The Icarus Writing Collective, Issue 02: The Moon

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Published December 2023. Digital & Print. www.icaruswritingcollective.com

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The Icarus Writing Collective Issue 02: The Moon

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For Nouna. For Christopher. For Nini.

And for every life we’ve unfortunately lost.

In darkness and in grief, the moon still shines.

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Letters from the Editors I have long felt a deep connection to the Moon. This divine presence whose cycle reflects my own is a comfort to me, a presence that watches over and can either bathe everything in her light or plunge it in darkness. Something so constant that is also ever-changing has offered me stability when my own life feels unbalanced, and for that I will always revere the Moon. In curating this issue and seeing all of the different ways this stagnant figure in our lives has been interpreted, I am brought back to the seventeenyear-old version of me who wore the moon around her neck every day and longed for something greater. I think she would be so proud of this issue, and I hope you are too.

Elizabeth Zarb What do we, as humans, find so unnerving about the unknown?

The darkness? Are we more afraid we’ll see ourselves, or nothing at all? If I’m to be completely honest even as a grown 24-year-old man, my childhood fear of the darkness still controls me. Despite this fear, a lot of darkness seeps into my heart often—depression, anxiety—the monsters under my bed.

As we were curating this issue, I reflected on what the moon meant to me and found that I could only see it in its invisible phase. And yet astronomers still call it ‘new.’ It’s hopeful, that even with it seemingly not there, the moon remains. As it always will. It’s resilience; it’s transitional; it’s proof that even at our lowest, we’ll shine bright again.

Kyle Ross

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☽ Table of Contents ☾

In Which Icarus and Chang’e Meet Briefly in the Middle Andy Parker

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Hati: A Lunar-Lupine Romance Julia Briggs

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Siproites and Caeneus Walk into a Bar Ariana Ferrante

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The Price to Pay Margaret Cotter

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Don’t Tempt Fate Holly Jewitt Maurice

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Delanos and the Constellation Shane Reid

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Hera’s Hall of Shame Rachel McCarren

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Selkie Sidney Stevens

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“Waiting on Shore” Christina Hennemann

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“Moon Drops” Beverley Ann Abrahams

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The Tale of Artemis’ Ambivalence Isabel Ingersoll

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Antic Disposition C.M. Green

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My Name is Not Eve Meili K.

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The Elysium Café A.L. Davidson

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Mirror P. Henry

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The Beheader Damhuri Muhammad

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Her Night Off Victoria Male

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The Wolf Who Devoured the Moon Ginny McSheehan

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Eulogy for a Muse Lynn D. Jung

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“I’m Home, Moonlight on the River” Venn Saphira

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In Which Icarus and Chang’e Meet Briefly in the Middle Andy Parker It is a cool, dark night, and Chang’e is drifting toward the Moon.

The trip feels slow. So excruciatingly slow. The pale disc of the Moon growing ever larger and larger, the dark pinpricks of her hometown below ever smaller and smaller. She still can’t wrap her head around it all—the break-in and the yelling and the moment of panic when she had uncorked the vial and poured its contents down her throat, both her share and Hou Yi’s. She’d taken it quickly, like a shot, half out of urgency and half out of fear that the elixir would burn going down. To her surprise, it had tasted only smooth and fresh, like cool water.

It had all felt like so much mere hours ago, but now, from where she drifts hundreds, perhaps thousands of feet in the air, she can feel nothing but the cold. The night air numbs her fingers, fills her veins with ice, dries the tears trailing down her face until nothing but salt remains.

That’s when she spots him. The boy with wings.

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The flaps of his wings are indeliberate, unpracticed, but every beat of the huge feathered things screams pure, unblemished joy. They flash brilliant gold and blue in the moonlight—kingfisher colors. He reminds her of him, strangely. Though the boy’s face is streaked with mud and his hair falls in careless tangles over his forehead, he has that same bright, burning quality that Chang’e can only associate with Hou Yi. That same spark that made the neighborhood kids look up at her husband with shiny eyes and speak his name in a hushed, reverent whisper. That’s the archer who shot down the suns. A myth incarnate.

Chang’e’s chest aches.

The boy, catching sight of her, begins to wing his way over. He speaks words she cannot understand, smiling the whole time. Chang’e tries to reply, but it’s obvious he can’t understand her either. It makes no difference to the winged boy, it seems. He takes her hand all the same, twirling her across the night sky simply, Chang’e thinks, because he wants to.

She is freezing, but where the winged boy’s hands touch her—one clasping her own hand, the other placed not on her waist, as Hou Yi’s would have been, but on her shoulder—she feels burning warm. He leads her in a clumsy waltz, the two of them rising among the stars all the while. The winged boy has to flap every so often to keep up with Chang’e’s ascent, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

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She doesn’t know how long they stay like that, but soon enough she feels the ice in her veins beginning to thaw. The winged boy keeps up a stream of idle chatter, not seeming to care that she can’t understand a word of it. It’s soothing, in a way. His voice, though unintelligible, sounds to her like birdsong: bright and animated and alive.

Eventually, she starts to speak too. She tells him about herself—how she drank the elixir, how she can feel the Moon’s pull, how she’s so, so afraid. And though she knows he can’t recognize her confession for what it is, the fact that his expression doesn’t waver is still a comfort. She wonders what her voice sounds like to him.

His joyful demeanor falters only once. When Chang’e tries to card gentle fingers through his feathers, he freezes. It’s only a second before his posture slackens again, his easy smile returning quickly as it left, but she notices it all the same. She doesn’t try to touch a second time.

The first rays of sunlight are just breaking over the horizon when Chang’e finally looks down. They’re hovering over the sea somehow, no land to be seen for miles. Everything looks so small from here, so simple. She stares up at the Moon. Perhaps she could get used to seeing everything from up so high. Perhaps she could learn to find it beautiful.

Dawn breaks when the winged boy mutters something soft and regretful sounding, looking somewhere past Chang’e to the

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rest of the world beyond. He extricates his hand from hers, but after a moment’s hesitation, pulls her into a quick, tight embrace.

It feels like touching the sun for just a second. Only light.

Only warmth.

With one last apologetic phrase, the winged boy takes off in the direction of the sunrise. Chang’e is reminded suddenly of her mother telling her a story once, about a guardian spirit and a magical night and a cloak made of kingfisher feathers.

The winged boy had shed one of his, Chang’e realizes—a feather the same vibrant blue of the sea below—onto her sleeve.

She plucks it from her arm, surprised to find it not downy-soft as she expected, but tacky with…

It’s only then that she notices. With his back to her, his silhouette receding into the light, she can see them clearly now; tiny rivulets of wax carving a path down the winged boy’s spine. He’s leaving behind a trail of feathers, flecks of blue and gold cascading toward the sea. There’s still no urgency in his flight, no signs of panic. She wonders if he even realizes his wings are melting, wonders if it would be more cruel to try and tell him or stay silent.

It doesn’t matter now; there’s no safe place for him to land.

It’s a terrible symmetry, she thinks.

She condemned to rise.

He condemned to fall.

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Unsure of what else to do, Chang’e closes her eyes and prays silently for Hou Yi to notch another arrow. ☽◯☾

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Hati: A Lunar-Lupine Romance Julia Biggs Everyone said that a wolf couldn’t swallow the moon, until finally, one day, it did. ☾ It began with a brief lick. I wanted to feel his smooth light, cold as milk, on my tongue. I got hungrier as the months and years passed, my tufted snout pushing between his silver fingers, gently nibbling at the crescents of his nails.

Growling, I took to chasing his pale feet across streets and forests, sometimes fastening my jaws around his creamy ankles, gnawing just enough to make him tilt, and sweetly caress the coarse fur along my spine.

Waxing, waning, gleaming—his eyes were always full of pearls, spilling over my claws. He loved me then, bathing me in chilling ivory and watching as I, snapping and whining, drew back my lips to reveal sharp teeth.

Later, throwing wide his bright white arms, I would nose (lean and famished) into his glistering side and sleep a jittery sleep, dreaming of rising tides, falling mountains, biting winds and ink-

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black skies—the cosmos destroyed in the wavering howl of Fenrir’s cub and a confusion of paw-prints.

But now, his voice is full and pure as he promises this is the final hunt. You see, his heart’s deep, freezing craters have been waiting for my hot breath. ☽ Everyone said that it was so dark inside the wolf, until the eager moon settled in its soft belly. ☽◯☾

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Siproites and Caeneus Walk into a Bar Ariana Ferrante Siproites had come to envy Actaeon.

For the hero, it had been over so soon. A transformation, a chase, and then death, torn apart by his own dogs as he lay trapped in the body of a trembling stag, uselessly bellowing orders the hounds could not comprehend.

They were much alike, Actaeon and Siproites. They had both been unfortunate enough to come across Artemis undressed, both too slow to flee before being noticed by the goddess of the hunt. Unlike Actaeon, however, Artemis had given Siproites an ultimatum; be transformed into a woman, she offered, or die.

Siproites chose not to die, and paid for it each day.

He thought it would be simple. It was just a different body, just a different shape. With enough time, he’d forget about living openly as a man. With enough time, the aching and the listlessness and the nausea would fade. All the pain and discomfort, he reasoned, was just the settling of his skin, the acclimation to new flesh.

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But the days turned to weeks turned to years turned to centuries, and it never got easier. He never stopped flinching at reflective surfaces or recoiling when Artemis addressed the other eternally youthful ‘huntresses.’ He never was a woman, not then, not now. So long as he was Siproites, no god’s power could amend that.

Sometimes he numbed it, by bottle or pill—shut out his senses long enough that he fell asleep before he could think too much on his hips or his chest or his voice. Too heavy. Too light.

Too wrong.

Sometimes it wasn’t enough.

Siproites aimlessly passed the empty shot glass between his fingers, the vessel ping-ponging over polished wood. Someone was performing a painful rendition of Bill Withers’ ‘Lean on Me’ on the rickety stage beside the bar.

A man sat down beside him, and jealousy ripped through his body at the mere sight. Tall, broad shoulders, a square jaw bursting with a full beard—like if gender envy was a person.

“Oh, hey, sorry, was that seat taken?” the man asked, his words surprisingly gentle, warm.

“No,” Siproites reassured.

“Oh, good.” A beat passed, discomfort rising like a high tide. “So, you come here often?”

He had no idea. “Yeah.”

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“Must be good, then,” he laughed. “Name’s Caeneus, by the way.”

“Caeneus,” he echoed. Caeneus. Realization struck Siproites like a truck. Caeneus, Poseidon’s lover. Caeneus, the one Poseidon had turned into a man.

“That’s the one. And you’re–” “–Siproites.”

“Siproites!” The man whistled. “Figured we’d meet at some point. You’re the uh, you’re the one Artemis–” “Yes,” Siproites finished, uttering the word through his teeth.

Caeneus’s demeanor changed in an instant. The casual warmth in his gaze flickered and extinguished, cold horror blanching his face. “Oh. Shit, dude,” he whispered. “I thought you’d… well, I thought you asked, y’know. Like me. How long ago was that?”

Siproites scoffed. “They’ve changed the calendar too many times.”

Caeneus offered a sad smile, the same warmth from before slowly to spark again. “You’re telling me. But… man, all this time, stuck like that? That sounds awful—what have you been doing?”

“Hunting,” Siproites said. “With Artemis.”

The other man’s brows shot to his hairline. “Ever since?

Haven’t you ever thought about, y’know… asking her to undo it?

Letting you go?”

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Siproites shook his head. “Gods, no! I’ve never said a word. I don’t think she knows how I feel about it.”

“Siproites,” Caeneus said, cocking his head, “I’ve known you for a minute and I know how you feel about it.”

“That’s different,” he insisted, voice straining. “You… you’re like me, Caeneus. You… you get it. She doesn’t. But I can’t just leave. I owe it to her. She…” He trailed off, glancing into the empty glass like the barrel of a gun. “She could just as easily have taken my life.”

The other man’s gaze flashed with pity. “From where I see it, she already has. So why stay?”

Siproites didn’t look up. “It’s the least I can do. She’s given me a place to stay, a family too, with the huntresses. And–” he paused, lips twisting into a deeper frown “–I don’t know where else I’d go if I left.”

Caeneus shrugged his shoulders. “Could always come with me. Poseidon’s a sucker for some new company. Got a new yacht, too. Bought it a month ago—you like boats? You ever been on a boat? You’ve had to, right?”

Siproites went back to passing his empty glass between his hands. “Yeah.”

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be talked into hosting a party on it in the next week or so, if you wanted to come.”

His toes curled. “I don’t think she’d like that.”

“I’m not asking about what she’d like.”

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Siproites froze. He fumbled the pass of his shot glass and it slid across the bar, stopping only once it bumped against Caeneus’s firm hand. Silence permeated the space between them, the quiet interrupted only by shitty karaoke.

A low grunt cleared the air and Siproites shot up, snapping out of his slouch in an instant. A large man approached the bar, eyes half-lidded, and face shining with obvious intoxication. A waterfall of dark hair made up his beard, wavy, and unkempt. “You makin’ friends without me, Cae?” he asked, gesturing to Siproites with his chin.

“Not trying to,” Caeneus replied, chuckling warmly.

“Poseidon, this is Siproites.”

“One of Artemis’s girls?” the ocean god slurred.

The word set his teeth on edge. His fingers curled over the countertop, nails digging crescent moons into the epoxied wood.

“Yeah,” he uttered.

“Shame ‘bout the ‘virginal’ thing,” Poseidon said. Siproites could feel his eyes on his chest—or what little of its form showed through the baggy layers of his sweatshirt. “She always seems to recruit the gorgeous ones. S’not really fair, is it?”

Siproites’ ears burned and he gave a half-assed hum of agreement. He looked for the bartender. Needed another drink.

Anything to change the subject.

“I think we should leave our new friend be,” Caeneus cut in for him. “It’s getting pretty late, and you’re super drunk.”

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“Am not,” Poseidon weakly protested.

“Oh hey—you forgot this,” Caeneus said. He slid the empty shot glass back to Siproites before leading his inebriated lover toward the door.

Siproites reached down to grab the glass, pausing when he noticed a small, folded piece of paper placed within. He fished it out, unfolding it to see what had been written on it. There was a single sentence on the scrap of paper, along with a phone number.

Caeneus’s.

Call on me, brother, if you need a hand. - C Siproites glanced back to the door, but the man was already gone.

He smiled. ☽◯☾

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The Price to Pay Margaret Cotter There once was a place that was In-Between. It was the space between teeth, the gaps in the pine flooring, the holes found in trees where no owls sought to roost.

It was a place made of shadows, for shadows, and if you knew how to get there, you could walk between worlds like crossing between platforms at the train station.

But train tickets are never free. You cannot be so lucky as to find your destination marked on a discarded ticket on the ground. To travel between the worlds will also cost you, and for some, it costs a great deal.

None know this more than the keeper of the dark spaces, those that stand guard and warn of the price vagabonds will have to pay for leaving their homes behind. Here is the threshold, and to cross it, abandon all hope of return, of belonging. You cannot go back and find a home. To travel between worlds, you must lose the chance of being still, of being safe.

“Here is the line you must cross, like I have,” he said. “I was just a child when I wandered too far from home. I wanted

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adventures beyond my wildest dreams. I wanted to be the hero, but I lost what I might have had.

“Have you met my brother? He is the King of this world.

He got everything he thought he could want. He sits upon a throne, and he is married to the most beautiful woman to cross into this world. For all appearances, he should be happy. But there is a price he had to pay. He paid it when he left this world to find his wife. My brother, the poor soul, is incapable of being loved.

The woman he treasures so dearly, the heirs she has borne—he is not even sure they are his children—all look upon him not with love, but indifference. The babies felt no warmth for their wouldbe father; they only cried in his arms. The woman with whom he is so enamored, she is repulsed by his touch. He cannot belong to them, for he gave up belonging to any world long ago.

“Even I do not love him, I only pity him. When we were young, he was so bold and daring. Now he lives a life dictated by fear. He fears making the wrong move, hurting those he loves. His spirit is broken, and I believe he will die on the throne, only to leave it to an heir who will make no moves to preserve the memory of the king that brought them into being.

“This world lacks color, lacks music, and lacks passion. To travel like this, you will always lose what you desire most. The shadows feed on despair and gloom. To walk between them, I had to give them a way to find me again and again. I will always carry those shadows in my heart. I am cursed like my brother was before

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me. I am a man who will fall in love again and again with the wrong person, and I will never be satisfied. I cannot be loved in return without losing them, so I will walk between shadows and sacrifice what I can to those I love. It is a heavy price.

“Do you still wish to come this way?” he asked the woman.

Her hands rested on her belly which protruded outwards ahead of her, heavy with life.

“If I stay, I will be found out, and the consequences will be worse. The father,” her hand made a small circle on the side of her belly as she paused, looking for words.

“He is not good,” she finally said. “And if my child stays, if I stay, we will only fuel him. I don’t want the baby to be like him.”

Her eyes watered.

She did not notice the way the man’s eyes followed her every movement. This traveler had watched over her for so long, and she had never thought to meet his gaze.

“I might be able to help, though there is still a cost. If your soul is hidden from the shadows, you may be able to pass through unmarred by them.”

“How can a soul be hidden?” she asked.

The traveler’s hand stretched towards her belly, but he did not touch it.

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“Put it here, inside of this little one. You can hide your soul around the child’s, and perhaps you will reach another place where it can be returned to you.”

How the traveler would have given anything to the woman who would never be his.

She used magic to take the soul from her own chest, and tenderly, she tucked it away with the child, hidden deep among the potential for what could be, and the shadows could not reach it there.

The traveler showed her the deepest shadows, where not only could someone stay hidden, but someone could walk through the In-Between until a new door opened and there was a way out.

Sometimes the In-Between looked like trees, foggy and cast in the darkest moonless night, those that traveled stepped over roots and moss. Sometimes the In-Between was a series of cresting waves, pulling those that traveled underneath and into different currents, swift and strong, they pulled and pushed those caught beneath them. This time, the woman walked through the In-Between as it was, narrow alleyways, bricks that ascended so high they blocked the skies, glass windows cast in shadows that blocked the stars from reflecting in them hung miles above. She walked until the narrow twisting alleyways opened up, and she was in a new world.

This was a world without magic, a world with fast moving cars, and suspicious smells lurking around each corner.

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She walked with a hand cast over the child, knowing she could no longer retrieve her soul from where she placed it, but she also knew, looking back, that she could not be followed. Here she was safe, and a little foot kicked at her from within. She kept moving away from the shadows until the road ahead was lit by streetlights and a sun was beginning to rise.

The traveler watched her go until she was out of sight, and he sighed, morose. Once more, he was left to wander alone between worlds. He could no longer watch over the woman he had fallen in love with. Was that the cost of keeping her safe? He would see fantastic sights aplenty, experience countless adventures, taste every exotic dish that could be offered, and there would be no one to tell. He might tell himself sometimes, but even then, the sound of his voice echoing back to himself from the shadows could only leave him feeling more and more lonely. ☽◯☾

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Don’t Tempt Fate Holly Jewitt Maurice The mirror lies splintered on the floor, curving in thick, uneasy spires, and flashing white where it lays indented into Dalia’s palm.

Blood oozes round the shards like a mountain brook, ducking, and swerving past graying stone, to freefall from the cliff of a dainty nail.

Outside, a lone magpie lies twitching with the edges of death against the lawn. Its wings are spread wide beside it, snowy white washed red by the crimson dawn that sets the clouds alight.

They roll across the sky in burning orange, and a scarlet so deep it could have been pricked from Dalia’s still-dripping wound. Behind them, they drag the weight of thunder, thick, and warm and cloying in the morning air.

‘Beware the hollow knocking wood,’ With trembling hands, Dalia plucks at the glass shards with white-tipped fingers. The blood stains their silver faces and thuds in ugly splatters across the oak beam floor. She feels no pain, but as she grips the hilt of the final splinter, the pale face of a wounded

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child blinks back at her—eyes placid and calm, while locks of black hair stick to her cheeks with blood and tears.

In another lifetime, she knew the secrets of those cold, blue eyes. In this one, she is just a dream, dissolving into nothing behind the red. She watches as the looking glass shatters against the floor, glittering in silver rainfall like the tears trapped behind those eyes.

‘That sounds at chime of bell.’

Overhead the skies have grown dark, pulsating in a steady stillness that beckons the other worlds. Dalia can feel the viscosity through the double glazing, stirring the trees with its palpable ooze, and rolling the air thin. It’s almost as though the very atmosphere has been sucked out through a straw, leaving nothing but tight, static air that fizzes in the lungs.

Beside the mantle, the horse shoes shiver against the walls, prying themselves from the plaster, and dropping to the floor.

Each lands with its feet carving holes into the oak boards, tipping their luck to the underworld, as the tendrils of Kolera creep through the floor and spread the stench of rot.

‘For fates have not fingers to knock–‘ Thick black fissures erupt across the white plaster of the ceiling, slithering with all the brilliant opal of a snake’s beaded back.

Slowly they coil around the room, seeping like ink into the midnight-still air, until they’re choking on their own tails and fleeing to the darkness.

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The rot of death has burned the floorboards their own shade of silent jet; still cold and creaking underfoot, but melded by the naked eye into simple space. An infinite night pricked faintly with the still fading shades of the magpie’s white wings and Dalia’s own scarlet blood. They melt slowly, like wax tears slipping down a candle's side.

‘And entry may lead to hell.’

With an odd clang, the tune of Dalia’s old grandfather clock echoes through the darkness. The sound seems almost split in half, caught between two worlds as twin chimes flirt cruelly with one another, whispering secrets across the spirit bridge. In the silence, the bell sounds thirteen.

The last chime clings to the still air, pulsing through the darkness in rippling echoes, and spinning the melted colors. Like a web, they twist together, melding obscenely into a viscous brown, and wilting with every breath. It builds like a tumor, spreading from the center, and pushing outwards, pulling at the rotten floor for purchase. It flickers once, slowly creeping into solidity beside Dalia, before stretching tall and long into the black.

A door.

Silence stills the air once more before a knock sends the colors spinning like mist. The sound is like water vapor, thin and without form against the dark-striped Birch wood, fizzling like a match to water as it meets the air.

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With careful fingers, Dalia twists the doorknob gently, smearing a trail of crimson against the shiny brass before pushing the door open. It groans on its hinges as they fray beneath its weight, and swings slowly into the abyss.

“Hello Dalia.”

The cadence is strange, as though each word is spoken between twin lips trapped in liminal space.

Beneath the frame, the midnight shudders, prying apart its bones as an ivory figure forces its way through. She smiles wickedly, pearl teeth against skin so white it looks as though it might carry death's kiss.

“I am Laima, Goddess of Fate. Why have you tempted me here today?”

Dalia stands tall and unblinking in the face of those milky eyes, tracing with amusement the matching smirk that twists itself through her own lips.

“There’s no need for such formality, sister,” the words ring among the empty space like a curse. “I have summoned you here because I need your help.”

At that, Laima’s features contort to those of vicious glee.

“Very well sister, but you know my price.”

Dalia does, and with a face as hard as Baltic stone, she offers forth the palm of her still dripping hand. The bleeding has slowed by now, but fresh scarlet still springs from the open wounds and dissolves into darkness at her hand's edge.

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“Ten years of my life.”

The words ripple like a stone casting waves about the water's edge. Laima simply nods, folding her dove white hands over the crimson to still the stream.

“If that is what you wish, my Dalia, it shall be done.” ☽◯☾

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Delanos and the Constellation Shane Reid Delanos didn’t often notice the comings-and-goings of mortals. He preferred to turn a blind eye to their whims and their complaints.

Offerings were left out and although he indulged, he didn’t always listen to their prayers. He was a busy man, and there were many who called his name. What could he do? He was only one god, and could not answer the prayers of thousands.

He watched his brothers and sisters attempt to, as they continued their duties. They swept the sunlight from the clouds, tidied the ocean waves, weaved the fields into produce, and remained the miracle-workers for mortals so they didn’t have to lift a finger to tend to the world they lived in. Delanos hated it all. It was why, when he was created, he delighted at the thought of a night sky to himself.

He was alone up there, happily so. He didn’t have to watch the mere whims of his siblings clean up the mortal world, almost groveling to keep the humans in their blissful ignorance of what they created. To the gods, it was what they always had done: they had domains, they had labors of love, and they thrived in it.

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Delanos didn’t entirely feel the same. He had a white lake to swim in that took different shapes some nights. Sometimes he liked the round perfection of a sphere. Other times, it was the teasing smile of a curve. There were nights when he couldn’t bear to even glimpse the world below, so he stole from them the ability to see by his moon’s light. Once he made his decision, he untucked the stars from their beds, his children by default, and let them dance their routines through the sky.

Some of them were intrigued by what they saw below and thought themselves clever, able to trick even the smartest of gods and mortals. Every one of those stars fell, crashing to the ground, winking out of existence before Delanos could save them. He tried—every time, he tried—and every time, he created another star in their honor.

He had favorites, of course he did. He strung them into constellations and told stories through them. He let them have a central part of his night sky, so the mortals would seek them out, trace the tales, and know that he tried to caution them against too much glory in life. They didn’t always listen but it was the meager hand Delanos offered.

Mostly, he liked his nightly domain because he was furthest away from his pitiful brother who bore heat and light upon the world. He didn’t like how his brother, Helios, enjoyed the mortal world so much that he wandered into it. Had fallen into it.

Had found a mortal whose lips spoke Helios’s name like it was

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wine and he wanted to gorge himself. That little mortal had disappeared without a trace, and Helios had relentlessly searched for him for a long time. Delanos’s moon smile grew each day his brother gave up the sky to let the sun rest and the moon rise.

Delanos was powerful, holding the might of darkness away so mortals could rest without plunging them into a total unseeing existence. His hair, long and white, draped over the moon’s curve as he lounged on it, twirling his hand in the white pool below him.

He enjoyed the stories his siblings carried from the mortals: the man on the moon. Some thought they saw his face and though they searched, he knew they never would. Perhaps it was Delanos making ripples in the water.

It was sprawled out on the curve of the moon that he felt the first shudder.

A fire burned throughout the immortal realm that connected him to all of his brethren, even if they shared different domains. It was the summoning fire that Helios’s mortal used.

They all pretended to ignore the fact that he’d given Iphis, the visiting scholar, a personal call, just as they pretended to ignore Helios’s heartbreak after Iphis had been taken from the island he’d studied on. Helios had approached Delanos the week after Iphis had gone, unable to reach him, and begged Delanos to create a message in the night sky and bring Iphis home, somehow.

“What have you ever done for me, brother?” Delanos had asked.

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“You would be so cruel to let him live alone out there?”

“I live alone up here,” he replied. “What is one other mortal’s suffering compared to that of a god’s? You drank from your cup of misery and sacrifice. Now leave us to do what we must while your precious mortals continue destroying our work.”

Delanos had heard sonnets where the sun and moon were fated to love from afar, never to meet, but never the story of brothers who pleaded and bargained and refused and sent away, cursing each other.

But then the fire came, burning leaves to summon a god who could not come for hours.

Delanos watched with private interest as Iphis relentlessly prayed and offered a sacrifice.

He laughed and closed his eyes when the prayers were answered. He ignored the little human.

Until the shudders resounded and began to break apart the world below as it was cloaked in Delanos’s night.

He slipped into his white lake, folded his arms on the edge of the moon, and peered down.

“Oh,” he murmured, a deep smile forming on his lips, as Iphis drank the ichor of the gods and gouged crevices deep into the earth’s foundation. “Aren’t you a surprise?”

Quietly, he enjoyed the destruction and the resounding cracks that rent the world into tiny fragments.

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Thousands of Delanos’s children fell that night, enamored by the new god of ruination.

When Helios brought the sun the next morning, he cried for both the mortal he’d loved and the ruin of the earth he tried to bring joy to. For the first time, except for Delanos, a god roamed alone and sought not to bring good to the mortals but fire and ruin and chaos.

Night came again. Iphis split mountains apart with his hands, stole some of the other gods’ power as he dived into oceans to tear apart the plates beneath, and gathered storm clouds to flood the new canyons he’d made. It was awful. Delanos loved it. Two gods, uncaring for the end of the world that was starting to happen.

Helios appeased the higher gods to stop him. They offered him death for Iphis but who was a god to choose the death of another immortal? Helios retreated.

Once again, he approached Delanos.

“Brother,” Helios beseeched. “Stop him. Cloak his vision in darkness. Blanket the world from sight so he cannot see where he will ruin. Please, brother, grant me this. End his heartache.”

“Brother,” Delanos echoed. “Watch your former lover.

This is not heartache. This is healing. This is chaos in the name of a god who left him alone. Now, he battles you. He seeks your attention himself. He makes rivers for you to cry in and yet you still

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ignore him. Does his rage disgust you so much that you won’t approach him?”

“He is chaos and I am peace,” Helios said. “How do we ever join together? He is hurt in a way I cannot fix.”

“Have you tried to?”

Helios loved joy and praise and prayers. Delanos hated being an immortal, content to dive in the inky lakes of the sky or bathing in the coolness of the moon.

After years of watching Helios’ and Iphis’ endless battle of ruin and fixing, Delanos watched one night as, beneath the sleeping sun and wakeful moon, Iphis gouged a crater in the world and swallowed another island. He wreaked havoc and it tasted like mercy, Delanos thought. So he sent a gift.

He created a supernova to get Iphis’s attention.

When the eyes of the new god of ruination sought out the moon god, Delanos’s smile grew. Moonlight spread further, more luminous, reaching more corners than he’d let it ever show.

“Show me your chaos,” he said, “And I will show you how true gods do not shy away from it.”

And they toyed like that for a long time—Iphis’ destruction; Delanos’ moonlight to show only them. Isolated gods, alone in their solitude, neither wanting anything more. Why would they? Light brought scrutiny from those who were not meant to see what had been created. This was private. A ruination that continued, just for them.

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Delanos, with his long-standing hatred for the mortal realm, could never blame Iphis for wanting to destroy what hadn’t saved him when he’d begged for mercy. For wanting his former lover to have hope that each morning he let the sun hang in the sky the destruction would be lessened. It never was. Delanos, on his throne of stars, watched it happen every night, and guided Iphis through his path of revenge.

“Let out your hurt,” he whispered through the night sky, as he watched a broken heart pour out the decayed parts to make way for healing. “Don’t they deserve to see what they did to you?”

For the third time, Helios approached him. “Stop helping him.” Anger snapped through his commands. “Stop, or you will find that the moon will have no place in the sky.”

“Oh, silly threats are nothing to me, brother,” Delanos laughed. “Bring your fire and your heat. Let us battle for the skies.

But remember why. You cannot love him in his entirety. You loved him for his softness and kindness. You loved him for something you asked him not to give up.”

As he spoke, he realized why he watched Iphis, night after night.

“Does he not deserve love while he breaks, too?” Delanos asked, before he banished Helios from his domain.

That night, he sent a star down to carry Iphis up to him but he refused and rose on a storm cloud, hidden until he saw Delanos’s face.

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Like this, Iphis was beautiful. As a mortal, he’d been plain yet attractive, he supposed. But as an immortal, he was heartstopping. Deep grooves ran over his face, cracking him like a statue repaired. His skin was stained and infused with the storms of the clouds he moved on. Swirls of pale grays and rain roamed beneath his skin, breaking free at Iphis’s will.

“Hide in the darkness with me,” Delanos offered. He made room on the moon for him. Iphis’s warm skin next to him made him realize how cold he was up there. The moonlight’s touch was often chilled. “I know how you began. Tell me, have you spoken a word to anyone since you became immortal?”

Iphis shook his head.

“Can you?”

He nodded.

“Talk to me,” he requested, the question light. “And tell me if you’d like to know what true worship feels like.”

Iphis turned wide eyes onto him, those eyes remaining from his mortal days. They had not changed and Delanos found himself conflicted at what soared and broke free in his soul.

“Tell me your beginning,” Iphis said, and thunder cracked through the night. “I would like to know who wants to worship me.”

Delanos grinned.

“My siblings, who lord over the planets, fought relentlessly. Absolute world-ending battles. The skies became their

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warzone to the point where even the su—” He paused, not wanting to mention Helios but Iphis waved him on. “Not even the sun god would come out for fear of being caught in the middle of their fights. One day, my sister destroyed my brother so wholly that the crash of them colliding created a tear in the skies. From that tear, light spilled out. Light that was as white as bones, so blinding the gods said it hurt to look at. It dripped into the abyss of the sky below my brother and sister, and got caught before it could hit Earth.

“That light was the moon, and I felt myself being created with the forming of an element that needed tending to. The moon.

The night-time. My job was to prevent total darkness from swallowing the mortal realm below and guiding paths that kept my brother and sister apart while they rebuilt themselves at the furthest reaches from each other. They try hard but I was created from that, and I think that scared them.”

Delanos laughed quietly.

“I had to plan cycles of the moon to honor my brethren and allow for phases,” he kept on explaining. “But I created my children as my stars and I found that I could toy with the mortals further some nights. Other nights, I am simply uncaring to do so.”

“Your children are the stars?” Iphis asked.

“In a way.” Delanos quirked a smile at the younger god.

“They tell my stories. They are my voice when I do not have one.”

Something broke in Iphis’ face as he nodded.

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“I would like to have a voice,” Iphis said. “Destruction is a message but it is not a voice. Not truly.”

“Oh, Iphis,” Delanos said in that way Helios once had. “I would tell your story through the whole night sky. The moon would illuminate you. I would worship you.”

“What was your sacrifice?” Iphis asked.

“Look around you,” Delanos told him. “The night sky is mine alone. My burden to watch my children as they seek more than what I can give him and plunge below. It is isolation that I learned to love. It is being held away from others, created from anger and a fight that wasn’t mine to endure.”

They talked all night and when Helios returned the next morning with his son, Iphis turned his back and disappeared. It was the closest they had been since Iphis’ mortal days.

“Does it hurt, brother?” Delanos asked, as he tucked his children back into their beds, winking out their starry brilliance.

“To know you could not give him everything he deserved but I can.”

“What can you give him?”

Delanos shook off the moonlight’s dregs while Helios began to paint the sun. “A voice. Isn’t that what he has always wanted?” As he tipped his head back to survey his brother’s sun, he gave up his ruling for the time being. “I will make Iphis a constellation of his own so that when your beloved mortals look at the stars, he will be remembered for the good he possessed, the

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kindness you loved, but they will know who he is now. He will be worthy before and after in my night sky, Helios.”

That night, Delanos spun a story, and called the constellation Iphis’ Incandescence, and he kept that constellation closest to the moon, so that he might remind himself of the mortal-turned-god who broke his love of solitude. ☽◯☾

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Hera’s Hall of Shame Rachel McCarren Private Residence Litochoro, Greece, 402 00 Year 2023 When Zeus leaves to lie with his whores, with his concubines, with his other women, with his male admirers, with his most pretentious peers and competitors, with his other sisters (and brothers—though they’d never admit it), or with the nymphs he favors whose bodies are soft and androgynous as flowers, blessed with same the gift of shapeshifting and genderfluid performance as he is—I lie here, plop powdered rosewater loukoumi between my teeth, chew while I surf live-streams. My shins rest on the shoulders of my pet lioness, Lysistrata, stretched across the floor at the foot of the sofa, purring in her sleep. My feet rise and fall with her breath. My phone blips—it's a text from him.

Out with friends. Be back late.

No shit—I’m sure he's out gallivanting with his new favorite mortal mistress, that thick bitch with the platinum hair and the artificial ass and tits—but I could care less. Mortal beauty only

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ever lasts as long as your typical television series—then he’s back to scanning supermarket magazine tabloids and TMZ for the next batch of up-and-coming-of-age assets.

I swear on Medusa’s head, I’m not jealous of him. I may have been, once, in those early days, when he would leave me, a perfect beauty, to go sailing on the wind in search of strange; that curious species that only grows in the wombs of mortals, in the uncurated wilderness of urges—flawed, misshapen, resilient, disfigured, asymmetric, tortured, rough—really though, underneath all that pomp and fluff, he’s just a special kind of tolerated rapist.

His beauty is persuasive, and the power he possesses and proudly passes on to his kin is seen by mortals as a blessing (and not for the curse that it truly is). Women are said to pray for him to appear to them, to invite him in knowingly—but I doubt they know exactly what they’re up against after those first few moments of silent submission.

I’ve never submitted to him.

That’s probably why our marriage has lasted into the age we’re in. I know him, I know what haunts him, what fears drive him—pathetic, never-satiated, narcissistic, fiendish, floundering, incestuous Zeus. The man loves a challenge, a little sass, back-talk, a face slap, a crude, knotted rope whip across the back. He’s a glutton for punishment, even more so than our hard-browed and brooding brother Hades. At least the Prince of Darkness can get a hard on just from a pity-smile thrown his way—Zeus must create

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an entire narrative of pain, he must create the illusion that he hates himself (more than our mother ever could) before he can fuck anyone, as anything. So afraid he is of becoming irrelevant, these days he’s stooped to pin-pricking condoms, all to brood a bastard or two along the way (just to land them empty-handed and delusional in an insane asylum somewhere in a foreign land, raving about their supernatural origin and fame). Sometimes, I swear he strays just to come back and fall limp at my feet, like a runaway hound. He craves shame, it’s what drives him. I make him tell me what a bad husband he’s been, tickle the soft spot under his chin.

Then, I let him come—quaking, weakened, crawling on all fours, flesh spent, begging, mutilated, drooling, dragging himself on his haunches like Cerberus, our brother’s sweet, spoiled, stupid mutt— whimpering and dripping blood on the marble steps leading up from i plateía to my temple doors—and I can’t help but let the damn fool in. ☽◯☾

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Selkie Sidney Stevens He watches her from their third-floor condo sitting by the sea. It’s like no time has passed since he first saw her twenty years ago, and yet so much time has passed. She’s his. She’s always chosen him.

Surely, she’ll choose him again.

She looks remarkably the same as she did on the beach that day five years ago when he spied her at Seal Rock State Park for the first time in years, hunched over a notebook high on a rock, only sixty miles from where they grew up in Corvallis, Oregon.

He’d have known her anywhere. Sable hair shining like it was polished by the sun. She inhabited the rock as if it were hers, as if sand, surf and sky were her playground.

“Lia?” He could have moved by unnoticed, hand in hand with Gina, his girlfriend then. Perhaps he should have. Lia didn’t recognize him at first. And then she did. “Oh my god, Devin Marsh?” A strand of hair whipped across her face as she stared down from her perch, and she swept it back. “You used to sit behind me on the bus in middle school.”

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He laughed awkwardly, squeezing Gina’s hand tighter as something uncomfortable wormed through him. “What brings you here… of all places?”

“Research for my master’s thesis… I’m at UO, in Eugene.”

“Wow,” he said, noticing tiny hairs on her arms that shone in the sun like her hair. He watched fascinated as she tilted her head from side to side, never breaking eye contact, all of her quivering with life. “By the way, this is Gina,” he said, pulling her closer.

Lia slid down the rock, landing lightly in the sand and shook Gina’s hand and then his. Her hand was warm, light, and small, yet her grip was surprisingly robust.

“What’s your thesis on?” Gina asked.

Lia chuckled. “Basically, the impact of climate change on tide pools.”

“Wow… that’s awesome,” Gina said. “Heavy.”

“I know, right? Nerd stuff.” Lia gave a sheepish shrug.

“Guess I’ve always been fascinated.”

He’d never spoken to her before that day. Never an interaction between them in middle school, or high school either where they were in homeroom together, no clue she even knew he existed. He never imagined they’d speak. Ever. And now here they were.

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Lia motioned them, grinning, to rock formations near the surf and eagerly plopped down beside a pool of shallow water collected there. “See this orange sea star?” She looked up, delight suddenly draining from her face. “There should be more… and blue anemones, and multi-colored seaweed… lots of colors.”

Something like grief moved through her eyes. “There are mostly barnacles now, not enough diversity… From that killer heat wave last summer.”

He couldn’t have envisioned her future back in school— that she’d relish micro pools left by receding tides, a whole rainbow world of life he’d never stopped to notice. That she’d yearn to spend her years saving them as if she’d emerged from a tide pool herself. She wasn’t super popular back then, but just that much more popular than him, quirkily pretty, and surer of herself with a penchant for science. He couldn’t have foreseen the specifics of what she’d become, but it was no surprise the girl she was then would look, move, and breathe like the woman before him now.

Somehow untouched by quotidian concerns. Sublime. This future fit exactly.

“What about you guys?” Lia asked as she rose from the tide pool and brushed seaweed off her jeans.

“We’re lawyers,” Gina said. “In Portland.”

“Environmental law,” he added.

Lia studied him, dark eyes soft and welcoming, yet tinged with an incongruous intensity that unsettled him. Was she intrigued

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by him? Impressed? Wary? He glanced away, unable to return her gaze. As if the memory of her fuzzy chocolate-colored scarf, suddenly so vivid in his mind, might also suddenly be vivid in hers.

There it lay again in a clump where she’d forgotten it years before on her bus seat, its tan and gold threads woven into irregular animal-like spots, a beguiling swatch of her beauty that he’d only dared savor from the seat behind. Did she see it now too?

He'd meant to bring it to her house, or return it to her in the morning when she boarded the bus. But the very idea of either option—face to face with Lia—left him feeling exposed and raw like blowing sand grains had abraded his flesh, just as they stung his face and hands now.

He should have left it where it was or perhaps with the bus driver. But instead he buried his nose in its downy fluff. It smelled of her, not that he knew her scent, but its vaguely sweet-briny aroma, oddly clean and fresh, must surely be hers, its silkiness the very essence of her skin and hair. And in that moment, he slipped it into his backpack, later burying it in his underwear drawer.

God, I’m not like that. He stared again at Lia, by the sea in the sun, grown and just as radiant as his memory of her. More so.

Potent and strong but also impossibly exquisite, fragile like an eggshell or life itself. He couldn’t move his eyes away.

He’d brought the scarf to college and afterwards stored it in an old cigar box his grandpa gave him as a child, which he stashed high on a shelf in the back of his closet beneath old

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blankets and towels. He still took it out occasionally, though not much anymore, stroking it, remembering. He never expected to see her again.

“We’d better be going,” he said, suddenly anxious to leave that moment as he’d entered it—a future mapped out with Gina, no trace of middle-school love left. He would definitely dispose of the scarf—really such a harmless, youthful misdeed—and never dwell on it again. Time to let go. A simple crazy crush; anyone could relate. God, I’m not like that.

“So good to see you,” he said to Lia, still holding Gina’s hand, but not so tightly as before.

For even then he knew: Gina would be gone within weeks.

He’d let her go. Encourage it. He’d call Lia. She’d be his wife. He knew even then. ☾ Lia emerges into the condo from the beach and heads to the shower. She doesn’t look at him or speak as she slips by. He aches to smooth back her hair and drink in the reassurance of her shining eyes, so guileless and sustaining, tell her what she yearns to hear in order to bring back her voice. But of all the things he could say— should say—no words seem right.

On their wedding day, she didn’t speak either. Couldn’t speak. She lost her voice then too. Woke up with laryngitis and could only whisper. This isn’t the same—no physical blockage disrupts her vocal chords—but it seems somehow related.

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“Nothing to worry about, I promise,” she managed to squeak out that day as she put her arms around him. “I love you.”

He believed her. The mighty sway of her love, fierce and fullbodied, held him stock still in awe of its purity. Even so, the loss of her voice felt wrong. Deeply wrong. So wrong he swiftly smothered apprehension with rationalizations. She’d run herself ragged in preparation for their wedding and their upcoming move to Newark, New Jersey where he was starting a new job at the EPA. Lia didn’t want to go. She told him so, but only once. Not often enough to stop his plans. She agreed to give up her graduate studies in Oregon, maybe apply to school in the East. There were tide pools there to study too. Just get through the wedding, he told himself, then tackle the move. Lia might suffer in the short term.

She often languished in the strong currents of life’s structured daily to-dos; her natural bent tended toward a sort of wild spontaneity and organized disarray. But she’d be fine with time. He counted on it.

And, sure enough, when the moment came to say their vows, she managed to croak out the words “I do” loud enough to be heard by every guest and with convincing passion. A temporary throat bug after all. Nothing more.

The move was relatively smooth too after their honeymoon exploring Scotland’s Western Isles, including the many tide pools there (her dream). Yet Lia’s raspy hoarseness on their wedding day never completely left his thoughts. Even after he

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purchased her a beach condo in Brigantine for weekend getaways from their landlocked life in Newark. Even with the flowers he brought her and lavish dinners and the hundred other ways he tried to make her happy, even then her lost voice still echoed through his mind at odd moments, shuddering up and down his spine, and into his brain before he could squelch it again, leaving behind an uneasy sense that it held a message, meant something.

Did she comprehend that day that another future might prove more compelling? A place where her voice never disappeared. ☽ The shower comes on. He sinks to the bed and stares at her scarf—yes, THE SCARF—lying where she left it last night. She slept in a beach chair down by the waves. Alone. Without him.

He meant to throw it away. So many times. He really did. But it remained hidden in their old bedroom closet and then in their new one in Newark where she recently uncovered it. He never expected her to look inside the cigar box. As long as it stayed burrowed mostly outside his awareness, he assumed it would evade her awareness too. He really did. ☾ “I’m pregnant,” Lia told him one Saturday morning last June as they ate brunch at a new café near their beach condo. Tears stung his eyes. Joy. He didn’t dare look up from his omelet for fear she’d

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see how much this child meant to him. An iron-clad bond between them.

“Are you sure,” he said, eyes still on his plate, aiming for casual. “How do you know?”

“I just know.”

He looked up. “Are you late?”

“I just know,” she said, watching him, unblinking, unreadable. “I know…”

“Are you happy?” Her eyes, darker and more cavernous than usual, gave nothing away. He fell into them, searching for certainty. What did she think?

“Yes.” “Yes, you’re happy?”

“I am… maybe… I’m not sure.”

Surely just jitters. Only natural, of course.

“I’m afraid I’ll get lost,” she said, staring out the café window at ocean waves. “Maybe I don’t have enough to give.”

It was the exact thing she’d said when he proposed to her. “You’re just nervous,” he told her then and now. “You’re loving and generous.” He reached for her hand across the table. “We’ll work out whatever comes up… You’ll be an amazing mother.”

Her giant eyes grew darker. Why wasn’t she sure… about their child? A child they’d share forever. It took effort not to dwell, but he managed, choosing instead to see the beginnings of her happiness. “You’ll be amazing,” he said.

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And indeed his relief grew as her belly swelled and calm overtook her. Lia embraced buying baby clothes and equipment with the same fervor she wielded saving tide pools. She made list after list of additional things they needed, read pregnancy books, reorganized drawers, and painted the spare bedroom.

He was beyond relieved by her transformation, yet still withheld how much he wanted this child. So much. Too much.

When Lia lost the baby a month later, screaming from the bathroom that she was bleeding all over, he made a breathless call to 9-1-1, and rushed to comfort her, rocking her back and forth as she moaned like a broken animal, “Why did she leave? My girl…”

Even then he didn’t divulge how shattered he was—and he was. He had to be strong, despite grief that ripped out the light around his heart. That’s what he was doing—remaining strong for her. So she could preserve her ineffable creature essence that gave him such joy. So they could survive intact.

Lia only found out later at an office party that he, too, was devastated. His coworker offered them private condolences, sharing with Lia how touched she was by his vulnerability. “You’re lucky to have him,” she said.

In the car later, Lia sat silent in the darkness for most of the ride home before finally turning to him. “You told her you were hurting and not me?” Her voice was small and sad.

His tears fell then—the first in front of her—until he finally had to pull off the road. “I was trying not to heap my pain

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on top of yours,” he sobbed. He was convinced of this truth. And so, it seemed, was Lia. She rocked him back and forth just as he’d rocked her when she was bleeding, sobs winning him forgiveness. ☽ Lia still won’t look at him as she exits the bathroom and dresses in silence. He sits waiting for her to say something. But she isn’t fully there. Like so many times in their five years together, she gazes off, lost from him when she should be present. It’s for this reason he can never grant her absolute perfection.

“I’m sorry, Sweetie!” she always cries when he points out her distraction. “I don’t mean to drift away.” She puts a hand on his thigh or nuzzles her cheek against his, a peace offering.

He always believes her, but retrospect won’t leave him alone. It’s become harder to brush away her moodiness and restlessness, how some days she scurries around cleaning the house or gathering seashells on the beach, which she piles in tasteful arrangements on bookshelves and end tables—so many seashells she’s finally begun storing them in buckets in the garage.

There’s no more overlooking her sad days, either, listless days when her glow dims like the last of a candle flame. Or angry days when she sighs, eyebrows pointing in a V-shape toward her nose so she looks stern and disapproving, but also worried, he thinks. It’s the small things that ruffle her (his occasional brusqueness, or forgetting to ask if she wants coffee when he fills his own cup—small slights and omissions that manifest when he’s

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busy at work or worried about bills or lost among life’s other myriad concerns). Negligible things. Forgivable things. Never anything big.

That’s not to say the majority of days aren’t good, even better than good, days when she’s cheery and loving and entirely present. He works to fixate on those. Their walks together at sunset hand in hand, snuggling in bed, each with a book.

“What would I do without you?” she sometimes murmurs in his ear before they get up. She climbs on top. He rolls her underneath, claiming her body, then turns her face down, claiming it again—its animal beauty, soft, and sinewy. She’s his in those moments, doing as he directs.

It isn’t just love he feels either, or lust. It’s something simpler: he just likes Lia more than anyone else. Others feel it too.

Women. Men. Children. Happy to just sit and talk to her. They tell her their stories. At parties, in the store, waiting for the bus.

Creatures, too, come round—dogs, birds, you name it. All drawn by what draws him, her radiating energy that makes you want to linger nearby, even if you won’t get more than a seat in her space.

He’s never cheated on her (nor, he’s certain, has she on him). Infidelity isn’t a betrayal he’s willing to risk. She’s the best he’ll ever do. No doubts there. She’s special. But it goes well beyond that. He’s charmed by her remarkable guilelessness, her lack of self-awareness about the perfect way she moves through the world, as if she accepts her worthiness to be here without question

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or guilt, unafraid to display her full glory. Not to flaunt it or show off, but simply because that’s who she is. Why hide it? Why would anyone?

It’s like he’s been entrusted with the care of a rare and irreplaceable otherworldly being. She requires more than mere fidelity. He feels the weight of her wellbeing, which seems to rest solely on him. He offers undivided loyalty, gallantry, and adoration, working ceaselessly to make her life as easy as possible, less complicated, joyful. He protects his beloved from sadness, from reflecting too long on dreams she’s given up to be with him. He hasn’t given up as many for her. He owes her that much and so much more—whatever magical safeguards he can conjure to shield her precious, enchanting spirit from hurt. The fate of everything depends on his skill. That’s how he sees things.

“I’ll always be there,” he sometimes tells her. She snuggles into him then, a perfect fit, even when she’s upset. He admires her capacity for forgiveness, perhaps her greatest gift. An innocent trust he’s sure could survive anything, seemingly endless, and he counts on her depth of compassion—her rootedness in a loving invisible world he can’t seem to reach—to keep them whole and carry them forward.

Yet some troubling sense occasionally breaks through, warning that he’s gotten her through unfair means or deception, doesn’t deserve her, isn’t enough. He toils to keep it hidden. Yet it forever hovers in the background, invisible and increasingly active,

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tugging a portion of their life off to the periphery where it remains blurry, reminding him over and over that his arms never seem quite strong enough or long enough to encircle and hold her completely.

As if Lia’s wild parts—her uncharted, untamed innards—keep slipping over the sides and through his fingers. As if there’s something additional she can’t live without. ☾ Lia basks in the sun by the waves. When she chooses to return he has an explanation, nearly crystallized and ready to unveil. Surely she’ll be ready later; there’s always an explanation.

Admittedly, it will have to be good; more than convincing.

This is different from other things he’s failed to tell her. Like when he shred her grad school notebooks after their move. She’d start over later. That was their plan. With fresh courses at a new school.

Someday. He was simply easing her way. A clean start. She didn’t argue then.

Nor about the beach condo, which he bought as a surprise. To minimize her stress. To allow a single explosive reveal that would stun her with its beauty and his largesse.

“I don’t understand,” she said that day, staring out their new condo window with its dramatic views of the sea.

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“It’s gorgeous,” she said, “but it was partly my decision too.” She wandered off by herself then. To process the immensity of his gift, as vast as the sea itself. She loved the waves and surf,

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and he’d given them to her, just a short walk over the dunes from their front door. That’s what he told himself. And, indeed, she seemed happy later as they clinked champagne glasses at a candlelit restaurant he’d chosen to celebrate.

That’s how he remembers it now. Indeed, it’s what he counts on—Lia’s unfailing good nature to accept what makes most sense, including his efforts to protect her, love her, not burden her with too many decisions, details that often engulf her radiance.

Even when she disagrees at first, she eventually embraces his management of their existence, the way he judiciously doles out life’s shifts and vacillations in small increments so as not to rock her delicate equanimity.

And so Lia will forgive him this time too, uphold his decision to keep the scarf. He’s certain of it.

Except that when she returns from the beach his first defense sounds wrong, even to himself. Anyone would hear it.

“What does it matter now?” That’s what he says as they stare together at the scarf on the bed.

“It matters,” she says. Her expression is foreign to him.

Like she’s beholding him—the real him—for the first time. A feral mix of something like alarm and dread freezes her face, as if something in her native core suddenly feels itself prey.

“You always make too much of everything.” His voice rises in righteousness. “Why were you snooping through my stuff, anyway?”

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She recedes slowly, inching away, still weighing the threat level. “I found it when I was putting away baby clothes. I couldn’t part with them. It was in a box in the closet… I just ….” “…Opened it?” he snorts. “Like it was yours?” His voice sounds almighty, hurling shrapnel words. It’s her with the problem, not him.

“You stole it,” she whispers. Her words slice through his flesh, exposing him. Their child is complicit too; Lia’s effort to preserve her memory has helped unmask his lie.

“Not everything’s so full of meaning,” he growls, lowering his voice for deadlier effect. “I was a dumb kid with a crush. I kept your scarf. End of discussion.”

The look on her face dissolves to nothing. No look at all.

She whispers, “It’s a theft.”

“Such an exaggeration.” His belly clenches; he can barely breathe.

“You’re afraid,” she says with categorical certainty. No room for denial. “Utterly afraid.”

She walks out yet again, this time with her scarf, to sit by the sea without him. ☽ He paces the floor. Should he go out? Try to explain again. She’s wrong. He’s not afraid. She’ll be back soon, as she always is. God, I’m not like that.

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Next time he looks out the scarf is wrapped around Lia’s shoulders. Her hair blends with it, like she’s wearing a furry shawl with a hood. For some reason this chills him to his gut, as though she’s taken her warmth and wound it around only herself. She walks along the waves, skipping each time one washes in. Almost dancing.

Next time he looks, she’s gone. ☾ They still talk by phone, mostly good conversations. He apologized again and again, laid himself bare because he knows it’s the only way to heal himself and her, to return all he took so she can be all she is.

Lia was—and is—right: he’s afraid. Utterly afraid. He tried to protect her, make life pleasant and safe. But not for the reasons he told himself or her. They weren’t about satisfying her needs.

They were about his. Buy her a seaside condo, shower her with every comfort, tranquilize her with contentment—so she wouldn’t dream of more than him, couldn’t dream. Move her away, reduce her agency, destroy her notebooks, destabilize her dreams—so she’d never leave, couldn’t leave. Cloak his pain about losing their child, divulge to his co-worker instead, not to spare Lia more grief but to punish her. For conceiving with him and not immediately embracing motherhood. For loving him too little.

The scarf was Lia’s last straw, seemingly harmless but a profound symbol of all these wrongs—his cumulative attempts to

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cage her spirit to feed his own. Undeniable evidence of his sad need to matter.

He hasn’t seen Lia since she left, but he cherishes their conversations, and he believes she does too. His greatest fear has come to pass—she’s gone from his daily life—but he’s still alive.

He’s surrendered to this loss. If she chooses to stop their communication, he’ll survive that too.

To do so, he’s changed. Let her go, like springing open a trap, back to herself. Maybe he’s a better person for it, but melancholy remains in her place. He keeps searching for replacements. Self-love and light elude him. They may come for him too, she says, with time and an open heart. It’s always possible.

He saw her photo recently in a magazine, an interview about tide pools. She looked nearly the same, a marine biologist now, with some renown, pointing out sea stars and anemones. No longer his—never his. Still radiant by the sea. ☽◯☾

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“Waiting on Shore” Christina Hennemann

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“Moon Drops” Beverley Ann Abrahams

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The Tale of Artemis’ Ambivalence Isabel Ingersoll Responsibility was thrust upon me right as I exited the womb. My first seconds alive were spent assisting my mother with my twin's birth. Right as that bright light of a whole new world hit me, my innocence and childhood was immediately ripped away from me.

Because there's no way to be a carefree kid when you're born a god.

I never blamed my mother. She needed help and I was happy to give it. She had been a caring and doting mother ever since then, raising my brother and I on the barren island of Delos.

I knew she didn't want to be stuck on this little island, but because of Hela’s rage this is where we were stuck. She tried her best to cover up her emotions. Sometimes I caught her staring out across the ocean, a longing look in her eyes for a life beyond the confines of this one piece of land.

My brother was the sunshine that lit up the hearts of our small family during our time together on this desolate land. As twins, he and I shared many similar facial features, but the way his features came together made him out to be an ethereal, bright

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person while I looked cold and unapproachable in comparison. I loved him dearly but I began to resent him for that; the way his genes compiled in a different way than mine, something that he couldn't control made me so envious of him.

It wasn't even the fact that he was this bright sunshine of a person while I was an isolated, moody one. It was also the fact that as we grew up I could see how mother favored him more. She and him shared their sunny characteristics and she was always so proud of him for all he could do. Whenever he wrote a poem or shot a bow, she would praise his every move. I felt inadequate in comparison. From a young age, I didn't show much of a skill for anything I attempted to do.

I couldn't help but feel even more of an outcast within my own family then when Apollo defeated Python. Saving our mother with his impressive bow and arrow skills and in turn becoming the premier deity of Delphi. By this act of heroism, he not only secured himself as the god of archery but also, one of prophecy. I had nothing. And with the way our mother beamed at him and him only, it felt as if I had nobody too.

During these times I got very used to spending time on my own. I left my brother and mother and went off to the other side of the island for long hours of the day. The island began to blossom more as we lived there. I soon noticed a small family of deer that liked to wander along the cliffs of the island. I would sit on the rocks next to a thin, running stream of water and watch the

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herd. The stag watched over its doe and fawn with such thoughtfulness and intensity. The sight made me a bit sad; it made me think of my own father and the little presence that he had had in my life.

I couldn't take my eyes off these beautiful creatures; their grace was such a calming presence in times I felt so uncertain. They would come over to me, nuzzle me with their wet noses; the fawn sometimes curled up next to me. As the small deer’s head rested on my knees, I would rub my hand down its back, relishing in the softness of its fur, as well as the trust the young animal had in me.

The parents always stood nearby though, never taking their eyes off their child that I could tell they loved deeply.

As time went on in my solitude, I began to discover various other animals around the island—wild boars and colorful birds. Even the fish that swam through the streams and the pond were so beautiful to me. I spent my days with these animals, following them about their days, and seeing how they lived.

Sometimes I would bring a piece of charcoal with me and sketch out the animals when I was particularly struck by their beauty. They were always patient with me—loving and kind when it felt like no other in the world would notice me. I was happy alone with the animals, like I was one with them, and that they understood me better than my family ever had.

But as my days drew on, with me seeking refuge in the woods with the marvelous creatures, that serenity was sadly

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broken. I was dwelling under my favorite willow tree, observing the blue birds, and listening to their distinct calls, when my mother waltzed into my domain. I had almost forgotten my mother’s beauty for all the long days I spent away. She walked underneath the tree and it perked up around her—the leaves brightening to a crisper shade of green and the grass flicking up around her as she walked toward me.

I looked up, from where a small blue bird had been chirping on my palm flew away, to see the shining light that was my mother and the all encompassing green that followed her as she walked into my grove. I considered this side of the island mine— my grove, my pond, my animals—in all senses, I saw it as mine. It felt unnatural to see her in my space.

“Hello dearest,” she said to me, in this thoughtful and musing tone as if she had been long searching for the right words to say. But, at this point, I hadn't seen her or heard from my mother for almost a month now and I couldn't see how any words could fix this rift between us.

“Hello mother,” I said.

“We've been missing you,” she replied without pause. The wistful way in which she declared it surprised me.

“Have you?” I replied cavalierly, not wanting to show genuine interest if they’ve actually thought about me.

“Of course, darling. Your brother and I have been missing you every day that you have been apart from us. We were not sure

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if it was best to leave you be or to come find you. I found though that I could not leave you to your solitude any longer today, I just had to see you.”

Her heartfelt spiel almost brought tears to my eyes. I had never had my mother give me much of any attention, let alone loving words. She always would tell my brother and I how much she cared for us but never me specifically; I felt as if I was just part of the pair, not as an individual.

“I have missed you and Apollo too.”

“Then why have you stayed away for so long?”

I didn't know how to answer my mother’s question. It was a good question for her to ask; she wanted to understand why I had isolated myself, but I could not form the deep thoughts into words on what made me separate myself. Words were not my strong suit like they were my brother’s. He could probably improvise a beautiful haiku about all that I felt, but not me. I decided I would show my mother one of the many reasons why I stayed away. One of the less self-pitying reasons, that is.

I stuck my two fingers in my mouth and whistled in the sharp tone that took me weeks to perfect. The herd of deer slowly emerged from the woods upon hearing my call and came to stand beside me. I stood up as they approached and rubbed the nose of the small fawn, which had grown so much in the short time I had known it. With the animals surrounding me, I felt comforted and at home. I couldn't help the natural smile that engulfed my face and

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ceased to even remember my mother’s presence when I was with such glorious beings.

“You seem happy,” I heard my mother’s melancholic voice whisper from behind me. I looked up and caught the sad smile that drowned her beautiful features in a dreary quality.

“I am,” I said, not quite knowing what the right thing to say was.

“You should visit your father.”

“What?”

We never spoke about my father before. It was an unspoken rule that we did not utter a single word about the King of Olympus. That's all he ever was to me: the king of the gods, the god of the sky, but not father. By blood only was that man a father of mine.

“If you go to him and he sees how lovely you are, just think of all the land that you could explore, all the more animals that you could see. It is far too small of an island here for you.

You, my beautiful, kind, adventurous daughter, deserve to see the world.”

She came over to me, the deer parting to give her a path, and grabbed my cold hands in her ever-warm ones. She bent down slightly and in her light blue eyes I could see that they began to water. I don't know how I ever could have doubted my mother’s love. She really did want the best for me, and this is what she

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thought it was. Though, I was not intrigued to see what the rest of the world had to offer.

“Would Apollo go with me?” I asked, uncertain.

“He agreed to go only if you would. Although, he said that he would visit weekly… Something about building a golden chariot to ride and see me as often as he could. I, of course, would love it if you joined him for these visits, but only if you wish.”

I could see how unsure my mother was about even slightly asking me to come visit her after I escaped the confines of this island. I felt horrible, that I had made her feel as if I never wanted to see her again, that my childhood had been anything other than a pleasant life to live. She was only ever kind. Not perfect, but no mother ever is.

“I shall visit you weekly as well. Although, I refuse to ride in some flashy chariot with Apollo,” I replied with a halfhearted chuckle.

“Forever the opposites you two are. But I love you both so dearly, my sun and my moon. I love all the darkest and brightest parts of the both of you. I'm not sure I've told you that enough. I love you so deeply and I don't regret a single thing, I would face Hera's wrath any day again if it meant that I get to have you both as my beautiful children.”

Hearing my mother, who had previously felt so distant from me, tell me she loved me brought tears to my eyes. The tears raced down my face in a way they never have before—through all

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my times of feeling isolated and alone, never have my emotions manifested themselves into tears.

“Don't cry, my child.”

She reached up with both of her soft fingers to caress the tears off my face. I sniffled and smiled up at her and, in return, she gave me the sweetest grin. We stood there for a second, reveling in the fact that love was not always a spoken thing, but it sure was beautiful when it was.

“I love you too and I shall miss you when I am away,” I told her, knowing that if I did not, she would not be able to read my mind and know how much I really would.

“And I shall miss you, but I am excited to hear of all the wondrous places you visit and all that you do in the world when you come and visit me.”

“I’ll make you proud.”

“I know you will, my dear. There has never been a doubt in my mind that you would ever not make me proud. I am already so proud of who you have become and all that you will be.”

Through my mother’s words, I could feel the tears begin to swell up within my eyes again.

“Now, now, no more tears, my love. Let us go join your brother and send you both off.”

And with that I didn't say anything else to my mother who had poured her heart out to me, who expressed all the love that I had hoped was there but never felt truly was. She grabbed my hand

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and we walked back towards the direction of our family’s home.

The herd of deer pulled up the rear behind me and I looked down at the ground, tracking the grass as it brightened and fell again with each step of my mother's presence. I smiled at the magic of it all, my mother a living, breathing sun and her daughter being one with nature which the sun kept alive. The thought kept me smiling as we walked back in silence. ☾ It was a heartfelt goodbye between Apollo and my mother.

However, I felt that the tears had already all emptied out of me. I sat in the boat, waiting, feeling as if I was intruding on their intimate goodbye.

Apollo reluctantly joined me in the boat, avoiding my eye contact, and immediately the north wind began to push us towards my father. Boreas, the north wind, was a close confidant of his.

From what I understood, some conversation had occurred between my mother and Boreas that then was delivered to Zeus for the arrangement of our arrival at Olympus. I knew not if my father actually wanted to see the both of us. Or not.

“I’ve missed you,” Apollo spoke up not too long after, finally looking up and meeting my eyes.

“I've missed you too.”

“Please don’t disappear on me again. I had thought that the woods had eaten you.”

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“Ha, no, the woods had not eaten me, you buffoon. I was just spending time in nature.”

“That sounds awfully boring.”

“I assure you it was not.”

“Whatever, just please promise me that after we both get off this boat, meet dear old dad, and embark into the world that you won’t forget about me.”

“I promise you that I could never forget about you, Apollo. You and I are connected for life, two halves of a whole. I am sorry that I have been so distant, I have missed your company.”

My brother beamed at me and I couldn't help but smile back at his pure joy. I really had missed seeing him and his contagious sunny disposition.

“Perhaps I shall compose you a new haiku to pass the time.”

“Ugh, please don’t,” I audibly groaned and he giggled at my reaction. He was not at all offended, just smiled right along with my teasing.

“Alright, alright, no poetry from me.” ☽ When we reached land, Boreas continued to push us. We went along with it, knowing it was leading us to Mount Olympus.

We walked for quite a ways, but I lost track of the time as I surveyed the surroundings of this land that was so fresh and new to me. The flora was unlike anything we had on the island and I heard

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calls of creatures that I did not know. I began to feel giddy of all the possibilities that were swarming on the horizon.

We arrived at Olympus and, surprising nobody, our father was not there to greet us. Instead, a young girl who appeared to be our age was there at the gates. She had long brown hair that looked so shiny and smooth that I wanted to run my hands through it to see. She had these deep brown eyes and a small mouth that shaped up into a beautiful kind smile as our eyes met. The way in which all her features came together made her the most beautiful individual I had ever seen. Her beauty made her feel unreal as I stared upon her; she must be one of the other gods.

“Welcome to Olympus, I’m Britomartis,” she said, addressing both my brother and I, but I wanted her to keep her eyes on me only.

“An honor to meet you, I am Apollo, I'm sure you've heard of me,” I hear my cocky brother say to this beautiful goddess of a woman and I scowl over at him.

“Yes, I have heard of you. Zeus sent me to show you both around Olympus.”

She paused after that, looking at Apollo, then turned her sights on to me. “It's lovely to meet you, Artemis.” The way she said my name was like a dream come true, her voice as smooth and comforting as a warm blanket on a rainy day.

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“It's lovely to meet you as well,” I managed to reply back.

Almost at a loss for words at how this beautiful woman thought I was lovely.

Her eyes lingered on me before she gathered herself and began to give us an in depth tour of Olympus. I could hardly focus on what she was saying, far too entranced with the way her voice sounded, and wanting more than anything to have her voice playing never-ending inside my head.

We reached an area where a few nymphs were all conversing with one another, and she leaned in closer than anyone ever had to me. Britomartis told me how she knew all the other nymphs quite well, that she was one of them. I tried to hide the surprise on my face but she noticed immediately.

“That surprises you?” She asked, confused.

“Well, I'll be honest, I thought that you were a goddess.”

“Oh, how you flatter me, Artemis. I do not think that my beauty could ever reach the height of divinity in which yours does.”

I met her eyes and saw that this brought a blossoming red to her cheeks in a way that was impossibly charming. I smirked back at her, feeling a bit more confident that I could make this goddess of a woman blush. I did not care what she said about just being a nymph, to me she was more beautiful than any goddess.

“Apollo, I'd love to introduce you to Daphne. I think the two of you would get along swimmingly,” Britomartis declared abruptly, breaking our eye contact, and steering my brother by the

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shoulders over to the group of nymphs standing nearby. I tried not to feel hurt as she left me behind. Once again, I felt out of place, isolated.

I turned away from them, not wanting any of my insecurities and hurt to show. My expressions are much too easy to read. I wished that I was able to hide it all better; I thought it would be much easier that way.

I tried to distract myself from these sad thoughts by looking at the beautiful scenery around me. Every tree was properly symmetrical, bursting with life, and vibrant as could be.

Flowers were everywhere, in every possible color, never dull and making the place seem like a garden.

“It's beautiful, isn't it?”

I jumped from where I had been standing, unaware that Britomartis had come back to stand beside me. Her shoulder was only slightly brushing up against mine, but by how close she was standing I could see the small flecks of gold within her eyes, sparkling like she was treasure. I truly felt like this woman was someone to treasure, if ever I was lucky enough to become close to her.

“It really is.”

I was only looking at her now. No beauty of the landscape compared to her eyes.

She smiled at my insinuation and timidly reached out to grab my hand as she began to walk forward. I laced my fingers

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along with hers effortlessly and we felt like the perfect pair; our hands melding together as if they were always meant to be this way.

“I ditched your brother so that I could show you my favorite places, just the two of us.”

“I’m so glad that you did,” I glanced down at our linked hands, feeling a swirling storm of nerves within my stomach. Never had I felt so nervous but entranced at the same time. Never had anybody pulled my attention in the way that she has. It scared me quite a bit how quickly I had become consumed with thoughts of only her.

She saw me glance at our linked hands and looked uncertain, as if she should pull away. But I quickly flashed her the most genuine smile I think I may have ever felt, my cheeks hurting from the stretch, and gave a light squeeze of her hand to try and reassure her that I wanted this too. Her eyes lit up and she smiled delicately back at me.

We spent the rest of the day together, just her and me. She showed me all of Olympus, the most populated areas, her secret spots, and all the beauty there was to see. One day led into two and then the whole week had gone by, which we spent together. It felt as if no time at all had passed, but it also felt as if I had known her for all eternity. It made me think that sometimes people are just meant to meet one another.

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On the first day of our third week together, I remembered my promise—I couldn't just stay here with my beloved, reaping the benefits of godhood, and forget where I came from.

I told Britomartis that I had to leave. I had met my father briefly, but this place was not somewhere that I was meant to stay.

I had to go visit my mother. And then, I had the whole world to see and explore.

Without hesitation she told me that she would accompany me anywhere, if I would have her. And I told her that I would not want to travel anywhere if I did not have her by my side.

With that, it was decided. We declared that we would never be apart from one another. Where I traveled, she would follow. I felt so happy that words could not describe; a whole future ahead of us, to see the world, but more importantly to see it together. I never felt more loved in all my life, like beside her was the place that I had always belonged, and now everything was finally clicking into place.

We had a chariot made and the four golden-horned deer that I was deeply fond of were fitted to pull it. I said a brief goodbye to my brother before we made our quick exit. The two of us were able to ride off into the night and headed straight for the island of Delos. ☾ “Mother?”

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I checked the whole house but she was nowhere to be found. I wandered aimlessly around, not sure where my mother would go besides our home. Britomartis walked along beside me as I had begun to head toward the side of the island that I spent so much of my childhood in. I wanted to show Britomartis the willow tree and the family of deer that were so special to me.

But upon emerging into the clearing, I saw that my mother was seated underneath my favorite spot. Almost as if she were waiting for me, she was already facing my direction. She sprang up and ran over to me, throwing her arms around me, and shining just like ever, as bright as the sun.

“My dear girl, oh how I have missed you.”

I could hear the sadness in her and wondered how lonely she must be out here alone on this island. I instantly felt guilty that I had not visited her earlier like I promised.

“I am so sorry, I should have visited sooner.”

“Oh nonsense, I know how busy you must be. There's so much to see, so much to do. I am just so happy to see you.”

“And I you.”

“Now my dear, you must tell me everything that has happened since I saw you last.” She paused, looking slightly past my right shoulder to where Britomartis was standing behind me.

When her eyes focused on her, she began to have a smile as if my mother already knew how special she was to me. “First, I would love to be introduced to whom you brought.”

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The three of us sat underneath the willow tree all day, until the sun had disappeared fully from the sky. I told my mother of every little thing that had happened to me since we parted and she was attentive and so happy for me the entire time. I wanted to tell her that she should escape on my chariot with me, that she didn't have to stay here. But I didn't say that; it was her choice if she ever wanted to try and leave the boundary of this island.

She told me how happy she was that I found love and was so kind to Britomartis. She complimented her beauty and what a perfect, lovely pair we made. I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed with joy to have my mother’s approval. Nothing she said would have ever changed the love I felt for the woman beside me but it still was nice to know that my mother liked the person that I chose to stay beside me.

The night went on and I felt hopelessly content. There was nothing anyone could do to change how happy I felt with the way things had fallen into place within my life. I was free, no responsibility weighing me down. I could do anything, be anything, and I had the love of my mother, brother, and beloved supporting me. The hunt now for the possibilities of what the world could throw at me was endless and unpredictable. A time long ago that would have scared me but now it excited me beyond belief.

☽◯☾

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Antic Disposition C.M. Green Hamlet asks you what time it is and you tell him to fuck off because it is two in the goddamn morning and he should be asleep.

He’s not asleep. He’s never asleep, as far as you can tell. This time he swears he saw his dad again. He was there, I’m telling you, reallife flesh and blood or maybe not but there.

Days since Hamlet’s last hallucination: zero. This number has not changed for weeks. It’s everything you can do to keep him from taking a kitchen knife to someone’s throat, his own, or his uncle’s, or sometimes yours. You’ve forgotten which one you are, the love interest, or the childhood best friend, or the mother, or the fellow student—and it doesn’t really matter anymore. He’ll say the same things to anyone.

This castle is too small for me, he says, and you’re awake now so you might as well listen. This castle is too small for me and everyone here is watching me, anyway. You tell him that no one is watching him, but that’s not true because you’ve been watching him for days. Trying to get him to eat, trying to get him to sleep, trying to get to him.

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Everyone’s father will die. To him this doesn’t matter because his father wasn’t supposed to die. He’s already tried to kill the king once, though the old man claims Hamlet was too chickenshit. He wanted to ship Hamlet off after that but the queen wouldn’t have it. We can watch him here, she said.

You’re part of a multi-cell organism whose only purpose is to keep this man from hurting someone, and you work diligently to do so, but when it is two in the goddamn morning and he won’t shut up you wonder if maybe you should hurt him yourself and save everyone the trouble. He has ruined your life, and you wonder when you decided that was okay. He’s dangerous, and you wonder why you don’t think he’s dangerous to you, what makes you special. The answer is probably nothing and if his dead dad’s hallucinated ghost told him to kill you, he might do it.

But you love him and you remember a year ago when his eyes weren’t on fire and you watched a sunset together like it was the first sunset the earth had ever seen. He wrapped an arm around you and he leaned his head on your shoulder and he said: Just like this, forever, and you thought it was true. ☽◯☾

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My Name is Not Eve Meili K. My secret calendar has been erased again. The tree shows no signs of being tampered with, but the markings are gone, the bark smooth. It isn’t against the rules to keep track of time, and yet, all my attempts have been thwarted. I suspect Adam.

“Adam,” I say, when I find him, floating on his back in the river. His long hair fans out in the water like seaweed. He looks serene.

He doesn’t hear me. I wade in. The water feels so good that I am almost lulled once more into forgetting the issue.

What does it matter, anyway? I know that we are nearing the end of our three-year contract, even if I don’t know exactly what day we are on. The calendar was an estimate, anyway. As I’d had to guess at how many markings the first one held before being erased.

I reach out and touch him on the shoulder.

His eyes open. For a moment, as he looks at me, with his face so blank, submerged in such a way that it appears separate from the rest of him, like a mask—I am afraid. I don’t know this

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man. In all this time, I have never been allowed to know him.

Anything could be lurking on the other side of that handsome face.

“Eve?” he says, standing up, smiling.

His hands go to my waist, and he pulls me toward him. I am enveloped in his embrace, I press my cheek against his sunwarmed chest, raise my chin, and we kiss. The surreal quality of The Dome amplifies, as it always does, in moments such as these.

It is like a hazy, pleasant, dream, formed by half a bottle of wine and a nap in the sun at the park.

More days than not, we make love. There is not much else to do here. Food is abundant. We walk the forest paths, naked and barefoot, plucking fruit. Fruit which is always perfectly ripe. I worried at first that such a diet would not be enough to sustain me, but I am stronger than I’ve ever been. I figure they must have genetically modified the plants here. It is a huge step up from meal replacement shakes. We spend our days swimming, wandering, eating, fornicating, and sleeping.

I wonder about the sinful qualities of this Eden. I am not religious. But even I know of the sin of sloth. Of lust. Be fruitful, and multiply. Was that not what he commanded of Adam and Eve? But I was implanted with birth control and haven’t menstruated since arriving. We do not pray. God does not speak to us. Adam does not sermonize. He might be just as godless as me, in real life.

How could this be Eden, then?

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“I have a question for you,” I say, drawing away.

He looks down at me, his brow furrowed with concern. I look into his eyes, and I wonder if I can read some warning there.

Is it safe, to discuss the calendar? Could I null both of our contracts, by breaking the only rule, which is to not discuss the world outside? Many nights beside him, I’d weigh the consequences of a whisper.

What will you do, after this? Any hobbies, besides swimming and floating and foraging and fucking? Were you like me, desperate for an escape from your brain-numbing corporate job, sending emails and creating PowerPoints, while outside, the world burns? Or perhaps, a starving artist?

But God is surely watching. And by “God,” I mean thousands of cameras and microphones.

“What is it?” he prompts, after a long moment of silence passes between us. His fingers dig into my arms, in a way that is nearly painful.

I can’t even remember why it was so important to bring it up to him in the first place. We will be out soon. Out, where perhaps we will share a parting drink, and a real meal. Where I will learn who he is, and what he thinks. And what he thought while here, in The Dome, where we played together at Heaven.

“Never mind,” I say.

His grip relaxes.

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While Adam resumes his floating, I lounge on the riverbank, on a bed of soft moss, basking in a patch of sunlight like a cat.

I think of the money. Of the cabin that I will buy, in the mountains, or on a beach, where I will relax and write my novels.

Somewhere where the climate disasters are unlikely to touch, if there is such a place. I will pay off all my debts, and my mother’s too. She thinks I am in the middle of the ocean, on some vague and dangerous and lucrative job with no cell service.

I signed an NDA, mom. I can’t tell you more than that.

So close to the real situation, that it hardly felt like a lie.

I lay my head down, gazing up at the hexagonal structure of the dome. The panels are glass, and I can see the sky. It is the only part of the real world we can see. The stars, the moon. Dark clouds on stormy days, eternal blue stretching out like the sea, most days. I lose myself in the blue.

I lose myself, out at sea. ☽◯☾

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The Elysium Café A.L. Davidson Surely! Surely his face was sculpted by the gods!

Thoughts like that often danced through Pat’s mind.

Flittering musings. Prancing rumination. Pondering images that held him in a vice grip. Things he never knew his brain could conjure. Especially not with such vivid colors and impactful motions. It was impossible to deny those thoughts their requested entry whenever his eyes caught a glimpse of him. They knocked on the doors of his mind like angry souls in Hades demanding entry to a better place, to an Elysium they could find peace in. He refuted them like annoying pests, but nevertheless, they persisted.

The coffee shop grew crowded on rainy days, especially once the sun started to set. The storms brought the best and most unique people-watching experiences. College students with classic literature bundled up in their arms would drape their bodies over plush armchairs and tabletops, then read the works of Homer and Hemingway, Ovid and Orwell, consuming the words with pursed lips and furrowed brows. Stacks of Sophocles and Dickens were capped with mugs of lukewarm caffeine, cooled to a bitter

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temperature after the intensity of a harrowing chapter captured their minds too harshly, rending their attention away from the most basic of needs until the warmth slipped away.

Even he would lose himself to a moody piece when the rain came.

Today of all blessed days, the clouds grew deep in color.

Despite the beautiful, moody hues, Pat could only purse his lips and furrow his brow much like the patrons he so often silently judged for doing much the same. The storm on the horizon caused him to spill a latte on his hands absentmindedly as his eyes were drawn to the darkening skies and a ripple of lightning that streaked across the heavens. The thought of his arrival made the poor barista’s brain tumble inside of his skull.

Pat enjoyed storms. Not necessarily because of the weather—though the misty days did refresh his tired soul—but because of the dichotomy he would see among the customers who wandered through the doors when the sky wept. Surrounded by lush greenery, long plants and budding blooms, the entrance would open and a variety of unique souls would arrive. The brave individuals who ventured out in a storm wove a tapestry of weird and wonderful views.

None of them were as wonderful as him.

Not in Pat’s eyes.

Les was truly a sight to behold.

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The first time he noticed him, Pat thought he was hallucinating. He was muscular, but in a lean, well-wrought way.

Tall and cheery, a youthfulness was painted upon his visage, one that drew all eyes toward his athletic frame and welcoming grin.

Pat’s own gray-hued irises struggled to break free once they honed in on his figure. Les felt familiar, though they never spoke more than a few meaningless words, and Pat was comforted by his presence even from half a room away.

It felt so familiar. The curl of his hair, the angular shape of his jaw, the soft smile that always seemed to be accompanied by a laughter that vibrated the fabric of his half-finished soul.

Yes, Pat felt as if his soul was torn asunder. That he was born with only part of it intact, that the other half of him was lost to the voids long ago.

He was sure of it. As sure as he felt that he knew Les’ handsome face intimately. Not necessarily here, in the now, but long ago. Pat saw many individuals come and go, many weren’t worth remembering. He couldn’t expunge him from his mind, hard as he try. Les had his thoughts in a vice grip.

The Elysium Café sat in the heart of the ever-bustling Greek Row of their haughty college. It saw many faces, warm afternoon sunlight, and the textures of many, many books.

He’d forget them all in time, but he persisted. Les burrowed himself into his gray matter and made a home there, one that the stranger did not know he held the keys to. Pat’s stomach

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would ache. With longing, with pain, with nerves, with memories he could not recall.

Like a wayward spear once pierced him there and the phantom wound enthralled him still. The ache of a thousand lifetimes, and he sat doomed to endure it. It only made his brooding stronger.

As the skies dipped into darkness, he arrived. Les—with that ever-present smile on his face—walked through the doors of The Elysium. Of course… of course! Of course he’d arrive!

The football field would be closed with the sudden storm, and he’d take refuge here in the presence of the quiet. He always arrived when the rain and darkness came in.

Pat felt his lips curl into a smile. Involuntary, sheepish, and filled with longing. The kind of desperation-filled smile that overtook a heartbroken man looking upon his lover after many months—no, years—apart. The smile often flittered off to nowhere, and was received by no one, but it was wholly meant for Les. This time, however, Les noticed. That warm, welcoming grin upon the athlete’s face reached across the small café like an arrow let loose from a taut bowstring. It was sent with intent, with focus. Pat’s throat became parched, desperate for something to slake it, for an ambrosia sweeter than the chocolate-dipped latte that scaled his skin. A small sip of that unbelievable nectar and he knew he’d never think clearly again.

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Les approached, ordered a black coffee, and made his way to the small table in the corner to begin his long afternoon of reading. Pat brewed the liquid void into the cleanest, largest mug he had on hand. With unsure footing, he approached. His legs ached in a way that was new and strange. In a way that overshadowed the throbbing that came from hours of horse riding during the late fall or hiking with his father in the dewy springtime air.

And, with his mind lost in the clouds, he stumbled.

But, with haste, Les caught him.

Those strong hands kept him from falling. The mug hit the floor and spiraled. That contact of flesh on flesh left Pat’s heart racing. His stomach screamed. This was familiar, terrifying. Despite it all, it felt right. It felt like fate.

Flashes of rolling fields overwhelmed his mind. Of warm afternoons on horseback, of a childhood not his own that felt so right, of a bloody war and the spear that ended his odyssey in the blink of an eye. Of a life not his own that he remembered with fervor. A life spent with this man at his side. An Iliad wrought in the annals of history and lost to the mistranslations of men who refused to allow their beautiful narrative to ring true. No more. Not this time. Not Hades, not the Fates, no mortal man or scholar could sever these bonds. No one would separate them again.

“You good?” Les inquired as he helped Pat upright.

“Yes, it’s my damn Achilles tendon,” Pat mumbled. “I’m so sorry, I’ll get you another coffee and clean this up.”

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Les chuckled. He didn’t know why. Something about that kindness, that polite and genuine tone, caused his heart to skip a beat.

“I’m fine. I didn’t really want it… the coffee, I mean. I wanted to talk to you,” Les stated gently.

Pat felt his face heat up, “Why?” “I don’t… know. This may sound weird but… it felt like we needed to finish a conversation that I don’t remember having.”

Pat knew. He felt it, too. For the first time in months, his stomach did not ache. The fractured lines of his soul suddenly felt glued. Standing amongst the quiet, lush landscape of The Elysium, Pat and Les could not deny the fact they felt connected. That somehow, someway, something more powerful than either of them knew predestined this meeting. That a lifetime ago they were denied this moment and now, on this quiet autumn day as the skies were slated to slip into a starry landscape marred by darkness rain clouds, the wars and wounds of an era long since gone had been worth it.

No one would deny them their happy ending, not this time.

Bathed in the soft glow of the overhead lights, Pat’s eyes glistened like starlight. He felt his heart skip a beat as Les’ hand slowly slid down his forearm toward his wrist. Toward his trembling fingers with a desperation to hold him despite the eyes shifting to look at the commotion.

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“Your eyes are beautiful,” Les whispered, lost in the glossy moon-like shimmer of his silver irises.

Pat’s heart thumped in his chest, his lips parted to speak with hesitation. A confirmation seemed impossible, but he needed to know.

“Have we met before?” Pat inquired, desperate to know, desperate to understand.

“Feels like it, doesn’t it?” Les asked with a lopsided smile.

Yes, this moment was millennia in the making, and he would not be denied the powerful desire that settled in the beating of his heart.

“I… get off in a half hour,” Pat said quietly.

“I’ll be here,” Les assured with desperation in his tone.

As if he were promising it. As if he felt that Pat would not believe him. As if he had vanished once before and carried the guilt to this day. Now, in this moment, Pat believed that this man would still be here and oh, how his heart sang out at the thought of reclaiming that lost time. Yes, this beautiful place, this Elysium, would be the starting point of a new epic. One he was elated to experience. ☽◯☾

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Mirror P. Henry My mother used to tell me about a mirror on the moon that would show one’s true self in the reflection. The mirror was as big as a lake and was cratered into the ground from metric tons of heat and pressure. She said we never saw the mirror because it was on the side of the moon that’s never visible from Earth. If the mirror were to point towards us, it would become a giant spotlight that would bathe the world in silver.

Those nights I laid awake and stared at the glow-in-thedark decals of the stars on my ceiling and let thoughts of the moon mirror pull me to sleep. My skin would be smoother and my face would clear of all the acne and blemishes that appeared every morning. I would have longer legs that didn’t bend inward at the knee, and silky, long hair that was not cropped short every time I left the barber.

One night after I saw the light disappear from under my bedroom door, I heard a latch unlock and my window squeak open. A breeze tickled my cheek and gently tugged the sheets off my bed. My feet hung suspended above the carpeted floor after I

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tried to jump out of bed to close the window. I was pushed outward into the air as streaks of light flared against my naked eyes.

The moon was closer than I had ever seen it and brighter than the sun on the solstice.

I didn’t realize I had traveled to the mirror until I was standing outside a crater on an ashen dune, angled towards the perfectly flat surface. My mother had heard the wrong details as the story was passed down to her. It wasn’t that the mirror looked like a glass lake, but it was a glass lake—permanently frozen over by the atmosphere. Schools of silver iridescent fish flew below, though it didn’t look like there was water underneath. In place of liquid was a void of empty space just like the sky above. No air bubbles came up against the lake’s surface, and the fish disappeared as soon as they came into view—like they were in a constant rotation, spinning around an infinite vortex.

The dune began to slowly give under my weight. I fell down the slope as my knees buckled and I pushed my hands out in front of me to break my fall. As I touched the surface of the lake on all fours, a figure drifted towards me on the opposite side and broke her own fall directly across from me. Her hair extended out in every direction like the tendrils of an octopus. Her skin was smooth and glossy, but her pupils were what I couldn’t look away from. They seemed to grow with longing as we stared into each

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other’s eyes. Behind me, the lights of interconnected cities flowed through the Earth as blood flowed through veins. ☽◯☾

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The Beheader Damhuri Muhammad If you don't want to be in danger, do not cross the Sinamar Bridge at a quiet hour, specifically right between Asr and Maghrib time.

Hasn't it been decades ago, the ancestors have reminded us about a bridge that never get old and worn? Nevertheless, in the same way footbridges are prone to collapse, restrictions are often violated, there is always a group of village children who secretly want to uncover the secret behind the taboos and prohibitions which were constantly reminded? And so, with handfuls of invisible giddiness in them, those skinny boys crept at the forbidden time. At first, they heard the faint screams and groans of kids their age, as if those children were in some unbearable pain. As the dusk progressed, the sounds grew louder until they believed that those hair-raising, otherworldly noises came from Sinamar Bridge’s floor. Considering the ever-increasing noise, it seemed those screams didn’t come from one person, but maybe two or three. Then, the back of their minds envisaged images of children’s bodies trapped in the networks of reinforced concrete. The boys rushed back, sprinting like they were really being chased by an evening ghost.

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Two days after that evening, Tongkin intervened. Alimba, one of the taboo-breaking boys, was possessed. He trampled and smashed things at home until they broke. Shards of broken plate glass on the floor were chewed one by one, as if cassava chips, until they crunched at his throat. Because Alimba’s behavior became more erratic, two sand miners at Sinamar River grabbed him, triggering some stomping and an ear-piercing scream. Tongkin, the best shaman around, mustered up all his powers, to exorcise the evil spirit from Alimba's body.

"My home is here, in this village, not on the Sinamar Bridge!" Alimba threatened, staring cruelly.

Tongkin didn’t care for that bluff. His mouth kept muttering, enunciating spells.

“You won’t be able to exorcise me,” he snapped again.

Tongkin stepped back for a moment, he strengthened his sitting position. Apparently, he was dealing with a formidable opponent.

“Who are you really?” asked Tongkin breathlessly.

“Stop pretending you don’t know me! I was one of the three children whose heads were planted into the floor of Sinamar Bridge.”

Everyone was flabbergasted. Tongkin took a deep breath.

It was unusual, an evil spirit possessing someone’s body revealing its origins. In a few moments, Alimba fell and fainted. ☾

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Whenever someone was possessed, Tongkin used to always retort that the offending spirit was only an inhabitant of Sinamar River that had been disturbed since the bridge’s construction. Yet, after Alimba’s possession, Sinamar Bridge’s secret was beginning to unravel. Tongkin confirmed the old story about the beheader wasn’t a lie.

The beheader’s cruelty that had become scary news in Subarang Village turned out to be not just a story to scare lazy children who played more with gundu1 than helping their parents on the fields. Starting from Alimba’s parents, close neighbors and until the news got out to every corner of the village, Tongkin explained that if Sinamar Bridge was only kept up by reinforced concrete, its old age would’ve brought it down by now. But the three heads that were planted with the concrete mixture made it invincible to the passing of time. When a massive earthquake flattened the houses of Subarang Village’s residents, Sinamar Bridge didn’t even shake, let alone fall. Its pillars still stabbed into the ground solidly. This was even more true of the floor, despite trucks loaded with sand always passing over it. And this had been going on for years.

In the past, Subarang Village was once shaken by the loss of three boys on the way home from watching a cattle race not far from the banks of Sinamar River. They were said to have drowned while crossing. This was the vision of the shamans that tracked their location. Sinamar River was dived into for days, downstream and upstream, but their bodies weren’t found. After all that effort,

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the three families of the missing children believed they had been kidnapped by bunian2 people. Not dead as expected, but impossible to bring back because they were already sucked into another realm.

The Subarang people gave those children up to the past, never to be spoken of again.

In truth, they were tempted by the devices of two strange but kind-looking men. They were persuaded with an invitation to watch a circus troupe touring the district’s city. The men were driving a pickup truck, and the boys would definitely be allowed to hang around in the back of it. A priceless experience for Subarang kids at that time. Nevertheless, before they reached the city, the truck suddenly stopped at a quiet spot. One of the two strange men stepped out, approaching the three boys who were having fun hanging about.

“Before going inside the circus, you have to wear this,” he said, handing out a green hat.

The hats looked like ushankas. In cold weather, the two flaps could be buttoned at the chin. At their rears, which brushed over the nape, poked out two slight ends of a wire four inches long. The wire was hidden in some fabric that would wind around the neck.

“The circus is going to be crowded with visitors. These hats will make it easier for us to find you when the show’s over.”

“Without them, you’d be lost in the crowd.”

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They rushed to put the hats on their heads, fastening the strap under their chins. Something clicked at their napes, like a sealed lock, until they almost choked. The trapped boys were asked to step down. They didn’t fight back because their throats were stuck; meanwhile, the hats couldn’t be taken off anymore. In a crossed position, the two men stabbed the steel wires into the back of the boys’ necks. Their heads instantly fell from their bodies.

Nearly no squirming. Cold slaughter. Faster than slitting the throat of a cow. The three head-filled hats rolled into the pickup truck, soon to be handed over to the project leader of Sinamar Bridge’s construction. ☽ After graduating cum laude with an engineering degree from a prestigious university in Java many decades ago, Alimba never visited home. But he was like a kite with a taut tail. Far away, but appearing close. Close, but appearing far. There was always news that in Java, Alimba the engineer had become a big contractor, particularly in the building of overpasses.

The construction quality of Alimba’s company had been tried and tested. Three out of five tenders for overpass projects were always won by Sinamar Jaya Karya Ltd. It was unimaginable that Alimba, the scrawny boy from Subarang Village born into a poor family, was now a contractor with an unbeatable reputation; even the works of engineers graduating from overseas universities couldn’t compare.

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Even if Alimba had a weakness at all, it was only the otherworldly voices that emanated from every bridge he’d ever built. Exactly during the transition from Asr to Maghrib, you could hear the screams and groans of children as if they were trapped in the networks of reinforced concrete. Whoever crossed during that forbidden hour would get into an accident. If it wasn’t a pileup, the vehicle would at least roll over from uncontrollable speed. So far, the number of victims was uncountable.

“There must be something wrong! It has to be exposed. If we don’t want to keep losing tenders, that is,” one of Alimba’s competitors said cynically.

“How can we prove those bridge demons exist?” asked his man.

“Alimba’s too strong. As strong as his bridges.”

“Ah, what’s the point of quality if it demands a blood sacrifice every month?” ☾ If in the past Subarang was rocked by losing three boys that’d been relegated into children of the past, it was now shocked again after the TV and newspapers flashed with news about an overpass project contractor deduced as the mastermind behind some discovered corpse bits, which had recently been raising concerns.

According to reports, the fugitive named Alimba had planted hundreds of street children’s heads into networks of reinforced concrete as sacrifices for the sturdiness of every bridge he built.

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Alimba’s underlings betrayed him and spread headless bodies throughout the city, to a point where Sinamar Jaya Karya Ltd’s reputation was unsalvageable.

From afar, the people of Subarang prayed so Alimba the beheader could find a hiding place nobody could trace. As cruel as Alimba was, he has supported many youths who were previously unemployed in Subarang village, but are now lucky men outside their village. Alimba housed and employed them.

“It’s Tongkin’s fault,” spat one of Subarang’s elders.

“Tongkin’s dead. Don’t bring him up!”

“Wasn’t he the one who told the story about beheaders, and Alimba learnt from that?”

Daruih, a young shaman who was heir to Tongkin’s powers, refuted everything. For him, this news that disgraced Subarang Village wasn’t Tongkin’s or Alimba’s fault, but the doings of one of the children of the past, Sinamar Bridge’s sacrificial offering. The evil spirit that possessed Alimba as a boy never truly left; presently, it still nested in the body of the famous engineer. It carried out its revenge through Alimba’s hands. ☽◯☾

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Her Night Off Victoria Male “You’re going?”

“Sorry.”

“No apology necessary. I just wanted to take you out to breakfast in a bit. “ “Oh, that’s really sweet, but I can’t, I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright. Can I call you a cab then?”

“Don’t trouble yourself.”

“It’s no trouble. I want to make sure you get home safely.”

“I live really far away.”

“What, like, New Jersey?”

She couldn’t tamp down her laugh. It puzzled him. “Even further than that.”

“Oh God, I’m an idiot.”

“What?”

“You’re trying to be polite and I’m harassing you.”

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“Josh, no.” She returned to his side and cradled his face with her hand. Their skin made the most beautiful of contrasts, his caramel against her alabaster. “I wish I could stay, believe me.”

“Is everything okay at home? You’re not in danger, are you?”

“No! No. I was supposed to head back earlier and I have work soon.”

“Okay.”

She kissed him soundly, leaving no room for doubt when she spoke next, “I had the best time tonight.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“So it wasn’t just me?”

“Not by a long shot.” An unexpected wave of emotion crashed over her. “But I’m sorry, I have to go.”

He reached for his phone on the bedside table. “Any chance I can get your number then? So I can properly take you out?”

She nodded and concocted a string of numbers to relay.

He watched her in silence as she slipped her shoes back on.

“Promise I’ll see you again, Selene?”

“Before you know it.” Not a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth either. He would see her again, in a matter of hours, but he wouldn’t recognize her.

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Josh chuckled. His smile was wide and inviting. It was almost enough to make her stay. She almost kicked off her shoes and dove back into bed with him. This man who’d been exceptionally kind to her, who’d made her feel less profoundly lonely. But the thought of the others noticing she was gone promptly stopped that train of thought. Surely her sister, who was about to appear, would've already noticed. And if her brother found out…

She settled for pressing their lips together once more.

“It’s still pretty dark out, you sure I can’t call you an Uber?” The sight of Selene, in her now-wrinkled dress, caused an implacable sadness to sweep over Josh.

“I’m tougher than I look, I promise,” she assured him.

“But thanks.”

He sat up. “Yeah, of course.”

“Thank you,” she repeated. She couldn’t fully articulate what for, but he seemed to understand nonetheless.

“I’m glad you–that you feel the same. Let’s do it again some time.”

“I would love to.”

“I’ll text you.”

Selene slipped out of Josh’s cramped studio before he could catch sight of the tear escaping from her right eye.

Dawn’s light was just beginning to kiss the horizon when she emerged out onto the street, not that it mattered much in a city

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like Manhattan. It was why she’d chosen to come here, there was so much ambient light, one could feel as if it was the middle of the day even in the depths of night.

Her heart ached with each step she took away from Josh’s apartment. Despite her careful planning—absconding during the Black moon, when neither her family nor the mortals would notice her absence in the darkness—she felt tragically foolish. She hadn’t only deceived Josh tonight. Of course, she’d get attached to whom she spent the night with, it had been so long since she’d felt another’s warmth against her skin. Her devotion to her husband had waned. The weight of eternity had settled onto her as the years passed, and she found it increasingly difficult to love someone who was wholly incapable of reciprocating it. She hadn’t wanted to be unfaithful, not that it was anything new or scandalous among her kin, but Selene had just been so lonely.

It didn’t help that her position was innately voyeuristic.

Night after night, she watched the mortals, envying the excitable urgency of their short lives over the stifling monotony her endless one had become. Watching wasn’t enough anymore.

Selene had many fantasies regarding how she'd spend her night on Earth, but meeting a mortal who was self-effacing yet confident, tenacious but not domineering, hadn’t been within them. Never in her wildest dreams did she expect to find someone she'd leave the sky for. Although Selene could escape her role for a night, she could never forsake its responsibility long-term. She

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shuddered at the phantom chill the thought sent down her spine. A world without its moon? Unfathomable.

She crossed the threshold into Central Park, a spot where most women wouldn’t dare to go at this hour, but Selene wasn't most women. None of the threats that lurked in the waning darkness could harm her.

“Oh, my patient darlings,” she greeted her steeds as she approached. They’d waited for her precisely where she concealed them at nightfall. They whinnied and stomped in delight at her return. “Alright, shhhhh, it’s time to go home.”

And with that, Selene boarded her chariot, whispered a gratitude to her sister for prolonging her presence, and disappeared back into the pastel sky. ☾ She hadn’t texted him back. Josh knew it was stupid to be so disappointed. He’d come on too strong. Again. Even though it’d only been one night, he felt something special with Selene. No, that was stupid. He felt that what he felt with Selene could’ve become something special. Perhaps that was why he was having such a hard time bouncing back from her tacit rejection.

Josh found a strange solace in the moon though. It was a peculiar consolation, that even though he had no idea where she was or if he’d ever see her again, at least they both gazed at the same celestial body. ☽◯☾

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The Wolf Who Devoured the Moon Ginny McSheehan “So, who is ready for another story?” I asked, and the crowd cheered.

“Laisrén, give us a scary one!” a voice from my audience called, and who was I to deny them?

The harvest moon, or as my people call it here in Ireland, Gealach na gcoinnlíní, hung high in the sky as my fingers plucked the strings of my lyre in a final chord. The last bundles of barley and oats had been packed away into the storehouse, and the laborers, exhausted from the long day, sat round the fire, warming themselves. Their families gathered around; serving breads, roasted vegetables, and slabs of mutton slaughtered with compliments of my patron, the Lord Dungal. I too, was compliments of the lord, sharing my melodies, and stories with these humble tenants. Their faces were long but hopeful; the harvest had been good, and they were ready to celebrate it by light of the full moon.

My eyes fell on a woman and her young child, sitting and spinning as she listened to me, her distaff in one hand and her spindle in the other. The small babe at her feet was staring across at

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my own legs, beneath the shadows, in which rested a shaggy animal I called Ulfred. The babe started to crawl towards him, and I kept one eye on her and one eye on the crowd as I began my story.

“I’ve told you many different tales tonight about the moon, but now I’d like to tell you one that might not have reached your ears before. This one comes from the far north across the sea.” The little girl neared the bundle of fur beneath my chair with bright eyes. She was too young to understand my story, but old enough to be intrigued by animals. It appeared she had never been bitten. Yet. “Back in the days of old, there was a pair of siblings who told the gods that they belonged among them. The gods were offended by this and threw them to the sky to make their homes.

The sister, Sól, drove the chariot of the sun, and the brother Máni drove the chariot of the moon. They drove their horses on as if their lives depended on it,” I paused, and made eye contact with a young couple curled up by the fire. “Because they did.”

At that moment, a grunt came from beneath my bench, causing the young couple to jump. Glancing down, I found the little girl tugging on a reddish-white paw. The beast lying beneath my bench opened one amber eye and looked at her. She began to giggle in delight. I ignored it and continued. By now, all of the eyes around the fire were on me.

“But what were they running from?” a young man with a ruddy face and a mouth full of mutton asked.

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“Wolves. Not just ordinary wolves, mind you. These were the kin of the notorious monster Fenrir. They were large beasts, larger than ordinary wolves, and saw the sun and the moon as prey.

Across the sky in the daytime, the white wolf, Sköll, chased Sól, and when night fell… The black wolf, Hati, chased Máni.”

I watched the mother put down her nearly empty distaff to turn all her attention on me, while still others stared at me, ignoring the food lest their chewing make it harder to hear my voice. The only one whose attention I did not have was the babe under the bench, but I could deal with that, since it’s not every day a child comes that close to a sleeping wolf. But the others were hanging on my every word, waiting to hear more. A small smile played on my lips. I loved my job.

“Then came the end of days. The world was crumbling because of a war between the gods. One night, Máni could no longer make out the light of his sister, Sól, and the sun on her chariot. He drove his horse as fast as it would go, the moon trailing behind him, seeking any sign of his sister. But none was to be found. And then he heard something behind him. Something he thought had been lost in the chaos.” I stopped and began tapping gently on the side of my bench, like the sound of paw falls. Each series of taps came down louder than the last, so much that I heard my wolf raise his head in annoyance and give another grunt.

“The wolf, Hati, was closing in. Máni ran, cracking his whip, pushing his horse faster than he had ever gone before.” Now

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with my fists, I imitated the clacking of a galloping horse’s hooves, which I am sure was giving Ulfred a headache, but it was worth it for the way everyone was on the edge of their seats, as if they were being chased as well. My hands stopped, and then slowly extended out in front of me, my palms held flat and fingers curling in on themselves. “Hati closed in on Máni…” I opened my palms wide, as if they were a set of jaws, and then, after a dramatic pause, slapped them shut with a loud clap, making several people jump.

“He was caught in the jaws of the wolf. Much to Máni’s surprise, he found that the wolf who had been chasing him was a she-wolf.

But she offered him no mercy, and swallowed Máni whole.”

The mother crossed herself, and I heard a few gasps along with the sputtering of wine.

“When the world was remade, Máni emerged from the gut of the beast, letting the skin fall to the earth. And that is why we have the moon in the sky today.” I gestured to the large, bright moon above my head, and the crowd began to applaud.

At the sound marking the end of the story, the beast below me gave a loud huff, as if he were unimpressed. When I peeked down below my feet, I saw him resting his head on the child’s chubby legs and closing his eyes again. The mother peered with me and reached for the little girl, but she found herself stopping and looking with shock, and then with admiration.

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“Master bard, your hound is quite tame.” she said as the little girl tugged at the furry ears. Ulfred gave her a lick, which made her laugh more.

“He is when he wants to be,” I said, looking down at him with a smirk. “He would never hurt a child, she is perfectly safe.” I reached down and patted the girl’s head, and then allowed my hand to brush against the corner of the wolf’s ear. He made a small grunt, resting his head against the girl once again.

Content that Ulfred was content, I looked at the people who remained before the fire. Many had gone to bed, happy but exhausted from today’s work, yet a few remained, laughing and drinking as the last of the logs burned out. I knew that their lives weren’t easy, but they still could put together a good feast and showed their appreciation for the stories I wove them. I could not ask for more from my audience.

The moon was far lower in the sky by the time I staggered to the bed that had been set up for me in the back of a barn. It was a clear night, and the ajar window let both cool air and moonlight trickle in. I could have had better accommodations. Any family would have given the Lord’s bard their own bed, but privacy was a must when it came to my hound. A barn suited me just fine. I watched the wolf step into the barn, glancing from side to side and stretching. He then threw his head back, as if he were determined to gaze through the roof and into the starry sky. Instead, I watched the fur roll like a hood from his brow. The man within the wolf

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stood, as the fur fell from his shoulders it became a pelt, and his paws became hands and feet. He stood up straight and tall, looked to the straw bed, and flopped down on top of it.

“You spent the whole night sleeping at my feet, and now you’re going to hog my bed without so much as a hello?” My hands were on my hips, and I leaned down to stare at the wolf turned man. His light blue tunic had trim along the edge in the tablet woven style of his people, the seams of it reinforced and patched many times over. His red beard and long red hair were prematurely flecked with white, but since he was regularly dealing with the world as a wolf, that was the least of his problems.

“I was guarding you,” he said as he sat up and put a hand out. “Pass the ale.”

“Demanding, aren’t we?” I said as I took a seat on the edge of the bed and handed him the wine skin I had been gifted earlier. He pulled out the cork with his teeth and took a long swig, then passed it back to me. “You did a great job defending me from that small child.”

“Someone had to do it.” He stretched out with his hands behind his head, staring up at the moon from between the wooden beams.

“So, what did you think of my story?” I asked, taking a drink of my own. He didn’t look at me, instead keeping his eyes fixed on the sky. “That good, huh?”

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“Hmph,” he grunted. I rolled onto my side and reached out to take his hand into my own.

“Hmph? Is that all I get? I am fond of that story. My mentor Oski taught it to me. Being a Dane, I thought he would help me get it right.”

“It doesn’t matter that he’s a Dane. He’s a human, and humans don’t know what actually happened.” He rolled over to face me, and his amber eyes met my own.

“Really now?” I took a seat on the edge of the bed and reached out to run a hand over his red hair, resembling the coat of the wolf that he became. He reached up and took my hand into his, lightly kissing the side of it.

“Really.” He said as he met my eyes. “I know you’re doing your best. But that was how humans tell the story. Wolves tell it differently.” I raised my brow, fingers wrapping around his hand.

“Oh? Well, now you have to share it with me.”

“You know I’m no good at telling stories.” His amber eyes narrowed at me. I stared right back at him.

“I don’t care. You need to tell it now. I won’t let you sleep until you do.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

I reached for my lyre from the side of the bed and started to strum. “I’ll sing the obnoxious song about the goose if you’re not careful.” A low growl escaped his throat.

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“Fine. But don’t expect me to tell it like you do. I’m not a skald.”

“I’m well aware of that, my dear wolf.” I set the lyre down and gave him a smile. He sat up and tilted his head, looking through the cracked window, where a sliver of the harvest moon could still be seen.

“Máni, that’s the god of the moon, was separated from his sister Sól.” Ulfred paused and his brows furrowed as he struggled to find the words to tell his own story. I reached over and gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. “Sól, she’s the sun goddess, and she had been forced to pull the chariot of the sun. He wanted to find her and rescue her, but she was on the opposite side of the galaxy, and she, like the sun, was always in the daylight.”

Ulfred stopped again and hummed.

“So what did he do about it?” I asked.

“Well, Máni had no choice but to follow the day…” ☾ The celestial road that stretched before Máni was littered with stars, each as beautiful as a diamond and twice as sharp. Every day, Máni traveled the vast road, forcing one foot in front of the other no matter how worn out his turn shoes were, or how tired his legs became. With each step he took, the darkness closed in further, the tips of the stars ready to bite his feet like shards of rock in the road.

“Sól… I’ll make it to you.”

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The light on the horizon shrank as he walked, and soon it would be time for him to mount the chariot and ride across the night sky. Another day was over, and another night would begin.

This marked another failure, another day where he couldn’t reach his sister. Sure enough, the horse that bore the chariot which held the moon trotted up to him, his silver mane swishing with a flick of his head.

Máni reached for the chariot reins, ready to pull himself on, as he always did. But tonight, the despair of not reaching his sister fell upon him like an avalanche. He sank to the ground, his tears plopping onto the toggles of his shoes. Throwing his head up high, he let out a wail of grief.

The wail was answered by a howl. Máni froze with fear, and looked back into the black of the night sky. There, atop a starflecked hill, two yellow eyes stared at him from a black silhouette.

The silhouette moved closer, and he could see a great black wolf moving towards him. The creature circled him once, and then leaned in, opening its mouth. He expected the jaws to close on his face, taking a bite, and ending his life.

Instead, a warm pink tongue licked away his tears.

The animal flicked back its head, and the skin rolled back to reveal a dark-haired woman clad in a dark blue tunic. The black wolf pelt hung over her shoulders like a cape.

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“Your tears taste like loneliness,” she said in a voice that was far less frightening than Máni thought it would be. Máni met her eyes, which were filled with sympathy, not rage.

“I’m trying to get to my sister whose chariot is pulling the sun. But whenever I draw near, it becomes time to pull my own chariot of the moon, and I fear I’ll never see her again.”

“I can bring messages to her for you,” the wolf suggested.

Máni turned and looked at her, both eyebrows raised. His heart was pounding in fear of the wolf, and yet at the same time, he felt the sparks of hope igniting.

“You would do that for me?”

“My brother Sköll is the guardian of the sun. I’m the guardian of the moon. Which means if your chariot is pulling the moon… I should probably guard you too, shouldn’t I? And you can’t steer if you’re crying.” The wolf reached out and brushed his tears away. He looked at her with a smile.

“Thank you, she-wolf.”

“Call me Hati.” ☽ “So you mean to tell me that Hati and Sköll were guarding the sun and moon, and not chasing them?”

Ulfred nodded his head at me, and I tapped my chin.

“You don’t look like you believe me.”

“Oh, I believe you, dear heart. But it’s just so different from what I’ve known.”

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“It is,” he said with a nod of agreement.

“But what was the point of changing it?” Ulfred put a finger over my lips.

“Just keep listening.” ☾ Máni’s sister was married to the wolf Sköll and he didn’t know what to do. Hati sat beside him, sipping from a flagon of wine. She offered some to him.

“I wouldn’t have told you if I thought it would make you this upset. She is happy.”

“But how is she happy, lying with…” Máni’s voice trailed off.

“Lying with a wolf? I don’t know.” Máni sighed and snatched back the flagon, taking another long drink. “Maybe she’s just quicker witted than you are and has come to realize that my brother isn’t all bad.” She shrugged her shoulders.

Máni tilted his head and looked at her, frowning.

“I’m sorry. I know you’re nothing like the stories. I just… it’s not what I imagined for her.”

“Do you think a world in which we are seen as lustful, blood thirsty killers is what we imagined for ourselves?” Hati replied and pulled herself up to stand. “Come on, your chariot awaits. Next thing you know, people will say I’m trying to catch you as my prey rather than guard you.”

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“…I …I’m sure they’re already saying that.” Máni admitted. “But I’m sorry, you’re right, I should be happy for my sister. If your brother is as loyal a companion as you are, I know she is in good hands.”

Hati turned and stared at the keeper of the moon. She then smiled and playfully elbowed his side. “She is. I can promise you that.” ☽ “Oh, now the story is getting good,” I said as I sprawled out in Ulfred’s lap, resting my head against his shoulder, my feet propped up by a meager straw pillow.

“Is that what you think?” Ulfred said with a grumble. “It’s good because there is sex?”

“Well, it is also a good story because the sun goddess falling in love with a wolf is unique. People don’t usually see wolves in that way. Unless they’re me, of course.” I leaned in and pressed a light kiss to his lips. He returned it and patted my leg.

“You’re definitely the oddest human I’ve ever met.”

“But what about the end of days, or Ragnarök, as you call it? Don’t the wolves finally catch their prey and swallow them whole?” I watched Ulfred’s face turn dark.

“Yes. But it’s not what you think.”

“Oh, was it sexy devouring? To each their own, of course, but I’m not really sure that is for me.” I felt a sharp jab to my side,

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and I grumbled, reaching up to rub the sore spot. “I probably deserved that.”

“You did,” Ulfred confirmed. “So you want to know about Ragnarök?”

“I do.”

“As I said, it’s not what you would expect.” ☾ From the heavens, one could see that the world was on fire—and Máni knew it was only a matter of time before it reached them.

“We need to run,” Máni said as he stroked his horse’s silver mane. “It isn’t safe anymore. The whole world is going to be destroyed in this battle between the gods. I don’t want to stay and see what happens. We need to get to Sól and Sköll, even if it throws off the course of the universe.”

Hati shook her head.

“It’s not going to be that easy. Where could we run to?”

She stared at Máni, her arms folded over her chest. “And if the Sun and the Moon are gone, there is no hope for anyone.”

Máni frowned and looked away.

“Then it is hopeless? We are just to sit here and watch the world end?”

Hati took Máni’s hands into her own and stared into his eyes.

“No. Sköll and I are your guardians, and we are going to hold fast to that, even if the world crashes down.” She brought his

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fingers to her lips and kissed them. “Have faith. I’ll keep you safe.”

She reached for the hood of her fur pelt. “Trust me.”

“I do,” said Máni. “But–” Hati placed a finger on Máni’s lips, shaking her head.

“Goodbye, Máni.” The hood of the wolf pelt was pulled over Hati’s head, and she took the shape of the black wolf, staring straight at the man, her jaw opening wide and showing off her large teeth. Máni closed his eyes so he would not have to see the world go black. Still, he felt the warm and damp overtake him, his body wrapped tight as if he were encased in a cocoon.

In the belly of the beast, Máni had no concept of time. It could have been a few moments since Hati swallowed him, or it could have been a lifetime. It was all darkness, but Máni was not afraid. He remembered the nights of riding, the stars glistening in the sky, with Hati right beside him. Hati had told him to keep hope, and he kept to that.

“Máni!” The voice cut through the darkness like a hot filet knife through cooked herring. “Máni, please… are you alive?”

Máni’s fingertips reached forward, meeting the resistance of flesh.

But when he heard his name again, he pushed onwards. He pushed with all his might, and suddenly there was a loud tearing sound. He tumbled forward—blood and fur the first things he saw. Then, he laid eyes on Sól, looking like she had just climbed out of the womb, her hair slicked with blood and sweat. She was smiling at him.

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“Sól! I wasn’t sure I would ever see you again.” Máni reached out and embraced his sister.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Sól began, balling up a fist to wipe some tears from her eyes, along with the blood. “The wolves… they…” She could not seem to find the words for her grief, so instead, she tightened her hug and buried her face in his chest. Máni raised a hand to stroke her sticky, wet hair.

“The world is reborn!” She pulled back from Máni, staring up at the dark. “We should ride again, bring these people light and hope.”

Máni nodded, but then looked down on the two torn wolf carcasses, lying side by side. He looked to Sól, and he watched more tears rolling down her face, streaking the blood with it.

“They gave their lives for us.” Máni stared at the carcasses, until Sól pulled him away.

“They did. So let’s make sure that their sacrifice wasn’t in vain.”

Máni knelt before the dark furred body and ran a hand across it. He then leaned down and kissed the brow of the dead beast.

“Thank you,” he whispered. “I’ll think of you as I ride through the stars, and I’ll never give up hope.” Sól offered him a hand, and standing, Máni took it. The two walked off into the world, the bodies of the two wolves left behind.

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The silhouette of amber eyes and pointed ears watched and waited. ☽ “Is that the end?” I asked. “Sköll and Hati have their bodies eaten by scavengers, while Máni and Sól resume their caretaking of the sun and the moon?”

“It’s not the end,” said Ulfred, sitting up and putting his arms around me, pulling me in close. “It’s the beginning.” He looked down to his pelt, hanging off the side of the bed. The fur was a mix of red, brown, and white, but in the center of the back, there was a patch that was all white. I reached out with some hesitation and touched it.

“Is this…”

“From Sköll? Yes. That's why I’m Ulfred Sköllson. My cousins are Hatison and Hatidottier. That is where wolves like me came from.”

“As opposed to… wolves not like you?”

“It’s a big world.”

I looked up at the moon through the small window and smirked.

“I like that story better. I think I’ll tell it that way from now on.”

Ulfred shrugged. “Everyone will think you’re strange, from the Christians to the Danes.”

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“I am strange though. So it’s only fitting.” I reached out and cupped Ulfred’s stubbly cheek.

Ulfred put a hand on my shoulder, and then let his brow tilt against my own. “And I will always be glad for that.” ☽◯☾

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Eulogy for a Muse Lynn D. Jung Sixteen hours after my sisters cast me from Parnassus, I smashed my knuckles to ribbons in the bathroom mirror of a Denny’s diner.

My ichor ran in rivulets of sunlight down the shattered surface and pooled in the ceramic sink. I traced the cracks with electrified fingertips, mourning the damage I had wrought. There were no such mirrors on the mountain, where we admired our reflections in the idle waters of fresh springs, for my kind are incapable of creation.

No, this amalgamation of metals, glass, and paint, layered one atop of another in complex symphony, was a purely human innovation. It was brought into the world by a mortal named Justus von Liebig who, as a child, survived a cataclysmic global famine.

He went on to become a chemist, eventually inventing not only the mirror, but also agricultural fertilizer to ensure the world would never suffer another Year Without Summer.

In their grief, they innovate. ☾

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My sisters were like petals in the wind. They sprinkled their blessings as if they were powdered sugar, raining them over the mortals’ heads and giggling at the feckless results. They kept their gazes fixed upon royal courts and the upper echelons of society, preferring to nourish the dreams and minds of those who were just as lovely and hollow as them.

I was once the same—a beautiful, empty creature who had never so much as shed a tear—until I descended from the spire on a whim.

In my wandering, I encountered a barefoot child tracing shapes in the ashes of her village with her fingertips, drawing forth gray-blossomed flowers and trees wreathed in soot. I found a destitute singer choking on the name of the lover who abandoned him, an aria crescendoing to breathtaking heights as he wrenched every ounce of hurt out of his chest and into the music. I danced beneath the moonlight with a hundred sweating, exuberant strangers after an elder’s death, tasting the salt of mortal sorrow alongside the nectar of their joy. They sweetened one another, in the end.

The truth became apparent: my sisters and I had been breathtakingly, maddeningly arrogant to consider ourselves the catalysts of humanity’s brilliance. In my disgust, I spurned the sugar bowl of petty inspiration and descended again and again, scouring the earth for the grieving, for I craved more than gilded halls and languid poetry.

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In the ashes of the Second World War, I gathered the broken to my breast and let them weep until their stories were scrawled across my skin—I would not let them fade. Later, I kissed the tear-stained cheeks of artists who had lost their hearts to the AIDS crisis and guided them gently toward pen and paper, scissors and sound. In between the great tragedies, I found smaller wells of grief—a writer who mourned his daughter, a sculptor who survived a terrible fire, a pianist who had mere months left to live but could not, would not, give up her music.

Over the decades, I came to know that ink and tears tasted the same, and I learned to weep. My kind are not meant to cry, and so my foolish dancing sisters finally took notice.

Art should be happy, they said. It should be beautiful.

There is nothing wrong with joy, I told them. But there is just as much beauty in sorrow.

But try as I might to explain to them the taste of tears, I lacked the words to describe true sorrow, for I had never experienced it. None of us had.

Immortals are indolent beings, drifting from one eon to the next, and our argument took years to reach its zenith. And the zenith was this: a sixteen-armed push, a stumble, a fall. My robes fluttering in the wind like boneless wings and olive branches shattering beneath my weight as the sprawling peak of Parnassus and the disdainful faces of my sisters faded into pinpricks, and then nothing at all.

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I landed with a terribly mortal crunch. For some time, I laid on the hot Missouri asphalt, staring at the cloudless blue sky.

After a while, I picked myself up, for what else was there to do?

In the Denny’s, I gathered the shattered pieces one by one, my ichor beading on the tile. Fresh droplets wept from my broken flesh, and already their color was beginning to darken from eternal gold into deep, mortal red.

Gently, I placed the last of my godhood and Von Liebig’s shards into a paper grocery bag and carted it all to my new home, in the hopes that my grief, too, might someday yield fruit. ☽◯☾

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“I’m Home, Moonlight on the River” Venn Saphira

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☽ Biographies ☾

Elizabeth “Liz” Zarb (she/her) is a writer, editor, and content creator based out of New York. She received her BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in 2021 and her MSc in Literature and Society: Enlightenment, Romantic, and Victorian from the University of Edinburgh in 2023, and now splits her time between writing and making literature-based videos on TikTok under the handle @liz_zarb. Her debut collection of flash fiction stories, “A Meditation on Mortality,” is available on Amazon, and she runs the blog: twentybluffing.com, a place dedicated to twenty-somethings who are feeling lost and aimless as they navigate this decade of their life.

Kyle Ross (he/him) is an award-winning author who specializes in creative nonfiction. As a graduate of Emerson College, he received his BFA degree in Creative Writing in 2021. This year, he is also a regional Writing Juror for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

Continuously grappling with his past, Kyle explores themes of childhood grief, trauma, paganism, trans identity, love in all its forms, and queerness. His published prose can be found in The Underground, EveryDayFiction, Gauge Magazine, Wack Mag, Vocivia Magazine, and more upcoming. Copywriter by day and editor by night, you can visit him at www.thekyleross.com. ☽◯☾

Sidney Stevens (she/her) has an MA in journalism from the University of Michigan. Her short stories have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Oyster River Pages, The Woven Tale Press, and Another Name for Darkness, a new anthology from Sans. PRESS. Her creative nonfiction has been published in Newsweek, The Dillydoun Review, and Nature’s Healing Spirit, an anthology from Sowing Creek Press. See www.sidneystevens.com.

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Venn Saphira (they/he) is an aspiring author and artist orienting from Indonesia, who has a particular interest in depicting multicultural topics in a modern setting. They enjoy exploring queer love through visceral symbolisms in visuals and is currently studying film as a storyboard artist. Find him at @seruitalavenus on Twitter and @venn.venus on Instagram.

Shane Reid (he/him) is a trans man from Liverpool, UK. He loves to write about dreamy realities, escapism, and big feelings. He is a writer and poet, and when not typing away, he can be found working through his endless TBR. His words can be found in the Best Served Cold zine, Engendered Lit, and drip lit magazine.

Andy Parker (he/they) is a recent graduate of English literature at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. He enjoys writing and reading at the intersections of queerness and Asian identity, stress baking, and overusing em dashes. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Gasher Journal, Beyond the Veil Press, and the Greyrock Review. You can find him at @_andy.parker_.

Damhuri Muhammad (he/him) is a Jakarta-based writer and was nominated for The 2023 Pushcart Prize. His recent works have appeared in The Unconventional Courier, The Pine Cone Review, Active Muse, Trash to Treasure Lit, Switch Microfiction Journal, Kitaab, and elsewhere. He is currently lecturing on philosophy at Darma Persada University, Jakarta (Indonesia). Twitter handle: @damhurimuhammad Ginny McSheehan (she/her) is a queer pagan storyteller with a life long love for history and folklore. During the summer and fall she can be found at Nyr Jorvik Viking Village, where she teaches Viking history through inclusive historical reenactment, and tells the stories of the Norse gods and goddesses. She is an MFA candidate in Emerson’s Popular Fiction and Publishing program, and is editing her second novel. Her contact info can be found at solo.to/ginnysquillpen.

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Rachel McCarren (she/her) is a storyteller from Butler, Pennsylvania. She is currently based in Dublin, Ireland, where she works full-time as a makeup artist. Rachel received her BSc in Creative Writing from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, and her MFA in Creative Writing from Carlow University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Through Carlow's international MFA program, she studied abroad in Ireland, completing two summer residencies at Trinity College Dublin. Her work has appeared in The Honest Ulsterman, The Broken Spine, Goat's Milk Mag, Lupercalia Press's Vulcanalia, Anti-Heroin Chic Mag, The Pittsburgh City Paper, The Unexposed Mag, and more. Her debut book of poems, Necromantic, is now available on Amazon.

Holly Jewitt Maurice (she/her) is a 20-year-old author from England. She has been writing from a young age and recently started competing in poetry and prose competitions; with her piece “The Rotting Oak” being shortlisted under the Nottingham Young Creative awards. Most recently, Holly has made her academic debut with her article on geographies of hope—as seen through the growth of chicken rescue organisations working with the commercial laying industry. This piece is set to be published in the Cambridge University magazine, Compass, in the new year. “Don’t Temp fate” will mark Holly’s first flash fiction publication in a literary journal; a trend which she hopes to continue in the new year.

Victoria Male (she/her) has worked in creative development at The Montecito Picture Company and Graphic India. Her prose has appeared in over a dozen literary magazines worldwide, including oranges Journal, The Chamber Magazine, Carolina Muse, and Retrospect Journal. She can be found on Instagram @victoriamale1 and at her website victoriamale.com.

Meili K. (they/she) is a writer from Hawai'i living in Minnesota.

They love the ocean, the rain, and the snow. More of Meili's work can be found at Reflex Fiction and The Dodge.

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Lynn D. Jung (she/her) writes speculative fiction in all shades of strange. Since obtaining her B.S. in Zoology, she has bounced from one exciting location to the next in search of more adventures to put on the page. Aside from traveling and writing, her hobbies include crochet, climbing, hiking, and making YouTube videos that help writers grow.

Isabel Ingersoll (she/her) is a Writing, Literature, and Publishing undergraduate at Emerson College. She mainly writes fiction short stories but also loves to write melancholic poetry mainly with themes surrounding girlhood. She has been published in Generic Magazine and Unpublished Magazine. You can follow her on Instagram @isabelingersoll.

P. Henry (they/them) is a current student of the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Informational Sciences. Their dream is to one day work in an archive or fiction center, but they'll settle for a house in the country with three dogs and a loving spouse.

Christina Hennemann (she/her) is a poet and photographer based in Ireland. She’s a recipient of the Irish Arts Council’s Agility Award ’23 and she was longlisted in the ,mational Poetry Competition. Her work is forthcoming or appears in Poetry Wales, orangepeel, The Iowa Review, Sage Cigarettes, Tír na n'Óg, Skylight 47, fifth wheel, and elsewhere. www.christinahennemann.com C.M. Green (they/them) is a Boston based writer with a focus on history, memory, gender, and religion. They are a Hybrid Reader at Abode Press. Their work has been published by Barren Magazinr, fifth wheel press, and others, and they are a 2023 Best of the Net nominee. You can find their work at cmgreenwrites.com.

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Ariana Ferrante (she/her) is an #actuallyautistic college student, playwright, and speculative fiction author. Her main interests include reading and writing fantasy and horror of all kinds, featuring heroes big and small getting into all sorts of trouble. She has been published by Eerie River Publishing and Soteira Press, among others. On the playwriting side, her works have been featured in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival and nominated for national awards. She currently lives in Florida, but travels often, both for college and leisure. You may find her on Twitter at @ariana_ferrante, and on Instagram at @arianaferrantebooks.

A.L. Davidson (she/they) is a Pushcart Prize, Indie Ink, and Queer Indie Award nominated, disabled and queer author who specializes in massive space operas and tiny disturbances. She writes stories about ghosts, grief, isolation, space exploration, eco-horror, queerness, and the human condition.

They have penned several stories that have been featured in lit mags, online pubs, and anthologies, and are best known for their eco-horror romance novella When The Rain Begins To Burn, the RPNZL: A Futuristic Fairytale series, and web novels, The Wayward Souls of Avalon, The Night Farm, and Lonely Planet Hotel. Her forthcoming cosmic eco-horror novel The Scientist, The Spaceman, And The Stars Between Them will arrive in May 2024 from Timber Ghost Press. They live with their cat, Jukebox, in Kansas City.

Margaret Cotter (she/her) is a writer living in South Carolina with her husband and currently four cats. There may be more cats by the time you read this.

Julia Biggs (she/her) is a writer, poet, and freelance art historian.

She lives in Cambridge, UK. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ink Sweat & Tears, Black Bough Poetry, Annie Journal, Sídhe Press, Divinations Magazine, Streetcake Magazine and elsewhere. Find her via her website: juliabiggs1.wixsite.com/juliabiggs

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Beverley Ann Abrahams (she/her) is 61 years old, a teacher, writer and activist against gender-based violence. Art has always been a passion, which she teaches to high school students; and it has now become her peace in a world that is falling apart at the seams.

Instagram: @BevAbrahams; Twitter @Bevy262

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