Alexander Blickhan

 Old woman Agatha Featherwood snaps the curtains that overlooked the vegetable garden shut. The kettle on the wood-fire stove begins to howl. It’ll be her second helping for the day, the caffeine isn’t good for her heart she knows, now little and frail with age. But after the visitor Agatha had just had, another pot of Earl Grey wouldn’t hurt.

Her little cabin sits primly on a hill in the middle of nowhere. For miles in any cardinal direction, there is only the endless expanse of green, the deep indigo cutouts of mountains in the distance that pierce the gray sheet of sky. It is cozy. Quiet. There isn’t much to do but tend to the garden, bake sweets, and drink tea down to the leafy dregs– London fog with extra cream, extra vanilla.

And of course, there are the children.

One comes every few months or so. Sometimes it is two. Rarely is it ever a full party (the cabin is too far into the journey for all of them to have survived.) They’re usually filthy, hungry, and haunted from the things they have seen. Agatha is sure to whip up something sweet. She believes that her cooking has a kind of magic that can mend the soul, even if it’s only for a little while.

As Agatha pours another cup, there is a knock at the door. She peers up at the cuckoo clock. It isn’t even noon yet.

“Another already?” She sighs as she deposits her spoon into the sink. “I hadn’t any time to make more finger sandwiches.”

She goes to the door. It had started to rain in between her setting the kettle and tidying up after the last visitor. It sounds like stones pounding on the tin roof, but after all this time it has become lulling, melodic.

Standing on the porch, soaked through and looking like a drowned cat, is a boy. He can’t be older than twelve or thirteen. He is covered head to toe in dirt. A rucksack is thrown over his shoulder, a longsword sheathed at his hip. In the downpour, Agatha isn’t sure if his baby-blue eyes are wet from the rain or tears.

“Hello…” the boy mumbles. There is a cut red and curved like a sickle on his left cheek.

Agatha smooths the front of her apron. “Hello there. Would you like to come in?”

The boy nods. Agatha steps away for him to enter. Too weary to worry about a potential threat, he takes off his boots and socks, dropping his bag and sword by the door. Feet rooted on the worn Welcome mat, he looks about the cabin. Shelves are cluttered with spices, tea tins, painted porcelain dishes and carved wooden figurines in the shape of dancing bears. Bundled herbs are suspended from the ceiling to dry. A fire crackles giddily in the hearth.

“Come sit! You must be cold to the bones.”

The boy sits down hesitantly. Within seconds a cup of tea is set before him, and a towel is placed over his shoulders. He wipes at his neck. “Are you a witch?”

Agatha laughs. “Oh heavens, no. I’m just a gardener. It’s hard to get good produce all the way out here, so I decided to grow it myself. Milk and sugar?”

He nods, doesn’t tell the old woman ‘when’ until the tea is completely cream-white. A plate of blueberry-cherry scones are set down next. “What’s your name?” Asks Agatha as she finally sits.

“… Nathan.”

“Nathan. That is a good name, a strong name.” She takes a sip, peering at the latter. “My name is Agatha Featherwood. You look like you’ve come a long way.”

“I didn’t think that there would be a house all the way out here.”

She smiles. “If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that. Where are you headed?”

Nathan swallows down the last bit of his scone, reaching for another. “To the mountains.”

“Let me guess. A giant? Dragon?”

“Dragon,” murmurs Nathan.

Agatha nods solemnly. “How old are you?”

“Thirteen.”

Thirteen. Such a young age for such a quest. “That’s a daunting task for a thirteen-year-old.”

“What does ‘daunting’ mean?”

“It means difficult, intimidating, formidable.”

“Oh,” Nathan picks at his scone. “Then yeah, it is.”

“Well, if you’d like my advice, don’t take anything from the dragon’s horde, that’s a one-way-ticket to losing your head. And bring a shield, you’re gonna need it for all of that firepower.”

“How do you know this stuff?”

“I’ve had a lot of heroes like you come my way, some of them had to slay dragons.”

“These other heroes… were they—”

“Children who have had their fates written on an old slab of rock?” Agatha’s smile grows sad. “Or perhaps an old book? It’s always something with a prophecy they must fulfill.”

Nathan doesn’t say anything for a moment. Finally, when he does speak, it is softer than a whisper.

“Do… do they come back?”

“Some of them do, yes.”

“But not all?”

Agatha grips her teacup. “No, Nathan. I’m afraid not.”

Silence falls over them. This is always the hardest part of these visits. The children that come through are already halfway defeated. Their worries are too big for their too small bodies.

Agatha needs another cup, she fears.

“What is this place?” Nathan asks, as if he isn’t sure what to ask anymore.

That is something Agatha has wondered for a long time. When she bought this tiny cabin in the middle of nowhere all those years ago, never had she thought her little fixer-upper would be right on the vein of a ley line. After some research, Agatha learned that ley lines are formed through a straight highway of energy garnered by the Earth. Between these lines, strange phenomena are known to occur. It is as if Agatha’s little cabin sits in the crossroads between universes. For the forty years she has lived here, Chosen Ones from different places, different eras, different worlds— all of them have ended up right on her doorstep. All of them have shucked their boots and unloaded their weapons on her doorstep and eaten cookies or scones or finger sandwiches. All of them have been young— always too young to be so far away from home. Always too young to die for a prophecy they had no say in.

Agatha has learned not to grow too attached. She had stopped drawing them baths or letting them stay the night. She keeps to baking instead of cooking suppers. It was easier this way for the children to just pass through. It dulled the hurt when a lot of them didn’t return.

“This place,” says Agatha. “Is a checkpoint for Chosen Ones.”

Nathan, without warning or preamble, drops his head into his hands and begins to sob. The rain continues to beat on the old cabin. Gray-washed light filters through the sheer curtains and spills onto the floors. Agatha hopes it doesn’t drown the tomato stalks she just recently planted.

***

The rain has finally stopped outside, leaving the smells of earth and storm behind. Nathan stands at the door, much dryer, bandaged up and back in his boots. His sword is sheathed at his hip and rucksack slung along his back. The load is a little heavier with a bundle of blueberry-cherry scones and a thermos of tea.

“Righto, there you are.” Agatha straightens the collar of his jacket, stepping back to get a good look at the boy. “Looking like a proper hero.”

Nathan says nothing. Agatha places a gentle hand on his messy blonde head.

“I don’t want to die,” he whispers.

The old woman steps back, crouching down to Nathan’s height. She takes his chin in her hand, lifts it so he will look at her. In the daylight, the boy’s eyes are an electric blue. Like a deep island lagoon, or a fresh coat of paint on a cottage door.

“No, I don’t think many do either,” Agatha says. “But one thing I learned about Chosen Ones is that they’re a different kind of breed. They’ve got guts.”

“Is that what you tell all the others?” Asks Nathan.

“You caught me.”

To her surprise Nathan smiles a little, albeit it is a little melancholy. He hikes his bag further up his shoulder. “Goodbye, Miss Featherwood.”

“Goodbye Nathan.”

Agatha watches Nathan walk down the dirt, serpentine path that winds up and away from the cabin, all until he is nothing more than a small speck on the horizon where land meets mountain and sky. When he is finally out of sight, she checks on her tomato plants and heads back inside to fill the kettle again. It’ll be her third helping of the day, the caffeine isn’t good for her heart she knows, now little and frail with age. But after the visitor Agatha had just had, another pot of Earl Grey wouldn’t hurt.

 

 

Ambriel Hurst is a healthcare worker and English literature student residing in Virginia. Her hobbies include reading, writing, swimming, and spending time with her two dogs. Her favorite things to write are all things strange and mystical. She is currently working on her second novel, and hopes to become a best-selling author one day.

Twenty-one. I am twenty-one. The thought repeats itself in my head as I hurriedly stumble and skate up the uneven, stoned land, up to the cliff. My Nike sneakers slide surely against the ground yet I can barely remember stepping forward. I feel like I am holding my breath, although I am breathing normally, my chest moving up and down in the normal rhythm.

Energy builds up inside my muscles and bones knocking in my lungs like gas particles in a jar. I Imagine Brownian motion, small fast particles violently colliding with large slow ones at random. I want to leave a mark in the world, I tell myself, yet at twenty-one I barely know my place. I hate to admit it, but I am confused.

I arrive suddenly, as if I stepped on some brakes. Before sunrise, at exactly four o’clock, I stand erectly at the edge of the steep cliff. My favorite place. I am ready to meet the sun. Tenuously, I study the plain below me. In the darkness, my straining eyes can barely detect neat rows and columns of the slanted wooden shades. Between the shacks are narrow strips of worn out dust roads. Dust roads with indent-like roads in my neighborhood.

For five minutes the air is motionless while the coldness teases the skin exposed by my vest and shorts. All my thoughts disappear, as the sun peeps at the landscape a small upper part oozing upward.  No movement can be detected in the squatter camp below as the sun slowly lights it up pierce by pierce like a fire burning down a string. This, I realize, marks the beginning of another day. The sun rises in exactly the same way yet it’s different.

I thought I would find you here.

I don’t turn to the sweet voice. My mother approaches until she stands beside me. Her eyes study the side of my face, searching, studying and listening. She is the headmistress of a prestigious Catholic girls’ school. The first Headmistress who is not a nun or sister. Mom has found her place with her girls. Ladies, she calls them. I envy her.

Finally, she softly speaks, Happy Birthday, dear.

My mouth twitches. I have no words just as I have nothing to show for being twenty-one, a graduate and employed. The years are merely passing by. It angers me so I remain silent gazing at the sun in no rush to replace the darkness. My skin responds to its warming up. Sounds, although muffled, of people scurrying out of ragged blanket or card boxes reach my ears.

I want to find my place mom. The way you did.

I don’t turn to her as I confess this. Mom keeps her door open for any stray or troubled girls. They flock to her like a moth to flame, attracted by strict and quiet wisdom. When she strides through the quadrangle, greetings and requests follow her steady and quick progress.

The shadow of darkness slowly retreats backwards as the glorious golden sun patiently spreads its rays. At one-point half of the squatter camp is gold and the other black. People smile and greet each other while a delicious egg is shared among all. Small miracles exist here, although mother calls these people unfortunate.

I heavily sigh, tempted to hold my breath and never take another. Sometimes I wish I was a girl, so I could fully lean on her firm at the same time liberating guidance too. Do not misunderstand. As her only biological child, she’s the best mom ever. Absently, I kick a stone hearing it drop down the cliff.

Raymond, said in a you listen to me voice, I am sure you’ll find your own place. I’ll allow you to go as far as need to find it. And even if you venture to the sun, I’m there. My mother’s mother didn’t grant her the same luxury so my mother knows what it’s like to be trapped, when you know your place is out there. Grandmother is not even Catholic yet mother loves being Catholic. But that’s not what’s bothering you, is it?

No. I force a smile. My mother doesn’t assume the problems she faced are the same ones I will face. I am leaving childhood mom. It’s safety, to enter the unknown.

A warm smile lights her pretty face matched by a charcoal peplum dress. Blinking slowly, she tells me, You overthink, Raymond.  Remember we part to meet and meet to part. The sun rises to set and sets to rise. In between all the lessons, wisdom and experiences from childhood will be there as a shield or sword. They bought you here. Lightly, she places a hand on my shoulder. Her familiar touch is comforting. You will find your place. And if you are worried fortune will be cruel, remember she has also been favorable. You got me.

Laughter bubbles out of my chest. I have her. She’ll make an egg a meal. A drop of water enough.  I step forward into her arms which hold me tight. I feel safe. Sure, of myself.

I am scared. I breathe the words into her ear. I must forge my own path. At the same time, I must follow other paths already set. Fears gripped my heart so it beat weakly. It’s similar to the feeling I got when I lost my bus fare and only realized it in the bus. If you place it into an equation, childhood plus adolescent equals everything.

You should be, she confirms, otherwise you in the wrong direction. Fear is your compass. Now stop brooding and let’s celebrate. I am also getting older, you know.

And wiser.

 

 

Chido Munangwa is a Zimbabwean poet and Indie author currently studying Radiography at the University of Zimbabwe. Her paranormal romance series, The Color of Trouble, can be found on Smashwords under the pen name Cora Sacha.

They presented Mom with a barrage of bottles, swollen like milk jugs, corked with burnt cardboard. The nurse wore a paper hat, creased inward, with a clipboard in one hand and a clementine in the other. She had an hour, they told her, to scan the reports, bring the bottles to her eyes, sing to the babies dormant behind glass. She left the hospital half an hour after she entered, bottle baby in her elbow crook, receipt in her skirt’s back pocket.

The pricing system is rote, yet somehow still speculative. Babies are awarded a value based on their longevity, their looks, their predicted personality, anything that appears on the atomic-level scanner. Blonde babies are the most expensive. Blue eyes add a two-thousand-dollar surplus. Gene patterns that indicate obedience shoot the price upwards, while any neurodiversity causes it to plummet to nearly zero. The cost used to be fixed, but supply and demand tossed the bottle baby economy into economic entropy. We’re not too wealthy, so our new baby – who we’ve decided to call Lucas – is small, angry, and Chinese.

The nurse handed Mom a pamphlet, which she taped crookedly to the refrigerator door. In his early days, Lucas is treated much like a hunk of raw poultry. He soaks in warm water for several weeks, as his limbs unfurl, his face takes shape, his umbilical cord floats away like bread in tomato soup. We season the water with nutrient packs, bought in bulk from the nearby supermarket. A lightbulb hangs over his tub; casting light over his scrunched fingers for twelve hours per day.

Mom pulls Lucas from the bath at 7:00 a.m. on September 16, which I suppose is now his birthday. The moment his head emerges from the water, he begins to wail. Not a gentle coo, not a miracle cry, a full-out, five alarm, pineapple cake, donkey-on-the-mountain type wail. It shakes the shutters off our windows, turns our pecans into pie, grabs Dad by the collar and dumps him in the backyard. Mom tries everything, rocking and bouncing and steamed milk, but he just won’t shut up. I create a small barricade in my room, made of pillows and stuffed penguins, but Lucas’ cries drive right through it.

Five o’clock the next morning and he’s still going. Lucas has not gotten louder, but he’s definitely shriller, frillier than the night before. Mom and Dad have turned a muddy yellow from the stress. Their fingernails bend away from the noise and the hairs on their head have begun to commit suicide. All three of us have crusts contouring our cheekbones, black smudges beneath our eyes. My oatmeal tastes like tears.

Mom’s on the phone when I get back from school, caressing the receiver with her lips. Across the house, Lucas continues to wail, screeching as if silence would cause the world to stop spinning on its axis. Several moments later Mom taps the handset back into the dial pad. She tells me we need to take Lucas to the hospital. Dad tucks Lucas’ old bottle into a cloth bag, along with a turkey sandwich and a stack of manila folders, before ushering us into the car. Lucas continues to cry.

The doctors say no refunds. Lucas can be returned, but his valuation has dropped significantly. They apologize, say that these malfunctions don’t usually happen, but jab at the waivers Mom signed when she protests. Dad and Mom and the doctors disappear into the room next door, shouting over Lucas, who they’ve left with me. I take him in my arms, lifting his chin beside mine.

Soon Mom and Dad finish their conversation with the doctors. They disappear for a while, then reemerge in the hallway, a handheld cradle hanging below their hips. There’s a baby inside. They wink at it, cover their eyes, bobble their tongues, shower its head with caterpillar fingers. I try to make eye contact with them through the door’s glass pane, but they keep their heads fixated on the exit as they walk away. The baby’s name is Luther.

My name is Theresa.

The doctors come back into the room. They stuff a purple rag into Lucas’ mouth, and he stops crying at last.

 

 

Matt Hsu is a junior at San Francisco University High School in San Francisco, California. He works as a poetry/prose editor at Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine and The Formula. Currently he’s working on a new adult novel about a lonely assassin. In his spare time, he enjoys playing tennis and eating dark chocolate.

Baba ushered us to the yard and ordered us both to keep quiet. You giggled as the chickens fussed around you, but I handed you a tangerine from my pocket and held a finger to my lips. You began peeling the fruit, tossing orange scraps among the dirty straw. In the right light, they could have passed for blood.

The men walked through the door, and Mama kicked your shoes behind the curtains. Whatever story she gave didn’t seem to satisfy them. They started toward the backdoor, silver guns flashing beneath their coats.

Baba raised a fist, but the shorter one backhanded him. He collapsed against the kitchen table, bloody rosettes staining the wood beneath his head. In the right light, they could have passed for orange peels. Mama screamed.

When they came for us, I could hardly breathe. I fought them tooth and claw—you must believe me, I did. But they had the weapons and the strength and all I had were pebble-stuck orange peels. They knocked your tangerine to the dirt when they grabbed you, and that was the moment you realized it was not a game.

“Jiejie!” you cried. “Jiejie! Jiejie!”

But our family cannot afford the fine. The men take you away to a new family far from our little town and do not tell us where.

Some days I imagine you’re in the north, among the snow-capped peaks we saw in Baba’s dog-eared atlas. Other days I think you end up south, walking the streets of Shanghai and Nanjing with tanghulu shells melting on your tongue.

But all I know is the empty place at the table, half-finished drawings scrawled across the walls, and the basket we leave behind when we harvest tangerines in the winter.

Come home, meimei. We miss you so much.

 

 

Mira Jiang is a high school senior from from Coppell, Texas. Her work has been published by or is forthcoming in Flash Fiction Online, Paper Lanterns, Hobart, and the Rising Phoenix Review, and recognized in contests from the Poetry Matters Project and the Geek Partnership Society.