The Women of Harper House

Her mother would tell you she’d never been good at climbing; a false hope. At twelve years, Wren Harper mastered ascending the ancient white poplar just beyond the garden gate of the Harper estate.

She climbs now despite her dress, aided by the pair of Docs she found in the back of a closet. She doesn’t know they once belonged to her mother, Sophie Harper, before she graduated high school. 

“Pass it up,” she says to her friend below.

Wren laughs at Atticus as she jumps, trying to hand off the net. The girls are a collection of once-hipster names their mothers magicked back into existence.

Sophie watches with generations of Harper women who've passed before as her daughter climbs above.

The women of Harper House have been held within the tree despite their deaths, bodies buried elsewhere. They exist in earth and root and branch; a punishment for brutality and blood spilled on the property.

Had Wren’s mother known of her fate, she never would’ve slipped her toes over the edge of the roof, arms extended like wings.

* * *

Sophie’s need grew by the day, cradling her newborn. Too often, she wondered what it would be like to spread her arms wide. Would it be like that rhyme? And down will come baby, she sang, always gave Wren those sugared lullabies.

When she was pregnant, Sophie thought about the bedtime stories and the beautiful things she’d teach her child to believe in: kindness, love, the world, herself.

She wanted to mend a broken heart.

But when the baby was born, it broke her. Sophie didn’t feel the connection like she knew she should, but she’d smiled and kissed Wren over and over to prove she could.

The child was a creature who cried and writhed and didn’t need a story or a song, but wanted only breastmilk and blankets. Sophie had a hard time nursing, and in swaddling she felt the tenuous breath slip from herself into the babe, a tiny wraith; she sucked Sophie’s soul and her milk and her everything.

The day of her death, Sophie took the steps barefoot. Her toes curled over the shingles, which had cracked in the summer sun.

Now, she resisted the urge to name the green of the leaves. The backyard trees would outlive her.

Sophie spread her arms, and she flew.

At first, she soared, and then the breaking seared through.

Her dying started slow, breaths weakened. Toward the last, Sophie no longer tasted the sweetness of the almost-autumnal air, instead there was the tang of earth and rain and the gum of worm macerated in her mouth.

“The fall fractured the femur, ruptured the femoral artery, and she bled out.” Someone, the coroner perhaps, told Sophie’s husband in hushed tones: voice soft, succinct.

Sophie’s eyes stilled to glass, but she saw them take the woman she used to be, swaddled in the body bag, bones broken beyond repair. Her thoughts seeped from the roots of the poplar back to the branches above.

* * *

In the years that followed, Sophie never visited her grave because cemeteries were for the living, not the dead, and there was no escaping the tree.

* * *

“What are we doing, Wren?” Atticus calls from below the tree.

The women of Harper House wonder the same thing.

“I’ve named her Ophelia,” Wren says. “And we all know Ophelia fell.”

“That’s a made-up name,” Atticus says.

“Read a book,” Wren says.

Atticus asks her phone about the validity of the name. “But Shakespeare’s just, like, dead,” she says, skimming the wiki.

“So is my mother. But she was probably like this Ophelia and that’s why,” Wren says. She lifts the net above her head and plunges it down, scooping the bird from the branch.

“But the babies, Wren. What about the baby birds?” Atticus’s voice shakes.

“We’ll take care of them,” Wren says, climbing down from the tree. “We have to protect them now.”

Wren’s mother watches as she pulls pins from a pocket in the dress. The pins had belonged to Sophie’s mother, but the heads were still bright red despite their age.

The youngest Harper instructs her friend to hold the bird, and she tries, but it fidgets, and attempts to fly free.

“I have to do everything,” Wren says, holding the squirming shape in one hand, pin in the other.

The first pin stills the bird.

Blood pools in the palm of her hand.

Atticus runs from the yard, sobbing, while the women of Harper House stay silent.

The crimson cools as night descends.

Wren strokes the wings and sings the name, “Ophelia. Ophelia. My Ophie. Sophie. Sophie.”

Her mother would tell you blood never touched the earth, and so the fate of the women of Harper House would not befall her daughter.

But Wren rips feathers from each wing, bone from body; the insides spill like jewels beneath the star-infested sky.

When her father calls from the garden gate, she smiles down at her work.

She buries the bird beside the tree.

Wren climbs back up to the branch, takes the nest. The young cry with her as she carries them back to Harper House.

Written by: Kayla King
Photograph by: Heather Parsons

Where the Wild Went

Flames lick at the leaves. Burning captured in photos. The pictures flash over the stage, stretched into obscurity, but Pike knows them. A forest eaten by fire, frame after frame. 

Light pools and melts over their guitars; Pike purchased his sister’s portfolio for this purpose.

He drinks in the darkness off stage, large lungfuls of dank air from the club. Tonight Helen and the Torches are the headliners and he is not Pike, but Flint. No longer labeled a Flynn Twin.

Beer on the shoe, in the mouth, alcohol slows…the…songs…down. Acoustics arc the soul into shape.

Pike wonders what’s happened to live shows. The painful beat in the ear, in the head. Understanding the lyrics like no one else. The beauty of lavender light from stage on skin. Hot kiss of melody sung just off-key enough to be endearing.

Now people want perfection.

Their filters are new and they are new and he wonders why they can’t trust their own memories.

He only trusts what he remembers.

Keeps the music his own.

* * *

Pike took a beer out past the tree line, walked until the bonfire burned like a lit match in the distance. He’d been led from town by the blaze; hot and thick and delicious.

“Thought you'd forget, Pember,” he said.

His sister joined after the beer was gone, sipped slow, can crushed in his hand.

“A promise is sacred,” she said, smiling through her discomfort.

Pike knew she didn’t like the past.

They unearthed the plastic Power Rangers thermos, which once fit into the matching lunchbox before Louis Alexander stole it during their third grade field trip to the Jell-O museum. Pemberley had kissed Pike’s forehead after, took him to bury the dead.

His thermos had lost its twin.

“You’ll do the same when I die,” she’d said.

They’d sworn with paper cuts pressed together: “To be opened again, before we become different.”

College was coming.

They knew the world would change them.

Pike popped the lid, revealed old things inside. Their dad’s favorite matchbox car. Papers and pens.

Their secrets.

“Ever think, maybe, we were never the people we were supposed to be?” Pike asked.

“You think you’re so much smarter,” Pemberley said. The words arrived soft and sure, and they sounded raw. Too real. And it hurt Pike to hear this from his twin.

“Belongs to you,” he said, handing a piece of paper with her small, seven-year-old print on the lines.

“One secret for another,” she said, using her phone’s light. “Always Remember: Never trust dreams. They’re not real. Don’t show your emotions until night. Kids ruin you. Don’t fall. Always be strong.”

“That’s—Pember, do you—”

“Just give me your secret.”

“I don’t hate him,” he said, spinning the wheels of the matchbox between his fingers. He scrunched up his nose to keep himself from crying.

He knew, even as he said it, that the words weren’t the same for his sister. She’d needed their dad, and he hadn’t been there. Their father had left once when they were six, again when they were nine. He’d returned broken, and maybe Pemberley still blamed him for being weak, but he would never ask. And the silent way she still hurt had always been enough to keep him quiet, too.

“God, Pike. He’s not a parent. Not the way he should be.”

“Dad will miss us,” Pike said. “He loves us.”

He needed the words to mean something.

“Used to think that, too. But maybe he just loves the parts of us that belong to him. Your name, like some fucked up fishing trophy. My eyes. The way we fight. Whatever. But that’s not love.”

He wanted to write her a poem then about love being the wild within them, how he only felt it around her. But they walked back to the bonfire without words. Pike first, Pemberley a few steps behind.

* * *

Too often, he sees her in trees, the way leaves flutter. Pike uses her pictures throughout the set, his own paramnesia. The destruction. The death of it all. He believes this is his sister.

There are nights when he tries to find the only girl really watching. Other times, he searches for the one staring at anything but them. He can’t know how she’d watch, feel his music. But he hopes she wouldn’t want to sway with strangers who only see the show through phone screens. She might read about his band while openers calibrate voices and instruments to octaves she couldn’t care about. She’d still need him to sing some sense into her.

They’d parted ways; separate colleges on separate coasts where they’d needed to become separate people. The distance never meant anything. He knew they’d come back together for the important things.

After their dad died, she didn’t come home. She sent him a postcard, featuring a picture she’d taken on assignment. It was hers, words her own, too. But none of it was his sister. None of those things were real. Pemberley promised: see you soon. but not now. not for this.

The image of her first forest fire in Wyoming is obliterated by those words, projected on his face, in the song. He plays the opening chords of “Heart Attack,” croaks the first line: “She was obsessed with time.” But he doesn’t finish it, because he can’t. His father’s death is still too real.

He knows he could’ve been the one to go to her after.

But he is here now with music and words and the past trapped somewhere between them; the betwixt formed and fossilized from too many months of not speaking.

Now, when they open with “Of Embers and Pyres,” he understands her obsession with fire, bones breaking into dust; their father’s cremation too much like a Viking ritual.

Pike’s lyrics take the crowd to distant places: “Soon you’ll hear this song, and remember the fire. They will know your name. Sing of embers and pyres. Pemberley, Pember. All of us, liars…”

And they sing with him, voices in unison. Each of them calls her out instead of him, sets Pike free.

The blame should burn.

When Pike sings about her now, he gives her to empty people waiting to be filled, and they take her. He wonders if the crowd understands she’d burn down an entire town if given the chance. Watch it disappear.

Written by: Kayla King
Photograph by: Justin Maher

The Power of Water

Maddie crouched at the riverbank on a small overlook. Brown water hissed around the rocks in front of her, foaming white, choking the edges of the river heavy with recent rains. She was never leaving. She would become a hermit, fish and hunt for game; the latter would provide food as well as warmth. Never mind that she had no taste for venison or bobcat or coyote. Loners – outcasts, weirdos – did what they must.

A balmy November wind blew at her back, rustling the weeds. Dead leaves curled around her toes. Maddie’s sneakers and socks lay behind her in the grass. She hadn’t meant to take them off. Somehow, though, she felt freer without them, unafraid, like her high school self, the barefooted camp counselor who’d taught the younger kids how to start a cook fire and purify water in this very park. Confident. Admired. Self-assured.

Nothing like the idiot who ran from Kevin earlier today.

Maddie loved Thursday evenings, the only nights that she and Mason both had free. After deciding to meet at five at a local restaurant, Maddie hung up and left the student center. She would shower, change, and finish some homework before leaving. She pushed the door open; cool air rushed around her jacket. In the entryway, a few feet from the door, stood Kevin.

They’d ignored each other since the spring. Maddie pretended he was a ghost, a figment of her imagination, the fading image of a nightmare, but today, she nodded to him.

Kevin slowed. “Oh, hey, Matt.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“You’re all alone. Scared away your new boy toy already?” Kevin stopped. “Must’ve been the lesbo haircut.”

“Fuck off.”

“He’s probably undressing a real girl right now.”

Always, always, always it came back to gender with Kevin. Here at the park, Maddie could fire off a hundred replies: I am a real girl; Mason wouldn’t lower himself to your standards; even if he hurts me, you can’t have me back.

But at school, her words decayed like a dead fish washed up on shore; the noxious fume filled her mouth, her nostrils. Maddie fought a gag reflex.

Kevin laughed. Maddie didn’t stop. She passed the library and the dorms, feet pounding against the sidewalk in a steady run. What kind of god allowed Kevin to corner her like that, with no witnesses?

The same god that made her, obviously.

In the parking garage, Maddie didn’t wait for the elevator; she ran down the stairs. On one jump, she skipped two stairs. Her foot caught the edge and slipped. Her hand wrenched from the railing, and Maddie stared into the abyss -- at the eight remaining steps and the concrete landing below.

If she let herself fall, would she melt into the concrete and disappear like water through a crack?

Maybe it was good balance, from the broken, dead trees over which she crossed rivers, or maybe it was luck, but Maddie stumbled down two more stairs, banging her hip into the metal railing. Breathing hard, she paused for only a moment before hobbling to her car and driving forty minutes to her woods, her river… Home.

Clouds hung in the sky, darkening the river as it lashed against the rocks. It was a battle, the water fighting for more space while the rocks, unmoved, stood in defiance.

Gender was supposed to be easy. But Maddie had always felt more comfortable outside – hiking, swimming, mountain biking, or mowing the lawn. She couldn’t do high heels or make-up. Not a girl, not a boy, Maddie was in between, fluid.

And Kevin hated that. Especially when she’d wanted to shave half her head and trim the other to a bob. “You can’t,” he’d said from the comfort of his dorm bed, leaning against the wall, his legs crossed. “I already feel like I’m dating a lesbian.”

Maddie rocked herself side to side in his wheelie chair. “What are you talking about?”

“You used to wear all those pink, lacy shirts for me. Why did you stop? Don’t I try for you? Don’t I dress up and bring you flowers?”

“You’re not dating my clothes.”

“All of a sudden, you dress like a man, and now you want to cut your hair. It’s like you want to be a guy. I date girls, Maddie.”

“You’re supposed to love me no matter what.”

“Don’t my needs matter to you?” Kevin asked.

They did. He wouldn’t be happy with her, so Maddie broke up with him. In his taunts afterward, Kevin made sure she knew about the “real girl” he cheated with.

The current attacked the boulder before her, bearing a stick; wayward water splashed onto the bank, dribbling across the dry dirt before seeping back into the river.

Maddie’s phone vibrated in her pocket. She’d blocked Kevin months ago, right? He couldn’t harass her, not here, not when there was nothing to stop her from staring into the abyss. The river water churned below her.

It was Mason. Where are you? his text read. Call me. It was five thirty, half an hour past their date.

Ahead was a bend in the river. The water beat against the rocks, brown frothing white before mixing back into the unrecognizable bulk of the river. Maddie stood. Her hip ached, and despite the balmy weather, her bare toes had numbed. On her phone, she typed, I’m sorry. It’s a long story.

But it didn’t matter. In the battle between the water and the rocks, the water – in its everlasting crusade for space, its attacks gentle or crushing depending on the current – won in the end.



Written by: Natalie Schriefer
Photo by: Kayla King

Illusion

We smoke for the first time together in her attic apartment, the ceiling unfinished, hidden by tapestries that meet at a point in the center. One is pale purple and patterned with flowers. Another holds colors of a sunset.

She packs the glass bowl, and hands it to me. When she says the word, “Greens,” I watch her mouth open to reveal her teeth, and it looks more genuine than the smile I saw back at the bar.

“I never—” I say, and she adjusts my hands, and lowers the flame in front of me. I take a deep breath and cough and she laughs as the small amount of smoke I’d taken in fills the space between us.

I can’t stop myself from kissing her again, this time with tongues and teeth, which clink together like our wine glasses just an hour or so before.

I met Prue at a place called Gypsy’s.

She pointed to women dressed in thick petticoats, brocade blooms patterning the fabric. She told me they called themselves sisters of the sun, homemade henna tattoos on their arms to prove it.

“You have to meet the fortune teller,” she said, pulling me to a table near the back of the bar.

I waited in line while she drank more wine, staining her lips a deep red. I wanted to kiss her an infinite amount of times, but I didn’t tell her this. Instead I kissed her once, and proceeded to the table.

“You are faithful, a loyal man, true. But you see the colors, too,” the fortune teller said, tracing the lines of my palm. I wondered how they were visible beneath my callouses; if she knew I was a painter. I said nothing, just nodded and tipped her and walked back to Prue, who gave me her hand. I traced it the same way the fortune teller did without seeing anything but her in front of me.

She said, “Follow me.” And I did.

Prue kissed me from one street corner to the next until we reached her place.

Now, when she smokes, she seems to fall back against the world, and as I take another hit, I wait to feel the same thing. But I find myself distracted by the way the bowl gleams beneath the lights on the ceiling, so purple and pure and pulsing when I squint just right.

“The lights,” I say, because I can’t say anything else. I don’t know how to explain that the lights look more alive than I feel because maybe they are alive and I’m just here; an illusion.

“I strung them myself,” she says. And I kiss her for the lights, and the moment. I can’t remember ever feeling the world in such a monumental way.

She offers me another hit, holding the bowl in front of me, letting me go slow.

“You see the fortune teller,” I say.

“Where?” Prue asks. I trace the outline of the purple flowers on the tapestry above.

We find other shapes on the tapestry, too, like we’re cloud gazing, but the ceiling is the sky, and after a while, my eyes feel heavy, and I sink into the floor, falling back against the world.

                                                                                                    ***

The first few weeks together exist in a black hole; time tentative and unreal. At my place, Prue runs her hands over the half-finished people who live within my sketchbook.

She dips her finger in a bit of blue, same as the spring sky. She paints points on blank pages. “The mountains,” she says. “They’re calling me.”

“I’ve never been,” I say, my brush in the blue, letting it puddle just so beneath her eyes.

She explains time in the mountains changes people. “But I know I’ll never go,” she says. The words are clipped, as if she's cut her hopes before they feel too real. Her eyes wander, reveal her gypsy soul within that bathetic body; an unmoving juxtaposition between want and need.

I paint Prue with perfect lips, covering the canvas with her arms and covering those in small swirls, which remind me of the sun and our first date and the beginning of everything.

“What’s your favorite season?” I ask. “For the background, you know?” I try to imagine the color scheme she’ll choose before she says it, but I can’t.

“The In-Between. That’s what I love,” she says. “One sprout through frozen ground, not quite thawed. Dandelion snow. The just-there-crisp as the first leaves fall; days disappearing,” she says.

When I finish, Prue looks at my work, stares at herself, and the faint hint of mountains beyond. I wonder if she recognizes this version, almost sad. She kisses my hands despite the paint, and I think she understands; I know her.

                                                                                                    ***

Most nights we sleep and smoke beneath my painting of Prue, her acrylic eyes protecting us from the world. I kiss my Prue and see her in shades of yellow: butter and daisies and faded henna and honey. I don’t remember when I start to see her this way, until one day, her jaundiced skin is all I see.

                                                                                                    ***

Prue sleeps and sleeps and never wakes. I’m not sure where she goes, but when I look at her, I feel trapped in the sun’s rays, eyes blinded. Sometimes it hurts too much to look at her, so instead I kiss her, and ask if she believes in the future. When she doesn’t answer, I roll a joint with thin sketch paper from the book she bought me for my birthday. While she sleeps, I smoke, and I wait for everything else to disappear.

                                                                                                    ***

One month later, Prue disappears.

They take her body and leave me with her painting. And for days after, I paint her. I surround her with pale purple flowers, eyes clouded with something I could never see.

I pack her few belongings from the attic apartment, and bring them back to my place. I take each of the tapestries, and the purple lights, which burn out.

                                                                                                    ***

I’m arrested outside her building.

The officer waits until I finish the henna lines on Prue’s arms, which I’ve painted on the side of the building.

She exists for everyone now, the brick bleeding through her skin. Her lips are dark red and everything else is pale and pure and if I squint just right, she starts to fade at the edges; only a ghost.

                                                                                                    ***

I’m released the next day, and I return to her building because I need to see her.

From the alley, I smell fresh paint.

Prue isn’t here.

Painted over.

Disappeared.


Written by: Kayla King
Photograph by: Tiffany Melanson

Meddled

My entire body is numb when I wake. I stay sprawled on my back as feeling slowly crawls down my neck and tingles up my arms until I’m able to wiggle my fingers. Each tap of my fingers sends a bolt of pain that deepens the dull ache in my skull.

As I regain feeling in my body, a sharp pain in my chest shallows my breathing. My tongue feels swollen, as if it can barely fit in my mouth. My skin is covered in little scratches from my straw bed, and my pale skin is bright red.

Deep down, I know I should be panicking. I’ve been trapped and unconscious for what could be hours or days—I don’t know. Yet all I can interpret is the exhaustion weighing me down and the pain in my body.

I wipe away the crust caked on my lashes. The movement torments my shoulders, and I whimper. My throat burns with the sound, and I cough from the dust coating my tongue.

I need to ignore the pain and focus on what I know. I know the murderer is a man who has pale blonde hair and clear gray eyes. He was wearing a jacket and jeans in the humid, hot Massachusetts summer. Boots, even. I had been melting in the shorts and tank I’d worn to go biking. Is he even human? Does he come from the center of the earth?

I wonder if my coworkers or roommate would call for help—if they even notice I’m gone.

Managing to prop myself up on my elbows, I look around. The only light filters in through little cracks in the roof, revealing thousands of dust particles. My makeshift bed is situated beside a thick wooden pole with a heavy chain looped around it several times. The path of the chain leads to a wide metal cuff around my right ankle. A padlock with a six-digit combination keeps me locked in place.

Apparently he didn’t want to risk losing me.

Thinking about that man makes a new pain blossom in my chest. He is the man who killed my parents. After years of being tossed around in the foster care system, I had finally been able to call a place home.

But he ruined that for me.

I guess I’m not allowed to have a happy ending.

Slowly, feeling drifts down to my legs. Now that I can move them, I’m able to sit up. The movement sends a wave of lightheadedness that crashes through my head and settles as a lead ball of nausea in my gut.

The only sound I can make is a raspy whimper when I attempt to call out. The birds continue to chirp. Twigs snap in an unsteady rhythm, probably from a small animal. Aside from that, my prison is silent. I am alone.

Shit.

I don’t want to die.

Maybe my roommate’s right. I should have believed the police when they said my parents’ deaths were an accident. Just a coincidence. I shouldn’t have put it all together, tracked him down. When I discovered he was one of my foster brothers, my blood had run cold. He could’ve been jealous or vengeful. It doesn’t matter, anymore. It’s too late to find out.

I shouldn’t have followed him to a boarded white barn in the middle of nowhere on my bike. I shouldn’t have tried to break in. I should have stayed home and watched Friends reruns while drinking wine.

I shouldn’t have tried to meddle.

Meddle. Meddle. Meddle.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Stupid enough to get myself killed.

The door’s closed several feet away, with no visible way to open it from the inside. Aside from me and the pole, the small shed is bare. Nothing is here except the microbes and me.

My legs wobble after I pull myself up with the pole. I dig my nails into the cracked wood until blood rushes down to my extremities, and I can stand with little support. I breathe out a small sigh of relief as my body begins to feel normal again. I can do this. I can survive.

I need to.

My chain gives me about four feet of distance I can wander. It keeps me just out of reach from the door, and only lets me in far enough to scrape my nails on the next pole holding up the barn. All of the walls are out of reach. The boarded up windows are feet above my head. And as weak as I am, I won’t be able to climb worth a damn.

A clang of metal startles me from my thoughts. I whirl on my heel, nearly tumbling over from the sudden movement. The door slides open as I blink my eyes to try and calm the vertigo making me sway on my feet. The man clucks his tongue at me and closes the door behind him. I watch him closely as he turns his attention to me and assesses me with cool gray eyes.

“I’m impressed,” he says. “Most couldn’t stand in your state.” He walks towards me, swinging a pistol dangling from his fingers. He pauses an arm’s length from me and tilts his head. “I really didn’t want to kill you. You should have left well enough alone.” His voice is chilled and flat, with no hint of remorse or regret. Although his voice is soft, it still intensifies the throbbing in my head. I wobble on my feet and slump against the pole, closing the distance between us.

“You took my parents.” Somehow, my voice comes out strong enough to make words. He braces his free hand on the pole beside me and lifts the gun to my face. After tracing a line down my heated cheek, he tucks it under my chin.

“They weren’t even blood,” he says and scoffs. This presses the metal harder into my jugular. I wince and shy away from the weapon, but he straightens up and wraps his other hand around the back of my neck. I freeze.

“You took them,” I repeat. “Go to hell.”

He takes a step back and raises the pistol to aim at my head. I squeeze my eyes shut against the sight. Panic rises up in my chest, but he speaks before I can quell it.

“Keep it hot for me.”

The gunshot is the last thing I ever hear.



Written by: Jeanine Kleist
Photograph by: Kayla King

Clockwise

Perry climbed over the garden wall. She never used the gate, loving the way the stone felt solid beneath her hands; always familiar. From her spot on the ledge, the tree seemed skeletal, almost bare. She found him there, surrounded by leaves the color of butter.

“They’re falling too fast,” Thatcher said when Perry waved from the wall. She’d been visiting this way since the early days of their friendship, and Thatcher’s house felt like home.

“I missed you at school today,” Perry said. She felt the handle of the half-broken teacup beneath her knee. Thatcher’s mom had added it to the other pieces plastered into the garden wall when they were little, and it remained Perry’s favorite spot.

“My mom doesn’t know I skipped,” he said, pointing to the backyard. Perry didn’t see her, but nodded. She swung her legs, careful not to disrupt the handle of the teacup beneath her.

“Ever wonder who we’ll be when we’re done with school?” Perry asked. “Like we’ll leave, we’ll love, we’ll become different people.”

Though the early September sun started to set, there was still enough light to see the way Thatcher squinted up at the tree, too much worry in the creases of his forehead. Leaves fell, seasons changed; it never bothered Thatcher.

But Perry understood. Sometime soon, there might be a full season in which everything changed.

“Would it help to pretend the future is a person? I always find talking to hypotheticals like real people much easier,” Thatcher said.

Perry jumped down from the wall to join him beneath the tree.

“Just imagine,” Thatcher said. He always seemed to be imagining other places, thinking about other people. And being friends with him meant dealing with the strange things he did or said, while everyone else just existed. “Future would say something like, Find someone you can share all your truths with. I think that might be love,” he said.

“Or maybe, Love is about being lost,” she said. “People seek happiness and think it’s love.”

Perry wondered if Thatcher would someday leave, and find something better; some place happier.

Maybe everyone tried much too hard to be happy in a world where they should be grateful. Or surprised. Or content.

Sitting here with Thatcher beneath the tree, she felt content.

“I don’t think I’ll be here,” Thatcher said, looking up at the tree like he saw something she couldn’t.

Thatcher’s words chilled Perry more than the wind turning the leaves inside out. She didn’t want him to talk about other places, even imaginary ones, because she couldn’t imagine Thatcher anywhere but here. Even his thoughts being elsewhere made her feel hollow.

She remembered the way Thatcher used to talk about a place he wanted to go, an address just as nonsensical as himself. And she imagined that 65 ½ now, a wrought-iron gate freckled from rust and old age, speaking in creaks.

“We should have tea,” Thatcher said.

Perry felt the future closing around her. She felt it in the way Thatcher needed to understand what might happen in a month or a year from now; seeking some distant happiness.

He walked back toward his house, but Perry didn’t follow. Instead, she stared at the pieces of glass on the garden wall, patterned with flowers and fine filigree. All of it had been whole once, broken by a past event Perry couldn’t remember. But knowing it already happened, that the pieces would remain where they were forever, made her feel better than anything else.

“Perry!” Thatcher called from the backyard minutes later. The way he said her name was nice; simple and honest and real.

“Do we have to?” Perry asked when Thatcher handed her a tea cup. He looked back at her with small eyes, pleading with her.

“Just one,” he said, and she knew it only took him one cup. He was better at reading tea leaves than skylines or wind patterns or even at reading her the past few months.

“No sugar?” Perry asked, sipping on the bitter black tea.

“It’ll ruin the reading. Now think of your question,” Thatcher said. He drank his tea and closed his eyes, savoring the liquid.

The way they talked about the future, finding their fate in tea cups, should’ve unsettled her. But such moments felt like worship: to the stars and their friendship; the profundity eclipsed by the simplicity of being here, now, with the promise of a hundred or so more moments spent just like this.

When she finished her tea, Thatcher took her cup, and swirled the remains three times clockwise, “For future events,” he said, but Perry already knew that. He tipped her cup back on the saucer without a sound, her future in practiced hands.

Perry focused on the way he stood, shifting from one foot to the other, as if the future were there waiting for him.

He dropped her cup without a whisper of what he’d seen, and then smashed his own against the tree.

“Thatcher?” she asked, too afraid to say anything else.

His voice creaked when he said her name, “Perry.”

He knelt to pick up the pieces of the cups before pulling her away from the tree, and she let him, because the ground smelled bitter like the tea. It caught in her throat and took her voice.

                                                                                                      ***

“The future scares me, too,” he said, brushing a leaf from the garden wall. He examined what was left of the cups, a bucket of mortar at his feet.

Together they pressed the pieces into an empty section of the wall. The small shards felt real in her hand. She knew they would exist one second, one moment from now. And that was enough.

Written by: Kayla King
Photograph by: Jennifer Stevens

Blood Town Forest

1946

A single letter sat in William Blood’s mailbox, the address for Philip Kaufman, in the corner. His aged hand, still creased from years of labor, shook it open.

“Dear Mr. Blood,” he read. “We regret to inform you that because of your refusal to pay your property taxes, and your refusal to show up in court, the Town of Lancaster, MA is confiscating the stretch of forest on Brockelman Road. Please report to our main office immediately.”

William stared at the letter until the words swam in front of his eyes. After a minute, he took a deep breath, folded it up with care, and marched to his car.

My family’s land, all I have left, and that bastard’s found a way to take it.

The fifteen minute drive felt like five, and then he’d found the building. Inside, he searched every hallway until he reached an open door that read KAUFMAN. A man in a brown suit sitting behind the desk looked up. William introduced himself, and the man got up, beaming.

“Mr. Blood, I’m glad to see you got my letter,” he said, reaching to shake William’s hand.

“You’re the man who’s taking my land.” William crossed his arms over his chest.

Phil shook his head. “I promise you, Mr. Blood, we wouldn’t do this if we had any other choice. Please, have a seat.” He turned back to the desk, getting a corner ready. “I’ll take you through the paperwork, and answer any questions you have.”

William took forever walking to the desk. Once Phil began explaining, William stopped listening. His body numb, he signed every dotted line until Phil clapped him on the back and thanked him for his donation.

“So that’s what you’re calling it?” William asked. “In your letter, you considered this ‘a confiscation.’” He pulled the paper from his back pocket.

Phil kept smiling. “Mr. Blood, you’re a respected man in this community, but you haven’t paid your taxes in full. Now, we could print that in the papers,” he said. “But you’re a good man whose only crime is not having the money. We wouldn’t do that to you.”

William scoffed, turning for the door. “Good day, Philip. Thanks for your time.”

That week, an ad in the paper declared that some hiking trails had been established in Lancaster Blood Town Forest. Seeing his name stuck in there, like he’d just handed the property over instead of fighting for it for years, left William struggling to sleep. The next night, he grabbed his sturdiest shovel, jumped in his car, and drove to Town Hall.

If he wants to treat my family’s history like a tourist attraction, then he’s got another thing coming.

Five minutes passed before Phil walked out. William waited until he rolled off down the road, and then followed, keeping ten feet behind until the man pulled up to a half-lit home. Parking along the road, William got out when Phil did. The man locked eyes with him and jumped.

“William! Are you well?” Phil asked.

“I’ve been thinking about the forest,” William said. He nodded to his car. “Come for a drive?”

Phil gaped, and then gave a nervous laugh. “That’s kind of you to ask, but I -- I’m expected, see.” He pointed to the house. The silhouette of a woman and child glided by the window, their laughs muted by the glass.

Just like my family, once.

“Won’t take a moment,” William said, and sat back down.

Phil hesitated, and then jogged over. “I have to say, I’m surprised to see you here, William,” he said when they headed down the road. “You know my office hours.”

William gave him a tight smile. “Yes, well, some things can’t be talked about in a mere fifteen-minute meeting.”

Phil twitched a nod and his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Of course. So, what’s on your mind?”

William turned onto another road. Finally, he drove them down the half-paved path to his “donated” forest, the trees thickening around them. Phil’s Adam’s apple bobbed again.

“I just wanted to enjoy the quiet here one last time,” William said, pulling over. His foggy headlights passed over a sizable rock beside them, his name engraved there.

“You’re really attached to this place,” Phil said, his voice a little too high.

William handed him a cigarette, wearing a real smile this time. “More than you know,” he said and nodded to the woods. “Shall we?”

Phil choked, smoking up the whole car. “What, hike? I just came from work.” He gestured to his dress clothes.

William shrugged. “If you look west, the trees fall away and you can see the sky. Good sight to smoke to.”

Phil hesitated, and then got out to lean against the hood.

William grinned. “Good man,” he said. He followed, pulling out the shovel behind him and rounding the back of the car. At the rearview mirror, he hung back. Phil sent another stream of smoke to the sky, the stars flickering behind it.

“You’re right, William,” he said. “The stars are beautiful here.”

William nodded. He expected his heart to pound, his hands to shake, but as he lifted the shovel and whipped it down onto Phil’s head, neither happened. The man just dropped to the ground like wet laundry, his cigarette a few inches off to the side.

With a deep breath, William stuck Phil’s cigarette in his mouth, opened his trunk, and looped a long twist of rope over his arm. Hitching up his pants, he hauled Phil up over his shoulder.

His knees shook with age. Sucking a breath through his teeth, William marched into the forest, counting to one hundred before dumping Phil at the base of a tree. A cool breeze blew by, but he didn’t shiver. Unfurling the rope, he tied a noose around Phil’s neck, and pulled tight, craning his neck to study the branches.

One loomed close, thick at the base and high enough that he could reach it without climbing. Standing back, he tossed the rope three times before it caught, allowing him to wrap it around the trunk for leverage.

Slowly, he pulled Phil up. His body jerked and twitched while he hanged, but by the time he got high enough to be out of sight, he stopped moving. The branch groaned as the body swayed.

Sighing, William tied a knot, and pulled a fresh cigarette from his pocket. The breeze cooled the sweat on his forehead.

“Oh, yes, Philip,” he whispered. “The stars above my land are the best.” Hitching his pants up again, he wandered back to the road.

Written by: Caitlin Mannarino
Photograph by: Kayla King

1:1 - Kayla King

Interviewed by Mark Killian

Welcome back to another edition of 1:1. I’m at Mountain View Grand Resort & Spa in New Hampshire, seething with envy as I wait for Kayla King’s graduation ceremony to conclude. I’m surrounded by golf courses, spas, mountains, and even freaking dog sleds!

But most importantly, this is where Kayla has been attending writing residencies as an MFA candidate at Southern New Hampshire University. Today, she becomes an MFA recipient, and she’s agreed to put off her celebratory spa treatment for a few minutes to tell us what inspired beautiful stories like Penumbra, Calculations, Exulansis, and the Gray and Shaw series. Here she comes now. Better douse my jealousy with this final finger of whiskey.

1:1000: Hi KAYLA!

--Hugs--

KAYLA KING: Hi, Mark! What’s up?

1:1000: My blood alcohol level. JUST KIDDING! But seriously, let's start from the beginning. When did you realize you want to dedicate your life to writing?

KK: When I was in middle school I wrote quite a bit of poetry, but it wasn't until my senior year of high school that I realized I wanted to be a writer. I took an Experimental Writing class and fell in love with fiction! Then I went to college for 1/2 a semester for interior design before finding a writing program at Buffalo State College.

1:1000: What was it about this class that made you realize how much fun writing can be?

KK: Up until that point I'd never tried anything other than poetry, but finding the right story made me realize how exciting it could be to create characters and worlds from my own head. Though it was only 14 pages, that story gave me more inspiration than anything that year. Also my teacher was oh so encouraging. I think I was the only one who actually cared about the class, and he saw that. Also my best friend was in the same class so that made a huge difference.

1:1000: What was this awe inspiring story about?

KK: It was a fairytale retelling called THROUGH. I've since taken the idea and created an entire world that will (hopefully) span a series of 5 books. The first two are completed, but are in dire need of revisions. It took all of my favorite characters from childhood and changed them into new people. I guess it was my way of figuring out what would happen post-high school...

1:1000: So when you say “characters” from high school, are we talking fresh takes on established fables, or real people with notable personalities?

KK: The latter.

1:1000: Is this best friend of yours one of the characters?

KK: He often pops up in the strangest of places--something another character might say or do that reminds me of him after I go back and reread what I've written.

1:1000: Is he still writing?

KK: He is! It's strange. I don't think ten years ago when we became friends that either of us imagined we'd be writers. He's written a few short stories and poems and great letters from his time abroad in Spain this past summer.

1:1000: Then why is he not writing for us?

KK: I’ll have to ask him, but I think he’s scared of Pinterest.

1:1000: Yes you will. This can be off the record if you'd like, but does this friend of yours inspire the Gray and Shaw stories?

KK: Actually, no. I've never had this question before, because I think people just assume we're dating. We definitely say we're soulmates, just not in a romantic way. He is actually the inspiration for EXULANSIS. I think there is a line in that story where it says you don't have to be IN love with a person to love them. And I think this kind of platonic love doesn't always make for the kind of heartbreak I give Gray and Shaw--spoiler alert.

1:1000: Why did you decide to go against Cupid’s wishes and kill Gray and Shaw’s relationship? Do you feel any of the pain you imposed on you readers?

KK: Strangely, because I began with the end of their relationship in a non-1:1000 story called Valhalla, it was not as emotional as another I've been working on, which is the actual day Shaw leaves. In Valhalla, there is some time since they've been apart. The wounds are starting to heal, but are ripped open when Grayson buys Shaw's published book. I read a snippet at my last residency and a few people did tear up, and they didn't even know Gray and Shaw. I think the more you know about them, the more heartbreaking it becomes.

1:1000: And where can your Grayson and Shaw fans read this, Valhalla?

KK: Hopefully, in the publication of the contest I submitted it to, but win or lose, I will be posting it on my site in the not-so-distant future. Follow me on Twitter for updates.

1:1000: Let's talk a little bit about your residency. As someone who sold their soul for a steady paycheck, I’m interested to know what it’s like to throw caution to the wind and focus solely on fiction?

KK: It's great! And a little bit scary, too. I love getting together with other writers and talking about writing and books and words. It's beautiful, but residency puts you in such a vulnerable position. You give away your work and listen to others discuss it in front of you. Good and bad. It's not always easy to stay in the "cone of silence." Ultimately, feedback makes us better writers, and there are times I've had to remind myself that while sitting and waiting ALL week for my peer workshop day.

1:1000: It's amazing how much other people’s opinion can help.

KK: Too often, I think we're blinded by the fact that WE wrote the stories to see their flaws.

1:1000: Amen. Too close to the canvas. So are residencies part of a grad program, or are they separate things?

KK: My MFA is low residency, so for the past two years I've gone to NH for two residencies a year. They last a week and have peer workshops, craft workshops, readings, etc. And then when we return we have deadlines each month to send work.

1:1000: That sounds like the academic experience of my dreams!

KK: It was great!

1:1000: If I wasn't already buried in student loans from advertising school, I would give it a shot. Alas, maybe in another life.

KK: Yes, student loans. Those will kick in about six months after the new year begins.

1:1000: Then let's not dwell on that sobering reality. Outside of academia, what shapes your writing? Books? Movies? Television? Music? Dance? Alcohol?

KK: Definitely books and movies! I've been obsessed with the movie Comet. It feels like what I'm trying to accomplish with my Gray and Shaw stories. And I do believe it was Hemingway who said "write drunk, edit sober."

1:1000: I always get that backwards.

KK: As far as inspiring books as of late, I loved The Bell Jar and am currently reading 10:04 by Ben Lerner. If I'm struggling while working on my upcoming novel, Dream Catchers, I often read Neil Gaiman or Scott Westerfeld. I'm most definitely classified as a bibliophile.

1:1000: That's a good classification for someone in your line of work. Back to the writer behind the words, what life events have shaped your writing? What's your family makeup? Have you ever used writing to get over a hard time?

KK: I have an amazing mom and stepdad who give me endless support, plus a younger sister and brother. In my writing I often focus on the idea of leaving and I'm sure this has some psychological roots grounded in my past. So I guess I would say my writing has always helped me get through the difficult times in my life. 

1:1000: If it's not cutting too deep, can you vaguely share some of these difficult times?

KK: Sure. I've never had the best relationship with my father, and much of my writing about tough relationships comes from this. The novel I'm working on has an aspect that deals with difficult familial relationships. While Camryn's father is not exactly like mine, much of what Camryn feels comes from my own feelings. Another event that still comes through in my writing is from high school. In tenth grade I had a large group of friends, about six girls who I'd pretty much survived high school with, and one day they all got up from the lunch table, and left me to eat by myself.

1:1000: Oh Kayla! I would offer you a sip of my third Bulleit, but I’m afraid I just finished it.

KK: That’s quite alright. I'm just so happy I didn't have a Facebook at the time, because this was right when cyberbullying was becoming a big deal and it was difficult enough dealing with them in person, let alone on the Internet.

1:1000: People always talk about how writing about the things that trouble us makes it better, but does it ever make it worse for you?

KK: When I go back and read my writing and see the scars from those wounds still present--that's when it hurts. Thinking I'm over it, but knowing I'm not, that's when the writing hurts.

1:1000: That is a painfully beautiful realization. Getting back to a happier topic, romance seems to also play a big role in your writing. How have your personal romantic relationships shaped stories like Gray and Shaw?

KK: I haven't experienced anything as heartbreaking or long-term as Grayson and Shaw's relationship, but that's what is so fun about their stories. There actually might be more truth in Calculations than any Gray and Shaw story. Their stories started because of a creative writing class I took at Buffalo State College. There was a guy who wrote these beautiful stories about women he'd loved. And I was in love with his writing. Sometimes Shaw reminds me of him. Also the song that Shaw plays for Grayson on the train the first time they meet is by his favorite band.

1:1000: Did the man match his writing?

KK: We parted ways after that class and I haven't seen him since. So I think often the Gray/Shaw stories might be my imagination still running wild with something that never came to fruition. I think at our core, writers are wonderers, and sometimes I wonder about the “what if” and that inspires me more.

1:1000: It's a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, we get so many stories out of "what ifs." On the other hand, it makes us constantly question our actual life. No wonder I … so many writers drink. It’s like, "SHUT UP, VOICES!"

KK: I think it is interesting that so many people assume writers are always writing about themselves--as in every word is truth--When maybe we're just writing about our shadow selves, the people we might've been.

1:1000: I know I prefer my shadow self. He's a hell of a guy.

KK: My shadow self doesn't watch nearly as much Netflix

1:1000: HA! Same. My shadow self was probably in one of your residencies, so you've got that over me.

KK: I think I remember your shadow self from one of those interesting dinner chats.

1:1000: Not likely. I’d be too busy stuffing my face with all the New England shellfish my student loans could afford. Anywho, I know you’ve got a big evening of celebrating ahead of you, and dogsledding is on my bucket list, so let’s wraps this up with a final question. Aside from continuing to be a part of 1:1000, what does post-grad life look like for Kayla King? Both your real and shadow self.

KK: Right now I'm applying to fellowships, hoping I can continue in academia. I would love to teach creative writing. Long-term I'm hoping to one day get my novel published. I'm hoping to travel more. But I definitely know I'll be writing every day. And maybe complete a Gray/Shaw novel.

1:1000 For dummies like me, what all does a fellowship entail?

KK: It depends on the fellowship. Most often it is funding for a year (maybe more) for your writing. Some of them require you teach. Some don't. I would love to land one that gets me some teaching experience so I can get a permanent teaching job. I think they're trying to help artists focus on their art.

1:1000: What a beautiful world it would be if more artists could do such a thing.

KK: What a world indeed.

1:1000: Well, Kayla, your fellows at 1:1000 are rooting for you. However, we cannot yet pay you. Whatever you do, don't sacrifice your art for a marketing job. Stay the course!

KK: That's the goal!

Penumbra

I like to remember the way Camryn looked when she made creatures in the snow, arms spread wide like the wings of those honey bees she always loved. In those moments she seemed more wild than I could ever be. She seemed free.

“Kane’s party will be so beyond,” Camryn says. Her hand brushes the fabric of my pale pink skirt, which once belonged to a ballerina.

Late spring snow nestles in Camryn’s hair and eyelashes as we climb the steps to Kane’s place.

                                                                                              ***

“Did I make this weird? Did I ruin your perfect last snow day?” Camryn had asked, snow settling around her.

“What about Aislyn? She’s pretty. She goes to parties. She kind of looks like me, you know?” I’d said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

And all Camryn had been able to say was,“That’s so fucked up, Len.” And it was.

I focus on that moment as Kane hands us drinks. He disappears into a group of his party goers. He doesn’t see the way Camryn brushes Aislyn’s hair over her shoulder.

“Why do you drink it like that?” Aislyn asks when I spoon the liquid into my mouth.

I smile and stir a lime around my gin fizz, trying to mask the taste of the gin.

“It’s how she drinks her tea, too,” Camryn says. She nudges Aislyn, but smiles at me, and I wonder if it’s because of all those things I’d said.

I could never love Camryn the way she needed me to.

I knew Camryn loved me before she told me. The months between that moment and today feel so full of what I feared would happen. The knowing ruined everything. It was always so much easier to pretend things didn’t have to change, that we never had to change.

“You know I can’t do change,” I say. It’s not a real response because there was never a real question.

“You’d never try,” Camryn says, between sips of her own drink. The way she says those words sounds wrong, too sharp; too much truth for this moment.

Instead of smiling and nodding my head, I tip my drink back, and swallow the rest in one gulp.

“Len, you don’t have to,” Camryn says when I take another shot of gin from some nameless guy.

“I’m trying,” I say. “Just like you wanted.”

“Don’t,” Camryn says, grabbing my hand.

I think she tries not to hold it like she loves me, but I feel it anyway. She’s gentle, but won’t let go. After everything, I know she doesn’t want me to leave her. Camryn needs us to be together, even if we’re only friends. Even if she wants us to be more.

I wonder if I’d feel different in another time or another place. Sometimes I look at my shadow and wonder if she is in love with Camryn. And if that’s true, I hope our shadow selves are happy. But I know shadows aren’t enough because I can never love Camryn that way.

When I pull away, her hand still reaches for me, but I can’t be here with her.

I grab another drink and make my way to the other side of the living room. I take one shot, and then another. The floor shifts beneath my feet, and I understand why our friends drink. Though I don’t know what weighs them down, I know they must like to feel themselves flutter; their pulse and their limbs and their wings. Maybe they need to feel free, too.

                                                                                              ***

“Are you drunk?” Kane asks. I wrap my arms around his neck and use him to anchor myself to this spot and this moment and this life.

“I know, Kane. And I just need to tell Camy, because she needs to know,” I say.

“Yeah? Why don’t we find Cam then?” he asks, helping me weave through the people as they drink and dance.

For some reason I can’t remember when we became friends with Kane. I wonder if he knows what Camryn said, what Camryn wants; all the things I’ve tried to forget. I open my mouth to tell him, but the words aren’t there because they’re not mine.

I try again, but only one word spills out, Camy. Her name sounds distant even though it leaves my mouth and my lips.

When I use her nickname, Camryn cries, but it’s not drunk crying. I’ve been to enough parties to know the difference between drunk crying and real tears.

“Let’s get you home, Len,” she says. She wraps an arm around my waist and we move through her words so slow like swimming underwater. “I’ve got her,” she says over her shoulder, and I know she does.

We’re out the door and on the street with the sidewalk beneath our feet. It moves in waves as we walk. Camryn asks, and I remember she was never the one to cry.

“I’m sure you want me to say I’m sorry. Maybe I am. Maybe I always will be,” I say.

“Let’s not do this, Len. Not when you’re like this.”

Her words float into lines trying to make themselves into hexagons. They close around us like dwelling walls, like honeycombs ready to keep us together.

“I remember growing up listening to I’m sorry, and it never made anything better. So I’m not sure saying the same thing to you would change anything.”

“And you hate change,” she says. She helps me up one step and then the next. I know we’re at her dwelling place because of the way the door creaks.

“They’ll only make me feel better.”

“You’ll feel better tomorrow,” Camryn says. She tucks her Gram’s quilt beneath my chin, and the flowered squares sway and grow over my shoulders.

“You said, I don’t know how to not be in love with you. Remember?” I ask.

“I’m sorry,” Camryn says.

“Well I don’t know how to be in love with you, can’t pretend everything’s the same anymore.”

“Don’t you know people change?” she asks from the edge of the bed.

All this time I think Camryn’s tried too hard to keep her heart untouched. I don’t think she ever meant to give so much away to me, because when she looks at me, I know she’s not all there anymore. I think we’re both scared of never being whole.

But I don’t tell her this.

I find the outline of my shadow self cast on the wall beyond us. I give my words to her, hoping she’ll know what to do with them.



Written by: Kayla King
Photograph by: Anthony Delanoix

Restless

Continued from Three of Swords, Hanged Man, & Rust

Grayson shifts away from me, pulling the comforter off my legs. I can’t remember the last time she slept through the night, making notes in her phone instead of writing in her notebook.

“Would’ve been six months,” she says, beside me in bed. For a moment the words mean nothing. We talk so little about what happened, writing about it instead; burying our baby in words and metaphors about birds and nests.

We never got to bury anything real.

“I want to take the train to Fairfield,” I say.

I’m rewarded with a real smile, one I haven’t seen in weeks. Like that, Grayson is herself again, illuminated by the light from her cell phone.

Of course Gray is still herself, but we are changed. This is our reality, and sometimes it doesn’t feel real.

“Maybe I’ll write something new,” she says.

“So it’s decided?” I ask.

“Check the train times,” she says, leaving our bedroom in search of a story, or maybe a cup of coffee

The train leaves in less than an hour. When I print our tickets, the time stamp says 11:50 PM departure. I pack a bag with two notebooks and six pens and a change of clothes for each of us. I hope some time away will help Gray forget the should have of this moment. She should’ve been six months pregnant today, but instead, she’s two months empty.

Maybe the rest of our lives will be spent marking time this way.

                                                                                                     ***

“How are we out of coffee?” Gray asks on our way out the door.

The station is a short walk from the apartment. We buy a cup to share on the way to keep our hands and mouths warm. Two months ago, we would’ve held hands, or kissed instead. It’s been difficult for Gray to be close, so I take what I can from the taste of her peppermint lip balm on the rim of the paper cup.
We arrive just in time, and the conductor directs us toward our seats. The world is dark beyond the windows.

“Do you want to write?” I ask once we’re settled. Gray draws swirls in the condensation on the train window, and I wait for her answer.

I wish she’d write beside me like we used to at the beginning. Our pens used to dance across separate pages in perfect synchronicity. The movement looked like love before I really knew I loved Gray.

“I love you,” she says. She smiles her permission for me to start, and I grab a pen and my notebook from the bag.

Grayson rests her head against my shoulder, falling asleep after the train departs. I wonder if she sleeps uninterrupted, or if she dreams.

“Baby,” she says when she wakes an hour later. She pulls the pen from my hand, and asks, “What are you writing?”

“Dreams. Or maybe this is a dream, here. Not sure yet,” I say. And it’s true because I can’t remember the last time we sat so close; both of us so awake.

“Write something,” she says. She kicks off her boots and pulls her feet beneath her, nudging me with her shoulder.

“I thought I already did.”

“Write something for me,” she says. Her bottom lip wobbles when she says it, like she might cry. So I take the pen and the notebook and begin:

If she was really 

there, he’d touch her. Reflections

so close. Almost real.

“Why haven’t you tried talking to me?” Gray asks. “I’m here, Shaw. I’m real.”

“We’re on a train to Fairfield,” I say, hoping she knows I’m trying.

“You want me to feel better, but I can’t. We don’t talk about it. We never talk about it,” she says. She cries for real, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Do you blame me?”

“This happens to other couples,” I say, taking her hand.

“But is it my fault?” she asks.

“I want to kiss you, be close to you, but I’m scared. I’m not sure when it’ll be right or if you’ll be ready,” I say. “What if it’s always like this? I know when you look at me you’re really looking for her, right?”

“Sometimes I wonder if she would’ve had your eyes,” she says and then she kisses me, and it’s real, and she’s real.

“I miss it,” she says. “I miss feeling her.”

My throat feels tight, and I know I’m about to cry, and I don’t try to hold it in, because I miss her, too. I miss the people we might’ve been.

“I never could, Gray. I could never blame you.”

Grayson wipes her hand at my eyes when the conductor announces, “Fairfield.”

“Let’s go to the beach,” I say.

“But it’s snowing,” she says.

“Was that going to stop you the last time we were here?” For a moment, she doesn’t answer, but as soon as she remembers I see it; her eyes brighten, and she gives me a smile.

We stand in the Fairfield station on the edge of today, and we kiss. I write the word real on her neck. She nods against my chest.

Written by: Kayla King

Photograph by: Anthony Delanoix

Chicory

Puffs of breath, like wisps of dreams unspoken, float off Quinn’s bottom lip. He’s singing silent. Singing to himself like he always does—like he always has. Bits of TV jingles and theme songs, jumbled choruses and verses like crumpled sheet music. It irritates the hell outta Stella. But Stella ain’t here. We could hear her snoring while we got ready, pulling on jeans and flannels and coats, warming our hands on mugs of coffee thick as the mud squelching under our boots. The sun hadn’t reached through the dirty window above the kitchen sink yet, but when we tumbled out onto the front porch, cold nipping at our cheeks and ears, Buck was there.

“C’mon now,” he said. “Time’s a-wastin’.”

Buck walks ahead of us, shotgun broken in half over his shoulder, the double barrel staring at me like dead eyes. His Labrador Retriever, Ranger, trots just to his left. Quinn weaves through the underbrush just behind them without seeming to see it, following Buck like flies to roadkill. He’s a better hunter than I am. I don’t like to sit still, can’t focus on the prey. But I can gut the deer and carry the birds. Quinn doesn’t mind the shooting, it’s the dead things he can’t seem to cope with. Buck never asks why and neither do I.

Daddy used to say Quinn was broken in the head, that I had to be a smart little girl to make up for it. I always pictured little puzzle pieces tumbling around inside his skull, trying to fit themselves back together.

I touch Quinn’s shoulder and nod to the horizon, which is starting to fade from black to pinkish gray, like the belly of a fish. He leans close to my ear and hums “Good Morning” from Singin’ in the Rain, and I wonder if he remembers watching the movie with Ma singing along, slopping gin down the front of her nightgown even though it was barely noon. I hope not.

“Heard from your Daddy?” Buck asks.

I shrug, and then remember he can’t see it. “Ain’t heard shit.”

Buck’s the only one I don’t mind answering even though everybody in town asks. Buck knew Daddy before Quinn and I were born, so I know he’s asking for himself. Everybody else asks so they can give us that crinkle-brow, frowning look. That pity-look that I hate. When Daddy first dumped us on his Momma’s porch and told her to look after us for a few days, Buck came around not an hour after. I don’t know if Daddy stopped by his place, too, or if he could hear Stella screaming at us. We’ve never called her Grandma. Three months later and it’s the three of us in a cabin barely big enough for one, Quinn and I trading spots on the sleeper sofa and the floor, sometimes curling together like hounds that don’t know they’re too big to act like pups.

“Stella said he’s gone to California,” Quinn adds, unexpectedly, before lapsing into melodic muttering that might be “Surfin’” by the Beach Boys.

Buck spits to the side, a globe of saliva stained brown from the chaw tucked into his cheek. We stop at the edge of a wide field, the perfect place to scare up some birds, and I sneak up next to Ranger, burying my cold fingers in the coarse fur at the nape of his neck. I can feel the tension and excitement running through him. I have little of that myself. I don’t care if we don’t bag any birds today. It’s enough to be standing with the cold on my cheeks, smelling the dampness in the air. Quinn reaches over and tugs a strand of my hair, come loose from the stocking cap I stole from Buck. It’s as affectionate as he gets, and I smile, smoothing the duct tape patch that’s always peeling away from the shoulder of his coat. His coat leaks goose down, little white tufts that flurry away like snow. Buck casts around for a minute, sharp eyes scouting the lay of the land from beneath his black eyebrows. He spits another stream of murky juice and jerks his head to the left. I see the silver glint of water along the far edge of the clearing—a perfect spot. Quinn holds his gun easy, like it’s another part of his hand and hums. I try to guess the melody by watching his breath frost the air, hypnotized almost. Buck flicks my shoulder and I look away from my brother.

“You doin’ a’right, girl?

I know better than to shrug. Buck doesn’t ask questions that don’t need answering.

“She forgot to buy groceries again last week, but I saved a few oatmeal packets and there was some meat in the freezer.” I chew on a hangnail. Quinn and I had missed meals before and no doubt would again.

“You let me know next time, y’hear?” Buck waits for my nod before moving towards a tall stand of grass.

We hunker down at the edge of the field and watch as the sun begins to send fingers of light through the wispy fog. In the near-silence, I hear the clap of wings. Quinn raises his gun, lips moving silently, but doesn’t shoot. The grass crunches as Ranger shifts, eager for the hunt.

My lips are dry and taste like the chicory in our morning coffee. As if the sun summoned them, the doves appear, looking themselves like bits of morning mist. I glance at Quinn, his face still as he sights along the barrel of his gun and pulls the trigger. A piece of fluff from Quinn’s jacket floats towards my face as I lock my sights on a bird. I imagine their little bodies, light bones filled with air. Breathe in, out. Feel the trigger warm beneath my finger. The shot echoes through my ears and another bird falls.


Written by: Hannah Sears
Photograph by: Kayla King

Rust

Maybe we are too young and the world is trying to remind us of that.

“It’ll be okay,” I say.

When she lifted the sheet last night, it looked like spilled ink seeping beneath her. The words are on her lips even now, even if I’m only imagining them. She’s quiet and still and I’m filled with everything she’s not.

I start a haiku in my head. The words are written in blood. Too much blood. I don’t say them because I can’t. I hold Gray’s hand, and it leaves me itching to trace words in her palm. I write the haiku with my other hand on the underside of the kitchen table.

My flower baby,

free little gypsy dancer,

please don’t fly away.

“I can’t just sit here, Shaw,” Grayson says.

The way she bled our baby from her womb looked like a Rorschach test. When I think back to that moment, I try to remember the way she took my hand, running it down the small bump of her belly; a tiny half moon that will never be full.

The sun peeks through the living room window, exposing a sliver of light, trapping Gray in the shadows. She rearranges reminders for doctor’s appointments and our one ultrasound picture on the refrigerator door. She hides them beneath scraps of stories neither of us have used. Other paper bits bear pieces of poems waiting to be penned.

Grayson lets the faucet run over her hands until they are pink. The crusted blood beneath her nails turns the water pink, too. She washes my coffee mug from the night before. You could stop drinking it with me, she’d said at the beginning, but I never knew she was serious. Caffeine was the first to go when she found out she was pregnant. I never stopped drinking it. I should have given up coffee for her. I should be helping her.

When she starts scrubbing the sheets, it’s as if she is real and the sheets are real, but I am imaginary. And so I take them from her and try my best to scrape these moments back to before. I want the pen in my hand and the notebook in my lap and I want Grayson sleeping beside me.

I want us to be okay.

I’m already wishing for Gray’s lips to spread and reveal a sunrise kind of smile; teeth cresting over the horizon of her bottom lip. I know that look might be lost in blotches of blood now.

“Just leave them,” she says. The room feels different with her real voice here. Her small voice, her shy voice; the quiet way she always says she loves me.

I let her kiss me as she cries, her lips stiff and unsure. When she moves away, the space between us smells like traces of Thai takeout from the fridge. I want to pull her back, but she wraps her arms around her stomach, and I know it’s not me she wants.

We replace the bedding with two sleeping bags. Once inside, she curls away from me, but our feet still touch. I try to sleep, but her words and my words and all the words we heard between last night and this morning are in my head. I push an earbud into my right ear and the other into Gray’s and I press play.

I try to find words without paper and pen, but I can’t get them right. Before Gray, I was never a night writer. But now, the words find me while she dreams. Maybe that’s the only way stories can separate themselves between two writers.

I write a letter by the light of the alarm clock, not wanting to wake Gray. I start with To Nyxie, trying it on seven separate pages. I don’t know what to say now. I never told Gray about the name, but it’s what I’d started calling her bump while she slept. Sometimes I told it stories or wrote it words on her skin, hoping it would know.

“Already a day,” Gray says when she wakes. The early evening leaves traces of moon mist over her eyes. “I miss—”

“I know,” I say.

Because I do.

I don’t show her the pages pressed between the mattress and pillow. I set them on the bedside table instead, and wait for her to say something. She doesn’t.

Gray walks to the kitchen, and moments later I smell fresh coffee, hear a spoon clink against her mug. I know she must be stirring in honey and cinnamon the way she used to before. I wonder if the color will remind her, if she’ll write her way through the memory or if it will rust her insides until they crack.

Grayson sits at the kitchen table, steam surrounding her chin. Her eyes flash to the sheets in the sink. Spots still dot them like stars. All I see are bits of our baby. And I know she must see the same thing. I press the fabric to my chest until it doesn’t feel real and I don’t feel real and this all feels too fucking real with Grayson’s hands wrapped around my green coffee mug.

I leave the sheets on the balcony beside the bonfire pit we’ve yet to use this year. When I return to the kitchen, Gray’s coffee is gone, and part of me hopes she’s dumped it down the drain, that this is all unreal for her, too. Her hand finds mine across the table. I try to squeeze the life back into her, but it’s already gone.

Written by: Kayla King

Photograph by: Daniel Vidal

The Architect

Tamar watches her twin sisters gaze at the horizon as the merchants row them across the harbor toward the port town of Kerr. There is a crisp, salty bite to the winter breeze that blushes their noses and cheeks. This is the first time that Tamar will lead the priestesses to commemorate the winter solstice with gifts of dried sea plants and pearls. She hides her hands from the chill in the folds of her cloak as her head tilts to the side, eyes gazing beyond the blue as the boat rocks like a cradle.

“Are you excited to see the finished fane?” one of the twins, Adah, calls back without turning.

Tamar blinks to attention, remembering that she will meet with the architect they commissioned to build the temple that would serve as their headquarters during their solstice visits.

“Yes. I hope it meets Mother Aviva’s expectations. ”

“Do you think the architect is very old and bald?” the other sister, Zillah, asks.

Tamar’s hush comes out like a hiss as the twins giggle to themselves. The merchants hop into the shallows to pull the boat ashore as the black cliffside towers overhead. Tamar recalls a dream from the night before in which she stood waist deep in the sea and looked up at this very cliff, grasping a silver key in her hand. Her seven sisters stood in the water behind her, waiting as the waves lapped against the small of their backs. Tamar notices the merchant’s hand reaching to help her out of the boat and takes it as the memory of her dream dissolves.

“More comfortable in the water than on land, eh?” asks an older man with a craggy face.

“You should know,” she says, smiling as she steps onto shore.

                                                                                                    ***

Tamar did not expect to see the stained glass windows and the oak altar encircled by benches of shaped wood and stone. Breath stolen, she approaches the center, noticing light falling from above. She tilts back her head to see the window depicting an ornate silver key surrounded by panels of blue and green glass. She remembers her dream, the feel of the key in her palm, and her desire to find it’s owner.

A priestess acolyte approaches, bowing her head before speaking.

“High priestess, this is Liam Eklund.”

Tamar turns around, meeting eyes with a man a little over half a foot taller than herself. His beard is full and betrays his youth.

“Hello, Liam. I am very pleased with your master’s design,” she offers.

The acolyte’s eyes dart toward Liam and a flush spreads across her face and neck, but he is smiling.

“Oh, Tamar. Liam is the master architect, the one Mother Aviva commissioned for the fane,” the younger priestess stammers.

The architect is laughing now.

“It’s really fine. I’m used to it. You’d only know if you noticed the ink on my hands,” he says as he raises them.

Tamar sighs and covers her face for a moment before looking up at him.

“I am sorry, master architect. I only assumed because you are young. I was expecting someone…”

“Old and bald?” Liam interrupts.

“Precisely.”

“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I didn’t expect the high priestess to be so young either. I guess this means I don’t have to be too formal?”

“Formalities are for funerals,” she replies. “Can you tell me about the key? Is that your signature or did we request it?”

Liam rests his hands on his hips and leans back to look up at the skylight.

“Mother Aviva said the image of a key came to her in a dream. When she was searching for architects, she found me because I tend to place it on my work,” he says.

“She had a dream?” Tamar asks, brow raised.

“Yes. She dreamt that her priestesses stood in the sea and one of them held a key. Then, she heard a voice say that love would reveal the truth of our desires.”

Tamar is silent, beginning to sweat beneath her arms.

“Anyway, that’s how she found me. And now I’m here.”

She swallows, hearing the chirp of birds outside beyond the heat of her ears.

“The stars know better than we. I’m very glad to meet you, Liam.”

“Me, too, priestess.”

                                                                                                    ***

The town is quiet and the moon is high as Tamar cracks open the door of the temple and slides in, closing it with a backwards lean. Her eyes are drawn to the altar, to the moonlight that bathes it and the cold silence emanating from the stones. She takes a seat on a bench and grips bunches of her cloak in her hands, thinking of Mother Aviva.

“Love will reveal the truth of our desires,” she whispers, wondering at the meaning.

“Priestess,” Liam murmurs, stepping into the light.

Tamar looks up, startled, and sighs with a laugh.

“Hello, Liam. I guess you couldn’t sleep either?”

The architect rubs the back of his neck with his hand as he takes a seat next to her, then leans forward with elbows on his knees.

“Strange dreams,” he says.

“You and me, both.”

“What did you dream?”

Tamar takes a moment to consider her response, then takes courage as she says, “I’ve been dreaming of your key, Liam. Even before we got here. And in the dream I’m desperate to return it, knowing it is lost and precious.”

“The key represents my mother. She passed after giving birth to my sister, whom I also lost.”

“Your sister did not survive the birth?”

“She did, but she was taken by female relatives. My father did not trust himself to rear her properly. I want to see her, to know her name, but all I remember is the darker patch of skin across her foot.”

Tamar turns her head, heart pounding. Liam also turns as she slides her foot out of her boot and pulls off her stocking, the birthmark just visible in the moonlight.

“Brother, I am here.”

Written by: Natasha Akery

Photograph by: Kayla King