I knew the dangers of stopping for a stranded traveler, so I often passed them without a thought, praying for someone else to help. I had lived in Michigan all my life and experienced April snow squalls that formed from nowhere. Such is the way with the Mitten State in spring.
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Rich pulled his chair out from the breakfast table and glanced across it at his grandson. Tommy had his hand over his mouth, struggling to stifle a laugh. Rich bit back a smile. Tommy really hadn’t hidden the whoopee cushion well enough. Oh well, what could you expect from an eight-year-old? He sat down. Blaaaat.
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I remember how the rain poured when we boarded our flight from Virginia two weeks ago. A typical, gloomy, East Coast April day. Penny and I both have seasonal depression, so when the opportunity arose to take a ten-years-overdue honeymoon to sunny Djerba Island for two weeks, we didn’t hesitate.
I wish we had.
Snowflakes swarm the shuttle I’m flying to my first assignment. Scientific Outpost Six—wonder if those SOS initials are a coincidence? If so, they’re appropriate now. I shiver as I struggle with the controls. It’s winter on this world and though I’m dressed accordingly, this much-used craft has a broken heater. I grimace.
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You might be wondering why I’m in an alleyway holding a blowtorch, about to cut into this steel door. Perhaps I should take you back to the days spent amidst flickering fluorescent bulbs, drab gray uniforms, and one-room holding cells. And no, I’m not talking about my old high school.
The Overseers call it…
“C’mon slow-poke, hurry up. We’re almost there,” Shard called, scrambling ahead. Her claws trampled over the fallen pines.
“Would you slow down?” Krag wheezed. His crooked wing trailed behind him like a torn sail. Why did she always have to rush ahead? As her older brother, shouldn’t he be leading her?
By Deborah Bainbridge I can’t believe I landed my red breeches in detention again. “Dia dhuit!” Mrs. O’Grady, a plump fiery-haired lady, walks past a row of my classmates and removes my green top hat by its gold buckle. “Third time this year, isn’t it, Skylar? You’re seventeen and as mischievous as the next leprechaun.
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Yohva chitters nervously beside me, white fur bristling down the length of her thorax. I whistle a few notes from a half-remembered lullaby and place a reassuring hand above her first pair of eyes. She settles into the shade of the smooth-stone building but keeps her focus on the tree line.
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Aryelle peered into the unearthly gloom of the Black Forest. She didn’t want to be here, but she also didn’t know of any other way that she, a mere girl of fifteen, could save her father from the dark dungeons of Lord Galdomé’s castle.
“Bring me a bag of gold from the dragon’s hoard
“Show me how to save Jem!” Sorcha snarls.
“Call off your men first.” I match her glare, ignoring the ropes chafing my wrists. “I want to speak to your leader.”
It’s my fault Sorcha’s brother is hurtling through the time vortex in a wayward time machine, bound for God knows where… and
“Tell me about Mean Todd, Grandpa—and how he died.” Dan grinned up at me.
It was a lazy, warm evening, and the air filled with the chatter of blind flies. The sun set in a red glow behind tired clouds.
I looked across my family’s drywick field to Mean Todd’s ramshackle farm.
Once more, the sun set on Reuben’s farm. Beneath the fuchsia sky, no kittens mewed, no cattle lowed. Eerie quiet filled the chicken coop, the barn, and even the doghouse. Not even birdsong broke the farm’s unnatural silence. To the east, however, the world began to stir as sunlight left its skies. Living creatures
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