Hearsay Horizons

She wasn’t the first. She wasn’t the most passionate, and she didn’t have a hot temper. I had had defiant, I had had malleable. I loved them all when I met them, and I love them still. They wait in the summerlands for me to come home—each as different as every breeze, except that they share me. She was not brave. She was not a fighter, a healer, or a quickfinger. She was nothing except attentive. Attentive, and lovely—seen through my lover’s eyes. She listened to me, and she tried to see how I saw. When passion took me away, she held me steady. When rages shook me, she brought me back. She was a peasant with nothing but a frail, foolish father—and the heart of a fey lord.            “I’ll bring him, too,” I said once again.            “It’s not just him.” We were on the step outside her home. Day was failing. That was the deal: out by nightfall, gone until morning. I assented to this pa...

She is strapped into a chair, her limbs bound, her head bound. Every bit of her bound, except for her eyes and her mouth. The music stand in front of the bench to which she is tied is incongruous, out of place in this dark room where military equipment beeps along the walls, like great cats waiting in the shadows with glowing eyes made of dials and buttons. The music stand holds lines upon lines--of troop movements, not compositions. Enemy movements. With furtive prodding from uniformed figures standing just out of her limited sightline, she tries again and again to read out each line. Gloved hands turn the pages when she reaches the end. These are educated guesses at troop movements in different places that are not yet war zones. The words snare in her throat. No one helps her when she gags on the untrue statements, unable to voice anything but her misery. Once in a great while, a line from the pages does make it past her parched, cracked lips. When that happens, she can hear orders ...

This house had seen better days. Vivian grimaced at the note in her hands, but the address matched faded letters on the mailbox. The house, a small one-story nesting in a smaller, overgrown yard, had been sided with remnants: it was a mix of red, green, yellow, gray--and a rotten black where siding had been torn off to expose the wood underneath. A dingy, smoke-stained blind cut off any view inside through the picture window. The sidewalk bordering the yards to either side petered out here to leave behind weeds and dead grass.          The asphalt driveway up to the carport glistened with newness. Vivian walked beside it up to the front door. She struggled past the rusty screen door to knock on the inner one. No one answered. Before Vivian could knock again, something yowled inside the house. Either her movement or the sound startled the lump underneath Vivian's hoodie; she put her hand on it as it began to shift.         "No...

These evening games were a blessing after the harsh summer day. The cacophony here behind home plate was intense: the crack of every hit, the roar of the crowd at each almost-home-run or foul ball that popped into the stands, the pulsing music played between each new batter, the announcer cutting in with stats and names. And the vendors stepping through the aisles hawking their wares.           "Ice cream! We're screaming for ice cream!"           "Popcorn. Get your popcorn here!"           "Crackerjack's a ballgame classic!"           "Hot dogs!" the blonde in the baseball cap bawled over the other vendors and her own earplugs. "Hot dogs!" She schlepped her heavy, sloshing case up and down the stairs. Someone waved, and the woman turned. "Hey, sir!" The man nodded. He brought his head back and his eyes slid down her uniform: a tank and too-short shorts.        ...

“How come it’s always so gross down here?” Sarah struggled to lift up a wooden sheep larger than herself while Ben swept. They both sneezed.                          “Dunno,” he said. “We were here last week. Maybe Mrs. Sterling and Pastor Graves come down after we leave and make it dirty again.”                          “Why would they do that?”                          “What kinda punishing is it if there’s nothin’ down here?” he said. The floorboards overhead creaked, and they both jumped.                          “Plenty kinda,” she said. Ben laughed until it turned into a sneeze. He puffed his chest.                          “You don’t gotta be scared ...

Two semis struggle side-by-side up a curving, four-lane highway. Ahead of them, the asphalt stretches long and empty until bitten off by the top of the steep hill. Only the cars rushing past on the other side betray how slowly the trucks move--those cars, and the roar of beeps behind them. The Kenworth sways and veers in the left lane; it oscillates between scraping the concrete divider and plunging over the yellow line. Each time it swings out too far, its Navistar companion nudges it back into place.            They crest the hill. There, in the distance: the gleaming, bulky backs of the rest of the herd. The Kenworth manages a low note from its horn that sputters out as it begins down the hill. The Navistar trails it, and then leaps forward as the Kenworth swerves more seriously. It cannot stop the Kenworth's swayback roll as one of the Kenworth's right wheels gives out.            The Kenworth lands heavily on i...

"And last, but not least, an old favorite." PG smiled for the camera facing the small stage. She noticed her producer on his phone through her peripheral vision; Rhea Rose, standing beside the camera, gave PG a thumbs-up with the hand not holding a dove. PG turned her focus back to the card table in front of her. She lifted the only item on it, a plain black top hat, and turned it for the camera. She tapped its top, and bent its rim. Solid. PG put it back down. The magician made a production of rolling up her sleeves and shaking out the ends of her gloves: no tricks to this trick! She reached into the hat.                 "Presto!" PG said. She tilted her head like a confused puppy at her empty hand. "Hmm," she said. "They must be pretty nervous." PG reached inside again; the monitor facing her flashed a glimpse of over-generous cleavage. Bud gave her his own thumbs-up; she knew he kept lowering the card table, but he'd never admit to it. PG...

Warm day good for sleeping. We rather be dozing in sun--could be sleeping right now, like these humans hid behind fans or hands. How could we sleep when we could watch her work? No, not watch. She stand with stranger human, stand in front of king and prince. Prince not wear his hard shell now, but he still have his fang. He still predator that laughs: Killer-of-kin. We rather listen to her work.           We still bad at telling humans, but we can see their different tones in hide and clothes. We hear the rolling letters and harsh sounds and the clicks. She understands them all, even signs the humans make with clawless hands. She makes us all understand words heard in head without sound. They speak and she makes the king and court hear and this makes kingdom strong because. Because... people?          She makes us understand, but hard to say. Not predator. Like kin, but only when gold is good. If not, then prey. We turn the gol...

Klung. Klung klung. Klung. Klung-klung-klung. Calla kicked at the steel door with her bare foot. At least they'd left her the robes on her back. Not a bad cell, for a cell--the bucket in the corner of the room had a cover, and there were blankets on the stone slab that served as a bed. There was a knot half-heartedly tied in the bedclothes; the only window here was a thin slice of light at the top of the ceiling, and Calla, though bony, just wasn't flat as parchment. She kept up her kicking. It took a few minutes, but the peephole in the door eventually rasped open.         "What." The guardsman had his eyes downcast. When Calla twisted her head, the man flipped his gaze up toward the ceiling.         "This is wrongful imprisonment," Calla said.         "No such thing. Lord's orders."        "I'm not a necromancer or a necrourge!" She slammed her hands on the door. The man's eyes flickered, but he kept ...

It's just after six on a Saturday evening in 1983, forty-five minutes before the worst earthquake in the history of Acadia, Washington.            Lily's father is no longer talking to her as they walk. He moves silently beside her, pulling her onward along the cracked and scarred concrete. They leave the outer edges of the city behind, and the soft, smudgy glow of streetlights and neon signs surround them in a curtain of light. People--townies, tourists, bicyclists, dog-walkers, club-goers--choke up the streets and dip suddenly out of alleys. Now Lily outpaces her father. She leads him through the crush of people on a path that carries them smoothly across every road in their way. Her father's hand on hers is hard, and he keeps looking down at the watch on his other wrist.        "What's wrong?" He blinks down at Lily. They've hit their first red light.        "Nothing," he says. Her father keeps his eyes on his ...

The speed limit here was sixty, but I went five. Other drivers honked and glared at me as they veered around my car. My sister jumped at each sound, but she didn't stop walking. No matter how many times she turned to look behind her, Amanda's eyes slid right over our shared Camry. Her face and shoulders were a bright, angry red. A water bottle dangled from her fingers; it'd been empty since before I got here.        I rolled down the window; a puff of asphalt air hit my face. The road shimmered like a mirage in the long distance stretching before us. Train tracks slashing across the road ahead glinted harsh in the summer sun. I could taste fumes from the semis that didn't seem to notice me, that sped right past. Amanda stumbled off of the road and onto the gritty shoulder each time, but she didn't stop. She didn't notice her shadows keeping pace with her, slanted against the sun.         The water bottle glanced hard off of a guard rail. Amanda ...

Dutch leaned forward to tap the partition separating him from the cabbie. "You can let me out here," he said. The carriage slowed; a tray in the wall clicked open, and Dutch gave it the expected coins. When they came to a stop, Dutch stepped out. He waited, looking over some storefront with absent eyes, until the cab's reflection turned the corner. Dutch settled his satchel more securely on his shoulder for the walk.           The café a few blocks down the cobbled street had no sign, its only advertising the smell of baked goods. And "coffee." Dutch wrinkled his nose at the strong, bitter smell. His passage through most of the café went unremarked by the maids staffing the counter. He seated himself at a booth; the man on the other side wore an impeccable suit paired with a fabulous mustache. Dutc h brushed his own bare lip after he removed his hat.           "You are Dutch?" The younger man took a moment to parse the thick Spanish a...