Moon Rabbits : Pictures and TalesGeoff Mitchell

As a visual artist, the most common questions I receive regarding my work are what is it about and what do these combinations and juxtapositions of images mean.

Inquiries regarding the meaning of my mixed media pieces have been challenging for someone who thinks far more visually than conceptually. Development of my work fol-lows an intuition of the eye and an affinity for what I personally find beautiful. The aesthetic quest to vitalize my own imagination often leads into a surreal, bizarre and dreamlike world of broken, altered narratives. Connections of imagery are fractured and information seems to misfire. Consequently, my creations are often perplexing for the audience because they present questions with no clear explanations. All the while, questions of concept are something that I do not dare ask myself as I am working.

I care deeply about the viewer’s experience of the art I create. And so I have felt charged with the task of finding a method to help the viewer to understand the motivations be-hind my work. Moon Rabbits : Pictures and Tales is my most sincere answer to these ongo-ing questions.

My good friend and colleague, John Slorp, presented the idea for this book to me during the summer of 2010. He described the collaboration as highlighting the interpretive nature of my mixed media paintings by pairing selected works side by side with a short story. The narrative represents one writer’s unique understanding of the events unfold-ing within the imagery. Each piece of art is decoded into fiction as a brief story. Yet, it is the story of only a single author. The works of art hold limitless different tales written in the imaginations of the viewers themselves. The answer to the question what is it about truly lies within the onlooker.

John Slorp sadly passed away before completing this project with me. However, his vision laid the foundation and remained the guiding light. I have worked with seven incredibly talented writers who I give my heartfelt appreciation to for their wonderful contribu-tions to this book.

What follows here are twenty captivating answers to the question what is it about that I hope you will enjoy.

Geoff Mitchell

pictures by

Geoff Mitchell

tales by

Amanda Barker

Amy Hicks

Michael Masino

Jeffrey Osborn

Naomi Shigeta

John Slorp

Stephen Snow

On hot summer days, Grandma would open a window and set pies, cakes or casseroles on the ledge to cool. One day while plucking chickens, she put her wedding ring on the ledge. Soon afterwards, a crow came to the open window. It leaned in and picked up her shiny gold ring in its beak and flew away. She was positively devastated.

Grandpa said it could be made right. He sat down at the oil spattered, yellow-checked table and produced tinfoil from a pouch of pipe tobacco. He carefully fashioned a ring that was bigger than Grandma’s gold ring and set it on the same ledge the next morning. It sat there for hours glistening in the rising sun. Later that day, the silver ring was gone and the gold ring was returned. Grandpa explained that crows are often traders ... they don’t always steal, sometimes they trade. Grandma was delighted and said it was more than a fair trade.

During that same late summer afternoon, she sent me and my cousin with small tin pails to the highest hill on the other side of the bull pasture to gather blackberries. Crossing that field was kind of dangerous ... if the bull was there. At least we thought it was. We would carefully search out where the bull was, squeeze under the barbed wire fence and then run like blazes to the other side. The bull on the far side of the pasture never noticed us. We were short and much too fast.

Under the fence and up the hill, we soon began to gather our berries. They were fully ripe, glossy black and plump as could be. We took turns squealing in pain because the thorns stung our fingers. And when our pails began to brim over, we set out on the trail back. It was a dusty hot day and the berries were so juicy. I ate about half of my pail before we got back to the fly-screened porch door that led to the kitchen.

Hearing the slap of the door, Grandma came out to greet us. She took our pails of berries and thanked us for gathering them. She promised to bake berry cobblers for supper that night. So we scampered away to play and soon afterward take our daily afternoon nap. Grandma always required that we take naps for fear of polio and other sicknesses.

That evening after the whole family had eaten a chicken and dumpling supper, Grandma stepped away to the kitchen to gather the cobblers sitting on top of the warm stove. We children were seated on the screened porch at our own table. She brought our cobblers to us bubbling over with caramelized sugar and with cinnamon sprinkles on top. They released a wonderful fruit scented steam that spread through-out the house.

We all shouted our thanks and at the same moment, plunged our spoons into the puffed cobbler tops. Mine collapsed. It was only crust ... there were no berries inside. The other children’s lips were stained purple as they scooped up the remaining bits of cobbler. I understood it was a fair trade. I was not happy, but it was a fair lesson.

4 tale by John Slorp 5 Arrogance

She hears terrible things, evil things, whispering in her ear at night while fighting for sleep. She doesn’t expect to ever see her parents again. She knows they are probably in a camp somewhere; their days spent resting on their knees drinking weak and watery soup. Even then, she wonders if they still remember her indiscretion.

Her life used to follow a routine, a pattern, an organization that she came to expect. Each morning after she woke up, she hung the teakettle from the mantle. Then she lit the fire, made ground sausage, cut mold from the bread, scattered the cats outside with a broom, and finally she put a pot of water on to boil. That is what really changed the most … the water. Some days the water was for dishes, other days it was for the wash, some days it was bathwater. Once a week she was able to fill up the large metal tub outside and sink into the steaming water, watching the pale puffs of smoke rise from behind her make-shift wall of ropes and bed sheets. There were so many different types of water, and they all offered their own arbitrary order.

One day at the well she noticed a boy watching her from underneath the safety and shade of the trees. He was maybe a year or two older than her; his hair was blond and his face had dirt smeared on it. She knew her honey colored hair was shining in the sun and that the water on her arms made the small hairs on her skin rise. In his hand was a half eaten raw potato dug up from her garden. She did the kindest thing she could; pretend not to see him. Only once did she look over her shoulder after he scurried off. She somehow forgot all about the boy, until today, the day she finally gets on a plane and goes home. She knows her parents won’t be there waiting. She assumes they were killed long ago, but she wants to breathe in the scent of her homeland again.

When she arrives at the largest city nearest to her town, she points on a map for the driver. But only emptiness sits under her finger. It isn’t there, her home, the place where she grew up. She panics, asking the driver for another map. And once again, she only finds a void under her finger. She convinces the driver to follow her directions to the place she once knew as home. When they arrive there is nothing: every tree gone, every rock missing, just a vacant expanse of burned out land.

She learns later that this was planned, this erasing of the map, the destruction of everything in sight, this barren space. This is meant as a lesson, a way to teach others. She knows that she will put her life back together. She will go back to America and open her own restaurant. But she also knows that when people look at her, they will never know what she lost. Her town carved in the shape of an old woman’s profile on a map. And like that boy that she once turned invisible, her world will be emptied and spilled out on the ground, only for people to step over. They only see what has never left, what is still swimming in front of their eyes.

6 tale by Amy Hicks 7 Acetone

It’s reassuring for children to see adults reading the newspaper. Each day has the same tranquil start, the hush above the fold, the crinkle, the smear of black ink against fingers. It is similar to how I used to find the bubble and hiss of coffee to be calming long before I ever tasted my first cup. I knew this sound meant my father would be down soon. I could watch him pour creamer on top, forming a little pool. I mimicked him with a glass of chocolate milk, pouring the smallest amount of creamer on mine. I was often scolded for opening the paper. My sticky hands would cause the print to dim and the way I shifted the order ripped apart the predictability. There is a hierarchy to the sections … and to the read-ers of it. Even now, I’m not quite sure where I belong.

But before entering adulthood, when I would become the one picking up the paper from the porch, my life was lived by the simple code of my books. I spent my days avoiding harm and being true. It took many years and failures before that was abandoned.

I was simply following my code that day when I ran into the street. I saw the small rabbit quivering in the driveway. It had one velvet ear bent at an odd angle and a small nose testing the air. It seemed to recognize the strange humanness of my smell. I rushed in to get a shoebox, but made the mistake of stopping for a dishtowel to soften it.

I didn’t see the chopping knife perched so perilously close to the edge of the counter, or the small basket of strawberries waiting nearby to be sliced. It wasn’t a matter of how I would cut myself; it was when. I stood against the porcelain sink with my skin gleaming the same pallid color. I pressed the dishcloth against the cut above my collarbone. It soaked through instantly. But I didn’t want to cry out and ruin the perfectly ordered start of the day. The coffee was already making its quiet slide down the edge of the carafe, while the crisp paper was folded and waiting for my father.

My next memory was of being in a brightly lit room. A large syringe slid into my skin and the pain disap-peared, quickly replaced with a tingling numbness. The technician held a needle and thread in one hand while she ran a long stemmed cotton swab around the hollow of my neck with the other. My body re-sponded in a way I didn’t quite understand. And I still don’t understand. Everything in me ached for her to keep touching, to keep that slow progression against my skin. I remember waiting there on the table long after it was over, refusing to move. My father eventually took me by the hand and carefully led me out of the glaring lights and back home.

Supper came and went ... the furnace was banked ... one small light was left on downstairs ... but nothing was the same.

8 tale by Amy Hicks 9 Quiet Revolution

He has a favorite game … one that he plays over and over again. Sometimes he plays it in the yard; other times he plays it at the grocery store. He always plays it when he is uncomfortable and that is most often during school days. He calls it stone boy and his mother hates it. Sometimes at the height of his still-ness, she will yank his arm. Once, in the middle of a department store, she slapped him quick and hard across the face. He didn’t respond. He kept his position and refused to move.

He often pretends to be one of the two statues across the street in the neighbor’s yard. There is a small granite girl that feeds the mallard duck at her feet. A basket is looped over her arm and her hand is for-ever outstretched throwing grain. The duck’s bill is permanently affixed to the ground in search of seeds that never drop. As for the statue of a young boy, he isn’t really sure what the boy is doing, and that is what delights him. The figure has one hand on his hip with his foot jutted out slightly to the left. The other hand is cocked up in the air for no apparent reason. He likes the absurdity of this pose and it is his favorite. He mimics the position often, holding it for hours in his room and as long as he can get away with at school. Usually, he can be found in this pose throughout the entire class recess and lunch hour. He ignores any food thrown in his direction, forgetting how his mother worries over the stains.

When the bus creaks up to the stop, he boards last and often has to stand in the aisle. The other children will slide over and shake their heads at him, claiming the empty seat next to them is taken. The bus driver never says a word. He tries to spend his days with his head down, but even that does not stop the books from being slapped from his hands. So he plays his game.

Not surprisingly, he isn’t a popular boy. He prefers pictures to words and sometimes he is so silent that even his teacher taunts him with cat got your tongue? He stops and thinks about the stray cat that slinks around his house, the one with the rough pink tongue and the soul-stealing green eyes. He imagines how with one hiss or purr the cat makes its desires known.

Not long after that, cat becomes his new game. He licks his arm and hisses ferociously at the other boys; especially the ones that push him down or steal his shoes. His mother likes this game even less.

But what she couldn’t have known is that it is simpler to be made of stone or fur than flesh, with coursing blood, veins that swell and show blue through skin. It is easier to listen to the thump of your heart than the taunts of others. And when it is quiet, so quiet, and he is still, he can almost believe that he is real, foot turned to the left, hand on hip, skin over shell.

10 tale by Amy Hicks 11 Searchlight

The scent of this room is familiar and awakens memories of the neglected antique shop outside of our town. A faint aroma of sandalwood mingles with the slightly musty air. It is a humble dwelling where all that remains is a well-worn single bed, a dusty three-sided mirror and a dresser with one misshaped drawer that is difficult to open. On top of the dresser sits a lackluster stained glass lamp. Next to it is a black and white family photograph and a green tinted jar filled with seashells and coral that I had col-lected from the ocean’s edge as a child.

It is almost as if time stopped at the precise moment this room was left abandoned. And as I open those thick curtains covering the one large window, I am momentarily blinded by the radiant burst of light that fills the dimly lit space.

As my mother and I sort through my grandmother’s belongings, we look for items we may take home as a keepsake. My grandmother lived modestly, with scarcely any possessions that would be of value to any-one other than us. In the dresser, we find only a few pieces of properly folded clothing beside bundles of old letters. In the cabinet there is a silver ring, a pearl necklace, a powder kit and lipstick. On the shelf below rests a wooden comb and a hand mirror.

As a child, I remember my grandmother would use this wooden comb to arrange my hair neatly into braids. Every time she did so, she would praise me, telling me how beautiful my hair was. Looking at my reflection in the hand mirror as she worked, I would see my raven black hair glistening in the light. The same color as hers.

My grandmother did not go out much, which was perhaps a result of her suffering from rheumatism. And in time, it became apparent that she no longer enjoyed meeting people. However, once each month she would loyally go to the local beauty salon run by an older lady she knew. Although she spent almost nothing on makeup and clothing, she always insisted on dyeing her hair to match the rich darkness that it was in her youth.

In all of my childhood, I cannot remember a moment when I saw my grandmother with gray hair.

Lying in her coffin on the day of her funeral, my grandmother had the face of a beautiful young girl. Her cheeks were a lovely rose color and there was a wisp of lipstick across her lips. Then I noticed her hair. It was not raven’s black … instead it was as white as snow.

Seeing her this way for the first time, I was taken aback by how her white hair flattered her girlish face.

Today as the light in my grandmother’s room begins to grow dim, the mirror that felt so large and awk-ward in my hand as a child now fits comfortably. In these twilight moments, I gaze at the reflection star-ing back at me. A flash of silver sparkles just above my brow … my keepsake.

12 tale by Naomi Shigeta 13 Firefly

She was the kind of girl who could make soft-boiled eggs flawlessly. Setting them out in the palest of blue cups, she would tap with her knife until just the tops of the shells cracked free, revealing the round yellow orb inside. At breakfast, her father would sink his crisp dark toast into it, smiling up at her. She would dunk the tea bag three times, until his mug of piping hot water turned dark. A lump of caramel colored sugar was always waiting on the saucer so her father could crumple it between his fingers into the cup. After breakfast, he would change from his slippers into his shimmering high gloss dress shoes. She had rubbed and shined them to that mirrored-polish the night before. She enjoyed making people happy. And she particularly liked to make him smile because he so rarely did.

But she struggled. Last summer at the beach house she watched the boys run through the surf shirtless; tiny trails of hair on their stomachs, flinging starfish at each other and dodging at just the right moment. Sitting hot and annoyed in her red tights and starched dress, there was a longing there, one that she couldn’t even begin to describe.

The next day she sat under the umbrella, her legs covered in a thick white smear of sunscreen and a big floppy hat shadowing her face. A heavy book sat in her lap, though she hadn’t turned a page. She was watching the boys. Each held a perfectly rounded stone the size of a fist. They all took a turn wading out up to their knees and throwing it into the still water. Some of the boys threw without much force, while others were full of violence. She didn’t know what they were doing until there was a sudden chorus of shouts and one boy, the smallest, brought up a large fish. It was motionless and bleeding profusely from the gills.

That night, when she was supposed to be in bed, she wandered out onto the porch where the smell of burnt wood lingered. The boys had cleaned the fish and were putting it into a small pot with what looked like conch and wild onions. They boiled it into a kind of stew over the fire. She knelt down and watched, her eyes barely peering out over the railing, until her mother called her name and she scurried back off to bed before she was caught.

Things weren’t quite the same after that summer. She brought her father his eggs as always and still read stories to him from the newspaper. Every night before bed he held his hand out to hers. With their elbows set securely on the table, they pushed against each other. But she was getting stronger and it was hard not to push back with all of her might. Finally one evening, she didn’t hold back. His arm hit the table with a small hollow thump, her hand pressed firmly on top of his. She thought he might be angry, but instead he laughed freely as he pushed a piece of hair back from her sweaty forehead. He knew all along she could beat him; he was just waiting for her to finally realize it.

14 tale by Amy Hicks 15 Sea Of Milk

It happened as soon as she began aching in places that used to never feel like much of anything at all. Sometimes without realizing it, she would trace her fingers over those new sore swellings. One day, her father looked at her and seemed to finally realize what she was. He decided it was time that she put her coltish body to good use. All at once, she was waking up by four, as soon as the rooster began his first mournful song.

She gathered a slop bucket for the pigs filled with crumbs and curdled milk from last night’s supper. She collected tendrils of dried tough meat for the dogs and cats, as well as the feed for the growing herd of chickens. She learned to spear the right amount of hay for the cattle and how to pull out the oats without startling in fear at the small mouse sitting directly on top with its cheeks pouched out. It took some time for her to learn that if she waited, the mouse would saunter off, annoyed but not frightened by her presence.

Eventually, without being asked, she started milking the cows. She liked the way the milk pinged against the metal bucket and the mewing kittens that gathered at her heels. They twined between her ankles, alternating between purring and nipping. After she began bringing in the jars of milk she decided she might as well put on coffee and start the biscuits. There was no point in waiting for her brothers or her father to do it.

Soon it was her job to feed everyone, until all she could think about was food. In her dreams, something was always nibbling at her skirts until little holes appeared and it started to fall off in tatters around her. Long after came death and change, until it was just her and generations of animals left. She made herself fattening sandwiches filled with fried chicken and mayonnaise. She ate wedges of cornbread slathered with butter and lost herself in mounds of pudding. The pigs never ate better.

She knew that people in town laughed at her as she waddled her way into the store for more supplies. But she didn’t mind really. And then one day she couldn’t force herself to pick up a fork or stir flour into milk. So she stopped. She still woke up at four and took care of those things that couldn’t take care of them-selves. But she had exhausted all interest in herself. She decided that she would wait for someone to feed her. Then she waited and waited ... and waited some more.

She waited for so long that she became a shadow of her former self. The animals didn’t notice. Teeth to hands, lips grazing bony knuckles, the pleas of hunger were all the same. They pecked and ate at skeletal fingers instead of plump layers. And when she least expected it, there came a knock at the door. She walked out to find a chocolate cake on her porch and a woman from church hurrying away. She sat at the table with a warm glass of milk and ate until she was surrounded by only crumbs and tears. The empty porcelain plate was cleaned and left on the porch with a letter resting carefully in the middle. People still talk about those last words.

16 tale by Amy Hicks 17 Drop

In the first grade I wore a hooded winter coat that my mother said was just like the one worn by Admiral Byrd at the South Pole. I am pretty sure she only said that to make certain I would wear it, because at first I refused. I clung to my old coat with sleeves that crept up to my elbows. It was made of scratchy plaid wool and smelled musty when wet. The first day I wore it, I lifted the sleeve to my nose and it smelled like mothballs. It wasn’t until years later that I realized it must have been second-hand.

One day, my mother came home carrying an awkward glass cube. She could barely walk from the weight of it. I’m still not sure where she found it, but I had wanted a pet for years and it was the perfect solution for a family not fond of fur. It leaked at first, but I was able to take a razor blade and cut off the old seal-ant. Using my hard earned allowance, I bought a new bottle from the hardware store and carefully re-sealed it.

There was even a hose that hooked up to a cast-metal diver who stood frozen on the bottom, bubbles flooding out of his helmet, rushing upward as if to the surface of the sea. And when light passed through those bubbles it made the water seem like mercury, reflecting pockets of platinum and silver. I was less interested in the fish and more interested in that diver, forever trapped, with fish occasionally nudging and tipping him slightly to the right.

During summers, we all stayed out at the family farm in Ohio. My mother let me grow my hair out and wear only cut-off shorts. My skin turned as brown as a nut and I scratched endlessly at the poison ivy that I inevitably got into. I loved the freedom of being barefoot and shirtless, running through the fields, looking for arrowheads and picking apart hawk castings to find the tiny bones inside.

I found an old metal feed bucket one afternoon that fit me perfectly. Slipping it over my head and jump-ing into the pond, I hoped to see the same world that the diver saw. And for a few minutes it worked. I had just enough air to sit on the silt-covered bottom of the pond and breathe as those silvery bubbles rose in slow motion around me.

It was easy to imagine monsters in that pond. I remembered the film in school about a drop of pond water and all the strangely shaped creatures that lived within. We saw that film more than once; it was one of my favorites. Sitting at the bottom of the pond, I could imagine those little creatures climbing into my body, making me stronger and more brave.

It took only a tiny movement, barely a tilt, to bring the water rushing back, up my nose and into my mouth. I can still remember the darkness and the panic that sent me kicking to the surface, breaking the light and coming back to my own world, less brave and not quite as strong.

18 tale by Amy Hicks 19 Tangerine

Folks in the village talked behind her father’s back, making all sorts of cruel jokes. When she was young-er she went unnoticed, like a stain on the dark-paneled walls. People would say unkind things right in front of her. But she soon grew lovely and others couldn’t help but notice her. She was even invited by the Or-der of the Myths to be Queen of their Mardi Gras ball. Her costume included a shimmering dress and a jewel encrusted mask. It was a combination she couldn’t turn down. She knew she shouldn’t have left him alone that night, but she thought just this once it might be okay. After all, it had been quiet for weeks.

Her father taught her everything she knew about the wilderness. And at night in front of the fire she would teach him to read. She was only ten when he took her hunting for the first time. He didn’t expect much, but she quickly brought down a rabbit. The soft fur and the way the meat tasted when cooked over wood fire coals simply mesmerized her. By the age of twelve, she had progressed to bow hunting.

Their rustic cabin had been built deep in the forest by her father’s own hands. Still, he made certain it was close enough to town that she could go to school there. During their first night in the cabin, she was awakened by a distinct knock on one of the trees right outside her window. Another quickly followed. Believing her father was teasing her, she knocked back against the wall. But the knock that soon came after was too hard and loud to be her father’s. In the pitch-black she could hear heavy dragging footsteps and fists against the window. Trying to slow her heartbeat while at the same time struggling to scream, she only managed the faintest whimper. Finally, she tiptoed in her socks to the main room where her father was standing, his gun in hand. They both heard a guttural moan just outside of the front door. It was low, almost songlike. Her father swung the door open hard to the empty night air.

The next morning, they found an enormous oily impression smeared on their window. Most nights it re-turned, knocking against wood and windows, scratching to get in, groaning and finally rushing off into the thickets. At night she sat up in bed clutching her quilt close, with a lantern burning into the darkest hours. Every so often a night would pass in silence, but that only made her more uneasy for what was to come.

Sometimes her father would chase after it, only to come back mud-streaked and covered in mosquito bites. He would never tell her what happened, but he smelled of swamp and some sort of deep musk. Once, he came back clutching a clump of long brown fur. He was like a man possessed, setting up razor wire around the cabin. He warned her to set pots down gently, so the sound of cast iron against wood couldn’t be mistaken as a knock.

She knew she shouldn’t have left him alone, but she couldn’t resist being the queen of the parade. She came home late that night carrying her heels and laughing, dreaming of the boy she danced with. It took her a few moments to realize that the windows were smashed and there were long deep scratches in the door. She spent the rest of her days knocking against trees, waiting for the reply she was sure would come.

20 tale by Amy Hicks 21 Trinket

Everyone knows us as a pair, Claire and Camille, Camille and Claire. We have lived side by side for the past eleven years in the tranquil and affluent commune of Le Chesnay. However, that is not all Camille and I share in common. Our two young girls were born on the same date and during the same year. And as the open toes of our summer shoes touch beneath café tables, there is a growing intuition that our girls were even conceived on the same day.

As the afternoon’s reach grows shorter, November fifteenth is coming quickly upon us. The hands tick away hours, mornings and afternoons in preparation for the anniversaire celebration. On these days, the warm sauce of rich chocolate lava cake smears the cheeks of every child in the neighborhood. Pitchers of straw-berry lemonade line the draped banquet style table. Ripples reflect the even-toned autumn grey skies; and shedding branches are silhouetted on the panes of Palladian windows.

As we make provisions in the kitchen, our husbands stare numbly from the sofa at the flicker of light on the massive wooden console. Unrolled streams of decorated banner and packaged multicolored tacks slip further and deeper between the cushions around them. Peaks of voices occasionally crackle from the television speakers at a volume scarcely audible to us in the adjoining room. Spread out at the oval beech wood table, we are surrounded by king-sized bags of cheap candy colored rubber balloons. Each time Camille places her teeth around the powdered bitter stem and releases a few breaths, she explodes in laughter at my faint and dizzy eyes. At once, she reaches across the table and pulls the scarlet red balloon from between my lips. Plac-ing it to her mouth, she blows into it with strong and bold puffs of air. I watch as the expanding colors sweep reflections across Camille’s eyes.

Memories race like white horses. And I wonder …

Just how many of these giant toy bubbles would it take to set us aloft? Suspended over the streets of Paris; arching like a migrating rainbow slowly over the Normandy countryside. If only we had a basket to lie down in. And as the mighty cylinders thrust heat up into the nylon envelope above us, no one would be watching. We would be perfectly alone behind those walls of kooboo cane.

Will our ankles sting for an instant as we descend quickly through the tall windblown grasses below? I see just the beginning of a smile before we roll together through thick patches of yellow and white flowers. And we stop treacherously close to the edge of those chalk white cliffs that tower above the sea.

Or maybe the wind will sweep us far out over the English Channel? Floating hand-in-hand into the rich green headlands of the Bailiwick of Jersey.

Anywhere we land, even in the middle of the dark North Sea, as long as we land alone together, just you and I, Claire and Camille.

One last deep rush of air from Camille’s lungs and the red balloon bursts in her face with a sudden and piercing explosion. Camille is thrust back in her chair by the jarring flash. Jolted out of my reverie, I instinc-tively reach for her fragile hands. From the next room over, we hear the sluggish stirrings of our husbands getting up from the sofa. With her willowy fingers in mine, our wish hovers achingly between us.

22 tale by Stephen Snow 23 Birth

In time, circumstances will eventually become unremarkable again. But at this moment the crashed bell and the ensuing quarter-hour of chaos are almost nauseating. Her fingertips are in tatters from the last hour’s room switch, dry and bleeding in contrast to her otherwise unblemished, milk tint hands. Now the dampness forms so quickly that it leaves her shivering in the boiler-heated air of this sun-drenched room. The color of the floor doesn’t seem at all what it was. White shifts to beige as she bends over to collect the stack of books from the metal box underneath her. She struggles to keep them neatly in line as the shoes, the voices and the drafts of air push past her in a darkening flurry. The rings of her paper binder were holding it in place, but now she feels a rolling sensation along her shoulders just before the chipped yellow pencil bounces across the tiles and through the crush of black in her eyes. Snapped underfoot.

Later that afternoon, she drifts in and out under thick blankets. She wakes to the sound of her little brother’s giggling and smirking, which makes the milk and cookies seem all the more sickening. They are, after all, a contradiction on her nightstand. It is as symmetrical, orderly and surgical as the rest of the room. Glistening with the shimmer of fresh cleaning polish, every surface holds objects placed in equidistance to one another. The walls are adorned with depictions that are seemingly shot straight with an arrow of exacting accuracy. Book spines form a line that any carpenter’s level would approve of.

Playfully mischievous and high-spirited, her brother looks to each regression, each passing spell, as a golden moment to make straight lines curved and unbalance the distances. He wants to see it all messed up, and then watch the fireworks of her backlash.

Particularly alluring to him is his sister’s doll collection. The grand oak cabinets have immaculate interior lighting and are filled with dolls from around the world. The brilliant and vivid colors of Italy, the muted tones and delicate patterns of Japan, and even the more eccentric masked cottonwood effigies known as the Native American Hopi Kachina dolls adorn these shelves. The most dear to her is placed in the center of the display, between two tartan-clad Scottish figures. She calls it her wishing doll, or sometimes simply poppet. For all of the devotion she lavishes on this doll, it is to others a foul series of rags. Two thickly down-turned arches form the eyes and a quick incision below represents the mouth. Heavily stained, it has no color to mention, only uneven coffee-colored tones, which is surely made worse by her compulsive ritual of nursing it with a concoction of her four thieves vinegar.

She had warned him time after time, under no circumstances to touch or disturb her wishing doll. It was something that she violently forbade. When he would taunt her with it, she could at once take on the char-acteristics of a territorial dog. She would scream, she would cry. She would pull hair, possibly even her own, and as a rule she would invariably get her way. But this day was not a good one.

Many years later, she would recoil with revulsion into a corner whenever the metal carts were being rolled down the dim-lit halls outside of her room. The heavy plastic wheels crackled and popped as they slid over the granules of dirt and debris that covered those neglected floors. And she shuddered from the thundering echo of cold metal as it slammed over another broken tile. She could still hear that ugly snap as her brother reached the bottom of the stairs.

24 tale by Stephen Snow 25 Neurotic With A Bow

Her mother just wanted her to be normal, but she had been terrified of water ever since she was born. Baths always ended with both her and her mother in tears. Rain sent her into hysterics, just like her great aunt and grandmother.

Her mother finally convinced her older brother to take her down to the lake at the end of the road. He didn’t want to, but he lifted her over his head and waded in. Then he gently let go and very slowly backed away. The water was just over her forehead, deep enough that she couldn’t touch the bottom. To his surprise, she im-mediately swam. Within minutes, she was swimming along the sandy bottom of the lake, rising now and then to wave to her stunned brother. She swam for three hours straight, until the sun started to set and she had to be pulled out.

That morning when it was barely light, she opened her door, tiptoed through the house still heavy with sleep and snuck down to the lake. She stripped off her nightgown and walked in. When the water was halfway to her chest, she saw a movement in the middle of the lake. She was sure nothing larger than bluegills and sun-fish lived in this water. At first she thought it might be a heron, but as she squinted she realized that it looked like a forest green s-shaped tail resting on the surface. She heard a quick slapping noise and suddenly the tail slipped out of sight.

She dove in and swam with all her strength to reach it. With her eyes wide open, she passed schools of fish, a handful of turtles, even a fishing pole that she quickly recognized as the one her brother lost yesterday afternoon. A spotted bass was still attached to the hook, fighting against it. She reached out and pulled the hook from its lip. She could have sworn that it breathed a sigh of thanks to her.

She made it to the other side of the lake before surfacing. Breaking above the rippling water line, she realized that she did not need to take a breath. She slipped back under and found herself breathing quite easily. And when she quieted her mind, she could hear the voices all around her. There were some that were quite small, including one that kept telling the others that she had helped him.

As she swam past the schools of fish, some began to follow her, nibbling gently at her ankles. A black water snake swam closer to investigate. She heard the word friend. As he looped his body around her leg, she should have been afraid; yet she wasn’t. When she reached out, he rubbed his head against her hand like a dog look-ing for attention.

She heard another voice, much deeper, and it kept repeating the keeper is here, over and over again. All the fish soon fled and she found herself swimming in lonely circles. The snake remained firmly curled against her leg, but she could feel him trembling. Moving swiftly through the water, her skin puckering and chang-ing, she looked for the voice. Hurry. She swam to the deepest and darkest part of the lake, until she finally reached out and felt the velvety moss-green flesh against her open hand. She was home.

26 tale by Amy Hicks 27 Blood Orange

He moved quickly, approaching the stainless steel double doors as the December cold whipped against his face. The smoked glass portholes in each door were etched in clear letters that read Primo’s Cafe. With hands tucked warm in his coat pockets, he turned a shoulder to the entrance and pushed his way in.

The cold gave way to heat as the doors swung closed behind him. He stood in the foyer, momentarily silent, and then stepped forward into the main dining area. The place was old but well preserved; high ceilings covered in tarnished stamped copper, dark-stained wooden carved columns and a checkered tile floor, stag-gered with black and unusual meadow green squares. Elevated booths wrapped around the exterior walls like confessionals with guests comfortably seated, engaged in private conversations. He surveyed the room then heard the pronounced voice of a waitress coming from behind the counter. She greeted him with a familiar smile, grabbed a menu and then asked if he would have the usual. His usual was coffee and an egg sandwich. He answered; assuring her that today would be like every other day, coffee and an egg sandwich. She smiled as she scribbled his order on a small pad then turned to clip it to a line that stretched atop the kitchen window behind her. He thanked her and then began walking towards an empty booth. She smiled again, placing the menu back in its stack as he took his seat.

He struggled removing his coat and then pulled a pack of cigarettes from inside the pocket. A second waitress arrived promptly with a white cup and saucer. She poured a fresh cup of black coffee for him. He reached out, lightly grabbing her arm and said, “Can you tell Annie I’m here? I’m a little early, but I’m here.” She nodded politely and then turned away.

He sat quietly staring at the black vinyl emptiness in front of him, drinking his coffee and smoking his first cigarette of the morning. The booth next to him clanked as a young man gathered a few quarters into his pocket and then began clearing dishes from the table. He pulled another drag of smoke deep inside his lungs and released it slowly. The waitress arrived with his meal and placed it on the table in front of him. “Would you let Annie know I’m here? A little late, but I’m here.” She assured him she would and then walked away, stopping to replenish an empty cup at a nearby table.

At the corner of the dining room a tall woman stood holding a clipboard. She glanced down at her watch and then around the dining room. With a loud pronounced voice she began to speak. There were ten minutes remaining to finish the meals and then everyone would need to move into the activity room. She asked if everyone had received their agenda sheet that detailed the activities for the day. There would be music and assisted slow dancing and then a visit with some friendly dogs from the local Humane Society. Following her announcement, several of her staff began the attentive work needed to get everyone ready to depart the din-ing room.

He sat, still mouthing a last opportune bite from his egg sandwich as the yellow yolk was wiped from his shirt. He reached out and lightly took hold of the hand that cleaned him. A glint of the past surfaced, adding life and hope to his aged and cloudy eyes as he looked intently at the assistant and asked, “Is she ready?”

28 tale by Michael Masino 29 Sunburn

Her father spent hours shifting goldfish from one basket to the next. In the beginning there were hundreds of them, each one squirming over the other and wriggling to the top, right up to his line of sight. It didn’t take long for him to choose which ones would make it to the second basket and which ones would be care-lessly tossed into the garden, quivering through their last breaths until they became merely fertilizer for the crops. She never paid much attention until the third basket, when hundreds were reduced to thirty or forty and she could see each one more clearly. He let her watch, but never allowed her to offer opinions. She en-joyed seeing the colors change from young olive green to fully-grown bright reds and blacks. She liked to monitor those with growth spurts or those making slow but steady progress. Normally, she observed this last group with only passing interest. However, this spawning was different. By the third basket she had fallen for a slightly misshapen and splotched fish. She was surprised it had even made it this far. There was a slight curl in its dorsal fin, but it was the largest so it kept slipping by the short walk and cast to the garden. Sometimes she caught her father watching her with the same critical eye. She knew her eyebrows were a little too thick, her braid not quite long enough. He would often reach out to straighten her spine as he passed and then shake his head. Sometimes he just looked away, seeing her and yet not really noticing her at all. She decided to take a risk this time and ask her father for the large, but inferior fish. Noticing the curl had turned slightly more inward, she knew it wasn’t going to make it into the final basket for the collectors. But he ignored her. Turning his back, he knelt down and fed the chosen few scrambled egg yolk.

She had just one friend at school. When she told him what had happened, he didn’t laugh at her. She knew he felt something bigger, something she was just beginning to feel herself. She could see the hurt in his eyes and that it was for her. It was a look she had never seen before.

The next morning the boy led her to a small clearing by the river. He held his hand over her eyes. He was so close that she could smell the pine tar and mud on his fingers. When she opened her eyes, she saw a hole dug into a small patch of ground with a piece of plastic lining it. Her goldfish was swimming in a lazy circle around this tiny pond. For days they snuck out to this special place in the woods to feed her fish. Soon it had grown bigger and tamer, with the curl even beginning to straighten out.

By the third week, she came to visit the boy as much as the fish. It hit her hard to find the plastic pulled out, the water emptied, the secret spoiled. The boy held her as she cried, a bit closer than really necessary. That night she didn’t eat supper. Tears streaked her face as she shut the door to her room behind her. It was the smacking noise that caught her attention first. She was startled to find a big ceramic vase filled with water, her goldfish blowing bubbles for attention. Her father never spoke of it and neither did she. But the days afterward were softer and once or twice she caught his smile.

30 tale by Amy Hicks 31 Abalone Button

The night terrors began soon after my sister went missing at sea off the coast of West Dover. Harsh winds had whipped the Atlantic into a fury that dark, frigid evening when she and a group of adventurous friends tried so foolishly to navigate their boat six miles out to the forbidden island of Bird Rock. They were on a voyage to see the lady in white. The lighthouse on the island is said to be haunted by the spirit of a woman shipwrecked there during a series of particularly violent storms. When rescue boats arrived, the woman was found driven mad as she held her husband’s frozen corpse at the steps of the lighthouse.

My sister never returned that night. Her body was never recovered; only some pieces of clothing and some wreckage washed ashore a few days later. Among them was an enchanting french blue medal of hers attached to a vintage silver heart-shaped locket that I wore on a necklace each night after losing her.

Every night my dreams would bring visions of water rising through each level of our home and into my room on the third floor. A plaintive sound accompanied each dream that conjured up associations with the echo-ing ping of submarine sonar. A perpetual clicking sound would sometimes quicken to become reminiscent of a winding clock, or the intricate communication of dolphins.

During one particular night I sprung from the pillow with my hands clenching the sheets and gasped as if there was no oxygen left in the room. The sweat poured over my body and soaked clear through my night-gown. The blue medal that hung just beneath my neck seemed to illuminate from within like a glowing sap-phire firefly.

As I struggled to gather my senses in the darkness, I realized the nightmare that had awoken me was different from the others. The sound of the dream that should have naturally disappeared when I woke was still very much there in the room with me. I felt a growing awareness that the wetness of the bed was more than could be attributed to mere perspiration. The bed was dripping wet with what smelled like salt water. There was also a lingering stench of damp rust and metal.

Just as I was beginning to notice all of these things, there was a quick tug at the locket around my neck. Before I could look down to see what was there, I was pulled sharply forward in the bed by the necklace and then quickly released. I instinctively jumped to the floor. Landing in knee-high water, I frantically waded to the light switch and flipped it. Nothing. The room was empty, dry and in the smallest hours of night the sounds of my nightmare had suddenly vanished into silence.

As dawn broke that morning, I sat sleepless at the kitchen table half-heartedly working to open the clasp of my sister’s silver locket. It had never opened properly since it was returned; perhaps there was some corrosion from the time spent in the ocean water. Taking a butter knife from the drawer, I pried at the crevice around the clasp until the hinges slowly began to turn. Sealed safely inside the locket’s cavity I found a very small and carefully folded piece of paper … it was a note of love.

This was her secret and I knew my sister needed me to return this to her. Later that morning I walked to the very end of the longest pier in the harbor. There I gave the locket back to the ocean and to my sister it kept.

Her spirit never visited me again.

32 tale by Stephen Snow 33 Snow Bees

The sunlight is weak and the air is crisp on this early December day in a rural southern town. At the corner of Gulf Avenue and Mississippi Street sits an unnamed park of trailers; each one raised above ground on cinder blocks. A rusty swing set creaks in the brisk wind. Nearby, water leftover from warmer months has begun to ice over in a plastic kid-sized swimming pool.

With his knees pressed into the grass, a young boy with dusty blond hair plunges a small hand shovel into the ground. After digging nearly a foot down into the damp blackish dirt, he pulls up an old silver pocket watch. He studies it for a moment and then holds it to his ear. It is still ticking. He shoves it into the front pocket of his flannel shirt.

On the ground behind him lies a treasure map. Carefully drawn on beige colored construction paper, the map is a faithful rendering of the park and is clearly marked with three black stars. One of the stars is crossed out with a vivid red X. Taking a red crayon from his shirt pocket, he places an X over a second star. He then moves his finger over to the third and last black star on the map. He pauses before looking toward the back corner of the park.

The dingy trailer that occupies that area sits in the shadow of a large southern oak, draped in countless strands of thick Spanish moss. There is a narrow dirt trail that runs between the trailer and the chain-link fence that marks the edge of the property. Even on the brightest days of June, that corner is dark and disqui-eting, a place to be avoided.

Dead leaves crunch underfoot as he timidly makes his way down the trail. He stops in front of a twisted branch that sags down and blocks the pathway. Checking the treasure map, he sees the third star is marked just ahead near the trunk of the great oak.

As he presses the shovel to the earth, a gust of wind sends hundreds of needles from nearby pines hammering down on the tin roof of the trailer. The sudden eruption of noise is startling. But after looking up, his eyes glimpse a far more unnerving sight. There on the back of the trailer is a faint and peculiar grey handprint. It seems to be part human and part animal. The small palms appear to simply melt away at the wrist. Each thin and bony finger ends with a pointed nail that is abnormally long, grotesque and eerie. Dropping the shovel, he tears off back down the trail as his foot catches a low hanging branch and sends him crashing el-bows first into the dirt.

Later that evening, he is wrapped in a blanket beside his Grandma near the warm furnace in her living room. Turning the pages of the children’s bible, they come upon a large illustration of Lucifer being cast from heaven. He is a brown creature with a partially human form. He has a long thin tail. His legs mutate into hooves instead of feet. He has the webbed wings of a bat resembling semi-transparent membranes. Much of his body is covered in fur and his ears come to a tipped point. He has dark arched eyebrows with well-defined cheekbones and lips. He is almost handsome in the face.

Then, there are the hands of the fallen angel. Long, monstrous and sinister nails. Leaning closer in the flickering orange lamplight, he trembles from the sight.

34 tale by Stephen Snow 35 Lucifer’s Rose

Every morning she would have a black and white cookie for breakfast. At a younger age, she would have it with a mug of hot cocoa, eagerly dunking the white side into that steaming liquid. But as she got older, she would dip the dark side into plain black coffee. She always loved watching her mother make these cookies in her bakeshop, carefully creating that sharp division of color.

When she turned twelve, people stopped asking her what she wanted to be when she grew up. It was assumed that she would run the bakeshop, just as generations of women in her family had. The problem was her cakes came out undercooked or hard. Her cookies were always too salty. She never even attempted hand pies or tarts. Her mother was at a loss as to how to help her. And although no one came out and said it, she knew she was a big disappointment.

During her early teens, when she was invited to play games in her friends’ basements, everyone would expect her to bring something from the shop. So, she would dutifully show up with a long white box under her arm, often suspecting it was these sheet cakes that made her popular.

Years were spent trying every sort of job she could think of. She ran a small farm stand, hustled pool at bars, waited restaurant tables, kept goats, even made and sold ornate beaded necklaces. But finally, she came home.

She had lost her mother the year before and the bakeshop, her inheritance, was waiting for her there. Every-thing looked the same; tidy, neat, small. She didn’t think it would sell for much, but didn’t know what else to do with it. The next morning when she went in to clean it out, waiting on the countertop was a handwritten recipe. It was for a chocolate cake with white fondant. The handwriting was not at all like her mother’s and the recipe wasn’t there the night before. After a brief hesitation, she started assembling the pans, utensils and ingredients to make that cake. It was nothing like her mother’s, but it was the most delicious cake she had ever tasted, so she made twenty more and opened the doors. They sold out in minutes.

The next morning another recipe was waiting. And so she filled her shelves with cakes again. Customers poured in, carrying out stringed boxes and playfully teasing her over those earlier baking attempts. But she never shared her secret with them. Over the years, things continued like that. Sometimes she would leave an ingredient on the counter, such as fresh black cherries. The next morning, the recipe waiting would include them. She began leaving pretty sea glass gathered from the beach, curiously shaped pinecones or other trinkets that caught her eye. They were always gone, with the same impeccable writing on rumpled paper left behind.

As she got older, she came to rely on the recipes less and less. Eventually they began to arrive infrequently. There were days when her joints ached, but she refused to miss a day in the shop. Her daughter never had much interest in baking, but neither did she when she was a girl.

Finally, the morning came when she couldn’t get out of bed at all. Her daughter went to the shop the morn-ing of the funeral to put up a notice to her mother’s customers. At the service, she carried a crumpled piece of paper in her pocket and a faint dusting of flour on her sleeves.

36 tale by Amy Hicks 37 Mayonnaise

Selena watched her sister Helen hum and pick wildflowers along the dried riverbed. She narrowed her eyes as Helen plucked the delicate stems from their rooted nests and then gently laid her new-found treasures in a wicker basket that balanced gracefully in the crook of her arm. The basket swung idly with the innocent and happy sway of Helen’s skip. With her childish vision, she did not even notice the brittle petals that were tumbling from their stems onto the cracked and dusty earth.

It had been a long hot July and August brought no relief. Selena stretched her arms overhead and leaned against the walnut tree. A spider emerged from the tall grass, dancing and scurrying across her thigh. She flicked it with her finger when it threatened to continue its journey above the hem of her dress and she heard its body plop into the tall weeds.

She hated her sister. Helen had always been the favorite. Selena’s father always welcomed Helen first when he returned home from the marketplace. Selena’s mother always allowed Helen the first taste of the fresh baked cookies. Selena’s dog even preferred the feel of Helen’s fingers against his silky coat.

Selena hated Helen’s face, although it was a mirror image of her own. Selena was repulsed at Helen’s knobby knees, her bright green eyes and her chin length chestnut brown hair. Selena hated that she could know what she looked like by looking at Helen.

In the hot afternoon, the cicadas’ song was stifling against Selena’s ears. She closed her eyes and pressed her head against the tree’s smooth bark. But her solitude was soon interrupted when Helen shouted for her to come quickly.

Selena heaved a heavy sigh and pulled herself to her feet. She meandered slowly toward where Helen stood in the middle of the riverbed, staring into the river’s rocky wall. As Selena approached, Helen twitched with excitement. She had even dropped her basket of wildflowers and Selena smiled with twisted amusement at the scattered petals, sparkling against their dusty backdrop. Helen had discovered an unexplored cave.

Never before had the summer heat and drought allowed anyone to walk across unfettered by flowing water. Neither Selena nor Helen had ever witnessed this gaping hole in the earth. It descended steeply, deeper than Selena could see, and was about three feet wide. Both girls could have easily fit into it without even squeezing their bodies.

It called out to Helen. Selena knew her sister and could feel her anticipation for adventure.

“Go inside,” Selena directed. Helen hesitated. “Go inside,” Selena urged again, “I will stand watch.”

Helen gazed into the cave, glanced at Selena, and then turned toward the trail that led back toward the Merchant’s estate. “Go ahead. I’ll watch.”

Helen climbed into the hole and shimmied her way over the pile of rocks that had accumulated in the en-trance, descending into the darkness. Selena could hear small and unsteady footsteps crunching over leaves and decaying debris. She stood watch, like promised, until she heard nothing. No more.

Smiling a thin, closed-mouth smile, Selena picked up Helen’s wicker basket, placed it in the crook of her arm and began skipping gaily, plucking wildflowers from their nest of root in the soil, into the oppressive heat of the midday August sun.

38 tale by Amanda Barker 39 The Vault

Centre de Trois. Three massive glass towers side by side at the heart of one of the world’s largest mega-cities. The front of the complex was sheathed in intelligent, semi-gloss materials. Colorful elevators crawled up and down energy tubes nested in the narrow space between each tower.

In a metropolis of just under sixty million people it was nearly impossible for any individual to feel seen or ap-preciated by the powers that be. Core Star, the global conglomerate who owned this giant office/retail/resi-dential hive, had reviewed the bottom line benefits of showing they cared about each and every citizen. The results ended up justifying the expenditure of a few extra billions to make the plaza-facing facade interactive.

If a person stood still and looked directly at the towers for more than three minutes, the building’s surface sensors would notice that individual and begin to display images (visible only to each human target) ran-domly selected from the unconscious mind stream. After nine minutes, sounds would emerge, sometimes obviously linked to the images being presented, but often springing from some apparently unrelated mem-ory, thought or fantasy.

Colin came to stand before the tower complex every Sunday precisely at ten in the morning. This appoint-ment had become in its own way his weekly trip to church, his connection with a higher power, and his visit to the ancestral gravesite. It was an ongoing, addictive encounter with a sixty-story high photo album filled with images from his brain’s deep file.

Today in many ways was no different than the hundreds of previous visits. The initial three minutes seeming to take forever. The ever-present wad of spearmint gum grinding away in his mouth. The personalized im-ages beginning as one, then three, then nine. Textures, colors, faces, spring light, autumn light through a church window, blackness in an upstairs closet, the back of a duck, a cousin fishing somewhere in the South, strangers from a nightmare … and always the undulating, rising jellyfish. A luminous, fire orange sphere trailing black tendrils and vague rippling strips of tissue. Rising, rising, rising, disappearing, reappearing, rising, rising, rising.

Next came the sounds. A distant, droning lawnmower, the snapping of clotheslines in the wind, a trolley bell, meditation chimes, a heavy thud followed by profanity, quiet laughter, rushing water, and moments of silence. Colin experienced the mental vertigo of remembering something that he couldn’t quite remember. He shiv-ered and moved closer.

The jellyfish kept rising, rising, rising up through the bottom two thirds of the central tower towards a new image of a man on a lawn with an indistinct, younger person. They were lying down, curled around each other like some happy yin and yang, talking and laughing about something between them.

A sharp tug on his sleeve broke Colin’s reverie. Turning towards the interruption he found himself facing a woman smoking a cigarette, ashes dropping carelessly onto some kind of silk wrap with a bird brooch pinning it. She barked something in a husky voice and jabbed at a map on her shiny Net slab. Deciphering her need, Colin waved her on towards the nearby train station. Before leaving, the woman’s hand quickly squeezed his shoulder, as her face softened briefly in gratitude.

A bird, a warm hand, distant lawnmower, laughter, spearmint gum … and the smell of cigarettes. The mem-ory returned vivid and complete.

40 tale by Jeffrey Osborn 41 Satellite

The Perez family travelled with a European style big top circus throughout New England. They loved their nomadic life together, throwing knives, telling fortunes, braving stifling summers, the crisp autumns, the stormy springs, and the frozen winters. For generations, their family had been circus folk. So although the Americans had never quite embraced the whimsical arts, as had the Spanish gypsies, the Perezes pushed through hardship, nevertheless, and performed their passion in every show.

Rosie and Raul performed a mother and son fortune telling act. Rosie would lay out five tarot cards and with her large eyes closed behind lengthy lashes, she gathered air into her open palms over the cards and tossed it above her head. In her mind, the air materialized and would settle upon the cards laid before her, trans-forming them into the fortune that foretells the future of one lucky audience member.

On one particularly stormy night in northeastern Vermont, the Perezes were setting up their act. The late afternoon was dimming into twilight. Raul was limbering his limbs and gathering his brightly colored scarves for his magic display. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a woman lingering in the shadows between the entrance into the tent and the exit out to the world. She was dressed entirely in black, and with her hunched back and dark hair, she resembled a raven or a crow. Raul felt a shudder descend his spine, but he continued to dance in preparation for his act.

“You there!” The woman cried out to Raul. Raul could not resist, and he faced her. He was frozen in her gaze as she rasped, “Hand me a card.”

Raul retrieved his mother’s tarot deck. He handed her the card in the most middle of the stack.

“Ahh, the Tower.” She wagged her finger at him. “You will see by night’s fall all you have built destroyed.”

Raul felt a shiver tremble his body, as if bony fingers were working their sharp nails between his shoulder blades and into his skin. He did not respond, but simply took the card back from her and returned it to the stack. When he had spun back toward the entrance to the tent, the woman was gone. All that remained of her was the scent of burnt leaves and pumpkin shell.

Throughout his performance, Raul stumbled over audience members and words. He could not forget the cold stare from the strange dark woman. She had left his quivering body petrified. Rosie repeatedly scolded his lack of concentration and avoidance of the audience.

Raul slipped backwards away from his mother, whose eyes flashed exasperation in the opaque lighting of the tent. He did not notice a small child behind him who gazed, as if hypnotized, into Rosie’s crystal ball. He knocked violently into the child as a high-pitched squeal reverberated inside the tent. The crystal ball tee-tered hazardously on its podium.

Perdition moved in slow motion. The crystal ball rimmed its perch, shifting its round weight to the left and then to the right, before tumbling to its demise against the particleboard flooring of the tent. It burst open, sending pieces of shattered glass spraying into Raul and the child’s face. Someone in the audience shrieked. Rosie noticed with horror that someone fainted. Another shouted and pointed to the floor.

One thousand marbles that had spent their days locked inside the crystal ball were now free. Raul pondered their sparkling beauty in the tenebrous light, as they rolled slowly to gather at the feet of his audience. De-struction, he thought, creates new beauty.

42 tale by Amanda Barker 43 The Marble Queen

5 Arrogance mixed media on panel, 36x24 inches

7 Acetone mixed media on panel, 22x30 inches

9 Quiet Revolution mixed media on panel, 44x51 inches

11 Searchlight mixed media on panel, 20x20 inches

13 Firefly mixed media digital collage, 19x13 inches

15 Sea Of Milk mixed media on panel, 22x30 inches

17 Drop mixed media on panel, 20x20 inches

19 Tangerine mixed media on panel, 20x20 inches

21 Trinket mixed media (6 panels), 36x24 inches

23 Birth mixed media on panel, 48x36 inches

25 Neurotic With A Bow mixed media (3 panels), 84x105 inches

27 Blood Orange mixed media on panel, 36x36 inches

29 Sunburn mixed media on panel, 20x20 inches

31 Abalone Button mixed media (9 panels), 20x20 inches

33 Snow Bees mixed media digital collage, 19x13 inches

35 Lucifer’s Rose mixed media digital collage, 19x13 inches

37 Mayonnaise mixed media on panel, 20x20 inches

39 The Vault mixed media on panel, 48x48 inches

41 Satellite mixed media on panel, 20x20 inches

43 The Marble Queen mixed media on panel, 60x60 inches

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