"All of the monsters in my head were created by people who thought they could make me a porcelain doll marionette of their own design."

-Jennifer Megan Varnadore

Luck was on our side. We made the short trip from his house to mine without incident. We arrived shortly before mom did. Sweet gum burrs littered the ground between our houses. The leaves clung to the trees for their last few precious days of dear life. Some had fallen and become one with the pale, deadening grass. They were to be laid to rest in the colder months that would follow.

You know, I was hardly interested in him, but I was still nervous for him to meet my mom for some reason.

When we went inside, he sat the food down on the dining room table, then offered to help me set up but I declined. I suggested he have a seat in the adjoined livingroom while I performed the menial task, soothing in its normalcy. He let me set the table in silence.

I tried not to look at the weapon in its holster that I'd abandoned by the door. I tried not to let my mind wander to whether or not Will was really here. The sound of the door knob turning ripped me from that train of thought.

Perfect timing.

She was carrying a few grocery bags. She must have went to the grocery store in Spencer, a town twenty minutes from here. She paused in the front room to greet him, "Ah! Ye must be William then! Nice to meet you, lad."

Will stood up to help with the bags but he underestimated the stubbornness of Mary Ames. "Nay. I may be an old crone but I'm not yet feeble. I think I can manage carrying a few groceries all the way to the kitchen."

She set the timer on the toaster oven and put in some garlic bread to bake. "Would ye like some ale, son?" she called from the other room.

"Just a bit. I need to keep my wits about me." She poured him a stout glass of ale and motioned for us to take our places at the table.

While she was distracted, I swiped the dagger. She wouldn't be too fond of me having a weapon at the table but I was curious. Plus, it was better than feeling it stare at me from across the room the entire meal. I hid it on my lap under the table and ran my fingers over the leather of the holster, the hilt of the knife. The amulet grew warm on my neck and I knew these were mine. I felt it in my bones.

Mom brought out a bottle of pinot noir and poured me a glass. She made small talk with our neighbor for a bit but I couldn't bring myself to pay attention. My mind was haunted by the visions.

The timer dinged. She brought out the bread and set it down on the cast iron owl. The aroma of the dishes teased me while mom began her prayer. She then asked Will to say some words and what happened next actually shocked me more than anything else that happened that day—he prayed in Irish.

I let my flabbergasted flag fly. My mouth dropped open and I may have audibly gasped but I couldn't be too sure. The sound of outright shock was too loud in my head.

Once he finished, I brought voice to it, "And how is it that you just so happen to know the language of my heritage?" I asked suspiciously. I crossed my arms and tilted my chin up at him defiantly.

"Catriona!" My mother was aghast. "Where are your manners? Honestly, you could learn a thing or two from William here, that you could." I cast daggers at him for turning my mom against me. The audacity.

I gathered up some garlic bread and scooped a fat piece of lasagna onto my plate in brooding silence. They continued their small talk and I wondered why I even invited him in the first place. He was lucky his food was fucking delicious. "So, William, I heard your rich." I nearly choked.

"Mooom," I pleaded. She shushed me. I shoveled more pasta into my mouth.

She came right out with it, "So. Why are you single?" I'd need the heimlich maneuver before the night was out. Maybe I could pray to her god to smite me, though I doubted he'd answer the prayer of an atheist...maybe he'd make an exception just this once.

He actually blushed. Haha. At least I wasn't the only one suffering. "I've been waiting for the right girl to come along." He eyed me. Ew, gag me with a spork.

"Catriona," my mom chided. "Chew with your mouth closed." I pointedly took another sizable bite. Once she was done with me, she returned to his interrogation. "Well, what's stopping you? You have a fine, single young lady right here."

I nearly kicked her shin under the table. She should've considered herself lucky that all I did was yell, "Mom!" She made me feel like a teenager again living under her roof. I took a very large gulp of my wine.

Will had the nerve to look amused. "If the lady would have me, I'd be glad to share all of the riches the world has to offer."

"The lady in question is not some plump piggy up for auction at the state fair," I articulated coldly.

"No," his lip pulled up at the corner. "She's a woman with eyes that shoot daggers and a tongue just as sharp. I should be scared."

"But you're not?" Even after all he's witnessed? He should be sending me off to the asylum.

"It is only natural to feel fear," he started. By the way he looked at me, I felt like we were no longer speaking of his fear of courting me. "What separates the meek and the great is not fear. It is that the former cowers and the latter faces those fears with courage. You, Miss Ames, have me shaking in my boots. Yet, here at this table I sit." He took a swig of his pale ale.

His speech pleased mom and she soon had him back in the clutches of her dreadful small talk.

The world faded away and I was once more swept away in a world of illusion, lost in it. I was on my hands and knees, playing with building blocks at my dad's feet, but that was getting boring so I pulled myself up to where he was typing away on his typewriter and begged of him, "Story! Story!"

He sighed. "Can't you play with your blocks for a few more minutes?"

"No." I crossed my pudgy arms over my chest. "Story." I reached out my hands and gestured for him to pick me up. He caved like he always did. He placed me on his lap and began a story of Mara and Naomi. "You see, Mara did not mean for things to give how they did." He booped me on the nose, "No, no. She was very misunderstood. She was led astray by a man who would have done anything for the throne. He was not the next heir, you see.

"He may have been a prince but it was his brother, Cyrus, who was the crown prince. So, unless an ill-begotten fate overcame his elder brother, Svar would never be king.

"In the naivety of his youth, he thought he could have it all. He ensnared Mara with his poison tongue and turned her against the crown prince.

"He plotted for her to end the life of his one and only brother, his twin. He gave Mara a poison to give Cyrus. She was bewitched by the heinous man, so she had planned to poison the one true love of her oldest friend.

"Somehow, Naomi knew and she drank the poison in his stead. The maiden Naomi, formed of clay, drank deeply from the goblet. She died like clay maidens do, giving their form back to nature.

"She turned into a cherry blossom tree. They say each year on the anniversary of her death, she cries for her lost live and sheds petals of pink instead of tears."

Dad's face cracked, like he was made of porcelain. His eyes glassed over. The hand I was holding broke away. I screamed. He turned to dust.

I was no longer a child. I was a twenty-two year old sitting in a chair, alone save for the dusty remains of my father.

A laugh on the eerie breeze jolted my head up. A redhead girl, about nine, looked up at me expectantly, then walked down the hall. I scrambled after her. She was facing my room but she locked back at me, seeming to anticipate something. She crossed the threshold into the next room and I followed. The door slammed loudly behind me; my head whipped in that direction. When I turned back around, the little girl was gone.

I was alone, in an abandoned square. In the center of the cobblestone square was a tree. Not just any tree, a cherry blossom. Pink petals fell from her branches and, more disturbingly, blood oozed down her trunk. A blood-curdling, haunting scream wrenched me back to the land of the living.

It echoed through the house before it dissipated.

"You okay, love? You're quite pale. And you haven't finished your dinner." The sight of the bleeding tree kind of made me lose my appetite.

"I'm full," I lied. The red wine would be left untouched as well. Just looking at it made me feel sick. "May I be excused? I need to go wash up." I didn't wait for her to answer.

In my haste, I dropped the dagger. "What's that?" she asked. I bent down to grab it and gave her a lame excuse. "Oh, just for protection at the bar." I hurried away before she pointed out that I didn't work today. I slammed the bathroom door behind me.

A loud thump scared the fuck out of me. It was just Leona jumping on the counter. She purred and I pat her head. "That was straight up out of a horror film, Lee." I splashed cold water on my face, hoping to rid myself of waking nightmares. I just wanted my life to go back to normal.

When I went back out there, Will was pacing and my mom was cleaning up. "You okay? Do you want me to stay?" I shook my head. Everything from today had been embarrassing enough.

So, I told him no, though I secretly longed for him to stay. If only to be there when I stumbled out of my next nightmare.

He handed me a business card. It was made if a heavy white paper with "William Morgan" stamped above his email address. No website or anything. In the back, he had inked a phone number in elegant script.

"It's my cell. Call me if you need me," he said urgently. He added, "At any time."

"Thanks," I responded in a quiet voice.

"Also," he played with a band of hematite, spinning it around his finger nervously. "Would you mind if from now on I drive you to work? I couldn't forgive myself if anything happened while you were behind the wheel." He meant if I crashed taking a drive to Crazy Town.

Seeing as he was the only one privy to the knowledge of my increasingly loose grip on reality, I consented. "On one condition." He raised his eyebrow. "We take my stationwagon." He chuckled. "What? Your highness can't be seen in my best up POS?"

"No, that's not it. You just keep surprising me. That's all. Deal, I'll be here at 2:30 to get you for work." He reached for my hand and placed a kiss in my knuckles before I realized he knew my work schedule by heart. By then, I was watching his retreating figure fade into the shadows.

I tried my best to get to bed before mom was done with the dishes, since I was avoiding her and all after that fiasco of a dinner. I was afraid she would see the ghosts in my eyes.

I tucked the blade underneath my pillow, just in case, before falling into a blissfully dreamless sleep.

When I woke the next day (I would be lying if I said it was morning), Mom had already left for work. I sleepily put on a pot of Ahab's finest brew and went through my morning routine like a mindless zombie. Personally, I believed anyone who woke easily before noon had probably sold their soul and those who could function without coffee were surely aliens.

After my second cup, I threw on jeans and my work shirt and pulled my hair into a high side pony. I made the last minute decision to put on my holster and slide my knife into it. The door bell rang at precisely 2:30 P.M.

"One sec!" I called. I threw on my non-slip and was out the door. I locked up and begrudgingly tossed him my keys.

We got in and my engine roared to life. So did my tape. He raised his eyebrow at my music selection but said nothing.

It was a short drive to the bar. Come to think of it, it was a short drive to anywhere in that town.

Grandfield wasn't here yet so I opened. I poured Will a drink and he sat at the bar, watching me perform my opening duties.

At 3:00 P.M. upon opening, the bell dinged. A petite, dark-skinned woman with lilac dreadlocks walked in. She wore a tank top that revealed a black tribal sun tattooed on her shoulder. Over her jeans, she had a large hand canon holstered.

Will scowled at her, "What the hell are you doing here?"

She approached him and patted his cheek like he was a child, "I thought it was time to bring in the big guns," she sing-songed. Her copper skin glowed under the bar lights. He stood up. I assumed he did so to gain some height in an attempt to intimidate her. Men.

"You need to leave now, Seneca. You're violating orders by being here."

She leaned over the bar, her ample cleavage on display. "Do you want me to leave?"

"A pretty girl is always welcome in my bar," I shrugged.

"See?" She smirked at him and flipped her long dreads back behind one shoulder.

"Leave," he warned, his tone final.

"Ugh, you're no fun, Willy. Fine, but I'll be keeping an eye on things from the shadows, you know...so you don't fuck it up." Her tone implied that he had, indeed, fucked it up somewhere along the line.

"Be seeing you," she winked before exiting.

"Oookay," I commented. "Well, as fun as that was, I just realized I need to grab some beers from the back."

"Need help?"

"No, I got it." I slinked through the door leading to the back. I almost had a heart attack. There, perched on the chest freezer, was none other than the girl of my dreams. "Nana," I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hey, trouble," she threw back at me. Her long, pitch hair hung loosely from her shoulders. She wore a black cotton shirt that exposed her midriff; it had long, flowy sleeves. Upon standing, her daisy dukes revealed long legs leading down to her black ballet slippers. Those tiny feet hit the floor and we met each other in the middle.

Her soft beauty temporarily made me forget all the troubles leading up to this moment. She took my head in her hands and kissed me gently at first, then passionately enough to make my head spin.

Once I collected myself, the things I needed to say came rushing out, "Nana, you're in danger. Your sister intends to take you to her dungeon and..." I paused before I told her she dies there. Will had said people should not know too much about their future.

She was shocked upon hearing the news but she didn't press me to finish,

"Thanks for the warning." She looked down. "Actually, I was attacked recently."

"In your garden?" I asked.

She nodded. She seemed unsurprised that I knew.

I had so many questions, like "How are you here?" She pointed to the precious stone around my neck. "The amulet?"

She nodded. "Catriona. I need you to swear to me not to ever take that amulet off." I'd already been told that once.

"Anything you ask of me." I only just noticed, "Where are your wings?"

"A glamour. At least while I'm amongst humans. You can never be too careful."

"Am I human?" I blurted out, stunned at the very idea.

"Who are you back here talking to?" my boss interrupted.

I glared at him and gestured to Nana, but she was gone, leaving me waving my hands at the air. "No one," I sighed.

"I'm not paying you to stand around and talk to yourself," he grumbled. "Back to work!"

I dragged my feet all the way to the walk-in to grab the beers I needed up front. My shift dragged by. I kept hoping I would see her again but I didn't. It was depressing.

When I finally opened my car door at the end of my shift, I plopped down gladly. "Take me home, driver," I said dramatically.

"Very well, young miss," he played along. We decidedly rode in silence all the way back home.

He parked and, as I was getting out, I accidentally kicked a book on my floorboard. On the cover, there was one word: Mara.

I shoved it into my purse quickly, deciding to open it once I got to my room.

Will opened the door for me and I made excuses to retreat, claiming I was tired. When I was safely in my room, I retrieved the time from my bag. It looked ancient. Its pages were yellowed.

I felt confident that I was about to open a treasure trove of knowledge.

But when I opened it, "Well, fuck," the contents were in another language entirely.