Riding Light
Underworld Special Issue 2
Riding Light Fall 2015
The Riding Light Review
A sixteen-year-old boy once imagined riding on a beam of light, and his simple thought experiment played an important role that would later change the world—it ushered in the age of modern physics. This boy was Albert Einstein. Einstein’s use of imagination fueled his work in physics, which eventually lead to his famous 1905 papers on Special Relativity. Riding Light emerged out of a desire to push the boundaries of creativity through language, ideas, and story. We believe in the power of imagination, the fuel for our ideas and innovation. This notion inspired the name of our magazine.
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Masthead Editor in Chief Cyn C. Bermudez Associate Editor, Fiction and Nonfiction Melissa RaÊ Shofner Associate Editor, Fiction and Nonfiction Yvonne Morales Lau Associate Editor, Poetry Kara Donovan Sophie Eden Junior Copy Editor Readers Jamie Hoang Š 2015 The Riding Light Review ISSN 2334-251X This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission from individual authors or artists. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without permission of the author(s) or artist(s) is illegal.
www.ridinglight.org
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Contents EDITORIAL Art COVER ART & INTERIOR ART Rees Nielsen, Caitlin Crowley, Darren Lewis ARTIST SHOWCASE Sรถndra Rymer ARTIST SHOWCASE Denny E. Marshall Fiction THE BEAST Rachel Watts AS THE BUTTERFLY CHANGES ITS SPOTS Thomas Kleaton Poetry MY CROW Yuan Changming REFLECTIONS IN A BARREL Peycho Kanev
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EDITORIAL When I was fifteen, I had a friend who lived in a small apartment complex that she and her mother believed were haunted. My friend’s mother noted missing objects like keys and small trinkets and how a friend of friend had sensed a child’s spirit—a little girl. One night I stayed over, and while my friend and I were listening to the radio, we heard a little girl singing with a light voice, hollow and distant. We seemed to notice the singing independently, our heads snapping toward each other in unison. Without a word, we both looked over to her younger sister asleep on the floor: Her eyes closed, eyelids fluttering, her chest breathing heavily. We looked back at each other, quizzical but silent. Then we looked away, pretending to go back to what we were doing— painting fingernails and flipping through fashion magazines. We never spoke about it. Later that night, in the late hours before dawn, as we slept on her daybed, I felt a hand grab my arm, the one next to the wall. Scared, I covered my head with the blanket leaving only a small breathing hole near my nose. The next day, I left in the morning, and I never stayed over at my friend’s home again. I read an article once about the psychology of ghosts, how suggestibility and our mind’s tendency to connect things that are not necessarily connected as the reason for paranormal phenomena. What did I experience that day and night: An overactive imagination or a ghostly child?
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I am pleased to present Riding Light’s special Halloween mini issue. Our theme this year is the underworld, the place of fairies, demons, ghosts, and other creatures of night and shadow. We have two great stories by Rachel Watts and Thomas Kleaton, two poems by Yuan Changming and Peycho Kanev, and two artist showcases by SÜndra Rymer and Denny Marshall. We also have photography by Caitlin Crowley and Darren Lewis. I hope you enjoy this little Halloween treat. Happy Halloween and welcome to the Underworld.
Art by Denny Marshall
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ARTISTS Cover Art by Rees Nielsen Rees Nielsen and family farmed stone fruit and grapes for thirty-five years in California's San Joaquin Valley two miles southwest of Selma. In 2011, after losing his wife, Riina, he moved to Indianola, Iowa to live closer to his grandchildren, Marshall and Adelaide Taylor. He maintains an art web site with his son Nathan at thehowlingquail.com. His prose, poetry and visual art has appeared in many publications here and in the UK. Interior Art Caitlin Crowley is a film and darkroom photographer based out of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Caitlin works in black and white film, instant film, as well as adding mixed media to select pieces. Her work has recently been published in F-Stop Magazine, Gravel Magazine, and Corium Magazine. In addition to photography, Caitlin enjoys painting, running, and roller derby. Darren Lewis is a photographer from Manchester. He can be found at the back of a camera. @BuzzWirePhotog
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Spotlight: Conceptual Photography by Sรถndra Rymer Sรถndra Rymer, photographer, digital artist and CEO of Fairy Tales Imagery, Inc., is an internationally-featured creative visual artist. Sรถndra is available for book covers, children's picture books, magazine, blog, packaging art assignments, and custom child fairy tale portraits. After her two children were born, Sรถndra was inspired to revisit her love for fairy tales and fantasy stories. Her passion is creating whimsical, enchanted imagery that communicates the story and evokes a fantasy world. While she uses vivid color for most of her art, she occasionally explores darker or gothic fantasy stories, which she portrays in a more mature conceptual visualization. Both traditional fairy tales and present-day folklore and imagery from around the world infuse her work. Sรถndra creates stunning visual imagery from beloved fairy tales, unique and imaginative fantasy worlds from her imagination and personal made-up stories. Spotlight: Art Showcase by Denny Marshall Denny E. Marshall has had art, poetry, and fiction published, some recently. See more at www.dennymarshall.com
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THE BEAST Rachel Watts The door was wedged in between a bookshop and a petsupply store: unassuming, matte-black wood, with no signage. The anonymous doorbell was a single button, perfect for the pad of your thumb, set into a faded brass plate that was blackening at the edges. It was the kind of door you would walk by every day on your way to work and never think about, and Daisy was among hundreds who did just that. Each morning, she got off a bus around the corner and walked up the redbrick footpath, past the pet store, past the bookshop, and into the little café across the road from the pub. She spent her days making cappuccinos and pots of Earl Grey, and then in the late afternoon, she’d walk past the door again, oblivious to the dense blackness of its paint, the darkened keyhole, the slim strip of black-and-white tiles on the step. Although Daisy didn’t register the door, her presence hadn’t been overlooked. On the other side, down a hallway tiled in black and white, up a dark and narrow flight of stairs, in a room, a window overlooked the street. As Daisy walked through the early-morning chill, she was watched. Something beyond her senses stirred. A tail flicked and claws extended languidly. Daisy walked into the café, and a single narrow eye snapped open. *** Daisy knocked back the last of her coffee and hand-washed the mug. Putting it back on the shelf, she called a good-bye to Karen, counting the till, and let herself out the back into the alleyway behind the café. 9
Mr. Dawkins, one of the local drifters, was slumped in a plastic chair in the shade of the building, a torn baseball cap pulled over his eyes. Daisy’s gaze lingered as she looked for signs of movement. All she could see of his face was grey stubble. She watched as a fly, whirring around the pungent bags of coffee grounds and eggshells in the dumpster next to Mr. Dawkins, alighted on the man’s right hand. He made no move to shake it off; his hands stayed limp on his knees. “Mr. Dawkins?” Daisy approached. “Are you okay?” Another fly joined the first, now exploring the moist areas of his face underneath the shade of the gray baseball cap. Daisy leaned in to put a hand on his shoulder. Mr. Dawkins was a familiar malcontent, bitter but harmless. Still, who knew what the man would do if startled. Steeling herself, she gave his shoulder a firm squeeze. His hand shot up faster than Daisy would have thought possible and attached itself to hers in an iron grip. “Mind the beasty,” the old man growled under his hat. “Mr. Dawkins, do you need help?” Daisy said loudly, on the off chance Karen might pop her head out of the door. “Mind the beast, gal,” he repeated. Daisy tried to extricate her hand, but the old man’s grip was unbreakable. “Mr. Dawkins, should I call someone to . . .” The man’s head snapped up, and he fixed Daisy with a single blue, red-rimmed eye; his other eye remained closed against the afternoon light as if still deciding whether to wake up. “Go ahead, girl, call the authorities,” he said. “It won’t do you any good.” 10
His top lip pulled back, baring yellow, chipped teeth shaped like knives. Daisy’s eyes widened, causing the man to smile, revealing another row of teeth, sharp and pointy, behind the first. Ripping her hand back, Daisy fled through the café, hearing the scrape of denim on concrete behind her. “Karen!” Chairs stacked against the bar toppled as she ran blindly, one eye fixed on the passageway behind her, where a shambling step echoed off the stainless steel in the kitchen. Outside, a fleet of Harley Davidsons passed by, pulling up into a carport behind the pub, drowning out the noise of her scrambling and making the windowpanes shake. Keeping her eyes on the pass to the kitchen, her back to the wall, she crept along the cool plaster until her hand curled around the doorframe to the office. Without averting her gaze, she muttered Karen’s name, and when she didn’t get a response, she turned to see the office chair empty. Daisy began to panic. Keeping her eyes on the darkened café interior, she fumbled for the phone handset and punched in two zeros before a cold hand closed around her wrist. She screamed and dropped the phone. “What on earth has gotten into you?” Karen said. “Mr. Dawkins, did you see him?” Daisy gasped. “Out by the bins? No. There’s no one out there.” Karen walked deliberately to the bank of switches and turned on the café lights. The shadows in the room’s corners receded. “There’s no one here,” she said, gesturing with a sweep of her arm. 11
“There was someone,” Daisy protested. “Mr. Dawkins, but he was mean. His teeth . . .” Her voice faded as she realized how out of control she sounded. “It’s the time of year, love,” her manager said, flicking the lights back off and filling a glass of water from the tap. “The work and the heat get to you after a while.” She put the glass of water into Daisy’s shaking hands. “Stay inside tonight, eh?” she said. “Drink plenty of water.” *** Daisy stepped out and took a deep breath in the white heat of Old High Street. It was a week out from Christmas, and the final jacaranda blossoms of the season littered the gutters. The tinsel at the pub drooped in the heat as the last of the office Christmas parties drew to their messy conclusions. Daisy shook her head to clear it and started walking up the hill towards the bus stop at the corner. Mr. Dawkins was well known around town, an itinerant who wandered the streets and slept rough all summer. She saw the teeth behind his menacing smile and shivered. As the adrenalin leaked from her veins, the heat seemed to close in on her like a wet blanket. She put her hand on the tiles at the edge of the bookshop window, rested her forehead on their cool solidity, and closed her eyes. The air was faintly scented with frangipani, and the afternoon breeze launched into a quiet opening stanza, ruffling Daisy’s hair. Cooled and calmed, she opened her eyes, and for the first time noticed the black-and-white tiles on the step outside the black door. She had a sudden vision of a ballroom, art-deco tiles and chandeliers, feather-trimmed gowns sweeping the floor. She took a breath and exhaled slowly, letting her mind flood with the safe sophistication of a century ago. 12
Straightening, she glanced at the door gratefully and made her way up the hill to the bus stop with renewed energy. *** Upstairs, reptilian eyes watched her. Yellowed teeth gleamed in the half-light as Daisy retreated for the evening. *** Daisy walked into the café, flipping the sign to OPEN as she passed as she did every morning. “Why do you always forget to turn the sign,” she called through to the office. “Smartest business woman I know, and you forget to tell the world that we’re open.” She flicked on the coffee machine. “Lights would help too,” she said, turning them on. “Are you hungover or what?” Daisy popped her head into the office to see Karen sitting bolt upright at the desk. As she watched, her manager turned to face her, eyes unfocused, shaking hands gesturing towards the back door. “Karen, you alright?” Karen finally made eye contact, her eyes pinpricks in her pale face. Opening the back door, Daisy was struck by a swarm of flies. Beyond them was a stench, like a punch in the face, thick and rotten. She cupped a hand over her mouth and nose, forcing herself to find the source. There, in between the dumpster and the wall, was Mr. Dawkins. 13
He was still wearing his old shirt and his shorts were a dried red-mud color, his chest and torso opened to show shiny viscera below. Flies gorged themselves on his stomach. Gagging, Daisy averted her eyes to his face where the tendons nakedly held his jaw in place, his blue eyeballs visible to the bone. Gleaming a smoky yellow was a row of teeth, dangerous-looking crocodile points. Daisy fled, leaving the flies to their prize behind her. *** Down the street, in an upstairs room behind a black door, a nameless beast took shape. Having fed, it stretched its lithe form, extending clawed fingers. Humanity tasted complicated. Guilt and generosity, warm childhood memories, violence and cold indifference gave the flavor an unexpected depth. The creature crossed one slim leg over the other and surveyed the street from an armchair. Prey would cross its path soon enough. A forked tongue ran over a row of razorsharp teeth. Daisy flipped the sign to CLOSED, and the beast smiled, purring slightly, poised for the kill.
Rachel Watts is a freelance writer from Perth, Western Australia. She has worked in the print media for the past eleven years and writes at www.leatherboundpounds.com.
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MY CROW Yuan Changming as an ancient Chinese saying goes crows everywhere are equally black but this one in the backyard of my heart is as white as a summer cloud i have fed him with fog and frost until his feathers, his flesh his calls and even his spirit all turn into white like winter washed my crow’s wings will never melt even when flying close to the sun
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Yuan Changming, 8-time Pushcart nominee and author of five chapbooks, including Kinship (2015) and The Origin of Letters (2015), is the most widely published poetry author who speaks Chinese but writes English. Growing up in rural China, Yuan began to learn English at nineteen and published monographs on translation before moving to Canada. With a PhD in English, Yuan currently co-edits Poetry Pacific with Allen Qing Yuan in Vancouver and, since mid-2005, has had poetry appearing in 1,059 literary publications across 36 countries, including Best Canadian Poetry, BestNewPoemsOnline, and Threepenny Review.
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Söndra Rymer, photographer, digital artist and CEO of Fairy Tales Imagery, Inc., is an internationally-featured creative visual artist. Söndra is available for book covers, children's picture books, magazine, blog, packaging art assignments, and custom child fairy tale portraits.. “Once upon a time…” These four words have captivated conceptual photographer and digital artist Söndra Nell Rymer since she was a little girl. Söndra vividly remembers when she was six years old and her mother gave her fairy tale storybooks and corresponding cassette tapes that made the magical stories come alive with voices and music. She memorized every story and tape and spent hours pouring over the illustrations on each page. Söndra's most beloved fairy tale storybook was “The Little Mermaid” by Hans Christian Andersen, and it became a significant part of her childhood reading and imaginative play. Söndra spent her education participating in theater, art, and photography classes. Earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in photojournalism and theater from Texas A&M University, Söndra continued her love of the arts and imagery where she worked in various photography forms, including theater and people lifestyle feature stories. She managed the photography department for David C Cook Publishing for 14 years in which she engaged in the creative process for published curriculum and books including all aspects of photo shoots, from procuring costumes and props to hiring models and make-up stylists, writing contracts, licensing and legal permissions. After her two children were born, Söndra was inspired to revisit her love for fairy tales and fantasy stories. Her passion is creating whimsical, enchanted imagery that communicates the story and evokes a fantasy world. While she uses vivid color for most of her art, she occasionally explores darker or 24
gothic fantasy stories, which she portrays in a more mature conceptual visualization. Both traditional fairy tales and present-day folklore and imagery from around the world infuse her work. Sรถndra creates stunning visual imagery from beloved fairy tales, unique and imaginative fantasy worlds from her imagination and personal made-up stories.
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AS THE BUTTERVLY CHANGES ITS SPOTS Thomas Kleaton Aunt Beverly hated cats. Allie, thirteen, picked up the board game peeking at her from a grey Wal-Mart bag in her mother’s bedroom: a simple brown and white box, like her mother’s coffin, with Ouija written on it in large white lettering, one of the vintage ones from the seventies. Two months had passed since her mother’s death, and the game lay undisturbed on a pile of books Aunt Beverly failed to drag out for the garage sale, books with odd titles like In Cold Blood and Helter Skelter. Allie gave it a cursory glance, and then rambled down the hall to the bedroom she shared with her younger sister. Paige, seven, was under her bed again, playing hide and seek 26
like when they were younger. Allie smiled, remembering their mother standing over them, pretending they’d disappeared while they lie hidden, giggling, until their cat, Swoop, walked out from under the bed and curled up around mom’s leg. Swoop now circled Paige while she watched Adventure Time on her iTablet, pressing his orange and white fur into her shoulder. He was purring. “What’cha got?” Paige glanced up from Jake the Dog, curious. Allie smiled, showing many white teeth. “A Oijua board.” “What do you do with it?” “You contact ghosts with it, silly.” Allie looked sober, her blue eyes tranquil. “I was thinking about Mom.” Allie thought of the brown casket again: Brilliant crimson carnations set against green oregonia and salal adorned the lid. She’d withdrawn into herself at the funeral, rocking back and forth, her shoulders heaving. Faces had scuttled past, some showing concern, thinking Allie sat crying in the pew. She was whispering, almost chanting “three, two, one, ready or not here I come,” realizing she’d never play hide and seek with her mother again. The game was forfeited, Olly olly oxen free no longer applied. Mom had found the perfect hiding place, and Allie wouldn’t find her even if she stepped over to the casket and stared into her mother’s cold sapphire eyes. Allie shivered. She imagined approaching the open lid of the coffin. Allie was shorter in this vision, a pixie version of herself with reddish-orange bangs. She strained on tippy-toes to peek into the casket only instead of her mother it was Swoop asleep on its velvet lining. She saw the cat’s eyelids fly open, its forelegs poised to bat at her, claws open to strike… 27
The strains of Aunt Beverly’s favorite HGTV program, Fixer Upper, died out below as the TV went silent. Her keys jingled as she came tromping up the stairs. She stopped in the doorway, her face sullen with disapproval as her eyes followed the cat’s movements. Her lips trembled, and Allie wondered if she was thinking about Freida again. Freaky Freida, Allie had heard Aunt Beverly call her as a small child eavesdropping from the tiny crawl space behind the sofa. Freaky because of her odd habit of staring at her shoes and mumbling to herself. “I left some DiGiorno’s pizzas in the oven for you girls. I should be home no later than eleven o’clock.” Aunt Beverly turned once before starting back down. “And lock the deadbolt. This is Halloween night, after all. All kinds of creeps roaming around.” Allie stared at Aunt Beverly’s fingernails, which matched her black hair and lipstick. Aunt Beverly who’d reluctantly agreed to finish raising her and her little sister, but who seemed to care about nothing but the endless string of boyfriends like that creepy Norman she weaved into and out of her life. Colorful butterflies, amber, chartreuse, and magenta, fluttered over the odd symbol on her pink t-shirt, a star within a circle. Allie remembered her science teacher telling her spots altered a butterfly’s appearance and helped it avoid hungry predators. Predators. Allie pictured Blue jays swooping down on butterflies. She remembered creeping down the stairs after the funeral and overhearing Aunt Beverly and her Wiccan friend Moira whispering in the kitchen. Remembered Moira telling Aunt Beverly that sometimes people contacted angry ghosts. “And sometimes these mean ghosts find their way to our side,” 28
Moira had said. “That’s what happened to Gail. She opened a gate.” Allie watched through the bedroom window as her aunt backed the Nissan Altima into the street. She waited until the last fingers of sunlight settled beneath the thick pines, and then padded downstairs to the kitchen where the scent of pepperoni and melted cheese filled the air. She wondered what had swooped down on her mother. *** Allie flipped the light switch. It was chilly in their mother’s bedroom, the bare hardwood cold to their feet. Light rain was pattering off the window, running down in rivulets on the frosty glass. Lines and circles, ghostly remnants of a hurried scrub job, were etched onto the floor, the same symbol that adorned Aunt Beverly’s shirt. Their mother had been found lying here, dead of a heart attack, with the Ouija board tented open on her bosom like an unfinished book. “What is that?” Paige sat on the edge of their mother’s bed, gripping a slice of pizza and eyeing the faint markings on the floor while Swoop nibbled chunks of sausage from her fingertips. “A magic circle,” Allie said. “Some use it for protection, others to summon demons.” “Is a demon a ghost?” Paige stared, wide-eyed. “Like in Goosebumps?” “A scary ghost.” Allie’s eyes gleamed. “But we have to turn out the lights and use candles to see one.” Allie scurried out of the master bathroom a minute later, 29
carrying fat saffron candles and a box of kitchen matches. She lit two, one for each nightstand, and then placed five more on the magic circle, one at each point of the star. The fragrance of balsam and fresh cedar permeated the room. “Sit on the floor and balance the board on your knees.” Allie brought out the planchette, a heart-shaped slab of plastic with a clear circle in it, one of millions mass-produced by Parker Brothers. She and Paige placed their fingertips on it. Blackness hovered around them, the candles casting wavering shadows on the walls. “Hear us, oh spirits,” Allie spoke in a hushed tone. Her eyes darted to Paige. “Is there a presence here tonight?” The planchette moved, skating with ease over the smooth surface of the board. It halted over yes. Paige yelped. “Who is with us?” Allie and Paige felt the planchette shift, first to M then O, and finally, M again. Allie tensed, almost upsetting the board. “It’s Mommy.” Tears prickled Paige’s eyes. “Mommy!” Allie leaned over the board, knowing it couldn’t be her mother, her mother was dead. Her mother had died of a heart attack. Even the coroner had said so. She began to sob, her voice rising to a wail: “Are you really there, Mommy?” The response was immediate: Don’t cry, Lee Lee Love. Allie’s spine tingled. She gasped. No one had called her Lee Lee Love since she was four. She’d never mentioned the nickname to anyone, not even her little sister. 30
Cold. It was colder in the bedroom, as well. Paige hugged herself. “Why are you here, Mommy?” said Allie. The planchette whirled over the board. Love you. “Why can’t I see you, Mommy?” Paige scanned the room, picturing a ghostly Casper floating over the tops of the candles. The barrier. Can’t reach you. So cold. Must open the gate. And on the heels of that: Something after me. “Someone’s following you?” Allie stared out the windows at the shifting tree limbs. The planchette glided over the letters. Freida. “Who’s Freida?” said Paige. Allie recalled how their mother was two White Russians over her limit that night she started talking to thin air so many years ago, telling it she couldn’t stand the guilt anymore. Allie had peeked out from behind the couch and seen no one. Her mother prattled on, describing how she and Aunt Beverly were playing hide and seek with Freida, who lived farther up the road, how they had hidden in the woodshed, the ripe scent of cut hard maple in their noses. How Aunt Beverly had 31
giggled when the woodshed door creaked open. How Freida screamed when the cat Aunt Beverly was holding arced through the air and landed on her face, a hissing bundle of claws. Have to open the gate. Gates. Gates made of boards, like the ones that had covered the old well. Allie had listened from her crawl space as her mother explained that the boards were twisted and rotten, and Allie’s grandmother had been after her grandfather for months to replace them. Freida had stumbled backwards, the crack! of splintering pine accompanying her forty-foot drop into the abyss. Allie thought about decaying gates, weak enough to collapse if something pushed against them hard enough, something that wanted to get through… Allie now understood what had happened to their mother. Their mother who had lived with the guilt for too many years. Freida had gotten her. Another idea nagged at the back of Allie’s mind, one thought following on the heels of another. Fear massaged her heart with icy fingers. “Are we speaking to Freida?” She pictured a black panther sitting on a shelf in the bedroom like in the Geico commercial, watching them from the darkness. Swoop’s head swiveled upwards as if seeing a mouse scoot across the crown molding on the ceiling instead of running along the baseboards. Allie and Paige watched the 32
wind-up clock on the nightstand tick off four minutes in the candlelight. The planchette pivoted, spelling out words in sluggish, rhythmic tracks. Dangerous. Came to protect you. Love you. Letters came faster now, bumping into each other like boxcars. Not much time left. Open the gate. Tears blurred Allie’s vision. “I don’t understand.” Black letters, whizzing by like white highway lines, one after the other. Circle. The circle of life. Fading. Draw the circle… Swoop was stretched across Paige’s lap, kneading her leg with his claws. Allie stared at the pentagram as if peering down a deep well herself. Was she standing on the threshold to another dimension? Would she be letting something in, a mean ghost or a demon in the guise of a little dead girl? In the guise of her own mother? Allie made a decision. She rummaged through her Vera Bradley purse, coming up with a tube of Cover Girl Classic Red. Allie didn’t wear makeup, but felt comforted carrying her dead mother’s lipstick, feeling closer to her. She took the lipstick and traced over the blurred lines of the pentagram. The planchette began to move under their fingers again. 33
An hour later they heard Aunt Beverly pull into the driveway, headlights splashing across the wall. *** Rain pattered off the windows. Allie heard the front door slam, then Aunt Beverly’s footsteps, pausing outside the door. “Paige? Allie?” She stepped inside. Shadows from the candles mingled with the silhouettes of pecan limbs outside the window, driven by moonlight peeking through the clouds. The Ouija board lay on the hardwood like a marker at the head of a grave lit by flickering candlelight. Allie and Paige stood before it as if it were an altar, Swoop curled up in Paige’s arms. Aunt Beverly stepped back, scowling, when she noticed the fresh red outline of the circle. “Tell me what you girls were doing, and don’t lie to me.” The odor of Smirnoff vodka rolled off her tongue. She glanced around the room, her eyebrows furrowed. “We’ve been talking to Mommy,” said Allie. “Mommy’s come back to take us with her. She said we have to pass through the gate to reach her, but that something’s waiting to cross when it opens. Like two cars meeting halfway on a bridge.” Allie paused, then resumed. “Something she summoned.” Paige piped up. “Mommy says we’re going to play a different kind hide and seek. She said she has to change us to appear more dangerous if we’re noticed. Kinda the way some butterflies change their spots.” “Otherwise the thing would eat us up,” Allie said. 34
Aunt Beverly jerked her head when a pecan limb tapped on the window, blown by the strengthening wind. She glanced down at the Oiuja board, and then picked up the planchette. Her eyes widened as if she were musing over some tiny detail, something that had been forgotten. “Goodbye.” Aunt Beverly’s words were slurred. “Did you say goodbye?” “Huh?” “Did you girls tell the spirit goodbye while you were talking?” They all sensed it then, a thrumming deep within the foundation of the old house that progressed toward them, vibrating the stucco walls. The planchette twisted in Aunt Beverly’s hand, leaping onto the board of its own accord, twirling around in figure eights like an ice skater on a lake during the first freeze of the year. A new smell displaced the balsam and cedar. The pungent stench of flyblown roadkill. That was when Swoop began hissing, straining against Paige’s arms, its voice rising to a high yowling screech. The entire house was shaking now, the windows rattling in their panes. Aunt Beverly watched the little girls step onto the pentagram. “Goodbye, Aunt Beverly.” Allie and Paige mouthed the ironic words, their forms wavering like heat rising off blistering desert asphalt, shifting, dwindling toward transparency until they were no longer there. At the last fleeting second before they vanished she saw, or thought she saw, two figures with luminous jade eyes and pointy teeth, graceful feline shapes with flapping vulture wings silhouetted 35
against the lighter shadows on the wall. Aunt Beverly stood there, as if waiting at the bus stop, to see what would arrive. Thomas Kleaton is a freelance horror writer. He has had stories published in The Horror ’Zine, Dark Eclipse Magazine, and the anthologies Cellar Door: Words of Beauty, Tales of Terror, Serial Killers Tres Trias, Bones, The Horror Zine Magazine Summer 2014, The Riding Light Review Special Halloween Horror Issue #1, Spooky Halloween Drabbles 2014; Spooky Halloween Drabbles 2015, Speculative Valentine Drabbles 2015, and What Has Two Heads, Ten Eyes, and Terrifying Table Manners? He lives in the woods near Auburn University, AL, with his wife, Sheila.
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REFLECTIONS IN A BARREL Peycho Kanev The sky is gray like a drowned man in the morgue – ugly color. And the field is grotesque as if imagined by a small child, as if drawn with crayons. I love the humanity. But I hate myself. (Just a little bit) Which one does not believe in evolution? Raise your hand! The dolphins try to communicate with us and then they don’t. If you gut me with a rusty knife only words will spill on the ground, words tangled like intestines. My old lantern works only during the day, the colors I see are the true colors of this world, rich of memories. Sensing that all things are far away from me, as always, I head to the woods, that will echo not with my cries, but with all the words that I will not utter and I will drink drops of bloods for your sake, just to see you breathe again; a hint of horror sweeps the road as darkness advances and the dust grows quiet, afraid of what’s approaching. A star, shining in a puddle of mud, fills the moment the second - in this place where they ate all the clocks. 39
The roaring of time, pinched between my fingers, when in the distance the rooster fights back the last gasps of the night and my heart still tick-tocks to show that there’s still place for me, to move inside this web of words, connected with all the others, surrounding me right now as honor guards, whispering to each other, listening to my ragged breathing, with their blank faces looking up and their eyes reflect the grey color of the sky. Peycho Kanev is the author of four poetry collections and two chapbooks, published in USA and Bulgaria. He has won several European awards for his poetry and he’s nominated for the Pushcart Award and Best of the Net. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, such as: Poetry Quarterly, Evergreen Review, Hawaii Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Sheepshead Review, Off the Coast, The Adirondack Review, Two Thirds North, Sierra Nevada Review, The Cleveland Review, and others.
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Denny E. Marshall has had art, poetry, and fiction published, some recently. See more at www.dennymarshall.com
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Building Red: Mission Mars edited by Janet Cannon
October 13, 2015
janetcannoneditor.wix.com/buildingredant hology
Earth Witch A Winterhaven Mystery by Stella Jay Candle
2016
www.stellajaycandle.wordpress.com
Creatures
by Cyn Bermudez
2016 www.cynbermudez.zohosites.com
Riding Light (The Riding Light Review) is fiscally sponsored by Art without Limits. To make tax-deductible donations, please visit our website. Stay Connected Facebook: www.facebook.com/ridinglightreview Twitter: www.twitter.com/riding_light Website: www.ridinglight.org “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” – Albert Einstein
Contributions by Yuan Changming, Caitlin Crowley, Peycho Kanev, Thomas Kleaton, Darren Lewis, Denny Marshall, Sรถndra Rymer, Rachel Watts