

# Fiction Vortex

A Speculative Fiction Typhoon

July 2013

Volume 1, Issue 3

Edited by Dan Hope

Copyright 2013 Fiction Vortex

Cover Image by David Revoy / Blender Foundation

Cover design by Dan Hope

Smashwords Edition

Website: FictionVortex.com

Twitter: @FictionVortex

Facebook: FictionVortex

#  Table of Contents

Letter from the Editor

Short Stories

Fair Godmum — by Jessica Barone

The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists — by Ahimsa Kerp (1st Place)

Spirit Messages — by Betsy Streeter

A Midsummer Night's Curse — by Laura Garrison

Past Another Sky — by Scott Birrenkott (2nd Place)

Ammyland — by Forrest Johnson (3rd Place)

What the Butler Didn't See — by Teel James Glenn

Lure — by Regina Swanson

Controlled — by Elisa Nuckle

Book Reviews

Red Rising — by Pierce Brown

About Fiction Vortex

#  Letter from the Editor

Science fiction and fantasy are such broad genres that they mean something different to every person you ask. Well, except for literary snobs; they're remarkably uniform in their opinions of genre fiction. It seems to me that they wouldn't pass muster with their beloved Holden Caulfield, but maybe that's a conversation for another day.

The diversity of subgenres is what makes sci-fi and fantasy so cool (aside from lasers and spaceships, dragons and wizards, psychopaths and world destruction, etc.). There's something for nearly everyone.

We strive to show this breadth of ideas in our stories, which is why we're so excited about this issue. It continues our trend of publishing great fiction, but it also introduces a few new subgenres that we haven't published yet. We've got our first truly high fantasy tale, our first fractured fairytale, our first steampunk story, and our first space western.

That's enough subgenre to kill a Tartellonelionicate Mega-Aardvark.

So sit back and enjoy the smorgasbord of science fiction and fantasy. And don't forget to pat your back on our behalf. No, pat _your_ back, not our behalf. We don't like it when people touch our behalf, anyway. You're the reason we do this, and the reason we're still going. So thanks for your support, and look for more great fiction next month.

Vortexical Wishes and Cyclonic Dreams,

Dan Hope

Managing Editor, Voice of Reason

Fiction Vortex

(Back to Table of Contents)

#  Short Stories

Fair Godmum — by Jessica Barone

The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists — by Ahimsa Kerp (1st Place)

Spirit Messages — by Betsy Streeter

A Midsummer Night's Curse — by Laura Garrison

Past Another Sky — by Scott Birrenkott (2nd Place)

Ammyland — by Forrest Johnson (3rd Place)

What the Butler Didn't See — by Teel James Glenn

Lure — by Regina Swanson

Controlled — by Elisa Nuckle

(Back to Table of Contents)

#  Fair Godmum

by Jessica Barone; published July 2, 2013

For all her serene glances to the jury, Samantha Selwyn was beginning to bubble underneath. Standing on trial had become a bore to her, having made a habit of it in the recent centuries, and she was growing impatient with the judge's questioning:

"Paragraph 142, clause 3, are you familiar with it?"

"Exclusively so," Samantha sniffed.

"Care to recite it?" Judge Forest prompted.

"...' _Thou shalt wax thy wand every fortnight?_ '"

"'All wand-wielding sectors act within best interest of clients.'"

A rustle passed through the jury. The rosewood courtroom curved all the jury members into a circle, perched high above and looking down long noses expectantly.

"I could argue each of my client's cases," Samantha sniffed.

"Little Red was in your custody."

"I gave her a red coat so she could easily be spotted in dense forests."

"She was eaten by a wolf."

"She got back _out_." Samantha rolled her eyes.

"You put Sleeping Beauty into a coma."

"That was a necessity. She'd never meet a prince if she kept yapping."

"I recall Snow White being a similar catastrophe."

"No, no, she was a workaholic. A long sleep did her good."

"And dressing like a peasant to sell that Jack boy confiscated Sector 23 beans was a good deed as well, eh?"

Samantha twirled her wand. "I believe Jack and his mother are living quite comfortably on their newfound fortune these days."

One of the jury members leaned over the edge of balcony, barking, "Enough!"

Another jury member, a Dwarf, grumbled, "She's off 'er hinges, she is."

Judge Forest waved a great hand, stomped a heavy Faun hoof to settle the courtroom, and continued, "Samantha Selwyn, you have yet to complete a Case of the Misfortunate without causing discord, or critical injury."

Good old Chaucer stood up beside Samantha, pushing glasses up the ridge of his nose with long Druid fingers. "Keep in mind, Your Honor, that every single one of Selwyn's CMs has been approved by your hand," he said in a calming tone. Samantha cast him a sly, satisfied look.

"Not without hesitation, Mr. Chaucer," the Judge said. "I refuse to put future lives at risk."

"Meaning what?" Samantha was indignant.

Judge Forest collected the stack of scrolls piled in front of him. "I declare a new jury session to be held within two weeks, in decision of revoking Ms. Selwyn's wand license and relocation to a different department of the Magical Bureau."

Samantha clutched her wand to her lacy bosom. "Your Honor!"

"Judge Forest, I urge you to reconsider the sentence." Chaucer let worry color his voice for the first time.

"The hearing will be in two weeks," Forest repeated. "Until then, court adjourned." The Judge banged his heavy gavel, and Samantha jumped, still clinging to her silver-tipped wand.

The violet-robed Dwarfs, Fairies, and the like shuffled and huffed their way down from the balcony benches and crowded out. Samantha stared blankly ahead of her until she felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned to look up at Chaucer, who smiled down weakly at her. They were the last two in the torch-lit courtroom.

"It's not final, Sam," he offered, twitching a tanned nose in a shrug.

Samantha nodded and let out a little sigh, smoothing down her petticoats.

"Scones?" he suggested.

~~~~~

Samantha ate quietly in the café, dipping blueberry scones in tea and half-listening to Chaucer as he sat across from her. He was talking quite rapidly, such the lawyer. She watched him push up his glasses and blow auburn locks of hair out of his face as he prattled on. The tightly curled horns atop his head looked like quivering pale seashells. Samantha sniggered.

"It's a simple case — why are you laughing?"

Samantha checked herself and said, "Oh nothing."

" _Please_ pay attention, Sam. This is important."

"I know," snapped Samantha. "I'm dreadfully aware of the situation. If they take away my wand, I'll _die_."

"Don't be dramatic. We just need to prepare ahead of time. You're an upstanding citizen, you passed your Mythic & Magical Practice exams with flying colors, and you have plenty of approved Cases of the Misfortunate under your belt. You just have... unusual charges on your record."

"They exaggerate, every one of them," Samantha muttered, hovering her wand tip above the rim of her teacup to stir her Earl Grey. "Have I ever once killed any of my clients? Never. Poppycock. I don't know what that Paragraph Four-Hundred and whatnot nonsense was today; I _always_ have my clients' best interests in mind."

"Your methods are unorthodox..."

"You think they should break my wand in two, do you?"

"No. Now, now," Chaucer said, holding up a long-fingered Druid hand. "That's not going to happen. We just need to find you a simple CM — an easy Case of the Misfortunate to show that you're capable of good deeds without risks."

Samantha stood, tired of advice and warnings and claptrap. She folded in her dragonfly wings and wrapped her coat tightly about herself.

"Where are you going?"

"To a human pub," she said. "Magic is so stifling sometimes."

~~~~~

Sitting alone at a booth against the wall, Samantha drained the last of her mead. The pub was dingy and quiet for the early evening. Because she was unescorted, men would try to join her every once in a while, always mistaking her rouged cheeks and piled-high hair for a streetwalker. She would slip her wand out under the table and befuddle him with a flick of magic, and they would stumble away in a stupor.

Otherwise it was an uneventful evening. Her eyes began to well up and made her feel like she was looking through her empty pint flagon. How would she ever win her case against Judge Forest? She stood up, teetering a bit. Drink always affected Fairies strongly. A trip to the apothecary would do the trick. Samantha left in a swish and tapped down the cobblestone alleyways, hoping she would remember where the little shop was. Horse-drawn carriages were clattering down the streets and candles were being lit above, glowing in high windows. London bustled in a different way at night.

Sure enough, the dark apothecary stood right where it always had been, between a boarded-up flower shop and an abandoned soothsayer's room. Samantha pushed into the windowless store and was greeted by heavy, scented air and the sound of bubbles popping. The old shop owner reading at the counter looked up and smiled crookedly. "Sammy," he said. Samantha made a curtsy and came up to the counter. "Blimey, you never look a year older, do you?"

"I told you," Samantha wagged a finger, "I don't age."

The shop owner rasped a laugh, disbelieving. "You and your jokes. What will you have, m'dear?"

"I just need to restock on a few ingredients."

"Take your time," the owner said, gesturing with a hand for Samantha to wander about the shop's dusty shelves.

As Samantha found rice powder for her beer-battered brain, the front door of the shop jingled again as another person came in.

"Evenin', sir," said a soft voice, "I would like to buy arsenic."

"Arsenic?" the shop owner said. "That's a strong drop. What for?"

Samantha peered over her shoulder at the sooty little blond wrapped in tatters.

"We have frogs in the basement," the girl said.

The owner scrutinized the peasant. "How much do you need?"

"Five ounces."

"You don't need that much for frogs."

"There are a lot of frogs."

The owner and beggar looked at one another for a moment.

"Ten shillings," the owner said.

The girl handed over the coins, but they rattled in her shaking palm. The owner looked at the money for a moment and then reluctantly pushed a vial across the counter, which the girl snatched up.

She was gone in an instant. Samantha, beyond intrigued, left her package of rice powder on the shelf and whisked out of the shop after the girl. The alleys were dark, the puddles between cobblestones reflecting lamplight from rooms high above. Samantha thought she'd lost the girl in the maze of back streets, until she heard sniffling. Peering around a corner, Samantha spotted the girl leaning against the wall in the dark, the vial in her trembling hands. The cork was gone; the girl shut her eyes tight and raised the vial.

"Wait!" Samantha said, whipping out her wand and causing the vial to jump from the peasant's hands. It shattered on the stone street as the girl screamed and covered her head. "Quiet! I won't hurt you! Oh, _do_ be quiet!"

The girl stuffed a fist in her mouth and gazed at Samantha with petrified blue eyes. Samantha still had her wand raised in case the girl tried to run, walking forward into the orange light. "Now then," Samantha snipped, "What the devil were you thinking, hm?" The girl shook her head but said nothing. "Out with it. I know what you were up to, what's the cause?"

Silent sobs quaked the beggar girl's thin shoulders. "Please," she squeaked.

"I'll turn you into a mouse," Samantha warned.

A silent struggle waged war on the poor girl, until she burst. "It's all wretched! All of it! I want it to end!"

"There now, what is?"

"Me awful step-sisters, me ghastly step-mother, me father gone, gone, gone. I'm a slave in me own 'ouse."

Each grievance rang like a bell to Samantha's well-tuned ear. The ever-familiar phrase, "You poor, misfortunate girl," fell from her lips like honey.

~~~~~

Samantha bought the misfortunate girl a whiskey to calm her nerves, and then walked with her out of the thick of London. The girl hiccupped and wobbled, but managed a smile as they wandered through the quiet houses outside the city.

"What is your name?" Samantha asked, catching the girl before she doddered off onto the grass.

"Eleanor. Ella."

"Do you remember where you live, Ella?"

Ella nodded vigorously and continued to jabber with her Cockney tongue. Samantha had to spend the rest of the walk fending off questions about whether she was a witch, a ghost of a relative, a mermaid. Ella had had a lot of whiskey.

The smile fell from Ella's face when she arrived at the pebbled walkway of her magnificent house. It shone from the windows of all three stories, making the white pillars and grand steps of the house glow warmly.

"Off you go, dearie," Samantha nudged.

Ella tried to protest. "Take me wit' you."

"No, this is your home. Go."

As Ella trudged up the garden path and climbed the stairs, her feet grew heavy. Samantha flitted behind a hedge-sculpture of a hedgehog. Ella banged the great doorknocker and was met by a servant who yanked her into the house, crying, "About time you turn up!"

Samantha discarded her coat to stretch her iridescent wings and fly up to one of the windows and peer inside. Ella was sitting on the floor, sniveling as two misshapen girls leered over her. One was very bony and tall, the other squat and round. Samantha tapped the window's glass with her wand to suddenly and clearly hear what the commotion inside was.

"The nerve you've got, you prat."

"You prat."

"Wandering about and leaving all your chores. Some nerve!"

" _Some_ nerve!"

"You ought to go a week without supper."

"Two weeks!"

"Oh, that's delightfully horrid."

"Thank you."

Ella covered her crying face with her hands.

Another woman entered the room, much older, holding aloft a huge lavender envelope. She took one look at the scene before her and demanded, "What's this?"

The tall stepsister said, "Sooterella has been gone all day."

" _All_ day," the squat sister said.

"Never mind it!" the mother said. "You two should get to bed right away for beauty sleep. In a week, there's going to be a ball."

"A ball?" the tall one said.

"A silly ball?" the squat one said.

"Silly? The whole kingdom is invited! This ball is to be hosted by the prince!" The sisters squealed. "He's looking to find his bride!" More squealing. "And one of you darlings will be it! Imagine it, just think of it!"

The two stepsisters linked arms and danced about the well-furnished drawing room, nearly kneeing Ella in the process. The stepmother, dripping with jewels and wrinkles, seemed to notice Ella on the floor for the first time. "I shall respond back to the palace at once, writing that my two daughters shall be attending." Ella whimpered and looked to the floor. "Where have you been all day, Eleanor?" she asked in a deadly soft voice.

The two sisters stopped dancing and watched as their mother advanced on Ella. The tall one spoke up, "Cinderella won't say."

"Won't say? Then she doesn't eat. And she deserves a whipping."

A painting crashed to the floor at the mother's feet. Everyone gasped. Another painting fell, and another, and then a large vase crashed into pieces, making the sisters scream. "What's happening?" the mother yelled.

Another painting flew straight at the squat sister's head. She lunged for the floor and wailed, "Poltergeists!" Ella, the only petite one, crawled under a sofa while flying paintings and ricocheting mantle pieces chased the family out of the room. They ran screaming down the halls, locking themselves into rooms.

Samantha appeared in the drawing room, picking up the discarded lavender envelope and inspecting it. "You can come out now, Ella."

Ella choked and popped her head out from under the sofa. "You!"

"Yes, me. Your step-sisters are awful, you're right."

"Indeed," Ella sighed and pulled herself out from under the sofa. She wiped her eyes and stared at Samantha. "Your wings. Are you me fairy godmum?"

"Not without the paperwork."

"'Scuse me?"

"Nothing." Samantha flapped the envelope at Ella, thinking furiously. "You're going to this ball."

Ella laughed bitterly. "In what? Dish towels and spider webs?"

Samantha fingered her wand, and smiled like the Cheshire cat.

~~~~~

_James E. Chaucer_ was written in golden cursive across the front of his office door. Samantha burst in, her blue and green skirts fluffing about her, making Chaucer jump at his desk and knock over a tower of scrolls.

He fixed his glassed hurriedly. "I beg of you, _knock_!"

The bouncing Fairy sat down in the chair across from Chaucer, beaming and brimming out of her corset. "I have a CM."

"Who?"

"The most misfortunate serving girl in the whole world, Chaucer. She's positively wretched, and I'm going to make her a queen!"

"How did you find her?"

"Milling about London, ready to tip back a bottle of arsenic. Oh, she's _perfect_."

"You really should wait to be assigned a case by the Bureau," Chaucer said.

"Time is of the essence! If I turn this girl's life from rags to riches, it will be the ultimate good deed, a fairytale — if you'll excuse the term — so decent I'll surely win my case!"

Chaucer, always the patient Druid, took off his glasses, wiped them on his herringbone vest, and tapped one of the little horns nestled in his curly copper hair. "How do you propose to do it?"

"By the book," Samantha lied.

~~~~~

Samantha was standing next to the hedge-hedgehog, tapping her foot and checking her gold pocket watch. Five minutes to midnight, where _was_ that stupid girl? She absently curled one of her brown locks hanging from her pompadour hair with her wand and looked about, waiting.

Then there was the sound of horses trotting and wooden wheels rattling as a bright orange carriage came racing up the path. Samantha walked into sight to wave the carriage down, and it slowed to a halt. The Fairy wrenched open the door and out poured Ella, mewing in pleasure. "Not a minute too soon!" scolded Samantha.

Ella straightened herself and dusted off her golden ball gown, then hugged Samantha. "Oh, Fairy Godmum! Oh! I 'ad the most beautiful night!"

A bell struck from a far-off cathedral, striking the chord of midnight. Ella's gown began to melt off her, falling onto the ground in piles, back to yellow dishtowels and silvery spun webs. The two horses shrank back to tabby cats, the driver squeaked into a mouse again, and the carriage shrank and rolled into a pumpkin once more.

Ella seemed put off by the sudden returned poverty. Samantha asked, "How did it go?" which brought the light back to Ella's eyes.

"'E danced wit' me all night! The 'andsomest, most charming prince!" Ella rocked back and forth, hugging herself and humming. Samantha brushed the blather aside and pointed her wand at Ella's feet, one clad in a glass slipper, the other bare.

"Did you leave behind one of the slippers like I told you?"

The girl nodded. "Are you sure he'll be able to find me again?"

"Of course, those slippers fit only you."

~~~~~

"'And so Prince 'Charming' Charles held a search for Eleanor of Rochester across the kingdom,'" Chaucer read from his scroll for the whole court to hear, "'The slippers were enchanted to only fit Eleanor's feet, making it impossible for any other woman — or man — to attempt wearing them. Driven on by the hunt, as so entices the human, by the time he finally found Eleanor, Charles was convinced of True Love's destiny, and they wedded a week later. Eleanor's coronation as Queen will take place in three days time.'"

Judge Forest interjected, "And what about the mishap with the step-sisters mutilating their own feet to try and fit inside the glass slipper?"

"I entreat you to read Paragraph 2,045, Line 68, of the CM canon, 'The antagonists receive appropriate karma in the sphere of the good deed.'"

"And the mice?" a Leprechaun asked from the ring of jurymen.

"No mice were harmed in the making of this good deed," Chaucer assured him.

There was an appreciative murmur through the courtroom, and Judge Forest squared his broad shoulders and announced, "I hereby declare Ms. Selwyn's Case of the Misfortunate approved, charges removed for all past cases, and a follow-up Happily Ever After inspection of Eleanor of Rochester in a month's time. Court adjourned." The gavel banged, and Samantha clapped with gloved hands and bobbed up and down, almost toppling her enormous white hat. She could have it all now.

~~~~~

Samantha really didn't have time for it, but Chaucer had insisted she make a personal appearance before the Happily Ever After inspection. With a soft _pop!_ Samantha appeared in the elegant bedchambers of Ella. Ella was looking out the window but whirled around at the sound. "I thought I'd never see you again! Thank goodness!" she cried. The little serving girl was almost unrecognizable in her crimson royal attire and heavy crown.

"I just wanted to see how being queen has suited you. Well, I see." Samantha grinned. It had treated both the girls well. Samantha was the celebrity of the Magical Bureau, with the most extraordinary Case of the Misfortunate to her name.

"Oh," said Ella, looking sheepish, "It's alright, I s'pose."

"Alright?" Samantha gawked, "You're the Queen of England! _Alright_?"

"It's just... different, Fairy Godmum."

"Different can be good." Samantha pointed the golden tip of her new Mother of Pearl and coral-red wand at Ella.

"Yes..." the sad queen trailed off, looking wistfully out the window again.

This didn't bode well. She couldn't be this unhappy when the Ever After crew came in a week. Samantha would have her wand taken away, not to mention her contracts as spokesperson for three different perfume lines. "What?" Samantha croaked. " _What_?"

Ella let the dam break free. "Charles is such an awful bore, an' 'as the worst temper. An' I'm forced to go to diction classes ev'ryday 'cause I don't speak ladylike, and there are so very many spoons at supper." Ella seemed angry at the mention. "Too many bloody-damned spoons!" She checked herself, put a hand on her golden bodice, and looked forlornly at Samantha. "Please, take me away from here."

~~~~~

"You know you have to do something," Chaucer said that night. He had met her secretly in the human world, at one of her favorite dingy pubs. They sat alone in the dark corner, hiding behind large pints.

"How will I ever get out of this, Chaucer? How?"

"You have to do the right thing."

"I'm not turning myself in. I'm not giving up my wand just because that little wench can't find happiness as the _Queen of Bloody England_."

"The Ever After inspection is in a week. When they see how miserable she is, your whole case will be null and void."

"I can fix this..." Samantha chewed her bright blue nails absently.

"Sam, you can't just make this go away."

"Yes, I can."

"Sam? Where are you going?"

Samantha had leapt up from the table, overturning her flagon. "To fix everything!" she said, and swept out.

~~~~~

"My client has no obligation to answer questions," Chaucer said to the crowd of horned, hoofed, and pointy-eared reporters.

"It's alright, Chaucer." Samantha turned to the reporters with quills poised. "A letter was found by Queen Eleanor, from her beloved king, written in his sure hand, explaining that he had left the kingdom to her name as he pursued his lifelong desire to become a wandering vagabond. Surprisingly enough, the Happily Ever After crew found the Queen a week later in great spirits, having the kingdom under her command and being free from daily diction lessons."

"And what about the rumors that you were behind the king's disappearance?" asked a centaur.

Chaucer said, "You can check reports that Ms. Selwyn's wand has been inspected by Sector 2 Bureau members and was labeled free of any malicious spells. At least in the past month..."

Samantha elbowed Chaucer. "Alright, that's enough for today!"

Chaucer and Samantha pushed their way through the crowd and into the Magical Headquarters. "I have a box of bonbons from my mother in my office," Chaucer said. "She won't stop sending them since we won the case last month."

"Oh, to your office, then." Samantha grinned, arm in arm with Chaucer as they walked down marble hallways.

"What did happen to King 'Charming,' Sam?"

"I turned him into a little playmate for Ella's carriage driver, the one who drove her to the ball not long ago."

"Carriage driver — the mouse?" Chaucer said, stumbling.

"Indeed."

Jessica Barone is a San Franciscan scribbler of fiction, and a journalist of tech, health n' fitness (find more of her writing at medium.com/@chai_haiku). She's a serial Silicon Valley Tech Startup girl and social media Jedi, but considers the woods and seas to be the ideal office space.

(Back to Table of Contents)

#  The Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists

by Ahimsa Kerp; published July 5, 2013

First Place Award, July 2013 Fiction Contest

The train chug-chug-chugged past the wild jungles and verdant tea plantations as plumes of steam drifted into the blue sky. Josephine Anson and her mother, Olivia, sat in the front car and the view was incredible; the karst cliffs rose high above the lush valley floor. Above and behind it all, mist-clad and snow-topped mountains soared like mighty emperors. It was nothing like the Kent countryside. Josephine was bored.

Her mother continued to stare out the window, perhaps not even noticing the views. There was only one thing on her mother's mind, Josephine knew, when her eyes glassed over like that. She was thinking of father. He had left in April of 1899, a year ago almost to the day, and they hadn't seen him since. As England's leading Confucian scholar, he had been hired to do translating at an historic site, but his letters had stopped months ago.

And so the Anson women left from London, just like that. The dreadful boat ride had lasted forever, and things only got worse when they reached China. Here they had acquired two man-servants and guides. Her mum had tried not to tell her, but Josephine knew both carried guns. They were scary. She wondered what Peter and Elizabeth would say about it? She missed her friends.

The train was climbing into the mountains, and it began to suffer from the steep grade. It came to a near standstill as the steam engine fought against gravity. Though she couldn't understand the language, and her mum didn't notice, Josephine thought that the Chinese on the train were worried. There was something in their tone that made her nervous.

Before she could speak to her mother, the train stopped with a hideous jolt. Josephine was thrown forward as the low hum of conversation flared with bright panic. The world shifted as, ahead of them, the train tracks disintegrated.

The lead locomotive crumpled into pieces like wet paper as fragments of the pilot plow at the tip of the train flew high into the air. Josephine, just rising, was thrown into Olivia and the two fell from their seats as the train rocked back from the explosion. Josephine hit her head hard on the metal floor.

The door opened with a smoky blast and the car was full of sweaty, shirtless men. All had circular tattoos on their chests. The man in front, a small, middle-aged man whose bare stomach bulged over his trousers, scanned the car. When he saw the two white women, he strode toward them purposefully.

Josephine's mum struggled to rise. "Please," she said to her porter. "Save us. I'll pay you triple, give you anything you want. Just save us from these bandits." The Chinese on the train had moved toward the back of the car, as far away as possible from the foreigners.

The porter paused, consulted with his friend via a rapid succession of syllables, then nodded grimly and drew his gun.

"Yes, yes, Miss Olivia. I will do this thing."

The pudgy man was only five feet away when the porter fired. Somehow, even at that range, the porter missed. The leader of the shirtless men laughed, his belly jiggling. He said something in Chinese that even to Josephine's ears sounded mocking. The other porter fired his pistol. The bullet hit the man's bare skin, just below his tattoo.

The bullet bounced off the man, his skin unbroken.

Olivia screamed. Josephine found it hard to breathe, hard to see. Her heart beat so heavily she could feel it in her throat.

The second porter dropped his gun. Several of the shirtless men came at them with drawn knives, and both porters were killed quickly.

The pudgy man looked at the two women. "Kill the _Guizi_ ," he said. He turned his back on them as three men with bloody knives advanced. Josephine could see their tattoos more clearly now, a half circle of gold mashed with a half circle of black. She'd never been more afraid in her life, not even when she'd been stuck in the attic for two days and none of the servants could find her.

"I am an Englishwoman," her mother said bravely. "I will gladly pay you some money, however, I need some to reach my husband in _Kiuh Fow_."

"Your husband is long dead. You will meet him again soon enough, perhaps," the pudgy man said, without even looking at her.

The men drew closer, their daggers dripping dark blood.

"In the name of Queen Victoria, please. You can kill me," she pleaded. "But let my daughter live. She is so young, she has done nothing."

The man sighed wearily. "She died when she entered our country. We did not ask or want her to come. As to the old hag you call Queen, well, the world she clings to is no longer hers," he said. His tone was mild, but Josephine had never heard such words, and she felt as though she had been slapped.

"Please, please," Olivia begged.

Josephine thought of something her father would say. "Set your heart right; put the world in order."

The man motioned to the three killers to stop. "What is this? You speak words you do not understand. How do you know this in English?"

Her mother was staring at her in surprise too. Josephine frowned — she had to try to remember the words more clearly.

"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right," she said. She hoped she had spoken the words correctly.

"If your heart is right, you will not kill a defenseless girl," her mother added.

"I do not know where you learned such words. But we of the Righteous Fists of Harmony respect the truth. Your bargain is accepted." He made a small gesture with his hand.

"My bargain?" Olivia asked.

"Not yours. Hers. A life for a life."

One of the Fists stepped before Olivia and cut her throat. She fell in an inelegant heap and made a mess on the floor. Then one of the men hit Josephine on the head, and she knew no more.

~~~~~

Josephine could not tell if she was awake or dreaming. The ground felt strangely stable, without the motion of the ship or train that she had grown accustomed to. The porters were missing, and her mother was gone. The back of her head was bandaged. She realized that she was truly awake. Perhaps she was in _Kiuh Fow_ , and her mother must be talking with her father.

She sat up. In front of her was a small, chubby man whose piercing dark eyes stared right into her. When he saw that she was awake, he handed her a wooden bowl brimming with dark liquid.

"Drink," he said. He did not speak loudly, but her head ached fiercely as he spoke.

She sniffed at it. An awful scent assailed her nostrils. "What is it?" she asked.

"It's medicine."

"It doesn't smell like any medicine I've had before," she said.

"You've never had Chinese medicine. This is ginseng, mint leaf, tang gui root, and skullcap." They sat at a table in a crude wooden hut; behind the man she could see several dark rooms. He gestured at some of the other bottles.

"Some of these are like magic. This one will turn you invisible. And this one will make your skin immune to fire. This one — a favorite of mine — is good for prolonging your, ah, energies. But the one you hold will simply make your head feel better."

She downed it. It didn't taste as bad as it smelled. After she'd put the bowl down on the table, she felt much better. "Where am I? Where is my mother? May I speak with her?"

The man before her stood and bowed deeply. "We are the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists. I am Zhu Hongdeng. You can call me Red Lantern Zhu."

Josephine stood uncertainly and curtsied in answer. "My name is Josephine Anson. Pleased to meet you, Red Lantern. You are the leader?"

He smiled, but there was little humor in it. "No, no, no. Our leader is Prince Duan, but we have permission from the Dowager Empress herself. We are located in a province where few _Guizi_ , foreigners, enter." It was a strange thought to Josephine that she could be considered a foreigner.

"What kind of doctor are you?" Josephine asked. "You're not like any I've seen before."

He smiled at her. "Many years ago, I was a wandering doctor. My people were peasants, farmers. I helped some white Christians and learned English. Then the rains stopped and no food would grow. None could afford to pay me, at first, and then none could afford to eat. We fled to the cities, only to find that we were less welcome than the Westerners who poisoned our people with drugs and religion. The diplomats and missionaries wished to carve the melon, divide our country and rule it in pieces."

"I don't understand. You're fighting against the West? Why? We bring peace and order."

"Peace and order? Do you know why the ancient order of the Fists has risen again? A German Baron attacked a Chinese woman, killing her, and when a boy tried to stop him, the German man beat him to death too. He was not punished. That was a beginning; there were others."

"I don't believe it," she said. But she had heard her mother and her friends talking, and she knew they didn't trust the Germans. "May I see my father and mother now?"

"Come with me," he said.

She stood up and almost fell over. "Oh dear. I feel quite uneasy," she said. Her hands grasped the table in front of her.

He looked at her kindly. "You had a serious blow to the head. And some of the herbs in that drink, as well, will be new to your body. Move slowly and try to look straight ahead."

He led her toward the back of the hut. On their way, they passed several doorways, but most had tapestries that hid the rooms beyond from her sight. She saw one with bundles of paper gathered into precarious piles. A machine that looked like an ancient printing press was churning out yet more paper.

Red Lantern led her past that room and into one that was cluttered with books, shelves, and tools. The heavy layer of dust was visible in sunlight that came through slats in the wooden wall. Pools of dark and glossy liquid covered the bench and the floor. On the main table were boxes full of gears and springs. Everywhere Josephine could see, there were piles of sharp bamboo sticks. There was one symbol that was everywhere — two intertwining half circles with a gear in each half.

"I know that picture," she said. "My father had a book with it on the cover."

Red Lantern followed her gaze. "This? That is the Yin Yang, a powerful symbol of balance."

"Yin Yang," she repeated. "Yes, he said that." She looked around the cluttered room. "What are all these things?"

"You can think of it as technology, though it's really no such thing. We have more than any government in the world could guess. We are not barbarians. Some people do understand this. The American writer Mark Twain wrote that 'The Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the countries of other people. I wish him success.'" He paused and looked at Josephine with his dark eyes. "Do you understand what it means, to love your country?"

"Of course," Josephine said, without thinking.

He fixed her with his intense eyes. She counted the wrinkles in his forehead as he searched for the right words.

"I suspect your father is dead, Josephine. I know your mother is. We killed her. She traded her life, and her knowledge, so that you might remain alive. Yin yang."

Josephine leaped up. "What? Is this some kind of joke?" It rang all too true, however. She'd been kidnapped. Suddenly the portly man across from her didn't seem wise and kind. He looked ominous and cruel.

Red Lantern remained calm, of course. "I have saved you, healed you, and am protecting you now. You are far away from any others who could help."

"They'll come looking for me," she said. "They'll kill you for what you did." She was almost screaming now. She knew it wasn't the proper way to behave, but she couldn't suppress her wrath.

"Your mother was caught in something greater; it was her misfortune to represent those who enslaved us with opium, with ideology. The English Empire will continue to expand, or another will take its place. Technology is growing, and as it grows, hope and wonder are lost. Westerners come to China and bring steamboats, telegraphs, and mining equipment, without understanding the need for balance. Her death is regrettable, but it will be balanced by the good that comes to China. Yin Yang, once more." His calm voice was infuriating.

Tears leaked down Josephine's cheek. She didn't want to cry, not in front of him, but her body was beginning to shake.

"We are eliminating the _Guizi_ , the negative influences on our government. It will be a country for farmers, doctors, peasants; no land barons will grow rich from our labor. China is a troubled place. The people are afraid of officials, the officials are afraid of foreigners, and the foreigners are afraid of the people."

"I don't understand how you follow yin yang and yet you can just kill people," she said, still not looking at him.

"Josephine, the yin yang is everywhere. Life and death are different aspects of the same thing. You British think of yourselves as civilized, but you bring warfare, disease, and slavery to those you aim to civilize. You are an unbalanced country, and you spread your chaos everywhere you go."

"You're lying," she said. "You're a killer and a liar."

"I would like to show you something," Red Lantern said.

She didn't look up.

"I can carry you if you insist. I would rather you walked."

She stood, and Red Lantern led her out of the room and to a large door.

They stepped into the bright sunlight. Josephine winced, temporarily blinded, and her head pounded with needles of pain. At last she opened her eyes, and gasped. It was a beautiful landscape, wild and green with more of the rocky hills she had seen from the train. That was all background, however.

There were men everywhere, more than she could count. Most were shirtless and wearing loose cotton pants. In front of the hut, several were whirling swords or long, spear-like weapons in complex patterns while chanting. Others were stretching themselves into impossible positions down by a mossy, bubbling creek. The last group was on a bare hill to the side of the hut, where they assembled heavy machinery that looked like the cannon batteries she'd seen on Fort Halstead, back at home.

"What are they doing?" Josephine asked, wondering what this had to do with yin yang.

"Preparing," Red Lantern said.

"Preparing? For what?"

"Everything. _The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come_ ," the pudgy bandit leader said. His voice had a tone like her teacher's when he read Homer to them. "As you said, they will come looking for you. I have perhaps been unwise to risk the life of all my men for yours. Perhaps I should be more ruthless, like the British."

A shadow over the sky caught her attention. Josephine was amazed to see a man floating through the sky.

"Is he flying?" she asked, stupefied. "How?"

"All of our powers come from our ancestors. They seek to restore the balance."

The flying man landed gracefully and bowed to Red Lantern. As they spoke, in hushed whispers, she noticed he had a tattoo of the ying yang with gears that she had seen in the workroom, but the golden half of the circle had wings on either side.

The two walked away, heads together in quiet conversation. Presently, the man nodded and leaped into the sky. Red Lantern turned to her.

"Our cause is so just that we have the spirits themselves as allies. When the time is right, millions of spirit soldiers will descend from the heavens and assist us against whoever tries to oppress us. Maybe in time, we can help liberate others who are downtrodden."

"You truly have an army," Josephine said, understanding beginning to grow. "But you don't seem, beg your pardon, like a general." Pain flared in her head again, and she shut her eyes as she fought against it.

Red Lantern laughed loudly. "You mean Red Lantern Zhu is a middle-aged fat man. That is true. But they follow me for three reasons." He started pacing, and as he talked he looked over his soldiers training. Josephine followed his glance. In the distance she could see something glinting, but as she tried to get a closer look it disappeared.

"First, because I am a learned doctor. I can heal those who are hurt in battle; even better, I can aid them so that they cannot be hurt. With my wisdom, and the blessings of the spirits, I can turn men into weapons. Secondly, they follow me because of my blood. I am of the Ming family, the ancient rulers of China. But most importantly, I am a humble man; it takes such a person to understand the needs of the people."

She nodded understanding.

Some of the men down by the creek shouted. Red Lantern frowned and, moving his hand above his eyes, scanned the horizon. They could see plumes of smoke or steam that were steadily advancing toward them from the valley below.

" _Wenshen_ ," he muttered. "I did not expect them already." He shouted something and the men at the creek leaped into the air and slid away through the sky, as graceful as dolphins gliding through the sea. Josephine gaped at the demonstration, still finding the sight hard to accept.

She watched them fly away, over the hills and down toward the valley. The figures had receded to small, barely visible dots when suddenly streams of smoke and something like fireworks launched into the air. The dots in the air fell to the earth or disappeared entirely. A thunderous boom sounded simultaneously.

At that moment, Josephine would later think, something changed. Surprise and fear rippled across the faces of the Harmonious Fists. Many jumped into the air and flew to Red Lantern. As they landed, she saw that all the men had tattoos of the yin yang symbol — some had wings; others had additional pictures she didn't recognize. Many were young and quite obviously frightened.

Red Lantern spoke sternly and decisively, and the Fists regrouped. Some of them scrambled back to the hut and emerged, seconds later, carrying rifles. Others ran or flew to the small hill beside the creek, where the Krupp artillery was set up. Red Lantern led the girl around the back of his hut, where a ladder led them to the roof. From there, they had a commanding view both of the valley below and the snow-capped mountains behind.

Then Josephine saw what was coming and her heart skipped a beat. Multicolored monsters with wings, long tails, and reptilian snouts were inching up the steep trail. They looked different than the pictures she had seen, but she knew what they were. Dragons. There were at least a dozen of the creatures. Impossible, Josephine thought. Even after all she had seen today, the appearance of these fabled legends was hard to accept. As they drew closer, she realized they were glinting in the sun. Metal. And the wings were made of thin paper. They weren't alive, she realized with relief. That didn't necessarily make them less dangerous, however. Behind the dragons was something else; a silver, rectangular box that looked like a train but had no track.

Three of the Fists landed in front of the vehicles. The metallic leviathans stopped. One slowly opened its jaw and, before Josephine could blink, a plume of fire leaped from the jaws. The men melted like wax.

Red Lantern drew in a ragged breath, but his face did not change expression. He waved to the Fists on the hill and they began to fire the artillery. More of his men flew into the air, but some of the dragons in the back raised their heads. Rockets launched in an explosion of color, like deadly fireworks, and more Fists disintegrated in the air. The dragons rolled on slowly.

More of the artillery on the hill was firing now, and when they hit, the dragons blew into pieces. Some of the Fists, armed with rifles, swords, and halberds, were dismantling others of the great metal beasts. Red Lantern closed his eyes and began chanting.

For a moment, a blast of winter covered them. An ethereal mist appeared, stretching like spider webs across the sky. Josephine could hear the booming of the artillery, augmented by the lyrical chant of the man beside her. The dragons were slowly being destroyed. They were coming for her, she knew, but she felt excited watching as one crumbled from simultaneous artillery hits. The mist was slowly, reluctantly, forming into human shapes. _Ghost warriors_ , Josephine remembered. Even under the late afternoon sun, she shivered.

The long silver vehicle that had been trailing the dragons reached the battlefield. The Fists moved back warily, awaiting whatever attack it summoned. The vehicle puffed a long jet of steam and the doors opened from the middle. Soldiers that looked like men, only stiffer, slowly lumbered out. They moved mechanically, with a jerky rhythm that baffled Josephine. As the full force emerged from the transport, she caught a glimpse of clockwork gears on their backs.

Beside her, Red Lantern stared in stupefied astonishment. " _Bingma Yong_. The legendary Terra Cotta Warriors! They have not been seen for thousands of years."

The clockwork soldiers advanced dreadfully, inevitably. Swords and rifles had no effect on them. Hits from the artillery staggered them, knocked them over; but they always rose and continued their inexorable advance. Even the ghost warriors half glimpsed in the mist were not able to damage or stop the massive Terra Cotta warriors. Red Lantern stopped chanting and the air warmed. The spirit warriors slipped away, like forgotten dreams.

The Harmonious Fists were left on their own, and even with their enhanced powers they were outmatched. The golem-like warriors used their hardened clay weapons as blunt instruments, and beat any Fists who resisted them into the ground with inhuman force. Quickly, far too quickly, few were left to oppose the clockwork warriors. The Terra Cotta men reached the hill and destroyed the artillery there with brutally efficient force.

"No, no, no," Red Lantern whimpered. He jumped from the roof, landed with an awkward thump, and charged toward the open vehicle. He dodged one of the mechanical soldiers, and then another, but the third caught him with a hard fist to the man's head. The bandit leader crumpled like a paper lantern in the wind.

Several men emerged from the vehicle. Most were Chinese, but one was white, dressed in a scarlet, double-breasted uniform with golden epaulettes. He wore long gray mustaches that whisped upward toward his ears, and his head bore a large black hat with a gold seal and large white plumes rising into the air. Josephine instantly knew he was British. She remained crouched on the rooftop, unsure whether she should make herself known to the victors.

The man scanned the field. "Josephine Anson," he called. "Are you here? You can come out now. You're safe. No harm will come to you."

Josephine stood up and waved, a little hesitantly. When he saw her, he strode quickly toward the hut. She climbed down and met him in the front. Behind them, the Chinese generals were collecting the Terra Cotta warriors.

The officer looked at her with curiosity. "I'm Lieutenant Smythe. You came from the train to _Kiuh Fow_?"

"Yes, that's right," Josephine said. "My mum and I. We were on our way to see my father —" her voice broke and she breathed deeply.

"Do not worry, you will be safe now. We'll get you back to civilization soon, where you can get a decent meal and a cup of tea. And you're not going to be troubled by these anymore." He motioned to the handful of prisoners who were being rounded up. There were less than ten Fists left alive, Red Lantern among them. They were being blindfolded and bound with strange-looking cloth.

"Are the Fists broken now?" Josephine asked. She found she wasn't sure what answer she wanted to hear. If this was her rescue, why did she feel so empty?

"No, not from this. This was just a small band; we'd never have known about them if they hadn't attacked your train. No, the Boxers are going as strong as ever. There's trouble in Peking; we'll probably have to fight them there. Why anyone cares is beyond me. It's the filthiest city in the world." Behind him, Red Lantern Zhu and his surviving men were marched toward the trackless train. The bandit leader's face was masked, but she recognized him.

Smythe caught her look and misunderstood. "There's no answer for what they did to you, to your family. Look at their pitiless, yellow faces. No good, any of them. They are lucky to have us to run their country for them; they have no understanding of international economics or strategic world policy. Instead of thanking us, they kill innocent women and children."

Josephine was only half listening to her countryman as she watched Red Lantern disappear into the metallic vehicle, surrounded by the clockwork clay soldiers. She didn't know if she found him noble or pathetic. Perhaps, she suddenly understood, he had some of each in him. Yin yang. She thought that maybe she could understand why her mother had died, and she didn't mind the tears that suddenly streamed down her face.

"What's going to happen to them?" she asked.

He was silent for a few heartbeats, and she knew he was doing the thing adults do when they weren't sure they could tell you something. So she added, "They're going to die, aren't they?"

He smiled uneasily at her. "Let's not worry about that. Come, time to get going. You get to ride in our steamtank."

She hesitated. "I need to get my things from inside."

He smiled. "Of course, but hurry. We'll destroy this hornet's nest soon. Hop to it, and see you in Peking!"

She ran into the building, where she quickly found what she was looking for. She numbly walked out and into the metallic coffin, feeling the blue sky and sunshine shut away from her. All she could see was an image of Red Lantern, crumpling from the blows of the golem warriors. She did not even look at the eight or so men who worked the contraption as they welcomed her with blankets and smiles.

The trackless train crept out from the wild mountains, away from magic and dreams. The vehicles stopped twice, both times for privy breaks. When at last they had arrived in Peking, Josephine Anson was nowhere to be found.

_Ahimsa is a language mercenary and peripatetic spec-fic writer who is fond of rambling hikes, craft beer, and tofu tacos. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, he has lived on four continents and is currently traveling and teaching in Asia. His short fiction has appeared in The Eschatology Journal, Eggplant Literary Productions, Third Flatiron Publishing's Origins Anthology, the Cthulhurotica Anthology. Roar and Thunder, Interstellar Fiction and is forthcoming in Tales To Terrify and Tales of the Talisman. His (co-written) fantasy novel The Roads to Baldairn Motte was published in 2011. Follow him_ @ahimsakerp _._

(Back to Table of Contents)

#  Spirit Messages

by Betsy Streeter; published July 9, 2013

"I want everyone here to know, even if a message doesn't come through for you tonight, spirits are all around you, sending you love. The messages that do come through are evidence of this, so do not lose hope."

Candace Claremont turns in her overstuffed chair and lights a stick of incense on a tiny table on the stage. She pauses to be sure it takes, puts out the match and turns to beam a huge smile at her audience as the thin column of aromatic smoke rises. She stands, puts her hands together and steps forward into the light. It's a small theatre, and every single seat is occupied by someone who parted with a wad of cash to be sitting there.

"Now, where shall we begin?"

Candace closes her eyes and lowers her arms to her sides. She's a marshmallow of a woman, a comforting shape like a pie or a big pillow. Her hair, contained in a clip at the back of her head, glows a little under the stage lights.

"I'm over here," Candace says, stepping toward stage left. In the front row, bodies shift almost as if to try and catch a wave of spiritual energy. Who could it be?

"I'm getting a young male, very young," Candace says. Right here, with you. Next to you. Do you have a young male?

The couple in the front row, third and fourth seats, solemnly nod their heads. "Yes," the woman says thinly.

"Passed?" asks Candace.

"Yes." The man puts his arm around his wife.

"Recently?"

"Yes."

"He's showing me a boat, of some kind. Not a sailboat, a motorboat. Does that mean anything to you?"

The couple look at each other. "No," says the woman, hesitant. She really, really needs this to be her dead son.

Candace looks at them for a moment. "Well, he's showing me a boat. A fast boat. Anyone over here have a boat?"

A woman in the third row raises her hand.

"You ma'am, you have a boat. Or a connection to a boat."

"Yes," she squeaks, "my son died in a motorboat accident."

A murmur moves through the crowd.

"Okay, then this must be him," says Candace. "He's showing me the boat, but he's also showing me, an animal. A stuffed animal. Some kind of, it seems like it's a gift of some sort. It's got markings on it..."

"Zebra stripes?" says row three woman.

"That could be it," says Candace. "He's showing it to me, as if it's a gift. Holding it out, like this." She extends her hands in front of her.

"I gave it to him," says the woman. "As a gift, just before he died. For his birthday."

Another murmur. Necks crane forward.

"Well then, this must be him coming through," concludes Candace. "He passed recently?"

"Last year," says the woman.

"He wants to send you his love," says Candace, "and tell you that he's okay."

The woman buries her face in her hands and sobs.

"He's okay," says Candace, "and he knows the pain that you're in, and he's very sorry. There's nothing you could have done."

"Now," Candace continues, "there's another person, a female, older, coming through also. Sometimes they come through together, but they don't know each other. They just, connect in that way. This is an older female, her name is something like Marcie or Margie, or something like that. I'm feeling like she's over here..." she crosses the stage and gestures up into the middle seats. Hands go up.

"Do you have a Marcie?" she asks one of them.

"Margie," says a man.

"Older?" asks Candace.

"Yes, well, about fifty," he replies.

"Older than you, then?" asks Candace.

The man nods. "Yes."

"Well, she's showing me something about a kitchen, some sort of meal being prepared, something like that?"

"Margie loved to cook," says the man.

"Ah," says Candace. "And she's got, it looks like, an apron on, or maybe it's a dress. Something with a skirt of some kind. Does that make sense?"

"She did have an apron..." says the man, a little hesitant. Did she have an apron? Everyone who loves to cook has an apron, right? His brow furrows.

Candace steps back. "So many," she says, "sometimes they all come through at once. I'll have to take a second to sort this out..."

"Here," she points to a lady in front. "I think this one's here, with you. I've got a man, older man..."

"My husband," the woman blurts out.

"Well let's be sure, I don't want to mix anyone up..." Candace smiles, the audience chuckles. She's such a warm, reassuring presence.

"He's got, it looks like, a plaid shirt."

"Oh! He always wore plaid shirts. Every day."

"Probably I'm with you, then," says Candace. "He's telling me you have a college-aged son. Is that right?"

The woman's eyes are wide. "Yes, yes we do," she says.

"He says, well, he's showing me something like a diploma, is your son applying to graduate school?" asks Candace.

"Well, we've talked about it..." the woman says.

"He says go ahead with applying," says Candace, "he says your son is going to get some very good news."

"Oh, wonderful, thank you!" gushes the woman. The audience applauds lightly at this lady's good fortune.

"Okay, Candy, that's where you lost me," comes a big, rough voice from the back row.

Candace stops, and shades her eyes with one hand to peer out into the audience. "Yes? Someone had a question?" She is used to hecklers and skeptics, she knows exactly what to do. She has dealt with this hundreds of times.

"No, I don't have a question," says the voice again, "I just said, that's where you lost me."

Candace smiles reassuringly. "I understand, this can all seem very strange..." She squints from the edge of the stage.

"Well, yes, strange, but that's not the issue," says the voice.

People in the audience turn, twisting their necks and torsos to get a look back at the speaker. Seats creak all through the room.

Candace peers harder, finally picking out a man in a baseball cap and blue windbreaker, sitting in the very last seat of the very back row.

Her face goes blank. She can't believe it. It's that cap, and that windbreaker. There is no mistaking.

"Gene? Uncle Gene?"

"Yes, Candy, it's me, ol' Gene. Nice that you remember me."

"But you're..."

"Dead? Well that's not surprising is it? Isn't that what this whole gig is about? Talking to the dead? Good grief, Candy, that seems pretty obvious."

Candace does not do her work this way. She does not carry on conversations with actual dead people sitting in front of her. At least, not until now.

A woman in the next seat over from Uncle Gene gasps in horror, having realized that she can see the back of his seat through his torso. She shrinks away from him, clutching the arm rest. Gene's translucent appearance has quite an effect on the rest of the audience too, many of them rubbing their eyes or turning to each other, looking back at him, then at each other again as if this process will clear their vision.

Gene stands up, with great effort. "I can't push off things hard enough any more," he complains to the people around him. "Takes forever to get around."

"Don't get up," he says to the people seated in his row, walking right through their legs.

Gene reaches the middle aisle of the theatre, and turns to take in the crowd. "Nice bunch you've got here, Candy. Nice people."

"Well, thank you..."

"So, here's where you lost me. See, Candy, when you said somebody was gonna get some good news. Who was that? Was it you, there?" Gene gestures with his faded hand toward the dumbfounded woman with the dead husband.

"Um, yes, well, yes, I suppose..." she stammers.

"Look here, lady. You're a fine person, I'm sure you are. But I've gotta clear some things up for you people. Us dead folks, we can't see the future. Honestly. It's not like we get a cape and superpowers when we die, become superhuman. I'm the same messed up, irritating person now that I was in life. And I was messed up and irritating, wasn't I, Candy?"

Candace, who has stood rooted to the same spot for the last several minutes, suddenly reanimates. "Well, yes, Gene, you were pretty irritating. Are. Pretty irritating. What are you doing here?"

"I'm just helping, Candy," says Gene, walking up the center aisle. "I always took an interest in you, my only niece, didn't I? And like I said, these are good folks. They've suffered the misfortune of losing someone. And they're here because they want a message from those people. To hear something, anything. That's all very admirable, isn't it?"

Candace stares down the aisle at Gene. Her uncle, the crazy uncle nobody understood. And now, here he is again, confusing everybody. Like he did in life. The guy who could be counted on to say something totally inappropriate at every family gathering. But he did always take an interest in her, always sent her a birthday card, wanted to know how she was doing. She realizes now, she appreciated that. A young kid can get lost in all the family events. Gene always took notice of her, treated her like she mattered.

Gene continues. "Well, Candy, if you're gonna give them messages, give them messages. Real messages."

A gasp comes from the crowd. Is this dead guy accusing Candace of being unable to talk to the dead? Does that even make any sense?

"You know what I mean, Candy," says Gene. "None of this sugar-coated bullcrap. You tell them the whole thing."

He stands and looks at her, waiting. She looks back at him.

Finally, she nods and says, "Fine. Okay."

"Good," says Gene. He walks down the aisle to the front of the stage, climbs up (again with some effort given his non-solid nature), stands and looks Candace in the face. He touches her cheek briefly, or seems to anyway, and then he's gone, exit stage right, fading away with a smile and a tip of his translucent baseball cap.

Candace watches him go and then turns back to her audience, who sit in silence. She takes a deep breath. The incense smoke continues to snake toward the ceiling, seeming thin and insubstantial in comparison to the appearance of an actual dead guy.

"Well, then," she says, "time to get on with it, I suppose."

She paces back and forth a bit on the stage, before resuming.

"You, there. Yes, with the yellow sweater. I'm seeing a father figure, passed recently. Yes? Well then, I have to tell you, he's pissed. Really pissed. I'm going to lay it on you, sister. These are the real messages, the whole truth, so get ready."

Candace goes on. "This father figure, first of all, he hated those sweaters you have, with the appliqués of deer and squirrels all over them. Hated those. He notices you're not wearing them any more, which gives him the distinct impression that you only wore them to irritate him."

Yellow sweater's eyeballs are popping out of her head. She nods, slowly.

"Ah, so you did. Well, there's that mystery solved. Also, apparently your sister was a major source of stress for him. Do you have a sister?"

Yellow sweater nods. She has yet to utter a word.

"Well then, your sister sounds like a real nightmare, I have to tell you. Get away from her, he's saying. She'll drive you crazy. Give you an aneurism, he says. Lady is poison."

Dumbfounded silence.

Candace wheels around toward the other side of the audience. "Okay now," she says, "over here, I'm getting a couple, older couple, together, both passed. Someone lose their parents? Yes, over here."

A man in his thirties pokes his hand up. "My parents passed away within two weeks of each other."

"They are showing me, a sofa. With flowers on it? Big flowers?"

The man's eyes roll. "Honestly," he says, "they're still arguing about the stupid couch? God, you guys, can't you let it rest?" He's speaking up into the air.

"They're right next to you sir," says Candace. "No need to talk to the ceiling."

"Whatever," he says. "Mom, Dad, wherever you're hanging around, honestly. You're both idiots. Arguing over a godawful sofa. I should have known."

Candace waits a few beats. Probably better to let this one go.

"And back here," Candace redirects everyone's attention, "last row. I've got, looks like, a male, middle aged, seems like he's... got a shop of some sort? He's showing me something like a bakery, or a store of some kind?"

"My ex-husband had a grocery store..." says a woman.

"Well," says Candace, "this gentleman is saying, congratulations. On something. Did you remarry? He's showing me a wedding ring?"

"Well, yes..." says the woman.

Candace stands still, her face contorts a little. "Um, well, he's showing me... never mind, what he's showing me. Suffice it to say, he's got some opinions about your new husband, it would seem."

"Opinions?"

"Of a private nature, if you get my meaning," says Candace.

A couple of titters from the audience.

"Why, that..." The woman is clearly becoming angry. Of all the people to show up, her ex? What an asshole. It's not helping that the rest of the audience finds this funny.

"Okay, okay, sorry," says Candace, doing all she can to prevent a smirk from taking over her face. She turns away to pick up something else, quit humiliating this poor lady.

"Now, here's something," says Candace, "I've got, a man and a woman again, but different, older, they're showing me... a shovel?"

Silence.

Candace furrows her brow, peering into the space above everyone's heads. "A shovel, and a hole in the ground? Does that make sense to anyone?"

No one moves a muscle.

She looks toward the fourth or fifth row, left side. "Somewhere, over here? I'm getting some kind of connection, to you, sir? Are the two of you together?"

"No, er, yes," stammers a man. The woman next to him has gone white. "I mean, maybe."

"Well which is it?" asks Candace. "Because these folks have a shovel, and they're looking at you two... and they're showing me, for lack of a better term, a shallow grave."

The couple doesn't move. Their eyes are huge. "I, er, we're, we don't know anything about a shovel. Nothing at all."

The woman interjects. "Well, they did love gardening, didn't they, honey?" She grins a huge grin and nods her head vigorously.

"Oh yes, gardening, of course," says the man.

"Well I'd say these folks are talking about a little more than growing tomatoes," says Candace.

"I, well..." the man begins, but the woman jabs him hard in the ribs with her elbow. They both fall silent, staring ahead. The rest of the audience shifts uncomfortably in their seats. A few lean forward, very carefully, to get a look at the couple's faces.

"All right then," says Candace, clapping her hands together. "I'm terribly sorry everyone, but I'm out of time for tonight. Thank you for coming, and as always, remember that spirits are all around us... watching over us, and, well..."

Candace stands silently for a moment, and she begins to laugh. Small chuckles at first, nasal in nature, but then the laughter builds into a rich series of loud guffaws, and she must lean forward and rest her hands on her knees a moment just to remain standing. She composes herself somewhat, and, still laughing, walks to the center of the stage and puts out the incense.

Betsy Streeter _is an author and cartoonist. Her writing has appeared in Perihelion, Literary Orphans, 1000words, Story Shack and others. Her cartoons have been published all over the world for a super long time, including a cartoon in the Smithsonian Astrophysics Observatory's traveling exhibit on black holes in which someone gets sucked into a very dense cake. She has written a YA science fiction novel entitled "Silverwood," and is at work on a second book in the series. She is debuting a new sci fi comic entitled_"Neptunia" at Perihelion _in summer of 2013. She lives in Northern California with her husband, 2 kids, 2 cats and Tina the tarantula._

(Back to Table of Contents)

#  A Midsummer Night's Curse

by Laura Garrison; published July 12, 2013

The station wagon drifted for a few dozen yards, like a raft on a slow-moving river, before coming to a gentle stop at the base of an incline. The red Check Engine light glared accusingly from the dashboard. Around them, the forest stretched away in all directions, broken only by the pitted tarmac of the winding mountain road.

Susan glanced sideways at her husband, Paul, who was staring straight ahead through the windshield. His hands were still on the steering wheel, as if he hadn't noticed the car was no longer in motion.

The radio was on, presumably running on battery power. It was tuned to the only station with a clear signal: WPOL, The Polecat, broadcasting from Marlinton in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. At the moment, a dejected Hank Williams was informing them there was a hole in his bucket and, as a result, he would be unable to purchase any beer.

That seemed to be as good an opening as she was likely to get, so Susan turned to Paul. "Speaking of problems, we seem to have developed a small one of our own. Any idea what might be wrong?"

A sheepish expression crept over Paul's face. "Actually, yes. Do you remember a couple of months ago when Frank left that message about how we should make an appointment to replace the timing belt?"

Frank was their mechanic. Susan had no memory of the message, and she wasn't quite sure what a timing belt was, but she could see where this was going.

On the radio, Hank Williams gave way to a commercial for Tudor's Biscuit World, a local fast-food chain. Susan's stomach rumbled, and she switched the radio off. They had spent most of the afternoon walking at a leisurely pace on easy-to-moderate trails, but she had eaten her last granola bar over two hours earlier when they had stopped to rest on a moss-covered boulder the size of a triceratops. _And that's a long time when you're eating for two, right, little dude?_ she thought, glancing down at her stomach. At five months, she wasn't exactly a whale, but she had definitely reached the stage of being visibly pregnant.

While Paul got out to poke around in the engine, Susan opened the glove compartment and pulled out a road map.

Paul returned to the car after a cursory inspection under the hood. "Timing belt," he confirmed. "This is bad. What's the closest town?"

"Let's see," she said, studying the map. "How far have we gone past Beechnut Falls?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Maybe fifteen miles?"

Susan nodded. "Yeah, that sounds about right. Looks like we'll be hoofing it all the way back to Rusty Springs; it's about twelve miles north of here. Good thing we're in hiking shape, huh?" She tried to smile, but her eyes strayed to the west, where the last rays of sun were casting their thin amber glow through the trees.

They had rented a cabin in Rusty Springs for the week, hoping to enjoy a break from civilization and bring a little wilderness into their lives. They had proudly left their phones and laptops back in their high-rise apartment, bringing only board games and paperback novels for entertainment.

Paul put his hand on Susan's knee. "Hey," he said. "Do you want to wait here while I walk back? I'm sure I could get the property manager or someone from another cabin to drive me back down to pick you up."

"Are you kidding? I'm not spending half the night in our busted car in the middle of Appalachian territory with nothing but a rolled-up map for fending off curious bears and hillbillies."

"Okay, okay," Paul said, laughing. "Then let's get a move on. No sense wasting the last few minutes of daylight."

They got out of the car. Susan pulled a red hooded sweatshirt out of the backseat and put it on while Paul adjusted the straps on his backpack.

They set off together, with Paul matching Susan's sedate pace. Halfway to the top of the hill, she stopped. "Look," she said, pointing. "There's an old house down there."

It wasn't much more than a shack. The windows were broken, the front door was missing, and the rotting boards seemed ready to collapse in the next good puff of wind. The only respectably sturdy feature was a crooked stone chimney.

As they watched, a blue heron stepped out from behind the house. It waded into a nearby marsh, taking high, delicate steps and switching its head from side to side. Then, moving almost too fast to see, it stabbed its pointed beak into the water and came up with a wriggling frog. Working its flexible neck with oddly graceful motions, the heron forced the frog into its throat and swallowed it. The frog's legs were still kicking as it disappeared.

Susan shivered and turned away.

"Yikes," Paul said. "I mean, I know we talked a good game about coming out here to 'experience nature,' but that was a little too Discovery Channel for my taste."

They got moving again. The stars began to appear as the last of the sun faded from the sky. In the twilight, thousands of crickets began to chirp. Fireflies zipped around, blinking their taillights on and off.

"Do you want me to get the flashlight out?" Paul asked.

"Not yet," Susan said. "We can still see the road. Maybe when we're going down the hill on the other side."

But when they reached the top of the hill, they realized no flashlight would be necessary. Spread out below them were the welcoming lights of a small town, nestled into a valley not half a mile from where they stood.

"I'll be damned," Paul said. "I guess this wasn't on the map, huh?"

"Salientia," Susan said, reading the name on a sign along the side road that led into the town. "Nope. Pretty. I would definitely remember that name."

"Well, considering it saved us from being walking cougar snacks for the next four hours, I'm just glad it's here."

Susan slipped her hand into Paul's, and he gave it a squeeze.

They walked into the town that way, hand-in-hand, like children in a fairy tale. Salientia's central boulevard was lined on both sides with sturdy brick buildings. Strings of colored paper lanterns crisscrossed over the street, and there were lots of people milling around outside. Several boys were playing leapfrog in the grass, and a few girls were crowded around a hopscotch court on the sidewalk, where the street lamps provided enough light for them to see the chalk lines. All the girls were wearing dresses, which struck Susan as charmingly old-fashioned.

_It's not just the dresses, either_ , she thought. _I can't remember the last time I've seen so many children playing outside_. She caught the eye of one of the girls who was waiting for her turn at hopscotch. Susan waved, but the girl just gaped at her, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, without returning the wave. Some of the adults were also watching them closely as they passed, and a few of them turned and whispered to each other.

Paul nudged Susan's shoulder. "Let's try that diner. I could really go for a cup of coffee, and they might have a phone we could use."

Warm light spilled through the diner's plate-glass windows, where a neon sign spelled out "Jeremiah's" in pink script. Underneath the sign, a cardboard rectangle reading, "Come on in; we're OPEN" dangled from a hook on a clear plastic suction cup. A bell tinkled when they opened the door.

The only other customers were two teenaged couples drinking sodas in one of the booths. Both of the boys had on letterman's jackets, and the girls were wearing short-sleeved cardigans and knee-length skirts. They looked like extras from the set of _Happy Days_.

There was a row of chrome stools topped with round leather cushions in front of the counter. As Paul and Susan climbed onto the two in the middle, a tall man in a white apron with "Jeremiah" embroidered on it came over and set a napkin in front of each of them. He was almost completely bald, with just a fringe of hair behind his ears. "Evenin', folks. Can I pour you some coffee?" he asked.

"I'd love some," Paul said.

"Do you have decaf?" Susan asked.

"Yup," Jeremiah said. He set two cups and saucers on the counter, then grabbed two pots of coffee off their warmers and poured from them both at the same time, filling Susan's cup from the pot with the orange lid. Then he went to the refrigerator and came back with a small pitcher of cream.

"Thank you," Susan said. "You aren't still serving food at this hour, I suppose?"

"I think we might have some grasshopper pie in the back. Let me check with Lily; she's our cook." He pushed through a metal door with a glass porthole in it, and they could hear him talking to someone in the kitchen as they sipped their coffee.

A moment later a plump woman who looked to be in her late fifties or early sixties came through the door with a slice of acid-green pie on a plate. She wore a simple black dress under her apron, and her hair hung down her back in a long silver braid. Smiling shyly, she set the plate in front of Susan, whose eyes widened when she saw the woman's hands. Lily's fingers were webbed, and — stranger still — she had no fingernails. Each slim finger simply ended in a soft bulb of smooth flesh, like a rubber ball.

"This looks delicious!" Susan lied, picking up her fork and forcing herself to look up into Lily's round face. She nearly dropped the fork when she saw Lily's eyes. The irises were gold. Not earthy yellow but true metallic gold, like doubloons. She couldn't tear her gaze away from them.

"Thank you so much; my wife was very hungry," Paul said, elbowing Susan lightly.

Susan managed to nod as she stabbed the pie with her fork. She remembered the way the blue heron had speared the frog with its sharp beak, and for a moment she struggled against a rising tide of bile in the back of her throat. Then she pushed the image from her mind, lifted a quivering forkful of pie to her mouth, and swallowed it. "Mmm," she said. "Very tasty." That was actually true; the pie was much better than its aggressive coloring suggested.

Lily beamed. "I'm so glad you like it," she said. Her gold eyes shimmered. They were beautiful, once you got used to them. She had hidden her hands under her apron, and Susan hoped she hadn't embarrassed her by staring at them.

When Jeremiah came over to refill their coffee, Paul explained what had happened to their car and asked if there was a phone he could use to call a cab.

"Sure, but I should tell you that the closest cab company is over in Beckley, and they'll charge you an arm and a leg to come all that way at this time of night. If I were you, I'd spend the night here in town — the Cattail Inn is real nice — and then give Emery a call in the morning. He has a garage right around the corner, and he does good work for fair prices. Plus, he'll tow your car for free."

Paul turned to Susan. "What do you think?"

She pretended to deliberate. "Hmm. A hot shower and a good night's sleep, or a long wait for an overpriced ride in a smelly cab. What to do?"

Paul turned back to Jeremiah. "Where is this Cattail Inn?"

Jeremiah's face lit up. "You mean you've decided to stay? That's marvelous! It's right down the street. Just look for the big flowerpots."

Lily looked pleased as well, but she seemed a little distracted. Her eyes kept darting nervously towards the diner's front door, as if she were expecting someone whom she did not particularly wish to see.

Susan had another bite of pie. "This is really great," she said. "What do we owe you?"

"It's on the house," Jeremiah said. "I wouldn't feel right taking your money on Midsummer's Eve. Besides," he added, with a glance at Susan's midsection, "I can see you're in the family way, and I'm sure you two are saving your pennies."

Susan shifted uncomfortably. She didn't like discussing her pregnancy with strangers. "Yes, that's true. I hadn't realized it was midsummer already. That's the shortest night of the year, isn't it?"

Something flickered across Jeremiah's face. Susan thought it might have been a frown, but it vanished so quickly she couldn't be sure. "Yes. It's a very special night for Salientia." He sounded wistful, almost melancholy.

"Oh, really?" Paul asked. "Why is that?"

"It's sort of a nod to our heritage, I suppose. According to local legend, the group of settlers who founded this place in the seventeenth century used to worship an unconventional deity called Rana, whom they believed had always lived here in the wetlands. Midsummer's Eve was set aside as his special feast day, and everyone stayed up all night celebrating in his honor."

"Sounds like fun," Susan said, with her mouth full of pie.

"It was," Jeremiah said. "For a while, anyway. Eventually, though, after discovering the freshly mangled bones of some settlers and noting how several others had disappeared altogether, those who remained decided that Rana was not a god after all, but only a terrible swamp monster who used his physical strength and unnatural longevity to prey upon humans."

"That sounds less fun," Susan said. "What did they do?"

"According to legend, the monster could not be killed, but they came up with a spell that put him into a state of deep hibernation under the marsh, and he remained there undisturbed for many years. It's at this point that the story gets a little fuzzy. Some accounts simply end with Rana's banishment, while others add a nasty little afterward to the tale."

"Well, don't leave us hanging," Paul said. He took a swig of his coffee.

"There is a rumor," Jeremiah said slowly, "that one young woman who was well-versed in both the dark arts and the town's history decided to try to awaken the swamp monster. She convinced herself that he would be so grateful to have been raised from his slumber that he would take her as his bride, and perhaps even allow her to share in his immortality. Together, she imagined, they would take over the town, the country, the world."

Susan shuddered. "I'm guessing this story doesn't end with, 'and they lived happily ever after,' does it?"

"Unfortunately not," Jeremiah said. "No one knows what blasphemous ritual she performed to raise him from his watery cave, or how she sent him back after she realized she had made a terrible mistake. But by then it was too late; she was already carrying the monster's offspring. When she gave birth, the townsfolk's suspicions were confirmed — the young woman had lain with a monster and conceived an abomination. Some accounts say that the mother and child were run out of town. Others say they were both hanged, or burned at the stake."

"Wow," Paul said. "That's some story."

Susan put her hand to her mouth to stifle a yawn. "Well, thank you so much for the history lesson, and for the coffee and pie, but we should probably get going."

"It was my pleasure," Jeremiah said. "I'm sorry your car broke down, but if it had to happen somewhere, I'm glad it happened here, tonight."

"So are we," Paul said. "We'll probably stop by in the morning, if you're going to be open for breakfast."

Jeremiah and Lily exchanged a glance. "That," Jeremiah sighed, "would be wonderful."

"Then it's a date," Paul said. "Come on, Suze," he added, taking her arm. "Let's go find out if the Cattail Inn allows grubby hikers to stay in its fine suites."

They stepped out onto the street, where the celebration had picked up considerably since their arrival. A jug band was playing a rousing version of "On the Road Again," and several couples were dancing in the street. Susan spotted the teenagers from the diner among them. A group of children ran by with sparklers in their hands.

Several people smiled at Paul and Susan as they walked down the street. They spotted the Cattail Inn, which was indeed flanked by two enormous granite pots filled with clusters of the lodging's namesake plant. The heavy tops looked like velvet sausages skewered on slender reeds.

They had almost reached the entrance when a dark form slipped out from an alley like smoke and stopped right in front of them. Susan stumbled and almost fell. She instinctively put a protective hand in front of her stomach, but Paul grabbed her shoulders and steadied her before she could tumble to the ground.

"Watch it, Ma'am," Paul said. "It's crowded out here tonight, so you ought to look both ways before you —"

"Hush!" the woman hissed. A tattered coat hung from her bony frame. Her face was sharp and pinched, and there were cobwebs of wrinkles bunched around the corners of her sunken eyes. "You have been deceived," she said. "This town is under a terrible curse."

"Okay," Paul said in a soothing voice. "Thank you for letting us know. But we're leaving tomorrow, so I think we'll be —"

"Tomorrow will be too late!" She was ignoring Paul and speaking directly to Susan. "You must leave now, tonight, before dawn," the old woman said. Her dark eyes snapped and sparked in their deep sockets. She reached out and placed her hand on Susan's belly, fingers splayed, like a dead starfish. Her fingernails were yellowed and thick, as if she had some sort of fungal infection. Susan could have sworn she felt something, an energy or a pulse, flowing out of the woman's hand like radiation, invisible but dangerous.

"No, don't. Please, take your hand off my —" Susan was almost whimpering.

Paul reached out and put his own hand on the woman's wrist, trying to pull her hand away from Susan, but although he tugged on it as hard as he could, actually grunting with effort, she barely seemed to notice; she just waved her other hand at him as if she were shooing away a pesky fly, and he stopped immediately, dropping his arms to his sides.

"This town is cursed," the old woman repeated. Her breath was like a flutter of moth wings on Susan's face, and there was an urgent note in her voice that bordered on desperation. "You cannot stay here. Especially not in your... delicate condition." She pressed for a moment on Susan's belly, then took her hand away. "It's cursed, I tell you!" she shouted one last time as she faded back into the shadows of the alley.

When she was gone, Paul shook his head as if to clear it. "Are you all right?" he asked Susan. He looked a little dazed.

"I think so," Susan said. She brushed at the front of her sweatshirt, trying to remove the residue of the woman's touch and wishing she could wipe it from her memory as well.

They entered the lobby of the Cattail Inn, which was small and cozy, with wood paneling on the walls and a stained-glass lamp on the check-in desk. A young man with glasses and curly brown hair was standing behind the desk. "How may I help you?" he asked.

"We'd like a room for the night," Paul said.

"Certainly," the young man replied. "That will be twelve dollars, please."

"For the whole night?" Paul asked.

"Yes, sir." Suddenly he sounded worried. "You will be staying until morning, won't you?"

"Of course we will. I was just surprised that your rates are so — reasonable." Paul shrugged off his backpack and fished out his wallet. He handed the young man a twenty-dollar bill.

Looking tremendously relieved, the man took the money and tucked it into the drawer of an antique brass cash register. He handed Paul a five and three ones, then turned to a small pegboard and took down a silver key. "Room Number Four. Just go right up the stairs; it will be the second door on your left," the young man said, handing Paul the key. "Thank you for choosing to stay with us."

They went up the stairs, which groaned and creaked beneath their weight. When they reached the second door on the left, Paul unlocked it with the silver key. He fumbled with the light switch and turned on the small iron chandelier that hung over the bed. The walls were the color of dill pickles, and a large rug patterned with lotus blossoms covered most of the hardwood floor. The plaid comforter on the bed matched the curtains on the window, which had been tied back with ribbons, although the only view was the brick wall of the building next door.

Susan headed straight for the bathroom. She pulled off her sweatshirt and set it on the closed lid of the toilet. Then she reached for the tap over the bathtub, pausing to admire the tub's large bronze feet. They were not the usual lion's paws; they had pebbly skin and long, curving claws, like alligator feet.

She turned on the tap, then cried out in disgust as a thick rope of gray-green water poured out. It had a rotten smell, like decaying plant matter. The rubber stopper was looped over the tap on its chain, but something must have been blocking the drain, because the tub quickly began to fill with murky water. She tried to twist the lever the other way, meaning to shut it off, but the handle slipped loosely through her fingers and fell into the tub with a _splunk_ , splashing fetid water into her face.

" _Ugh_!" she sputtered. Then, more loudly, "Paul! I need some help in here!" She grabbed a towel from the rack and blotted her face with it, leaving green smudges on the clean white cotton.

He poked his head in the door. "Phew, what stinks?" he asked, waving his hand theatrically in front of his nose. "Is it _the curse_?" He looked at the tub. "Oh. Shit. What happened to the handle?"

"It fell in." She stood up and moved away from the tub. The water coming out of the tap was churning up a pile of beige foam.

Paul rolled up his sleeve and knelt beside the tub. With a grimace, he plunged his hand into the dark water and scrabbled his fingers across the bottom. Suddenly he yelped and yanked his hand out, scrambling to his feet. He was clutching the handle and staring into the water. "There's something _alive_ in there," he said. "Something slimy."

Leaning gingerly over the tap, keeping his body as far away from the tub as possible, Paul twisted the handle back into place. He swiveled it, shutting off the noxious flow. The water had risen almost to the lip of the tub; in a few more seconds, it would have poured over the side in a swampy waterfall. As the surface of the water stilled, a large bubble rose slowly to the surface, where it burst with a soggy _blorp_ sound.

There was a plunger next to the toilet. Paul picked it up and lowered it into the water. He pressed it firmly over the drain and worked the handle up and down. Something came loose, and the water began to drain. A clump of some strange weed bobbed up from the depths of the gray-green water. Its leaves were dotted with round growths like yellow pustules.

"Do you think that's what you felt under the water?" Susan asked.

"No, I'm pretty sure _that's_ what I felt," Paul said, pointing at the other end of the tub, where a brown eel was swimming in a circle. Susan gasped.

Now that there was only a little water left in the tub, they could see it fairly clearly. It was perhaps eighteen inches long, and its body was round, like a snake's. They watched as the tug of the whirlpool dragged it towards the drain. It went down tail-first, and just before its head dropped out of sight, Susan caught a glimpse of its face and could have sworn it was _smiling_.

"What do we do now?" Paul asked. "Should I call the front desk?"

"Let's just deal with it in the morning. They're not going to send someone up to fix it tonight. Not on Midsummer's Eve," Susan said, rolling her eyes. "Right now, I just want to go to bed. Maybe if I fall asleep right away, I'll be able to convince myself that I dreamed the whole thing."

"What whole thing?" Paul said, assuming a blank expression.

She managed a tired chuckle. "Exactly."

Before climbing into bed, Susan opened the window, hoping to air out some of the smell. Then she lay down on the bed, fully clothed, and closed her eyes. She heard the toilet flush, and a minute later Paul came out of the bathroom and climbed into bed next to her.

"You want to hear something weird?" he asked.

"Not really," she replied without opening her eyes.

He went on as if he hadn't heard. "The water in the toilet and the sink are fine. Crystal clear. No wildlife of any kind."

"That is weird," she agreed. "We should definitely discuss that in the morning. But it's bedtime now."

He leaned over to give her a kiss. "Good night." He scooted down and kissed her sweatshirt in the vicinity of her belly button. "And good night to you, little dude," he said. He switched off the bedside lamp.

Paul fell asleep almost instantly, but Susan lay awake for a few minutes, listening to the sounds of the festivities outside. The noise wasn't too loud; their room was set a good ways back from the main street, but she could hear a muted babble of voices and, ever so faintly, someone picking out "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" on the banjo.

Susan wasn't sure exactly when she fell asleep, but when she woke up a few hours later, the revelers had finally fallen silent. She could hear something, though. A scratching sound, small but annoying. She opened her eyes.

A face was staring at her through the window. It was the old woman who had accosted them outside the inn. Her skeletal face was frozen in a silent scream, exposing the dark cavern of her throat and a few discolored stubs of teeth that clung to her gums like barnacles. Her long silver hair floated around her head like the fronds of some unearthly water plant. She was scraping one of her horny fingernails against the window screen.

Susan lay completely still, too shocked to move or even think; her brain was all sirens and flashing lights. Then she felt something roll in her abdomen. It was a lurching, awkward movement, as if the football-sized being inside her was trying to turn away from the thing in the window.

That got Susan going. She rolled onto her side, grabbed Paul's shoulder, and gave it a good shake. "Honey, wake up! There's a crazy woman at the window!"

"Hzzzwha?"

"I said there's —"

But the woman was gone.

"She must have gone down the fire escape," Susan said. Heart pounding, she stood up and went to the window, pressing her forehead to the screen so she could look down. But there was no fire escape; the flat brick wall of the building extended all the way to the ground, twenty feet below. There was no sign of the old woman anywhere.

"Okay. That's it. We're leaving," Susan announced.

"What? Now?" Paul said. "It's not even five o'clock! Can't we just go back to sleep for a couple of hours?"

"You can if you want to. I can't wait any longer. This place is really starting to freak me out." A tear rolled down to the tip of her nose as she bent to tie her sneakers, and she wiped it away impatiently.

Paul came over to give her a hug before putting on his own shoes and slipping his backpack over his shoulders. "Ready," he said.

They tiptoed down the creaky stairs. The young man who had checked them in was asleep with his head on the desk. Beside him were an empty tumbler and a plate with a half-eaten piece of grasshopper pie on it.

The sky was already lightening in the east; the sun would be up in a few minutes. The street was empty except for a few paper cups and streamers. Without the crowds of people, the street looked smaller, and in the pre-dawn dimness all the features of the town — the buildings, the lamp posts, the benches, the trashcans — looked less substantial, less _there_ , than they had the previous evening. They were like pictures someone had cut out of a book.

They had almost reached the place where the road wound back up to the state highway. Susan spotted the back of the sign they had passed on their way into town, although it wasn't quite light enough to make out the words on this side yet.

"This is probably the lack of sleep talking, but does the pavement feel kind of squishy to you all of a sudden?" Paul asked.

"Now that you mention it, yeah," Susan said. "Almost like a sponge."

They quickened their pace a little. The condition of the road surface continued to deteriorate at an alarming rate.

"Look," Susan said. She pressed her sneaker into pavement and lifted it out with a squelching noise, leaving behind a footprint that quickly filled up with water.

They stared at each other, alarmed. "Maybe we should run," Paul said.

Susan ran, or at least tried to. The asphalt grew less solid with every step, and it pulled at her sneakers like quicksand, trying to slow her down.

Paul followed her closely, doing his best to keep the panic out of his voice. "We're almost out," he said. "Just a few more steps."

The sign was right in front of them now. The sky was lighter, but the black letters had started to drip down the white background like runny frosting. Susan thought she saw the words, "Here Ends Salientia," but she couldn't be certain.

"Damn it, my shoe is stuck," Paul said from somewhere behind her.

"Just leave it!" Susan called back.

She stepped past the sign, and the first sliver of sun appeared over the top the mountains to her left. As pleasant as it was to feel its warmth on her face, the sensation under her feet was even more comforting — solid pavement.

Susan heard a splash. She turned around to check on Paul, but he was gone.

The whole town was gone. Where the roads and the houses and the people had been, there was only a wide expanse of wetland. The rising sun glinted off pools of standing water between hillocks of marsh grass. The edge of the nearest pool came up almost to the end of the pavement, which now stopped four inches beyond the toes of Susan's sneakers. Splintered stumps dotted the landscape like jagged fangs, many with the waterlogged trunks of fallen trees beside them. Dragonflies hovered in the air like bits of colored foil, red and blue and green. And there were bullfrogs _everywhere_ ; there wasn't a single log that didn't have a row of them, and Susan could see many pairs of round gold eyes in the pools, peeping at her from just above the waterline.

"Paul!" she shouted. _Don't panic_ , she told herself sternly. _Maybe he got ahead of me, somehow. He's probably just out of sight on the other side of that hill_.

She was standing near the bottom of the hill they had walked over after their car had broken down. Taking slow, purposeful steps, she began to make her way around it. There was a thick layer of damp leaves on the ground, and the soil beneath them felt reasonably sturdy.

When she had walked about a third of the way around the base of the hill, she spotted the ramshackle old house with the crooked chimney she had pointed out on their way into town the night before. Something — _someone_ — was inside; she saw movement through one of the broken windows. " _Paul?_ " she called, waving. " _Is that you_?" When the figure in the window waved back, Susan broke into a run. Two minutes later, she arrived, panting, at the rectangular hole that served as the cabin's front door.

Inside, seated at a small table, was Lily, the cook from Jeremiah's diner. "Please come in," she said. Her voice was soft, and although she was smiling, her gold eyes looked sad.

"What's happening here?" Susan asked, dropping into the chair across from Lily. "I just watched an entire town disappear, and now I can't find my husband."

"Your husband is all right."

"He is?" Susan leaned forward. "You've seen him? Where is he?"

"He is someplace safe. I think I'd better explain a few things before I tell you anything more."

Susan began to feel uneasy again. "What do you mean?"

Instead of answering, Lily went over to the hearth, where a kettle was warming over the coals. A moment later, she returned with two steaming clay mugs. She set one on the table in front of Susan. "It's herbal tea," she said. It had a spicy smell, like cloves mixed with peppercorns.

Lily sat down again, wrapping her smooth, webbed fingers around her own mug as if to warm them. "My mother was telling you the truth," she said quietly, gazing down at her cup. "Salientia is under a terrible curse."

For a moment, Susan had no idea what she was talking about. Then she understood. "The old woman from the alley — you're her daughter?"

"I am."

"And the two of you live here, together?" A nasty thought crossed Susan's mind, and she glanced warily around the tiny room. To her right was a set of rickety bunk beds, but aside from their moldering sleeping bags and filthy pillows, both bunks were empty. "Where is your mother now?" she asked.

"Hunting," Lily said. "As I was saying, she told you the truth, but she didn't tell you all of it. You may have noticed that my appearance is," she held up one of her webbed hands and wiggled her finger-bulbs, "unusual."

Susan nodded, unable to think of a polite response.

"There's more," Lily said. "Watch this."

A bluebottle fly was crawling across the frame of the top bunk. Lily's tongue shot out, extending itself more than a yard in the process, nabbed the fly, and pulled it into her mouth. It was over in a fraction of a second; there was a fly, a pink flash, and then no more fly. Lily looked at Susan bashfully, just as she had the night before when she had brought out the slice of grasshopper pie.

"That's... remarkable," Susan said.

Lily blushed. "I know it's sort of gross. But to understand what's happening here, you have to know why I am the way that I —" she broke off, staring over Susan's shoulder at something in the doorway.

As Susan turned to look, a blue heron stepped into the cabin. A scrap of something bloody dangled from its beak.

Susan ducked and cried out as the heron flapped its way up to the top bunk. She felt one of its feet drag through her hair as it passed over her head. When the heron reached the bunk, it shimmered and transformed into a shape that was more human but no less frightening.

"So," the old woman said, peering down at Lily from her perch. "I suppose you've been having quite a chat with your new friend. Or should I say," she added, turning to leer at Susan, " _my_ new friend."

"I would hardly say that you and I are friends," Susan said, having recovered somewhat from this most recent shock.

"Oh, but you have been so helpful to me," the woman said. "Why, if you had stayed in town even a moment longer than you did, you would have broken my curse!" She collapsed onto the bed, cackling wildly. There was a chilling lunacy in the sound.

Susan turned to Lily, her face pale. "What is she talking about?"

Lily dropped her eyes and began tracing the rim of her mug with one round fingertip. "Do you remember the story Jeremiah told you last night, about the woman who slept with the swamp monster and gave birth to something that wasn't quite human?"

Realization dawned in Susan's eyes, and she looked from Lily to her mother in horror.

"They took one look at my beautiful baby and ran us out of town," the old woman spat. "They deserve every minute of misery they've had since."

"What you saw last night," Lily continued, "is the town as it was on the day I was born. What you saw after the sun came up this morning is how it exists the rest of the time, thanks to my mother. Although many years have passed, the townsfolk have not aged. In order to keep the pain of the transformation fresh, Salientia returns to its former state from sundown to sunrise every year on Midsummer's Eve. Only one thing has changed — over the years, the townsfolk have warmed up to me. I have many friends there." She gave her mother a pointed look.

In a huff, the old woman hopped down from the bunk, landing on two spindly bird's legs. The blue heron stalked moodily out the door.

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand what any of this has to do with me," Susan said, after the old woman was gone.

"Every curse can be broken," Lily said. "It's a sort of dark magic safety feature. In this case, if a new mother, or one who is expecting her first baby, were ever to spend a full night in Salientia, arriving in the evening and remaining there until sunrise, then the townspeople could go back to living their normal lives. My mother assumed this would never happen. She did not think the town would ever extend a warm welcome to a stranger on the one night it appeared, and because the land is so swampy the rest of the year, she figured no one would ever inadvertently decide to camp there."

"Do you mean to say," Susan said, dropping her voice to a whisper, "that if I stay out there tonight, alone, in the place where the town is supposed to be, then the curse would be broken?"

"Yes," Lily said. "But you won't have to stay there alone. I have a tent that we can share. My mother might try to meddle again, but I think I can fend her off. With my help, you can restore this place permanently to its true form." Then her face clouded. "Speaking of things that need to be restored to their true forms, I have something I must show you."

She got up and went over to the corner by the hearth, where there was a woven basket with a hinged lid. It was about the size of a lunch box. She picked it up and set it down carefully on the table. "Do you know what's in here?" she asked.

"I'm afraid I do," Susan replied. "But how did you —"

"These wetlands are my home," Lily said. "I have ways of moving very quickly through this landscape. And my mother isn't the only one who can blend into the scenery when she wants to."

"I see," Susan said. Steeling herself, she opened the lid of the basket.

The contents emitted a deep bass croak.

"Hello, Paul," she said.

Laura Garrison is moving slowly from the north to the south, like a glacier. Her fiction and poetry occasionally surface in various locations. She is currently the Associate Editor at Jersey Devil Press.

(Back to Table of Contents)

#  Past Another Sky

by Scott Birrenkott; published July 16, 2013

Second Place Award, July 2013 Fiction Contest

The shuttle came down as a blaze from the distant sun. I watched it slow in an instant, landing just outside the town and beyond my view. Above me, just past the hazy atmosphere that didn't belong on this moon, was the outline of the ship the shuttle had come from. I wouldn't have even known the ship was there if not for the way it blocked out the stars. I tried to guess at why Earth had sent such a ship to this place, our moon being nothing but another humble claim to space, but I already knew too well.

A creaking vibration reminded me where I was, and where I was going. I made my way through the town and decided the background noise was more of a rickety hum than a true creaking. The sound didn't bother me much but I could never quite ignore it, either. There was also the constant, stubborn mist that fell over the entire town, but I had a good firm hat and duster for that.

Bright white lights shined from where they were perched on poles, guiding me through the town. Mixed with the lights there was a bluish tint to the air that gave everything a much-needed liveliness. Without it the shuttered homes were as gray as the earth. Sometimes a little life would make itself known, with a tomato plant or stalk of corn peeking out from behind one of the fortified gardens that were hidden on the roof of every structure.

I hesitated with a cigarette outside the mayor's house. I didn't think she'd mind if I smoked but I put the roll away anyway. I could always change my mind later.

When I went inside the mayor was behind her wooden desk. It was nice, carved and varnished and everything, probably the only bit of luxury tree in the whole town. She was sitting there working, and I knew she had heard me come in, so I waited for her to finish.

"You saw the shuttle come down, no doubt," she said without looking up, putting one data slate aside and reaching for another.

"Big ship for such a small place," I said, looking up as if I'd be able to see the craft again.

" _The Worldbridge_." The mayor nodded, holding up one of her slates to scrutinize it more closely.

"Pardon?"

She ignored me. Her eyes continued to scan the slate, back and forth, narrowing as they moved. After she finished, or was content enough to stop, the mayor put the slate down and turned to me.

" _The Worldbridge_. That's the name of that particular ship, the one that burned more fuel than our whole town is probably worth to get here."

"For one man to get here, I'd wager." I wanted to wonder why, but I reminded myself that I already knew. Or that I ought to know.

"Better one man than a whole lot of them," the mayor said. She pushed her chair back to walk around her desk, and I watched her move, taking her in as she looked away.

Her dark crimson dress was smooth on her body. It was particular to her figure, and I followed it down to her legs where it opened at the sides. The dress was flashy, fancy even, and its gold embroidery was elaborate enough. Perhaps a man of class would have appreciated it, maybe even on another world one would scoff at the dress's modesty, but the entire perky outfit was too much for me.

Mayor Escle was pretty enough and I'd have rather seen her out of the whole garment than try to appreciate her in it, to have the truth of it. When she turned back to me I had to keep my eyes from speculating over that particular fantasy, though. Such a thing would be insulting, disrespectful. Instead, I hid my desires by pushing a cig to my lips.

I hadn't lasted very long, though smoking was a lesser disrespect and one I didn't care as much to hide. The mayor noticed it all the same; she brushed her hand over her desk and tapped at it lightly as she regarded this particular affront.

Escle moved beside a glossy table to the side of her desk. It wasn't wooden, but was a good replica. I wasn't sure how I could tell it was fake, possibly because of how close it was to the solid wood desk it shared the room with. Either way, I was far more interested in what it held.

"Drink?" Escle offered.

"I wouldn't refuse."

The mayor took out two solid glasses and pondered over a variety of old bottles. She certainly had the best drink, distilled from far off world, from Earth, even. I could tell by the bottle she chose and by its sweetly stinging scent as she poured it. I tried to keep my glance casual, though it was futile. My glistening obsession couldn't be concealed. Not that it needed to be, the mayor knew me well enough.

Escle regarded me coolly as she let the bottle waver over the second glass.

"A man really shouldn't tempt himself with such vices. I'll take that burden for you, Sheriff."

She poured again, only once more into the first glass instead of mine. Then she downed most of it in one take.

"That shuttle," Escle said, half to herself. She circled back around her desk and glanced out the window behind it. "You know why it's here?" She turned back to me.

I nodded.

"And you know why you're here?" She swirled the remains of her drink.

"S'pose I could assume that, too. Though I never make more than one. Assumption, that is. Matters start to get tricky past one."

"I'd like you to receive Earth's marshal from his shuttle."

"He should be able to find his way without me."

Escle swallowed the rest of her drink and glared at the empty glass.

"He certainly could. But you'll agree he's here for a problem we should have sorted out on our own, yes?"

I said nothing, and she paused to wait. After a moment Escle returned the glass to its table. She considered the bottle for another fill before pushing it away and turning back to stare me down.

"This is the tricky part," I said.

"Marshal's here to kill a man." She tapped her finger on the desk. "I want you to go with him."

"Marshal can take care of himself."

"No doubt. But I want him to know the town takes care of its own." Escle leaned over her desk.

I tossed the remains of my cig aside to let her know I understood, and what I thought of it.

"Town already decided what to do about this problem. That's why the marshal's here at all."

"The marshal's here to remind us who's in charge. Walsh was our problem, but he ran off. He wanted his own law, and he can wander off past the sky and make it there for all I care." Escle tapped harder at her desk. "Even if we had marched out and dragged him back, what could we have done? Now he's gone and got Earth's attention, and we can't rightly ignore him anymore."

I kept quiet. I had nothing to say on that matter. Escle knew how I dealt with Walsh at the time he went wrong, and there was no point bringing it up now.

"Damn, man, I'd do it myself." Escle clenched her fist and stared at her family's pistol where it was propped up on her desk. I imagined if she still held her glass she would have smashed it at this point. "I'm trying to maintain our way of life here. My time's invested in other matters."

"I know you got a lot of people to please, lots of choices to make. If that's how you need to justify this, I'll go." I nodded and made to leave.

"Like hell. I'm not saying I'm right, just that I'm the one who got stuck in the place to decide what is."

"Walsh too, then." I turned back around. I shouldn't have said that, it was one assumption too far, but I let my frustrations get the better of me.

"He gave up rights to that claim when he raped that girl."

I couldn't argue there. Walsh had given up a lot of things when he took to that sin, but he was a decent man before that. Before the tension and politics that had left his younger sister in charge instead of him, and before the disgrace he had surely felt after. Still, it was best not to argue.

So that was it. I was to be the vicarious killer. To lay this long lingering shame to rest, and to give Escle some peace that she had taken a part in it.

"I should be going." I brushed my side to be sure my weapon was still there and to let the mayor know I was aware of its importance.

~~~~~

My badge meant little in town, where its authority was implied at best. Out here, near the scorched landing fields, it meant nothing.

I heard spacers and vagabonds muttering around me in that patchwork language they thought I couldn't understand. A few of them gave me challenging glances so I tugged at my coat, just enough to reveal the holstered pistol at my waist. That was usually enough to allow me my way around anyone not carrying one.

The air was better out here, or worse, depending on how you looked at it. It was a little harder to breathe but each step was easier and took you a little further. That and the moisture was down to nothing but a thin fog.

I didn't know much about the electromagnetic atmosphere the town had, but it was certainly weaker the further out you got. I knew our artificial sky didn't reach forever. Walk off too far and there wasn't anything to breathe or hold you down.

Along the horizon I could see the distant, crumbling ruins of abandoned structures. Between that failed homestead and the town I came from was the rest of spaceport and Earth's shuttle.

Near the shuttle I could see a group of thick-suited workers dragging around an intricate set of equipment. From the way they were meticulously swiping tube-like devices around their shuttle I guessed it was some sort of static vacuum.

I saw an automaton carrying a crate much larger than itself away from the workers. It moved its feet in a belabored series of motions that made it seem like it might fall over at any moment. Its jerky movement wasn't a reassuring sight, but the machine was lifting cargo that would have otherwise required a truck.

I spent a moment trying to pick the marshal out from the crowd of spacers, government officials, and other off-worlders before turning toward the nearby tavern. It was the most prominent building near the field, and the marshal would likely be making his way there at some point. He could find me there, since I wasn't about to give him the impression I was eager to greet his arrival.

Inside, townsfolk were bartering with the spacers. They traded trinkets and stories, trying to supplement their meager credit accounts. I took a flimsy metal stool at the bar and pressed my thumb to the rusted old reader, keying in my own account that was maintained by bankers somewhere off world. After I had a quick word with the bartender, he brought me a drink, and I began my wait for the marshal.

Three and a half glasses later, the whole room and probably the entire tavern went quiet as everyone shifted to watch the man enter. Except me, I kept to my drink. The marshal had to know who he was here for, after all.

When the marshal found me the tavern resumed its normal course but with an air of caution. I turned to face him so he could see my badge. His coat was far nicer than mine, embossed and embellished, but still worn. I couldn't help but respect a man with a coat as worn as that.

His face was even more weathered and older than his coat but lacked the weariness or the impatience I had expected. His marshal's emblem shined, making my own tin star look like a trinket I should have been trading with the other townsfolk. When he finally spoke I was surprised by the lack of weight his voice carried, he sounded just like any other man.

"Liquor and gunpowder don't make a fine mix. How'd you come to bring them together?" he asked.

"Before I took up man's law, after I lost interest in my old calling, I developed a skill with one and a taste for the other. Now, they pay each other's debts." I pat my gun and finished my drink.

The marshal took a seat, and without so much as a glance the bartender brought him a tall glass of what I imagined was his finest. The marshal took it and slid it to me. I wasn't sure if he meant the offering to be friendly or if it was supposed to be a kind of test. I didn't give it a second thought, though, not being one to turn down such a kind gesture.

"Fine establishment. Fine town," the marshal said, looking around. I almost asked him what other places he'd been to that let him evaluate our little moon so warmly, but I contented myself by starting on his drink instead.

"I'd like to ask for your hospitality in helping me with a displeasing but necessary matter." He went on, "Our craft, _The Worldbridge_ , has been in the deep maws of space for some time and we have not gone without facing the hardships that come with such travels. If your town could accommodate for the burial of our dead it would put one of our many burdens at ease."

I paused to reconsider my first response before I voiced it, which was to tell the marshal he could bury his dead wherever he pleased. He probably expected a little more respect than that.

"We have a humble cemetery just outside town, if that will do." I said. I wasn't able to manage any solemnity in my voice, but I did keep from slurring.

"That will do." He leaned forward in appreciation. "My crew should be able to find it."

The marshal let me finish my drink in silence and even allowed a little stillness after before he began with the business he had come for.

"I'm here to bring Walsh Slovaris to Earth's justice."

I palmed the tall glass, already forgetting it was empty. With a little reluctance I set it back, deciding it would be impolite to ask for another. I waited for the marshal to go on.

"It's my understanding that there have been quite a few unsanctioned attempts at founding town steads in the surrounding area. Might I find Mr. Slovaris hiding amongst one of these warrens?"

"No need to worry about the hunt, Marshal. The Mayor's asked me to take you straight to Walsh himself."

The marshal laid his hands open at the bar. "Gracious of her, gracious indeed. And quite honorable."

"The town can take care of its own," I quoted Escle. Too late I realized how it sounded to the marshal.

"It seems there was an incompetency on the part of the town in that regard. Had your own been dealt with properly in the first instance perhaps I wouldn't need to be here." The marshal looked me in the eye and waited for me to return his gaze. "I would have expected to see more pride in maintaining this place given the risk your Mayor's forefathers took when they obtained a colonization grant. Now their legacy sustains murderers and thieves." That last bit seemed unnecessary, and I could tell it even irked a few folk nearby.

I made sure to keep silent after that, and it seemed to mark the end of our dealings with words. The marshal made to leave, and I realized I was to follow him. Outside the tavern I noticed two sturdy guards on either side of the entrance holding high-powered rifles at their shoulders. Their weapons and clothing alike were intimidating, being of a quality never seen on our world.

The presence of the guards made me scoff over boldness in the marshal's remarks. Yet my disdain faded quickly as I saw he had no regard for their presence. The way he held himself indicated one who would always speak as he pleased, possibly even with a gun at his back. His air of confidence was clearly not maintained as a comfort granted by the security of others.

~~~~~

The marshal and I made our trek alone. I knew where Walsh was holed up, and we didn't have far to go. There were no threats to be expected along the way, but we both knew Walsh wasn't likely to come easy. I couldn't help but second-guess my judgment of the marshal's boldness given how reckless our two-man posse seemed. Still, I had to trust him since he seemed to trust me in leading him through the safe pockets of atmosphere held down by our artificial sky.

Around us the land was thoroughly worked over, leaving gruesome trenches between the littered husks of remaining buildings. We passed a few active farms and excavations, but they were only hopeless latecomers, unfunded townsfolk hoping to find anything the paid workers and Earth's machines might have missed or left behind.

Under the sky and sometimes past it, where no man could survive, were endlessly toiling figures. Workers that looked human but stuttered like the automatons they were. The marshal and I stopped close to some and the nearest few quit their work at once. Their shuddering movements halted so their heads could turn, as if they could only conduct one motion at a time. The figures stared at us, registering our presence before they made a series of movements that brought them back to their work.

We didn't have to go much further before reaching a small cluster of buildings less flimsy than those we'd passed so far. The structures were grouped close enough together to pass for a small town.

As we reached the outskirts, two men approached us slowly. A third sat behind them on a red barrel lined with rust. He seemed to be dozing under his hat, but I knew better by the way he cradled his old rifle.

Our two greeters didn't offer much of a welcome. They stepped around us carefully, sizing us up before stopping outside our flanks. Their hands rested easily beneath their coats on what I could only assume were weapons.

"We're here for Walsh." I stated.

The two men looked between us. The one nearest me smiled and broke off some sort of stick he had been chewing on. They let their coats float open, and I saw their guns had been trained on me all along.

That wasn't anything too unfamiliar for me. A standoff like this was usually won by whoever had their weapons out first, so I was content to leave mine where it was. I never liked to hold it much, anyway; I always considered it to be much more comfortable at my side. Besides, words were more useful in situations like these.

I flicked away my burned-out cig.

"He's a marshal," I said, turning my thumb to my companion. The guns shifted to the marshal, but he seemed to mind it even less than I had.

"The space man's law come to try for Steel Walsh at last, eh?" the man said, still chewing on the end of his twig.

"God fearing folk such as yourselves should show a little more respect," the marshal replied.

"God ain't made his way out here yet, marshal. Our old preacher of a sheriff here could have told you that."

"I'm here to bring Walsh to justice. Quietly, if possible. I've got no mind to trifle with you but I have no qualms about it, either." He gazed at each man in turn before going on. "Earth means to resolve this affair, gentlemen. One way or another." The shadow of the marshal's massive ship still orbiting our moon seemed to loom even more dauntingly behind him.

The two traded glances, and the man with the rifle had perked up, but none of them made any move.

"Step aside," the marshal said as he strode between them.

They did, dropping their guns back where they belonged. It wasn't the marshal's words, or even the way he growled them that seemed to quell the men; though his first remarks had sufficient reason, and those after had a particular ferocity that should have sufficed. More particular to his success, I saw, was the way he had simply walked between his challengers as if they were no longer present. The marshal moved in a way that asserted his belief that these men wouldn't dare shoot at him. He knew they wouldn't shoot with such certainty that the men themselves adopted his knowledge.

Once inside Walsh's small town, the marshal picked up his speed and pulled out a gun that I at first mistook for a massive white glove.

"That's quite the cannon you've got there, Marshal," I said.

The marshal didn't reply, and I tried to figure out how his weapon worked. It was flecked with bits of metal that twisted over more contraptions than seemed necessary, but the business end was quite clear. It seemed like enough of a gun for the both of us, so I didn't feel too bad about leaving mine right where it belonged.

The marshal seemed to know where he was going, so I followed him to the largest building around and up its steps. He smashed the door open without a word. Inside, Walsh's men were waiting for us. I counted about seven men in the open, guns held ready.

As I stepped up beside the marshal a noise roared out that I imagined has only been heard before in hell. The banshee's scream tore through the room as the marshal swept it with his weapon. Metal and plastics splintered off and exploded to dust while men caught in the stream of gunfire toppled quickly. Even after the blazing weapon stopped it left a ringing in my ears. I figured our opponents got in a few shots in return, but they were nothing compared to the marshal's one-man firestorm.

The marshal stopped in the middle of the room and looked around cautiously. I had already picked out the survivors and could see them peeking out from the spots they had dove behind. I wasn't sure if the marshal saw them, and my gut twisted with apprehension.

I bit down on the end of my cig as my fingers twitched near my gun. I spotted the first survivor as he shuffled out from under a shattered metal table. I swiped my weapon out and pulled the hammer back with my thumb. It was an unnecessary habit, but not my worst.

The man stood up, right where I had my gun ready for him. It cracked and snapped back. My single shot seemed louder and more forceful than the marshal's weapon, and I decided I liked it better that way.

One.

I turned to where I'd already staked the next man to pop out. He snapped one panicked shot off, but I took my time, wanting to make mine count. I fired again.

Two.

Up above I scanned the rafters with the point of my gun. My heart leapt as I realized the gunman had seen me first, but I didn't flinch. My hand followed him as he took his shot, and I made mine.

Three?

The man screamed out and toppled over. A stream of pained curses came from above.

I moved up the stairs and found him quickly. He was sprawled out on the floor and grasping at his leg. His gun had tumbled away, and he seemed to have lost interest in it. I hesitated with my own pistol, pointing it down at his chest.

"Stop," the marshal said just as I decided to pull my gun back. He pulled out some sort of thick bracelet that he clamped over the wounded man's thigh. The gunman screamed out as the device whirred and tightened into place. Despite the man's groans of pain the marshal pulled off the bracelet, which in turn dropped out a bloodied bullet.

The marshal stood up and turned back to me. He checked my gun and waited for my full attention while I reloaded.

"I have to warn you, Sheriff. This is no matter of redress or recompense, it is one of justice," he said.

I nodded back to him, understanding. I had my gun out, and I had already used it. Had he not seen that? He didn't have to explain to me what we were about.

Behind the rafters was another set of stairs and I followed the marshal upward. We went down the hall and checked a few rooms as we went by but found nothing. One last door waited for us, and the marshal wasted no time breaking it down.

I heard the marshal's weapon shriek out again in three quick bursts as he swept it around quickly and mechanically, but I didn't follow his motions. I had my own pistol up as soon as I entered the room and was staring down the barrel of Walsh's own.

"Sheriff." Walsh smiled at me and held his gun steady.

The marshal had his own gun on Walsh now, but we were both ignoring him. Sweat stung my eyes as my finger pressed the trigger slowly, expertly, so that only a hair's more pressure would have sent a bullet tumbling at Walsh.

"Stand down, my friends," Walsh said. I noticed there was more than one gun on me. Apparently the marshal had not gotten everyone. "Stand down," Walsh said again, dropping his pistol. "This is a matter best sorted out as gentlemen."

I kept my gun up, as did the marshal, but Walsh tossed his aside. His companions looked at each other warily but kept their guns up. Walsh took a step toward me, and I took one back. He laughed and undid his holster and tossed it at my feet.

"Well, Sheriff?" His eyes gleamed.

I glanced over at the marshal. He was holding his gun steady, and it seemed like he was only waiting for something. I realized it was for me.

Walsh rolled his steel-plated shoulder as he stared me down. It seemed like so long ago that the mayor had let him go. And me too, I supposed, only after I had shot him once, where his artificial shoulder now shrugged. I could forgive Mayor Escle, as the bond between siblings ran deep, but Walsh had only been a friend to me; his sin should have dissolved that. I could have stopped him, should have put a bullet in his back. That might have given the mayor one more reason to spite me, the marshal with no reason to be here, and me only another reason to tip the bottle, but I couldn't keep my hand steady. I had let Walsh leave town with his life and a broken bit of metal torn through muscle and bone as his only repentance.

"Under the laws of Earth and its global foundation, in keeping with the treaties of the provinces of Mars, to which the universal colonial moon charters, their charterees, and their inhabitants are subject..." the marshal started to speak boldly and theatrically, but I only half listened as he went on, "... for the conversion of, dismantling of, and trade of government machinery..."

Walsh stepped forward again, but this time I held my ground. He wasn't listening to the marshal any more than I was. I tried to figure out what was going on behind his eyes, his smile. There was no reason to be so unnerved by his demeanor, and I couldn't place why I was. I had stared down and shot plenty of men before, including Walsh. I knew him, knew him too well, and my hand shook, just like before.

"... and the murder of government officials and others sponsored by Earth contracts, I hereby sentence —"

My shot rang out, cutting off the Marshal's execution order. Walsh was on the ground, and I knew I hadn't missed this time.

The marshal seemed undisturbed by the sudden interruption. He kneeled before Walsh and felt at his wrist. After a moment he pulled out a needle that he stuck in the dead man's neck. After pulling the needle away he paired it with a small data slate and stood up, content.

The marshal looked around at each remaining gunman, but they didn't return his gaze; they were all staring at me. Taking note of this to his apparent satisfaction, the marshal glanced at my badge, acknowledging it for the first time. He tipped his hat and nodded to me before taking his leave.

_Scott Birrenkott currently resides in Wisconsin where he recently received his Juris Doctorate from Marquette University Law School. He has pet fish, and a snail, and a frog, too. This story is his first publication though another will also be appearing in the next issue of Liquid Imagination. He hopes that it is the first of many to come. Find him on Twitter_ @sbirrenkott _._

(Back to Table of Contents)

#  Ammyland

by Forrest Roy Johnson; published July 19, 2013

Third Place Award, July 2013 Fiction Contest

"Hello."

Katherine blinked. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the mid-morning sun. On the trail ahead of her stood a blonde and curly-haired little girl wearing a sky-blue dress. She looked at Katherine with eyes the same shade as her dress.

"My name is Ammy. What's yours?"

"Katherine," she said. "My name is Katherine. Why... What are you doing out here?"

"I live here."

"I didn't know anyone lived out here. Is your daddy a ranger or something? Where are your parents?" Katherine had never heard of anyone, ranger or otherwise, living in Henry State Park, but what else could the girl have meant?

"I don't have any parents. Do you want to see where I live?" Without waiting for an answer, Ammy scurried off into the sparse brush.

Katherine had seen strange things in the park before — a dead deer halfway up a tall maple, squirrels throwing acorns at a hiker's dog — but what in heaven's name was this? She patted her front pocket, knowing her cell phone was back in her car but checking for it anyway. She'd just have to keep an eye on the girl until she could figure out what was going on.

Ammy, already a dozen yards ahead, turned and grinned. "Hurry up, pokey-butt!"

Ammy ran with all the unabashed enthusiasm of youth. Fit as she was, Katherine struggled to navigate the underbrush and vegetation that choked the hillside they climbed.

After several minutes of frenzied climbing, Ammy stopped abruptly and sat in the cleft of a largish ash tree. Ammy faced downhill, watching Katherine as she dragged herself the last few feet to join her. The Whetstone River wound its way through the valley below. As Katherine leaned against the tree, she looked down at it, wondering how much of her sweat had traveled in it over the years on its long voyage to the Gulf of Mexico, via the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.

"Pretty, huh?"

Katherine nodded. "Very. Is this where you live?"

Ammy crinkled her nose and giggled. "Of course not. How could I live in a tree? I live that way," she pointed behind her, still further up the hill.

"Must be a dickens of a time carrying your groceries up there."

Ammy laughed. "I like you, Katherine." She bit her bottom lip. "I hope Baldo likes you too. He doesn't usually like visitors. But you're nice. He won't mind."

"Who's Baldo?"

"He's my friend. I live with him."

"How long have you been friends with Baldo?"

"I dunno," she shrugged. "A while. Since this summer, a couple weeks after school."

"And you live up there somewhere?" Katherine nodded to the higher edges of the slope.

"Yeah. I'll show you, come on." This time she reached out and grabbed Katherine's hand.

Just before the hill's crest, they came to a tumble of deadfall trees. Ammy scampered in, despite Katherine's attempt to restrain her. What sort of wild animals might be in there? Raccoons? Skunks?

"No, hey! Don't go in there!" She hurried over to collect the girl, but she was gone.

"Down here!"

Katherine saw a dark fissure concealed by the fallen trees. Ammy's voice issued up from it. As Katherine's eyes adjusted, she saw rough, steep steps of packed earth and loose stone leading to an uneven floor ten feet down. She descended, uncomfortable with the idea of crawling into some sort of animal's den. But yet, she could see some dim light from somewhere inside the fissure. Once at the bottom of the stairs she saw Ammy silhouetted against a thin rectangle of yellow-orange light on the far end of a short tunnel.

"Ammy, what is this?"

"It's where I live."

"But where did this come from? There aren't any caves here."

"I made it. Let me show you." She passed through the doorway — the rectangle of light — and Katherine followed. The door itself was steel-banded and riveted. And beyond it, a grand stairway leading down to a chandelier-lit and lushly carpeted ballroom.

The door creaked shut behind them. Katherine started and turned back at the noise. Flanking the door were two massive men in lobster-tail armor and gunmetal gray masks. They stood perfectly still, left arms to their sides and right arms crossed in front, hands on the grips of crude cudgels. Only the faint motion of their chests told Katherine they were not merely suits of mounted armor.

"What... what are they?"

"Oh. They're my Tin Soldiers. Well, they're sort of mine. Corbin made them, but I made him. My room's this way." She bounced down the stairs and disappeared into the wide hallway on the right.

As Katherine went down, she felt the gaze of those Tin Soldiers on her back. It gave her the willies.

Katherine knew that some species of hallucinogenic mushrooms grew in the park. She certainly wouldn't have ingested any, but she wondered if she'd somehow come in contact with one and if that would be enough to make her see little girls and Tin Soldiers and ballrooms. _That's it_ , she thought, _I'm just having some weird dream. Let's see where it goes._

Ammy stopped in front of a huge door. "I want you to meet Baldo," she whispered, "but you have to promise to be real quiet, okay? Shh." She opened it a crack.

Katherine nodded and slipped in after her. In the center of the room, an enormous man, ten feet tall and nearly as broad, sat on an equally huge bed with his back to the door. Ammy scrambled up and jumped on his back.

"Wooh!" the giant said, jumping. "Ammy? Ammy, you scare me."

The girl simply giggled at this. "Hey, Baldo. I have a surprise for you. Close your eye and turn around."

He turned. Katherine managed to hold back a cry when she saw his face. Baldo only had one eye, the size of a dinner plate, in the middle of his forehead. He didn't have a nose to speak of, only a lump with nostrils, and two huge incisors jutted up from his lower jaw.

"Okay, look!"

Baldo's eye opened. He shrieked and leapt behind the bed, sending Ammy flying onto a pillow like a giggling ragdoll. "AUUUUGH! What is it, Ammy? Is it a bitey-boo? I not like the bitey-boos!"

"No, Baldo," said Ammy, laughing and swimming her way to the top of the crater she'd made in the pillow, "this is my friend Katherine. She's nice and she won't bite you at all."

"Hello, Baldo," Katherine waved. "She's right, I promise not to bite."

Baldo peeked Kilroy-style over the edge of the bed. "Hi Katherine." He looked at Ammy dubiously. "You promise?"

"Of course, you silly. Pick me up, let's go shake hands together."

Baldo plucked Ammy up and sat her on his shoulder, walked over to Katherine. He stooped, delicately took Katherine's hand. "Nice to meet you, Katherine. I Baldo."

"It's nice to meet you too, Baldo." She was amazed at the sense of restrained power in the giant's grip, like he could snap tree limbs one moment and pet butterflies the next.

"I hungry, Ammy," he said, almost immediately forgetting about Katherine. "We go get food?"

"Okay. Bring Katherine too, Baldo."

"Oh! Hi, Katherine. You get ride on me?" Without waiting for an answer, he scooped her up and deposited her on his other shoulder. "Jackie make food?"

"Yes, Baldo, Jackie will make lunch for us, like always." Ammy grinned at Katherine and rolled her eyes, as if to say, _You see what I have to put up with?_

They lumbered down the hallway, its high ceiling affording just enough clearance for the giant and his passengers. A few doors down from Baldo's room, Ammy tapped his ear. "Hey, hold on. Let me down. I bet Biki wants to eat. I'll see if he's awake."

Baldo obediently lowered her and she crept to a small door. He let Katherine down and said, "Biki funny. Watch Ammy."

Katherine ducked through the doorway and saw Ammy at the foot of a child-sized hammock. In it, a tiny man with a long beard and gnarled, sharp features lay snoring. On his head, a long, pom-pommed sleeping cap dangled the fuzzy ball precariously close to his mouth; it nearly went down his throat with every breath. Ammy started tickling his feet.

"Eeeyahhh!" The little man sat bolt upright, twin daggers shining in his hands. His eyes gleamed wildly as Ammy jumped back laughing. "Ohh, Princess Amethyst, you miscreant! Beware who you awaken so rudely, I am a warrior and my instincts are razor sharp!" He sheathed the daggers.

"Oh, you'd never hurt me, Biki."

"Not intentionally, I assure you, but without knowing it I may do you harm. Especially when awoken suddenly! Which brings me back to – Hold on now, who's this?"

"This is my friend Katherine. Katherine, this is my friend Biki."

"Lady Katherine," Biki knelt and bowed his head, "humblest apologies for my temperamental and rash words."

"Um, just Katherine, please." She felt herself flushing. "I'm not a 'lady,' by any means."

"Nonsense! A woman of your beauty and grace must be descended from only the noblest of noble families. I pray, Lady Katherine, do not be offended by my coarse words and humble demeanor. I am but the least of Princess Amethyst's servants, and I put myself in your service."

"Um, okay. I think we're going to eat now, so if you're hungry..."

"Hi Biki!" Baldo bellowed from the hall. "Jackie make lunch!"

"Ah, you've met Baldo, I see." Biki leaned close to Katherine. "A good fellow, but a bit on the repetitive side."

"Hi Biki!"

"Hello, Baldo. Did Princess Amethyst awaken you very rudely as well?"

The giant blushed, looked down like a schoolboy caught doing something sweet for a crush. "No. I just scared of bitey-boos."

"Ah, those vile little buggers. Well, they shan't bother you here, not once you've gotten a solid meal under your belt."

"Jackie make lunch."

"And a delightful one it shall be, no doubt. Princess Amethyst, would you lead the way, then?"

At the far end of the hall, large wooden doors opened into a banquet hall. Thick stone pillars supported the cathedral ceiling, sconces lit the lower portions, and a rough-hewn table stretched almost the length of the chamber. Four large fireplaces burned along the outside walls. And from a doorway on the far end issued a clatter of metal pots and pans.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," called a baritone yet clearly feminine voice, "you caught me just a little unprepared for your friend. It'll be just one moment, so take a seat and I'll be right out!"

Ammy grabbed Katherine's hand, walked to more or less the middle of the table, and sat. Biki took the seat next to Katherine, and Baldo sat on the floor opposite.

A few moments later, a grizzly bear wearing a chef's hat and carrying several covered platters hurried out of the kitchen area. "Here you are, ladies and gentlemen. Now, Miss, I do hope you don't mind what I've prepared. We only have so much to work with here — not like all the fancy ingredients you can get where you're from." Jackie — for that's naturally who it was — revealed Katherine's platter: A whole roast duck, perfectly golden brown, stuffed with cranberries and wild rice, and garnished with leafy greens.

Jackie brought out her own meal and joined the table next to Baldo.

"This is the most delicious thing I think I've ever tasted," said Katherine between mouthfuls.

"Oh, it was nothing."

"No, really. Did you do this just for me?"

"Of course I did. Just like Baldo's meal is just for him, and Biki's is for him, and Ammy's, and my own."

Katherine glanced around at the rapidly dwindling meal in front of each of her companions. Fish and berries for Jackie, doughnuts for Ammy, a steaming bushel of Brussels sprouts for Baldo, and an entire spit-roasted pig for Biki.

"I knew what you wanted, that's all."

"But how? How did you even know I was here?"

Jackie simply winked and tapped one finger on the side of her nose.

As Katherine nibbled on the last of her meal, she felt her eyelids drooping. And she wasn't the only one. Jackie let out a rumbling yawn and ambled over to curl up by the fire, and Ammy sprawled herself on the bear's side, falling instantly to sleep. Baldo lay face-up on the long table, his arms dangling. Biki, a gnawed ham still in his hand, leaned back against Baldo's shoulder.

_Why not_ , Katherine thought. She sat with her back to a pillar, closed her eyes, let sleep take her.

~~~~~

The banquet hall had grown dark and chill, the massive fireplaces containing only embers. Katherine sat up slowly, rubbing the stiffness from her neck. Jackie, Biki, and Baldo all still lay sleeping, but Ammy stood far to the side looking out a small window. The sun had set, the waxing gibbous moon risen; the river far below shimmered like a thousand silver streamers on a breezy day.

"Oh, Ammy, this is beautiful," Katherine said as she joined the girl.

"Yeah, I like it here." Ammy turned, her chin still resting on her fists. "Can you stay?"

"Do you mean — stay? Like live here?"

Ammy nodded. "I really like my friends, but..." she shrugged. "It's not like talking to people."

"I suppose not. But I can't stay here. I have my own house."

"So? I had a house too. Just move out."

"I can't. What would I do with all my stuff? And what would I tell my boss, 'Send my paycheck to the secret cave'?"

"Quit your job."

"You just have all the answers, don't you?" she laughed. But really, what was holding her back? (Well, beside the fact she was hallucinating.) It's not like she was performing an essential public service, spending her nights and weekends serving burgers and beer to the summer cabin crowd. She barely spoke to her family, didn't have any real friends to speak of. Would it be so bad if she were to just disappear for a while?

She turned to say something to that effect, but stopped. Ammy was staring, wide-eyed and frightened, at the darkness near the entrance to the banquet hall. Katherine saw shadows moving and the slight glint of moonlight on metal. A dozen Tin Soldiers holding snares, ropes, cudgels, and blades emerged. Ten moved toward the sleepers, and the other two approached Ammy.

"Amethyst Rebecca Camden, by the authority of the Gatekeeper, I hereby place you under arrest for the crime of high treason." The voice behind the mask was muffled, hollow.

The two Soldiers lunged forward. One snatched the screaming Ammy and ran for the door, the other grabbed Katherine by the front of her shirt and forced a rough canvas hood onto her head. She screamed and struggled, but the creature pinned and twisted her arms. She heard shouts and roars from other parts of the room, wet sloppy sounds like saturated towels slapping against a tile floor, and above all, the terrified shrieks of a child.

The Soldier shouted for Katherine to get up, walk. But she couldn't. It twisted harder, and her vision flashed red, then white. The white faded, and she was out of the banquet hall being dragged by her wrists across a rough floor. White. She was thrown down and the hood removed. She saw bars in the near-darkness, heard the squeal of rusty hinges. This time, she barely saw the black that surrounded her vision and closed in.

Katherine felt someone wiping her face with a damp, scratchy cloth. It smelled funny, like a dishrag that's been thrown under the sink and forgotten. There was something else too, an odor like wet dog, smoke, body odor, and rotten meat. She brought up her hands to wave off whoever it was and contacted solid flesh under fur.

She screamed, a stab of panic bringing her body to full alertness. By the time her mind caught up and identified the thing as Jackie, Katherine had crab-walked backward into the barred door and raised a lump on her already fuzzy head.

"Oh! I'm so sorry, Katherine. I didn't mean to alarm you."

"No, it's... oh my word. It's fine. It's fine."

"Are you badly hurt?"

Katherine checked herself over. "I think I'm okay. My shoulders hurt a little, and I think my back's scraped up. Probably bruised my knees pretty good too. Otherwise I'm fine. Nothing serious, anyway."

"Good. The creatures that brought us, though... they paid a heavy price." The matronly bear's tone changed, turned into something fierce. "I laid claim to an arm and a head before they could subdue me. Baldo tore one in half while three more threw nets over him and felled him. Biki... he cut down both of his. I don't know where he is now, but it's not one of these cells."

"They said something about a gatekeeper. Who is that?"

Jackie spat. "Corbin. That snake. He's claimed Gatekeeper as his title, appointed himself the protector of Ammyland, vowed to keep it safe from outsiders. Thing is, there never was any danger. But once Farman died, he convinced Ammy there was. Farman was a stag, you see, the second of Ammy's friends. I was first, then Farman, Baldo, Biki, and Corbin. At first I thought you were the sixth, but..." She shook her head. "Ammy and Farman used to walk in the woods together. Then one day, Farman disappeared. Biki went out in search of him and found his body lodged in the crook of a tree, horribly mangled. He told Corbin, and Corbin immediately blamed 'the outsiders' and asked Ammy for the power to protect Ammyland. Well, Ammy is a sweet, but foolish child. She only knew of one type of power, the one that she created this place with. So she gave Corbin her amulet. Since then, there have been no new friends. Only Soldiers. Corbin is a simple-minded, unimaginative beast, you see, only able to create things that are like to himself."

"When Ammy brought me here, she said she _made_ this place."

"That's exactly true."

"That's... how is that possible?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, child. It has to do with the amulet, to be sure, but beyond that, I'm sure I don't know. It's... odd, pondering one's own creation and existence. I must admit, I don't like thinking about it. For example, would I cease to exist if she died? Would these caverns close, turn back into hills? I don't know. The only comfort I can glean from those thoughts is that Corbin probably harbors the same questions. He'll keep the girl alive long enough to find an answer."

"So this is all... real."

"Yes," Jackie said. She then turned away to examine her long, dagger claws.

Katherine felt more afraid than she ever had before.

Time passed, though with only Jackie's increasingly surly growls and the _drip-drip, drip-dripping_ of moisture somewhere in the back of the cell by way of timepiece, Katherine had no idea how much time. Hours, at the least.

Finally, when Katherine had almost resigned herself to sleep, she saw torchlight flickering in the corridor. Two Soldiers turned in from the main passageway bearing a loaf of bread wrapped in cloth and a bucket of water. "Step away from the bars," the one with the bread said, jabbing at them with a stone-tipped spear.

Jackie narrowed her eyes as she slowly stepped back. The Soldier with the bread tossed it through the bars then stuck the spear through the bars at the prisoners as the other Soldier slid the bucket through the bars. Suddenly, a shout and clamber came from the main passageway. The Soldiers turned, and Jackie fell upon them. She slapped the spear aside then tore open the Soldier with its arm in the cell from shoulder to hip. The second leapt back, but not quick enough to avoid a swipe from Jackie's claws that left its arm tattered and useless. Thick, black fluid like used motor oil sprayed the walls and floor as the survivor hobbled away. The dead Soldier at the bars seemed to be deflating, what looked like hundreds of giant leeches spilled from the gaping wound and writhed on the floor.

"Get back here, coward!" Jackie bellowed. "I only used one arm, that just makes us even!" She snorted and dragged the body closer to the bars. She rooted around in flaps and pockets. "Agh. I was hoping he'd have the keys. But we may not have to wait much longer."

The cacophony had grown louder, closer. Shouting and clangs of metal were giving way to screams and sounds of blunt impacts. Katherine watched one screaming Soldier fly through the air, smash into the ceiling at a shallow angle, and disintegrate into a hundred splattering bits.

And she heard Biki's voice over the crescendoed tumult: "Hah! You metal-faced weaklings! Come again! Hah! Baldo, take a turn!" This was followed by a cackle, a bellow, and another disintegrating soldier. Biki's head poked around the corner. "Ah, Jackie, Lady Katherine, there you are. We accidentally stormed a guard house just then," he saw the dead Soldier, "though I see you've had a bit of luck yourselves."

Baldo, dripping with the Soldiers' oily blood, but otherwise unscathed, guarded the mouth of the side corridor as Biki revealed a large key ring and opened the cell door.

Jackie bounded out. "Do you know where she is?"

Biki nodded. "I think so. Corbin's barricaded the door to his chamber. Though it may be more accurate to call it a compound now. He's clearly been making his own additions to Ammyland as of late," he said, looking around at the cell and corridors.

"She's alive, I'm sure of it, but I don't know how much longer Corbin will keep her."

Biki nodded. "Lady Katherine, you may want to find a safe place to hide while the fighting persists."

"No," she said, stooping for a fist-sized stone on the edge of the corridor.

"Child," said Jackie, "I have to agree. It's not safe for you."

Katherine wound up and pitched the rock underhand at the dead Soldier's mask, denting it heavily and sending it skittering across the floor. "I played fast-pitch softball." She dumped the water from the bucket and filled it with stones. "Which way?" She marched off toward the intersection Baldo guarded.

Jackie led the way, followed by Biki, then Katherine, then Baldo. The handful of Soldiers they encountered on the way to Corbin's chamber either fled or died according to their individual levels of cowardice or foolhardiness. Even Katherine scored one kill when a Soldier tried to flank Jackie and fell with a stone embedded in his mask.

They left the prison corridor and found themselves near the ballroom, in the leftmost hallway. At the far end, a door identical to the banquet hall's was blocked with furniture, rubble, and fallen branches. Jackie and Baldo exchanged a grin and made short work of the barricade — and the four Soldiers who'd been hiding near it. Baldo wrenched the door open, splintering the frame and nearly tore it completely from its hinges. Jackie ran into the chamber with Baldo only a half step behind.

Katherine gaped when she saw inside. This Gatekeeper, Corbin, had set up a throne room. Rows of thick, gray pillars flanked the wide central aisle leading to the dais on which sat a single, blocky throne. Black and gray banners bearing the device of a snake intertwined in a Medieval castle's trellis hung from the ceiling. And dozens of unmoving Soldiers lined the walls in the shadowed areas behind the pillars.

"I see door. Jackie, you see door?" Baldo pointed toward the throne. Indeed, a flat lintel was visible just over the top of it.

"Yes, Baldo, I do. I also see at least a hundred Soldiers on either side of us."

"Good," Biki strode to the center of the room, "it'll finally be something like a fair fight."

"Katherine," Jackie said as they walked to join Biki, "Baldo and I will hold the Soldiers here. You and Biki get through that door and find the child."

As one, the Soldiers converged.

"I heard that, you canny old fish-breath! Steal all the fun, will you? Well, at least I shall be able to cut my way there. Hah!" Biki dashed to the door, hamstringing one Soldier on the way. More closed in. He leapt, buried his daggers in the collarbone of one, then pushing off its chest he back-flipped over another, removing its head with a _swipe-swipe!_ Katherine floored two with stones to the head, and then they were through. She turned back to see Jackie slashing and tearing Soldiers to pieces and Baldo pounding them to the floor and flinging them around like dolls. But for every four or five they downed, another had a blade or cudgel digging into their hides.

"Come _on_!" Biki grabbed Katherine's arm and dragged her through the door. The passage beyond was dark, rough but afforded no cover for additional Soldiers.

They advanced. The passage sloped downward, and soon Katherine lost sight of the throne room, though the tumult still echoed. Biki stopped. "Agh!"

"What? What is it?"

The passage came to a T-junction. Biki crouched and ran his hands over the floor, sniffed in both directions, paused. "This way," he said, going left.

This passage was twisty, forcing them to slow. Each new turn could hold an ambush, but none came. A hundred yards and a dozen turns in, Katherine saw light, flickering and red. Biki peered around the bend, then let out a cry, "Princess! Princess, are you harmed?" Ammy, cowered in a barred-off nook in the cavern wall. Biki dropped his daggers and rushed over.

Ammy's eyes were wide. "Biki! Katherine! You have to leave! You have to leave before Corbin comes back!"

"He's here?" Katherine whispered.

"Yes, he is," a voice rumbled from behind.

They turned. Corbin stood eight feet tall, and was thickly muscled. He wore a breastplate similar to the Soldiers' armor, but no mask. His eyes glinted in the torchlight as he stepped forward.

"Dog!" Biki spat as he snatched up a dagger and leapt between Corbin and Katherine.

"Katherine," Ammy hissed. "His necklace!"

She looked up. Around Corbin's neck was a simple string of beads with a seashell dangling just above his collarbone. "What about it?"

"That's his power. _My_ power. Get it back and I can fix everything."

Biki glanced at the amulet as well. "Lady Katherine, be prepared to retrieve any fallen objects."

"Daring little fool, you are," said Corbin. "Come, dwarf, I've long desired to break your bones."

Corbin's fist snapped toward Biki, so quick that Katherine hardly saw it move. Biki dodged, barely. The fist slammed into the stone wall where it sent dust and chips of granite flying. Biki lashed out with his dagger, but Corbin pulled away before contact. Dart, dodge, slash, miss. A flurry of blows from each side, none landed. Then, the sound of metal slicing flesh — _syyyict!_ Biki jumped back with a wicked grin. Corbin stood to his full height, looked at the long laceration on his forearm. It wasn't bleeding. Rather, it lengthened and spread. Slick, black, scaly skin glistened underneath. He grinned, and his mouth grew impossibly large as his entire body twisted and he tore every inch of skin away. In place of an eight-foot tall warrior stood a twelve-foot long reptile that looked something between a snake and a rhinoceros. It still wore the necklace.

Biki took a breath and charged again. This time, Corbin lunged forward and swallowed him whole. He turned his eyes toward Katherine.

"Get away from her," Jackie growled. She stood in the entrance to the chamber, teeth bared, reeking of gore, dripping blood, and keeping weight off of her left foreleg. Baldo loomed behind, fist closed around a jagged rock, and in similar shape as Jackie. He waited for Corbin to turn, then flung the rock at his head. Like a cannonball it struck the side of Corbin's face, crunching bones and destroying an eyeball. He howled in rage and pain, and tore forward at Jackie. None of the subtlety and nimbleness of his fight with Biki were present now — he rained hammer strikes and desperate slashes. Every blow he landed, Jackie countered, tearing loose wide strips of flesh from Corbin's forelimbs and pounding the damage from Baldo's rock. Then, with a feint to the left and a blow to Jackie's face from the right, Corbin sent her sprawling. Baldo leapt over Jackie's slumped form and slammed his foot into Corbin's foreleg, snapping it at the joint. This put Baldo off-balance, however, and Corbin head-butted him to the floor. He hobbled over and was about to tear into Baldo's exposed abdomen when Katherine called out.

"Hey!" She stood, gripping Biki's other dagger. "You've still got me to worry about."

Katherine felt nothing, heard nothing — not the terror in her chest, not Ammy's shrieks, not Corbin's chuckles as he turned her way. She merely looked in his remaining eye and threw the dagger directly at it.

She missed.

"Poor little fool," he hissed. He took a step, then arched his neck as a silvery spike grew from the center of his throat, just above the seashell. Then he stumbled. The spike slowly moved downward, opening the flesh and cutting the necklace as it went. Blood spilled and beads scattered. Corbin fell to the floor, clutching at his throat. The spike made one more sudden lurch downward and Biki, dagger in hand, fell from the slit. He gasped, wiping Corbin's black blood from his eyes. Corbin thrashed for a few more seconds, then stilled.

"Oh no," said Ammy. "Oh no. My necklace!"

Biki looked at the scattered beads. "Lady Katherine," he said quietly, "I must ask you to escort the princess to safety."

"What? But she's..." Katherine turned. The bars across the niche crumbled in Ammy's hands, turning into piles of ashy dust.

"Oh no!" Ammy scrambled over to the necklace, clutched at the fallen beads. "I can't fix it! _I can't fix it_!"

Cracks began to appear in the walls, floor, ceiling.

"I insist that you hurry," said Biki. He nodded toward Corbin's body, which was rapidly growing gray and sagging, like a time lapse video of a cigarette burning.

Then Biki slumped to his knees, fell onto his side. He too began turning gray.

" _No_!" Ammy shrieked. She ran _through_ Corbin's body to Biki, who crumbled when she wrapped her arms around him.

Katherine saw that Jackie and Baldo were also in the process of turning to dust, and that the cracks were widening, sending rivulets of earth and pebbles into the chamber and corridor beyond. She prayed she could remember the way out.

She snatched up Ammy, who had gone catatonic, and ran. Along the length of the dark, twisting passageway, she stumbled countless times, slammed into walls dozens, and fell often. When she reached the throne room, ash Soldiers dotted the floor. Pillars had collapsed, others were on the verge. Katherine sprinted, made it to the door as a pillar on the far end toppled and shattered Corbin's throne.

_Just a little more, a little further_.

The grand ballroom was in tatters. Chunks of stone and soil fell from the ceiling, smashing the ornate banisters and blocking off the side halls. Up the stairs, to the reinforced metal door. Katherine reached out to the latch, and the whole thing collapsed in a cloud of dust. She ran through the earthen tunnel, hearing stones close up the doorway behind her, then up the steep stairs and through the gap in the fallen trees.

In the cool, damp, predawn air, she set Ammy down. The girl's eyes were glazed. Gray. Her hand opened and a single bead from the necklace dropped to the ground. Within a few seconds, Ammy turned to dust and was scattered by a puff of wind.

~~~~~

Katherine had been missing for over 24 hours when the search party found her at the top of the hill where the landslide had started. She was digging with her bare hands in the space between two fallen trees, shouting a name over and over, " _Ammy! Ammy! Ammy!_ "

She had to be sedated.

Amethyst Camden never existed, the doctors told her. Her injuries were caused by a fall, followed by a day of delirious wandering. Anything she had experienced — or thought she had — was her mind trying to protect itself from the reality of a traumatic event.

They told her these things, yet had no explanation for the bright stone bead she'd been clutching.

Forrest Roy Johnson is a Minnesotan exiled to Iowa. He lives there with his wife. His fiction has appeared in The Whole Mitten, Miracle Ezine, Fiction 365, and HelloHorror.

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#  What the Butler Didn't See

by Teel James Glenn; published July 23, 2013

My first contact with the child was innocent enough.

It was as I drove up to the gate of the Hobbson Estate near Croton-on-Harmon, New York. At the gatehouse a surly looking fellow greeted me gruffly. "What's your business?" he asked in a gravelly voice.

"I'm Preston Cork," I said, "I've been hired by the Hobbsons as a butler for this residence."

"You wait," my personal Charon said with more a grunt than a command. He disappeared back into his guardhouse while I waited. I looked ahead through the wrought iron of the gate.

I saw movement in the bushes inside the gate, a furtive movement of the foliage as if a small animal was hiding. Idly I stared at it and then, to my surprise, I saw eyes staring back at me! Then the gateman called my attention away from the bush.

"The master says drive on up, sir," he said. "But be careful with your speed. There is, uh, wildlife that may cross the driveway."

"As you say," I said. "I'll be careful." He pressed a button in his gatehouse. I eased my vehicle through the gate that slid closed behind me almost before I had passed. The trees that screened the winding driveway gave no indication how long the drive was and I was forced to drive slowly even if I had not been warned by the gate troll.

It was because of the slow pace that I was able to see the movement in the bushes as I drove. It was just a series of quick flashes, bits of red and a hint of white as if something, or someone was running parallel to my car as I drove.

After about five minutes of driving I rounded a turn to suddenly come in sight of the house. It rested on a rise of land overlooking the Hudson and the breeze off the water set the pennants that topped it snapping wildly. The three-story building, built in early Victorian style, sprawled over a full acre of land.

Just as I came in sight of the house a tiny figure darted out of the brush to dash across the road. I hit the brakes and my car lurched to a stop.

"Hey!" I yelled. The tiny figure froze, staring at me from beneath a mop of black hair with ice blue eyes. It was a little girl!

The child could not have been more than ten years old and was dressed in bibbed blue jean overalls and a red polka-dot shirt. She had a smear of dirt on her left cheek that she rubbed at with her sleeve while she stared directly at me.

"You should be careful, Miss–," I said.

"Penelope," she said. "Penelope Hobbson. My mama and papa own all this." She waved her arms in a royal gesture to take in all the estate. "They were lords and stuff back in England."

"Pleased to meet you, Miss Penelope," I said. "But you should be careful crossing the road; it is not easy for a driver to see around the turns."

She stuck out her lower lip and put her hands on her bony hips in an almost defiant posture. "You couldn't 'a hit me, Mister–"

"Mister Cork."

"Well ya couldn't 'a hit me, Mister Cork," the tyke said.

"But I could have," I said.

"Naw," the girl said. She giggled and pointed off into the heavy brush. "One of my friends would 'a saved me."

"Friends?" I asked. I looked over where she had indicated but saw only a tangle of bushes agitated by the wind. Or was it just the wind? I turned back to little Miss Hobbson but she had raced off opposite the way she had pointed and was gone into the woods like a sprite.

I laughed and drove the rest of the way toward the house. There were a couple of rough types toiling in the garden and when they saw me one pushed back his cap and squinted.

"I'm Cork," I said. "To see the Hobbsons."

The laborer jerked thumb toward the back of the house. "Back patio, having brunch."

I walked around the building. On the veranda, at the far end from where I stood were several tables set out where a couple was eating brunch. They were obviously the master and mistress of the house and very at ease. The man turned his head to look at me.

"Can I help you?" He was a handsome man I judged to be in his mid forties with blonde hair touched with grey at the temples. His eyes, even across the distance were a watery blue and sharply focused on me.

"I am Preston Cork, sir," I said. "The Everett Agency sent me along to join your service." I continued to walk toward them with an easy gait. I wanted to present a confident and easy demeanor but when Mrs. Hobbson turned her head to look at me I admit I almost stumbled.

The lady of the house was the most stunning woman I have ever seen. Her hair was as black as a midnight sky and her eyes ice blue. Her skin was the alabaster of the poets, her lips a perfect pink heart shape and when she parted them with a warm smile the whiteness of her teeth was dazzling.

I had to force myself not to stare and to keep moving forward until I was standing at arm's length from Mister Hobbson. I also had to force myself to take my eyes off his wife and look him in the face. As I did I had a fleeting impression, an almost déjà vu moment, the little urchin I had seen on the driveway was clearly her daughter.

"Mister Cork," Hobbson's handshake was solid. "We had not expected you until tomorrow."

"I like to anticipate things, M'lord," I said.

"Please," he smiled and disarming smile. "We are both American citizens now. No titles."

"As you wish, sir."

"But good impulse to be early. We will be having guests this weekend and I suspect it will take you the rest of the week to prepare."

"Very good, sir," I said. "I suspect I will fit into the household with no difficulty."

"I certainly hope so," Mrs. Hobbson's voice was like the bells of a distant cathedral and muted horns all at once. "The last butler was — well, he did not fit in."

"Oh," I found it difficult not to stare at the stunning woman. "Is there something special I should know to help me fit in?"

Before the woman could answer a red and black sprite came darting from around the corner of the house and launched herself onto one of the chairs at the table.

"Penelope!" Mrs. Hobbson exclaimed. "Manners!" Even in condemnation the woman's voice was musical and soothing.

The young girl ignored her mother and set about attacking some bread, slathering it with jam. She shoved most of a slice in her mouth then spoke. "I said hello to Mister Cork already."

"How?" The elder Hobbson asked.

"I almost ran your little one over," I said. "Coming up the drive."

"I told you, young lady," the mother said, "to be careful around the road."

"He didn't hit me." She smiled up at her parents with jam decorating her face like a goatee. "Besides my friends would have stopped the car."

"Now, Penny," the elder Hobbson said. "No tales. And clean your face." The little girl smeared the back of her hand across her mouth to get a fair potion of the jam, but not all.

"I'm done, papa," she said. "Can I go?"

"Yes you can go." He said. She scurried off the chair like a howler monkey and was off around the corner of the house.

"You must forgive Penelope," Mrs. Hobbson said. "She has not adjusted well to her new life here in America."

"Say it truthfully, Charlotta," Mister Hobbson said. "Our daughter seems to have gone feral here in the new world." The dark-haired woman colored at her husband's words.

"We do our best," the woman said. "But she is and always has been a wild child."

There was an uncomfortable silence that I felt best to be done with. "Children will be children the world over," I said. "Even imaginary friends are in every culture. I even had a few myself."

"Imaginary friends?" Mister Hobbson asked with a curious expression on his face. "Oh — uh — yes. Imaginary."

"Rose will show you to your room," she said indicating the maid. "I hope you will be happy here, Mister Cork."

The maid, Rose, led me back toward the house.

"How long have you worked for the Hobbsons?" I asked the fast-walking girl as we moved up the wide staircase in the mansion.

"Several months, sir," she said. She kept her eyes forward as if she was afraid to look me in the eye. I suspected something under her reluctance.

"Who am I replacing?" I asked as we arrived at the door.

"Excuse me?" she asked.

"You heard me, girl. I was told my predecessor had to leave abruptly. Who was he?"

"I'm sure I don't know, sir." She was actively avoiding eye contact now and tried to head away from me.

"I asked you a direct question, Rose. His name?"

"Kentworth, sir," she said, eyes focused on the floor.

"Why did Kentworth leave?" I pressed. "What was the reason?"

For a moment I thought she was going to bolt.

"I'm sure I don't know, sir," she squeaked. When I kept her eyes locked with mine she continued. "I, uh, he just was gone last week. We don't know why he left, sir. It was — strange."

"How so?"

"His belongings, sir," she said. "They didn't go with him. Nothing. He was gone one morning, and then the Misses came to us and told us to pack his things, and then some men came and took them away."

"What do you think happened to him?" The fear was back behind her eyes. "Why do you think he left?" I asked.

"It was that girl," she said on the verge of tears. "That little vixen done it, I know. Her invisible friends and all her strange ways."

Almost the moment she spoke she clearly regretted what she had said and turned on her heels so I was alone.

I changed from my travel clothes to something more formal — one must set a good example — and returned downstairs to take my car to the garage. It was a stone building joined with a stable that had an apartment above it for the chauffer.

I found space for my own car and then, because I wanted to know the whole of my 'domain' as head butler, I went to the stable next door.

There were only three horses in residence and a young stable hand who greeted me with a certain suspicion.

"Aye, sir," he said when I pressed him. "Mister Kentworth left. For his own reasons, I'm sure."

As I turned to walk back from the ultra modern barn toward the house I spotted the little fireball Penny again. This time the young girl was crouching in the loft of the stable above an empty stall like a tiny gargoyle.

"Hello again," I said as I saw her.

"Hi," she chirped.

"What are you doing up there?" I asked.

"Perchin'," she said.

"Perching?"

"Yup."

"Like a bird?"

"I'm an owl," she said. She was, to my mind, dangerously close to the edge of the loft so I positioned myself below.

"Well, do you think, maybe Ms. Owl might be a bit safer further back in that loft."

"Oh, I won't fall." She gave a broad and confident smile.

"Because your 'friends' will save you?" I did my best not to laugh.

"Yup!" she said. "Wanna see?"

Before I could say 'no' she tottered forward and started to fall over the edge of the loft. I started to brace myself to catch her when the most amazing thing happened. She stopped.

I do not mean that she balanced in place and then rolled back to her crouch. No. Instead, the girl clearly fell forward to almost ninety degrees to fall off the ledge and simply stopped as if invisible hands were holding her suspended in the air.

In a few eye blinks she rocked back and was as solidly placed on the ledge as if she had never left.

"See?" she said. "My friends always protect me."

Before I could say anything to the child, Penny giggled and then dashed off into the darkness of the loft.

I stood there, my jaw open in astonishment, and tried to make sense of what I had seen.

Or had I seen it? Had the girl played some trick on me? Could, perhaps, she have a hidden rope tied off behind her so that it appeared as if she was going to fall? Or a bungee cord?

"That's it," I said aloud. "The little minx was playing a trick on me." I laughed out loud. "No wonder Kentworth was driven out. She tried to drive the fellow mad, I'm sure."

I went to the center of the house — the kitchens — next to meet with the cook. The 'center of the center' was a full-figured woman named Mrs. Wilson.

"Yes, I've been here since the Hobbsons came over the pond," she said. "And nicer folks I have not worked for."

"Little Miss Penny," I said, "Now she must be quite a handful."

I thought I detected a tightening of the features of the portly woman, but she gave a brittle laugh. "Oh, yes, sir, Mister Cork she is. Always playing and running around."

"Under foot frequently?" I asked.

"Oh, not so much," she said with obvious relief. "She likes to stay out in the woods or by the stables."

"With her invisible friends, eh?" I quipped. The cook seemed to shake herself at my words but gave me a wan smile.

"Yes, something like that," she said. She went back to her work and I let her ramble on for a bit about Rose and the rest of the staff, occasionally asking a question but mostly letting her talk.

"Do you know why Mister Kentworth left so suddenly?"

For the space of two breaths she did not move then she turned her heretofore pleasant face to me, and there was something dark in her expression. "He just left," she insisted. "People do things sometimes just 'cause they want to."

~~~~~

I dressed for the evening meal before the masters settled in for their dinner. Mrs. Wilson did herself proud, and the Hobbsons enjoyed their meal. The little girl, now dressed more formally in a cute blue dress, kept up a running narration about her adventures in the woods with her 'friends.'

I could not hear all of it as I was in and out of the kitchen, but she mentioned Lord Gob, Lady Flit, and Mister Humpity, who I gathered was some sort of pachyderm. Her parents listened and made comments such as, "That's nice, but I thought Lady Flit had gone to Florida for the winter," as if they were speaking of real people.

I am not sure I approved of feeding the child's fantasy world so completely, but they seemed a relatively solid family, and it was not my place to judge.

"You played all day, Penny," Mrs. Hobbson said as the meal concluded. "So it's time to do your reading and then to bed."

"Mom!" the tyke protested.

"Don't 'mom' me, young lady," her mother said. "We let you play because it's summer, but you have to read your books in the evening or we'll make you do them in the daytime — and then no playing outside!"

The moppet acquiesced reluctantly and went off to her room to do her lessons.

I made an appointment with Mrs. Hobbson for the next day to go over plans for the weekend and then went to my room. I felt suddenly tired and sat back against the headboard fully clothed and dozed off.

I cannot say how long I sat there dozing, but I heard a noise. It was a giggle out in the quiet hall. The decidedly girlish sound was followed immediately by a deeper, almost animal sound that was half-laugh, half-snarl.

"Good lord!" I thought as I put on the lamp and moved to the door. "Does the girl have a dog in the house?" I opened the door to glance into the hallway. The corridor was dark with the only faint light aside from the lamp in my room.

I was startled to see the young girl Penny, dressed in footed pink pajamas apparently floating down the hall! She looked for all-the-world as if she was seated on an unseen horse!

I rubbed my eyes at the sight. As I did, the child, startled I suppose by my opening the door, tumbled the three feet to the ground with a cry of 'oof!'"

"Ouch!" she said. I moved toward the child by instinct and scooped her up.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"'Course," she said with a pouting face. "Mr. Humpity was just startled by the light from your room. He's shy. You scared him."

"What are you doing out of bed at this hour?" I asked. The tyke made an elaborate show of brushing herself off and stood defiantly with her hands on her hips.

"I wasn't tired no more," she said as if I was an idiot to even ask. "And I had to go potty; then I went exploring with Mister Humpity." She got a serious expression and looked around as if she had lost something.

"What is it?" I asked. "Did you lose something?"

"Mr. Humpity," she said. "You scared him away." She looked at me accusingly.

"Sorry," I said. "But I had no way of knowing you were out here." I found myself looking for whatever she had been standing on in the dark hall to pretend to be riding her magical elephant but could see only a bench, though it seemed too far away for her to have been standing on.

"Well," she said. "How am I going to get back to my room?"

"You have legs, do you not?" I said. "That is how you got here."

"I rode," she said, now sure I was simple. "On Mister Humpity."

"Well you can walk back," I said firmly.

"It's dark," she said. "I... it's a long way to my room." She looked so pitiful I had a hard time not snickering.

"Would you like me to walk you back to your room?" I asked.

She nodded her head then added. "Could you ride me?"

"Ride you?" I asked.

"I mean, be my horsey!" she said. "It seems only fair since you scared Mister Humpity away."

She looked at me expectantly. I knew that if I was going to fit into the household I would have to make my peace with the little vixen.

"I guess you win," I said with a shrug. "I shall be your trusty steed." I bent down with my back to her and, looking over my shoulder said, "Hop aboard for the bedtime express."

She hopped up with her legs around my waist her hands around my neck. I put my hands under her legs and off we went.

The halls were silent as the tomb as I carried the girl along. She giggled and occasionally gave me orders like, "Faster brave stead!" or "Not so bouncy!"

"Do you always go exploring at night?" I asked her.

"Not all the time," she said matter-of-factly. "Just when Lady Flit or Mister Humpity are restless."

"Do your parents know?"

"Oh, sure," she said, "They don't mind as long as I don't make too much noise or Mister Humpity does his business outside."

I marveled at her bold-faced ability to lie.

"You're a better horsey than Mister Kentworth," she said as we approached her room and I moved to set her down. "But even he tucked me into bed."

"Mister Kentworth used to give you horsey rides?"

"Uh huh," she said.

"Did he do it often?"

"Kinda," she said.

I paused to open the door to her room and flipped on the light. Inside were the pink and ponies I would have expected from a young girl's room. I carried her to her canopy bed and sat on it.

"Do you know why he left?" I ventured.

The girl reluctantly climbed off my back and rolled onto the covers. "Yeah," she said. She crawled around on the voluminous covers till she found a spot suitable to climb under the comforter. "I didn't like him anymore." She said the last with almost a snarl to her tone. "He wasn't a good horsey."

I looked at her with curiosity and wanted to ask more, but with the amazing ability of a child she dropped her head on her pillow and was instantly snoring.

~~~~~

Penny was her usual mile-a-minute self at breakfast and told everyone that I had taken over for Mister Humpity the night before and had showed "promise" as a first-class mount. It did little to speak to my authority as head of staff.

After breakfast when the child was released into the wild, I was able to set about reorganizing the staff's list of duties.

When I met the lady of the house at eleven she was all business about her ideas for the event on the weekend. Caterers had been hired, and some landscapers were coming later that day for me to deal with. At the end of the meeting I felt as if I had earned my pay.

"Very good, Mister Cork," she said as she rose with grace. "You are very good at your job."

"I aim to please, ma'am," I said. "I hope to always give exceptional service."

"We expect no less," Mrs. Hobbson said.

"And Mister Kentworth could not supply it?" I became bold, I suppose because there were so many things that were not adding up in what should have been a perfect household.

She looked at me with ice blue eyes and nodded. I thought I saw something other than anger in her look. Fear.

I spent the next hour working with the gardening staff to prepare them for the landscapers and caterers. This left me at the south end of the great lawn near the woods. I found myself alone. Well, almost.

"I see you, Penelope," I called. "You can come out."

A black-haired head popped out from a bush. "I'm supposed to be sneaking like a spy," she called back. "You're not supposed to be able to see me."

"Well, I do," I said. "You're not invisible like Mister Humpy."

"Mister Humpity," she corrected. She stepped out from the bushes and trudged over to me. "A spy don't need to be invisible," she said. "Just crafty!"

She walked right up to me and stared up at me as if in challenge. "What'cha doin' out here? I thought you was gonna butler the house?"

"My job is to make everything in the house run smoothly, Miss Penny," I said. "And sometimes that involves things outside the house." She took to walking along side me as I moved toward the main driveway to take me in a long loop back up to the house.

"I'm tired of walking," she said after a minute.

"Well, ask your friend to ride you," I said with a smart aleck grin.

"You scare him. He doesn't like you," she said seriously.

"I'm sorry for that, but I don't mean to be scary." We were walking past the barn. "You're not scared of me, are you?"

"Nope," she said. "You're not scary."

"Then, do you think you could tell me something?" We stopped by the corner of the barn and I looked down at the tyke with a serious face.

"What is that?" She returned my serious look.

"Do you really know why Mister Kentworth went away?"

She surprised me again with a very direct answer.

"Oh, I know," she said.

"Well, would you tell me?" I said. I wanted to shake her to make her tell me but realized I could not seem too anxious.

"Okay," she said with nonchalance. "But it'll cost you."

"Cost me?"

"Nothin' for nothin'," she said sagely.

We stared each other down like two horse traders. At last I said. "What do you want in exchange?"

"A horsey ride," she said.

"A horsey ride?"

"Yes. But the way I want it."

"Okay." I said. "As soon as I get–"

"No, not later," she said. "I want a ride now. I'll tell you about Mister Kentworth while you ride me around the barn."

It seemed a fairly cheap price for the information I wanted, but I did not want to be seen surrendering to the child. Still, ten minutes of discomfort were worth finding out the answer to the mystery.

"Okay," I said. I turned around and offered her my back.

"Oh no," she said. "Horses have a flat back and have four legs. Last night that was more of a piggy back." She looked like she had considered the whole matter very carefully.

"Do I have to?"

"Yep."

She left me no choice so I got down on all fours. "Hop aboard, M'lady."

She giggled and immediately climbed aboard. "Gitty up!" she commanded.

"Not until you start to tell me," I said.

"Okay," she said. "Take me to the barn, and I'll tell you all about Mister Kentworth. You see, he didn't like Lord Gob at all!"

I felt a fool, on my hands and knees with a child on my back, yet to find out what I wanted it seemed a reasonable price. "Mister Kentworth left because he didn't like your invisible friend?"

"Yup," she said. "Go faster!"

"How is it that he left because of that?" I felt absurd conducting an interrogation of a child while on all fours. "That seems pretty extreme."

"That's a big word."

"I mean, that seems pretty serious."

"Well Lord Gob is pretty serious," she said. "And he doesn't like it when people don't believe in him." She kicked me in the flank lightly. "Go faster!"

I moved forward at her command, all but ignoring the kick for my shock at her statement. "You got a man fired because he did not believe in your invisible friend?"

"Oh, he wasn't fired," she said between giggles.

"But he left," I said. "You must have told your parents about his disbelief and they fired him."

"No," she insisted. "They didn't fire him."

"Then why did he leave? Where did he go?"

She giggled almost uncontrollably as I came up to the door of the stable. "Go?" she said as we entered the door to the stable. "He didn't go anywhere." She hopped off my back and danced away toward one of the stalls. "Mister Kentworth didn't go anywhere." She went to a stall where a tall white stallion was snorting restlessly.

"If he didn't go anywhere," I asked as I reared up on my knees to stretch my back, "where is he?"

The giggling child tapped on the nameplate on the door. "Silly," she said. "He's right here."

It was then, to my surprise, I saw the name on the door; it said 'Mister Kentworth'!

"What do you mean?" I asked.

The little girl patted the stallion on his nose. "Right here, silly," she smiled. "I turned him into a horse."

"Stop lying, Penny," I said. "Now tell me what really happened to Mister Kentworth." I let the annoyance in my voice tinge my statement.

"You shouldn't call me a liar," the child said. Her eyes narrowed and her lips twisted into a snarl. "I don't tell fibs!"

She raised her arms above her head in a gesture, as if she were some junior Prospero summoning the winds, and laughed. "I told you you'd make an even nicer horsey and I meant it."

I was sure my eyes were playing tricks on me for the child seemed to glow with a strange and eerie light then, like summer lightning in the distance yet crawling luminously along her tiny form. Her eyes went from sky blue to glowing like blue flames.

"I like to play horsey," the dark haired vixen said with an evil giggle. "And I'd like to play with you some more." She crooked a finger and I felt compelled to fall forward onto my hands again. Only now instead of falling onto my open palms my hands had balled themselves of their own accord into fists. I fell onto my knuckles, only my knuckles were changing. To my astonishment my hands began to alter, changing into something not quite human. In a short time it was clear to me what they were becoming — hooves!

I looked back up at her to see the moppet was smiling evilly. "You're gonna be just the bestest horsey," she said. "Mister Kentworth was mean to Lord Gob. You were nice to him — even if you scared Mister Humpity. But I know you didn't mean to. You're not mean."

My clothes split off me of their own accord, my shirt and trousers peeling off like the skin of a snake. My legs were legs no longer, now they were the hindquarters of an equine beast!

Just then Lucia Hobbson came into the stable followed by the entire household staff, cook, gardeners, maids and all. The lady of the house was dressed in riding togs and had her jet-black hair pulled tightly into a ponytail.

"Now then, Mister Cork," she said as she approached me with a leather and metal bit and halter harness. She approached me with a smile on her sensual lips and her eyes shining but I backed away from her. "Take it easy. It is better to accept your fate than fight it. I'd say 'ask Mister Kentworth,' but that would be pointless."

She slipped the harness over my head and forced the bit into my mouth so that in a few moments I was nothing more than a harnessed beast.

"Head up, Mister Cork," she said. "Conformation is everything!" She laughed, an echo of her daughter's evil giggle.

Penny came skipping across the stable and opened a side door where three of the most horrid things I have ever seen entered. One was a small winged woman, one a lumbering reptilian, and the third a thing very much like a shaggy elephant in miniature.

Lady Flit, Lord Gob and Mister Humpity themselves!

The three grotesqueries followed the little girl faithfully and, when she motioned them, stepped to the side of the barn and awaited her call.

Penny said in a cheerful tone, "Are you all ready to play horsey with me?"

I could do little but toss my head and pull on the reins in Mrs. Hobbson's hands.

"He's just a little skittish," the woman said to her daughter.

Penny laughed. "I'll fix that," she said. She took the reins from her mother and with a nimble step vaulted to my back.

Her weight was negligible but the mere fact that she was seated on my back in a saddle was disturbing. She pulled on the reins and cried, "Okay, let's go, Mister Cork." She tried to get me to move toward the three grotesque forms standing along the wall.

I resisted and she slapped my rump. "Come on," she called, "let's go for a ride."

Her mother saw my reluctance and said, "Oh, you think you are mad, Mister Cork? Or that your eyes are playing tricks on you? Penny!"

The little girl, taking her cue from her mother's implied order said, "Okay, Mama, I'll make them go away." She clapped her hands and, to my shock the household staff, Mrs. Wilson, the maids, the gardener, the gatekeeper and all the others, simply vanished!

"You see, Mister Cork," the dark haired mother said, "Penny does have imaginary companions, but they are not those three. It's all the rest of us." And with that the lady faded away leaving me alone with the moppet and her monsters.

_As a writer, Teel James Glenn, has over two score novels currently on the market. He was named best author for 2012 by the Pulp Ark Awards. His short stories have appeared in Weird Tales, Mad, Black Belt, Fantasy Tales, Pulp Empire, Sixgun Western, Fantasy World Geographic, Silver Blade Quarterly, Another Realm, AfterburnSF, Blazing Adventures and scores of other publications. His website is_ theurbanswashbuckler.com

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#  Lure

by Regina Swanson; published July 26, 2013

"Kiri says there's a dryad in the willow tree by the mill pond," my sister Lilla announced. She stuffed a piece of honey bread in her mouth and waited for the reaction. Mamich kneaded dough with strong hands and thick forearms powdered white with fine flour.

"Don't be silly," Mamich snapped. Her usually soft gray eyes, ringed with wrinkles, sparked at Lilla. She paused to wipe a curl of hair, also gray, from her forehead with her arm, leaving a smudge above her eyes. The upper half of the kitchen door was open allowing a breeze to cool the pies on the sill, but the fire under the iron stew pot kept the room uncomfortably warm for work. Lilla and I sat swinging our legs from the long wooden bench at the table.

"What's a dryad?" I asked. Lilla was older than me by two years. She knew more than me.

"A naked lady!" Lilla said brashly. She avoided looking at Mamich and looked hard at me instead. Her plump, freckled cheeks and gray eyes looked like Mamich's. But she wasn't as nice.

"No such thing," Mamich hissed. "I won't have such talk in my kitchen. Go milk the goats."

"Already did," Lilla sassed. She pointed at the pails of milk just inside the kitchen door.

"Then go do your figures. Bring your slate in here to show me. Go now!"

I covered my smile that Lilla got in trouble. Who cares about a naked lady in a tree? I broke off another piece of honey bread while Mamich was distracted.

"Dres, you too!"

"What did I do?" I didn't think it was fair, but I went to get my slate. I stuck my tongue out at Lilla; it was her fault.

"You better watch out," Lilla said. "Dryads eat boys because boys are dumb."

"You're dumb," I yelled. "You got us in trouble!" I clambered up the stairs before she could hit me and got my slate from the attic room I shared with my two older brothers. They were out helping Dadich rebuild the chicken coop, otherwise I could have asked them. Instead I forgot about the naked lady until bedtime. I thought about her while I lay on my pallet that night, though. Why would a naked lady be outside? Wouldn't someone give her clothes? Where did she live? I pulled my quilt up to my chin. It would be cold to be naked outside at night.

At school the next day, I told my friend Ben about the dryad. "Oh," he said. "My dadich told me about that a long time ago. He said that's why they tell us to stay away from the mill pond."

Ben might have been lying. He did sometimes. "Did he tell you that it's a naked lady?" I asked. I was sure he didn't know that part.

Ben looked surprised which made me smile. His reddish hair stood out from his head. His eyes were always red, too, and he rubbed them with the heels of his hands. "It can't be. Dadich says it's supposed to be dangerous. How could a naked lady be dangerous?"

I frowned and shrugged. I guessed I should ask my dadich about it. The trouble was getting a free moment with him. He was always working on the farm.

At school a couple of days later Ben said, "The dryad _is_ a naked lady." We sat at the roots of the giant mulberry tree that shaded the schoolyard. I pitched a pebble at a big, black beetle and Ben dug a hole with the heel of his old brown shoe.

"How do you know?" I said.

"I _saw_ her," Ben said. "My dadich told me not to take the goats past the mill pond, but yesterday I did."

I stared at him. Ben didn't have any brothers or sisters. Before school each morning he drove his family's four goats to meet my brother Jeg who watched them graze all day. After school, Ben drove them home again, but he didn't have to go by the mill pond either way. He was supposed to go right through the square.

"Did you get a whipping?" I asked. I thought he deserved one.

"No one caught me," he said. "And I saw the dryad. It's a naked lady for sure."

"You're a liar," I said. "You wouldn't go by the mill pond anyway."

When Ben shrugged, I knew he wasn't lying. He always got mad when he was lying. "So what did she look like?" I asked.

"Pretty, like Teacher," Ben said, blushing. "She was stuck to the tree, though. She asked me to help her, but I had to get the goats home."

I thought I would have helped her. I would have given her my shirt to put on.

"I saw her again," Ben said, a few days later. We were in our spots under the tree. The bigger boys played ball and Lilla sat with the older girls braiding each other's hair on the schoolhouse steps.

"You're going to get in trouble," I said. I felt a little mad, but I wasn't sure why. Part of me wished he'd never gone and I was the one who saw her.

"Maybe," he said, "but she's really sad. She's stuck to the tree, and she's lonely."

"Why's she stuck to the tree? Can't she climb out?"

"Not stuck _in_ the tree, dummy," Ben rolled his eyes. "She's sort of... stuck _to_ it."

"That doesn't make any sense. And you shouldn't go by the mill pond," I yelled, but Ben didn't even yell back at me. He just sat looking miserable with his watery eyes and his hair sticking out everywhere.

I wondered if I should tell someone. As it got hotter and hotter, Ben began acting stranger and stranger. He stared off all the time, daydreaming. If I talked to him, sometimes he didn't hear me. In class sometimes he didn't even hear Teacher. Then one day he didn't come to the schoolroom at all.

"Dres, do you know where Ben is?" Teacher asked. She looked worried. I shook my head, but I thought I might know.

The clapboard classroom, even with the windows and doors all open, seemed stuffy the rest of the lesson. I almost got in trouble for fidgeting because I could hardly sit still on the wooden bench. I certainly couldn't concentrate on reading the primer. Maybe Ben got the dryad out of the tree. Maybe they ran away.

Mamich wasn't in the kitchen when I got home after school. She left bread with jam and milk for me and Lilla. We ate in silence at first. The kitchen seemed big and empty without Mamich taking up so much of it. The small clock on the dark wood mantel ticked. The dried herbs hanging here and there stirred strangely on unfelt drafts. The fire was banked and nothing bubbled in the iron pot.

"Where's Mamich?" I whispered.

"I don't know," Lilla said softly. She fingered the buckle on the old belt that held her books and slate. Her light eyes were serious. "I wonder if Dadich is okay."

I hadn't thought of that. "Maybe she would have gotten us from school if Dadich was hurt. Or Jeg or Aris."

Lilla nodded. I couldn't remember Lilla looking scared before.

At last Mamich bustled through the kitchen door just as we finished our bread. I was never so glad to see her, breathless and fat in her flower print dress, framed in the light of the open door. Lilla and I jumped up and ran to hug her and she wrapped her arms tightly around us.

"Oh, my little ones," she cried. "I have terrible news. I just came from the Hensl's. Your friend, Ben, Dres. He was found in the mill pond this morning."

I shook my head and tried to back away, but Mamich smothered me to her bosom.

"We tell you children over and over," Mamich sobbed. "But you go to the mill pond. You go and you think nothing will happen..."

"No, Mamich!" I yelled into her body. "No! It was the dryad! He told me he saw her!"

Mamich said, "You knew he was going to the pond?"

"I knew about the _dryad_ ," I said.

"Hush," Mamich said. She took me by the shoulders and looked me in the eyes. "Dres, they will mourn for Ben for the next three days. We will go as a family tomorrow. But no dryad. Such talk will not help."

I nodded, but I knew the truth. "If I'd said something sooner this wouldn't have happened."

Mamich looked at me in sad silence then clutched me tightly to her again.

In the morning, Mamich combed and oiled my hair, and tied a black ribbon in a big bow under the starch-stiffened collar of my good shirt. Even though it was summer, she made me put on Aris's old black boots; they were a little too big, but she said I couldn't be barefoot and my holey brown school shoes wouldn't do. Mamich and Lilla wore dark dresses, their hair braided and tucked into black crocheted nets. Even Dadich and the boys were scrubbed and dressed for this terrible day. We walked as a family to Ben's house.

Other families made their way as well, moving quietly and slowly through the square. A light, early morning mist hung in the air. Everyone greeted each other in low voices. Boot heels scuffed on the wide stones of the square and then crunched in the gravel as the road led out to the Hensl's farm. There was no breeze. No birds sang. The sun swam in the gray sky a long way away.

The Hensl house was smaller, darker, and poorer than ours, wood instead of brick and plaster. Ben lay on the cloth-covered table in the great room, a gray blanket pulled up to his chest. People filed past to look at Ben, said a few words to his mamich and dadich, Goodman and Goodwife Hensl, and then went right back out into the mist. My mamich held hands with Goodwife Hensl for a good while before waving me over. Goodwife Hensl tried so hard not to cry the corners of her mouth turned down with every word.

"He was my good friend," I said before I choked and hid my tears in Mamich's skirt. Goodwife Hensl started crying, too, and Dadich bent over to pick me up like he hadn't since I was a little boy. I could hear the low voices of the adults talking around me, but I didn't understand what they were saying. I couldn't think of anything else but Ben, and I didn't want to look at him lying on the table.

Anger burned my cheeks. Why didn't anyone want to hear about the dryad? Maybe they would cut the tree down if they knew there was a murderer inside.

I buried my face in Dadich's strong shoulders. Even scrubbed up, he smelled like fresh dirt. Soon I found we were walking together on the mill road; I was still in his arms. We were alone. "Where's Mamich?" I asked.

"Still at the Hensl's," Dadich replied softly.

"Why are we here?"

"I want to show you something." He set me down and I saw we were on the road near the pond and the willow tree that hung over it. "Hold my hand."

I did and we walked closer to the tree. It bent over the mill pond, trailing silvery green branches in the still water. Its bark was craggy except where a smooth spot opened up, widening as a slender waist to bare shoulders and then closing again. I looked up at Dadich.

"Is that it?"

"Yes," he said.

"Can we walk closer?"

We did. The bank of the mill pond fell steeply away from the road. The mud was slippery; I caught my breath as I saw the raw scar where Ben must have fallen.

"He said he saw a lady," I told Dadich. I couldn't bring myself to tell him she was naked.

"Yes, some boys say they have a seen a lady with her arms around the tree," Dadich said. "But you can see, she's not here."

I nodded, but stared harder at the tree. "Why would Ben fall in if there wasn't a lady?"

"I don't know, son," Dadich said. He held my hand a little tighter. "But there is no lady. You see?"

"I see," I said, confused. Dadich held my hand as we walked home, and that made me feel a little better.

I couldn't stop thinking about Ben, though. I kept seeing his face, white and puffy as he lay on the table. I saw him sulking and daydreaming at school, and I saw the tree. It didn't make sense. I lay awake that night listening to Jeg and Aris snore. The full moon shone through the small attic window directly into my eyes. I pulled the blanket over my head, but then I couldn't breathe. How could Ben be fooled by a smooth spot on a tree?

Before my mind caught up, my bare feet were already running on the moonlit road to the mill. I was still in my nightshirt, but it didn't matter. The night was warm and still. I ran. Past the mill and on to the mill pond. The tree. Its leaves rattled though there was no breeze. The smooth spot in the trunk seemed to move in the dappled light.

Then I saw her.

Her arms wrapped loosely about the tree, her head bowed and turned slightly so that I could see her chin just above her shoulder. She cried silently with her eyes closed, her bare back rising and falling with her sobs.

"You killed my friend!" I stayed several paces away. A safe distance, I supposed.

"He slipped," she said in a high voice like twittering birds. "He tried to help me." She opened her eyes. They were yellow-green, large, and a little scared. Her skin shone a pale gray-green; her hair was leaves. She lifted her chin and looked at me over her shoulder. She could not move from that position, I saw. Where her legs should have been her body turned back into the tree.

"Why don't you ask someone bigger to help you?"

"They can't see me," she said. "You saw that for yourself."

"Ben's dadich said you were dangerous."

"I can't move."

I saw that was true. I thought for a moment in silence. "Why are you stuck there?"

"I'm a dryad. I was born of this tree."

"Then how can you get out?"

She closed her eyes and sighed. "A long and difficult process," she said, sadly. "Go away now, please."

I stepped closer. Ben had died trying to help her. He thought it was that important. "Maybe I can help you."

"I don't believe anyone can."

"I can try," I said, moving closer. I could see her ribs, her tiny waist, her hips. "You can have my nightshirt."

She gave me a slight smile. "No need, Dres, though you are sweet."

I blushed as she said my name. I stepped around more to her front so she didn't have to look over her shoulder so much. My feet squelched in the mud. The moon, lower in the sky now, cast deep shadows, and I could barely see the bank or the water below. I could look her full in the face, though, and she was as pretty as Ben said. Her amber-green eyes glowed slightly in the dark like a cat's. She leaned toward me as much as she could, and she smelled green like a sapling or a cut branch.

"Tell me what to do."

Just then my foot slipped in the mud. I felt a moment's panic, but the dryad caught the neck of my nightshirt with a hand of knotted twigs. I reached up to touch her wrist, just to feel her, but I felt a branch, not a girl, her arm was strong and unyielding as wood. She pulled me toward her, away from the bank.

"Thank you," I said. "That's what happened to Ben!"

"Yes," she said. "I couldn't catch him."

She pulled me right up against the trunk of her tree, then leaned back and took a firmer hold under my arms. With one thin but powerful branch-like arm she lifted me off my feet and brought me level to her face.

"I could have tangled him with my roots if I'd had more time. But it was morning and there were people."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I lost him just when he was mine." She leaned away from the trunk even further, creating a dark opening into the tree itself. The front of her body was split wood. Her tree creaked at she lifted me up even further.

"Set me down!" I kicked at her and dug my fingers into the bark of her arm, but she wrapped a tendril around my arms, pinning them to my sides. I started to cry.

"I could help you get out the tree!" I screamed desperately. I didn't want to go in that black hole.

"I can't get out of the tree," she said in her voice like singing birds. "I am the tree."

She roped her thin branches down around my thighs then lowered me toward the darkness.

"Some flowers use scent, some use water, some use food," she said lightly.

I kept crying. I didn't know why she was talking, or what she was saying. I screamed but I still heard her.

"We the trees and flowers, we hunt without moving."

The tree closed around me.

Regina Swanson lives, works, and writes in La Habra, California. She holds a Master's in English Composition from Cal Poly, SLO and is currently a pursuing a second Master's in Philosophy at CSULB. Lure is her first published work of fiction. She hopes to carve out time to write more fiction between torturing undergraduate students and cursing her thesis adviser.

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#  Controlled

by Elisa Nuckle; published July 30, 2013

On a humid summer's night, Niall walked into his brother's dining hall with outstretched arms and a broad grin. Dorim, the stockier of the two, grasped Niall with both hands and nearly crushed Niall's spine as he roared with laughter. The metal baubles and feathers in Dorim's blond hair jangled as he motioned Niall toward a stone table close to the ground. The strong smell of sweet wine made Niall chuckle as he sat down and popped a grape into his mouth.

Dorim emptied his wine cup in a few swigs and slapped it back down. "When was the last time we had a break this long?"

Niall shook his head. "General Torant's never released us early since the beginning of the war."

 "Ah, it's for the best. Peace talks don't need our swords anyway. City's better off with me here, where I can see her."

"Dorim, don't pretend you're here to serve. It's the women you want." Niall laughed and caught the goblet his brother threw at his face. "Not that I can blame you."

"Oh, yes. More than a handful of pretty faces in this palace. Too bad they're not like the women back in Farthis. Now _they_ knew how to have a good time." Dorim's cheeks burned red, and he chuckled into his second goblet as he swallowed its contents whole in an impressively short amount of time. "Have you heard from Vars?"

Niall shook his head. Their eldest brother, their leader, disappeared on a mission two weeks ago and hadn't returned. "But the others send their love."

"Where are those two fools at?"

"Guarding the Monarch until Torant returns."

"A high honor," Dorim scoffed. "And the dogs decided not to tell me?"

Niall laughed. "They knew you'd cut their heads off if they did."

"Oh, I'd rather cut the Monarch's off first."

"Treason does not become the city's finest soldier."

"Finest drunkard, you mean. Hah." Dorim yelled at a nearby servant to bring in the main course.

As Niall stared at the heaps of cheese, grapes, bread, and berries on his plate, complete with honeys and jam, a lump formed in his throat, and his thoughts became cold. How had his life become so bittersweet? Long ago, when his youngest brother had been in the world for only two weeks, the Monarch seized control of the city. Niall's father and mother were loyal to the old crown and beheaded for it. An example, the Monarch announced, to those foolish enough to stand against him and his strange dragon tamer. Desperate, ten year-old Vars convinced the stooped Monarch to spare the five brothers by offering their lives to city service and defense. The Monarch, with labored breath, agreed.

Vars, Dorim, Niall, Kye, and Pontris became the Blood Brothers — the city's finest warriors. This wasn't something all of the Brothers professed proudly. Vars took his duty with solemn silence. Dorim drank to forget that he had been old enough to attend the beheading; Niall had not, and for that he thanked whatever gods his father once prayed to. Kye and Pontris paraded about, gained the most honor. They bore none of the anger their older siblings had for the Monarch or his rules, and Niall couldn't judge them for their ignorance, despite the pressure against his chest and the bile that rose in his throat when he saw them walk with the haggard old ruler side-by-side.

"Oh, gods." Dorim slammed his fists against the table. "You're horrible company."

~~~~~

Apologies didn't sway Dorim's sour mood, and after several failed attempts to revive the conversation Niall left for his chambers. They weren't far from Dorim's, or Var's. His younger brothers slept on the opposite side of the palace in order to assist the Monarch whenever he desired. Niall forced himself to think of other things, like the twin moons of life and honor. Their overlapping light created strange shadows in the dark. The pale beauties blocked out the stars, making the sky look like a black canvass for them to shape into their images.

Along the stone palace paths were viewing tiers. Niall stopped and went onto one that overlooked the desert valley beyond the hill country on which the palace was built. Only the occasional tree dotted the flat expanse. Somewhere in the distance the giant red cliffs of the Samaranthine River marked the end of their land and the beginning of their enemy's on the opposite side.

General Torant marched on their enemy when Niall was sixteen and now, as a grown man, Niall had returned to the city for the first time. He walked the palace halls, smiled to the servants, watched the dragons usher the Monarch's councilmen from floor to floor so they didn't have to walk down those cold steps.

The behemoth beasts cast magnified shadows of themselves. Some were white or cream-colored, some as black as the night sky, while others were a strange gray-blue or seemed covered in rust. The dragons were beautiful slaves. Without their power, manipulated by the magic of the Controller, no palace would ever rest along the rocky foothills of the Tall Teeth.

Niall found himself entranced by the magnificence of each building, even the half-crumbled ones in Beggar's Lane. Dragonbreath melted the metal and stone together in intricate detail. No blacksmith knew how to reproduce the designs the dragons created, and most — Niall included — assumed it was part of the magical mystery that gave birth to the scaled species in the first place, a mystery that only mages and the one Controller understood.

Niall heard the labored breathing of an old man, heard his sliding, awkward gait. "Does it feel foreign to you? This city. Our ways," said the Monarch.

"No, my Monarch." Niall bowed to the old man. "It feels as if I returned to a dream I never imagined to experience again. A sincere pleasure."

The Monarch's smile revealed his toothless gums, but that didn't belie the man's intensity. "Good, good."

"If I may be blunt, my Monarch, is there something you require of me?"

"No, and I hope I do not have to for a time. Would that I were so fortunate." He leaned on his cane and hobbled to the tier's edge. "There are those who want my rule to end at last — you are one of them." His smile was sad. "And yet you aren't."

"I keep my oaths, despite my personal feelings."

"Ah, you are much like your eldest brother. Have you heard from him?"

Niall frowned. "I haven't."

"That's a shame." The Monarch stared into the city for a time. Niall shifted his weight, tapped against the columns of the rail. He was about to ask to be excused when the Monarch said, "I wish I could've spared your parents. Their loyalty was something I failed to value."

"As you say," Niall sighed.

"Tell me, how goes the war?"

Niall suppressed a surprised scoff. "My Monarch? Certainly your advisors update you on the General's doings with more clarity than I can."

"You've only been in the palace since the new moons, and now they're full again. My advisors haven't heard from the General in twice that time."

Niall wanted to demand why the Monarch was being so amiable and relaxed. He preferred the hardened formality of the Monarch he remembered. This new ease unsettled him.

The Monarch stared into Niall's eyes and chuckled. "This isn't a trick, Arth's son. I'm simply curious."

"As you say." Niall inhaled, and then said, "The war is almost over. General Torant was so confident in our good fortune that he sent Vars, myself, and my brothers back home with a squadron of men."

"And where is Vars?"

"I wish I knew. He said he had matters to attend to that were private in nature."

"A woman?" The Monarch smiled.

"I don't know. If I were honest, my Monarch, he's been distant since we left for home."

"Strange. Likely there's a reason. If you can, I'd like you to discover his whereabouts and report back to me."

Niall stopped himself from asking why the Monarch didn't ask Vars himself once he returned, and instead nodded. "As you command."

The Monarch looked up at Niall for a while. He patted Niall on the shoulder, and there were tears in his eyes. "I hope to see you again, some day."

Niall bowed. "If that is your wish, it will be done."

As the Monarch hobbled down to the dragon's landing terrace, where a grand black dragon waited, Niall tried to quell the sudden sense of dread that invaded his senses.

~~~~~

Two nights later, as Niall unfastened his leather vest, he heard panicked screams followed by a dragon's shriek of a roar. White smoke floated along the corridor ceiling. Niall grabbed his scythe from its holding place and ran out toward the palace pathways.

As he grew closer to the wailing source, a blue dragon hovered over the tier farther along the way and exhaled furious blue and white fire. Blue smoke mingled with the thickening multi-colored haze. The columns caught in the inferno collapsed into a melted mass. Niall saw the tier crumble onto the floor below, where courtiers scrambled away in a raucous frenzy. He ran towards Dorim's rooms, barely escaping the tumbling mass of stone and steel.

Niall spotted Pontris and shouted out to him. Blood matted Pontris's hair to his forehead. Not far behind, Kye helped Dorim struggle towards Niall. Dorim's leg dangled lifelessly from below the knee. There was a gash in his cloth trousers, and red trickled freely behind him on the floor.

"What happened?" Niall hugged Pontris, clasped hands with Kye, and frowned at Dorim's wound.

"The Monarch was coming from a feast on the lower levels when his dragon grabbed the reigns and yanked him from his seat." Pontris choked on a stifled sob. "The dragon swallowed him whole as he fell."

"And then burned my chambers to cinders," Dorim wheezed out a chuckle. "Ceiling was on my leg before I knew day from night."

"We need to find Var."

Pontris shook his head. "Dorim needs a healer, and then we need to find the Controller and ask why she lost her power over the dragons."

"Likely she didn't," Kye said. "And don't give me that look, Pon. You know she's been at everyone's throats." Kye turned to Niall. "The Controller hasn't agreed with the Monarch's policies of late."

"She's allowed that privilege, being what she is."

"Half-dragon or not, threats are threats."

"Enough!" Dorim hissed when he tried to put weight on his leg. "Where's Var?"

Niall frowned. Var left on the new moon and never returned. Was this a coincidence? "We need to get a message to Torant. Come on."

They worked their way through the damaged palace down to the Healer's Court which rested in the hillside itself, fortified beyond the lowest section of the city's three walls. Along the way the brothers picked up courtiers, servants, even some slaves, leading them to the Citadel within the Court. Niall prayed Var would be there. Alive.

Through the rest of the night they forged their way through the rubble and out of the palace. As the sun peeked over the mountains, Niall and his brothers walked up the stone street that lead to the Healer's Court. Bleached stones lined their way, while behind them in the distance dragons of all sizes and colors flew through the city breathing ruin into the morning sky.

Before long, smoke hung over the palace like a burial shroud. Midnight blue flames licked the sides. White, blue, gray, and red fire devoured bits of stone as if it were wood, melting it until a ceiling or floor or wall collapsed.

"We have to do something," Kye said. Pontris helped Dorim up the hill; Kye walked ahead with Niall. "The guards are few and mostly fresh."

"They won't know how to kill a dragon."

"Do _we_?" Kye looked at Niall, who sighed. "That's what I thought."

"The healers might know something."

"Doubtful. Only magic can undo itself, remember?"

Niall grunted and walked ahead.

Not long afterward, they reached the Healer's Court. The citadel had no doors, and the cavern mouth was large enough to allow the grand multi-level carriage house the Monarch was so fond of to pass through, perhaps more. Fortunately, a dragon wasn't able to fit.

The ceiling of the cave-like building was smooth and bleached like the stones lining the pathway. Two main walkways, also bleached, wrapped around various trees and pools like vines up wall. Symbols carved into the cave's ceiling glowed with the sun's radiance, and Niall felt as though he had stepped into a mythical glade and not into a hillside belly. The air was pregnant with that electric spark of magic. Never before had Niall felt so alive.

A woman dressed in a leather vest and breeches walked up to them. A curved sword hung from her belt. She wasn't at all what Niall expected a healer to look like.

Seeing Dorim's injuries, she took his other shoulder. "Take him to that pool." She motioned to a small circle of water just outside of the path. "He'll need to remove his trousers."

"Gladly." Dorim winked at her, and she rolled her eyes.

"I wouldn't be, sir. Before long these pools will be filled with people." She glanced at the wave of men and women stumbling into the citadel.

"Do you know anything about the dragons?" Niall asked.

The woman shook her head. "But the Lore Mother might."

Niall had heard of Lore Mothers. They knew all magic spells related to healing. Rumors among the soldiers said a Mother held all the knowledge of magic in the world, but Niall didn't know the truth of this.

"You'll find the Mother at the top of the citadel." The woman pointed at the graceful, curving steps at the end of the cave. They emptied into darkness.

Niall gave a small bow. "My thanks. Pon, stay with Dorim."

Pontris groaned. "I want to learn dragon secrets."

"You're twenty-one. Act like it," Kye said. He thumped Pontris on the shoulder.

Niall found this ironic, as Kye was only two years older than Pontris, but said nothing. The two brothers made their way to the winding stairs. Oddly, the rail was warm to the touch and left a tingling sensation in Niall's hand. Was that magic or something else?

A little unnerved, Niall crossed through the dark threshold and into a small antechamber. The walls were as smooth as the ones outside. Row after row of stone was carved from the rock, and countless books rested on them. Most were so covered in dust that Niall wasn't able to read the titles on the leather spines. In a corner to the side was a desk. On the other side, a woman folded a wool blanket over her bed. As Niall imagined, the woman's hair was silver, her face sagging and wrinkled. Still, her honest smile gave her a youthful exuberance, and Niall realized he had never smiled like that. At least not in a long time.

"You are Arth's sons, am I right?" Niall guessed he looked shocked, since she laughed. "I knew your father once. During a battle, he smashed his knee into splinters. Stayed with us for quite a long time." She had a distant expression. "So long ago."

"You've heard about the dragons?" Niall said.

She nodded. "You want to know if I can help?" When Niall nodded, she shook her head. "The Controller knows the secrets to dragon magic, and she guards it well. Shival is a good woman, but stubborn. What trouble she's gotten us into."

Kye scoffed. "How do you know she isn't _causing_ it?"

"I suppose I don't."

Niall sighed. It was a long, weighted thing. "Do you have a Calling Step?"

The Mother pointed to a small, circular pedestal next to her desk. Symbols were etched in circles that grew smaller until they reached a central point, like tree rings. They bore the history of the citadel and the Mothers that continued to carve the symbols into the stone, expanding when necessary. By its size, it wasn't very old. Niall once used a Calling Step that could hold fifteen men on it at once.

He stepped onto the stones and summoned a mental image of General Torant. As Niall whispered the name over and over, he was transported across the desert valley, across the Samaranthine, through the endless plains towards a large camp. At least fifty-thousand men sat around fires or prepared for the long hike the morning promised.

At last, Niall's body stopped next to a tall beast of a man. General Torant already wore his massive plate armor, about to shove his helm over his leather cap when Niall's form manifested in a flash of white. Torant seemed unshaken by this, but Niall never knew the General to tremble or fear.

"Well, this isn't an unpleasant surprise." Torant made to clasp Niall on the shoulder but didn't touch the translucent image of Niall's body. "What news of home?"

"You haven't heard?"

Niall explained the dragons, detailed the conversation he'd shared with the Monarch, the Controller's disappearance, and her avid disapproval of the Monarch's decisions.

Torant paced as Niall finished. "Damn that half-dragon."

"General?"

"I sent the five of you home on a mission, but I gather you didn't know that. Var must have decided not to let you know until more information was gathered, the careful man that he is. You've not heard from him?" Niall shook his head, and Torant went back to pacing. "Then you must know what he did and take up his mission, should he be," Torant glanced at Niall, "unable to complete it."

"Kye was right to mistrust the half-dragon. The Monarch called to me on the new moons and whispered his concerns. Shival was starting to realize her goals no longer aligned with the Monarch's, and she knew she had the power to change that. He bade me return home with our army and didn't contact again."

"We were already home when this happened," Niall said.

Torant nodded. "Allies of the Monarch questioned Shival sooner than he did, and came to me about it. Var knew. He was privy to these calls. In order to keep suspicions low, he asked that he lead you and your brothers on a mission to find out Shival's intentions."

"Since he hasn't been seen since the new moons, we can assume her intentions weren't honest."

"When was she last seen?"

"Yesterday morning, according to Kye. He said he happened by her in the corridor. She seemed in a hurry and didn't acknowledge him."

"I'm almost to the Samaranthine. By tomorrow evening, we should be crossing at the Great Bridge. Track her, if you can, and see if she knows what happened to Var. Bring her to me alive. We have mages who must know a way to transfer her power to another or force her to calm the beasts. Monarch smile on you in death." Torant slid his helm over his head. The two horns made him look like a beast come to life to slay his kingdom's enemies. It was inspiring.

~~~~~

On horseback, Niall, Kye, and Pontris skirted around the city in the mid-morning haze. With the entire city wrapped in smoke Niall couldn't tell if the dragons continued to burn houses and shrines and noble palaces. When the brothers had left Healer's Court, some claimed the dragons fought each other as much as they fought the undefended structures. Niall hoped that was true. It would buy them time.

Kye had seen Shival turn into a dragon and fly towards the Samaranthine, but no one had seen a dragon outside of the city — and that sort of news traveled fast. Shival was on foot. With the head start, she might make it to the river by the morning if she transformed occasionally, but Niall's and his brothers' horses were the swiftest in the city.

Niall looked into the sky, looking for dragons, but instead, rifts of red, green, and yellow flashed in the sky. Moon Ribbons during the day? Niall yelled at his brothers and motioned to the lights above. The Ribbons were faint against the sun, but there they were. Did the dragons summon them? Or was it something else? Niall took it as a sign from the moons that he was on the proper path.

By midday, Niall caught sight of dragon prints. He ordered a halt and swung off his mount. The great, three-toed prints shifted as if Shival dragged herself on. Or fell. Then there were bare footprints, but even these seemed strange. The same dragging marks followed.

A lone tree marked the horizon. Niall saw something under its shade. Two somethings. He looked down and realized the sliding mark along the hard sandy ground went towards the tree. Not bothering with the horse, he ran. Soon, the figures became clear.

Shival, dressed in only a cloth vest and tattered breeches, slept next to a body propped up against the tree trunk. It was so bloodied and disfigured that Niall couldn't make out who it was. Careful not to wake the half-dragon, Niall motioned for his brothers to wait and crept into the shade.

He grabbed her hands and Shival jumped to life, roaring in a strange shrieking wail not unlike her half-siblings in the city. Disgusted, Niall shoved her into Kye's hands and he bent to inspect the body.

"Does he breathe?" Shival asked. Her voice was deep for a woman's, yet attractive. Under different circumstances, Niall might've enjoyed letting her speak more, but not now.

The body had been dressed in a steel chain mail tunic, or so Niall guessed. It was a man. His right leg had been bitten clean off, and blood had seeped into the ground around the wound. From the looks of the stiff joints and the already-pungent smell, the man had died last night, hopefully in his sleep. Niall bent closer to look for an insignia, a tattoo or some other identifier.

Around the man's neck, or rather _melted_ into his chest, was a pendant. It had been shaped like a vine, with what remained of the letter V on the front.

Vars's pendant.

Niall spun around and grabbed Shival by the throat. He enjoyed hearing her cough as he squeezed. "What did he do that deserved this? Tell me!"

Defiance sparkled like glowing embers in her black eyes. Tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped onto his hands, but all he wanted to do was watch her life fade from her slowly.

It took both Kye and Pontris to pry Niall off her neck, and she fell to the ground in a fit of choking spasms as she tried to breathe again.

"We need her." But Niall could tell it took every ounce of willpower Kye possessed to say that. His lip quivered. The man they all looked up to was gone, and they had to keep the bitch that killed him alive.

Niall growled and shoved himself away. Carefully, he stalked to Shival and pointed his scythe at her chest. "You'd better start talking, or else we'll find a way to control the dragons once you're dead."

Shival pushed herself up into a sitting position and rubbed her neck. She trembled, but there was something feral in her that overpowered her emotions and replaced her tears with a frigid determination.

Niall pressed his blade onto her skin enough to make her bleed. "Speak."

"You're Var's brother?"

" _We_ are."

"How did you know where we were?"

Pontris bent down and slapped her hard enough to knock her to the ground. "You have no right to ask questions."

"Pon." Niall motioned to Kye, who led Pontris off towards their horses.

Shival picked herself up yet again. "Did Torant send you?" She scoffed and spat out a thick clot of red, then licked her lips as she scoffed. "Are you his bitch, answering when he calls?"

Niall closed his eyes and barely managed to speak through his clenched jaws. "Why did you loose the dragons on the city?"

"Would you believe me if I said I didn't?"

"That's rich." Niall barked out a single, sharp laugh. "Did they decide to stop listening to you for a day, is that it?"

"No."

"You admit your guilt then." He picked her up by the hair and dragged her to his horse. "When we reach the General, you'll tell him how to fix this. And then you will die."

~~~~~

"Where are we going?" Shival asked. She was tied to the back of Niall's saddle and walked behind his horse.

"The Samaranthine."

Niall looked into the sky. It was nearly dark. The General would reach the cliffs before they did. At their speed, it would take all night, even though Niall all but dragged Shival through the sharp rocks, sand, and harsh vegetation.

Despite his rage, something inside him felt ashamed of his actions against the Controller. Despite what she did to the city, to Vars. Niall slowed his horse a bit, to let the half-dragon catch her breath. All of this was wrong. General against Controller, Controller against Monarch, dragons against their city. A dark, tangled web of intent wove this together, but Niall didn't understand whose or why.

Shival claimed innocence, but none of the brothers allowed her to explain. Nothing could justify what she did to Vars.

Sometime later, Niall ordered Pontris and Kye to scout ahead on foot while the horses rested. He didn't want to push them to death, and he needed time to mull over his thoughts.

"Will you be able to handle her?" Pontris asked.

Niall nodded and, though Pontris seemed uncertain, the two younger brothers stalked off into the fading sunlight.

"They love you," Shival said. "Vars said such bonds existed between brothers, but I had never seen it."

"Don't." He pushed her away after he dismounted and left her tied to the animal. "You don't have the right to speak his name."

"I didn't kill him."

"No. A _dragon_ bit off his leg and burned him alive."

Shival tried to lean against the horse, but it started walking and she fell. Niall sighed and untied the rope from the saddle and tied her to him instead.

"It wasn't me. I've sworn to never harm a human as a dragon. If I break that oath —"

"Your blood will boil from inside and your heart will explode, I know. But only magic can undo itself." He threw a tiny shred of jerky at her. "Dragons are magic in physical form, or so they say."

Shival chuckled dryly and threw the jerky at his face. "Do you know how Controllers are born? How we become sibling to magic incarnate?" Niall tried to hide his curiosity, but she saw it and smiled. It was a bitter, hateful expression. "Every drop of human blood has to be replaced with that of a dragon. In other words, you die a slow, painful death. Then you wake up with the ability to hear every dragon in existence. They don't speak, can't form intelligent thoughts. They're primal things." Niall let her inch closer.

"Then you want to act on these desires. To rip the limb from the man who whipped you, to infuse magic into a building through your breath so the one who feeds you and says nice things to you when you've done well will live a long and healthy life. All of this, I feel. And every day I want to kill you humans." She sighed. "But I'm one of you, too, and I can't escape that fate either."

"You could turn into a dragon, stay that way." Niall cursed himself for letting her become so casual, but something about her made him relax.

"I can only sustain that form for a time. A month, maybe a year. And then I'd be a human, but less human than before. Each time I transform it takes a shred of my former self with it."

"Is that why you let the dragons burn it all to the ground?"

Niall glanced back at the city. The light from the fires twinkled in the distance like burning stars. Why was he entertaining this creature?

"There is another mage who learned the dragon magic. I don't know how, but _he_ is the one who killed your brother. I couldn't reach Vars in time, even though he called for me." Shival clenched her fists. "Do you know how that feels? To have the power to save a human from danger with ease, only to arrive in time to see a white dragon fly off and drop a man from his mouth without a second glance?"

"And this mage, where is he?"

"I can show you."

"Nice try." Niall yanked the rope and Shival fell face-first into the dirt. "But your lies won't change your fate."

"You are just and honorable, Niall Var's brother. I pray you consider that."

Shival let out a shriek. Her bones began to pop. White wings with blue membranes sprouted from her back, and her face turned into a long snout filled with teeth as long as Niall's hand. The rope around her wrists snapped as her arms grew into forelegs.

As Niall unsheathed his scythe, the transformation finished and Shival took to the sky. He managed to sink the curved blade into her shoulder. She cried out, but she didn't shake him loose as she rose. Niall watched the horses become black, undefined specks. He wondered if his brothers would be able to catch up but doubted it. He would die as his brother had, and he found himself praying Shival's story of her innocence was true.

After what felt like an eternity, Niall's arm tired. He needed to find a way to get off Shival or force himself onto her back. Part of him saw the irony in being dragged across the sky by a dragon when he had dragged her across the desert.

Shival must have heard his thoughts, because she started to descend. Niall spotted the great cliffs of the Samaranthine, but the General wasn't there yet. Niall needed to give the General time to capture the Controller.

Niall used what remaining strength he had to push his blade further into her flesh. Her scream was agonizing. As he was about to push it more, he saw another form in the sky. A cream-colored dragon with equally white membranes barreled towards them. Shival arched her back and Niall shot up into the air with nothing to catch him. Desperate, he grabbed onto one of the spikes along her spine and managed to wedge himself between two of them. Niall considered leaving the scythe buried in her shoulder, but this other dragon matched her description of the one that killed Vars.

The Shival-dragon roared and tucked in her wings. Niall held on to her spike with all his strength and prayed to the Controllers past to save their descendant from his foolishness. Blood as red as any man's covered her scales and dripped into the air. Could the other dragon smell it?

White and blue flames flew from Shival's mouth as a pale fireball came straight for her. Niall cried out. The metal of his scythe burned against his thigh, and he thought his flesh would start to roast if the inferno didn't calm. Shival swatted the remaining bits of flame with her foreleg and shrieked and hissed. It made Niall tremble.

Smoke clouded Niall's vision, but Shival dove towards the earth. Breaking through the haze, the white dragon appeared in front of her and bit at her neck. It missed and bit her already-wounded shoulder.

Instead of crying out, Shival sank her claws into the dragon's chest and bit at his neck over and over. It shrieked and tried to wrench itself free by clawing Shival wherever it could. It left huge gashes in her scaled chest and belly.

Niall felt Shival inhale deeply and hid his face against her spine as she unleashed fire on the other dragon's deep neck wound. This time Niall felt his hair burn before bits of flame leapt to his skin. Pain like none he'd felt before seared through his bare arms, and he screamed. The snarling dragons and the roaring winds ripped the noise into oblivion the moment it escaped his lips.

Unable to feel his arms, Niall's grip loosened. He felt emptiness surround him, beg him to fall. And he obliged.

The earth pulled at him, but the two dragons stayed intertwined. Shival's wing was burned to the point where she could barely move it and she struggled to stay in the sky. As Niall fell past her, she reached out a foreleg and roared. Niall saw her rip at the other dragon's belly and neck with newfound energy.

In a strangely human move, Shival grabbed the dragon's neck with her forefeet and twisted it until the dragon all but looked backwards. Still, it hissed and hissed. Shival bit into its neck and it finally went limp.

Niall watched as the dragon transformed into a human dressed in the white dress-like garb of the Westernmen. The man's body plummeted to the desert ground faster than Niall did, or at least it looked that way. Shival's wing was snapped, and she also fell, still in dragon form.

She screeched and tried to go into a dive, managed to catch up with Niall. Her forefeet wrapped around him, the claws barely missing his burnt flesh. Then he felt the world crash around him as he slammed into the scaled hands and into unconsciousness.

~~~~~

When Niall woke, a carnal rage flooded over him. A thousand sensations bombarded his mind, but the largest one was the General's face. How he wanted to burn that face. Pain made him scream, but it sounded like a thousand beasts shrieked instead.

"Is this normal?" Niall recognized Pontris's voice but could not see him. All he saw was Torant, all he wanted was to squeeze that throat of his, rip the blood out of him.

"Relax. His time has already come and gone." Shival came into his mind's eye, and the world righted itself again.

Her injuries were severe. Shival's shoulder looked disfigured and swollen. Dried blood still marred her skin and matted her tunic to her shoulder. Her chest bore many long cuts, as if someone took a dagger and sliced her skin open out of curiosity. No blood poured from the wounds, and Niall found that strange.

As he wondered how she managed to save him, he noticed his arm wasn't burned. His hair had regrown, and his pain wasn't as grievous as he expected, even as his arm bent far back and several of his fingers all but touched the back of his hand.

The countless thoughts and urges swallowed his mind again, and he roared. Suddenly his outreached claws grabbed Torant, took him into the air and dropped him into a flaming whirlwind of multi-colored fire, fueled by his brethren. His sisters, his brothers. His family. Torant had lied. He'd found a way to create another Controller. Conflicting messages were too much for his siblings, throwing them into madness beyond any control. Their regret and rage coursed through his blood. Oh, how he roared for them, mourned for those they killed, and delighted at the sight of his siblings as they raided Torant's army. Smoke filled his lungs and he blew it out again. Niall encouraged them to kill every last soldier, saw the enemy banners for the first time. Torant hadn't even been leading the Monarch's army toward the city.

Betrayer, oath-breaker.

Slay him.

Burn him.

Dragons shrieked and flew with Niall through the camp with newfound fervor. The city's enemies would fall. Niall would make sure of it.

"Enough."

Someone shook Niall and the radiant light of the Healer's Court came into view. Pontris, Dorim, and Kye sat on the edge of a pool. Shival, completely naked, lounged in the water. Her wounds weren't visible anymore. She stared at him, and Niall knew he looked back on her with eyes as black as her own.

They would kill all who stood against them, all who betrayed them. They would rule with a justice that burned.

Elisa Nuckle is an aspiring fantasy and science fiction novelist. It's always been her dream to chase ideas down and put them into concrete words. Currently, she's undergoing enlightenment at a college in Texas, and plans on getting an English major in the not-too-distant future.

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#  Book Review

Red Rising — by Pierce Brown

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#  Red Rising

by Pierce Brown

Review by Dan Hope

What do you do when your people are slaves, your wife has been executed by the aristocracy, and you've been sentenced to die, too? Infiltrate the upper crust of society and attend their battle school. That's what.

Red Rising is a new science fiction novel by Pierce Brown scheduled to debut in February 2014.

(We received an ARC at the Nebula Awards with no obligation to review it, positively or otherwise.) In the mines of Mars, a depressed working class has been convinced that their hard labor will prepare Mars for terraforming so that people can emigrate from a dying Earth. These miners have never seen the surface and risk their lives in dangerous mining operations out of a sense of duty to their fellow humans. What they don't know is that Mars was successfully terraformed and populated years ago, and an elite ruling class has sprung up on the surface. This group of strong, beautiful uber-humans are keeping it all a secret so that the miners, known as (surprise!) Reds, will continue risking their lives in poverty to benefit the society on the surface.

A color scheme is used throughout the book to delineate the various classes of humans. Democracy isn't even an afterthought here. You are born into your occupation, and you live and die as your color. The Golds are at the top, the Reds are at the subterranean bottom, and there are plenty of colors in between: Pink prostitutes and escorts, Copper bureaucrats, Gray soldiers, Violet artists, White judges, etc.

The class division by color is actually a bit of a detriment to the book, as it comes off as one of the most implausible aspects of a book with plenty of sci-fi elements. That a class system could become so carefully matched to specific colors is the most unbelievable part. Fortunately, the book rises above it.

The main character, Darrow, is a Red miner who loses his young wife when she rebels against their Gold overseers. Then he loses his own life in a similar act of rebellion. To his surprise, he wakes up neither dead nor in the mines. He has been saved and recruited by a clandestine organization of rebels looking to upset the class structure and free the oppressed Reds. Darrow is transformed through a series of horrific surgeries into a beautiful and physically perfect specimen of a Gold and infiltrates their elite school with the intent of bringing down their society from the inside. What he doesn't know is that the Gold ruling class is neither complacent nor naive, and in order to survive the school, Gold students must battle for their lives against each other. Once concerned only with infiltrating and destroying Gold society, Darrow quickly realizes that his first priority is staying alive.

The book's biggest sin is that the first third deceives the reader. Once you think you've identified the feel and purpose of the book, it changes. In fact, the book covers enough territory for two or three smaller books. It starts off in the mines of Mars, where it has an Orwellian feel to it, as if Brown had mixed 1984 with Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars novel. Then the novel almost becomes a Martian parody of cyberpunk as Darrow navigates the futuristic surface of Mars. Then he enters the battle school, and the feel of the book changes all over again. I was a little alarmed, at first. It felt like Brown was trying to create a Hunger-Games-at-Hogwarts book, full of teenage angst, dystopia, and boarding school antics. Possibly even with a little bit of Percy Jackson thrown in, based on the way Roman mythology plays into the school structure. Fortunately, Brown moves well beyond all that and redeems the story with a fascinating look at war, class struggle, and how they affects us as humans.

And really, this is where the story becomes its own. The beginning is interesting, the early middle is a bit meh, but then shortly thereafter, Brown accelerates into the real story and never looks back. The late start in the book is probably due to the fact that this is the first book in a series. Think of your favorite superhero movie, where the origin story delayed the action a little. Brown was operating under the same constraints when he created the book. Ultimately, the long lead-in to the real story is important for establishing the main character and making his motivations believable. But it takes some patience.

Don't worry, though. Once this story gets going, it's a great one. The book reaches a major milestone at the end, and it's a satisfying conclusion, though it's definitely just the beginning of Darrow's journey towards liberation.

So if we're going to draw parallels to other books, then I might as well say Red Rising is what the Hunger Games should have been.

Red Rising has better characterization than most of the novels I've referenced, particularly the YA novels, and Brown does an excellent job of making sure that decisions have consequences. He doesn't shy away from them, either. There are parts of this story, particularly in the last half, that will make you cringe. And that's a good thing. If you're going to write about the horrors of war, you can't gloss over the non-glorious parts of it (which, contrary to Romantic ideals, is 99.99 percent of it). What started off feeling like a YA sci-fi ripoff quickly shows that it's serious and has something to say.

Throughout the novel, Brown keeps you thinking about the dynamics of leadership and wartime relationships. Even though you might expect a plot-line where Darrow begins to respect and care for some of his enemies, Brown does an excellent job of making the characters react believably, and he doesn't take the situation lightly.

In short, it's refreshing that this book takes its premise seriously, and that Brown isn't shying away from the consequences of the plot.

So, yes, Red Rising seems a little derivative at first, but stick with it, because this story is so much more than the sum of its parts. And so much better.

Dan Hope, or the BSR as we call him, is Fiction Vortex's managing editor and resident sci-fi go-to guy. Whether he is writing it or reading it, sci-fi is his thing. Yes, he has an opinion about which Star Trek captain is the best. And yes, he will fight you about it. Dan recently moved to one of the sunny regions of California. He periodically feels pangs of regret that he doesn't write as much as he used to, but he consoles himself with beaches and fantastic weather.

_He recently published a science fiction novel, called_ The Inevitable _. You should check it out._

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#  About Fiction Vortex

Fiction Vortex, let's see...

A fiction vortex is a tornado of stories that pick you up and hurl you through a barn to find enlightenment on the other side. It's a whirlpool of fascinating tales so compelling that they suck you in, drag you down to the bottom of your mind, and drown you with incessant waves of glorious imagery and believable characters.

Nope.

A fiction vortex is an online speculative fiction magazine focused on publishing great science fiction and fantasy, and is run by incredibly attractive and intelligent people with great taste in literature and formidable writing prowess.

Not that either. But we're getting closer.

Founded in the 277th year of the Takolatchni Dynasty, Fiction Vortex set out to encourage people to write and publish great speculative fiction. It sprang fully formed from the elbow of TWOS, retaining none of TWOS's form but most of its spirit. And the patron god of writers, the insecure, the depressed, and the mentally ill regarded Fiction Vortex in his magic mirror of self-loathing and declared it good, insofar as something that gives writer's undue hope can be declared good. Thereafter, he charged the Rear Admiral of the Galactic 5th Fleet to defend Fiction Vortex down to the last robot warrior.

Now we're talking.

Take your pick. We don't care how you characterize us or the site.

Fiction Vortex focuses on publishing speculative fiction. That means science fiction and fantasy (with a light smattering of horror and a few other subgenres), be it light, heavy, deep, flighty, spaceflighty, cerebral, visceral, epic, or mundane. But mundane in a my-local-gas-station-has-elf-mechanics-but-it's-not-really-a-big-deal-around-here kind of way. Got it?

Basically, we want imaginative stories that are well written, but not full of supercilious floridity.

There's a long-standing belief that science fiction and fantasy stories aren't as good as purely literary fare. We want you to prove that mindset wrong (not just wrong, but a steaming pile of griffin dung wrong) with every story we publish. It's almost like we're saying, "I do not bite my thumb at you, literary snobs, but I do bite my thumb," but in a completely polite and non-confrontational way.

We've got more great stories online, with a new story twice a week. Visit our website FictionVortex.com, follow us on Twitter: @FictionVortex, and like us on Facebook: FictionVortex.

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