Harmonious Hearts 2019--Stories from the Young Author Challenge

by Ryan Almroth

  With laughter warming their cold bodies, they hopped onto the swings and pushed themselves into the air. As they swung, all that could be heard was their heavy breathing and the groaning of the rusted metallic chains under strain.

  “Are you happier now?” Adrienne asked. “Living like this, I mean. You were always so into girls when we were together. It doesn’t seem like those two lifestyles exactly vibe.”

  “I liked girls and guys. I still like guys. And, between you and me, I still like girls too,” Emily admitted. “But it’s something I don’t mind giving up. I feel like I belong here, Adi. For the first time ever, I have a community. A real family. I love it here.” She pondered for a moment. “I’m not sure if this will always make me happy. But I’m happy right now.”

  Adrienne nodded, letting the statement resonate through her mind. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry for today. And last night. And for cheating on you. I was selfish. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Emily whispered. “Tell me something.”

  “What?”

  “I just told you something personal. Something salacious,” she said with a grin. “It’s your turn.”

  Adrienne racked her brain for a while, trying to think up any secret that Emily didn’t already know. Emily already knew about the affairs, about the drugs, and about her dad. What else was there?

  She took a deep breath, giving her time to choose her words carefully. “I don’t believe in stars,” Adrienne admitted. She regretted it immediately—such a stupid thought! Yet, she continued. “They’re all… lies. Pinpricks dotting the sky, shining through the darkness, giving off light billions of years old. What’s the point? To dazzle us?” She stopped. The cogs in her head were iced over, trying to articulate an idea that was beyond her years, but an idea of the utmost importance. “They’re not real. That’s why I want them to go out. It’s a party trick. The sun’s the only real star there is. The rest? Well, something up there is fuckin’ bragging. I don’t know what’s out there, but there has to be something. You’re telling me that it’s all some happy accident?”

  Emily opened her mouth, ready to intrude with her correct answer, but after some deliberation, she said nothing. She simply gazed up into the sky, where the snow masqueraded as stars. Her eyes gleamed as white serenity rained down. She reached for Adrienne’s hand.

  “I missed you,” Emily said.

  Well, this was what Adrienne believed she had said. In the midst of the wind, the metal creaking of the swings, and their tired gasps for air as they pumped their legs into the sky, Adrienne didn’t quite hear if those two final letters had actually slipped by. But that was all right. She didn’t need to know, not tonight.

  Adrienne kicked into the dirt, slowing her ascent, and pulled the crumpled-up piece of notebook paper from her purse, quietly tearing it up. The note would remain forever unfinished, she decided, and she tossed the scraps to the wind, where they became just another pile of snowflakes on the church playground. Adrienne rejoined Emily in the air, grabbing her hand once more. This was not the time to solve all of her problems. As Emily said, maybe she didn’t need to be happy forever, just for right now. She just wished that “right now” could last forever. It couldn’t, of course, but she could pretend. The moment became infinite, and what mattered right now was all that mattered. What mattered right now was the entire universe painted on the backs of their heads, constellations forming in the invisible strands between each snowflake. What mattered right now was the swings and the soaring, the sun and the stars, and Adrienne and Emily’s entwined hands in the eternal twilight.

  ALEC S. LEFEBER is an award-winning essayist and fiction writer, currently pursuing a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Alec was the recipient of the 2018 Nevin S. James Scholarship in English for several of his academic essays, and he only has one more year of his degree before he plans to pursue a career in Technical Writing (well, until the writing thing pays off).

  Alec has been fascinated with writing ever since the third grade, and he has never stopped pursuing that dream since he picked up the pen fourteen years ago. While dabbling in science fiction in his youth, his most recent works focus on the Midwest, having been born and raised in Wisconsin himself. He is particularly interested in writing stories about social outsiders struggling with their individualism against the community-oriented Midwest. His literary inspirations include ZZ Packer and Sherwood Anderson, and much of his wit comes from hours of listening to Maximum Fun’s My Brother, My Brother, and Me and Wonderful! podcasts. Alec dreams of one day traveling the world as a full-time novelist, but he is currently content living with his girlfriend in small-town Wisconsin while he finishes his degree. When not writing or reading, Alec can be found spending too much time on Twitter at @actually_alec.

  Metamorphosis

  By Ryan Almroth

  When Jean hears a rumor about a princess held captive by a dragon, she does what any knight would do and embarks on a quest to save her. But rumors are fickle and easy to fabricate—which Jean only realizes after scaling a mountain and coming face-to-face with the monster.

  IT STARTED on a mountaintop.

  It had been hell to climb and Jean wanted to just lie down and either sleep or die, but she had a job to do, and damn it all, she was going to do it.

  Peeking into the cave opening, she contemplated how to proceed. According to local gossip, a dragon had made this mountain its home and, as most stories including dragons go, it had kidnapped some poor princess and was keeping her captive. Jean hadn’t actually ever slain a dragon or, you know, seen one, but considering how many other knights had managed, it couldn’t be that hard, right?

  She shivered, entirely from the cold, mind you. Metal armor may protect you from attacks, but it certainly didn’t protect you from Mother Nature. Unsheathing her sword, Jean entered the cave.

  She’d never been very good at planning ahead anyway.

  Dragons, it turned out, were a lot different in real life than they were in stories. They were scary, all right, terrifying even. Big, hulking monsters that could rip a human to shreds. But no one ever mentioned stealth.

  Jean squinted at the dark walls of the cave, trying to make out the flash of purple scales through the darkness. She could hear it moving, claws scraping against rock and leathery wings brushing against each other, but it was so fast she could never pinpoint its location. She must look ridiculous, spinning around in a circle with her sword brandished in front of her. She really wished she’d had the foresight to bring a torch.

  Movement caught her eye, and she could finally see a dark shape slithering to her right, a black form standing out against the general darkness of the cave. This was her one chance, to kill the dragon and cement her position in the Knight’s Order. She swung her sword toward the dragon, catching a glimpse of glowing orange eyes before one of its feet shot out, lightning fast, and caught her in the chest. The sword clattered to the ground as Jean slammed into a wall, hitting her head with a loud crack and knocking her out cold.

  WAKING UP was awful. The ground was cold and hard, and everything hurt, especially her head. Jean had no idea why she was alive, but right now she wished she’d died when she’d hit the cave wall, because surely death would be better than this.

  “You’re awake,” a voice stated quietly, and suddenly she felt a lot more awake. She opened her eyes and immediately regretted the decision, but still searched wildly for the source of the voice. The cave was now illuminated by a small fire, allowing her to see a bit more than before. Unfortunately, her vision kept blurring, so she could only make out the general shape of the person beside her.

  “Who are you?” Jean managed to croak out, giving up on her eyes for the moment and letting them close. Hopefully, the inability to focus her gaze was only temporary. Knights relied on their sight for quite a bit after all.

  “Echo. You hit your head pretty hard. A concussion is probably the least of it,” the person said, coming a bit closer
and pressing a waterskin against her lips. She drank greedily, the cold liquid soothing her sore throat and making her aches lessen the smallest bit. “You’ll have to stay here until you recover,” the person, Echo, continued, causing Jean to almost choke on the water. “If you think you can make it down the mountain to the nearest village, then be my guest, but I don’t think any wild animal will take pity on you and not attack as you stumble through the wilderness.” There was venom in Echo’s voice, which Jean didn’t understand, and she absolutely didn’t have the energy to analyze it. What she—he?—said made sense, though. If she couldn’t even open her eyes in the relative dimness of the cave without pain, how was she supposed to navigate down a mountain? There was no other option; she had to stay. But—

  “The dragon!” she exclaimed, sitting up abruptly and searching the cave with eyes that still refused to focus for any giant lizards she might have missed somehow.

  “There’s no need to worry.”

  “It’s a dragon,” Jean argued but allowed herself to be pushed down again. A sane person wouldn’t be this calm if there was a chance a dragon might burst in and eat them, and Echo seemed like a relatively sane person.

  “Sleep, I’ll wake you in a little while.”

  Echo was a very sane and rational person, Jean decided as exhaustion took over. Nice too, taking care of a stranger like this.

  As she slowly slipped into unconsciousness she briefly wondered if it really was that wise to trust Echo with her health only moments after meeting. Sleep now, worry later, her brain told her. She agreed.

  JEAN WOKE up again to find she was no longer lying on the cave floor, but on an animal skin. It wasn’t as soft as her bed back home, but it was leagues above the ground, so she wasn’t about to complain. Stroking the coarse fur, she speculated on what kind of animal it was from. A deer maybe? Or perhaps something native to the mountains? At least her eyes seemed to focus better now, the wonders of some good old-fashioned rest.

  She sat up carefully. Her head pounded, but she was cold and, more importantly, starving. Something was cooking on the fire that smelled divine, and she might just fight her savior for it if needed.

  “It’s soup,” Echo said, interrupting her thoughts of justified violence. “Meat. Hard to get vegetables up here.” Echo handed Jean a wooden bowl—handmade, judging by the rough edges—and she immediately started gulping it down without shame. It’s improper for a lady to slurp soup, a voice that sounded suspiciously like her mother said. It wasn’t like there was anyone there to see except for Echo, and they barely knew each other. I’ll slurp all I want, she thought back spitefully.

  When she was done, all Echo did was silently take back the bowl, fill it up with soup, and start eating. Jean took the opportunity to both warm up by the fire and examine her companion.

  Short dark hair that had an unusual shine to it framed a tan face, and brown eyes so bright they were almost orange peeked out from under the fringe. An elegant nose followed with a small birthmark just to its left, the rest hidden by the bowl. There was something about the hair, though, Jean thought with a frown. It looked so familiar…. The fire flickered and a few strands of Echo’s hair shimmered purple in the light, just like the dragon’s scales.

  “How come you aren’t worried about the dragon? This is its home, isn’t it?” she asked casually. She had a suspicion, but it wouldn’t be very smart to show her hand right from the start, especially with her wounds slowing her down. Echo looked up, amusement shining in, um, his eyes? She really needed to figure out what to call her companion since they were going to spend quite a bit of time together.

  “It is, but it’s mine as well.”

  “Sharing a home with a dragon? Seems dangerous.”

  Echo set the bowl down with a huff of laughter, fixing her with an unblinking stare. It seemed she might not have been as subtle as she’d liked.

  “I do not share my home with anyone. You are an exception.” Jean took a deep breath, gathering her courage before this strange creature, for it was obvious now that it was not human. Its appearance morphed, taking on a more inhuman look. The eyes, once brown, turned entirely orange and glowed with an otherworldly light. Horns sprouted suddenly from its forehead, dark spirals that twisted around themselves and then back in a graceful arch.

  A shapeshifter.

  “Why a dragon? Surely there are more inconspicuous forms.”

  “I’ve always admired them, and who, other than knights, are foolhardy enough to dare disturb one?” The shapeshifter explained easily. “It’s perfect when all you want is to be left alone.” Jean almost laughed. A shapeshifter recluse? It was unheard of! Shapeshifters were notoriously social creatures, which was fine if not for their penchant for trouble. Impersonations were a specialty of theirs and it never ended well for anyone other than them. Infidelity, robbery, even simple pranks were all so much easier when you could become someone else. Because of this, shapeshifters weren’t too popular.

  “The locals told me of a princess—” Jean began, but she was interrupted by the shapeshifter’s snort of amusement.

  “There is no princess, simply the village people coming up with stories to ease their boredom.”

  “Then I came here for nothing.” She couldn’t help the frustration bleeding into her voice. This had been the perfect opportunity to show the bastards back at the Order that she was just as good as them, and now she had to return completely empty-handed. She could practically hear their smug voices mocking her. The damn shapeshifter had ruined everything.

  “Maybe so,” it said airily, adding another log onto the slowly dwindling fire. “But either way you’ll have to stay here for at least a few more days.”

  “And whose fault is that?” Jean spat, frustration feeding into anger, even though she knew it was right.

  “You came into my home waving a sword; I was simply defending myself,” the shapeshifter pointed out calmly, which only served to make Jean even angrier. It had thrown her into a wall, for God’s sake! “You’d do the same in my situation, I suspect.” Jean simply glared in answer, and the shapeshifter sighed, finally looking up from the fire and meeting her eyes. “I’m aware of how you humans see my people, but I only ask for you to tolerate me while you recuperate.”

  Jean considered it for a while. On the one hand, it was a shapeshifter, and it was practically in their nature to aggravate others. It was the shapeshifter’s fault she was even injured in the first place! But on the other hand… it hadn’t done anything other than help her, excluding the obvious occurrence, and while she felt considerably better, her body was focusing all its energy on healing, leaving her spent after only an hour of activity. Whatever her opinion on shapeshifters as a whole, she would just have to endure living with one for a little while longer.

  Decision made, she straightened up from her slouch, looked the shapeshifter straight in the eye, and offered it her hand.

  “My name is Jean Romée. Thank you for taking care of me.”

  THEY SETTLED into an easy routine. Jean would sleep for a few hours before the shapesh—Echo woke her up to make sure everything was still healing as it should. Echo would also have food and water ready for her, which she accepted gratefully. She felt a bit bad about leaving everything to her “host,” but so far the only thing she’d been allowed to do was peel the odd vegetable they’d found. Living with a shapeshifter was surprisingly… pleasant. The residence could have been better, yes, and there was only the one pelt Jean slept on, but the cave was small enough the heat from the fire could warm it up.

  Echo seemed indifferent to it all, simply shifting into a form more suited to the environment and only leaving to fetch more wood for the fire, having already stocked up on food long before Jean arrived.

  At the moment Echo had taken on the form of a wolf, curled up in a ball of blindingly white fur, getting some well-deserved rest. It still startled Jean when Echo shifted, silently and effortlessly, from one body to another. She almost expected to hear the bones crack
as they reshaped before her very eyes, limbs bending in ways they were never meant to bend.

  Jean had never met a shapeshifter before, never seen one use its abilities, and now she saw it every day. A part of her was uncomfortable—a lifetime of stories left its mark, after all—but a much bigger part was filled with wonder that grew each day. She’d found herself fantasizing more times than she’d like to admit about what it was like to fly, to soar through the skies on the wings of a bird. Or a dragon.

  Echo stretched and yawned, showing off all the sharp teeth in the wolf’s maw before trotting over to Jean. It looked like the shapeshifter was inspecting the fire, prompting a huff of exasperation from Jean.

  “I know how to tend to a fire, you know,” she said, poking at the logs with a stick. “I’m not some prissy aristocrat who’s never been outside other than in a carriage.” This got her a laugh or as much of a laugh as you could get from a wolf. The mouth curled up in a sort of grin, tongue lolling out like the dogs back home. Suddenly the long snout started to shrink, the fur receding into Echo’s body, and before Jean could so much as blink, a human had taken the wolf’s place. Jean didn’t know how Echo could change forms and still retain the clothes, but she figured it was rude to ask.

  “I guess not, considering you made it all the way up here on your own,” Echo said with a teasing smile before beckoning her over. With a sigh Jean scooted closer. Echo insisted on examining her head at least once a day even though through some miracle the stones of the cave hadn’t cut her head open, instead only leaving her with a noticeable bump that ached fiercely as Echo’s fingers poked and prodded it methodically.

  “The swelling has gone down marginally, and I don’t believe there’s any internal bleeding,” Echo declared and moved on to the minor cuts and bruises that littered Jean’s body. Echo, it turned out, was worse than a mother hen when it came to wounds of all sorts.