Lucid Waking

Archive for the ‘Fantasy’ Category

The Creature

        They found it in the middle of the woods one midnight that neither could sleep. Neither one knew each other before that night, but by necessity they became friends. She had been crying in her room and angrily snuck out the window; he had been fighting tears and took a walk to find a private place to cry. They ended up finding the exact same spot of the forest.
        It wasn’t chance, something had led them there. She was driven by the sound of a familiar voice and he had been driven by the sound of silence. They both saw light but it was only when they reached the clearing that the saw the creature.
        It looked like a small rock, but then it unfolded and became something between a dragon and a ki-rin. It turned its head and the glittering eyes on either side of its head happened to see them both at once. It thought that the two were its parents and tried to follow them both home. Confused when the two people bolted opposite ways it let out a heart-wrenching cry that brought both she and he back to the baby creature. The two met and arranged a plan for their newfound child, shook hands, and walked back to their respective houses.
        Leaves fell, snow drifted and melted, buds grew and blossomed and the cycle repeated for five years. They managed to keep it a secret until the creature got too big. Once it was the size of a pony and frustrated by keeping its wings too close to its body, they drove across the country to the desert. She was crying, but he held his resolve. The creature in the back was confused, but knew something was wrong.
        He stopped the car at the edge of a canyon. They wouldn’t be observed as they led the creature out of the car and let it flap its wings. Then once they were sure it had gotten the hang of that, they pushed it off the edge of the canyon.
        Angry squawking met their actions, but they both persevered, getting closer to each other than they had ever been in five years. Finally they won, the creature fell of the edge and by inherent survival instinct flew away.
        He started crying and she held his hand as she watched the creature keep flying away. Then they ran back to the car and drove back. After that, they never really saw each other again.

Author’s comments on post 354: I’m undecided about whether or not I like this one, but I’m going to publish it anyway. I’m not sure about the style and tone although I like the small details in character actions and growth, despite being matter-of-fact. Thoughts and critiques are appreciated. Hopefully another post tomorrow.

The Pseudo Gods

        Ours was a world of pseudo gods. No one knew how these people came about—or rather why they were born—but it seemed that any wish anyone had would be personified in these supernatural beings. They looked just like everyone else; including varying shades of skin color, personality, charisma, gender, and sexuality. It was the legends and rumors associated with them that made them unique. Every so often someone would claim to be one, but their charade wouldn’t hold up to the claim and the imitators stopped trying.
        First was the Key Master. She first appeared among black market rumors. The law enforcing officers hated her because criminals could run loose with merely a good word from someone in the know. Her appearance remained unknown because no one outside the criminal market would realize it was her, but she was infamous, none-the-less.
        Her claim to fame was in fashioning keys. She possessed two keys to every single lock in the world. Whether she had informers give her copies, she fashioned them herself, or both, it didn’t matter. For every lock, she held the key and maintained her monopoly by an intricate web of trust and intuition.
        Then came the Weather Maker. He was less human in his qualities, though more famous. A flamboyant figure, he never hid his ability to predict and control the weather. His visage was well known as he assumed he had nothing to hide and seemed to always let people know who he was and take advantage of it.
        Then following him, the Story Teller. For every tale there was to tell—fictitious or fact—the Storyteller knew it. Truth never eluded him and people would be frightened of everything he knew if he wasn’t so charismatic.
        Then came several others—real and pretend—before the trend died away. But the world had changed with these new beings walking among mortals and the potential for their powers were yet to be imagined.

Author’s comments on post 353: Hey something in the fantasy category! Seems like I’ve just been writing realistic fiction, so something new. I’ve had the Key Maker and Story Teller in my head of a while, but in seperate spheres and I thought "Why not combine them?" and the story just flowed out on its own. I’m quite pleased with the premise and I might add on to it at a later date (but no promises).

In other news: I go on break in 2 weeks and I’m hoping to plan and start writing a short story based on a science fiction piece I did a while ago. I have new plans for it and I hope that to publish sometime in March. If I don’t get around to it then, I’ll have it in May or June.

Possibilities

        Condensation clung to the windows desperately trying to get inside and escape the winter air. Warm festivities continued separated from the night; music, laughter, and light teased the water droplets. Suddenly the balcony doors were flung open and two rosy-cheeked dancers stumbled outside laughing. The man took a deep breath.
        “It’s nice to get a breath of fresh air.”
        The woman laughed and panting, stammered out, “Yes it is.”
        They paused for a moment and the man gently placed his hand on the woman’s. She shifted her hand so it held onto his. When she sighed, her breath came out in a fog before dissipating as she inhaled again.
        “You look lovely tonight,” the man said turning to her.
        She looked down at her pink silk ball gown sheepishly. “Thank you,” she replied.
        He smiled. “Sorry if I embarrassed you.”
        “No,” she said, “it’s nice to get a compliment once in a while.”
        “I’m surprised you don’t get many compliments.”
        “Oh, that’s very kind, but I hardly go out. In fact,” she added before he could reply, “no one around here does.”
        “No one? I don’t think—”
        “It’s true. Only occasionally will someone rich throw a party like this; never more often that once every two years. I’m not sure why they do. It’s quite a large event and the whole town always comes.”
        “Well where I come from, the rich have parties like this fairly often. At least once a month, I believe. But there are so many people that it’s impossible to know where all of the soirées are. I haven’t been to very many and I haven’t been to a masquerade in a long time.”
        “That’s the only parties we throw here.”
        “Why is that?”
        “I don’t know and I don’t really care to know. I for one am glad I don’t have to show my ugly face.”
        “Come now, I’m sure your beautiful.”
        “You’re wrong,” she said sharply.
        “Prove it,” he said, equally strong, but his tone was more playful than hers.
        “No, I can’t,” she cried.
        “What if I show you my face?”
        “Oh no,” she wailed. She sobbed into her gloves and he reached into his pocket for a handkerchief.
        “All right, forget I asked,” he said, disappointed. He put his arm around her shoulder gently and let her sob. The music continued in the hall, but the dancers were just blurs of colors moving about.
        “I’m just being silly,” she said, finally. “But…take off yours first. And promise me you won’t run away when you see my face?”
        “I promise I will stay here.” He reached behind his head and loosened the ribbon to take off his mask. He had very handsome features, two brown eyes, a nose and mouth. She felt embarrassed when she saw him, perhaps at her own inadequacy, perhaps at her attraction. He smiled at her and held her hand. She looked away and took a deep breath before reaching behind her head to loosen her own ribbons.
        While he had expected a vastly misshapen face, what he saw instead was nothing at all. She had no features, but a blank slate that strangely held a world of possibility.
        “Oh, I told you I was hideous. I can’t tell by your expression you think the same thing.”
        “No,” he said. “I was just surprised.”
        She sobbed and put her head in her hands.
        “Surprised because you’re not ugly at all.”
        “Oh, don’t lie.”
        “No, really. There’s nothing ugly about you.”
        “But there’s nothing pretty about my face.” “Name me one thing you think is ugly.”
        “Well, you tell me one thing you think is pretty.” He smiled.
        “The possibility that you can be beautiful.”
        She stopped and sat in thought and then, stood up and looked out over the balcony. “Well, I guess you have a point.”
        He took her hand gently. “It’s always better to see potential than to wave away what you think is a disappointment.”
        She tied her mask back onto her face and then retied his before leading him back into the ballroom, out of the hall, and into the night again.

Author’s Notes on post 338: Well, it’s nice to get back to writing again, especially something substantial. Unfortunately, I have too much to write and too little time, but I’m slowly working on all my projects and keeping my head above water with school work. Just a quick reminder to start thinking about Best of the Blog and maybe buying new prints of old favorites. Thanks for reading!

Pointless

        The sky outside the window was ashen as was the rest of the world underneath it. Only the track for a few meters ahead of the engine was visible and the faint outline of a roof and pillars to mark the station outside the train doors. He watched her as she waited for the doors to open and then glide up the steps into a compartment to sit on a red velvet seat just like everyone else. Her mahogany hair was pulled back into a tight swirled bun so that the contrast between her hair and the sharp line of her mask was even more apparent. She wore an overly ornate Venetian mask that he had seen photos of amidst other marks of tourist fascination with Mardi Gras’s madness. A dark smear of blue acted as a thick eyebrow arching over her left eye and then down her nose bridge where it landed in a neat circle of purple. The eye underneath the blue smear was a golden brown whereas the other one, beneath an exaggerated array of black lashes on her mask, was blue. She wore a summery, strapless dress with a black bodice and empire waist raining down a skirt with every color imaginable—even some without names.
        He reached to adjust his own mask, painted black with white and red swirls like vines or drips dancing around the face. She glanced at him before sitting down a couple seats away from his. He moved over so as to be closer to her, but she refused to acknowledge him and kept her bicolored eyes on something outside her window. But what he saw was nothing but a wet, shimmery gray.
        The conductor yelled out into the open space before shutting the doors with the slam of hollow metal. The train whistle screamed into the mist before the steady chug of the engine kicked in and sped the cars into the fog.
        “You seem nervous,” he said. She turned sharply to face him and he extended his hand. “Max Blackbourne.”
        She glanced at his outstretched hand for a second before taking it and giving it a hearty shake. “Forgive me,” she said in a lavender voice, “I don’t remember my name.”
        Max shrugged. “I didn’t either, I just made that one up during the ride.”
        “Oh?” she said in a more relaxed voice. “Then I’m Ivette Campo. Pleasure to meet you.”
        “That’s a pretty name.”
        She shrugged. “I heard it somewhere. Probably the opera. Do you like music?”
        “Not that kind of music.”
        “Then you probably haven’t been introduced to it properly. I don’t suppose they have a phonograph around here?”
        Max shook his head. “If they do, there aren’t any records.”
        Ivette sighed. “Of course, that would be the way of things, wouldn’t it?” She shifted in her seat so that it was more natural to speak with him, but she faced the opposite side of the car and put her hands in her lap. “Where are we going, anyway?”
        Max shrugged. “I don’t know.” (more…)

A Silver Cage

        "What was it, exactly, you were hoping to see?" the man at the ticket booth asked us once we had left, disappointed, from the blue striped tent behind him. The rather large sign leading us to this destination had us rather excited for a mystical bird with large shimmering feathers in all sorts of peacock and macaw colors, but what we saw made us think we had wasted five dollars. The billboard had promised something new, unusual, and unique, but we felt like a glance outside the window would give us something more.
        "Anything but a gold finch," my friend said. He had asked for our money back and seemed overly intent on fighting for it.
        "That’s because you didn’t stay for the show," the ticket-seller said. "It’s a magical bird, you know."
        "What does it do? Dance, back flips, cook?"
        The ticket man smiled. "You’ll have to watch and see for yourself."
        At least he was kind enough to let us back in without paying a second time, though we were both so deflated anything that happened next, we had thought, was likely to make us feel worse. The tent filled up, but the mood did not improve. Perplexed whispers filled the arena as the golden bird did nothing but flutter about its cage. Domed and wide, the cage stood about six feet tall and had a human-sized door among the narrow silver bars. The bird was utterfly dwarfed in its surroundings and very nervous. We sat near the front as if that would change our deflated predisposed notions of the spectacle we paid ten dollars to see.
        My friend had almost grabbed my wrist to leave again when we were shushed by a rattle of the cage bars. The flapping of feathers stopped and so did the occational twittering. We turned to face a tall woman slipping into a gown we hadn’t noticed lying on the bottom of the cage. She reached between the bars and opened the barred door, stepping into the arena and gaging her audience. Her eyes were a soft blue and her hair the color of butter. Before she had mesmerized the crowed with her glance, music crept from off stage urging her into a dance.
        I don’t remember much else about that night. We left shortly after she finished dancing, though many of the other spectators waited for an encore. We returned many times after that ,but the girl in the cage always did the same thing. One time, I stayed later, but she didn’t have any room in her cage to do much else but stand up and cry. I know she didn’t realize I was at the top of the stairs because whenever we stayed later other times, she would watch us curiously until we left. At the end of August, the carnival left on the next rain out of town. But carnivals after that, I still waited for the bird man and his finch. Something about her performance and after show tears made an impact–I realized only later it was because I was in a similar situation: trapped to perform at society’s whim. I relaized this on an airplane to interview for a new job and when I did, I cried.

The Worst Job

        The clock on the wall said 1:37 when he walked in the door late, as I suspected he’d be. The room he entered was not an office, or a café, but a waiting room and a strange place to be accused of untimely-ness. He muttered an apology to the secretary before sitting down in a chair closest to the door.
        “Well it’s on your watch,” the secretary said, blandly. “You’re not wasting my time, just your own.”
            He didn’t look the part, but I could tell that he wanted a job in this office very badly. His knee bounced up and down at an uncontrolled pace while he stared intently at his hands. No matter how he sat, he was gawky and long, though he tried to make himself smaller as the secretary glared his way when his chair creaked as he moved or he reached for a glossy magazine on the table by his chair. I watched him over my newspaper, intrigued by this newcomer who thought he could handle the monsters at this place.
        “Miss Noire,” the secretary said, sweetly in my direction, “would you like to start the interview now?”
        I stood up and walked over to the man fidgeting in his chair. I extended my hand and introduced myself. He turned white, but shook my hand and stood up before following me to my green office that looked a little too doctor-y for my tastes at the moment.
        “What did you say your name was?” I asked, giving him a chance to introduce himself, though I already knew who he was.
        “Mark Atherton,” he said. “Or at least, that’s what I’ve been going as.”
        “Mr. Atherton, then. Do you know much about this job that you’re applying for?”
        “Yes,” he nodded enthusiastically to emphasize his single-word answer. “I’m aware of all of the benefits.”
        “Then let me familiarize you with the deficits.” I pulled out a yellow packet that I kept in my desk for these occasions. It was wrinkled and soft at the staple from years of flipping over the words. I smoothed out the packet gently and began my shtick. “This is a job that requires you to work every day and every hour—there is no break, there is no stopping. You’ll be traveling all over the world and you have to work on a clock; you will not be allowed to arrive late. Every second you might be across the world from your last location and you are not allowed to slow your speed or stay for prolonged periods of time. Slacking off on the job or not being diligent will cost this company, so it’s important to be on top of yourself and the job.
        “Now, we’d pay you,” I continued, fingering a page of the packet, “but you won’t have time to spend what you earn. Forget about wife and family, because you won’t have time to see them. It’s a grueling job, but rewarding in its own way. So, Mr. Atherton, are you still interested in this position?”
        He paused, staring at the yellow packet. “Yes,” he said after a long silence.
        “All right then,” I smiled. “So far you haven’t shown much promise, but we’ll set you up with a trial period with our current Grim Reaper and you can get a taste of the expectations. In the mean time, enjoy your day, you’ll start tomorrow bright and early—5:00 sharp. If you’re late, you lose this job; I hope I’m clear.”
        “Perfectly,” he extended his hand. “Thank you for this opportunity.”
        “It’s hard to get anyone interested in collecting souls,” I said, “it’s the least I can do for the favor you’re doing for me.”
        He raised one eyebrow very slightly, but I refused to elaborate. I showed him the door, shook his hand again and then turned to our secretary. He shook his head, but continued with his paperwork.
        “Well, I didn’t have much of a choice,” I said walking back to my office. “Frank is getting tired of doing the job and all the other applicants got cold feet once they realized what they were in for.”
        “I understand, Miss Noire,” was the only answer I got, but I could tell that whatever happened with our newest Reaper was going to be much better than the situation I had currently.

The House of Animalia (2)

(If you haven’t already read the first part, you should probably read that first. I don’t really know what’s going to happen, hence the slow going action and installments, but I thought you’d like more, so I’ve written some.)

        The largest oak in the forest was gnarled with weather and twisted from age. Its joints creaked in the increasing wind as it protested against the storm. Jonah ran up to the tree and stopped, one arm clutching his stomach, the other supporting his weight against the tree. His breath came heavy and labored, but he managed enough of one to whistle against the howl of the wind. At first, nothing answered his meek call, but soon enough he felt weight on his shoulder, feathers brush at his cheek, and sharp claws gripping his skin. He winced in pain and held out his arm for Falcon to get to a better perch. She clipped him with her wing as she glided down his arm to his wrist.
        “Well?” she said harshly. “It’s a storm, Jonah. Make it good.”
        “I’m looking for a place to hide from the soldiers after me.”
        Falcon looked at him out of one of her amber eyes. “Hide? Don’t you Animalia just—I don’t know—become something small?”
        “Argent sent me to you.”
        Falcon almost smiled—as much as a bird could smile with a beak. “Argent is more cryptic than hieroglyphics are to a snake. I can’t imagine why he sent you to me.”
        “Look, I’ve had a rough couple of weeks, do you mind telling me where to go out of the rain?”
        As Falcon was about to protest her lack of shelter for him in a tree, a shimmering hawk settled down on the ground beside Jonah and before he could turn to look at it, had turned into a goddess-like woman.
        “Hawk, have you been hearing this?” Falcon said, gentler.
        Hawk smiled and put a hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “You can stay with Fox, at least for the night,” she said, partly ignoring Falcon’s inquiries.
        “Why did Argent send me here, then?” Jonah said, more exasperated than bashful, though he did blush involuntarily.
        Hawk shook her head. “I cannot say.”
        Thunder shook the world around them, giving Falcon a reason, in her fright, to fly up to a higher branch. Jonah sighed and started towards Fox’s den, but Hawk grabbed his wrist and held her other hand up to her ear. A gunshot went off in the distance, but it was barely noticeable over the pounding rain.
        “They’re farther away,” she said, “you don’t have to fear anymore.”
        “I still have to fear,” Jonah said. “It’s just that they’re not coming closer.”
        The rain lightened up and the patter on the leaves became less pronounced. The sky lightened only slightly, but the sleepy sound of birds tentatively stabbed the cold air. Hawk shifted and flew up to a branch just above Jonah’s head.
        “I don’t know what Argent is planning,” she said. “But perhaps I should let you rest before telling you my predictions.”
        “If it has anything with a prophecy or saving the world from destruction, I don’t want to hear it.”
        “How very un-heroic of you.”
        “The man who gets involved in those messes always ends up with more than he asked for, and more often than not, he didn’t ask for anything in the first place.”
        “Fox is waiting for you,” she said coldly before flying above the branches to follow an agenda that only she knew about.
        Jonah sighed from the continual instructions to run, but he walked down to Fox’s den and tentatively called out to his host.
        “Jonah? Wonderful! Falcon mentioned something of you coming. But do slip out of those clothes, or you’ll be easier to spot than a poison tree frog.”
        Jonah smiled and shifted so that he was a fox leaving his muddy uniform outside the entrance.

The House of Animalia

        The forest was unusually dark for that time of day. The clouds prevented any light from shining through, so the shadows on the ground were thicker than they would be during any other mid-day. The air smelled fresh and a faint sound of thunder carried itself on cold wind. Even the main clearing—nicknamed “The Eye” for its location in the center of the forest—was a dark bluish-gray. A rabbit darted across the clearing, followed closely by a young man dressed in green and khaki camouflage. His boots made deep indentations in the ground as he ran after the bounding rabbit. As he reached the edge of the clearing, there was a gunshot and it echoed through the trees amidst the caw of birds. He let the rabbit bound away as he grabbed a low branch and swung upward into the curtain of foliage. He heard shouting nearby and then the thump of feet on the cold ground. The party stopped and examined the ground, following his footsteps until the edge of the forest where they stopped. He prayed they wouldn’t look up.
        “Damn it,” a soldier swore quietly. He turned back towards the clearing where a few more men were standing around looking into the darkness. “The tracks just disappear.”
        “He’s got to be in the tree,” another said.
        “Or he was just careful about his tracks going in.”
        The branch just above the last large branch the escaping soldier was standing on was entangled with another branch from a neighboring tree. If the higher branch could support his weight, he could easily swing to a second tree without touching the ground and get farther away from the search party. He closed his eyes and focused on the second tree. Reaching up, he quickly swung from one branch to the other without a crack of protest from either tree.
        “He’s not up here,” the first soldier to speak said. Voices of disbelief followed and he saw the men look up into the branches of the previous tree. Thunder grumbled and the sky got darker.
        “We’ll just say he turned into a bird or a mouse and we lost him,” the leader said. “I don’t want to continue the chase in the rain and if we don’t get back soon we’ll get caught in it.”
        There were a few grumbles of agreement and the search party went back the way they came through the forest. When the soldier in the tree couldn’t hear them any longer, he got down from the second tree and breathed a sigh of relief.
        “That was quite smart of you,” said a singing voice from above him. He looked up to see a swallow glide down from the top branches to the ground.
        “Thanks,” he said.
        “Why were you running?”
        “They were afraid I was the cause of bad luck.”
        “Don’t they know any member of the house of Animalia is lucky to have around?”
        “Well, when you’re in a war and your luck starts getting worse once your new recruit Jonah starts, you’d get a little suspicious. Not to mention he can talk to animals and change his shape.”
        The swallow snorted as much as it could and hopped onto his shoulder. “I never understood humans.”
        Jonah laughed. “Neither do I.”
        When he finished his sentence, the rain came down in bucketfuls upon the leaves of the trees. The swallow flew off of Jonah’s shoulder to rest inside a trunk of a tree and avoid getting wet. He started to continue away from the clearing but then turned towards the center of it listening carefully for noise other than the rain. There was a soft patter among wet leaves coming from the northern side of it, but the noise was getting softer, not louder. Finally, with a flash of lightening, a silver wolf stepped into the clearing and sat on its haunches.
        Jonah knew the wolf was blind, yet he still hoped the larger-than-life animal would turn and look at him with its milky blue eyes. He stepped towards it, waiting for the echoing voice to go through his head, but Jonah had almost put a hand on a shimmering flank before it spoke.
        “Hello, little one.”
        Jonah smiled. “Hello, Argent.”
        “I thought you wanted to fight for your kind.”
        Jonah sighed. “They don’t understand.”
        “Hmph. I thought not.”
        “I need help hiding—”
        “You do not, little one. You can hide better than I on your own. You feel betrayed and disappointed and you want protection. It is not my place, Jonah, to help you regain your trust.”
Jonah paused and tentatively put a hand in the silver fur. “Where do I go?”
        “You speak to Hawk and Falcon. As for where you go, it matters not. You will always find a way.”
Thunder rumbled overhead drowned out by a succession of gunshots not far off. Jonah jumped backwards and almost fell, but the great silver beast merely turned its head calmly towards the noise. Jonah was on his feet in an instant, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn and run, although he knew he should. His hands shook as he held them out in a fighting stance. The silver wolf stood where he was for an instant before bounding out of the clearing the direction opposite that it came. Shouts echoed from the path ahead and it took no time for Jonah to spin on his heel and sprint towards the direction of the oak tree where Hawk and Falcon lived.

Oak Tree

        I didn’t know what happened to her until very recently. I had heard songs about people going up in a blaze of glory or walking away, leaving. In fact, she was just missing one day. One gentleman had seen her to bed and then no one saw her the next morning. Or the morning after that. They found her almost a year later walking near the edge of the frozen sea in January, but that was it. Police gave up the case and now she’s a ghost story. I’m the only one that saw her after that day and even I don’t know where she is.
        I was one of her many gentleman callers, and she’d always been non-decisive about anything I threw her way. She never said yes to a second date, flowers, candy, or marriage. She never really said yes to anything. She was enchanting, bewitching, but she never said anything of real merit. The more you shared about yourself, the more she’d agree, but the less you knew about her. I was naive and connected with her the longest—seven months. It was only after spotting her with someone else at the movies that I finally gave up. It was a week after that when she disappeared.
        I remember one night when we went walking through the forest. She was more of a mist gliding through than actually walking at my side. I remember thinking she seemed possessed by the full moon. She never connected with me and wandered listlessly through the trees. She was wearing a white sweater, so she was easy to spot when she wandered into the darkness but at certain points her legs and head would disappear and she became a floating torso with porcelain hands. She usually had her hair licorice hair in a bun. Her green eyes were lifeless, but she was alert. I asked her if she wanted to go back, but she declined.
        “I’m all right,” she said, but she didn’t smile. “But can’t you hear the screams?”
        The forest was silent, so I said I couldn’t.
        “Oh,” she said quietly. “Am I crazy? I keep hearing cries of help.”
        “No,” I said. Shivers went up and down my spine. I reached for her hand, but she moved away to the side of the path before I could reach it.
        “It gets louder when I go this way.”
        “Then why are you going that way?” I said, irritated. I was scared, but I didn’t want to admit it. Part of my irrational thinking was that I, the male, should not be scared while she, the female, was obviously not frightened about the voices in her head. I heard her foot snap a twig and then a groan of creaking wood. I called out her name, but she didn’t answer. Her sweater was a gray shadow in the darkness. I told her we should leave, but there was silence. I couldn’t see her. I called her name again, but I was greeted with the same silence. Then an owl hooted, a wolf howled, and the strange creaking sounded again. A twig snapped near me. I called her name cautiously into the dark, but nothing answered me. Not even the wind. Then I turned around and ran. I ended up in the police station, panting, and tried to tell my story in a sane manner. They said they would check for her in the morning, but they ended up finding her in her house fast asleep. She never brought up why I left her or what happened, and everything seemed to go back to normal.
        Then she disappeared. I read about it in the paper. The man who had last seen her was suspect for her kidnap, but I knew him and he wouldn’t have even considered it. He had no motive and no ideas on how to go about such a thing. Then I heard about her on the beach spotted by two lovers who were out that night. It happened to have been a full moon.
        The next month I went back into the forest. It was during the day when I estimated where I had stopped and ran back. With the sun streaming down, it was nothing special. I knew if I could conquer my fears during the daylight, when I saw her ghost at night, I we be calmer.
        A little ways off from the path was an old oak tree with scarlet leaves. As brown is usually the color of oak leaves, I stepped forward and touched the bark. It didn’t feel different. Acorns were still surrounding the roots of the tree and a squirrel looked down at me when I looked up into the foliage. I considered that it was the tree asking for her help that night, but it didn’t speak to me. It didn’t even say anything to me that night when I approached it again with a flashlight. The acorns, however, did glow with their own inner light looking much like a Christmas tree.
        “Oh, hello Robert,” the familiar voice said from behind me. She came up and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Isn’t it pretty?”
        “Yes,” I said. Then after a polite amount of time had past I asked, “Where have you been?”
        “Nowhere,” she said, surprised.
        “Is this the tree that was in pain?” I asked.
        She smiled. “You still remember that after all these years?”
        She moved forward and reached for my cheek.
        “It’s good to see you,” she said.
        I didn’t know what to say. “Why don’t we go back?”
        She shook her head. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
        She stepped forward towards the tree and started to sing. The wood creaked and a crack in the bottom of the tree that I hadn’t noticed before spread and widened so that it was a doorway. She stepped inside of it and then turned around, sadness obvious in her eyes.
        “I always loved you most,” she said. “I’m sorry to see you go.”
        “What do you mean?” I asked stepping forward to grab her arm one more time as if touching her would fix all of our problems. Even if she didn’t think I changed, she certainly had and I longed to start over. But I didn’t reach her before the tree shut and cut off the space between us. I stood there reaching for the tree for a few seconds, my spirits dropping and my ears soaking in the silence. The acorns still glowed blue even at my feet. I tried to sing what she had sung, but the tree wouldn’t open for me. So I left. A few sequential months after that I went back and tried to see her again, but that was it. I hadn’t said the right things, amended things, changed. I wasn’t who…or what…I was supposed to be.
        It’s not really my fault. I’m still not sure what it all means. But I’m still trying to figure it all out.

Hospitality

        “What are you smiling about?” Libby asked. She stared at the strange woman more harshly than she meant and longer than was polite, but there was something about her guest that rubbed her the wrong way. She couldn’t figure it out—in fact refused herself to think about it for very long. Her body would ache and her hands would tremble if she let herself contemplate too long about this woman who just showed up at her house one day.
        She didn’t speak; Libby didn’t know her name. She had never seen her before. The girl was beautiful, but her clothes were close to rags. She wore everything gracefully and her days were spent perched on the couch as a statue of temptation. Libby wanted to take a hammer and knock of the girl’s head. Her sons would often watch TV with her when they should have been doing their chores. But no one thought this strange girl was a big deal. The police didn’t see anything wrong with it and no one was reported missing. So the girl stayed. She didn’t eat or take up space. The only hassle she presented was the space she took up on the couch. Libby’s friends had since given up with asking about the girl, though they often didn’t stay as long as they used to at her house for various reasons.
        The girl had always had a straight-faced stare. Libby used to think the girl was watching her about the house, but after weeks of waking up to see the girl still staring at the sleeping television, she since gave up that thought. But no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get the girl to move beyond the first steps she took into the house and onto the couch. She had toyed with the idea that the girl was a robot, but refused to have anyone search her for a switch. "It’s a cruel trick,” she had said to her husband. “And I just hope she leaves soon.”
        But the girl didn’t leave. She sat collecting dust. Libby turned of the television that had somehow been turned on and as she moved to the dining room past the girl, she noticed something different.
        “What are you smiling about?” Libby snapped. The girl didn’t move. Libby walked over to the dining room and glanced behind her shoulder instinctively. The girl was staring at the blank TV.
        “I really don’t see anything funny,” Libby said turning back to the dusty table she had come to clean. She felt a hand at her shoulder. Her heart leapt and she spun around. The girl smiled and slapped Libby across the face. Then she went to the kitchen and turned on the burners of the stove as high as they could go. She opened the oven door and turned it on. She threw something into the microwave and turned it on. The kitchen sizzled as things heated up.
        “What are you doing?!”
        The girl turned to Libby and laughed. It was the first sound she had made since her arrival. She dove into the refrigerator and started to eat. Libby could hear the girl’s jaws smacking against each other. Libby flipped the door of the oven closed and shut it off. The girl reached for a knife in the knife rack, but a little too slow. Libby had reached her hand in two strides and pushed the smiling girl against the table.
        “Next time, ask.” Libby took the rag in her hand and tied up the girl’s hands. She struggled with her to the door and then pushed her out with the rag, leaning all her weight on the door and shutting it with a slam.
        The house was silent except for the whisper of gas from the stove. The smoke detector went off and Libby ran to the kitchen to shut off the stove while whatever was in her microwave spit out black smoke. She glanced towards the kitchen window then decided against it and went up to the second floor and opened the windows there. She wet a rag with water and turned on all the fans in the house. Then she opened the microwave door.
        She couldn’t see right away if there was fire as the black smoke billowed out. Libby shot to the floor and breathed through the rag as all of the air was circulated and dispersed through the window up the stairs. Then she checked to see if there was a fire in the microwave and perhaps recognize what it was the girl had thrown in there. The only thing left was a small copper frame from a cheaply framed picture that had said: home sweet home. It was located in the entryway and had been there most of the day. Libby didn’t know how it got in the kitchen, but she tried not to think about it long. She ran up the stairs to the upstairs window hoping to close it and stop up any vulnerability that her house had to the strange visitor. But as soon as she had bounded up the stairs and into the room, there was the girl. She was sitting on the bed, but she wasn’t smiling. She didn’t move when Libby came in.
        “What do you want?” Libby asked, close to tears.
        The girl turned to her; the first sign of recognition of a voice since she had arrived. She pointed to pillow on the bed and lie down.
        “Go ahead and sleep, then,” Libby said. “I’ll wake you in a couple hours.”
        The girl stared at Libby until she left. What a strange girl, Libby said taking a shaking breath and continuing down to the kitchen to clean up the mess. But as she reached the microwave to grab the burned picture frame, she noticed it was clean. The picture frame wasn’t there, either. She glanced around the kitchen and noticed that the haphazard mess that had been there before the girl’s arrival was cleaned up. Libby went to the dining room and noticed her rag sitting on the table next to the can of dusting solution. Not know what else to do, Libby continued dusting.
        Hours went by and there was no movement from the bedroom. Libby cautiously climbed the stairs, broom in hand, pretending to have taken a break from sweeping. But Libby was more afraid of what the girl might do to her than any interest in house cleaning. As soon as the door was open, the girl woke up and sat on the bed with a refreshed smile.
        “What now?” Libby asked. The girl pointed at Libby and when Libby didn’t move, got up and pushed past Libby to the bathroom across the hall without a word.
        “Well come on down when you’re finished,” Libby said, shakily. She went back to the kitchen to replace the broom and then started gathering things for dinner. The girl was on the couch in no time and Libby could hear the television going in the other room. She kept her eyes on the knife in her hand as she chopped vegetables. Her hands were shaking, but when she glanced up, the girl hadn’t moved. Finally the television shut off and Libby looked up just in time to see the girl standing in the kitchen doorway.
        “Hungry? Dinner is at six thirty,” Libby said smiling, then remembering the fiasco added, “but if you’re hungry I can pull up a small snack. What would you like?”
        The girl pointed to the pantry.
        “Do you want to get it yourself?”
        The girl shrugged and got a box of cereal. Libby got a bowl down from the shelf and handed it to her with the milk and a spoon. The girl smiled and poured herself a bowl of cereal. Libby listened to the clink of stainless steel and china as the girl ate, keeping a close eye on the knives. Finally, the bowl clinked down into the sink. Libby turned to the girl once more, but she had gone.
        Libby put the vegetables she was chopping in the frying pan and tried to search the house with one eye on the vegetables. But the girl wasn’t anywhere to be found. Shrugging, Libby went back to cooking dinner just as the door opened and shut and her husband called out to her.
        “Hello,” he said, kissing her on her head. “How was your day?”
        “Strange,” she said.
        “I see our visitor is gone,” he noted as he walked past the couch with dishes to set the table.
        “I don’t know about that,” she said. “One moment she was a holy terror and the next she’s gone.”
        “Well, good riddance,” he said. “I can finally watch my television in peace.”
        “I suppose,” she said, thoughtfully. Then struck with an idea, added, “Why don’t we invite Ellen over for dinner? I can add more ingredients so we’ll have enough.”
        “Why?”
        “I don’t know,” she said smiling, “I just feels good to be hospitable.”