2017 Cotton Alley Writers' Review

- 2017 -

COTTON ALLEY WRI TE RS’ R E V IE W 2016 SHORT STORY & POETRY

Adult Short Story | Adult Poetry | Youth Short Story | Youth Poetry

C MPETITION

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Table of Contents 3 Letter from the Executive Director 5 8 10 22 34 42 43 44 45 46 49 64 66 69 72 74 75 77 78

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ADULT SHORT STORY

Even the Tiniest Hand Can Hold a Diamond by Brenda Sloan Creek Shoes by Barbara Meetze The Last Hike by Hamilton C. Davis Mother’s Day by Mark A. Stevens Reaping by Blaine Parrish Scovil

ADULT POETRY

August Photograph 1948 by Barbara Meetze Roots by Alex J. Stokas Bounce by Joy Colter Our First Date Got Rained Out by Laura Jane Burgess Post 9-11 Sewing Circle by Kate Roos

YOUTH SHORT STORY

Beyond the Dream by Ava Tufty More Than Just a Dream by Rachel Black Grandpa Said That Rainbows Are Real by Emma Scott The East Smiles by Lauren North

YOUTH POETRY

Aftermath by Audrey L. Kmeicik Where I’m From by Lily Sutton Grandma by Rachel Black Leafy Dance by Zachary Ritz The Seasons by Katelyn Rutledge

Thank you Perihelion Book Club for underwriting the awards.

LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

In 2017, the Arts Council of York County hosted the 14th Annual Literary Competition; open to artists in the southeast United States, and the 6th Annual Youth Literary Competition, open to students enrolled in a K-12 program in York County, South Carolina. Both competitions accept entries in two categories: short story and poetry. Local literary professionals and members of the Perihelion Book Club judge the submissions and choose winners in each category. Winners were announced at a public reception in November 2017.

“It’s possible, in a poem or short story, to write about commonplace things and objects using commonplace but precise language, and to endow those things – a chair, a window curtain, a fork, a stone, a woman’s earring – with immense, even startling power.” –Raymond Carver It takes creativity and skill to produce the poetry and short stories. We are very fortunate to live in a community where talent is abundant. The competition is replete with artists on many levels including those who dedicate their days to crafting engaging tales of mystery, intrigue, and the whirling spin of daily life to those who have incorporated writing into their greater body of artistic work. Many thanks to each author who shared their soul and talent with us and with the community. A special thanks to our staff for organizing the portal to share this talent with others.

We are excited to introduce the Cotton Alley Writers’ Review, our online publication that highlights the winners of the Arts Council of York County’s annual Literary Competition. We hope you will find the short stories and poetry as engaging as our jurors did.

Please enjoy!

Debra Heintz Executive Director, Arts Council of York County

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Adult Short Stories

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C MPETITION

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Even the Tiniest Hand Can Hold a Diamond

by Brenda Sloan

I recently attended a circus wedding. I’m referring to a circus-themed wedding, not a wedding “under the big top,” though there were a great deal of fanciful shenanigans and enough clowning around that one might have difficulty differentiating the two.

Near the tented entrance stood a table replete with circus-oriented curiosities presented as tokens for the enjoyment of the guests. One could enthusiastically snatch up an adhesive Dudley Do-Right mustache or enjoy a taste of pure spun, sugar candy. Or, perhaps the more pragmatic guest (with December being right ‘round the corner) might choose one of the red foam noses, making it doubly useful for Christmastime. But for me, it seemed a risky temptation of fate to choose the mustache as I had recently seen tiny hairs sprouting from my upper lip where there’d once been none. And, although easily tempted by candy, I admit to being somewhat of a cotton candy snob by believing that consuming it from a pre-packaged bucket robbed it of all the delights of its intended fluffy purpose and sticky intentions. My lack of pragmatism (but to my credit, my knowledge of that lack) eschewed me from the red foam nose as I would never be able to locate it in its time of need. Surely it would reappear one day from behind a dresser or from under a pile of books during a cleaning spree, probably around Easter, thereby making it a moot point at the end of my nose.

I was about to exercise my freedom not to choose, which is out of character for me as I love a freebie, when I noticed something magically appear on the third of the three-ringed centerpiece. Life-like, tiny human hands, each perched atop a straw, were placed in a vase to impersonate a diminutive bouquet of beige daffodils. There was a diabolical loveliness about them, and I was instantly amused. Without thought or hesitation I shook one free from its previous arrangement and chose the finger puppet of a tiny human hand to accompany me throughout the evening. ****** The tiny hand and I did not part company anytime soon. In the weeks that followed, I would often pull down my shirt sleeve and place the tiny hand onto my finger to allow the doll-sized, life-like version do my bidding. I shared tiny, nickel-sized, high-fives with the energetic grocery boys who loaded my trunk. To alleviate the monotony of bored waiters and waitresses, I tapped it against my cheek at restaurants as if trying to make a difficult menu decision. I sat in my car at stoplights and stroked my chin with the tiny hand, offering fellow drivers the sight of someone pondering the universe, and gave them an amusing story to share at the dinner table or between office cubicles. All of these tiny acts seemed to bring humor in some tiny way. And to think that I had a hand in that.

I grew quite fond of the Lilliputian extremity and its fleshy rubber digits, each the size of a matchstick—so fond, in fact, that I carried it with me in my purse, like a small phalangeal

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talisman. Then one day, I saw the opportunity to use my tiny hand to forge a bond with my teenage son. He and I were in the car together running errands, albeit somewhat begrudgingly on his part, and I could tell by the impatient fidgeting and ebbing conversation that he was becoming winded with fatigue by the process.Young people today have no stamina against the waves of boredom that beat incessantly against the shores of everyday life, so I took swift action and made a hasty decision, the same way I make so many—robust with good intentions and complete lack of forethought. I spared not even a moment to consider how this action would be perceived. I was going rogue.

I pulled into the drive-thru lane of his favorite fast food haunt, and he sat upright with the exited expression of a dog who hears Kibbles falling into a bowl. We placed our order, and I opened my purse to retrieve my credit card. There sat the tiny hand, waving to me with a friendly—hello. Even tiny gestures deserve recognition.

I pulled down my sleeve, placed the miniature fleshy hand, finger-puppet style, onto my index finger, and wedged my credit card between its rubbery phalanges. My son stared at me and, with the teenaged economy of words said merely, “uh-uh, no way.” I interpreted this to mean—do it!

I know teenaged-boy language. With the whoosh of the opening of the car window, I extended my arm towards the unsuspecting employee who was simultaneously reaching thru his window to obtain my payment. He flinched and reflectively withdrew, but after a brief pause, he saw the humor of my tiny hand, now peeking from the end of my covered fist, and proceeded to extract my credit card from its miniscule grip.

His ensuing laughter grew exponentially until becoming what one in this milieu could only define as being “biggie sized,” and the mortification mixed with fascination emanating from my son was as satisfying as applause to a comedian. Comedy does not need to be a market produced and consumed solely by the young; we elderly can be wickedly whimsical.

The employee, still captivated by the tomfoolery, returned my card, being ever so careful as he wedged it between the tiny hand’s flexible fingers. As he delivered our fried fare, he announced that the laughter was worth more than the food, and it would therefore be, “On me”— which I mistook to mean the joke, not the food. I departed with a tiny wave, a miniature salute, and a polite “Thank You.” As I pulled away, my son looked at the receipt and announced, “Danm, Dang…it was free, seriously!” to indicate that our meal had, indeed, been issued complimentary. I was surprised, flattered, and touched that my capricious act had brought about such gut-filling happiness— twice, as I watched my teenager down a dozen chicken nuggety things, empty a carton of fries and flush the entire wad down with a liter of soda. So, who says you can’t feed a family on laughter. Talk about a happy meal.

Moments later in an office supply store, in search of the perfect fine tip marker, the previous act of kindness and generosity on behalf of the fast food employee was still permeating the air, like the aura of perfume. I couldn’t shake this happy mist in my midst, nor did I try; I wallowed in

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Even the Tiniest Hand Can Hold a Diamond | Brenda Sloan

it. It would not, however, be fully experienced (even after obtaining the perfect fine tip marker) until it was fully acknowledged. This act of kindness required retaliation of the cleverest kind.

Fat and happy, my teenager wanted to return home at this high point in the day, but I pushed him to his limits by saying, “But wait, there’s more” and he slumps back down in the seat. “We need gas…fuel, petrol” to which there is no response. I pulled into the station and park, not near the pump, but near the door. He made no movement to release the seatbelt, indicating his intention to wait in the car. Once again, I used my maternal lubricant to pry him free of his own stubbornness. “I’ll by you an ice cream, you big baby.” He gets out of the car and, as he’s been taught to do, holds the door as we enter the store together.

While the friendly, young cashier rang up the ice cream, I asked her for the one single, solitary item I came in for. “Which type of lottery ticket would you like?” was all she said, before a barrage of questions and recommendations came shooting forth from the helpful crowd of strangers in the store. I was naively unaware that this request would come with options or spark such assistance. “I want a random one for the next multi-million-dollar thingy.” And then I added, “Wait. I need two.” I turned to the ice cream eater and said, “One will be for us.”

Returning to the Fast Food establishment and tearing past the squawk box, I pulled up to the window. The same employee was still there. He pushed open his window, looking confused, as I had placed no order. This time he saw a lottery ticket folded charmingly in the tiny hand and securely wedged between the fleshy digits. “This is for you,” I said. He took the ticket and looked at it with a mix of surprise and confusion. I continued, “It’s the Lucky for Life ticket.

Drawing is tonight at eleven. What you did before was very generous and now I’m paying it forward, and well, backwards, too, I suppose. I hope you win a bazillion dollars and when you do, I hope you do a lot of nice stuff for a lot of people. Have a great day.” I peeled off, leaving the plastic nametag on his shirt still unread.

The silence in the car lasted through three stoplights before my teenager spoke, “If we win, I get half, right?” he asked, between licks.

I slap the tiny hand to my wrinkled forehead, “Eureka!” I said to my son, who was busy shoving the ice cream down his pie hole. “Even better than that,” I said, “I’ll double your investment, which is…oh wait…you failed to invest, so—nada.You’ll get, nada.” I burst open with laughter, and although he tried ever so hard to look unamused, I saw the invisible smile on his face.

He shook his head and mumbled through the mash in his mouth, “That was cool, Mom. I wish I’d have gotten it on Snapchat.”

The following day, the newspaper headline read FAST FOOD WORKER WINS LOTTERY. The story that followed: Anonymous, small-handed, old woman donates lottery ticket to fast food worker who wins THE BIGGIE. Mr. Lucas Petitemain, in honor of his wounded warrior brother, plans to establish a foundation to provide bionic limbs to those in need.

Well, at least it’s lovely to think about …that, which might have been.

Even the Tiniest Hand Can Hold a Diamond | Brenda Sloan

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Creek Shoes

by Barbara Meetze

Beside the backdoor at Tissie’s house, under the bench where the throw-away magazines go, are the creek shoes. Three pairs lined up by size.

Her daddy’s are the biggest and the oldest shoes and are very dirty. They are turning green because he wears them when he mows the lawn.

Her mama’s are the middle-sized shoes. She used to wear them jogging before the heels wore down and one shoelace broke in the middle.

Tissie’s are the smallest, newest old shoes because her feet haven’t stopped growing. Every time she gets new sneakers, the old ones go under the bench and a too-small pair gets thrown away.

Creek shoes are magic.

When Tissie puts hers on, her mama doesn’t scold her if she trogs in the dew, getting her feet wet.

When she wears them, it is ok to drag her feet through leaves in the woods.

If she is wearing them, she doesn’t have to sit on the hard bench practicing scales on the piano.

She doesn’t have to clean her room.

She doesn’t have to sit beside Aunt Myrtle in the living room smelling her loud perfume or telling her how old she is. Again.

When she puts on creek shoes, she can go down the hill past the falling-down fence by herself.

She can hear the high up birds and the water falling over the rocks.

When Tissie wears creek shoes, she will not cut her foot on broken glass that people have thrown into the creek.

When her aunts and uncles and cousins come at Christmas, they bring their own creek shoes so they can all go to the creek to stay out of the kitchen until Mama takes the turkey out of the oven and puts ice in the glasses.

What some people don’t realize is that creek shoes are magic.

Putting them on makes everybody laugh and forget about the cold day, even Grandmother who has been sad since Grandpapa died.

Creek shoes can walk Tissie to the bridge over the highway where the sun comes up.

They take her to lean against the tree that grows out of the rocks where the sun goes down.

With creek shoes on her feet, she has watched water trickle from a spring under roots on the bank.

She has seen a nest of tiny rabbits hidden under leaves and twigs, waiting for their mother to return.

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With her magic shoes on her feet, Tissie has touched bluets and talked to them, the tiniest blue flowers you’ll ever see.

And green moss that has flowers so small you have to lie on your stomach to see them.

And she even saw a snake curled up beside the fallen log she rides like a horse. And was not afraid.

When her daddy puts on his creek shoes, he is not rushing off to work. He is not reading the newspaper or talking back to the news on tv.

Sometimes, wearing his creek shoes, he brings the minnow seine and finds Tissie. Then they walk together in the creek water dragging the net. They scoop up tadpoles and crawfish and minnows. That they throw back in.

Or sometimes, he brings a slingshot and a pocketful of giant acorns that fall from the tree that hangs over the driveway. He pretends to shoot the high up birds.

He suddenly seems to turn into a boy!

Sometimes, Tissie and her mama put on their creek shoes and yellow slickers and go out in the pouring rain to see the creek become a fast river, whirly and deep. They pick up limbs the wind blew down and throw them in, watching them swirl away.

Other times, Tissie’s mama puts on her shoes and goes alone to a rock in the middle of the creek. She sits wrapping her arms around her knees holding onto her hands to keep them still.

Once, her mama told her, when she was at the creek by herself on a snowy day, and was wearing her creek shoes, there was a great blue heron on the other bank. He looked like a preacher with skinny legs, standing in the icy water.

Mama tiptoed to the curved place where the water widens. The heron and Tissie’s mama stood a long time, gazing at each other.

Her mama said that she stuck out her neck, long, like the heron, lifted her arms in a giant arc, flapped them up and down while the great bird watched. But didn’t fly away. Her mama’s face is soft when she remembers.

Creek shoes ARE magic.

They put off things Tissie doesn’t like to do.

They bring her laughing cousins and make her grandmother smile again. They turn her daddy into a boy she can play with.

They make her mama become a great blue heron flapping her wings.

They are magic.

They let Tissie leave footprints on the muddy bank beside a racoon’s tracks.

Sometimes, when she’s wearing her creek shoes, the woods get so quiet, she hears yellow leaves falling into the flowing water.

Creek Shoes | Barbara Meetze

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3

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The Last Hike

by Hamilton C. Davis

The small white Cessna coasted through voluminous gray clouds on its way to Marietta, South Carolina. Cold air blew from the vents above onto the traveling men.

“Business or pleasure,” a man said. He was wearing a blue two-piece suit and folding an issue of The Wall Street Journal. He tucked it back behind his seat.

“Excuse me,” Jimmy Harlow said breaking his gaze from the rolling green hills of the Carolina countryside. Toy cars buzzed along highways miles below.

“Your trip,” the man said taking off his glasses. “You here for business or something else? I get chatty on these boring flights.” The suit cleaned his glasses and shrugged. “You don’t strike me as the business type if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“I guess it’s pleasure then,” Jimmy said briefly returning his gaze to the window. “Both, maybe.”

A buzzer flashed a red light into the dark interior of the cabin. Antiseptic white plastic glowed an ominous red. Jimmy felt his stomach lurch as the plane nosed down. Marietta Regional lay ahead.

“Me,” the man said. “Business and a conference.” He handed Jimmy a business card. The white rectangle said his name was Mark Peterson. Jimmy frowned as he looked at the card. Mark sold health insurance. Jimmy discarded the card into the trash cubby.

“Family,” Mark said. “Am I right?”

Jimmy turned back to the window not answering immediately. “Something like that.”

“Oh—prying, aren’t I.” “Marietta’s my hometown.”

Mark raised his eyebrow. “Hometown—Marietta. Didn’t think those two words could be used in the same sentence. No offense partner, but I know supermarkets with higher populations.” The man hesitated and then said, “Why return?”

“Life’s funny that way,” Jimmy said.

“What way?”

“Small-town America, I guess,” Jimmy said dropping his gaze to the floor. Small blue and red airplanes buzzed in circles on cheap nylon carpeting. “You escape because there’s nothing there for you.You return when you’ve got no place else to go.”

“Ah,” the man said reaching over for his newspaper again. “Okay, I think I get it.” He flipped open the paper and turned away from Jimmy.

Jimmy doubted that he did.

Coming home to a town you fled felt strange. The feeling was similar to seeing an ex-girlfriend with new kids at some twangy restaurant. The breakup never went smoothly and neither does the reunion.

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September first was the annual hike at Jones Gap. The same was true when he was a kid. The hike was communal and tradition. This year would be the last or so the brochure said. Jimmy guessed attendance was down and the town decided there wasn’t any point in continuing. The reason for the discontinuation of the tradition didn’t matter to Jimmy. The memories weren’t that great.

The invitation had been delivered in secret. A brochure produced on small town presses heralded the end to the trail. A plane ticket was folded inside, all expenses paid. An anonymous note was inside; you need this.

He considered tossing it. He had treatments planned the next day, grueling hours spent in a clinic to be followed up with twelve rounds of vomiting. But something stopped him. Maybe he did need this. His past was coming back to haunt him.

The plane touched down issuing a pulse of blue smoke. Gray tarmac icing slid by his window.

Jimmy stood up crouching beneath the white luggage compartments.

Jimmy was thin, almost emaciated, with a bald head (chemical, not genetic, he would sometimes joke). His sullen eyes sank deep within his taunt face revealing dark lead rings. The man in the suit was hurrying off the plane now. He took one look back at Jimmy and disappeared onto the tarmac. Jimmy Harlow was a sick man.

“As I live and breathe,” a husky voice said. “Jimbo, over here.” A tan hand stuck out and waved. A boy Jimmy once knew was now a man. A thin sheen of stubble caked his face.

“Is it—” “It’s me,” Roger said. Roger Simmons was nearing fifty with pencil markings of gray highlighting his black hair. He had the build of an athletic director.

“Wow, you’ve really trimmed down,” Roger said walking over to Jimmy. Roger considered the greeting and decided it had been a poor choice of words.

“So this was your idea?” Jimmy said.

“Well,” Roger said scratching the back of his head. “Jenny called me. She said you might need—” “This is her doing.” Jimmy shook his head. How did I not see it was her.

“She said you’d come. Said you needed this.You know what it’s like arguing with her.” Roger tried to smile but felt annoyed Jimmy’s sister had kept it a secret from her brother.

“Jenny’s a big city psychologist,” Jimmy said. “Always think they know best.”

“She meant well,” Roger said.

“And I used to change her diapers.”

“She knew what this place, what this hike, meant to you. It’s a chance to reclaim something from your past before, you know, it’s too,” late he wanted to finish but the conversation felt wrong, a bad opening to an old friend.

“You sound like her now,” Jimmy said. “She’s around to lecture but she was never there when I was humiliated. The whole town laughed at me, Roger, year after year.” Roger looked

The Last Hike | Hamilton C. Davis

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down and shuffled his feet.

“This time will be different,” Roger said. “You’re not that fat kid anymore.”

Jimmy looked into the midday sunshine. Sullen gray clouds were masking the bright glow from the day. It’s going to rain he thought. “It’s great to see you, Roger, really. I need this.”

Roger smiled obviously happy at the change of subject. “I hate to rush you,” Roger said glancing at his watch, “but it starts in less than an hour.” The two men walked over to a black van. A bumper sticker reading I Hike Therefore I am was stuck to the rear. Roger stopped as he opened the side-door.

“Jenny said you might need these,” Roger said wincing at Jimmy’s flip-flops and jeans. “I’d say your sister has her good points.” A bundle of new clothes lay heaped on the seat. Brown boots with the tags still attached sat on the floor.

Jimmy climbed into the van moving the clothes aside. He looked up into Roger’s rearview mirror as the van pulled out of the parking lot. Gently lifting up his shirt he looked down at his chest. Coiled belts of bone were visible under his thin skin as he slipped on the clothes. His legs were stilts with meat. He dressed quickly.

“So it’s just Batman and Robin again, huh,” Jimmy said quickly kicking his old clothes, two sizes too big, under the seat.

“Not exactly,” Roger said.

“Huh?” Roger let out a soft chuckle. “Whole gangs here.”

“Everyone?” Jimmy said. He sank down low into his seat.

“I trust that’s okay with you,” Roger said glancing back. “Just thought you’d want to see everyone considering—well, considering your condition and all.” Roger cleared his throat and tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

“It would seem my sister has violated her sibling client agreement,” Jimmy said. Roger drove on in silence flicking nervous glances into the rearview mirror.

“How many know?” Jimmy said.

“Just me,” Roger said. He suddenly regretted calling the others. “I mean, I didn’t tell them about—it. I guessed … Well, you can, if you decide to.”

Jimmy smiled and said it was okay. What Jimmy really wanted was that pinched distortion on Roger’s face to disappear. Jimmy was so tired of that look. It was the, oh, you’ve got cancer look.

They passed beneath green giants and swollen gray boulders as they made their way into the park. Wild blue flowers struggled for sunlight under the carpeted canopy above.

“Hello again,” Jimmy said.

“What’d you say?” Roger said.

Jimmy said it was nothing. But was it? The pain from the tumor was radiating in tight circles inside his stomach augmenting the growing fear he felt inside. His sister might call it therapy.

“Did you ever consider I didn’t want to relive those memories,” Jimmy would say to her.

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The Last Hike | Hamilton C. Davis

“You’re hiding from your past, James,” she would say spinning to face him in her office chair.

“You always do.”

“I was a fat kid. I never had a choice in the annual hike but every year I was laughed off the course. Mom and dad made me go. That’s why I got the hell out of there.”

“It’s tradition, James.”

“Traditions a nightmare when you’re the only fat kid in town.”

“If that’s true,” she would say, “then why’d you go.”

Why did I come? He was dying and he had accepted it. Death was the one past-due bill we all had to pay. But he didn’t have to come. So many bad memories lived here. They approached the crusty old sign announcing You Are Now Entering Jones Gap. Welcome! A smaller sign said the Jones Gap trail was eleven miles long, hikers welcome.

“You believe in facing your demons,” Jimmy said to Roger as they approached the gravel parking lot. The new van jostled over dusty gravel rocks.

“Yeah,” Roger said. “I think I do.” In a soft voice, Roger said, “Is that what this is?” Jimmy paused as the question took on weight and floated between them.

“I guess so,” he said. “Each year I came and each year I failed. Now I don’t have any years left.” Jimmy looked down at his thin, willow legs and felt ashamed. Chopsticks he thought. “Kind of ironic that this year marks the last annual hike. I guess it’s my last hike, too.” Roger glanced into the rearview mirror but did not respond.

They parked in the lot and were greeted by a group of adults that bore odd resemblances to the children Jimmy remembered. It was like that movie: Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Except the actors in this script had been victims of time and not alien invasion.

“You join some monastery up there, Jimmy boy,” Bill Plano said stepping out of a large black truck. “Rail thin, baby.” Roger tightened his face at this remark.

Bill towered over the two men as they exited the van. He was shaped like a bear standing on hind legs and wore a blue shirt that said, Not only Alpha, Omega too. For all the impending size and stature Bill Plano had been the nicest kid in school, even if his run-ins with the law had left Jimmy’s parents cringing each time the two left together. Bill had enjoyed the finer things in life as a child. It was paying for them he had trouble coming to terms with.

“Yeah, lost a few,” Jimmy said dropping his gaze. “Just as big as ever, I see.”

“You know me,” Bill said giving Jimmy a meaty handshake.

“Ever become a pro-wrestler?”

Bill laughed and Jimmy watched his chest heave in and out in thickly muscled contractions.

“Nah, never happened,” Bill flashed Jimmy a sly smile. “Became a cop, instead.”

A small, thin man meandered around Bill’s truck fastidiously avoiding the patches of wet ground from the previous night’s rain. Robert Jenkins approached the group timidly. He did not look happy.

“Laser surgery,” Robert said speaking his first words to Jimmy in over thirty years. “Got

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tired of the,” he made a circle gesture in front of his face.

“Got rid of the specs,” Jimmy said. “Good to see you.”

Robert offered a wan smile and swatted away a buzzing fly. “Yeah, ditto. Didn’t think I’d ever see you here again.”

Same old Robert. “Neither did I,” Jimmy said.

“Well, we’re here,” Robert said turning to Bill. “I’m already sweating and it’s going to rain.”

Robert frowned glancing at his watch.

“Perfect host as always,” Bill said looking at Robert. The man who looked like an accountant on safari sneered back at him.

“Forget about me?” a soft voice said from behind Roger’s van. Jane Jerkins stepped forward wearing cut-off jeans and a white tee.

“How could I,” Jimmy said smiling. “Been too long, Janey.”

Jane was tall, blonde, and very athletic. From the size of the fat diamond swaddling her finger she was very unavailable, too, Jimmy thought. Her brown hiking boots were scarred and caked in old mud.

“Well someone had to keep you boys in line,” she said giving Jimmy her patent pouty smile.

“Still stealing men’s hearts, I see,” Jimmy quipped at her.

“Retired,” she said holding up her left hand. The diamond produced starlight on the gray afternoon.

“We ready?” Roger said wrapping his arms around Jimmy’s and Jane’s shoulders.

“About that,” Robert said. “We sure about this?” Robert looked up wearily at the darkening sky.

“Afraid of a little water,” Bill said rifling his big hand through Robert’s streamlined hair. Robert scowled and slapped Bill’s hand away. Bill made a pouting face.

Roger looked over at Jimmy. “Should be fine if we go now.” His face was not confident.

Jimmy peered up at the thunderheads moving slowly across the sky and pressed his hand against the burning heat in his stomach. It had to rain. Three-hundred miles by plane in pursuit of some lost childhood dream and it had to rain. God’s little punchlines.

The group shuffled around parked cars as they maneuvered their gear.

“Went hog-wild with the catalog,” Bill said peering into the trunk of Robert’s black Mercedes. Five neatly arranged duffle bags were zipped open as Robert selected various hiking equipment.

“Unlike some, I come prepared,” Robert said. “But I can see you prefer all-natural, Billy.”

Bill leaned in close to Robert. “You think you’ll need my gun?” Bill was whispering now. “I’ve got handcuffs, too.” Bill leaned back smiling revealing his big white teeth. “If that’s your thing.”

“Remove one item from the trunk and I call the cops.”

“Lucky for you,” Bill said. “You’ve got one right here.”

Jimmy looked over at Jane as she shouldered a rustic looking satchel. There was a stitched

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The Last Hike | Hamilton C. Davis

peace sign fraying on the rear of the pack.

“Found it abandoned on a trail in Arizona,” she said looking back at him. “Bitching, right?

Probably belonged to some peacenik from the sixties. At least I’d like to think so.”

A small scale explosion of pain rocked inside Jimmy’s waist as they approached the mouth of the trail. He stopped walking and rifled through his pants listening for that familiar dead-tone jingle.

“What’s wrong,” Jane said walking over to him.

Jimmy winced as the pain dug in its heels. “I needed something.” He slapped his pockets expecting to hear the pain pills respond but got only flat percussion in return.

“I guess I forgot them,” Jimmy said. “I’m fine.” A ribbon of sweat broke out on his forehead.

It’s going to be a long hike.

The Jones Gap main trail snaked across the hilly landscape like a broken snake trying to make concentric circles. The mouth of the serpent was open wide in a green maw of bushy trees and gnarled roots. Jimmy always thought of Frodo and Samwise beginning their journey as he ducked his head under the wiry, moist fingers of those trees.

“You ready,” Roger said to the group but looking at Jimmy. Jimmy said he was.

“Eleven miles up,” Bill said taking the lead.

“Eleven miles down,” the group responded. The first three miles meandered around scenic heights and sloping hills. Fat tree trunks sat idly by the trail. A hiker in this old forest felt small and alone even among friends. Jimmy took it slow glancing up at the charcoal sky every so often.

“Where is everybody?” Jane asked as she grabbed hold to a low-hanging branch and swung herself over a fat rock. “Place is deserted for—you know, the last hike.”

“Television,” Robert said with disdain. He was gently sliding over the swollen face of the rock.

“Television,” Bill said. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Too much of it,” Robert said. “You wanted to know why no one was here. The answer is television. They’re closing it, you know.”

“I know,” Bill said. “It was in the paper.”

“Welcome to the digital age,” Robert said. “Kids now watch videos of people hiking.”

“Kids watch videos of kids watching videos,” Jane said.

“Hiking,” Bill said nearly spitting out the word. “When’s the last time you saw kids playing outside.”

“Kid’s don’t hike anymore,” Roger said. “Or play outside for that matter. Mine don’t. Their worlds exist on screen now.”

“You really think that’s better, Roger,” Robert said.

“Never said I did. Doesn’t make it less true, though.”

The group moved on in silence. On the second mile, they came upon a stone wall rising up from the rocky soil. The composite surface was painted black from mold and weather.

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“CCC,” Jane said running her hand across the damp stone. “Civilian Conservation Corps built this.” She touched an inscription dug into the stone. Doug, 1933.

“Hi, Doug,” Jane said. Her fingertip laced the grimy groove of the writing.

“Why bother,” Bill said mounting his heavy boot on a granite strut sticking out from the wall.

“So you’d have to climb it, dummy.” Jane flashed Bill a smile. “Our grandparent’s generation built this. It’s old. Meaningful.”

“It’s a wall,” Robert said.

“Always scared me as a kid,” Jimmy said as Bill pulled himself up.

Jane looked at Jimmy. “Because you were …”

“You can say it,” Jimmy said. “Fat.” “Very fat,” Robert said trying to find a way around the wall. Bill shot him a dark look.

“This thing nearly beat me every time,” Jimmy said looking back behind him. This time there were no children, laughing and pointing. “Just too big.”

“You or the wall,” Robert said laughing. He laughed alone.

“Well you’re not now,” Jane said siding next to Jimmy. “Only people here now are friends.”

The group mounted the old stones and worked their way up. Jimmy looked back and down into the receding forest. Pockets of shifting leaves skirted in the wind as the storm drew closer.

Milky gray torrents condensed into swollen black clouds as the group rounded mile number five, and it wasn’t until they reached the little brown sign that read mile six that the first rain drops began to fall. Heavy, fat drops fell lazily from pregnant clouds as they marched up the trail.

“Raining now,” Bill said quickly pulling his hand back from a poison ivy root, a brown, fuzzy mass of arms stubbornly gripping bark.

“I can see now why you’re a cop,” Robert said. “Attention to detail.” Jane nudged Robert with her elbow.

“Only—,” Roger looked up mouthing silent words, “four-point-eight miles left to the summit.”

“I’ve never been this far before,” Jimmy said wiping a drop of rain from his eye.

“The rocky river,” Roger said looking at Jimmy. “We passed it. Did you see it?”

“Yeah,” Jimmy said. “I remember.”

“Rocky river,” Robert said. His interest momentarily peaked.

“Let it rest,” Roger said. Bill seconded the motion.

“What,” Robert said. “ I can’t ask questions now. Why did I even bother—” “I got hurt,” Jimmy said looking back at the dead, dry river bed. Blankets of smooth stone shone bluntly in the gray light of the day. “Nearly broke my ankle. I had to be carried down the mountain.”

“So,” Robert said. “What’s so bad about that.”

“The adults that carried me down thought it would be funny to make a joke out of the deal.”

Jimmy pressed firmly against his waist as the pain threatened to stoke again. “I was mostly out of

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it from the pain. They carried me down the mountain with my pants down. I heard about it the next day at school.” I also cried for a week he wanted to say.

“We didn’t know they were going to do that,” Jane said shuffling her feet.

“I know,” Jimmy said. “Neither did I. There’s always been a mean streak here in Marietta. It’s hidden but there. That’s why I left.”

“So, why return?” Robert asked. Jimmy looked to the dry bed but didn’t respond.

“I think it’s about to get serious,” Jane said looking up.

Lightning raced across the dark sky as white fingers of hot plasma stole their vision. The burst spread out and down into the surrounding hills, a percussion of heavy thuds and whip cracks. The wind became spiteful.

“They say you should never hike in a thunderstorm,” Robert said repositioning his pack. His stature appeared smaller in the dark forest.

“We’ll be fine,” Jane said. “Just don’t stand under any trees.”

Robert looked around at the towering pines and shuttered. Jane turned back to the trail concealing a grin.

The mountain trail became an obstacle course as soggy pits of mud formed and grew with the heavy dose of rain. Jimmy dropped back from second place, to third, and then fourth as the gnawing pain began to steal from him. A patch of dark sweat was seated against the backs of each traveler and Jimmy felt his nerve waning as his breathing began to stagger. Thin cords of muscle ached and burned from the lack of oxygen.

“Ok,” Bill said. “Next four miles are tough. With this,” he pointed to the sky as a flash of lightning lit the edges of the forest, “it’s going to be tougher.”

“Incline is going to be a problem,” Roger said retying his boots.

“Don’t forget the trail is now a river,” Jane said. “We need to stay close, move single-file.”

She could barely hear herself over the thunder. Clumps of thick mud grabbed hold of their boots as streams of colliding sticks, leaves, and small stones ran freely down the impromptu river.

“What is it about planned events that always invite disaster,” Jimmy said grabbing hold and almost losing grip of a wild root. He felt Jane’s hand press firmly against his back. Cold rain thumped his shoulders.

“Law of nature,” Bill said. “He who seeks the sun shall find rain. Something like that.”

“I think you mean Murphy’s Law,” Jane said.

“I think he means we should have turned back at the first drop,” Robert said sullenly. He was frowning looking down at his muddy boots.

“And miss the adventure,” Jane said bounding over a heavy fallen limb.

“Screw the adventure,” Robert said. “Why’d you invite me anyway.”

“Because we grew up together,” Roger said. “We have a history here. The trail closes down tomorrow, Robert. It’s now or never.”

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Robert slipped on a rock and cursed. “I had a history in this town. It’s why I left.”

Jane placed a hand on Robert’s back to steady him. “We loved you. We never cared that you were … different.” Silence erupted as swollen drops of rain pattered against the forest floor.

Jimmy listened to the conversation remotely. His legs moved, his arms swung, but his mind was captured solely by the pain eating away at him. Snippets of conversation broke through the hot barrier.

“Isn’t easy … gay…in town,” Robert said.

“That’s why … friends … loved you,” Jane said.

A scream, harsh and fallow, shocked Jimmy from his trance. Jimmy looked up to see Robert tumbling down the trail. His body contorted into unfamiliar shapes as he crashed into bushes and somersaulted into rich pockets of mud. Roger grabbed for him, lost his balance, and fell. Bill’s mouth widened in terror as he watched Robert fall towards the cliff below. Robert’s head came down hard on a sharp rock, a muddy line of blood formed on his brow.

“Rob,” Jimmy screamed reaching out with his right hand. “Catch my hand!” Robert was now sliding down the trail on the seat of his pants and screaming as rocks and sticks flew out from behind him. A crazy thought occurred to Jimmy; Robert was riding the derby down the mountain, seat first.

“I ca—can’t,” Robert said. His voice oscillating with the bumps and bruises forming on his rear.

“Now!” Jimmy swung out his hand and caught Robert by his shirt. Jimmy screamed in pain as the momentum of Robert’s fall nearly dislocated his arm.

“Pull me up,” Robert yelled. “Pull me up!” His eyes were wide and hot with terror.

“I need … help,” Jimmy said feeling Robert’s hand slip in the slick mud. Thunder screamed in the distance. Jimmy’s vision blurred.

“Gotcha,” Jane said.

Jimmy felt a tug on his belt as cold fingers pressed against his back. From behind Jane came another gotcha, and from behind her another. The middle-aged adventurers were executing a human chain as hands extended and then contracted pulling each other back from the void. They collapsed breathing heavily as rain washed their muddy faces. Robert was encapsulated in the thick gruel.

“I didn’t see that in the brochure,” Jane said laying back onto the trail.

“Neither did I,” Robert said sourly. They all broke into laughter.

Disaster averted the group moved on slowly. Cold rain soaked their clothes as harsh wind pulled them away from the trail. There were no animals visible now. They had gone to their burrows.

“Jim,” Roger said looking back. “You okay, buddy?”

“Yeah, you look a bit pale,” Jane said. “You ate something this morning, right? Rules of exertion, honey: hydration and energy. I’ve got some …” Jane looked at Jimmy and in slow motion

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opened her mouth to scream. Jimmy was falling backward, his hands clutching his stomach. His eyes rolled up revealing blank white slots.

“I think he’s having a heart attack,” Jane said frantically catching him as he fell.

“I … can’t breathe,” Jimmy said at last. His vision was blurry. Jane’s white face became the moon. “God, the pain. It’s eating me. Jesus Christ, it’s eating me.” Jimmy closed his eyes as he heard splashing footsteps surround him. The pain was unspeakable.

“What is it,” Jane said. “What’s eating him?” Her eyes were bloodshot and wild.

“Cancer,” Roger said walking up to them. He was standing over Jimmy. His head was low. The word hung motionless in the air gathering immensity like the storm clouds above.

“Cancer,” Jane said. It was a question and a statement. She looked down furrowing her brow and then looked up to Roger. “Your call on the phone,” she looked back into Jimmy’s eyes. “You said this was important. Now I see why.You should have told me.”

Roger stumbled for something to say but couldn’t. These situations were not his strong suit.

“This was his last chance to beat the trail,” Bill said. Roger nodded slowly.

Robert frowned. “So what you’re saying is we got invited to some bucket list in the middle of nowhere. Thanks.” He turned away from the group kicking a stone into the forest.

“Shut-it, Robert,” Jane said. He could be a real jerk sometimes she thought. She embraced Jimmy as the rain pattered briskly on her pack making soft taps. The poorly stitched peace sign hung precariously to one side.

“Why didn’t you tell us,” Bill said leaning down. Jimmy felt his body ascend as the big man lifted him. Tendrils of muddy water dripped off Jimmy and into the stormy pools below. “Can you finish? There’s no shame in it, pal.”

The pain had subsided into a dull flare of hot temper in his stomach. The back of his throat tasted of copper. He looked at the soggy, gnarled trail and it looked back at him. God’s little punchlines; maybe now I’ll be carried up the mountain instead of down.

“I let this trail beat me,” Jimmy said. His voice was a feather in strong wind. “No,” he shook his head. “I let it define me.”

Jimmy dropped his feet balancing himself loosely. He felt the pain recede to a dull roar. “I used my weight as an excuse most of my life. I can’t let cancer become that now.” He suddenly realized his sister was right. “I need to finish this.”

“You realize the next stretch is murder,” Robert said. “Why risk it?”

“I’ve got nothing left to lose,” Jimmy said. “When you’re facing the end I guess you try and find meaning in life. This place, this trail, affected me my whole life. My sister saw it. I guess now I see it, too.”

Roger looked into his friend’s eyes. The sunken wells of dull gray were contorted in a plastered pitch of resolution. There was pain there, but there was also hardness in those eyes. The old-timers called it grit. Jimmy’s sister called it stubbornness.

“Jim,” Roger said. “It’s your call. We’re with you either way.” Roger looked to Robert who

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was now sulking off to the side. “We are all with you.”

“You ready?” Bill said.

“Yes,” Jimmy said. “I’ve come this far.”

“Then you can go a little further.” Bill stretched out his long-fingered hand and took Jimmy’s.

The grip was soft but firm. Jimmy had the feeling Bill could crush with those pincers.

“Okay,” Jane said. Her lip was red from gnawing.

The last mile before them was pockmarked with canals dug out by temporary hands of running water. Roots previously buried beneath rich soil lay bare and twisted, long, brown fingers menacing passing boots. Ancient trees stood guard as bursts of lightning flashed fluorescent green among the canopies.

Visible from their position was the summit. The anti-climatic peak of the trail was barren except a single brown pole sticking up from the top. A wind-torn American flag flapped harshly in the wind. All three of Jimmy’s friends watched anxiously as he stepped forward drunkenly towards the top. His hand firmly pressed to one side.

A tune rose up softly against the backdrop of wind and rain as Jane began to hum, rocking herself slowly back and forth. Jimmy bore down hard on his legs feeling muscles grip him in the threatening negotiation of an oncoming cramp. I’m losing it. I’m losing it at the foot of the summit.

A quarter of a mile back Jimmy’s throat began to close in coppery vice-grips. He could taste blood and the sensation was sickening. The pain was there, but it had transformed. His hungry friend had grown appendages and was now jiving up and down his midsection in some dark dance. His vision had grown cloudy. His body was submerged in some painful nightmare.

He turned and spat. A clot of red tissue landed on the ground. He wondered absent-mindedly if the clot had been important, a gnawed remnant of his body discarded by the stomach cancer that had recently metastasized.

“I can’t,” Jimmy said hearing his voice from another plane, somewhere dark and distant. His breathing was coming in spasms now.

“You can,” Bill said gripping Jimmy’s shoulder. “Now or never.”

“Stop it,” Jane said. “Can’t you see he needs a doctor!” Lightning struck a tree nearby and the ground shook with the collapsing weight. Robert screamed loudly.

Jimmy looked into Bill’s eyes. His old friend, the cop, had a look of hard encouragement. “Do it,” Bill said. His voice commanding, judicial.

Jimmy looked off into the blurry dark halls of Jones Gap. The summit was near, so close now.

His mother came to him. He was ten again and she was sitting in the bed next to him while he sobbed. His foot wrapped in cotton wrappings courtesy of the rocky river bed.

“God makes us who we are,” she had said looking away from his bloodshot eyes.

“I’m a joke in this town,” he had screamed at her. He remembered wanting to die then.

“Then change it,” she had said getting up off the bed. “You’re no prisoner.”

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Jimmy bent over and spat out another angry red clot. He lifted back his head and breathed in deeply. His mother wasn’t much of a comfort to him, but she was right. He wasn’t a prisoner.

He stood back up feeling his knees quake and shuffle. I’m no prisoner.

Bill watched his friend mount the last steps to the summit grunting with each footfall. “Go for it, kiddo.”

“Bill,” Jane said beginning to cry. “Stop him.” Robert opened his mouth to speak but decided to keep it shut. He would watch and wait. For what, he didn’t know.

“He’s got to face his demons, Janey,” Bill said. “We all do eventually.”

“Come on, Jim,” Roger said. “Do it.”

A half-mile became a quarter. A quarter became an eighth. A lifetime of second- guesses and half-measures rounded down to the remainder of only a few yards. Jimmy stepped onto the base of the summit, released a hot burst of incubated breath, and then collapsed.

“He needs us,” Jane started to run to Jimmy, to grab him, to hold him, or do anything. Roger caught her by the waist. She struggled in his arms watching Jimmy fight for air. Mud splattered up from the soaked summit and washed against his white shirt.Voices swirled inside Jimmy’s mind.

“You’re no prisoner,” his mother’s voice said.

“You need closure in your life,” his sister said. She was whirling back and forth in her leather office chair smiling at him.

“Now or never,” Bill’s voice said.

Jimmy crawled slowly up the summit’s bank, stubby palms making art in the compacting mud.

The wind screamed around him as the storm refused to release them. Hot, wet breaths tore through his lungs as a single dirty finger rose and caressed the hard silk of the old wooden pole.

He was here. He had made it.

The final act of his attrition had left Jimmy lying on his back watching the swollen black clouds depart off into the distance to entertain some other traveling band. His throat produced a rattle, low and rude. He saw his friends descend around him in some slow historic reel from a bygone era. He could not hear them, but he felt their collective warmth.

A lone thin cloud moved southward exposing hot, white light from the hidden sun as rain turned to drizzle. The solar beam anchored itself on the group exposing a slim rainbow sheen in the sky. They held hands as friends. They embraced as the children they had once been on that last hike at Jones Gap. Jimmy closed his eyes as his body sank into the soil of his birthplace. I’m no longer a prisoner he thought. Thank you.

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HM

Mother’s Day

by Mark A. Stevens

Delores Hartman flinched as the door slammed behind her. She didn’t want to wake the baby. Not that chances were good that little Micah would be sleeping. He seemed to do it so rarely, after all.

She was right. Micah wasn’t sleeping, but, praise God, he wasn’t crying.

Delores plopped two bags on the kitchen table and gave a half-smile to her daughter, Janice, curled up in the plaid recliner, holding a bottle for her nine-week-old baby. Micah suckled hard, oblivious to his grandmother’s entrance.

“Janice,” Delores said, “come look what I got at the TG&Y.” “I’m busy, Momma.”

“Hush up, you’re not busy. My grandson’s busy putting away that milk. He’s going to be a football player, I tell you.”

Delores tore into a shopping bag.

“Look at this!” she said, holding up a pair of tiny overalls emblazoned with a jaunty locomotive.

“Isn’t it perfect? I just had to buy it, and it wasn’t even on sale. Since Micah is part of a railroad family, well, he had to have his very own engineer’s uniform.”

Janice reached up and pulled the baby outfit closer.

“I guess it’ll fit,” she said.

“Of course, it will. I know how to buy clothes for my grandson, and, looky here, it comes with a matching hat!”

With great flair, Delores pulled out a blue-and-white cap, using her upturned fist as a makedo head. She turned her fist back and forth as the hat – a tiny version of a cap her father might have worn years ago when he fired steam engines for the railroad – whipped back and forth.

“Oh, Momma! That is cute! But he’s got plenty of outfits.”

“He didn’t have anything good enough for church.”

“Church!”

“That’s right.You and my grandson are going with me to church tomorrow, and you both need to look your best. It’s going to be a big day for me. Well, and for you and Micah.”

“Momma, I don’t want to go to church. I don’t want all those people staring at me, pretending that they’ve not been whispering behind my back for the last few months.”

Delores got her purse, pulled out a pack of Camels, and tapped it loudly on the table to retrieve a fresh cigarette. Her lips caressed the still-unlit cigarette as she bent over the recliner.

“Hear me good. This family is going to church for Mother’s Day, and ain’t nobody going to take from us what will rightfully be ours.”

Delores put her left arm on her hip and said, “You better burp that baby good.”

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————— Carvers Branch Freewill Baptist Church was only a mile from Delores’ house. It was one of four country churches on the seven-mile Carvers Branch Road. Southern Baptist, a Missionary Baptist and a Church of Christ made up the other denominations. Tennessee was Protestant country. Delores couldn’t tell you the differences between them. She was brought up a Freewill Baptist, just as her parents had been and their parents before them. She’d never asked why. Just never seemed to matter.

None of this is to say that Delores was “a religious person.” She’d been saved when she was 13, and baptized one frigid April in a Carvers Branch fishing hole. Delores had always felt a little cheated; while others wept after being dunked, she was just relieved to get out. She kept thinking a trout was probably swimming up her dress – or, worse yet, a snake. But it was too cold for snakes, and probably trout, too, but that’s what Delores was thinking rather than about the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

So she was never sure if the baptism actually took. Jesus probably didn’t save people who thought about snakes when they should be thinking about Heaven. Delores had kept this to herself. She often thought she should pray about it, but God already knew she was a disappointment.

Besides, all the fine religious folk at Carvers Branch Freewill Baptist Church weren’t the best Christians in the world. The Pope was probably a better Christian than most of them, if Roman Catholics are Christians, she thought. But Delores didn’t really know or care.

When Janice got pregnant, the ladies at Carvers Branch treated Delores and Janice like they had leprosy. Janice might as well have been carrying the alien from that Sigourney Weaver movie.

The Ladies Auxiliary couldn’t have been any less horrified to learn that one of the church’s own members was unmarried and with child.

Judith Johnson, president of the Ladies Auxiliary, was first to make it clear just how disappointed everyone was in Janice and the Hartman family. It happened in August in the frozen-food aisle at Winn-Dixie.

Delores hadn’t noticed someone making a beeline for her until Judith’s overflowing buggy was right upon her and her meager collection of Tostino’s Pizza Rolls, Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks, and two packs of bologna.

“Delores, honey,” Judith said, in her annoying, lilting voice, “how’s poor Janice?”

“She’s fine – just having weird cravings.”

Looking into Delores’ buggy, Judith frowned. “I see that.”

“Well, no, the fish sticks are for me, and, well, Randy likes bologna sandwiches and the pizza rolls. But I don’t need to explain my grocery list to you, Judith!”

“Heavens, no! Honey, I shouldn’t have said that. I know this is a tough time for y’all.”

“There are worse things in life than having a baby.”

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Judith frowned. “I suppose that’s true. She’s just so young, and, gosh, Delores you’re too young to be a grandmother. That’s going to be something else to hear some little whippersnapper calling you Granny.”

“There are worse things in life than to be a grandmother, too. I’ve got more shopping to do, and I don’t want my fish sticks to thaw, which is not really possible being close to you.”

“Delores Hartman! Why, I never! I was trying to make polite conversation. Most people probably wouldn’t even talk to you.”

“No one has to talk to me. It’s not like anyone from the auxiliary ever asked me to your daddy’s hotel for brunch at the Williamsburg Tea Room. I’ve never been good enough, and now my 15-year-old is pregnant. If it wasn’t so unChristian, I would have guessed every one of you had taken bets on how bad a parent I’d turn out to be.”

“Delores, we certainly never thought about gambling.You’re talking crazy.”

“Good day, Judith. I’ll be sure to tell Janice you send your best.”

As Delores turned, Judith put her hand on the buggy, pulling it to a stop.

“Delores,” Judith said, her look stern, her voice no longer lilting, “the auxiliary can’t possibly host a baby shower for Janice. She committed adultery.”

Delores pushed Judith’s hand from the buggy.

“We don’t need a shower from holier-than-thou hypocrites. Now get out of my way before I cram a pack of bologna down your throat.”

Delores made it to the end of the aisle before she broke down in tears. By the time she got to her car, though, the hurt had turned to anger.

But that was months ago. Now it was time to blow things sky high.

————— Delores tapped lightly as she opened the door to Janice’s room. Janice was combing her brown hair. Addressing her mother’s reflection in the dresser’s mirror, Janice said, “I can’t believe you’re making me go to church.”

Ignoring the insolence, Delores said, “I want to walk to church. We can put Micah in his stroller. It’s too nice to pack him in the car.”

“Oh, my God! Not only do I have to go to church, now we’re pretending this is ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ Momma, only old people who never learned how to drive walk to church.”

“Don’t fight me every step! Besides, Micah will love it.”

Delores made her way to the other side of the room where Micah, dressed in his new clothes and hat, was surprisingly silent and awake. He looked perfect. Delores tickled her grandson’s tummy and said, “I can’t believe I’m 36 and a grandmother.Your mommy has made me old before my time. I’m a crotchety old granny. Might as well walk to church with all the other old people.”

Janice slammed her hairbrush down. “Momma, you may be crotchety, but you’re not that

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old.”

The living-room clock chimed once, signaling that it was 30 minutes past the hour.

“We’ve got to go!” Delores said. “It’s going to be crowded. Get your son. Let’s hit the pavement.”

A spring breeze was in the air, the temperature in the mid-60s. A perfect day for a walk, Delores thought.

————— The church, built seven decades ago from river rock pulled from Carvers Branch, sat atop Honeycutt Hill. Today, Delores knew, the church pews would be filling up. Not even the most heathen of children of church-going mommas dared to miss church on Mother’s Day. It may not be a religious holiday, she had often said, but it is, in the South, sacred. It was one thing to sass your momma.You might even be forgiven for slapping your momma, but not showing up to church with your momma on Mother’s Day was downright sinful.

By the time Janice and Delores, who had insisted on pushing Micah’s stroller, made it to the top of the hill, Delores was sweating and wondering why she had thought it a good idea to walk to church.

Pastor Rich Bartlett, skinny, balding, kind, raised his hands and said, “Delores, how wonderful it is to see you!”

Bending down to Micah’s stroller, he said, “This must be the new addition to the Hartman clan! Looks like he could pull a train already.”

Delores beamed.

“You bet, Preacher Rich! Isn’t he the cutest thing? Janice just insisted we walk to church and make the most of this day God has given us.”

Janice rolled her eyes.

“Of course,” Bartlett said. “God could have made it a few degrees cooler.”

Delores dabbed at her forehead. “Oh, I’m just so happy to be here. I hadn’t noticed the heat.

C’mon, Janice, let’s get inside. Wonderful to see you again, Preacher.”

Mother’s Day at a Freewill Baptist Church was better attended than Christmas services and even bigger than the Easter Sunrise sermon. Mothers arrived in new dresses and big, bright hats.

Pews that usually hosted no more than four, five or six made room for eight, nine or ten.

The church was evenly divided with 12 sets of pews on both sides of a long aisle leading to the altar, where many sinners had been saved after the weekly song of invitation. At the front were four elevated rows for the choir – sopranos in front, tenors next, altos on the third and, finally, the men – the bass – on the fourth row. At front center was the preacher’s pulpit and the altar, emblazoned with the words, “Do This In Remembrance Of Me.” To the far right sat the church secretary, Geraldine Carter, who, for Mother’s Day, was dressed in a bright yellow skirt and matching jacket, both outlined in black. Delores thought Geraldine looked like a bumble

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bee, especially considering that her hat was pointed on top. Looks like the stinger, Delores said to herself. For 52 years, Geraldine had kept the record of attendance and offerings. A wooden board showed the numbers for “Last Week,” “This Week” and, at the bottom, a single line for “Record Attendance,” which read 183. From the look of the day’s crowd, Delores thought that record could be broken.

She handed Micah to Janice and walked into the sanctuary.

“Let’s go right here,” Delores said, pointing to the third pew from the back on the right side.

So far, it was occupied only by Rosalyn Allen, Bonnie Newton, and Nikki Arden. In their late 20s and still unmarried, the three could be counted on to chatter through every service about God only knows what. They cooed over Micah before returning to their whispered conversation.

Once seated, Delores took it all in – it was what she had been waiting on for months. On this Sunday, the front of the church looked like a floral shop. In front of the altar were six giant floral arrangements, each pinned with a large pink envelope and adorned with a pink sash bearing the words Happy Mother’s Day written with Elmer’s Glue and glitter.

Rosalyn, Bonnie and Nikki had already started a discussion on the flowers.

“Those flowers are so big, you’d think we’d come to a funeral,” Rosalyn said.

“Lord, I know,” Bonnie replied.

“It smells like a funeral,” Nikki said. “Funerals smell like flowers, you know, like a florist smells. I don’t even like to go into a floral shop. Smells like a funeral.”

“This does smell like a funeral,” Rosalyn said.

“Lord, I know,” Bonnie said.

Delores questioned why she ever thought it a good idea to sit near those three motormouths, but she had a good view, and the vantage point was the important thing. It would give her the perfect view of Judith Johnson’s ugly face.

It was now 11 a.m. Time for the service to begin. A large black rope hung from the ceiling just inside the entrance to the sanctuary, and Samuel Doty had taken his usual position and begun to tug on the rope. As he did, the church bell rang out, clanging with every pull of the rope.

Preacher Rich was the first inside, followed by a dozen or more men, who had stayed outside as long as possible to smoke.

Some members of the congregation made their way to their assigned seating in the choir.

Everyone settled in as if they’d all been part of a Broadway play rehearsed a million times. With the choir in place, the remaining congregants were seated and attentive. Unruly children were tapped on their foreheads and met with such a stern look that no words were needed.

The choir sang three songs but remained stationed until Elmer Hampton, Sunday School superintendent, gave his welcome.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Elmer said, “and, best of all, it’s Mother’s Day. And just look at all these beautiful women here today. Why, there’s not a fashion show in Paris that could beat what we have right here.”

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Giggles spread through the church, probably congregants trying to figure out what Elmer could possibly know about a fashion show or France, but he was just getting started.

“If you’re a visitor here today,” Elmer said, “we welcome you to our fashion show, I mean, our church.”

The sanctuary erupted in laughter, and Elmer, with the slightest of grins, knew he’d done it again – served not only as superintendent but also as comedian in residence.

“This is the day the Lord has made. Isn’t it marvelous? Can I get an amen?”

And he did. “Amen!” “Amen!” “Amen!” echoed throughout the church.

“Ladies,” Elmer continued, “we have something special for all of you. We have a red rose for every mother, and we have pink roses for the ladies who aren’t mothers.”

With that, the men who made up the bass line in the choir walked down, each holding a basket of long-stem roses, stopping at each pew to deliver the appropriate flower to every woman.

Delores held her red rose and took in a deep whiff. It smelled like victory, her thought interrupted momentarily by Rosalyn, Bonnie and Nikki.

“Another year, another pink rose,” Rosalyn said.

“Lord, I know,” Bonnie replied.

“Pink is my favorite color,” Nikki concluded, not convincingly.

With the roses distributed, Elmer continued.

“We will get to our Mother’s Day awards at the end of Preacher Rich’s sermon, but I want to remind everyone that following today’s services, we will meet at the picnic shelter for lunch.

Because it’s Mother’s Day, we couldn’t ask the women of the church to cook, so we’ve ordered box lunches of Kentucky Fried Chicken and Long John Silver’s, so you’ve got your pick of chicken or fish.”

With that, Elmer stopped and raised his hands in the air. He looked serious.

“Now I understand that some of these ladies did manage to make a few desserts. Am I right?”

“Yes!” “Yes!” came reply after reply.

“You see,” Elmer said, “the ladies were prepared to let the men order the food, but they were not prepared to let them make dessert. And that’s the real reason, we’re honoring mothers today, because it’s really mother who knows best.”

“Amen!” someone called out.

Elmer turned the service over to Preacher Rich, who said, “Aren’t you glad to be in the House of the Lord?”

“Yes!” “Yes!” and “Amen!” “Amen!” rang out. Geez, Delores thought, they did the same thing for banana pudding and the other desserts. Then it occurred to her Delores that her baptism must not have taken hold. But it hardly mattered; today she was on a mission – one she’d envisioned since that day at the Winn-Dixie. And Judith Johnson was going to suck it up and deal with it. Waiting through Preacher Rich’s sermon was nearly intolerable. For 25 minutes, he talk-

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ed, read scripture and talked some more.

There were no words more welcome to Delores than to hear him say, “As I conclude today’s sermon.”

“Amen,” Delores said under her breath. “It’s about damn time.” Again, she reflected guiltily, her baptism had not been set in concrete.

Preacher Rich continued. “I’m going to turn the service back over to Elmer and Cecil Walters, our senior deacon, to present our special Mother’s Day awards.”

Cecil, who always sat on the front right pew, shuffled over and stood in front of the altar.

Elmer took a place at his side.

“It’s wonderful to be here,” the 84-year-old deacon said, “and I can tell you there’s not been a day of my life that I didn’t love my mother. She died 37 years ago, and I still miss her. There’s nothing like a mother’s love.”

He dabbed a handkerchief to his eyes.

“Bless him!” “Bless him!” “Bless him!” sang throughout the church.

“What we are about to do is the real blessing,” Cecil said. “It’s my favorite thing I do all year at the church – give out these special awards for some very special mothers. We are going to honor the mother with the most children present today, the grandmother with the most grandchildren present today, the oldest mother in attendance, and the youngest mother in attendance.”

Only then did it dawn on Janice what was about to happen, why her mother had been insistent that they attend church today. “Ain’t nobody going to take from us what will rightfully be ours,” Delores had said.

Janice turned to her mother and whispered, “How could you do this to me?”

Delores glared.

“This is your day, Janice. Those flowers right up front are yours, and all those people who snickered about you, well, they can eat crow, because today, the church is going to honor you!

Now you hush up. Not another word.You hear me?”

Up front, Cecil and Elmer were getting the ceremony underway.

“Before we begin,” Cecil said, “one of these beautiful arrangements is for Mary, Preacher Rich’s wife. She’s not only a wonderful mother to Tom and Anne, but she’s also the mother of our little church, too.”

The congregation applauded as Mary went to the front of the church. Elmer handed her the pink envelope from the bouquet on the far left and said, “Mary, let’s find out what’s in that envelope. It’s like I’m Bob Barker, and this is ‘The Price Is Right’.”

Mary grinned.

“To find out what’s in our envelopes this year, I’ll ask Ladies Auxiliary President Judith Johnson to come up here. This wouldn’t happen without Judith and her ladies.”

Judith took her place at Elmer’s side.

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Mother’s Day | Mark A. Stevens

“Mary,” Judith said, “and all you lucky mommas winning these flower arrangements today, you are also taking home some real goodies. Inside the envelopes, you’ve got movie passes for four to the Bonnie Kate Theatre, a free cake of your choice from Variety Bakery, and, from yours truly, a gift certificate for Saturday brunch at the Williamsburg Tea Room.”

The congregation clapped, and Judith gave Mary a hug.

“OK,” she said, turning to the two men, “take it away!”

Cecil moved back to the center and said, “Elmer, we’ll go from left to right. What mother will get our first award?”

Elmer pulled the envelope from the second bouquet. “This award is for the mother with the most children in attendance.”

Elmer handed the envelope to Cecil, who said, “This is for the momma with the most children in church today. Let’s start with four. If you have four children here today, raise your hand.”

Several hands shot up.

“OK, then, let’s see. How many with five children in church today?”

Only three hands were still raised.

“Six?” Two hands.

“Seven?”

Still two hands.

“Eight?”

Margaret Eastwood lowered her hand; Elizabeth Chandler did not.

“Elizabeth! You do it every year! How many children do you have here?”

Elizabeth, wife of Kelly Chandler, who owned the county’s largest apple orchard, stood up. “I have all nine of my children with me today – Kelly Jr., James, Rebecca, Robert, Troy, Amy-June, Andrew, Ralph and all the way from Detroit, Michigan, Marshall. Every year he tells his boss at Ford Motor Company that somebody else will have to make all those cars, because he’s going home to see his momma for Mother’s Day!” Everyone laughed.

“Well,” Cecil said, “You’re a good son, Marshall.”

Next was the grandmother with the most grandchildren.

“Now,” Cecil said, “unlike the last award, not all the grandchildren have to be in attendance today. Why is that, Elmer?”

“If we had to make room for every grandchild in here,” Elmer said, “we’d have to build a bigger sanctuary!”

“Praise God! That would be a good problem to have! But I understand, so let’s see how many of you grandmothers have more than a dozen grandchildren?”

Seven hands went up.

“Between 20 and 25?”

Mother’s Day | Mark A. Stevens

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Down to three.

“More than 26?”

Down to two.

“So it’s between Frances Flynn and Bertha Grindstaff. Frances, how many grandkids do you have?”

“I have,” Frances called from two pews in front of Delores, “31 grandchildren!”

“Bertha, what about you?”

“Frances has got me again. I still only have 30, but I do have one on the way. We may have a tie next year!”

Laughter swelled throughout the church, and Elmer chimed in: “Between Frances and Bertha, they’re keeping Santa Claus busy.”

Cecil congratulated Frances.

“And now,” he said, “comes a very delicate award. The next award is for the oldest mother in attendance. Elmer, I’m afraid we may have to ask how old some of these women are.”

Elmer shook his head. “You’re asking – not me.”

“Maybe,” Cecil said, “the flowers will make up for it. Do we have a mother who is over 80?”

Six hands rose.

“Over 85?”

Four hands remained.

“Over 90?”

One hand remained – 93-year-old Cara Lea Porter.

“Cara Lea,” Cecil said, “you’ve done it again! Congratulations on another Mother’s Day!” Elmer took the next envelope. “You’re OK this time, Cecil. This is for the youngest mother.

The young’uns don’t mind giving their age.”

Janice could feel her cheeks burning. She didn’t want to give her age. She didn’t even want to be there, but there was no escape. If she tried to flee, she’d be captured by the enemy – her very own mother. On Mother’s Day, no less.

“Let’s see who our youngest mother is,” Cecil began. “Do we have any mothers under the age of 25?”

Several hands shot up, but Janice kept her hands gripping the pew – until Delores punched her hard in the ribs. Janice reluctantly raised her hand.

“How about,” Cecil asked, “mothers under 20?”

Four hands were still raised – Janice’s was one.

“19?”

Only three hands.

“How about 18 or younger?”

Two hands.

Cecil took a different tact. Pointing toward Janice, he said, “In the back there, how old are

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you?”

Janice couldn’t speak. Not only had she raised her hand, but now she’d been called on to tell her age to the whole church.

Delores gave her another punch. “Janice, let everyone know your age.”

“Fif…teen,” she said, barely in a whisper.

“Sorry, sweetie, I couldn’t hear you,” Cecil said.

“Fifteen,” Janice repeated, louder this time.

The shock was swift.

“FIFTEEN!” Cecil exclaimed.

“Holy hell,” Elmer countered.

Murmurs began to float like balloons set loose at a county fair – some at the shock of Janice’s answer, some at the shock of Cecil and Elmer, who stood slack jawed.

Cecil composed himself and said, “Fifteen. That might be a record.” To which Elmer replied, “It’s going to be hard to beat.”

But the contest was still in play. One other hand had remained raised.

Cecil looked at the young mother about half way back of the left side of the church.

“How old are you, dear?”

The young lady proudly announced she was also fifteen.

Cecil stared, as the congregation’s murmurs morphed into chatter. Rosalyn, Bonnie and Nikki, knocked from their self-involved conversation, were transfixed.

“Just got interesting,” Rosalyn said.

“Lord, I know,” Bonnie replied.

“They’re both fifteen,” Nikki said, repeating the obvious.

Elmer looked at Cecil, who looked at Judith.

“Gentlemen,” Judith said, “in this case, we just need to get down to the nitty-gritty. Who’s the youngest of the fifteen-year-old girls.”

Cecil nodded.

“We have Janice Hartman, who is 15, and we have Tiffani Bennett, who is 15,” Judith continued.

Delores dug her nails into the pew as Judith took over the ceremony. Cecil and Elmer, still shellshocked, fumbled about in the background.

“Girls,” Judith sang out, “why don’t you both stand up?”

Tiffani had remained standing, and was holding her baby, but Janice, wishing she could disappear altogether, had remained seated.

“Well,” Delores said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “stand up, sugar.”

The congregation was captivated.

“Fellow Christians,” Judith said, “we’re here to celebrate mothers, and right here we have two, while some might say too young to be mommas, I say God decides when it’s time for wom-

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31

en to be mommas. If it’s OK with God, then it’s fine by me.”

Jesus Christ, Delores fumed, Judith is giving a sermon.

“These young girls have decided to be right here in church today,” Judith continued. “Fellow Christians, let’s give them a round of applause.”

A smattering of applause streamed through the church, followed by an “Amen!” from the back and another and another. Quickly, cheers rang throughout the church.

Judith locked her eyes on Delores, who hadn’t applauded but had dug her nails further into the pew.

As the applause faded, Judith raised her right hand in the air and said, “Thank you, Jesus!”

She took the pink card from Elmer’s hands and said, “Of course, for the task at hand, who is the youngest mother here today. Girls, tell us your birthdays, won’t you?”

Janice swallowed and said meekly, “May 20.”

“Just one week away,” Judith replied, “from your Sweet Sixteen. Now, Tiffani, honey, when’s your birthday?”

“June 3! So that makes me the youngest, right?”

Before anyone could answer, Delores was on her feet.

“This is a sham!” she shouted and pointed at Judith. “My daughter is the youngest mother who’s a member of this church. I’ve never even seen this Tiffani girl. She’s not a member. The Mother’s Day awards are for members only!”

“Is that right?” Dwight Tipton called out.

“Does it matter?” Lillian Erwin shouted.

“Who knows the rules?” Ted Aldrich demanded.

And through whispers, the trio to Delores’ right chimed in.

“This is a mess,” Rosalyn said.

“Lord, I know,” Bonnie replied.

“An absolute mess,” Nikki said.

Judith put her hands on her hips. “Listen up, people! The rules are simple: if you’re the youngest mother in attendance, you’re the winner.You don’t have to be a member.”

Seething, Delores looked toward Tiffani and said, “How did you know to come here today?”

“Mrs. Johnson invited me. I didn’t mean to cause no problems,” she said and began to sob.

“Bless her heart!” someone called out. “God love ’er,” said another. “Give her strength, Lord,” someone shouted.

It was then that Janice spoke up.

“I just have one thing to say!”

The room went silent. Tiffani, still sniffling, looked at Janice.

“I didn’t want to come here today. My mother made me. I know how hard it is to be a young mother, and Tiffani is the youngest here. I’m happy for her. Give her the prizes.”

The congregation cheered.

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Holding Micah, who had somehow slept through the entire service, Janice said, “C’mon, Momma, let’s go.” Delores had begun to follow her daughter into the aisle and toward the door when it happened.

“Don’t go!” Judith called. “We have one more award. It’s the first time we’ve ever given this one out. It’s for the youngest grandmother!”

Delores stopped and turned to face Judith, who wore a grin the Cheshire Cat would have envied. Those in attendance said Delores’ whole body shook, as if a demon had been let loose, as she screamed out the very last words she’d ever say in church: “You bitch!”

–––––– That 1984 awards ceremony was the last Mother’s Day event held at Carvers Branch. The sheriff was called out after Delores beat Judith with every stem and petal from the floral arrangements. The box lunches got cold before anyone made it to the picnic shelter. No one felt like enjoying the desserts.

It’s a Mother’s Day everyone still talks about, and sometimes when the choir sings an invitational hymn, good Christians still hope to see Judith or Delores get right with God. Neither has been back in church again, but the choir still sings, “Neighbors are kind/ I love them everyone/ We get along in sweet accord/ But when my soul needs manna from above, where could I go but to the Lord?”

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HM

Reaping

by Blaine Parrish Scovil

Before Wesley, Malachi wonders what his occasional lovers think of the shadow box that hangs above his bed. Perhaps they just don’t notice it in the late evening and early morning light.

Or, more likely, assume that it is merely a remnant of a past life, one inhabited by wife and children. Even after forty years, there isn’t a hint of yellowing in the bleached cotton; Esther’s unworn christening gown. Ezra insists that Malachi not remove the sole memento of her stillborn twin sister from its place in the master bedroom. He complies, knowing that the eggshell paint behind the frame is brighter than the rest of the wall by now anyway.

“I like that you don’t have a tv in here,” Wesley says.

“Why is that?” Malachi asks. He places the breakfast tray over Wesley and eases himself onto the edge of the bed beside him, mindful not to bounce the plate of biscuits and two steaming coffee cups off the tray. Malachi is clean shaven and dressed for the day, minus shoes; he gets up long before Wesley to prepare breakfast. The corners of Wesley’s eyes are crusty with sleep and he squirms to a comfortable sitting position, maintaining the snug wrapping of covers across his chest.

“Mindless entertainment,” Wesley says. He empties a packet of sweetener into each coffee cup. “The bedroom is best used for more thoughtful pleasures.”

Malachi picks up the only biscuit with slightly blackened edges. “Like reading?”

“Exactly.”

Ezra hand washes their mother’s blue willow china plates every night, though Malachi buys paper products for outdoor dining. He can fit four biscuits on a plate and leave enough room to let the willow design peek through, though tomato juice inevitably drips from the biscuits and distort the pattern’s geometric figures. The tomatoes have seen better years, but Malachi still plucks the more resilient ones from the wire stands in his garden, skins off the bruises and caked dirt, and layers basil leaves between the tender flesh of the fruit and the biscuit.

“What are those spots?” Malachi sweeps his hand across Wesley’s clavicle, grazing marks below the surface of his skin.

“Battle scars from my fourth grade bout with chicken pox..” Wesley reaches for the largest biscuit. “Apparently, you aren’t supposed to scratch.”

He still resembles a sick kid, his pasty complexion and the way his voice travels through a pinched nose and oversized Adam’s apple.

“Scars are distinguished,” Malachi says. He presses against one scar until he feels Wesley flinch beneath the pressure. He pictures him as a boy sitting alone in a tepid oatmeal bath, alternating between picking soap scum off tile and puss filled bumps off his body.

The house creaks, the way houses do when they’re old and every entrance and exit makes them shudder. Malachi counts the stairs as Ezra bounds them two at a time. He doesn’t move

34

when she pushes the door open.

“Who wants honey?”

She marches in with a quart sized jar filled to the brim and covered with a checkered cheesecloth. One of her many hobbies that occupy her days, bee keeping. She keeps hives by the hay fields and tends to them before the morning dew evaporates.

“Ez, you’re tracking,” Malachi says, more just to make the observation than to reprimand his sister as her muddy sneakers leave prints on the hardwood.

She kicks off her shoes and rolls across the bed toward them, keeping the honey jar level.

“Try it,” she says, setting the jar on Wesley’s tray. “This may be their best.”

Wesley seems fond of Ezra, strange creature that she is. A rare instance of someone whose body matches her age, keeping up like it does with her energy and undaunted by heat, rain, stairs, and bee stings. He spoons honey onto his plate and licks some off his pinky. The fragile webbing of a bee’s wing is visible when Wesley removes the cheesecloth, splayed wide over the top of the honey and hovering in an air bubble, but no one acknowledges its presence in the room. *** The secrecy is still important to Malachi. He meets Jackson Vanderlip, an upperclassman and self-proclaimed Deistic Southern gentleman, in a Civil War history class. They become study partners and spend late nights together in the bowels of the library, pouring over notes on Bull Run and Antietam. The night before the first exam, Jackson pulls a sterling flask from his trouser pocket.

“Graduation gift from my grandfather,” he says. He holds it out in front of Malachi and shakes it gently, the liquid contents sloshing around inside.

“No, thank you,” Malachi replies. He presses against his temples gingerly; he has an undiagnosed astigmatism in his left eye and the combination of tiny print and dim lighting aggravates it.

Jackson tilts back his head and pours brown liquor into his open mouth, the flask never touching his lips.

“Know what I like about you, Mal? You’re your own man. I respect the hell out of that.”

Malachi remembers his fifteenth birthday present from his father, a decanter of aged scotch.

Drinking it in gulps under his father’s beaming gaze. Ezra’s pudgy little hands rubbing his back while he heaves into the toilet later that night. Even as a child, she doesn’t give him away. They have too much between them.

“How good are you at keeping secrets?” Jackson asks.

The society meets in the attic of the oldest building on the campus. Busts of revered statesmen guard the podium and oil paintings of Confederate generals adorn the walls. They call themselves a literary society, but Malachi never sees a book. Donning heavy black robes, they pass candles around the room while muttering Latin words in unison. Malachi learns that the society gets its name from Euphrades the Stoic and most of its funding from esteemed alum-

Reaping | Blaine Parrish Scovil

35

ni, men whose names are recorded in history books as staunch opponents of the Civil Rights Movement. The weekly orations revolve around politics mainly, though some dabble in literature, history, Southern culture. Malachi speaks of the peculiar role of the land heir, his father.

He isn’t anything like the farmer, who nurtures and turns the earth between his own hands.

The farmer takes life, but always returns it by spring. The land heir knows only to take away. *** Malachi stays involved with the society through college, accepting their praise with a gracious smile but inwardly disappointed that they reduce his orations to an exploration of agrarian economics. The “secret” part of the “secret society” is eventually just nominal. They have a website and a newsletter and alumni banquets in the university union. Malachi attends one after he receives an invitation in the mail with cordial greetings from the society’s current president, Wesley Harmon.

Wesley possesses none of Jackson Vanderlip’s natural charisma. He pales the moment he takes the microphone and stumbles through an introduction of himself. He is a senior Faulkner fanatic, and graduating next August with plans to immediately pursue graduate studies.

The society’s membership demographic, even the alumni, is evolved from Malachi’s days.

He doesn’t recognize a face. Jackson lives in the Midwest these days, some sort of investment banker. Being one of the older members in attendance, Malachi is seated at the front table with Wesley and the two other executive student officers. The ribeye steak before him is the traditional menu item for society gatherings, perhaps because the deliberate chewing required in its consumption makes the whole room quiet.

“Malachi, huh?” Wesley gestures at his nametag when he returns from the podium. “I take it your parents are god-fearin’ folk?”

Church every Sunday, no question. A Psalm 23 engraving on Esther’s eerily small stone in the cemetery. Blessing before every meal. But also, his father’s uneasy shifting in the pew when the preacher denounces drunkenness and debauchery.

“You could say that,” Malachi says. He trims a line of fat off his steak with precision.

“Are you?” Wesley asks. His manner at the table is more confident, his voice steadier, than his podium demeanor. “Do you fear God?” After Sunday School class once, Ezra tells him that she doesn’t want to go to Heaven and be stuck floating around in an angel body because what happens to your legs?

Malachi tries to use the tender meat as a sponge to soak up the unappetizing red liquid it swims in. “Among other things, yes.” *** Malachi most looks forward to the weekends when Wesley brings nothing but a toothbrush.

Wesley says he belongs in a house like this. They swing between the pillars on the porch until the humid air becomes unbearably sticky and they have to retreat to the cool darkness of the canning cellar by the kitchen. The walls lined with glass jars, they sit on the damp cement and

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Reaping | Blaine Parrish Scovil

Malachi tells him the trick to pickling this and jellying that. They emerge with fingers smelling of vinegar and nutmeg.

The garden stays thirsty in July. They carry water out in buckets until Wesley insists on attaching a spigot to the side of the house and returns the next weekend with a long green hose wound into a tight spiral around a plastic wheel. After a few days of dutifully spinning the hose neatly back into the wheel after use, they decide instead to let it remain freely strewn about the garden. It weaves through the paths, starting at the herbs and ending by the melon patch. Ezra calls it their pet snake.

The weekends when Wesley steps out of the car with his book bag, they scarcely see each other save for supper and in bed. Wesley locks himself in the study and Malachi leaves a tray of lunch at the door. He is just another ghost in a house that is already too full of them.

“Where is he going to graduate school?” Ezra plops a basket of raw green beans beside the porch swing where Malachi sits, knees drawn to his chin.

“St. Andrews, he hopes.”

“What happens when he leaves?”

“Nothing happens. He’s just gone.” Malachi snaps a bean and discovers it is just a shell, the pods inside long rotted.

“Do you wait for him?”

“He’s very young.”

“You’re not old, brother,” says Ezra. She props herself up against a side column and lets one leg dangle off the porch and into the shrubs. “I can see you in Scotland.” *** He comes home for the summer after he gets Ezra’s letter, turns down Jackson’s offer to spend the holiday with him and his family in Virginia. He notices a caravan of logging trucks driving up to the property’s wood line as he pulls into the driveway and he cringes.

Malachi’s father, a businessman first and foremost, carries on the tradition of his father before him. He has a contract with a paper plant that allows them to clear a portion of trees from the woods every few years. Malachi finds their presence unnerving, the idea of strangers ravaging his land. Ezra is six when she experiences her first clearing and she cries as soon as she sees the desolate mess the loggers leave behind, nothing left but splintered remains of her beloved trees.

Malachi finds her bent over a bowl, mixing dough in the kitchen.

“Loggers are in the woods,” he says.

“I know. Bastards.”

“Are we alone?”

“Yes,” she says. “They’re helping at the church fundraiser.”

He stands at the window with his hands on either side of the pane. All the trucks have disappeared from sight, but now the sounds of the trees falling have begun.

Reaping | Blaine Parrish Scovil

37

“Whose is it?” he finally asks.

Neither Ezra’s hands nor her eyes leave the bowl, intent as they are on kneading. “Doesn’t matter.”

“I guess not.” Malachi replies. “You tell Mama and Daddy yet?”

“No. They’re gonna make me keep it. And marry him,” she says.

He turns toward Ezra, her face covered in flour and her hands almost violently twisting knots of dough together. “Don’t ask me to do this. You realize what you’re asking me to do?”

She does, of course. They both do. Malachi has long been resigned to the fact that he will never marry and thus the burden of an heir falls to Ezra.

“I’m sorry,” she sighs. “But I can’t go through with it, Mal. I’ll claw it out of me with my own hands, if I have to. If you don’t help me.”

He believes her. Given the option, she would sooner burn the woods down herself than let the loggers take her trees. *** They cook the beans in a pot with a quartered vidalia onion for flavor. Dessert is honey biscuits and cantaloupe, the fruit sliced into crescent shaped slivers. Wesley emerges from the study and the three of them eat together at the dining room table. When Malachi and Ezra are children, the dining room is reserved for Christmas dinner. A kinsman’s saber is displayed on the mantle, his portrait above it on the wall. Their father’s oak liquor cabinet in the corner, still locked and the keys nowhere to be found.

“Hey, Mal,” says Ezra. “Remember when I up and decide to trim Mama’s rose bushes with that damn saber?”

“I take it your father doesn’t like that,” says Wesley. The only drinks on the table are glasses of iced tea. It occurs to Malachi that he’s never asked Wesley if he drinks.

“Right so,” Ezra continues with her story. “Mal knows that I’m as good as dead, so he says he’s gonna take the blame for me. Tells Daddy it’s his idea.”

“Whenever I picture him coming after you that day, I see him carrying an apple tree in his hands.” She laughs. “Probably just a regular switch though.”

“No, I think you’re right,” says Malachi. “Definitely hanging fruit on that one.”

The worst part of his father’s whippings isn’t the physical pain of the switch landing repeatedly against bare bottom. Rather, when his father sends him out in the yard to cut his own switch. Malachi always chooses his branch carefully. “Choose one too small, and I’ll come out there and get one to my own liking!”

“That’s fucked up,” Wesley whistles under his breath. “I mean corporeal punishment is one thing, but shit. That’s like…like Jesus carrying his own cross to the crucifixion.”

Ezra nods. ““Mal does have a few characteristics of Savior, now that you mention it.” *** Malachi knows every inch of his land. He knows all the seasons of bloom. He knows the sig-

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Reaping | Blaine Parrish Scovil

nificance of the once lucrative crop; the cotton boll. While preparing for his orations, he studies the history of the plant and in doing so comes to know a few things about the people once responsible for its harvest.

He comes from a line of good slave owners, his father always assures him. Malachi learns as a child that good means minimal whippings. Good means well fed and medical treatment when necessary.

Most of his library findings at the university yield first hand narratives that make similar assertions, with the exception of one document. He finds the paper crammed in a squeaky file cabinet in the archive room. The unpublished dissertation of one Trudy Caruthers, the title page dated 1969. In it, Trudy details the plight of the female slave.

She is a crucial cog in the industry wheel because she is the only one capable of producing more slaves. This happens at times voluntarily, but it is not uncommon for her to be impregnated by a master or foreman. Regardless of bloodline, her baby’s blackness alone determines its fate. After a century, she learns what to do. The solution grows in the ground below the soft white wisps. Dangerous business, taking from the master. But husbands and fathers and brothers are brave. They’re clever, tucking pieces into their pants in cautious handfuls when the foreman’s eyes are turned. The results of her brew are either effective or fatal.

Malachi’s father keeps one acre of cotton, for the sake of tradition more than profit. Malachi and Ezra walk to the field in silence. When the bulbs are in bloom, they give the illusion of a field blanketed in snow. But the plants aren’t ready yet, though the leaves appear healthy and promising.

“One root should do,” says Malachi. He lets Ezra choose and she selects the shortest in the row. The bulb is a delicate pink, the same color of the walls in Esther and Ezra’s nursery.

“Do you believe in curses?” Ezra asks.

Malachi puts his weight onto the shovel head and digs into the parched soil, careful not to scrape the precious roots with the shovel’s serrated teeth.

He looks at the pink bulb and lies. “No.” *** She brings it to him late one night in a washcloth, the one with the embroidered silhouettes of four goslings trailing behind a mother goose. He is by the window reading when she raps at the door. He can see the deep red stains oozing through the cloth from across the room.

Ezra says, “I didn’t think I should just flush it.”

Malachi sets his book down and approaches her with an outreached arm. She hesitantly releases the balled up cloth from her clenched fist. The blood spots are already dry to the touch.

Lifting the corner where the last gosling waddles, Malachi examines it. Still bloody, but a distinctly gray color and definitively round shape. No bigger than a spider’s egg sack and somehow it appears more delicate, like if he just squeezes hard enough it may disappear completely.

“I know what we’ll do with it,” he says.

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He folds the cloth back over and returns it to Ezra, then rummages through the top drawer of his dresser. He’s had the seeds buried beneath his underwear for months- tomatoes, squash, and rosemary. A birthday present from Jackson. The clearing by the lattices is perfect because it catches shade during the most brutal hours of the day, but is in the open enough to catch moderate sunshine and rain.

They tiptoe past the master bedroom and hear their father’s snores, slip out the screen door behind the kitchen. They don’t want to risk a trip to the tool shed in darkness, so instead they scoop away dirt in handfuls and scatter seeds into the six inch holes. Before they smooth the mounds, Ezra unwraps the washcloth and lets the gray sack roll out onto the seeds. She steps back and Malachi finishes filling in the holes. Their father is pleased with their work and commends Malachi for the dirt caked beneath his fingernails. *** It comes as no surprise to Malachi or Ezra when their father’s will reveals that the estate is in Malachi’s name, though Ezra gets a sizable monetary inheritance. Nothing changes in the house or between the siblings, except Malachi moves to his parents’ former bedroom. He ends the contract with the paper plant and instead turns his tall grass into hay. The night before it’s baled, he and Ezra roll in the sweet scented loose piles until they itch from head to toe. The tractor crosses back and forth over the field all day and then by sunset, the bales are dots spotting the horizon.

In the fall, when the last of the plants crumple and every living thing surrenders to the changing season, Malachi turns the soil in the fields and backyard garden to prepare for winter.

They fertilize, and in the process cover nearly twenty acres with turkey shit. The odor permeates the air for miles around, but it doesn’t bother Malachi or Ezra. They sit on the porch overlooking the garden, waiting for the air to cool so they can watch it die and come back to life again.

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Adult Poetry

Reaping | Blaine Parrish Scovil

C MPETITION

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1

st

August Photograph 1948

by Barbara Meetze

Barely two years old flanked by the frame of an open door I sit on the threshold of screen porch and living room at the new house we just moved into.

My week old sister is somewhere inside.

Behind me in shadow a patch of floral dress— Aunt Mary Anne’s? The maid’s?

I wear only a safety-pinned diaper bare legs pulled to the side on concrete floor.

I stare in front of me where, no doubt, my mother’s head is bent over a Brownie Kodak.

I show no hint of a smile.

My visible arm stretches part way out fingers nearly a fist as if calling her to me as if already sensing how seldom she will ever really see me.

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2

nd

Roots

by Alex J. Stokas

Listen to the roots speak in muffled tones Singing songs to those entwined within their armsLong forgotten souls left to die in cotton fieldsA child born too soon in noonday sunSlave too weak to work Young woman raped - beaten – bleeding- alone Abandoned under loosely piled stones No marker- no care Proud bones of once laughing red faced men‌ Too proud puffy women Beneath the earth within the spreading roots Now combine unwillingly with those they abused.

Above, Kudzu wraps rusting machines, Covering empty shacks Twisting around abandoned cars Sculpting ghostly landscapesSilently, imperceptibly movingIts roots seek the forgotten Embracing all in final sanctuary Where they now rest in eternal silence, as one.

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3

rd

Bounce

by Joy Colter

Ekphrastic poem inspired by Monica Stewart’s “Rhythm” Art Print

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HM

Our First Date Got Rained Out

by Laura Jane Burgess

The syrupy summer atmosphere is stirring.

We are glistening with sweat slicked skin and sticky languidly draped on the damp camping chairs staring at RV windows and storm doors fogging with condensation.

The July night sky is churning.

Static charges are leaping, lighting crevices between anvil tops of towering Cumulonimbus.

In the clouds there is an orange yellow ombre stain spreading— a flash dissipating.

It seems we are the same.

Whether or not it rains, there is this moment, and we are particlesboth charged, perched, and peering from the fringe ready to bridge the self’s borders with electric tendrils of expectation.

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HM

Post 9-11 Sewing Circle

by Kate Roos

As a bagpiper serving with the Vietnam Vets honor guard in Florida and Texas, I played at many military funerals. None is a happy occasion.The saddest moment, for me, was the flag folding ceremony.The reflection is drawn from those rituals.

Your needle pierced layers of fabric, in and back through colorful remnants.

Slowly, rhythmically, you stitched together pieces of a nation.

It would become an ornament of our history, an accoutrement crafted by a patriot seamstress.

Yet so swiftly it fell, those bands of color you had sewn.

Do you remember the flag furling behind the horseman, snapping in the wind before it slipped from his hands into the grime and spit, the blood, the filth of war?

There it would be trampled by hooves, then a thousand marching feet.

Thundering tank treads rolled over it a hundred years later.

And then, with the passing of the century, drones moved overhead in an eerie, disharmonious

accompaniment to the symphonies of war.

Through it all, the fervor of young and valorous hearts set our flag ablaze with honor.

It has been seared by artillery, burned by incendiary devices and roadside bombs - even torched by the occasional rebel’s match.

Yet its fall is inevitable.

At the last, it will be picked up for a cursed purpose.

a battlefield shroud, a cover for the casket carrying the dead from their final sortie.

The magnificent flag is diminished with somber ritual.

Before the gaze of weary eyes wet with shock, it is folded into a tight triangle by the very company

that sent the young to war.

The grieving cradle it in their arms as they once did their baby.

This flag will never rest atop a monument to victory over what we labeled an “enemy”.

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Instead, it comes home as a memento of something larger than all the human miseries in the killing

fields where our armies fell, the immensity of pain larger than anything our imaginations can conjure.

There is no remediation history or mission or glory can offer.

Peace is to be found in the unlikeliest of places -- -- the bookshelf shrine.

Like an endless ode to sorrow, the triangle of cloth sits on the shelf amid framed medals and photos.

It is a memorial to the horrific loss of innocence sacrificed for war, misplaced pride, and unforgivable error. For our folly.

Oh, dear patriot seamstress, would your hand have wavered had you known how courage and inhumanity would come to forge such an inglorious alliance beneath that banner you stitched for us?

Post 9-11 Sewing Circle | Kate Roos

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Youth Short Stories

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C MPETITION

1

st

Beyond the Dream

by Ava Tufty

To my dear friend Mattie, My parents, Mrs. Pratt, and to You, my Dear Reader.

Chapter 1 I’m normal. Sort of. Not at all. The reason I say I’m not normal is that my eye color varies according to my mood, and so does my hair. People also call me Odd Erica. My classmates always make me do the nasty things like dissecting their frogs or mix their chem solution. But I’m used to it. As I’m walking home venting about how stupidly annoying my life is, (it’s my lucky day!

If you would call lucky dropping your project and getting a “C” in Science.) I’m just happening to look down. A BEAUTIFUL necklace is just lying there. As I bend down to touch it, the chain moves out of the corner of my eye, and a black smoke entwines me. It seems to come from the amulet like it has some mind of its own. It draws me to itself, and I want to touch it. I need to touch it. So, I do the most obvious thing ever. I touch it. The smoke tightens. My vision starts to dim. Pink, yellow, and green flashes are popping up, like when you’ve been underwater for too long, and you realize that you need air right away, or else you’ll drown.

Everything is gone.

Chapter 2 “Ohhh…” I moan. I crack my eyes open a bit. Someone is staring right back. Their eyes are green and they have a twinkling aspect to them. Then I realize that if I just sit there, he could just grab me, pick up a rock, knock me out and kill me, or keep me hostage for ransom. I remember that my mom had told me to make a big scene and get some back up from some people nearby.

So, then I scream. But apparently, there aren’t any people nearby.

“AHHHHHH!” I scramble up and run like a murderer is behind me.

Just then a hand closed over my mouth. I bit down and he pulled his hand away, just to place it back over my mouth again. I tried to speak but he still wouldn’t let go.

“Mrmf!” The man turned me to face him. He held a steady smirk on his face, and he was looking at me so intently.

“Not out to get me, are you?” he said. His voice was smooth. His eyes widened.

“Y-your hair!” he stammered.

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“Oh, now I get it! You chased me to make fun of me, just like everybody else does! And you think you’re so hot, and because of that, you believe that you can only go around making others feel bad about themselves! Well, guess what? I’m done with that kind of stuff. Now get out of my face.” He looked a little dumbstruck. I mean, hasn’t anyone else stood up to him? I lifted my hand and smacked him. It stung my hand like fire but I didn’t show it. I used the opportunity to start running. Again.

I finally looked around. This is not my home! This is not my home! I was in what seemed like a different dimension. I noticed the trees had purple leaves and the water was clear as I blurred by. I also saw that I wasn’t moving as quick as I could. The man behind me started telling me to get out. I stopped out of curiosity.

“Out of what?” I replied. My face was hot and probably red from running. I stuck my hands on my hips and glared.

His face lifted. He grabbed a branch and said, “Out of the bog!”

“Why do I matter? And why so much to you?” then I kicked my systems into gear. “AND WHAT BOG?” “You’re pretty and the way that you’re sinking the historians might think that you were with someone and that you were arguing. Now do yourself a favor and grab onto the stick before you sink down too far.” I grabbed the stick. I missed the branch. I started freaking out. The oddest thing happened. The branch grew. I ignored the small feat and planned to ask about it later.

He pulled me out and asked for a name. ¨Erica. My name is Erica. And my hair and eyes are normal! ¨ “Yeah, sorry. My name is Thorn. Sorry for not introducing myself.”

“Did I ask for it? I’m sorry, I don’t remember! Wait now I know why you couldn’t.You were chasing me with who knows what!” I started vexing. He is an idiot. How did I get here? I don’t remember. He grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me into a kiss. I pulled away most violently, almost catching my earring in the process.

“It usually works. I wonder why you don’t forgive me.”

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Beyond the Dream | Ava Tufty

“Get a breath mint and don’t touch me! It was unnecessary and I now have bruised lips thank you very much!

“I-” “I said leave me alone!”

“You’re right. I’ll just throw myself off a cliff. No, a dagger will be faster. Bye.” “Wait. So, you just kill yourself if a girl or boy doesn’t like you or share your feelings?”

“Yeah.You better stick with me okay?” It sounded shady. I also thought about other possibilities. There were a lot. When I said yes it surprised me. I don’t know how I came to trust him so quickly, but it was a gut feeling.

Chapter 3 He led me to a lovely grove that had bramble sides. A cave with a torch made me think of it as a home or shelter. I asked him about the place and he said it was his place to hide. Then I found out why he gasped about my hair.

I, me, am a queen.

Chapter 4 “That’s why my parents never told me anything! They said my mom died after my birth and my dad was overcome with grief, so he threw himself in front of a car.”

“Only part of that was true. The way your dad died is a whole other story. Oh, and you have another name...Storm.”

“Back to dad.”

“He was thrown into a river of piranhas. Hungry fish they are! Can I call you Stormy?

“Can I call you Thorny?”

“NO.”

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“Question answered.” “Good point. By the way, I like fiery girls.” “I like Justin Timberlake.”

“Who’s That?”

“Good Lord, you know nothing.”

“Neither do you.” “Shut up!”

“That just proves I’m right!” I decided to teach him something. I got up and fell on his stomach.

“Lesson learned!” He gasped. I got off. By the look of him, I could tell he was thinking. She is awesome! He was so right. Suddenly the bushes trembled. Thorn got in front of me and started chattering like a squirrel. Then the thing came out.

“OMG THORN I NEED IT!” The ‘it’ I was referring to was a #*&@ baby unicorn!

Chapter 5 The baby unicorn was darkish purple and its mane looked a lot like a distant galaxy. It stared at me and I stared back into its hazelnut eyes of angelic innocence. Then it cocked its head.

“My God Thorn what should we name it?”

“Nothing because we aren’t keeping it. The unicorn probably has a mother!”

“Flutter!” The unicorn produced a happy little bray.” Aww, she likes it! Thorn, I swear if you even try to sneak off with it at night I WILL never speak to you again! Then I did something crazy. I punched him right in the arm with my knuckles.

“Just to seal the deal.”

“How many times will that happen?”

“However many times I need to set you straight.”

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Beyond the Dream | Ava Tufty

It was getting dark out, so I decided to go to bed. I wondered where to go, so I just slept in the cave. The cave was a hastily built shelter with about five rolled up pallets, and one unfurled pallet. I fell on one and fell asleep almost immediately. It felt like only seconds before I was awakened. The wet muzzle belonged to Flutter.

Thorn was still asleep in the cave and snoring like a monster! I shook him awake and he wasn’t happy.

“What. The. HECK. Do.You. Want?”

“I’m thinking we go visit my good old uncle! So, are you in with the idea?”

“NO. Nononononononono!” He was sitting up on his pallet. “Why?” “Because you know I’m outlawed, you can’t even find the exit to thi-” “Flutter, find the exit and…” I whipped around and grabbed Thorn. Time to set you straight again.” I wrapped my arms around his neck. I gave him a big fat hug and did puppy eyes.

“NO. you know that I would get caught and you would be dead.” But I could tell that he was softening up. This my chance His arms finally came out of shock and wrapped around my waist pulling me closer to him. I pulled suddenly away and ran yelling: “If you want more hugs you’ll have to chase me!” As a giggling mess, I crawled through the exit Flutter found and came to a pool with a waterfall. I figured Thorn wouldn’t find me for a while because I had run so far in such little time so I stripped down and waded into the pool. I needed a bath anyway. Sooner than expected, he found me midway through my bath and I had to scramble behind a rock because the water was so clear.

“Are you okay?” he yelled.

“I’m fine.” “Good. It’s not the pool I thought it was.”

But just then he took my clothes and hid them under a rock! That dirty little %&$#*$!”

“I swear once I get my hands on you-” “You won’t because you can’t come out of the pool without clothes while I’m around.”

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“I hate you,” I said playfully.

After I said those words, he produced an animal skin outfit and looked away while tossing it near me I climbed out and stripped it on. It was a simple cut sleeve top, and the bottoms were shorts. I tapped Thorn on the shoulder and inquired, “What is this?”

“An outfit to help you blend.” I walked back to the site and heard a scream. I ran back to find Thorn with what looked like some guards. As Thorn struggled I stepped out of the brush and drew up tall and said: “I think you thugs might know me. I am Storm, the rightful heir to this kingdom, and I shall overthrow my uncle and happily get rid of you too! NOW DROP THE BOY!” My hair must have flamed up because the monstrous guards dropped him like a hot coal and dashed away. Thorn kept staring stupidly at me and said “Now I love you!”

“Listen I appreciate the praise but I need to figure out how they found us, so If you could just be quiet?”

After my comment, he looked a little sad so I put my arm on his shoulder and he looked up at me.

“Sorry. I’m just tense that’s all.” He nodded in response and I sat down next to him. The sun was deciding to set as I leaned my head against his shoulder. It was the perfect setting to share feelings, so I did.

“You know I like you, right?” I asked.

“Of course I know. I’ll let you in on a secret. I like you to.” I would have responded if it weren’t for the sharp pain in my left arm.

“Storm are you okay? Storm, the king’s men are here! We need to run!” The light started to dim. Then an unheard voice said:

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Beyond the Dream | Ava Tufty

“Well if it isn’t my long-lost niece!”

At that moment, the stuff in the dart wore off. I sprang up stumbled out of Thorn’s arms and ran towards my uncle. I started running back to our grove to give my uncle a taste of my rage.

“You liar! You coward! GET BACK HERE!” Then he pulled out a magnificent sword. From what I could tell it was made from solid sapphire.

“Before you run over here and kill me, I have a gift.” he dropped the sword and kicked it over then and backed off.

“Just to make my death quick.”

“Who said I would make it fast? After all, you killed my father! And I want to make sure that your death is long, slow and agonizing.”

“Oh wait, you won’t kill me because I finally have my bandit!” A thug stepped away from the crowd and had a knife held at Thorn’s throat.

“You’re correct. I won’t kill you until he is dead!” I lunged at the monster and the sword plunged through his stomach. He fell to his knees and Thorn scrambled behind a bush. The monster was dead.

“Cool.” was all I said. Then I turned around and let out a war cry. All of them flinched then ran.

The king then followed. I put my hand on my hip and found it wet and warm. I looked down and saw red? I got entirely to dizzy for my comfort then all of my muscles went slack and I fell to the ground.

I woke to the smell of lavender and Thorn sitting by a bowl of pinkish goopy stuff. I tried to sit up and call his name, but my side was burning. I fell back down with a loud thud “Are you okay? The wound goes up to your collarbone, and I’m fixing your shirt so just sit tight for me,” he assured.

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Then he came over with the pink goopy stuff and pulled off the blanket to smear it on my sides. He did it so gently but the stuff was stinging my skin. About an hour later I got paranoid by the thought of not moving again. I tried to push it to the back of my mind, but it kept floating back to consume my mind again and again. Then I finally asked.

“How long till I can move again?” I asked. I was afraid he might say something Jurassic and that the shock and agony never came.

“Until about now. That stuff is fast. But you can never know the secret to my magic healing arts. And besides, you wouldn’t understand if I told you about myself.”

“Try that theory on me right now. I told you about me, and you owe me two things. The first thing is your backstory, and the other is a promise not to go anywhere without me. Got it?

Now tell me all about you. No skipping any details no matter how embarrassing. All your glorious moments and all the bad ones. The point is, tell me all of it.

“Fine. The farthest I can remember is my parents and me in a small, vulnerable cottage. No one knew about us and now I suppose that was a good thing. The night we were separated was a gruesome fight. My mom was taken to the castle against her will and was put under a love spell to make her love the king. Then she and the king had a lavish wedding to show the new queen and the king iron grip on the rule. She watched my dad get slaughtered on the steps of the castle as she held my half-sister. Then I was outlawed by my mother and hunted down as a trophy for the king to be a nice addition to the little girl’s new room.

That’s when I came here. I stayed here for three years and then found you. I am also an earth protector. Now I promise not to leave you to go and storm the castle.

“Good.” Then I got up to test the medicine. My side felt brand new. Then out of my hands came a spark of multicolored smoke.

“What the #$%* was that?” I asked.

“You must have the royal power. you are the king’s niece right?”

“Yes, I am.”

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Beyond the Dream | Ava Tufty

Chapter 6 “The royal power is a gift handed down to good intended rulers and you have it.You can control things with your mind.You do have limitations though.You can’t lift living things and lift some objects can and will drain your energy. That is how I can help you with your power. I can take plant energy and give it to for your protection. The only another thing is you can just so very-” “Read other people’s minds? I’m gonna read your mind. See if you like me.”

“No, you can’t do that!” “I do like the water nymph down in the pond ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Jesus Christ she is reading my mind.”

“You just told me that a nymph you like lives in a pond I could easily dry out.” I ran out of the grove and to the pond that was protected by plenty of rocks and lifted the water out of the ditch. The nymph lay at the bottom pretending to be friendly. She then said,

“Where is the cute boy?”

“You mean my boyfriend? He is with me now!” Then I jumped into the ditch ready to tell her off. She crawled to me and unexpectedly bit my leg. The water dropped back in. My legs were slowly turning into a blue serpentine tail like the nymph. All I knew was that it was the most painful thing ever. Then all I could think about was how hot Thorn looked. Then he ran around the corner apparently in pursuit of someone. I suddenly realized I had to meet him, so I swam to the surface.

I looked at him all sweet like and spoke. ¨Hi.You look good today. ¨ I watched him up and down. His clothing was torn and he came into the pool. He lifted me up and took me to the grove. I was thrown into the small pond next to the willow tree and Thorn leaned up against it. Flutter was drinking all my water and no one was stopping her. Then all the sudden I had two limbs again, and I no longer had a big thing for him. ¨Hey Thorn? ¨ ¨Yes? ¨ ¨Could you grab me some clothes? The old ones must have fallen away during the nymph

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bite. And I’m sorry I tried to kill your crush. I guess I just really like you. ¨I like you to Stormy! ¨ ¨I will get you, Thorn! I really will! I threw small smoke bombs at his feet with my new-found powers, since I could not get out of the pool without totally embarrassing myself in front of thorn. Then I grabbed some leather that Thorn dropped (purposely) and willed it to turn into a T-shirt and some pants. They fit perfectly, and so I climbed out of the pool. I chased him around for a while and then finally caught him. He fell to try to throw me off course but I just fell along with him. ¨Got you!” If you think you can get away with that, you are so wrong. ¨ ¨I do know what I can get away with though! ¨ then he kissed me on the lips. I ran my hands through his hair and he pulled me closer. That’s when I read his mind.

“Man, this girl is tempting.”

The next day I woke up in Thorn’s arms. ¨You were having a nightmare. ¨ Then I was having sudden flashbacks. Dad pushed into a pool with heavy chains. Going into a big thing that made a wispy noise. Never coming out until now.

“I think I know about something worse than a little nightmare. I mean how bad it could be?

It was probably just a dog barking at me, and then it just jumped at me.

“You were screaming at something like a monster under a table…”

“You didn’t hear anything.” I knew I was a bit touchy but it was a very embarrassing subject for me. I tried to think about happy things like lamas and pugs but my fear was consuming my thoughts all day. Then I heard this mess: “Hey, Storm I’m taking a bath so don’t look.” something was slightly off about his voice, and he was supposed to be picking berries. I went out to investigate but instead of Thorn, I saw a guard holding a sword to thorns throat. Then a sack was thrown over my head and I was lifted up by my feet.

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When I was pushed out of the sack, all the blood rushed to my head so I was dizzy and everything was fuzzy. Then it all came into view. I was being held on trial and it was clear that I would lose the verdict. The king was evidently the mind behind the judge. The judge was looking exhausted, and I guessed it was from sending millions of people to their deaths from committing unreal crimes. Then I cracked. I struggled against the guards, but they held me back with steady hands.

“You no good dirty nitpicker! Murderer! Thief! Unrightful heir to the throne! I am under no circumstances in the mood to go to court under an untold date!”

“Then we shall have your trial tomorrow.You are on trial for attempted murder of the king, class one murder of one of my guards, and helping and hiding one of the many outlaws of this fair land. Over the night you shall be under heavy security and you will be sleeping in one of our high-grade cells. Now goodnight to you all.”

As I was dragged to my cell, I noticed the monsters were sniffling. I asked what the matter was but they just made a nastily directed snarl which I assumed was for talking. I thought about thorn, who was an outlaw and who was missing for a long time and who had a worse chance of surviving than I did, and I had a pretty slim chance. I hoped and hoped for the king to be murdered in his sleep, but that wasn’t happening anytime soon. The cell we came to was dense and cold. There was a small bench, a blanket, and a bucket for a toilet. I was disgusted and surprised that I was supposed to sleep here but I did anyway. As I drifted off to sleep, I realized that my foster parents must be worried sick about me. I counted the days I had been gone.

Six days had passed since I had seen my foster parents. Six days had passed since I had gone to school. And then I had a panic attack. I had to cry myself to sleep. In the morning, I will have been gone for a week. In the short time, I was asleep; I had a vision of me with my dead parents.

They were smiling, and they were teasing me as any parents would. Then I was shaken awake and taken to the same old courtroom.

Then the judge spoke. “Do you consider yourself guilty?”

“No, because I find myself right considering he murdered my dad, the king, and then crowned himself king. Did I mention he also put the queen under a love spell so he could just have a proper coronation? If you people want a real ruler, just call me Storm, the rightful heir to the throne and I can prove it!” I let my multicolored sparks fly and the people of the jury looked terrified of me. Then my hair turned red.

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“If you people still believe in the current king, you need to consider the way he treats you.

Do you live in one room houses or do you live in nice apartment buildings? Do you want this kind of life for your children?”

I thought about what I just said. Then a woman in the jury stood away from her perfectly manicured seat.

“My name is Sixteen. It may seem like a nickname, but it is a label the king gave me to remember my job. No one deserves a label for just one person to keep track of them! I will fight for the rights that I deserve, and no one will label me with a number! From here on out my name is Lilaca to show both my sides.You will never change me ever again!”

Then she walked over to me and stood there with a look of malice on her face. I was quite flabbergasted that the women had just thrown that out there and not thought about it. But she was a follower nonetheless!

“I believe that all of you have certain right in this world that no one should be able to take away from you. This king has made a perfect place for him to stay. Not for you but for him!”

“This is not a safe place for you or your loved ones. You should get out of here while you can because I’m about to kick some royal butt!” I searched my side for the sapphire sword and pulled it out. The king got up and pulled out a short dagger.

“Can we talk about your tyranny, so I don’t have to murder you?” I asked.

“NO. if you want to take away my perfect kingdom then it shall be a fight to the death!”

I shut my eyes and swung my sharp object as I moved forwards. I felt the impact of flesh, so I opened my eyes and saw a bodiless head. It was my uncle’s body. Then I felt my hip burning and saw my gashed leg. I dropped to the floor unconscious. The last thing I heard was Thorn’s comforting voice screaming for a medic.

The next thing I knew, I was in a hospital bed in the largest bedroom I had ever seen. Thorn was pacing by the window occasionally stopping to look out the window.

“Thorn?” I called weakly. I knew that I could not move in my current state, but I had to try.

He whipped around like someone just kicked him in the back.

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“You are awake! After you fought the king, you passed out and I didn’t know why. Then I found the gash and called for a medic. And you were out for three days.

“How did you get out of your cell?” I questioned.

“The guard was talking me to my trial when we heard the racket and chaos. Then I broke free and ran to your courtroom. Following the cries of pain. Not a big deal at all until I saw you in the state that you were in.You had a big gash where the stitches had not healed yet.You remember, right? It was a wound on your collar bone. The stitches popped and the blood came gushing out of the wound. Oh, and you also have a visitor. She said she was in the courtroom with you when you made your speech. Her name is Lilaca. She wants to to be your new friend or something like that.

She was rambling on and on and on about the rebellion you caused with the king’s old rule.

You are the new queen too. Did I mention that? You need to pick an advisor, a new sorcerer, you might pick a king, flutters! We need to get Flutters! Is she okay? Oh, no…what if the poachers already got to her!? Is she hurt? If they even lay a pinkie on her, I will burn them to the ground!

“Let’s just think about my new friend. For now, at least. And I already picked out my new king. We also have to go fix your mom.”

I thought that that phrase would have triggered his senses. He lifted me into a wheelchair and guided me through the now empty hallways. They were all very dark colored and I intended to fix them too. The tapestries were filled with violence and blood.

“Thorn can you get someone to take those down for me? I hate the garish style that they exude.”

We never spoke again after my comment, but soon enough we came to the old queen’s room. Thorn ran inside and then performed a spell on her to quiet the loud silence that the queen had been producing. He whispered some words and the queen sprang up and looked around and spoke.

“Thorn? Is that you?” Then she pulled Thorn close and kissed him on the forehead. They sat there and hugged for such a long time that I lost track.

Then I rolled out of the room to see the place around. Almost no one was there except a maid or two.

Beyond the Dream | Ava Tufty

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I looked at the courtroom where I killed my uncle. The king. Then I thought about the little princess. I asked a maid to find her but she said that the old princess was nowhere to be found.

I was furious at the news but I thanked the maid, anyway. I thought about what my uncle did. It must have been terrifying to witness all the executions. No way was I going to murder someone as he did! Then my head started hurting.

“Headaches. Headaches are the absolute worst. As I went back to my room, everyone started reassuring me as the ground spun. Then all the light went dark again. I was floating in some kind of void or bubble. No one spoke. The bubble was acutely filled with floating people. My old friends, my foster parents my old boyfriend. He was floating away from all the rest with his arms spread out wide like he was about to hug someone. Then I realized that they were all asleep. I tried to wake them up but they just teleported to a new space in the bubble. I looked out the transparent part after I gave up. It was an assortment of fun colors that reminded me of candy.

Then I came back to the real world struggling. “I hate that %$*& bubble!” I was screaming.

Thorn was at the side of the bed trying to calm me. He kissed my forehead. I looked around. I apparently wasn’t in a bubble this time around. I made a sigh of relief and looked down at my arm. I had an i.v. in and it was giving me fluids. Thorn then explained that he heard a crash and not ten seconds later saw you zipped away to the hospital wing.

“You are doing a very good job of giving me mini heart attacks.You know, that, right?” I smiled at him and he smiled back.

Then I went back to sleep. I imagined thorn and me getting married under a purple and white canopy. There was a beautiful dress made of hand-woven silk, and Thorn was standing in a white tuxedo. Doves were released into the air and they flew away as we kissed. Then a monster came ripping through the ground as if it were nothing. He grabbed thorn and then tossed him down and thorns body burst. I screamed bloody murder, but everyone was gone.

I woke up in a cold sweat and thorn was in the bed next to mine. I grabbed his hand and held on tight. I would never let go of our relationship, and everyone already knew that. The sun was coming up so I got into my wheelchair and went to the desk.

I knew that if I did this, I might never come back. I wrote a letter to Thorn.

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Beyond the Dream | Ava Tufty

Dearest Thorn, I love you with all my heart but if there is a chance that my dad escaped the pool, I must find him.

Love, Stormy My eyes teared up. I put the card on my bed and left the room. As I shut the door, I heard rustling. Then a sob.

“Goodbye thorn…”

Five years later…

I walked back to the place where I last saw thorn. He was laying on the bed with his eyes closed. I walked up to the bed and sat on it.

“Almost as soft as I remember it being.” Thorn’s eyes flew open. He looked me up and down and then asked a question.

“What happened to your clothes? Where have you been? Why did you leave me?”

“I left to find my dad, I ran into some monsters, and I’ve been all over the place.” He came over to me and cradled my cheek in his hand. Then we kissed. How I missed the warmth that spread through me when our lips touched. We then went to the parlor and caught up. It would be a long time until we separated again. A very long time.

Epilogue After all the introductions, Thorn took me out into the pretty little courtyard, and we sat for a while. Then Thorn gave me a surprise. He pulled back a bush and out hopped flutters. The only difference was that she was so much older and she matured a little more. I rubbed her mane and she sat on the swing with us. We stared at the sunset and didn’t say another word.

Beyond the Dream | Ava Tufty

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2

nd

More Than Just a Dream

by Rachel Black

It started in my room. I lay on my bed, taking in the soft feel of my sheets, the rougher, slightly raised and bumpy texture of the walls. I ran my hands across my smooth bedside table, worn with years of use. The comfortable yet nostalgic familiarity of my grandmother’s distinct scent—some of her furniture has rested in my room since her death—filled my mind with my usual thoughts of her. I rose and began packing my suitcase. Before placing each item in the case, I lifted it up to my nose, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. Inhale, exhale. The clothes smelled like lavender laundry detergent and my grandmother’s dresser’s drawers and belonging.

I was mentally transported to her house, but opened my eyes in disappointment to find myself in my room, in a world without her. In that moment I believe I made the unconscious decision of where my destination would be. I zipped up my suitcase and got in the car. It was just like old times; my childhood didn’t seem so far gone. It was just the road noise and I as we raced along the interstate, making our journey.

Once I finally reached my destination, I simply stopped and took in my surroundings. The small woodsy area beside the house was green and exciting, just as it was years ago. The old basketball goal still stood tall, the net rotting, making it difficult for the balls to go through. My grandpa’s old truck, which “Grammie” kept for years after his death, was still in the driveway; his still older shed, still holding construction equipment, still stood about ten yards away in the grass. It was seemingly unchanged by time. I walked onto the brick porch and opened the door.

I took in the view from my grandmother’s kitchen, which I hadn’t seen in years. I have tried to recreate the sight for so long, but this was the most vivid it had ever been in those attempts.

I slid my hands across the white countertops and tables and chairs. I ran into the living room and felt the rough texture of the bumpy green couch cushion covers. It had never been more real to me, and I was in awe of the opportunity to experience a sliver of my childhood again in some way. Tears sprung to my eyes.

I sat down on the adjacent couch. Suddenly, my grandfather appeared on the other, sitting across from me. I was surprised—I only have one memory of him from my early childhood; the rest are vague recollections of his funeral. Although it would be somewhat logical to assume he would be there, I didn’t expect it; he died when I was very small and I always only anticipated seeing Grammie when I visited.

I gazed at him for a while, recognizing him vaguely from photographs and a single foggy memory. I noticed details I had only heard described, details that were too intricate to be fully captured by a camera. Like the way his thick hair grew in undulance. Or how his nose hooked, the tip pointy and nostrils slightly flared. Or his crooked, sly smile, and the small gaps between his teeth. He reached for my hand and I grabbed his in disbelief. His arms had been colored a deep brown by the sun, and his hands were rough and calloused from years of construction

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work. But they were loving and kind, like his eyes.

How do you talk to someone who has been dead for years, someone you never had a real relationship with in the first place?

“How have you been?” I asked tentatively.

“In Heaven,” he responded. A small smile played on his lips.

Our conversation was limited, blocked by years without each other and the unknown. I can’t remember if we finally got to say “I love you”. But as he walked toward the back door, the way I came in, ready to ascend back into Heaven, I felt more at peace. I came to see my grandmother, and I didn’t get to. But what I was blessed with was perhaps more important.

More Than Just a Dream | Rachel Black

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3

rd

Grandpa Said That Rainbows Are Real

by Emma Scott November 13, 2078

Jeffrey Williams, an energetic twelve-year-old, rapidly flew down the stairs. Today was the day August Fredricks was coming back from Mars! August was his role-model, always being so brave and proving it by living in space, on Mars, for a whole year! Now, August was coming back for him and the world.

Jeffrey ate a quick breakfast and then rode his hoverboard to the nearby Times Square. His mother was above him in her flying car. The town of New York City all gathered around the football-field-sized screen. Above all the noise of all the dinging phones, screaming fans and crying kids, they watched as August Fredricks appeared on the screen. A bunch of teenage girls ran up to the screen, trying to get selfies of them with August. The girls were blocking the screen for Jeffrey, so he hung on to every word August said, “Good Morning, my name is August Fredricks. First off, I would like to take you all on a tour of a model Mars home. After that, some of my assistants will be passing out forms for you to fill out to be able to come back with us to live on Mars.” Jeffrey was so excited he could barely breathe! He couldn’t wait to go live on Mars! It was like a dream come true. This had been his dream since he was a little kid!

He eagerly took a form and hopped on his hoverboard towards home. He couldn’t contain himself, he felt like screaming to the world. He was excitedly shaking as he raced up the porch steps. His mother was already home and hugged him, spinning around the room. They laughed with joy. This was the best day of their lives!

A couple days later, Jeffrey’s mom wasn’t sure how to break the news to him. They couldn’t afford the application fee, it didn’t even pay to keep the form for Mars, so she crumpled it up and threw it away. She knew that if Jeffrey found out, he would mope around for years. She would just let him find out for himself. They would have to be stuck on earth forever. She didn’t know how this would affect Jeffrey, and all of mankind.

Jeffrey has never been the same since that day. His dream of living on Mars was crushed.

December 25, 2078 On Christmas day, Jeffrey received an envelope from his mother. He should have been happy because it was Christmas, but he knew that people were at the space station and leaving for Mars after their holiday celebrations, and he wasn’t one of them. Glumly took the envelope and sighed. He wished that he was at the space station getting into the rocket for Mars. He opened

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the envelope, inside it said, Dear Jeffrey, This is a letter informing you that you have been selected to put rainbows in the sky. As you know, doing this keeps the world alive because it spreads kindness and hope. Without kindness and hope, the world will die. Please take this task seriously. The world depends on you….

Sincerely, The old giver of life Suddenly Jeffrey knew how he could take out his anger. He decided that he wouldn’t put rainbows in the sky, starting the day after people left for Mars.

Jeffrey was going to let the world sink into unkindness and hopelessness, just like he was…

------------------------------------------------------------------------------April 29, 2146 The world was colorless, dark and dreary. Butterflies went extinct years ago. The world I once loved, now has become lifeless. Everyone struggles to survive on the evil and dangerous streets. The world doesn’t know what kindness is. That must be the reason that no one ever says ‘hi’ to you when you pass by. Instead, they turn their head and ignore you.

My mother, two brothers- Mikhail and Ashton, 80-year old Grandpa Jeffrey and I all live in a small garden shack. The shack that we share is down a little alley, where more people live.

We are very fortunate; some people must eat virtual food. We eat one real meal a day, but my Mikhail and Grandpa are still very weak.

Every morning at dawn, my mother leaves to go to the shoe factory where she works, and then comes home every night around 10:00. When she comes home, she brings her pay - a loaf of bread. We share that and have our once-a-day meal.

After dinner, we all crowd around Grandpa Jeffrey’s bed. Then he tells the same legend that he always tells, “Once the world was full of butterflies, hummingbirds, dolphins, flowers and color. Children would go to school and come home and play games. On Saturday, they would go shopping to buy new clothes and TV’s. On Sunday, they would dress up in fancy clothes and go to church.

Then they would come home and go to the pool or an ice cream shop. At night, they would gather around and watch the rainbow appear in the sky, the element that kept them alive. Then, they would go home and fall asleep with teddy bears and night lights. It seemed like a perfect life.

Even if they weren’t the richest family in the world, they were still loved.

One day, the little boys and girls couldn’t wait to go to the big screen and see the world’s

Grandpa Said That Rainbows Are Real | Emma Scott

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hero talk to them. Only, on that day, they found out that he thought poor people were less valuable than the rich people. He thought that the poor people didn’t have feelings. He judged them by their income and salary. They took the rich and left without the best part of the world. Now, look at where he left us.”

Then, Grandpa rolls over in his bed and falls asleep. We all climb onto our cots and wait until my mother comes and tucks us in. While she is tucking in Ashton, we all hear him ask, “Mommy, are rainbows real?”

My mother pauses and inhales deeply and then loudly exhales, “No sweetheart. That was just my delusional father telling you fairy tale. Rainbows do not keep you alive.” She kisses him and comes and says goodnight to the rest of us.

Grandpa said that rainbows are real. I know.

The next day Grandpa and I go to the old dried up pond, with virtual water in it. We look around at people barley dressed, unlike us. Grandpa has on a baggy overcoat, and big, heavy, bulky and black rubber boots. I have on ripped jeans, old sneakers, and a faded and stained t-shirt. There, we see a woman, covered in a thin blanket with a small crying baby. Grandpa says, “Give her your lucky penny.” He nudges me. I feel something swarming up inside my mind and flowing into my lungs and heart. I give her my only penny. I see the rusty color suddenly shine back at me. The woman smiles. Then she does something that I have never seen anyone do.

She jumps up with her baby and dances around singing with joy. I feel as if the world is beaming at me. The other people at the pond start singing too.

Suddenly the world spins around us in a blur of new colors, butterflies and dolphins splashing, and then we see our first rainbow. Color fills the world. Kindness fills the world. The woman smiles. My face blushes with joy. We have never experienced kindness. I can tell that this is the start of something great. I may have just saved the world.

“You are given the gift of life. Make August jealous of this world and make him want to come back.” Grandpa says gripping my hand.

And I did

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Grandpa Said That Rainbows Are Real | Emma Scott

HM

The East Smiles

by Lauren North

There once was a bunny named East. East was very small compared to the others. He lived in a hole with his mother, father and forty-two siblings. East couldn’t hop, eat or sleep like them because he was so small. He hopped fifty hops a minute yet everyone who could only do forty went farther than him. When he ate, he ate one cabbage leaf yet it took him ages to eat it.

When he slept, he slept cold because his old blanket seemed to just swallow him up.

Although maybe too different, East could do something no other bunnies could do. He could make a person smile. Others got swept away or smacked with a broom but East didn’t like stealing crops. When farmers noticed this, they politely gave him food. Some even let him inside but one day, East disappeared. He opened his eyes and he was encaged. A man with grey hair and a white coat walked around the room mumbling, “This bunny is not fast but with my smarts and his patience, I can give him super speed!”

From that day on, every Sunday after the spring moon, East drank a cup of purple liquid.

After three years of this, the scientist let East loose. East was small but moved as fast as Santa.

He was running non-stop until a chicken crossed his path.

“You appear to be homeless,” she said, pointing at his dirty fur. “Come with me young man.

You’re skinny and muddy. The chicks will love you!”

East decided to trust the old chicken and followed. He ate, bathed and slept everyday with the chicks. After weeks of doing so, it was just the right time for egg laying.

“You can have my eggs,” said the old chicken.

When all her eggs were laid, East took them. He dropped them all. He dropped one in mud and it became brown. One fell in the grass and got stained green. One fell in a farmer’s red paint. The last one fell in a little girl’s hand. Like all kids did when they saw East, she smiled.

“A small bunny with small eggs!” she said through a giggle. “Can you play hide and seek?

Let’s hide your red egg!” She pointed at his other eggs. East hid it and she found it every time.

By the end of the day, eleven kids were playing East egg hunt.

Before the girl left him in the dark, she said, “I’m Lola but they all call me Dasher.”

He let his life soak in a bit. He had a big thought too. “I’m a small bunny who was captured by a weirdo. When he let me free, I was fast because I had a weird drink every Sunday after the spring moon. Then a chicken gave me eggs which I dropped. Dasher then became a happy girl after playing with my colored eggs. If only every kid could be as happy as her. Oh, but they can!

That chicken lays enough eggs for everyone. I’m fast enough to play ‘East Egg Hunt’ with each

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child and I’m clumsy enough to color each one. I have just the right day to do it and a much shorter name will be Easter – a mix of East and Dasher.”

That large think soon occurred. It happened once a year and everyone loved it! People were no longer the only smilers. East was too.

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The East Smiles | Lauren North

Youth Poetry

C MPETITION

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1

st

Aftermath

by Audrey L. Kmeicik

A small child On a rock At the ocean Watching Listening Waiting For parents Who will not come A dog Lost in the cold A doll Still in the cabin A man Floating still In the ocean Watching Listening Waiting For family That will not come For help That does not know For God Who shows up soon

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A rescuer Searching still Above the ocean Watching Listening Waiting For survivors Few to be found For the man Buried quietly For the child Soon safe and sound

Aftermath | Audrey L. Kmeicik

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2

nd

Where I’m From

by Lily Sutton

I​ ​am​ ​from​ ​the​ ​woods​ ​where​ ​I​ ​used​ ​to​ ​play.

From​ ​the​ ​bushes​ ​and​ ​fences​ ​I​ ​lost​ ​many​ ​tennis​ ​balls.

I​​am​​from​​campfire​s​ tories​i​n​B ​ ritish​a​ ccents​​and​​fluffy,​​gooey,​g​ olden​b​ rown​m ​ arshmallows.

The​ ​mouthwatering​ ​scent​ ​of​ ​cooked​ ​chicken​ ​or​ ​pasta​ ​when​ ​I​ ​walk​ ​downstairs.

I​ ​am​ ​from​ ​shark​ ​infested​ ​waters​ ​where​ ​posters​ ​of​ ​sharks​ ​hang.

From​ ​the​ ​traditions​ ​of​ ​going​ ​to​ ​church​ ​on​ ​Sundays​ ​and​ ​watching​ ​Shark​ ​Week​ ​every​ ​year.

The​ ​memories​ ​of​ ​playing​ ​video​ ​games​ ​with​ ​my​ ​dad​ ​still​ ​seem​ ​to​ ​linger​ ​in​ ​the​ ​machine.

I​ ​am​ ​from​ ​a​ ​family​ ​of​ ​bright​ ​blue​ ​eyes​ ​and​ ​having​ ​my​ ​head​ ​in​ ​the​ ​clouds.

From​ ​“do​ ​your​ ​best”​ ​and​ ​saying​ ​“Pikachu”​ ​instead​ ​of​ ​“bless​ ​you.”

I​ ​am​ ​from​ ​“wear​ ​your​ ​retainer”​ ​and​ ​“perk​ ​up” From​ ​listening​ ​to​ ​The​ ​Beatles​ ​and​ ​Twenty​ ​One​ ​Pilots.

I​ ​am​ ​from​ ​hours​ ​of​ ​Monopoly​ ​and​ ​Pictionary.

From​ ​family​ ​photos​ ​and​ ​intricate,​ ​colorful​ ​artwork​ ​hanging​ ​in​ ​shiny​ ​golden​ ​frames.

From​ ​the​ ​smell​ ​of​ ​fresh​ ​lavender​ ​and​ ​bleach​ ​when​ ​my​ ​mom​ ​does​ ​the​ ​laundry.

I​ ​am​ ​from​ ​the​ ​beautiful​ ​home​ ​where​ ​my​ ​mom​ ​says​ ​weird​ ​things.

From​ ​corny​ ​jokes​ ​and​ ​puns​ ​said​ ​by​ ​my​ ​dad.

The​ ​memories​ ​of​ ​playing​ ​in​ ​the​ ​backyard​ ​with​ ​my​ ​sister​ ​stay​ ​with​ ​me.

I​ ​am​ ​from​ ​the​ ​memories​ ​and​ ​lessons​ ​that​ ​stay​ ​in​ ​my​ ​home​ ​forever.

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3

rd

Grandma

by Rachel Black

She was a warm summer day With a face like the moon, Illuminated and framed by darkness.

She was my encouragement And motivation, my constant.

She persevered with more strength Than anyone else I’ve known.

She picked up the pieces her husband Threw to the ground in disregard.

She never had much, But she gave what she did.

She loved with everything in her little body, And, like the moon, she smiles down upon us.

She was lonely but independent, She was proud but embarrassed.

She appreciated the smallest things.

She was a field of wildflowers, A summer breeze calming you, A sweet moment of relief from heat.

She was the creak of a porch swing And candy waiting upon your arrival.

She was comfort and security, The knowledge that everything is okay.

She was God-fearing and God-dependent, Looking above for all.

Like the moon, she will always be there, Even when I can’t see her, Once in a while I will catch a glimpse.

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Her absence is a violent tear of the threads of my heart.

I cannot sew it back together; I never learned how to.

I cannot pretend to know the pattern.

She was a mother, a daughter, a sister, An aunt and a grandmother.

She has always been Yours.

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Grandma | Rachel Black

HM

Leafy Dance

by Zachary Ritz The ground is littered With the remnants Of a leafy dance Swirling, swirling paints The ground Orange, red, yellow confetti The remnants of a Leafy dance

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HM

The Seasons

by Katelyn Rutledge

Flowers​ ​blooming,​ ​snow​ ​is​ ​gone,​ ​three​ ​more​ ​months​ ​til​ ​summer​ ​fun.

Tons​ ​of​ ​sprinkles,​ ​lots​ ​of​ ​rain,​ ​too​ ​much​ ​water​ ​in​ ​the​ ​drains.

Every​ ​plant​ ​in​ ​blossom​ ​now​ ​-​ ​pansies,​ ​trilliums,​ ​snowdrop​ ​anemones.

There​​is​​so​​much​​more​​in​​spring,​​like​d ​ ewdrops​​hanging​​on​t​ he​​trees,​​lily​p​ ad​fl​ owers now​​in​​bloom,​​try​t​ o​​find​s​ ome​​in​​a​p​ ond​o ​ r​t​ wo! ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​Baby​ ​birds​ ​hatching​ ​now,​ ​ducks​ ​and​ ​swans​ ​and​ ​owl​ ​babies,​ ​begging​ ​food​ ​from​ ​their​ ​Mommies!!

Summer​ ​now,​ ​pool’s​ ​open,​ ​kids​ ​out​ ​of​ ​school,​ ​parents​ ​still​ ​working.

Vacation’s​ ​here,​ ​tons​ ​of​ ​camps,​ ​swimming​ ​lessons​ ​for​ ​the​ ​kids! ​ ​Too​ ​many​ ​bugs​ ​-​ ​mosquitoes,​ ​wasps​ ​and​ ​bees​ ​stinging​ ​people. ​ ​​ ​​ ​Hot,​ ​sunny​ ​days,​ ​the​ ​blinding​ ​sun,​ ​begging​ ​for​ ​the​ ​clouds​ ​to​ ​come.

When​ ​school​ ​starts​ ​and​ ​when​ ​you’re​ ​stuck​ ​inside,​ ​the​ ​weather​ ​will​ ​become​ ​nice.

Fall​ ​has​ ​arrived​ ​and​ ​it​ ​took​ ​its​ ​time​ ​to​ ​give​ ​us​ ​cool​ ​weather.

Snow​ ​is​ ​not​ ​here,​ ​we​ ​still​ ​have​ ​to​ ​wait,​ ​but​ ​at​ ​least​ ​we’ll​ ​have​ ​Thanksgiving!

As​ ​leaves​ ​fall​ ​and​ ​parents​ ​rake,​ ​kids​ ​leap​ ​and​ ​jump​ ​back​ ​on​ ​the​ ​leaves!

Fall​ ​brings​ ​lots​ ​of​ ​different​ ​colors​ ​you​ ​see,​ ​red,​ ​orange,​ ​and​ ​a​ ​little​ ​bit​ ​of​ ​green! ​ ​​ ​​ ​It’s​ ​almost​ ​winter​ ​if​ ​you​ ​can​ ​tell,​ ​because​ ​all​ ​the​ ​leaves​ ​of​ ​fall​ ​have​ ​fell!

We​ ​know​ ​winter’s​ ​here,​ ​because​ ​it’s​ ​cold,​ ​did​ ​you​ ​remember​ ​to​ ​wear​ ​your​ ​coat?

It’s​ ​time​ ​for​ ​snow!​ ​It’s​ ​time​ ​for​ ​family!​ ​Its​ ​also​ ​now​ ​time​ ​for​ ​christmas!

You​m ​ ight​​want​t​ o​s​ tay​​inside,​​with​​hot​​cocoa​​by​​the​fi​ re.

You​ ​might​ ​want​ ​to​ ​stay​ ​outside, with​ ​a​ ​thick​ ​coat​ ​and​ ​make​ ​some​ ​snowballs ​ ​​ ​​ ​​ ​​ ​​ ​​ ​​ ​​ ​​ ​ I​ ​hope​ ​all​ ​your​ ​seasons​ ​are​ ​fantastic​ ​and​ ​you​ ​have​ ​a​ ​great​ ​day!

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2016 SHORT STORY & POETRY

C MPETITION

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