All Astra wanted was to go to the ball. But it was another thing her stepmother said she couldn’t do.

Perhaps her sight was failing. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t dance. Sometimes, when sweeping dust she couldn’t see, she would spin and swirl, the broom her partner. Sometimes, when cooking, she would sing songs, tap feet, move to a melody more felt than seen. Sometimes, when her stepmother and stepsisters went to balls, she dreamed of joining them, in some lavish dress, dancing into the dawn.

But Astra would bump into people. Astra would walk into things. Astra would trip, or fall, and embarrass their family name.

She scrubbed floors again, angry. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t have to dance. She could just sit and listen to the music. That would be more than enough. She loved music, and played her clarinet when she had a chance, when no one else was around, when her stepsisters couldn’t criticise her every note. For music was one thing that she didn’t need sight to see, for it was made of sound and feeling more than anything. But her stepmother would even let her listen. Tears spilled onto the floor and she scrubbed harder than ever. As she cried, there was a sound, a series of arpeggios that echoed as someone embraced her.

“You’re right. It’s not fair,” a man said, voice as soft and mellow as a bassoon. He was sitting beside her, a sapphire suit glimmering. He smelt of the sea, and seemed kind. A prince, or a sorcerer, or perhaps both. It was hard to tell.

“I just want to go to the ball”, she sobbed, frustrated.

“And you shall. All you need, is a little magic.” He said, beaming. He spoke a spell, consonants crooning, and produced a long white staff, with a ball at one end. The staff was adorned with runes, clearly magical.

“This can help you navigate any space, especially ballrooms.” He explained kindly, demonstrating how it worked. “Hold it like this.” He said, fingers brushing hers as he showed her how, as gentle as a flute. There was a spark across her skin as they touched, electric and alive.

She followed his guidance, gripping the staff softly, one finger outstretched against its rubber handle that was as tender as any lover’s touch. “Now sweep it across in front of you, not too wide, and walk in step, like this.” He took the staff, demonstrating, the ball at the end rolling over the floor with a song of its own. He gave it back to her, and she practiced a few times, sweeping from side to side like her broom did on the hallway floor, its symphony singing as the ball rolled from left to right, in time to the tempo of her feet. The runes glittered in iridescent colours, lighting up the space, and tingling when he came too close, or when obstacles appeared in her path. It was wonderful.

“Now, about a dress, and some shoes, of course.” He continued. His hands waved as his voice rose and fell, oozing like a bass clarinet as crooked consonants flowed. Her dress shimmered, turning to an emerald gown speckled with stars, and jade slippers adorned her feet, soft and comfortable, perfect for dancing.

Outside, the carriage waited, an amethyst globe of sheer glass. Astra’s new staff guided her up the steps, and she took her seat. She wasn’t surprised to find her clarinet on a cushioned seat across from her. He sat next to her, closing the carriage door, closer than ever. She folded up her new staff and placed it on her lap, as he sang to the kelpie that stood waiting.

True to their tales, it began to race towards the sea, blacker than obsidian, faster than lightning. It raced in the opposite direction from the palace, its music and laughter growing more distant by the minute, heading to the coast instead.

“I thought we were headed to the ball.” She said nervously, as the tall turrets disappeared behind her, too far away for even her vision to find.

“We are.” He grinned. “But I never said which ball.” He chuckled, as the kelpie dove into the sea, spray singing from its mane. Astra held her breath. Could it be? He handed her a red cap, and she put it on, more excited than ever. For there were stories, of a ball more glamorous than any other, deep beneath the waves.
Underwater, she marvelled at vibrant kingdoms of sound. Dolphins sung. Whales warbled. Seals serenaded. Fish reverberated. Coral hummed. Kelp murmured. Wild sea grass susurrated. Even the prince mumbled a tune as they descended, and Astra couldn’t help but smile.

The carriage came to a stop, outside a brilliant bejewelled palace. Music echoed, a beat pulsing, rhythms thrumming as he helped her down. She followed the sound, her new staff rolling as it guided her forwards.
Soon she found herself in a glorious ballroom, a shipwreck’s treasure, a band delighting, people laughing as they danced in dresses of every colour. Many wore red caps, for the Merrow love to dance. Astra spotted selkie and siren, mermaid and merman, sea dragon and sea serpent, kraken and kelpie; spinning, dancing, twirling. But it was the music that entranced her the most, and she longed to move to the melody, to join clarinet and oboe and trumpet and tuba in that swinging symphony, to become one with twirling triplets and swirling dancers.

She made her way onto the dancefloor, her staff leading the way, clasping her other hand round his elbow as he guided her across. A clarinet began to play as she did, and she smiled to hear its sweet song. The crowd parted for her as the runes on the staff hummed, and many asked if they could guide her, selkie bowing, mermen flirting. She blushed many times, overwhelmed by their kindness, never knowing any to be attracted to her before.

She took his hand, his sapphire suit shimmering as they danced into the dawn, and had the best night of her life. She took up her clarinet, and joined that underwater orchestra, playing like she never had before, and was praised as one of the best in the band. Many swirled to her melodies or twirled to her passages, as her fingers flew to new rhythms she had never known before.
​
When he offered to take her home, she refused. For beneath the waves, she was accepted, welcomed, invited, celebrated. Whereas above the waves, it was a different story. She didn’t want to go back, and he understood.
And so she stayed; her clarinet crooning, her soul singing, her heart happy, often dancing into the dawn. She fell in love with the man who had transformed her life, who had become soulmate and friend. In time, she became the Queen of the Sea, forever dancing as she dreamed she would.

About the author:
Sarah Oakes is a visually impaired writer and musician in love with krakens and science fiction. She has had one short story, four poems and many flashes published, and is working on a speculative novella in flash. You can find her stories in Voidspace Zine, Literary Namjooning, The Microlit Almanac, FromOneLine, Litmora Litmag, and National Flash Fiction Day. When not writing, you can find Sarah travelling, somewhere in nature, or playing her clarinet. You can also find Sarah on Bluesky at: @sarahoakeskraken32.blsky.social

“You must understand one thing: all Gods are aliens, but not all aliens are Gods.”

That was the message that Saphyre received after the 15 days of mixing Xanax with antidepressants. Something was off. She knew Lilith’s power was involved, but she wasn’t understanding who was speaking. She got scared.

This was not the first time. She had had psychotic breakdowns all through her teenage years, after a bad case of depression and the abuse of weed and cocaine. Then, the lights across her building started flicking in a different pattern. How could no one pay attention to that?

She was having another episode, that must be it. But it all made sense, really. Every little detail she was overthinking in the small apartment in the suburbs of São Paulo. She had spent the night smoking weed and writing nonsense into her journals. It was nonsense for others, because to her it was all too real. Her long red hair covered her wrinkles. Having a breakdown in her 50s was impossible to think of, but there she was. Of course that those who are experiencing a mental breakdown don’t think they’re off the tracks. Because she wasn’t, really. But this time she wouldn’t let them humiliate her like they did in the first times.

She had started going to a Yoruba temple, called the “Terreiro”. It was her girlfriend’s family group that introduced her to this odd religion. It is Santeria, Candomblé, Voodoo. It depends on where you are in the planet. And it was there she understood what accompanied her throughout decades, even though she was stable and medicated. The Babalorixá, meaning the “Mother of Saints” – the Priestess – of the Terreiro was incorporated with an Esù, the spiritual deity that guards the realms of the dead and the living, king of the crossroads. It was by talking to this entity that she understood what aliens were.

“Extra-Terrestrials. Think about it, child” the Esù said. “That which is not terrestrial. It is outwards. Spiritual. Spirits can be called aliens, so they’re all around.”

She thought about it and it did make sense. In this religion there is drinking, smoking, dancing, drumming. The prejuditial christian mindset considered it to be Dark Magic because of that. “The Occult.”

But, there are aliens that are not reduced to appearances in Terreiros. They invade each generation. Saphyre never remembered her early childhood. She was an alien that had invaded the real human Saphyre when she was about 7. That’s why she didn’t remember. Plus, Saphyre did something very wrong. She made an offering to the Esù on the woods without the assistance from the Babalorixá or anyone from the Terreiro. The spell backfired.

She lit a candle during the episode. Then, the lights started flicking through the opposite loft. They were weird patterns, with different colors and speed. She was communicating mentally, but she wanted to see. They wouldn’t indulge her to that. Not yet.

Her girlfriend was away, on a business trip to Doha to talk about transsexuality and queer awareness. Saphyre was alone. Of course, she was never alone. She had never been alone. When she invaded, she wasn’t aware of her power. Now, they were activating her. And they were charging the bar tap. She needed to go through it again, but now something had differed.

Not all aliens are spirits, like Saphyre herself. When she realized she invaded someone she felt bad. She had been a human for too long. But she was the bad guy, when you think about it.

The candle was red and black. The colors of the Esù. “Knucklehead, you woke them up.” They said. It wasn’t exactly a voice of sound but a quick thought that sunk in her mind. They were saying she woke everyone that had invaded the humans in the new generation. But how to differentiate one from the other? Who could she talk too without being committed to an asylum? The Babalorixá, maybe. But her girlfriend was away. She needed physical contact, someone to talk to about it, a real alien to converse with. But, you see, this is the most exclusive secret cult there was in the planet. Not even those on it knew they were on it. To Saphyre, that was a waste. And the matter was: what for? Why did we come here? Some say it was to enjoy, others to learn, others to hide. They panicked her in the first episodes, but now she knew better. She wasn’t guided by the voices. And she shuffled them with music. Music is the best religion there is.

It wasn’t just a manic episode she was going through. She needed someone on the inside to appear and ease her into it. Little did she know that Gods are lonely creatures, after all they’re really alone because, if you think about it, they’re the only ones existing. They are all one. It sounds confusing, but that’s purposeful.

What happened was that the new generation that she woke up was now demanding explanations. They didn’t want to learn the hard way, the path she took. They were lazy. And that couldn’t be. No true learning comes from ignoring shadows. And whether you like it or not, they were the shadow.

From that frightening and exciting period she spent 3 weeks awaken, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee. All her siblings lived abroad, and her mother had recently died. But she didn’t access to what they call mediunity, not directly. Of course that contacting extra-terrestrials was a type of mediunity, but it wasn’t easy like you’d see on TV. It was always cryptical. It was a puzzle she had already solved. What she didn’t understand was that she was the one who created the puzzle. This world wasn’t for her. But what could she do? She thought of offing herself, but she didn’t want to after much thought. She enjoyed being with her girl, smoking her cigarette, painting and singing. Of course they wouldn’t allow her to be very known or famous. She was the best kept secret of the cosmos, but no one can handle that without diving themselves. So she started playing the game.

She went to the Babalorixá. The woman was in her 90s and spent most of the time in the Terreiro chainsmoking and dropping the cigarette butts in what seemed to be an Egyptian urn. She didn’t seem surprised in seeing Saphyre, but looked worry. She ordered her daughter to prepare a bath, which she did in about 10 minutes. It was a big bowl with cold water and several herbs. Saphyre was manic and alert, but didn’t speak much.

“Take off your clothes, go to the bathroom and pour this over your body. Then, don’t dry it or clean it and put on your clothes back on and come back here.” The Babalorixá said calmly, puffing her cigarette. She had big eyes and always seemed curious as she gazed into Saphyre. The woman did as commanded and got back to the elderly guide. She got up from her chair as she dropped another cigarette in the urn and her daughter had a sort of white rag in her hands, and she handed it to the Babalorixá. Then, the woman started draping Saphyre’s head with the fabric. It felt weird. She walked her into one of the back rooms of the Terreiro, filled with strange objects and a straw mat on the floor.

“Lie down. Accept your thoughts. Breathe. I’ll come fetch you when it’s time.” The old woman said. Saphyre complied and, strangely enough, she felt calm. A coming down started tingling in her as she was left alone in that dark room with the rag in her head. But then, with a sudden crack noise, she started trembling. She wasn’t convulsing, but she was shaking as if it was very cold. She started having sad and destructive thoughts and then she blacked out.

She must’ve been asleep for a whole day because it was late at night when the Babalorixá came back and nudged her in the shoulders, waking Saphyre up.

“You’re good. Come outside with me.”

The old woman sat back down in her chair and nodded to Saphyre to take a place on the floor in front of her.

“When we came here, everything was glued together. The Motherland was where the Tree burst and, from that Tree, all of the Orishas came through to Earth. Our world had been destroyed by war, but we found a way back. Thanks to a shaman here on Earth. It was you, child. Your asè was spread through the Motherland and the Tree gave birth to all the rest. You were not a tribe shaman. You were alone. But then, you had us all. You needn’t do anything anymore. The answers are here, here and everywhere. Stop wondering. If they try to catch your attention, let it be. They seek attention. But you must take care of yourself. Worry about your journey now, and the rest will follow. Take off the fabric from your hat and breathe.”

Saphyre did that. She was crying. And then the priestess did something unexpected: she smiled kindly and offered her hand to Saphyre. They hugged each other.
​
“It’s good to have you back. Now, let’s eat.” The old woman said as they went down a flight of stairs into the woman’s house. They ate cheese and corn funnel cake. Saphyre stayed there for a week and went back to her apartment. She burned her notebook, cleaned the house and went back on her medication. That day, her girl came back and lights flickered from the opposite loft every night. They were just saying hi, she realized. Now, another would do her job. She was finally free. But, hey, don’t go telling everyone. It’s just a playground, you see? Keep this between us. See you later.

It wasn’t three pigs, it was one pig at different stages of life. He built a house from what he found, sweet grasses and wildflowers, which made a very pretty place to live. The wolf came and blew it down. The pig was upset by this. He went off and built another house, this time of deadfalls and tree limbs, a more substantial place to live. Even so the wolf came and blew it down. The pig had panic attacks. He traveled even further. For a long time he had nowhere to live. But at last he built another house. This time he made it from what you feel for someone you love and hate. From what’s inside and what’s outside go in opposite directions but always arrive together. From what you leave is what you approach. These materials were challenging to work with. The wolf came. He blew. The house—can we even call it a house?—inhaled, exhaled and stood. The wolf was satisfied. He moved in.

There was, there is, a country called Samaria.

A few days after a man’s husband died the plumbing backed up. The plumber came. They talked while the plumber worked and the man mentioned the death. The plumber took a photograph out from his wallet, of his dead brother, the hollow bruised-looking cheeks not unlike the plumber’s own, the open casket surrounded by flowers. Of the flowers he said, “They never die.”

Nothing good was expected from Samaria.

There was a man and he betrayed, then abandoned, the person he loved most, the person who couldn’t and so didn’t live without him. Now he had trouble breathing. One day, talking with the friend of a friend, he described this difficulty. In turn she told him how once, years before, exhausted from living with his insanity, she had taken her brother to the airport and, after buying and thrusting into his hands a ticket whose destination she refused to know, left him, left him, ran through the terminal as fast as she could and left him there.

It was felt to be a dark place, Samaria, best avoided, best left quickly if you found yourself there.

A man arrived in an unfamiliar city. He called Lyft to pick him up at the airport. The driver made conversation. As he spoke to the back of her head the man’s small talk became a description of the darkness and small abandoned towns past the end of the old life, the unlit roads all the longer around the holidays. The driver invited him to join her family for Thanksgiving dinner, as a cousin, or, if he liked, a brother.

As much of the time as possible a state of war was maintained with Samaria, not because anyone wanted its territory, but so it wouldn’t spread.

A woman, memory long since having evaporated and her mind exposed to the elements, lived in a facility. Each Sunday her youngest son, the disappointment, cooked a meal and brought it so she wouldn’t have to eat the white Sunday dinner served to the patients. Her hand no longer understood spoons, so he fed her. This took most of the afternoon. The woman thought the man visiting her certainly was friendly. And the food here was delicious.

No one knew when Samaria had been founded, or why. It had just been there when everyone arrived. One of the conditions of life.

A man sat in his room in the locked ward of a nursing home, holding his socks and slippers. A girl, finished visiting her grandmother down the hall, looked in and asked if he needed help putting on his socks. The man thought for a moment and told her no, what he really needed was help with the demons in the bathroom, because they bothered him at night. The girl took clippers out of her backpack and gave him a pedicure, holding his feet on her knees, one at a time.

The borders were strictly patrolled because that was Samaria on the other side. Even so the breeze came and went as it pleased, so you couldn’t be too careful.

A man, harassed by voices shouting and blaming him for their deaths, stood in the middle of traffic, howling back at them. Another man came to the edge of the sidewalk and, holding up a five-dollar bill, let its mild green light shine out between the cars, and waited.

If someone from Samaria was met on the road, people turned their eyes away, though if you had to make eye contact the advice was to do so with suspicion, as the best way to avoid contagion.

A homeless man saw another man who sometimes gave him change, who was carrying something the homeless man couldn’t see, though he could tell it was too heavy. He took out the package of cookies he’d bought at the 99-cent store and offered one to the man.

The only use anyone could find for Samaria was as a measurement of what they themselves weren’t, at least.
​
There was a man who took care of three households, illness and someone he loved in each of them. One day he was set upon by the awareness of how this situation would resolve, which beat, stripped and left him lying by the side of the road. A doctor passed by and said, “They’re going to die.” A therapist passed and said, “You’ll be alone.” Another man, who spent his time making lists of his own Oscar choices for every year since the Academy began in 1929, stopped and invited the man to help him. “It will be slow at first,” he said. “But once we get going, I think we can really get some work done.”

The Samaritans believe that under the world is an ocean, not of salt water but sweet, good to drink, good for anyone, but that the earth from being walked on is packed down hard, and so needs to be broken, so that the water can rise.

Peter approaches Jesus with a complaint. Although their group are popular speakers and draw big crowds, Jesus won’t let them charge anything. Now it’s tax time and somehow, they owe. Jesus tells him to go down to the sea, throw out his net and take the first fish that he catches. Jesus is insistent on this point: the first fish. Peter catches his first fish. There in its mouth is a coin that will pay the taxes for him and for Jesus.

That’s the New Testament. Here’s the Tanakh: There’s something Jonah has to do. It doesn’t matter what, the point is he must do it, can’t put it off, can’t do something else instead. And he really, really doesn’t want to. So he doesn’t. Now he’s on the run, he’s all at sea, he’s a man overboard. He falls into the mouth of a fish. It takes him down into deep waters. But because of the fish Jonah doesn’t drown. Reflecting on this it comes to him, there in the fish, to agree with what must happen. Whatever that is. And when he steps out of the fish’s mouth, it’s onto dry land.

From the chapter called “The Cave,” in the Koran. Moses is traveling in unfamiliar country. He meets someone going the same way and asks if they can travel together. The companion agrees on the condition that Moses not ask him any questions. As they cross a river Moses’ lunch, a dried salted fish, falls into the water, comes back to life and darts away.

In midrash, and the Book of Enoch, and some translations of Job, mention is made of a fish so vast that it requires the entire ocean as its cover, that was at first a terrible monster, enemy of the world,  later on a playmate pleasant and docile, and will at the end of time be drawn out with a hook and served as one course of a banquet for everyone there.

In the Romance of Alexander, in the Babylonian Talmud, in Pliny the Elder’s Natural History and the legend of Saint Brendan, in Iceland and Greenland, in Chile and Persia and Arabia is the description of sailors making landfall, on a country of fruit trees, fresh water, everything anyone could want. Always the same: the sailors light a fire to cook their meal and the enormous fish, whose back they have mistaken for dry land, submerges.

I learned to fish with my Uncle Johnnie on the waters of Massachusetts Bay. He taught me that the bay was full of fish that no one could see unless you caught one and showed it to them yourself. The first fish I caught was a small black bass. Uncle Johnnie demonstrated how to remove the hook, at the same time letting me see that the fish had a silver Walking Lady Liberty dollar in its mouth, which he said was very lucky. As he handed me the silver dollar he laughed and told me, “No one’s gonna believe this, Peter. But we’ll know it’s true.”

I fidget with my clothing as I make my way to the guardhouse. I’m not comfortable dressing so cumbersomely, but I’m told that’s what’s expected for such a meeting. When I enter the guardhouse, I’m met by a guard with a friendly smile who is sorting papers.

“Hello,” he greets me, “do you need help with something?”

I freeze for a moment. I’m not prepared for him to ask that way, and my brain scrambles to rearrange my words without losing any important information or picking up anything extraneous. “Um… I’m Timothy of Thistlewood… I-I have a meeting about a job in the castle…?”

“Hmm… ah yes,” the guard scans some papers before picking one out, “here you are. You can take a seat while we send a runner to fetch a clerk from the castle.

I sit awkwardly for a time, as the guard at the desk busies about organizing things, but I quickly reach my limit for doing nothing. I fidget with my satchel a bit before I give in and retrieve my notebook to review some formulae. I lose sense of time as I’m engrossed in my reading until…

“Timothy?”

I start at the voice addressing me and scramble to put my notebook back in my bag, stand up, and shake the clerk’s hand all at once as quickly as possible. “Yes, that’s me… sorry…”

“You’re alright. If you’ll come with me into the other room, we can begin the interview.”

He leads me to an empty office, and we sit across a desk from each other. “So how are you feeling today?”

“(I feel like I’m going to bleed out my ears, vomit, and pass out, in that specific order, but this isn’t a question I’m meant to answer honestly,) I’m fine… um… yourself?”

“I’m good, thank you. So you want to be the court wizard?”

“That’s right,” silence hangs between us, I desperately search my brain for anything else I could be expected to say in response to the question, but I come up with nothing.

Eventually, the clerk moves on, “alright, well your letter of introduction didn’t mention your master’s name…”

Silence again, I feel like I missed something, “I’m sorry, was that a question…?”

The clerk looks up from his notes, “let me rephrase, who did you apprentice under?”

“Ohhh,” relief washes over me with the understanding, “no one.”

“No one?”

Relief vanishes and inverts, “that’s right…” another expectant pause, “I-I’m self-taught (is that what you wanted me to say)?”

“Alright then,” the clerk writes some more notes, “so why should we appoint you court wizard?”

“Umm… Because I can do it (what else am I supposed to say)?”

The clerk stands up and we shake hands again, “Well, it was nice to meet you Timothy. A runner will come and get you if we choose to move forward with your appointment.”

 As I return home, I replay the interview in my mind trying to find ways I could have improved, but in the end, I can only sigh heavily and admit I don’t know what I don’t know. Eventually, I make it back to my family’s farm and head to the house to change out of my nice clothes before doing my chores. Inside my mother is waiting.

“How did it go?”

“I don’t know… they said they’ll send for me if they want to move forward.”

She must read my mood from my posture, “Well, for what it’s worth, you’re really good with the animals.”

 I hate working with the animals. They’re loud, smelly, and the work is dirty, but the work was easy to learn. I mask my disgust as I pour the slop in the pig trough, then I take a moment to watch the animals’ behavior for signs of trouble. I frown as I see the animals all seem both withdrawn and agitated. Everything from horses to chickens were circling their pens with their heads down, stopping occasionally with their ears darting around. I look to the nearby treeline and replay some recent nights chores in my mind. I hadn’t made special note of the noise from the woods, but I’m sure it was quieter today, as though the small game were all in hiding.

“What are you doing!?” I flinch at the demanding voice of my father as he’s coming back from the fields.

“I think there’s a predator prowling the area,” I reply, withering under his stare, “so I’m moving all the animals to the barn for safety…”

“You can’t do that,” he sighs in exasperation, “there’s only stalls for the horses, everything else stays outside.”

“(I’ve already planned around that) Okay…”

I move the pigs back to the pen, then kneel in front of the gate with my knife and carve some runes into the wood which roughly translate to “Welcome, friend. Evil begone.” It’s a simple threshold charm I’ve cast on the house and the barn, but I’m not sure if it will be effective on a fence, or if a pack of wolves looking for something to eat really count as “evil” but it’s all I have the time and equipment to do tonight.

In the morning I go to check on the animals, and sure enough, one of the pigs had been killed and dragged into the center of the pen. I lean on the fence and give a heavy sigh, could I have done something differently? I replay the previous night in my mind, though I know I’m just stalling until I have to clean up the mess.

“I sense regret,” the voice is unfamiliar. I look around me, but my eyes are drawn to the dead pig and everything else slowly becomes… indistinct. It’s as though we’re the only things that matter in the world.

“Who are you?” I force my fear down and project implacable calm through my words.

“A Name is a powerful thing. If you want mine, it will cost you.”

So it’s some kind of faerie creature, I’ll need to be extra careful with my words so I don’t accidentally agree to anything, “forgive me for misspeaking, I didn’t mean to ask for your True Name, but I need to call you something…”

“I have been many things to many people… for you, I think, I should be Peace.”

“Very well, and why have you come to me?”

“Why, to help you, of course. You’re having a hard time of it, aren’t you? Held back because you can’t make connections.”

“(I can’t deny that) So what do you propose? Are you going to devise a wizarding test for employers so I can prove I know what I know?”

“I’m afraid such societal change is beyond me, but I can give you peace. I’m sure on some level you realize it’s your mind that keeps you separate from your peers. Your inability to act without understanding leads to obsession, perfectionism, and frustration. If you agree, I can take away your fixations, your need to understand, and just a touch of your ability to remember. All to normalize the way your mind works.”

I have to think about that. Agreeing to this would completely change how I experience the world. What would that even look like? Would I be able to find the satisfaction others seem to hold?

“No, thank you. I can’t deny it’s a hard life, but if I didn’t fixate, I wouldn’t have had the drive to learn half the things I know now. I don’t want to find satisfaction in thankless work, drink, and noise.”

“A pity,” Peace sighs, “having your capacity to learn would have made me incredibly powerful. Very well, our business is concluded.”

“Not quite. There’s still the matter of the livestock you killed to arrange this meeting…”

There’s a sheepish silence from Peace for a moment. “Forgive me, I hadn’t thought of that. What is your price?”

“Well… do you know anyone who would hire a self-taught wizard on your recommendation?”

I looked into the fire of my wood oven, the flames encircling a small arm reaching out towards me, as a child screamed.

I closed the oven door and walked away. Whatever my feelings were, I could not feel them; I kept them trapped in a mental lockbox and had thrown away the key a long time ago. I sat down at the kitchen table, burying my face in my hands. I was exhausted from the upkeep of the glamour. As I sat at the table, thinking about nothing while staring at the wall, the candy arches of the cottage dissipated, the walls of gingerbread returned to wood, and the house was as it was. As I knew it. My duty was done for the month. For the month.

“It is ready,” Its voice said. “You may eat.”

I walked over to the oven and opened the door. A seemingly endless expanse of nothing greeted me. The oven seemed to fit anything inside of it. Consuming anything it wanted, and it wanted children, mostly. A rack appeared with a small tin of ashes.

“Eat it,” It commanded. I grabbed the tin, held it to my lips, and threw my head back, consuming it one go. At first, I hated what the tins meant. Now, I just hate the taste.

“Good, my child,” It cooed. “This will give you the power you need for the coming days.”
I wiped the ashes from my lips. In due time, I thought. This is all worth it.

I trudged to my bedroom, my whole body feeling like a stone descending to the bottom of a lake. I threw myself upon my bed and slept. I told myself it was the consumption that always made me tired. I knew I was lying. I knew I felt guilty.

“Sleep, child,” It said. “Rest well. You have done good. Until the next full moon.”

“The full moon approaches,” It said. “Give me the boy.”

I wondered if the boy was fat enough for It; he certainly was not emaciated, and he had gained the normal amount of fat that you would expect a child to. The girl was still bone thin. I wanted to keep her that way. I was not sure why. Perhaps I wanted to prolong the evitable for her. Perhaps I wanted her to work with me more. Perhaps both.
​
I was growing attached. A key was in the lockbox, one I didn’t mean to make.

It was sunrise. I woke up the children and helped them get dressed in simple clothes I had sewn for the others before them. I leaned down and grabbed the girl’s shoulders, giving them a small rub.

“My dear, why don’t fetch us some berries?” I said in a sweet voice that sickened me. I knew that sweetness would turn bitter soon. “For a pie. Your brother and I will make the dough.”

The girl furrowed her brows— she was so intuitive for her age— but said, “Okay.”

She grabbed a basket and walked out the back door to the garden. I took the boy’s hand and led him to the kitchen. I opened up the oven and was greeted by the vastness once. A darkness that was both close and far.
“I am hungry…” It growled. It sounded less like a person when It was about to eat.

“Oh my,” I said with pretend shock. “I haven’t cleaned this in a fortnight. Could you clean it while I fetch the ingredients.”

“Sure.”

The boy was blissfully ignorant and hopelessly naïve. I was about to take away that innocence and this life. Both were precious, and as annoying as I found the boy, I knew he would never grow as I. His sister would be left without a brother as well, though not for long.

He grabbed a brush and ducked into the oven. “I don’t see—”

I kicked his back. He let out a scream, as he gripped the top of the stove, his finger turning white. I drove my boot further. I hated it when they struggled. My old bones had to exert themselves, my tendons burning with strain. His back curved under my force, but his pudgy fingers wouldn’t budge. I pulled his arms away. The oven was heating up, a tiny fire growing larger in the void. Then, my vision blurred.

I keeled over and grabbed my head, feeling as though it was pulsating under my fingers, my rear hitting the floor. I saw the boy leaning against the oven, his chest rapidly moving while staring at me. I turned my head to see the girl, standing above me with a garden hoe in her hands.

“You stupid girl!” I yelled. “I told you to pick berries!”

The lockbox’s content poured out, as I screamed and cursed at the little bitch before me. My head throbbed, and with my old age, I struggled to get up without any support. I was at the mercy of a small child with a weapon.

“So that’s who you are,” the girl said with tears in her eyes. “I thought you were different.”

She raised the hoe above her head.

“What are you going to do?” I jeered. “Kill me? Do it, then. You’ll be just like me. A murderer. Is that what you want?”

A tear ran down the girl’s cheek, as she put the hoe down.

I cackled— louder than I had since time memorial. “You couldn’t handle killing, girl. You couldn’t do what I do. You couldn’t handle It. You’re nothing like me.”

The girl took a step toward me and said, “I can handle a little more pain.”

She kicked with more force than I could ever expect. I fell into the vastness of the oven, her cold face peering out at from an ever-shrinking box. Then, the flames. The heat came slowly and then all at once. The most excruciating burning. I finally let out a scream, as if screaming would get the fire out of my body. I saw the girl’s piercing eyes staring at me between the flames, and I screamed for her, too. So, she would know she did this. She killed me, and I wanted her to never forget.

She closed the oven. Darkness. I knew I had become nothing, and I was going to become ashes in a tin. Perhaps she would eat me and get power from the oven, and the killing and consuming would continue. Perhaps she was stronger and could walk away from the candy house all together, though I knew how delicious the taste of power could be. If she ate me, I would know my death had purpose and that she would become who I was twice more.

About the author:
Christina Meeks is a second-year MA graduate student of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University. As a disabled, queer writer, her works often involve horrible people who are horrible outside of their marginal identities. She primarily writes narrative essays and speculative, dark fiction and resides in Flagstaff, AZ.

Bug is sitting in the middle of the field, weaving dandelions into crowns, when Bee alights on her ear to tell her a story. Bug didn’t hear Bee approaching—of course—but she knows she is there by the tell-tale butterfly kisses against the shell of her ear, the gentle whisper of a sextet of legs curling up the arch to nestle between cartilage and Bug’s untamed tresses. A bird’s nest, her mother had always called her hair when she let it fly wild through the woods, catching twigs in the tangles. But no, it is not a nest for birds—Bee is who finds herself safely tucked away in the curls of Bug’s hair, settling there for a quiescent period or two whenever she needs a rest.

In exchange, Bee shares all the secrets of the world with Bug.

It’s true that Bee—who is not, in fact, a bee, but a beautiful monarch—can’t speak to Bug with words, but Bug has little interest in hearing anyone’s words at all. Human animals try to speak to Bug all the time, and she hears little and acknowledges less. Oftentimes, she would rather hear nothing at all.

Instead, Bee tells Bug whatever she wants to know through insectoid means. Through scent and touch and dance—the latter, funnily enough, more commonly associated with bees—the little butterfly regales Bug with tales of gliding through the wind, of daring escapes from spiders, of which trees are bearing fruit and which are ready to shed their pines. Bug doesn’t know how it is that she understands what Bee tells her, and truthfully she doesn’t care to think about it—she follows adventure on butterfly wings through the woods.

Today, Bee nestles into the crook of Bug’s ear, her antennae brushing against her, disguising her orange and black wings as a decorative earpiece. She could sleep soundly there, safe from any predator, and Bug would protect her. Today, her antennae tell a different story: one of her own curiosity, of wanting to know more about Bug and where she comes from.

Bug is surprised—and hesitant to share her world with her friend who lives a much more exciting life than she does. “I’m afraid it would be boring for you, Bee. What would a little town have for a beautiful butterfly like you?”
Bug feels Bee’s wings flutter, and she detects a wash of warm, living scent that tells her exactly what Bee is hoping to find: home, most of all. And how could Bug ever deny Bee the chance to learn something new about what it means to be home?

Bug completes her dandelion crown and rests it in her wild brown curls. One weed-flower dips low to rest against Bug’s ear, and Bee crawls up to rest on that flower, always close by.

I’ll be with you, Bug understands Bee to want to tell her. Don’t you worry.

Trigger Warning: Themes of Suicide ​

​A secret goodbye
To you, to my childhood
Chalk on the sidewalk

A paper silhouette fades into the light.

You move forward, carefully putting each step in front of the previous one. On the ground there are dirty papers lying around, pieces of plastic, and urine stains from yesterday's pissers. The light from a clothing store illuminates a window, a little further away, where rigid mannequins  set up an absurd vigil, in order to display some sportswear there. Finally, a blind wall blocks the alley that you have just taken. So you turn around, and walk back your steps leaving this dead end littered with rubbish.

Once on the avenue, you actually find yourself stuck in a compact crowd of people, made out of a mixture of passersby, tramps, and seated folks busy sipping their drinks at café terraces. You walk by a few dowdy couples, which seem to be just out there in order to set up some sort of a competition, about who will turn out to be the most ridiculous of the bunch, in the end. This to such an extent that it could almost turn out to be a deadly game for them, as we like to say it in French. You try to get out of all this mess by taking shelter in a park, not far away, where you also unfortunately find a multitude of playing children. They’re soon enough all around you as, out of sheer excitement,  they keep running up and down, blowing clouds of dust into the air with their feet. While doing so, they usually utter  high-pitched little screams that make you think of the ones of some sort of tiny eunuchs, or strange hairless dwarves. Sometimes they start off chasing unfortunate pigeons for no apparent reason, as if to test their power over their surroundings. Some of them tearing off leaves or branches from the trees too, with their little white hands, as they pass by them, holding them up a bit like trophies, to be discarded pretty soon. You can easily spot their parents slowly walking at a stately pace not too far behind,  watching their offspring with a loving and an utterly stupid gaze. Many being dressed casually on this bank holiday, startlingly look like the mannequins in the store window seen by you earlier on in a street. Doing so, they also speak about trivial stuff, conversations usually revolving around all sorts of small things taken from their everyday life. After forty or beyond , they are usually showing off beer bellies and puffy faces, vaguely distorted, and perhaps a little bit like your own. You say to yourself that the majority of the parents of these kids do undoubtedly display quite an ugly scene here, and that one should be allowed to put a veil over their heads in order to hide them. The children, it must be said, are not all of them so good looking too, but at least they do not have the beer bellies sticking out from under their t-shirts, nor flabby flesh hanging down from their chins. A few graceful birds, geese, ducks or moorhens, keep drifting on the small lake lined with varied trees, located just at the center of the park. Finally, a breeze picks up and starts swinging the highest branches of the trees. There are now some gray clouds coming by the horizon, and slowly accumulating over the roofs. It will probably rain soon. You're not alone wandering out there either, as your woman is walking along with you,  kissing you too, from time to time.
​
But, despite all her love, a silence, or a void, strangely seems to surround all things out here, isolating them from one another. But it is you, above all, you alone, in this teeming park, who is isolated from all the others with these kind of thoughts, in the end.