The wall of towering hedges marking the maze’s end drips with smoking streaks of my blood as I stagger into the clearing’s light—clean light, a false sun, under a sky bluer than I’ve seen in years. Fibers from my torn tunic burn deep in my wounds, and I throw my sword to the ground as the hissing metal continues to melt, no match for the final guardian’s acidic maw. I wipe my brow with a shaking hand. It’s almost over.

The damning tree stands peacefully, its roots thick and creeping over the mossy mound it crowns. Splayed out around it, skeletal remains circle beneath the branches, half buried as though fused down. The bones are bare and palest gray, preternaturally aged and stripped by the cruel magic of this place. But I steady myself as I move in—every moment, the curse worms its way that much nearer our shrouded haven. The farmlands lie already reduced to swaths of fiery horror, and irate heavens pour poison on the few survivors who endure. I will succeed here where these conquered souls succumbed.

I will scorch the willow’s heartwood to cold, lifeless ash.

As I hobble forward, I am not careless in my passion. I heed the warnings, keep my eyes trained low. Even so, the closer I get, the larger a strange longing blooms in my chest. A musical hum plays around the edges of my hearing. I focus on the ground: my booted feet meet the farthest sprawl of roots, then the first bones, a delicate skull. Another. The green and yellow and teal patchwork of moss blanketing the enemy’s soil seems to breathe beneath me. I stand six paces from the trunk’s villainous bark when numbness creeps up my fingers, consumes my lips—only the dying wails of my compatriots falling to the monsters in the labyrinth lend me the clarity to fumble for my hatchet.

I exhale a confounded breath. When I take another step, the hum pulsing around me deepens precipitously. I must have crossed some threshold—the sound buzzes through my ribs like heartbreak, and I can feel my body and will weakening with each moment spent so close. I begin to sweat. The air grows thicker, an invisible sludge, and the force of its resistance tightens back my skin as I press on—

I’m panting when I reach the screen of foliage nearest the tree’s body. The willow’s turquoise braids sway in a gentle breeze around its branches, and in madness, I think I may dodge through them. But I’m too slow now—the leaves brush the filth of my shaven head, and as they swab over me, the touch sings with such delicate warmth that my vision swims. My throat constricts, heaves of emotion scraping it raw. Shaking, I grip my weapon in both deadened hands, just a step away from the glorious, the sublime, the benevolent enemy—

I break.

As my knees hit the earth, the willow’s heart speaks to me. Not in words, but in inner sight, in understanding—in doom. I double over in dazed delirium as I listen. The calamity cannot be ended by such unworthy hands as mine. My hatchet falls—no, is thrown—far behind me. How could I ever have dreamed to slay something so beautiful, so pure? Surrender oozes through my skin. The air I breathe, too graciously enriched to gaseous nectar I don’t deserve to taste, indebts me by itself to whatever is asked.

And the requests come: Won’t I fertilize these grounds, in owed atonement? Won’t I shed my flesh in necessary apology, feed the well of ruin for my fiendish kind’s demise? My children’s faces fight to the fore of my mind, the thought of my bloodline beyond them that will never be, my youngest’s rattling cough and frailty ever worsening as the smoke intensifies. But then the images slip, and all I feel before my blameless deity is shame, disgraced by the threat I’d so very nearly posed.

Of course, I am granted mercy. The urgent hum connecting flesh to wood vibrates down to my bones, soothing my guilt, leeching the tension from my tired muscles, and my eyes glaze to a compliant serenity I never knew I craved. Remorse may have eaten me alive, yet here, in the home of holiness itself, is true forgiveness.

I inch out a hand. An attempt to touch divinity would be selfish, an unseemly act of vulgarity, but just the once—I have to try. I’m not sure I can reach it in time, before my body gives out completely. But in a last push of will, the tip of one finger…it scrapes the bark.

Ecstasy shoots through my veins like opium. I cry my unworthiness, profess my devotion, shout my vilest apostasies in eternal self-loathing gratitude—

I fall to my back.

The mangled wails in the fields beyond fill my ears, but with the heavenly roots below me, the sound is sweet: a cosmic lullaby for my resting place. The flames licking the earth raw, the smoke painting the true sun a pitted red, the dark orange haze of the curse permeating the toxic air outside my perfect mossy bed—what is this beauty I am so privileged to witness in my twilight moments? What could I ever have done to deserve such a blessing?

And then my skin peels away to feed my blood into the hallowed ground.

Lex Chamberlin (they/she) is a nonbinary and autistic writer of sci-fi, fantasy, and horror. They hold a master’s degree in book publishing and a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, and they reside in the Pacific Northwest with their husband and quadrupedal heirs. Find them online at lexchamberlin.com.

“If you don’t get Mabel to hush it right now, so help me. . .” Jessie throws a glance to the back seat. The hen hasn’t stopped squawking since Mary Frances plucked her from the chicken coop behind the cottage.

“She’s scared, Aunt Jessie.”

“Her brain’s the size of a walnut. Only emotions she has are eat, lay eggs, poop, repeat.”

Mabel squawks. The hen’s body twitches like a live wire under Mary Frances’ hands. “Actually, chickens have complex emotions and can predict future events.”

Jessie twists around sharply in the front passenger seat. The twitch in her right eye is so bad, Mary Frances thinks it might pop out of its socket. “Discussing the inner lives of chickens is the last thing I want to do right now.” She turns back around, presses her fingers to her eyes. “If the people in this town only knew what we go through to keep them safe.”

“Maybe not everyone deserves to be safe,” Mary Frances mutters. Jessie is too busy poking around her fanny pack to hear this, but Mary Frances catches Aunt Fab’s glance in the rearview mirror. Mary Frances ducks her head, sings softly to Mabel, as she runs her gloved fingers along one of the bird’s wings. The hen begins to purr and her plump body stills.

“It’s going to be alright, Jessie.” Fab pulls over to let a police car, siren yowling, fly down Main Street. Mary Frances shifts forward on the back seat until her head is next to Aunt Fab’s. Fab gives Mary Frances a sideways smile, runs her fingers down the black and white feathers on Mabel’s chest. The hen trills. “It’s going to be alright,” Fab says. She puts the pick-up into drive and merges back onto the street.

“What happened to the Sayre boy at their place last night. . .God knows he’s no angel, but no one deserves that.” Jessie gnaws on her thumbnail.

“We don’t know for sure it was the creature.” Fab makes a right turn towards the back entrance to the old shopping mall.

“That’s what you said when the Sayre’s dog got shredded to bits. And what you said about the bloodbath at their goat dairy. What else could it be?”

“Well, it’s strange it’s going back to the same place over and over again. The creature feeds more randomly than that.”

“I never should’ve listened to you, Fab. We should’ve cast the darn thing back the day county health said the chicken pox outbreak was over.” Jessie’s gaze flicks to the rearview mirror. “Mary Frances, what on earth are you smiling at?”

“Nothing.”

Jessie’s head whips around. She stares at Mary Frances. “Something’s gotten into you lately and I don’t like it. I thought your personality would improve once we started teaching you, but you’re weirder than ever. No wonder you don’t have any friends.”

“Jessie,” Aunt Fab says. The word is short and sharp as a rifle shot. “Your Aunt Jessie’s stressed out about the creature, but she shouldn’t take it out on you. We’re glad you’re helping us. Isn’t that right, Jessie?” Fab’s tone brooks no contradiction.

“Yeah,” Jessie mutters. She returns to gnawing on her fingernail. Mary Frances looks out the side window while Mabel clucks and nips at her gloved fingers.

Daisies are as dumb as dirt, according to the aunts. This makes the strip of land behind the abandoned Kmart and between the surrounding woods the perfect place for the ritual.

“Sweet baby Jesus. Could it be any colder out here?” Jessie covers her head with the hood of a navy “Women’s March Charlotte 2017” sweatshirt and tucks errant strands of her rainy-day colored hair behind her ears. She, Fab, and Mary Frances stand on the strip of land, just beyond the last sodium light in the Kmart parking lot. The once well-tended grass is mostly bald and brown now, what green areas remain taken over by tufts of wild daisies.

Fab tugs a green wool hat over her short dark hair and wraps her arms around herself. Mary Frances shifts back and forth on her feet, Mabel tucked into the front of her bomber jacket. The hen’s purring warms Mary Frances’ chest but her body still shivers in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.

Jessie looks up from her fanny pack, gives a defeated sigh. “Fab, do you have the knife? I thought I put it in here before we left the cottage, but now I can’t find the darn thing. . .”

Fab pulls a brown leather scabbard from her coat pocket, along with a scrap of chamois. She murmurs as she removes the knife from the scabbard and wipes the five-inch blade, down one side, then up the other. When Fab stuffs the chamois back in her coat pocket, the blade gleams as if it’s caught the light from a moonbeam, even though the moon is hours away from rising. She beckons to Mary Frances. “It’s time. Hold Mabel to the ground. Let’s do this quick.”

Mary Frances’ stomach tightens when the hen’s distressed squawks cease as Fab slices the knife across Mabel’s neck. Hot blood spurts from the hen’s neck onto Mary Frances’ gloved hands and the dumb daisies, the dead grasses. Jessie dips her fingers in the fresh blood, makes a wide circle on the ground, and draws the creature’s symbol inside.

Fab gently nudges Mary Frances with her shoulder. “I’m sorry about Mabel. I know she was your favorite.” Mary Frances shrugs, lets her gaze drift to the Kmart building. The trees sway and rustle with an odd insistence. A tall shadow emerges from the trees, moves toward Mary Frances and the aunts. As it passes under the closest sodium light’s cool flare, the shadow becomes the creature. The aunts’ inhales are sharp and simultaneous.

“It’s so tall,” Jessie says. Her body is rigid as a telephone pole. “It shouldn’t be this big.” There’s a dark unspoken thought in the glance the aunts exchange and they miss the small smile that flickers across Mary Frances’ face. There’s a heavy grinding sound as the creature makes its way towards the circle. The wet tang of clay, rainwater, and crushed pine needles fills the air. The closest sodium light flickers, then goes out.

The light change breaks Jessie’s stunned daze. She speaks, unleashing a flash flood of words, and the blood circle and symbol she made begin to glow. The creature emits a low, rumbling moan that makes the daisies quiver.

“Now!” Jessie stands, legs spread wide, fists on hips. Blood trickles from one nostril.

“Is it bound?” Fab says.

“Yes.” The creature moans again, louder. “Do it. Do it now! I can’t hold it forever, Fabia!”

“Take my hand, baby girl,” Fab says. “You remember the words?” Mary Frances nods, winces when her aunt clasps her gloved hand. The creature moans and cowers. The aunts link hands and speak in a rush of long, winding words which, at first, rise and fall on independent, discordant strands before cleaving together in one otherworldly voice. When Fab nods at her, Mary Frances joins in, her voice wrapping around her aunts’ words, strengthening the magic. The blood circle and symbol pulse and flare as if they’re made of collapsing stars.

Jessie presses a hand against the creature’s chest. The creature’s groans get louder, as if it’s resisting the weight of her hand. Jessie’s eyes widen and her mouth parts. The creature roars. There’s a sudden wave of uplifting pressure and Mary Frances and the aunts fall to the ground. Then footfalls, loud, inhuman, and moving surprisingly fast back to the woods. The sodium light flickers back on and Aunt Jessie scrambles to her feet.

“It has a different name stone.” Jessie’s voice punches up into the night sky with the urgency of an emergency flare. “Fab, how the fuck does it have a different name stone?”

Mary Frances gazes towards the woods, not bothering to hide the gleeful smile spread across her face.

Angela was dreaming of the Commander again when the Metispitched, flinging her from her bunk. Seconds later the klaxon barked and pulses of blue siren-light flooded the cabin. Dazed, she scrambled to her porthole to peer into the alien midnight, whose soft glow revealed the fizzing crests of a lethal current. They were accelerating, shuddering, out of control.

She braced with one hand and slapped at the intercom with the other. “Bridge, what’s going on?” There was no reply and no orders had been issued on the monitor, but Angela still hesitated before trying Rocha’s direct line. “Commander, are you there?” Had the woman really been in her dreams again? “Commander, this is Ashton, please respond.”

As if in answer, the hatch to her cabin shot open to reveal Rocha herself, shifting in and out of clarity with the sweep of the hazard lights, tall and poised despite the ship’s volatile motion. Angela experienced a bizarre urge to conceal the mess in her cabin even as the woman strode in and seized her by the shoulders.

“Listen carefully. I need your help.” Rocha paused for no more than a breath. “You got drunk and hooked up with the lead singer of Sola Nova when you were nineteen, and to this day you can’t listen to Fly To You without getting turned on.”

Angela’s cheeks burned and her hand went up in an ingrained response that had never once succeeded in disguising her shame. Rocha redoubled her grip, giving Angela a shake. “How do I know that?” The skin on the woman’s neck was taut and she didn’t blink. They were close enough to kiss.

“Commander, I don’t know. I never—”

“You told me to allow me to convince you that we’re in a fifty-four minute time loop that will keep going on and on forever unless you help me.”

Angela’s mouth fell open. The klaxon barked again, deafening her.

“Pay attention, Angela. You and I have been here before. I’ve convinced you before and you’ve helped me before. Fly To you is our ‘stitch in the loop’.”

“Commander, I—”

“Focus. I know you know what that means. You’ve read about it. Tell me what happened on board the Callista.”

“They… they got caught in a time loop in the Bayou Nebula. Marta Kullova was the only one aware of it. She… she—”

“Come on, Angela. She what?”

“She had Dr. Singh tell her a secret that nobody else knew so she could convince him about what was happening each time they reset. She called it their… oh my god.”

“She called it their stitch in the loop. Good. You’re with me.”

Angela shrugged out of the Commander’s grip, but the Metis rocked constantly in the current—without the support she stumbled and slumped onto her bunk. When the klaxon sounded again Rocha turned to tap a command into the monitor. The computer chimed and the pulsating blue light settled into a menacing glow. The roar of the waves pressed against Angela’s eardrums.

“I need your help,” said Rocha, kneeling in front of Angela, her voice raised above the din of ocean and stressed metal, but still clear and calm.

“We’ve really done this before?”

“A number of times. But we can escape this time, on this loop, if we work together. And no, it isn’t a drill or a prank. I promise.”

Angela gaped, the questions to those answers only just forming in her mind.

“And now you’ll say, ‘Why me? I’m just an engineer.’”

“Oh my god.“

Rocha put her hands on Angela’s knees. A shiver rippled up through her thighs and she stiffened involuntarily. Rocha either didn’t notice or pretended not to. “Listen, there’s a lot to explain. You may have noticed we’re caught in a whirlpool.”

Some uncontrolled exclamation rose towards Angela’s throat, but Rocha silenced her with a raised hand. “We can’t escape because the engines aren’t firing. I need you to fix them because that’s the only way we’re getting out of this loop.”

Through the porthole Angela saw darkness in motion, punctuated by frequent lashes of sea spray. The constant noise of it hammered her chest and made it difficult to think. “I don’t understand.” She found she had to raise her voice further to be heard. “We’re just doing surveys. How the hell did we get stuck in a whirlpool?“

“Because I ignored the warnings from Navigation and relieved the pilot for the night shift. The vortex came out of nowhere. As soon as the current grabbed us the time loop started and now we can’t break free.” Rocha nodded, as if to herself. “It’s my fault.”

“But why?”

“Look. You know we paid a hell of a fee for first access rights on this damn planet. I’m still not sure half the crew understand how much this could be worth.”

Angela had no idea how much it was worth. “But why the rush? We still have a month of early access.”

“The vultures are circling.” Rocha waggled a finger skywards. “All of our competitors have ships waiting in orbit. It’ll be a free for all the second the restrictions end. Our rigs have to be down here to claim the most valuable sites on day one, or it will all have been for nothing. That’s my responsibility.”

“And what? You thought by sailing us into a whirlpool you’d discover some magic mineral reserve or something?”

“It wasn’t intentional. I accept I should’ve been more careful, but I can’t un-do it. So let’s move on, okay?”

Angela stood, shoving the Commander away. “Move on? You’ve likely killed us all and you’re asking me to move on?”

The Commander’s chest rose and sank in a controlled exhale. Angela’s ex had breathed like that to calm herself down in the middle of a row.

“Something to say, Commander?”

Rocha seemed suddenly to diminish. The blue light limned deep tracks around her mouth and eyes that must have been there all along but now betrayed an intense sorrow. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

Angela became conscious that she was leaning over Rocha, breathing fast with balled fists, and felt ashamed.

It isn’t easy to kidnap a man, let alone do it without raising your heart rate – which would likely cause me to die on the spot. You might think I’m exaggerating. I wish I were. My affliction is called Grave’s disease, and it causes my thyroid to produce so much excess hormone that all sorts of things can go wrong. Irregular heartbeat is one. Seizures are another. Don’t forget tremors and muscle weakness. Plus the goiter in my neck makes breathing hard. If I were to break into a run and a heart attack didn’t get me, I’d probably asphyxiate all the same.

Yep, Grave’s Disease is a killer. But then again, as some of you might know, it’s really not, not in the first world anyway – since there are ways to manage it medically: beta-blockers and anti-thyroid medicines, radioiodine therapy too. Only a lunatic would choose to pass up treatment. So maybe I am. Grave’s disease is also linked to irritability and paranoia, but I’ll take that over whatever mental disorders have been inflicted on you.

My wife doesn’t like it when I talk this way. It gets on her nerves – me and my theories – and so I try to keep quiet around her. Brenda and I have grown so distant recently, though the process started long ago. She doesn’t approve of my interests or my friends, and she certainly wouldn’t approve of my kidnapping plot. No, she really would not.

I’ve got sympathy for her, though I’m aware she hasn’t got much left for me. She didn’t bargain for this, an invalid husband. When she married me, I was a healthy man, my disease well controlled. We were doing all right, had good jobs, a bright future, plans to start a family. I remember clearly those days when Brenda was first pregnant: her lying on the examining table during her prenatal hospital visits, with ads for Briars ice cream and Heinz pickles playing on the screen overhead. That was how it all started, if you recall, those innocent ads.

Some of us might have missed the legislation behind them – I know I didn’t pay much attention back then – healthcare prices were soaring and the system was on the verge of collapse when advertisers stepped in to save it. And if there were a few protests about the ethics of it all, those voices shut up pretty fast when premiums went down by half. Honestly, it all seemed innocuous enough. Brenda and I used to sing along to the jingles as a distraction while awaiting the results of a test.

By the time we neared the delivery, I knew all the songs and slogans for Pampers and Gerber, plus a dozen more. I recall playing a game, in the hours I waited: I’d wander the halls and try to guess patients’ ailments according to what ads played beside them: weight loss and health club ads for cardiac patients, extravagant getaway packages for the terminally ill.

Did any of these suffering souls mind these displays? Maybe they lacked dignity, but so does the whole experience of being a patient. Who especially noticed or cared, while being stuck with needles and strapped into machines, what images floated on in the background? Now and again, the ads even offered useful ideas. Brenda was a huge fan of that pregnancy meal-delivery service – back then she hated cooking – and frankly, we’d felt grateful for the trouble it saved us, and even more grateful when Proctor and Gamble picked up our hospital tab.

The worst of it really started two months ago when our little girl, Lilly, got sick. It was an ordinary evening: I came home to find Brenda as I often find her when I return from work – I’m still able to work, though I’ve been moved from salesman to manager at the shop, so I can just sit over papers at my desk. Brenda was cooking in the kitchen, though the space was already filled with dishes she’d been preparing throughout the day. They were stacked on the table alongside the home-furnishing catalogues. We’d fought over these things so often I’d learned to say nothing, just like she’d learned to say nothing – most of the time – about the state of my declining health, or my meetings with Gary and the other members of my group.

I came up behind her and kissed her on the neck. She stiffened and turned. She was upset.

“Lilly’s sick.”

“Oh I’m sorry. Like a cold?”

“Worse than a cold, I think. She’s had a headache and chills all day. I’ll bring her to the doctor tomorrow.”

There was an air of defiance in the way Brenda said this, as if she was expecting me to object. I didn’t, though she wasn’t wrong about the thoughts running through my head. I didn’t want those doctors messing with my little girl.

“Is she in her room?”

“She’s sleeping,” Brenda said, clearly not wanting me to get near our daughter, frightened of what I might say. Often in my own home, I’m made to feel like a threat. It’s easy to forget Brenda and I were ever happy, but we were. Before Brenda gave birth, we were very happy.

It was a hard delivery, though, and Brenda was bedridden for a while and overwhelmed by postpartum depression. The doctors became concerned she wouldn’t be able to care for the baby, so they prescribed Brenda a special anti-depressant – newly innovated, they claimed, to stimulate a nesting response.

Five years later, Brenda is still shopping for ways to improve our home. She is powerless to stop, despite my sitting her down a hundred times to look over credit card bills or point out how many bassinettes, then blankets, and potholders, and throw-pillows, we already have stacked in the closets and in the storage units I’ve been obliged to rent simply to keep pace with her compulsion to feather our little abode. Before the drug was administered, Brenda had planned on returning to her work as a public defender, but afterward, the only occupation that interested her was scouring catalogues from West Elm, and Wayfair, and Bed Bath and Beyond.

I pushed the catalogues aside to make room to set the table. Of course Brenda stopped me from helping. She needs to do such things, can accept no household assistance, so I left her and tiptoed upstairs to Lilly’s bedroom.

Inside the room, Lilly was in bed watching something on her screen. I’ve tried to insist on screen-time rules, to limit her exposure to ads, but Brenda does nothing to enforce them and it’s a losing battle.

In the light of the screen, Lilly looked like a shiny doll. I stroked her hair.

“Mommy says you’re not feeling so hot.”

“I’m not,” she said in her small voice, even smaller that night. “My throat hurts. And my head.”

“Your body’s strong. You’ll fight it off, Tiger.”

“Mommy’s taking me to the doctor. For medicine.”

I tried not to reveal my concern. Brenda and I have made an effort not to dispute each other’s point of view in front of Lilly. “Well, it’s good she’s taking you, and we’ll see if it’s necessary, the medicine, I mean.”

“Mommy says you don’t trust medicine, that’s why you don’t use it.”

I kissed her on the forehead. “You should sleep. The best medicine is rest.”