OLD OPENING SCENE:

The water was rising fast, already reaching the tops of his boots. The courier clutched his leather satchel closer to his breast and pressed forward. His woolen coattails, pulled up and tied around his waist like a kitchen apron, were sodden. But that did not matter so long as the document he was carrying remained dry. It meant nothing to him, just a small packet of papers – only a few pages – folded and sealed with wax. He himself was not privileged to know its contents, but it had been emphasized to him that those contents had the power to salvage at least one life.

The water flooding his boots was barely above freezing, fed by the upriver springtime snowmelt. He fought to ignore the numbness creeping up his legs and concentrated on the flickering of a lamp in a window and smoke curling from a kitchen chimney on the Pennsylvania side of the river.

Surely that was the inn, where he was expected, where there would be a hot breakfast and maybe some dry clothes.

He was so tired.

And cold.

He slipped once on a rock and fell to his knee, but the satchel remained dry. By the time he finally stepped from the frigid water, the first sun cast his shadow on the steep riverbank. He’d been careful not to be followed, but looked back one final time at the river he’d forded. He drew in a deep breath and rested for the first time since he’d plunged into the icy water in New Jersey.

He heard a sharp crack behind him, and a dozen or so startled birds fluttered away in every direction. He caught barely a whiff of acrid smoke before the lead bullet entered his skull with such force that he staggered forward several steps before dropping to his knees and then falling face first into the river.

The one with the rifle sprinted to the corpse and grabbed the satchel, securing it in an inner cloak pocket. Nimble fingers untied laces and worked buttons. Before long, the body had been stripped of its clothing. Coat, vest, shirt, and breeches were rolled into a threadbare shoulder sack. When everything was gathered up, the dead man’s killer retreated into the darkness of the trees, leaving the naked corpse to whatever the birds, the beasts, and the weather might do to it.

 

 

NEW OPENING SCENE (essentially the same scene with a change in POV):

The chief virtue of the hunter is patience. The next is endurance. Whether stalking the prey or lying in wait, the important thing was to … wait. To reveal one’s presence too soon, to fire too early would mean to allow the prey to escape and the hunt to fail.

This hunt had been a lie-in-wait. For three bitterly cold days, the hunter had sat perched on a lower limb of the still winter bare maple tree, waiting for the quarry to arrive.

This was where he would have to come. This was where the river narrowed and grew shallow. The tide still affected the depth of the water so at low tide, one could walk across in water barely knee deep. And this was where the inn was – where the expected prey would find a warm meal and a comfortable bed.

A small flock of birds fluttered and twittered from a tree at the water’s edge. Something was in the river, crossing the river, about to reach the shore. The hunter raised the rifle and peered down the long barrel. The hand that squeezed the trigger was calm and steady. The single, sharp crack tore the morning. A whiff of acrylic smoke _____, and the report’s echo reverberated up and down the river as if to announce that the deed was done.

This deed was done.

The unsuspecting quarry stopped in mid-step. The hunter could not read the man’s face because the face was now a mash of blood and flesh. But he imagined the expression would have been surprise. Surprise and horror.

The dead man dropped to his knees and then fell forward into the shallow water. The echo of the one shot faded, and everything was once again silent.

The hunter scrambled down from the tree and sprinted to the corpse. The satchel the man had been carrying held  a small packet of papers folded and sealed with wax. These the hunter  secured in an inner cloak pocket. Nimble fingers untied laces and worked buttons. Before long, the body had been stripped of its clothing. Coat, vest, shirt, and breeches were rolled into a threadbare shoulder sack. When everything was gathered up, the dead man’s killer retreated into the darkness of the trees, leaving the naked corpse to whatever the birds, the beasts, and the weather might do to it.

This is my opening scene.

The second time I stepped foot in the Ocean Grove Public Library, I was a murder suspect.

The first time, I was simply trying to get out of the rain. Already two miles from my dorm, I was suddenly pelted with raindrops from all directions, my wet hair whipping into my eyes and mouth. I had been hoping to grab a picnic table by the bay, but I saw the sign for the library and changed direction. I was halfway through my first semester at nearby Presidio University, a junior transfer student, and was hoping to find someplace without distractions where I could grind through the assignments that were starting to overwhelm me.

Although the library felt peaceful as I stepped in from the storm, it was busy. The children’s room on the right was filled with toddlers rocking and bobbing like tiny drunks while a woman dressed in a huge ruffled skirt and an old-fashioned bonnet led them in song. It looked like fun. Definitely more fun than writing a paper about soft drink preferences for my statistics class.

I found an empty table and tried to get to work. But instead of reading my assignment, I took in my surroundings. Storytime was over, so toddlers and caretakers were milling around, chatting, chasing each other (toddlers, not caretakers) and creating a constant buzz. People were wandering the aisles and checking out books. All normal library stuff. But the person I couldn’t take my eyes off was the librarian.

She sat at the reference desk in what had to be a custom chair, at least half again as wide as an average office chair, several inches taller, and covered in rich red leather. Even sitting, I was sure she was taller and wider than any woman I’d ever seen. The golden yellow paisley of her blouse and the rich purple of her cardigan were striking, but what made her most interesting was her presence. She sat in that chair like a queen on her throne.

The desk had a sign that said “Ask Me Anything.” Common in libraries, I’d seen them in many I’d visited as a child. We’d moved a lot and I’d learned that librarians loved to help. Some liked to help so much that I could get them to practically do my homework for me. Others were less susceptible to my charms and asked more questions than they answered. But nearly all of them were kind, and for a lonely, curious child, the reference desk was a refuge in every new town.

So, the sign wasn’t unusual, but this librarian was. There was a long line of people waiting to sit in the chair across from her. They would lean forward to ask their questions quietly. The librarian’s eyes would take them in, then perhaps close for a few seconds. Sometimes I thought she’d fallen asleep. She never looked at the computer to her right or got up to get a book, just spoke quietly, or wrote a few words on some scratch paper with what looked like a fountain pen.

I was peering over my laptop screen instead of at it, finding yet another way to avoid my homework. I didn’t want her to catch me staring, but my curiosity, always my downfall, made it hard not to watch. Once she had given an answer, every single person appeared incredibly grateful. Several people tried to take her hand, and that was the only time she would move, rolling her chair backwards, out of their reach.

One young woman with a pink mohawk and tattoos of mermaids on both calves cried as she left the desk, but she also walked a little taller than she had when she approached. What question had she asked? As I watched, the librarian’s eyes slid over and looked directly into mine. Heat rose up my cheeks as I turned my eyes down to my screen. Ugh! She didn’t miss a thing.

Finally focusing on my assignment, I realized I had stumbled on an opportunity to get some extra credit. I could earn ten extra points if I could find a unique source of statistics about soda. I had seen the sign for the local history collection when I came in. Maybe this librarian could help me find something, an old newspaper article on what people here liked to drink or an advertisement for a hometown favorite. Talking to this librarian seemed like the best way to kill two birds, or at least have an interesting conversation. When the chair before her was finally empty, I approached.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Arlie. Can you help me with some questions?”

“That’s what I’m here for,” said the librarian, without a smile or any other movement of her face or body. She also didn’t introduce herself, but her nametag read “Nora.”

“I’m working on a project for school. I need populations and demographics at the county level for all fifty states.”

“Census.gov.”

Ok, I did know that. “Can I get all of that summarized in a table?”

“Census.gov.” Darn, she was that kind of librarian, not going to do my homework for me.

“And, soda preferences, both geographically and by race, age, and gender?”

“There are several studies, one done in 1986, one in 2001, and the latest in 2015, all published in Marketing Digest and available through Statista. We don’t subscribe here to scholarly databases, but the Presidio University library has access. And if you want to get an A, you should pay close attention to Georgia and North Dakota. Dr. Henkel grew up in North Dakota. He loves to talk about their unique tastes in soda.”

“What? How do you know I’m in Dr. Henkel’s class at PU?”

“He does the same project every October. If you’re truly trying to avoid homework, go to Sigma House, mention pickles, and you can get an A paper for $400 or a B for $300. At least that was the going rate last year. I don’t condone their activity, but if Dr. Henkel is too lazy to make even the slightest deviation in his assignments, you can hardly blame the students.”

This was not the type of information I was used to getting from a librarian. I didn’t believe in cheating, but it was good to know I had options.

“Ok, thanks? I was just hoping for some extra credit. Do you have any local information that would be helpful? I see you have a local history collection.”

She finally made eye contact with me, then looked me up and down slowly. “No one has ever asked me that before. In fact, we do.” She picked up her phone, hit one number, and asked someone on the other end to bring her a copy of “the 1919 Pop Wow report.”

“Sal will bring you something you can use in just a minute. Any other questions?”

I couldn’t help it. I was intrigued. I loved asking questions. “Why are people so emotional about the answers you give them here? This doesn’t seem like a normal library.”

“I don’t believe in ‘normal.’ And why do you ask so many questions? What is it that you really want to know?”

“Answers. I like answers.”

“Hmm. Here are some answers. You recently transferred to PU From UCLA. A strange move, unless you flunked out or were kicked out. I don’t think it was either. You just moved here, but you’ve visited before. As a child, probably. A trip to the aquarium. A fond memory. Perhaps with a loved one you’ve lost. You moved a lot as a child, and you are comfortable with change. Perhaps more comfortable than you should be.” With that, she rolled her chair back and hoisted herself out of it. As she lumbered toward the hall behind the desk, she turned once to look at me, as though she was committing my face to memory. Why was I so intrigued by this large, middle-aged librarian? And how did she know so much about me?

The Sound of One Hand Killing 

Then

He killed Cathalina Ladyblossom with a photocopied flyer pinned to the edge of an already crowded bulletin board. She stood stunned, the string bag of groceries in her hand forgotten, the familiar faces of the Berkeley co-op swirling around her unseen. The picture was grainy, but there was no doubt it was him. Head shaved, hands pressed, palms together in gassho, prayer pose, before him. Older, but still clearly recognizable. Alive. Free. And leading—her gaze slid down the page—a meditation retreat somewhere in Oregon. He had a new title, Tenshin Hara. She stared into his unblinking, unfeeling, eyes and released, like a final breath, her tenuous hold on what he’d left of her life.

When she could move again, her long brown legs led her outside and down the narrow alley that ran behind the overgrown blocks of the neighborhood. Music, traffic, and the shouts of children at play faded away. She searched among the weeds growing through the cracked concrete for barely-remembered herbs, and made do with what she  could find. Back in her cramped apartment the groceries fell forgotten to the floor. Afternoon sun slanted through crooked blinds as she rinsed the handful of greens.  She watched the water run through her fingers and drain away. It left a muddy trail, like a miniature river of rocks and sand across the bottom of the kitchen sink. She tore the stems and seeds and leaves apart, then ground them, in the ancient stone mortar and pestle she’d gotten from her mother, into a thick paste, mashing until their juices ran.

She scraped the mixture into the dented pot they used for rice and stared, unseeing, as thick, green bubbles rose and it began to boil. It was a recipe she'd learned, not in the ivy-covered walls of grad school, but over a pitted enamel stove in a brightly-colored shack, kept upright by the tangled web of tropical vines that covered the exterior.

The heavy scent filled her head. Her brilliant mind, held in such rigid check for so long, slipped. And fell.

Down.

And back...

Remembering.

It was too late to abort his seed who, in any case, had just started fifth grade.

No going back, no undoing what is done.

She reached without thinking for her favorite mug, chipped, but dear. "I love My MoMmy" was hand-painted in wobbly purple letters between careening hearts and stars and smiling drops of rain. She filled the mug, the rising steam clouding for a moment the image of his face, the memories of that brief, happy time, and the dark days, the dark, endless, lonely, days, that came after. She cradled the warm mug in both hands and took a long, deep drink.

Time now, to finally lay to rest the black pain that rotted inside her.

 

Now

The first call came on November 1st. Long after it was all over, it would occur to Galaxy that in some cultures November 1st is the Day of the Dead.

In hindsight, not an auspicious beginning.

"We picked a date!" It was Raine, her usually calm voice rising in excitement. In the background, Galaxy heard a yell, then a clatter of pans and clash of glass and crockery, the choreographed chaos of a commercial kitchen. Raine must be calling from work. "Will you come?” she continued. “You promised!"

Galaxy had promised, but she couldn’t believe that Raine remembered. Or cared. Already late, Galaxy put her phone on speaker and dropped into a chair. Raine and Evan were both young, both lifetime members of the Bay Zen Community. They’d gotten engaged last summer, a few weeks into the new, and unlikely friendship that was forming between Raine and Galaxy. At Masiana, the Zen Buddhist Monastery in the remote mountain wilderness east of Big Sur.  Galaxy was just staying for a few weeks of ‘Guest’ Practice. She wasn’t a Buddhist. Not a real member of the community.

Raine, who had grown up at Masiana after she was orphaned as a child, was the up-and-coming new chef at Veg, the new organic restaurant that was the talk of San Francisco. Evan had stayed on at Masiana for what they called the Fall Practice Period, preparing for his ordination in the spring. Curiosity and a little dread warred in equal measures as Galaxy thought back to the shaved heads, blank, staring faces, and dark robes of the resident monks there; the dim, candle-lit Zendo, where rows of kneeling monks chanted tonelessly, the feeling of being alien. Alone.

She’d gone last summer in desperation and stayed for weeks, hoping it would be the perfect antidote to what had been the worst year of her life.

It wasn’t.

She’d been surprised at what had surprised her the most: the monks, the residents, the students—whatever they called themselves, and they often  debated what was the right term—were human. Young or old, practiced or new, kind or cruel, but all, patently, painfully, human. They all had their own stories, their own secrets, their own sorrows. They chanted, they cheated, they bowed, they battled. They judged.

But they all knew what was going on.

She didn’t. She was miserable, the only outsider, the only non-Buddhist, the only one who didn't belong. She didn’t know when to bow, when to stand, when to be silent. And NO ONE made any attempt to help. It was like being sent to Catholic school all over again. Everyone else was a member, everyone indoctrinated, everyone knew how to take communion, but her. Surrounded, but separate. She remembered feeling crowded, clueless, claustrophobic.

And completely alone.

"Of course, I'll come," she said to Raine, shoving those feelings aside and wondering what you wore to a Buddhist wedding. In winter. In the woods. She’d probably be the only one not wearing robes. Again. But maybe she was panicking for nothing. Maybe the wedding would be in the city, somewhere warm and dry, and going wouldn't mean long, miserable hours slogging through the mud and rain on an unpaved mountain road in the middle of the wilderness. "When and where?"

"January 3^rd.” Raine, usually so calm and quiet, was practically chirping. “At Masiana."

Of course.

"You can come up on the Stage the day before and spend the weekend!"  The Stage—Galaxy had to clench her teeth to keep from groaning out loud. For the first half of the twentieth century, the only way to get to Masiana had been on horseback or by stage coach. Hence the name for what they now used: an old, four-wheel drive SUV that could navigate the single treacherous, unpaved road—one Galaxy would never want to attempt on her own. But taking the Stage also meant she'd be stuck there. No car, no way to sneak out early and run when things got too uncomfortable.

"Randy—just the white part.”  Raine’s voice interrupted her. “Save the rest for stock. Sorry, Galaxy—got to go. New trainee. I just wanted to let you know right away. And make sure you could come."

Galaxy promised to be there. Raine promised to get back to her with the details, and was gone.

 Galaxy sat, lost in thought. Raine couldn’t wait to marry Evan. Galaxy didn’t really know him, but she'd been underwhelmed. There were worse things than being single.

And going to Raine’s wedding meant going back to Masiana. When it hadn’t proved to be the escape she’d been looking for, she’d left—a week earlier than planned. She’d reached her limit—or Adair, the Ino, had pushed her to it—and couldn’t stand another minute. Been Buddha'd out. More than ready to leave.

And not sure she ever wanted to go back. 

But by the end of those intense, strange, lonely few weeks, Raine had become a friend. Despite the more than ten year difference in their ages. Besides, she thought, a Buddhist wedding might be interesting. And so would seeing Masiana in the winter, when it was closed to the world and the monks cloistered there spent weeks in silent meditation. She wondered who would be there, and what the ceremony would be like. There was bound to be lots of bowing and chanting and that sour-smelling incense that made her head ache and her stomach turn. She promised herself that she wouldn't be bullied into going to any more creepy rituals than necessary. Or made to feel unwelcome: Raine was the bride, and Raine wanted her there.

There might even be snow.

Galaxy marked the date on her calendar, and put a little heart next to Raine's name. Then a star. She hadn't known Raine all that long. Really, it was nice to be invited.

 

And an example of dialogue, from approximately the 1/3 point of the novel:

Valen slammed the phone down. It might have been a paperweight, for all the good it was. He opened the door to the Stone Office, and collided with Sig on the path outside.

“Chief-“

“Sorry. I—“

“Chief—“ Sig started again. He looked back, to where an ancient SUV was parked at the end of the Landing above.

“Have the team from County shown up?” Valen looked around, but saw no tell-tale uniforms.

“No.” Sig shook his head. “And they’re not going to. We—“

“What do you mean?” Valen looked at his watch. “It’s been-“

“CHIEF-“ Startled, Valen looked at the man in front of him. It was the first time that he’d heard one of them raise their voice.  Is this guy even a monk, he wondered. Sig had on faded jeans, and what must have once been a denim shirt, worn to a pale grey. He lives at the Way Station, not here, Valen remembered. And he was still talking.

“I just took one of the Colins—he’s on the shop crew—up the mountain-“

You what?! Valen wanted to shake the man. What part of ‘nobody leaves’ didn’t you understand? Sig continued. “We only made it about half-way up. The road—“ he shook his head, disbelieving. “It’s gone.” His eyes met Valen’s. “Just gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

Sig was still shaking his head. “Gone.” He took a gasping breath, and Valen realized that Sig was not a young man. “I’ve lived here, off and on, for almost thirty years. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s just…it’s gone.”

Valen steered the visibly shaken Sig into the Stone Office, as a young monk, wearing, of all things, a pair of shorts, arrived with a cup of steaming tea. “I’m Colin,” he introduced himself. He helped Sig into a chair, and made sure that he took a sip of tea, before sinking into the other chair. “The road’s…just..gone, sir. Just gone. There’s a section, we call it the Balcony. It’s a short, relatively straight stretch along the cliff—it’s got—it had—great views. It’s gone—like someone took their thumb and just smeared it off the mountain. It looks like that whole section of the mountain slid down.” He stared at the floor, then up at Valen. “It’s just gone.”

Valen tried to ignore the bottomless pit he felt opening up inside him. “What do you mean, gone?” No—he put his hand up to stop the response. The man had been clear. He tried again. “Where, exactly?”

“Not quite half way up,” Colin replied.

“Up to where?”

Colin frowned, as if the question didn’t make sense. “Up to the top, to the Pass.” Valen tried to picture the map he’d used to get here.

“How far is it, from the—the slide—to—“ he tried to remember the name of the road where the winery had been. “Catcha-“

“Cachagua? Cachagua Road? The Way Station?”

Valen nodded. The Way Station was what they called the tiny cluster of houses at the entrance to the wilderness. On the other side of the mountain. At the end of the paved road.

Or the beginning of the road to hell, he thought. “Yeah.”

Colin frowned. You could almost see the wheels turning. “About twelve miles.” Valen stifled a groan. “From what we could see, the slide took out at least a quarter mile of road.” He looked up, “But there’s no way to know if that’s the only one.”

Before he over-reacted, he should make sure. “Is there any other way out of here?”

Sig spoke, startling them both. “No.” He took a breath. “In emergencies, we’ve occasionally had to airlift someone out. But the closest place the heli can land is up by Eagle’s Nest. That’s a mile past the slide.” He paused. “On the other side.”

Valen looked around the room for another chair. There was none. He squeezed behind the sales counter and sank onto the small stool there, staring at the useless phone, and the useless computer. He was stuck. They were all stuck. Outside, the sun shone fitfully through scattered clouds, high above the canyon walls. He closed his eyes and let it sink in. One dead. One missing. One cop.

One killer?

Somehow, he was going to have to figure this out.

Alone.

Prologue and first half of Chapter One–Introduces almost entire “cast of characters”, establishes tone and relationships, and a tiny foreshadowing of conflict.

 

Lexi burst through the front door as if hell itself was on her heels. She slammed the door quickly behind her, the bang echoing through the house. ‘What the hell was that?’ she thought. Hot tears stung her eyes as she pressed back against the cool wood. Her heart was hammering, racing a hundred miles an hour, as she took a deep, shaky breath. ‘It wasn’t supposed to be this way. This is not how it started out’. 

Her entire body was trembling, fear and shame combining into an emotion she couldn’t name, rising to the surface and threatening to suffocate her. She turned on rubbery legs and locked both locks, then tossed her evening bag onto the sofa. It bounced off the taut white slipcover, smacked the coffee table, and landed on the floor with a thud.

“Oh fuck off!” she snapped.

Steadying herself with a hand on the back of the sofa, she toed off her high heels and abandoned them there on the floor. She shrugged out of her coat and dropped it, leaving it to cover her shoes in a messy heap.

The salmon-pink silk of the floor-length dress she wore clung to her curves and shimmered as she moved, weaving her way into the kitchen. 

Though she’d already made it far past the point of tipsy, she yanked open the fridge and grabbed the half-full bottle of Veuve Clicquot, then pulled a delicate pink flute from the cupboard. With shaking hands she wrenched the stopper from the bottle and poured, a stream of effervescent bubbles flowing over the side of her glass, forming a fizzy, frothy puddle on the butcher-block island.

“God damn waste,” she grumbled, ripping a paper towel from the roll and soaking up the runaway bubbles.

Exhausted and pissed off at herself, she carried her glass and the bottle into the living room and sank into her favorite recliner. She held the bottle in one hand and took a sip of the sparkling liquid, feeling the bubbles tickling her tongue before sliding down her throat.

‘Champagne,’ she thought with a bitter shake of her head. ‘It was God damn champagne that got me into this fucking mess.’ 

She leaned back in the chair, the sweating bottle causing water-mark Rorschach shapes on the silk of her dress, and took a second sip. Her eyes slipped closed, her mind traveling back to the hot June day when it had all begun.

 

“Oh my God,” Christi gushed, dramatically fanning herself with a paper plate as her husband Ross stepped onto the stage. “Is he not the hottest thing you’ve seen in your life? Ever?” 

She scrambled out of her camp chair, feet landing on the pine-needle-covered ground, as she stood to get a better view. Red curls cascaded down her back, and she flipped several corkscrews out of her face.

All the men up on the “auction block” that afternoon wore the same attire. Army-green cargo pants and a tight-as-hell black t-shirt showed off the granite they had–even in retirement–in place of flesh and bone.

Janey’s eyes twinkled. “I love how you still swoon over him after all these years.”

Christi turned her pretty green eyes to Janey. “Swoon? I don’t swoon!”

“You do,” Lexi laughed. “You totally swoon!”

A lovely shade of pink crept into Christi’s cheeks and she smiled. “Well he is totally swoon-worthy.”

Janey nodded. “He is at that!”

“They all are,”Lexi added as she scanned the group of men. “All twenty-six of them!”

“You know, Lex, some of them are single…”

“Christiiiii…” Lexi didn’t need to finish the warning.

“I’m just saying, you can bid on one of them, and then he can do your bidding!”

Janey snorted, almost choking on her champagne.

“No, Chris.” Lexi’s tone was firm; they’d been through this before. “Just no. Not gonna go there so don’t even start.”

“Fine.” Christi made a face and dropped the subject, but Lexi knew she wasn’t giving up.

The three of them turned their attention back to the stage where Janey’s husband Hunter held the mic.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, his voice booming across the lawn, commanding attention. 

Fifteen rows of white wooden chairs were arranged facing the stage in a graceful arc on the lawn, and the audience waited expectantly, afternoon cocktails in hand.

Hunter was one of the event’s long-time organizers and years ago had appointed himself official Emcee and Auctioneer of the twice-yearly events–and he played the role well.

“May I present our final gentleman up for bid this afternoon (saving the best for last), Mr. Ross Morrison.”

Ross stepped forward and an appreciative murmur rolled through the crowd. His well-built body was obvious, even through his clothes.

“Mr. Morrison served in the US Marine Corp for thirty years before retiring four years ago, and I’m sure he misses the hard work.”

There was a light flutter of laughter.

“Please take note of the sheer craftsmanship of this handsome man’s physique.”

Ross rotated slowly, muscles bunching as he flexed, while Hunter pointed out his attributes with a long cane.

“These enormous biceps,” he lightly tapped Ross’s arm, “are made for heavy lifting and hauling; these muscular legs are built for climbing ladders, and this very fine ass,” Hunter gave his butt a cheeky nudge, “is nice to look at while he’s accomplishing the aforementioned tasks.”

The audience roared with laughter. Most of the attendees had been coming to these charity auctions for years and they enjoyed Hunter’s humor.

“God he loves hamming it up for these events.” Janey tossed her head, the white-blonde highlights in her short, spiky hair glinting in the dappled sunlight that filtered through the tall pines overhead.

“Now,” Hunter continued, “before you all get too excited, I should mention that Ross is very much spoken for. He’s married to Christi–the beautiful redhead back there with my gorgeous wife Janey.”

He pointed towards the pines, and Christi, still standing, gave the crowd a playful bow.

“She is one lucky lady to come home to this prime specimen every night. But for one entire day, he’ll be at the beck and call of the highest bidder. So, let’s start the bidding at $200.

“$350!” a woman’s voice rang out.

“Well thank you, Gayle–a generous opening! And remember, every dollar raised today goes to a fantastic cause. This year, both auctions–our Midsummer's Eve and Winter Wonderland Ball–support Homes For Our Troops. This is a remarkable non-profit dedicated to building and donating specially adapted homes for our severely wounded veterans. If you’d like more information, Janey has pamphlets on the back table.”

Hunter paused as the crowd shifted to look behind them, and Janey waved a pamphlet in the air.

“Now, back to the bidding.”

“$450!” a woman called out.

“$600!” came the gravelly voice of a thin, ancient man leaning on a cane.

The bids climbed until the final call. Ross went for $870 to their neighbor Gayle. Her husband Steve had suffered a stroke the previous year, and though he was slowly recovering, he was still in a wheelchair. Gayle’s “Honey-Do” list had been neglected for a year, and she looked both relieved and overjoyed at the thought of Ross tackling it.

There was enthusiastic applause as Hunter took a final moment to thank the men who’d volunteered to be auctioned off–most of them Marines, but several from other branches of the military. He offered a very special thank you to everyone who had bid so generously–whether they’d won the bid or not.

As the applause began to taper off, a woman’s sultry voice rose above the murmur of the audience.

“Don’t we get to bid on you, Hunter?” 

Laughter rippled through the crowd.

“Who was that?” Lexi raised an eyebrow at Janey.

“Who do you think?”

“Stephanie?”

“You got it.”

Christi grinned. “Are you gonna bid against her?”

Janey’s laughter tinkled through the trees. “Naw, let her buy him for a day. Poor thing’s been after Hunter since she moved to the community seven months ago. She doesn’t understand how he can be so oblivious to her charms.”

“Yeah,” Lexi agreed. “She doesn’t know how absolutely devoted he is to you.”

It was true. Hunter was completely in love with Janey. Even after thirty years of marriage–and thirty-five together–the adoration between them was palpable. Anyone who’d spent even five minutes in their company would never question it.

By this time, Ross was back on stage to auction off his friend, and Hunter, playing to the crowd, very slowly removed his light sport jacket. The sun reflected off his thick silver hair, and his broad shoulders and muscled arms drew more than a few appreciative sighs. For a man in his late 50s, Hunter was a stunner.

Janey caught her runaway breath and grabbed Christi’s paper plate, fanning herself with a theatrical flourish.

“Now I get why you needed this!”

“See?” Christi laughed. “Now who’s swooning?”

Stephanie began the bidding at $1,000, a self-satisfied smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She clearly assumed nobody would bid higher. But Maddie, Lexi’s beloved next-door-neighbor, wasn’t letting her off that easily. She sat calmly, hands resting peacefully in her lap, and raised the stakes.

Maddie knew Hunter would help her with anything she needed (as Lexi’s husband Mark had done when he was alive), but this wasn’t only about help. She knew Stephanie wanted Hunter, and it was obvious Maddie wanted to make her work–and pay–for him.

Bid by bid, the number climbed. When Stephanie’s bid of $1,450 was accepted, Maddie turned to Janey and gave her a sly wink.

 

Suddenly, a high-pitched, piercing scream tore through the air.

Lexi jumped to her feet, hands clamped over her ears. Two little girls stood at the far edge of the lawn, next to the last row of chairs. The smaller one stood as rigid as stone, hands fisted at her sides. Her head was thrown back, eyes tightly shut and mouth wide open. Screaming as though she were being tortured. The older girl ran tight circles around her.

The shrieking went on and on, and Lexi wondered how a tiny child could make such an enormous racket. It was ear-splitting.

Finally, Stephanie–tall, blond, beautiful and visibly irritated–stormed over and seized both girls by the arms, giving them a stern shake. The scream abruptly stopped. Without a word, she marched them towards the community clubhouse, their matching, sunshine-yellow dresses swinging with each angry step.

Lexi turned to her friends, her expression deadpan. 

“Have I told you today how happy I am I don’t have kids?”

“Every day,” Janey said with a smile. “And honestly? At times like this, I totally agree. Though I don’t have the strong aversion to them that you do.”

“I don’t have a strong aversion! I just never wanted them. Remember what my mother said?” She lifted her pitch to match her mother’s. “You’re just afraid you’ll have a child who’s exactly like you.”

“Yeah,” Christi laughed. “And I remember what you said back!”

As if on cue, the three of them recited in unison: “No, I’m afraid I’d be a mother just like you!”

“Oh my God!” Lexi grinned. “Have I told you that so often that you’ve both memorized it?”

“Pretty much!” Christi put a hand on Lexi’s arm. “But seriously, I thought it was pretty damn insightful for a 14-year-old.”

“Exactly!” Janey agreed.

“And J,” Lexi turned to Janey with affection, “you’re the one who actually gave me ‘permission’ to not want kids, remember?”

“Right. Because Hunter and I didn’t want them either. And I hated that she tried to make you feel guilty. It’s not for everyone.”

“True. You were the first couple I ever met that didn’t act like having kids was some universal requirement. Then I met you and Ross,” she looked at Christi, “and I realized hey, maybe this is more normal than I thought!”

Christi smiled warmly. “And look at us now. Bonded for life. I think it was kismet.”

“It was indeed.” Janey grabbed the half-bottle of champagne from the bucket of ice near her feet, and divided it between them. “To kismet.”

The three of them touched glasses, the sound like tiny crystal bells in a toast to friendship.

“To kismet!”

(OPENING SCENE – Introduces the Protagonists, begins Protagonist Sympathy Factors, sets Tone, Foreshadows Primary Conflict, introduces Secondary Antagonist)

 

It wasn’t the bleakness of the room that got to me, the humid cold clinging to the dingy concrete walls, or the sweat-mixed-with-Clorox fragrance that hung in the air at eye level, burning my corneas. It wasn’t even seeing him sitting there, in that too-big, orange jumpsuit with his wrists chained to the metal table; I had been preparing myself for that, even though it still broke my heart.

No. It was the silence, the dead silence that closed off the rest of the world, like I was underwater, fighting to break the surface, fighting to hear, but the quietness kept pushing me down.

Jails are not known for being quiet.

The thick bullet-proof glass, separating the entry from the front desk, distorted my view of the guard sitting behind it. He spent some time looking me over through the wire-imbedded window before hitting the buzzer to let me in.

I returned the favor once I was inside. Tall, skinny, a splattering of acne shining through tufts of red hair on his chin, amateur tattoo on his neck, ear tunnels and a nose ring for God’s sake. He looked more like an inmate than a guard at the Adele County Detention Center, but he had the official beige uniform shirt, a badge on the sleeve and a crooked plastic tag boasting his rank and name that I immediately forgot.

He seemed to already know who I was there to see. Took my name, purse and jacket and tried to do a physical search when I stopped him with a “Nope.” He shrugged. When he led me to the interview room and opened the door, I thought I was ready to see Uncle Martin, but the sight of him still took my breath away.

He sat, cuffed hands clasped near the table-top D-ring, his face, gray like the concrete walls, his blue eyes shooting ice bullets straight at the guard.

A couple steps were all I could manage when the punk guard said, “Ya got five minutes. No touching! This ain’t the Consensual Room, ya know.” I could hear his snarky laugh echo as the door clanked shut behind me.

I grabbed the back of the only other chair for support, the metal legs scraping and screaming on the concrete floor and slowly sat down.

Uncle Martin looked directly at me, forcing his usual, lop-sided grin. He didn’t say a thing.

It was so quiet I could hear his breathing. I’m sure he could hear my heartbeat.

I leaned forward and whispered, “Where is everyone? Are you the only one in here?”

He didn’t move anything but his eyes, dragging my gaze to the small black box high on the wall. Someone was listening, probably watching.

This was wrong, all wrong. My uncle had a stellar reputation across the country, his law enforcement career had spanned many different agencies. He had raised me since I was a baby, taught me right from wrong, but somehow, he was sitting across from me in this horrible room, chained to the table that was bolted to the floor.

“What the hell?” I wanted to scream, to kick something, to throw myself on the ground and yell. Anger had always been my go-to before I broke into tears.

He raised his hands, chains rattling through the D-ring, and quietly said, “Get out, Lynn.”

“NO TOUCHING!” a crackled voice screamed from the black box.

My uncle slowly dropped his hands on the top of the table, leaned back in his chair.

“Get out,” he mouthed.

I started to respond, to ask him what was going on, but stopped myself. His eyes never left mine. I knew he was telling me to watch what I said.

 I gave him a small nod. He smiled.

“So, this is going to be straightened out soon, Sweetheart,” he said, his voice sounded loud in that small room, but it really wasn’t. “You should go home and cook up that steak before it goes bad.”

I was trying to follow him. He never called me Sweetheart, and he knew I didn’t like steak. I nodded for the camera.

“Yeah, that sounds great, Uncle Marty,” I said.

He smiled, again. I never called him Marty.

“Oh, and you might as well enjoy some of the good stuff with that steak.”

That comment threw me until he added, “You know, the scotch whisky?”

“Oh…kay.” Where was this going? I don’t remember my uncle having scotch whiskey in the house, except during special holidays.

“I forgot to tell you I put the good stuff on the top shelf in the laundry room,” he seemed to be enjoying this little chat. “You know, so the cleaning lady wouldn’t find it.”

He laughed. I laughed. We never had a cleaning lady.

A sudden squeal of hinges and the drunk-tank-pink painted iron door behind Uncle Martin slammed open. His still face held my attention. I expected him to wink at me, like he always did, but it didn’t happen this time.

A guard stood in the open doorway. His Adele County Sheriff Department uniform stretched across his broad chest, hampered by the Kevlar vest underneath, dark stains at each pit. A surprising sharp, acidic smell whiffed into the tight room, hitting me like a punch in the gut.

No name tag marred the guard’s regalia. I wondered if he wasn’t a legitimate officer or if he thought he didn’t need a name tag because everyone should already know him. My guess, it could be either.

Paw-like hands rested on his polished leather duty belt, a leisurely stretch of flaky lips spread across his wide face, eyes glinted under heavy lids fixating on me. He started with a deliberate head roll, grinding muscles and veins climbed up the side of his thick neck, small ears moved up and down comically when he tightened his jaw. His hypertrophy demonstration climaxed with the flexing of distended biceps, the edges of rolled up short uniform sleeves cut into the guns he appeared to be so proud of. One invitational eyebrow arched up his prominent brow ridge.

It was like watching a car wreck. I couldn’t look away. I felt my upper lip lifting and tried to restrain the sneer but was only able to control my disgust when a snicker from Uncle Martin put a damper on the guard’s performance.

“Time’s up, old man.” He growled and dropped his hands heavily on my uncle’s shoulders. Sausage fingers clamped tightly, the orange material of the jailhouse jumpsuit bunched around the guard’s grip, but Uncle Martin didn’t flinch. His blue eyes turned steely gray. I knew then whatever was going on, they weren’t going to be able to break him. If he could remain strong, I could, too. At least I would try, I owed him so much.

The guard finally released his hold and awkwardly worked unlocking the chains connected to my uncle’s cuffs. Uncle Martin’s glance dropped to the guard’s muscular forearm and then back at me, guiding my eyes to the guard’s rough tattoo. Six-zero-nine. Or maybe it was nine-zero-six, depending on which way you viewed it. I had seen some artistic tattoos and some jailhouse tattoos. This one rated at the far end of poor amateurish jailhouse quality. Maybe this guard and the skinny punk guard enjoyed the same tat artist.

I raised one questioning eyebrow, but Uncle Martin kept his relaxed, devil-may-care expression while the steroidal guard was grunting and fumbling with the chains.

“You need to get out more, Sweetheart,” Uncle Martin seemed to stress the word out. His comment was so peculiar, I knew he was still trying to tell me something, but I didn’t know what it was. He almost grinned when the guard stopped dragging the noisy chain to listen. “Remember to enjoy the good stuff.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, putting on my best fearless face while feeling my heartbeat skip.

The guard pulled him up, pushing him toward the open door. Uncle Martin looked over his shoulder.

“See you later, Uncle Marty,” I said, with a wave, trying to remain calm.

He shook his head slightly and mouthed silently “Get out”. My breathing stopped. He gave me a quick sad smile. I wanted to cry but swallowed hard and gave him a nod.

The guard stopped at the doorway, turned back to me. An ugly leer spread across his wide face. “Maybe I’ll come by and enjoy the good stuff,” he said. “And I don’t mean scotch.”

My stomach twisted. I swallowed the bile in my throat.
            “In your dreams, asshole,” I said quietly as the door closed.

The silence echoed in my head.

 

First 10 pages per Part III assignment:

 

Chapter One

Tristan crouched in darkness. The outdoor storehouse smelled of mulch. Onions lolled around at his feet, having spilled from a sack sitting atop the oak barrel that served as his cover. He looked again in the direction of the shed door, breath hitched in his throat, but his gaze couldn’t penetrate the pitch-dark blackness. What would he do if the field expert, his assigned partner, never showed up? All day he had been imagining what lies he would tell if some fourth caste servant caught him trespassing.

His eyes strayed to the elongated boxes tucked on the shelves among the stores. They were hidden in darkness now, but he knew what was in them.

He checked the time again on his Reader. The light from the screen on his wrist pushed the gloom into retreat, but only by an inch.

10:33 pm. The party started at nine.

He took a deep breath, shaking his shoulders to ease the tension and practicing disarming grins at nobody. If he was caught, he could talk his way out of trouble. He’d done it before. He just had to—

The door opened.

There was just enough light outside for him to see a man in a gardener’s uniform before he shut the door. For a moment, Tristan imagined taking advantage of the darkness to knock the interloper out. But light radiated from the screen of a Reader embedded in the young man’s left arm, and Tristan saw his face. He hadn’t met him in person, but he recognized him from his profile: Ryo Arden.

They regarded each other.

Stories of Ryo made the guy sound like a grizzled veteran, but the man standing before Tristan was several years younger than himself, eighteen to twenty if he had to guess.

Worse: He didn’t look like a gentleman. He looked like what Tristan knew he was: a soldier—and a hostile one. If Ryo glared at the upper caste party guests the way he was glaring at Tristan, he was going to attract the wrong kind of attention.

“Hi. Ryo? I’m Tristan Martin.”

He held out his hand to shake, but Ryo walked right past Tristan’s extended arm and over to the shelves with the boxes.

Ryo opened one of the boxes. From inside, he withdrew a zipped garment bag and a small container, which was filled with chemically engineered plastics capable of tricking weapons detectors. He opened the container to reveal the disassembled parts of a pistol. Tristan watched, stunned, as Ryo assembled the gun in less than ten seconds, using only the light from his Reader. He tossed the second package to Tristan.

Tristan opened it, but took his time putting his own gun together, distracted by Ryo fishing a sealed plastic bag from his box and a scalpel from the pocket of his gardener’s uniform. Without hesitation, Ryo laid the scalpel against the underside of his left arm, away from the main artery, and made a small, precise incision near his embedded Reader. Bright red blood welled from the cut. Ryo slid a tiny glittering piece of metal from the plastic bag under his skin. He then covered the wound with a viscous, translucent liquid from a tiny vial.

In a few moments, the skin looked as if it had never been cut, if oddly shiny. Ryo tucked the scalpel back into his jacket pocket and rolled his sleeve down. His expression never changed.

Tristan counted sixteen 9mm rounds into the magazine, each bullet slender and sleek, and then slid the magazine up into the well until it clicked into place. He didn’t look in his box for a plastic bag like Ryo’s. He wouldn’t have one. The tiny metal square that Ryo had inserted into his arm was a caste chip.

While he knew it was done on occasion, Tristan had never actually seen anyone cut their arm and insert a fake caste chip like Ryo just had. Caste chips were essential pieces of bio-ware assigned at birth. The one Tristan received as a baby dissolved nanotech into his bloodstream, altering his DNA and marking him as second caste. His caste status was calibrated to his Reader profile, which enabled everything from purchases to postings to his Lifestream to access through monitored doorways. The old, physical caste chips inserted the way Ryo had just done could mask the underlying marker and fool some scanning security, but Tristan had been under the impression they wouldn’t have to rely on that tonight.

“I thought Rider was going to send someone in the upper castes,” Tristan said. “What—”

“You’d better get changed,” Ryo interrupted.

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

Ryo’s face showed no sign of offense, but there was an intensity in his gaze that made Tristan want to back up.

“I am against the whole caste system obviously,” Tristan said. “I just thought—”

“I’m not what Central needs to be concerned about.” Ryo eyed Tristan suggestively. “You’ve got field rookie written all over you.”

Grimacing, Tristan opened the zipped garment bag. He was not a field rookie, but it was true that his training hadn’t focused on combat situations. Until recently, Tristan’s primary function had been to build social capital and identify potential assets Central could work for information. He supposed that was what Ryo meant. Still, he knew why he had been chosen for this mission; he deserved to be here.

Ryo had already opened his own garment bag. Both bags contained the same thing: sleek black trousers, black satin-lined swallowtail jackets, white starched dress shirts with wing tip collars, white pique waistcoats, white ruffled neckties, thin black socks, shiny black shoes, and expensive cufflinks.

Fingering the jacket, Tristan wondered if his rude, unfriendly partner even knew how to put on formal evening attire. But before he could do more than wonder, Ryo proved he was comfortable wearing whatever clothes he had been assigned to wear. By the time Tristan was shrugging into his vest, Ryo was tucking his gun under the back of his jacket in the waistband of his trousers. Tristan struggled with his cufflinks, thinking miserably about how he had grown up in a household with valet to dress him and how smug he had been to hide that fact when he joined Central.

“We’d better get going,” Ryo said.

Tristan tucked his gun against the small of his back. “Are you always like this?”

Ryo’s face remained expressionless. “Am I always like what?”

“Never mind.” Tristan dropped his smile. Grins and friendly banter weren’t working on Ryo. Tristan wondered if the fellow knew how to smile. His face didn’t look practiced at it.

“You have the invitations?”

“Yes.” Tristan reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and withdrew two cream colored crepe paper envelopes with WH monogramed in gold. He handed one to Ryo.

Tristan broke the seal on his own invitation and pulled out the shimmery gold card:

 

His Excellency, President Sabin Whitehall, and the First Family, requests the pleasure of your company by special invitation at the New Year’s Eve Ball, to be held at the Presidential Palace, Saturday December 31, at nine o’clock in the evening.

 

#

 

Sanna stared at her reflection in the mirror above her vanity. Her gown was clamshell white, the satin sleeves soft on her pale, slender shoulders. She stared hard into her eyes, greenish blue like polar ice, and battled with her own expression.

“Not so forceful.” Her mother watched Sanna disapprovingly, a shimmering champagne shawl looped over her elbows. Her mother’s beautiful face looked carved from alabaster, pale blonde hair in a crown of curls. “Sanna, please. If you look at gentlemen like that, they will think you are challenging them. Remember: You are the prize, not the competition. Soften your eyes. Softer.”

When all thought melted until Sanna’s eyes resembled still, reflective pools.

“There you are.” Her mother graced Sanna with a rare, soft smile. “Perfect.”

That word—perfect—had once meant everything to her. Sanna had strived to hear it every time she did anything. Now, nearly three years after her humiliating breakdown, the word nettled. She did not let agitation show on her face. Her mother would not understand; she had her own set of facts when it came to what was upsetting Sanna.

Tanesha returned to Sanna’s vanity with jewelry options draped over her slim, dark hands: a sapphire pendant the size of a gull’s egg and a long, double strand of rare, natural pearls. Sanna met Tanesha’s eyes briefly in the mirror, wordless understanding passing between them.

“I think I’ll wear my cross tonight.” Sanna fingered the platinum pendant around her neck. It was the last gift her father had given her. She had just turned sixteen and was inconsolable and unable to comprehend that such a charming man in the peak of health could die so suddenly. If fifth caste rebels had really poisoned him, as had been reported, why hadn’t God saved him? Weren’t the Whitehalls God’s agents on Earth? Her father had believed that and talked of it often. At the time, she believed he’d become an angel. She understood how deluded that thinking had been now, but she had not thrown away the cross.

“Very good, Sanna,” Tanesha said.

Sanna’s mother didn’t say anything as Tanesha returned the fine jewelry to the cabinet. By her icy silence, it was clear she wanted Sanna to choose the pearls.

“Would you like me to put your hair up now?” Tanesha swept Sanna’s wheat blonde locks to one side and gathering the long layers underneath to show how it might look. “Half up, half down?”

“Perhaps with pearl pins?” Maybe that would appease her mother.

“That would be lovely.” Tanesha went to work with her usual deftness. Sanna sat patiently, hands folded on her lap as Tanesha curled, twisted, and pinned half her hair in a complex arrangement of elegant loops and curls.

Her mother stood in silence, watching with a hawk’s eye until the last lock had been rolled into place. All the while, her mouth drew tighter and tighter until it was a thin pink line. By the time Tanesha finished her Sanna makeup, her mother projected a lady’s regal countenance so severe it bordered on fragility.

“Tanesha, dear, would you excuse us please?”

Tanesha’s eyes flickered to Sanna. She exited the room, closing the door softly.

Sanna turned to face her mother.

“Your Uncle Mathias wants to introduce you to his particular friend tonight. Would you be inclined to indulge him?”

“Certainly,” Sanna replied automatically, not knowing how she could refuse even if she wanted to. Even before her husband’s death, Lady Selene had very specific notions about Sanna’s upbringing. Only in the years since her breakdown had Sanna become aware of how much control her mother exerted over every aspect of her life. But discovering that hadn’t changed their relationship; if anything, it had made it worse. “Do you know him?” she asked, meaning Mathias’s special friend, who could only be a suitor.

“I know him a little. The young James Amberton. He is very handsome and close to your age.” She smiled as if this bit of information should please Sanna. Sanna supposed it should, given the alternative, but she felt nothing. “I believe you met his grandparents when you were younger.”

“I think I remember.”

The Ambertons were first caste, of course, a wealthy and prominent American family with several generations of loyalty to the Whitehalls and expansive estates in the west. If she remembered correctly, they were proud of their vineyards and particularly the expansive AI drone-powered irrigation system they had built to rescue California from drought, which had won them a seat on the Council of Lords. She did not remember much about them personally, and she had never met a young, handsome member of the family named James. No doubt he was set to inherit the title of Lord Representative. Her mother would not come right out and say that, but it had to be the case; she would not have agreed to the match otherwise.

Her mother looked Sanna over expertly, scanning for stray threads, loose buttons, or hairs out of place. She found none, of course. “Are you sure about wearing your cross? It’s a little understated for the occasion.”

“I chose it because it is a little understated.”

Her mother paused. “Perhaps it is better not to seem overeager.”

Sanna did not like this concession. When her mother allowed Sanna to make a choice she disagreed with, however small and insignificant, it boded some other, more important decision she had already made. That decision might be James.

Her stomach tightened, but she walked herself through her mental exercises to ease anxiety, interrupting negative thoughts with positive ones and reimagining her circumstances. She had always known her marriage would be a political arrangement, but her grandfather, Sabin Whitehall, was president, and believed Sanna ought to have a say in her marriage partner.

Sanna had missed out on a debutante ball. That would have been the same year her father had been murdered, the year she suffered a mental breakdown. Her mother forbade Sanna any social parties during that time. When she turned eighteen last May, she asked about it, but her mother demurred, saying that Sanna was too immature and fragile to be formally presented to society. Almost a whole year went by when Sanna did not leave the Presidential Palace at all.

Her grandfather had intervened on her behalf. He told Selene that Sanna was a woman, and that if she wanted her daughter married, she had to be allowed to meet men. As such, the New Year’s Eve Ball would serve as Sanna’s official coming out party. All the first caste families would be in attendance, and Sanna could wear white and be presented to dozens of eligible suitors while their fathers sipped champagne and hobnobbed over their various business interests. With so many gentlemen in attendance, perhaps Sanna would meet someone she liked that her mother would not object to.

Sanna was dubious that her mother would accept anyone Sanna chose for herself, but she appreciated the opportunity and was eager to make the most of it. Learning her mother had handpicked a suitor for Sanna before the party even started filled her with dread, however young and handsome he might be. That, and the knowledge that he was also the choice of her Uncle Mathias, whom she did not much like.

“How soon do you hear wedding bells?” Sanna ventured. “I mean, if I like James Amberton.”

“Within the year would be ideal.”

A chill passed through Sanna. “That’s very quick.” She was careful to modulate her tone.

“Women benefit from being settled young.” Her mother said it as if she had not been responsible for delaying Sanna’s coming out. “Queen Victoria met Prince Albert when she was seventeen, was married by twenty, and had her first child at twenty-one. Time moves quickly, Sanna.”

The Whitehalls were forever comparing and modelling themselves after royal personages in historic England, a tedious exercise in Sanna’s opinion, with many false equivalencies.

“Surely a few years wouldn’t—”

“Sanna, please. You have been pestering me about this nonstop. Now that you are allowed to come out, you object?”

“I want to be recognized as an adult. I want to meet men. I’m just not sure I’m ready to marry.”

Her mother looked scandalized.

Sanna pivoted. “Shouldn’t the pressure to marry be more on Mathias? He is over forty and still unwed with no heirs.”

“I don’t manage Mathias. I want to see everything properly arranged for you. It is my duty to see you are protected and provided for. God knows I have concerns about you, but your grandfather has convinced me that marriage may be the answer. Your father and I married at nineteen and were no worse for it.”

Sanna could have disputed that. Rarely had she observed her parents actively enjoying each other’s company. In most of her childhood memories, her family moved around each other like pieces on a gameboard, her father ignoring her mother as if he were a stone and her mother emanating such a chill it was a wonder the room had not frosted. Sanna had been expected to sit silently and demand nothing from either of them.

“It is easiest to adapt to the demands of marriage when you are young,” her mother continued. “The Ambertons are a strong family and in good favor with Mathias, who will be president sooner rather than later if your grandfather’s health declines. He is nearly eighty.”

“He’s seventy-two and in prime health.”

“Sanna.”

Sanna recognized the sharp tone that signaled the end to debate.

Sanna closed her mouth. Protected and provided for? She lived in an ostentatious palace surrounded by armed guards. She wasn’t even allowed to leave the grounds unless it was on family business. She hated feeling like a caged bird. But she knew better than to disagree when her mother used that tone. Her mother would start berating Sanna for her lack of temperance, or else complain that Sanna must not care how her impudence made her mother feel.

“I would be delighted to meet James Amberton,” Sanna said, knowing exactly both what her mother wanted to hear and how she wanted to hear it.

When mother left, Sanna turned to her vanity and stared into the mirror once more. Her eyes hardened like polished turquoise. Defiance bubbled up like water from an underground wellspring. At times like this, she felt like there were two of her: the proper lady she was bred to be and this other wild and disobedient woman inside, fighting to get out.

She tamped the feeling down. Inside her own head, she could be free. She walked through her mental exercises, thinking of spring gardens, cool ocean breezes, starry night skies, and rolling hills of waving grass.

Tanesha reentered the room. “What did she say that I am not supposed to hear?”

(OPENING SCENE: Introduces and creates sympathy with the protagonists; sets tone; introduces setting; foreshadows primary conflict)

PROLOGUE: MAY 2012

“Stand up straight,” the producer said, “that’s bad body language.”

It wasn’t just Paul’s posture. The entire afternoon had gotten off to an inauspicious start, the rain arriving in thick, heavy sheets from the moment the producer and his cameraman had pulled up. Unfortunate, because Paul wanted nothing more than to get it over with.

For the first hour, the three of them could do nothing but take cover in the barn. The old barn, with its peeling gray paint and dilapidated door that whined in the wind. That was one good thing about the afternoon until that point, that the barn had been available as a makeshift shelter to wait out the storm. A consequence of choosing this corner of the property for the shoot. Paul liked it here, it reminded him of old times. Why didn’t he come here more often?

“A downpour in May,” the producer said, chewing his lip as they watched the rainfall. “Who would’ve expected? Perfect spot if the weather ever lets up, though. A farm’s perfect. Feels authentic, not too fancy.” He was wheezing and sweaty despite the cool, wet air.

“Uh-huh,” Paul said, though he wasn’t really listening. He was checking his pulse and calculating his resting heart rate. 68, 70 beats per minute, something like that. At least ten beats too fast.

Okay, that proved it. He was officially nervous.

“How long you live here?” the cameraman asked. One of those brooding hipster kids, early twenties, wearing skinny jeans, a Breitling, and a crewneck sweatshirt advertising an auto body shop. Based on the watch, it must’ve been vintage.

Paul wasn’t sure how to answer. Was he doubting him? Questioning his claim to the place? “Long time,” he said. “Very long time.”

Eventually the sun had reemerged, and they could get going with the shoot. They’d started by filming some B-roll, just in case the weather turned again. Paul hammering a nail. Paul picking an apple from a tree. Paul tooling around with an old Fiskars lawn mower, his quarter-zip removed and his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, so he could really put some power into it. The whole thing felt completely absurd, even comical. Paul hadn’t mowed a lawn since twelfth grade—they had people for that now. He played along anyway, because he knew it was exactly what he needed to do. What winning required.

“That’s great,” the producer said, “You’re a natural, just like Zan said.”

After a half hour it was time to get to the heart of it. They set up at one of the old stone walls. Behind them, the meadow melted into a hill that obscured everything beyond. Paul leaned against the wall, allowing it to partially support his weight. Hence the producer’s critique of his body language.

“Up straight, please,” he repeated. “Looks much better in the frame.” 

Paul did as told. For a moment, all was quiet. The only sounds were a few Canada geese honking and the heavy rhythm of Paul’s own breathing. It had ticked up again.

“Ready?” the producer asked.

Paul nodded and took a deep inhale. The cameraman clicked a button. They were rolling.

“Now, tell us,” the producer said ponderously, “who is Paul McConnell?”

Paul shifted uneasily, it was hard to find a position that felt comfortable. He ran his hand through his hair and swallowed hard. “‘Who is Paul McConnell?’” he repeated, imitating the producer’s intonation. He’d meant it as a joke, a way to cut the tension he was sure they could all feel from his nerves.

The producer chuckled. He rolled his eyes playfully. “Very funny, wise guy. Let’s try that again.”

Paul stared into the middle distance, at the collection of old stone buildings, and thought about the first time he’d come here, so many years before. In his eyes, he felt a tingling. Were those tears?

Who is Paul McConnell?

Paul didn’t like the question. How do you reduce the measure of a man’s life to a few sentences? By the people he’s loved? The ones he’s lost?

“Don’t overthink it,” the producer said gently.

Who is Paul McConnell?

No matter how many times he repeated it in his head, his mind drew a blank.

Paul McConnell?

Well, for starters, that wasn’t even his name.

# # #

Assignment III—Opening scene.

 

Chapter one

 

The dry wind stirred, carrying in its breath a warning.

As usual, I ignored the spine-tingling feeling as I gripped the balcony railing, leaning into the gust as it swept over the rooftop, gritty metal biting into my palms. Below, the parking lot buzzed with life. I scanned the crowd, searching for a face I could barely remember. I told myself it was pointless. Still, I looked—right up until the old railing groaned beneath me. I stepped back. It seemed wasteful to die now, after spending so much of my life trying to survive.

It wasn’t the wind’s warning or the size of the crowd that caused the choked, lung-shrinking sensation that tortured me before every performance. It was knowing that once I took the stage and opened my mouth to sing, I’d feel everything. Every single emotion as if I were the audience. The flutters of blooming love. The frustration of not being enough. The fear of being alone. Everything. I’d feel it all, like the invisible veil that had once separated me from another’s private world disappeared, and their every emotion seeped into me, becoming my own.  

My mother warned me this would happen. She said that when it started, he would come for me. That’s why I locked it down, pushed it deep. Because whatever’s in my blood—whatever made me different—was the reason they took her. 

I inhaled sharply, the memory rushing in like a cold current. She’d shoved me through the trapdoor just in time, far enough to be safe—but close enough to hear her screams. Then came the silence.

The rooftop trembled with the thump of the opening band, shaking the memory loose. But the guilt stayed. It always did. I was the reason she was gone. 

I should’ve been backstage warming up, but I needed to breathe. To steady the pounding in my chest. 

I glanced upwards, where the night sky looked like handfuls of tiny, light-filled diamonds were scattered across the dark expanse. Those bright flecks left me feeling scared and alone. Just like I'd felt the day I followed the river to the barn where she promised she'd find me if we were ever seperated.  

She never came. 

I stayed there until hunger made staying impossible. 

That was four years ago. 

Now here I was, surviving in the small town of Prescott, Arizona, hiding from an invisible enemy. Survival had gotten easier. My gigs didn’t pay much, but they kept me fed. Without a birth certificate or any formal proof that I existed; a normal job was out of reach. I kept the promise I made to my mother to stay hidden, even if it meant she couldn’t find me either.  

The metal door to the rooftop burst open with a loud slap, jarring me back to the present and shattering the thoughts of my mother and her warnings. 

“There. You. Are,” Mark panted, one hand on his side. “Where the hell have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

I shrugged, eyes back on the stars. “Taking a moment, I guess.”

I didn’t have to look at him to feel his frustration.

“You know the show’s about to start, right?”

“Yeah. I know.” I met his eyes. There was pain in them. Some of it my doing.

He crossed his arms, covered in swirls of ink, firmly against his chest, and scowled at the starry sky, as if it were to blame for my absence.

“Joslyn, I know you don’t like talking about your past. I’m not gonna push you. Just… I get it, okay? There’s not much to say about my genetic donors either.” He kicked at a broken planter. “Screw them. Our blood doesn’t define us. What we do does.”

Except in my case, the defects in my blood were the reason for my mother’s absence—and the reason we were always running. But I couldn’t blame Mark for believing what he did. He’d been abandoned by the very people biologically programmed to love him, and it had messed him up. Bad. I guess what pulled us together was the one thing that filled those cracks—music. 

“Yeah, maybe,” I muttered. I didn’t agree, but I wasn’t in the mood for one of Mark’s lectures. I brushed past him and took the broken stairs two at a time. 

Backstage, Haven and TJ were already waiting. Haven was a sharp-tongued tomboy with mile-long legs and fingers that could set a guitar on fire. She’d joined the band two months ago and didn’t take crap from Mark or anyone. TJ was our drummer. He wasn’t great, but being Mark’s best friend bought him a spot in the band and a permanent place in Mark’s oversized shadow. 

We were an odd bunch, but somehow, we packed the Electric Theater every Friday night.

I climbed the wooden steps to the stage, Mark trailing behind. The second I stepped into the lights, everything else fell away.

I sang about pain. About loneliness. About romantic love—a feeling I’d only ever known through lyrics. Even if love itself felt like a myth, the words were real. And they were mine. 

Mark waited for his cue and then joined in, adding his voice to my own. A harmonic melody filled the theater. His raspy voice mixed well with mine, or so people said.

And then it hit—that invisible thread snapping taut between me and the crowd.

I felt the jagged grief of the girl with blue hair in the far corner. The quiet rage from the boy with a baseball cap pulled low, hiding a fresh bruise. The dizzy, rising joy from the couple swaying near the stage, clinging to each lyric like it was written for them. 

Their feelings washed through me, powerful and unfiltered. To keep from drowning in them, I funneled every emotion into each high falsetto, each held note, every closing cadence. 

The lights brightened. The audience became a blur of movement and color. 

All except one. 

A man in a suit stood still among the sea of teenagers. He wasn’t singing. His eyes never left mine. It wasn’t just his clothes that made him stand out, it was the wave of emotion coming off him. Overwhelming love. Relief. Like he knew me. Like he’d been searching for me.

My voice caught—just a beat off. 

Mark shot me a look.

I forced myself back into harmony, hoping no one noticed.

Minutes later, the man disappeared into the crowd, but the weight of his emotions lingered, rattling through me long after the music stopped. 

 

 

Assignment III - opening scene 

 

CHAPTER ONE

After the first few days, there was talk. A hum buzzed over the town, wrought with gossip and early-summer humidity. By Friday, though, the murmurs grew into outright anxiety, red and blue lights illuminating the clapboard of the Anderson-Vieira house like an ominous disco ball. Kids were forced to spend the weekend locked in their rooms, hearing the door click shut at seven-thirty. Eyes shifted at the country club, powder blue button-downs standing at the buffet like a police line-up. Everyone wondered where she was, speculating she had become a groupie of an indie rock band I had never heard of or left to party in Los Angeles with older men and models. Someone in the cafeteria even suggested she fled White Oaks with a boyfriend and joined the circus. But deep down, what all the girls truly wanted to know was which one of our all-American marble-teethed boys did we have to fear. And if anyone had asked me, I would have said all of them. 

But this story starts well before Frankie’s face stared back from the front page of the newspaper. Before they drained the pond behind school and lawyers started to bill everyone by the hour. And before I was the only one to know the real real truth. Back when we were caught in the perpetual purgatory between endings and the rest of our lives. When Frankie was still just a girl and I an open wound. But I thought this story needed context, so just know that memory lives in the body, never the mind, and drawing out what happened from the curve of my jaw tends to leave out the important parts. 

“Come on,” nimble bones around wrist. She yanked me forward with surprising strength. The path was laden with a dense quiet, the sun beating down on our cotton backs. Her voice quickened with lopsided desperation. My bag weighed cumbersomely on my shoulder, shoes and exposed skin layered in gravel dust. But I did not speak. It was never a good idea to comment upon Frankie’s feelings. The path’s mouth spit us out at the edge of the field. Angular bodies gathered in a circle, slipping into shoulder pads and helmets. Glances out the edges of eyes followed our girlish figures. Frankie slipped through a gap between two boys, darting toward a thick-limbed man at the circle's center. I would soon learn him to be Coach Price, the senior history teacher. He was in the middle of lecturing on sportsmanship expectations. 

“Excuse me, Coach,” she bounced on the balls of her feet. 

“Frankie,” I uttered softly in a futile attempt to halt her interruption. 

All eyes settled annoyedly on us, boys with varsity muscle and itching to show them off. They scratched at us with their gazes. I hovered behind the boys behind Frankie, hoping to loiter there and shrink in size. Coach Price huffed down at her. 

“I’m Frankie,” she continued, “And that’s Madison. We signed up to be the team managers.” 

Boys tapped feet. Eyes rolled. Sometimes, I thought her confidence made her ignorant. 

“I’ll be with you girls in a minute,” he gestured with a stiff hand to all of the idle boys. Children playing pretend soldiers, ready to be given orders. When his instructions ceased with a sharp clap, all of the newly minted comrades dispersed about the field, clutching at their sticks. 

A duffle bag thudded on the astroturf behind me. Trey bent down over it. 

“Luffkin,” Coach Price bellowed.

“Sorry, Coach. Mr. Pillari—” He spoke in a voice of subordination I had not heard before.

“Just hurry up and get out there.” 

When Coach strutted down the field, Trey looked up at me as he pawed through his bag. “What are you doing here?” 

“Managing,” I looked over at Frankie, who was engrossed in the athletic fanfare she didn’t understand. 

“Lucky me, I get to see you every day after school,” he grinned underneath his waffled helmet mask as he ran onto the field. Another wide-eyed member of the platoon. 

Frankie gave me a sly, approving smirk.

We stood with crossed arms, weight on our left hips, watching the players in wait for our own instructions. Did that make us, then, also a kind of soldier? Eventually, Coach Price split from the field’s action and made his way toward us. 

“Frankie, was it?” 

She straightened with a profuse nod of the head. Thick hair swooshed over her back. 

“You’re Christian’s sister?” His countenance flickered with the usual confusion people tried to conceal, as if they simply couldn’t understand why she was so tan. “Great kid. I kept hoping he would try out for my football team.” Frankie’s smile stuck artificially to her face, resigned to the familiar praise of her step-brother. “And you are?”

“Madison.”

“Alright, girls, what I’m going to need from you is to write up the rosters and note all the goals and assists of each player during practices and games. Uniforms and medic bags. Sound good? Don’t worry about the equipment and the water coolers. The boys get those. They’re heavy.” 

Frankie metamorphosed into a sun ray, beaming. As he ambled away, I leaned in with a whisper, “What’s an assist?”

Her shoulders rose and fell into a shrug. “This is going to be so fun,” she professed, eyeing the players. “Is it just me, or did Trey get hotter?” 

When my mother arrived to pick me up, we were already trudging to the parking lot. My legs prickled with flecks of astroturf and stomach grumbled. Our wrists caught the eager sunlight, glittering in the way that made us feel like we belonged. We were enveloped into the folds of tradition, there with our Cartier love bracelets, the ones we got for our sixteenth birthdays. A strip of gold around bone was a badge of honor. All we had to do then was burn our hair into a bendless shape and buy the kind of bras with lace they all said the boys liked. After that, we would be just the same as the older girls. I hoped that our badges of platinum and diamond and gold could be stitched to the chest cavity. So that they would become part of us. That then we were safe on the sandal-trodden path. But all we did was look the part. My insides had coagulated at an off-temperature, and soon, unbeknownst to me, Frankie’s would become different too. 

I slid into the familiar whipped cream seats of my mother’s Lexus. 

“Hey, Mrs. Delmar,” with a jump, Frankie hurled her head through the open window, torso stretching over my legs. 

The metals stopped shimmering, and then we were just who we were.  

“Frankie! How was the first day of practice?”

“Good. I don’t really get what the big deal is about throwing a ball into a net with a stick, but the guys look good doing it.” 

“That’s what matters, right? I think you’ll get yourselves three boyfriends each by the end of the season.” 

“That's the real goal,” Frankie dipped her chin with an affected whisper and raise of the brow. 

“Three? Okay, mother.”

“It wouldn’t be the end of the world, Madison, to have a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, Madie,” Frankie nodded conspiratorily, “listen to your mother.” She shuffled out of the window and ambled lackadaisically to the sidewalk, waiting for one of her own, kin or hired, to collect her. 

Part III Assignment: The first chapter introduces the antagonist, Bill.

 

"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves" - Confucius

 

BILL

Bill’s loving mother is talking in his head again, hurting his feelings.

You fat little girl.

Bill winces.

Mother always wanted a girl.

He shifts his box of glazed donuts from his right hand to his left and reaches into his pocket for the keys to the van. He crosses the parking lot. The California sun catches the dents and scratches of the van’s white paint—battle scars from his mother’s reckless years behind the wheel. The rusted sliding door hangs crooked on its rails, and the Jesus Loves You bumper sticker she stuck on the front bumper is peeling at the corners. He hates her van. He’s not stupid. He’s not fat. He’s not a stalker. Not really. He knows what it looks like, though. White and windowless, the van is a stereotypical stalker-mobile. The kind that makes mothers hang onto their children’s hands tighter when they pass by.

He had no choice. It was the only car the leaders had ever made available to Mother and him.

His mother’s voice sounds inside his head again.

You fat little girl.

He opens the driver’s side door and hurls the donuts inside. The box bounces off the opposite door, pops open, and its sweet, fatty contents spill onto the floor.

The bench seat wheezes when he sits down.

Bill puts his head against the steering wheel and prays for silence.

His prayer goes unanswered with the buzzing of his phone.

Leon’s name flashes on the screen.

Bill swipes up on his phone to reject the call, glances at the clock, and then back at the screen. His maps app says he’s twenty minutes from the target’s home. After he gets there, he’ll need maybe another hour or two before the women head out for their bachelorette party.

The first donut he pulls off the floor while driving to Clinton Street has dirt embedded so deep that it won’t come off. He’d grab another one, but the others rolled out of reach. He can’t waste any time because Leon will kill him if the women leave before he gets there.

He shoves the dirty donut into his mouth. The grit crunches and grates against his molars as he chews.

You’ll eat anything, won’t you? You fat little girl.

He glances at the donuts piled up on the floor, out of reach, just on the other side of his hatchet. Screw it. He needs another one. He needs all of them. He abandons the steering wheel and doubles over his belly to reach them. The van careens to the left, making his donut grab more difficult, but he scoops up the rest anyway and regains control just in time to avoid plunging off the road.

He shoves one of the dirty donuts into his mouth. Then another. And, another. He doesn’t stop until every last morsel is gone.

Clinton Street runs through the pathetic city of Centerville like any other suburban street in northern California. Ranch-style homes from the 1970s sit on quarter-acre lots with faded paint and patchy front lawns desperate for water. A few houses sport cracked solar panels, drooping basketball hoops, and children’s bikes. Other houses have overgrown gardens and peeling trim. The homes of older fools. It’s nothing like the trailers in Bill’s neighborhood. Everyone there must care about their community and show it by maintaining their home. He thought it would be nicer here, especially since the houses are real, but these people don’t seem to care about each other. Of course, he’s had this thought everywhere he’s been. There is no love in suburbia.

Home is where love lives, and he wants to go home.

Clinton Street ends in a cul-de-sac where a community mailbox cluster stands, its metal dulled by sun exposure. Bill pulls up next to the mailbox and eyes the blue house across the way.

“You have arrived,” his maps app says in its soft, feminine voice.

There’s the silver Lexus, parked right in front of the house.

Now, if he only knew exactly who—

His phone buzzes.

“Hey, Leon,” Bill says, coating his voice with enthusiasm.

“Tell me you have your eyes on her.”

“Well, I’m right across—”

The house’s front door has popped open and four women are now strutting down the sidewalk. Tight leather miniskirts and black leggings. Silver necklaces, earrings, bracelets, and hair done up in ways Bill has only ever seen in magazines.

They pile into the Lexus.

“Following them now.” Bill’s throat is dry. The donut dirt didn’t help. “Can you describe her again? Which one is she?”

“Christ, Bill. We’ve been over this.”

“Sorry.” He coughs a little. Clears his throat.

“You’re unbelievable.” Leon’s exasperation cuts like a jagged piece of glass. “She’s brunette, late twenties, about five-seven. She wears a silver charm bracelet on her left wrist. Don’t you remember her?”

“No.”

“Do you see her?”

“They’re all inside the SUV now.”

Leon makes a strangled huffing sound.

Bill waits for the Lexus to go about a block away, then begins to follow. The chug and rattle of Mother’s van grates on his nerves. He scans for donuts on the floor. He shouldn’t, but he wants another one.

“Don’t screw this up,” Leon says. “We’ve come so far. We’re almost there.”

“I want to go home.”

“Oh, I know. You miss your mommy, don’t you?”

“Go to hell.”

The Lexus makes a sharp turn and pulls into a gas station.

“That struck a nerve.” The pleasure in Leon’s voice burns Bill, but he can sometimes ignore these jabs. Do you see her now?”

Bill drives past the first entrance and pulls into the next one. He parks and gazes at the Lexus. He’s not stupid. He knows what this must look like—him sitting in his white stalker van, watching fancy women pump gas. Two brunettes and two blondes. Both brunettes sport silver bracelets. Which one is Susan?

A magnificent car wash lies beyond the Lexus—the Super Shine Car Wash. High cinder block walls form a tunnel over what he imagines to be an array of sophisticated cleaning machinery, ready to wipe away the sins of yesterday and make his mother’s voice vanish. Better still, this car wash has a garage door that can be pulled over the entrance. It’s a good distance from the store and even farther from the pumps, backed by a thick wall of pine trees on the other side, separating the lot from the nearest road. Without a doubt, Bill could walk in and out of this place without anyone noticing. He makes a mental note of the power line entering on the left side of the building.

“Bill?” Leon shouts from inside the phone. “Are you there?”

This car wash seems larger than the last one. It’s grand.

“Bill?”

“Hold on. We’re at a gas station. They’re almost done getting gas.”

Bill prays.

He prays for the women to enter the car wash.

It looks like his prayer will be answered this time. They’re headed for the car wash entrance.

“I’ve got to go, Leon.”

“Wait. What? Now? Out in the open?”

“Don’t worry. No one will see.” Bill’s voice drops an octave. “They’re going into the car wash.”

“No!” Leon shouts. “Not in a car wash. Not again!”

Bill’s heart rate spikes. He hangs up the phone and pulls the van around to the other side of the car wash, careful to position it between the trees and the car wash exit, out of view of the store.

He exits the van, hatchet in hand, and turns a full circle to make sure no one sees him.

He glides up to the car wash exit, dancing lightly on his feet as if he isn’t over three hundred pounds. As if he’s not about to do Leon’s bidding for the last time but rather, his own bidding.

This has to be the last time.

He can’t take being away from Mother any longer. Like all the other cities he’s been to, Centerville sucks.

He’s got to get back home and be with Mother in person.

He’s got to get back home because—if he doesn’t—he’s certain he will lose his mind.

**Pre-Assignment III: 1st chapter (first 3 pages) **

As I reach for the snooze button on my alarm clock, I am all too aware of time passing. Just a few hours earlier, the night sky had been illuminated with the dancing multi-colour glows of exploding fireworks. The usual silence of midnight had been disrupted by voices around the world singing Auld Lang Syne, and people gathered to embrace their loved ones and strangers alike. The beginning of a new year is often promised to bring something bigger and better than the years that have come before, but in stark contradiction to this global tradition, I find myself with very little to celebrate.  

Walking out of the hospital last night, I knew that the moment I had been dreading and praying for was nearing. Physically and mentally exhausted, I decided I would go home and try to get some sleep. Yet, no matter how hard I tried and how much I wanted it, I just couldn’t. Tossing and turning the entire night, the constant chatter circulating in my mind kept me wide awake. It is impossible to shake the disturbing visual of the contortion that has mercilessly taken over Dad’s face and body. His face is motionless, unable to blink, unable to move. I can no longer tell if he is awake or asleep. His eyes are transfixed into a final stare, and his body, bent and stiff, has morphed into a most unnatural fetal-like position. The man I know lying in this hospital bed is no longer recognizable. And yet, despite the obvious, I sometimes need to remind myself that the man lying in front of me is indeed my dear father. Regardless of the months and months of work and study I have done to prepare myself for this moment, I find myself utterly and entirely unprepared for what is happening in real time. 

The clock shows that it is 7:15 am exactly, and I am suddenly startled by the buzzing of my silenced phone. The room is dark, and through the blinds, I can see the beautiful pinkness of the morning sky begin to emerge. Rolling myself over multiple pillows to reach for the phone on my bedside table, I immediately feel an overwhelming sense of resistance. Intuitively, I know that it's Mom calling. She’s probably been wanting to call me for hours, but hasn’t in hopes that I somehow managed to put aside my distress long enough to get some sleep. As I raise the phone to my ear, I can hear her breathe. I can tell she’s been crying for a while and that she, too, is exhausted. She hasn't left Dad’s side for the past three days. With a shaky voice and the sounds of her flowing tears echoing through the phone, I hear, “Sarah, it will happen today. It’s time to come back”. 

I throw off the covers and force myself upright, my body heavy with exhaustion and dread. Dressing quickly, I fumble with the buttons on my sweater, my fingers clumsy, my mind numb.

The drive to the hospital is a blur, the world outside the window moving too fast and too slow all at once.

As I enter the typically loud and chaotic hospital wing in which my father has spent the last eight months of his life, it is eerily silent and calm. There has only been one other day that I can remember when I have heard such silence before, and that was the day when the man across the hall passed away. I question if I am in the midst of an angelic intervention. I feel a divine calmness, and I wonder if there are angels here, surrounding us to help facilitate the passing energy of my father from this life into the next. I try to take solace in knowing that maybe, just maybe, all of our loved ones who have already crossed over throughout the years are close by, waiting to take Dad home to be with them once again. 

As I walk quietly past the nurses' station, the nurses on duty empathetically smile in the mutual acknowledgement that I am here for the final time. Approaching the closed, pea-green-coloured door to his room, I dread what I know is waiting for me on the other side. Slowly pushing it open, I see Mom quietly sitting across from the bed, looking lovingly at Dad. In her hand, she holds a hot cup of tea. We lock eyes and share a thousand unspoken words, united in sadness. Mom gets up to greet me with a hug as she tries to hold herself together. There is nothing I can say or do to console her. I turn my head to look at Dad in his bed, and it is evident that he remains precisely as he was when I left the night before. I begin to lower myself beside him and reach out to caress his clenched fist, unable to loosen his fingers so that I can hold his hand one final time. As my fingers gently sweep over his knuckles, I cannot help but wonder if he knows we are here. Even though his eyes are fixated and he can no longer speak, I wonder if he is able to see us and hear us. When I gently touch his hand, I wonder if he can feel that I am beside him.  I am mindful not to rub his hand too roughly as his frail and sensitive skin will most likely be irritated with too much friction. His feet are cold to the touch now and slowly beginning to lose their fleshy-pink colour, gradually turning into a pale shade of blue. I know we are only a few hours away from the moment when Dad will be taking his last breath. 

It has been eight months since Dad was first admitted into the hospital, even though it feels like eight years at times. For sure, there have been way more bad days than good ones since Dad got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease six years ago. But even so, I’d give just about anything to pause the ticking clock and have one more day with him. Someone asked me recently why I torture myself by going to visit him every day when he doesn’t even know who I am anymore. I suppose it’s hard for people who haven’t gone through this journey to understand. Perhaps I do it in the hope of a very rare moment when he’ll remember that I’m his daughter. In the past four years, only two such moments have occurred. Yet, every day, I stop by to visit him and hope for a third. This disease is ruthless to those who suffer from it. Selfishly, I'm of the opinion that it’s worse for those of us caring for them. After all, Dad, for a long time now, is entirely unaware of his decline. Mom and I, on the other hand, have had to endure daily inflictions of grief and immeasurable frustrations. Often, we sacrifice our own lives to provide him with his basic necessities and struggle daily to keep him safe. And, even though these struggles for all of us are coming to an end today, I have very little confidence that the emotional load I currently carry is going to get any lighter.

What would you keep if you had to fit all your belongings into one bag? What would you need to survive? What possessions were worth the aching arms and shoulders? These were the questions I faced as men moved furniture out of my Dublin home. The end of the century merely a carriage ride away, the path would surely be long and treacherous on the dark side of the mountain. After losing my husband and son to smallpox and no way to support myself, my small but mighty empire had fallen. Homeless and insolvent, I packed my best riding coat with gold-tinted aquamarine silk, fit for a queen. Custom-tailored, exquisite, and opulent, it had been gifted to me by the wealthy family of a former pupil. 

I placed small family portraits into my travel case. Looking at the faces of my son and husband, my chest ached at the thought of all the lost potential. The loss of days and seasons, the little things that would no longer be shared. It felt like a thousand cuts on my heart that would never heal. Before I left, I tucked a pistol in the side pocket of my coat and slipped a small knife under my boot cover. I truly hoped with all my heart that Ireland was not a wild country full of bandits and thieves. However, I had to be prepared to defend myself. Kill or be killed, I pleaded to God and all the saints. But did it matter if I was already dead?  

In haste, I left behind my home and my grief, like a bloody stillbirth pushed from my body with unstoppable force and violence. Surely a part of myself would be left in the wreckage like soggy, misshapen entrails. I was unsure what I had lost of myself and perhaps it would always remain a mystery. But I did know that from this day forth, I would walk the earth with broken guts, hopelessly spilling them out to anyone who cared to listen.  

Before I walked down the staircase to the foyer, I surrendered to the mirror and took stock. Although its faded green tint was kind to my 36 years on this earth, my eyes were bloodshot and weary from crying all night. Yet, they were still bright blue, a constant that held me together like the North Star. Black wild curls were barely contained with a chipped barrette and my flushed cheeks were a striking contrast to my pale, fresh snow complexion. Perhaps it was a result of my constant undulation between rage and despair. I looked at the wreckage of my home - the vases, the furniture, the paintings - and realized I did not desire any of it. They could take all of my things. They could burn my home to the ground and dance around the fire, Viking heathens in fancy riding coats, but they could wear down my soul.
 

Oh, but the piano! I played one last song - Bach, Air in G, the second movement. So much pain I had poured into those keys and parting with a grand friend was such sweet sorrow. It was strange how we had come together at this moment. The wood of the piano, once a wee seedling under a tree among thousands of other seedlings. And against all odds, perhaps from the delusion that it was strong enough to survive in a hostile world, beating out all the others. Just because the warmth of the sun felt so wonderful, for the promise of being alive and standing tall as the king of the forest, for a thousand years. And now here we were, sharing our pain and anguish. As much as we loved the world and the pain that came with it, nothing would last forever. Eventually, we would all turn into kindling. 

Opening scene - introduces protagonist - establishes primary conflict - hints at secondary conflict - reveals major settings - leads with action and suspense

I Might Be An Idiot: Based On True Events

Chapter 1: Full Circle

 

I line the tip of my index finger up where orange meets pale blue and spin. I have to squint when the wind kicks up the dust but, yeah, in the middle of freaking Utah, I can see the horizon the entire way around. I thought my future was over when I got suspended from college but I’ve never seen so much of the world at one time.  

 

Planes. I guess I’ve seen further on planes but I’ve never seen this far around. There’s always something that blocks part of the view. Except, maybe, on my dad’s boat. Okay, I guess I’ve seen this much of the ocean but never this much land. 

 

I’m from the East Coast. I’ve never been this far west before. When I think of the horizon, I think of staring at the navy blue line off the coast of Massachusetts, where I’m used to going with my family, looking for waves to boogie board or body surf. There, when you turn around, the seawall and cottages gobble up the line. And that’s how the horizon usually is, obscured in some way. I had been so afraid of coming out here. I never liked plans but I used to have one, nonetheless. The plan that got me into my top choice college and graduated in the top 10% of my high school and it just seemed like well the plan held a certain degree of success. I was afraid being out here would push me into total obscurity but I’ve never seen more of the Earth. 

 

I glance back at the giant orange horseshoe-like arch out to the horizon and my mind snaps back to focus. Wait, is everyone still here? 

 

I’m relieved to find Caitlin is still sitting on the only bench, staring out at the Delicate Arch. 

 

I bob beside her, “Caitlin, did you know that people stare at the horizon because it makes their eyes feel like they're stretching?”

 

Caitlin side-eyes me, squints, “Really?”

 

Now I’m scared that she’s mad at me, “Or that’s what it feels like.” Thinking it might help, I admit, “But I am really freakin’ high right now.”

 

“Oh my god, Rachel.” She snaps forward to walk back to the parking lot. 

 

She smokes all the time. Now I’m confused. Anxious to shake off the thought that she just doesn’t like me, I look around for someone new to talk to. Diego. Oooh where is Diego? I spy him walking next to Charles, I’m a little disappointed I can’t talk to him alone. 

 

Diego has a girlfriend back home. I hate people who think it’s okay to cheat as long as they’re not the one in a relationship. I don’t even flirt with people in relationships. Diego makes me nervous that I’m not actually morally superior. I’ve only never hooked up with someone in a relationship because I haven’t been cool enough to have the opportunity. 

Diego’s never made a move on me. I know from constantly looking for signs. His girlfriend, Sophia, is very pretty. High chance he isn’t even interested. We’re safe. I would never initiate.

 

He is eighteen, anyway. My friends would make fun of me if they found out I was crushing on someone who wasn’t even a freshman.

 

Regardless, Charles sees me first. Charles is tall with curly black hair that’s grown out past the tops of his ears. His clothes are loose-fitting, kinda hippy-looking. By way of greeting, he makes a show of kicking his feet and sliding his pink glasses down on his nose, “Get it? I got rose-colored vision, Hannon.”

 

It’s Charles, so I saw the joke coming from a mile away, but it’s Charles, so I laugh anyway, “Yeah, Charles, I get it.” 

 

We’ve all been volunteering together for about 2 months at this point. We’re in a program called the American Conservation Experience (ACE), where, through AmeriCorps, 18-25 year olds are eligible to do trail work in exchange for a government grant that could be applied against Educational Expenses. 

 

I was in a good spot. I planned for this. I worked all summer and I saved. I also had student loans to pay with the grant money. This wasn’t the case for most of the people I worked with. A lot of them didn’t go to college and hadn’t saved enough but it is hard to save enough to live for three months with only the promise of a grant as income. A lot of these guys were coming from nothing. I have never felt so close to homelessness as I had been out here. Some of the people I lived with slept in their car when they weren’t provided ACE Housing. Outside of the dorm room my parents paid for, what did I really have? If they cut ties, all I had was $3000, a raggedy Honda Accord Coupe, and a high school diploma.

 

At night I’d swipe through happy, smiling photos of my college friends back in Pennsylvania until my phone battery died. This month, I would’ve started my Junior year at Bucknell University. This would’ve been the semester I studied abroad in Copenhagen. Everything was a culture shock to me.

Chapter One: Introduces one of two protagonists; sets timeline for this protagonist’s thread. Foreshadows the magical, mysterious, powerful, though tragic future ahead.

“You’re going to hell and pulling me with you,” the newly apprenticed helper whispered into the ear of the midwife. “Birgitta’s dying, and you’re lying to her. Pope Sixtus would damn you.”

“Shut up and remember your place.” The seasoned jordemor jerked around and grabbed the inexperienced assistant by her straight blonde hair and pulled her away from the bed—out of earshot of the laboring woman, who probably couldn’t hear anyway. With a frightening countenance made eerie by the flickering flame of the well-stocked fireplace, and a clipped voice, she laid out what would be. “Are you God? Do you know the future? Birgitta may die before this ordeal is over, but we need her to help us save the baby—her baby. She must have hope so she doesn’t give up too soon. We will give her hope.”

“There’s so much blood. Lying to a dying woman is a sin. She should know she’s about to meet God.”

“Her soul knows her fate, and the end will come no matter. And by God, there is no sin in helping the dying leave this world in peace.”

The midwife returned to the bedside of the writhing mother—who never would be—and stroked her hand gently as she spoke soothing words. This labor was the most excruciating the old woman had ever witnessed—darkening her thoughts as the young woman’s body tensed and twisted frantically, nearly ripping muscle from bone.

“It will soon be over, Birgitta, and the pain will stop. Everything will be … as it should.”

Her words trailed off as the room darkened. The noonday light filtering through the oiled cloth covering the window dwindled, diverting both women from their chore. The assistant ran to the window and pulled open the cloth shutter, letting in the cold northern air. With more presence of mind, the midwife turned back to her job. “Seal that window and come back here.”

“Everyone is looking up at the sky. Something is happening to the sun. This is because you lied to our friend.” Tears of fear ran down the assistant’s cheeks. “Satan is coming for us!”

“Hush and get over here,” the midwife ordered without turning away from the straining mother. “Another push, Birgitta. You can do it.” The fae want this, she thought.

Dying daylight and hideous screams made her job more difficult, though the agony of the young woman trying to become a mother distracted from the commotion building outside the bedroom window. A crowd had gathered in the square of the Finnish settlement within the Kalmar Union. Agitated villagers shifted their attention between the screams coming from the living quarters above the mercantile shop and the blackening sky. Their murmurs grew louder as the noon sunlight dimmed to nothing. If they had understood the physics of relativity—knowledge still hundreds of years in the future—they would have noticed a star in the constellation Libra, appearing as a thin ring around the disappearing sun.

The startled midwife glanced toward the window, where the world had gone dark. “What’s happening out there? I need light!” she shouted to her assistant, who continued to stare awestruck out the window.

“The sun is dying,” the girl screamed. “I told you something was wrong. You are an evil woman.” The tears increased.

Before she could process the ending of the world or the insolence of her young assistant, Birgitta’s screams brought the midwife’s attention back to her duties. She yelled to the girl, “Get me more candles!” then turned to the crowning head of the baby fighting to be born. “The world’s ending,” she whispered. “What a time to be born.” I hope the fae know what they are doing. My dream wasn’t like this. The world didn’t end and Syncothia said … her thoughts drifted away.

The assistant opened the door where the father-to-be waited fretfully at the top of the stairs. The weathered man, with several days’ growth of youthful beard not hiding his appearing closer to thirty than he should, had already gathered two more hand-dipped candles of the finest bees’ wax and was fumbling to light them with a pilke from his shop’s fireplace. When the first one caught, he used it to light the second and handed them both to the trembling assistant.

“How’s it going?” he asked in a cracking voice.

The assistant quickly lowered her gaze and backed away without answering. Kicking the door shut with her foot, she hurried to place one candle on a table near the door and held the other high as she knelt to help.

Several tense moments passed as the darkness continued. The midwife used what little light she had and her experienced touch to guide the baby as best she could.

“The head is out,” called the midwife, as her expression changed and a relieved look grew on her face, in contrast to the dreadful scene. “Face up.”

“Isn’t that unusual?” asked the assistant, her shadowed face shrouded in fear.

“Everything about this birth is unusual.”

The midwife grabbed the candle and held it over the partially born baby.

“I think this one will be fine. The soul has already entered the body.”

“Isn’t there always a soul?”

The older woman handed the candle back. “No, God doesn’t place a soul in the unborn. And even then, it takes time. Sometimes minutes or hours. I’ve seen it take days.”

“How can you tell?” The assistant had a look of disbelief—it didn’t match with what her Sabbath-day instructions told. Birth was birth. Soul was soul. One went with the other.

With another agonizing push from the mother, the left shoulder emerged—and stopped. Without taking her attention away from the baby, the midwife answered her assistant.

“Look at the eyes. When you see the eyes looking back into yours, that is the signal that God has accepted one for mortality. When the eyes open and look around, that’s the soul getting its bearings after coming down from heaven. This one is not fully born and already has a soul. That’s special. Someone is in a hurry to start life.”

As she uttered the word life, the mother’s screams stopped, her damp body went limp. The assistant rushed to place an ear against her chest, as the midwife had taught—careful not to drip candle wax on Birgitta.

“She’s dead,” the assistant whispered as she turned a questioning eye to the midwife. “You should have told her. Now, Satan is waiting for you … for us.” Tears dripped freely from her eyes.

“Hush, child, we still have a baby to save. One death, not two today. Push down on her belly. You must push the baby out.”

The assistant timidly set the candle down and obeyed—gently pressing on the abdomen of the cooling mother.

“Harder. You can’t hurt Birgitta. Push hard.”

As the assistant pushed and the midwife pulled, the right shoulder presented itself. With more forceful pushes by the assistant, the baby—a girl—wriggled out. The baby cried, and the mother didn’t respond. Then, as quickly as it had left, the sun’s light returned, making the room as bright as it had been before. The midwife examined the newborn girl, being deliberately slow, for she knew the heartbreak her following task would confirm. With tears in her own eyes, she handed the crying baby to the assistant to clean up.

With halting movements and a tearful expression, she turned to the mother, whom she knew well. I remember birthing you, my sweet Birgitta—not but twenty-two years ago, she thought as she checked for all the things she knew to look for. Sorrowfully, she covered the woman from head to toe and blew out the candles before turning to the window. “What kind of dreadful omen is this?”

She gave herself the indulgence of crying for a moment, along with the newborn, before taking the tightly wrapped baby in her arms and steeling herself for the next task in her usually cheerful job. “You’re not a magical, my little dear … or can I just not see it?” she whispered to the newborn, then motioned for her assistant to open the door.

The assistant, still shaking from the ordeal and showing anger at her mentor, opened the bedroom door, allowing the midwife to exit. The midwife took slow steps toward the bedroom door. I hope the fae are in control. She carried the infant through the doorway with that hope … and fear.

 

Surprise

        Reuniting was painfully infrequent and then only when dreams allowed.

        Andy’s gloved hand and outstretched arm stabbed at the ball which was carefully lobbed to him by his father. Missing it time and time again he gleefully chased after it as if it was part of the game. Retrieving the ball, he cranked his arm back and galloped towards his dad closer, and closer threatening throwing it at each interval until catapulting it, as only a four-year-old could, at an uncomfortably close distance. Andy laughed uncontrollably at his dad who recoiled awkwardly, half protecting himself and half attempting to catch the ball, unsure of when it would be released or which direction it would take. Once the ball was caught or recovered, Ward would then encourage Andy to back up a few feet so he could toss the plastic wiffle ball again, aiming for the glove in hopes of landing it and crediting Andy with the catch. As the ball appeared to finally rest in Andy’s glove, “WARD. WARD. WARD…” Irene summoned him from his slumber, “Come help hang the tire swing for the kids.” 

        Disappointed that his time with Andy was cut short, Ward sighed and reached over the side of the hammock for the beer he conveniently left within reach. He quickly recoiled when instead of the plastic cup, his hand found the furry back of Lauryn’s dog, Kitten, who was helping herself to the unattended beverage. “Get out of here, dog!” He scolded Kitten. It was no secret, and Ward made no apologies for his stance that he had no use for animals as pets. He considered them a nuisance and expense. He tolerated Kitten – but not by much.

        As Ward sat up, he noticed the large empty hammock box and unopened assembly instructions resting nearby. Lauryn had purchased the hammock for him for his surprise birthday party. He didn’t want the party nor the hammock. He processed the idea of keeping the box and returning the hammock, but only briefly. Lauryn was enthusiastic about giving it to him and encouraged him to put it together and test it out. Out of politeness to his daughter, he thanked her and told her he looked forward to resting on it. Ward cussed under his breath as he jabbed the black metal tubes together which had heated to blistering temperatures in the mid-day sun. He continued to grumble once the frame was erected certain the mesh body was too short to span the distance between the connecting rings. When he was finally able to link the swing spring, he lay on the hammock, keeping one foot on the ground, suspicious it would spin 180 degrees and dump him onto the lawn. He hadn’t intended to fall asleep.

        “Ward, are you coming?” Irene continued to plead with him. Ward glanced at the frothy whiskers of Kitten and his spilled cup of beer before assuring her, “Yes. I’m coming.” He heard the children’s shrieks of excitement as they anticipated riding the swing. “You guys stand back now,” Ricky cautioned the kids as he made yet another ill attempt at tossing the heavy rope over the thick branch some twenty feet in the air. With each missed toss, the downward rope attacked like a menacing serpent chasing the children out of its reach, the sound of its cascade resembling the riffled shuffle of a deck of cards. Ricky saw Ward approaching and made a desperate final attempt to clear the branch - with similar failed results. “You think you can toss that rope over that branch old man, then go for it,” he challenged Ward. Refusing to dignify the remark or get into a verbal tether, Ward ignored Ricky - as usual.

        Ward reached up and scratched his head behind his ear as was his peculiar habit of buying some time when thinking through a problem. He noticed the ball of string on the ground sitting next to kite. He grabbed the sting, let out twenty or so feet, and as if tossing a grenade, lobbed the spool up and over the branch. He tied the end of the heavy rope to the string and carefully fed it up with one hand, while pulling the string with the other. “I’m gonna get another beer,” Ricky announced as he departed, refusing to acknowledge Ward’s obvious success. Once the large rope was up and over the branch, Ward secured the tire to it, then hoisted it up a couple feet off the ground with the opposite end of the rope, which he then tied to the base of the tree. As the children raced to the swing and proclaimed their turn, Irene smiled at Ward and mouthed, “Thank you.”

Salad Days, A Women's Fiction

 

OPENING SCENE: Introduces protagonist and inciting incident. Establishes the primary and secondary conflict.

 

Chapter 1

 

Rosie

 

The last time an email came from my alma mater, it shattered me. It was an obituary for Bailey. Even though at the time, I had been aware of her sudden passing, the obituary sent by my school to every student from the class of 2006 reeled me back into a reality I tried hard to avoid—a world where Bailey didn’t exist.

And now, seven years later, as I sat on the floor of my living room with my legs crossed and my computer on my lap, I was looking at another email from St. Vincent. My fingers hesitated before I finally opened it. I blinked. It said that my beloved school would be closing forever. 

If you asked anyone in my year, they’d tell you that we had the best high school years. It sounds ridiculous, right—who had a great time in high school? We did. It’s like we won the lottery. In my thirties now, I’d appreciate winning an actual money lottery, but when we were sixteen, the friendships I formed at St. Vincent felt like hitting the jackpot.

Though we hadn't spoken in what felt like years, with the news of St. Vincent’s closure, I knew my friends would soon start ringing. 

First came Wendy.

“Hey,” I answered the call, quickly stealing a glance at the clock. Half past eleven at night here in London, must be mid-morning Wendy’s time.

“I can’t believe it.” She said, forgoing hello. “This can’t be real.”

“I know. I wonder what happened,” I said.

The email from St. Vincent didn’t give much explanation, but it was safe to speculate that it was probably a lack of funding. 

“How does a school run out of funding? They have paying students!” Wendy cried out. 

“Maybe it isn’t profitable anymore.”

“They’re a catholic school! They have support from the archdiocese or something like that. . . don’t they?”

“Who knows how they work. But this is really sad.” I felt my phone buzz and checked the screen to see that Inez was now calling me. As soon as I merged the calls, Inez practically yelled for all London to hear. 

“ROSIE! DID YOU SEE THE EMAIL FROM ST. VINCENT?!” 

“Geez, Nez. You’ll wake up my entire household.” I said, chuckling.

“Oh, sorry—I forgot it’s close to midnight there. Am I on speaker?”

“Yeah. Wendy’s on the line too. I just merged our calls.”

“WENDY?”

Both Wendy and I shushed her. “You would think with age, those lungs would weaken a bit but you’re louder than you were in high school,” Wendy said.

Inez cackled. “You should hear my daughter. She puts me to shame. Wait, should we switch to video-call so we can see each other?” Wendy and I agreed. It’s been so long since our last video call together. I had a feeling Nat and Anna would be joining us pretty soon.

“So,” Inez said as I switched us to video. “I’m calling about the reunion.”

Ah, yes. The reunion. 

At the end of the email, it was revealed that a committee was formed to arrange the last—and biggest—reunion for the St. Vincent classes of 2005–2007. A combined reunion, what a feat. I wondered whose idea this could be.

“You’re coming, right?” Inez prodded.

It was set in July. So I had about five months. 

I considered the idea of going home to Jakarta. All the logistical things I would have to set up here in London just so that I could fly home for a few weeks began to weigh on me. 

London used to be my dream. I wanted to see how far I could go in life, chasing my career. Meeting Daniel and marrying him was a twist of fate I never expected. After Bailey’s death, London became my escape. The thought of home without Bailey was unbearable.

“You skipped the tenth-year reunion.” Inez reminded me, hope and worry visible on her face. “You must come to this one. It’s the last one. Ever. Don’t you want to see the rascals, Ricky and Remi? Ricky is a father now. A girl-dad, to be precise. I ran into him last year with his daughter. It was odd how mature he’d become—he was our class clown! And Edgar, your partner in crime?”

Before Inez went on to mention an entire yearbook of names, Wendy cut in. “Everyone will be there. Everyone,” she emphasized. From what I heard, aside from me, the tenth-year reunion was missing a few of our other friends. Edgar was abroad for his master’s degree and Remi didn’t show. This would really be the reunion. 

But I sensed that by “everyone” Wendy meant a particular person from the class of 2005, thinking his presence at the reunion would sway me. Never mind that we’d grown up and that it had been more than fifteen years since I last saw him, or that I now had a husband, a son, a job and a life here in London.

“If you don’t come to this one,” Inez said again as I remained quiet. “We’ll be reuniting in forty years when we start having funerals. No one can skip those,” she joked.

I knew she meant nothing by it, but I skipped Bailey’s funeral six years ago. 

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that, I didn’t mean it in any certain way.”

“No worries,” I waved my hand at the screen. “I know.”

I understood why Inez called me specifically about the reunion. Out of the five of us, I was the most elusive. She wanted to make sure I wouldn’t miss it.

Since Bailey’s death, my friendship with Inez, Wendy and the others remained strong. But it was never the same. I owed it to them to come home. Plus, I had been feeling untethered. Going home might help ground me. 

Finally, I said, “I’ll be home for the reunion.” 

Wendy and Inez cheered. Their excitement was contagious, and I began to feel ecstatic at the prospect of going home. It had been five years.

As much as I avoided home, I must admit that I missed the man-made lake near my parents’ house where I used to take walks. My mother’s cooking. The mall culture that was prominent in Jakarta’s social life. The way that if you walked for ten minutes on a random street, you’d be passing at least a dozen street-hawkers and people talking in different local dialects. 

I heard footsteps on the stairs and Daniel turned in from the hallway. I looked up at my husband with his bed head and one eye struggling to open. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did we wake you?” I winced, pointing the screen of my phone his way.

“What’s with all the screaming? Did the Spice Girls announce a reunion or something?” He joked and then waved his hand at Wendy and Inez on the screen. “Funny you should say that. It’s not the Spice Girls that’s reuniting. It’s us!” Wendy squealed. Daniel looked at me for an explanation.

“I’ll explain in the morning. Go back to bed, I know you’ve got an early start. We’ll try to keep it down.” I threw a fake annoyed look at Inez and Wendy. They grinned apologetically.

“All right, darling. No worries about the noise. I was just making sure it wasn’t anything serious. Night, ladies.” Daniel headed back toward the stairs. “Try to not stay up too late. I know how you get when you’re tired!”

My phone vibrated again and the screen showed Anna’s name. I merged her into our video call and saw that Anna wasn’t alone. She had Nat with her. 

“Oh, wow. All of us are here!” Anna remarked. The last time we scheduled a collective Facetime, Wendy was pulled into a meeting, I fell asleep, and Inez’s kids threw a tantrum. But look at us now—all five from different time zones on one call. My heart squeezed with nostalgia.

“Let me guess,” I cut in. “You’re calling about the reunion?”

“Yes! But I also have a confession,” Anna looked like she was about to burst at the seams.

“She’s the head of the reunion committee.” Nat pointed her thumb at Anna. “She didn’t even tell me.” It started to make sense why we were having a combined reunion. “And her main goal is to make sure the most elusive member of this gang will come.” 

“Well then, lucky for you, Wendy and I have just achieved that goal,” Inez said smugly. “Rosie already agreed to come.”

“Did you bribe her? Blackmail?”

“Just some old school guilt-tripping, babe. How am I to blackmail the wife of an attorney—no, what’s the word again, solicitor?”

I laughed. Indonesians were more familiar with American English and my friends were always thrown off by British terms. 

“Well done, Nez!” Anna squealed. “How about you, Wendy?”

“I’ll be there, come hell or high water.” Wendy lived in Melbourne. She and I were the only two members of this group who lived abroad. Inez, Anna, and Nat never wanted to leave Indonesia. Inez stayed in Jakarta and complained about the traffic and pollution. Anna and Nat ran a successful event and wedding planning agency in Bali. It was a joint business—Nat handled corporate events and Anna, the hopeless romantic one in our group, handled weddings, which were the most lucrative part of their business. With everyone scattered across islands and countries, arranging a rendezvous had never been easy. The best that we could hope for was some combination of three. The last time it was all five of us was for my wedding. They were my bridesmaids. Anna planned it all.

Nat and Anna were the exception—they were always together. They’d crossed the best-friend line straight into the sibling zone, arguing like sisters all the time.

“We’ll finally be properly reunited this time. It’s been so long,” Wendy pointed out. The call went quiet. I knew we had one person in mind. Bailey. It would always happen when we were together. When we told stories, when we laughed, when we reminisced, the loss of Bailey left a gap that couldn’t be filled. 

She was the reason I refused to attend the last reunion. I couldn’t do it—seeing everyone there without Bailey. There were six of us and I was closest to Bailey. I love the girls all the same, but Bailey understood me like no one else. To call her my best friend was an understatement. She was my soulmate.

I cleared my throat to get rid of the lump that I felt forming and changed the subject. “There’s one thing we need to do at the reunion.” Everyone tensed up. “We should dig up the time capsule we buried at the school.”

On the day of our graduation, we buried a time capsule under the old Banyan tree and promised that we would dig it up at our tenth-year reunion, but obviously since Bailey passed and I didn’t show up, it stayed buried.

Anna nodded her head. “It’s long overdue. We’ll do it. Bring your shovels, ladies.”

Opening scene: prologue and first four pages. Introduces protagonist and displays abilities, introduces antagonist and setting

Over twenty years ago, the New United States of America (NUSA) joined the third world war. The war was expected to be fought using drones and other unmanned machines, until countries began giving new definitions to bioweapons by creating superhuman soldiers. The NUSA created their soldiers with enhanced senses and superhuman abilities. They called these soldiers “Wyrden.”

Story 1: The Wyrden

The boy crouched and glanced around at the scene in front of him as he slowly opened the door to the wrecked apartment room. He hadn’t eaten anything in days, and his water supply was running thin. The floor of the apartment was littered with papers, boxes, random assortments of items, and plaster that had fallen off of the decrepit ceiling and walls with time.

Taking it all in, he continued to move silently into the apartment one step at a time, listening for signs of life in the building. Like most dwellings, the rest of the apartments in this building had been abandoned. Why would this one be any different?

Just as he was finishing his thought, he felt the presence of a person behind him. Instinctively, he jumped to the side with a speed unlike that of a regular human. As he spun around, he saw a man, much larger than him, holding a wooden baseball bat wrapped with barbed wire. The man moved to swing again. The boy periotted around him, narrowly avoiding a skull crushing blow. The man was strong—sweat hung from his heavy brow. Before he could strike again, the boy quickly extended his hand, and a purple aura flickered around it for the briefest moment. The man felt a strange force hit his body and, staggering backwards, he realized he had his back to a wall. The invisible blow hadn’t hit him any harder than a shove, but it had caught him off guard. The attacker was far enough now that he could get a good look at the boy.

He couldn’t be too far into his mid-twenties, though his face appeared more weathered than even that of an old soldier. He was skinny with an ugly nose, tangled dark hair that fell to his shoulders, and his eyes were—the man's heart skipped a beat. His irises were an unnaturally dark shade of silver, and they were large, with large pupils to match. The whites of his eyes could only be seen around the very edge, and only if one looked carefully. Recognition struck him as he realized that this was no regular boy. He was a Wyrden, a supersoldier and a myth created by the military at the beginning of the war. Only it wasn’t a myth.

“Monster,” the man said, his tone low and repulsive. He began to doubt his chances.

“Mhm.” The boy narrowed his eyes, growled in response and flashed him an unflattering smile. Not even his voice was human, but deep and distorted like some supernatural being spoke for him.

The Wyrden swiftly grabbed the knife he kept inside his boot. Sensing the man's intentions, he ducked beneath a blow as it was happening and used the opportunity to close the distance between the two, plunging the knife into the man's neck with a leaping strike.

The body fell to the ground as the life in his eyes left him. The bat dropped with a loud thud. Still crouched above the body where it had just fallen, the Wyrden let out a sigh and closed his eyes for just a moment.

 

He searched the apartment thoroughly, still caught off guard from his near death encounter, though it was far from his first—nor would it be his last. The man had been right about one thing: the boy was a mutant, denoted by his unnatural eyes and strange voice. He’d accepted this a long time ago, and it didn’t bother him. Wyrden, they’d been called. His birth name is something he didn’t remember, so he told people his name was Seth. It was an arbitrary name, one which he’d been assigned by friends as a youth, but it served him as good as any other.

Seth shook his head and brought himself back to reality. He looked in the cabinet he had opened. Cobwebs. He searched five more only to find empty cans and crumpled up, well used paper towels. Seth headed to the upper floor of the apartment to see if the man held any supplies up there. He had looked strong—Seth figured he must have had some solid source of food, perhaps even a small garden. He opened the bedroom door to find nothing unexpected. As he moved into the closet, however, he noticed that it was slightly smaller than the others he had seen in this building. He narrowed his eyes and searched…Yes, there it was. He pulled on a piece of metal that stuck out of the top of the wall, which he could barely reach. The wall became a door and swung open and—Seth nearly gasped. Before him he saw cans of corn, beans, and even MRE’s, still good despite the years they’d sat unopened. He immediately took the bag he carried on his back and began to stuff it with as much food as he could bring with him. In the corner was an apple covered with brown spots on all sides. He shoved it into his mouth. It tasted terrible, but he ate it anyway.

The Wyrden scoured a few more rooms and then made his way outside again. Like most buildings, this one was falling apart in too many places. It was overgrown with foliage, vines snaking up its walls and invading the eroding brick. Bag slung over his shoulder, he walked to the bike he’d hidden in a pile of bushes. He dove into the mess of leaves and twigs and took it out, shaking it off in case any unwanted bugs had decided to make it their new home, and rode. 

 

Seth watched languidly as the sun set behind skyscrapers through the window of a terraced house that was last used long ago. The structural integrity of it was dubious, but it beat sleeping on the street for the night. Its condition was better than the other houses on this block. The mostly-boarded windows only let in slivers of light, but they also prevented the cool fall drafts, which he appreciated. It hadn’t become totally overgrown with vegetation, either. Seth moved to the front door to make sure its rusted lock would hold. As if from nowhere, he sensed something as he approached the door. Footsteps, outside. He quickly crouched next to the door, ready to spring at anyone who might come through. The footsteps were getting louder, but he could make out only one person. Louder and louder until…someone pulled down on the handle of the door outside. The lock immediately snapped, and the door opened with a menacing creak. Seth cursed and waited for the person to walk inside, readying himself to pounce again.

A short, slender figure slowly strutted its way inside, seemingly oblivious to the Wyrden’s presence. Seth noticed it was a woman. She had short, dark brown hair that didn’t go far past her shoulders. Her pants were too baggy and, to compensate, they were tied tightly at her slim waist. She wore a gray tank top and an oversized, puffy jacket on top of it. Across her chest and shoulder was a brown leather strap that attached to a similarly colored handmade, leather bag on her hip. And on her other hip there was a pistol, painted yellow, pink, and orange. A strong scent assaulted his nostrils—that of cigarette smoke masked by sunflowers and tulips. Seth would have recognized it anywhere.

“Hello Seth,” the woman said, slightly turning her head towards him.

“Alyssa,” he muttered, rising from his crouched position in the corner. His head began to spin as memories of his past flooded his brain. He had twenty questions he wanted to ask at once, but he didn’t know where to start as he felt a wave of both relief and apprehension wash over him, refusing to let his guard down just yet.

This opening scene introduces Ashurdon ("Ash") the protagonist, in Detroit, surprising his Army buddies with news that he's suddenly married. But, then, that's Ash - a guy that acts before he thinks.

"Eye can ear you loud and clear,

There’s a girl called Mary and I want her. 

You could say I’m in-for-Mary. 

I’ll even Sign a waiver saying if we date and it goes badly, 

I’ll let her think she’s the one that broke up with me.”

                                                            --Yelp reviewer, 2019

 

The Metropolitan Eye and Ear Infirmary looms over the East Village of Manhattan, a foreboding twenty-story structure of ink-black brick, casting a long, vast shadow over the corner of 14th Street and 2nd avenue of lower Manhattan, as it has for over two centuries.

Founded in August 1820 by two physicians seeking to provide ophthalmic and otolaryngologic care to the population of New York City, it has seen thousands of patients pass through its doors, and hundreds of residents and fellows. An asylum for the blind and the deaf, it rests in silence and haunted darkness.[m1] 

 

“Excuse me,” I muttered, mostly to myself, as I ushered my way through the crowd swarming on the platform, grateful for my slim frame as I just barely slipped between the closing subway doors. 

Cutting it close. 

Don’t fuck this up.

I caught a brief glimpse of my reflection in darkened glass of the subway door across from me, flanked by an older African American woman in a baseball cap and whimsical dress carrying a baguette and a construction worker, and for a moment, I allowed myself to be pleased with what I saw, expertly breaking myself down into parts as always—the thick, long, straight dark hair looked neat, the makeup done cleanly but highlighting the green eyes, and the business casual look was spot-on—a black Theory dress well-fitted to the waifish frame, and a black blazer which could be either interpreted as professional or just a casual, last-minute grab exiting my apartment, as needed. 

Perfect.

A little girl in a messy French braid sitting next to her presumable nanny, based on age and dissimilar features, stared at me in the curious, unapologetic way children do before the world teaches them better, jerking me out of my vanity. I stuck at my tongue at her and smiled; when I was a kid, I loved when grown-ups besides my parents would acknowledge me. I looked at my watch. 

Fuck. 

Exiting the train, I power-walked two blocks, feeling my kitten heels with each foot-strike, until the black brick building dawned into view, with an awning that read “The Metropolitan Eye and Ear Infirmary” in a peculiarly whimsical pink and blue font. 

My breath caught for a second at the familiarity of the foreboding structure, perhaps more familiar than it should be from my single interview visit two years prior, though I sensed a dark unknown looming behind its closed doors.

Tumultuous, my advisor at Duke had warned. With Big Hospital taking over, who knows the chaos that will ensue.

Malignant, the other medical students had declared on the interview trail, in hushed voices. They will run you ragged, work you to the bone, but if you make it out, you will be one of the best ophthalmic surgeons in the country, if not the world.

I knew as I crossed the threshold, that this wasn’t Hawaii anymore, and that brief yearlong reprieve from the demands of the east coast culture had come to a close. 

Intern year had been a year of hard work, true medicine, bearing witness to death and suffering, yet it had been an escape from the sick, constant apprehension and hypervigilance that normally dominated my psyche. I had surfed, hiked, tanned, and even allowed myself gain a few pounds, which honestly only flattered the thong-bikini look which in vogue on Oahu. 

But now I was back, and it was time to pay the piper. The East Coast Anxiety that had haunted my 26 years on this earth would be back.

Opening Scene - Antagonist’s POV. Reveals the secret that becomes the nucleus of the primary conflict. Sets tone, introduces protagonist, setting and supporting characters. Foreshadows secondary conflicts. 

 

        Jameson smelled a sale.  Greg and Amy Young beheld Amber Marsh with starry-eyed delight.  This would be a breeze.

         “Amber Marsh is a custom home community positioned on a unique land parcel that frames the marsh,” Jameson explained.  In other words, mostly swampland that the larger builders passed on. 

         Jameson led the couple along the sweeping arc of the sidewalk. They gaped at the expansive homes, comfortably cushioned by mature trees and lush landscaping.  The neighborhood was quiet on this weekday afternoon, except a young woman who tinkered with an iridescent globe in her front yard. Her summer dress skimmed her toned thighs. Jameson gave her a courteous nod, which she returned with a polite smile. 

         “Is that a gazing ball?” Amy asked her.

         The woman’s smile grew. She ambled over to them.  “It sure is.  I’m Jen Holloway.” She extended a hand and they shook. When she took Amy’s hand, Jen started. “Oh—” her gaze fell to Amy’s midsection. “You’re ..” 

         Amy’s hand went instinctively to her flat belly. Her brow furrowed.  “How did you know?” 

         Jen lifted a shoulder, “Intuition.”

         “Greg and Amy are considering making Amber Marsh their home.” Jameson cut in smoothly. 

         “Oh, perfect!” Jen exclaimed. “I see your children being very happy here. This is a place of joy and grace.”  Her eyes held Amy’s.

         Greg frowned at her and placed a hand on his wife’s shoulder to move her along. 

         They were a few paces away when Jameson strode back to Jen for moment. “This is it,” he told her under his breath. “This is the last one, and I’m out. I love you. I can’t wait to be with you, all the way, every day.” 

         Anticipation turned her eyes the color of sapphires, but she gently pushed him back to the sidewalk. “Go make the sale.” 

         Jameson jogged back to the Youngs and continued as if there had been no interruption. “Ms. Halloway has been here for seven months. She was the first resident, after me.” 

         “You live here?” Amy asked.

         “In addition to being the developer, I was the first resident.”

         “Jameson Homes also handled sales for Amber Commons, the big neighborhood right next to this, right?” 

        “Indeed. Amber Marsh is a welcome alternative to the cookie cutter homes hastily built to keep up with the population sprawl of Central Florida.  It has been extremely well-received. The home we are about to see is the last remaining offering in Amber Marsh.” 

          An ugly white Ford with an Uber sign in the windshield drove by, ruining his perfect street.  A dark, muscular man of about thirty got out.  He hoisted a potted plant from the back seat and sent them a casual wave when he caught sight of the trio.  Jameson frowned and kept his hands firmly by his sides as Greg and Amy waved back.  He would get to the bottom of that later.

         “Here we are.”  Jameson arranged his features into an easy grin as they approached a cheerful blue door. “This was our model home, so it is fully built out, with the best finishes and upgrades. That means you get top-of-the-line everything, and you don’t have to wait months for completion. You can move right in.” Quick close, quick cash.  

         They entered, and Jameson felt the click.  

         “Ohh,” Amy cooed as she took in the two-story foyer. She veered to right, into an enormous dining room, then made a quick left into the kitchen.  Greg was drawn to the view. He strode through the living area and opened the oversized sliding glass door discreetly housed within the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows.

         They had pulled out all the stops for the design of the pool and backyard. A spiral slide adorned one corner of a large rectangular infinity pool, and there was a six-person hot tub built into the other corner. The outdoor kitchen gave way to an entertainment center that retracted into the wall.  Though he had initially been against the up-front expenditure, the wow factor now worked in Jameson’s favor. 

         “This backyard, like all homes in Amber Marsh, is raised above the walking path that runs along the marsh.” 

          Greg wandered over to look down at the pine boardwalk, connected to the yard by a short staircase. About a football field across, the marsh reflected the sky and the towering oak forest across the water.  

         Amy joined them and grasped hands with Greg.  Jameson very much liked the look that passed between them. “What a perfect place for our girls to grow up,” she murmured. 

         They meandered the yard and gestured to where they envisioned outdoor furniture, then moved back inside.  They identified perfect spaces for the nursery and home office upstairs, where a large loft anchored four bedrooms with generous closets and well-appointed bathrooms.  When the three emerged onto the sidewalk, they all wore satisfied smiles.  

         Greg turned to Jameson. “It’s more than we were expecting to spend…”

         “But Amber Marsh is one-of-a kind,” Jameson finished for him.

         “I need to crunch the numbers.”

         “That,” Jameson inclined his head toward Amy, who gazed at the house as though envisioning their future play out within its’ walls, “defies numbers.”

          Greg’s eyes went soft and Jameson couldn’t blame him.  Amy had shiny black hair, a warm smile, and a youthful energy that Jameson bet made her a great lay.  Her tits were a bit too small for his taste, but he supposed they were appropriate for her slender build. He had never had an Asian woman before. Maybe if they were neighbors, he could … but no, he was committed to Jen now, turning over a new leaf. 

          “We'll be in touch soon,” Greg said.  

          Jameson’s mouth watered.  So close!  This deal would position him perfectly for retirement. For freedom. For Jen.

          A tall, angular woman parked in the driveway and unfolded herself smoothly from a white BMW.  She tossed her swing of blonde hair over her shoulder, and she sent them a polite nod and a smile. 

         “Hello,” she said. ”Welcome to Amber Marsh.” She moved to Jameson’s side and extended a hand. "I'm Anne."

         “This lovely creature,” Jameson beamed, placing a hand on her shoulder, “is my wife.”

 

 

 

 

In an effort to stay focused, Marcus cleared his throat, stared at Brittany while she talked, hoped the appearance of attention would suffice. What Marcus knew about her, that she was a would-be writer, a budding feminist with a double major in comparative literature and philosophy at Goucher College. That for two months she had been dragging him to literary events like tonight’s poetry reading. That in his latest effort to remain coupled, he had allowed himself to endure hours of mostly bad poetry and literary first moments of virgin writers like herself. Marcus had borne it, not because she was the one, or some other romantic notion, but because the sex was good, she was intelligent and made him laugh, and he was earnestly attempting to see one woman at a time. It would, he thought, make Alma happy. No, not happy. Never if a woman like Brittany was his choice.

He sipped at his beer, then despite his honorable intentions, surreptitiously turned his gaze to what really held his attention, a woman he had noticed from the moment they were seated. The cliché struck him, a woman across a crowded room, talking to the pianist who never paused in his playing of an amalgam of smooth jazz meant to serve as an undercurrent to the buzz of patrons, the tinkling of glasses, the clatter of silverware against small plates of food, settled on white clothed tiny rectangular tables. The woman wore a white dress wrapped around her like some kind of body turban, her deep brown shoulders and long arms exposed. She was tall, maybe as tall as himself and shapely, like a woman who played tennis or volleyball. She had meat on her bones and was fit. He liked that. Mostly, he liked her eyes. They dominated her heart shaped face, which was framed by a short cropped natural. He didn’t like the hair. He liked his women to look like women.

Marcus tried to refocus on his date. A beautiful 20-year-old, with light brown hair resting on her shoulders and pale blue eyes that looked like water. Brittany was the kind of woman that caused men, including him, to do a 180 when spotted on the street. Accept Marcus didn’t cat call like so many men, he only looked. Then if the moment was right and the woman seemed mutually interested, he made his move. Pretty successfully. Marcus had the head turner looks as well and hell, like attracts like. He had never cared about his looks, but as he was growing towards adolescence, his aunts whispered loudly, about his appearance. My handsome nephew they said to him, as they squeezed his chin, turned his face this way and that, through pursed rouged lips, My handsome nephew. Gonna be a player, alright. Marcus endured the compliments that never made him feel anything about himself. He hadn’t cared. At family gatherings relatives and family friends told him he looked like his mother. He hadn’t liked those comparisons any more than the backwards compliments from his aunts. Still, he had inherited Almas’ wavy jet-black hair, cut short above his ears, her arching brows over eyes so intense they looked black. He was light skinned like her too but playing tennis had made him browner. He liked that. It was uncomfortable when people couldn’t figure out if he was Black. When they tried to guess at his ethnicity or said rudely, Hey, what are you?

David Treichler THE HONEYMOON Chapter One

ANNIE THOMPSON

 

The pictures of brooding Lake Victoria, from the rustic yet modern Kisumu Safari Camp in Kenya, do not do it justice. I hold Charles, my driven husband of four days, as we gaze out on the massive light blue lake. Ribbons of red and gold fill the sky from the sun setting on the distant shore. Images of the incredible animals we saw these last two days parade through my memory. Massive gray elephants trumpeting, towering giraffe seeming indifferent to our presence, zebra seeking safety in their speed and jackal prowling for any scraps of nourishment left by the big predators. Seeing them in a zoo and seeing them here… native habitat, has changed my thoughts about captivity. Animals deserve to be free… to roam and find their own way in the world.

      I squeeze Charles a little tighter, still not believing we are finally married, and in this magnificent place… together. So many things conspired to make both the marriage and this trip impossible… and yet…

     “The herds in the Serengeti will just dwarf what we’ve seen so far…” Charles, with his safari wind-blown brown hair, which usually seems perfectly combed, and mysterious dark eyes, leans down to kiss the top of my head. Not what I want. I take his unshaven face in my right hand and pull him down to give me a real kiss. One I share with him and not just receive.

     “I don’t know when you found the time…” I start to respond, but he cuts me off.

     “This will likely be the most time we have together until I finish my residency, so don’t get used to it.”

     “I know what I signed up for…” I remind him. “Still, you could humor me a bit.”

     “When the court’s in session, you don’t have any more time than I do… these are the lives we chose and now we’re putting them together. Not much room for safaris.”

     “Now comes the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” We talked a lot about the importance for us to be completely honest with each other, given the baggage we both bring to this relationship.

     “We need to enjoy every moment…” Charles looks back out over the lake. “Red sky should mean no rain overnight.”

      A good omen for the long trek, starting before daylight, to Tanzania and the next camp. I cannot wait for our first day in the game preserve of the Serengeti. The main reason we decided to come here in the first place. The big herds. Finally.

     We hold each other as we watch the shimmering sun sink below the distant golden horizon. The sky transforms like a dive into the ocean from blue to navy and finally black. Stars increasingly populate the sky as if a lamplighter on steroids moved down a dusk street. I do not remember so many stars. Even the star belt of the Milky Way. So many images that informed my childhood are here. Before me and the man I chose to spend the rest of my life with. I still cannot believe he also chose me.

     Charles squeezes me a little tighter seeking my attention. “You need to rest tonight?” He asks with a sparkle in his eye. One he displays every day, about this time, since the wedding back in Richmond. We both know our record will come to an end when he goes back to the hospital. But four days in a row, with multiple orgasms, has taken a toll.

     “How about we ease into it tonight?” I suggest. Maybe a good glass of Pinotage will help with the proper frame of mind. As if we had not already had a bottle with dinner. I did not know much about South African wines before coming here, but am beginning to like them.

     “Stud service at your beck and call…” Charles grins as we enter our tent. Not a typical tent, it rests on a permanent foundation with hot and cold running water, a heater for the colder nights, and a nook where we eat breakfast. M’bane, our guide, told us at dinner we would not eat here in the morning. They have a box breakfast for us on our transit Range Rover. Likely croissants and berry preserves, although quite different than those in Paris. Charles has never been. Some day. We will eat when we get hungry along the way. Thoughtful, since we leave in the middle of the night. I still adjust to this time zone. Eight hours earlier than Rochester, Minnesota, where Charles pursues his residency in neurosurgery at the Mayo Clinic. And seven from Washington DC where I clerk for the Chief Justice.

     Charles pulls the tent flap closed behind us. I feel his eyes; engage him with my Mona Lisa smile… if you figure out what I am thinking, you get the prize.

     Maybe it is the hour of our departure and the lack of sleep since we left, but Charles apparently decides he needs to move this process along. He pours two glasses of red wine, brings one to me. We smile at each other as we clink glasses, “To the perfect marriage. You and me. Your family and mine.”

     I know what he suggests and must protest, “You know I don’t harbor ambitions. We want to appear to have a quiet family life. Anonymous.”

     “You’ll never be anonymous now that you’re married to what will soon be the preeminent neurosurgeon in the world,” he laughs, knowing his coming prominence is not the source of my discomfort.

     “Who I’ll never see as you cater to the rich and famous… or the poor and downtrodden,” we’ve had this conversation before.

     Charles sips slowly, holds the wine in his mouth as he formulates his response. He continues to puzzle over something I first noticed yesterday. An embryonic thought, which I expect will not arrive fully formed. A swallow and, “Doctors without borders…”

     “You need to prepare yourself they seldom do neurosurgery… How many hospitals in all of Kenya could support what you do?” I point out.

     Charles shakes his head, not knowing. “But together we could do so much good…” Charles’ thinking remains a work in progress.

     “I doubt you could just immunize, set broken bones, and provide medicines for one or another bad bug. I’m the one promoting we should do something more than just make money. But maybe you could give back by perfecting new techniques… and training docs throughout the world. I could do pro-bono legal work to address your need to make the world a better place.”

     “Not the same… but maybe you’re right. Maybe it shouldn’t be only about what I do, but what we do together. Now that we are together… for the rest of our lives…”

     “Has to be… for the rest of our lives. Don’t think I could go through all this again.” I remind him how tough it has been for me.

     “I would in a heartbeat… you’re perfect, we’re perfect… what more could either of us want?”

     “More of your time and attention, when we get back from this alternate reality…” I lay out there for him. We had this discussion before as well. Another slow sip of the ruby colored wine. A swirl in my mouth to extract the fruit flavors, savor and then taste the experience all the way down my throat.

     We put down our glasses at the same time, so I may sensually begin to undress him. Slowly… one button at a time. Rub my hands lightly over his chest once the shirt is off. Inspect the hard muscle he continues to exercise, even though he gave up wrestling after undergrad. No time. He tries to match my pace, although I know he would rip off my clothes if I let him. Feel his response as I unzip his pants. We crawl up into the big king size brass bed with a mosquito net all about.

     “This will work, because we both want it to…” Charles tells me as he snuggles up next to me.

 

     I do not know how long we sleep. Not long. A vehicle drives into the camp. It wakes me. The motor shuts off and doors close with metallic thuds. “Charles…” I poke him, “I think the transport arrived.”

     Charles does not open his eyes, but moves as if starting the process of waking up.

     “Charles… we need to get dressed…” I pull the covers back and step out into the slippers we wear here as we never know what might have crawled in during the night. Charles does not react, so I lean over the bed and French kiss him, which seems to be the only thing that works.

     “What?” he starts to rouse as I hear someone pull back the flap to our tent. No one has entered without asking first. Through the back-lit tent flap and in the dark, I count four shapes enter and come right up to me.

     “We’re not ready yet…” I protest, reaching out, but fumbling about in the dark, trying to find the light switch.

     Something comes down over my head. Rough hands begin to pull me away from the bed. “Let me go!”

     “Hey! Where’s M’bane?” Charles must be getting the same treatment.

     “M’bane… not here… you come.” I hear the voice, but do not recognize it. British accent, but not British. Someone who attended a British school, but speaks a different language.

     A hushed discussion in a language I do not recognize. Two or three voices. They stop talking, start moving me towards the flap to the tent. “Where’s Charles?”

     “I’m here,” he responds. He seems very close, but behind me.

     “Who are you?” I demand to know. “If you’re taking us to Mwanza Camp, let us get dressed.”

     Through the bag over my head, a hand covers my mouth. Rough hands hold me tighter, pull my hands behind my back. I feel something tie my wrists together. I am pushed hard thought the tent entrance. The slippers come off and I stumble as we descend the three steps down to the ground. I hear Charles stumble as well. A muffled attempt to shout. They must have a hand over his mouth.

     We cross a short distance. They stop and turn us. Someone pushes me onto my back into what must be a vehicle of some kind. A pickup or a van… most likely. Not the Range Rover planned to take us to Mwanza. What’s happening?

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Treichler – A Tale of Two Tomorrows – Chapter One

Regina Malvado

 

Tears form in the corners of my husband Mark’s wide brown eyes. Tears of joy, of relief, of confusion and maybe… maybe a little regret that this time of our life is over. Those tears are expected. I now happily hold our twins in my arms as I lie here.  Totally exhausted from the struggle to birth them through the hours of labor and delivery. Here in the cold and sterile delivery room of the Lenox Hill Hospital. Mark and I argued about where we wanted the birth to take place. He wanted St. Luke’s. I thought Presbyterian Morningside. We compromised on Lenox Hill, because it’s closest to our condo on West 77^th.

     “Both healthy,” he tells me. His gravelly voice serves as a counter point to his short stature. His active eyes take in everything. The inscrutable Dr. Ingraham voiced concern the babies seemed under-weight for much of the pregnancy. However, the birth weights are in line with normal for twins.

     We saw we had two on the sonograms so many weeks ago. Knew one was a boy and the other a girl. Mark hoped for a supersized boy. One able to be the athlete he never was. I kept telling him to just love what we get. But for some reason, he thought we should be able to decide. Determine what we wanted. So like him. Always thinking he should get exactly what he wants.

     “Take your son,” I offer the boy to give Mark something to occupy him, knowing if I don’t, he’ll be back on his phone to the office momentarily.

     “What if I drop him?” Mark seems reluctant. “I’ve never held a baby before, not even my sister’s kids.”

     Mark carefully takes the baby boy, examines him closely, kisses his forehead, while I continue to hold the girl, bring her fully onto my chest. Kiss the top of her head.

     “Hello little guy, welcome to New York and your brilliant future,” Mark tells our son as he walks over closer to the window, looks out to the brick building across the alley, and then down to the street below. “This is your new world. With a little luck and a lot of help, this will be your domain.”

     “Don’t get ahead of yourself. He will be what he will be. His life choices may not take him where you want him to go.” I try to lower Mark’s expectations.

     “He will be someone important,” Mark replies, only half listening to me.

     “We need to send the right messages about what he needs to do.  What they both need to do. Just because you figured it out, doesn’t mean they will, automatically…”

     Mark looks up at me with those sleep deprived red-lined penetrating brown eyes. They have always held my attention, captivated me, enticed me and ultimately won me. “Of course you’re right, but let’s not put all our expectations on them today. We need to let them enjoy their birth day as we will all their coming birthdays. Let them take their place in our family.”

     “Particularly since I’m not doing this again,” I remind him of our many conversations before I conceived. Only one child. Well… luckily, we have two. The doctor said I shouldn’t have even one because of my chronic conditions. I seem to have come through in good shape. But I know I’m all out of whack. I must be on guard for post partem depression. My mother had it. The continuing depression almost destroyed our relationship. I can’t let that happen with our children.

     Mark approaches the bed, leans over and kisses me, wordlessly acknowledging the deal we made. “We each have one to spoil… you should be happy.”

     “I am, and not just because we have a bigger family,” I reach out to take his hand. “I’m happy with you, happy for your successes, happy we have a good life together.”

     “I’m happy you came through this like a champ.” Mark smiles down with his tell-tale dimple showing. The one I see when he’s telling me how he really feels. I don’t see it often. Something that puts me on guard not to expect too much from my husband. “Do you remember your mother’s comment when we told her you were pregnant?” The dimple disappears.

     “She freaked out,” I remember all too well. “Told us I needed to abort the pregnancy because I might not survive.”

     Mark doesn’t respond, apparently unwilling to express whatever he’s thinking. Likely not wanting to upset me by saying anything bad about my mother. I know he’s not a fan. In fact, he waited a long time to propose, because he wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with her. I understand my mother’s no angel of sweetness and light. But it still bothers me he seems determined to diminish her as much as possible in our lives. Keep our distance from her. Will he do the same to her with her grandchildren? It will put a huge strain on me if he insists. I can’t simply tell her she is not permitted see them. She’ll want to spoil them, particularly the girl as she grows up. Mother often said she was disappointed she only had one girl. Rex and Raven, my brothers, always felt slighted by her lack of attention. I still think her attitude towards them served as motivation to succeed despite her. And it seems to have worked. Rex is an attorney with the US Justice Department and Raven trades sovereign debt for JP Morgan Chase bank.

     “I know you’re not going to like it, but I’m going to hold you to our agreement that both families will have equal access to...”

     He cuts me off abruptly as the nurses come in. “Just make sure your mother comes over when I’m at the office.”

     “Time to take them down to the nursery,” the stern taller nurse announces as she comes for our daughter. The smiling heavier-set one, seeks our son from Mark. He doesn’t look quite ready to give up the baby just yet, but he complies with the smiling nurse’s outstretched hands.

     I kiss our daughter on top of her head again. “Get you all cleaned up, with your first diaper. Soon they’ll bring you back for dinner,” I don’t want to see her go just yet, but the nurse seems impatient. She probably has a busy schedule and I’m just making her day longer. I look at my baby’s cute face and bright eyes. She looks at me, probably wondering who I am, why I’m looking at her and what this new world will be like. I smile at her, hoping for a smile in return, but it doesn’t come. Not yet. Must be too soon. The nurse clears her throat, so I reluctantly hand our baby girl to her.

     I’m surprised the nurse taking our daughter doesn’t seem to engage the baby, but rather just carries her away like a stack of clothes from the laundry. The shorter smiling nurse looks at the boy, talks to him and makes sure he is settled before following the other nurse out. I watch them go, feeling a twinge of loss, having carried them for nine months and a few days to get here. Suddenly I’m not feeling them at all. Mark must feel something similar as he wistfully watches them go out the door.

     “Enjoy our moment alone. It may be the last time for a very long time,” I smile up at him. He comes to sit next to me on the bedside.

     “They’ll probably send you home tomorrow,” he notes. “There’s so much pressure to move patients out quickly. They want to control health care costs.”

     “Always the analyst,” I remind him. “’What makes you so good at what you do.”

     “You do have our mothers coming over on alternate days to help you until the nanny starts?” He’s already thinking past today’s birth day party.

     “I suspect everyone waits outside the nursery window, for their first glimpse of their new grandchildren.” I warn him he will encounter my mother and father when he goes down.

     “I think I’ll hang here just a little longer, talk to my gorgeous wife, who just gave us purpose and happiness as we embark into the great unknown future.” He leans down and kisses me a little more purposefully than last time.

     “Coward,” I call him out, knowing he will engage Mom as necessary.

     “I’m sure they’re not out just yet. I’d rather arrive afterwards and not deal with your mother’s comments until she’s seen them. Maybe… just maybe… seeing them will make it all more pleasant.”

     “Leave your phone so you don’t call in and get caught up with work,” I insist. “They really can get through a day without you there or on the phone. This is the only actual birth day party we’re going to celebrate. So, let’s enjoy it. The office will still be there tomorrow.”

     “All right,” he grudgingly pulls out his cell and hands it to me, leans over and kisses me again. “So much for our time alone.” He shakes his head as he trundles out the door.

     My eyes close as if weights pull them shut. I didn’t get much sleep once the labor pains started. I really need to rest. I hear the scuttling sounds of a nurse. He checks my vitals, disconnects everything to move me down to my room. The orderly arrives and pushes me out so the delivery room can be turned around for the next about-to-be mother.

     I ride on the bed with my eyes closed, wishing for a short nap. The nurses will be back soon with the babies. It will be time to feed them. I was prepared for nursing one, but two? At the same time or do we do it in shifts? I don’t know, but the nurses will tell me.

     The orderly remarks, “Here we are. Will just take a moment and we’ll have you all hooked up so you can rest for a bit.”

     “I appreciate it,” I mumble, not sure I’m even intelligible to him.

     A very young nurse, looks about twelve, joins the orderly. Together they efficiently finish preparing the room. She makes sure I am warm under blankets. A quick inspection of my vitals. I hear her enter them.

     The nurse comes over and touches me on the shoulder, “You have about a half hour before they bring in your babies. It’s a good time to rest. Do you want anything to eat? I could bring you Jell-O or maybe some rice. Something to settle your stomach?”

     I shake my head, “I’m just tired now.” My eyes don’t even open.

 

     Fast approaching footsteps pull me out of my, I think, very short nap.

     “Reggie!” It’s Mark’s voice. He’s stressed and out of breath.

     “Wha…” I’m trying to get my eyes open, but struggling.

     “Our daughter... The nurse never brought her down to the nursery… they can’t find her… don’t know where she was taken.”

 

This scene is part of the second plot point, building the action to drive the protagonist towards the climax. 

 

McTeague’s voice boomed over the assembly, his words sharp and theatrical. “It is not enough to have caught him stealing. That is only the surface. What you must see—what you must learn—is that betrayal corrodes everything.”

The crowd shifted uneasily. Mothers pulled their children closer. Fathers stood rigid, hands flexing uselessly at their sides.

Beside Joy, Margaret whispered, “This is wrong.” Fatima’s jaw clenched so tight a vein pulsed in her temple.

Two guards dragged Hunter forward. He didn’t resist, didn’t plead. His eyes were steady, locked somewhere far beyond the crowd as if the gathering storm of bodies, sweat, and fear meant nothing to him.

“Hunter here thought he could take what belongs to the collective,” McTeague announced, pacing before them like a prophet in polished boots. “But Haven is not a place for selfishness. Haven is not a place for weakness. We endure together—or not at all.”

Joy’s stomach flipped. She had seen men like this before, men who dressed cruelty as leadership. Theatrics mattered more than justice. Fear was the glue.

A table was dragged forward, its surface gleaming under lantern light. On it lay the object McTeague revealed with deliberate care: a machete, broad and gleaming, its edge catching the firelight until the reflection burned in Joy’s eyes.

The crowd gasped in unison.

“Punishment must be visible,” McTeague intoned, resting his hand on the blade. “So that all of you—each and every one—will remember the cost of disobedience.”

Margaret made a small sound, half-sob, half-growl, muffled quickly by her own palm. Joy swallowed hard, her throat raw. Fatima didn’t flinch, but her hand reached blindly for Joy’s wrist, nails digging deep enough to leave crescents.

Hunter stepped forward of his own accord. He placed his left hand on the table, palm open, fingers splayed. No words, no protest. The hush that fell over the yard was absolute.

For a heartbeat Joy thought—hoped—that McTeague would stop. That this was all theater, intimidation, a bluff to bind them closer in fear. But then the machete rose.

The blade came down with a sound that cracked through the silence, a wet, metallic finality that tore Joy’s insides apart. Hunter’s hand—no, what remained of it—fell from the table. His body folded forward, but no scream came, only a shuddering breath that rattled the crowd more than any cry could have.

Children wailed. A woman fainted. Men looked away, ashamed at their own relief that it wasn’t them.

McTeague lifted the blade again, slick now, his face shining with a grotesque triumph. “This is Haven,” he said, voice low but carrying. “This is survival.”

The guards dragged Hunter back, his blood trailing dark streaks into the dust.

Beside Joy, Margaret whispered, “God help us all.” Fatima’s grip on her wrist finally released, leaving Joy’s skin throbbing.

And Joy knew, with a clarity that cut deeper than the machete itself: there was no safety here. Only performance. Only control. Only fear.

 

first 500 words for workshop.pdffirst 500 words for workshop.pdf

openingpages.docx