Fiction

It was July, warm, a few days too late for a Virginia Woolf novel, but we could still feel its residue on us like stardust. Red, white, and blue flags, red faces of uncles in tight blue polo shirts that strained to hide their barreled bellies, white wine poured too fast into elegant glasses while we should have been somewhere else, blasting music and emptying red Solo cups. Root beer floats on the shadowy grass, feeling like a kid at a party even though we both know deep down in our stomachs, unspoken yet going without saying, that our childhood is just out of reach, the feeling of what once was still lingering on our fingertips like the opposite of phantom pain. White fireworks lighting up the dark lake, white beneath our eyelids when we blinked. Sweatshirts invisible shapes somewhere by our side, relishing the first chill of the night as it cuts through one of the hottest days of the year. Small shiver, laughing at our goosebumps, saying I’m not cold but meaning I don’t want anything to change. Intertwined hands flashing red/white/blue//gone under the noise of fireworks displays. Counting breaths, counting seconds until our idle conversation lapses into muggy silence. One/two/three//gone. One of us saying, this might be the last time we’re at a lake without mosquitos. Music and half-drunk chatter drifting down the hill from the white gabled house, absent of origin by the time it reaches our ears, like a conversation entering our dream from a distant, waking room. Grass tickling our bare feet and arms, thumb over thumb, lightest of squeezes silently returned. Breezeless hair limp on the grass, still damp from afternoon sweat. Morning/noon/night//gone. The final crescendo of fireworks, whizzing noise and color, your face in and out of shadow. Belly warm with root beer and contentment, no shame in waistband unbuttoned. Everything vanished now in darkness, anchored only in sound and touch. Crickets. Quiet breaths. Our own voices and blurry, distant ones. In fifteen or twenty minutes, a call from the house that we will ignore, until the last warmth of the day melts away like a dropped popsicle on asphalt. Crumpled napkins sticky with fudge and melted ice-cream, empty cups spilled out on the lawn, shoes in hand and jackets draped over arms, following you up the hill with a stomach full and a heart bursting. But not yet; linger one more moment on the grass, laughter out of sync with our conversation, everything we feel but need not say stretched between us thick as taffy. The first star of the evening has long vanished into a vast plain of constellations, yet still we wish for the night not to chill, the lights not to shut off in the nearby house, room by room, the fireworks to always be only an instant in the past, their afterimage still brightening the night from black to dark blue. Seventeen/eighteen/nineteen//gone. Not vanished, only a moment too far behind.

 

 

Jessy Wallach is a rising senior at Maybeck High School in Berkeley, California. In addition to writing, she enjoys drawing, reading, and spending time outdoors.

Ember Leanne was an unusual name and that name went with an unusual girl. But she wasn’t unusual in the bad sense, she was just well, unusual. In fact, Ember wasn’t bad at all. Ember was a very pretty girl with a very big heart.

I’m Jack Hill and unlike Ember I was a pretty average kid. But how I met Ember is probably the weirdest way anyone has ever met.

While walking home after work one day I sat down at a bench next to a streetlight. I was drawing in my sketch pad when someone whispered, “You’re really good.”

I jumped and whirled around but no one was there. Then I heard the voice again, “Look up.”

I swerved my head upward and sure enough a girl was sitting on top of the street lamp. A few strands of loose hair escaped from her braid and were moving with the wind.

She was smiling at my confusion and bewilderment.

“What–? What are you doing up there?!” I spluttered.

Casual as ever she replied, “Reading.”

“Who are you?” I asked her, astonished.

“Ember. Ember Leanne. And who might you be?”

“Jack Hill.”

Then she went right back to her book. I sat there flabbergasted for a moment and then I made up my mind.

“Would you want to come down and talk to me?”

She came down and set her book on the ground. Then she reached under the bench and pulled out a pair of roller skates.

This girl was full of surprises. I watched her for a minute as she put on her skates. Then gathering my courage I asked, “Do you read up there often?”

She laughed. “Yes, but sometimes I just sit in a tree.”

“You know you are the most peculiar girl I have ever met.”

“Then you haven’t met too many girls. Here in Chicago, I’m not the only peculiar girl.”

I laughed. “I guess so.”

“Why do you read in such odd places?” I asked her.

She smiled with her glittering white teeth. “What’s the fun in reading in normal places? How can you escape into a book when you’re lying in bed?” She looked at her watch. “Oh! Whoops. I really ought to be going now. It was nice meeting you though!”

Then she stood up and began skating away. “Wait!” I called.

She skidded to an easy stop. “What?”

“Where are you going?”

“Follow me and you can find out if you’re that curious, Jack.”

She promptly began skating again this time at a slower rate so I could keep up. We’d only been slipping through the streets for five minutes when she stopped in front of an old building. Puzzled, I looked up at the sign posted above the door. It read, “Holy Covenant United Methodist Church.”

“What are we doing here?” I asked her as she rushed for the door.

Barely pausing, she waved for me to follow. I rushed after her. Inside were fifty or so homeless or struggling people, all getting food from tables where staffed by several volunteers.

Ember ran over and she too began serving the food. Cautiously I weaved through the people to her side.

“You volunteer here?”

“Yep.”

“Why?” I asked her, surprised.

“Jack, you have lots to learn. But to start, what’s so bad about helping people?”

“Nothing but—”

She cuts me off. “Exactly. Nothing.”

“Yes but—”

“What’s the difference between me and these people?” She asks accusingly.

At my silence she snapped, pleased with herself, “There is no difference. You know, I needed help once too and no one was there for me. I want to make sure I’m there for anyone who needs it. ANYONE.” She says emphasizing her last word.

Surrendering, I helped her finish passing out the salads.

***

Later that night I walked home left with the day’s crazy events swirling through my mind. After our conversation we’d gone back to talking normally but she’d left me thinking. I mean she had a point.

In the morning I woke up and got ready for the day. I went to work and then I went to the soup kitchen. There skating up to the doors was Ember. She turned as she heard my footsteps approaching.

Then she smiled, “I was hoping you’d come back.”

“Well I did. But before we start I have a few questions.”

She shrugged her shoulders, “Okay.”

“One, how old are you?”

“Seventeen, you?”

“Twenty two.” I answered.

“My second question is, do you have a car or do you just use your skates for fun?”

She laughed. “I don’t have a car but yes I use these for fun too.”

Then she skated through the door.

Laughing to myself I raced after her. We worked for an hour before she said we could leave. Once we were outside she said,

“I want to show you something,” and then she grabbed my hand as she spotted a cab and waved it down. To the driver she said, “Forest Glen Woods please.”

The cab driver nodded and sped through the streets. When we arrived, Ember pulled me out of the cab.

Then she ran through the trees with me chasing her laughing. She stopped all of a sudden and said, “Welcome to my home.”

She laughed as she whispered, “Look up.”

There above me in the trees was a treehouse. Ember raced over to the tree and then climbed up the rope and into the treehouse.

I slowly shimmied my way up the rope to her and pulled myself into the structure. I gazed around in amazement. It was fairly large and from the ceiling dangled Christmas lights.

There was a mattress in the corner, a box serving as a table, a sleeping bag, blankets, and pillows. There was a small stack of clothes in the corner.

Ember told me all about how her dad owned the wood and when he died he left it to her.

On our way back, Ember smiled and said, “Look up.”

I did as she asked, and saw the most beautiful sunset ever.

I looked at Ember’s radiant face. “You’re always telling me that.”

She looked at me, confused. “Telling you what?”

“To look up.”

“Well, a rare amount of people ever do. People always miss the beautiful things in life because they’re always looking down. For example, there is my favorite bird.”

A blue jay was sitting high in a tree looking down at us. Ember, as always, was right. People always miss the beautiful things in life because they never look up.

The months that came after were wonderful. Before I knew it, it had been a full year since the day I’d met Ember.

In those months it had soon become routine for her to eat dinner with us and after eating we would play games together. In no time Ember was a part of the family.

Looking back, there are lots of things I would change, but none of them had to do with Ember.

Then on December 15th the event that would change my life happened.

It was a normal day and everything seemed fine. As always, we ate at my parents’ house and then I told her goodnight and she left. I was getting ready for bed when the phone rang.

I ran downstairs and picked it up. About halfway through the call I started shaking.

Once I’d hung up the phone I broke. The cry that emitted from my mouth was one of pure agony.

My mom had come to my side had asked me what happened.
I said, “Ember. She’s gone. Her cab got into a wreck. All three of them were killed instantly.”

My mom held me for hours as I cried. The sadness I felt in her absence was the most horrible feeling I have ever felt.

Over the next few days I sat with my grief. I barely got out of bed. I just sat there with my dark thoughts.

The day of the funeral it took everything I had to get ready.

I don’t remember much of the funeral, but the thing I do remember is that when I had said my goodbye’s I had heard a chirp. I looked up and there sitting in the tree was a blue jay.

After the funeral my parents took me to the Chicago Parks Foundation. Every day I walk to the church and every day I stop at our bench. Every day I sit there and gently brush the plaque on it. The plaque that reads,

Ember Leanne

December 16th 2005 – March 26th 2023

“Look Up”

Like her name Ember Leanne was a very unusual girl. But she was not unusual in a bad way. In fact Ember Leanne was the nicest, bravest, and most extraordinary girl I will ever meet. Ember Leanne will never be forgotten by those she loves and certainly not by me.

 

 

 

Malloree Mullins absolutely loves writing books. She also enjoys reading, playing basketball, and track, and  hopes you enjoy reading her story as much as she enjoyed writing it.

It is a fine day and the party will go well. Or: can it be a party, and where does the size of the guest list dwindle into a dinner? If there will be five people at the table, or four who do not own that table and clean it before they put down the food they’ve cooked, is that a party? A party can be a group so, well yes, they are a party after all. And there can be such thing as a dinner party, in fact that is what it must be; two things at once.

The flowers go into the milk jug on the table with the plates and the cutlery and the carafe with cut up pieces of cucumber and lemon peel and there is ice in the freezer to be decanted at the last moment.

The forecast says fair, which is to say it will be mild but bearable; which is to say she probably won’t have to take any coats into her bedroom, though she’s already cleaned it to hospital standard— just in case. You never know when somebody might look under your bed just to see if you remembered to throw away that collection of used tissues and takeaway containers and dirty socks. She even went into the bathroom cupboard and cleared out all the cheapest soaps, leaving herself with a collection developed mainly through hotel stays. The Molton Brown sits at the front. Templetree, whatever that actually is. From her cousin’s wedding, which was four years ago now, and she can’t believe that was the only wedding she’s ever been to. She’s almost thirty now and everyone she bumps into when she visits home brings up the apparently shared joke of having a wedding on every Saturday and a baby shower every Sunday.

Last weekend she went to the garden centre and spent eleven minutes weighing up the best fertiliser to use on her seven houseplants, all of whom she has named after people she wanted to be once, a very long time ago. Going into winter, they have all started to die, so she has moved them all into the cupboard with the boiler to keep them out of sight. Cleopatra the ficus has lost four leaves already and Nell the fern is browning over.

People always seem to be suffering over the politics of a guest list, of ‘who has invited me somewhere?’ and ‘if we invite her, we have to invite him’ and ‘he left us off the list for New Year’s, or then didn’t he bring that nice bottle of wine to your birthday, so we might as well, I think we owe him.’

But no, the guest list was the easy part because she has very few friends. Laughably few. Nothing is owed to anybody. If one decides not to come, the others will graciously bow out in sympathy. In fact this is the third scheduling of a dinner which has been set to happen for two weeks now. She has been out to buy bottles of wine three times, but at least there are five bottles in the fridge. The sixth she drank in the space of an hour after the second cancellation because there seemed to be no other way to use her mouth if it couldn’t be telling all the stories and making all the jokes she had organised in her head. It took that much wine anyway to realise none of the jokes were funny. She has workshopped them since then.

The first few drops of rain attempt the windowpane. It’s as if the clouds are spitting at her, shaking down the image she had of standing outside to await her guests. Now she will have to put wet coats on her bed. Now she will have to sleep on damp sheets.

When she dips the first piece of fish into the oil, crumbs disperse from the edges and slide aimlessly about the pan, destined now for the drain.

Carefully— she has practised this three times now— she turns the fish at just the right moment, to give it a good strong outer layer, but leave it soft and vulnerable inside. These are going to be served cold as a starter so the texture has to be perfect. Just one of the perks of having so much time to herself is that she has to come up with ways of filling it. In the last six months alone she has mastered the making of: filo pastry, this crispy fish, stonefruit liqueur, blue steak, soda bread, madeleines, lemon posset, dandelion tea.

She imagines herself at forty-eight, a woman in a larger kitchen than this who can afford slightly better bread than this with a slightly tougher crust and wine that has a cork rather than a screwtop. And the people who come will be impressed but unsurprised. She’ll let them in by a front door that leads them straight into the house, no abrasive buzzers to interrupt the Hollywood classics crooned by an expensive speaker system; and they’ll all kiss cheeks, both cheeks like the French. They will greet each other with ‘darling’ and ‘gorgeous’ and ‘love’.

As they eat, they’ll discuss shared experiences; she will not have to put the smile on her cheeks and slot gentle noises into the conversation as it winds around people she doesn’t know, names she has only ever heard in passing, because somehow she has never become caught in the currents of their life. Their circles, now, are a television show she hasn’t watched. A band she hasn’t listened to. A book she read when she was very small and can’t remember.

The rain hardens and now they will have to come inside. They will have to want to come inside. They will have to want to stay inside.

At last, the tremble of excitement lifts her stomach. She is going to enjoy the evening. It’s been a while in coming and she needs to enjoy it three times over now to make up for the two failed attempts. She loves her friends. They are not bad friends. Isn’t it a miracle in the first place she has been able to invite people to see her? The last time she had a birthday party of her own she had not yet hit double digits, back when mothers invited the whole class and everybody went home with a slice of supermarket cake and a party bag.

Funny that she keeps giving things away now. As if in exchange; she is buying time, but the time of others, their presence at her kitchen table and in return she proffers books and sweaters and food and wine and once she even gave away a ring she inherited from her grandmother. Every time she thinks about it she gets the same sense of nausea as drinking coffee on an empty stomach. But she would gut her house if they asked. She would hand over her own spleen, peel the skin from her face, drain herself of her blood. And they would let her. Smile and loosen the ribbon from the package and tell her she is so thoughtful, and somehow make it a fault in her to be so thoughtful; this is too much, they will say, and somehow it will mean never enough.

It’s not sadness that she feels, nor really disappointment. More a tiredness that has been building up underneath her.

She eyes her phone like a dog in a garden watches passers-by.

Hi, I’m so sorry…

Such is the way it begins, and ends. Oh well. Oh well, there will always be other days, other bottles of wine, other excuses to bear. Oh well, she tells herself, demonstrative, in her mother’s voice. Not the end of the world. Now is the time when she should pick up that clamouring child, her own small self, and hold it in her arms: there, there, nothing to cry over, you’re not killed.

This is the love she has allowed. Staring at the perfectly crisped fish, the piles and piles of rocket she has washed and dried and fluffed up in bowls and drizzled with the last of the balsamic; at the expensive candles her aunt bought her which she has burned to the base, at the diffuser with only a film of oil left; at the playlist she has queued with a meticulous selection of light jazz interspersed with bossa nova for when the evening draws in; at the napkins she has bleached white and folded into elegant shapes; at the wine glasses she has polished to chrome; at the New York Times, paper copy, she has left open on the sideboard; at the cupboard to which she has condemned her plants.

Stupid girl. Stupid, stupid girl. To want love like this. To beg. To need.

We’ll reschedule, don’t worry.   

You don’t mind?

It’s honestly fine! see you all soon <3

 

 

Pollyanna Jackson is an MA English Literature student based in Edinburgh, soon-to-be making the move to the Lake District to start work as an Editor. She was shortlisted for the 2022 Bridport Prize, selected for Mark Gatiss’ writing programme with the Dartington Trust, and won the University of Edinburgh’s Lewis Edwards Memorial Prize in 2023 and 2024. She enjoys writing fiction and short essays, and is always working on a novel.

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.