City of Stars & Shadow | 4. Reconnecting

This is part four of the story. Read from the beginning here.

Lucas pulled up to Ara’s place. She’d told him to park and text her, so he did. As he was waiting, someone approached his truck.

“Excuse me?” They asked, knocking on his window. When he cracked it, they asked, “Lucas, would you please step out of the truck?”

His blood ran cold. This person looked like Ara, but not quite right, like it was wearing her face. It spoke with a voice that was not hers.

Lucas cranked his window back up, but the thing wearing Ara’s skin grabbed the glass and wrenched it, making the safety glass shatter. It reached for Lucas, and he reached for his gun in the glovebox.

He flipped off the safety, cocked the hammer back, and fired at it.

The thing shrieked and staggered back, maroon spreading from the gaping wound in its chest.

“What the fuck?!”

That was Ara.

Lucas felt a surge of relief as the real Ara ran to the creature, her hands out and ready to wield her power. “You okay?” she asked.

He nodded and shot the creature again.

Ara nodded and pushed her hands forward towards the creature, and blew it apart.

“You’ve gotten better,” Lucas called.

She smiled. Her smile was still as brilliant as the sun as she opened the door to his truck. He let himself be pulled out and onto his feet as she wrapped her arms around him. Lucas melted into her and breathed deeper. Her powers always left the scent of rosemary in her hair.

“You should get a new truck.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he grumbled good-naturedly.

“What was that thing?”

“Dunno,” he said. It bothered him that she didn’t know what it was. She should know. “It was wearing your face.”

“Ha, ha,” she deadpanned. “Was it a demon or something?”

“Demons don’t steal faces.”

“Noted.” Ara walked around and got in on the passenger side of the truck. “Dinner?”

“Are we gonna do something about the body?”

“We never used to.” Ara shrugged. “It’ll keep my rent from increasing.”

City of Stars & Shadow | Three. Coincidence

This is the third part of the story. Read Part One here, or Part Two here.

Ara wiped down the to-go cup before she handed it to the customer in the blue sedan. The guy driving didn’t say thank you; he just sped off, nearly crashing into the bollard that stood guard against drivers like him. She shook her head and ducked back into the building to grab the next drink.

It had been a long day already when she woke up, and now, just three hours into her double shift, she was ready for sleep. She hadn’t last night; she was too busy looking over her shoulder for witch hunters.

Maybe the mugger didn’t know I was a witch, she thought to herself as she worked. Maybe he bought the knife because he thought it was cool. Maybe he doesn’t know what it’s for.

Ara shook the maybes from her head and tried to focus on work. It didn’t work. She needed something that would take up brainpower. Working the drive-thru of a drink hut didn’t take much brainpower. It was hard work, but not very cerebral.

She picked up the next drink and turned to hand it to the next customer when she dropped it.

It was the mugger from the night before.

Did he recognize her? Was he here to finish the job? Did he know she was a witch? How did he find her? Was it really him? Why was he here? Was this the end?

The questions swirled around her like flies to a corpse.

He honked his horn and swore.

No, she reasoned. He’s just here for an over-priced energy drink…which I just dropped. Ara apologized to the mugger and asked him to pull around with the promise of not just another drink, but a cookie, too.

He grumbled but agreed, pulling his car around and parking in the fire lane.

Ara turned to her manager, tears brimming in her eyes, and told her what happened. Morgan shook her head and said, “I need you to pull it together.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ara hated how small her voice sounded as she spoke. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Well, get it together. We’re here all day, and I can’t have you dropping every other drink!”

For the third time that day, Ara thought about quitting. This was her second job, she only needed it to eat. She could cover rent and all her other bills from her first job, and she could stand to lose a few pounds.

Instead, she said, “Yes, ma’am.”  She passed out more drinks, thankful that Morgan took her attacker’s drink and apology cookie to him herself.

It has to be a coincidence. Dallas is really a small town. He’s probably local.

When it was time for her break, she drew a protection sigil in her complimentary drink with whipped cream and stirred it with intention. It would keep her safe until it was time to clock out in another eight hours. Goddess protect me.

City of Stars & Shadow | Two. Memories of Her

This is the second entry in City of Stars & Shadow. To read part one, Ara’s Date, click here.

June looked at Lucas and frowned.

“This place reminds you of her?” She asked. “Doesn’t it?”

Lucas nodded and smiled sadly. Ara was everywhere to him. She was in the soft summer rain, and the sun as it shone down on him, burning his shoulders.

“Every place reminds me of her,” he admitted.

“I get happy places and things. Those make sense.” His sister shook her head. “But here?”

Lucas looked around at the empty warehouse. He and his sister were touring potential places for the brewery they planned to open. The interior of the warehouse space was dusty and musty, and long forgotten.

He wished he could forget her.

There was sunshine streaming in through the windows that were set high up in the cinderblock walls. There were dust motes dancing in the sunbeams; they looked like fairies. The large rollup doors were open for their tour, and they let in the breeze, and with it the fragrant scent of the orange grove up the hill.

The gray steel of the doors was her eyes, and the streaks of paint peeling off the walls were her laughter. She was here.

She was everywhere.

City of Stars & Shadow | One. Ara’s Date

Ara looked down at the blood-covered, obsidian knife in her hands and whimpered. She watched the crimson drip down onto her shoes. The white canvas was now forever ruined.

She flipped the knife she’d just pulled out of her lower abdomen in her hand, so the handle was facing her attacker again.

“Did you want this back?” She drawled, her Texas twang somehow coming out thicker due to the blood loss.

The man who’d stabbed her goggled at her for a moment, not reaching for the knife, before he turned and ran. He dropped the loot he’d taken from her date in the alley, Mac had sworn was a shortcut.

She looked down at her companion, who was now dead. They said a certain peace came over you when you died, but it wasn’t peace that was scrawled across his face; it was terror.

Ara stretched, popping her back as she did so, and inspected the blade more carefully. It had hurt like a bitch when he’d plunged it into her, but now, it didn’t feel so foreboding. The handle was silver; it had the Britannia mark near the hilt to prove it. 

There were what looked like garnets set into the top of the handle. Witch hunters usually used garnets to stimulate the recollection of a past life. Supposedly, when you stabbed a witch with a knife with a garnet in the handle, you got visions of her life as the life leaked out of her.

Ara looked down at the knife and wiped her blood off the blade before she put it in her purse. The wound in her stomach was already healing and nearly closed - she could tell from the itch she felt.

She pressed a kiss to her fingers and then pressed them to her dead companion’s temple. He wasn’t a witch; he was just a guy who worked in finance who asked her out after she’d read his tarot for him.

She pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed 911. She told them the address and where to find him, then left the phone on his chest with the call still active as she walked away.

Obsidian and silver looked cool, but they wouldn’t kill a witch. You needed iron to leach the magic from a witch’s bones and blood. Ara walked out of the alley and made her way home. She looked and felt like hell, maybe she’d just gotten back, but she was alive.

“And, I have a cool knife now,” she mumbled as she walked along the sidewalk in the City of Stars and Shadow.

Cinder Soots

Arjun looked around to be sure he was alone.

He was pretty sure that his people were gone for the day, but they could be back at any time. Time was an illusion, and work days often ended abruptly for his surrogate mother. She wasn’t really his mother, but she called herself that, and she cared for him, cleaning up after him and filling his food and water bowls.

No, he was alone in the apartment; alone with nothing to do and no one to tell him no.

Arjun closed his green eyes in a smile. Today was the day! He was going to scale the fireplace walls and go up the chimney. He wasn’t sure what he would do once he got up onto the roof.

Dance, probably.

With one single glance around the living room, his ears twitching this way and that to listen for the sounds of the car, he padded on his tippy-toes to the corner of the room. The fireplace was surrounded by nice reddish-brown bricks that were perfect for filing and sharpening his paw claws.

His mother said that the sound was horrid, but he loved the sound. It reminded him of his moonlit machinations about taking over the world. He should take over the world when he got outside.

He would take over the world.

He stepped around the screen and into the fireplace. The grate was sitting in the middle, looking like it might make a suitable bed at a later date. Naps could wait; there was a world to conquer.

Arjun studied the brick wall for a second, calculating his best angle. Then, he jumped, claws out.

But, he didn’t make purchase, and so he scrambled down the wall, covering his soft, plush white fur in soot. There was something about soot. It was soft, and it seemed to melt under your paws. He pawed at the remnants of the last fire. His mother hadn’t bothered to sweep up the ashes yet.

He could help.

He pawed the sooty ashes into a pile near the grate. It took ages, and he was quite hungry when he was done. Jumping down from the hearth, he padded to the kitchen, leaving a trail of cinder soot paw prints behind him.

It’s not enough

It’s not enough to be angry these days. You need to act.

If there is something that you don’t like, it is your responsibility to change it. It is your duty to make the world over in your image for the betterment of your fellow humans.

Silence is violence, and the world is crying out for salvation. If you can, you must. If you cannot, then assist those who can. If you won’t, then woe be to you.

Two Ladies

“C’mon, ladies!” Ansel called as he walked to the chicken run. His gait was low, his arms spread wide as he guided the ladies to their home.

It was near dusk and well past time to put the chickens up before bed. It was the first cool day of the ninth month, and he wanted to spoil the ladies with more time foraging in the dooryard.

The chicken run was a space around the coop enclosed on all sides, including the top, by wire mesh. The coop looked like a spaceship to Ansel, which was good because the ladies moved in a way that could only be described as alien to him.

Last autumn, there were six ladies, but four hadn’t survived the winter and the long wait until spring. It was a sad morning each time, but now he lavished his affection on the two remaining.

Felice and Clare didn’t have names until it was just them remaining. Then Ansel took to singing to them to cheer them up.

“Bee-dle-dee! Bee-dle-dee dee!” he sang out in his hearty Irish tenor voice. The chickens cooed at him and made their way into the coop. Ansel shut the door with a flourish and set about his evening shores in the run.

It was just him and the ladies. He’d never had a lady of his own, and wasn’t likely to have one. He was a step below a confirmed bachelor. Give it some time, he thought.

It was dark when he left the now clean run, and the stars were winking at him. His eye paused on the first one he saw and he made a wish. “I wish I weren’t so alone. I wish I had a friend or two to share my days with.”

Ansel sighed and turned away towards the house.

He woke before dawn the next day so that he could tend to his garden before he let the ladies out to forage. Gardening done, he turned to the chicken enclosure and sang out,

“Bee-dle-dee! Bee-dle-dee dee!”

He drew a breath to sing the next line form Cabaret, but instead, two other voices beat him to it. They were the voices of two ladies.

Ansel hurried towards the coop and flung open the door. There was a tangle of arms and legs inside, but they unfolded themselves easily enough and the two ladies emerged from the coop.

He turned his head away at their nakedness. “Who the hell are you?”

“Felice,” said one.

“Clare,” said the other.

“But…how?” he asked, daring to look at them.

“Your wish,” said the first voice - Felice.

“The stars command,” said Clare.

Espresso

Bezel looked over the top of her demitasse cup at the handsome stranger in the coffee shop. Okay, maybe stranger was a little strong. She’d never met him, but they were on the same coffee schedule. They got there fifteen minutes apart every weekday and both always took their coffees for here.

This is silly, she thought to herself. Just go up and talk to him. She put her tiny cup down on its tiny saucer. The bus bin was in between them. She could just go and put her dishes in the bin and keep walking until she got to him. Easy peasy.

Her legs felt like jelly as she stood. Oh, no! Not the baby deer legs. Steady, breathe!

It was hard not to lock her eyes on him for the fourteen steps to reach the bus bin. She wanted this to look unprompted and spontaneous; she didn’t want him to know she’d been psyching herself to go and talk to him for ages.

She pasted a cheery smile on her face as she turned to face him. He was still sitting at his little round table for one. He smiled back, and there was a warmth to him.

Eighteen more steps and she’d be at his table.

Just breathe.

Panic flooded her as she walked past him and out the main entrance to the coffee shop. Tears pricked her eyes and threatened to roll down her cheeks as she stepped out into the bright sunshine. Bezel walked right up to her car and leaned hard against the driver side door, her forehead on the roof of the green sedan. The tears were rolling down in earnest now.

Coward! she yelled at herself.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around. It was the handsome man from inside the coffee shop. He didn’t recoil, per se, when he saw her crying, but he did pause before he spoke.

“Hi.” His voice was deep and whiskied; it was the kind of voice that made promises that could only be kept in the dark of the night. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Bezel made a sound somewhere between a hiccough and a laugh. She wasn’t sure what it was supposed to communicate, but he seemed undeterred.

“I’ve seen you around a lot here,” he began. “I’ve been trying to work up the courage to say hi.”

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he said leaning closer to her. “I don’t want to come off as…” He let the sentence hang in the thick air between them before he continued. “But, I’d like to get to know you."

She smiled and nodded. “I’m Bezel, like the-”

“Like the diamond setting,” he finished for her. At her surpized look he continued, “I’m a jeweler. Funnily enough, my name is Jett, like the stone.”

“It’s good to meet you, Jett, finally.”

Never A Bridesmaid

Elsie was a bridesmaid once, for her older sister’s wedding. It was a blast! The lead-up parties, the brunches, the excuse to buy a new dress - it infused her drab life with a sense of purpose.

She supposed it sounded silly, but a rousing battle cry of “For the Bride!” never failed to giver her chills.

As a bridesmaid, people looked to her for answers, and listened as she gave them. Men noticed her, and though their affections only lasted until the end of the reception, it was intoxicating. Being a bridesmaid was a joyous moment of power.

She was 21 when her sister wed Todd, eight years ago, and now her own friends were starting to pair off and get married.

It was time!

Finally!

First Jana got married, and Elsie held her breath as one by one, their shared friends posted pictures of their “Will you be my bridesmaid?” gifts. Elsie waited impatiently for hers.

She waited.

And waited.

Then, the Save the Date came, and she knew she wasn’t picked. The night of the rehearsal dinner, she sobbed into a pint of ice cream.

Next were Josh and his wife Kat. She wasn’t exactly close to Kat, so her heart didn’t break when she wasn’t asked.

Then, there were Luz and LaToya - both friends of Elsie - who were planning a big ceremony with five bridesmaids each. The odds were good, and when Elsie got invited to “brunch with the girls,” she couldn’t hide her excitement.

“Elsie,” Luz began. It was just the three of them; the other girls hadn’t shown up yet. “Your friendship means the world to us.”

Elsie sat up straighter and smiled brighter. Her moment was coming.

“We are planning a big wedding,” LaToya continued. “Unfortunately, the venue isn’t big enough for everyone.”

Her smile slipped. She didn’t understand.

“We want you to join us at home. We’ll be livestreaming the wedding.”

“Oh.”

“We love you.” LaToya leaned in to put her hands on top of Elsie’s. It felt fake, rehearsed.

“We need you to be happy for us.” Luz was smiling, but her tone hinted at a certain finality that Elsie didn’t like.

“I am,” she began. “Now, I don’t have to buy a new dress.”

“Great!” LaToya perked up as the girls approached. “We just didn’t want you to sulk in front of the bridesmaids and bring down brunch.”

When she got home, Elsie screamed into a pillow until she saw stars. When was it going to be her turn again?

She was kind. She was loyal. She was organized. And, probably most importantly, she was rich enough to actually afford all of the extras that came with being a bridesmaid.

Hell, she could even cover one or two other bridesmaids without overextending herself too far. What was the point of having disposable income if she couldn’t dispose of it?

Elsie’s phone buzzed. She unlocked it and opened the offending app. A close-up of a ring greeted her.

Zanab had just eloped with her fiance three days after getting engaged.

Elsie screamed and threw her phone against the wall. It shattered on impact. She needed new friends.

Disruptive Compassion

Be kind always.

I believe a person should be kind whenever possible; as the saying goes, it is always possible. Be kind to everyone, Man and beast alike.

It is easy to be nice to people who can do things for you. It feels right to be nice to those who are beautiful, and sometimes people find it easy to be kind to those who can help them.

But, it is more important to be kind to those who can never pay you back. Be nice to the downtrodden, and be nice to the unfortunate. This is how you disrupt the evil in the world.

Radical Kindness.

Disruptive Compassion.

Smile at the person who looks grumpy. Ask the person who looks like they’ve been crying, and actually listen. I have had days where I’ve burst into tears because the cashier at McDonald’s was nice to me; it felt like it turned my life around.

My mother calls this staving off the heat-death of the universe. It may not be possible to save the world, but you just might be able to save a life with your kindness.

Be kind always.

The Name on the Napkin

“Hey! You left this!” Malloy called out after the woman in the red dress who was hurrying out of the place. She was dressed too nicely to be here now; to be here at all. He’d seen her scribbling on it just before she paid her tab and left. It seemed important.

He reached for it, careful not to smear the ink with his damp fingers; from sweat or the condensation from his beer, he didn’t know. The limp two-ply paper flopped over the back of his hand in the humid, Tuesday afternoon bar air.

Malloy shouldn’t be here. He should be at work. Too bad he didn’t have a job at the post office anymore. Going postal wasn’t a phrase used too much these days.

This made it all the more like catnip to the new agencies when he did what he did. “Going postal” was trending on every trend-tracking system there was. He was famous.

Well, infamous.

He hadn’t hurt anyone. He hadn’t pulled a gun on a post customer or something stupid. He’d just set his mail truck on fire.

Really, it was nothing.

Malloy had parked it in the parking lot of a closed-down mall and used six gallons of gasoline to saturate every inch of the cursed vehicle. It was hell on wheels, literally. Day in and day out, he left little chunks of his soul in the cracked pleather seats.

Either it went or he did.

Once he got the fire going, Malloy sat down in a camp chair a safe, roasty-toasty distance away and roasted marshmallows until the authorities and fire department came. He forgot the graham crackers and chocolate. It was a damn shame.

He was out on bail now. He wasn’t sure how long cirrhosis of the liver took to kill you, but he was determined to let it take hold of him. He liked to imagine he could feel the organ in question harden to stone.

Malloy flipped the napkin upright so he could read it. Her handwriting was loopy and uninhibited and accented by a lipstick kiss.

You’re my hero XOXO

-Aryia

Her phone number was listed too. He pulled out his phone and dialed. Maybe cirrhosis could wait.

The Stop Light

Ascher squeezed their eyes shut and pushed their head against the headrest of their 2008 Honda Hoopty. They wished they could turn on the A/C.

But, they couldn’t. It was broken. Again.

The driver of the car behind them was shouting and banging their hands on the steering wheel of their black SUV. It looked like the kind that the bad guys would drive single-file in a generic action movie.

Ascher just shrugged and turned the music louder. When did the songs that were popular in high school become classics? How was that possible?

Sure it was possible with the linear nature of time and all, but it didn’t seem right. It was like the gray hairs sprouting up around their temples. It was inevitable, if somehow also improbable-feeling.

“When did I get old?” they asked themself. There were perpetual bags under their eyes and their graying hair seemed mousier than it was when they got their car for a graduation present.

It was new then, with all the bells and whistles. Ascher liked to joke that it had some features only known to the great apes of the Congo. It was a lame joke that almost never garnered a laugh, but they couldn’t seem to stop telling it.

Until the new-new came out.

Then things were different. What was once cool was no longer, and the hip thing was passé. Their car was passé. Their music was passé.

Ascher was passé.

It felt like the world was passing them by. Years ago, they were at the top of their class. Now they were stuck in a dead-end job that felt like it was slowly killing their soul.

The driver in the SUV behind them started blaring their horn. Ascher looked up. The light was still red. It hadn’t changed.

It didn’t feel like this light was ever going to change..

The Wraith

The room is dark, just like I like it. The light hurts my eyes and makes my insides twitch.

I walk across the dark to the pantry. The power could be out for all I knew of care. Right now, I don’t miss it.

The dark and the cold make me feel like I’m still alive, instead of this cursed, half-life.

I hear the muffled screams as I get to the pantry- music to my withered ears.

I don’t grasp the doorknob like some clumsy boy on prom night. No, instead, I caress it gently, lovingly.

I want to savor the next few minutes.

Eventually, I have to open the door, but when I do all the fun will be over.

Sighing, I open the door.

Inside there’s a woman, maybe all of twenty-six years. I’ve bound and gagged her.

Her pretty auburn hair is hanging down over her face in luscious tendrils. I coax one back behind her ear. Her pale, frightened face looks at me, terror twisting her features.

I stroke my fingers down her cheek. It’s wet and clammy from all the tears she’s cried. I wipe my hand on my pants before I kiss my fingers and press them to her temple.

She squirms and tries to twist away. I smile. She can’t, the space is too small.

I reach for her gag.

I want to hear her lovely voice scream. I want her to sing out her terror.

I do, and she does.

Pleasure, rich and dark, fills my empty veins.

I crouch down before her and she spits in my face. I smile.

They always taste better when they’ve got a little spirit in them. 

I tip my head back and shake down my fangs. They click into place like a magazine on a gun.

I look back at her and she screams.

She should.

If I could still see myself, I’d probably scream, too.

I thrust my face forward, like a rattlesnake.

She screams again and my mouth waters. I penetrate her lovely, pale skin with a little too much pressure.

I need to learn to pace myself. Next time, I suppose.

I lap at the warm river that flows out. It tastes like heaven and hell, damnation and redemption.

As her screams die with her, I force myself to stop.

I need to remember rule one: Never drink from the dead.

Hemingway and Rock

As I sit at my computer, listening to Cheap Trick, it occurs to me that I have arrived. No, I’m not published yet, but I wrote a novel. I spent every spare minute writing and writing until it was all there. I did it.

Now, I’m at the hard part- revisions and editing. I’ve never made it to this stage before with any of my writing. Usually, when I finish a piece and go back and reread it, I just feel like crying.

Not this time.

I think it’s different this time because it’s so personal to me. I’ve had to take a multi-pronged Hemingway-esque approach to it.

1. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

2. Write hard and clear about what hurts.

3. There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

It’s been so hard, and yet so easy to get it all out of my head. The words want to flow out of me like water. I just have to be near something to write with when it happens.