A Story Of A Short Story

The knock at the door startled Dana. She set the Bible she was reading aside, stood, and approached the door.

“Here,” Dean left his stoves and knelt down beside her. “I can’t let you clean up my mess.”

Mavis can hear shouting. She can tell it’s Ian because they have had plenty of yelling matches before, but instead of differing tastes in movies, Mavis can tell there is true contempt in his voice. Rattling her head, she can faintly see Leon collapsed on the other side of the room. Her heart tugs. She tries to talk to him, yet Ian’s voice drowns her out. Mavis wants to scream at Ian until she looks at him, and he his face isn’t twisted with anger, but fear. She follows his line of sight to a man that looks like he is what caused the gorge in the Grand Canyon by jumping down a little hard. The giant man is doing a pitiful job of ignoring Ian since his face is red and keeps glowering at Ian. Mavis uses the luck that The Forest gave her to encompass Ian with fortune. Her luck is noticeably weaker than normal, and Mavis understands that they were taken far from the school, and further from The Forest. She tries to move her hands, but they seem to be restrained. When she looks up, there are stars. Ian stops berating the man when a door opens to let in magnolias and councilwomen Morris. Mavis’s can’t comprehend the situation, but Ian seems to understand something because instead of yelling profanities he casts a spell that breaks whatever was holding his hands together. Mavis watches as Ian fends off physical attacks from the giant man and bolts of lightning from Morris that crackle the sky above and sends a blanket of shattered glass onto them. Ian isn’t attempting to be careful because Mavis is supporting him. He seems to know that by just moving around her luck will make him step away from the bombarding duo. Without Mavis noticing, Leon is standing and casting weaker spells than Ian. Morris easily paralyzes Leon, which gives Ian time to cast illegal spells that opens a glittering fissure in the room and that causes the giant man to bleed from his pores. Mavis feels her restraints burst from her wrists in flames. Ian is an amazing multitasker she notes. He is also at Leon’s side. Before Morris can summon another surge of strikes, Mavis tackles her. Ian takes the opportunity to toss Leon into the fissure. Mavis recognizes it as a portal now. She learned about illegal spells in school, and the portal takes the

Muffled sounds of shouts and bangs on furniture can be heard in the room at the end of the dimly lit hallway that is lined with bright photos of the same smiling family. A man swings open the door, turned back to a woman cowering away from him and shouted something that was clear in sound, but it didn’t sound like English in Harvey’s head. The man slammed the door, causing one of the frames to come loose from it’s perfectly hammered-in nail and crash on the clean wooden floor.

¨ Wow, this is… different” Alayah sighs as she sweeps her long, blonde hair out of her face and squints looking up at her new house. ¨ Chin up princess; don't look so glum,” says mom as they hop out of their oversized truck and start walking towards their new farm home. Alayah had lived all of her life in the suburbs of a big city in California, but after her parents divorce her mom wanted to move to a farm in a tiny city outside of Nashville Tennessee. So here they are, walking up a big hill to their new lives.

The wind is soft but strong, my hair flowing behind me and also in my face, I don’t bother to pull it back because I forgot my hair tie at home. “I could stay here forever,” I say to myself. I am at my favorite place to be when I need time to myself. I found this place when I was thirteen and have been coming back since then. It is on the very top of the highest hill there is in the camp and there is a beautiful old tree that has been there forever, I climb to the top and just stare.

Who is my family? Where are they? Why did they leave me here? Why am I here? Does my fami-

Sit back, grab a bowl of popcorn, and get ready for what’s about to happen next. The initials A.S. will stick in my mind for the rest of my life. A.S. was a boy. He was a very important boy as matter of fact, or at least during my junior year of high school I thought he was important. But, to what extent is someone else’s importance greater than your own? Here I will explain to you a story of the boy who stole my self-worth and helped me gain it back. It begins in the end of December of the year 2016. Rumors of a new kid at school rung in my ears like church bells on a sunday morning (I don’t attend church but that’s besides the point). “He’s so hot” “I wonder what grade he’s in” all that fun mumbo jumbo. I’m not going to lie this is not a story of love at first sight because when I saw him, I did not see what all the hype was about. He was tall, so very tall, 6’1 to be exact. His eyes were some sort of a blue green, the kind of blue green that makes you sea sick just by looking at them. He had this stupid long light brown hair that felt like a cloud of everything I ever desired when I ran my fingers through it. I prefer not use his name but so begins the story of “the boy”.

Emerald sobbed as she dashed through the woods, tears streaking down her face in salty waterfalls. Dragging the hilt of her hand along her face, she slowed. Emerald ignored the throbbing pain in her feet from sprinting along the brush barefoot. She continued on through the forest soon reaching a road where on the other side was a drop, and about 70 feet down, was a small river, where she hoped her life would end, where all her pain would stop and become a distant thing of her past.

“Momma?” Sylvia asked when she suddenly felt her mother let go of her hand. “Momma, where did you go?”

Gabriel followed me home one day i started to run because i thought he was gonna beat me up so i took the shorter path through the woods, I could not move my body fast enough to get away from him.. He was still following me. He finally caught up to me and was surprisingly very handsome when he's not pounding my face into the ground. He smiled at me and asked if we could talk, i was so scared but i said yes. We sat down in the leaves and he started talking about how he was gay and couldn't accept himself and how he could never tell his parents. I was so shocked, I didn't fully process the rest of what he was saying.I don’t even know what to think i’m so confused, why was he bullying me if he was gay.

My mother died when I was just 3 years old. I do not remember much of her, other than a glimpse of her face, smiling down at me. My father is a distant man. He has never said more than a few words at a time to me, even during our study sessions. He will assign me a lesson, and simply watch as I complete it. My only confidant is Ms. Matilda, the family maid. She takes the time to listen to me.

My husband ran into our small house in Sonora with this look of excitement that made me wonder what has given my husband such a big smile on his face. I ask him, “Joaquin what is it what is going on?” He told me in that giddy boyish voice that I loved so much, “There is GOLD up in Alta California.” I gave him a confused look thinking “What did that have to with us.” As my confused look stayed and the seconds passed he grabbed my hands and said, “This is our chance to leave Sonora and for me to finally be able to give you a bigger home if I am able to get my hands on some gold.” Still fathomed by the idea I tell him “but our family is here in Sonora.” He laughs and goes on to say that but our dreams can be in California and if anything our family will always be here. I sighed and he jumped knowing full well that I was going to cave and tell him yes. I could never resist when he was like this. My crazy husband had a dream and as his wife it was my job to support him. We packed up some food and water along with some clothes in our little suitcase. I wish I could say we set off with dreams filling our heads and hopes on the horizon, but we had some road blocks before we were able to leave. Eventually we left heading to find my brother-in-law in San Francisco. It being my first time in San Francisco but my husbands second so he began to be amazed in how it had changed from his first visit to San Francisco. He was excited to see what these Americans have transformed the society.

He hears her voice as he lays in the grass, the leaves fall, caressing the air and resting upon the earth’s green grass.

It was windy and foggy that day. I don’t even remember getting lost. All I remember were the other kids telling me to hide in the trees. Honestly, I don’t know if they even liked me. They always kept telling me I couldn’t talk to them in a group, but I just thought they were talking in private.