Fiction River: Sparks: Fiction River: An Original Anthology Magazine, #17

Foreword

Light and Darkness

Kristine Kathryn Rusch

When Dean Wesley Smith and I teach continuing education courses for professional writers, we joke that we torture them. We do work them very hard, and force them to make some tough emotional choices as they write.

What we didn’t expect was that we would do the same to one of our editors.

Fiction River: Sparks came from our annual anthology workshop. Six editors review hundreds of stories from the professional writers who attend, every single story written with a targeted anthology in mind. Sparks was Rebecca Moesta’s idea. She’s used to workshops with beginning writers. As I said, we teach professionals.

So all of the stories she had to read for the workshop—over fifty for Sparks alone—weren’t just publishable; they were exceptional. In fact, stories that don’t get accepted for one of our anthologies sell all over the world to publications from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine to Clarkesworld and to many other anthologies (not edited by us).

With Sparks, Rebecca was surprised and unprepared for the quality: she found herself choosing between two superb stories on similar topics, and making the choice based on a gut sense. At one point, she even teared up as she made the final decision.

When she was finished, she said she could have edited three anthologies with the level of fiction she received.

Her willingness to make the hard choices, though, makes Sparks an incredible anthology. Even though we’ve labeled it Young Adult, this is an anthology for all ages.

Rebecca insisted the stories be uplifting, and they are. It’s the perfect mid-winter volume—light in the darkness. Save this one for that day when you’re the most down. The stories here are guaranteed to lift you up, and make you feel better than you have in a long, long time.

—Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Lincoln City, Oregon

August 26, 2015

Introduction

Forever Young

Rebecca Moesta

People often ask me why I read (and write) stories for young adults. To me, the reasons are obvious. Early adulthood is a time of discovery—of self and of the world. It’s filled with idealism, hope, wonder, and high emotion. Each new experience has the potential to become a turning point.

The books I read as a teen changed my perspective. I learned the ripple-effects of making decisions. I was swept away by the excitement or heartache of relationships. I saw that cultures can have quite different definitions of grown up and diverse views of life and death. My ideas of honor, freedom, truth, and redemption were challenged. It was uncomfortable and exhilarating. I fell in love with those feelings.

When I was still in that child-to-adult transition, I decided that I wanted to write the same kind of books: books that could change minds and feelings. And even though I went on to read thrillers, biographies, mysteries, romances, and other grown up books, I never stopped reading Young Adult fiction. It still has the power to move and excite me.

When I got a chance to edit an anthology, it felt natural to collect stories featuring young characters. I don’t believe for a moment that YA literature only appeals to specific age ranges. The themes are universal. A study in the past few years showed that 3/4 of the people who buy young adult books are adults. Okay, maybe a lot of those adults give the books as gifts to their kids, but they also read those books. This trend is so widely recognized that comedian Stephen Colbert once joked, As far as I can tell, a young adult novel is a regular novel that people actually read.

I agree, and that’s one reason this anthology exists—for readers of all ages.

Why Sparks? A spark is a small particle of fire or electricity. A symbol.

The sparks in this anthology are teens who find their own inner fire, overcome adversity, and change things for the better. In a metaphorical sense, they might ignite a candle to light the darkness, start a fire to ward off the cold, or set off an explosion that alters the world.

I hope that these stories spark your imagination as much as they did mine.

—Rebecca Moesta

Monument, Colorado

March 25, 2015

Introduction to Dead Fred

Liz Pierce writes suburban fantasy—stories that blur the boundaries between the real world and the fantastical, but are lighter and less edgy than their urban cousins. In her Suburbia series, goblins, trolls, dwarves, elves, and even zombies are just trying to figure out how to cope with their human neighbors and everyday life in the Real World—often with unexpected results. You can find more of her work on her website, elizabethannpierce.com.

About Dead Fred, Liz says: "I’ve written a handful of short, origin stories about some of the characters from the novel, Just Another Day in Suburbia, and when I was thinking about the theme for this anthology, it was almost as if Grace handed me her diary and gave me permission to share her story. Dead Fred is all Grace. It’s her voice. I just typed the words as she dictated them to me."

Dead Fred

Liz Pierce

Monday, September 1

The new school janitor is a zombie.

I don’t mean one of those wrinkled old guys with white hair and thick glasses who stands by the wall, leaning on his broom between classes, hoping no one trips over him. I mean a Real. Live. Zombie.

(Or would that be a real dead zombie? I’m not sure…)

I haven’t seen him yet, but the whole idea sorta creeps me out.

Forest Glen High. Home of the Zombies! Can’t wait to hear what the cheerleaders do with that one.

***

Thursday, September 4

At lunch today, a bunch of us were all joking around about stuff and Tyler made some stupid comment to which I said, Your face!

Of course, he replied with, Your mom’s face!

Ben smacked Tyler up-side of the head. Tyler had this look like what? and Kayla leaned over and whispered, Her mom’s dead, you dumb-ass! Only she whispered it loud enough for everyone in the room to hear, I think, and then everyone at our table just got real busy eating all of a sudden.

I didn’t know what to say any more than anybody else. I think I mumbled something like, Don’t worry about it, but I’m not sure anyone heard, ’cause no one answered. I was really glad when lunch ended.

It hasn’t been that long since Mom died, and it’s not like I don’t think about it every single day, but I hadn’t been thinking about it then, and didn’t want to be. I just wanted everything to be normal.

I’m afraid nothing will ever really be normal ever again.

***

Friday, September 5

So I just found out that they made a space in the big, walk-in cafeteria refrigerator for the zombie to hang out whenever it gets too warm and needs to cool off. I guess they had to do that so it doesn’t start decomposing or something.

I am never—ever—eating school lunches again.

***

Tuesday, September 9

I finally saw the janitor today.

I thought it would just be creepy. I mean, I’ve seen zombie movies, so I guess maybe I was expecting it to be wandering around with its face half decomposed and blood smeared all over its clothes or something.

I didn’t expect it to remind me of Mom.

I know, it sounds sick, which is why I’m writing it down, to try to sort it out in my own head. I can’t talk to anyone about it—especially not Dad. It would kill him.

But the way the zombie shuffled down the hall like that, barely able to pick up its feet, shoving one foot forward and then forcing the next one, and the broom it was pushing just sort of lurching forward a few inches at a time. Yeah. That was just like the way Mom was walking last spring, when the Parkinson’s had gotten real bad.

So when I saw the zombie, I just froze. Stared at it the whole time it took for it to stagger its way down the hall and turn the corner toward the gym. I was glad it was walking away from me, ’cause just for a minute I thought, when it turned the corner, I thought I saw my Mom’s face.

I know—I KNOW—she’s safely buried and not a zombie pushing a broom down some hallway somewhere. I mean, they don’t dig people up and change them, right?

But that’s what I thought I saw.

So did I run after it and look it in the face and make sure? Nope. I sure didn’t. I ducked into the closest bathroom and threw up instead.

Yeah, I know, not very impressive. Deal with it.

I have to.

***

Monday, September 15

So our neighbor, Mrs. Simpson, was standing in the middle of our living room, yelling, when I came home from the mall today. And my Dad and Mrs. McMurtree, the old lady who lives a couple of streets over, were just sitting there, all calm, eating cookies and sipping on cups of tea and letting her yell.

Now you have to understand, Mrs. Simpson yells really loud. And when she yells, her face gets almost as red as her hair and windows rattle and all that sort of thing. So it’s not exactly like you can ignore her yelling. But since Dad and Mrs. McMurtree are members of the neighborhood association with her, I guess they’ve gotten used to waiting for her to get the yelling out of her system or something.

I heard it when I came up the sidewalk, so I went around back and came in through the kitchen door. But she spotted me when I tried to slip down the hall and said Here’s Grace—one of the very people we need to protect from those creatures. What do you think about it, dear? Aren’t you as appalled as I am? and then stood there with her fists on her hips like I was somehow supposed to help her prove her point. Whatever it was.

I guess I must have looked all confused and stuff, because my Dad wiped the cookie crumbs off his mouth, folded his napkin, and said, Mrs. Simpson wants to know what you think about there being a zombie working at the high school.

Wow. Wrong question to ask me.

I wonder if Dad thinks of Mom whenever he sees a zombie.

But he just sat there, with that I’m trying to be patient with her, but would really like to throw her out on her butt look on his face that he gets whenever he has to deal with Mrs. Simpson. Did I mention that not only is she loud, but she’s also selfish and sometimes just kinda mean?

No way was I gonna help her. So I just shrugged off the question and said, I dunno. He sweeps okay, I guess. Better than Mr. Carter did, anyway.

Mrs. Simpson just stood there, staring at me, her mouth opening and closing like a big, round puffer-fish, with no sound coming out.

So I said, And they say he works all night, too, so that’s kinda cool. I have homework, so is that all?

I could tell Dad was trying not to bust a gut, laughing. Mrs. McMurtree, though, was looking right at me, sipping at her tea, watching me over the tops of her wire-rimmed granny glasses like she knew I wasn’t saying what I really felt.

Here’s the funny thing. I really do have homework tonight—a paper for my Civics class about city councils and how they work. And I know that the Forest Glen Neighborhood Association isn’t a city council, but Mrs. Simpson sure likes to treat it like one. I’m just glad my dad is the president, and not her. Ick.

***

Tuesday, September 23

There was a cat waiting for me when I got off the bus this afternoon.

I saw it when the bus pulled up to the corner—a big, familiar-looking, black-and-white cat, sitting on top of a brick mailbox post, watching the bus approach—and promptly forgot about it until I nearly tripped over it after I got off the bus.

It wound around my legs, meowing loudly, like it thought I should understand it or something.

Looks like you’ve got a new friend, Grace, someone said. Everyone laughed.

I didn’t laugh.

The cat was ignoring everyone else, and only paying attention to me. I was trying hard not to pay any attention to it. I don’t dislike them, but Dad’s allergic, so we never had a cat, and I didn’t need one following me home.

Go home, I said, shooing it away. Trying to, anyway.

Meow-w, it said, ducking behind me and shoving at the back of my leg with its head like it wanted me to turn the corner instead of cross the street.

Hey! I said. Did I mention this was a big cat? When it shoved, I actually felt it! I swung my backpack in its general direction, hoping to startle it away. Go, go, go.

The cat dodged my pack, then circled back around me and once again shoved me toward Oak Tree Lane. Then it jumped up on the fencepost at the corner of the yard near me and stared at me. It looked so familiar, but I couldn’t place where I knew it from. I just stood there and stared back at it, and I swear that it was trying to tell me something. We must have stared at each other for a couple of minutes before I finally gave up.

Fine, I said. Where do you want to go, cat?

It jumped off the fencepost and trotted a few steps down Oak Tree Lane, then turned and looked over its shoulder and meowed at me.

What was I supposed to do? I followed the cat.

***

September 23—after dinner

It was Mrs. McMurtree’s cat, and his name is Marley.

I realized this when we got close to her big, old, yellow house—the one with the tower on the corner and the big porch that goes all the way around it. Dad should build a porch around our house. That would be so cool.

Anyway, so when we got close to her house, Mrs. McMurtree was outside in her yard, working in her garden. I never knew you needed to work on a garden in the fall, only in the spring, but I guess plants need attention all the time. I never really thought about it before. So the cat jumped up on the fence rail and meowed, real loud, and Mrs. M. looked up and saw us coming and waved.

Marley! You found her at last! she said with a big smile—that’s when I realized that I actually knew this cat—and then she stood up and dusted herself off and waved me over. Grace, do come in. I’ve been hoping to visit with you.

I did not know you could send a cat off to fetch someone. That was a new one on me. A dog, sure, maybe, if you had something belonging to the person for the dog to smell; then they were supposed to be able to find them. And if it was a smart dog, I suppose it could get someone to go somewhere with them. But a cat? I’d never heard of a cat doing anything like that. Too weird.

But that’s what Marley had done. Waited for me and brought me to her house. And Mrs. M. seemed to be expecting me.

Gives me goosebumps just writing that.

I helped Mrs. M. gather up her garden tools and put them away. She’s like a hundred years old, and her hair is all gray and she wears frilly, flowery, old-fashioned dresses most of the time—she had a canvas apron with big pockets on over her dress today—but she’s a lot tougher than she looks, and as soon as I’d piled the clippers and little shovel and garden fork and bags of bulbs and fertilizer and stuff into a little wheelbarrow, she was trucking off with it to the backyard herself. I was so surprised, that for a moment, I just stood there. Wow. I hope I’m that tough when I’m old.

And then Marley head-butted my leg again.

Yeah, yeah, I said, and followed Mrs. M. through the gate and into her yard.

Mrs. M. had a big plate of nut bread on her kitchen table, under this cool glass dome to keep it from drying out. I love nut bread—and I skipped lunch today—so when we went inside and she offered me a glass of cider and told me to help myself to the nut bread, I did. Mmmm!

I got the impression the other day that you weren’t really so casual about the zombie at your school as you let on, she said.

That’s how Mrs. M. is—she might be as old as dirt, and look like everybody’s sweet old grandma, but she’s really sharp, too. Not much gets by her, at least not that I’ve ever noticed, and I’ve known her all my life.

I shrugged. It’s nothing, I said, nibbling at a slice of nut bread.

When Mrs. M. didn’t say anything, just puttered around in her cluttery, old-fashioned kitchen, I knew she didn’t believe me.

I just stay out of its way, I said finally. It creeps me out.

I didn’t tell her that I actively avoided being in the same part of the high school as the zombie. That I’d skipped lunch for the last three days because its cleaning routine had it in the hall between my last morning class and the lunchroom.

Creeps you out? she asked.

Makes me sad.

I don’t think those are the same thing, she said. Why does it creep you out?

It’s dead and walking around the halls at school. That’s creepy.

Fair enough, she agreed. Though I must say that I’ve seen things I believe are far creepier—

I started to ask her what she’d seen, but she shook her head.

—but we’re not talking about me. Why does it make you sad?

I didn’t want to tell her, didn’t want to talk about the way the zombie made me feel; how every time I saw its arm shake as it picked up a wastebasket or watched it turn its entire body instead of just turn its head when someone called out to it, I was reminded of my mom. How I’d thought I’d seen her face not just that first time when it turned the corner going down the hall away from me, but how just about every time it was far enough away to not be able to see its features clearly, the way it moved with its tiny, shuffling steps, sometimes bent forward just a little like it was going to topple over, sometimes leaning on the broom like that was the only thing holding it up—how whenever I saw it at a distance, I saw my mom, struggling with her disease and being trapped in her own dying body.

I didn’t want to tell Mrs. M. any of that.

I didn’t want to admit that I’d almost missed the bus that afternoon because I’d come running around the corner from my locker and there was the zombie standing there with its broom, and I froze again, standing there so close I could have reached out and touched it, so close I could actually smell dead-person odor mixed with floor cleaner that had splashed on its uniform. Someone had pinned a name patch on its chest—Fred, it said, in red-stitched letters, right at my eye-level. I dragged my eyes up, away from the name patch, and stared at the zombie’s face, watched its chin quiver as a trickle of drool ran down its chin, saw the emptiness in its bloodshot eyes as it looked at me with its pale, slack-faced, vacant expression, and was suddenly glad that my mother had gotten pneumonia and died quickly, instead of the slow-motion death like Fred’s that our whole family had been living with through the course of her disease. That shocked me so bad that I ran to the bus and just sat there staring out the window all the way home. I mean, what kind of daughter would be glad for something like that?

So, of course, when I opened my mouth to say something stupid about being sad that the zombie hadn’t been able to RIP but had to clean up after a bunch of immature high schoolers, what did I say?

The zombie makes me miss my mom.

I couldn’t believe I said that. I dropped into a chair and my backpack slid off my shoulder and onto the floor with a thud, and just like that I found myself telling Mrs. M. all the things I could never say to my dad or my brothers or my sister or anyone else.

I don’t know how long I talked or when Marley jumped up onto my lap, just that when I finally slowed down long enough to even notice things around me, it was starting to get a little dark out. Mrs. M. had turned on the lights, and sitting at her kitchen table petting the cat felt warm and comforting.

I gotta go. Dad will worry, I said, wiping tears off my face with the back of my hand. There was a little pile of tissues on the table next to me that I guess I must have used. Wow. Was I out of it, or what?

Of course, child, said Mrs. M., handing me a small loaf of nut bread all wrapped up in plastic with a cheerful yellow ribbon tied around it. She’d tucked a few flowers into the ribbon. Come back whenever you’d like to talk again.

Thanks, I said, wondering what I’d said during all that time, afraid if I said more that I’d be there for a bunch more hours. I dumped Marley off my lap and grabbed my pack. He meowed and rubbed his shoulder against my leg like he actually cared.

As I was walking home, I turned and looked back at Mrs. M’s house. She was standing there on the porch, holding Marley. And even though I was already two houses away, I swear I heard Marley and Mrs. M. thinking to each other.

Do you think she’ll remember? Marley’s voice was rough, gravelly.

Maybe, Mrs. M’s voice was as clear in my head as when I’d been talking with her in her kitchen. She’s had a lot to deal with, though, so it might take some time for her to realize that she’s already figured it out.

I’ll keep an eye on her.

What was it I was supposed to remember? What had I figured out? And, more important, why could I hear them thinking about me? Or did I just imagine it?

Yeah, that’s it. I imagined it. Yeah…

I ran the rest of the way home without looking back.

***

Thursday, October 2

Either I’m starting to feel better, or I’m just getting used to the zombie. I don’t know which, and I don’t care. I’m just happy that I don’t feel like I want to puke every time I see him.

I haven’t gone back to Mrs. M’s house since last week, but I did write her a really nice thank-you note for the nut bread and stuck it in her mailbox on my way to school a couple days after our visit. Marley was napping in the flowers at the base of the mailbox, and looked up at me when I dropped off the note like he had something he wanted to say, but I just turned up the volume on my headphones and ran off to catch my bus. I didn’t have time to stick around for any more of his nonsense.

Yeah, that’s what I thought, too.

Zombies, and old ladies with psychic cats. I think I’m losing