They call me Alice, but I feel more like the Mad Hatter.

I see ghosts in the draperies that billow in the wind, there just long enough to stay in my mind for the rest of the day.  I listen to the walls as they whisper secrets no one else can hear.  I don’t understand most of them, but I feel their weight settle inside me.  I sense haunted hearts among the people around me, though I can never tell who they belong to.

All I know is I am full of emotions that aren’t mine.

The winding staircase is full of panic.  The halls echo with emptiness even when they are filled.  The walls in my room weep with forgotten tears.  The dining room will sometimes shiver in fear.

I can’t eat when it does that.

Sometimes, the palace is so full of panic and tears and fear that it chases me up and up and up to the roof.  The roof is the only place that stays quiet.

Like it’s used to bearing the turmoil beneath.

Like it’s accepted what happens below and has learned to watch the sky instead.

On clear nights, the stars have started to become familiar.  I have a few old friends up there who I like to stare at until my tears blur everything together.  The black sky of a cloudy night feels like a blanket tucked around my shoulders.  I let the darkness hold me until I’m able to move again.

In the daylight, the deep blue of a cloudless sky fills me inside until the cracks start to seal themselves. It reminds me to breathe until I don’t have to think to do it.  The grey clouds of an overcast day tell me I’m not alone.  I am comforted with the thought that even the sky can get clouded with milling emotions.

On stormy days, the rain wipes away my tears with its own.  I let it soak me until the feelings that aren’t mine are washed off.

This place is full of things long forgotten, of stories and lives that have slipped away, and it cannot bear their stories without them being told.  I can hear them, so I listen.  But when it becomes too much I run to the roof and stay until I remember myself again.

It is how I have learned to bear it.

Her eyes were blue.

Deep, piercing, intensive blue; like I had looked into a hot summer sky and found its gaze burning back at me.

Her granddaughter had driven her there, pushing her wheelchair into my salon for her perm appointment.  She had to be in her nineties.  Her face had more wrinkles than paper crumpled in the hands of a child.  Her body was giving out on her, hardly letting her hold her head up for extended periods of time.

But her eyes were alive.  It was like drinking a tall glass of ice water on a sweltering hot day.  Her eyes grabbed me and shook me and told me I am HERE.

I took out the little peach-colored perm rods and sectioned off her hair, feeling for all the world like a dry sponge falling towards an ocean of water.  She had so much knowledge and stories and experience wrapped up in a well-worn soul, and I could ask her anything.

Beginning the long process of rolling her hair, I started conversation as I usually do.  I’ve narrowed down on questions people love to answer, asking about their family or if they have pets.  It doesn’t take much after that for people to start rambling on about themselves and their life, quite forgetting I’m even doing their hair while they talk.

Everyone has stories.  Everyone has something to surprise me.

If the others were chapters in a book I could write, she was an entire series.  Her body might have crumbled away with age, but her mind was sharp and her memory strong.

She had been a very young girl during the Second World War.  She could remember her two older brothers going off to fight and coming back home.

She had spent a summer at a farm when she was ten, and she told me about the people there who had taken her in like an extension of their family.  She told me about Clive, the rooster that had terrorized her the entire summer, and John, the old farm hand who often rescued her from her feathered nemeses.

She told me about her faith, and how it was tested and strengthened through all her years.  It was one thing she never regretted, something that had never let her down.

She’d fallen in love with a gentle man and stayed with him until the day he died.  Her children were grandparents, sending her pictures with names written on the back so she can keep them all straight.

She had been to so many funerals and seen so many births, I could feel both the weight and joy they left behind in every word she spoke.

Then she asked me about myself, and what I enjoyed, and what I did.

It took me a moment to understand her questions because how could she possibly want to know about me?  Something lifted inside me as I told her about my life, my slowly growing faith, and my dreams for the future.  She truly listened to my story and grabbed my hand when I finished rinsing out her perm.

I’ll never forget what she said to me then.  Her eyes had locked with mine as she told me how comforting it was to meet me.

Tears filled my eyes as she went on.  She said she felt fresh hope, knowing a girl as young as myself still believed as she believed.  Still hoped as she hoped.  Still held to the faith she held so tightly.

Every time I feel alone, she’d said, God sends me someone like you to tell me that no, there are so many more.

Some people come into your life and leave a mark forever inside you.

And I know, etched into my soul, every word she spoke is lined in the deepest, brightest blue.

 

You will die saving your best friend’s life.  I’ve known it since childhood.

At first it terrified me.  The words would haunt my nightmares, my imagination twisting scenarios of my friend Harris bleeding, screaming, dying.  He would look at me and we would switch.  It was never a choice.  I would be lying there instead of him, and the blood pooling beneath me was suddenly my own.

I would wake up screaming, but I never told my parents why.

I couldn’t.

They shouldn’t have to live with my dread.  They went through enough already.

My sister Sera was the only person I told.  She used to say it was just a nightmare that got stuck in my head.  She’d say it wasn’t real.  She would never let me die before her.

Still, Sera held me at night when I woke up screaming, and listened when it all became too much to hold in my mind any longer.

You will die saving your best friend’s life.

At some point, the words stopped scaring me.  I’d heard them so many times, they lost their sting.  Whenever Harris and I played together, I was always the one to die dramatically, saving him from whatever enemy we made up.  Even Sera joined in occasionally, playing the nurse who would revive me with CPR, no matter what had killed me.

It had become a game.  An inside joke.

A story I told myself at night instead of counting sheep.

When I was in my late teens, Sera asked me if I still believed I would die saving Harris.

Yes.  I’d said.  Of course.

Doesn’t it still scare you?

I’d laughed.  The only thing that scares me now is finals at school.

She didn’t laugh with me.  I couldn’t figure out why she looked so unnerved.  She’d never believed it was true anyway.  It was just a nightmare that got stuck in my head.

You will die saving your best friend’s life.

It wasn’t supposed to feel like this.

Harris has pulled a gun on me.  He’s telling his boss I won’t be a problem as the word traitor sticks to my lips.  His hands do not waver, but his eyes are panicked.  How could he not have seen that it would come down to this.  To choosing between us.

All I know is Harris will make it out alive.

He’s getting closer, and I’m telling him to stop this nightmare.  This isn’t the Harris I’ve known.  It wasn’t supposed to go like this.

I wasn’t supposed to feel this kind of pain.

His boss is asking what’s taking him so long.  My heart is beating so fast I can’t feel it anymore.  My legs won’t stop shaking.  Harris takes a breath, and his eyes harden with resolve.

It wasn’t supposed to happen so fast.

He’s pointing his gun at his boss and pulling the trigger.

I’m running before the gunshot registers.  His boss is falling, but he’s raising his gun on his way down, squeezing the trigger with the last of his strength.

And it doesn’t matter what I’ve heard all my life.  It doesn’t matter if I’d known or not.  It was always going to be this.

The bullet goes through me.

I look back at Harris and his eyes are open wide in horror.  I’m falling away from the hand he stretches towards me, as though somehow he could save me.  As if he could stop this nightmare from sticking.

My vision is going black.  Silence closes in around me.

My sister will never forgive me for dying first.

You will die saving your best friend’s life.

I didn’t think it would happen like this.

But all I feel now is relief.

 

Moving into the forest was not my first plan.  Or my second.

It was my fifth, actually, because there are enough old wives tales and scary campfire stories about that place to ward any sane person away.

And yeah, the place is weird.  The trees never quite stay in the same spot, although they are very slow and usually good at avoiding key structures.  Fallen logs are always occupied, and that goes for bramble bushes as well.  Firewood is strangely hard to come by for a place that’s crawling with trees.

Literally.

Hundreds of flowers carpet the forest floor, and they make beautiful bouquets as long as I don’t pick any that the fairies have claimed.  They used to be hard to spot, but now I know to look for fairy dust clinging to the pedals.  If I see a marked flower, I usually go find a different patch just to be safe.

Angry fairies are a hassle and, quite frankly, annoying.

The creeks and streams that run through the forest are gentle, perfect for soaking weary feet and washing away troubled thoughts.  I’m careful to not let myself get lulled to sleep there.  I’m not sure I’d ever wake up.

I met Trissa the day I entered the woods, and if I hadn’t, who knows what stupid things I might have gotten into.  She knows her way around, and she was the one who showed me the way the forest lives.

Trissa doesn’t speak, but it seems she doesn’t need to in order to be heard.  Not in this place anyway.  Her hair is as brown as the rich soil beneath us and her eyes are a little darker.  She has a few freckles across her nose that spread whenever the sunlight finds her face.

The animals love her.  It was an exuberant squirrel, in fact, that brought her to me.  I have yet to spend much time with her, really, that didn’t have some other animal snuggling close to her or sticking a curious head into our faces.

I like animals, I do, but these are wild things and I think we both don’t quite know what to do with each other.

Once, when I was in the cottage alone, a fawn wandered in.  Apparently, we caused enough of a ruckus to send the birds soaring after Trissa.  When she arrived, she found the poor fawn prancing in circles and myself crouching behind the couch, armed with a pillow.  She had her hands full calming the both of us, but after a cup of tea and a bowl of salad, we came to an understanding.  The fawn and I are good friends now, I call him Carl and he headbutts me whenever he gets the chance and Trissa regrets ever introducing us to each other.

I was not born for this kind of life, but I am growing to love it.  I think the forest, in its own way, is growing used to me.

When I get lost, the trees slowly part to make a small path back to the cottage where I live.  It’s gotten to the point where if I see a path in the trees, I just follow it.  They take me on wonderful walks.

If I get hurt, a fairy inevitably shows up to sprinkle fairy dust where it hurts.  It doesn’t make the pain go away, but it does make it heal faster.  I’ve stopped wondering how they know when I’m in pain.

Trissa stops by for tea a couple of days a week, and she’s teaching me to knit.  The chipmunks have gotten wind if this, and they stop in to ‘help’ me; which means I’m learning to knit with five chipmunks snuggled on my lap ceaselessly chattering in what I think are supposed to be encouraging remarks.

I might have become a tale to tell around campfires by now, but whatever they say about me, I know they have it all wrong.  Yes, the forest is strange and wild and different, but it has adopted me as one of its own.

And I like to call it home.

 

A ruler is someone who must fight.  This I have been taught since childhood.

The night is dark as I climb over the palace walls to the waiting city below.  A few stars peek through the clouds to shed a faint, pale version of their light.  I let myself drop the last couple feet, my boots make hardly a sound as they land on the dew covered grass.

From the moment the crown touches a ruler’s head, they must fight to keep the peace, to rule the kingdom, to stay on the throne.  There will always be someone who would rather wear the crown.  There will always be someone ready to tear apart the peace and set chaos loose.  There will always be someone who disagrees with the rules.

I keep to the darkest shadows as I slip through the city, my heart pounding against my chest so hard I think it might bruise.  The satchel slung over my back seems heavier than before, and it digs into my shoulder.

To wear a crown means every day is a struggle, every hour a close call.  Rulers surround themselves with guards and advisers, but it never quite sets them to rest.  Advice must be weighed with caution and searched for alternate motives.  Paranoia seeps in, questioning the loyalty of their soldiers.

I glance over my shoulder, my imagination running wild with tales of killers in the darkness, or someone waiting to drag me back.  A cold sweat breaks over my skin, and I run.  I run to the edge of the city, then slip past its gates.

The road ahead of me is dark and I cannot see where it goes, but that does not matter.  It will take me away and that is enough.

A ruler can never let down their guard.

Not when they sleep, not when they eat, not when they speak with friends.  Assassins love the dark, food is easily poisoned, and betrayal only comes from the ones you trust.

A ruler must know the feel of a blade and how to use it, for they will carry one at their side until the day they die.

At the crest of a hill, I glance back one more time.  The city is barely visible, a dim glow from taverns and inns outlining its edges.  Looming over it all, dark and cold as the stone that built it, the palace waits.  It never sleeps.  Not even in the dead of night, when every light is out.

To wear the crown means to fight alone.  It means playing mind games that will cause insanity.  It means never trusting, never resting.

I would rather run for the rest of my life then walk those gilded halls again.

I turn away, facing the night before me.  A flicker of excitement sparks inside my chest.  The possibilities have sunk into my pulse, beating stories of what might be, of I only reach out for them.

I plunge into the darkness and shed my royal skin.

The prince is no more.

 

I often walked the streets in the late afternoon, when the sunlight becomes golden and the shadows reach for me.

There was one street in particular that I frequented.  Behind the shops, branched off from the normal bustle of that city, I would walk until I came across the people who lived there.

Not inside the buildings, but on the streets.

Huddled against walls in the winter to keep a little warmth to themselves or standing in whatever shade they could find to keep cool in the summer.  Their eyes looking up with fear, or mischief, or hate, or emptiness.

I never had much to give them, and I didn’t know what I could do to help.  I’d said as much to a man who lived there, who said his name was Frank, and he’d nodded his head. “Just tell me something to hope for.” he’d said.  There were tears behind his hollow voice. “Leave me with something to hold on to, so I can rest for once.”

That was when I knew I’d be back.  I told him the same story every time, and by the end I usually saw a glimmer in his eye.  Not enough to define it, not enough to last long, but there was something.  It could be my imagination, but I think that glimmer grew stronger as time wore on.

I met an old woman there, who everyone called Sly.  I learned to watch her hands to keep from losing my things.  She was good at slipping through a conversation, at moving subtly so that she might afford to eat.  Once I got her to stop moving and cut through her tricky words, once her restless eyes settled on me, she became as fragile as my grandmother’s crumbling china.

I didn’t always tell her the same story.  There were some days I would tell her something beautiful and soft, and feel her grip become firm in my hands.  There were other days when she shook so hard I was sure she’d shatter in my hands.  That was when I’d tell her something brave and hopeful, staying with her long after I was done to wipe away her silent tears.

There was a boy there that called himself Ace, and beneath his cocky grin lay a simmering rage.  I didn’t see him very often.  When I first met him, I’d been at loss for words, because what can you say to a rage you haven’t known?  So I’d asked him, what kind of story did he want to hear.

I still remember how his eyes light up with green fire. “I want to hear about justice.” he’d said. “Tell me about the bad guys getting what they deserve for once.”

So I told him.  I told him of a young criminal, so fed up with guilt and strife, who turned himself in so justice would let him rest.  I remember sweat slicking my palms as I watched the green fire sputter and glow.  Ace had walked away in a daze, and I was certain I’d never see him again.

He showed up about a week later, leaning against a brick wall and flipping a coin.  This time, when I asked what story he’d like to hear, he’d merely said, “Make me think.”

It’s been his request ever since.

There were two old sisters whose names were Sue and Mary, and they were always hiding away in some corner or other.  They would have been difficult to find on my own, but one of them always called out when they spotted me.

They never tired of fairy tales, and they would request their favorite ones over and over.  I could have told them those same stories for days, and when I finished they’d still beg for one more before I left.

Stories were all I could give, and after a time, stories were what I received in turn.  One by one, they all reached out for my hand and ask if I wanted to hear their story.  I always said yes.  And I always ended up in tears.

Theirs were stories of heartbreak and hardship, of sorrow and crime, of burdens and sacrifice.

By the end, our roles ended up reversed, and they held my hands and I listened.  Every one of them, even Ace, locked their eyes with mine and finished their story by saying, “Then I met this storyteller, and for the first time in a long while, I didn’t feel alone.”

“Thank you.” were Frank’s final words.

“Remember me.” was Sly’s only request.

“Don’t stop.” Ace told me solemnly.

“One more.” Mary asked.

“Please, before you go.” Sue added.

I never forgot them, and I haven’t stopped.  When the sun’s rays turn golden and the shadows stretch out to touch me, I walk the streets and look for the people who live there.  I have so many stories to tell.

So do they.

The shop is filled with a faint scent of old books, honeysuckle, and leather.  I take a deep breath as I make myself comfortable in the spot behind the register and pull out my knitting.  The days I work here are often quiet, and I like to knit while I sort out my thoughts.

I love this place.  It’s as though time is different here.  Neither slower nor faster than usual, but just not in such a pressing hurry.  Time that lets you breathe as it marches on.  I think it’s because this place is so old it has learned to be patient and not a busybody like everywhere else.  It has its own cares to deal with.

It’s fifteen past the hour, and I hear the time marked by our tall grandfather’s clock.  He is so set in his spot on the floor, between a bookshelf and a saddle-rack, that I wonder what would happen if someone tried to buy him.  He may be too old to be moved at this point, becoming as much a part of the store as the windows and floor.  Filling the silent hours with his chimes every hour, half-hour, and quarter-past.

Sometimes I like to wander through the store a bit, though never too far from the register.  I can’t afford to get lost when I’m working, and I’m not completely sure there’s an end to this place.  There are times I wonder what the back wall looks like, and what sort of treasures I’d find there.  I always ask customers if they made it to the back.  So far, no one has seen it.

One of these days, I’ll come in on a day off and be the first.

The bells at the door are ringing, announcing the first customers of the day.  A trio of older ladies walk in, and I smile.  They wave when they see me, before disappearing into the store.  I’m sure they’ve told me their real names at some point, but in my mind, they are Sugar, Spice, and Nice.  They come in about every other month, and theirs are always the best finds.  Last time they found a chest of keys, a stack of old fairy tale books, a teacup, and a beautiful music box.

I think the store loves them.

Though I can’t wait to see what they’ll end up with today, I know it won’t be for hours.  One of these days, they won’t be back by closing time and I’ll have to go on a search and rescue mission.  If anyone finds the end to this store before me, it would be them.  They have a knack for searching, and it makes me wonder if they’ve ever found what they look for, or if they simply make do with other things instead.

My knitting takes shape under my fingers as the store creaks and groans, trying to settle.  It’s been trying for years.  I reach out and pat the countertop in sympathy.  This place is has too many old things full of memories for it to settle properly.  It does what it can.

We all do.

Backstage is chaos barely contained.  My ballet shoes are heavy at the toes, holding me fast to the ground.  I stand in the wings, a flurry of nerves at my back and a stillness of expectation before me.

The orchestra is tuning up, starting in a single wail that’s seized by others and taken down separate paths.  My heart goes with them, racing to keep up.  The strands of noise and music climb until I think they might lift me into the rafters, bursting with everything they hold.

Then it stops, and all I can hear is the pounding in my ears.

Silence drapes over me.

I’m holding my breath.  I think everyone is.  This isn’t a pause of calm, it’s the numbness of excitement.

And it shatters with thunderous applause.

I shift my weight from one foot to the other, my eyes fixed on the stage.  Waiting.  Waiting for the curtains to part, for the music to begin, for the dance to start.  My nerves are tying themselves into knots, giddy and panicked and wild.

The thunder dies down, and there’s another pulse of silence.

I feel it shudder through me.

Fluttering notes rise from the orchestra pit, and the curtains sway as they are pulled apart.  It is time.  I take a deep breath and draw myself up, up, up, until I am gliding onto the stage.

Before me are the shadowed forms of my audience.  Scattered throughout the seats, blank glasses reflect the glare of the stage lights, staring at me like owls in the dark.

With pointed toes, lifted chin, and smooth movements, I let the music sink into my bones.  The nerves are gone, the excitement has settled, the chaos is dissolving into order as I bend and leap to the swell of strings.

This is home.

Soft melodies give way to charged notes, instruments chasing each other round and round as the stage fills.  There are other dancers fluttering around me, colors and music tangling together as we take the stage by storm.

The beat holds us together, never faltering, always poised.  My breathing grows heavy and sweat forms under my makeup.  The points of my shoes thump softly when I land, my toes are burning inside.

I have lost myself to time, my heartbeat rising as the end approaches.  The orchestra is racing to the close, its drums hurling me towards the finish.  The dancers blur around me as I pull myself into my last pose.  The music is stringing out its final notes.  Holding, holding, holding . . .

Then everything stills.

A beat of silence, then crashing applause.

My lungs heave for air as I lower myself in a bow.  A smile sneaks over my face.  Before every performance, I wonder what moments will stay with me.  In the end, there is one that always remains clear in my mind.  The blinding lights, the deafening applause, the exhilaration pounding through my veins . . .

This is the moment that stays forever.

They came for us in our dreams, in their shadowy forms from another world.  They dangled desires and promises over us, using their smooth words and tempting visions.

Everyone grew up with the warnings.  That they would visit our sleep.  That once they arrived, they would tempt us for months, sometimes years.  That we should never accept their promises.

There were four of us.  We’d been close friends for years, and had come to think of each other as family.  We always thought that when they came, they would be easy to resist.

How wrong we were.

I remember Cassy stumbling over her words, she was so excited. They promised me wealth.  She’d said.  They promised diamonds to grow at my feet, and rubies to fall from my lips.

We told her it was too good to be true.  We all knew it couldn’t end well.

But I couldn’t blame her.  She’d lost a brother to the slums, and her father’s mind remains buried in the mines.  Her eyes had always carried black circles from overworking and never sleeping.  It was a wonder we had time to know her at all.

They took her, and we resigned ourselves to never seeing her again.

They came into my dreams that night, and they offered me wealth.  Join Cassy.  They said.  And never have to worry about what you can afford.

I woke up screaming my answer.  No!

Harold was the cautious one, I never expected them to entice him.  None of us did.  I remember the shock jolting through me in waves as he told us the promises they’d made for him.  They promised me knowledge.  He’d said.  They promised I would know things ignored by common man, that I would learn many things in my dreams.

There was no reasoning with him.  How could we?  He was the one that kept us from being foolish, not the other way around.

We tried anyway, and he left with the bridge burning between us.

They came to me that night, offering me the ability to learn.  You are always so behind in your studies.  They said.  Wouldn’t you like to be ahead of the class?  To learn in an instant?

I woke up shaking in a cold sweat.  It scared me how close I’d come to saying yes.

Hanna was the last to leave me.  I almost managed to persuade her to refuse.  They promised me change.  She’d said, not quite meeting my eyes.  They promised me the ability to shift, that I would never have to stay trapped in one form.

I’d begged her to stay, telling her that our parents were right, it was never worth it.  I told her she didn’t need to change herself to be able to breathe.  But she felt suffocated, and in the end, even I hadn’t been enough to change her mind.

They visited me that night, offering me freedom from the life I had.  Don’t you ever wish you were different?  They asked.  Wouldn’t you like to change?

I woke up with a jolt, my reply dying on my lips.  Change from you can only bring sorrow.

Still, I found myself staring at my reflection, wondering what I could have become if I’d said yes.

My friends’ absence haunted me, and I threw myself into school, then work, to try to distract myself.

Even still, every decision I struggled to make brought Harold to mind, how he would probably know right away which path was the best to take.

Every job interview and every party, I would look at my reflection and wonder if Hanna would’ve been more comfortable, with her ability to change her skin.

Every day at work, and every night I dragged myself home, I wondered what it was like for Cassy to not have to pretend to be nice to a shouting customer just so she could pay her bills.

They continued visiting my dreams, dangling offers, every one more tempting than the last. Wouldn’t you want to be famous, to be known?  To have no need for food, to live without eating?  To fly, to soar through the skies?  To never be sick, never need sleep?

I would wake up in a sweat, or crying, or screaming at them.  No!  Leave me alone.  You took my friends.  I want nothing you could give me.

The last night they visited, I braced myself for their best, their juiciest offer.  I prepared myself to shout the answer No! before I could even consider it.

Would you like to be with your friends?  Would you like us to promise they would never leave your side again?  Don’t you miss them?

My prepared answer died in my throat.

They saw my hesitation and pounced, showing me visions of my friends.  Cassy, wearing beautiful finery, walking on diamonds that sprang at her feet.  Harold, writing at a desk, papers piled high with his thoughts and knowledge.  Hanna, dear Hanna, shifting into a tall, confidant woman before a mirror.  Smiling at her reflection.

Yes.  I’d murmured.

They’d eagerly pulled out the paperwork, eyes glowing, ready for me to sign.

Yes, I want to be with my friends.  Yes, I miss them.  Hands trembling, I’d taken the papers from them, glancing at the blank line at the bottom.

Then I’d looked back up at their hungry faces, and ripped the papers to shreds.

But when I see them again, it will be in spite of, not because of you.

They raged, they wailed, and I’d woken in a panic of tears and screaming.

They didn’t know, however.  They must not have realized, but when they showed me my friends, they’d left a trail for me to follow.  I wasn’t the kind of person to let a trail like that go cold.

It took me months before I found Harold.  I’d barely recognized him, his face was so tired, so worn down.  He jumped at the slightest noises.  The bridge he’d burned between us was long gone, forgotten under a pile of nightmares.

I know things ignored by common man, he told me, and what men choose to ignore is the ugly, the terrible things in the world.  I understand why, for who would want to dwell on such things?

He refused to sleep, terror filling his eyes.  They promised I’d learn in my dreams, but they didn’t tell me what or how.  Every night, there is a new terror to learn, a new horror to discover.  His eyes were hollow.

They feed off of their cruelty.  It was the first thing I learned.

I took him with me, to my home tucked back on a forested hill, away from the jarring sounds of the city.  I did what I could to make him comfortable, trying to find something to give him so he could sleep without dreams.  I reassured him when he panicked and kept soft music on to soothe him, hoping that maybe, if I take away the satisfaction in their cruelty, they might grow bored and leave him alone.

I found Cassy a year later, lying in a hospital bed.  Her feet had been shredded by the diamonds constantly below her feet.  Her lips were swollen shut from the rubies that had scraped by as they fell.  She hadn’t been able to eat because of the swelling and pain.

How foolish I was, she wrote for me, to believe I could escape suffering and pain.  I cannot be understood when I speak, the rubies garble my speech and cut my tongue and lips.  I have become nothing more than a prize to be shown off.  I belong in an art museum.

I’d taken her hands in mine, shaking my head.  You belong with me, I’m taking you home.  Perhaps you cannot escape suffering and pain, but maybe you can discover other things that make them bearable.

It took weeks for her mouth and feet to heal.  I put her in my guest room on the main floor and found her a wheelchair.  As long as her feet didn’t touch the ground, the diamonds were held at bay.

Harold cautiously started coming out of his room to learn sign language with us, so that Cassy doesn’t need to open her mouth to the rubies inside.  Slowly, I saw his eyes catch the tiniest spark of joy as he learned something that wouldn’t haunt his every step.

Hanna was the hardest to find.

I looked everywhere before eventually, she found me. Deep in the allies of a no-good city, she was in the form of an old woman, bent over with age and barely strong enough to walk.  When she found me, she collapsed into my arms in tears.

Every day, I wake in a new form.  She’d whispered between sobs.  They promised change.  They never said I would have control of it.  There is no stability, nothing remains once the day is over.  I have been so alone for so long.

I held her and kept my voice firm and gentle.  Not anymore.  I promised her.  You’re coming with me.

I put her in the last available room next door to mine, and every morning I would figure out what to do with the forms she took.  Sometimes she would be a small animal, and she’d spend the day with one of us, often curled up on Cassy’s lap or laying in Harold’s arms.  Sometimes she would wake in an elder’s body, and every once in a while we would have to care for her in a baby’s form.

Always, she woke in a body not her own, and we would care for her in whatever way we could.

Years have passed, and slowly, the four of us found a normality that was our own.  As time wore on, I think we became unsatisfying for them–for those creatures of our nightmares.

A month ago, I smiled through my falling tears as Cassy slowly spoke for the first time without a single ruby dropping from her mouth.  She was asking for help to reach a book on the shelf.

Last week, Hanna woke up in her original form–or what we think her form would look like after her teenage years–and stayed that way for two days before changing again.

Just yesterday, Harold told me he slept the whole night through and he’d had a regular dream without terrors.  He goes for short walks outside now, pushing himself a little further every week.

Their eyes are sparking with hope again.  I’m beginning to have more time to myself, to work, to think, to do what I love.

I think I love working against those monsters from our teenage years.  They don’t have a name, and they don’t need one.  I don’t plan on letting them live much longer anyway, and they don’t need to be remembered.

My friends agree.

Harold tells me everything he knows about them, along with where they usually leave their victims to wander with their curses.

Cassy gave me a box of diamonds and rubies that she’d saved, from the times when she’d tried walking or speaking before their promises had begun wearing off.  Use their curses against them, she said to me with triumph in her eyes, find people to save with the gems they gave us.  

Hanna stays by my side, ready to open her arms to the frightened, the lonely, and the disparaging.  I will be here for the people we find, she promised me, like you were there for us.

My home is expanding, more rooms are being built in, and more people are arriving, clinging to the frailest hope that we fan into a flame.

There were four of us.

Now we will become many, many more.

The coin was no bigger than a dime in my hands.

It was a dime, in fact.  Wispy clouds stretched over a cornflower blue sky as I stood at the center of the park, where the wishing fountain stood.  The trickling sound of water filled the air as I considered my wish.

I wish…

I wished I had straight hair.  I wished I could talk without stumbling.  I wished I smiled more.

I wish…

I flipped the coin over and over, so small in my fingers.  I’d had a hard time finding it on the way there, hiding in some lost corner of my purse.  It was the smallest coin, but not with the least value.

I wish…

I wished something exciting would happen.  I wished I wasn’t allergic to cats.  I wished I wasn’t so afraid.

I wish…

I sighed and looked at the coin, at the head of some guy whose name I should know.  I probably slept through that part in history class.

I wish…

I flicked my fingers, sending my coin through the air.  It went up until it looked like the sky would reach out and grab it.

Then with a flash of silver, it fell.

I watched it make hardly a splash in the clear fountain as it joined the other glittering coins.  So many wishes.  Everyone’s dreams and hopes, laying inside a fountain.  Gleaming in the water, resting together.

Doing nothing.

I hadn’t gone to the wishing fountain thinking a dime in the water would make things happen.  I went there to see the coins.  To see how many people dreamed, and wished, and hoped.  I went there to add myself to their crowd, to say I’m there too.

Hands in my pockets, I turned away from my coin.  A breeze picked up, playing with my hair as I walked home.  Some things I can’t change.  That’s okay.

But some things I can.

So I will.