Fiction

Beep, beep, beep, blared the sound of my alarm clock. My eyes shot open with wariness then quickly dissipated into a sense of drowsiness as soon as my consciousness returned to me. It was pitch black outside and it looked as if someone had spilt a great big deal of somber, starless ocean space just outside my window. It was cold. My eyes shifted from left to right and I saw that my stuffed animals, blankets, and pillows had all been thrown to my bedroom floor in my restless unconscious sleep. My bed was completely barren except for the sheet that spread and hugged the mattress beneath it. This alarm was set as a reminder not for the day but instead for homework. I absolutely despise my math class. I delayed my homework for as long as possible and now here I was, pushing both my tired body and mind to get up from bed.

Get up, get up, get up. I persisted as if my body was a corpse and I begged for life to return to me again. Get up, get up, get up. A whirlwind of the deep dark space outside swirled and crashed against my window. Get up, get up, get up. This voice was no longer my own but I heard it echo inside my head. Feeling returned to my bitterly cold fingertips, taste returned to my tongue and a great pressure-like matter accompanied my returning sense of sound. I deserted my starfish disposition stiffly and left my barren bed. I made my way through the quiet hallway and out to my backyard.

There it was standing before me, its shining titanium silver plating glowing in the pitch black atmosphere. A singular circular window could be seen just below the tip. It was a rocket ship, —in my backyard? I moved forward without any control as if my body was in a trance but I didn’t resist. Its doors automatically opened like the kind in a grocery store and I sat inside.

A great impenetrable cloud of fog filled my head. It was pitch black inside. A small shape of light took form in the circular window that I had seen outside. This wasn’t any bright or

luminescent light either, it was dull and almost fading. With every step I took the fog only seemed to get heavier and heavier. I thirsted for the light. I couldn’t stand the pitch black darkness. I hadn’t realized I made my way to the window until I laid my head beside it. I felt like a kid riding the bus home from school after a bad day.

The blaring roar of the rocket ship at long last came to a standstill. It was deafeningly silent for a brief moment. I heard the familiar sound of those automatic doors and I hazily made my way outside. My eyes were met with a bone-dry surface. Dirt had completely covered the desiccated ground and it was so dry. Deep narrow fissures embedded themselves into the dry exterior. There were no signs of life, no plants, no trees, no flowers, fruits, or gardens. Wherever I was, it was completely barren and colorless. Except for the sky. Bright twinkling lights shone above the barren wasteland. It reminded me of the lights on a Christmas tree, warm and all sorts of different colors. The only company that I had seemed to be welcomed with was a rough and scratchy feeling in my throat. I really wanted a glass of water.

 

*

I see a figure in the distance. Its silhouette appears closer and less faded as it walks towards me. I am still in a daze and I don’t feel it going away any time soon. The unfamiliarity of this strange place isn’t helping either but I feel too out of place to feel any type of fear. It makes its way closer to me now. I am standing still. Don’t move. Closer. Much closer now. We are standing face to face.

“Hello.” His voice is stern but calm. “Hi.” I respond, sleepily.

His voice sounds a bit silly to me. It’s in complete contrast to the way he looks. Despite his rocky exterior, he moves swiftly and gracefully, just like a deer. He is pale and nothing more. A small wave of pity abruptly hits me as he continues to speak.

“There is no life here and it’s so dry. We are dying.” His voice raises concern in me like a rising tide.

“I want to help you. What can I do? I’ll do anything— as long as it isn’t math.” I reply still in a bit of a haze.

“There is no water here. I don’t know what else to do. I am all alone.” His voice now strangely monotone.

“I’m still here.” A voice emerges from what seems to be out of the blue. I guess this place isn’t completely barren.

“I called you here. Our planet is on the brink of death. Get up.” His voice is now familiar to me.

My vision is blurry, and  I can scarcely make out the two creatures in front of me. One, a sea spider, is nothing but a pale blob with its sprawled legs. This other creature has no legs at all and when he speaks his mouth opens to an enormous length. At one point I think he’s going to eat me. This creature is much larger than the sea spider. I would say about the same size as a whale.

“Come now, What will we do? We cannot keep standing around here doing nothing.” He declares impatiently.

I want to wake up and leave. This planet leaves me feeling a great amount of brain fog I can hardly think straight. There was nothing we could do. This planet was barren. I looked down at the deep, narrow openings on the surface. The space between matches the pitch black sky. I kneel on  the rock hard ground, and speak into the deep somber space, to the dry desiccated dirt. I remember hearing that sometimes on Earth  when people spoke to their plants, flowers would bloom, sprouts shooting up towards the sky and the sweet smell of fruits upon the arrival of Spring. Maybe if we did the same here, life would return again.

Soon enough, water begins to rise between these deep narrow fissures. It sounds no different than water flowing through a stream, gently and pleasantly. A sense of relief hits me finally and these animals no longer have to worry. I remember carefully lifting my head, my vision still blurry. I can’t tell what their expressions are but I can guess they’re pretty happy. Sweetness and warmth fill me like an old childhood memory. Just as quickly as it comes the memory is gone. The pleasantly sweet sound of water transformed into an unsuspecting familiarity.

 

*

 

Beep, beep, beep went the sound of my alarm. I found that I had returned to my starfish disposition and my bed was barren. The dark somber space still outside my window. I looked hazily and there was a single star. Bright and shining just like the kind from a Christmas tree. I went to school the next day and my math homework remained undone.

 

 

 

Isabel Ceballos is a senior in high school. She has recently rediscovered a love for writing in a creative writing class.  This is her first time submitting to a publisher and she’s so happy to have the opportunity to have her work reviewed.

 

Stolen speech hissed on the horizon. There was no water to be found that day, not in the wells or the streams. The tap ran dry, the pond drained away, and the ground broke open. Late in the afternoon, the wind whipped thousands of brown, withered leaves from the groves in the east. Echoes of the drought thrummed underground, sending tremors through the earth. Cracks opened in the seams of stone and the sun scorched everything it touched. The earth bled.

There had never been a drought like it, not that anyone could remember. Even Old Lace, the one-eyed woman who kept vigil over the burned remains of a garden, could recall nothing so ravenous or devastating. “There’s trouble in it, I’m sure,” she warned anyone who came close enough to hear. “There’s trouble, and it won’t go easily.”

It seemed that the earth had turned cruel in the space of a day. A hopeful few talked of water underground, saying that a drought that came so quickly would leave quickly, too. They promised to dig and dig until they found a stream, but the soil proved to be hard and unrelenting. Those that hoped quickly retreated into their homes or vanished into the hills, taking their families and fleeing.

When evening came, it brought only lonely, dismal shade. No respite. Rissa sat in the cellar for hours, searching for the last dying breezes. At midnight, the glass of the sallow windowpane cracked. Hot, disquieted air flooded into the room, burning through the last inches of solace she could find.

Left with nothing but a dusty canteen with a few drops of water, Rissa left the house to find her sister.

Don’t leave me here, Rissa had begged when Teren left the house, when the burning had just begun. Rissa had stepped outside to see a sky bleached bone-white and a field of withered husks, parched earth cleaved open. She screamed and screamed, but Teren just stared, a whisper of longing in her eyes.

Teren hadn’t stayed. I’m going to find water. Don’t follow me. She had disappeared into the hills, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders and cold certainty in her eyes.

If Teren thought herself clandestine, she was wrong. Rissa knew exactly where her sister had gone.

Spectral clouds gathered low over the crossroads. Nothing grew there and no one had the heart to plant anything. Rutted roads, caked with dirt, slashed across the valley. This was a place of buried coins and fervent pleas, a place where people might make their fortune or weep and bleed and die.

Don’t ever go to the crossroads by yourself, understand? Mama used to say, again and again, more a prayer than a warning. There’s powerful things awake in these hills. When they were children, it was a game—who would step closest to that tantalizing sliver of hard-packed earth where the two roads met. Teren always won, until one day when Rissa marched up and planted one foot squarely on the crossroads. The world had twisted like a veil drawn back as Teren shrieked, Your eyes! Rissa, your eyes!

Neither of them went there after that.

By the time Rissa reached the crossroads, the sun’s fevered eye peered over the horizon, weeping droplets of light. It was far too early for another turn of the day, but perhaps the drought had stolen that from them, too. Dust rose from the roads, tainting the air bitter. If Rissa had not known better, it would have seemed a strange mist, an echo of blissful rain.

She stopped at the edge of the road, knowing better than to step onto the crossroads. “Teren,” she called, her voice raspy from lack of water.

A figure came into view. She walked towards Rissa, but for a moment it seemed that she was being formed from the dust of the road, coalescing into the form of a sister. “Teren,” Rissa said again.

A pause. A breath. “I told you not to come here.”

 

It was Teren and it was not Teren. That lyrical voice had turned low and sonorous, echoing through the road and making Rissa’s bones hum. Rissa would never mistake her sister’s voice, though Teren’s face was turned away from her. “I’m here now, aren’t I?” Rissa said.

A distant rumble echoed through the hills. Another earthquake, Rissa wondered, or something else?

 Teren sighed, sending a plume of dust into the air. “You knew where I would be.” “Where else?”
She closed her eyes and pulled her pale yellow shawl tighter around herself. The shawl had been crisp and clean when she left the house; now, it was singed at the edges, ash trailing up the linen cloth.

The clouds were thickening now, weaving across the sky. The air filled with the acrid scent of thunder.

“Will the water return?” Rissa asked, hating every inch of fear in her words. “The earth will collect what is hers.”

The thunderheads rippled across the land. A cool, sweet wind rushed past Rissa, bringing with it the earthy smell of rain.

Understanding finally reached her. “What have you done?”

“It will storm,” Teren said, the edge of satisfaction in her voice.

Rissa shook her head, trying to form words. Her sister was flickering in and out of view as the wind shifted. “Mama wouldn’t have wanted—”

“Let the dead weep and leave the wanting to the rest of us, Rissa. I did what I had to do.”

Rissa thought back to the scorched earth, the barren ground, the empty wells. There’s powerful things awake in these hills. “You don’t need to do this. We’ll find another way, we’ll go somewhere else—”

“There’s nowhere else to go.”

A single salty tear ran down Rissa’s face. She didn’t wipe it away. Another peal of thunder rolled by, louder this time. Droplets of pearlescent rain came down from the heavens, hissing where they hit the road. Where they touched Teren, dust flew into the air, hovering around her in a half-formed veil.

“Stop,” Rissa choked out, unsure of who—or what—she was addressing. “Teren, you have to—”

Teren turned towards her.

“Your eyes,” Rissa breathed. There was nothing human in those eyes, not anymore. Her sister’s eyes spilled over with hungry golden light, piercing Rissa with an incendiary glow.

The rain grew stronger, lashing down with a frantic, frenzied energy. The road filled up with water, washing away the scarred ruts, the lonely skies. “It’s done,” Teren said. There was no warmth in her smile. “The rains are here.”

Rissa stepped onto the crossroads, hardly noticing the chill that ran through her. She grabbed Teren’s wrist, but found herself holding loose, sandy dirt. “Teren?” She reached out to touch her sister’s shoulder, hoping for a sign, any sign, that her sister was still there, but her fingers passed directly through Teren’s body. She whipped her hand back, recoiling in horror to see that she only clutched a fistful of sand.

A gentle, feather-light touch on Rissa’s shoulder was all she had to know that Teren was still there. “The earth claims her due, little sister,” Teren whispered, her voice a faint hiss. “I promised my life. The rains will return.”

With a final breath, what was left of Teren collapsed into the dirt.

The rains went on, pelting the dust for hours and hours. Rissa stayed there, kneeling in the remains of the crossroads, until the sky finally cleared, revealing a deep, jubilant blue. A flock of birds soared above the hills, their cries echoing over the land.

Finally, Rissa said a prayer over the mound in the dust where her sister had stood. She slowly got to her feet and trudged through the mud and the dirt, eyes fixed on the horizon. The clouds ebbed away and still she walked, until she came upon the village.

The fields were soaked through, water pooling on the ground. Rivulets ran across the paths and off rooftops. A few children played in a puddle that formed in the square, splashing and laughing with delight.

Rissa’s steps turned towards the well, now full. She stared down into its inky depths, marveling at the hollow face that greeted her in her reflection.

Mama was dead and buried. Teren was gone. The rains had returned, and Rissa was the only one left to see them.

Let the dead weep and leave the wanting to the rest of us.

 

And oh, how she wished she could.

 

 

 

 

Linnea Koops is a senior from Shaker Heights, Ohio. She is the president of her school’s creative writing club, as well as a co-editor of her school’s literary magazine, The Seam. When not writing, Linnea enjoys playing the violin and spending time with her cats, Merry and Pippin. She loves the poetry of Mary Oliver and her favorite word is “quintessential.”

The elephant leers down at me.

It’s not really an elephant. It’s a water stain with a trunk and two sloping tusks, a tail flicking to the right, wrinkly lower lip curled in a sneer.

I roll out of my cot—there’s a faint dip in the mattress after nine years—and crawl to the dresser, too bone-weary to stand up.

Eight months ago, James left a china doll in our mailbox. She has waxy skin, red paint flaking from her glossy red lips. An ivory qipao stretches over her chest and my thumb brushes over her porcelain curves as I pick her up. I pinch the stained silk between two fingertips, rubbing it in circles. It’s brittle. Transparent. Like him.

He used to write me letters in his sloppy, stilted handwriting. Then, he started mailing me threadbare cadet hats. Dane’s shoelaces. The prom tickets we bought together. An embroidered handkerchief with a spring chicken stitched into the fabric.

The doll smells like leather and cigars and his rosemary aftershave. The way men used to smell, my mother says, when women wore two-inch pumps and walked with halting steps. She told me that smoking was an act of elegance “back in the day” — men were seen lighting cigarettes dressed in Saint Laurent suits, while women in cocktail gowns flicked ashes from sleek cigarette holders.

One month after the china doll, the gifts came to a halt. Just like that. My mother was flipping through crosswords when James’ father, Joseph, knocked on our door. The door nearly snapped off its hinges when he flung it open, his face worn and drooping like Dalí’s melting clocks.

His words bounce around my head as I pull the white canvas from Dollar Tree out from underneath my dresser. “He died from a blast injury two days ago,” Joseph rasped. “An’ don’t tell me he’s in a better place. He’s an eighteen-year-old boy for God’s sake.”

Like clockwork, I climb into a streetcar twenty minutes later and watch the storefront windows pass in a blur of FOR RENT signs and flaking paint. The trees lining the sidewalk grow in small square plots, leaves still stubbornly clinging to their branches. The city is asleep. I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.

The china doll is tucked away in my drawstring knapsack, which rests against my feet. I lean against the plastic seat and line the bottles of paint on the seat next to me. Magenta. Red. Blue. Brown. Three seats away, a wiry old man with a puckered red face puffs on a pipe, his chest heaving.

I squeeze a drop of brown paint onto a paper plate caked with old paint. James didn’t use white or black. Ever. He painted bright, bold geometric shapes — yellow diamonds for feathers, green triangles for pine trees. Uniform strips of red, orange and pink sunsets.

I never paid attention to the mint fragrance of his cologne, or the calluses on his palms, until he was gone. I took his raspy laughter and crooked smiles for granted, never saving the stems of angel’s breath that he’d snap off and tuck behind my ear.

You don’t long for the sweltering heat of Tucson summers until winter rolls in.

I start by painting his thick, dark curls, easing the bristles into the thin canvas. His eyes, a dark mauve. Slashes of magenta to suggest lips. A strong, square chin. A single dot for the mole beneath his cheekbone and—

The old man behind me begins sputtering, his coffee splashing down the front of his Oxford shirt.

The stain is shaped like Africa.

“Jesus,” he spits, dabbing at the coffee stain with a tissue. “I’m gonna die young.” But he won’t.

He won’t ever know what it means to “die young.”

He lived in a sweeping Craftsman home, I imagine. Probably owned a cocker spaniel named Gloria. He could afford luxury smoke pipes and premium rolling papers, cannabis gummies and bottles of whiskey that he drank like orange juice.

He lived three times the life James could have lived, and he didn’t deserve half of it. And suddenly, I’m making my way down the aisle as the streetcar jolts to a stop.

It’s like I’m watching a YouTube video through a first-person camera. I watch her hands grab his cooled coffee cup. She tears the cardboard sleeve to shreds. She dumps the rest of the liquid down his shirt.

She stumbles into the gray morning, leaving behind the china doll and the painting of her boyfriend on the streetcar.

 

 

Robina Nguyen (she/her) is a queer Vietnamese-Canadian freelance writer based in Toronto, as well as the current Editor-in-Chief of The Outland Magazine. Her work is featured or forthcoming in Shameless Magazine, Disobedient Magazine, the Yale Daily News, Ambré Magazine and West End Phoenix, among others.

The wind whistled through the downy, feathery warmth of the swift’s wings, soaring like an arrow to accompany the swift on its wearying flight before dispatching into ribbons of currents that the swift utilized to ride the skies. A fierce, harsh cry echoed from its ebony beak, hooked talons arching through the hair, and the sonic echo rang through the empty air over the rolling quadrants divided neatly below.

The swift’s ancient eyes, pitch-black and haloed with steel-strong spirit, swept over the rippling points of the compass rose that transformed into four wild and bright territories. Beneath the grubby point of a human finger on a time-worn, crinkly map, this land meant none to those who were only eager to reap its resources, but to the swift soaring across the blue expanse of the empyrean, it was home.

Look – to the south. There lies beautiful, verdant Summer in emerald glory. Trees stand tall and proud, bark deep mahogany, leaves sprouting from every visible surface of every arching branch. Elegant are the carpets of endless green that ripple across acres of rich moist soil, smelling of ripeness and things long gone.

Somewhere in the distant future, a little girl will be seated in a compartment of a creaky silver train that rumbles along its tracks, occasionally stopping to spill forth passengers or bring aboard new adventurers in search of the next place to walk toward. She will be unable to keep still as the air grows warmer and the white-hot sun cooks the train’s weary shell past miles of deserted country until finally –

She disembarks the train, a small yellow bag in hand. Looks around for the hunched, waving couple standing by the door leading outside of the station, running over in delight. Skips into the pasture, climbs over the fence to lie with the cows and chickens, breathes in the smell of growing things, and learns to call this place which thrives in the scorched atmosphere of mid-summer heat, home.

“Dhudum, god of the summer and health, hear me.”

The swift tipped its wings and angled its path to the west, where Summer’s green began to recede, giving birth to deep ruby, dark tangerine, and golden yellow leaves that littered the ground like teeth from splintered rowan branches. Ah – this is Autumn. A gauzy veil of approaching chill hung over the cinnamon crunch of the forest floors, which twitched here and there with small, warm field mice. Nearby, the honks of geese rang by the swift as they flapped their wings, returning south.

Somewhere in the distant future, a young girl will be fishing by a large pond that is quickly beginning to chill as summer dies and fall returns to the countryside. Her small hands are enclosed within her grandfather’s big, wrinkled ones, and both pairs are grasped around a fishing pole. Inside of the brightly lit house, lights twinkle; the days are growing darker and shorter indeed. Winter is coming. But for now, autumn – the time of change, decay, and renewal – is enough.

The fishing pole jerks around violently, and the girl almost drops it, but her grandfather steadies her hands. Together, they haul a small carp onto land, and her grandfather drives a hook into its belly. The girl watches the fish wriggle and die, eyes dimming, and anticipates the onion and potato fried meal that this carp will provide.

“Now don’t forget, autumn is the season of survival,” her grandfather says to her as they walk across the grass, golden light burnishing the deep purple of oncoming twilight around them. “Our land, this land, it takes care of you as long as you take care of it.” He coughs, covering his mouth with a white cloth, but his eyes twinkle.

The girl nods and hopes that she will be able to remember this fleeting moment.

“Xivanke, god of the autumn and chaos, hear me.”

The north greeted the swift before it could truly descend into its frozen heart. A howling wind crisped with frost smacked the swift sideways, and it quickly righted itself before flakes of soft snow settled onto its feathers. The swift strained its eyes and thought it caught a glimpse of skeletal, cold-bitten trees bristling with barren sticks and knobbly spindles, peppered only by teardrops of gleaming silver shrouded with a layer of ethereal mist that wafted like steam off of the hard-packed, ice-slick ground. Winter was the time of death and darkness, and yet, the swift only saw a world that was just as alive as any of the others.

Somewhere in the distant future, a teenager will be sitting by the frost-laced window of her grandparents’ country house, a mug of hot chocolate clasped within her rosy hands, which are now significantly bigger than the ones that held that fishing pole. She is staring out the window, longing to run outside and roll in the snow, maybe catch a snowflake on her tongue and let it melt into a patch of icy water and satisfaction, but she remembers the stories her grandmother tells her; the wolf of the ice prowls outside looking for young women to snap up, blizzards come without warning to swallow up unsuspecting people, the ground is as thin as a sheet; with one step the ice will fracture and dissolve into knife-sharp shards. Stories that would not faze another child, but would frighten a girl who loves the worlds her grandparents create with soothing voices and dancing words.

Outside, it is a magical, wintery world, one she is forbidden to enter, but as her grandmother sets a plate of biscuits down in front of her, she finds that she is content to stay in the world she knows.

“Qorasil, god of the winter and thought, hear me.”

Pockets of green punctuated the snow, which began to melt in rapid sheets that rushed into a throbbing river of cool, fresh water. Brown, beastly bears snagged flapping salmon with hooked claws, stripping pink flesh from the narrow bones. All around the swift, flocks and gaggles of fellow avians soared toward the warm air as nimble buds uncurled, sprouted, and bloomed into pink cherry flowers, snapping daffodils, and long-petaled mums. A rosy light shrouded the chirping of newborn bluebirds, the sigh of rejuvenated oak trees, and the chatter of new life.

Perhaps this was the swift’s final stop, the end of its journey. It was as if winter had never come to freeze this place into drowsy darkness.

Somewhere in the distant future, two white coffins emblazoned with the golden cross and one with an American flag draped with great ceremony across the lid rest in the sweet spring grass. A small group of mourners clothed in deep black gather by the trees, where a funeral meal has been appointed, to grieve the loss of two full and rich lives. Visible over the tops of the trees is the beloved country house that has weathered summer flame, autumn wind, wintry storms, and spring buzz for generations.

Standing in black, a graduation cap clasped in both hands, remembering this, is a child becoming a young woman who lets a peck of salt dry on her cheeks. She knows the turn of seasons, generations of lifeblood, and cycles of leaves like no other; it is her blood. Her home. Her inheritance.

“I love you,” she says to the quiet calm of the spring air, wiping tears that start anew.

Tomorrow, she will take her first step into the unknown, of navigating the four ancestral corners of the world. Summer, fall, winter, spring.

Somewhere in the distant future, the young woman will grow up to preserve and protect the land her family has kept for as long as the leaves fall and the flowers bloom. She will face love, adversity, hunger, kindness, cruelty – but even when her hands have withered and her hair grays, she will remember what those who came before her have taught her: home is forever.

“But where is my home?”

            —asked the swift as it flew onward desperately, seeking a reprieve. The currents billowed like taut sails and carried it across the points of the compass rose, but none felt like its rightful place.

“Maybe there is no place for me out there.”

            Said the withdrawn swift as it glided through the air in search of a place to rest its weary wings.

“Maybe there is no such thing–

                                    as home.”

 

 

Lauren Kawamoto began writing when she was seven years old. To further her technique, she has attended several programs such as ATDP (Academic Talent Development Program) and BAWP (Bay Area Writing Project). She has additionally won the historical fiction section of her school’s Creative Art and Writing Contest, and been published in the Written Tales Magazine.

 

 

 

 

 

“Remember Trish,” my dad said to me. “She went out without a jacket and by the time we found her, she was frozen solid. It took a whole week to unfreeze her.”

“That’s great, Dad,” I muttered. Trish this. Trish that. That’s all I ever heard from him. Now you’re probably wondering who Trish is. Trish is my imaginary sibling that my dad made up to scare me into following the rules. As if one sibling wasn’t bad enough. When I was little it was funny, but now it’s just weird. I grabbed my backpack and walked out the door. It was Friday and I had school.

“Remember not to talk in class, James,” my dad called to me. “There was a girl named Trish and she talked in class so much that her tongue fell out and she couldn’t speak.”

“Ok. Whatever Dad,” I muttered.

“Don’t ‘whatever’ me,” my dad said. “You know, you had a sister once and she…”

I got on the bus before he could finish his sentence. My real sister, Maddy (not Trish) sat next to me.

“If I hear one more word about Trish,” I grumbled.

“I think it’s funny,” said Maddy brightly.

“Well, I don’t,” I said and the conversation ended.

Later that day, during science class, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. We were working with chemicals, but I knew that it could be important, so I raised my hand.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” I said. Once I had made it to the bathroom I picked out a stall and slipped in. After making sure I had put the seat down, so as to not drop my phone in the toilet, I unlocked my phone and checked my text messages. It was my dad.

“Be careful to waft when you’re smelling the chemicals. This girl, Trish once forgot to waft and her nose got so big, she could barely breathe.”
“Cool, Dad,” I sent and sighed. Texting me during school? He had gone too far this time.

I once again pocketed my phone, annoyed that he had interrupted my favorite class over this. Later that day, back home, I heard banging in the attic. I asked my parents if I could check it out, but my dad gave his response.

“You had a sister once and she wanted to go into the attic, but we told her no. She did it anyway and she got stuck up there.”

I sighed in exasperation, but the next day I heard the banging again. And the next day. And the next. Then, one day my parents said they were going to go on a short business trip, but they’d be back in the morning. Me and Maddy would be home alone until they got back.

“Don’t do anything reckless,” my dad said. “The last time we went on a business trip, Trish decided to play with the lawnmower, and she got so cut up, she actually lost an ear!”

“Dad,” I said. “The last time you went on a business trip was a month ago and the worst thing that happened was when I bruised my elbow.”

“Maybe if you had listened to my Trish stories, that wouldn’t have happened,” countered my dad. “You know you had a sister once,” he began. I nearly shoved them out the door. After they had left, I turned to Maddy.

“Let’s go up in the attic,” I said. “Mom and Dad aren’t here!”

“No!” said my sister. “You heard what Dad said. About Trish.”

“He made that up,” I sighed.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He sounded pretty serious.”

“Whatever,” I said. “You can be a scaredy cat if you want, but I’m going.”

“Well I’m staying here,” she said promptly and walked into the kitchen to grab a snack. I ran up the stairs, ignoring my dad’s warning that Trish did that and hit her head. I skidded to a stop in front of the door to my parent’s room. I opened their valuables drawer, grabbed the keys and left the room, ignoring my dad’s warning that Trish had done that and scarred herself with the key by accident. I unlocked the attic door and pushed it open, ignoring my dad’s warning that Trish had done that once and the door had crushed her hand. I climbed the ladder and turned on the flashlight. I looked around the room. I couldn’t find the cause of the banging.

Then I heard another noise. A raspy, choking sound.

I turned around. I was face to face with a horrid creature. As it came into the light I realized what it was. She had a huge bulbous nose, from the story where she forgot to waft. She had red, bloodshot eyes, from the story where she looked directly at the sun. Flecks of ice clung to her skin, from the story where she didn’t wear a jacket. She made another sound and I got a glimpse of what was in her mouth, or more accurately, what wasn’t in her mouth. She had no tongue, from the story where she talked too much. There was a huge bump on her head, from the story where she ran too fast on the stairs. Her body was covered in scars, from the story where she fooled around with the lawnmower. She wore nothing more than tattered rags, from the story where she didn’t do her laundry and had nothing to wear. Her gnarled hands extended towards me. One was deformed and crumpled, from the story where she threw open the attic door. The other had a long scar running across it, from the story where she stole the keys.

Then it hit me. She was here, because of the story where she went up into the attic without permission. Then I realized that I had done everything she had. I didn’t wear my jacket. I had talked in class. I had forgotten to waft. I had been reckless when my parents were away. I had run up the stairs. I had grabbed the keys. I had opened the attic door. I had gone up without permission. I had looked directly at the sun. I had neglected to do my laundry. She made a croaky chuckle and leapt through the air. Her chewed-on nails dug into my flesh, her maw opened wide, and she attacked. No one even heard my scream.

Years later…

“Remember to wear your jacket son,” Charlie’s mother, Madeline, called.

“I had a brother named James once…”

 

 

Henry Lomma is thirteen years old and enjoys writing, playing the clarinet, skiing and reading mystery stories.  He lives with his family in New York.

A chill breeze blows through the abandoned playground. Its cold fingers toy with the swings, casually rocking them back and forth. The wispy air flirts with a forgotten jacket on the bench, lifting it an inch or two before dropping it. Pale moonlight filters down the tube slide and casts eerie shadows that dance and twist, contorting into strange shapes in the night. The children’s bright world seems draped in a thin, supernatural gauze that pools in the sandbox and curls around the teeter-totter. A single, incandescent light bulb struggles against the strangling darkness, trying to penetrate the veil.

A man walking a dog comes down the sidewalk. The dog stops to bark at the preternatural playground. The man sees nothing, but the dog sees a young girl, white and diaphanous, riding the creaking swing set. The child locks eyes with the dog and laughs a thin, drifting laugh.

Slipping down from their undulating perch, she begins to walk toward the dog. The man, still seeing nothing, tugs impatiently at the dog’s leash, urging him on ahead. Although he doesn’t know why, the man feels a strange compulsion to leave this place. . . quickly.

The dog resists, approaching the playground fence instead. He presses his face to the metal grid, struggling in vain to smell the girl. A small, translucent hand reaches out, and a pair of pale lips giggle at the soft feel of the dog’s licking tongue. The dog noses the child as a signal for her to follow him down the slope. She complies, passing through the wires.

The man watches his dog’s actions with apprehension. He begins to pull sharply on the dog’s leash, yelling and calling in a sense of rising panic. The dog dawdles, appearing to guide something, or someone, down the embankment, away from the playground fence. The dog’s eyes are glued to something beside him. The man fumbles for his phone, clumsily turning on the flashlight app. He turns the light toward the dog. . . and sees two shadows on the grass.

The man screams as he bolts. The dog’s leash slips from his hand; he races in wild terror down the road, his shoes beating a fast tattoo on the asphalt. The dog looks in curiosity after his owner, wondering what there is to fear in this small stranger. When the dog turns back, the girl is gone. He spins around, whirling in a half circle, seeking through the gloom for a sign. There is nothing, no smell to trace, no shadow to spot, only a dark playground with a weak light bulb casting an anemic glow. The dog lowers his head, whimpering, as he sulks after his owner. His leash drags over the blacktop, fraying the edge of the nylon handle. A frozen gale whips past, ruffling the fur on the back of his neck. He’s sure he hears it whispering, “Thank you for being my friend.”

 

 

 

Adah is a high school senior with an addiction to Jesus and words. She has been homeschooled by her mother since Pre-K, and is looking forward to graduating in the coming spring. Adah is currently studying Creative Writing, and is excited to see how God plans on using her. Adah also loves horses (especially Appaloosas), spending every minute she can with them. Her main hobby is model-horse collecting/customizing, and her blog can be found at: spotteddreamsstudio.blogspot.com .