Author: CJ René

Ending: Day 7 of the Story A Day Challenge

~ CJ René ~ 1 Comment

Today’s prompt by Becca Puglisi was to write a story that ended with the line: “I clicked off the safety, swearing that if she showed her face today, my room would be the last one she ever entered.” (I made some slight edits to the line.)

Content warning: trafficking (labor), violence, misogynistic slur
—————–
I race home. Running past the houses, proud but in need of care. The sun hitting the back of my neck and threatening to burn or further brown the skin there. I’d left my hat at home, again. Just a few more colorful homes and then there is my door.

Continue reading →

Old Friends: Day 6 of the Story A Day Challenge

~ CJ René ~ 3 Comments

Today’s prompt from Elizabeth S. Craig was to write a story about an old friend needing to stay and what talking about old memories would affect main character. And all of this to written in an hour!

Jackie swiped the fob over the sensor and heard the door unlock. She checked her mail: junk, junk, junk, magazine she needed to cancel, and knitting catalogue to remind her of all those unfinished projects sucking up dust next to the television. She tossed it all in the trash, and then reached back in to grab the magazine. Might as well add it to the stack of the unread.

Up the front steps and around the corner, she flipped her key set and grabbed her apartment key with her teeth. She adjusted everything in her arms so she could actually get into her place.

“Hey, Jax.”

“Shit!” Of course, everything fell and scattered across the hall; her life was a slapstick comedy.

“Sorry, sorry. Let me help.” The woman started to pick up the papers closest to her. Making as neat a pile in her hands as she could.

“Prissy?”

“I go by Cilla now. But yeah. How are you?”

“What, what are you doing here?”

“I’m not gonna bullshit you. I need a place to crash. My whole … situation fell apart (I don’t want to talk about it), and I just need a couch for a couple of days to figure something out.”

“But how…”

“I called your mom. Well, actually, my mom called your mom. So I’m here. I won’t be in your way, just need a roof over my head.” Cilla – the name did not yet go with the face – had finished picking up her mess and was looking expectantly at Jackie.

“Yeah, yeah.” She fumbled with the lock but eventually got the door open. “Come in. You hungry? I was just going to order a pizza. There is a great little place that delivers a few blocks away.”

“Sounds good, except I don’t have any money at the moment, so I’ll need to throw it on my credit card.”

“No, no. My treat. Don’t worry.”

“I don’t feel good about that.”

“I was going to order it anyway, so just … it’s fine. Let me buy you dinner.”

“Okay.” Cilla paused. “You got a nice place here.”

“Thanks. I’ve been here for seven years I think, so collected some stuff and slowly, you know, put it together. Sit.” Jackie gestured to the couch. They sat there. Jackie looking at Cilla. Cilla looking everywhere but Jackie. Jackie turning to look out the window onto the fire escape. “Can I ask what happened?”

“Um, we aren’t really friends like that anymore, so I’d rather not talk about it.” Jackie was hurt. They’d been inseparable in high school, and now she was good enough to ask for a place to crash but not good enough to lend an ear. Prissy always told her everything. “Let’s talk about happier times, when I wasn’t begging for places to stay and waiting for my mom to wire me cash.”

“Okay. What’s a happier time?”

“Well, since it’s us here, how about that time we snuck out and destroyed Jason’s yard for him calling you a bitch.” Jackie laughed.

“I was a bitch though!”

“Yeah, but he said it like it was a bad thing!” They both giggled. “I think his parents are still find plastic forks in their yard.” The giggles had become cackles. “He deserved every single one.”

“Definitely.” She remembered that feeling of being two against the world. Prissy couldn’t stand that Jason made Jax cry.

“Remember how everyone always thought we were together; that we were hiding it? They thought they had discovered some big” she opened her eyes wide on the word “secret and kept trying to get us to admit it.”

“Did you keep count of the number of times they dared us to kiss?”

“I didn’t have to! That was your job.” She laughed again. “How many was it?”

“I have no idea anymore. A lot, definitely.”

“It would have been more if someone in this room hadn’t started asking for truth.” Jackie’s jaw tightened just a little bit.

“Yeah, well, the kissing got to be … uncomfortable for me.” Her heartrate stepped it up; she had just opened a door to questions she never thought she would have to answer.

“Uncomfortable how? I thought it got way easier every time someone said it. It was so expected.” Cilla knew. There was no way she didn’t know.

“I noticed you got more flippant about it.”

“And you got more … Oh. … Well, this is uncomfortable.”

“Luckily I haven’t yet ordered the pizza, so I am going to do that and when I get back, we can talk about something completely different please.” Cilla sat there, thinking, while Jackie ordered a pie. “They say they’ll be here in 45, but it’s probably going to be like an hour, hour 15. I hope that’s okay.”

“Jax -”

“Actually, it’s Jackie, now.” She nervously laughed. She didn’t know what was on the other end of her name.

“Jackie,” Cilla was nearly whispering and staring at her hands, “is that why you left?” She met Jackie’s gaze, and she was suddenly 16 again and they were Prissy and Jax, having one of their deep conversations about life and everything good and bad and complicated and wonderful and terrifying.

“I left for a lot of reasons. That just made it clear that I had to leave. It flipped a switch in my brain and it wasn’t a game anymore. You don’t just tell your best friend who clearly isn’t into it that you are in love with or whatever it was. you hardly admit to yourself that is what it was.”

“Because of me.”

“No, because I was suffocating there. I was … I couldn’t be me there. You were like the only person I felt like … You didn’t have expectations of me, but that … that was just a toxic subject. It wasn’t you. I … You were great. I just had to get out.”

“I wish you would have told me. It would have been fine. I wouldn’t have let anyone do anything to you. You could have stayed. I wish you would have stayed. I think my life would have been better if you had stayed. You made me … I don’t know … stable.”

“I was only stable because I so conscious of being stable, of being. I was just trying to survive long enough to get out. Leaving wasn’t easy, and it didn’t solve anything. Leaving wasn’t the answer I was looking for”

“Why not?”

Jackie laughed. “I don’t think we are those friends anymore, Cilla.”

“Maybe someday we’ll get back there. And I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

“You’d have to stick around more than a couple of days.”

“Girl, as it stands right now, I’ve got nothing to give but time.”

Shame: Day 5 of the Story A Day Challenge

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Today’s prompt by Angela Ackerman is shame. Although the prompt focused on an action that makes the character feel shame, but I’ve always associated shame less with a single action and more as a collection of actions or thoughts (internal or external) that create the feeling.

 

He was the good son. He was not supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be successful and settle down and have a family and be the kid his parents talked about first when people asked how their kids were doing.

Hiding gave him an ulcer. He feared being found out and losing the most important people in his life. He feared not being found out, and the most important people in his life never truly knowing him.

His cure for fear was found at the bottom of a bottle, and when that didn’t do enough, in varying kinds of illicit substances. Anything to dull reality’s sharp edges. The self-medicating took a toll. He’d been fired, twice. His savings dried up. His plans and dreams and hopes withered.

The “I’ll tell them when it’s time” finally confronted him as a lie. He sat at his favorite barstool in his favorite bar, downing drink number four. His pain washed away after four drinks, and his instincts focused only on getting more drinks. A friend offered him some white pill procured with puppy dog eyes, a sad story, and a willing doctor. It went down easy with the rest of the gin and tonic.

He went to take a leak and woke up in the hospital. Bandages over veins where blood had been taken and a diaper where his underwear should have been. Brain still fuzzy, he had no idea what was going on. How had he gotten here?

A nurse came in, checked him over silently, and then said he could get dressed and go home. His confused look made her point to his pile of clothes on the chair next to him. “Don’t drink so much. You are wasting our time.” Her Irish accent scolding him about alcohol would have made him laugh if he wasn’t so close to tears.

The ride home was awful. He wanted to throw up the entire half hour but made it home and to the bathroom just in time. He crawled into bed and sobbed himself to sleep in the pillow. He couldn’t do this anymore.

The next morning, he barely ate, staring at his phone. He pushed aside the planning part of his brain and jumped in head first.

“Mom? Is Dad there? I need to talk to both of you.” He was already crying.

“Jake, is everything okay? Dad’s coming. Are you alright? What’s wrong? What happened?”

“I… Please don’t hate me. I have to tell you something, and I’m so scared.”

“We’re here. It’s okay. What is it?”

“…” He took a breath to calm himself down just enough. “I’m gay.”

The line was so silent he checked to make sure they were still connected. He couldn’t handle the silence and just cried over and over and over into the phone “Please don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me.”

“We don’t hate you, son.”

“We could never hate you. We’re just … sad.”

“But it’ll be okay. We love you.”

“Are you seeing someone?”

“No. I just have … I needed you to know. I’ve been running for so long, it’ll kill me to keep running. Please, just please don’t hate me. I know so many people that have lost their families. Please don’t make me lose you.”

“No. No no no never. Never, son. Look, we’re going to look for flights and come up there. Okay? We can talk and figure this all out together. Okay?”

“Okay. Yes.”

“I love you.”

“We both love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“We’ll call you when we have our flight details.”

“Okay.” His last word sobbed out, fear and shame bubbling up and out of his body. He thought about his friends with good coming out stories and flipped through his contacts.

“Hello?”

“Lace, I just came out to my parents, and they are coming to visit and I think it’s going to be okay but I really can’t be alone right now.” He raced out the words, just beating a new wave of tears.

“I’m coming over. It’s gonna be okay. You did it! Jake, you… I am so proud of you. I will be there in like 15 minutes.” He could hear her smile through the phone and allowed himself his own as he hung up. Tension he had gotten so used to suddenly left him, and he sprawled out on the couch, exhausted but suddenly somehow happy.

Passions and Obsessions: Day 4 of the Story A Day Challenge

~ CJ René ~ 4 Comments

Today’s prompt by Heidi Durrow is passions and obsessions. I decided to write a story about being the object of such feelings. Content warning: stalking.

 

 

“CAN I GET YOU A BEER?” The pictures on the walls pulsed to the beat. He looked automatically to his hands and then back at her. Bright eyes, kind smile, full lips. Something in him stirred. No, shifted. No, lurched. This girl was hot.

“SURE! THEN MAYBE YOU CAN GET ME A DATE?” He winked at her. She laughed and turned to get the beer out of the fridge. As she cracked it one handed in his direction, he slid his fingers around her wrist and leaned into her ear. “I’m not kidding. Wanna go out sometime?”

“Oh, honey. You are not my type, and anyway, I never commit to dates when I’m drunk. Hell, I never commit to anything when I’m drunk. I want good times with the fewest regrets possible.” She winked at him.

“OKAY.” He leaned back and let go of her wrist. “HOW ABOUT A DANCE THEN?”

“THAT I CAN DO. BOTTOMS UP!” She cracked her beer and started chugging, eyebrowing him to join. He raced the best he could, but she was done like there was nothing between the lip of the beer and her stomach. He watched her lick her lips, and they were off to the living room as some pop punk 90s song faded in.

#

The caffeine headache was just now subsiding, two strong cups of coffee in. She really needed to work on moderating this addiction. Her index finger pushed her glasses back to the bridge of her nose. This paper was taking way longer than she anticipated.

“What are you working on?” Someone slid into the seat next hers.

She jumped. “Oh my god.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you; I just, you know, saw you here and wanted to say hi.”

“Sorry, who are you?”

“Dan. We met at the party last week? You gave me a beer and a dance, but no date.”

“Oh. Right. You come here?”

“Um. Yeah. Sometimes.”

“Right. I come here when I need to do work, because no one from campus comes here ever. Well, I guess not ever.” She turned back to her computer.

“Can I buy you lunch?” She stared at him. “It’s almost noon.”

“No, actually I’m fine. I just need to finish this.” As an afterthought, “Thank you though.”

He didn’t move. She typed out a painful paragraph.

“Look. Dan?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry to be a bitch, but you need to sit somewhere else. I have to work now.”

“Oh yeah, sure. What are you writing on? Maybe I can help you? We-”

“Just let me work, please. You’re a nice guy and all, but I have to be alone to do work.”

“Yeah, okay” He got up and internally kicked himself for missing a class for this.

#

The two women sat down with their martinis, celebrating the end of midterms. They caught up on stresses and dates and plans and all those little things the friends had missed for the past two weeks.

“Angie is going out of town the weekend of April 15th. Wanna come over and have a good ole fashioned slumber party? I’ll provide the cookie dough and liquor. You bring the crappy movies and down pillows.”

“The 15th?” Her friend unlocked her phone and checked her calendar. “Ugh. I’m going to have to be a maybe. I’ll have a draft of my final paper due the week after, so if I’m good and get it done ahead of time, like I always plan, I’m there. Refill?” She pointed to her empty glass.

“Definitely. Tell ’em to make it filthy.”

The women just finished checking their phones when the drinks arrived and were met with approval.

“Do you know that guy, Dan?”

“Yeah, he was in freshman lit with me, I think. Seems sweet, but not your cup of tea, I’d imagine.”

“Yeah, not exactly. I met him at that Pike party at the start of the semester, and now he’s like everywhere. It’s weird.”

“You know how it is. You never notice someone until you meet them, and then suddenly you notice them and it seems like they are everywhere.”

“Yeah, I guess. He just creeps me out. Like sits next to me rather than across from me when he sees me. And he’s always asking me out. I don’t even know how many times I’ve said no. He like brought me flowers before my last midterm. I don’t know. It’s just … it’s weird.”

“He’s harmless. I’m sure he’ll get the picture soon.”

“I know. I just wish it would be now. Anyway.”

They sipped at their drinks.

#

Her first thought when the phone went off was “who the fuck took that off vibrate?” She groaned, rolled over in the bed, and put her pillow over head. She was being very Hollywood right now. The ringing stopped. And almost immediately started again.

Angie banged on the wall. The clock, after she found her glasses and was able to focus on it, said 2:43 AM. The ringing stopped. And started again. Angie banged again. “Answer the phone or throw it in the toilet! I have class in 5 hours!”

Caller ID said “Unknown.” Now she was pissed. “YOU HAVE THE WRONG NUMBER, ASSHOLE!”

“Wow. Way to talk to a friend. Even better that my grandma died today.”

She inhaled sharply. Her grandmother died last semester; tears threatened at the corner of her eyes.

“Dan. It is 2:40 in the morning.” She hissed through gritted teeth.

“I just need someone to talk to.”

“How did you get my number?”

“You gave it to me.”

“No. I didn’t. Dan. I am really sorry about your grandma, but I’m not that friend. You should call someone else.”

“I just need someone to talk to. Please! My grandma just died! There is no one else I want to talk to but you.”

“Dan, you have to call someone else. We are not really friends, and I can’t do this right now.”

“Why are you being such a bitch? I just want to talk to you” She bristled at the word.

“Calling me a bitch is the exact opposite way to get what you want. Call. Someone. Else. And delete my number. You can have it back when you learn to treat me with respect.”

She hung up the phone, saved the number to “Do Not Answer” and put a to-do to block it in her app. It started to ring again, flashing the new name. She denied the call and set it on silent.

She got to sleep again after an hour or so after she finally convinced herself to stop being angry and upset. When she woke up there were 27 missed calls, as many voice messages, and 15 text messages. Every single one from “Do Not Answer.”

#

The public safety office was not the most welcoming place. The woman at the desk looked up from her book and slowly shut the hardback.

“Can I help you?”

“Yeah. I am not sure what … I think some guy is stalking me.”

“Has he threatened you?”

“No. No no. Um, he just shows up wherever I am and then last night he called and texted me from around 2:40 until about 5:00 AM. I just … I’ve asked him to stop, and he won’t, so I need you to do something.”

The officer shifted in her seat and pulled up something on the computer. “Is he a student?”

“Yes.”

“And you are too?”

“Yes.”

“The best I can do is make a report. Nothing he’s doing is really … Look, it’s annoying and he’s an asshole, but I mean, honey, when you look like you do, you’re going to attract some assholes.” Her jaw clenched; she was sick of people saying that. The woman took the details of what had been going on, henpecking them into the computer. Now she was too late to get to class.

“If he does anything new, let us know. Here is my card. Are you on campus?”

“No.”

“Okay. Well, if you have a door person…”

“I don’t.”

“That’s my number on the card. If I am not at the desk, it will ring someone else. But off campus, just call the police first. He’s probably harmless. These boys don’t know how to deal with their feelings and with women that tell them no. He’ll be an asshole for a week or so more, it’ll suck for you, but it’ll go away, honey.”

“Yeah.”

“Just call us if anything changes.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

She slammed the door behind her and ripped up the card. This was total bullshit.

#

The nightmare grew foggy as she pulled awake. She blinked and breathed and told herself to relax. Listening, it was just the same noises as usual: crickets and the sobbing drunk four doors down. No late night phones calls for the last two weeks.

The room was cooler than when she went to bed, and she pulled her comforter up and tucked it around her neck. She still wasn’t relaxed. Her eyes were adjusting to the street light filtering through her window.

She rolled on her back, wishing she could tap Angie awake, even though she would be so pissed. She reached for her cat, but she was not on the pillow next to her or at her feet. She started to sit up to see if she was in the room.

“Hello, Jenny. Now you have to talk to me.”

Vermillion and Musky: Day 3 of the Story A Day Challenge

~ CJ René ~ 2 Comments

Today’s prompt, by Mary Robinette Kowal, was to use the words “vermillion” and “musky” in the next 250 words of writing and to make this piece 640 words. I used this prompt to work through a section of the book I am writing that I had been avoiding, because I was not sure what I wanted to do with it. Now I have something with which to work!

The less traveled route was not so appealing anymore. Her feet blistered and ached. The grass she chewed was not keeping her hunger away. Low insistent rumbles demanded attention and added pain when she did not comply. She had to find food.

Setting a trap for an animal was 1) not something she was good at and 2) never a guarantee. Plus there was the whole cleaning and cooking part. Plants it was. The girl looked around the immediately area. Nothing here screamed, “I will not kill you if you eat me.” Why did she not pay attention on those hikes with her folks? They had been on so many, some knowledge had to have soaked into her stubborn skull.

She bent down to some vermillion berries growing on a vine sewn amongst the roots of the trees. Definitely not ripe, but probably not poison. Probably. The leaves around here were interesting and brilliant green shades, but when had she ever eaten leaf that grew off of a tree or a bush? Probably not a good idea to start now. Her stomach disagreed. Roots would need to be dug up and inspected. She did not have time (or the desire) to do that.

She was getting tired and impatient and really considering those berries. They would taste terrible if they weren’t good. No, they weren’t ripe, so they would taste terrible regardless. She took in a deep breath. A new smell mingled with the dirt and the trees, something musky. She stilled and listened to something padding over dried leaves. Something scratching the trees, maybe something growling.

Her heartbeat jumped and adrenaline shoved aside the concerns of her belly. She needed to be out of the way. Now. Her hands scraped the rough bark as she pulled herself up the nearest climbing tree. Six branches up would make her feel slightly safer. The leaves were thicker there and the boughs seemingly stronger.

The smell grew stronger and the sounds closer. No matter how slow she breathed her heartrate did not want to slow down. Palms sweating, she hooked her legs through some branches to make sure she was anchored. The animal finally came into sight. A buck. Not some predator. But that buck was definitely in rut. Looks like she could remember some things from the hikes.

She hadn’t lost enough of her city smell or her BO was unique in this woods, because the deer tensed and followed her scent from the berries through the leaves and up the tree. The buck saw her, reared back, and rammed its horns against the tree, piercing the bark and raking its hooves against the trunk. The bough shook but held. He did it again and then again. Leaves gave up and fell to the forest floor. She gripped the branch tighter and squeezed her eyes shut. Fear seeped out of her pores. If she was going to be mauled by an animal, at least it should be some badass carnivore. “How did she die?” “Bambi got her.”

The buck felt he had made his point and moved on with a last hind leg kick to her tree. The girl stayed stock still for a hundred breaths before she dared open her eyes. A spider crept across her fingers, and a butterfly fluttered against her ankle, flinching at both and sending them flying. She rubbed her face and looked around, decisions waiting to be made, but she just wanted to stay here, stay still, stay safe. The naiveté of taking this path too obvious now.

With the sun setting, the girl gave up on food. Maybe she could get to sleep before her stomach remembered to be hungry. She ripped a thick strand from her fraying skirt and tied herself securely to the tree. One quick prayer that the knot would hold, before she closed her eyes to fast forward to tomorrow.

Magnetic Poetry: Day 2 of the Story A Day Challenge

~ CJ René ~ 3 Comments

Today’s prompt by Therese Walsh is to write a 100 word story where the protagonist has opened a magnetic poetry kit.

“Momma! Mommy! Look what I made!” Momma paid the babysitter and asked if she was alright driving home. Mommy stepped out of her shoes. Dates were lovely, but heals were torture.

“Commmmme. ON! Jess didn’t even help me.”

On the fridge, a four-line poem framed in rejected words. Momma leaned into Mommy. “You just wanted to use the word ‘butt.’”

The girl squealed and ran. They laughed and chased and tickled her.

Later, Momma put a copy in the girl’s book next to the crayon drawing of a bat. Mommy leaned in close to kiss Momma, and whispered, “Butt.”

The magnetic poem I wrote on which the story is based is:

butt poem

Getting Home: Day 1 of the Story A Day Challenge

~ CJ René ~ Leave a comment

Prompt from Neil Gaiman via the Story A Day May Challenge. The prompt was “Getting Home.” I decided to take the scene from The Bacchae where Agave brings home her hunt and play with the idea of getting home but then losing home. Enjoy!

Agave did not mind the cuts on her feet and the blood slicking the rocks as she tore down the mountain, prize in hand.  She had been given a great task, and after weeks of worship in the slopes of Kithaeron, her tried patience had finally been satisfied. The women followed. Her women. Lungs burning and fingers gripping into the slicked meat and entrails for all of Thebes to feast and draw the blessings of the gods. The rhythm of the running and the pierce of their victory cries so different from the dances they had shared and the hunter’s calls when the beast arrived.

The stars and moon lit their paths, but Agave could have run home blind. These were her mountains. She had traced the lines and knew each bend in the earth. She knew the feel of ground when it changed as she neared the Theban walls. Her worship had taken her farther from city than she had been, and as she returned her bones thrummed in joy. Her father, her son, her sisters, all here in her Thebes.

Agave leads her women into the city. Their thundering feet turning to flapping against the stone. The great home of Pentheus lays before her, the guts of the building spilled before Thebes. The questions bubbling up in her brain pop before she can catch them. Her holy task still waits. Thebes waits. Her people stare, drawn from their homes to witness Agave’s glory.

The foreign women look on, their expressions betraying no pride in her kill. Her Thebans stare. She raises her blood-gloved hands, hoisting the lion’s head for them to see, and smiles a bloodstained smile.

“Thebans! We are blessed! The gods sent me to destroy the beast among us, and I am victorious! With my own hands and the hands of my sisters, we have torn his life from him and brought home our prey to feast.”

She takes the lion’s head and places it upon the cracked steps of the palace, a silent scream in its mouth.

Agave laughs. A giggle growing into a cackle, echoing in her city. Her voice drops to growling whisper. “You men. Forbidding us to join your hunts. Telling us we are too weak for this work. But you armor yourselves and cheapen the hunt with weapons. You are weak. I looked into the beast’s eyes and felt its pulse in my hands. I faced Death, and I won.

But I will not gloat. I bring our catch and offer a feast. Let us light the fires and pour the wine and revel in the power of Thebes’ women.”

No one moved. The foreigners simply turned and walked away, out of Thebes. Their leader pressing a hand into the shoulder of Cadmus as they passed each other through the gates. Cadmus catches his daughter’s eyes and shakes his head.

Agave grabs her prize and rushes to her father’s feet. She holds up the lion’s head. “Look! Look, what I did today.” Cadmus turns away.

“Are you not proud, father? Look what we have done with our own hands. The gods will bless us, father. Look. I am so much more than you expect. Look!”

Cadmus brings water and presses the cup to her lips. “Drink.” Agave does as she is told. “It is not a lion, child.” He lays a protective hand on her head, and she crinkles her brow. “Not a lion. Look again.”

Agave looks. The lion’s face looks familiar, human. A fog is clearing around it. The eyes are her eyes, but not her eyes. The nose her husband’s, but not his either. She turns back to her father. “Look.” Her son.

“No.” She throws the head away. “No.” Agave looks again. She … no mother could … how did she not know? A cry chases itself through the air, but she barely registers it as hers.

Iron blood threads through the earthy smell of Thebes. She is repelled. The stones scrapping her knees are somehow harder, sharper. She jumps to her feet. Her eyes see again the destruction. The palace brought low and gutted and the blank accusing eyes of Pentheus pushing her away. The air thickens; her lungs reject it. This place is not Thebes.

Agave runs. Her feet no longer know the stones, and she trips, stone catching her knee and cutting down her leg. Her blood pours out an offering to her home. Thebes rejects it, and it remains unmingled with the soil. Cadmus reaches her and presses a cloth to her knee.

“I … can’t stay. Why?” Her mind flicks back to her hunt, to the moment her hands ripped into the beast’s neck, and she scuttles away from him. She cannot be here. She has to leave. Her skin aches for her son, for her home, but neither is in Thebes.

“Wait.” Her father’s command stops her retreat. “I will come with you. And your sisters. We must bury our dead first.”

The sun had risen fully by the time the pyre was ready. Agave said no word and stared unseeing as Cadmus lit the fire. She stood and watched until even the embers lost their glow, severing her finally and completely from Thebes. She did not eat the food they offered and only moved when finally her family was ready.

She dragged her feet over her path of victory, heading back to the slopes of Kitaeron. She stared only at her feet. They passed where she and her sisters played hide and seek. Then the place where she stole kisses from her first love. Where Pentheus had taken his first steps and his first falls. And where he and his friends climbed trees, reaching always higher and higher to make her heart worry he would fall. Then they passed the site of the lion hunt, and finally her place of worship.

Agave did not look back to the stoney walls of Thebes as she crossed the border into where she had never been.