​Newlyweds Mais and Eric have been together for about 3 years and have only been married for 2 months. They met through their friends and after one encounter they fell for each other. They were quite the clichés according to their friends. They lived in the nicer parts of town finally able to save up for their own home together, itching to start up a family. Mais was certainly beautiful. Her light brown locks curled slightly at the ends and fell perfectly in the middle of her back. She had a gentle face that matched her serene heart. Her eyes a pale blue that drove Eric insane.
He wasn’t the only one to fall for Mais, there were many others Mais had never been interested in dating until she met Eric. During her high school years plenty had tried but none had succeeded. Mais was Eric’s trophy, especially since she was way out of his league. Eric was fit but he embraced the “nerd style”. He had large glasses that took almost half of his face, his shirt was always tucked into his pants with suspenders holding them up. Many of their friends described them as the ‘Up’ couple since their routine was almost identical to theirs. Every morning Mais would help with Eric’s bow tie and straighten his glasses. They were adorably disgusting. Though one afternoon, their first piece of mail at their new home would jeopardize everything.
            Mais had just returned home from work, she had many papers to correct but kindergarten work wasn’t necessarily a hard task to grade. Her binder was pressed up against her chest held there by her arm while her free hand searched for her keys. She was so busy trying to fish out her keys, she stumbled over a bouquet of roses at her doorstep. She managed to catch her binder but unfortunately the vase containing the flowers had cracked. Her eyebrows furrowed together as she carefully placed her things on the ground. She braced herself for the cold cement, kneeling down to the flowers. A bright pink card caught her attention and she quickly retrieved it.


Every day I fall more and more in love with you.

— your love


            A smile appeared on her face as she brought the card up to her chest. Her mind quickly going to Eric, he was always displaying cheesy acts such as this one. “If only you left this on the table...” she sighed as she sadly looked at the beautiful transparent vase that was now scattered across her steps. She tucked the letter into her pocket and placed her items inside the kitchen on top of one of the boxes entitled “FRAGILE, GLASS”. She then proceeded to bring in the flowers and placing them in a larger glass cup and swept up the rest of the mess, cautiously placing the remains in the garbage.
            After a few hours Eric finally arrived home. By this time Mais had successfully graded all the papers and was on their last box for the kitchen. Eric stepped inside and curiously looked around their kitchen.
“I thought we agreed on unpacking together?” He questioned but was quickly greeted with an eager kiss. Before they had the chance to intensify the kiss he broke free of Mais. “What was that for?” He asked breathlessly, his glasses slipping off of the bridge of his nose.
“Well...” she started as she slowly pushed his glasses back up his nose. “Think of it as a thank you present for those beautiful roses you left me.” Eric stood there curiously and looked over at the flowers in a cup, his eyebrow raised as he looked back over at his wife who was beaming with excitement. “Leaving it inside would’ve been easier but I guess it was a cute surprise.” She continued as she tidied up the flowers to make them more presentable. Eric stood there at the door quizzically, studying the flowers.
“I didn’t send that.” His statue became slightly defensive as he eyed the flowers on the table.
            Mais’s smile morphed into a thin line as she rubbed her lips together. “You didn’t?” She looked over at the flowers, quickly pulled out the card and scanned for an address. “Huh, there’s no address on it.” She looked back over at Eric and her smile came back and she tossed the card on the table. “C’mon Eric!” She teased. “I know you sent it you nerd.” She continued,
gently snaking her finger under his left side suspender and lifting it up so the thin fabric snapped back down on his shirt. Eric seemed unphased by this action as he pushed past Mais and walked towards the table grabbing the small envelope.
His eyes scanned over the pink paper and he slowly pulled out the letter. He read the words and looked back up at Mais who seemed beyond confused. “I didn’t send it”, he repeated.
            Mais was naturally an optimistic person so her smile in this situation wasn’t unusual but Eric didn’t find it very necessary. His brows furrowed together and the corner of his lip curved downwards. He proceeded to crumble up the letter and tossed it aside next to the flowers. Suddenly Mais erupted into giggles and Eric looked over at her angrily.
“What?” His voice showing traits or irritation.
“You’re jealous aren’t you?” Her giggling never ceased as she made her way over to an enraged Eric.
“Of course not!” He seemed highly insulted to be accused of this even though a small voice in his head agreed with Mais. “You don’t find it odd that some guy-” he was cut off with “Or girl” by Mais. “Guy or girl whatever! A stranger just left this on our doorstep a week after we move in?” He asked and Mais just shook her head as she wrapped her arms around his middle and looked up at him.
“Think of it as a welcome to the neighborhood gift.” Her voice deemed sincere but Eric could sense the teasingness in her voice. Rolling his eyes finally looking down at his wife who as certainly amused by this. He couldn’t help but smile down at her “A welcome to the neighborhood by Your Love,” he paused and his smile turned into a concerned frown. “But I’M your love, right?” His question was answered by a quick peck to his lips by Mais.
“My one and only.”
            That night Eric and Mais slept good. A few days had passed since the flowers incident and half of their house was unpacked. It was a Saturday afternoon and Mais was home finishing
up unpacking the living room decorations that her and Eric started with the night before. She smiled at their wedding pictures and hung them up behind their beige couch. The sound of an unsuspecting doorbell triggered a jump from Mais and she dropped one of the smaller pictures. Thankfully it didn’t break, the soft couch broke its fall. The doorbell rang again and Mais sighed heavily and cautiously got off the couch.
            “I’m coming!” Her voice elevated as she moved towards the front door.
She opened it but she didn’t see anyone. She stepped out and looked around but she still didn’t see anything. “Ding dong ditch already?” She asked no one in particular and made her way back inside. Then the sound of heavy knocking on her backdoor scared her almost half to death. “Really?” She yelled as she made her way to the backdoor. She swung the kitchen door open and again was greeted by no one. She was just about to close the door when a heart shaped box and a small card caught her attention. She bent down curiously, the corner of her eyes searching for someone then focusing on the card that read,

            “Your one and only”
 
She quickly grabbed the box and brought it inside, quick to dial Eric. “Where are you?”
“What do you mean? I’m at work I’ll be home around 4.” His voice was rushed and she could hear him furiously typing away at his own keyboard.
“You mean you didn’t…” Her voice trailed off as she looked out through the small window on the kitchen door.
            “Didn’t what?” He asked but then dismissed it. ”Listen I have to go I’ll see you when I get home okay?”
            Before she could protest Eric had hung up. Nervously she tossed the the box of chocolates in the trash. Her hands began to tremble as she looked at the letter, whoever he or she was, they had just made it clear they were watching her.
            She never mentioned the package to Eric. With his reaction the first time she could tell he was angry and if this mystery person kept sending things he’d probably assume she’s been having an affair. Mais didn’t want to lose everything they had worked so hard for so if she got the occasional packaging she’d just toss it out. The person seemed to be a desperate romantic most likely harmless.
            The love letters and gifts became more regular, every other day. Always around a time Eric wouldn’t be home. Though she was terrified this person had memorized their schedules she was also somewhat thankful Eric wasn’t around to witness it.
            Mais tried to make contact with the person but even when she waited at the door they’d just drop the gift off at the other. She couldn’t win so she stopped trying. The letters often were cheesy lines or cutesy poems. Mais would let her imagination wonder, she wanted to believe Eric was the one writing them. With that mindset she didn’t feel so bad receiving them even though she knew it wasn’t the case. The doorbell rang and Mais followed with the routine of her checking first the front door then the back door. A baseball bat in hand as she did so (she started carrying it with her just in case this person ever became handsy).
            The present surprised Mais, which was weird considering she’d been at this for at least two months now. The envelope was simple, plain white. Usually the letters had always been colorful but this was the first white one she had gotten. Perhaps it wasn’t her secret admirer. Hesitantly she retrieved the letter and quickly shut and locked the door behind her. The light haired beaut leaned the wooden bat against the wall and took a seat at the kitchen table. As she teared through the envelope she could tell something was off. There was indeed a single piece of paper folded up.
            The tips of her finger grazed the crease of the fold. She proceeded to pull it out again surprised at how many times the paper had been folded. An entire sheet was a small square barely the size of her palm. As she began to unfold it she noticed all the words were messier than usual and were written in all caps to portray yelling. After a few seconds the small square was now an average sized piece of paper. The fear in her eyes present as she read the words on the page.

            HELLO LOVE, REMEMBER ME? PROBABLY NOT. YOU TAKE MY GIFTS AND LEAVE NOTHING FOR ME. WHY IS THAT? YOUR BEAUTY STRUCK ME THE FIRST TIME I SAW YOU I JUST HAD TO MEET YOU IN PERSON. I THOUGHT THESE LETTERS AND PRESENTS WOULD MAKE YOU FEEL MORE COMPELLED TO SEE ME. WHY DO YOUR WASTE YOUR TIME WITH ERIC? YOU CAN DO SO MUCH BETTER, TOGETHER WE’D BE SUCH A BEAUTIFUL COUPLE. YOU CAN’T DENY THAT. LET ME MAKE THIS CLEAR, I WILL NOT LET YOU WASTE YOU’RE TIME WITH THAT MAN. I REFUSE. WE BELONG TOGETHER. WAIT FOR ME.

            Her hands felt sweaty, quickly Mais crumbled the letter and tossed it into the trash. Just as quickly as she had thrown the letter out, she snatched it back. This was a threat, wasn’t it? She continued to re-read the letter while nervously biting the skin around her finger nails. She had to tell Eric, this person was becoming dangerous. Mais tried his cellphone but it went straight to voicemail, she looked over her shoulder and noticed his charger casually laid on the counter. He had forgotten to bring it with him to work. She took a long breath and considered contacting the police but she knew she needed to speak with Eric before everything got out of hand.
            Needing to regain a peace of mind before this note drove her crazy with worries, Mais found her way straight to the cabinet to the left of the sink, where they decided to keep their wine until they could afford a wine cooler. She didn’t bother with a wine glass, she simply grabbed the first glass she could get her hands on and gulped down the red liquid. Sometime during her few drinks (3-4) she found herself beginning to doze off watching a random televised show being aired that day.
After a few hours passed she found herself groggily opening her eyes. For a moment she had forgotten all about her secret admirer but when the name Eric crossed her memory she straightened. Her eyes glanced at the cable box reading 12:03am.
            At this realization she was at her feet and ran right to the window, Eric’s car was safely parked in the driveway. She smiled and made her way up to their bedroom, she was halfway up the stairs when the doorbell rang. She froze in her steps and glanced upwards, he was probably sleeping. Besides it was way out of schedule for her crazed fan. It was probably some delinquent teenagers or their friends. Steadily she pivoted on the heel of her foot and made her way down the steep growing steps. When she finally reached the bottom she gently opened the front door. Her heart almost gave out when she saw a neat black package tied with a red bow.
            Everything in her body told her to turn back around and wait until morning but there was something about this particular box that compelled her to open it. This time she didn’t move the box indoors, she knelt down in front of it and began to tug at the aesthetically pleasing bow. It wasn’t hard to undo the knot since it was only tied over once. The second she lifted the top of the box you could see a mixture of horror, sadness, and fear that partook in those pale beautiful eyes. A scream like no other escaped her delicate lips as she fell over on her backside. Mais began to crab walk backwards until her back hit the first step. “Eric!” She screamed again, scrambling to her feet as she raced up the stairs. Practically tripping over herself until she made it into their room and ran straight to the body under the covers.
            Frantically she began to shake her husband. “Eric, Eric you need to wake up now!” She demanded but her words were cut short when she felt something warm and moist skin her palm. Her clean hand lunged straight for the lamp and you could see the immediate realization on her face as she saw the crimson liquid staining her hand.  “Oh no no...” her frantic cries became blubbering sobs as she pulled the blanket off of Eric to reveal a wound deep in his chest. Right where his heart should’ve been was a craved hole, his face as pale as her eyes.
            His heart was the lifeless, bloodied heart in her most recent package.

​Headlights illuminated about a quarter mile of the never-ending highway. Doug yawned. He slapped his face in an attempt to stay awake. As drove on he noticed a figure moving alongside the road ahead.
“A damned hitchhiker,” he said to himself. The car sped past. Doug glanced in his rearview mirror and saw the dark figure jumping and waving his arms, his middle finger gesturing on each hand.
Dough slammed on the breaks and squealed his tires as he sped backward. The hitchhiker jumped to the side of the road.
The stranger opened the passenger door. “You could’ve killed me.”
Doug snickered. “I’m going as far as Illinois if you want a ride.”
The stranger slid into the seat. “Name is Roy, and I’ll take what I can get.”
Doug sped off before Roy could shut the door. He glanced at his passenger from the corner of his eye, noticing a patch of dried blood on his pinky. He reached down and reassuringly patted the 9 mm Beretta under his seat.
Roy turned up the radio. “You mind? I love this song.”
Doug shook his head.
“On a long lonesome highway, east of Omaha…” He mumbled through some of the words.  “Good song, very fitting.”
Doug reached over and turned it down. “I didn’t say you could sing.”
“K, sorry…man, you havin’ a bad night or what?” Roy slid a cigarette pack out of coat pocket. “You mind?”
“No, just crack the window a bit.”
While lighting his cigarette, Roy noticed the dried blood on his hand. “Yeah, got in a fight last night. Worked the guy over pur-tee good.”
“I saw the blood.” Doug rolled his window down.
“What’d you do? I’m a roofer.” Roy took a drag off his cigarette and flicked the ashes out the window. “I plan on findin’ me some work when I get settled somewhere again.”
Doug sat silently, his eyes on the road.
“Yep, that girl I was fightin’ over, nothing but trouble. All women are ya know.” Roy leaned up against the door and folded his arms, yawning. A knife peeked out of his jacket pocket.
Doug caught a glimpse of it in his peripheral vision.
“I’m stopping up ahead to take a leak.” Doug pulled into a gas station. When he opened the car door the dome light shone on a gun handle under his seat. Roy rubbed his jacket pocket feeling for his knife.
Damn, a gun! That's not part of my plan.
Doug got back into the driver’s seat and sped off, keeping his eyes on the road. “I’m from Omaha, heading for Chicago.” He felt around under his seat. “I don’t like nosey people asking me questions, so that’s about all you need to know.
Roy put his hand on his knife. His heart raced. “Sur…Sure, I can ride quietly.”
Doug’s hand stopped, and he brought up a flask. Driving with his knees his opened and took a sip. “You wanna swig?” he asked, wiping off his lips.
Roy slipped his hand off the knife and took the flask. “Sure.”
 
The old rusted Chevy Caprice rolled on. The two men sat in silence. Roy pretended to be asleep while revising his plan because a gun was not part of it. I gotta get that gun out’a his reach. He opened his left eye just enough to see what Doug was doing. Street lights lit the dark night. We must in a town. He heard the turn signal clicking and felt the car move into a parking space. A cool breeze blew in as Doug opened the door, bringing with it the smell of gasoline. He waited for Doug to go inside to pay before reaching under the seat. Grabbing the gun, he quickly tucked it down the back of his pants. He covered it with his coat, leaned back against the door and closed his eyes.
Roy felt the car moving. They were on the road again. He remained silent with his eyes closed, waiting for his chance to put his plan into action. Every few minutes he opened his left eye, just enough to get an idea where they may be.
Shifting in his seat, he turned his face toward the window, waiting until they returned to a long, dark highway before pulling out the gun
#
Roy woke abruptly. He looked around, confused. Damn, I actually fell asleep. “Where are we,” he asked, rubbing his eyes.
“Out in the middle of nowhere, I suppose.”
Roy watched for a good spot to pull over. He took out a cigarette to calm his nerves as he waited. And when cornfields were all he could see, he decided they’d gone far enough. He slipped his hand behind him. His sweaty palm braced the gun handle.
“Pull over up ahead in that wooded area. He stuck the gun against Doug’s right temple.
“Beads of sweat formed on Doug’s head. “What’s your problem, man? “
“Don’t talk, just do as I tell ya.”
“Take it easy, I’m pulling over right now.” Doug stopped the car about a mile off the highway behind a cornfield and put the car in park.
Roy’s hand trembled as he tightened his grip on the gun. “Okay, this is what’s gonna happen.” He licked his dry lips and looked around, his hands shaking. “You take your ID out of your pocket, real slow now. Give it to me and take mine.”
The two men exchanged billfolds.
“Now real slowly get out and when I tell ya, we’ll start walking toward the cornfield. “
Doug slid out of the driver’s seat and stood up.
Roy slid out behind him and stuck the gun in his back. “Start walking.”
“You gonna kill me?” Doug asked, walking with his hands in the air.
“That’s the plan.” Roy shoved the gun deeper into Doug’s back.
“What the hell for?”
“Didn’t you notice that we look alike—I did.” His voice trembled and his eyes shifted at every sound” When I saw you at that truck stop back yonder, I noticed we looked similar, sorta like brothers or something. The beards, the mustache, the dark eyes and hair color. Why we could pass for each other easily and that’s why I picked you. “
Doug stopped. “That blood wasn’t from a fight was it?”
“No. I had to kill the slut. She was messin’ round with my brother, so I killed ‘em both. Left both their bodies to rot back in Nebraska. You see, it won’t take ‘em long to link the murders to me, so now I’m you.”
Doug spun around and kicked Roy behind the knee. As Roy fell, the gun fired, grazing Doug’s head.
Roy jumped up and tried to shoot again, nothing. “Junk gun is jammed or something.” He used the butt to knock Doug on the head.
Doug fell to the ground, silent.
Roy ran to the car, tossed the gun under the seat and sped away. He drove until he reached a gas station. Doug had a duffle bag in the backseat of his car. Roy rummaged through it, moving items around until he found a change of clothes. He used the sink in the gas station bathroom to clean up before changing and renting a motel room to get some rest.
 
Doug woke the next morning face down in the dewy grass, with his head throbbing. Rubbing the back of his head, congealed blood stuck to his fingers. The world spun as he stumbled toward the highway to flag down a car.
A small gray, pickup skidded to a stop. A man jumped out. “Oh dear lord, what happened? “ He patted his shoulder. “Here, lean on me.” The man helped Doug into the passenger seat. “Hang on there, buddy. I’m taking you to the hospital. “
#
Roy woke the next morning and jumped into the rusty old Caprice. He found a map in the glove box and spread it out in the seat beside him. Where to? Maybe Ohio? He went to get a cup of coffee and a pack of cigarettes before starting off for Ohio. Roy turned up the radio and sang loudly as he drove, keeping the window down and enjoying the fresh air. He drove on for about three hours before noticing a roadblock ahead of him. Looking to the left and the right, Roy saw no side roads. He slowed and idled up to the officer.
“License and registration please.” The officer looked around in the car.
“Sure. “ He slid Doug’s license out of the billfold and took the registration from under the visor.
The officer took the information and went back to his car. A few minutes later cops surrounded Roy’s car.
A voice sounded through a megaphone. “Get out slowly and get down on the ground. “ Roy looked around. It didn’t work, they know it’s me. How the hell? He opened the car door and spread out, face down on the road. Cops swarmed around.
One of them cuffed him.
“It’s Doug Trenton alright and he’s got a gun.” An officer slid a pencil through the trigger guard and held it up.
“We need forensics out here,” called another officer, “there’s a bag in the back seat…full of evidence.
The cops took Roy down to the station and booked him for murder.
****
Doug made it to the emergency room. He had a concussion and lost some blood, but he was going to live. The cops entered his room a few hours later. “Roy Dwyer? We got a court order for your DNA.”
“For what?” Doug asked.
“We found the bodies, Roy—your brother and Sara Gribbons. She fought back hard. We’ve collected DNA from under her fingernails.”
Doug smirked. “Sure, take it. I ain’t done nothin’." He opened his mouth.
#
Roy sat in a small interrogation room. A detective sat across from him. “So, we finally caught up with the Valley Ridge Mangler. I knew it was only a matter of time. “He leaned forward and spread several pictures across the table in front of him. “You ready to give a confession?”
“I didn’t kill any of those people.” Roy’s stomach churned as he looked at the crime photos that lay in front of him. “I would never to that to anyone.” He looked away.
“Come on, Doug. We got your DNA. We’ve got the duffle bag from your trunk with your victims DNA on it. We’ve collected fibers that match that the carpet in your car so stop jerkin’ us around and confess. “
“No, I won’t. “ Beads of sweat formed on Roy’s face. “You got the wrong guy, I’m not Doug. I—“He stopped. I can’t tell them I killed Doug.
“We’re going for the death penalty unless you confess…then it’s life in prison without parole. It’s up to.”
#
Doug was released from the hospital and taken into custody for murder but was later released when DNA evidence didn’t match what the police had collected at the scene, and there was no other evidence linking him to the murders. Doug was a free man.
 
The court appointed Roy an attorney, Jim Lawson. He sat down with Roy and listened to his story.
Roy's voice shook as he told the story. "I didn't kill and carve up all those folks in that photo, but I did kill my brother and girlfriend…I didn't set out to ya, know."
Jim nodded. "Go on."
"I heard the two were messin' round behind my back, so I followed 'em to the river bank. They were lying on the hood of the car, kissin'. Makin' me sick." He hands trembled as he lit a cigarette. Smoke escaped through his nose as he continued. "I really didn't go to kill anyone, but I got so mad, ya know. I picked up a big rock and bashed my brother's head." Roy stared at the table and flicked his ashes. Tears filled his eyes. "Well, Sara she started screamin' and I tried to get her shut up, so I could tell her it was a mistake." He looked up at Jim and wiped his eyes and nose. "I didn't mean to kill her, but she just wouldn't shut up."
Jim nodded. "So, how does all this tie you to Doug?"
"I had a plan to find a guy who looked like me, steal his identity and start over. It was Doug, and I shot at him, and the last time I seen 'em he was layin' face down in the dirt."
“So, you’re claiming it’s a case of mistaken identity?”
Roy let out a deep sigh, leaned back in the chair and raised his hand to the sky. “Lord yes. I stole the guy’s wallet and tried to pass myself off as him. I may’ve committed some sort of second-degree murder, but I sure the hell ain’t your mangler fella. “
Roy and Jim met with the police and they agreed to take Roy’s DNA and compare it to the mangler’s victims. While waiting for the results, a handcuffed and shackled Roy was escorted to the dark highway east of Omaha where he left Doug’s body. “It should be right here.” He spun around, looking frantically for any sign of Doug. “I’m sure of it, ‘cause I remember that knotted tree over yonder, the headlights shined right on it.”
The officers searched the area. One shouted, “Over here.” They all ran over, and he pointed down in the leaves at a spent shell casing and blood.
“Okay, so far your story is checking out, ‘cept a dead man can get up and wander off, so where’s Trenton?”
Rob shook his head. “I…I don’t know. “
The DNA sample didn’t match the sample from the mangler’s victims, but cops did link Roy to the two murders in Kansas, where he was, extradited, tried and convicted.
About six months into his life sentence, Roy got a letter from Doug. It read: Sorry ‘bout your luck, but thanks to you, life’s good on the outside, and I perfected your plan, and Doug no longer exists."
 

​The enchanter’s nightshade had to be found - it was a matter of life and death. The forager stepped out of his shack, closed the door behind him, and started off on a lightly beaten path. A small satchel hung around his neck; as he walked, he clasped his hands in an upright position, and made a silent prayer to the God above. His son was in grave danger - the spring fever had taken him, and he lay weak and despondent in his bed. If action was not taken, he would shortly be sent up to the heavens. The spring fever had one known cure - the enchanter’s nightshade, applied in a poultice to the forehead. The forager’s pace quickened with each step, and his face reflected the deepest anxiety.
 
For as long as his son had walked the earth, the two of them had lived in their little wooden shack in the everlasting mountains. The dwelling stood amongst a stand of poplar and pine, at the edge of softly rambling brook. The forager always  found enough food for the two of them to survive, and they lived in peace, doing no harm and avoiding many of the problems which plagued those in the luminous cities. There were threats in the mountains, certainly, but the pair had thus far managed to steer clear of them. The forager was a deeply religious man, and he sought to live his life in accordance with the desires of the God above him - that is, to live simply, and in harmony with his natural surroundings. The sudden appearance of the spring fever had been a sharp and unwelcome surprise for a man who thought his life to be in accord with the divine. But appear it had, and it had taken hold of his only child. So he walked in mental anguish along the banks of the brook, his eyes scanning and scanning, trying to take in every mote of matter in his vicinity.
 
The forager continued to follow the brook, staring penetratingly at every minute growth and flowering as he passed. His feet passed over pebbles and mud, and his pace continued to quicken.  He heard a soft rumbling somewhere in the distance, but he paid it no heed - there was no time. As he continued to follow the dwindling path, he entered a stand of pine trees, not unlike the one which housed his shack. Flowers bloomed at the base of each tree, and the forager’s eyes were alight in their quest for the nightshade. He scanned the base of each of the pines, his face growing more and more concerned with each accruing failure. Suddenly, with a glance towards the base of one of the last trees in the stand, his face lit up with a seldom-seen, crystal-clear joy.
 
For he had found it; a cluster of the enchanter’s nightshade was growing from the roots of one  pine. Its shapely, ascending green leaves culminated in the smallest and purest of white blossoms. As he pulled his foraging knife from the satchel around his neck, his face was one of triumph; he only grew happier as he cut two of the stems at their base. He stood, and his feeling was that of ecstasy - he would save his son, and they would go on living in their peace and harmony. But as he turned to walk back down the fading path, his whole world turned, and he stepped into the depths of a waking nightmare.
 
For what had snuck up behind him as he basked in the glory of the nightshade was what he had grown to fear most in his time in the mountains, though until now he had never encountered one: the spectral mastodon, the most fearsome terror of the everlasting. It was a creature with tusks of granite and steel; its fur was of a hideous purple-red, and its eyes were of startling black and green. It was the stuff of nightmares, of screeching psychological torment, and it was rearing its head directly in the forager’s path. He held his foraging knife in front of him, but it was of no use - the spectre could not be stopped. In a flash, it surged forward; a diamond-hard tusk gored the forager directly through the all-too-flimsy ribcage. In pure shock, his arms flew to his sides, and the enchanter’s nightshade that he held fell limply into the slow-moving brook. As his life began to depart from him, the forager’s eyes closed, and all faded into stuttering blackness.
 
Then, just as suddenly, the whole breadth of the cosmos enveloped his vision, and a mystic bugle sounded a glorious, rapturous fanfare. As the spectral mastodon began its grim feast of the forager’s mortal body, the God above Themself appeared to him - a sight inescapable and yet invisible, all-consuming and yet utterly absent among the stars. Overtaken by Their presence, the forager momentarily lost his senses; but as he came back to them in short order, his thoughts were those of confusion, of hurt, and of anger. His voice, the same though disembodied from his mortal frame, rang out in a protest against the almighty:
 
“Why, God above? I have always sought to live my life in the utmost accordance with You. Why would you take me, and prevent me from saving the life of my only son?”
 
The mastodon pulled at the sinuous flesh of the forager’s corpse, and a heavenly voice rang out in return:
 
“Why? Why have I done as I have done? I ask you, who are you to know?”
 
The mastodon ripped away the forager’s muscles and tendons.
 
“Tell me, forager, was it you who created the eight winds and the nine seas? Was it you who made the mountains everlasting? Was it you who gave the power of light to the cities?”
 
The mastodon sucked at the marrow of the forager’s bones.
 
“Was it you who made the nightshade, and the ironweed, and the trillium? Was it you who cured the sick, who brought the very reality of life into being?”
 
The mastodon tore the last of the forager’s flesh from his skeletal frame.
 
“I bless some, and I curse others. Or perhaps I do the opposite. I do as I do, I am as I am. Your role is not to know. Your role is not to say.”
 
The mastodon, finally sated, disappeared into the mountains’ silent night, and the forager was sent up to the heavens.
 
------
 
The forager’s son, though afflicted and despondent in bed, felt a sudden, irrepressible urge to sit up. As he did, he noticed the door had swung open with the wind; he saw the babbling water of the brook. With great effort, he rose from the bed and walked to the door of the shack. Glancing at the lightly beaten path which led upwards along the brookside, he wondered where his father had gone. Suddenly, he noticed some plants floating placidly along in the brook; he felt the urge to reach out and grab them, and did so. With a flash of recognition, his face broke out into a smile. It was enchanter’s nightshade, the cure he needed, floating right to his very door. He took a moment to appreciate the miraculous good fortune bestowed on him by the God above, and then went inside to make the poultice. He would recover, and his father would surely be back soon.
 

Kyrie Dunphy is currently attending Full Sail University’s Creative Writing for Entertainment BFA degree program. After graduation, Kyrie hopes to create new worlds and entertain people with her writing.
Follow her on Twitter @KyrieDunphy and on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyriedunphy

​The Box
The sky over New York was overcast and the clouds were harbingers of snow. The sounds of pedestrians calling for taxis announced the end of the early show.  Although it got loud with the theater crowd, it was sometimes fun to watch the people. It felt cold on that day, so everyone was bundled up.
Sera opened the door upon hearing the doorbell ring, a cigarette hanging from her mouth and leaving the taste of nicotine behind. She had dark red hair and a temper to match. Her eyes were dark blue and showed her intelligence.
There, on her doorstep, was a large, brown box. Attached was a note with her name on it. She brought it in and closed the door, not wanting her apartment to freeze over. Her place also doubled as her office due to her being a private investigator. She always loved mysteries and here was one: what could be in the box?
Sera resisted the urge to rip it open like a kid on Christmas and decided to play a game like she always did when she found something secretive. She wanted to figure out what was inside the box and solve the puzzle.
Sera inspected the box by shaking it and listening for anything.
At least it’s not ticking, she thought with a relieved smile.
Then, she sniffed it. The box smelt of cardboard, which didn’t seem unusual.  Next, she read the note attached.
It was written in cursive and said, “To Sera Chase, hope you find this useful for your investigation. A friend.”
Well, that’s cryptic, she thought.
Sera was currently on a missing person investigation. The daughter of a wealthy family hired her to investigate the disappearance of her brother.
Before this, she had checked everywhere for information: his social media accounts, his home, hospitals, prisons, and the morgue, but no luck. This box may hold the information she needed.
But why was she getting this present now? And who was the friend? She couldn’t hold her curiosity any longer and opened the box. Inside was a CD.
I guess this person was a friend after all, she thought while examining the CD.  The mystery got more and more complicated as more questions kept coming up.
I wonder who my friend is? Sera thought.
 
 
 

Conner Sutton is an English major and writing tutor at Kennesaw State University. He is also pursuing a master’s degree in Professional Writing. He loves the art of storytelling and leads The Write Place, a creative-writing club at his university. Sutton can usually be found with a Stephen King novel in hand, and he enjoys writing thrillers, horror, and fantasy.

​A search team of thirty members spread across the Okefenokee Swamp, all of them but one trying to find the missing thirteen-year-old girl, Molly Sanders. Most were on foot, but a few slowly surveyed the area from small boats in the murky waters. Molly went missing ten days ago when she visited Okefenokee Park with her father, and this was the tenth consecutive day that friends, family, and park rangers had dedicated to her search. Most at this point had given up hope of finding anything aside from a pile of bones picked clean by animals, but her father had known this to be true for far longer.
He told the park rangers that he had simply gone to relieve himself, and when he came back, his daughter was gone. None of this story was true, but the men never second-guessed the account given by their fellow ranger. Molly’s bones lay right outside of the swamp water, surrounded by shrubs and sinking down into a mound of saturated earth. Under the mound, over a dozen alligator eggs incubated in the damp, warm ground, their mother guarding the nest from the water below.
Molly saw the search team as they walked by every day, and she tried to scream at the top of her lungs. I’m right here! Over here! Nothing would come out. She vaguely remembered the day of her death: her father, the serrated knife, the mix of animals that fed on her flesh. On the fourth day of the search, a mother alligator crept out of the water towards Molly’s mutilated remains. Molly jumped out of her non-existent skin, but was relieved when the scaly beast simply nudged the bones, almost saying, “I’m sorry.” Over the course of the afternoon, the alligator relocated the bones a mouthful at a time until they all lay in a pile on her swampy nest. Molly grew accustomed to the alligator, and she decided to name her Ripples after the way she distorts the water when she comes and goes. Molly felt safer when she was around.
The search continued, and with each passing day Molly’s bones sunk deeper into the nest until they joined Ripple’s eggs, completely covered by a mix of mud, sticks, and vegetation. On the last day of the search, Molly’s father sat on the edge of the dock while others desperately searched for his “baby girl.” He lit a cigarette and puffed away, lighting a new one every fifteen minutes.
Buried deep within the nest, Molly could still sense her father’s presence nearby. Again, she wanted to scream, It was him! My dad killed me! and again, nothing would come out. Her bones began shaking violently from her rage, tapping, then beating the alligator eggs. One by one, the eggs hatched, mixing with the warm brown earth and Molly’s bones.
From the nest, Molly rose, her once pale skin now substituted for a thick black armor. Patches of scaly olive skin patterned her body like rashes, and her sage-colored hair climbed down her shoulders like Spanish moss. She felt new. She felt alive. She felt her father nearby.
Ripples swam up to the nest, and gently rubbed her nose against Molly’s leg. “You’re one of us now,” she said to Molly, but her snout remained closed.
Molly looked down to Ripples. “Can you hear me?” she thought.
Ripples replied, “We all can hear you.” Dozens of gold, beady eyes emerged above the water’s surface, and each pair was fixated on Molly.
“Go to my dad,” she commanded the group, “and get revenge.” The sets of eyes lowered into the water, and the alligators swam towards the dock where Molly’s father smoked his sixth cigarette. Molly stepped down from the nest and followed the army of scaly beasts. They all huddled around her father’s legs that were dangling from the dock, but they waited, either for permission or a command. 
“Are you sure this is what you want?” Ripples asked.
Without saying a word, Molly swam directly below her father’s feet. She shot through the surface of the water and gripped her claws into his calves. He let out a cry of agony as his daughter whipped him into the water. Her job was done. She swam away and turned around to watch her new family dismember her father. His blood filled the already-cloudy water as he was torn apart and consumed. 
 

​This was how she really became a sneak. This was how she really became a liar. It was coffee. Just coffee. She really couldn't believe what her life had become. 'Wasn't I somewhat of a strong woman before?" she would wonder sometimes. Every morning she would drive her daughter to school. They would listen to music. It was a special time. She would try to push aside the constant tension she felt in her belly for these few minutes a day. She would tell her daughter, "I want you to know this is not right, this is not okay, but I'm going to change it."
 
Sometimes she would bring the dogs and they would go to the park in the morning. They would run so fast and they were so happy, she couldn't help but feel their happiness. One time she brought the dogs with the intention of going to the park, but it was too wet and cold. When she got back home, he said to her, "figures, you never do anything you say you're going to do."
She tried to stay away as long as she could. Tried to stay out of the apartment until he would be gone. She would go grocery shopping many mornings. On the other days she would rush home and go up to the gym and stay there until it was time for him to go to work.
 
But every single morning, she would stop and get coffee. At the gas station, or at the Starbucks in the grocery store. When she got home, she would wait for him to go to work, wait a good half hour to make sure he didn't turn around, then she would go out into her van and get her coffee and bring it upstairs. She always kept it hidden by her desk just in case. After she finished it, she would walk it to the dumpster so he wouldn't find the empty cup in the home trash can.
 
She remembered the moment she put her coffee maker into the box for goodwill when they were moving. She knew he would never allow for it. A month before he had come to her place and saw she had a cup of coffee. A fight ensued with the result of him tearing hair from her head once again and bending her finger so far back she believed it had broken. She tried to tell him it was wrong of him to be upset with her for drinking coffee. That she had always been a coffee drinker. What started about coffee then turned to diet..."look at your bad habits and what they do to you. Look at your thighs, look at your stomach. You mean to say you think you know the proper way to live? Look at your dim teeth. How could you intentionally consume something you know will detriment your looks?" He himself would make a big show of wiping his teeth with a towel after consuming something that could possibly stain them.
 
She knew it was wrong to live this way, but she could not take a stand against him. He was too viscous, and he had hurt her too badly. She was truly terrified of him by now. There were brief moments of tenderness where she would sometimes question everything, but no matter how tender, she still knew it was wrong. She still hated that she had come into this situation willingly, knowing it would be bad, yet still surprised at how terrible it actually was. It was so much worse than she could have imagined.
 
She was making kale salad. A relatively simple, healthy recipe. He was watching her. She poured too much oil on top. "I am not eating that...” he said. He criticized the oil. She sighed. He backed her into a corner. "I don't ever want to hear your fucking sighs again. All these little cheats of yours, you think it's healthy just because it's a salad? You just poured 500 calories of oil on top of it. You better hear me, you better not ever fucking sigh like that again."  He had a friend over, a young female, ex-student of his. Because of this, she was able to leave the house without further argument. She, of course, heard plenty more lecturing on it, until she finally relented and apologized for sighing.
 
One early afternoon she took a break from work to walk the dogs. She still hadn't gotten her coffee from the van so walked the dogs then went to get her coffee. When she walked back into the apartment he was there. Sitting on the couch. Her heart raced. He was home early. She thought of leaving her coffee outside the door, but he would definitely see it if he went out there for any reason. She had no reason to back track without him questioning. No way to make it to the dumpster. Her heart thudded. She quickly ducked into the laundry room to remove the dogs leash's, looked for a place to hide the cup. He would find it, he would smell it. With terror overwhelming her entire body, she grabbed the cup, held it to her side, and walked casually into the bathroom. He did not look up at her. She hid the cup in the bathroom cabinet. The chances of him going into that bathroom for anything were very slim, but she was still very nervous.
Crisis averted, for now. Tension on every inch of her body. Belly aching. Mind numb. Yes, she was now exactly what he thought she was, exactly what he thought every woman was. A sneak and a liar.

Get the operation, he said.
Yes, I will, I want to, I want it for myself, she replied.
Why don’t you just admit that you’re doing it for me?
Because you don’t love me so I have to make it about myself.
Well, that’s right, I don’t love you. But if you did it I might want you again, and that might at least make it a little more bearable to be with you these next ten months.
You don’t think you’ll love me if I do it?
No, not really. Lust can lead to love but there’s no guarantee. We have too much history.
She turned away. She looked out their apartment window. It was nearly fall. This was supposed to be their season. This was supposed to be the time they held hands in the open and walked the dogs together. The afternoons were to be spent sneaking in a movie while she was working and nights cuddling on the couch. It should have been so much simpler than what it was.
I’m getting the operation. I already have it all set.
He didn’t look up or react, continued to stare at his computer screen.
She walked out onto their balcony overlooking the foothills.
Look outside, honey, look at the snow on the mountains. 80 degrees outside and we can still see snow. Looks like great white elephants out there, don’t you think? Everything will be okay. I am happy about this. We will be happy.
Here, he said. Get it like this. He showed her a picture from his laptop.
She looked at him. She turned away. She knew she wasn’t going to get the operation.
 

 
He walked into the apartment, exhausted after a seemingly long day, long week, long month. He was so tired and did not want to confront yet again the poor decisions he had recently made. But there she was, sitting as always at her desk, belly rolls spilling out, her dimpled thighs and saddle bags hanging out of her trashy cut offs. He noticed her quickly try to adjust herself so that she didn’t look such a mess, try to smooth her stringy ass hair down, wipe her smeared make up from under her eyes, pull her shorts up over her stomach rolls and pull her thigh fat to the inside of her legs. “Hi,” she said meekly, in her whiny, high pitched voice. All of this just pushed him to the brink…this bitch should not have to be adjusting her fucking fat rolls for god’s sake. Why didn’t she just actually do something about it? “I want to continue our conversation,” he said. She sighed. Sighing infuriated him. “Listen, bitch,” he said. “You are a loser. I do not associate myself with losers. My job is to elevate you; you are not to drag me down to your white trash level. Do you understand?” She didn’t answer. “Look at me,” he said. She quickly glanced his way and then looked down. He could see she wore the same expression she always did when he tried to talk to her, pursed lips, beady eyes. God she was fucking ugly. “Look at me you stupid fucking cunt!” He yelled now. Now she would look at him. Now the fear was coming back to her. This was how he liked her, terrified. Then he knew he was in control. “Do you know how disgusting you are? You have aged 10 years since I’ve known you, all those little veins popping out in your face, all the damage smoking has done to your skin…all that peach fuzz all over your face. Lip, jaw laser bitch, it’s what I told you. That is all I see when I look at you. Your fat fucking thighs… go find someone else who wants to lie between them. Your wrinkled stomach hanging down onto mine when we fuck, that is all I see, makes me sick!…did your doctor tell you that you couldn’t get a tummy tuck? Why can’t you get a tummy tuck? Your fat dimpled ass bouncing up and down on my cock…YOU made me see that, don’t you understand? You are nothing that I want in a woman. You are not fit, you are not voluptuous. I want to be with a fit chick. You know how embarrassed I am being seen at the pool with you? Looking back over the years, I’m embarrassed I was ever seen with you at all. Do you know what it’s like to come home every day to this raggedy ass girl, sitting there in your space, with all her fat just plopping out of her? And her fucking dog that is such a pain in the ass to walk and has no personality, and her two cats that keep me up all fucking night and get hair all over my fucking house, and your whiny ass, spoiled daughter.  THIS IS MY FUCKING HOUSE! This is my space! You pay a third of the rent and there are five of you. I wish you would just fucking disappear, just disappear.” She was now crying. She whined, “But honey, I’ve been trying, I’ve been working out every day and drinking the shakes…I need your support to get to where I should be, I need your love.” “You’re not going to get my love,” he said. “It’s dead, it’s gone. You disgust me. The only hope now is to make it so I can stand living with you these next 10 months, but there will never be love again. And there will be other women, you’re going to have to learn to deal with it. No more banging on my door in the middle of the night trying to get a woman out of “your” bed. That is not your bed, that is not our bed, that is MY bed. No more being rude to the girls I bring home. I am not yours. I do not love you. I hate you, I wish you were dead, I imagine you dead, I imagine you falling off a cliff.” Just then her work phone rang. What a pain in the fucking ass she was, all this shit she brought into his life. “Thank you for calling…” she said. “Thank you for calling!” he mocked loudly in a whiny high pitched voice, just like hers. He continued to mock everything she said in the same way. God he hated her, he hated her voice, her smell, her presence, even her laugh that he once thought he longed to hear every day, everything that she brought into his apartment, he hated her. 
 He went into the bedroom, pulled up pictures of his ex-wife sucking cock, and jerked off.
 
 

​Buffalo 66 is a Valentine’s movie because the boy buys the girl a heart shaped cookie at the end. She wondered if they lived happily ever after. She never saw part two.
This was the first movie she watched with him. They had been invited over to watch a Valentine’s movie. Afterwards she thought it was quite cute that he deemed it a Valentine’s movie because of the cookie. (She also came to find that any movie that had a Christmas tree in it at some point could be called a Christmas movie, and so on).
She paid close attention, it seemed important to him. She didn’t quite understand yet how important it was to him to show movies to people he cared about, but over the years she came to understand, and they watched many, many more movies together, and it became important to her as well.
He thought Cristina Ricci was pretty. She had never really paid much attention to her or thought much of her, but really looking at her through his eyes, she saw how beautiful she was. He loved the dress she wore in the movie, and the way she did her makeup, the sparkly blue eye shadow. He liked sparkles. At the time, she thought it was kind of weird for an adult woman to wear sparkles. And she hardly ever wore a dress.
Her character, her personality, reminded her of herself…and she wondered then if it was possible he looked at her in the same way a little.
A few weeks later, at the makeup store, she considered all of the eye shadows. She would be going out with him tonight (and her boyfriend) so as she sometimes did while at the mall decided to put on her make up there. There was a deep blue sparkly shadow. It was something she would normally not look twice at and it was close to the same one…but it was too obvious. She could not suddenly show up wearing eye shadow like that. Would anyone else remember that he said out loud that he liked that? She decided on the purple sparkles. She reasoned that should be less obvious because it was not blue. She put on three layers of the eye shadow and looked at herself. She wondered if he would notice.
At the bar that night, he exclaimed, “Hey, you’re wearing sparkly eye shadow just like from the movie!” He smiled at her, and stared a little. She felt humiliated, and thrilled. She wondered if he had any idea she had put it on just for him and wondered if she even wanted him to know. He must not have known, because then he would not have said anything out loud. Or maybe he thought about it after and realized what she had done. Or maybe he just assumed that she wore sparkly eye shadow sometimes. Or maybe he never thought of it again. Whatever it was, she thought about it too much.
They should have watched the movie again. She should have remembered…that no matter what he ever said to her, it would all be okay. That it would all be worth it, just to lay down with him and hold him and to know that no matter what he did or said to the contrary, in the end she held his heart.
 

Another phone was slammed on one of the desks. This is, what, the fifth on that he’s broken? He can replace it, sure, but he shouldn’t have to buy a couple every week! I stopped analyzing the reports and got us some coffee. This week has been hell on both of our sleeping schedules.
 
“Straight black, Chester?” I say. A groan comes from a pile of frazzled black hair. “I’m taking that as a yes.”

 
 
I place his cup in front of him. He swilled the piping hot drink, burning his throat on the way down. I shake my head as he fans his mouth.
 
“That’s what you get,” I say.
 
“Shut it, Tyler. I’ve been getting call after call about the search. Sure, we’ve managed to narrow the search area but nothing has come up after 2 weeks!” he says, pulling at his hair.
 
“It’s a small wreck, Chester. It’s not like we’re searching for a commercial airplane.”
 
“We’re still looking for a plane! Kind of hard to mistake a plane for something else!”
 
“Okay, yes, that is true but- “

 
 
“No! No more ‘but’s or anything like that! You need to realize that not everyone can be found, no matter how much we try,” he says, storming into a side room.
 
I sigh and get back to analyzing the reports. Chester is too pessimistic for my liking. We’re detectives for God’s sake! It’s our job to find analyze everything on a case! We need to be optimistic with any leads or else we can lose the trail.
 
More reports, more reading, and more analyzing. I need another coffee. I get up to grab another one. Chester must have come back while I was busy because he’s conked out on his desk, snoring away. I need to get him some coffee as well.
 
Chester’s coffee is cold by the time he wakes up. He still drinks it for the caffeine. I’ve made no headway in my analyzing. My blonde hair is getting as frazzled as Chester’s. I start leaning into my hand until Chester lets out a frustrated yell.

 
 
“This is pointless! All this investigation is doing is giving me grey hairs! I’m twenty-five!” he says, pulling at his hair. He starts wreaking the room. Flipping over desks, tearing down papers, throwing office supplies at the ceiling and walls. I stand out of his way, dodging pencils that come near me.
 
He is standing in the middle of his wreckage, panting with his hands on his knees. He looks over at me, sweat dripping off his forehead. He walks over, towering over me as I try to melt into the wall.
 
“You! It’s all your fault! All this stress and endless nights! All because you wanted to find Amelia Earhart, a person who has been missing for decades!” he says, jabbing his finger into my chest. I can’t take it anymore and stand straight up, giving him a glare that even he couldn’t rival.
 
“Sorry that I’m doing my job! If you can’t handle the stress and endless nights then quit! All you do is complain and wreak

stuff!” I say, pointing at the broken desks and torn papers. “Oh, and I haven’t been able to get any updates on the search because you broke another phone! I should just call the heads and tell them how much crap you’ve broken just today alone!”
 
Chester recoils away from me. He may be older and taller than me but that doesn’t mean he’s mature enough to handle this job.
 
“Get out of here before I decide to act on what I said,” I say. He grabs his bag and runs out the door. I sigh and begin to fix the mess he made. As I was organizing the papers, my phone starts ringing. The number is from the head of the search teams. I answer it without hesitation.
 
“Hello? Is this Tyler Richardson?” the man on the other end asks.
 
“Yes, this is him.”
 
“We found the wreckage.”

 
 
I smile so hard that it starts to hurt. I grab a pencil and paper, ready to write at a moment’s notice.
 
“How long till you get her and the plane to the mainland and where are you arriving?” I say.
 
“About a week and we’ll be arriving in Miami.”
 
“Good. I’ll meet you at the port,” I say, hanging up. I write down the location and jump for joy. I can hold my excitement any longer and let out a yell of joy.
 
“We found- No, I found her. Time to get you home, Amelia.”
                                                                          END
 

​ 
            As he accepted the drink she’d offered him, her heart pounded in her chest. She watched silently as her husband caressed the rim of the glass with his index finger. He looked up at her from his seat on the small sofa and motioned for her to sit down. She cringed as she slowly lowered herself into what used to be her favorite spot beside him on the blue suede sofa. He continued to burn a hole in the side of her head with his shadowed glare.
 
            “I’ll get the papers to you tomorrow. I’m just hoping this can go as smoothly as possible.” His tone was precise.
 
            “Nate, we don’t have to do this. It doesn’t have to end this way.” Maggie’s voice was strained like the strings of a violin.
 
            “This isn’t working and it hasn’t been working for a while. I’ve known this and so have you, Maggie. Let’s stop pretending it wasn’t coming to this.” He sat forward and placed his drink on the coffee table.
 
            She felt her stomach turn as she looked at his glass. He’d picked them. He’d picked everything, from the faded tan wallpaper to the sickly gray carpet that hid the beautiful wooden floors beneath it. This was another reason she considered signing the papers without any thought; his taste in home décor was another knuckle to her jaw.
 
            “Do you love her?” her words swept through the silence like fallen leaves on a windy day. Her body tensed as she fought back tears.
 
            Nate sighed and recovered his abandoned drink. “No. I can’t say I love her, but I can say that I like her enough to make me realize that marrying you was a huge mistake.” He would have continued telling Maggie how amazing Gabrielle was and how a prostitute was better than her, but he saw the tears that shrink wrapped her round blue eyes and the last thing he wanted was her to be scorned. A scorned woman made for a long, complicated divorce.
 
            “I don’t understand. I loved you, Nate. I still do. I’m keeping my promise to stay for better or for worse.” She covered her mouth with her trembling hand.
 
            “I admire you for that, but I can’t keep my end of the bargain.” He glanced at the drink in his hand and realized he needed it more than ever. The glass approaches his lips and in three large gulps, it’s gone. “Christ, Maggie! After all of those bartending classes I paid for, you still can’t make my favorite drink right!”
 
            She said nothing, but her body suddenly relaxes into the old sofa. The headrest engulfs her tiny neck as she looks up at the ceiling. A small chuckle escapes her.
 
            “What’s so damn funny?” he watches her and waits for an answer. “Well? Are you gonna tell me what’s so damn funny? Have you gone mad?”
 
            “You said I still couldn’t make your drink right.” She gave a big, toothy, grin just like the one she had when she’d seen her engagement ring for the first time.
 
            “Yes, that’s exactly what I said, Maggie. Why is that funny?”
 
            “That’s actually the best cocktail I’ve ever made. Actually, I’d say it’s the perfect cocktail.”
 
            Nate had decided it was best to end this conversation now. It was time for him to go. As he stood, he experienced a minor case of vertigo. He briefly closed his eyes and reopened them as the rollercoaster ride came to a slow halt. He turned to look at his wife. She’d stretched her thin arms along the back of the sofa and her legs were crossed. He scoffed and took a step toward the door. Somehow, he must have lost his footing because he tumbles to the floor like a freshly cut tree. Embarrassed, he hurries to return to his feet, but his body is paralyzed. As he lay there on his back, staring at the ceiling, he felt his breath being stripped from him.
 
            Maggie watched as the lump in his throat throbbed rapidly. She lifts herself from the sofa and gently plops herself to the floor. Like an infant, she crawls over to her husband and wraps her arm around him. Kissing his lips, she looks into his fading eyes. She laid her head on her husband’s chest and allows his slowing heartbeat to lull her to an eternal sleep.
 
            

​“After riding the gondolas in Venice, I went to Greece where they had the most beautiful architecture of white buildings and blue domes. Hmm, what’s that place called again?”
“Oh! I know! San...Santorini!” I yelled with my high-pitched seven year old voice.
She giggled and continued her story, “Greece was breathtaking! There wasn’t even a second when my eyes were closed.”
My mom’s stories would go on all night and no matter how many times I heard them, each time was better than the last. Most kids preferred mystical and magical bedtime stories of dragon slayers and princesses. I looked forward to stories that added onto my exciting imagination of places around the world. From the endless bedtime stories, I found out that my mom had probably gone to every single country and city in the whole world! Of course I knew she was exaggerating, but listening to her amazing adventures as a kid made my heart rapidly race in my chest. I was told that I had this bright, shimmering shine in my eye every time I listened to her stories like I fell into some trance. Predictably, her sense of adventure sparked my dream to travel as well.
I remember walking past the old tapestry of the world map everyday that hung in the living room wall. It was a gift given to my mom from my dad and from time to time, she would gaze upon it and find the time to think about my dad and their past adventure together. The tapestry somehow felt magical to me and it held the power to make me unintentionally smile no matter how bad my day was. Sometimes I would brush my fingertips against the soft woven threads along the continents, pretending to be a plane and imagine myself traveling from country to country.
“So what’s your plan?” my mom asked.
“My plan? What do you mean?” I asked confusingly.
“Where do you plan on going?”
“First, I’m gonna go to Paris, then London, then Italy, then Rome, and,” I said with full excitement in my voice.
“And where is all that money coming from? For the plane ride, the delicious food, the hotels you’ll be sleeping in, and way more. There’s a lot of responsibilities to handle,” she said.
            As a seven year old, a plan didn’t really cross my mind. Money didn’t seem to be a problem at all, but after being informed about this realization, a new challenge was revealed that I needed to overcome in order to fulfill my dream.
“Well, you could start saving up starting now? I’ll tell you what. For every chore you do around the house, i’ll give you 25 cents,” she decided.
After that day on, I did as many chores as I possibly could such as taking out the trash, wiping down the tables, and cleaning only the shelves I could reach. In order to keep track on how close I was in achieving my goal, I filled up mason jars with the money I earned from the strenuous chores and it went pretty well. I continuously filled up jar after jar and I felt a huge amount of happiness, as the glass containers began to take up all the space on the shelves next to the tapestry of the world map. Those days were filled with endless bedtime stories, house chores, and the constant joy of collecting coins. Due to my deep focus on filling up the jars, I never noticed that it had consumed my time and because of my determination to achieve my dream to travel, my plan was coming along quickly.
Then, high school struck and the glory days ended. My only motivation hung on the living room wall and it became a reminder of what my future would be like as I walked out of the door every morning to go to school. In order to continue working for the one dream, I began working in the school lunch lines, sacrificing the time I had during breaks. Although it was hectic at first, adaptability came afterwards and it became a daily habit throughout my four years. On top of that, I had a job at an ice cream store across school and my life was pretty much hell. At the end, I found that everything was definitely worth it.
As soon as I knew it, it was the end of my senior year in high school and it was time to move on to my next step in life. From chores at home to school lunch lines to a real job at an ice cream store, I made enough money to continue my dream towards college. With the enormous amount of help from the person who first sparked my dream to travel, my plan seemed to be in reach. I felt as if I was close enough to even grab it.
“Off to college and off to see the world,” my mom said as I was getting the suitcase out of the car trunk. “Just yesterday, I was telling you the story of going to Amsterdam in your tiny bed cuddled in together,” she laughed with a hesitant smile.
“I’m only going to college mom. I’m not leaving you forever.”
It felt like I was leaving her forever. I could see the tears ready to burst out of her eyes and I could feel mine doing the same as well. I wasn’t ready to leave her, but I knew I had to.
“Thank you mom, for everything. I love you and I’ll call you. When I come back, it’ll be my turn to tell you stories.” I gave her the biggest hug of my life and smiled trying my best not to pour my eyes out. At that moment, I turned around and began walking away as I rolled my suitcase behind me just as if I was leaving on a flight at the airport.

Matt Spangler is a freelance writer and playwright based in New York. His short stories have been published in The Horror Tree, Red Fez and Blood Moon Rising. 
Before moving to New York, he lived in Washington, DC, where he ran the theater company Next Day Theater. By day, he worked for the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), a federal agency charged with oversight of historic preservation laws. He was inspired to write “The Rocks” by ACHP's efforts to save historic sites associated with the U.S. space program, as well as by the ongoing cultural legacy issues the preservation community grapples with.

​A boom, followed by another, echoed across the vermilion sky as the cylinder penetrated the atmosphere of the rocky planet. It shook off the ball of flame that had engulfed it and, steadying as it descended toward the line severing the light and dark sides of the planet, began slithering forward just above the chasms. For a few minutes the gleaming vessel seemed coiled in a mortal struggle with the craggy landscape, before it settled on a flat expanse just large enough to land on.
The hiss of the cylinder faded, and then it stood motionless on the span of weathered sandstone. After some time, an opening appeared on the side of the craft. Through the darkness a figure materialized, clad in a gray shell that shrouded its body, save for a globe atop its neck that reflected the rugged topography and gave it the suggestion of an insect. The figure cautiously scaled down a ladder, which protruded from the hatch, to the rocky terrain below. Another body, hoisting a container, emerged from the vessel and followed down the steps. They clung to the ladder for a moment, turned towards one another, then shuffled forward.
Reaching a small pool of water that flooded from a crack in the surface, they drew a sample into the container.  Doubling back toward the cylinder, they paused to survey the vast stretch of canyons and mesas and buttes, and the dark clouds hanging in the blood-red firmament, then strode to the craft and dissolved once more into the shadows.
Beneath the shade of the cylinder the emptiness seemed to stretch to the horizon, broken only by the life-giving water.
  
The vial of clear liquid tremored slightly in Cassen’s gloved hands as he handled it through the glass encasement. He squeezed a couple drops of phenolphthalein into the vial. The liquid remained clear, just as he had suspected. He knew clean water when saw it. Water clean enough to splash on your face. Water pure enough to –
“But is it good enough to chase this?”
 It was Dixon. The habitat’s pilot – a decorated pilot, having flown hundreds of combat missions in Lebanon and Yemen – dangled a packet of SynFood before Cassen, powerless to receive it with his hands buried in the glovebox. Cassen considered for a moment, before he tested for hardness, bacteria content, and so forth, why not, in fact, let Dixon dump the powdered mix of synthetic nutrients into a glass, stir in some water that the lips of a human being had never touched, and sit back and see what happens?
“It’s got about eight parts per million of dissolved oxygen, but I haven’t measured the pH,” said Cassen, “so you better steer clear of it after you jump off the 360-treadmill. But,” he added, “it might allow you to get that quarterly shampoo in.”
“Or you a shave, right, Cassen?” said Dixon, a toothy grin spreading across his pale visage. Cassen reflexively patted the months-old growth that had sprouted from his own face. He thought of the beard matting as water dripped from it in slow motion.
“Have you ever tried to use shears in zero gravity?” asked Cassen.
The grin expanded so widely that it seemed to fall off the edges of Dixon’s face. “Not without a vacuum cleaner, my friend.” His cheeks slowly folded back into place. “Maybe we can fill the tank with it anyway.”
“If we can find enough of it, sure,” said Cassen.
Dixon inspected the twin computer monitors above the glove box. “If it registers normal pH balance and low turbidity, you think that would indicate there was life on this planet at some point?”
Before Cassen could chime in with a nothing-above-the-microbial-level musing, his skepticism was usurped by a voice behind them. “Not in the Opiochus constellation there wasn’t.”
Garret was an avowed proponent of the school of thought that, despite a century of effort by private and public research organizations, the failure to locate life in so-called habitable systems such as Proxima Centauri and Trappist-1 – or, for that matter, to identify a single Dyson sphere in over 200,000 galaxies – was incontrovertible proof that humans would never find another advanced civilization close enough to be reached by the 22nd century’s solar propulsion spacecraft.
“This is a snipe hunt,” drawled the flight engineer, who joined Cassen and Dixon behind the glove box. “No infrared, no little green men.”
“Or brown,” said Cassen.
“Science fiction isn’t part of our operational directives, gentlemen,” rang the familiarly assertive voice of Commander Ford. His shoulders back, jaw square, hair high and tight, and eyes locked with whoever he engaged, Ford not only looked like what the space agency was after, but had the pedigree to match: third in his class at the Academy; instructor and test pilot at Schriever; commander of the 545th wing of Space Corps; time behind the consoles at Cape Canaveral; and even an Eagle Scout with 85 merit badges.
“But as you know,” Ford continued, assembling with them at the console, “dispatching an unmanned aircraft system to perform a routine survey of the landscape when we have detected a water source on one of our target planets is.”
Garret snapped to attention. “I’ll get ‘er online, Commander.”
“You better let me help you find the on switch,” quipped Dixon. They disappeared down the white corridor together.
Ford’s eyes returned to the console. Cassen knew what the ask would be. “Let me know what you turn up on the mineral content in that water, Cassen.”
“I’m on it, sir.”
“Thanks.” Ford turned on his heels and filed down the passageway, fingers curled at his sides.
 
The blades protruding from the mechanical insect began spinning furiously, and it whipped the surrounding dirt into a storm as it lifted from the ground next to the ship. One of the gray-sheathed figures, his head no longer topped with a globe, sat below, his arms stretched to another machine. He watched the insect ascend to the height of a mature pinyon pine. The device, legs extended from it like a spider, emitted a loud pestilent whirr as it crept across the sky.
 
Harrington was more reclusive than the other crew members of the habitat, often seeming to blend into the consoles and control panels of the sterile white interior. But his cohorts were keenly interested at the moment in what the soft-spoken archaeologist, the first such specialist to ever accompany a deep space mission, had to say as they gathered around his computer monitor.
“Now, the UAS laser scan covered an area of 31 square kilometers, with an altitude range from 65 to 500 meters,” said Harrington, his fingers tracing the contours of the 3-D topographical map on his screen. “I was browsing the reference images uploaded from the drone, and stopped when I ran across this outcrop here.” He pointed to a black spot in the midst of the yellow and orange hues coloring the image.
“What the hell is it?” asked Dixon.
“A cave,” said Brookes, his arms folded and a knowing expression painted on his face. His composure masked any intimation that he might erupt if pushed too far in a debate.
“Now there’s a geologist,” said Harrington. “And Brookes can speak to this better than I, but there are, of course, the possibility of volcanic formations on Wolf 1061c. Perhaps this is some sort of lava tube like they found on Mars in the 2030s. But another scenario –“
“Is that there are additional hydro sources in the cave that host microbial life,” said Cassen.
“Precisely. And with Cassen’s confirmation that the water is potable,” Harrington added, “maybe there were once higher life forms on this planet –“
“Oh Lord,” said Garret. “Here we go. He thinks he’s going to find the Pompeii of Opiochus.”
Harrington shot Dixon an icy glare, then turned to Ford. “Sir?”
The commander gave his chin an authoritarian scratch, then dropped his arms to his sides. “Alright, listen up,” he said. “We’ve got about two weeks before we could get stuck in a blizzard, so let’s make it snappy. Brookes, get the gear and a team together. Let’s get soil and mineral samples. And make sure you’re armed,” he paused, noting the absurdity of the proposition, “in case we run across any microbial unfriendlies.”
“Yes sir,” Brookes replied. He allowed some levity to crack the unruffled veneer. “Dixon, you got the .50 cal under your pillow?”
“You bet your ass I do,” said Dixon.
They cracked matching grins at each other, then quitted the lab, followed by Ford. Cassen scrutinized Harrington with a mix of bemusement and frustration.
“Good eyes, Harrington,” said Cassen. “You might get your name on the map after all.”
Harrington said nothing, keeping his sights trained on the webs of color before him. 
 
Brookes and Harrington disembarked guardedly from the space exploration vehicle, then paused at the cave’s entrance. Though they were on the side of the terminator line that was bathed in the glow of the red dwarf, they switched on their headlamps.  Behind them were Martin, the mission specialist in botany, and Dixon, the rifle slung across his chest. The quartet stepped forward and, probing the interior with beams of light, were stunned by what they saw.
The cave appeared to be over a hundred meters high and an equal distance wide, putting it on par with the largest on Earth. Small pools of water, flowing over with calcite crystals shimmering white and yellow and orange, were scattered across the base of the orifice. From the ceiling hundreds of stalactites drooped, and, most impressively, in the center stood a stalagmite some 60 meters high, the rock flowing through it like the pipes of a church organ.    
While Brookes marveled over the tapestry of thorny prisms before him, Martin extended a telescopic pole with a metal container on the end to the cave’s floor. On the verge of plunging the container into the soil, he halted as Brookes cried out.
“Oh my Lord!” Brookes’ eyes were fixed on a crystal formation that looked like a stack of white sheets of paper.
“What you got there, Brookes?” asked Martin, whisking the beam of his headlamp to the geologist.
“I think what I’m holding here is a compound of thorium and molybdenum known as ichnusaite. One of the rarest minerals on Earth.”
“Outstanding. I’m guessing you may not need a hammer for that one.”
“Negative. It should be,” Brookes said, carefully extricating the sheet of crystals, “brittle enough to come right off in my hands.”
“Nice work, Brookes,” said Dixon, a small camera with which he had been documenting the space coiled around the index finger of one hand, the other poised on the rifle’s trigger. “How you making out, Harrington?”. No reply came. “Harrington?”. He spun around.
Harrington stood motionless, his headlamp illuminating a carefully laid stack of rocks on the floor of the cave.
 
The purity of the habitat’s interior was disturbed by the dark metal storage container resting on a table next to Brookes’ workstation. Ford and Dixon flanked the box that held the geologist’s haul, their fists alternately resting on their chins or their palms patting their cheeks. Harrington, Cassen and Martin lingered in the background, arms folded and eyes trained on Brookes.
“If there is a strong occurrence of ichnusaite on Wolf 1061c,” said the geologist, “we may be able to collect enough samples to improve our understanding of the chemistry of the actinide molybdates that can cause radiation to be released from nuclear waste repositories.” He saw the eyes glaze over. “So that’s a huge win for the nuclear industry.”
The significance of the discovery began to dawn on the men. “Of course,” mused Garret, “before we proceed to large-scale resource extraction, we would want to study the impacts the temperature, atmospheric pressure and chemistry of the planet could have on our equipment.”
“Affirmative,” said Brookes. “You’ll recall they had to develop special drill bits to withstand the wide range of terrain and environmental conditions on Mars. But I suspect they will ultimately be able to adapt those technologies to Wolf 1061c’s ecosystems.”
Harrington’s muted voice suddenly intruded from the shadows. “What if the cave shouldn’t be mined at all?”
The crew members twisted their necks to view the archaeologist with incomprehension. “I beg your pardon?” asked Brookes.
Harrington stepped forward cautiously. “What if that pile of rocks was deliberately placed?”
“Oh, here we go,” said Garret, throwing his arms up in frustration.
“I’m not saying anything is definitive, but … well, the columnar configuration of the stones suggests to me … a North American burial cairn dating from the Mississippian period,” said Harrington.
The men were silenced by his appraisal. Their heads told them it was wild speculation, but this was countered with the exhilaration they felt from being confronted with the possibility of such a monumental breakthrough.  
Brookes broke the peace. “Well, that would obviously be a find of extraordinary magnitude. Should there be any … foreign objects … in the ground there, we do have a process for their recovery and examination. The procedures, of course, allow for the simultaneous exploration for mineral resources once a protective buffer has been established around the … archaeological site.”
“Yes, I agree, I’ll excavate and see what’s under the rocks,” said Harrington. “But if something is buried there … then I think we should consider recommending that it be preserved in situ, and the entire cave placed off-limits to extraction activities.”
Brookes turned to Ford to plead his case. “Sir, I think we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. We all can appreciate the potential import of that rock formation. But it’s only a potential. And I know I don’t need to remind you that our agency is guided by Space Council policy that prioritizes research promoting the economic benefit of the United States.”
“Sir, I would point out that the Outer Space Treaty, as amended, says that celestial bodies and the lands wherein are not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty,” said Harrington. “And if, on the off chance the cave is a cultural site –“
“Cultural site?” said Brookes. “Look, that treaty is a century old,” said Brookes, “it makes no mention of alien archaeological properties; no one is talking about appropriating anything other than mineral resources; and American mining law – emphasis added – says finders keepers, losers weepers.”
Ford cut in. “At ease, gentlemen. Let's table this discussion and focus on what we need to get done. We’ll establish a perimeter around the rocks, and Cassen and Martin will work with Harrington to excavate the site. Garret and Dixon will be assigned to Brookes to continue searching for mineral samples. Clear?”
“Yes sir,” said Harrington, and Brookes reluctantly echoed.
“Outstanding,” said Ford. “Get your toys out of the playroom, and we’ll set out at 0600.”
Brookes glowered at Harrington, then turned to exit. Harrington regarded the container. He peered deep into it, and saw a group of elderly women, sitting in a circle next to a lake. They cried as water lapped menacingly at the top of a stone wall that held the lake back from their land.
 
The cave was a hive of activity, with the men fanning out to inspect for mineral and archaeological resources. Dixon and Garret had installed an antenna just outside the entrance, which allowed their handheld to communicate with the neutron star-based galactic positioning system. Carefully avoiding the strings staked around the boundary of the rocks, they recorded coordinates, images of the cave, and voice notes – which were occasionally punctuated by an epithet followed by an allusion to Kepler, the namesake of one of the dead stars that sometimes failed to provide a proper signal. Brookes scanned the floor of the cave for major and trace elements with a portable x-ray fluorescent spectrometer. Martin helped guide Cassen as he used a magnetometer to search for objects potentially buried under the surface.
Harrington was on his hands and knees next to the rock column. He applied an electric trowel to the soil, gently peeling away layers that he dusted into a pan and then discarded to his side. He had covered about three quarters of the perimeter surrounding the column. His eyelids began to droop from the tedium of the activity. The tool whisked back and forth, side to side, like a metronome.
Suddenly a pallid tinge emerged through the dirt. Harrington instinctively lurched back, and his gloved hands clutched his face. Martin, observing Harrington’s reaction, helped Cassen extricate himself from the magnetometer, and, easing around one of the crystalline pools, they hiked to the piling.
No longer exercising restraint, Harrington attacked the soil furiously with the trowel. The dirt gave way around the sallow object, until finally revealing a long and slender bone.
 
The men gathered around the biosafety cabinet, implying in the manner they regarded the bone they were gazing upon the first addition to a musty old cabinet of curiosities.
“And by the way it appears to have facets for articulation with the sternoclavicular and acromioclavicular joints at the medial and lateral ends, I would say, gentlemen, without a doubt we’ve got ourselves a collarbone,” said Cassen.
“I’ll be damned,” said Ford, stroking his neck. “Martin, can you date a soil sample for us?”
“Already on it,” said the botanist, always eager to lend a hand to the crew. He produced a small plastic container of dirt. “I’ll run it through the OSL reader.”
“Great,” said Ford. He swiveled his neck in Harrington’s direction, and spoke haltingly. “Then I guess we just go and dig the rest of it up.”
Harrington sat reticent, his arms folded and legs crossed.
 
     The commander had not planned to micromanage the crew’s activities on this mission. But given the developing friction Ford had observed, he thought it best to supplement the data he was collecting from the crew’s behavioral interaction badges with a site visit.
     He halted at the cave’s entrance and admired the rays of multihued light bouncing off the puddles and stalactites. The tranquility of the grotto was interrupted only by the thumping of Brookes’ electric hammer on the wall, and Harrington’s monotonous delivery into a handheld. Ford made his way to the rock pile.
     “The remains are interred roughly three meters beneath another meter of unbroken strata,” Harrington said into the device. He glanced at Ford, then continued without interruption. “The specimen has been placed on its right side, its brain case pointed in a southerly direction, and its legs bent at a right angle.”
     “Note that the femur and tibia are joined by a ball-and-socket, like a shoulder, and not a hinge joint like a knee,” said Cassen, who was on his hands and knees, sculpting the soil with the electric trowel.
     Ford stepped to the edge of the alien grave and gasped at what he saw. There, emerging from the dirt, speckled by flickering crystals, was what figured to be an intact human skeleton.
 
     “There are features that are distinct from human bone structure,” said Cassen, as the crew gathered around the skeleton, now laid on its back in the biosafety cabinet. “It has fewer molars, no coccyx, longer fingers, and extra ribs – which presumably aided with lumbar-core resiliency.” He tapped the portion of the cabinet nearest the skeleton’s feet. “And there seems to be some damage to the phalanges and metatarsals that I want to probe a little more closely. Ultimately, once we’ve completely minimized backward contamination, we’ll want to send the specimen to the Gateway for radiocarbon dating, DNA extraction, and other lab tests.”
     “Amazing,” said Ford. “And yes, of course. Martin, anything on that soil sample?”
     “Nothing conclusive,” replied the botanist. “The organic matter from the decaying body – or bodies, I suppose – makes it difficult to arrive at an estimate. And curiously there is an overall elevated level of carbon-14 in the sample. But at any rate we’re looking at, maybe, several centuries since the surface layer was last disturbed.”
Dixon whistled. “And God said, let there be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth,” he mused. “And it was so.”
     “Yes, well, I guess that debate is over,” said Garret resignedly.
Cassen then outlined his plan for strict biological containment of the specimen according to planetary protection protocol, and for their return to the Gateway once any risks of backward contamination were eliminated. He asked if there were any questions.
     Harrington broke his silence. “I have one: what is the protocol for notifying next of kin?”
     “This is no time for jokes,” said Ford sternly. “We’re days away from Wolf 1061c’s version of a nor’easter.”
     “I’m not kidding,” insisted Harrington. “If these were human remains, we would be obligated under the law to notify the family.”
     “Okay, does anyone have any serious questions?” asked Ford.
     “No, if he wants to go there again, then I say let’s run with it,” said Garret, stepping in front of Harrington. “You all know I thought we were chasing Bigfoot, but now that we’ve crossed that line in our understanding of the universe, let’s break it down. Let’s say that the law required us to notify next of kin – or descendants – in the event of the discovery of alien remains, and we actually encountered a live alien in this wasteland. How would we talk to it?”
      Harrington remained dispassionate, his eyes trained on Garret.
     “Matter of fact,” the engineer continued, “if we were considering the rights of these aliens, how would we even define them under the law? Are they human rights? Animal rights?”
     “We’re just talking about a heap of rocks,” Dixon interjected. “Doesn’t indicate a higher order of intelligence in my book. They may only be slightly evolved from what we know as animals.”
     “Animals don’t bury their dead,” said Harrington.
     “Crows hold funerals for them,” mused Cassen.
     Ford’s patience was wearing thin. “What is it you’re getting at, Harrington?”
     Harrington stood and puffed out his chest, his arms still folded. “I’m saying, before we rush to turn this site into a mining pit, or become grave robbers, let’s consider another perspective. What if this cave was a sacred burial ground for this species – whatever we call it? There were traces of ichnusaite in the site, which suggests it could have been employed as a preservative, such as how natron or pumice were used in the ancient world.”
Brookes’ eyes pierced Harrington, but the geologist said nothing. “If we desecrate the site,” the archaeologist continued, “we could be wiping out years – centuries – of their history. We can’t replace that. And how would you feel if the shoe were on the other foot, and they came to our planet and dug up our cemeteries?”
     It was Brookes’ turn to plead with Ford. “This is horseshit! Now I know I was wrong to dismiss Harrington’s premise about the rocks. But dead aliens do not have rights. At least not on Earth. We’re not philosophers or politicians. We’re scientists, tasked by the American people with gathering data and samples from other planets in the hopes of reversing the decline of our own resource supply. And,” he said, pointing a finger at Harrington, “you know the protocol on this was settled over a century ago: when remains are found interred in areas where mineral resources are located, those remains are to be excavated, relocated and contained in a safe environment for scientific study.”
“Human remains,” said Harrington. “And we’re not on Earth.”
“You are not here to rewrite law, Harrington! You’re just here to pack up the pots and bag the bones!”
     “Who’s the one rewriting the law?” said Harrington, backing Brookes into a corner.
Ford placed himself between them. “That’s enough! Harrington, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but with all this talk about hallowed alien ground, I’m beginning to wonder if you’re not prioritizing the interests of our nation and its values and traditions. Like Brookes says, the rocks we find here could create American jobs, and improve our technology in ways we can’t even begin to fathom.”
     “What if we pulled up stakes and the Russians or Chinese got here next?” Brookes demanded of Harrington. “Do you think they would respect any treaties? Do you think your remains would be in better hands with them?”
     “Finders keepers, right?” said Harrington with a smirk.
     “Gentlemen, you’re both out of line!” snapped Ford. “Now I want you all to go back to your quarters and cool off. Check in with your wives and kids, or whatever.”
The men groaned obligingly, then filed out. “Not you, Harrington,” barked Ford. The archaeologist halted and his eyes met Ford’s. “I’m not sure what’s going on here, but you need to get your head screwed back on. After centuries of asking the big question, we’ve finally made first contact, and now you’re worried about being haunted by alien ghosts. This,” he gestured at the skeleton, “belongs to the entire human race. It’s this century’s Lucy, and you’ve got the chance to study it. And you can help demonstrate that we’ve found a planet that can sustain life while we –“. He stopped himself.
A half smile crept onto Harrington’s face. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I’m with the team.”
“Great,” said Ford. “We need you.” He clapped the archaeologist on the shoulder. “Don’t forget to ask yourself why you got into this field,” he added, then wheeled and departed.
Harrington lingered behind, withdrawing into the recesses of the ship. His hand reached into his pocket, where he grasped a small pouch, and thought of the bucket with the steel teeth on it that had wrenched the soil in the bag from his land. To protect, he thought, answering Ford’s query.
 
Cassen and Harrington had found an empty chamber that appeared to be out of range of the visible light network. Free of ducts and valves and canisters, the space seemed less confining than the common areas where they congregated with the rest of the crew.
“I’ll kill you and your family, you infidel,” said Cassen, with only a trace of actual menace.
They waited, but no one came. Harrington tapped the sensor strapped to his chest, paused, then nodded at his crewmate. “What you got?” asked Harrington.
Cassen inhaled, then let out the airless breath. “I thought, given your objections, you should be the first to know the results on the injuries to the lower limbs.”
Harrington’s pulse quickened. He dreaded what he would hear next. “And?”
“My conclusion,” he began, then correcting himself, “my supposition is that the broken bones indicate blunt force trauma that was inflicted upon the feet of the specimen.”
Harrington’s shoulders sank with the realization. The irony of what he had blurted out many years previous, during a lecture on Weber’s Protestant work ethic theories, intruded upon his thoughts. History isn’t that straightforward. It’s muddled.  His classmates had gawked at him as he if were from another planet, and now Cassen too seemed very far away as he went on about how they couldn’t be certain until there was a CT scan and 3D modeling and so forth.
“What if,” Harrington said, clinging desperately to speculation, “what if this were committed by a hostile occupying force upon a peaceful group?”
“What if it weren’t?” said Cassen dispassionately.
He saw Harrington’s spirit being drained slowly out, and he could read the archaeologist’s expression: we have to bury it. Cassen’s mind wandered to when he had seen Earth from space, entirely blanketed in darkness, save for the brilliant orange glow over the sea and mountains and desert.
“There are many sides,” said Cassen, a smile breaking on his now hairless face, which he stroked purposefully. “But I’m on yours.”
 
If the men were suspicious of Harrington’s abrupt change of heart, they didn’t make plain their skepticism. They had learned that achieving consensus sometimes amounted to nothing more than taking advantage of a temporary suspension of the debate.
At any rate, Harrington had informed them that upon careful reflection he had concluded that activities that benefitted the welfare of American society trumped any implicit sovereign rights this alien species might enjoy – the latter being little more than an error of judgment he in turn ascribed to the difficulties in psychological adaptation to the duration of deep space missions.
The incident was smoothed over in the official mission report – “consultation amongst the crew terminated with the decision that full excavation of the specimen is deemed in compliance with existing laws or regulations” – and no mention was made of it at all when the crew contacted the Gateway via the lasercom system to report their findings. The discussion, rather, largely centered around a painstaking recap of Cassen’s plans to adhere to planetary protection protocol, as well as what procedures to follow in terms of notifying the chain of command and/or the general public. They agreed that, given the overall sentiment in favor of research activities that promote fiscal growth – weighed against the discomfort that might be aroused in society by the revelation that intelligent life may exist elsewhere in the universe – they would recommend to Houston that the ladies in the public affairs office emphasize in their communiqués the landmark discovery of ichnusaite and plans for future geological assessments of Wolf 1061c. The crew further advised that ongoing studies of its value as a habitable exoplanet should be positioned well below the lead. The Gateway pledged to relay to headquarters the proposal that a Space Corps outpost be immediately established to secure American mineral interests.
Afterwards, Harrington and Cassen stood on the surface underlying the habitat one last time, and admired the tiny ice crystals falling on their faces that signaled it was time to depart. They thought about what they were leaving behind, entombed beneath the rocks, and smiled, knowing in the end it mattered to no one.
 
 Snowflakes tumbled upon the cylinder, which discharged a plume of fire and seemed to devour the clouds as it ascended.
Also exiting the planet’s atmosphere was a micro-drone that had observed the activities of the Earth people. It made its way past constellations shaped like animals these beings could never comprehend. Beasts that the people who had sent the drone had hunted in the deserts of Kugama land for centuries. Before the Old One had a vision about a great fire in the sky, which eventually came to be, spewing foul air that had extinguished all life on the Wolf planet. 
Their Nagiham brethren had come to save them. First they brokered a settlement with the enemies of the Kugama, saying that the sky fire was a sign they must lay down their weapons. Then the Nagiham helped both sides bury their dead. The enemies return to their home planet, and the Kugama were carried to the Nagiham planet. There the Kugama were looked after for twelve thousand winters.
Over those millennia, they gazed together at many worlds, but took a particular interest in Earth.  They saw how, at the same time the German astronomer peered through his glass at their dying star, humans were assigning colors to each other. Then the white ones broke treaties with the colored ones, and seized their territory, and stole their people, and killed people of all colors. No peace could be made with such creatures.
The ancient Kugama had warned that one day danger would come from the sky. Giant snakes made of metal would arrive, breathing fire, and belching up an alien race. They would build settlements, and dig in their caves and under their rocks, and take whatever they found – by force if necessary.
But not this time. Now that the hour of return to Kugama land was approaching, the confederation of Wolf people would not let the prophecy happen.
At the mesa, the Wolf women and men received the drone into their hands, where after viewing what it had recorded, they would paint themselves, dance in a ring, and prepare to rain fire down on the trespassers.
                                                               END