Sorry we’ve been MIA – Lisa has been squirreling away working on getting her first novel edited and Isabelle has had some family business she’s needed to focus on.

We’ll be back soon, though, and may possibly be reorganizing the way we do things around here.

In the meanwhile, hope you have a great start to 2013!

As you can see, the theme for this volume is Legends, Myths & Fairytales, all of our best in the world of rewrites and reimaginings. And of course, we’ll be including a new story by each of us to seal the deal.

We hope for an end of the year release, but we will certainly give you all the details as soon as they become available!

Happy Friday, all!

The Earth and Air Guardians first met in Dream Walker and now we get another piece of the puzzle with Forged Through Fire. Enjoy!

by hworks at stock.xchng

She watched him work from the shadows, hidden within her Element, exploring him as she could not in flesh. Her stomach fluttered, a cluster of butterflies eager to break free from their cage. He pounded at the red-hot metal of a steel blade with a large mallet, his naked back and shoulders slick with sweat. She traced the ancient script of his Mark with her eyes, from his neck down the length of his spine, stark black against the warm caramel of his flushed, sun-kissed skin.

His muscles tightened with each mallet swing. The four walls of the tiny, sweltering workshop quivered, ready to buckle, to bow to his power. 

Bianca glanced at the room she’d long committed to memory – a room that had felt like a glimpse into his brilliant soul, full of trinkets made of blown glass and gemstones, carved of marble or stone, forged through fire.

Now, she noticed suddenly, those trinkets were gone. Cluttered with tools and raw materials, the room still felt bare, devoid of the life its craftsman had once breathed into its walls, giving them color and depth.

Something was wrong. Something had changed since they last spoke.

Enki turned as though he heard her thoughts. She startled. A dark bruise marred his jaw below his cheekbone. A red gash split the corner of his full lips. Bianca gasped, losing her cover, materializing before him.

“I thought it was you,” he whispered, his mouth tilting into the ghost of a smile. He removed his work gloves and placed them on the table behind him. “I can always tell when you’ve appeared. You bring the smell of springtime and sunflowers wherever you go.”

“Enki,” she breathed out, taking a careful step in his direction, unable to rip her gaze from the unsettling nature of his bruises.

“I have missed our meetings greatly,” he said and she saw the truth of it in the molten amber of his eyes.

“What happened?”

“I tried to save her,” he said, but his thoughts were far away and his voice was soft and haunted. “I tried to save her but I failed.”

“Who? Who did you try saving?”

He looked away, clutching the edges of the table to steady himself. “Much has changed since we last met.”

Bianca swallowed hard, holding back tears, mourning days spent in the shed talking of sunflower fields and freedom or of a grandiose courtyard in the shadow of a glittering marble temple. It all came back to her at once, the smell of coal and fire on his skin, the warm sunshine coming through the open shutters of his windows. His smile; so earnest, so true.

They’d shared the entirety of their lives here between these four small walls, filled in the spaces where their paths had diverted so they could reunite and be as they were meant to, Earth and Air, two halves made whole.

“It doesn’t have to be different,” she said, desperate, letting Air caress his skin.

“But it is. And I’m afraid the things I’ve done have carved a hollow I cannot refill.”

Her heart broke for him, for the innocence lost, for the boy she’d first met and the tattered remains of the man that replaced him. His soul was still pure at its core, but she felt the differences in him, swallowing him.

The violence. The guilt. The regret.

She should have known. It was only a matter of time before this World got him too.

“I’m sorry, Bianca.” He broke, and she wrapped her arms around him then, breathing in his scent, letting her Element cradle and soothe him. “I am not the man you knew. I have the blood of many men on my hands. It sings to me from within the soil. Reminding me. Cursing me.”

“What have you done?” she asked him, clutching him tighter, wishing just this once that she was as solid as he felt.

“I tried to save her,” he repeated. “But I failed.”

My most memorable birthday was probably my fifteenth. It started out wonderful. Saturday. No school. Chocolate chip pancakes. My little brother had a sleepover with his Scouts team, so even he didn’t ruin it, though I’m sure he would have if he could have.

And did I mention? Mark Cotter, the second-hottest guy in school (the hottest is Tad Claybourne, but he’s a jerk)had just asked me out on a date.

Bear in mind that when I say hottest, I mean on the Brains/Looks Qualitative Scale. Ted Claybourne was about a 6/10, giving him a 6 for Brains and a 10 for Looks, a cumulative 16, but not really the most attractive thing when you took into account his less-than-charming personality. Mark Cotter, on the other hand, was about an 8/7. More evenly balanced. And probably the nicest guy at school. All in all, a much better catch.

I brought him as my date to my party. It was spectacular, with fairy lights leading all the way from my grandmother’s back porch, far into the forest behind. The music and guests were all more beautiful than I could have hoped for. I think Mark was really impressed. He kissed me, even.

There was just one big problem… he thought I was human.

It had never really my intention to mislead him. Well, I say that, but really unless you out and out tell someone that you’re not human, they kind of assume. So I guess I did willfully mislead him. Semantics, I say.

I was half-human, besides. My mother had always encouraged me bringing home human boys. The way she did.

It truly wasn’t my intention to kill him, though. All I was going to do was lead him away. Keep him as my own, for however long as I liked. After all, he was a nice boy. I guess my years at school living with my grandmother (100% fully human) had meant I’d forgotten a few things. Like how to show he was offlimits to others.

You’d think they would have known that anyway, since I was the birthday girl. But looking back, I can’t really say that I’m surprised.

I’m just sorry, about Mark.

I left school that year and went home, to live with my parents. Mom says I’ll forget about Mark in time, but it’s been a quarter of a century, and I haven’t. It’s hard when the same face he kissed still looks back at you in the mirror, almost unchanged.

Still, I think it’s about time I stop hiding from the past. I’ve made my mind up, and I’m going back into the world to lead someone new into the fairy lights.

Maybe this time when I find love, I won’t destroy it.

—————————–

Photo by dandy_fsj on Flickr. Used under a Creative Commons License.

That doesn’t mean the tree will be abandoned. We’re currently lining up some exciting guest bloggers who will regale you with tales from their own brilliant imaginations and we will let you know who and when as slots fill up. If you’re a writer and you’re interested, please let us know! We’ll schedule you!

Meanwhile, enjoy the sunshine folks. And we’ll see you when the leaves start browning.

Lana waited for the search light to make another round, counting down the sequence she’d committed to memory. Rubbing sweaty palms on her thighs, she straightened her shoulders, crouching low for the run.

“Get ready,” she called behind her.

3-2-1.

They rushed across the abandoned plaza and ducked into the sharp angles of the building’s entryway. Jo’s feet were solid lead, banging on the concrete, her breath a frantic pant behind her. Lana waited for the sirens, her heart in her throat, her body tensed for another run. The army never came.

There was only silence. Silence and the sound of Jo’s hysterical breathing.

“Think you could breathe a little louder, Jo?,” she bit over her shoulder. “I don’t think the guards quite hear you.”

“Nick said he’d be here.”

“And he will.”

“Then where is he?”

“Maybe he’s running late.” Lana cupped her hand above her eyes and pressed against the glass. Everything within the building was still dark, only shadows and moonlight dancing in slow circles across the stark white tiles.

“We shouldn’t be doing this.”

“You’re getting cold feet now?” Lana turned sharply toward her best friend, the girl who’d lived next door to her for as long as she could remember, who’d passed notes through a secret box buried beneath the fence. She knew every nuance of her voice, every twitch of her face, and despite Josephine’s attempt at calm, Lana saw the terror just beneath the surface.

“I shouldn’t have told you I was doing this,” Lana said on a deep sigh. “I should never have let you come.”

“You didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t going to let you do this without me.”

“What I’m asking for… it’s tantamount to suicide. You understand that, don’t you? I’m asking you to throw your entire life away, because chances are, we’ll get caught.” She paused, watched and waited to see if her words sunk in. “We’re going to get caught. And I don’t know what they’re going to do to us when we do.”

Jo swallowed hard, falling back against the wall, her palms flat.

“It’s not too late to go home.”

Jo’s eyes widened. “And leave you here? Alone? No way.”

“I won’t be alone. Nick’s coming.”

“And what if he doesn’t? What if he got caught?”

“Then I’d just have to do it without him.”

Lana looked down at her watch. It was almost time.

“Do you really think she’s in there?” Jo whispered looking through the glass panels into the dark building, her voice so soft Lana almost thought she’d imagined it.

“Where else would she be? I’ve looked everywhere, Jo. The only thing I know is what her friends tell me. She was breaking Curfew and crossing the Wall. For a boy. A boy!” Lana tried to control the emotional yelp in her voice, but her eyes watered regardless. “She didn’t think of us, her family, what it would do to us if they found her.”

“She was in love…”

“And that’s exactly why the Wall exists! Because love makes people do stupid, selfish things!” Lana huffed, turning away. She wiped furiously at her cheeks, brushing away the tears. “They dragged her away like she was some sort of criminal. Snatched her right out of Ryan’s apartment in the dead of night….” Lana leaned on the wall beside Jo and closed her eyes. “Maybe they’re right. Maybe they oppress us because if they don’t we self-destruct.”

“No,” Jo said sharply, suddenly standing. “I refuse to believe that.”

“You’re hopeless, Jo.”

“Believing that two people are right for each other is not hopeless. It’s science. Chemicals react. Atoms polarize and attract. Two people being compatible is perfectly logical. Some, those predisposed, become lovesick and need special care, and maybe Amy was one of them, but that doesn’t give them the right to take her how they did. Without warning. Parents have the right to know where their child has disappeared to.”

Lana smiled weakly. “Now you sound like Nick.”

“There’s some sense to his rambling.”

“I have to know she’s ok. At the very least, so I can lay Mom and Dad’s fears to rest. They think she’s dead, Jo. But I know its worse than that. I know they have her and I worry what they’ve turned her into.”

A sudden boom shook the ground beneath their feet. A large cloud of fire and smoke lifted toward the sky, shining like a giant sun before imploding.

“That’s Nick.” Lana reached for the weapon tucked into her waistband. “It’s showtime.”

The city came alive suddenly, lights flashing on, sirens wailing, the sound of marching feet as the Guard readied their weapons and prepared for attack. She expected a slew of metalheads to seep out of their building, had craved the hand to hand combat, a way to drown some of the volatile emotions that continued to morph into doubt. She would have settled for any sign of life, to have the building light like a beacon in the night. It didn’t. Through the chaos, the Regulatory building remained dark, as though undisturbed in its slumber.

“They’re going to make this difficult,” Lana groaned, pulling out the pick set stuffed in her back pocket. “Jo, can you override the security system?”

She dialed numbers frantically on the holographic keyboard hovering above her watch. “Not for more than a few minutes.”

“That’s all I need.” Lana worked the lock until it clicked. “Now!”

Jo nodded and stuffed a tiny USB into the side of her watch. The screen lit up, the upload box filling bright red. “Virus uploaded. We have five minutes.”

Lana led the way through the dark hallways, the blueprint images still fresh in her mind. But each turn, each door they kicked open revealed nothing. Aged furniture, broken lights, something altogether abandoned.

“This isn’t right.” Lana’s chest tightened. She felt the first hiccup of hysteria bubbling in her throat. “Why would it be empty? This is the main building, why would it be empty?”

A shrill cry broke the silence. Then another, and another.

“Downstairs!” Jo stared at the space between her feet. “It’s coming from downstairs!”

The stairwells had all been cemented shut. The only option was the elevator, which required key card access. Jo broke open the panel and rewired it, connecting it to the coding program on her watch.

“It’s going to set off alarms,” she said apologetically.

Lana tried to smile. They were far past that.

When the doors opened and they stepped out, the light was blinding. Everything was stark white, pristine, with fluorescent lights overhead. They ran toward the cries, toward the incessant wailing. And when Lana reached the end of the hall and turned, she stopped short, her eyes wide, captivated by what she saw beyond the wall of windows.

Dozens of plastic baskets filled with… what?

She wasn’t sure exactly.

Small hands and feet. Bright red cheeks. Naked torsos. Tiny humans.

“What is this?” Jo stared alongside her. “What are they?”

“I’m not sure.”

Lana didn’t know why, but seeing them cry, so small and helpless, was unsettling. It made her stomach ache in an unpleasant way.

Another scream tore through the noise, older. Decidedly female. And it was wretched with pain.

Lana spun on her heels. “It’s Amy.” She clutched her weapon tight and ran. It was her. Without a doubt. Her sister was being held hostage and tortured somewhere in this building.

She didn’t think to decide what she’d do next. Didn’t try and formulate a plan for when she found her. She just had to get to her, to make her screaming stop.

All she followed was the sound. Clutching her gun in both hands she kicked open the door. Room 119.

Amy shouted in agony. Three strangers dressed all in blue and wearing masks surrounded her. Blood pooled along the floor, on the bedsheets, between her thighs.

Then, they pulled something from within her sister, something large and pink and solid, something arguably alien. Her sister cried out, then gasped, falling back onto the bed in what appeared to be relief.

Then it cried. That same helpless, pathetic wail from the corridor. A tiny human. An object implanted and then ripped from within her sister.

Their gazes met, for a singular moment, and Lana struggled to understand what she saw. The tears in Amy’s eyes were not of sadness. There was nothing but happiness on her face, a face that glowed, fuller, healthier than it’d been before she disappeared.

And when Lana got a good look at the thing’s face, puffy and swollen as it was, she realized something. It looked an awful lot like Ryan.

Lana dropped the gun and fainted.

He moves a dusty patch of earth behind him with every step. His steps, once eager, had slowed to determined, mechanical movements.

He didn’t know how long he’d been walking. A month? A year? A lifetime.

Always he was pulled on by a waft of air, reminiscent of her smell, her hair, or a flash of movement in the distance like the swish of a dress.

He slept by roadsides and ate what he could trade for. Sometimes, on the breath of the wind, he heard her voice laughing his name, and he was sure that if he went on just a little further, he might be able to find her.

She was like a ghost, dancing into his dreams but disappearing by morning, blinding him in the reflection of a stream, then not having the grace to show herself when the brightness had faded.

“Why chase such a phantom?” a man asked him who walked by his side for a day and listened to his story.

He thought of the way she’d challenged him to follow her, even to the ends of the earth. And he thought of the debt that he owed her. Which drove him more, the love, or the guilt?

“Because there is no not chasing her,” he answered, as honestly as he could.

In his dreams, she was radiance itself, but he knew what truly drew him on was the fact that even radiance did not compare to her true presence. She took it by turns to tempt him and eviscerate him in his dreams. “Have you given up your search so quickly, my love?  Would you let such a thing as sleep stop you from finding me, do you think I would let you forget your crimes if you chose to stop? Do you think you could forgive yourself for losing the chance of winning me?”

“What did you do to make her run so far from you?” the old man asked, struggling to keep up with the traveler’s long, unrelenting tread.

“A little thing, in the vastness of the universe,” he said, his voice soft and musing. “I killed her, is all.”

The window ledge is small, far smaller than I remember. Maybe it always was. Maybe I’m the one that’s grown.

So much looks different now. The fields are green and lush as always, but the cityscape on the horizon is new. A sign of time passing. Of moments left behind.

I shift my weight, adjusting my feet, clutching the frame in a white-knuckled grip. The distance between my feet and the ground grows into a dizzying tunnel vision. I shut my eyes tight and breathe. One misstep would send me plummeting five stories down.

I’d forgotten. I’m not sure how. Adulthood dimmed the memory to the point of nonexistence. Like a dream I had once, long ago, that lingers, but just barely.

I remember now. It’s impossible not to with my childhood coming alive all around me. My bedroom exactly as it had been when I was six: white rocking horse with the pink saddle along the corner, a canopy bed so big a little girl could drown in the pillows and linens, a gorgeous bay window overlooking the property, and our faithful Nana, head on her paws, half her large, bushy body hidden in the doghouse. It had all been here, waiting for me.

Sometimes, in my high rise apartment, when I stared out the windows over the busy streets and my mind wandered, I used to think I saw him. Or maybe just his shadow, swift as a briar rabbit, disappearing back into the sunlight before I could fully make out his shape.

Those were the days when dreams became something a bit more solid. Touchable. When I’d stare into the sunshine at the little specks of dust twirling in their elegant ballet and think they were important somehow. If I could only remember.

This is what I’d needed. The countryside. Our summer home. My childhood.

He once told me he could fly. I believed him. I mean, how else did he appear at my bedroom window five stories up?

I asked him once to show me. At least I think I did. So many of those nights feel far away now, as though they were real for the moment but became dreams the moment I closed my eyes to sleep.

Come sunrise, he was always gone. A creature of the night, of my imagination. My invisible friend. Still, some very quiet part of me remembers what it felt like to take that first step off the windowsill, to extend my arms and feel the breeze lift me, weightless.

I readjust. My toes curl, my bare feet aching as I balance on the ledge.

There were so many times, as I grew older that I stood on this ledge and looked down. Nights when I couldn’t be sure if he’d been real or the most perfect dream. When I’d been between childhood and adulthood, longing for the innocence that time continued to strip from me.

I’d looked to the moonlight, to the tiny particles of dust flittering by and breathed deep, as though it would give me wings to fly.

It’s why Father moved us away. Why he integrated us into the city. It isn’t good, he used to say, to lose yourself to your imagination that way. My therapists all told him it was the harmless mind of youth. That I’d outgrow it. But now, standing here, it’s as real as ever.

I remember the chime of the giant clock, the brilliant, blinding white of the stars as we rushed past, the sky splitting open like torn fabric turning night to day, exposing a wild and endless ocean with enormous regal ships whose sails doubled as giant clouds against the cerulean sky. I remember the boys, children just like me that ran wild and lived among the forest. The mermaids, their scaled tails sparkling in the sunlight.

I’d painted all these things throughout the years. Drawn them in sketchbooks. Discussed them at length.

What do they mean, my therapists often asked me. What do they represent?

Childhood, I finally told them, when no other answer would suffice. When giving them its name was no longer enough.

I reach my hand out into a beam of light and let it swirl among the glistening dust.

Pixie dust.

Magic.

You have to believe it, I hear him say clearly in my mind. I breathe deep, let the dust travel through my bones and make me light as air.

I do believe it, Peter, I whisper to the sky and lift my hands. Take me back. Take me back to Neverland.

I lean forward and with a final breath, let go.

I miss color.

That’s the one thought going through my head as I scan item after item for customer after customer. It’s been a busy shift, what with the holiday and all. Everyone in the whole colony seems excited except for me.

I miss color.

It had seemed so cool when the opportunity first came up. I mean c’mon, I was eight. Who didn’t want to live on the moon? It had seemed like the best birthday present ever. We would be the very first, and Dad was going to develop moon-growing vegetables and Mom was going to design a drill to well deep into the surface to harvest moon ice.

Plus there was a rocket ship ride. Complete with a whole hour of anti-gravity free time. That feeling of floating, of not being weighed down by yourself or towards anything else, was the most amazing thing in the world.

I even got to wear a spacesuit. Had to, in order to get from the ship into the airlock. Fifteen minutes to put on a suit I got to wear for about two and a half. That was pretty cool, too.

Our first year was in tents, as the building happened. They’d built the entire Air-and-Grav dome around absolutely nothing to begin with, because it cost less to have people work after the dome was built, than outfit a bunch of people in suits for long periods of time. It seemed like camping. Which is fun for about two weeks. But then you kind of miss running water and warmth. The AG dome is protected from the harsh heat in the sun and cold in the shadow times, but the temperature is always either chilly or hot. And really, there wasn’t much here but rocks and dirt at first, so exploring wasn’t as exciting as it sounded.

There were a lot of people here during the building, and a part of me thought it would always be like that. Not that it’s completely sparse now—there are 572 of us in the colony, the thirty-second moonbaby was born just last week—but the community definitely shrunk when the builders and contracters left. I threw a fit that week, because I wanted to go home too, but Mom and Dad were both on long-term contracts, and it just wasn’t in the works.

I had already started missing color by then. Every single building was the same dusty grey-white as the surface. It was done by government decree, so that they wouldn’t mess up the moon’s luminosity. The whole no-color thing just went wild from that point on. As if wearing a red shirt on the moon was going to mess up a summer night in Seattle. As if it that would be anything compared to the number the construction did on the tides back home. But hey, what’s the destruction of a few hundred microecosystems in comparison with a colony on the moon?

I know I sound ungrateful. What we’re doing here is of historical significance, after all. I’m the first person in the entire existence of people whose first part-time job was at a convenience store on the moon. I get that that’s important. But forgive me if selling moontrients and moon-o-degradable paper products doesn’t always particularly feel historically significant.

The color thing really gets to me, though. The depressing thign is, there are kids here who have trouble remembering different colors’ names.

There are kids here younger than me who don’t remember Earth at all. Not as anything other than a bright blue and green object in the sky. Those oceans have little more meaning to them than imagined ideas. They know nothing of salt breezes or sea spray. Coral reefs, schools of fish, tide pools. They know nothing of colored sunrises, sunsets. The closest thing they’ve ever seen to a field of flowers is the lily-white harvest of pollination poppies in the Growing Center. Forests or wildlife or fire—they don’t even know fire, it’s too dangerous here in our world of cycled, manufactured-oxygen.

There are kids here for whom the moon is more home than Earth. As if they don’t consider the fact that it hasn’t yet garnered a capitol letter for its name.

There are kids here like that. But I’m not one of them.

I know I’m not the only one who feels it, either. My mother has framed photograph of bright, cochineal-and-pink flamingos in a lush jungle setting hanging in our front room, and sometimes I see her standing in front of it and leaning in ever so slightly, wiping tears from her cheeks.

On Tuesday it will be ten years since we landed. I turned eighteen three weeks ago, and I’m legally an adult now. On Monday I have the option of hitching a ride back Earthside when the annual shipment of supplies comes in. If I have the guts to do it on my own. The way back is always a one-way ticket, unless I miraculously turn into a rocket scientist, which is really unlikely since I’m terrible at math.

I’d have to do it all on my own if I went back, too. I could go back to the house, maybe, but I’d have to find some way to live. I wouldn’t be able to access any of the millions my parents are making—those funds are no good Earthside unless one of them comes with me. Which they won’t. We’ve had that conversation enough times for me to know that by now.

“Going to the festivities next week?” asks Marcie, a chubby redhead who lives down the row from us and works on the engineered atmosphere.

I scan the packaging of a black-and-white “Happy Mooniversary!” banner and bring the total up. Marcie was always a bright spot in my day. She’s one of only three redheads in the colony.

“I just might make it,” I say, jokingly. As if anyone in the colony wouldn’t be going to the festivities.

But my heart beat hard against my chest as I said it. And I could feel the color in my cheeks rise with my pulse.

I’m pretty sure that I just lied.