“Martinaaaaaaa.” Brandt groaned from under his oversized poncho. As the rain powered over the city the ground grew slick. As each raindrop fell Brandt tensed more as he and Martina explore the viewing deck far above even the tallest casinos and hotels.

“Brandtttttttttt.” Martina responds coyly as she makes dramatic ballroom style steps toward the edge of the glass viewing deck. Martina is uncovered, her light red work polo now a slick maroon on her chest and her slacks a taupe mess clinging to her legs.

“Terry‘ll be mad at us!” Brandt attempted to reason as they reach the midway point of the edge of the glass and the covered staircase downwards.

“We already clocked out. We are doing this as our own people. Our own people with free will! Don’t you miss that B?” Martina argues spreading her arms out up to the sky.

A stray snap of thunder rolled. From this high up it might as well have been right next to them. Brandt ducked in fear, while Martina stood still. Her face porcelain under the rain and nearly serene. Brandt would be in awe of her audaciousness normally but he was far too soaked to care.

“You know what I miss?” Brandt starts as he trudges for the stairs. “My warm bed Martina, I’d like to get back to it dry and not in a full body cast.”

“Fine, leave, see if I care.” Martina responds without turning around.

“Fine!” Brandt yells out, before stomping the rest of the way to the staircase.

A longer clap of thunder rings out from the curdled grey and muddy blue sky. Only slightly farther away a flash of lightning strikes the ground below.

“God….” Brandt whines as his conscience gets the better of him.

Brandt, knowing better, doesn’t attempt another plea to get off the deck, but instead prys off his charcoal black poncho.

As thunder rolls closer through the city frentic lighting follows it each time only seconds after.

Brandt begins his cold wet journey to the near edge of the viewing deck. Each thunder and subsequent lightning bolt tossed down into the Earth rattles his nerves and makes his hair stick up.

“Here, take it” Brandt says in a shout as the wind picks up.

Martina only answers by squeezing his hand and nodding her head. Slowly and slightly the rain begins to lighten. As Brandt jogs back towards the staircase he notices a large lead colored cloud quickly converge over them from the westward sky.

A thunderclap, then another, then another sound overhead. The rain goes from teardrops to fat blobs.

Brandt looks over at Martina the poncho cloaking her entire figure in black. Sixty feet away. Maybe further. Just close enough to the edge to get his heart pumping so irregularly it may explode.

In a nearly mathematical fashion, one flash of lightning stikes, Number 1, then another fresh after it. Number 2. They connect with the hbuilding just west of them.

Brandt feels his hair stand up on his arms and even his head. Lightning strike.

As he tries to run back for Martina his feet slip from under him. While this maybe only seconds, Brandt feels like he’s falling for minutes, nay, hours.

“MARTINA!” Brandt shouts, his voice gargle from the blood rushing into his mouth.

Like in a grand finale, lightning connects to Martina and sprouts off to the Highest point of the hotel tower.

Number 3

I quietly balance on my heels, if you can even call them that. They are little 3 inch sandals.

I admire the cap infront of me, feathery and glitzy in pink glitter. I was strictly forbidden to customize mine. Mom said it would be childish. I reminded her of all the times she has called me that word. I was to go do the dishes.

“Caroline Gald” The Dean announces. Rapturous applause follows as my bleach blonde classmate strides across the stage in at least 6 inch heels. Internally I burn with jealously at all the applause she received, how high her heels were and the fact her dress doesn’t reach below her robe.

I look down at mine that resembles more of a prairie skirt.

I know jealously is a childish and well… embarrassing thing to feel on my last day of high school, but it’s one that has been drilled into me. Jealousy is motivation, motivation to be better. I grit my jaw and stew on my jealousy as the next 3 kids go ahead of me. Not like it matters much, embarrassment and jealously create the same pit in my stomach.

“Harper Gilberts.” The Dean announces, her voice echoing in the new foam soundproofing. the feather cap girl strides along the well lit stage. She leaves a trail of feathers that glide down behind her as she goes to shake the mayors hand.

My palms begin to sweat as Dean Hawes clears her throat.

“Anita Glenn.” The Dean announces, my face is beet red as I cross the hot stage. I can see the thin shadows of the first rows face. A few grandmothers, A smartly dressed Pilates type mom and a teenage boy next to her snickering and looking down at my skirt. I feel my skin get as cool as corpse even though the stage lights can melt a candle. My hands begin to shake and I try to rub them on my robe. I realize that I’ve been staring at this boy the entire time I’ve been walking. Nearly missing the crowd of 4 administrators. I attempt back peddle only to slip on whatever pink feather that littered the stage.

Even in my 3 inch heels I slide like a cartoon monkey with a banana peel, landing sideways, so both my left leg and face fall hard.Not only does the boy in the front rows snickering grow louder, but the entire auditorium bursts out in guilty quiet laughter.

It may just be the acoustics but I swear I can hear the shuffling of dollar bills from bets won.

Admin Borestein reaches his large hand out infront of me. I take it greatfully as he pulls me up.

“Uh…. Congratulations!” He finishes nervously handing me my diploma.

“Thanks it’s just… embarrassing….” I whisper as I grab it from his hands. My cheeks burn so red they are nearly purple. I can feel my mother’s scolding words. ‘Can’t show the DVD to Nana after that!’ I imagine.

“No….” He begins.

“No I know, it won’t matter and it will all be a funny memory…” I say beginning to walk down the stairs. Even if I have trouble believing it.

“No, I just wanted to say your robe ripped in the lower back.” Admin Borestein finishes with a sympathetic smile.

“Ha! Perfect!” I shout in a hushed whisper tone.

TW:MENTIONS OF ANIMAL DEATH

Katrina, 6

“Mom… when are we gonna get home…. I’m hungry…” Katrina groans, kicking the seat infront of her.

“Katrina Vivian Marcelo! Do not kick any of my seats unless you want to walk home.” Her mother responds, glaring at her from the rear view mirror.

“But I’m bored!!” Katrina argues back, Katrina is convinced that this is the home run of an answer, how could her mom find anyway around it? Especially on a day so boring and rain filled as the streets. All the ‘rain, rain, go away’ chants in the world couldn’t seem to make it slow.

“You know what… if you’re so bored… count the trees!” Her mother responds with a tone that means finality.

So, Katrina begins to count, taking this job like a militant assignment.

Around 41, Katrina’s eyes begin to feel heavy. As she stumbles towards sleep a tan creature pops from the woods.

The girl, instantly energizes. “BAMBI!” Katrina lifts herself from her car seat, high enough to see through the space in the car seat headrest.

Her mother, immediately hits the breaks as the doe comes barreling out onto the small two lane backroad.

The confused doe fretfully runs closer to the hurling hunk of metal as it attempts to slow.

With a crash the deer, Bambi, is brought to the ground. Sliding slowly towards the middle line of the two lanes as its body loses life.

“BAMBI!” Katrina exclaims after seeing the now dead doe slide closer to her side of the car.”Mommy! YOU KILLED BAMBI! SHES DEAD!” The child screams as sobs and snot forms. “Where’s her mommy?” Katrina asks through her throaty cries.

“Well… I’m sure that deer was older than Bambi, honey, maybe since it’s gone to deer heaven now, it can see it’s mommy again.” Katrina’s mother attempts to comfort. Her own hands still white knuckled to the wheel as they begin to drive off.

“You mean it? So she won’t be alone again ?” Katrina asks looking up at her mother. Katrina decides this is the worse fate of the deer. Being alone, motherless, and probably cold.

“So when I die… I’ll see you again?” Katrina asks again, wiping the tears from her eyes onto her paisley coat.

“Yeah honey, You’ll see me. But even if I leave… it never means you’re alone alright?” Her mother questions , slowly loosening her grip on the wheel as a black Hummer drives by.

“Alright, Mommy.” Katrina responds, a small smile returning back to her face. Katrina lifted herself up from her seat again to look back at the dead creature. Now just a tan blob. Which, even though it sat lonely in the road. Katrina was sure it wasn’t alone.

Keith, 49

Keith finally understood the phrase. “Felt the noose tightening.” Honestly it perfectly described his whole life up to this point. Meetings, meetings and more meetings. He can barely keep track of it all.

For example, he went from memorizing the names of his clients and writing a little notecard about them. ‘Elsa, 38, avid mountain back biker, has a dog named Mischa’, to writing quickly in his notes app ‘Meerkat looking guy- name might start with B’

To remind himself why he did it, he felt the cool leather on his steering wheel. The almighty dollar.

Still glowering, Keith bemoaned having to take the stupid backroads, he bemoaned the rain, the trees, the everything.

Keith noticed up ahead, a small tan blob. As he got closer, braking to an anxious stop, he saw it was just a deer and started back up with caution.

Keith had always found it pretty stupid how pretty stupid deer were. As his car slowly drove ahead he heard a clicking and crunching noise from below the wheels. Bones. Deer must have slid around a bit with this biblical rain.

He frowned as he sped up and away from the creature. It, just like him, was forever alone.

“How’d you-“ The auburn haired man begins to ask.

“If you say, “How’d you end up here tonight?” I. WILL. LOSE. IT!” The bartender whips around with a shout. Her hair tussled up in a messy bun. Sweat coating the back of her neck as the pulsing techno beats assault her ears.

“Well I… I thought it was good…”. The auburn haired man responds, his cheeks a crimson red. He sheepishly sits down on the barstool.

“I’m sorry… I was being rude… uh.. it was… good” the bartender adds haltingly as she begins to cut a lime into eighths.

“No…. It wasn’t.. you wouldn’t say that if you weren’t being honest.” The man continues, “Be honest, how often do you hear that?”

This actually prys a chuckle from the bartender. “14 times this month, three times this weekend.”

The man chuckles back. “Well I thought it was witty.”

“So do all of the other men.”

“No offense to your clientele, but I’d wager I’m smarter than about half of them.” The man says raising his eyebrows.

“Really?” The bartender asks finally looking up from her limes. Her voice has a fun challenge air to it. One that the man knew all too well.

“Yep, smart enough to say I’ll be back again, keep you waiting….” The man flirts, getting up from his stool. He adjusts his thin wire glasses only minutely on his thin nose bridge. “And this time we’ll stay away from shop talk.”

“Oh really?” The bartender asks, her eyes laser focused to the man.

“I’m also smart enough to never keep a girl like you waiting too long.” The man states with a wink.

He strides over to the nearby door and leaves with a smile.

The bartender takes her 20 and steps out of the techno music fever dream into the cold alley. Of course she’s not stupid enough to think she can catch another glimpse of him. However, she finds her cheeks blushing red despite the wintery air.

Night after night the man comes back. True to his word they never talk about her job or his. Also true to his word he makes a point to show her his advanced intellect.

“That man, that man over there, he’s cheating on his wife, it’s his first time doing it though, look how sweaty he looks!” The man whispers about a middle aged man on the dance floor with a much younger woman.

“Really? Is a man not allowed to be nervous?” The bartender asks her chin resting on her hands as she leans over the counter.

“Well yeah, he actually should be, but look, he’s constantly looking down at his phone, and he has ring shaped outline in his pocket.” The man challenges back.

“Wow, you’re quite the Sherlock aren’t you?” The bartender boldly asks.

“I’m ok with being the Watson, he gets the girl anyway.” The man smoothly responds, reaching over to touch the bartenders free hand. Even more boldly he slides a thin piece of paper with his number in it.

Now, Night after night, in fact, every night the bartender is free the two spend hours with each other, talking about anything. Besides work obviously.

“Ok.. ok… so, one night… when you’re free from your…not…job do you want to be my plus one to my cousin’s wedding?” The man asks as the two drink their hot chocolate, the cold frozen streets sprawled ahead of them.

“Uh….wh-“ the bartender begins looking up at the man.

“I know it was stupid it’s only been like… two months… I’m… I’m sorry.” The man apologizes his face beet red.

“NO NO NO! I was just gonna say why not?” The bartender responds, with a wink in her eye. One that the man swears he has seen before.

Now, the night a month after the last, the pair enjoy the wedding revelry. The bartender wears her finest sage green colored dress and the man a sage green tie and suit that fits him akwardly.

The bartender looks into the man’s eyes that night and sees something different, a future maybe. A future with a charming man.

As she sat down to listen to the toasts, all the lovers sharing how the main couple had found love, inside jokes galore, a sinking feeling entered the bartender.

She knew what felt like nothing about the man. The air seemed to grow warmer and her cheeks redder.

After he applause and clinking subsided the bartender made a dash for the side door. As her dress grazed the icy ground in the ally she heard the door stay open behind her.

“Hey! Where are you going?” The man asks with concern.

“I don’t know! Away, I think!” the bartender says pacing back and forth. “I… I don’t even know you! I don’t know your last name, where you live, WHAT EVEN IS YOUR JOB?” The bartender anxiously shouts, stopping her pacing to face the man.

Contemplating, the man finally lets out a sigh. He’s grabs the bartender’s shoulders. Admittedly, to steady both of them.

“I am… by technical definition, a career criminal, a con artist. I came to your bar to profile out easy targets for theft. Either car or identity. That’s what I spend most of my day hours doing. If you’re mad I understand that, but it’s just my life. Oh, and my last name is Faulkner.”

The bartender barely skips a beat. “I don’t know if my standards are getting lower or you’re just so otherwise perfect because..” the bartender continues her thought by landing a long passionate kiss on the man. Their first after all these nights.

It wasn’t like the bartender wasn’t being truthful, she had fallen head over heels for this man. And truthfully, she felt a deep desire to make him succeed no matter what.

Two nights after that, the bartender resigns, claiming she wants to advance her career in a more upscale direction.

The man, not blind understands why, even if, consciously, she doesn’t.

“Seriously Jazz, you don’t have to do this for me!”

“I’m not, I’m not someone you can trick into thinking something you want.”

The bartender lands a job at an upscale hotel bar and lounge, of course the man visits her. Of course the man uses the nights to profile people.

Although, truthfully, as the bartender tossed and turned that night she quit , she had slowly began to wonder if she had fallen into this anti hero’s snares.

Truthfully, she wondered whether or not she’d want to leave.

“Ms. Melvy, your defense has made it clear you want to give a statement.”

“Yes your honor.”

The woman with her rosy blond hair tied back to just her shoulder steadys herself with a long breath. Sitting up out of the uncomfortable wooden chair.

Thanks to her lawyers Sofia was able to get out of her orange jumpsuit and into a tight burgundy colored knit dress. It was never a good color for her, washed her right out. So did her favorite shade of yellow, dandelion, she wore it that night too.

“Hello, I’m Sofia Marie Melvy. I was a lot of things, editor chief of the school newspaper, militant vegetarian, and most importantly a sister. If I had to give up any of those other things, I wouldn’t be me. But I especially wouldn’t be me if I wasn’t a sister. A protector, a herder, a wrangler, a shoulder to cry on and everything in between. This was a role thrown at me, but one I’d grown to love fiercely. One that has pushed me to do strange and wild things,dress up as a fairy princess for a birthday party, travel to every toy store in the county to buy a model train. Yet, I regret none of it.” The woman begins in a steely tone.

The eyes of the jury held an equal focus. The knife edge of her words held her own life in balance.

And yet, the woman bristled on with a reckless determination.

“In fact, I have no regret for anything. I can imagine the sorrow the family may feel, but it will never, ever, hold a candle to my own. To the lives of two innocent 7 year olds, compared to the life of one girl who didn’t even value her own to get sober enough to drive. To a girls life that has proved to me forever that karma doesn’t exist…. That innocence is a matter of finance!” The woman exclaimed slamming her hands on the oak table.

The portly bailiff slowly starts over to the desk.

Sofia’s steel melts for a second as a panicked look knits her eyebrows closer. With a frentic look she stares at the Judge. The tan middle aged woman lifts her hand up to wave off the portly bailiff.

“I’d advise against loosing your decorum. Despite being the subject of this trial I can still put you under contempt.”

Sofia began again, looking at her hands with a demure anxiety.

“Sorry… your honor… jury, As I was saying. I couldn’t care less if she was a star runner, I don’t CARE if she volunteered with the homeless once. All the details and victim impacts could not convince me that right to the BITTER END! ….. That Anne wasn’t a reckless, stupid girl, who never showed a tear of remorse for killing my siblings. Anne Perlman got a clean record and we all know deep down… she always has a clear conscious.”

Sofia looked back up at the jury her steely gaze refocused. The woman doesn’t care that their faces are white with shock and shame.

With a small smile she turns to the portly bailiff, holding her hands out. Her lawyer lets out a long sigh. But Sofia knows in all her sorrow, what she doesn’t feel, is remorse.

“Please… just let me in… I have coffee cake!” The girl on the other side of the door pleads.

I let out a giggle and cover my mouth immediately after. “Dammit.” I whisper. Cursing my giggle and the lamp I left on in the first place.

Shelby’s ring touches my lips, it’s cold metal feels much too fancy on my dry lips.

I imagine what Shelby would have done. Sure, she didn’t like coffee cake at all, or any type of coffee but, she’d still invite the girl in and eat a curtesy slice. And that was before the…current… situation. If it were today, Shelby would be welcoming her in with a warm towel and flask of water.

I’m not Shelby though.

Still her presence weighs on me, or maybe it’s just my concise. I’d never had gotten good at listening to it.

“So… you just… were….like… “Hey it’s the end of the world and by god do I need to use the heavy cream before it goes bad!”” I say in a voice rising in sarcasm.

The girl on the other side of the door lets out a giggle.

“Hmph, No, I just bought coffee cake last week and didn’t remember till I drove again last night.” She responds casually, the pleading anxiety melting away from her voice.

My ears perk up at the mention of a car, gas. I slowly pry off my hockey mask. I realize my own stupidity and let out a quiet chuckle. I just look a short Jason Voorhees.

I peak my eye through the peephole the flimsy fabric covering flops back down on my head. Even after weeks of humidity it smells like Shelby’s perfume.

The girl looks my age, her hair stringy and black, her skin a slight tan, under her thin framed glasses her eyes are gaunt and her under eyes puffy.

I should be more wary. It would be better, safer, easier.

But yet, in her shaking hands is a box of coffee cake.

I start at the thick deadbolt and lock. My better judgement seems wilted in comparison to the urge to let this girl in.

Maybe I just want to be a hero for once.

As I unlock I can hear her rock on the balls of her feet as it echos in the rotting wood.

“ThankyouThankyouThankYOU!” she exclaims almost all too loud.

As she barrels through the door I shush her thankfulness.

“Shut it come on! They’ll hear you!” I squeak out angrily.

I take stock of the rest of her, as she lumbers up from her mess of excited limbs. She’s wearing a tie dyed tank top and acid wash denim shorts. The girl is incredibly tall, at least a head and shoulders over me. As I mentally tally her physical advantages I feel my stomach sink further.

“Can I sit down a sec?” She asks like we are old chummy neighbors. A southern sounding draw is audible from this side of the door.

“…Yeah… sure….” I say making a motion to the living room, which even though it’s been only a week seems to be coated in dust. Even as I step up on the landing she’s still a few inches taller than me.

“Sure…I mean…we need somewhere to eat the cake.” I say wiping off the invisible dust off the bay window seat.

“Haha… yeah” The girl akwardly replies. Awkwardness. Something that no matter the circumstances never seems to change.

As we dig in she asks my name.

“Lara, Lara Botkins” I say wiping the sugar from my lips suddenly self conscious.

“Raven Cecily.” The girl adds between mouthfuls , like an excited puppy.

“So…where is everybody from?” I ask in a radio host style voice.

“Fisherville Virginia, spent the first five years of my life in southern Georgia hence the twang.” She starts, humoring me with a small grin. “Where am I anyway? ‘Kept the lights on dim and didn’t see any signs off the highway.”

“The part of Jersey where the burbs meet the swamp, and that’s all you need to know about that.” I exposit with a sad grin. “It’s not like it matters anymore.”

As I finish my thought branches crush outside the window.

‘No…No…not now’ I think, anxiety piping hot into my body that has turned a chilled cold.

Raven whipped her head around looking for a light switch. I point to the back wall and start turning off the lamp.

The leaves and tree branches crunch at a fervor.

Raven swats the switch down and hits the carpeted floor. I follow suit, our breaths in sync.

“Do you have like… a weapon or something?” Raven asks in a hushed whisper. Her eyes wide like a deer in headlights.

I get up to an all fours position careful stay out of view from the window.

“Uh some old pistols. Like 1920s type I guess?” I remember starting a crawl for the study.

“Wouldn’t that be locked?” Raven asks concernedly.

“You know.. you’d think but no.” I say exasperatedly crawling into the study as the footsteps continue to increase and get louder.

After a fumble with the cabinet I pass the vintage pistol to her across the floor.

In an flash she whips off her thin glasses and starts for the window. With a swift move she kicks open the barn door. In the chaos I sit in shock at the study.

‘Oh please be some assassin spy’ I muse.

With the aim of a seasoned hunter she squints and shoots the pistol.

The creature goes down in a whine.

“My god!” I scream finally standing up.

Raven sits down unimpressed.

“Well we should still finish the coffee cake.”

Prologue~

The family of four practically bursted into the house. Kathryn remarked how the old wooden door didn’t pop off its hinges.

Summer was first to break away from the group. Her braids swung in the air as she sprinted through the entryway.

The rest of her family stood in awe. Well, in all honesty Deliah didn’t see the appeal. However, she was only freshly 2, her steps were still wobbly and she much rather clutch onto her mother.

The couple marveled at the ornate chandelier. The light layer of dust coated the statement piece in a thin coat of dust bunnies.

“ ‘Oh don’t buy sight unseen, we’ll be lucky if it has four walls’” Kathryn mocked nudging her husband.

“ Ok, ok, ok, I’m wrong! Praise the almighty Kathryn!” Alec relented nudging her back.

“Yeah.. yeah… I still don’t think you’re convinced.” Kathryn surmised looking her husband up and down.

“Sorry! Sorry! I am allowed to think all Victorian homes carry an energy” Alec responed making a sparkling gesture.

“ BAH! Down! Mommy! Down!” Deliah yelped swinging her small fists.

Kathryn plopsd the toddler down as Summer started her second lap around the house.

The toddler ambled to the living room on unsteady ground. Only to flop on her face. Sobs ring out in the acoustics. Summer groaned, which stopped her laps as she fell to the ground downed with a classic case of older sister anguish.

“Oh for the love of!” Kathryn moaned. Deliah screamed for her mom, her face the class shade of toddler angry red.

As Alec plodded over to his wife and daughter he examined the area where she had fallen. A random outcrop of wood discolored with a yellow-gold doorknob.

Long after the morning meltdown bled into a bleak cloudy afternoon and early evening of unpacking. All but Alec’s study was set up, not like he minded, moving is about a good of  an excuse as any.

 Kathryn sat down on the couch next to him, dejectedly taking a bite out of her cold pizza. 

“If only being right about everything came with a better reward.” Kathryn says  with a gleeming fox like smile. 

“Hmm..”  Alec  responds barely acknowledging her remark. “What do you think Deliah stepped on?” he asked, his eyes unmoving from the spot in the living room with the yellow gold knob.

“Have you met her? Probably the air.”  Kathryn  surmises with thick sarcasm, channel surfing  with a numb tired look on her face.

“No, just look..” Alec says standing up his brows furrowed. 

“Is that like? A door?” Kathryn asks picking her head up. “Not a basement… but like… the storage attic equivalent.”  she ponders walking towards it.

“I mean we wouldn’t know, Miss unseen now would I?”  Alec says his brows furrowed further in frustration. 

“Ok… let’s relax…Mr. Grumpy face. I’m not gonna be married to a man with frown lines at age 35.”  Kathryn responds with a small smile on her lips.

“Well.. what do we do?” Alec asks crouching down to doorknob.

“I’m gonna… say open it.” 

“Well aren’t you a budding Sherlock.”

This jab earns a shove from Kathryn who has crouched  next to him.

Alec, incredibly lanky and unbalanced falls foward onto the door in a crash.

The door  whines and groans, but the echo after it scares the pair the most.  A creaking echo. Not unlike opening a giant door to an empty barn.

“Shivers…” Kathryn  interjects, her voice only a whisper still dampens out the echo. As if it were polite.

“Well.. Screw this!” Alec whisper shouts swinging the door open.  


As the door clanks back with the same sturdiness as the front door a humid breeze fills the house, a smell of salt and sweat tangle the air of the living room candles.

 The space is cavernous, even after the first breeze, balmy air continues to filter out.  A narrow  staircase is the only visible infront of them. 

“Someone’s gotta go down there!” Kathryn whispers excitedly. Alec turns back with a judgmental raised eyebrow. “Uh… to like check for mold and dry rot you know?” She whispers, more causally. 

“I’ll go.. you stay here… the girls probably woke up from the crash.” Alec decides  grabbing the candle from the nearby coffee table and a bandana.  

“Fine… just… just be safe…” Kathryn says shakily. Alec notices this is the first time she looks truly fearful.  

With a peck on the cheek  from his wife he starts down staircase, his bandana wrapped around his face and the small jasmine candle as his light source. 


The stairs get narrower as the descent continues. Alec feels something slimy underfoot after the first dozen stairs.  Bummer. He really liked these socks.

Treading further and further, the balmy breeze grows. Whipping his curls  back. 

Finally, at the end of the  staircase a pathway splits into three cavernous trails. 
 
The space is expansive, like the inside of a tomb. 

Alec approaches a monolith looking brick tower in the center.  A small piece of tattered looking watercolor paper is tacked to it. 

‘Laurel and Cheyenne want to play.’ Is scrawled in haphazard crayon. A pair of stick figures are drawn below it.

Alec can almost feel his heart dropping to his feet.


After all Alec, Kathryn, Summer and Deliah were the Laurels. 


As he climbed further up the stairs his heart sunk further.

Kathryn’s maiden name was Cheyenne.

Begin with a breath let the air fill you Pull the cool metal
Like no one has before you ‘A mess’ ‘Filth’ Wait till they’ve seen a mess at its best At the hest of someone finally fed up Like staring at the sun Like you know things have yet to become See that ‘Mess’ come alive infront of you Something you only dreamed in your lonesome of coming true You’ve created a monster I’ve created a monster We all have created a monster But who? Letting fester instead of bloom After all what is a girl silent If not pretty like violet And a monster If not something to boil till eruption You nor ‘your mess’ can be comforted A girl and her monster, who she will not let be beheaded.

Marcy swiped from the memory, despite it constantly being replayed she still would blush. Her boyfriend, her Ricky, and his powder blue eyes that stared up at her at the botanical gardens. On bent knee, asking to marry her.

As silly as it sounded she had a routine of memories, the pair’s first date, their first kiss on the Ferris wheel, their anniversary dinners, and of course of that afternoon at the botanical gardens. Next was the wedding.

Marcy swiped along her bank, a process that got shorter with each week, as she sold more and more memories in bundle forms. Like when she drove back from the supermarket, bought tampons, cleaning her toilet ‘just uneventful days’ she assured herself. Sold virtually to fervent niche collectors. That seemed to horde specific events. Sure, they only sold for a dollar to two, but, in this age any penny would be worth its weight in gold.

At least at first. As the prices around her loomed larger and larger, she had to part with some more… important memories. Especially from her engagement period. A process she only remember by a note pad she kept to keep track of all transactions. After all, audits were getting more frequent. Each one caused a grimace but was worth substantially more. The ink read:

‘Telling Shanti she’d be your maid of honor’

‘Buying the flower girl dress for Lucia’

‘Going flower shopping with Grandma June and Mom’

‘Bachelorette ski trip’

As cringeworthy as it was to part with them Marcy knew what she had to do.

So, onwards she swiped for her most coveted memory. Her wedding day.

The catherdral, as ethereal as a renaissance painting.

‘No.. wait… it was a barn…. Humble and homely.’ Marcy thought correcting her self. The lapse seemed odd. After all she had played that memory in this pattern nearly every night.

Marcy continued to swipe towards it. Palms clammy from anxious worry.

‘No…no.. but the dress… silky and flowy..’ Marcy thought swiping back and forth through the memories quite frenetically. ‘Or was it lace.. and form fitting…’

The slot, gone, instead filled with the gleeful memories of Marcy on her honeymoon.

The air had caught in her lungs. Choking her and slamming her mind into a tailspin. Retrace… Retrace… Retrace…

Fleetingly she imagined it sold within the bundles she had to sell en masse. Out of desperation obviously.

They couldn’t have been. She triple, quadruple checked them.

The next thing that filled Marcy’s brain was sudden indignation.

“Thief… thief…” Marcy whispered to herself sitting up from her bed, her sweat sticking to her skin and t-shirt peeling off the bed.

The word stuck through her head in place of the memory. As she ran a comb through her hair, changed from her t-shirt to a thin thermal and cargo shorts. Though the night was stark and black, Marcy was invigorated.

In a fit of passion Marcy reaches for her Swiss knife on her counter before fitfully leaving her apartment.

Attempts try to break into any corner of her mind to find any detail. Not the veil, the officiant nothing.

Stepping out into the street the rain pelts her clammy skin.

“Thief…Thief…” Marcy repeats with a nervous cadence as she trods down the sidewalk. Indignant. Taking mental stock of what little she has left.

“Ya know, it’s always cargo pants with you everyday rain or shine.” Stu says his eyes squinting at me.

I flop down on the threadbare lawn chair next to him and toss him back a middle finger. Since Stu turned away, the baseball that he was. keeping in air flung back down to a kid desperately waving for him to give it back.

“Hey don’t be a jerk he’s just a kid.” Yasmine says from her spot on a treestump a foot away from us. She then goes back to melting the small metal rods into cage shapes around a set of amethyst necklaces, using only her index finger. Though it was less flashy then inane telekinesis , I had always admired Yasmine’s spell binding much more than Stu’s. Stu only admired that she made a profit from her binding . And that she was a girl, up until Dallas Pamdel asked her out to the Spring Fling.

Since then the two were at odds. The only time they talked to each other was to argue about if they were even actually dating at all, and on how noncomital Stu is/was. That’s why since April I’ve carried Advil in my cargo pants pockets. Among other things. Simply just ‘insurance items’ I liked to call them.

“So do you want to start orrrrr should I?” Stu asks unenthusiasticly. Yasmine shrugs and mouths something to him.

Wait. Why am I even here? Summer is peak Yasmine busy season. And it was for Stu too. His schedule mostly comprising of harassing beach goers. Interspersed with his random ‘Good Deeds’ . Like helping an overworked mom load her groceries or get a kite out of a tree. His syrupy smarmy smile at the end always warrented me punching him in the side.

“Start what?” I ask sitting up straight in the old lawn chair, my hands suddenly clammy.

“Relax… Relax…” Yasmine whisper shouts. Putting down her metal rods. “We’re just concerned about your… uhm…. binding” Yasmine finishes her words attempt at sensativity but still hit hard like a sharpened sword.

“Or lack there of…” Stu says snickering into his ‘Sprite’ can.

Yasmine swats her hand at his thigh. Landing a light singe on his shorts.

I stutter, fumbling to come up with an excuse. Or to be more accurate on that I haven’t used already.

For some stupid reason my tween self had chosen water as binding. It was easy to prove to people at first. Bringing water to a boil: carry lithium around in small amounts, Predict rainfall: Stupidly simple, followed some lesser known wives tales and tricks from pre industrial science, Bend water in the pool around you: saw a trick once where you put your fingers a certain way and spin to move it. But eventually my two bit tricks would lose their charm, and soon after their beliviblity.

I copped out and produced a strangled sounding “Why?”. The lithium and notepad felt heavier in my pant pocket. Some insurance.

“Well for one, you barely use it, like casually you know?” Stu says leaning back further in the lawn chair.

“Well would you rather I spill some puddle gunk on a random kid?” I shoot back defensively.

“I mean kinda, in a less Stu way, you have to market yourself, ya know network. Scouts are everywhere. They aren’t gonna wait for you to do it once in a blue moon.” Yasmine responds, her voice still attempting a sensitive tone.

Easy for her to say. It’s LITERALLY business as usual for her, even more casual for Stu the wunderkind.

I let out a long sigh and weigh my options, if my closest friends are telling me this now, how obvious was it for everyone else?

I have some other tricks saved up for insurance. I wanted to keep them to tell off random freaks and my family, but sooner now than never.

I adjust my “new bracelet” further into my hoodie sleeve. I watch the two of them carefully, making sure they don’t look at my wrist. I attach it’s long tube ending to a small plastic bladder I keep inside some of my hoodies. I pray there is some water left and lift my hand dramatically toward the center of our small circle. The bracelet and bladder thankfully don’t move and are still holding under the sleeve.

Water springs out from my hand. Looking absolutely magical. Just as intended.

I close my fist and get up to leave.

“So screw you all.” I say in an apathetic tone. While internally I’m a mix of anxiety and fear. In a sea of my own lies I am uninsured and unsure.