As she went through a yellow light, a careless driver made a careless turn and their cars collided.

He was a bully. He made the girl feel responsible, and shamed her into avoiding the police. He trivialized her injuries. He forced his information on her and then left the scene.

The girl, shaken and frightened and hurting, called her wife. “I can’t get you coffee,” she said; “I’ve just been in an accident.”

That afternoon, the girl wound up at the doctor’s office. Her shoulder, you see, had begun to hurt too badly to ignore. But when the nurse, compassionate and helpful, moved the girl’s wrist, they realized it, too, was damaged.

Her wrist had been crushed, in fact. Multiple fractures, a crushed carpal tunnel, and lots of tiny tiny tears in the soft tissue.

Her shoulder was abandoned in favor of fixing her delicate wrist.

But the fixing of her wrist took nearly a year.

By the time her wrist was healed (as much as it would be, in any case), her shoulder was permanently damaged.

The girl had to fight the bully and his bully car insurance to pay her a meager sum that just about covered her expenses. That she was permanently disabled didn’t bother them – she was a number, not a person.

Life goes on.

Now, five years later, the girl finds that her hands no longer work without pain. Her shoulder, constantly dodgy since the wreck, has taken to hurting – or flat refusing to move – with the slightest provocation. The stress and fear she felt through the weeks and months of healing from the accident pile upon her, and the doctors confirm.

This is permanent. This is from the accident, all those years ago. Injuries left untreated. Injuries unhealed.

The girl, now a writer and an artist, faces a decision.

To give up her heart’s calling?

Or to face her disability and stay strong in her path?

Funny how it seems so simple when you say it like that.

for things or people or ways of being

that are gone.

But then the phrase

“gone for good”

makes me realize

that when things are

gone for good

it’s probably actually good.

After all, we never say

“gone for bad”.

She reached out her hand.

His heart, hard, refused her.

She smiled.

His heart, angry, ignored her.

She persisted, he resisted.

She loved. He feared.

She began to dance alone. She stumbled over her own feet, but she danced on.

He watched, standing alone.

She danced, slowly, in the empty room. Her heartbeat, her rhythm. Her breath the music. She filled the room with her love.

His walls began to crumble.

She stopped, inches from him.

His heart stopped.

Time stopped.

She reached out her hand. She took his hand. She pulled him to her.

Together, they danced.

She learned how to follow, he learned how to be.

This story is dedicated to Rachael Maddox, who gave me the final line which blossomed into this story. Thank you, Rachael! <3

This story is dedicated to Patti Digh, whose work challenges me to keep going when I feel like I just can’t. Life is, indeed, a verb.

The witch regarded the boy who so suddenly burst into her cottage, upsetting the cats and scaring the birds. His face flushed, eyes wide with fear, words tumbling out so fast she could make no sense of them.

“Slow down, boy,” she said, placing a hand on his shaking shoulder.

The boy gulped for air but found only tears.

The witch sighed, bothered by this interruption. She struggled with the desire to boot this kid and his woes out of her little house, but her heart wasn’t that cold.

Yet.

She pushed the boy into a chair and handed him a mug of water. He sipped between sobs and gradually they subsided.

“It’s my mama,” he whispered. “She’s terrible sick and she’s gonna die. We need your help.”

The witch’s heart iced over a little more. Her eyes involuntarily flicked in the direction of her long abandoned bookshelf, barely visible now under the spiders’ webs and dust. Her cats, sensing the storm, made themselves scarce. The birds stop their singing.

The very earth appeared to hold its breath.

“No.” The witch watched the boy’s heart break.

“But you are our only hope!” The little boy cried.

“Then you are out of hope.” The witch walked to her door, holding it open for the boy.

But the boy didn’t move. “Why?”

The witch shook her head.

Still the boy didn’t move. “We need you.”

The witch crossed her arms. Her gaze flew around the small cottage. Her neglected cauldron, her abandoned books, the jars of herbs long unused, the dusty altar. She bit her lip to keep the tears back.

The little boy stood. He walked over to the witch. He put his tiny hand on her scratchy elbow. He looked up into her face.

“Magick is a verb,” he whispered.

The witch looked down into his bright eyes. Fear engulfed her like flames. She hadn’t had any magick work for her in so long, she’d grown sure she’d never make it happen again. It had become so much easier to give up than to fail.

But suddenly, she had to try.

She stood in front of the mirror, fighting back tears.

Again.

“How long?” she asked.

The mirror’s soft, smokey voice patiently answered. “Two more hours, majesty.”

She began her slow pacing, back and forth across the tiny room. Time crawled by. The mirror waited for her to ask again, but she managed to restrain herself.

At last, she could hear him; his horse’s hooves echoed like heartbeats across the empty valley. She raced to the window to watch his approach, fear and hope and anticipation crowding her throat, making it difficult to breathe.

She watched him leap off his horse and fight his way into the castle, then lost sight of him. But she could feel him now; she knew the perils that lay in wait, and her mind traced them as he fought them.

And, at long last, he broke down her door.

He stood, framed in the doorway, the golden sunlight shining upon him.

Her breath caught. He was so…

Wait.

He was sweaty, breathing hard, almost scrawny. His eyes, in her mind so gentle and loving, were hard and impatient. He sneered at her, leered at her, and she instinctively took a step backwards. When he spoke, she heard not the words, but the cruel tone and cold reality.

He was not charming, not in the least.

Her eyes filled with tears. This was who she’d spent her life waiting for? This snarling brute of a man?

Now what?

He reached for her; she recoiled.

She knew exactly what to do.

She pushed him, grabbed his sword, and ran past. She fought her way out of the castle, past the traps and monsters she’d feared all her life. She emerged, blinking, into the glorious day. Laughter bubbled up and sprang from her lips, echoing through the valley. She grabbed the reins of his horse, freed the poor beast from its bindings, and lept upon its back.

She rode off into the sunset, all by herself.

I watch him sleep, for the last time. His dark eyes closed, twitching as he dreams. His chest rising, falling, breathing. He stirs, he mutters, but he does not wake.

He has no idea what’s coming. No idea of what’s in store. He thinks me in bed, still beside him, all is well and nothing wrong.

But everything changed three days ago. Three days. Thirteen steps from the bed to my car. And only one minute for the world to tilt, for everything to change.

I lay my hand on his chest, feeling the slow steady beat within.

I will break his heart, like he broke mine.

She took a deep breath, dried her eyes, and opened the car door. The cool night air rushed in like a lover eager to greet her.

If only.

She shook away the thought, burying the memories. Not now.

She opened the hatch and pulled out her duffel, slinging it over her shoulder. She took the first few steps toward her apartment with trepidation until determination took hold and her pace quickened. She unlocked the door, sweeping it open and stepping inside. Fumbling for the light, she dropped her bag on the plushly carpeted floor. Her fingertips found the switch, throwing on a soft golden glow.

It illuminated the tiny loft like sunrise.

She gasped.

No.

Not here, too.

Keys, duffel, trepidation – all forgotten. She took a couple of steps further into the room, heart pounding, breath held.

Oh, yes. She could see clearly now.

Crop circles.

In the carpet.

They’d found her. Again.

The aunt, fingers instinctively reaching up and touching a similar pendant around her own neck, looked up at her sister, who nodded. “She did quite well, actually.” The mother’s hand fell onto the little girl’s shoulder.

An undisguised look of relief passed over the aunt’s face. “I was concerned.”

“As was I,” said the mother, and a shiver ran through her.

But the little girl beamed. “It was so easy! Let me show you what I did!” She reached into her pocket and began to pull out a slender wand.

The mother’s grip on her shoulder tightened. “Not here, dear. Not in front of others.”

The little girl frowned. “But they’re sleepers. They won’t even remember!”

“Nonetheless,” the aunt chimed in, “we don’t do such things out here. You know better.” The mother and girl sat at the table, the girl kicking her feet to and fro. The aunt leaned in and had a hurried whispered conversation with the mother, the two of them discussing a fate the little girl will never know she brushed against.

Tears fell from the mother’s eyes as she looked at her daughter, proud and afraid and relieved.

She watched. All-too-familiar white clouds bobbed on the horizon, moving swiftly in the wind. She watched as they grew closer, larger. She watched as they became sails on ships, white as snow, billowing over dark wooden bellies. She watched, unconcerned, as they moved over her waters.

The ships dropped iron into the sea and slowed to a stop; she watched as the fish around her followed in the wake, watched as they danced in and out of the links in the chain. Her dolphins took flight and plunged back, spiraling around her, around each other.

She watched.

She watched as they lowered their tiny boats into the ocean, unknowing of their deeds or their futures. She watched as they began rowing toward the island. She watched as the sea began to froth, as the waves began to rise, as the storm began to brew. She watched their tiny frantic faces as their little boats tipped, casting them into the tumultuous waters. She watched as her sharks devoured all of them, one by screaming one. All except the captain. And she watched as the octopus wrapped all eight arms around the man and brought him to her.

She reached out her hand to the captain. The rest was up to him.

I put tulips under all the pillows, and then I set fire to the house. I had spent twenty years with Bill, and I finally snapped. I couldn’t take the thing he does with the newspaper anymore – I tried to ignore it, then I tried to forget it, but eventually, I realized that the only way out was to burn it all down.

I realized it when I caught them at the diner. She was standing behind the counter, giving him this root beer-float kind of smile. And there he was, doing that thing with the newspaper. I knew they were up to something, and I knew it was nothing good.

So that night, I raided the garden. Tulips were my favorite flower, so I had them planted in every color imaginable. I picked only as many as I needed.

As the house burned, I walked away with a new sense of peace in my heart.