Snowflakes by Guest Author Maria Mainero

The phone in the park in the winter in the dark in that part of winter-spring when snow falls on all the blooming things, and there’s hope in the air, but the ice still shivers there.

The door half-ajar, or maybe not even that far, because we’re snuggled up inside, even though we don’t need to hide. 

The words sound good, and look pretty in blue ink, on college-rule paper. In reality, the phone booth across the street is empty.  Whoever was making out there last, steamed up the windows and now it’s all frosted over, the park is deserted, and I want to throw rocks and break apart the glass on that cheery red phone booth all fake and friendly looking. 

This is a set, we’re all just actors, none of it is real.

Smash, smash, we’re all just breaking glass, into the blue crackled shards upon the grass.

The bus is late, as usual, not that I care. I’ve got my notebook, my pen, my words, the stories in my head. In my head, Olivia will break his heart, and Tony will return to me.

Return. That means he was with me once. In my head, at least. This isn’t where the story was going, not where I wanted to take it at all. In my story there was no Olivia. But now, she’s worked her way into my brain, her curly blond hair and her color-coordinated outfits and fingernails. I’ve tried taking her out into the wilderness, where she should end up as the first casualty of the elements. But instead, it’s Tony who keeps falling off a cliff or getting crushed by a storm-toppled tree.

Sure, I save his life, and Olivia is less than useless. But still, she’s there. Still, clean and perky and fashionable. Even in my story, she can’t manage to have a hair out of place. 

I hear something, or sense something, that makes me look up from my unsatisfactory words, and there they are, heading towards me, Olivia in her tall black boots, and her red wool coat, and Tony, in his leather jacket and sneakers. With a big bouquet of roses, red like Olivia’s coat. They’ve got their arms and eyes locked on each other, and I’ve got a lump in my throat that’s bigger than Olivia’s Prada bag.

I run across the street without thinking, wanting to avoid them. Him. I duck into the phone booth and crouch down, still clutching my pen and notebook.

Brakes and tires squeal and smoke. “Olivia!” a voice shouts. Engines hum, doors slam. “Oh, my God, is she . . . “

“Don’t touch her,” a voice commands.

“I’m a doctor,” a woman replies.

Tony is crying. “Lanie! Lanie! It’s going to be okay, I love you Lanie.”

There I go again. I don’t want to get hit by a car to win him. I want Olivia to be the one sprawled on the imaginary pavement. My stories always seem to turn in other directions, despite my efforts.

Just like my life. Three years of friendship and subtle flirting haven’t made a difference. Despite my efforts, Tony and Olivia are together, and I’m hiding in a phone booth because I can’t bear to face them. I’m sure they’ve seen me dodge in here, which is embarrassing. I need to go back out there, pretend I was just making a call.

I stand up, press my hand on the steamed-up glass and look out through the cleared outline of my palm.

Across the street, a ghostly outline of a handprint appears in the frosted window of the phone booth.

Across the street, Tony and Olivia sit on the bench at the bus stop. He stares into space. She holds his hand. He stands and places the flowers on the ground in front of the glass enclosure, right next to the street.

I shouldn’t listen in.

“If you can hear me, Lanie, I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Tony. Nobody knew how bad off she was. She kept it all inside. You tried. . . .”

I hate the way these stories keep going. I rip the pages out of my notebook.

Ragged scraps of torn paper flutter from her hands. They fall to the ground like snow, and melt and disappear.

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Story by: Maria Mainero (Hi, I’m Maria. I’ve believed in fiction too long to stop now. If you believe too, then come join me in a cup of tea. http://nevermindwastingtime.blogspot.com/ or twitter @MariaAnnaWitt)

Photo by: wintersixfour

First Stab

 

****Check out this awesome guest post by Maria Mainero! You can find her at: her blog http://nevermindwastingtime.blogspot.com/ or on Twitter @MariaAnnaWitt

 

 

 

The oars plip plop in the water, sounding distant and close at the same time. I clutch my shawl tighter, a meaningless gesture that can’t protect me. The oarsman winks, then curls up his lip and hisses, flashing his fangs.

“Don’t rock the boat, sweetie,” he chortles as I jump.

They never said that only one of us would make it. Never. The way our mothers fussed and coached us, the way they celebrated, I figured.  .  .

I gulp and try to stop my thoughts before they turn to tears. I’m supposed to be strong. That’s why I was given this chance, wasn’t it? The chance to live as a free human, the future of our species. The reason we put aside our grief for the ones who were sent back from their Trial, and rejoiced for everyone who made it though. 

Will would get another chance, when he turned eighteen, after his three years of breeding. But at twenty-five, having produced five live children, it had been Sal’s final trial. My own mother never passed the Trial; she was taken when I was three, and I was given a new mother.  At age eight, I said goodbye again. Sal has been my mother ever since.

To lose her seems unbearable, and I start to hope for something I never would have wished until now.

We all swore we’d take death instead. We had to say that. Our own would kill us first if we dared to breathe that Vampire was the better life. Better than being farmed as food. Better than being set loose like wild animals, hunted for sport.

 A hollow thump stops the boat. “Don’t forget your satchel, sweetie. Full of wooden stakes?” He snorts at his joke and I wish I had staked him. I could have done it. I could have slipped the stake from  my satchel, and plunged it into his chest, just slightly to the left of the center of his white cravat.

Unless I missed, like I had at the Trial. Out here, there were no rules—no one to drag me out of the arena to an empty cell. I sat there alone, fearing there was only one fate, until they put me on this boat, without a word, without a bite.

I scramble onto the dock, gripping the clammy iron railing. The oarsman beats hastily away, leaving me in darkness.  Then another lantern brightens the fog. “Welcome to the Wilderness,” says a cracked, high-pitched voice.  Shadows fill the deep wrinkles on his face.  “A gal? We’ll take ye. If y’ c’n break the skin, you’re in, so they say.”

I’ve never seen a man so old before or hair so white. “They really let us live?”

“Aye. Best we can figure, we’re their executioners. From time to time, they’ll dump a vampire on this island, and we. . . .dispatch it. Did ye get in a good blow?”

“Through the arm,” I admit.

“We’ll improve yer aim.”

“Am I the only one?”

“There were three yesterday. They don’t bring you in groups anymore. Lost too many boatmen that way.”

“Who? Who were they?” I ask eagerly.

“Who they were doesn’t matter. Put the past behind ye. Who we are now, is what must matter t’ ye.”

I follow the old man up the dock, but he stops at the splashing of oars. “Will!” I shout, when I see him rowing alone. I feel gloating pride that he singlehandedly staked his boatman.

 He disembarks, smiling with the quiet restraint he always displays. I rush to hug him, but he brushes past me, his hand outstretched to our welcomer. In a flash, Will jerks the old man off his feet and twists his head, bones popping and snapping.

He turns to me, catching up the lantern. “They said if I could get you, you can come with me.”

I gasp out a foggy breath and sobs fill my chest. “How can I?” 

“I can do it, but not now. It’s not safe for me here.  Please, Annika, hurry, into the boat.” He’s still holding the old man’s lifeless body.

“How could you, Will?”

“Don’t, Anna,” he pleads. “You’d do the same, if it was your only choice.”

“Is it?” I say. He’s as silent as death. “Is it my only choice, Will?”

He looks down at the limp body in his arms. “I had to, Anna. What if you’d been waiting for me?”

He’s right, I would have done the same. . . .

If it was my only choice.

I clutch my satchel to my chest and take a shaking step towards him. His eyes brighten like citrine, a new luminous clarity to their brown. He smiles, and I shrink back, even though the smile is familiar, and his fangs are puppy-dog small.

“Let me just. . . before you come. . . “ he says, unable to speak the words for what his kind does. He bends his head, holding the man like he’s his turkey drumstick at Trial banquet.

I turn away and reach into the carpetbag. Who he was doesn’t matter. I hold the stake hidden in the folds of my skirt. We trained together, surely he’ll recognize my feeble attempt at stealth.

Will drops the old man into the lake and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, like he’s just drained a mug of milk. Dark stains line his teeth, as he smiles at me, his eyes wide in anticipation, his arms outstretched, his heart unprotected.

I spring at him with all my strength. I know my aim is bad, I’ve only wounded him. There are no rules out here.  He’ll defend himself, and like him, I won’t have a choice.

 “Best of luck to you, Annika,” he says, stumbling into the boat. He pulls the stake from his neck, and it falls into the water with a splash, followed by the plip plop of oars fading away into the fog.

 

Story by: Maria Mainero

Photo by: Jim Crossley

 

Hidden Places

Sasquatch is watching us.

I can feel the hot breath across my skin, dry and leathery, like the cracked slicks of mud below me. A fly buzzes, thirsty for a drop of sweat, and I lean against the railing on the boardwalk bridge that spans the dried swamp. The puff of stale air barely sways the cattails that droop wearily in front of the thick woods beyond.

I feel his eyes, staring at me. The dense foliage hangs stagnant, except for one leaf shaking on a vine. I know what that feel like, to be trembling when everyone else is calm.

“What are you looking at?” Logan snaps at me over his shoulder, stopping just beyond the bridge. I don’t move. We’re trudging down this nature trail on the hottest afternoon in July, and it might be my fault. I don’t know anymore.

 “I feel like someone’s watching us.”

He laughs. That snort he does, that makes me feel like I need to rewind, to unsay what I just said. “Trust me, there’s no one here but us babe. That’s the point, right?”

I shiver, in the scorching heat. Did I choose this?

He wants me alone. At first it was flattering. Even now, I wasn’t missing anything. My family was away at the cottage, same as always, eating, swimming, five to a bedroom, and relatives asking the same embarrassing questions they asked about my last boyfriend.

I blamed the summer job so I could stay home and then I called in sick.

I was really feeling sick now. The same pit of the stomach nausea. The same sinking feeling. I’d wanted to stop after the first time. But I’d already made my choice, I didn’t know how to undo it. He said he’d die without me. He cried, and I cried too, real tears, both of us. We clung to each other with shaky laughs and promises.

He came over to the house today, and sat on the couch, working his way through a box of Cheez Its, searching the instant download menu on the TV, trying to break the parental block password. The shades were drawn, the living room was dim and gloomy, the A/C had the house at an uncomfortably unnatural chill, and suddenly, I felt trapped.

I didn’t realize I had picked a fight with him until it was too late. I just wanted to get out of that house, out to where I could breathe. Where he couldn’t do any damage. I held my breath as he punched and kicked, until the cushions recovered, and a black scuff from his tennis shoe was the only scar on the door.

“Fine, have it your way.” He said that a lot. But when I’d think back and try to remember, I couldn’t remember how it ended up being my way.

Today, it was this hike. I said I wanted to go out, to do something in public, like a real girlfriend. I didn’t want to hide in the house all day. In his mind, that meant I didn’t trust him. He hurled questions at me, without giving me time to answer. Why didn’t I trust him? How could I accuse him like that?

I tried to explain, in half-sentences and interrupted apologies. He forgave me, grudgingly. And now we were having it my way. But we’re still alone. In the woods, still hiding. Still not my way. He’d twisted me around again.

“Are you afraid to be seen with me?” The words are out of my mouth as soon as they enter my mind. “Afraid to admit you knocked me up?”

I’m not pregnant. I’ve been wanting to say those words for days. I should have never told him I thought I was. “Don’t say anything until you’re sure, Addy,” my best friend Gracie warned me. I should have listened to her. Two negative tests taken too early, and I still wasn’t sure. But my uncertainty and my fear had me shackled to Logan.

I’ve picked the fight and he starts yelling. My stomach cramps again and I hope I’m right. I’m sweating, I’m alone in the woods with him, tempting fate with a tampon in my pocket. I want this to be the end, the nail in the coffin of this relationship. I want him to admit he’s scum, he’s a jerk, he doesn’t plan to keep any promises, he doesn’t give a damn about my choices. 

Then I’ll tell him. Oh God, I hope I can tell him. I’m not, you bastard, I’m not.

He calls me every horrid thing he can, he says it probably isn’t even his, and I’m the one who’s gotten us into this mess. He’s hollering it all at my back, because I’ve crossed the bridge and left the walkway, breaking through scratchy dry grass and brambles up a slope to the woods. I’m going to hide in those trees and squat, and oh God, I hope I can tell him.

“Leave me alone you bastard!” I don’t even recognize my shrill voice. Compared to the names he’s calling me, it’s a compliment. The evergreens are thick in front of me as I scramble over a rocky ledge. The brush crackles behind me, his voice is close. He’s not going to let me disappear into those trees.

I turn to scream again, “Stop following me!” He has one foot on the ledge and he’s brandishing a thick branch like a weapon. Hatred twists his face.

Something roared. Something reached out and shoved him down the slope. Something pried one of the rocks loose with superhuman strength and sent it down on top of him.

Afterwards, I’m shaking with relief. I thought he was going to kill me. I don’t know what made him fall. I don’t know what he saw that made him scream like that, just before he didn’t scream anymore.

I look back into the woods. The trembling leaf has fallen still, indistinguishable from all the others.

Guest Author: Maria Mainero. She likes sappy sweet stories and things that make her laugh. Don’t ask her why everything she writes turns dark and twisted. She blogs sporadically at http://nevermindwastingtime.blogspot.com/

Photo by: Emilian Robert Vicol