He closed his eyes and tried to remember how he got here. Nothing. Nada. Nic.I know how he got there. There was a map. That map pointed to Suwalki, Poland, 1942, when his 12-year-old mother, Basia, was posted as a lookout against the SS and the Gestapo’s men. She saw things no child should see. She heard things no kid should hear. She smelled terrible smells. These things would haunt her until her dying days. They would haunt Alex too. When Alex was six years old, he found the Holocaust in his family’s basement. 1962. Suburban Detroit. Damp. Cold. Concrete floored basement. There was a metal shelf with books on it. He picked the book with the bright red twisted cross on the cover. He opened to the picture section. There was a pretty little girl who was about his age. She was lying atop a pile of bodies. She was dead too.Alex, terrified, ran out of the basement. He later learned from his mother that the book – “I Survived Hitler’s Hell” – was written by her father, his grandfather, Alexander Peter Gwiazdowski. The twisted red cross was a Nazi swastika. His mom told him stories of her family committing the capital crime of smuggling their Jewish neighbors into nearby Lithuania. Of Alek’s arrest for treason against the Third Reich. His imprisonment until he escaped on a forced march. She told other stories of daring do and of
escaping death by luck or Divine Providence.Alex grew up an anxious, depressed child with nightmares about soldiers trying to kill him. He wanted to escape from his home. Run away. He didn’t know how to do that. So, he obsessed about suicide and ending it all. He half-heartedly tried once. Sat in the Ford Country Squire station wagon with the motor on. The wagon was in the closed garage. He turned off the engine before he got woozy.What was he trying to escape? His dad was a hard-working mechanical engineer, an alcoholic who Alex was afraid of. His mom, a committed, loving elementary school teacher, had
PTSD from the war and she believed the neighbors were poisoning her. This delusion lasted for years. At one point, a family member set up video cameras around the outside of the house to record anyone who might be up to no good. This would be proof positive that no one was on the property. The videos showed nothing was happening. No intruders. No poison. Basia still insisted the neighbors were gassing her.His parents loved their dog, Dodie; a big silly shepherd mix they rescued. Alex’s father came home from the bar with a cheese pizza. Dodie got at least half the pizza every night. The sauce didn’t seem to hurt her stomach.Alex’s dad and mom never sought treatment for their problems. They fought bitter fights against each other. They threatened to divorce. They didn’t know Alex was severely depressed and suicidal. He played sports. He did well in school. He had friends. Wasn’t that an ideal childhood? If someone went back and looked at all the pictures taken of Alex as a child, the one memorable fact was that he was never smiling. Not in a single picture.1 WARNING: Remember, I am a talking dog, not a licensed mental health, physical therapist, or medical doctor. Follow my canine advice at your peril. ANNIE’S ASPCA COMPLAINT: I admit my family sometimes jokingly calls me Pizza Dog Annie when they’re eating pizza. That isn’t my name and I object to the title of this book. Also, why not list me as the author? I’m doing all the talking. Yes, I know pizza sauce with its garlic and onions is bad for my doggie tummy. They only give me pizza crust. So, the title should be Pizza Crust Eater Dog Annie. My share of the book royalties should be 80 – 20.