by Fernando Medici
in Issue 125, June 2022
I stirred the infusion and savored its honeyed smell, my first connection to the sacred realm. I mean, the Hallow Tea had never unveiled its mysteries to me, but I couldn’t bring myself to quit it.
“Don’t waste your time with that poison, Laha,” Mother said. The flickering candle beside her straw bed added contrast to the wrinkles carved on her face. Everyone always said I look just like her but other than our mutual big nose and curly hair, I couldn’t see it.
“You’re calling the Hallow Tea poison?”
“Are you talking to the gods?”
“Not yet.”
“Well,” Mother said, “if you do, be sure to mention I’m hungry.”
“Alright.” I struck the quartz until the char cloth filled the oven with fire and sipped the tea as I waited for the water to boil. I had to fill her stomach before her rumblings managed to ruin the what little peace the Hallow Tea brought.
“I don’t know why you waste your time with that poison. It’s like your forgot what it did to your father.”
Oh, I’d never forget. Not only I was there when the crimsoness rotted his teeth away and his eyes became milky white, she also wouldn’t shut up about it. “Is that so?”
“Oh, yes. At first, it was just a few blemishes.” Mother was pulling her dress up, exposing the sagging skin and stretch marks on her stomach. Not again.
“What are you doing?” I hurried to pull down her dress just as my sense of touch went numb, which made the whole thing a little harder. Not harder, more annoying.
“It’s too hot, dear,” she said, flailing her arms like a toddler, except you’d never find a kid with so many purple veins popping among the fading colors of her skin.
“I know,” I said, even though it was winter, “but keep it on anyway, okay? For me?”
“Oh, dear, you shouldn’t be looking after me.” She caressed my hair in a way you could almost think she was one of the divine mothers of legend, nursing the First Folk with a golden womb. Almost. A divine mother wouldn’t have purple blemishes around her fingernails or on her skull. “A girl your age should be worried about finding a good husband.”
I drew a deep breath and shut my eyes, letting her voice sink into the background of my numb senses. There would ne no point in telling her I was a good dozen years too old for marriage, and that I’d rather wander the Whispering Forest than share a bed with man. I could almost see myself walking down the old road to the One Mountain, the cold breeze against my face, joining the priestesses in their rituals, their lives away from the villages…
The water fizzled, bringing me back to the present, where I had to throw the cobs in the pan. I took another sip, hoping the tea’s leafy and honeyed flavor allowed me to see a golden halo around the horizon or any other sign of the gods. If I saw them, no one would question me for taking the steps to the One Mountain.
“Why are you drinking that poison?” Mother said with a scowl on her carved face as if that was a simple question.
“It’s the only way to stand living with you, Mother. Gods know that’s how Dad did it.”
“You forestspawn,” she said, her breath somehow sourer than her tongue. Under the right light, her tooth gaps bared the soggy inside of her mouth, her blackened gums and a half chewed corn stuck between a couple of molars. “Your brothers would never say that.”
“Of course not, they’re never here to see you.”
“They have a family, you know?”
“Oh, and you’re what? A friend? An old acquaintance, maybe?”
She flared her nostrils. Her brown eyes popped out from their deep seated sockets, just above creased folds of purple skin.
I sighed. “Look, mom, I didn’t mean that. It’s just…” I took another sip. Why did I have to watch her rot? That woman used to care for four children while working as a seamstress and tending to the village fire, now she couldn’t even keep herself from soiling her clothes, as evidenced by the faint hint of shit in the air. Perhaps it was time the gods took her to their bosom.
“Why are you drinking that poison instead of making me lunch?” she said, not only avoiding the issue but also asking for lunch at night. That was our little game. She would pretend not to mind an issue, but her hands would curl together in her lap, nested tight as a pair of freezing swallows.
I was about to check on the cobs when I lost my breath for no apparent reason. My dull fingers trembled and the Tea spilled on the back of my hand as I tried to hold on to my mug. Other than that, I couldn’t move. Something stirred in my guts. Cold. Slimy. Freezing tendrils crawling through my insides, squeezing my lungs.
A gale burst our door open, carrying the scent of lilies into the room. A glowing blur zipped into the house, brighter than a bonfire. My eyes slowly adjusted to the blinding light and my heartbeat raced as I distinguished the shape of a bird.
Not any bird. A swallow radiating the teal glow of the divine.
I dropped the mug and on my own foot, hurting my toe. A swallow, the smell of lilies… Shaman Viru always told us to be on the lookout for the Pale Sparrow, the glowing bird that comes as herald, perching on those who are about to depart.
I caught a broom and wielded it like a club, but the damn creature was too fast, too small. All I did was smash a pot.
“What’s going on?” Mother said, sinking against the wall.
“I won’t let it take you.”
It landed on the oven. I swung at it a moment too late, hitting the pan and splashing boiling water on the floor.
“What has gotten into you, Laha?” Mother yelled. “Stop it!”
I managed to land a hit. The Pale Swallow dissolved into a dozen teal specks before reshaping itself into an unscathed bird.
My breaths burst in and out, the smell of lilies so strong I could taste it. The Swallow perched on my Mother’s left hand and my heart sunk. My shoulders collapsed.. That simple act settled her death sentence.
“M-Mother.” I dropped the broom on the floor, slouching, my limp arms hanging at my sides, my ribs so tight they almost snapped. I dragged my feet towards her and took both of her hard-skinned hands. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t…”
She yanked her hands from my grasp. “What in the Forest has possessed you, child?”
“You didn’t see it?”
“Look at that mess.” She gestured at the cobs strewn across the floor like bodies. “Boil the cobs before you waste perfectly good food.”
I stormed out of the house, kneeling on the cold grass and shaking under the drizzle. Rushed breathing parched up my throat and the back of my neck hurt. Every story about the Pale Sparrow ended with a corpse. Even the great Shuasha couldn’t save his loved ones from this fate and he was the one only who survived the Blue Serpent. There was nothing I could do to stop it, short of going to the Whispering Forest and seeking an audience with Death.
I chuckled alone, but there was no joy in it. After years of taking the Tea, years pleading, the sacred realm revealed itself to me, but it wasn’t the joyous, transcendent experience I’d been longing. Oh no.
“Laha,” Mother shouted, her voice jumbled, her eyes reflecting the dancing flames of the candles next to her. “What are you going? It’s freezing out there?”
I couldn’t let her die, not without trying to save her first, even if that meant going to the Whispering Forest at night. I ran between adobe houses, not even stopping to bow at the pilled slabs of the Ashen Totem. I soon reached the massive stone wall keeping the village from the nightmares prowling the Forest. I could only hope the nightwatcher was one of my friends.
He wasn’t. This night, Katoluk was on watch duty, his face smeared with yellow paint for protection. We were born under the same moon, but I didn’t know him that well.
“Laha?” Katoluk asked from above the wall,. My eyes quickly strayed from the folds of his chubby chin to the tip of his spear. Watchers carried obsidian weapons to ward off night horrors, but they could just as well pierce human skin. My skin. “What are you doing? This is no place to spend the night.”
“You seem to be doing fine,” I said as the sound of creaking wood sent a terrible chill down my spine.
“You’ve taken the Tea, haven’t you?”
“What?” I said, in spite of the honeyed aftertaste of the Hallow Tea still lingering in my mouth. “Of course not.”
“You’re not the first to come in the middle of the night, you know?” He grabbed the bell’s rope. If he rang it, he’d summon every watcher in town. They’d all be there in minutes, if not less. “But you have a mother, you know?”
Oh, really? I had to force myself not to answer him with the overflowing amount of irony of his remark deserved. I needed him to empathize with me, or rather, I didn’t have the time or the strength best him in a fight.
“The Pale Sparrow perched on her hand.” I caught myself letting the truth burst from my mouth like a bout of cough after you choke on your own saliva.
“By the golden cobs.” He rubbed his ear, lips pressed together in a slight grimace. “Look at me and tell me you’re not making this up.”
I stared into his small eyes, ignoring the chills running through my spine. “Please, I don’t have much time.”
“By golden cobs, woman. Anyone asks, it’s been years since we’ve last spoken, understand?”
“You’re a good man, Katoluk,” I said as I took the unsteady steps of the rope ladder he threw at me.
“Don’t make me regret this.”
I should have thanked him properly, but as soon as I set foot on the tall grass on the other side of the wall, the murky trees demanded my attention with the echoes of a dozen stories. My hurried steps snapped twigs and thrashed overhanging limbs across the path, but I forced myself to keep moving, to ignore rustled blades of some dark bushes that burned on my skin as I walked through them. The buzz of some insect made me wince. Oozing leaves stuck to my itching arms and legs. I held my stomach and tried my best to breathe the thick, acrid air, even if it came with a hint of animal scat.
I lost my bearings between trunks and ropy vines. How would I ever find my way in that maze of trees and bushes? How do you find a goddess? Something was crawling into my skin. At least I felt it. What was I thinking? How could I ever consider demanding something from Death?
“Laha?” My late father’s whispering voice came from behind me, but I wouldn’t dare to turn around. “How could you leave her?”
I was walking for either an hour or my whole life when a faint teal glow cast long shadows in my direction. I tottered toward the gleaming leaves and the reassuring sound of a creek. I reached a clearing in which the trees radiated a cool light. The air was crisp and easy to breathe, with no sign of drizzling. Colorful stars filled the sky, filling me with a river of peace and unity with the universe.
I’d come to the right place.
A slender figure towered over the tree line. The ground rocked as it took a single step. Feathers and leaves wrapped her feminine curves, only exposing sharp talons and a long beak beneath beady eyes. Only a goddess could be so majestic and frightening.
Mother Death marched toward me.
I bit my trembling lower lip and fought the urge to flee as the goddess extended a four-fingered hand at me. What did it mean? What was I supposed to do? I squinted and reached out for the blunt side of one of her talons.
“I’m here for you, child,” she said with a surprisingly sweet voice. A honeyed breeze swayed my hair and I opened my eyes as a swarm of golden fireflies circled her, leaving a glowing halo aound her head.
I fell to my knees, my face on the ground, eyes closed, heart thrumming against my ribcage.
Fingers enveloped my chin. Soft fingers of a human hand. “Raise your head, child.”
I did as commanded, finding a human-sized, middle-aged woman caressing my face, wearing a simple maguey cloth dress. Her smile brought wrinkles to her face and silver streaks crisscrossed her thick dark hair. It was the façade of a normal woman, except for the beady owl eyes peppered with glowing specks of night sky.
I caught myself averting my gaze. Merely to look at her felt wrong — some sort blasphemy or violation. It even took me a moment to gather the will to speak at her, “Please, Mother. It’s not my place to question you, but I’m not ready to lose her.”
“I don’t understand.” After a single motion of her hand, an invisible force pulled me by the shoulders and left me standing up in front of her. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
I turned my head to face her, fingers touching my parted lips. “What I wanted?”
“What you both did.”
“She’s my mother,” it was all I managed to say after an overstretched moment of silence.
“You have so many beautiful dreams… Mountain breeze, teas, and laughter.
She brushed the back of her fingers against my sweaty forehead and I found myself in another time, running away from home with tears in my eyes. The adobe houses of the village looked huge, at least for a child. I looked over my shoulders to see if Mother was coming, and I bumped into a tall lady in a red draped garment who smelled of honey and fresh leaves — a priestess.
“Where are you going, little girl?” There was a sense of peace about her voice I couldn’t quite understand. It was soft, not hushed or breaking, and it led my eyes to her luminous smile.
I was so lost in her gentle face, it took me a while to notice I’d spilled her tea and most of it drenched my frock’s sleeves. “I’m so sorry.”
She answered by offering me a hand. I took it and a cool breeze brushed my hair. We were both wearing red garments now, both adults, both collecting vines as we took the steps to the temple atop the Green Mountain. I looked back for a moment and the wide vista dwarfed the village where I once lived, with its small patch of roads and bricks against the never-ending canopies.
My fellow priestess laid her soft hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. “Do you miss it?”
“I don’t know.” I turned around but, instead of finding the priestess, I found myself facing the owl eyes of Mother Death.
“The hardest thing to miss is what could have been.”
I flushed and shut my eyes. A goddess had seen my dreams. And yet, I couldn’t let my pride keep me from saving Mother.
“She’s my mother.” There I was, saying it again.
”She’ll just be exploring different mountains.”
“It’s just… it’s not fair.”
“Fair? Is it fair that only you must throw away your dreams when your mother has had such a bountiful offspring?”
“My brothers… They have… families.”
“Are these your words or hers?” She extended a hand, but I flinched and shuffled back a step. “Do you fear me, child?”
I shook my head, pulling my hair. There would no convincing her, would it? Still, I had to try something. Anything. “Just give me a chance… Please.”
Mother Death laid her owl eyes on me. Deep black eyes dotted with countless stars, too big for their sockets, too big to stare at me. Like the night sky, they brought awe, but also that uncanny feeling the dark abode sometimes bring, that sense of enormity that crushes you with a sense of your own smallness. In its boundless darkness, I could only find the forgotten corner of my soul where I shoved teas and priestess, where Mother suffered a dozen deaths with and without a sparrow pecking the loose skin of her bony hand.
“Once the Sparrow perches,” Mother death said, and her voice betrayed a vestige of fear no goddess should have, “Even I can’t stop it.”
“There has to be something I can do.”
She rubbed a fist against her chest, tears coating her massive eyes. “There might be, but…”
I grabbed her hand before she could unveil whatever horrors the last words of her sentence would bring. “I’ll do anything.”
She shut her eyes, concealing its stars and revealing a surprising amount of wrinkles in a way that would make her look human if her exasperated gasp didn’t smell of honey. “You may take the Veiled Road and try to stop the Pale Sparrow before he fetches her.”
My only answer was a smile that lasted a brief moment before the unknown consequences of taking the Veiled Road came shattering any sense of achievement I might have had for convincing her.
“That is no cause for celebration,” she said, peeling open her eyes and bring back the stars. “The Veiled Road shows no kindness. It has no mind, not like you or me anywaqy. It will seep into your mind and ooze whatever you try to hide from it.”
“I must…” My rolling stomach kept me from finishing that sentence, from speaking anything else.
She gestured to the side, prompting a swarm of fireflies to form a golden gate between a couple of palm trees. I approached its threshold with hesitant steps and tingling hands, barely able to breathe.
“One last advice,” she said. “Don’t stray for the path or you’ll never come back home.”
I shot a hesitant glance at Mother Death and she nodded. I drew a deep breath and moved my feverish body through the door. Glass lamps with teal glowing specks showed me the way through the darkness.
The sound of footsteps startled me. Someone was behind me. I turned around to a woman with a big nose and curly hair, the same freckled face I found anytime I gazed into a reflection, except with pale skin and milky gray eyes.
“So, the old saying is true.” Pale-me sneered. “Sickness and death do turn vipers into saints.”
Shaking, I swallowed a scream and my eyes strayed from that pale version of my face. I planted my feet on the ground to keep me bolting into the woods. The hairs on the back of neck rose. The once honey after taste of Hallow Tea now had grown sour, a tangy memory left in my dry mouth. I forced myself to turn around again, to keep moving and reach the Sparrow before it decided to collect Mother’s soul.
“I suppose you’ve learned to enjoy these awkward silences…” Pale-me said, her voice simultaneously familiar and alien. I didn’t sound like that, did I?
The chills came back. My guts twisted and plummeted, leaving the burning taste of bile in my mouth. I had to catch my breath. I inhaled. I took a few steps forward. I had to breathe again.
“How great were our brothers, though?” Pale me said. “Oh, they sure know how to make her proud. Can you imagine?”
Yes, nothing I did seemed good enough for Mother, but that didn’t matter. I had to press forward, even if the trunks and bush clamps seemed to close in on the path.
Pale-me scoffed. “Then, she began to wet herself and we didn’t have the decency to laugh at her face.”
Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, it was all I could think, the ever-repeating song in my head. I had to press on and not heed her any mind. Speaking with her would only make her stronger. Besides, I knew the truth — I’d never do that to Mother. She was after all, my mother.
Pale-me guffawed. “Sure. What kind of person humiliates her own family, right?” Could she be answering my thoughts?
I stopped walking and clasped my hands. There was no point in engaging her, in saying anything.
“Don’t you wonder — sometimes — what would it feel like to have to have your fingers wrapped around her neck?”
“Of course not,” I tried to say, but my voice was trapped in my throat. I found my own fingers furled as if strangling an invisible person. I shook my hands, as if a centipede was crawling on it, except there was no bug, only this weird tingling.
“At this point,” Pale-me whispered, “it would even be the charitable thing to do.”
The only sensible action would be to keep moving and ignore her. Keep moving. Ignore her. That’s not what I did. I turned around, ready to shout at her that Mother brought me into this world and took care of me when I was a child, that my brothers had families, but these words never left my mouth, leaving me in silence as I faced that thing.
A smile crept into her gray mouth, bringing shadows to the dimple we shared. “Why do you think the Sparrow came for her?”
“Hmm… I don’t know. I guess err… You know. She’s…”
“What? Old? Sick? Decrepit?”
“Not the words I’d use …”
Pale-me stared into my eyes. “Do you really think it’s a coincidence that the Pale Sparrow showed up right after you took the Tea?”
“What are you trying to imply?” I yelled. I’d longed for a life in the mountains as I took the Tea. No, I had my problems with her, but I could never… No, of course not. My back and lungs ached and I lost my breath. Could I have brought the Pale Sparrow into my home?
I choked a retch as tears welled up in my eyes. The world spun around me and I fell on my ass. I gasped, trying to draw enough breath to vomit the scorching bile in my throat. My head was throbbing when I finally spilled it out.
“Even if this is my fault,” I said between gasps of breath that didn’t seem to fill my lungs, only bring the acrid stench of whatever I had left in my stomach. I forced myself to stand, to take another step, to resume the way. “Especially if this is my fault, I’ve gotta do something.”
“Isn’t my little girl great?” I heard Mother’s voice behind me. “She’s fighting for a chance to disappoint me for a little longer.”
I turned around and Mother was where Pale-Me was standing a moment before, her dry, cracked skin but a mask holding her skull together, with wisps of white hair hanging from her spotted scalp.
“This isn’t real,” I whispered, but… she looked so tiny with her mouth bowed forward, so frail with dark circles enclosing her hollowed-out eyes , so… real.
“Does my appearance bother you, child?” She took a step forward and I dragged myself backward. “No, of course not. You take good care of me, don’t you?”
I tore my gaze away, trying to breathe. My feet and knees sank onto the muddy soil as centipedes and beetles crawled on my legs. The taste of the Tea lingered on my tongue, now mixed with hot bile, bitter and burning.
“I’m sorry, mother.” I hugged her bony legs, two bean pods about to snap. “I’ve tried so hard to stop him but I… I…”
“That’s okay.” Mother brushed my hair with cold fingers. “You’re not like your brothers.”
I looked up and reached out to her skeletal face. “This is really happening, isn’t it?”
“Dreams come true,” her voice changed as she said those words, growing grave and hollow. A dark coat of rot spread through her skin and black oil covered the white of her eyes. “Even dark ones.”
The lights around her faded and I sank even more. The mud grew thicker, clinging to my skin and sending an acrid, ferrous smell into my nostrils. By the golden cobs, I was in a pool of blood.
“The gods cannot hear you anymore,” her voice boomed louder than thunder. “These trees lie beyond their reach. Not even Mother Death can tread this path. Countless souls nurture this soil and they long for your company.”
I thrashed cold hands as grabbed my ankles, the blood already on my neck. “No, no.”
“How is it different from what you’ve been living?” In the darkness, her face grew a beak among a mesh of purple veins and warts. Whoever was standing next to me wasn’t my Mother.
Among my rasping breathes, I caught a scent of lily among the acrid tang of blood. How could this be possible? The Pale Sparrow was standing before me.
“I just want to do right by her”
“Do right?” The Sparrow grabbed me by the neck and yanked me off the blood with a single pull, its golden eyes glowing. “Mother Death is owed a life and you’ve never had the means to pay her. Isn’t it fair to give her the only life you ever truly nurtured?”
“It’s not,” I struggled to say. “I can see that now.”
“She has consumed and drowned you. Why do you fight for her?”
“She is who she is. I’m the one who should have moved forward. I let myself sink and I have only myself to blame.”
“It doesn’t matter.” The sparrow dropped me and I fell on solid soil. “Mother Death is still owed a life.”
“So, let me pay her.”
“Your life is not enough.”
“Not yet.”
The sparrow scoffed. “You’re not counting on your brothers, are you?”
“This is not about them, this about tea and mountain air.”
The sparrow nodded. “You know what happens if you fail.”
I stumbled to get up and faced him. “I do.”
I limped my way toward the end of the path. The sun rose and I just followed its light. It took me a while but I reached the stonewall around the village.
The day watcher rang the bell, yelling and cursing as if I was a Forest Spawn, eyes wide and hands trembling as he pointed the pointy end of his obsidian spear at me.
“Stay back,” old man Toruabo shouted as he arrived to the wall, along with a dozen younger watchers. Despite the wrinkles and blemishes on his face, the Watch Elder still held his obsidian spear with steady fierceness. “Stay back, forest spawn.”
I laughed at his words. Covered in mud and leaves, bleeding here and there, I probably looked the part of some forgotten horror from deep within the Forest. I rubbed my face, scraping a thick layer of dry mud with my fingernails. “Is that any way to treat a fellow tribeswoman?”
“Laha?” Toruabo frowned, his eyes losing their wild edge. “Is that you?”
I chuckled as I struggled to climb the rope stairs he threw at me, my exhausted bones stiff.
“Look how red your eyes are,” he said in that grandfatherly kind of way that made everyone respect him. “You took the Tea, didn’t you?”
I couldn’t help but snicker. Taking the Hallow Tea wouldn’t begin to explain what I’d been through. How do you tell someone you spent with Mother Death and the Pale Sparrow without sounding insane? They’d would just assume that was the Tea speaking. How could they not? They didn’t touch Mother Death’s soft hand or gazed upon the stars in her eyes, they didn’t smell the Sparrow’s lilies. They were just seeing a mud-covered woman coming from the Forest and cackling for no reason. Oh, and she happened to be the daughter of a man who famously perished to the Tea.
“I didn’t expect this from you,” he said. “You’ve got a mother to care for.”
“Yeah, we do.” I chuckled.
Toruabo and his men moved out of the way as I took the steps to leave the wall. Maybe the weight of their eyes could have burdened me before. Not anymore.
I came back home and peeked out the door. Mother was hugging a blanket as she slept, breathing slowly, spittle pooling in the deep wrinkle between her cracked lips and her cheeks. I lurched toward her and she didn’t wake up. I reached out for her gray hair but I held myself. Would she miss me? Would she even notice I was gone? Maybe, but I had done my part, hadn’t I?
Before I could say goodbye to her, I had to pay my eldest brother Yontelu a visit. He was weaving alpaca wool with a backstrap loom under a tree, whistling an old song of worship for the Lady of Yarns. He’d gain a few extra gray streaks in his hair and beard, not to mention the lines under his eyes. Maybe it was because he just had twins after three other, maybe it was just time doing its thing.
“Laha?” he widened his already big eyes. “Are you okay? Is mom okay?”
I stared at him for a moment. For years I had smothered shouts with smiles and pleasantries, which may be painful, but it’s also comfortable, so it took me a while to do anything. “I’ve come to say goodbye.”
“Alright.” He sighed as he took a few steps toward me. As always, he carried himself with the kind of sneer that makes a man’s face more punchable. “When did you drink it?”
“You think I’m here because of the Tea?”
“By the cobs, don’t you remember what it did to Father?”
“I’ve seen them, Yon. They’ve chosen me.”
“Sure.” He clutched my shoulders, though clearly disgusted by the mud caking my clothes and skin. “Why don’t you wait here while I grab you something to eat, maybe a bowl of water for you to clean yourself?”
“You don’t understand, do you?” I said as I took his hands from my shoulders, leaving chunks of dried mud on his wrists. “This is the last time we’re ever seeing each other. I’m going to the mountain.”
He scoffed. “Aren’t you a little old for that?”
I stared right into his condescending eyes. “I’m a woman, not an avocado. I don’t get overripe.”
“What about Mom?”
I smirked. “I’m leaving her in good hands.”
“I’ve got a family.”
I turned my back on him. “Exactly.”
He pulled me by the arm so hard it felt like it was going to snap. “She’s your responsibility.”
“No, she’s our Mother and I’ve certainly done my share.” I yanked my arm from his grasp. We exchanged glares, but the fire in his flinty eyes was but a candle next to pyres I’d seen. “Goodbye, brother.”
I tottered away from him. Walking made my leaden legs ache and my eyelids weighted more than a boulder, but the prospect of staying with him and sharing old lies hurt more.
“Come back, you cursed addict,” he yelled but his words couldn’t reach the divine path I now treaded. “I won’t be making apologies to the elders in your stead again.”
My heart raced and I let out a bittersweet smile for I no longer needed the Hallow Tea. I was in debt and I could only pay it with mountain air.
©June 2022, Fernando Medici
Fernando Medici’s work has been published by Gypsum Sound Tales. Two of his stories, including this one, have received honorable mentions in The Writers of the Future Contest. This is his first appearance in Swords & Sorcery.