“How are they today?”

I cup her cheek with my hand, gently rubbing my thumb across it. I know her cheek feels warm and soft; she smiles up at me as we lay together. I move my hand to cup the back of her brunette wavy hair, cradling her beautiful head. Then run my hands through her hair. My fingers get caught slightly, so I carefully detangle it for her. I know it feels soft too, but right now I can’t feel it anymore. Not with these hands. I’m unsure how to tell her. I sigh and kiss her forehead, holding the back of her head again, trying to seal my lips into her. This I feel, her soft skin and the slight wrinkles she gets when she furrows her brows, which lets me know she’s either worried or thinking. I roll over on my back and stare at the ceiling. She cuddles into my side and rests her hand on my chest. I run my hand up and down her small arm, willing them to feel the goosebumps that spread at my touch. Still, nothing.

“They’re being stubborn today, but I think they’ve met their match with me.” I say after some time with a smile, she stares up at me, her eyes searching beyond my attempt at a joke. Behind it, to find the truth.

“Yesterday you almost burned yourself,” She remarks. The doctor mentioned I would occasionally have feelings, until I didn’t anymore. “That’s common darling, remember what the doctor said?” I ask gently, she doesn’t like doctors; ever since she lost her mother. This newest development doesn’t add any favors to them in her eyes. Again, she has to hear the words; there’s nothing we can do .

It started with a slight numbing feeling, my fingers would feel like they were undergoing a soft vibration. Like they had fallen asleep. It graduated to no feeling at all, which I only realized after sticking myself with a thumbtack and Lia having to stop me and show me it was hanging from my finger.

“You didn’t feel this?” Lia asked as she carefully pulled it out, some blood pooled out and all I could do was stare. I shake my head no, I hadn’t… What surprised me more than anything, was how quickly I had forgotten the simplest of sensations. How I had taken for granted the way a pen felt in my hand, the slight sharpness of freshly mowed grass, even snow. Though I always hated snow, right about now I wouldn’t mind it’s cold seeping into my hands as I make a snowball to throw at Lia.

What hurt the most, is I could still touch Lia, but I couldn’t feel her. You think you have all the time in the world, or that your memory won’t fail you; but you don’t and it does. In the beginning and even now, there was this sudden desperation to cut into my hands and fix whatever nerves were stealing the smallest of pleasures… “Hellooo,” Lia knocks on my forehead lightly, “Anyone in there?” I snap out of my thoughts and look down at her slender face, “Sorry love, what were you saying?” “Where’d you go?”

I shake my head and rub my eyes, this, my fingers also don’t feel, “No where, just zoned out I guess. Sorry love.” I kiss her forehead again and begin to move off the bed to stand. Lia sprawls out on the bed and tries to reach for me, I grab her hand and kiss it too. I grasp any chance to kiss her and feel her on my lips. “I have some work to do love, I need to get the final draft of the new building out.” I move toward our dresser and pick out a pair of dark blue jeans and a black t-shirt. “I thought you had finished that project.” Lia says as she sits up and lifts her arms above her head to stretch. I watch as her shirt lifts up slightly and I smile at the exposed belly button.

“Almost, just a few minor notes from Stanley on materials and measurements.”

“Will you go to the park again?” She asks sleepily as she lays back down and cuddles into my pillow. “I think so, it’s a beautiful day out.” I grab my sneakers and a pair of socks and slip them on. I look around quickly for my work bag and make sure my notes, drawings and pencils are all set. “Okay, I think I’ll take a nap. Oh! Can you bring those raspberry cookies I like from Estelle’s please?” She perks up and puts on her best puppy dog eyes. Which always works.

I laugh and nod my head yes while moving to the bed and kissing her rosy lips again, “See you soon.” On my way out of the house I first enjoy the smell of summer, fresh cut grass and a sizzling barbecue the neighbors are enjoying. The park is about a mile away, but I like a good walk. I look down at my hands as I walk, they feel like I’ve slept on them too long again. I pass couples kissing, parents running after children with ice cream dripping down their chin, dogs happily wagging their tails. Life is all around me, but now I face moments where I can no longer feel it in my grasp. Once I get to the park, I find my favorite bench that overlooks a large pond. There are beautiful roses growing, large trees that seem like they dance as a slight breeze passes through its leaves. I set my bag next to me but can’t bring myself to work. It’s weird to hold something in your hand, but not feel it. I enjoy the warmth of the sun on my face, the way its rays hit the water's surface and make it sparkle. There are ducks swimming and I wonder what that life is like.

I hear footsteps behind me and smile, an older gentleman sits down and lets out a big sigh. I notice he has a beautiful bouquet of flowers. “Beautiful day.” He remarks as he takes out bread and breaks it apart for the ducks.

“How ya doing Frank?” I ask and enjoy the way the excitement of the ducks causes ripples in the water as they flock to food. “Still alive Sam, still alive.” I smile, he always says this. I met Frank a few months ago after my diagnosis of MS, if you can guess, numbness is one of the symptoms. He had just lost his wife of forty five years and I was losing my life as I knew it. Loss was eating away at us, the way MS was eating away at me.

“How’s it today?” Frank asks causally as he looks up to the clear blue sky. “About the same,” I say, looking down at my hands, “no feeling today, just pins and needles.” “And the missus?” He glances down at my hands, they look normal he must be thinking. How looks can be deceiving.

“Good, she’s napping now,” I look over at him, worry filling my heart as I see dark circles under his eyes, “Are you sleeping, eating?”

Frank waves the question away, “You sound like Maryanne. Yes dear, I’ve been sleeping and eating. Some nights are just… harder than others.” I nod in agreement and we sit in silence for sometime. We enjoy the stillness of this moment, the way it feels like a bubble or cocoon shielding us from the life that lives beyond this park.

“Frank,” I begin to say, but stop myself. Unsure what I really mean to ask. He looks at me and waits patiently for me to continue, “I’m scared.” I finally say. Frank nods slowly, “Good, that means you have more living to do.” “I don’t know how to go through the rest of this life, when my body is betraying me. I can’t even feel Lia when I touch her.”

Frank nods again, “Maybe it’s not about you feeling her, but that she can still feel you. Sammy boy, don’t waste whatever time you have left with her; harping on what can’t be changed. What I wouldn’t give to see Maryanne again. You don’t need feeling in your hands to feel her warmth, it’s in here.” He says as he points to his heart.

For a moment, I think I can feel the sun's warmth on the back of my hands and I smile. I am still alive, and there is more living to do. Frank smiles at me and groans softly as he gets up. “Leaving already?” I ask, watching to make sure he’s okay to walk. “Yeah, I have a date,” He says and smiles at the flowers in his hands, “Lilies were her favorite.” I smile fondly at him, “Say hello for me.” He nods, “Same time tomorrow?” “Of course,” I say in return and watch as he begins to walk away, “Frank!” I call out suddenly and he turns around, the sun hits his face and I can almost see his younger self behind the graying hair and wrinkles. “Thank you, for everything.” “Thank you, Sammy boy.” He says in return before waving and heading towards the exit of the park. I sit for some more time, the park is beginning to bustle with sounds of children’s laughter and dogs barking. I stand and begin to walk toward the exit of the park too, I have to remember Lia’s cookies. I flex my hand as I pass shrubs of healthy green and roses of deep reds. I reach out and touch them, feeling slight pricks from its leaves and thorns. I think of Lia and smile, willing myself to remember the feeling of her slender frame and soft skin. I can almost feel the curves of her body, ghost-like at the tips of my fingers. There is comfort in the fact that Lia can still feel me, that I can still touch her. There is more living to do, I’m not done here yet.


The flat becomes a graveyard, its soul fled somewhere unreachable. Our hanging photographs are survived only by the ghostly rectangles of clean paint, the rest of the walls discoloured from the everyday grit of our lives. Flowers I bought die in their vase, petals collecting like leaves beneath a wilting tree. There is a sense of something ending; a curtain falling, a book closing, dirt tossed on a casket.

I stand on the stairs, watching him silently through the gap in the doorframe. I can only see a sliver of him from this angle; the singular curl of hair at his nape, the outer curve of his ear. It doesn’t matter - I know the rest of him better than I know my own face. In my mind, I fill in the missing pieces: the freckle on his lip; the way he blinks thoughtfully, his eyebrows scrunched together; the silver scar on the bridge of his nose. I creep closer, stepping carefully to avoid the creakiest part of the stair. I can see more of his face now, illuminated by the lamp I bought and hauled up three flights of stairs the weekend we moved in. I watch him stare at his open wallet, his hands long-fingered and elegant. I watch him reach into the see-through pocket and slide out what I know is a picture of us from our first anniversary; bodies pressed together, lips stained red with wine, his eyes shining as he gazes at me. I watch as he closes his wallet with one hand, the photograph pinched between his fingers, as he looks at us. I watch as he drops it, and we both watch it flutter into the bin.

We move around one another like strangers, our bodies keeping a constant perimeter of distance between us. It’s like we’re opposing magnets, one of us pushed away as the other draws close on the landing, as we shift in the open space of the kitchen. He stops cooking in the evenings, piles of takeout containers aggregating in the recycling, the thick gravy of Thai green curry residue heavily grasping the foil. He starts showering in the mornings, earlier than I’ve ever known him to wake, leaving wet footsteps on the carpet to the spare room like five-pointed arrows. I can smell him everywhere all of a sudden; the scent of him I’d become so accustomed to now pervasive, wafting from the clean sheets I snap over our bed, too large for only my body, the citrus of his aftershave sharp on pillowcases he won’t sleep on, his sea salt soap scenting the steam left behind in the shower. The smell of his skin, abruptly in my nostrils when I’m curled up on the sofa alone, writing and deleting messages to Harry, to Liv, to Mum. It’s a comforting sort of pain, like pressing on a bruise. I press and press, contusions etched into my body, into my mind. I do laundry sparingly, only when I’m forced to wear a pair of too-small bikini bottoms as underwear to work, the day spent restlessly shifting the elastane where it bites into my hips. I stay late at my desk, eyes wide and blank, staring at my computer screen long after it’s gone to sleep. Desperate to know if Noah is home, unable to bear the answer. I eat frequently, in heaping spoonfuls, piling food into my mouth until I can barely chew, breathing in ragged gasps through my nose. There is a constant lump in my throat, a deep well of hunger in my belly that food can’t satisfy, a bloated fullness to my body that makes me feel like an intruder in my own skin.

* The night I can’t come back from, he didn’t come home until 2am. His phone was still off, my messages showing as delivered, unread. He found me on the staircase, hugging my knees, the scratchy yellow blanket he hates wrapped around my shoulders. We stared at one another, my eyes red, his face drawn and pale. My hands shook when I reached for him. He took my hand, clammy in his, and he started to talk, telling me about his day, his eyes shifting, thumb stroking the veins of my hand. He didn’t say where he’d been or who he’d been with. He told me about the phone call with his dad earlier that day, news from home. He told me about a dream he’d had a few nights ago, its contents disjointed and meandering, how he woke with a formless, grappling fear, while I’d been asleep beside him. His mouth seemed swollen. His voice was rough, gravelly, like he’d been smoking, or talking too much. I sat there, clutching the blanket, clutching him, wanting the night to go on forever, knowing it would end. * “I don’t understand this, Matty. It’s not like you to make such a huge decision on a whim.” Liv leans forward, chin on her hand.

I bite back a sigh. “It’s not a whim.” “It seems like it is. It can’t be that bad? Surely? You guys have always been so… solid.” I rub my eyes tiredly, cursing under my breath when I remember I wore mascara tonight. I wipe the smudges away with my fingertips, gnawing at my lip. She raises her eyebrows. “You’re really not going to tell me what happened?” I shrug, shaking my head. I let my eyes unfocus around the bar, sliding over the various groups of slouching office workers in their rumpled suits, hands protective over sweating pints. A woman sits hopefully at the bartop, hinging forward to force conversation with a young bartender. His colleague looks on in amusement, drying glasses with a faded cloth. “Noah loves you, any idiot can see that.” She reaches for my hand. “Whatever it is… you don’t have to say goodbye, you know?” I look at her, her sweet round face, her characteristically large earrings pulling the lobes of her ears down like sagging branches. Her undereyes are mottled blue, deeper than the last time I saw her.

I meet her gaze. “It’s not that simple.”

She sighs. “How’s Harry taking it?” “I… haven’t seen him.” She raises her eyebrows. I shrug again. “I haven’t really seen anyone.” “ That’ll be a messy custody battle.” She takes a sip of wine, circling the base of her glass with a pink-painted fingernail. “It’ll change things.” A beat of silence, everything this means unfolding before us. “Do you love him?”

I frown. “Of course I do.”

“Then you can fix it. Right?” She gulps her wine, eyes on me. She licks her lips, and there’s something unsettlingly fervid about it that makes me recoil. The bar feels claustrophobic suddenly, the music too loud, the tables placed uncomfortably close; the press of bodies and conversation pushing down on me in heavy pulses.

I think of Noah this afternoon, how he stuffed clothes into his backpack with one hand, chucked his toothbrush in loose, its bristles still wet from the morning, how he hesitated as he packed his book from his bedside table. How he zipped up the bag and hefted it onto one shoulder, avoiding my eyes. How he ducked his head and left the flat quietly, without argument, without touching me. Without a promise to return. “I don’t think so,” I say to Liv now, leaning back in my chair. I want to , I think. I wish we could. * He told me the truth several days after the night on the staircase. His back was straight, his hands soapy with suds from the sink. He held the pot we’d used for dinner suspended in the air, dripping water onto the countertop. He spoke to the window in long, run-on sentences, not pausing for breath, words collecting together like a multi-car pileup. Words about me, about her, about what I meant to him, what she didn’t mean, all the words crushed against each other. Words about what he wanted, what he needed, what he thought. Words pouring out of him, pooling between us, amalgamating and warping into a congealed lump of language. I’d stood behind him, frozen in place, tugged under by the force of him. * I unlock our front door quietly, pausing in surprise when I hear voices. They hear the door snick closed and the conversation stops, resumes urgently, dipping to a whisper. I inhale a deep breath and exhale, climbing the stairs to slink, unseen, to bed.

They’re hovering in the hallway, bodies appearing nearly conjoined from this angle. They look caught, startled in the too-bright light.

“Hi,” I say, looking between them. I try not to look devastated. I think I fail. “You’re back,” Noah says, his voice a caress. Harry smiles at me, somehow making it look more like a wince. My sense of betrayal balloons, ugly and unfair.

We all start speaking at the same time. “We were just-” “I didn’t think you’d-”

“We didn’t mean to-” We stop, embarrassed, trying to be grownups.

Harry swallows. “We were just collecting…” He holds up Noah’s wallet, brown leather wrinkled and worn. “We didn’t mean to disturb you.” “Oh, you’re - you’re not disturbing me.” It comes out quieter than I mean it to, more intense. I pull emotion back from the surface, forcing my mouth closed. Harry looks to Noah, apologetic or uncertain, it’s hard to tell. Noah keeps his eyes on me, round and dark. “We’ll go,” he says. I nod, not trusting myself to say anything else, my mind thrumming desperately: stay .

We sidestep each other, a solemn, heartbroken dance that ends with my back pressed to the wall, my shoulder brushing Noah’s on his way past. I jerk it away, stung, so forceful my body thumps against the wall. I swallow down the pain, eyes burning. Harry looks between us, lips turned inward, hands fluttering at his sides. I can do nothing but blink at them, clutching my elbows, watching them leave together. It takes me nineteen minutes to peel myself from the wall, to stagger up the stairs. I collapse on our bed, staring at the ceiling long into the night, the occasional tear collecting in my ear.

I wake early, eyes raw, to a message from Harry. Can we talk? I squint at the glare of my phone, the time flipping over to twelve minutes past six. I wait an hour to text him back, suggesting we meet at a familiar haunt in town.

I sit at the usual table, organising the sugar packets and replacing them in the ceramic pot. He arrives ten minutes early, surprised to see me already seated. There’s only one other table occupied, an old man mumbling to himself in the corner. Harry gets our coffee, placing his down too firmly on the table, foamy milk sloshing over the side. I mop it up with my sleeve, waving away his protests. I take a burning sip of my latte, tasting nothing. “You can’t do this,” he says finally, frowning at the table. I study his face. His jaw is set firmly, his teeth clenched, determined. He’s always been handsome, in a gentle sort of way, his hair wavy and dark, his nose giving him a refined, feminine beauty, offset by the sharp line of his cheekbones.

“Matty.” “Mm.” “Come on. You can’t want this.”

My eye twitches, his words too similar for comfort. This isn’t what I want. “I’m really tired of being told how I feel.” He shifts in his seat, frustrated. “I’m…” He huffs a sigh. “I just mean - you two have been together so long. We all have. It’ll make things… Are you sure?” A flash of the night we broke up: bitter, shocked silence, nails digging into my skin. Is this really it? I blink rapidly, eyes on the tabletop, forcing myself back to the present. “I think I am.” “You think ? You don't know?” I look up in frustration. “Did he tell you? What he did?” Harry’s eyes cloud over. He shakes his head once, dropping his eyes from mine and cupping his mug. “I don’t need to know the details.”

I speak over him. “He slept with her.”

His gaze snaps to my face. “What?” “Emma.” He shakes his head, violently, the force of it rattling his whole body. “No.” “He said he didn’t?” “He… didn’t tell me.”

“What did he tell you?” “Just that - that things had been difficult, that you’d both decided…”

I snort, shoving my coffee away. It’s too sweet, the oat milk woody in my mouth.

“But why would - it’s not like him. To do that. It can’t have been…?” He swallows. “I know there was the little… flirtation , but he’d never let it… become…” This realisation, that Harry was complicit in the secret, keeping me in the dark, not just protecting Noah, but siding with him - it stings like a slap, bringing everything into acute focus. The feeling of something fracturing, being wrenched apart, not by accident, but by deliberate, decisive action, overwhelms me.

The knot in my stomach tightens. I watch Harry stumble over his words, arms crossed tight over my chest, finding grim satisfaction in seeing his confidence unravel. A small, quiet part of my heart chips off, disappointed. His mouth sets into a grim line. “I’m sorry, Matty. I didn’t… he didn’t say.” The ‘ but’ he doesn’t add hangs in the air between us.“Right,” Harry says, nodding to himself. “That makes things… different.” He sips his coffee, wincing at its temperature.

He seems changed to me now, this new knowledge throwing his character into sharp relief. Somewhere in all this mess, lines have been drawn, and it’s a shock to find myself pushed to the other side, alone.

His phone buzzes, and he wrestles it from his trousers, frowning. He audibly inhales when he reads the message, eyes darting back to me. “What’s wrong?” He leans forward, suddenly penitent. “I wouldn’t have done this if I had known - ah, fuck. I’m sorry,” he says, his face miserable. Dread creeps into my chest. “What, Harry? What have you done?”

“He’s - here. I’m sorry, I-”

I look up, seeing Noah standing in the cafe doorway, eyes sweeping across the tables, settling on me, something like surprise in his expression. He’s wearing our old university t-shirt, its grey collar loose with wear, the fresher’s logo emblazoned over the left breast. I blink and see him as he was eight years ago, the first time I saw him: his hair shining in the sunlight, head tipped back in laughter, face smooth and freckled, Harry at his side. It’s like all of the tiredness leaves me in an instant, my skin electrified. I unfurl my spine, sitting straighter in my chair as he walks over. My heart begins to beat its familiar old rhythm: Noah, Noah, Noah.

Noah pulls a chair from another table, wincing as it scrapes across the floor. He sits, hands folded in his lap, eyes on me. “What is this?” he murmurs. Harry squirms in his chair. “I… okay, I didn’t have all the information,” he shoots Noah a sharp look, “but I thought you guys should talk.” He crosses his arms, defiant, shaking off his remorse.

I sigh, feeling like I’m pulling breath from my whole body, deflating as I exhale. “Harry.” Noah rubs his face. “Mate, there isn’t…” he looks at me, pleading, his hand on the table, centimetres from mine. “We’ve said everything we need to.” I let myself look at him for a searing heartbeat, letting the ache crack my chest wide open. I haven’t , I think, moving my hand away from his.

Harry shakes his head. “No, come on.” He looks between us, growing desperate. “Is nobody going to say it? He made a mistake , Matty. He’s sorry, alright? You’re sorry - this doesn’t all have to end.”

I close my eyes. Noah makes a quiet sound next to me, half choked, half gasping.

“Harry.” Noah speaks like he does to his four-year-old niece; gently, trying to be reassuring. “This doesn’t mean we can’t all still be friends. We still care about each other,” he says, his voice catching. “We just need a bit of time apart.” I clench my hands into fists to stop them trembling, looking at them both across the table. “Look,” Harry insists. “If you still care about each other, then - then-” “Please stop,” I whisper.

He shakes his head in disbelief. “So, what? This is it? A decade of friendship, just over?” His voice takes on a frantic timbre, the sound of a heart breaking. “No.” “Are you with her?” I ask Noah, surprising us all.

They blink at me in tandem. “What?”

“Emma. Are you together?” He swallows hard, his lovely face transformed into a stranger’s. “I… it was just once. Only the once,” he says, so softly I almost miss it. He looks haunted. “No,” he says, emphatically, when I don’t look away.

“That’s all there is, Harry,” I tell him.

Sometime after they’ve left, the waitress appears at my elbow. “Was that your boyfriend?” she asks, piling our mugs onto a tray. I’m not sure which one of them she means, or what the answer is, anyway, so I stay silent. “You look so good together.”

I fake a smile, unable to respond. “He obviously loves you a lot,” she says wistfully. “You’re lucky.” She wipes the table half-heartedly, and realising I have nothing to say to her, takes her tray and her rag back behind the counter.

I sit in the cafe, watching the trees sway outside, a child on a tricycle hurtling along the pavement, a parent trotting several paces behind. A dog sniffs at a lamppost, their owner gesticulating enthusiastically as they speak into their phone. Two women pass by the windows, their eyes alight with laughter, inspecting the piles of sagging pastries on display. They move on, bodies bumping together amicably. I sit alone there, stuck at my table, feeling cleaved in half.


Running through the ten-story office building's glass doors, Mandy pulled her cellphone from her purse to check the time.

“Crap,” she muttered.

She had less than five minutes until the meeting started, which left her with two choices. Take the stairs as usual, but at a sprint, and arrive a sweaty mess. She could swallow her claustrophobia and get into the tiny, rickety elevator. Easy choice, right? More like no choice. She couldn’t be late again. Her hand shook slightly as she pressed the elevator button. When the door opened, she took a deep breath and stepped inside.

Sixty-seconds. That was all this ride from hell would take. Sixty-seconds.

She repeated the mantra over and over. At this rate, she’d still arrive a sweaty mess, but stinking of fear instead of exercise.

Which is wor— Her heart stopped at the same time the box of death halted.

“Are you kidding me,” she whispered-choked, pulling out her phone and dialing her friend and colleague, Theo.

He picked up on the first ring. “I see you’re running late again, but lucky for you the power goes out with the same frequency as your tardiness,” he teased cheerfully. “Ah, the joys of working in an old building with shoddy wiring.” “No. No, it isn’t good,” she replied, too distraught to care that her voice trembled. “I’m in the elevator.”

“Wait. Why? I thought you hated small spaces and always took the stairs?” “I was late to the last meeting. I couldn’t risk it so soon,” She croaked, leaning on the wall before sliding to the dirty floor.

He called to someone in the office, asking how long until the power was back on. After a moment, he said to her, “The electrician says it will take twenty minutes, max.” She shook her head, unable to speak. It might as well be twenty years.

“Mandy,” Theo called, worried threaded in his voice. “Are you still there?” “This is stupid, I know. A dumb, irrational fear, but,” She ran a hand through her once perfect hair, “I swear, the walls are closing in on me.”

“Shut your eyes,” Theo demanded.

Her soft-spoken friend never commanded. That, and his gorgeous smile were the two things she adored about him the most. However, today she appreciated the unexpected distraction and complied.

“Okay, did it. Now what?”

“Where is the one place you’ve always wanted to go?”

She answered without hesitation. “Iceland.”

“Really,” he laughed, the timber soothing. “Your dream vacation is a block of ice?” “Only about ten percent of the country is covered in ice, and the average temperature is quite pleasant,” she said through a smile.

“Well, I stand corrected, Ms. National Geographic,” he chuckled. “What is the first thing you’d visit or do?”

“Go hiking at Snæfellsjökull National Park or Hornstrandir Nature Reserve. No. Wait. I’d swim in the Blue Lagoon.” “Tell me about the Lagoon as if you are there. I want all the details. Using all your senses.” “Okay.” She thought about it, diving into her imagination and traveling daydreams. “The waters are hot, but the cool outside air makes it pleasant. The color of the water is a stunning, vibrant turquoise.”

He cut in. “Like that necklace you always wear?”

Her hand slid absently to the pendant nestled between her breasts. “You noticed?”

“Yes. It is pretty, and is nearly the same color as your eyes.”

It surprised her that he noticed minor details about her. She liked it. A lot.

However, before she could ponder the meaning behind his words, he asked another question.

“What got you interested in this tiny country?”

“Well, there was this band I began to listen to a few years back. I thought they were from the US but learned that wasn’t true.” She told Theo about her favorite group and how their music and history led to her falling for their country. She found herself laughing at his silly questions, lost in his soothing voice, far from Detroit and her office’s tiny elevator.

That last thought slammed into her. She gasped, opening her eyes, taking in the chrome and glass of her prison.

“Mandy,” Theo called, sounding far away, wrapped in fog. “Did you open your eyes and leave Iceland?” She nodded, managing to speak over her racing heart. “Yup.”

“Close them, and listen to me.” “I can’t.” “Yes you can, and you will do it. Now,” he demanded. Like before, something in his voice made her listen. “Fine. Bossy-pants,” she muttered, convinced his tricks wouldn’t work again.

“Okay,” he began, “Money is not an option, but now you have to return to the US, where would you go?”

“Um.” She tried to think, but the heavy press of panic on her chest made it difficult. “Can’t decide? Then let me guess.” After a few ticks of silence, he said, “Oregon.” All the video and pictures from her trip there two years ago bloomed beneath her lids, managing to calm her a little. “How did you know? I’ve been there, and I’m saving to go again.”

“I’ve also been too. I went with my family as a teenager. I recognized the pictures on your computer. The background is of Multnomah Falls. Your screensaver is a photo of Crater Lake. Plus,” She could clearly picture the teasing tilt of his smile. “You’re always going on and on about hiking. I figured my beautiful colleague was a granola-tree hugger and had either visited Oregon or was planning on it.” “Hey!” She laughed. “Wait. Beautiful…”

He cleared his throat. “Uh, yeah. I wasn’t supposed to say that part out loud.”

So, her attraction wasn’t one-sided. Interesting.

From the old building's belly, there was a groan. Then the lights flickered twice before staying one. The elevator shook before returning to its gentle glide to the sixth floor.

Mandy whooped, as Theo called, “Electricity is on!” She opened her eyes and stood. Still holding her phone to her ear, she waited for the door to open.

Less than thirty seconds later they did, and Theo was waiting on the other side.

The man who gave her courage when she’d lost all hers to fears and phobias. Now that she had it back, she dropped her cell inside her purse and took the four steps to him. Gently holding on to the side of his face, she stood on her tip-toes and kissed him.


Malcolm sat on his bench dressed in thick warm clothing, drinking a cup of hot tea, listening to music in his ear buds. Peace, no stress, no hallucination, just peace of mind. He sipped his tea, when he noticed a glowing string out on the fire escape. Malcolm's eyes followed it up to his lap, he picked it up and tugged on it, feeling it loosely around his neck. It tugged back, and he was encircled in warmth. Something he usually felt when Tala showed her face. ‘ Go, ’ a hush voice said, ‘ Momma, wait for you at the tree. ’ Malcolm could only nod, enchanted as he climbed out the window into the chilly air. He heard so many voices telling him to move, ‘ It's an adventure. Don’t shy away now, ’ a woman said. ‘ Breath, young one ,’ A man said, ‘You fear not what is in you. ’  ‘ Your destiny awaits, kid. ’ and ‘ You belong there, with all of us. ’ Malcolm came upon a cemetery, in the field area a long way from home. Right next to it was a large church-like building. Memorized, he wandered the perimeter of the cemetery and found an opening large enough for him to pass through. ‘ Your almost there. Good job, ’ a male deep voice called. He squeezed through, and fell into the dirt.

‘ Follow the string, she waited patiently. ’ Following it through, passing stones finding himself at the end of the string. It tied to a branch on the weeping willow tree. He tugged on it and it faded away. Malcolm huffed “Damn episodes,” He said looking around. ‘Welcome,’ Tala spoke to him, ‘this is the start.’ He looked up and let out a cry seeing the beautiful woman hanging there, dead as a door knob. Her body spun facing him, eyes opened to look at him, she slowly lifted her arm in his direction. ‘Bend time and space, fill in the blankets, of past present and feature. Let us see what isn’t known, break these earthly chains. Let us see the beginning.’ There his vision blurred and he fell over. He wheezed as he found himself in a crowd of white dirty men. A young woman was dragged up to the disgusting fish barrel. The crown men shouting curses at the young woman. She was covered in dirt and ash, two braided pulls apart and a mess. A ripped up blue dress, and a man threw her against the barrel. Her hands were tied back with rusted shackles. “Hey!” Malcolm shouted at the man but he didn’t even flinch at his voice.  “Filthy witch,” the man slurred. Malcolm strutted up, waved his hand in the guy's face next to him. Nothing. Was I dreaming?... She pushed herself to her feet, and a young boy fixed the barrel up right. People all looked like a puritian or a pilgrim from Malcolm history books. The boy's hands were shaking but he held a frown, stone cold face towards the woman. She was helped up onto the barrel by the stone cold boy. She growled at men who touched her. Her face was angry. An older man dressed as an old timey priest walked out of the crowd with a bit of a limp.  “Emily Smith,” he said with a heavy heart, “you have been found guilty of witchcraft. You have tampered with Rebeckah memories to not remember her attacker and it's stated that you have come to Rebekah and her sister in spirit to take their soul, and by an anonymous court,” the older man said, “You have been sentenced to hang for your crimes. Do you wish to confess to being a witch and end this evil?”

She cleared her throat, stood tall and proudly said a loud voice, “ I am not an evil witch. I am Tala Proxila. I am innocent. I never had blood on my hand.” The crowd went wild in shouts that she should hang. She cleared her throat as a man placed the noose around her neck, and the man tightened it with a glare.

No way...this can be happening , Malcolm thought. “May I see all, in the inferno gates, suffered as I, and that demon I was forced to wed,” she seethed glaring at a man with black hair, “I will watch everything you love, blackens like you, and let it rot. This whole town knows of your horrid crimes you have committed,” she said glaring at a man. Malcolm looked back at them man. He held a devilish smirk on his lips, the man from the painting.

“In the name of the son, the father and the holy ghost, may this wicked witch be sent to the inferno gates,” he said, making a cross, and folding his hand into a prayer, “Amen,” he said and the crowd repeated and fell into angry shouts once more. Tala looked towards the nervous boy who was about to kick her barrel out from under her. She smiled down at him, he looked no older than Malcolm.

 “Son, you don't have to worry, I’ll do it myself,” She jumped forward and kicked the barrel behind her.

“No!” Malcolm shouted instinctively, reaching out for her. The crowd roared in cheers and shouted over her gasps as she slowly began to suffocate. Malcolm couldn’t breath, he reached up and felt the rope around his neck. He saw the crowd cheering for his death below, as he hung. He gasped as he awoke laying at the base of the tree. He laughed harshly grabbing his neck, he felt the burns on his skin from the rope.

He sobbed, “ I’m dreaming...I’m dreaming, ” He repeated to himself. He felt something move, Tala sat in front of him with a soft smile, ‘Breath Malcolm,’ she told him.

Tears fell from his face, as he took deep breaths, whipping them, “You're showing me this...Why?” he pleaded. She reached up and ran a hand through his hair, so warm and tender, motherly.

She said nothing as her lips moved, speaking in silence. “ I can’t hear you, ” Malcolm cried, and laid his head down. He cried quietly beside her, as she rubbed his Back lightly. He fell asleep under the tree, cold and sad.


“Yo, Shawn! Over here! What took you so long? I’ve been waiting at least twenty minutes” Shawn and I are going biking in the Community Forest. We’re meeting at the gate behind the baseball diamonds where best trail starts. It branches off at several locations before we get down to the creek.

“My Mom! She wouldn’t let me leave until I packed a lunch, water, a jacket, and spare socks. Oh, and my first aid kit! Then she had to watch me oil the chain on my bike, and check the tire pressures. Finally, she let me go! I’m sorry man!” “Well, you’re a onesie and Moms get protective when they only have one chick.” “What the heck are you talking about? Onesie? We don’t have any chickens.” “It’s something my Mom said…women with only one chick, meaning kid, get over-protective and try to bubble wrap their chick-kid.” “Well, you’d better not start calling me a chick, or chicken, or anything like that because you’ll regret it!” And he swats me on the shoulder. “Hey! I was just explaining. You’re no chicken! I’d say you’re more of a daredevil. Now, let’s ride!” Shawn takes the lead, as always and I am happy to let him. He’s a better rider than I am, and his bike is well oiled and maintained. I’m sure he parks it in the garage every day when he gets home. Mine leans against the fence in the back yard and I’ve never oiled anything on it. I also have two sisters that take it for a spin once in a while, and rarely put it back where they got it, preferring to just dump it on the gravel driveway right near the door. He’s the only one who rides his bike and it’s like an extension of him. The first hill is steep with a quick turn at the bottom and another sharp dip to get over a short wooden bridge. As long as nobody is standing on the bridge, you can pick up some good speed to whip up the next incline. We are in luck today! Shawn waits at the top of the hill until I catch up. The trail branches here, Rockwood trail to the right – a quick ride by the rock cut with a few twists through the poplar bluff and back out to the ball diamonds. To the left is Briar Creek trail – lots of twists and turns through the spruce and cottonwoods, complete with rocks and roots, a little mud, until you get down to the creek, then it levels out to run the creek edge for half a kilometre or so.

“Rock, paper, scissors? Or, how much time do you have?” Shawn asks, as he removes his helmet and wipes his sweaty forehead. I pull my helmet off, too. The sun is hot up here near the top of the gully.

“I left a note, said I’d be gone all afternoon. Let’s take the creek trail.”

Shawn let’s me take the lead this time. There’s a lot of quick turns and a few small jumps. I pull to a stop by the blue bridge. Shawn is right behind me. I pull a water bottle from my pack. “There’s a nice long drop up ahead with a short lip at the bottom. I brought my cell phone. I want to go down a little ways first and try to get a picture of you catching some air.” “Wait. Jimmy? Could you take a video? That would be so amazing! I could send it to my Dad. I bet he’d be super impressed!” “ I have a full charge, so yah, video it is! Give me a few minutes to find a good spot down there. I’ll give you a shout when I’m ready.”

I head down the trail, looking for a good spot to stand. The trail is a little slimy here, and there’s a mud hole that’s slick, but it’s got a good lip that should give Shawn some air. I want to get lower, but not too low or I’ll miss the mud spray and the launch. I find the perfect spot and haul my bike off the trail, pull my gloves off to get a better grip on my phone, then shout, “Let ‘er rip, Shawn!” I start to record as I see him round the jog just above the mud hole. His legs are pumping and he’s gathering speed and he’s yelling at the top of his lungs. I’m squatting down to catch him hitting the mud hole, and bracing against a tree to swivel and catch the second he hits the lip that thrusts him up and into the air. Another swivel and I catch the landing, skidding on the spruce needles that litter the trail, skidding and losing control and Shawn flying in one direction while his bike crashes into a twisted spruce stump. And the word he was yelling finally registers “BEAR!” I hit the ground and spin around to check the trail. There it is, a huge black bear! I’m shaking in my boots but I lift my phone, still recording, and watch the bear amble down the trail towards me. I’m too afraid to make a sound, too afraid to twitch a muscle, praying silently, “Please go away, please go away, please go away.” The bear stops suddenly, sits up on its haunches and sniffs the air, twisting its head first one way, then the other, huffing a bit. It turns suddenly and lumbers off into the bushes. I hear a few branches snap as it heads deeper into the gully, down towards the creek. Immobilized for what seems like an hour, it finally sinks in that it’s gone and I’m safe, we’re safe. “Shawn,” I yell, and pull myself, unsteadily, up to the lip of the mud hole. Shawn’s bike is crumpled against the stump, but Shawn is nowhere to be seen. I slide down over the lip, calling his name, “Shawn! The bear’s gone. Shawn! We’re safe. The bear’s gone. Shawn, where are you?” I hear a groan and notice another sharp drop just to the left of the trail. Running to the edge, I’m afraid to look, but there he is. Shawn looks as crumpled as his bike. His helmet is cracked open and his blond hair looks darker than it should. A shiver runs through me, afraid that he’s dead, but he groans again, and I give myself a shake. He can’t be dead, he’s groaning! “Shawn! Are you okay? Shawn?” I scamper down to where he’s lying against a poplar tree, imbedded in last year’s crumbling leaves. I touch his shoulder and he screeches, trying to pull away. “Shawn, it’s me, Jimmy. Shawn, you’re okay. You’re safe, the bear’s gone.” I grab his shoulder and hold him down.

“Let me go, Jimmy. I’m okay, I think. You saw the bear? It was after me! It was going to get me!” “Not at the speed you were going! Man, you were flying! And then you really were flying! You got some serious air there! And I caught it all on video. I caught the bear, too. That beast was huge!” “You caught it all? Can I see?” I pull my phone out of my pocket to show him, as he gingerly pulls himself up to lean against the tree. I’m trying to go to Photos, but I see a little red light in the upper right corner and 10%. The battery is almost dead. I know it won’t play the video, but maybe he can see the picture. “Battery’s almost dead. You can the picture though.” I swing the phone towards him and he gets a glimpse before it dies completely. His face is a little grey, but he’s sitting up. It takes a minute or two, but his colour returns. He pulls his smashed helmet off and looks at it. He runs his fingers gingerly through his hair. There’s no blood on them, just dirt, as he drops his hands into his lap.

“Where’s my bike, Jimmy?” I hesitate, “It’s wrapped around a spruce tree, where you landed. You flew this way and the bike went right, and smashed into the tree. You were flying!” “Okay. Okay. We have to get out of here. That bear might come looking for us.” He tries to stand but cries out when he tries to put weight on his left leg, and crumples back to the ground.

“Is it just your left leg? Are you hurt anywhere else? Geez, Shawn! How are we going to get out of here of you can’t walk?” I’m trying to check his arms and legs and his head. Tears slowly, quietly leak from his eyes. “I’m scared, Jimmy. Don’t leave me here alone! I know we need help, but, don’t leave me here!” Now he’s full on bawling, and not knowing what else to do, I wrap my arms around his shoulders and hold him close.

“I won’t leave you here. Hey, man! I’m not going anywhere without you. We’ll figure something out. Shhh, now.” I grab his backpack and rummage through it. There’s a pack of tissues, which I hand to Shawn. He sniffles and snuffles and blows his nose and slowly the tears stop. I hand him a bottle of water and pull one out of my own pack. I take out a couple of granola bars, too. Shawn doesn’t want one but I chew slowly and consider our situation. I eat the other bar, too. “Shawn, how heavy are you?” He’s small for his age. I see him shivering and look through his backpack again. I pull his jacket out and help him put it on. His left arm isn’t bending too well. “I don’t know what I weigh. Not enough, apparently. Mom’s always telling me to eat more so I’ll grow.” He cracks a wobbly smile.

“Okay,” I’m smiling, too, “Okay, so that’s good! I’ve got a plan. The bikes will have to stay down here. I’ll pull them off the trail, maybe hide them a bit in the leaves. We’ll have to leave the backpacks, too, but, I think I can carry you. Sorry, but, you don’t look much bigger than my sister, and I can carry her.” Shawn scowls, “But, I think my leg is broken. And, my arm isn’t working too good. How am I going to hang on?” “Let’s get you on your feet…or at least on up on one foot! Lean on me and the tree, and we’ll see if I can manage to lift you.”

I grab his right arm and he slides his way up the tree trunk, using only his right leg to brace himself. I squat down to get his arm up over my shoulder, “Hang on around my neck, Shawn. I’m going to try and piggyback you up to where your bike is.” I reach around to grab his legs and I hitch him up onto my back. Slowly, I make my way around the rocks and trees, and head up the trail. When we get up to Shawn’s bike, I lower him to the ground. He hasn’t said a word, but, I see his face has lost all its colour, and I’m a little scared. “Shawn? How was it? Was it too much? You look like you’re going to pass out!” “Oh, man! My leg hurts so bad. I just need to be still for a bit.” “Just sit here, Shawn. I’ll get our packs and be right back.”

I shimmy down to the backpacks and grab them, wondering how I can carry Shawn all the way back up to the ball diamonds. I can handle the weight, but if his leg hurts too much he might pass out and not be able to hold on. My mind goes back to some first aid we took last month and I remember that we should immobilize a break, but, there we had all the bandages and boards we needed. Here I have nothing! Shawn is laying down with his eyes closed when I get back. I notice the tears leaking into his ears, but I pretend not to see. “Shawn, just lay there for a bit. I’m going to hide the bikes. I’m not far away. Don’t be scared if you don’t see me. I’ll be right back.” I grab Shawn’s bike and scurry it up to where mine is. I pull Shawn’s bike over mine, tuck a few branches around the bikes to hopefully camouflage them. That’ll have to do. I slide down to Shawn. He’s sitting up, leaning against the spruce stump that mangled his bike. “I’ve got the bikes off the trail and hidden a bit. Um…we have to immobilize your leg, and I don’t know how we’re going to do that. If we don’t immobilize it, you’ll probably pass out and I won’t be able to carry you out.” “I was thinking about that, too. Jimmy, bring the backpacks over here. Let’s see what we have to work with.” I dump the contents in front of Shawn. First aid kit: Bandaids…too short for anything, but, the Aspirin might help. Shawn takes two with water and a bite of granola bar. There’s one of those cotton slings – that might be useful, too. Snacks: crackers and cheese, an apple…not necessary at this point. Water: always needed, but we’ll only take one bottle. Socks: who packs socks?!? My pack is one of those with a stiff back and I see Shawn’s eyes light up. “Jimmy, do you have your knife?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it – never leave home without it. What are you thinking?” He grabs my knife and starts cutting my backpack apart. “The back part of your pack has some kind of reinforcement in it. I could wrap it around my leg. We can use the sling to tie it on.” He hacks away at the back pack and I unroll the sling. It’s not very long but maybe we can tear it in half. I catch sight of the socks and I have an idea. The back of the pack is long enough to cover mid-thigh to mid-calf, and I was right about the sling, it only covers part of the top section. Shawn gets a defeated look on his face and I can see the tears start to gather in his eyes. “I’ve got an idea, Shawn. Give me the knife.” I grab the two pairs of socks and the knife. Cutting the toe end off, I pull on one sock to stretch it open as much as possible. Not too gently, I pull it over his foot and up to the pack board around his calf. Shawn pushes my hands off, and grabs the sock. Pulling and stretching at the same time, easing it up slowly, he gets it up over the board, pulls it up to his knee and that’s as far as it’ll go. I toss the next sock to Shawn and he repeats the process. Soon, we have the other pair in place, too. I throw a bottle of water and the first aid kit in Shawn’s pack, put my knife back in my pocket, and sit down by Shawn.

“The Aspirin has kicked in. Do you think you can do this, Jimmy? Do you think you can carry me all the way up?” Shawn asks with a grim look on his face. I take a swig of water and roll my shoulders. I hand the pack to Shawn and stand up, “We’re about to find out. Don’t choke me, and let me know if we have to stop.”

We get Shawn up and I squat to load him onto my back. I hitch him up a bit to settle him into position and take the first step; then the second, and the third, and I stop counting. The trail is steep and I’m concentrating on one step at a time, watching not to slip on the spruce needles, watching not to trip on exposed roots, watching not to slide on loose rocks. Slowly, it registers in my brain that Shawn is humming, and the tune, OMG, he’s humming “We Are the Champions!” I start to giggle and I have to stop. I’m laughing out loud as I lower Shawn to the ground. I’m flat on my back, still giggling, breathing deeply. I have no idea what time it is but my stomach rumbles a bit. Shawn hears it and laughs. “We left all the snacks down the hill. You need water?” “Yeah, water. You crack me up! “We are the champions!” You’d better think of something with a faster beat if we’re going to make it out of here before dark.” “Jimmy, you’re doing great. I have faith in you, and we’re already quite a ways up. I think just around that next bend we’ll see the split in the trail. It’s not that far now.” “I think you’re full of shit, Shawn. We’ve got quite a ways to go yet. Do you need more Aspirin? You’d better drink some water, too.” I stand and roll my shoulders. I tuck the water back into the pack. “I’m okay. Are you ready to move on?” “Saddle up, buddy! We’re going home!” And, Shawn is right, just around the next bend, we reach the trail split. I continue on the Rockwood Trail rather than take the dip over the bridge. Head down, one foot in front of the other is all I can focus on. Shawn is still humming but I have no idea what the tune is, it’s got a good beat, though. Suddenly, I hear shouting and Shawn tells me to stop. People are running over from the ball diamond. Shawn shouts out to them. “Help! Can I borrow a phone. We need a ride to the hospital.” I collapse on the grass.


The barn door creaked open. Patches looked up from his bead of old work shirts and yawned as the Goodman ambled inside. Sunlight poured in and washed over Patches. He stretched, raising his hind into the air, and grasped out with his front paws. The warmth filled his bones and a satisfied purr leapt from his throat. “Ki, ki.” The Goodman said with the voice of scratches and creams. Patches plopped down from his pile and a nagging bite chewed at his hips. “There’s my baby boy.” A smile lit the Goodman’s face. Patches weaved between his legs and rubbed his cheeks on the Goodman’s boots. The Goodman reached out a hand and ran it down Patches’ back. Their eyes met and Patches blinked slowly at the Goodman. He rolled onto his back and showed his belly. “That’s a good kitty.”            Patches stood up and jumped onto the table where the Goodman kept his pounders and twisters. He licked at his paw and rubbed it across his face and ears.            The Goodman made his way over to the table and opened the table’s topmost mouth. Clings and Clangs spewed from it as his hand fished back and forth.            “Have you seen my hammer, Patches? That whore lovin’ board popped up on the porch again.”            Patches watched as the Goodman fumbled and mewed into the table drawer. Not for the first time, he caught a smell in the air. In recent days the smell had grown stronger. It was the smell of spoiled guts and bad blood. The smell that came from his mother and sisters before they took the long nap. The smell was stronger when the Goodman was around, but a small amount lingered around Patches no matter where he went. Soon he’d find a nice dark place to join his kin in the long nap. Would the Goodman do the same?            “There it is.” A satisfied smile stretched across the Goodman’s lips as he pulled a small, clawed pounder out of the table’s mouth.

           Patches glided the space between them and nuzzled against the Goodman’s wrist. In return he received a scratch between his shoulders. He kneaded the wood and his tongue stabbed out of his mouth and hung there like a limp mouse.            “All right, boy. I’m going to go beat that crooked board till one of us breaks.” The Goodman turned and Patches watched as he ambled back toward the door. But, before he reached the warmth of summer sun, the Goodman dropped the Pounder and stumbled against a tall beam. He clutched his chest. “Woo got a little woozy there. Maybe I’ll take a sit with you for a while.”            Patches leapt down, ignoring the bite in his hips this time, and pranced over to the Goodman as he sat in the “Ol’ Rocker,” as he called it. He gasped and his chest heaved. The Goodman’s lips had turned blue, and he quivered like when cold-sky-water falls. Patches sprang onto the Goodman’s lap and brushed his cheeks against the Goodman’s. The scent was stronger than ever. It was like he’d walked into a room filled with buckets of long curdled cream and fly eaten fish.            “That’s my good boy, Patches.” The Goodman’s voice was haggard and distant. “I’m feeling mighty tired. I think I’ll just catch a few winks if you don’t mind.” The Goodman ran a gnarled finger against Patches’ cheek and then rested his hands in his lap.            Patches felt an odd sensation on his back. A well-known pressure of being watched. He turned his yellow eyes onto a young woman standing at the barn door. She didn’t block the Sunlight or cast shadow. It bled through her like light through the water pitchers the Goodman brought out on hot days. He somehow knew that she was there and wasn’t all at once, like a memory brought to life on the glass box the Goodman stares at sometimes. The one with the small people inside.            The Goodman didn’t seem to notice. His head rolled back, and his eyes closed. Patches watched the see-through woman enter the barn and cross the dusty floor to the “Ol’ Rocker.” Patches was ready to make himself big and to hiss at the woman, but a breeze broke through the air and carried a long-ago familiar scent. In his mind, flashes of a smiling woman played. He heard her sweet bird song, and could taste the sweet cream she brought, and the nice scratches behind his ears. She smelled just like the Goodwoman. He meowed eagerly, she didn’t look the same, but he wouldn’t mistake that sunflower and melon smell.            She smiled at Patches and scratched him behind his ears like long ago. Cracking purrs rolled from his throat, and he kneaded at the Goodman’s faded blue denim pants. She didn’t speak, but he heard her in his head. She called him a sweet “Ki, ki,” and thanked him for staying with the Goodman after her long nap. If the nap could turn the wrinkled and greyed Goodwoman into a bright blue eyed, brown haired kitten, he wondered if it would take away the peppered grey in his black fur and bite in his joints. He blinked slowly at the Goodwoman, and she blinked back.            The smell of rot exploded from the Goodman. It was enough to break Patches from reverie and jolt his muscle into recoil. The Goodman mumbled. His whole face was blue, and his breathing shortened. The Goodwoman placed her hand on the side of his head and caressed his cheek. A long sigh and with it the Goodman spoke his final word, “Charlotte.” A fine blue mist escaped the Goodman’s lips, and the smell was gone.            The Goodwoman smiled, patted Patches, and strode back across the room. Patches looked up at the Goodman and admired how peacefully his long nap had come. He knew that not all were as lucky. He also knew that things had changed now. There would no longer be sweet creams, or “Ki, ki,” calls followed by good scratches. And his heart felt heavy at that.

           The barn door creaked wide open, and another scent mingled in the air. There was the smell of hickory and vanilla, the smell of the Goodman. He looked back to the door and a young man reached out his hand to the Goodwoman. He smiled at her and kissed her knuckles before sweeping her up into a spinning hug. There were no sounds, but Patches felt the echoes of laughter and kisses in his head.            The young Goodman looked over at patches and gave him an inviting smile. Patches wondered for a moment how nice it would be to go with them. To be in that warmth and get scratches and creams and to be young like them. His heart fluttered, but his eyes grew heavy. There was no cold. How could one be cold before such light and warmth? He decided then to put his head down and nap in the Goodman’s lap. To him, it was as good a place as any and in fact—it was the best place to be. Before the sleep came, he heard the last sounds he would with his cat ears. “Ki, ki.” And he knew no more. On the Goodman farm out in Godsfield, Indiana, a small black cat with square white patches on his back bounded out of an old red barn. He raced up the dirt trail leading to an old white farmhouse with a covered porch. He jumped all three steps in one mighty leap and ran over to the porch swing occupied by two smiling lovers. He leapt up into the young man’s lap and curled up for a long nap.


Your Room Is Ready . . . Janis was arriving on a plane at 4:00, and she needed a safe spot in which to recover. So Meredith woke up with just one clear thought in her mind that morning, I’ve run out of time and I’ve run out of excuses. I have to clean the guest room – NOW! She got out of bed, slipped into her Mom jeans and a tee shirt, and went right to the guestroom. She stripped the sheets off the bed and put them in the washer. Then she went to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. Carrying her coffee mug back to the guest room, she sank into a comfortable chair. Where do I begin…? s he thought as she surveyed what had once been a very pretty room. But, like all rooms that fall into disuse, this one had become a catch-all for stuff. Suitcases that weren’t put away between trips, boxes of Christmas ornaments and an artificial tree, miscellaneous things that had been designated for a hypothetical garage sale that would happen sometime, outgrown children’s clothes, and sporting equipment covered most of the floor space. She could just barely see the pretty woven rug she had shopped for, for months. Declutter first ! Meredith decided and made alternate trips to the garage and trash can as she redistributed everything that didn’t belong in the guestroom. Huffing and puffing, she poured another cup of coffee and returned to the guest room chair. With a wry smile, she let the trite but true phrase cross her mind; Oh yeah, if these walls could talk . It was once one of the busiest rooms in the house. Memories of what she thought of as her one-night-stand era came up first. From the time she divorced Phil’s father when he was 10, until he left for college at 18, Meredith did very little dating. But once her son was no longer even in the same State, she slowly entered the dating pool. After she knew a guy for a while, she sometimes invited him to come home with her for the night, but she always took him to this room - the guest room - reminding them both that he was just a guest. There were no plans to be made for a long-term relationship. Funny, she could only remember a few of their names, but she remembered other things. There were a few less-than-sterling choices, but for the most part, they had been nice men, who weren’t any more interested in making a commitment than she was and that system worked well for her - until she met Jim and brought him home to her bedroom - for good. Armed with a mop, her vacuum, and cleaning supplies, she tackled the job of removing dust and grime, accumulated over years, and while she cleaned, she remembered other times the guest room had been in full use. Her Aunt Jill and Uncle Ed came down from Vermont to stay for a number of years from late November until May, and they took over a big part of her home and her life. It was glorious. In those years, Meredith was working in Real Estate Sales, determined to earn as much money as she could to pay for Phil’s first year of college. When she and Phil were alone, she juggled housekeeping and his extracurricular activities along with her work, but while Jill and Ed were there, they shopped, cooked, cleaned, and chauffeured Phil wherever he needed to be, leaving Meredith free to do whatever she needed to do. And whatever time she came home from work, they greeted her, brought her up to speed on that day's activities, and fed her a hot and delicious meal. They loved being in the warm weather with family for the winter and she loved having them. They were both gone now – but she had enough good, really good memories of them to last her, and Phil, a lifetime. Then there was the time when Janey and her mother came to spend a week with Phil and Meredith. . Before coming to Florida, Meredith and Phil’s father lived in Vermont in a duplex. Janey was “the girl next door.” Phil was three, and Janey was five, and they fell madly in love. He even proposed marriage to her and Janey’s Mother and Meredith began to call each other “mother-in-law.” The children never stopped talking about each other and so when Janey turned 12, her mother and Meredith planned a visit. They expected the two older children to renew what had been a magical childhood relationship.

But so much for maternal expectations. Both mothers had failed to calculate the difference in energies between a 3 and 5-year-old boy and girl and a ten-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. They totally disliked each other. Janey told her Mother that Phil was just “wicked weird,” and Phil confided in Meredith that he suspected that Janey had “terminal cooties.” They argued over restaurants, movies, TV shows, and games they did and didn’t want to play for six days, but the mothers had managed to ignore most of it and in the end, agreed that it had been a memorable mistake that turned out for them to be surprisingly entertaining. And in the line-up of interesting guests, she certainly couldn’t forget her cousin Sandy from Boston and her husband, Randy. Sandy and Randy were as whacky as their names and filled with boundless energy. Despite dire warnings from Meredith, Randy insisted that they all drive 250 miles to Orlando to go to SeaWorld, on a day that a hurricane was making its way north in the Atlantic.  “SeaWorld is miles from the coast,” Randy scoffed as they drove directly east, into the outer bands of the massive storm. Shortly after they paid their entrance fee, the staff began closing down the outdoor exhibits one by one to protect the animals. They did attend a few indoor shows and spent some time in the gift shops, but after two hours, they were politely invited to leave the attraction, soaking wet, without seeing a single killer whale. They salvaged the day, though, by stopping on the way home at the Medieval Times Restaurant, which featured lavish shows of jousting and sword fighting and falconry and dinner served with no silverware to allow for eating with your fingers. They were a fun couple, and Meredith could never even hear their names without smiling. Meredith put her cleaning tools away and poured a cold drink. Then she began to plan the little “extra’s” that would make her friend’s stay as comfortable as possible. She gathered the latest magazines and a couple of trashy paperback novels for diversion. She made up a basket of comfort items – toothbrush, toothpaste, hand lotion, nail file, hand sanitizer, make-up remover, pain killers, Kleenex, etc., in case Janis forgot to pack any of those things. Then she turned the TV on to make sure it worked, put the remote in the drawer of the bedside table, and began to make the bed. And her thoughts turned to the last guest to use the guestroom. It was Jim’s sister Irene, who flew in from England for their wedding and to serve as Meredith’s maid-of-honor. At the wedding, Edith met Jim’s business partner Roger, who was also Jim’s best man. Focused on their own wedding, neither Meredith nor Jim noticed the instant attraction that struck Edith and Roger like a proverbial thunderbolt and so they were stunned to return from their honeymoon to find a legal folder on the guestroom bed turning full ownership of Jim’s partnership over to him and a note saying that they had discovered they couldn’t live without each other and didn’t want to. They had flown to Vegas to get married and were on their way to England to live. It had been five years since then. Edith and Roger had visited twice but chose to stay in a hotel. They had one child and another was on the way.

The ultimate happy ending , Marilyn mused as she stood in the doorway of the room, a can of air freshener in her hand, and surveyed her day’s work. The room sparkled. A lush green plant in a handsome Chinese bowl stood in the area of the room designated to draw health and well-being to that space, according to the laws of feng shui. The beautiful white islet duvet and shams, plus a mound of lush pillows made the bed worthy of a page in House Beautiful, and Meredith still just loved (and knew she always would) the large watercolor painting of a field of daisies that hung above the headboard. It was a gift to her from one of the “one-night-stands” – a young, unknown artist at the time, whose paintings now hung in major museums across the country and in his lavish gallery in New York. She had mirrored the painting on the dresser directly across from it with her grandmother’s milk glass vase filled with real daisies that she had remembered to pick up on her way home from work the night before. The final effect was beautiful. “Take care of this next lady, please,” Meredith said out loud to the room at large. “Janis was my college roommate. We’ve been friends for 25 years. She’s fresh off her third run of chemo and has in her hand a report from her Dr. that says “cancer-free.” She’s ready to celebrate, and she’s worthy of this sanctuary and all of the peace, love, and joy you always offer to my guests. Then Meredith closed her eyes for just a minute, breathed deeply three times, pushing back some unexpected, happy tears - and added, “Oh, and by the way, this has been a surprisingly good day. Thanks for the memories.”


In the rearview mirror the one called Astrid, a freckled strawberry slip of a woman, lifts the lid off a bronze funeral urn and squeezes a small hand through its narrow neck. She roots around inside for a moment, before retracting her hand and popping something into her mouth. I’m about to ask what she’s eating when Bobby, the young black man in the passenger seat, says, “Deer.” About thirty feet ahead, a doe stands on the road, so close I can see its velvet ears twitching. It’s too late to stop. I got less than a second to decide--stay on course or swerve into the other lane. I hold my breath and turn the steering wheel sharply to the left. The doe swivels her head, watching us hurtle past, then leaps back into the woods. I pump the brakes lightly as we return to the right lane, watching the needle of the speedometer slide from 65 to 55 miles per hour.

“Auto insurance policies cover collision with a deer but not hitting something else if you swerve to avoid the deer,” Bobby says, rubbing his large hands up and down his jean-clad thighs. “Good to know,” I say, breathing out slowly. “What happened?” asks Luca, the third member of this motley crew, from the backseat of the station wagon. He yawns and leans over to retrieve the top hat that slid from his lap toward Astrid during the doe-avoidance manoeuvre. “Eloise nearly hit a deer,” Astrid says. “There were 57 collisions with deer on Route 62 from January to December of 2020,” Bobby says. “A blind ballerina carrying a mangy dog,” Astrid says. It took me awhile to figure out that Astrid has some form of synesthesia. Luca, or 'Mister Esposito' as he introduced himself, told me she’s a poet, that the funeral home hired her to write eulogies for the indigent and the uncreative. Whenever she hears numbers and dates she says what she sees in her mind, usually crippled people or animals doing something weird. And she can’t keep quiet about what she sees, she’s gotta blurt it out, so I wonder whether she might have Tourette’s, like my grandson does, but she don’t swear like him. Bobby has an encyclopaedic memory for odd-ball statistics, and can guess people’s birthdays just by asking a few random questions. When he guessed mine, I told him he didn’t get the year right, no way was I sixty-two! But I am, whether I want to believe it not. When I said he was wrong, he started rocking back and forth and hitting the sides of his head with his palms until Luca sang ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall, with Astrid narrating each new verse with an image…a seven-legged spider, a deaf mermaid. That all happened twenty minutes into the three-hour road trip. We still have nearly an hour to go, and we’ve already made three rest stops so Bobby could pee because he sucks down soda pop like it’s going outta style. I suppose it’s too late to regret pushing the pin into the ride-share notice I’d tacked to the community board outside the church a week ago, offering to take passengers as far as Wolfs Corner, Pennsylvania. Too late to reconsider taking the three of them to Tionesta, for $10 each, to cover gas money. I shoulda known they'd be handful when I saw the raggle-taggle of them in the funeral parlour's parking lot this morning, but I figured strange company is better than no company when you're on a road trip. Though I'm seriously considering whether it's too late to leave them at the next rest stop. “Do you like country music?” Bobby asks. “Yes,” I say, “I like John Denver. And Tammy Wynette.”

"I hear her voice in the mornin' hour she calls me. The radio reminds me of my home far away," Astrid sings in a clear lilting soprano. Luca's alto joins as they harmonize, "Drivin' down the road, I get a feelin' that I should've been home yesterday.....yesterday." And before I know it, I'm joining in on the chorus, "Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong. West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home, down country roads." “I need to pee,” Bobby says, before we can launch into the next verse. “Okay, we can stop at the Kwik Fill in East Hickory. That’s about 5 minutes away, okay?” He nods and looks out the passenger side window. I pull up next to the front door of the convenience store and turn off the engine. “I’ll wait here for ya,” I say. Bobby and Astrid and get out and head into the shop, the bells jangling on the door as they enter. Luca’s hazel eyes meet mine in the rearview. I haven't puzzled him out yet. He dresses and speaks like he’s some fancy man from the nineteenth century, with his three-piece suit, bowtie, and top hat. But at twenty-something, he’s too young to be that odd. You have to earn eccentricity, like I did mine after six decades on this earth, five (ex) husbands, three years’ probation for arson, and one tattoo of Elvis. “You goin’ in?” I ask. “I shall keep you company, Mrs. Mackowski.” Damn it. Maybe he suspects I was thinking of leaving 'em all here. “Call me Eloise, or Mack,” I remind him, for the third time. “What’s waitin’ for you in Tionesta?” “We’re the entertainment for the Summer Solstice festival. The esteemed Hallers estate has invited us.” “Hallers? You mean Hallers General Store?” I can feel my eyebrows rising to my hairline and try to calm them down. “I believe they run a general store, yes.” “Huh, you snake-handling the rattler they got cooped up, or talking in tongues or…” “Certainly not, Mrs…Mack. We are high-brow entertainment. Astrid is the Roadside Poet, Bobby is the Mathematical Magician, and I,” he says waving his hands in front of his face like the those jazz dancers I saw in Cabaret once, “am the Amazing Luca!” A tattered bouquet of paper tulips appears in his right hand, the crinkled stems gradually wilting to one side. I wonder, not for the first time on this trip, if that boy is rowing with one oar. The jangling draws my attention to the store in time to see Bobby and Astrid coming back to the car. I turn the key and the engine revs to life. As Bobby buckles up, Astrid asks if I want any gummi bears. I turn towards the back seat. She's dumping the packet of sweets into the urn. “No thanks, hon, chewy stuff don’t get along with dentures,” I say, twisting to face front again. I pull onto the road in a cloud of dust, it’s been a dry summer punctuated by the rare electric storm. “What happened there?” Luca asks. I check to see what he’s looking at. We’re at the edge of the Allegheny Mountains, the river on one side, the pine-topped mountains on the other. He’s gawking at the mountain side, at a zigzagging swath of bare tree trunks scattered like matchsticks. “The drunken barber laughed as he dragged the monstrous razor over the pines. Shaving a sinuous path, leaving a stubble of destruction," Astrid says. “That was a tornado,” I say, “from three summers ago.” What I don’t say, is that’s the same twister that gulped up the house I grew up in, the one on Yellowhammer road, and spat it back out like a mouthful of spoilt milk. Mind you, it’d been derelict for years. Hell, it was nearly falling down around me when I lived there, before Ma shipped me out to live with some nuns in Erie because she couldn’t afford to feed all five kids. I remember waving to my sister Lillian, from the backseat of the nun-mobile, as they drove me away. “Do you like marshmallows?” Bobby asks. “Yeah,” I smile. That was Lillian’s favourite, though we could hardly ever afford store-bought food. After a few minutes, Hallers General Store appears. I put the blinker on and turn into the parking lot, driving past a few white tents set up for the Summer Solstice Festival and a sign that promises fortune tellers, magicians, real Indian jewellery, and bear jerky. Hallers has been around as long I can remember, a small store packed with fishing gear, sunglasses, and bug spray, watched over by the glassy-eyed moose and deer heads hanging from the wood-panelled walls. I park in front of the ‘live bait’ sign, away from the rattlesnake enclosure. I’m not sure how Bobby would react to a slithering snake. “Okay, this your stop,” I say. They get out and I pop the trunk so they can get their suitcases. “Many thanks, madam,” Luca says, tipping his top hat in my direction. “Please do stop by for a delightful diversion, once we’ve set up shop.” “Will do,” I say, and I might even mean it.


While driving across the Mississippi River bridge to a Bed and Breakfast in Lafayette, Louisiana, Tanya and Brandon reminisced about their college days when they first fell in love. "I remember the day we met very vividly, sir," Tanya said as she gazed into his eyes. "Me too," Brandon replied. "But you can go first." "I remember you came downstairs at Susanna's house wearing a white t-shirt. When I saw you, I couldn't stop staring at you. I think you literally took my breath away. I was trying not to make it so obvious, so I would look away when I saw you looking at me until I wanted you to know I saw you." "That's so funny 'cause I was staring at you when you weren't looking, too"! In fact, when we finally looked at each other at the same time, I was actually about to say something to you." "Hahaha! And what were you going to say?" "Hell, I don't remember all that. I just remember I saw one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen, and I knew I had to have you in my life." "Well, if that's the case, why didn't you do right by me back then?" "How many times do we have to go over this, Tanya? You knew I wasn't ready to be the man you wanted and needed me to be. But, trust and believe I'm ready now. Why do you think I remained friends with you this long without getting any?" She replied sarcastically, "Really now? So you think you're actually ready to put all the bull shit aside and be the man I've always wanted you to be?" "Baby, I've wanted you from the first time I saw you, and I never stopped. Now, that I've gotten everything out of my system, and you're finally free of your marriage, now we can truly be together." "Good. It's about damn time! It really sucks that what happened is how I was able to get out of my marriage. But, everything happens for a reason." The couple finally arrived to the bed and breakfast. As Brandon was getting their luggage out of the car, Tanya noticed someone staring at them from a window. "Ok, am I tripping or is that lady staring at us?" Tanya asked. With his head and back in the trunk to get the remaining luggage, he said, "Well, if I turn around right now, my back won't be good for anything this weekend." As he slowly stood upright, he glanced at the window nearest them, but no one was there. "I'm not sure if you're tripping 'cause I couldn't see in time. But there's no one there, bae." "I know what I saw. I'm not crazy." "No one is saying you are. Come on, let's go get checked in." "Welcome to T'Frere's House Bed and Breakfast. I'm umm...Wilber. Top of the day to you fine folks," said Wilber, one of the owners. "Good evening, sir," the couple said simultaneously. "I'm not sure if we read it correctly on the internet, but is your check out time 4pm?" Brandon asked. "Yes sir, it is. Ya see, we try to give fine folks like yourselves enough time to enjoy the inn and do whatever it is y'all like to do. Plus, we're not like one of those fancy schmancy hotels that like to charge you an arm and a leg and maybe a kidney just for a few hours." With a light chuckle, Brandon replied, "Oh ok. Well, we certainly appreciate it. This is the first time we've been able to get away together in quite some time." "Oh, I hear ya. Y'all got kids at home?" After clearing her throat, Tanya said, "Yes, sir. We both have children at home." "Well, alrighty then," Wilbur said. While motioning for them to follow him upstairs, he said, "Why don't you let me help you with those bags?" As Wilbur tried to take Brandon's bag without his permission, he said, "No, we're good. But thank you." Tanya whispered in Brandon's ear, "This place is already giving me the creeps, and we haven't even made it to our room yet." Brandon gave her a look that told her he agreed. Handing them the room key, Wilbur said, "Alrighty, here ya go. Room 2. This is the best room in the house!" In a hurry to get into the room, Tanya said, "Great! Thank you so much, sir." As the couple walked into the room, they gave each other a "WTF" look then shrugged their shoulders and started kissing. "I've been waiting 8 years to do this," Brandon said as he stroked her hair behind her ear. "I can't believe we're finally in this moment. It seems like it's been forever." As the couple began kissing passionately again, Tanya noticed the curtain moving when she paused for air. Trying not to sound like she had completely lost her mind, she just assumed the fan on the other side of the room caused it to sway. Brandon guides Tanya to the bed, and the two begin to make love like it was their first time. Afterwards, they worked up an appetite and decided to check for restaurants in the area. "Man, this Italian restaurant sounds real good, babe," Tanya said. "Ok, cool. Let's get dressed and head that way. I'm starving," Brandon said. The two hopped in her red Jetta and turned on the radio. As Tanya was searching for a descent radio station, she stopped on a song that reminded her of Brandon. But, while singing and gazing into his eyes briefly as he was driving, the radio suddenly changed on it's own and began playing a song that reminded her of her deceased husband. Taking a deep sigh, Tanya said, "Aww man. That was the first song we danced to at our wedding reception." Noticing the look on her face, Brandon asked, "Are you ok?" She nodded, "Yeah, I'm good. It's just kinda hard to believe he's really gone forever sometimes. Even though he was a pain in my ass, and I didn't want to be married to him anymore, that was still my husband, you know?" "You don't have to explain anything to me. I've been you're friend through it all. I get it." Once they pulled up to Antoni's Italian Restaurant, Brandon opened the car door for Tanya as she adjusted her clothing. As they began walking toward a table the hostess recommended, Tanya glanced at a man in her right peripheral vision. Then, she turned her head to look at the man directly. She paused in her steps and stared blankly at the man. Shaking her head in disbelief, she sat down as Brandon pulled out her chair. While losing the internal battle to look again, Tanya notices the man she thought was her husband was actually another man. "Bae, you good?" Brandon asked. "You look like you just saw a ghost." "I think I did," she said quietly to herself but just nodded her head to move beyond the moment. After they enjoyed dinner, they decided to go back to their room and spend more quality time together. When Tanya attempted to lie down on the bed next to Brandon, he said, "Oh no, you've got too many clothes on. We've wasted eight years. You better act like you want some more." Tanya laughed and replied, "Well damn. I guess you're right." Then, the two lovers began to have passionate sex. Once things began to get rougher, a lamp fell to the floor. "Oh shit!" she exclaimed. "I don't know how in the hell that happened, but I don't want to stop," he said. So, they continued. Now, laying in each other's arms, Tanya decided to tell Brandon what she's been experiencing on the trip.

"Babe, at first I thought I was tripping. But, after the lamp fell, and I realized it was very far away from the edge of the nightstand, I'm convinced." "Convinced of what?" he asked. "Convinced that Tony is trying to communicate with me." "You can't be serious." "I'm dead ass serious. Ever since we got here, I've been experiencing one strange thing after another. First, it was the creepy looking woman staring at me through the window. Next, it was the radio automatically changing from our song to the song we danced to at our wedding. Then, when you said I looked like I had seen a ghost, I seriously thought I saw him sitting in the restaurant. And lastly, of course, the lamp fell." Looking lost for words, Brandon said, "Ummm I don't know what to say." "What can either of us say?" Then suddenly, they heard a knock at the door. "Can I help you?" asked Brandon. "Umm yea, I just wanted to let y'all know that check out time is at 4pm tomorrow," said Wilbur with a glazed look in his eyes. "Yes, I know. Remember we talked about that when we checked in?" he said hesitantly. "Oh yeah, that's right. My apologies. Well, you fine folks have a good evening, ya hear." As he quickly closed the door, Brandon said, "Ok, yeah, that was weird as hell." "See, I'm trying to tell you. Some weird shit is going on. We've got to get the hell out of here," Tanya replied. Once the two started grabbing their bags to leave, they both noticed the curtain moving swiftly. But, this time, the fan was turned off. So Tanya said, "Look, Tony. I know this is difficult but you're gone. I miss you, and I love you dearly, but this is my life now. I'm so sorry for the drama in our marriage. But, please let me live in peace." Brandon looked in amazement and said, "Wow. I hope he listens. But, it's time to go back to Baton Rouge."

The couple drove back to their hometowns and never spoke of what happened again at T'Frere's House Bed and Breakfast again.


The Lady Chuprova Ioanna Yaroslavovna was an elegant woman. Highly regarded by her peers, the lady was well-known as generous and loving, having hosted countless charity balls in the past few years to fund projects all across the country. Despite being low-titled, she was known by every royal, peasant, and merchant. She was a high-quality woman. So high, in fact, that she was publicly known to be engaged to the second prince of the Empire.

Tanya was not the Lady Ioanna. She just happened to share a face with her.

It was a point of pride once. Tanya would go out and work at the local inn of her small town and strangers would come up to her and say how she “looked just like the young Lady Chuprova, you could be her twin!” And Tanya would smile, because being compared to the lady was a high compliment.

She stopped considering it a compliment when the High Lord Chuprova’s men dragged her, dazed and bleeding, out of her family’s cabin one dreadful night in February.

For earlier that week, the Lady Chuprova Ioanna Yaroslavovna committed suicide via hanging.

It would be a disgrace, she was later told by a sneering High Lady Chuprova, mother of Ioanna, for the Empire to know their daughter killed herself. That the Chuprova family would be unable to produce a daughter for the second prince to wed that fall at harvest.

How fortunate for them, to have found a girl sharing their dead daughter’s face, while also being within the boundaries of their dominion.

How unfortunate for Tanya to share a dead woman’s face while that woman still had debts unpaid.

And now, it was the harvest. Half a year had passed since she’d seen her family: Mama, Pa, and little Vanya, who had still been learning how to tie his shoes. They were safe, or so they reassured her. She wasn’t allowed to see them and all evidence of the existence of Zimina Tanya  was destroyed outside of the memories she left behind. Her family would continue, safe, if she did her job well. To fool the second prince and the imperial family was a high task to ask anyone, let alone a former serving girl with only half a year of training in her head. Her body yearned for sleep, sustaining on five hours a day the moment she was taken, too busy learning reading and maths, having history crushed into her head, manners beaten into her fingers and wrists. Dancing was the easiest; Tanya was already light on her feet from working, but it complicated matters when  she didn’t dance “like Ioanna.” Tanya was too strong to be delicate Ioanna, to sturdy to be willowy Ioanna, too Tanya to be Ioanna. But whether she liked it or not, she had to be Ioanna.

(It felt wrong, even after six months, to call the lady by her first name, even in her head, but Tanya continued non-the-less. For surely, she could call the lady that if she was to become her?) There was not a moment where her actions were not criticized, her expressions tamed, her manner corrected. If she was to spend the rest of her life as Ioanna, then her every action must be perfect. For the rest of her life, her mask could not drop or House Chuprova would execute her family, even if it was the last thing they did as a noble house. As long as she bore the second prince a son—the main clause of the marriage contract between his highness and House Chuprova—her family was hostage to the High Lord and Lady. Tanya had been allowed to read the marriage contract, as part of her training. It had been odd, knowing that his highness, Prince Maklakov Erik Vitalievich, had sought Ioanna out for marriage, rather than House Chuprova appeal to the royal family, but after weeks of politic lessons, she understood. Prince Erik was the second prince and his strange behavior inspired rumors abound. Whispers of Prince Erik consorting with thieves and seeking to assassinate the first prince reached even Tanya’s remote village. When compared to his brother, the court currently favored the first prince as heir to the throne. By marrying Ioanna, a beloved socialite and charity worker, his favor would finally rise enough to rival his older brother. If he discovered she was not Ioanna, that she had replaced her… She would be killed. Her act had to be perfect. Nothing else would save her life. The day of the wedding was stressful, to the point where Tanya worried she would break out in spots. She allowed the maids to apply her makeup, covering the Tanya in her face. Despite their similarities, Tanya and Ioanna were not exactly the same; Ioanna had high cheekbones and a small forehead in all her portraits, but makeup could fix that. Fix her “imperfections,” as the High Lady (no, you’re supposed to call her “Mother” now) would say. Tanya could do her own makeup; it was one of the first things she was taught, as well as to rise well before her husband so he would never catch her without it. Typically, ladies weren’t to do their own makeup, Teacher Olga had lectured, but given her unique circumstances, a little eccentricity wouldn’t be amiss. Her face changed in front of her eyes. Really, it was the last finishing touches to a long transformation. Extensions from a horse were grafted onto her hair, allowing for the flowing black to reach her hips. Rich food and inactivity had cut the muscle from her form, instead allowing for soft curves to form for the first time in her life. Her body had been rubbed down with oil and stripped of every stray hair follicle not on her head while her calluses had been scrubbed away. It was like they were born twins. The maid servants whipped around her in a frenzy as they prepared her wedding clothes, eternally silent for the High Lady had ordered their vocal cords cut (and everything in Tanya wailed at the injustice, because their only crimes were being Ioanna’s maids and finding her body. But if they didn’t have tongues, they could speak of their deception, the deception Tanya now participated in—). Her hair was braided multiple times at a speed she didn’t know possible, all so that the braids would loop back into a bun sitting on her nape. The corset pulled her curves tight, her gown sat heavy on her frame, and she couldn’t even bend over to slip into her shoes. Heels, of course, for a lady would not be caught without them. Two maids helped her to her feet. She did not sway under the weight of her duty and her dress. Her movements made graceful by the thought behind her every action, Ioanna was ready.


The vibrant red of the paint looked violent against the bumpy white canvas surface. Xavier grimaced. He'd never intended to make the painting so violent. But art had a mind of its own and so did magick. He sat in the chair for hours ignoring the pain that cemented itself in the muscles of his bottom. For hours he did the slow work of creating something. And as was with all his art he had no idea what was going to be made when he'd first begun. He got up once. To turn on the small lantern that sat next to his easel. Then again, he returned, glued to his uncomfortable wooden stool as hunger gnawed at his insides and thirst scratched at his throat. An orange glow filled the room. The rising sun had decided to make an appearance in his large attic window. He raced against the nuisance, and finally, he placed his brush on his easel and sat back taking in his creation. The scene had come together beautifully. Xavier raised a brow. It was odd how mundane the painting was. He'd never expected such a quiet scene. Not when the underpainting had been so red, so violent. The image had come together to form a small cafe. Where the lighting was a soft orange. He saw the small version of himself. In the image, he'd looked identical to now. His foot was outstretched and a small woman tripped over his pointed leather shoe. He sighed as the colors bled from the painting, coming to terms with what he knew the Gods had required him to do. His surroundings shifted and he was there, in the dull scene he had painted. The air was warm and filled with the smell of fresh coffee beans. In front of him was a porcelain mug of steaming black coffee.  He took the warm mug in his hands bringing it to his lips. And there was the woman. Her brown hair was sleeked back into a bun. She had an aura of respect that seeped from her. Xavier watched as the poor woman attempted to balance two layers of cupholders containing coffee. A pang of guilt burrowed itself in the pit of his stomach as the woman got closer. He stuck out his foot. The woman's black stiletto heel connected with his worn leather shoes and she lurched forward. The scene seemed to slow. And Xavier pictured how it had looked from the safety of his attic room. Coffee reaching out like tentacles. The sharpness of the woman's shock across her face. He saw how he looked in the painting. Peaking over his mug, face obscure by steam. Hot coffee splashed on his jeans and he hissed. Hot coffee splashed on the woman's arms and she yelped in pain. A couple nearby samaritans rushed forward to help the woman. In the commotion, Xavier got up from his chair and walked toward the bathroom. He closed his eyes and when he opened them again. He was back in the safety of his attic room. The sun cast a glowing light on the painting. It emphasized the different-sized brush strokes. The paint on the canvas shifted. The scene changed of its own accord. The brush strokes swirled around each other like living tendrils. It changed to the white walls of a hospital room. Where the woman lay, her arms wrapped in plaster. Xavier shook his head sadly. He'd never wanted to cause a stranger harm but he found that this occupation often led to just that. The woman held in her hand a pink slip. Her head was bowed, her expression concealed. The painting changed again. The young woman looked wistfully out the windows of a house. An older woman sat across from her, her features similar to that of the young lady but her face was slightly wrinkled. Xavier presumed it was an older relative, maybe her mother. The older woman held a book in her hands. Hues of blues and grays colored the painting. Xavier's face pinched in confusion. He ground his teeth together. Had the Gods meant to punish the young lady? Had he had a role in the orchestrating of the destruction of her life? The scene shifted again. The image was dark. Except for the small glow that emanated from a computer screen. The glow reflected off the woman's face which held an unfiltered grin. He looked over the painting finding the subject of the painting's fingers excitedly pressing keys. He smiled at her, although she'd never see it. The scene shifted once more. Its colors were vibrant. Oranges, and pinks, jumped from the image. The woman stood behind a podium. Smiling at an object held tight in her hands. Xavier grinned as the color leaked from the painting once more. He found himself in a seat. And again he felt the dominating aura of the woman. Claps reigned around him. And as is human nature he clapped too. "Any questions?" The woman asked. Hands shot up from every corner. The woman chuckled. She pointed to one of the older women sitting towards the front. "I'm somewhat of a writer myself, so I guess what I'm wondering is how did you find the courage to publish your first book." She asked. The young woman smiled. "It's not the happiest story. After a particularly nasty burn accident. I had lost everything. And when you have nothing to lose, it's easier to take chances. Sorry, that's probably not what you were hoping for." The crowd chuckled. The older woman shrugged. Xavier caught the eye of the woman. She tilted her head. Her eyes widened in recognition. He blinked at her. Unsure of what to do. And then he was back. In his isolating attic. He sighed and mumbled to himself grabbing the canvas. He made his way down to the ground floor, rolling his neck. He stretched and opened the door to his spare room. Paintings filled the area. Each picturing its own unique scene. He tossed the finished painting into the room uncaring of where it would land and shut the door behind him. Quietly he wondered if somewhere there was an artist who would bend the wheels of fate to bring him some company. His doorbell rang, the sound echoed throughout his empty house. He pinched his brows together as he was beckoned toward the front door. He opened the door. Xavier immediately recognized the woman in front of him because he'd seen her only moments before. Except gray hair had begun to weave its way through her dark curls and smile lines had kissed the space between her lips and cheeks. She held a package in her hand. "I think this was delivered to-" She looked up catching his eye. "You." She whispered, a mix of awe and anger.