Tag Archives: fantasy

“Adoration” Fiction by Leon Marks

January 28, 2025 Phil Slattery Leave a comment

The brightly colored homes, the royal blues and turquoises, the sandy oranges and vermilions, which dotted the village in random patterns here, orderly lines there, the little houses which were invariably described as “storybook” by the tourists, the Germans and Americans and Ukrainians, all of these were gone at night. Instead, a dozen tiny windows shone dim yellow from reading lamps or dimmer blue from televisions. Headlights crawled down and up the dirt road from time to time, a faint gravelly song ascending from beneath the tires and up the hillside to where the goatherd stood outside his barn. A street lamp hung outside the little roadside clinic where the doctor and his daughter stood watch, day and night, to aid villagers or travelers in pain.

It wasn’t just the village. Even the enormous hills were invisible, especially on a moonless night like this one. They weren’t to be called mountains in this part of Bukovina for they were mere foothills of the Carpathians, which swept the land of Transylvania up toward the sky many miles away. These hills were mighty though, forming great streams which efficiently watered the goats, who traversed the hillsides every morning after feeding and then again every evening before sleep. The goatherd, whose father had died three months earlier and whose wife had left not long after that, now had to tend not only to the goats but to the business, the selling, the auction, the distributor in Suceava, a craft for which he’d felt ill-equipped since his youth. His preference had always been to collaborate with the dogs, the collies and Canaan dogs, to lead the goats, organize them, contain them on their grazes, or to feed them, milk them, birth them, wean them, vaccinate them or slaughter them when the time came. He tended to the goats and his father had tended to the business: that was the way it had been until recently. His wife had tended to the home, a two-room concrete structure set on the south side of the pasture, near the makeshift dog pens and hidden from the village and the tourists who came through to snap photographs of the painted monasteries. The barn on the pasture’s north side kept the goats at night. On one end were the milking stalls and on the other were the haylofts and stacked bales; the goats slept in the middle. A special stable housed Jet and Roma, the donkeys, whom the goatherd’s wife had humorously referred to as conducators, or the “drivers.” Jet and Roma pulled the cart into town, and to Iasi or Suceava several times a year, and the goatherd’s wife had felt a particular affection for them. The goatherd, on the other hand, preferred the dogs, of which he had more than necessary. They were full of energy, unlike the donkeys, and full of pride, unlike the goats. He had once thought about naming them, but couldn’t think of any names, so instead began identifying them with sounds. He hissed at the white-and-brown collie. He clucked at the one with black on its ears. He made kissing sounds at the littlest one. There were two Canaan hounds too, one called with a sort of bark, the other with a whistle. The whistle dog, however, hadn’t come when called for several weeks now. She pleased herself instead by lying in the pasture and watching the others, her mouth open with a kind of panting smile, her ears usually perked, her youth and mobility mere recollections in the goatherd’s mind. Ever since his wife left, the whistle dog had slept in the goatherd’s bed, her fragile frame raised to the mattress by the master’s arms, her warm-blooded mass a luxury on these cold winter’s nights. The other dogs slept outside in the pen, as they were doing now, quietly, while the goatherd raked manure by lantern light.

“Good dog,” the goatherd said during a moment of rest.

The whistle dog’s ears perked slightly, but she didn’t raise her chin from the ground. She was comfortable.

When the goatherd was done for the night, he tossed the rake against the barn door and dimmed the lantern. He sat on the ground and stretched his long legs out straight in front of him. He tossed a few scraps of bread to his companion.

“Good dog,” he said again. The dog let out a light groan of relief, like a hum. She tended to stick by the goatherd at night after the other dogs fell asleep in their pens by the house. During the day, she continued to make eye contact with the goats from afar, which the goatherd surmised preserved the dog’s sense of occupational purpose. But she couldn’t be a runner anymore. And she hadn’t chased a goat off a rock or ledge for months.

A rumble from the sky perked up the dog’s ears again and opened wide her eyes, which caught a gold twinkle just as a lightning streak flashed above. The goatherd looked skyward to find stars, and he found some, but they were faint and sparse. Storm clouds had moved in.

After a few more rumbles and their accompanying flashes, the goatherd rose to his feet.

“Come on, girl, it’s time,” he said, even though no drops had fallen. The dog rose reluctantly and stood in place, making sure the goatherd was heading home before commencing the walk herself. The man had only traveled a few paces when another streak of lightning slashed the sky just overhead, this one neither preceding nor following a rumble. Both man and dog looked up instantly, not wanting to miss such a sight. In fact, they couldn’t possibly have missed it. The jagged vein of white remained overhead, locked in its position, locked in time, the violence of its energy pulsating barely a half-mile up, its top end fading into invisible clouds, its bottom end thinning as it approached the earth somewhere far to the east, as if on its way to Moldova.

The dog seemed to lose interest after a few moments, so she lowered herself back to the ground and stared off toward the village, which still teemed with silent life.

The goatherd, on the other hand, couldn’t cease his skyward gaze as the streak was brightest just overhead. In fact, his neck soon became tight. Ideas grew quickly in his mind. It was something, or someone, extra-terrestrial paying a visit to Bukovina or Moldova. It was a glitch, a freeze in time, which would end shortly so the lightening could continue on its course. It was a military maneuver of some sort, or an attack by the Ukrainians or Russians. It was an optical illusion, his eyes tricked by physics. None of these ideas stuck, however, so he was forced to ponder some more, but no explanations came forth. He closed his eyes for fifteen seconds, then looked again to spy any movements or vibrations coming from the streak, but none were detectable. He turned his glance down toward the village to see if lights had turned on, if residents had come outside to look, but it appeared just the same as before. When the dog moaned in comfort again, the sound broke the silence that had been sustained for several minutes. It dawned on the goatherd that the thunder had stopped. No more thunder. There had been no rain. No more lightening. It was as if the storm had aborted its mission in mid-strike. It was as if nature had suddenly paused.

The goatherd’s wife was Crina, named for the lily, and the only moments when he didn’t behold her to be as beautiful as the flower were right before she walked out on him.

“Roxana’s desperate,” she’d said, bag around her shoulder. “She needs her big sister.”

Roxana was Crina’s younger sister who had recently given birth to her dead husband’s twins and with whom Crina had just decided to live back in Brasov twelve hours away. Roxana needed assistance caring for the babies, according to Crina, but Roxana had five other sisters who lived in neighboring villages. This was just Crina’s latest ploy to leave this place.

“You’ve wanted to leave since the day he died,” said the goatherd. His father’s death had created a hole in their marriage three months earlier, one that let in a frightening coldness the goatherd had never experienced. They had been forced together, but it hadn’t felt like force at the time. In fact, he’d long appreciated Crina’s respect and affection for his father as a fortuitous underpinning of their marriage. What he hadn’t suspected was that the old man’s absence would drain the marriage of purpose.

Crina shook her head, mostly to avoid her own tears. She felt abandoned and insecure and wouldn’t bother denying it. It was true, the father had been her strength. In fact, it was the father, a widower for nearly ten years at the time, who had introduced her to the son. She’d been half-drunk as usual in a Iasi bar on a Friday afternoon when the old man walked up to her and gazed at her peacefully, as if willing her to put her glass down and calm herself, which she did. He lit a cigarette and offered her one. Then they talked and drank coffee. As she sobered up, he asked about her life, her family, her drunkenness. At no point did she feel threatened by him even though he was twice her age and even though he once said she resembled his dead wife. They sat on stools and stared ahead at the bar owner as she performed quotidian tasks like drying glasses and stacking six-packs of Coke. Crina told him about her large family back in Brasov, how she had followed a boy here to Suceava, how that hadn’t worked out, how she now worked as a maid for a monastery, where she slept in a dark room and occasionally stole wine. She was too ashamed to return to her family, even though she knew they would accept her with open arms. He told her he had a son just about her age.

Once it became dark, he excused himself to water his donkeys outside, which made her chuckle.

“They have a long journey ahead,” he said when back inside. He told her he’d be coming back to Iasi the following Friday — it was the busy season — and wanted to see her again but only if she wasn’t drinking. She agreed, and when they met again the next Friday, she told him she had only drunk a few days that week. Then, the next Friday, she smiled brightly when announcing that she hadn’t drunk at all that week, and had stolen no more wine. He nodded as if that was good.

The old man made her laugh without knowing it. When he talked about his donkeys, his goats, even when he told stories about his dead wife and how she had often berated him for waking up too early or overcooking the rice. He was very fond of his son, who had to stay home to tend the flock when the old man came here to the market, and told Crina he hoped she would meet him sometime. And so it was arranged.

The following Friday, she rode back to the village with him. While cars zipped past the carriage, the donkeys walked ahead unfazed. Several times, she laughed at the sky, wondering what on earth her family would think of this strange adventure she was taking. When they arrived at the village, it was eight o’clock at night. He pointed to the top of an enormous hill, where she spied an orange speck like a hovering star. His son had lit a fire. The donkeys pulled the wagon and its passengers up the hill very slowly, languidly, their back muscles straining and losing their fight. At the top, the old man watered the donkeys some more and then escorted Crina toward the blaze, where his son’s figure became visible. He introduced Crina to him, saying, “She’s gonna help us around the house.”

Crina and the old man had not talked about that. She was just visiting. Instead of correcting him, she shook the son’s hand, which, along with his nervous, smiling face, glowed in the firelight. She saw that he was a tall boy, much taller than his father, and was holding a walking stick as tall as Crina. He had wavy, black hair and a strong Romanian nose. As for the goatherd, he had seen prettier girls in the village, but none who shone with the confidence of this Crina. She didn’t pretend to be demure. She had short-cut hair and a chin raised with pride. Her brown eyes didn’t appear to conceal much. He could tell her breasts were full even beneath her coat. Her brow crinkled as if awaiting his decision.

Crina never returned to the monastery again.

When the old man died the following year, Crina wanted to shut down the farm and return to Brasov with her husband, who opposed the idea out of respect for his father and the family name. He wanted to make his father proud by running the business, not just tending to the animals, but Crina reminded him that that wasn’t his strength and that there were plentiful farms in the Carpathians where he could be free to work in the pastures without the worries of industry. He could birth, rear, feed, milk and slaughter the goats for someone else. And sheep too! Farms were larger in the mountains. He could earn a solid wage.

The conflict worsened every day and a gulf of silence formed between them. They performed their allotted chores and ate meals together, but little else.

One day, Crina brought him a glass of juice outside, which he drank without pausing. When he returned the empty glass to her, she told him she was leaving.

“You have no faith in me,” the goatherd said.

Crina stared off toward the barn, feeling the stare of the whistle dog nearby but instinctively avoiding eye contact with the animal. A tear bloomed in her eye.

“I had faith in him.”

The whistle dog’s muzzle pointed toward the goatherd, whose attention was fixed on the white streak in the sky. It wasn’t yellow or gold as he had always envisioned a lightning flash to be, but now that it was cemented in the sky, he could see it was bright white, like it was made of pure light, devoid of any color or hue, as if comprised not of a color, but of the source of all color.

He turned away from the heavens only when she barked. One quick bark. Another when they made eye contact along with a timid wag of the tail, signaling something between fear and joy. Then a series of barks, like gentle gunfire, which rolled along as she raised her head and craned her neck with curiosity until the barks came faster, staccato, then faster into a continuous stream of sound, like a soprano howl, baying at the night. The goatherd had to chuckle. Not too far away, the other dogs had awoken from their slumber and, one by one, joined in. Soon a chorus of howls, in verse and refrain, called out to the hills, called out for any man or woman who could hear, anyone east or west, anyone in Moldova or Transylvania, in the valley or on the highest Carpathian peak, either as warning or consolation, and this chorus would attract other creatures in the vicinity and beyond; it was a song not meant for dogs and humans alone, but for beasts by the thousands, for either consciousness or instinct, for all the living to respond to a wonder in the sky.

Occasionally, there was a pause, and during one such pause a new type of howl called from the darkness. This call was extremely dim and from the opposite direction, from the bottom of the hillside by the road, and this was a howl of anguish. It was coming from a human, and it was coming from the clinic, whose lights were glowing alive now. Activity inside. A most dreaded activity. The dogs continued to howl from the kennel, but the whistle dog was silent now. After nearly two minutes of song, she had withdrawn from the chorus, as if out of respect for the suffering.

Almost instinctively, the goatherd wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck and threw bread to the dog.

“Eat this, and I’ll be back.”

The goatherd walked to the edge and began stepping down the hillside, which was extremely steep for a human if not for a goat. Stones and gravel slid in front and behind and his boots twisted with every step, but he sought human companionship. He sought affirmation that time had stopped and that dogs were singing.

When he arrived at the roadside, the woman’s cry had displaced entirely the distant howling. A cry with a groan, punctuated by deep breathing and authoritative words from two other voices, one male and one female. The goatherd tapped his boots onto the gravel driveway that vaguely welcomed visitors to the little house with a “Medicul” sign in front. Here’s where he saw the donkeys, their eyes closed in standing sleep as they waited, yoked to the wooden cart stuffed with hay at their backs. He patted one of the donkeys as he approached the clinic’s front door, which jingled softly as he opened it. Inside, the overhead fluorescent light offended him, so he winced. He heard the voices speaking Romanian in the backroom — the doctor and his daughter, whose name he recalled was Maria — but also a louder voice, a booming male voice, speaking an unrecognizable language. This voice sounded frightened.

Maria peeked from the back room to spy the goatherd in the waiting area, vaguely recognizing him as the neighbor on the hill.

“Have you seen the sky?” he asked her, then felt stupid about it. She cocked her head and stared at him with bewilderment. That’s when he noticed the blood on her plastic gloves.

“We’re closed,” she said, then returned to the back room. “Except for emergencies,” she shouted as clarification.

He considered going home or standing with the donkeys, but instead he took a seat on a tattered green cushion with an uncomfortable metal frame. It wasn’t long before the cries and shouts had faded and the spirit of the clinic had calmed. A tall, Middle Eastern man appeared from the back, his face red and his eyes avoiding contact with the goatherd. He exited the clinic right away. Through a small side window, the goatherd could see his forehead touch the forehead of one of the donkeys. It was like they were sharing a secret.

Maria re-appeared now. Her apron and gloves had been removed. Her father came behind her, nodded at the goatherd and exited to a side door which led to the residence. (He and Maria lived upstairs). Maria began making notes in a folder behind the reception desk. As she wrote, she automatically raised a hand and released her hair from its large plastic clip. Long hair was frowned upon during an emergency.

“You tend the goats,” she finally said, not looking up from her notes.

The goatherd said he did.

“Are you ill?”

He said he was not.

“My father’s not a veterinarian.”

“I’m not here because of the goats,” he said. He was about to tell her about the sky, to ask if she’d seen it or if she’d heard the dogs singing and what conclusions had she drawn about these things, but he didn’t want to feel dumb, so instead he asked her what had happened in the back room. Not for a moment did he wonder if such a question might be an invasion of privacy.

“She’s resting,” Maria said, her green eyes now acknowledging his presence. “It’s very sad.”

With minimal prompting from the goatherd, Maria volunteered the patient’s story. She had arrived with her husband Youssef, who just went outside. They were from a city called Daraa in the southern part of Syria. The Syrian government had forced them and their neighbors to scatter. They’d been traveling off and on for fourteen months already, making stops to camp, to work odd jobs, to accept the generosity of strangers, to purchase the donkeys, which were too old and too slow. They’d hoped to arrive in Suceava to meet up with distant cousins before the baby came, but it came very, very early. Too early. And now it was back there dead.

Maria showed little emotion. The goatherd knew that emotion and medicine didn’t go well together. That’s why she’d better not show it. She wasn’t cold though, just matter-of-fact. She rose and returned to the backroom matter-of-factly. What was there left for her to do, the goatherd wondered. What was it like for a woman to feel finally empty in her womb but have no baby? He rose and gently walked, almost tiptoed, to the door that swung open to the backroom. He pushed on it softly. It opened onto a hallway, so he entered. He smelled a chemical and heard Maria’s voice speaking. In a room on the right, she was standing next to a cot where another young woman lay with her eyes closed. Maria must have known the woman couldn’t understand her, but spoke anyway. She had a comforting tone of voice, so maybe the woman appreciated that. A glass of water stood on the table beside the woman’s cot, and a tube fed her nutrients through a needle in her arm. She may be empty, but she looked at peace, the goatherd thought. She wasn’t out of breath. She wasn’t weeping. She even moved her body a little to get more comfortable so that Maria could check her blood pressure.

The goatherd turned, unsure if he was satisfied, unsure what he had hoped to see, and retreated toward the door that would swing him back into the reception area. That’s when he glimpsed it. There was a room across the hall from where the patient rested. The door was open and it was dark inside, but rays of white light entered through a long, flat window up high near the ceiling. The rays were brighter than moonlight because they were made of lightning light, the source of all light, and they led the goatherd’s eyes to settle on the little body that lay on a metal table. It was laid on its stomach, its big dead head with its cheek to the metal, its eyes closed (had they ever opened, even for a second?) and its little torso wearing a few splotches of blood. The goatherd entered the room and felt his heart sinking. He touched the baby’s little toes, stroked the cheek of his little bum. Then he worried that maybe he should be wearing gloves, even though it was dead, so he reached for one on a shelf but yanked his hand back when he felt a sting. A surgical knife had cut him. The lightning shone brightly. The blood on his finger glistened and the table’s surface reflected on all sides of the body. Once gloves were on, the goatherd lifted the baby with both hands and held it against his chest. He tried to open one of its eyes. He tried to wrap its tiny fingers around one of his own. He thought about the lightning outside and how much longer it would be there. He thought about the tricks nature was capable of playing, and he wondered if this bundle of stillness in his arms could be a trick too. The room where he stood had an exit outside to the rear of the clinic, so he used it to return to the cool night, babe in arms.

“Can you see that?” he asked the little body while nudging its skull to give it a view of the lightning in the sky. If the baby could open its eyes, if it could live just for a moment, it could see the miracle.

“Can you hear that?” he asked. The dogs were still howling up the hill. This too was unnatural. A nearby brook was babbling. He reflected on his losses: his father and his wife, and soon his dog. But instead of mourning, instead of bowing his head in despair and disappointment, he studied the baby’s form in his arms and thought to himself how unfair not to be alive on a night like this. He rocked the baby in his arms, walking in slow circles, wishing it might open its eyes or its heart might take a beat, wishing and waiting for its arrival.

The whistle dog had never been down the hill, not even when she was young and agile. She had gazed at the hills and the houses her whole life, but never had the instinct to chase after them, to spring into the world below and beyond. She’d always had what she needed here with her master and the goats. This night was different. The master had gone down. He had encountered something.

While the other dogs continued their song, she took slow, difficult steps down the hill. Her hind legs were shaking and convulsing without pause. She fell on her side and had to steady herself on all four paws. She had to do this regularly. On the rocky section she stumbled and landed on her hind knee joints, which began to bleed. She would use her front paws to drag herself if necessary. The master was in view. His shape, his silhouette, stood outside, behind the little house, and he was holding something. She panted heavily and stumbled onto her side again. She felt no pain — she had felt nothing at all back there for many days — but she yelped a few times anyway, maybe out of fear. Or maybe because she missed him so much. She could call out for his attention, but he was having an experience and she needn’t disturb him. How she wished to be with him though.

The farther down she crawled, the other dogs sang more softly, more distantly. She could roll the rest of the way if she knew how to roll. She could fly if she knew how to fly. But she was trapped on these four legs, two that barely worked and two that were aching with exhaustion. Her insides felt funny now too. Like she was boiling up. She had to pause her trek to lean over and lick her side. Licking sometimes brought relief.

She kept going, inch by inch, one of her rear legs now just hanging, doing no work at all, the other making paw contact with the ground, but each step was a sharp heave and rarely did the paw make it to its next step without the need to adjust and stabilize and rest before the next. But, she was getting closer now. She could make out his nose. She always noticed his nose first because it was big and wide. He was bobbing softly on his knees and swaying a bundle in his arms gently. How she wished that bundle could be her.

She made it to about thirty feet away from him before settling to rest and gaze at her master as his smile caught the shine of the lightning streak. She had seen him smile many times, but not as big and happily as this. She forgot all about her legs to see him so happy. The gurgling of nearby water calmed her too. Was it water? A little twig was moving in his arms. Maybe a twig, but it had tiny leaves at the end of it and they wiggled too. Were they leaves? Maybe it wasn’t a twig at all but something more alive than that. Something reaching out. The master smiled and smiled and then he gasped extremely loud when the bundle’s mouth opened because a moment later a shrieking sound came out of it. A high-pitched, violent shrieking like she had never heard before, but this terrible, terrible noise only made her master laugh up at the sky and laugh some more. She knew he was rejoicing.

A minute later, shouts erupted throughout the clinic. The doctor raced downstairs upon hearing the baby’s cry. Maria screamed in shock, but couldn’t tell where the cry came from, or which way to run. Even the patient sat up on the cot and called out. The goatherd had raced to the front of the clinic, where the father named Youssef grabbed him by the shoulder, turned him around and studied the contents of his arms. It was the same. The same body they had removed from the room when all hope had been lost. “No!” he shouted nonsensically, then fell to his knees in front of the goatherd, who crouched to show him the child and its curious fingers and its cheeks already tired from wailing. Youssef took the child and held it, tears jumping from his eyes. The doctor arrived, aghast and pressing his hand against his chest. Maria arrived shortly, supporting the patient, who inched toward the child with an expression of grave bewilderment and doubt. Her husband turned to show her the infant. She touched its sobbing head and studied its form, still perhaps suspecting a trick. The father handed her the baby, which she enfolded into her bosom. Maria led her to sit down on the back of the cart, which was soft with hay. The donkeys were wide awake now, seemingly curious about this new revelation. The mother cried, holding the child as if it would never leave her again, not for all eternity.

As Youssef cradled his wife, who cradled their son, nobody asked the goatherd what exactly had happened, what led him to the backroom. Nobody asked for details. Nobody cared about that.

The baby finally ceased its wailing, allowing the silence of the night to soothe their spirits. Maria couldn’t stop grinning. The doctor looked extremely satisfied, but shivered in the brisk mountain air. From behind them all came a little yelp. The goatherd turned to spy the whistle dog lying in the gravel a few feet away. He gulped a sudden breath and scrambled to it.

“What?” he exclaimed. “How?”

The dog’s body was posed unnaturally, its four legs twisted in four directions. It was bleeding and panting and making no attempt to stand or sit or even move. The goatherd sat down next to the animal and removed his rubber gloves. He rested his palm on the animal’s side, stroking slowly and gently.

“Good dog,” he said. That’s all there was to be said.

The doctor studied the animal from his position beside the cart, his attention diverted from the living baby, his expression distracted from its uncontrollable glee. He was concerned by what he saw. The ravaged body. The lowered head. He excused himself as if the sight was objectionable.

The dog’s eyes closed as the goatherd stroked its back. Her panting was steadier, more regulated, than during her journey. She held her head up, welcoming her master’s affection.

The goatherd recalled the morning of the dog’s birth. He’d been sitting on the ground next to its mother just as he was sitting now. He recalled the squeaks she had made as she hunted for the mother’s teat, her eyes not yet opened, just like the baby’s now. The goatherd’s father had stayed in the barn working; birthing dogs held no interest for him. In fact, puppies in general were uninteresting to him. A dog was valuable only when it possessed active herding skills, he’d said.

The goatherd thought of Crina too. The dog was born many years before she came into their lives. And the dog was still here now that she’s gone. She had rarely interacted with the dogs. She fed them scraps after dinner and gave water occasionally on the hottest days, but otherwise she hadn’t been dedicated to the dogs. They’d had little to offer her besides companionship, but companionship was abstract and insufficient.

As the goatherd pet her muzzle, he noticed the blood on his finger, and so did the dog, which wrapped its old pink tongue around the wound, as if tasting a treat.

“You and your tiny mind,” the goatherd whispered. “You believe in me.”

The doctor reappeared and sat on the dog’s other side, holding a syringe in his hand. The goatherd was unsurprised by this and gave no resistance. The doctor only said three words to the goatherd. Three gentle words.

“She’s ready now.”

While the doctor fidgeted with his syringe by the dog’s rear end, the goatherd placed his forehead against the dog’s. She had stopped panting. Her eyes stared at him brightly — this was the closest their faces had ever been. And it was all she could have ever wanted. This was her destination. A moment later, her eyelids sank, so he released her chin, letting it fall gently to the gravel.

After a few quiet moments had passed, the goatherd pulled the whistle dog partly onto this lap. She was still fairly warm, but her heart had stopped. Like the baby only a few minutes ago, she was just an object in his arms. He stroked her fur and looked up at the sky. The lightning was fading quickly. Look at the light before it’s all gone, he thought, before nature resumes its course and time again moves towards tomorrow.

When the lightning had disappeared entirely, the night became cooler, but nobody moved. The family rocked together in the hay. The doctor had dropped the syringe in his lap and closed his eyes. Maria leaned against the cart as if mesmerized by everything that had happened. The goatherd ruminated. Nobody knows when life begins or ends, not really, he thought. Nobody knows when time ceases and light prevails. Where does this child exist? And this dog? Where is Crina, if not right here? These are the kinds of questions that grazed the goatherd’s soul in these silent moments on this remarkable night in the hills of Bukovina.

Leon says of his background: “By way of background, I hold an MFA in Creative Writing and currently teach graduate-level writing and communications at City University of New York and Johns Hopkins University. Twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize, my fiction has been published in The New Haven Review, The Westchester Review, The Stockholm Review of Literature, Thug Lit, Pulp Modern, and Union Station Magazine, among others. I served as editor for Now What? The Creative Writer’s Guide to Success after the MFA (Fairfield University Press, 2014), an anthology of essays and articles about the writing life. A lifelong fan of psychological crime fiction, I am also founding editor and publisher of Heart of Noir
(https://heartofnoir.com), a comprehensive website showcasing the
classic film noir cycle and its literary influences.”

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“Flamenco” Fantasy by Mehreen Ahmed

January 23, 2025 Phil Slattery Leave a comment

Image generated by AI. Woman in red dress dancing among apple trees in valley.

In the realm of the Djinn, warmth emanated from apples. Apples were big fireballs that grew on smoky trees whose size, shape, or color never changed. Djinns, who looked like glowing strings, treated these apples as a display in the magnificent orchard and never ate them because fire was the stuff of life in this realm. Wild stallions ran on open russet plains, where a river of lava flowed from charred mountains and formed a valley. Djinns called it the Valley of the Red. They ensconced in this valley to soak up the fire released from the lava.

Down by the Valley of the Red, another realm existed. This was a more verdant realm, unlike the red lands of the Djinn. Djinns frequented this realm out of curiosity, to learn more about the inhabitants. Djinns had an insatiable desire to learn and absorb. While Djinns lived for thousands of years, Mortals of the other realm were transitory. Djinns speculated whether or not Mortals metamorphosed in death and became Djinn at any point in time. Conversely, were the Djinns, Mortals at any point in time? Djinns knew about mortality; they were the fine infinite fire creatures, who were deemed to be superior to any other transients. Occasionally, they also burnt out, but that was when they bathed in the Valley of the Red to get regenerated.

One fine afternoon, Djinn Aggi sat steeped in the Valley of the Red when a firefly flew in from the realm of the Mortals. It whispered news that the Flamenco cave dance would be performed in the verdant mountains of Sacramento. The dancer was a young Romani girl called Drina. Aggi knew many tales about the persecution for hundreds of years. Romani men, women, and children being slaughtered, many fled to exile themselves as they moved from one place to another without ever settling anywhere, known as the nomads.

Aggi frequented the Flamenco dance. Although the Djinn saw it all on its timeline when the persecution happened thousands of years ago, viewing it in art form, gave a new perspective; it made the history of suffering even more poignant, and sublime. He asked the firefly to make a magic potion yet again and turn it into a Romani boy. The firefly had that power, but only to transform the Djinn for twenty-four hours. After that, it would revert into a fire creature that it originally was. In these twenty-four hours, it would have a Mortal heart, a nose, eyes, and an image in a male body with a full range of Mortal emotions, however, he would still, retain some Djinn powers. The Djinn boy would be able to fly across realms. The magic enabled it to become Mortal once every month in the Djinn calendar. The Djinn was accustomed to visiting ancient places, customs, and cultures thousands of years old. It had seen and known many kings, and events; he knew the underworld.

In the realm of the Mortals, a cave was replete yet again, with Flamenco musicians and dancers. A young Romani girl, Drina was on the floor. The dance ensued as her musicians clapped, and sang. Songs rose to a crescendo. Drina looked at her audience in the dimly lit cave fire. There was one that caught her attention. He was a redhead, wrapped up in a robe. Unlike the others, his eyes were red. Drina smiled at him and he smiled back. Aggi felt a strange passion rising. This particular transformation enlightened it of Mortal passion—to feel what they feel. Why and how did love feel? That mortal could even die for love. He never felt this previously when he visited the realm of the Mortals.

Imparting a Flamenco story was crucial for Drina—one of persecution. The fiery dance rekindled an age-old, story. The spirited dancer had been longing to tell her rendition to an audience. As the dance ensued, her eyes spoke, her bosom heaved, and her footsteps tapped the cave floor in a show of a feisty desire to erase this history; all that was too painful to endure.

She danced by a slow fire inside the cave with the accompaniment of musical instruments. A fire burned within her; since the inception of this race, this ancient dance was carried out through many generations of her tribe. This evening, she decided what instruments, she wanted to dance to, tambourines, bells, or castanets. She chose them all. Her red skirt swished and swirled wildly around. With every tap, thousands of defiant embers sparked off the floor.

Hands above her head, he parted her long dance fingers and pointed them toward the cave walls, lit up with etches of slaughter, of being devoured by mythical creatures on the wasteland who were her ancestors. Romantic Ronda—the Romani dancer carried the memory of this beautiful place in her heart, bore it all, and relived the story of the beheading of the Gitanos by the Rulers of the kingdom. Her dance revealed it through the whine of her waistline art, while she suppressed a cry when she thought of men and women thrown into the deep La Yecla gorge. Until she could not dance anymore; until the all-consuming fire, consumed her. The dancer fell on the floor. In the light of the fire, before everyone, Aggi felt a pain he never felt before, her pain was his pain as he saw this dance of Romani persecution.

Drina looked at him and she transmitted love to him; his red eye was captivating. The young, spirited Aggi, made up his mind that very moment to transport them both to the realm of the White where they could woo each other. The realm of the Djinn was too hot for Drina, she would melt in seconds. The Mortal world was beset with the dangers of persecution. The only one world open for them was to travel into the realm of White where both could be safe. He felt love in his heart for this woman, he wanted to take her away. He knew what he needed to know about Mortals, which was enough for him. He came forward to make her free and happy again.

Aggi lifted her body and shifted her into a realm of White. Light as a feather, she looked down and smiled upon those, still eyeing her; she burned in the enigma of this crowning point of love for the world to note, to remember all that was too painful for her to ignore. What she endured for thousands of years; in this dreadful paradox of art, fame was earned through the sadness of the esteemed Flamenco dance.

In the realm of White, the sphere was dominated by light. Aggi had entered this realm before when the firefly performed the magic on the Djinn land. He had traveled through a portal that had opened before his eyes. In this domain of the lights, and breathing the same air, the Mortals floated in the ether. Aggi felt ethereal, too since, the magic could not revert him into full-fire Djinn for twenty-four hours.

When both were traveling to this realm of White, Drina fell asleep. As she woke up, she found her hand, in hand, and entwined into Aggi’s like an ivy vine. He kissed her and they made love under a profusion of white flowers, Drina saw that these flowers secreted sweet nectar, and pollen grains, Drina touched the nectar mesmerized before Aggi could stop her. She was in his lap. Aggi was cognisant of the impact of the nectar on Mortals. Mortals were allowed to breathe in the realm of the White, but only if they didn’t touch anything was the only constraint. He stood up and before anything could happen to her, Aggi attempted to take Drina out of the realm of White.

“What is this?” Drina asked.

“What is what?” Aggi answered.

“Why do I fade?” Drina asked.

“Because, you aren’t allowed to touch any flowers, or the nectar, here.”

“But I breathed the pollen. Why have you brought me here? What is this place?”

“Without pollen, Mortals couldn’t breathe here, however, the nectar has ingredients to turn a Mortal into light in twenty-four hours.”

“How do you know so much?”

“Should I have told you?”

“Tell me what?”

“That I’m a Djinn turned Mortal?”

“What?”

Drina fainted after that.

Aggi realized that only a couple of hours were left until he too turned into full Djinn and Drina faded into full light. He ran to the brink of the realm of White and flew them back into the realm of Mortals. He lay her down in a forest and her form returned. She opened her eyes and smiled at Aggi. She caressed his face and kissed his forehead and his lips.

“I can be here for another half an hour.”

“Must you return?” she asked.

“Yes, I must but I can meet you once in Djinn calendar month.”

“Take me with you, Djinn Aggi, I do not wish to be without you.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Find a place where I shall not melt. You shall not be fire. We can be one entity.”

Aggi thought fast before his time ran out. His Mortal facade was coming off, the heat was rising from his body and was visible. Clouds gathered. The sky cracked up and the firefly came down towards them. It could have a solution, another magic potion to turn them both into one entity. And for eternity?

The firefly found them and flew around them. Drina and Aggi continued to look for a solution. In the realm of the Mortals, neither Aggi nor Drina knew how to live together in peace, nor communicate with her people about his magical existence. Drina had only to touch the nectar in the realm of White, not even taste it, she had begun to fade into light. Firefly whispered of a fourth realm, the realm of Time where they could both be the same entity, eternally.

Before firefly could tell them about the catch in the realm of Time, they became euphoric and, they were so engrossed in kissing each other that the catch eluded them until Aggi’s body heated up, his newfound skin pores began to emit puny balls of fire. ‘What’s this?’ Drina asked surprised. She was still in full Mortal form, but Aggi was changing and disintegrating. One whom she fell in love with, the redhead and the red-eyed boy, who brought her up into the realm of White and saved her from the sharp incisive lights cutting her up until she faded.

Beads of sweat appeared on Aggi’s body. He began to pulverize. His body was on fire and his skin was flaking off. Something to do with the transformation, Drina reasoned. What would she turn into? Where could she go? Aggi was becoming a Djinn again. The firefly turned back and forth until Aggi became full fire. But another transformation occurred. Aggi was now turning into ash. He lay before Drina in an inanimate heap of ash.

“What happened?” Drina began to cry. She didn’t care; she wanted Aggi to be Djinn again. Let him live. In the realm of Time, Aggi and Drina could be one entity but only as ash and dirt where each would absorb the other in time. That was the catch. Reverting to a Djinn, Aggi’s mortal body shed and became ash under the new magic potion for the Realm of Time.

Her thousand years of tears came undone. Tears of persecution, and love for Aggi the Djinn, flowed unhindered. She collected Aggi’s ash and placed it on her lap in the forest before the firefly. The firefly saw her pain, the depth of her love for the flame Aggi once was. The firefly cupped her tears in hollyhocks and poured it over the ash. The ash began to stir, and it started to rise like a fire twister. In the twister, Drina saw a flame, flying and breathing again. Djinn cooled down and found the strength to stand, bodily back; both breathed the same air on the realm of Mortals.

A metamorphosis had occurred here, in the realm of Mortals, a miracle allowed them to be together as they both desired. They took each other’s hand; hand in hand, Drina and Aggi walked abreast towards the edge of the realm of Mortals. Then they stopped. They stood spellbound as they watched the fretful firefly, turning into a gaseous mass, dissipating into a star.

Mehreen Ahmed is Bangladeshi-born Australian novelist. She has published ten books to date and works in Litro, BlazeVox, Chiron Review, Centaur Literature. While her novels have been acclaimed by Midwest Book Review, Drunken Druid Editor’s Choice, shorts have won contests, Pushcart, James Tait, and five botN nominations.

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Update: More Stories Coming

January 9, 2025 Phil Slattery Leave a comment

More wonderful stories are going up all the time. Right now, four have been scheduled starting January 21st.

On January 21, “Rowan” a supernatural fantasy by Naomi Elster will appear. Naomi Elster’s writing has been published and performed almost 30 times, including in Imprint, Crannóg, and Meniscus, and at the Smock Alley Theatre. She has campaigned for reproductive justice and pay equality. She has a PhD in cancer and leads the research department of a medical charity. Originally from Laois, in the Irish midlands, she now lives in London.

On January 22, the story will be “Water Pump” Fiction by Yuan Changming. Yuan Changming edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Yuan. Credits include 16 chapbooks, 12 Pushcart nominations for poetry and 2 for fiction besides appearances in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry (2008-17), BestNewPoemsOnline and 2109 other publications across 51 countries. Yuan began writing and publishing fiction in 2022, with his debut (hybrid) novel Detaching just released by Alien Buddha Press.

January 23 will feature “Flamenco” a fantasy love story by Mehreen Ahmed, Mehreen Ahmed is Bangladeshi-born Australian novelist. She has published ten books to date and works in Litro, BlazeVox, Chiron Review, Centaur Literature. While her novels have been acclaimed by Midwest Book Review, Drunken Druid Editor’s Choice, shorts have won contests, Pushcart, James Tait, and five botN nominations.

On January 24, you will find “The Spike Buck” a flash memoir by Maxwell Adamowski, Maxwell Adamowski is a Canadian survivalist and woodsman who lived alone for a year in the wilderness performing a series of rite of passage rituals. “The Spike Buck” is one of the first stories in his book, CarQuest.

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“Ravens Can’t Talk” Fantasy by L. Swartz

June 30, 2023 Phil Slattery Leave a comment

Sometimes River talked to Marty, her final human friend, as she walked east up the steep trail behind her house.

“You’d hate what they did to the stream,” River told Marty. “They paved over the part we daylighted and now they’re building townhouses. Can you believe it? Townhouses, here!”

Marty — as stubborn a ghost as she had been a friend — never answered.

Sometimes when River stepped out her door and looked west, she swore she could see Marty waiting for her, solid in teal rain boots regardless of weather. River waved, even though she knew Marty couldn’t wave back.

River and Marty had talked about everything on the way up that long hill — until the cancer got Marty shortly after they celebrated her 82nd birthday. Now it was just River walking, River talking to a ghost.

After Marty, River didn’t try to make new friends.

Young friends talked loudly, as if River were deaf. She wasn’t deaf. The young ones reminded River of their names as if she were demented. She was not. Young ones were careful to only talk about things they thought River was interested in, like their kids or some TV cooking competition. River was interested in astronomy and anarchism and philology and the pre-Columbian indigenous history of the land she lived on; that hadn’t changed when River turned 80.

Friends River’s own age were no better. Even if they didn’t die on her, they were deaf and demented. River got tired of hearing about their grandkids and their TV shows. River got tired of shouting at them and reminding them of her name.

So now River chose to walk alone.

There was always something new to explore in River’s half-wild neighborhood. Downhill, where the river met the ocean, otters sunned themselves on the rows of upended canoes awaiting summer’s tourists. Uphill, the doe River named Tulip, the one with the wound where some long-ago hunter had hit her in the flank, paraded this year’s fawn in front of River. Deep under the canopy of evergreens, a murder of hefty crows hurled good-natured insults at River as she walked through their winter roost.

The deeper River got into her 80s, the more desperately eager she was to breathe every fog-laden breath, touch every scarred bark on every tree, note where a big branch had been torn off by last week’s storm. River always squatted down to check on the sequoia seedlings she had planted, noting their growth, her knees’ protest when she stood up reminding her she’d probably be dead before the seedlings were taller than her.

River felt rich with experience and greedy for more. If only she could have another 20 years, or 30 or 40. She picked up stones from the stream she crossed further up the hill and placed them in circles around her sequoias, practicing a magic she didn’t believe in.

Today, in the meantime, River was alive. On every day when she wasn’t going to die, River was happy with her everyday miracles, free from the baggage of humanity. On lazy days when River skipped her walk, she created her own miracles.

* * *

The little house River had bought at the beginning of her geezerhood came with a shy acre. Half of it was tall trees even older than River. The other half, near her house, was cleared land. River had turned the stupid lawn into a rich buffet of clover and corn and crabapples for the deer and squirrels and birds. The critters knew they were safe with her. River knew they did not mind her watching them through the wavy old glass in her windows.

River had invited the birds first with a few haphazard feeders on the second floor deck. River thought it would be nice to have birds for company while she sipped her coffee at the wobbly metal picnic table. She pictured friendly chirping and graceful flight.

Instead she got Harley Davidson, the harsh-voiced Steller’s jay who demanded more and more peanuts as more and more jays joined him. Soon River was buying peanuts in 20-pound bags, the picnic table was downstairs on the shrinking lawn, and the feeders had taken over the deck, along with planters full of late-blooming pineapple sage for the hummingbirds.

Harley Davidson and his jay friends were first, but not the only visitors. Sweetly gossipy red-winged blackbirds soon joined the impossibly huge crows and the ridiculously patterned towhees. River ordered 50-pound bags of sunflower seeds and cases of suet cakes. Bright goldfinches and flickers and juncos and raspberry-colored finches and red-headed, houndstooth-tailcoated woodpeckers and handsome orange thrushes and squabbling starlings gobbled it all.

Only occasionally did a kestrel or sharp-shinned hawk perch on the peak of the roof and swoop down on an unsuspecting customer at River’s buffet. River grieved, but did not begrudge the raptors their appetite.

Next, Queen Liz, a relentlessly fertile old sow raccoon, led a procession of trash pandas up the posts and onto River’s deck. After a few deliciously successful raids by the raccoons on the peanuts intended for jays and crows, River began to put out dishes of dog food for them.

Queen Liz caught on quickly. She and her kits pressed their hands and faces against the window just before dawn and just after sunset. River obediently filled a dish and handed it to the family. Within a few weeks, all the raccoons in the neighborhood — mostly descendants of Liz, River figured — put River on their route. Sometimes River had to put out two separate dishes to prevent growling generations of raccoons from fighting each other to seize the choicest morsels first.

River tried to attract the local Roosevelt elk herd to her haven by planting aspen and dogwood, but no luck. Even when thinned by hunting season, the herd numbered at least a dozen. River’s human neighbors lived too close to suit the herd.

* * *

Only the boldest neighbor children came near River or her house — visits she suspected were prompted by dares. River sometimes contrived to pose spookily in the upstairs window facing the house across the street where the youngest kids lived: I have earned my eccentricity.

Many nights, River sat in her easy chair facing her reflection in the black windows and chuckled at the wildlife looking back at her: Here lives an old lady who dresses in bright, clashing colors and talks to ghosts and birds. And talk she did.

“Time for you to bring me presents now,” River would say to Harley Davidson. “You are a crow. You’re supposed to bring me shiny things in return for my gifts to you.”

Harley replied with a head toss, a strut, and a leap into the air to flap away, as if to say, Make me.

“Just stay alive,” River whispered to the impudent crow. “That’s all I want from you really.”

And “I won’t hurt you, silly girl,” River cooed to Queen Liz when the ragged raccoon stood up, forepaws outstretched, if River got too close to the kits. “I’m your guardian servant factotum, my friend. Nothing will happen to you on my watch.”

Liz would deflate as if in response. River would tut-tut at her, “Now you bring me some treats. It’s your turn, lady. A cutting from your roses, say. A casserole. Something.” Liz seemed to pause in her chewing to sneer.

River was tempted to pat Liz’s head. She wasn’t like the other raccoons. She was the oldest, a survivor, and she was the smartest and she knew just how to get what she wanted from humans.

* * *

River hated fall mornings. That was when hunters would wake her up shooting at sunrise. River forgave the weekday hunters, who were probably local and genuinely respected their kills and fed the meat to their family. But most of the gunfire happened on weekend mornings. That meant rich people from over the mountain who pursued recreation by killing the geese and ducks who shared the docks with the otters. Or they might be taking down one of the elk. Or it could be Tulip, her flank-wounded friend, or even old Liz, too blind to see which human was approaching. River even worried about the safety of the mama bear who trashed the neighborhood garbage cans and sometimes the not-so-feral cats.

More and more hunters disturbed River’s sleep, yet it did not seem to diminish the numbers of River’s visitors. More and more refugees showed up at River’s sanctuary.

The latest town council election had replaced several seats. The new council repped for the timber company that owned the land uphill from the town. The company always logged the tops of the hills bald, replanted the land, and sprayed the clearcut with chemicals to discourage undergrowth — but now without opposition. The chemicals killed what small prey were left for the predators who hadn’t already lost habitat during the clearcut, along with fish and birds and snakes and toads and squirrels. Both predators and prey fled downhill into the remaining trees and into the town itself. Hungry mountain lions and coyotes finished off the local pets and worked their way down the menu to the sluggish, half-hibernating raccoons and the young deer and the elk yearlings.

River couldn’t blame the predators for being hungry. They owned this town before it was a human town. Nevertheless, she fortified her sanctuary with motion-sensitive lights to discourage the cats. She put out opened jars of vinegar that the coyotes hated to smell. It worked, at least enough so that River didn’t find so many leftovers of their meals on her walks.

The flashing lights and peculiar smells didn’t exactly ruin River’s reputation as a witch among the local children — or their parents. That was fine with River.

River rarely spoke to other humans as she headed into the downhill part of her 80s. Her long-ago therapist would say she was isolating. Accurate enough, River supposed, but it had been decades since she saw that as something wrong with her that needed fixing.

Besides, she wasn’t truly isolated. She had all the company she wanted and needed. Her companions nowadays did die on her — even sooner than her geezer human friends — but they had boundaries. They respected River’s boundaries. And these friends never told her the same story twice.

These friends were more than enough for River, and they showed River she was still important, a creature of great value. Every time a new flock of goldfinches or a wary raccoon boar or fawn showed up in River’s sanctuary, she felt buoyant and immortal. The weekend hunters with their fresh gear, still creased from the store, would not take that away from her.

When a glossy raven, bigger even than the king-size crows she normally fed, parked its thick torso on the porch railing, River was elated. It did not seem inclined to move. It shifted left and right, from foot to foot, but kept its perch as she approached. It stared at River, croaking approvingly when she refilled the peanut feeder.

“I think I’ll call you Poe,” River said to the raven, which was regarding her tilt-headed, no more than two feet away. “I’m River. A pleasure to meet you, Poe.”

And Poe croaked, “Hello.”

And River opened her mouth to say something, but she couldn’t decide what to say.

Poe rattled, “Good morning.”

“You’re not wrong,” River replied, and then she laughed like she hadn’t since Marty died.

“You are River,” Poe said.

“I am. How are you talking to me? Are you talking to me? Am I finally losing it?”

“You are fine. All ravens can talk, fool. We do not talk to humans. Generally.”

“Why not?”

“Seriously?”

“Stupid question. Right. But why talk to me?”

“You are not stupid. And I think you might be why I am here. Partly.”

“But how?”

“How did I get here, you mean?”

“Yes. I guess so. Yes! How?”

“My daughter, who I taught many things although I was a shitty mom, turned me into a raven. She unlocked a forbidden room, which was inevitable, because she is a master thief and there is nothing so tempting to a thief as a forbidden room, and…”

“You were human?”

“On the other side of the other door to the forbidden room, yes. I was human. I was bad at it, but I was human.”

“So you came through the forbidden room after she turned you into a raven.”

“My transformation was the price she paid for her trespass.”

“I see. I am sad that…”

“Do not be sad, fool. I like being a raven. I think I am going to be much better at being a raven than I was at being a human.”

“Well, then, good I guess. But I’m happy you’re here and help yourself to peanuts anytime and I’m thrilled to be talking to a raven who can talk to me, but still: Why me?”

“It is my task to grant your greatest desire. Just one. Not three wishes, that never works out well for anyone. Just one. And no, do not say anything yet. Do not speak. Go to sleep tonight and dream a dream. Dream that your greatest desire has come true. When you wake up, it will be so.”

“But what if I have a nightmare? What if I can’t sleep or don’t dream?”

“You humans like to make up things to worry about.”

“That is true. OK then. I’m going to leave a breakfast of peanuts in the feeder for you before I go to bed, just in case. No matter what happens, thank you.”

Poe let out a decidedly not-human grumble-squawk, leaped off the railing, and swooped across the driveway into the copse of crabapple trees. River could hear her croaking from farther and farther away. A cold rain had started, but River stayed on the deck and breathed in the sanctuary’s sounds and sights and smells until she was drenched.

Then she went to bed.

* * *

River rolled over in bed, opening one eye enough to notice the sky was light. She rolled over in bed and did not groan. Her back felt strong. Her knees and elbows did not hurt. She could see two spiders in detail above her on the high ceiling. Her heart yelled at her brain to dress and go for a walk right away because she could not hear any rain falling.

River sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She stood up. She stretched. She took a deep breath, then another.

Nothing hurt.

She did not feel like climbing back under the covers for another hour.

Nothing. Hurt.

Wait a minute.

Wait. A. Minute.

River remembered last night.

River, not bothering to pull on her sweats over her boxers and tank top, ran to the mirror in the bathroom.

River’s face was smooth. Her lips were full. Her eyebrows where red, not silver. Her hair was auburn, not silver. Her breasts were the famous globes her lovers had adored touching. Her belly was sleek and touchable. Her neck was tight, not stringy. And River could see. River could see everything clearly without pressing her face close to it. River could smell.

River.

Could.

Smell.

The cat box downstairs, one day overdue for a cleaning. The oranges in the bowl on the kitchen counter. The savor of old floorboards above the furnace.

But what about —

River threw the door open and — Petrichor. Pine. Grass clippings. Wet soil.

Everything. Everything was here.

River was here.

River was young. River didn’t have to think about how much she could hurry up and do before she died. River didn’t have to make plans for how her hungry wild friends would get along after she was gone. She was here. She would be here.

She was young.

River was young.

“Poe!” River shouted.

She looked up. An especially large raven, high above her, drifted in a lazy circle. The big bird barely dipped her wing in acknowledgement.

“Peanuts!” Poe yelled, then croaked and croaked and croaked.

Poe did not stop croaking until River, young River, overfilled the tray with so many peanuts they spilled onto the deck.

Poe stood in the middle of the tray and ate peanut after peanut while crows and jays scolded and River laughed.

“You scoundrel,” River said. “Shame on you. And thank you.” “You fool. Ravens can’t talk,” Poe said, then flew away.

L (just L) Swartz intrepidly chronicles fairy tale apostates, arrogant dragons, and shapeshifting ex-lovers. L shares life on the North Coast of Oregon with 1 nonbinary badass partner of 23 years, 3 crime cats, 1 sweet dog, and 1 loud parrot, while feeding every corvid and raccoon in Tillamook County.

If you would like to be part of the Rural Fiction Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like contemporary dark fiction and poetry, you may also want to check out The Chamber Magazine.

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“Landbound” Historical Fantasy by Steven French

December 30, 2022 Phil Slattery Leave a comment

“Be careful you don’t get lost in those woods”, her friend Beth always warned her. But ever since she was little, Emma had walked among the trees, first with her mum and then on her own, and she felt she knew every stump, grove and bramble patch. So, she all but dropped her basket of herbs when, pushing through the ferns, she came across the beck, right where it shouldn’t have been. Catching herself from falling just in time, she looked upstream and down, as the water tumbled past her feet. “Have I got myself turned around?” she thought, looking back the way she had come. It was supposed to be a hundred yards or more away on the other side of the meadow, which was now across from where she stood. But that would mean she had crossed the stream somehow and that … well, that was just not possible, unless she was going the way of poor old Margaret Dobson.

She cast about for another landmark and hit upon an ancient oak, gnarled and coming late to leaf, that should’ve been many yards distant from the beck but now felt the waters carving out the bank between its roots. As she watched, the old tree began to list, then with a terrible groan and crash it fell, branches snapping off and bouncing away into the undergrowth. For a moment or two, Emma just stood, stock still, thinking about how her mum had pointed out the tree as a fixed point to help her orient herself in the woods, how she had climbed it as a young girl while her mother picked mushrooms below, how it had endured harsh winters and fierce summers. Then, shaking her head, she clambered up the roots and strode across the trunk’s rough back, to jump down on the other side. “Best to pick up the pace and head home sharpish”, she thought to herself, striding across the meadow where it shouldn’t have been.

Long before she entered the village, she heard the raised voices, carried on the breeze. A small crowd had gathered on the Green, surrounding several important looking figures, watched over by a small group of armed men. Emma could see the head of William Leigh above the rest, shaking from side to side, an arm raised with index finger pointed to the sky. “I see William’s invoking the Almighty again,” she murmured to her friend Beth, standing at the back.

Beth turned, her face grim. “Lord Rothwell is laying claim to all the land west of Wyke Beck, which they’re saying includes Asket Meadow and most of the land we’ve been using to graze the cattle. William there is telling Rothwell’s men the meadow is to the east of the beck and always has been but … well, for some reason, they’re not having any of it.” She turned back toward the speakers. “They say they have a plan or something, with the land all mapped out on parchment that proves Rothwell’s contention.” Beth shook her head and added “As if some lines on a sheet could prove what we know to be false from our own memory …”

Emma stood on tiptoe to see over the heads of her friends and neighbours. Facing Leigh, whose neck was becoming increasingly red – so she could only imagine how fierce his features must have looked – was Thomas Grice, Rothwell’s Steward, who looked as composed as if the two were merely arguing about the price of a cow. However, Emma’s focus was drawn to the man standing to the left and a little distance behind Grice. Dressed in a long black coat, this stranger carried a scholarly air about him and seemed detached from the hubbub. It was he who held the disputed map, occasionally presenting it for Grice to gesture at.

Muttering apologies, Emma eased her way through the crowd to better hear what was being said. “… Master Wright and his men have extensively surveyed the land and he has drawn up this plan, this map, to set down once and for all Lord Rothwell’s rights … and yours too! It’ll all be clearly laid out for everyone to see,” Grice stated, calmly but forcefully.

From the position she’d reached, Emma could see that William’s face was beginning to turn a darker shade as he thundered, “But your man is wrong!” He turned towards Wright who held the map behind his back as if Leigh would snatch it away. “I don’t care about your surveys or mapmaking”, Leigh continued, “We all know what’s Rothwell’s and what’s ours and what we have a right to. Our mothers and fathers knew it and theirs before them … And we’ll not see those rights taken from us through some strokes of pen on parchment!”

He made to move towards Wright but was blocked by Grice, who placed his hand carefully on Leigh’s chest and said, in a low voice, “Easy now, William. We don’t want any trouble, do we?” And he looked over towards the guards, who had reached for the hilts of their swords and were looking hard-faced at the crowd.

Leigh glanced their way, then back at Grice. “You’ve not heard the last of this, Master Grice”, he spat.

Grice just shrugged and raising his voice, replied, “The map has been drawn and Lord Rothwell’s lands clearly represented. A copy will be kept at the manor for all to consult and tomorrow the original will be conveyed to York to be safely held within the county registry.” He looked straight into Leigh’s eyes and told him, “It’s done,” before turning and walking off with Wright, surrounded by the armed escort.

Leigh glared after them, joined by Mary Brotherton. “We’re not standing for this, William,” she muttered. “No, we’re bloody well not” he replied, before turning back to the crowd. “Meeting, tonight, after supper, back here. Because we are definitely not standing for this!” The villagers roared in approval and Emma saw Thomas Grice look back, his face momentarily fearful.

“Beth”, she said, pulling at her friend’s sleeve before she walked off, “Your Jenny works up at Lord Rothwell’s, right? Could she find out when Wright is taking that map to York?” Beth frowned. “I don’t know, Emma. She has a good job up there and I don’t want her mixed up in anything.” “If she helps us now, there might not be anything to get mixed up in”, Emma replied, before adding “Or at least, not anything too serious.” Beth nodded at that and left Emma looking after Grice and his men, as they disappeared round a curve in the road.

A few hours later they were both back at the edge of the crowd of friends and neighbours, listening to Mary Brotherton recall the history of the injustices inflicted by Rothwell and his family: “… and not content with depriving us of our ancient rights and keeping us in what he considers to be ‘our place’, he wants to hem us in even further and block us not just from our rightful grazing land but also all the meadows and fields and woodlands that belong to everybody, not just him and his lot!” She paused and drew breath before adding, “Are we going to stand for it?!”

Fists, cudgels and whatever implements had been at hand were raised and a fierce collective “No!!!” shouted in response. “Here’s what we think of his bloody map”, she continued and holding up what looked to Emma to be an old scrap of paper with some hastily drawn lines and figures, she set it alight using the torch held by William Leigh, standing to her side. The crowd roared again as Leigh now stepped forward.

“Friends,” he shouted, “We’ve had word that while Rothwell’s minions were talking to us today, he and some of his men were already out, putting up fences and marking his new boundaries.” The villagers fell silent. “If we don’t do something now, it’ll be his cows eating that grass, our grass, his feet walking them woods, our woods … If we don’t do something and do it now, we won’t be able to do anything. Rothwell will have done what he wanted all along and we’ll be left shaking our fists at the clouds …” He paused, until someone helpfully piped up with, “Tell us what we can do William!”

Emma sidled up to Beth again. “Anything from your Jen?” she asked. Beth looked around before answering, “She said it looks like Wright is going to York first thing and will be leaving Rothwell’s house at dawn.” Emma nodded. “Good. That means we have a chance of stopping all this before it gets out of hand.” Beth looked back at her, frowning and then nodded towards Leigh, “You think you can stop all this?! It’s not right what’s been done and I reckon William’s made a fair point: if we don’t stand together and do something, Rothwell and his lot will just roll over us …”

Emma sighed. “I agree. But it’s a question of doing what?” She paused as the crowd shouted again in response to something Leigh had said. Setting her shoulders, she pushed her way to the front. “I’d like to speak” she announced. “What are you going to do woman,” someone yelled from the crowd, “stop Rothwell with a few herbs and one of your incantations?!” People laughed. Leigh held up his hands. “We all have the right to speak here,” he said, before turning to her. “Go on Emma, say your piece.” She swallowed and looked to the ground before facing her neighbours.

“I know what you’re all thinking”, she began, “that we should go and tear down Lord Rothwell’s fences and let our cattle back loose over the fields.” She paused, as people nodded and an older man shouted “Just like we’ve done before. And more!” “Aye,” Emma continued, “We’ve stood side by side, me and you both, Martin Ainsworth, all of us in fact and we’ve faced down Rothwell and his lot. But this time, it’s different. This time, he’s got that plan, that map, that Master Wright has produced.” ‘What of it?” someone else asked, “We can tear that up just as easily as we can tear down the fences!” “And what will that achieve in the end?” Emma replied. “With the map held at the registry in York, Rothwell will send for the Sherriff there to enforce his claim. And the Sheriff will come with his men to ‘restore order’ and crack some skulls along the way …”

“Let ‘em,” Ainsworth interrupted, “and we’ll crack a few o’ theirs!” “And then what?” Emma asked. “Will you try and crack the skulls of the troops they send here after that? Will you face off to their swords and pikes with hoes and flails?” She paused to let that image sink in. “And then, after we’ve buried our dead and tended to our injured, do you think Rothwell’ll say “Well, they put up a good fight them villagers, let’s give ‘em back their lands”?” Emma stared round at the faces in front of her, as people glanced to the side and shuffled their feet.

Mary Brotherton stepped forward. “What choice do we have?” she demanded, “What choice but to fight for what is rightfully ours, lest it all be taken?!” The crowd shouted their agreement. It was Emma’s turn to raise her hands. “I have an idea,” she told them. “If it works, there’ll be no need to take back the land by force. But you’ll need to trust me.” “Why should we?” someone shouted from near the back. “Because you trusted her to get you over that fever last winter, Robert Croft!” That was Beth and Emma smiled in thanks. “Give me ‘til noon tomorrow”, she said, “If what I’ve got in mind doesn’t work by then, you can take down all of Rothwell’s fences and do what you will.” Mary squared her shoulders, about to respond but a fair number of the villagers were nodding now and Leigh, sensing the mood, interjected, “You’ve got ‘til noon tomorrow then,” he told Emma, “But no longer. After that, if nothing’s been done, well …” He grimaced and walked off, with Mary Brotherton and several others following.

Emma asked Beth to gather some of the other women she was close to and told them what she planned. One or two looked at each another and even Beth raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure about this, Emma?” she asked. Emma sighed. “Not really if I’m honest. But if it works, we’ll restore things to how they were without the need for violence.” “And if it doesn’t?” someone asked. “Then we’ll be standing alongside the men with cudgels in our hands.” Emma looked around and added “As Martin Ainsworth reminded us all, it’s not as if we haven’t done that before now, is it?!” The others nodded and Beth spoke up again, “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. Right, let’s get you what you need.”

At dawn the next day, with mist rising over the fields, the group of women waited behind the trees above the York road. “I need to pee” someone whispered. “Shhh,” Beth admonished her, “They’re almost here.” In the distance they could hear the sounds of horses trotting, men’s voices talking low. Round the corner they came, Wright and Grice riding side by side, chatting to each other, with one of Rothwell’s men in front and another behind. Emma strode down the slope and stood, hands on hips, in the centre of the road. The leading man pulled up his horse and drew his sword. “Out of the way there!” he cried, “We’re on Lord Rothwell’s business!” “I know you Matthew Parker, as I know your mother and sister,” Emma replied, “what are you about, drawing your sword on me?” Parker looked embarrassed and told Emma directly, “Look, we don’t want any trouble. We’re just to escort Master Wright here to York and that’s all.” Before Emma could reply, Grice had urged his horse forward. “Remove yourself woman!” he commanded, “Or else I’ll be forced to order these men to run you down.”

At that, the other women emerged from the trees, some armed with cudgels, others with staffs. The horses shifted nervously and the men twisted and turned in their saddles as the women surrounded them. The guard at the back drew his sword and crying, “Stand back there!”, slashed down at the woman nearest him, cutting her arm. She fell back as the man spurred his horse forward, only to be knocked flying by Beth’s staff. Rolling onto his back he reached to retrieve his sword and the woman he had cut smashed his hand with her cudgel. Screaming with pain, the man clutched his broken fingers. “Move again and it’ll be your head” the woman hissed. Parker simply threw his sword down and offered no resistance as he was pulled from his horse. Grice angrily brushed away the hands that reached for him and dismounted without their help.

Wright, on the other hand, although slow to react at first, had by now turned his horse and looked set to gallop back the way they had come. At that, Emma strode up and grabbed the reins, looking the horse directly in the eye. “Oh no you don’t Master Wright”, she said, raising her face to him, “You and I have some business to transact.” “I’ll be doing no business with you …” he replied but before he could finish Beth came up from the other side and yanked him down. With an expression of surprise, Wright sat in the dust, looking round at his companions, now tied and gagged.

“You’re coming with me”, Emma asserted, grabbing him by the collar. Wright made to struggle and Emma slapped him twice, hard. “You might be a man, Master Wright but you’ve been sat on your arse most of your life I’ll warrant. Whereas I’ve been working the fields and walking the woods all of mine. So come nicely or I’ll slap the living shit out of you!” Head bowed, Wright asked, “What do you want of me?” as Emma led him off the track and up the slope into the trees. Behind her the other women did the same with the horses and the rest of the men, the guard with the broken hand still weeping softly while the woman he had slashed had her cut cleaned and bound.

Once they’d come to a clearing in the woods, Emma stopped. “Now, Master Wright,” she said, “What I want with you is to undo the damage you’ve done and set things back as they were.” She bent down to a pack placed on an old stump and started to take out the contents. Wright looked at the collection of objects arrayed on the ground between the two of them and snorted “What? You think that you, some kind of hedge-witch, can reverse what I’ve done?!” Emma looked him calmly in the eye but said nothing. Instead, she stepped quickly forward and before he had time to react, she removed the folded map from the inner pocket of his coat. “Wait! No!” he cried, “Don’t touch that. It’s important!!” “Oh, I know full well how important it is to Lord Rothwell,” Emma replied, “but this land is more than just important to us.” She stopped and looked at him again, appraisingly. “I wonder if you can understand that” she mused. “Well, whether you can or not makes no difference. You may dismiss me as a hedge-witch but who do you think calved such elevated magicians as yourself, eh?”

While she’d been speaking, she had started to arrange the various items carefully on the grass. First, she laid out four white candles in a square. Within the square she set a loop of tightly wound hair, taken from all the women in the group. Unfolding the map, she then placed that within the circle and lit the candles. “Careful!” Wright cried. “Oh, I’ve no intention of burning your precious map,” Emma said, looking at him, before taking a bundle of herbs from her pack. The magician smirked and Emma paused. “And I’ve no doubt you’re thinking that candles and hair and some smelly herbs aren’t going to do the trick”, she said and laughed a little. “No, I appreciate the power you had to use, so I’ll need to counter that with some of my own.” And she took out a knife from the pocket of her skirt and quickly cut across the base of her thumb. Holding her hand above the circle she let drops of blood fall at regular intervals onto the loop of hair. Wright made to stand up but Beth grabbed his shoulders and pushed him back down onto his knees. Lighting the bundle of herbs from one of the candles Emma waved the smoke round the circle and chanted,

“A circle round, this cord was bound

And now with blood

This spell I do unbind

As I cut this thread, may the spell be dead

And so let the power cease and the land be at peace.”

Bending over the map, she then took a knife again and cut the circlet of hair before throwing the smouldering herbs high into the air. She hadn’t been at all sure what to expect – a clap of thunder and a blinding flash perhaps – but instead there was a sudden gust of wind that caused the branches to shake and some nearby crows to launch into the air, accompanied by a kind of twisting that she felt deep inside her. Wright bent his head to the ground and vomited. Beth staggered back as if she’d been struck. Rothwell’s men looked panic-stricken as Grice clutched his head, crying “What have you done, woman?!”

Emma looked down at the map and picking it up, replied, “Put things back the way they were, I reckon.” Holding the parchment in the air, she showed them all how it had been redrawn, with the meadow now restored to the correct side of the beck, the fields back where they always were, bounded by the woods as before. “The copy at the manor-house will look the same.” she announced, “Both now set down for all to see the boundaries of what is rightfully ours to use.” Wright looked up, a thin trail of vomit hanging from his lip. “And what will this avail you, hedge-witch?” he asked, “As soon as we’re done here, I’ll gather what I need and magic it back the way Lord Rothwell wants it.” “Will y’now?” Emma replied, and drew one last thing from the pack – two hammered sheets of iron. Seeing this Wright finally seemed to deflate completely and fell over on to his side, curling into a ball. Grice looked puzzled. “What do you hope to achieve with that?” he asked, “Two bits of cheap metal? How will that stop anything?”

Emma laughed again. “Not so cheap Master Grice. This is cold iron. Fallen from the sky. Kept for a significant occasion. Hammered into shape by our own smith. Master Wright here knows what this means …” And she took the map and placed it between the sheets, wrapping the cord of hair tightly around so that maps and iron were held tight. “You can tell Lord Rothwell he can send the copy to York to be held in the registry if he wants but this’ll be kept secure in the village,” she announced. “Hidden and protected and warded, so no one will be able to re-draw the land again. Our land.” She emphasised those last words and tucking the plated map under her arm, she set off through the trees. “Come on,” she said to the other women, “They’ll be able to free themselves from their own bindings soon enough.”

Not long after, Emma was strolling through the woods again, looking for mushrooms after the recent rain. With her skirt hitched up to stop it dragging through the wet grass, she came out into the meadow and stopped, shielding her eyes from the sun. There was the beck, over on the other side where it always had been, with the old oak tree standing tall. She thought back to when the women had arrived home, only to find that instead of waiting ‘til noon, William Leigh and Mary Brotherton had gone on ahead with a small group at first light, “To scout out the lay of things”, they’d said. But shortly after they’d spotted some of Rothwell’s men across the fields, making ready to fence off the land, a wind had blown up and they’d felt some kind of shift in their guts and when they’d recovered, the men were suddenly nearby, as if the distance had instantly been closed between them. For a moment the two groups had stared at each other, one with staves and hammers, the other with staffs and cudgels and then someone had shouted “It’s the devil’s play” and some had fallen to the ground, praying to God, while others scattered, villagers included. But William Leigh had stood firm and one of Rothwell’s men had stayed also, clutching a copy of the map. As Leigh had walked up to him, he had cried out, shaking the piece of paper, “This isn’t how it was!” Leigh had put his arm around the man’s shoulder then and had said, “Oh yes, it is. It’s how it always was. And always will be. As long as we have anything to do with it. You go and tell your Lord and Master that.”

Emma thought that no doubt William had embellished the telling of it some but also that there was no harm in that. He’d nodded respectfully at her when she’d returned with the other women and together they’d found a place to secure the iron-clasped map. “Will it always stay bound?” he’d asked her. She’d thought a little. “Iron rusts,” she’d replied, “Spells decay. But I reckon that as long as we’re bound to this land, it’ll hold.” Striding across the meadow, with the warmth of the sun on her face and the sound of the beck up ahead, she smiled to herself and thought, “And we are bound to the land, just as it is to us.”

Steven French is a retired academic who lives in Leeds, West Yorkshire, U.K. He has had a number of short stories and pieces of flash fiction published in venues such as 365Tomorrows, Bewildering Stories, Idle Ink, Liquid Imagination, Literally Stories and elsewhere.

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