Generic 9

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Generic, Issue 9, Spring 2016 Copyright for all stories go to their creators Generic is copyright of Undergraduate Students for Publishing, Emerson College Interior Design by Kelsey Aijala Cover Art by Michelle Ajodah and Kelsey Aijala This issue is set in Gill Sans and Baskerville Old Face

Electronic edition published on issuu.com Print edition printed at Emerson College Print and Copy Center, Boston

Table of Contents

LETTER TO THE READER

The Prettiest One

Amanda Doughty Clean Slate

Rafael Barraza The Road Away from Here

Max Baker Delta

Carl Lavigne Ash in the Hourglass

Kyle Madigan The Witch

Melissa Close

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Generic Staff EDITOR IN CHIEF Diana DiLoreto

MANAGING EDITOR Rachel Cantor

HEAD EDITORS Casey Nugent, Anna Tayman, Rebecca Crandall, Camila Cornejo

READERS Alexander Eden, Kelsey Aijala, Sarah Dolan, Madison Heim-Jinivisian, Sarah Cummings, Alyssa Capel, Cassandra Martinez, Sammi Curran, Laura Sabater, Mary Baker, Melissa Close

HEAD COPYEDITOR Hayley Gundlach

COPYEDITORS Courtney Burke, Sara Zatopek, Brynn Callahan, Allison Rassmann

PROOFREADER Kaitlyn Coddington

INTERIOR DESIGNER Kelsey Aijala

MARKETING MANAGER Mary Baker

MARKETING ASSISTANT Patrick R. Groleau

COVER ARTIST Michelle Ajodah

GREETINGS & SALUTATIONS! If this is your first time opening Generic, welcome to Emerson College’s genre fiction-exclusive magazine. We’re the weirdest and wackiest fit for print: we’ve published everything from allegorical parables (please ask me about it) to Loch Ness Monster erotica (please ask Carl about it). If you’re an old friend of ours by now: welcome home. Pull a seat up by the fire.

This is my first semester as Editor in Chief, but I’ve worked with Generic since my sophomore year, and I’ve been writing fantasy since grade school. At Emerson, being able to read my favorite kind of stories while classwork had me trying to suss out what, exactly, “literary fiction” meant has been an incredible boon.

I’ve watched Generic grow so much, and personally I think this is our strongest edition yet. We’ve created a space of learning on campus, and I’m beyond proud of the work we’ve done and the work that’s yet to come.

To my entire staff: thank you. You are a busy squad who somehow makes time for Generic, my too-long emails, and a kooky digital production process. How you deal with it, I’ll never know, but am eternally grateful. Mary Baker, you will forever be Mary Bae-ker in my heart. Carl: thank you so much for letting me take Generic into the Great Unknown. There isn’t a dragon on the cover, but there’s a dragon story in here for you. Rachel, my managing editor, you are a galaxy of stars that will shine brightly for years to come. To Pub Club: thank you for giving Generic love. And thank you, our readers and workshop fans. You are our lifeblood.

I’ll leave you with some of my favorite words, courtesy of a misquotation by Neil Gaiman on G.K. Chesterton: “Fairy tales are more than true—not because they tell us dragons exist, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten.” We at Generic believe in the power of fairytales, in the ability of mere mortals to rise above the challenges they face, whatever those challenges may be. Your dragons may not be the dragons that grace these pages, but I do hope you walk away feeling like you can slay them a little easier.

Live Long, and Continue to Prosper

-DIANA DILORETO EDITOR IN CHIEF

AMANDA DOUGHTYNOIR

THE PRETTIEST ONE

Amanda is a senior Writing, Literature, and Publishing major who writes scary stories to distract herself from the terrifying world of post-graduation adulthood. She is originally from Maine, and has accepted the stereotype that all writers from Maine are trying to be Stephen King. She was the author of “Curiosity,� which was published in Generic Issue 7 in the Spring of 2015. That one is also about a dead animal. She, like Miley Cyrus, is working on a Dead Pets collection. But hers is accidental...sort of.

S

he was the prettiest one, her body almost a perfect circle aside from her pointy ears. The brown fur that made up the circumference of that circle reminded me of the chocolate Mother only let me eat on Easter, but what really hooked me were her eyes. She looked at me like she was looking into my soul, like she knew every single one of my darkest secrets. She understood.

In the cold, dank animal research lab at Baxter Street—where we were constantly surrounded by the death of one species in seemingly futile attempts to save another, where we were isolated in tiny labs with nothing but new formulas and hypotheses to keep us company—it was refreshing to have someone who understood. The others didn’t understand, especially not the other humans. They all thought I was some raving lunatic whose knack for research was completely overshadowed by a lack of social adequacy.

That’s what I assumed, anyway. They never actually spoke to me.

Granted, I hardly ever saw anyone. We would be alone most of the time, running different versions of the same test to check multiple variables at once. We couldn’t risk cross-contamination,

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so sometimes we’d go months without so much as comparing notes with a colleague. It was effective, yes, but it certainly drove people away. Staying for four years was nearly unheard of. But I stuck it out because, deep down, I loved what I was doing.

It had almost become too much, though. I had a two-week notice hidden in my pocket the day she was brought in. Between the isolation and the animal rights protestors calling me a cold-blooded serial killer with no conscience every morning as I walked into work, it was becoming too much to bear. Thankfully, a new drug with the promise of curing the most deadly cancer of the moment required a new set of test subjects. Most labs would use rats: they’re easily disposable and show fast results. But I always thought there was a certain integrity in using rabbits. They’re beautiful creatures, though I never fully realized that until I met her.

I started calling her “Angel” when the others weren’t around, which was pretty much all the time. It seemed like the only name fitting for her mesmerizing grace. The first time I said her name aloud was the first time I held her in my hand, felt the softness of her brown fur contrast the rough, callused skin of my fingers.

Touching Angel’s fur felt like a compilation of everything I was missing; looking into her deep brown eyes filled a void I’d long forgotten about.

“Rodney? Come inside, Rodney-angel! It’s time for dinner!”

I’d long gotten used to my mother’s call. Even at the age of five I could distinguish her call from the other mothers on the cul-desac. Her rasp was unique, the damage of years of smoking cigarettes as clear as the bulging veins in her neck that only appeared when she yelled. Though most of the other boys in the neighborhood waited for the second or third call to run home, I ran right when I first heard my name. Maybe it was due to my instilled obedience, or maybe it was because I knew even then how much it hurt her to call after me every evening.

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It certainly helped that I always knew I had a delicious meal waiting for me. Every night, my mother put her all into our dinner, making sure neither of us felt hungry again until the next morning.

At almost exactly six every night, we’d feast on smoked salmon and baked potatoes, shepherd’s pie with ingredients from the local farm stand, shrimp quesadillas, or something else that my mother clearly had spent a fair amount of time on that day. Meals were always her priority. But what I remember more than the meals were the conversations we’d had at dinner. Dinner was a time when we could both let our guards down and be entirely open with one another.

“Did that little shit Alan pick on you at school today?” she would ask regularly, her chocolate-brown irises dilating with anger before I could even respond.

“Yeah,” I’d reply sheepishly, ashamed to admit I couldn’t stand up for myself.

“Fuck him, he’s just jealous of how smart you are. Few kids got a brain like yours, and he’s just overly aware of it.”

“Thanks, Mom. How are things with you and Andy?”

“Terrible. He thinks I don’t know about that whore he’s seeing on the side, the one with the fake tits who covers up her terrible pores with a pound and a half of makeup, but I know. My girls have eyes all over this town, and it’s smaller than he thinks.

He can screw all the dimes he wants, but it’s the six and a half who can make a damn great meal that he’ll come back to every time. I’ll make sure of that.”

I never liked the way she referred to herself as a six and a half, even before I knew what the ten-point scale meant. To me, she was a dime. Hell, she was a quarter.

“If he can’t see how great you are, then he doesn’t matter,” I would say about Andy, and any of the other many men who weaved through our lives during my childhood. “You’ll always be the prettiest one to me.”

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People used to tell me my mother’s openness with me was weird, but I think it made our relationship more genuine. She never withheld anything from me, so I never felt the need to do that with her. We’d spend hours at the dinner table chatting over town gossip long after our plates had been licked clean. On summer nights we’d move our nightly ritual to the porch, talking for so long that I’d eventually lay my head in her lap and fall asleep, slowly breathing in her cigarette smoke as she admired the illumination of the fireflies in the garden.

“You’re my angel, Rodney,” she’d coo in a raspy lullaby.

“You’re more of a miracle than these fireflies could dream of being.”

“You really seem to care about that rabbit,” a soft female voice called over my shoulder. I immediately whipped around, feeling as if I’d been exposed in a crude position in the arms of a lover, to see one of the interns smiling at me. Her eyes were wide, as if wowed to see someone actually care about one of the animals around here.

“What’s so special about that one?”

Normally, I’d ignore a question so stupid, but something in her dopey, innocent smile led me to believe she was genuinely interested in what I had to say. That and the fact that it’d been months since anyone had even bothered to ask how my day was going, let alone anything beyond that.

“It just responds to tests really well,” I lied. I was surprised I even remembered how to lie, given how long it had been since I’d had a conversation with anyone. “That’s a rarity to find in this line of work.”

This, ironically enough, was true. We lost rabbits all the time to the drugs we tested on them, which was exactly why I hadn’t used any on Angel yet.

“Oh, okay, I guess that makes sense.” She turned to go back to

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preparing rabbit corpses for the incinerator, the interns’ main task, but stopped herself. “I’m Maia, by the way.”

That deep-dimpled grin got to me again, making me feel slightly more comfortable with the conversation.

“Nice to meet you, Maia. I’m Rodney.” I shook her hand, noting the delicate nature of her fingers and the mild clamminess of her palms. “What brings you to this dismal institute, Maia?”

“Oh, you know, the typical ‘I want to cure the world and help living creatures’ trope that strikes us all in high school biology. Mine just lasted a little longer than others.”

I laughed. She had a sense of humor, which was more than I could say about my other fellow researchers.

“And what about you? What brought you here?”

I shifted my weight between my feet, debating whether or not to tell this stranger about myself. I couldn’t get attached to someone who’d be off to greener pastures after four months, and none of our interns ever stayed past their semester tenure, anyway.

But then again, if things went south, she’d be gone in four months and it wouldn’t matter anymore.

My mother’s voice was already distinct, but when the hacking cough took a permanent residence within her, it became almost too distinguishable.

If that weren’t a sign that she was ailing, the dinners certainly were. We went from having home cooked meals every day to takeout three times a week and leftovers after that. The conversations during the meals also grew shorter, partially because I could tell that—for the first time—my mother was hiding something from me.

She wouldn’t meet my gaze while she munched on her cheap lo mein, and would frequently leave the table for several minutes at a time to cough up phlegm into the toilet.

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“Rodney-angel, Mama’s very sick,” she finally confessed when these changes started to feel more like routine and our former rituals like a distant memory.

If I hadn’t been so worried, I probably would’ve quipped something along the lines of “Thank you, Captain Obvious” back at her, but something in the tone of her rasp told me this was not the time to make jokes.

“Smoking cigarettes the way I do is terrible for your health, as I’ve told you already,” she started, running her fingers through her hair the way she only did when she was nervous. “I’ve always said they took me from a nine to a six and a half, but now all my years of doing it have really caught up with me. Have you talked about cancer at all in school, honey?”

By this point, I was in seventh grade, so yes, we’d vaguely discussed what cancer was. But it wasn’t until I saw the toll it took on my mother that I truly understood what cancer was: a vicious, cold-blooded killer that takes pity on no one. And it takes its sweet time when it kills, making sure its victim is entirely drained before it lets go. It took five years for it to kill my mother, waiting until the night I graduated high school to finish its torment.

“You should go be with your friends. You’ll never see them again.” She managed to spew out between long, curdling coughs.

I’d skipped my graduation ceremony to be with her, and for some reason that made her very upset. Because somehow, in her mind, in between making sure she got to all of her treatments, helping her keep track of her countless medications, and visiting her when she could no longer stay home, she’d thought I’d had time to make friends with my fellow classmates. I hadn’t, but I never actually told her that. It was alarming how much I kept from her in the end, how much we withheld from each other to spare the other’s feelings. But in that moment, none of it mattered anymore.

Something had paled in those brown eyes of hers, and I knew this was the last time I’d see her alive.

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“Look at me, I could barely pass for a two now,” she said, trying to laugh but hacking instead. When the hacking turned to wheezing, I tried to call the nurse, but she grabbed my hand before it reached the phone.

“Rodney, I am so proud of you,” she whispered, clearly using a good portion of the strength she had left. “You’re going to become a doctor, you’re going to make sure no one else has to go through this hell.”

I said nothing back. I couldn’t come up with the words. No one I saved in the future was going to bring her back to me.

She started to say something else, but the cough got in the way and took its final hold. I grabbed her hand, reassuring that she’d said all she needed to, that I’d make sure she didn’t die in vain.

“Don’t worry, Mama,” I whispered, hoping she would hear.

“You’ll always be the prettiest one to me.”

I kissed her forehead as her brown eyes shut for the last time, rubbing my thumb along her weak fingers as her life slipped out of them.

Maia was the first person at Baxter Street who knew about my mother. She was also the only person who’d ever asked. I would’ve told them if they’d asked.

Oddly enough, she even reminded me of my mother. She threw her head back when she laughed like my mother did. She referred to her friends as “her girls” like my mom did, and even liked to cook the same meals. She didn’t smoke, though, which was almost a relief. She was like my mother without all my mother’s flaws.

Overall, there was something different about Maia. The genuine nature of her smile never faded, her eagerness to learn didn’t diminish as she had to burn bag after bag full of rabbit

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corpses. I was sure it got to the other interns after a while, but never her.

“Morning, Rodney!” she’d greet me with an ear-to-ear grin each day. “Ready to save the world today?” And then we’d work, and she slowly learned more about my background while I got practically none of hers in return. That didn’t bother me, though.

To be honest, I didn’t care enough to ask about it. I just knew she wanted to help people, firmly believed that “all living creatures deserve to have the best life,” and didn’t seem to feel particularly guilty about the number of rabbits we killed on any given day for that exact reason. Therefore, she quickly became able to brush off the protestors outside our doors. It didn’t bother her that she got called a senseless murderer, a demon who should burn in hell, and a heartless monster every morning. She, like myself, felt like the deaths of a few rabbits were worth the eventual human lives we would save.

Angel was an exception for both of us, though, and she drew us to one another.

“I think you’re right about this rabbit, Rodney,” she said to me one day. “She’s really something else.”

She picked up Angel. If anyone else had done that, I would’ve cringed. But she held her with such delicacy, trailing her fingers gently enough through her fur that I could tell she appreciated Angel for what she was.

“That’s why I haven’t done any tests on her yet,” I said, walking up to pet Angel as well. “I’m saving her for the ones that will really make a difference. This little one’s going to save us all, I think.”

This was the closest Maia and I had ever been to each other. I realized then that my mother probably would’ve called her a dime.

Or maybe that moment confirmed that, to me, she was a dime.

Either way, there was something comforting about the closeness--to both of them.

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Amanda Doughty

“I’ve given her a name,” I said, knowing she appreciated Angel enough to tell her. She smiled in response, clearly excited to know what it was. Maybe she was as excited as I was to tell her. I hoped so, anyway.

“Her name’s Angel. I found it was the only way to describe her properly.”

“Well, with a name like that, she’s destined to save us all, isn’t she?” Maia responded, running her fingers through Angel’s fur again. I paused, thinking about the overall mission of the lab for the first time in weeks. I did want to save people. I wanted to do for everyone else what Angel had done to me. In that way, she’d motivated me. In that way, I knew what I said about her to Maia earlier was true. As long as she stayed in my life, and kept me going until I found the cure, she was going to save us all.

“I really, really hope so. No one should lose another person to cancer.”

Maia paused, staring at me for a moment, with a grin that seemed both confused and oddly impressed.

“You know, Rodney, you’re kind of an angel yourself.”

I scoffed, laughing at her clear exaggeration.

“No, really,” she said, placing her hand on my arm again.

“You’re more of a miracle than this rabbit could ever dream of being.”

We went back to work after that, but I spent the rest of the day smiling more than I had since my mother died.

That day only made me walking in to find Maia holding Angel’s dead body the next morning feel more like a betrayal.

She didn’t greet me with a smile that day, or ask me if I was going to save the world. Instead she greeted me with a blank stare, guilt creating black stains on those brown irises of hers.

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“Rodney, I’m so sorry,” was all she could whisper before I cut her off.

“I thought you understood, Maia.”

“I do understand. I did this for you.”

I looked back and realized the look on her face wasn’t guilt at all. I could tell from the way she carried herself with a sense of importance, despite holding Angel’s mangled body in her arms.

There was a sense of meaning that I didn’t think her doe-eyed face was capable of. She knew what she did and why she did it.

“You killed Angel?”

“The superiors told me to run a test. They didn’t care who I did it on. They’re cruel, malicious killers who don’t deserve their titles. They don’t care about the animals, Rodney, but you do.”

I thought of the protestors, and how they never bothered her despite the fact that she seemed like such a delicate flower. She was one of them. How could I have been so stupid?

“Join me, Rodney. Join us. You know these people are monsters. They hate you, and you hate them. That’s because you’re better than them. Avenge this rabbit the right way, and help us shut this place down!”

I looked down at Angel’s corpse, and thought of how her fur matched the color of my mother’s hair. Before she lost it all to the disease I was trying to cure. Joining a cause wouldn’t bring her back.

Researching wouldn’t bring her back either, but finding a cure was a better way to avenge her. And that’s what Angel would’ve wanted.

I knew that much.

“You chose to kill Angel specifically, didn’t you?” I asked, hoping it wouldn’t be true. Her face fell, and that hope was immediately shot.

“We need you, Rodney. I know you can shut this place down; you know it inside and out. I...I had to find a way to get through to you.”

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I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to throw things.

Somehow, I did some strange combination of the three, letting out a yell I didn’t know I was capable of while chucking my clipboard at the wall.

“But you said she was special!”

“What’s one animal in comparison to all the animals being tested on? She’s a martyr now: a hero.”

“So that’s all she was to you?” I managed to ask through heavy breaths of rising anger. “This whole time? A sacrifice?”

“Rodney, you know at the end of the day she was just a rabbit, right?”

In that moment, something snapped. Maybe it was the word “just,” maybe it was the way she kind of rolled her eyes when she said it, maybe it was something else entirely. Before I could stop myself, my hands wrapped around Maia’s throat. Angel’s body fell out of her soft, delicate fingers and hit my feet with a thud, reminding me that everything good about this terrible job was now gone, that everything good about my terrible life was gone too.

As Maia’s eyes bulged, I finally noticed how similar they were to my mother’s, and as I continued, I felt her passing through me the way my mother did all those years ago. Watching her die felt like seconds, while also feeling like an eternity. Just like my mother.

For that reason, I found myself unable to resist the urge to kiss her forehead when the deed was done. Her face nearly mirrored my mother’s: pleading that she needed to live, that there was so much more for her to do. But she, like my mother, brought this on herself. There was nothing else that could be done.

I knew there was only one thing to do from here. I had to follow procedure. For both of them. It would be tricky to fit a human body into the incinerator, but certainly not impossible.

Getting her to the incinerator would be even more difficult, but as long as I waited until after everyone left it wouldn’t be an issue. No

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one could handle the isolation for longer than necessary, so no one ever worked overtime, even if they were on to some miraculous discovery. For once, the isolation was working in my favor. Finally.

Staring at the two angels at my feet, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Mama had been cremated too, claiming smoke started the job so it may as well finish it, too. Everything in my life had a terrible tendency to go up in smoke. Smoke had taken everything in my life that had once been beautiful. In my state of delirium, it was almost hilarious.

“Don’t worry,” I whispered, crouching down to their level.

“You’ll always be the prettiest one to me.”

RAFAEL BARRAZACOMIC FANTASY

CLEAN SLATE

Rafael Barraza is a first semester junior and previous archery instructor. He enjoys running, hiking, and exploring, interests kindled by the vast unknown of Camarillo, California. He would like to thank his family for inspiring his expeditions into the jungles of writing, despite his failures in the arctic of astronautics and the mountains of physics.

R

ising a hundred feet into the air, the Thorned Tower jutted from the mountain side at a nearly impossible angle, its height promising a long drop even without the gorge below.

Like a spear planted by an impossibly large giant, its width was the same from the base until just before the slender pinnacle. Thin windows and twisted shapes made up the faรงade, the green stone distinct against the gray sky and white mountains around it.

The woman standing at the bottom of the circular structure gave little heed to the impressive architecture of the tower, or to the wind blowing around her. Her hands were covered with seal mittens and a linen scarf was tucked tightly into her deerskin coat.

Bundled as she was in additional layers of wool and linen, the only discernable features about her were the war hammer, which she wore tied to her hip, and her light blue eyes. Those eyes narrowed as she pushed through the doors at the base of the tower and found herself in the first level.

It was a circular room, taking up the entire first floor of the tower except for a doorway to the right, leading to what appeared to be stairs. The room had been a mess hall or audience chamber, as

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upturned tables, burned chairs, and pools of dark liquid dominated the macabre scene. Whoever had fought here was absent, however, as the woman only saw charred and blackened bodies lying amongst the ruin, and inhuman claws and scales where hands and skin should be. It would be useless to search them, and they would not be answering any questions. He had to be here, in any case. He had to.

Pulling the hood of her coat back and adjusting her hat, she revealed a face with high cheekbones and a crooked nose. What could be seen of her long brown hair was shot through with gray and her skin had the leathery look of fishermen and farmers. No one would mistake her for being in either profession though, as she removed the medium-sized war hammer from its sling and began making her way to the open doorway and the stairs.

There was a series of thumps and a large gray figure walked down the last few steps of the stairs and into the room. It was tall, at least seven and a half feet, with long arms and wide hands. It was incredibly smooth looking and made a horrible grinding noise as it brought each leg up and down. Most likely a stone golem, the woman thought, a statue given a mockery of life. This one was holding a stack of dirtied cloth and wood so tall that she could not see its face over the top. Perfect, the woman thought, and rushed toward it.

The woman could just wrap the forefinger and thumb of her right hand around the flat end of her hammer, making it much smaller than some of the frankly ridiculous weapons she had seen carried by other warriors. But what her hammer lacked in size and weight, it made up for in other ways. Using the strength of her arms and the momentum of her charge, she swung her hammer low, connecting with the golem’s knee. At the moment of impact, the metal of the hammer’s head flashed with a bright light and, instead of rebounding like most weapons would, the hammer continued through, shattering the stone. Without the support of one of its legs, the unsuspecting construct struggled to hold its balance. Seeing

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another opportunity, the woman spun her war hammer so the spike on the back of the head was facing forward, stepped behind the tottering golem, and prepared to slay it with one blow.

Instead of the satisfaction of the kill, the women received approximately fifty pounds of broken wood and dirtied banners to the face and upper body, sending her stumbling back. Now on one knee, the golem reached out with incredible speed and nearly grabbed ahold of one of her legs. The women stepped aside just in time and delivered a heavy blow to the golem’s arm, breaking it on impact. Moving forward, she dealt it another strike on the torso, cracking the stone and flattening it on its back. It threw up its hand, palm out, and attempted to push itself back with its remaining leg.

Though its face was as smooth and featureless as the rest of its body, there was something in the way that it tilted its head away from her that was familiar to the woman. Memories of her father in a similar posture, bruised and bleeding as a rotting corpse approached him, flashed through her mind.

Her hammer flared once more as she valiantly broke its head apart. Taking a few deep breaths, she readied herself and headed up the stairs spiraling along the inside of the tower. She counted thirty-three steps before she made it to the top of this particular flight and entered the next room.

This one was also empty of live occupants, with a clouded pool sitting in the middle. On closer inspection, the pool appeared to be the center of a rune or sigil, made of bright red lines painted on the floor. Whatever the lines had been painted with was continually leaking into the murky liquid of the pool, creating red stains at the edge while the center remained utterly black. Robed bodies floated in midair above the outer points of the sigil, suspended horizontally, their heads hanging downwards. They did not react upon the woman’s entrance and she was careful to skirt around them to the door in the opposite wall.

Another flight of stairs, another door, and another charnel house. This one was smaller though, with doors set into the far

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wall, each inscribed with a carving of a different key. There were disfigured statues standing between each of the doors, their stone dissolved to the point of obscurity. In front of them was piled a macabre collection of stone fragments, pieces of what appeared to be giant crustaceans, and broken weapons. Next to the pile stooped a short figure, around three feet tall, green, with wide rounded ears and a snub nose. White hair stuck out from under its conical cap, and its once-white smock was stained a variety of colors. It was placing chitin-covered body parts into a canvas bag and humming to itself.

The figure dropped the canvas bag as the woman stormed into the room and loudly announced, “My name is Anya Drever Supstoya, and I come in search of Zephyr the Dread Strega.”

“Uh.” The green creature looked at the severed leg in his fourfingered hand and back up to Anya.

“They call me the Bear of Stvorn,” she said.

“I don’ want you to bare anythin’,” the small creature replied.

“What? No, I said I am known as the Bear of Stvorn.”

“Never heard of you.”

“They also call me the Slayer of Breorg and Dobstoy of Olmburg,” Anya said.

“I’m sure you’re a won’erful Dogtoy.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Hmm? Oh, my hearing’s starting to go. I wasn’ confused about your name, Miss Bear. I’m wonderin’ what you’re doin’ ’ere,” the little creature said, dropping the leg and sticking a short claw into its large furry ear and digging. Anya’s famous scowl faltered as he pulled out a wooden ring, wiped it on his filthy smock, and placed it on his left pinky.

“Aha! I was tryin’ to remember where I put that ’un,” the green creature said to himself, examining the piece of jewelry. He

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flexed his hand a couple of times, then resumed putting body parts in his canvas sack.

Regaining herself, Anya continued, “I am here to avenge my father, Drev Vladimer Supstoya, who was Dobstoy of Olmburg.

The Dread Strega Zephyr, your master, appeared as a guest and murdered him in his own home. I also have come to avenge the people of Tolbrick and Elkharth, and to wipe that debt clean. Do these names mean anything to you, goblin?”

The creature raised both of its eyebrows. “Okay, Ms. Sobstory, I think there’s been a miscommunication. See, my name is Yaga Mish. I don’ work for no undead Strega, I haven’ been to anyplace named Umbur, and I’m a hobgoblin, a kind of contractual house cleaning spirit, not one of them goblin types. An’ you’re a little late to revenge Elkharth, that place burned down fifteen years back, I heard.”

“It is true that it has been many years since I began this quest, and there is much innocent blood on my hands because it has taken so long, but I needed to ensure I was ready. And I am.” She began taking off her animal skin coat, gloves, and hat, revealing steel as she went. “Behold! The Armor of Olmburg, taken from the body of my father; the Helm of Breorg, my prize for ending that warlord’s reign; the Amulet of Stvorn, a gift from the people of that fair city; and the Hammer of Irk, the bane of evil!”

As she revealed each magical artifact, they began to glow.

Starting with a mere shimmer on her breastplate, to a shine with her chainmail gloves, and ending with a blazing light with her pearl encrusted helm, the magical and divine artifacts she wore threw back the shadows in the den of evil and despair, casting everything in the holy illumination of righteousness.

“I am ready to face Zephyr, and neither you nor any other minion will stop me!” she cried out in the ecstasy of revenge.

“By Graco’s furry armpits, turn that shit down,” Yaga said, holding his hands out to block the light.

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Anya stepped forward, reveling in her power. “Aha! No creature of darkness can look upon this armor without feeling the searing flames of justice!”

“Does it look like I’m burnin’ up, you crazy human?” Yaga said. It was true; although the body parts had begun to melt next to him, the hobgoblin remained entirely unsinged.

“I suppose not,” Anya said uncertainly. The light faded until her armor appeared to be only steel and pearl. Both Anya and Yaga had to take a few moments to let their eyes readjust to the room’s gloomy illumination. When they did, Yaga threw up his hands in disgust.

“Won’erful! Just won’erful! You see this?” he gestured to the now half melted pile of chitin, fluid, and ash next to him. “You know how long it took to pile all this up? Huh? That wasn’t easy, you know, even with three golems helpin’ me!”

“I’m confused.”

“You’re confused? How do you think I feel, eh?” Yaga asked, kicking the charred pile next to him, “I get this work order last minute, have to hike my way up the other side of this mountain to find an absolute mess in ’ere, and some lady with mirrors for clothes blinds me for no good reason besides me bein’ short. Thanks for that, by the way, I’m still seein’ spots.”

“I think I may have made a mistake,” Anya said slowly, backing up.

“I think you have, too! I’m the only cleanin’ crew for this region, and you think the Overlord’s Association pays me overtime? They certainly do not, the cheap misers!”

At the word overlord, Anya’s eye widened. “This is another trick of the Dread Strega. You’re trying to slow me down so he can escape!”

“Now jus’ wait a minute—” Anya drew her hammer up and sprinted for the next set of

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stairs, declaring, “You won’t escape me this time, Zephyr!�

The hobgoblin yelled something about wiping her feet and taking her clothes, but Anya ignored him and continued running.

Up the stairs she went, bursting in on an almost-empty room, this one taking up the entire floor of the tower. Puddles of red and blue liquid were the only things she noticed as she ran through. Another set of stairs then, and another large room, this one containing empty shelves and two more of the stone golems she had fought before. They were scrubbing the slate wall with towels the size of tablecloths in one hand, while holding tubs of water in the other.

Anya was tempted to stay and defeat these monstrosities, but remembering how fast the first golem had been, she instead halted her charge and tiptoed her way to the next level. As she closed the door behind her, she saw one golem spill a little water on the other, who promptly whacked the first across the back of the head.

Walking up these stairs was harder, not because of their length or height, but because the various liquids and semiliquids she had to run through began to congeal on the bottom of her boots, making every step a labor of unsticking her foot from the floor. She persisted, and was rewarded with the door that led to the last and final level in the Thorned Tower. Readying her war hammer and herself, Anya charged through the doorway, shining a like a star from the heavens.

The room was incredibly tall, with thin pillars stretching thirty or forty feet to the vaulted ceiling above. Shallow alcoves were set into the walls every ten feet or so, and a dais sat beneath a large window looking over the mountain pass below. There were no guards, no banners, no torches or chests, no throne, and most importantly, no sign of Zephyr the Dread Strega.

Determined not to be tricked as she had been before, Anya stalked carefully from alcove to alcove, checking for hidden passageways or secret rooms. The first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth were empty, as were the ones on the other side. She

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moved onto the pillars, circling each of them in hopes of seeing some sort of secret marking or sign of the Strega’s presence. After that too was exhausted, she checked the dais, running her hands around the edges and popping her head out the window to see if there was a stair or ladder down the side of the tower. All she saw was green rock and a long fall.

Back to the alcoves then, knocking on their stone walls to hear if the wall was hollow. Nothing again. Moving back to the pillars, pushing and pulling on them to test if there was a hatch underneath.

All of them stood firm. Onto the dais again, tapping at it as well in case it was just a large stone that had been lowered over Zephyr’s escape route. It was solid. Again thrusting her head out of the window, looking for places where a rope or ladder could be tied.

The slate formed wavy shapes even this far up the tower, but they were shallow and smooth at the edges.

“This makes no sense,” she said to herself, pulling her head back inside and striding to the middle of the hall. “This was his last stronghold. He had to be here. He had to. He had to!”

Taking her hammer in both hands, she brought it back and prepared to smash one of the slender pillars down, channeling years of frustration, failure, and rage into one strike.

“I don’ want to be rude, but could you take them shiny clothes and tramp aroun’ somewhere else?” Yaga asked from behind her. Turning around, Anya saw the other two golems flanking the diminutive creature, one holding a bundle of cleaning supplies, the other, a small leather sack.

“Where is the Strega, goblin? I shan’t let him flee into another bolt-hole; my vengeance will be satisfied.”

“Still with the demands? You think cause you’re some big quest person, you can jus’ come up in ’ere—” Yaga cut himself off and ran his hands up and down his ears. “Look, I’m not fibbin’ about your Strega friend, he wasn’ ’ere when my crew got ’ere. My job is to clear out previous management, not get to know ’em, so

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most times everythin’ is really dead.”

“So you’d know if he’s one of those bodies downstairs?”

Yaga pulled on his ears and took a deep breath, before saying, “Jus’ wait a bit. Mop!” The two golems turned their faceless heads towards each other and shrugged. The one with the cleaning supplies proceeded to hold out a long stick with a wet rag tied to it.

Yaga, without looking behind him, held out his hand and closed it around the mop. His eyes immediately went wide and he silently handed it back, then gestured towards the other golem.

The other golem removed a clay tablet and handed it to Yaga.

Grumbling to himself, Yaga looked over the tablet, which was covered in what looked like small claw marks.

“Alrigh’,” the hobgoblin said, waving the tablet behind him until the golem with the bag took it from his hand. “Previous management was some sort o’ fish or swamp spirit, which explains all the dead pinchers and crawlers. No undead, no coddswollin’ Strega. I gotta get this tower clean before next management gets ’ere, you’ve tracked all kinds o’ mess through my tower, and somethin’ tells me that Broom, that golem that’s somehow busted up on the ground floor, didn’ jus’ fall down those stairs did he? Would you mind leavin’ please?”

Anya said nothing in reply.

The hobgoblin pointed to the red and green smears crisscrossing the floor from Anya’s desperate search and asked, “Well?”

“I can’t give up. It’s taken too many years,” she said, looking out of the window as her armor began to glow while her optimism stirred above the ashes of her failure.

“Lady, please, for the love of—” “No, the scales of justice must be balanced. If I do nothing,

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darkness will prevail and the sacrifices of so many will be in vain.”

The glowing began to intensify, her hope in her quest blossoming like a spring rose.

“That’s fine, not ’ere righ—” “I swear, Zephyr, that when I finally find you, you will pay for the lives you have taken. I will not rest, I will not sleep, I will do nothing if it does not bring me one step closer to your destruction.”

The glowing was had grown painful in its intensity, her faith in herself and the righteousness of her cause filling her with new vigor.

“Won’erful! Could you do this out—” “This I swear upon the graves of the innocent, on the grave of my father, on the graves of my friends and companions, on the souls of those warped by Zephyr’s cruel magic, on the ashes of the homes he has defiled.” The list continued on as the glow began to resemble that of the sun, the light growing with the volume of her voice. Her back was straight, her shoulder back, and her face set in a look of pure determination as she held her shining hammer high.

Yaga shook his head in disbelief and shouted, “By Graco!

Pail, Mop, if you wouldn’ mind!”

If anyone had stood at the base of the Thorned Tower they would have seen a cursing middle-aged woman come flying out of the front door and land facedown in the snow. Yaga Mish made sure to lock the door behind her as his golems went back to work piling up the burnt furniture and bodies on the first floor.

Not a minute passed before loud knocking and a deep, challenging voice came from the other side of the door, declaring, “Aquallium, we have come to vanquish thee!”

Yaga put down one of the bags he was using to store the remains of Broom and sat down in one of the partially burnt chairs, saying to no one in particular, “Gods, I hate adventurers.”

MAX BAKERWESTERN

THE ROAD AWAY FROM HERE

Max Baker is a freshman at Emerson College in the BFA program for Writing, Literature, and Publishing. Born elsewhere, their home lies in the small town of Marion, Iowa. Above all, they would credit their love of writing to a lifetime of telling stories, and looking for what value can be found in a story’s majesty once it has been told.

S

andra walked up the street at about two hours past noon. Red puffs of dirt rose behind her, carried by the wind as her steps stirred the soil beneath her. The wind pushed up against her on the right and she could feel the weight of the pistol as it pressed against her thigh. She supposed there was something comforting to the feeling. The street was quiet about this time and that was something she was grateful for. Ahead of her there was a haze, the sort that warped and changed what was there into blobs of colors and shapes.

Before long, she could see the inn where she had stayed a few days past. The swinging doors were closed and she couldn’t see past the windows. The porch was empty; no one sat in the rocking chair or on the bench outside. There weren’t any horses tied up either. She parsed the ground for a moment. There were all sorts of footprints, boots and slips of all kinds. Horse tracks too, but those were older and corroded by the wind. Most let out towards where she came from, but there was one set going back, distinct and fresh.

She drew the pistol from its holster and pulled back the hammer two notches. She spun the cylinder with two fingers on each

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side, counting the bullets in the chambers. Five brass cartridges with silver eyes stared back. She ran her thumb over the sixth chamber, feeling around the hollow of it. Pausing for a moment, she looked to the inn again. Nothing. Not a sound. She pulled a cartridge from her belt and slid it into the empty chamber. She pushed the hammer down one notch and replaced it in the holster on her thigh. Sandra resumed walking, going slower as she approached the inn.

She saw a dash of movement in the window as she neared the steps. She could hear the shuffle of feet as someone moved around inside. She continued her pace, and came to a stop just in front of the inn. She could hear voices now, just higher and lower tones. They reached out beyond the closed doors and she could just barely make out what they were saying before they suddenly stopped. And then all was quiet. Not a sound from the inn before her.

A man emerged from the closed doors. His eyes, dark and glaring, stared back into her own as he descended the steps. For a moment, he just stared at her. His right hand was resting next to the cartridges on his belt while the other was next to the gun, set just to the left of his buckle and facing his right.

He spoke, “You’re a hard person to find, Sandra.”

Sandra stared.

“Guess this is all just as well. Never expect manners from kidnappers and murders.”

“And you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?” she said.

He laughed. “Now, now, we were talking about you, Sandra.

See, I haven’t done harm to a single soul this side of the river. But you?” He pointed a finger at her. “The dirt piles high in your wake, doesn’t it?”

“Most tend to appreciate a pile of dead scoundrels and murders,” Sandra replied. “I suppose it’s only natural that it takes one to sympathize.”

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Max Baker

“With a tongue like that, it’s no wonder about the things I hear you done.” His hands dropped to his belt, rubbing idly at the casings along it. “But that ain’t why I was looking for you.”

“You’re here for Anne.”

He stepped down from the porch. “Well of course. My baby girl gets stolen away by some vagrant and what you think I’m gonna do?” He spat in the dirt between them, his right hand resting just by the grip of his pistol. “Now, where is my little girl?”

“She ain’t your little girl anymore,” Sandra said, cool eyes staring deep into the man’s own. “And I ain’t no kidnapper either.

She came to me, not the other way around.”

“Bullshit!” he yelled, yanking on the grip of his gun.

Sandra was quick. In a second, the pistol at her hip was in her hand, hammer back. The man’s own pistol stopped half out of its holster, his eyes aflame with anger and shock.

“Now, sir,” she said, “I ain’t here to shoot you just yet.”

He pushed the pistol back into its holster. “Really now?” he said. “And just what did you come here for?”

Sandra pushed the hammer up and holstered her pistol once more. “To deliver a message.” She produced an envelope from her vest pocket. It was brown paper with a red wax seal inscribed with the initials AB. “And this. A letter.”

“Who from?”

“Anne,” Sandra replied. She threw the envelope at his feet.

The man picked up the envelope and turned it over in his hands a bit before pocketing it in his jacket.

“You aren’t going to read it?” she asked.

“If Anne wants to tell me something I’ll hear it from her, not some damn letter,” he said.

Sandra sighed, a weight resting on her shoulders as she looked

The Road Away From Here the man over. “That ain’t gonna happen.”

31

“What do you mean, it can’t happen?” he said through the grind of his teeth. “I am her father. I have a right to hear what she has to say from her own mouth!”

“And if you were an honorable man,” Sandra fired back, “I would be obliged to let you. But you ain’t an honorable man, now are you?”

The man snarled at her, gripping the belt around his waist.

“Do you remember Anne’s mother?” Sandra asked.

“Of course I remember my wife,” he said. “The hell kind of question is that?”

“Do you remember the day she died?”

“She was washing clothes by the river. She had a fall, got carried off.” She watched his eyes, the way they flicked between her hand at her waist and the curve of her brow.

Sandra let out a little huff. “That ain’t the way I heard it,” she said. “You see, the way Anne tells it, it was you who killed her.”

“Lies,” the man growled.

“See, the way I hear it, you were always a bit of a control freak at home. Anne told me all about how things had to be just right for you to be happy. That if she or her mother ever did something that you didn’t like they’d get whipped again and again, until they had bruises all over themselves.”

“That ain’t true.”

Sandra stepped forward, voice dropping deadly low. “And then one day, Anne’s mother decides to do something on her own.

A little treat for Anne ’cause she’d been so good. So, she buys some candy, but candy’s expensive. And you don’t like spending a lot of money on things that aren’t for you. Anne told me how, just a little after that, she hears the shouts from the kitchen. She told me how

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she watched, terrified, through a crack in the wall as you beat her mother until she bleeds and bleeds, until she stops fighting back.

She told me how she wept that night as you took her mother’s bloodied, lifeless corpse and drug it out by the river.”

The man’s nostrils flared. Sandra could see his jaw muscles tighten as he clenched his teeth.

“Before all that,” Sandra continued, her eyes wandering the ground between the two of them, “Anne told me you had comforted her. How you held her when she cried. How, when she had a bad dream, you’d brush her hair until the crying stopped. She told me how you’d spoiled her when she did what she was told, and what you’d do to her if she didn’t. And after her mother died? She told that all the good had stopped. All that care, all that attention, she said it was like plague on her. A rotten core in her chest that sucked out all the joy she’d ever felt.

“And,” Sandra said, her cool stare leveling against his harsh glare, “that is why I won’t ever let you see her again.”

There was a silence between them. The deep, echoing sound of his breaths, the thudding of his heart filled with anger and outrage.

She could see the way he strained, the veins of his arms popping as his hand tightened ever more around his belt.

“You have a choice,” Sandra said.

The man released his grip on his belt. “Yeah?”

“You can leave. Right here, right now. We go our separate ways, and you keep that letter. Anne and I will keep on the road and you will never see us again.”

“And if I don’t?” he asked.

“Then I’ll kill you,” Sandra said.

The man let out a breath, pacing back a few steps. He ran a hand across his face. She could see the sweat on his brow. He spoke, and the sound was like that of a grave.

The Road Away From Here “Well, you know I can’t just leave.”

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“That I do.”

The man shifted back on his heels, and Sandra began to walk in half circle around him. He walked too, never taking his eyes off her. They circled twenty paces and stopped, the sun to his right.

His right hand quivered at his waist, rubbing the cartridges in small, jerky motions. Slowly, he moved his hand closer across his waist.

She saw the sweat drip down his face. There were little droplets that hung from his chin, a stream that dampened the collar of his shirt.

Closer, closer to the grip of his gun. His hand was shaking more and more as the distance shrank.

Sandra was motionless.

He reached for the gun, wrapping his fingers around the grip.

She pulled her own from its holster and fanned back the hammer.

There was a beat.

He pulled the gun out. Sandra’s pistol sounded, echoing through the inn’s parlor and down the street. The man stumbled back as if he’d been struck in the chest. A blotch of red sprouted, just left of his sternum. He took a few staggering steps and some blood pushed past his lips. He lifted his arm, the pistol rattling in his grip.

Sandra pulled the hammer of her pistol back again.

And fired.

Sandra pulled herself up onto the horse and dusted the red dirt from her clothes. The woman riding the horse beside her offered her a canteen. She took a sip.

“It’s over then,” Anne said.

“Yes,” Sandra replied.

“And the letter?”

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“He got it.” Sandra gave back the canteen.

“Did he agree to stay away?” Anne replaced the canteen on the loop of the saddle.

Sandra looked away for a second, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth. “No, he didn’t.”

“Then you.…” Anne’s hands tightened around the reins.

“Yeah.” Sandra placed a hand over the other woman’s.

“He’s gone.”

“I should be sad,” Anne said, looking up at Sandra.

“Not necessarily,” she replied.

“I don’t feel sad. Just sort of empty. Not like I’m hurt, but something’s gone.”

Sandra took her hand from Anne’s, and placed it gently against her cheek. “He was your father.”

Anne pulled on Sandra’s wrist, pressing her lips to the center of her palm. They stayed there a moment. Then Anne pulled away, and looked out towards the road ahead. “I suppose we should head out then.”

“Yeah,” Sandra replied. “I suppose we should.”

CARL LAVIGNESCIENCE FICTION

DELTA

An excerpt from a longer work

Carl Lavigne studies Writing, Literature, and Publishing at Emerson College. He was a finalist for Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers. Some of his favorite authors are Leslie Marmon Silko, Neil Gaiman, and Ursula Le Guin. He was born in Vermont, where he grew up reading every book with a dragon on the cover.

T

he sound of chainsaws and falling timber set Major Georgia Ford’s nerves on edge. She leered at the sign greeting her at the entrance to the lumberyard: “Welcome to the forests of Delta 453!” It was a Class-90 planet developed exclusively for lumber, another fruit to harvest on the Union’s advance across the universe. A fog hung over the high-branched trees.

The lumberyard’s foreman, Martin, had given her earplugs, which only suppressed the noise; it was still a dull buzz in her brain. Martin revved the ATV’s engine, adding another voice into the chorus of industry. Georgia scanned the map of the planet displayed on her tablet. The forests dwindled against a frontier of empty earth.

Martin took the ATV up muddy paths into the hills. Beyond the screeching sawmills they passed great swaths of upturned earth freckled with stumps. The great green, ever-retreating tree line miles lie away. The only sound was the rumble of the ATV’s engine and the mud sucking at its wheels.

Looking up from her map, Georgia felt her skin prickle with goose bumps. She was surrounded by stumps that stuck out of the

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39

ground like men buried up to their necks, waiting to be decapitated.

There had never been many trees on her home planet Delta 79. They weren’t good for harvests or for the livestock. They stole precious nutrients from the grain and grass. One had grown out behind their house. She had climbed it as a child, before the Conversion had cut it down. Nothing that would overshadow the new solar panels was allowed to stay standing. Now here she was, coming to cut everything down. The irony felt bitter on her tongue.

The ATV trundled across the clearing and then they were inside the forests, immersed in the rank and file of round tree trunks. A bed of fallen leaves covered the earth. Sunlight sprinkled like light rain through the canopy.

Martin stopped the vehicle and got out to stand among a row of trees indistinguishable from the rest. He laid a hand on one trunk and craned his neck back to look towards the top. Georgia removed her earplugs. Martin, his own ears still blocked, spoke too loudly.

“Finest trees in the system, Major. You can’t rush this kind of perfection.” He glanced sideways at her with a nervous laugh. “At least no faster than the artificial growth hormones can . It takes a good ten years for a tree like this one to grow.”

Georgia, arms crossed, had to shout to be heard.

“Is that normal?”

Martin unplugged his ears.

“Yes ma’am,” he said. “The setbacks in production have been out of our control.”

Georgia glanced at her tablet. “Isn’t it your job to control these things?” she asked.

“In a sense,” he said, face turning red. “We do the best we can with what we have.”

Georgia cocked her head. “So you would agree that Delta

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453’s purpose does not suit its capabilities?”

Martin’s shame turned to indignation, and his lips tightened around his words. “I wouldn’t say that.” He put his hands on his hips. “I would say that the Union made a mistake when it started asking for more than we could give.” He knew why she was here.

There could be no other reason for Major Georgia Ford, the Conversion Queen, to land on some backwater planet the Union used like a larder.

Georgia’s face expressed no emotion. She knew what he meant, and it hurt.

“When the pioneers first landed here, we were told this would be our home,” Martin continued. “We agreed to export our excess, but first and foremost Delta 453 is a place to live. Aren’t all planets?”

I wish I could be on your side. I wish your side had a chance, Martin. I really do. But this is my job. A job I hate. A job that kills me as surely as I kill these planets.

Martin’s face was flushed again and his eyes shot down to the ground. “Forgive me,” he said. “I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”

Yes you did. She set her jaw and refused to be distracted by her conscience.

“The Union wants to convert Delta 453,” Georgia said, making a show of typing on her tablet.

“Well pardon me, Major, but that’s a bunch of crap.” Georgia paused her typing to look up at Martin, whose mouth was still half open. The shock on his face was a result of both his own boldness and Georgia’s minimal reaction.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Martin took a minute to compose himself. He didn’t have a response prepared because he obviously hadn’t expected to be asked for one.

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“Well, Delta 453 has a good long life ahead of it,” he said.

“We’ve got sixty years of good planting and harvesting we can still do, and last quarter’s setbacks will be long forgotten, statistically negligible, once production steadies.”

Even though he looked like a backwater bumpkin, Georgia could tell he knew what he was saying. I kind of like him. Georgia wrinkled her nose, only for a second, donning again her detached mask. What am I doing?

A whisper, from somewhere between her cerebellum and occipital lobe, said, You care.

A drop of sweat slid down the back of Georgia’s neck, and she shivered.

“You’ll have to excuse me,” she said. “I’m not feeling well.”

Her feet began moving in whatever direction they were pointed.

Her shoulders bounced off tree trunks, her mind oblivious to the impacts. She stumbled over tree roots, reaching up like the needy in the streets. Alms for the poor?

The Union wants to destroy this planet’s life. A necessary sacrifice. It is, isn’t it? But someone could still call it home. Even after all the trees are gone. Couldn’t they? No. I can’t call Delta 79 home anymore. But if the Union has its way maybe Martin will live. Who gives a shit about Martin? I do. I do. I do. Because I am him. I am just like him. Nothing is going to change. If I convert a hundred planets the Union will ask for a hundred more. It’s only going to be dead bodies. I’m just sowing seeds in fields fertilized with blood and genocide. They took my home. They took Papa.

They took everything. Why am I here? Why did I stay?

Georgia found her eyes clearing, her throat burning, and her stomach sore, as if someone had punched her. She was on her hands and knees looking down at a splash of blood spattering the leaves like interpretive art. With the back of her hand she wiped her lips. A streak of blood came away.

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She laughed, but it hurt, and she stopped.

I’m still here because I believe I can get something out of this

deal.

She wiped her hand on the leaves and stood up.

“Major Ford?” Martin stood a few feet away, legs tensed to run.

“Just a stomach ulcer, that’s all,” she said, smiling through the aching pain.

I know what I want, and it isn’t revenge.

Her legs wobbled, and she collapsed.

Georgia’s eyes snapped open.

Light.

She’d been dreaming of Delta 79 again. Home. She swore she smelled lavender.

No lavender in a hospital.

She sat up, rubbing her eyes with her palms. After blinking twice she began to regain her vision.

Log walls surrounded her. The floor was hardwood. Not a hospital. A blanket covered her and she lay on a cot. Her uniform was still snug on her shoulders and hips.

Good. No one decided to strip me. Touching her belt she found her holster was empty. God damn.

To her right, seated in a rocking chair, was Martin the foreman. He pointed Georgia’s pistol at her.

“Well this is surprising,” she said, pinching her nose. “And stupid.”

Martin’s hand was shaking.

Delta “Stay right there,” he said.

43

“You could’ve dumped me in a river or something,” Georgia said, lying back down and laying an arm across her eyes.

“And get myself in front of a federal firing squad? No thanks.”

Georgia peeked out from under her arm at the man. He looked sadly misshapen and dilapidated in comparison to the crafted metal gun in his hand. A man meant to grow trees holding a machine made for murder. “Quaint” was the word that came to Georgia’s mind.

“I hope you don’t think holding me hostage will get you a lighter sentence,” she said.

“I’m not going to do that either,” Martin said. He lowered the gun into his lap. “Just remember that I had the chance to take your life and I didn’t. Maybe that’s enough for you to consider my planet’s life, if that matters at all to people like you.”

People like me? He means people like them. He doesn’t know how similar we are.

A window let the sunlight stream in. From behind its glass Georgia saw a valley with a lake at its center. Tiny rivulets like single-hair brushstrokes drifted down the mountainsides to their destination. Delta 79 hadn’t had anything like that, but Georgia thought it was nice. Maye she would like something similar for herself.

The window shattered.

Smoke filled the room. She heard Martin cry out. A burst of gunfire. The sound of a body hitting the floor. Shadows in the choking smoke streaming in through the door. Georgia didn’t move. She didn’t have time to take a breath.

“Major Ford is secure.”

She didn’t realize her eyes were burning until someone

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placed a mask over her face. A masked man dressed in black bulletproof gear leaned in close.

“Can you stand, Major?”

She nodded, and a hand helped her out of the bed. Her boot brushed Martin’s body. The soldier led her out of the cabin.

They were on a hillside, looking down into the valley. The forest’s edge met the back wall of the cabin, so that from afar it could’ve blended in—looked natural.

Someone took off her gas mask and shined a light into her eyes.

“She’s good.”

Georgia caught up with reality. The pain in her stomach was so great she wanted to reach down her throat and pull it out. She doubled over, retching. A hand rubbed her back.

“She’s good? That doesn’t look good.”

Eat shit. Georgia straightened. “I’m OK.” A soldier, now unmasked, approached her. He was definitely young, and probably deathly loyal and deathly inexperienced.

They loaded Georgia onto an armored transport ship. She ignored the field medics trying to ascertain the origin of her stomach ulcer. Out the window the valley was disappearing in the distance, the lake a shrinking sapphire set in the ring of emerald hills.

Georgia had once asked her father why they lived on Delta 79, and he had replied in that all-knowing way that only parents speaking to their young children can manage.

“Because we made this our home.”

KYLE MADIGAN HIGH FANTASY

ASH IN THE HOURGLASS

Kyle Madigan is a sophomore Writing, Literature, and Publishing student, born and raised in Milwaukee, WI. His hobbies include sitting in graveyards, Dungeons and Dragons, and dairy products.

He peaked in third grade when he wrote an essay concerning proper grilled cheese technique, and it’s all been downhill from there.

I

stared into the eyes of the sheep as I lifted it toward my face.

I tried to find a spark of intelligence, something that hinted at knowledge beyond that of a simple grazing beast. All I saw, however, was sheer panic as I drew it closer and closer to my maw.

A sharp pinch of my claws and the terror disappeared, leaving emptiness behind. I let loose a stream of brilliant fire, the smell of terrified prey replaced with the acrid scent of burning wool. The bright scarlet of the sheep’s blood dripped down my foreleg, much brighter than my own dull crimson scales. I snapped up the snack quickly and swallowed, not bothering to rend the flesh from the bones. The flames in my stomach did not care.

There were not many animals left from the month’s tribute.

The steady stream of beasts had begun to taper off recently, fewer humans making the trek to my castle to ensure the pens were full.

I wondered if the time had come to teach the humans a lesson, remind them why they gave of their flock, why their forefathers had submitted to my demands. It had been some time since my last razing, but the longing for blood and screams had not yet returned to my bones. Soon, though. Soon, I would be forced to send the humans fleeing for the hills, crying for those lost to my fury. Soon,

Ash in the Hourglass they would tremble beneath my wrath.

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For now, I retreated from the grazing pens in the courtyard of my keep, the sharp clack of claws-on-stone marking my way through the cavernous corridor. In recent years, the walls had worn smooth with my passage, scraped away by my scales.

I passed through the dining hall, the blood of the former residents and those who had challenged me long since dried on the walls. Their bones, bleached and chalky, were all that remained, illuminated by the large hole in the arching ceiling I had created on that fateful day. I picked up a rotting piece of table and ran a claw over the whorls and knots, feeling it disintegrate as I touched it. I thought back to when it had been whole. I felt once more the crunch of the intricately carved stone shattering beneath my feet, the screams of those below, the way the sounds of the festivities had so suddenly come to a halt, the scent of fear and feast entwining into one.

Beneath the debris of former table lay the tunnel I had once dug, driven mad by the twitching, living scent of the arcane, the taste of gold in the air. Sliding through it now, it seemed like a pale memory: my flames melting the stone to clear a path to my prize, poorly made by the work of frenzied claws, barely large enough to wriggle through. Now it was smooth as glass and wide enough for the expanse of my wings, a clear shot straight to the heart of my lair.

I landed in a spray of gold and let loose a pillar of flame over the top of my trove, allowing the heat to work its way through the heap. I squirmed and writhed, allowing the metal and magic essence to flow in and around me. I opened my mouth and simply held the treasure in it, the scent of gold and magic pressing against my eyes. I waited for the rush of pleasure, the wriggling sensation of magic, the heady feel of riches to strike me as it had that very first day, when I had swam back and forth for hours, letting the sensation of coins and chalices and the occasional weapon run across my spines. No such feeling came, and I lowered my jaw, letting the coins spill out.

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I used my tail to clear a space on the floor, and curled up, thinking of humans and their attachment to sheep.

I was woken by the stench of grease, metal, and fresh magic. It drifted down the shaft leading to the dining hall, filling my vault with its presence. A human. In the span of a second, I was crouched, searching for signs of his approach. The faint clanking of metal on metal filtered down and slowly grew louder.

With a single wingbeat, I launched myself through the shaft and out into the feasting hall, crushing what little of the table that still stood beneath my feet, making the walls shake. The clanging stopped for a moment, and then continued forward, much faster than before. The smell filled the air now, pressing in on all sides, a faint underlying scent of fear and determination growing stronger as the human got closer. I watched the great doors, hanging ajar and covered in blast marks, with my mouth open, ready for the slightest movement as the sound of metal ceased.

The metal-covered human shot out suddenly, rolling to the side of the door. My first jet of flame just missed, instead searing another dark hole into the wood. The human’s speed was unusual, the edges of his frame blurring with each movement. As he stood and turned to charge, I let loose once more, this time accounting for his speed.

The blast caught the human mid-stride, but he brought up his shield in time to block it, somehow absorbing my flame, the shield glowing as the fire was pulled into it. I paused for a moment, trying to understand what had happened, and then he was upon my flank, his sword leaving deep score marks, ripping through my flesh as claws through leather, sending arcs of lightning pain through me. It had been too long since I last fought, and I had forgotten how much presence of mind it took, the focus on what was happening. Pain, however, has a way of keeping your attention.

I roared, convulsing, and whipped my tail around, catching

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the human’s leg just before his sword came down again. As he fell, the blade skittered across the floor for a moment and then, with a sudden cracking noise, appeared once more in the human’s hand, leaving the heady scent of magic where it once lay.

The human rolled backwards onto his feet, narrowly avoiding the swipe of my claws, and oncÂŹe more attempted to charge, this time aiming for my tail, dodging my frenzied strikes as I attempted to scrabble away, keeping him firmly to my front.

The human suddenly changed course, using a rolling strike to slice behind my front claw. Agonizing pain roared into my mind, as somehow the strike seemed to reverberate against my skull. I reeled away, taking to the skies, and collected my thoughts. The pain faded, and I channeled it into rage. This human had the audacity to think he could defeat me. I would show him his error.

I swooped low, attempting to crush the human into the ground, letting loose a constant stream of flame. The human rolled beneath me as I slammed into the wall and regained my feet, the foundations of the keep shaking with the impact. My mind felt clear for the first time in years. This human would not escape.

The human counterattacked, once more slicing at my claws, but this time I knew the pain was coming. I absorbed it deep within me. I would feel the wounds later, but not now. The human had obviously expected me to retreat away from the pain, as my next strike finally managed to connect, leaving gouges in his formerly unmarked armor. The edge of the human became more defined, and his next movement lacked some of the unnatural agility of before. Soon, I had him running for his life under my assault, unable to attack through the endless whirlwind of my claws and tail.

Finally, as he attempted a sharp turn, his foot caught on a piece of broken table, sending him jangling to the ground. I pinned his body beneath my left claw, and with the other, carefully removed his helmet. I would know my prey.

A face of wrinkles and gray, crisscrossed with numerous

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scars and the nose askew, greeted me. I looked down at my opponent, bringing my face within a foot of his. The human bared his teeth and made a sound deep in his throat as he struggled to escape my grasp, the terror of captured prey in his eyes and scent.

“You are old,” I said, the human words tumbling roughly off my tongue. I had not spoken Human in some time. I had not spoken anything in some time.

The human’s eyes widened as I spoke, and he slowly ceased struggling, the scent of fear that had cloaked him lifting. He stared at me for a few moments before answering.

“That I am. Why do you speak to me?” he said.

“Why did you come here?” I asked.

“The people in this village can’t aff—” A blast of flame inches above his head cut him off.

“Why did you come here? You are old. Why would they send you?”

The human raised an eyebrow, projecting a confident voice, but he smelled of something else, indistinct and far away. “I have this armor and this sword. I am a warrior. Who else should fight a dragon?”

“Are there no young warriors? None fit to take up your armor and sword?”

The human looked past me, his eyes seeing something not there, the scent moving closer. “Not anymore, no.”

I cocked my head. “Could you not then make more? Teach them your ways?”

The human attempted a smile, but his eyes did not obey. The faraway scent was near now, held just out of reach. “You can teach and teach, but they don’t listen. Too sure they know what’s right.

Too sure of their own abilities. And once that’s failed, what’s left to

Ash in the Hourglass a warrior who’s old? Whose fighting days are gone?”

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“Are there not small humans? Do you not rear them?”

At that, the scent struck me full force, a miasma of sadness and anger and something I did not know. He began struggling violently, shouting, “Are you going to kill me? Why don’t you just kill me?”

I waited until he finally ceased writhing, when silent sobs replaced his struggle. “Do you wish for me to kill you?”

The miasma began to change shape, moving to fury. “He wasn’t ready! He left before I could finish the training and he wasn’t ready. And now he’s gone. And there’s nothing I can do to save him. I’ve saved so many others, but my own son…” he trailed off, limp in my grasp, the fury leaving his body.

“But do you wish for death?” I asked.

The human lay like dead weight in my claws. The scent changed, dominated by that for which I had no name. “I’m sorry, Nathaniel. I’m so sorry. I failed you.”

“What is left for you, human?” I asked.

The human once more stared into the distance, this time with tears streaming down his cheeks. That strange scent seemed to be attacking me now, mingled with a sadness stronger than I had ever felt. Finally, he answered.

“I…nothing. Nothing but an empty house. Send me off, dragon. Let me be with my boy.” The tears began again, but this time he did not succumb, but rather reveled in them.

I looked into the man’s eyes once more and breathed in deeply, allowing every modicum of who he was in that moment to wash over me, to saturate me. I sifted through the scents. His abject misery, his determination, even the acrid smell of his pain all were rooted in that unknown scent, so sweet that it made my fangs ache.

A quick pinch of my claws stopped his tears. I stared into his

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eyes until the light left them, leaving them as dull as a sheep’s. I stared into them for hours, holding the human’s corpse. I stared as the pain of my wounds returned. I stared as the sun set and the gentle moonlight and twinkling stars shone through the hole in the roof. I stared as the strange scent was replaced with the stench of death.

I did not descend into my hoard that night, to spend another day resting in my gold. Instead, I crashed through the ceiling once more, finally bringing it tumbling down, and flew, flew until my wings grew heavier than ever before, flew until I left the lands I knew, chasing the light of the human’s eyes in the stars, chasing his strange scent in the wind.

MELISSA CLOSE ROMANTIC FANTASY

THE WITCH

Melissa Close is a sophomore Writing, Literature, and Publishing major from Waterford, Connecticut. Melissa is passionate about three things in life: strong female characters, coffee shops that are also book stores, and chocolate cake. Family and friends rank in at a close fourth.

T

he Witch never stayed for long—a week or so, maybe a month, and she would move on. She visited more towns than could be counted and knew more faces than could be remembered. She was restless. It was her business to wander, to never leave more than brief impressions on the people she met.

She collected memories like coins in a jar, storing them away for a far-off day when they could be sifted through with the appropriate leisure. Of memories concerning her, she left very few.

There was a kind of routine to her arrival, and on this particular day, it went much the same as usual. She appeared in the center of town in a flash of light—maybe flash was the wrong word, actually. It was more of a bend, as if she had altered some quality or essence in the air that people didn’t know existed, but had always been there just beneath the surface. She stood blinking in the bright light of the sun, feeling the world shift back into place around her. As her heart regained its regular rhythm, she released a deep, contented breath, opened her eyes fully, and looked at the buildings around her. The town square was small and unassuming— quaint in a cobblestone and brick chimney sort of fashion. While it had been bustling with average people going about their daily

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business before, all activity had ground to a halt at the Witch’s sudden appearance. The townspeople stood hushed and staring at the strange woman, uncertain what had come over them, but certain that something remarkable had happened. After a moment the Witch smiled and the spell seemed to break. She nodded to herself and began walking in a seemingly arbitrary direction, and a chorus of whispers and pointed looks broke out within the crowd.

The Witch was beautiful. Her figure was long and lithe, her eyes so dark a brown they flirted with black, her clothing light and billowing in the soft wind. While she physically carried nothing, it can still be said that she carried a great deal. The stares and whispers of so many people is a heavy and temperamental load, but she bore it well. She might have even found it amusing. She never once tried to hide what she was; to deny her magic would have meant to deny her very self. Besides, she enjoyed being around new people, liked to watch them react to her. The brave ones called out to her as she walked by, waving and smiling, wanting her to come closer.

But most simply watched, their heads turned and their business set aside for the moment. One particularly enthusiastic young girl tugged on her mother’s shirt urgently and said, “Mom, look at that woman. She just appeared out of nothing; she wasn’t there before!”

The woman looked down at her daughter and brushed off her grip. “Ridiculous,” she said, though her brow was scrunched in confusion. “That’s not possible. Now stop pointing, it’s rude.”

“But I saw it.”

The Witch overheard all of this and almost laughed. She did not stop, but as she walked by she caught the eye of the little girl and winked at her, eliciting another flurry of shirt tugging and clamoring from the girl to her mother. This was normal—expected. The reactions were the same wherever she went. This was primarily due to the fact that people are people, after all, wherever one ventures.

Throw a mystery in front of them and they will want to know where it came from, what it was doing there, and how they could get closer to it.

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The Witch was drawn out of the moment when she felt a hand fall on her arm. The shock of an unexpected touch pulled her up short, and she turned to find a man standing behind her with wide brown eyes and a faint, awkward smile. He was slightly out of breath from jogging to catch up to her, and his brown hair was ruffled from the wind. She looked pointedly at the hand on her arm.

“I’m sorry,” he said, removing his hand. “I’m Matthew.” He paused as if waiting for her to offer up her own name, but she didn’t, so he plowed on. “Have we met before? You look so familiar, I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere. What’s your name?”

The Witch gave the man a sharp look, her smile gone. She looked him up and down, her mouth set in a tight frown. There was a tense moment as she stared into his eyes and said nothing, leaving him to shift back and forth on his feet with nervous energy. Then she relaxed. Whatever she was looking for in the man, she had not found it. The Witch replaced her smile, shook her head and told him “Call me whatever you like,” and walked quickly away, less confident than she had been before.

Eventually, the Witch found herself at the outskirts of town.

It was there, on the unmarked borderline where civilization began to fade into wilderness, that she would always situate herself for the duration of her stay, conjuring up her home with a sweeping wave of the hand. This feat tended to generate a number of raised eyebrows from the people in town who could have sworn that no house had ever rested on that particular plot of land, but a convenient explanation was always produced soon enough.

The cabin was simple, old, and warm, with a tall stone chimney on the right-hand side. Even during the summer the chimney would release a stream of smoke into the air that would curl and dance with the currents. At night, when the rest of the world was dark, the cabin gleamed. Light seemed to seep through every crack in the wood and hover in the air like an aura. Indigenous animals would gather on the small porch while birds and owls perched on the roof. Every night, the Witch opened her door to greet her

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visitors. She would pat a deer on the head and thank it for waiting, or compliment a rabbit on how marvelously its fur shined in the light. The townspeople who happened to live nearby watched all this from behind drawn curtains. Even after the adults had fallen asleep, the children would stand by their windows and peek out at her, eyes shimmering.

On particularly beautiful nights, when the sky hinted at drunken mysteries of creation in each cool, clear breeze that flitted through the landscape, the Witch could be heard flying through the treetops with wild abandon, laughing in delight. Her golden hair would flutter behind her like waves, leaving behind small dustings of light that hovered in the air like constellations. Everything she touched seemed to swell with life.

In the village, people whispered about the strange woman who lived on the edge of town. It was rumored that she sold tinctures that could cure any illness, that she could work enchantments that diminished age. It was whispered that at night she would romp through the trees and commune with the spirits of the dead. This rumor often elicited nervous laughter and uncertain smiles, followed by assertions that the very idea was utter nonsense. Nevertheless, parents told their children to stay away.

But the frustratingly endearing thing about children is that they almost never listen—especially when there is a mystery involved.

Wherever the Witch went, children would flock to her. They would bring her all sorts of things: friends and siblings, crayon drawings, gifts of welcome, stories of dreams from the night before. More often than not, they brought questions.

They asked her how old she was, to which she responded that she was much older than one would think. They asked if she was a witch, to which she responded that she was whatever they wished to call her. They asked with excitement if she could ride a broomstick, but at this she only laughed and shook her head. When they asked if she could teach them magic, she told them it was time to leave; when they insisted, she told them they would not like the price

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it would demand. Though the children often left disappointed or angry, her rejection did not upset them for long. Soon enough she would move on and they would forget all about her.

And so she passed the many days of her life. She never stayed for long, and she never left more than hazy memories that shimmered and shifted like dreams—whispers in the mind that something magical had once lived and shared its secrets. Her journey was like that of a glass bottle thrown out to sea: without direction and without end, driven forward by a relentless and unnamed force. In every town she visited she went through the same routine. It was safe and predictable, but also very tiring and lonely.

There had only been one time, many years ago, that something had convinced her to stop moving. The Witch’s life had become a monotonous blur when she met him, a young man who lived in one of the many towns she visited. He was not particularly charming, but he was passionate. He was utterly fascinated by her lifestyle.

He visited her every day, and each day he brought an unbelievable number of questions about the places she had been, about the wonderful things she could do, and about her impressions of the townspeople. After a few weeks the Witch knew it was time to move on, yet she couldn’t bring herself to actually go; she stayed longer than she should have. When she eventually resolved to leave, she did not tell her admirer her plans. Rather, on her last day in town, they sat together as usual on her front porch, and she listened while he rambled on about this and that. That night, before he went home, the man told her that she was beautiful, magical, the most captivating woman he had ever met. He asked if she would stay, and she smiled and said nothing. She was gone the next morning.

But whenever the Witch left, the two inexplicably found each other again—sometimes immediately, sometimes years down the road. Each time they met the man would smile at her in delighted surprise and say, “It’s been a while. Care for a drink?” He always

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looked older, but she never changed. The second time they encountered each other, the Witch brushed him off and went about her business; it was a fluke and it would not happen again.

The third and fourth times, she vanished immediately. On the fifth time, she walked right up to him and demanded he tell her how he kept finding her; he joked that fate worked in mysterious ways, and that maybe she was the one who kept finding him. The sixth time it happened, she took the drink.

They fell in love.

His name was Michael. Much like her, he lived a migratory lifestyle. He spent his life traveling between villages, selling his wares. When he grew bored of a particular landscape, he would pack up his cart and move on. He had not stayed stationary since he was a boy, but on the day he finally convinced the Witch to stay, he proclaimed that it was finally time to stop wandering. He used all of his savings to buy a small house in an average town where the two of them could live.

It was a confusing transition. The Witch had never before been accountable for another person. It was the first time in her life that she had to work to actively maintain relationships with the people around her. The townspeople welcomed the Witch with a suspicious kind of acceptance that soon warmed to an intense curiosity. They decided to overlook her mysterious origins in order to fully appreciate the unique resource now available to them. Soon enough, the brave citizens started asking her for favors.

It began with small things. An old man needed something to relieve the aching in his hands, or a woman wanted something to prevent pregnancy. As time went on the people started to demand more and more; what began as requests for simple medicinal mixtures soon turned into requests for magical intervention in everyday affairs. Villagers asked the Witch if she could predict the future, or if she could change the weather so that their crops would receive more rain. She did what she could with great reluctance.

About four months after the Witch arrived, a couple came

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before her with a single, urgent request: to save their bedridden son from an illness that would surely kill him. The Witch refused.

Seemingly overnight, word of the Witch’s refusal spread through the entire town. It was like a chill in the wind. Townspeople who’d heard would stop and glare at her as she passed by in the streets, or would refuse her service in their shops. Their disapproval was instant and startling. Michael urged the Witch to change her mind and intervene on the child’s behalf. Under normal circumstances, she would have packed up and moved on—but that would have meant leaving Michael behind, which was something she couldn’t do. So, with no other option, she acquiesced.

For a time, the Witch’s magic worked and everything was well again. The child improved and the town rejoiced at the presence of their miracle worker. But then the child got worse. His fever returned in full force, this time with a hacking cough that soon produced blood. His parents cried and begged the Witch to save him, to work her magic just one more time, but there was nothing she could do. “My magic is not unrestricted,” she said, “and there are some things I cannot heal. If the boy is meant to pass, he will.”

The boy died within the week.

Enraged over the loss of their son, the couple blamed the Witch. They convinced the village it was her magic that had caused their child’s untimely death. She was branded a murderer, a demon, and a monster. Villagers would throw rocks at her in the street and yell obscene threats as she passed by. The Witch and Michael fled soon after, but it seemed they were not destined to find any peace wherever they went; similar events transpired in each new town they tried to settle in, and each home they tried to build was violently uprooted. Michael promised to protect her, to take her far away, to never leave her side. Not only were these promises impossible, they were not what either of them needed. The days passed, each one tenser and more uncertain than the last, and then Michael went too far. He asked her to teach him magic, stubbornly convinced it could be used to sway the townspeople. She said no but he wouldn’t

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back down, and they fought like they had never fought before. He didn’t understand that he had asked for the one thing she could not give, and she was struck with the realization that they were not the same—could never be the same.

On the night a mob gathered outside their residence, he stood in front of her with his arms spread wide, begging the people to see reason. The Witch took one last look at him and touched her hand to his back. When she pulled away her palm was shimmering with a golden light. She closed her fingers around it and disappeared, taking with her all memories of what had happened.

What she did next cannot be referred to as “traveling,” for truly it was not in any sense adventurous or free. She fled. She became as skittish and timid as a deer. She avoided civilization whenever possible, and, if she did happen to venture near a town or a city, she was reserved, wary, and quick to vanish at the first sign of trouble. She felt out of place wherever she went, and saw suspicion and animosity in the eyes of everyone she encountered. Perhaps it had always been there and she had simply never noticed.

Even though she knew it was impossible, the Witch saw Michael in every crowd. She would see his smile out of the corner of her eye, or she would hear his loud, obnoxious, endearing laugh echo through the streets. Every time this happened she would turn and scan the faces around her, her heart involuntarily stuttering. It was never him.

It took years for the Witch to regain the steady pace of her previous life. There were bumps along the road, as there were always people who refused to accept her. Even more dangerous, there were people who refused to forget her.

Much later, on cold autumn night when the leaves gamboled across the ground and the wind sung quiet melodies in the trees, the Witch encountered something unbearably familiar. As she sat on the dry ground in front of her home and conversed with the

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animals that had gathered nearby, a man stumbled out of the woods to stand before her. His chest moved up and down like bellows as he tried to regain his breath. His wide shoulders were tense, his hands clenched into fists and trembling. His presence made the air pause and tremble with misgiving.

“I finally found you,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I had to see you. I remembered where I met you.” The Witch stared up at him in shock and confusion. She said nothing. The man squinted at her through the silence that rose and stretched through the entire clearing. He shifted back and forth on his feet and huffed with nervous energy. The silence soon became unendurable.

“Don’t you know me?” he asked.

“I know many people.”

The man blinked. “But you’ve seen me before,” he said. There was a waver to his voice. “Today, in the square, but before that too.

You came to my town years ago. You brought magic. When you left everyone told me that you never existed, that you were just a figment of my imagination, but you weren’t. I remember you.”

The Witch stood, her expression bleak. The animals that had gathered around her scampered away into the trees. She took the man’s hand and looked into his eyes. “You should have forgotten me,” she said.

“How could I?” he asked.

She offered the man a small, bittersweet smile. Her voice was wistful. “I knew another man like you, once. Someone who never forgot.” The Witch looked down and shook her head. “But that wasn’t a good thing.”

“I’m not him,” the man replied. “I could make you happy.”

She sighed. “How could you possibly know how to make me happy?”

“Stay, and find out.”

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The Witch looked at the man. Then, slowly, she leaned in and placed a small kiss on his cheek. “I can never stay,” she said.

She let go of the man’s hand, and when she backed away he stood frozen, mouth open and eyes confused. There was a small ball of golden light glimmering between the Witch’s closed fingers. The Witch opened her hand and the ball zipped into the air towards her cabin, disappearing down the chimney. For a second the house seemed to glow brighter than it had before. It filled the clearing with a brief but intense warm light, and when it faded both the Witch and the house had vanished into the air like a sigh.

In her absence the clearing came back to life slowly and reluctantly. The animals began to rustle through the foliage and the wind traipsed its way through the trees. The man, now alone, did not move.

Dawn had already broken by the time he awoke from his spell, and all memory of the beautiful woman with the light in her hair dissipated with the morning fog. She existed only as a dream— a childhood fantasy never realized, a story read under bedcovers late at night, a melancholic aftertaste in the back of the mind that whispered of magic.