The Girl Turns West

The Girl Turns West
by Darcie Little Badger
In the wikiup, I slept beside Twin Brother. His dreams had been vivid for some time, and he fought nightmares with punches. Unlike him, I did not – ever! – dream. To me, sleep was just a long blink, and that night, I emerged from blackness as fists drummed my upper arm. “Stop!” I said. Twin Brother was panicked breaths and stinging knuckles in the darkness.

“What?” he asked. “Sister?”

“You hit my arm.”

“Again?” He scooted away from me. “Sorry.”

“We need to build a wall between our mats. Bad dream?”

“Terrible dream. Terrible, terrible.”

I waited for him to continue. He always did.

“You ran away,” he said.

“Me? Why me? It should be you.” If Twin Brother ever married somebody, he would leave the camp to adopt his wife’s family: goodbye, friend! I dreaded the day he fell in love. With luck, Twin Brother would be pickier than Auntie. She turned away every gift her suitors offered.

“Listen,” he said. “During my dream, you met a witch man near the stream.”

“The drinking stream?”

“Yes. Sister, the witch man – he murdered you.”

Nearby, Baby Sister whined. When she was new, her cries, like breaths, were frequent and honest. Unfortunately, she learned cunning before her first words. That particular whine had been calculated to wake our parents. Baby Sister giggled as Mother said, “No more talking!”

“But, I dreamed that… ”

“Son, we all have nightmares.” She chuckled. “I might be having one now.”

Indeed, most people have nightmares, and most nightmares are just fantasy, but the elders say that spirits communicate with dreamers. In that way, they cause visions and make new shamans. How can somebody know the difference between a significant and insignificant dream?

Concerned, I chanced a whisper. “In your dream, how did he kill me?”

Twin Brother whispered back, “The witch man spoke. His words are poison.”

“What did he say?”

A pause. “I forgot that part.”

“If his words are really poisonous, you might be lucky.”

Baby Sister whined again, thus ending our conversation.

* * *
Morning slipped through gaps in the branch and grass wall beside my face, warming hair-fine patches of skin. My parents had already begun their daily routines outside; Baby Sister was also gone, since Mother carried her everywhere to thwart coyotes and other predators that enjoyed stealing children.

“Is she here yet?” Twin Brother asked without opening his eyes. He was wrapped in bison and deer skins.

“Any time now.”

“Get up, children!” As expected, Auntie ducked into our home, swatting the ground with a long, thin stick as she walked. “Little Girl, help me gather water. Dress properly this time.”

When Auntie and I last visited the stream together, I went barefoot, to quickly dip my naked toes in the water. On the way home, a pointed rock sliced my heel down the middle. I limped a few steps, water sloshing over the rim of my water jug before Auntie noticed my bloody footprints; she carried me home on her back and had to return later for both of our jugs.

To avoid further embarrassment, I slipped into high leggings, secured them below the knee with thin buckskin rope, and joined Auntie outside. Our camp consisted of five wikiups around a clearing. Green maple trees made shade under their densely leafy branches. Eight other families lived nearby; we all travelled together during the moving seasons, but I mostly knew the people in my small camp: Auntie, Mother, Father, Grandmother, Grandfather, Great-Grandfather, Big Sister and her husband, Twin Brother, and Baby Sister. My married uncles were strangers. I used to visit them and play with my cousins, but I grew older, new responsibilities left no time for play. It was lonely becoming a woman, although being a woman seemed anything but.

Auntie had dozens of friends. Near the cooking place, she joked with three of them, young women from neighboring camps. Their laughter stopped when I approached.

“How does your foot feel?” asked a woman with beautiful dark marks from her left cheek to chin. She was a storyteller, the best in our nine-family group, a local legend because of the legends she knew. Around her, I always felt like I had something to prove.

“Just fine. I can even hop like a rabbit. See?” The storyteller laughed when I jumped, and I blushed happily.

“No running or hopping necessary,” Auntie said. She handed me a woven, pitch-covered jug, which was wide at its middle and narrow near the top. “Quickly. We have a busy day planned. Grandfather’s wikiup needs repairs.”

As we crossed a well-used path through the forest, I lagged behind the others. Occasionally, Auntie slapped the ground with her stick and shouted, “Little Girl, stay close to us!” We travelled due west so she could observe my lanky shadow on the path beside her feet and determine, without turning around, when I’d straggled too far.

I was not slow because my foot still hurt (although it did sting, yes, because my hopping had reopened the gash). I lagged in order to eavesdrop on their raunchy jokes and stories about monsters, mistakes, and men. When I walked near the women, their conversation transformed into boring comments about the weather, as if I could not handle anything more scandalous than “It may rain soon.”

I would not completely join their sisterhood until after my puberty ceremony. During the ceremony, girls become adults who possess the strength and goodness of White Painted Woman, the mother of all people. Evil creatures fear her, and good creatures revere her. White Painted Woman is extremely wise, too, because she has lived countless lives. As she walks west, her body stoops with age, but before it crumbles, she is reborn in the east.

Despite their lack of maturity, many my age had already completed their coming-of-age ceremony; I was a late bloomer. It seemed unfair because my mind felt ready – beyond ready – to grow up. Frustrated, I made faces at Auntie’s back and imitated her distinctive swaying walk.

“Little Girl!” Auntie called. “Not funny.”

I'd forgotten about my shadow.

The trees thinned along the knee-deep stream. As I removed my leggings on the bank, Brother’s nightmare, his terror, made me cautious. I looked from side to side and listened for anything unnatural. Auntie and I had visited that spot hundreds of times over several years, and we never encountered danger.

Yet now and then, while eavesdropping on adults, I heard rumors that a witch man lived in the nearby mountains. Once a great shaman, he used the divine powers to murder, spoil food, and pelt the land with ice. His own family drove him into the wilderness.

“Have you ever seen a witch?” I asked Auntie.

“We should not discuss evil things without a very good reason.” Auntie gave me her jug and said, “Fill this, too.” Barefoot, I waded upstream, where the water was cleaner. Once the current carried away the disturbed silt and blood from under my foot, I began to fill the vessels.

A stick cracked near the bank. My seed bead necklaces rattled when I straightened, gasping with fear. A black doe approached the stream, her head bowing to drink. I had never seen such dark fur; it was nearly blue, like crow feathers. As the doe lapped thirstily, the blood from my foot injury resisted the current. A fine red tendril reached, instead, for her mouth.

“Little Girl! I saw a bad snake! Be careful!” Frightened by Auntie’s shout, the doe fled with explosive quickness. Why had the animal been so tame near me? Why had my blood reached to her? Sometimes, sacred animals visit people to bestow spiritual gifts. I impulsively drank from the cool stream, hoping to taste water from her muzzle, to become stronger, quicker, and more graceful. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you. Thank you!”

On the way home, with a heavy jug cradled in my arms, I wedged into Auntie’s group. “A sacred deer came to me. Did you see her? She had black fur and drew blood from my foot with magic. No, no, I can walk. The cut is shallower than it used to be.”

“Black like a shadow?” asked the storyteller. “Black like burnt wood? Black like the space between stars?”

“Yes! Do you know what it means?”

“People tell stories about white deer. Never black. Maybe the doe knows spirits. Maybe she is a spirit. Ask the shaman.”

“A spirit! I knew it! She blessed me!”

How quickly joy becomes sorrow. My brother-in-law came running down the path. “He Laughs With Birds has been injured!”

Twin Brother? His name was spoken so infrequently, I almost did not recognize it. Dropping the jug, I sprinted home. My heel burned with every slap against the hard earth. At camp, Mother and Grandmother knelt beside Twin Brother; he writhed and whined with pain. A lurid bruise darkened his skin from armpit to belly. Two boys, his play friends, waited nearby with their anxious-looking parents.

“What have you done?” I asked. “Brother!”

His mouth opened and closed, fish-like. Spit bubbled from the corner of his lips. “Fell. Hard … breathe.”

“Where is the healer?” Mother shouted.

“Help him!” I screamed. “What happened? Somebody tell me!”

“He was climbing a high tree,” one boy explained. His voice broke mid-sentence. “The branch snapped. He landed on a rock.”

The healer reached camp shortly, leaning on Father’s arm. She was Grandmother’s age and wore pouches over her buckskin skirt and top. After examining Twin Brother, she helped him drink water. “Carry him inside,” the healer said. “Make him comfortable.” Once Twin Brother had been moved from earshot, she continued, “The boy needs a powerful shaman. His life – his breath – cannot persist without healing rituals.”

“Can we do anything to help right now?” Mother asked.

“Yes. Put these herbs in his water.” The healer handed Mother a bundle of dry, fragrant leaves. “Be calm when you are near him. Fear makes injury worse.”

I tried to quiet my fear, but it would not stop speaking. To me, fear said, “He cannot breathe. He is dying. He will die.” They were bad thoughts, because to think about death invites it into the soul. I curled up outside the wikiup and closed my eyes. Sleep could take away those dangerous thoughts, yet it would not come. Auntie sat beside me and patted my back with her calloused hand. She used to cradle me when I cried as a baby. Mother had been overwhelmed by Twin Brother and me, since we had arrived at the same time, so Auntie mothered me instead, carrying me on her back until I walked, teaching me crafts, and punishing me when I did mischief. Now, she said, “Be hopeful; the shaman is coming. We have many chores to finish now. Come with me, Little Girl.”

We fixed Great-Grandfather’s wikiup, gathered edibles from the forest, and prepared the late meal. Whenever I felt like visiting Twin Brother, I worked harder instead because my thoughts were so troubled; they would surely poison him and make things worse. The shaman arrived that afternoon, sooner than expected. After she went into the wikiup, I could hear her chanting over Twin Brother in that half-recognizable language shamans speak when they channel magic. I pressed my ear against the outer wall to better eavesdrop. “I eased his pain,” the shaman said.

“Will he recover soon?” Grandmother’s voice.

“Evil magic spoiled my healing spells. A witch must have cursed this poor child. A powerful witch. I can do no more.”

Auntie pulled me away. “What did they say?” she asked.

“There is nothing to be done.”

We went to the other side of camp, where the dogs sleep and chew their bones. Big and Loud came to us with tucked tails and put their heads under our hands. “He can survive this,” Auntie said, more to herself than me. I made sounds of agreement and pet Loud’s gray brow, thinking: Can he really? Can I help?

It came to me at once: the solution. If a witch cursed Twin Brother, I had to kill the witch.

Normally, even finding one person in the wilderness would challenge an exceptional tracker, but the spirits had given me a gift. Through Twin Brother’s dream, they told me where and when I could find the witch man. At night. At the stream.

By sunset, the shaman had departed. Mother told me that Baby Sister and I would sleep next to Auntie that night. “Can I see Brother first?” I asked.

“Yes. He wants to see you, too.” Mother did not look at my face, as if it hurt her eyes, like the sun.

In our wikiup, which smelled of potent herbs that made my head spin, Twin Brother lay on his back, uncovered from the waist up. He breathed with quick, shallow gulps. The bruise had spread and darkened; a shadow was devouring his body. “Bad day,” he whispered. “Still hurts, but I feel better than … during landing.”

When I sat beside him, Twin Brother held my hand. His fingers felt cool. Whether that was good or bad, I could not decide. Heat, like breath, is a sign of life, but too much heat can be unhealthy, too. “Tomorrow,” I said, “you will recover. I promise.”

His purplish lips tightened subtly: a smile.

“I promise,” I repeated. “Dream about pleasant things tonight. No punching the air.”

He squeezed my hand. “People cannot choose their dreams.” His voice, so improbably quiet, might have been nothing but his moving lips and my imagination.

“I know. Try anyway.”

That evening, I hugged each person in camp. While preparing for sleep, I told Auntie, “Will you take care of Baby Sister?”

“What do you think I am doing now?” She wrapped my sister in warm blankets and handed her to Grandmother.

“I mean always.”

Auntie looked at me for a long time, as if something about my question bothered her. At last, she said, “Yes, I will take care of your baby sister. I will also take care of your brother and your grown sister and you. Always. Go to sleep.”

After the camp became silent, except for our faithful crickets, I sneaked outside and grabbed the bundle of warm clothes I’d hidden behind a maple tree, along with father’s wooden club, Auntie’s walking stick, and Mother’s skinning knife. The knife I slipped into my belt. The club I carried in my right hand, its dense weight comforting. Big and Loud stirred, tails wagging, as I passed them into the forest. “Protect the family,” I whispered. Protect me, too, I wanted to say. Scare away the dangers that live among shadows. Unfortunately, this journey had to be solitary. In Brother’s dream, I ran away alone.

I used Auntie’s walking stick to feel the path from camp to stream, effectively blind in the wan moonlight. Along the way, fear did become louder, but it never screamed like my sorrow. Anyway, I never believed that Twin Brother's death was inevitable, just probable. The spirits would not give him a prophetic dream if our tragedies could not be stopped. Luckily, I had surprise on my side, unless the witch man also knew the future.

He might.

Near the stream, under uninterrupted moonlight, details emerged from the forest. I put Auntie’s stick on the ground, crouched, and approached the bank on all fours. Something splashed nearby. Nearly on my belly, I looked toward the sound; there, across the stream, a bear pawed at the water. “Go back into the forest,” I whispered.

The bear – no, not a bear – stood, face falling back, skin parting, revealing a wizened man. The witch! How could I contend with this powerful, wicked man? Even most shamans would not tread in a bear’s footsteps, much less wear his hide.

I could still have run. A stream separated us, and he did not know the path home like I did. Yes, if I ran, I might survive.

“Are you lost?” he asked. His voice sounded deep and rough. “Are you hurt? I see you, Child. I see very well at night.”

He made no move to approach.

Run. Just get up, turn, and run.

I thought of Twin Brother. If I survived the night, but lost him in the morning, how could I enjoy another day?

“I came here for you,” I said. “My brother is a brave, kind boy. Please, remove your curse.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My brother!” I almost spoke Twin Brother’s name, but names hold incredible power, power the witch might exploit. “The shaman knows that you cursed him. She told my family everything.”

He chuckled. “I understand now. Your brother is sick? The shaman came? She told you, ‘A witch has cursed him.’ Is that what happened?”

“Yes.”

“Go home. Nobody cursed your brother. Sometimes, bad things happen. A person cannot live a full life without sadness.”

“The shaman …”

“The shaman is impotent. Do you understand? The spirits do not give her any healing power. I guarantee that she takes credit when her patients recover and gives me credit when they die.”

How could he speak of death so freely? I stood from my crouch. “I know that you lie! Before his accident, Twin Brother had a dream. In the dream, I met you here and … and then … I cannot say it. Remove your curse!”

He turned, and I no longer saw the man under the bear skin. “I will not accept blame,” he said, “for all the grief on Earth. Go home, and grow up.”

“Do not leave!” I raised Father’s club and charged across the stream. The witch threw off his bear hide and lunged at me: we met in the water. As I brought the club down, he grabbed my wrist, squeezing so hard that the weapon fell from my numb fingers and landed beside us with a splash. I could see his chest – in fact, it was the only thing I saw. He wore bear claws around his neck, and their blood-stained tips dangled over a crescent-shaped scar, as if they often cut his skin

“I can heal your brother,” he said.

I stopped fighting.

“There will be consequences,” he continued.

“What?”

“The world is balanced. When my patron spirit gives, He must also take. It is the first lesson I learned from Him.” The witch released my aching hand. “I asked for His gifts too often. Tragedies followed His favors. I took fever from an infant. The mother died instantly. I blessed the land with plentiful deer. The mescal shriveled that year. So many tragedies. My own family turned their backs on me. 'You must be a witch,' they said. Yet they still begged me for help. Do you understand? I can heal your brother, but the consequences may be worse.”

“To save Brother’s life, what will your spirit take?”

“I do not know.” He stepped back. “I never know.”

I knew. “My life. Twin Brother saw it in a dream. Please.”

“What do you dream?” he asked.

“Me? Nothing.”

He laughed in a way that resembled shrill sobs, the kind people make when they are surprised by tragedy, the kind my mother made as she knelt over Twin Brother and screamed for a healer. “I thought so,” he said. “Some spirits give dreams. Ours devours them.”

“Ours?”

“His power is neither bad nor good. Use it judiciously. I wish that I had been wiser when I was your age. Many people have regrets like mine. It is inevitable, because only White Painted Woman can become younger again by walking west and returning from the east. The rest of us walk west until we fall beneath age, no chance to try life again. It seems that my time to fall is nearly here, and you will walk in my footprints. Our spirit has seen to that. What is your name?”

“Many Questions,” I said, afraid that defiance would hurt Twin Brother. “It has been my name since I could speak.”

“Many Questions, your brother will recover.”

Without another word, the man retreated under his bear hide and returned to the forest. A question made me heavy with anxiety, so heavy I nearly collapsed in the water: if not me, then who gave her life for Twin Brother?

Somebody screamed behind my head, up the trail from camp to stream. It sounded like a child’s cry. I ran to help the victim without a stick to guide me and tripped over a large body sprawled across the ground. My hands felt silky fur beneath them. It was the deer, the shadow-black deer, now dead. She must be the messenger of that not-good-not-bad spirit who gives and takes equally, the spirit who gave me my brother in exchange for my service.

“Thank you. Forgive me.” I took Mother’s skinning knife from my belt to take the doe’s hide, no doubt a grave sin, but necessary for me to become a vessel for the dream eater. I could not reject the spirit’s gift and risk regretting my decision later, during a truly desperate moment.

Twin Brother – his dream – had been right. Something died in the drinking stream that night. A child entered the water, and a woman emerged, no wiser than she used to be, no stronger, but her burden immeasurably heavier.

As the doe’s blood spilled over me, I honored her sacrifice by chanting in a language that was not my own.

* * *
Darcie Little Badger is a graduate student scientist, dancer, and speculative fiction writer. She lives in Texas with one dog and many books. Her previous work has appeared in Strange Horizons, Vignettes from the End of the World, Dark Eclipse, and Fiction 365. She blogs sporadically at https://darcielittlebadger.wordpress.com/

Where do you get the ideas for your stories?

My stories usually metamorphose as I'm writing. For example, "The Girl Turns West" was originally about a UFO. The less said about that, the better. However, I became intrigued by Many Questions' coming-of-age and its connection with her budding spiritual powers, so I scrapped the original plot and wrote a new story.

Tara, Who Could Turn Into a Dragon

Tara, Who Could Turn Into a Dragon
by C. E. Hyun

Ashley meets Tara in a sun-lit meadow—a sea of gold and green—a detail he will later remember because of the manner in which she saves him. They are from two different worlds, separated by a mountain range whose strange shadow forest makes it impossible for most travelers to cross. They meet after Ashley is tricked and transported by magic into Tara’s world, into a fortress that is loyal to his enemy, Minnie Agnes.

* * *
It’s been four days since Ashley escaped his captors. Needing to stay on the run and with no other place to go, he has been moving in the direction of home—toward the mountains. Soldiers pursue him and he moves swiftly through the tall grass, the blades scratching and smooth against his face and neck.

He escaped with a sword and knife, but food and water he snatches in precious bits as he moves. Ashley wipes the sweat from his face. The sweet smell of the grass, the heat from the afternoon sun; it is getting to him. The tall grass opens up and he spots a brook: fresh water.

He kneels down to drink, the water cold and wet against his mouth. When he lifts his head, he spots her crouched behind a bush watching him, less than thirty paces away.

Ashley starts in surprise. As for Tara, her eyes widen almost comically, like a child caught in the midst of some embarrassing act. But she doesn’t run. Already getting over her embarrassment, Ashley sees curiosity in her face rather than fear.

It surprises him because he looks like what he is—an escaped prisoner—and she has no reason to believe he is someone who wouldn’t harm her. His first impression is that she is young, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. Hesitantly, as though worried that he might run, she moves around the bush and steps toward him.

She has black hair cut to her chin and wears a pale pink dress. An everyday dress, but with enough pretty braiding and embroidery to give Ashley the impression that someone who loves her—a mother or a doting family member—has taken special pains to make it for her.

She is very pretty, though it isn’t just her pretty face, her lithe young girl’s body. There is about her the naïveté of one who has not yet experienced a reason to be on her guard. She is young, that is true, but he can’t imagine Gillette—the woman he loves—ever regarding the world with such wide, open eyes.

“I’m Tara. Who are you?” she asks.

“Ashley.” He looks around, unsure how close the soldiers are. He wants to ask her where he is, if she knows who he could go to for help, but he doesn’t want to put her in danger.

“Are you-,” Tara starts to say, but is cut off when soldiers enter the clearing.

“Run!” Ashley draws his sword, glances back to see Tara retreating into the bushes. He rushes to meet the first soldier. The sound of sharp metal clangs, the gruff breathing, it is all strangely out of place. The blades of their swords flash silver and gold as they catch against the light.

Ashley hears a scream, and from the corner of his vision glimpses a soldier being knocked down by a golden tail. Other soldiers shout as they see the head that is attached to the tail. A dragon.

The dragon is covered all over in pale gold and strawberry-tinted scales. Wingless, it swims through the air like a sea snake. It rears back to strike one soldier with its head, swipe aside another with its tail. Ashley backs away and holds his sword at the ready. But after it knocks down the last soldier, the dragon merely turns and regards him, its tail slowly swaying back and forth.

The dragon blinks its large, brown eyes. Eyes which remind him remarkably of: “Tara?” Ashley lowers his sword.

The dragon seems to smile. Rising in the air, it performs what Ashley could best describe as a pirouette, and in a twirl it turns back into Tara, the pink skirt of her dress wrapping around her legs.

“Thank you,” Ashley says. “You saved my life.”

Tara dusts off her skirt. “It was nothing.” She looks around at the fallen soldiers. “Why did they attack you?”

“They were holding me prisoner at their fortress.” He isn’t sure how to explain how he has come to be here. “These soldiers, why did you protect me over them?”

Tara shrugs. “Six against one. You seemed to be the one in trouble. Where are you going?”

“I need to cross the mountains. I’m not from this world.”

“You have to go through the forest.”

“The shadow forest, but I don’t have the magic to go through. Perhaps you know someone--.”

“No, the forest under the mountain. Hayanmül, the Forest of White Water and Sand.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a secret.” She smiles. She has perfect teeth, and in the light they gleam a bright white. “I’ll take you.”

* * *
Ashley learns that Tara lives with her older sister in a nearby village called Jeju. She was on her way to the Hayanmül Forest when she came upon him.

They enter the forest through a series of underwater caves fed by rivers that lead into the mountain. The water is cold and the current is strong. Tara turns into her dragon form and Ashley clings to her back as she swims her way upstream. It is pitch dark inside the caves, with sections of them completely submerged. Tara has to search for air pockets so Ashley can breathe, and at several points Ashley gasps for breath as his lips brush against the tops of pebbly wet rock.

When they finally emerge from the caves, the water temperature immediately warms. The current slows and becomes still and there is light. Ashley is pushed to the water’s surface and he pants gratefully as he lies across Tara’s strawberry and gold-scaled back.

He looks up when Tara’s dragon head comes out of the water, shooting water and steam from her nostrils. She shakes her head, and as she shakes she transforms back into herself, her black hair clinging wet against her head. She turns to smile at him, her eyes bright and water droplets clinging to her eyelashes. Then she gives a startled “Oh!” and her surprised face splashes into the water.

Ashley belatedly realizes he is still holding onto her and that his weight now greatly outweighs hers. He lets go and she resurfaces, coughing and sputtering.

“I got you, I’m sorry, just catch your breath.” Turning onto his side, Ashley takes Tara so that she floats against him. Wrapping his arm around her chest, he swims them toward the shore. They clamber onto the riverbank. White sand sticks to Ashley’s wet hands and knees. The texture is gritty and smooth.

Tara is on her feet first. “We’re here!” Water drips from her hair and dress, but the cold doesn’t seem to bother her. She notices Ashley shivering, and sets about preparing a campfire.

Ashley soon sits huddled with a blanket wrapped around him, sipping the tea Tara has made him. The cold swim and the days of running and evading the soldiers have exhausted him. The cave is stocked with firewood and provisions from previous trips, and Tara has changed into a dry dress—a faded black one with white braiding and embroidered flowers. Her face glows pink, her drying hair reflects the firelight. Ashley watches Tara as she bustles about, admiring her vitality.

She finally sits down to share a meal of dumplings with him, unwrapping them from the small bag she carried.

“Did you make these?” he asks. The dumplings are filled with seasoned meat and some kind of tangy fruit, delicious after days of living on prison rations and foraged food.

“Nope. Neda made them for me.”

Tara tells him that it’s about a seven-day journey through the forest, that they will make their way by canoe. After they finish their meal, Tara drags her canoe from a nearby cave and fills it with the things they will need. She tells him to sit up front while she paddles. She talks excitedly, clearly happy to be playing the role of guide. She admits he’s the only other person she has come here with besides her sister.

“Have you heard stories about the mountain?” Tara asks.

“Only about the shadow forest, and how dark magic supposedly grows there. I know it’s dangerous, but that the magic is inherently good or bad?” Ashley shrugs. “I’ve never been persuaded.”

“That’s what Neda says.” Tara smiles. “This place is definitely magic. It’s said that the mountains are held up by the trees. When you look up, you’ll see how the branches of the trees crumble into sand. If you fell from up top, you would be trapped here forever. But the water is pure and plentiful here, better than you can find anywhere else.”

So far they’ve passed only white sand, rock caves, and boulders. “Are there really trees?” Ashley asks.

“You’ll see.”

And Ashley sees when the cave they’re paddling through suddenly opens up into something vast, its ceilings suddenly un-seeable. On either side of the river, what had been narrow strips of white sand spreads into something long and forever spreading. And then there are the trees.

They paddle past smooth, great trees whose trunks extend up to the cavernous tops. Their branches intermingle with the white sand above them, and through the cracks pour down white light. It is beautiful and it is still. Around some of the light shafts the sand glitters down like snow.

“How did you ever find this place?” Ashley asks.

“My family.”

She’d said she lived with her sister. “Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead,” Tara says shortly.

Ashley turns to face her. “My parents died at a young age too.”

“Really?”

“They were both in the war. There was war,” Ashley explains, “where we lived. My brother and I, we were brought up by our grandparents.”

“My family’s originally from your side of the mountain.” Tara frowns, considering. “I don’t remember any of it, I was only a baby. I just know there was a war going on at the time and that it wasn’t safe for us to stay. Maybe it’s the same war your parents were in.”

“It’s possible.” There is still war now.

“My father died. Neda took me through this forest. We came to Jeju. We’ve been there ever since.”

“What about your mother?”

“You can only enter the forest from your side through magic. The spell that gave Neda and me entrance cost my mother her life.”

“I’m sorry.”

Tara wants to know how he ended up on her side of the mountain. He must have been a prisoner of worth, with the level of magic needed to spirit him such a great distance.

“Are you a prince?” she asks.

“No.”

“Some special lord?”

“No, no relation to any great house.” Ashley explains how he fights against Minnie Agnes, queen of the northern kingdom and lord of the House of Rosewood.

“You’re a hero.”

“Some people see it that way. When it started, I was just a small town farm boy, had never even seen a real sword. We would’ve all been killed if it wasn’t for Gillette.”

“Who’s Gillette?”

He smiles at the memory. “She rescued me.”

Tara is watching him closely. “You love her.”

“Yes.” Gillette, descended from the House of Obsidian Flowers. “When I saw her, just the way she carried herself. I knew she was special.” He watches Tara paddle. “Why don’t you let me?”

Tara shakes her head. “You should rest.”

“I feel much better.” There is something healing about the forest, whether it is the sheer novelty or some kind of magic.

So they switch. Tara turns in her seat to watch him. There is a hungry expression on her face. “So Gillette taught you how to fight?”

“She did. Her house, they trained and protected me.”

“Is it fun?” she asks. And he knows she isn’t asking about his paddling the canoe.

The question has never been posed to him in this way. But the way she watches him, waiting for his answer, he sees that his answer is important to her, that it might confirm or deny her own thoughts about things she has not experienced herself. “It’s never boring,” he says.

* * *
The Hayanmül Forest is majestic with its column-like trees, the shafts of light, the glittering sand. It is quiet, with little life besides the trees. But in the water, life thrives.

Ashley peers into the water to see colors and shapes, entire self-contained worlds filled with exotic plants and the most curious creatures. There are strange fish that dart through the water like hummingbirds. A jeweled octopus they find clinging to the side of their canoe. There is an underwater tree that produces fruit that tastes of pomegranates. They canoe through a grove of them, the ripe fruits bobbing on the water’s surface like red balloons.

Tara knows the forest well, is full of stories about the curious things she has discovered in her years of coming here. Ashley couldn’t have asked for a more enthusiastic guide. He is grateful for her help—beyond grateful, he would be stumbling half-starved through unfamiliar lands if she hadn’t come along. He’s still marveling at how she easily takes a week out of her life to help a virtual stranger, how much she seems to delight in his company.

She asks him a lot of questions, is curious about his adventures. The way she looks at him sometimes, it reminds him of how he first looked at Gillette. How to his small-town eyes, Gillette appeared as someone larger-than-life and out-of-his-league.

So it quickly becomes apparent to him that Tara is attracted to him. He senses her curiosity, her trepidation, and keeps himself at a careful distance. He knows it is just as much, if not more, due to the novelty of his presence in her life than anything about him personally. He knows because in her place he too would be curious, even enamored.

Tara wants to hear about the war and he explains how it started in the south—his parents fought in a prelude to the greater war—and spread to involve the three kingdoms and western islands. Some call it the War of the Thirteen Flowers, some the War of the Dragons. Others say the war is another prelude for an overthrow of the great houses, a revolution the likes of which the region has never seen.

To Ashley, they’re just glamorized names, reminding him of the less than glamorous war he must go back to. He was seventeen when the war first touched him. Almost ten years have passed, but he remembers how it is to romanticize the fighting when it seems a far-off fiction rather than reality.

Ashley asks Tara about her life in Jeju. “How long have you and your sister been coming here?”

“Since I could walk. Neda’s a healer, where we live. Sometimes she finds things that help her with her work.”

“She lets you come here by yourself?” Tara was on her way to the forest when she met Ashley; her sister has no idea she picked up a stranger along the way.

“It’s difficult for her to say no.” Tara’s smile is little sister guilty and pleased. “We come here so often and she knows I can take care of myself. There isn’t much to do where we live, and there aren’t many people my age. The nearest city is six or seven days away.”

“So how do you spend your days?”

“I read, I help Neda. I spend a lot of time outside.”

“Can both you and Neda turn into dragons?” he asks. He is curious about Tara’s power, has never met anyone able to turn herself just by will. The thirteen houses claim they’re descended from the dragon gods—harpies and phoenixes, nagas and manticores—though none demonstrate an ability to transform into one. He knows wizards who can temporarily spell themselves into a different form.

“No, just me. We’re not sure where it comes from. Our parents never told Neda anything about it when they were alive.”

“Have you ever met anyone who can change their shape the way you can?”

“No.” She shrugs. “It’s also why Neda lets me come out here so often. That I can turn into a dragon, it’s just not something to tell people. Not that magic is considered bad where we live, exactly, but it’s different.”

* * *
One afternoon, Ashley and Tara canoe through a section of the river that widens into a pool. Light emanates from the center. Ashley is paddling and he peers down, fascinated, into the water. Because of the light’s intensity, he can’t make out its source. “What’s down there?”

“Hayanmül, what the forest is named after. It means white water.” Tara scoops up a small bag at the bottom of the canoe. She turns to Ashley and opens it, pulls out a white stone about the size of a walnut that gives off the same watery light. “I picked this one off in the shallows. The pool’s much deeper than it looks. Even when I dive down in dragon form I can only touch the very edge. It’s like a giant well.”

Ashley takes the stone between his fingers. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s beautiful.”

“You can find Hayanmül in other parts of the river, but they’re usually just stray stones. The brightest ones come from here. Some of the ones I’ve found give off a dim light or glow only at night.” She smiles. “Keep it. I’ll find more.”

“Thanks, Tara.”

“My sister told me this pool saved our lives when she first came through the forest. After our mother…Neda had directions on how to travel through the forest, but it was her first time and this place can seem like a maze. She didn’t have a boat then and no means to make one, so she walked, holding me, following the river. She was just a year older than I am now.” Tara’s voice is far away.

“She thought she made a wrong turn, that she followed the wrong river fork. And even though enough light comes down through the trees that there’s day and night, there’s no sun so you can figure out east and west. And there was no one here but her and me. She thought we would be trapped down here, until she came here. We named it the Nightlight Pool.”

Ashley looks around them and thinks how the light would appear, especially at night and to someone who was lost. “It fits.”

* * *
On the sixth day, they tie off Tara’s canoe and continue their journey through the forest on foot. It’s an uphill trek, and they scramble past waterfalls and rivulets, wend their way around the trunks of the great trees. Broken off sections lie in the white sand. They gleam a crystalline gray, having petrified into stone.

That night, they make camp on one of the petrified trunks, eat a dinner of nuts and roasted tubers. He makes Tara laugh when he tells her about the time he rescued a farm girl’s pet pig. He’d been with Gillette and several companions, and their reactions had ranged from amused exasperation to a dry, running commentary. The girl had been happy though, and Ashley had argued that a hero’s duty was to help anyone that needed it, not step back and worry about what his friends might think.

Afterwards, Ashley sits reflective in front of the fire. Tara is some distance away, bathing in one of the rivulets. He is remembering the later details of the story, the details he didn’t share with Tara. How he and the others came back to the village two years later and found it burnt down and pillaged. He doesn’t know what happened to that girl, her pet pig, or her family.

Ashley looks up when Tara approaches, fresh in an apple green dress. He stands up to take his turn at the baths. While washing, he sees a batch of silver ducklings playing upstream. Their parents stand on the shore, plumed in snowy white. On his way back, Ashley picks up a piece of petrified wood. He turns it over in his hands.

By the fire, he shows Tara how to sand the wood into a shallow bowl, explains how she can polish it to bring out the stone’s luster. It’s a simple thing, a simple skill, but it’s the most tangible thing he has to give her.

Tara holds the finished bowl in her lap. It’s a pretty thing, its crystalline edges reflecting the firelight, and Ashley wishes he thought of showing her how to do this sooner. If they had the time, there are many things he could show her. They’ve been skirting around the issue of his leaving, but he knows it’s on both their minds, now that they’ve left the river behind.

Instead they talk about their parents. “Do you miss them?” Ashley asks.

“I didn’t know them. I only know what Neda has told me. We talk about it sometimes. She wishes she could’ve known them as people, not just her parents. She said they were always there for her, but at that age, she resented them for it, for being so protective.” Tara rolls her eyes. “She has to rationalize their actions, now that she’s pretty much turned out the same way.”

Ashley smiles. “I can relate.”

They sit quiet around the fire. Tara sets aside the bowl on a blanket.

She surprises him when she asks: “Does it get easier, killing people?”

Ashley pauses, considering his answer. “That’s an odd question.”

Tara shrugs. “I think about it. My father was killed. So was my mother. I wonder what the other person is thinking, when they do it.”

“It never gets easier,” he says. “People want to live. No matter the reason, you’re taking that away from them.”

“Do they stay with you, the people that you kill?”

“It stays with you,” Ashley says. Not necessarily as individual faces, but it stayed.

The first time he killed, he was properly horrified and regretful at the loss of life. Then with the war surrounding him and soldiers constantly coming after him, killing became a part of his everyday life. It didn’t matter that the people he killed were his enemies, that the other person was just as ready to kill him. Some faces haunted him, some he quickly forgot. In the beginning, he never took pleasure from it, just learned to steel himself for what he needed to do.

Then over time—as his idealism wore down, as his reasons for fighting seemed increasingly futile—there were times where in the heat of the moment, he took sadistic pleasure in it. How afterwards he didn’t regret what he felt, that the feelings were his entitlement. It isn’t a feeling he would wish on anyone who hasn’t experienced it.

Ashley looks up to see Tara is steeling herself to ask something. Her eyes are round when she speaks. “When we get to your world, let me come with you. I can help you.”

Ashley looks at Tara. It’s not a question of ability. She is resourceful. She is strong. She has proven herself able to fight when she is in her dragon form. He thinks, given time, she could adapt to his type of life. And while there are certain dark parts of his life, what about the innumerable rewards? Maybe she would be happier in it. Still:

“I can’t.”

She tries to keep her face expressionless, but he can see that he has hurt her.

“I can’t take you from your home. You have your sister. You’re not of age. Your mother gave her life so that you could leave my world and be safe.” He says other things, even though he sees Tara doesn’t want to hear his explanations. His answer is enough. “Tara…”

Her chin trembles, but her voice is steady when she speaks. “I understand.” She looks away. “We’re almost to the end of the forest. You’ll be back on your side of the mountain tomorrow.”

* * *
Ashley later lies awake and listens to Tara as she pretends to be asleep. He swallows. He wants to say something to her, but what? He has no good argument as to why he should say no. All he can think is that following him means going into war. And going to war will change her.

He knows it is entirely selfish, that his desire to protect her is more for his benefit than hers. But he fears to see her change. He remembers how he changed, and it is in his journey with Tara that Ashley realizes the healing balm it is to be close to one whose sense of youthful wonder and appreciation is intact. It is with sadness he recognizes that this sense is no longer a fundamental part of his own self.

In his dreams, he relives memories of their journey through the Hayanmül Forest. He is paddling through a swampy, jungle-like section of the river when he notices water droplets that slowly rise into the air. They bob about him, tracing themselves in vein-like lines along some invisible current.

“Oh!” Tara says when he points it out to her. “We’re close to the water rise.” Her face brightens. “I can show you, if you want to see it.”

Ashley has seen a water rise only one other time in his life. He knows they should continue on their journey. As much as he wants to explore all the forest’s wonders, he is on a mission, not a vacation. But he can’t ignore the hopeful expression on Tara’s face, nor the fact that she made this long trip without asking anything of him in return.

So they tie up the canoe and trek into the forest, following the line of floating droplets. Further in the forest, the water droplets begin to merge, flowing through the air like silver ribbons. They eventually come to a tree whose middle bulges sphere-like and wide. The water gathers around the tree’s base like a swirling skirt, spinning swiftly to build momentum, before shooting up the tree’s length to meet the mountain’s very top.

Tara turns into her dragon form and Ashley climbs onto her back. They rise into the air, following the rise of the water. Stray droplets and grains of white sand rise with them, and Ashley reaches out to feel the magic that lifts them far and away from the forest floor.

Where water rise meets mountain ceiling, Ashley sees how the water dribbles up into the white sand and crystalline branches, perhaps to feed some river on the mountain above. From the cracks grow enormous flowers. Their vines are delicate and furled, and white light leaks from the ceiling like water. Snow white butterflies flutter about the fragrant blossoms, and Tara’s dragon scales glitter peach and pink and gold.

Suddenly, Tara reverts back into her human form. One moment Ashley clutches her scaled back, the next he clutches empty air. At first he thinks Tara lost control of her powers—perhaps the magic from the water rise affected it in some way—and that they will drop like stones to the forest floor. Then he sees Tara a little ways below him, floating primly as though sitting on an invisible cushion. A mischievous smile plays on her lips.

“Tara, you could have warned me!”

She laughs. “I’m sorry.” She doesn’t sound sorry at all, clearly enjoying his surprise. “It’s the magic. It lifts you up so you can float here. I couldn’t fly up this high if I didn’t have the magic to help me.”

They end up staying by the water rise for longer than they should. Tara lies on her back. Ashley floats on his stomach, staring out at the still and glittering forest below. “It is really beautiful here,” he says.

“It is,” Tara replies dreamily. Her eyes are closed and her hair is spread out like a halo. A butterfly flutters about her nose. “I could stay up here for days.”

They truly could, just bathing in the magic and the light.

* * *
Ashley wakes up with a start, the memory of that day jarring with the chilled, early morning. He sits up slowly, disentangling himself from his bedroll. The fire is mere embers and he looks across the petrified trunk to see Tara curled up in her blankets like a cocoon, snoring softly.

He is picking water cherries from the rivulet when Tara walks over to join him. “Good morning,” she says.

“Hey, Tara.” Ashley shows her the patches of ripe cherries he has found.

They pick quietly, neither mentioning the previous night, until Ashley pushes aside a branch to notice a spider web sprinkled with pale, dust-like seeds.

“Tara, look.” He points to the web’s owner, a pale gray spider about the size of a corn kernel. It scrambles about, extracting the tiny seeds with determined yanks before hurling the seeds into the water.

“I think he’s a little angry,” Ashley remarks, and Tara giggles.

The moment helps lift their subdued moods, and they walk back to their camp with the cherries, eating them from the new bowl that Ashley helped Tara make. It isn’t until they’re packed up and walking that Ashley brings up last night’s conversation:

“Tara, you know it’s not that I don’t want you or that I don’t think well of your abilities. What I do… it changes you. Some of the things I’ve done, the choices I’ve made… It’s not my decision to make, I realize that. But I couldn’t watch it happen to you.”

“I know,” she says quickly. “And I couldn’t really leave, not without Neda knowing why I left. I just-, I knew we were almost at your side of the mountain and was sad that you were leaving.” Tara jumps over a rivulet. “Be careful. This spot is slippery.”

* * *
The sun is setting when they emerge from the Hayanmül Forest. Ashley follows Tara as she squeezes behind a waterfall. Suddenly they’re standing on a stone outcropping at the mountain’s base. Below him are the forests and hills that are familiar to his world. Unbidden, his heart swells.

He turns to Tara who smiles, reading the relief on his face. “Welcome home.”

She tells him she can’t go any farther because of the way the magic works, that there’s a settlement about an hour’s walk away. He can find a place to sleep there and send along a message to Gillette.

“I can’t thank you enough, taking me all this way,” he tells her.

“It was nothing.”

“It was everything to me. And everything to the people I’m fighting with.”

“I’m glad I could help you. I wanted to.” She looks down at the ground, suddenly shy. The sun lights up her hair and yellow-checked dress. Watching her, Ashley feels his throat tighten.

“You’ll be all right going back by yourself?” Ashley asks gruffly.

“I know my way.” She smiles. “Don’t forget about me?”

“Never.”

She hugs him. He hugs her back, feeling the rapidity of her heartbeat against his chest. “I’ll miss you,” she whispers.

Ashley strokes the back of her hair. “You’ll be fine.” She would be more than fine, and he wishes he had the words to fully articulate his meaning. He eventually lets go and Tara pulls away, smoothing her dress.

“I’ll be the first person you visit, when you come my way again,” Tara says. There are tears in her eyes, but she smiles for him.

“Always.” He shoulders his bag. “Bye, Tara.”

Ashley makes his way down the waterfall ledge. At the bottom, he looks back at Tara and waves. She waves back, her hair framing her face, her figure like a small arrow against the setting sun. Ashley turns and begins to walk.

* * *
It is dark when Ashley reaches the settlement. He gets a room at the local inn, asks for materials to send a message. He is up late writing to Gillette, wanting to let her know that he is safe. His mind is full of the things he wants to tell her. About how he found his way through the Hayanmül Forest. About the girl who delivered him home: Tara, who could turn into a dragon.

* * *
C.E. Hyun’s stories have appeared in The Northville Review, Foliate Oak, Swamp Biscuits and Tea, and the British Fantasy Society’s BFS Journal. She currently lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and at www.cehyun.com.

Where do you get the ideas for your stories?

For this story, at its heart, the idea was to celebrate the power of youth. I think that everyone, to some degree, has been in Tara’s position (enamored by someone older and more experienced) and later in Ashley’s position (recognizing that his desire to protect Tara is just as much, if not more, for his benefit than hers). In meeting Tara, Ashley essentially meets a younger version of himself. I wanted to convey (and hope this came through in the writing!) that a lot of the things he would have viewed as limitations at that age (sheltered, untested, idealistic) are now from his older viewpoint also advantages. The very fact that Tara is untested and has all her possibilities open to her gives her a certain power that Ashley no longer has.

As for the world Tara and Ashley inhabit, the Hayanmül Forest was inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, specifically the scene where the main characters fall into a forest under a forest (it was so pretty and I wanted them to never leave!). Besides that, I was quite into Legend of the Seeker and George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series for a while, so some of the background war and history is inspired from that.

Amusements

Amusements
by Jacqueline West
She’s opening the shop this morning. She starts the coffee machine, the water heating in its reservoir as she takes the ruffed white filters from their stack. Today it will be Vienna roast, Sumatran, French roast, cinnamon-hazelnut, and house decaf. He’ll order the French roast. He’ll ask for it black, then add cream and three packets of sugar when she isn’t looking. She already knows this.

She heaps the ground Vienna roast into its paper bowl, her hands quick and clean. She removed the polish from her nails last night. He’ll prefer the natural look. She’s wearing her hemp-string necklaces, silver and green beads that Charlie made for her ages ago. She’s heard he’s in Paris now; an architect.

The coffee spatters into its carafe. She grinds the beans for the next batch, inhaling the rich sawdust smell, the scent of her own skin beneath it. She smells like lavender today. He’ll like lavender. Someday, it will remind him of her. Every time he catches a whisper of it from an opening closet or on a passing woman’s hair, he’ll feel his heart twist. He’ll go home to his desk, and everything he writes will have a hint of loss in it, even the happy scenes. That bittersweet balance will become his signature.

It’s eight o’clock. She turns the sign on the door from Closed to Open. Heidi arrives, shouts, “Hello, Amy! I’m here!” She hears the lights snap on in the kitchen. The refrigerator chuffs and slams. Heidi’s knife taps a cutting board.

The coffee shop where she works is in a college town. Soon students, professors, locals, artists will be filling the mismatched seats. She turns on the lights above the battered wooden tables. Glow streaks the brushstrokes of Cam’s latest collection, arranged on the walls. Cam used to be a regular: medium cappuccino, dry. Now he comes in erratically, orders without meeting her eyes, hurries out again.

His new paintings are clockwork-themed. Cogs and wheels and pendulums intersect with the lines of a woman’s body. In one close-up, you can see the cogs forming a circle in the iris of her eye. They are the best work he has done yet. Cam knows it. He told her so, on the day that the paintings were hung. His anger at her rose from his skin like a scent.

Today, her first customer is a woman. Latte with a half shot of caramel.

She has been with women, but this one isn’t her type, she can tell. This one works with numbers and files and neatly planned programs; she needs order, not its opposite. She gazes at the paintings as Amy packs the espresso and steams the milk, pushing her expensive sunglasses up into her short, dark hair. “How much for this one?” she asks, pointing at the canvas to the left of the counter, where a woman’s elegant ankle tapers into a clockwork foot.

“It’s sold, I’m afraid.”

The woman gives a disappointed smile. “Oh, really?”

“They all are.” Amy smiles back. “It’s the first time we’ve ever sold out a show.”

More customers are lining up, and the woman backs away with her latte, still staring up at the canvas.

Amy pours coffee, foams milk, swirls syrup in the bottom of a mug.

“Hey, Amy.” A man whose arms flicker with tattoos leans against the counter. He gives her a hooked smile.

“Hey, Patrick. The usual?”

He watches her pour the shot of espresso and fill the paper cup with dark roast. “You look different today,” he says.

He’s right. Her long, wild hair is pulled up in a loose knot. Her blouse is flowing ivory, dotted with needlework. Patrick liked her in black t-shirts for metal bands. He liked her hair loose. He liked her red nail polish.

“Do I?” she says. She touches a wisp of hair, making sure he’ll get a faint breath of lavender, not cinnamon.

“What are you doing after work tonight?” he asks anyway, his smile wavering.

“I’m busy tonight,” she says. She sets the to-go cup on the counter.

“How about tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” she says slowly. She gives him her smallest smile. “Ask me tomorrow.”

He steps away. His eyes are confused; she feels them sweep her again, wondering what he got wrong. “Okay,” he says. “See you.”

He’ll head back to the tattoo shop. The next Bettie Page he inks will have Amy’s blue eyes.

“Heidi, can you take the register for a second?” she calls toward the kitchen. “I forgot to put the music on.”

She flips through the stack of CDs. Their cases are cracked, gummy, worn. Brian’s is the most worn, even though it’s among the newest. People request it; the hometown boy now on national tour, Grammy buzz already spreading.

The first strains of guitar filter through the shop, at once softer and louder than the grind of coffee beans and the hiss of the steamer. She sees patrons’ lips moving along. They all know the words. They don’t know that they are singing about her.

There’s a lull around 10:30. The students are in class, the start of lunch rush an hour away. The timing is perfect.

She sees him pushing open the old wooden door, a burst of late spring sun glazing the shoulders of his canvas coat. She knows who he is. She doesn’t recognize him; she didn’t know what he would look like, but she knows that he’s the one.

She smiles warmly—not too warmly—as he approaches the counter. He’s carrying a heavy satchel with a shoulder strap. It gives his head a sideways, almost sheepish tilt.

“What can I get you?” she asks.

“Just coffee, please. Large.”

“Vienna, Sumatran, cinnamon-hazelnut, or French roast?”

“French roast, please.”

She smiles again. “For here or to go?”

“For here,” he says, watching her hands tap at the register. “Please.”

“Have a seat and I’ll bring it to you.”

He sidles awkwardly around the tables, hauling his satchel. His hair is long and dark brown. It hasn’t been washed today. Strands of it fall over his eyes as he settles himself at a table. She watches him take out a notebook—black, leather-covered, thick with inserted notes—and a pen.

She takes her time pouring his coffee. She chooses a green mug on an aquamarine saucer. He will notice this. He will remember.

She winds her way to his table. She knows how to move through the shop without bumping chairs or spilling drinks, and the technique gives her a graceful, almost dancelike sway. He looks up long before she sets the cup down.

“There you are.” She smiles at him. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

She drifts off through the shop, wiping tables, straightening chairs. Once her back is turned, he adds cream, three packages of sugar. Then he opens the battered notebook and scribbles for several minutes. Now and then his head rises, like a long-distance swimmer taking a breath. His eyes are glazed and distant. They focus when they land on her.

“You look like you could use a refill,” she says, stopping beside his table. “I’ve got a fresh pot of French roast.”

“Oh.” His smile is hesitant, still unsure of his luck. “Yeah. Great.”
When she sets the full cup back down, he has closed the notebook and pushed it aside, marking his place with a pen.

She knows what to ask. Not What are you working on? Not Are you keeping a journal? It needs to be open-ended, without pressure, a hint of compliment layered inside. “Are you a writer?” she asks.

He grins. He combs ink-stained fingers through his hair, brushing it out of his eyes. “No. I try. But that’s all it is.”

“I bet that’s what all writers do.”

His eyebrows twitch. “Do you write?”

“Me?” She touches the beads at her throat. Makes sure they catch the light. “No. I read. I’m a pretty bad writer, but I’m an excellent reader.”

His smile broadens. “What do you read? Do you stick to certain genres, or…?”

She gives a little laugh. “I’m pretty erratic. I just finished an e.e. cummings collection, I finally plowed through Infinite Jest, and I’m halfway through Middlemarch. And I’m reading Cat’s Cradle for the fourth time, so I’m not sure that counts as reading anymore. It’s more like a mantra.”

“So you’re a Vonnegut addict too?”

Of course she is. She smiles, almost bashful. “When I was a junior in high school, I decided to make him my imaginary grandfather. Like an imaginary friend, but wiser and more nicotine-stained.” She sends the smallest, bird’s-wing glance toward the notebook. “Are you working on a novel?”

He rests his fingers on the closed cover. “It’s sort of a memoir in novel form. Or a novel in memoir’s clothing, or something. I’m not sure if it will turn into anything real at all.”

“It will,” she says. She gives him a last smile, looking straight into his eyes, before turning back toward the counter.

“What do I owe you for the refill?”

She waves a hand. “It’s on me,” she says. “Just come back again soon.”

He doesn’t answer aloud. He doesn’t have to.

As she brushes past the tables, a blond girl with dreadlocks glances up at her, doing a careful double-take between Amy’s face and the painting above her textbook-strewn table. Cam made her clockwork eyes beautiful and terrifying, their interlocking metal gears grinding everything in their gaze. They are such a light brown, they are nearly gold. He’ll be angry at her for a long time. His anger will burn into beautiful things.

When the writer with the satchel gets up to leave, he takes his time, making sure Amy looks up from the counter. He waves. He combs the hair back out of his eyes again, smiles at her, then steps through the door, walking like a man who wants to be watched.

This one will take time, she can tell. A few months, at least. She’ll get to know his friends, let him take her to his favorite spots, listen as he reads aloud from his work. His writing will be good—technically good, but lacking something. She’ll betray him then, maybe with a friend of his, maybe with the next stranger. This one doesn’t need anger, or a myth of the girl that got away. This one needs heartbreak.

As day fades to evening, she leaves the shop, walking home along the busy, shady street that winds away from campus, through old houses remodeled into cafes and boutiques and bookstores. Brian’s face, that famous wounded wolf expression, stares out at her from the cover of the newest Rolling Stone. She buys a copy at a newsstand. He’s wearing a shirt she doesn’t recognize, something expensive and trendy that his managers picked out, or something the photographers chose. His hair’s a little longer, carefully careless. But she recognizes the necklace peeping out of his collar: the tiny wooden square she bought for him on their trip to Seattle, its veneer scratched with the infinity sign.

In her second floor flat in the old brick house, she pages through his interview. The reporter did a good job catching the rhythms of Brian’s speech. She can practically hear him in the room with her, his sweet, always slightly hoarse voice. They talk about the inspiration for the album. Every song on the album is about her, in one way or another; on the surface, in songs like “Four-Leaf Clover/Her Green Eyes,” and at the edges of other songs, hidden in references that only Amy will catch. Brian mentions a breakup, peripherally, and then talks about the recovery after that type of loss, the way we sometimes need to mourn for people who are still alive, but utterly gone.

He never mentions her by name.

A review of the album follows. Glowing terms. A masterpiece. Five stars.

Smiling, she sets the magazine aside.

She takes down her long, wavy hair and heads to the bathroom. Inside the mirrored cabinet, she checks her vials of oil: myrrh, eucalyptus, cinnamon, vanilla, mint, lavender, night-blooming jasmine, sandalwood, musk, freesia, lily-of-the-valley, ginger. It was lily-of-the-valley for Brian. She takes the little glass bottle from the shelf and sniffs at the stopper, remembering.

He won’t thank her when he wins the Grammy. They never say thank you.

She closes the cabinet again and looks at herself in the mirror.

Her eyes are already changing color.

* * *

Jacqueline West is the author of the award-winning middle grade fantasy series The Books of Elsewhere. Her short fiction and poetry for adults have appeared in journals including Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium, Goblin Fruit, and Ideomancer. She lives amid the bluffs of eastern Minnesota, surrounded by large piles of books and small piles of dog hair. Visit her online at www.jacquelinewest.com.

Where do you get the ideas for your stories?

I gather writing ideas everywhere: memories, art, music, travel, fairy tales and folklore and mythology, things I’ve heard (or overheard), things I’ve noticed through a blurry car window. I’m an idea magpie, which is why I carry a little notebook with me everywhere. You never know when you’ll spot something sparkly.

The inspiration for “Amusements” stemmed from a conversation I had with my husband during a road trip. We were listening to the radio, and we started talking about a popular album that’s all about the songwriter’s painful breakup, imagining what it must be like to be the girl who had been immortalized in this incredibly famous and personal way… and then I started twisting that idea around in my mind, making the girl into something more complex and unexpected. So you could say that travel, mythology, music, things I’ve heard, and car windows all went into this one.

The Silken Introduction

The Silken Introduction

By Anne Karppinen

Ardelei sets down her bag, and drawing a deep breath, looks around her. The sun is at its zenith: the day is calm and cloudless. Bees sail from flower to flower, drunk on warm pollen. She can hear running water nearby, insistent birdsong, and the distant clank of a hammer on metal – a rare human noise in the otherwise deserted landscape. The bridgekeeper’s hut is gone, and the signal drum has lost its skin; the empty barrel has been rolled on its side, and has a family of wild cats living in it. 

The last time she set foot on the main island, the field ahead was full of cattle, and the road running past the bridge was chock-full of carts, wheelbarrows and pedestrians. Now, the road itself shows signs of neglect: long grass grows in the middle, and its sides are beginning to melt into the surrounding vegetation. Although she has been forewarned, it’s not easy to get used to the absence of human life. The song the earth hums is the same as it’s always been: yet, many voices are missing. She shoulders her bag again, and starts towards the nearest village. 

She doesn’t have to travel long to see the first memorial stones by the roadside: some are elaborate, erected in the early days when people still had time for decorating, and a need to remember. When there were still enough people. Most of the stones are small and without markings. There’s a distressing number of small memorials – round stones often gathered around a bigger one. Death doesn’t discriminate: it takes all ages with the same ruthlessness. 

Ardelei takes a moment to touch all the stones in turn, and begins a mourning song that takes her to the village gates. Most of the fields around her are fallow. Yet, the houses she sees are intact, and their kitchen gardens, windmills and long-armed well poles perfectly sound. In a few years, these farmyards will be full of life again; the weeds will be beaten back, the hinges oiled, and the descendants of the wild-roaming cattle driven back to the pens. 

She’s travelling openly, wearing her short hair and Arrikan clothes for all to see. Before, Arrikans were welcomed but not encouraged to stay: now, it’s obvious that she’s one of the safest types of visitor. All bridges have been closed for nearly three years, with only songs and drum messages travelling across the Strait. Gradually, these grew few and far between, and then stopped altogether: there was little to say that hadn’t been said before. 

Before she can reach out her hand to open the gate, something stops her. Perhaps it’s the rather too insistent beat of the hammer – the clear, hard sound that jars against her teeth. Perhaps it’s the memory of the village as it used to be, its cacophony of everyday noises, sights and smells. It could just be that she’s grown timid and overly cautious. It could be that the village is actively pushing her away.

Whatever it is, the message is clear enough. Although she could try to heal some of the emptiness, to pour living notes into the discordant silence, the place itself is resisting her. The village doesn’t need a mage: it needs families to populate it.  

Ardelei doesn’t think she’s been seen. Humming the subtlest of spells under her breath, she turns around, and starts following the road west. 

* * *

As she walks, she ponders on her decision. If she were superstitious, she would take such hesitation as an inauspicious omen for her journey. Yet, as a person trained in sorcery, she’s above such fantasies; she knows that the future is literally unpredictable. It can’t be read in tea leaves, clouds, or the number of broken eggs in a basket. Omens would have been useful three years ago, but none arrived. 

Jittery with the unexpected turn of events – and the rather insistent magic of the old houses – she keeps a good pace. If she can keep it up, she’ll make it to the next village before sunset. It’s a road she knows well, and in other times there would have been a good chance of meeting friends on the way, or at least joining a company of merchants on their way to the capital. Of old, Sendal has been a hospitable country: its wealth depends on trade and the movement of people, and it can’t afford to scare anyone away. Yet, there’s a brooding tint to the air around her. Nothing is as it once was: nothing can be taken for granted anymore. 

Ardelei stops to fill her water bottle from a small rivulet. Having drunk her fill, she stands listening to the open land around her, waiting for it to reveal the cause of her unease – and sure enough, there’s a faint noise, approaching from the east at an unusual pace. She crouches down instinctively, but quickly realizes the ridiculousness of the action: the landscape is flat, and there are no buildings or tall trees anywhere in sight. She’s chosen to travel conspicuously, and has to bear the consequences of that choice. 

The noise, a low rumbling to begin with, grows louder and more raucous. Soon, she can make out a speck in the horizon that grows larger by the second. She takes a deep breath in preparation for a spell – and stops. "Horses," she says aloud to herself, just to calm her thundering heart. "Horses and carriage, nothing more."

Yet, this is no everyday sight, the thing that comes hurtling towards her along the deserted road. The two horses are small and brownish in color; the carriage, however, makes up for the lack of ostentation. It’s an egg-shaped vehicle, painted emerald green, with huge yellow wheels that chew up the dry road, conjuring clouds of dust. The closer it comes, the louder grows its pained creaking, as if it’s being dragged along against its will. 

When she was a girl, horses were rare. Even today, they are usually owned by those who desperately want to impress – or have a steady supply of goods to move overland and find oxen too slow and dogs too old-fashioned. As Ardelei watches the approach of the emerald egg, she has an idea of the kind of people who travel in it, even before she’s had the chance to sound them out. 

The horses slow down; a purple handkerchief hails her from the window of the vehicle. "Excuse me! Excuse me?" The voice tries a couple of languages before settling on Sendali. 

"Yes?" Ardelei replies in the same language, keeping her own voice light. The undertone she can sense is somewhat distressed, but in no way threatening. 

A flushed face peers out at her. The woman can’t be more than twenty summers old; her attire matches the flamboyance of her means of travel. She’s tried to darken her eyes with kohl, but the color has gravitated towards her chin in the heat. "Are you a local?" she asks.

 

"You could say that," Ardelei hedges. Have Arrikans been so quickly forgotten?

"Excellent. Is it far yet to the city?" Someone inside the carriage hands her a glass, and she drinks deeply. "We have been travelling since dawn, and there is absolutely no one here. We are getting rather ravenous." She giggles in response to an unheard remark from her companion. 

"There used to be a village nearby," Ardelei gestures along the road. "I doubt you’ll make it to the capital tonight. The roads are rather poor in this part of the world."

"You can say that again," says the girl. She leans back, conferring with her companion. "I say," she continues out of the window, "Would you like to join us? There is plenty of room. We would be grateful for a guide."

Ardelei exchanges glances with the glamourous footman on the driver’s seat. The servant shrugs at her; his music is smooth and reassuring against her senses. "Very well," she says. 

The door opens, and she climbs in gingerly. The interior of the carriage takes her to a completely different world: the walls are papered turquoise, and the seats are of smooth green velvet. A pungent aroma of incense clings to the furnishings. The notes she can pick out from the two people are tense, but not overly hostile. Still, an uneasy harmony overlays their apparent friendliness. Ardelei modulates her magic to appear as unthreatening as possible. 

As soon as she sits down, the young woman hands her her introduction – a meticulously embroidered coat of arms the size of her palm. On the other side are the arms of her mother and grandparents. 

Ardelei looks up at her. "My lady, you’re Gesaian? What brings you north?"

She smiles, showing a row of perfect teeth. "Marriage. What else? I have waited these three years to come and join my husband, and it is finally coming true. I wanted to land in Virda just to see more of the land I am to live in."

The person next to her gives a light nod. They’re slightly older than their charge, olive-skinned, and dressed in full Gesaian court dress, complete with embroidered sandals. They hand over their introduction as well – a sage-green emblem of the Rettimiso family worked onto immaculately white silk. On the reverse side there’s only a blood-red diamond. A courtier through and through: not giving too much away, apart from their obvious loyalties to their island’s ruling family. 

"Pleasure to meet you both," says Ardelei. From the introductions, it’s impossible to tell which of them is of higher rank. Thus, she hands hers to the lady first. 

The Gesaians look at her introduction, turning it over in their hands, their fingers caressing its smooth surface. Most introductions are made of fine but perishable materials: silk or linen in the case of aristocrats, leather for merchants and sailors. Some time back there was a fashion for metal introductions – gold, even, or silver – but those were seen as tempting fate. A person’s introduction, just like their life, is mutable, and eventually disposable. 

In Arrika, there are more subtle ways of working introductions. Ardelei’s current one is a solid spell: a song which tells of her life, but only to those who have the ears to listen. The rest will have to rely on their other senses. To the eye, it looks like a smooth stone which changes color ever so slightly from deep blue to radiant purple. In the hand, it feels pleasantly cool. It gives off a subtle scent of pine which lingers in the air for a few moments. 

The young noblewoman finally looks up at her; her companion is still riveted by the solidified song. "This…" she tries. Then, "You are – "

"I live in Arrika. You might have heard of our community."

Her forehead wrinkles with the effort of remembering. "I think so. I mean, yes."

"Ondala din Rettimiso certainly has," Ardelei says, holding out her hand until she gets her introduction back. "It’s against our rules to work for foreign governments, but a mage can be helpful in other ways, when friends are concerned."

"I – yes," says the woman. 

"As a matter of fact, just today I was wondering how she was," continues Ardelei in a conversational tone, adding a few notes to her protective spell at the same time. "We go way back, Ondala and I. We met unofficially last year; since then, she’s been too busy to write to me, apparently. I hear only third-hand news of her, and was thinking of contacting some of our mutual friends to find out how she truly was. And what do you know: here you are, straight from the Gesaian court. I’d love to hear the latest." She leans back on the comfortable seat, her face a mask of good intentions. 

It's in her best interests to keep the pair talking. Some people are natural liars; others take to deception with some practice. The rest betray themselves time and again – with gestures, with nervous blinking, with false tones of voice. Ardelei is particularly tuned to the latter.

"Such an impressive woman, Ondala," she goes on, as if she hasn’t noticed the lack of response from the pair. "It’s not easy to run a country as unruly as Gesaia, with her ministers opposing her at every turn." She’s bouncing her introduction from hand to hand, giving its magic some time to warm up.

The pair only blink at her. Then their eyes focus on the song-spell again. 

"You see," says Ardelei in a friendly voice, "When you’re pretending to be someone else, it really helps if you’ve done your research beforehand. If you just steal someone’s carriage, their clothes and their introduction, you don’t just magically become that person." She adds some harmonics to the spell. "I wonder what you did to that poor girl and her companion."

Many things happen within the space of a few seconds. The carriage stops with a violent jerk; the driver wrenches the door open. He’s holding a pair of gilded pistols, their barrels aimed at Ardelei’s heart. The two other passengers try to reach for her, grabbing at her hands, her hair, her clothes – but under the spell as they are, their fingers only grasp at the air around her. They have no weapons, and no magical training to counter hers. 

Ardelei focuses on the footman. He’s well-built; his skin is midnight-dark, and his greying hair is gathered in a queue at his neck. "Can you actually shoot those?" she asks in the same soothing cadence she’s been using all along. 

"Oh yes," he grins back at her. The man’s own song is steady and deep – not easily manipulated or even deciphered on the first hearing. 

"I usually find that the fussier the weapon, the less dependable it is." She draws a deep breath, changing the direction of the spell. "Why are you here? Where are you really headed?"

He only leans forward to bring the pistols closer to her face. 

"It can’t be me that you want. You see, we Arrikans might not be immune to diseases, but we carry many other kinds of immunity. They’ll be very disappointed in the capital if I don’t turn up tomorrow."

For the first time, uncertainly flashes in his eyes. "Arrikan?"

She can’t help but sigh. "Goodness me, it’s only a couple of years the bridges have been closed, and already we’re dead to most people. Look," she holds up her introduction. "What does this look like to you?"

The footman lowers his weapons and bends closer to the spell. "I see," he says at length. The undertone of his song changes ever so slightly, but he’s proving surprisingly resistant to Ardelei’s magic. Glancing at his companions, he says, "Let them go. They have done you no harm."

Ardelei weighs her options. Alone, she can do very little against the three travelers, apart from distracting them at the cost of her own strength. Still, her sense of justice is far too strong to let things slide that easily: after all, that is one of the uses of an Arrikan mage – to deal out impersonal judgements when everything else fails. "Why are you here?" she asks. 

"That does not concern you," he says, smoothly.

All the while she’s been trying to place his accent; suddenly, it all clicks into place. She switches into Hallerian. "What are you fleeing from? Or who?" Knowing now the base notes of his song, she uses a part of her spell to push him into a more malleable state of mind. 

He takes another step back. "You know Daurbar?"

"Well enough." The capital of Heller boasts the most impressive fortifications on all of the island: it’s difficult to enter, and even more difficult to leave. Ardelei, through years of hard diplomacy, has forged a working relationship with its isolationist lord, Reutel Stainerau. 

"Lord Stainerau, as you know, likes to run the lives of his family members just as he runs his realm. Inniz here," he gestures towards the young woman, "was betrothed to a southern nobleman – regardless of the fact that she has been secretly promised to me for years. When we got our chance, we eloped, with the help of our friend here. The horses and the carriage are mine; the clothes and the introductions we bargained for in the first town we passed through. Things like that are cheap nowadays. We tried to find a ship that would take passengers, but most captains are still cautious, or charge outrageously for a passage. We were told to try our luck here in Sendal."

"Why would lord Stainerau waste his time chasing you? It’s not as if he can marry Inniz off to someone else now," Ardelei says; the footman only shrugs elegantly. "But in case he tries, I’d stay away from the major ports if I were you. Lie low for a few months, then take a ship to wherever you want to go." She deliberates for a moment; decides. "If you turn back, there’s a village not far from here that’s been completely wiped out of people. You’d find shelter there, and safe drinking water. The villagers are bound to have left some stores behind, and there’s easy prey in the woods if you’re so inclined." She nods at his lowered pistols. 

The man gives her a slow look. "What is your connection to the village?"

"I used to visit it, on my way to and from Arrika. I used to have friends there. There was nothing special about the place – apart from the fact that it was always hospitable to strangers."

* * *

She watches the carriage disappear eastwards. "Have I done the right thing?" she asks the empty air around her. 

There’s no answer, but at least for now, the oppressive feeling has abated. It’ll take a while for her to learn to read the new music of the land, and to attune herself to its slow rhythms. This means that her own song will change as well, eventually, as is right. She shoulders her bag, and continues on her way west. It’s a peaceful evening; the scent of ripening corn hangs over the road. Life will triumph over death, every time – only the form varies. 

* * *

Anne Karppinen says: I’m a university teacher, musician and writer based in Finland. My short stories have recently appeared in Tales from the Moonlit Path and Not One of Us; “The Lamplighter’s Daughter” was chosen for the Best of Wyldblood anthology in December 2022. My book, The Songs of Joni Mitchell, was published by Routledge in 2016.

What do you think is the attraction of the fantasy genre?

Fantasy fiction is great for exploring new ideas and concepts, but it’s also a way of looking at our own world through defamiliarizing lenses, and thinking about questions that are relevant to us as well.

The Night of the Cloud Spectre

The Night of the Cloud Spectre
A Story of the Crow Witch
by Mike Phillips

Evil passed through the land. In the form of a low hanging cloud, thick and black amid the morning mist, it drifted upon the wind. It was a thing of the ancient world, made to take this spectral form while the sun followed its solitary path across the sky, cursed to wait until the dark of night to take shape and do its dreadful work.

Full of hunger and malice, the cloud spectre hung powerlessly above the Earth, smelling the air, looking for the next likely victim. It fed upon wickedness. Every cruel act was like a bell calling it to come and eat its fill. But for now it had to wait, to watch the doings of its mortal prey, to select the ones it would harvest when the time was ripe.

A feeling of expectation arose in the spectre’s mind. In the depths of its wayward consciousness it felt the coming of a small town, a place where people lived and worked and festered in their isolation. This was a place where bad things could happen. This was a place where it could satisfy its lust for as long as the darkness held.

Across the little town and away the wind blew, and the evil thing in cloud form was swept away. But it would not forget. When the turn of the world and the bluster of the wind were in its favor, it would return.

Through a forest of broad leafed trees, then high into a rocky outcrop it went. All around it was life, the blood of the wild animals calling to be taken. The kill, it knew the horror of the chase and the cry of helplessness as the spark of life was extinguished in what was love between predator and prey. Again the wind blew and it was gone. The feeling, so electric, so thrilling, was gone too.

The mountains grew tall, but not as tall as others the cloud spectre had made its haunts in times so long ago. There was a protected lake in a valley between the peaks that looked a mirror of the heavens. Upon the smooth surface of the water a reflection of the wild sky shined. There were white clouds and the blue of the heavens in the deeper blue of the water. But it would not see itself in this mirror, could not, it knew. For all the seeming form, it was a spirit thing and did not yet exist in the physical world, not now, not until the night fell.

Over a final peak and to the waters of a lake so large as to be an inland sea it drifted. The cloud spectre was glad to be gone, lost amidst the rolling waves. The emptiness was a comfort to its tortured mind.

The night was beginning at last. When the final rays of the sun fell behind the curve of the world, the evil thing gathered. The cloud of its being coalesced, forming a kind of body. The shadows solidified and it tumbled into the water.

Under the light of the stars, the cloud spectre began to return to shore. It was far out, but not too far. The town was rich with victims and it was hungry. There would be time. For now, it would swim.

* * *

“I don’t want to go all by myself,” Jenny Bracco said, pulling her Aunt Genie’s arm, “I’m scared.”

“What’re you afraid of?” Aunt Genie’s new boyfriend Bill said in disgust. “Come on, you’re too big for this.”

“She’s only nine,” Genie said, trying to sooth both her niece and her boyfriend.

Cursing obscurely with slurred words, Bill said, “Why did she have to come anyway? All she’s done is whine the entire time. I thought kids liked camping out.”

Bill had been drinking. He had already had too much. Jenny was old enough to know about that, even though she was nine, almost ten.

“Come on, watch you’re language,” Genie said, putting a finger to her lips. “My sister was in a bind and had to go to work.”

“She could have gotten someone else to do it. What about that neighbor lady?”

“Mrs. Morgan already watched her twice this week. My sister’s scared she might not want to do it anymore. She’s had a hard time finding anyone who’ll take a kid at night during the week.”

“So what, it’s gotta be you?” said Bill, getting angry. “I thought we were gonna party tonight.”

In her sexiest voice, Genie said, “We will, baby, I promise.”

Disgusted with the way her Aunt was looking at her new boyfriend, a man she was beginning to think an even bigger loser than the last one, Jenny stood. Such was the state of her bladder, she was barely able to keep from wetting herself.

“I got to go,” Jenny said anxiously, crossing her legs and starting off toward the restroom in a sort of half walk, half hop. It was a pit toilet, wasn’t even as nice as a port-a-jon, but she was in no condition to be fussy and there was no way she was going to have an accident in front of that jerk Bill.

Rising from her folding chair, Aunt Genie went to Bill and pressed her body against him in a way that Jenny had seen on daytime television. She said suggestively, “When we get back, if you’re good, I’ll take care of you. Just give me a minute to freshen up. Okay?”

Bill laughed greedily and pulled Genie closer to him, so the front of her jeans was in his face. “That sounds good.”

“Then we’ll be right back, baby.” She broke away from the embrace and bent to kiss him long on the lips, making loud smacking sounds that made Jenny want to vomit. “Don’t you go nowheres.”

Jenny made it to the restroom only just in time. As she squatted over the seat, not wanting to touch anything for fear of what sort of mutant diseases might breed and multiply in such an awful, dirty place, Jenny could hear her Aunt outside, humming some old country music tune they had listened to during the ride to the park.

“Jenny, sweetheart, when we get back, Bill and I need a little adult time. Okay? Do you understand? You just sit by the fire and roast some marshmallows and try not to get in the way, okay?”

“How long are we going to stay?” Jenny complained, finishing her business. “I want to go home. I don’t like Bill and he doesn’t like me either.”

“Now you just straighten up, young lady,” Aunt Genie snapped. “You just straighten up and do as you’re told or I’ll make sure your mama puts the strap to you good. You hear that? I don’t want you making no more trouble with Bill. He’s a good man if you would just stop making him mad.”

“What did I do?”

“That kind of attitude is just what I’m talking about. Keep that up and I’ll guarantee there’ll be no TV for you for a month.”

Opening the door, Jenny reluctantly agreed, “Oh all right. I’ll read my book and try not to do anything stupid.”

“Good,” Genie said, palming something in a plastic case and handing over her purse to Jenny, “now hold on to this for me. I’ll be done in a minute.”

When finished, Genie and Jenny went back to the van. Jenny took her place in a folding chair just as far from Bill as she could manage, but she needn’t have bothered. Bill and Aunt Genie were off to the van in moments, laughing and pawing at each other, must be sharing some secret joke Jenny didn’t understand.

The fire was bright enough that Jenny didn’t need to use her flashlight to read, but she did anyway, thinking it fun. In the light of the beam, she opened the book, looking at the wonderful pictures and reading the words that would be her only escape from the nearby laughter, the slow rocking of the van.

It was a story about a wingless fairy named Patrick and his friend Danny. They were trying to save a young fairy from a bad spirit called a Shathowein. Looking at the picture, Jenny felt a chill, like she was being watched by some evil spirit herself. Perhaps the pictures were a little too real.

A crow cawed. Jenny looked up into the trees and saw the bird staring back at her. She watched it for a while, the firelight shining on its black feathers, and wondered aloud, “Why are you crows always bad in stories? I don’t think you’re bad. I think you’re very pretty.”

Sighing, Jenny closed the book. She had to go the restroom again, was regretting the two cans of soda she drank with dinner. She knew she would probably be going all night long. Turning off the flashlight and sticking it into her pocket, she stood. The bird flew off. Jenny called goodbye to the crow, watching it fly off into the night, sad to see her only friend forsake her.

Thinking she might like to read on the beach, she tucked the book under her arm, making the decision to use the bushes rather than to go all the way back across the parking lot to the pit toilets. The park was deserted and there was no way she was going back there again. The smell was beyond grotesque.

Finding a suitable place, Jenny began her business, but was taken by the same feeling she had been bothered by while reading the book. It felt like she was being watched. Or maybe, it was more like being singled out as prey. Finished, she stood and zipped her jeans, seeing a strange figure arise from the lake.

It looked human, but it showed none of the effort that she felt while walking in deep water. The thing was ponderous and slow, but relentless as it moved forward. In the faint light of the stars Jenny couldn’t be sure, but thought that it wore no clothing. She did get a good look at its hands, large with long fingers splayed outward as if ready to grip someone’s throat with a deadly strength.

The man, for Jenny could see no characteristics that would mark it as a woman, went straight out of the water toward the campfire. As she got a better look, firelight glowing dully on gray skin, Jenny was suddenly struck by the notion that it wasn’t human at all, that it only was trying to look human in the way a tiger tries to look like grass.

She watched in growing fear as the cloud spectre left the water, but she could do nothing. She was too scared to move, too scared to shout a warning to her Aunt Genie as the spectre lumbered closer to the van. It was like her will had been conquered, like she had fallen under the evil thrall of the Shathowein in her storybook. Soon the evil thing disappeared behind the van, but she was still powerless. A deadly silence fell. The cloud spectre opened the van door and entered.

Touched on the shoulder, Jenny gasped, only now remembering to breathe. A petite woman with black hair was looking at her with the darkest, most penetrating eyes Jenny had ever seen. The woman was wearing a simple but well-made dress of black gingham, long and flowing like the summer dresses Jenny had seen her grandmother wear in old photographs.

The woman said something that Jenny didn’t understand, but she instantly felt cured of whatever the thing from the lake had done to her. The woman then said something Jenny understood: “Have courage, child.” And she did.

“Miss Weigenmeister, it’s you,” said Jenny, looking guiltily down at the book in her hand. “I’m sorry. It’s only two days past due. I’m going to bring it back, honest, just as soon as my mom can drive me to town.”

“Yes, I see,” the librarian replied condescendingly. “I’ll renew it for you first thing in the morning, but you will still be obliged to pay the fine.”

Jenny blushed. “Thank you.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

“Here,” said Miss Weigenmeister kindly, handing Jenny a silk handkerchief, which the girl accepted gratefully. “Now, time is short and we must being going. I think perhaps this creature is attracted by wickedness, but that doesn’t mean that it will pass up other opportunities.”

“But what about Aunt Genie?”

The van door opened and Miss Weigenmeister took Jenny firmly by the hand. The cloud spectre appeared from the far side of the van, walking slowly in the direction of the bush in which they sheltered. It was covered in blood.

“Run! Run with me and don’t let go,” shouted Miss Weigenmeister. “Bless me, if only you could fly, but running will do. Let us go!”

And they were gone. Holding tightly to the librarian’s hand, Jenny felt the pull of the world upon her, trying to press the rules of gravity and speed, but to no avail. They moved in a blur, passing through thick forests, hardly seeming to touch the ground at all as they went. If she wasn’t so frightened by the thought of the wicked creature that followed, Jenny would have cried out with the joy of it.

“What was that?” Jenny said excitedly when they came to a stop.

They were in the driveway of an old, two story farmhouse. There was a scraggly oak tree and a fenced in garden, a gravel road that looked only barely wide enough for two cars to pass. Though she had no idea how far from the park they had come, Jenny felt safe. It was a place where evil could not come.

“Did I scare you?” said Miss Weigenmeister in return. They started toward the house, the gravel crunching under their feet, the stars shining in the night sky so that the faint outline of distant mountains could be seen.

“Scare me? No, that was great! Can we do it again?”

“No, I’m afraid the effort has left me quite fatigued.”

“Can you teach me how to do it?”

Laughing, Miss Weigenmeister said, “We would have to train you up a bit first. It took me some time to learn how, and there are other skills to master first. No, I am sorry, but I don’t think it likely.”

“Oh,” said Jenny, disappointed. “Where are we?”

“At my home,” Miss Weigenmeister replied as they came to the steps. “Come inside. Are you hungry or thirsty?”

“But is that thing still after us?” Jenny asked as she followed, looking nervously over her shoulder as if expecting the cloud spectre to appear at the mailbox.

Opening the door with what looked to Jenny like a genuine skeleton key, Miss Weigenmeister said, “If it could find us, yes, but I think that there are other victims, perhaps, that are closer and more easily had. Let us get inside all the same. We have things to accomplish and time runs short.”

“What is that thing? A vampire?” Jenny looked inside, finding a cozy little foyer with a hat stand and a table. Cut flowers were in a porcelain vase. Family portraits lined the walls. She was charmed. It was like no other place she had ever seen, like something out of a fairytale.

“I think not. No, I have the ability to turn the mind powers of a vampire to more friendly purposes. And your Aunt was wearing a gold crucifix, blessed too if I don’t miss my guess.”

“My grandma gave my mom one like that for her confirmation.”

Frowning at the memory as it touched her heart, Miss Weigenmeister cleared her throat and went on, “Though I know it isn’t a vampire, it is a supernatural being of some kind.” Closing her eyes and concentrating, she said, “I am not able to touch it, not like many of the other evil things in the world. I felt something strange today, passing me by as I worked in the garden, but even then I couldn’t fix my mind upon it. When darkness came, I felt something terrible, something that I had never felt before, so I decided to find out what it was.”

Jenny said admiringly, “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

Bidding the young girl inside, Miss Weigenmeister said, “Yes, I have a certain talent for finding troubles like yours. I have been told it is a gift.”

“What do you think?”

“Why don’t we see how this night turns out before I answer that question?” Closing the front door, Miss Weigenmeister proceeded to the sitting room, motioning Jenny to follow.

“Was that you as the crow?” Jenny asked, trying with some difficulty to match the librarian’s quick pace. “I thought I saw something more than a bird.”

“Yes, that was me, and thank you. No one has ever called me pretty before, but you must promise to keep my secret. Will you do me that favor?”

“Yes, I’d be glad to.”

“My thanks. Now, have a seat and I’ll collect a few things that we may need.”

“Need for what?”

“Why to take care of that thing, of course. We can’t let it hurt anyone else.”

“Why don’t we just call the cops?”

“Any police officer would be the next likely victim. You surely realize they aren’t prepared for such an enemy.”

“But what can we do?” Jenny protested.

“Have courage, child,” said Miss Weigenmeister, saying the unintelligible words and putting a hand to the girl’s shoulder as she had done in the bushes. Jenny relaxed and the panic she felt was gone.

“More than you think, perhaps, but that too we will see. Now have a seat, mind, and don’t go poking into any corners while I’m gone. A few of my things are perilous.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good.”

As Miss Weigenmeister went about the house, collecting what they would need for the inevitable confrontation with the cloud spectre, Jenny sat on the davenport and tried not to let her curiosity get the better of her. Most of the furniture was ordinary, if not outdated, and not very interesting. But there seemed to be a voice, quietly tempting her to look in the bookshelf or the china cabinet. Thankfully, Miss Weigenmeister returned, or else Jenny might not have behaved as well as she had pledged.

“What is that?” Jenny said, pointing and giggling at what looked to be some ancient firearm. The barrel was funnel shaped and inlaid with scrollwork. The stock was carved wood, made to look like a dragon. The thing looked foolish when compared to the modern firearms she was used to seeing.

“This, my dear, is a blunderbuss, and it is all the weapon that I’ve ever needed,” Miss Weigenmeister said, slinging a rather large purse over her shoulder.

“Okay, but seriously, you’re not going to use that, are you? My mom has a shotgun under the bed and a pistol in the closet. I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you borrowed them, since it’s for a good cause and all.”

“Not knowing exactly what it is, my plan is to use the tried and true to dispatch it. In short, a silver bullet will generally do the trick.”

“Wow, where do you get those?”

With a regretful sigh, Miss Weigenmeister explained, “In this case, I melted down a few of my silver pieces. It was from my family set, passed down from one mother to the next for generations. Dessert forks, the lot of them, and though I thought I was going to be able to find more, I haven’t been able to.”

“That’s a shame.”

“Yes, but sometimes these sacrifices have to be made.” Miss Weigenmeister gave her young friend a bow and swept out her hand, saying, “Now, shall we go?”

Miss Weigenmeister led Jenny through the house and out the kitchen door. There was a single stall garage out back, with a wide field in the distance. Walking at a brisk pace, they came to the garage door, which Miss Weigenmeister wasted no time in lifting to the top of its track. Inside the garage was an old Volvo, boxy and black and a big disappointment to Jenny.

“What? No broom?” said Jenny.

Opening the car door, Miss Weigenmeister said, “Really, do children get all of their information from the television these days? No one ever travels by broomstick in the real world. Even the thought of it is absurd.”

* * *

The headlights of the old Volvo made a cave of the canopy of tree branches overhanging the road. Jenny felt trapped within the gloom. The trunks of the trees and the thick bushes seemed to meld into one, imprisoning her, giving her nowhere to go should the cloud spectre suddenly appear. Even the occasional low hanging branch did nothing to settle her fears, not knowing what lay beyond the feeble light, deep within the forest. The spectre could be anywhere.

“Courage, child,” said Miss Weigenmeister for a third time, taking Jenny’s hand. Jenny turned to her and smiled, feeling the fear leave her. “They say that soldiers are all afraid before going into battle, but once the fighting starts, once the anticipation is over and there is no longer time for thinking, courage serves us best.”

“I’m not scared,” Jenny said impudently, pulling her hand free. “We’re going to get that thing, give it the what for.”

“Yes, perhaps, when the time comes we will.”

“You bet we will,” Jenny crossed her arms and fixed her gaze upon the windshield and the world outside the car.

For a long while, neither said anything. Fearing the silence would lengthen into terror, Miss Weigenmeister said, “Why don’t you tell me something about that book you’re reading. Did you like it?”

Instead of talking about the book, Jenny said, “How are we going to find that thing? It must be miles away from the park by now. I’m sure it wanted to get out of there after what it did.”

“I think that whatever this creature is, it has little to fear from mortals. Though it may not flee the scene in fear like some common criminal, it is likely to move on, to go in search of more victims.”

“Back to the park then?” Jenny said, swallowing nervously. The thought of seeing the van or the camp made her feel sad in a horrible way.

“That would be a good place to start,” Miss Weigenmeister admitted. “Though I haven’t the ability to touch it, I can see many other things that happen in the world. I’ll try to see the negative, if you understand my meaning.”

“Don’t look for it, but look for what it has done.”

“Your understanding of the situation is quite sufficient.”

“You could change into a crow and try to spot it from the air.”

“If that is the only way, then yes, but I don’t anticipate too much trouble finding it. If I may say so, I do run into these sorts of troubles with very little effort. My guess is that it will make for town. The road from the park to town is, more or less, a straight line. We should spot it easily enough.”

“But people live out there,” Jenny said, a protective rage overcoming her.

“Yes, indeed, but a house is more than four walls and a roof. A house, like a church or a synagogue or a mosque, offers protection from such evils of the world. It has been that way since time began.”

“Like not inviting vampires in.”

“Precisely.”

After many turns through deserted back roads, they finally came to the park. Finding tracks in the gravel at the entrance and the road’s shoulder, they followed.

“I feel it,” Jenny said, shivering. “We’re getting close. Are you sure we shouldn’t call the cops? I see the cell tower. It’s dead at the park but I’d bet there’s signal here.”

“The things young people know about,” Miss Weigenmeister said with an amused laugh, slowing the car and taking the blunderbuss in her lap. “No, I’m certain that involving the police would provide no benefit. Besides, I don’t have a cell phone.”

“What?” said Jenny in disbelief. “Who doesn’t have a cell phone?”

Piqued, Miss Weigenmeister said, “Do you?”

“Well, no, but my mom said I could get one for my birthday next year.”

“No matter. Wait, I think I see it.”

“Where?” said Jenny, straining. Then she saw it, a dark shape walking in the center of the road, gray skin luminous in the headlights.

They came to a stop some fifty feet from the cloud spectre. Leaving the car running, Miss Weigenmeister set the brake and popped open the door. Taking the blunderbuss with her, she stepped onto the pavement and proceeded to the front of the car. She was standing just a few steps away from the front tire, hoping the headlights would hide her from view, but she knew the undead were not ruled by the limitations of human sight.

Miss Weigenmeister shouted a challenge, but the silent form did not turn round to look at her, just continued on its way as if it were unaware that it were being pursued, or perhaps it was unconcerned. She shouted again, this time using words of power in command. Slowly, what might have been painfully, the cloud spectre turned toward her.

Its face was misshapen, hardly human at all. It had bulbous eyes and a long, crooked nose. Its ears stuck out too far from its head. Now that she had a good look, Miss Weigenmeister would have said this thing was not of the undead, that which was once human, but something else entirely. The cloud spectre made a sort of smile which seemed meant to hold scorn, but the smile looked to the librarian more like the gaping maw of some bottom feeding fish, born in the deep darkness of the ocean. Stretching out its arms, it began toward her.

Raising the blunderbuss to her shoulder, Miss Weigenmeister cocked the hammer and took aim. She pulled the trigger and the flint sparked, igniting the powder in the pan with a flash, but the gun did not fire. Something had gone amiss.

Hurrying, she lowered the blunderbuss to her thigh and pulled back the hammer. After clearing the pan with her thumb, she took a small horn from her purse, thinking to prime the pan once again for another try.

Her enemy did not wait. The cloud spectre came closer and closer, each step slow and deliberate, but relentless. The distance between them shortened to forty feet and then thirty as the Miss Weigenmeister fumbled with the gun.

The car door slammed shut. The engine revved, shrill and piercing as the clutch popped and the tires squealed. The old Volvo shot forward, close enough to Miss Weigenmeister to blow her skirts with the rush of air.

Jenny hit the cloud spectre with the front bumper, sending it sprawling onto the pavement, first the front and then the rear tire rolling over the body with a satisfying thump. Only after the second bump did Jenny take her foot from the accelerator, coming to a stop and turning in the seat to have a look at what she had accomplished.

The false man was stretched out on the pavement. For a few moments it did not move. But then it rolled over and put two hands upon the road, seemingly little harmed but for having been run down. It pushed its torso up, rose to its knees, and stood.

A deep tire tread, steaming with gray smoke, flattened and marred the thing’s body from its groin all the way to its head. Venting more of the gray smoke, the man-thing’s chest inflated like a balloon, returning to its previous form, if not noticeably diminished from what it had been before.

The car engine revved. Bucking under an inexpert hand, the Volvo rolled backward, running the cloud spectre over once again. Coming to a stop, Jenny opened the car door and shouted, “Get in.”

Breathless, Miss Weigenmeister said, “Young lady, if you think that I would condone, no less encourage, an underage and unlicensed driver to operate any sort of motor vehicle in the public right of way, no matter the present circumstances, you are sadly and most definitely mistaken.”

Frowning, Jenny unbuckled the seatbelt and slid over. Handing Jenny the useless weapon, Miss Weigenmeister sat in the driver’s seat and shut the door. By the time they had fastened their safety belts, the cloud spectre was coming toward them. Hitting the gas, Miss Weigenmeister ran the creature over for a third time, missing it with the tire, the rake of powerful fingers upon the undercarriage desperate and foreboding.

They had not made their escape. After only traveling a few hundred yards, the car engine began to sputter and then quit altogether. “It seems we have a problem,” Miss Weigenmeister said as she pumped the accelerator and turned the key, the starter motor cranking but the engine failing to turn over.

“Don’t look at me,” said Jenny, “it was working fine.”

“Yes, that is most humorous. Pardon me for the moment if I fail to laugh.”

“I smell gas,” Jenny said. “You think he could have done something?”

“I don’t know.”

“You think he’s following us?”

“I’m certain we aren’t on the top of its social register.”

“Hey, I think you made a joke.”

“Yes, I am capable of some wit.” Opening the car door, Miss Weigenmeister said, “We should be on our way. It may move quickly when agitated.”

“Is this gun of yours any good? Should I bring it?”

“There’s a good thought, and don’t forget your book. That’s public property and a privilege that you obviously undervalue. In ancient times men killed and died for books. Now, I will admit that men are in general foolish creatures, but that does little to negate the emphasis that I place upon the matter.”

“Okay, okay, I’ve got it,” said Jenny as she stuck the book under her arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Yes, the new day will soon be dawning, which may or may not be our salvation, but we have to survive until then.”

* * *

The road was bordered by a thick forest. Not yet seeing the cloud spectre in pursuit, they made their way in amongst the trees, hoping that it would come after them so that others would be safe, taking a winding path through the underbrush both to confuse and to delay what followed.

“I know a place we can go,” Jenny said as they emerged upon the edge of a hay field. It was newly mowed and the sweet smell of cut grass gave them strength. “It should be safe and it’s not too far away.”

“Then let us go. I need to find a place to have a look at this thing,” Miss Weigenmeister said, meaning the blunderbuss.

Coming over the rise of a little hill, they saw the town in the distance. The street lights were still bright in the fading darkness, the shadow images of the old buildings looking like piano keys. There was a dirt road at the far end of the field, with half a dozen houses and a commercial building or two in a cluster.

A dog began barking. The noise woke other dogs, and they too began to warn their sleeping masters of the coming danger, loud and fierce. Looking over her shoulder, Jenny saw the cloud spectre standing at the little rise of a hill they had just come from.

“Quick,” Jenny said, starting to run, “here it comes.”

Taking each other by the hand, they crossed the remaining distance to the road, coming to the first of the commercial buildings. It was the Finnish Hall, a cinderblock structure with a cedar roof and few windows. Jenny led them at a jog to a formidable steel door with a single, rectangular window.

Pulling at the handle, Miss Weigenmeister said desperately, “It’s locked. We’ll never get in. We’ll have to find something else. Let’s go. I don’t see what protection a public building will offer us against that thing anyway.”

“You’ll see,” Jenny said, jumping at the top of the door and trying to set her fingers into the groove above as if looking for something. “My grandpa used to take me here all the time. There’s a key somewhere.”

Standing on her toes to feel above the doorframe, Miss Weigenmeister’s eyes brightened as she found a key. She inserted the key into the lock, turned it, but was unable to open the door. “It’s stuck.”

“Here he comes!” said Jenny, pushing Miss Weigenmeister aside and jiggling the handle. “It’s tricky sometimes. You got to work it.”

The door came open. They hurried inside as the cloud spectre lumbered across the parking lot toward them. They had only just made it inside and locked the door as it arrived. Carefully it tested the handle, but found the door immovable. Wasting no time, the cloud spectre punched its hand through the small window, reaching over the broken glass to feel for the knob.

Jenny screamed. Taking the library book in both hands, she frantically beat the spectre’s arm, driving it deeper and deeper onto the broken glass. Before she realized what was happening, the hand fell to the ground.

The hand was utterly different from a human’s hand with skin, muscle and bone. It was solid, like a manikin’s hand. It soon became misshapen, melting. Seeing the hand turn to rot, Jenny screamed and wretched as she backed away in fright. The hand withered, turning to gray vapor, and was gone. All that remained was the pungent stench of sulfur clinging to the air.

Seizing Jenny’s hand, Miss Weigenmeister said, “We need to escape from this place. Is there a back door?”

“I can do better than that.” Wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket, Jenny felt the fear and nausea leave her. She was now a brave girl who had faced a most terrible monster and had dealt it a grievous injury. Her heart swelling within her, Jenny sprinted down a wide hall, dashing through the open door of the first room she came to.

The cloud spectre put its other hand through the broken window, showing no concern over the loss of the first. Finding no opposition, it reached down and took hold of the knob, turning it with the same careful deliberation it showed walking. The lock clicked, the door swung open, and it was inside.

“Here it comes!” Jenny shouted from the doorway of the room she and Miss Weigenmeister had taken refuge in.

They had turned on the light, but being able to see the spectre better caused her no comfort. Just the opposite, as Jenny watched the vacant features, the lumbering gate, and felt the horrid intent of the thing approaching her, her courage failed. Her blood froze just as it had on the beach. She was again powerless and held in its thrall.

Entering the room, Miss Weigenmeister’s mouth turned in a mischievous grin. Now she understood why the girl had taken them here. This was a place of safety beyond all others, except perhaps the loving embrace of the hereafter. Not sparing a moment, she began work on the blunderbuss, clearing the chamber of the wadding, silver balls, and powder. All she could think to do was try again. Silver has a power over evil, undead or not, and she hoped the same would hold true for the creature that pursued them now.

The cloud spectre walked toward Jenny, its awful mouth agape, its bulbous eyes lit with malice and contempt. Each step toward her was like a wave upon the ocean, strong and irresistible, coming closer and closer as she felt herself go mad with the desire to run. But she could not run. She could not resist.

Satisfied with the results of the cleaning, Miss Weigenmeister retrieved the small powder horn from her purse, packing the salvo tightly into the barrel. Cocking back the hammer, she raised the weapon and took aim in what she knew to be the general direction of the door. What she saw filled her with dread.

Jenny stood blocking the doorway, as still as a stone. The cloud spectre was in the hallway beyond, a few paces from where the young girl stood. Its arms were outstretched and its mouth hung open hungrily. She was in its power, but Miss Weigenmeister would not give her up so easily. Using the enchantments of her voice to invest the word with command, she shouted, “Ready!”

Spinning around like she had been struck, Jenny realized what was happening and dove to the floor. The cloud spectre continued on its relentless path untroubled. It tried to take a step into room, but found that it could not. Some force kept it from entering.

“See, I told you he couldn’t get in here,” Jenny shouted triumphantly.

Dismayed, the cloud spectre looked uncomprehendingly at the interior of the room, unable to grasp the reason why it had been refused entry, knowing no law of the ancient world that could have stopped it. Then it looked up to see the image of an enemy against which it had no power.

This was a holy place. In a time not long ago, the room had been meticulously cleaned and given a fresh coat of paint. Thick, scarlet curtains hung upon the walls. Pictures told the life and trials of a single man from long ago.

At the far end of the room was a simple table covered with a white cloth. There was an ornately carved box standing against the wall. The old church Jenny had attended since birth was finally being remodeled. The Finnish Hall had become the temporary home of its congregation.

Finding Jenny safe upon her utterance of the command, Miss Weigenmeister took aim and pulled the trigger. But even as she did so, the sun began working its daily miracle, bringing light and heat to the dying world. Though none of the still feeble rays shined within the walls of the improvised church or fell upon the spectre, the power of the sun could not be denied. The silver balls flew through the air, but struck uselessly against the far wall. The cloud spectre had become gray mist once again. For another day it was cursed to watch and wait, to drift upon the wind in search of victims.

* * *

Mike Phillips is the author of Reign of the Nightmare Prince available in bookstores, online booksellers, Kindle and Nook. He has published several short stories both in print and online, including ParABnormal Digest, Sinister Tales, Dark Horizons and many others. He is best known for his Crow Witch and Patrick Donegal series. Please visit Mike at mikephillipsfantasy.com.

Mike grew up on a small farm in West Michigan. Each year during summer vacation, his father turned off what was affectionately referred to as the “Idiot Box”. This meant that when not tending sheep, mending fences, gardening, building furniture, chopping wood, or just goofing off, Mike’s summers were spent reading. In memory of all the wonderful stories and things he didn’t understand at the time, Mike hopes that through his writing he can share this gift with others.