Genre Love Magazine Issue #1

STORIES BY BRIAN LELAS & TONYA R MOORE

AUTHOR INTERVIEW REN THOMPSON

A MAGAZINE OF SPECULATIVE FICTION

Contents FEATURE

About this Publication

4. Reading Bradbury INTERVIEW 5. Author Ren Thompson IN THE SPOTLIGHT 9. The Spec-Fiction Hub SHORT STORIES 12. Through the Woods by Brian Lelas 20. Over a Fallen Hill by Brian Lelas 32. Mangata by Brian Lelas 42. The Darker Side by Tonya R. Moore 52. CREDITS

53. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

GENRE LOVE Magazine is a digital speculative fiction publication. Genre Love Magazine was created to shed light on the speculative fiction genres as well as under-appreciated gems and endeavors of the specfic ‘verse.

Published quarterly, GENRE LOVE Magazine is a labor of love and will be distributed for free download and online viewing.

Letter from the Editor The notion to create a magazine first came to me over ten years ago. I never had the confidence to try before now. It’s strange that such a small thing as making the choice to go ahead and start a fun and interesting project can be so difficult.

Genre Love Magazine was created to shed light on my passions as a speculative fiction writer, as well as under appreciated gems of the specfic ‘verse. My aim is to inform, inspire and entertain.

I ask in advance that you forgive my ignorance and inexperience.

Everyone has to start somewhere, right? Constructive criticism and suggestions are always welcome and appreciated.

My hope is to encourage others like myself to take that leap of faith ever now and then. Start something new. Take the first step down that winding path. You never know where it might lead.

Sincerely, Tonya R. Moore www.genrelove.co

Reading Bradbury Tonya R. Moore

T

here was a time when I grappled with the notion of becoming a writer; I was at a loss as to what sort of stories I even wanted to write. Should I write mystery? Romance? Crime?

The possibilities were endless and I was directionless.

I remember reading Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer in a Day” and crying because I identified so much with Margot who’d been subjected to the careless cruelty of other children. Later, I happened across “A Sound of Thunder”.

It was like being struck by lightning. The final sentence of this story lit a fire in me. Yes! I thought. This is it! This is exactly the kind of story I want to write. Thus began my foray into the speculative fiction genres.

While I can’t claim to possess an iota of the sheer genius and mastery that writers like Ray Bradbury possessed, I had finally found it—that certain sense of belonging that comes from existing in a universe of like-minded dreamers and creators. To some it might seem like such an insignificant thing but it meant the world to me. I no longer felt as alone and utterly out of place in the world.

I’m currently reading Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine” and I’m repeatedly struck by the beauty and power of his words. “Dandelion Wine” was so beautifully written, I can hardly stand it.

I feel as if I lived those glorious Greentown summers, ran through those lush woods, smelled that crisp air and tasted those golden drops of dandelion wine.

Interview Ren Thompson Author Extraordinaire

1.

Who is Ren Thompson:

Genius. Billionaire. Playboy. Philanthropist. Wait...what? Sorry, I mean, Ren Thompson is horribly addicted to stationary, gel pens and yellow highlighters. She’s a Whovian/ Potterhead who love purses, extra buttery popcorn, Regency romance novels, SF/F movies and hopes like hell that she’ll be reincarnated 300 years from now so she can see how things have changed.

2.

Think back to when you were a child. What did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be a Mob Lawyer when I was a kid. I’m serious. I LOVE the Godfather movies and wanted to be like Tom Hayden. He was the go-to man behind the scenes but he got totally shafted. Leave the gun, take the cannoli. Sonny was too crazy, Fredo too petulant and Michael too greedy. YES, I said it! Michael was greedy and devious and lost everything. Its not personal, its business.

3.

What is Dead Heat about?

Dead Heat is about two women finding love in Toronto in 2033, during the zombie apocalypse.

4.

What inspired you to write Dead Heat?

It was actually a project in my writer’s group. One of my author friends had this idea for a series where there were Lesbians, college, zombies and music. While everyone else was able to get their books published, I was one of three people who didn’t get it published in time before Nobel Romance shut down. It took another two and half years before I was able to get it pubbed.

(Continued)

5.

What was the most challenging thing about writing this book?

The grittier aspects of it. Thank goodness for the internet. I have to say, though, certain images embed themselves into your brain and you can’t unsee them lol Without giving too much away, I had to work around a serious trigger element that was crucial to the story. A lot of publishers don’t like certain things and post them as such on their websites but I am very thankful that Storm Moon Press went ahead with it.

6.

Who or what has most influenced your work as a writer?

Jim Butcher, Lilith Saintcrow and LaVyrle Spencer. Jim Butcher because he is a god when it comes to his craft, Lilith because she writes complicated, badass women like nobody’s business and LaVyrle because her heroes were nice, ordinary guys, not brooding billionaires with wicked sex tendencies.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with brooding billionaires with wicked sex tendencies but reading about your everyday Farmer Joe being the love of someone’s life is great, too.

7.

If you were in a horror movie, what sort of character would you be?

I’d like to think that I would be like Michelle Rodriguez in Machete but I’d probably be one of the first ones knocked off. I don’t have that kind of luck lol 8.

In the event of a zombie apocalypse, what are three things you couldn't survive without?

Well hell, I was hoping to become a zombie. Just kidding :) Okay, night-vision contact lenses, a knife and a blanket.

9.

Who is the scariest horror/sci-fi character of all time?

Hannibal Lecter and those nasty things from Aliens. I think, though, Jack the Ripper, is definitely at the top of the list and that guy was REAL. 10. Where can readers buy Dead Heat?

Dead Heat is available on the Storm Moon Press website, at Amazon.com, All Romance Ebooks, and Bookstrand.com 11. What’s on the horizon for Ren Thompson? (Upcoming events, projects, etc) I’m hoping to get Jax Miller: Giant Slayer finished and submitted within the next few months. Its another Lesbian Romance with elements from Aesop’s Fables, The Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Andersen. There are several other WIPs that I’m hoping to have done this year.

Thanks for having me xo

Next: DEAD HEAT—EXCERPT

DEAD HEAT Ren Thompson 2030, Midtown Dana Layton pounded down the dimly-lit alley after her squad leader, Rick Gallagher. She groaned in frustration as his big frame sailed through the darkened maze of buildings with the grace of a gazelle. Her feet hammered against the concrete while her lungs screamed from the exertion of trying to keep up. She eyed his back, grit her teeth, and pumped her legs harder, determined not to be left behind. The familiar thump-thump of the small unit pack between shoulders eased some of the fear she felt.

She leaped over an overturned trashcan and landed in a puddle, the weight of her booted feet startling the vermin that had been inside. They scattered in all directions like a fast moving river of black fur, their high-pitched squeals following them into the darkness. She gasped and stumbled when a few of them ran over her feet. Revulsion, thick and beady, raced through her belly, and she pressed a hand to her chest. With trembling fingers, she removed her cap to wipe her brow before she turned, frantically, to see where Rick was. Blinking against the unfamiliar sensation of the vision-enhancing modifications, Dana squinted as Rick's frame shifted a little. He had come to an abrupt halt along the side of a building, no more than a few meters away.

Dana replaced her cap before glancing behind her, the tiny scanners on her eyes taking in every detail of the alley. Shadows seemed to shift and move. She tightened her grip on the Uzi. Several pairs of flat, silvery eyes watched her from the depths, their silent warning evident. Nervous adrenaline flooded her veins, but she pushed it aside to focus on the task at hand. She turned back in time to see Rick disappear around the corner and quickly followed him, tapping a finger against her ear-piece to make sure the device was set on mute.

A frantic call into the city's dispatch center had mobilized her unit into the heart of Chinatown, where a suspected nest of zombies may be hidden behind the Wen Ho Ming plaza near the main nucleus of the former tourist attraction. A missing persons notification came with the details: young male, late teens or early twenties, of East Asian descent.

Someone was out past curfew. — END

Buy the Book Amazon.com Storm Moon Press All Romance Ebooks Bookstrand.com

Ren Thompson

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THE SPEC-FICTION HUB

T

he Spec-Fiction Hub features interviews, reviews, commentaries, as well as a curated library of speculative fiction short stories and flash fiction.

The Spec-Fiction Hub is the brain child of publisher and editor, Alexandra Wolfe. The Hub seeks to engage and connect with readers from all walks of life. The Spec-Fiction Hub welcomes short story and flash fiction submissions, as well as reviews and genre-relevant articles.

"From far-flung outposts and colonies on distant worlds, to the downright dark and creepy, whatever your flights of fantasy or dystopian future..." www.spec-fiction.ca

Volume One of the space opera series The Nyacene Record, brings a whole new universe of romance and adventure for fans of scifi adventure and space opera to enjoy.

Dorian’s Task is a light novel, a fleeting prelude to an interstellar war spanning across a decade.

War or no war, the wheel of life keeps turning. Dramas of varying magnitudes unfold. In the universe of the Nyacene, people love fiercely and freely, yet happiness isn’t necessarily so easy to come by.

Personalities and ideologies clash.

Hearts get broken. Betrayal requires forgiveness. People still need to learn to not take the love they have for granted.

SHORT STORIES

A Walk Through the Woods a fable

Brian Lelas

T

he elderly Fox was slowly walking along the bank of the purple river. The sunset left an artist’s palette among the clouds. Fox walked proudly, but slowly along the grassy path, but he was starting to worry. It was much later than he had realised and that purple reflection was turning to dark.

I still need to cross through the woods, he thought to himself. How am I going to do that, at

my age?

He got closer to the edge of the tall trees and peered in at the wall of trunks and shadows before him. He sighed and looked about. What if there is something in there? he worried. I might never get home.

Fox pondered the idea of digging a burrow outside the woods, something small, and temporary, just for the night. Although it would not be his regular den, nor would he enjoy digging it at his age, it was a better option than venturing through the trees. He picked a spot just off the path and began to paw at the earth. He slowly began to make a hole to start his burrow.

A Hare on a hill and an Owl in an oak caught one another’s eye. They had both noticed that

there was a strange Fox was moving in to their clearing by the river. They both shared a look that said, This is not good news.

Owl swooped down to Hare’s side and hooted. “What is it? A fox or a badger?”

Hare moaned unenthusiastically, “It’s a fox…”

“Oh no, that won’t do at all.”

“No…” Hare agreed.

Together, they hovered around the perimeter of the Fox’s site. After a few moments, Fox became aware of them and glanced over his shoulder. “Evening.”

“Yes, good evening,” Owl said, ruffled.

Hare stood, glowering.

“Ah,” Fox realised. “This must be your stretch of the land.”

“We live here, yes,” Hare explained.

“Right. Well, as you can probably see from the lack of progress I’ve been making here, that I’ve seen my better days gone by…” Fox settled with a groan and sat on his hind legs.

“You’re not a kit,” Owl decided.

“But you’re still a fox,” Hare added.

Owl jabbed at Hare with a wing. “Now, now, Hare. There’s no need to be like that. We can settle this amicably.”

“We can,” Fox agreed. “Frankly, I would prefer not to burrow here.”

“Then don’t,” Hare grunted.

“I don’t think I would make it through the woods in the dark. My eyes are not what they once

were.” Fox looked up at the sky. “By the time that dark blue turns to black, I will have lost my walk through the woods. There are more than enough predators in there to catch me and eat me.”

“Why not go around the woods?” Owl asked, diplomatically.

“I came that way,” Fox revealed, “but I will not make it back home to feed in time if I am to go back all the way around the forest again. It was foolish of me to return alone. I was visiting a relative and, well, I felt that I rather put them out by my appearance.”

“Much like you have with us,” Hare insisted.

“I mean no harm to you. I hope to get some rest, save my energy and get on my way at first light. I am getting hungry, so I must be on my way home as early as I can.”

“Hungry?” Hare asked.

“Yes.” “Why not feed in the woods.”

Fox scoffed. “We foxes do not simply scour the floors of the earth and feed where we kill. We bring our meals to the den and eat properly.”

Owl and Hare shared a look.

“If we were to let you burrow there,” Owl began, “it is most likely that when you leave, another predator will find it useful. We don’t wish to have another neighbour who is likely to eat us… A younger fox, or badger, perhaps.”

“Or you,” the Hare added for certainty’s sake.

“I understand,” Fox said. He padded away from the tiny hole he’d begun. “Would you know of somewhere that I might rest for the night away from sight, where I would be safe?”

Owl fluttered up to a branch above. “Well,” he said, struggling. “There are a lot of small mammals in this area who would rather see you on your way, unfortunately. It is their instinct, you see, that makes them, and makes us, turn you away. You are a fox, after all.”

“An elderly fox, with no strength to chase prey,” Fox said.

“Be that as it may…” Owl tried.

“You’re still a predator,” Hare interrupted. “We cannot have you here. It is not the time of year for predators…”

“Ah,” Fox understood. It was spring. The newborns were hatching and birthing. “I get your meaning all too well.”

“Then forgive us if we are rude,” Owl hooted. “You are, unfortunately, not welcome here.”

“Then you leave me no choice,” Fox said, suddenly. He sat on the middle of the path, then

hunkered down to rest.

“What are you doing?” Hare asked.

Fox’s ear pricked up and he turned back to face them. “You said that a burrow would invite squatters. I would hardly live with myself if I was the cause of the deaths of some of your young.

Dreadful thought!”

“Why are you lying on the path, then?” Hare asked.

“Going to sleep, of course.”

“But…”

“None of you can take me in. I cannot dig a burrow. I cannot see through the woods. I have

not the energy to travel the long way round…” Fox sighed. “Then I have no choice but to stay right here, to warn anything that comes from the woods that if it comes further out, that I will warn my small mammal and bird friends to their presence. I might as well make myself useful if I am to rest here.”

“There’s no need to play sentry, sir,” Owl said, sadly.

“I pray that none come from the woods tonight. I will likely not be roused from my sleep. But if I am, rest assured, I will call you to protect your young.” Fox dropped his head down and appeared to be resting.

“It is cold…” Owl said, awkwardly.

“But safer than the woods,” Fox explained.

“Yes…” Hare said, grumpily.

“What do we do?” Hare asked as they left the fox to his rest. “Watch him?”

“Look at him. He wouldn’t catch a sloth if it fell into his jaws from a tree,” Owl hummed lowly.

“I think the old fox might die out there if he falls asleep. If something does come from the trees, I

doubt he’d be awake before he was dead.”

“So, what do we do?” Hare repeated.

“Well, we can’t leave him there.”

“No.” “Let’s take him through,” Owl suggested.

“What!?” Hare hopped.

“Come on. It will only take a couple of hours. We get him through, he gets home and leaves us

be. Our young are safe from him and we need not worry further.”

“What if he kills us while we escort him.” Hare looked angry at the notion.

“Give him some space. Don’t stay too close.”

“Hang on,” Hare realised. “You intend to let me do it. Don’t you.”

“Well, I can’t get through the woods easily. The branches…”

“So you’d leave me alone with a fox in the dark forest!” Hare started to storm away.

“Alright, alright!” Owl hooted. “I’ll fly over you. I’ll be there the whole time, looking down. If I see anything in the woods near you, be it the fox or otherwise, I’ll give warning for you to run back.”

Hare growled. “I don’t like this.”

“Come on, it’s the most sensible option. We need to get rid of the fox.” Owl looked at Hare insistently.

“And if another predator comes while we’re away?”

“The others will protect themselves.”

Hare looked over at the fox, which he had to admit, did look more skin and bone than muscle and sinew. It was old. It was slow. “Well…”

“Great,” settled the Owl. He flew over close to the fox and chirped.

Fox, his eyes opening slowly, did not seem all that surprised to see Owl. “Yes?” “We will escort you through the woods. Hare will lead you through, with me overhead.”

“Oh?” “Don’t take it as a kindness,” Hare stamped as he made for the edge of the forest. “We just want you gone.”

“Charming.” Fox slowly got to his feet. “I thank you, nonetheless.”

“Let’s go,” Hare insisted. He walked past the first pine.

They were silent as they went, Hare five or six paces ahead of Fox at all times. There was a path that they could follow, but Hare knew all too well that it would be the most dangerous way through the thicket. Instead, he led Fox under half-felled trunks, over moss covered potholes, around alcoves of root and branch. Fox was slow, as expected, but nimble if needed to mount or drop. Hare was quietly impressed, if a little begrudging to have to turn and check for him regularly.

“Should we not simply take the path?” Fox asked some minutes later.

“The path winds a little,” Hare explained at a hush. “Plus, they watch it for prey.”

“Who?” “Quiet,” Hare shushed him. Let’s get through this spot so Owl can get a proper look down at us.

As they came to a clearing, a loud hoot was echoing from about. Hare looked back at Fox, who was far behind, but barking towards him. Fox pointed behind Hare. Hare turned. A wolf, stalking by, turned at the sound of fear from its left. It growled and approached, unsure what exactly it had heard.

Hare ran back and dived under a bush, which it gestured to Fox to join him in.

Wordlessly, Fox backed off and joined his escort.

The wolf, disinterested, loped off into the woods beyond. Two minutes passed like hours on melting ice.

“Phew,” Hare exclaimed. “That was close.” He crawled out from the bush and walked on.

Fox proudly stepped into the clearing and stood still. “Well?”

Hare ignored Fox. “Aren’t you going to thank me?” Fox asked.

“Thank you? For what?” Hare asked. He checked to be sure that the wolf was gone. He could-

n’t see any sign of it.

“For warning you. For saving your life.”

“Hah!” Hare scoffed.

“Well. I did warn you.”

“I would have seen it if I wasn’t looking back to check on you!” Hare laughed.

“Well maybe you’ll trust me now?” Fox hoped.

“It takes more than that to make me trust anyone.”

“Fine. Let’s get going then, shall we? How long will it take?”

“A little over a week if you don’t up your pace,” Hare scorned.

Fox knew that he was keeping pace, but let the insult slide. He ushered Hare onwards.

Again, they were silent. But now, they were faster. The flatter land gave Fox more confidence.

His tired legs kept their pace, but Hare was too quick. “Please!”

Hare went on, not slowing.

“Please!”

When Hare was almost out of sight, Owl hooted from above. Hare halted then turned to see Fox struggling for breath. “Oh. Come on then,” Hare insisted. “We’ll be out of the woods soon if we keep it up.

“I…” Fox panted, “…need to take a break…”

Hare closed his eyes and breathed loudly through his nose. “Come on. We’ll be out soon.”

Owl hooted from above. Hare looked around. Another hoot.

Fox saw it first, and froze. He dropped to the ground and barked, “Drop! Play dead!”

“What!?” Hare scoffed.

“Play dead!” Fox whispered with volume.

Hare turned to see a grizzly bear, huge in bulk, walking on all fours towards them. He dropped as told and held his breath. He was shaking.

“Stop moving…” Fox said, calmly. “Just stop thinking. Look at me, at my eyes. Be calm.”

Hare did as he was told.

The bear came closer and examined the ground around them. It stepped over Hare’s body and sniffed about. Something was curious, but it couldn’t tell what. Fox continued to stare into Hare’s eyes, to focus him. Neither of them moved.

The huge grizzly sniffed loudly and lumbered onward. Hare convulsed with fright. The bear looked back. It moved its muzzle in close to inspect where Hare was lying. It growled a roar at him.

Before Hare knew what was happening, he saw Fox bite the bear’s hind leg, before dashing up a bank. Hare, without needing further opportunity, went to other way, under a bush, around a corner and up into a small tree. He was shaking. He was silent.

Owl landed down beside him, almost causing him to fall from the branch.

“Sh- Owl, will you please!” he wanted to scream, but held his tongue.

“Sorry,” Owl said, quietly.

“That stupid Fox actually saved me there! Would you believe it!?”

“Not if I hadn’t seen it.”

“Do you think he got away?”

Owl looked down with a sly smile. “I think so, yes.”

Fox walked casually under them and asked, “Which way are we going, then?”

Hare hopped down and laughed. “I thought you didn’t feed away from your den?” He made a biting motion with his front teeth that made Fox smile.

“I told you I was hungry,” Fox said, with a smile of his own.

With Owl once ae made a He gain overhead, the two mammals found themselves nearing the end of the woods. The path was wide now and inviting, so they decided to end their walk through it.

“I’m sorry we judged you so harshly,” Hare said sadly. “It’s just instinct, really.”

“I understand,” Fox replied.

“This time of year, the darkness, the wild… It can mount up on your shoulders, you know?”

“Indeed. I’ve seen many harsh winters and many difficult springs,” Fox agreed. They walked out into the open plain, the woods now at their back.

“So where is your den?”

“Just here,” Fox said, then sunk his teeth into Hare’s neck. He trapped him down and snapped his neck with a sudden, surprising strength. He could hear Owl panic above and disappear into the distance. “Sorry. It’s only instinct,” he said, then dragged Hare’s body into his den.

Brian Lelas is the author of numerous novels and countless short stories. He writes in many genres, ranging from Literary Fiction to Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Since 2002, Brian has written over sixty short stories and in November 2010 a collection of ten of the best was published, called Dead Cartography. The book was sold exclusively in Waterstone's Bookstore in Dublin and sold out two print runs.Two-and-a-half years later, Brian launched a crowdfunding project on Indiegogo.com for a follow-up collection of stories called Phantoms Doused in Night.

Brian has way too many ideas and not enough time to write them down.

He lives in the quiet village of Chapelizod in Dublin, Ireland with his wife and two young sons. They like to sleep in on Saturdays, Sundays and pretty much every other day too.

His "real" job is testing, balancing and designing Video Games, which is much harder than it sounds. Honest.

His dream is to make it as a Fiction Writer. If you want to help that dream come true, read some of his work and recommend him to others.

Over a Fallen Hill Brian Lelas

T

he long, low whirring blast of the horn bellowed out across the town as a storm approached. In the darkness, people gathered their tools and headed for the hollows. Huge wooden doors opened all along the central thoroughfare. It was midday and the sky was black.

Weak winds quickly accelerated into a gale and the rain powered sideways from the northeast.

As the last of the security locks clamped into place in Blue House, the people who had taken refuge

there contributed their lanterns to the large racks and cast iron chandeliers that were mounted on the ceilings. Fifty candles hung above to light the room as the fifty men, women and children sat about the room and waited.

Thunder clapped from afar, but nobody paid it any mind. Some of the men bantered about work while children played gratefully. Work, while important, was hard, especially in the winter.

Even though everyone had to do it, they all wished that they could stay indoors. The wax myrtle plantation was vast and with only three hundred in Shadenvale and two hundred and fifty on the other side of the crops in Norrell, they needed to work as much as possible to get enough wax to light the

world around them.

It was Saturday, which was without a doubt, the worst day to get a storm shower. The huge

wax clock in the production area was the only source of accurate timing in the whole town. It was comprised of sections of horizontal slabs of wax that melted one by one. They would drop a long metal rod onto a brass bell as it melted in sections on the hour. If it went on past 15:00, the guiders would need to start working in the rain, which meant dressing in waterproofs and worst of all, wearing gloves. With gloves on, especially wet ones, candles were harder to place and even harder to keep dry. There would need to be a lot of extra help to get the balloon ready if the weather didn’t pick up.

Thankfully, with less than two hours of waiting, the storm had passed. Working with wax myrtle was fine if you were simply harvesting it from the fields, as it was a natural plant that lived on rain and artificial nutrients sewed with it in the earth. The problem was that processing it into wax for candles needed to be done on such a large scale, that the only place to do it was outside in the main courtyard. A moveable shelter was in place there to protect the boilers and shapers, but the storms of winter were generally bad enough to lift the roofs off houses, so production always had to cease, with all wax and candles gathered immediately and taken below ground for safe keeping.

As the people of Shadenvale emerged from their safe havens, the people of Blue House were first to assess any damage that had been done to the shelter and apparatus. Red House and Green House workers appeared next and helped to restart the boilers and vats. Within minutes, the Yellow, White and Purple houses had emptied too and the whole working village was back in action. It was

now about 14:30, early enough to leave the balloon for another little while, but the guiders and shiners decided that they didn’t want to risk it. It was Saturday after all, and if they didn’t have the balloon ready before any other potential storms, they might not get it ready in time.

Only the oldest residents of Shadenvale had ever seen the sun. They told stories about the land before the Fallen Hill, where colours were vibrant and skin would turn to brown if you worked outside. Shadenvale children knew the sky as a vast black soup above, littered with tiny points of light called stars, which they were taught were like little candles in the sky.

An old man named Alban liked to sit with the children who worked at braiding wicks along the north wall. He told stories of what was generally referred to as the Bright Days. “Hordes of people would rush to the coast and swim in the sea for fun. They wore no clothes except their undies, don’t you know, as it was warm enough in the water that they’d never need a bodysuit. Well, sometimes it was. Either way, it was never so cold as to freeze your feet solid like it is now.”

The children refused to accept many of the old man’s notions, mainly due to his eccentric excitement about telling them, but concepts like sunglasses, something used to lessen light or solar power simply would not register with them. All they knew was darkness from nature, an empty,

cloudy sky or the beauty of a star-filled night every minute of the day. Alban knew that they couldn’t

see their own feet before them without a candle anymore, but those kids saw things as a child of

darkness that he, even having lived through the death of the sun, never would.

The team of shiners pulled the basket of the balloon out of its underground hideaway, up a long protracted ramp and to a clear square off the main thoroughfare, behind the main production area. There, they reached inside and began to unfold a massive lattice of metal links that formed a frame around where the balloon would inflate. As half the team set up beside a specially crafted wall with levels and platforms for arranging the frame as desired and began straightening out elements of it, the other half began hanging small diamond shaped mirrors at the intersections of the frame.

After a couple of hours, the bottom half of the balloon was covered in reflective glass. The soft

linen of the actual balloon was in place and tied to the top of a fully constructed frame, and as the group placing mirrors kept on with their job, the rest began attaching lantern cases in the regular gaps along the surface of the balloon.

A man with the singular task of unlocking a precious tanker of oil fed some of the magical elixir of the past into a small but highly complex mechanical device, which he tested manually with a tug of a cord. Flames belched out of the end of the little engine for a split second, just long enough to ensure that it worked, then the device was quickly turned off.

Before night-time, which appeared no different to day-time, but was merely the passing of 19:00, the balloon was finished. This weekly ritual, every single Saturday since Shadenvale was built by the artificial wax myrtle plantation, was something that felt worth it every time they completed it.

The sun might be dead, but tomorrow was Sunday, and the people would have their weekly sunrise.

Candles were produced by the thousand on a daily basis, with only Sunday given as a time of rest and play for the peoples of most towns. Every morning at approximately 08:00, the caravan of traders would pass Shadenvale on its eternal circuit of the Nine. Shadenvale was designated number Three, and as the producer of candles, it was one of the, if not the most important exporter among the Nine. Every morning, two carriages of meat and vegetables, artificially grown of course, a half carriage of mail and private deliveries and variously timed weekly shipments of clothing, firewood, oil – always in very sparse quantities – or raw materials would be unloaded at the main cross bunker, where hundreds of candles were then loaded on in return and sent along the circuit of the Nine.

It was just before the arrival of the caravans, every Sunday, that the pilot would fire up the engine of the Sun Balloon and lift into the air. Four-hundred-and-eighty candles encased in glass lantern boxes, perched carefully across the volume of the inflated hot air balloon were reflected to look like over two-thousand flaming beacons. The balloon always rose slowly from its lifting square, with every man, woman and child awake and alert from their beds by the crest of Fallen Hill to see it rise

above their heads.

The balloon rose with a slight spin, its weights and motions left it dancing in a tight pendulum

motion as it took to the air. The hundreds on Fallen Hill cheered, as they always did, as the glittering display dazzled. Eyes so tuned to the darkness and the flickering of wayward light were treated to something constant, although moving higher. The mirrors on the light, polished frame swung from side to side until the whole craft settled and hung above them. It was radiant.

Alban, still telling his tales of history, had basked in the large group, as he always did on Sunday morning. “When the sun died, they said that the Earth would die with it, freeze almost overnight and turn into a lifeless husk as barren and lost as Sol. They were wrong. Wrong because they fixed it as best they could. They thought that the best way to save as many people as they could was to get underground, get sheltered. But then they figured out the hotspots. They created the embers below the ground that gave life to the soil and kept the plants alive, kept the air flowing. They developed the currents that kept the seas from freezing and the oceans from turning ever more hostile. It was all the same thing really, all nuclear, all created by science. They cheated death.”

“Then it started to fail,” a disgruntled shiner interrupted.

“Sure it did. They ran out of time. Just like the sun. The hotspots cooled. The currents faded, dispersed. So we went back and started again. We lost connectivity. We lost the airwaves. We lost the sky. Hell, we even lost most of the land. But seventy years later, look at us still surviving, any way we can, slowly heating the land around us, keeping ourselves alive.”

“Instead of leaving,” the man replied.

“To go where? This is our home,” Alban smiled. “A morning like a Sunday in this time, in this place, with that sun,” he pointed at the balloon that glimmered above them, “It’s worth staying for.”

“Life without light,” the other old man said, “I’ve tried to get used to it my whole life but I never can.”

“Some can. Some know no other way. This world is all we have. The emigrants who took to the stars know nothing of their destination, or their trauma that they will face out there in the void.”

“They know that what they leave behind is nothing but a shell of rock waiting to freeze over completely.”

“Enough of that!” Garvin, an elder townsman interrupted. “There is no place for that kind of negativity on a sunrise morning!”

The balloon signified the start of Sunday, and for the pilot, his passage over the entire wax myrtle crop yield from north to south, where he would then land in Norrell. As he flew, a flight that would last little more than one hour, at a markedly slow speed with intention, he would look over as

much of the crop as possible, zigzagging across and down the length and breadth of the plantation.

Often, there would be nothing to see below. Occasionally he would see some rot in the myrtle, which would mean firing down a token pole, ten feet high and tapered at the end so it would stick vertically into the earth. It would prove a useful reference point for a foot patrol that would be summoned immediately to clear out the blight and inspect the area. Other than that, very few eventful moments happened from the basket.

Arrival at Norrell was usually greeted with as much enthusiasm as at home. The pilot always ensured that he approached from a valley adjacent to the crops and rose close to the Norrell town square. He always landed on the flat side-roof of the town’s largest dormitory. The pilot maneuvered the balloon through the valley and prepared to fire the engine for a rapid rise in altitude for the waiting crowds. Racing past the tall trees on the way to the sheer rock was always his favourite part of the trip and as he ripped down hard on the cord and fire roared into the air above, the lightness in his stomach, a tingling tension, made him laugh.

The balloon cleared the ground and soared over the outskirts of the small town, but for once, the light of the mobile, man-made sun was not the blazing beacon in a pond of darkness. He looked down, horrified as flames choked over the roofs of the barns and shelters. Bodies, blackened and charred were lining the streets.

Instinctively, the pilot raised the balloon higher for safety, and for a better vantage point. He would need a refill of oil for the flamethrower that gave his craft its life, and he knew that without it, he would need to land in about five minutes. Smoke streaming upwards in grey plumes, luminous against the void of black above, desolately opaque against the raging fires below. He had to land somewhere and either make for Shadenvale on foot through the wax myrtle or find some fuel for the return trip. Maybe he could find someone – anyone – and help them.

The sun descended over the tombstones of Norrell. Its pilot was scared.

When there was no sunset at 17:00, the gathered few people of Shadenvale who enjoyed the balloon’s return – less than those who watched it rise, typically – assumed that the craft would appear any moment. When those moments turned into half an hour, some drifted to their homes, some to the bonfire by the east wall, others to the front of the vats, while Alban and a dozen or so others expected trouble and maintained their wait atop Fallen Hill.

“There’s no storm,” a woman claimed.

“There’s no warning anyway…” the man beside her said.

“Norrell’s not too far,” Alban decided. “We should send a couple of young lads on down the

caravan track and check on the sun.”

“I’ll send my boys,” the same man responded.

“No, wait.” He hesitated. “Your boys are too young. Get Garvin’s lad and young Charlie, the shiner, not the little fellow who works on the wicks. Tell them to keep off the track itself.” Alban felt the cold through his layers of furs, more so than usual.

“What’s wrong?”

“That’s smoke,” he revealed, and pointed towards the south.

“Oh no… A fire!?” someone said.

Shadenvale was the shining hope of the Eight. In Norrell’s absence, there was a scarcity of livestock, so meat, eggs and dairy were almost unheard of. Four Sundays after the fire, the new sun balloon was ready for its maiden flight. It had been three weeks since a sunrise, and four since a sunset. The whole town was standing atop Fallen Hill in anticipation.

“Do you not think it strange that the whole town burned down, every man, every beast?” Garvin, a gaunt man of middle years asked the elder group at the back of the crowd, near the hilltop.

“In this cold, to die by such heat…” his wife, Dena added.

“It’s inhuman,” Garvin concluded.

“I think it’d be preferable to burn than freeze,” another decided.

“Or starve.”

“Enough,” Alban grunted. “May they rest in peace, those poor souls.”

“In peace,” agreed the others.

“This new sun, the pilot said it’s smaller.”

“Yes,” Alban answered.

“Would it not be respectful to make it bigger, in memorial to Norrell?” Dena asked.

“Well, as you ask,” Alban began. “When we saw that Norrell was burned to cinders, we figured that it was possible that some outsiders could have been responsible.” He gave a conspiratorial look.

“As you say… Everyone died in Norrell. No survivors.”

“Who would do such a thing?” Garvin asked.

“With wax melting down past his eyes in flight, the pilot couldn’t be sure if he saw figures in the town or if it was the heat of the flames dancing… But he claimed he saw phantoms among the shadows.”

“Phantoms? What nonsense…” Eriodna, the head of candle shaping barked. He stroked his

stubbly chin harshly in anger at such a notion.

“We’ve all seen phantoms!” Alban retorted. “Whispers of darkness, moving out of sight, in the shadows. They must be scavengers on the outside on the Nine, looking for anything they can find to survive.”

“But we invite outsiders to come and share our lives, why would anyone sneak around the town limits to peel the scraps from our trash?”

“We invite those who would work with us, Eriodna. Some people would rather take what they want than live and contribute to society… What society we have anyway…” Alban answered. “That is

why we have the guards,” he pointed down to helmeted men with long spears and swords down by the production area. “To keep out undesirables.”

“Do you think it could have been such undesirables who sacked Norrell?” Garvin asked.

“I don’t know. It’s possible. Either way, at least we didn’t lose Kazzen, we need their linen a lot more than we needed Norrell’s meat. Most of the people here are vegan, anyway,” Alban decided.

“Always looking on the bright side, Alban.” The speaker was Palma, a young woman with short blonde hair that was greying prematurely. Her eyes were sunken and her body was slouched.

“That’s what we do here in Shadenvale,” Alban responded with a smile. “We light the way forward. Without us, the Eight would be nothing but another collection of holes in the ground like burrows for dead rabbits. They all know it, which is why we’re going to ask for better rates from everyone now that Norrell isn’t contributing to candle production.”

“We are?” Palma asked.

“Won’t we have more candles to share now?” Garvin asked.

“We’re not a charity, Garvin,” Alban announced. “We cooperate. What we give them is far more valuable than what they give us. I think asking for a few more carrots or peas from Erikstown is

not too much to ask if we can spread out Norrell’s share of the light. Or a few extra sheets from Kazzen?”

“We could use them…” Eriodna decided.

“So we agree?” Alban asked. “As for Mieville… I know that they had that crop failure, lost all their dry-fruit… But we can’t carry them forever. They need to contribute something. We’re wasting the caravan’s time sending light to them. I’m sure the others feel the same way.”

“We can’t cut them off just because they had a bit of bad luck.” Garvin looked angry. “You’re not suggesting we leave them in the darkness?”

“No…” Alban raised his palms out to them. “I’m just thinking we should motivate them to con-

tribute in a new way.”

“I reckon they’ll be trying everything they can think of already,” Eriodna interjected.

“You’re probably right,” Alban conceded. “Although… Maybe they would consider moving from Mieville completely, spread out through the rest of our towns? It would make sense, especially if they can’t recover their lands effectively.”

“Who knows. It might happen. Hopefully they can fix it all up though.”

“Yes,” Alban murmured. “Hopefully.”

A cheer rose up from the crowd as the new sun began to rise.

That night, as Garvin and Dena locked down the back shutters and prepared to close down the front of their house, a rock, as large as a fist, came flying through their door. Dena screamed as a pair of men appeared in the room. They were dressed entirely in grey, hooded and near-invisible under the low light of the single candle above the table. The rock had struck Garvin on the back of the head.

He was sprawled on the ground over a fallen chair with blood coming from under his hair.

A hand reached over Dena’s mouth to silence her. She shook and fought with her attacker, but

to no avail. His grip was like a vice as he wrenched her arm behind her back and pressed her against the wall. Before she was thrown to the ground beside her husband, she could see the other assailant filling a cloth sack with food, candles and anything he could get his hands on. She tried to scream again, her mouth open, her voice instinctively high, but the butt of a weapon collided with the side of her head. She was out.

By midday the following day, Shadenvale had already recruited ten new part-time guards. The mythic Phantoms had never been so real before. Now that they had injured Garvin and Dena and

taken almost everything they owned, unseen by anyone in the area, the Phantoms were a presence.

The caravans were now aware that there was an attack and were on their guard. Attacking Shadenvale, possibly the largest of the Nine, now Eight, was daring. Sure, it was likely to have the most rewards for a raid, but there were higher risks involved.

That night, as production shut down and the last candles were packed away, people retired to their houses, but there was an air of expectation about it. Each house, each dormitory and each guard posting felt that there would be another visit from the Phantoms.

They were wrong. The Phantoms waited another couple of nights for the townsfolk to let their

guards back down. They raided the food stores, a group of five this time. They didn’t take as much as

initially feared, probably because they could only carry so much, but they injured another couple of

people, one a volunteer watchman, the other merely a passer-by.

Within hours, word had gotten through that a caravan had been ambushed between Mieville and Leguin. The horses were taken, as was most of the cargo. As a round trip, food from Kazzen destined for Shadenvale and three other towns around the Eight was lost. There would be rationing in Shadenvale until the next main delivery in three days’ time.

The people were rattled. Alban was furious. In a meeting of senior townsfolk, he was pacing among them as Garvin sat before them, speaking. He was still bandaged around the head and face.

“We need to build a better wall around the town. They just slip through the fence, or over it…”

“A wall won’t stop a man determined to steal from another,” Eriodna said.

“They’re going to keep doing this,” Garvin agreed.

“It’s because of the long trip to Mieville. Without that long detour, the caravan would never have been targeted as easily,” Alban intoned with a growl.

“He’s right,” Eriodna said.

“For what!?” Alban shouted. “So that they can take our wares, for free? They offer nothing to our cause.”

“We’ve been over this, Alban. Their crop failed. It happens…”

“It can’t be the burden of the Eight…”

“That’s what we agreed when we created the community of towns.” Garvin held his hands up.

“We protect one another and we support one another.”

“That’s it.” Alban clapped his hands together ruefully. “Protection. We need protection. They need a contribution.”

“How can they protect us from all the way out there?” Eriodna asked.

“They can’t…” Alban suggested.

In the following month, winds grew harsher, clouds thicker. Rain was like a tap that constantly poured. The Seven endured as they always did, although with further attacks from the Phantoms.

Shadenvale suffered the most, with five more raids in the two weeks since the caravan was toppled.

As a result of their obvious needs, Shadenvale had taken in almost three quarters of the townsfolk of Mieville when the remote settlement agreed to pack up and leave. With such a large share of the people came most of its men, who were almost all recruited as watchmen. The work was tough as condi-

tions were abominable, with shifts as short as one hour or less so that they could warm their faces,

dry their skin and escape exposure.

There were no seasons anymore, but it certainly felt like winter. Although perhaps always winter, this last passing felt like the worst they’d ever had. The embers that heated the ground from below seemed almost to be dying out like the sun.

Other refugees from Mieville had proven to be skilled builders and ready trainees for candle production. Myrtle harvesting was a constant, laborious task made almost impossible by the weather. Whole fields of the plant were becoming water-logged to the extent that the harvest would suffer much like it had in Mieville, but trenches of irrigation had been dug to siphon away pools from soil to

hard pan on the edges of the land.

Since the installation of the watchmen, there had been only one raid in almost three weeks. It had proved fruitless for the Phantoms who had attempted it. The people of Shadenvale took small solace in their improved security, but trembled at night as their thick underground tombs began to get colder by the hour.

After days of constant downpour, the rains let up. A dry spell provided hope and allowed the sun to rise for the first time in weeks. As the balloon rose into the air, Shadenvale cheered as one, though noticeably fewer people were there to watch it soar despite their new arrivals. They were tired. They needed hope. Two of the eldest men in the town were weary. Their bones were no longer carrying them as steadily as before. Garvin and Alban were losing their own personal fights against the cold.

That is when news of Leguin’s fall arrived. Another fire.

The Six were close. Close enough that the caravan could make it from the start of its circuit and back in a single day. Alban traced his way to greet a young man riding at the back of the last wagon as it arrived in Shadenvale at midday. His walking stick, now very much a dependency, had

miniature lanterns glued along its sides, complete with tea candles, to light the ground around him.

It made his arrival appear as if he was clutching a rigid string of fairy lights. His face was barely visible in the low light around the caravan landing platform.

The young man, dressed as a guard, nodded to him. “Is that it, then?” the man said.

“Yes. Leguin was the last. We have it now. We have the time.” Alban’s voice was nearly a whisper.

“Do you think we did the right thing?”

“Absolutely.”

“For the good of Shadenvale.”

“And humanity. The community.”

“For our families,” the young man reinforced as he stepped down.

“I needed to make sure that the community survived, John.”

“I’m not judging you.”

“Mieville and Leguin were holding us back. They were taking years off the rest of us.”

“You still think Norrell was the right thing to do?”

“They offered the biggest shock at the lowest cost. The Phantoms had to be real, my boy. They had to put the fear into the people of the Nine.”

“The Six, now, thanks to us.”

“A Six that will endure. That is better than a Nine that will wither away and rot in the ice.”

“It still feels as if we might have done it too late. It grows ever colder, Alban.” He began unloading a wagon of leafy, wilting vegetables. They were highly unappetising, even to Alban.

“It will always be colder. That is something we know we cannot fix, cannot change. All we can do is last those extra months, those extra years. Alas, I will not be here when the community dies. I

have been borrowing time for a while now.”

“At the expense of Leguin, Norrell and Mieville.”

“It’s too late to have a conscience, John.”

“Never too late to make you feel yours, though.”

“I deserve that. Don’t get me wrong. I think about the two or three years I think it bought these people,” Alban pointed with his shining walking stick. “That makes me feel like I’ve made a difference.”

“You did. I believe that. I just can’t help but feel the heat of those fires on my cheek every time I turn away from the wind.”

“John, my boy. The Six will live on for your crimes. For ours.” He smiled sadly.

“Come on,” the young man said. “Let the others gather the goods, I need some tea.”

“With me, then.”

“Tell me, again,” John said, shyly. “Tell me about the sun.”

“The sun!” Alban smiled. “It was an orb of light, like millions of candles fused into one great hanging ball of wax. Its light dripped down from the sky and coated the land with a heat so tight, so radiant, that it would burn the eyes from your head if you stared at it too long…”

Alban glanced up at the sky. “We lived our lives by the light of the sun. We gave it the measure of our day. Since it has gone, since we have been in the shadows, doused in this eternal night, all we’ve ever done is try to bring it back. It was life, my friend. It was all we ever had.”

MĂĽngata Brian Lelas

A

s with all snowy December evenings, thoughts were consumed by Christmas. The glittering of snowflakes draped a sheet over the city as cars trudged through the slush of ice with bumpers close and engines humming. On footpaths, shopping bags and umbrellas bounced about like pinballs as high streets appeared as a sea of activity, with waves

flowing in all directions. Buyers rushed from window to window as their eyes scoured the items beyond the glass with calculator minds crunching the likelihood that what they saw was the perfect gift, the one that will bring that cash-earned smile.

It was just past 4pm and to Jonathan, the rush and panic of last-minute shoppers and the excitement of children was a background noise that was pretty irrelevant. He liked to wander, with no aim in mind. At twenty-nine, he was a man who appreciated the value of a casual saunter through a maelstrom of other peoples’ dashing, and where possible, he liked to stop and light up a cigarette, Then he could simply take in the blizzard of December weather and enjoy not being part of the frantic retail dependency. As he put out a near-finished smoke, he spotted a man carrying a child’s bike, boxed (assembly required) under one arm, with the other clutching what must have been four or five shopping bags, each bulging out with pointed corners of smaller boxes inside. He hoped that the man

was parked nearby, or at least planning to hail a taxi soon.

Jonathan lingered around a paper seller’s stall and flicked through a few magazines, a new

Marvel comic he hadn’t heard of, then reached for another when he noticed the disapproving look from the seller. With one hand on the comic, he returned it and turned away.

Anne was feeling a little ditsy this afternoon. She had known that there was something she had to get in town, but it was cloudy in her mind now. It can’t have been too important, but whatever it was, it had drawn her to the main shopping street, where a crush of people gave her a despairing desire to give up and go home. Traffic would be horrendous at this hour, so she decided to stick with her half-plan and battled the swarms and if it didn’t come back to her, she would at least find some-

where to sit for a while and grab a coffee.

As she weaved carefully through stalls and customers along the long pedestrian street, she felt the shoulder of someone colliding with her own, which sent her straight down onto the slippery ground. She looked up meekly at a man who almost fell himself as he tried to get her back to her feet.

She shrugged him away irritably and caught her bearings.

“I’m so sorry,” the man said. “I didn’t see… I’m sorry, are you okay?”

She looked angrily at him, then at the news seller behind him who had also come to her aide.

“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she spat, then continued on her way. She cursed the clumsy oaf, then noticed a

store ahead. “Aha,” she remembered. “Of course!” She disappeared into a bookshop.

Feeling a little foolish, Jonathan decided to get out of everyone’s way. He drifted into a coffee shop a few doors down and waited in the doorway for a spot to appear. The sound of steaming milk and grinding beans was nothing compared to the chatter of happy shoppers, likely the ones who had finished for the day. A small table freed up in a tiny booth at the end of the shop, so he parked himself down and looked at the wall mounted menu over the end of the counter.

“Hi there. Welcome back!” a waiter said cheerfully as he spotted Jonathan. “So, what did she have?”

Puzzled, Jonathan responded. “Oh, I think you must have me mistaken with someone else…”

He eyed the waiter, who in turn was puzzled.

The man was almost expecting it to be a joke. “Really? You’re not…?”

“I’ve never been in here,” Jonathan said. “What did she have? Who is she?”

“That’s so strange. I could have sworn… Well, you look just like one of our regular customers…

His wife was having a baby and it was a while ago so… I thought it was you. Never mind. Sorry about

that!”

“Sorry. Erm,” he said awkwardly. “I’ll have a black coffee, please.”

“Anything else?”

“No, thanks.”

“Coming right up. Sorry again!”

“Don’t mention it…”

He noticed a framed print of “The Persistence of Memory” on the wall opposite him, which he found amusing. He lounged aimlessly in wait for his coffee. The place was getting ever more packed with customers, but he was happy to stay put.

Anne targeted The Bean Counter opposite the bookshop once she had bundled her book into her handbag. As she crossed the street, she was tapped on the shoulder by someone.

“Hi Anne!” the enthusiastic woman said. She was lost in a huge winter coat that was too big for her and a hat that smothered her ears.

“Oh, hi,” Anne responded, not quite sure who the girl was. She knew that they knew one another, but it had obviously been a while since they’d met, as the woman’s name escaped her.

“What are you up to?”

“Oh, just doing a bit of shopping, you know,” she brandished her bag.

“Same. Just getting Pete’s present now,” the mystery woman announced. “That’s the last thing on the list for me this year, thank God!” “Ah, yeah, that’s great! I eh, I just have to dash, okay, talk to you again soon. Hi to Pete,” she added, grateful that there was something she could throw in at the end to hide her complete lack of recognition. She waved and turned away, picking her brain as to where she knew the woman from.

Was it college, maybe? No, it can’t have been that long ago if the woman didn’t make a fuss over their

chance meeting. Who was she?

Anne entered the bustling coffee shop. For a moment, she thought of just leaving, but despite the queues, she ended up hanging about at the counter, tempted to order a take away rather than sitting down. As she pondered her choice, the line started to move a bit and people began sitting down beside strangers at all tables. She thought about sitting, then changed her mind. “Latte to go, please.

Large.”

The man smiled and turned his back.

Anne spotted a space in the back. “Actually, why not, I’ll sit in. I’ll see if I can sit down there.

I’ll take a blueberry muffin as well, please.”

“No problem. I’ll bring them down,” the waiter offered.

“Thank you.”

Anne stepped around a child’s buggy and put her bag down on a chair at the end of the shop.

She said, “Is this seat taken?” then looked into the face of the man opposite it. “Oh,” she said, recognising him.

“No, please…” the man said, who in turn looked up to see her. “Oh, hello again,” he said.

“Please…” he started.

Anne almost picked up her bag and went to leave, but then considered how rude it would be and hesitated.

“Let me buy your coffee for you, please,” Jonathan said. “It’s the least I can do for almost knocking you out, that time…”

Anne laughed through her nose quietly and smiled. “You know what,” she said. “I’m just going to say yes, because I really would like to sit down somewhere, and this is the only seat left.”

“I’m charmed by your honesty,” Jonathan smirked.

“That sounded…”

“Harsh?” Jonathan offered.

“Yeah, a little harsh. Sorry.”

“Okay, we’re even now, right?” Jonathan asked.

“Once you pay for my coffee, yes.”

“Okay, then.”

The waiter arrived, with Anne’s latte and muffin. “There you go.”

“Thanks.”

“A muffin as well,” Jonathan laughed. “I guess I’ll buy that too.”

“Anne,” she offered her hand.

“Jonathan.” They shook.

“How is it?” Jonathan asked.

“Delicious,” Anne answered.

“Your head, I mean. You hit your head earlier when you fell,” Jonathan smiled.

“Oh,” she laughed. “It’s fine. I’ve been a bit forgetful today, actually.”

“Since the fall?”

“No… Just in general. It’s weird, actually.” She took a long sip of her coffee and cut the muffin

down the middle with a knife.

“You know, you look sort of familiar to me,” Jonathan said suddenly. He looked at her short black hair and tried to slot the thought into place.

“Really? I just had a feeling like that outside. A woman said she knew me, asked how I was, and frankly, I couldn’t tell what her name was or how she knew me at all… I am almost certain she had me pegged as someone else, but she knew my name.”

“Anne’s a popular enough name,” Jonathan suggested.

“Maybe.” Anne took her cigarette packet from her bag. She took one out and looked at it. “Is there smoking in here?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Damn.”

“I remember now,” Jonathan said. “Forget it, though, it’s pretty irrelevant.”

“Forget what?”

“I figured out who you remind me of. But it’s fine, never mind.”

“You can’t say that and expect me not to drag it out of you. Come on!” she returned the cigarettes to her bag.

“It’s a strange one. Just forget it.”

Anne gave a look.

“Okay, it’s unusual, right, but you remind me of someone from a book. A character.”

“I hope it’s not someone from one of those silly comics you were looking at back at the newsstand.”

“Whoa! Silly comics?”

“Yeah. Silly comics. You know, for kids.”

“I wasn’t looking at silly comics, I was looking at X-Men and Walking… Wait a minute, you’ve never read an X-Men comic?”

Anne scoffed. “Don’t make me laugh.”

“You are missing out. Comics are not just pretty pictures with stupid dialogue attached. At least, not any more. I’ll have to educate you.”

“Maybe another time,” Anne gave a playful smile and took a bite of her muffin. She held her hand over her mouth as she chewed.

“Unbelieveable…” Jonathan said, shaking his head as he bit his lower lip in mild annoyance.

“So, who do I remind you of then?” Anne asked.

“Abberlaine Arrol.”

“A superhero? Can she fly?”

“No. She’s not a superhero, she’s a woman, elegant and smart looking. I was clearly mistaken.”

“Oh,” Anne teased. “What does she do? What book is she in?”

“She’s a little complicated,” Jonathan explained.

“Seems about right.”

“She’s from The Bridge, by Iain Banks. It’s just her description really, you look like her to me.

That’s all.”

Anne stared into his face with a look of shock on her own. “Do you believe in coincidences?” she asked.

Jonathan thought about it for a minute.

Anne took a wrapped paper bag from her handbag and opened it. From within, she revealed a sleek white paperback book. The Bridge by Iain Banks.

When they finished up in The Bean Counter, they opted to go for a drink in a small trendy bar two streets down, where a small crowd was relaxed but with a buzz. It was a nice atmosphere, not too loud to talk, but not so quiet that each word resounded from wall to wall. They took a corner table, with Anne on the soft couch and Jonathan on a short bar stool.

They chatted about music as they drank their contrasting drinks. A pint of Guinness loomed over a Gin and Tonic while they agreed that The Bends was Radiohead’s real best album, even though OK Computer had some of their best individual songs. They both hated U2, but their opin-

ions differed on just about everything else. She couldn’t stand electronic music, while he was actually wearing a Kraftwerk t-shirt. Within ten minutes they were certain that they were human polar opposites, but it was the conflict of opinion that made the conversation fun.

“You hungry? Want to get something to eat?” Jonathan asked.

Anne looked at her watch.

“Well if you have somewhere to be…”

“No, I’m just checking to see if Gulemo’s is open yet. You know it?”

“Pizza?”

“Yeah,” Anne smiled.

“Never been there.”

“You are fucking kidding me,” she teased. “They open in half an hour.”

“I’ll get in another round so,” he suggested. She didn’t need to respond. Jonathan got to the bar and an older gentleman, who was leaving with a newspaper under one arm nodded to him.

“Hi,” Jonathan said, politely.

“Congratulations, by the way. Haven’t seen you since! Hope all is well!” the man said with enthusiasm. He waved as he said it and was out the door before Jonathan could realise what was happening. He looked over his shoulder at the men at the bar, none of whom were facing the door.

“Okay…” Jonathan murmured to himself. That was weird. The barman was looking at him. “A Guinness and a G&T, please,” he said automatically. A sense of déjà vu swam over him.

“I’ll drop down the Guinness,” the man said.

“Thanks.”

In Gulemo’s, their chatter became more animated, as it turned out, the pizzeria was also a cocktail bar. Not one to refuse alcohol on invitation, Jonathan nodded happily when the waitress asked, “Would you like a cocktail with that?”

“What’s a screwdriver?” he asked.

“Vodka and orange,” Anne explained.

“Nah,” Jonathan discarded. “If I’m going to have a cocktail, it has to be a White Russian.”

“One White Russian…” the waitress repeated.

“Make it two. I’ve never tried it,” Anne explained.

Jonathan’s jaw hung open. “Never tried…”

The waitress courteously left the table and went back out of sight.

“Just like you’ve never had a Gulemo’s pizza…”

“We must educate one another further,” Jonathan mused.

“I think that can be arranged.” Anne smiled with a cheeky grin then looked down at the drinks menu. “Some interesting names they have for some of these…”

“Yeah,” Jonathan said softly, noticing that something was rubbing against his leg.

The pizza didn’t take long to eat, which was something that they were both grateful for, as

there was a driving force that dragged them out of the restaurant. They needed somewhere out of light, out of sight. They felt compelled to stand in the darkened doorway of the building next door, where Anne clasped Jonathan’s head behind both ears and pulled him close. Their noses brushed lightly as she pressed her lips against his. He gave back some pressure and took a hard, sharp breath.

They both blinked in surprise as their eyes met. He embraced her fully and held her head against his shoulder, for a long, long moment. It evaporated as she slowly turned to him again, pushed him gently against the panel of the door and kissed him forcefully. She leaned up to him, then went onto her toes as her lips forced his head right back against the wall.

Their fingers webbed as they pressed their bodies together. Their clothes were like walls that needed to be demolished, but there was nothing but air between them and a steady side street. People had been walking by, gone unnoticed to the two of them. Their magnetism was intense, but they each looked out from where they stood, in shadow, at cars drifting by and people avoiding looking directly at them.

“Come on,” Anne whispered. “Let’s walk a bit.”

“This way, then,” Jonathan suggested, and headed for the river. They walked side by side, her arm around his waist, his draped over her shoulder, like a familiar fit, but with an electric charge.

They stepped as one, over cobbled streets and onto the riverside promenade, a walkway that jutted out over the water.

The night had taken the city hostage, its snowy sheen had been left to melt as clear skies, cloudless, were like a void of shadows fleeing the earth. Lights of white and yellow made the city look its best, hiding the daylight realities with a veil of pretty veneer. It always looked more like home at night, they agreed. They pottered along the walkway and turned up onto the small pedestrian bridge that arched over the black depths below. Over the keystone, right in the middle, they stopped and looked out, down the river towards the bay.

The moon, now on the horizon, looked like a gateway to tomorrow. It left a shimmering road of light along the surface of the water so palpable that Anne thought she could step onto it and walk right to the moon.

“It’s such a beautiful night,” she said, shivering in the chill wind.

Jonathan stood behind her and put his arms around her. “It truly is.” They fell into one another’s warmth as he smelled her hair. It was like an auburn autumn, peppered with smoke. “There’s a word for that,” he began. “The way it looks out on the water…”

“Oh?”

“I can’t remember what it is, though…”

“That’s helpful,” she joked, turning to him. He sniggered. The clocktower beyond struck on the

hour. They kissed once more, for a long instant, before it was gone. They looked into each other’s eyes.

“I’m glad I knocked you over,” Jonathan said.

Anne chuckled. “Me too,” she responded. “Good night.”

“Good night.”

“Wait.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Will I see you again soon?”

“I left my number in your back pocket,” she explained. “You were meant to find it later.” She laughed.

“Good thing I asked,” he smiled, “as I’d probably have washed it and lost you forever.” He retrieved a small folded piece of paper with ten digits on it.

Anne gave an amused grin as she waved her fingers at him and walked away, north of the river and round the bend.

Jonathan stood for a while longer and watched the snow begin to fall onto the moonlit river.

Shortly after, he headed home.

Anne tried the elevator, but it was out of order. She decided to take the stairs.

Jonathan found himself hurrying up to his apartment, bounding up the stairs three at a time.

Anne rummaged for her keys in her handbag.

Jonathan typed Anne’s number into his phone’s contacts list as he walked along the balcony to his flat.

They looked up to see one another at number 12C. They glanced at the door and back at one another. Each had a key in their hand and a look of recollection on their face. They took one another’s hand and remembered. It was like switching on a bulb in their memory. Jonathan opened the door to his sister inside. She was holding a small baby, who she proffered to Anne.

“Did you guys have a nice time?” she asked.

“Yes,” Anne said, still slightly dizzy from the recollection.

“Then I’ll leave you to it. If I go now, I can catch the train back.”

“Thanks,” Jonathan said.

The door closed, leaving the three of them in the apartment. Anne put the sleeping baby down

into her cot in the bedroom, with Jonathan at her side. As she led him down onto the bed beside her, she reached out to turn off the lamp. She knocked down a brochure from the dresser. It read: Have you ever wanted to have a second First Date? Now you can!

“When did you remember?” he asked as she opened his belt quietly but quickly.

“Just then, at the door. I have no idea how it worked,” she said, as he unhooked and tossed her clothes away to the floor.

“You know,” he whispered as their hands explored and lost their way, “I think we should remember more often.”

The Darker Side

Tonya R. Moore

C

laude dreamed that he was back in the old rainforest. He dreamed that he was surrounded by the blanketing moss that crept out of the dark, crawled over wood and swept across the earth under his feet. He dreamed of his dead twin. He dreamed that her lifeless body was still sprawled half-in, half-out of the shallow end of the river, the

soaked hem of her red summer dress bobbing in the inky wet. There was a noise, an awful noise that came rushing into his head. That strange sound followed him down and back up the old road, in and out of dreaming.

Jolting wide awake, he squeezed his eyes shut against sunlight streaming in through the cracks in a wooden window. He frowned up at the soot-clouded ceiling of the shack that he and Caroline Dewitt, an ex-student of his father, had taken shelter in during the night.

Then he remembered where he was: Cockpit Country, Jamaica, lush, treacherous terrain rid-

dled with limestone sinkholes, snaky rivers and hoary caves. This was a land where ancient gods and

demons once roamed, a place shrouded in secrets and myths. For Claude, the dark heart of this Caribbean jewel was the stuff of nightmares but this time, he hadn’t just been dreaming.

He had really come back to this godforsaken place. For the next few minutes, all he could do was lay there trying his damnedest to remember what the hell had possessed him to do a thing like that.

Caroline was already awake beside him. She sat halfway unsheathed from her sleeping bag, fiddling with the thick braid into which she’d gathered her hair. How long had she been sitting there watching him, catty eyes lit up with avid curiosity?

“I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” he muttered. “It’s creepy.”

“What were you dreaming about?” She asked, blatantly ignoring his complaint.

Caroline had a thick, lyrical voice, which she’d laughingly credited to her West African ancestry the day before. It seemed a strange assertion coming from one he’d heard locals call a coolie. Her eerily feline eyes bored into his now, searching. It was as if she expected his answer to have some deeply profound meaning.

He didn’t answer.

“Fine,” her fingers stopped working briefly. “Don’t tell me.”

Claude doubted the academic had any real intention of leaving it at that. Her clinical interest and insight were unnerving, and left him feeling that she could see things he didn’t want her to see, didn’t want anyone to see. He didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“I keep having these dreams,” he finally said. “I’m always dreaming about this place. It’s like there’s something important I forgot. And I’ve been hearing this… sound.”

“What kind of sound?” Caroline asked, as if nothing else he said was of any consequence.

“I don’t know. A noise.”

Unexpectedly, the academic seemed satisfied with that answer. She tugged on her sneakers

and fussed with the laces. “What are we doing about breakfast? I brought bun and cheese. I could maybe scare up a granola bar if you’d rather skip the local fare.”

Claude wondered whether bun and cheese was really all she’d brought or if she was just amusing herself at his expense again? “There’s canned fruit and soup in my backpack,” he offered.

“Fruit and soup....” She made a beeline for the doorway, chuckling for reasons known only to herself.

“Claude!” Her panicked yelp had him bolting right out of his sleeping bag. “Claude, get out here!”

He stepped into the unforgiving morning light. Someone had left quite the grisly gift on the doorstep. An indigo and yellow snake had been killed, chopped into eight pieces. Its head had been piked on a rusty-bladed machete and the crude tool jammed into the hard earth. The ground around the big nanka’s carcass was sprinkled with vivid, red spider lilies.

His eyes settled on one of the hapless blossoms. Was someone else here? Was there someone following and watching their every move?

“Do you know what it means?” Caroline asked, sounding strained. “I know the people here, but I don’t know about this.”

Claude met her worried gaze with kind of a wry half-smile half-grimace. “Guess I’m just not welcome here.”

Not like he needed to be told. He didn’t realize that he was biting down on his bottom lip until he tasted blood. He’d gone numb, couldn’t even feel it.

He bent, grasped the machete by the handle and yanked it up, out of the dirt. He pointed the tip at the spider lilies. “Where do these things grow?”

Caroline hesitated. “Why?”

“They were Tarah’s favorite,” Claude frowned down at the bloodied blade. “There’s no deeper

reason.” Not for him, and he got the feeling, not for the one who’d left it at the doorstep either.

Caroline pointed vaguely north-westward. “Roughly a quarter mile on. There’s a whole field of them. They bloom there all year round. Strange thing. They’re not even indigenous.”

“Thanks,” he turned to go back inside. “I can pretty much figure where I’ll need to go from here. You can just wait here, right?”

“Kelvin told me about what happened here when you were a kid,” Caroline said suddenly.

“About your sister, the way she went missing.”

“Yeah,” he stopped, back still turned to her. “What about it?”

“Nothing,” she murmured. “Never mind.”

Tarah had died. She’d drowned in the river, deep in these hills. There was no use in talking about it.

He found the field east of the main river, where the spider lilies thrived in abundance. He’d brought the bloody machete that had been left at the doorstep that morning. He chopped off enough of their red little heads to fill the bamboo bucket. He waded to the deep end of the fiery flower-sea.

A path to the place where his twin had died was hidden by bramble and brush, but he found it easily. Even if he’d been blindfolded, he would have found it as effortlessly. He stood at the foot of the slippery steps carved into the steep mountain slope. Those steps must have been there for centuries before Claude first climbed them as a teen. He doubted anyone in this country even remembered who had carved them anymore. From there he ascended into the thick of the hills.

The way was obscured by morning mist and the crush of trees. Halfway to the top, Claude stopped. He turned. Seeing no one there, he released a shaky breath. A second ago, he’d been so certain there was someone behind him. Would being right have made him less uneasy? The mountain had gone silent, save for the sound of the wind spiraling down through the trees and a waterfall’s dis-

tant thunder. Claude continued. His grip on the machete tightened. He couldn’t shake the feeling

that something or someone was watching his every move.

Ancient steps led to an arced tunnel carved into the karst near the summit. Claude stepped into the darkness and was thrust into daylight on the other side of the slope. Vertigo grabbed hold.

The steps continued steeply downward. The thick foliage downslope obscured his view of the river, but he could see the radical divide where the verdant valley was split into extremes of day and night.

On the darker side, the woods were blackened by what he was inexplicably convinced had to

be something far more fearsome than the shadow of the next ridge. The air was swollen with the cries of birds in the wild, the roars of scattered cascades and gurgling rills. Brimming with trepidation, he descended into the seething maw of the hollow.

By the time he reached the bottom, his guts were all knotted up inside. He couldn’t shake that sick feeling. Slivers of that awful day kept battering at his splintered memory.

As the world around him tilted, Tarah had floated to the surface as if unseen hands were raising her body up from the deep. Claude remembered with stark clarity, her lifeless body bobbing in the water. That image burned brightly in his memory, tormented him endlessly. There were gaps in his memory. The crucial moments before and immediately after his sister’s death escaped him completely.

Tarah had been in the water, but Claude couldn’t remember pulling her from the river. He

could only remember seeing her lying there against the bank, still partially submerged. He remembered kneeling beside her body, pressing his lips against the dead flesh. He remembered how cold she was, like she’d sunk for hours into the depths before slowly rising back up to the top.

Here he was now, after all this time. Boot heels sinking down into the slippery soft mud, he cast Tarah’s favorite flowers into the murky water. He watched their slow procession into the vein of the river where they were swallowed up by the dark.

What was he doing? Tarah was long gone and she wasn’t coming back. What the hell was he

doing here after all this time?

He saw it then, that thing.

The tall, shadowy figure stood upright, expelling air in ragged breaths. It stepped closer to the river’s edge. Claude’s eyes went wide. No way was that human! The horrible realization made his body tremble. The beastly body was completely covered in the breathing moss that grew on everything. It crouched there, the white of its wide eyes spearing across the small distance between them.

It flashed Claude a toothy grimace. Had it smiled or simply bared its teeth? It crouched there watch-

ing him, watching him and watching him.

“You!” An indescribable rage bubbled forth. Claude glared into the eyes of his ancient foe.

Somehow, he found his voice. “It was you, wasn’t it?” he pointed. “You’re the one,” machete gripped tightly in hand. “You’re the one!”

Brandishing the blade, he dashed forward into the river. The backlash was instantaneous.

Some unseen forced knocked him backward, sent him flying. His back slammed into the muddy

riverbank. The world tilted, went dark.

Claude let out a choked cry as pain lanced through his right leg. Something was broken. He was on the ground and broken. He couldn’t seem to remember how he’d gotten that way. His vision kept going blurry. He heard footsteps, and then the monster was looming over him. He flailed, tried to scramble away, but couldn’t. He reached blindly for the machete—anything!

He heard it again, that strangely ominous sound.

That awful noise was like a train hurtling by. The earth beneath him shuddered like it was being torn apart from deep inside.

The creature crouched low. The scent of green and rot became overpowering. Pain radiated through every cell in Claude’s body. He couldn’t move, could barely breathe. His eyes failed him.

Helpless and terrified, he waited for the fatal blow but the gruesome attack never came. He felt something light and wet fall on his chest. It happened again. It took him a while to realize that they

were the flowers he’d thrown into the river, every last one of them.

As Claude lay there stunned, the dark body backed away. The mad noise that filled his head

was receding. He heard brambles breaking as the strange one retreated, plunging into the arms of the darker side of the river. It slowly became easier to breathe. Lightheaded, Claude struggled to keep his grasp on consciousness.

When he came to again, Caroline was with him. She was seated on the muddy ground beside him with her knees drawn up to her chin.

He tried to move. Pain radiated through every cell in his body. He bit down on a hoarse yelp.

“Keep still,” Caroline ordered. “I called for help but they’ll be a while and I don’t know how badly you were hurt.”

“I told you not to come,” Claude croaked but he was grateful for her presence.

She’d bandaged his leg with a section of her shirt, using skinny limbs from a nearby tree as a splint for his leg. The rest, she’d used on her own hand. There was blood soaking through the fabric wrapped around the space between her forefinger and thumb.

She noticed where he was looking. “Nothing serious. I just got a bit careless.”

“Caroline.”

“What happened?” She drilled. “You didn’t come back down, so I followed even though you didn’t want me to. Good thing I--”

“Did you see it?” he demanded, still dazed.

Caroline’s brow furrowed. “See what?”

“That thing!” He bit out impatiently. “It was here. It was right here. I thought it was going to kill me but it didn’t.” He looked to his companion helplessly. “I don’t know why it didn’t.”

Caroline’s expression was odd but she only shook her head. “If there was something here, it was gone by the time I came.”

The tributary had widened. Because of the quake, the water was ruddy from the topsoil that

tumbled over the bank. Soon, there would only be a gaping cavity where the dark water once flowed.

“I don’t get it.” he reached out for one of the wilting red flowers. “All it did was give these back to me.”

If that thing—whatever it was—had killed his sister, wouldn’t it have killed him too? How had Tarah really ended up in the river?

“I couldn’t remember. Still can’t,” he murmured. “What if all I did that day was just stand here and watch her die?”

Caroline was staring at him strangely again.

“What?”

“It’s just,” her fingers curled into the wet earth. “You keep talking like the day you found Tarah was the day she died.”

“Well, yeah. She wanted to show me this really cool place she’d found. We came here.” He swallowed, but just couldn’t dislodge that painful lump in his throat. “Then everything went to hell.”

“I’m telling you, that’s not possible.” Caroline rummaged around in her backpack. “Claude,” she asked. “Know anything about this island’s history?”

“Just the textbook stuff.”

“This island has seen a lot of death,” the scholar explained. “That was long before the likes of Columbus reached the West Indies. The people who lived here in his time were the Taino but they

weren’t the first.”

“I know at least that bit,” Claude scoffed. “Before that, there were the…?”

“The Ciboney,” Caroline supplied with a brief grin. “Before them, the Igneri inhabited the island. Before that—who knows? For a long time, this island’s history was a repeating pattern of people settling here, and then vanishing from the face of the earth. It happened again and again. No one know how long this kept happening, or why.”

“Then the Taino settled. You probably know the rest. The Europeans came, bringing disease

and slavery. It didn’t take long to wipe out the native population. Well,” Caroline clarified. “Some

managed to escape into these lands.”

Claude peered into the darkness across the now raging river. Rampant moss and shadowy foliage masked whatever secrets Cockpit Country kept. What had become of the runaway Taino? What did they find waiting here?

“I don’t understand what any of this has to do with my sister,” he finally said.

“I looked into it before agreeing to take you here, you know.” From her backpack, Caroline produced a worn notebook. She flipped through the pages. “By all accounts—except yours—Tarah went missing. She’d already been missing for three days when you found her body in the river. You say she was with you the whole time but Claude, no one else remembers that. Not Kelvin. Not your mother. I mean no one.”

“That’s insane!” He shook his head vehemently. “That doesn’t even make any sense. I remember. I remember every second of it. She was here. She was—hell.” His head hurt. It felt hot inside his

skull. It felt wrong, so wrong. “You think I’m just making this up?”

“No,” Caroline firmly denied. “I don’t think that at all.”

“Then what?” He demanded harshly. “Am I going insane?” He asked, and just couldn’t dull that bitter edge to his words. “Then maybe my mom isn’t the only one who belongs in a--“ “That’s not what I’m saying at all.” Caroline cut him off before he could finish that tirade. “I do believe you. I believe it happened. Everything. Just as you said.”

“Then what?” Claude didn’t know what to think now. “What exactly are you getting at?”

“I’ve heard a few old stories; they all went down pretty much to the same tune.” Caroline stuck the notebook back into her backpack. He was dazzled by the light streaming down and lighting up her liquid-amber irises. “The older locals avoid this area. It’s too unnerving for them.”

“Ridiculous,” Claude muttered. “Do you really expect me to buy into that garbage?”

“Can you deny it?” Caroline challenged. Her fascination and envy were palpable. “Can you

honestly deny it, after you’ve actually lived it?”

Claude’s protest died in his throat, as he contemplated the horrifying possibility. For three days—all those years ago--there had been something living and breathing beside him. Something no one else could see.

Had Tarah encountered some forgotten relic of the Tainos’ tragic history or was the creature he tried to confront something much more primitive? What about the one who’d led him here in the first place? Had that been his sister or not?

Claude shuddered. “I just can’t make any sense of this.”

“You don’t get to make sense of it,” Caroline snorted sympathetically, prying the muddy flower from his trembling fingers. “You just make your peace with it.”

Scores of doomed crawfish and river fish writhed and twisted in the thickening mud. This branch of the river was gone, had slipped away through the crack the quake had made in the earth.

Gone like Tarah. Gone like the atavic beast that had waited for Claude on the darker side of the river.

Burrowing deep down into the bones of the earth, Black River twisted sinuously through the heart of Cockpit Country.

Tonya R. Moore is the Editor of Genre Love Magazine and a speculative fiction writer from Sarasota, Florida. Tonya writes science fiction, urban literature and horror stories, some of which have been published in various magazines and anthologies.

Tonya hails from on the island of Jamaica. She has been living in the United States of America since 1998.

Aside from Genre Love Magazine, Tonya's most recent project was the release of her LGBT space opera, Dorian's Task. Upcoming projects include a follow up novelette to the space opera Slumfairy, as well as various short stories.

Credits Issue One Cover Art Source Windy Woman, Drawing on Paper: © Luvchieva | Dreamstime.com

Other Artwork Sources Owl Profile: © Mandimiles | Dreamstime.com Dandelion: © Veronika Markova | Dreamstime.com Cottages at Ogimachi Village at Night: © Cowardlion | Dreamstime.com Evening Over the Lake: © Sinelyov | Dreamstime.com

Dunn's River Waterfalls: © Konstik | Dreamstime.com Fantasy Landscape: © Rona978 | Dreamstime.com Angel: © Doboss | Dreamstime.com

Authors Brian Lelas: brianlelas.com Tonya R. Moore: genrelove.co Ren Thompson: renthewriter.weebly.com

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