Peach Tree Grove

      A hand against the sheet and the glow of a lamp on the dresser. There were sparkles on her skin. She remembered realizing it with an absent kind of wonder, but being fully absorbed in it anyway, turning her hand this way and that to catch the shimmer of the minuscule flecks of mineral that hinted at themselves on her palm.      The door opened.      "Hi Mom!"     "It's time for bed sweetie."     She obediently wriggled herself under the covers and waited with wide eyes for her mother to come and turn out the lights. As soon as her adult came close enough she stuck out her hands and waved them in her mother's face.      "Mommy look, my hands are sparkly!"      Her mother squinted, smiling. "What do you mean honey?"     "They're sparkly!" She didn't know any other way to say it.      Her mother laughed and squeezed the tiny hands in hers before kissing her daughter...

      He burst out of the water with a gasp, liquid dribbling from his mouth as he coughed and struggled to stay afloat. His hands hit stone and he sucked in cool, life-giving air with all his might as he dragged himself out of the water and onto the damp, smooth stone of her inner cave. He pulled himself to his feet and touched his stinging, deeply aching side gingerly. His tongue slid across his upper lip and he tasted blood in the saltwater. So that blow to the face had done something.      In front of him sat a low table under the same kind of wooden gateway that lead to the Japanese Shinto temples above, old and unpainted. A bottle of sake and little cups sat on top of it, along with a clean and dry human skull. A myriad of shimmeringly embroidered and patterned cushions were spread out behind  it, and the tilted wheels of tattered paper parasols were scattered around the scene. The rest of the cave was cold, bare, and wet.      He ...

  Rex could feel the death in the dirt.  It wasn’t cemetery death, cemetery death was neat and ordered. Bones that belonged to the same bodies were buried together in chosen plots, in their own special places, arranged the same way they’d been arranged in life.  The bones here weren’t like that, they hadn't been cared for. They 'd been jumbled up and mixed together and then rattled carelessly down into the ground like trash. And it wasn't just the bones here. He had always been able to feel the bones, to feel the last ruins of living bodies under the soil. He'd always been able to feel that. The blood was new. And dark.  There was anger in the blood, wrongness, a rage that made it cling. And it bubbled . He could feel it coming up from the earth, screaming through his veins, boiling through his blood and into his brain in a raging, roiling blackness roaring injustice- He gasped as his knees hit the dirt.  He breathed in in deep, heaving gulps and pushed himself ...

      "How was he dealt with?" The light of the cigarette tip strengthened, and the man in the dark silk shirt exhaled in a pale, billowing cloud.      "He escaped, sir. Grenades and flash bombs were planted in preparation for him severing ties."     "He planned well." The man was silent, and cigarette embers were tapped into an ashtray.      The subordinate in front of him didn't say anything more, only waited for orders.      Another tap on the ashtray, and the man in the silk shirt gave them. "You are no longer in charge of this assignment. Nanami will handle this stray."     "Yes sir."      "Please send her in on your way out."      The other man looked up, visibly pale, but said nothing; only turned on his heel and left the room.      A few minutes later a short girl with hot pink eye shadow walked into the room and seated herself on the desk, leaning back no...

      There she was-the weird girl from the other day, he recognized her pale hair and orange cardigan.      He almost raised his hand and shouted a greeting, but she had jumped a good six feet when he'd done that last time, and then run off before he could say anything. He'd wait till he got a little closer and say hello in a normal tone of voice. Keep the volume down. Like Mom said, judge the situation, curb his enthusiasm accordingly, all that good stuff. And it sounded like she was already talking to someone too.      "Yes I know that I need to take care of it, but I also have to go to school! People start asking questions if you don't go to school!" she hissed.      "Would they? In all truth?"     "Yes!" she clutched the handle of her cello case close to her. Who was she talking to?      "But it is not their business what you do. And this is more important." That other voice was weird. It was kind ...

       The thief paused with one foot on the balcony and smiled out at the view before her, the dark sky above and the bright streets lighting her way below. She savored the night breeze on her face and her smile only grew wider as the door burst open behind her and the shorter of the two detectives rushed out.      "Alright crazy, I've caught you now!" she grinned breathlessly, and held out her taser in front of her as she approached, cuffs in one hand.      "Well, I suppose you would think that at first glance." the thief nodded in acknowledgement, and then stepped up onto the balcony with both feet and a smile.      "What-" The detective went slack-jawed as the other woman turned to face the city, arms spread, coat flapping in the wood, and enjoyed the breeze for a moment more.  Then she turned and winked.     "Good luck deciphering my note Miss Lily." And she jumped.      Lily scrambled fo...

      There is a place that is split in two.       On one side of the divide sits a town half-buried in dust, barren open plains, and dry, wind-stripped canyons. The sun beats down with a hateful, constant heat there. There the beams that make the people's buildings are bleached and splintered under the sun's intense heat, and the people who live there are sun-creased and wily as coyotes, their senses of humor and of honor as stripped to the bone as their towns. They only know the heat and the dusty dry; they thirst there, thirst for cool, for fertile ground, for water in abundance.     The towns on the other side have never known that hateful heat. All they know is rain. Rain that pours in never-ceasing sheets from the black sky and drips down their flickering neon bulbs and wet-blurred windows. They walk through dark streets under an inch of water with their heads down, the rain sliding off the hoods of their ponchos and their sleek coats, ...

     The city people say a spirit walks their wires.      The lonely people are the ones who know him the best. From a balcony, from the street, they see a pair of red and black sneakers pace the power lines, the figure above them hidden beneath baggy clothes and a deep hood. You can see his ankles, they say, confirmation that it is in fact the figure of a man walking the space between the telephone poles, only a single black line between him and falling. They never see his face. They only see his back, see his arm, see a collar and a deep shadow.     The lonely people love him like one of their own, and the other people love him as their protector.      He has an iron grip they say, and feet that walk the air like the steps on a fire escape. He needs no weapon for the men in the alleys.       There are stories, you see, stories of old women and young women, stories of beaten men who saw the gray shadow appear be...

     Onni’s breath turned to billowing clouds in the cold night air as he set down his hammer and turned his eyes from the tent pegs to the stars. He sat down with another huff of cloud, flexing his stiff and chafed hands, skin tight with the cold. He would build a fire in a minute.  The moon was very bright, only half-full, and a sea of stars spiraled out in every direction from it. They were bright too, and cold as the ice. Other nights they seemed warm and shimmering to him, or twinkling with laughter, but tonight they were just cold. Onni sighed and dropped his head. His thoughts flew back, as they had when he was sailing across the ice, to his sister, all alone on the cold, frozen ocean. His hand came up to rub the crystal that hung at his neck. He hoped she was safe. He prayed that she was safe, and that she had enough food, and that he wouldn’t die and leave her to die waiting and alone in their empty home, and he prayed most of all that he would get her t...

There was a figure standing in the shadows, a silhouette still in the corner.  Elenore approached the window slowly, her eyes never leaving the dark figure, and with one motion, down she pulled the velvet curtains in a sweeping trail of dust.  Her lips parted in wonder as she slowly stepped forward. The figure was too still to be human, posed lightly, ever so delicately, on the toe of one foot.  She was a doll.  She was a doll unlike any Elenore had ever seen, the most beautiful toy, the most beautiful figurine she could ever have imagined, brushed a deep midnight cobalt, gold flaking forward on her brow and cheek bones, her hair tumbling back over her shoulders. She had been made to be small girl about Elenore’s age, with slim, elegantly structured limbs, a perfectly sculpted face, and thick, dark lashes closed in a curling line over eyes large enough to look unnatural on anyone but this already impossibly lovely doll.  Elenore stepped forward and slowly traced...

          I want to be a thief, a gentlewoman with downward-tilted hat and elegant gloved fingers, gloved fingers that left no marks on the sparkling glass case where the jewels rested only a moment ago as I disappear in a puff of smoke, an immaculate fantasy, a beautiful phantom; daring, flamboyant, impossible.  I want to be a detective, tapping, smoking, my suspenders shrugged off my shoulders, pacing a floor littered with newspaper clippings and grainy photos fluttered down from their pins, possessor of more luck than my Irish ancestors, more dogged than any hunting hound, a determined devil to any man with a clenched smile and a smoking gun. I want to be a knight, a dragon-slayer, a lone samurai with a humble heart and only a honed blade and an unbent back left to me, a disaster to the demon-dragon with forked tongue and spiteful fire, a shield to the innocent and the worst of nightmares to the wicked.  I want to be a maiden pure, unstai...

Isaiah leaned on an empty bus stop, empty now of its usual crowd of commuters. Between the fingers of one hand he held a smoldering cigarette, and with the other he wrote in sharpie on the wall.  “You know those things’ll totally destroy your lungs.”  Isaiah straightened. A teenager stood next to him with earbuds in hand, out for her morning run. She gestured to the tube between his fingers. He didn’t say anything, just turned to face the road and took a long drag of his lung-destroyer.  “I mean it. You should look it up on Google. Those pictures’ll get you off them in a snap.”  Isaiah turned to look at her again but didn’t answer, just held her eyes steadily. She shifted uncomfortably under his gaze for several seconds, until he finally turned his eyes back to the road. She shrugged, relieved that he had turned away from her. “Whatever. I was just trying to help.” She glanced over at what he had written.  “What is this stuff anyway? It doesn’t make any sens...

What a tiny cog I am in this great celestial machine, spinning and whirling amidst a hurricane of trillions of stars. What a fragile little soul, flickering in my tiny world above the clay and the copper and the iron, a flame half as bright as the last dying ember of coal in the cold furnace.  I dance here in the whirlwind below a thousand million swirling spheres of iridescent flames. I dance here, one of trillions of fragile little soul-fires, some red and impotent with rage, some pure and white-hot with sacrifice.  Here I dance, dancing to make myself hotter, dancing till I am made even greater than the great swirling explosions in the sky, dancing till I am made even greater than the powerhouses of His enormous celestial machine.

    *Cough cough* Meghan wheezed and stumbled backwards, jerking out of the trunk.     " Ouch! " Her head banged against the lid, and two pewter statuettes and an ancient fan thunked to the floor inches away from her foot as her lungs worked desperately to drive the invading clouds of dust out of her throat.    "Are you all right sweetie?" Meghan's mother poked her head around a shelf.    "Yes," She wheezed out between coughs.     Her mother smiled and disappeared back into the shadows and dust that permeated the store. The front had been clean and well-lit by the display windows, but you could tell only a few rows out that the owners had lost the battle with the dust out on this frontier.     Meghan replaced the figurines on their lace runner and moved away from that deadly trap of a hope chest.     She and her mother were in an antique store, one of many that her mother loved to visit, but t...

   Erraline sat at her balcony looking out at the pearly sky and snowy peaks that surrounded her. Dove-gray clouds softened the stark black and white mountains that ringed the hotel on all sides.    This was her favorite space in her rooms, out here alone with the open sky and cold mountains. Being with them made all her frustrations seem very temporary, they cleared her thoughts and made her feel like something would come, something might change.    "Erraline?"    A voice wafted out from inside, and Erraline sighed. She lifted her head and enjoyed the wind against her face a moment more, skirts ruffling against her legs, stray hairs wafting away from her neatly done hair.    The balcony door opened with a chuk  and Erraline turned away from the wind.    "Erraline? There you are, it's time to begin your lessons."    Erraline followed Madame Oyena into the little library that served as her schoolroom. ...

   His footsteps echoed as they hit the dark marble and bounced off the walls. Crow would never understand why his mother had needed such a big castle-it was a little too warlike to be called a palace-when it had always been only her, his father, and the bare minimum of servants, and then him and Dryr near the very end. Maybe she had been planning to make her own court someday, people of her choosing to throw her balls and parties for. He couldn't see any other reason for such a big, gaudy ballroom.     He placed his palm on a gray marble column. There were cracks running through it, a few chips coming off where the divisive stone webs made crossroads. The rest of the room was full of dust, cobwebs criss-crossing the spaces between draped velvet and the walls and hiding in corners around the ceiling.     His eyes fell down to the crest above the double doors he had come in through. It had an enormous chunk gauged right out of its center, a wound j...

   Karo threw the book across the room so violently that Chase flinched. His glare bore a hole in the wall above where it had fallen, dark eyes flashing like chipped obsidian. He sat like he was frozen against the wall, spine straight, head leaning only slightly back, legs extended in front of him.     Eventually he spoke.  "It wasn't me. None of it was. It was just my image." His voice cracked. "I was just in love with the idea of it, I probably wouldn't have done it otherwise, I was just-" He choked off and buried his head in his knees. "I was in love with the aesthetic. And I did it. I've done something unspeakable because of aesthetic! " He screamed the last word, throwing his head back against the wall, tears streaming down his face.     Chase came and sat down on the bed next to him, holding the darker boy as he sobbed into his shirt, blue eyes cloudy with worry.     "Karo, what's going to happen now?" His voice came out ...