Bonus Story Archives

Sea Glass, A Science Fiction Short Story

Bonus Story / M Pax / October 20, 2026

Original free science fiction by M. Pax

Twelve minutes until his last breath. The seconds cascaded on Jast’s faceplate, ticking down, crashing from his heart into his feet, spilling into the pit. On a world that had little in common with a habitable planet, he dug faster, churning up spadefuls of regolith and loose rock, loading them into the sorter’s mammoth bucket.

The finer particulates eddied beneath the floodlights, mimicking mist, blanketing all in powdery gray. Because of the lack of oxygen, the enormous machine sifting through the rock made no noise, but its vibrations shook Jast’s knees and governed the rhythm of his heart, jumping and skittering.

Sixty seconds vanished in a blur, barely giving his thoughts time to pound and lungs to fill. In eleven minutes, his grace period would end. He either found something of value or died. Quota had to be met every seventy-two hours.

Strac Industries gambled on hope, but wouldn’t tolerate the lack of results from the diggers. Management didn’t care the geological surveys declared asteroid 2173 Iocus a scrub pile with a twelve percent chance of striking a lode. If Jast didn’t hit pay dirt, he wouldn’t get another tank of oxygen and would be sent to the waste dump.

Worse, Mayanna would join him there. Would she stare into his soul when taking her last breath, see Radek waiting for her in the Afterlife, or peer into the vacancy of the void? His wife had wrenched his soul into bits at her end, rattling him with her terror. He didn’t want to witness that again.

Jast couldn’t let Mayanna down. She depended on him, not having suited up and worked for a week. The trash pile had her name on it if he didn’t produce and share his rations. Her friendship was the only thing that made this life bearable.

“Dig.” Desperation drove his arms. His back crunched, his heart pounded, and his brain kept screaming, “Dig. Dig. Don’t fucking give up.”

Minutes collapsed into split seconds. Time buckled, disappearing between one thrust of his shovel and the next. The soft yellow warning on his faceplate blared to blood orange. Six minutes. How were there only six minutes? A sob racked his shoulders, sending his spadeful of rock flying. His next hack into the regolith hit wrong. His spade slid sideways, refusing to sink in, encountering something more solid. He tried again. It wasn’t a fluke.

“Oh please!” He fell to his knees, clawing at the loose rock that made up 2173 Iocus and every S-type asteroid on which Strac had placed mining claims.

His fingers hit something solid, no longer able to dig. After eons of collisions, 2173 Iocus had coalesced from pebbles and chunks of rock. His thickly gloved palm brushed the detritus away and slid easily over a curved slab of what looked like metal. Finding the edges, he burrowed through the gravel, tunneling down three inches until the object released from the dirt.

What he held shone like metal. Metal! His crying gasps morphed into laughter.

Jast breathed deeply, knowing he would get more inhales. Gleaming under the floodlights, the curved box granted him a wish from the lifeless asteroid, the extension of life, of his and Mayanna’s. More time to figure out how to get out of this hellscape.

He jumped onto his aching feet and held the box over his head, waving it in the air, letting the floodlights catch its sheen. His discovery wasn’t a vein of ore, but the metal box had to be worth something.

The supervisor inside the sorter rose to her feet inside the cab, peering through the windshield of the enormous machine. She smiled at Jast’s find and pointed at the ladder leading up to her perch. More importantly, the timer on Jast’s faceplate reset to seventy-two hours.

Weighted boots kept him rooted to the asteroid, and Jast bounced in a skipping gait to the sorter. Clutching the box under one arm, he used the other and his feet to ascend a three-story ladder up to the cab. The hatch swung open to admit him and sealed shut once he was inside. The airlock hissed, and when the chamber properly pressurized, the green light on the panel shone as bright as the floodlights outside.

“Keep your helmet on. You’ll not be wasting my oxygen.” The supervisor, Micah Birch, greeted him. She led him to her office, to where the spectrometer was located. “In there.”

She lifted the lid of the ancient spectrometer that took up half of her office, setting the metal box into the analysis compartment. Shutting the lid, she powered on the massive machine. The spectrometer whirred and screeched, held together as flimsily as the sorter and the transport that carried Jast to this asteroid from another.

Beside the machine, there was a plastic desk and chairs in a sickly yellow. Jast and Micah sat on opposite sides.

“What did you find?” Folding her hands on top of her desk, Micah didn’t smile. She never did. Her freckles numbered high enough to darken her dusky complexion, and her coarse, unkempt hair cut to chin length gave her head a triangular shape.

Not removing his gloves either, ready to leave the second this transaction ended, Jast set his hands flat on his knees. “I don’t know. Some sort of metal box.”

“It’s definitely metal. Did you drop it into the pit? Like from your pocket?” Her tired brown eyes narrowed.

Jast’s laugh exploded, rough and cutting, making him cough. He paused to sip at his water ration, bowing his head to meet the hose rising from the neck of his suit. “Where would I have hidden it?” The cheap spacesuits Strac made him buy didn’t have pockets or pouches.

Micah pushed her chair back and peered under the desk at his boots, probably checking if he could hide anything there. “Very well.”

The lack of trust grated at Jast like sharp gravel. “How’s 2173 paying out?”

She curled her lips. “Two of your fellow seventy-niners hit pay dirt.”

Only two. Would the entire crew be laid to waste before moving to the next asteroid? “No bonanza?”

“None of your business, digger.”

Right. Heeding the warning, Jast waited for the spectrometer to finish. Would it find tungsten? Platinum? He and Mayanna would need a cushion to buy extra rations and make it to the next rock. Rhodium could get them out of here, could get them home. Alive.

When the analysis stopped, seven chimes dinged. He and Micah rose, approaching the spectrometer. She lifted the lid, and he retrieved the box, clutching it to his chest. They read over the results on the monitor—Micah cross-eyed, Jast leaning so close his faceplate bumped the screen.

“Brass.” Numbers and symbols scrolled across the spectrometer’s display. Micah tapped the screen to freeze the results when today’s rates appeared. “Price today is twenty air rations per ounce or ten water rations per ounce. The weight of your object is twelve ounces, which means it’s not solid brass.”

“I’m aware.” He could tell by the heft of it, it wasn’t. When he shook the box, something rattled inside.

“We’ll have to open it,” Micah declared. “What’s inside could be adding weight. I’ll not be paying you rations for trash, digger.”

Maybe something better lay inside the box. Jast examined the sides. Hinges along one edge led him to the faintest hint of an indentation on the opposite. His thickly gloved hands couldn’t feel or manipulate the fine latch.

“Twelve more asteroids will have been staked before you’re done.” Micah reached for the box, stopping before actually touching it. “May I? I’ll just open it. I promise not to touch the contents.”

Supervisors couldn’t be trusted, and Micah had the worst reputation Jast had run across, however, he needed the rations, and he wanted to know what was in the box. “One hand. Open it, then hands off and step away.”

“Agreed.” Her callused fingers fiddled until a tiny clink announced her success. She readied to flip the lid.

Jast shoved her hand away. “Not part of the deal.”

Her fingers twitched, yet she dropped her hands. “Sorry. I just want to see.”

“You use eyes to see, Supervisor.” Strac and its management were always out to shaft Jast and the other diggers. Not this time.

Huffing, she rolled her eyes. “Just get on with it.”

The thick gloves protecting Jast’s hands from the harshness of space did him no favors. He clumsily slapped over the box twice before he could pick it up and tip it so the lid sprang open and spilled out its secrets.

Six translucent pebbles in amber, red, green, clear, and two shades of blue lay inside. Smooth and thin as coins, they were transparent, with minuscule bubbles suspended within.

Micah took out a pocket analyzer and waved it over the stones, her nose millimeters away. “Glass. Can’t give you any credits for those. Take those out, and let’s weigh the box again.”

Jast did as she asked, spilling the glass into a pile on the table.

“Eleven point five ounces. Not too much of a weight difference,” Micah said. “How do you want your credits?”

“Two new hydrogen garments, then split the rest between water and air.” He pointed at the small pile of glass. “I’ll take those with me.” His gloves wouldn’t let him pick them up. He tried in vain until Micah chortled.

She snorted. “You’re taking up too many of my minutes. Let me sweep them into a sack and tie it to your belt.”

More time with her meant she’d find a way to cheat him. “Sweep them into the sack you offer, for free, then show me. Attach it to my arm.”

Her tongue smoothed over her teeth. “The bag is going to flop around and get in your way on your arm.”

If he had to dig more today, he would agree with her. He was glad his shift was over. The last thing he wanted was to agree with a supervisor. “I can handle it.”

“Very well.” She did as he requested, using her forearm to sweep the objects into a sack made from discarded hydrogen garments. She held the bag open. When Jast grunted, she placed the two new hydrogen suits on top, tied up the bag, and fastened it to his arm with two pieces of duct tape.

“Now get out, you slag-sucking scut bottom.”

Scut bottom, indeed. If he swore like that out loud, he’d be sent out to the waste pile. “Thank you, Supervisor.”

He returned to the airlock and waited for the cycle to complete before unlatching the outer door and hopping down to the surface. Using that skipping gait, Jast made his way to Camp Slag.

On every asteroid, camp had the same name and layout. Sturdy domes made up the entrance and communal spaces, their clear walls lined with plants and crops. Between them, inflatable barracks housed the miners.

Water in the walls protected from radiation while the vital fluid recycled. Those who ran out of water rations often drank from the walls, the unfiltered stuff. It changed them, that and the radiation exposure. Their manic states led to frequent hits of pay dirt, so the radies were tolerated, but Jast avoided them. His life was insane enough.

He entered the first dome. Gases, sprays, and powders decontaminated his suit. When the process finished, he hobbled into the next, the locker room. Removing his spacesuit, he checked each piece for weaknesses before hanging it carefully in his locker, his gaze flickering over Mayanna’s unused suit. Loss was a hard grief and harder under Strac. He had barely survived the loss of his family, so she understood.

Sighing, he removed his old hydrogen garment—what every miner wore under a spacesuit and what was worn around camp. The garment changed its gray color as it absorbed radiation, and his was almost totally green. He slipped on the new garment, which scratched against his pale and dry skin, skin that hadn’t known warmth from the sun in over a decade. He opened Mayanna’s locker and hung the second new garment next to her suit.

Carefully detaching the sack of pebbles from his suit, he clutched it against his chest. Maybe the colored bits of glass would give Mayanna something else to think about besides her sorrows, besides Radek joining the waste pile where he would gaze into the ether for eternity, never rotting, never becoming dirt, never receding into memory.

Jast sealed both lockers, then grabbed nutricakes from the galley on the way to the pod he shared with Mayanna. The cakes didn’t require credits. Other foods did.

Unzipping the door, he didn’t need to yell or search for her. Their pod accommodated their two cots set up as bunk beds, a couch with a table, and storage lockers. A filmy window offered a view neither one of them ever took advantage of. “I brought dinner, Mayanna.”

Her dark coils spilled over the pillow of her cot, and her watery eyes, the color of rain clouds, stared up at the ceiling. She had never been the delicate type, neither in stature nor spirit, but losing Radek had deflated her. He had become part of Strac sixteen months ago, and Mayanna had fallen hard. Radek had never left her side from the moment they met, stirring aches in Jast for his wife and daughter.

Mayanna didn’t appear to have moved since he had left this morning. Perching on the edge of her cot, he patted her leg and placed a nutricake in her hand.

“Hit pay dirt,” he said. “Found brass in the slag. You’ll have a new hydrogen garment when you need it. It’s hanging in your locker, and we have air and water to last us a month.”

A tear trickled down her temple, racing for her curls. She swiped at her lingering grief and sniffed with her tiny nose. “There’s no pay dirt without Radek.”

“There is. We need out. Out is our mother lode.”

“And leave him here?”

“We don’t have a choice. He’s the property of Strac.”

“As are we. There’s no point to any of this, Jast. We’ll end up just like Radek.”

“Sit up and eat. OK? We’ll figure something out.” Years ago when his wife and child had died in a storm on the homeworld, literally ripped from his hands, he’d stood on a precipice ready to jump, ready to join them. Mayanna talked him out of it, promising him a better life in the stars, promising he would forget.

He often did. This life had him thinking about little else than the next tank of air, the next sip of water. Life was more precious out here, and the minutes he had spent with love meant more when he had a moment to recall them. Love didn’t exist out here except in a brotherly way with Mayanna.

Her fingers hadn’t lost their strength, picking apart the cake. None of it made it into her mouth. Shoulders rounded, she looked as though she were about to melt into her bunk. “I don’t want to mine anymore. I want something else. Don’t you think we deserve better?” She blinked and glanced up, seeking answers in his face.

“I do. We deserve hope and love. Sunshine. Grass under our feet. Air that doesn’t smell bad.” He had missed those things more than he thought.

“How do we get those?” She raked her hand through her curls. Her scalp flaked from a lack of care.

“We love each other. There’s that. We do have love.”

“Not the flutters in the pits of our stomachs kind.”

“Love is strength. Even this kind.”

“It’s not enough, Jast.”

“Don’t give up, and when the opportunity comes up, we snatch it.”

“That’s too ambiguous.”

“I’ll listen if you’ve something better.”

She popped a crumb of nutricake into her mouth then another. At least she was eating. He placed the sack of glass on her lap.

“These were in the brass box I dug up today. Take a peek.”

She shook the items out onto her leg. “Glass rocks?” Peering at the cerulean colored pebble, she held it up to the light. “Do you remember sea glass? These remind me of sea glass.” She frowned. “I miss the sea. I miss a blue sky.”

“View the galaxy through that, and it’ll remind you home is possible.”

“I don’t want the reminder, and I want no more of your rations either. I’m going to refuse them from now on.”

The desire to die, he understood, but he’d not survive a week without her. Death was inevitable, but he didn’t want his last seconds spent in this hellscape. Maybe they couldn’t live better, but they could die better. Elbows on his knees, resting his head in his hands, he rubbed at his temples. “I won’t let you willingly go to the dump. You saved my life once. Let me return the favor.”

“For what purpose?” She handed him the blue pebble.

He caressed the smooth glass, feeling something other than stress and despair. “A bit of the sea made it to us on an asteroid far from home. So very, very far from home. How did it get here? Miracles, Mayanna. The universe is full of them.”

She placed another piece of nutricake in her mouth. “How’d a brass box of sea glass get embedded in asteroid debris?”

“It’s a great mystery. But it got here. If so, we can get away from Strac.” He squinted at the glass stone. “Maybe the pyramid builders left these here, you know, those ancient alien theories.”

For the first time since the man she loved hadn’t returned from the gravel hole, she laughed, rasping like a bark, yet it hit Jast’s ear as a beautiful aria.

“You thinking aliens might save us?” She whacked Jast playfully in the chest.

“I’ll take hope in whatever form it comes.” He gave her back the blue piece of seaglass. “Home is still out there. This reminds us that it is, and we’ll find our way back.”

“Miracles?”

“ You’re holding proof they happen. Next time a delivery comes in, we pay for passage to the nearest colony and take our chances.”

“We’ll need money and a large stockpile of air and water rations. Then we probably end up back here or worse. But let’s try.”

“We have to try. I’d rather die free than as property, Mayanna. That’s enough hope for me.”

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Retirement Plan

Bonus Story / M Pax / September 22, 2026

A bonus story from the Rifters universe…

Neat, sprawling lines curled across the page in rapid succession, creating Settler, Oregon’s newest festival, Pumpkin & Tinsel. Cordelia’s hand moved as assuredly as it always had, commanding the fountain pen to approve the transfer of ownership of the family home her father had built into the hands of the county. It was the last piece of his legacy to go. The grazing lands had been signed over to the town three decades ago. With her daughter in charge of the county’s assets, Cordelia knew the house would get the care it needed.

“Mother, are you almost done? I have a meeting.” Josie strode into the office as if she owned it, wearing trousers. Trousers. “Quit making that face at me.”

“Pants? They border on indecent.”

“Only you think so.” A white blouse and sweater vest completed, Josie’s outfit. Her tightly coiled brown curls were sleek and perfectly controlled. “It’s not the 1920s anymore.”

Cordelia glanced down at her clothes. The tweed skirt was softly full and straight, and she wore a boldly striped necktie with her white blouse. Her usual shawl in tones of black and gold wrapped around her shoulders, its gold fringe always blowing in a breeze. Sometimes of its own making. She caressed the silky fringe, wondering about an old friend from another world. This garment wasn’t a garment but a piece of him he left behind. He had helped her save this town, and she hoped to run into him one more time before she left this life.

So many years spent watching over the rift that connected Settler to forty-one other universes, and she didn’t know enough about what lay on the other side of the portal. Humans were forbidden to cross its threshold. The rulers implied she’d burst into flames or worse if she dared. Maybe one day she’d dare.

“You assigned me this task to create more business for the town. I’m only getting started.”

“You don’t have to work here.” Josie sat down, her expression softening. “You certainly didn’t have to retire.” She glanced around the room never updated from the 1920s: the same heavy oak desk, credenza against the wall under the windows, and the shelves crammed with her mother’s mementos and achievements behind her. The only change had been her replacing the old candlestick style phone with the latest model—a heavy, glossy black Bakelite affair, with a rotary dial and cloth-covered cords.

“I wanted more time with family, which I’m doing right now. I’m here with you, helping you.”

Josie raised a hand to quiet Cordelia. “You’re always welcome, Mother. This is still your office, and I’d appreciate your input on handling Mr. Newell if it comes to it.”

“If you’re sure…”

An abrupt laugh rattled from Josie’s perfectly painted, deep crimson lips. “You’re seriously going to make me say it again? That’s not like you to pounce on the hit of an invitation.” Bending her head, she read through sheafs of paper and with a decided hand, scrawled some notes on several pages.

Cordelia returned to adding skeletal structure to the new festival, which she decided would best serve the town the third weekend of October. Most neighboring towns had their harvest festivals before then, and the holiday season wasn’t yet in full swing. With her father’s old house rumored to be haunted, it was the perfect venue for a party celebrating all the most fabulous parts of all the upcoming holidays.

A sharp rap on the door announced the arrival of Josie’s meeting. Tim Newell stood in the doorway, the door already wide open in welcome. Cowboy hat in hand, he glanced between Cordelia and her daughter. Josie rose from the desk and offered her hand.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Newell.”

“Mrs. Cepeda.” His gaze remained on Cordelia until he was ushered into a chair.

The festival reclaimed Cordelia’s attention while Josie explained to Tim how the county needed to widen the road and would need to acquire a small strip of his property to do so. He hemmed and hawed as expected.

“We only require an easement, Tim,” Cordelia spoke up. “You retain the mineral, grazing, water, and all other rights to the land. If the road is ever decommissioned, the easement ends and the land is yours again. In the meantime, the upkeep of that strip is on us.”

“All righty then.” He shook hands with Josie. “Send the papers over to Bernard.”

“You don’t need a lawyer,” Cordelia commented.

“I think otherwise,” Josie replied. “Buttoned up and right is exactly what we’ll do, Mr. Newell. He needs to protect himself. One day a stranger will occupy this office, someone we’ve never met.”

“I can’t imagine such a day.” Not a day would come where Cordelia didn’t know everyone in town and everyone knowing they could trust her. “Do it your way.”

“I will, thank you.”

Raising such a forthright daughter could be trying, but Cordelia wouldn’t have changed a thing. The new-fangled phone clanged on the desk, irritating enough to provoke the dead. Josie didn’t pick up, letting it ring.

“You should have kept the other phone. This ring is so shrill.” She reached to pick it up.

Josie’s hand stopped her. “People should think I’m busy.” She picked up on the ninth ring. Her words were cheerful but efficient, not bothering with frivolity, then she gently set the receiver down on the cradle. “That was the school. Martin is sick. You said you wanted more time with family. Help me out and go take care of him?”

Protests swirled in her mind and snappish quips. Instead, Cordelia, packed the pen and papers in her handbag and made to leave. “Poor child. If you’d rather be home with him, I can manage the office, Josie.”

Her daughter blinked for a moment, thoughts flitting in her dark eyes before she answered. “Kind of you, but Geemaw coddles him best. He’d appreciate you fussing over him. Will you?”

“Of course.” She kissed her daughter’s forehead and left the office, gliding down the spiraling staircase made of marble and ornate wrought iron. Afternoon sun flooded in from the glass doors, tinting the pale granite tiles on the floor in brilliant splashes of yellow. Cordelia followed their invitation out into the cool September air. The courtyard hemmed by buildings on three sides stretched in pleasant green, the soft grass defying the relentless desert air.

The building on the left was the backside of the county library and the firehouse, services that forged the backbone of Settler. A young man stood on a scaffold, his arm sweeping color across the concrete and conjuring pine trees from his fingertips.

Cordelia diverted from the proper walkway to traipse across the grass. She cleared her throat loudly.

The young man set down the brush and hopped down off the scaffolding. “Cordelia.” He nodded.

“So, you’ve decided on the mural then, Mr. Hester?”

His eyes narrowed. “I have. A happy lumberjack.” He wiped his hands on a cloth covered with different splotches of paint. “Why the formality all of a sudden? Did I screw the Rifters up already?”

“No, no, you haven’t, Len. I’m sorry. So much change is not easy.”

“And not for a spitfire like you. No need to apologize, but I’d like to stop by once the rift closes to discuss the season with you if you don’t mind.”

“Two weeks left. I’d be happy to provide some counsel if you truly need it. Doubts abound on that score. I selected you for a reason.”

“I will not disappoint the confidence you place in me, but until this summer we were a team. There’s still value in that, Cordelia.”

“Well, I’ll leave you to beautifying the town and handling the rift. My grandson needs me.”

His face fell. “Oh, which one?”

“Marty. He’s fallen ill.”

“Nothing serious I hope?”

“Most likely an upset stomach. Your kind thoughts are appreciated, though.” She returned the walkway, hurrying toward the school, her heart heavy. The county didn’t need her. Josie was more than capable and could certainly plan this festival on her own. The Rifters didn’t need her. She hadn’t heard one whisper or rumor in town all summer about anything strange going on. According to Josie, the rift had opened a record twelve times since June, and had spit out monster after monster.

At the corner, she turned left and headed up the hill past the firehouse and the library toward the new school gleaming with new concrete and glass, flags snapping in the breeze from the pole. The fringe on her shawl joined in.

The administrative offices were off the entry, and Cordelia found Marty sobbing in a chair. She remembered crying like that when her parents sent her to her aunt’s one summer, the summer that took her mother from her. She knelt in front of him, cupping his tiny face.

“My dear, Marty, whatever is the matter?”

“I threw up,” he hiccupped.

“That happens when you get sick.”

He sobbed harder. “On Judy.”

He’d had a crush on Judy since he started kindergarten last year. “Oh, well… Someday, the two of you will laugh about this. I promise. Can I get you home?”

He nodded, and she picked him up, carrying him out into the sun and down the hill. A few blocks southwest of town, she entered a quaint two-story Victorian built by her late husband. Josie and her family had moved in years ago, and Cordelia had moved to the carriage house out back.

After making her grandson take a warm bath and getting him in his jammies, Cordelia tucked him in to bed. She handed him a warm cup of ginger tea. “Sip on that and lie down. You need your rest.”

“What do I tell her, Geemaw?” His tiny brow was furrowed as seriously as if he contemplated the meaning of life.

“Judy?” She pointed to the tea cup. “Three small sips, then put it down.”

He nodded and dutifully took a small drink. “I made her cry.” He shrank, smaller than his already tiny six-year-old frame.

The room he shared with an older brother had been painted in blue and had once been yellow when occupied by his mother and her two sisters. The dollhouse and tea table had been replaced with a train set, Lincoln Logs, and tin soldiers.

“Well, you tell her you’re sorry first of all, and we’ll take her to the movies with us when you’re better. Flash Gordon comes out next week. Do you think she’d like that?”

His expression remained somber and serious. “She’s more into the Red Rider.”

“Then we’ll take her to that one or let her pick. We’ll go into town and make a day of it. Get her a new dress to replace the one you puked on.”

He giggled and set down the tea cup. “Geemaw, you said puked.”

“Our secret, Marty. Now close your eyes, and I’ll tell you of the latest Green Hornet adventure.” She often made up new stories for him and her other grandchildren. Sometimes they were based on real adventures she’d had in her life with monsters from the rift.

He settled in, smiling in a drowsy way. “You always make me feel better, Geemaw.”

There was no better job. Marty and his cousins could keep her busier than she ever was as county commissioner or leader of the Rifters. She wanted them to really know her, and she wanted to get a sense of the people they would become. She’d finish planning the festival, and after that she knew she wouldn’t visit her old office any more.

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Silent Thunder

Bonus Story / M Pax / August 18, 2026

A short story from the Rifters Universe…

Rain drummed down, cursing the land, shaking it with hellish rolls of thunder, and jarring jolts of lightning. While Raymond Keller couldn’t hear the thunder, he could feel it if it was close enough. When he could feel it was when a storm was at its most dangerous, but the storm wasn’t the threat today. The eight-foot bat snacking on Mrs. Lassiter was.

Mrs. Lassiter stood motionless, her blouse plastered to her skin, the wind whipping her drowned hair. Unable to twitch, she was caught in the middle of a paused moment, an eerie statue suspended in the middle of life. And not just Mrs. Lassiter. Everyone in town had become a still life from a cause he had been too slow to identify. Raymond wasn’t sure if Mrs. Lassiter or anyone frozen in time breathed, yet his neighbors were depending on him, and he’d not let them down.

The bat had hopped into town days ago, barely ankle high and one wing bent, looking so ordinary, so Earthly. No one had noticed the small animals being immobilized then disappearing. Not until the people became statues and slowly disintegrated. By then, the bat was three-feet tall and everyone had been rendered immobile except for Raymond. This puzzled him as much as the bat.

The bat no longer waited until nightfall to show itself and feed. Its expression held notes of deep confusion when it spied Ray, but it showed no fear. For good reason. Nothing Raymond had tried had any effect on the creature.

The brass pistol constructed from crystals and gears, specially designed to deal with monsters from the rift, had stunned the bat briefly, but nothing to convince the bat that anything on Earth was a threat to its existence. The rift that connected Settler to forty-one other universes had thrown some strange things at Raymond and his fellow Rifters since he had joined them a six summers ago, but the bat was the strangest yet.

The first strategy Raymond had tried was stunning the bat and moving it to the clearing in the woods where the rift opened, thinking that when the portal opened, he could toss it through. He had stunned the creature, moved it a few feet before it would wiggle and he had to shoot it again. He repeated these actions until the otherworldly bat was moved across town and into the woods. In a clearing with two obsidian pillars, he waited and waited for the rift to open. After three days and nights, he had to relent to the needs of his body: to sleep, to eat, to hydrate. He tried again by setting up a campsite so he could stay an entire week, but this strategy still didn’t solve the need for sleep.

The rift couldn’t be summoned. It would open when it opened. With no way to predict when it would, he realized his plan was poor. By the time the rift presented an opportunity, the bat could be ten feet tall and far beyond Settler.

He needed another plan, and thought about bats on Earth using sound and sonar to move around and hunt. He experimented with speakers and the radio station until he briefly woke Cordelia Swit. For five minutes she tried to explain. Raymond was pretty good at reading lips, and she emphasized certain words with gestures. He understood she could hear music, and that she believed the music held everyone in place. What he really needed to know was what she heard now while awake. He asked the question and handed her the pad and pencil always in his pocket. She wrote until the pencil and pad slipped from her fingers, and she returned to the world of statues. A looming shadow alerted Raymond to the approaching bat. He snatched up the pad and ran off. The bat could barely fly, and like an Earth bat, it wasn’t designed for running. He easily outraced it, but figured he wouldn’t have advantage for long.

On his pad he read: A song so beautiful, I have to stop to listen. You broke through, but I can still faintly hear…

Wondering what kind of song could do such a thing, Raymond understood he had been on the right track but he had to be louder, direct his disruption better, and make sure it didn’t stop. He would have to do better than the ten radios he had set up around Cordelia. He chased the bat away from her, and went to the radio station, surveying the equipment, coming up with a better strategy. The solution involved a piece of equipment hidden in his closet at home. He peered over his shoulder to his house a few blocks away. Living close by had made the daily commute to the station effortless. The small size of the town also made it safer than most other places.

His hearing was a casualty of World War 1. While the loss of a sense was tragic, he knew he was fortunate and never complained. Settler had welcomed his skills when he passed through years ago on a trip to Crater Lake. The town had been setting up a radio station, and his signal corps engineering background had been the key to making their station work.

On his way back from Crater Lake, the radio station owner convinced him to stay. Settler gave him purpose. For the first time since the war, he didn’t feel like a burden or someone waiting for life to pass him by. He was part of something. When he learned about the rift and the monsters barely a year later, that feeling deepened. The rift became a calling, and he joined the small group of Rifters who defended Settler and the planet.

Raymond set up his latest attempt to defeat the bat outside the radio station. An old portable radio pack, sat under a tarp at his feet, catching the signal generated inside the station and allowing him to broadcast to the entire town for maximum impact. He had purchased the SCR-77 set at an army surplus sale seven years ago when a wave of nostalgia had hit. When he got it home, it summoned images of trenches, rot, mud, death, and blood.

As if it happened now, he could see the moment when his army service ended. His company had gained ground, made an enemy trench theirs, holding the line, readying for the next Allied offensive. The Germans attacked in a horde, defying intelligence. The phone lines to the rear had been cut, and the trench was being overwhelmed by more Germans than had been known to be the area. So many enemies should not have been there. If the enemy defeated Raymond’s company and retook this ground, it would set back the Allies for months, extending the war, increasing the body count.

Command had to be warned. His company had to be saved. Raymond had run for the portable radio pack without hesitation. The logistics of establishing and maintaining communications was his job more than shooting and tossing grenades. He reached the special bunker at the same time as Commander Daniels. The two of them understood how crucial it was to get the message out. Raymond wound the crank. Outside the room surrounded by sandbags, Commander Daniels protected the radio and Raymond. A grenade landed at Raymond’s feet. Without hesitation, Commander Daniels threw himself on top. A muffled explosion shook his body, and crimson soon stained the dirt floor. Something sharp pierced Raymond’s head. He tasted blood before he noticed it running down his face like a curtain of red in front of his eyes. He noticed he couldn’t hear what he shouted into the radio set, and didn’t know if he couldn’t speak or couldn’t hear. He screamed and screamed without hearing a sound and had never heard again.

The radio brought that moment to mind over and over until he had quickly stuffed it in a closet, regretting hauling it home, regretting the ghosts and horror it summoned, but it must have done its job, because Raymond had woken in an army hospital then made it home. Only twenty men from his company survived. The rest remained in the fields and cemeteries of Northeastern France.

Now here was the radio set, helping people survive another battle. He spliced wire to the horn speaker. He would set it up on the radio tower where the signal would be the least interfered with, the least likely to get interrupted. He glanced at the bat, satisfied it continued to find Raymond uninteresting. He arranged the spool of wire on the backpack so it would let out smoothly as he climbed. Satisfied, he carefully packed some tools and the horn speaker. Hands on his hips, he gazed up at the radio tower, the rain lashing at his eyes.

If the bat kept ignoring him, his greatest enemy was the storm. One lightning strike on the tower and he was a goner. By timing the vibrations of thunder under his feet and the lightning strikes, he determined the storm was moving away. He prayed it wouldn’t stall.

“Metal tower, lightning storm, rain slicker than slug slime, and a giant bat. What can go wrong?” He couldn’t hear himself. Some friends had asked him why he spoke to himself. “Because I’m still human,” he had answered.

From years of experience, he spotted the exact spot where he had to attach the speaker. About a hundred feet up to get the signal over all the rooftops and trees.

“Here we go.” He kept his eyes on his goal and took a deep breath. As he climbed higher, he mapped each handhold and foothold before moving.

The radio tower was a three-hundred-foot lattice of steel, four narrow legs reaching toward the clouds and tapering as they rose. Horizontal braces connected the sides every few feet, with diagonal supports crossing between them in a repeating pattern. The tower wasn’t a solid structure but a skeleton of metal, every surface exposed to the wind and rain. The crisscrossing beams were perforated with gaps large enough for his fingers to grip, and one of those openings would hold the horn speaker in place. Raymond could feel the strong, relentless wail against his back.

At about fifty feet, the bat realized Raymond was up to no good. It hopped faster than Raymond had ever seen it move to the base of the tower. He couldn’t let it catch him, couldn’t let it prevent him from saving the town. He urged his hands, feet, and muscles to move faster.

The rain made his holds precarious. His fingers shook and slipped. His booted feet sometimes caused his heart to pound, preferring air over purchase. Glancing over his shoulder, his stomach rose in his throat. The bat was gaining. Its one good wing gave it superlative balance.

He made it to his target, breathing heavily, with no time to rest. “Go, go, go,” he rallied himself, then swore. Where he needed to attach the speaker, the horizontal brace that would allow him to stand steadily beneath it was broken. The diagonal brace with holes was fine. It was getting there that was the problem. He could go higher, but that would weaken the signal. Lower risked interference.

The rain sloughed off him and the tower in sheets. He peered far below at his fellow Rifters and the people of Settler who had become family. He couldn’t let them die by weird bat from another universe, and if he failed to stop the bat, it would soon devour the rest of the world. He was their only hope, just like that day in war.

The horn speaker seemed to gain weight as he pulled it out of his pack. It glistened under the shellacking of rain. He pushed the bolt through the bracket, making sure it wouldn’t fall out. Removing the wrench he needed and detaching the spool of wire, he let the pack fall toward the bat.

The maimed bat ducked, but the falling pack clipped its bad shoulder. Its nostrils flared at Raymond with a heated rage that fueled its climb. It moved at a furious pace.

Raymond could reach far enough from where the horizontal brace ended to start to tighten the bolt, but to finish the job, he’d have to dangle from the diagonal brace by one hand, and there’d be no coming back.

Placing the wrench securely in his pocket, he concentrated on the diagonal brace he needed to reach. Without a second thought, he jumped, his body flying through the air, the rain, and the thunder, reaching for hope. His hands gripped, and his body jerked. He shrieked and gritted his teeth as his hands and shoulders screamed. His fingers threatened to give way, sliding down the slant of the diagonal until they caught a firm hold.

His flailing body stabilized, and he climbed hand over hand toward the horn speaker. One hand let go and fumbled for the wrench. The entirety of his attention was on the horn speaker and the bolt, on getting it in the right position. While he couldn’t hear the notes and noise the speaker blasted, he could feel the vibrations. He tightened the bolt, adjusted the speaker, tightened again, adjusted again. Finally, the speaker stayed in place, and he could tighten and tighten and tighten without stopping.

When the wrench refused to budge any further, he let it fall and put his other hand on the diagonal brace. He swung toward a foothold. Maybe he’d make it.

The bat had other ideas, lunging. Taking a firm hold of him, its claws raked down Raymond’s sides, and it bit his shoulder. The teeth sank deep, and the bat smelled worse than wet dog. Blood and fetid flesh filled Raymond’s nostrils, and the bat ripped him from the tower. The two of them tumbled, rolling end over end, possibly screeching. Finally, the bat let go and used its one good wing to save itself. It glided safely onto a horizontal brace and leered down at Raymond, its body convulsing as if it laughed.

The disappointment of the bat’s triumph accompanied Raymond to the ground. The landing caused pain worse than the grenade that had cost him his hearing in the war, as if his entire body was flattened by a collapsing trench.

He couldn’t hear his groans, but he felt them. His throat grew raw and hot. The rain did nothing to soothe it. He couldn’t move, could only stare up at the leaden sky, wondering if he had done enough.

The sky shimmied and there was Commander Daniels peering down at him, the one who had made sure the warning went out on the radio, and Raymond could hear him perfectly.

“Excellent work, son. I’m proud of you. Time to go. The rest of the company is waiting.”

“Did it work?” Raymond croaked. “Did I save them?”

“You did, son. You always find a way to get your people through.”

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Encounters with Fumes

Bonus Story, Fantasy / M Pax / July 21, 2026

A short story from the Rifters Universe…

The morning sun cascaded through the revealing windows encasing the showroom and the sparkling Model Ts. Harvey Pike took a deep breath, inhaling the intoxicating aromas of tires, leather, metal, and fuel. The fuel was especially heady.

“Can’t get enough,” he said to only himself, clutching the lapels of his tweed blazer and bouncing on the balls of his feet. The showroom and the cars gleamed, flaunting themselves like unending hope.

With his sleeve, he buffed imaginary imperfections from the fenders of the three cars, which had the purpose of attracting the most unconvinced cowboy. The tires gleamed, and the curves of the bodies glinted, waiting to be chosen.

When satisfied with their condition of absolute perfection, he stepped through a door in the back to enter the new addition—an alluring bay serving as a place to detail sold cars, repair them, and refuel them.

The test model gleamed like the future in the dim dawn light, calling to Harvey like metal shavings to a magnet. His hand caressed the hood as he ambled past to pull the garage door open. With practiced pulls, he worked the chain to roll it upward. Morning light flooded in, assaulting his sight, fluttering his eyelids.

A puff of morning fog rushed in, surprising him, and he stumbled back a step. When he blinked, only the sun and the dry desert air of midsummer greeted him from outside his shop.

“More of Settler’s charms.” He wasn’t convinced the town was promising or charming. The area hadn’t proven itself to him yet. He had moved here a few months ago at the behest of the county commissioner, Cordelia Swit. She was a formidable woman to whom it was impossible to say no, and she had dangled prospects and profits like an endless horizon of new cars.

He returned to the Model T and flipped up the front seat to unscrew the lid on the fuel tank. He pulled a thin wooden stick from a repurposed umbrella stand and inserted it into the fuel tank. When he pulled it out, he used a rag to catch any wayward drops and took it to the garage entrance for more light, observing that the tank was mostly full.

No one had stopped in for a test drive yesterday. He frowned, hoping today would unfold with a stronger whiff of bounty. Hand on his hip, surveying the landscape, he considered looking into adding a Packard and placing it prominently in the showroom window. Certainly, such a car would attract more interest and a few weak knees.

“It’s better than a horse,” he said to the empty streets. “You don’t have to shovel poop or worry about stepping in it.” A cow in a nearby pasture mooed. Harvey sighed and approached the barrel of fuel sitting on a reinforced crate next to the car. Wood shavings covered the floor under the crate to catch any drips and leaks.

He inserted the line into the gas tank and pushed the pump twice. Fog thickened, obscuring the car, and the cool morning air exploded with heat, raking across his skin like flames. He dropped the fuel line and stumbled, crashing on the floor beside the barrel of fuel. He was thankful he hadn’t knocked it over and stained his immaculate floor.

The heat on his left arm flickered his attention to it. Still engulfed in the thickening fog, the sleeve of his blazer heated to scorching. Smoke traveled up his sleeve, inciting his shoulders to emit more smoke, enshrouding him in vapors.

Jumping to his feet, Harvey shimmied out of his blazer and leaped away from the thickening mist, scraping it from his arms. The mist clung to him, to the car, feeling solid, becoming a presence as concrete as the Model T.

“What in all tarnation?” He stared, then peered closer. The foggy entity shoved at him, spinning his senses. He fought to stay with the car, to get inside, to move it out of danger.

The solidified fog took up more and more space and had a sheen like the moon. It reflected his panicked expression, distorting his precisely groomed hair into something unruly and squirming. Harvey gasped.

Racing down the road were the town’s newspaper editor and the rodeo star. Harvey had never seen people run so fast. He waved at them, yelling for help. The two of them rushed inside, and, with heavily modified revolvers drawn, they charged the solidified fog. The fog didn’t budge from engulfing the Model T and churned like gathering storm clouds. Susan yelled orders at Thomas and fired one of the revolvers, discharging a ray of blue energy.

Harvey had never seen revolvers with so many gears and so much brass. Before another heartbeat passed, Cordelia Swit arrived. She grasped him by the arm, her fingers biting into his flesh, leading him away. “Come along, Mr. Pike. You’ve been overcome by gas fumes.”

“What?” He blinked at her and found himself on the walkway leading to the front door of his house. His quaint two-story Victorian was conveniently located right behind his business. “How?”

“Good thing Susan and Thomas happened by.” Cordelia’s hard gaze bore into his thoughts. “On their way to work,” she added. She wore a smart dress that mimicked a man’s suit and revealed the curve of her ankles. “Susan summoned me.” Her lips pursed. “Also on my way to work.”

“Doesn’t Thomas work out at the Burke’s ranch?” He stared at the ground, trying to stop his dizzy thoughts. His eyes followed the laces up Cordelia’s shoe.

Harvey’s mother had nothing but disdain for the new fashions. “Exposing their ankles,” she’d pshawed. “Next this generation of trollops will want everyone to see their calves, and there will be no feminine mystique left.” His mother had come to America from England with her mistress and had very decided opinions for a woman who spent her youth in service. Cordelia reminded him a lot of his mother.

His gaze diverted from Cordelia’s scandalous ankles to the scene inside his garage—Susan firing some strange revolver with a blue light at the solidified fog, yelling commands at the champion bronc rider. Thomas dodged and wove, whacking the fog with a rod made from obsidian.

Cordelia tugged at Harvey. “It’s a hallucination.”

Thwack. Huff. Szzzsss. Thwack.

Susan and Thomas didn’t let up until the smoke lifted, and the mist faded. The Model T broke Harvey’s heart. It was bereft of paint and shine and hope, and the barrel of fuel had vanished. He opened his mouth, then shut it before one sound could tumble out.

“Fumes,” Cordelia repeated. The rim of her hat and its feathers flapped in the cool wind traveling down from the mountains.

“Th-the automobile. M-my beautiful automobile. Th-the paint.”

“Science has been proven fumes can be very corrosive.”

His senses quit swirling, and he scrutinized her. “The barrel of fuel? What’s going on, Mrs. Swit?”

“You can’t repeat a word of this. Ever. I brought you to this town and helped you establish your dealership. There are plenty of young men who want to get into the business of cars, Mr. Pike.”

“Threats?”

“Not intended as harsh as it sounds. Forget this, or come work with us, Mr. Pike.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Work with you? How?”

“Keeping secrets and defending the world. Do you really think the world could handle this truth?”

The truth pulsed in his mind as something more elusive than it had been thirty minutes ago. He pressed his lips together, frowning at his maimed Model T. The attack had been so brutal and violent. The poor automobile would never be the same, and he wouldn’t be able to sell it. “I invested everything I have into this dealership and moving to Settler.”

“If you keep quiet or choose option three, you lose nothing.”

“Only self-respect.” He inhaled deeply. “I suppose it’s to you I swear this oath?”

“It is. Come to my office this evening, and I’ll get you started.”

“Susan knows? And never wrote a word in the papers? The biggest story of the ages?” Hands on his hips, he shook his head. “This is a lot to swallow, Mrs. Swit.”

“This barely touches the surface, Mr. Pike.” She nodded and left.

He watched her stride across the road toward the county building with its stirring spire, which assured the townsfolk Settler was a place of promise. Harvey was no longer sure what types of promises those were.

Encounters with Fumes Read More »

Broken Trees

Bonus Story, Fantasy, New Release / M Pax / June 23, 2026

A free short story from the Rifters universe…

The soft gold-tinted light of predawn pushed up over the horizon, shading the darkness of night in softer echoes of gray. Millicent pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders, half running toward town. Where the trees stopped, she paused, scanning the streets of Settler, Oregon, for movement, listening.

Her partner caught up beside her. The town’s force and undisputed leader, Cordelia Swit, daughter of the town’s founder. “Everything looks quiet. Not even the cows are stirring.”

“As we know, Cordelia, looks can be quite deceiving.” Millicent ran her hands over her hair.

Cordelia’s mousey-brown bun had become unraveled, and she swept her hair out of her face, frowning at Millicent. “Not a hair of yours out of place. Not a one. That new hair bauble of yours is really doing its job.”

Millicent held her chin up. “I have an entire box of French pins. I’d be happy to show you how to use them. Put my hair up yesterday at seven in the morning, and it’s still perfect.” She let her hand drop and caught Cordelia’s dark gaze. “We have other things to discuss besides hair.”

“You mean our visitor last night.” Cordelia shrugged. “Most likely, no one noticed.”

“The screaming that howled like something straight from the underworld and the loud thrashing that seemed to surround the town? Unlikely.”

“Cover story is it must be a cougar.”

“A cougar tore up trees in a mile long path?” Millicent shook her head and chuckled softly. “We’ll have to do better than that.”

“What sage suggestion do you have?”

“A phenomenon of weather would be better. Not even war made that much racket.” She stepped out from the trees. I must hurry before Henri and her babies wake. She’ll ask questions I can’t answer, and I hate lying to kin.”

“Swear her into the Rifters.”

“A young woman with tiny children and another on the way. I would never suggest such a thing. Besides, she won’t be here much longer.”

“You sure you want such a thing? You’ve missed having Henri around since her husband dragged her off to Shaniko.”

“I miss her and love having this time with my grandchildren. With all my heart, I would beg her to stay, but Oliver must go where the work is. And her life is with her husband now.”

“He could make a go of it here at your store, and I have grand plans for this town. It’s a shame your son-in-law doesn’t have a pioneering bone in his body.”

“It’s a new era, Cordelia. He has skills.”

“Rebuilding a house is not a unique skill in these parts. Why didn’t he want to partner with you in the store?”

“He has his own path to follow. When you have a family of your own, you’ll understand better.” Millicent left her young friend where the road split and hurried to the center of town, the largest settlement for more than a hundred miles in every direction She slid off her shoes and tread lightly to her two story Victorian behind the general store, keeping to the darkest pockets of shadow, slipping between the narrow alley between the general store and the telegraph office.

Curtains covering the windows of nearby houses remained closed. Chimneys didn’t smoke. Not a thing stirred. Millicent sighed and stole through her front door, shutting the door without a sound.

“Mama, where have you been at this hour? And why are you carrying your shoes?”

Millicent braced herself to circumvent the answers she couldn’t provide as much as she wanted to, and slowly turned, smiling at a close replica of herself. She and her daughter had the same thick, sandy blonde hair and hazel eyes, the same straight nose and long cheeks.

Her hand on the small of her back, Henri’s narrowed gaze was fearsome for someone so young, for someone who had never known war, for someone who didn’t know monsters existed. “Well?”

Millicent steeled her resolve. She had never imagined having to lie, to having to keep a part of her life such a huge secret. “Just needed some air is all.” She hung her shawl on a peg by the door. “Bad dreams and memories. You know, Henri.”

“There are a lot of things you don’t talk about, Mama. Were these related to your war years or losing Papa?”

“The feelings are no different. Now, why don’t you go sit. I’ll get you and the kids some breakfast.” She placed a hand on her daughter’s growing belly. “Including this wee one.” Bending, she whispered to her coming grandchild. “Can’t wait to meet you, child.”

Henri’s hand moved to rest on Millicent’s head. “None of this explains your shoes. Are you going to work all day at the store in filthy feet?”

“I twisted an ankle on an errant pebble and didn’t want to risk a fall.”

“You need to be more careful at your age.”

“I’m not decrepit, Henrietta. My goodness, what opinions you have.” She straightened, finding it hard to meet her daughter’s gaze. “Any word from your husband?”

They hobbled together to the kitchen, leaning on one another, tired for different reasons.

“Not at this hour. Post doesn’t come for hours yet.”

Millicent helped her daughter into a chair and went over to the stove.

“It’s ready to light,” Henri sighed. She shifted, about to get up. “I was going to make pancakes.”

“Don’t you dare get up. I’ve made breakfast for more years than you’ve been breathing, my girl.” Millicent lit the kindling and stoked the fire. She set on the kettle, then mixed batter while waiting for the flames to settle into a more even heat.

“Was it really bad dreams that sent you out into the night?” Henri rested her head in the palm of her hand, blinking blankly at Millicent.

“It always is.” Truth lived in the shadows of those syllables. Not enough of it. She couldn’t hold her daughter’s gaze and set the griddle on the stove surface, then went into the root cellar to retrieve the bacon. Within minutes, its fragrant sizzle filled the house and roused the grandchildren from their sleep.

Nettie and Ollie stood in their warm pajamas, rubbing their sleepy eyes. Millicent left the stove to smother both their cheeks with kisses. “Morning, darlings. Hungry?” They both nodded. She returned to the cellar for the fresh milk and poured them both a cup.

“I could have done that while you’re cooking,” Henri said. However, she made no effort to rouse herself.

“If you move from that chair, I might have to ground you.”

“Mommy is in trouble,” Nettie giggled. “Will you paddle her, Gramma?”

“She’s too tired.” Henri pulled Ollie onto her lap. “You’re gramma didn’t sleep. I’m safe.”

“Oh.” Sounding seriously disappointed for a six-year-old. Nettie climbed onto a chair. “Did you try counting sheep, Gramma?”

“There’s nothing for you to worry over, sweetie.” Millicent transferred the bacon onto a platter and started the pancakes. The first four were split between her grandchildren. She set them on plates with two strips of bacon, placing the plates in front of her grandchildren.

“I could read you a story tonight.” Her big brown eyes followed her plate as Henri took it to add fruit and a dollop of syrup.

As much as Millicent wanted to cuddle up with her granddaughter and exchange stories tonight, she was on rift duty again. “Maye tomorrow, Nettie. I have quilting circle tonight.”

“Is that tonight?” Henri’s face looked hopeful, then fell. “I’ll stay with the kids.”

“Next week, we’ll switch places.” Millicent put a full stack of four pancakes with bacon in front of her daughter. “Eat up.” She made two more for herself and joined her family at the table.

“Do you want help at the store today?” Henri sipped milk from her son’s cup.

Wanting a break, Millicent wanted to say yes more than any other answer. “Nettie will be help enough.”

“Nettie?” Henri’s nose crinkled. “She’ll be underfoot, Mama.”

“You need the break.” She ate quickly, then readied herself and her granddaughter for a day of work. Nettie bounced beside her as they strode through the alley to the store. The back of the house and the store faced each other.

“This will be so fun, Gramma.” She twirled in circles on the wooden walkway and almost twirled into the road.

Millicent grabbed her arm, keeping her on the sidewalk. “You will be an enormous help to me today.” She pointed at the horses and an approaching stagecoach. “Mind the road, Nettie.”

The child quit bouncing and twirling, her expression becoming more serious. “I will be a good worker today.”

Stifling a laugh, Millicent unlocked the door and let Nettie in ahead of her. “I’m sure you will.”

The store was long and narrow, the wooden floorboards worn smooth by years of boots and dust. An iron stove sat in the front corner, never warm enough in winter and stubbornly clinging to its heat in the summer, its black pipe rising up through the ceiling, the backbone of this community.

Beside the stove, the counter ran the length of the store, gleaming with polish and with a brass cash register perched near the center. Behind it, shelves climbed the wall in orderly rows: glass jars of penny candy, tins of tobacco, folded bolts of cloth, and small apothecary drawers labeled in careful ink—liniment, camphor, quinine, iodine.

The air carried a unique perfume that was a mix of dry goods and medicine—coffee beans, soap, burlap sacks, the faint sharpness of alcohol, and herbs. Light filtered through tall front windows, catching dust motes drifting slowly, having nowhere urgent to be.

Millicent went straight to the stove and swept out the ashes. She lit a fresh stack of kindling, then fed in the logs once the fire took. Despite the calendar pointing to July, Settler still held onto a chill. She handed Nettie a clean rag. “You can start by cleaning the lower shelves here behind the counter. If you need help removing and rearranging the goods, speak up.”

“Okay.” Nettie smiled with glee and set to work.

Millicent had just cleaned those shelves yesterday, but keeping Nettie behind the counter would keep her out from underfoot of the customers.

The child hummed happily, her little hands carefully clearing shelves before cleaning them and the goods. Nettie took forever to put the goods back where they belonged, but she arranged them prettily. Millicent let her be and tended to the bolts of fabric arranged on a table on the other side of the counter.

“A hard day’s work should help you sleep tonight, Gramma.”

Knowing her grandchildren would be safe from what came through the rift, would have Millicent sleeping soundly on her next night off. Tomorrow. “You’re learning well. When we decide to take good actions, they lead to good results.”

For a moment, Nettle paused. Her distorted expression questioned Millicent.

“Fancy grownup words for you’re right.”

“Say it again? I want to talk just like you.”

Flattered, Millicent obliged her granddaughter. The bell over the door chimed, stopping her in mid sentence.

Emmett Doty strolled in, tipping his hat. “Good morning, Mrs. Fisk.” His plump form and round face suited his pleasant manners and demeanor. He was always smiling, and his blue eyes always held a twinkle of good humor and mischief.

Millicent smoothed the bolt of fabric she had been fussing with. “Good morning, Mr. Doty. You’re up early this morning.”

“Did you hear that awful racket last night? Sounded like something was attacking and dying at the same time.”

For a fraction of a second, she smelled the monster again, the ozone and fresh pine sap torn from the trees, like the forest had been split open. Her fingers tightened their grip, folding into a fist, crumpling the muslin. Pressing her lips tightly together, she smoothed the new wrinkles. “I did not.”

“Maybe that’s what woke you up last night, Gramma.” Nettie smiled at Mr. Doty. “She had trouble sleeping.”

“You should set that apothecary to use on yourself, Mrs. Fisk. You have complained of this ailment more than any other.”

“It needs no concern, Mr. Doty.” Thankful the topic had changed from the racket in the woods, she managed a warm smile. “What can I do for this morning?”

“First, you can call me Emmett like I asked. Second, I’m in need of a refill.” He held up a kerosene can. It dangled precariously from his finger. “Master Scamp knocked it over this morning.”

Millicent reached for the can. “Goodness, I hope you cleaned that up well. Or your entire house will catch fire.”

“Got a few buckets of sawdust from the mill first thing.”

“Good, good.” She went to a barrel at the opposite end of the store, as far away from the stove as was possible. “Fill it?” she asked.

“Please.”

“I don’t suppose you punished Master Scamp? You let him get away with too much.” The new pump on the barrel of kerosene made refilling Emmett’s can less of a chore.

“He’s a joy, Mrs. Fisk. Loneliness is often worse than the war. But then you know. What a happy turn in fate that Henri and her children are with you for a while.”

Her hand faltered on the pump, and she shifted her weight. “I doubt Henri sees the loss of her house in a brush fire as a happy accident.” She handed him the filled kerosene can.

His gaze held hers, and he wet his lips. He had that look, the look of a man about to invite her to dinner or worse, offer a scrap to her weary heart. She would never be able to tell him what went on in the woods or fully give him her honesty. The man deserved no less, and a relationship not based on truth was doomed before it started.

Keeping this town safe could be an awful burden, but they were all still alive. That would have to be enough. “Nettie, please ring you up, Mr. Doty.” She hurried into the small storage room, leaning against sacks of flour, taking deep breaths.

Broken Trees Read More »

Crossings and Thresholds

Bonus Story, Fantasy, Science Fiction Books / M Pax / May 19, 2026

A bonus story from the Rifters universe…

Darkness wrapped its fingers around the last dregs of day, pulling down the sun, leaving behind bruising colors that faded into black. Cordelia Swit sat on a fallen log with her best friend in the woods. Before them rose two obsidian pillars in a small clearing among the pines.

The pines in the high desert of Oregon didn’t grow into the impressive towers as the forests to the west in the Cascades to the coast, but their tops teased the descending night and welcomed a chill more associated with winter than early July. It would be another week or so before warmth elbowed its way into the hours after sunset.

Cordelia huddled with Dottie Hessler, her best friend, under a quilt. The two of them wore bearskin coats, knitted mittens, and scarves, but it wasn’t enough to chase away a case of the shivers. Dottie pulled out a canteen and two cups, placing them on a boulder in front of them. Before she could poor the steaming contents of the canteen, Cordelia stopped her.

The heady aroma of well-brewed coffee hit Cordelia’s nose, and she sighed. “It will get cold too fast in the cups.”

“You’re right.” Dottie took a sip and handed the canteen over. Her usually prim curls were stuffed under a hunting cap she had taken from her father. The earflaps were down and tied under her chin so they’d stay down. Where Dottie was fair and light and giggly, Cordelia was darker, coarser, more brooding.

Dottie had said that’s why there were such good friends, because they fit together like salt and paper, like light and dark, like teasing and serious. This held true as Settler grew and more people occupied the town. Each of them always knew what the other needed and never shied away from providing it.

Cordelia sipped cautiously without flinching at the soft pinch of scalding coffee on her lips and tongue. Feeling something other than bone-boring cold was welcome. “Too bad it can’t stay hot until morning.”

“Now there would be an invention. I don’t suppose our resident genius blacksmith could come up with something?”

“We’ll bring it up at the Rifter meeting tomorrow.”

“Let us have nothing to report.” Dottie sent her wish out into the universe, and as her words faded, the obsidian pillars sizzled into life. Blue fingers of energy licked up their sides, reaching into the sky, then arching in toward each other to form a circle. She set down her cup and clutched at Cordelia’s arm.

Cordelia stood to face whatever monster was about to set foot on their world, clutching a sword in one hand and a club in the other. With a deep breath, Dottie mustered her courage and took the club, brandishing it over her shoulder.

The blue ball of light intensified and expanded. Cordelia brandished the sword. Dottie leered.

“Monsters not welcome here,” Dottie yelled, her voice growling, wrapping her nerves in armor.

Cordelia snarled too, her grip tightening on the hilt of the sword.

A spark of yellow, like the ember from a fire, flitted out from the rift and landed on Dottie’s boot. She reached down and brushed it off, jolting as her fingers brushed over the ember.

“You shouldn’t touch it,” Cordelia warned too late. She grabbed her friend by the shoulders and jerked her upright. “Are you okay? What happened?”

The glow from the rift cast a hellish hue over Dottie’s skin and her mouth hung slack-jawed as if she had entered the realm of phantoms.

Cordelia shook her. “You’re scaring me.”

As suddenly as the rift opened, it closed. Dottie blinked and laughed. “Well, that was quite the rush, my friend.”

“What happened?” Cordelia furrowed her brow.

“I have the same question for you.”

“Let’s get you home and rested.”

By the light of the endless sprinkle of stars overhead, they picked their way through the forest to their homes.

The next day, Cordelia toiled at washing the bedding, taking the sheets out of the kettle that had been sitting overnight, schlepping clean water from the lake, rinsing and rinsing again, scrubbing on the washboard, rinsing again, and she had just finished ringing out the sheets. She kept one eye on the position of the sun and swiped the sweat from her brow. When the sun started to lower, the Rifters would meet at the blacksmith’s and go over what had happened last night and how to adjust their guardianship of Settler and their world.

Taking a deep breath, she stood still for a moment, letting the cool breath from the far-off Cascades caress her heated face, asking her body for a second wind to get the washing hung on the line. Before she had finished her brief rest, she heard the pounding of feet on the dirt road passing by the house.

“Cordelia!” a frantic voice called.

She fluttered open her eyelids and squinted at Gregory Hessler racing her way. The heat of day didn’t stop the chill from entering her blood. Mr. Hessler didn’t run, didn’t’ become frantic. Without him saying a word, she knew something was wrong with Dottie.

Cordelia left the washing and dashed off to meet her neighbor. “What’s wrong?” she huffed when they were close enough to speak.

“Dottie. It’s Dottie.” He panted so hard he could barely speak. He grabbed her hand and dragged her toward his ranch with him. “You have to come. Please.” His cracking tone cracked Cordelia’s heart.

Before they reached the Hessler’s ranch, they ran into Dottie. She skipped toward them, twirling, and squealing in off-key notes. Her hair whipped wildly around her face, and her dress was on backwards.

Cordelia stumbled to a halt, feeling the blood drain from her face. “Get the others, Gregory.”

“What happened last night?” His eyes welled and demanded an answer from her.

She couldn’t look him in the eye or her best friend. “I don’t know.” She swiped a tear off her cheek. “I wish I had a better answer.”

“I do too.”

“I’ll stay with her. Get the others.”

Dottie’s eyes glowed with an eerie light and a purple aura haunted her as she laughed and twirled. Dottie blinked, and the aura and glow in the eyes faded. Her expression twisted. “What’s happening?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Cordelia reassured her friend.

Gregory Hessler ran off faster than Cordelia could form an apology. She said it to Dottie instead. “I fear you’re not quite you, dearest friend. I’m so sorry I didn’t keep you safe.” Worse, what if whatever had happened to Dottie spread to the rest of the town?

Taking a risk, Cordelia took Dottie’s hand and led her back to the house. “I promise to do better. I promise my life and soul.”

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