Written Off the Beaten Path

“I'm just saying. What would happen if you stuck a steaming wand into a Coke?” DJ had his feet propped up on the edge of the table, the heel just barely keeping enough surface area on the edge to keep them up.

“You'd make a mess.” Manhattan edged her glasses back up her nose.

He waved her off. “Yeah maybe, but if you used a dead Coke, and like...added that syrup shit they put in coffees. Man, you could have all kinds of awesome flavors.”

She raised an eyebrow. “A dead Coke?”

The guitarist blinked. “Yeah. You've never heard of that?” Her blank stare spoke more than words could. “When the bubbles stop floating to the top, it's dead, yeah?”

Manhattan blinked. “You...that's morbid. Normal people just say it's flat.”

DJ just grinned. “Dead things can be flat. I'm just poetic.”

“You're something all right.” Manhattan shook her head. “And I quite literally cannot think of any flavor combination that you could make that way that I'd want to drink.”

“Are you sure this will be okay? I mean, we haven't aired this place out in years.” Cathy flicked on the light, dim and yellow in the attic bedroom's dusty air. “After Jake moved out, we brought the twins down to his old room, and he never moved back here to claim this. Slept on the couch any time he came to visit.”

“It's perfect, Cath. Thank you so much.” I managed a smile, weary as I was, and set my backpack down on the floor. “Two beds and a coffee machine. That's three times what I was expecting to find.”

“Coffee...oh, is that where that ran off to.” She laughed. “You're welcome to it, if it still works. You'll have to bring water up from downstairs, but it served us well. John must have put it up here when we got the Keurig.” Cathy set her hand on my shoulder, little more than a feather's touch. “Are you sure you're okay, Autumn? I mean, I can call...”

I shook my head, hair flicking into my face. “No, I...” I sighed. “It's okay. I'm fine. I just...need to not be home for a while.”

She wasn't convinced, but Cathy smiled. “Well, this room is yours, for as long as you need it.”

“Thanks, Cathy.” If only I knew how long that was going to be.

One quiet day. All I wanted was one quiet day.

I'd finally figured out how I was going to make the shade work for the new plants, I'd hired on at least three new hopefuls who knew something more about this whole farming business, and I was starting to think that maybe—just maybe—I wasn't completely out of my depth. What was Abuelo thinking, leaving me this? I was a city girl, from the day I was born. What was I doing in this tiny little nowhere place in Honduras, looking at a coffee farm?

My one quiet day after the week from hell getting down here, and all I can hear is shrieking from the kitchen. “Abby, will you just...” I froze in the doorway, looking at my daughter, covered nearly head to toe in ground coffee. I didn't know what to say.

Beseeching eyes turned to me. “I thought I saw a bug.”

Dios mio...

-

“I think this will be good for the two of you, really.” Misty's voice was shooting for soothing, and landing somewhere around desperate. “It'll be nice to get away and just be around each other.”

“That's what everyone keeps saying,” the journalist muttered back. Manhattan had been staring at options for hotel reservations all day, trying to find one that she thought Kent would like. He was picky about his hotel rooms.

He was picky about a lot of things.

“Why don't you get that one?” her friend replied, the redhead leaning over to point at a suite on the screen. “That looks nice and cozy.”

“It's got a jacuzzi tub,” Manhattan mumbled.

“Uh, yeah? That's half of why I pointed it out.”

She shook her head, blonde bangs flipping into her face again. “He hates them. Thinks they're pointless.”

“Ugh, he's pointless.” Misty flopped back to sit on the couch behind Manhattan's computer chair. “I swear, your boyfriend is absolutely no fun.”

Manhattan's lips quirked up, though she didn't look back at her friend. “He's a good man. He just likes things going a certain way.”

Jacuzzi tub again. Can't any of the suites not have that? King size, no. Queen, no. Ugh, jacuzzi again. Wait...this one...? No, there isn't a breakfast offered. How can you not offer at least something nowadays? It's like cable TV and A/C, I mean really...

“So you're going to New York for how many days?” Misty piped up from behind her.

“We'll be there just over a week. The first three days are a conference for the magazine, so they're paying for it, but Kent didn't want to fly in by himself, so we'll be together for all of it.”

“Aww, that's sweet.” Misty's head popped back into view in the reflection on Manhattan's computer screen. “Planning on seeing any theatre? I hear there's some really awesome shows open on Broadway right now.”

Manhattan shook her head again. “Not a big fan of theatre. Especially musicals.”

“But you--”

“Wasn't talking about me, Misty.”

Misty groaned and shook the journalist's shoulders from behind the chair. “'Hattan, you have to get out somewhere! Let him go to a bar or a strip joint or something while you get to see a show!”

The blonde shot a look over her shoulder, wide-eyed. “Misty!”

Misty remained unswayed, hands on her hips now. “You can't go all the way from LA to New York and not see a show on Broadway. It's un-American.”

“I know.” She turned back to the computer screen. “It's just...this is a time for Kent and I to spend some good, quality time together. I don't want to push him to the side just for a show.” One shoulder shrugged. “I can always go back some other time.”

“When?” Now Misty spun Manhattan's chair around so that the blonde was looking right at her fired-up redhead friend. “You've talked about going to New York City for as long as I've known you, right back to middle school. Now you have the perfect opportunity to go and see some show—any show—and you're not jumping. And...” Misty peered over her friend's shoulder. “I can see plenty of rooms on there that you're discounting, and I can't figure out why. That one, there.” She spun the chair again so Manhattan could see what she was pointing at. “King sized bed, no jacuzzi, nice suite room for the whole time you're there. It's got a safe, a fridge, a microwave, an ironing board—everything you could possibly want. What's wrong with it?”

Manhattan muttered the response. “Two beds.”

“What?”

She cleared her throat. “Two beds. He wants two beds.”

Misty was silent behind her for a long moment. When she did speak, her voice was more measured than Manhattan had heard in a long time. “How long have you two been dating?”

“About two years now.”

“Please tell me you two have had sex.”

Manhattan groaned. “Misty...”

“Just tell me.”

“Yes, we've slept together.”

Manhattan could hear her friend's foot stomp. “So why two beds? That's absurd, Manhattan. You've been a couple for so long, and he can't share a bed with you? Ugh. I don't get your boyfriend. I'm gonna make some tea. Want any?”

“Sure,” she murmured back, scrolling through the rooms again. Two beds and a coffee machine. What else do you think we need in a room? Just get somewhere we can sleep, he'd said.

So this year she had gone all out. She was going to be an elf: pointed ears, her blonde hair all lightly curled and falling on her shoulders, wearing a long pretty dress and lots of natural-stone jewelry…

Sure, she was mainly dressing up to be seen by little kids who would miss most of the nuance, but it made her feel good.

The light was on, shining on her door. The candy was ready on the table. All she had to do was wait for a --

Ding-dong!

There it was. She put on her best enigmatic smile, picked up the candy and opened the door--

…

The scream never had a chance to leave her throat.

-

I’d always believed that I was the scribe to the story, filling in the words where the characters could not. I was the only link between their world and my own. I took great pride in my stories, and I believed that all of them would be introduced to the world some day.

But many of the stories I wrote when I was small are all in notebooks, and poorly written. When I moved, I couldn’t justify bringing all those notebooks along, and I didn’t want to spend the likely weeks it would take typing it all back in. I’d have to accept that those stories, unless they stuck around in my head as ideas, they’d have to be left behind. I celebrated their memories in the bonfire I raised with my friends that summer before I moved, watching the papers curl with just a bit of sadness.

But they were my stories. I’d always remember them.

I never realized they’d make sure of it.

-

But there was no other time, the visitor had assured her. Either they come to the dark throne at dusk tonight, or there would be no chance of the Kareni ever hearing their plea.

So for the first time since the wars, a human walked into the dark forest, to speak before the queen.

-

The southern waters were so vast that men had sailed and sailed until they arrived back on the northern shores, half dead and starving. And so the ships of the south had frozen into the icy waters and never seen the open water again.

  But the wood never forgot.

  It was said, in the southern evenings, that if you listened carefully enough, you could hear a plaintive female voice singing an unknown ballad from across the ice. The elders spoke of the tree faerie, so bound to the wood that if the tree were killed without her permission, she would die as well.

I’ve always believed in those stories. Tonight, I’m going to go find her.

-

Cassi knelt next to the lake, the one she swam in at her birth, and touched the water. Ripples stretched out along the surface, reaching to her brothers and sisters. They vanished into the dark, under the veil of mist that had settled as the moon rose.

She could not see the other side of the lake. She could not remember the last time that happened.

“Dark water, misty air…” She looked up to the sky, and could barely make out the orange glow of the moon above her. “A harvest moon for our enemies to see.”

Cassi closed her eyes, closed all of herself, and plunged both hands into the icy water.

“Tread careful, my friends. The son is born. The revolution is come.”

-

The elven lord muttered something under his breath, but Celita was pretty sure it was in Kalvarine and she didn’t recognize any of the words. “It’s just over here.”

  A few feet more and the building came into view. The wood was darker than any of the trees she’d seen before in Kalvara, and for certain less beautiful. It was the only building she’d seen in the forest that looked as if it had been built hastily, but firm--and then forgotten.

  Just by looking at it, she could feel chills under her skin.

  “You let people live here?” She turned wide eyes on her guide. “Why does it feel so...so…”

“Evil?” Carinth’s voice was distant and flat. “Likely, because it is.” He reached out a hand and brushed just the tips of his fingers against the wood of the building. “These are Metadrine trees, harvested by force and dragged back here. Much like the elves we keep here. And their spirits cry out all the same.”

-

How could he forget? He had been doing his job - minding his own business - doing as any respectable Kalvarine could hope for...and what had he gotten for his faithfulness? For his steadfast holding to the beliefs of his culture? A full seven suns in his quarters, fed as a prisoner and ignored by his peers.

All for some human child. One pathetic human, favored by the son of the Caller for reasons which passed understanding, and she had trumped a child of the woods.

A line had been crossed, and this Guard of the Hall was not willing to stand idly by and wait for proper justice to come along.

And he knew precisely who to ask for his honor to be restored.

-

More on this story as it is available.

-

Jake blinked at the young woman at his door. “I...hey, Taylor. I didn't even know you were home from school. How--”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “No time for small talk, Harker. This feud started ten years ago and I'm about to finish it. Got it?”

All right, talking is out. She's always been focused, but this... “Tay, I'm lost. What are you talking about?”

“Fifth grade. Gym class. You know what I'm talking about.”

It took him a second, but he got there. “Jesus, this is about that?”

“Yes. And we're going to finish this the way it began.” She held up a lone red foam ball. “I've got a date with the gym at the high school. You up for it, or are you a chicken like you were back then?”

-

She had to watch her brother, the one she truly believed had been faithful to the Goddess, kneel at the throne and swear fealty to a man who did not deserve the ground he walked on.

The generations before her had failed to end this madness. Her father had allowed it to continue, and in fact welcomed the whore into their halls. And now her own family would continue the path she knew would lead only to destruction.

So be it. She would take her own revenge...and the throne...and let the halls run with the blood of the traitor king.

–