in separation

a novella by
vane vander
and
marissa lowell

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

OTHERS because you did not keep
That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;
Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.

- William Butler Yeats

PROLOGUE

The coins clinked as they slipped through her hands, rained down into the funnel, assorted themselves into their myriad slots in the transparent cash collector box. A gleeful child spread his smile wide, spread his arms wide, swooping like an eagle into the nearest car and followed closely by his harried mother. They pulled the safety bars over their heads, clicked their seatbelts into place. Patron after patron after patron.

The roar of the amusement park around her had long since filtered into background noise. Occasionally, there were a few individual screams she could pick out from the rest. A child on the cusp of puberty just peaked over the minimum height for the corkscrew, latched in and swept around and around the loops until he threw up his donuts all over the attendants below. Mechanics straddled in their safety harnesses, coaxing a wayward child off the miniature stairways and ladders perched at the corners of highest stress. She glanced up. Another group of teenagers was climbing in the rafters, led by a tour guide, making their way through the preset path marked off with wires and clips and all sorts of things to keep guests from turning into flaming meteors groundbound.

Must be nice getting to explore the heavens, huh?

The cars were almost full. The timer, old, having seen far better business and better days than today, buzzed to life, counting down thirty seconds before the safety gates closed and the ride began.

This ride only stops in emergencies. And crying is not an emergency.

Two disheveled adults sprinted into the waiting area. They glanced around, distressed, frantic, searching for something, for anything-

The man turned to the attendant. "Yes! Ma'am..." He grimaced, searching for words, glancing at the clock. His eyes landed on her nametag. "Yes. Maya. C-can you watch our child while we go on the ride?"

She lifted her eyes from the funnel to the couple. A baby carrier dangled from his companion's fingers. An infant no more than a few months old.

"Sure. I guess. I mean, it's not like my boss is going to pay me any less, so..."

"Oh, thank the gods!"

Maya swallowed the grimace, forced a smile. The man dashed onto the last available car. The woman offered a demure smile almost in apology, managed a pittance of a bow, set the baby carrier down gently beside Maya's folding table.

"Thank you," she mouthed, and then disappeared into the car with her husband.

The clock reached zero. An earsplitting buzz. The safety gates fell shut, and the cars zoomed off for one more round in purgatory, one more batch of screams and shrieks of joy to offer up to whatever unholy god watched over the place and allowed its continued existence.

"There have been a lot of gods here on Earth recently, haven't there?" Maya whispered. Her eyes wandered to the baby carrier. She scooted her chair closer, nudged the plastic shell with her feet. The baby inside scanned its surroundings with disinterested eyes. "Can't imagine you have very good parents if they'd just... abandon you like that." She yawned, kicked back in her seat, a metal folding chair on the verge of falling apart, rested her feet on the table. The pearly anklet around her right ankle glinted in the harsh lights. "Whatever. I'm not paying for your child care if they never come back. Staff are not responsible for lost belongings!"

The tracks squealed as the cars decelerated, returned to their original positions in the loading bay. A click, and then the seatbelts came flying off, safety bars back up. Tide went out, dizzy. The couple parted the sea before them, man slicing through, woman holding tight to his arm along for the ride.

"Thank you. I hope she wasn't any trouble. And if you ever need a better job, we could always use more farmhands in Salyex."

"I mean, it can't get any worse than this." Maya yawned. "What do you want me to do? Pull weeds and shit? Babysit? I think I've already proved myself capable of that."

The two parents glanced at each other, the woman clearly concerned.

"So long as you aren't Chronos devotees." Maya shrugged. "I can handle anything but that."

"I think," the man said at last, "there are a few shops in Salyex much quieter than this. I'd give them a call next you have time."

He slipped a few extra quarters into the funnel, not bothering to watch them spiral down. The woman swept the carrier back up into her arms, smiled again in thanks, disappeared with him out into the rest of the amusement park.

Tide came in, fresh and frisky and just as wide-eyed as the last.

ACT 1

1

Every computer monitor made a low-pitched buzz if Laika leaned in close, put her ear up against it just right. Sometimes she didn't even have to touch it, but just be in the same room, and the same hum assaulted her ears, sent her running for cover.

There was no room in her uncle's house that was safe. Phones in the kitchen during meals, tablets in the living room after meals, speakers blasting in the late hours of the morning the few days there was no work to prevent her from sleeping in. Her laptop screen glared at her in the fragile hours cocooning midnight, curled up on her bed, hacking away at something. Or perhaps writing, or talking to a friend living, breathing, loving half the world away.

Outside was quiet. Outside had the trees that swayed to her outside her bedroom window at midnight, blackened fingers scraping the barely-lit sky like demons clawing their way out of hell. Outside had the wind that rustled through her hair, singing songs of desolation to an insomniac girl in those tender hours of the night. Outside had the rain, dripping from her windowsill, pooling in the cracks of the unfinished driveway, bouncing off the rocks bordering her bedroom window.

She sat on her chair on the porch and watched the rain fall down. Drip down in majestic fat drops from the edge of the roof. Rush down in diagonal sheets where they were uninterrupted by the heavy tree cover, protecting their house from countless windstorms. As if jealous and thought abandoned, sometimes the wind swept in and tousled the rain as if it were a lover's hair.

Tide goes in, tide goes out, and that was the way it had always been on Percholea Farm. Isolated from the outside world, a good hour's drive to her uncle's place or her grandmother's or almost any other place in the whole damn wide world.

"Lai-Lai!" A porcelain hand tugged on her sleeve. She practically jumped from her seat, startled- and wobbled on the edge of the porch, just a jump away from the brunt of the rain. "Lai-Lai!"

"Caroline!" Laika let out a lighthearted laugh. She stepped away from the edge of the porch. "Gods above, you scared me. What is it?"

She pointed behind Laika, eyes turned skyward. "Look!"

Laika turned around, back to the rain. A ragged crack ran through the colorless sky like a patch of dry skin finally torn, like the scar on her thumb that reopened come every autumn. And the sky bled as well, light pouring down onto the incongruous fields below.

"It's pretty, isn't it?" Laika said, suddenly wistful. "Is Mother awake yet?"

"Mama still sleep." Caroline yawned. She took Laika's arm and leaned into her big sister. "Ni-ni, Lai-Lai."

Laika nudged Caroline. "Hey, wake up."

Caroline grumbled as she stumbled back, already half-asleep. "But..."

"Go back inside," Laika continued. "Wake Mother up to check on the generator. I'm going into town to get breakfast."

"O-okay, Lai-Lai."

Caroline disappeared back into the house. Laika brushed herself off and lifted the hood of her poncho over her head. She disappeared around the corner of the house to the garage, returning a few minutes later with a freshly fueled scooter ready to go. One of the headlights was busted, and she'd long since ceased to care about the constant scratching wearing away the paint, but it would still work for now.

Nearly everyone in Salyex, the nearby town, was still asleep. All shops on Main Street were still locked up, Closed signs propped up in the windows. Only the corner cafe's lights greeted Laika as she pulled in, stashed her helmet in the compartment under her seat, strode in. Old tinny music greeted her, almost too faint as to be inaudible. The lights in the dining area were turned off. Laika breathed a sign of relief. One more day without straining her sensitive eyes.

"Hey!" one of the workers greeted her. A bandanna was tied around her forehead, folded, flaps of the tie wagging by her ear, just barely keeping her perpetually frizzy red hair at bay. Her nametag read Maya. "I was wondering when you'd blow in."

"Well, look what the storm dragged in," another one drawled, rolling her heavy-lidded eyes, clearly approaching middle age through her heavy makeup. "Let me guess. King Jack wants another triple stack of pancakes for free."

Laika shook her head. "That never happened." She pulled her hood back and shook out her hair. "It's more waffle weather, don't you think? I'll take five orders."

Both of the women groaned. The heavy-lidded one disappeared into the back. Maya grabbed a bucket of sanitizer and started scrubbing down the table nearest to Laika, keeping her eyes down, averted.

"So what's on the menu today?" Laika asked.

"Oh, you know, the usual... Waffles, pancakes, oatmeal until noon. Then burgers, fries. Some old people food, too. Gotta keep a stash of livers and onions for whenever Grandpas float into town. Every once in a while, some absolute madman demands an overpriced bowl of cereal they could have made at home." Maya snorted. "Less labor than a three-course meal. S'pose I should be thankful. But I don't like feeling like a mom to a preschooler."

"And the secret menu?"

Maya, still bent over the table, peered up at Laika with incredulous eyes. "There's nothing secret about what's right in front of you."

"How much does it cost?"

A sultry smile spread across Maya's lips. "Your undying love and affection."

"Then consider the price already paid-"

The heavy-lidded woman burst back out into the dining area. Maya pulled herself together and resumed wiping down the tables.

"Here's your order." She slammed the five takeout boxes down on the counter. "That'll be ten dollars."

Laika tossed the coins over the side of the counter, not taking her eyes off Maya. "What time do you get off your shift?"

Maya squinted at the clock. "Three minutes."

"I can wait three minutes." Maya moved on to the next table. Laika took a seat at the freshly-cleaned one. "You know, you could take breaks whenever you want if you worked at the family farm."

"Yeah, and have to live under the good graces of some Chronos devotees?" Maya snorted. "No thanks. I don't like having my life be dependent on someone else's goodwill."

"They barely even practice. I don't even know if my mom believes in gods at all. It's all Jack, really. And he keeps it to himself." A pause. "Mostly."

"Just like you, Laika. Keeping to yourself, I mean. When are you going to leave the farm? There's a great big wide world out there. Doesn't seem like you to be a transient."

"I could ask you the same exact question. What's keeping you here, Maya?"

"You answer my question first."

"I have two sisters. You really think I'm going to abandon them to face Jack alone? Mom's plenty strong, but..."

Maya let out a rough sigh as she moved on to another table, keeping in loose orbit around Laika. A jealous planet to a burning sun. "But?"

"If he kicked her out, there's no way in hell she'd be able to support herself and all three of us children. He'd get custody instantly." Laika crossed her legs. "Now you tell me your reason."

"You."

"Really? I can't imagine I'm important enough to stay in this dying town for."

"I have my reasons."

"You care to share any?"

"No." She tossed her rag back into the bucket and started for the back. "Meet you outside."

They pulled into the garage. The rain had ceased, leaving behind puddles and big patches of mud. A few jeweled blue butterflies crawled over the flowers in the garden, wings flapping, basking in the crack of sunshine above. Maya detached herself from her friend and slipped off, took her friend's helmet, slipped it back into the cubby on the wall like so many times before. Brushed the dirt off her pants, stretched her arms out to take some of the boxes-

She froze.

"Something's wrong."

"Something's always wrong here," Laika countered, arms full of boxes.

"No, I mean..."

Maya's eyes wandered.

A spark in her eyes.

She took off running.

"Wait!" Laika tailed behind her, jostling the boxes in her arms. "Maya, wait!"

No response. Footsteps after footsteps down the path, Laika lumbering along, all the way back to the front yard-

"Father!" Maya's eyes sparked in fury. "What are you up to this time?"

Laika caught up, chest heaving, heart pounding. There was an old man standing on the front porch, standing tall, almost regal in his plain gray robe. The front door swung shut behind him. He scanned the yard with weary disinterested eyes.

"Daughter. I didn't expect to see you here. I can see mortal life hasn't been treating you well." He stepped off the porch, slowly approaching Maya with steady measured steps. He stopped a few yards away. Maya tensed up. "You know exactly what to expect now."

"You're still trying to kill me?" Maya balled her fists. Laika thought she saw a spark- or maybe it was just a bug zipping by. "I haven't done anything wrong!"

"You know what you did. You know what fate to expect."

Her eyes narrowed. "I haven't done anything wrong."

The old man continued his steady pace without a word more. Maya's eyes narrowed, prepared to fight, but the man instead calmly pushed past her, eyes focused on the break in the tree cover where the driveway cut through.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Laika set the boxes down and ran over.

"You okay?"

"Physically? Yes. Emotionally?" Maya rolled her shoulders. "No, I'm not okay. I haven't been okay a day in my life."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Maya winced. "It's... a long story."

"I can wait."

The redhead shook her head. "Those boxes can't."

"Damn the boxes. Tell me what's wrong."

"Just..." Maya picked herself up, brushed the dirt off her pants. "I'll explain later, okay? Alright? Come on, breakfast's waiting."

Before Laika could protest, Maya took two of the boxes and dumped them in Laika's arms. She begrudgingly took them, Maya holding the rest, and they trailed back up the driveway and slipped inside.

Laika beelined to the kitchen and set down the boxes on the kitchen table. "Breakfast is here!"

"Lai-Lai!" Caroline's braids bounced around like two twin albino snakes as she bolted down the stairs. "Mai-Mai!"

"Kay-Kay!" Maya opened her arms. Caroline ran straight into them, and Maya picked her up and spun her around, Caroline screaming in glee. She set the tiny four-year-old back down, and she stumbled around, eyes spinning all over, until she tripped and fell onto the carpet in the next room over.

"Wha- oh, you're back," a voice still half in slumber said.

A sleepy Morgan stumbled into the kitchen. Her bathrobe trailed behind her on the floor. She rubbed the dark circles under her eyes and took her seat at the kitchen table. One of the boxes practically almost fell into her hands, opened up with greedy little fingers. The steam from the freshly-made waffle pooled on the ceiling.

"Good morning to you too," Maya responded unprompted. "Glad to see you're still among the living."

"You know me," Morgan murmured. "Always practicing for death."

"Damn, every night?"

"I intend to be a professional by the time I die." Morgan shoved a bite of waffle into her mouth, cutting off the conversation.

Laika rolled her eyes. Caroline eventually made her way to the table as well. Laika lifted her up and into the booster seat on her chair, just starting to pinch at the sides. Caroline took one look at the waffle and forwent the little basket of forks and spoons on the table, shoving the waffle directly into her mouth to gnaw on it as she pleased.

A few muffled yells from downstairs.

Laika froze. "Did anybody else hear that?"

"Hear what?" Morgan mumbled through a mouthful.

"I thought..." She shook her head. "Must just be stress."

The yells again. Something crashed, clanged.

"Stay here. I'm going to go check on Father."

"He's probably just beating stuff up again," Morgan sighed.

Maya followed Laika down the stairs. An immediate left turn into the main area, then one more into the storage area.

The door was locked.

Laika pounded on the door. "Father? Are you okay?"

A yell of frustration on the other side of the door. The clang of metal against metal rang through the air. Maya gave her friend a queer look.

Laika retrieved the key ring from her pocket, produced the silver key with the band of purple around it, slid it into the lock. "I'm coming in."

She turned the doorknob, opened the door just a crack, poked her head in. Her father was slumped over on the floor, almost in tears, his head in his hands. An unpolished sword with a plain handle lay a few feet away, clearly carelessly discarded just a few moments prior.

"Father!" She was at his side in an instant. "Are you alright?"

"I-I'm fine," his voice warbled. "Sweet, sweet Laika..."

"Is this... normal for you?" Maya glanced around the room. The walls were painted blue, dappled texture showing through underneath, a few chips betraying the original red paint underneath. A thick wooden log sat in the middle of the room, thick gashes cut into it, whole chunks missing. A tarp was spread out under it. Little wooden splinters were scattered all over the crinkled brown surface.

"You brought your friend." He wiped the furious tears off his face and pulled himself to his feet. "I'm sorry you have to see me like this." His eyes shifted to Laika. "Please go check up on your mother."

Laika and Maya traded glances. Concern, confusion, second-hand embarrassment.

Laika wrung her hands. "You... would tell me if something was wrong, right?"

"Yes. Please. I'm fine. Go check on your mother."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Maya sighed.

The two girls vacated the room, trading the musty stink of downstairs for the fresh smell of upstairs. Laika's mother's room was all the way at the end, master bedroom with three locks on the door.

Laika slipped a key out of her pocket-

Maya reached her hand out, took Laika's own, stopping her for a moment.

"Hey, uh- why does your father have a sword?"

"I... I don't know." Laika averted her eyes. "I don't know why he has it, or where it came from, or how he got it." Maya tightened her grasp on her hand. Heat rushed into Laika's cheeks. "He's always had it, I guess."

She yanked her hand back and undid the locks and poked her head into the room.

"Mom?"

"Wha- Oh!"

Her mother brushed the dust off her thick work coat and turned to meet them. Behind her stood a monstrosity of a machine, like a printer press and a weed from Chernobyl had had a drunken one-night stand and produced a sharp disjointed dandelion made of wires and repossessed metal rods stolen from scrap yards and solar panels.

"I could use a little help right about now," Rufi said. She gestured to the dresser, where a myriad of tools were scattered in a messy pile. "Hand me the wrench, will you?"

2

The rain let up around noon. As soon as the downpour ceased, Rufi ran through the house, flinging open every window possible. The house filled with the chirps of the birds outside, their own little avian protection army, making their home in the pine trees that guarded their house from the wind. To meet them was the smell of flour in the air as Caroline and Morgan pounded their fists into the dough on the kitchen counter, mashing up one ball of ingredients after another to each put into its own little covered bowl in the fridge. Jack- the man of the house- reappeared from his self-imposed dungeon later, and soon wafted the smells of things cooking over an open flame. Eventually everybody filtered out of the house, set up the years-old folding chairs from the garage around the yard, holes starting to wear in the fabric seats.

Maya stared at her plate, hamburger half-eaten. "Is every night like this here?"

"Gods above, I wish." Laika sighed. "Everything tastes better in the open air. Except for the bugs. I'd be perfectly happy if mosquitos went extinct tomorrow."

"But come winter?"

"I..."

"Hey." Maya put a hand on Laika's knee. "No drifting off. Stay in reality."

Laika shook her head. "Both Mom and Dad know how to cook. Their skills... vary, but we haven't starved yet." She snorted. "Better than my uncle's house, at least. Most nights there, it's fend for yourself."

Laika side-eyed the fire a short distance away. Morgan and Caroline were laughing as they dangled sticks over the fire, marshmallows squashed onto the ends.

"I usually just end up cooking a big pot of ramen for everybody," she continued. "There's rarely anything healthier in the house, and my cousins refuse to eat anything else. Nothing but ramen and corn dogs and macaroni and cheese for days, and they smother everything in even more cheese..." The grass underneath Laika crinkled as she picked the closest dandelion, yellow leaves long since retracted, white fuzz poking out from the top. She dug her fingernail into the base, splitting it in two, and started picking out the brown seeds. "I don't understand how anybody lives in the cities."

"Oh, you're telling me!" Maya scooted closer to her friend. She patted the tree trunk they were both leaning on, sturdy enough as to not sway from their weight. "My family loves cities. They're always so big and bustling with people you'll never be allowed to meet and experiences you'll never be allowed to, well... experience. Must be how my father can like them so much, since he gets to do whatever he pleases, and the rest of us have to ask him for permission..."

"Wasn't that old dude from earlier your father?"

"That's just what he believes." She stuffed the last of her burger into her mouth, swallowing it in two bites.

"I've never seen him around before. Maybe he's worried about you, and he knows you're friends with me...?"

Maya scoffed. "Why would be be concerned about me?"

"I don't know. It was just a guess." Laika yawned. The tattered remains of the dandelion's stalk slipped out of her fingers, already forgotten. "I guess I should take you home now while it's still light out."

"Good idea."

Maya threw her paper plate into the fire. They retreated inside.

"Oh! I almost forgot! I have to get my purse from your room."

"No worries."

They went downstairs. Laika unlocked her room, and they disappeared inside.

Laika glanced around. "Wait, I don't see your purse in here-"

Maya grabbed Laika's forearm. Her eyes, big and blue like the ocean she'd never seen, flew open wide. "Pack light, Laika. Everything you need. Nothing you don't. You're not coming back here for a long while."

"What in the-"

"Listen to me, Laika. You're in grave danger right now. There's no time to explain."

Laika yanked her arm free. "What in the world's gotten into you? What do you mean, I'm in danger? I live on a farm. Everything can be dangerous." A pause. "If nothing else, I'd argue the cities are more dangerous-"

"Laika, I-" Maya groaned. "Okay, okay. Listen." She kicked off her shoes and planted one foot on Laika's bed, showing off her anklet. "You see this?"

"Y-Yeah, I sure hope I can. I kind of need my eyes."

"Do you know what it's made of?"

"Not really. It's been a while since I cared about geology."

"It's made of mythril, dumbass. Do you know what mythril was used for in all the myths? Or were you not into that too?"

"It was for... obscuring soul strings." Laika's eyes narrowed. "You're a goddess. Which would make your father... Chronos." A pause, and then she suddenly recoiled in horror, overcome with a shiver.

"Yeah. So I think I know what I'm talking about." She took her foot off the bed and sighed. "Sorry for being rude. It's just-"

Footsteps pounded down the stairs. The two of them froze until the stomps descended into the second basement, door slamming shut behind them.

Maya lowered her voice to a whisper. "He's going to sacrifice you."

"He's going to what-"

Maya shushed her again. "Long story short, the world is about to collapse. This country included. And when everything goes to shit, Chronos is gonna make your father king. But only if he sacrifices you to show his devotion, or something dumb like that."

"He wouldn't do that."

"Are you sure?"

Laika struggled for words for a moment, and then she shook her head and grabbed Maya's arm and dragged her to the door. "Enough of this. I'm taking you home."

She wasn't being serious, was she?

It would be easier to know if I knew what mythril looked like. And I don't remember there being a Maya in the pantheon...

There could be. I haven't paid attention to churchy stuff in a while. And it didn't sound like she was on good terms with her family, either.

You remember John, right? From Dad's side of the family? He doesn't like any of us. He never shows up to big family events. Barely anyone talks about him anymore, except to wonder what he's doing instead of being with us.

Maybe it's like that. But why me? Just because I'm firstborn, isn't it? No, why me? Why our family, instead of some other farm? What makes us special? Cursed?

Oh, damn this! I'll ask him myself.

Her head swam as she rolled out of bed. The clock on her nightstand blared 1:27 AM in big blocky orange letters. She propped herself up against the wall, waiting for the wave of nausea to pass, and then silently drifted out of her room.

Her father was back downstairs again, no doubt beating up the log. She touched the doorknob. A tiny shock greeted her. She shook it off and gritted her teeth and opened the door.

But it was her mother instead, swinging the sword with wild abandon, taking care to stay far away from the walls. A snick rang through the air as the sword embedded itself in the trunk, sticking out like a bad toothpick.

She jumped in shock. "Oh! Laika, darling! You're up rather late. Did I wake you up?" She rubbed her eyes and let out a wide yawn. "Gods above, what time is it?"

"Time for you to tell me what happened yesterday."

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Well, your father grilled, and you had your friend over. That's two things. I think..." She tapped her chin. "Oh, and you got breakfast for everyone, and I worked on my solar power generator."

Laika glared at her. "That's not what I meant."

"Well, Laika, I'm not a walking journal. If you want something, you'll have to be more specific."

Laika descended one step. "There was an old man here yesterday. Tell me what he said."

"Oh, him. He was a very nice man from the state government. He wanted to check up on us, make sure all three of you were being raised properly. You know, not malnourished, or neglected, or abused." She nodded her head towards the beaten-up wooden trunk. "Your father and I have worked very hard to build a home where you can grow up safe. So, naturally, he had nothing to write up about us, and so he left."

"That sounds awfully dubious."

"Is something wrong, Laika? We can talk about it." She took the hilt with two hands, braced one foot against the trunk, and yanked the blade out. She slid it back into its sheath. "Come here. Close the door behind you. I don't want to wake up anyone else."

She shut the door behind her, but otherwise remained still.

"What's wrong?"

"I... It's just..." Her eyes started to sting with tears. Her hand rose to sweep them away. "Father's going to kill me, isn't he?"

Rufi's eyes darkened. "Laika..."

Her eyes flew wide open. "Maya was right! Father's going to sacrifice me to Chronos, isn't he? God- fuck-" Laika punched the wall. It did nothing but make her knuckles sting. "I should have gone with her..."

"...Yes, maybe you should have."

Shock crossed Laika's face. "You..."

Rufi stepped forward. Each step deliberate, echoing dully on the floor. She unhooked the sheath from her belt and held the whole thing out to Laika, gripping the end, handle out to her daughter.

"Take this."

"No-" Laika shook her head. "No! You wouldn't... Father wouldn't..."

"Laika, take this."

Laika, hands trembling, took the sheath. It was the first time she'd ever touched her father's sword. It had spent its life either in her father's hands, tucked away in storage, or zip-tied and used as a prop at the medieval festival they'd stopped going to years and years ago. It was far lighter than she had expected, and she turned it over and over and over in her hands, studying all the wrinkles and cuts the leather had accumulated over the years.

"Run, Laika. Run to the farthest reaches of this world. Run to the otherworld. Chronos has no dominion there. You'll be safe."

"Can't you talk Father out of it?"

Rufi shook her head, distraught. "I would if I could, child. I would uproot everyone and whisk us all off to the otherworld if I could. But your father would never allow that. We've planted our roots too far down. I fear we'll never be able to tear them up again." She looked up at her daughter, standing up on high on the staircase. "So run, Laika. Take to the wind. Blend in with the midnight sky. If that means we're not your family any more, then so be it. Take whatever you need from the fridge, from my tool set, whatever. Just... don't wake up your father, and don't look back."

"You're- You're not serious."

Rufi turned away, hiding her face.

Without a sound, Laika turned around and retreated back to her room. She flicked on the light. It was the same as it had been ten, maybe five, minutes ago, and yet... a veil fell over the place, as if she were returning to it after a long absence. Intimately familiar, every half-unpacked box and messy project lying abandoned hers, and yet not, strange.

A passerby in her own life.

A transient.

She turned around. Her mother was standing in the doorway, wiping tears from her eyes.

"I said not to look back," she whispered.

"Mother, I..."

Rufi kept her composure just long enough to rush forward and wrap her arms around Laika. "I love you. I want you to know that. No matter what happens, no matter where you end up, if we never see each other again- I will always love you."

Laika's eyes watered. "But if I don't make it...?"

"Then I'll find you, and we'll cross that bridge together. Somewhere, somehow. No matter where you end up, you and I will meet again. You will always be my daughter."

Rufi let go and wiped the silent tears from her eyes. She produced a pen from her pocket and handed it to her daughter. "There's a flashlight on the end."

Laika murmured her thanks and turned back to the room. She picked up her backpack and emptied out all of the school supplies, the notebooks, the half-used pens, the textbooks she'd forgotten to return on the buyback days. Two sets of clothes went in, one set of pajamas, an umbrella...

Her eyes searched furtively around the room. A pair of bandannas went into the backpack. A dirty and scratched binoculars. A compass.

She dug out some old carabiner clips and attached the sheath to one of the side straps on the backpack. It hung loosely, and the sword looked like it might fall out at any minute, but it would have to do for the moment.

She pulled on her lightest hoodie and slung the backpack over her shoulder and turned to the door.

"Good luck," Rufi whispered.

Laika only gave a nod in response.

She tip-toed up the stairs. The rest of the house slept on without a stir as Laika slid her shoes on.

The front door almost towered over her, as if it were an angry god of its own. A circle of stained glass in the window, fragmented, frame in the shape of a flower betrayed the glow of the porch lights as they blared into the abyss of the night.

An abyss she threw herself into as she unlocked the door and slipped out without a word.

Her phone was to her ear in an instant. "Maya?"

"Y-yeah?" a groggy voice answered on the other end of the line. "You called? What's up, love?"

"You were right. I'm coming over. I'll be there in about fifteen minutes."

"Vindicated at last." Maya giggled. "Yeah, we're not running away on that dinky little scooter. I have a friend who owes me a favor. I'll be there with an actual vehicle in about thirty. Hang tight."

The call cut off. She stashed the device back in her pocket.

The midnight summer wind swept through the trees again, swaying them, an audible lullaby like so many lonely nights throughout the years. Dew sprinked on the ground, a million sparkles in the harsh glare of the bug lamp high up on a post across the front lawn.

She sat down on the front step and turned her eyes to the sky. A thin smattering of clouds obscured the stars. A waning moon hung overhead.

Another gust of wind, a primal language she'd become bilingual in as a young child. Her long flowing hair fluttered around her eyes. She brushed the errant strands out of her face, keeping her gaze focused on the stars. She shivered and tugged on the sleeve collars of her hoodie, hastily sewn back on after an accident with one of the farm machines, never enough time in the world to fix them properly. The seams threatened to pop loose, but just like every other time before, they held strong.

There were more important things in the world than being the most fashionable one on the block, she reminded herself.

But in that summer night, waiting for the headlights to inevitably blind her, it was the only thing she could think of.

The headlights startled her awake. Maya was at her side in an instant, helping the dazed girl up and into the shotgun seat of the truck. She tossed Laika's backpack into the back seats and started the vehicle up again.

"B-be quiet," Laika murmured, half-asleep, desperately fighting off the grabby arms of Morpheus. She rested her head against the seatbelt. "Father..."

"Yeah, I'm trying my best." Maya cursed under her breath. The ignition kicked in with a low rumble, just begging Laika to doze off again. Maya side-eyed her friend. "Gods above, I'd love to be sleeping right now. We'd be halfway to Shadow Moses by now if we'd left when I'd said..."

She pulled the vehicle into gear. The truck slowly rolled down the driveway.

"W-where?" Laika murmured.

"It's a national park half a state over. Known for its caves. I hear there's an entrance to the underworld way down under."

"What about work?"

"I quit today."

"Wha-"

"All my stuff's in the back. I'm outta this hellhole. On to my next life."

As soon as they cleared the tree line, Maya gunned the gas right up to the speed limit. The ground beneath them blurred into one midnight mess. Laika's head spun, but she forced her eyes open, counting the phone line poles as they passed by.

One, two, three...

"How long have you been alive?"

Maya shrugged. "I never bothered counting. Doesn't help that the gods use a different time system, and time passes differently here than there. I'd say I'm pretty young, as far as gods go." She leaned back and took one hand off the steering wheel, resting it on her window. "I think it's been... nearly two Earth decades since Father kicked me out."

"What did you do?"

"Picky nosy, aren't we?" Maya snorted. "Go to sleep. Do you want me to sing you a lullaby?"

Laika groaned.

"Too bad. Go to sleep, little one, now that your day is done..."

3

Driver-side daylight. Laika's hands felt like lead as they rose to shield her eyes. The first verges of sunrise poked over the horizon, sharp as swords, overeager to get the day started.

Maya was slumped over the steering wheel. Heavy snores ran through her chest. The hair on one side of her head was plastered flat, bandanna partially unfolded and covering half of her face.

They were parked, pulled over on the side of what looked like a country backroad. A seemingly impenetrable wall of pine trees framed them on both sides, two prickly chopsticks to pinch the sun in their grasp. An egg, perhaps, sunny side up, left on the skillet too long. The whole world was tucked inside an angry chicken's nest.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. The number of her home landline.

I could pretend to be kidnapped.

But wouldn't kidnappers get rid of their victim's phones?

I better answer it.

"Hello?" she whispered.

"Laika!" Morgan practically shrieked on the other end over Caroline's wailing. "Where are you? Mom said you were on a sudden business trip. I don't buy it one bit. You don't even have a business!"

"Yeah, uh..." She turned the volume down as far as it would go. Maya snored on. Her hair glistened like the dewy grass outside. "Mom was... right. It's, uh, very important. I won't be home for a long time."

"You're lying."

"No, I'm not. It's a, uh, tech startup in California. They need people from a, uh... a rural background."

"Doesn't that internet thing let you do computer stuff without really being there?"

"Uh, yeah, for some things. But, uh, they want me to be there in person. They even paid for rent and food and, uh, stuff."

"You're lying. You don't say 'uh' when you're not lying."

Laika swore under her breath. "I'm sorry, Morgan. I can't tell you."

"So you're just going to disappear? Just like that? I don't get a big sister anymore? Who am I gonna do chores with, and work in the garden with, and help Mom tinker with? Who's going to keep me safe from Father?"

"I..." Laika resisted the urge to cringe. "I don't know what to say."

"You could say the truth."

"Only if you promise you won't tell anybody else."

"I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die."

Oh, don't do that...

"Okay. Here's what's going on. Chronos-"

"-is doing nothing," Maya murmured, on the cusp of awaking. She swung an arm over and swiped Laika's phone from her hands. Her eyes were bleary, but she managed to hit the hangup button before Laika could yank her phone back. "Just a quick tip: the more you bitch about it to your family, the more leaving's going to hurt. And that means the more likely you're going to go back and this will all be for nothing."

"I wasn't bitching," Laika muttered under her breath.

Maya rubbed her eyes and adjusted her bandanna as best she could. Once the blurriness had cleared, she unlocked the truck and slid down to the back. She retrieved a box of cereal and a jug of milk. "Sorry, no bowl."

"Classy." Laika wedged the box in the compartment between them. A handful of flakes, and a modest gulp of milk to go down. "Remind me again why I'm on the road with you again."

"Because you didn't want to pass out and die fifteen miles away from home at three in the morning."

The world almost seemed to freeze before Laika.

Because that's never happened before.

"Right." Laika passed her the jug of milk, world thawing back into action. "Not like I have my own vehicle or anything."

"And because you're deathly afraid of highways."

Laika coughed out a half-hearted giggle. "It was one time, okay? One time I cut off a car. And it was on accident."

"Accidentally almost crashed a whole three-way intersection." Maya swung down a swig of milk that could have made any drunk sailor proud. "And, because you love me."

"That's debatable."

Maya gave her a deadpan look. "Does this look like a college debate team?" She cocked her head. "Could have given me some advance notice. All my stuffy stiff clothes are in the wash."

"Implying you ever properly do laundry."

"Hey, I wash my stuff. Throw a detergent packet in, then all your smelly clothes, and you're set." She leaned in close, lowering her voice. "Sometimes I even throw two packets in, just to be extra spicy."

"That's overkill."

"Overkilling my joy. You're just jealous because my leggings are extra spicy and yours aren't."

Laika rolled her eyes. "Your leggings smell like wet laundry. Are we getting on the road soon?"

"After breakfast." She yawned and handed the closed jug back to Laika. The driver's door creaked as she threw it wide open. "And after I relieve myself. Be right back."

Morgan gripped the handle with both hands as she carried the pail back to the garden. At the wire fence, she tipped the pail ever so slightly, dripping water into each of the holes in the bricks that held up the makeshift fence poles. Little daisies and sunflower sprouts poked their heads out of the holes, framed by other pink and white and yellow flowers, ever so grateful that the wire mesh surrounding the garden would keep the rabbits from ravishing them before they had even had the chance to drink in the sun's rays.

Rufi poked her head up from where she was crouched, in the center of the garden, perched on a small concrete slab. The rhubarb plant towered over her, leaves providing little shield from the relentless sun.

"Morgan!" A tired smile graced Rufi's face. "Set down the pail and fetch me a serrated knife from the kitchen block."

"That's the one with the..." Morgan gestured a wave with her hand.

"The divots, yes."

Morgan grunted as she lowered the heavy pail to the ground. She retreated through the back door in the garage, rubbing the mud off the bottom of her shoes on the mat, and slipped inside.

"Mo-Mo!" Caroline hopped up and down, clapping her hands, right in Morgan's way to the kitchen. "Vacation time!"

"Vacation time? That's... weird. We never take vacations." She slid by Caroline. "Sorry! Mom wants a knife."

Morgan slid knives out of the chopping block at random, replacing them until she found the one with the dents at the edges. She stepped out of the kitchen again, this time making it back to the garage door before Caroline stopped her again.

Her little sister stared up at her with wide eyes. "Where Lai-Lai?"

Morgan winced and pushed past her sister and ran back to the garden.

"Thanks." Rufi plucked the knife from her daughter's hands. She started sawing off the leaves on the ends of the stalks of rhubarb one by one by one, tossing each leaf the size of her head and then some over the wire fence to the sea of underwatered grass outside.

Morgan reached for a leaf-

Rufi held her hand out. "Don't eat those! Rhubarb leaves are poisonous."

Morgan picked up a leaf and turned it over in her hands, studying the fuzzy pale green surface. "It doesn't look poisonous to me."

"Oh, honey. Lots of things in this garden are poisonous. The magic..." She tossed another leaf over. "Is in knowing where the good parts are." She cut off the last of the leaves, disposing it over the fence, and started sawing off the actual rhubarb stalks, thick and green and almost as tall as Morgan herself. "Throw all those leaves into the composter, please."

Morgan crossed the yard to the thick black barrel on a stand, mounted so it could spin freely on its side. She opened the hatch and stuffed the leaves in- and immediately balked, the rancid scent of old coffee strains and decomposing food and other things Morgan dared not think about assaulting her nose. She threw the hatch shut and retreated back to the garden, a cowardly soldier in a war of roses.

Or daffodils and peonies, actually, since those were the actual flowers growing in the borders. Or tulips, maybe, growing in the front yard near the porch.

Or dandelions, reaching out with their spiky leaves to snatch her feet and bury her six feet under forever, where Laika's bones would lie, one day lie, die-

"Morgan!" Mudstained boots ran up to her from the world's side. Arms righted the world again. "Are you okay?"

"Wh..." The world spun around her. "I... M... Mom?"

"You shouldn't be in this heat. I'll bring you inside. Can you stand?"

"Uh... Y-yeah."

Rufi helped the dizzy Morgan to her feet. She teetered, and Rufi took her hand and led her inside onto the couch in the living room. She pulled off her shoes and deposited them on the welcome mat by the front door and slipped into the kitchen. She came back a few moments later with a cup of water and handed it to Morgan.

"Drink this. Stay down. Deep breaths."

Morgan braced herself and downed the glass. The spinning slowed.

"Mom?" she whispered. "Are we really going on a vacation?"

Rufi's mouth became a taut line. "If we are, I haven't heard about it." She turned back to the door. "I have to bring in the rest of the rhubarb. Try to rest until dinner, okay?"

The kitchen table felt... empty. Rufi kept a smile on her face through the whole thing, serving each of them like there was nothing wrong with the world. Jack's eyes kept darting out the window at the slightest provocation: a bunny darting back under the shed, perhaps, or just a dandelion head waving in the wind.

"Father?" Morgan said, poking her fork around her limp broccoli. "Are we really going on a vacation?"

He frowned. "Alright, who told?"

The rest of the family froze, frigid.

He relaxed. "I'm joking. I'm just playing with you. Yes, Morgan, your mom and I are going on a vacation. Nowhere dangerous. Just a little... impromptu road trip. That's how we met, you know." He wiggled his eyebrows at Rufi. She didn't seem to notice. "We should be home before first summer harvest. We're leaving tomorrow at noon."

"Without us?"

Rufi, obviously worn out, practically half-asleep where she sat, whispered, "You and Caroline are going to stay with your uncle and aunt."

Jack's eyebrows crinkled. "Don't they have a trip next week?"

"A concert, darling. That's just one night-"

"I don't understand." Morgan slid off her chair, stood up. "Laika's suddenly gone, and now you're going too? Something's not adding up." She crossed her arms and pouted. "Tell me the truth."

"I told you. We're going on a vacation."

"Where's Laika?"

"On a business trip." Jack cleared his throat. He got up, dishes in hand. "Excuse me. I have some important business to attend to."

Morgan watched him with wary eyes as he dumped his dishes in the sink and disappeared downstairs. She watched him stomp down the stairs one by one by one. When his dark hair disappeared- or maybe just blended in with the rest of the unlit basement- she excused herself as well and followed him, leaning up against the locked door.

A click. The landline phone lifted up from its dock. A few seconds passed, and then a "Hello?"

"Mo-Mo-"

"Sshh!" Morgan clamped a hand over Caroline's mouth. Caroline licked the hand. Morgan grimaced and yanked her hand away. Caroline stayed silent and knelt beside Morgan. The silver strands in her hairband glinted in the thin sliver of light that escaped from the underside of the door.

"Yes. Everstein. Are you busy at this moment?" A pause. "Great. Are you still in contact with Greendale these days? Y-Yeah, the one from the fishing club. The skip tracer." A familiar rhythm of steps. Pacing back and forth in front of the wooden trunk, probably. "I'm cashing in on a favor."

"Laika's missing," Morgan whispered. "I knew it."

"Lai-Lai run away?" Caroline slumped. Her face fell. Her mouth quivered. Tears pricked in her eyes. Morgan shushed her again.

"Put him on the phone." Another pause, this one longer. The pacing stopped, then picked up again. "Ah! Greendale. Still at it, eh, old pal?" He chuckled. "My daughter's missing. Laika Percholea, nineteen, about six feet tall. Black hair from me, gray eyes from her mother. You know what she damn looks like." Another pause. "I'll pay you real good. The harvests this year are looking to be phenomenal." Morgan's legs started to burn. She adjusted herself. "I know she took her phone with her. It's... yeah, it's a smartphone. We only gave it to her because she needed it for an old job, but that fell through. She has a debit card, too. We're still the co-owners of her account." Caroline wiggled and leaned in closer. "I can get you all the details tomorrow when my wife and I head out."

The phone clicked back on its hook. Morgan's eyes flew wide open.

"Come on!" She patted Caroline. They shot to their feet and took off running back up the stairs, all the way back to Morgan's room on the upper floor. She slammed the door shut behind her and locked it.

"Mo-Mo?" Caroline stared up at her older sister with wide eyes. "What we do?"

"I... I've got to think of something..." Morgan started pacing beside her bunk bed. Internally, she thanked herself for having cleaned all the clothes off the floor the previous day. "There's too many missing pieces. Why'd she leave? Why are Mother and Father being so secretive about it? I saw her scooter in the garage earlier when I was helping Mom with the garden. How did Big Sister even get off the property?"

"Lai-Lai have a friend."

"Maya. Of course! But what does she have to do with all this..." Morgan stroked her chin. "They're in a relationship. I think. Did they run away together?"

Caroline shrugged.

"I know. Laika wouldn't run away without prior notice. But I did hear a voice on the other end of the phone right before she hung up. Maybe... she's been kidnapped! Hmmm... The voice mentioned Chronos. So she's been kidnapped to join a... cult! A cult about Chronos! I've got it!" Morgan climped up the ladder to the top bunk. She peered down at Caroline, as if she were a king on high. "Caroline, pack your bags. I've got a plan. Tomorrow, when we're in the city, we'll convince Uncle to drive us to the library. And then we're going to research cults until the cows come home!"

"Yeah!" Caroline pumped her tiny fist in the air. "And Lai-Lai come home too!"

4

"You know," Maya pondered as she steered the truck down a particularly curvy stretch of road, "it says a damn lot about your siblings that they noticed you were gone right away. I mean, mine never gave a shit. Or if they did, they certainly made no effort to contact me-"

A red sports car cut her off in passing.

She slammed down on the horn, grit her teeth as the car honked back. "Just a little 'hello! we remember you! we love you very very much! we wish you could come home!' would have been nice. It wouldn't even take a phone! Godly voice reception spans all over the world."

Laika's eyes were distant, absentmindedly tracking the nature passing by outside her window. When her thoughts slipped, she sometimes thought she could see a deer keeping up with the truck on the side of the road, jumping over the obstacles on the roadside, narrowly dodging the oncoming signs.

"'Course, everyone's probably too wrapped up in Ceuta's little hissy fit to give much of a damn," Maya continued. "'Oh, look at me! I'm going to go help the humans! Never mind I could do more as a goddess actually knowing my powers than as a human wrapped up in human flesh!'" She wiggled her fingers in mocking. "I mean, I don't mind being down here. But if I had a savior complex, I'd want to be somewhere I actually had powers. Here?" She flexed her fingers, studying her fingernails as they rolled down a rare stretch of straight road in that valley. "I can make sparks. I could probably revive a small animal if I tried. I healed a bird once. It smacked one of the cafe windows one day during a windstorm. Poor thing was almost dead. I didn't let my boss see, of course. And I washed my hands afterwards, so don't even think about reporting me."

Maya fell silent. Dead air hung between the two of them.

She pulled to a stop at the next stop sign and glanced over.

"Hey." She shook her friend's shoulder. "Laika? Are you listening?"

A whiny noise escaped Laika's throat as her eyes fluttered back open. "Y-yeah. I'm listening."

"You alright? You look kinda pale."

"I'm.. fine." Laika rubbed her eyes. "Just... tired."

Maya hit the gas again, slow acceleration back to sixty miles an hour. "We're about ten minutes from the motel. It's pretty out of the way. I hope there are no cops."

"Y-yeah... that would be bad."

"I don't think you're taking this seriously. If we get caught, you die. Hell, I could die, too! I have no records. Nothing legal. They could make me disappear, and nobody would even notice."

"I would notice."

"But you can't notice something if you don't know it exists. If you don't know it happened."

"But if I see something, and I don't know what it is, and I still take note of it...?"

Maya shrugged. "It's just a blip, then. A glitch. A bug." A pause. "And you wouldn't be able to notice anyway if you were dead too."

"I think I'd notice once I found you in the afterlife."

"Bold of you to assume there is an afterlife. Not for mortal people, anyway." Maya let out a long sigh. "Anyways, I'm half-sick of thinking about morbid things all the time. Let's talk about something happier. What's your favorite tree?"

"My favorite... tree?"

"Yeah. Me? I like birch trees. They have such papery bark, and it curls up. I see one, and my fingers tingle. I just- I just want to peel the bark off, you know? Like when I see a hangnail, or a tag on my skin. It drives me crazy." A left turn. "How about you?"

"I... I guess I like pine trees," Laika offered. "They make good wind cover for the farmhouse."

"And...?"

"I guess that's it."

Even by motel standards, the building Maya parked beside wasn't the most desirable of places. Unless one liked the run-down aesthetic, neon lights glowing into the encroaching evening with half of the letters missing, prominent cracks in the parking lot, rooms with flickering lightbulbs soon in need of replacements.

She turned the ignition off, and the two of them climbed out. Maya hoisted her suitcase and Laika's backpack out. The truck chirped as it locked behind them, as they made their way to the prominent window open in the front building.

Maya counted off forty dollars from her wallet and placed them on the counter. "One room, please."

The crusty man working the front counter eyed Laika's sword, sheath hanging from her backpack. His gaze lingered a few seconds too long for comfort, but he eventually took the cash and disappeared into the back. The myriad of fishing tackles mounted onto the wall jingled as he slammed the door shut.

The door slammed open again as he returned. He dropped a dingy key onto the counter. "Here ya go."

Maya snatched the key without another word. They wandered back over to the truck.

"Room twelve," Maya read. She glanced up. They'd parked in front of room twelve. "Well, I guess Lady Luck smiles on us today."

"You sure it wasn't you?"

Maya rolled her eyes. "I'd think, if I could influence people like that, we'd be on a nonstop one-way limo ride to Shadow Moses."

They disappeared inside. Laika flicked the lights on. A dim glow above them. Two beds with faded red comforters, a dresser drawer, an old TV. A table and chair in the corner. Laika poked her head around the corner. A small bathroom just large enough for her to turn around in. Something nasty was lurking in the shower drain.

"Why here?" Laika whispered.

Maya shrugged. "It was the cheapest place I could find."

Laika shook her head and shrugged her backpack off. It dropped with a plop onto the bed. She threw herself down beside it and stretched out her limbs and let out a long groan.

"How far off are we from Shadow Moses?"

"About a week at our current pace."

Maya turned away. Her eyes wandered to the framed painting up in one of the corners, a gentle pastoral landscape, sheep dotting the side of a grassy hill. Too high up to be seen properly, she climbed onto the bed, legs wobbling as she steadied herself to study it. "You want to do anything tonight?"

"Maya, we're fugitives."

"So?" She laughed. "I can't stay cooped up in this room the rest of the day. There's still a few hours of daylight left."

"You could do me."

Maya turned around- and lost her balance. Her knees buckled. She tumbled onto the bed, rolled onto the floor, landed with a thunk.

"I'm okay," she said, picking herself up, rolling onto Laika's bed, rolling up to beside her friend. She cupped her friend's face with one hand, squeezed her cheeks. Laika fought back a grin. "I mean, am I, really?"

"I don't know. You're the goddess here. I don't read minds."

"Neither do I."

Maya snuggled in closer, breathed a kiss onto her neck.

"There's no matron goddess of love up above. There's no love up above." Her hand traveled down Laika's arm, across her chest, tangled itself in the buttons of her jeans. "Down here, however..." She smiled against the skin. Laika shivered under her delicate touch. She slid a button loose. "In the crooks of your body, I find my religion. I've found my saving grace."

Morgan stared at her uncle's house, feet planted firmly in the grass. It was an ugly pale brown house with one white door in front. Paint chipped everywhere she could see. The siding was cracked. One of the segments of the rain gutter hung loose, and below it on the ground was a divot in the pavement where the water must have pummeled it every rainfall.

She took a deep breath to reassure herself and went inside.

Two tiny dogs ran past her feet and darted out the front door underneath. She tripped and caught herself on the coat rack, shoving aside a sea of shoes carelessly scattered around the front door. She stumbled into the living room, where the mess only continued, balls of yarn and dog toys strewn all over the floor.

A door upstairs squeaked. A lanky boy a few years Morgan's senior stepped out of his room.

"Oh. Hi, Morgan." He waved. His unkempt hair bobbed around his head. "Is Caroline with you?"

"Y-yeah."

She lowered her head and brushed past the upstairs staircase before he could ask her any more questions. She slid past the kitchen, where Jack and Rufi were discussing something with her uncle, and lowered her suitcase down the downstairs staircase step by step by step, thunking each time down. As if a fish darting away from a shark, Morgan flitted into the guest room, locking the door behind her.

She sunk down to the floor, leaning against the door.

"Michael!" a voice yelled from upstairs. Probably her aunt, she thought. "Time to take out the recycling!"

"Just a minute!" the lanky boy from before yelled back.

"No, not 'just a minute'! Now!"

Morgan pulled her legs in close.

"Were you in bed again?" her uncle chimed in. "You can't spend all day in bed, Michael!"

"I wasn't!" he yelled back.

"I heard you crawling out of bed!"

Morgan hissed and pulled herself to her feet. Her eyes darted around the room. The decorations had changed since the last time she'd been there. Building blocks all over the shelves. College textbooks and hardcover novels and old crafting books meant for elementary school kids scattered on the bookcase in no particular order. A few thin blankets on the bed in lieu of actual sheets.

The smell of oranges lingered somewhere.

Hand on thigh, hand on breast, thigh on chest. Feet hanging off the edge of the bed. Things left unsaid, cheeks flushed red.

A subtle knock on the door. Laika stirred.

"Shush." Maya put a finger to Laika's lips. "I'll get it."

She detached herself from her friend and slid off the bed. Her skin was still glowing, but she took a loose blanket from the bed and draped it around herself before she opened the door a crack.

It was one of the motel staff. Not the one who'd checked them in- he had better hygiene, thank goodness- but he lifted his head, trying to peer into the room, and gave up when he couldn't see over Maya's hair.

"Pardon me, miss." Suddenly noticing she was practically naked, he averted his eyes. "Sorry it's so late at night. Is there a person by the name of Laika Percholea in there with you?"

"Uh... No, there isn't."

"I have here a-"

"Sir, it's late at night. We're trying to sleep. Come back in the morning."

"I... alright."

The man abandoned the door, treading slowly back to the front building. Maya rolled her eyes and locked the door behind her.

"Serves me right for paying less for a shitty motel in the middle of nowhere." Maya let the blanket drop and brushed herself off.

"Did he have a warrant?"

"A what?"

"A warrant?" Laika propped herself on the pillows. "A slip of paper that says you have to let the police or whatever in to do a search. Did he have one?"

"Oh, nah." Maya scratched her head. A crumbled part of a leaf fell out of her hair and landed on the spare bed. "Nothing. Not at all. So I met him so."

A pause hung between them. Maya crouched down beside Laika's backpack. She traced a finger over the hilt, unpolished silver staring back with a distorted reflection of her face.

"I didn't know you had a sword."

"It's not mine."

"Who'd you get it from?"

Laika closed her eyes, suddenly frigid.

"Oh. Uh..." Maya hissed, fumbling for words. "You know, my father has a sword too. I didn't have the guts to steal it from him, though. Kept under tight security, right above his throne." She stood back up and approached Laika, cupped her face in her hands, tilted her head up. Laika opened her eyes, peered up at the goddess. "You mortals are really something else. Gutsy, and bold. I think... you'll need that." The edges of her mouth curled up in a smile. "Good thing I'm in love with one."

"I would sure hope so, considering..."

Laika gestured to the bed. And then they both burst into laughter- Laika like a delicate chiming bell, Maya like a beef steak booming from the abyss of her chest.

5

The sky was a sickly shade of yellow, like pallid skin papered with a thousand little leaf bandages. Thick raindrops splattered against Morgan's window as she squished herself into the corner, writing away in her diary to her heart's content.

A dart somewhere in the corner of her vision.

She glanced up.

Nothing.

She turned back to her diary. Half of the page was covered in a thick scrawl, almost unreadable. Definitely unreadable to the average person, as every letter was a seemingly random configuration of sticks and spheres and loops and curves. Angelic in its pronunciation, if Morgan could just come up with the sounds to send it flying through the air. Almost demonic in how it burned on the page, through her head in the lamp's warm light.

Another dark dart.

She glanced up-

"Holy moly!" She dropped the diary and scooted up to her feet. A thick ant a whole centimeter long was crawling across the thick carpet. "Gods above..." She glanced around, trembling. Something, anything she could use to kill it.

A half-used tissue on the other side of the room. She took a deep breath and quickly tiptoed over the ant, over the carpet, and snatched the tissue.

She came back over to where her diary lay face-down. The ant skitted under the bed. Morgan winced and crouched, but the dark shadows under the bed obscured everything.

"Drat." She huffed and tossed the tissue onto the bed and took up her diary again. "You win today, ant."

The pen moved again across the page. A tirade about the lasagna from the previous night, served burnt and with a brand of tomato sauce far saltier than either Morgan or Caroline had choked down before. Blanching through the meal, struggling to shovel the whole thing into her mouth as fast as possible so she could disappear into the bathroom before either her uncle or aunt could get offended-

"Oh my god!" her aunt shrieked from the bathroom the next room over. "Sade! Come here!"

"Just a minute," a voice distantly boomed from the basement. A full minute later, a few doors slammed shut and open. "Yes, dear?"

"Grab something to kill this massive ant!"

Morgan allowed herself a small smile and continued writing to the sound of swats against the floor.

Maya drummed her fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the song streaming from the radio, tinny and full of static. A love song, she thought, from the few lyrics she could catch. Something sad. Yearning, voice swelling in grand waves and valleys.

"Maya."

"Hmm?"

"You've been awfully quiet today. What's on your mind?"

"I could ask you the same thing." She laughed. Her face immediately sobered, almost sonderous. "I was thinking... about humans. And how long they live. And they do live a damn long time, compared to the rest of the animal kingdom..."

Laika sighed and turned her gaze back to the window. Buildings rushed by in a blur outside. "I can't possibly imagine what prompted that."

"Humans all die, right?" Maya continued, ignoring Laika's sudden gloominess. "I can only think of one human who's never died. And he stopped being so."

Maya clenched her fists around the leather steering wheel. Her knuckles bled white. A stop sign approached in the near distance, and she forced herself to take a deep breath and relax her grip.

"Gods don't die," she continued. "They have to stay up in the afterworld for eternity. Could you imagine that, Laika? The unbearable weight of infinite memory?" She snorted. "But humans don't have to deal with that. Humans get born, and they live, and they eventually die. There's an end of the road for them, one they can all count on."

Laika crossed her arms. "Humans also have to deal with the consequences of the gods thinking they can have whatever they want."

"That's... I... I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. What I meant was, I think it's... beautiful, in a way. Humans don't have to live forever. They get to be a part of the natural cycle of things just like everything else."

"That's... nice." Laika closed her eyes. "Sorry. I don't really want to talk about people dying right now."

"Oh, uh... okay. Sorry. Forget I said anything."

A thick silence settled down between the two like a waterlogged cloud about to rain over the arid earth.

The truck slowed. Maya pulled in to a gas station, parking beside one of the pumps.

"Coming in?"

Laika shook her head without a word.

"I'm sorry. That was rude of me. I won't bring it up again, if that'll make you feel any better."

Laika sat still for a few painful seconds, and then she whispered, almost too quiet to hear, "I accept your apology."

Maya turned the ignition off and slipped out. Laika stayed in her seat. The vehicle thumped as Maya threw off the fuel tank cap, and then rattled as she messed around with the pump nozzle, and thumped again a few minutes later as the cap went back on. Then all was silent, Maya presumably gone inside to get a candy bar or something-

A tap on the window.

"Laika Percholea!" a man's voice yelled. "Out of the vehicle!"

Laika opened her eyes. A man in a trench coat stood outside the truck, peering in only inches away, so close to the window that it fogged up where his bloated nostrils blew acrid air onto the glassy surface.

Shit! Uh...

What do I do?

Gods damn it, Maya, hurry up!

"Hey!" The man pounded his fist on the glass. "I said out of the vehicle!"

She averted her eyes.

How long does it take you to pay for gas, anyway?

"Failure to get out of the vehicle can be grounds for escalation to arrest," the man threatened. "I have your plates. I have the GPS coordinates your phone gave me."

My... own phone ratted me out?

"I'm going to count to ten." The man pulled out a pistol. "And when I reach ten, your tires are going flat. One..."

Maya popped out of the gas station, a flimsy plastic bag hanging off one arm.

Hurry up!

"Two... three..."

Maya ambulated towards the vehicle at what felt like the pace of a snail.

"Four..."

She noticed the man standing outside Laika's window and jumped- right in front of a car.

"Five... Six..."

The car slammed on its brakes, whining on the pavement. The furious old grump behind the wheel pounded on the horn.

The man, startled, glanced away-

Maya bolted to the truck, slid in, started the ignition. The man turned back, shock all over his face. She yanked the handle into reverse and sped out of the gas station, nearly clipping several other cars on the way out.

"Maya," Laika said, chest tight, "you need to change your plates."

"Wh- Oh, that... dude." She cursed under her breath. "Now I gotta go steal another set of plates."

"Wait- Was the first-"

"Yeah. Some dude cursed me out my first day at work. Went out back during my break and unscrewed his plates." She shrugged. "There wasn't a security camera, so I was never caught for it."

"Wouldn't they have noticed that you had them-"

"I didn't use them." She snorted. "That'd be like advertising that it was me. Nah, I hid them in the glove compartment." She slapped the wide slot underneath the dashboard with a free hand. "They never found them underneath all the thrift shop gloves."

Laika's eyebrows furrowed. "Since when do you collect gloves?"

"More like, my friend collects gloves. And what else are you supposed to put in a glove compartment?"

Laika shook her head and took her phone out.

Twelve missed calls from... her uncle.

She pried open the phone case and yanked out the battery and dumped the whole thing in the glove compartment, shoved underneath a wadded pile of... gloves.

I should have done that the first day.

"So was he police?"

"He didn't look like police." A pause. "Police would have just shot the window right open." Her seatbelt started clicking, pinning her flat against her seat. She groaned and took the belt off and held it at the base until it loosened. "How much farther to Shadow Moses?"

"Five days at the current pace."

"Can we go any faster?"

Maya shook her head. "We're already going as fast as we can."

"What took you so long?"

"Huh?"

"In the gas station!"

"Oh, that. I got into an argument with the person in front of me. Apparently I was breathing too loudly. He told me to go fuck myself."

"And what did you say back?"

"No thanks, since my girlfriend could do it better." A smug grin crossed her face as Laika choked out a giggle. "What? You know I'm right."

Laika shook her head. "Gods, you're such a mess."

"But I'm your mess, right?"

"For now."

A drop of sweat rolled down Morgan's face. She barely noticed. In front of her eyes, figures of pure light danced, waving their limbs about like limp spaghetti.

Her foot slipped. She lost her balance and swayed on her feet, catching herself before she could tumble backwards onto the driveway. Not that it would have been that far of a fall, only a foot, crouched down.

The figures of light vaporized, leaving only the smear of purple spray paint on the driveway, a perfect circle marked out where whatever had been painted had stood. A solar eclipse at her fingertips, showered with comets of pebbles whenever her uncle drove over it in his hulking van.

Or is it a lunar eclipse? I always get those two confused.

"Mo-Mo." Caroline sat as close to Morgan as she could, beside the driveway, plopped firmly on the grass. She crossed her legs, not caring about the grass stains no doubt forming on her dress. "What doing?"

Morgan shushed her. "I'm trying to make a divination circle. Maybe it'll tell me where Laika is if I concentrate hard enough..."

"What bout library?"

"Oh!" The older girl shot to her feet. "I completely forgot about that!"

"We go now?"

"No... It's too late in the day to go. Maybe..." She tapped her chin, thinking. "Uncle has a computer downstairs. We could tell him it's research for school."

"But we home school?"

"Home school is still school." Morgan pulled herself up to her feet. "Come on, let's go."

Morgan let herself back into the house. They tiptoed down the stairs to the basement. Michael was plopped in front of the TV, eyes glued to the screen. A myriad of colors moved across the glass.

Caroline's eyes widened. "What that?"

Michael yawned in his stupor. "What?"

Caroline pointed at the TV again. "What that?"

"It's a... video game?" Michael's eyebrows furrowed, but he never took his eyes off the screen. "Did you want to play?"

"No thanks," Morgan piped up. She took Caroline's hand and dragged the girl, spellbound by the massive screen, into the side room.

She shut and locked the door behind them. A makeshift office greeted them. Unfinished concrete floor under their feet, water heater in one corner of the room. Pipes above their heads, silver and dingy. A pile of dumbbells, glinting with old sweat, watched them from underneath the desk.

She spotted a stool nearby and dragged it over to the desk, little more than a slab of wood on two workhorses. A laptop sat in front of her. She pried the top open, apprehensive. No password greeted her, just a messy desktop littered with notes.

At least, Morgan assumed those were notes. Like the sticky notes on the fridge back at home, except almost embedded in the glass, completely ignoring her touch when her fingers tried to peel one off.

"Caroline?" she whispered. "Do you know how to use a computer?"

Caroline shook her head. Her braids, lopsided and bulgy from her uncle's uncaring weaving, bounced around her head.

Morgan's eyes darted around the screen. On a whim, she opened what looked like a folder. Pictures spilled out in front of her. Family photos from a vacation two long years past, when they'd all packed into one RV and toured around the country.

"I don't think this is it."

She closed out of the window and opened a different folder.

Important-looking documents of a financial sort.

"Nope."

Another folder. Photos again- Morgan shielded Caroline's eyes and closed the window as fast as she could.

Morgan let out a humph. "We're getting nowhere."

The door opened. Morgan practically jumped where she sat. Her uncle's eyes narrowed.

"What are you doing in my office?"

"W-we, uh, we were..." The two girls glanced at each other. "We wanted to do some research."

"On?"

"Cults."

Uncle Sade shook his head. "No business of yours getting into adult stuff like that. Now get out of my office."

"But we need to find Laika-"

Uncle Sade rolled his eyes. "Just let the damn police do their job, would you? Country bumpkins..."

He shoved them out and slammed the door shut behind him. The two girls brushed themselves off. Michael took no notice, absorbed in a boss battle in his game. Morgan peeled Caroline away from the alluring glow of the screen and led her back upstairs to the living room.

She flopped onto the couch. "Well, now what?"

Caroline shrugged.

"I feel so useless," Morgan whined. "There's supposed to be so much to do in the city! So many experiences outside that big bay window, like movie theaters and playgrounds and schools and libraries... And we're just cooped up in here all day." She crossed her arms. "Do you have any ideas?"

Caroline, who'd wandered over to the bookcase, held out a pack of cards. The backs were all custom printed of a family photo Morgan didn't remember being taken. And yet, she was there in the corner, misfitting overalls slacking on her tiny body while her other cousins were dolled up in suits and frilly dresses. Caroline was there too, an infant in Rufi's arms.

"Play?"

"Oh. Yeah, I guess I can play." Caroline sat down where she stood. Morgan floated over to her. "Go fish?"

6

The lake glittered under her feet like a million beads of gold. The water lapped at her ankles, grass on the banks brushing the backs of her elbows as she stood at the edge of the body of water before her. A gentle breeze played through her hair like a careless lover.

Like Maya.

Something wavered on the horizon. Her eyes narrowed, and she stepped forward. A mirage, perhaps, water refracting in just the right way to her tired eyes- but it was no mirage, she soon found out, as the water rose little by little as she approached until the surface was kissing her knees.

She rubbed her eyes. Whatever mirage there had been melted before her eyes. Standing in the middle of the lake was a... set of monkey bars, stolen straight from some elementary school playground. And hanging from the bars were people, hanging from their arms, just as people do.

And yet... something felt off. Amiss.

She took another step forward. And another, and another, until the water was up to the hems of her shorts. Those were no people hanging from the bars. Or, maybe they were, had been in some more fortunate life, for they were all covered in concrete, formless gray statues from their feet up to their necks. Hands reduced to blobs with a hole through the middle, condemned to hang from the bars for all eternity.

They swayed in the wind, in concert with each other for a few precious seconds before one bumped into the figure hanging in front of them. A dull scrape echoed from the bars. Only their heads had been spared, and they stared ahead at Laika, eyes glassy and dead before the figure in front noticed her presence.

The figure opened her mouth. All her teeth were gone, and her tongue as well, just a gaping void open.

The ground shifted under Laika. She lost her balance and tumbled into the lake. Water rushed all around her; seaweed tickled her body, stretched their slimy fingers out and wrapped around her limbs and dragged her down, down, down...

Laika sucked in a sharp breath. The dim gurgle of water in her ears subsided. She kicked off the thin sheet covering her body in a fit of passion and sat up.

"Maya!" she yelled. Her arms scrambled at her sides. The bed was empty. "Oh, gods above..."

"Oh, quiet down. I'm right here."

Maya opened the bathroom door. Light spilled out, framed her rosy face, her undone hair, her eyes that almost seemed to be alight with their own glow. A few smears of something oily stained her cheeks, glinting in the scant light. Lotion, perhaps, as Laika had never seen Maya with anything to do with makeup in her life.

"I... guess it's comforting to know you'd freak out without me?"

Laika shivered. Her thin nightshirt did her no favors. "Where...?"

"Just out swiping some plates. Some dupe abandoned their car in the back of the lot." Maya shrugged and disappeared back into the motel bathroom, slightly cleaner than the previous night's. "It's a shame, really. Looked like they were freshly renewed, too."

"Are you sure it was abandoned?"

"Who cares? They should serve us for another day."

"What about plate scanners?"

"Plate what?"

"You've never seen those cameras on top of the traffic lights? They scan your license plate numbers and send them to the police. Usually they're just to catch speeders..." Laika shivered. "I don't like being a fugitive, Maya. I thought... You know, I always had all these dreams about running away."

"Oh, worm."

"No, I mean... Dreams where I'd, I don't know, grow wings, and then I'd fly away from my father. Or superjump, I guess. I never really got the flying thing down. And he would always chase me, and catch me in the end, and find some new way to slaughter me." She sat back down on the bed and pulled her legs in close. "Some times it was Mother. But it was nearly always Father."

"Uh... damn." Maya scratched her head. "Have you considered, I don't know, getting those analyzed? Talking to a medium or something?"

"Seriously? A goddess, recommending a medium?"

"Hey, I never got trained in the whole 'interpreting dreams' thing." A pause. The scritch-scratch of a comb being dragged through resistant red hair. "So, that's it? You fly, and then you die? Nothing else?"

"There were... a few other places I remember. Vaguely. An... aviary? An old farm I used to visit? A whole lot of caves."

Laika suddenly reached over the other side of the bed and pulled over her backpack. She slipped her laptop out and hit the power button. Soon, the whole room was awash in a soft white glow, immediately dimmed by jamming the brightness button down until Laika could actually see the words on the screen.

My own phone ratted me out. Could my laptop be bugged too?

Father did get it for me. I wouldn't be surprised...

But how would I be able to tell?

She sat at the login screen, waiting, thinking. It had only ever been in her possession. Bought for her as a present for her seventeenth birthday, preparation for a potential life off the farm.

But what about all the times I haven't had my eyes on it? When I've been out and about in the house, out in the fields? Father could have messed with something then. Father could have... bugged it.

She stared at the machine in her lap.

"I can't trust you," she whispered. "Not as you are. I need... a fresh start." She logged in. Her desktop stared back at her, messy, files scattered all over the place. "Yeah. A fresh start."

A few buttons blinked on the desktop tray. No internet connection. Cannot connect to server.

But where are all my files going to go? Father could have bugged all my cloud accounts too. Or the police could be watching them, waiting for logins. Collecting IP addresses, triangulating my location...

I need a way to get to my files without triggering everything else in the operating system to run. Like it were all just one big flash drive.

But I don't have anything else to access it with!

She glanced around. Her eyes fell on the front pocket of her backpack. She unzipped it and retrieved an ancient pink flash drive, protective shell scratched up beyond comprehension to the point where only a little bit of the original paint remained.

If I could put an operating system on here, and make the computer boot that instead of the one onboard... that might work.

But I'd need internet to get anything to put on it. And I don't know what I would have to put on it in the first place...

She put the flash drive back into her backpack. Soon, the laptop was powered off and back in the backpack as well.

"Maya? Can we go to a coffee shop for breakfast in the morning?"

"Yeah, sure." She let out a wide yawn and slapped the bathroom lights off. "I could do drive-through."

"No, we have to go in."

"I..." She stared at Laika, eyes wild in the darkness. "Alright. We can go in. But if you get caught by the cameras and police show up everywhere, it's not my fault, understand?"

"What, you're not going to protect me?"

Maya's lips turned to a thin line. "I may be Miss All-Powerful in the afterworld, but I can't stop a gun."

They strolled into the lobby. The sliding doors shut behind them without a sound. Gentle piano music echoed from somewhere, the rest of the gauche building greeting them with open arms- except for the arms of the man working the front desk, silk suit shimmering in the chandelier light above, bald head nearly a sun on its own, who merely rolled his eyes and returned to his work. Even a chip of paint off any gilded surface would be enough to pay for their whole trip.

"Excuse me," Laika whispered. She lightly knocked on the desk to catch his attention. "Where's the coffee shop?"

"Fifth floor," he mumbled.

"Thank you."

She glanced around. There was an elevator at the far end of the room. The two girls linked hands and trapised over to the little box.

The whole thing was made of glass. Maya, unamused, punched in the button for the fifth floor. Laika let go of Maya and braced herself against the wall, backpack cutting into her side.

Don't look down, Laika, don't look down...

The elevator began to ascend. Her chest tightened into a knot.

What if this glass shattered under my feet? And we all fell out, and splatted onto the ground? That would be the end of me.

Of us, rather.

No, the end of me, because I'm not immortal, and I don't have fancy powers...

Something soft brushed her hand. She squeezed her eyes shut. Maya's fingers wrapped around her own until the inevitable ding came and the elevator slowed to a halt.

"We're here." Maya tugged Laika away from the elevator wall. "Come on. Let's get breakfast."

"O...okay," Laika answered, breath shuddering. She stumbled out into the carpet hallway. Her legs were trembling. "I... I'm fine. I'm fine."

"You don't look fine. Are you okay?"

"I don't think so."

Eyes still shut. Strong arms swooped around her, helped the backpack off, helped her down gently to the floor. The elevator dinged shut and left them alone.

"Take a deep breath." Maya glanced over her shoulder. There was a security camera in the corner, turned away but still there. She swore under her breath. "In... out. Just like that."

Laika's chest managed to fill, jagged exhale, lips quivering.

"Are you, by any chance, afraid of heights?"

"N-no. I'm not afraid of a-anything."

"It's okay to be afraid of things, you know. It's perfectly human."

"F-funny you should say that, since you're not a human."

"I'm human right now, aren't I? Deep breath."

Laika sucked in another deep breath. "Y-yeah." She grunted and rolled onto her feet, leaning against the wall until the tremors slowed. She slung her backpack back over her shoulder. "Come on. Before some rich person gets here and treats us like exotic rugs."

They turned the corner and entered the coffee shop. A few early risers hung out in front of the massive window overlooking the city, chatting about absolutely nothing at all. Golden bugs hung off their ears, teardrops, almost like they were crying gold. Their lips were red as blood, their skin smooth and featureless as androids. Their eyes turned to the girls as they walked in, gazes no doubt immediately drifting to the sheath hanging from her backpack, but instead of raising an alarm and pissing their prissy dresses, they sneered and returned to their conversation.

Laika tapped Maya's shoulder. "Get me something good."

"What, you're not ordering yourself?"

Laika glared.

"Oh, that's right." She cringed. "Sorry."

They split. Maya headed straight for the cashier, who stared back at her with empty apathetic eyes. Laika beelined for the corner, where two armchairs sat, one already occupied by a man, an everyman, an anyman, no man at all.

She sat down beside him. His desktop looked nothing like hers. The buttons were in all the wrong places, and the program icons sprawled out over his window instead of sitting neatly in a start menu.

There was a flash drive sticking out of his laptop.

"Um..." She tapped his arm to get his attention. "Excuse me, sir."

He turned his head. His eyes were obscured by a pair of glassy sunglasses, not offering much in the way of emotion. Like two glassy bug eyes, offering a reflection of her own scared face like he were contemplating swallowing her whole.

She bit back the urge to flinch and asked, "What is that?"

"What is what?" he shot back.

She pointed at his computer, then at the flash drive. "Is this running off that?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Why do you ask?"

"Well..." She lowered her voice to a whisper. A lie quickly concocted itself in her head. "I've got a virus on my computer, and I managed to shut it down before it could do much damage. But I've got an important essay for school on there that didn't back up to the... cloud in time, and I need it as soon as possible."

He sighed. "Do you have another flash drive?"

"Yeah." She dug the pink one out of her backpack. "Is this good enough?"

He took it in his hands, flipped it over, read the ancient label almost illegible, handed it back. "Sorry. It needs to be eight gigabytes or bigger for Reylos."

"For what?"

"Reylos. Routes everything internet-wise through the Red network. Your traffic goes bing, bing, bing-" he traced a finger in a haphazard line through the air- "so nobody can tell where it comes from, or where it's going. You can get to your local files, too. It just takes a little finessing."

"I can deal with that." She turned back to her backpack and started digging. She found two more flash drives, one another four-gigabyte, another one sixty-four.

"That one'll work," the man whispered.

Laika handed it to him. He plugged it into his own computer and opened a window with the word Clone at the top in big menacing letters.

A message box popped up. All files will be wiped. Continue?

The man glanced to Laika. "Everything good?"

"Um..."

Isn't that the drive I had all my videos on?

She nodded. "Yeah, go ahead."

The man clicked. A progress bar began scrolling across the screen. The flash drive's read-write light started blinking rapidly.

Move it or lose it, I guess. And it's not like I ever watched those videos anyway.

I doubt anybody even remembers what happened in them except for me. Remembers that they were taken.

Like they never even... happened.

The window closed. He handed the stick back to Laika. "Try that."

She pulled her laptop out of her backpack and stuck the stick in and hit the power button. The familiar POST screen popped up for a few seconds, then vanished as words scrolled up faster than she could see. Then it was all blue, a blank version of the man's desktop staring at her.

She opened the files program. Her drive sat at the bottom of the bookmarks list. Everything was buried in a few folders deep, wading through the refuse of the internal operating system, but eventually her old desktop showed up as an orderly list of files just like any old folder.

"There you go." The man shut his machine down and got up to leave. "Have fun with Reylos. Stay safe, wherever you are. Whoever you are."

"I..."

"Oh? Did you want to tell me your name?"

"I..." She shook her head. "No. You... You don't need to know who I am."

"Good."

He tipped his head and left. Laika returned to her laptop. There wasn't much to do, so she powered it down and lowered the lid-

Maya stood before her, two muffins in hand. "Hot damn! That took way longer than I thought it would." She shrugged some of her hair over her shoulder. "You making friends?"

"No." She put everything back away in her backpack. "Just got my computer issues sorted out."

"Leave it to Laika to risk her safety for some keyboard time."

Maya flopped down in the armchair where the everyman had sat only moments prior. She lifted her legs over one of the armrests, dangling feet below, turned away from her friend. Laika took one of the muffins from her hands and bit into it. Warm blueberry flooded her mouth.

"This place is giving me the creeps," Maya complained. "My skin feels like it's going to crawl off and go start a life of its own."

Laika giggled. "Nobody needs an immortal skin beast crawling around."

Maya snorted- and coughed, eyes bugging. "Gods above, you almost made me shoke. I mean, choke." She swallowed down the bite again. "Strawberry frappuccinos were too expensive. Bananas cost ten whole dollars! Can you believe that?"

"Uh, Maya... How much did these cost?"

"Don't worry about it." She leaned her head back, starry eyes meeting Laika's. A smug smile flitted over her face. "Seriously. It doesn't matter. Money is fake. Just enjoy."

She popped the rest of her muffin into her mouth. Laika did the same. They linked hands again. Laika leaned back and closed her eyes, tired, weary.

If only you and I could have met under different circumstances. A date, perhaps. In a less... uptight coffee shop.

To profess my love here, of all places...

I could have brought you home. Presented you to my parents. And we'd all have a big gushy family moment. Another big sister for Morgan and Caroline...

What color dresses would we wear to our wedding? White, for purity? Nah, that's the last word to describe us. Red for passion? Maybe... Orange, so Mother could grow matching flowers?

Blue. Some shade of dark blue. Damn the bridesmaid's tradition. I'll be the whole sky and then some.

I am the ocean... I am the sea...

"Laika?"

She could almost hear her eyes crack open like a gunshot fired in a theater. Jack and Rufi stood at the entrance to the shop, petrified.

She tapped Maya's shoulder. "We have to go."

"Mmm..."

"Maya," she whispered, too scared to take her eyes off her parents for a moment, "we have to be out of here yesterday."

Maya grunted and pulled herself off the chair-

-and froze as well.

"Well, this is a lovely development in our relationship."

"Laika!"

Her father stepped forward.

Laika held a hand out. "No closer."

"Laika! My daughter! What are you doing in a place like this? Come on. Let's go home."

"No."

"We can cut our anniversary short. I wouldn't even mind."

Rufi's eyes fluttered as Laika repeated, "No."

"Do you know how much I've worried? How little I've slept these past few days? I'm supposed to be having fun, but I can't, because my daughter could have been-" he waved his arms- "dead, or something equally bad."

"I'm not your daughter any more."

"Laika, come home."

"So you can kill me."

Fire lit behind his eyes. "What?"

"I know you're going to kill me. Chronos promised you something. And I'm the price you're going to pay."

"Who told you that?" He turned to Rufi. "Did you squeal?"

"I..." Rufi, trembling, shrunk under him. "I haven't said a word."

"Imputent whore!" He slapped her. She crumpled to the ground. "I elevate you from the Badlands- I worked my ass off to build the world for you, broke my own back with a smile like I were your donkey, and you throw everything away like that?"

Laika reached forward-

-and Maya yanked her arm, backpack already over her back, dragged her towards the back door, the last thing she saw Jack's arm zooming downward to strike- or maybe to help Rufi up. She couldn't tell.

Thunder rumbled outside.

7

"Morgan..."

Her arm flopped around. A snake attached to her body, trying to slither away to freedom.

"Morgan, come on, wake up."

The snake hissed. It snapped its jaws at an invisible foe.

"Morgan..."

She opened her eyes. The bland carpet met her gaze. An invisible person took her by the arms and dragged her next to the hutch, glass display showing off countless miniature teacups inherited throughout the generations. Around her was a sea of playing cards, scattered in loose piles that had once been hands. Caroline snoozed away on the other side of the slumped-over pile that had probably been a deck, a thin line of dribble sneaking out of her mouth, a baby doll discarded by a rambunctious child.

The invisible person snapped into view. It was her aunt, eyes heavy without their pillars of makeup to support them in the sky of her face.

"I don't know what Sade was thinking, letting you two stay out here all night..." Her lips twisted. "Mmm. Do I tell you, or not?"

"Tell me what?"

"I think you deserve to know. Your vacation here is going to be a little longer than planned."

"What? Why?"

"Well..." Her aunt sat down in front of her, crossed her legs. "Your parents are having a little bit of a... spat. I don't know the details yet, and I don't want you to come to false conclusions. But you and Caroline are going to stay safe here with us until everything settles down, alright?"

Morgan's face fell. "Oh. Okay."

"Were you expecting something different?"

"I was hoping they found Laika."

Her aunt shook her head. "Don't worry about that either. I'm sure..." Something beeped in the kitchen. "I'll be right back."

She didn't come back. Morgan counted the minutes on her fingers. One, five, ten, fifteen. At twenty, she pulled herself up onto her feet and tottered over to the front door, pulling her shoes on, stepping outside.

The morning air greeted her. A lone bird sing-songed overhead. Goosebumps rose on her arms from the weak wind blowing through. She shut the door behind her, taking care that it didn't lock behind her, and sat down on the front steps, dangling her feet off the side.

Something pale and green glinted under her.

"Oh!" Morgan leaned forward, gripping the rail for balance. Below her, under the steps, out of the dominion of the tyrant lawnmower, was a milkweed plant. Two jeweled blue butterflies stretched their wings out, feeding, feasting. They made no notice or move as she jumped down, crawling under the stairs to study them closer, paying no mind to her socks immediately soaked with dew.

Or maybe they were moths instead, for Morgan stuck her hand out, and they immediately crawled onto her finger, feeling her skin with fuzzy black antennae. Butterfly kisses, or maybe just thinking she were a particularly adventurous flower.

As if to match, one of them flew up and landed on the tip of Morgan's nose. She froze, a living statue, watching the insect with bug eyes for a few precious seconds until it got bored and flitted back down to the milkweed with its friend.

"Mo-Mo!" Caroline teetered down the steps one at a time and sat at her sister's side. "Bufflies?"

"I think so." She put a finger to her lips. "Don't touch them. They're fragile. You might kill them."

Caroline sat on her hands. "I be gentle! I be safe."

After a few hushed minutes, observant, her head bobbed, sagged. Her whole body leaned against Morgan's. Morgan gladly gave the support, watching the butterflies crawl up and down the leaves as her sister slipped back into slumber.

These weren't the butterflies from before, she thought. A shadow of a memory passed through her mind. Standing in the front yard at five years old, a wooden butterfly box in her hands, carefully latched shut. A blue butterfly crawled around inside, long since outgrown its shelter of broken twigs and holey leaves. Her parents stood at her side. At their command, she opened the top, and then the butterfly shot out from its little prison and flapped into the trees.

Never to be seen again.

Maybe it had lived a long life, she thought, shuddering at the alternative. Maybe these were some of its children, their family ghosting her own.

Morgan put an arm around Caroline.

"It's going to be okay," she whispered. "Laika's gonna come home soon. Everything's going to be okay."

Her sword bounced off the tree bark. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and swung again, earning nothing more than another rejection and a few more shards of wood.

"That asshole!" she screamed. "That absolute piece of refuse! Trash! A whole gaping-" she swung again, this time embedding the sword in the fallen tree- "landfill as far as the eye can see!" She put her foot up against the massive trunk sprawled out in front of her, bracing herself, and yanked the sword out. "And to think..." She dropped the sword. It made a dull thump as it hit the grass. She studied her hands, sweaty and red with exertion and covered in streaks of dirt. "Half of me is him. I... I can't escape him. He's inside me. Everywhere I go, I carry his legacy with me."

Laika let out a ragged breath in frustration and picked up the sword again. She turned around. The whole forest sprawled out in front of her. About half a mile away, down the path let gone wild by whoever had settled in the forest last, were Maya and her truck, no doubt still fast asleep.

"Nineteen years of labor, all undone by a night's worth of sorrys. And for whose benefit?" She pirouetted in place, ending with a flourish- the sword sliced another cragged root off. "Father's." She traced a circle on the damp ground before her with the tip of the blade. "I take care of the animals, I help with the harvests, I tend to Mother's garden. And who benefits?" She lifted the point. "Father. I bandage Morgan's skinned knees, I help soothe Caroline to sleep. I burp my sisters as babies and teach them to walk as toddlers and help them on the farm when they turn old enough to help. And who reaps the rewards in the end?"

She threw the sword into the air. It spun in a wide circle. She backed off, watching it crest, tumble down.

She crouched down at the same time it landed. Embedded itself in the ground before her like a hero slaying a beast.

"Father. Because time belongs to you, doesn't it? The whole world belongs to you. Every atom of the universe sits at your beck and call. Your glory, your genes, your name passed down through the generations." A wry smile grew on her face. "Did it hurt? To have three daughters and not a single son? Three servants, laborers, pawns, and not a single heir to pass the throne down to?"

She cocked her head, ear skyward, as if nature were responding.

She shook her head. "No." She bounced back onto her feet, stepped forward, placed a hand on the hilt. "I will not kill my father. Violence for violence is the rule of beasts. And I am no beast." She curled her fingers around the handle. "I am a human being, just as deserving of freedom and agency as these birds around me. I will not harm another living being for my own benefit."

"Not even for food?"

A stray red ponytail brushed against her shoulder. Laika closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.

"That's different, I think. I need to eat. I need to consume to live, hideous as it may be to take another creature's life. All the labor Father passed down onto me and my sisters, he could have done himself. Easily."

"Where do you think you would be without him?"

Laika tightened her grip on the sword. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, do you think your life would be easier? Harder? He did say your mom was from the Badlands, after all. Wherever that is."

"I..." She relaxed. "I don't know, honestly. I've never been to the Badlands. Mother only mentioned it once or twice. I mean... I can't imagine it would be any worse than my current situation."

"Judging from the name, I'm on the side of pondering better."

"It doesn't matter." Laika grunted. The sword slid out from the mud as easily as in her sheath. "It doesn't matter what was, or what could have been, or... whatever. I'm deciding where my life goes from here on out. I'll decide who I labor for." She raised the blade skyward. The tip glinted with the morning sun. "Two more days to Shadow Moses. And then onward to freedom."

"Care if I join you?"

Laika shrugged. "I won't stop you."

They split from each other, returning to the fallen tree. Laika resumed swinging at the aged bark, chips flying every which way. Maya popped her anklets off and snapped her fingers, summoning a band of sparks, which she curled around her fist like brass knuckles and then pounded into the trunk.

"All this time, I sat at your beck and call," Maya echoed. "I dropped my knee at the base of your throne. I kissed your feet in penance for the crime of being born. I attended your scheduled lessons and learned the etiquette you said befit a goddess. Cordiality to your celestial neighbors, gentleness to the animals. Sleeping in perfection, a timeless statue." She spun around, sparks flying everywhere, and pounded her fist into the trunk. A crack spiraled four feet up the wood, disintegrating in her hands, a wide crevice. Laika stared at her with wide eyes, startled, and then resumed her own flurry of destruction. "'You are not allowed to be angry.' 'You are not allowed to be afraid.' Bullshit! I'm entitled to whatever damn emotions I want! And damn perfection! What's the use of the strongest of tools if it never gets used, just sits in a museum display until this dimension disintegrates and we all flee elsewhere?"

The two girls met eyes. Wild untamed eyes. Laika's tank top betrayed the hair sticking out from under her arm, two weeks overdue for a shave. Maya's hair stuck out every which way, full of snarls without a brush to subdue it all into lying flat.

"I just noticed," Maya whispered. "You're not wearing a bra today."

Laika shrugged. "Who am I going to impress? Who am I going to restrict myself for?" Something else caught her attention for a second, turning her around, but she lost it. "Actually, now that I think of it..." She winked and propped herself up against the tree. "Watch this."

She pulled her hair into a loose ponytail with one hand and jostled the sword with the other. Maya held her breath, the base veering dangerously close to Laika's neck. The human girl strained as she struggled to get it into the right position, wedged beside her hand, coming up from under the hair.

With a grunt, she forced the sword up, sawing through the delicate strands.

Her hand relaxed.

A waterfall of hair fell down her body. Her hips, her legs, pooling at her feet like a cursed monster's blood.

"I'm not a doll!" she screamed to the sky. "I'm not a damn decoration!"

She turned to Maya, shook her head out. Short choppy hair fluttered around her eyes. She brushed the errant strands out of her eyes, a sunny smile breaking through the clouds of her face. The sword fell to the ground beside her feet.

She leaned over the trunk, held her hands out. "What do you say? You and I until the end."

Maya hesitated a moment, at a loss for words. She swallowed. Her hands, almost of their own accord, reached out and took the pale skin in her own.

"You and I until the end, baby!"

8

Her legs swung off the edge of the tailgate. Not even a few meters away sat the shores of the lake, glittering gold in the descending sun all the way to the horizon. The sky was a pale blue, the color of dirty washing water, dabbled in like a fingerpainting child scrubbing off the pigments to change to a different hue. Frogs croaked somewhere in the long grass, singing to each other about the approaching twilight.

A wind swept through the area, fingers playing with the back of her neck, chilly and exposed for what felt like the first time in her life. Muscles felt strong, no longer chained to the weight they'd always been accustomed to. Almost weightless, her head in the clouds, soaring with the hawks circling far above.

"And... there we go!"

Maya popped up from the grassy banks. A fat red lumpy fruit, deep ridges and mountains in straight lines down the round sides, sat in her hands like a freshly caught toad. The brushes swished, swayed as she parted them.

She held the fruit out for Laika. "Here you go."

Laika took it and brushed the dirt off, raised it to her mouth, bit into it. Skin thicker than a tomato, almost tough. Not as juicy, but an intense sweetness bolted through her mouth, almost sour in its speed.

Her eyes bugged. She swallowed it down, chest tight for a few seconds as it went down.

"Riftwerds, definitely. I didn't think those grew in the wild here in the firstworld. We must be getting closer."

"We're only about a day out at this point. If we drove all night, we'd... probably make it by daybreak."

Laika shook her head. "Nah. I'd rather wait the extra day and get there safely."

She took another bite. The borderline bitterness was subdued this time, giving way to a strange sort of sweetness. Like lemonade left out for a few days, she thought, or maybe a piece of hard candy forgotten and left in a Halloween bag for a year.

But that was alright, for a strange sort of bitterness rose in her heart instead to balance it all out.

She rose her eyes to gaze out over the lake. A flock of crows were passing by overhead, wings barely flapping, riding whatever wave of air was bearing them back to their summer homes.

I wish Caroline and Morgan were here with me. They'd love this place. Romping around in the grass, giggling. I'd probably have a crappily-made weed crown sitting on my head by now...

Are they doing okay? Is Father treating them well? Or...

She took the fruit with her as she slipped back into the truck. Pulled out her computer, started it with the flash drive. The unfamiliar blue screen stared back at her. She pulled up her pictures, spanning years through years through years, days and events and memories long forgotten if it hadn't been for the bits and bytes displayed before her now.

Ice cream socials. Days forced to come to one of Father's sports competitions. Summer day camp, phones banned for campers, easily passing among the city girls equal in camp-issued t-shirts and waterbottles... and yet isolated when all they prattled on about were shows on the TV and celebrity boys neither Laika nor Morgan knew a damn lick about. Although Laika would take that any day over the sports competitions, where men smoked wherever they pleased without regard for the kids at their parents' heels, desecrating the air with their foul stench and even fouler language.

"Hey, your daughter's growing up pretty nice."

I am not a decoration for your pleasure.

The sun dipped lower in the sky. She squinted as she pulled down the window shades and scooted over a few inches to get the glare out of her eyes.

One photo stared back at her. Laika and her sisters sitting on the edge of the front porch, Caroline in a booster to keep her propped up. An ice cream cone in each of their hands, in various stages of melted mess. All of their eyes fixed on the camera, too candidly fast to manage a smile.

I'm... never going to see them again.

The goosebumps on her arms rose. She shivered and rubbed her arms, crunching in on herself a bit.

I'm never going to see them again. Never again hear Caroline babble, or Morgan tell me about her adventures in the yard. Never again make dinner with them at my side, sit on the couch and laugh at a book, surprise midnight harvests in the garden...

She hiccuped. Her chest spasmed, like a knife suddenly jabbed in her ribs.

It's going to be a completely new me once we reach the underworld, isn't it? Once we come out the other side into the otherworld...

How am I going to get a job? A vehicle of some sort? I don't have any documentation. I... can't.

I'll have to start from scratch.

She suddenly shut her computer down, stashed it away again, tumbled out the truck to Maya's side, where she was waving her hands through the pond corndogs.

"Maya!"

"Oh-" Maya jumped, startled. "Laika! What's wrong?"

"What are we going to do-" hiccup- "-when we get to the otherworld?"

Maya shrugged. "Hell if I know. I've never been there. Maybe it's a wasteland. Maybe it's paradise."

"So we could do... anything. Anything at-" hiccup- "-all!"

"I mean, I guess. Farm life isn't really my thing, if that's what you're thinking."

"I- I wasn't, actually." Laika blushed. "Uh..."

"Yeah?"

"Uh- I'll tell you my plan if you tell me yours."

"Honestly? I don't give a damn where I end up. Just so long as Chronos isn't watching down on me from above." A crow landed on one of the stalks before her, gave her a queer look with its beady eyes, and then flapped off. Maya answered it with a scowl. "Anyways... Your plan?"

"I, um..." Laika turned away. "It's nothing."

"Bullshit. You can tell me. Who's going to hear?"

"I-" She hiccuped again. "Oh, where's all that confidence I felt earlier?" She cringed. "I- I'm-"

Tears blossomed in her eyes. Maya's haughty demeanor fell away. She stepped toward Laika, cautious, and wrapped her arms around the girl. Laika fell into Maya's soft embrace, lips quivering, resting her head against her chest.

"I-I feel like an animal," she whispered. "Unchained, two steps away from a certain grave. I don't know what to do with myself anymore, Maya. The days are so... empty."

"You know, that's not all that bad-"

"I can't go back," Laika continued, ignoring her friend. "I can never go back. Who am I without everything I've ever known? Always I've been defined in terms of other people. A sister, a daughter. A helper." Her chest spasmed. She let out a sob. "Oh, Maya..." She turned her head ever so slightly, glanced up at her lover. "Who am I?"

"Uh... Laika Percholea, of course."

"That doesn't help."

"Well, I might be a goddess, but that doesn't mean I'm any kind of mindreader. The only you I know is the one you've presented to me all these years. Strong, stoic, thoughtful. Beyond that... That's something you're going to have to answer for yourself."

"I don't have a plan, Maya. What am I going to do? What if there's no entrance to the underworld at Shadow Moses, and I'm just walking into another grave?"

"I think you're forgetting that I'm going to be there too? Nobody's ever died on my watch. And so what if we're wrong? We'll just go looking for another entrance."

"How much longer are we going to run? I'm tired of running."

"I don't know."

"What do you mean, you don't know?"

"I mean, I'm not omniscient-"

Laika pushed herself away from Maya. Her eyes were wild, like an animal poured all its energy into breaking free of its cage, unsure where to go next now that it had achieved its goal. Angry at first, staring at Maya like a predator about to pounce on its prey... then melting, mellowing into a strange kind of despair, mental clarity, staring at her hands with brand new eyes.

"I'm sorry. I... I'm sorry. I don't know..." She curled her fingers into fists. "Maya. My love."

"Yeah?"

Laika looked up at her, face blank. "If we ever get separated, and we need to know it's really each other... Sing that song that was playing. The one from kareoke night. The night we met."

"The one I fell over singing? The one about the girl running away?"

Laika snorted. "Yeah. That one. Without the falling, please."

"I'll fall over as much as I damn want. Gods above know I do it every day."

9

The dull roar of rain splattering on her umbrella. Faint shouts from inside, her two cousins arguing over some video game downstairs.

She pulled her legs in closer to hide from the rain.

The back garage door creaked open. Caroline trodded outside, wobbling on her feet, and immediately darted under Morgan's umbrella.

"Mo-Mo? It cold." Caroline shivered. She snuggled in close to her sister. "What wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Morgan whispered, watching the rain drops dance on the little concrete slab in the backyard. The wooden bench beneath them creaked, stained a strange off-color brown from the downpour. Worms poked their heads out from the dirt, disgraced, displaced from their homes. "I just needed... space to think."

Caroline nodded. "It loud."

Morgan hummed, mind elsewhere. "If Laika's in a cult, and that cult circles around Chronos, then it logically follows that I should be able to talk to one of Chronos' children and plead for their help. The problem is... I don't know if there are any leithtemples nearby." She nudged Caroline. "Maybe we should get creative."

"Yeah!" Caroline giggled. Morgan's heart jumped in glee. "What we do, Mo-Mo?"

"Get me a stick."

"But it cold."

"Just go quick. Real quick. The rain can't catch you if you run."

Caroline shivered again and darted out from under the umbrella. Her braids danced like fish in a frying pan as she ran around the yard, head to the ground, eyes searching. Her yellow rain boots squelched in the mud, splashed in the puddles.

Her eyes caught on a stick. She darted down-

-and slipped in the mud, faceplanted.

She dissolved in tears. Morgan bolted from the bench, at her side in an instant.

"Hey, it's alright." She helped Caroline up. "See? Nothing got hurt. You're okay. You got a stick?"

Caroline nodded, lips quivering, and handed Morgan the stick.

"Great! But don't pout. Or... a big fat cow will come and sit on it!"

"No cow here!" Caroline stomped her feet. She returned to Morgan's side, under the umbrella. "What we do now?"

Morgan crouched down, bringing Caroline down with her. She teetered at the edge of the concrete slab, scooting close to a patch of ungrassed dirt-turned-mud.

"Umm..."

"What wrong?"

"I... don't know what to write. Do I write a name? Write what I want to say? Make up a sigil?"

"Draw funny picture."

"No!" Morgan laughed. "I don't want to offend them!" She hummed, and then drew a thin line. "Maybe a tree. Gods like trees, right?"

Caroline shrugged.

"Yeah, I don't know, either." She added a few lines branching out from the tree, making an arrow. And more, and more. A poor caricature of one of the pine trees separating them from one of their neighbors back home.

But it would have to do, because lightning forked its way through the sky overhead, tearing through the clouds, striking down somewhere too close for comfort.

Caroline shrieked and clung on to Morgan. "Mo-Mo!"

"Yeah, I hear you!"

She hoisted Caroline up, and they moseyed inside. She shook her umbrella out in the garage, right outside the door to inside. The doorknob shocked her- she flinched, and then pushed the door open.

"You two!" Uncle Sade stood in the kitchen, face twisted in a ragged scowl. "What in the world were you doing outside in this weather?"

"W-we were, uh-"

"And tracking mud inside the house!" her aunt chimed in, coming into view. "Take your boots off. You're scrubbing all the toilets."

"But-"

"No buts! You're not living here for free."

"You heard her." Uncle Sade gestured upstairs. "Get to work."

"I..." She glanced to Caroline. "Both of us?"

"I'll find something for Caroline to do," she snapped. "Now get to work. There's a toilet wand waiting for you in the upstairs bathroom."

Morgan slumped. Caroline, confused, tottered over to her aunt, who whisked her out of sight like a tornado. Morgan kicked off her boots, under Uncle Sade's beady eyes as she climbed the stairs and disappeared into the bathroom.

She closed the door and locked it shut. The walls pressed in on her. A sandwich press, perhaps. A hungry set of hands impatient for a Morgan panini. The toilet in question stared up at her, eye embedded deep in the bowl, infected with some kind of nasty eye disease that had probably blinded it a long time ago. A gray pupil in a sea of sickly yellow.

Next to the toilet in an empty ice cream pail sat a white stick with a bundle of fuzzy fibers on the end, sticking out in all directions. Morgan, curious, slipped it out and waved it in the air.

"This is the wand, right?" she whispered, studying it. "It doesn't look very magical to me. Just a bunch of plastic."

Morgan twirled around, a bathroom ballerina, waving the wand every which way. It clanged against the sink, against the wall, against the shower door as she wobbled.

She planted her feet firmly on the ground and pointed the wand at the toilet.

"Huzzah!"

The toilet remained dirty as ever.

The fan sitting on the dresser, white noise and a bit of air circulation, continued to blare in the small of her mind. A dance of hot and cold, tossing in the covers. On top one moment, back under in the next. Hair tangled in front of her eyes like a bird's nest, still damp from her shower, sticking out every which way.

You're not doing enough.

You're doing too much. You need to take a break!

You're unsatisfactory. You give up too easily. What are you doing, languishing here while your sister could be dead, while your parents could be fighting, fighting it out somewhere, and you- you could stop everything as soon as you spoke up-

Morgan let out a whimper. She pushed herself up to sit and flicked on the lamp, throwing her room awash in a warm amber glow.

Her heart jumped seven stories.

A figure stood at the foot of her bed. A woman, flowing green hair down to her hips, clothed in a blue dress with gold embroidery spelling out words Morgan had no hope of ever deciphering. There was a slight glow to her skin, as if she had trapped a weakening star inside of her body.

Morgan winced and pulled the sheets closer, hiding behind the pink swaths, only eyes exposed.

Oh gods, I'm not hallucinating, am I? Am I, am I, am I-

"Have no fear. I come here in peace."

"A-are you a god?" Morgan whispered.

"A goddess, actually. But you don't look the right age to argue semantics with." Her smile was like a golden sunrise. Warming, infinitely less blinding. "I have heard the cries of your heart, little one. Your desperate supplications for assistance, abandoned by Chronos, seeking for answers. I will answer them." Her eyebrows arched up. "You appear confused, little one."

"I don't know what half of those words mean," Morgan whispered.

"Oh! Yes, um..." The goddess' composure cracked. She rubbed her hands together, nervous. "It means, um, I heard that you had... troubles, and I came down to make them not so... trouble-y. Is that simple enough?"

"Y-yeah. I guess." She lowered the blanket a bit. "Wait a minute. There's no leithtemple here. How are you here?"

"A good question. You are very perceptive, little one. But now is not the time nor the place for me to speak. Follow me."

She twirled around- and her body dissolved, leaving only a little spark, a little marble of light floating in the air. It darted out the bedroom window. Morgan shot to her feet and unlatched the window, tumbling out the open hole, struggling to her feet in time to see the marble flit over the shed roof.

She winced and ripped her socks off. Bare feet smushed in the mud as she followed the marble across the yard, onto the sidewalk, practically running, toes weeping as she sprinted across the street and into the undeveloped lot.

The creek burbled. The marble stopped, froze suddenly, and then dropped into the murky water, light extinguished in an instant. The moon hung overhead, thin face slicing through the water's reflection like a scythe as Morgan crouched down and peered over the shore. A few seconds later, and the woman's head emerged from the depths, untouched by the waters, dry and delicate as ever.

"Before this century draws to a close, there will be a leithtemple where we now stand. This is holy ground. Chronos has decreed it so."

"That's cool, I guess. But do you know where my sister is? Or can you tell me what cult she's in?"

"Laika Percholea? I'm sorry, little one. I know not. Of all the cults in my father's name, I have yet to hear that name uttered amongst their members. And it is not my place to interfere in my father's affairs."

"But- But why did you even come down here then?" Morgan let out a scream of frustration. She kicked some of the rocks on the bank. Each landed in the water with a dull plop. Some passed straight through the woman, as if she were nothing more than a mirage, but she didn't seem to notice. "Can you at least give me something, please? Like, a magical stone or something?" She kicked another rock in. "Maybe something I can see my golden strings with?"

"Do not make such a request from the gods, little one. The costs are more than you could ever hope to shoulder."

"How do you know that?"

The goddess' face turned to stone.

"Your father made a deal with him. And it will cost him everything."

10

Laika leaned over the balcony looking over the hotel lobby. The TV was blaring in the corner, commercials for security systems and retirement homes and other things that the old men slumbering away in the armchairs near the fireplace would have appreciated. A janitor swept her broom over the tile floor, automatic doors going crazy as she corralled the dirt into a pile and slowly outside.

"Still can't believe you chose to work tonight instead of going to that concert downstairs," the lady at the front desk said, watching the slow work across the crumb-covered floor. "You should have been here an hour ago. I could barely stand from how much the floor was thumping."

"Yeah, well..." The janitor shrugged. "I have to pay for college somehow."

"It's quieter now," the lady continued. "I think they're on the second act. What do you think? Will a bunch of acoustic guitar nerds knock the socks off our feet?"

"I don't have any money to make bets."

Laika stifled a chuckle. She rolled her eyes instead.

You and me both.

Maybe refugees showing up from the firstworld isn't a new thing in the otherworld. Maybe it's expected, and they already have procedures in place for when it happens.

Our own police system doesn't respond in kind, though...

How is one supposed to tell the difference, anyway? A criminal on the lam could just say that they're from the otherworld, and then what? If they have no documentation...

But then again, I'm a criminal. Merely for existing outside of my parents' grace. Outside of my father's. So it really doesn't matter.

"Oh, lordy, here come the quitters!"

A slow trickle of people from the concert downstairs into the lobby, out into the nighttime air and back to their lives. A few punkers here and there, a dying breed, mohawks smushed to one side and glee written all over their faces. Most nondescript, common people escaping their sad lives for one night.

Laika's heart jumped.

Shit! When did my uncle get here?

She turned on a dime, face hidden in her hands. Her heart threatened to pop, pulsating, the epicenter of an earthquake.

I'm...

She deflated.

I'm not a part of that world anymore.

What am I so scared about?

She forced herself to suck in a deep breath. Composing herself, she walked down the hallway, shoved her key card in the door slot, slipped inside.

"Welcome back." Maya stretched her limbs out, splayed out on one of the hotel beds. The window shades ruffled at her touch, windows firmly latched shut. "Did you have fun?"

"N-no." Laika wiped her sweaty hands on her pants and sat down at the foot of the bed.

"What's wrong?"

"I... I saw my uncle out there. One of the concertgoers. He didn't see me. At least, I don't think he did."

Maya shrugged. "Then what's the big deal?"

"N-nothing. I'm just a little shaken up. That's all."

Laika leaned back onto the bed. Her head landed on Maya's arm. The goddess pulled her closer, body against body, heartbeats in joyful discord, like a little girl snuggling with her favorite stuffed animal.

"There's nothing to worry about. I'm here, after all." A snort escaped her. "What's that old creep gonna do against me? Tell me off? Ask me why I'm not married yet?"

"You have an uncle?"

"No, but Father has a lot of... let's just say lackeys. And they certainly act like I'd imagine uncles to be like. Striding all around the place, acting like they own every atom under our feet. Everything has to be about them. Everyone has to be sorry for them, take their sides in arguments..." She rolled her eyes to the TV, blank, lifeless. The glee melted off her face, eyes distant, pensive. "One would think that gods from other dimensions would have a bit more decorum. Kind of makes me wonder..."

"Wonder what?"

"How the people they're supposed to be ruling over are faring. Well, I would imagine, since the gods don't give enough of a damn to play celestial chess with them."

"I'd like to play celestial chess," Laika murmured.

"You say that. But are you envisioning yourself as a queen? Or as a pawn?"

"As a player, hopefully. I'd hate to be a piece, never getting to make my own decisions, always living in fear that I'll make one wrong step and then get knocked over..."

"You know... I don't know if anyone's ever the player. Maybe there's some kind of... 'over-dimension' over all of the ones we know, and the real players are in that one." Maya shrugged. "I'd hate to be just another pawn."

"So... you see humans as pawns?"

"That's, uh... That's- that's not what I meant. I was speaking for the ones up above." Maya swore under her breath. "Sorry."

"I wasn't offended," Laika lied.

"Good. Whatever. Um..." Her hand searched for Laika's. Their fingers intertwined. "You're a good friend, you know."

Laika rolled her eyes. "I would sure hope so. I'd like a refund on my virginity otherwise."

Maya burst out in laughter, a volcano of sound deep in her chest. "Oh, boy! I can't refund something I never bought in the first place."

A knock at the door. Maya swore under her breath and detached herself from Laika, rolling off the bed, wandering to the door, messy hair and all.

She peered in the peephole, then glanced to Laika.

"You know the drill."

Laika rolled her eyes and rolled under the bed. Maya opened the door, taking care to keep the chain attached to the wall.

A petite woman in the hotel uniform peered up at the towering goddess. "Hello! The previous guests that were in your room reported a lost wallet."

Maya shook her head. "I haven't seen anything, ma'am. Sorry."

"Alright. Have a good day."

The woman bowed and took off down the hallway. Maya shut the door and shuddered.

Laika poked her head out from under the bed, sheets draped around her shoulders. "All clear?"

"Yeah."

Laika grunted and pulled herself out, smacking one of her knees against the bed frame. She winced and climbed back up on top of the sheets.

"I would think the cleaning crew between guests would have caught anything if they'd left it behind?"

Maya shrugged. "I wouldn't know. This is the first time I've been in a human hotel, anyway. It's pretty nice." The ceiling light flickered. "And pretty shady, too, in its own little special way. I thought lightbulbs were supposed to be better than this."

Foreign voices blared on the TV. An explosion, screaming, bricks flying every which way. Her two cousins kicked their legs in glee on the couch, cackling, the warm orange of the explosion's flames blooming in the screen's reflection in the window.

Morgan let out a long sigh. She absentmindedly twisted a long leaf between her fingers, a blade, sharp and delicate and deadly.

Her aunt slapped her hand. "Hey! Don't touch my spider plant! That hurts it."

Morgan mumbled an apology. She closed her eyes and rested her head on the couch arm. There was just enough room on the couch for her cousins and the adults, Caroline perched on top of the other couch arm, Morgan banished to sit beside the hulking gray piece of furniture.

"Eyes open," her aunt snapped again, shaking Morgan's shoulder until she groaned and forced her eyes open. "We're all watching this."

"But I don't want to watch this," Morgan murmured, eyes glassy as two puppets came onscreen and started bickering with each other. "This is boring."

"Well, we're spending Fun Quality Family Time together."

"It's not fun for me. It just... feels like a really long commercial."

Her aunt turned her head, lips puffed up in fake haughtiness. Some of the puppets said something that sent the whole couch into raucous laughter, slapping knees, Caroline giggling just for the fun of it.

Morgan glanced around, confused. "Was that supposed to be... funny?"

"Stop complaining," the younger of the cousins whined. "I'm trying to listen."

Morgan rolled her eyes. She pushed herself to her feet and disappeared into the kitchen.

"Hey!" Uncle Sade yelled. "You better come back here soon! You're missing out!"

Morgan ignored him and opened the freezer. Arctic air slapped her in the face. She reached in and retrieved a popsicle, white wrapper crinkling as she discarded it. The orange tube stared back at her, ice crystals on the edges slowly melting.

I am missing out. Missing... something I can't quite seem to put my finger on.

She popped the popsicle into her mouth, closed her eyes, stood there in the kitchen alone.

Mother and Father will be back in two days at the latest, and then we'll finally go home. Away from all these never-ending commercials and the buzzing and the screens blaring in my eyes.

"Mo-Mo?" Caroline tugged on Morgan's sleeve. Morgan opened her eyes. "What wrong? You sad."

Morgan swallowed the juice pooling in her mouth. "I guess I am feeling a little blue."

11

The trees became more dense the farther they plunged into the countryside. Driver-side daylight rose higher and higher, farther and farther away from the horizon. Maya's eyes squinted, almost to a slit, and then she yanked down the shade screen suction-cupped to the window in disgust.

This might be the last time I see the firstworld sun, Laika thought, window halfway open, hair blowing in the breeze. From this day on, Morgan, Caroline, you and I live in separate worlds. We are...

We are...

Her eyes ached. Not stung, not teared up, just ached.

"Long day ahead of us," Maya said through gritted teeth, sensing Laika's discomfort. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. "Sorry in advance. I forgot to bring a tent or... mats or anything to sleep on."

"We're just... sleeping on the hard ground?"

"Well, no, but..." Maya drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. "I have a plan. I always do."

"I know you do. You always do."

Laika closed her eyes. She rested her head on her seatbelt. The wind wrapped its arms around her shoulders, a mother cradling her baby, rocking her to sleep.

Her eyes edged open, suddenly yet sluggishly aware that the vehicle had stopped. Laika's head rose, glancing around at her new surroundings, eyes still blurry, head still groggy.

Maya was sitting on the truck's flatbed, legs crossed. The sun shone down overhead, bathing her in a robe of light, a stagelight, gods above in the rafters putting her on center stage to be admired by all. Her suitcase and Laika's backpack sat up against a nearby tree.

It was like, in that moment, Laika forgot that there were a such thing as imperfections, and there on the flatbed sat her friend, her lover, her second half perfect as she would ever be...

I could stay tangled in your red hair forever.

She rubbed her eyes to clear some of the fog and slipped out the door. A stone's toss away, a monster's mouth of a cave opened wide in the ground. A slit in the earth, cut in the side of a hill, jagged rocks on either sides as a path wound down, down, down into the void.

"Good morning." A wisp of a smile on Maya's face. She leaped down from the truck. "Welcome to Shadow Moses National Park. I'll be your tour guide today."

Maya kicked her suitcase, making the handle pop up. Laika shrugged her backpack back on, sword banging at her side. Maya's hand slipped to Laika's. They squeezed, palm to palm, and started down the path into the cave.

A little ways down, the natural path worn down by millennia of feet halted. A staircase had been carved into the rock and reinforced. They let go of each other's hands, Maya going in front. Hand rails guided them down into the throat of the cave. Long black marks like snakes followed them down on the walls.

"Finger marks," Laika whispered. "They form when too many people touch the walls. The black stuff's their skin oils... I think." She shrugged. "It's been a while since I studied anything about geology."

"Hey, I'm supposed to be the tour guide here," Maya giggled.

"Well, you're doing a piss-poor job of it."

"Hey!"

"You're the goddess here. Enlighten me." She glanced around. "It's pretty dark in here."

"The underworld lights itself."

"Assuming we're in the underworld. Assuming it's here."

"It's here! I know it. I can feel it." Maya hummed. "We're almost there. Just at the end of this staircase."

"Assuming this staircase ends."

"Yeah, well... We're also assuming that your parents don't have any other ways of tracking you, and that we're not walking into a police sting, and that there are no bats infected with some rare disease that'll kill us slowly waiting to bite us. Assuming things has gotten us this far. I'd keep assuming things if I were you."

Laika rolled her eyes. But it was too dark for either of them to see.

A few moments of silence passed between them as they continued walking down the staircase, and then Laika piped up, "Assuming the otherworld will let us through."

"You also assumed that I was telling the truth about being a goddess. And I was right."

"Bending a few shards of electricity to your will is easier than finding a whole different world."

"Is it really, though? I mean, all you need for the second one is feet. Everybody has feet- well, except for a few unlucky people, that is. The first one requires magical training at the very least."

"Which everybody can acquire."

"And yet so few people do!" Maya shook her head. Or, at least, that was what Laika assumed the brushing sound was. "And... contact!"

They stepped down onto flat ground. Laika's legs felt like jelly. She swayed-

-and the whole ground lit up before her, light bleeding onto the walls, the ceiling, everywhere. Everywhere made of reddish brambles tightly interlocked together, beaten down and flattened to be walkable, softly pulsating a reddish-purple like the exposed blood vessels of whatever beast whose mouth they'd waltzed right into. Before them, a tunnel stretched out, betraying a peek into what appeared to be a labyrinth with high walls of the same material.

Maya's eyebrows shot up. "I assumed right." She let go of her suitcase's handle and stretched her arms out, letting out a moan. "Gods above! So many football fields of walking left to do."

"How... big is the underworld?" Laika gasped, turning around, drinking in the sights before her.

Maya stretched side-to-side, making her back pop. "Depends. The main labyrinth's the main attraction. Legend says that on the other side is an opening into the otherworld, and vice versa. Of course... my father wrote the whole damn legend, so who knows how it'll actually play out." She dropped her arms and switched to stretching her legs. "There are all sorts of diversions from the underworld, though. Hidden hot springs, caedat warrens..."

"What warrens?"

"Oh. Caedats. Didn't you know? They're, like... rabbit people. Chronos cursed them to live down there forever. I think they eat people. But I'll keep you safe."

"I... alright." She stepped forward. "Are we going in or not?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just a minute. I'm supposed to be the impatient one." She grabbed her suitcase handle and pulled it along with her. "Alright. Are we going left or right?"

"Left."

They turned left. Laika let Maya lead in front as she turned her head up. The massive cave ceiling stretched for at least a mile above, brambles hanging down like errant vines debating whether they wanted to jump off their trellis. The walls were nearly as high, but not quite, monoliths towering above them like ancient spirits watching, waiting, witnessing their entrance into the all-embracing grasp of the underworld.

Sweat beat down on Morgan's brow as she sat in the driveway. A small pile of pebbles sat at her feet, precariously wobbling as Caroline kept tottering over and adding to it. Her laser gaze at the base of the pile was so strong, she wouldn't have been surprised if the whole thing had suddenly exploded from heat, pebbles flying everywhere. In the back of her mind, the whine of the lawnmower tearing its way through the backyard droned on and on and on.

Trapped in the underworld,

confused on how this came to be.

Something something something, unsure of your fate, big disgrace...

Caroline dumped another handful of pebbles onto the pile.

"Hey! Be careful," Morgan said, breaking her hum. "If you keep giving me pebbles, there won't be any left in the driveway."

Caroline shrugged. "Pebbie bad for car tire."

Morgan picked up one of the smooth pebbles, rolled it around in her fingers. "I don't think this can do any damage to a big hulking machine like that." She put the stone back. "Don't go testing that theory!"

A devilish smile played across Caroline's face, but instead of throwing a stone through the car window, she plopped down beside her sister and started brushing her hand through the front yard grass. Her eyes flashed, and she brushed over a mound of sparse dirt. Ants scattered at the collapsed colony entrance, antennae wiggling all about, entire world for them suddenly flipped into chaos.

Caroline stuck her hand in the middle of the mass of ants.

"Don't! You'll get-"

A shriek. Caroline pulled her hand away and started smacking it on her legs. A red-and-black splotch smeared on her pants, fresh ant puree.

Morgan sighed. "Bitten."

12

"I think this is a good place to stop for tonight."

They slowed to a stop. Laika shrugged off her backpack. The two of them slumped down against the labyrinth wall, lost somewhere deep inside with only a vague notion that they were heading the right direction. If "right" was "anywhere away from the entrance".

Maya suddenly perked up. She dragged her suitcase over and threw it open, digging around until she retrieved a plastic bag, crinkling in her fingers.

"Gods above, I'm starving," Laika whispered.

"Well, you don't have to pray to the gods above, because one's sitting right here." Maya unzipped the bag, produced another paper bag, ripped it open to reveal a sub brimming with meat and cheese. "And unlike the gods above, I can actually answer this prayer." She ripped the sandwich in half and handed one part to her friend. "Exhausted, huh?"

Laika nodded, clearly already half-asleep. Not a word more escaped from her as she tore into the sandwich.

"So, about the sleeping arrangements tonight..." Maya tapped on her knee, waiting for effect.

Laika swallowed. "Don't tell me you've had the ability to conjure things all this time."

"Now that would be convenient. No, I... I can shapeshift. Into a giant lizard thing."

Laika coughed, almost choking on her food. "I'm sorry, what? You can what?"

"I'm not lying. I've done it before. Once, when I just got kicked out, and I didn't know shit about the firstworld, so I just kinda chilled in a swamp for a while. The second..." She tapped on her knees, thinking. "I don't remember the second time, surprisingly. I know. The only time my iron memory has failed me. I just know it happened since I woke up on the side of the road, and all my clothes were missing." Laika leered at her friend, and she rolled her eyes. "I know, I know. But it was raining, and there were monstrous footprints in the mud, so..." She shrugged. "That's that on that."

"I don't see what this has to do with sleeping arrangements."

"My wings are soft. Like velvet, almost." She picked up her half of the sandwich. "Now enough talky-talk. Eaty-eat time."

They ate together in silence. The rest of the evening- or, what felt like evening to Laika's body, anyway, since the glowing from every surface never ceased- passed in a relative silence, both of them wordlessly agreeing that they were exhausted and had nothing witty to say.

Laika's head drooped- then shot back up as Maya started to strip in front of her.

"I'm not in the mood," she whispered.

"What- no!" Maya giggled. "Shifting is kind of, ah, expensive in the clothes department. So I'm taking everything off beforehand."

"Uh... okay." Laika covered her eyes. "Tell me when you're done."

"Trust me, you'll know."

Something rustled near Maya's suitcase, probably her clothes landing after a toss.

"Maya?"

A soft hum.

"Do you think we can really defy fate?"

Maya scoffed. "We already have."

"No we haven't-"

"Yes, we have. We have already defied fate, when you consider how goddamn long this world has been around, and how much longer it'll be here. We could have been born any time, any place. And yet, I got to meet you."

"I..." Laika's cheeks burned. "I-I don't know what to say."

"Yes you do. It's I love you. Now and forever. No matter what happens."

The air whooshed for a few seconds, Laika's hair blowing all about.

Something rough nudged her hands.

She dropped them to find an... iguana, or something like it, staring back at her, towering above her, easily as big as her whole room at home. It groaned and unfurled one of its massive wings, stretching it out, kneeling down to lie it flat on the ground.

It nodded its head. Laika, hesitant, crawled onto its wing. Maya hadn't lied- the skin between each bone was soft like velvet, furry almost.

Her head bobbed. She summoned just enough strength to lie down on her side, eyes sliding shut on their own accord.

Sleep was fitful. Bobbing just below the surface of consciousness, simultaneously awake and aware of the emptiness around her and yet asleep. Goggles showing two vantage points laid on top of each other, immobile in one, romping around the outside of some spaceship in another.

A laser hit her hand, and then her hand was gone, teleported inside the ship. Disembodied, but still under her control, floating in the darkness as more lasers shot from all directions.

A beat pounded in her ears. The same heartbeat from her childhood, where lizards hung out in the laundry room in the basement of her grandmother's house. Watching, waiting for her to try to escape upstairs. Either attacked trying to run up the concrete stairs, or killed in the wait.

Death comes for all of us eventually.

She jolted awake. Maya still slumbered on beside her, snores rumbling through her whole body. Laika groaned and rolled off the wing, rubbed her eyes, stretched out her arms.

The wispy hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

Someone's coming.

She crawled over to her backpack and unhooked the sheath. She pulled out a belt and tied the sheath around her waist. It hung loosely without the loops in her pants to restrain it.

It would have to do for now.

Laika pulled herself to her feet. She rubbed the scaly skin between Maya's eyes.

"I'll be back soon. I'm just... going on a little walk. I promise I won't get lost."

I won't stop you, a voice beamed into her head.

She planted a kiss where her hand had been a moment prior and started walking, keeping her right hand on the wall to keep herself oriented. The sword thumped at her side with every step, but soon they settled into a strange sort of bump, thwap rhythm.

I think, once we get to the otherworld, I should like to live in a tiny house. They're not fixed to any one place. We could live anywhere. Work anywhere...

But I need documentation to do that. How am I supposed to get that? Walk into the state capital building or whatever and ask for some? Don't I need people to corroborate my story for that to work?

She halted. The sound of footsteps continued, echoing, distant.

She resumed her march. Or at least some other people to verify my existence. That I'm not a criminal fleeing from somewhere else.

Another tremor joined the strange footsteps. She halted and hid behind a wall, listening. The vague shapes of words, the cadence of speech, but nothing intelligible.

Maya said there were... caedats down here, right? Maybe that's them talking.

But why would we camp near a warren? We wouldn't be that careless... right?

She listened harder. The voice grew stronger, but still at the edge of her hearing, only a word here or there comprehensible.

"You think... here..."

Her hands went clammy.

Father!

She turned to run- and then dug her heels into the ground.

No. I'm not running anymore. I can't spend my whole life on the run. I'm... tired.

I'm tired! I'm tired of running. From myself, from everybody else.

From... fate.

She unsheathed her sword and waited. The footsteps grew closer, the voices more comprehensible.

Mother's here too.

Laika tightened her grip on the hilt. Her knuckles bled white. The tip of the blade rested against the ground, her arms too tired to hold it up in wait.

She held her breath and waited for them to round the corner.

"And that's why-"

Rufi froze. Eyes wide, dark circles underneath, a week without sleep.

For once in his life, Jack's face showed emotion, at a complete loss for words.

"L... Laika," Rufi whispered. She stepped forward, reached a hand out- then withdrew, unsure, despair starting to pay rent in her eyes. "Is that really you?" She glanced to Jack. "Are you seeing..."

"Laika..." Jack's gaze fell on her eyes, her set jaw, the blade in her hands. "I hoped-"

"Hoped what? That I'd lie down and die without a fight? I'm rather expensive for a sacrificial lamb, don't you think?" She eyed him over. Another hilt strapped to his side, another plain blade. "But you'll just replace me. Just like everything else."

Jack pushed Rufi aside, stepping between them. "Laika, I am your father-"

"No, you're not."

"I am-"

"Mother grew me, birthed me, raised me." Rufi blushed, a guilty shade of red flooding her cheeks. "You contributed a sperm to me. That's all you did. That's all you've ever done."

"Laika, I don't have time for this-"

"Neither do I. Just admit you see me as property and go."

"We're not leaving without you." He pulled out his own sword, face contorting, trying and failing to appear cold and fierce. He kept the point down low as he continued, "I don't want to bring back a corpse. Especially not my own daughter. Not after everything we've gone through to find you. Laika, come home."

"You want to kill me, but you don't want a corpse. Interesting. Almost like, if I can't be a trophy of beauty on your pedestal, I'm absolutely worthless to you."

"What are you talking about?"

"I've had a lot of time to think. About my place in your world, and yours. And if being in your world means being a willing party in my own subjugation, then I don't want anything to do with it."

"But your stubbornness doesn't affect just you. What about your siblings? Chronos will curse our farm. He'll send diseases out into the land. Your siblings will suffer. Maybe die, even. It would be excruciating to watch. Would you condemn them to that fate?" He pointed his sword at Laika. "Don't be impudent. Come home. I promise I can make it painless there."

"If you want my life, then you'll have to take it from me!"

They leaped at each other. Rufi shrieked in horror, eyes transfixed, unable to look away. They were dancers on a fatal stage, delicately tip-toeing across the barren land, circling each other until Laika lashed out-

-and Jack blocked it effortlessly.

"It's like I'm looking at a wild animal," Jack heaved, taking up the defense again. "Not my own daughter."

"I-" she stumbled forward- "am not your daughter!"

"Half of your genes are mine, Laika. You carry me in your body wherever you go. You'll never be completely free of me." He lunged forward, almost side-swiping Laika, but she jumped out of the way just in time for the blade to only get caught in the hem of her shirt, slicing straight through the edge of the fabric. "Chronos has a reward waiting in the afterworld for you."

"Bullshit."

"Will nothing I say bring you to your senses?"

"My senses are my own. Not yours. I've always had them." He swung at her, and she blocked inches from her neck. Sparks shot out from the grinding metal, white-hot in her vision. She summoned a wave of strength and pushed him back, chest heaving, throat burning for breath.

She glanced up just in time to see-

A snick.

A silence.

For all the butterflies in her youth, none could save her from the pin wedged through her lung, on display against the labyrinth wall.

"Laika!"

Jack yanked the sword out, face stony, resigned.

Laika stumbled for a moment, eyes wide, frozen forever in surprise.

She collapsed like a rag doll.

Despair hit the jackpot. Rufi was at her side in an instant, helping her down to the ground as gently as she could. Her eyes darted over her body, frantic.

She took one of Laika's hands, quickly limping, in her own. "I'm so sorry."

"Maya," Laika gurgled, curling in on herself, face wrenched in agony. "I..."

Tears welled in Rufi's eyes. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." She scooped her daughter up in her arms, cradling her close, not caring about the red spilling out onto her clothes, onto the ground swelling up below, red like her own hair flowing down to the body in her arms. "My baby..."

Jack put a hand on Rufi's shoulder. Rufi shoved him off.

She ran a hand through Laika's hair. "You... cut your hair..." Her face collapsed. She held her closer, heart to dying heart. "My baby, my baby..."

ACT 2

13

The trees swayed outside the bedroom window, casting shadows on the rectangle of light at her feet. Like her own private puppet show, where animals leaped at each other, locked in eternal combat. All eventually ended up in a pile of bodies, a ferine and useless war, before some unknown force reanimated them again and started the carnage all over again.

Laika's baby blanket lay at her feet, folded over the edge of the bed.

A knock at the door.

"Morgan?" Rufi knocked again. "Hey. We're just about to eat. Why don't you come out?"

Morgan rubbed her eyes. "I'm not hungry."

"I know. But you need to keep your strength up. And your cousins want to see you, and I don't want you moping in here all day."

Morgan whined and pulled her legs in close. "I don't want to see them!"

A pause, and then Rufi said, "I'm coming in, then. I don't want you to be alone."

The doorknob rattled as Rufi retrieved the backup key and unlocked the door. She slid it open soundlessly, locking it behind her. The bed bounced as Rufi sat perched on the end of the bed, hands on one knee.

"You can feel it, right, Mom?"

"Feel what?"

"Like L- like she's not gone. Like there's something still hanging in the air."

"Oh, honey..." She wrapped her arms around Morgan and pulled her close to her bosom. Morgan's eyes watered, but she refused to let herself cry, choking back the tears instead. "It's okay. It's okay to cry."

An ungly snot-filled snort escaped her nose. Rufi pulled out a tissue. Morgan gratefully took it, burying her face in the thin white fibers.

The thin white cloth over L- over her body in the morgue, parents convincing the state that it was, in fact, a suicide and equally distraught to show.

"This isn't your fault, Morgan. This wasn't anybody's fault."

"I-I know," she stuttered between ragged breaths.

"Everything's going to get better eventually."

"You don't know t-that!"

Rufi rubbed the back of Morgan's neck. "I do. When I was a small child, I lost a big sister I dearly loved." She sighed, wistful. "She disappeared one day. I never saw her again. Not in one piece."

"W-was she nice?"

"She was great. As great as one could be in the Badlands, anyways. We used to live next to a trainyard, an abandoned one. The whole place was overrun with wild grass as far as the eye could see." She took a deep breath, longing, searching her mind for an image she hadn't recalled in thirty years. "One day, we dared each other to run away. None of our parents were watching. They certainly wouldn't have cared if we had."

"And you ran?"

"She did. The first of the first, the last of the last. Our parents rarely let us out of the house after that. Forever far away from the fields we used to call home." She brushed the tangled hair out of Morgan's face. Her child stared up at her with wide glassy eyes. "I won't lock you in the house."

"But what if we run away too?"

Rufi sighed. She nudged Morgan off the bed, and then she plopped down in the corner next to Laika's bookshelf. She thumbed through the lowest shelf, full of unsorted books from her childhood, and then pulled out one with two foxes on the cover.

"Come here. Sit down."

"Mom, I'm not a b-baby."

"I never said you were a baby. Now sit down next to me."

Morgan sighed and settled down next to her mother. Rufi opened the book to the first page.

In the woods once sat a family of foxes
who wanted for nothing, not even boxes.
From the towering father, reigning king of the forest,
to little Baby Fox, lowest of the lowest.

One day Baby made up her mind to run away.
"These woods I live in are no place to play."
So she took off running into the stream
and turned into a fish, as if in a dream.

"Baby? Where are you?" her mother implored,
but no Baby appeared to settle the score.
So she wept and she wept and she wept,
until finally she rolled over and slept.

When she awoke, her stomach growled,
so she got onto her feet and went on the prowl
until she found a stream, where her Baby played
and her heart leaped ten stories, and then sunk in dismay.

"Baby, why did you run away?..."

Rufi glanced at her daughter. Morgan's head sagged on her shoulder, fast asleep. Moving slowly as to not wake her up, she replaced the book on the shelf and gently helped Morgan up and onto the bed to snooze.

She left the room. The living room directly outside was in chaos, cousins and other children yelling at each other over some game on their tablets.

Caroline barrelled down the stairs, hugged Rufi's leg suddenly like a magnet.

"Mo-Mo okay?"

"Yes, she's perfectly fine. But don't bother her. She's sleeping."

"Water go woosh."

Rufi lurched forward. Caroline jumped away. She bolted back up the stairs and into the kitchen. The pot on the stone was boiling over, bubbly water washing over the surface of the stove.

"Oh, no no no..." Rufi lifted the lid. The bubbles subsided. She waited until the steam had dissipated enough and peered in. Blood red water stared back at her. The rose petals floating within were a pale pink, almost colorless.

She turned the heat off and put the lid back on. "Phew. It's fine."

Caroline tugged on Rufi's shirt. "Water okay?"

"Yes, dear. The water's just fine." She swooped Caroline into her arms, nuzzled her face. "It's all going to be fine. I promise."

Rufi set Caroline down. The little girl took off running downstairs. Rufi wandered into the living room, where all the chairs in the house had disappeared to, set in a circle by all the adult guests who were now engaged in some deep and tangled discussion.

If by "deep" one meant "complaining about the lack of a TV in the house", and by "tangled" one meant "everyone talking over each other at the same time".

"Oh. Hello, Rufi." An aging lady Rufi didn't know stood up and extended her hand. The rest fell silent. "I'm-" and then a name Rufi knew she would immediately forget. "I'm your sister-in-law. We haven't seen each other in forever." They shook hands. The stranger's salt-and-pepper bob cut shook in response, as if jealous for being left out. "I've been meaning to ask. Is Rufi short for something?"

"No."

"Do you get that a lot?"

"Get what?"

"Questions about your name." She narrowed her eyes. "Oh, lord. You must be exhausted." She put an arm around Rufi's shoulder. "Why don't you sit down. I'll get you something to drink."

"I-I'm fine," she protested, but that didn't stop the lady from leading her to where she'd been sitting a few moments prior and disappearing into the kitchen. Rufi forced a lopsided smile, all eyes suddenly focused on her. "I mean, I'm not fine. I... I don't know."

"Are the children doing okay?" a heavyset man, another one of Jack's siblings, asked. "We could take them in if you need."

Rufi shook her head. "No, they need to be at home right now."

"Or we could watch them for the day."

"They're staying here."

"Or-"

The cups on the table rattled, spilling drops of drink as if propulsed by an earthquake all their own, and then settled down again. The group fell silent, suddenly spooked.

"Sorry. Excuse me." Rufi got up. "I need to take care of something."

She abandoned the living room again and returned to the kitchen. She turned off the heat and pulled out a strainer and strained a cup's worth of rose water into a mug and slipped out into the backyard, stepped into her garden, knelt down on the concrete slab in the middle.

"Chronos," she whispered, little more than a breath. "How terrible is this price of my devotion to you."

Rufi lowered herself to sit. Her eyes slid shut. Her fingers, trembling, curled tighter around the mug.

"How am I supposed to enjoy the riches you're about to bestow on me if you've snatched the greatest I've ever had? The only one I'll ever want?" Her lips quivered. "She was my child! My baby!"

"Uh..."

Her eyes snapped open. Standing before her was Maya, slightly awkward, round face haloed by the soft glow of the sun behind the gray clouds.

Maya cringed. "This isn't the best time, is it? Uh..."

Rufi's eyes widened. She set the mug down on the dirt in front of her, not trusting her shaking hands any longer.

"Oh, gods above, child..."

"Sorry for interrupting... whatever that was. I just thought..."

"You... You're Maya, right? Laika's friend?"

Maya nodded, suddenly somber.

"You kept my daughter safe and sound until... Thank you. That means the world to me. Chronos bless you a thousand times over."

"Wasn't he the one who..."

Rufi lowered her head in shame. "It hurts more than you'll ever know. But I can't act against the gods' judgement." She took the mug back in her hands. "You were named after a fierce and rowdy child of Chronos, were you not?"

"Th- Yeah, sure. I was. In a way."

"If you pray... I would ask, pray to her, that she steals Laika's soul from the recyclers and brings her back to me. In whatever form possible."

"I..." Maya reached her hand out, but a tear slid down Rufi's cheek, and so she kept her hands to herself. "I will. You have my word."

14

A small studio traded for a tent. A truck traded for her own two feet, aching and sore with a myriad of calluses to come.

A warm and loving embrace, snatched away and replaced with the chilly ides of the night barreling at light speed towards the dog days of summer. Outside of her sleeping bag was too cold; inside was roasting. One leg sticking out in the vain hopes of achieving balance was just inviting ghostly fingers to trail up her skin.

Screw this, she whispered, crawling out of her sleeping bag, kicking off her anklets in the process. She yanked the door zipper and pulled the large flap of fabric open, exposing her face to the early morning air. The horizon was a pale blue, oranges starting to bleed at the horizon line, trees like blocked blood vessels reaching into the choking skin of the sky. Her friend's house sat a stone's throw away from her tent; a wind chime hanging off the corner of the roof tinkled ever so softly.

Goosebumps rose on her arms. Her breath was frigid, almost visible in a hazy fog before her face.

The world before her was raw, ragged, just gently birthed.

"Sister Arkensia," Maya whispered. "If any of you lot have a single bone of compassion left in your bodies, answer me."

I warned you this would happen when you left. Why didn't you listen? You could have avoided your own perdition.

"No fucking poetry!" Maya hissed. "I've got a... a human-shaped hole inside of me. And I need a needle to stitch it all back together again."

Don't expect any help from me with that language.

Maya scowled, curling in from a mix of anger and exhaustion. Eyes begging her to turn back to the tent, collapse, sleep.

Sleep for the next hundred years, like Ceuta, sister Ceuta, the fate of all wayward divines.

She rolled her eyes to the sky. "What I wouldn't give... for a normal life."

She rolled her shoulders, zipped the tent door shut, and set off on a stroll. Anywhere, nowhere in particular. The dew was chilly on the bare soles of her feet, toes numb in seconds, barely helped at all by the asphalt of the street.

"Just a nice... house. Or an apartment somewhere. Living out a quiet life. I'd... I'd even work. Come home to a hot meal and a heart full of love." She shivered in her thin tank top, holding her breasts closer to her chest. "That's... That's all I want. All I... want."

She jumped out of the way just in time for a biker to zip by.

"Laika," she whispered, resuming her jaunt. "I..."

She stopped in front of a brown house. Every house was foreign to her, the neighborhood only seen in passing from a truck window, but the front window was aglow in this one, curtains tossed aside. Parents bustled about, preparing their toddler for the day ahead.

Her shoulders sagged. The dispossessed, alone, setting out on rough and foreign shores.

She sunk to her knees.

"I failed. I... I failed. I actually failed."

And I'm never going to see you ever again. Not in one piece. Maybe a flicker of a smile, or a snippet of memory...

A snippet...

I could... I have golden strings. I could...

Her stomach lurched. She scrambled up to her feet, furiously brushed her arms off, suddenly absolutely disgusted with herself.

I- I wouldn't kill-

Would I?

She glanced around. Nobody else was outside on that stretch of street. She turned away from the house and set back off for home.

I made a vow. And I can't break vows.

"Abel, I need your truck again."

"Yeah, so you can abandon it in Shadow Moses again? With the wrong plates?" The boy behind the stove rolled his eyes. His deft fingers brushed over the cutting board. Carrot bits rained into the pot below. He gave the wooden spoon a quick stir. The water whooshed underneath.

"I didn't abandon it. I brought it back!"

"Same difference."

"It's literally not-"

"I had to walk to work for a week."

"Yeah, all of two streets."

He looked up from the pot long enough to send Maya a scowl. "Two long-ass streets. What the hell do you need it for, anyway?"

"I'm going to the otherworld."

"Again? Didn't your friend just die there?"

Maya cringed.

"God damn. You know I didn't mean it like that." He sighed and let go of the spoon. It swirled with the current for a few seconds before resting on the side of the pot. "When do you think you'll be returning?"

"I don't know."

"So you are about to abandon my truck again." He clicked the knob on the stove to a lower heat. "You owe me thirty bucks."

"What-"

His eyebrows shot up. "Um, my license plates? They seem to have been missing?"

"Oh. Uh..." A nervous laugh. "Yeah, uh..."

"What did you do in my truck?"

"There was a... problem with a detective."

Abel groaned. He turned to the sink and slapped the overflowing pile. Plastic cups went flying all over the kitchen.

"Gods damn it, Maya! You're always getting into some kind of trouble!" He hissed. "Whatever the hell do you want to go to the otherworld for, anyway?"

"It's a secret."

"It's always a secret with you." Abel kicked aside the cups before him on the floor and returned to the pot. Bubbles were starting to form on the bottom of the pot. "You can tell me. Who am I going to tell?"

A veil of silence fell over them. Maya drummed her fingers on the countertop. Abel watched over the pot, stirring the vegetable soup every now and then to keep the chopped-up bits from sticking to the bottom of the pot.

"You always think you're so invincible," Abel whispered. "Like you're God."

"What if I told you that I am?"

"I wouldn't be surprised." Maya's eyebrows shot up. "Because everything that comes out of your mouth is batshit insane. You must have me wrapped around your finger for me to still tolerate you."

Maya snapped her fingers. A faint silver string appeared. One end tied around her finger, the other end around Abel's.

His eyes widened. He flung open the medicine cabinet. His dispenser was in his hands in an instant. Sunday flipped open, but it was empty, plain and simple.

He shoved the plastic dispenser back in the cabinet and slammed it shut. He shook his fingers, but the string stayed attached, floating, weightless.

"I'm the daughter of Chronos Talos," Maya said. "And I am formally requesting that you ferry me to the otherworld."

"You..." Abel slumped. "You know I could never say no to you. You big lucky bastard." The water started to boil. "I have work. I can't personally take you there. You can't have my truck. But my boyfriend owes me a favor." Maya's eyebrows shot up. "Convenient, I know. But he works for the city. He can get you a massive discount for a ticket headed that direction."

"And then what?"

He shrugged. "It's your problem after that. Since you won't tell me what it is." He turned the heat down even lower. "I can take you down to the station today after lunch."

"Really?"

"Yes. But you have to promise to come back. I want my thirty bucks back. Don't forget that for a moment!"

She snorted. "I won't."

"I'll call you every day. Just to make sure."

"I don't think there's cell coverage in the underworld."

"I'll find a way to make it work. You know I will."

"I know you will."

15

The lightrail station was bustling with activity when they arrived. Abel drove around the parking lot like a buzzard hovering over a corpse, treading up and down the rows, searching until he found one spot at the back, vacated just a few seconds prior.

Maya rolled her eyes. "The farthest possible spot."

"Hey, it's not my fault."

"I know. I'm teasing." She gently slugged his shoulder. "Well, let's get hiking."

They slipped out of the vehicle. Maya pulled out her suitcase, freshly packed. Her hands hesitated for a moment, confidence suddenly evaporated into the dry afternoon air.

Sitting in the back seat was Laika's backpack, untouched.

"What's the holdup? You need help?"

Maya pulled herself together and slipped the backpack over her shoulder just as Abel rounded the corner.

"Nothing's wrong." She managed a smile. "I suppose I should thank you."

"Maya? Thanking me? What timeline is this?"

She stuck her tongue out at him. "Oh, screw you. I'm off."

He waved goodbye and disappeared back into his truck. She trekked through the parking lot up to the station. Families with sports jerseys on, clustering together like berries on a branch; businesspeople checking the time on their fancy watches; the occasional haggard figure, hiding off in the shadows.

The ticket kiosk glowed to life, pulling Maya in.

What route would you like to take?

She leaned in closer, quinting as the bottom half of the screen dissolved into a tangled map. She touched the screen, tried dragging it about, but it refused to budge.

Where the hell am I going?

A horn in the distance. She cursed under her breath and picked one at random.

Please tap your city ID to the scanner.

The green plastic circle on the side of the kiosk glowed to life.

"I don't have an ID, you idiot!" She kicked the kiosk. "Stupid machine..."

Something tapped on her shoulder.

She spun around, bared her teeth. "What?"

The person who'd tapped her shrieked, practically wilted underneath her. "I... I just- I have a spare ticket. If you're going the Alloway route. The one about to leave."

Standing before her was a pale flower of a girl, just newly a woman from the baby fat on her cheeks. A pale dress, a ghost with just a tinge of red, hung off her frame like a curtain, almost garish ribbon bow tied on the side. A small pink purse was draped off one arm. Maya couldn't be sure if it was the lighting or her eyes going wack or something else, but the girl's blushing cheeks were more furious than her own dress.

"Oh, uh..." An awkward laugh escaped her. "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you. That's... very generous."

"Y-yeah." The girl bowed. Her eyes darted elsewhere, refusing to make contact with Maya's. She lowered her voice to a whisper and added, "There's a man standing by the light pole who's creeping me out."

Maya put her arm around the girl and pulled her closer. "You're safe here with me. Nobody ever fucks with me."

"T-thank you."

The train pulled into the station. Mothers pulled their children back, knuckles white, just barely resisting the urge to jump over the yellow line until the brakes whooshed and the doors flew open. Bodies poured out first, practically identical to the crowd edging in but for their tired eyes and slouched bodies from a morning's hard work.

Maya kept the girl close to her as they made their way into the train. The girl nudged Maya toward the stairs, and without a word, they trudged up the narrow steps and into the overhead seating.

The girl pulled them into the first row of seats, closest to the stairway. She scooted up next to the window, leaving Maya to take the aisle seat. Maya shrugged off the backpack, putting both pieces of luggage in what felt like an obscene amount of leg room. The girl kept her eyes focused on the aisle, watching the people file in, until the brakes whooshed again and they took off at a snail's pace.

"Goooood afternoon, folks," the loudspeaker said. "Thank you for choosing Leicaster Rails. This is your conductor speaking. You are currently on the Alloway route. If you'll look above you-" Maya turned her eyes to the ceiling, where sat a diagram with a printed line with dashes for each station- "you'll see the map of this route. We are departing from Station Three, on route for station two in Sueur City..."

Sewer City. Heh. Must be a real trash heap...

"Psst." The girl slipped a small piece of paper into Maya's left hand. "Here's your ticket."

"Thanks," Maya mumbled. The conductor finished her little speech and signed off the loudspeaker. "So what's the deal? We wait until we get to Station One, and then we ride everything all over again?"

"Yeah. That's how it's always been."

"So what's to stop me from just riding this train... forever?"

The girl giggled. "You have to eat sometime! And... the water in the bathroom isn't safe to drink, I don't think."

"And yet it's safe to wash all over our hands." Maya rolled her eyes. "Hey, you didn't tell me what your name was."

"It's, um..."

"Hey, no rush. I don't bite."

The girl lowered her eyes. "It's Khadein."

"Damn, that's a pretty name." Maya's backpack slipped. She nudged the sheath back under her chair with her foot. Khadein's eyes flickered- or maybe Maya was just imagining things. "It's not every day you hear a name like that. Like someone actually put thought into it instead of just whatever celebrity's spewing trash onto the news, or whatever's on the Top 100 Baby Name lists..."

"Y-yeah."

"Does it mean anything?"

Khadein shook her head. "If it does, Mother certainly never told me."

"You should ask her sometime."

"That's why I'm on this train, actually. She's in the hospital. The university one in the city, I think. I'm going to visit her."

"Oh, uh... Sorry."

"Why are you sorry? You're not the one who gave her a stroke."

"Was just trying to empathize," Maya mumbled, swallowing down the rising annoyance before it could stain her voice. She peered over the tops of the seats around her. The strange man was gone. "I think you're safe, if you don't want to sit by me anymore."

"A-Actually..."

She dug into her little pink purse and retrieved- Maya didn't believe it at first, but honest-to-gods, it was a little floral planner with a pen to match. Khadein's dainty hands cracked it open to that day. Curly loopy script filled the pages, never straying from the lines.

"I was hoping," Khadein continued, "that you'd stay with me for just a little while longer."

"How long are we talking?"

"I don't know."

"I don't have the time to run around everywhere. I need to be at the underworld yesterday."

She stared up at Maya with big glassy eyes. "Why?"

"I lost something very important to me there."

"What is it?"

"A... friend."

"Oh. Well, I'm sure she'll be just as fine if you take a little detour."

Khadein yawned and started scrawling in the little space left on the page. Maya squirmed in her seat.

Do I tell her?

A pang in her heart.

I... I won't. Not now. No need to spoil a perfectly good flower.

She leaned back and closed her eyes and let the rhythmic sound of the rails beneath lull her to sleep.

"Hey." A soft hand shook her shoulder. "Hey, wake up. We're here."

Maya let out a soft moan. She opened her eyes. The train was slowing to a stop. Outside the windows, fledgling trees bordered them on both sides, tops just barely brushing the bottoms of the windows.

The moment the train came to a stop. Khadein popped out of her seat. "Come on! Let's go!"

"Yeah, just a moment," Maya said, slipping on her backpack. She retrieved her suitcase from where it had slid underneath her seat and followed Khadein down the narrow staircase, just barely missing the wave of people rushing out, and out onto the platform.

They were in the midst of a massive city. Skyscrapers stood all around them, stoic, silent, statues to remnants of a time long since gone by where gods and humans walked side-by-side. Or, rather, toe by body, for the hulking contraptions of steel and glass made her feel like an ant under a magnifying glass, under the most intense of scrutinies, slowly cooking from the inside out by the glint of the sun.

Khadein slipped her hand into Maya's free hand and started pulling her along on the sidewalk. "Scary, right? You get used to it."

"Oh, I wouldn't be so sure about that," Maya whispered, just barely audible over the roar of the city starting to filter into her weary ears. "Can you imagine, Khadein? A place with thousands, maybe millions of people happy to be packed together tighter than sardines?"

"I don't need to imagine. I can see it right in front of my eyes."

The sheath bumped her hip, startling her back into reality. "Right. Anyways, where's this... hospital?"

"It's a handful of blocks away-"

She suddenly froze. Maya stopped, confused.

"Uh..."

Khadein pointed to the end of the street. "Look there. Do you see that?"

Maya squinted. "I don't see anything. I mean, there's people there. But there's people everywhere."

"No. There's..." Khadein pulled Maya along again. "Come on. There's something funny about to happen."

She pulled the towering woman along. There was a hair styling shop around the corner, it turned out. Khadein pulled her into the side alley and kicked aside trash until the ground was clean enough for her to kneel down and peer through a crack in the wall.

"Watch this," she whispered.

Maya rolled her eyes and knelt down next to the flower girl. Inside, a family of seven was squabbling with the front clerk. The youngest, who couldn't be more than six or seven years old, was holding a bulky black camera that looked like it weighed more than he did. A few minutes passed, the children agitated, and then the parents finally pushed through the turnstile and took their seats at the back, in perfect view of the crack.

One of the attendants wheeled a table full of a rainbow's worth of vials in front of the row. "Which color would you like me to dye your hair?"

The family all pointed their fingers and shouted out color names. The attendant's hair almost poofed up in stress from trying to keep up with them, and then gave up and just started from the end, where a chubby boy with barely any hair to speak of was sitting plain and content in his chair.

The attendant gave him a rag. "Fold this up and keep it over your forehead," they told him.

The boy swore at him. The attendant sighed and pulled out a green bottle of spray dye. Other attendants, sensing the rest of the family growing restless, sprung out from everywhere and did the same for the others.

Once their hair had been painted into a gaudy jumbled rainbow, like a lineup of snow cones on display in the ides of winter, the attendants pulled off their rags and produced a line of mirrors, all as the little kid with the camera struggled to keep the black contraption up to see.

All of them immediately O-faced and collapsed into the harshest shrieking Maya had ever heard.

Her hands flew to her ears as Khadein giggled. "They're such bad actors... I hope those stylists are getting paid extra."

Khadein got up, and Maya followed suit, followed her out of the side alley and back onto the sidewalk.

"What was that all about?"

Khadein shrugged. "I think they were supposed to be celebrities of some sort. Like the kind who exploit their children for quick money on the internet, doing pranks and such. And then they turn around and feign disapproval with everything around them to try to get things for free. Fake hairs in meals, covertly peeing in a pool, trying to return half-used cosmetics..." She skipped over the crack in the sidewalk, and they continued their stroll. "It's all so fake. So obviously fake. You can see it once you know what to look for... But rarely anybody does."

16

It was Maya's first time in a hospital. The hallways were... eerily quiet. Like the whole of the English language had been abdicated, only beeps and hisses to communicate with as the machines worked around the fretful nurses flitting everywhere. Every surface was sterile, echoing. Her heartbeats roared in her ears.

Room 297. Khadein pushed open the door. Maya thought to flick on the lights, but she decided against it, pushing the door behind her until it shut with a click.

Khadein immediately took up her seat on the bedside stool. Her mother was practically drowning in the sheets, a petite little thing with a sea of wrinkles and an oddly serene face. Her hair looked brittle, faded, a dim gray, rolling off the pillows in tangled waves.

"Hello, Mother!" She took the woman's hand and kissed the back. A faint smile spread across the lady's face. "I've returned!"

"G...good," her mother whispered. She managed to wiggle her fingers a bit in lieu of a proper wave. Khadein set her hand down. "It does me good to see my daughter again." Khadein's smile faltered for a split second. Her mother didn't seem to notice as she continued, "Come close. I have something to tell you."

Khadein hopped off the stool. She dropped her purse and knelt at her mother's bedside.

"Yes, Mother?"

"And your friend too. I think it would do her good to hear."

Well, I can't say no.

Khadein gestured towards her. Maya rolled her eyes and sat down beside the flower girl.

"Are you listening?"

"Yes," Khadein whispered.

"Now..." The old woman's fingers twitched. She opened her eyes for a few seconds, and then they slid shut again, far too heavy for the sights of the world. "Khadein. Kaddy. My precious one and only. Your father and I have never been happy together. All the nights we spent up late fighting. We could have spent those hugging instead. I wonder at what I have lost. What I have spent all these years doing."

"You... did your best," Khadein whispered.

"I know I did. My finest accomplishment is right here. Right beside me." A strangled sound escaped the old woman. A cough? A chuckle? "A shame words are all I have left to give. You deserve better from me than... words. Funny combinations of letters."

"Mother...?"

"I'm not dead. Not yet. But something feels off in these bones. And I know not when you'll next come. If at all. So listen, Khadein."

"I'm listening."

"Maya."

How the actual hell does she know my name?

"Maya?" the old woman repeated.

"Uh, yeah, I'm here too."

"Good. Now... I don't have riches. Never had. Never will. My name carries no fame. Neither does your father's. Neither of us have a business to pass down. Our home is poor and pithy. But..."

"But?" Khadein piped up.

"But it has love. My love for you. And so it is a good home. Better than any gold-plated mansion. Better than any flashy toy. Better than any shiny sports car. I have nothing to pass down to you. Nothing except my love. Everything else, you will have to make yourself.

"In time, you will know this is the best gift. To be your own person. To craft your own destiny. To forge your own path." She mustered the strength to open her eyes again, even lifting her head for a few seconds before she collapsed into the pillows. "Go, Khadein. Go now. Don't wait a second longer."

"I... I will!" She scooped up her purse and took Maya's hand. "Until next time, Mother."

"Yes." The crone chuckled. "Until next time."

Khadein kept her head low as she guided Maya out of the hospital. Once back outside, she stopped in the hospital courtyard, drifted underneath the shadow of a maple tree, sat down on one of the concrete benches surrounding the fountain.

"Khadein?" Maya sat down beside her... could we even be considered friends? "You alright?"

Khadein let out a long sigh. Her eyes twinkled. Her throat gurgled as she said, "I'm fine."

"You don't sound fine. You need a hug?"

"No..." She swung her legs. "A-actually, yes. I do."

Maya opened her arms wide. Khadein practically fell into her bosom. Maya held her close as Khadein swelled with rolling breaths, not quite at tears but edging ever closer.

"Have you ever... loved someone so deeply, it felt like you were one soul, separated down the middle at birth?"

"Oh, uh... Yeah. I have."

"Have you ever looked at a stranger on the street, and suddenly there was a pang in your heart, like you could have been in love with them? Like you saw yourself in the shoes that belonged to their lover? Like some shard of your soul had met a shard of their soulmate's from a past life?"

"I've only ever lived one life, so I wouldn't know."

"What a shame. Because... I feel that with you. Everyone else in this world is so scary. Like they're part of a world I'm only a transient witness to before I disappear forever. But you're safe. Like I've known you forever."

"I, um..." Her cheeks started to burn. "We've only known each other for, what, four hours? Five?"

Khadein's face flushed. She pushed herself away from Maya and sat on the edge of the bench, facing away from her friend. "Sorry. I didn't mean..."

"I've only ever lived one life." She brushed herself off. "I don't know who you have me confused for."

"But... original souls don't exist. Not in this dimension, not anymore. Everyone's recycled from at least five other people. Sometimes more. The gods send their servants to collect remnants from the underworld, and then they stitch them back up and release them to be incarnated."

"Yeah, well, I'm original. I'd know if I were recycled."

"How would you know?"

"I have my secrets. And you have yours. Your mother knew my name?"

Khadein shrugged. "I don't know what happened there."

"Is your mother psychic or something?"

She furiously shook her head. "I... I don't know! I don't..." She turned back around. "Promise me you won't call me crazy."

"I'm not in the business of insulting people I like."

A sad smile for a second, melting away instantly in the sun overhead, rays a halo over her head. "I don't actually know anything about my mother."

"I mean, same-"

"No! You don't... you don't understand. I know nothing. I don't even know her name. I just..." Khadein shivered. "This isn't the place. Or the time. It... It'll never..."

"Why not? Nobody else is here. We're alone."

They met eyes.

"Have you ever lost someone important to you?"

"Y... Yeah. I have."

"Did it feel like the whole world had been snatched away from you in an instant? That you knew some remnants of you would survive, but never in the same configuration, scraps failing to ever form the same picture ever again?"

I...

Something's... off here.

Is she one of Chronos' servants? Have I finally stepped too far out of line, and now she's going to kill me? Lull me to death with words?

"Whatever game you're playing, I'm not interested."

Khadein's face fell. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to... But very well." She took a deep breath, not daring to break eye contact with Maya, as a string of haunting notes flew out of her mouth.

"Tell me a story of shattered embrace,

Discard all your names and hide your face.

Those who would cleave the night, family scared,

And leave this world unseen, please do beware..."

Of all the places to, Maya's heart skipped a beat.

"Laika? How- I- what the fuck?" She jumped to her feet and paced away from the bench. "No. There's no way... You must have heard it somewhere. On the radio, or on TV, or someone..."

"It's me, Maya! I- I sang the song we agreed on! And you didn't even fall this time!"

"No! There's no way. Absolutely no way-"

Khadein rushed forward. She snatched Maya's hand. Maya slapped her away and darted to the other side of the water fountain.

"Chronos is fucking with me again. There's no other explanation. He took the memories Brother Caelin scrubbed and- and he paid you, didn't he? Or paid someone else, and you're just getting the short end of the stick? Dirty hands doing dirty work? Who's going to die this time?"

"I'm telling the truth!"

"No you're not!" She held a hand out. "Don't come any closer. I... I won't hesitate."

Khadein's face crumpled. She held her hands to her heart.

The whole world curtained black. Nothing but a formless abyss around them, no discernable light source, and yet the two of them were perfectly visible. Cutouts, almost.

Khadein pointed to what had been the sky just a few seconds prior. Maya glanced up.

A long string of white blocky numbers filled the sky. A wide column on the right, joined by a smaller one on the left, corrupted symbols interspersed throughout.

"There's a lot I have to tell you," Khadein said. "But you have to see this first, so you'll believe any of it."

"What is... this?"

"A crash dump."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"It's something computer programs and video games use to tell developers where it crashed."

"That still doesn't make any sense."

"Oh..." Khadein stomped her foot. An avalanche of echoes fell on Maya. Her hands flew to her ears, trembling, clamped there until the sound subsided. "We're in a goddamn video game, Maya! Everyone! Everything! Everywhere we've ever been, it's been constructed! Preordained! Even me meeting you- it was... It was all fate."

"Bullshit! So you mean to tell me I've never had to make a decision in my life? That all this time I've been meaning to live without some god breathing down my back, but there's a puppet to control the puppet trying to control me? And me?"

"Yes!"

"Well, then, tell your fancy developers that I want out!"

Khadein sighed. "I... I don't know how to get out. I almost don't want to try. This crash point is lucky. Anywhere else? I could die. I could suffer a fate worse than death. I could be flung into some other NPC half the world away and never see you again, or into some snippet of data and corrupt everything-"

"So you're not Laika, then. Because the Laika I know would never give up on any chance for freedom."

"Funny you say that. I was considering it, actually, towards the end."

"What?"

Khadein opened her mouth to answer, but Maya cut her off. "No. I don't want to hear a word more. You're not the Laika I knew. She's... gone."

"She's right here! I remember everything, Maya! Just- just let me explain-"

Maya balled her fists. Her chest panged.

"Let me go. Let me mourn in peace."

"I... alright. I won't stop you."

Khadein put her hands over her heart again. They were back in the courtyard. The sun had long since set, from the looks of it. The sky was overcast, the desaturated blue of a washed-out hoodie. A light drizzle misted over them.

"Khadein," Maya whispered, "go back to Chronos, or whoever stitched you together and sent you down. Tell them I'm rejecting whatever legend they've written out for me."

Without waiting for a response, Maya turned and walked out the way she'd came.

17

The city was the gaping jaw of a monster, every skyscraper a ragged tooth. Khadein, running blind under the increasing rain, was a bit of plaque, or maybe a tiny bit of unchewed food, about to be swallowed and dissolved into the nothing forever.

Strangely enough, there was nobody outside. Not a single friendly yellow umbrella, nor a ghost of a poncho, nor a car getting a free car wash courtesy of nature above. Just her, sprinting, lungs burning, desperate for somewhere, anywhere.

She slipped and fell, catching herself just in time to save herself from slamming into the sidewalk. She picked herself up, steadied herself against the light pole.

She was at a corner computer cafe, closed from the looks of the OPEN neon sign being unlit, doors locked, vacant and empty. She dragged herself under one of the tables out front, shade supplanted by an umbrella for each one, and pulled her knees in close.

I... I don't understand. Of all the people to be sent to perdition in this big and lonely world... why me?

She held her hands out in front of her. Pasty and smooth, flawless. Not a single scratch or sign of all the years spent in the fields, working, the scars from the time a jelly jar exploded in her hands and sent glass shards everywhere, all the tears wiped up from Morgan's or Caroline's eyes the countless times they fell and scraped their knees.

It's like I've truly become a whole different person.

And yet... I don't even know how to play this one properly.

Who am I?

She closed her eyes. A chill ran across her skin. She shivered and pulled herself in closer. Rain still dripped on her feet, sticking out from what little shelter the underside of the table afforded her.

A character creation screen glowed to life in front of her face. The text flickered like a dying neon sign, but otherwise it held strong.

Who am I?

Am I my physical characteristics? Short black hair, roughed-up skin?

Am I my personality traits?

Am I my personal little collection of memories?

Am I just... what other people think of me?

She opened her eyes. Her dress suddenly felt tight, constricting.

"What's the matter? Get stood up or something?" a pedestrian jeered.

She climbed out from under the table. Her eyes caught her reflection in the cafe window. Through the streaks of rain, she was Laika again. Albeit Laika in a gaudy two-sizes-too-small dress.

The lights in the cafe flickered on. Rows of monitors, old ones that looked at least a decade old, buzzed on one by one. The doors clicked, unlocked.

Laika shrugged the purse back into her arms and wandered inside.

A bullish woman appeared from the back- and immediately ran over to Laika, eyeing her up and down.

"Heavens above, lass!" she yelled in a frillish accent Laika couldn't place. "The hell's wrong with you, standing in the rain? You could catch pneumonia!" She wrapped an arm around Laika and pulled her into the back rooms, filled with cardboard boxes in discordant piles. "You got somewhere to be, lass?"

Laika shook her head, flinging rain droplets everywhere.

The woman's upper lip curled in disgust. "Well, you're staying with me, then. Can't have people dying out in front." She disappeared into a door marked Employees Only in sloppy purple spray paint. A few minutes later, she returned with a heavy pink blanket and a bundle of clothes, practically dumping them into Laika's arms. "Take a seat anywhere. Get changed out of that horrid dress first. Happy Hour starts in about twelve minutes. Poor soul."

"T...Thanks," Laika whispered. She went back into the cafe area, and then took a turn into the bathroom. It was a unisex one, apparently, because the whole thing was only one room, and it locked shut behind her.

She dropped her bundle in the corner of the room, the farthest from the toilet, probably the cleanest part of the whole bathroom. She peeled the dress off, not giving a damn that some of the seams popped in the process, and discarded it at her feet.

Something caught her eye in the mirror.

She glanced over to see a horrid scar running across one of her ribs, four inches across, pink and angry and discordantly scabbing like it were trying to grow scales.

She swallowed a grimace and dug back in the pile until she retrieved the clothes.

A plain forest green t-shirt, practically a minidress from how it threatened to tickle her thighs. Black sweatpants, not a size too large or small. A belt to go around her waist, tightest loop just tight enough to stay around her waist without falling- although, granted, it was as long as she was tall. Her hip felt strange with the leather around her body and no familiar weight of her sword to go with it. Like a part of her was missing.

And a bandanna to end the pile, crumpled up.

She unfolded it. A pair of sunglasses clattered in the sink. She wiped them down and put them on, tying the bandanna over her head to cover her hair.

Laika met her own gaze in the mirror.

I am... whoever I say I am.

I am nobody.

She stooped down, piling the blanket in her arms, and went back into the cafe. She took the computer at the far end of the building, on the first row so nobody else could see the screen.

A wave of recognition.

This is the Reylos welcome screen.

Well... good to see that the cafe owner knows her stuff, at least.

She left the defaults as they were and went to the desktop. She opened the email icon at the side. An anonymous mailer was already set up. Disposable, no return messages possible without some kind of persistent memory- which Laika had none of, apparently.

Her fingers practically typed Maya's email address of their own accord.

Come to- and then the cafe's address- as soon as you can.

Laika hit send. A shadow passed over her. She glanced up to see the bullish woman towering over the monitor.

"What's your name, lass?"

"Uh... Marusu."

"Marusu. I ain't ever heard that one before." The woman snorted. "That's Yonique for you. Neighbor to 'unique', just like yours. You need a memory stick, lass?"

"I don't have any data to store."

"Not yet. But a memory stick's like a house. If you're homeless, you got nowhere reliable to sleep. You got no long-time address. No way to acquire possessions. You can't go shit in life." She turned. "I'll get you a memory stick real quick. On the house. Just 'cause you play my heartstrings like a damn harp, sitting there all sad."

Yonique disappeared for a few solid minutes. Marusu sat at the desktop, desaturated blue wallpaper staring back. When her eyes started to burn, she pulled the blanket over her shoulders and opened the browser, waiting for it to connect to Red before she hopped onto the first news site she could think of.

One story on her. A suicide.

"Hey-"

Marusu panicked and closed the browser window.

"You weren't looking at something... naughty, were you, lass?"

Marusu furiously shook her head.

Yonique laughed like a beef patty. "Relax, lass. I ain't got cameras in this establishment. Oh, the seedy lads who walk in just to jerk off under the desks... Disgusting, the whole lot of them. I'd ban them, but they're good money." She handed Marusu the thin flash drive. Only four gigabytes. "Just plug it in. Everything'll get set up automatically."

"T-Thanks."

"No problem. I'll start working you tomorrow." Yonique cackled. "Come in the back if you get tired. Or hungry. I got a cot you can borrow and a can of soup you can eat."

She disappeared back into the back, occasionally coming out to make rounds around the computer rows. People trickled in and out. They had flash drives of their own, most far superior in storage size. One swipe in the credit card slot next to each monitor, and they were off. Some merely checked their email and left; others booted out of Reylos and into their own flash drive operating systems, delving into games, ordering cheap food and drinks from Yonique as they made their way through multi-hour raids.

Maya didn't come.

Rufi knelt in a patch sparse of grass, her forehead pressed to the bark, hands clasped together, hair loose and drooping down to the ground.

"Seliph," she whispered. "Gods before Chronos. Whatever lingers above from ages gone by. Curse, bless me now with my fierce tears, I pray..."

Footsteps as Jack approached. Rufi made no move to acknowledge him as he knelt down beside his wife.

"Rufi." He put an arm around her shoulders. She ignored him, silent. "My love. I'm having a few contractors come over tomorrow. We're going to be scouting out a place for another farmhouse." He paused, waiting for a response, but received none. "Prices for everything we grow are on the upswing. I'm hiring new farmhands so we can grow more on the land."

"I've already paid all the prices I need to."

"Rufi..." He sighed. "I... You... What will the kids think when they see their mother like this?"

"That a piece of my heart has been ripped out, and it will never grow back ever again."

Jack's face twisted. "What was I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do? I can't... I can't un... her."

"There's nothing left to be done."

"Rufi..."

"Go."

He got up and left without a single word.

18

"Morgan, wake up."

Morgan groaned and rolled over in her bed.

"Morgan. Come on." Rufi shook her daughter's shoulders. "I need you awake."

"W-what's going on?" she moaned, not bothering to open her eyes.

"I need you to do something super important for me. So wake up." Morgan sighed and pushed herself up. She flickered on the lamp. "Do you remember when you were little, and we used to play spies around the house?"

"Yeah." A groggy pause. "Why?"

"I need you to wake up Caroline and get into the van. Be as quiet as possible. I've already packed clothes and your favorite toys for both of you. Go through the garage door in the basement. And no matter what, do not wake up your father."

"What's going on?"

"I'll explain later when we're on the road. Just get Caroline and get into the van."

She abandoned her daughter's bedside and fled the room and went straight downstairs to the kitchen. Low thunder rumbled outside. The sky was as dark as it could be without triggering the street lights. Dirty dishes were piled up in the sink, half-dissolved rings of milk and sugar and whatever else on the cups and bowls, cloudy water pooling wherever it could.

She swiped the notepad from the fridge magnet where it hung and flipped to about halfway through. A hidden list greeted her. She clicked the pen in her hand.

"Doors locked... check. Van packed... check." She yawned, eyes fluttering. She started pacing in the small space the kitchen afforded her. "Snacks for the road... check. Emergency money stash out of drawers... check."

"Rufi?"

She turned around, softly, deliberately. Jack was standing just outside the kitchen, hair disheveled, clearly just rolled out of bed.

He glanced at the stovetop clock. Five in the morning.

"What are you doing up so early?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on. I just thought I'd wake up early to make breakfast for everyone. But I must have misjudged you. Maybe next time I should get started at midnight."

"You're not running away, are you?"

"No. I'm not. Why would I do that?"

"Don't play stupid with me, Rufi. What's going on?"

"I already told you. I'm making breakfast." Behind Jack, she could see Morgan and Caroline tip-toeing down the stairs. "I think we have bacon in the fridge."

"No, we don't."

"Oh. I must have... misremembered, then. Would you like eggs?"

"We don't have any eggs either."

Her children disappeared down into the first basement.

"Rufi." He took a step forward. "What's going on?"

"I'm trying to make breakfast."

"What's really going on?"

One of the children slipped and fell, making something crash in the basement.

Jack whipped around. "What- are you okay?"

Morgan squealed. Scuffling, and then the door to the second basement slammed shut.

Rufi pulled back her robe, revealing the pistol strapped to her hip.

His eyes flew wide open. "What-"

"My children deserve a world where the gods can't snuff them out on a whim. Much less one where the gods are too damn cowardly to shed blood by their own hands."

"So this discussion again?" Jack took another daring step forward. "Rufi, Laika's dead. She's gone. Chronos is about to bless us far beyond our dreams. Would you throw that away? Would you throw away the chance to see Morgan and Caroline happy?"

She set her jaw. "No."

"So hands off the gun. Bring the children back inside. Let's resolve this like adults. Calmly and rationally."

"Calmly. Like how you bargained my daughter's life away. While I did nothing and watched."

Jack sighed. "Rufi, come on-"

She edged toward the garage door.

"Rufi."

Hand on the doorknob.

"She was my daughter, too. You think I don't feel that same pain in every moment? You think I wanted to take her life?"

She turned the doorknob.

"Yes."

"This could legally be classified as kidnapping."

"Better once than forever."

Rufi flung open the door. She jumped out the doorway. Jack lunged, missing her. She rounded the corner and almost ripped off the van door from how hard she threw it ajar.

"Mom!" Morgan squealed. "What's going on?"

Rufi slid in and crammed the keys in the ignition and kicked the truck alive. "Seatbelts on."

Morgan clicked hers on. She leaned over the suitcases wedged in the center to help Caroline.

Jack stepped in front of the vehicle, arms out. "Talk to me!"

"Out of the way!"

"You're not taking my fucking kids! Get out of the vehicle!"

Caroline whimpered. "Mom-"

"I know." Rufi took a deep breath. "Hang tight."

She jammed on the ignition. Jack's eyes widened. He jumped out of the way just in time for the van to tear out of the garage, kicking up dirt and mud from the driveway. Shot out like a bullet from the enclosure- nearly clipped a car passing by, horns blaring as they sped away.

Rufi jerked the steering wheel. They started driving the opposite way.

"Mom," Morgan whispered, peering out from behind the driver's seat. "What's going on? Why was Father yelling?"

"Why Dada angry?" Caroline whimpered.

"We're going to the otherworld."

"What? But- But what about the rest of our family? What about our friends?"

"I'm sorry. We're going to have to leave them behind."

"But- Where will we live? What are we going to do?"

"I don't know."

"Did you kill Father?"

Rufi clenched her fists. Her knuckles bled white. "I should have."

"Mom?"

"Yes, Morgan?"

"Was... Laika really murdered?"

"Yes."

"Did... Father do it?"

"Yes."

Morgan wilted into her seat.

"I-I don't understand, Mom. Why would he..."

"Because he sold Laika's soul to Chronos."

"Did he tell Father to kill us too?"

"No. You two were spared." She took a right. "But I do not want you two growing up in a world where it's okay to take other people's lives just because you're getting something out of it."

Uncomfortable silence fell over the vehicle like a harsh rain. Morgan stared out the window, watching the fields pass in a blur, wheat smiling on its last wave by.

Caroline bent over, reaching for the backpack by her seat. Morgan grabbed it and zipped it open, letting Caroline pull the blanket crumpled near the top out. She threw it over herself, pulling it tight, curling up in her seat as much as she could.

"There's fruit in the little cooler bag behind your seat, Morgan," Rufi said. "We're only stopping for bathroom breaks."

"What about sleep?"

"I'll... find something. Don't worry. Don't panic."

19

"Morning, lass!"

The lights started flickering on and off, the clicking Marusu's way of knowing it was Yonique standing at the lightswitch, rapidly jerking the little knob up and down as fast as she could. One of her arms was hanging off the cot, shoulder aching from the weird position held all night. Marusu groaned, eyes struggling to stay open.

"Brought you a whole half of a breakfast plate from the restie a street over. Better get used to it!" The flickering stopped. She set the takeout box down on top of one of the overturned cardboard boxes. "Might have to keep you around forever. You take half of all my meals, and I'll lose half my weight in no time!" She laughed. "I jest. It's all muscle. That's what I tell myself, anyway."

Marusu grunted and pushed herself up and off the cot. Her nose wrinkled.

Gods above, I feel like I got ran over by a truck.

"Is there a shower somewhere?"

"Sorry, lass. Sponge bath in the sink."

"I figured." She stretched her arms. Her back popped. Yonique disappeared into the cafe.

Marusu wandered back into the bathroom and peeled her clothes off. There was a bottle of laundry soap sitting on the sink counter this time. Marusu shrugged and filled the sink, plugged it with the little handle, and threw her clothes into the soapy concoction. Suds fizzed up immediately, gulping down the clothes in their fuzzy white embrace.

She sat down on the toilet and squeezed her eyes shut.

It doesn't seem like she's going to kick me out anytime soon.

Isn't she going to... call the police? Try to find out where I- where I'm supposed to live? Isn't it illegal to harbor runaway children?

I'm not... a child anymore. I'm an adult. I'm all on my own.

I'm... all on my own.

She got up. The suds had subsided, just her clothes floating in dirty water.

Like Morgan and Caroline floating in the lake back at home, water level just barely licking at Laika's waist. Not necessarily dirty, although there was a lot of dirt underneath their feet. Dirt, and a strange sort of life, fish and dragonflies sharing a home with them for the summers.

But summer was fading away, and Laika was already gone.

She pulled the clothes up and hung them on the wheelchair handle to dry.

A knock at the door. "Fifteen minute warning, lass. We're opening soon."

I've barely been in here at all, Marusu thought, but she just shook her head and took a handful of soap and splashed it onto her body.

"Marusu!"

The girl opened her eyes, cutting her nap short. She was perched on her chair, head against her knees. Her monitor was off, flash drive just a little bulge in her pocket. She glanced up. Yonique was towering over the monitor, a bundle of cash in one hand.

"Hey, you feeling okay? You look kind of out of it."

Marusu mumbled a yeah.

"If you say so, lass." She held out the money. "Run down to the convenience store a few doors over and pick up another big frozen bag of fries. We're going through them like it's the apocalypse."

Marusu took the money. Her head tilted in confusion.

"It's just thirty dollars in ones," Yonique explained. "Bring back the change. Or run away. Whichever one you feel like. But bring back my fries before you run away, alright?"

Yonique scooted over to the opposite corner, where a group of raiders were vaulting magic at a cornered dragon in a dungeon. Marusu shivered and slipped out the cafe door. The sun beat down on her- she wiped her forehead, hand coming back already sweaty.

What I wouldn't give for my own body back. Strong, hardened, free.

Used to summers, at least.

She stepped into the convenience store. Something on the back of her neck prickled.

She turned around-

-just a display of pop cans, shiny, staring her down in pyramid formation.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" one of the attendants intoned. Young, first job, not new at all from how dull his eyes were. The "I'd much rather be doing literally anything else" look.

Marusu shook her head.

His tired eyes narrowed for a second, then rolled over as he shook his head and started to drift to a different part of the store.

She disappeared down the frozen foods aisle. Brightly colored boxes greeted her, brand names she'd never heard of, much less would have been able to afford.

I'm just here for fries.

The same prickling at the back of her neck-

-just ice cream sitting in the freezer. Three stacks of vanilla, one lone pail of chocolate.

What the hell...

Something's up. Something's wrong here.

She went further down the aisle. Plain plastic bags full of crinkly fries. She threw open the freezer door and pulled one out, careful not to knock any over- then got another one, just for good measure.

A glint in the ceiling.

She glanced up. Overhead was a little black dome jutting out of the ceiling. Her eyes followed the lines the ceiling tiles made. There were more domes throughout the store. A whole grid of them.

What in the world are those?

She made her way across the store to the registers. One self-checkout station was open. She flopped down the fries, scanned them through, bagged them. The machine ate the cash she fed it.

She took the bags and turned to leave.

An attendant popped out of nowhere. "I'm sorry, ma'am. Can you stop for a moment?"

"Have I done anything wrong?"

"Is there a reason you're concealing your face?"

"I..."

Shit, think of something quick!

"I'm sensitive to light," Marusu murmured. "I'll be leaving now."

"No... Wait!"

She was already gone. Once she crossed the threshold of the store doors, she bolted back into the cafe, wheeling into the back.

Marusu slammed the bag of fries down on one of the overturned cardboard boxes.

"I'm... I'm back," she wheezed.

Yonique glanced up from her fold-up chair. "Oh. That was quick, lass. Ever consider running a marathon?"

"Do you know..."

"I know a lot of things, lass."

Marusu straightened herself out. Her lungs calmed down a bit. "Do you know what those domes on the ceiling of the convenience store are? I've never seen them before."

Yonique's brow furrowed. "You mean, you've never seen a security camera before?"

"Those are cameras?"

"Yeah, lass. Gods above, where did you come from where there weren't security cameras?"

Marusu shivered. "I... don't want to talk about it."

"That's fair. You got my change?"

Marusu pulled the bills out of her pocket, handing them to Yonique without a word. She went back to her computer in the corner and hit the on button, going through the startup routine until she was back at her desktop.

A new mail.

Maya!

I don't know who the hell this is, the mail wrote. But it's your lucky day. I'm feeling reckless. Give me one good reason why I should detour and come there.

I'm strapped, though, so don't try any funny business.

Because... Marusu's fingers hovered over the keys. Because...

Because you want to see Laika again.

No... She backspaced the whole sentence. That makes it sound like I'm holding hostages.

Because I've got a present for you.

And that present could be a swift kick in the ass. Or a bullet to the brain. Too vague.

You're going somewhere, Maya. Detour.

I know where you're going.

Because there's something you should see before you go to the otherworld.

She hit send. Her words lingered on the screen for a few seconds, and then the screen flickered, no evidence that the reply had even happened other than a shiny new 1 by Sent.

20

They were packed in the van like sardines for what felt like days. Days of nothing but driving, Rufi's eyes on the road, Morgan's practically anywhere else, searching for something, anything to do other than just stare out the window at the vast world passing beyond. A world of red brick buildings and water parks, restaurants she'd never heard the names to, neon signs flickering into the night. Skyscrapers, entire cities in the distance, millions of people going about their daily lives completely unaware of the forces hanging above.

"Mom?" Morgan whispered during one particularly long stretch of driving. "Where are we going?"

"The otherworld."

"Is that somewhere you can drive to?"

"No. We've got to pass through the underworld first."

"So we're going to the underworld?"

"Somewhere along those lines."

"I don't like the sound of that." Morgan rubbed her eyes. "Are we almost there?"

"Close."

"That's what you said the last two times."

"We're getting closer. I promise."

They pulled in to the parking lot of a rest stop. Morgan's eyes fluttered open as the van braked, parked. The rain, kept at bay by the windshield wipers, started to pool into larger and larger drops the moment they stopped.

"Restroom break," Rufi explained. She handed Morgan the keys. "Don't unlock the van until I'm gone."

"O... okay."

Rufi abandoned the vehicle. The moment she disappeared into the visitor's building, Morgan popped her seatbelt off and threw the van door open.

"Mo-Mo!" Caroline popped her seatbelt off as well, following her into the rain. There was a picnic area nearby, shielded from the rain by a wide roof. Morgan beelined to it, plopping down on one of the benches, watching the drops from the roof fall down into the puddles nearby.

There was a patch of daisies by the corner of the picnic area. They swayed in the rain, sunny faces cheerful as they gratefully gulped down the water from the sky.

"Mo-Mo," Caroline whispered, "Potty time."

"Y-yeah. I'm coming. Just a moment."

Morgan took Caroline's hand. They walked into the visitor's building together. Little trays with traveling pamphlets littered the walls.

Welcome to Minnesota!

All Sorts of Things to Do in the Gopher State

Watch Out for Tornadoes!

"Um, excuse me, miss." Morgan tapped the closest woman's shoulder. "Where are the bathrooms?"

"Oh!" She feighed surprise. Caroline giggled. "They're right around the corner."

Morgan mumbled a thanks and took Caroline right around the corner. Sure enough, there were the bathrooms-

Rufi shot out of the woman's door.

"W-What- I told you two to stay inside the van!"

"Potty time," Caroline whined.

Rufi sighed and tugged Caroline back into the bathroom. Morgan crossed her arms and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

"Hey, miss," a burly man said, startling her. "You waiting for somebody?"

"Yeah. My, uh, mom."

"Well, you've been standing here for half an hour. Just thought you should know."

He walked away. Morgan threw open the bathroom door.

There was... nothing in front of her. A big whole wall of nothing. No light entered, no shadows betrayed whatever was lying within. Just... nothing.

She took a deep breath and stepped forward.

The world fell away. A mighty gust of wind swept around her.

"So," a voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere. "You must be Laika's sister."

"What's going on?" Morgan screamed.

"Nothing. Nothing's going on outside. Just the normal tourists doing their normal tourist things."

"Where's my mom?"

"Hmmm..." The wind subsided for a moment, and then returned in full force. "Apparently at 0x07C5F930."

"What?"

"That's her location in memory."

"That doesn't-"

She was back in the hallway outside the bathroom. The door whipped open. Rufi and Caroline stepped out, hands freshly damp.

"Come on." She took Morgan's hand. "Let's go."

Morgan, bewildered, stared back at the bathroom door as her mother pulled her out of the building.

"Mom?" Morgan whimpered. "How long have we been driving?"

Rufi winced. The sun dipped into the horizon, in just the right spot to glint on the hood and temporarily blind her. She pulled down the little visor.

"Sorry. What did you say?"

"I said, how long have we been driving?"

"Oh. Just today. The whole of today."

Morgan groaned. "When can we stop?"

"As soon as I find a good place to stop for today."

Morgan sighed. She shook Caroline's arm. "Do you want to play highway bingo?"

Caroline dug herself deeper into her blanket. "No, Mo-Mo."

"Do you want to sing?"

"No, Mo-Mo."

"We've got to do something."

"Wanna sleep, Mo-Mo."

21

The afternoon was slower on business. The raiders, and their seemingly bottomless stomachs, left, abandoned their keyboards for greener pastures once their precious dragon died and spilled all its loot. A few children popped in to do homework- nothing but, it seemed, hours upon hours of poring over text until Marusu wondered why their eyes didn't start bleeding, and then all left like a tide going out to catch the bus home in time. The sun dipped low in the sky, then vanished over the horizon, street lights coming to life and lighting up the city almost as bright as in day.

Marusu abandoned her seat in the corner. It wasn't like there was any risk of it being stolen, anyway. She stood at the window, arms crossed, watching the cars go by on the street corner.

Yonique overshadowed her, footsteps loud, warning Marusu of her advance enough moments ahead.

"What's wrong, lass? Sonder got you in its grip?"

"I just... feel lost."

"You know the address, lass."

"No, I mean... How can I describe it?" A pause. "I was in a church once. The people there said they were part of this world, but not of it."

"And you feel the opposite?"

Marusu nodded once.

Like every cell in my body yearns to be somewhere I can never return to. And it hurts.

"You should know, lass, that I can relate."

"I doubt it."

"See, weekdays, I run this junkhole during the day. There are still people in this wide and wild world without a phone or a computer of their own. Ain't that insane?" She snorted and clapped a hand on Marusu's shoulder. "Weekends, though, it's night time show time. Sun goes down, connections go up. You and I, we're night people, Marusu. Learned that the hard way in high school. Parents harassed me to go to college. I said, no fuckin' way, pops. In kinder words, of course. But he kept jabbing and jabbing and jabbing. So the night became mine. Nobody calls during the night. People don't watch TV, and salespeople don't advertise, and nobody blasts music halfway across the house."

"I... get that."

"Told you I could relate! Sleepy during the day, alive during the night."

"I don't... feel alive." She turned to Yonique. "Am I alive? Am I really standing here before you? Or am I just a... a ghost, or a vision of some sort, and you're just feeding the delusion?"

"Oh, honey... You need a hug?"

Marusu curled in on herself. Yonique backed up, giving her space.

"Tell you what, lass. Maybe the sun won't heal any of us, rising or falling. But next time a storm comes through, I want you to sit by the window and listen. Just close your eyes and listen to the rain and the thunder. God is in the rain, my mother always used to say. You'll find healing there."

Headlights flickered in the corner of her vision.

You don't have much longer to be parked on the street, whoever you are.

The doors brushed open.

Harsh heaving breaths.

Marusu's heart leaped.

"Ma'am?"

"What- Oh, gods above, woman! You look like you've been through a blender!" Yonique zipped into the back and retrieved a blanket. The same blanket Marusu had used the previous night. She watched in the window's reflection as Yonique guided Rufi over to one of the terminals. "Sit down a while. As long as you need. Your girls can play on the computers free of charge."

Rufi took the blanket, eyes grateful, and draped it over her shoulders. Her eyelids drooped, beyond exhausted. Morgan and Caroline sat down nearby. Morgan swung her legs on the chair, restless, not daring to touch anything. Caroline, however, reached her hand out and wiggled the mouse, eyes widening in delight when the monitor flickered on.

"You look pretty rough. Need a place to stay for the night?"

Rufi shook her head. "You're too generous. But I don't want to be a burden."

"Nonsense! I got a few more cots in the back. Hell, I'll even throw in free breakfast."

"No. I... I wouldn't want to send the gods' anger at you."

Yonique rolled her eyes. "Most gods hate me anyway. I'll help any way you want me to." She nodded toward the back. "You want coffee? Water? Anything to drink?"

"Water would be lovely, thank you."

Yonique went into the back, returning a few moments later with two plastic cups of water. She pulled over the closest chair and sat down beside Rufi, handing one of the cups to her.

"Why are the gods after you, love?"

Rufi sighed. "They're not. They want to 'bless' me."

"Well, that ain't so bad, is it?"

Rufi cringed. "If it were an honest blessing." She set the cup down beside the keyboard and pulled her blanket in tighter. "My... my husband..."

"Oh, dear. You need me to knock some sense into him?"

"No. Please do not. He'll probably send an army of farmhands after you." Her head bobbed for a second before she shook herself awake again. "My daughter is gone. This world no longer holds anything for me. By this time tomorrow, we should be passing through the underworld."

"Did she run off?"

"Who- oh..." Rufi slumped. Her arm brushed something by her ribs. She winced and fidgeted in her chair.

"Something wrong?"

"Do you have an ice pack?"

"Marusu!" Yonique yelled over her shoulder.

Shit.

"Go get an ice pack from the back!"

Marusu, careful to keep her face turned away from Rufi, slipped into the back. She glanced around. Her eyes caught the little fridge in the corner, hidden by boxes before. She fetched a frozen bag of gel from the freezer and handed it to Rufi, keeping her gaze straight ahead.

I am a statue. I am a monolith.

Rufi took it, but her tired eyes stayed on Marusu, on her sunglasses, almost narrowing in confusion.

I am a pillar. I am a monument.

She shook her head and wrapped the ice pack in the corner of her shirt and pressed it against the spot on her ribs. "I must be imagining things."

"It is rather late out. When was the last time you slept?"

"I've been up since... at least five, I think."

Yonique's eyes widened. "In the morning? It's nearly ten now! You poor thing!" She got up. "I'll go set up the cots."

I am stone.

Yonique disappeared into the back. Rufi let her eyes wander back to Marusu's face.

I am marble.

"Marusu, huh?"

Marusu's lips were a thin line. The thin line dividing stranger and familiar.

Perdition and reunion.

Rufi let out a wide yawn. "I must be... more tired than I thought. I'm seeing things."

You're seeing me.

"I can see her just fine," Morgan piped up. Caroline was banging on the keyboard, mashing random keys. "Wait- wait a minute..." Morgan slid off her chair. She stood toe-to-toe with Marusu. "I thought-" She patted Rufi's shoulder, getting her attention. "Mom, she looks like Laika, doesn't she?"

Marusu bit her lip.

"Caroline!" Morgan tugged her sister away from the keyboard. The younger sister squealed. Morgan pointed at Marusu. "Look! She looks like Laika."

"Lai-Lai?" Caroline cocked her head. Her braids swung. "That not Lai-Lai."

"I'm telling you, that is her! That's got to be her!"

Morgan took Marusu's hand. Marusu yanked it away and fled back to her spot at the window, arms around her chest, watching as Morgan ran up behind her.

"I... I don't understand, Laika. Why did you leave us? Where did you go?"

"Morgan," Rufi whispered. "Leave her alone."

"But..."

Yonique came out of the back then. "The cots are ready if you're ready to sleep. I'm about to shut the whole place down for tonight."

"Up we go." Rufi got up out of her seat, taking Caroline's hand, pulling her along. "Come on, Morgan."

"I..." She dared to take Marusu's hand again. "I... I love you, Laika."

Morgan shot one more glance up at Marusu, and then reluctantly followed her mother into the back.

Marusu's heart sank.

Yonique locked the front doors and flicked off the lights. "You come back when you're ready for bed, lass."

And then she was alone. The inky void to her back, the street lights to her front. Sky above, thin wisps of cloud stretched across the sky like a pulled-apart cotton ball. Barely any stars were visible, the light from the city leaking up into the heavens, drowning out everything else.

But there was one streak of clouds lighter than the rest. Newly torn, perhaps. A crack in the sky, a god's last farewell.

She held her right hand, the one that had been in Morgan's grip only a few precious moments prior, to her chest. Something strange settled deep in her heart. A few strings appeared, silvery and ethereal like ripped-apart spider webs. Two golden ones unraveled from the rest. One leading off into the back room, another tight over her shoulder to places unknown.

If my own mother sees me as just an illusion...

Then this whole damn world is an illusion. This is no place for me. Chewed up, spat out. Birthed and severed.

A shooting star shot across the night sky. A tiny streak, barely visible for a second before the light faded back into the void.

I love you too, Morgan.

Marusu wandered to the doors. Her hands lingered on the handles.

"Forgive me, Morgan," she whispered.

You don't have to do this. You can go into the back and take off your sunglasses. You can show them your scar.

If Chronos were trying to punish them, do you think he wouldn't know how to make a convincing effigy too?

This is my fate. To cleave the night and leave this world unseen.

She pushed through the doors. The streets were empty. Not a single soul was outside.

But perhaps somewhere in lands unknown... there may yet be a place for me.

She took off running.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

VANE VANDER aims to be an absolute enigma of a human being. She spends her days writing forbidden words, distrohopping for the thousandth time, and obsessively sorting her e-book collection. Her least favorite word is "enigmatic", but only because she sees it too much. She can usually be found committing acts of war at mayvaneday.org.

MARISSA LOWELL is a tulpa struggling to define personhood and being. This is her first book.

Copyright © 2020-2025 Vane Vander and Marissa Lowell. All rights reserved as detailed in Copyright.