James Bow's Blog, page 5

(Fiction Special) The Dream King's Daughter Chapter Two: The Murder of Crows

The public domain image above is Wheatfield with Crows, by Vincent Van Gogh and is courtesy Wikimedia.

So, when we last left Aurora, she was working as a waitress in Cooper's Corners, Saskachewan, with the uncanny ability to read the dreams of other people by looking them in the eye. When a dark force arrives and tries to grab her, she's pulled into a memory from three years before with her Mother in Winnipeg before they have to flee to Saskatchewan after being spotted by some disturbing crows. Aurora realizes that her life in Cooper's Corners has been a lie, as her mother has erased her memory...

<Back to Chapter One.

The Dream King's Daughter - Chapter Two: The Murder of Crows

Aurora burst into the kitchen and set the coffee carafe aside with a sloshing clatter. "What just happened out there?"

Silence descended in the kitchen, so far as it could. Polk and Matron stared at Aurora over the sounds of running water and sizzling bacon.

Polk glanced from Aurora to Matron, then back. His mouth quirked up. "Oh, wait, is this a game? Let me guess: you served coffee to a lot of customers? What do I win?"

"Quiet, Polk," said Matron. To Aurora, she said, "what are you talking about, dearie?"

Aurora spluttered. They had to know! They'd run out of the kitchen to help her when--

No, wait, they hadn't. They're still here. They haven't moved from their posts.

She gripped a countertop, suddenly dizzy. "This is... just... weird."

Polk reached out, but stopped about a foot away. "What is? What happened?"

"I mean," Aurora gabbled, "I fall on the floor, and suddenly I'm not on the floor. And the new customer who came in suddenly isn't--"

"Whoa, whoa," said Polk. "Wait: what new customer?"

Aurora looked up at him, eyes wide and cheeks pale. The pieces of the picture came together. She'd waited on a new customer, and suddenly, he wasn't there. Nor was his truck. She remembered collapsing, and suddenly, she hadn't. She remembered Polk and Matron rushing to her rescue, and suddenly, they weren't.

Which meant the new customer and his truck and me collapsing didn't happen.�� I'm hallucinating.�� I'm sleeping walking. I'm crazy. Take your pick.

And with Polk and Matron's eyes on her, full of concern, she knew this was not a decision she wanted to make in front of them.

"Um... yeah. Never mind." She picked up the carafe again. "When's the next order up?"

#

The diner was deserted by 8 p.m., and Aurora, Polk and Matron took that time to clean up the place early. Aurora worked away, wiped down the tables, hauled the garbage out back, all on automatic. Her mind was full of dreams, and the childhood memories they had unlocked. Luckily, she could think and wield a dishcloth at the same time.

They were out the door only five minutes after closing time. Polk and Matron paid only passing attention to the red-gold sunset painting the landscape. They'd seen the scenery every day of their lives. The long shadows rippling over the wheat tops, like holes opening and closing in the golden field.

Aurora stood breathing the cooling air. Then she remembered the crows and scanned the tops of the tassels, listening for the beat of wings. Only the breeze whispered in her ears.

She pursed her lips. Were those part of the dream as well? When exactly had the dream started?

A screen door creaked open, leading to the apartment over-top the diner the three shared. Polk poked his head out. "Hey, Blond--" He grinned at her look. "You coming in or what?"

Well, why not ask him?

"Come here," she said, with a jerk of her head.

He crouched behind the protection of the screen door. "I said I was sorry about the Blondie joke."

"No, you didn't," said Aurora. "But I'm not going to hit you. I just want to ask you something."

He stepped out from behind the screen door and crept forward, arms raised. Aurora folded her arms impatiently, and he dropped his hands to his sides. "What about?"

"About the break we took this afternoon?" She watched his expression. "I threw that stone--"

He chortled. "Yeah, and you hit two crows? That was so cool!"

So, that hadn't been part of the dream. Somehow, that's not comforting. "What did I do, after?"

"What, other than cheer?"

"I didn't cheer!"

He flashed her his lopsided grin. "Why are you asking me, then?"

She slugged him.

He staggered back, clutching his shoulder. "You said you weren't going to hit me!"

"Not about the Blondie joke. Be serious, for once! I know the question's silly, but I need an answer! What did I do next?"

"You... Matron called us in. Said the Hobsons' order was up. You went into the diner."

"Did I say anything?"

"Not a thing. I thought you were angry or something."

She looked away. "I see."

"Were you?"

"Was I what?"

"Angry at me? You just clammed up and walked off without a word."

She gave him a tight smile. "Nah -- I don't know, Polk, I'm just having a weird day."

He nodded slowly. "Well, don't have too many of those, okay? I'm supposed to be the moody one, around here. I can't handle any competition."

She laughed. "Yeah, okay."

He nodded over his shoulder. "C'mon! Matron's loading up the next season of Corner Gas."

Aurora followed Polk up the stairs to Matron's apartment. There, she and Polk sprawled next to Matron on the battered, fluffy couch and they watched their downloaded show on Matron's battered, wall-mounted widescreen. Popcorn rattled in the microwave. An hour later, Matron turned off the television and hauled herself off the couch, grimacing as her legs protested. "Bedtime, Aurora. I'll straighten up."

Aurora nodded. No argument about staying up later, as Polk slept on the couch. She levered herself up and gave Matron a brief kiss on the cheek. "G'night!"

Polk grabbed a set of blankets from behind the couch and flopped down, wrapping his cocoon around himself in record time. "'Night," was his muffled response. Aurora and Matron went to their respective bedrooms. Aurora sat by her battered wooden desk, finishing off her algebra assignment for correspondence school.

At 11:00 p.m., she eased into bed, washed, brushed and wearing a long t-shirt. She pulled the covers to her chest and fluffed up the pillows behind her, and then lay back and stared at the ceiling.

How could I have forgotten my mother?

Two conflicting sets of memories bumped their shopping carts in the aisles of her mind. She remembered growing up with her mother, and she remembered having no parents at all. She remembered going to a real school in St. Boniface, picnics on the shores of Lake Winnipeg, and she remembered living in Cooper's Corners, in northern (actually, west-central; 'northern' had been her assessment as a resident of Winnipeg) Saskatchewan, all her life, coming to Aunt Matron as a young orphan, playing with the village kids, being homeschooled and gradually taking over the waitressing duty until she grew into her life of wiping counters and serving coffee all day, every day.

And as she reached back in her mind, the memories of Manitoba flooded her. Summer barbecues. Homework. Roger, the school bully.

She shuddered. Okay, it was a mixed bag, but the tumble of revealed memories told her what was real and what was fake. She'd had a mother. She also had an aunt Matron, and three years of experience living in Cooper's Corners, waiting tables, babysitting Britney. But somehow she'd been made to think that there was no one else but Aunt Matron. And as she finally remembered the trip that had taken her from Winnipeg to this place, she had a pretty good idea of who had done this to her.

Confusing the picture was the crow man, and the cloud of crows that had filled her vision when she had looked him in the eye. What was up with that? Had she dreamed it all while she was sleepwalking?

Part of her mind spoke up. No, it said. Something attacked me. When that black truck arrived, something -- possibly the crow man -- pulled me into a dream and tried to grab me. And I reacted by ducking back into a deeper dream, about the day before I came here, breaking the hypnosis that kept me here.

But how could I do that without anybody noticing? I don't sleepwalk. I don't even sleep, remember?

Tomorrow, she thought, I'm going into that diner with my eyes open.

Aurora grabbed the first book off her bedside table, The Kite Runner, found her place, and began reading.

She finished the book by midnight, set it down, and picked up the next book on her pile, A Thousand Splendid Suns. She adjusted her pillows around her and started in

At 1:00 p.m., she left her bedroom to go pee. Returning to her room, she took up Terry Pratchett's Small Gods and started to read. At 2:30 p.m., she set that book aside and turned out the light. She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling.

At 3:00 a.m., she caught the time off the low-light display of her tablet and stared up at the ceiling again.

Her teachers were convinced that she was a fast reader; instead, she simply had more time to read. But in the end, there was only so much you could read at one time. If you didn't want to wake up the house around you, you ended up staring up at the ceiling, waiting for the sun to rise. And that's when the darkest thoughts started to materialize if you weren't careful.

"Maybe I'm dead," she muttered aloud. And why not? Now that she remembered, it was practically a medical diagnosis...

#

"So, Aurora," said Dr. Zane. "You're in perfect health. Is there anything else?"

"Yeah." Aurora couldn't suppress the urge to look around to make sure they were alone, even though the doctor's office was half the size of her bedroom. She leaned close. "I can't sleep."

The doctor frowned. "You're having trouble sleeping?"

She nodded.

"How long has this been going on?"

She looked into his eyes.

"And the Nobel prize in medicine," the M.C. shouts, "for his contributions to medical science: Dr. Myron Zane!"

Dr. Zane approaches the podium, carried on the shoulders of his colleagues. The audience chants "Zane! Zane! Zane!"

"Thank you!" he shouts to the cheering masses. "I owe it all to--"

Instead of "the past four months", Aurora said, "A while."

"Everything good at school?"

She stopped herself from rolling her eyes. He'd ask that about a hangnail. "Fine."

He blinked. "Everything good at home?"

"It's fine!"

"Your bed uncomfortable?"

She shook her head.

"Something worrying you?"

Other than the fact that I don't sleep and that I look into people's dreams whenever I look them in the eye? "No."

He leaned back in his chair. "Many people have trouble getting to sleep, Aurora. You're probably putting too much pressure on yourself. It's a bit of a catch-22. I can get you information on some relaxation exercises you can try as you go to bed..."

He droned on. Aurora stared at his steepled fingers. This is going nowhere. But how can it go anywhere when I haven't told him the true extent of the problem?

It had started slowly. In the days after that first alarming bleed and those deeply embarrassing conversations about maxi-pads and tampons, Aurora tossed and turned at night.

She didn't think there was anything unusual about that. In the stress of those days, of course she'd have trouble getting to sleep. And she wasn't tired when she woke up in the morning. At school, when her teacher droned on and some of the students nodded off, she just got restless instead. So, it didn't alarm her much to see her bedside clock display 1:00, 3:00, 5:00 and 7:00 each night.

Until the night when she didn't sleep at all.

And the night after that.

Okay, maybe hel'll jump at a chance to make a medical case history out of me. If he figures out what's wrong with me, then he deserves a Nobel Prize. This isn't normal.

"Look, I can't sleep," she cut in. "I don't sleep. I stay up all night staring at the ceiling. I haven't slept for, like..." She caught herself again, then forced the words from her mouth. "Four months. Straight."

Dr. Zane had leaned forward as she said this, his brow furrowing, but now he sat back, his face clearing like the end of a storm. "Oh, you're worrying too much!"

Her voice rose. "I already said I'm not! There's something wrong with me. Test me!"

"Aurora, I don't need to examine you to know that you're sleeping," said Dr. Zane. "If you went more than ten days without sleep, you'd be dead. You're sleeping. You just don't remember sleeping. Now, about those relaxation exercises..."

She slumped back in her seat. Maybe I dream about the clock showing me 3:00 a.m. Maybe I dream of listening to the BBC World Service because I've heard all the other podcasts several times. Or maybe I'm dead and haven't realized it yet.

Funny, though. I would have thought the dead got lots of sleep.

#

Aurora blinked back the memory and closed her eyes.

You've done this before. Just close your eyes and take deep, slow breaths. Cleansing air in. Stressed air out. Let the day's jumbled thoughts slip beneath the waters of silence, if not sleep.

The clock display flipped to 3:20 a.m.

After two hours of deep breathing and thoughtful silence, courtesy Dr. Zane, Aurora looked over at her clock radio and saw the display flip to 5:25. Outside her window, she saw the first glimmer of dawn. The drapes twisted in a cool breeze and brought the smell of rain. Somewhere, with the sound of distant rolling kegs, thunder rumbled.

Aurora rolled out of her bed and padded to the bathroom. In front of the mirror, she dragged a comb through her bed-matted hair and stared at her reflection. Other than some troublesome pimples, and that little snub nose she hated, the face staring back at her was that of a typical, mildly pretty teenage girl. She didn't even have rings under her eyes.

"Not bad for a dead girl," she muttered.

I'm not dead, am I? I'm just weird. A great medical mystery. I'd spend the rest of my life in sleep laboratories if I could get any doctor to believe, for one second, that I've been wide awake, now, for three years and count--

Aurora froze with her hand halfway to the knob of her bedroom door.

I did sleep. In the car, when Mom played that tape on me. It was the first time I can recall sleeping since I got my period.

Her hand fell to her side.

"Mom, what did you do to me?"

And why?

#

In the diner, Aurora got the coffee ready and laid out the cutlery. In the kitchen, Matron turned on the toasting machine -- a ludicrous device that could toast bread for a restaurant four times the diner's size and eight times the diner's clientele -- and the diner filled with the smell of roasting crumbs. Matron turned on the grill and scraped it down.

Aurora watched as the dawn fought to brighten against a line of dark clouds along the horizon. As she worked, she caught flashes of lightning out of the corner of her eye. Moments later, the sound of distant thunder rolled across the fields.

A thunderstorm. Was that good for the crops this time of year? Her country-girl self wouldn't have needed to ask, but her real self hadn't a clue.

Gravel crunched outside as the first pick-up pulled up. The door jangled. Ike Henderson slid into the booth seat. "Hey, Aurora."

"Hello, Mr. Henderson," said Aurora. "You by yourself?"

Ike nodded. "Molly and Britney will be along for dinner, but I got work to do."

"Farm work?"

"What do you think?" He grinned at her.

Aurora winced. It had sounded lame, but she couldn't think of anything else to say. The memories of her city girl upbringing had robbed her of country small talk. She poured him a cup of coffee and set the mug in front of him. As he nodded his thanks, their eyes met.

Ike drives his tractor, turning the black soil over. The field behind the plow turns to straight, long furrows. The ground sprouts green, then yellow, as the stalks rise up. He glances behind him, and smiles.

On the horizon, a thunderstorm rumbles. Somewhere, a crow caws.

As she snapped out of the dream, the crow's caw echoing in her ears, Mr. Henderson turned to look at the cloudy horizon beyond the window. "Odd storm, coming in from the east like that," he said. "It's like it's rolling in backwards."

She frowned at him. "What do you mean?" But there was another crunch of gravel outside and a car door slammed.

The storm brewed as the day drew on, and people came and left. The clouds turned into mountain peaks under the noonday sun. Aurora couldn't stop herself from taking quick glances at it as she polished the table tops or served up the meals through lunch.

After two there were no more tables to polish, no more cutlery to rearrange. The diner was empty. Polk and Matron came out of the kitchen. Polk grabbed some ketchup bottles to be refilled while Matron flipped between the TV channels, looking for news.

Aurora flipped the towel over her shoulder and sat down at the counter near them. "Slow day," she said.

Polk shrugged. "It happens. Sometimes people decide to make their own lunches. Shocking, I know. It should be banned--"

From her stool, Aurora kicked him in the shin.

"Ow!" He whined theatrically. "Matron!"

"Now, now," said Matron, giving up and leaving the TV muted on some trashy reality show. "None of that." She plopped down a deck of cards.

"No, thanks," said Aurora. "I've got a book to read." She turned towards the diner's exit.

The door jangled as she stepped outside. The gravel crunched underfoot.

Outside, halfway to the door to the apartment, Aurora stopped. She did a slow turn, scanning the whole flat landscape and listening hard to the sounds around her. The sun baked the back of her neck.

No cars passed on the roadway outside the diner. No kids shouted on the rusting playground swings on the corner. Starlings chirped from the tassels, but Cooper's Corners' houses stood silent.

What am I doing here? We're out in the middle of nowhere. Mom had objected to that, when she'd called Matron, and I can see why. You'd think that if you were going to hide someone, it would be among other people. But here, in this driveway, with only the sounds of nature for company, I could imagine that all of the people had gone, and that me, Polk and Matron were the only humans left alive -- alive and alone, facing... what?

From the eastern horizon came the sound of distant thunder. Aurora shivered in the midsummer heat.

She went into the back apartment and grabbed her book from the bedside table. Then, as she left her bedroom, she paused beside Matron's bedroom door. She'd promised herself that she'd get Matron's secret out of her, but now that she stood on the threshold of violating the woman's privacy, Aurora hesitated.

This is the woman who has cared for me all my life -- okay, the past three years. She wasn't one to show much affection, but she wasn't all bristles and snide, either. She'd encouraged me to go to the country social when I was sure it would do nothing but leave me holding up a wall. But I'd had fun, with Polk. No, Matron wasn't Mom, but she'd been... okay.

And I intend to repay this by snooping around her bedroom?

But then again, people had gone snooping through my memories, hadn't they? And Matron had to be in on that.

Aurora twisted the doorknob with more vigour than she'd intended. The door swung open and she had to catch it before it banged against the wall.

The bedroom was as neat as the rest of Matron's house and restaurant. White curtains were drawn against the window. The bed was made with white sheets and hospital corners. The closet door was closed, and the dresser was bare, save for a handheld mirror. A single shelf held a dozen cookbooks. Beneath it on the floor was a wooden chest.

It was neat. Sensible. Just like Matron. But Aurora frowned. It was more than sensible: it was without personality. This was a room withholding comment its occupant.

Except for the wooden chest. It looked like a toy chest that might hold dress-up clothes. Aurora came forward for a closer look. It was unlocked. She opened the lid and peered in.

The box was full of old, childish junk. Aurora pulled out a raggedy doll, a bundle of ancient lolly-pops, a couple of building blocks, and a large book. What were these, keepsakes? It's like an emergency kit for someone who'd rescued children.

The book had no title. It was thick, and had a picture of mountains on the cover. She opened it.

"Sally flies over mountains. She reaches down and touches a peak. The snow crumbles on her fingertips..."

Aurora flipped through the pages, caught images dark and light, but nothing that interested her. She put the book back in the chest and closed the lid, disappointed. It had been a fruitless search, and now Matron and Polk were going to be wondering where she was. She hurried downstairs.

Back in the diner, she sat at the counter, seats away from Matron and Polk. She kept her nose in her book, turning pages only when she remembered to, and thought of her next move.

On the horizon, a sun-bleached farmhouse disappeared behind a veil of rain.

At four, Matron stood up from the card game. "Let's get ready for dinner hour."

Before long, the gravel outside scrunched and the shop bell jangled as the usual crowd trickled in. Britney bolted through the door, followed by her mother. She ran up to Aurora, flung her arms around Aurora's legs and gave her a big hug before rushing to her seat. Aurora watched her go with a raised eyebrow, but she smiled.

The Hobsons arrived a few minutes later, followed by the Pankiws, then the farmhands from the fields. Soon the place was chattering, and Aurora was working the tables. Hamburgers and fries. A Hungry Man (four eggs, four bacon, four sausages, ham and a coronary). Some of Matron's pot pie. Aurora carried the plates to their tables as the orders arrived.

When there was nothing left for Aurora to do but refill the coffee, she jabbed the buttons on the remote. The regulars liked to ignore the six o'clock news while they ate their meals, but she couldn't find a signal. She gave up when she spied Britney finishing the last of her burger and pushing the tomato to the side of her plate with the end of her knife, eyes narrowing in disdain. Aurora then began tallying orders on the cash register and delivering them one by one to the tables.

"So, how was everything?" Aurora asked the Hobsons as she scribbled on her notepad. She ripped off the slip and held it out. Then she stared a long moment, wondering why she was holding a bill out to an empty booth.

She looked to her left, then her right. The Hobsons should have been in front of her, but they weren't, and they weren't at any of the other tables either.

Aurora crumpled the bill and darted for the kitchen. Matron looked up as she burst in.

"The Hobsons!" said Aurora. "They skipped out without paying!"

"What are you talking about?" said Matron.

"What do you mean, what am I talking about?" Aurora waved her arms. "Hobson family. They had one roast beef and one eggs benedict plus a whole lot of coffee and two slices of pie. $29.95, not including taxes and tip! I wrote up their bill, but they left before I could hand it to them!" Then she realized that Matron was frowning at her, rather than at the news. "What?"

"I never made up an order for eggs benedict," said Matron.

Aurora gawped at her. "But... I took their order!"

Matron shrugged and turned back to the grill. "Well, if you did, you didn't hand it to me. Maybe that's why they left without paying."

"But I served them! You cooked it up!" Aurora stared at Matron. "You've got to remember!"

Matron clucked her tongue. "You're imagining things, girl. I know what I served up to my customers today, and eggs Benedict wasn't on that list. Maybe you were remembering yesterday? Maybe one of yesterday's bills got mixed up in your hands?"

Aurora bit her lip. Then she took a deep breath. "Yeah," she said. "Must be."

She turned on her heel and strode out of the kitchen.

Outside, distant thunder rolled over the sounds of dinner. Aurora looked up and down the diner. Save for the Hobsons, everybody else was here. Ike Henderson got up from the table, stretched, and ambled to the washroom.

"Hey, Aurora!" shouted Jake, a gawky farmhand sitting with his friends in a booth.

Without thinking, Aurora looked at him. Their eyes met.

The bikini is very, very small, and Aurora is very, very... bouncy, as she races down the sand, giggling and...

Aurora gave him a look that could melt cast iron. "What?" she bellowed, making the diners around her jump.

The farmhand went pale. His friends at his table started to snicker. He gulped and held up an empty glass. "Um... more water... please?"

The sky darkens. There is a flash of lightning.

Aurora looked away, ashamed of herself. It's not like he could control his dreams, or know that she wanted him to. She didn't need to strike him down with lightning, tempting though that was. "Sure," she muttered, and went behind the counter.

As she pulled a glass from the rack and filled it from the tap, she frowned. The thunder and lightning hadn't been hers. It was a part of Jake's dream. Thunder and lightning on the beach? Why would the storm invade his dream like that?

And why does 'invade' sound so right?

She jumped as the water overflowed the glass and ran over her hand. She shut off the tap, poured a little out, then marched over to Jake's table and plunked the glass in front of him. "Thanks," he said. Then she looked up.

The booth was empty.

Aurora stepped back, tripped on her feet and fell, catching herself on the stools by the counter.

The diner silenced. She felt nearly a dozen pairs of eyes stare at her, and her cheeks reddened. She pushed herself back to her feet. "It's okay," she said. "I'm okay."

But it wasn't okay. The ripple of conversation was quieter than it had been a couple of minutes ago. She was seeing more empty vinyl where there should have been people. There'd been no sound of the bell on the doorjamb jingling, she was sure of it. No one had left the restaurant in the last ten minutes, and yet the noise level had gone steadily down.

At the far end of the diner, Aurora saw Mr. Radwanski pull his wallet from his pocket. She grabbed up his bill. Keeping him in sight as she walked up to him, she looked down at the last moment to total his bill. She tore off the slip. "So, was everything okay?"

She stared at an empty booth.

"Aurora? Are you okay?"

The diners were staring at her again. The remains of them, anyway. And in the kitchen, Matron's grill sizzled like nothing was wrong. Thunder rumbled.

She tried to slow her thumping heart. Failed. This was getting worse.

Then her eyes shot back to Mrs. Henderson and Britney. What was wrong with this picture? Then she remembered. Mr. Henderson still hadn't come back from the bathroom.

Ignoring the looks of the remaining customers, Aurora barged into the men's room. At the urinal, Polk yelped and zipped himself up. "Hey!"

There was only one sink, one urinal and one stall with a toilet. Aurora crouched and peered beneath the barrier. There were no feet in front of the toilet. "Where's Mr. Henderson?"

Polk cast the damp towels into the waste bin. "What are you talking about?"

She straightened up. "Ike Henderson! You know who he is, don't you?"

"Of course I do!" He frowned at her. "Aurora, what's going on?"

"Did he come in here?"

"No."

"What?" Aurora scanned the walls for hidden doorways, hatches. "He came in here! I saw him go in here! Didn't you see him?" She turned this way and that in the middle of the small room. "Mr. Henderson! Where are you?"

Polk caught her by the shoulders and held on as she struggled. "Calm down!"

She slapped his hands away. "Don't you tell me to calm down! Either Ike Henderson was here and he disappeared, or I'm losing my mind! So, which is it, huh?"

"Um..." He swallowed. "Which do you want it to be?"

She turned away with an exasperated yowl and burst out of the washroom...

...into an empty diner.

The grill was silent. Behind her, the door to the empty men's room swung on its hinges.

The jangling of the bell caught her attention and Aurora looked at the door. Mrs. Henderson held it open for her daughter. They were leaving. Alone. The last customers of the night. The door swung shut behind them.

Aurora charged the length of the diner. "Mrs. Henderson! Wait!"

She ran out the door and looked around wildly. In the dying light of the sun, she saw a young girl standing with her doll in the middle of the road.

"Britney!" Aurora cried. The girl turned, her doll hanging by her side. Aurora ran onto the road and pulled Britney to the shoulder.

Aurora knelt in front of Britney and looked her in the eye.

Britney swings in Aurora's arms, twirling around the wheat stalks, laughing. Mr. Scaly is safely locked inside his pet carrier. The sun shines and the birds sing.

The sky darkens.

Over Aurora's shoulder, clouds appear, solidifying into a thousand black shapes, flapping closer.

Aurora blinked. Britney stared back, lost but strangely calm.

"He's coming for you," said the girl.

"What?!" Aurora shook the strange vision out of her head. "What were you doing out here?" She tried to keep the edge out of her voice. "You can't just stand in the middle of the road like that. What would your parents think?"

Britney blinked. "Not here," she said distantly. "Mom. Dad. Not here."

Aurora swallowed. This is getting worse. Scratch that. It had passed worse and was well on its way to catastrophic. "Come inside, Britney. C'mon, let's get some ice cream."

Britney looked up at her with wide eyes. "Chock-lit?"

Aurora smiled. "Of course."

She turned towards the diner and felt Britney's hand slip from her fingers. Aurora turned. She was alone on the gravel driveway. Around her, the wind sighed in the grain.

"Britney?" she shouted. "Britney!"

Britney's doll lay sprawled on the gravel. Aurora picked it up and clasped it to her shoulder. Thunder rumbled.

Aurora turned. The clouds were almost upon her.

She drew breath for a scream, but the words caught in her throat as a crow cawed. Aurora's gaze shot round and then she saw it, perched atop the power pole where the gravel drive met the wheat field. One crow for sorrow, she thought.

"Aaa! Aaa!" said the crow, a sound like a rusty gate. Then, "Aaa! Roa! Raa!"

Aurora blinked.

The crow stretched its wings and kicked off its perch, coasting down into the wheat field and perching on a seeder. It tucked its wings in and looked back at her, focusing on her with one eye, then the other. It cawed again: "Aaa! Roa! Raa!"

Aurora shouted. "Who are you? What do you want? What did you do to all the people?"

"Aaa! Roa! Raa!"

"I know who I am! Tell me something I don't know!"

"He! ... He!" the crow cawed. Then, "He! ... Comes!"

Movement caught her eye, and she looked up at the billowing clouds. Crows were flying in from every direction, hovering in the air in front of her, forming like a cloud of starlings, then like smoke. As Aurora watched, the cloud pulled itself into shape. She could make out the beginnings of a head, two arms, hands outstretched in a gesture like longing--

"Aurora! Wake up!" Matron shouted.

Aurora whirled around and stared down the barrel of a browning rifle. She hit the muddy dirt as Matron fired over her head. The crows scattered, crying murder--

--and Aurora snapped awake, gasping and dripping.

Matron pulled her up with one hand, the other holding her rifle.

"Oh, thank God," gasped Aurora. "It was only a dream."

"Yup," said Matron, looking pale. "You're awake. And now you need to run."

"What?" She blinked. "Since when do you own a rifle?" Wait a minute, what was the rifle still doing here? Wasn't it part of the dream?

"Look around you, girl!"

Aurora turned and immediately wished she hadn't. The billowing, twisting grey clouds were still there. They had turned black and feathery, and they were descending. Shingles were blowing off the houses in Cooper's Corners. Somewhere, a window smashed.

"Where is everybody?" Aurora yelled.

"They're sheltering," Matron shouted. "Waiting for the storm to pass, but it won't. Not while you're here." She drew back the pump of the rifle, a classic click-click. Then she came closer and looked Aurora in the eye. "You know, don't you? Don't try to deny it, girl, I can see it in your eyes. After all the trouble your mom went through to put you to sleep, you woke up. I thought you might. You were always a stubborn child."

So many things that she wanted to say crowded into Aurora's mouth that she spluttered.

Matron hefted the weapon onto her shoulder. "Well, maybe it's for the best. He's coming for you. It's best you be wide awake when you run."

"Run?! Run from who? Who's coming for me?"

"No time!"

"But where will I go?"

"Go to Saskatoon." Matron shoved a piece of paper at her, along with a set of car keys. "I've written down the address. I can't keep you safe anymore, so you need to get back to her."

"Back to who? What are you talking about?" Aurora wanted to scream and cry and shake Matron to make her explain.

"No more questions!" Matron yelled over the rising rumble of the wind and the cry of crows. "Just go! Go now! You can't let him take you, girl! It will be disaster if he does!"

Aurora looked up at the spiralling clouds again. She froze.

"Run, you idiot!" Matron yelled. "Run!"

Aurora ran, mud squelching and gravel crunching. Matron's battered brown Chevy came into view. Slipping and skidding, she caught herself with one hand on the car roof and fumbled with the door handle. It was unlocked and opened suddenly, knocking her hand, sending the keys to the gravel. Aurora twisted to pick them up, and fell over into a puddle.

The light went out of the sky.

Aurora grabbed the keys, dove into the car and slammed the door. The car shook in the buffeting winds. Without thinking, she pulled on her seat belt and checked the rear-view mirror. She cried out.

The crows descended on Matron like a funnel cloud. Matron brought up her rifle and sighted along the barrel.

Aurora turned the key in the ignition. The station wagon sputtered to life and she danced on the clutch. Gears creaked as she shoved it into first. Wheels spinning, gravel spraying, she manhandled the car onto the road. Second gear and the car picked up speed. Third gear. Go.

Behind her, she heard the rifle blast, and the murder of crows.

(Fiction Special) - The Dream King's DaughterChapter One: The Sea of Tassels

Please enjoy the first chapter of my old novel, The Dream King's Daughter.

<Back to the Prologue.

Chapter One: The Sea of Tassels

When Aurora Kelso came to refill the Hendersons' coffee cups at table six, she could see that Britney had been having that nightmare again.

The Hendersons' four-year-old daughter sat by the window, playing with her Barbie doll while her parents looked out at the dusty wheat fields and finished the dregs of their breakfasts.

The kitchen could be heard through the window behind the counter. Eggs sizzled, and the coffee maker gurgled while Aunt Matron scraped the grease trap. At the back of the room, a slosh of water came as Polk washed the dishes. Country music played on the radio.

The stools along the counter were all empty except for one. Most of the locals came as families these days, big men in plaid shirts with their wives and children. They chose the booths along the picture window that looked out across the highway and onto Cooper Farm. Even the teenage farmhands clustered in groups of four or five. Not that there was much jostling for seats. The diner could seat twice the number of people who lived in the hamlet, and the number of people who drove up the road each week could be counted on one hand.

Britney looked up from her Barbie doll and giggled as her father made faces at her.

She's not even thinking of the nightmare she had last night, Aurora thought. She hardly even remembers it. But it's there, waiting. It's going to come again.

And when Britney looked up into Aurora's eyes, Aurora saw it.

A flurry of legs, a scrabble of claws, the slimy green skin. A great leap of fangs arches down. Britney screams--

Aurora gripped her coffee carafe and swayed a little. She closed her eyes and let the dream pass through her. It was only a dream, after all. But try telling that to Britney. She approached the table with a smile. "More coffee, everyone?"

Mr. Henderson beamed and held up his cup. "Yes, please."

Mrs. Henderson passed hers over. "Me, too."

Aurora turned her bright smile on the girl. "And what would the little lady like for dessert?"

Mr. Henderson grinned at Britney. "What do you think, Pixie?"

The girl sat so upright, her blonde locks bounced. "Ice cream!"

Her father's grin widened. "Are you sure, now?"

The girl's head bobbed.

Mr. Henderson nodded to Aurora. "Ice cream it is, Miss Kelso!"

"Well," Aurora set her carafe aside and clapped her hands together. "Maybe somebody would like to pick out their favourite flavour?"

The girl kicked her legs happily, then looked quickly at her father. He smiled and nodded. Britney hopped from her seat and followed Aurora to the ice cream stand.

But rather than haul Britney up to show her the eight flavours, she knelt so that her face was level with Britney's.

"Britney," she said, keeping her voice low. "Have you been having that nightmare again?"

Britney's smile vanished. She nodded. Her lower lip trembled.

"You did what I told you, right?" said Aurora. "You imagined a door with a lot of locks?"

Britney nodded. She sniffed. "But it came through the window."

Aurora looked away. Barriers never worked. Running away never worked. They always found a way through and ran faster. There was only one way left to deal with this.

She turned back to Britney, "Okay. You want to make Mr. Scaly go away for good?"

Britney nodded vigorously.

"You've already imagined a fence, right?" said Aurora, "and it came true?"

Britney nodded. "But he jumped over it," she mumbled.

"And you've already imagined a door, right?" Aurora continued. "So you know that you can imagine whatever you want in the dream, and it's right there in front of you. Right?"

Britney's brow furrowed, but she nodded.

"So, I want you to imagine..." What could she say? The kid was only four years old. It didn't seem right to be giving a four-year-old a gun, even in her dreams. "A bicycle pump."

Britney tilted her head and gave Aurora a baleful look from under her eyebrows.

"Trust me." Aurora squeezed Britney's shoulder gently. "A bicycle pump... with a big wad of gum at the end, so that Mr. Scaly's teeth sink in and... get stuck?"

A smile spread across Britney's face. Already, Aurora could see how the dream would go. Mr. Scaly would leap, teeth clamping down, while Britney raised the nozzle of her bicycle pump like a dragonslayer. And the teeth would go... scrunch... and there would be Mr. Scaly, dangling off the nozzle, feebly trying to pry his teeth loose. Slimy claws catching and sticking to the big wad of chewing gum.

And Britney would clasp the bicycle pump and begin pumping. And Mr. Scaly would puff up like a balloon, making muffled, desperate grunts as his eyes bugged out like a blowfish. He'd puff bigger and bigger until his skin paled and creaked. Then Britney would pause. He would stare at her. He'd make one last pleading squeal as Britney reached for the pump and shoved it down hard...

Aurora closed her eyes at the sudden pop. Britney laughed. Aurora almost felt sorry for Mr. Scaly. Almost.

Definitely don't give this kid a gun, even in her dreams.

She hugged Britney and hefted her up to the glass. "Now, what flavour would you like?"

"Chock-lit," said Britney.�� And smiled.

#

Aurora whipped off her apron as she entered the kitchen and strode over to the sink to wash her hands.

"I'm on break, Matron," she called.

"You don't have to shout it, Dearie." Matron looked up over the sizzle of the grill. "And you're not on break yet. Not until the Hobsons' eggs are up."

"Yeah, I know." Aurora smiled at the sturdy, greying, red-haired woman. Their eyes met.

The wind blows the surf against the beach. Palms wave in the breeze and the sky is a cobalt dome.�� The hot sand rubs between Matron's toes, but she smiles as she walks with purpose. Up ahead is a Marguerita stand.

Aurora let the images wash over her and soothe her, even though she didn't really need it. What was she going to do once Matron decided to retire and get that Florida bungalow?

"But those eggs won't be up for a few minutes, will they?" she asked. When Matron refused to answer, she added, "Until then, I'm on break."

"You could do the dishes, you know," said Matron as Aurora reached for the back door.

"That's Polk's job." Aurora glanced at the sink, a mountain range of dishes and bubbles. "Where is that slacker?" She shoved open the back door and marched down the steps.

She found Polk, Matron's foster son, on the gravel parking lot, on the concrete lip that protected a battered stairwell leading to the basement storage area from flooding. He was stretched out on his back, an arm curled behind his head for a pillow, and his baseball cap planted over his face, snoring.

She stood over top of him, her hands on her hips. "What are you doing out here, slacker?"

The snoring stopped, but Polk didn't move. "I'm on break, Blondie."

She kicked him. He fell into the stairwell.

He landed lightly on his feet, and jumped up over the parapet. The gravel scrunched underfoot as he stood in front of her, arms folded, cap on his dirty brown hair, a one-sided grin on his face. "What's up?"

"There were a lot of dishes in the sink last time I looked."

"There were still eggs to be served last time I looked."

"Well, I'll go back if you go back," said Aurora.

"Now who's the slacker?"

They glared at each other for a long moment, each waiting for the other to blink. Then, their tension broke at the same time as both snorted with laughter.

"C'mon," he said, nodding towards the back wall of the diner.

As she looked up at him, their eyes met. Instinctively, Aurora braced herself.

Polk walks across the gravel lot behind the diner and pushes aside the stalks of wheat as he enters the neighbouring field. He grins as he wades into the waving sea of golden brown. The blue skies stretch on forever, and he shields his face from the sun.

And you say that you want to get away from all this, thought Aurora. Liar.

But as he broke the connection and leaned against the wall, Aurora reflected that this was, frankly, a relief. For the three years since she became a teenager here at Cooper's Corners, it was getting so she couldn't look any of the other boys in the eye. It was just too embarrassing. But Polk had none of that. No crass thoughts about wet t-shirts. His dreams consisted of nothing but the ground on which he stood.

You talk big, she thought, but you don't dream about anywhere or anything else. I like you.

"Fine," she said, following him. "But call me Blondie one more time, and you'll regret it."

"Sure thing, Blond--" He chuckled at her as she glared.

Aurora leaned on the sun-bleached siding and stared out across the fields. The wheat rolled like golden surf in the hot, dusty wind. The sunlight settled on them like a warm cloak. She scuffed the gravel with the toe of her shoe. Then her toe hit something. She looked down.

Knocked loose by her foot was a small, flat stone, dark where the gravel was white. She frowned and picked it up.

There was heft to it, like a baseball. It narrowed from half an inch thick on one side to almost a knife's point, but there were no sharp edges to cut her. Her palm and forefinger curved around the thick side perfectly.

It was a skipping stone. She knew it was a skipping stone, though they were miles away from any water to skip it on. She could picture herself leaning into the throw, bringing her arm around, letting the stone go, and watching it catch the air like a sail and meet the water along its smooth, flat end, arching back into the air again and again and again.

But before her, only a sea of tassels waved.

Polk bent down and snapped a stalk of wild grass growing by the base of the building. He put one end of the stalk between his teeth and started chewing.

Aurora rolled her eyes. "Polk!"

The grass stalk arched up. "What?"

"Take that out of your mouth!" She snatched at it, but Polk ducked away. "I swear, if some city folk see you like that, they may as well pose next to you for photographs."

He shrugged. "They could if they paid me a dollar."

She sighed. "Only a dollar?"

Then, movement caught Aurora's eye, and she looked past Polk at the strip of asphalt that vanished in the distance. A cloud of dust was rising at the road's vanishing point.

"Truck," she said.

Polk leaned back and closed his eyes. "Hmm... It'll be a B-train, double long semi, white, with a grain logo, and it won't stop."

"No points if it doesn't stop." Aurora levered herself from the wall and stepped out into the gravel lot, watching the growing cloud like a hawk. The whine of its engine and the growl of its wheels grew as it shaped itself into a dark cab and two points of light. Aurora walked to the edge of the wheat field, keeping the truck in sight until it passed behind the diner and roared past.

"Well?" said Polk when she came back.

"B-train," she grumbled. "Double long semi. White. With a grain logo."

His eyes stayed closed, and his lips quirked up. "And it didn't stop."

"I told you: no points for that. No one stops here. They're either heading for Alberta or Saskatoon. You don't deserve an extra point for that."

"They could stop sometimes," he said. "Call of nature and the like."

"And seeing as we're in Saskatchewan, I'm being extra generous, giving you a point for the grain logo."

"Four points, then," said Polk.

"Three."

"Four!"

"Three!"

"Okay."

She shook her head at heaven and leaned on the siding beside him. After a while, she said, "What are you going to do with your life, Polk?"

He shrugged, a quick jerk of his shoulders. "Well, you know me. I've got plans. I'm going to see the world. Join a circus. Take a computer course and make it rich in Redmond. I can't wash dishes for the rest of my life."

Yeah, right. She bit back the next question: what's keeping you?

"What about you?" he asked casually. "What are you going to do with your life now that you're almost sixteen?'

She made a face at him. Lately, he'd always mentioned that she was 'almost sixteen', reminding her yet again that she wasn't sixteen yet, and he was -- almost seventeen, in fact. Like that made any difference. Except that it did.

"I'll be sixteen in five days, twerp," she said. But as she shoved aside the taunt and focused on the question, she frowned. "I don't know," she said at last. "Something. Anything. It's not a life, serving coffee in some country diner. It's something temporary. It's got to change..." Her voice trailed off.

It's got to change because it's wrong, said a voice in the deepest part of her mind.

"You seem okay with your life here," said Polk.

"Aunt Matron's okay," said Aurora. "She takes care of me, and we get along. But she's not a mom, though."

Mom. The word echoed briefly.

"There's nothing to do here," she said, with more force than she'd intended. But the words had popped a cork and more came flowing out. "It's like I'm a prisoner!" She blinked. Where had that thought come from?

And just like that, the impulse to question hit a brick wall.

Polk arched an eyebrow. "A prisoner? Matron got you locked up in your bedroom, spinning gold from wheat, does she?"

Aurora sighed. Her actual bedroom door didn't even lock. "You know what I mean."

She felt the heft of the stone in her hand again. She gave it a quick glance, then looked out at the sea of tassels. She stepped forward and threw it.

It arched as in her imagination, cleared the driveway, and sailed over the tops of the wheat. It curved down...

The wheat splashed. Black erupted from the sea of gold. A crow, cawing angrily, rose from the waves. The stone arched back into the air, came down again a few feet away, and burst the wheat a second time as another crow soared and flapped away to the horizon.

The stone fell a third time and disappeared among the stalks.

Polk's arms dropped to his sides. The grass stalk fell from his mouth. "Two birds with one stone? Great shot!"

But I didn't mean to hit them. They were just there. I got lucky, I guess.

Why should I feel lucky that I hit two crows?

Movement caught her eye, and she looked down the highway. Another cloud of dust was approaching. She pushed her strange worry down and nudged Polk. "Truck," she said.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. "Hmm..." He frowned. "Tough one..."

She blinked. She'd never seen him uncertain before.

"Uh..." He drew himself up. "Double rig, fourteen wheels. Red cab, white body, no logo. And it won't stop."

"No points if it doesn't stop," she said automatically. She strode out to the wheat field, keeping her eye on the road as the dust cloud shaped itself into multiple points of light. She frowned. The cab was black, not red, as was the container, single, not double. Ten wheels. She grinned. He'd gotten this one way wrong.

Then her grin faded. The truck was stopping.

Her mouth dropped open, but there was no mistaking it. The whine of the engine rolled lower. The brakes rumbled. As she stared agape, the truck moved behind one side of the diner and didn't emerge from the other. By the wall, Polk had opened his eyes and was blinking.

Aurora ran to him. "It stopped!"

He turned to the back door. "I know."

Aurora yanked open the back door, and they both bolted through at the same time--or tried to. There was a brief struggle as they squeezed past each other and burst into the kitchen.

"Ah, there you are," said Matron, as she scraped grease off the grill and into the trough. "No rush. I served the Hobsons while you were out."

"Thanks, but--" Aurora began.

The bell above the door jangled. Matron looked out through the cook's window. "We've got customers."

"I know." Aurora pulled on her apron.

Matron frowned. "Not a local man."

"Where's my notepad?" Aurora patted the pockets of her apron frantically.

"You never needed one before," said Matron, wiping down her cooking utensils.

"He's not a regular," said Aurora. "I've never heard his order before." She darted into the dining area.

The new customer was easy to spot just by looking at the other customers. He'd reoriented them like another gravity. The Hobsons were eating quietly but casting curious glances over their shoulders. As the Hendersons gathered Britney's entourage of toys and eased the girl out the door, both parents looked back occasionally to where a man like a black hole sat on one of the stools by the counter, reading a menu.

Aurora grabbed a mug and dragged the carafe from the coffee maker. It made a sound like a knife sliding from its sheath. She shook the strangeness of this sudden simile from her head and pulled herself together. Walking along the counter space, she eyed the new customer.

He was a big man like truckers should be, dressed in black denim jeans and a black short-sleeved shirt with a collar. His muscled arms were matted with black hair, and he had thick black hair and a black beard.

And he probably likes his coffee black, she added to herself. Without asking, she filled the mug and set it in front of him. "See anything you like?" she prompted.

The man looked up at her. The whites of his eyes were black.

"You," he said. His eyes met hers.

Crows.

Aurora staggered back into the cash register. She tried to regain control of her knees, but they didn't belong to her body anymore.

There was a crash in the kitchen. Matron burst through the door, waving her spatula like a club. "Aurora!" she yelled.

Aurora fell. The coffee sloshed over the carafe and scalded her fingers before shattering on the countertop, but she didn't notice. She was out before she hit the floor.

#

Aurora dreamed of the last time she'd seen Lake Winnipeg.

She was twelve, weeks away from turning thirteen. She sat on a boulder, kicking at stones underfoot, while waves lapped at the shore. The sky was the colour of canvas. The north breeze flicked Aurora's blonde hair into her face. She pulled up the zipper of her windbreaker.

"Find what you're looking for, Honey?" asked her mom.

Aurora looked up. Her mother flashed her a grin as she sat on a wave-battered stump. She had her hands thrust into her jacket, and the wind was blowing her blonde hair in front of her face. She'd sat with Aurora, looking across the waves as though waiting for a lost love.

Aurora said nothing. She returned her mother's quick smile, then returned to her close examination of the stones beneath her feet. They clacked and skittered. Then she found it.

It was a round, flat stone, dark and mottled, while the others around it were white. Aurora picked it up. It had the heft of a baseball and narrowed from half an inch thick on one side to almost a knife's edge at the other, but there were no sharp edges to cut her. Her palm and forefinger curved around the thick side perfectly. Aurora cupped it in her palm, clasped it, then stood up. She eyed the northern horizon and took a deep breath.

She leaned into the shot, swinging the stone in a sidearm throw. It left her fingers, spinning, and caught the air like a sail. It met the water along its smooth, flat end, arching back into the air again. Aurora counted the splashes. She clenched her fist and smiled when she reached eight, and the stone finally disappeared.

Her mother clapped. "A new world record!"

She rolled her eyes. "Hardly."

"Who's to know?" said her mother. "It's not like they keep records on that sort of thing."

"Actually, they do. Some guy in Pennsylvania managed to get lighting-eight." Aurora shoved her hands in her pockets.

"Aurora?" The tone of her mother's voice made Aurora turn. Her mother stood up from the stump. "What's bothering you? You've been... withdrawn these past few days. I know that's the default state of a teenager, but you're only twelve, kid. And, besides, I'm a school counsellor with a psychology degree. I know the difference between normal teenagerhood and when something's bothering you. Please tell me."

Aurora sighed. "Mom, nothing's wrong."

"Problems with your teachers?"

"No."

"Problems with Anne?"

"No!"

"Problems with... boys?"

"Mom! No! -- Well..."

Her mother drew herself up, bracing herself for this moment. But it was not what she thought, thought Aurora. If only.

"You know about this boy at school, Roger?" Aurora began.

"The bully you fought?" Her mother nodded. "I know I shouldn't condone violence, but that was still very brave of you."

Aurora's breath caught. "Er... No. It wasn't. It... You don't understand, I..." She halted and breathed deep.

This was it. It all had to come out. She had to tell somebody, or she'd explode. And her mother was the only person left she could talk to. "You see--"

A sound like the squeak of a rusty gate made her turn. On the branch of a stunted tree at the edge of the beach, a crow cocked its head to one side, then the other. It cawed. The north wind picked up, and Aurora shivered.

She thought: It's just a bird.

A bird looking at me.

A bird's got eyes, she thought. It can look at whatever it wants. It's a free country.

But a bird shouldn't look at me with intent. What was it that lawyer guy said on that television show? Malice aforethought? The look was that intense.

She was about to turn away and dismiss the crow from her mind when she heard her mom shout. A stone sailed over her head and struck the branch. The crow flew up, screeching.

"Get out of here!" her mother yelled, reaching for another stone. "Go on, get!" She threw the other rock, and the crow dodged out of the way. It aimed for the sky and took off, cawing.

"Mom!" Aurora shouted when she got her voice back. "Mom, why are --" Then she looked at her mother. "Mom, what's wrong?"

"What? Nothing. Nothing's wrong. Let's go home."

Aurora stood her ground. "Mom? What's wrong?"

Her mother walked carefully over the stones while keeping one eye on the clouds. "Nothing's wrong, Honey. It's just that it's late, and it's getting cold."

Aurora was about to protest when she heard cawing above and looked up. A dotted line of black shapes was weaving across the grey sky. Crows. Flying in a steady stream, calling out to each other as they migrated east.

East?

Her mother reached out for her. "C'mon, Honey, don't argue, please. Let's go home."

Aurora hesitated. Her mother snatched her hand and pulled. She was almost rough.

"Mom!" Aurora stumbled alongside her to the car. "Mom, seriously, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, Honey." Her mother was looking at the sky.

She let go of Aurora's hand as they reached the car and opened the side door for her. As Aurora bent to slide inside, a caw made her look up.

The crow was watching her from the branch again.

She got in and slammed the door.

Her mother started the car and drove off in a spray of gravel.

When Aurora got home, her mother plunked her in front of the television set and put on Aurora's favourite movie (The Princess Bride). She even made popcorn and cocoa. But then her mother went to her bedroom and shut the door. And Aurora heard her talking to someone.

She set her popcorn aside and crept down the hall to the bedroom door. She put her ear to the door, but her mom's voice stayed muffled.

"... a problem... ...He may have found us..."

More muffled conversation, a shifting of floor boards. Aurora could picture her mother on the phone, standing by the bedside table, turning slowly, the cord twisting around her.

"...Don't think I was followed... ...You say he has eyes everywhere..."

More mutters, then. "I just don't know what to do! I know! He can't--!" Then more quietly, "But where do I go?"

There was a long, listening silence in the bedroom.

"You're sure you can keep her safe?" said her mother at last. "But you're in the middle of nowhere!"

More silence, then. "Do you promise? Matron, I'm not going anywhere unless you promise! If I'm going to trust you with my daughter, then you have to swear it! On whatever it is you use as a holy book, swear it!"

Another listening silence, then, "Okay. Okay, I'll tell her."

She hung up. Footsteps approached. Aurora thought about racing back to the couch, but decided instead to wait, arms folded, as her mother opened the door.

Her mother gasped to see her standing there.

"What's going on, Mom?"

Aurora saw a parade of emotions steam across her mother's face -- shock, horror, shame -- before getting things back under control, and�� giving her daughter a small smile as she matched Aurora folding her arms across her chest.

"Hey, honey," she said. "Want to make a little money?"

Aurora opened her mouth, then stopped. After a moment, she closed her mouth. "Okay. Tell me more."

"I just got a call from your Aunt Matron," said her mother.

Aurora nodded and didn't mention that she hadn't heard the phone ring. Aunt Matron was a kindly older woman, though with red hair, she hardly looked like her mom's sister. She was a good source of gifts whenever she visited and always included a cheque when the birthday or Christmas cards arrived. But where did she live again?

"She's been caught short," her mother went on. "One of her hired hands up and left."

Saskatchewan, Aurora thought. Northern Saskatchewan. The hired hand probably went crazy and made a mad dash for civilization.

Aloud, she said, "That's too bad."

"So, she asked if you could come out and help, for spring break, while she looks for a replacement," her mom went on. "It's win-win. She'd love to see you, and she'll pay the usual wage. How often do you get paid to spend some time with one of your relatives?"

There is that. Aurora looked up at her mother. "And this has nothing to do with why you were so upset back at the lake?"

"What?" said her mother quickly. "N-no! It's just... helping out family, okay? You can do that, can't you? And make a little money on the side?"

Aurora nodded. You're not going to tell me why you're so scared, are you? You're a liar, and worst of all, you think you're doing this for my benefit. Oh, well. Visiting Aunt Matron might be a good consolation prize. If I play along, maybe I can figure out what's going on. Maybe I can wear Matron down and get an explanation.

She smiled at her mother, reached out and brushed her cheek, knocking the glass spirit ball beads that dangled from her mother's ear -- folk art that supposedly protected against bad dreams. "Sure!"

"Pack a bag, Honey. We'll grab a bite to eat on the road."

Aurora blinked. "We're going now?"

Her mother beamed. "Yup!" As though they were on their way to Disneyworld. And she sent Aurora to her room to pack

As Aurora packed, she thought about arguing or even throwing a fit, but at the back of her mind, a little voice told her to play along. There was something about the tension in her mother's shoulders that made her keep her head down. To do otherwise would be like putting a match to a balloon full of gasoline.

So she packed up a week's change of clothes, a bunch of her favourite books (Aunt Matron didn't have cable! Augh!) plus Freddy, the teddy bear that she'd publicly sworn she was too old for but had never deigned to recycle, and hauled the suitcase out of the house and to her mother's SUV.

Her mother loaded the suitcase into the back of the SUV and hurried Aurora into the car. She kept on looking at the trees, but there were no waiting crows. Finally, her mother piled in behind the steering wheel and snapped on her seatbelt. "Ready?"

"Are you?" said Aurora, one eyebrow raised.

Her mother took a breath and held it. "No," she said at last and turned the key in the ignition. Aurora was pressed into her seat as the car shot out of the driveway. The glass spirit ball dangling from the rear-view mirror was pulled almost horizontal.

"Mom!"

"Sorry," said her mother, and slowed down.

They pulled into the first McDonald's drive-thru and bought Big Macs to eat on their laps as they drove. Traffic was heavy as they eased onto the Perimeter Highway, but it moved. As the cars, trucks and SUVs surrounded them, Aurora heard her mother breathing a sigh of relief, but the tension didn't ease from her shoulders, even as they pulled onto the Trans-Canada.

They had the radio on, and they drove on in silence. Aurora kept her ear open for the news in case some secret tsunami was on its way to crush Winnipeg behind them.

They pushed westward. The rocky land of the shield gave way to pasture and then grain fields. They chased the sun as it disappeared over the horizon and kept driving as the farmhouse lights winked off and the interior of their car flashed dark to bright in the headlights of oncoming trucks. The radio stations gave way to static.

"Shall I put on a tape, dear?" asked her mother. For the next hour, they listened to Mozart. Aurora curled her legs beneath her, rested her cheek against the headrest and stared out at the blackness, flecked with distant specks of light.

Mom fed a new tape in. It started softly, with the sound of rushing surf.

Then, her mother's voice washed over the car's speakers.

"I'd like you to take deep, slow breaths. Imagine that with each breath, you are putting all of your tension, all of your stress, into your lungs and breathing them out of your mouth. With each breath, your eyelids are getting heavier."

Aurora's eyelids fluttered.

"Keep your breathing slow and steady," continued her mother's voice. "With each breath, you are falling deeper and deeper asleep."

And Aurora slipped into a deep sleep. She'd be surprised if she hadn't been so sleepy.

"Your name is Aurora Kelso. Not Perrault. Kelso."

#

A hand clapped on Aurora's shoulder. She woke with a gasp and then looked around frantically. She was standing in the middle of the diner. Tom Hobson held her by the shoulder with one hand, and had taken the coffee carafe out of her hand with the other. "Careful, there, young lady! You almost spilled. Does Matron work you like a slave into the middle of the night as well?"

Aurora pulled herself together and looked around at the diner. It was a normal end of the lunch hour.

The dark man was nowhere to be seen.

"You were out on your feet," Mr. Hobson added.

In her mind's eye, Aurora burst out of the controlling comforter and wriggled free.

Her mouth dropped open. "How long have I been asleep?"

Photo Credits

The top photo is entitled "American Diner 50's Retro" and is courtesy Wikimedia user Marsupial73. The middle photo is entitled "Winnipeg Lake and Bird" and is courtesy Wikimedia user DouDouliu. Both are used in accordance with their Creative Commons License.

The Year Everything Changed, Again

2025 will be the twentieth anniversary of my sister-in-law Wendy's death. To say that it came as a shock would be an understatement. On December 31, I summarized the year as "The Year Everything Changed," and I stand by that. Nothing was ever the same. Grief is not something you get over. Grief is something you grow around.

I should have said so again at the end of 2016 (or, more accurately, the very beginning of 2017) when my mother passed away, but I wasn't in the mood for blogging at the time.

The sad truth, however, is that everything can change again. It can change for a third time. There are some things you simply can't prepare for until they happen.

In 2024, we lost my father-in-law Wendell -- not unexpectedly, but still. We also had serious health issues with my father, which placed him in an assisted care facility, and my step-father-in-law, Michael, who is now currently recovering from a stroke. We've had to clear out and sell two residences, one of which was lived in for over thirty years. And while that's over and done with (for now), it's still a body blow that aches. The fact that this is unavoidable due to the march of time is little comfort. The political situation certainly hasn't helped.

This isn't to say that this year has been wholly bad. There are plenty of glimmers if we look. My father is safe and comfortable, as is Michael, and things could have been much, much worse. We are making changes to our lives and home that will stay with us for years to come in a good way. There is also Erin's Newberry Honour for Simon Sort of Says, the publication of her first book of poetry in years, my publication of The Sun Runners, and my work with my fellow authors to put together Tales from the Silence. Both our kids are safe and relatively happy. Eldest child has graduated high school and is looking forward to post-secondary work in graphic design. Youngest child is happily creative, building truly impressive worlds and characters at great speed that frankly puts me to shame. Financially, we have reached some stability and hope to stay there for a while (fingers crossed).

But the world has changed, outdoors and in. The old foundations we hadn't realized we were relying on have cracked or crumbled. Things are going to be different, and some things are still going to happen that just aren't going to be nice. But we have love. We have each other. We have creativity. So, we will soldier on for better days ahead.

Because I know in my heart that they will come, because of what we still have, and how we will help each other into the future.

(Fiction Special) - The Dream King's Daughter - Prologue

Photo: Settlement of Alsask, on the Alberta, Saskatchewan border, taken by James Bow on September 14, 2014.

"Your name is Aurora Kelso. Not Perrault. Kelso."

"Kelso," Aurora muttered.

"You have lived in Cooper's Corners all your life. You have no mother. You have no father. There is only Aunt Matron."

"Aunt Matron."

"Forget me."

"I... forget..."

A persistent light winked her slowly back to consciousness. Aurora snorted and fruitlessly tried to flick it away. She opened her eyes and shut them again at the sudden bright blindness. She raised her head and looked around, groggy. Her mouth was dry and tasted terrible.

She could barely take in what her eyes were telling her. They were on a black ribbon ploughing through a sea of yellow, the only car on the road. The horizon ahead of them was dark, but the clouds glowed like mountains.

Beside her, her mother hunched over the steering wheel, staring ahead with the glazed look that suggested extreme concentration in the face of a desperate need for caffeine.

This wasn't right, thought a small clear voice that was muffled in the addled confines of Aurora's brain. The sun peeking over the horizon behind me is sunrise. We've driven all night. We're still driving.

"Wh-where?" she croaked. She strained against her seat belt. Her joints ached from sleeping upright. "M-mom, wh-where--"

Her mom gave her a quick look. Her cheeks were wet, and she cleared her nose with a sniff. She adjusted the controls, and the side view mirror dipped, pulling the sun out of Aurora's eyes.

"Just rest, honey. J-Just go to sleep, and rest."

She placed a hand over Aurora's eyes...

And Aurora slept for three years.

The novel that got away.

Back in late 2007, after I had published The Unwritten Girl and Fathom Five and was finishing The Young City for publication -- and after finishing the first draft of The Night Girl -- I hit upon a new story idea. One of the oldest documents featuring it has the following notes:

A daughter (Aurora), encountering something strangely mystical, doesn't realize how serious things are until her father takes her on a drive, and they drive all night and through the morning.

Daughter left to work as a waitress in a small town diner somewhere. Wakes up. Realizes she is in sort of witness protection program.

Who is she? Who is her father? What are they running from?

Some things have changed in the years since, as you see from the prologue above, but over the next year and a half, this proved to be a fun story to pursue. I spent a lot of time working on The Dream King's Daughter (grabbing time while Wayfinder and Eleanor played at the Early Years Centre). A part of me revelled in the free-for-all that dreams offered -- ignoring the truth that, in surreal fantasy, you have to work twice as hard to keep your readers engaged and believing in the world since you are taking the rules of the world and throwing them out the window. I was more naive back then.

Still, I was pleased with the result, and The Dream King's Daughter became my fifth completed novel, sitting in reserve while I tried to get The Night Girl published. Both took a back seat to my science fiction novel Icarus Down, which Scholastic Canada purchased and published in 2016. And while The Night Girl underwent a thorough rewrite, turning it into a New Adult urban fantasy that was not Scholastic's cup of tea, Scholastic did accept The Dream King's Daughter as my second novel with them. I even signed a contract and announced it back in March 2018.

Sadly, it was not to be. Staff shakeups at Scholastic Canada, as well as the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, resulted in the book's cancellation. (Don't worry; I got to keep the advance Scholastic sent me.) I had no choice but to set the novel aside while I worked on publishing��The Night Girl and��finishing the manuscript that would become The Sun Runners.

And that is where things stand today: a fully-written, 56,000 word novel sits unpublished on my hard drive. This happens more often than you'd think. I'm sure the library of unpublished novels would be one of the biggest in the world.

But why not try again? Why not find a publisher willing to take The Dream King's Daughter on? Well, I think The Dream King's Daughter is not my story anymore. I am a very different writer now than I was in 2007. Compare the stories of The Unwritten Books trilogy against Icarus Down and The Sun Runners, and you'll see. I've evolved. True, The Night Girl began life in 2003 and also hit some snags before being eventually published in 2019, but it underwent a from-the-ground-up rewrite that changed the narrative, the characters, and the plot, keeping the best from the old draft and making it much, much better, and very different from what it was before (case in point: the original draft was 64,000 words, while the new draft clocked in at over 90,000).

The Dream King's Daughter has not had the same opportunity, and while it would be tempting to give it the same treatment as The Night Girl, I have other stories to write (such as The Cloud Riders and The Curator of Forgotten Things). Right now, The Dream King's Daughter is more of a window into how I used to be as a writer.

Which might be a useful thing to show (not to mention providing a nice freebie to promote my other works).

So, for the next eleven weeks or so I will be taking and lightly editing The Dream King's Daughter and posting it for free to this blog and some other venues. I think you'll enjoy this wild take on thunderstorms made of crows, animated plastic bags, a young woman who can read people's dreams, and the dark forces desperately reaching out for her.

Either way, stay tuned!

The Nearly-Empty Tim Hortons at Christmas

In the rush of last-minute errands for the holidays, it became clear on Christmas Eve that I would have to eat dinner away from home. That's all fine and good, but this was Christmas Eve. As I looked around, all the businesses, especially restaurants, were shutting down in the late afternoon to give their employees a well-deserved break ahead of the holidays to finish up their Christmas preparations before spending time with their families.

This is a good thing, and I honour it, but it still forced me to ask: what was I to eat?

But I knew there was a Tim Horton's at the edge of town that was open 24 Hours. As I was passing by early in the afternoon, I decided to check in to see if they would be open that evening. I didn't have to look hard for the Holiday Hours sign and, sure enough: this 24 Hours Tim Hortons meant it: they would remain open 24 hours a day, through Christmas Eve, Christmas, Boxing Day and into the New Year.

So that's where I ate that evening, with my father and my youngest child after the Christmas Eve service, with one other customer present and two staff members handling the cash, food preparation, and the drive-thru window.

As grateful as I was to have this meal on Christmas Eve, I couldn't help but wonder what it would be like throughout the holiday. What would it be like at a 24 Hour Tim Hortons at 3 a.m. on Christmas Morning? Who would be sitting, out of the cold, hands clasped over a warm coffee, taking a meal? Who would be there on Christmas afternoon? Or Boxing Day before the Boxing Week sales opened? What is it like for the workers who serve them?

Today, travelling to pick up my step-father-in-law, the roads are empty. This is a day people stay home. So, who else is out this day? I'm not talking about the homeless, though they could use more warm spaces like this. Instead, I'm talking about a group of people who are at the edge of society in a unique way: no commitments to bring them home but strange commitments to keep them away from home. People who we wouldn't otherwise notice on other days because we're commuting beside them, until those days when we stop and they don't.

Is it a dark place for these people? Or just different?

I am pleased that there are still places for people who can't be home for Christmas, who have to keep moving when everybody else takes a break. Though I don't want to be in their shoes, I wonder what it's like to be in them. Maybe there's a story there. We'll see.

The (New) Night Girl Cover Reveal

Once again, I am delighted to have been published by Shadowpaw Press. Not only has Edward Willett at Shadowpaw Press taken on the task of punching way above his weight when it comes to the Canadian publishing scene -- not only has he given us an excellent outlet to publish our own works through his Endless Sky imprint -- he has given a number of out-of-print books new life through his Shadowpaw Reprise offerings. As a result, in late May 2025, Shadowpaw will be releasing a new edition of my new adult fantasy novel, The Night Girl. The cover, produced by the great folks at Bibliofic, is here revealed on the right.

After parting ways amicably with REUTS Publications, I'm delighted that The Night Girl is now in the hands of a Canadian publisher who can get my books to all Canadian bookstores -- you just have to go in and order them, and I encourage you to do so.

The Night Girl is and remains a considerable departure from my usual style of writing. It's lighter and funnier than my standard, and it acts as a love-letter to my home town and the secrets it can reveal if we take the time to look. Those of you who have already read a copy know what I'm talking about. If you haven't yet read this cozy Toronto fantasy with surprising depths, I hope you'll join me in May 2025 as the new Night Girl is launched.

Read more about The Night Girl here...

My 2024 Awards Eligibility Post

This seems presumptuous but, if Ben Berman Ghan can do it, why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I toot my own horn a little?

If anybody would care to nominate me for any of the science fiction awards covering this year, the following stories and publications are eligible, I believe:

Novel:

The Sun Runners - published November 12, 2024 with Shadowpaw Press

Short Fiction (all published in Tales from the Silence, on November 12, 2024, with Shadowpaw Press/Endless Sky):

The Phases of Jupiter
The Guards of Chelela Pass
After the Apocalypse in Moosonee
Big Fish, Little Fish
The Fall of McMurdo

However, while I personally would love to see After the Apocalypse in Moosonee nominated, I think the stories by my fellow authors are more deserving:

Moonshadow, by Cameron Dixon
Fear of Falling, by Kari Maaren
Right to Repair, by Fiona J. Moore
The Muskhole King, by Mark Richard Francis
The Queen Can Never Win the Game by Kate Blair
To Strike the Flint, by Phoebe Barton
For Those About to Rock, by Jeff Szpirglas
Cold Payload, by Kate Orman
Famous Lost Words, by Ira Nayman
Growing up on Mercury, by Joanna Karaplis
On this Day in 2199, by James Bow, Cameron Dixon, Kari Maaren, Fiona J. Moore, Mark Richard Francis, Kate Blair, Phoebe Barton, Jeff Szpirglas, Kate Orman, Ira Nayman and Joanna Karaplis.

It should be noted that all of these authors are Canadians except for Kate Orman, who is from Australia.

So do with this as you wish! And check out some other eligibility lists over here.

More Podcast Attention for The Sun Runners

The fulfillment of the Tales from the Silence Kickstarter rewards remains on hold due to the strike at Canada Post. Fingers crossed, they'll finally come to a reasonable agreement that everyone can be happy with, but until then...

In the meantime, Shadowpaw's publicist has placed me on a few more podcasts to promote The Sun Runners. I enjoyed all of them, and invite you to check them out.

I was a guest on House of Mystery Radio on NBC, where Alan R. Warren interviewed me and asked me many great questions about my writing process.Miss Liz was also very generous in inviting me to her Teatime with Miss Liz. There, I discovered that she originally hailed from northern Ontario, and we talked a bit about my Tales from the Silence story After the Apocalypse in Moosonee.Finally, I was also interviewed by Red O'Laughlin for The Corner Bookstore (I love the image of a virtual corner bookstore), who noted the length of this blog, and we ended up talking a bit about the old days of social media and blogging, and my early days of writing.

Thanks to all of my hosts for such wonderful experiences, and thanks to my publisher Ed and his publicist Mickey for putting me on the radar!

November Ends

We had our first dusting of snow here two days ago. I can’t remember a time when we had our first snow of the season so late. Usually there’d be at least a dusting around Halloween, but the weather has been unseasonably warm. Still rainy, though, and dark. My mother had a poem for this time of year. It may have been this poem by Thomas Hood:

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member —
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! —
November!

So, with the loss of light hitting me between the eyes, and things looking pretty dark on the political scene, this sounds about right. But let’s talk about the good things of this month, which are plenty.

First and foremost, I’d like to thank the organizers of Can*Con, the staff at the Lieutenant’s Pump, the great people behind Bakka-Phoenix Books, the also great people behind Words Worth Books and the Waterloo Public Library for bringing the excitement around the launch of my books at Ottawa, Toronto and Waterloo. You gave The Sun Runners and Tales from the Silence a great send-off. Thanks also to the contributors of Tales from the Silence who cheered us on, either at these events or online.

And thanks to my publisher and editor Edward Willett and his Creative Edge publicist Mickey Mikkelson for working so hard to get my name out there. I feel that my books have been supported like never before.

Finally, I’d like to thank in advance Paula Johanson, who has organized a social media campaign for small press books today, encouraging everyone to talk up their own books, especially eBooks, as a good gift for the holidays, and promoting the hashtag #EBookGifts.

So, if you haven’t already done it, consider making The Sun Runners and Tales from the Silence a gift for your loved ones who love to read this year. You can do it in print from better bookstores across Canada, or directly from Shadowpaw Press (see The Sun Runners and Tales from the Silence), and you can do it electronically from most eBook sellers, including Shadowpaw Press (the same links above).

And if you have a small press book to offer, talk it up in the comments below or in social media, and don’t forget the tag #EBookGifts!

And if you get these books and read them, don’t be afraid to review them, on your website, or wherever else reviews are gathered. Just knowing that my words are being received out there is one of the greatest mood-improvers one could receive this bleak midwinter season.

Podcast Attention

I'd like to thank Ed, my publisher for taking on a publicist to help sell Shadowpaw's fall line of books, including The Sun Runners and Tales from the Silence. This time around, I've had the privilege to be on a number of podcasts to talk about these books, and hopefully bring them to the attention of more readers.

Earlier, I did a session with Southside Broadcasting, talking to Alex Lewczuk and Jessica Burtis.��You can hear that podcast here. They were a pleasure to talk to, and they were very up on the details of the book. We talked about all manner of things, including our mutual love of Doctor Who. Be sure to check them out.

I was also pleased to take part in the Find the Magic Book Podcast with Tricia Copeland, who was a warm and engaging interviewer, happy to talk about my writing process and more. Finally, there is Edward Willett's own Aurora award-winning Worldshapers podcast, who has interviewed some of the biggest names in science fiction. It was an honour to join the lineup with this episode, and it was again a pleasure to share time with Edward and his questions.

I've also been the subject of a very detailed written interview with Paul Semel. Be sure to check out our conversation here, and I'm pleased by the first reviews these books have received.

Whether it's because my publisher has been very focused on publicizing his books to the best of his ability, or whether podcasting has become more prevalent, I feel that there is a decent push for these books and I'm grateful. I have a few other interviews and podcasts to do, so stay tuned. I'll post links as soon as they are available.

Sun Runners and Tales from the Silence ReviewsAnthony Avina: "Harrowing, insightful, and entertaining author James Bow's Tales from the Silence is a must-read sci-fi and dystopian short story collection. ."M.H. Questus: "I'm happy to recommend The Sun Runners to anyone who enjoys solid science fiction. I hesitate to use the term "YA," but only because I don't think you specifically have to be a fan of YA to enjoy the book. It's got enough depth and crunch to satisfy most sci-fi readers, but is light and pacey enough for younger audiences. Two thumbs up, 9 out of 10 stars, can't wait to read the sequel if/when Bow writes one!.Netgalley: The Sun Runners | Tales from the Silence.