I'm twelve years old. I shouldn't be working in a factory. But here I am. Here I am with all the other twelve-year-olds, with all the people older than that, with people younger than me. There are even seven-year-olds here. They should be out playing. They should be having fun. But they need to make money so that they can eat, so that their families can eat, so that the whole community can eat. I remember when I was seven. How deafening and arduous the process of being at work was.

The seven-year-olds should be at school. I should be at school. But it's not like any of us could afford that luxury. Though I suppose it's not a luxury.

I have no idea how long I've been working for. My mind screams and my soul bleeds and everything in my world is whittled down to the sharp, piercing knife point of the present. I have to do it perfectly. I have to do everything perfectly. There is no room for any mistakes, not even small ones. If I make even the tiniest of mistakes, I don't get paid. If I don't get paid, my people starve.

Not that we aren't starving anyways.

I keep my eyes down on my work. And I keep my whole mind, my whole being, straining against my desires and pushing me forwards. Forwards, forwards, forwards. I do not have even a moment to take a breath. I do not have even a moment to rest. Not the smallest, tiniest, slightest of rests. I have to keep on going. Through all the pain, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

I sink each fabric in the glaring, screaming blue of the fabric dye in a vat in front of me. Fabric after fabric after fabric after fabric. Again and again and again and again. Until I am absolutely dizzy with it. I am already dizzy with the fumes coming off of the dye. I am dizzy and my head hurts from the noxious, poisonous smells.

I have to then swirl each piece of fabric in the fluid using my ladle. This part is a lot more technically difficult than I first thought it would be, since I have to make sure that all parts of each piece of fabric is getting soaked in the dye. I have to swirl it around fast, faster than humanly imaginable, because I have to get through all my gargantuas workload, a workload that never lets up no matter how inhumanly hard I work.

After the swirling, I have to take the fabrics out and go hang them on the drying rack, a contraption of curved metal beams with a drainage grate under it. This rack is enormous, and it is constantly bathed in dry air. This is the part that I hate the most. I have to hold the piece of fabric, the piece of fabric filled with stinging, toxic liquid, in my own hands. Sure, I'm wearing gloves, but the gloves are meagre protection as the dye seeps through them and makes my hands sting and burn in pain. I have to then walk, well actually, practically run, to the drying rack and place my load up absolutely perfectly.

My hands are always burning, always stinging, always in horrific pain throughout my whole time working. I'm not allowed to go to the one bathroom that we have in the building, that is far away, in order to wash them. It would take far too much time to walk there, not to mention it wouldn't even help if my hands are just going to get burned again the very next fabric that I have to hang up. Time is money. Literally. It's a meagre little bit of money for me and it's a whole lot of money for the people who own this factory.

I'm barely even allowed to go to the bathroom when I actually need to go to the bathroom. Because there aren't enough bathrooms. Because it's too far away. Because I have to work, work, work and work. I don't drink water, and I end up being so overheated and dehydrated, and that makes my head throb even more, makes my whole body strain. But it's not like I have a choice. This is the life that I am forced to live.

So through my aching, pounding head and my stinging I work on. I keep on working and I keep on working and it's so repetitive and monotonous that it feels like sandpaper on my brain. It feels like sandpaper on my brain and dry, waterless winds in my throat and a slow-acting poison in my heart. It feels as if my whole being is being slowly consumed by some eldritch beast that no-one has a name for. I am a ghost. I am a ghost and that is all I will ever be.

This is what life is for me. This is what I have to do twelve hours a day, six days a week. This is all that will happen to me for years and years and years and years. This is all that will happen to me until the day that I die. This is all that I have to look forwards to, all that I have to have hope for. There is no hope for me. There is no hope for any of my people. Just a fragile, faltering sort of survival that very definitely is not life.

I wish that I was dead.

———

I feel tired in my bones, tired in my blood, tired in my flesh. I feel tired in my mind, tired in my heart, tired in my soul. It's a tiredness beyond tiredness. An exhaustion beyond exhaustion. It's as if I have been hollowed out, as if all my insides have been scraped out, raw and bleeding, and all I am left with is a used-up, burnt-out shell of a person.

But I am a person. I am a person. I am a full, whole, and good person. I have to remember that. I have to remember it. For the sake of my family, my friends, my neighbours, my community, and all the people I have never met before, who toil and suffer just as I do, I have to remember it. I have to remember who I am. I have to remember who we all are.

I am walking home from the bus station, and all around me there are masses of people just like me, masses of people who are all walking home as well. It makes me feel seen, feel known, to be among them all. It makes me feel as if I belong somewhere, as if I belong with someone. And belonging is the best feeling in the world. It gives me a sweet, bright, secret sort of victory tucked away deep in my soul where no malevolent forces will be able to find it, where no malevolent forces will be able to snuff it out.

"How was work today?" an older man who lives a few blocks away, Yoshi, asks me. His eyes are full of darkness. His eyes are full of exhaustion. His eyes are full of concern. His eyes are full of love. And looking into his eyes, looking into the endlessly deep, dark pool of his brown eyes, it absolutely breaks my heart into so many pieces but it also makes me feel more whole and more seen than I could ever hope to convey.

"Oh, you know, horrible," I reply to him. Because it's the truth. And even though it's horrid, even though it's heartbreaking, he needs the truth. He deserves the truth. Of course there are a lot of places and situations where lying is the best thing to do, where it's the kindest thing to do, but this is not one of those situations. He can see the hurt, the devastation, the desecration, deep in my eyes, and no matter how much I try to hide it, he will still be able to see it.

"I'm so sorry, Miri," he replies, voice heavy. "You deserve better. You deserve so much better." There is kindness in his words. And despondence in them. I knew he was expecting my answer. But still, he grieves for me, I know he grieves for me, I know he grieves for all of us. I grieve for him too, and I grieve for all the people, for all of my people, everywhere. We all grieve for each other.

"How was your work day?" My words come out with a deeply sorrowful edge to them. An edge that cuts into both of our souls, an edge that heals us both.

"Difficult. Very difficult. I had to lug bricks up so many flights of stairs, again and again and again for hours and hours at a time." His words are haunted. But I knew that this is more or less how he would answer. I could see the devastation within him the whole time. I can see the devastation within him now.

"Try to get something to eat after you go home," I suggest to him. I know it's not a very powerful suggestion. There might not be food at his little hut. And even if there is, it might need to be cooked first. And that takes time. But still, I know how hungry people are after they come home from work. I know it because I have felt it, day in and day out, for years on end. Although, I'm hungry all the time. We all are. The hunger never really ends.

"I'll try," he responds, "but I'll have to cook first. And I have to make sure there's enough food for all of us. I have to make sure there's enough food for the kids." His voice carries so much love in it. So much selflessness. Self-sacrifice. It's incredible, it's beautiful, it's terrible how much self-sacrifice we all need to have. How much self-sacrifice we all need to have all the time.

"Of course," I answer. And what other answer could I have possibly given. Of course he needs to look after the kids first. We all do. I suppose I'm lucky, for now, since I am a kid myself and that means that everyone looks after me. But still, I try to make sure that the younger kids get to eat before I get to eat. I try to make sure that the younger kids don't go hungry, or at least not more hungry than they have to.

"You should wash your hands right after you get home," Yoshi advises me.

"I will," I tell him. And it's the truth. Thankfully, water is not as expensive as food is. Well, good clean drinking water is expensive but nobody uses that. Nobody washes with that or drinks from that. The tap water that I have at home is connected directly to the river, and I can wash away all the stinging chemicals from my hands using that water.

Suddenly I hear a baby crying. It's an incredibly mournful, desperate sound. So young and innocent and searching. It pulls at my heartstrings, pulling me towards its direction. Who is leaving a baby to cry like that? I suppose maybe their caretaker is busy.

"Do you hear that?" I ask Yoshi. He looks at me questioningly.

"Do I hear what?"

"The baby?" I respond, "do you hear the baby crying?"

"I don't hear a baby crying."

"Huh. That's weird. I'm sure I can hear it." This is strange. Very strange. I absolutely have to investigate.

I twist and squeeze my way through the crowd that moves around me, finding any path I can through the dense crowd. I let the sounds of the baby crying guide me. They keep crying and crying and crying on. Strangely enough, for some reason nobody seems to be able to hear them. Or if they do hear the baby, they are showing no signs of it. Which is absolutely impossible, since anyone would go to a crying baby.

My mind thrums with confusion and curiosity. What is happening here? I don't know. But I feel something calling me, I feel something pulling me. Something that feels like the hint of smoke that is in the evening air. Something that feels like the gray-blue clouds of the twilight sky. Something that I can't explain, that is tugging at my heart, tugging at my heart, tugging at my heart. It's beautiful and calming yet deeply melancholy at the same time. I don't know why it's happening but this feeling feels familiar, it feels familiar, it feels so so very familiar.

I find myself in front of a dark alley between two lines of huts. The space is tiny. It is so tiny. I can barely squeeze myself into it. But the crying here in front of the alley is louder than it has been anywhere else. And I can see a tiny basket inside the alley. It must be the baby. Who left a baby in here? Why did they leave a baby in here? This strange mystery is only deepening.

I squeeze myself through the alley, and it's dark in here, so dark. A warm sort of dark. A shielding sort of dark. A protective sort of dark. I have felt this sort of darkness before. But still, there is something strange and unknowable about this dark. As if it is the stillness of life waiting to happen, before the universe was created. The darkness that preceded all life. That preceded and gave birth to the spark in all of our souls.

The crying gets closer as I near the basket. So I was right, the baby is in there. The basket is a worn-out thing, with holes and bits of wood sticking out here and there. It is practically falling apart. So whoever left this baby here, it's unlikely that they were rich or middle class. It's unlikely that they had a better basket to leave their child in. They must be one of us. And more than that, they're probably not mentally well. I don't think a reasonable person could do this, though of course I don't know the whole story. And I must find them so that I can give their baby back and help them with whatever they need so that this doesn't happen again.

Finally, I reach the baby. They are wrapped in a worn-down, threadbare blanket. Poor thing. I pick them up into my arms. The second I do, the entire world seems to shift around me. It seems to grow sharper and more plunging, more aching with life. The whole world seems to be calling out for me, welcoming me, needing me. Of course, I have always felt this way before. I have always felt this way so deeply before. But this is so much deeper, so much more ever-reaching than anything I have felt before. I feel as though I have become one with all the suffering and all the hope the whole world over.

The baby is so sweet. So, so very sweet. Like all children are. Their little tiny face is poking out of the blanket that they are wrapped in. And I look at that face. I look at that face with every part of my mind, my heart, my soul. Because something inside me is singing. Something inside me is telling me that this is very, very important. Of course, all babies are very, very important.

For some reason I cannot make out the facial features of the baby at all. Their face seems to be changing, shifting in front of my eyes. Not in an unsettling sort of way. Just in an inexplicable sort of way. They look like they have the face of every baby in the world, simultaneously. They look like they have the face of every baby that has ever been in the world, the face of every person that has ever been a baby, the face of every baby that will ever be in the world. All at once. All at the same time. I know, I know that as I am looking at this baby, I am truly looking at every baby that is, has been, or ever will be.

And it's inexplicable. It's so inexplicable. It's so very inexplicable. I don't understand it at all, and yet I understand it completely at the same time. I understand that I understand it, I understand that I don't understand it, and I don't understand that I understand it as well. I am feeling emotions that I never thought myself capable of feeling, and that is saying a lot, considering how many emotions I have felt in my life.

"Baby?" I coo softly at the child, who looks up at me with big eyes that are all the colours that eyes can be, simultaneously. "How are you baby?"

The baby smiles at me. And it's such a bright, sweet, saccharine thing. I am beyond amazed by it.

"What do you want, little one?" I smile back at the baby. They look at me. And I get the feeling that they are looking deep into me, deep into me, deep into my very soul.

"Noww, nooow, noww," the baby babbles again and again. In this sweet little baby voice. In their sweet little baby voice that is all at once the voice of every baby in the world. Of course, I know the baby is not really saying "now." The baby is just babbling in baby talk. But that's what it sounds like the baby is saying to me. And these words, these words that are not words, seep into the centre of my very being. I don't know what is happening. I don't know what is happening but at the same time, a strange part of me does.

"Come on, let's get you out of here," I say to the baby as cutely as possible.

I walk towards the end of the alley, the little bundle in my arms. I don't know what I'm going to do with this child. Previously, my plan was to track down their parent or parents and ask why they had been left in the alley. But now. Now, I'm not sure the child even has parents. Unless of course you count every parent that's in the world, that ever was in the world, that ever will be in the world. But still, a baby is a baby is a baby, and they need some sort of caretakers to take care of them.

I emerge out of the alley and onto the dusty road. My arms feel strangely light, though. I look down, and there is no baby there. Just air.

———

I lie on my mat on the floor, my dad on one side of me, my three younger siblings on the other side of me, and my papa behind them. There are more people against the other wall. It's cramped here. Like it always is. But some houses are even more cramped. My aunt died a year ago, so we have a bit of space. But still, she died. She died and she was my aunt. She was practically my mother. And she died too young, too early, like all people do. And I'm still not over it. I'm not over it. I'm not over it at all. I don't think I ever will be over it.

The night is dark and hot around me. Silent, save for the blowing of the wind outside. It almost seems eerie. It almost seems otherworldly. Night is always this way. That's part of why I love it. There is no work at night. No demands. Just rest. A person gets to exist as just themselves, they get to exist just as a person and not as a work machine. Whatever else the rich took away from us, they couldn't take away the night time. It's a time that is just for us.

In this atmosphere, the thoughts of the baby return to my mind. I had pushed that experience away, thinking of it just as some sort of psychosis, as I was talking with my neighbours, with my friends. I had pushed the experience away as I was talking with my family. And I had tried to tell myself that it was nothing, it was nothing, I was just going crazy. Lord knows that many people go crazy in this world. Lord knows that there are a lot of things to go crazy about.

But in the stillness of the nighttime, I realize. The air all around me waits with promise. And I realize. That it was not a hallucination. It could not have been a hallucination. It was too real, too definite, too undeniable. No matter how strange it was, no matter how much it made no sense, there is no denying that it was amazing, and there is no denying that it's undeniable. Because I know what my feelings were at that moment. I know how strong my feelings were, how sure my feelings were. And everyone always says that if your heart is adamant about something, you better follow your heart.

So I'm going to listen to to my heart and I'm going to listen to my feelings and I'm going to let my feelings guide me in the right direction. I am going to let them guide me towards the truth, whatever it is. Because I know there is so much more to this world than what makes sense. I know there is so much more to this world than what can be understood and explained rationally. And this seems to be like one of those things.

But still, knowing that what happened did actually happen and knowing what that means are two very different things. I can't figure out what it means, though I know that it definitely does mean something. Why was the baby there? Who is the baby? How did the baby get created? Why - and how - did the baby choose to reveal themselves to me, if they did choose to reveal themselves to me? Why were they saying what they were saying?

The more I think about these questions, the more I think about my situation, the more questions I have. And the more questions I have, the more I wonder what the answers to those questions could possibly be. Everything happened but nothing was explained. I have to find out for myself what all of this means. And I have no clues to go off of.

Actually, that's untrue. I do have clues. And there are certain things that I do know. I know for example that the baby represents all of us. The baby represents all the people, past and present, and all of the struggles we are faced with. They represent all the love shared between us and all the ways, big and small, that we resist our exploitation and that we hope to resist our exploitation. That much is apparent. But what now? Why did they show themselves to me in this moment and what does that mean?

Despite my confusion, the pulse of hope thrums in me. A pulse of hope that is so much stronger than hope has ever been before. Because I know that this means something. I know that this has to mean something. And it means something profound. It means that things are happening. Things are finally, finally happening. And maybe we will finally, finally get free.

I try to stay up late thinking. I want to stay up late thinking. But exhaustion and drowsiness settles over me and I cannot fight it anymore as I am pulled down into sleep. Though I suppose that is for the best. I have work tomorrow, and if I am sleepy at work, it will be even more hellish than it already is.

———

I am surrounded by friends both old and new. People I've known for a while and people I've just met. We are all together, gathering after work. We are all crowded together, sitting on the floor of Karlium'a hut. And I'm aching with tiredness. As I always am after work. I'm aching with hurt. And, like always, the steady gnaw of hunger twists in my gut. Twists in all of our guts. But, surrounded by people, surrounded by my people, all of that is soothed. And I feel, I feel at home here. I feel like I belong here. And being a part of this milieu makes me feel like my life is returning back to me, at least a little bit.

There is Daria here, a woman in her mid thirties I haven't met before. She has skin the colour of river clay and hair the colour of darkness. There is Hadashi, and I know him. He's in his twenties and he has thick, curly hair that shines like a halo when the light hits it.

There's Valimem, and they're in their twenties too, and they have the darkest, largest eyes I have ever seen on an adult. Arili is in her early thirties, yet she looks so much older. Her eyes do at least. Cambri is in their forties, and they have wrinkles around the edges of their eyes. Mallee is a teenager and she has a beautiful broad nose and round eyes. The two other children that are here are Kallari, aged seven, and Amori, aged five. They're both so incredibly cute. Amori cannot pronounce his Ks and he loves monsters and fantasy creatures. Kallari always tries to make sure that everything is fair, though she's so young. And of course there's little baby Rosalee, with her big eyes and bright babbling, whose face I saw in that mysterious baby.

"If you could talk to any of our ancestors, who would it be?" Mallee asks.

"I want to talk to the people from before. Before the place got all bad." Amori's voice is so sweet.

"Ooh that's cool," Valimem pipes up, "why would you want to do that?"

"Because," the child starts, drawing out the word, "then I could know how everything was!"

"That's nice!" Cambri cheers. "I would love to know that too. Sometimes it feels like this life is all there is."

"Aww don't say that," Daria presses, "there's so much good stuff that we will have one day. I promise."

"How about you, Kallari," Hadashi asks, "who would you want to talk to?"

"I think maybe someone who made the bad people scared." There is something dark and sharp in her words. She is far too young to be thinking that way but she is thinking that way anyways.

"Ooh that's a good answer," Arili exclaims, "we could learn some tips and tricks from them!"

"What tricks?" Mallee asks.

"Like maybe how to steal!" Amori exclaims, "I would love to know how to steal!"

"Ooh, that's a good one!" Valimem's words are bright, with an exhausted undertone to them.

"I wanna learn to break thinks!" Kallari exclaims.

"Breaking things is fun," Hadashi agrees, "but if you do it you'll get in trouble."

"Hey un ... guys," I begin, not knowing how to start. My voice is cautious and fearful. It makes everyone's eyes turn to me.

"What is it?" Cambri asks. "Are you okay, sweet Miri?"

"I think I'm okay. At least, I hope so. But something really strange happened on my way home from work yesterday."

"What was it?" Arili questions, "tell us so that maybe we can help you,"

"Well," I begin, "I heard the sound of a baby crying from an alley. So I go there and pick the baby up, right?"

"Yeah," she responds.

"Well, the baby had the face of like, millions of different babies, all at the same time. I could tell, I knew in my heart that this baby was, it was all the babies ever. I don't know how I knew. I just knew."

"Trust your intuition child," Daria tells me, "it's there for a reason. It's saved us all before."

"Yep. I will," I reply. "So, I start to leave the alley with the baby. To maybe find out where they came from. But, the second I leave the alley, the baby is gone."

Everyone is silent for a while. Well, except the kids, who are talking to each other.

"Do you know the story of how the universe was invented?" Mallee asks me, voice dead serious, laced with awe.

"Of course I do," I tell her, "everyone does."

"But do you really remember it?" she asks.

"What are you talking about?" My voice has a slightly incredulous tint to it.

"Miri. Your name." Valimem's voice is dead serious.

"What about my name?"

"You were named after the Mother of All," they answer.

"Yeah, Mama Miria, what about her?"

"Your Aunt June named you, didn't she?" Daria asks.

"Yeah she did, what about that?"

"I wonder why she named you that way."

"Anyways," Cambri commences, "I think things will become more apparent if we refresh the story.

"Once upon a time there were no people. No animals. No plants. There was no earth, no sky, no fire, no water. There was only Mama Miria, and within Her She held infinite possibilities." I know the story that Cambri is telling. I know it well. But it's always nice to hear it again.

"Miria was lonely," they continued, "She was incredibly lonely. So She thought to Herself that She would create a being that could keep Her company. So She looked deep within Herself and saw the endless possibility that was laid in there. And She became pregnant with a child. She waited many long months before She gave birth to that baby. And who was the baby?" Cambri's voice has a light edge to it.

"The universe!" the children both exclaim joyfully. I smile.

"Yes, the universe," Cambri agrees. "And what was the universe? It was everything that has ever been created, everything that is created, everything that was created. It is everything that will have the Spark of Life within it. And everything ever was coalesced into one thing, into one sweet, precious baby that was every baby ever to come, all together, all at once.

"And Mama Miria, of course, took care of the baby, protecting it and nurturing it and doing everything to help the baby grow up big and strong."

"Like my mama!" Kallari exclaims.

"Yes," I tell her, "just like your mama."

"But all was not well," Cambri continues, "for evil forces found the baby and took it away from Mama Miria's arms. But She spends every moment desperately searching for Her sweet child."

There is silence again after this.

"I think," Hadashi starts, "Mama Maria found her child."

So ... what in the world am I supposed to do now? Now that I have to be the Mother of All? I'm only twelve.

———

I'm in a Resistance meeting. Because this is exactly what I need to do as a mother who wants to protect her child. This is exactly where I need to be. All around me are people who want to bring down the rich, who want to fix the world. People who are hungry, people who are tired, people who are over-worked. People who are angry about it all and would do anything to take a stand. And I have to fix the world. I have to fix the world. I have to heal my child.

"We have rights. Our rights go so far beyond merely staying alive. They encompass everything that is necessary for a good life, one of dignity and respect." The passion in Remini's voice is intoxicating. Her eyes are dark and her eyelashes even darker. She's in her twenties, like most resistance members, and she puts so much thought into everything she says.

"Exactly," Kalavi echoes, "they think that they do so much by giving us not enough food, and not enough water, but dear universe, they're the ones who should be grateful. Grateful that we haven't fucking killed them yet." His dark lips purse in disgust as he finishes talking. There are cheers all around us and I join in. It feels rebellious. But it feels wrong, somehow. Incomplete, somehow.

"They should be grateful that we fucking do everything for them!" Kalkiti softly exclaims, "we grow their food, we cut and sort and process and package their food, we make all their fancy clothes and pretty jewelry and nice furniture. We make their books and their toys and their big, big houses. And their televisions and music players and everything else. It's all us. We do all the work." Her skin is light, her face is round like the moon, and her broad nose crinkles in disgust.

"They never look at it that way though," Cakvi states ruefully, "they only see who is getting all the money for all the work that we do. And then that person gets all the credit. That's how it works, for the rich. They see a rich dirt stain in a position of power over everyone and suddenly that rich dirt stain is responsible for all the work their thousands of workers do." Cakvi's tone is dark from their harsh life. Their skin is dark from the harsh sun. And I can relate. I can relate so well.

The conversation swirls around me for a while. People try to get me to talk. I don't want to talk right now. I just want to hear what everyone has to say. There is so much anger all around me. Of course, there is always anger all around me but this anger is so much more flaming, so much more tangible. There is also deep insight all around me. Also not new, but it's all so concentrated, undiluted, all together at once. I don't know if I can take it all or not.

But there is one big problem. For all the insight and analysis and explanation of all that's happening, there aren't any actual plans for how to stop everything that's happening. I knew I wouldn't walk into a revolution on its way to being planned. But damn, there seems to be no hope here. No hope of things getting better. No plans of how to make things better.

"What should we do about all this?" I pipe up. "I know it's not fair. All of it is very much not fair. But how do we change it? Any plans for that?"

"We don't have enough power yet, to start a revolution," Diani explains to me, kindness in his eyes, "we couldn't face them and win. We plan crimes, heists, stuff like that. But all that is pretty small time. It mostly just keeps people alive, it doesn't really change the game."

"We have to lay the emotional and intellectual foundation for a revolution before actually doing it," Favi explains, a hand reaching up to her thick hair. "Revolution can't happen unless people want it, unless people know we deserve it, unless people know that what's happening needs to be stood up against. We have to build anger within people. We have to build rage and resentment and, most importantly, hope."

"What you're doing is very important," I acquiesce, "It's very important and good. We do need to lay the groundwork for a revolution first. But do you guys have hope?" I ask. "Do you guys thinks revolution is actually going to happen?"

"It will." Jai answers, "but we're not sure when."

"I think ... I think the revolution needs to happen now. Or soon. I think that we're powerful enough. That we have what it takes. Right now."

"Why do you think that?" Cakvi asks.

I explain to them what happened to me on that fateful day, coming home from work. I explain the baby. I explain the late night I had thinking it all over. I explain the conversation I had with my friends and neighbours. And I explain the horror and glory of the realization, and of the time I spent going over and over in my mind what this all could mean. They stare at me with awe, with joy, with hope in their eyes. And when I'm done, there is a spontaneous round of cheering echoing through the whole room.

"The Mother found Her baby!" Diani exclaims.

"But what do we do next?" Remini asks.

"We get more people," Favi states. "We get them to join us."

———

"The world will be better only if we all try to make it better," I speak out into the room of people gathered around me. They all heard my story already. And they generally agreed that the experience means something, that it means something important, and that right now is the time when great things will happen.

"Things can only happen if we work for them," an older woman named Ravi speaks out to the crowd, the children looking up at us wide-eyed and the babies crying or cooing from the arms of the people holding them. "We have a chance right now. We have a chance to set things right. But we have to go for it. We have to use this chance and not let it slip away."

"We have to fight!" little Alixi exclaims, their young voice dead serious, "and defeat the bad guys!"

"We have to defeat the bad guys!" I echo, "you're so right!"

"But how are we supposed to do anything?" Maliki asks, his dark curls shining in the dim candlelight lighting up the room. "There's no logical, practical reason for us to have power."

"There doesn't have to be one," I reply. "We will find our power if we all look. If we all have faith. If we all create opportunities out of what we have. Sure, we might not know how we'll win right now. But if we keep looking, if we all work together, we'll find a way to win."

"Exactly," Navai agrees, "we have to try. Because the Mother found Her child again. The Mother found Her child. And we're all the Mother. And we're all the child. We have to do what any mother would do and help the child, help each other, by any means necessary."

"We have to be a good mama," young Jini agrees, "so that all the kids can be happy."

"What's so loving about all getting ourselves killed in a failed revolution?" Balvi asks, his voice tinged with morose darkness but also with repressed hope.

"The future," eleven-year-old Clari explains, "the future people will live a better life. The universe will go back to being good, being fair, being the way it's supposed to be. We'll do it for the future and we will win."

"Yeah," Ravi echoes, "we need the future generations to have better lives than us. The universe will be hurting, will be wanting, will be wrong, if things go on the way that they do. If we can make things better for future generations, if we can get rid of the evil in the world, that would be good."

"Besides," Maliki adds in, "it's better to die on your feet that it is to live on your knees. Standing up against the rich, even if it kills us, is so much better than this desperate, aching sort of life that we're all living."

"Exactly," I agree, "And we will win. I know we'll win."

"And how will joining the resistance help?" A young woman named Nellin asks.

"Because," I answer, "if we're all in the resistance, we can all communicate with each other. We can all plan together, share ideas, share knowledge, and build ourselves up into a force to be reckoned with."

———

I stand on the corner of the narrow, dust-paved road, scores of people passing me by. I have lookouts who can tell me if any cops are coming by. But right now I'm safe.

"Would you like to join the resistance?" I ask the weary travellers as they pass by, "we meet at every house number ending in 4, from 7-9 on Saturdays."

People look at me. They smile. Like I'm a sweet child selling flowers on the roadside. I guess I am a young child. But I don't feel like one. I haven't felt like a child in years. There is a weariness about me and a darkness. My life has never been my own. Of course, I don't want it to be my own. But I don't want to belong to the rich either.

Hopefully I will be able to give my life to the people I want to. Soon.

"Would you like to join the resistance?" I ask.

"Sure," an older woman with wrinkles around her kind eyes tells me, "but only if you tell me why a kid as young as you is out here doing something so dangerous."

"I'm fine, ma'am. I chose to be out here."

"You be careful, though. You're too young to find yourself in trouble."

"Thanks for the concern." I smile at her, and she smiles back, ruffling my hair before she leaves.

I keep on telling people about the resistance meetings. I know that this is dangerous. But I also know that no-one will turn us in. No-one will tell the authorities about us. Because there is a loyalty among all the poor people here, among the people who have to sell their days and and their life's blood in order to put not enough food on the table. We all would die for each other.

The authorities likely won't torture us anytime soon either. Not before we plan our our next action. When the weapons are in our hands, the high-caliber, lethal weapons that can bring the end of the whole system as we know it, then we will be free. We will be free to rebuild a world of sibling hood. And the baby will finally be safe.

"Will you come to a resistance meeting?" I ask the person passing by in front of me. "We meet from 7-9 on Saturdays, in each hut ending with a four. We're going to change the whole world."

"How are you planning to change the whole world, little girl?" they ask me.

"We are planning to bring it all down."

"Bring it all down? But how will we do that? We have no power."

"We have more power than you think. A miracle has happened. Come to the resistance meeting and you will find out what it is."

"Okay, okay. I'll go to the meeting. But you guys better have the strength to back up your words."

"We'll be able to back up our words, just you see."

"Okay. I really hope it's time to finally change things. But I don't think we'll be able to, unfortunately."

"I know how you feel. I've felt that way before. We've all felt that way before. But you have to have hope."

"Hope is good," they agree, "but recklessness is not. I would advise you to be careful and to know what you're doing before you try anything dangerous."

"We will be careful, I swear. We know what the stakes are. We know what the consequences of failure are. We know all the lives that are on the line."

"I want to join you. I really do."

"Then do it. Then join us."

"I will."

They shoot me a tired, enamoured sort of smile, and I shoot them a strong, confident smile back. This day is going well.

"Do you want to join the resistance?" I ask the next passers-by. "We are planning something huge, and we need for everyone to get involved."

———

I'm coming home from work again. I am beyond exhausted. I do not feel like a human anymore. I never feel like a human after work. All I feel like is an empty vessel, a hollowed-out, spectre-thin thing that exists to suffer and for nothing more. I smile at the people around me. And they smile back. But all of our smiles are harrowed. All of our smiles are haunted.

All at once I hear the same sort of crying that I heard before. Many-voiced and woeful. Young and fragile. I follow the sound through the twisting alleyways again, just as I had done before. And once again I find the world baby, the baby which is everyone and and all of nature, all at the same time. The baby which is beautiful, beautiful, so infinitely beautiful. The baby which I want to give everything to.

Immediately, my heart is overcome with more love than I can fit into my body. It seeps out of me, and into this baby, this baby with so many features, so many faces, who I take into my arms and cradle gently. I feel as though my entire being is exploding out into the entire universe, and I am becoming one with everything everywhere. I want to protect this child. I want to protect this child.

I so very desperately want to protect this child. But I can't.

Not yet at least.

I cradle the small being close to me, until they stop crying. They are much quieter now, at peace since I picked them up, since I held them close, since I let my love and my proximity and my intimacy seep into their tiny, needy form.

They were lonely, so lonely out here in the alley, uncared for by the world, left on their own to suffer. But now they have me. Now they have all my family, all my neighbours, all my friends, all my coworkers, everyone in this world. Now we will all look out for them.

The young one is in my arms, and reaches up to grasp my nose with their tiny little fingers, with their tiny little hand. This is so infinitely adorable. I cannot help but laugh. It's sweet. It's so very infinitely sweet. Sweeter than anything could ever be and my heart is soaked through with glory, is heavy from my joy. Just looking at this child gives me so much joy.

"Are you going to stay with us?" I ask softly, looking at the bundle of joy my arms. "Or are you going to disappear the moment I walk out of this alley again?"

The baby flaps their hands in response.

"Stay with us," I plead with them, my voice gentle and full of love. "Stay with us, and let me show you to everyone, so that we all can see you and believe."

The baby makes an "aah" sound in response. I don't know how much they are understanding, but the big, round eyes look solemn, look thoughtful, look sad.

"Come on, sweetheart. Let's go." I get up from the ground I am kneeling on, slowly standing up and making my way to the sunlight of the streets. The baby is playing in my arms, babbling some adorable nonsense. I hope they'll be here when I leave the alleyway.

I take the final, tentative step into the main street. And still there is a light heaviness in my arms. And still the baby is cooing close to my heart. I break out into a beaming smile, and I go to the nearest person I can find.

"Do you see this baby?!" I exclaim in joy. And his ghost-like features light up in awe, and in hope.

——-

"Look at this child!" I proclaim to the resistance fighters gathered around me. I am not in the resistance meeting that I am usually in, the one in my neighbourhood. Instead, I am two neighbourhoods over, telling the people there of what I heard, what I witnessed, and what I experienced in my life.

The baby is in my arms now. But I pass the child on to Amine, who will pas them on to other people. It is important that everyone sees the child, that everyone holds the child. Not just the people in the resistance, but all of the people of the world. I realize that it will probably take about a year of constant travelling, a year of tired hunger, of new faces, in order to give everyone a chance to interact with the child. But it will be worth it. It will be so very worth it.

There aren't even that many people anyways. I'll be able to come home to my family after each day of travelling. And my family is okay with my "decision" to not work, even though that means that my whole community will be hungrier than they would have been if I did work, because they know that right now, everything is changing. The whole world is changing.

"I ... I'm amazed," a person named Davelo tells me.

"I am too, believe me, so am I," I respond.

"This is a sign. It has to be." Teenaged Arcadia's voice is full of joy, full of passion. She's holding her own baby, but looking at both the babies in this room, babies which are actually the same baby.

"So ... what does this mean? Does it mean that we will win?" Fig asks. He is trying to not get overly excited. He knows how dangerous that can be. But he can't help himself.

"Well," Amari starts, "we all know the legend. We all know that when the baby and the mother are reunited, it means that the world will go back to being fair again, being together and being free and being equal."

"Are you the mother, Miri?" Biri asks me, eyes full of wonder. "You are named after Mama Miria after all."

"I used to think that," I reply to him, "but I don't think so anymore. These past few weeks, I've been going around and seeing everyone. And the way everyone interacts with this child, the way that everyone loves them, I'm starting to think we're all the mother."

"That's very poetic," Davelo speaks out to us. "We are all the mother are we are all the child. And now that we are reunited with ourselves, now that the mother is reunited with the child, a new age will come."

"Are we sure, though?" Kamima asks, eyes darker than storm clouds and more solemn than the twilight. "Are we sure that we are on the verge of a prophecy?"

"We all know the stories," Manoni tells us, wrinkled eyes gazing into our souls.

"We all know how they come to fruition."

"But how?" Mamon asks. "How are we going to take on the whole system?"

"With effort," Arcadia answers. "By trying our best and doing everything that we possibly can in order to create change. We all have to try our best. All of us. Because the prophecy can only come to fruition if we work towards it."

"How right you are," Biri pronounces.

———

I am with my family. My dad, Amerni, my three little sisters, Cala, Rashi, Tessa, my papa Yonas, my "aunts" Marvi, and Carla, my three younger "cousins" Sali, Baro, and Lai, and my twin brother Davi. We are all sitting close together, on the floor of our hut, sharing in each other's warmth. We are passing the baby around, the baby that the community has taken to calling Uni. They are reaching their arms out, wanting to be held by all of us. It's cozy. Really cozy. It's sweet. Really sweet. I can almost forget about how hungry I am, how aching I am, or how my throat hurts.

"Are we going to be able to fight, too?" Sali asks.

"You can if you want to," my dad replies. "But it will be difficult. It will be beyond difficult. War is no place for a child."

"But why can Davi and Miri go?" Cala asks.

"Because," I reply, "We're much older than you guys."

"You can fight if you want to," Aunt Marvi tells the younger kids, "but war is not fun. It's not fun at all."

"But I want to fight!" Lai whines.

I think about how horrifying it would be if my younger siblings and cousins, and all the little kids all around actually, fought. They're just babies, really. They don't belong in a war. They don't belong in all the horror and danger that accompanies war. They don't deserve to die, they don't deserve to have to kill people, they don't deserve any of the brutality of war.

But then again, none of us deserve the brutality of war. And yet, we're all getting ready for it anyways. We're all looking forwards to it even, despite the fact that we're dreading it also. We are all anxiously awaiting the day when the pot finally boils over.

Why?

Because it's a chance to stand up against the rich.

They've been working us to death for years, giving us not enough to survive, making us waste all of our precious energy at their precarious jobs. I have seen so many deaths over the years. My aunt. My neighbours. My baby brother. People at work, who get into accidents. Unhoused people who freeze in the cold winters. I'm sick of it. I'm so sick of all of it.

But now, here, we have a chance to make the rich finally, finally see us. We have a chance to make them finally, finally fear us, instead of us just fearing them. We have a chance to show them that we are human beings, we always were human beings, and we are far more human than they will ever be. We have a chance to show them that we are much stronger than they ever thought we were.

And we have a chance to create a better future. A future where all of this suffering will not happen. A future where nobody has to suffer anymore. We can create a future where each child grows up healthy, grows up strong, grows up well-educated, and with time to play and have fun. We can create a future where everyone looks forward to happiness and peace in their lives. Where no child or adult has to work like a slave. Where we all take care of each other, we all really and truly take care of each other no matter what.

And that's worth fighting for. It's worth killing for. It's worth dying for. It's worth anything and I understand why I want to join the war. I understand why the children want to join the war.

"It's important to have people who live, who take care of the new generations," my papa tells the kids. "It's just as important for you guys to save yourselves so that you can create the future."

"I'll miss you guys!" Tessa moves to hug me, and I cry as I hug her back. It's horrific, how much sacrifice this is going to take.

———

I'm walking along the streets, streets only occupied by young children, by toddlers, by a couple of babies. Everyone else is at work. The adults. The teenagers. The older children. There's no-one left to take care of the young ones. They have to take care of themselves. It's horrifying. But it's a horror that we've all been forced to grow used to, over the years. It's a horror we are forced to deal with.

I carry baby Uni. And their weight is not heavy in my arms. Their weight is never heavy in my arms. I say hello to the groups of children who I pass by. They say hello to me back. I'm going to the far end of the city, where the agricultural workers have their huts. I'm taking baby Uni to them, so that they can spend time with the baby and see what the child is like. Uni is sucking their thumb.

I think as I walk. More specifically, I think about how I haven't seen a single police officer during the whole year that I've been with Uni. Why is this the case? Usually I see police officers here and there as I walk through the streets, as I go on with my life. Usually it's a terrifying experience, but an experience that I am accustomed to dealing with nonetheless, as anxiety-inducing as it always is.

But there have been none anywhere near me this past year. While I cannot help but be grateful, I also wonder, why is this the case? What is going on?

"Hi," I sing-sing kindly to a five-year-old boy. "How are you?"

"I'm okay. How are you?"

"I'm good. I have a question though. Did you happen to see any police officers here?"

"A time ago there was a police, but there's none now."

"Okay. Thank you. How long ago?"

"Maybe ... more than 15 minutes?"

"Okay, thanks so much. Good luck, buddy."

"Good luck!"

Okay, so, fifteen minutes or more ago there was a cop. But not right now. So, there was a cop before I showed up here, before Uni showed up here. But they left just as I came to this area. Interesting.

———

I take baby Uni to scrap yards. It's a horrible place for a baby, filled with so much garbage and jagged metal. But then again, what isn't a horrible place for a baby? I make these trips daily, and I am always accompanied by different kids. We have heaps of blankets with us, blankets borrowed from neighbours. We are confident that no guards will be after us. Because Uni is just such a loud baby and the guards can't stand their loudness.

We can also get through the gates of the scrap yard easily, gates that are otherwise closed to all the public, because the people who stand vigil by the gates leave once they hear the baby for too long. The child is our key. Our key to anything. And for this we are incredibly grateful to them. For this we thank them everyday.

In the scrap yard, we find pieces of metal that are shiny, that are new, that are not rusted. More importantly, we look for pieces of metal that have sharp edges and could be easy to cut. These will make our weapons. Weapons that the rich do not want us to have. Weapons that we make from the garbage that they throw away, from the incredible waste that they generate.

We wrap these medium-sized pieces of metal, usually about the length and width of my forearm, in the blankets that we borrowed. We understand that it looks suspicious, walking through the city with a bunch of blankets wrapped up in our arms. But we also know that as long as baby Uni is with us, no guards will accost us, for they'll all be too afraid.

Day after day after day after day, this plan works. We build up piles and piles of metal sheets. We find stronger bits of metal, with sharp edges. We cut the sheets of metal with the pieces of stronger metal, after using precious candles to soften the spots we want to cut along. We bend the newly-cut pieces. And we distribute them as spears for the people to use and get good at.

——-

Now is the moment of truth. I am walking towards the armoury, with a handful of other children. Cassi is seven, Racha is nine, Amio is six, Lai is eleven, and Olem is thirteen like me and has baby Uni in his arms. I have baby Clara in my arms. Nobody will suspect a group of children like us. Of course, the rich hate poor children like us, they suspect poor children like us, but they do not think us capable of of any great deception, or anything that requires a lot of thinking. And of course, they don't know about the World Baby. They don't know the power that the baby has. The power that all babies have.

I am fizzing with excitement. It is bubbling up hot and sweet in my chest, in my belly, in all parts of me. My mind is racing with equal parts anxiety and anticipation. Anxiety is a cold stone in my insides. Anticipation is making my soul light and in flight like a bird. And I feel as though I have the weight of the entire world on my shoulders. Though I guess I do. We all have the weight of the entire world on our shoulders. But we all have each other. And we can carry the load together. We can share the load together. And that makes the heavy weight so much lighter.

I am buzzing. I am buzzing. Everything inside of me is buzzing. I am overjoyed. There is so much that could go right. This might be the beginning. The beginning of the end. The beginning of the start. The end of our poverty, our brutal, degrading, dehumanizing work. This could be the start of true freedom, a freedom that we could all share together, that we could all share with each other. It could be the start of a world where all people are seen as equal, are treated as equal, are seen as one. We all hide in each other.

And yet. Yet. There is so much that could go wrong. We could fail. We could be killed. We could all be killed in punishment of our actions, in punishment of our rebellion. This could be the end of our people as we know them. This could be the end of everyone who's lived and died and worked and yearned and loved and hurt and cried and smiled and laughed under the heel of the rich. This could mean the end of our whole class as we know it. And with it, the end of all of our stories, the end of all of our songs, the end of all of our teachings and our histories and everything we pass on to the new generations. It all might be gone. The new generations might be gone.

Yet I don't think that will happen. I don't think we will fail. None of us think that we will fail, though the possibility looms in each of our minds, pressing us to make sure we put our full effort into this plan. I have faith. I have faith in baby Uni, I have faith in myself, and I have faith in all my people. All my people have faith in the baby, all my people have faith in each other. We have seen the signs, and we know that the time is now. The time to rise up. The time to change everything.

The children all around me have determination hidden deep in their eyes. They have rage. They have hate. And they have love. They all have a deep, untethered, primal, and all-reaching love in their eyes. A love that encapsulates themselves and is so much bigger than themselves at the same time. A love that has existed for as long as their souls have existed in the place beyond life, which is to say time without beginning. A love that will exist for as long as their souls will exist in the place beyond life, which is to say a time without end.

I look into their eyes and that gives me strength. I look into their eyes and it gives me hope. If soothes the sharpest edges of my cutting fear and leaves me able to go on, able to do all that I am meant to do, all that we are meant to do together. They are so determined. So determined. And I echo their determination. And I echo the power that they have. The power that we all collectively have, within ourselves, shared amongst ourselves. The power that will set us free.

The babies coo in our arms. They are adorable. And, looking at them, it makes the whole thing worth it. It makes our whole mission worth it. Because if these babies can have a better life, then that's all that we need, then that's all that we need from anyone. And it will make everything worth it. Besides the babies cooing, there is no sound from any of us. We all communicate in looks, in long-held eye contact, in the dead set of our mouths. Because we cannot give our plan away. We cannot let anyone know what it is that we are up to, besides all the people who already know and will keep the secret with us. We cannot let any of the rich, any of the guards, anyone with power in this society that we live in know what we are really up to. So we keep our silence, we keep our silence like a promise, and we walk together to the armoury.

We stop a slight bit aways from the armoury, away from the guards on all the many watch stations of the armoury. We sit down on the road, the dusty road that is unoccupied at the moment, except for us. It's not suspicious. It's not suspicious at all. Many children play in the road. It's the one place we have that is outside and under the sky. Even adults gather in unused roads often, gossiping and chatting about small things, things that the guards would not be suspicious upon hearing. It's slightly strange that we're doing this in the evening, when most children are much closer to the residential part of town. But there are huts near us. We're not straying too far away.

We sit down on the road, our worn, dirty clothes sitting on the dust. And we pass the babies around to each other. They giggle and coo, happy at being given attention and cuddles. And this is good. This is very good. We smile at them, and coo back. And, seeing our smiles, they giggle even more. It's adorable. It's so adorable. And it's so purposeful. So incredibly purposeful. These kids are helping us fulfill our destiny.

"Peek-a-boo!" Amio exclaims, and the babies scream in delight. We all join Amio in their peek-a-boo game. We each take turns covering our faces and uncovering them. The babies absolutely love it. They have no sense of object permanence yet, so they literally think our faces are disappearing and coming back into existence. This is adorable. Clara copies is, putting her face in her hands and then moving her hands away. Uni sees this and squeals. Perfect. This is so very perfect.

We continue playing our game for a while. It feels like it has been forever. Because the pressure digs into us, grates against us. It feels like it has been forever but I know that realistically, it probably has been only a few minutes. As the minutes go on, the babies get louder and louder. They get more and more excited. And I don't know if they're doing this on purpose or not. I don't know if they understand the gravity of this situation, I don't know if they understand the importance of what they are doing. But, looking at their faces, I think they probably understand, in their own, special, childish baby type of way.

I look around, as if in mild interest, at the scene all around me. The guards are getting increasingly agitated. All of them. I can see it in their faces. The growing trepidation. The discomfort. The way they adjust the expensive collars of their expensive black guard suits. The way that they look at each other as if wanting an explanation. They way that they fidget with their hands and pace in front of the doors that they're supposed to be protecting, getting up from their chairs.

They'll be gone soon. They'll be gone so very soon. And so will all the guards resting inside, where the windows carry in the sounds of our merrymaking.

Lai takes baby Clara and lifts her high in the air, and then brings her back down in a swift motion. Oh my gosh, it must be exhausting doing that. She's hungry. She's tired. She doesn't have the energy for all this. But anyways she does it, because babies love it, because nothing can make a baby scream like doing this. She goes to baby Uni afterwards, and lifts them up in the air and brings them backdown. The young child screams so loudly.

At this moment, the guards all walk away hastily. They do not say a word to anyone. They do not even look each other in the eyes. They simply speed away as fast as a walking feet can carry them, looks of deep disturbance in their faces. Lai is still lifting the babies. I don't look at the guards straight on. That would be too suspicious. But I do keep track of them through the corner of my eye. We all do, trying to keep it all as down-low as possible.

I take over Lai's job. She must be exhausted by now. She needs her strength for the battle to come. I play with the babies and yes, yes it is very tiring. But also, it's very rewarding. Seeing the babies happy, seeing them so full of life, so full of life despite the fact that they're immersed in death, it's beyond joyous. It's beyond worth it. And I understand, now, how parents put so much effort into their children even after being bone-weary from their long days of work. I understand now how seeing your child smile is worth anything and everything.

The guards inside the building now also leave. I don't see how many of them go, since I'm still busy with the babies. But I trust that the other children are looking into it, that they're seeing how many guards left and are ensuring that there are probably none left inside the building. I trust my friends. I trust my people. All of them. The guards on the roof also climb down and walk away.

I pass the babies to Olem, and he plays with them as well, making them scream and laugh and giggle and coo. All the other kids keep a lookout for any of the guards coming back. Right now we are all not even trying to hide the fact that we're looking. Cassi and Racha get up and walk all around the building, peering down all the streets surrounding the building.

"They're gone," the two young children tell us.

Amio then whistles, a sharp, piercing sound. A sound that is not too out of place in the busy, chaotic world that we inhabit. If any of the guards heard it they would simply attribute it to a child being loud. Which is exactly what this is. It's a child being loud. But the people lined up in the huts all around, who are standing close to each other, crowded and awaiting, they know what this whistle means. They know the many layers of deep, simple, complex symbolism behind it. They know that this is our signal, the one we all agreed upon for its simplicity and unassumingness.

The first thing that happens is that people hang up blankets to dry in front of all the streets, a few blocks away from the the armoury, blocking off sight of the armoury from the streets on all sides. Hanging up laundry in and of itself is not suspicious. But this is suspicious, to have so much laundry handing up at the same time, at such a precise location. Fortunately for us, if any of the guards who patrol the streets try to investigate this strange occurance, they will get too close and hear baby Uni, and then they will go away. Of course, they could call for backup. But we all doubt that they would do it, because then they would have to report to their superiors that they were afraid to go investigate because they heard a baby. They would not do that, because it makes no sense, because of the embarrassment, because of the blow to their ego. They would probably rather save their own skins and ignore it. That's the hope we're all hedging everything on anyways.

People flood out of the huts that encircle the armoury. It was really rather stupid of the rich people to make their armoury right within the poor neighbourhood. Well, what's stupid on their part is a godsend on our part. Perhaps literally a godsend, by the way. The Mother of All has been sending us a lot of blessings as of late. Blessings that we would do well to make the most out of. Blessings that we are making the most out of.

All of us kids keep on playing with the babies, making them be as loud as possible, as the adults and teenagers around us are walking up to the armoury. The strong doors are locked with strong, sturdy locks. But my people have a secret. The art of lock-picking has been passed down through the resistance for generations. And now, everyone who is in the resistance has their piece of wire, and has unfettered access to the locks, no worries of guards coming to arrest them.

When they finally get the doors open, there is an audible sigh of relief from everyone. So far the plan is working. So far the plan is working perfectly. I dreamed that we would get this far. I dreamed that we would win. But there was always a part of my mind that always told me that no, we would not make it. We would not make it. We would not make it. Now, that part of my mind is weaker than it has ever been. It is more quiet than it has ever been. And centuries of oppression which hammered into me that I am nothing are being lifted right in front of my eyes.

The kids and I continue with our jobs as the older people around us continue with their jobs. They grab gun after gun after gun from the many racks. They grab bulletproof armour and shove it on. They grab crates full of ammunition and tie them to their backs. They prepare for the war that will be started within moments. And they succeed. They succeed. They keep on succeeding until there are almost two thousand armed people, scattered within the armoury. I can see them through the windows. There are also many people scattered around the armoury as well, on the streets and in huts.

They move silently. They work silently. They load their guns silently and make sure that Uni's voice can be heard all around, so that no guards come near us in this moment of truth. And no guards do come near us. They hear Uni's childish voice, as faint and distant as it is, and it strikes fear into their hearts. They think that the armoury guards are already seeing to this part of the city, they don't need to go there as well. And they leave us all alone.

We are armed. About two thousand of us are armed. That's about three percent of the population. But at the same time, we have as many guns as the guards have. We have as many guns as them, we have as many bulletproof vests, and we have way more people than they have. Everything is working towards our advantage. The rest of the people have spears. Spears carefully crafted of scrap metal that the people stole out of the scrap yard and cut with the resistance's stolen factory equipment and expensive candles. We have been practicing with them in secret.

The war has begun. The war that I never thought I would live to see in my lifetime. The war that I have dreamed of all my lifetime. The war that I will fight in.

The older kids take the younger ones to the safety of the huts. The safety of the special dug-out huts that we prepared to help the especially young shelter and stay safe during the war. And we go get ready.

———

The street is covered in bodies. The bodies of the people. The bodies of the guards. There are far more bodies of guards than there are bodies of people who fought. So many people who fought. Some of them are decked in armour, that they stole from the armoury, that fits them in a ramshackle kind of way. Some are decked in the common rags that my people wear, worn and thin and like the earth. They all are covered in blood, are dark with it. Some of the blood is new, fresh, red. I imagine that it would be warm to the touch. Some of the blood is old and darkened.

It's a horrific sight, one that makes me deeply sick to my stomach. I've known death. I've known death. I've seen so many loved ones pass away. But death of this caliber, thousands of people in the span of a few hours, bodies paving the streets, it's beyond anything I've ever known before. And it's gory. It's so, so gory.

Yet I'm not mourning the murdered martyrs the way I've mourned other people who left this world. Everyone who died here, everyone who died like this, they died on their feet. They died fighting for a better world. They didn't die because of neglect, because of poverty. They didn't die due to horrific working conditions or prejudice against their class. They died because they stood up. They stood up for what they believed in, they stood up for future generations, they stood up for a better world. And at the end of the day, that is so, so, so incredibly much better than dying quietly, than accepting your fate as a lesser person and letting death take you on the floor or at work.

Everyone who is dying here will be able to walk into the afterlife with their heads held high. They will be heralded as heroes, and they will be able to tell all their ancestors that they did not go down passively. They went down fighting, with their teeth bared, looking their oppressors dead in the eyes. And oh how deeply, deeply glorious that will be. And how deeply cathartic too, how satisfying to be able to come to the end of your life's story and to have it end with such bloody, bloody triumph.

Not that they deserve to die. Not that any of them deserve to die. Besides the guards of course. Just because they got murdered for standing up for what they believe in doesn't change the fact that they got murdered. It doesn't change the fact that each loss is a horrific loss. Each person on the ground had friends, had family, had neighbours. They had children in their lives. Children who will miss them to no end.

But the future generations will never again have to know the loss of their loved ones. And they will never again have to live lives worse than death, where their only hope is death. That is why all these people are fighting, all these people are giving up everything. And that is why I'm fighting too.

I've been lucky so far. My dark skin hides in the night, a night that is only illuminated by the glaring yet dispersed street lights. I'm young, so people are protecting me. And I've been able to get my hands on a gun, since I was so close to the epicentre of the robbery. But still, my heart thuds in my chest and fear flows in the rush of my veins, coating each molecule of my blood. I am more awake than I have ever been in my life. I am more alert than I have ever been in my life. And I am terrified.

There are gunshots all around me. From friends, from enemies, from unknown sources. The guns all sound the same but the shouts of the people do not. There are those shouting in rage, the sort of rage that only comes after living your whole life under the heels of those who think of you as less than an insect, who don't think of you as a living thing at all. There are other people also shouting in rage. The rage that comes with living your whole life thinking other people are beneath you. There are people screaming in pain, wailing in grief, and even laughing in victory. It's a cacophony of chaos and I hate it and I love it. But more than anything, it makes me feel alive.

I get shot in the chest. But my bulletproof vest protects me. It's a close call nonetheless. I've been shot many times before. Each time has sent a jolt of fear racing through me. I shoot back in the direction of the black-clad soldier whose gun the shot came from. I can tell that he's a guard from the superiority glinting sharply in his eyes. The bulletproof glass on his helmet has long since been shattered. But he's still heavily armed. But my bullet hits him right in the jaw, horrifically disfiguring his face. He gives off a garbled scream. I shoot him again, in the head to make sure that he's really, properly dead. And then I cheer loudly. This is my second kill tonight.

But it's a broken sort of cheer. As much a scream of anguish as it is a cheer of joy. This is my second kill tonight. I'm only thirteen.

I guess I shouldn't have done that though. A hail of bullets comes flying at me from the right. I run to go duck behind a hut. And, thank the gods, my armour got everything. I thank the Mother and Her Child for just a moment before I scan my surroundings. I cannot ever let my guard down, even a bit. Because they're out to kill me. They're out to kill all of us. And I cannot let them. There is chaos all around me. Bodies falling. People screaming. I look for who to shoot next. I'm half cold blooded killer, half screaming child. But I do not know which half is which.

I see a guard shoot at an unarmed man. I guess he lost all his spears. The man falls to the ground, a fountain of blood gushing out from his thigh. I almost throw up. I do not even know this man. I do not know him, but I have to avenge him. I shoot at the guard. It doesn't pierce through his armour, but it does get his attention. Which is not good for me. I duck back behind the wall, catching my breath. If I go after him again I might die. Is that worth it? Of course it is. I cannot be a coward. Not now. Not after we have collectively done so much. I whisper a short prayer before leaning back out to shower him in a hail of billets.

Unfortunately this leads me to be showered in my own hail of bullets, which he fired as soon as he saw me. My armour holds strong, but it doesn't protect me this time as a sharp, burning, tearing bullet digs into the bottom of my rib cage, between two of my right ribs. I scream. I burns. It burns. It burns so much. White hot, searing pain that flows from my wound out to my whole body. I look at the man who shot me. He looks smug. None of my bullets pierced through his armour.

But right before I pass out, I see a woman impaling the guard with her spear, from behind. His face flashes with surprise, then horror. I guess I distracted him enough for her to be able to sneak up on him. I smile, and that's the last thing I ever do. And the last emotion I feel in this life is a sweet, hot, darkened sort of vengeance. A vengeance borne of pain. A vengeance bearing victory. It was worth it, it was worth it, it was all so very worth it. We will be free. We will all be equal.

———

I awaken to a realm made up completely of something intangible, something untouchable, something deeply intimate, something intimately beautiful. I wake up and this is the first time in my life where I have felt at peace, felt free from the horrors plaguing me. I am holding baby Universe close in my arms. They are infinitely beautiful, as they always are. In their eyes I see each person, each creature, each plant and rock and piece of soil. I see the sky and the water and the ground and the fire. And I see love. Universe is happy in my arms. Happier than I have ever seen them. They smile, and there is no brokenness behind that smile. They are happy. Everything is right. And I am about to enter a new beginning, along with the world.

My heart thuds in my chest. I find it hard to breathe, as if there is a stone lodged in my throat and I cannot force air past it. I feel as if my entire body has turned to stone. Hunger gnaws in my stomach, burns up through my chest, flows down my arms and legs, grates over my throat. I cannot breathe. I feel as if the entire world is on my shoulders. I feel as if I am nothing. I feel as if I am everything.

I kneel alongside the rows and rows of worshippers, the whole town gathered in the rolling square. The young and the old and the sick and the healthy alike. All together. All kneeling. All together for now. For now. For now. And us being together gives me a sense of strength. It gives me the ability to face this horror that we are all faced with.

On everyone's face is etched the same mask of reverence and worship. Everyone's mask is perfect, is flawless, is impenetrable. But I can see beyond their masks. Because I really look at their eyes. I really look into their eyes and deep, deep inside those dark pools is terror. Each and every time, it's terror. And a cascade of other emotions, too many and too complicated to be named.

Whichever unlucky person is chosen will have to leave the group. Whichever unlucky person is chosen will have to shoulder the burdens of the whole town in their fragile, thin arms. They will carry the stress of having to carry us all, they will bear the responsibility of all of our fortunes and fates. All of our fortunes and fates. That is too much for anyone to handle. But handle it, we must. And we must handle it with dignity and grace, no matter how fake the dignity and the grace is.

Time seems to still all around me as I kneel in my place, in my carefully-positioned place in the straight row that is part of the dozens upon dozens of rows all stretching out before us. I feel as if I have been kneeling here forever. I feel as if I will be kneeling here forever. But still, I'd rather kneel here forever than be chosen.

———

"We have to make do with what we have," Marsita is telling us through her all-consuming tiredness. I can see her exhaustion in her voice, in her eyes, in her face, in her posture, in her body language, in everything. She is trying to hold on, to her life, to her fight, to her will. She's trying for all of us. But last week her husband died. It's hard to be strong.

I am sitting in the clay hut of Marsita, a few huts over from my own hut. There is a ragged collection of people from the community here. We're all leaning against the walls, barely able to stay sitting up, letting all of our energy go. Scattered across the laps of the older ones, there are young children. Shajira, Baira, Namaro, and Kyare.

They are almost limp as they lean against their adults. I have little baby Alara on my lap. She is sweet and soft and thin and limp. But she's breathing. She is still breathing. I feel her breath against me, and for this I am beyond grateful,

Normally, someone would be cooking on the clay stove at the end of the little room. But right now there is nothing to cook.

"We should have more," Shajira says, looking out into the sky with her dark eyes. She holds an anger within her. I can tell that she holds an anger within her. That is not good.

"Now, don't blame anyone," Ereeth says in an exhausted, calm sort of way, the candlelight reflecting on his silvery gray hair. "We don't need to cause unneeded rifts."

"I'm not blaming anyone," Shajira replies, blowing a tuft of black curls away from her eyes. "I'm just saying, it's not fair."

Beside us, Jasey is sleeping. I watch his breathing, slow and shallow, rising and falling almost imperceptibly. There is something foreboding about the way the candlelight of the dark room settled over his peat-dark skin.

"Are you blaming the great and powerful Lady?" Marsita's voice carries alarm within it. And I totally understand why. No-one can blame the Lady about anything. Lest she hear and curse us. But still, she cursed us already, with our harvests failing and our year spent hungry. She cursed us already and I do not know how she could curse us any more.

"I'm not," Shajira replies, I'm not blaming her. I'm just blaming the situation."

"Do not even say what can be thought of as blame. For if she hears us, I know not what she'll do." There is protective alarm in my exhausted voice. I have to make sure that she stays safe. That she keeps all of us safe. Or, as safe as possible in a time like this.

"And, remember," Alaro adds in, "we cannot blame Darjo either. He's young. He's very young. And he had a great burden placed upon him those many months ago. He did the best that he could. He did the best that he could to please the Lady. And we should not place blame upon his young shoulders." Alaro's clay-red skin shines bright in the candlelight, almost like blood. and there is something slightly haunting to him.

"I'm not blaming him. I'm just blaming the situation." She presses on, sweetly, the young child, more oblivious than she should be of the danger that's all around her. Of the danger that's absolutely everywhere.

"Be careful," I warn her. "You should not be blaming anything. You should not be making it harder for us."

I keep my eyes on Jasey. He is still breathing in the smoke-tinted air. He is still lying on the hard clay floor of the hut. He's still sleeping, oblivious to the hunger and the hurting and the need and the death of the waking world. I almost wish that he stays asleep forever. Sleep is the only place where it doesn't hurt. It's the only place where nothing hurts. But no, no I do not wish that at all. We need him. Everyone needs him. We cannot do without him. I don't know why, but we cannot do without him. We need him to stay alive.

"Why can't we talk about how sad we are? Kyare asks.

"Because," I answer, "it's not safe."

"Because of the Lady?" They ask.

"Yes, sweetheart, because of the Lady," I respond. Hunger gnaws at my gut and twists apart my insides. I feel as if I have been scraped hollow, scraped raw, left bleeding. But I feel like this all the time. This past few months I have been feeling like this all the time.

"Why does the Lady listen to us?" They ask with their tired, youthful voice.

"The Lady does not listen to us all of the time," Alaro explains. "But you never know when she might be listening. You never know when she might be looking in. If we want to have a good harvest next year, if we want to eat next year, we must make sure that we do not displease her. And that means that we must be grateful for everything that she gives us." Alaro's words come out slowly, with many breaks in between. I understand why. In this stretch of time, they really sink in, true and necessary and terrible.

"But how do we know when she's looking?" Kyare asks. There is something curious in their voice. Something dreading. And something just, lightly hopeful.

"We don't know," Ereeth responds. "We don't know if she's looking in on us. We don't even know if she can look in on us. But her power is too great to rule it out as a possibility. She controls the harvest. Who knows what else she controls?"

"Anyways," Marsita cuts in, "this conversation is getting far too negative, my young ones. Why don't we move on to another more positive line of talking?

"Like what?" Kyare asks. There is something hopeless in their tone.

"I don't know," Ereeth replies, "maybe we could talk about next year when the harvest will be better. What are we going to do then?"

"I'll make rice cakes," Namaro tells us. Sweet, little Namaro. Sweet little all of them. Each and every single one. "I love rice cakes."

"I love rice cakes too," Marsita tells him. "Rice cakes are so delicious. And they're so soft and fluffy and lovely. Hopefully next year we get a lot of rice. Hopefully next year we get a lot of rice cakes. Enough to make up for all the hunger this year."

"I hope so too," Namaro agrees. "I hope we get lots and lots of food. I love food. I miss food." Sweet kid. I relate to him, I relate to him so much. I'm sure we all miss food. I'm sure we all miss it so much. Not that we don't have any food. No, the Lady is too merciful for that. But we don't have enough. We don't have nearly enough.

"I miss food too," I tell him. "I miss it so much. But I'm holding on to hope. You have to hold on to hope too. You all have to hold on to hope. Hope is all that we have after all. Hope is all that keeps us going." The baby is my arms is still breathing. Still breathing. I am so glad that she is getting to rest. Sweet baby.

"Do you think we'll have a good harvest next year? I hope we do." Namaro's young, dark voice has a hint of lightness in it.

"I think we will," Alaro replies. "Just hold on hope."

"Yes," Ereeth echoes, "hold on hope."

"We have more good years than bad years," Marsita tells everyone.

"But we still have bad years, though," Baira tells us. And there is something imploring in her adorable little voice that does not pronounce everything properly. There is something amazing as well.

"We do, Baira, we do," I tell her. "But we can't dwell on the bad years. We have to dwell on the good years."

"We have to dwell on whatever we have," Alaro adds in.

"And we have to be grateful," I finish. "We have to be grateful to the Lady for all that she blesses us with. Do you think you can be grateful?"

"I think I can," Baira replies, voice thoughtful. "I think I'll try to be. But it's hard sometimes."

"Of course it's hard sometimes," Marsita acknowledges. "Of course it's hard sometimes. But it's okay. You're okay. You'll get through it. We all will. And you'll find your ways to be grateful and to count your blessings despite it all. You'll see that there's a lot that we have, a lot that the Lady gives us."

"Like what? What does she give us?" Baira asks. I can tell that she wants to listen to us. I can tell that she wants to be grateful. But she doesn't know how. And that's understandable, that's so understandable. A lot of us don't know how sometimes.

"She gives us good harvests," Ereeth replies. "And she gives us all the things we need in order to have good harvests. She teaches us to be humble and grateful and thank her for all she gives us. You have to be grateful for that."

"I'll try my best to," Baira replies. There is something determined and resolute in her little voice. In her big, dark eyes. And I'm proud of her for trying her best. I'm really proud.

"Good job," I tell her. "That's all you need to do. You just need to try your best. That's all we all do. We all try our best and we do what we can. And guess what? It's enough to keep the Lady happy, most of the times." My words come out slowly. I try not to put an emphasis on most of the times, but it happens anyways. Most of the times is the key phrase here. Our best is not enough to keep the Lady happy all of the times. We have too many years when it's not enough. Far too many.

We keep talking, trying our best to ignore the hunger and the aching that's inside of us. The conversation is a good distraction. It's a good distraction from the pain. But it doesn't do enough, it doesn't go far enough, not nearly far enough to help us all. But still. Still I am very glad and grateful for the people around me. I am grateful for the words that flow on all around me and the words that flow into my ears and through my mind. I'm grateful for the words that flow from me. I'm grateful for the fact that the others listen to them, that they hear me, that we all hear each other.

I'm grateful for the baby in my arms and I am so, so worried about her. She was born in the midst of a bad year, in the midst of famine and hunger and need. And she never got enough nourishment in her life. She never got enough. I hope so strongly, hope so hard, that she doesn't die. I hope with all my being that she lives to see better years, that she lives to see years that help her grow and thrive and bloom and flourish into the radiant individual that she is meant to be, that she already is.

We keep talking, we all keep talking, until one by one we start to fall asleep. There is nothing else to do. It's too dry to raise crops and there's no food to preserve and prepare and cook. All we have to do is talk. Which in its own way is a strange sort of blessing.

I look towards Jasey, as the night is pouring darkness in through the cracks of the shutters. And he's not breathing. He's not breathing. I move immediately to tell the others.

"Jasey's not breathing." My voice comes out small and stilted. It comes out forced and squeaky.

"What?" Marsita's voice is dreading and determined and purposeful. It's calm in a untraceable sort of, in a strong sort of way.

"He's not breathing," I reply. I still find it hard to force the words out of my mouth.

Marsita goes to kneel over Jasey. She puts one dark hand on his dark neck. And she feels for a pulse.

"There's nothing there," she says all at once.

———

We are stone-silent here, kneeling, all of us terrified, all of us hiding it. We have been kneeling here for what feels like hours, feels like days, feels like years, though it probably only has been a few dozen minutes. The time flows in a trickle, and the breath flows heavy and ragged down my chest, like I am breathing in a collection of hard, sharp-edged stones instead of air.

We are waiting for the moment. For the moment in which she will come. The moment in which the Lady will come. The moment when everything will start, and we will have to start praying with everything we have for the unlucky person who gets chosen. Praying to soothe them. Praying to give them strength. Praying to give them victory. So that they might please the Lady. So that they might save our town and our harvest for one more year.

I kneel here until my knees hurt. And I make sure to not show any of the hurt on my face.

All at once there is a bright flash of light all across the whole sky. It's too bright. Too painful. It hurts to see. But I keep my eyes open. I struggle and I fight to keep my eyes open anyways, through all the hurt, because she needs to see us looking at her. She needs to see our eyes upon her. Immediately, as quickly as the world got bright, it gets pitch-dark. And there's something dreadful in this darkness, darkness in the middle of the day. There is something deeply unnatural to it. Still I keep my face a mask of reverence. I don't let any of my fear and my trepidation show through.

Standing in front of us, on the large, ornately-carved stone stage in the middle of the town, is the Lady.

She wears a shimmering dress of bright, sparkling red. It's sleek and falls beautifully, falls perfectly on her. Clasped around her waist is an intricately-carved, flowing and swirling belt of gold. Hung from her neck is a fine golden chain adorned with a gold-framed pendant of a bright ruby. She has a youthful look to her and black hair as straight as a beam. She is beautiful. Far too beautiful. Far too beautiful for it to possibly be natural. There is something deeply uncanny about the way that she looks. There is something deeply uncanny about all of her.

"Your reverence," old woman Marila, one of the town elders, speaks out in a voice that sounds so unafraid, in a voice that is hiding so much fear. "Welcome to our humble town. We thank you deeply and profusely from the bottom of our hearts for gracing us all with your magnificent presence. May we be able to show our deep and humble gratitude towards you for all that you have done for us and for all that you are. Your reverence."

"Indeed." The Lady's voice is clear and peaceful and supercilious, as it always is. There is so much highness and dignity in the way that she speaks. Her words flow out so smoothly, so loudly, as they always do. And there's something deeply unnatural about it. There's something deeply unnatural about it all. Like everything else about her, her voice is just too flawless, too beautiful, too perfect. But I try to not let my fear show in any way as I stay there, kneeling, listening to her words.

"Our bright and radiant Lady," Marila begins, "for what purpose have you graced our village with your presence?"

"I come to have a communion with one chosen member of your town. I come to test how your town is keeping to its virtue and its honour."

"Thank you, my Lady, for blessing us with such a rare and treasured opportunity. It is my greatest hope that we do not let you down."

"My expectations for your town and its people are quite elevated. There is a lot for you all to live up to."

"But of course, my Lady. Your expectations are high and glorious and it is my deepest, sincerest hope that we are all able to live up to your lofty desires."

"Allow me to look through the crowd, now. I must select a fine and upstanding citizen of the town with whom to carry out my communion."

"But of course, my Lady. Take all the time that you need."

She scans over the crowd with here serene, impartial, menacing eyes. There is something too smooth about the way she looks over all of us. There is something too probing.

I wonder, briefly, if I will be the one who gets chosen. I hope to the universe that I am not. I cannot handle that type of pressure. No-one can. But I pacify my racing heart with the knowledge that there are thousands of us here. There are thousands of us here in the town. The likelihood of me being picked is very slim.

She looks through the crowd for what seems like an eternity. I wonder what is going on in her head. I don't think I'll ever be able to know what she thinks. I don't think I'll ever be able to even imagine it. She is so, so very different from all of us, from her unnatural beauty to her lack of fear to the calm, cool way in which she regards everything. There is an untouchability to her, as if all the cares that us humans have merely pass by her as interesting ideas. She looks through the crowd.

She eventually settles on a person. And that person is me. Her gaze holds me longer than it has held anyone else up to this point. My heart stops in my chest. I feel as though I am about to throw up. This can't be. This can't be. This can't be. But it is. It is no matter how much I want it to not be. It is no matter what I want.

"Calen Agua," she calls out, eyes dead set on me.

I bow my head low.

"Yes, my Lady?" I reply, keeping my voice as even as I possibly can. Keeping my voice as meek and humble and submissive as I possibly can.

"I choose you to be my companion for the harvest ritual that we are about to undertake."

"Yes, my Lady," I reply. "I am deeply, overwhelmingly honoured and humbled that you have chosen to select me out of all the masses of people. It is a deep honour." My words, of course, are a lie. But I lie as convincingly as I can, extracting all my effort into making sure that she does not sense even the idea of a lie behind my words.

"You may come join me now," her voice rings out clear and terrible.

"Yes, my Lady. Of course."

I rise. And my legs want to shake, my knees want to buckle, my breath wants to come out ragged and jagged and uneven. But I force everything to keep calm and collected and contained, to be smooth and fluid as I make up the distance between myself and the stage.

I am more deeply, more entirely, more horrifically terrified than I ever have been at any point in my entire life. The profound, all-consuming dread cracks and crumbles everything inside of me, at the same time as turning my insides into stone. I feel like I am getting hit by lightning over and over and over again. I feel like I am crumbling to ashes. I feel like I want to throw up. I want so deeply, so badly, to throw up. But I can't.

I force myself to the stage on my numb, rubbery legs. And I climb the stone steps, cold and harsh and piercing under my bare feet. And everything feels frozen, screaming cold and cloying, suffocating hot both at the same time. Everything feels completely unreal, as if I am moving through a nightmare. Yet everything feels overwhelmingly, undeniably real, more real than anything has ever felt before.

Finally, after what seems like forever, my long and weighted walk is at its end. The Lady towers in front of me. And I force myself to look at her. I force myself to look at her and gulp down all the multitude of feelings that I am feeling. I force myself to hide.

I twist my lips into as close to a perfectly realistic smile as I can possibly make. And I kneel down in front of her.

Everything relies on me now. The town's fate relies on me. The harvest relies on me. The lives, health, and survival of innumerable people rely on me. And I can't take this. I can't take the pressure. But I have to. It's not my choice. It's my duty. I only hope that I am strong enough. That I can save them all. I have to save them all.

———

Darjo and I are washing clothes by the river. It's a Saturday, a day that is mostly not for work, a day that is mostly for rest. But both of us have washing to do and we thought that we might as well do it. We might as well get it out of the way. And so we're here, just the two of us, together on the sloping, silt-covered banks of the river.

It's beautiful here. The water stretches out bright and calming and perfect as far as the eye can see in each direction. It reflects the sunlight in bright rippled waves. It soothes my soul and fills me with a sense of purpose. I love the river. It seems to talk to me every time I am near it, every time I come to it for help. The river feels like an older brother or sister or sibling. And I am so grateful to have some time now, here, beside the river.

The universe knows that I need to soothe my soul. I need to find some solace and some peace and some way to ignore the hunger within me, some way to ignore the fear and the grief and the pain all around me. Some way to make this nightmare of a year just a little more palatable. Because we all know that I will have to gulp down this horror of a year no matter what.

Not that I blame Darjo, not that I blame him at all.

"But I blame myself," he says to me, as we are washing our clothes. "I'm the one who disappointed her. I'm the one who disappointed you all."

"You tried your best, my soul's brother. You tried your best and you did what you could."

"It doesn't matter whether I tried my best or not because it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough to save you all." There is something profoundly haunted in his voice. And something profoundly haunting.

"We all know that it's very difficult to please the Lady. Nobody is blaming you. None of us are blaming you. Not at all."

"You should be blaming me." The guilt in his tone is almost tangible. I can almost reach out and touch it with my fingers. I feel so bad for him. So bad. He must be feeling so bad himself, must be feeling so much worse than the rest of us are feeling.

"We shouldn't be blaming you."

"Yes, you should. I'm the one who disappointed the Lady. I'm the one who displeased her. And because of this, the whole town has to suffer. The whole harvest has to die."

"We can get by. We are getting by. We can pick the berries and dig up the roots in the woods."

"But it's not enough. It's not nearly enough. There are too many people and not enough woods to feed them all."

"We can get by."

"What about all the people dying? Can they get by? They're not getting by. What about all the families and neighbours and friends who are grieving. Can they get by?"

"I know. I understand. It's hard. But it's not your fault."

"How is it not my fault? The Lady chose me. She chose me to commune with her. And that meant that it was my responsibility to take care of you all and to please her so that she blesses the harvest."

"That's a lot of responsibility to take on. But you took it so well. You took it well and you did everything that you could. You should be proud of yourself. I'm proud of you."

The water flows cool and clear against my hands, refreshing and rushing and altogether full of life. The sun shines warmly against my skin, warming me up from the inside. There is the lightest hint of a breeze and it flows in my hair. Today is beautiful. It's so beautiful. But inside my heart it is dark and wet and twisting. My emotions are not beautiful. Still, I am grateful for the beauty of this blessed day, and I'm grateful for all the ways that simple nature is trying to cheer us up.

"I'm going to kill myself," Darjo declares out softly to the river and to the sunlight and to me. My heart thuds in sympathy and sorrow.

"Please don't."

"I will. It's what I deserve. I've killed so many people. The blood of so many people is on my hands."

"Their blood is not on your hands. But if you kill yourself, your blood will be."

"My blood deserves to be. I've damned you all. I've hurt you all."

"Please don't."

"There's nothing that you can say to stop me from doing it."

Tears trek their way down my cheeks. And I don't stop myself from crying. Not here. Not now. Not like this. I am grateful for the fact that I am allowed to cry. And I am grateful for the fact that I am allowed to express my emotions. But I'm not grateful for the fact that I can't help. I cannot help dear, sweet Darjo and I cannot stop the guilt that he feels inside of himself. I can only watch him go, and try to give him whatever comfort I can until he does.

I feel so very helpless. So very, incredibly, unbearably helpless.

But I understand what he's feeling. I really do. I think, perhaps, if I was in a similar situation as him I would feel the same way.

We continue washing our clothes, the river's water cool against our hands. I think I can understand what he must be feeling. I can understand why he blames himself. I think he's carrying more perturbation this year than anyone else is. He's carrying more weight. He has been carrying this weight since the first moment that he got called to represent our town in front of the Lady. And we're all carrying weight in this awful, painful year. We're all carrying so much weight. And there's nothing we can do to lessen it. Nothing except for helping each other.

———

I am kneeling in front of the Lady. And, for the first time in my life, I am glad that my stomach is empty. Because if it wasn't, I don't know if I could keep myself from throwing up. Though I make sure to not let her know that. I have to act as if I'm honoured. Act as if I'm honoured. Act as if I'm amazingly honoured to be in her magnificent and awe-striking presence. I have to make her believe it.

And she does believe it. I truly believe that she believes me as she looks down her nose and unfolds her lips out into a haughty, satisfied smile. She looks as carefree and supercilious as she always does. She looks as calm and as serious. There is nothing in her face that warns of disapproval. And I internally sigh with relief, just a tiny bit. It seems that, so far, I am pleasing her. It seems that, so far, I am doing good. Let's just hope I can keep it up.

She waves her clean, dainty, ivory hand, a motion through the air that is much too smooth to be natural. And the world around me goes white. I cannot see my people out of the corner of my eye anymore. I am cut off, alone. No-one can help me now.

The fear in my heart spikes sharp, stabbing through me. But I make sure that I keep kneeling there, I keep kneeling there, through all the terror I keep kneeling there and not showing any signs of my inner longings. But I want my people. I want them to at least be beside me.

The whiteness all around me glows brighter and brighter, until it is absolutely blinding to look at. I keep my eyes open, though the light is searing my eyes. And I keep my head slightly bowed though my head is throbbing in sharp pain. The light seems to be cutting through my soul, through the very fabric of myself. Yet still, I fight with everything that I have in order to not react.

Finally, the light dies down, and I find myself in the strangest place I have ever been in.

It's a large room, larger than I knew rooms could ever be, positively palatial. The floors are patterned in many colourful tiles, little flecks of darker colour dispersed through their light hues. The tiles are arranged in intricate patterns. The walls are covered in large paintings and fine tapestries everywhere I turn, except for the windows which are crystal clear and look out into an immaculately blooming garden.

There are fine statues of heroic figures and regal animals, positioned stylishly around the room. And all the walls are lined with large tables of dark, rich, intricately-carved wood. There is a silver fountain in the middle of the room and the ceiling is a mirror. Beside the fountain is a small, sleek crystal table with chairs made of blue gems. In the middle is a China tea set.

I take it all in but I force myself not to react, even to all the strangeness. This room does not do anything to calm my nerves. In fact, it makes me even more anxious that before. Because not only am I alone. Not only am I carrying the burden of my entire town. But also, I am in a place I don't recognize at all, as beautiful as it is. I am in a place that I can tell is not for me.

"You may rise." The Lady's voice holds no affection within it, but no anger either. Hearing her makes my heart leap to my throat. But I force myself to get up as fluidly and as gracefully as I can.

"Thank you, my Lady."

"First of all, what is your name, gender, and age?"

"My name is Calen and I am a man. I'm eighteen." I'm really a demiboy but I don't think she'd understand that. I don't want to risk it. Though lying is a risk too. But it's a risk I'll have to take often.

"Take a seat. Let us drink some tea." She walks to the small table beside the fountain, her red dress swaying slightly as she moves. Everything seems completely unreal to me. Completely unreal and unbearably, unrealistically real both at the same time. I follow her to the table.

"Thank you, my Lady. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to drink tea with you." I keep my voice even.

"You may pour the tea now," she replies.

"Yes, of course, my Lady." The China has patterns of all sorts of birds on it, and is ringed with geometrical patterns. I fill both our glasses with the light brown liquid.

"And I will take two sugars," she tells me. I scoop her the sugars. I don't take any myself.

"You may pass the sandwiches now," she commands, and I put one dainty sandwich on each of our plates.

We eat in silence for a little bit, me keeping my head slightly bowed throughout the whole thing. It's so hard for me to force food down my throat. But I do so anyways. The food is surprisingly delicious, and that makes it easier to eat, at least. I have to be thankful for the little blessings.

"So, are you enjoying the tea?" she asks me in a serene voice.

"Yes, my lady. It's the most delicious tea I have ever had." This is not a lie. "Thank you so much for your gracious generosity in sharing your meal with me." This part is a lie.

"And what of the sandwiches? Are you enjoying those?"

"Yes, my Lady. They are absolutely delicious. Thank you once again for your generosity in sharing them with me."

"And now, I suppose, we will move onto the questions of more value. How is the town doing?"

"We are doing alright, my Lady," I lie. "Things have been pretty hard due to the harvest last year but we are getting by pretty well. Thank you for asking me of the town, and thank you for your everlasting concern towards us." I'm not telling the truth. Of course I'm not telling the truth. If I told the truth I would doom everyone. But I can only hope that she doesn't see through my lie. I can only hope that she doesn't have information to the contrary.

"And the townspeople, what do they think of me?"

"They think very highly of you, my Lady. You are, after all, the one who blesses us with so many blessings. You are the one who gives to us all that we have and all that we need to live. You have blessed us with so many good harvests and bounty flows from within your hands. And for that we are grateful, deeply grateful. And we are humbled. Deeply humbled."

"And do they not believe that I am to blame for the years when the harvest is cursed?" There is a bit of an accusing edge to her voice. It makes my world go still for a moment. This is not good. This is really, really not good. But I hope I can save it.

"Not at all," I answer swiftly. "We do not blame you for a cursed harvest. For we know it is your choice. It is your choice whether to curse the harvest or whether to bless it. And it is your decision to make, not ours. You have a right and an entitlement to make the decision that you choose to make, and we are in understanding of that." I think up the answer to the question as lightning-fast as I can, and I hope that it's coherent.

"And what of the children? What do they think of me?"

"They are awestruck by your power and by your amazing abilities. They are grateful for your blessings. We are teaching them to be grateful for your blessings." The children in actuality do not like her at all, they're dead afraid. We try to stop them from expressing it, but we can't stop them every time. My mouth feels a little numb as I tell her the lie. I am dead afraid of being found out. But I do what I have to do and say what I have to say to keep my people safe.

"And how about you?" she asks, a touch of concern in her voice.

"What about me, my Lady?"

"Are you happy, in the moment?"

"Of course I am, my Lady." I force the words out of my dry, grating throat as calmly as I can. "It's beyond an honour to be in your presence and to be able to dine with you. It's beyond an honour and I am beyond thrilled." I feel like my lung is full of rocks. Like I'm forcing the air through their hard, rough edges. "Are you happy?"

"I am always happy," she replies smoothly. Unsettlingly smoothly. "And the town, is the town happy?"

"Yes, we are. We count our blessings and are blessed by all that you give us."

"What of the years when the harvest is cursed? Is the town still happy?"

"Why of course we are happy. Even if food is scarce, we have blessings. And we are used to years with meagre harvests. We have grown able to handle them. We know how to deal with years with limited food and how to still be happy despite it all."

"What of the people who die?"

"The deaths, too, we have grown used to. We have learned how to work through our emotions and how to rationalize death so that we do not feel grief at losing someone. We must be grateful no matter what fate gives us." Talking about the dead people is even, somehow, much harder than talking about everything else. The grief pangs in my heart and I have nowhere to put it. I have to struggle and fight with strength I never knew I possessed in order to keep emotion out of my voice. But I manage to get through it. Somehow, miraculously, I manage to get through it. Maybe because I have to. I absolutely have to.

"And the children," the Lady continues on, "are they happy?"

"Why of course they are," I answer as convincingly as I can, "you have blessed them with so much out of the kindness of your heart."

"The kindness of my heart, you say."

"Of course, my Lady. Your heart is so kind. You provide us with everything we have." I do not tell her that she does not give us the one thing that really matters, which is each other.

The Lady smiles slightly. My heart stills, holds its breath. Is this a good sign? Am I pleasing her? I hope so. I allow myself to release a breath that I didn't know I was holding.

"And what of my birthday?" Her voice is an overly-saccharine trill. "Do you celebrate my birthday?"

"Oh we do, my Lady. Of course we do. With much merriment and celebration, and with a big feast, just as we should. It is, after all, a deeply auspicious day."

"A feast? How do you pull off a feast on a year when the harvest has been cursed?" Her question sounds genuine, but still, I'm in treacherous waters. Still, I anticipated this. I practiced for this. I have an answer.

"We fastidiously save every morsel of food that we have for the feast, of course. Because it's such a joyous day. Of course we have to celebrate it in a joyous way."

"And what of the boy I had in here with me last year? How is he doing?" Darjo. She's talking about Darjo. Oh no.

"He died, I'm afraid." I fight to keep the grief out of my voice, out of my expression. I fight to keep my voice even, keep my breathing even.

"Oh, how did he die?" Her words are cool and mildly curious. Not at all the words of someone who just heard about a tragedy. Not at all the words of someone who just heard about a death.

"Well, you see, he died in an accident. He was scaling a tall tree with a knife and he got distracted." Got distracted. Sure, he got distracted. I won't say anything about how he willingly jumped off.

"And was he loyal, this Darjo?" Loyal? She chooses to ask if he's loyal? She speaks no words on the tragedy of his death? I hide my exasperation.

"Yes, my Lady. He was loyal to you until his last breath." Hopefully this is the answer she is looking for. It's a false answer but hopefully it's the answer she's been looking for.

"And how do you know that he was loyal till the end?"

I think of an answer lightning fast and I tell her what she wants to hear.

"Because, my Lady, he always talked about how glorious it was and what an honour it was to commune with you, my Lady."

"Did he?"

"Yes, he did. He was deeply grateful to the opportunity you gifted him with. But do not worry, he did not say anything that would give any details away about his interactions with you."

"I'm happy he didn't give any details away." There is something smirking hidden behind her voice. My whole body goes cold with dread.

"He would never, my Lady."

"Oh, I know he would never." There is something sly and secretive to the way she says that. I am keenly aware of all the danger all around me.

"So anyways," the Lady continues, "are your people learning the wisdom that I am imparting to you?"

"We are trying, my Lady. We are definitely trying very hard. It is difficult, though. All your lessons and all your wisdom are so high and refined and intricate and complicated. They are hard for us simple-minded, uneducated people to understand."

"That is to be expected, of course."

"But know, my Lady, that we are doing what we can to the best of our abilities."

"You must keep trying. The wisdom of my glorious race can help you build better lives and families."

"But of course, my Lady. Of course it can."

"Speaking of families, are you properly worshipful of my family?"

"But of course, my Lady." This isn't a total lie. We are worshipful of her family. But we are only worshipful because we have to be. Not for any other reason. "We may not know your family," I continue, "but we are of course worshipful to them. Anyone who is related to your grace and your glory must be equally graceful and glorious. Any background that you came from must be an amazing background. Your race has so much power and awesomeness. We would be remiss to not worship them."

"My family is quite marvellous," she agrees.

"But of course they are. Anyone related to you must be marvellous." This interrogation seems to be going well. But I need to stay alert. I need to stay alert. And I need to do everything exactly right. I need to do everything exactly right until I am allowed to go home again.

"And do you all work hard in order to please me?" I know what this question is about. It's about the vestments. Every Wednesday there are bags full of the most fine and rich clothes that magically appear on our streets. They are the garments of the Lady herself. We fastidiously wash them in an elaborate ritual that takes days, and return them to the Lady through the special gift fire at the church.

"Yes, of course, my Lady. We meticulously purify all your vestments according to the proper rituals. It is a very high honour for us." I tell the truth. I have to tell the truth. But of course I don't tell her about how difficult and worrying and frustrating the whole process is.

"And are you all grateful for the opportunity to work and please me with your work?"

"We are very thankful. We are always thankful. The opportunity to work for you and your greatness and your glory, to be of service to you and to show our gratitude, to do anything at all for you, it is the best opportunity of all. We are very grateful to be able to be of service to you. We truly love being able to be of service to you. We are grateful to be able to earn even a fraction of the many gifts that you give us."

I think I am navigating these swirling, rocky waters alright. I think I am doing well. This does not, of course, take away more than the barest edge of the all-consuming terror that I feel. Terror that makes it hard to breathe, hard to move, hard to exist. I've been feeling this terror since the moment she first called my name and I am still feeling it now. I hope I'm doing well. I hope I'm pleasing her. I have to do well. I have to please her.

"I have an important question, though." There is something dark inside her voice. My throat seizes up and I feel like vomiting.

"Yes, my lady?" I fight hard, so very hard, to keep everything I'm feeling deep down under me. So deep that it will never be shown.

"A relative of mine told me that your people lie to me and that you merely say anything to make me approve of you miserable lot."

Oh my universe. Oh my universe. Oh my universe. I'm damned. How can I salvage this?

"My lady," I start, lying, "I do not think that this is the case. You see, people like us are simple and uneducated and stupid. We are all very simple-minded. Too simple-minded to lie. Too simple-minded to create intricate lies snd stick with them. Not in a remotely convincing way at least."

"That does seem true," she agrees.

"And besides," I choose my words very carefully, "we would never lie to you. We trust you. We trust you and all your great teachings and your benevolence and your grace. We have no reason for lying to you."

"That is what I thought as well. But my relative seemed really rather convinced. Are you saying that my own family member lied to me?" I hate the direction that this is going. I have no idea if I'll be able to salvage this. But still, I have to try. I have to try.

"Lied to you? Why of course not. Of course they didn't lie to you. But perhaps they were fed false information from someone else. Maybe they were manipulated by someone else. Of course, of course they must be a very intelligent person and would not be misinformed easily. Perhaps the person who fed them this wrong information was a master manipulator and manipulated your relative very skillfully and very well."

"That does seem to be a likely case," she concedes. Oh thank you. Thank you. Thank the universe.

"Yes," I agree, "we are far too simple and small-minded to lie convincingly."

"And why should I believe your words over her's?" Damn. What do I do? Everything inside me is a strange, hollow, scraping feeling. Everything inside me is a distant, silent and muffled screaming.

"My Lady." I do what I can to keep my words perfectly even. "My Lady, you can believe whomever you choose to believe, whomever you want to believe. Of course you can believe your relative if you choose to. But I am simply stating what I know. Our people do not have the complex mental capacity that your people have, that you have. Our people do not possess the mental capacities to lie very well." I lie as well as I possibly can. It's the only way to save my people. The only way.

"And have you ever tried to keep anything a secret?" she asks, hopefully, thankfully changing the topic of conversation. Not that this is anything like any other conversation though.

"Secrets? Between the people of this town? No, we love to gossip. We gossip about anything and everything. Any piece of information someone knows or thinks, everyone knows within a matter of weeks." And it's the truth I'm telling. It's really the truth this time. This time being the key words.

"I see. So you are able to speak accurately on the thoughts and feelings of the whole town?"

"I am. We share everything. There is nothing secret between us." I hope she bought my lie about us not lying. I so, so deeply and achingly hope that she bought it.

"And are you teaching the children of the town to serve me?" I'm so beyond grateful that she seems to have put that topic of conversation behind us.

"Yes, my Lady, I respond smoothly. And it's a fake smoothness. But it's necessary.

"We are teaching the children to serve you and to worship you and to work hard purifying your clothes for you." The cleaning ritual has special roles that the children need to take. Special roles that the children hate doing. That any child would hate doing.

"And what do the children think, of serving me?"

"They are deeply humbled and grateful for the opportunity to serve and worship you. They truly treasure it very much. They think you're absolutely amazing and very beautiful and they love working for you." I think my lie is convincing. I had put in a lot of practice towards learning how to lie properly. Everyone in the town has. Even the children. Though thankfully, they're never chosen. Only people who are adults, who have mastered the art of lying, are chosen.

"They think I'm beautiful?"

"Yes. Very much so, my Lady."

She smiles. And her smile is wide and prideful and seems to me to be very genuine. This is good. This is really good.

"And what of you?" she asks. "Do you think I'm beautiful?"

"Do I think you're beautiful? My Lady, you are the most radiant and beautiful being I have ever seen. Your beauty is flawless and beyond compare. I have never witnessed anything at all as beautiful as you." I pour as much awe and humility into my voice as I can.

"And do you think I am gracious?" she asks, small hints of mirth on her voice.

"I think you're beyond gracious, my Lady. I think that the grace that you have is absolutely indescribable and far, far greater and more glorious than anything I have ever seen. I think everything about the way in which you conduct yourself inspires awe and worship." I keep taking occasional small bites out of my sandwich and small sips of my tea. This food is really much more delicious than anything I have ever tasted before.

"And would you follow my orders?"

"But of course. Anything that you want me to do, I would do in a blink."

"Truly?"

"Truly."

"Then prove it." She puts her hand flat against the belly of the teapot. Steam starts flowing out of the spout and I can tell that the tea is very hot.

"Pour yourself a cup of tea," she instructs, "and drink it all in one sip."

I silently do as she asks, pouring the steaming tea into my teacup. I am afraid, but I know that I must do this. I know that I have no choice, I can only hope that I'm brave enough. Steeling myself against the pain, I move the cup to my lips and tilt it towards me. It burns my lips, my mouth, and my throat, but I force myself to swallow. It sears me all the way down. Then I force myself to take another painful gulp, then another, then another, until the tea is all gone and I can let my burned mouth and throat rest.

"Impressive," the Lady comments impassively.

"Thank you most graciously," I reply politely.

"And what of the townspeople? Would they follow me just as well as you have?"

"They would without thinking, my Lady. I know for certain that they would also." I force myself to speak evenly through my abused throat.

"I am done my meal," the Lady begins elegantly, "and I think we are done our conversation. I will send you back now. Come, kneel in front of me."

I am immensely thankful that it's over and I am aching to see my people again, to run into their arms. I move to a kneeling position beside the Lady's chair.

———

I am lying on the floor along with everyone in the family, trying to fall asleep through my weary body and my aching gut. It's cold, but the body heat around me is keeping me warm. It's dark out, and the sky is clouded over, with no moon or stars. Beside me is my nine-year-old sister Anali, and she is so soft and sweet and warm against my body. I am so, so unimaginably thankful to the universe that I am having this opportunity to hold her and be with her.

"Calen," she whispers, careful not to wake the others all around us, "are you awake?"

"I am. How about you?"

"I'm awake. I just can't sleep."

"Aww, sweetheart, why not?"

"Because, Calen, I'm so hungry."

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I'm so, so sorry." I keep my voice low and soft and compassionate in the blanketing darkness of the night.

"It's not fair."

"You're right, it's not." In the silence and the secrecy of this moment, I feel like I'm able to agree with her. I feel like it's safe to agree with her.

"Why does the Lady curse the harvest?"

"It's because the town displeases her. The representative of the town that she chooses and speaks with displeases her."

"That's not fair."

"It's really not. But you can't blame the representatives. They try their very best."

"It must be so very scary talking to the Lady."

"It really must be scary, you're right. She holds so much power. So much power over all of our lives."

"Why does she want us to be hungry?"

"Because we didn't respect her enough. We didn't listen to her enough."

"That's not fair, Calen."

"It's really not." I hug her slightly tighter near me. I feel her breathing against me. I feel the warmth that signifies that she has life. "Anali," I start, "I never want you to be hungry. Never, ever, no matter what. But I don't have any power. I don't have any power and I wish I had power and I wish I could help you."

"I wish I could help you too, Calen. I don't want you to be hungry no matter what. I don't want anyone to be hungry."

"I don't want anyone to be hungry either sweetheart." She's so soft and young and sweet. She's so fragile and delicate. She's so kind. So, so very kind. I wish she had power. But she doesn't.

"If I was the Lady I would bless every harvest no matter what."

"Just as you should, my girl. Just as you should. But you're not the Lady. So please try to focus on doing what you can."

"What can I do?"

"Try your best to be kind to everyone. Try your best to love everyone. Just like you're already doing."

"But that's not enough." There is a slight, heart-wrenching whine in her voice.

"You're right, sweetheart." I try to soothe her. "It's not enough. It's not enough. But it's something that we can do."

"Do you think the harvest next year will be blessed?" There's something slightly hopeful about the way that she speaks.

"I hope so. I really do hope so."

"I miss feeling full."

"I really miss it too."

"I really miss not being worried about everyone." She stresses the 'worried.' I understand so well how she feels.

"I miss it too. I miss knowing that everyone is safe."

"It hurts me more, knowing that my family and my friends and my community isn't safe. It hurts me more than my own hunger does."

"That's understandable. I feel exactly the same way. You're such a good soul."

"You too."

"Thanks."

"You don't deserve any of this."

"You don't either. You don't deserve all this need and this hurt and this grief."

"Neither do you."

"Thanks."

"Do you think the Lady will show mercy?"

"It depends. I don't know. I hope so."

"Have there ever been multiple years with no harvest, all together?"

"There have, but it was before you were born."

"I don't think I could stand another year like this. Another year right on top of this one."

"I don't think I could either. We just have to hold onto hope."

"And what if our hope is misplaced?"

"Then we just have to stay strong and get through it."

"What if I lose you? I don't want to lose you." She sounds like she's crying. Well, there are tears in my own eyes too. We can cry together. We can be together. We can take these infinitely precious moments that we have together, because who knows if we'll have any more.

"I don't want to lose you either. But hold on to hope. Please hold on to hope. It's all we have."

My sister takes my hand that's on her chest into her own hand. And we just stay like that for a little while.

"Are you asleep?" she finally asks me.

"Not yet. How about you?"

"Obviously not."

"I'd there anything else you want to talk about?"

"Who do you think will get picked by the Lady next year?"

"I don't know."

"I'm worried."

"Why are you worried? You're far too young to get picked. You know you're far too young to get picked."

"I know, but what if the person who gets picked fails?"

"Then it wouldn't be their fault. It wouldn't be their fault at all."

"But I hope they succeed."

"Me too."

"They've got a really big job in front of them."

"They do in fact have a really, really big job."

"I hope they succeed. I can't stand another year like this. I can't stand another year of hungry babies and dying."

I stroke her hair, and sing her a soft lullaby to help her get to sleep. The night is still and cool around us.

———

I kneel in front of the Lady, on the oddly warm, unnaturally warm tile floors. I keep my eyes down and my thudding heart under wraps. I keep myself as calm as I can be, outwardly. Inside, joy and dread and hope and apprehension all twist together in an unholy, delirious, indescribable mix. I don't know if I succeeded or not. I don't know if I succeeded. I don't know if I failed.

The world around me gets brighter and brighter. Once again, I fight to keep my eyes open through it all. But the pain in my eyes is nothing compared to the pain in my heart. I keep myself staring towards the ground even though I can see nothing but pain. I force myself to keep going.

Just a few moments longer, and I should be clear and free.

The light does fade in time, though I have no idea how much time, and I am met with the soft, clouded gray skies around the field of the town. Already memory is rapidly leaving me, my memory of the events that had just passed, just as I knew it would. But the feelings are not leaving me. The feelings are not leaving me at all. I sigh in the slight relief that comes with the ordeal being over, and force myself to stand up. I look around, and see Klaro walking towards me.

"Calen!" He exclaims, "You're back!"

"I am," I reply, giving him a bright, shining smile. I am so, so very relieved to be home again.

I can't help myself, I bolt towards him. He opens up his arms and catches me in a strong, tight hug. And it is at this moment that I finally allow myself to fall apart. I finally allow myself to fall apart like I've been longing to do ever since the fateful moment my name was called. I break out into sobs, ugly-crying with tears streaming from my eyes and my whole body trembling violently.

"There, there," Klaro soothes me. He holds me tightly in his strong arms. Provides a rock for me to cling to in my sea of infinite, swirling emotions. "There, there. You're home now. You're home now and I have you. We all have you."

If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is FSairuv@mas.to and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.

*This chapter is part of "The Small Town Magic Arc." This saga began with Chapter 134*

Cyclo's sneak attack of fire was quickly snuffed out by an icy blast from the Pirate Mage's finger, which also froze Cyclo's hand in a block of ice.

"Now Cyclo dear, did you really think it would be that easy to take me down?" The Pirate Mage teased. "We didn't do this fusion just for looks. The Pirate's powers and Cerissa's magic are not only combined together in this form, but both are also enhanced."

"Cyclo's growled in anger as he struggled to pick himself up off the ground, succeeding despite the hits he had taken, and his frozen hand."

"I feel a bit sorry for you pal." The Pirate Mage teased playfully before gently thawing Cyclo's hand with a light burst of fire. "Feel better now?"

Cyclo howled and lunged at the Pirate Mage ferally. He swung his other fist at her, which she ducked under before grabbing his upper arm. She gave it a light squeeze, resulting in the combined sound of a cracking bone and a screaming monster. Despite his pain, he pointed at the Pirate Mage and attempted another direct hit with his fire spell. She fizzled out his attack with another ice spell, this time encasing Cyclo's whole arm in a block of ice. The Pirate Mage then somersaulted backward a few feet to distance herself from her foe.

"The first thaw was free, the next one will cost you!" The Pirate Mage joked before giving him a serious look. "Step down and surrender, and I'll heal both of your arms."

Before Cyclo could respond, the Pirate Mage began glowing a brilliant white. The white light then split into two separate forms. The light then slowly faded until the Pirate and Cerissa stood before Cyclo.

"Bwa ha ha ha, is time up on that fusion spell?" Cyclo hollered with delight, his adrenaline apparently blocking out the pain of his respective frozen and broken arms. "While the power of that combined form of yours was impressive, the two of you alone pale in comparison. I sense much less from each of you!"

"Perhaps, but man do you seem quite sure of yourself pal." The Pirate smiled. "You haven't even healed up those injuries yet. Need a moment to do so after you're done gloating?"

"Heh, I'm doing just fine!" Cyclo laughed as he charged towards the pair. The Pirate and Cerissa stepped aside, and as Cyclo attempted to turn around, he lost his balance and fell face down.

"You sure you got this Cyclo?" Cerissa asked with a sweet tone and smile. "Need some help healing up again?"

"I told you, I've never been better!" Cyclo yelled furiously, despite not being able to get up without the use of his arms.

Cerissa pointed at Cyclo and then pointed up, raising the monster into the air with a wind spell. As he floated helplessly in Cerissa's wind, it was the Pirate's turn to lunge, and he ran their adversary through with his sword. Cyclo looked helplessly at the pair as he felt his life fading away.

"Don't worry, you aren't going to die, you're just taking a trip to the Reflection Dimension." Cerissa said reassuringly. "Before you go, know that it wasn't the Pirate and I who truly finished you off."

Cyclo looked at the pair with a confused, weak expression. The Pirate read this as an unspoken request for clarification, and proceeded to provide one to their fallen nemesis.

"Cerissa's spell and my blade may have ended this fight, but this battle was decided a long time ago. Essie is the real reason we have defeated you."

To be continued....

I walk through the green undergrowth, the world around me glowing green as sunlight shines through the crowns of leaves towering above me. I love it here. I love it here so much. But they must not know I'm here. The lord and his men must not know I'm here.

I dig through the brush all around me, on the hunt for herbs to tie under the skirt of my dress and sneak back into my hut. I look for herbs to conduct magic with. Magic that is, completely and absolutely, proscribed for people like us.

You see, magic is only allowed to be practiced by the nobles and royals of this land. But that doesn't change the fact that a secret network of magic users and teachers exists. That doesn't change the fact that secret folk magic practices are created and spread and added onto and perfected, that this has been happening for years. It doesn't change the fact that people still need healing and protecting, for them and for their crops and livestock. And it doesn't change the fact that us regular people have to make magic, no matter what the risks are.

I kneel down on the soft, loamy ground as I come face to face with the plant I need, a short, leafy shrub whose tubers are needed in a protection spell for new babies. I dig my hands into the dirt, the task being far too delicate to use a shovel. I feel around, oh so slowly, until I find a tuber. I break off the tuber, and store it away underneath my skirt. I only need one, and the plant needs all the rest. I pack the dirt I displaced back into its proper place before watering the plant from my water skin.

"Thank you for your gift," I whisper to it, bowing my head.

I walk on through the forest, trying to find where the plants I need could be, based on their optimal growing conditions. Alanthi grows on downward slopes, and so I walk my way through the valley, watching my step so that I do not trample on any plants as I go. I must walk softly on the earth. I must be careful towards her.

The Alanthi bush rises wild and jagged and high above me. And I softly part its branches to reach the green buds that grow inside the guarded exterior of the plant. I gather up a few, no more than what I need, and I put them in the same place as the tuber. I bow to the plant, and thank it for its gift. And I walk on.

In a matter of a few hours, I have collected everything that I sought out to collect. All the medicine that will make the people of my village healthy. And I am walking homewards, to the little hut on the edge of the town that I share with the other magic users.

I am sad that I am leaving the forest, the forest that creeps to the very edge of the town with its protective cover, the forest that can always calm my heart no matter what. But I know that I have much more work to do. I know that I will be back within a few hours.

In the hut, I am met by Cuthbert, who is cutting up his herbs for the potion that he is working on. I put a small metal pan over the great hearth at the centre of our hut and I fill it with water from the stream. Then I place all my herbs inside and allow them to soak.

The stream water is clean and clear and fresh and cool, the perfect water to make a potion for a baby with.

"Is this for Alexa and Katia's new baby?" Cuthbert asks me.

"It sure is."

"I can go give it to the child. That will leave you free to go to this afternoon's meeting. I know how much it meant for you to go."

"Oh, thank you, Cuthbert!" I exclaim. "You're so kind."

"No problem," he replies, smiling to me.

I braid my dark, frizzled hair quickly and put on my boots again. I guess I'll be seeing the forest again sooner than I thought.

The meetings don't have a set location. They just occur wherever the forest decides that they will occur. This is to keep all of us safe, since if no-one knows where the meetings are, no-one can be tortured for information. No-one can give us away.

So I follow the flow of the forest and I let it pull me to wherever it is pulling me to. I follow the flow of the forest and I walk through hills and valleys and streams and thickets. I walk by nests and burrows and springs and logs. And I end up exactly where I need to be. I end up in a large circle formed by all the other witches in the village and the neighbouring villages.

There are not many of us, only a few dozen in total. But there doesn't need to be many of us, because as long as we can heal people and help people, that is enough. That is all we need to do.

I see a new face, as young teenager dressed in a long shirt - or is it a short dress? - and with their hair falling in two golden braids down to their knees. Another new witch for us to teach. How beautiful. I love that our tradition and our magic is still going strong.

"Welcome, everyone." Calliope's voice rings bright and clear from her spot within the circle. "We are gathered here today to conduct our ceremony of communion, where we will all commune with each other and commune with the forest so that our powers can grow in strength and our healing can grow in power."

"Praise be to the forest," we echo as she pauses.

"Today we are also welcoming a new face, the lovely lass Mairinn Clarson. Mairinn, address the gatherers."

"Hi, everyone," her voice is kind of shy. "I'm really excited to be here and to be part of the ceremony of communion. I'm from Thusnelda village and I am learning under the guidance of Taylor Hausen."

"Welcome," we say to her in a messy unison. She blushes. She's so very sweet.

We gather in a circle, amongst the shrubs and the grasses and the herbs all around us. And we hold hands. Clara places a skin of water in the middle of the circle before joining us again. We all look up to face the sky. And we start chanting.

The song is low and melodic and beautiful, out of tune and out of time but so deeply, irrevocably human that it is divine. I let the cool wind, slightly too chilly, blow through my face and my hair. And I cling tightly to the hands all around me, all of us forming an unbroken circle. And I let myself melt into everything.

I am one with the witches all around me. I am one with the kindness and the anger and the fierce protectiveness and the secret subversiveness in all of their hearts. I am one with the forest all around me, with the wild, wild lands where energy and love and guidance and teaching flows through everything in a never ending, interconnected web. I am one with the village that is my hope, the village full of people who are, just as I am, struggling to get by. The village that has my heart and is my heart in its entirety. I am one with all the other villages that dot the hills and valleys and the slope of the mountains. They are all so very different. They are all the same. And all the common people, they are my soul.

I jerk my head straight as danger flows through my connection, as danger floods all my inner senses. The forest is telling us something. Telling us that we need to run. I briefly make eye contact with all the other witches in the circle around me. And in a split second, we bolt, all in different directions, all rushing towards the refuges and the hiding places of the forest.

I let my feet carry me to wherever the forest is pulling me, too full of panic to truly see where I am going. I hear the clopping sounds of hoofbeats thundering behind me. It's the lord's men. It's the lord's men. What do I do? How do I escape them? My lungs burn and my legs burn and my whole being feels as if it is filled with bright, purposeful fire. I hope it will be enough. I hope I can get away. I hope ...

I scream as the rough rope of a net falls over me, making me tumble to the ground. I move my arms to lift it above me. But before I get the chance, I am seized by strong arms clad in hard chain mail and I am held down. I scream and thrash until I am aching and hoarse. But it's no use, as I am tied down and then lifted unceremoniously onto a horse, where I am dumped belly-down like a sack of flour.

I am tied down for the whole, long, painful ride to the castle, terror building up like a sharp spire through my heart. I don't know what will happen next. I do know what will happen next. I will be punished, maybe even killed, for disobeying the lords and practicing magic. I don't want to die. I don't want to die.

But even amid the terror, one thought blooms inside me, strong and sure like a flowing river. I hold onto that thought, and I let it grow like the branches of the oak tree. The thought is simple: whatever happens, I will hold on to my dignity. And I will hold on to my people's dignity.

This does not make the anxiety lessen. Not at all. But it gives me the strength to keep on standing, metaphorically, no matter how much pain I am feeling. No matter how much pain I will feel.

Eventually I am thrown to the floor. A hard, stone floor in a dusty courtyard. Before the rider can get off his horse, I pull myself up to my feet. This seems to be the back entrance of the castle. The place where they bring in prisoners. I feel like throwing up, but I force myself to not. I cannot let them know how afraid I am. I cannot let them know that they are affecting me.

No words are exchanged as I am yanked over to a metal pole against the wall and tied to it. And it is there that I stay until the sun goes down beyond the horizon, and through the darkness and chill of the night, and until the sun once again rises in the east and lights the world in the morning's brightness.

My stomach is aching and my throat is parched dry. But this is not very new. I have gone longer without eating before. All that is new is that I've never done so in the castle. My whole body is exhausted and aching, and my mind is rushing with thoughts of what could possibly happen to me. I am working myself into insanity.

In the bright morning, a figure strolls into the courtyard, flanked by guards on each side. He wears layers and layers of fine clothing in bright fabrics. And he wears a large, trailing fur robe with brightly coloured fur, studded with a line of gems. His boots are polished and made of the finest leather. On his head is an intricate crown. He must be the lord. I stand up straighter and look him dead in his hard, cruel eyes.

"So you're the witch." His voice is smug and haughty.

"So you're the lord," I spit back.

"Why do you cause trouble, trying to use magic? We all know that the common people are weak and pathetic in magic. We all know that only the lords can wield magic strongly."

"Magic isn't just for you and your people," I reply. "Magic is for everyone. And anyone brave enough to disobey your unreasonable laws can wield magic. They can wield it stronger and better than you or even the Queen ever could.

"You are delusional. You are delusional and you don't know your place." His voice has hints of frustration to it. Am I already getting to him? Good. I must keep going at this.

"The magic of the common people is stronger than your magic ever will be. You use your magic and your power to keep all the resources from us. You use your magic to hoard everything and keep it from us. We use our magic to create healing in our communities. You don't know anything."

"It is you who does not know anything," he snarls at me. "I will show you how vastly superior my magic is from your weak and feeble magic."

"You want a bet?" I keep the fear out of my voice. I am not afraid that he might win. He won't. But I am afraid that he will hurt me. But I cannot let him know this.

"A tournament, then. Between you and me. To see who is the better mage."

"You're on." I keep looking into his eyes. "You'll have to untie me though."

And so he does, with a silver glinting knife from his gilded belt.

"Follow me." I follow him into the castle proper, surrounded by guards on each side.

The inside of the castle stretches vast on either side of me. There are so very many rooms. So many objects and idols and statues and furniture and tapestries and rugs and chandeliers and things I cannot even name, stretching out through all sides of me. The colours are so bright, are colours that I have never seen before in my life.

There are wide, clear windows surrounded by thick silken curtains. There are paintings in golden frames adorning the walls. And there are doors. So, so many different doors. And each door leads to another vast room. There are also flowers everywhere. But these are not wildflowers growing free. These are carefully-cultivated garden flowers growing in vases.

I am astounded by the beauty but at the same time I am deeply unnerved and put out by the hollowness of this beauty. By the twistedness of it. Everything is meant to appeal to the senses. But there is no soul in any of the rich surroundings around me. There is nothing intangible, untouchable. It merely all looks good. It is a false sort of beauty.

I am lead to a door engraved in gold, softly glowing in the light, intricately carved.

"Here is where I create all my spells," the lord declares, leading me in.

Inside the room are thousands of jars and cases and chalices containing every sort of expensive material imaginable. It's suffocating in here.

"I'm not impressed," I tell him.

"Oh, you will be. I will show you. I will create the most powerful beast in the kingdom. And then you will see."

He calls his servants to bring forth a chalice filled with the purest of wines. And he pours the deep red liquid onto a twisted set of crystal spires. The wine collects in the platinum bowl at the bottom of the spires. And he has his servants lift up the bowl. In dark, black ink he writes something in the fine parchment in front of him. I do not know what he wrote, because I cannot read or write. But I see him soak the parchment in the bowl of wine. The next thing I see is him using a gem-encrusted mortar and pellet to crush pearls that look more expensive than our entire village. He plays a strange string instrument.

And there is a swirling, glowing flow of gold dancing through the air. It forms the shape of a cougar, and starts glowing brighter than ever before. The petals of the rose come falling from the roof. And there is a strange warmth emanating throughout the entire room. I look at the lord, who is still playing his instrument.

I look back, and see a large cougar made of gold, with sharp, snarling teeth and rubies for eyes. I gasp slightly, afraid of the unnatural creature as it prowls up and down the room, growling and snapping, moving as fluidly as it would if it were real.

"Do you see this beast?" He declares grandly to me. "It will be able to kill any animal. None will be able to hold up against it!"

"I can create a creature with more power." My words are soft and solemn, strong and unshaking.

"I would like to see you try."

"Then just watch." I do not even hesitate for a second to reply to him.

I make my way out of the castle, towards the village. At the edge of the village, beside the forest, I kneel down.

"Mother earth, please build for me a life," I whisper, kneeling down on both knees, hands flat against the earth.

I rise, and find a patch of dirt that is uncovered by vegetation. I lay my hands on this earth and let it stick onto my fingers. I then stroke the blades of grass underneath me, starting at their bases and slowly working my way up, letting the earth coat them lightly. I raise my hands up to the sky and look up.

"Father sky, please build for me a life," I whisper. And I hold my hands up in contact with the air.

I go to the stream, and bring both of my hands down gently, at the stream's side, each hand soaked on one half by the water.

"Parent water, please build for me a life."

I walk in a circle. There is a gust of wind. And all at once, in the middle of the circle stands a baby wood bison, with thick brown fur and blunt teeth.

"Your creature is weak and pathetic," the lord tells me from atop his horse. "My beast could kill it easily."

"Do you want to see?" I ask him. "Let me up on your horse."

"A commoner, on a horse? That is absolutely preposterous!"

"It sounds to me like you're just scared," I taunt.

"Okay, fine."

He helps me up, and we watch as he calls his cougar to us. The snarling beast takes one look at the baby wood bison and starts running towards it, greedy for meat to feast upon. The bison runs towards the forest, and we follow.

For many minutes, the cougar gives chase to the baby bison. And truly, there are certain moments in which I worry that maybe it will kill the baby after all. But the baby bison stays strong and runs through the forest, knowing exactly where to go. And it makes me proud. It makes me so very proud.

It starts to look as if the cougar is catching up to the bison. But just as it's getting close, the bison finds the herd of other wood bison that live in this forest. The baby melts into the herd, rushing into its safety. And the adults all gather together in front of the cougar, protecting the young and weak members of the herd from its teeth and claws.

The cougar stops dead in its tracks, obviously afraid at the numerous bison with their sharp horns. But before it can run away, all the bison charge together, piercing its golden fur with their horns. The cougar sprawls out on the ground, crying in agony, as deep red wine bleeds from its insides.

"What did I tell you?" I ask the lord.

He is too astounded to answer.

"Well, you may have won this round," he finally concedes, "but that was only through cunning and trickery. The next challenge I am sure you will concede on."

"Oh yeah?" I ask, still looking at the carcass of the golden cougar. "Bring it on."

"I challenge you to find the most precious thing in the kingdom. If you can find something more precious than I do, then you will have won."

"Okay." I keep my voice calm and cool and slightly ired. I cannot let him know the fear I am feeling deep within my heart. Though, the fear is less than it used to be before.

"I will find the most precious thing. And if you can find anything more precious, you will win."

"Okay."

He brings us back to the castle, and to his magic room. There, he rubs the hilts of two sharp swords against each other and lays them on his grand mahogany table. Upon the swords, he places a dainty ivory spyglass. I have never seen a spyglass in real life before, I have only heard about them in stories. He gathers a chalice full of precious gems and gold and silver nuggets. And, chanting some words, he pours them onto the spyglass and the swords. He then empties a chalice of some dark liquid onto the pile. And once again, he plays his instrument.

A ribbon of flowing, glowing silver manifests in the air above us, and he takes me by the wrist as we follow it out the door.

He gathers a fleet of his knights to go out with him. He attractes a knife to his boot. I hang on to him as he rides his horse, too close for either of our comforts. We ride for two days and two nights, stopping at different villages to eat. It is an exhausting journey. A tense journey. A difficult journey. We exchange no more words than necessary. At least he is giving me food.

He follows a stream of silver that dances and glows above our heads, glinting in the sunlight. This strange air he had manifested by once again playing his strange stringed instrument and doing his elaborate rituals.

Finally, we come upon a meadow near a village.

"Here," he pronounces, "lies the most precious thing in the kingdom.

He calls the village folk and commands them to dig. And so they do. For many days and nights they dig, the hole getting deeper and deeper. Finally, someone hits something hard. At first we all think it is just a rock. But it turns out to be an unpolished hunk of diamond, as big as my torso. There is a great effort to mine it out.

"I would like to see you top that," he gloats.

"Alright," I reply, letting the sneakiness inside me show.

I get off the horse and start walking to the forest. The lord and his men follow.

"Please show me the way, forest," I beseech.

Inside the forest, there is a pull in my heart, secret and untraceable, showing me where to go. It pulls me this way and that, through stretches of forest that I am altogether unfamiliar with. I walk and I walk, for days on end, eating berries I find and drinking from rivers and streams. The men follow me, and they grumble about how exhausted they are, about how this journey is taking forever.

The forest leads me to the mountains. And I climb the mountains. I climb the mountains for days on end, not keeping track of how much time has passed. The knights complain that I am wasting their time. And the lord tells me that if this turns out to be for nothing, he will have my head.

I know that he will have my head anyways.

I keep on following the tug in my heart as it leads me through the forest. I finally get near the summit of a mountain, and I point up to the rain clouds forming above us.

"This," I tell everyone, "is the most precious thing in the kingdom. The rain on the mountains which fill all of our rivers and streams with water."

"What nonsense!" The lord exclaims. "How can simple water be precious?"

"You have never known thirst," I explain to him, "you would never understand."

We exchange no words during the long trek back.

When the lord is at his beloved castle, he sinks down upon his large, plush bed with sheer curtains hanging from a frame surrounding it. I sit down beside him, and he is too exhausted to tell me anything.

"I won both rounds," I state.

"No you did not," he retorts.

"Yes I did," I reply back.

"I found a diamond. What you found was some simple water. Mine was far more precious."

I laugh at this, an ugly, unseemly laugh, and he gets very agitated.

"I will have your head!" He shouts at me.

"If you want my head then take it," I quip. "I do not care much for something as fleeting as a head."

At this, he gets even more agitated, which makes me just laugh louder.

"Anyways," I tell him, "Even if you did win this round, which you didn't, we would still be tied one to one."

"Fine. You're right. We should do one more challenge to set the record straight once and for all."

"What challenge do you want to do? You've chosen all the other challenges thus far." I lie down onto the plush softness of the bed. I lie down beside the lord. And he does not even do anything to stop me. This bed is far softer than anything I have ever experienced in my life. I like it. Though I know it was made with the blood of my people.

"I will let you know," he replies, "just give me a few days of rest."

I am lead back to the courtyard I was brought into that first fateful day. And I am once again tied to the post by the wall. This time they do bring me food, but only once a day. It is okay, I have survived on less. I keep track of the movement of the sun in the sky. I keep track of how many times it sets and rises. And I pray. I pray with everything that I have, to all the goodly forces of the world, that something good can come of my life, no matter how it ends.

Finally, after four days are through, the lord makes his way down to see me, freeing me from my bonds but keeping a circle of guards around me so that I can't escape.

"What is your challenge?" I ask him, putting as much confidence, both false and real, as I can behind my voice.

"I challenge you to go to all the corners of the vast kingdom in within three days. I can travel far and wide using my magic. I would wager that you cannot travel beyond your pathetic little village."

"If that is what you wager, then I am sorry but you will lose."

"We shall see who loses." He smirks at me, and there is mirth in his eyes. There is hatred in mine.

He takes me in a twisting path through the vast courtyard. We arrive at last to the stables, grand and clean and full of impressive horses. He gets his stable hand to bring him two horses. These he leads back to his magic room, taking them in through the castle. I get to see even more of the vast, stretching rooms filled with unimaginable wealth that make up the residence of the lord. I am very uncomfortable yet awed in a strange way at the same time.

Finally, we get to the magic room. There, the lord takes the horses and drapes them with silken sheets, layers and layers of blooming colours and twisting patterns. Then he takes a silver knife and, much to my ire, makes two slots in the silk, on the backs of each horse but not cutting through the skin. He takes a peacock feather and lightly brushes each horse down. I can only imagine what the horses are feeling. They surprisingly have been calm throughout this whole ordeal.

The horses start glowing, uncomfortably bright, and small shining flecks start flying everywhere around the room. There is a swirling wind that carries brightly-coloured smoke. And I watch as it swirls around the horses.

Everything calms down, and I see that now the horses have silver wings on their backs. I can see where this is going.

"Impressive, huh?" The lord asks me, smiling at his own actions.

"I've seen better," I retort nonchalantly.

"Get in the carriage. We're going on a trip."

"If you insist." I smile at him, to show that I'm not scared. Once again the guards flank us, but as we enter the plush insides of the lord's polished carriage, they do not come in with us.

I am still entirely trapped, though, as the doors lock from the outside and the thick glass windows bar me from climbing out.

The horses are attached to the carriage with silken ropes and the lord chants to make them start flying, no-one at the reins. We quickly ascend to the sky, and I look out the window to see the world tiny underneath me. Everything looks so small and insignificant. As if all that matters is myself and the lord.

I remind myself that this isn't true. I try to ground myself. Thankfully, I succeed.

"So what do you do?" He asks me.

"I farm. I take care of the village children. I practice magic." I try to keep my answers vague.

"And how did you learn this magic?"

"From my mentor." If he thinks he can interrogate information from me, he's got another thing coming.

"And who is your mentor?"

"That's for me to know and you to wonder."

"How do you manage to be so insolent?"

"I know I'm dead no matter what, so I might as well have fun."

"You're outstandingly strong. I've never met a woman like you before."

"Oh, really?" I hide how not-strong I am feeling on the inside.

"Yes. Strong. Brave. Good at magic. You're a real rarity."

"And you're a real halfwit."

He bursts out laughing at this, oblivious to the hatred behind my words. I simply look at him coolly and smile.

Eventually the ride through the kingdom is over and I am escorted back to the castle courtyard.

"Now it's my turn." I smile. "You could go to the whole kingdom. And that's impressive. But I can be everywhere in the kingdom at once."

"As if. That doesn't remotely make sense."

The lord and his guards follow me to the grass field to the east of the village. There I sit down on my knees. I close my eyes. And I breathe deeply. I can feel the cold springtime air blowing over my body, giving me sharp energy. I can feel the rays of the sun on me. I can feel my place, here, in the meadow, by the village. And I almost feel at home.

I breathe. And I breathe. And I breathe again. And I feel all the emotions inside of me. All the rage and the hate and the pain. I feel all the fear and the hope. I feel all the love and the community and the joy. And I feel the way these emotions connect me to everyone in the whole entire kingdom, barring the nobles of course. I feel the way that these emotions echo and change and reverberate within all the common people in the kingdom, connecting us all.

I let my soul come out of my body and I let my body come out of the world and I let everything connect itself back to the forest. I feel all the very many, infinite threads connecting all of us common folk together, the threads connecting us to the wild lands and the mountains and the hills and the rivers and the dales. I let everything come together and I let everything take me apart, take me apart into every direction. I am where I am meant to be, where I was all along.

I feel at one with everything. I feel at one with everyone. I am everyone, I am every single living thing in this kingdom, all at the same time. They all flow into me and I flow into all of them. I live their lives, I feel their heartache, I experience their joy.

I feel at once not in the world and completely in the world at the same time.

Everyone's lives flow through me and are a part of me as if they are my own. As if I am theirs. And they are my own. They have been my own since before I first drew breath, since before I first moved within my father's womb. And they will be my own long after I am gone from this world. And I have always been theirs. I have been theirs since before this kingdom was made and I will be theirs long after it falls to ruin.

I have always been everyone. I have always been everyone and everyone has always been me. It is just that in this moment, I am focusing on it. In this moment I am focusing on how I am everyone and everyone is me. And I am letting it overcome me and overwhelm me and take up all the parts of my consciousness. And so I am projecting to every village in the whole kingdom. I am projecting to everyone.

I am also projecting to every grain of dirt, through every stretch of sky, to every ray of sun. I am all the nature and all the nature is me and all the nature is everyone else and everyone else is all the nature. The trees, the shrubs, the bushes, the herbs, the grasses. They are all a part of me and I am all a part of them. The rivers and streams and hidden healing springs within the forest. I exist in all of that water, and all of that water exists in me. Everyone exists in all of that water and all of that water exists is everyone simultaneously at the same time. I am the wolf that stalks through the trees and I am the moose that eats the green leaves and I am the bird that sings its bright song and I am the bedrock that was here all along.

And it's painful. It is so, so incredibly, overwhelmingly painful. It is unbearably painful. I feel everyone's pain as if it were my own. I feel everyone's pain and it is my own. It has been my own for much longer than I have lived. It will be my own for long after I die. But now I am focusing on it. I am focusing on it and on all the deep injustices that paint everyone's lives. All the very many sources of pain that pierce through everyone's experiences. I am feeling it all and I am becoming one with it.

I do not only feel the people's pain, but I feel nature's pain as well. I feel the ever present pain of the air. I feel the burning pain of the sun. I feel the grieving pain of all the plants and the animals. I feel the flowing pain of all the waters. I am them and they are me and their pain is my pain.

Nature grieves because the people grieve. Nature aches because the people ache. Nature mourns that we are seperated from her and that she cannot protect us, that she cannot keep us safe from each and every kind of harm, the way that she could in times long since gone by and now just barely remembered. Nature's pain is a mother's pain. And oh, how very deeply I feel her.

But I also feel joy. Too much joy for me to contain. All the joy the people have from having each other. All the joy people feel from seeing their children smile. All the joy that people feel from meeting kind strangers. The joy of meals, however meagre, shared by the hearth. The joy of coming together in bright song. The joy of feeling the sun on our skin and the air in our lungs. The joy of sharing stories in the darkness of the night. Of small resistances to the ruling forms of power. Of having hope that these power systems will come to and end.

I feel the joy that nature feels each and every time it can be with someone, be by someone, each and every time that it can help someone in ways big and small, in ways that are physical, or mental, or emotional, or spiritual.

I feel the joy that people feel that their people are still existing,

I feel the joy that nature feels that it is still existing.

I feel the joy that people feel that nature is still existing.

I feel the joy that nature feels that the people are still existing.

I feel the hope that all life feels that one day things will be better, one day things will be kinder, one day things will be fair and universally equal. And all this joy and all this anguish and all these infinite different emotions felt in an infinity of different ways tears me apart and brings me together in ways that I will never be able to describe, ways that I will never be able to explain. Not even to myself.

All I can do is feel it. All I can do is feel everything that the Creator has created and let it be so intimately tied with me that it is me and I am it.

I do not know whether I am alive or dead. All I know is that we exist, we exist, we exist. All together, all within one another, all a part of one another, we exist. And we are beautiful. And the nature that created us is beautiful. And it all is so very beautiful and broken and strong and fragile and betrayed and perfect.

And I stay in this state of agony and bliss until I feel something on my body. Warm, soft, deeply unsettling hands on my shoulders. I startle and look up, immersed back into the regular, terrible flow of my life.

The lord is looking at me, amazement carved onto his entire face.

"How ... how did you do that?" he asks. His voice is dazed and confused.

"A true magician never tells her secrets," I reply.

"I've never seen anything like it. It must be a rare practice indeed."

This form of magic that I just did is the easiest form of magic to do. It requires no teaching, no bravery, just a lookout to make sure no nobles or guards are coming. And this is a form of magic that literally all of the common people practice. I don't tell him this of course. Of course I don't tell him this. I have to keep my people safe after all.

"Maybe it is," I tell him. Surprisingly, he smiles.

"Well, you've definitely won this round. But how about one more round to see who wins once and for all?" His voice has a softness to it that wasn't there before.

"Sure, why not? Though actually, I've won every round."

"Anyways, what do you think the final test will be?"

"I'm ready for anything, your lordship." I pour sarcasm into his title so that he knows I'm not afraid of him.

"I need time to think. Why don't you come to the castle with me?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No."

I follow him to his rooms, trailed by guards. I feel sorry for the guards. I feel incredibly sorry for them. And, looking back at it, I think I always did. They have to put up with the lord all the time. But I can say nothing as I follow the lord. In his large chambers, the door locks behind me.

"So I would like to get to know you a little better," he tells me, sitting on a plush red and black chaise.

"There's nothing about me that would interest you."

"Well, how old are you?"

"Twenty-three."

"I'm twenty-seven."

"Okay."

"What about your family? What are they like?"

"They're kind." The less that he knows, the better.

"And what of your mother? Was she a witch like you?"

"No. Will you let me go home?"

"No."

We keep on talking until dinner arrives. He gets something I can't even name, with juicy meat and bright vegetables and thick sauces. Along with that he gets a chalice of fine wine. I get a simple bowl of porridge and a glass of simple water. It's something, at least. At the very least I won't be hungry. We eat together in tenseness.

"Where will I sleep?" I ask him once dinner is over.

"I'll take my small bed. You can have the large one."

"Thank you."

I let myself feel the soft bed underneath me and the satin blankets above me. I let myself feel whatever pleasures I can, pleasures that have been denied me for all of my life, pleasures I'll never feel again once I am dead.

I wonder why he's being so kind to me. He must be impressed with my magic.

The morning doesn't bring its usual brightness but rather strange, colourful tinted light. Light that is far too bright to be natural and far too unnatural to be pleasant. The lord greets me from his room, standing in front of the locked door.

"Good morning, my lady."

"Good morning my lord."

"I think I know what our final challenge will be."

"Oh? What will it be?"

"We will see who can create the most beautiful thing."

"Oh that? That's easy."

"We will see."

We eat breakfast in the large, long dining hall and it is so, so deeply uncomfortable to be waited on by servants.

"How did you enjoy your night?" His voice is smooth and unnerving.

"It was okay. How about you?"

"I missed my bed, but I plan on sleeping there again tonight."

"Okay." Tonight. After my execution. Fuck.

"So tell me, how you learned your magic."

"No."

He keeps trying to ask me questions for the rest of breakfast.

Finally I follow him to his magic room. In it, I see things that were not there before. Gems that sparkle and shine brighter than all the others. A large rod of platinum. Lustrous pearls. An assortment of what vaguely resembles tools.

Ho says no words and gets to work, pouring wine by the chalice into a bowl large enough to bathe a baby in. He then sets it on fire, and into the fire he places the platinum. He also puts the gems and the pearls into the fire. Next, he creates a ring around the bowl made of ivory and jade arranged into intricate shapes. He plunges a knife into a ring necked dove, and I watch in horror as it struggles and screams, and he pours the blood of the bird onto the fire. He gets his peacock feathers and burns them, along with the neck feathers of the dove. And finally, he writes something long and fine with his ink and places it over the bowl.

A thousand pink leaf-like flakes of different sizes and shapes manifests into the air. They swirl all around the room, coalescing by the bowl full of treasures. There they all join together and started to glow. It's beautiful to see but there's something deeply wrong about it. There is something deeply twisted.

Eventually the glowing subsides and in the bowl there is a beautiful platinum crown, as tall as my hand is long, shining in the firelight, finely-shaped in all sorts of flowing metallic swirls and curls, encrusted with all sorts of gems and pearls.

"Isn't it beautiful?" The lord asks me.

"I can do better," I tell him. And my words come out clear and confident. And they are not a lie.

I walk to the peach tree in the courtyard, growing by the shadows of the outer wall. I reach on my tip toes and pick a few peaches, and put them in my uplifted skirt. I walk through the brisk spring morning to the village. And I find a group of young children playing on the streets. Alex, Clementine, Seraphina, and Sparrow. The youngest one is only year old and the oldest one is five.

"Hi guys." I sing brightly as I stoop down to smile at them.

"Hi Aunt Marianna," they chime back in unison. I'm not really their aunt but I am their aunt anyways. They stare at the guards behind me, awed and more than a little terrified.

"Don't mind the guards," I tell the children, "they won't hurt you. I promise."

"Why they here?" Little Seraphina asks in her baby voice.

"There's just following me. Anyways, I got you guys some peaches from the lord's own garden."

"From the lord's own garden?" Alex exclaims, pronouncing their r's as l's.

"Yes, children, they're for you." I hand them out to each child.

"Wow! Thank you!" Sparrow exclaims. They all hold the fruits in their hands and they smile.

"You see, my lord?" I turn to him. "The most beautiful thing in the world."

He stands there, not saying anything.

I turn back to the kids.

"Now you enjoy those peaches, I tell them. "And have fun. I'm really sorry, but Aunt Marianna needs to go back to the castle."

"Why?"

"Because the lord wants me there," I respond.

On the walk back to the castle the lord asks me

"How was that beautiful?"

"The smile of a child, my lord," I try to explain to him, "it's the most beautiful thing there is."

"I don't see what you see."

"And I suppose you can't, with all your statues and thrones."

"You are a rather strange woman. Anyways, you didn't even use magic."

"Didn't I?" I smile mysteriously.

"I have a question to ask you," the lord tells me, quite urgently, once we get back to the castle.

"Okay," I reply, trying to keep the building dread out of my voice.

"Go to my rooms," he bids me, and I obey.

I sit on the bed, trying to breathe slowly and deeply, in the way that Anna taught me a few years ago.

After what feels like an eternity, the lord walks in with the crown that he made. He gets on one knee in front of me, holding out the crown,

"My dear maiden Marianna," he says to me, "I am awed and amazed by your skills and talents in the magical art. I do admit, I was quite doubtful at first. But you have proven yourself to be very worthy. Most rare amongst the commoners. So rare, in fact, that I have realized that you must not be a commoner at all, but rather a noble who got lost at birth and was taken in by the peasants. In light of this, and knowing the fact that all the nobles must stay together as one group, I am asking you to marry me, and to be my lady. I am really rather enamoured by you and would be honoured to be your husband."

I don't know how to respond. At all. In my shock I start laughing. I laugh because of how stupid it is, because he thinks I am a lost noble because of my magic abilities. Really, my magic abilities are rather average. The olds mages who teach the newer recruits know far more than I, and can do far more.

"Why are you laughing?" the lord asks, rather taken aback.

"I'm sorry," I manage to stutter our through giggles, "it's just, your stupidity."

"My what?"

I keep laughing for a while, before I am able to answer.

"You think that I'm a noble tragically separated from her high born roots. But I'm just a normal girl, with no noble blood."

"Preposterous. You must be from a noble family. You just don't know it. To bring you back to the high background where you belong, I will make you my wife, my lady."

"I'm not some foundling. My father and mother had me and they raised me and the village is all I have ever known."

"Absurd. No normal girl would be able to be so very adept in magic."

At this I burst into another fit of laughter. This is so absurd. So very absurd. Me sitting on a soft bed with silken sheets while the lord of my county kneels in front of me, insisting that I am of noble blood. And simply because I'm average at magic. Simply because I am average at magic!

"My lord. I'm sorry. I am just a normal girl who practices witchcraft. Not anything else."

"So how do you explain then that you are so skilled in magic?"

"All people have magic inside of them. All people can express the magic inside of them, if they are just given the chance. The nobles are not better than anyone else in the use of magic. The nobles are average. Dare I say, they are less than average, because they are not at all connected to their magical source. But the only reason the common people cannot express their magic is because you and your people forbid it. You and your people prevent us from using the gifts we all have. But still, some of us are brave enough to go against your rule and learn the craft anyways."

"Wow. Being forced to live as a peasant has really made you delusional." What? He didn't even listen to me. He didn't even take my argument seriously, he just brushed it off. He is insufferable.

"I'm not delusional, you are." There is no mirth or softness left in my hard voice.

"Whatever your delusions may be, will you marry me? I will offer you a fine life full of servants and luxury."

I think about this for a while.

Marrying him would be my only shot at life. It would be the only way I could get out of this situation free. He wouldn't hurt me if we were married. He wouldn't hurt me, or my parents, or my siblings, or my roommates. He wouldn't hurt my village. And I could be alive. This is perhaps my only shot at being alive. If I said yes, if I said yes despite all that my heart is protesting, then I could be alive and free.

But, free? Would I really be free in a large castle, bound to this noble man, with an army of servants at my beck and call? Would I really be free despite having to warm his bed in the nights, having to be by his side in the days, having to live the sort of life that all the nobles live? Would it be authentic? Would it be real? Would it be me?

It feels like a betrayal, agreeing to marry him. A betrayal to my family, a betrayal to my fellow witches, a betrayal to my people. But most of all, it feels like it is a betrayal to me. I'm brave. I don't give in to fear. I don't sign my life away, sign my freedom away, sign myself away simply for the chance at continuing to survive. I went against the prohibition in order to study witchcraft. I can go against this lord's power, against his wishes.

I harden my gut and swallow down the fear that I am feeling.

"I won't marry you." My voice rings clear.

The lord looks taken aback, looks astonished, looks genuinely hurt.

"What?" There is confusion and betrayal in his voice.

"I won't marry you," I repeat, simply.

"Well then," his voice is like a hurt child's, but his features quickly harden, "I guess I will have to have you executed for practicing magic without authorization."

"Do it then." I fight with everything I have to make sure that my voice doesn't tremble.

I force myself to walk on my numb legs as I am led out of the lord's room and into a section of the castle that I have never been to before. It is so hard to breathe. I feel as though I am moving underwater. Everything feels unreal, as if it's a dream. Everything feels more real than it has ever felt before. I thought I was prepared for death but in reality I was not prepared. I was not prepared at all. I am not prepared at all.

In the end I am taken to a room that is far too bright for the gruesome brutality that is meant to go on inside it. There is an execution block in the middle of the small courtyard. And I am led to this block. One of the guards takes his place as the executioner. It must be a horrid job, and I wish I could free him of it. I wish I could free all the guards.

I take a deep breath, the last breath I will take in my life. And I feel the sun against my skin. For the last time in my life.

3.

2.

1.

The heavy, ripping, searing pain screams through my neck like bright hot fire. The world goes black. But I don't die. I don't die. Or do I die? I don't know.

I feel strange, as if I am filled with a strange, brimming energy. It feels bright and buzzing and so very natural, as if it was meant to be all along. There is no more pain.

The blackness goes away and I find myself staring down at my own beheaded body, gruesome and horrible. I lie limp and ashen, bright red blood pooling all around me. The lord is kneeling beside my remains, and I see him lift my limp hand to his lips.

I close my eyes. And when I open them, I am back in the forest, deep within its depths where no guards can find me. I feel a power within me. A power that I didn't possess before. It flows through me strong and calming and oh-so-very protective, oh-so-very fierce. I feel like a mother moose with calves and antlers and nothing but the feral need for the preservation of the youth. I feel like the river that flows through all the lands, protecting and nourishing them.

I have power now. I have power. And I can use this power to protect the forest. To protect my people.

And so I do. Forever after, I create a protective barrier around the forest, so that no noble may ever gain entry, so that the common people, witch and non-witch alike, can be safe while they are within its protective embrace. Safe to practice magic and to love and gather food find refuge and haven.

I am one with the forest. I am one with the people. And as long as either the forest or the people survive, I will never die.

This is a true story. I am writing my recollection of the events and although it has been many years, I still remember the details as if they happened yesterday.

I was lost. The snow laden conifers looked the same no matter which way looked. They surrounded me, smothering any hope of getting out of here before dark. My steps crunched on the snow which deceived me into thinking it could bear my weight. With each step my legs were buried into the snow up to my knee. I pushed my black hair out of my face and adjusted my hood. I kept moving forward, crunch after crunch. We called it post-holing- the act of stepping through deep snow and sinking in with every step.

My mind drifted. I thought of my cabin with a warm fire crackling and venison stew bubbling in the pot. I could almost smell the wood fire. I worried about my husband. We had been married for just a few months. Used to living on my own, I kept the duty of hunting and providing food for us and I was good at it, except for today. My husband, Eric, skilled in woodcraft, built our cozy cabin and made it tight to withstand the brutal winter. Each chair was carefully crafted. The head and foot boards of our snug bed bore ornate knot carvings. I thought of the piles of furs and blankets that kept us warm. The cold air on my face was a cruel reminder of my current situation.

I promised I would be back in just a few hours. It was well over six hours. My hunting trip was a failure with only a brace of rabbits to show for it and now I couldn’t find my way home. I adjusted my quiver and bow and steadied my mind. The moon should be rising soon, but, alas, it was in the time of the new moon. Darkness would persist. A small lantern hung from my pack. I lit the wick with a scrape of flint and steel. The firelight gave me new hope and a resolve to get home. But, with every brutal step, hope faded. Every step I took in the cracking snow was new. There was no trail, no markings, nothing to guide me. The trees surrounded me and trapped me in a branchy cage. I pulled my the hood of my fur cloak closer around my neck. The soft wool shirt and britches kept me warm enough. My feet were not cold. I kept soldiering on.

Hours passed by and I was still lost. I became exhausted. Every laborious breath was a puff of frozen mist in the bone chilling cold. My mind descended into darkness. I started to consider death, how easy it would be to just lay down in the soft snow and go to an eternal sleep. No! I would not succumb to my mind’s weakness. Pine branches offered a suitable shelter. Flint and steel offered a way to make fire and warmth. I set the small lantern in the snow and began to build my fire.

Small wood shavings and a single spark created a tiny fire…a glimmer of hope in the smothering darkness. The small spark gave way flames and finally a proper fire. Somehow the warmth and light of a fire gives hope to the hopeless. Survival is in the mind, more than it is in physical ability. I warmed my hands and face. I took one rabbit and was about to skin it for eating and suddenly, a snow laden branch gave way and snow plopped on my fire and all at once, it was dark and cold again. The fire was gone along with my hope. I was not one to give in to emotion, but warm tears welled up in my eyes. This was the end. I laid down in the snow. Images of my beloved husband floated before me. After a time, I was suddenly warm and sleepy. I let the relief of sleep wash over me. This was it. Death. The end.

“Wake up, child,” a soft voice woke me. I opened my eyes slowly. I was drowsy and did want to wake from my frozen sleep. Bright blue eyes stared at me from beneath bushy gray eyebrows. I rubbed my eyes. Was this real or was it delirium from hypothermia? The man’s woolen clothes were red and green. His hood enclosed his face in warm fur and his rosy cheeks were cheery and welcoming. I did not care if he was real or imaginary. I could feel his warm sweet breath on my face and I was overcome with a feeling of wellbeing. Maybe this is how it ends. I didn’t care and I surrendered. He extended a mittened hand and helped me up from my snowy bower.

“Follow me, girl,” he said. He commanded. He wielded a great wooden staff that gave him stability as he walked through the deep snow. The man led me through the forest maze to small cabin. The light shone from the windows welcoming the lost. Finally, the darkness of exhaustion was overwhelming. I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up tucked into a comfortable bed.

The firelight cast shadows around the room. I pulled the warm blankets up and snuggled into the soft bed. A lady crowned with golden braids and dressed in fine leather and furs sat beside the bed. “Drink this,” she offered me a mug of warm liquid. Carefully I raised the mug to take taste. The aroma of berries and herbs was inviting. I savored the wild flavor as I swallowed. My energy was returning and I sat up, pushing the blankets aside. I did not remember how I actually got to this cozy cabin. My last memory was handing the blue eyed man my pack. I could see the man bent over a cauldron hanging in the fireplace stirring it carefully. He turned and looked at me with those same kind blue eye. This time, I noticed a twinkle and a slight raise of his eye brow. The smell of whatever was in the cauldron was overwhelming. Stew of some kind. I was famished.

The couple bade me sit at the table and together we ate the stew, crusty bread and more of the berry drink. I did not speak. I was inhaling my dinner like someone who was starved. The couple looked at each other and smiled. After dinner, the man lit a pipe and pulled out a tagleharpa and bow. He played and sang melancholy tunes in a language I did not understand. The clear tones in a minor scale floated in air one after another as the bow glided across the strings. I realized that this music was very old, yet strangely familiar. My eyes became heavy and could feel myself drifting off in comfortable darkness. Was this death and the afterlife? I did not think so.

The woman looked me with her beautiful face. A light seemed to surround her, like an aura. “Please child, get some rest. You have had quite a day.”

I agreed and I crawled back in bed. I was instantly asleep.

The next morning, the wind howled outside the tiny cabin. I peered out the window and could not see anything but frozen white. I wanted to continue my trek home. I knew my husband, Eric, would be very concerned. My heart hurt with empathy for how he must feel. I gathered up my gear and started to put on my boots and the lady stopped me.

“You must not leave,” she said, “the storm is too strong and you will not find your way.”

I knew she was right, but I didn’t like it. However, I resolved to wait out the storm with these interesting, yet mysterious. Now that I was rested, I began to notice my surroundings. Little pottery jars neatly lined shelves beside the fire place and dried herbs hung from the ceiling rafters. Furs were stretched on frames for tanning and some were neatly folded and stacked. The intricately carved wooden table and chairs were adorned with candles that cast a warm light across the room. The smell of sweet herbs and leather permeated the air.

A heavy wooden door kept the storm out and a string of bells cascaded from the handle. I started to wonder about my hosts. How did the man find me just at the right moment and who was his beautiful wife. They never called each other by name. In fact, they really didn’t speak much at all. Even so, it was not awkward and felt welcome and comfortable.

One night, as we sat by the fire. I saw the man carving small piece of wood. “Did you make all these beautiful things?” I asked.

“The winter is long here, and I pass the time by making this and that. It amuses me.”

He handed me detailed carving of a raven. “Take this, he said “I made it for you.”

I was amazed at the craftsmanship of the tiny bird. Each feather was detailed and the raven’s eyes seemed to look at me. I thanked him and tucked it into my pocket.

Eight days went by and the wind howled relentlessly as the blizzard continued to rage on. The days passed with simplicity. Breakfast and coffee, spinning and weaving in the morning. Working the leather on the stretched hides in the afternoon, supper and then music. Every day was the same but went by quickly. On the ninth day, the wind stopped. I was not prepared for the sudden silence. I was anxious to get started home and I started collecting my gear to ready to leave.

“No child you can’t leave yet, the snow is too deep,” said the lady. Her eyes sparkled like the snowflakes on the new drifts. “Stay with us a while longer. I promise we will help you find your way home.”

“My husband surely thinks I am dead by now,” I replied. “I need to go home.”

“Please stay,” she implored, holding my hand and staring into my eyes. “it is not safe for you to leave just yet.” Just then, I heard a scratching at the door. The woman rose and opened the door with jingly bells to reveal a very large black wolf. She gently patted his head. He shook the snow off his dense fur and entered the room. He looked at me with large yellow eyes and laid down by the fire. “There you are my boy,” the woman said to the wolf. “I was wondering where you were.” She bent over his huge head and kissed him.

I wanted to leave, but I could not refuse her. I felt like I was under a spell. Perhaps I was. Days continued in the same way. I lost track of time. I was content and started to forget about the world outside. But deep inside I was aware that something was not right, not in nefarious way. I can only describe it as other worldly. Deep in my consciousness, I knew these people were not human. I realized I could stay in this place until I was old and gray and be perfectly happy. I needed to get out, while I still remembered my life and Eric. Once I resolved to leave, my mind started to clear and I began to formulate a plan. On the full moon, 2 days from today, I would leave while everyone was asleep.

The full moon arrived as always. We drank, ate, and sang until it was time for bed. I crawled into my bed to wait. It was hard to resist the comfort and drowsiness that tried to take over. When I was sure everyone was asleep, I grabbed my bundled gear and slowly exited the house. Quickly, I donned my coat and boots, slung my pack and bow over my shoulder and hurried as quickly as I could through the snow. The moonlight reflected off the sparkly snow, guiding me forward. I could see my breath in the air surround by tiny snow flakes. I pulled my hood closer to my face. It seemed like hours and I was still walking. I sat down to rest. Just a little rest. My eyes closed. Suddenly I felt a wet tongue licking my hand. The great wolf had been following me. He laid down next where I was sitting and waited for me. “Come on, then,” I said to the wolf. I stood up and adjusted my load. The wolf walked ahead, looking back ever so often to see if I was following. His great, black, furry body was a stark contrast to the white snow.

For reasons I can’t describe, I followed that wolf, convinced he knew where I needed to go. We walked and walked. We trekked up side of a steep hill, which became a mountain. The trail became the ridge line, and still we continued with the wolf in the lead. Where were we going? The tiny path became less evident. Suddenly, I lost my footing and started to slide down the mountain side. I grasped a small tree and held on tightly. The ground beneath me was very far away. I looked up and the wolf sat, staring at me with wise yellow eyes. The small tree did not hold and the branch I was hanging on to broke. I slid down the side of the mountain and over the cliff into oblivion.

Everything was black, but I heard a familiar voice off in the distance. “Dani, Dani, my love! Wake up!” My eyes fluttered open.

“Eric!” I held him close. “You found me! I fell off mountain. How did you find me.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, looking at me like I was crazy. “You have only been gone a couple of hours. I came outside to get some wood and you were laying in the snow.”

I was confused. My pack and my bow were shouldered as usual and 2 rabbits hung from my pack.

“Come inside and get warm, Dani” Eric helped me up and ushered me inside.

“Eric, I have been gone for over 10 days,” I explained.

“Darling, no, it’s just been a hour or two, he countered, pouring hot coffee for me. The black liquid and smell of the coffee was restoring.

I pushed back the hood of my coat and unhooked the wooden toggles.

“Dani! Your hair!,” exclaimed Eric.

Startled by the urgency in his voice, I found my bronze mirror and peered into it. I gasped. My once black hair, was now white as the snow outside.

“Eric, sit down and let me explain, “ I reached into my pocked and put the tiny raven on the table. I told him the whole unbelievable story. For years we looked for the cabin deep in the forest and never found it. My hair never returned to its original color.

Every now and again, I hear stories from travelers and sometimes my neighbors about the hidden people, the old ones, who remain with us but were very rarely seen.

I am an old woman now. Eric passed on several years ago. I wanted to see the hidden people one more time. I braided up my white hair and donned my gear, pack and bow. My quiver had sufficient arrows. It was winter again. I headed into the snow.

Lillith and Quincy are in the same big city a few months after their quest for Grammy’s Apple Pie and the subsequent murder of the Wizard Bobby. Quincy is scaling the inner walls of the city, attempting to break into the armory of the city guards which is attached to the Inner Wall, Lilith is enjoying a sunny day in the open-air market that's on the edge of the inner city limits.

Having successfully scaled the wall Quincy starts to make his way across the vaulted top of the wall’s covering, his Jade Frog Statue falling out of his pocket and straight into the open air market below.

Lilith, going from one stall to the next, takes a break by the wall in order to stay out of the way of the bustling crowds. She feels a sense of foreboding and quickly steps to the side, her hand reaching out as if to see if it's raining when BAM! Quincy’s jade frog statute falls right into her outstretched hand.

Reckoning the statute as the one Quincy gained as a reward for Bobby’s Apple Pie Quest, she looks up and greets her old party member.

With the weather being so nice the two of them decide to go on a picnic in the city's beautiful countryside which is just outside of its walls. Rolling hills, fruit orchids, and a beautiful forest bordering it make for wonderful scenery on a sunny day - Just perfect for a picnic!-

As Lillith and Quincy sit out on a blanket in the sun enjoying their spread of fruits and cheese they are rudely interrupted by a fluffy figure that begins to barrel toward them.

“Is that a sheep?” Quincy barely had time to ask before the raging piece of fluff smacked right into him, knocking him to the side before it continued its rampage all over their picnic lunch.

*Lillith casts Speak With Animals!*

“What are you doing? What's the matter with you!?”

*All Quincy hears is a variety of Baas and Bleets*

“What is the matter!? What is WRONG!?” The sheep rages at the poor elf “I AM A SHEEP THAT IS WHAT’S WRONG!”

The sheep continues ranting, and mentions of ‘the great Wizard Shinebright’ are made often throughout it, however, Quincy is far more interested in the fact that he just understood a sheep.

“How are you speaking!?”

*Lillith does not realize that Shinebright the Sheep is speaking commonly until Quincy’s reaction*

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN HOW AM I SPEAKING!?”

“Wait, is he speaking in a common? Can you understand him?”

“OF COURSE I'M SPEAKING COMMON! I AM THE GREAT WIZARD SHINEBRIGHT!” The talking sheep continues his rant, as Lillith and Quincy meet each other’s gaze and nod, both of them slowly backing up and escaping into the apple orchard nearby.

The two of them are walking through this orchard, both of them befuddled by the talking sheep situation when a familiar voice sounds from the branches above.

“Hey, I know you guys!” Brutus, the green dragon-born, is lazing in the thick foliage of the apple orchard, their plant pet Bludgeoning (or Bludgey for short) sleeping on their arm. “You’re from that weird Wizard Billy Guy!”

“It was Bobby. And yes, we went on that whole weird apple pie quest. Where you pet your plant pet… thing… whatever that thing is.” Quincy sighed, the lizards were always the confusing ones, but she had a lot of good things to swipe, so it was right enough to have her around.

“True, true. So what have you two been up to?”

“Well, we were having a picnic… but then this talking sheep sort of ruined it…” Lilith sighed, she had spent all morning on that sourdough too…

“Talking sheep? I saw one of those earlier. Ran through here all in a huff.”

“I AM RIGHT HERE!” Brutus fell from her branch, startled by the sheep's reappearance. “AND IT IS INCREDIBLY RUDE TO JUST LEAVE ME WHEN I AM SPEAKING TO YOU!”

“Well, it is incredibly-baa-ly rude to ruin our picnic!” Lillith snapped. She had been looking forward to that sourdough!

“What do you want with us anyways?” Quincy had backed away some more, putting a good distance between himself and the ram-happy sheep.

“I want to be turned back into a human! I am the GREAT WIZARDSHINE BRIGHT and my stupid, traitorous student Nox stole my wand from Polymorph and changed me into this monstrosity!"

“If you're such a great wizard then just change yourself back,” Brutus grumbled as she sorted through her tangled jewelry, wearing ten necklaces at a time was very fashionable but also very difficult to keep untangled.

“One cannot use magic without hands! And this specific spell is only possible with the polymorph wand, a magical breakthrough of my creation! And it's been stolen from me!”

“Then pay someone to steal it back?” the dragon scoffed.

“I do not have access to my funds at the moment. All my money is in my pocket-dimension, which I cannot access without my hands for magicking!"

“So…” Quincy smiled Iff we were to help turn you back, you could access your funds to pay us?”

“Indeed!”

“And how much would you pay us to do this?” Lilith asked, she had already gone through a good bit of the funds from Bobby’s quest and could use a top-off on her wallet.

“60 gold pieces each!”

“I'm in!” Brutus jumped forward, grabbing Sheepbright's hoof and shaking it enthusiastically.

“Wonderful!”

Lilith and Quincy nodded, 60 gold pieces got you somewhere these days and it seemed an easy enough quest. All they had to do was steal a wand from one wizard. Lilith had already killed a wizard, Brutus was a monster tamer, and Quincy was a master thief. This was child’s play for them.

“There he is!”

The three whipped around to find themselves surrounded. Three shadowy figures approached from one end of the orchard and two lumbering ones burst through the undergrowth.

“Grab that sheep! Nox wants him back at the tower.”

“Oh No! They’ve found me!”

The three jump into action, against a half-orc, a brown bear, and what appears to be three wolves. The animals are odd, almost human in the way their eyes are and how they seem to be thinking before they move.

Brutus is the first to act, launching herself at the biggest of the three wolves a -dire wolf- screaming “PUPPY!” as she latches onto it tight, holding on as it kicks and bucks and tries to throw her off.

Lilith goes to notch an arrow, aiming at the half-orc when the Brown Bear lunges in and snatches their golden-sheep in his jaws.

“Dammit! Our payday!” Quincy takes out his Sword and goes to swing at the bear, but is blocked and parried away by the Half-Orc.

Bludgy, Brutus’ blobby plant pet, leaps from her shoulder and onto the second biggest wolf, covering its face and eyes and pulling on its ears. Blinding it and sticking on even as it shakes and sways to rid itself of them.

The third wolf tries to take a bite out of bursts, but with all the swinging and flailing and kicking all it gets is a swift knockout by a kick to the head as Brutus is all but flung off the large dire wolf.

Lilith Keeps loosening arrows into the brown bear, too far to take a good swing at but a good enough shot to get some hits in without harming their new ward.

Quincy on the other hand is now toe to toe with a large half-orc monstrosity. He pulls out his Jade Frog Statue and Summons forth a familiar frog.

Unfortunately, due to the moon phase and humidity, all he can summon is a large-sized toad. However Quincy is a thinker, and he quickly launches it and four more of his frog army right at the half-rocs face dealing some surprising damage while also partially blinding him.

While the half-orc is distracted he takes the opportunity to fire arrows at the uncoinsios wolf, dealing it a swift death.

All the while Brutus and Bludgy have finally been flung off the two remaining wolves, who are furious.

Brutus holds out a beautiful necklace with a giant ruby pendant, a big charming smile on her face as she holds it out to the she-wolf before her. “Eh? It's all shiny and pretty! Just for you~”

Bludgy meanwhile is doing something similar, having already tried stuffing gold pieces into the wolf's mouth (they think gold is food and they were trying to feed it. Brutus needs to break them of that habit…) and they were not mimicking Brutus, holding up a large sapphire pendant and making little “ooh~ Ahh~ ooooh~”s at the fluffy beast before them.

Both Brutus and Bludgy (in yet another DM headache but also a celebration-causing moment) can charm both the wolves into being their friends, winning the party two more allies.

Lilith, having finally done enough damage to impair the bear’s movement, takes out her longsword and with a single swing cuts off its head freeing Sheepbright.

However Quincy and his frogs can only do so much, and the half-orc can free himself of their slimy grasp before grabbing sheepbright and making his getaway.

“Dangit! He took our sheep wallet!” Quincy kicks the ground, quickly turning around to gather up his frogs.

“Should we go after them?” Lilith looks from the carriage of the battlefield and of Brutus’ new friendships to the fading figure of the half-orc and sheepbright.

“It's 60 gold. I don't know about you but I need that.”

“Same here. Brutus! Let's go!” Lilith and Quincy head off, Brutus and her two new wolves following quickly behind.

The three (plus one plant blob thing and two wolves) finally make their way to the tower of the Wizard Nox.

It wasn't much of a wizard's tower. More like three circular rooms stacked on top of each other with a third circular room attached to the side of the topmost one, all with a pointy roof to finish off.

Outside of the small tower were two apes, both of them playing with giant game pieces in the front yard area.

“What do we do?” Lilith hisses as the three crouch in the bushes. Brutus had sent the wolves off to hide elsewhere in the woods, not wanting them to be involved in the conflict and the three were now going over their options.

“We go in, that's the only way we get the talking sheep. And the wand. Right?”

“If we make too much noise the wizard guy might figure out we’re here, and he might do something to the sheep-wizard,” Lilith whispers, peeking back over the edge of the bush to watch the two chimps.

“We could sneak in. I could climb up the wall and get into that side room on the third floor, the two of you could find a way to sneak in from here.”

“How would we do that Quincy? Just walk in the front door?” Brutus rolled her eyes, scoffing.

“Well… actually, I could cast an invisibility spell. I have a first-level one, pass without a trace.” Lilith smiles and waves her hands around

“Sounds good to me, makes climbing in unnoticed easier.”

“I guess we really will just walk in the front door then.”

*Lillith casts Pass Without a Trace, all party members are now invisible!*

“Alright, I'll see you two at the top!” Quincy quickly ducks away, his large toad familiar clinging to his back as the two of them make quick work of scaling the wall with his wall climbing equipment. He ends up scrambling through the open window, quietly tumbling into what looks like a bedroom with a full-sized bed and a wardrobe. There are only two windows and one door, which is closed.

“Alright buddy, looks like you can fit under that thing. Go ahead and tell me what you see.” the toad familiar croaks softly, squeezing itself underneath the door and into the wizard's workshop on the other side.

When it slips back through a minute later it softly croaks and ribbits what it saw back to him.

A large round room, the ceiling being the pointed part of the roof making it look like the inside of a wizard's hat. The walls are practically suffocating with shelves and hooks and hanging things. A small spindly man is muttering to himself as he frantically moves from one bubbling set of bottles to the next. In the middle there's a smoking cauldron, over which is a suspended cage where a talking sheep is ranting within it. Next to that is a table with a huge oddly contorted branch on it.

“Let's see if we can get him in here…” Quincy hands the toad familiar a bell and sets him next to the door while he takes out his dagger and waits behind it. “Ok buddy, ring that bell and get the wizard in here!”

The bell rings, but nothing happens. The toad tries again, and again, but it seems like whatever magic stuff is happening in the workshop is too loud for that Nox guy to hear. “Dang it. A surprise attack would have solved all of this.”

Lilith and Brutus (and Bludgy) on the other hand quietly make their way inside, passing unseen by the two chimps in the front yard. On the bottom floor, there's a big nest, some chests, and some tables. None of which interest the two girls, so they continue upwards using the stairwell that spirals around the tower on its wall. The two of them make their way up another floor, coming to the living area where Nox’s goons seem to live. There are bunk beds against one wall of the room, a kitchen and dining set up next to that.

There's the half-orc from earlier, bandaged up and sipping a steaming cup of something talking to a gorilla who is cooking on the stovetop.

Lilith and Brutus make their way up the staircase, stopping when they come to the trapdoor that leads to the third floor. It's closed, and to get to the other side they will need to open it, and invisible or not, once they do that they’ll be caught.

The two girls let out war cries -” ARGGGG!” “HIYAA!” the two of them (and again, sludgy) slamming against the trap door, it flies up and then immediately back down. Smacking both of them on the head and sending them back to the second floor where all three of them are now sprawled out before the half-orc and gorilla, now visible to the world as Lillith’s focus breaks and the spell dissipates from the party.

*All party members are now visible*

“Uh.. hi. Do you guys like soft tacos?” Brutus flashes a lop-sided smile as Lilith groans and puts her hands over her face. Just how does she end up with these people in these situations?

“Uhh..” the gorilla looks at his friend and then at the three of them. “What are… ‘soft-tacos’?”

“Only the best food ever! Tell you what, once I finish with my stuff upstairs will make some for you guys!”

“Uh.. yeah. That sounds nice.”

With the enemies charmed the girls, once again, shout out their war cries and burst through the trapdoor! Startling the Wizard Nox. As Brutus goes to lunge at him and as Lillith Notches an arrow into her bow he flees, right into his bedroom.

Quincy, having heard both the first and second attempts of the girls break into the third floor was waiting in the bedroom, ear pressed against the door, was completely caught off guard when the door slammed right into his face knocking him into the wall and then onto the floor.

The Wizard Nox, armed with his stolen and modified Wand of Polymorph Chants the spell and waves his arms around crazily as Quincy watches in horror as his bed cracks and creaks as it seems to spring to life and become… A Bed-Dragon?

For some reason, the wolf was not attacking the lady, but she might be unable to defend herself. If it was her trained wolf, it might attack him. He hoped that the only unusual thing was a wolf inside the lady’s restroom, with a lady. He assumed she was the one in distress because the distressed lady had indicated she hid alone in Happy Howlers.

Schuster crashed into a furniture barricade and fell on his wolf-bitten arm and the plastic bag tied to his belt. He regretted choosing the police force over dairy farming. The plastic bag held Kevin’s wife’s dress, her sweater, and a pair of socks and shoes.

Reluctantly, Schuster walked to the employee’s restroom door and knocked on it. He doubted he saw a wolf, but he asked, “Have you tied up your wolf?”

“I don’t have any rope,” the lady said.

You can improvise a chokepoint with office furniture but can’t find an appropriate wolf restraint inside a wolf sanctuary? Schuster thought.

“Did you bring Kevin?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

“Where is he?”

“Outside.”

“What about Dennis?”

“We’re aware of the situation.”

“Yeah, right,” she said.

Waiting, Schuster thought, well, we would be if you said everything you knew, like “I have a functional wolf strap.” If she said, I’m a werewolf, Schuster would have asked if she joked, believed it without other signs of mental illness, or either took or should take medication, but he would have considered the statement important information.

“I’m going to show you what is going on.”

Schuster placed his finger on the trigger. “Okay.”

“I’m opening the door,” she said.

“Do it slowly.”

Schuster pushed the door further open. As her wolf face and head turned into a human’s, she had four ears and eyes. The transfiguration required less than thirty seconds (longer from Schuster’s perspective), quick enough for his brain to register a distressed female subject rather than a wolf within mauling distance.

He asked the only realistic question: “Where’s the wolf?”

“Don’t shoot me!” she said.

“Where’s the wolf?”

The two other transformations were too detailed for CGI, and he did not see mirrors or projections. When turning from wolf to human, the wolf’s head split and faded, and the lady’s head seemed to slide out of his mouth. The wolf bit its own side and tugged a strip of skin free, but bloodlessly. A transformation from human to wolf showed the opposite, like the wolf swallowed her whole.

“What are you doing it with?” Schuster asked.

“A wolf strap,” she said.

“Throw it over here.”

“I’m not going to reach under a blanket and throw something at a policeman pointing a gun at me.”

“A wolf strap looks like a big piece of fur, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Just do it slowly, like a person. I’ll see the difference and won’t shoot you.”

The wolf strap flopped at his feet, and he picked it up.

“Kevin’s wife said to borrow these.” He tossed her the plastic bag. “Holler when you’re dressed. Don’t go anywhere. And don’t turn into anything.”

“I can’t now,” she said.

The transformation distracted him from identifying the lady, but now he could think for several seconds, he believed he had seen her before. He wondered if he saw a tattoo; the sprouting and receding wolf fur overwhelmed most observations, and the lady had attempted to wrap herself in the blanket.

“You can open the door,” she said.

“Keep your hands up,” Schuster said. “I’m going to search you and handcuff you, but you aren’t under arrest.”

Holding the lady at gunpoint, Schuster patted the lady down. He holstered the gun barely long enough to handcuff her hands behind her back. Matted, muddy, brown, and light brown or blonde hair hung down her back and over her eyes. Peeled-off scabs, large dry skin flakes, and long chewed fingernails and toenails littered the floor.

Meanwhile, they talked:

“Are you the lady I’ve been talking to?”

“Yeah. Is Kevin standing outside or in a boat or what? Because if he can walk around on dry ground, it’ll be a lot easier for Dennis to find him.”

“I’ll get Mr. Miller in here as soon as I can. You are really familiar.”

“You’ve arrested me before.”

“What for?”

“Nothing related to this. You said I could be an anonymous tip.”

“I guess you don’t have ID with you.”

“No.”

“Is anyone or anything here with you?”

“You and whoever you brought.”

“No one else?”

“No.”

“Show me your teeth.”

“Are you going to shoot me?”

“I don’t want to. Show me your teeth.”

A police hood meant nothing to wolf teeth, but it deterred humans. Her teeth were blunt. She also had an empty nose piercing.

“Thanks. Why didn’t you tell me about the wolf strap over the phone?” Schuster asked.

“You would’ve hung up,” she said.

“As a matter of fact, you wouldn’t be the first to call in a böxenwolf.”

“Yeah, you’d come right over.”

“It may be a delayed response, but we would get there sooner or later. Go over to the sink. Is the floor cold?”

“What do you think?”

“Okey-dokey, hang on.”

Schuster had the lady sit down, and because she could not reach the sink’s pipe, he re-handcuffed her with her hands in front.

“Is the floor cold?” Schuster asked.

“What do you think?”

Schuster spread out the blanket and she sat on it. “Stay here. Don’t go anywhere. Don’t do whatever you did before.”

“I can’t,” she said.

“Why?”

“You have the wolf strap.”

“Will it make me do something?”

“If you put it on.”

“Okay.” Schuster carefully unwrapped it from his hand and felt slightly better.

He searched the restroom for a good wolf hiding place, to no avail, and told the lady he would bring Mr. Miller.

The lady reminded Schuster of Corey Brown, whom he arrested once for drug use, knew Dennis Laufenberg to some extent, and worried her aunt by disappearing during the floods.

Schuster locked the lady in the bathroom and looked at the strip of animal fur, which resembled wolf straps in the Wolftown museum. It smelled like Stephanie’s laundry after inspecting sewers and like the wolf that attacked him and Foster. He placed it in an evidence bag and set it on a chair.

Then Schuster searched the communal office and breakroom. Somebody had broken a window in a communal office, and there was blood on the glass. A dainty person had tracked muddy bare footprints onto the carpet. In the break room, somebody had foraged, smearing mud on the fridge handle and leaving a cabinet door open.

Schuster went outside, locked the front door, and looked through the windows. He thought somebody had entered the rooms from inside, pushed some furniture into the hall, barricaded the doors from the inside with additional furniture, crawled out the windows, shut them behind herself, and barricaded the doors from the hallway.

Instead of leaving the lady on the floor, Schuster could bring a chair into the restroom. Wayne’s desk’s drawers nearly reached the floor, but legcuffs could be handcuffed to the desk’s stubby legs.

The storage shed and the wolf hospital’s entrance had two locks and a locking interior door. The storage shed and wolf hospital were unlocked, but from building a wolf pen as an Eagle Scout project, Schuster clearly remembered Wayne’s persnicketiness about locking doors and fences. A calendar marked 183 days elapsed since the last unlocked door or fence. Muddy footprints indicated the dainty person had entered it and Schuster thought he or she probably found the blanket and utility knife inside them.

The lady seemed like the most likely “somebody,” but he needed to question her further.

He hurried past the wolf pens. At the moment, the wolves tended to sit on the higher ground and irritate each other, without showing any interest in Schuster. “You’d better be wolves. Real wolves,” he said.

Wondering how to explain the lady to Kevin, Schuster returned to the Happy Howlers facility. He swiveled a thermostat to maximum heat. Severe hypothermia caused hallucinations, but he felt mentally competent.

Experimentally wearing a wolf strap seemed as stupid as taste-testing drugs for purity. Giving the lady the wolf strap was as stupid and risky, assuming the strap transfigured her. Either her demonstrations did not clearly show the wolf strap or the fur growth overwhelmed the other details.

Wayne stocked leashes and muzzles for the rare occasions a wolf left the facilities or people approached them within biting distance, but Schuster could not restrain the lady like an animal. Also, the restraints would either fall off in wolf form or not fit in human form.

“Ma’am, I need to know I saw what I thought I saw, so put the wolf strap on again.”

“I did it three times,” she said. “Weren’t you watching?”

“I’m having trouble understanding it.”

“And I don’t want to be shot.”

“If I wanted to shoot people, I would’ve joined the Army. So, I won’t shoot you if you don’t attack me. Do you lose control or something if you turn into a werewolf?”

“No. And I don’t want to transfigure again.”

“It may help me understand what’s been going on.”

“You do it, then.”

“It’s against police procedure,” Schuster guessed—he had absolutely no idea.

“I’ll transfigure one more time if Kevin is here,” the lady said.

“Okay. I’ll get him.”

Schuster locked the restroom door, then the employees-only door, then the lobby door, and walked down the driveway in a drizzle, where Wayne, John, and Kevin waited for him.

“We were about to check on you,” Wayne said. “What’s wrong?”

“I had to search the premises. And the lady seems to be under the impression she is a böxenwolf,” Schuster said.

“Great,” Wayne said.

“How far under the impression?” Kevin asked.

“She had this wolf belt on.” He held up the evidence bag. “She wouldn’t tell us over the phone because it sounded crazy.”

“Another one?” John asked.

“What was she doing when she wore it?” Kevin asked.

“What were the other ones doing?” Wayne asked John.

“Let’s go. No one mess with anything inside. If it looks out of place, leave it alone. I have to document it. She was hiding in the lady’s employee restroom.”

“When she was wearing the wolf strap, was it functional?” Kevin asked.

“What?” Schuster and Wayne asked.

“Did the wolf strap have an effect on her? What condition was she in?” Kevin asked, as if asking, When you found her in the coffin, decapitated and with a stake in her heart, was she dead?

“I’m not positively sure how wolf straps work,” Schuster said.

“We were talking about it for a couple hours,” Wayne said.

“You were theorizing.”

“And it wouldn’t have an effect anyway.”

“Maybe sometimes the belts work and maybe they don’t always. Making one requires some attention.”

Tired of listening to them argue, Schuster said, “No one talk to her, except for Kevin. He has to.”

Schuster warned them about the defenses inside of Happy Howlers. He gave them permission to make a hot drink and change into dry clothes, but to restrict their movements.

Opening the door, Schuster said, “Watch out for the broken mug.”

“That was Suzanne’s mug,” Wayne snapped. “She broke in, ate our snacks, and broke Suzanne’s mug?”

“I broke her mug opening the door. Sorry about that. I’ll get her a new one.”

“Come on,” Wayne said to John. “You’re blue, and you need to dry your feet.”

“Thanks,” John said.

Schuster locked the doors and let himself and Kevin into the employee’s restroom.

“Finally,” the lady said.

Schuster interrupted Kevin, “Okay, you have a lawyer, so you’re going to put on the belt again, like you said.”

“Do I have to?” she asked.

“No, you don’t have to,” Kevin said.

“We don’t have a female officer or another lady here. I’m not sure who I could get,” Schuster said.

“I couldn’t care less right now,” she said.

“Okay, that helps for a while. I have to see the belt clearly while it is being used to determine if it does something, so I’m going to tie it on over your clothes.

“It works different over clothes. You won’t like it,” she said.

Kevin objected, which Schuster considered a normal reaction.

“I’ll get it off you as soon as I can. I’m going to unhandcuff you so no one can say you escaped.”

“It’s a bad idea,” the lady said.

Fairly certain a wolf could not easily keep its front paws up, Schuster said, “Don’t make sudden movements.”

He tied the wolf strap around her waist, although the lady warned him she would look much different than the previous times she transfigured, and she worried he would shoot her.

Slower than before, fur sprouted on the lady’s hands and feet, which shortened almost into paws and her thin wrists shrank. Her face elongated and she said something unintelligible. The baggy clothes hung oddly.

Schuster drew his gun and stepped in front of Kevin, saying, “That’s not what I saw.”

“This happens when the belt is worn over clothes. She warned you. It’s nothing to worry about. Don’t worry about it,” Kevin said.

Schuster knelt as far from the lady as possible and yanked the rawhide bow. As the belt unwrapped, the lady transfigured into a human form again.

Kevin said, “If she intended to attack you, she would have.”

The lady was telling Kevin to tell Schuster to stop aiming at her; Kevin continued defending her while Schuster roughly handcuffed her.

Wayne knocked on the door, startling everybody. “Everything okay in there?”

“No,” Schuster said, but Kevin said, “Yes, it’s fine.”

“It’s under control,” Schuster said, aiming at her again. “That wasn’t what I saw.”

“I told you!” she said.

“I saw a wolf the first time. Does the wolf strap work differently over clothes than over skin?”

“I told you so,” she said.

Kevin said, “She is being very cooperative and unaggressive. You’re threatening her.”

“It’s self-defense,” Schuster said.

“Has she done anything aggressive?”

“No.”

“And she has cooperated with you.”

“The way she looked before looked pretty threatening, and she could do it again.”

“You are worried because of what she looks like?”

“She looks like some kind of monster. She’s the same thing, but she looks different now.”

“You were raised better than that. You haven’t seen her do anything wrong,” Kevin said.

“It isn’t normal.”

“Looking non-human isn’t illegal. And I won’t let her cooperate with you if you continue threatening her.”

Schuster unloaded his gun and handed the magazine and round to Kevin, who flickered an alarmed expression.

To the lady, he said, “Turn into a werewolf like you did when I got here. Turn into the kind that looks like a real wolf.”

“I’m not doing it again,” the lady said.

“It might help him understand your case,” Kevin said.

“I showed you already.”

“I wasn’t paying enough attention.”

“Why not? Since when don’t you pay attention?”

“Someone will ask me to explain what I saw, and I have to process it before I can explain it,” Schuster said. “I have to compare it. And I have to see the belt being tied on over your skin. Can it be your arm or something?”

“No.”

“Sorry, ma’am. Do you want to wait for another lady?”

“Whatever. I’ll transfigure one more time, but that’s all.”

“It isn’t decent,” Kevin said.

“So, stand in the corner,” the lady said.

Kevin did.

Schuster unhandcuffed the lady again. Quickly and hunched, she undressed and tied on the wolf strap again, complaining under her breath. The complaints turned into huffs and growls.

In wolf form, she glared at Schuster. She did not have eyebrows and was not staring like a wolf would, but she had the same expression people adopted when cooperating with the police against their will.

“I don’t need to see you transform back because I get that the wolf strap does it,” Schuster said. And it is the creepiest part, he thought.

Wishing he did not need to bend over or crouch, and that he had a howitzer or a flame-thrower, Schuster held up the dress.

The wolf slid backward under the dress, keeping her front paws visible at all times. He dropped it over her and the lumps began shifting. A few seconds later, the huffing and growling developed into muttered complaints, and Schuster dropped the dress over her. A human arm poked through the neck hole, and she retracted it.

“Are you happy now?” The lady’s human head emerged from the dress’ neck hole.

No, he thought. “I got what I needed. Thanks for your cooperation, ma’am. I’m going to handcuff you again.”

“I have to pee.”

“Okey-dokey. Knock on the door when you’re done.”

Schuster pushed Kevin through the door first and he bumped into Wayne. John held a running tape recorder.

Part 14 coming March 21, 2025.

"Wait, I thought Genies only had three rules!"

"Well, we did, but it's been thousands of years. Generations of you humans trying to make loopholes. Don't blame me for the 100 rules, blame them."

“Ok… Well, what are they?”

“Well you have your standard starting four….

You get three wishes

No killing anyone

No making people fall in love with you

And no bringing people back from the dead”

“Right, everyone knows those.”

“Those were the only three rules for centuries. Then you humans started to get ‘clever’ with it. So now there's more.”

“And those are?”

“Well if you don't interrupt me we’d be payday through it already wouldn't we? Alright! These were all added so that the thing happened, so try to keep up.

No writing more than one wish down on a piece of paper and then wishing for ‘everything on this paper’ to happen or come true

No using AND during your wish to make multiple wishes one wish

No writing more than one wish on anything and then wishing for ‘everything I wrote down’ to happen or come true

No wishing for your ‘perfect partner’

No making a ‘perfect partner’

No wishing for people to say ‘yes’ to everything you ask

No wishing for infinite wishes

No listing more than one wish and then wishing for ‘everything you just listed’ to happen or come true

No test wishes

No, making a wish and then taking it back to get the wish back

No take-backsies, some guy insisted there was a difference,e and now it is a rule

No creating alternate realities

No creating parallel realities

No creating other realities

No creating alternate dimensions

No creating parallel dimensions

No creating other dimensions

No bringing creatures from other dimensions here

No bringing people from other dimensions here

No bringing things from other dimensions here

No bringing creatures from other realities here

No bringing people from other realities here

No bringing things from other realities here

No making clones of yourself

No making clones of other people

No making clones of other creatures

No making copies of yourself

No making copies of other people

No making copies of other creatures

No wishing to become a god

No wishing for godly powers

No wishing for godly control over others

No wishing to become a genie

No wishing for time magic, the time gods are still very pissed off about what happened last time…

No wishing for infinite powers

No wishing for the power to grant your wishes like a genie

No wishing for more genies

No making copies of a genie

No making infinite genies

No wishing to know where to find other genies

No wishing to change the wish rules

No wishing to get rid of the wish rules

No wishing to make an exception to the wish rules

No wishing for immortality

No wishing for other people’s immortality

No wishing for the planets’ immortality

No wishing for the solar systems’ immortality

No wishing for the dimensions’ immortality

No wishing for the realities’ immortality

No making alternate timelines

No making parallel timelines

No altering the timeline

No altering the alternate timelines

No altering the parallel timelines

No going to alternate timelines

No going to parallel timelines

No destroying alternate timelines

No theory ign parallel timelines

No destroying alternate realities

No destroying parallel dimensions

No destroying alternate dimensions

No destroying parallel realities

No going to alternate realities

No going to parallel dimensions

No mind control

No will control

No time travel, again another guy said it was different, and now it is a rule

No asking for a person to die

No wishing for someone else to kill someone

No wishing for someone else to die

No wishing for a ‘death note’

No wishing for anime magical objects

No wishing for anime ‘power-up’ objects

No, becoming a magical girl that one didn't sound bad but it was…. It was…

No messing with the spirit world

No controlling spirits, and exorcisms are allowed but that's it

No wishing to ‘control time’

No wishing to ‘become an eldritch being’

No wishing for a pen that makes anything you write come true

No wishing for a computer that makes everything you write/type come true

No wishing for a keyboard that makes everything you write/type come true

No, wishing for typewriting that makes everything you write/type come true

No wishing for a pencil that makes everything you write come true

No wishing for a marker that makes everything you write come true

No wishing for a morse code machine that makes everything you put into code come true

No wishing for a god to be your pet

No wishing for a god to be your slave

No wishing for a goddess to be your pet

No wishing for a goddess to be your slave

No wishing for another person to be your pet

No wishing for another person to be your slave”

“I'm sorr, why the pet thing?”

“Some weird girl insisted that if a being was her pet then they had to do whatever she commanded them to, it was a loophole to the slave thing.”

“Oh, yeah that makes sense. Please continue”

“Glad you agree, we were all very… disturbed about that particular one…

No wishing for an eldritch being to be your pet

No wishing for an eldritch being to be your slave

No creating gods

No creating goddesses

No creating eldritch beings

And that's it… so far.”

“Well then fine! I wish for more Wishes!”

“Yeah you can't do that, that's the baseline agreement dude.”

“Well you didn't list it in the rules!”

“I'm going back into the lamp now.”

“Well, what can I do?!”

“You can make it so your pets live for as long as you do, never feel pain or suffering, and only die a peaceful and painless death alongside you.”