by Eric Smith
I gathered up my books and stopped by my locker for my jacket. But it wasn’t my dad waiting in the office for me—it was Amanda. Before I could say anything, she jumped in. “Roger OD’d,” she said. “They think he took the whole bottle of pills. He’s at the hospital now. I said I’d come get you.”
I thought I was going to throw up. After all his promises last night to give up booze and pills, he took the whole bottle? I gripped her arm, forgetting that I hated her. “You have to take me to him,” I begged. “He needs me—please.”
“Of course,” she said. “Come on. My car’s outside.”
She drove a beat-up Kia with too many stickers on the back windows, Tinkerbell and daisies and If You’re Going To Ride My Ass, At Least Buy Me Dinner. “Throw your stuff in the back,” she said. “Sorry about the mess.”
But we didn’t go to the hospital. She drove us out of town, and we got on the highway. “Where are we going?” I demanded. “We need to go see my dad.”
“Your dad’s fine,” she said.
“But you said . . .”
“I needed an excuse to get you out of school,” she said. “I knew you wouldn’t come with me otherwise.”
I tried to reach for my backpack to get my phone, but she swerved the car, throwing me back into my seat. “I don’t know why you even care,” she said. “He’s not your real dad. Your real dad was some dick I used to buy weed from.”
“I knew it,” I said. “You’re her. The one who abandoned me.” After all these years, she had found me, put all the pieces together, and come for me. I thought I should be grateful, feel loved even. But instead, I felt as if I was turning into a black hole, shrinking inward until nothing would be left.
“How about being a little grateful?” she said. “The one who let you have a nice, boring, middle-class life with those people?”
“Please take me back to Roger,” I begged. “He’ll be worried about me.”
“Do you know how long I searched for you?” she said. “Five years. Couldn’t go to the cops . . . they had a warrant out for my arrest. For abandoning your sorry ass. I didn’t abandon you. I didn’t leave you at some gas station with a dirty diaper. I picked a nice family to take care of you while I got my shit together. But do they see that? Nope. Hell, you don’t even see it, you ungrateful little bitch.”
“So why did you give me up in the first place?” I asked.
“Because I lived in a shit apartment with no job,” she said. “I had a chance to go to Florida with my boyfriend, but he didn’t want you around. I was trying to better your life. But fuck, Zoe, I missed you. Dumped his ass, moved back here to try and find you. But I didn’t even know that bitch’s name.”
“Her name is Clarice, and don’t you dare call her a bitch!” I cried. “She loved me!”
“I love you, too, don’t you see that?” she insisted. “I love you so much I let you go, like that shitty Sting song. But now I got a job, we can be together. We’ll be best friends. Hell, I can even move in with you and Roger. He seems like a good guy. The pills help. I knew he wouldn’t be able to drive after he took one, so I followed you guys to Pizza Hut. Your mom’s pretty clever, huh?”
I knew it. I knew she had followed us, set all this in motion just to get close to us. “You stay away from him,” I said. “You could have killed him.”
“He was supposed to die in the accident,” she said with the same casual tone I used to describe a normal day at school. “We would have been able to be together a lot sooner if it had all gone as planned.”
“You caused that accident?” I said. “You bitch! You killed my mom!”
She swerved the car again. I hit my head on the window. “Don’t you raise your voice to me,” she said. “You’re too big for me to spank, but don’t think I can’t kick your sorry ass if you talk shit to me. They fuckin’ spoiled you.”
I was shaking. My head hummed with the blow from the window. She turned the CD player on. Of course she liked Nickelback. She sang along off-key, smiling at me. “Mother-daughter road trip,” she said. “This will be fun.”
“Where are we going?” I asked. I had to call Roger, call the police, tell them everything Amanda told me. I had to get away from her.
“My mom’s house,” she said. “It’s in New Jersey. You’ll like it. They got a T.J. Maxx nearby, and this Chinese nail salon where you can get a mani-pedi for, like, twenty bucks. We’ll get matching ones.”
“Please just take me home,” I said.
“I am taking you home,” she said. “Don’t you remember? Grammy gave you that big teddy bear? Mr. Snuffles? That’s where you belong, not some bullshit suburb.”
New Jersey. That was hundreds of miles away from Roger, from my life and my school and my friends. I had to get away from her now. “I have to go to the bathroom,” I whined.
“Why didn’t you go before we left the school?”
“I thought I could go at the hospital,” I said. “Please pull over—I’m about to have an accident.”
She rolled her eyes and yanked the car to the side of the road. I got out of the car and opened the back door. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she asked.
“I need a tampon,” I said.
Her eyes welled up with tears. I felt suddenly gross. “My little baby is all grown up,” she said. “My little girl is a woman now.”
I grabbed my backpack and fled into the woods. I found my cell phone, but there wasn’t much reception. I shot off a text to Roger. Amanda kidnapped me. Killed Clarice. On route to NJ. Please send help. I love you.
“Zoe, you done?” she called. “Come on, baby, I haven’t got all fucking day!”
I stuffed my phone in my bra. It was still on silent from school. I grabbed my hoodie from my backpack to hide the lump. “Thanks,” I said as I got back into the car. “I feel much better.”
She hugged me. “Come on, we’ll go to Burger King, like old times. You used to love eating all my french fries; you’d get ketchup all over your little face.”
I took my time with my lunch. The more time we were in one location, the more time the cops had to reach us. Amanda chattered for a few minutes, then took to her phone. She made us take a selfie, and I tried to smile. It was all evidence. She’d probably be dumb enough to post where we were.
But her patience grew thin quickly. “Hurry up,” she said. “I’m sorry it’s not a fancy four-course meal like Roger and Clarice probably served you, but come on, we’ve got someplace to be.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that they didn’t let me have fast food. Everything had to be organic and healthy.” It was a sort-of lie; they cooked at home most of the time, but they didn’t freak out if I had McDonald’s with a friend. But I knew I had to buy time. Fighting her didn’t do me any good. I had to make her think I wanted to be here with her until I could escape.
“Figures,” she said. “They fucking thought they were better than us. Imma go outside for a smoke. If you want more, go ahead and get something. My treat.” She threw a five down and stood up. “Don’t take all day.”
As soon as she was gone, I got out my phone. Called police. Help on the way. I love you. Hang in there.
I heard sirens. Amanda came in, cigarette still in her mouth. I dropped my phone and she saw. “You bitch!” she said. “You fucking bitch, you called him, didn’t you?”
“Ma’am, we don’t allow that kind of—” stammered a manager who didn’t look much older than me.
“Shut the fuck up!” she snarled. “Don’t tell me how to raise my kid!”
The sirens grew louder. I yanked myself out of her hold. She slugged me, and I hit my head on a booth. I stumbled, blackness closing in. The sirens stopped. Had they passed us by?
I thought I heard Roger’s voice, but there were so many others that I couldn’t be sure. I put my head on the cool tile floor. Someone
tried to pick me up, but I weighed a thousand pounds. The voices got farther away. The eyes in my nightmares closed and were gone.
I woke up in a hospital bed. Roger was sitting in a chair next to me. “Hey, kiddo,” he said, stroking my hair. “You gave me quite a scare.”
“Where’s Amanda?” I demanded. “Is she here? Is she watching us?”
“Shh, relax. She’s not here. Totally different hospital. The cops took her into custody. You’re safe. It’s just me. You got a nasty bump on your head, but you’re okay.”
I started to cry. I thought about Clarice, about the accident, about how much time Roger spent in hospitals. He sat on the edge of my bed and put his arm around my shoulder, kissing my head. It hurt, but I didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into my hair. “I’m sorry for all of this. This was all my fault.”
I drifted back into sleep. The doctors sent me home the next day, but I don’t remember leaving the hospital. Roger carried me up to bed, and I slept with the sounds of him puttering around downstairs. I woke only to use the bathroom. He promised me Pizza Hut when I felt up to it, but I never wanted to eat there again. We went to Steak ’n Shake instead.
When we got home, there were flowers on the doorstep. “Must be from your classmates,” he said, handing me the card. “You’ll be able to go back to school tomorrow.”
But it wasn’t from my classmates. The card had three typed words on it.
Mama loves you.
Libby Cudmore worked at temp agencies and record stores before settling down in Upstate New York to write full-time. Her debut novel, The Big Rewind (William Morrow, February 2016), was hailed as “smart, poignant, and addicting,” (Kristi Belcamino, Blessed Are the Dead). Her short stories have been published Pank, The Big Click, The Stoneslide Corrective, and Big Lucks. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing and makes all her own notebooks.
“Where we come from is as much a part of our journey as where we’re going . . . even if sometimes the answer we find about our past is difficult. I’m honored to be part of an anthology that celebrates the discovery, for good and for ill, and the love of the people who guide us down that road.”
A Kingdom Bright and Burning
by Dave Connis
Inside: 2/7/15
Though it was my kingdom, I didn’t know the king.
I didn’t know anyone in it, really. I’d built everything I saw, but I’d never talked to a single soul. I couldn’t be seen. I was too afraid of the citizens. Afraid they’d realize I was the one who built it, and then they’d leave, and then I’d really be alone.
I built the kingdom’s first tower out of stones I pulled from a quarry hidden in the deep of the Western Forest, and travelers passing through have always gathered around that tower at night. Something about the stones, maybe their strength and solidity, called to them. The tower gave them a comfort I’d spent my whole life trying to find.
Ironically, I built the kingdom hoping that, eventually, I’d find comfort or belonging in it somewhere. Maybe in the corner of Mickey Cobbler’s shop in the village square, or in watching a bard in the Rusted Root Tavern. I thought maybe the correct combination of timber and rock would get me somewhere, but it didn’t, no matter how much I built.
After all these years, I’m no closer to finding what I’m looking for than I was when I started. That was why I’d never go meet them. The travelers, I mean. I couldn’t bear to look them in the eye knowing they’d found what I wanted. Instead, I just watched them from my favorite tree, an ancient oak. The tallest tree of the Western Forest. The tree told me what the birds said as they rested in his branches, and that day, the birds had been in a heated debate about how the kingdom began.
“And what do they say?” I asked him.
“Fables. A story of a simple man drinking it into existence at a tavern or the sneeze of a wizard while getting off his horse.”
“Never me.”
“No. Never a boy.”
I couldn’t remember how I built it, but I did. Every last bit. I even knew what the castle looked like. I knew its secret passages better than I knew myself.
“Mickey Cobbler made that boy’s shoes,” I said, pointing at a traveler boy.
Oak shivered his leaves, and a few brushed against the nape of my neck. “Mickey does fine work. Very fine. You know, Zeke, you should meet him. If you met him, you could probably get your own pair of shoes.”
“I can’t.”
“You built this place for them,” he says, stretching a limb toward the travelers. “You should be with them. What’s the point of building an entire kingdom if you can’t call it home?”
I plucked a leaf off one of his branches, and he quieted. Minutes later, I climbed down him and made my way toward the Wizard’s Guild. They had an unguarded pantry that often kept me fed.
I snuck into the guild through an open window and then ran down a set of spiral stairs. I got to the bottom and saw the pantry door, as it always was, unlatched and open. A baguette hung off the shelf next to a sack of potatoes. I reached for it slowly, sure not to make a noise.
“Your family is coming today,” a voice said.
I spun.
A stocky woman, whose black and billowy robes sat on her shoulders with a welcoming grace and lightness, stood behind me. She had a whisper of beard, too, which I found somewhat funny, even though I didn’t laugh. I wasn’t allowed to laugh in my kingdom. The only thing I did there was travel in the darkness of night and shadow and watch who came, who went, and everything in between.
I was the watchman.
“Are you excited?” the woman asked. I didn’t say anything. I was too shocked to hear a voice this close. Never in the years of the kingdom had I been spoken to, outside of Oak, and my ears almost hurt from a tone that was directed only to me. A sound made specifically for my understanding. Did all closeness hurt this much?
“Well, all right, then . . . you’ll have to come with me.” The woman reached for me.
I ran.
Outside: 2/7/15
Anita Marzipan had the kind of posture that made chiropractors wish they’d gotten a degree in business administration and started a local pub. Her back was more of a crescent than a spine, and her feet were flat, which caused her to walk bent forward with an awkward bob of the head.
So when Anita walked straight into the office of the orphanage director, Mary Detwiler, all these unique faculties were at play in the most dramatic fashion. The night before, Anita had received a call from Mary letting her know that a family had shown interest in adopting one of the orphans. One would think that Anita would be happy for the child, but she felt such bitterness toward childish things that she was only happy for herself. For ridding the orphanage of another whiny rook.
Ezekiel Most sat in the chair in front of Mary’s desk. He was silent. Distant. The cold look of someone who’d never had a fridge or pantry door to open without asking.
“So,” Anita said, frowning. She hated apathetic children. “The silent one is leaving us?”
Mary frowned. “The Abernathys have signed the papers and will be here to pick him up within the next two hours.”
Anita stared hard at the buzzed head of the child. If he’d heard what Mary said, he made no show of emotion. It appeared that that day was no different than any other for the Most boy.
“Who are the Abernathys?” Anita asked.
“They live in Sacco. Own a restaurant in the harbor that’s been in their family for years. I Don’t Give a Clam, if you’re familiar. My sister says they attend her church. Good folk.”
Anita snorted. She hated God-fearing folk, especially the ones that adopted apathetic children.
“They do understand what they’re signing up for?” Anita asked.
Mary gave Anita a trenchant nod, then turned to the boy and said, “Zeke, Anita and
I will be right back.”
The boy, again, said nothing.
Mary stood up from her desk and pulled Anita into the hallway.
“Do they know they’re adopting a twelve-year-old mute?” Anita was what she considered a safe distance from the boy—barely three steps.
With a sharp flick of her hand and a slight curl of her lip, Mary motioned for Anita to move out of earshot. “He is not mute, Anita. The janitor claims he’s heard him speak when he’s alone.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Mary sighed. “They are aware his late father’s abuse had negative effects on him. They are aware that Ezekiel prefers not to speak, and they are the kind of folk that sign the papers regardless of what they know.”
Inside: 2/7/15
Running through the town square was all it took for me to realize something was wrong. Somehow, the townspeople watched me through the walls of buildings. I didn’t know how they knew I was there, but they did. Their gaze followed me as I ran back to Oak.
I climbed up and up and up, deep into his branches.
“Did you feel the earthquake?” he asked.
I nodded even though I didn’t know that’s what I’d felt. I assumed I was responsible for my own trembling. My fear causing my feet to shudder.
“What’s happening?”
Oak’s bark roughened under my hands.
“The kingdom is under attack.”
“How? We don’t have any enemies. I never built enemies.”
Outside: 8/2/15
Mr. Abernathy pushed his glasses back onto his nose as he watched his wife’s fingers grip tighter and tighter around her cereal spoon. He pushed his iPhone aside, though he was one candy away from a new high score, and prepared for what she’d say next.
“I just don’t think he hears us,” she finally said.
He smiled; it was gentle, understanding, but firm, much like an autumn breeze. “For some, love takes a long time to hear.”