Poetry
Bejeweled by Brandy Reinke
But,
you fuck me like penance.
[I am Good. I am Good. I am Good.]
Tongue
around
around
around
bejeweled fingers of the pope swirling a goblet of blood,
before swallowing [Absolution].
bruises around my neck: a departing gift,
remnants I bare,
I bear [The Sin].
CARIBOU #1 by Morgan Ziegenhorn
Just when you think
you’re used to
the temperature,
the fog rolls in,
and you notice
how quiet it’s gotten.
The town could be
in any direction
from here; the airport,
the whale bones
jutting up
the coastline
you feel the ache of it
in your own jaw,
like someone is pulling
you northward
by the mouth.
She doesn’t know it,
but you’ll get to her
by morning. Crawling through
the gusts of white
the ground and the sky
have switched, smothering
each other, and under
your blue hands,
half-buried in snow,
is a field of dead
caribou, waiting to thaw out
with the earth.
Who Was It by My Side by Rose Strode
Looking
over my shoulder
as we arrived at that terrible farm the farm
that owned
my ancestors: bootsucking mud grey rain
rubbish and stubble.
Bawling on the ground–
what I took to be
a black
calf
starving
dragging herself
as if she could crawl out of pain
like a snake from its whithered stocking of skin.
From her vulva two legs protruded
hooving
the ground a second calf dragging a head a body
the inside
of the outer calf adhered to the one emerging
turning her m/other self in side out She’s dead
Who Was At My Shoulder said
though it wasn’t true I could see her th/in sides heaving
I tried to go to her to them
but Who Held Me Back and then
the inner calf at last squeezed free and stood shivering
and mooing for her mother for anyone but never turned around to see
the crumple that had been the outer one the dam the twin
the prolapsed sack of the past
Gingerbread Girl by Elizabeth Rae Bullmer
Mother always said I was a sweetie. Sugared
green eyes, spicy cinnamon smile. I was soft,
doughy— too much molasses in my blood.
They said I lacked snap, the kind of girl who left
crumbs behind. Summer was never my season,
the heat made my skin sticky, and my melting
smile slid into an unflattering slant.
Not sure why anyone needed to comment
on my missing gumdrop buttons. Or how
my red lips should have been my eyes. Why
didn't I have shiny silver balls for teeth?
Every winter, Mother offered to ice me
properly, but I must have tasted just fine—
everybody took a bite.
Prose
Dead Car by Alan Brickman
​
The engine seized up with a metallic clang and a hiss of steam, then the car just died. Frank found himself on a poorly lit road, miles from anywhere, with over a foot of snow still on the ground from last week's storms. He looked at his phone: no cell service. Figures, he thought, I'm in the middle of nowhere.
Frank had been visiting his high school friend Rick, who he hadn't seen in a while and who lived in an old farmhouse almost three hours from the state line. It was a chance to catch up but it was also a condolence call. Rick's twenty-something son had died of a Fentanyl overdose about a month ago, and Frank thought he might be able to offer his old friend some comfort. He thought it might be a welcome distraction for Rick, long divorced and living alone, to see an old friend from high school, before kids, before Fentanyl, before the innumerable challenges and heartbreaks of middle age. A distraction and a condolence call, a helpful thing to do. The right thing to do.
Rick opened the farmhouse door and gave Frank a half-smile that lasted about as long as it took Frank to notice it. Rick had been sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of tequila and a small Mason jar he was using as a glass. He got a second Mason jar from a high cabinet and poured Frank a shot. His eyes were red and swollen from crying.
"I loved my three boys," Rick said in a near whisper. "But if I'm being honest, Cody was my favorite." He shook his head. "I've never said that to anyone." Rick sipped his drink and looked away. "I should have seen it coming. I should have realized that what I originally saw as an enviable sense of fun and appetite for experience would grow into the recklessness with drugs that killed him." Frank never had children of his own, and knew he'd never really understand the depth of Rick's pain. Frank couldn't tell if confessing all this was comforting or painful for Rick. Probably both.
Rick reached for the photo album that was open on the table so he could show some old pictures to Frank and tell anecdotes about Cody. The time he hitchhiked to Albuquerque when he was twelve. Once when he convinced a group of his friends to sneak into an amusement park after midnight. They figured out how to start the Ferris wheel, then got stuck at the top and had to be rescued the next morning. After each story, Rick would laugh, then cry, then sit quietly and sip his drink. The rollercoaster of grief.
"You can't blame yourself," said Frank. "You were a good father. You did the best you could." Frank was doing the best he could, knowing that you only stave off grief's despair the way addicts battle their cravings, one endlessly long day at a time.
After a few hours, Frank didn't want to leave, but he had to get back home. The temperature had dropped and the sun was low on the horizon. "It'll be a hard freeze tonight," Rick said as they stood on the front porch. "It was good to see you. Come back whenever you want. I'll be here." Rick hugged Frank hard and wouldn't let go. Frank felt him sobbing, then cried himself as he walked to his car.
Now that Frank was stuck on these snowy back roads with a dead car, his ears still ringing from all the talk of death and grief, it was impossible for him not to think about perishing himself out here in the cold. Hypothermia, frostbite, torn apart and devoured by wolves. It was unnerving the way these icy winter nights held a power that was so much like death – otherworldly, omnivorous, insatiable.
As Frank pulled up the zipper of his coat, he worried that he wasn't dressed warmly enough.
He positioned and knotted a wool scarf to shield his neck and ears, and put on his gloves. He hit the button on the dashboard for the flashers, and stepped outside. A blast of frigid air and blowing snow strafed his cheek like sandpaper. He took a deep breath and felt his nose hairs freeze. He calculated that there was no more than an hour of daylight left. He'd been driving for about forty-five minutes,
and wasn't sure if it was better to walk back in the direction he'd come from, or continue in the way he was going. He chose to go forward. He walked along the side of the road, trying to stay hopeful in the face of his daunting circumstances and natural pessimism. He did not have the proper footwear for this particular moment and his feet began to sting from the cold. It was as if they were on fire. The wind howled so loudly that several times he turned and expected to see a truck barreling towards him, but all he saw were the lengthening shadows of snow drifts.
He considered going back to sit in his car when he saw a pair of headlights coming up over the hill ahead. It was a small red pick-up, driving slowly and erratically toward him. He tried to wave the driver down with both arms over his head, and the truck stopped about twenty feet in front of him. Frank figured the driver was sizing him up. He walked toward the pick-up, but the driver blinked his headlights and tapped the horn. "Can you help me out?" Frank yelled into the wind. "My car died. It's back there about two hundred yards."
The driver began to back up slowly, as if he was afraid of Frank, or generally wary, or lost, or confused. Maybe crazy, who knows? Frank approached, yelling louder this time, "Can you help me out? My car died. It's back there about two hundred yards."
The driver leaned on his horn so Frank would back off, then executed a quick and sloppy three-point turn, hitting the piles of plowed snow on both sides of the road. He sped off, his tires throwing snow and rocks at Frank.
What the hell?! Frank thought. What is with people? He rubbed his arms and shoulders for warmth and kept walking. Soon, another set of headlights appeared, and Frank waved his arms again, trying to affect an urgency that might spark a stranger's altruism. This time, the driver slowed, rolled down his window, and pulled alongside Frank.
"Howdy neighbor," the driver said. He was wearing a wool cap with ear flaps. "What are you doing out on a day like this? It's colder than a witch's broomstick."
"Can you help me out?" Frank said. "My car died. It's back there about two hundred yards."
"What?" said the driver. He shrugged and smiled, revealing a mouthful of stained teeth that seemed to have been lodged in his gums at random angles. "I don't hear so good." He cuffed his hand to his ear.
"Can you help me out?" Frank said a little louder. "My car died. It's back there about two hundred yards."
"A shark cried about two black cards?"
Oh no, Frank thought. He's deaf, or mostly deaf. Maybe he just can't hear me over the wind's howl, which seems to have gotten worse in the dying light. He leaned in and yelled into the man's ear, "My car died! I need a ride to a service station, or somewhere I can make a phone call. Can you help me?"
"The czar lied a nervous mayday? Some hair makes a bone crawl? You're not making any sense, young man. No sense at all. Good luck to you." And with that, the man rolled up his window and drove off. Frank was incredulous. He rubbed his eyes.
After a few seconds, a pick-up truck came over a small rise and fish-tailed as it skidded to a stop about twenty feet from Frank. With motor still running, two men got out. One of them held a rifle at his side.
"What are you doing out here?" the man with the rifle said. Before Frank could answer, the man bellowed, "Get the hell out of here! We don't want no one on these roads right now, got me?"
Frank took two steps toward the men. "My car died. I need...," but again he could finish his sentence. The man raised his rifle and pointed it at Frank. "Stop right there or you're gonna get it right in the chest! If you know what's good for you, you'll get the fuck out of here!"
The men got back in the truck. The driver flicked on the hi-beams and then drove straight at Frank. He dove out of the way and landed in a snow drift. The truck sped past him, then disappeared around a bend in the road.
What the fucking hell! Frank thought. He had come out here on a mission of mercy, to help his friend Rick, and now he was the one who needed help, and he wasn't getting any.
A gust of wind sent a shiver though Frank's whole body. He turned and began to walk back to his car. He put his arms out and yelled up into the trees, "Can someone, anyone, help me out? My car died. It's back there about two hundred yards." He heard only the wind, and it too offered nothing.
Sharma’s Kitchen by Catherine Shukle
​
I left my heart at Sharma’s Kitchen last September, birthed it out from between my legs: pureed, pulsating, scathingly red. My husband, out of courtesy, pretended not to notice, and I wiped what I could with a napkin, scooped it up with the fallen dribbles of curried eggplant and the crusted remnants of someone else’s basmati rice. This wasn’t unexpected, of course, because I had been
spotting peach and pink for nearly a week, and I had felt the deep heavy dropping as it began to loosen its latch, arteries and valves sliding syrupy down into my gut, and then, with a wail, dropping face-first into my uterus, fists-clenched. And when I paged the on-call doctor the next morning, at his daughter’s cross-country meet, he explained
the diagnosis: spontaneous abortion
like an exploded tomato, a sudden wind that rips half-ripened fruit from the vine. I closed my eyes and listened to the whoops and cheers of the parents through the static of the receiver. But, by that time, my heart was already gone, balled up into a paper napkin, left on the buffet plates
with the chewed-off chicken bones and half-eaten samosas.
Nearly a year later, we are tucked into a table by the thick-draped window, holding hands and forks, a patch of late August light slicing through a crack, flaming our faces. We eat garlic naan and try to drink our goblets of water before the ice cubes melt. Two tables away, there is a woman with eyes like mine, her dark hair coiling over an inflated breast, and she is laughing at her husband, clutching a newborn baby to her body like he is trying to take it from her. When the waiter, stumbling, asks if it is a boy or girl, the dad smiles proudly: boy—and thumps his chest. The woman, blushing, glances at me and pulls her child closer into herself. I think, perhaps, she winks. The baby looks the age of my unborn child, and, for a moment,
I think that it is mine, that she is me,
and that she is sitting there, spooning up soupy rice pudding, spitting out the raisins, coyly holding my child to her chest.
How spontaneous, then, how shocking, that something inside me begins to ache. My husband, recognizing a look that he hasn’t seen since September, his vigilance sharp and protective now, responds swiftly. With a butter knife, he reaches under the stained white tablecloth and makes a deliberate swipe through my skin. With one stroke, he cuts a line between my belly button and pubic hair, grips the slick knife in his right hand and pulls out my uterus with the left. He lifts it up to show me, steaming, buzzing like the chicken kebobs sizzling on the table,
a red triangle of emptiness.
The pain is gone then, replaced by a slow, dull bleed, and I sit there, calmly, feeling the year run out of me, the grief and loss leeching from my body into the plum carpet at my feet. Later, snuggled in our car in the parking lot of Sharma’s Kitchen, my husband will help me wipe the wound with a smuggled white napkin; we’ll clean the opening with a salve of hope. But, for now, I watch my husband, his hands cupped, carry my pain to the buffet, place it, tenderly, into the empty chafer between the bubbling goat curry and the fried cauliflower crisps that we both love so much.
Girls' Night by Xandra Kaste
​
There was a bird in the house. Someone—probably Ava—had left the French doors open to the backyard, and as Cynthia closed them, she was certain a bird chirped in the other room.
But after an hour of sneaking around downstairs, she was ready to give up, pop open one of the cans of wine she'd chilled, and watch Call the Midwife.
As Cynthia opened the fridge, a muffled shriek came from the living room. Since Madison had returned from college for summer break, all the girls did was wrestle for the remote. The pitch of their voices ran needles into her neck, and she was ready to storm into the other room and ground them both when a realization struck her: both the girls were home, and her husband was on a business trip.
Cynthia plopped her nail painting kit onto the ottoman. “We’re having a girls’ night!”
Madison and Ava had settled their differences and were tucked into the folds of the couch. They looked at her with faint distaste. “We’re in the middle of a show,” Ava told her.
They were watching one of those cartoons they liked that made Cynthia feel so old.
"Finish it later," Cynthia said in a tone that didn't invite discussion. The girls would appreciate this one day; they didn't know what they had.
She gave the girls pedicures in the living room, then they hobbled upstairs to put on face masks in the master bathroom. Madison was quiet as she patted the mask into place, and Cynthia gave her a sidelong glance. She had barely spoken at all about college, and it was making Cynthia insane. Silently, she set down two of the cans of wine and cracked them open, passing one to Madison. Madison smiled and tipped the can back through the small opening in the mask.
Ava looked on, outraged. “Why don’t I get one?”
“You’re literally 12,” Madison said.
“Yeah, well, you’re 18, and I’m going to call the police.”
All Cynthia wanted to do was take Ava by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled, but she calmly said, “You can have a sip of mine now, and when you’re 18, you can have one too.”
Mollified, Ava took a sip, grimaced, and went back to playing Nintendogs.
The time was right. Cynthia cleared her throat and said, “Did you meet anyone interesting in your classes this year? Anyone smart or funny?”
“Not really,” Madison said. “It was all boring freshman intro courses, though, so no one really stood out.”
With the white mask over Madison’s face, Cynthia couldn’t read her expression. She took the risk and plunged in. “I still think you should rush.”
“Mom, we’ve talked about this.”
“I know we’ve talked about it, but all I’m saying is I met my best friends in my sorority. I’m still friends with them. It’s just—it’s hard to find the right kind of people outside Greek life.”
Madison’s head jerked back. “What do you mean ‘right kind of people’?”
Cynthia rolled her eyes. “Don’t be like that. I mean, like your friends from high school.”
Madison sat on the vanity counter, pulled out her phone, and said flatly, "I guess I'll think about it again."
"Thank you. I appreciate it." Cynthia stared hard at the back of Madison's phone. After taking another swig of her wine, she asked brightly, "Who wants to do makeovers?"
Ava groaned loudly, “Mom, do I have to?" God, it was going to be every little thing tonight.
“Yes,” Cynthia said through her teeth.
“It’s good to practice, so when you finally decide you want to wear makeup, you don’t look like a clown.”
After more loud complaints, Ava was finally prevailed upon at least to try out mascara. Madison did her eyes and lips with the speed and ease of long practice, then dug through her mother’s jewelry, choosing a pair of gold hoop earrings. “Let me look at you,” Cynthia said, and Madison did a little twirl. She looked good. Too good, almost, Cynthia thought with a pang of jealousy, but all she said was, “Those earrings are beautiful on you, but that shade of lipstick makes you look like a hussy.”
“Mom! I like this shade.”
“You look cheap,” Cynthia said with a shrug as she turned to the mirror. Madison wiped the lipstick off and flounced out of the bathroom.
Cynthia called after her, “Don’t leave! We’re watching a movie together!” Now there was only Ava squirming on the edge of the bathtub. She moved to rub her eyes as Cynthia applied mascara.
“Don’t touch!”
“But they itch!”
“You’ll smear it, and I’ll have to do it again.”
“Why do I have to wear this at all?”
Cynthia sat back on the bathroom counter and rubbed at the returning headache. “Because I said so. End of.” Looking at Ava’s face, she softened. “You look lovely. You’re growing up into a woman.”
“I don’t understand why I have to do this. I hate it.”
Cynthia sighed and moved to sit next to Ava. "How you look matters. Never forget that. What you have in here," she tapped Ava's head, "doesn't matter unless people look at you and decide you have something to say. It's just reality. I wouldn't...let's just say I wouldn't be where I am in life if I hadn't been pretty when Dad and I met. It's work, like a lot of things in life, but otherwise you get passed over and forgotten. No one cares what the ugly, smart girl has to say. But being the pretty, smart girl, that's power." She kissed Ava on the head, then pulled back and looked at her, critically. "You still need some jewelry. You really need to let me take you to Claire's to pierce your ears."
“I already told you I don’t want to.”
"Fine, fine!" Cynthia raised her hands in defeat, then clapped as she remembered. "I know the perfect thing. I was going to wait until your thirteenth birthday but tonight feels right."
Cynthia took out a jewelry box from the bathroom closet and dug through it before pulling out a necklace with a silver bird's nest pendant holding two pearl birds' eggs. "This is part of a set that my mother gave me when I was your age. Madison has the earrings."
“Grandma did?” Ava perked up.
Cynthia ignored the comment and stepped back to admire the effect. "Wow," she sighed, tearing up a little. "You really look just like I did at your age. Madison looks more like your dad. It always feels special to look at you and see myself."
Ava didn’t need to know she had bought those ‘heirloom’ pieces at a pawnshop when Madison was three, so she’d have something to give them. They joined Madison on the bed, where she was scrolling through Netflix. Without making eye contact, Madison said, “I want to watch The Princess Diaries 2.”
Ava was primed to disagree, and almost before Madison had finished her sentence, she said, “That sounds stupid. I want to watch the Dark Crystal.”
Their voices finally pushed her headache into the back of her head. “I’m going to make popcorn,” Cynthia said, voice measured. “If you can’t decide, I’m going to choose.”
As the popcorn popped, Cynthia grabbed another wine can, threw it back, and stared unblinking at the spinning plate. She could hear the girls bickering even downstairs. It was only nine, but the evening was already a failure.
How had her mother handled her when she’d been a teen? Cynthia had to laugh when she realized what she was thinking. Her mother hadn’t even known or cared where she was as long as she wasn't in jail or pregnant. Any mental image of her mother was from a distance and always through a haze of cigarette smoke. No matter how often Cynthia begged her not to, she always smoked as she cooked dinner. All their food had a caustic aftertaste. The yellow, green light from the fixture shining on her homework. The TV playing in the background. Her mother’s ugly, worn-out, arthritic hands.
When the microwave beeped and went dark, her mother’s face stared out at her from the dark glass. Cynthia jumped back. “Jesus!” Scared by her own reflection. Idiotic. That facelift couldn’t come soon enough.
The microwave beeped again, bringing her back to the present. She took the popcorn from the microwave and listened to see if the girls were still arguing. Their shrill voices echoed around the landing. Cynthia sighed and kneaded her temples; her headache wasn’t going away.
She heard a distinct chirp from the other room and sprang to attention.
“I knew it. I f- I knew it.”
Popcorn forgotten, she crept out of the kitchen into the foyer, her pulse throbbing in her head. There it was again, coming from the dining room.
A twitter drew her eyes upward. A sparrow perched on the chandelier.
"Shit," Cynthia said, then looked around reflexively to see if either of her daughters were in earshot. Looking back at the bird, she put her hands on her hip and addressed him sternly: "You can't stay up there, buddy. You're cute, but your poop isn't."
Cynthia went to the kitchen and found a broom. A door in the dining room let out into the side yard. She opened it wide and felt the whoosh of hot air leaving the house. Her stomach clenched, and she forced herself not to care about letting the heat out. She tapped the ceiling with the broom's handle and said coaxingly, "Come on, bird. Let's got a move on." It hopped around the chandelier, cocking its head at her. With the other side of the broom, Cynthia swept at the bird, trying to get it to fly out the door. It evaded her, fluttering in a maddening circle.
Holding the broom up was tiring her arms out, and she suddenly remembered the abandoned popcorn. She gave the bird a dirty look and went upstairs.
“There’s a bird in the dining room,” Cynthia announced to her daughters.
“Aw, cute,” Madison said, scrolling through her phone.
“No, not cute once it poops everywhere,” Cynthia admonished her. “And the cleaning lady doesn’t come until Monday.” She perched on the side of the bed. “I’m not going to worry about it, though. I left the back door open so hopefully it’ll fly out on its own.”
They started the movie. Cynthia was restless—more so than her daughters, who were both absorbed in their own devices as Ella Enchanted played in the background. Twenty minutes in, she rose. The girls looked up at her, and Madison moved to pause the movie. Cynthia raised her hand. “You don’t have to pause. I just want to go see if that bird is gone.”
As she walked down the stairs, Cynthia's skin crawled as she thought about that dirty creature flying around her perfect house, ruining everything.
When Cynthia reached the base of the stairs, she strained her ears. The downstairs was quiet except for the rustling of the trees outside. She opened the door to the dining room a crack and looked around. No movement. She sighed with relief, closed the side door, and moved toward the stairs.
But then, there it was again. The bird was sitting perched above the front door, its head cocked, looking at her, angling its head from side to side to peer at her with its beady black eyes.
And Cynthia would have sworn the devil himself looked out at her. She grabbed the broom and lunged at the bird, swatting wildly, hitting the wall, as it evaded her with ease, mocking her. She let out a stifled cry and swung out again.
The movie was nearly over, and their mother still had not returned. Madison hadn’t registered her absence, absorbed in a text conversation about nothing, but as the music swelled for the finale, she snapped back into focus.
“Is Mom still downstairs?”
“I don’t know,” Ava mumbled, not looking up from her DS.
Madison pushed herself off the bed and stuck her head out the door. “Mom?” There was no response. Unsettled, Madison walked to the head of the stairs and called again. “Mom?”
After a pause, she heard her mother say, “I’m down here.” The downstairs was dark, and Madison had to squint to make out her mother’s outline. She groped at the wall to find a switch, bathing the downstairs in light.
“Don’t! Turn it off!”
Madison turned the lights off with a start, but it was too late. In the second the light had been on, she’d seen her mother sitting splayed on the floor, a broom clutched in her hand. Next to her was a small bloody heap of feathers. All this Madison registered in the moment of brightness. In the darkness again, she stood breathing hard.
“I’ll be back up in a moment,” came Cynthia’s controlled voice.
“Do you need any help?”
“No!” and a beat later, “Thank you, but no. I’ve got it under control.”
"Okay, mama." Madison went to her room. After sitting on the side of her bed looking at
Nothing, she turned on her TV to a sitcom and lay staring at the ceiling light.
Her whole life, her mother had been many things: controlling, enraging, and encouraging, but until that moment, when their eyes met across the body of the dead bird, Madison had never seen her mother as another person distinct from herself.
Her mother's eyes had been so wide, and she'd had this weird expression on her face that Madison couldn't put her finger on. But as she drifted off to sleep with the television still mumbling in the background, she put a name to it without wanting to. Her mother's face had been triumphant.
Briny Midder by Rosie Beech
​
My goddess was created, hewn and carved into existence, like the ships that sail across her oceans.
The knife hacked into the knuckles of her left hand. Her shriek was stolen by the storm. Her father
brought the knife down again, severing her first and middle finger entirely. The blood sprayed
across his desperate face. She scrabbled to regain her grip. The blood made it slick. The salt water
burned the bleeding stumps. She tried to pull herself up but the boat was pitching wildly. It took
everything just to hang on. Down came the knife. Searing pain. Another finger lost. Again. A gash
in her hand. Again. White bone and exposed tendon. She clung on with her remaining digits. She
screamed for him to stop. It didn’t reach him. It wouldn’t have mattered if it had. A crunching
slice. Her last line cut. She was swept away faster than thought.
The fathoms sucked her down, gulped into the lifeless dark. She hadn’t taken a last breath. Her
lungs and wounds were on fire. She wasn’t drowning. She was burning to death. The hollow lack
of air felt like hooks had caught on all of her ribs and the threads were being pulled towards the
centre of her chest. She would not breathe. She refused. Was her vision failing or was it the growing
darkness? Her mind felt like it was coming untethered. Her thoughts mirrored the storm above. In
the tumult she became aware of an unfamiliar pattern. A voice, not her own, not a memory, not
one she recognised. It wasn’t even a language that she knew. But it was calling a name. Not hers,
but it still belonged to her. With the voice there was a scratching feeling on her bones. She tried to
focus on it.
Briny Midder, please bless this ship. I’ve carved your sign into its bow, stern, bilge and mainmast.
I look like an absolute pillock right now. Hiding in a sodding corner praying. But dad would kill me
if I launched this ship without a proper send off. I don’t know if you’re even listening. I’ve worked so
hard on her. I’ve had to prove myself again and again to even get a chance of working in this yard.
I’ve worn my hands hard as leather and my lungs are full of splinters. I’m paying for this ship with
my blood, every slip and scrape. If you’re there, if you’re listening, take it all. If you’ll keep her afloat
then it’s a sacrifice willingly paid.
For god's sake what am I even doing.
The deeper she sank, the more words she understood. She wasn’t sure how far she had fallen. Her
finger stumps left dark trails of blood, like she was still clawing for grip. She was so tired, could
almost drift off. But the voice held her there. She needed to keep listening. If this man was not just
the spark of a dying mind then why was he calling to her? Before now the only boats she knew were
the corricles of skin or wood that could carry a family at most. And yet, as the words untangled
themselves in her mind, she knew in perfect detail every bar and strut of great ships that took a
whole forest to build. Every inch of them that sea spray could reach, spraying high to the crows
nest or seeping in between the planks. And hidden in their bones was a carved sign, careful or
hurried and profunct. And she knew that it marked the ship as hers. How could that be? This voice
felt like oxygen. Sustaining her. She still hadn’t taken a breath.
If the fish don’t come back soon then we’ve all had it. If the lads can't get the haul in then they won’t
have the money for boat repairs, let alone any new ones. Dad just keeps saying ‘the tide always turns.’
But he’s worried. He tries to hide it but I know he is. This winter won't end. God help me. But then, I
suppose you did this in the first place, didn’t you? What did we do, Briny Midder? Did we take it for
granted? Are you really that petty and cruel?
Petty. Then what does that make me? All I can do is pace this sodding shore line and blame all my
misfortunes on something bigger.
Dad said they used to throw part of the catch back after every haul to thank you. Appease you. Gulls
would follow the boat because they knew it was coming. Sacrifices going straight to the scavengers. I bet
that’s why they stopped doing it. But maybe that was you. Maybe you can’t help because we’re not
giving anything back? You’re passed out somewhere on the sea bed, absolutely knackered and starving
while we’re all screaming at you for help. Tide goes out, comes back in. Push, pull. Give and take. I’ll
give it if I can.
She had no sense of how much time had passed. Minutes or years. The voice was feeding
something inside her, marrow singing, blood warming. Something floated into her line of sight.
Indistinct, horribly familiar, out of place. One of her fingers was drifting above her. She stretched
her palm out, lining it up with where it used to be. Muscle memory tried to flex. It twitched. Her
heart stuttered. The finger curled and wriggled into life, shook itself and flickered into a small silver
scaled creature. It swam towards her using strange wings and stared with jellied, lidless eyes. It held
still in the water, micromovements to account for the currents. In absolute wonder she tried to flex
her finger again and the creature flitted and danced around her. She lifted both hands towards the
fading light and remembered how to fan them out. Life cascaded around her. Animals that she had
never seen swam into existence, growing from her severed joints. Shoals of the silver darters.
Families of dogs with tusks and tails danced around in circles. Giants sang heart-rending songs that
she heard with her bones. All of them soared around her, following the twitch and twirl of her
hands. Excitement emboldened her movements, sweeping her arm and scattering the host far
beyond her sight.
He’s dead.
Shut up, you don’t know that.
Nobody is missing this long and survives. He’s going to wash up on some shore bloated and swollen like
that blasted sheep and
Stop Stop Stop!
He knows how to handle himself, he’s experienced.
He’s old.
I’m not ready. I’m not ready for dad to just be gone. Please Briny Midder. He believed in you his
whole life. He gave himself to the sea. Please don’t take him now. I need him so much. I haven’t learnt
everything he wanted to teach me. I haven’t shown him everything I can do. Please, I’ll give you
anything, just please don’t take him. If he was here he’d just grab his tools and we’d go down to the
yard. ‘Work it out, Darach. Put your back into something. Get into the details of a carving. Tar the
decks. If you're going to have your head in the clouds then you need to have your feet planted on the
ground.’
If he is with you, please give him something to do. He can’t stand sitting idle.
Darach, that was his name. The abrasive brush of his mind was a welcome sensation now. The light
was almost completely gone. She was floating in a liquid twilight. More voices were calling in her
mind, overlapping, weaving together. Midder, keep my son safe at sea. Briny Midder, let the waves
be calm tonight. Briny Midder, Let the ship come into harbour soon. Midder, if I have to drown, then
let it be quick. Like drops of rain they all collected and flowed together, growing stronger as they
went. A river flowing into her. A new strength awoke inside her. That energy in her hands flowed
down her arms and into her legs. She struck out with them experimentally. The bones felt softer,
like cartilage. She swished them through the water, back and forth, back and forth. They looked
like they were getting longer. Her feet stretched and flattened, fluttering like fabric in the wind. On
the next pass her legs caught each other and started moving in the same direction. They, it, felt
strong and powerful, beating against the water. She swam deeper into the darkness. She let all the
chatter in her mind float by, listening for Darach’s voice.
No please god help me please I don’t want to die I don’t want to die. Can’t let go, don’t you dare let go.
Find the rope. Ignore the pain. Lash yourself tight to the mast. Stay afloat. If you’re out then you have
a chance, if you're in then you’re lost. Please just let me have that chance. I won’t let go. Give me the
strength to hold on. Midder, I’m begging you, hold me now. Bring me safe through this storm. Please
god save me please please please please.
She could feel his thoughts losing their solidity. His body was failing. She stretched her arm out
into the water and felt her reach extend far beyond her body. Through all the gulfs and straits,
hunting for the guttering light of his life. Her grip closed around something familiar. A defiant,
burning soul. She pulled it in and held it close. He was glowing like a star in this dark place. Braided
hair drifted around his head. When he opened his eyes they were wide and honest with fear.
“Midder.”
She knew him, knew him like a part of her own body. Him and all the beseeching voices in her
head. They gave themselves to her. She pulled him into her arms and sang a promise.
“You are mine. My own to protect and shelter. Living or dead, I am holding you.” She held his face
and watched for his reaction. “What will you do to live?” His expression settled. Determined.
“I will fight till I’m dashed apart by the waves.”
“Good. I need your hands. Comb my hair and gather up everything that falls out.” He looked
confused and opened his mouth, maybe to question, but stopped himself and did as he was told.
As he combed, she swept her arm across the sea bed, gathering armfuls of seaweed. She began to
twist them between her palms. ”Weave in the hair.” Together they wove the weeds and hair into
long ropes. “Knot them together, like your father taught you.” Realisation dawned on his face.
They twisted and knotted until they had made a vast fishing net. “Hold on to me.” He clung on
with a death grip. Her tail made it effortless to rise through the water. It roiled and foamed in her
wake. She crashed through the waves in a glorious burst, up into the savage storm. It tore at the sky
and raked the sea, screaming its inhuman pain. There was no fear in her now. She was hundreds of
years from the woman on that boat. With all the skill of a practiced hunter she cast her net to the
sky. The storm was unprepared. Until now it had been the undisputed predator. She caught it in
one deft motion. It howled in protest, raging and struggling to be free. She held it, bested it and
threw it down to the bottom of her realm with all the strength of a thousand prayers.
Somewhere in the wreckage of a ship, a body was floating tied to part of the broken mast. The
Midder swam alongside it and gently lowered Darach back into himself. He was unconscious with
exhaustion, but alive. She stroked his head, memorising the feeling, before pushing the mast away
from the wreckage and into the currents. She followed it with her creatures and unseen reach,
guiding it towards the shore. One day the sea would swallow him and she would consume his soul,
hold it inside herself forever. But he had more ships to build in her name. She turned and swam
back down into her kingdom and listened to the singing of souls.
When the World Was Cold by A. Z. Foreman
Ngash mberu, krik-so ton gzom mrogo-glak, "Little fire born when the world was cold
Ksoy mvuzu-dlan ton chay nglesh-u mrak You will be young as my days grow old.
Kash, kolktras mberu, kash, mberu ngash Sleep, little river-stone, sleep, little fire.
Kwon mblia pkorkan-u ka mvulu blash. Moon climbs the mountain and does not tire.
Srok lik-u tond, shur kas-u ksem torts Wind walks the valley. Wolf calls your name.
Kash, kolktras mberu, bras loko ngorts. Sleep, little river-stone, safe from the flame."
— A Kastrukoshi Lullaby
Gzom mrogo-la. "The world is cold." Tens of thousands of years ago, it was a proverbial phrase among the Kastruku. One said it in resignation, exasperation or admonition, to make the point that sometimes one simply had to accept what was, however frigidly
unpleasant: whether it was mother telling you to stop playing and go to bed, a summer turning out to be too short for safety, or a wave of blackfever killing half the people you knew by name.
Gzom mrogo-la. It is what it is.
And the world was cold. In the lands where the Kastruku walked, the winters were colder than they are today. The world brought wind and snow and hungry wolves to remind everything that walked on two legs that life was a loan against the patience of the earth. The night, too, was different: closer around the skin and the heart as the Skymother Kwon's bright face carved blue shapes on the ground.
Across that ground, Mbal Ktron now fled with only the strength of her arms and the little weight she pressed against her breast: a child—her child— half-fremdling, sleeping now but already marked for death by those who had once called Mbal Ktron sister. Mbal Ktron ran from them, her feet raw and numb, her memory filled with the taste of ash, the words that burned behind her.
Skrakho gmajaiku “Fremdling shit” her uncle spat. “Foul blood. Foul shape. Foul face. A curse. You will bring blackfever on us with this.”
The child’s father, Kigon, had been different. A stranger, yes, but a mere stranger would have been one thing. Kigon was a fremdling. Brow heavy, nose broad, skin pale. He spoke the broken Kastrukoshi of summer-traders. More than that, his words were always
slow and soft, as if the shape of the world hurt his mouth. But his hands had been gentle. She remembered the night they met, the firelight flickering on the walls of a cave known to neither of them, faded paint flickering the memories of hunts and gods no one could name. He showed her kindness and the cave’s ceiling, pressed his hand in pigment, and she pressed hers beside it, her smaller palm inside his. For a little while, that had been enough.
Now Kigon was dead. Now, she ran for her baby's life and from her own. Gzom mrogo-la. Now, the only warmth was the squirming life under her cloak of fur. The wind tore at her hair, sliced her cheeks, and filled her ears with the howl of something hunting.
Mbal Ktron's feet found the path by memory. The Kastruku had moved through these hills for seasons without number, but never so alone. She risked a glance behind—no flicker of torch, no shadow but her own. Had they given up? Or were they biding their time, letting the wild finish their work?
Night pressed in.
She had stolen food: a handful of dried berries, a strip of smoked meat, not enough.
Her daughter, barely a winter old, was a quiet child, but even now her brow furrowed in moonlight, her breath labored. Mbal Ktron murmured the old Kastrukoshi lullabies, scraps of comfort passed down through generations, instincts old as fire. When she ran out she added new words to old songs.
​
Sleep, little river-stone, sleep, little fire,
Moon climbs the mountain and does not tire.
Wind walks the valley, wolf calls your name,
Sleep, little river-stone, safe from the flame.
Stars tumble over you, touched with the snows.
Let night be a coat that Skymother sews.
Dream of the bison, dream of the bear,
Sleep, little river-stone, warm in my care.
The clan is behind us, the mountain ahead,
Let Skymother blind those who want you dead.
Sleep, little river-stone, with eyes day-clear,
Sleep, little wilding, fremdling dear.
Father is shadow, his hand is a wall,
Painted in ochre, he watches us all.
Sleep, little river-stone, mother is here,
In silence, in night where there's less to fear.
Frost on your forehead, steam in your hair,
Sleep, little river-stone, safe from the snare.
Sleep till the morning, sleep till the spring,
Mother will hold you through everything.
Each hour felt longer than the last. Mbal Ktron walked, then staggered. Another day. Another night. Another day. Another night. She tried to follow the river, remembering her father’s warnings: rivers lead you to people, or to the sea. Either could be death, but death
was always close now.
She did not think about the Kastruku. She did not think about the old woman's voice, like stones grinding together: “Blood is law.” Mbal Ktron's own blood felt thin, useless as spit, leaking from the cut on her leg, the blister on her heel. She looked down at her daughter, saw the broad brow, the big nose, the peculiar stillness. She whispered, “We are not wrong. We are not alone.”
But nights grew colder, and the stars sharp.
For another day, she walked and carried. The food dwindled. Her tongue thickened in her mouth. The sky was the color of bone. On the last day, the gods brought snowfall: at first a whisper, then a voice, then a scream. Mbal Ktron crouched beneath a rock overhang,
shivering, pulling the fur tighter around the baby who was not well.
Blackfever. Her child had blackfever. Maybe it really was a curse. Gzom mrogo-la.
She tried to suck warmth from her arms, to keep the child breathing.
It was then, with the storm howling, that she began dying.
She could no longer feel her feet. Her mind drifted in and out of waking. She thought she heard her father calling her from the riverbank, his voice lost in the rush of water. She saw her mother’s face, eyes kind but distant. Then the face changed, became the face of Kigon, quiet, strong, heavy-browed, watching her from the other side of the world.
The baby whimpered—a sound so small, it almost broke Mbal Ktron. She blinked, tried to rise, but her legs refused. Her arms were stones. She pressed the child closer, breathing what little warmth she had left into the fur, into the shivering body. She closed her
eyes and dreamed.
In her dream, she saw the cave where they once lived: its walls painted with running deer, with red handprints and black bison. She saw the other women, kneeling by the fire, laughing, telling stories in the old tongue. She saw herself as a girl, tracing the cracks in the
stone, listening to the men’s stories of monsters and gods. She saw her daughter’s hand pressed in ochre beside hers—a mark that would outlast them both.
There was a sound —a distant shout. It might have been the end; it might have been death, come in the shape of wolves. But Mbal Ktron was past caring. She held the baby, tried to rise, fell again.
The world narrowed to a point. The cold was in her bones, feasting on her. Gzom mrogo-la.
That was how they found her: a shape in the snow, a bundle of fur with a mother’s arms wrapped tight, refusing to let go. The strangers came—tall people with ash on their faces, moving quickly, speaking a language that was both new and old, a melody Mbal Ktron only half-understood. They looked at her, looked at the child, spoke softly among themselves.
One exchange she managed to make out.
Hereks-lau? (“Shay bay aluyv?”) someone said, bending close.
Lau, na kmosl-o (“Aye, shay daw braythe”) another replied.
Ho mira hoknto na hzanji. Lohapi na! ("Way kinni layve shir luyk tha. Hielf mey wet
shir!")
They carried her, rough but gentle, to a fire burning on the edge of their camp.
Someone peeled away the furs, found the baby’s flushed face, the slow, even breaths. Hands washed Mbal Ktron's wounds with warm water, pressed bark and moss to her feet, fed her sips of broth and honey. She drifted in and out, not sure if she was alive or dead.
Days passed. The storm moved on. Mbal Ktron woke to a world she did not know: strange faces, strange voices, the smell of woodsmoke and fat cooking in the fire. The people were wary, but not unkind. They brought her food, helped her stand, let her wash in the river when she was able. They asked nothing of her, not even her name.
Her daughter, too, survived—the fever that had threatened to take her broke at last. The child’s skin warmed, her eyes brightened, her small hands grasped at the air. The strangers watched the child, whispering among themselves, but no one questioned Mbal
Ktron's right to keep her.
They were the Hautloho. She began learning their names. Kero Gos, the old woman who sang to the river; Bash, the young hunter who laughed at her accent; Arum, the child with the twisted foot who brought her berries. The Hautlohosai language flowed around her,
a river she swam in slowly, gathering words and sound-correspondences like pebbles.
Winter softened. The snow retreated from the valleys, and the days grew longer, brighter. Mbal Ktron and her daughter lived on the edge of the firelight, always ready to run, but no one drove them out. The child grew, learned to crawl, to walk, to laugh. She watched
everything, her eyes full of something new.
Mbal Ktron called her Mbal Ngorts, after her own mother. Ngorts: she who is safe, the survivor.
The Hautloho accepted them in the way of people who have lost and gained too much to care about someone else's old rules. There were whispers, sometimes, about the child’s brow, her jaw, her quiet watchfulness. But Mbal Ktron saw something else—saw strength,
and calm, and a hunger for the world.
She remembered the Kastruku—their fires, their stories, the cold law of blood. She remembered her own mother, who never doubted that love and survival could coexist, if only for a time. She wondered if they mourned her, or if she was already another ghost in the
stories.
As the years passed, Mbal Ktron watched her daughter change. Mbal Ngorts was not like the other children. She was slower to speak, but quick to see, especially in low light. Her hands could shape flint in the dark with a precision that startled. She learned the mountains, learned the ways of rivers and animals, watched the stars with a gaze that seemed to know their secret. Her strength was quiet, but deep. She kept to herself more than a child normally would. Mbal Ktron remembered Kigon.
Inevitably, blackfever swept the camp. People — most especially the children —coughed, wasted, died in silence. Mbal Ngorts fell ill, but always recovered, her body holding something the others lacked. The old woman Kero whispered that the child was marked by
spirits, or blessed by the earth, or cursed—it was never clear. But Mbal Ngorts could get blackfever each time and live. She could sit and eat with the afflicted without fear for her life.
Mbal Ktron watched, half-fearful, half-proud. She remembered the words of the Kastruku, the warnings: “Something ancient must not cross the line between the blood and blood.” But Mbal Ktron saw only a child who loved the world, who learned its shape, who
survived.
Others came to the camp—wandering bands, lost hunters, people fleeing something or other. Some brought stories of tribes destroyed. Sometimes by other tribes, but often simply by blackfever. Others brought tales of gods angry at those who so much as touched a fremdling. Those who left would come away with tales of the strange child born with different eyes that no blackfever could kill.
Mbal Ktron watched the sky. She remembered the painted cave, the ochre hands, the love she had lost. She knew the world was indifferent and the gods inscrutable. Gzom mrogo-la. She knew that kindness was a thin thing, but she also knew that stories lasted longer than names. She whispered her daughter’s story into the night, knowing it would survive in other voices, in other blood.
The child became a woman, strong and silent, her eyes bright against the dusk. Others learned from her to survive their fears. The tribe grew, scattered, rejoined, carrying the story of the mother and her daughter like a hidden song.
Sometimes, when fire burned low and children grew quiet, the old ones would speak of Mbal Ktron—the woman who fled through jaws of night, who carried her child in the mountains, who survived. They spoke of Mbal Ngorts, whose blood carried something
something odd and wonderful.
The story persisted in the region as long as there were still fremdlings: a lineage that endured in the coughs and the fevers. The bright, hard eyes of children born after the names had faded.
In time, the years buried much of what Mal Ktron had saved. The world changed, as all worlds do. The wind still swept mountains, snow still fell, rivers still ran. Bones of the Kastruku and others went to dust. New tribes emerged. Fremdlings were eventually no more.
The world warmed before it got cold again. But in the warmth of new fire, new children were born who survived blackfever, as did their children.
In the laughter of children, in firelights of centuries and millennia, the mother's hope —fragile, stubborn, bright— was redeemed.
Mbal Ngorts' story didn't end when it was forgotten. Her tale, and the tale of a few others like her, went on. It continues in billions of descendants.
Remember those who loved what was different. Remember them every flu season. Blessed are the impure, for they have inherited the earth.
*****
"The broad category of virus-interacting proteins (VIPs) may comprise 30% of all adaptive amino acid changes in human proteome shared among mammals. Neanderthal origins are defined for a subset of VIPs longer than 100 kb. Most long Neanderthal-derived VIPs show recombination rates, with evidence for positive selection in Asian and European populations. Notably, Europeans had more Neanderthal-derived VIPs than Asians, suggesting the introgressions post-dated their divergence.
Various VIPs interact with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV-1), influenza virus A (IFA), and hepatitis virus C (HCV). Their gene ontology (GO) categories include “viral genome replication” and “immune effector processes”; the latter includes the toll-like receptor (TLR2), an HIV-bind ing protein that has increased expression in Neanderthal-derived expression of quantitative trait loci (eQTL). " — Trumble BC, Finch CE. The Exposome in Human Evolution: From Dust to Diesel. Q Rev Biol. 2019 Dec;94(4):333-394.
Music
Orange by Joshua Kepfer
Symphony for the Devil by Christopher Sanderson