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my head speak to my soul from under my pillow. I drink the occult of the night as dreams of Goddess Artemis surface. In a forest, among the silver glow of the leaves, raucous blue veins shine through the lush, foliage. Artemisia exhales terra and bitter and fluorescent voodoo. I feel: into this moment, in these green trees, into the pantheist sea and into the fold of nature’s embrace. I trust as I am turned inside out, alive, in the twine of mystery. I glide: into this spiral, in the fold of descent, into the broad, fresh waterfall and into the crest of the universe. The magic in the wave peels away the curtain of mundane and swells against the humdrum of everyday’s stage. I day break to mugwort crumpled in my hand. Medicine guides a vision of me, out of that shadow where I hang, out of the darkness into light. Helen has a fine arts degree from St. Michael's College, Vermont and after the birth of her children, left a successful career in marketing to write and paint. She has been published in literary magazines and is currently working on a book of poetry about healing from a ski accident. When she is not busy developing her craft, she teaches yoga and ayurvedic cooking classes.

Bernard Bartram had achieved some notoriety among the unbelieving community, and, therefore, had become notorious in the community of belief. He thought of himself as an expert in the field of unbelief, which tickled him. His defining book, Unbelieving, written twelve years earlier in a fit of rational passion—there’s an oxymoron for you, he thought—had established his bona fides. He followed this two years later, while he was still hot, his publisher told him, with the more painstaking and laborious (to write) You Can’t Be Serious. These made him a welcome speaker at various clubs and societies for the preservation of unbelief or belief, such as the one he had spoken at this evening, opposite Dr. Ollie Apple, a famous believer. He sat in an odious dressing room provided by I.I.F. (Institute for the Investigation of Faith) sipping a second glass of Glenlivet on crushed ice, also provided by I.I.F., reflecting on a joke he made during the debate at the expense of his opponent’s surname, explaining he hoped to make the good doctor take a bite of his own apple. Though it garnered the expected laughter, it brought him no joy. He had not delved deep to find the line, and it seemed overworked, lacking in the seeming or actual spontaneity of true humor. The dressing room did not help his mood. He sat facing a wall with a three-paneled mirror and a shelf at about waist level, presumably for the application of make-up, though nothing but the scotch and a bowl of ice sat on it. The wall on his right was the original tabula rasa, a dirty beige with scars, marks, and scratches in places both inexplicable and uninteresting. To his left, a long closet occupied the wall, lined at intervals with coats and costumes defeating explanation, all dark and unused, as if for centuries. The wall behind him, the fourth wall, contained nothing but a single door, closed, through which one entered this dismal room, and he saw it only through the bad graces of the speckled mirror. Like the room, this career of his seemed empty now, as it should, he reasoned, given that the position he long ago adopted was unbelief. He felt certain there must be deep irony in being a famous atheist, but no more than in being a celebrated believer whose arguments he could barely recall seconds after Apple spoke them: pure nonsense. For moments that grew longer through the evening, he lost contact with the words spoken by his opponent, irritation growing into various scenarios in which he strangled Apple right there on the stage. His own best moment came when he broke into one of Apple’s explanations with the unexpected quip that Dr. Apple was the only human being left in the world who hoped to talk God back into existence. It drove him to despair when Apple leaped into what he obviously considered a clever reversal as he attempted to prove the existence of God through scientific formulations. Bartram’s patience wore thin enough to instruct the audience Dr. Apple revealed himself as someone who knew nothing of true science, particularly the second law of thermodynamics, which he mentioned three times in rapid succession, as if it were a magical incantation. Then, as he fell silent and sullen, Apple droned on, imagining his audience spellbound. To be sure, he did seem to recall several bright episodes of communal laughter during the good doctor’s speech, but Bartram himself grew sick and sicker of Apple, of himself, of this charade, nothing more than a ritual repeated before an audience that long ago lost its ability to believe in God, religion having devolved into a set of gang signs, at worst; at best, into empty cliché. As he poured himself a second scotch on ice and sat back down before the mirror, he had begun to enumerate in his mind each time he had participated in this blank ritual, and for which he had begun to slightly despise himself. Neither he nor Dr. Apple could refrain from this mind-numbing work since they both valued their living quarters and their dinner tables—for Bartram, restaurants—sufficiently to keep them at it. Worse, they both knew this, and during one of those passages in which Ollie had developed another execrable conceit, Bartram recognized the deep boredom this God-bearer to the New World hid beneath a thin veneer of otiose wit, boilerplate scripture, and timeworn phrases in which he had stopped believing years before, if he ever had. The word effete applied to both of them: affected, over-refined, and ineffectual. No one would be saved or damned. They could only hope to entertain, and that had worn so thin at final applause, peppered with cheers, boos, and laughter, that he nearly ran offstage to his ridiculous dressing room to down his first, now third scotch. When he heard a door closing behind him, he looked up, into the mirror, rather than behind, to find a swarthy, diminutive man with fly-away white hair and a thin goatee in a gray-on-gray striped suit. At the throat of a shirt somewhere between white and yellow, he wore a large black bowtie with white polka dots. The man appeared to be a tad embarrassed, holding a worn leather satchel at his knees that strained at the seams with a bulging something secreted inside. Having received his share of death threats and well-wishing encouragements in equal proportion, he had for years awaited the unknown assailant who would step from the shadows and make good on his threat. “Dr. Bartram,” the man whispered, “my name is…” and he said something completely unintelligible to Bartram. Then, he smiled and said, “But you may call me Jesus. I represent the Institute and wish to congratulate you on a sparkling defense of unbelief.” He paused and smiled again, his face returning quickly to its slightly apprehensive expression. “I hope you will give me leave a few minutes for a valuable experiment. Valuable to the Institute, potentially to yourself.” “Your name is Jesus?” “A common name in all cultures but your own.” This so irritated Bartram that he could not speak for several moments, during which time Jesus kept his eyes trained on him, waiting for approval to continue. Bartram rubbed his forehead with two fingers to demonstrate irritation. “Number one, I am not a doctor; number two, I have no notion of which institute you speak. I am now going to refresh my drink, and by the time I am seated once again, I hope you will have the decency of God and make yourself scarce.” He began to stand, but the girlish tittering of the man who called himself Jesus surprised Bartram so that he could not move for a moment. “Oh, Mr. Bartram, you made us laugh tonight. Thank you for your wisdom and humor.” Bartram dropped back in his seat, watching the stranger in the speckled mirror. “Well, Mr. Jesus,” he said, “if that happens to be a bomb you are carrying, I will thank you to leave it outside for the duration.” Again, Jesus laughed with delight. “It is no bomb, but you might say a gift, for a man of thought like yourself. The institute of which I speak is The Institute for the Investigation of Faith, housed here in this building where you and Dr. Apple have been debating the existence of God so much enjoyed by one and all. Shall I go on?” Jesus did not move as long as Bartram studied him in the mirror. At last, Bartram said, “I can offer you nowhere to sit, as you can see this is the only chair. Please continue, though, if for no other reason than that I am dying to know why you have appeared and what this means.” At this invitation, Jesus moved past him, trailing a scent of aftershave and sweat. With his back to him, he busied himself moving scotch and ice aside to set up his contraption on the shelf directly before Bartram. Twice, Jesus glanced at him in the mirror with a bright smile filled with surprisingly white teeth. How old the stranger might be, Bartram had no clue, though he would guess somewhere upwards of seventy, with no top limit. At the same time, he seemed infinitely young, younger than Bartram in his movements and animation. That alone was worth the price of admission. Speaking to Bartram from the mirror, he gestured toward the machine, which looked like an applause meter, instructing him that it was this contraption which brought him to his dressing room, and which he hoped Dr. Bartram—he did not want to give up the honorific title—would allow him to explain. “I imagine you have you heard of the so-called God gene?” When Bartram nodded, furrowing his brow in confusion, Jesus pinched his own lower lip between thumb and forefinger of one hand. “How to explain, when so much has gone into this—so much that would interest a man of your persuasion. Is belief or non-belief a matter of genetic make-up? What do you think?” Bartram shrugged, eyeing the scotch the other side of the machine. “What if,” Jesus continued, “such things we hitherto considered immaterial substance—I refer to the soul, etcetera—actually come down to material substance, the brain, nerves, so on, do you follow?” Jesus spun to face Bartram, one hand on the machine. “This we are attempting. We have located this God gene, and everyone has such a thing here.” He tapped his temple. “At the same time, we have come to acknowledge that the idea of the gene, of genetic make-up, of the double helix we have come to believe some person at some point in time might have viewed with a powerful microscope, are nothing more than metaphors for something we cannot explain. We scientists at the Institute enjoy a little joke now and again, and sometime refer to this gene as the G-spot. Are you with me, Dr. Bartram?” Bartram nodded, though to what he was not certain. “Do you recall that admonition, in both the Jewish and Christian testaments, of which you often speak, to make a joyful noise unto the Lord? Such a thing exists in every religion, singing, dancing, chanting, humming, even where there is great attention to silences surrounding us. And we have discovered the reason for this.” Jesus waited long enough that Bartram felt he had to say, “Which is?” “You ask an excellent question!” Jesus slapped the back of one hand into the palm of the other. “Sound, you see, such as in prayer, or song or rhythmic humming.” He closed his eyes and hummed for several minutes, falling into a rocking motion as he did so. “So, you see what I mean. Sound activates this God gene, or God self, Godhead, and so religions encourage us to activate this G-spot for worship. Once turned on, the individual may return to it for reassurance. If I continued humming several minutes, and you joined in willingly, you might experience mild forms of the ecstatic, which you could repeat at later moments, when you felt high or low, up or down. Do you understand what I am saying?” Bartram’s defenses had broken. He might have laughed out loud if he did not still fear this fellow might be out of his mind and have nothing whatsoever to do with the Institute. “So, what you’re telling me is…” Here, Bartram trailed off. “What I am telling you is this apparatus produces a kind of dog whistle, you see, tuned to the God frequency, the Godhead within, the indwelling spirit. In Christianity, it could be referred to as Holy Ghost, if I am not being blasphemous in any way.” “No offense taken,” said Bartram with a wave of his hand that sent the final splash of scotch onto his fingers, which he sucked. “You see, I am not a Christian. I am an atheist.” “Yet, you come from the background of the Christian sect, correct?” Bartram nodded. Jesus waved his hand in a rolling circular manner. “So, Holy Spirit—you understand—if I am to turn this dial toward center point, which we scientists playfully refer to as ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’, where I have made this notch and painted it orange on this otherwise drab machine…” When he tapped at the notch, Bartram noted his long fingernails. “And because we are all the same, all human, we may not hear anything for a while, but we will experience mild ecstasy, our Godhead activated, you see. At least in theory. And, as we know, theory and practice may be quite different. Yet, as they come together, bingo! We have lift-off!” He laughed with delight at his own effusion. “So, you are the perfect subject on which to try this out, as an avowed and practicing atheist who intelligently and willfully rejects the world of spiritual things you cannot see or measure in an empirical sense. This is the very area in which our experiment will rise or fall, succeed or fail. “Now, I will leave you alone to try this out yourself. If I remain in the room, I would not, or could not, keep my scientific objectivity. So, I invite you to pull your chair closer and turn the dial toward this notch which I point out a second time. Please, do not go further, as the machine is likely to overheat and create disturbances to you and those in the next rooms, if they have not all gone home, as I believe they have.” Jesus clapped his hands with a beatific smile. “Oh, Dr. Bartram, the effect should be far better than that scotch you have been drinking. But you can tell me about it after. I will give you some time, and here, allow me to help you move your chair closer. I think that is fine, sit down again. You will not need this glass. You will find this instructive, sir. If you experience what we think you will experience. You may recognize that this may well take place in every person with the normal gifts with which we come into this world, even though many of us never explore the regions of mind or spirit of which you may soon become aware.” Jesus patted Bartram’s shoulder as he passed, which Bartram took as an encouragement. He heard the door snap shut behind him, though his attention was focused on the apparatus at eye level. He wondered if he should touch the thing, but touch he did. Grasping the dial firmly in the one hand, he held on to it, ascertaining it was a simple metal knob, like so many knobs one has learned to turn in this life. His curiosity got the better of him, and he inched it toward the notch. A third of the way he sat back in his chair, noting he had so far experienced nothing. Except, of course, the dull hum of alcohol revolving through his brain. He once more sat up in his chair and turned the dial further, though he experienced a bout of laughter at the silly experiment into which he had allowed himself to be drawn. He witnessed again the ridiculous figure of Jesus before him—in imagination—excited beyond reason. What a figure he cut! Of course, he understood he himself had become a figure of fun, even of ridicule—to himself many others, like Dr. Apple. What a fool! Trying to prove God with scientific theorem and mere language, which, of course, could never reach God, or anything like God. Aristotle had explained this centuries ago. He heard something now, not exactly a ringing in his ears, perhaps a form of music, high pitched, not irritating in any way. Somewhat pleasant, he had to admit. Maybe if he turned up the volume, he could hear it. So, he turned up the volume, until the point of the dial rested in the slot Jesus pointed out with a click of his nails. Very nice. Delightfully pleasant. It lifted the spirit; it filled him inside, made him idiotically happy. He had not even realized how weighted down by the world he had become, but that dissipated, evaporated into thin air. He might have approached such a sensation that year he lived by the Pacific, writing his first book. Yes, that had been quite an experience. The book lifted him up and carried him away. Now, he realized what Jesus had spoken of, this mild ecstasy—though it did not seem so mild to him at this moment, which made him realize, intellectually, how depressed he had been every day of his life the past few years. He felt the Holy Spirit inside him, elevating mind, recalling a phrase that had not occurred to him for many years: Music of the Spheres. That’s what he heard around him, but was it music, feeling, or pure thought, his mind rising to the best of which it had ever been capable. Tears flowed from his eyes, down his cheeks. “This is the day the Lord has made,” he cried aloud. But as feeling ebbed a bit, moving back toward normalcy, he had a fear he would return to his previous state, in which he had been so deadly unhappy. Naturally, he cranked up the volume, higher, and then higher, but as he did, something began to change. His mood turned on him as forms took shape around him, one dark robed, hooded figure emerging from the closet—he saw it in the mirror. And leaning beside the door, some wicked creature too human not to be cruel, grinning at him. Something brushed by him, and he saw what in the mirror, the dark shape, the coldness, and three tiny devils on the shelf beneath the mirror, multiplied into six, watching him, laughing, pointing blades and tridents. A thing behind him whispered: “Who the hell do you think you are? Why have you never listened, when I have so much to tell?” “Bernard,” the creature emergent from the closet whispered; the demons cackled it. They saw him; what was worse, he saw them. Had they always been there? He had never seen or heard them except in his nightmares of torment. Had these specters always been there, waiting for him? Had he been protected from them by his unbelief? And, if so, could he now return to it? A voice deep inside his mind—his own this time—spoke loudly—turn the damn thing down. He struggled to reach a hand to the dial, and as he grasped it felt how hot it had become, burning to the touch, taking skin off his fingertips. “Jesus,” he shouted, as rancid smoke emerged from the machine. Jesus ran past him, shouting, “Unplug it, Dr. Bartram.” But as Jesus lay his hands upon the infernal contraption, it cracked open, sending springs and gears, and wires of red and blue, bolts and nuts spinning outward, bouncing on the shelf, the floor, knocking solidly on Bartram’s skull. “Too late!” Jesus shouted forlornly. As Bartram watched, the machine melted to a hard, black lump, filling the room with the acrid odor of burning plastic, rubber and metal, and still creatures and shapes and forms did not go away. Not one showed the slightest inclination to cease calling his name. He saw the face of Jesus, frozen in a scream he could not hear above the din that clattered on his ears and vibrated on his skin. “Do not answer them,” Jesus shouted, though Bartram could barely hear him. “Oh, do not answer them, Dr. Bartram.” But Bartram had sunk into his chair, his mouth and eyes wide in terrible rictus, his fingers fumbling at his face, unable to speak a word to Jesus or to answer demands of voices now calling to him with increasing urgency. When the Institute’s maintenance men found him in this position in the morning, the empty bottle of scotch in his lap, he was taken to a hospital, from there to the morgue, where an autopsy determined that he died of alcohol poisoning. Stories in newspapers and on television the next few days eschewed sensational details, identifying his various accomplishments. Gloating satisfaction remained to the shock jocks and bloggers who dragged him over hot coals the next weeks, months, and years, until he was all but forgotten—to everyone but Dr. Ollie Apple, who had his own demons to confront. He felt some responsibility for the death of his old friend Bernard Bartram, even though he still felt the joy of victory in their debate. The Institute, the Press, and the talking heads had given him that much. But, quite frankly, Bartram had lost interest halfway through taping. Apple knew because he had watched it many times over, long after the distance between the words he spoke and what he felt inside caused him to recognize that he no longer believed in anything. As he believed in nothing, he saw no reason to put an end to his career. His wife and children still required a house, food on their table, clothes on their back, all that living in affluent society demanded. In the short or long run, what difference did it make? He would keep talking until he ran out of words. The choice had been taken from his hands. Robert Pope has published several books of stories, most recently Not a Jot or a Tittle and Disappearing Things from Dark Lane Press. New work can be found at Granfalloon, SORTES, and Fictive Dream.

There is no end to my love for Jemjasee. I pace the ragged cliffs, searching the sea for her ship. My longing will not cease until I am entwined in her marble wash of lavender and green arms. It’s dawn. The sunlight’s red varnish stretches across the Santa Lucia Mountains. The mist from the sea floats through the Monterey Cypress. Backlit in pink stands the Piedras Blancas Lighthouse. The waves caress my vestige feet. The foam licks my revenant face. The damp never seeps into my gossamer bones. My long silk robe opens, my breasts exposed to the witless wind. It hisses, jeers, but I am invincible, adrift in my chariot of grief. The gulls perch in conference on the white rock. Beyond is the blue empty sky, the vast sea without sails, no horizon. Blue. Come, Jemjasee. Am I to roam this rugged coastline for eternity, this journey without distance? I feel doomed, my struggle invisible. You must come, Jemjasee. Save me from my weariness. I skim the jagged bluff. The elephant seals raise their massive heads when they see me then fall back to sleep. Along the winding path, I float unnoticed by gardeners and groundskeepers. I glide over the pebbled lane, past stone cottages, a gift shop, the bell and tower. Slipping through the walls of the lighthouse, I float to the stairs. Tourists gasp when I appear. “The website didn’t say anything about a magic show,” someone says. “It’s like Disneyland!” cries a child. Their zeal echoes around the cylindrical walls. I nod, playing along with the charade. It’s not always like this. Some days, people are thick with fear. They flee from my presence. When the sun shines, I’m an act. If the fog veils the coast, I’m a phantom. Most days, they don’t see me at all. “Ah, that’s my wench.” I recognize the guide’s garbled, liquored voice, his gnarled laugh. A salty ex-sailor, he sometimes comes alone, drinking, running after me, catching air. On the step, I look into his weather-beaten face. His sunken eyes leer. Damn foolish scoundrel. Turning, gliding over the wrought-iron stairs to the deck, I let my robe fall. Naked. “This isn’t for kids!” Offended, parents usher their children outside, then turn for one last glimpse at my beautiful body. I continue. Invulnerable. My feet sail over spiral wrought-iron stairs, my fingers sweep above the narrow curving rail. Everyone has gone, except for the guide, who looks up at me and says, “You elusive lass, I relish the day I grab your long red hair and make you mine.” He’ll never get the chance. Inside the lantern room, the beacon has no purpose. Still, it shines for those who live along the coast and the tourists driving by. I glide outside to the widow’s walk. From the empty skies to the ocean’s bed, nothing rises or descends. Jemjasee, if you love me, come. Not long past, her ship rose out of the sea, and beams of lights pranced above the waves. Particles rearranged themselves, silver, glittered. The mirage shimmied into form. A shape malleable to Jemjasee’s thoughts, horizontal, then vertical, a kaleidoscope of color reflecting the terrain, the craft visible only when she wanted. Jemjasee was too good for me, too advanced. Not only did I fall in love with her, but the idea of what I, too, might become. She couldn’t suffer the stench of violence that infused my planet. If exposed too long, her breath ceased. I had to go with her, or not. But how could I journey outside of my own world? Fear ransacked my mind. It stuffed my schooling, programming, upbringing into a box that, god forbid, I break out and beyond until I’m unfettered by the lies I’ve been taught—crammed it down my cranium, and just to be sure, set a lid, a square hat with a tassel on top, to keep it all in. My decision to leave Earth was as ragged and split as the cliffs of my homeland. After anguishing in my cottage, gazing on memories, touching knickknacks, holding friendships in picture frames, I pondered all I would lose. The future—too elusive, too great a change, my past—something I clung to. I can’t leave. Jemjasee held me, the feeling of sadness so great no words would comfort. My heart was shrouded in sorrow. She walked the waters as her ship ascended from the sea. The vessel hovered above the waves, a silver triangle. Sleek, like Jemjasee. It rolled on its side, morphed into a vertical tower, with a fissure, and she entered. A thousand lights, curved and colored, sparked, flashed, then disappeared. The instant she left, I knew my mistake. And so it began, the tears of regret and self-loathing. I missed the woman who was so full of love, that she knew nothing of its opposite. One day, while my mind slipped down around my ankles, I sat in my cottage, staring at a collage of empty food cartons, magazines, dust bunnies, paint chips, shattered wine glasses, a broken window from where the wind whispered, Go ahead. Do it. On that day, I chose to end my suffering. With clarity restored and a mission in sight, I tossed a rope over the living room beam and tied a hoop large enough for my head, but small enough for my neck. From the kitchen, I dragged a chair and placed it underneath the shaft. I climbed on the seat, put the noose over my neck, and kicked out the chair. I dangled. Minutes went by, and still I was alive. Then my neck broke and life ebbed. Somewhere I drifted, first as a dark cloud, then into a gauzy realm where I was still—me. Oh, my outrage to discover that I could kill my body but never my Self! A shadowy reflection of the woman Jemjasee loved, I roamed the rim of the bluff for another chance to leave, hoping she’d return. I saw her. In my rapture I wailed, Jemjasee! She walked the shore, shouting, Astrid! I’m here for the last time. Come, before your planet strikes back for the harm done to it. I ran down the cliff. My kisses lingered deep in her neck. My hands seized her stalks of short black hair. Jemjasee looked through me even as my mouth covered hers, my fingertips drunk from the touch of her. Nothing, not my cries or kisses could rouse her. Sobbing, I screamed, Can't you see me—don’t you know I’m here! Then she saw me and backed away. I saw the horror there in her golden eyes. Her shock pierced my translucent heart. Please forgive me. Her kind never sheds tears. Jemjasee had told me that on her island in the universe, there were no reasons to cry, but looking into her perfect lavender and green marble colored face, I saw a tear on the threshold of falling. I was ashamed. She left by way of the ocean as her ship rose out of the sea. Condemned, I pace the ragged cliffs, the gulls in flight, the lighthouse behind me, on an endless quest to be with my beloved, forever adrift, because I hadn’t the daring to journey past my sphere. DC Diamondopolous is an award-winning short story and flash fiction writer with hundreds of stories published internationally in print and online magazines, literary journals, and anthologies. DC's stories have appeared in: Progenitor, 34th Parallel, So It Goes: The Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library, Lunch Ticket, and others. DC’s recently released collection Captured Up Close (20th Century Short-Short Stories) has two Pushcart Prize nominated stories and one nominated for Best of the Net Anthology. Her first collection of stories was Stepping Up. She lives on the California coast with her wife and animals. dcdiamondopolous.com

The road ahead slithers like a giant black serpent in restless desert night Fingers drum on the wheel to the beat of his demons, as hidden creatures howl under the shroud of stygian sky Years turned inside out driving through unshaven city streets, searching for the rainbow’s end – just to find he’s just an extra in a tragedy with 8 billion acts: no standing ovations, no curtain calls Overhead, my wings spread, I drift content on cold currents – a fresh kill clamped in my beak Terry Chess's work has appeared in The Chiron Review, The Journal of Undiscovered Poets, A Glass of Wine with Edgar, and Quill & Parchment, among others. He lives in a Chicago suburb with his wife, and their Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, "Charlie." When not writing, he collects rare books, plays chess, and is an avid soccer fan.

Mary Ann Thompson smoothed her hands over the long-sleeved maid uniform before going through the service door to the Lord Baltimore Hotel. The entrance was a rusted green door around the back near the dump. A far stretch from the gold-plated revolving doors and mosaic floors of the lobby. But Mary genuinely liked her job cleaning the rooms of the bougie hotel. It was her duty to bring smiles to the wealthy fat cats in the elegant, carpeted hallways with old aristocratic paintings. Still, what she loved most about her job was the ability to conceal bruises. “Good afternoon, Mary,” Taniyah smiled. Her words carried undertones of a Caribbean accent. Even at 46, Taniyah’s dark skin looked flawless against her crisp, white uniform. Her high cheekbones and full lips made her appear ten years younger. “And what’s so good about it?” Taniyah chuckled. “Never gets old, girl.” Taniyah had served at the hotel almost as long as Mary. Both coming from troubled marriages, the two women hit it off instantly. Mary was there to support her friend when Rodney, Taniyah’s husband, up and left one day, never to be heard from again. She didn’t understand how a woman could give twenty-plus years to a man just for him to wake up and change his mind. Mary put her purse in her locker and pulled out a small red ball, which she slipped into her pocket. A slice of white layered cake came out next. “Ohhh, is this what you’ve been talking about…The Lady Baltimore?” Taniyah asked. Mary nodded and set it down on Taniyah’s desk before turning to hook her radio to her fully notched belt. “You’re too sweet, Mary, always thinking about others. Looks so delicious.” Mary shrugged. She’d rather be called beautiful than sweet. “How’s the shift so far?” “The usual, I’m afraid. Melissa is up on floor 6 cleaning her second room, moving as slow as Christmas. Luna radioed she’s already finished 11, 12 and half of 13. The girl’s quicker than a jackrabbit in heat. And the newest girl, she’s almost completed floor 18.” “What about floors 1–5?” “What about them?” Taniyah put her clipboard down and stood up from her desk. “They’re done, finished by yours truly.” “Naw.” “Yeah.” “Well, wonders never cease.” Taniyah laughed. Her blood-red nails slapped her right thigh. “They don’t with me.” Mary stood up and sighed. She pushed a strand of white streaked hair away from her brown eyes and grabbed a checklist. “Guess I’ll go make my rounds.” She started for the service stairwell but stopped. “If Brian comes by you can send him up.” Her voice held a sharp edge. Taniyah’s face fell flat. She nodded. “Understood.” Mary’s first stop was with Melissa, who she found digging through room 605’s fridge. “Oh, I was just finishing up,” the young girl said in-between chews. Her blonde hair fell well past her shoulders and her uniform apron hung loose with food smears. It looked almost as dark as the heavy liner winged across her eyes. “You’ve got to get faster, Melissa,” Mary said. “Your two-week trial was over last week. You should be in 612 by now.” She put her own checklist down on Melissa’s cart. “And look at your uniform. You’re a mess.” “I’m sorry, Mary. I promise I’ll do better.” She tried to pin her hair back. “Your apron’s filthy,” Mary sighed again and untied her own apron. “Here, take mine.” “Thank you, and I swear this is the last time you’ll have to talk to me.” “It better be, or you’ll have no place here.” Years ago, she would have given someone like Melissa a few chances, but at 52, she had no time to bother with a little girl's laziness. There was enough of that in her life from Brian and his mistress. In the hallway, Mary took her red pen and stabbed Melissa’s name out on her clipboard. By the time she got to Luna on 14, her feet were throbbing in her white Keds. But she needed the exercise. Luna, middle-aged and a Maryland native, like herself, didn’t even notice her creeping along the corridor next to the cart. “Mary,” Luna jumped, dropping one of the dirty towels she held. “You startled me.” “Sorry. Just wanted to let you know what an amazing job you continue to do each day.” “Thank you for all the encouragement you and Taniyah have given me.” Luna smiled, highlighting the beginnings of crow’s feet. “You’re welcome and if there’s anything you ever need, you come and find me.” Mary placed her unmanicured hand on the woman’s shoulder. “I still remember starting out at this job twelve years ago and being so very timid. There was no one to turn to. Don’t want my ladies to feel that way.” “Much appreciated.” She took a deep breath. “If you don’t mind me asking, are all three of us assistant maids new to Lord Baltimore?” Mary raised her eyebrows. “Uh, yes. Yes, you are…but slightly different lead times. You’ve been here the longest.” “My, all new help, eh? Well, hope whatever ran the other three girls off doesn’t happen to us,” Luna said with a laugh. Mary’s face stayed statuesque. “I’m sure it won’t, as long as everyone follows the rules.” She gave her a nod and turned to the stairs again, radioing Taniyah for what floor Olivia was working on. It was still 18. “Are you okay?” Mary asked, finding the young redhead maid on the white cushioned bench next to the stairwell up on 18. In the middle of the afternoon, most guests departed for the day, either shopping or seeing the sights. The two ladies had the floor to themselves. “Yes, ma’am.” She wiped her eyes with the back of her sleeve. Her southern twang coiling around her words. “I was just getting…” Snobs billowed from the woman. Her shoulders hunched over. Mary sat down and put an arm around the woman. They began rocking back and forth together. “What’s the matter, Olivia?” “Ma’am, I’m supposed to be cleaning 19 next, but I just can’t. I can’t go up there.” “Why not?” Olivia turned to face her directly. Her hazel eyes gushing water. Her mouth opened, curling at the edges like a hole caving in. She inhaled. Her voice, a whisper. “I’ve seen them moving around. They scare me.” She shook her head. “I believe one day I’m gonna be cleaning and that’s the last you’ll hear from me. They gonna take me.” “Shhh, don’t talk such nonsense. No one is up there. The floor is empty.” She patted Olivia’s back. “I can clean floor 19 for you, if you’d like.” “Really? You’d do that for me?” “Yes, but only if I can use your cart.” “Of course.” Olivia’s smile spread across her thin lips. “I’ll go get another cart right away and start on 20.” She gave Olivia a thumbs up as the tail end of her skirt disappeared through the service elevator. Mary nodded to herself. It was going to be alright. Floor 19 was her floor, always would be. “Mary, do you copy?” Taniyah’s voice spoke through the radio. She pushed the button. “Copy, what’s up?” “It’s your husband. He’s in the parking lot with a young girl in his truck. He’s coming in.” “Okay. Send him up.” She paused. Her jaw clinched. “Send him to 19.” There was silence on the other end. “Will do.” Floor 19 was like the other floors, but there were no guests, ever. Management refused to use 19 anymore, therefore it was rarely cleaned except for mandatory dusting every two weeks. Keep up standards, the most important rule of the day. She pulled out her card to unlock the stair door to floor 19. Only the maids and management could unlock it. Low lighting illuminated the black-and-white framed photos lined along the hall walls. City images of a time long forgotten. Mary’s eyes scaled the tiny yellow lines as part of the carpet’s design. They ran the full length of the corridor, disappearing around the corner. The carpet wasn’t as posh as the other floors. Almost rough looking, the outdated vibe matched the loneliness of the floor. Mary pushed the cart along. The two front squeaky wheels sliced through the heavy stillness. “One, two, three.” She counted the solid wood doors as they rolled by. “Four, five, six.” Mary must have walked the floor a thousand times, and, like clockwork, goosebumps accumulated along the tops of her arms. Her knuckles remained white around the cart’s handle. Reaching the corner, Mary looked down the next hall to the neon red exit sign at the end. A faint buzzing sound emanated from the sign, echoing against the ferocious quiet. Mary grabbed her skirt pocket and, with a sweaty hand, pulled out the ball. She stared at it for a moment, a perfect sphere of red. The slap came out of nowhere. “Ouch!” she cried, grabbing her throbbing fingers, pained by the hit. The ball went flying backwards down the first part of the hall. She turned to see Brian standing next to her. His brown hair slicked back and stuck together in a solid block. He thought Tiffany liked it better that way. Made him seem younger, but Mary thought it made him look stupider. “Why’d you do that?” “Couldn’t you hear me calling your name?” His mouth turned into a sneer. “You made me walk all the way down this damn hall because your dumb ears aren’t working. I’ve been texting you all day.” Mary shook her injured hand and turned her body to her husband. “What do you want?” “You know what I want. I want you to sign those papers. Just face it. Me and Tiff are together. I don’t want you no more.” He still wore his white shirt and dress pants, the typical manager’s uniform for any Golden Corral. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and melted into a receding hairline, despite the cool October day. “I’ll sign them when I’m good and ready. We’ve had thirty years together. Another week will not matter. Plus, my lawyer needs to read them over.” “You lawyered up?” Brian shook his head. “When did you decide to lawyer up?” He began pacing, running his hand through his matted hair the best he could. “I knew this would happen. Knew it. I will tell you what. You’re gonna sign them today.” He pointed his finger at her face. “I will not.” “Shit. We ain’t got time for this.” Brian grabbed her by one hand. “You’re gonna sign now on my phone.” He lifted the palm of his other hand, muscles flexed. Mary squeezed her eyes shut and ducked her head, ready for the strike. “Ugh! What the hell?” he yelled. Mary felt his grip let go. She opened her eyes and saw the red ball bounce sideways against the left wall. It settled near Brian’s foot. Her gaze rolled to a little girl in a cream-colored dress who stood at the far end of the hall. Brian rubbed his shoulder. “Hey, was that you?” His brow furrowed at the girl. “Stop throwing things.” He reached down and grabbed the red ball. With a smirk of satisfaction, he stuffed the red ball into his pocket. The little girl remained motionless. Two dark eyes like saucepans on fire. Her bangs framed her face perfectly. Her skin, matching the color of her dress, looked even paler against her dark hair. Brian grunted and turned back to Mary. “Like I said, you’re signing those documents today, even if I have to make you.” His hand reached for Mary’s arm again, but another, ashy skinned hand grabbed his. Its bulging veins of blue and purple made Mary repulse back. It was the little girl. “Give me my ball,” she said. Her voice reached just above a whisper but still earthy-cold. Her fingers squeezed his flesh so hard that blood droplets formed. “Ahhh!” Brian screamed, clawing at the little girl. Using his one free hand, he tore at his arm in an unsuccessful attempt to loosen her grip. Mary fell backwards, attempting the crab walk to scramble away. Drafts of cold air blew through the corridor, blowing her hair against her face. The lights flickered and two more bodies appeared beside the girl. A man and a woman, both dressed fancy in a pinstriped suit and traditional flapper gown. All three waxy faces leered at Brian. Their smiles showcased sets of sharp, white teeth as they greedily licked their lips. “Mary, help!” Brian reached out for her, but she backed away further. She stood up straight, powerful. The three strangers pounced on Brian. Teeth tore at his throat, hand, and shoulder. The snap of bones echoed down the hallway. Without a flinch, Mary turned around. Brian’s cries were high-pitched, squealing, almost pig sounding. The last thing she remembered were his wide eyes, moistened with tears. Mary’s eyes stayed as dry as hollow bones. A step forward, then another and another. The screams suddenly stopped. This was the part she always doubted. The part when she wondered if they’d still be there waiting for her when she turned around. She expected it every time. But then again, maybe Hell wouldn’t be so bad once she got there. She breathed deep and made a 180 turn. The hall was empty. Traces of Brian were nowhere to be found. Floor 19 was silent, almost peaceful. The manager told her he didn’t record there anymore for fear of what could get out. He always lacked proper control and actual balls. Something rolled against her shoe. Mary looked down and saw the ball with its perfect symmetry and blood red color. She picked it up, squeezed it once, and slid it into her pocket. “Mary, do you copy?” Taniyah’s voice came over the radio. She reached down for the button. “Copy, go ahead.” “A woman named Tiffany is here. She said she came with a Brian…is she talking about your husband? Have you seen him today?” Taniyah was always reliable. She kept their story straight. That was why their business with her own husband, Rodney, was so easy to complete five years ago. Yet the debt collector before him, a much bloodier situation. “Send her up, Taniyah. I can assist her better that way.” A jagged smile stretched across her face, much larger than normal. Traces of lines formed in jigsaw patterns around her mouth and cheekbones, giving them an unnatural formation. She reached down to fondle the ball in her pocket. “Just make sure she comes to 19, please.” Lisa Rodriguez is a new author who currently lives with her family at Ft. Meade, Maryland. She loves to write flash fiction and short stories. Her words can be found in Cafe Lit, Instant Noodles, and Bright Flash Literary Review. In her free time, she enjoys ghost hunting, Mexican wrestling (Lucha libre) and loves black coffee with two shots of espresso. She hopes to spook you out with her writing one day.

I’m a junkie, so a high tolerance is the enemy. I fight for that which makes me feel something. We walk around the battlefield, glowing in the dark. All the corpses have disappeared. Thousands of lives lost because of one man’s selfishness. Puppet masters pulling strings. What does this even mean? Veterans think the fighting is dumb. The rubber mask I wear is featureless, dirtied. Stitches outline the mouth and go around the circles where the ears were cut off. “I’m a monster,” I sob. You take one look at me, my uniform torn, bloody, and sweaty. My whole body shaking with the force of my tears. You gently grab my arm, avoiding my many wounds, and pull me into a tight embrace. “Yes, you are,” you say firmly. “But that’s not who you are.” We stay holding each other for a while, then withdraw in defeat. Will Sandberg graduated from Flagler College and lives in Florida. He loves his wife, PC gaming, and watching sports.

Walking through the city so unmindful of my legs— The Hoverer stays motionless no matter where I go, borderless GodSky also deLighting [this] brainbow. How long has it hovered unstuck to egoity, immune to post & pre, everybody’s personal egoless deity… why try to look & see? ‘Tween the temples it’s aware unseen/beholdingly, never caught in neural net like some blood juicy fly… exodusted from the grip of pharaoh-ego I. Which is ‘more’ The Hoverer…now or eternity? The Hoverer embraces both uninterruptedly, mated like a mirror shows shit & reflects stainlessly, never clinging to a thought of ‘understand thought-free.’ Dawn-fresh…horizon-free! I’d reply but secret mantra in-hears silently. Ken Goodman blends ecstatic meditation & poetry creation in Cleveland, Ohio. kenpgoodman@yahoo.com

Once, my father Frederick went into the woods. It was a cold night in Leipzig when I, Sieglinde, was born. I was the twelfth child of a woodcarver and washerwoman. We lived in a shanty by the opera house, and I grew up hearing the sound of music. Great arias poured out into the gutter that I collected in my memory like spilled coins. “One by God, two by the Devil, three by Death,” papa always said. In the alehouse late at night, papa spoke of how he walked miles and miles, begging for mercy for a good godparent for me. I was born an ill omen, on All Soul’s Eve, in a caul. It snowed the day I was a newborn suckling infant on mama’s teat, and my elder sisters Johanna and Ilke and the rest of my brothers crowded around my swaddled, nursing form. There was not enough food or money to last the winter. To win fortune’s favor and full larders, father meant to bargain with God. But God plays favorites, papa said. So, he turned Him away. God could not be my godfather. Next came old Samiel, the Black Huntsman. He is wicked, and made a terrible offer, papa thought, so into the barrel of papa’s rifle Samiel’s soul went. Papa was always good at trapping things. Once, papa fit the moon into a thimble and blotted out the night for a whole week. The crops in Leipzig didn’t grow, and Mme. Friegler’s voice went to shards the whole time. When a cow was born with two black heads, papa put the moon back to ward off God’s wrath. So thereupon sauntered my bold father Frederick, drunk off cheap ale, and into the darkest part of the forest he went, where sunlight never touches, and winter always freezes. He found a graveyard of souls. Death was there, tending frozen roses. And Samiel was still trapped in papa’s gun. “Will you be my dear Sieglinde’s godmother, Frau Todd? I have a handsome demon in exchange,” papa boasted. Death smiled. Frau Todd is just, after all, and always takes pity on souls. “You know, Frederick, Heaven and Hell talk often about your penchant for stealing things with sweetened words. Just last year, you bribed a sparrow to give you two weeks off the back of summer so that you had more time to complete the legs of a chair.” “Though silver-tongued, Frau Todd, I am also an honest man. Is there any punishment for bargaining?” Frau Todd laughed. “No, dear Frederick, all is right in my eyes. I see you have a good heart, and that Sieglinde will grow to be a great woman. So yes, you shall free my husband the Black Huntsman and set Samiel back upon his Wild Hunt as Erl King, and I shall be dear Sieglinde’s godmother. She cannot fail with me by her side. I will make Linde rich, but moreover, kind.” And so, my godmother was the talk of Leipzig. At Peterskirche, a flock of black crows attended my baptism, complete with their Lady in black lace. I grew up under Frau Todd’s wing, and inherited father’s tricksome tongue. I was sixteen. Frau Todd had a cabin in the forest, where she taught me women’s crafts: weaving souls. Dousing with spring-green twigs. How to bake the best bread for my future husband. Frau Todd herself was married to Samiel the Black Huntsman. But she lived alone, and only visited him when the moon was full, or to deliver a month’s worth of dinner in an enchanted silver pail. Samiel ate souls that were too weak to pass on into Heaven or Hell. As for what Frau Todd ate – anything hearty, bloody, and half-alive. “Mama Todd, what would you trade for the jewel on your throat?” I asked Frau Todd the day autumn came. Frau Todd smiled. “Only a fresh beating heart, Linde.” So, I baked a blackbird’s heart into a veal pie. The bird’s heart was alive by my magic, bloody and thrumming, when Frau Todd bit in. “I see you are becoming quite the thief of life, just like your father Frederick,” Frau Todd smiled, her blonde hair and winsome blue eyes beaming. She wiped the blood on a pearly napkin, then devoured the rest of the pie. Into my hands Frau Todd placed the jewel. It was a large ruby that glimmered with black stars. “What are the virtues of this stone, Mama Todd?” I inquired, fascinated. Frau Todd was skinny as a spindle, dainty and precise, and always wore white, with a red ribbon in her hair. Almost skeletal, but not unpleasant, with long honey-colored hair and eyes that burned like the sky. I felt she was always watching me. “That is the Jewel of Nocht. It can set to sleep anyone who you direct it at.” I had much fun, setting my schoolmarms to sleep. Frau Todd had made us rich, and I and Johanna and Ilke all attended a girl’s Catholic finishing school. Ilke was even learning opera from Mme. Friegler. I was a stickler for poetry. But the nuns did not like me slipping away to kiss cute choir boys and woo schoolgirls with their curling, sweet-smelling hair. So, I enchanted the nuns into snoring. “Linde, it is dangerous what you do!” Johanna giggled, embroidering a rose and thistle. She loved sewing. Mama was now a fine lady, but her hands would always be cracked from her time with lye and river rocks as a washerwoman. Mama did not want her daughters to know pain. And her sons had all made papa’s woodcarving business a booming industry. They each carved different parts of tables and shipped them out of Rostock to international waters. “You’re too much like papa, Linde,” my sister continued. “One day, it will do you in.” “Say Johanna?” I mused, clacking my nails on my chalk tablet. “How much is the smell of a thistle worth?” “Do thistles smell?” “To birds.” “Then I’d say… they’re worth laughter. Laughter can’t be sold, and often, laughter is a lie,” Johanna chuckled, used to my joking. “Shall I trade this thistle and rose?” “Only their smell, dear Johanna.” I tickled her. She burst out laughing in tears as I hit her sweet spot. Thistles smelled like rain, I learned. That night, at Frau Todd’s house, I used the smell of roses and thistles, perfected in Johanna’s virginal mind, to sweeten Frau Todd’s stew. Frau Todd’s face was electric. “This stew has life in it!” she beamed. “Linde, you are so clever with your magic.” Frau Todd gulped it down, but it never seemed to cling to her thin, thin shape. Death is always hungry, it seems. “I have the best teacher, Mama Todd,” I demurred. We finished the soup in companionable silence as the fire crackled. “Sieglinde, it is time,” Frau Todd said, her hair from her blond chignon falling a bit to her shoulders. “You are sixteen now. I will teach you my secrets.” It was the moment I had been angling for, caressing Frau Todd’s tongue with delicious concoctions. Though I loved her like a godmother, I wanted more power. “Are you sure, Frau Todd?” I said innocently. “Do not act the sheep when you are a wolf, Linde. You are as wily as me.” Frau Todd smiled. “You are a clever girl, my Linde. Come see my final secret.” She took me deep into the heart of the forest. A patch of heart-shaped purple leafed herbs bloomed with fiery orange flowers. “These are my precious deathsflower, goddaughter” Frau Todd sighed sweetly, inhaling their overripe scent. “Crush and make a powder medicine of this for any patient you have. If I appear by the head of their bed, they will survive, and you may cure them. But if I appear at the dying man or woman’s feet, my Linde, I mean to drag them to either God or my husband Samiel. There is no stopping me then.” “Thank you, Frau Todd,” I said, tears in my eyes, and hugged her, hard, feeling I had just lost my last bit of innocence. I set up shop in Berlin in the Old City by the orangerie. The deathsflower grew wherever I went, in secret gardens and groves, appearing only for me. I made my way as a physician, in a time when Europe was being electrified and Prussia was bending to welcome women into the arts and sciences. Some thought me a quack, but I cured when I could cure, and put to sleep with my Jewel of Nocht those bound for brighter shores, Frau Todd a vigil keeper at their toes. The families always felt overwhelming peace under my care, and godmother often took tea with me in my little flat by the opera. I still fancied the arias and had just seen Così fan tutte for the first time. It could not beat The Magic Flute, but it had its charms. “Where do you take them, Mama Todd, truly?” I asked her over tea one day. I was so dark in comparison to her, a night girl, black hair, almond-brown eyes, tan skin, freckles and moles. I was beautiful in a way Death was not, thrumming with life and humor, and she was glorious in a way I could never be. Where Frau Todd was youthful, I would always be mortal, and where my magick worked in little tricksy ways like papa had taught me, hers was vast. Little slices of time and place I could carve up, bottle, and trap were mine. But all the stars were my godmother’s. Great gaseous balls. With angel’s hearts. Beating, bloody, winged hearts that only Death could eat. Frau Todd smiled dreamily. “And what if God has as much appetite as I, or Samiel?” she teased. Only, I could not tell if she was serious or not. “So, a Heaven’s Gate is the same as a Hellmouth? God eats His chosen souls?” I shivered. Night set over my heart. Death’s lips thinned. “Everything is hungry, goddaughter. From the worms to God Himself. A grave is a grave, my Linde. We all rot, in the end.” I winced, hard. Frau Todd smiled in afterthought: “Yes, everyone perishes. Except for me, of course.” The King of Prussia was marked for death. Some say he had crossed a witch on his campaign in France. Most thought it was the Hapsburg curse. All I knew was, there was land and a title and limitless purse for any lass or man that could cure him. I hauled my belongings to court, my cart and best oxen and phials of medicine, and my precious deathsflower, and I went deep into his palace. Finally, it was my turn. The Jewel of Nocht gleamed like a rose on my chest. Frau Todd was at his head and nodded serenely. Smiling, I cured the king. There was a ball held in my honor. I was named Lady Sieglinde, First of Her Name. The royal coffers were mine. So was a palace back in dear old Leipzig – the King had done his research. I charmed the corsets off many lasses for a tussle in silken sheets, then sang the britches off several noblemen. With Frau Todd’s help, I distributed birth control made especially by my cultivated strains of sacred herbs throughout the palace, and I grew even more popular. But most on my mind was Princess Hilda. She was beautiful – curvy, shining brown ringlets, always dressed in green like Lady Greensleeves. I set to courting Hilda in secret, sang her the eponymous song meant originally for Anne Boleyn, even wrote her some of my poems. As we lay in my palace’s bed – Hilda was there to “study mathematics with the King’s savior” – Hilda asked: “My dearly beloved Linde, what is that jewel?” “What is the truth worth to you, my Hilda?” She had eyes like a doe. I realized then, all like a crashing train, that I was deeply in love. “A rose.” Hilda beamed. “And a thistle?” I said, shaking. Hilda giggled, staring at the silver astrolabe over my room and study. “Whatever you say, snake charmer.” I went home, and bought the rose and thistle embroidery from Johanna, and I gave it to Hilda…wrapped with a promise ring with a chip from the Jewel of Nocht. We met back in Berlin. “Let’s run away to America, Sieglinde, together,” Hilda beamed, ravishing me with kisses. Heat grew in my legs. She made love to me to claim me. “I cannot do that Princess Hilda. My medical license, my land and holdings, my livelihood, are all here.” Hilda soured. “Am I worth anything to you but my title?” “Hilda, you are the blackbird heart in my pie.” The comely princess forgave me, kissing me through our tears. “You say the funniest things, strange Sieglinde.” The next day, Hilda accepted a marriage offer from the Duke of England. Her promise ring came to me by post. I was bereft. I wanted to bargain, but for once I had nothing to give. Death is always hungry. And never hungrier than when it comes to Maidens. Death and the Maiden, entwined. Hilda fell sick with her father’s illness in a week. The King of Prussia said: “Anyone who can cure Hilda gets to become King. The engagement to the Duke of England is annulled. I will hand over my crown to whosoever saves my daughter.” I disguised myself as a man and cast a glamour of forgetting over myself, to blend in. Court had forgotten Sieglinde the King’s Savior, secure as I was in my bastion in Leipzig, but I had not forgotten the riches of the palace. The riches all paled in comparison to my beloved. I cursed myself every day for not sailing away to America with Hilda and starting over. I sheared my hair, donned men’s britches, and rode in through a storm on my palomino gelding, death like a decaying rose in my shadow. There Frau Todd stood, at Hilda’s feet. Hilda was comatose. “Mama Todd, you cannot take her, I love her!” I pleaded, on my knees. It was only us alone in the room. Frau Todd grew steely. “My Linde, this time, I win.” I grabbed the Jewel of Nocht, and with its ruby beam, I put Death to sleep. My godmother collapsed in a pile. I moved Hilda’s bed so that her face was by Frau Todd’s breast and her feet were by the wall. I leaned in to administer deathsflower tincture. The purple and orange swirls brought life back to Hilda’s lips. “Sieglinde, my beloved, is that you?” Hilda asked, sleepy-eyed, reeling. But Death dragged me away, away from Hilda’s embrace. “Why, Mama Todd? Give me this one thing!” “A heart is worth a heart, my Sieglinde.” Frau Todd was oddly happy. “I get to show you my favorite part of the forest. My beautiful Cave of Souls.” I awoke, scared shitless, in a cavern. Candles, candles everywhere on dank lime scale walls, blinding me. Tall tallows for children, half-burnt for the married, stubs for the old and ill. “Where is mine, godmother?” I asked. “Putting me to sleep was a neat trick. Just like Samiel did to rape me. When I was simply a girl. The first woman born in God’s shadow. That is why I had to marry him, you see. It was the beginning of time, when a woman’s first blood meant something, my little linden tree. I was born from that tree, just like your namesake, Sieglinde. In fact, I was once called Eve,” Frau Todd mused. She held a sharp knife. “Where is it! My soul?” “What is a soul worth, my Linde?” Death’s blue eyes shone like stars. “A mother’s love,” I pleaded. “Spare me, Mama Todd.” “I never loved you, Sieglinde. Death cannot love. Fond of you, yes. But the only thing I love is hearts.” She showed me a pool of wax, candle flicker. “This is you. You will feed me.” “No– Uglugh!” Eve reached deep into my chest and carved out my heart with her paring knife. Swallowed, now I see all. Death is just. Death is not merciful. Death is not kind. And now I live in the first woman’s chest, a caged blackbird, trilling my mournful tune. She feeds me with tears over her unfaithful, ruinous husband. She cries over dead newborns. Comforts war-grizzled veterans who take their lives. She heals the souls of them all. We walk together through the ages, my cage Frau Todd and I. Now, we are never alone. Allister Nelson is a queer, neurodivergent Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and author whose work has appeared in Apex Magazine, The Showbear Family Circus, Eternal Haunted Summer, Bibliotheca Alexandrina, SENTIDOS: Revistas Amazonicas (for which she headlined COVID's first Amazonian poetry festival), Black Sheep: Unique Tales of Terror and Wonder, The Kaidankai Ghost Podcast, The Greyhound Journal, Bewildering Stories, Wicked Shadow Press's Halloweenthology, FunDead Publications' Gothic Anthology, POWER Magazine, Renewable Energy World, the National Science Foundation, and many other venues. She is a member of the Horror Writer's Association.

This morning the red ant and larger white-winged fly chase the frightened large striped spider across the cold floor. Why, what thirst for retribution or what helpless fear, what protection? It’s daylight, time to ask the Chinese book 3,000 years old a river, the Tao, runs through. Close your eyes, think without thinking, shake, throw three pennies six times. They form parallels, an old ladder’s rising rungs, broken or solid, yin or yang, often changing lines, sixes, nines. Those say where your life is reaching, that tree growing from earth, developing itself the instant’s second hexagram. For each cast fate is a chosen oracle, from 64 shining with sun or darkness, twilight at daybreak, at evening. They tell the same story, do right in this world, as the stream runs on to the next and back again, the current flowing always through you and all things. Nels Hanson has worked as a farmer, teacher and editor. His fiction received the James D. Phelan award from the San Francisco Foundation, and his poetry the Prospero Prize from Sharkpack Review.

When the last lithe leopard in the emperor's crowded preserve leapt down from his arboreal perch pink-mouthed and mottled, where was the degenerated emperor, taped and bandaged, with all his skill for naught and disowned by his own people, slowly, grandly, greedily dying? Nowhere else but still as stone in the hospital, such as it was, his golden skin wan in the crepuscular hospital light. Was it his own disease, newly invented, or whose disease was it? Lengthy discourse rattling out of the discountenanced doctor, made clear the cancer or so he called it, was the last stop on the line. Brutish cells, voyaging in giant argosies of destruction turn yellow to sallow and, dappled with deceit, dangerous sympathetic friends and courtiers dimly seen, daily on view became more distinct, more sovereign, as death clumped closer and the flesh, forever awake, became a burden. Death as a unicorn in nurse's uniform bides his time, patient as Griselda among bottles and needles. Toward the last morning, fading with the stars the Yellow Emperor saw clear as alpine forests, close as lovers the luminous jade-green eyes of a dragon, watchful and quiet, watched it fade to its beautiful oblivion of myth and the emperor arose, a live wire of life and strength, leaving cap and clothes, leaping through the dawn he went, bright as the Paschal lamb he went, bright as the morning he went, dancing to the harmony and peace of nothing at all, to eternal heavenly equivalence; kingpin of the indeterminate, internal joyful void where all power and life begin. Jack D. Harvey’s poetry has appeared in Scrivener, The Comstock Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Typishly Literary Magazine, The Antioch Review, The Piedmont Poetry Journal and elsewhere. The author has been a Pushcart nominee and over the years has been published in a few anthologies. The author has been writing poetry since he was sixteen and lives in a small town near Albany, New York. He is retired from doing whatever he was doing before he retired.

She was born on New Year’s Eve, in a maternity ward overlooking the city. I stood with my face pressed against the cool glass, holding onto the windowsill and swaying back and forth until she emerged into grunts and screams and a night sky splintered by bursts of light. Her head emerged on one side of the countdown. Her feet were on the other. A baby born into two times. People wished each other a happy new year, and hugged, while I bled out onto the floor and held her against me and stared down at the flashes of light reflecting on her damp skin. Someone grabbed her a moment before I collapsed, and the light on her skin was the last thing that I saw as the floor rushed up towards me. I lost my daughter again the night she turned one. The sky was all bursts of colour, her eyes wide watching them. The colours reflected in her eyes, and she reached up to the fireworks, waving chubby little fists in the cold air. He threw her up into the sky, up to catch the fireworks. And the world split, shattering into a kaleidoscope of moments, a fracture in the world, and I saw it. In my world, he caught her, laughed, threw her up. In another, he missed, and in the dark she slipped between his hands, a darker shape on the ground and their bodies illuminated only by flashes. A parallel world broken apart from us. The fireworks matched. The sky was the same. But the people weren’t. I stood frozen and I watched as another me, a shadow of me, broke away and collapsed to the ground, collapsed down into deeper shadows, and I couldn’t see her, only hear her and her screams. Then she disappeared, her and her daughter, my daughter. But no. My daughter was fine, laughing in her fathers’ arms. I panicked. I made him stop. I killed off the game. Later, I killed off the relationship, too. I could never fully explain to him or to the shrink he made me go see. But I couldn’t trust him. Not with her. She was two years old and running around in the square in front of the shops, the way toddlers do, a straight-kneed speed waddle. I took my eyes off her, looked around at the others in the square, just a little paved area where people would hang out, have a coffee, bitch about the weather or the local council. I just saw her as she tripped, the toe of one of her little sandals caught in a grate, and she fell forward. The daylight exploded into colours, fractured like the night sky on New Year’s Eve, exploded into lines of red and gold. I saw her, and I saw myself, in a million pieces, a broken mirror image. This wasn’t my world. It couldn’t be. In my world, I rushed over to her. So did the other me. We were in time, in synch. But then, quickly, we weren’t. In my world, she was crying, a toddler who had fallen and busted her lip, and I was pulling her into my lap, and mopping up her face, and an old lady was offering me a bag of frozen chips for her face. In this world, my world, there was chaos and blood and tears. In another world, the wrong world, the broken world, there was silence and stillness on the ground and then screaming. A screaming that tore at my heart, a scream I still hear in my head, and have heard so many times since. In that world she lay still on the ground, until it slowly faded from view. I saw her die over there, as I held my daughter right here. People told me that I bubble wrapped my daughter. And maybe I did. But it wasn’t about her. It was about me. It’s not something you can say to your daughter, though. It’s not you, it’s me. But I couldn’t shake the memories, I couldn’t bear losing her over and over. It nearly destroyed me when she fell from the climbing frame when she was three. She plopped right onto her bum in our world. And onto her head in the other. Time broke apart, and as I gave her a hug and some reassurance, I saw myself holler for help in a near-empty playpark in winter, scream as her child, my child, lay at wrong angles on the ground. I vomited into a rubbish bin when the world was all one piece again, and a woman came over and handed me a tissue and asked if I was pregnant. Never. Never ever, not ever again, I wanted to yell. I’ve already lost three babies. I saw her through the window of the patio door when she was five, climb up onto the counter in the kitchen to get to my good knives, so she could pretend to be a chef like her mama. I couldn’t get into the house fast enough. In my world, we patched up her finger with a plaster, and I yelled at her for being careless, told her to stay away from knives, and from heights. In the other, she bled out before the ambulance arrived. I sobbed through the night. How many times can you mourn? How many times, when it’s the same person, lost over and over? If I wasn’t hovering over her, I was scolding her for being foolish, or telling her she couldn’t do something because it was dangerous. I kept her home. I kept her away from people. I thought I could protect her. And then, I stopped hovering, and I stopped waiting. Because it kept happening, and I couldn’t stop it, and she’d go no matter what. In some other time, some other place, some other universe where time would continue, and the inevitable would happen, and all I would see was the worst, and then me, the other me, would scream, or wail, or collapse unconscious and it would fade away. A near miss crossing the road. The slip in the bath. Playing minigolf. Each time, the scene played out in shattered mirrors and windows and the pain of loss in another universe. A place that could have been me, losing her. A place where I did. People told me I drank too much. People told me I took too many pills, spent too much time on message boards, too much time reading tabloids. People told me I was detached. Disconnected. I picked up extra shifts cooking in restaurants and at private events so I wouldn’t be home. I signed her up for after school clubs and I hired babysitters, so I couldn’t see what she did in the afternoons. I banned playparks. I hid all the knives. I turned the bath into a shower, and I laid down a non-slip mat. It didn’t matter. I lost her in lake, swinging from a hanging rope into the water, not deep enough to catch her. A rocky bottom, not enough rainfall. I lost her in the night, as she took a mis-step on the way to the bathroom, tripped and bashed a knee. Tripped and tumbled down the stairs. I lost her on the drive to a school trip, an overnight trip, her first away. I was excited. Not for her, for myself. I thought, she’ll be gone and I won’t have to worry about losing her for a week. We were blindsided by a van running a red light. It could have been a major accident, but it wasn’t. She didn’t even have a scratch. Except that the world split and the whole side of the car was an accordion around her, a pre-teen so proud to be old enough to sit in the front seat. I held it together until we got to the school, and I saw her get on the bus, and then I broke down in gratitude that she was gone, and I was free. Free for a week. Free of panic. Free from losing her again. And again. And again. It was New Year’s Eve. It was her birthday, my birth day. That was the first time I lost her, torn from my body in blood and screams and my mind losing contact with the world. She was back from university. Three blessed years where I barely saw her, where I put off every visit home, every trip together, every possible reunion. I told her I was busy. I told her I was travelling. I told her I was at work, cooking for famous people in far off places, that I was busy at every holiday. She got the hint, stayed with friends, stayed with her father. I told her I was sorry, but I wasn’t. I missed my daughter. But I didn’t miss the other places, the places where I lost her over and over. She had a job, she told me on the phone. She got a job doing the fireworks for events. I knew what the results of that would be, could imagine it without seeing. I felt sick, tried not to vomit as she explained her work. She told me she was helping out at the ones at home this year. I should come, see her work, spend her birthday with her. It was New Year’s Eve. We could celebrate. I went. I was already insane. I knew that. I was a reader of crazy theories, a poster on lunatic message boards. I had nothing to lose anymore, because how many times can you see space-time fracture around you and stay sane? Besides, I missed my daughter so, so much. The show was magnificent. The sky exploded, and I was blinded by colours, deafened by booms. I never once looked to see what might or might not be happening in that other world, parallel timelines that split off from mine at critical moments, or that’s what someone had told me online, anyway. I never looked at her, so it never happened. Not for me, at least. I hugged her, after. Handed her a box with freshly baked cookies, and under them, a tupperware of her favourite pasta sauce. I wished her a happy birthday. I told her I had to leave. On the drive home, I heard that there had been a solar eclipse on the other side of the world exactly at midnight in our time. The last time that had happened on New Year’s Eve had been 23 years ago. And before that, 500 years ago. The commentator seemed to think this was lucky. I decided it would be. I decided to force the dragon to bite its tail. Put an end to this. I could hear them above me, chattering, trading anecdotes, telling her that I had been a good woman even if I hadn’t been a great mother. They didn’t sound convinced. I felt sick as clumps of earth hit the lid of my coffin. I felt sick that I could still feel sick. I wasn’t supposed to be here anymore, I had escaped. I had tried to. But I had been wrong. But I could still see her, my child born into two times, lost in dozens. As she approached my coffin to drop some soil, on a cold, wet morning in winter, she slipped. And I watched, still saw as the timelines split and she fell. Here people gasped but she was fine, just a bruise. There she snapped a leg and there was blood, too much blood. I got it wrong. There is no end to this. Except. There she is. A ghost of the woman standing above me, dusting off her knees. She looks at me and she smiles, and she calls me Mum and holds out her arms. And we hug, and then there are others. All the others, who are always there and never there, and some of them say they’ve been waiting, and some of them say they missed me, and some of them can’t talk yet. There is me, another me wearing a hospital gown, a me who looks younger, and carries the smallest, and I remember being lost that first night. She comes over to me and takes my hand. They cuddle in, and it feels like fireworks on New Year’s Eve. Emma Burnett is an award winning researcher and writer. She has had stories in Radon, Utopia Magazine, MetaStellar, Milk Candy Review, Elegant Literature, The Stygian Lepus, Roi Fainéant, The Sunlight Press, Rejection Letters, and more. You can find her @slashnburnett, @slashnburnett.bsky.social, or emmaburnett.uk.

I have a buried romanticized secret — a notion in which I came from a long line of radiant, regal witches who loved to cook. I have a buried romanticized secret — a notion in which these witches expel that stagnant water that stained my soul. But what of my ancestors? Were they simple farmers who drank copiously and scraped for a living, heavy minds, anchored by chores? And what they did say around pots with mint tea, behind needlepoint, to keep their souls alive? Were they guardians of a way? Were they terribly oppressed? I have this hopeful, wild feeling that — their gatherings were contrary and subversive, in disobedient glory, by hot fires. Helen has a fine arts degree from St. Michael's College, Vermont and after the birth of her children, left a successful career in marketing to write and paint. She has been published in literary magazines and is currently working on a book of poetry about healing from a ski accident. When she is not busy developing her craft, she teaches yoga and ayurvedic cooking classes.