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[Echo]

TItile: THE HOUR OF THE SNAKETHE STORM[/b]

THE STORM
Summer 2017

Digging. Mary rummaged through the glove compartment of the 1973 Mercedes-Benz. Delving. She tossed out an expired registration, two empty pill bottles, and a deck of tarot cards before noticing eyes glaring at her. The homemade voodoo doll resembled somebody she once knew, and she did not dare look back, opting to pocket a Trojan condom instead. Finally, she spotted an open pack of Marlboro Reds. “Oh, thank, God,” she gasped, snatching the cigarettes. “I thought I was gonna have to wait till after the funeral to buy more smokes.”

Dwelling. Mary deflated into the passenger seat and lit the lone germ. She cracked the window and took a drag. Exhaling, she polluted the parking lot of Brooklyn’s Holy Cross Cemetery. For a second, then two, she observed the mist of smoke depart. It seemed to dance up, up, up into the heavens. Mary almost waved goodbye, but before she got the chance, an eerie, chilling breeze swept through the lot, robbing any existing cheerfulness. Flinching, goosebumps crawled onto Mary’s skin like bloodthirsty spiders from Hell itself on this dark and cold … summer’s day.

Mary set the thought aside while setting the cigarette on a 7-Up can. Pulling off her shirt and Levi’s cut-off denim shorts, she replaced them with a black slip-dress. Simple. Sexy. In an attempt to brighten the mood, Mary smiled at the driver, her childhood bestie, Valentina Sahira. “Thanks again, Valentina, for letting me borrow this dress, ‘cause it’s like … perfect!” she exclaimed.

Valentina didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Instead, drool dripped from her mouth as her eyes fluttered like a butterfly with two broken wings trapped in a mason jar. Her head nodded down, down, down, bobbling off her neck. Glimpsing Valentina’s flask on the dashboard sitting next to a handful of A.A. sobriety chips, Mary swayed her head, quipping, “That’s a fold.” It was.

[Crobinson@2023]

As a teenager, Elizabeth had come from a broken home that couldn’t be fixed. Left aside and lost, she never wanted to go back in time.
Seven years ago, her life had taken a turn for the better. Erik Herrmann, a Jewish doctor, had captured and healed her heart. They had married, and his strong family ties, in a sense, reassured Elizabeth, that she belonged somewhere.
On this perfect end of summer weekend, at their shorefront home, the sun cast glittering light across the lake. Waves lapped against a Chris Craft boat tied up at the dock. Elizabeth never tired of the sight and sounds from the screened-in porch.
Curled up in a chaise lounge, it was kick back time for her. Out of the lab coat and scrubs, she wore her favorite jean shorts, tee-shirt and long brown wavy hair tied back with a ribbon. Out the corner of her eye, she watched young son, Jake, and husband Erik, play catch in the backyard. When their eyes met, Erik’s smile warmed her heart.
As good as Elizabeth’s life got, the unexpected happened that evening. She and Erik went to the Palace theratre in town, and saw “The Seven Year Itch.”
Erik laughed throughout the movie. Poking Elizabeth, he whispered, “Ol’ Richard’s a hoot, though he’s asking for trouble with that sexy blonde.”
Elizabeth snickered, murmuring, “Yeah, a laughable imagination.” Scene after scene was nothing but waving red flags— unsettling things—for her in her own marriage

[Me_marino]

WHERE THE LEGEND LIES
by M. E. Marino
first 250-words

Up on a Pennsylvania Mountain top, a murder of crows swooped into the valley, yawed across a steel-blue sky, then glided past the dull yellow autumn sun, casting a V-shaped shadow over slopping evergreens. A bird fell out of formation and nosedived into lollipop-colored oaks, maples, and elms.

Park Ranger Tamra Brenagard watched the fallen black bird with dismay. Another person may have seen the aerial display as a bad omen or a sign that the local urban tale of Kara, the vengeful spirit who searched for her child every October full moon, had begun. For Tamra, the odd, unnatural display reminded her of a page out of the story her father had told and the promise over his grave that she never kept.  

Shouts of “Goodbye” brought Tamra’s attention back to the Visitor Center’s driveway. She leaned against the split-railed porch and waved to the departing tween students calling out to her from their yellow bus windows. The vehicle bounced over the curb, whipping the kids back into their seats. They disappeared at the corner turn onto a road that continued onto the historic planked bridge over the meandering start of the Delaware River.  

There will be no park tours scheduled for the next two weeks. Tomorrow, this seventy-thousand-acre national recreational area will have bear bowhunters and curious locals with their hearsay and speculation about a figure as improbable as Bigfoot or the Jersey Devil. And, once again, Tamra will struggle with anger and wonder at the fabled account of survival and disappearance that weaved in and out of her young life.

[MedrekWrites]

INTO THE FIRE
First 248 words
YA Action/Adventure

Who knew a murderer could look so nice.

The plastic edges of Mara Levett’s security badge bite into my fingers as I study her faded picture, fear and anticipation prickling up my neck. She looks more like someone’s mom than the CEO of the nation’s largest weapons manufacturer. Not like the person who must have ordered the coverup of Mom and Dad’s deaths.

Honestly, even if the explosion was an accident, she’s complicit. She put profits ahead of safety, then dodged the fallout when four people paid with their lives. No consequences for her or her company. Certainly no remorse.

I drop the badge like it’s venomous and yank on my favorite tattered running shoes, towers of moving boxes an intimidating city of brown cardboard skyscrapers around me. The early morning sun filters in through gauzy white curtains, illuminating the bare walls and pale floors of my new living room, but it can’t reach the pools of shadow between the stacks. Half-remembered stories and long-dead laughter lurk there.

Dad, covered in crusty paint, his brows pinched together as he swept his brush over another canvas. Mom’s bright voice reminiscing about summers spent working the fields as a farmgirl with Grandma and Grandpa.

To think they grew up here… and spent their last days here. This tiny, picturesque town is thirty-six-hundred miles and a world away from home. I hoped living where they did, I’d feel their presence, but so far all I feel is the distance. Hollow echoes.

Ghosts.

[mowainkchild]

Title: Daughter of Heaven
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy

First 250 words:

An, peace. Yi, to nourish.
An Yi?
Is it true the child whose name disappointed the father spends the rest of her life proving her worth?

The emperor had knelt at the altar of Zhenwu to ask which war he could win next. He swatted at the sandalwood incense, but no matter how he squinted at the divination stick, his patron god’s message was plain: stay home and nourish peace instead.

Such was the inopportune moment Old Han brought news of the birth of a daughter.

‘His Majesty snapped the bamboo stick in two and hurled it at me,’ the old eunuch said. ‘Thank the gods your mother was his favourite, or it might have been the incense pot. Then His Majesty waved me over, lingered over it with a brush and dabbed the words An Yi in gold ink. He said: “Saves me the trouble of thinking up a name.”’

Anyi wished Old Han hadn’t told her that last bit. Still, hadn’t she more than made up for her father’s disappointment? In the years since her birth, the emperor’s vast armies remained home and Lord Zhenwu made good on his promise. Peace indeed nourished the land and turned out more profitable than war. The Ninth Dynasty grew fat on the tributes of grateful neighbours. And Father called her his little godsend.

[dpwriter]

Title: Wavestruck
Author; Dawn Pier
Genre: Memoir

Somewhere inside my dreams I sensed them, their intensity mounting, until at first light, the sound of waves breaking outside my bedroom window resembled bombs detonating. `I sat up and the sight of swell lines ten-deep advancing towards the shore made my heart skip a beat. I jumped out of bed, threw on my surf gear, did some quick stretches, rubbed on sunscreen.

I pulled up to my local surf break on the ATV I called Big Red, two boards tucked into a rack on one side. My little dog Peanut jumped down from behind me to announce our arrival to a small crowd of surfers standing on the far side of the bay, shielding their eyes from the sun. Their body language betrayed their collective anxiety. They seemed in no hurry to paddle out. I followed their gaze to where the sight of a surfer racing across the face of a wave standing several feet over his head made my heart thump so hard the sound of my pulse reverberated in my ears and a lump rose in my throat. The surfer rode the wave until he could ride no further, finishing with a cutback off the top just before the wave closed out with a roar. Further out, two more surfers sat near the take-off spot.

The surfer who’d just rode the wave laid down to ride prone the rest of the way in and, shaking the water from his short mop of hair, walked up to greet me.

[nrwillick]

Title: Heretic
Genre: Alt-history thriller

Darkness had finally fallen on this summer’s night. One difficulty about working in this time of year, thought the tagger, was less darkness when he wanted to work. His anger towards his subject was the result of a lifetime of repression, mockery, and abuse.

As he approached the Cathedral in Sacramento, he reflected back to the last time he entered the building. It was right before graduating from high school, when the school had a baccalaureate mass on site to “honor” the students. When they called his name, the priests' faces showed a mixture of pride and disappointment. After spending all these years at the academy, he was finally graduating on time. But the staff seemed to smirk in disbelief; as if they could not comprehend that he had actually managed to make it this far. Despite their doubt, he was going to graduate.

Although his grades were subpar and the detention hall was like a second home, he was determined to make something of himself. He found solace in debate clubs, theater performances, and football games, driving him to work even harder on his studies--even religious courses. With an ironclad dedication, he poured every ounce of energy into extracurricular activities, using them as a potent motivator to study and learn so he could succeed. Jax begrudgingly attended the history classes, but his interest quickly dissipated as he realized that the lectures focused almost exclusively on promoting the Catholic faith.

[Sylvia Leong]

Title: THE UNWICKED WITCH
Author; Sylvia Leong
Genre: Contemporary Fantasy
First 247 words.

One spring night, when I was eleven years old, a ghost entered my body.

I was lying on my tummy, stretched over my pink bedspread, reading Harry Potter by lamplight. Pain, sharp as a thorn, pricked between my shoulder blades and pierced one of the soft spaces between the tiny knobs running up my back. A cold vapour whooshed through, fast as lightening, making a long pfft sound. I lifted onto my elbows and clutched at the chill swirling behind my breastbone. It wasn’t cold enough to be uncomfortable, more like a faint tickling that never strengthened into a cough.

“Why are you whimpering?” A warm hand shook my shoulder. "Chloé, are you sick?” My brother was backlit by the hallway light.

Rolling onto my side, the coolness spun right beside my heart. What was it? A ghost? An invisible monster? A demon? I pressed my hands to my chest and screamed.

“Shhh!" My brother threw a fearful glance towards the hall. "It's only me."

“Something’s inside,” I squealed, scraping my hands down the white fleece of the old unicorn costume I wore as pyjamas. The vapour was unmistakably awake, unmistakably separate from me, unmistakably something that didn't belong—it was pure instinct.

Jasper frowned. “Like something you ate?”

“No. Like a ghost.”

“Don’t be silly.”

Strangers were bad. I wasn’t allowed to talk to them. My heart thumped like the hind leg of a rabbit. What should I do if the stranger was … inside me?

[BooneLittlehorse]

Title; Jeeter Sharlow
Fiction

Had it been midnight of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, had there been not the slightest illumination to fall on the streets of Fox Creek, West Virginia or even the dim glow of a solitary bulb suspended from a store’s ceiling Jeeter Sharlow wouldn’t have made one wrong step on his way home. He’d taken the same path so often on his way to and from school his feet had acquired the innate ability of maintaining the proper stride and to land where they were needed pointed in the right direction. Walking all the way home by himself was unusual. Having Alice, a neighbor who lived not far down his road or his good friend and class room buddy Carleen alongside happened more often than not. Friday conversations would be about what each was going to do during weekend. But this Friday Jeeter had seen neither one of them yet. He didn’t give it much thought until he came to a strange sight across the street at the Western Auto store.
Huddled in front of the store’s sidewalk window standing close together like they were trying to see through the same hole in a fence was a group of school kids. At the back of the pack he easily spotted Carleen, the tall student who never went home without carrying a book or two from school under an arm. Checking behind and not seeing his older brother meant Merle had stopped somewhere to smoke a cigarette with his friend, Orange Tabor.

[travelkat]

Title: JANE CALDER AND THE RISE OF THE SHADOWS
Genre: Upper Middle Grade Fantasy

Angora rabbits take orders from no one.
Jane struggled with the squirming bunny in her arms. “Don’t be so stubborn, Mistletoe. It’s time to get back in your house.” Eleven-year-old Jane had to finish her barn chores and catch the school bus. Mistletoe didn’t care.
The bunny clung to Jane’s jacket, resisting being put down. Jane kissed her head. “You’re such a princess! But watch those claws. I can’t afford to get hurt.”
Injuries her siblings shook off with a bandaid often put Jane in the hospital. Whenever she was confined to bed by the latest stupid scratch, the rabbit kept her company, growling if she was returned to the Hutch of Much. Having a rare blood disease was scary, but Jane’s animal friends comforted her.
Mistletoe nuzzled Jane’s face, squeaking with pleasure. Jane sneezed as she was tickled by a fluffy ear. The rabbit took advantage of the distraction and leaped out of Jane’s arms, bouncing off a hay bale and bounding out the door. Jane dashed after her. Ranch-land spread around them, hemmed by peaks scraping the sharp blue sky.
A pickup loaded with Jane’s three older brothers and younger sister barreled straight at the bunny. June lunged in front of it, arms wide. “Stop!” she screamed.
The truck came to a screeching halt inches from Mistletoe. She flattened her ears, then broke into a run.
“Get out of the way, Jane the pain!” yelled one of the hulking boys.
“Have fun on the bus, you little freak! Thanks for ruining our summer!” snarled another raw-boned blond. Jane’s sister squished her nose against the window and stuck out her tongue. Jane scowled, and kept after the rabbit. The truck roared down the driveway.

[SMStevens]

Title: 101 Ways to Screw Up A Kid
Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Decades have passed since Caro Dunn needed to steamroll through the grocery shopping and get home to the kids, but she can’t break the habit, so she shops in tandem with Patty early every Saturday morning. With her best friend in tow, she manages to meander.

Having a friend along also eases the loneliness of shopping for one—well, one plus a ninety-pound dog, who seems to eat more in a week than Caro does in a month. That loneliness is never acknowledged by Caro. It is merely her companion in life, ignored like she ignores the mild stench on Stretch when he occasionally bounds in after doing his evening business, panting gleefully at having rolled in something semi-ripe, but she doesn’t have the energy to wrestle him into the tub for a bath.

On this fine spring day, Caro has stopped short to look at a new variety of chickpea pasta, wondering why anyone would feel the need to transform a perfectly satisfying legume into no doubt less satisfying noodles, when a man in a suit and wan yellow tie bumps into her. Yuppie, Caro thinks, even though the term is as out-of-fashion as the tie. He appears disoriented, which maybe he is since anyone who wears a suit on a Saturday clearly doesn’t get out of the boardroom much. He apologizes, his tone suggesting he doesn’t mean it but his mother’s voice in his head made him say it. Then he rubbernecks and studies the two women.

[denizb33]

Oooh, I have one!

This is from Larksong, set in pre-WWI Montreal, Canada:

Alice left Montreal on the afternoon of Granny Cunnick's funeral.

Still in her funeral coat and hat, she picked up the carpetbag she'd stored the day before at Windsor Train Station and boarded the afternoon train to Knowlton.

She hadn't wanted to draw attention to her abrupt departure, though in truth her parents were hardly likely to notice; neither had seen much of anything beyond the sickbed in the past few months. Not since Granny had first deigned to inform them of her illness.

By then the TB had advanced past any hope of recovery; Granny had known it, yet Alice's parents insisted on removal from one sanatorium to another, always seeking a new doctor, new nurses, new treatments. Alice had visited her every day at the last sanatorium, a week of listening to every sound from the bed, each gasping inhalation and rattling cough, bracketing the occasional intelligible whisper, always about her birds. Until the dark night last week, after which no further breath had come.

Once in Knowlton, she didn't stop for supplies, but set out straightaway to walk the mile to her grandmother's cottage by Macdonald Lake. Whether her parents approved of Granny's legacy to Alice or not, the aviary needed looking after.

She hefted the carpetbag from one shoulder to another as she rounded the last trail. The cool air of the July dusk was scented with apple blossom from the nearby orchards, and honeysuckle from a vine trailing along the fence of the last house, before the path opened up. She could not keep the sound of Granny's laboured breathing from repeating, over and over again, in her mind.

Far ahead, she caught her first glimpse of the falling daylight sparking off the surface of the lake. The family had always fought over who would spot the water before the others.

Granny Cunnick had been their matriarch, their mainstay – and Alice's refuge.

Thirty years of grandchildren and great-grandchildren and summers at the lakeshore. Alice had even escaped there one Christmastime, when the whirlwind of holiday time in the city – her mother's endless evening parties and her siblings' incessant social events, not to mention her father's steady stream of sporting afternoons – had left her depleted.

Cooling pies on the windowsill, attic explorations, and dockside dives of childhood had given way to garden teas and lakeside picnics as her generation entered adolescence. Granny had always attracted a varied crowd at her cottage, from young villagers to visitors from the Grand Hatley Hotel, artists up from New York, even the odd fisherman or two, each with intriguing stories to tell.

And, always, the birds.

She'd reached the gate, and it was open, and even from the foot of the long drive she could hear the rise and fall of birdsong.

If she could only stay here all summer! Away from her family and her mother's ideas of appropriate stations in life, away from the empty feeling of accomplishing nothing with her years; all the stronger now that she was no longer by Granny's side, away from...

She rounded the last curve and was brought up short by the sight of two young girls seated on the porch steps, complaining vociferously to a girl not much older than themselves, in a maid's uniform, attacking the cobwebs overhead with a rag wrapped round the end of a broom.

Alice stepped quickly behind the wide oak that shaded the gravel sweep before the house, and listened.

"But why do we need a governess, Eleanor?" the younger girl asked.

Eleanor shrugged, busy picking at a loose thread in the hem of her skirt. "Mum said we had to."

"But it's summer! I don't want to learn in summer!"

Eleanor dropped her hem and stood up. "It might not be so bad, Lucy-Goosey. Maybe she'll be fun."

"With a name like Underwood? Like a coffin." Lucy gave an exaggerated shiver, then jumped up, squealing. "Watch where you're waving that thing!" she cried at the maid, flicking madly at her dress. "Dirty great spiders! Why did we even come here?"

The maid brought down the broom with a thwack. "Two more days till that governess shows up! About time, too. If you hooligans've nothing better to do than get underfoot–"

"Come on." Eleanor grabbed her sister's hand. "Let's go look at the lake."

Alice shifted behind the oak to keep herself hidden as the girls skipped down the path.

Her parents had already seen fit to rent out Granny's house.

Far from fulfilling her passing wish to spend the summer here, she couldn't have even one night alone with the birds and her memories.

Unless...

Yanking off her mourning veil, she strode up to the porch and spoke up over the renewed pounding of the broom against the ceiling and its scampering spiders.

"Good afternoon. I am Miss Underwood. Is your mistress home?"

[JacquelineLLandry]

Title: THE OUDERKIRK HOUSE
Genre: Supernatural Thriller
Author: Jacqueline L. Landry

CHAPTER ONE:
June 23rd
Mason County, Washington

I go down hard, face first, the toe of my hiking boot catching on a gnarled outcropping of cedar root. I land with an oomph amid poplar and oak leaves, evergreen needles, candy wrappers, and cigarette butts. I heave for breath and inhale the odor of decomposition. I cough to keep from gagging. I know this smell too well but I never get used to it. I know I'm right again. Sadness grips my gut and I grimace.

I ease myself up, taking care not to dislodge the detritus covering the shallow grave. There hasn't been rain in Western Washington for nearly two months. The little mound looks fresh. The decomp odor tells me a week old, maybe two.

Here's just one more thing I wish I didn't know anything about. Experience is a two-edged sword. Sometimes it’s edifying. Right now it sucks a root.

[twgoodhue@gmail.com]

Title: Ka'ahumanu, the Queen Who Broke the Rules

Genre: young adult biography

ISLANDS & ALIENS


Long before there were kings and queens, taboos and temples, wars and warriors, there was the ocean and the land. As continents slowly drifted apart, a crack opened in the floor of the Northern Pacific Ocean. Molten rock poured out from deep under the sea. This lava cooled as it hit the water, and an underwater volcano gradually rose toward the surface of the ocean. Eventually, more than seventy million years ago, little Meiji emerged from the sea as an island.
As continents continued to separate, a new volcano appeared. Eventually, 107 volcanoes stretched 3600 miles, from Siberia to the “Big Island” of Hawai‘i. The oldest islands formed by these volcanoes slowly sank back into the sea, leaving behind atolls and drowned coral reefs. The largest volcanoes formed the Hawaiian Islands, the oldest, longest, and most isolated chain of islands on the planet, stretching more than 1500 miles across the Northern Pacific.
The newest and largest volcanoes soared thousands of feet into the sky, forming the islands of Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau twenty-five million years ago. The first people to settle here said that Madame Pele, the volcano goddess, first made her home on Kaua‘i and then moved along to the other islands. O’ahu. Moloka‘i, Lāna‘i, Maui and Kaho‘olawe came next. Haleakalā (“the House of the Sun”) on Maui is over 10,000 feet high. It has the biggest volcanic crater on earth, more than seven miles long and 2700 feet deep. All of Manhattan would fit inside

[Lisa MP]

Title: The Siren Dialogues
Genre: Literary Fiction with Magical Realism

Libby angled her flashlight beam over Jasper’s tall, lean frame and the wagon load of decoys and gear bumping along the boardwalk behind him. The beam caught the eyes of one of the decoys, a mallard duck carved from wood, bringing it to life just as a warning gong echoed from a buoy and a ship in the distance issued a long, low response. The early morning hour was alive with sound and magnified over the body of the bay. Even her new duck boots made a satisfying slap against the wooden boards. She turned up the collar of her field coat and patted the pockets. Notebook on one side, gloves on the other. She’d need both to capture the day.

Normally she kept her work and personal lives separate: Elizabeth in the city and Libby on the island. But soon her new client, the famous photographer Tanner Bixby, would arrive at her weekend getaway. She would chronicle his stories for a new photography book and give context to his vision. Her boss was taking a chance on her and she planned to come through.

Jasper’s boat was the last one left in its slip, all the summer people gone back to the city. He switched on the running lights and the engine hummed to life. He grasped her by the wrist and her blood thrummed beneath his long fingers. The truth was, she was glad this trip would be different. Maybe it was time to shake things up.