limen-lime

[limen-lime]

muddy buddies !!

[limen-lime]

Gothic Romance Covers

[limen-lime]

is hazel going to blow up their house if she sleeps there?

They returned to Broceliande as the bitter orange sun hung low on the horizon. The days were growing shorter, the nights longer. Hazel pictured the clock winding down to the equinox. The proverbial sword suspended above their heads glinted.

"We haven't talked about it," her mother said in the quiet of the vehicle winding back along the narrow road. “Your dream.”

"You heard the whole thing over the radio,” Hazel muttered, “like it was the morning news.”

She watched the trees for Jack’s monster.

“More at ten,” she said. “Join us every hour, on the hour.”

She hoped nothing was watching her back.

“Let’s go to Jan for the weather."

She tried not to think of her mother with blood on her hands.

“It’s never been like that before. I’ve never been in them, not a stranger’s dream.” Iris curled her un-bloodied hands forward over the cracked leather steering wheel, then ran them down the sides with a sigh. She melted into the seat. Her eyes remained on the road.

"And on top of that, it was another about the End?"

Capital "E." Period. Exclamation point.

"Yes."

Someone else was out there, someone who knew the apocalypse was coming, someone who could understand.

"The first time you had one of those, you couldn't talk for a week."

Hazel could remember that spring morning like the back of her eyelids, like the movie she watched over and over as a child, like the jingle from that insurance commercial she hated. The one where everyone started singing opera on the bus.

She had slept in that morning after a late night of coffee, fast food, and an ethics paper that had nearly turned her into an ax murderer. The air was warm and fresh, waking up after a long winter. Pollen coated the roof of her roommate's car. Mushrooms grew through the uneven place where the wall met the floor behind her twin-sized bed. Outside the window, white dogwood trees bloomed against a sky so blue you could reach up and touch it and your fingers would come away stained.

She woke up at 11:14 knowing that the world would end. Soon. Within her lifetime soon. Maybe the next five years soon.

Whatever the exact date was, it didn't matter. Because the world that had turned, unflinching for all of history was going to shatter before Hazel would ever have a chance to really live in it. Everyone she knew, every random person she passed on the street, every life she was unable to quantify or perceive, whether human or otherwise, would be over. And gone.

Her clock told her she was ten minutes late to her advanced algebra class.

She did not go to her advanced algebra class.

Instead, she laid in bed and stared at the brown spot on the ceiling where the air conditioner had leaked the previous summer. She listened to her roommate try to rouse her from her trance before calling Iris, SOS. She considered how her carefully maintained 4.0 GPA, her plans to study abroad her junior and senior years, and any dreams she might have had of starting her own life were nothing more than smoke. Nothing more than dust. A single mote, floating in an infinite nothing.

The world was going to end.

She knew it like she knew how to write her own name, like she knew how to tie her shoes, like she knew how to quote the final court room scene of Legally Blonde. Certain, immutable, unchangeable. As if it had already happened.

“Hazel bee,” Iris said, as soft as white dogwood petals on a blue-stained spring day. It did not pluck her from her thoughts so much as draw her nearer to the surface, within reach of sunlight, of air. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

And there it was, her mother’s answer to the apocalypse. Not that they could stop it. Not that her dreams were incorrect or she was blowing this out of proportion. Only that it hadn’t happened yet, so they would keep calm and carry on, like good little soldiers.

“It hasn’t happened yet,” Hazel repeated dully.

They pulled up to the house at the end of Broceliande, the headlights rolling across the porch, illuminating the windows. An owl perched on the balcony of Hazel’s new room and took off as Iris stepped out into the balmy summer night.

“Whose dream was it then?” she asked, and Iris was silent.

The first dream of the End had been her own. So it had not echoed into infinitude and leveled the rental home she had shared with five other girls. Which was fortunate. Otherwise she would’ve lost her deposit, and Hazel wasn’t exactly made for dorm life.

If someone else was dreaming of the end of the world, and of Iris somehow causing it no less, that was a whole new problem.

Hazel lazily extricated herself from the car, as if they were not discussing omens and portents. Her foot caught on her seat belt, and she nearly fell. Catching herself, she asked, “And what do we do about DJ Know-it-all?”

“That’s a problem,” Iris sighed, “for tomorrow-us. First, we should get some sleep.”

“Not me.” Hazel peered up at the house, at her room, picturing the long night’s vigil ahead.

“It’s been months since someone else lived here. Surely any dreams...” Her voice petered off.

Believe it or not, Hazel did not have the half-life of dreams down to a science yet. While a person’s dream didn’t linger permanently in the place where they slept, some were more persistent than others. It was the difference between paper and plastic and uranium-238.

Mr. Babinski of the Area 51 Motel and Comic Shop had assured them no one had used room eight in months.

So they had thought they’d be safe.

And for Hazel Espinosa, lightning did indeed strike the same place twice. Often and with great personal conviction.

“I’ll stay up for the cleansing ritual,” she muttered. “Just to be safe.”

Iris reached to slip an arm around her daughter’s shoulders. “Do you want help? I don’t mind.”

But Hazel knew her mother was useless at staying up past ten o’clock. She might as well fall asleep in her own bed, rather than on the dusty floor of Hazel’s new room.

“I can handle it,” Hazel told her and let Iris lead her inside.

They parted ways at the stairs, exchanging soft good-night’s and a kiss on the cheek. Hazel climbed the steps to her room, holding her shoes in one hand and her head in the other. By the time she made it inside the bedroom, the world was spinning with panic and exhaustion and someone else’s dust thick on every surface.

Hazel closed the door behind her and slid down it to the floor where she gathered her knees to her chest and allowed herself a good, messy cry. Saying that her day had been “long” would not begin to cover it. She deserved this. She had earned this sob-fest.

And besides, many of Iris’ self-developed rituals used salt and honey. It was why the attic beehive was so fortuitous, and why Hazel didn’t mind sobbing into the first t-shirt she could drag out of the box of her clothes.

The salt from her tears would help to cleanse the room of lingering dreams. And a jar of honey from their previous home would mark the space as her own. So by morning, the room would be safe to sleep in.

Drying her eyes with the back of her hands, Hazel rose from her place on the floor, fished out her old radio, tossed it onto the unmade bed, and plugged it in. It took a few short minutes to tune into the local channel as a familiar voice spilled over the air waves and into her room.

She folded her arms on the mattress and rested her chin on top, listening.

“Good evening, folks. This is your Psychopomp saying, if you’re awake at this hour, you can still be dreaming of California with me, The Mamas and The Papas. And if you’re this morning’s special dreamer, here’s hoping that tonight you’ll be safe and warm. This is California Dreamin’.”

As the opening bars to the song spilled through the radio, Hazel sniffed and hid her eyes. Like she might hold her dreams inside of herself and out of the reach of this anonymous observer, a crumbling sea wall against a tsunami.

She had to figure out who he was. What he knew, if anything. If he could pluck the dreams right out of her head, maybe he could tell her how to keep them from exploding.

Maybe he could tell her why the world was going to end.

Previous

[limen-lime]

what is a witch wolf?

Witches and monsters were both born of magic.

Even as time turned other things to dust, this fact remained. Because the world is not always kind to the strange and the monstrous, when fires blazed in city squares or at the mouths of dens, a shared heritage was sometimes enough ground on which to form an alliance.

Since humanity first reached out its hands to touch the gilded edge of magic, witches were known to take familiars to aid them, and while black dogs or warty toads were traditional, the supernatural also made powerful allies. Only if they could be convinced.

Those who could transform themselves into beasts often chose the shape of the dominate predator in their region. And a witch always needed protection. Wolves were favored as familiars for not only their strength and agility but also their social nature. They could not be tamed, but under the right circumstances, they could be persuaded to protect. To root out the vermin that plagued witches and devoured magic.

A family of wolves could ally themselves with a witch’s line for generations. Magical vermin made for convenient prey, and the magic of their witch family empowered them and secured their territory. As long as the relationship remained mutually beneficial, it persisted.

That was what made Asphodel Meadows safe, the wolves hunting in the shadows.

Only now they were in search of one of their own. And where there was a witch wolf, there was always a witch.

“And not to point out the elephant in the room here,” Misha said once the others were done arguing over what to do about the new predator in town, “but the boy? He’ll be a wolf himself soon enough, come the next full moon.”

“A new wolf, a new witch, and the equinox in a month.” Charity pressed her hands over her eyes and sighed, sinking deeper into her armchair. “I sense impending doom.”

“Let’s have Tristan check the cards for it, just to be sure,” Honesty teased, and Z tugged one of her braids. “Ow! What?”

Thalia stepped closer to Hazel who stood over Jack and watched him sleep fitfully. “You really should come to our end-of-the-summer party,” Thalia told her. She picked up one of the older boy’s hands to inspect for claws.

Hazel scowled down at Jack then at the girl beside her, with all of her mother’s sharp looks and some of her father’s solid build. “Is that really what’s on your mind right now?”

But in reality, Hazel was somewhat flattered. Thalia was striking and sure of herself, and likely sat near the top of the local food-chain both socially and magically. Hazel also would’ve given her right arm to rifle through the girl’s closet.

Thalia placed Jack’s hand back by his side and gave it a pat. “Friday night, I’ll pick you up. That old place on Broceliande, right?”

She watched Hazel’s face carefully. There was something like a dare in Thalia’s eyes, a trait inherited from her grandmother, and Thalia could see it reflected back at her in Hazel’s eyes. They both liked a challenge.

“Are you into classic films?”

Hazel’s eyes widened, a smile unfurling across her smooth features. “What are we talking about here, Golden Age? Or are you more of a cult classic type?”

“Personally? I’m a history of horror film buff, especially the evolution of the creature feature.” She leaned a hip against the arm of the loveseat and gave Jack another meaningful glance as if she appreciated the irony of her words more than anyone else present.

Then she continued, “This will be a drive-in Hitchcock marathon, though.” Thalia rolled her eyes. “And I know, believe me, he’s over-done, not to mention a misogynist, but it was Honesty’s turn to pick. And Alfred loved his blondes, so she’s biased.”

Hazel grinned. “I might be persuaded. What’s in it for me?”

“A chance to make allies,” Thalia said, confirming Hazel’s theory that this was her olive branch. And quite possibly the only one she would get. “And you get a plus one, so choose wisely. Your charity case, perhaps?”

Hazel peered down at Jack a moment more before she felt embarrassed and turned away. “He’s not my charity case.”

“Well, he’s certainly your mom’s, and you and I both know that’s nearly the same thing.” Thalia raised an eyebrow that said, tell me I’m wrong.

She wasn’t.

Hazel sighed. “Anything I should know ahead of time? About what to expect?”

Now it was Thalia’s turn to grin, as she turned back towards the rest of the room. “Oh, I won’t make it that easy on you.” Bumping their shoulders together, she added, “But if it means anything, you’ve got my vote of confidence.”

It did mean something. Hazel had arrived with her mother in more than one town that was betting against her. She peered at Iris across the room, at the other adults. A few glances cast in her direction seemed awfully sharp. She swore she could read the words “motel” and “disaster,” maybe even “impending doom,” on Charity’s lips.

Iris had her hands full, no matter which way Hazel looked at it.

And if they were going to keep their head above the waves, Hazel would have to sink or swim on her own.

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

what are they going to do about jack?

Jack Halley's eyes darted around the room, at the faces of the witches who stared at him in shock. "Deer in the headlights" was not quite an apt descriptor. Imagine instead, if a deer appeared in the path of a jet airplane as it soared tens of thousands of feet above the ground. Both the deer in question and the pilots in their cockpit stared, utterly confused.

Jack, from his vantage point peering through the old grate in the ceiling, had not been able to see who occupied the room below him. He could pick out voices, some young and some old. He knew Iris' voice instantly and Tristan's, of course. The others had been harder.

Now that he saw them, though, it felt like the whole world was falling out from under him. Charity Goode, the head of the PTA and Jack's piano teacher, rose to her feet. Vera, the town’s mayor three terms running, and Gabriel Morgan, who ran the local grocer's and weekly farmer's market, leveled twin gazes at him before they turned to look at one another.

Several of his former classmates were there, too. Honesty and Zeal, who graduated the year before him, and Thalia, a year younger than him, and Tristan, the senior student paired with him in his freshman chemistry class. People he had shared lunch periods with, who had come to his baseball games, who had gathered at the memorial for his two best friends earlier that day.

"You killed them, didn't you?" Jack murmured. He was in a nightmare, and his voice would raise no louder, even though he wanted to scream it at them. The words burned inside him like he'd swallowed the sun. "You killed them."

Misha folded his colossal arms over his chest and huffed. "Ungrateful little brat, isn't he?" He leaned down so that he was in Jack's peripheral. The boy flinched back from him. "You're welcome for saving your life, by the way."

"Misha," Vera chided, but the broad-shouldered man shrugged.

"Might as well know the truth of it. He's already heard everything else."

Jack cowered dangerously close to the glass case of lethal plants, and it brought Vera to her feet as well. "Jack, let us explain."

But the boy shook his head. The room slid this way and that around him, and his head seemed oddly disconnected from his body. He felt his elbow collide with something glass, felt it crack beneath him. Vera Morgan surged forward and seized both his arms, and panic rose like a solar flare in his throat.

"Don't!" He shoved at her, but his arms were full of straw, not muscle and bone. He was falling apart at the seams. "Don't!"

Then he sagged forward into Vera's embrace. Gabriel rushed to her side, and the two of them maneuvered Jack to a love seat shoved into one corner. A harmless, leafy philodendron grew from floor to ceiling and back several times in a curtain of green that reached out with curling vines to stroke the hands of the witch when she neared. Vera brushed the plant aside with a few soft words and smoothed back the sweaty hair from Jack's face.

"This is a problem," she said.

"That is a boy," Iris whispered, her voice tight with anger. "And I might ask you how you let a wolf tear apart his two friends and left him like," she eyed the bandage on his arm, "like this."

All eyes turned to Misha Amory. His jaw worked as his brow wrinkled in thought before he said, "The boy's infected. That's plain enough. He'll need the truth eventually."

He turned his intense gaze on Iris then. "But if you're wondering if one of ours did this, you're dead wrong."

"Convince me," she demanded in turn.

Misha's eyes flashed and turned gold. "Don't tempt me."

Hazel Espinosa cleared her throat to draw the attention of the room, surprising everyone and especially herself. She asked, "If he's planning to go all alpha male and threaten my mother, can I point out that's not really a fantastic piece of evidence in his favor?"

This garnered a laugh from Misha Amory so thundering and boisterous that his whole demeanor instantly brightened to match the color of his glistening eyes. Hazel gave a shuddering sigh of relief and sat back in her chair.

"I suppose you're right, young witch," he said, and the hints of a Nordic accent in his voice became a little thicker as he added, "The last few days have been exhausting. My family has searched high and low for signs of this other wolf, but we've found neither hide nor hair."

"Another wolf?" Iris asked. Her shoulders sagged.

"Yes." Amory nodded. "And not just any wolf, a witch wolf at that."

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

will the other witches let iris write the contract?

They waged their debate over tea in a parlor set into the eastern-facing wall of the Morgan hallway. Plant life filled the fireplace, covered the mantle, and overran the corners of the room, an exotic arrangement of flowers, vines, and herbs that Hazel could not name.

Thalia Morgan, on the other hand, could not only identify them by their common and scientific names, she knew exactly how to brew them into potent poisons. Most of the plants growing in the parlor were lethal to consume, others just to touch. Though, those in particular were kept in a glass case, off limits to anyone but Vera, Thalia’s mother.

Her family prided themselves on not only relying on their magic to make it in the world. They honed their minds, their bodies. They learned skills that would serve a witch, or anyone, quite well.

Thalia watched her mother, a queen and a poisoner, who moved with the grace and power of a lioness, and she believed she understood how a knight must have felt in the presence of his king. A swell of pride and a sharp urge to protect. She watched Iris Espinosa, as well.

And Iris watched back.

As someone who deeply valued the art of watching people, Thalia recognized the same talent in this other witch. Iris appeared calm and demure. She appeared motherly and perhaps passive, but it was a flawless, deceptive surface to her otherwise murky, perilous depths. Thalia thought she was most likely full of watery mysteries.

Iris stirred her floral tea and said, her voice as gentle as the steam curling from her cup, "Vera, whatever it will take to convince you that I am capable of making unbiased decisions in the matter-”

“And need I remind you,” said Charity, who was always quick to interject where she saw fit, "that we only have until the equinox to finalize the contract. You’ve put this off for far too long."

“I had hoped,” Vera Morgan began and cast a glance in Tristan’s direction. “We had all hoped, I think, that Margot would have returned by now.”

The boy, the one representative of the Emrys family present, stood by a large, eastern window and left his own cup of tea unattended on a nearby chair. As if sensing all eyes focusing on him, he turned back to the rest of the room. His smile was enigmatic, which was unusual for him. He was normally so plain. Simple. But when anyone mentioned his sister, Thalia could see the fractured, brittle bones beneath the skin.

“Of course we all wish Maggie was here,” Tristan grinned around his words as he spoke. “But I’m prepared,” here he darted a glance towards Iris, “to represent my family in this, uh, matter.”

“It should be your father.” Gabriel Morgan’s voice was a deep baritone that thrummed through the claustrophobic space of the dark green parlor. He was not a witch, but he was a thief in some ways. And sometimes they were almost the same thing.

They certainly shared the knowing smile - the “I’m pulling something on you, and you’ve no idea” smile - that Gabriel gave to the room then as he asked, “Where is Peter anyway?”

Tristan’s shoulders jumped imperceptibly. Only Thalia and Iris were paying enough attention to notice. “The quarry, he’s busy at the quarry. He couldn’t get away.”

“That’s alright, Tristan.” Iris nodded her head over her tea, eyeing the plants in the fireplace as she set the cup back on its saucer and put it aside. “But your father will want to attend the final meeting. My contracts require the blood of each family’s most powerful witch to seal them.”

Honesty snickered behind one pale hand marked through with blue veins. Thalia elbowed her, spilling chamomile tea onto the knee of Honesty’s overalls. She jumped. Thalia glared. Z watched them with worried grayish eyes before looking to his mother. Charity fumed.

“I’m sorry,” Honesty said and dabbed at the damp spot on her knee with a cloth napkin from the mahogany table in the center of the room. “It’s just, with Margot gone, there are no witches in the Emrys family. Not anymore.”

“That’s not true, and you know it!” Tristan shouted. His broken voice filled the room, and the crystal chandelier overhead flickered.

Hazel gasped from her place on the other side of the window and watched him with wide eyes. Iris’s gaze darted back and forth, measuring, weighing, deciding. Thalia watched the silent exchange happen in mere moments.

“Whether or not that is true, it does not concern me,” Iris began and rose from her seat. She set her hands onto the center table and leaned over them. “The fact is, I am not here to oversee petty disputes between families or to stroke your fragile egos.”

Her dark as a pit eyes turned on Honesty and froze all attempts at an argument. “I am here to ensure the continued peace in this town and the security of the souls therein.”

Then she straightened to her full height, which was not great in stature, but she held herself with absolute confidence. “If you are going to waste my time, I will leave now. Because believe me, I have seen a fair number of dynasties crumble to the same pathetic in-fighting. I have left towns crumbling beneath the weight of a witch’s self-importance, and no amount of begging or pleading will entice me to return when I have knocked the dust of your home off my shoes.”

Her gaze traveled the room, and even Gabriel, a man of staggering height and build, seemed chastened.

Vera leaned back in her chair and raised her cup to Iris with a smile. “Alright, she has my vote.”

Charity, when she was done sending a final sharpened glare in her daughter’s direction, raised her cup as well. “Agreed. I told you she was good.”

Tristan uncrossed his arms from his chest, turned, and grabbed for his cup to join them. “Um, what they said.”

It was decided, then.

Thalia watched the room from her corner, Honesty simmering beside her and Zeal patting her hand. She was so busy, she realized, keeping an eye on the family representatives that she had nearly missed Hazel Espinosa altogether.

But looking then, Thalia saw, that when Hazel had gasped at Tristan’s outburst, it was not him her eyes were fixed on. Even now, her gaze was higher, past Tristan’s head, focused on something on the ceiling.

Thalia turned then, and just in time, she spotted the grate in the ceiling to her right slide back into place. As someone who had spent the lion’s share of her childhood exploring Shears Hall from top to bottom, she knew that grate connected to the room above, a storage closet filled with cleaning supplies, through a short length of ventilation duct.

Peering back at Hazel once more, the girls’ eyes met across the room, and before either of them could say anything about what they had observed, there was the sound of a scuffle from overhead. The room fell quiet. Everyone waited as a pair of heavy footsteps approached a few moments later.

A solid fist pounded the wooden frame of the frosted-glass door twice before it sprang open to reveal Misha Amory holding Jack Halley by the scruff. Misha shoved the boy forward into the room and laughed, “Well, it seems we have a spy in our midst!”

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

how does iris know charity?

Humans and magic coexist the same way that single-cell organisms coexist with the ocean. The two permeate one another and neither are truly capable of understanding the presence of the other, but that does not mean they do not effect each other. Coexistence does not always imply symbiosis. But with witches, bees, a few select species of birds, and wolves particularly, a symbiosis with magic can be quite beneficial indeed.

In order to maintain this coexistence, though, these creatures are meant to move. Magic hates sitting still.

Bees move hives at the beck and call of their queen or perhaps when destruction befalls their previous home. Witches are much the same. They recognize their own queens and follow their direction. But the witch families of Asphodel Meadows had a well-established hive built up over many years. And so, rather than migrate, they believed instead in the act of pilgrimage.

A Meadows witch would, at least once in their life, travel as far and wide as necessary to establish their symbiosis with magic. There were no guidebooks to this process. No rules. No guarantees of success. Sometimes a witch never returned. Sometimes they returned only to leave again and again until, eventually they gave up or they found the secret.

Charity Goode left home when she was eighteen, a prime age for the pilgrimage. She took bus after bus, whichever left the station nearest to the witching hour. This, she claimed later, might have been an act of hubris since any bus station past dark was the most inhospitable place she'd ever been. And by luck or by misfortune she arrived one sunny day in Fidelity, Arkansas.

And when Charity met Fidelity, she fell head over heels.

She loved it so much, she adopted the accent, settled down, and made a name for herself as Fidelity's first witch. It was perhaps a risky move. And certainly not everyone in the sleepy little town approved of her job title, but Charity was something of a wonder. With her golden hair, fair complexion, and cornflower eyes, she could charm anybody, living or dead.

The dead, in particular, found Charity to be quite entrancing. And there weren't many people, even in Fidelity, who wouldn't pay to speak to someone beyond the Veil.

As word of Charity's talents spread, so did her habit for causing trouble. She left a string of broken hearts so long, it reached right across the Mississippi and snagged on the zipper of Iris Espinosa's well-worn suitcase. When she heard of a witch in Arkansas able to commune with the dead, she took herself and her babies, one toddling alongside and one yet unseen, and she made the journey to Fidelity.

It is said that witches could find each other in a crowd, blindfolded and with their hands tied behind their back. This was not always true, but in the case of Charity and Iris, as Charity tells it, she sensed the moment that Iris' foot touched the ground in Fidelity, "Like an eight on the Richter scale."

Earthquake or not, the two witches quickly became both friends and allies. And while neither woman ever spoke of the séance they held together on Iris' first and only night in town - the same night on which Lavender Espinosa was born - it apparently did enough damage to Fidelity, its graveyard in particular, that even Charity could not charm her way out of it. So she took it as her sign to return home.

Yet, a friendship persisted through exchanged letters and eventually emails, as even witches have to adapt with the times.

So when the bi-centennial celebration of Asphodel Meadows' founding neared, the Families met to discuss who would be called to draft the newest contract that would ensure the general peace and continuity of the town. And Charity had but one name in mind: Iris Espinosa.

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

Lumen

It began with a dream, as most things do. But this was not the sort of dream that usually entails a beginning. In fact, it was the biggest ending of them all, the end of the world, capital “E.” And Hazel Espinosa knew this dream well. The inevitability of it settled like radium poisoning into her bones, a radioactive specter wrapped up in wrinkled sheets, glowing in the darkness of her bedroom.

It just hadn’t happened yet.

This was how it all started: with a harbinger of apocalypse, a witch’s contract, and a greasy all-night diner called The Limen Lime.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

links for reading on mobile under the cut...

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

[limen-lime]

is everyone going to be so happy to see the espinosa's?

Hazel’s mother threw her arms around the woman, the embrace of old friends. Hazel had never seen her mother interact with anyone more than an acquaintance, anyone less than a daughter. This strange woman fit somewhere in between, a gray area yet undiscovered.

Iris hadn’t mentioned her before, not like this. So what else might she be hiding?

“Charity, it’s been too long.” Iris pulled away from the hug only to see two smaller replicas of Charity Goode emerge from behind her like the fanning feathers of a peacock. Or perhaps the blades of a pair of shears. “And these must be the twins!”

They were both beautiful, Hazel observed, like twin white roses. But one was full and fresh while the other seemed dried out and pressed between the pages of a book.

“This is my sweet girl, Honesty,” Charity said with sickening sweet Southern twang that drew Hazel up short. She watched Charity place a hand on the golden head of the young woman who looked like a dewy rose.

“Lovely to meet you, Mrs. Espinosa. I’ve heard so much about you!” Honesty twirled one of her twin boxer braids around her fingers, the many beaded bracelets she wore clacking together as she did.

Iris touched the place just under Honesty’s chin, a force of habit. “And likewise. Your mother has talked my ear off about you and your brother.”

“Speaking of,” Charity added and placed her other hand on the shoulder of the second twin, “this is my quiet boy, Zeal.”

Zeal dipped his head at them, every bit a wilted flower. There were gray purple half moons beneath his eyes, but his features were delicate and fair, the gilded frames of a kind and quiet gaze. Meanwhile Honesty looked more like “The Birth of Venus” dressed in blue overalls and a strawberry print t-shirt. Her beauty was obvious, easy, full of life. Zeal would have paled in comparison next to anyone, but next to Honesty, he was little more than a smudgy, blurred reflection.

Iris, appreciator of all persons great and small, took one of Zeal’s hands. “As someone who’s been a good friend of your mother’s for many years, I can understand not being able to get a word in.”

Zeal grinned appreciatively before drifting back into his sister’s shadow.

“Their father is busy with a business call to our branches in California,” Charity explained as she led Iris away by looping their arms together. “But I just can’t imagine what has the Morgan’s held up, bless their hearts. Have you heard about Thalia?”

Iris glanced back over her shoulder to her daughter and gave a look that said, “Chin up, honeybee.”

Hazel tried not to panic at the thought of her mother being beyond reach. She refused to behave like a spoiled toddler with separation anxiety. If only Honesty would stop studying her as if she were pinned to a board beneath a layer of glass.

Tristan gave the twins a small salute. “Honesty, Z. How was summer in Belize?”

Honesty let her gaze snake back and forth between Tristan and Hazel. Then, ignoring Tristan’s ploy at civility entirely, “I see you’ve already met the new girl, hm?” She crouched a bit to be at eye-level with Hazel as both the twins were surprisingly tall. “Aren’t you a curious little creature? Do you speak?”

“Honesty,” Tristan chided as Zeal gave her a cross look.

“What?” she asked, blinking from one face to the next. “Z doesn’t talk, and we keep him around.”

Hazel smiled, her eyes squinted and nose wrinkled. “I’ve moved around enough to know an Arkansas accent when I hear one. Are you the kissing cousins type?” She flicked her gaze to Zeal and back to Honesty. “Or is it more Flowers in the Attic?”

Honesty’s expression wove between surprise and amusement before she settled on a wicked grin as sharp as the edge of a broken bottle. She presented a hand to Hazel. “I like a girl with a backbone. Hazel, right?’

“Your mom must really love you to stick you with a name like Honesty Goode,” Hazel said and shook Honesty’s hand.

The taller girl rolled her June blue eyes. “Family tradition.” She snagged one of Zeal’s long, twig arms and tugged him over. “Will you be joining us for our end-of-summer festivities? You must.”

Zeal widened his eyes, a watery blue like a lake on a cloudy day. Tristan bounced excitedly back into Hazel’s peripheral and clasped his hands together in front of his smile so as not to blind anyone with it. “You must! You must!”

“Um?” Hazel replied because she couldn’t think of anything else to say, despite wanting - somewhat desperately - to appear cool and collected in front of these new and age-appropriate people that her mother would consider potential friends.

“Are you all fawning over the new kid?” A voice snapped the thread of the conversation. “You’re going to smother her.”

Thalia Morgan, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans so ripped they were only barely hanging on, looked absolutely predatory. Today, her many braids were arranged into a bun at the back of her head, pierced through with long, silver needles.

She draped an arm over Honesty’s shoulders and grinned at Hazel. Broken edge of a bottle, meet razor edge of a blade. “You’re the one who demolished Babinski’s motel! What a power move.”

“Oh, yeah,” Hazel dashed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “It wasn’t- I mean, I didn’t exactly...”

Before she could trip over anymore words, Tristan swept in again and steered the conversation towards the previously-mentioned end-of-summer excitement with such fervor that Hazel’s “power move” was quickly forgotten. She would have hugged him so hard she broke bones, but figured that would be unhelpful.

Behind Thalia, two more adults joined Iris and Charity Goode, the Morgan’s if Hazel ventured to guess. They linked their arms, a united front, well-dressed and sleek. The woman’s dress had a low back that allowed a striking view of the slopes of her shoulder blades along with a tattoo of what Hazel thought at first was a clock before she realized she was looking at the spokes of a spinning wheel.

Her gaze wandered from the adults and back to the murals of the town’s history. These people could trace their lineage back two hundred years or more. Their roots sank deep into the earth of Asphodel Meadows, sustained it even. They carried their history with them, on their skin and around their necks.

Hazel had often asked her mother where her own family came from, whether they were a line of casters. If any one of them might hold the secret to Hazel’s mysterious and destructive powers. But Iris never spoke of their extended family beyond the stray aunt or cousin who came knocking in search of miracles and money.

She knew next to nothing about her father’s family.

And now she felt adrift, in this sea of wheels and scissors and needles, a woven tapestry of belonging where Hazel was little more than a loose thread coming more and more undone. All she could think was that, in a few months, maybe a year at most, it wouldn’t matter anyway.

Who needs family connections and history, she thought, when the world itself is going to unravel? Who is genuinely that conceited to throw a fit over not having grandparents to call your own with the apocalypse looming overhead like a sword on a string?

Get it together, Hazel.

“All I’m saying is that I’m not entirely confident,” she heard then. Thalia’s mother squared her shoulders, and the spinning wheel jumped as she continued, “How do we know that you can remain impartial when you and Charity are so... close?”

Iris’s usual smile straightened itself into a thin line as Charity scoffed openly. Honesty and Thalia swung around to get a better look, and they snickered together.

Honesty whispered, “Told you she was going to blow a fuse.”

Thalia glanced back at Hazel over her shoulder. “Just wait until they get their claws into you, darling. Trust me, it’s not going to be pretty.”

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

how does the meeting with the families go?

Asphodel Meadows' premier families all descended from witches. Three witches, to be exact, because three was considered a good number for magic. Therefore, the Meadows had one of the highest concentrations of magic anywhere in the continental U.S. Mainly because magic was considered to run through bloodlines. And though that was not entirely true, it was true enough that Asphodel Meadows had become a seat of power in the last century.

The original three witches called themselves Spinner, Measure, and Shears. In those days, a witch who used her real name was asking for trouble and got it, usually tenfold. If there was to be any sort of posterity, you chose a nickname and stuck with it so that those things that thought witches were a particularly tasty treat didn’t come knocking. Or when they did, you at least had a fighting chance.

The witches came to the Meadows before it had a real name either. Legend has it, they came in search of something mysterious and powerful. Whatever it was, they supposedly found it because they planted themselves there, chose new and respectable names, and kept them. And promptly destroyed all evidence of what had brought them there in the first place.

Theories on the nature of such a discovery abounded among the Families. They were a competitive lot, and any chance to get a leg up on the others was viewed as a worthy prize.

This was what Hazel knew about the Families when she arrived at Shears Hall, the Meadows’ community center. Everything else she would have to learn from experience.

The community center imposed itself on the other buildings in the town square, an ancient, stone building, partially overgrown with ivy and crumbling in places. Six gargoyles, literal gargoyles, perched at the top of each Corinthian column guarding the front entrance. Hazel was delighted by them. Of course, there had been recent renovations to the interior to make it more “community friendly” and less “witches used to cast blood rituals here.” But she could still see the subtle motifs hidden among the façade.

The center foyer expanded upwards through three stories and was made almost entirely from a strange, green marble veined with an even deeper emerald hue. It led off down three hallways set at perfect 120 degree angles from one another. Murals hung on the walls of each passage depicting the founding of Asphodel Meadows. Pioneer families raised buildings, men urged crops from fertile soil, women taught children beneath aspen groves, but in each mural, Hazel found hidden runes, short incantations. Spinning wheels, measuring rods, and sharp-edged shears.

Iris watched her notice these things and felt proud of the shrewdness in her daughter’s eyes. But worry tinged Iris’ gaze as well, tangling in her chest like freshly spun thread without a spool.

Tristan Emrys peered up at the mural of his ancestors and sighed. “I like the cows. Aren’t they cute? They have longer eyelashes than me.”

“Jealous?” Hazel bumped their shoulders together, though hers were decidedly shorter than his. She peered up at the people’s faces. “Do you know which ones you’re related to?”

Tristan could guess. “Anyone with a measuring rod or scales.” He pointed to a black haired woman weighing a dark red lump against a golden feather. “Measure, or Acacia Emrys, the name she chose.”

“Is that a heart?” Hazel asked, studying the scale in the woman’s hand.

“Yep. Acacia came here from Egypt. Her magic had a lot to do with souls.” Tristan’s eyes wandered off down the hall as more voices trickled from the entrance. “I think today we’d call her a psychic, but really that’s a dirty word compared to what she could do.”

“Iris!” a voice called, high and clear and echoing down the marble hall. The woman loosely attached to it was the milk to Iris’ honey. Her name was Charity, and she wore a pair of embroidery scissors in the shape of a crane on a chain around her neck.

The Families had arrived.

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

why a jackalope though?

Hazel held her stuffed jackalope under one arm and a box of assorted bedroom oddities under the other. This, she observed, was her new room.

The four-poster bed was made of more aspen trunks, and setting the box down on the dusty hardwood floor, she traced her fingers over the white bark. A sliding glass door commanded most of one wall and led out onto a small balcony in desperate need of a good sweeping. Some previous owner had built a bookshelf into the wall opposite the bed, and she was already mentally filling it with her collection when someone said behind her, "Your mom says it's time to go. I think she said she's got that meeting to go to?"

Jack Halley, Hazel thought as she turned to look at him, was really beginning to get on her nerves. On one hand, he was a boy bordering the edges of teenager and the undefinable "young adult." An annoying age for anyone involved. He had nice hair, and Hazel felt that was always a detriment to young men. It usually ruined any chance they had of a decent personality.

On the other hand, he was dressed in half his funeral attire. His formerly white button-down was ripped from the bike crash, stained with a little blood, and sweaty in places after all the work of moving boxes. His hands were bandaged in white gauze, and his stitched-up arm was freshly cleaned. It all gave him something of a kicked puppy look, which she pitied. And that was even more bothersome.

But worst of all, her mother seemed to like him, and Hazel couldn't deny her mother was a good judge of character.

She relented. "You don't know anything about this town, do you?"

He found this an odd accusation, and it showed in the knitting-together of his eyebrows. "I'm sorry, what?"

"Did Mom tell you that she was going to explain some things later?" Hazel asked instead of clarifying. She set her jackalope on top of the box.

Jack sighed and rubbed his forehead where there was already a smudge of dirt from constant worry. "She said she wanted to discuss some things, yeah. What is she, like a therapist? My mom already has me going to-"

"Not a therapist," Hazel said with a chuckle. "But it’s a good guess."

"Look," he said and leaned with a sigh on her door frame, "I don't know why I'm here, other than Tristan saved me from being in the middle of yet another fight with my dad and the Amory's."

"How gallant of him."

"He's very proud of himself." Jack almost, almost smiled, but he shrank back from it like Punxsutawney Phil from his shadow. Six more weeks of winter. "Anyway, your mom seems nice. You seem-" His eyes caught on hers for a moment, snagged like a grocery bag on a tree limb. "Uh, intimidating."

Hazel nodded, the smile she wore as non-sarcastic as she could manage. "I'm flattered. Go on."

"But I'm getting help, okay?" He gestured at himself. "I know I look like a mess right now, and believe me, I am. But I don't need a perfect stranger-"

"You mean, like a therapist," Hazel offered.

"You know what I mean," Jack snapped, and this was said with a little more fire in it than he meant to allow.

Hazel raised an eyebrow but otherwise let it slide.

"I don't need a perfect stranger telling me how to fix... this," and again he gestured vaguely across himself. "I don't know why I'm here," he repeated, half confused and half too-tired to find the answer.

Hazel knew why, though. It was part of her mother's mercurial, emotional magic. People were drawn to her like bees to flowers, especially when those bees were emotionally stunted and in need of her help. Defining magic was a waste of time, because it moved like nature moved and it changed like nature changed, and no one knew that better than Hazel because no one knew Iris Espinosa better than Hazel.

"Well, it was an excuse to get away, and we do appreciate the help." Hazel started for the doorway and Jack moved aside to let her through. "And you'll have to come back because my mom has a bad habit of feeding people as a way of thanking them. So I hope you like lasagna. It's her signature."

Jack was dangerously close to liking Hazel Espinosa then, but the moment he felt the warmth of that realization bubble up, something inside him shut off. A fail-safe, a motor stalling. He prodded the suddenly empty space inside of him. Gears ground but nothing moved. So he darted his eyes away from Hazel to the stuffed animal he'd seen before, back at the motel.

What he hadn't noticed about it then that he could see now, it had two plastic antlers attached to the stuffed head, right between the furry ears. He asked, “Why a jackalope?”

Hazel, not an empath, detected the light going out in Jack’s eyes but could not guess the reason. Maybe he really hated lasagna. Still, she answered, “My dad was obsessed with them. Guess that’s where it started.”

She said “was” in the heavy sense that Jack had become all too familiar with, and he nodded. Conversation ended. They descended the stairs together and found Tristan passed out on the left-by-the-previous-owner couch that Hazel had refused to touch because, who knew what strange dreams were still attached to that thing?

That and bed bugs.

Iris shrugged her shoulders from the kitchen doorway where they spotted her and asked softly, “Should we just let him sleep?”

Hazel shook her head. “No way is he getting out of this. If I have to be there, he does too.” She seized the edge of the blanket Tristan had thrown down to cover the strange couch and prepared for the slip-the-tablecloth-from-under-the-dishes stance.

“Hazel,” her mother warned.

She sighed, releasing the blanket. “Fine, we’ll wake him up the boring way...”

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

how does the rest of the move in go?

"This is a box of my very personal belongings," Hazel told Tristan as she put the box in question into his hands. "If you peek inside or drop it, I will kill you, got it?"

Tristan, whose usual chipper nature was dampened by mourning for his lost sunglasses and general fatigue, said only, "Got it. What if it's just a little peek, though?"

Hazel, who was already fond of Tristan beyond measure, pointed a finger directly at his nose. "Instant death."

In the dining room, Jack helped Iris sort silverware, stack plates, and break down empty cardboard boxes into flat cardboard pancakes. Tristan watched them with a look of a child peering into a toy shop window just before Christmas.

Hazel noted this and felt a flood of jealousy. She was always competing for attention when her mother was present, and Iris was reigning champion. Even Hazel hated being jealous of her. She was just that nice.

"Do you want to meet our bees?" Hazel asked and knew it was a silly thing to try to bribe someone with.

Thankfully, Tristan was just the sort to fall for it. "Woah, can I?"

They snuck out the backdoor where the old wood floor had been replaced with carpet that would not creak and betray their escape. Shutting the door softly behind them, Hazel caught the conspiratorial look that Tristan gave to her, and she tucked it away in her pocket for later.

Three steps down and they were up to their waists in overgrown grass and weeds. Hazel trailed her fingers through it as she led Tristan around to where her mother parked the trailer. The white box stood alone now in the back, buzzing with life. Tristan's eyes sparkled.

"Bees," he whispered.

Hazel nodded and stepped up to the back of the trailer. Tristan gasped, "Don't you need a suit or something? At least one of those hat things?"

"Only if the bees don't know you," Hazel replied and relished the blend of confusion and wonderment on Tristan's face. "They built their hive in our old attic first. Our landlord wanted to call in an exterminator, but I chained myself to the attic door until Mom convinced him to hire a person to safely remove the hive instead. But by then we were attached, so we kept them."

Tristan nodded. “Hazel Espinosa, Demolisher of motels, Protector of bees.”

“The roof fell in,” Hazel corrected him, but Tristan had a look in his eyes like he knew, or that he was, at least, a very good guesser. She peered down at the hive instead.

A few brave bees had already begun to crawl onto the ledge of the box and spread their wings. They took flight, little wonders of nature, and buzzed around her head before setting off to find more edible things. Hazel reached slowly for the lid. Tristan held his breath, whether he realized it or not.

“They’re a very docile hive. Mom says she can sense their emotions kind of like people’s only,” here Hazel paused as a bee lit on her hand, “simpler, I guess.”

The bee crawled around, and Hazel remembered how she used to cringe when they would land on her, awaiting the sting. But if her mother had taught her anything, it’s that you usually got what you went looking for. So instead, she watched and allowed the tiny creature to explore, before it flew off again.

“Your mom sees people’s emotions,” Tristan said to her, but she could sense the question beneath the statement.

“She always knows when you’re lying. It’s what makes her so good at her other job, the one with the contracts.” Hazel inspected the hive. She slipped sections of honeycomb from the box to make sure nothing had been broken during the drive. “She’s tried to explain it before, how it works, what it looks like. But I think it’s different for every person.”

“It must have been a difficult skill to master.” He said this like he knew from experience. “What’s your skill?”

In Hazel’s experience, magic was a wild thing. In the same way that scientists made laws for physics that applied until they didn’t, witches made rules for magic. Rules, like it was a dog that could be taught to obey if offered a treat.

They tried to define and classify types of magic, put them in groups. Family, genus, species. Witch was the general term, the family, those who could touch magic. Or maybe those touched by it. Things like psychic or necromancer or shapeshifter, the genus. Below that, witches usually leaned into a specific skill, a talent or “gift,” as if magic was a fat man in a red suit handing out wrapped presents.

If magic was Santa Claus, Hazel had been handed a lump of coal, an explosive one at that.

“Dream interpretation,” Hazel answered because it was what her mother told her to say whenever people asked. It was simple enough that most would accept it but also boring enough that they wouldn’t ask further questions.

Tristan nodded his head. “So that’s why you asked about other witches who dealt in dreams. Are you looking for a sensei?”

“Something like that,” Hazel said and carefully replaced the lid on the box so as not to squish any of the tiny occupants. Then she brushed off her hands and stepped off the back of the trailer. “What about you? What do you do?”

Here Tristan grimaced, as if he’d been expecting the question but he still wished he could dodge it. He said, “I think I hear your mom calling us.”

“You do not. Answer the question.” She poked a finger into his chest.

Tristan fell back a few steps as if he’d been struck and sighed heavily. “Fine, I can...” He paused and, looking behind her, his eyes widened. “Hazel, look.”

She rolled her eyes so hard it almost hurt. “I am not falling for that, Emrys.”

“No, seriously.” He reached for her shoulders and turned her around. “Look.”

At first Hazel didn’t see anything remarkable. Just the yard, the overgrown vegetable garden, the forest. But then the slightest movement caught her eye, something small and brown. It sniffed at the over ripe tomatoes, their skin broken in the summer heat, and then it turned its head towards her as Hazel gasped.

Its eyes were black as night, fur a familiar grayish brown. It angled its long, black-tipped ears at her and bared its yellow teeth. The two antlers protruding from its head were like a great, unruly crown, twisting and curling, unnaturally supernatural.

Iris opened the front door of the house and leaned out. “Are you two slacking?”

At the sound of her voice, the creature vanished. So fast that Hazel couldn’t even trace where it had gone. She and Tristan stared at each other for a moment, and Iris placed her hands on her hips.

“What? Did I miss something?”

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

who was the woman in the woods?

She called herself Abel.

It meant "breath." As in "catch your," "hold your," and "steal your." As in Cain and Abel, brother murders brother, the world's oldest tragedy. She said it like a joke, like a wish, like a prayer. And it worked so long as she kept breathing.

Get it?

She moved through the trees, and they whispered above her. Sometimes she wondered what they spoke about. Sometimes she wanted to light them on fire just to see what their screams would sound like. She didn't, though. Not today.

The chain link fence loomed before her as she ran. Her mind told her that if she tried to jump it, she would fail. Gravity would press on her, an invisible net always pressing down, towards the center of the earth. All that heat and pressure could make mountains or diamonds.

Or an earthquake.

She draped the fur coat around her shoulders then and changed. Not changed as in "let me change into something more comfortable" or as in "your change will be $1.56." Change as in "metamorphosis." Kafka. A cockroach. A commentary on the self.

She became a wolf.

Or perhaps she'd always been one, but now she looked like one as much on the outside as she did on the inside. And in between the moment that she changed ("metamorphosed") and the next, she leaped.

Her paws struck earth, heart pounding within wolfish ribs, and the fence was behind her, the open forest before her. She lifted her head then, and she ran.

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

what is iris going to do for jack?

"Shoes off at the door," Iris called over her shoulder. Her voice echoed through the empty first floor as she stepped up from the entryway into the expansive main living area, the kitchen just beyond.

From beneath the kitchen sink, she removed her first-aid kit, which she always kept handy. Lavender and Hazel were accident-prone children, and Iris spent many summer days kissing skinned knees and stroking hair as she poured foaming iodine onto bleeding hands. The two boys who had been unceremoniously dumped into her front yard looked like they might need a little more than she could give. But she would do her best.

Tristan Emrys hopped onto the kitchen counter and removed his broken sunglasses with a sigh. "These were my favorite."

Jack Halley chose the more reasonable approach of collecting a chair from the dining room table before he sat down nearby. He was silent. His eyes were unfocused as he stared down at the tile floor of the Espinosa's new kitchen.

Iris was worried he might have a concussion and put a gentle hand beneath his chin to lift his head. She took a pen-light from the kit and flashed it in each eye just to be safe. When she was satisfied that he didn’t seem to have any apparent brain damage, she said, “I think you’ll live."

"He must have a hard head," Hazel grumbled and leaned her hip against the counter top, arms crossed over her chest.

"Hazel, will you find yourself in my makeup bag and bring it here?" Iris asked.

Tristan screwed up his dirt-smudged face in confusion.

Hazel huffed in annoyance, but she turned and stalked off in the direction of the boxes piled high next to the door anyway. Iris guessed what the boys could not know, that Hazel had really been frightened to see them crash like they did. To see Jack's eyes so wild with fright. Iris might have been an empath of sorts, but her daughter was the one who felt things like the ocean does, overflowing and often violent. She hid her fears behind a sea wall of minor aggressions, but Iris knew how fragile those breakers could be.

While lost in thoughts of sea salt and floods, Iris lifted Jack's hands to inspect them. "Some of these cuts might need stitches, but I should know better once I clean them up."

Jack's eyes kept trailing back to the kitchen window, which looked out on the forest beside the house. "I swear I saw something out there."

Iris nodded her head. "I know, but you seem to me like a very tired young man in need of some rest before we discuss what it is you saw. Hmm?"

Jack turned his gaze back to her. "You don't believe me either."

Anyone else who looked in Jack Halley's eyes would see the nameless color of them. Hints of green, gold, and gray. They would see half a dozen fitful nights of very little sleep. They might even catch a glimmer of the anger that had lived, burning inside of him long before loss brought his life to a bloody stand-still.

When Iris Espinosa gazed into them, it was like what happened when other witches peered into a bowl of dark liquid or an antique mirror poured from silver. She saw through the eyes into something deeper.

To Iris, eyes really were the window to the soul.

She saw Jack’s hopes in shades of summer green. Hope was usually a soft, glowing thing, a heart of white and a halo of whatever color the soul associated with the related emotions. They bobbed like fire flies through memories and future dreams. Jack was still boyish and rough-hewn - a series of stick and mud forts, late-night campfire stories, and the splash of cold water on bare shins. He hoped for simple, concrete things.

Iris’ heart instantly ached for him.

His fears stood high above in flickers of fiery gold. Burnished in fire so hot that Iris nearly lost hold of his chin. They gleamed a hammered-out sheen, armored dragon scales, a monumental serpent. It towered in the mind’s eye, all phantasm and claws. Jack tried to pull away as he felt the fear rise within him.

But that tumultuous gray sky swallowed the beast. Like clouds hiding away the sun behind their hands, they swept out over a wind-tossed sea, and the boy was lost among the gray. This was not hope or fear at all. It was something Iris knew well. Need, want, desperate, aching, empty. This boy was missing something, and he likely had been for a while. He didn’t even know what it was anymore, that thing to fill the void.

Iris drew back.

Jack stared. “What did you do to me?”

“I want you to tell me,” Iris said softly, “everything you remember about that night.”

Jack opened his mouth - whether to protest or explain, she was not certain - but she stopped him.

“Not now. You’ve had a long morning, and what we need to discuss is going to take a lot more than you’ve got to give right now. Do you understand?”

Jack almost shook his head before he realized that he did understand. “Ma’am,” he said politely - Martha raised him to always be polite if possible and especially to people who could unabashedly hold your gaze for as long as Iris could, “do you need some help moving in?”

Iris turned her gaze to her daughter next, who had just returned with herself, a bottle of witch hazel water (the plant she was named for). “Yes, I’d appreciate that. Wouldn’t you, honeybee?”

Hazel stared for a few moments longer than she thought she should. Their magic was very different, but she could still see when Iris had been working. Something like dreams hovered around her, a cloud of miracles. Magic bending over and around itself to grant Iris Espinosa what she wished.

“Sure,” Hazel said finally, “we’d love some help.”

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

what happens when they get there?

Broceliande ran the southern border of the Amory Nature Preserve like a winding concrete line in the sand. Jack knew from experience that just a few yards into the rows of ancient, white aspen trees that lined most of the neighborhood, there was a tall, chain-link fence with barbed wire around the top. The only way to get in - if you weren't supposed to be there - was a remote spot along the fence and a pair of wire-cutters. He knew that from experience, too.

Lost in thought, he stared deep into those trees as Tristan hummed to himself and stood to pedal over the next hill.

"Where are we going anyway?" Jack asked, jostled into wakefulness once more by Tristan's struggle against gravity. "I mean, not that I don't appreciate what you did back there, but-"

"But you think I'm taking you out here to murder you and dump your body?" Tristan glanced over his shoulder and regretted it.

Jack was pointedly avoiding eye contact.

Wrong thing to say. Obviously.

Tristan's cheeks burned, and he shook his head, the word "stupid" bouncing around the apparently empty interior of his skull. "Um, well, we're actually going to go see a friend of mine?"

Jack nodded but said nothing.

Then Tristan hung his head forward and focused on getting them both up the hill.

After a moment, he felt the load on the bike lessen significantly and looked back to realize Jack had gotten off and was jogging alongside. "Is everyone your friend?" he asked, keeping pace easily.

Tristan wasn't one to ever struggle for words, but he felt like he was suffocating as he said, "Look, if this is about," he gasped, "what happened back there-"

More gasping.

"I just happened to be riding by and thought you might need some help. Okay?" He took another big gulp of air and shivered dramatically. "The Amory's give me the creeps."

As they reached the top of the hill, Jack slowed to a stop, and Tristan practically fell off his bike. "Oh, thank you!" Letting the bike fall to its side, he flopped down on the side of the road and rolled over on his back.

"You weren't kidding when you said that you were out of shape," Jack snorted and paused to roll up his sleeves.

Autumn was well on its way, but the summer heat had yet to break its iron grip on the Meadows. As he tugged up the sleeve of his ruined button-down, Jack studied the bite mark on his arm. He could remember the terror of the chase, twisting his ankle on a root, falling and raising his arm to stop the teeth rushing to close around his throat.

His doctors, along with a specialist they called in for the investigation, confirmed what everyone had assumed. It was a canine's bite, either a rabid stray or perhaps a wolf, but that hadn't changed what Jack saw.

Shielding his eyes from the white-hot midday sun, Tristan peered up at Jack, awash with sepia tones and the fading green of late summer. The blood on his arm looked fresh, and Tristan felt a pang in his chest. "That looks gnarly. And it's still bleeding?"

"Yeah, sometimes," Jack muttered.

Whether they believed him about another person being there at the scene of the attack or not, the very real matter was, his wound from the bite had hardly healed in the time since the attack. Jack was pretty sure that, at least, was not normal. Eventually, they would have to admit that it might not be the only thing strange about this case.

But Jack didn't think that even he was ready for that.

Tristan sat up, blue hair falling in a sweaty, chaotic cloud around his head. "Look, man, I know we don't know each other that well-"

"Oh, you mean how we were lab partners in chemistry once, and then you decided we were best friends?" Jack offered, one bushy black eyebrow raised, skeptical with maybe the barest scraps of amusement.

Grinning, Tristan shrugged. "What can I say? I bond quickly!" Then he got his feet underneath him, a marvel of engineering with legs as long as his, and stood. "But seriously, I think this other friend of mine might be able to help you with your-"

Tristan freed himself from his jacket and gestured at Jack's arm first, then, slowly, the rest of him.

"-problem!"

Jack glared at him, mouth drawn into a slant. "Somehow I doubt that." Then something behind Tristan caught his eye.

"Trust me, Mrs. E is going to know exactly what to do about this," Tristan told him as he tied the sleeves of his jacket around his waist. "She's amazing. My sister told me all about how she..."

Tristan's eyebrows shot up in surprise as Jack lunged forward and clamped a hand over the other boy's mouth. "Sshh!"

Frowning, Tristan searched Jack's suddenly frightened face. He made a vaguely quizzical noise as Jack searched the trees somewhere behind him and continued to not explain himself.

Finally, Jack whispered, "No sudden moves. Don't turn around. Don't argue. Just get back on your bike, slowly, and I'll push. Got it?"

Tristan just stared for a moment before Jack's expression changed from fear to annoyance. Then nodding frantically, Tristan took Jack's hand from his mouth. Jack took a step back and kept his eyes trained on whatever Tristan wasn't meant to see.

He stooped to pick up the bike and swung one long leg over the back. He kept his eyes on the road beneath his feet, but his ears were trained for even the smallest disturbance in the sunny forest around them. Whatever it was, it wasn't making a sound.

Jack waited until Tristan was sitting before he gave the other boy a shove from behind and pushed for a few breathless, weightless strides. With his bandaged hand, he caught the shoulder of Tristan's t-shirt and hauled himself back onto the bike behind him.

The added push along with gravity helped them pick up momentum quickly, and they raced down the hill at break-neck speed. Tristan leaned forward over the handlebars of the bike, and Jack followed suit. The wind rushed past his ears as he dared a glance to the side of the road.

Something was following them through the trees. Big and brown and moving just a fast as they were. Jack watched it weave through the aspen trees like threading a needle, each turn quick and precise. Certain, effortless. It wasn't struggling to keep up with them at all. It was simply keeping pace.

Toying with them.

"Gunna need you to really lean into this coming curve!" Tristan shouted over the sound of the air whistling around them and the wheels spinning on the pavement. "When I say so- Now!"

They leaned to the side and the bike whipped around the turn in the road. The force caused the back wheel to skid just an inch before they balanced themselves again and snapped upright. Jack scanned the trees once more and let out a strangled gasp. The thing in the trees had angled itself closer to the road.

It was coming for them.

"How much further?" Jack shouted into Tristan's left ear.

The other boy's head jerked to the side as he trained his eyes on a passing mailbox, and shouted back, "Should be just around the next bend! Get ready!"

They leaned into the next turn together. The world swirled around them, but this time, Jack's focus was on the creature getting nearer and nearer through the trees. One good leap and it would be on them. Teeth and claws and glowing eyes. He gasped as the bike skidded out from under them and both boys went rolling. First across pavement, then gravel, then grass.

When they finally came to a stop, Jack expected the beast to be on them at any moment. He heard the sound of feet approaching through grass and leaves, the heavy panting of breath, and he rolled onto his back to throw a handful of gravel up at the first thing he saw.

Hazel Espinosa flung her arms up to deflect most of the gravel from going into her eyes and stumbled back, spitting dust and shouting, “Hey, hey!”

Iris ran to Tristan and helped him to sit up. "Honey, what happened?"

Jack whipped around to look behind them, convinced the wolf he saw was just beyond the edge of the yard. Tristan's bike lay in the ditch in front of the house, the back wheel still spinning wildly. The road where they'd come from was empty. Staggering to his feet, he searched the trees, this way and that. Still nothing. Just rows and rows of aspen and pine, sun beams filtering down to green grass and brown needles.

"It was there!" Jack twisted his hair in his fingers, jaw hanging open in shock. He swung back around to look at the three people watching him like he was the wild animal about to pounce. "I swear!"

Tristan studied Jack for a moment and nodded. "I believe you." He cocked his head toward Iris. "Jack Halley, meet Mrs. Iris Espinosa, and her daughter, Hazel. They just moved here."

Crossing her arms over her chest, Hazel regarded Jack. "And you just crash-landed in our yard."

"Wait," Jack squinted against the light of the sun and the heat of Hazel's vitriol, "you're the two that were at the motel!"

Tristan's eyebrows shot up, though one was currently bleeding from a cut that had only just missed his eye. "Oh, you've met?"

Iris bobbled her head from side to side. "More or less." She brushed grass and gravel from Tristan's mop of blue hair and tugged him to his feet. "Let's get you boys inside. Pretty sure I remember unpacking the first-aid kit already."

Hazel scoffed, "Mom!" and Iris ignored her.

She turned her gaze in Jack's direction and sighed. "And we can discuss your monster once I get you both cleaned up. How does that sound?"

Without waiting for an answer, Iris helped Tristan hobble towards the house, and after a moment, Hazel and Jack begrudgingly followed.

While in the forest behind them, a woman slipped out from the shadow of one of the older pine trees. Smiling to herself, she pulled a coat of thick brown and red fur from her shoulders. Her heart still raced from the thrill of the chase, blood pounding in her veins. She watched the four figures retreat into the last house at the end of Broceliande, then turned and sprinted for the fence.

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[limen-lime]

does tristan come to help them move in?

Seeing as the Limen Lime was primarily an all-night diner, it was one of those businesses that took the liberty of keeping odd hours. Open at sundown, close after the breakfast rush. Jeanie, as such, was all but nocturnal. If Tristan hadn't known for sure she wasn't a life-sucking vampire, he would have had his theories. Though, he was pretty sure most people felt that way about their bosses.

"Sweet dreams, Jeanie!" he called on his way out, tossing his jacket over his shoulder and sliding his shades down over his eyes.

As he unchained his bike from the water spigot on the side of the building, he heard the sounds of a dozen sirens and looked up to see half the Meadows' police and fire department drive past the diner, followed by the local news van. Returning from whence they came, if he had to guess.

Tristan knew Louie Babinski. They were pals. Tristan was probably the comic shop’s most loyal customer. He knew that the motel might’ve been past its expiration date when it came to aesthetics, but Louie ran a tight ship. With the exception of the pool, of course, but that was because of Louie’s fear of drowning. Tristan couldn’t hold that against him.

But he knew that the roof of the motel wouldn’t just cave in on its own. Something had to have happened that night, and Tristan couldn’t help but wonder what.

After the dust cloud kicked up by the vehicles cleared, Tristan pulled the ticket with the Espinosa's address from his pocket and looked down at it. Like Hazel was a magnet for other people's dreams, Tristan was a magnet for trouble. He knew he should follow the address, help the Espinosa's move their boxes and their bees. He told himself this.

And then he told himself again.

And then he tucked away the address and turned his bike in the direction that the sirens had come from. Speeding down the broken and patched pavement, Tristan continued to make a detailed list in his head of what he would and would not do when arrived at the scene of the accident.

He would not get off his bike.

He would just ride over to check in on Louie, maybe even ask a few questions.

He would not go poking around in dangerous places.

He would see what he could see, and then he would leave.

He would not get into trouble.

He would stick to his list. He would. He would.

He would.

Then, Tristan arrived at the Area 51 Motel and Comic Shop just in time to see the second explosion. So he dropped his bike, and started to run towards the scene unfolding.

Tristan did not know much about building bombs. For a brief interval of time after an ill-conceived Mission Impossible movie marathon, Tristan’s friend Honesty learned everything she could about bomb building without drawing the attention of local authorities. It was not because Honesty Goode wanted to build a bomb, though anyone with a name like that could surely find reason to. Rather she wanted to prove a point that bombs in spy movies did not make sense and missed the point of a bomb entirely.

A bomb does not need a timer ticking down towards an inevitable end, she insisted. When a bomb has a timer, that means the bomb will likely be defused, with only moments to spare. The point of the bomb then, is not to cause wanton destruction; the point is to be defused. And Honesty honestly could not understand how anyone still found it entertaining.

To create an explosion, she had explained, two things were needed: a fuel and a trigger. There were, of course, other components, but these were the most important. Without them, the rest of the parts did not matter.

This was the fuel: Sheriff Halley and Misha Amory did not agree with one another about most things. Sheriff Halley did not like that Misha Amory was in charge of finding the animal that killed two teenage boys. Misha Amory did not like that Sheriff Halley wanted to extend his jurisdiction to the Amory Nature Preserve. And they both took the opportunity to discuss the issue. Loudly.

This was the trigger: Fen Amory enjoyed trouble. Like Tristan was a magnet for trouble, Fen was a detonator of it. So when he saw the Sheriff’s mopey teenage son picking around the remains of room eight of the Area 51 Motel and Comic Shop, he felt practically incendiary.

“Isn’t this sweet?” Fen jutted his angular chin towards Jack. He had a knack for truly fiendish grins.

Seeing as he had a bit of a baby face with sunny blond curls and cherubic blue eyes to match, Jack thought he made up for it by practicing this particular song and dance in the bathroom mirror each morning.

“Fen, don’t,” sharp-eyed Katrina Amory warned from a few feet away, a safe distance from the inevitable blast. Her dark hair and eyes, her coppery brown skin, set her apart. The Amory Clan was patchwork, generations of foundlings, of which she was one of the oldest.

But she was just as much Amory as the rest of them, just as much trouble if you pushed her.

Jack kept his head down, brushing aside debris from the room with the toe of his dress shoe. He saw an orange scrunchy partially buried beneath chunks of white ceiling tile and stooped to pick it up. “Go bother someone else, Amory.”

Fen leaned an elbow on the door frame, perched just so. “Are you helping Daddy crack the case? Is that it? Do you think the Big Bad Wolf huffed and puffed and blew the motel down?”

Jack Halley was normally not so easily goaded into a fight. He knew swinging his fist at Fen’s practiced smirk would only give the older boy exactly what he wanted. But he did it anyway. Because he felt like it.

The first few blows were quick, aggressive, though clumsy in their rage. Then Fen wrapped his arms around Jack’s middle and, with startling strength, threw the other boy against the shattered window of room eight. Jack’s hands caught on broken glass. Skin split, and blood followed, filling Jack’s senses.

Fen jeered. “Stay away from our home, if you know what’s good for you.”

It was all he managed before Sheriff Halley horse-collared the boy and sent him flying into the chest of his older brother, Misha.

“You, I’ll deal with later,” John-Edmond growled at Jack. “You,” here he pointed an accusing finger in Fen’s face, “keep your hands off my son!” Halley put himself between the boys, but an attack on one Amory was an attack on the whole family.

Katrina formed ranks with the other two Amory’s, though it seemed like she almost regretted it. Misha, who was at least more level-headed than his brother, still had half a mind to release Fen like a rabid dog. The other half was wondering if there weren’t more creative ways to deal with this insult that wouldn’t end with trying to get his brother out of the related charges.

Jack felt the wound on his arm begin to burn, as if someone had taken a red-hot poker to it, and more blood leached from it, soaking through the sleeve of his white button-down. Misha laid eyes on the dots of blood, in the shape of a bite-mark, and his eyes searched Jack’s panicked face. His brow furrowed.

Tristan, magnet for trouble that he was and feeling this was his cue, jogged to a stop a few feet away, panting. He rested his hands on his knees.

“Oh, I’m more out of shape than I thought!” Then raising his head and squinting, he added, “Jack! There you are! You were supposed to meet me at the Lime to run lines!”

Jack, whose left eye was already beginning to swell, blinked his one good eye at Tristan several times like he thought he was a hallucination that might disappear at any moment. “What?”

“Lines? For Thalia’s new mini movie?” Tristan sighed. “Come on, man. You agreed to do it. Don’t go backing out now-”

“Get out of here, Emrys.” Fen snapped. He was indiscriminate when it came to picking fights, and currently Tristan was the brightest target within range.

“Or,” Tristan began and instantly regretted it, so that the second word came out squeakier than he meant it to,”what?”

Fen attempted to leap at him. If it weren’t for Misha’s proximity and experience in dealing with his brother, Tristan would have been a goner. As it was, he leaped back with a girlish scream and tripped over Sheriff Halley who had to grab his shoulders to keep him from falling over.

“Son.” John-Edmond looked Tristan up and down with something the flavor of disappointment that Tristan was all-too-familiar with receiving from father figures. “What are you doing here?”

“I came looking for Jack.” Tristan pointed to the other boy and shrugged. “Honest!” He lied like he stayed out of trouble.

Which was to say, not well.

Jack, for his part, was so desperate for a ripcord to pull that he didn’t mind it being provided by a bumbling, blue-haired figment of his own imagination. “Oh yeah, I totally forgot.” He moved to stand beside Tristan and swept his hair back from his eyes to look up at his father. “I told Thalia Morgan I’d help with her new project.”

A name like “Morgan” in a town like Asphodel Meadows carried weight. Thalia’s mother was the mayor, and her father’s family were among the city’s founders. It was a hell of a ripcord, Jack had to admit.

Sheriff Halley sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You didn’t tell me about this.”

Jack shrugged. “You’ve been a little busy.”

Tristan beamed. “I’ll have him back before curfew, Mr. J.”

“Fine, fine, just go.” Sheriff Halley turned as the two boys sprinted in the direction of Tristan’s bike. “And get those hands cleaned up!”

Then to Misha, who seemed to be watching the whole display with amusement, he said, “I trust you can manage to get this one home before he makes another disturbance?”

The eldest Amory stroked his thick, brown beard before he jerked his head towards the truck. “Katrina, get him out of here. There’s another thing I’d like to discuss with you, Halley.” His eyes wandered back to the retreating boys, and he hummed deep in his throat. “About that night.”

Tristan picked up his bike from beside the road and jumped on. Jack came to a screeching halt beside him. “What about me?”

“Stand on the back and put your hands on my shoulders, duh.”

Jack peered down at the two pipes on either side of the back wheel. Then at Tristan. “No way.”

Batting his eyelashes up at him, Tristan gave his most dazzling smile. “Would you prefer sitting on the handlebars?”

Jack considered his options. Then he pulled off his black tie, wrapped it around the worst of his cuts on one hand, climbed onto the back wheel, and balanced himself by resting his wrapped hand on Tristan’s shoulder.

Tristan opened his mouth to say something, but Jack just shook his head.

“Don’t- Don’t talk. Just go.”

Grinning from ear to ear, Tristan reviewed the address Hazel had given him and turned his bike, at last, in the direction of 315 Broceliande.

Previous and Next

[limen-lime]

how does the move in go?

"I bet the house is haunted. That's why they sold it to us so cheap."

Iris Espinosa flicked her daughter's shoulder. "Don't say that!"

Iris believed in manifesting things. Hazel believed in annoying her mother.

"I bet someone was murdered in it, and so no one in town will live there." Hazel dodged another flick of her mother's fingers and grinned. "I bet they call it Murder House or something equally unimaginative."

"You're a terrorist," Iris huffed and squinted at the map on her phone. Neither of them got great service in the Meadows, and the little blue circle that told them where they were kept jumping around to nearby streets like they were teleporting.

"I'm a realist," Hazel corrected and pointed for her mother to take the next left. "That's the street, right? Broce-? Bro- Broccoli?"

"Broceliande," her mother said in a startling French accent.

"O-kay?" Hazel raised an eyebrow.

"Leave it to witches to make up street names," Iris sighed, craning her neck to read the numbers on the mailboxes they passed until they reached 315 Broceliande Road.

Aspen and pine trees lined the road. The other houses this far back from the main highway cutting through town were spread thin with overgrown lawns piled high with junk or garden décor or rusted cars growing their own ecosystems. The last house at the end of the lane was 315.

The red tin roofing gathered brown pine needles, and the old wood siding needed a new coat of white paint. But the light green shutters weren't hanging from their hinges. There were no bloody hand prints on the windows, and the porch swing did not creak ominously in the breeze. All good signs.

Hazel got out of the parked van and whistled softly. It was two stories, by far the largest house they'd ever owned and probably way too much space for just the two of them. Not that she thought Iris would let those spare bedrooms remain empty for long. She had a saintly habit of picking up strays.

The front porch was held up by columns made of rough cut aspen trees, some of their thicker branches still attached near the top. There was already a vegetable garden in the yard, full of tomatoes and cucumbers and some pepper plants, just that Hazel could spot between the weeds. And there were enough wildflowers around to keep the bees happy. It seemed perfect.

Too perfect.

Iris stared up at the house proudly, hands on hips proud, permanent residence proud. "I think we're really going to like it here."

Hazel tried not to sound fatalistic as she murmured, "As long as I don't level the whole thing."

Her mother reached out and squeezed her arm. They shared a glance, one of their proto-psychic mother-daughter moments where they both knew each other's hopes and fears because a daughter is nothing if not a funhouse mirror image of her mother. Hazel was Iris' scars and gifts and dreams made over again.

They knew each other, knew how much this meant to them. They both wanted to make this work. They both wanted a home. They wanted roots, for once.

"Well, when you put it like that," Hazel said and ducked her head with a hopeful smile. Maybe Tristan was contagious.

Iris clasped her hands together and turned back to the van, the trailer, the buzzing box of bees. "Let's get started!"

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