Grow
“Grow, and live,” I whispered to the glass butterfly in my hand. I kissed it and placed it into the dirt hole in front of me.
“Now cover it,” my mother said. “Everything must die and return to the earth before it can grow.”
Tag - family
The Lightkeeper
Cold air burns my throat as it rushes in and out of my lungs, my feet pounding across the snowy shore in rhythm with my heart. My eyes are locked on the lighthouse, on its strangely muted glow. Gemma would never let the stars outshine it.
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No Victory Today
Mark taps me on the shoulder. “Dynamite warm?”
Plants rustle as I reach down amid the overgrowth and into my sock, fingering the explosive stick and the wooden blasting cap filled with gunpowder. It’s warm against my skin, safely cocooned from the frosty night air. I nod, even though he can’t see it.
And Your Brother
Forgonath finds me in the Staggering Tavern, hanging over the table like a limp sack and polishing off my fourth flagon of ale. The others arrive shortly later—Borduain pats me on the back and calls for his own tankard while Lorovan slides into the chair across from me
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Harm on the Range
Harmony, we don’t have room for…” Shading my eyes against the sunset, I counted the bison supping on my black-eyed Susans. “Seventeen buffalo to roam. Our home is not a home on the range.”
“But Mom, they need somewhere to live.” Her blue eyes pleaded with me. “And they’re itsy-bitsy bison.” She hummed the
Hat Couture
“Off with your hat!” Mother raged, fists clenched skyward.
Alice set her book down and placed her hand on the banister. Mother’s cheeks flushed redder and redder until Alice feared her head might whistle like a tea kettle and pop off entirely.
“Alice Rose, you’re eighteen, and it’s high time you start acting like
Mirror, Mirror
“It’s for your own good.” Though Alice’s back was toward her, Edith Liddell could see her sister’s stormy expression in the mirror. She closed the door to Alice’s room and held it shut.
Edith bit her lower lip. Surely she was doing the right thing, trying to convince Alice to give up this Wonderland
Pixelated Tea Party
A low whine drags me from sleep. I push off the cold floor—wait. Why am I on the floor? The forgotten command room—probably used for training—comes into focus, and images flash through my mind. The team getting ready to enter the forest. A glowing purple light encasing—
“Alice?” I jump up
Paws and Portals
“Deedee Takkenridge, where have you been?” Miriel stood, hands on her hips, as her granddaughter rode up on a dog that was more polar bear than man’s best friend. She couldn’t help but notice Deedee looked like a princess from an animated movie she made Miriel watch the other night.
Deedee shrugged, as if
The Plus One
“Good news, Josh.” Despite Mom’s tap on my back, I kept heading toward Olivia, one of my sister’s bridesmaids. Madeline said the blonde was single, and a wedding reception was the perfect chance to meet someone new after my breakup. “You won’t have to spend this evening alone.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
La Famiglia
Ethel limped through the park and sat at her usual table, the chess pieces already arranged on the gray and black terrazzo squares. She handed a footlong drenched in mustard to her informant, with a crisp one hundred tucked against the tin foil, and moved pawn to e4.
“Grazie, la Piccolina,” Sam said,
Don’t Monkey with the Family Business
The door falls shut behind me, an ominous sound sealing the fate of businessman Edward J. Wyles.
“Farewell, Miss Grieves,” his secretary chirps, unaware of what transpired in the office behind her.
Barely acknowledging her words, I stride from the room, my right hip dipping every step thanks to this cursed limp.
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