When he began to write It was for release It was for show His words were a sad performance A dance to a funeral march

And so when the bad feelings went away So did the words The bad, unimpressive words And he forgot about his dance He collected his words and hid them away As if he’d never written

But when they began to write A group of joy and creativity He followed suit He wrote with meaning He wrote for himself His words were a waltz And a march And a jig And his feet were flying over the floor

The flowers and glitter showered down And the darkness did, too But his words, his dance Did not require the dark to work anymore He stood out in the sunlight And said good morning to the moon And he wrote

He wrote And danced And sang along to his own song

Now his words are a part of him Intertwined with his fingers Wrapped around his hands Adorning his head with moonlit flowers And he is performing To an empty theatre Dancing to no music at all

And the applause is deafening

The magic fading is never fun. Drifting away is never easy. Maybe it’s absent mindedness, or maybe it’s the fact that the damn app refuses to show you any more personalised prompts.

One may never know

His touch is graphite His breath, the flutter of paper His eyes are pools of ink And his soul is unwritten words

Her mind is swirling concepts Her mouth is full of unspoken ideas Her hands are smudged and stained And her heart is written out in neat print

The room is cluttered and clean The air is full of murmurs and half-finished lyrics The floor is covered in abandoned writings And in the middle of it all Hunched at a desk, Scribbling away Are them

His touch is graphite, and her hands are smudged and stained with it His breath is the flutter of paper, and she prints all he wants to say They are poetry in motion

“Finding a way into tricky situations has never been a problem for me— although I still haven’t learned the art of getting out of them.”

“What the hell did you do?”

“Nothing! Nothing! Relax, it’s fine.”

It was not fine. But I am quite a convincing liar, if I do say so myself.

“You could not be less convincing.”

Hmm. Maybe my skills work better when they’re not over the phone.

I wiggled and kicked my legs in vain, still incredibly stuck. In what, you ask? A chain link fence! I figured it would be fun to investigate the abandoned factory by my house, and I was right. It was wicked in there, a bunch of rusted metal and broken down machinery. It was like a museum exhibit just for me. Unfortunately, my coat got caught on the broken fence links when I was leaving, and I really didn’t want to rip it, and one of my arms was trapped.

“I’m stuck.”

“I figured,” Vi said, rolling her eyes so hard I could hear it through the phone speaker.

“Are you going to help or not?” I demanded, glaring at my phone.

“Oh I will!” she said, and I sighed in relief. “Eventually.”

“Eventually???”

“I have plans, it’s not my fault that happens to conflict with your idiot predicament.”

“Vi!” I pleaded. She laughed.

“Maybe this’ll teach you to avoid the tricky situations next time, huh?”

“Come on!”

“See you in an hour, idiot! Have fun!” She laughed again, and hung up on me. I squawked in offense, wriggling against the fence more aggressively.

This was the last time I was calling her for help.

…

No it wasn’t. She was the only one who could drive.

It was scary, at first. The feeling. The weird tickle I get on my lips when people I love kiss other people. I thought at first it was only romantic. The first time it happened, I was told five minutes later that Tyler had kissed Jesse on the swing set. But that belief faded quickly. For one, my parents were definitely never romantic for me. But my father kissed my mother and there it was. And then my sister kissed her boyfriend, and all the weird fear faded away.

I like knowing people love each other. But my family isn’t the touchy type. A peck here and there, of course, but they show affection in other ways. So the feelings were few and far between.

But there were there. So when my husband, my darling soulmate, the light of my life, apple of my eye, headed off to work and my lips tingled not ten minutes later, I knew to not be nervous. I couldn’t drop my daughter off at school that day, and she demanded kisses from anyone saying goodbye.

I glared at him over the candles. “Dude, we’re 25, it’s just a tradition, just let me make the stupid wish.”

Jonah glared right back. “You can’t say it out loud! It won’t come true otherwise!”

I groaned and rolled my eyes. Jonah had always been like this, and it had been more endearing when we were kids, I believed the stuff he said. But I had to comply, so I blew out my candles, wishing I didn’t have to wish in my head.

Jonah grinned. “Great!” He served me my cake, icing-covered candles on the side, and we set in to the rest of the non-taboo birthday rituals.

“So what’d you wish for?” Jonah asked, licking icing off his chin. I frowned.

“You just yelled at me for trying to say it out loud, why is it ok now?”

Jonah shrugged. “Feels fine. What’d you wish for?”

I stared at him. “To not have to wish in my head.”

“Hm. Cool.” He took another bite, oblivious to my growing confusion.

So it took 25 years for wishes to come true?

“Yeah.”

“Yeah what?”

Jonah laughed. “Takes 25 years.”

“What- how did you know-“

“I got mind reading,” he said, tapping his temple. “Wish big.”

I stared at him. This was ridiculous.

“3.”

I smacked him on the back of the head. “You dick!”

Jonah choked on his cake from how hard he laughed.

The forest had always been my place. It was my escape from everything, where I could lay and read and sing and talk about whatever I wanted without judgmental stares. Birds and bugs weren’t rude like people, they’d like anyone well enough if they gave them seeds and sugar water.

But the forest wasn’t only my place. It was others, too, like the birds and the bugs and the squirrels and the trees. And… the Others.

They weren’t as rude as people, either. They’d like anyone well enough if they sang and talked to them. And I’d like anyone well enough if they’d let me sing and talk. So the Others and I got along just fine.

They were rather impatient, a little immature, a bit demanding. So when the chill of fog began to cling to my dress and my tree, I knew I hadn’t opened my eyes fast enough.

“Oh, you can’t be upset with me!” I called. “Terribly sorry for blinking.”

The fog thickened, creeping up the tree trunk. I sighed, standing and turning to find one of them. “Hello. How are you?”

It didn’t respond, but it hummed, so low the ground rumbled, and I grinned.

“Enjoying yourself?” I asked playfully as the fog crept above my shoulders. It cocked its hidden head. They’d always had a habit of playing with me, and I’d tolerated it well enough. They always behaved nicely, when it came down to it.

I hoisted the book I’d been reading; a biography of Nicholas Martin, the first Gnome to breach ground. He fascinated me, as most things did. “How about you shoo this away so we can read, hmm?”

For a moment, nothing changed, until the Other crept closer and lowered itself to the ground, the fog clearing as it landed on the grass. I plopped down beside it.

“Wonderful, I was afraid I’d get a chill.” The Other hummed, and I laughed. “Yes, I’d be absolutely forbidden to come out here for weeks if I’d been sick!” This seemed to displease it, and I felt sure I was safe from future clouds of fog.

“Alright, now, Nicholas Martin…”

“You two are like lemmings. One goes, then the next. If you jumped, she’d go too.”

That was what everyone had told me growing up. That my sister and I were two peas in a pod, puzzle pieces, two halves of a whole. The lemming comparison was uniquely my grandfather. But it got the same message across: my sister and I were alike in every way that mattered, except unlike any other comparison, he acknowledged that I was the leader of our two person gang.

And to their credit, they were right. We were attached at the hip, double trouble, and Mira would do anything I asked of her.

Of course, once people got past our partnership, they couldn’t seem to come up with anything else to say. Not my ability to tie knots, not Mira’s sail mending. We were simply the twins, a ship mascot on any cruiser we came across.

We realized early on that being The Pair was all we were. So we would have to distinguish ourselves. Not from each other, of course, but from everyone else. We would be the twins, double trouble, peas in a pod, whatever they would say. But we would be formidable.

And so, as grandpa had predicted, we became not just The Pair, but The Lemmings. The Twin Sirens. Those girls who jumped and didn’t fly.

So when I grabbed my sister’s hand and pulled her towards the cliff edge with me, she nodded. And we jumped.

We didn’t fly, but the witches of the sea have never been known to soar above the waves. We sank, and joined our fellows, hands forever entwined, in camaraderie and ship rope.

It is bright and bursting light It is bubbles in champagne Glinting and gleaming and beaming

It is gentle glow Internal fire A hearth in the heart

It is cackles and snorts and aching cheeks It is hugs and blankets and snuggles It is the quiet after something important has been said It is the sun and moon and stars

It is gorgeous It is everything the world could ever provide

Snow settled onto the walkways Piling on rooftops Fluttering down onto frosted garden beds

The air so cold Breaths caught in its icy molasses Slogging footsteps Sluggish moves

Frozen fingers weary in movement Barely keeping grip on the blanket that warmed them Eyes barely open against the flaming warmth

The air inside was thick with quiet and heat Muffling the world While the white outside coated the windows with silence

Warm hands pet freezing hair Heated food meets frosty mouth And in that weary, dreary moment Time had never passed so slowly