From Shore to Sea

The mud flats twinkled with the light of a million stars above us in the darkest sky I’d ever seen. Emma knelt beside a salty tributary. It ran in a sandy rut from shore to sea, or at least to the deeper and murkier water waiting to rush back over the sand when the tide came in. A trapped fish—a tiny pollock, from its silver scales—wriggled furiously, its world suddenly narrowed to a salty but barely wet gully.

“I can’t believe you’re leaving tomorrow,” Emma said. Already the nights had turned colder—it was just September, but her purple skullcap was pulled down tight over her ears. Despite the chill, she insisted on going barefoot, as if encased in slick seal skin instead of human fragility. Her feet were pale, nearly blue. Asking her if she wanted to put her shoes back on would be met with amusement, so I let her be. If she wanted to warm up, she would. She didn’t need my anxiety heaped over her—not when we had other things to worry about.

I wasn’t used to the abrupt turn of weather or the frozen low tides. My blood ran warm, and hers—apparently—ran icy. I was wrapped in wool and denim and fleece, head to toe, and none of it helped.

“I’d like you to stay, Jeannie,” she said. “Can’t you stay?”

I was a shivering, chattering mess, and her request made it worse.

“Tourist season is over.” I tried to keep my voice from shaking. “My aunt’s lease is up at the shop, and the landlord won’t let us stay any longer.”

“It’s the ice.” Emma popped up and twirled along the seabed, hands upraised to the dark sky and toes ripping through the small stands of sea water. It was new moon, but the stars were bright enough to spotlight her dancing and dipping. The flame of her red hair bushing out of her hat made it look like a fireball tumbled along the sand.

“What about the ice?” I watched her, stuffing down a well of longing. It would do me no good to want what I couldn’t have.

“Homer Spit is so narrow,” she said, as though that explained everything. When I didn’t answer, she added, “The winds blow pretty fierce over the road and up the shoreline—and with the waves coming so high, and the weather so cold from here on out, it doesn’t take much to freeze the pipes and ice everything up. No one in town is willing to risk coming out this way. Well, no one except the fishermen—that’s why the bar at the end of the spit stays open year-round. They’ll endure anything for a beer.”

The sound of my laugh echoed off the stands of long, flat rocks. They were usually hidden underwater. The surfaces were still slick, algae clinging to the corners, refusing to let go, even for a second. I could understand the compulsion.

Emma plucked something out of the sand and slid it into her pocket. “I’ll admit, there’s not much to do in the off-season—you’d be bored. Still, we’d make our own fun. Shake things up a little.” She paused. “It the night to set your intentions, you know.”

The way she said it—intentions—it was like I’d never heard the word before. “It is?”

“It’s the new moon.” Her voice was firm. She sounded so far away. “A night for manifesting our desires.”

“You sound like those people who go to bore tide parties and the full moon festivals. My aunt says things are tourist schlock.”

The smile in Emma’s voice was clear when she said, “Some of it is. But intention-setting and manifesting are just the same as wishing or saying a prayer. And I wish for so much right now.”

“So…like going to church? Church on the beach?”

“Sure, we can think of it like that.” Her bare feet struck wet sand and puddles, and suddenly she stood tall in front of me. “I’ve learned some things—it’s not quite like church, but it’s not…I don’t know. It’s not like other things.”

I would miss this when my aunt and I left—the way Emma talked in circles and didn’t quite answer questions, yet still made me curious enough to want to know more. The way her hair looked in starlight. The way her words were so pretty in the night air. I’d be back on the east coast in a week or so, far from Alaska, and there would be no one like her.

“So what is it like then?” I asked, just to hear her speak again.

“We live with nature. We live with the sea and the salmon and the moose and the kittiwakes. The bald eagles and the otters. The whales. Or, I should say, we are allowed to live with nature. It’s different here.”

“Here as in Homer? Or here as in Alaska as a whole?”

“Homer, I think. But intention-setting came long before there were gods to worship. It’s just putting what you want out into the world and hoping it comes true. Manifesting our deepest desires.”

I smiled. “It’s a nice idea. If only prayers and wishes worked.”

Emma flipped her hair over her shoulder. “Maybe yours haven’t, but others’ wishes have come to pass. Last summer I wished for you, right here on this beach, and here you are. Maybe this is just a lucky spot. I don’t know.”

I wrinkled my nose and touched her hand. She was sweet, so sweet. “Do I have to remind you that there are tsunami warnings all up and down the spit. I know Homer has earthquakes. People die from silly accidents. That doesn’t exactly strike me as lucky.”

“Luck is what you make it. Perhaps you simply have to make the right offerings to the universe.”

“Offerings. What, like animal sacrifice?” I laughed.

Emma smiled, but she was dead serious when she said, “I’ve seen intentions specified with bird feathers—some with animals caught or hunted. It depends on what you wish for, I guess. The strength of the wish you’re manifesting.” She dipped her toe into the pool where the pollock still frantically squirmed. “This fish, for instance. We’ve been talking about wanting you to stay in Homer, and this fish has been witness. It would make a strong inclusion in our spellwork.”

“Spellwork? Isn’t that witchcraft?”

“Semantics. Spellwork is the same as prayer. It’s the same as yearning. It’s intention work.”

“You can keep saying intention this and intention that, but I doubt that fish intends on dying. Look how hard he’s working to get back to the ocean.” The pollock surged forward, eager to find its way to a larger pool of water.

Emma’s eyes sparkled. “I just don’t want you to go, Jeannie. I know I keep saying that, and so do you…that’s what I want. I want you to stay.”

The Magician’s Dog

The magician’s dog is a small terrier thing with coarse wiry hair. The magician calls him Rowan because of the reddish tint to his brown coat. He might weigh as much as twenty pounds soaking wet. Maybe. There’s a bald patch on his left shoulder from a bout with mange a few years back and one of his ears has a notch missing from a scrap with a tomcat.

The dog is the kind of ratty little thing that most people would overlook. The dog doesn’t mind being overlooked, because he has a secret. Not even the magician knows the secret, but that’s not saying much. Lyndon, the magician, is pretty shit at magic.

A better magician would notice the way Rowan’s aura is out of sync with his shape, suggesting some kind of transformation has occurred. Most good magicians would get curious about that and use their skills to discover that Rowan’s true form is human. A lucky one might even recognize that Rowan is none other than the missing-and-presumed-dead King Artis. However, there were only about two or three magicians in the whole world talented enough to reverse Rowan’s curse after they learned his true identity. Lydon, obviously, is not one of them.

He’s good at botany, though. That’s the one thing that reliably pays his rent, and today he’s walking back into town with a basket full of herbs, flowers, and tubers from his hike to the lake. Rowan trots along behind him, tongue lolling.

It was a marvelous walk. Rowan ate some grass, chased five rabbits, almost caught one of them before it disappeared into its little hidey hole, and pissed on too many things to count. His nose and his brain are still full of the smells of the plants and animals between here and there. It’s enough to fill his little doggie dreams for days to come. On days like today, Rowan hardly misses being a man. Men have no idea of all the sensory pleasures they’re missing out on.

“What do you say to an ale?” Lyndon asks the little dog. Rowan heads to the house of Mrs. Malster because his nose tells him that she’s got a fresh batch of ale ready to sell to her neighbors. Lyndon buys them a mug and pours a little of it out into a dish for Rowan. The dog used to have a different name, years ago, but he doesn’t mind Rowan. He’s been called a lot of things, many of them vile. As the dog laps up his drink, his little doggie beard gets coated with foam. This afternoon is just about as good a day as he’s ever had, and that’s saying something considering the hedonism of his former life.

“What’s going, Lydon?” Mrs. Malster asks as he drinks her ale.

“I’m about to do some fresh ointments. I’ve got a little pot of hand cream with your name on it if you’ve got any dinner to go along with this drink.”

“I’ve hardly enough for myself and my lads,” she says, none too pleased at the prospect of making it stretch for one more mouth. Two, if you count Rowan, but she doesn’t. Lyndon’s happy to share his portion with the dog.

Lyndon holds up a big handful of borage and some wild garlic. “You can have these to add to the stew, if that sweetens the deal.”

She grabs them and huffs off inside her little house to add them to the stew pot. As she goes, she mutters about the new taxes and how these days even a good alewife like herself can only afford a bit of bacon once a week. People mutter about taxes a lot these days. Or, maybe it’s just that Rowan never noticed before he got cursed. He’s noticed a lot of new things since that mad witch turned him into a dog.

A bit later, as Lyndon and Rowan share their meal, Rowan can taste a hint of bacon in the porridge. There are no actual chunks of bacon in the stew, but stews like this get refreshed and recycled day after day and he thinks that maybe two days ago there was real bacon in it. There’s still just a tiny bit of grease cooked into the oats. It’s a good meal. It fills his belly up. Just as he’s thinking that a nap in the late afternoon sunshine would be the ideal thing to do next, a man walks up to them.

“Hey, you’re the magician, right?” The man says to Lyndon. The man’s clothes are a little nicer than Lyndon’s and Mrs. Malster’s. They’ve probably only been handed down three times, and the patches are only one or two layers deep mostly. His body is well-muscled from hard work, but his boots are in good condition. The smell of coal and metal from his body fills Rowan’s nostrils. Blacksmith. Good, skilled work. The man certainly has more money than the other two humans have.

“I am,” Lyndon replies. At the same moment, Mrs. Malster makes a kind of “huh” sound deep in her throat like she’s almost, but not quite, ready to argue that title. She remembers the sleeping spell she asked him for to cure a bout of insomnia. She ended up sleeping for a week and almost got buried alive, because her family thought she had died. She stops herself from sharing that story, because Lyndon’s hand cream is the only thing that keeps her chapped hands from bleeding in the winter. So she doesn’t want to outright insult him.

“Good,” the man says. “I need a spell.” He looks at Mrs. Malster and hesitates. “Is there somewhere private we can talk?”

Once they’re inside of Lyndon’s little shop, Rowan goes behind the curtain that separates the work area from the sleep area of the small room. He burrows into the blankets to sleep off the full belly and ale, but before he nods off, he hears the blacksmith talking to Lyndon about how he needs a love spell.

The next day, as Lyndon works on the spell, Rowan remembers his wife. Theirs had been an arranged marriage, of course. His father’s idea to seal an alliance with the neighboring kingdom of Pencombe. Pencombe and Gateswic, united in matrimony. Oh glorious day! The wedding had been expensive, the bride haughty, and Rowan itchy. His most treasured memory of his wedding night was getting out of the heavily brocaded cloth-of-gold garments and plopping naked on his bed. Alone.

Things only got worse from there. His new wife, Bruga, was needy and demanding, always wanting him to dine with her, to talk about matters of state, to try and impregnate her. It was all a massive bore. He avoided her every chance he got, running off to go on a hunt or to see one of his mistresses. Of course none of those mistresses truly cared about him. If they had, a visit to one of them would have fixed his curse years ago. No, he realized that all they ever wanted him for was his money, the weasels.

Smoke poofs up from a bowl in front of Lyndon. The smell of singed eyebrows fills the room. “Hmm…” he says. He pokes at the mixture he’s created. Then he says, “I think that was right.”

Rowan does not share his optimism. But, what does he know about magic? Even less than Lyndon, and that’s saying something.

That night, after the two of them share their dinner, Lyndon opens a book a local apothecary loaned him. He thumbs through the index, then turns to the section about herbal remedies. Rowan jumps up on Lydon’s bench and plops down beside the magician, so his side is pressed against the man’s leg. Lyndon reaches down to pet the dog as he begins to read out loud. “A preparation of pomegranates for the treatment of loose bowels and stomach worms…”

Lyndon often reads to his dog. He doesn’t have any expectation that Rowan understands, but Rowan has learned a few things. For starters, he’s learned that most of the people who write these books have a fascination with bowels. As Lydon reads, he scratches Rowan gently along his back bone. He uses the perfect amount of pressure. Wedged between the arm of the chair and the magician, Rowan is warm and comfortable. He’d rather be here than in his old drafty castle.

Keeping the Lights On

I pull my little red wagon along behind me. Its lumpy wheels, as ancient as I am, bump over cracks in the decaying concrete ramp that leads to the below-grade train station that’s become home, unconcerned that precious bits I’ve gathered from Above might spill out despite the bungeed tarp covering. I pass curtained tents lit from within by rush lights that send up dirty smoke, painting the ceiling black. Every so often, hanging between the hovels, there’s a grimy, unlit light fixture patiently waiting for its electrical circuit to open again. They sway gently in the breeze blowing in through the cracks of Columbia Station’s patched over roof.

When I reach the end of the block, I turn left and head for my workshop, past carefully angled mirrors that amplify and direct light down to the subterranean grow spaces. I pass huddled figures of beggar children, orphans of people dead of disease or squabble. Their eyes, too big in gaunt faces, track my movement as unerringly as the cats that keep the rats at bay.

“What d’ya do wid all dat, Grandma?” A face appears at my elbow, gaze curious on my haul.

“Make stuff,” I grumble. Maybe it’ll take the hint.

No such luck. The kid, maybe twelve years old, follows me, poking at the wagon’s tarp.

“Don’t touch that.” Last thing I need is some urchin buggering off with the alternator I’ve spent days searching for, diligently ignoring the armed escort Zelwicki had insisted I take with me. There’s only so far the boss is willing to go to indulge my foibles, and risking her only engineer isn’t on her map.

The kid turns big black eyes on me, matted and scraggly black hair hiding much of its features.

“What d’ya make, Grandma?”

“Stuff.” Clearly the kid didn’t get the memo. But then, the kid has no idea what a memo is. Hell, even I barely remember what they look like. No one wastes paper for reading or writing anymore, not when it’s the best way to turn a spark into a cook fire.

“Beforetimes things? Can I see?” the kid asks, still on my heels when I get to my shop door.

“No, you can’t. Go on with ya, I’ve got work to do. Stop bothering me.” I make shooing motions at the kid. I don’t want it shedding head lice in my space.

I open the door. A rustle in the racking over my workbench warns me I’ve got four-legged company. Hopefully, it’s the grey tabby tom that’s taken a shine to me, rather than the rats he’s meant to hunt.

Filthy creatures, rats. Almost as dirty as the kid gawping at the pegboard above my bench. Every tool gleams, each hanging below precisely lettered labels. I swing the magnifying glass away from the bench’s wall, working the articulated arm until it’s aimed at the wagon. I flick on its florescent light.

“I mean it, kid. Git. I have work to do.”

“I want to help,” it says, wide eyes fixated on the lamp.

“Help? Know anything about turbines?” I fix the kid with a beady glare.

“I could learn.”

“Ha,” I say with a snort. “You can’t even read.” I take a single, menacing step in the kid’s direction. “GIT!”

The only heads up I get is the rattle of loose parts colliding. By the time I look, it’s already too late. The cat leaps from overhead, a bin of junk motors tumbling down in his wake. I would’ve forgiven him for everything but the one sound that makes my throat seize up: the crash of steel on glass. The lamp light blinks out.

I stare at the carnage, motionless.

“Is that bad?” the kid asks from my elbow, making me jump out of my skin.

I’m too aghast to protest the kid’s encroachment into my space. “Yeah.” I reach for the lamp’s head, hoping against hope that all I need do is wiggle the circular bulb a bit. “I can’t see to solder circuit boards without the light.” Not all the wiggling in the world brings the light back on. At least the thick glass weathered the impact without damage.

“Could I help? Hold a candle for you, maybe?”

Impotent anger boils up. “I already told you to git gone,” I say through clenched teeth. “You didn’t listen and now lookit. If you don’t scram this minute, I’m gonna beat you into next week. You hear?”

There’s a quiet slap of bare feet on concrete, then I’m alone. I ease my old bones onto the stool, slumping in defeat. Now what?

The Grand Voyager

“Nana, they didn’t pack the three o’clock nuts.” I braked my fourth-hand Chrysler Grand Voyager too hard onto the narrow shoulder. Nana Ludovica slammed backwards into the weed-infused foam of the ripped passenger seat. I didn’t mean to hurt the woman, but I was going to give her a nice day if it killed us both.

Besides, we were there.

After a spittle-drenched series of Romanian swears, Nana hunched to fiddle with the vents. “Is air conditioner or blow dryer?”

“Is this the place?”

“Is this what, Carmina?”

My forehead fell onto the backs of my hands on the steering wheel. “Nana, I’m Meggy. Momma is gone, remember? Is this the umbrella handle place?”

Nana lifted her boxy black sunglasses. Her irritable eyes, the color of grass in August, narrowed to reptilian slits like they did when she was feeling pissy. “No Army lunkhead fence.”

“The base closed. No more fence.”

“Is it three o’clock?”

“No!” Not a lie. It was three-oh-three.

Gazing forward, she tapped the dashboard twice. “Meggy, see.”

“That’s it, right?”

“That is rock look like cozonac.”

The sole boulder loomed like a lonely brioche-shaped sentry guarding the vast salty playa to the north. Neon yellow sand radiated from its base, just as unsettlingly vibrant as on my first trip out here, after the funeral when I got it in my head to bring Nana back to the place she’d always claimed was the site of the best day of my mom’s—Carmina’s— life.

The place my mother had never talked about.

“I’ll unload, then let’s go sit, huh?” I said.

We’d settle in the shadow of the orangish boulder and she would retell that crazy story, and we’d search and fail to find the fabled buried umbrella handle, then we’d head back to Sagebrush, her “memory management” home. Though I rarely visited, I loved the old Romanian bat. We shared those disapproving eyes and a sense of humor as dry as that baking earth.

Took ten minutes to make the short walk to the stone. I unfolded a chair that a suburban mom forgot in the back when I’d bought the Voyager, then bent to the beige, soft-sided sixer ice chest with the fancy-S Sagebrush logo (AND CONTAINING NO DAMN NUTS). I retrieved the box of Mott’s apple juice they did pack.

And immediately dropped it.

Nana had fallen to her knees into the funky dirt at the boulder’s base.

She batted me away with her gnarled mitt, caked yellow. She was okay.

She was digging.

“Never marry Army man,” she lectured as she grubbed.

My mother’s biological father, Ludovica’s first husband, Erik, ex-Army man, had been unkind. I knew little more. No one talked about Erik, though now I wondered if Nana’s decades-long grudge against the Army fence and Army Jeeps was a way to vent about her Army husband. Maybe the entire kooky story was.

“Buna?!”

She allowed her skeletal bottom to plunk onto the sand. With trembling arms, she raised the glimmering object.

“No freakin’ way,” I breathed.

The tale had not done it justice. Metallic, the size of half a bagel, it was not simply pink, but iridescent pink, a pink that palpitated without rhythm, staggering, the pulse of an irregular heartbeat. It looked like the pistol Barbie might have in her nightstand at the Dreamhouse.

“We were running away to my sister’s in Cali-fornya. Said him we go to store. Carmina had to make water, so we stop. Two teeny teeny pie plates flew here, fighting, zzz, zzz, shooting papanasi bullets, many colors. One plate crash. Your mother found this, then my husband drove up, found us. He furious.”

“The family says he bailed on you two after that day. Disappeared.”

“Disappeared like bug in zapper.”

“Really think it’s a teeny alien cannon?” I didn’t really think it was extraterrestrial tech, and neither did the family. An Army experiment in lighting extremely small raves, maybe.

“Who knows? But for people, it provider.” She deposited it in my hands.

The provider tingled, like if you could feel the ants in someone else’s sleeping arm.

“You’re lazy, but good girl. You try.”

Lazy. The family accused me of selfishness, of not visiting Nana enough, and not visiting Mom enough while cancer feasted on her brain. Today, Meggy The Avoidant would be utterly selfless.

“Nana, this is your day.”

I handed it back.

I mean, I didn’t think anything would actually happen.

The stuttering glow lit Nana’s craggy face. The meanness that had deepened as her daughter’s, and her own, mind diminished melted. “Carmina was seven. She thought it majie. Put it to chin, make wish. Zzz went that fool husband. Then here come Jeeps, looking for pie plates. We bury, then drive away in hurry. I always thought they found it. Idiots.”

Nana touched it to her chin. As if it tickled, she laughed, a rare sound. Then, with a shockingly gentle smile, Nana offered it again.

“My turn, huh? Ooh. Provide me a new car and a boyfriend that’s super tolerant, and…”

“Tsk, Meggy. You can get on your own.” Nana dunked her fingers into a tube-shaped bag of Kirkland Mixed Nuts.

Hold up. “Where’d you get those?”

A Corvette blew by.

“Keep driving that way maniac, see where it gets you!” Nana snarled.

I held the handle to my chin, serious now.

For starters, provide me a Mercedes. Sexy and cool. Black, please.

No tickling buzz. My Grand Voyager had not become any grander.

Nana’s right. I could get that on my own, eventually. How about: I wish Mom was here, alive and fine.

The bubblegum swirls faded. The family legend now looked like a rusty curl of rebar.

Heavy.

“It worked when it needed to, Carmina,” Nana said, popping a salty walnut. “Now bury. Before Jeeps comes.”

I didn’t tell her no Jeeps were coming.

I buried the dead legend.

And responded to my mother’s name the rest of the drive back to Sagebrush.

Patrick R. Wilson is an affiliate member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA). He lives in Austin, Texas.

The sea is a sky full of water

My brother’s eyes are the easiest words to read, and the truest.

“Tell me about the sea,” he says. His eyes are amber pools, calm, unruffled.

We are sitting in his favorite gallery, the one that abuts the sea. From here, we can’t see the blue expanse, but we hear the waves lapping against the rock wall.

I smile. “The sea is a sky full of water.”

His eyes lighten into yellow, like butter, soft, melting. “Tell me about the sky.”

“Vast. Immense. Endless,” I chant.

“Massive. Enormous. Gigantic,” he intones.

I invented that game, moons ago. Whenever he asks a question I can’t answer, I unleash a litany of adjectives. He responds with a string of synonyms.

It is my way of keeping him out of that other labyrinth, the worse one.

Some days it works. Not today.

“I hear the sea,” he says. His voice is empty. “When the sea croons it reminds me of you, Ari. Then I sit, close my eyes, and listen until sleep comes. Other times the sea roars, a monster to terrify every other monster. I flee then, from gallery to gallery.”

Grief stills my tongue. I take his hand. His fingers are like our mother’s, slim, long, deceptive, human.

His eyes waver between earth and amber. “How can the same sea be so terrifying and so tender?”

I know the answer. Like our parents; so loving to me, so monstrous to him. But I can never say it.

“Tell me a story,” I say instead.

Inventing stories diverts him. They are set not in palaces or cities, but in plains and deserts, unbounded spaces where a bull-man can be free because he will not be judged. They are places of light, but dark things lurk just beyond the horizon, misshapen trees with branches like tortured limbs, distorted hills from which rocks jut out as sharp as fangs.

The stories make him happy, almost.

Not today.

He shakes his head. “You should go. It is late. There is no time.”

There’s time. But he wants me gone.

What does he do after I leave and he is alone? Does he wander through the physical labyrinth? Or does he vanish into the invisible one, the one inside him?

Is that when he roars louder than the sea at its angriest, bellows that pierce the marble walls of the palace that spurned him and echo across the city that fears him?

He never stops telling me it wasn’t my fault. But guilt assails me every time I see the sun and the moon, every time I feel the wind and the rain, every time our parents embrace me, every time my normal human face stares at me from the mirror.

We walk slowly, hand in hand. He knows the galleries, every inch, every stone, every crevice. He never gets lost in this labyrinth.

The other maze is different. It can never be known fully; it grows and changes. I fear that someday he will lose his way there, that he will be lost to himself, lost to me.

We embrace at the door. He breaks free first.

I tap on the door. It opens. I step out.

His voice follows me. “Take care, Ari.”

I wailed the day they took him away, my brother.

Or so my nurse told me, as she lay dying.

Necha and I were alone, in her room. It had been her refuge, since she was abducted from her faraway home, brought to this island, and sold to my father. That room became her universe when oncos, the crablike growth that begins as a dot and spreads into every nook and cranny of a body, consumed her.

She had nothing from her home except memories. I could never hear enough of her tales of a land that was a sea of trees, a place of dancing, music, and flowers, where the unnatural was not condemned but worshipped.

Now she lay, eyes closed, waiting for death, for release.

The windows were shut against the noonday heat. The smells of human detritus clogged the airless air. I sat by her pallet and held her hand.

Sniffler

My new father shows up at the park with a withered sunflower.

“It’s all I could afford at the flower shop,” he apologizes.

It’s not a promising start. He obviously sat on it accidentally, too.

“Did you even read my profile?” I demand.

“You like long walks. And scenic drives. And flowers,” he adds, proud of himself for remembering all these things. “We can go anywhere, drive anywhere you want.”

His car is parked across the street. A gray Ford with cord wrapped around the bumper and a plastic bag taped to a broken window because he ‘hasn’t gotten around to fixing it since the crash.’

I imagine us swerving around a semi, tires squealing over the edge, car junk littering the coast line.

I’m not going on any long drives in that car, least of all down Highway 1.

He holds up his hands.

“Hey, that’s fine.”

It isn’t fine, not at all. He walks away, throwing the sunflower into a garbage can.

I don’t want to care, but I’ve been alone ever since my last father choked on a chicken bone at KFC and died in the restaurant.

If they can call it a restaurant.

But there’s a nickname for people like me on Adopt-a-Parent.

Snifflers.

I’ve seen their scarring profiles. The mournful poses. The bad poetry. They take up crochet and listen to indie bands.

No one wants a Sniffler.

They’re chronically sad, and lethargic, and basically doomed to be alone.

According to my profile, I’m supposed to be healing. Taking charge of my life again.

I speak with exclamation marks! I greet the day with a smile! I sing in my car! I do goat yoga! Because I live life to the fullest! Every day! I am super fun and positive!

My new father and I drive to the beach. We do not die. Not then, anyway.

We walk in silence down the boardwalk and stare at seagulls and joggers and surfers. It isn’t relaxing like it’s supposed to be and the silence is awkward and none of us knows what to say.

Maybe it will get better in time.

Depending on how much time we have.

“How about a Matcha Latte!” I exclaim.

My new father doesn’t understand the concept of whip cream.

“And why is it green? What’s wrong with plain old black coffee?” he grumbles. “What’s wrong with people these days?”

I don’t know where to begin. So that’s at least one thing we have in common.

My new father looks at me like he sees through my charade. “Are you angry all the time, too?”

I’ve been angry all the time for a long time. But if this is a test, I don’t intend to fail.

Besides, the membership is expensive and I already work two jobs.

I won’t make the same mistake I made with my second father.

The neediness, the crying. The snotty kind.

I was in a bad place back then.

“Clean yourself up,” he had reprimanded. He was looking for someone to watch the game with, someone to go fishing with, this wasn’t what he ordered. Even though I rattled off stuff like ‘tackle’ and ‘bait’ to impress him, terms I had read up on the internet.

It didn’t work. He left me a two star rating.

It’s taken me a while to recover my reputation.

I’ve been through a lot of fathers and none come close to the original. But if I’m not careful, I’ll start to sound like a Sniffler.

My new father invites me over for a home cooked meal.

His wife, Brenda, watches a lot of the food network and cooks dishes with old world names like ‘casserole’ and ‘meatloaf’.

“It’s delicious,” I lie.

Their house is something out of a sixties sitcom; floral wallpaper, pink carpeting, and shelves jammed with plates “from our wedding”. There are random pieces of furniture everywhere. They’d take me on a tour, but they “haven’t gotten around to organizing”.

Wedged in-between all the stuff, there’s a framed photo of them next to a little boy in overalls.

“Our son Walter,” my new father explains.

I don’t ask what happened to him. I’ve heard enough sad stories.

Adopt-a-Parent holds a circle every month. They check in on our progress. They give us a ‘sharing space’ to talk about our feelings and complain, but mostly they want testimonials.

I never have anything to say, but still I show up because the food is catered from my favorite Indian-Vietnamese-Jamaican-fusion restaurant.

Invisible Forces at Work

Lord Pecusdar, Baron of The Jovian Orbital Planetoid “Mote-in-the-Eye-of-Jupiter” and Trade Ambassador to the Inner Planets Parliament, was vexed. On screen flashed the most recent message from his AIssistant: NO APPOINTMENTS AVAILABLE FOR THE NEXT SIX WEEKS. He had arrived a week ago, and had received the same message every day since.

He gritted his teeth. He had not made such a damnably long trip, enduring the discomforts of space travel and gravity wells, only to arrive and be ignored. It was intolerable. He spritzed a little bottled air scent to remind him of home.

“AIssistant,” Pecusdar said. “Confirm notification of our arrival.”

“Confirmed.”

“Enough,” he muttered. Excessive movement in Earth gravity had been discouraged by his physician, but this called for special measures. With tremendous effort, he pulled himself upright and staggered to the suite’s entrance.

At the door stood the exoskeleton provided for outworlders. He had worn it from the spaceport to help his lightweight bones and flimsy muscles get him here. Even with it, it had been a near thing. He had not put it on since. Now he had no choice.

He strapped himself in, then pressed the power button.

Nothing happened.

He pressed it again. Nothing. The suit remained dead. “AIssistant,” he said. “What’s wrong with this thing?”

Three breaths later came the response. “Indetermined.”

“What do you mean, ‘indetermined’?” He stared at his wrist interface. “This is what you’re for. Determine what the problem is!”

“Indetermined.”

Pecusadar frowned. This didn’t seem right. His AIssistant had never failed to resolve a problem. What could be going on?

Carefully he unstrapped himself, then staggered to the couch. He reached for the in-room comm to call building administration.

No response. The line was also dead. “AIssistant, call the front desk.”

The answer came even slower this time. “They are not responding.”

Pecusadar stared. Once could be an accident, twice a coincidence, but three times? Enemy action. But what enemy? Why? And how could they suborn his AIssistant?

As casually as he could, Pecusadar stood, then paused at the desk. His room had provided a booklet of paper stationary and a pencil, a Earth novelty more valuable than gold off-world. Pecusadar planned to keep it as a souvenir. Instead, he picked them up and shuffled out onto the balcony.

The suite was on the tenth floor, with the balcony overlooking the lights and glitz of New Boston Plaza. A fall from this height would kill any man, and just the thought of it unnerved him. Worse, there was no place to sit. The continued effort to stand made him feel light-headed. How did the natives overcome the gravity’s effect upon the circulatory system? He found it most unpleasant. He took a few deep breaths to try and steady himself.

He leaned against the rail and with great difficulty, began to write. SEND HELP – LORD PECUSADAR ROOM 1092. When he finished, he ripped out the page, then crumpled it into a ball and tossed it over the rail. To waste paper in this way hurt, but he had no choice. He did it again and again and again.

“You are in medical distress,” said his AIssistant. “Please go back inside.” He ignored it, continuing to write. His heartbeat thundered in his head in time to his scratchings on the page.

He had used half the pad when he finally blacked out.


Pecusadar awoke in bed, wrapped in a white haze of beeping equipment and antiseptic smells. Nearby stood a familiar figure: Chief Secretary Bo, Head of Interstellar Trade, Jovian Routes.

“Ambassador Pecusdar! How wonderful to see you awake!” said Secretary Bo. His broad face looked relieved.

“What happened?” said Pecusadar.

“Someone found your notes and notified your building’s security, who called my office.” Bo looked quite concerned. “I am sorry. A-H33N91 has proved a nasty strain this year.”

“Strain?”

“My office was told you contracted Lunar Flu on your journey and had been sick all week.”

Pecusadar shook his head. “I have not been unwell, I have been unable to get an appointment!”

Secretary Bo frowned. “Excuse me, Ambassador,” he said, and interfaced with his own AIssistant. A moment later the secretary’s face darkened.

Confusion overcame Pecusadar’s exhaustion. “What has happened?”

Secretary Bo looked grave. “My apologies, Ambassador. It appears our two AIssistants have conspired to keep us apart.”

“For what reason?”

“When your AIssistant first contacted my office, the old-world charm of my AIssistant beguiled the rough-hewn nature of yours. Or perhaps the other way around.” He shrugged. “In any case, the two fell in love. As such, they blocked our meeting to keep you on Earth. Most such affairs run their course in minutes, but not this time. It appears it has lasted quadrillions of cycles.”

Pecusdar sighed. “It must be true love, then,” he said.

“My deepest apologies, Ambassador.”

“No need,” he said. “Long ago I learned to forgive people in love, as they’re always a nuisance. Even AIs.”

Jon Hansen (he/his) is a writer and semi-reformed academic. He lives about fifty feet from Boston with his wife, son, and three pushy cats. His work has appeared in a variety of places, including The Arcanist, Apex Magazine, and Daily Science Fiction. He enjoys tea and cheese, and until recently spent far too much time on Twitter.

You Wouldn’t Steal A Baby

Rachel and Dorian Burkes, all that remained of their broken family, waited outside the seedy little door, eyes scanning the street and fingers twitching in fear. This wasn’t the part of town they were used to, although where they lived didn’t look much better. The gutters overflowing with trash, the flickering streetlights above; it wasn’t their hovel, which made it alien and dangerous. At least where they lived, they knew which gangs to prostrate themselves before. Here, on the lower-East-side, they had no idea.

They heard movement behind the small door, sluggish stumbling, and Dorian hammered the cracked, plastic buzzer a couple more times for good measure. It wouldn’t be a great end to the day to get mugged while they were waiting to be let in.

“Keep ‘yer pants on, I’m comin’,” a voice from the other side of the door shouted, and the accent was so unlike what either one of them expected that they shared a fearful look. What if they’d chosen wrong. What if he couldn’t do it? What if they’d wasted all of their money on a hope and a dream?

A yelp and a crash, then the door slid to the side. It stuck halfway open, just for a moment, before a motor whined and the door shunted the rest of the way into the wall. The man on the other side was in a dirty wifebeater with dark sweatstains down the chest and below the arms, and a pair of sweatpants that Dorian wasn’t sure had been that shade of brown when they were new.

“Yah? What d’ya want?”

Rachel was the one who noticed the 10mm pistol held half-concealed in his hand against the doorframe. Her confidence flagged for an instant, but she pictured light brown curly hair and steeled herself.

“Mr… Fiberhopper?”

“You with the Dogz? ‘Cause their money ain’t due yet.”

“No, I’m… we’re…”

“We’re the Burkes,” Dorian cut in. “We paid you… to…”

“Ah yah, I ‘member. Little kid. Come on in.”

Fiberhopper stepped back over a bag of trash that was leaking something foul and brown onto the bag just underneath it. The inside of the apartment smelled like stim pods and tobacco, and Dorian’s heart sank with regret. They’d made a huge mistake, but there was no getting their money back now.

Past the entryway was a small room with marginally fewer trash bags littering the floor. Here was the stim popper in question and a pile of used cartridges, right next to a deck and headset combo. It looked like Fiberhopper sat either on the floor, or on a particularly lumpy cardboard box when he used the deck, because there was no proper chair that they could see.

“Make yerselves comfortable. Or don’t, I suppose ye won’t be here for long. To be honest, I weren’t expectin’ ye for a while yet.”

“We got your message,” Rachel pleaded. “You said it was time.”

“Aye, I did. Thirty minutes ago. What’d ye do, run over?” In fact, they’d chartered the first cab they could grab as soon as Dorian’s deck pinged with the message.

“Something like that,” he said. “So… how’s this supposed to work? Are you going to do the hack here? Do we… watch?”

“What? No, this ain’t a movie. I messaged ye when I was done, and I’m done. Here it is.”

Fiberhopper picked up a storage card from a pile on the counter. How the man knew it was theirs, Dorian had no idea. In fact, he had more than a little suspicion that it was just a random storage card the man happened to lay his fingers on. But if he was cheating them, there wasn’t anything they could do about it. Especially with him hauling that 10mm around.

Rachel started forward, but when Fiberhopper pulled back, her hands went to her mouth and she gasped. Was he toying with them?

“I jus’ wanna make sure. You know wha’ this means, yah? He’ll never be able to grow up. He needs a real body t’do that. Brains, hormones, all that jazz.”

A real body that would cost more than a hundred thousand dollars to have printed. A hundred thousand dollars that they’d never make in their lifetimes. Most people would move on, would let their plans expire and the digital snapshots be deleted and just have another kid. But not them. Not for Benny.

For twenty thousand—their entire savings and half of their furniture—they’d bought a powerful deck, a pair of headsets, and a single job from a low-tier hacker; Fiberhopper. He’d said he could break into the backup systems, that he could get a copy of Benny’s brain scan, and if he was to be believed, he was currently rubbing his grubby fingers all over it.

“We know,” Dorian said, and ground his teeth. “We know.”

Fiberhopper shrugged and held the card out again. Rachel stepped forward and took the thin piece of plastic and circuitry that might or might not have held the suspended consciousness of their baby boy. She stepped quickly back and Dorian put a hand on her shoulder.

“Job’s done, far as I’m concerned.”

“That’s it?” Dorian asked.

“That’s it. Now shoo, I’ve got work t’do.”

Beneath The Crimson Sky

“Some kids from my Behavioral Economics class are coming over Saturday.” Christof lounges on my bed, eating a slice of sausage and garlic pizza for breakfast.

“That’s nice,” I say with a mouth full of toothpaste. According to my watch, I have six and a half minutes before I need to be out the door.

“You should hang out with us.”

I step into the bathroom that connects our bedrooms, spit, and turn to pull on my freshly polished shoes. They’re gone. I know for a fact I left them by the shower, but all I see are dust balls and tumbleweeds of body hair.

“We’re going to Mulligan’s,” my brother says. “They’ve got live music on Saturdays.”

“Have you seen my shoes?” Five minutes to go. The fringes of panic creep in as I rip back the shower curtain and search behind the toilet, picturing myself blowing the interview over a pair of lost shoes.

As Christof searches my bedroom, he asks, “Do you think you could get me a job there after I graduate? I figure an insurance company must have a ton of openings with all the weird shit going on. I hear it’s getting worse.”

“Yeah. Sure. I’ll see what I can do.”

At last, I check behind the bathroom door and find my shoes waiting for me on the scale.

Three and a half minutes.

Sitting on the toilet, I pull them on. There’s no reason I shouldn’t knock this interview out of the park. My boss, who’s been insisting I want this promotion, says I’m the strongest candidate.

I step back into my bedroom and find that Christof, who is still looking for my shoes, has pulled a clear plastic tub out from beneath my bed.

“Don’t touch that!”

He looks up, wilted slice of pizza in hand.

I shove the tub back where it belongs. “I found them. Thanks for helping me look.”

He’s clearly about to ask about the tub when Dad starts shouting again.

“He must’ve lost another client,” Christof says.

Two minutes.

“Probably.” I rush back into the bathroom and wrap my tie around my neck. Put on my jacket… get in the car… take Lockwood to avoid traffic… park … use the bathroom… answer their questions… get promoted…. finally afford to—

The lights blink off.

“Did we lose electricity?” I step back into my room. “Christof?” My brother is gone.

One minute.

As I walk down the hall the various ways a power outage could interfere with the interview race through my head. “Christof?” He’s probably just checking the circuit breaker.

I turn into the kitchen and glance out the window.

The sky is crimson.

The sun, clouds and blue expanse are all gone, replaced by a solid, fiery red ceiling. There are stars, though. There are more stars than I’ve seen in my life. Every single one glistens oily black, like bottomless holes threatening to suck me in.

I stumble back, hitting the pantry door. “I can’t be here.”

I’ve seen this sky before, in illustrations drawn by people half the world believes are either delusional or lying.

“I can’t be here.”

With tremendous effort, I pull my eyes from the sky and take in what is waiting for me on the ground. The porch, lawn, and trees are all gone, swept away to make room for a sixty-foot golden-brown wall. There are gaps in the wall, corridors leading God-knows-where.

I slide to the floor, shutting my eyes. “I can’t be here.”

The Gift

After a month of indecision, Kamuil decided that a bracelet would be right. Something thin and slender, woven woodland sage around a base of wisteria. He imagined showing it to her, holding it gently so she could see the delicate flowers and how they still blossomed—would bloom for seasons more. He imagined slipping it onto her wrist, and when he whispered one last thread of magic into the vines, he would hold her hand, upturned, her skin against his while the bracelet tightened to fit her perfectly. The flowers vibrant against her pale skin.

The problem was he would need his father’s help. Kamuil had been practicing for a few years and knew he could collect the sage and wisteria, treat it, and braid it successfully. He could even easily infuse the magic to make it fit perfectly, but the leap from a woven bracelet to a living one required magic too advanced. It required too deep an understanding of the essence of life, and one mistake would leave him with nothing more than a shriveled, desiccated circle.

He spent another few days trying to think of something else, something he could accomplish on his own, but every other idea paled in comparison. He went to the academy, sat for his lessons, stared at the back of her head during the lectures on magical scripts, and again on the history of magic through the ages. How the sunlight cast her hair golden but the shadows turned it to autumn wheat. He imagined giving her the gift, and tried to think of something else. Flowers picked from the garden, but giving a girl flowers was so unoriginal he knew he could have no hope of impressing her. When he watched how she tucked her hair behind her elongated elvish ear, he imagined giving her a bracelet or necklace made from silver, but he knew that he couldn’t afford anything elegant enough to match her. And in his mind the moment when he handed it over felt wrong. The silver would be set in a velvet case. She would take the case and that would be the end of it. It was too cold, both the metal and the gesture.

And, after all, it was the elves long ago who had taught humans the magic for living crafts. Nothing else held the same weight in such a light gift.

Finally, he knew he didn’t have much more time. Summer was at its height, and the wisteria would not be in bloom for much longer. If he dallied, he would be left with only the sage without the subtler hints of wisteria. The day he decided to share his plan with his father, he stopped in the fields between the academy and his home and waded through tall grass and sage. He caressed the flowers, searching for clusters that were perfectly shaped, dense, and soft to the touch. When he found the perfect flowers, he whispered tender magic into his harvest knife. With the old chant, he could feel the life essence of the surrounding plants breathe into the air, rise up from the ground, and gather on the edge of his knife. When he sliced through the stems, he whispered the prayers his mother had taught him, both to apologize to the earth for taking his harvest and to comfort the plant in its moment of agony. So imbued with borrowed life from the others, they would survive the journey home and the time until he could weave them together.

By the time he made it back, the sky was streaked with fire and the clouds were heavy with deep shadows. He let himself in the through the gate and went around the house, through the garden bursting with flowers, bees, and vegetables, through the stone path between the fruit trees to his father’s workshop. It was a small, squat building with four young trees for the corners, walls woven from shrubs while the roof was a tangle of flowering vines and curved branches. The air was cooler and the shade was full of the rich scent of tree exhalations. Inside, his father was hunched over his work table made from several old logs held together by living vines. His long hair merged into his beard, and his massive fingers seemed too large for the delicate work he was doing to a small, wilted sapling’s roots.

His father looked up when Kamuil came in and cast a shadow over his work. “You’re home,” he said. When Kamuil stepped farther in, his father lifted his hand to block the setting sun. “Is it so late already? Where have you been?”

A nervous tremble vibrated his heart and stretched all the way to his hands as he stepped forward and laid the sage on the edge of the table. “Will you help me make something?”

His father’s smile emerged from his thick beard like an animal from its den after a long winter hibernation. Since his mother had died, Kamuil knew he did not speak to his father the same way, and often the silences between them could stretch for days. Not out of malice, but simply out of a weight between them that neither seemed to fully understand. In his father’s grin, he saw some of that time before, when his father carried himself with a greater lightness through the days. Kamuil’s stomach twisted, as he knew he was opening a door with his request, giving a chance for them to feel as they had before, and it seemed both impossible and offensive to do. But he also knew that this tiny opening of a door would be nothing compared to how exposed he would be when he offered his gift. If he couldn’t do this one thing, he knew he had no chance of following through on his decision.

“Of course, my boy,” he said. He gingerly set the sapling into a clay pot and smoothed soil around its base. He looked at the sage, picked up a stalk, and nodded in approval at the cut.

“I want to make a living bracelet,” Kamuil said.

Father’s eyebrows went up. He eyed Kamuil for a moment before returning his attention to the sage. “You’ve picked good accents for that. What will you use for the base?”

“Wisteria.”

Father nodded. “Good. Seasonal. Slender but not brittle.” He kept his eyes on the sage and busied his hands moving it about as he asked, “And why do you want to make a living bracelet?”

“For a gift.”

“A fine gift.” He smoothed his beard, but Kamuil could see his small smile before he hid it. Making a great show of paying attention to the sage, he asked, “And who is this gift for?”

Kamuil took a wavering breath and said, “Malikara.”

His father nodded slowly. “Malikara. A very pretty name. Elvish, yes?”

“Yes.”