#when i switched from my summer order (iced) to my winter order (hot) the guy asked me if everything was okay

[onceuponaroast]

When I was still working at the mall I used to take my lunch break at the Cafe across the hall and get a sandwich and a drink

After a few shifts the batista who worked roughly the same schedule as me started asking me like "have you tried this with a shot of raspberry?" Or "I really like this drink blended"

She wound up basically crafting my regular order for the whole time I worked there. I miss her.

Starving to death this morning because ive been to the new local cafe twice this week already and if i go a third time ill look desperate.

[wetwellie]

Your Name AU

(because i’ve seen this movie a bajillion times and it makes me feel things and i am FEELING THINGS about zimbits rn) (It probably won’t work, but i’m gonna make it work)

 Bitty is a guy who is trying to peacefully spend his last summer before heading off to college in peace. 

He spends his days working his part time job at his Aunt’s produce stand. 

and Baking

and playing club hockey twice a week

Fairly peaceful

and...boring as hell

Until the dreams start

Jack has just started his third year at Samwell university

he’s still broken

still anxious

still the “golden boy” --even if he doesn’t feel like hes polished and shining

but he’s making do

and making friends

just a year or two left until

until what?

graduation? getting signed? 

wasting away? 

Jack doesn’t know. But he’s resigned to focus on hockey and let the rest of the world pass him by

Until the dreams start

Jack wakes up and it’s too hot

He shifts to get out of bed and finds that the covers he is tearing away from his body

are not his

or Shitty’s

or any of his roommates’

also. uh

those skinny legs and short shorts are not his

his hands look different too

and his face feels different

and the voice that calls to him from downstairs is not one he knows

huh

well

weird dream

hope it’s over soon

Bitty goes downstairs to eat the next day

His parents are both fairly silent

“I see you got over whatever mood you were in yesterday, young man”

“mood?”

“it doesn’t matter.”

That’s all he gets out of them

When he drives to the produce stand his cousins run up to him smiling

“I see that you actually remembered how to drive that thing”

“What?” says Bitty

“yesterday you were all over the place. almost knocked over the stand. if you were anyone else I’d think you were drunk”

“Aunt Judy figures you might have been possessed” the other cousin says

“With a fit of stupidity”

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about” Bitty says

“It doesn’t matter. Just don’t ‘get lost’ or forget ‘how to drive stick’ again, Dicky” she says using finger quotes

Later in the day, Suzanne asks Bitty if he’s really feeling ok. 

She was really worried about yesterday’s behavior

Bitty replies that , despite evidence on the contrary, he feels normal

They finish up some jars of jam and Bitty returns to his room for the night

There is where he finds it

Tucked under his pillow there is a note in scratchy handwriting

“Who are you?”

Bitty wakes up cold, in a bed that is too big for him

an alarm he doesn’t remember setting, or ever having, is blaring next to him

he looks to see the time

4:30 am

oh. 

hell no

bitty gets up to unplug the dream alarm clock, and returns to sleep

Bitty wakes up 6 hours later with another man coming into bed with him

This man is naked

and moustached

one of those dreams? huh

never would he dream about this kind of guy though

because this guy doesn’t crawl into bed, like he thought

he wraps bitty in a burrito made out of comforters and yanks him onto the floor

“I know you needed to a break, but let the coaches know before you sleep through morning practice like that”

“practice?”

“yeah. and you’re lucky that I’m waking you up in time to go to your 11am.” 

“but it’s summer”

naked moustache man just looks at him and rolls his eyes

“we’ll grab lunch after class”

“Wait!”

“What”

“...where is my class?”

Jack wakes up the next day 

and is dragged to the doctor to test for a possible concussion

“the things you were saying and doing yesterday were crazy”

“you skipped morning practice”

“After class you threw down your notes and said you’d never major in History”

“You baked seven as an apology for skipping morning practice”

“And then you dropped into fetal position in afternoon practice when Ollie was about to check you”

“And you took, i don’t know, 7000 selfies of yourself and called yourself handsome”

“have you ever taken a selfie before in your life?”

jack just shakes his head

“yeah. like i said you’re getting checked for a concussion”

Did I hit my head? , Jack asks

“no. but it can’t be” Shitty pauses “It wouldn’t be your other thing would it?”

I don’t think so he says. 

Jack has never really had memory problems. and his anxiety and panic never particularly affected him in the way described

faintly, he recalls a young boy at one of his games right before the draft, voice broken as he says “Jack, don’t you remember me?”

it leaves his mind as quickly as it entered

because he had bigger problems to figure out

namely how he had new entries on the journal on his phone

it was a summary of all of the things that “Jack” did the previous day

“Thanks for a long day of being a Big Shot on campus, handsome!”

signed Eric

Eric?? 

Who the hell is Eric? 

it happens again 

Jack spends a day as bitty

and Bitty spends a day as Jack

and they wake up not remembering too much about what happens

the only thing that cements that it’s not just a weird dream is that

well...real life consequences

Jack becomes a lot more...spinny and less up for contact when he plays hockey

and ends up enjoying time with his teammates a lot more

and has a huge country dialect now

and one time someone came up to him speaking french and jack had no idea what was going on???

and he smiles sometimes??? 

and at the end of the day he’s almost always on his phone typing away

Bitty is able to kick ass into gear with hockey

but can’t bake worth shit

honestly, suzanne hasn’t seen anything of that quality since bitty was seven

AND he had to check a recipe

also, he’s started to bike to work

driving stick is impossible

he’s very serious on some days

he spends his evenings watching history documentaries and writing in a journal

Well. It seems like this is just gonna be life for a while, they both figure

best set up some rules

Bitty, as Jack, is NOT ALLOWED TO DITCH CLASSES

no use of the word y’all

no beyonce

no short shorts

don’t drop like a brick when someone comes to check you

seriously Eric it’s fine 

Eric it’s my body that would get hurt don’t worry

also please don’t drink or use drugs in my body

it’s a long story but again

it’s my body

Jack-as-Bitty is asked to be polite to his friends and customers

and please never bake anything ever

don’t leave the house dressed like some weird clothing outlet exploded

if you yell at my teammates i swear to god, mr. zimmermann. 

don’t disrespect senor bun

or anyone

stop frowning so much, even Coach has asked me about it and i don’t know what to say

don’t watch stuff on my netflix account. your history documentaries are messing up my recommendations

Despite the rules

They find ways to keep bothering each other

But also trying to make each other better

As captains of each others teams, both teams are able to benefit from their guidance

Bitty’s team gets a lot stronger technically

but kind of hate how much of a hardass Bitty is 3 times a week

The SMH is more in synch with each other than ever

and Bitty is able to help out a lot more

But Jack ends up having to put a lot of money in the sin bin for 

‘acting off’

Jack is very upset to find a picture of himself in the swallow, sitting on the roof of the Haus shirtless and wearing short shorts chilling

like

what the fuck Eric 

But they get a little routine down, and nothing changes except for minor nuisances

so whatever 

It all works good until one day, while Jack and Suzanne are bonding over making jam, Suzanne looks Jack right in the eyes and says 

“oh...you’re not my dicky. you’re dreaming aren’t you?”

Jack snaps awake in his bed

not Eric’s bed. His bed

Huh. weird. 

He goes to check his phone and of course, there is a long journal entry left over from the day he didn’t get

It’s all mostly ok until he gets to the end

“It looks like your first big hockey game is tomorrow night! Be sure to have fun. Enjoy it!”

“There’s a comet tonight for me. I’ll take lots of pictures so that you can see it next time we ...do whatever we do”

 Jack and the SMH win the game. and he actually tries to have fun. but the only person he wants to celebrate with is

well

he’s in georgia

bUT

Jack has a phone

He dials bitty’s cellphone number that has been saved in his contact

his heart is beating quite fast. 

and then he hears 

“We’re sorry. The number you have dialed is no longer in service”

 Jack stops switching after that

He should be relieved. overjoyed

but he’s not

he doesn’t miss the humidity

or the dirt roads

or the bugs

but he does miss something

and he’s forgetting all about it

so he tries searching online for the town

the town he can’t remember the name of

he doesn’t want to forget, so he starts drawing sketches of what he remembers

they’re not bad

pretty darn good, even

Not as good as Lardo’s, but she’s still abroad

He tries to call Eric’s number a couple more times. He gets the same results

 Jack can’t take it anymore

During the winter break, Jack flies down to Georgia for a weekend, rents a car, and drives himself in the general area he remembers the town

he stops locals and shows them sketches

“is there any town nearby that looks like this?”

they all respond in the negative

he does this for hours

the sun is starting to set when he resigns to give up

he pulls into a diner in the town he’s in, orders, and looks at his sketches again

maybe it’s possible that the town isn’t...even real?

it really could have just been his dreams

that is what he thinks when the server returns with some water

“Hey. that’s a pretty good picture of Godfrey”

 “Godfrey?”

“Yeah. I grew up there.” he says looking a bit sad

“Can you tell me how to get there?” 

The server pauses and gives Jack a mourned, but puzzled look “ it was about a 15 minute drive from here but-” 

“it was?”

“you didn’t hear about what happened?”

Jack shakes his head. 

“If you don’t mind,I’ll take you to it after you finish your dinner”

It’s all gone. 

Oh God. 

Everything from the small ice cream shop to the old creek where Bitty’s cousins would hang around

It’s all rubble

and mounds of dirt

Literal miles

Jack can’t breathe

he can’t

breathe

just breathe

just

breat--

[xbreezymeadowsx]

200 Questions

No one asked me to do it but I made @sharpiewashere do it so it’s only fair I suffer through, too.

200: My crush’s name is: Zach because husband but also... Tommy motherfuckin’ Flanagan

199: I was born in: New Hampshire

198: I am really: horny and annoyed

197: My cellphone company is: Verizon

196: My eye color is: Brown

195: My shoe size is: like 10.5W I think.

194: My ring size is: I think it’s a 9.

193: My height is: 5’ 3”

192: I am allergic to: cats and crop dust

191: My 1st car was: old ass shitty Jeep Grand Cherokee

190: My 1st job was: at a stand in a city mall where we had an inflatable slide and two bounces houses and served sno cones, smoothies, and novelty ice creams

189: Last book you read: Fangs by Sarah Andersen

188: My bed is: fuckin’ broken and uncomfortable and clearly not big enough for myself and my bedhog husband.

187: My pet: 1 old black cat.

186: My best friend: Yuki (that bitch is my best best best friend and I miss her to pieces)

185: My favorite shampoo is: Garnier Whole Blends: Honey Treasures

184: Xbox or ps3: Fuck both. Switch.

183: Piggy banks are: cute

182: In my pockets: nada at the moment

181: On my calendar: is scribbles from my kid

180: Marriage is: Don’t marry a redneck!

179: Spongebob can: stop. Give me the early Bob but that’s it.

178: My mom: loves Unicorns

177: The last three songs I bought were? Wap metal version, Room with a Zoo, Shoop

176: Last YouTube video watched: GabSmolders playing Control

175: How many cousins do you have? technically only 2 by blood and actual familial connections. 6 if you count some others. 9 if you count step-cousins.

174: Do you have any siblings? 1 big Seester!

173: Are your parents divorced? Yeah

172: Are you taller than your mom? Maybe? IDK, we’re both shorties

171: Do you play an instrument? sadly, no.

170: What did you do yesterday? Slept and worked

[ I Believe In ]

169: Love at first sight: yes

168: Luck: yes

167: Fate: yes

166: Yourself: HA, you’re funny.

165: Aliens: no

164: Heaven: these are...

163: Hell: ... kinda loaded...

162: God: ... questions

161: Horoscopes: maybe

160: Soul mates: yes

159: Ghosts: yes

158: Gay Marriage: yes

157: War: yes

156: Orbs: yes

155: Magic: yes

[ This or That ]

154: Hugs or Kisses: hugs

153: Drunk or High: unfortunately neither.

152: Phone or Online: online

151: Red heads or Black haired: black

150: Blondes or Brunettes: brunette

149: Hot or cold: cold

148: Summer or winter: winter

147: Autumn or Spring: autumn

146: Chocolate or vanilla: chocolate

145: Night or Day: night

144: Oranges or Apples: apples

143: Curly or Straight hair: straight

142: McDonalds or Burger King: McD’s outta these choices but I’d take Steak’N’Shake over either.

141: White Chocolate or Milk Chocolate: Milk and Dark.

140: Mac or PC: PC

139: Flip flops or high heals: flip flops

138: Ugly and rich OR sweet and poor: Zach can be sweet (he certainly isn’t ugly to look at) and we’re definitely on the poor side.

137: Coke or Pepsi: Pepsi (anybody remember Pepsi Twist? That was the best!)

136: Hillary or Obama: Obama

135: Buried or cremated: Buried I guess. Though, if I’m cremated, my ashes need to be spread in one place and no separating them.

134: Singing or Dancing: singing

133: Coach or Chanel: I am a redneck, these things don’t mean anything to me.

132: Kat McPhee or Taylor Hicks: who?

131: Small town or Big city: small town

130: Wal-Mart or Target: Either? I shop Wal-Mart all the time out of convenience but I do like Target

129: Ben Stiller or Adam Sandler: I am overall not a fan of either barring a select couple movies (like Heavyweights and Little Nicky)

128: Manicure or Pedicure: no thanks.

127: East Coast or West Coast: east coast

126: Your Birthday or Christmas: Christmas

125: Chocolate or Flowers: chocolate

124: Disney or Six Flags: Can I go to a Zoo instead?

123: Yankees or Red Sox: I’ll say Sox because New England but I don’t particularly care for baseball.

[ Here’s What I Think About ]

122: War: there’s a time and place

121: George Bush: he’s an idiot?

120: Gay Marriage: yay!

119: The presidential election: tearing families apart because people are stupid and vote for Trump

118: Abortion: this is a bit of a grey area for me. While I firmly believe in “my body, my choice”, I do not accept that argument if you are constantly getting them as if it is a form of birth control. Use proper contraceptives you slut.

117: MySpace: does that even exist anymore?

116: Reality TV: certain ones can assume me.

115: Parents: love them even when you don’t like them.

114: Back stabbers: pussies.

113: Ebay: never used it

112: Facebook: is reserved for pictures of kids, pets, funny videos and memes, and gifs.

111: Work: shitty... literally

110: My Neighbors: I’m just glad they aren’t the cousin-fuckers or the Methicans anymore.

109: Gas Prices: it takes like 20 bucks to fill my tiny car gas tank so whatever.

108: Designer Clothes: never fit me

107: College: didn’t go.

106: Sports: HA. My fat ass play sports? Maybe Badminton or Tetherball but that’s it.

105: My family: lives too far away.

104: The future: needs to be better than now.

[ Last time I ]

103: Hugged someone: like 20 mins ago when my kid was trying to suck up to me to get a sip of my frappe.

102: Last time you ate: two hours ago.

101: Saw someone I haven’t seen in awhile: Zane’s first day of school this year. Miss Angie came over to see him off in the morning.

100: Cried in front of someone: probably a few weeks ago.

99: Went to a movie theater: Twilight Breaking Dawn pt 2.

98: Took a vacation: three years ago.

97: Swam in a pool: probably close to 8 or more years ago.

96: Changed a diaper: 4-5 yrs ago.

95: Got my nails done: professionally? never. By Zane? last weekend.

94: Went to a wedding: three years ago.

93: Broke a bone: never. dislocated shit though.

92: Got a piercing: over a decade

91: Broke the law: probably frequently without realizing it.

90: Texted: couple mins ago.

[ MISC ]

89: Who makes you laugh the most: oh I’m a funny bitch

88: Something I will really miss when I leave home is: nothing? fuck this house. fuck this town. fuck this state. I wanna go HOME home.

87: The last movie I saw: Smokin’ Aces 2

86: The thing that I’m looking forward to the most: my nephew’s birth and the vacation we plan to take to see him!

85: The thing i’m not looking forward to: the travel for the vacation stated above.

84: People call me: a lot of things. most of them true.

83: The most difficult thing to do is: wake up

82: I have gotten a speeding ticket: nope

81: My zodiac sign is: Taurus

80: The first person i talked to today was: my husband

79: First time you had a crush: I had a massive crush on Shawn Micheals as a kid.

78: The one person who i can’t hide things from: my Seester

77: Last time someone said something you were thinking: probably someone in the Flanaclan Chapel

76: Right now I am talking to: the Flanaclan on and off

75: What are you going to do when you grow up: I’m supposed to grow up?

74: I have/will get a job: yes

73: Tomorrow: is Halloween

72: Today: I’m horny and annoyed

71: Next Summer: is a long time away

70: Next Weekend: work

69: I have these pets: already answered

68: The worst sound in the world: right now I’d have to say it’s Zane clucking his tongue.

67: The person that makes me cry the most is: myself? or more specifically my anxiety brain.

66: People that make you happy: my Flanaclan friends, my bff, my sister.

65: Last time I cried: a few weeks ago

64: My friends are: on the internet and/or mostly too far away

63: My computer is: a hunk of shit laptop

62: My School: never going ever again.

61: My Car: looks like the car emoji.

60: I lose all respect for people who: beat animals

59: The movie I cried at was: recently? Up

58: Your hair color is: brown

57: TV shows you watch: SOA, SVU, SWAT, wrestling, Wynonna Earp, Van Helsing, Supernatural

56: Favorite web site: tumblr and youtube

55: Your dream vacation: Scotland, Ireland, Wales, England, all that.

54: The worst pain I was ever in was: dislocating my knee

53: How do you like your steak cooked: med rare

52: My room is: some boring off-white

51: My favorite celebrity is: Tommy Flanagan

50: Where would you like to be: New Hampshire

49: Do you want children: I have 1 and that’s 1 too many.

48: Ever been in love: yup

47: Who’s your best friend: didn’t I already answer this?

46: More guy friends or girl friends: girls nowadays. guys around here suck.

45: One thing that makes you feel great is: reading Chibs fics, staring at Flanagan

44: One person that you wish you could see right now: Flanagan

43: Do you have a 5 year plan: hell no

42: Have you made a list of things to do before you die: no

41: Have you pre-named your children: I did not.

40: Last person I got mad at: me

39: I would like to move to: for the millionth time, New Hampshire

38: I wish I was a professional: dog sitter/walker

[ My Favorites ]

37: Candy: Sour Patch Watermelons

36: Vehicle: 90′s Ford Ranger, Jeep Renegade, Jeep Wrangler, Jeep Gladiator, Ford Shelby GT350R 

35: President: certainly not the fuckin’ current one.

34: State visited: Massachusetts

33: Cellphone provider: Verizon

32: Athlete: Aleister Black, Drew McIntyre, Luchasaurus, Sonny Kiss (and fuck you if you try to tell me they aren’t athletes)

31: Actor: Tommy Flanagan

30: Actress: Millie Bobby Brown

29: Singer: Ville Valo

28: Band: HIM

27: Clothing store: don’t care.

26: Grocery store: don’t care.

25: TV show: Law & Order: SVU (as much as I’d love to say SOA, Law & Order was my first real love)

24: Movie: 10 Things I Hate About You

23: Website: tumblr, youtube

22: Animal: dogs, wolves

21: Theme park: Zoos

20: Holiday: Halloween

19: Sport to watch: professional wrestling, football, hockey

18: Sport to play: nothing that requires that much energy

17: Magazine: don’t read them much

16: Book: the House Of Night series and sequel series by P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast (I don’t care that I’m probably too old for them now, I love them)

15: Day of the week: Saturday

14: Beach: Hampton Beach, NH

13: Concert attended: 69 Eyes headlined (opening with Night Kills The Day, then Fair To Midland which were fine but also Wednesday 13!!!!!)

12: Thing to cook: fajitas

11: Food: apple fritters/apple cider donuts

10: Restaurant: Panda Express I suppose.

9: Radio station: WGFA

8: Yankee candle scent: Midsummers Night

7: Perfume: don’t wear perfume so much as body spray and it’s usually something like cucumber melon or some baked goods scent.

6: Flower: Tiger Lillies

5: Color: Green- specifically Forest/Hunter

4: Talk show host: idk I used to watch Maury all the time, does that count?

3: Comedian: George Carlin

2: Dog breed: Pittie mixes, mutts, labs, medium to big short haired breeds

1: Did you answer all these truthfully? Yes I did.

[starfast]

Ice Cream Invasion- A short story

Quick author’s note: It’s been a while since I’ve posted any writing, despite this being my “writing blog.” This is just a quick short story that features a few of my OCs from one of my longer projects. 

Let me know what you think. If you guys like it maybe I’ll do some more prompt based stories like this. I probably will anyways, but it’s just nice to hear from you guys. 

Also, shout out to @knight-shives for the prompt! 

___

 The plan is simple. In thirty minutes there would only be two more hours until I was allowed to go on my break. At that time, instead of heading into the staff room I’m going to head out the back of the building. I’ll leave Dallas to man the cash register by himself. If all this goes terribly wrong and I never come back at least the cash register will be in good hands. I can’t think of anyone that I’d trust more than Dallas with such a task. 

 Except for maybe Ara. But I know Ara, and I know that he’d roll his eyes at the suggestion. “Don’t be ridiculous, Andor,” he’d say, “You think I’m going to med school so that I can make coffee?” This kind of work is beneath him. He’s overqualified, which makes him perfectly qualified when you really think about it. If you can perform an appendectomy then you can almost certainly make a latte. 

 But I don’t care about what Ara thinks. If he doesn’t want to help hold down the fort then he doesn’t get any ice cream, which I know he won’t want anyways because he hates the cold (I’m going to have to ask him how he managed to live in Montreal for 18 years. I’ve never been but I hear the winters are way worse than they are here…)

Once I clock out for my break I’m going to head out the back door. Not the front. It’s too risky. I can’t risk being seen. Can’t risk getting caught. 

You’d think that for a place that prides itself on having seemingly great weather compared to the rest of the country that maybe there’d be more ice cream places in the area. Especially in a really touristy area like Gastown. Lucky for me though, the closest one is only a five minute walk from my work. I can get there in like three or maybe even two minutes if I run. It’s too hot outside. I won’t run. I’ll just walk really fast. Since I’ll take the back alleyways, I won’t have to worry about crowds. That’ll buy me some time. No, really. It’s peak tourist season which means there’s going like ten times as many people on the sidewalks. Ten times the amount of people posing in front of the Steam Clock that everyone loves so much. They won’t be in the alleys and the backroads though. There’s no instagram worthy steam clocks back there. Just dumpsters, graffiti, and an underwhelming view of the train tracks. 

 I’m not counting on running into anyone. If I do, I’ll just ignore them. I won’t make eye contact. I’ll just keep walking. They won’t bother me as long as I don’t bother them. If anyone tries to stop me, maybe I’ll just throw a dumpster at them with my mind or something. 

I’ll come in through the back. But first, I’ll use my powers to turn off all the lights. I’ll shut off all the electricity. I’ve never done anything like that, but how hard can it be? Everyone inside will start to freak out. Probably not a lot, but they won’t be counting on a power outage on a clear summer day like this. It’ll confuse them, and that’s what I’m counting on. They’ll look around the little ice cream shop, wondering what the hell just happened. They may even try to flick some of the light switches on and off, just to make sure the power is really gone, and it will be. They won’t even notice me sneaking in, but I’ll put on a ski mask just in case. Maybe, just for good measure I’ll use my powers to destroy the security cameras if there are any. Just in case. You can never be too careful.  

So it’ll be pitch dark. The security cameras are gone. I’ll sneak in and grab as much ice cream as I can. I haven’t quite decided whether I’m going to just take a bunch of cups and shovel as much ice cream into them as I can or whether I’ll just grab an entire tub of ice cream and make a run for it. Sometimes you have to just make these decisions in the moment. The first option would allow me to sample more flavours. The second is probably more efficient. Regardless of what I decide, I’ll try to make sure I get a scoop of cookie dough ice cream for Dallas. 

I’ll leave the way I came in: Quietly and through the back. I’ll make my way back to work as quickly as I can, through the back roads again, of course. I want to say that no one will ask questions, but if I saw someone walking through downtown Vancouver carrying a large tub of ice cream I’d probably have a few questions myself. Specifically, I’d want to know where they are going with all that ice cream, and if I can come too. So, if anyone asks I’ll need to have a story straight. 

I’ll tell them that I’m supposed to be delivering this ice cream to a nearby store. My delivery truck broke down a couple blocks down, and my coworker is dealing with it. I’ll say that I just decided to do some of the deliveries on foot since we didn’t want all the ice cream to melt in the truck. Wait no. Because then they’ll be wondering where the truck is. And who keeps ice cream in a non refrigerated truck? No one, that’s who. 

Maybe I’ll just tell them to mind their business. No, that’s kind of rude. I’ll just say I bought it and am bringing it back to my apartment. I’ll say that I have a friend who works at an ice cream shop and sometimes he lets me get lots of ice cream for really cheap. They probably won’t ask why I’m carrying it instead of say driving, but I have an answer prepared anyways. It's an easy one, too. I live in the area. It’s a nice day. I don’t have a car. All of which are true anyways. And Ara says I never think things through. I’ll show him. 

When I arrive back at work, I’ll hide the ice cream in the walk in freezer. It’s just me and Dallas for now anyways, but I’ll keep it hidden behind some boxes just in case someone else comes in. If I have time, I’ll grab a spoon and just dig in. It’s foolproof. The Great Ice Cream Invasion will be a success. I look at the clock. In a little over twenty five minutes, there’ll only be two hours until I go on my break. In a little over twenty five minutes, there will be only two hours until I have pull off the greatest Ice Cream Heist and I will be indulging in some sweet, mint chocolatey goodness.

**

“What I want to know is this, Andor,” Ara says from the other side of the counter, “Where do you plan on getting the ski mask?” 

“A ski mask?” Dallas asks before I get a chance to answer, “The hell do you need a ski mask for?” He reaches over the counter, handing Ara his black coffee. The same thing he orders every single time. 

Ara smirks and says, “Andor’s daydreaming about robbing an ice cream store again.” 

“Again?” 

“Why is this surprising to you?” He asks Dallas, “This is like the fourth time this week.” He folds his arms across his chest and adds, “But part of his plan involves him needing a ski mask to hide his identity, so I want to know is where he plans on getting one.” 

He’s right. I know he is and I hate it. He always has to be right about everything, and I hate it so much. I can’t even daydream without him trying to correct me. I hope he knows I’m not actually going to rob an ice cream place. Idiot. He probably does know, but he's still an idiot. 

“I know,” Ara says, “But I’m mostly just curious at this point. So, where are you getting the ski mask?” 

“How do you know I don’t already have one on me?”

“Because it’s nearly thirty degrees out,” he says, “And I know how much you hate the heat so I know that you probably wouldn’t have thought to pack a ski mask when you left this morning. That, and you never think things through. Do you even own a ski mask?” 

“The ski mask wasn’t that important anyways,” I point out, “Once I cut the power it’ll be so dark that no one will be able to see my face anyways. If anything it’s just for dramatic effect, you know?”

Ara looks over his shoulder, out towards the window. Fuck. I already know what he’s going to say. Goddammit. 

“Does this ice cream shop not have windows?” 

I throw my hands up in frustration. “For fuck’s sake, Ara! Just let me daydream in peace!” 

Are opens up his wallet and pulls out two crisp five dollar bills. He places them down on the counter and slides them towards me. “Here,” he says, “Some money for the two of you to enjoy some legally obtained ice cream after your shifts.” 

I reach for it slowly. I’m half expecting him to pull it away. I put my hand down on the money. He doesn’t move. He remains almost completely still, but his eyes are still fixated on the two bills. 

“Don’t say I never do anything for you,” Ara says.

“You never do anything for me.” 

“Don’t push it.” 

I snatch the money off the counter and shove it into my pocket before he can change his mind. 

[verngyu-moved]

war, tome, and crown || ch. iii

pov: second person (mxr; gender neutral reader insert) ⟡ word count: 5.8k ⟡ genre: adventure, fantasy, romance ⟡ rating: pg-13 ⟡ warnings: mild cussing, death mentions, almost dying lol?, drowning, body horror, alcohol

⟡ CHAPTER 3 ⟡

“Your Majesty, get back!” Cheol shouts at you from behind. You’re old enough to look after yourself, even if the tip of this boy’s sword seemed to be winking at you with its shine. A few of the boys from the other group call out the long-haired one’s name, Jeonghan, as an urgent warning. You drink in his pastel dandelion tunic, a matching yellow belt around his waist with its ends tied behind him, which droop all the way to his dark brown boots. As your eyes made their way up to his upturned collar, the smug grin on his rosy lips grew. “Y/N.” a familiar voice calls out, and you shift your gaze to see one of your retainers, Seokmin, dawning his usual sapphire tunic, with matching pants and silver knee-high boots. His left shoulder is protected by a small piece of metal armor, a tattered white cape behind him. Azure hair is slightly disheveled as it covers one of his eyes partly. “Seokmin.” you gasp, hand coming up to cover your mouth as you spot your retainer. Tears fill your eyes, voice shaking as you see your other two retainers, the raspberry-haired Soonyoung and platinum-blonde Seungkwan on either side of him, “Soonyoung. Seungkwan.” Ignoring the rather tense moment at hand, you run past Jeonghan to wrap your arms around all three of them, “Gods, how I missed all of you.”

“That’s the real-?...” Jeonghan wonders aloud before you hear him place his sword back in its sheath, the sound of the metal clanging rings in the still, humid summer air. “We didn’t know if you were alive.” Seungkwan whispers, his arms taut as he envelops you in an embrace. He’s the most sensitive and gentle of the three, so he seems glad to be in the center of your hug. You don’t know why you’re surprised they all look the same, it’s not as if it’s been months since you’ve seen them—just a few days—but you take a few moments to take in Soonyoung’s and Seungkwan’s appearances. Soonyoung, carrying his red axe which is quite literally on fire (a feature he’d acquired after coming to the aid of many dragon-like deities), with flame-like patterns carved out of its gold head, welded into cherry wood for its handle. He’s also wearing his typical getup, a plain white shirt under honey denim overalls. A belt’s loosely wrapped around his waist, with pieces of armor strapped to each arm and both shins, and you figure they’ve been treading a far different path by looking at his muddy knee-high amber boots. Seungkwan has on a long sleeve fern green tunic with dramatic coattails extending to his calves. Underneath he wears pants of a darker pine color, with black leather boots. Often in the winter he switches out his plain boots for identical ones with added fur at the top, but seeing as you’re all sweating in the dead of night in the middle of July, there’s no use for them now. Seungkwan’s hand loosens around the gold stock of his lance, the crystal point looking like an upside-down V, its iridescence shimmering even in the dim tent.

“Your Majesty.” Soonyoung says softly before all three of them, as if in sync, slip from your embrace to kneel on the ground, their gazes settling on the grass. Face feeling hot, you look around at the ten pairs of eyes following your every move, every slight micro-expression, suggesting, “Ah...guys, you don’t need to...” “Please forgive us.” Seokmin’s face is completely parallel to the ground, and none of them are moving an inch. Your stomach does a backflip and you blink a couple times, feeling light-headed. Suddenly feel like you’re standing in a puddle of saltwater, your body feels ice cold. “We couldn’t…They…” Seungkwan sniffles, words sounding nasally. The puddle’s getting bigger. The water keeps coming; it’s up to your knees now. “We failed to protect your mother and father.” Oh Gods. It’s at your waist, you’re swimming in the ocean alone, lost at sea. No, wait. You don’t feel lost at sea, you are lost at sea. Almost as if you’re dreaming, you know you’re in a tent in the plains of Midmire, but you’re lost in your own consciousness. The whole thing feels incredibly vivid to your senses, like a hyper-realistic lucid dream. “They’re dead.” one of them says. You’re not sure who—you don’t care. They’re dead. They’re dead. They’re dead. They’re dead. They’re...

“Y/N…” Cheol calls your name, but you swing your head up, to look at the blue, sunny sky where his voice is coming from. How are you supposed to get all the way up there? Especially when this water keeps getting higher? As the air remains completely still, you try to talk, but nothing comes out. Grasping your vocal chords, mute screams jump from your vocal chords and sink into the water below you, immobilizing you like an anchor. Helpless, you look up to the heavens. “S-Something’s wrong!” Seungkwan yells, a voice once again coming from the clouds, its echo vibrating the surface of the water. Your legs frantically flounder, trying to keep yourself from drowning, but you watch as the day becomes night and the ocean swallows you whole. What you can only assume is screaming ripples through the dark water, so much screaming, it’s muffled and words, too, are being exchanged but you can’t make any of them out. It’s like you’re a genie in a bottle, sucked into a miniscule space, suffocating even though there’s nothing and nobody else in there with you. A cold glow fills your blood, and you lift your hands to watch a white fiery plasma pulsate through your veins. It’s so violent you feel as though your entire body is suffering from a massive migraine. None of this is normal, but yet it feels so familiar—like it’s innate.

“Somnio!” a booming voice breaks clearly through the dark still waters.

And then you sleep.

⟡|⟡|⟡|⟡|⟡

You grumble a few times, hands shooing away the burning sensation on your forehead. You think to yourself that your head feels uncomfortable on this hard and stiff surface before groaning some more. “Are you awake?” Soft speech tiptoes into your ears while a few deep voices quietly chatter, and even though it’s relatively hushed, it all forms one big tumbleweed of conversation, making your head pound. Well I feel like shit. You remember that one time you felt extremely bold (is bold the right word?) when you were well under Matrona’s legal drinking age, going through your first four bottles of wine in one night. You felt close to the grave the next day, barely making it through the worst hangover of your life. That kinda feels like this, plus the sensation as if you’ve been left out in the snow while naked for hours. Your eyelids flutter open, irises meeting the looming figure whose lap your head is propped up on—Minghao. His charcoal hair is pushed out of his eyes, and for the first time he seems friendly. His hooded eyes seem inviting, like a cozy bed, wide as your gaze drifts to the rounded tip of his nose, then to his soft cheeks, then to his cupid bow lips. Unsure why you’re taking so much time studying his face, you snappily sit up on the patch-riddled blanket laid out under you and Minghao, your forehead just barely missing his along the way.

“Are you okay?” he asks, seemingly oblivious to you checking his physical attributes out just moments earlier. Was he nursing you back to health while you were sleeping? “W-What...What happened?” your breathing picks up as soon as you realize it’s just Cheol, Jeonghan, Minghao, and you under the stars. You know it’s summer and you can feel the heat around you, but the cold inside you causes you to shiver, making it impossible not to stutter. You look behind you to Cheol and Jeonghan as they sit next to Minghao around the crackling flames that are just a few feet away, where they had stopped mid-conversation to watch you awaken. You turn around slowly towards all three of them, poorly enunciated syllables sloppily racing from your numb lips, “Where is everyb…-body? Where are m-my retainers?” “Hey, hey, hey,” Cheol raises one hand like he’s trying to soothe a rambunctious horse, “They’re fine, everyone is eating dinner inside the tent. You need your rest…” he tells you, reaching over Minghao to press his calloused hand to your forehead, making you feel as though you’ve been shocked by a surge of electricity. Was this because his touch was embarrassing or because it was it scorching hot? Maybe it was both. “Great Mila, Minghao!” almost like he had touched a hot pan, he jerks his hand back, shooting an accusing look at his comrade before turning his attention back to you, “Y/N, you’re freezing!” “I’m trying.” Hao says through gritted teeth, glaring at Cheol. He eases the strain on his voice to coax you back to his lap as if you didn’t just hear his miffed griping, “Your Grace, please.”

No, it’s too embarrassing! you whine to yourself, instead trying to change the subject. “T-tell me what happened first.” “But Y/N-” Cheol begins to protest, but you cut him off. “That’s an order f-from the only s-surviving Matronan r-royalty. And I’m f-freezing, so it better be q-quick.” Cheol sighs and exchanges a stunned look with Jeonghan (who smirks) before raising his eyebrows at you in a look of disbelief, “You know I’m still pissed at you, right?” “Irrelevant.” You dismiss his question matter-of-factly, appreciating that Cheol cares about your well-being, but not knowing what the hell is happening—or rather what had happened—is itching at the back of your mind. He takes in a deep breath, the four of you completely silent, the only sound being the logs burning. “You had a...psychic temper tantrum, so to speak.” “What e-exactly does that m-mean?” As if in sync, both Cheol and Jeonghan slowly pivot their heads and look at Minghao, to whom you, too, are now looking to for an explanation.

“You had an overwhelming response to some traumatic news in your life, thus awakening your magic abilities. Your light magic abilities, to be specific. It’s not unheard of for some mages to realize their powers until they have a need to be summoned—like in cases of self defense. But this was...unbelievable. Some of the strongest raw magic I’ve ever felt. “I’ve never seen someone’s eyes such a bright white, and-and your veins! They were glowing through your skin, it was incredible, really.” Minghao’s never seemed this excited about anything before—no scratch that, you’ve never seen him excited, period. He speaks at such a fast pace you barely can process what he’s saying. You—with magical abilities. You—a light mage. He clears his throat before continuing, wiping off the half-smile that has formed on his lips, “Anyways. So, I put you to sleep since you-” correcting himself at once, “...your magic became a threat to everyone’s safety...Doing that took a lot of my strength. ” Oh, you think, Minghao also needed to rest, which makes you feel even worse.

Upon seeing the grave look on your face, Seungcheol quickly chimes in, voice low and delicate, “No one got hurt.” “I...I’m s-sorry. I d-didn’t mean to h-hurt anybody.” once again, the badly articulated words fall from your lips. You distort Minghao’s words in your head, torturing yourself: You’re a threat to everyone’s safety. It repeats again and again in your mind, with each instance you hear your own voice say it, it somehow hurts more—the last thing you wanted to do was cause anyone trouble. You think back to yesterday, when your total word count at the end of the day was a smaller number than the hours the group had traveled on foot. All because you didn’t want to bother anybody, just wanted to create as little change in their lives as possible before you met up with your mother and father and never saw them again. You had desperately wanted them to smoothly transition back to their own normal lives, regardless of how immoral or illegal you believed theirs was. Not like any of that matters now, you have no home and no family. All you have left are your retainers who have been your only friends for years. You will yourself not to cry as you realize that they’re your family now. But was this all just a nightmare? Yeah, I dreamt up that my kingdom was overthrown and my parents were killed. Right. What did I drink before bed to give me such a vivid and horrific nightmare?

“Hey,” Cheol twists his neck so his eyes are meeting yours, and you hadn’t even realized your focus had darkened while shifting to gaze upon the dirt ground, “Don’t beat yourself up too much.” Minghao cocks his head to the side to look you in the eyes, while you notice his tome sitting snugly in his lap. Filling in the blanks, you assume Cheol had given it back to him while you slept, and then Minghao had made it a makeshift pillow of sorts for your head, “I knew something was different about you when I tried to cast a hex to calm you down, and you somehow resisted it. But this...this definitely confirmed it.” Your jaw falls open. That’s right. How did I know that? And how did I resist it?

“Let me warm you up.” Minghao takes notice of your shaking jaw clacking from the ice in your veins, and thinking of how many ways this action could be perceived, you quickly decline. Taking a hint, Jeonghan, who’s been completely mute this entire time, stands up and pats Cheol’s shoulder, signaling him to follow suit, “I’m sure Minghao could fill you in on the rest.” “Wait-” Cheol protests, but he’s helpless against Jeonghan, who places both hands on his back and pushes him forward. They’re both awfully comfortable with each other, but it only makes sense. They’re old friends, and by the looks of it, they’re pretty close. The two of you watch as both of them head into the tent, greeted rowdily by the rest of the boys, which is probably thanks to some form of alcohol. “Come here.” Minghao beckons, encouraging you to scoot closer to him. He loosens his black velveteen cloak and drapes it over your shoulders. You feel your face reddening, but you do as he says when he gently tells you to put your hands together. You ball up one fist and cover it with the opposite hand, thumb coming to rest on top the other. He raises his hand in the direction of the fire, softly whispering, “Magisio.” And the fire livens up, the heat more intense and comforting.

Your hands still clasped together, you begin to wonder why he told you to do so until he says, “Benevolenska ignisin,” a tiny flame hovering over his palm. “This won’t hurt, I promise.” You watch in awe, until he somewhat frightens you by rather forcibly grabbing your hands to hold them in his own. “S-sorry.” he apologizes, barely audible. “That’s okay.” you mumble, face turned away from him. Your is heart beating wilder than ever, and you pray to the Gods that he can’t tell. “I thought that was pretty cool...what you did.” Minghao softly states suddenly. “W-what? Lose control?” You let out a single chuckle. “No.” he replies, annoyance in his voice—you assume it’s because he doesn’t want to be misunderstood, “Royals usually sit back and watch people die for their cause. Seeing you step up and put your own life on the line was refreshing.” “I think it was d-dumb.” you retort, admitting your shame to him, knowing he wouldn’t judge, almost certain he doesn’t care enough about you to do so anyways. You choose not to focus too much on his hands that wrap around yours, and his cloak around your shoulders, even if both are helping raise your body’s temperature a lot.

“Well, I don’t think that’s your fault...” You remain quiet, unsure if you’re being taken seriously because of the stuttering. But perhaps Minghao gives you something to consider, or rather, offered an optimistic perspective. Which is unexpected from him, quite frankly. A minute or so passes until Hao reignites the conversation. “Just so you know, Seungcheol isn’t only mad at you because you put everyone else in danger. He’s also mad that put yourself in danger.” You remain silent, confused as to why he would care so much. You’d only known each other for a few days. Then again, they were a few life-altering days. Guess it’s true that people bond over shared traumas. “I can tell he feels responsible for you. Especially now with your parents…” he hesitates finishing his sentence out of sensitivity, so you decide to finish it for him. “Gone.” The scene of Seokmin, Seungkwan, and Soonyoung kneeling before you paints itself in your mind, the memory so vivid and fresh it’s like it’s happening in front of you all over again. You aren’t mad at them—not one bit. You know without the full tale that all three of them were loyal to your kingdom and protected your parents until the end. The more you think about it, the more you feel sorry for them. A retainer’s one and only duty is to protect their assigned royalty—even if that means sacrificing their own life. Seeing as all of them came out alive, had faced the loss of their king and queen firsthand, and failed to keep their only sworn vow, they’re probably beating themselves up just as much as you are right now.

Minghao waits a moment before responding, choosing his words carefully, “Yeah. I’m...I’m sorry.” “It seems like a lot of us are cursed with losing our parents. There should be a club for that or something.” you jump after you finish speaking, wanting to take back what you’d just said, “Oh. I’m so sorry, that was insensitive.” He lets out a guttural chuckle, taking you by surprise, and soon you’re mirroring him, letting out a small giggle while his black ink stained fingers tighten around yours. It’s the first time you’ve heard him laugh, so you couldn’t let yourself miss the view, turning your head to see the accompanying grin, which is just as beautiful as you had expected. His eyes narrow and the puffiness underneath them bend to form little smiles. When it’s rare for someone to laugh or smile, the more fulfilling it is when it happens—especially if it’s because of you. Needless to say, you feel very fulfilled right now. “No, that was funny. I liked it.” he reassures, turning to face you, two pairs of eyes meeting. You note his humor matches his magic, his eyes, his hair—dark. Both of you stare at each other for a few moments, not saying anything, before Minghao swallows a lump in his throat, turns back towards the bright orange fire, and slips his hands from yours, the flame dying out in his palm, “Are you feeling better?” “Yes, thank you.” In an effort to fill the silence and ignore your heart pounding recklessly, you recall a bit of something he said earlier, “Oh, by the way…” “Yeah?” His head begins to turn towards you but stops, and your gaze doesn’t leave him, knowing he’s looking in your direction although you can’t see his eyes. Continuing on, you declare, “That stuff you said earlier...about my skin glowing and all that. That was in my dream.” “Your dream?” His eyes finally meet yours again, and even though it’s not the first or the second time, his attention on you still makes your heart skip a beat. “Yeah.” you gulp tensely, “I had this weird dream that I was in this puddle and it was daytime, and then as I realized the puddle I was standing in became an ocean, it turned into night. And there was screaming, and...” moving on as you decide it isn’t a great idea to relive the more haunting parts of it, “I couldn’t talk? And I was drowning in the ocean, and that’s when my veins started to glow and I could see them through my skin.” Minghao remains still, not even batting a lash at something you consider ridiculous, your fingers tensing up as he tells you, “That wasn’t a dream.” “Then what was it?” “It’s your Magicae Locus.” taking in your raised eyebrow and mouth slightly agape, this signals him to extrapolate, “Your Magicae Locus. It’s a place your subconscious creates to tie your physical self to the magic buried within you. Think of it as in between astral projection and lucid dreaming.”

Feeling inquisitive, you prod him on, “So what exactly does that mean?” “Each mage has visited their Magicae Locus when they were just starting to learn magic. When you visit yours it opens a portal, so to speak, to allow your physical body to produce, manipulate—et cetera—magic. It’s essentially where your mind goes when your powers awaken. Besides that, it’s not meant much for anything else.” He holds his hands up to the crackling and sizzling fire just a meter away before his fingers tangle together, hands arranging themselves in his lap. “It felt real, right? Like you actually were there even though you also knew you were really someplace else.” “Yes!” your eyes widen as you learn somebody else understands and you snap your fingers, grabbing his attention, “That’s exactly how it felt.” “See?” his voice is calm, but a large huff of air escapes his mouth, and you realize you probably startled him. “Magicae Locus.” Wanting to progress with the conversation since you feel slightly embarrassed upon seeing his alarmed state, you ask, “Can that portal be closed?” Your fingers grip his cloak to bring it back over your shoulder since it had slipped sometime during the conversation. He blinks a few times while a puzzled look moves across his features. A few small moments pass without him saying anything, and you begin to think it’s because he doesn’t know the answer, but he finally responds, “Of course. Anything that can be opened can be closed. I’ve never heard of a mage ‘closing the portal’ though. I have heard of a mage inserting themselves into somebody else’s Magicae Locus and cutting off that person’s connection. But I’d assume to do it, there has to be an insane amount of magic, and a brilliantly powered mage at the source of it.” “I’m just curious.” you blurt out, since you know he would have asked anyways.

A few more moments pass in reticence, and even though you feel like you know Hao better now, nonetheless you still feel jittery around him. “Hey, can I ask you something?” “Shoot.” you watch as Minghao goes back to his same old blank expression. “Will you teach me magic?” the words fall from your throat, and your heart feels uneasy knowing there’s a big chance you’ll be rejected. In your head, you say a word of apology to your poor heart who’s been through a lot today. His chin tilts slightly in your direction, “You want me…to teach you magic?” “Yes...please.” your shoulders perk up, as you draw in a large breath. You’ve been reading about light magic for a while now, you know its origins, its different uses...just not how to control it. Well, obviously, as shown by certain events earlier tonight. “Light and dark magic are somewhat different. I’m not sure if I’d be any help.” he replies, and you slump, kicking yourself on the inside for getting your hopes up, even for a second. “But…” You turn to look at him, wide-eyed and expectantly as the flames of the campfire move across the different highs and lows of his face, like flesh topography. “I can try.” “Really?” your lips curl to form an ear-to-ear grin, and for the first time you feel like you catch a glimpse of Minghao’s gentle side. I mean, who in their right mind would offer to teach magic to someone they just met a few days ago? “Yeah, sure…I mean, if I can find the time t-?” “Oh Minghao, thank you, thank you, thank you!” your arms wrap around his broad shoulders, and he lets out an odd noise of surprise, one that isn’t natural or familiar.

“You guys about done out here?” Cheol’s voice says from behind you, causing both Hao and you to jump. Your arms fall to your side and the two of you stand up. “Gods, Cheol! You scared the hell out of me!” Minghao shouts, and you watch as Seungcheol’s face that’s riddled with a scowl snatches the cloak curtained around you into his fist before shoving it into Minghao’s chest. “Are you hungry?” Cheol shifts his attention to you, explaining they have several rabbits worth of grilled meat lying in the tent. You haven’t eaten yet, and are feeling exponentially better, so you decide to head on in and enjoy a nice meal.

⟡|⟡|⟡|⟡|⟡

The whole tent is explosive with laughter, and for only the second time this whole journey you feel relaxed. The two groups are mingling, Wonwoo is soliciting with some of the other boys whose names you still don’t know. Jeonghan is talking to Chan as Seungcheol plops down beside him. Time seems still for a moment as your eyes take in the scene before you, not missing the dishes set out for dinner. Trays of fruit, lightly cooked tan meat (no doubt the rabbit Cheol had talked about), white rice, and carrots scatter around the length of the table. What is it with these guys and carrots? At the middle stand seven bottles of white zinfandel, three of which seem to be open and empty. Minghao has made himself comfortable next to Mingyu, you watch on in intrigue as they clink chalices, grinning as they enjoy each other’s presence. “Can I sit here?” you ask Soonyoung, voice slightly raised to reach above the babble, hand coming down to rest on the empty space of table next to Soonyoung. All three of your retainers are sitting together in a row across the table from Jun, who’s chatting up two more young men you don’t recognize. His brown eyes peek out beneath his rose pink locks to meet your gaze for a split second before swiftly looking down, “Yes, of course, Y/N.” Swinging your legs over the maple wood bench to slip your legs underneath, Seungkwan gasps out your name, and by the time you finish getting comfortable, you’re looking at him but by the time you try to meet his gaze he’s hard at work eating his food, eyes frantically roaming around the tent. Seokmin is seated next to Seungkwan, who feels the younger’s awkward sudden movements and shifts himself around to ask if he’s okay. Seungkwan whispers something to him before Seokmin looks you in the eyes, and then mimics Seungkwan’s elusive and uneasy behavior.

“Um.” you clear your throat, Soonyoung meeting your eyes. By his stiff body language, he’s obviously feeling fearful but you figure he’s too afraid to look away. Or perhaps he’s afraid you’ll do something brash, so he’s keeping his eyes on you in case you lose your temper again. “Guys.” you call out to the three of them again. The other two hesitate, but eventually give you their attention. You clear your throat a second time, “I’m uh…” you blink a few times, the words getting mixed up and blurry in your head, so you settle for a simple: “Thank you.” All three angle their heads to hastily lock eyes before looking back up at you. Seokmin is the one who replies, “You’re—you’re not mad?” “Of course not.” in some way you feel hurt that any of them would expect you to be upset. They’d been your retainers ever since you were all early teeangers, and as retainers they were trained hard and fast. Seungkwan began his training a year before Soonyoung and Seokmin, but was a year younger than when the other two had started. The day they were assigned to you and you could finally stop traveling around with those two dusty men in their fifties (who annoyed you to no end with their nagging and lecturing) was a day to be remembered. Since that day, all four of you were inseparable.

“Kwannie!” Soonyoung laughs, one arm extending around Seungkwan’s shoulder as the other hand came to rest on his bicep, “Don’t cry!” “I just thought you would never forgive us.” Seungkwan mumbles, hand coming up to wipe his eyes and nose while Seokmin giggles and leans over to rest his head on his still arm for a few moments. Your heart aches seeing Seungkwan’s tears of relief, it was never easy to see him cry, even if it was out of happiness. For a moment it’s just another night in the castle you call home, all four of you sitting by the fire sticking by each others’ sides through another brutal winter as you find old literature to read in funny voices. “There’s nothing to forgive, it wasn’t any of your faults.” you assure them, shaking your head, ill at just the thought of holding a grudge against them. “And I should be the one apologizing. I put everybody in danger.” “It wasn’t your fault.” Seokmin reassures you, leaning just far enough while he sits behind Seungkwan so that you could see his wet eyes. Soonyoung nods in agreement, while Seungkwan is busy shielding his face from you. “Yeah, I mean you’ve done some pretty stupid shit. And that was one of them, b-” Soonyoung’s eyes wander around the social interactions happening in front of him while he speaks, too distracted to be able to block Seungkwan’s elbow with a blow to his upper arm. “OW! I wasn’t done! As I was saying… You’ve done some stupid shit-” “That we had a part in, too.” Seungkwan interrupts, words departing in Soonyoung’s direction under a glare. Soonyoung ignores him and his gaze shifts upon you, smiling as he’s determined to finish his thought, “But that was probably the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.”

Seungkwan, wet tears still laying on his face, stands up with his craggy cotton napkin in hand and begins to beat the devil out of Soonyoung with it, who shields himself with a small silver plate. Soon all four of you are cackling, Seokmin and you both joining Seungkwan’s force to pelt Soonyoung with napkins. After the fight dies down and you feel your abdomen begin to ache from all the laughter, Seokmin reaches across the table to retrieve a bottle of wine. Soonyoung follows his lead, and gathers up four shiny silver wine chalices, “All of us have had a long journey, let’s relax tonight.” Spending the rest of the night next to your old friends from home while in a tent, miles away from your kingdom, is a weird feeling. You’re so used to being cooped up behind brick walls that your experience being outside of them isn’t anything close to what you were expecting. Then again, neither was losing your kingdom and your parents. But for one night, just this one, when the pain of grief is at its peak, you want to ignore it. Everything is changing, or rather, it already had—your path is tangoing with each person’s in this tent. Drinking seems like a good way to numb the mixture of grief, confusion, and shock that creeps into every waking thought. Even though you’re well aware the next time you wake up you’ll be burdened with a real hangover, you tell yourself, But that’s a problem for tomorrow, already on your third chalice of zinfandel. You watch and laugh as Seokmin and Seungkwan entertain the group with a melodramatic skit, taking note of Seungkwan already knowing the names of the boys who you arrived with as shown as he playfully yells at Chan and Wonwoo for their obnoxious side commentary.

An intense and strong energy from farther down the table radiates to you, but it’s not magic of any sort. Changing the direction of your gaze, your eyes cling to one particular individual whose gaze you suspect has been on you for the last several minutes. Seungcheol, who’s planted between Jeonghan and Joshua (a boy Soonyoung had introduced you to while you had sipped on your first serving of wine), is resting his head on his palm, fingers curled against his cheek. His other arm is flat against the table, fingers playing with the base of his presumably empty chalice. Blinking a few times, he silently chuckles at your dumbfounded reaction, softly batting his lashes a couple times, gaze still very much on you. A nervous giggle leaps from your throat, but the skit going on at the front of the table disguises it. However, the evidence of it still shows on your face, a small grin playing at your lips. Cheol grins back at you while you mouth, Are you still mad at me? He shakes his head frantically like a small child who’s in trouble; it’s then you realize it’s the alcohol that’s causing him to act oddly. He mouths something back at you, but as the skit causes another eruption of wild guffaws from all the boys, it’s harder to focus on making out what he’s saying.

Let’s all you narrow. is all you catch the first time. With your eyebrows pulled together, and eyes squinted, you watch, distant, as he mouths it for you again, and you finally piece the words together: Let’s talk tomorrow. Is it bad? You mouth, amusedly watching him as he drunkenly over-does his squinting while trying to read your lips. He furiously shakes his head again, re-adjusting his arms to cross over each other, so that they rest flat on the table. Once again, he replies by mouthing something to you but it’s unintelligible and after he does it a third time his eyelids get droopy until they close completely. You suppress a giggle as you watch him slowly drift to sleep, head gradually coming down to rest on his crossed arms. Seokmin and Seungkwan’s skit finally ends, the whole tent claps and cheers loudly, while Seungcheol doesn’t move an inch.

You shift your gaze to the stars of the show, your swift movement catching Minghao’s eye, who’s seated across from you, along the way. His eyebrow is raised, and he looks at you, and then in Seungcheol’s direction. Gathering what’s happened, he takes in the sight of Cheol who’s currently slouched over the table, fast asleep, not doing much besides breathing. Hao switches his gaze back to you, lips pulling upwards to form a lazy smile, and you find it impossible to stop from yourself reciprocating. Giggling under your breath, you raise your chalice to your lips, taking another swig as you enjoy Minghao’s lingering gaze, drinking in all the excitement and celebration of the night.

⟡|⟡|⟡|⟡|⟡

EDIT (180807): i edited some of the story after going back and realizing i left in some of the effects of the original storyline i had planned of jeongcheol being old army buddies + MC thinking YJH killed CSC’s parents (when he was from a diff army who fought alongside matrona’s) and [s]he/they almost killed him to exact revenge. i rewrote a lot of dialogue from from “I thought that was pretty cool...what you did.” to “But perhaps Minghao gives you something to consider...” so if you’ve already read this & dont wanna read the whole thing again, theres ur start & stop places to see the changes and hopefully b less confused......super sorry abt any confusion, i reread this thing like 15 times and it still went over my head..maybe i should get a secondhand opinion before posting next time cuz im seriously embarrassed i just noticed this 2 months later l o l

→ CHAPTER 4

PHEW. god!!!!!! this was the hardest chapter to write. yesterday i was like “im 100% happy w this” after working on it for 3 weeks, and then i went and added 1,000 more words lmaoooo

i really enjoyed this one tho, the tension seems to be v real between y/n & hao 😈i’ll admit i swerved into his lane like 34 times since writing this.....the most fun part was writing y/n’s magicae locus. its nice to take a break from dialogue and write stuff that relies more on description ! speaking of magicae locus, all the words hao says is a mix of (obviously) latin, some italian, and some russian. im working on coming up w a name for the language !

again, i hope the love triangle isnt cheesy + playing into the usual clichés. its important to me that its not the “we hate each other bc we’re both competing for ur love” cliché isnt present. doesnt mean there cant be tension tho 😏how many times have i said tension???

thank u every1 who continues to leave likes, reblogs, nice comments + msgs. feedback means the world to me ;_; i will try my best to not let u all down 💞💓💝 this is my gift to u to start off the week 😁 & as always, heres the google drive link to the inspirations behind each members’ weapons and outfits here.

-deedee

[sanerontheinside]

y’all, i dunno... I thought I posted this shit before but I guess not anyway at some point I probably mentioned writing fanfic about my friend group from college  I can’t find that particular post tho which is probably for the better but I’m also an idiot who’s gonna post it now under a cut for, idk, shits and giggles. 

also, icky ricky is, legit, what they named the bathtub. he’s not a real actual person. that doesn’t change the fact that the spider who lived in Sangini’s room was Ricky’s pet. 

the worst part of this is none of the names have been changed yet and Alex=saner so spoiler alert I die real fast. blink and you’ll miss it. 

When the girls moved into their apartment that year, they joked about the bathroom looking like a murder scene. And it did: they assumed it was just rust staining the bathtub, and anyway their apartment complex had been on the short end of the list for renovations last year. Meredith was the first to move in. By the time the others had arrived she’d caulked and cleaned the bathroom, and given it a fresh coat of paint. All the while, as she was there alone, she kept hearing odd stirrings in the apartment - was it infested with mice as well? But she wasn't the type to get creeped out by murder scenes and odd noises in empty apartments, and decided the neighbours were doing the stirring. It was more logical than the reality, really.

It was when all four girls had finally settled in that things got a little bizarre. Everything seemed pretty alright at first. Noises were blamed on the neighbours. The bathroom - well, for all its faults, it was largely in working condition. But the lighter sleepers could tell you that apart from the drunk neighbours upstairs and the apartment assistant next door throwing loud-ass parties, the scuffling got louder at night. And it moved around. And sometimes - sometimes - the toilet flushed itself.

Sometimes it flushed itself during the day, too. Not that this wasn't a thing toilets did, as their friends assured them. It wasn't something you could call Housing about. Eventually you got used to it.

The bathtub, too, was something of a mystery. It happened that a couple weeks into the semester, it stopped draining. The girls called Housing Services, who sent a lady to give it a onceover. The lady assessed the situation, attempted to fix it, but was ultimately unsuccessful. The next day another guy came, but the tub, probably deciding it wasn’t worth the trouble, was by then draining just fine. It periodically had bouts of stagnation thereafter, but they didn’t seem to last very long.

Nobody thought much of the scuffling, or the random flushing, or the moody bathtub, or of the neighbours (nobody ever thinks much of their neighbours anyway) until the day that - until the night that - until the morning that Sangini blearily wandered out of her shared room with Khushbu and over to the refrigerator. The apartment upstairs was alive with staggering horses freshly drunk from some frat bar, the apartment next door had a spectacularly destructive sound system - so far as headaches go, a real menace. Not to say, sensitive heads, belonging to Comp-Sci majors who code by night, sleep by day, write essays by the crimson-gold of sundown. And so: at four in the morning a rather disoriented CompSci major with a pulsing head and a late-night gnawing stomach shuffled over to the refrigerator, stood in front of its dimmed light for a moment, staring at the packed inside, and reached over for the milk.

Her hand stopped a little short of it. She considered the situation, wondering just what was so odd about it. Sangini turned to the living room carefully and peered across it at the half-curtained window with a perplexed look on her face, then looked back at the refrigerator.

If there was no one in the living room, why had the refrigerator door been wide open? She hadn't opened it. In fact, if not for the little bit of light that snaked its way out of the the vegetables and boxes and eggs and bottles and things, she would probably have tripped halfway across the hall.

"Meredith?" She was certain that she'd left Khushbu asleep in the room, and aware that Meredith generally clocked out at ten or eleven and revived at five for a morning jog. "Neha?" Also unlikely. Two in the morning - maybe. But, four?

Whoever it was, they'd been here moments ago, since the refrigerator light was still on. Sangini shuddered, shook her head, and decided she'd opened the door herself. Milk, cereal, bowl, crunch.

Thump.

Okay - Sangini didn't have anything to do with that thump. She paused over her next spoonful, slowly raised her head, and peered into the darkness. "Uh, hello?" she asked the room at large. There was no answer.

Light. Yes - light would be nice. Right now it was dark outside and the blueish moon was doing its best to round the corners of the Richardson Apartments, but the complexes were packed together with the occasional tree in between, and the moon wasn't getting anywhere - the struggle was too damn real. Sangini cautiously walked over to the door, hit the light switch with a lightning jab, poised defensively at the rest of the seemingly empty living room. But there was no one there.

Sufficiently creeped out, she picked up her bowl and spoon and withdrew the heck from the living room. Whatever was digging through their packed refrigerator, it could have at it. Would be nice if some of the food in there got unloaded.

The next day was largely uneventful, in terms of scuffles. Khushbu had a co-op, and a moderately heavy day of classes. Sangini, as usual, slept in, then headed off to class herself. Neha shared certain classes with Khushbu and preferred to study at the library. Meredith, after her morning jog, also came back to the apartment only briefly. And Sangini happily forgot about the creepy thing.

Nature took its revenge on the close-packed campus in the winter, triumphed in spring, waxed vengefully hot in the summer, celebrated its victory over Rutgers humans anew in autumn. Now, after spring break, the weather was a bit more cheerful, and the ice was gradually receding as Nature entered its refractory period after pounding the natives with cold, wet, slushy dirty squelchiness, and decided it liked nice weather after all. It was the perfect week to celebrate Neha's birthday, and that evening the group got together at Henry's, the diner on Livi.

At least three separate conversations meandered all over the table of approximately ten people. Neha ordered a caramel coffee straight away, and set about weighing the vegetarian options on the menu - a limited number, but a pretty decent selection. Neha Sikka - not Sangini's apartment mate - was doing sugar shots in the corner by the window next to Ian, who was encouraging her. Sangini and Ben and Kriti were warring over pasta choices. Alex suggested coffee flavours and dessert choices, and punched Ben in the shoulder whenever he said something she didn’t like. Sanjana and Ashwini pored over the menu in search of something they hadn't tried yet. Bethann looked for someone with whom to split the Bruschetta, and was trying to convince Khushbu at the moment. Pooja, who lived on Cook-Doug and whom they almost never saw, joined them about twenty minutes into the meal. Aditya ordered quickly and went back to discussing comics and computers with Ben. Jeff ‘the Ninja-Crow’ presided silently by the windows.

Eventually Alex started talking about that time she couldn’t fall asleep for half the night, heard something clanging in the suite that sounded a lot like the heater was broken. She’d come out and found Sam cutting up a kiwi over the sinks. Sangini instantly remembered the creepy thing.

“Guys-guys-guys-guys!” she hissed excitedly down the table.

Ben answered with his predictable ‘What!’ [-do you want from my life-, unspoken], Alex immediately devoted her attention entirely to her salmon, Neha and Kriti were busily splitting and sharing their dishes. Really, trying to get everyone’s attention was more than a bit like herding cats. “Guys, I think there was someone in our apartment last night. At, like, four in the morning.”

“Ben, did you sleep there?” Alex asked quietly.

“No.”

“Did Matt sleep there?”

Sangini shook her head. “Nobody slept over.”

Alex wasn’t giving up. “Jeff, did you come in through the window?”

“Nope.”

Alex shrugged. “Honestly, your bathroom flushes itself, your bathtub plays games with you, and you think there is someone in your apartment at four in the morning. Maybe it’s haunted.” Not that she believed in ghosts. Although, she seemed to entertain the idea of friendly, mischievous spirit-gremlin-type thingies.

“Yeah!” Ben half-shouted, and returned to his previous conversation.

Sangini persisted: “No, but I’m serious, I’m pretty sure I heard breathing in the living room. And the fridge was open before I got to it. Alex? Come stay with us?”

“Overnight? I can’t, I have a long day tomorrow. But I can go back with you guys.”

Alex wasn’t particularly afraid of ghosts, and it was nice to think that if there was a ghost, she could beat it up and scare it back to the Netherworld. Almost in jest, she took the precaution of enlisting Khushbu’s help, however.

But when they all got back to Richardson, they opened the door to a pretty bizarre sight.

He'd been coming out of the bathroom - they could still hear the toilet flushing - and hadn't had enough time to duck into Meredith's room. Sangini had immediately pushed Alex to the head of the crowd, between herself and the intruder.

"Uh," he said. "Uh, hi," he thought to add.

"And who are you, exactly?" Ben supplied, as Alex still seemed to be running through swear words un her head so that she didn't say them aloud.

“Nobody,” he mumbled.

“Got a name?” Alex drawled, having finally hit on the part of her brain that didn't require a censor.

"Uh," he said, "yeah. Rick. Name's Ricky."

"Ricky," Ben repeated flatly. He nodded. "So, what’re you - how did you get in?" The man just stared back.

"Were you here last night?" Sangini called out finally.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, the guys let me live here last year, I sorta don't have a place to go, so -"

It was the first coherent sentence he'd spoken, and it got away from him by the end, but at least he spoke. Alex walked forward to a chair - Ricky shrank back as she did so.

"So you've been living here since last year?" Ben asked, as everyone followed Alex's example and filed into the room.

"Yeah. I lost my job, and, uh - well I used to be a plumber here, so..."

"What, have you been living in walls?" Neha asked in disbelief. Snark popped out of her when she was nervous or worried.

"Under the couch. Sometimes the beds. Depends."

They all jumped as the buzzer rattled in the ensuing silence. "Somebody has to let Ashwini in," Khushbu said quietly.

"Uh, should we?" Jeff asked.

"Would it change anything?" Neha pointed out. "We're all freaked out anyway."

So Khushbu ran out to let Ashwini into Richardson. Ashwini pointed out, in a timely fashion, that Khushbu was looking more worried than usual, which of course only flustered Khushbu more. Ashwini was finally getting around to asking her what was wrong as they walked through the door. She stopped dead at the sight of Ricky, who was grinning a somewhat nauseated grin. The poor guy honestly looked terrified.

“What the hell?” Ashwini stuttered out a breathy, nervous laugh.

“‘Shweens! This is Ricky. Ricky, this is ‘Shwini.” Sangini made the introductions, for all the world like this sort of thing happened every day.

‘Shwini, as usual, didn't miss a beat. “I thought you named your tub that.”

There was an awkward pause. Ricky, thankfully, didn't notice. And anyway, Alex immediately distracted him with a very enthusiastic - “Hey, you gotta show me how you hide!”

Ricky blinked. “Uh, okay.”

Alex was suddenly excited and jumped up. “Seriously, there's no space here, I want to know how you do it.”

Ricky stared at her looking a little shelled, said “okay” again, and turned around and walked back down the hall into Sangini’s room. Alex darted after him, grinning madly, while everyone else tried to explain - badly - what the heck that was about to Shwini.

By the time Alex got to the room, though, she’d nearly lost Ricky in the dark. He hadn’t turned on the lights, not in the hall and not in the room, and Alex pretty much blocked the better part of the dim light from the hall.

“You sure you wanna do this?” Ricky asked, awkward as before. “I mean like… not everybody wants to go through walls ‘n stuff.”

Alex laughed. “You kidding? I’ve always wanted to walk through walls.”

Ricky brightened. “Oh, yeah? Cool. This way, here - see? This part of the wall kinda feels funny, like it’s buzzing, yeah?” He ducked over to the window at the head of Sangini’s bed and put his hand beside the frame.  

Alex pressed her hand against the cinderblock gently. “Yeah, sure. So you just… go through?”

Ricky nodded enthusiastically.

“Okay then.”

Ashwini was not to be distracted, and not really one to be unnecessarily polite. “So who was that creepy dude?”

Ben perked up from across the room. “Who, me?”

“No, Jeffrey,” Ashwini deadpanned back at him. “Why is there a creepy guy in Sangini’s room?”

“He’s the creepy bathtub,” Ian clarified, though it offered absolutely no clarity.

“Come on, guys, I’m serious!”

Ben shrugged. “Hey, where’s Alex?”

“Alex?” Sangini turned and called down the hall. “You guys coming back?”

Alex wandered out of the room, looking pretty cheerful. “Nah, Ricky bailed. Said he saw a guy coming over whom he didn’t like.”

Someone buzzed the door again. “Oh, I think that’s Matt!” Sangini exclaimed, completely missing the sudden hush as she twisted around and booked it for the door.

Alex snickered. “No situational awareness, that one,” she sighed, as the door shut.

“Yeah!” Ben shouted, and went back to playing Cards Against Humanity against Aditya, Pooja, and both Nehas.

personally, the highlight of my night that year was the ddos attack on Rutgers, probably the first of three, which was eventually determined to be caused by bots based in Russia, and why they picked RuTGeRs UniVerSIty of all places is still a fucking mystery my dudes. 

Then they lost the Internet.

Alex had been relaxing, quietly writing her fiction, discussing something with Ben. The conversation could have been mildly disturbing for the uninitiated.

The moment the Internet blipped out, she scowled and asked what was going on.

"Apparently a disgruntled student has launched a DDoS attack," Jeff remarked flatly.

"Wait, for real? Shit," Alex muttered. "Dunno about disgruntled students, but this clown is disgruntling me and my not-yet-downloaded thermo hw and practice problems."

“Yeah - meanwhile, you’re writing fiction,” Ben smirked. Instead of hitting him for pointing out the obvious, though, Alex shrugged.

"Yeah - no, guys, that may not be true," Sangini interjected quickly.

"Well if it is true, if I fail this midterm, and if I find this joker, I will tear out his throat in a most disgruntled manner," Alex said lightly, as if commenting on the weather.

Aditya had been keeping tabs on emails from the university's tech office and soon discovered a Twitter account that claimed to be the hacker.

[lentils-writes]

Day 12: Arranged marriage AU with this prompt that I found: 

okay but like two friends getting married for cheaper tution like hah we are geniuses this is a fool proof plan and we are completely platonic everything is fine haha i didnt just notice how beautiful your eyes are and how soft your hair feels LOVING THIS CHEAPER TUITION EVERYTHING IS FINE

(I am SO SORRY this is late I got very carried away I like pining ok)

Kara checks her phone on the bus home and, of course, there’s a text from Melinda. That’s not weird; they text each other every day. What is weird is that it’s just a link to an article and the headline is “Get Married, Save Thousands on Tuition.”

Kara opens the article, skims it, and then replies.

??? what do u mean by this article???

I think it’s pretty self-explanatory.

it’s rly not

explain pls

Well, we both got into U of C, right?

yeah...

But I’m a California resident and you’re not. You’ll gonna be paying an extra twenty grand since you’re out-of-state. If we get legally married, you’ll count as a resident.

Kara feels her face getting hot and glances around to make sure no one is looking at her.

UM

what r u saying

It wouldn’t be a real marriage, calm down. Just so we get tax breaks and lower tuition. I think we could even qualify for the family housing if we’re lucky. It’s way cheaper than the dorms.

wow ur moving kinda fast there

we haven’t even gone on a real date :P

Hey, I took you to see Jupiter Ascending when you were here during winter break last year!

i don’t think that counts

we got kicked out

YOU got us kicked out for laughing too loud!

Anyway, sorry if this is weird. We don’t have to if you don’t want to. I just thought it might be funny.

it is pretty funny

i gotta think about it tho

No worries. Practice starting, bye

Kara stares at her phone for a long moment, thinking. It’s not that she cares that much about marriage or thinks of it as this super important sacred symbol of love or anything. It’s something she’s thought a little more about since New Mexico legalized it when she was a freshman, and then again since the Supreme Court decision last year, but she’s in high school. The idea of falling in love and getting married is so far from her reality that she almost can’t imagine it.

Plus, it’s Melinda. Melinda is the most important person in her life - ever since they met three years ago on Tumblr, Kara’s spent hours talking to Melinda, becoming closer to her than she’s ever been to anyone else. She has friends at school (Alex, Sara, Zoe), but she’s always felt weirdly alienated from the rest of her classmates. Melinda likes to listen to her talk about Greek mythology and weapons history and all the other weird shit that most people find confusing or just too weird. Melinda makes her feel normal. So maybe marrying her best friend for a few years, and then divorcing a few years later, wouldn’t be the worst thing. Especially if the benefits are really that good.

---

Kara’s mom is weirdly supportive. “I know you and Melinda are close,” she says. “And you’re eighteen, I can’t stop you. I just don’t want you to get hurt. Be careful not to take it too seriously, okay?”

Kara hugs her mom and rolls her eyes. “I won’t, Mom,” she says. “We probably won’t even sleep in the same bed or anything.”

When she Skypes Melinda to accept her “proposal,” Melinda smirks. “I told my parents. Dad thinks it’s weird, but he likes the idea of not having to file my taxes for me. Mom lectured me for half an hour in Mandarin about and then said, ‘At least you’ll have someone to look after you, keep you out of trouble.’”

Kara giggles. “Tell her I’ll try?”

“Please. I’m the one that keeps you out of trouble,” teases Melinda. “So, I guess now we’d better figure out how courthouse weddings work. Can you come a couple days early so we can do the ceremony?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Kara nods. “We haven’t booked plane tickets or anything yet. I haven’t even really started packing.”

“Oh, and we should probably get rings. Doesn’t have to be fancy ones, just to keep up the facade. You might even be able to find something at Claire’s.”

“Yeah, I can do that. Can I stay at your place the extra couple days?”

“I’ll have to ask my parents, but probably that’s fine. They like you. As much as they like anyone, I mean.” Melinda chuckles. “I think you being a girl is helping. Mom’s never been that weird about my girlfriends, but I’m pretty sure she thinks it doesn’t really count unless I’m with a guy.”

Kara snorts and rolls her eyes. “Well, either way, it’s only four years. Then you can go off and marry a nice doctor or whatever they want you to do.”

“No, not a doctor. A lawyer. Not that I’m planning on marrying either one. Maybe not at all. You might be it.”

Kara mock-flinches. “So much pressure! I could sour you on the concept of marriage forever.”

“You could,” teases Melinda. “Okay, I have an essay to write for AP history. Later.”

“Bye,” says Kara, signing off. She has homework too, but instead of working on it she finds herself opening a new tab and going to Target’s jewelry section. Just for laughs, of course.

(The one she ends up picking out, and taking the bus to get the next day, is silver and has two curving lines that cross over each other, with a line of clear gems set into one of the lines. It sort of reminds Kara of an infinity symbol - ironic, but it’s fifteen dollars and won’t look too cheap.)

---

Neither Kara nor Melinda opt to wear white dresses to the courthouse. Melinda because Kara’s pretty sure she doesn’t own a single dress, and Kara because she doesn’t own anything white. She wears her favorite red summer dress and a sapphire necklace her mom insisted she take. Melinda wears a button-up shirt and her nice leather jacket. Kara’s starting to feel like maybe the necklace is too much, but Melinda smiles at her and says, “It brings out your eyes.” Kara says thank you and then laughs, and she’s not sure why.

They mostly spend the time waiting to be called in for the ceremony teasing each other about who’s going to do what. “I don’t bake,” Kara says, “so forget about coming home to fresh-baked cookies.”

“You should make us that pasta salad your mom gave you the recipe for, though,” Melinda says. “That sounds amazing.”

“If you rub my shoulders after dinner?”

“Deal.”

The officiant seems to take their giggly familiarity for actual romantic affection, and the ceremony takes only a few minutes. Kara expects it to feel more important than it does, but before she knows it Melinda is slipping the ring on her finger and pulling her in for a quick kiss at the end of the vows. It’s over before Kara can really absorb it’s happening.

They hold hands out of the courthouse, and Melinda grins over at her. “So,” she says. “How’s it feel?”

Kara shrugs, grinning back. “Totally normal.”

“Good,” Melinda says. “I guess maybe we should’ve practiced kissing first, but he didn’t seem suspicious.”

Kara shrugs. “I dunno. I think it was fine.” She hasn’t been kissed in a long time, not since early junior year when she and Beth broke up. She just hasn’t really had time to worry about finding anybody else.

They go get ice cream and shoot each other secret smiles. Kara eats a chunk of her coffee ice cream and stares at the little silver ring on her finger. It’ll take some getting used to.

---

They get a tiny one-bedroom apartment in the family housing complex, which is way nicer than the dorms even if it doesn’t come with furniture. Melinda’s parents help them buy a cheap bed frame and mattress. “Having only one bed saves money,” Lian May says, when May tries to protest. “And there won’t be enough room for two in this tiny place.”

Melinda makes a face at Kara behind her mother’s back, but Kara just shrugs. It’s not like she hasn’t slept in the same bed as other girls before. It’s no big deal.

There’s a ton of orientation activities for them to go to, but they end up skipping out halfway through and going home to order a pizza and watch Netflix. “I guess we could’ve said we were gonna go Netflix and chill,” teases Kara.

Melinda rolls her eyes and bumps her shoulder. “Dork.”

Kara gets a job in the admissions office, and Melinda ends up working at the on-campus gym. Classes start, and they fall into a routine. They switch off cooking every other night, except if someone has a group meeting or evening lecture and then there are usually leftovers in the fridge. They get invited to a few parties and wave at their neighbors and get pretty good at the whole acting-married thing. Kara finds that the story of how they met doesn’t actually need that much editing; people seem to find it adorable. She meets Bobbi in her intro to human biology class, who tells her about the on-campus LGBT+ society (which, apparently, had had a booth at the clubs fair that they skipped) and gives her her number to hang out later. (Kara tries not to laugh out loud; go figure the only time another queer girl’s ever given her her number, it’s in a totally platonic context.)

And then, a month and a half into the school year, Kara has to consider that she might be falling in love with her “wife.”

Or at least she definitely wants to bone her. She figures that out one night when Melinda’s taking a bath and Kara barges into the bathroom to pee (nothing new, they’ve been doing that since the first week here) and notices, holy shit, Melinda has incredible boobs.

Melinda is reading and, when she notices Kara staring, she looks at her, puzzled. “What?”

“Uh,” says Kara, quickly looking away. “Nothing. Just wondering what you were reading.”

“Just a book for European History. You alright? You seem nervous.”

“I’m fine!” Kara says, too abrupt.

(She ends up having some confusing sexy dreams that night, and luckily Melinda has an early class the next morning and she doesn’t. Once Melinda leaves, she gets herself off quickly and hopes maybe that will be the end of it. Maybe it was just her body needing an orgasm.)

(It wasn’t.)

After that, she starts noticing other things: how shiny Melinda’s hair is in the sunlight, how satisfying it is to make her laugh or smile, how strong her hands are. About a week and a half after the bath incident, Melinda offers to give her a shoulder rub and Kara’s heart starts beating so fast she’s sure Melinda can hear it. But she just nods, and it turns out Melinda’s hands are amazingly strong. Kara probably makes some embarrassing noises, but Melinda doesn’t say anything about it, just smirks and says, “Glad you’re enjoying it.”

“I’m just really tense,” mutters Kara, blushing.

“Hey, I get it. My algebra prof is being a pain in the ass and assigning a ton of homework.” Melinda smiles sympathetically at her. “Anytime you need another one lemme know, okay?”

“Th-thanks,” says Kara. “I can try to do it for you too?”

Melinda shrugs. “Sure.” She shucks off her shirt and turns her back to Kara. “You ever done this before?”

“A couple times,” says Kara, “but I don’t think my hands are as strong as yours.” She starts kneading May’s shoulder muscles anyway.

“Mm, this is fine,” hums Melinda. “Thank you.”

Kara tries really hard to do a good job, and also not to notice how soft Melinda’s skin is.

---

Finally she can’t take it anymore and texts Bobbi to meet up with her for lunch. Bobbi’s probably her closest friend on campus (besides Melinda), she can trust her with her secret.

“Hey,” Bobbi says when she arrives at Teriyaki Madness, setting down her styrofoam container full of food and sitting across from Kara. “What’s up?”

Kara purses her lips and then finally says, “It’s kind of a long story, but it has to do with me and Melinda.”

“You’re not really a couple, are you?” Bobbi asks.

Kara’s so startled all she can do is squeak, “Um.”

“Dude, I figured out you guys were faking it like the third time we all hung out together. You guys are obviously super close, but when you hold hands or hug or kiss you’re so awkward. Like, I’ve had friends that were in LDRs and when they were together you couldn’t pry them apart. Not you guys.” Bobbi raises an eyebrow. “I mean, I’m guessing you got married for tuition, right? Mad props. My last ex wanted to do that but I knew we’d end up divorced in six months.”

Kara puts her face in her hands and groans. “Is it that obvious?”

“I mean, I dunno. I’m pretty perceptive. I think probably most people aren’t thinking that much about it. But anyway, what did you wanna talk to me about? You guys okay other than, y’know, not actually being a couple?”

“Um,” says Kara. “Well.” She stares at her soda, unsure of how to say I wanna have sex with my best friend-slash-wife and also I might be falling in love with her?

Bobbi looks at her for a second. “You’re not like, in trouble, are you?”

“No, no! I mean. I’m okay, I just…” Kara swallows and then mutters “ImightbeintoherIthinkmaybe.”

At that, Bobbi laughs, then slaps a hand over her mouth. “Jeez, sorry, that was mean,” she says, but she’s still grinning. “So you, what, figured out you like her now?”

“I guess,” says Kara, eating a piece of chicken. “She’s...we’ve been best friends for three years, she’s the person I know best in the world. Maybe I should’ve seen this coming.”

Bobbi shrugs and replies, “Hey, just ‘cause you’re close with someone doesn’t mean you’re gonna wanna bone them. Izzy and I practically grew up together and I can’t imagine being into her, she’s like my sister. If I had a really hot sister, I guess. But I’m not interested in her that way. Anyway. What are you gonna do about it?”

“I don’t know!” says Kara. “What am I supposed to do? ‘Hey, best friend who I’m legally married to, I’m thinking maybe I actually wanna date you and not just pretend, how do you feel about that?’ That’s so weird.” She sighs. “This is stupid.”

Shaking her head, Bobbi says, “It’s not. You really just need to talk to her about it. I know it’s gonna be weird, but if she’s not into you too, then you guys can talk about you like, dating other people. Or you can come over and I’ll buy you a shitton of ice cream and we’ll watch dumb movies. Whatever you need.”

“Or I could just never say anything,” Kara says. But she makes a face and nods. “Thanks for listening.”

“Hey, no worries.” Bobbi pauses and then adds, “Listen, if she’s not down for whatever, I’m also available for a friends-with-benefits thing, if you want.” She gives Kara an exaggerated wink.

Kara snorts. “I’ll think about it.”

---

It takes Kara a week to figure out what she wants to say, and then another week to figure out the right time to say it, which means that once she’s finally gotten up the guts it’s midterms week and she and Melinda are so busy they barely see each other. Then after midterms she waits a week or two just to be sure, and then it’s the week before Thanksgiving and it would just be weird to make things weird before Thanksgiving, so she waits some more. (She ends up going home with Melinda and meeting many members of her extended family. To them, she’s just Melinda’s roommate, which is okay. It’s kind of nice to not have to pretend.)

And then it’s the holiday season.

Bobbi’s taken it upon herself to badger Kara about talking to Melinda give-or-take once a week, and by this point she’s just texting stuff like DONE YET? in all-caps. You have to tell her sometime!!!! Bobbi writes. You can’t just NOT!!!!!

u wanna bet

You’re going to die of blue balls or something!

i don’t think that’s possible, bob

and i don’t even have balls

Ok maybe not but seriously, this is ridiculous

Finally, one night they’re watching a movie and Kara blurts out, “I have to talk to you about something.”

Melinda pauses the movie and glances over at her. “What’s up? You okay?”

“Yes. No. I mean-” Kara sighs. “It’s embarrassing.”

Melinda looks even more confused. “What do you mean?”

Kara bites her lip. “I...I like you.”

“Oh.” Melinda just looks at her for a moment.

Kara’s starting to get progressively more anxious and angry with herself when Melinda adds, “Well, good, ‘cause I was trying to figure out how to tell you that I’m into you. It seemed like a bad romance novel cliche.”

Kara laughs, maybe a little hysterically. “Wait, how long have you been…?”

Melinda coughs. “This whole plan may or may not have been my way of trying to tell you.”

“Mel, oh my god! It’s been months! Why didn’t you-”

“Same reason you didn’t,” Melinda says, nudging her with her shoulder. “Too chickenshit to say something.”

“Shit,” says Kara, putting her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know - I’ve been stressing since like before Halloween about this! I told Bobbi and she’s been bugging me to tell you!”

“Oh, Bobbi knows?” Melinda snorts. “Great. So we’ll never hear the end of that.”

“Well, I usually tell you about this stuff, but I couldn’t! Oh my god.” Kara laughs again. “So I guess...now we get to figure out how to date for real?”

“I guess,” Melinda says. “You wanna make out for real?”

“Oh my god, yes.”

(Bobbi never does let them live it down. And they don’t get divorced after the four years are up.)

[bthenoise]

My Chemical Romance, Ice Nine Kills, August Burns Red And More Included In This Year’s Record Store Day

Great news record collectors! This year’s Record Store Day has just officially been announced. And as you can expect, there are a ton of great choices.

Set to launch April 18th, the 13th annual Record Store Day will include exclusive vinyl releases from artists like My Chemical Romance, The Ramones, Ice Nine Kills, Bayside, Asking Alexandria, The Menzingers, Pepper and a ton more!

To check out all the incredible releases, check out the list below or head to Record Store Day’s official site here. 

RECORD STORE DAY 2020 RELEASES Aaron Lupton & Jeff Szpirglas – Planet Wax: Sci-Fi/Fantasy Soundtracks on Vinyl Ace Frehley – Trouble Walkin’ Adam Czerwinski/Krzesimir Debski/Wojciech Niedziela – Two Out Of Two: Acoustic References For Audiophiles Al Green – Green Is Blues Alejandro Escovedo – La Cruzada Alfredo Linares Y Su Sonora – Yo Traigo Alice Cooper – Live from the Apollo Theatre Glasgow Feb 19.1982 Allan Holdsworth – Road Games Alphaville – Sounds Like A Melody (Grant & Kelly Remix by Blank & Jones x Gold & Lloyd) America – Heritage II: Demos And Also The Trees – And Also The Trees Andrew Gold – Something New: Unreleased Gold Anoushka Shankar – Love Letters Archers of Loaf – “Raleigh Days”/”Street Fighting Man” Asking Alexandria – Stand Up and Scream August Burns Red – Bones Awesome Dre – You Can’t Hold Me Badflower – “The Jester / Everybody Wants To Rule The World” Bastille – All This Bad Blood Bayside – Heaven Beck – “No Distraction / Uneventful Days (Remixes)” Ben Lee – Grandpaw Would 25th Anniversary Deluxe Edition Ben Watt with Robert Wyatt – Summer Into Winter Best Coast – Thank You Biffy Clyro – Moderns Big L – Danger Zone Bill Evans – Some Other Time: The Lost Session From The Black Forest Billie Eilish – Live At Third Man Records Black Keys – Let’s Rock (45 RPM Edition) Black Lips – They’s A Person Of The World (featuring Kesha) Blitzen Trapper – Unreleased Recordings Vol. 2: Too Kool Bob James – Once Upon A Time: The Lost 1965 New York Studio Sessions Bob Marley & The Wailers – Redemption Song Bob Mould – Circle of Friends Bone Thugs-N-Harmony – Creepin’ On Ah Come Up Brandi Carlile – A Rooster Says Brian Eno – Rams: Original Soundtrack Britney Spears – Oops!…I Did It Again (Remixes and B-Sides) Brittany Howard – Live At Sound Emporium Buju Banton – Trust & Steppa Camille Yarbrough – The Iron Pot Cooker Canned Heat – Record Store Day Party With Canned Heat Canned Heat/John Lee Hooker – Hooker ‘N Heat Cat Stevens – Tonight Charles Mingus – Mingus Ah Um Redux Charli XCX – Vroom Vroom EP Charlie Parker – Jazz at Midnite Cheap Trick – Out To Get You! Live 1977 Chief Keef – Back From The Dead 2 CHON – GROW Chris Smither – More From The Leaves Christian Paul – Christian Paul Christine and the Queens – La vita nuova : séquences 2 et 3 Chromeo – Needy Girl Chuck Mosley – First Hellos and Last Goodbyes City Morgue – City Morgue Vol 2: As Good As Dead clipping with Christopher Fleeger – Double Live Clutch – The Obelisk Collective Soul – Half and Half Coolio – Gangsta’s Paradise (25th Anniversary — Remastered) Corb Lund – Cover Your Tracks EP Cradle – The History Cradle – The History Craig Finn – All These Perfect Crosses Curren$y – Pilot Talk D-Mob – We Call It Acieeed Damien Jurado – “Birds Tricked Into the Trees”/”From Devils To Davis” Dandy Warhols and Bebe Buell – Femme Fatale Daniel Pemberton & Samuel Sim – The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance – The Crystal Chamber Daniel Pemberton & Samuel Sim – The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance – The Aureyal Dave Davies – Rock Bottom: Live at the Bottom Line (Remastered 20th Anniversary Limited Edition) Dave Pike – Jazz For The Jet Set David Bowie – ChangesNowBowie David Bowie – ChangesNowBowie David Bowie – I’m Only Dancing (The Soul Tour 74) David Bowie – I’m Only Dancing (The Soul Tour 74) David Gray – Please Forgive Me Day Wave – Crush Death Piggy (GWAR) – Welcome To The Record Declan McKenna – “Beautiful Faces” / “The Key to Life on Earth” Def Leppard – Rock N Roll Hall of Fame Dehd – Golden Age of Rock N Roll Denzel Curry – Bulls on Parade Destiny’s Child – Say My Name DevilDriver – Winter Kills Dexter Gordon – The Squirrel Dexter Gordon Quartet – Live In Châteauvallon – 1978 Dinosaur Jr – Swedish Fist (Live In Stockholm) Dio – Annica Don Cherry – Cherry Jam Don Shinn – Temples With Prophets Down N Outz – The Music Box EP Dr. John – Remedies Drive-By Truckers – “The Unraveling” b/w “Sarah’s Flame” Durutti Column – Idiot Savants Ellie Goulding – Lights 10 Elton John – Elton John Emerson Lake & Palmer – Live At Waterloo Field, Stanhope, New Jersey, U.S.A., 31st July Eminem – “My Name Is”/”Bad Guys Always Die” Ennio Morricone – Peur Sur La Ville Entombed – Clandestine– Live Eve 6 – The Fly Record Live Felt (Murs x Slug x Aesop Rock) – Felt 3: A Tribute To Rosie Perez (10 Year Anniversary Edition) Fleetwood Mac – The Alternate Rumours Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush – Real LIVE! Vol. 1 Frank Zappa – You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore (Sampler) Frankie and the Witch Fingers – Sidewalk Freddie Gibbs & Madlib – Piñata: The 1974 Version Frumpies – “Frumpie One Piece” b/w “Frumpies Forever” Galaxie 500 – Copenhagen Gary Clark Jr – Pearl Cadillac (Feat. Andra Day) Gene Russell – New Direction George S. Clinton – Mortal Kombat (Original Motion Picture Score) Glass Animals – Tokyo Drifting Gong – Live! at Sheffield 1974 Gorillaz – G-Sides Gorillaz – D-Sides Grateful Dead – Buffalo 5/9/77 Graves At Sea – History of Sickness Green Jelly – Triple Live Mother Goose At Budokan Greg Dulli – “A Ghost”/Girl From The North Country” Grouplove – Broken Angel Guided By Voices – Hold On Hope Gun Club – Live In London Hank Williams – March of Dimes Hatchie & Pains of Being Pure At Heart – “Sometimes Always” b/w “Adored” Hawkwind – At The BBC 1972 Hawkwind – Quark, Strangeness & Charm Heart Bones – Heart Bones (Har Mar Superstar and Sabrina Ellis of A Giant Dog) Hendrix – Jimi Hendrix Hiss Golden Messenger – Let the Light of the World Open Your Eyes (Alive at Spacebomb) Hootie and the Blowfish – Live at Nick’s Fat City, 1995. Hot Rats – Turn Ons: 10th Anniversary Edition Hugo Montenegro – Hugo in Wonder-Land Humble Pie – Official Bootleg Collection Vol 2 Hunny – Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes ICE NINE KILLS – The Silver Scream: Killer Cuts Iggy Pop – Kiss My Blood (Live in Paris 1991) Infectious Grooves – Take You On A Ride Inhaler – My Honest Face J.J. Johnson and Kai Winding – Stonebone Jay Bennett & Edward Burch – The Palace at 4 AM Jerry Garcia – The Very Best of Jerry Garcia Jesse Dayton – Texas 45 RPM Showdown Jessie Baylin – Pleasure Center EP Jethro Tull – Stormwatch 2 Jimmy Giuffre – GRAZ 1961 Jimmy Guiffre – The 3 & 4: New York Concerts Jimmy Sweeney – Without You Jimmy Urine & Serj Tankian – Fuktronic Joe Loduca & Danny Elfman – Army of Darkness (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) John Prine – The Atlantic Albums John Prine/Kelsey Waldon – The Kentucky Sessions John Wesley Harding – The Man With No Shadow Johnny Cash – Classic Cash: Hall Of Fame Series – Early Mixes (1987) Johnny Thunders & Wayne Kramer – Gang War Jon Brion – Synecdoche New York Josefus – Get Off My case Judas Priest – British Steel — Limited Edition 40th Anniversary Edition Judas Priest – Sad Wings of Destiny June of 44 – Engine Takes To The Water June of 44 – Tropics and Meridians k.d. lang – Drag k.d. lang & the Reclines – Angel With A Lariat Keith Richards – “Hate It When You Leave” b/w “Key To The Highway” Kelly Finnigan – The Tales People Tell (Instrumentals) Kevin Morby – Oh Mon Dieu: Live In Paris Kinks – The Kink Kronikles Lee Fields – Let’s Get A Groove On Lennon/Ono with the Plastic Ono Band – Instant Karma! (2020 Ultimate Mixes) Lenny Bruce – Lenny Bruce Is Out Again Lil’ Kim – 9 Lisa Loeb – A Simple Trick To Happiness Local Natives – When Am I Gonna Lose You Lothar and the Hand People – Machines; Amherst 1969 Lothar and the Hand People – Machines; Amherst 1969 Lou Reed & John Cale – Songs For Drella Love Tractor – 60 Degrees and Sunny Mac DeMarco – Other Here Comes The Cowboy Demos Makeup and Vanity Set – Heart of Batman OST Manic Street Preachers – La Tristessa Durera (Scream To Sigh) Marcy Luarks & Classic Touch – Electric Murder Marion Brown – Porto Novo Mark Knopfler – Metroland (Music and Songs From The Film) Mark Snow – Music From the X-Files: The Truth and the Light Maroon 5 – Memories Martin Denny – Exotic Moog Marty Willson-Piper – Nightjar Marvin Pontiac – Marvin Pontiac: The Asylum Tapes Meat Puppets – Meat Puppets Melanie – Melanie With The incredible String Band Live Mia Doi Todd – Gea Midland – Live From The Palomino Mikal Cronin – Switched-On Seeker Mike Watt + The Secondmen – In Quintessence Mikis Theodorakis – Serpico Miles Davis – Double Image: Rare Miles From the Complete Bitches Brew Sessions Modern English – I Melt With You Motorhead – “Ace of Spades”/”Dirty Love” Mott The Hoople – Golden Age of Rock N Roll Mouth Congress – Ahhhh the Pollution Murs & 9th Wonder – Brighter Daze My Chemical Romance – The Murder Scene Nahko & Medicine For The People – Take Your Power Back Nas – God’s Son Nat Turner Rebellion – Laugh To Keep From Crying Neal Casal – Fade Away Diamond Time Ned Lagin – Seastones: Set 4 New Order – Peel Session /82 New Riders of the Purple Sage – Field Trip (Live) Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets – “See Emily Play”/”Vegetable Man” Nicole Bus – Live in NYC Night Beats – Sonic Bloom Nocturnal Emissions – Tissue of Lies Odd Future – The OF Tape Vol. 2 : Neon Purple Odd Future – The OF Tape Vol. 2 : Neon Pink Oh OK (Lynda Stipe, Linda Hopper, Matthew Sweet) – The Complete Reissue Ol’ Dirty Bastard – Return To The 36 Chambers: The Dirty Version (25th Anniversary Edition) Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – Lethal Weapon (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Pale Saints – Mrs. Dolphin Parish Hall – Parish Hall Parliament – The Medicaid Fraud Dogg Presents 3GP Bangers Paul McCartney – McCartney Penderecki/Don Cherry & The New Eternal Rhythm – Actions Pepper – Kona Town Percival – Wild Hunt Live: Pyrkon 2018 Pete Krebs & The Gossamer Wings – All My Friends Pete Rock – Petestrumentals 3 Philip Glass – The Essential Philip Glass – Koyaanisqatsi Pink Floyd – Arnold Layne Live 2007 PinkFong – Baby Shark Polaris – Music From The Adventures of Pete & Pete Post Malone – Hollywood’s Bleeding Primus – Suck On This Randy Newman – Avalon (Original Motion Picture Score) Randy Newman – The Natural Ravi Shankar – Chants of India Record Safari – Record Safari Refused – Not Fit For Broadcast – Live at the BBC Robbie Basho – Selections from Song of the Avatars: The Lost Master Tapes Robyn – Robyn Rockabye Baby! – Lullaby Renditions of Wu-Tang Clan Roger Waters – The Wall– Live In Berlin Ron Carter – Foursight: Stockholm Rory Gallagher – Cleveland Calling Roxy Music – Roxy Music – The Steven Wilson Stereo Mix Royal Horses – A Modern Man’s Way To Improve Ruston Kelly – Dirt Emo Vol. 1 Ryuichi Sakamoto – Black Mirror: Smithereens (Original Soundtrack) Sam Smith – I Feel Love San Francisco Christian Center Choir – The Sound of the San Francisco Christian Center Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – …What That Is! Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – Because Is In Your Mind Sean Price & Small Professor – “Latoya Jackson” b/w Remix Skid Row – Slave To The Grind (Expanded) Skye – Keeping Secrets Skyzoo + Pete Rock – Retropolitan (Instrumentals) Slapp Happy – Our Swimmer Slint – “Breadcrumb Trail” b/w “Good Morning, Captain” Snoop Dogg – I Wanna Thank Me Sock-Tight – Smudge Sofi Tukker – Dancing On The People Solomon Burke – Back To My Roots Someone – ORBIT II Son Volt – Live At The Orange Peel Soul Asylum – Hurry Up And Wait (Deluxe Version) Spacehog – Resident Alien Spoon – All The Weird Kids Up Front (More Best Of Spoon) Squirrel Nut Zippers – The Inevitable Steve Earle – “Times Like These / It’s About Blood” Summer Walker – Last Day of Summer + Clear EP Sumy – Funkin’ In Your Mind Sun Ra – Egypt ’71 Surfer Blood – Astro Coast 10 Year Anniversary Reissue SUSTO – Weather Balloons Suzanne Ciani – Suzanne Ciani Tangerine Dream – Tyger Team Dresch – Choices, Chances, Changes Tear Da Club Up Thugs of Three 6 Mafia – CrazyNDaLazDayz Ted Cassidy – The Lurch Tegan and Sara – Tonight In The Dark We’re Seeing Colors Terry Hall – Home The (Electric Six) Wildbunch – Rock Empire The Airborne Toxic Event – Come On Out The Alarm – Celtic Folklore Live The Allman Brothers Band – An Evening With The Allman Brothers Band: First Set The Allman Brothers Band – An Evening With The Allman Brothers Band: First Set The Allman Brothers Band – Fillmore West 1-31-71 The Black Crowes – Jealous Again The Boys Next Door – Door, Door The Charlatans UK – The Charlatans UK vs. The Chemical Brothers The Comet Is Coming – Imminent The Cure – Bloodflowers The Cure – Seventeen Seconds The Dead South – Record Store Day Release The Doors – The Soft Parade: Stripped The Fallen Angels – Paradise Lost The Feminine Complex – Livin’ Love The Feminine Complex – Livin’ Love The Fleshtones – Face of the Screaming Werewolf The Fleshtones – Face of the Screaming Werewolf The Game – Born 2 Rap The Good Life/The Pauses – Breeders split The Groundhogs – Split The Jones Sisters (Steven Conrad, Lillie Mae and Bobby Bare) – Perpetual Grace, LTD Soundtrack The London Suede – The London Suede The Magic Numbers – The Magic Numbers The Menzingers – Chamberlain Waits The Murder Capital – Live from London: The Dome, Tufnell Park The Notorious B.I.G. – It Was All A Dream: The Notorious B.I.G. 1994-1999 The Obsessed – Incarnate Ultimate The Pale Fountains – Longshot For Your Love The Pineapple Thief – Uncovering The Tracks The Pogues – At The BBC 1984 The Pretenders – Live! At the Paradise, Boston, 1980. The Ramones – It’s Alive II The Replacements – The Complete Inconcerated Live The Residents – Icky Flix: The Original Soundtrack Recording The Rolling Stones – Metamorphosis UK The Rolling Stones – Let It Bleed (Limited Collectors Edition) The Skatalites – Ska Voovee The Smithereens – “Love Me Do / P.S. I Love You” The Soft Boys – I Wanna Destroy You / Near The Soft Boys (40th Anniversary Edition) The Specials – Dubs The Strokes – The New Abnormal THE THE – I Want 2 B U The Unrighteous Brothers – Unchained Melody / You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin'” The Verlaines – Dunedin Spleen The Violets – Athens Georgia 1988-1992 The Weeknd – My Dear Melancholy, The Who – A Quick Live One The Who – Odds and Sods (Deluxe) Throwing Muses – Purgatory/Paradise TLC – Waterfalls Tom Tom Club – Genius of Love 2020 Tommy Bolin – Tommy Bolin Lives! Tones on Tail – Pop Tony Joe White – The Beginning Toto – Live in Tokyo 1980 Tove Lo – Bikini Porn Tres Vampires – Tres Vampires Twiztid – All These Problems Tyler, The Creator – Cherry Bomb (The Instrumentals) Tyler, The Creator – Cherry Bomb U2 – 11 O’CLOCK TICK TOCK (40th Anniversary Edition) UFO – Live in Youngstown ’78 Ultravox – Sleepwalk Various Artists – Sweet Relief: A Benefit for Victoria Williams Various Artists – The Turning: Kate’s Diary Various Artists – Lagniappe Sessions Vol. 2 Various Artists – Sunrise On the Blues: Sun Records Curated By Record Store Day Vol 7 Various Artists – Behind The Dykes: Beat, Blues and Psychedelic Nuggets from The Lowlands 1964-1972 Various Artists – Hackers (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) Various Artists – The Land of Sensations & Delights: The Psych Pop Sounds of White Whale Records, 1965–1970 Various Artists – Double Whammy! A 1960s Garage and Folk-Rock Rave-Up Various Artists – FLOW Various Artists – The Virgin Suicides (Music From The Motion Picture) Various Artists – Girls in the Garage Volume 8 Various Artists – Soul Jazz Records Presents STUDIO ONE 007: Licensed To Ska! James Bond and other Film Soundtracks and TV Themes Various Artists – Soul Jazz Records Presents Brazil Funk Power –Brazilian Funk and Samba Soul Various Artists – Wick Records Presents Battle of the Bands Vol. 1 Various Artists – The Ska (From Jamaica) Various Artists – Psyché France vol. 6 (1960-70) Various Artists – Hi Tide Groove Various Artists – Record Safari Motion Picture Soundtrack Various Artists – Record Safari Motion Picture Soundtrack (Deluxe Edition) Various Artists – I Saved Latin! A Tribute To Wes Anderson Various Artists – Dance Craze Various Artists – This Are Two Tone Various Artists – STUDIO ONE Rockers Various Artists – From The Vaults, Vol. 2 Various Artists – From The Vault, Vol. 2 Various Artists – Rough Guide To Brazilian Psychedelia Various Artists – DUNE OST Various Artists – Queen & Slim Soundtrack Various Artists – Austin Powers — International Man of Mystery Various Artists – Wilcovered Various Artists – Phenomenon (Music From The Motion Picture) Various Artists – Batman & Robin (Music From and Inspired By The Motion Picture) Various Artists – Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Soundtrack Various Artists – Music From The Motion Picture: Austin Powers in Goldmember Vitamin String Quartet – Vitamin String Quartet Performs Lana Del Rey Wale – Wow… That’s Crazy Warren Zevon – Warren Zevon’s Greatest Hits (According To Judd Apatow) Widespread Panic – Sunday Show -the Capital Theatre, Port Chester, NY 3/24/19 Wild Tchoupitoulas – Wild Tchoupitoulas Willie Colon – Cosa Nuestra Wipers – Is This Real–Anniversary Edition Wire – 10:20 Wolfgang Press – Unremembered, Remembered WURM – “Poison” / “Zero Sum” Yardbirds – Roger The Engineer: Stereo & Mono Young Fresh Fellows – Toxic Youth Zap Mama – Adventures in Afropea

[alldayieat]

Have you ever had cupcakes that are so good you don’t really need any special frosting? These hojicha cupcakes (roasted green tea) are just that. With plenty of earthy, roasty hojicha flavor, you could eat them plain, with a dollop of whipped cream, or my favorite, sweetened whipped cream with some matcha (green tea) powder sprinkled on top. Oh, and don’t forget the black sesame. Of course you could just keep it a secret and see if whoever eats these will even notice 😉

  Hojicha ほうじ茶- Roasted green tea

While matcha seems to have hit mainstream these days, there’s another Japanese tea that may not be as well-known.

And that’s hojicha! 

Roasted green tea.

Have you had it?

If not, it’s got a very unique flavor.

Extremely robust, earthy, tea-like and very hojicha.

It’s a very bold tea and I like it that way.

It’s often served at the end of a meal or with dessert in Japan.

And the great thing about it is that it’s basically caffeine free.

So you can drink this anytime of day or night without worrying that it’ll keep you up all night long.

Cuz it won’t!

Ok, so how do you use hojicha?

  How to use hojicha tea

The most frequent way I ingest hojicha is by drinking it.

Hot hojicha tea in the winter and cold tea in the summer.

Spring and fall?

Hmm, not so sure, but likely a mixture depending on the weather.

Do you change the way you drink your beverage by season or temperature?

If you decide to brew hojicha tea, a guideline you can use for one person is about ~3 grams per 160-200mls of water at 200F for 30 seconds.

Of course you can brew it longer or use a larger quantity for a more potent tea

If you’re just getting started with hojicha tea, the above might be a good starting point for you.

And yes brewing time, temperature, tea quantity etc all affect the resulting flavor in your cup.

Even the cup affects the flavor.

Or does it?

Well, consider having champagne out of a mug versus a champagne glass, I think it might be perceived as tasting different.

But I guess you’d have to close your eyes and have someone serve you to know for sure. Will you try it?

Anyways, back to the hojicha…

If you cold brew it tends to have a different character to it (cold brewing tea or coffee tends to smooth the flavors out)

So what that means is less bitter if you’re sensitive to bitter flavors.

You don’t need any special equipment and in fact you can just use your tea pot, add tea as you usually would, fill with cold water and allow to brew overnight.

Try it and see if you notice a difference.

  So aside from drinking it as tea, I’d say the second most common way I use it is in sweets like ice cream and baked goods.

While hojicha is good and delicious on it’s own I do like to add a little somethin somethin to make it even better…

Wanna know what that is?

  grinder, hojicha tea and flour

ingredients

cupcake with sweet cream

    Black sesame seeds (黒胡麻 kurogoma)

Surprise!!!

Black sesame goes great with a lot of sweet things.

Be it ice cream, baked goods, pudding and many other things.

And that includes these hojicha cupcakes!

I particularly like to add black sesame for an additional layer of flavor and texture.

Sometimes I mix them in to the batter, but this time I just sprinkled them on top.

You can even hide them under a the whipped cream or layer them in the bottom of the cupcake batter for a crunchy bottom 😉

How about that?

  Other ways you can serve the hojicha cupakes –

with a scoop of matcha or green tea ice cream

with a scoop of hojicha ice cream

with some azuki or sweet red bean

with some kuromame sweet black bean

plain with a sprinkling of powdered sugar

a cup of coffee

and of course, with a nice warm (or cold) cup of  Japanese green or hojicha tea!

    Tips for making the hojicha cupcakes a success-

Weigh your ingredients, I’ve found ever since I started to weigh out my ingredients (especially when it comes to bread), I end up with better results

Want to really indulge? switch out the olive oil for the butter it’s a lot 😮

Though I like to use silicone cups every now and then I’ve found i get a better crust using the bare metal cupcake pan.

If using the bare cupcake pan, spray it with cooking spray so your cupcakes don’t stick or break when you try to remove them. Before removing them, use a chopstick or spatula to loosen them from the sides and then tongs to pick them up out of the cupcake hole.

Preheat your oven so that you’re baking time is the same as mine. I usually preheat for a minimum of 20 minutes, longer is better

Use the toothpick or (ohashi-chopstick) test to check for doneness, poke in the center and when it comes out clean, it’s done.

I’ve found hojicha whole leaf tea is somewhat easy to source, but haven’t seen the powdered version in the US. If you can’t find the powder, just use a mini coffee grinder and do it yourself. 20 seconds of wheeeeeeee and you’ll have powdered hojicha tea. Be careful not to inhale the fine tea dust or you might sneeze achoo!

You need to powder the tea for the cupcakes and most other food preparations of hojicha. I mean do you really want to be eating tea leaves? Ya I don’t think so Even if you’re a koala, they eat eucalyptus leaves Not tea leaves…

The dust wand i used in my video is here – fun to play with if you like to dust your food 🙂

  Here’s a video of me making the hojicha cupcakes and sweet cream – 

    This post was brought to you in partnership with Kei Nishida owner of japanesegreenteain.com 

Use coupon code ALLDAYIEAT to get 15% off your order! 

    So what do you guys think? will you be giving hojicha tea or these hojicha cupcakes a try?

lmk in the comments!

   [wpurp-searchable-recipe]Hojicha Cupcakes with Black sesame and Sweet Cream – Have you ever had cupcakes that are so good you don't really need any special frosting? These hojicha cupcakes (roasted green tea) are just that. With plenty of earthy, roasty hojicha flavor, you could eat them plain, with a dollop of whipped cream, or my favorite, sweetened whipped cream with some matcha (green tea) powder sprinkled on top. Oh, and don't forget the black sesame. Of course you could just keep it a secret and see if whoever eats these will even notice 😉 – for hojicha cupcakes: olive oil ( or 2 sticks butter), sugar, hakurikiko (or cakeflour), hojicha (~10 grams), baking powder, eggs, black sesame seeds, Sweet cream: whipping cream, sugar, matcha powder (sprinkled on top), , For hojicha cupcakes: Preheat oven to 340F ; Add sugar to olive oil and whisk until combined.; Add in the eggs until combined, then add in hojicha tea powder.; Add in the flour next, whisk until incorporated. Then add baking powder until just combined.; Bake at 340 F for 20 minutes in the center rack. Test with toothpick or ohashi (chopstick) when it comes out clean it's done! ; Serve with whipped cream, ice cream and or coffee, Japaneses green tea / hojicha tea! ; For Sweet cream: Whisk sugar with whipping cream until stiff peaks form; Top cupcakes with desired amount of whipped cream!; ; – – dessert – Japanese – Food – dessert – japanese – sponsored[/wpurp-searchable-recipe]

Hojicha Cupcakes with Black sesame and Sweet Cream Have you ever had cupcakes that are so good you don't really need any special frosting? These hojicha cupcakes (roasted green tea) are just that.

[ramseycrickets]

God's Gift Of Rainfall: A Rhyme That Will Certainly Shake Your Sensations

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. Thanks for stopping by once more, Jools! During this time you go into the slowest sleeping brainwave activity cycle called Delta Rest. So, Andromeda, recognize there IS somebody like you around with a weird, worrisome, uncommon however not life threatening condition called Vital Monoclonal. Just a couple of miles down the road, father had switched on his head lights as well as there ahead of us was the vehicle with the 3 boys, it was transformed sidewards, obstructing both lanes of both lane freeway. If I had a maid I would certainly have them done every 3 days yet I don't have one and never ever will. I concur Unaware. It's never best to combat the body yet one needs to find out to listen to one's body. Article lunch the body naturally slows down, one really feels tired and has a disposition to relax some time. People do not often tend to understand that caffeine disrupts the metabolic rate and also develops imbalance in the body after gaining weight. People that consume caffeine can have headaches when they do not obtain their typical daily quantity. Pure nicotine does not obtain as much attention as caffeine when it pertains to improving sleep. I additionally really did not get into the tracks 'Black Ice' or 'Battle Machine', the latter of which was accompanied by a dodgy animation and appeared way too much like 'Hail storm Caesar' to me anyhow. I also constantly lay an additional quilt at the foot of the bed in instance they get cool. That's due to the fact that if you wait till you go to bed, it's most likely that you'll awaken since you're either also hot or as well cool. We are heading right into cold and influenza period. Yes, sheets are pricey! Yes, and it functioned. Yes, very true, Diane. Great Hub. First time I have heard about this. First wash your bedding. I don't recognize that also if I had pressed medical professionals harder if they would certainly have discovered anything after that either. After this, supper would certainly be served and after that every person went to sleep. Much of us struggle to obtain enough rest every night, however is the sleep we obtain any kind of good? No initiative in any way is called for on your component to get better results from your fat loss initiatives. It's important to obtain the temperature level readjusted as soon as you get to your room. Oversleeping the very same room motivates breastfeeding, is recognized to help child rest for longer stretches as well as can likewise help in reducing the dangers of Abrupt Infant Fatality Disorder (SIDS). I will certainly try your methods to see if at least among them will help. One of the reasons that I made use of to awaken during the evening was due to the fact that I was hungry. Throughout the evening you really feel a lot more slow-moving. No, i do not sleep extremely well because i have lots of suggestions during the sleeping-time. And i sleep 8 to 9th hours for an evening. Some claim it's ideal to stay clear of workouts as well as square meals 3 hours before bedtime. 9. A giraffe rests concerning 1 1/2 hours a day. So generally I have actually taken care of to turn my nights into day. It is always those days when i am exhausted beyond idea that my youngsters have energy to burn and also nowhere to run it off. Youngsters that are off their displays will be extra energetic, burning with their natural physical energy, which makes it simpler to settle at going to bed. In order to start the relaxation procedure, try not to make use of digital tools like a computer system, tablet or mobile phone a hr before going to bed. Your blood vessels begin to narrow due to the development of embolism and also your blood pressure increases immediately. Many people like their siblings and also moms and dads dearly yet allow's encounter it, tossing everyone with each other for this one or two times annual gather can cause stress. You can practice deep breathing whilst resting in bed. Mainly because we live in a cottage and I can add storage space under the bed. If they can talk about a negative desire, you can assist them come up with some alternative endings or a few other photos to concentrate on instead. Smoking cigarettes may assist you feel a lot more kicked back, yet ultimately brings about sleep disturbances. Required to look into your fantastic pet centers SOON so my little Mobility scooter can really feel much better. I haven't quit totally. The weeds that had flourished after the rainfalls in winter season as well as very early springtime die during the summer and also fall when they've had no falling rainfall to water them. April 17. Below's to a lovely springtime! I hesitate I'm the bad guy, right here. Throughout his youth there's been little anxiety about going to la-la land-- or regarding anything at all (except zombies, but that can condemn him?). I can call on photos of calmness as well as light. Typically the ovaries start to slow the manufacturing of hormonal agents like estrogen, testosterone and also progesterone. We need to rest to recoup from illness, remove tension, boost memory as well as develop focus.

[andya-j]

Night descended on Interstate-90 as I crossed over into the Badlands. Real raw weather for October. Snow dusted the asphalt and picnic tables of the deserted rest area. The scene was virginal as death. I parked the Chevy under one of the lamp posts that burned at either end of the lot. A metal building with a canted roof sat low and sleek in the center island, most of its windows dark. Against the black backdrop it reminded me of a crypt or monument to travelers and pioneers lost down through the years. Placards were obscured by shadows and could’ve pronounced warnings or curses, could’ve said anything in any language. Reality was pliable tonight. Periodically a semi chugged along the freeway, its running lights tiny and dim. Other than that, this was the Moon. I loosed Minerva and watched her trot around the perimeter of the sodium glow. She raised her graying snout and growled softly at the void that surrounded us, poured from us. Her tracks and the infrequent firefly sparks on the road were the only signs of life for miles. Snow was falling thick, and those small signs wouldn’t last long. It was back to the previous ice age for us, the end for us. I kind-of, sort-of liked the idea that this might be the end, except for the fact sweet, loyal Minerva hadn’t asked for any of it, and my nature—my atavistic shadow—was, as usual, a belligerent sonofabitch. My shadow exhibited the type of nature that causes men to weigh themselves with stones before they jump into the midnight blue, causes them to mix the pills with antifreeze, trade the pistol bullet to the brain for a shotgun barrel in the mouth, just to be on the safe side. My shadow didn’t give a shit about odds, or eventualities, or pain, or certain death. It just wanted to keep shining. So, Minerva pissed in the snow and I ticked off the seconds until the ultimate showdown. My ear was killing tonight, crackling like a busted radio speaker and ringing with good old tinnitus. The sensation was that of an auger boring through membrane and meat. My back and knee ached. I lost the ear to a virus upon contracting pneumonia in Alaska during a long ago Iditarod. The spine and knee got ruined after I fell off a cliff into the Bering Sea and broke just about everything that was breakable. Resilience was my gift, and I’d recovered sufficiently to limp through the remainder of a wasted youth, to fake a hale and hearty demeanor. That shit was surely catching up now at the precipice of the miserable slide into middle age. All those forgotten or ignored wounds blooming in a chorus of ghostly pain, reminders of longstanding debts, reminders that a man can’t always outrun provenance. Sometimes it outruns him. I checked my watch and the numbers blurred. I hadn’t slept in way too long, else I never would’ve pulled over between Bumfuck, Egypt and Timbuktu. Since suicide by passivity was off the table, this was an expression of stubbornness on my part, probably. Grim defiance, or the need to reassert my faith in the logical operations of the universe if but for a moment. What a joke, faith. What a sham, logic. A hunting horn sounded far out there in the darkness beyond the humps and swales and treeless drumlins that went on basically forever, past the vast hungry prairies that had swallowed so many wagon trains. Oh, yes. The horn of the Hunt. Not simply a horn, but one that could easily be imagined as the hollowed relic from a giant, perverted ram with blood-specked foam lathering its muzzle and hellfire beaming from its eyes. A ram that crunched the bones of Saxons for breakfast and brandished a cock the girth of a wagon axle; the kind of brute that tribes sacrificed babies to when crops were bad and mated unfortunate maidens to when the chief needed some special juju on the eve of a war. Its horn was the sort of artifact that stood on end in a petrified coil and would require a brawny Viking raider to lift. Or a demon. That wail stood my hair on end, slapped me awake. It rolled toward the parking lot, swelling like some Medieval air raid klaxon. Snowflakes weren’t melting on my cheeks because all the heat—all the blood—went rushing inward. That erstwhile faith in the natural universe, the rational order of reality, wouldn’t be troubling me again anytime soon. Nope. I whistled for Minerva and she leaped into the truck, riding shotgun. Her hackles were bunched. She barked her fury and terror at the night. Sleep, O blessed sleep, how I longed for thee. No time for that. We had to get gone. The Devil would be there soon. *** Years ago, when I raced sled dogs for a living, I knew a fellow named Steven Graham, a disgraced lit professor from the University of Colorado. He’d gotten shitcanned for reasons opaque to my blue collar sensibilities—something to do with privileging contemporary zombie stories over the works of the Russian masters. His past was shrouded in mystery and, like a lot people, he’d fled to Alaska to reinvent himself. Nobody on the racing circuit cared much about any of that. Graham was charming and charismatic in spades. He drank and swore with the best of us, but he’d also get three sheets to the wind and recite a bit of Beowulf in Olde English, and he knew the bloodlines of huskies from Balto onward. Strap a pair of snowshoes to that lanky greenhorn bastard and he’d leave even the most hardened back country trapper in the proverbial dust. All the girlies adored him, and so did the cameras. Like Cummings said, he was a hell of a handsome man. Too good to be true. Steven Graham got taken by the Hunt while he was running the 1992 Iditarod. That’s the big winter event where men and women hook a bunch of huskies to sleds and race twelve hundred miles across Alaska from Anchorage to Nome. There’s not much to say about it—it’s long and grueling and lonely. You’re always crossing a frozen swamp or mushing up an ice-jammed river or trudging over a mountain. It’s dark and cold and mostly devoid of sound or movement but for one’s own breath and the muted panting of the huskies, the jingle and clink of their traces. Official records have it that Graham, young ex-professor and dilettante adventurer, took a wrong turn out on Norton Sound between Koyuk and Elim and went through the ice into the sea. Ka-sploosh. No trace of him or the dogs was found. The Lieutenant Governor attended the funeral. CNN covered it live. The report was bullshit, of course; I saw what really happened. And because I saw what really happened—because I meddled in the Hunt—there would be hell to pay. *** Broad daylight, maybe an hour prior to sunset, mid March of 1992. All twelve dogs in harness trotted along nicely. The end of the trail in Nome was about two days away. Things hadn’t gone particularly well, and I was cruising for a middle of the pack finish and a long, destitute summer of begging corporate sponsors not to drop my underachieving ass. But damn, what a gorgeous day in the arctic: the snowpack curving around me to the horizon, the sky frozen between apple-green and steely blue, the orange ball of the sun dipping below the Earth. The effect was something out of Fantasia. After days of inadequate sleep I was lulled by the hiss of the sled runners, the rhythmic scrape and slap of dog paws. I dozed at the handlebars and dreamed of Sharon, the warmth of our home, a cup of real coffee, a hot shower, and the down comforter on our bed. When my team passed through a gap in a mile-long pressure ridge that had heaved the Bering ice to an eight-foot tall parapet, the Hunt had taken down Graham on the other side, maybe twenty yards off the main drag. This I discovered when one of Graham’s huskies loped toward me, free of its traces yet still in harness. The poor critter’s head had been lopped at mid-neck and it zig-zagged several strides and then collapsed on the trail. You’d think my own dogs would’ve spooked. Instead, an atavistic switch was tripped in their doggy brains and they surged forward, yapping and howling. Several yards to my right so much blood covered the snow I thought I was hallucinating a sunset dripped onto the ice. The scene confused me for a few seconds as my brain locked down and spun in place. The killing ground was a fucking mess, like there’d been a mass walrus slaughter committed on the spot. Dead huskies were flung about, intestines looped over berms and piled in loose, steaming coils. Graham himself lay spread-eagled across a blue-white slab of ice repurposed as an impromptu sacrificial altar. He was split wide, eyes blank. The Huntsman had most of the guy’s hide off and was tacking it alongside the carcass as one stretches the skin of a beaver or a bear. Clad in a deerstalker hat surmounted by antlers, a blood-drenched mackinaw coat, canvas breeches, and sealskin boots, the Huntsman stood taller than most men even as he hunched to slice Graham with a large knife of flint or obsidian—I wasn’t quite close enough to discern which. Meanwhile, the Huntsman’s wolf pack ranged among the butchered huskies. These wolves were black and gaunt as cadavers; their narrow eyes glinted, reflecting the snow, the changeable heavens. When several of them reared on hind legs to study me, I decided they weren’t wolves at all. Some wore olden leather and caps with splintered nubs of horn; others were garbed in the remnants of military fatigues and camouflage jackets of various styles, gore encrusted and ingrown to the creatures’ hides. They grinned at me and their mouths were . . . very, very wide. Nothing brave in what I did, or at least tried to do. My befuddled intellect was still processing the carnage when I sank the hook and tethered the team, left them baying frantically in the middle of the trail. I wasn’t thinking of a damned thing as I walked stiff-legged toward the Hunt and the in-progress evisceration of my comrade. Most mushers carried firearms on the trail. There were moose to contend with and, frankly, a gun is pretty much just basic equipment in any case. We toted rifles or pistols like folks in the lower forty-eight carry cell phones and wallets. Mine was a .357 I stowed inside my anorak to keep the cylinder from freezing into a solid lump. The revolver was in my hand and it jumped twice. I don’t recall the booms. No sound, only fire. The closest pair of dog men flipped over and a small part of my mind celebrated that at least the fuckers could be hurt. It wasn’t like the legends or the movies; no silver required, lead worked fine. The Huntsman whirled when I was nearly upon him, and Jesus help me I glimpsed his face. That’s probably why my hair went white that year. I squeezed the trigger three more times, emptied the gun and even as the bullets smacked him, I had the sense of shooting into an abyss—absolute hopeless, soul-draining futility. The Huntsman swayed, humungous knife raised. The blade was flint, turns out. Worst part was, Graham blinked and looked right at me and I saw his skinned hand twitch. How he could be alive in that condition was no more or less fantastical than anything else, I suppose. Even so, even so. I still get a sick feeling in my stomach when I recall that image. Apparently, the gods of the north had seen enough. Wind roared around us and everything went white and I was alone. Hurricane-force gusts knocked me off my feet and I barely managed to crawl to the team, almost missed them, in fact. Visibility was maybe six feet. Easily, easily could’ve kept going into the featureless maelstrom until I found the lip at the edge of a bottomless gulf of open water and joined Graham, wherever he’d gone. That storm pinned the dogs and me to Norton Sound for three days. Gusts of seventy knots. Wind chill in excess of negative one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. You wouldn’t understand how cold that is. I can’t describe it. It’s like trying to explain how far away Alpha Centauri is from Earth in highway miles. The brain isn’t equipped. Froze my right hand and foot. Froze my face so that it hardened into a black and blue mask. Froze my dick. Didn’t lose anything important, but man, there are few agonies equal to thawing a frostbitten extremity. I actually managed to cripple across the finish line. Suffering through the aftermath of physical therapy and counseling, the memory of what I’d seen out there was wiped clean from my mind with the efficacy of a kid tipping an Etch A Sketch and giving it a shake. Seven or eight years passed before the horrible event came back to haunt me, and by then it was too late to say anything, too late to be certain whether it had happened or if I’d gone round the bend. *** Snow drifted both lanes and the wind buffeted the Chevy, and goddamn, but I was reliving that blizzard of ‘92. The fuel gauge needle fell into the red and I drove another half an hour, creeping along in four-wheel hi. Radio reception was poor and I’d settled for a static-filled broadcast of ’80s rock. Hall & Oates, The Police, a block of Sade and Blue Oyster Cult, all that music our parents hated when we were bopping along in mullets. “Godzilla” cut in and out during the drum solo, and a distorted animal growl that had nothing to do with heavy metal issued from the speakers. My name snarled over and over to the metronome of the wipers. A truck stop glittered on the horizon of the next off ramp. Exhausted, frazzled, pissed, and afraid, I pulled alongside the pumps and got fuel. Then I hooked Minerva to a leash and brought her inside with me. She curled at my boots while I drank a quart of awful coffee and ate a New York steak with all the trimmings. The waitress didn’t say anything about my bringing a pit bull to the table. Maybe the folks in Dakota were hip to that sort of thing. Didn’t matter; I’d gotten the little card that proved Minerva was a service dog and of vital importance should I experience an “episode” of depression or mania. Depression had haunted me since my retirement from mushing, and a friend who worked as counselor at the University of Anchorage suggested that I adopt a shelter puppy and train it as a companion animal. The local police had busted a dog-fighting ring and one of the females was pregnant, so Sharon and I eventually picked Minerva from a litter of eleven. A decade later, after my world burned to the ground—career in ashes, wife gone, friends few and far between—Minerva remained steadfast. A man and his dog versus the Outer Dark. I patted her head as we went through the door, and wished that I possessed more of her canine equanimity in the face of the unknown. The diner was doing brisk trade. Two burly truckers in company jumpsuits occupied the next booth, but most of the customers were gathered at the counter so they could watch weather reports on TV. Nothing heartening in the reports, either. The storm would definitely delay me by half a day, possibly more. My ardent hope was that I could just bull through it and be in the clear by the time I crossed Wyoming tomorrow. I also prayed that the pickup would hang together all the way to Lamprey Isle, New York, my destination at the end of the yellow brick road. My plan was to reach the home of an old friend, the eminent crime novelist, Jack Fort. Jack also happened to be a retired English professor. Jack claimed he could help. I had my doubts. The pack and its leader were eternal and relentless. A man could plunk a few, sure. In the end, though, they simply reformed and kept pursuing. The Devil’s smoke demons on the hunt. Be that as it may, I’d decided to go down swinging, and that meant a hell-bent for leather ride into the east. Currently, my worries centered on weather and equipment. The drive from Alaska via the Alcan Highway had been rough, and I suspected the old engine was fixing to give up the ghost. I could say the same thing about my heart, my sanity, my luck. Sure enough. Minerva snarled and bolted from her spot under the table. She crouched beside me, shivering. Foam dribbled from her jaw and her eyes bulged. Graham strolled in, taller and happier than I remembered. Death agreed with some people. He loomed in Technicolor while reality bleached around him. His long black hair was feathered with snowflakes, and the lights hit it just right so he appeared angelic, a movie star pausing for his dramatic close-up. In his right hand, he carried the ivory hunting horn (indeed a ram’s horn, albeit much more modest than its report); in his left he carried a faded cowboy hat with a crimson and black patch on the crown. He wore the Huntsman’s iceberg-white mackinaw, ceremonial flint knife tucked into his belt so the bone handle jutted in a most phallic statement. He ambled over and slid in across from me. I noticed his sealskin boots left maroon smears on the tiles. I also noticed puffs of steam escaping our mouths as the booth cooled like a meat locker. I cocked the .357 and braced it across my thigh. “You must not be heralding the great zombie invasion. Lookin’ great, Steve. Not chalk white or anything. The rot must be on the inside.” He flipped his hair and smirked. His trophy necklace of wedding rings, key fobs, dog tags, driver licenses, and glass eyes clinked and rattled. “Likewise, amigo. You’ve lost weight? Dyed your hair? What?” “This and that—diet, exercise. Fleeing in terror has the bonus effect of getting a man in shape. Divorce, too. My wife used to fatten me up pretty good. Since she split . . . you know. TV dinners and Johnnie Walker. I got it going on, huh?” I gripped Minerva’s collar with my free hand. Her growls were deep and ferocious. She strained to lunge over the table, an eighty pound bowling bowl; rippling muscle and bone crushing jaws and, at the moment, bad intentions. My arm was tired already. Tempting to let my girl fly, but I loved her. “I’m yanking your chain. You look like crap. When’s the last time you slept? There’s a motel a piece up the trail. Why not get room service, watch a porno, drink some booze and fall into peaceful slumber? You won’t even notice when I slip in there and slice your fucking throat ear to ear.” Graham’s smile widened. It was still him, too. Same guy I’d gotten drunk with at Nome saloons. Same perfect teeth, same easy manner, probably sincere. He’d not intimated any malice regarding his intent to skin me alive and eat my beating heart. This was business, mostly. He inclined his head slightly, as if intercepting my thought. “Not so much business as tradition. The Hunt is a sacred rite. I gave you the head start as a courtesy.” He was telling the truth as I understood it from my research of the legends. To witness the Hunt, to interfere with the Hunt, was to become prey. I’d wondered why the emissaries of the Horned One waited so long to come after me, especially considering the magnitude of my transgression. “Well, I reckon that was sporting of you. Twenty years. Plenty of time for Odysseus to screw his way home from the front.” “Yep, and you’re almost there, too,” Graham said. “Crazy ass scene on the ice, huh? Sergio Leone meets John Landis and they do it up right with razors. Man, you were totally Eastwood, six-gun blazing. Wounded the Huntsman in a serious way. Didn’t kill the fucker, though. Don’t flatter yourself on that score. Might be able to smoke the hounds with regular bullets. That shit don’t work so well on the Huntsman. We’re of a higher order. Nah, when that storm hit, some sort of force went through me, electrified me. I tore free of that altar and jumped on the bastard’s back, stuck a hunting knife into his kidney. Still wouldn’t have worked except the forces of darkness were smiling on me. Grooved on my style. The Boss demoted him, awarded me the mantle and the blade, the hounds, more bitches in Hell than you can shake a stick at. I’ve watched you for a while, bro. Watched you lose your woman, your career, your health. You’re an old, grizzled bull. No money, no family, no friends, no future. It’s culling time, baby.” “Shit, you’re doing me a favor! Thanks, pal!” “Come on, don’t be sarcastic. We’re still buds. This is going to be super-duper painful, but no reason to make it personal. Your hide will be but one more tossed atop a mountainous pile beside a chthonic lagoon of blood and the Horned One’s bone throne. The muster roll of the damned is endless, and the next name awaits my attentions.” “Okay, nothing personal. Here’s the deal, since I’m the one with the hand cannon. You hold still and I’ll blow your head off. Take my chances with whomever they send next. No hard feelings.” I debated whether to shoot him under the table or risk raising the gun to aim properly. Graham laughed. “Whoa, chief. This isn’t the place. All these hapless customers, the dishwasher, the waitress, the fry cooks. That sexy waitress. If we turn this into the O-K Corral, the Boss himself will be on the case. The Horned One isn’t a kindly soul. He comes around, everybody gets it in the neck. Them’s the rules, I’m afraid.” A vision splashed across the home cinema of my imagination: every person in the diner strung from the rafters by their living guts, the hounds using the corpses for piñatas and the massive, shadowy bulk of the Horned God flickering fire in the parking lot as he gazed on in infernal joy. Like as not this image was projected by Graham. I glanced out the window and spotted one of the pack, a cadaverous brute in a threadbare parka and snow pants, pissing against the wheel of a semi. In another life he’d been Bukowski or Waits, or a serial killer who rode the rails and shanked fellow hobos, a strangler of coeds, a postman. I knew him for a split second, then not. Other hounds leaped from trailer to trailer, frolicking. Too dark to make out details, except that the figures flitted and fluttered with the lithe, rubbery grace of acrobats. I said, “Tell me, Steve. What would’ve happened to you if I hadn’t interrupted the party? Where would you be tonight?” He shrugged and his movie star teeth dulled to a shade of rotten ivory. “Ah, those are the sort of questions I try to let lie. The Boss frowns on us worrying about stuff above our pay grade.” “Would you have become a hound?” “Sometimes a damned soul gets dragged over to join the Hunt. Only the few, the proud. It’s a rare honor.” Cold clamped on the back of my neck. “And the rest of the slobs who get taken? Where do they go after you’re done with them?” “Not a clue, amigo. Truly an ineffable mystery.” His grin brightened again, so white, so frigid. He put on the cowboy hat. The logo was a red patch with a set of black antlers stitched in the foreground. Sign of the Horned God who was Graham’s master on the Other Side. Minerva’s snarls and growls escalated to full-throated barks as she bristled and lunged. She’d had her fill of Mr. Death and his shark smirk. One of the truckers set down his coffee cup, pointed a thick finger at me, and said, “Hey, asshole. Shut that dog up.” Graham’s eyes went dark, monitors tuned to deep space. A stain formed on the breast of his lily-white mackinaw. Blood dripped from his sleeve and the stink of carrion wafted from his mouth. He rose and turned and his shoulders seemed to broaden. I caught his profile reflected in the window and something was wrong with it, although I couldn’t tell what exactly. He said in a distorted, buzzing voice, “No, you shut your mouth. Or I’ll eat your tongue like a piece of Teriyaki.” The trucker paled and scrambled from his seat and fled the diner without a word. His buddy followed suit. They didn’t grab their coats or pay the tab or anything. Other folks had twisted in their seats to view the commotion. None of them spoke, either. The waitress stood with her ticket book outthrust like a crucifix. Graham said to them, “Hush, folks. Nothing to see here.” And everyone took the hint and went back to his or her business. He nodded and faced me, smile affixed, eyes sort of normal again. “I better get along, li��l doggie. Wanted to say hi. So hi and goodbye. Gonna keep trucking east? Wait, forget I asked. Don’t want to spoil the fun. See you soon, wherever that is.” Yeah, he grinned, but the wintry night was a heap warmer. “Wait,” I said. “You mentioned rules. Be nice to know what they are.” “Sure, there are lots of rules. However, you only need to worry about one of them: run, motherfucker.” *** I never fully recovered from the incident in ‘92; not down deep, not in the way that counts. Nightmares plagued me. Oblique, horror-show recreations as seen through the obfuscating mist of a subconscious in denial. Neither me nor the shrink could make sense of them. He put me on pills and that didn’t help. I sold the team to a Japanese millionaire and moved to the suburbs of Anchorage with Sharon, took a series of crummy labor jobs, and worked on the Great American horror novel in the evenings. She finished grad school and landed a position teaching elementary grade art. Ever fascinated with pulp classics, when the novel appeared to be a dead end I tried my hand at genre short fiction and immediately landed a few sales. By the early aughts I was doing well enough to justify quitting the construction gig and staying home to work on stories full-time. These were supernatural horror stories, fueled by the nightmares I didn’t understand, until it all came crashing in on me one afternoon during a game of winter golf with some buddies down at the beach. I keeled over on the frozen sand and was momentarily transported back to Norton Sound while my friends stood around wringing their hands. Normal folks don’t know what to do around a lunatic writhing on the ground and babbling in tongues. A week on the couch wrapped in an electric blanket and shaking with terror followed. I didn’t level with anyone—not the shrink, not Sharon or my parents, not my friends or writer colleagues. I read a piece on the Wild Hunt in an article concerning world mythology and it was like getting socked in the belly. I finally knew what had happened, if not why. All that was left was to brood. Life went on. We tried for children without success. I have a hunch Sharon left me because I was shooting blanks. Who the fuck knows, though. Much like the Wild Hunt, the Meaning of Life, and where matching socks vanish to, her motives remain a mystery. Things seemed cozy between us; she’d always been sympathetic to my tics and twitches, and I’d tried to be a good and loving husband in return. Obviously, living with a half-crazed author took a greater toll than I’d estimated. Add screams in the night and generally paranoid behavior to the equation . . . One day she came home early, packed her bags, and headed for Italy with a music teacher from her school. Not a single tear in her eye when she said adios to me, either. That was the same week my longtime agent, a lewd, crude alcoholic expat Brit named Stanley Jones, was indicted on numerous federal charges including embezzlement, wire fraud, and illegal alien residence. He and his lover, the obscure English horror writer Samson Marks, absconded to Mexico with my life savings, as well as the nest eggs of several other authors. The scandal made all the industry trade rags, but the cops didn’t seem overly concerned with chasing the duo. I depended on those royalty checks as my physical condition was deteriorating. Cold weather made my bones ache. Some mornings my lumbar seized and it took twenty minutes to crawl out of bed. I hung on for a couple of years, but my situation declined. The publishing climate wasn’t friendly with the recession and such. Foreclosure notices soon arrived in the mailbox. Then, last week, Graham reappeared to put my misery into perspective. Prior to this latter event, Jack Fort theorized that Sharon didn’t run off to Italy because she was dissatisfied with the way things were going at home. Nor was it a coincidence that Jones robbed me blind and left me in the poorhouse. (Jack also employed the crook as an agent, and from what I gathered, the loss of funds contributed to his own divorce.) My friend became convinced dark forces had aligned against me in matters great and small. Later, I told him about the Hunt and what I’d seen on the ice in 1992, how that particular chicken had come home to roost. He wasn’t the least bit surprised. Unflappable Jack Fort; the original drink-boiling-water-and-piss-ice-cubes guy. The night I called him we were both drunk, and when I spilled the story of how Graham had returned from the grave and wanted to mount my head on a trophy room wall in hell, instead of expressing bewilderment or fear for my sanity, Jack just said, “Right. I figured it was something like this. From grad school onward, Graham was headed for trouble, pure and simple. He was asshole buddies with exactly the wrong type of people. Occultism is nothing to fuck with. Anyway, you’re sure it’s the Wild Hunt?” “Graham referred to himself as the Huntsman. So. It happened almost exactly like the legends.” Granted, there were variations on the theme. Each culture has its peculiarities and so focuses on different aspects. Some versions of the Hunt mythology have Odin calling the tune. Under Odin’s yoke, the Hunt is an expression of exuberance and feral joy, a celebration of the primal. Odin’s pack travels a couple of feet off the ground. Any fool that stands in the way gets mowed like grass. See Odin coming, you grab dirt and pray the spectral procession passes overhead and keeps moving on the trail of its quarry. The gang from Alaska seemed darker, crueler, dirtier than the storybook versions; Graham and his troops reeked of sadism and madness. That eldritch psychosis leached from them into me, gathered in effluvial dankness in the back of my throat, lay on my tongue as a foul taint. The important details were plenty consistent—slavering hounds, feral Huntsman, a horned deity overseeing the chase, death and damnation to the prey. Jack asked what happened and I gave him the scoop: “I was hiking along Hatcher Pass to photograph the mountain for research. Heard a god-awful racket in a nearby canyon. Howling, psycho laughter, screams. Some kind of Viking horn. I knew what was happening before I saw the pack on the summit. Knew it in my bones—the legends vary, of course. Still, the basics are damned clear whether it’s the Norwegians, Germans, or Inuit. The pack wasn’t in full chase mode or that would’ve been curtains. They wanted to scare me; makes the kill sweeter. Anyway, I beat feet. Made it to the truck and burned rubber. Graham showed up at the house later in a greasy puff of smoke, chatted with me through the door. He said I had three days to get my shit in order and then he and his boys would be after me for real.” Jack remained quiet for a bit, except to cough a horrible, phlegmy cough—it sounded wet and entrenched as bronchitis or pneumonia. Finally he said, “Well, head east. I might be able to help you. Graham and me knew each other pretty well once upon a time when he was still teaching, and I got some ideas what he was up to after he left Boulder. He was an adventurer, but I doubt he spent all that time in the frozen north for the thrill. Nah, my bet is he was searching for the Hunt and it found him first. Poor silly bastard.” “Thanks, man. Although, I hate to bring this to your doorstep. Interfere in the Hunt and it’s you on the skinning board next.” “Shut up, kid. Tend your knitting and I’ll see to mine.” Big Jack Fort’s nonchalant reaction should’ve startled me, and under different circumstances I might’ve pondered how deep the tentacles of this particular conspiracy went. His advice appealed, though. Sure, the Huntsman wanted me to take to my heels; the chase gave him a boner. Nonetheless, I’d rather present a moving target than hang around the empty house waiting to get snuffed on the toilet or in my sleep. Graham’s flayed body glistening in the arctic twilight was branded into my psyche. “You better step lively,” Jack warned me, in that gravelly voice of his that always sounded the same whether sober or stewed. A big dude, built square, the offspring of Raymond Burr and a grand piano. Likely he was sprawled across his couch in a tee shirt and boxers, bottle of Maker’s Mark in one paw. “Got complications on my end. Can’t talk about them right now. Just haul ass and get here.” I didn’t like the sound of that, nor the sound of his coughing. Despite a weakness for booze, Jack was one of the more stable guys in the business. However, he was a bit older than me and playing the role of estranged husband. Then there was the crap with Jones and dwindling book sales in general. I thought maybe he was cracking. I thought maybe we were both cracking. Later that night I loaded the truck with a few essentials, including my wedding album and a handful of paperbacks I’d acquired at various literary conventions, locked the house, and lit out. In the rearview mirror I saw Graham and three of his hounds as silhouettes on the garage roof, pinprick eyes blazing red as I drove away. It was, as the kids say, game on. *** Rocketing through Indiana, “Slippery People” on the radio, darkness all around, darkness inside. The radio crackled and static erased the Talking Heads and Graham said to me, “Everybody on the lam from the Hunt feels sorry for himself. Thing of it is, amigo, you’re tuned to the wrong tune. You should ask yourself, How did I get here? What have I done?” The pack raced alongside the truck. Hounds and master shimmered like starlight against the velvet backdrop, twisted like funnels of smoke. The Huntsman blew me a kiss and I tromped the accelerator and they fell off the pace. One of the hounds leaped the embankment rail and loped after me, snout pressed to the centerline. It darted into the shadows an instant before being overtaken and smooshed by a tractor trailer. I pushed beyond exhaustion and well into the realm of zombification. The highway was a wormhole between dimensions and Graham occasionally whispered to me through the radio even though I’d hit the kill switch. And what he’d said really worked on me. What had I done to come to this pass? Maybe Sharon left me because I was a sonofabitch. Maybe Jones screwing me over was karma. The Wild Hunt might be a case of the universe getting Even-Steven (pardon the pun) with me. Thank the gods I didn’t have a bottle of liquor handy or else I’d have spent the remainder of the long night totally blitzed and sobbing like a baby over misdeeds real and imagined. Instead, I popped the cap on a bottle of NoDoz and put the hammer down. *** I parked and slept once in a turnout for a couple of hours during the middle of the day when traffic ran thickest. I risked no more than that. The Hunt had its rules regarding the taking of prey in front of too many witnesses, but I didn’t have the balls to challenge those traditions. The Chevy died outside Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Every gauge went crazy and plumes of steam boiled from the radiator. I got the rig towed to a salvage yard and transferred Minerva and my meager belongings to a compact rental. We were back on the road before breakfast, and late afternoon saw us aboard the ferry from Port Sanger, New York, to Lamprey Isle. What to say about LI West (as Jack referred to it)? Nineteen miles north to south and about half that at its widest, the whole curved into a malformed crescent, the Man in the Moon’s visage peeled from Luna and partially submerged in the Atlantic. Its rocky shore was sculpted by the clash of wind and sea; a forest of pine, maple, and oak spanned the interior. Home of hoot owls and red squirrels; good deer hunting along the secret winding trails, I’d heard. Native burial mounds and mysterious megaliths, I’d also heard. The main population center, Lamprey Township (pop. 2201), nestled in a cove on the southwestern tip of the island. Jack had mentioned that the town had been established as a fishing village in the early nineteenth century; prior to that, smugglers and slavers made it their refuge from privateers and local authorities. A den of illicit gambling and sodomy, I’d heard. Allegedly, the name arose from a vicious species of eels that infested the local waters. Long as a man’s arm, the locals claimed. Lamprey Township was a fog-shrouded settlement hemmed by the cove and spearhead shoals, a picket of evergreens. A gloomy cathedral fortress reared atop a cliff streaked with seagull shit and pocked by cave entrances. Lovers Leap. In town, everybody wore flannel and rain slickers, boots and sock caps. A folding knife and mackinaw crowd. Everything was covered in salt rime, everything tasted of brine. Piloting the rental down Main Street between boardwalks, compartment of the car flushed with soft blue-red lights reflecting from the ocean, I thought this wouldn’t be such a bad place to die. Release my essential salts back into the primordial cradle. Jack’s cabin lay inland at the far end of a dirt spur. Built in the same era as the founding of Lamprey Township, he’d bought it from Katarina Veniti, a paranormal romance author who’d become jaded with all of the tourists and yuppies moving onto “her” island during the last recession. A stone and timber longhouse with ye old-fashioned shingles and moss on the roof surrounded by an acre of sloping yard overgrown with tall, dead grass. An oak had uprooted during a recent windstorm and toppled across the drive. Minerva and I hoofed it the last quarter of a mile. The faceless moon dripped and shone through scudding clouds and a vault of branches. The house sat in darkness except for a light shining from the kitchen window. “Welcome to Kat’s island,” Jack said, and coughed. He reclined in the shadows on a porch swing. Moonlight glinted from the bottle in his hand, the barrel of the pump-action shotgun across his knees. He wore a wool coat, dock-worker’s cap snug over his brow, wool pants, and lace-up hiking boots. When he stood to shake my hand, I realized his clothes hung loose as sails, that he was frail and shaky. “Jesus, man,” I said, shaken at the sight of him. He appeared more of an apparition than the bona fide spirit pursuing me. I understood why he didn’t mind the idea of the Hunt invading his happy home. The man was so emaciated he should’ve been hanging near the blackboard in science class; a hundred pounds lighter since I’d last seen him, easy. He’d shaved his head and beard to gray stubble; his pallid flesh was dry and hot, his eyes sparkled like bits of quartz. He stank of gun oil, smoke, and rotting fruit. “Yeah. The big C. Doc hit me with the bad news this spring. Deathwatch around the Fort. I sent the pets to live with my sister.” He smiled and gestured at the woods. “Just you, me, and the trees. I got nothing better to do than help an old pal in his hour of need.” He led the way inside. The kitchen was cheerily lighted, and we took residence at the dining table where he poured me a glass of whiskey and listened to my recap of the trip from Alaska. “I hope you’ve got a plan,” I said. “Besides blasting them with grandma’s twelve gauge?” He patted the stock of his shotgun where it lay on the table. “We’re going out like a pair of Vikings.” “I’d be more excited if you had a flamethrower, or some grenades.” “Me too. Me too. I got a few sticks of dynamite for fishing and plenty of ammo.” “Dynamite is good. This is going to be full on Hollywood. Fast cars, shirtless women, explosions . . .” “Man, I don’t even know if it’ll detonate. The shit’s been stashed in a leaky box in the cellar for a hundred years. Honestly, my estimation is, we’re hosed. Totally up shit creek. Our sole advantage is prey doesn’t usually fight back. Graham’s powerful, he’s a spirit, or a monster, whatever. But he’s new on the job, right? That may be our ray of sunshine. That, and according to the literature, the Pack doesn’t fancy crossing large bodies of open water. These haunts prefer ice and snow.” Jack coughed into a handkerchief. Belly-ripping, Doc Holliday kind of coughing. He wiped his mouth and had a belt of whiskey. His cheeks were blotched. “Anyway, I brought you here for another reason. This house belonged to a sorcerer once upon a time. Type they used to burn at the stake. An unsavory guy named Ewers Welloc. The Wellocs own most of this island and there’s a hell of a story in that. For now, let me say Ewers was blackest in a family of black sheep. The villagers were scared shitless of him, were convinced he practiced necromancy and other dark arts on the property. Considering the stories Kat told me and some of the funky stuff I’ve found stashed around here, it’s hard to dismiss the villagers claims as superstition.” I could only wonder what he’d unearthed, or Kat before him. Jack bought the place for a dollar and suddenly that factoid assumed ominous significance. “What were you guys up to? You, Kat, and Graham attended college together. Did you form a club?” “A witch coven. I kid, I kid. Wasn’t college . . . We met at the Sugar Tree Hill writers’ retreat. Five days of sun, fun, booze, and hand jobs. There were quite a few young authors there who went on to become quasi-prominent. Many a friendship and enmity are formed at Sugar Tree Hill. The three of us really clicked. Me and Kat were wild, man, wild. Nothing on Graham’s scale, though. He took it way farther. As you can see.” “Yeah.” I sipped my drink. “Me and Graham were pretty tight until he schlepped to Alaska and started in with the sled dogs. Communication tapered off and after a while we fell out of touch. I received a few letters. Guy had the world’s shittiest penmanship; would’ve taken a cryptologist to have deciphered them. I thought he suffered from cabin fever.” “Seemed okay to me,” I said. “Gregarious. Popular. Handsome. He was well-regarded.” “Yeah, yeah . . . The rot was on the inside,” Jack said and I almost spilled my glass. He didn’t notice. “As it happens, my hole card is an ace. Lamprey Isle was settled long before the whites landed. Maybe before the Mohawk, Mohican, Seneca. Nobody knows who these people were, but none of the records are flattering. This mystery tribe left megaliths and cairns on islands and along the coast. A few of those megaliths are in the woods around here. Legend has it that the tribe erected them for use in necromantic rituals. Summon, bind, banish. Like Robert Howard hypothesized in his Conan tales—if the demonic manifests on the mortal plane, it becomes subject to the laws of physics, and cold Hyperborean steel. Howard was onto something.” “Fairy rocks, huh?” I said. The whiskey was hitting me. “Got any problem believing in the Grim Reaper with a hunting knife and a pack of werewolves chasing you from one end of the continent to the other?” I tried again. “So. Fairy rocks.” “Fuckin’ A, boy-o. Fairy rocks. And double aught buckshot.” *** We took shifts at watch until dawn. The Hunt didn’t arrive and so passed a peaceful evening. I slept for three hours; the most I’d had in a week. Jack fried bacon and eggs for breakfast and we drank a pot of black coffee. Afterward he gave me a tour of the house and the immediate grounds. Much of the house gathered dust, exuding the vibe particular to dwellings of bachelors and widowers. Since his wife flew the coop, Jack’s remit had contracted to kitchen, bath, living room. Too close to a tomb for my liking. Tromping around the property with our breath streaming slantwise, he showed me a megalith hidden in the underbrush between a pair of sugar maples. Huge and misshapen beneath layers of slime and moss, the stone cast a shadow over us. It radiated the chill of an ice block. One of several in the vicinity, I soon learned. Jack wasn’t eager to hang around it. “There were lots of animal bones piled in the bushes. You’ll never catch any animals living here. Wasn’t the two decks of Camels I smoked every day since junior high that gave me cancer. It’s these damned things. Near as I can figure, they’re siphons. Let’s pray the effect is magnified upon extra-dimensional beings. Otherwise, Graham will just eat our bullets and spit them back at us.” The megalith frightened me. I imagined it as a huge, predatory insect disguised as a stone, its ethereal rostrum stabbing an artery and sucking my life essence. I wondered if the stones were indigenous, or if the ancient tribes had fashioned them somehow. I’d never know. “Graham’s an occultist. Think he’s dumb enough to walk into a trap?” “Graham ain’t Graham anymore. He’s the Huntsman.” Jack scanned the red-gold horizon and muttered dire predictions of another storm front descending from the west. “Trouble headed this way,” he said and hustled me back to the house. We locked and shuttered everything and took positions in the living room; Jack with his shotgun, me with my pistol and dog. Seated on the leather Italian sofa, bolstered by a pitcher of vodka and lemonade, we watched ancient episodes of The Rockford Files and Ironside and waited. Several minutes past two p.m., the air dimmed to velvety purple and the trees behind the house thrashed and rain spattered the windows. The power died. I whistled a few bars of the Twilight Zone theme, shifted the pistol into my shooting hand. Jack grinned and went to the window and stood there, a blue shadow limned in black. The booze in my tumbler quivered and the horn bellowed, right on top of us. Glass exploded and I was bleeding from the head and both hands that I’d raised to protect my face. Wood splintered and doors caved in all over the house and the hounds rolled into the living room; long, sinuous figures of pure malevolence with ruby-bright eyes, low to the floor and moving fast, teeth, tongues, appetite. I squinted and fired twice from the hip, and a bounding figure jerked short. Minerva pounced, snarling and tearing in frenzy, doggy mind reverting to the swamps and jungles and caves of her ancestors. Jack’s shotgun blazed a stroke of yellow flame and sheared the arm of a fiend who’d scuttled in close. Partially deafened and blinded, I couldn’t keep track of much after that. Squeezed the trigger four more times, popped the speed loader with six fresh slugs, kept firing at shadows that leaped and sprang. The Riders of the Apocalypse and Friends galloped through the house—our own private Armageddon. More glass whirled, and bits of wood and shreds of drapery; a section of ceiling collapsed in a cascade of sparks and rapidly blooming white carnations of drywall dust. Now the gods could watch. Thunder of gunshots, Minerva growling, the damned, yodeling cries of the hounds, and crackling bones, wound around my brain in a knotted spool. I got knocked down in the melee and watched Minerva swing past, lazily flying, paws limp, guts raveling behind her. I’d owned many dogs, but Minerva was my first and only pet, my dearest friend. She was a mewling puppy once more, then inert bone and slack hide, and gone, gone, the last pinprick of my life snuffed. Something was on fire. Oily black smoke seethed through a vertical impact crater where the far wall had stood. Moon, clouds, and smoke boiled there. A couple of fingers were missing from my left hand. Blood pulsed forth: a shiny, crimson bouquet thickening into a lump at the end of my wrist, a wax sculpture from the house of horrors, an object example of Medieval torture. It didn’t hurt. Didn’t feel like anything. My jacket had been sliced, and the flesh beneath it, so that my innards glistened in the cold air. That didn’t hurt either. Instead, I was buoyed by a feral joy. This wouldn’t take much longer by the looks of it. I pulled the jacket closed as best I could and began the laborious process of standing. Almost done, almost home. Jack cursed through a mouthful of dirt. The Huntsman had entered the fray and caught his skull in one splayed hand. He sawed through Jack’s throat with that jagged flint dagger hewn from Stone Age crystal. The Huntsman sawed with so much vigor that Jack’s limbs flopped crazily, a crash test dummy at the moment of impact. Graham let Jack’s carcass thump to the sodden carpet among the savaged bodies of the pack. He pointed at me, him playing the lead man of a rock band shouting out to his audience. Yeah, the gods were with us, and no doubt. “So, we meet again.” He chuckled and licked his lips and wiped the Satan knife against his gory mackinaw. He approached, shuffling like a seal through the smoldering gloom, lighted by an inner radiance that bathed him in a weird, pale glow as cold and alien as the Aurora Borealis. The death-light of Hades, presumably. His eyes were hidden by the brim of his hat, but his smile curved, joyless and cruel. I made it to my feet and scrambled backward over the flaming wreckage of coffee tables and easy chairs, the upended couch, and into the hall. Blood came from me in ropes, in sheets. Graham followed, smiling, smiling. Doorframes buckled as his shoulders brushed them. He swiped the knife in a loose and easy diamond pattern. The knife hissed as it rehearsed my evisceration. I wasn’t worried about that. I was long past worry. Thoughts of vengeance dominated. “You killed my dog.” Blood bubbles plopped from my lips, and that’s never good. Another dose of ferocious, joyful melancholy spurred me onward. I pitched the empty revolver at his head, watched the gun glance aside and spin away. My tears froze to salt on my cheeks. Arctic ice groaned beneath my boots as the sea swelled, yearned toward the moon. The sea drained the warmth from me, taking back what it had given. “You killed your dog, mon frère. You did for our buddy Jack, too. Bringing me and my boys here like this. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s a volunteer army, right?” I turned away, sliding, overbalancing. My legs folded and I slumped before a fallen timber, its charred length licked by small flames. The blood from my ruined hand sizzled and spat. I rubbed my face against the floor, painting myself a war mask of gore and charcoal. By the time he’d crossed the gap between us and seized my hair to flip me onto my back, at the precise moment he sank the blade into my chest, the fuse on the glycerin-wet stick of dynamite was a nub disappearing into its burrow. Graham’s exultant expression changed. “Well, I forgot Jack was a fisherman,” he said. That fucking knife kept traveling, the irresistible force, and I embraced it, and him. The Eternal Footman clapped, once. *** After an eon of vectoring through infinite night, the door to the tilt-a-whirl opened and I plummeted and hit the earth hard enough to raise dust. Mud instead. An angelic choir serenaded me from stage left, beyond a screen of tall trees and fog. Wagner as interpreted by Homer’s sirens. The voices rose and fell, sweetly demanding my blood, the heat of my bones. That sounded fine; I imagined the soft, red lips parted, imagined that they glowed as the Huntsman glowed, but as an expression of erotic passion rather than malice, and I longed to open a vein for them. I came to, paralyzed. Pieces of me lay scattered across the backyard. Probably for the best that I couldn’t turn my neck to properly survey the damage. Graham sprawled across from me, face-down in the wet leaves. Wisps of smoke curled from him. He shuddered violently and lifted his head. Bones and joints snapped into place again. The left eye shimmered with reflections of fire. The right eye was black. Neither were human. He said, “Are you dead? Are you dead? Or are you playing possum? I think you’re mostly dead. It doesn’t matter. Hell is come as you are.” He shook himself and began to crawl in my direction, slithering with a horrible serpent-like elasticity. Mostly dead must’ve meant 99.9 percent dead, because I couldn’t even blink, much less raise a hand to forestall his taking my skull for the mantle, my soul to the bad place. A red haze obscured my vision and the world receded. The sirens in the forest called again, louder yet. Graham hesitated, his glance drawn to the voices that came from many directions now and sang in many languages. Jack staggered from the smoking ruins of the house. He appeared to have been dunked in a vat of blood. He held his shotgun in a death grip. “The bell tolls for you, Stevie,” he said and blew off Graham’s left leg. He racked the slide and blasted Graham’s right leg to smithereens below the kneecap. Graham screamed and whipped around and tried to hamstring his tormentor. Not quite fast enough. Jack proved agile for an old guy with a slit throat. The siren choir screamed in pleasure. Blam! Blam! Graham’s hands went bye-bye. The next slug severed his spine, judging by the ragdoll effect. His body went limp and he screamed, and I’m sure he would’ve happily leaped on Jack and eaten him alive if Jack hadn’t already dismembered him with some fancy shotgun work. Jack said something I didn’t catch. Might’ve uttered a curse in a foreign tongue . . . then stuck the barrel under Graham’s chin and took his head off with the last round. I cheered telepathically. Then I finished dying. The score as the curtains closed was lovely, lovely. *** This time I emerged from eternal night to Minerva kissing my face. I was lying on my back in the kitchen. There was a hole in the ceiling and gray daylight poured through along with steady trickles of water from busted pipes. Jack slouched at the table, which was stacked with various odds and ends. His shoulders were wide and round as boulders and he’d gained back all the weight cancer had stolen. He clutched a bottle of Old Crow and watched me intently. He said, “Stay away from the light, kid. It’s fire and lava.” I spat clotted blood. Finally, I said, “He’s dead?” “Again.” “Singing . . .” I managed. “Oh, yeah. Don’t listen. That’s just the vampire stones. They’re fat on Graham’s energy.” “How’d I get in here?” “I dragged you by your hair.” The world kept solidifying around me, and my senses along with it. Me, Minerva, and Jack being alive didn’t compute. Except, as the cobwebs cleared from my mind, it made a sinister kind of sense. I laid my hand on Minerva’s fur and noticed the red sparks in her eyes, how goddamned long and white her teeth were. “Oh, shit,” I said. “Yeah,” Jack said. He set aside the bottle and shrugged into the Huntsman’s impeccable snow white mackinaw. Perfect fit. Next came the Huntsman’s hat. Different on Jack; broader and of a style I didn’t recognize. The red and black crest was gone. Real antlers in its stead. A shadow crossed his expression and the light in the room gathered in his eyes. “Get up,” he said. And I did. Not a mark on me. I felt quite alive for a dead man. Hideous strength coursed through my limbs. I thought of my philandering ex-wife, her music teacher beau, and hideous thoughts coursed through my mind. I must’ve retained a tiny fragment of humanity because I managed to look away from that vista of terrible and splendorous vengeance. For the moment, at least. I said, “Where now?” Jack leaned on a broad, barbed spear that had replaced his emptied shotgun. “There’s this guy in Mexico I’d like to visit,” he said. He handed me the flint knife and the herald’s horn. “Do the honors, kid.” “Oh, Stanley. It’ll be good to see you again.” I pressed the horn to my lips and winded it, once. The kitchen wall disintegrated and the shockwave traveled swiftly, rippling grass and causing birds to lift in panic from the trees. I imagined Stanley Jones, somewhere far to the south, seated on his veranda, tequila at hand, American newspaper balanced on his rickety knee, ear cocked, straining to divine the origin of dim bellow carried by the wind. Minerva bayed. She gathered her sleek, killing bulk and hurtled across the yard and into the woods. I patted the hilt of the knife and followed her.

Night descended on Interstate-90 as I crossed over into the Badlands. Real raw weather for October. Snow dusted the asphalt and picnic tables of the deserted rest area. The scene was virginal as death. I parked the Chevy under one of the lamp posts that burned at either end of the lot. A metal building with a canted roof sat low and sleek in the center island, most of its windows dark. Against the black backdrop it reminded me of a crypt or monument to travelers and pioneers lost down through the years. Placards were obscured by shadows and could’ve pronounced warnings or curses, could’ve said anything in any language. Reality was pliable tonight. Periodically a semi chugged along the freeway, its running lights tiny and dim. Other than that, this was the Moon. I loosed Minerva and watched her trot around the perimeter of the sodium glow. She raised her graying snout and growled softly at the void that surrounded us, poured from us. Her tracks and the infrequent firefly sparks on the road were the only signs of life for miles. Snow was falling thick, and those small signs wouldn’t last long. It was back to the previous ice age for us, the end for us. I kind-of, sort-of liked the idea that this might be the end, except for the fact sweet, loyal Minerva hadn’t asked for any of it, and my nature—my atavistic shadow—was, as usual, a belligerent sonofabitch. My shadow exhibited the type of nature that causes men to weigh themselves with stones before they jump into the midnight blue, causes them to mix the pills with antifreeze, trade the pistol bullet to the brain for a shotgun barrel in the mouth, just to be on the safe side. My shadow didn’t give a shit about odds, or eventualities, or pain, or certain death. It just wanted to keep shining. So, Minerva pissed in the snow and I ticked off the seconds until the ultimate showdown. My ear was killing tonight, crackling like a busted radio speaker and ringing with good old tinnitus. The sensation was that of an auger boring through membrane and meat. My back and knee ached. I lost the ear to a virus upon contracting pneumonia in Alaska during a long ago Iditarod. The spine and knee got ruined after I fell off a cliff into the Bering Sea and broke just about everything that was breakable. Resilience was my gift, and I’d recovered sufficiently to limp through the remainder of a wasted youth, to fake a hale and hearty demeanor. That shit was surely catching up now at the precipice of the miserable slide into middle age. All those forgotten or ignored wounds blooming in a chorus of ghostly pain, reminders of longstanding debts, reminders that a man can’t always outrun provenance. Sometimes it outruns him. I checked my watch and the numbers blurred. I hadn’t slept in way too long, else I never would’ve pulled over between Bumfuck, Egypt and Timbuktu. Since suicide by passivity was off the table, this was an expression of stubbornness on my part, probably. Grim defiance, or the need to reassert my faith in the logical operations of the universe if but for a moment. What a joke, faith. What a sham, logic. A hunting horn sounded far out there in the darkness beyond the humps and swales and treeless drumlins that went on basically forever, past the vast hungry prairies that had swallowed so many wagon trains. Oh, yes. The horn of the Hunt. Not simply a horn, but one that could easily be imagined as the hollowed relic from a giant, perverted ram with blood-specked foam lathering its muzzle and hellfire beaming from its eyes. A ram that crunched the bones of Saxons for breakfast and brandished a cock the girth of a wagon axle; the kind of brute that tribes sacrificed babies to when crops were bad and mated unfortunate maidens to when the chief needed some special juju on the eve of a war. Its horn was the sort of artifact that stood on end in a petrified coil and would require a brawny Viking raider to lift. Or a demon. That wail stood my hair on end, slapped me awake. It rolled toward the parking lot, swelling like some Medieval air raid klaxon. Snowflakes weren’t melting on my cheeks because all the heat—all the blood—went rushing inward. That erstwhile faith in the natural universe, the rational order of reality, wouldn’t be troubling me again anytime soon. Nope. I whistled for Minerva and she leaped into the truck, riding shotgun. Her hackles were bunched. She barked her fury and terror at the night. Sleep, O blessed sleep, how I longed for thee. No time for that. We had to get gone. The Devil would be there soon. *** Years ago, when I raced sled dogs for a living, I knew a fellow named Steven Graham, a disgraced lit professor from the University of Colorado. He’d gotten shitcanned for reasons opaque to my blue collar sensibilities—something to do with privileging contemporary zombie stories over the works of the Russian masters. His past was shrouded in mystery and, like a lot people, he’d fled to Alaska to reinvent himself. Nobody on the racing circuit cared much about any of that. Graham was charming and charismatic in spades. He drank and swore with the best of us, but he’d also get three sheets to the wind and recite a bit of Beowulf in Olde English, and he knew the bloodlines of huskies from Balto onward. Strap a pair of snowshoes to that lanky greenhorn bastard and he’d leave even the most hardened back country trapper in the proverbial dust. All the girlies adored him, and so did the cameras. Like Cummings said, he was a hell of a handsome man. Too good to be true. Steven Graham got taken by the Hunt while he was running the 1992 Iditarod. That’s the big winter event where men and women hook a bunch of huskies to sleds and race twelve hundred miles across Alaska from Anchorage to Nome. There’s not much to say about it—it’s long and grueling and lonely. You’re always crossing a frozen swamp or mushing up an ice-jammed river or trudging over a mountain. It’s dark and cold and mostly devoid of sound or movement but for one’s own breath and the muted panting of the huskies, the jingle and clink of their traces. Official records have it that Graham, young ex-professor and dilettante adventurer, took a wrong turn out on Norton Sound between Koyuk and Elim and went through the ice into the sea. Ka-sploosh. No trace of him or the dogs was found. The Lieutenant Governor attended the funeral. CNN covered it live. The report was bullshit, of course; I saw what really happened. And because I saw what really happened—because I meddled in the Hunt—there would be hell to pay. *** Broad daylight, maybe an hour prior to sunset, mid March of 1992. All twelve dogs in harness trotted along nicely. The end of the trail in Nome was about two days away. Things hadn’t gone particularly well, and I was cruising for a middle of the pack finish and a long, destitute summer of begging corporate sponsors not to drop my underachieving ass. But damn, what a gorgeous day in the arctic: the snowpack curving around me to the horizon, the sky frozen between apple-green and steely blue, the orange ball of the sun dipping below the Earth. The effect was something out of Fantasia. After days of inadequate sleep I was lulled by the hiss of the sled runners, the rhythmic scrape and slap of dog paws. I dozed at the handlebars and dreamed of Sharon, the warmth of our home, a cup of real coffee, a hot shower, and the down comforter on our bed. When my team passed through a gap in a mile-long pressure ridge that had heaved the Bering ice to an eight-foot tall parapet, the Hunt had taken down Graham on the other side, maybe twenty yards off the main drag. This I discovered when one of Graham’s huskies loped toward me, free of its traces yet still in harness. The poor critter’s head had been lopped at mid-neck and it zig-zagged several strides and then collapsed on the trail. You’d think my own dogs would’ve spooked. Instead, an atavistic switch was tripped in their doggy brains and they surged forward, yapping and howling. Several yards to my right so much blood covered the snow I thought I was hallucinating a sunset dripped onto the ice. The scene confused me for a few seconds as my brain locked down and spun in place. The killing ground was a fucking mess, like there’d been a mass walrus slaughter committed on the spot. Dead huskies were flung about, intestines looped over berms and piled in loose, steaming coils. Graham himself lay spread-eagled across a blue-white slab of ice repurposed as an impromptu sacrificial altar. He was split wide, eyes blank. The Huntsman had most of the guy’s hide off and was tacking it alongside the carcass as one stretches the skin of a beaver or a bear. Clad in a deerstalker hat surmounted by antlers, a blood-drenched mackinaw coat, canvas breeches, and sealskin boots, the Huntsman stood taller than most men even as he hunched to slice Graham with a large knife of flint or obsidian—I wasn’t quite close enough to discern which. Meanwhile, the Huntsman’s wolf pack ranged among the butchered huskies. These wolves were black and gaunt as cadavers; their narrow eyes glinted, reflecting the snow, the changeable heavens. When several of them reared on hind legs to study me, I decided they weren’t wolves at all. Some wore olden leather and caps with splintered nubs of horn; others were garbed in the remnants of military fatigues and camouflage jackets of various styles, gore encrusted and ingrown to the creatures’ hides. They grinned at me and their mouths were . . . very, very wide. Nothing brave in what I did, or at least tried to do. My befuddled intellect was still processing the carnage when I sank the hook and tethered the team, left them baying frantically in the middle of the trail. I wasn’t thinking of a damned thing as I walked stiff-legged toward the Hunt and the in-progress evisceration of my comrade. Most mushers carried firearms on the trail. There were moose to contend with and, frankly, a gun is pretty much just basic equipment in any case. We toted rifles or pistols like folks in the lower forty-eight carry cell phones and wallets. Mine was a .357 I stowed inside my anorak to keep the cylinder from freezing into a solid lump. The revolver was in my hand and it jumped twice. I don’t recall the booms. No sound, only fire. The closest pair of dog men flipped over and a small part of my mind celebrated that at least the fuckers could be hurt. It wasn’t like the legends or the movies; no silver required, lead worked fine. The Huntsman whirled when I was nearly upon him, and Jesus help me I glimpsed his face. That’s probably why my hair went white that year. I squeezed the trigger three more times, emptied the gun and even as the bullets smacked him, I had the sense of shooting into an abyss—absolute hopeless, soul-draining futility. The Huntsman swayed, humungous knife raised. The blade was flint, turns out. Worst part was, Graham blinked and looked right at me and I saw his skinned hand twitch. How he could be alive in that condition was no more or less fantastical than anything else, I suppose. Even so, even so. I still get a sick feeling in my stomach when I recall that image. Apparently, the gods of the north had seen enough. Wind roared around us and everything went white and I was alone. Hurricane-force gusts knocked me off my feet and I barely managed to crawl to the team, almost missed them, in fact. Visibility was maybe six feet. Easily, easily could’ve kept going into the featureless maelstrom until I found the lip at the edge of a bottomless gulf of open water and joined Graham, wherever he’d gone. That storm pinned the dogs and me to Norton Sound for three days. Gusts of seventy knots. Wind chill in excess of negative one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. You wouldn’t understand how cold that is. I can’t describe it. It’s like trying to explain how far away Alpha Centauri is from Earth in highway miles. The brain isn’t equipped. Froze my right hand and foot. Froze my face so that it hardened into a black and blue mask. Froze my dick. Didn’t lose anything important, but man, there are few agonies equal to thawing a frostbitten extremity. I actually managed to cripple across the finish line. Suffering through the aftermath of physical therapy and counseling, the memory of what I’d seen out there was wiped clean from my mind with the efficacy of a kid tipping an Etch A Sketch and giving it a shake. Seven or eight years passed before the horrible event came back to haunt me, and by then it was too late to say anything, too late to be certain whether it had happened or if I’d gone round the bend. *** Snow drifted both lanes and the wind buffeted the Chevy, and goddamn, but I was reliving that blizzard of ‘92. The fuel gauge needle fell into the red and I drove another half an hour, creeping along in four-wheel hi. Radio reception was poor and I’d settled for a static-filled broadcast of ’80s rock. Hall & Oates, The Police, a block of Sade and Blue Oyster Cult, all that music our parents hated when we were bopping along in mullets. “Godzilla” cut in and out during the drum solo, and a distorted animal growl that had nothing to do with heavy metal issued from the speakers. My name snarled over and over to the metronome of the wipers. A truck stop glittered on the horizon of the next off ramp. Exhausted, frazzled, pissed, and afraid, I pulled alongside the pumps and got fuel. Then I hooked Minerva to a leash and brought her inside with me. She curled at my boots while I drank a quart of awful coffee and ate a New York steak with all the trimmings. The waitress didn’t say anything about my bringing a pit bull to the table. Maybe the folks in Dakota were hip to that sort of thing. Didn’t matter; I’d gotten the little card that proved Minerva was a service dog and of vital importance should I experience an “episode” of depression or mania. Depression had haunted me since my retirement from mushing, and a friend who worked as counselor at the University of Anchorage suggested that I adopt a shelter puppy and train it as a companion animal. The local police had busted a dog-fighting ring and one of the females was pregnant, so Sharon and I eventually picked Minerva from a litter of eleven. A decade later, after my world burned to the ground—career in ashes, wife gone, friends few and far between—Minerva remained steadfast. A man and his dog versus the Outer Dark. I patted her head as we went through the door, and wished that I possessed more of her canine equanimity in the face of the unknown. The diner was doing brisk trade. Two burly truckers in company jumpsuits occupied the next booth, but most of the customers were gathered at the counter so they could watch weather reports on TV. Nothing heartening in the reports, either. The storm would definitely delay me by half a day, possibly more. My ardent hope was that I could just bull through it and be in the clear by the time I crossed Wyoming tomorrow. I also prayed that the pickup would hang together all the way to Lamprey Isle, New York, my destination at the end of the yellow brick road. My plan was to reach the home of an old friend, the eminent crime novelist, Jack Fort. Jack also happened to be a retired English professor. Jack claimed he could help. I had my doubts. The pack and its leader were eternal and relentless. A man could plunk a few, sure. In the end, though, they simply reformed and kept pursuing. The Devil’s smoke demons on the hunt. Be that as it may, I’d decided to go down swinging, and that meant a hell-bent for leather ride into the east. Currently, my worries centered on weather and equipment. The drive from Alaska via the Alcan Highway had been rough, and I suspected the old engine was fixing to give up the ghost. I could say the same thing about my heart, my sanity, my luck. Sure enough. Minerva snarled and bolted from her spot under the table. She crouched beside me, shivering. Foam dribbled from her jaw and her eyes bulged. Graham strolled in, taller and happier than I remembered. Death agreed with some people. He loomed in Technicolor while reality bleached around him. His long black hair was feathered with snowflakes, and the lights hit it just right so he appeared angelic, a movie star pausing for his dramatic close-up. In his right hand, he carried the ivory hunting horn (indeed a ram’s horn, albeit much more modest than its report); in his left he carried a faded cowboy hat with a crimson and black patch on the crown. He wore the Huntsman’s iceberg-white mackinaw, ceremonial flint knife tucked into his belt so the bone handle jutted in a most phallic statement. He ambled over and slid in across from me. I noticed his sealskin boots left maroon smears on the tiles. I also noticed puffs of steam escaping our mouths as the booth cooled like a meat locker. I cocked the .357 and braced it across my thigh. “You must not be heralding the great zombie invasion. Lookin’ great, Steve. Not chalk white or anything. The rot must be on the inside.” He flipped his hair and smirked. His trophy necklace of wedding rings, key fobs, dog tags, driver licenses, and glass eyes clinked and rattled. “Likewise, amigo. You’ve lost weight? Dyed your hair? What?” “This and that—diet, exercise. Fleeing in terror has the bonus effect of getting a man in shape. Divorce, too. My wife used to fatten me up pretty good. Since she split . . . you know. TV dinners and Johnnie Walker. I got it going on, huh?” I gripped Minerva’s collar with my free hand. Her growls were deep and ferocious. She strained to lunge over the table, an eighty pound bowling bowl; rippling muscle and bone crushing jaws and, at the moment, bad intentions. My arm was tired already. Tempting to let my girl fly, but I loved her. “I’m yanking your chain. You look like crap. When’s the last time you slept? There’s a motel a piece up the trail. Why not get room service, watch a porno, drink some booze and fall into peaceful slumber? You won’t even notice when I slip in there and slice your fucking throat ear to ear.” Graham’s smile widened. It was still him, too. Same guy I’d gotten drunk with at Nome saloons. Same perfect teeth, same easy manner, probably sincere. He’d not intimated any malice regarding his intent to skin me alive and eat my beating heart. This was business, mostly. He inclined his head slightly, as if intercepting my thought. “Not so much business as tradition. The Hunt is a sacred rite. I gave you the head start as a courtesy.” He was telling the truth as I understood it from my research of the legends. To witness the Hunt, to interfere with the Hunt, was to become prey. I’d wondered why the emissaries of the Horned One waited so long to come after me, especially considering the magnitude of my transgression. “Well, I reckon that was sporting of you. Twenty years. Plenty of time for Odysseus to screw his way home from the front.” “Yep, and you’re almost there, too,” Graham said. “Crazy ass scene on the ice, huh? Sergio Leone meets John Landis and they do it up right with razors. Man, you were totally Eastwood, six-gun blazing. Wounded the Huntsman in a serious way. Didn’t kill the fucker, though. Don’t flatter yourself on that score. Might be able to smoke the hounds with regular bullets. That shit don’t work so well on the Huntsman. We’re of a higher order. Nah, when that storm hit, some sort of force went through me, electrified me. I tore free of that altar and jumped on the bastard’s back, stuck a hunting knife into his kidney. Still wouldn’t have worked except the forces of darkness were smiling on me. Grooved on my style. The Boss demoted him, awarded me the mantle and the blade, the hounds, more bitches in Hell than you can shake a stick at. I’ve watched you for a while, bro. Watched you lose your woman, your career, your health. You’re an old, grizzled bull. No money, no family, no friends, no future. It’s culling time, baby.” “Shit, you’re doing me a favor! Thanks, pal!” “Come on, don’t be sarcastic. We’re still buds. This is going to be super-duper painful, but no reason to make it personal. Your hide will be but one more tossed atop a mountainous pile beside a chthonic lagoon of blood and the Horned One’s bone throne. The muster roll of the damned is endless, and the next name awaits my attentions.” “Okay, nothing personal. Here’s the deal, since I’m the one with the hand cannon. You hold still and I’ll blow your head off. Take my chances with whomever they send next. No hard feelings.” I debated whether to shoot him under the table or risk raising the gun to aim properly. Graham laughed. “Whoa, chief. This isn’t the place. All these hapless customers, the dishwasher, the waitress, the fry cooks. That sexy waitress. If we turn this into the O-K Corral, the Boss himself will be on the case. The Horned One isn’t a kindly soul. He comes around, everybody gets it in the neck. Them’s the rules, I’m afraid.” A vision splashed across the home cinema of my imagination: every person in the diner strung from the rafters by their living guts, the hounds using the corpses for piñatas and the massive, shadowy bulk of the Horned God flickering fire in the parking lot as he gazed on in infernal joy. Like as not this image was projected by Graham. I glanced out the window and spotted one of the pack, a cadaverous brute in a threadbare parka and snow pants, pissing against the wheel of a semi. In another life he’d been Bukowski or Waits, or a serial killer who rode the rails and shanked fellow hobos, a strangler of coeds, a postman. I knew him for a split second, then not. Other hounds leaped from trailer to trailer, frolicking. Too dark to make out details, except that the figures flitted and fluttered with the lithe, rubbery grace of acrobats. I said, “Tell me, Steve. What would’ve happened to you if I hadn’t interrupted the party? Where would you be tonight?” He shrugged and his movie star teeth dulled to a shade of rotten ivory. “Ah, those are the sort of questions I try to let lie. The Boss frowns on us worrying about stuff above our pay grade.” “Would you have become a hound?” “Sometimes a damned soul gets dragged over to join the Hunt. Only the few, the proud. It’s a rare honor.” Cold clamped on the back of my neck. “And the rest of the slobs who get taken? Where do they go after you’re done with them?” “Not a clue, amigo. Truly an ineffable mystery.” His grin brightened again, so white, so frigid. He put on the cowboy hat. The logo was a red patch with a set of black antlers stitched in the foreground. Sign of the Horned God who was Graham’s master on the Other Side. Minerva’s snarls and growls escalated to full-throated barks as she bristled and lunged. She’d had her fill of Mr. Death and his shark smirk. One of the truckers set down his coffee cup, pointed a thick finger at me, and said, “Hey, asshole. Shut that dog up.” Graham’s eyes went dark, monitors tuned to deep space. A stain formed on the breast of his lily-white mackinaw. Blood dripped from his sleeve and the stink of carrion wafted from his mouth. He rose and turned and his shoulders seemed to broaden. I caught his profile reflected in the window and something was wrong with it, although I couldn’t tell what exactly. He said in a distorted, buzzing voice, “No, you shut your mouth. Or I’ll eat your tongue like a piece of Teriyaki.” The trucker paled and scrambled from his seat and fled the diner without a word. His buddy followed suit. They didn’t grab their coats or pay the tab or anything. Other folks had twisted in their seats to view the commotion. None of them spoke, either. The waitress stood with her ticket book outthrust like a crucifix. Graham said to them, “Hush, folks. Nothing to see here.” And everyone took the hint and went back to his or her business. He nodded and faced me, smile affixed, eyes sort of normal again. “I better get along, li’l doggie. Wanted to say hi. So hi and goodbye. Gonna keep trucking east? Wait, forget I asked. Don’t want to spoil the fun. See you soon, wherever that is.” Yeah, he grinned, but the wintry night was a heap warmer. “Wait,” I said. “You mentioned rules. Be nice to know what they are.” “Sure, there are lots of rules. However, you only need to worry about one of them: run, motherfucker.” *** I never fully recovered from the incident in ‘92; not down deep, not in the way that counts. Nightmares plagued me. Oblique, horror-show recreations as seen through the obfuscating mist of a subconscious in denial. Neither me nor the shrink could make sense of them. He put me on pills and that didn’t help. I sold the team to a Japanese millionaire and moved to the suburbs of Anchorage with Sharon, took a series of crummy labor jobs, and worked on the Great American horror novel in the evenings. She finished grad school and landed a position teaching elementary grade art. Ever fascinated with pulp classics, when the novel appeared to be a dead end I tried my hand at genre short fiction and immediately landed a few sales. By the early aughts I was doing well enough to justify quitting the construction gig and staying home to work on stories full-time. These were supernatural horror stories, fueled by the nightmares I didn’t understand, until it all came crashing in on me one afternoon during a game of winter golf with some buddies down at the beach. I keeled over on the frozen sand and was momentarily transported back to Norton Sound while my friends stood around wringing their hands. Normal folks don’t know what to do around a lunatic writhing on the ground and babbling in tongues. A week on the couch wrapped in an electric blanket and shaking with terror followed. I didn’t level with anyone—not the shrink, not Sharon or my parents, not my friends or writer colleagues. I read a piece on the Wild Hunt in an article concerning world mythology and it was like getting socked in the belly. I finally knew what had happened, if not why. All that was left was to brood. Life went on. We tried for children without success. I have a hunch Sharon left me because I was shooting blanks. Who the fuck knows, though. Much like the Wild Hunt, the Meaning of Life, and where matching socks vanish to, her motives remain a mystery. Things seemed cozy between us; she’d always been sympathetic to my tics and twitches, and I’d tried to be a good and loving husband in return. Obviously, living with a half-crazed author took a greater toll than I’d estimated. Add screams in the night and generally paranoid behavior to the equation . . . One day she came home early, packed her bags, and headed for Italy with a music teacher from her school. Not a single tear in her eye when she said adios to me, either. That was the same week my longtime agent, a lewd, crude alcoholic expat Brit named Stanley Jones, was indicted on numerous federal charges including embezzlement, wire fraud, and illegal alien residence. He and his lover, the obscure English horror writer Samson Marks, absconded to Mexico with my life savings, as well as the nest eggs of several other authors. The scandal made all the industry trade rags, but the cops didn’t seem overly concerned with chasing the duo. I depended on those royalty checks as my physical condition was deteriorating. Cold weather made my bones ache. Some mornings my lumbar seized and it took twenty minutes to crawl out of bed. I hung on for a couple of years, but my situation declined. The publishing climate wasn’t friendly with the recession and such. Foreclosure notices soon arrived in the mailbox. Then, last week, Graham reappeared to put my misery into perspective. Prior to this latter event, Jack Fort theorized that Sharon didn’t run off to Italy because she was dissatisfied with the way things were going at home. Nor was it a coincidence that Jones robbed me blind and left me in the poorhouse. (Jack also employed the crook as an agent, and from what I gathered, the loss of funds contributed to his own divorce.) My friend became convinced dark forces had aligned against me in matters great and small. Later, I told him about the Hunt and what I’d seen on the ice in 1992, how that particular chicken had come home to roost. He wasn’t the least bit surprised. Unflappable Jack Fort; the original drink-boiling-water-and-piss-ice-cubes guy. The night I called him we were both drunk, and when I spilled the story of how Graham had returned from the grave and wanted to mount my head on a trophy room wall in hell, instead of expressing bewilderment or fear for my sanity, Jack just said, “Right. I figured it was something like this. From grad school onward, Graham was headed for trouble, pure and simple. He was asshole buddies with exactly the wrong type of people. Occultism is nothing to fuck with. Anyway, you’re sure it’s the Wild Hunt?” “Graham referred to himself as the Huntsman. So. It happened almost exactly like the legends.” Granted, there were variations on the theme. Each culture has its peculiarities and so focuses on different aspects. Some versions of the Hunt mythology have Odin calling the tune. Under Odin’s yoke, the Hunt is an expression of exuberance and feral joy, a celebration of the primal. Odin’s pack travels a couple of feet off the ground. Any fool that stands in the way gets mowed like grass. See Odin coming, you grab dirt and pray the spectral procession passes overhead and keeps moving on the trail of its quarry. The gang from Alaska seemed darker, crueler, dirtier than the storybook versions; Graham and his troops reeked of sadism and madness. That eldritch psychosis leached from them into me, gathered in effluvial dankness in the back of my throat, lay on my tongue as a foul taint. The important details were plenty consistent—slavering hounds, feral Huntsman, a horned deity overseeing the chase, death and damnation to the prey. Jack asked what happened and I gave him the scoop: “I was hiking along Hatcher Pass to photograph the mountain for research. Heard a god-awful racket in a nearby canyon. Howling, psycho laughter, screams. Some kind of Viking horn. I knew what was happening before I saw the pack on the summit. Knew it in my bones—the legends vary, of course. Still, the basics are damned clear whether it’s the Norwegians, Germans, or Inuit. The pack wasn’t in full chase mode or that would’ve been curtains. They wanted to scare me; makes the kill sweeter. Anyway, I beat feet. Made it to the truck and burned rubber. Graham showed up at the house later in a greasy puff of smoke, chatted with me through the door. He said I had three days to get my shit in order and then he and his boys would be after me for real.” Jack remained quiet for a bit, except to cough a horrible, phlegmy cough—it sounded wet and entrenched as bronchitis or pneumonia. Finally he said, “Well, head east. I might be able to help you. Graham and me knew each other pretty well once upon a time when he was still teaching, and I got some ideas what he was up to after he left Boulder. He was an adventurer, but I doubt he spent all that time in the frozen north for the thrill. Nah, my bet is he was searching for the Hunt and it found him first. Poor silly bastard.” “Thanks, man. Although, I hate to bring this to your doorstep. Interfere in the Hunt and it’s you on the skinning board next.” “Shut up, kid. Tend your knitting and I’ll see to mine.” Big Jack Fort’s nonchalant reaction should’ve startled me, and under different circumstances I might’ve pondered how deep the tentacles of this particular conspiracy went. His advice appealed, though. Sure, the Huntsman wanted me to take to my heels; the chase gave him a boner. Nonetheless, I’d rather present a moving target than hang around the empty house waiting to get snuffed on the toilet or in my sleep. Graham’s flayed body glistening in the arctic twilight was branded into my psyche. “You better step lively,” Jack warned me, in that gravelly voice of his that always sounded the same whether sober or stewed. A big dude, built square, the offspring of Raymond Burr and a grand piano. Likely he was sprawled across his couch in a tee shirt and boxers, bottle of Maker’s Mark in one paw. “Got complications on my end. Can’t talk about them right now. Just haul ass and get here.” I didn’t like the sound of that, nor the sound of his coughing. Despite a weakness for booze, Jack was one of the more stable guys in the business. However, he was a bit older than me and playing the role of estranged husband. Then there was the crap with Jones and dwindling book sales in general. I thought maybe he was cracking. I thought maybe we were both cracking. Later that night I loaded the truck with a few essentials, including my wedding album and a handful of paperbacks I’d acquired at various literary conventions, locked the house, and lit out. In the rearview mirror I saw Graham and three of his hounds as silhouettes on the garage roof, pinprick eyes blazing red as I drove away. It was, as the kids say, game on. *** Rocketing through Indiana, “Slippery People” on the radio, darkness all around, darkness inside. The radio crackled and static erased the Talking Heads and Graham said to me, “Everybody on the lam from the Hunt feels sorry for himself. Thing of it is, amigo, you’re tuned to the wrong tune. You should ask yourself, How did I get here? What have I done?” The pack raced alongside the truck. Hounds and master shimmered like starlight against the velvet backdrop, twisted like funnels of smoke. The Huntsman blew me a kiss and I tromped the accelerator and they fell off the pace. One of the hounds leaped the embankment rail and loped after me, snout pressed to the centerline. It darted into the shadows an instant before being overtaken and smooshed by a tractor trailer. I pushed beyond exhaustion and well into the realm of zombification. The highway was a wormhole between dimensions and Graham occasionally whispered to me through the radio even though I’d hit the kill switch. And what he’d said really worked on me. What had I done to come to this pass? Maybe Sharon left me because I was a sonofabitch. Maybe Jones screwing me over was karma. The Wild Hunt might be a case of the universe getting Even-Steven (pardon the pun) with me. Thank the gods I didn’t have a bottle of liquor handy or else I’d have spent the remainder of the long night totally blitzed and sobbing like a baby over misdeeds real and imagined. Instead, I popped the cap on a bottle of NoDoz and put the hammer down. *** I parked and slept once in a turnout for a couple of hours during the middle of the day when traffic ran thickest. I risked no more than that. The Hunt had its rules regarding the taking of prey in front of too many witnesses, but I didn’t have the balls to challenge those traditions. The Chevy died outside Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Every gauge went crazy and plumes of steam boiled from the radiator. I got the rig towed to a salvage yard and transferred Minerva and my meager belongings to a compact rental. We were back on the road before breakfast, and late afternoon saw us aboard the ferry from Port Sanger, New York, to Lamprey Isle. What to say about LI West (as Jack referred to it)? Nineteen miles north to south and about half that at its widest, the whole curved into a malformed crescent, the Man in the Moon’s visage peeled from Luna and partially submerged in the Atlantic. Its rocky shore was sculpted by the clash of wind and sea; a forest of pine, maple, and oak spanned the interior. Home of hoot owls and red squirrels; good deer hunting along the secret winding trails, I’d heard. Native burial mounds and mysterious megaliths, I’d also heard. The main population center, Lamprey Township (pop. 2201), nestled in a cove on the southwestern tip of the island. Jack had mentioned that the town had been established as a fishing village in the early nineteenth century; prior to that, smugglers and slavers made it their refuge from privateers and local authorities. A den of illicit gambling and sodomy, I’d heard. Allegedly, the name arose from a vicious species of eels that infested the local waters. Long as a man’s arm, the locals claimed. Lamprey Township was a fog-shrouded settlement hemmed by the cove and spearhead shoals, a picket of evergreens. A gloomy cathedral fortress reared atop a cliff streaked with seagull shit and pocked by cave entrances. Lovers Leap. In town, everybody wore flannel and rain slickers, boots and sock caps. A folding knife and mackinaw crowd. Everything was covered in salt rime, everything tasted of brine. Piloting the rental down Main Street between boardwalks, compartment of the car flushed with soft blue-red lights reflecting from the ocean, I thought this wouldn’t be such a bad place to die. Release my essential salts back into the primordial cradle. Jack’s cabin lay inland at the far end of a dirt spur. Built in the same era as the founding of Lamprey Township, he’d bought it from Katarina Veniti, a paranormal romance author who’d become jaded with all of the tourists and yuppies moving onto “her” island during the last recession. A stone and timber longhouse with ye old-fashioned shingles and moss on the roof surrounded by an acre of sloping yard overgrown with tall, dead grass. An oak had uprooted during a recent windstorm and toppled across the drive. Minerva and I hoofed it the last quarter of a mile. The faceless moon dripped and shone through scudding clouds and a vault of branches. The house sat in darkness except for a light shining from the kitchen window. “Welcome to Kat’s island,” Jack said, and coughed. He reclined in the shadows on a porch swing. Moonlight glinted from the bottle in his hand, the barrel of the pump-action shotgun across his knees. He wore a wool coat, dock-worker’s cap snug over his brow, wool pants, and lace-up hiking boots. When he stood to shake my hand, I realized his clothes hung loose as sails, that he was frail and shaky. “Jesus, man,” I said, shaken at the sight of him. He appeared more of an apparition than the bona fide spirit pursuing me. I understood why he didn’t mind the idea of the Hunt invading his happy home. The man was so emaciated he should’ve been hanging near the blackboard in science class; a hundred pounds lighter since I’d last seen him, easy. He’d shaved his head and beard to gray stubble; his pallid flesh was dry and hot, his eyes sparkled like bits of quartz. He stank of gun oil, smoke, and rotting fruit. “Yeah. The big C. Doc hit me with the bad news this spring. Deathwatch around the Fort. I sent the pets to live with my sister.” He smiled and gestured at the woods. “Just you, me, and the trees. I got nothing better to do than help an old pal in his hour of need.” He led the way inside. The kitchen was cheerily lighted, and we took residence at the dining table where he poured me a glass of whiskey and listened to my recap of the trip from Alaska. “I hope you’ve got a plan,” I said. “Besides blasting them with grandma’s twelve gauge?” He patted the stock of his shotgun where it lay on the table. “We’re going out like a pair of Vikings.” “I’d be more excited if you had a flamethrower, or some grenades.” “Me too. Me too. I got a few sticks of dynamite for fishing and plenty of ammo.” “Dynamite is good. This is going to be full on Hollywood. Fast cars, shirtless women, explosions . . .” “Man, I don’t even know if it’ll detonate. The shit’s been stashed in a leaky box in the cellar for a hundred years. Honestly, my estimation is, we’re hosed. Totally up shit creek. Our sole advantage is prey doesn’t usually fight back. Graham’s powerful, he’s a spirit, or a monster, whatever. But he’s new on the job, right? That may be our ray of sunshine. That, and according to the literature, the Pack doesn’t fancy crossing large bodies of open water. These haunts prefer ice and snow.” Jack coughed into a handkerchief. Belly-ripping, Doc Holliday kind of coughing. He wiped his mouth and had a belt of whiskey. His cheeks were blotched. “Anyway, I brought you here for another reason. This house belonged to a sorcerer once upon a time. Type they used to burn at the stake. An unsavory guy named Ewers Welloc. The Wellocs own most of this island and there’s a hell of a story in that. For now, let me say Ewers was blackest in a family of black sheep. The villagers were scared shitless of him, were convinced he practiced necromancy and other dark arts on the property. Considering the stories Kat told me and some of the funky stuff I’ve found stashed around here, it’s hard to dismiss the villagers claims as superstition.” I could only wonder what he’d unearthed, or Kat before him. Jack bought the place for a dollar and suddenly that factoid assumed ominous significance. “What were you guys up to? You, Kat, and Graham attended college together. Did you form a club?” “A witch coven. I kid, I kid. Wasn’t college . . . We met at the Sugar Tree Hill writers’ retreat. Five days of sun, fun, booze, and hand jobs. There were quite a few young authors there who went on to become quasi-prominent. Many a friendship and enmity are formed at Sugar Tree Hill. The three of us really clicked. Me and Kat were wild, man, wild. Nothing on Graham’s scale, though. He took it way farther. As you can see.” “Yeah.” I sipped my drink. “Me and Graham were pretty tight until he schlepped to Alaska and started in with the sled dogs. Communication tapered off and after a while we fell out of touch. I received a few letters. Guy had the world’s shittiest penmanship; would’ve taken a cryptologist to have deciphered them. I thought he suffered from cabin fever.” “Seemed okay to me,” I said. “Gregarious. Popular. Handsome. He was well-regarded.” “Yeah, yeah . . . The rot was on the inside,” Jack said and I almost spilled my glass. He didn’t notice. “As it happens, my hole card is an ace. Lamprey Isle was settled long before the whites landed. Maybe before the Mohawk, Mohican, Seneca. Nobody knows who these people were, but none of the records are flattering. This mystery tribe left megaliths and cairns on islands and along the coast. A few of those megaliths are in the woods around here. Legend has it that the tribe erected them for use in necromantic rituals. Summon, bind, banish. Like Robert Howard hypothesized in his Conan tales—if the demonic manifests on the mortal plane, it becomes subject to the laws of physics, and cold Hyperborean steel. Howard was onto something.” “Fairy rocks, huh?” I said. The whiskey was hitting me. “Got any problem believing in the Grim Reaper with a hunting knife and a pack of werewolves chasing you from one end of the continent to the other?” I tried again. “So. Fairy rocks.” “Fuckin’ A, boy-o. Fairy rocks. And double aught buckshot.” *** We took shifts at watch until dawn. The Hunt didn’t arrive and so passed a peaceful evening. I slept for three hours; the most I’d had in a week. Jack fried bacon and eggs for breakfast and we drank a pot of black coffee. Afterward he gave me a tour of the house and the immediate grounds. Much of the house gathered dust, exuding the vibe particular to dwellings of bachelors and widowers. Since his wife flew the coop, Jack’s remit had contracted to kitchen, bath, living room. Too close to a tomb for my liking. Tromping around the property with our breath streaming slantwise, he showed me a megalith hidden in the underbrush between a pair of sugar maples. Huge and misshapen beneath layers of slime and moss, the stone cast a shadow over us. It radiated the chill of an ice block. One of several in the vicinity, I soon learned. Jack wasn’t eager to hang around it. “There were lots of animal bones piled in the bushes. You’ll never catch any animals living here. Wasn’t the two decks of Camels I smoked every day since junior high that gave me cancer. It’s these damned things. Near as I can figure, they’re siphons. Let’s pray the effect is magnified upon extra-dimensional beings. Otherwise, Graham will just eat our bullets and spit them back at us.” The megalith frightened me. I imagined it as a huge, predatory insect disguised as a stone, its ethereal rostrum stabbing an artery and sucking my life essence. I wondered if the stones were indigenous, or if the ancient tribes had fashioned them somehow. I’d never know. “Graham’s an occultist. Think he’s dumb enough to walk into a trap?” “Graham ain’t Graham anymore. He’s the Huntsman.” Jack scanned the red-gold horizon and muttered dire predictions of another storm front descending from the west. “Trouble headed this way,” he said and hustled me back to the house. We locked and shuttered everything and took positions in the living room; Jack with his shotgun, me with my pistol and dog. Seated on the leather Italian sofa, bolstered by a pitcher of vodka and lemonade, we watched ancient episodes of The Rockford Files and Ironside and waited. Several minutes past two p.m., the air dimmed to velvety purple and the trees behind the house thrashed and rain spattered the windows. The power died. I whistled a few bars of the Twilight Zone theme, shifted the pistol into my shooting hand. Jack grinned and went to the window and stood there, a blue shadow limned in black. The booze in my tumbler quivered and the horn bellowed, right on top of us. Glass exploded and I was bleeding from the head and both hands that I’d raised to protect my face. Wood splintered and doors caved in all over the house and the hounds rolled into the living room; long, sinuous figures of pure malevolence with ruby-bright eyes, low to the floor and moving fast, teeth, tongues, appetite. I squinted and fired twice from the hip, and a bounding figure jerked short. Minerva pounced, snarling and tearing in frenzy, doggy mind reverting to the swamps and jungles and caves of her ancestors. Jack’s shotgun blazed a stroke of yellow flame and sheared the arm of a fiend who’d scuttled in close. Partially deafened and blinded, I couldn’t keep track of much after that. Squeezed the trigger four more times, popped the speed loader with six fresh slugs, kept firing at shadows that leaped and sprang. The Riders of the Apocalypse and Friends galloped through the house—our own private Armageddon. More glass whirled, and bits of wood and shreds of drapery; a section of ceiling collapsed in a cascade of sparks and rapidly blooming white carnations of drywall dust. Now the gods could watch. Thunder of gunshots, Minerva growling, the damned, yodeling cries of the hounds, and crackling bones, wound around my brain in a knotted spool. I got knocked down in the melee and watched Minerva swing past, lazily flying, paws limp, guts raveling behind her. I’d owned many dogs, but Minerva was my first and only pet, my dearest friend. She was a mewling puppy once more, then inert bone and slack hide, and gone, gone, the last pinprick of my life snuffed. Something was on fire. Oily black smoke seethed through a vertical impact crater where the far wall had stood. Moon, clouds, and smoke boiled there. A couple of fingers were missing from my left hand. Blood pulsed forth: a shiny, crimson bouquet thickening into a lump at the end of my wrist, a wax sculpture from the house of horrors, an object example of Medieval torture. It didn’t hurt. Didn’t feel like anything. My jacket had been sliced, and the flesh beneath it, so that my innards glistened in the cold air. That didn’t hurt either. Instead, I was buoyed by a feral joy. This wouldn’t take much longer by the looks of it. I pulled the jacket closed as best I could and began the laborious process of standing. Almost done, almost home. Jack cursed through a mouthful of dirt. The Huntsman had entered the fray and caught his skull in one splayed hand. He sawed through Jack’s throat with that jagged flint dagger hewn from Stone Age crystal. The Huntsman sawed with so much vigor that Jack’s limbs flopped crazily, a crash test dummy at the moment of impact. Graham let Jack’s carcass thump to the sodden carpet among the savaged bodies of the pack. He pointed at me, him playing the lead man of a rock band shouting out to his audience. Yeah, the gods were with us, and no doubt. “So, we meet again.” He chuckled and licked his lips and wiped the Satan knife against his gory mackinaw. He approached, shuffling like a seal through the smoldering gloom, lighted by an inner radiance that bathed him in a weird, pale glow as cold and alien as the Aurora Borealis. The death-light of Hades, presumably. His eyes were hidden by the brim of his hat, but his smile curved, joyless and cruel. I made it to my feet and scrambled backward over the flaming wreckage of coffee tables and easy chairs, the upended couch, and into the hall. Blood came from me in ropes, in sheets. Graham followed, smiling, smiling. Doorframes buckled as his shoulders brushed them. He swiped the knife in a loose and easy diamond pattern. The knife hissed as it rehearsed my evisceration. I wasn’t worried about that. I was long past worry. Thoughts of vengeance dominated. “You killed my dog.” Blood bubbles plopped from my lips, and that’s never good. Another dose of ferocious, joyful melancholy spurred me onward. I pitched the empty revolver at his head, watched the gun glance aside and spin away. My tears froze to salt on my cheeks. Arctic ice groaned beneath my boots as the sea swelled, yearned toward the moon. The sea drained the warmth from me, taking back what it had given. “You killed your dog, mon frère. You did for our buddy Jack, too. Bringing me and my boys here like this. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s a volunteer army, right?” I turned away, sliding, overbalancing. My legs folded and I slumped before a fallen timber, its charred length licked by small flames. The blood from my ruined hand sizzled and spat. I rubbed my face against the floor, painting myself a war mask of gore and charcoal. By the time he’d crossed the gap between us and seized my hair to flip me onto my back, at the precise moment he sank the blade into my chest, the fuse on the glycerin-wet stick of dynamite was a nub disappearing into its burrow. Graham’s exultant expression changed. “Well, I forgot Jack was a fisherman,” he said. That fucking knife kept traveling, the irresistible force, and I embraced it, and him. The Eternal Footman clapped, once. *** After an eon of vectoring through infinite night, the door to the tilt-a-whirl opened and I plummeted and hit the earth hard enough to raise dust. Mud instead. An angelic choir serenaded me from stage left, beyond a screen of tall trees and fog. Wagner as interpreted by Homer’s sirens. The voices rose and fell, sweetly demanding my blood, the heat of my bones. That sounded fine; I imagined the soft, red lips parted, imagined that they glowed as the Huntsman glowed, but as an expression of erotic passion rather than malice, and I longed to open a vein for them. I came to, paralyzed. Pieces of me lay scattered across the backyard. Probably for the best that I couldn’t turn my neck to properly survey the damage. Graham sprawled across from me, face-down in the wet leaves. Wisps of smoke curled from him. He shuddered violently and lifted his head. Bones and joints snapped into place again. The left eye shimmered with reflections of fire. The right eye was black. Neither were human. He said, “Are you dead? Are you dead? Or are you playing possum? I think you’re mostly dead. It doesn’t matter. Hell is come as you are.” He shook himself and began to crawl in my direction, slithering with a horrible serpent-like elasticity. Mostly dead must’ve meant 99.9 percent dead, because I couldn’t even blink, much less raise a hand to forestall his taking my skull for the mantle, my soul to the bad place. A red haze obscured my vision and the world receded. The sirens in the forest called again, louder yet. Graham hesitated, his glance drawn to the voices that came from many directions now and sang in many languages. Jack staggered from the smoking ruins of the house. He appeared to have been dunked in a vat of blood. He held his shotgun in a death grip. “The bell tolls for you, Stevie,” he said and blew off Graham’s left leg. He racked the slide and blasted Graham’s right leg to smithereens below the kneecap. Graham screamed and whipped around and tried to hamstring his tormentor. Not quite fast enough. Jack proved agile for an old guy with a slit throat. The siren choir screamed in pleasure. Blam! Blam! Graham’s hands went bye-bye. The next slug severed his spine, judging by the ragdoll effect. His body went limp and he screamed, and I’m sure he would’ve happily leaped on Jack and eaten him alive if Jack hadn’t already dismembered him with some fancy shotgun work. Jack said something I didn’t catch. Might’ve uttered a curse in a foreign tongue . . . then stuck the barrel under Graham’s chin and took his head off with the last round. I cheered telepathically. Then I finished dying. The score as the curtains closed was lovely, lovely. *** This time I emerged from eternal night to Minerva kissing my face. I was lying on my back in the kitchen. There was a hole in the ceiling and gray daylight poured through along with steady trickles of water from busted pipes. Jack slouched at the table, which was stacked with various odds and ends. His shoulders were wide and round as boulders and he’d gained back all the weight cancer had stolen. He clutched a bottle of Old Crow and watched me intently. He said, “Stay away from the light, kid. It’s fire and lava.” I spat clotted blood. Finally, I said, “He’s dead?” “Again.” “Singing . . .” I managed. “Oh, yeah. Don’t listen. That’s just the vampire stones. They’re fat on Graham’s energy.” “How’d I get in here?” “I dragged you by your hair.” The world kept solidifying around me, and my senses along with it. Me, Minerva, and Jack being alive didn’t compute. Except, as the cobwebs cleared from my mind, it made a sinister kind of sense. I laid my hand on Minerva’s fur and noticed the red sparks in her eyes, how goddamned long and white her teeth were. “Oh, shit,” I said. “Yeah,” Jack said. He set aside the bottle and shrugged into the Huntsman’s impeccable snow white mackinaw. Perfect fit. Next came the Huntsman’s hat. Different on Jack; broader and of a style I didn’t recognize. The red and black crest was gone. Real antlers in its stead. A shadow crossed his expression and the light in the room gathered in his eyes. “Get up,” he said. And I did. Not a mark on me. I felt quite alive for a dead man. Hideous strength coursed through my limbs. I thought of my philandering ex-wife, her music teacher beau, and hideous thoughts coursed through my mind. I must’ve retained a tiny fragment of humanity because I managed to look away from that vista of terrible and splendorous vengeance. For the moment, at least. I said, “Where now?” Jack leaned on a broad, barbed spear that had replaced his emptied shotgun. “There’s this guy in Mexico I’d like to visit,” he said. He handed me the flint knife and the herald’s horn. “Do the honors, kid.” “Oh, Stanley. It’ll be good to see you again.” I pressed the horn to my lips and winded it, once. The kitchen wall disintegrated and the shockwave traveled swiftly, rippling grass and causing birds to lift in panic from the trees. I imagined Stanley Jones, somewhere far to the south, seated on his veranda, tequila at hand, American newspaper balanced on his rickety knee, ear cocked, straining to divine the origin of dim bellow carried by the wind. Minerva bayed. She gathered her sleek, killing bulk and hurtled across the yard and into the woods. I patted the hilt of the knife and followed her.

From Horror photos & videos July 10, 2018 at 08:00PM

[lotsofdogs]

PBF Baby #2: Pregnancy Weeks 37-38

Hi friends!! I’ve received more than a few comments on the blog and messages on Instagram letting me know a handful of you are officially on “baby watch” along with me and my family right now. I SO appreciate you following our journey so closely and will absolutely keep you all in the loop when things get rolling. (I’m assuming I’ll post some kind of an update via Instagram Stories first just because that’s easiest.)

I’m 39 weeks pregnant right now and already passed the point where I went into labor with Chase which means I’ve reached a point I never actually got to in my first pregnancy… The waiting game! I fully anticipated reaching my due date with Chase and never really played the “any day now” game but I definitely feel like we’re entering that territory right now and it’s really exciting.

Now that I’m 39 weeks, I wanted to share a recap of the last two weeks of pregnancy with you guys which you will find below!

Here are my past updates from this pregnancy if you’re just catching up:

A Miracle On The Way

The First and Second Trimester (So Far)

PBF Baby #2: Pregnancy Weeks 20-23

PBF Baby #2: Pregnancy Weeks 24-27

PBF Baby #2: Pregnancy Weeks 28-31

PBF Baby #2: Pregnancy Weeks 32-34

PBF Baby #2: Pregnancy Weeks 35-36

What I’m Going To Pack In My Hospital Bag

You may also check out all of my weekly pregnancy updates from my first pregnancy on the Pregnancy page of this blog.

And now for my most recent updates…

Baby Updates

37 Weeks

38 Weeks

At 38 weeks, baby is the size of a winter melon! He or she is roughly 19.6 inches long and weighs approximately 6.8 pounds.

Weight Gained

My weight has been all over the place during these final weeks of pregnancy.

I gained a decent amount of weight in the first and second trimesters (above average) and then I’m not sure what happened, but my weight began to stagnate and then fluctuate and decrease by a few pounds. I initially blamed nausea that surfaced again with a bang almost daily several weeks ago and a dwindling appetite around dinner time but in the same breath I feel like I’m eating a lot and snacking constantly throughout the day.

I’m still within the recommended weight gain for pregnancy but went from a 30-pound gain to a 26-ish pound gain (again this is still fluctuating) which concerned me a bit.

Couple some weight loss with my belly suddenly measuring several weeks behind and that was the recipe for some anxiety over the past two weeks. During my 37-week appointment I was up 27 pounds (down a pound from the previous week) and at 38 weeks, I was down another pound. My doctor wasn’t concerned about my weight loss (apparently this is actually quite common at the end of pregnancy) but recommended an ultrasound at my 38-week appointment to check on our baby’s size when my belly measured 35 weeks since I’ve been measuring ahead almost my entire pregnancy.

You may read more about some of the stress surrounding the ultrasound in my Instagram post, but I was so grateful to learn that our baby is looking wonderful and measuring in the 60th percentile. (At my appointment the sonographer estimated our baby to weigh about 7 pounds 2 ounces!) Apparently our little one is getting everything it needs and growing just fine which was the biggest relief. I know Chase was a little baby but since we attributed his size to previous placental issues I do not have in this pregnancy, I couldn’t help but feel worried about our little one.

Workouts

Workouts are all over the place right now and pretty slow-paced. I’m working out 3-ish days a week and doing some modified boot camp workouts or strength training in our garage or at the gym. I also try to get out for a 2-3 mile walk with Sadie when I don’t get a formal workout in which makes me feel more energetic. My workout motivation is rather low lately but I always feel 10 times better from a physical standpoint when I move my body a bit during the day.

Symptoms

The biggest new-to-me change that happened during the 37th week of my pregnancy is that I began experiencing semi-frequent Braxton Hicks contractions. They never feel painful but they are uncomfortable, especially when they happen in the middle of the night. My whole stomach will feel hard as a rock for just under a minute and then go back to normal. There’s no pattern or predictability associated with the contractions but they’re happening randomly on a daily basis right now.

(Ryan hasn’t cut his hair since we found out we were expecting and is growing it out until our baby arrives! Check out those waaaves!) 

I also noticed myself feeling more and more exhausted by the end of the day and that seemed to culminate around week 37. (Last week, during my 38th week, I thankfully got a random burst of energy!) During week 37, however, there was something about the arrival of 4 p.m. that made me want curl up in a ball and sleep for the rest of the day. That wasn’t possible with Chase in the mix and I think the exhaustion I’ve felt during this pregnancy can be largely attributed to running after a toddler all day long. There’s not a ton of sitting and relaxing when Chase is up and about, that’s for sure! (This is also one of the main things that intimidates me about newborn life this time around!)

As I mentioned above, a switch seemed to flip last week and I honestly felt better during week 38th than I’ve felt in months. I’m not sure what was going on, but I felt more energetic and my body felt more comfortable – less aches and pains – than it has in a long time. Some people said this could mean the baby is dropping and while I feel like this may slowly be happening, I don’t feel like labor is right around the corner just yet. Still, an unexpected burst of energy was a very welcomed treat, especially since I felt quite uncomfortable and rather cranky just one week earlier.

Food Aversions

Similar to the past two weeks, I don’t have any strong aversions but my appetite definitely decreases throughout the day. I often feel like I eat a decent amount before 11 a.m. and then have to stick with smaller snacks the rest of the day or I’ll feel overly stuffed. It’s almost like my food is sitting high up in my ribs if I overeat at the end of the day, so mini meals and snacks are key for me right now as the days go on.

I had a few days where I found myself snacking on crackers or a couple of pieces of bread before bed because my stomach felt like it needed something but absolutely nothing else appealed to me.

Food Cravings

Carbs, carbs and more carbs. I’m snacking on cereal, slices of bread and crackers like it’s my job right now. Oatmeal is my favorite breakfast and I’m eating a big bowl of it almost daily. I am also still on the fruit obsession train and eating my bodyweight in watermelon, grapes and berries. And then there’s always chocolate and ice cream which I find myself craving on a daily basis.

Sleep

I am still waking up constantly in the night to go to the bathroom (we’re talking five times which isn’t so fun) and struggled with a night or two of restlessness where I woke up in the middle of the night and tossed and turned for a couple of hours. At 38 weeks, I had a few more solid nights of sleep (maybe this is why I felt more energetic!?) which was so, so nice and definitely not the norm around here.

Any Baby/Pregnancy Related Purchases?

I started to organize my hospital bag and we brought a lot of stuff down from our attic that we used and loved when Chase was a baby.

This made me realize we don’t have a ton of newborn size clothes for either a boy or a girl. (Chase lived in a diaper for much of the summer since I basically hibernated at home with him for a while and it was SO hot outside that summer – record temps in Charlotte!) I ended up ordering a couple newborn-size baby clothes so our baby won’t be naked since I have a feeling I’ll be out and about with this little one a lot earlier than I was with Chase since I’ll have a toddler to entertain as well.

I also have two pairs of comfy nursing-friendly pajamas packed and ended up ordering the long sleeve + pants version of the short sleeve + shorts version of my previous favorite super-soft pajamas.

Belly Button In or Out?

My belly button is definitely out right now but not overly noticeable through clothing.

Feeling…

On a walk with Ryan and Sadie over the weekend, I told Ryan I’m feeling like my life is majorly in limbo right now. There’s so much up in the air which is just crazy! When will our baby arrive? What will labor be like this time? Will we have a boy or a girl? How will Chase adjust to being a big brother? What will blogging look like with two kids in the mix? How will our family dynamic shift? So many unanswered questions but this limbo time also feels really exciting!

I’m also feeling this odd sense of anticipation and a huge understanding of how completely my life is about to change in a very permanent way. I am on the cusp of meeting a little person who is going to completely capture my heart all over again and know that the feelings of love, devotion, protection and vulnerability I already feel will only grow by the day.

During my first pregnancy, I remember feeling so much love for Chase and excitement for the future but there’s something about this pregnancy that feels different. In a way, I spent a lot of my first pregnancy in disbelief (that’s probably the wrong word — but it was almost like an out of body experience at times if that makes any sense at all) and I spent a lot of time wondering what it would be like to have a child and be a mother.

This time around, I know what it’s like to have a child and be a mother and something about this understanding has made me feel more emotional, more in awe of the miracle inside of my belly and more overwhelmingly ready to have another baby. I feel like I have a very real understanding of how the intense love I’m already feeling is about grow and blow me away all over again when I physically hold my baby and watch his or her personality grow and develop.

I feel all the more grateful and very aware that there’s a very real baby in my belly… my son or daughter. Knowing that this little one is going to rock my whole world in the best way and make my heart double in size is simply awesome.  And knowing that I don’t know much about this baby at all right know — both his or her personality traits, physical characteristics, etc. — is also really cool. I can’t wait to learn about our baby and get to know every part of him or her. Any day now!!!

[Read More ...] https://www.pbfingers.com/pbf-baby-pregnancy-weeks-37-38/

[benjamingarden]

This Month On The Farm: January 2018

If you’re just tuning in, this is a brand new ongoing series in which I document each month of our lives in our transition to a simple, homemade life on a modern homestead. We ditched town and moved to the country in 2008 and we blog about both our successful and not-so-successful ventures in homesteading, switching to natural products, and embracing a whole foods lifestyle. 

January 2018 I switched from the weekly (or bi-weekly.....or bi-monthly......or when I could remember) "weekend" posts to a more formal compilation of our homesteading goodness, all pulled together for you once a month. For us, like many of you, January was mostly about the weather.  From the extreme (EXTREME I tell you) cold snaps that lasted weeks, to the snow and the ice.  Since I very much enjoy snow (not driving in it, rather, sitting at home with the pellet stove humming enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee while I watch it) this was a positive for January. For me. The animals, however, do not hold snow in such a high regard.

Coop Girls Well, we receive 3-6 eggs per day.  That sounds great until I remind you that we have 27 chickens.....  Mind you, some of them are older, but the majority should be producing and that's just not happening.  We don't use lighting to force them to produce throughout winter but they usually do ok.  Like more than 3 eggs a day ok.  Apparently not this year. The cold certainly causes some stress and we had single digit and negative numbers for a few weeks.  When it's that cold we just don't let them go out and that very much stresses them out.  They need to get away from each other (although they still tend to cluster while free ranging) and have some space.  Instead, they were stuck inside with the flat panel heaters keeping the coop just into double digits.  (Too much heat can make them sick so we heat it just enough that there's no risk of frostbite) Interestingly, the newer girls are not much for veggies.  All of our flocks over the years have been ecstatic at the sight of greens.  These girls, well, not so much.  They look and go "meh...anything else?"  They do enjoy carbs - oatmeal, pancakes, rice, bread, pasta, and the like but are not so excited about the taste of greens, squash and beans.  And they prefer their carbs with a little sauce - milk, yogurt, broth.....whatever we've got that can be added.  Not too picky, are they?

Dogs + Jack The boys are doing well.  Ollie is on to a new food.  This seems to be an annual thing with him.  I'm not sure why.  We are now on to Fresh Pet.  He seems to love it, although I'm not thrilled with how much space it takes up in the fridge.  We'll see if we can convert him back to the dehydrated food from Honest Kitchen.  Although J was right when he said - what's the difference?  They're both ridiculously expensive.  Oh well. Oh, hey, they turned 8 this month!!  No longer "babies" although to me, they always will be. And Jack is, well, Jack.  He's the same pain in the buns as he's been.  We love him, don't get me wrong, but the guy is something else, as you know.  Our newest ritual, it's been going on for about 3 months, is that he "picks me up" when it's time to go to bed.  Here's how it works:  he's upstairs sleeping in our walk-in closet (his little cat tent is in there).  About 9:45 he strolls downstairs, howling and crying - letting me know he's on his way.  He strolls into the living room, and hollers, until I get up to brush my teeth.  Once I'm in the bathroom, he insists on getting on the sink and smelling my toothpaste......while I brush, he brushes his entire body against me.  Over and over.  Once I'm done he is at my feet, again, brushing against me over and over until I head toward the stairs.  He gets so excited when we head up the stairs together and then he goes back in the closet and I go to bed.  I have no idea why in the world this seems to make him happy, but it does.  That's our Jack!

Business The rush of the holidays are over and the great news is that our online sales are remaining steady.  Typically, there's a dip in sales post holiday, but not this year.  Woot to that!  The farmer's market has slowed down, for the most part, but we still have some pretty good days.  We decided to pay for a double booth this year, like we do for summer, and it has made a world of difference!  It's so much nicer for our customers to shop and it's so much nicer for us!  I like to wrap soap while I'm there and it gives me the space to do so. We started a new thing for 2018 where we are making one limited edition soap scent per month for the year.  I'm excited about that - we've found some of our best selling scents with limited editions.  We will also be adding a couple of products to the line-up as well as taking some away.  Our soap is by-and-far our most popular product so the more popular it becomes, the more time we've got to spend making it, which means we don't have time to make all of the other products.  As I've shared in the past, we are bound and determined to keep this a smaller company of just the two of us, but also keep it running successful.  This is what we continue to strive for. Around The Farm We are excited for spring when we can begin moving outbuildings around in order to renovate the new manufacturing space.  Unfortunately, not much we can do in the dead of winter.  So, no projects have been completed this month.  I'm hoping for a few loose ends to be tied up next month (bathroom floor replaced, bathroom cabinet replaced, office light installed, etc.).  We are replacing our stove.....again.  The oven just won't keep the temperature and they continue to replace parts but it does not fix it.  So, when your cookies get burnt-crispy on the outside and are raw in the middle, well, you know it's time to buy a new one.  I hate that we have to do this with big projects coming in the spring, but that's how things seem to go, isn't it?  But the new one has double ovens so I'm a bit ecstatic about that.  Simple things that make me happy..... And I was one of the unfortunate ones to be stricken with the flu.  It was bound to happen, I suppose, with all of the people I come into contact with everyday.  I'm still dealing with the upper respiratory after effects, but I'm getting there.  So far, knock on wood, J has not come down with it. And that, my friends, is January in a nutshell!!

How about you?  

I would love to hear how your first month of the year has gone.

**********

Want More? If you're looking for more Cobble Hill Farm we'd love for you to connect with us on Instagram and Facebook!

**********

And if you want to make sure you don’t miss a post here, sign-up for our handy dandy email list in the box below. 

Sign up to get exclusive content, including our posts in your inbox, oh, and tons of chicken love. Just enter your email address in the box below and hit "subscribe".

This Month On The Farm: January 2018 was originally posted by My Favorite Chicken Blogs(benjamingardening)

[benjamingarden]

This Month On The Farm: January 2018

If you’re just tuning in, this is a brand new ongoing series in which I document each month of our lives in our transition to a simple, homemade life on a modern homestead. We ditched town and moved to the country in 2008 and we blog about both our successful and not-so-successful ventures in homesteading, switching to natural products, and embracing a whole foods lifestyle. 

January 2018 I switched from the weekly (or bi-weekly.....or bi-monthly......or when I could remember) "weekend" posts to a more formal compilation of our homesteading goodness, all pulled together for you once a month. For us, like many of you, January was mostly about the weather.  From the extreme (EXTREME I tell you) cold snaps that lasted weeks, to the snow and the ice.  Since I very much enjoy snow (not driving in it, rather, sitting at home with the pellet stove humming enjoying a nice hot cup of coffee while I watch it) this was a positive for January. For me. The animals, however, do not hold snow in such a high regard.

Coop Girls Well, we receive 3-6 eggs per day.  That sounds great until I remind you that we have 27 chickens.....  Mind you, some of them are older, but the majority should be producing and that's just not happening.  We don't use lighting to force them to produce throughout winter but they usually do ok.  Like more than 3 eggs a day ok.  Apparently not this year. The cold certainly causes some stress and we had single digit and negative numbers for a few weeks.  When it's that cold we just don't let them go out and that very much stresses them out.  They need to get away from each other (although they still tend to cluster while free ranging) and have some space.  Instead, they were stuck inside with the flat panel heaters keeping the coop just into double digits.  (Too much heat can make them sick so we heat it just enough that there's no risk of frostbite) Interestingly, the newer girls are not much for veggies.  All of our flocks over the years have been ecstatic at the sight of greens.  These girls, well, not so much.  They look and go "meh...anything else?"  They do enjoy carbs - oatmeal, pancakes, rice, bread, pasta, and the like but are not so excited about the taste of greens, squash and beans.  And they prefer their carbs with a little sauce - milk, yogurt, broth.....whatever we've got that can be added.  Not too picky, are they?

Dogs + Jack The boys are doing well.  Ollie is on to a new food.  This seems to be an annual thing with him.  I'm not sure why.  We are now on to Fresh Pet.  He seems to love it, although I'm not thrilled with how much space it takes up in the fridge.  We'll see if we can convert him back to the dehydrated food from Honest Kitchen.  Although J was right when he said - what's the difference?  They're both ridiculously expensive.  Oh well. Oh, hey, they turned 8 this month!!  No longer "babies" although to me, they always will be. And Jack is, well, Jack.  He's the same pain in the buns as he's been.  We love him, don't get me wrong, but the guy is something else, as you know.  Our newest ritual, it's been going on for about 3 months, is that he "picks me up" when it's time to go to bed.  Here's how it works:  he's upstairs sleeping in our walk-in closet (his little cat tent is in there).  About 9:45 he strolls downstairs, howling and crying - letting me know he's on his way.  He strolls into the living room, and hollers, until I get up to brush my teeth.  Once I'm in the bathroom, he insists on getting on the sink and smelling my toothpaste......while I brush, he brushes his entire body against me.  Over and over.  Once I'm done he is at my feet, again, brushing against me over and over until I head toward the stairs.  He gets so excited when we head up the stairs together and then he goes back in the closet and I go to bed.  I have no idea why in the world this seems to make him happy, but it does.  That's our Jack!

Business The rush of the holidays are over and the great news is that our online sales are remaining steady.  Typically, there's a dip in sales post holiday, but not this year.  Woot to that!  The farmer's market has slowed down, for the most part, but we still have some pretty good days.  We decided to pay for a double booth this year, like we do for summer, and it has made a world of difference!  It's so much nicer for our customers to shop and it's so much nicer for us!  I like to wrap soap while I'm there and it gives me the space to do so. We started a new thing for 2018 where we are making one limited edition soap scent per month for the year.  I'm excited about that - we've found some of our best selling scents with limited editions.  We will also be adding a couple of products to the line-up as well as taking some away.  Our soap is by-and-far our most popular product so the more popular it becomes, the more time we've got to spend making it, which means we don't have time to make all of the other products.  As I've shared in the past, we are bound and determined to keep this a smaller company of just the two of us, but also keep it running successful.  This is what we continue to strive for. Around The Farm We are excited for spring when we can begin moving outbuildings around in order to renovate the new manufacturing space.  Unfortunately, not much we can do in the dead of winter.  So, no projects have been completed this month.  I'm hoping for a few loose ends to be tied up next month (bathroom floor replaced, bathroom cabinet replaced, office light installed, etc.).  We are replacing our stove.....again.  The oven just won't keep the temperature and they continue to replace parts but it does not fix it.  So, when your cookies get burnt-crispy on the outside and are raw in the middle, well, you know it's time to buy a new one.  I hate that we have to do this with big projects coming in the spring, but that's how things seem to go, isn't it?  But the new one has double ovens so I'm a bit ecstatic about that.  Simple things that make me happy..... And I was one of the unfortunate ones to be stricken with the flu.  It was bound to happen, I suppose, with all of the people I come into contact with everyday.  I'm still dealing with the upper respiratory after effects, but I'm getting there.  So far, knock on wood, J has not come down with it. And that, my friends, is January in a nutshell!!

How about you?  

I would love to hear how your first month of the year has gone.

**********

Want More? If you're looking for more Cobble Hill Farm we'd love for you to connect with us on Instagram and Facebook!

**********

And if you want to make sure you don’t miss a post here, sign-up for our handy dandy email list in the box below. 

Sign up to get exclusive content, including our posts in your inbox, oh, and tons of chicken love. Just enter your email address in the box below and hit "subscribe".

This Month On The Farm: January 2018 was originally posted by My Favorite Chicken Blogs(benjamingardening)