When my father came to see me, I was seated on the floor with the new map unrolled all the way, the last parts drying so it could be permanent. As I worked, I hummed the old man’s song. The song from Before. At least I was humming how I remembered it, hoping it was right.
“What’s this here?” he asked me. He was standing over the object the sinker told me I would never have to use.
“Don’t look at it,” I told him.
“But I already did.”
I got up and covered it completely.
“That sinker gave you that, didn’t she?”
“It’s for protection.”
“How so?” but he had wandered away, didn’t really want an answer, I suppose. Then he was stopped again, looking down at the map.
“It’s finished,” I told him.
He looked at my pack, at the map again, and finally at me. “When are you leaving?”
The original map was already rolled into a tight cylinder. I took it from the table and slid it into my pack. “Tomorrow,” I said.
My father seemed to say the word over again a few times in his head. “I think it’s best you don’t tell you mother.”
The pack was tight and small. I was proud of how compact it looked, how light and simple.
My father was digging in his pockets. “You’ll need at least a few things to trade.”
The entire rock behind me was lost in the roar of the edge. Only one or two people were up and about. The animals were asleep, out at the ends of their tethers, their fur revealing the natural currents of the sink.
I had said goodbye to my father, there in my room, with the map drying. My mother would wake in a few hours and find her daughter gone.
I stood on the same spot Kyle had left from to rise, the spot from which all boys leave the rock. I did not look back, only out, directly parallel from the surface of the rock. And then I leaned forward. I could feel the weight of what I had packed. The truth is, I had not decided, not until that very moment.
* * * *
About these Authors
Though she has never reigned supreme at any potluck when Justin was also present, Nicole Kimberling has still managed to feed hundreds of people—even some who tried very hard to avoid ingesting foodstuff. She is the editor of Blind Eye Books.
Sarah Kokernot was born and raised in Kentucky. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in PANK, decomP, Front Porch, and West Branch. She currently lives in Chicago where she works at 826CHI, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center.
Anne Lacy would like to thank the UCross Foundation for giving her a nice place to finish this story. Some of her nonfiction can be found in Issue 78 of Crazyhorse and on the website of American University, where she received an MFA.
Daniel Meyer is a children’s librarian and the president of the Storytelling Center of New York City. He draws monsters for fun.
Sarah Micklem is the author of two novels about a camp follower, Firethorn and Wildfire (Scribner, 2004 and 2009). “The Purveyor of Homunculi” is from a series of tales set on the imaginary Isle of Abigomas. They were inspired by a small book called Realms of Fantasy: Folk Tales from Gozo by George Camilleri (Gozo Press, 1981). Many of Gozo’s real folk tales had unsatisfactory plots, which Micklem took as permission to write anti-climactic stories too.
Damien Ober is the author of the science-fiction novel Dr. Benajmin Franklin’s Dream America (Equus Press). His writing has appeared in The Rumpus, NOON, Confrontation, B O D Y Literature, The Baltimore City Paper, VLAK and port.man.teau. He received the 2002 Sherwood Anderson Award, was nominated for a 2012 Pushcart Prize and had a screenplay chosen for the 2013 Black List. Currently he writes for the Syfy Channel show Dominion.
A. B. Robinson lives in Western Massachusetts. Her poetry has appeared in TINGE as well as Industrial Lunch, which she currently co-edits. Her first chapbook, Dario Argento Is Not My Boyfriend, was selected as a jubilat contest winner.
Erica L. Satifka’s short fiction has previously appeared in Clarkesworld Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and Ideomancer, among others. She lives somewhere in the United States with her husband Rob and three needy cats. Find her online at ericasatifka.com.
Anne Sheldon is a school librarian and storyteller whose work has appeared in The Dark Horse, The Lyric, Talebones, and other magazines. Aqueduct Press published her most recent collection, The Bone Spindle.
Robert E. Stutts works at a small liberal arts college in South Carolina, where he teaches courses in fairy tales, creative writing, and young adult literature. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction and Scheherezade’s Bequest, among others. His website is robertestutts.com.
Please don’t mix us up! Send your Change of Address to [email protected] or by mail to LCRW, 150 Pleasant St., #306, Easthampton, MA 01027
* * * *
CONGRATULATIONS TO RECENT AWARD WINNERS!
North American Lake Monsters: Stories
Nathan Ballingrud
Shirley Jackson Award winner
Cry Murder! in a Small Voice
Greer Gilman
Shirley Jackson Award winner
A Stranger in Olondria
Sofia Samatar
Crawford Award winner
Campbell Award winner
The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories of
Ursula K. Le Guin
Oregon Book Award winner
Peter Dickinson titles available from Small Beer Press and Big Mouth House
“Death of a Unicorn has nothing to do with unicorns or fantasies. . . . This is a mystery by Peter Dickinson. (Small Beer Press, a small publishing company in Massachusetts, is reprinting . . . Peter Dickinson’s books, which is a wonderful, wonderful gift to mystery readers who are yearning for that kind of old-fashioned British mystery where it doesn’t move quickly, you get engrossed in the time period.) . . .
“The thing about Peter Dickinson is that his books, one from the other, are totally different. . . . I think that this is one of those books that I hope will . . . introduce people to Peter Dickinson and then they’ll go and pick up all the rest of his books. . . . But I have to stress these are not for people who want fast-moving thrillers. These are not mysteries in the style of American private-eye stories. These are really character studies and studies of society at a particular place in a particular time.”
— Nancy Pearl, NPR
All your books could be Weightless
DRM-free ebooks & magazines:
Clarkesworld, Galaxy’s Edge, Lightspeed, Apex,
LCRW, NYRSF, LONTAR, Beneath Ceaseless Skies,
Locus, Nightmare, Space & Time, Innsmouth,
Mythic Delirium, Bastion, Interzone, Black Static,
Luna Station, The Dark, Shimmer, & many more
weightlessbooks.com
Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 30 Page 12
