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Take a break, turn off your mind, and spend some time with a (digital) coloring book. The Google Art Coloring Book allows you to take over twenty different masterpieces from around the world and color them your own way. Play around with a color palette inspired by the work of art or imagine something entirely new. It's easy to download the finished page if you like what you colored. Tired of staring at a screen but feel like coloring? You can print all of the pages so you can enjoy coloring by hand. Check out this coloring book here.

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Art Coloring Book - Google Arts & Culture

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When Deena's wild older sister Mandy goes missing, presumed dead, Deena refuses to believe it's true. Especially when letters start arriving-- letters from Mandy--which proclaim that their family's history is not just bad luck or bad decisions but a curse, handed down to women from generation to generation. Mandy's gone to find the root of the curse before it's too late for Deena. But is the curse even real? And is Mandy still alive? Deena's desperate search across Ireland, guided only by the notes that mysteriously appear along the way, is a love letter to women and a heartbreaking cathartic journey. Listen to this audiobook on MackinVia. New to using MackinVia? Instructions can be found here.

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Flatbush + Main is a podcast dedicated to the rich history of Brooklyn. In each episode, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia, historians at the Center for Brooklyn History, talk to scholars, visit archives, and use oral histories to dive deep into Brooklyn's past, tying their work to the issues facing New Yorkers and Americans today. The podcast isn't currently active, but there are nearly 40 different stories for you to get lost in, from the queer history of Coney Island, to the legacy of local Black-owned businesses, to the stories of female photographers from Brooklyn, to the evolution of hip-hop. Listen to the podcast on the CBH website, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Flatbush + Main is a podcast dedicated to Brooklyn history. In each episode, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia, historians at Brooklyn Historical Society, talk to scholars and use archives and oral history to dive deep into Brooklyn's past, tying it to the issues facing New Yorkers and Americans today. Learn more at brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main. Email: flatbushandmain@brooklynhistory.org.

Flatbush + Main is a podcast dedicated to Brooklyn history. In each episode, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia, historians at Brooklyn Historical Society, talk to scholars and use archives and oral history to dive deep into Brooklyn's past, tying it to the issues facing New Yorkers and Americans today. Learn more at brooklynhistory.org/flatbush-main. Email: flatbushandmain@brooklynhistory.org.

great local history

The diversity of subjects is so exciting!

What?

In the Blackout of 1977 Podcast the podcasters defended the people of the Brooklyn for setting fires and looting stores. Never did they describe exactly who set the fires and what happened to the store owners after being looted and burned out. That is why the neighborhood declined. They praised opening a store with merchandise that was stolen. It was minutes of basically saying it was not the people who perpetrated the crimes against the neighborhood fault. I found this highly offensive and would no longer subscribe or listen to anymore podcasts. In a civilized society citizens must be held accountable and not forgiven for egregious acts against people,property,and their neighborhoods as the podcasters praised.

Behind the Borough

I like the way hosts Ali and Golia weave several themes together through a historical event or topic. The episode on the 19th-century Brooklyn Theater Fire brought the idea of a public tragedy, aid for victims, and how the classes were treated together, while also tying it in with the AIDS epidemic and other contemporary tragedies. My one and only negative comment is that I wish the hosts didn't use the word "like" quite so much. Otherwise, thanks for this terrific podcast.

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flatbush + main: a podcast from brooklyn historical society

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‎Flatbush + Main: A Podcast from Brooklyn Historical Society on Apple Podcasts

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‎Flatbush + Main is a podcast dedicated to Brooklyn history. In each episode, co-hosts Zaheer Ali and Julie Golia, historians at Brooklyn Historical Society, talk to scholars and use archives and oral history to dive deep into Brooklyn's past, tying it to the issues facing New Yorkers and Americans t...

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With each episode of this podcast, immerse yourself in the world of a single poem. Short and unhurried; contemplative and energizing. Listening to this podcast is a great way to get a little bit more poetry into your everyday life. With over 40 episodes to choose from, you'll find poems about friendship and relationships, poems about names, poems about belief and belonging, poems about language, poems about awkwardness, poems about tears, and so much more. Each episode is only about 10-15 minutes long, so take a break and step into the world of poetry to calm your mind. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Your poetry ritual: An immersive reading of a single poem, guided by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Unhurried, contemplative and energizing. New episodes on Monday and Friday, about 15 minutes each. Two seasons per year, with occasional special offerings. Anchor your life with poetry.

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Listen to Poetry Unbound on Spotify. Your poetry ritual: An immersive reading of a single poem, guided by Pádraig Ó Tuama. Unhurried, contemplative and energizing. New episodes on Monday and Friday, about 15 minutes each. Two seasons per year, with occasional special offerings. Anchor your life with poetry.

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In a time where travel is restricted and many museums remain inaccessible, Art Zoom allows you to get up close and personal with art. Each video is narrated by a popular musician, including FKA twigs, J. Balvin, Feist, Matty Healy from The 1975, and Chaeyoung from TWICE, and takes you through space, time, color, and the emotion of famous works of art. The narrators also explain how the works connect to their own thoughts, careers, and passions. After you've watched the videos, you can take a closer look at the art on the Google Arts and Culture platform and discover your own favorite works of art from around the world. Watch the series here.

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Introducing #ArtZoom: a global cultural tour by music superstars taking you through space and time, color and emotion.

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This animated short film tells the story of the four healing stones on Waikiki Beach, placed there as a tribute to the four legendary mahu who first brought the healing arts to Hawaii. The stones are a monument to Hawaiian concepts of healing and gender diversity, but the history of the stones had long been hidden from the public. The film script is based on the first recording of the oral tradition, a handwritten manuscript found in the archives of the University of Hawaii, and is narrated in Olelo Niihau, the only form of Hawaiian spoken continuously since before colonization. The beautiful animation, rooted in traditional Polynesian art, is breathtaking. Watch the film here.

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A Hawaiian story of healing and aloha has been hidden from history -- until now. | Kapaemahu

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In this documentary from PBS, follow queer actor Dyllón Burnside on a journey to discover how LGBTQ+ Americans live authentically and with pride in the modern South. Burnside travels across the South, meeting queer people and talking about everything from adoption equality and accessible healthcare to love, sex, and identity. He has conversations with an openly gay pastor in the Bible Belt, a baker from Mississippi who talks about the importance of allyship, and members of the queer community who gathered for the Creating Change Conference in Dallas, Texas. Watch it on YouTube or on the PBS site.

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Hosted by actor Dyllón Burnside, Prideland, a new series from PBS Digital Studios, explores LGBTQ+ life in the U.S. - from adoption equality and accessible h...

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How will the pandemic ultimately impact the cities we call home and the larger structures around us? This article-in-comic-form from The Nib considers that question, imagining the impact COVID-19 will have on infrastructure, architecture, and public spaces. They consider the effects that diseases like the Black Death, cholera, and tuberculosis had on design and speak with contemporary experts to picture a post-COVID world. If you're interested in urban engineering or public health, this article is worth a read. Check it out here.

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A Pandemic Rearranges Everything | The Nib

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COVID has forced us to reconsider how we live our lives - but what will we take with us when it's all over?

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The Oatmeal: 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (And Other Useful Guides)

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The Oatmeal: 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (And Other Useful Guides)

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In this bizarre and hilarious collection of comics from Matthew Inman (aka The Oatmeal), samurai sword-wielding kittens and hamsters with a love for machine guns commingle with a stressed out Tyrannosaur (that is extremely hard to potty train) and bacon is better than true loves. Featuring 60 comics, Inman's goofy guides like '4 Reasons to Carry a Shovel at All Times', '6 Crappy Hugs', and '8 Ways to Tell if Your Loved One plans to Eat You' are guaranteed to make you laugh. Read the book on ComicsPlus, which can be accessed here. Contact Ms. Nolan for the log-in information.

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A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an otherworldly empire reminiscent of Imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies are long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully. At once a feminist fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this novel follows the rise of empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece. Available from the BHSEC Library, NYPL and BPL via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here. Don't have a library card? Get an NYPL card here and a BPL card here.

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Georgia On My Mind: Black Politicians in Congress

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Georgia On My Mind: Black Politicians in Congress

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On January 6th, Reverend Raphael Warnock became Georgia's first Black senator. Inspired by his historic victory, the Schomburg Center developed an online exhibit that explores early Black politicians who also ascended to extraordinary heights within the American political system. The 22 men featured in the exhibit, elected between 1870 and 1898, shared a love for their people and the will to push their country to do and be better. They used their grit and character to crusade for civil rights, economic opportunities and free education for all, fighting against the wall of white supremacy. The exhibit also features a reading list and online sources if you would like to explore further. Visit the exhibition here.

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How can Shane reconcile his feelings for his best friend David with his desire for a better life? Still reeling from the suicide of his kid sister, Shane wants to just be able to turn to the one person on the rez whom he loves. Things go from bad to worse as Shane's dreams of college are shattered, his mother withdraws from the world, and he and David have to hide their relationship from everyone. Shane wants to move to Toronto, but David refuses to join him. Then when tragedy strikes, they have to make a difficult choice about their future together. Written by an indigenous author, this audiobook offers insight into the experiences of indigenous queer youth. Listen to this audiobook on MackinVia. New to using MackinVia? Instructions can be found here.

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Produced by the Brooklyn Public Library, this podcast explores the stories of Brooklynites, both inside BPL and in their communities. The podcast hosts talk to people starting businesses, finding their roots, playing Dungeons and Dragons, creating community, borrowing books, and so much more! Recent episodes include stories about youth in Bed-Stuy, musicians from the South Asian music diaspora, how libraries serve incarcerated patrons, and the history of a once-unacknowledged African burial ground in East New York. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Listen to Borrowed on Spotify. Brooklyn has so many stories to tell, and a lot of them start at the library. Every other week, "Borrowed" brings you stories that start here and take you somewhere new. We're talking to people starting businesses, finding their roots, playing Dungeons & Dragons, creating community-and of course, borrowing books!

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1990 was the year of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum art heist, one of the most valuable and confounding in art history. Today, over thirty years later, the crime remains unsolved. Even with a $10 million reward on offer, not a single piece in a haul estimated to be worth half a billion dollars has surfaced. Gone in 81 minutes, the loot and the thieves remain at large. This podcast takes listeners inside the ongoing effort to bring back the jewels of the Gardner collection, featuring exclusive interviews and unprecedented access into the case. The podcast is complete, but the mystery remains. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Listen to Last Seen on Spotify. WBUR's true crime podcast 'Last Seen': Season 2 is a genre-bending anthology about people, places and things that have all gone ... missing. It explores what losing them means, why we keep searching and whether or not they can - or even should - be found.

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Take a break from what you're doing and listen to some stories. TedEd's Mythic playlist features nearly thirty mythic stories from around the world, all animated in their own unique style. While the collection originally stuck mostly to Greco-Roman mythology, it has expanded to include stories from the Maya, the Aztecs, the Taino, China, Egypt, Cambodia, Japan, and South Asia. A new story is added every couple of weeks, so there's always something new to come back to. Look around the playlist for stories you've never heard before, or just go through each story one at a time. Check out the playlist here.

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Myths serve a profound role in our cultures and traditions, anchoring us to a sense of history and meaning through storytelling. Travel around the world, fro…

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See the unseen at the very edge of the visible world! Deep Look offers a new perspective on our place in the universe and introduces viewers to some extraordinary new friends. From bugs, to sea creatures, to parasites, there's no (small) creature this channel, shot in 4K, won't explore. The channel uses macrophotography and microscopy to capture every last detail. The videos are short but are always beautiful, and often creepy and bizarre. The Life Aquatic playlist is particularly relaxing. Check out the whole channel here.

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science "deep look" pbs kqed "web series" macro environment biology education lab nature "up close" ocean facts creepy 4k cool questions "4k video" learning ...

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DEEP LOOK is a science video series that explores big science by going very, very small, from KQED and PBS Digital Studios. We use macro photography and microscopy in glorious 4K resolution, to see science up close ... really, really close. SUBSCRIBE: http://goo.gl/8NwXqt Support Deep Look on Patreon!!

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Step into the shoes of dancers from across the country who dare to imagine what it would look like if their city could dance. Performing on street corners and other unconventional settings, each episode tells an intimate, personal story about the artists and their deep-rooted connections to community. Visit Memphis, Portland, Miami, Oakland, and DC and learn about the styles of dance that make these cities stand out. Check out the playlist of episodes on YouTube here and find more on the PBS website here.

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If Cities Could Dance, produced by KQED, is a show about dance culture across the U.S.

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Chicago, 1954. When his father goes missing, Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle Geoege--publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide- and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwaite they encounter the everyday terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours. A blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, Lovecraft Country is a devastating and engrossing read. Available from the BHSEC Library, NYPL, BPL, and QPL via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here. Don't have a library card? Get an NYPL card here and a BPL card here.

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In a near-future San Francisco where the gig economy has made work more precarious than ever, Edwina is an average twenty-something scrambling to hold down her job with a major skin care brand. Sure, she has to deal with insufferably wealthy clients, a broken bonus system, and social media obsessed co-workers, but it pays well. But then a strange and dangerous woman starts coming around, and Edwina finds out her awful boss may have done something you should never do: anger the fairies. But fairies aren't real. Are they? Read this weird and wonderful short story here.

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In a near-future San Francisco where the gig economy has made work more precarious than ever, Edwina is an average twenty-something scrambling to hold down her job with a major skin care brand. Until her awful boss does something you should never do-angers the fae on social media-and the struggles of her job take on an even nastier shade.

Wildfire season turned sunset a rotten orange that seeped in through the shop windows and spread across the floor in lurid streaks. Edwina leaned on the poured concrete counter, watching women walk past outside, pushing strollers whose fabric gently strobed with the names of their nannyshare agencies. Usually they veered off to buy groceries at Whole Foods, currently bathed in a hellish glow. But sometimes they peered inside, looking beyond her to stare at rows of glass bottles full of creams and aromatherapies and anti-aging remedies. A small, tasteful sign in the window guardedly alluded to the services they offered at Skin Seraph:

Feel younger with a moisture peel Indulge in a revitalizing mask Try cool sculpting for clean lines Even out your natural color with melanin toners#skinseraph #selfcare #youdeserveit

Customers trickled in all day. Women asked for less hair and men asked for more. White people wanted to be tan, and brown people wanted to be paler. Older people wanted tight, matte skin and younger people wanted plump, dewy cheeks like on K-beauty Instagram. Edwina's job wasn't to help them. She was a "customer care associate," which mostly meant she babysat the system that texted appointment reminders. Occasionally she took calls from harried assistants trying to rebook their bosses. Her physical presence wasn't necessary, but her boss Isobel wanted Skin Seraph to feel elite and expensive. That's why she'd hired an actual human to stand here on the premises instead of outsourcing to Task Rabbits like Edwina's cousins in the Philippines.

Sometimes customers would ask if she used any of the products. Edwina had tried most of the Skin Seraph-branded masks, so she could say honestly that she did. She liked the company's signature citrus-and-cinnamon scent. But she'd never had a chemical peel or Botox or laser color correction. Most customers were looking for something way out of Edwina's price range. She tried to be nice to everyone, because this was a decent on-site job with health insurance and a 401K plan. There were limits, though. She wasn't going to do free brand repping like Daisy, the staff clinician. Daisy's self-care videos blew up pretty regularly, and they were full of artfully deployed Skin Seraph products. That's why Daisy got bonuses while Edwina never would.

Isobel ran fifteen Skin Seraph stores in three countries, but she still found time to micromanage their bonus system. All the employees had to install this humiliating productivity app called MakeMeProud that tracked how many people they'd converted into loyal customers and pushed leaderboard updates to them every hour. Daisy always won because she had incredible numbers from her socials. The app could see who clicked "buy" after watching the clinician apply toning snails to her face on Instagram. But since Edwina worked at the front desk, it was hard to prove she'd triggered a sale. The one time she used the app to log a $500 purchase of foot cream, Isobel rejected it because "merely operating the cash register is not the same thing as brand conversion." Edwina had given up at that point. Her salary wasn't great, but it was good enough. At least Isobel didn't leave screamy voicemails for her like she did for the high-performing clinicians.

Edwina sighed, rested both elbows on the counter, and let her shoulders rise up until it felt like they were touching her ears. A cute person with a dog stood outside talking to someone remote. Maybe they were arranging a dinner date. Or having a conference with fifty people in Shenzhen. Idly, Edwina wondered what time it was in Shenzhen. Was it morning there? She blinked up an interface in her contacts and searched for the answer.

Outside, the sunset was browning into twilight, and the cute person wandered away. Edwina would be closing soon, leaving a few dim lights strategically trained on their most expensive products, which had been decanted into crystal polygons that shot rainbows onto the white display shelves. As she wiped Instagram out of the air, she noticed a woman staring into the window directly at her. Something was wrong with her skin, which maybe made sense because she was staring into a skin care boutique. Edwina squinted into the smoky shadows, blinking all the feeds out of her contacts. Was that a sunburn or some kind of scarring? The woman placed her hands on the glass, leaning in so close that her breath made a frosty, opaque circle. Now Edwina was sure the darkness was messing with her vision, because it really looked as if tiny cracks were growing outward from the woman's fingers.

No. It was actually happening.

She heard the unmistakable cry of glass fracturing, and the threadlike fissures spread faster, forming a snarled pattern like a medieval street map full of twisted roads. The woman continued to gaze at Edwina, hands and breath at the center of this bizarre form of vandalism. Edwina jumped out of her chair, flicking the emergency call screen into her left eye. But something kept her from pinching the button.

Hesitantly, she approached the woman. Her skin-it wasn't skin at all. There was no skin. The woman's muscles moved wetly, beaded with clusters of yellow collagen, veins and arteries a throbbing lace across her cheeks and neck. Her lidless blue eyes were set into sockets the color of rubies. Her lips slithered with fat.

The jagged cracks had wound their way to the edges of the window frame.

"Get the fuck away from here!" Edwina screamed without thinking. "I'm calling the police right now!"

The woman smiled, squeezing the tissues of her face into a new configuration of oil and blood. All around her, the glass whined and sagged, on the verge of collapsing into a million shards.

"Go away! Leave right now!" Edwina realized distantly that her voice was rising to a higher and higher pitch.

She reached up to pinch the button that would call Skin Seraph's private security service. Before her fingers could rub together, the woman disappeared. It was as abrupt as a bad special effect: she was there, and then she was gone. Shaking, Edwina reached out to touch the glass where the woman's hands had been. The windows were perfectly smooth.

Daisy came racing out of the back, where she'd been assisting with the day's last chemical peel. Perfect pink ringlets bobbed around her pink face. "Are you okay, Edwina?"

"There was-there was a person messing with the windows."

Daisy made a big show of opening the door and looking up and down the street, now glowing with LEDs from the Whole Foods parking lot. "Was it that homeless lady again?" she asked. "The one with the cute cat?"

With no other way to explain what she'd seen, Edwina nodded. "I think maybe it was her, yeah."

"She used to stay down in the Mission at the BART station, but now she climbs the hill to Noe Valley because people in this neighborhood have more money." Daisy sighed. "I have to admit it's relatable."

Edwina kept staring at the place where the woman had been, and Daisy finally went back to her chemical peel, still talking about homeless people. Except that woman hadn't been carrying a cat. She might not even have been real. Edwina sat back down behind the desk and put her head in her hands, wondering if she'd finally gone crazy.

Half an hour until closing. There were no more tasks in her queue, and the last client of the day was with Daisy. She had no reason to be here other than to lock up. Pulling up a chat window, Edwina texted her best friend Alyx. They ran social for a few Memegen brands, and were always online.

Edwinner: I think this job is starting to drive me insane.

Alyx777: Too many face transplants? That shit is grisly.

Edwinner: I seriously thought I saw a woman breaking our windows. I actually screamed or something? Daisy came running in, and now I feel like an idiot. I guess I'm hallucinating now.

Alyx777: Dang! You got Daisy to notice something other than her follow count?

Edwinner: Haha yes! But now I feel really weird. Do you want to hang out in a couple of hours and watch the new episode of Fae Killers?

Alyx777: YASSSSSS luv u!

Talking to Alyx always made Edwina feel better. Maybe her job arranging appointments to revamp people's faces was bizarre, but it was practically mundane compared to Alyx making tax payment apps into loveable personalities on WimWam. Edwina sent some music to her earbuds and wiped more coin into her streaming account so they could watch Fae Killers uninterrupted.

By the time she returned to work after the long Memorial Day weekend, Edwina had chalked up the window incident to exhaustion and put it out of her mind. The wildfire smoke had cleared briefly, and Jupiter rose like the business end of a bright laser pointer in the sky over Whole Foods.

She blinked up two windows. In one, she stacked the week's appointments, and in the other she chatted with Alyx. They were excited about a new marketing campaign where the nannyshare app Babyfren came out as a Fae Killers superfan. In Babyfren persona, Alyx posted a video about how all infants secretly want Fae Killers' naughty shape-shifter Puck to be their daddy. It instantly sucked up a thousand new Babyfren subscribers in San Francisco alone. Edwina had to admit the video was pretty hilarious, especially when the infant drew a big circle around Puck's "tight fae butt." Idly, Edwina wondered if Babyfren got a kickback from Fae Killers, or if maybe Memegen represented Fae Killers too. She was about to ask Alyx when a dark silhouette blocked Jupiter's light.

It was the skinless woman again, raw face like a popped blister around her pus-slicked smile. "Hello," she mouthed silently to Edwina, pressing her hand to the windowpane farthest from the front desk. She spread her fingers wide, trailing them behind her along the glass as she walked. Nothing cracked in her wake. The apparition paused in front of Edwina and rubbed both palms over the window as if washing it, but she left swirls of thick mud behind instead of soap. This time, Edwina didn't pull up the alarm, and she didn't scream. The woman swayed, almost dancing as she drew great arcs of wet brown curds over a display of snail masks. Just as the stuff blocked Edwina's view of the Whole Foods parking lot, a smell hit her.

Anyone who rode the BART train in San Francisco knew it. People dug communal cesspits in the tunnels. Apparently using them was better than getting chipped and monitored at the city's homeless facilities. And now the whole waiting room, with its clean white walls and spotless bottles of cream, was permeated by the unmistakable, heavy reek of day-old human shit.

Edwina's eyes started to water. Only the most intense odors from the street could overpower the atomizer that perpetually emitted Skin Seraph's aromatherapy mist. This had to be real. Should she call somebody? The woman grinned at her again, distorting the arrangement of blood vessels in her neck, and completed her work with a flourish of excrement in the shape of a blooming flower. And then, just like last time, she winked out.

"What . . . the . . . fuck?" It was Daisy's voice behind her.

Edwina jumped. "What? What is it?"

Daisy had dyed one ringlet sparkly gold and wore two jeweled nourishment patches under each eye. "Is that . . . shit smeared all over the windows?"

Two women in spa robes and revitalization socks padded into the front room behind Daisy. "Oh my god!" one of them cried, putting a hand to her mouth and dislodging the depilation caterpillar on her upper lip. The other woman's face was still wrapped tightly in quick-heal bandages and she couldn't say anything. Instead, her eyes widened and she made a mewing noise in her throat. Then the bandages over her mouth went puffy and gray as ribbons of vomit slid down her neck. She ripped the bandages off, revealing a sticky red chin and an even more disgusting smell as she dripped onto the floor.

"Mrs. Landsdale!" Daisy screamed. "You can't take those off!" She raced to help her client, grabbing a handful of soothing wipes from the counter and pulling the still-gagging woman into the back. "Ms. Desai, why don't you lie down again in the garden suite while my colleague cleans up?" She shot a meaningful look at Edwina over her shoulder.

"It's that hobo who begs in front of Whole Foods, isn't it?" Ms. Desai asked conversationally as Daisy and Mrs. Landsdale disappeared into a treatment room. "I don't know why they let her sit there. It's private property."

Edwina had finally processed what was happening. The woman was real. The shit was real. A woman had just vomited on the floor. And now she was going to have to be nice to a client while she cleaned everything up.

"I don't know who it was. She didn't look homeless." The words felt algorithmically generated by her mouth as she looked for cleaning supplies under the front desk.

Ms. Desai leaned on the counter, readjusting the caterpillar over her upper lip. "You should report her to the police. You guys have a security camera out there, right? Just take a screenshot from it and make a report. That's what my neighbor did when people kept stealing her Amazon packages, and they caught the guys. If the police have a face, they can find people anywhere."

Edwina hefted the motorized window washer in one hand, its plastic tank sloshing with Clorox-spiked fluid, and looped the hose over her shoulder. She could plug it in outside. "Well, I have to do some cleaning, Ms. Desai. If you go back to the garden suite, I'm sure Daisy will be right with you."

She didn't bother to wish Ms. Desai a nice evening.

Soapy water cascaded over the glass, and Edwina used the hose to chase wafers of caked excrement into the gutter. As she followed the edges of the shit flower with needles of spray, Edwina realized that Ms. Desai had a point. She could review security footage and figure out what she'd actually seen. At least, once she was done here. Edwina sighed and wished Skin Seraph's protective gloves didn't cost twenty dollar each. It would come out of her paycheck.

The windows still looked spotty when Mrs. Landsdale walked through the lobby with Ms. Desai. Both were dressed in those yoga pants that transformed from opaque fabric into mesh netting when exposed to perspiration. Mrs. Landsdale's bandages were newly applied. Daisy had given both women free youth-restoration elixir gift packages, gently strobing with luminescent jellyfish protein in their frosted bottles.

"My skin may never recover from that," Mrs. Landsdale said in a voice that was meant to be overheard. "I could have been seriously injured."

Ms. Desai shot Edwina a sympathetic look. "I hope you catch her. It's horrifying what those people think they can do."

They drifted outside, discussing whether to hire a rideshare or walk up the hill to their neighborhood.

As they passed out of earshot, Edwina caught Mrs. Landsdale's parting salvo. "Did that girl just sit there while a hobo destroyed her shop?" she asked with exaggerated incomprehension. "Why didn't she do anything? Is she profoundly basic? I'm never going to that place again."

"Same," said Ms. Desai. "We can always go to Nature's Blessing in the Marina."

Edwina made sure she'd sprayed every fleck of ordure off the windows before returning inside to start the shutdown routine. Daisy was still banging around in back, so she walked to the garden suite to check on her. Daisy was kneeling next to the orchid display, carefully emptying several tiny trash containers into a scented plastic bag. She looked sweaty and her ringlets had wilted.

"Hey, I'm going to start closing up. Are you almost done?"

Daisy looked up, and Edwina braced herself for rage. Instead, her colleague's face was streaked with tears. "I'm done." Her voice was hoarse.

"Are you okay?"

Daisy shook what remained of her curls. "Of course I'm not okay. Mrs. Landsdale is one of my best clients. I've gotten a ton of referrals from her."

Edwina flashed on the conversation she'd just overheard between Mrs. Landsdale and Ms. Desai, and felt an unfamiliar flare of sympathy for Daisy. Clinicians worked for those bonuses, and Skin Seraph wasn't a just day job for Daisy. It was her career.

"I bet she'll forget about it tomorrow when she tries that elixir," Edwina said with forced cheerfulness.

Daisy shook her head. "I hope so. That wasn't some free sample. I gave her the good shit."

"I dunno. I think I'm the true judge of good shit now." Edwina cracked a grin and Daisy let out a laugh-sob noise that turned into a genuine laugh. It was the first time Edwina had ever seen her without absolutely perfect makeup and structured hair.

Daisy slung the bag of trash over her shoulder and cocked her head at Edwina. "Do you want to drink some of those CBD coolers that Isobel and Brad left in the fridge?" she asked. "I really need to relax." Isobel and her boyfriend Brad, whom she'd hired as some kind of nebulous marketing manager, always kept drinks on hand for pop-up influencer parties.

Edwina blinked up her chat with Alyx, which had mostly degenerated into poop emoji. "Can I invite my friend Alyx? I told them to meet me after work."

"The more the merrier."

The three of them sat on massage chairs in the restoration room, drinking and watching Fae Killer memes on YouTube. That's when Edwina remembered the security camera footage. She had two witnesses now, and wanted to see what they thought.

She and Daisy swiped through Skin Seraph's dashboard lazily, digging into several maintenance menus before they found the security cam file. It was set to delete anything older than a week, so her first encounter with the woman was gone. But this afternoon's encounter was there. They watched the scene unfold with mouths open. The webcam was positioned over the door, which meant most of the action at the windows happened at the edge of the video. Still, they could zoom in to see a person touching the windows, face averted, her movements a jerky blur.

"Is this in fast motion or something?" Alyx asked. "It looks weird."

Daisy fiddled with the controls and brought up the timestamp. "Nope," she said. "She's just moving really fast."

And then they came to the part where the woman winked out. It happened on film just the way it had in real life: she was there and then not there. Except now it was easier to blame on bad video than it had been when the actual scene was streaming into her eyes.

"There must be something wrong with the webcam," Daisy said uncertainly.

"Yeah it's glitchy," Alyx agreed. They chugged more CBD cooler, and looked over at Edwina. "Right? It's glitchy."

Edwina debated whether to agree with them or come out and say it. She took another swig of CBD, looked at Alyx's lean face with their jet-black eyes, and Daisy's pale, de-sparkled cheeks. "That's actually what I saw too. She moved really fast and then she disappeared. Daisy, remember how last week I said I thought I saw a woman breaking the window? It's the same one. She disappeared then too."

Daisy set her bottle down carefully. "So, what is this? Some kind of . . . fae?"

None of them laughed.

Alyx pulled their mobile out of a back pocket and unfolded it on the table between them. "So obviously fae aren't real," they said. "But it could be somebody in a costume fucking around with the camera, right? Let's see if there are other reports like this on Nextdoor. People freaking love to report vandalism there. There's also a feed from San Francisco city government where people submit cleanup requests." Alyx already had six feeds going on the mobile.

"You don't think fae are real?" Daisy asked, using the very serious voice she usually reserved for talking to customers about gold flake masks.

Edwina and Alyx glanced at each other and then at Daisy. "I mean, I love Fae Killers, but that's not real life," Edwina said.

"Well, no, that's not real life," Daisy agreed. "But there are definitely fae here in San Francisco."

Edwina's heart sank. She was just starting to like Daisy, and now she felt herself withdrawing. It wasn't as if she was some kind of douchey skeptic who hated all people with New Age beliefs, but it was going to be hard to solve this mystery if Daisy blamed it on ancient aliens.

Alyx broke through Edwina's disappointment spiral. "What do you mean when you say there are fae here in the city?" they asked.

Daisy shrugged. "Don't you run socials for brands? You must have seen Fae Twitter. A lot of companies hire fae consultants now to help them with outreach because dreamwalking is a great way to raise brand awareness."

"I've heard of that, but I thought it was like hiring astrologers or something." Alyx looked nonplussed.

Something about Edwina's expression and Alyx's tone had gotten through to Daisy. She dropped her eyes and picked at one of her nails. "I guess it's like that. Some people believe fae are real, though." Daisy laughed nervously. "It's probably like those magicians in Vegas who turn people into giant pigs, but then it turns out to be a hologram, right?"

"Wait, did that happen? A magician turned somebody into a holographic pig?" Edwina was eager to change the subject. "I'm looking that up on YouTube right now."

After she found it, they spent another hour clicking on even more bizarre magician videos. Then it was time to head home. Daisy hopped in a rideshare while Alyx and Edwina walked down the hill to catch BART.

At the West Oakland stop, Alyx hugged Edwina goodnight, but kept a warm hand on her arm as they separated. "I'll use some of the algorithms we have at work to look for reports on that shit-smearing lady, okay? I bet somebody has reported her, and then at least you'll know more."

Edwina nodded. "Thanks. I'm still stuck in this weird energy from what Daisy said about the fae."

"Social media people have a zillion superstitions," Alyx laughed. "Gotta pray to the mushroom people if you wanna go viral, man."

"I guess so." Edwina managed a smile, but she couldn't stop thinking about the skinless woman who had shattered and unshattered a window. Like she was casting a spell. Edwina glanced up at Jupiter, still burning brightly overhead, and remembered how the collagen had glistened in the woman's cheeks as she said hello. Maybe it wasn't a spell. Maybe it was a curse.

The next day at work was a lot more fun than usual because Edwina finally had an office friend. Now she and Daisy could roll their eyes at each other when there was a particularly rude client, and she had somebody to grab a turmeric latte with at Martha & Brothers up the street. Daisy snuck a look at her socials as they waited in the coffee queue behind three women with four Babyfren carriages between them.

"Oh shit, Edwina," she said with a quaver. "Ohhhhh shit." Her eyes had that foggy look of somebody accessing a lot of feeds on their contacts.

A chill crept up Edwina's arms. "What is it?"

"Mrs. Landsdale posted a seriously psycho review of Skin Seraph on Mommyland and it's blowing up everywhere."

"Omigod let me see."

Daisy flicked the link to Edwina's contacts. It was posted in the San Francisco shopping forum, and already had thousands of upvotes after only an hour.

Disgusting experience at Skin Seraph-DO NOT GO THERE I have been going to Skin Seraph in Noe Valley for more than a year, and have always had a pleasant enough experience but NEVER AGAIN. Last night a hobo attacked the windows and smeared them with excrement, and the management did NOTHING. The entire place smelled terrible, and made me extremely ill. My skin peel was ruined and my doctor says I may have scarring. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE AND DANGEROUS. This is a medical establishment and the management has NO SECURITY. The girls who work at the store did nothing to stop it, and then they rinsed the windows with nothing more than a little tap water. Can you believe it? That window is probably coated in all kinds of disgusting microbes now, and who knows how much has been tracked inside to infect everyone who goes there. I'm warning you, as a concerned mother, to avoid this place. It's another case of a local store becoming a chain and the service suffering as a result. I'm also contacting the city to recommend an inspection IMMEDIATELY.

The comment section was filled with outrage and recommendations for other local skin spas. When she got tired of blinking through them, Edwina looked up to see that Daisy had the same expression she'd worn last night when she was cleaning up in back. Her eyes were going red.

"At least she didn't name me," Daisy said shakily. "There's that. She didn't link to me or say I had personally done anything wrong."

Edwina touched Daisy's shoulder. "Nobody will be able to track this back to you. Skin Seraph might be canceled for a few days, but you're not."

Daisy looked vague again, and then refocused her eyes on Edwina. "Good. I gained a bunch of followers for this video I posted yesterday. So far, I'm fine."

Then they both checked Skin Seraph's socials, and it was a bloodbath. Followers had plummeted, and people were screaming at them about how they were unsanitary and disgusting and doomed. There was some conspiracy group that was fixated on the term seraph as a sign of Satanism, and now the store was on their radar too. Skin Seraph's timeline was full of reminders that "the Beast can't hide" and vague threats to Isobel and Brad. Somebody had even dug up Isobel's mobile number and was urging people to text her about the dangers of consorting with devils.

"These guys don't even understand that seraphs are angels," Edwina grumbled. She got a half-hearted laugh out of Daisy.

"They are idiots, but Mrs. Landsdale is a huge influencer on Mommyland. She could actually kill the brand."

"I wonder what Isobel and Brad are going to do? Do you think they know about this?"

Daisy looked at her like she was basic. "Edwina. Of course they know. I'm sure they're having a very bad meeting with their marketing people right now."

Most of the afternoon appointments were canceled, so Edwina and Daisy did a deep clean on the garden suite and unpacked a new display of frog milk bottles. They got a memo from Isobel around three p.m.

To: All Staff From: Isobel Chang Subject: Exciting changes! We are pleased to announce that Margot Redberry is taking over as Skin Seraph's new marketing manager. Brad will be stepping down to focus on special projects, working closely with our partners in the Philippines to develop new markets. Please take a moment to congratulate Margot. We're so excited to have her in this big new role!

"Wow-she fired her own boyfriend!" Edwina exclaimed. "This must be really bad."

"Uh, yeah. Did you see the story in Teen Vogue? Basically it's quoting Mrs. Landsdale's post and then linking to a bunch of other people talking about how the Skin Seraph stores have all become super unsanitary. Also they're saying the frog milk line is made with endangered tree frogs or something?" Daisy looked dubious. "I'm pretty sure that's not true. All this stuff is biomimetic. It imitates animal proteins, but it's made in labs."

Edwina stared out the front window. There was one smeary spot left in the corner, where the skinless woman had pressed her fingers last night. Were they going to lose their jobs? She still needed a hefty amount to build a solid nest egg for graduate school, and she didn't want to go back to gigging for a dollar a minute.

As if she'd read Edwina's mind, Daisy pulled out her mobile and spread it open to a page full of task offers in San Francisco. But then she wiped those away and opened up her Twitch dashboard. "Want to see something totally secret?"

"Sure!"

Daisy poked at an unpublished video called "Sweety Quest." It was a teaser for a new streaming romance series, starring Daisy, the hapless heroine looking for snuggles in the big city. Sponsored by Sugardew, the new Korean-style face-care brand. "They hired me to do a show about their new line of nightlife skin products-like all the stuff you need for going out and recovering afterwards. Isn't it dope? I'm a real influencer now!" Daisy made a face. "I mean, I know that sounds awful but I'm really excited. I get to write and direct all the episodes, and they said I can do queer content and have lots of stories about women of color."

Maybe Daisy believed in fae, Edwina thought, but she was also a genuinely nice person. It was hard not to like somebody who was promising to make romances that pandered charmingly to your exact demographic. She smiled. "Wow, congrats! Are you allowed to rep other brands while you're here, though?"

Daisy looked around, as if Isobel might jump out of that memo and scream at them. "I was worried about that, but I think now . . . well, now might be a good time to think about finding other brands to rep? You know what I mean?"

Edwina hung her head. "Yeah. I know. I have no idea what I'll do if this job goes away."

Impulsively, Daisy hugged her. "Maybe it will be fine here. But if not, I know you'll find something."

That night, Daisy came along with Edwina and Alyx to an old bar in the Mission where the drinks were strong and grizzled millennials sat around debating politics with their thick phones propped on the tables next to their face masks. The wildfire smoke was back again.

"I love this place," Edwina said. "It's been around for forty years-like since the early 2000s. It's the real San Francisco." She finished her scotch in two gulps, and ordered another one.

Alyx sipped slowly on a rum and Coke. "So I found out something pretty interesting about Skin Seraph today while everybody was losing their shit about . . . the shit." They raised an eyebrow.

Edwina sighed. "I don't know if I can take more Satanist conspiracy stuff."

"Did you know that Isobel hired a fae-owned firm to promote Skin Seraph last year when she took the chain national?" Alyx asked. They flipped open their mobile on the bar so the two women could look over their shoulder at what was onscreen. It was a Tweet from a brand consultancy called Witchy Wonders, announcing that they'd just signed a contract with Skin Seraph to "sprinkle a little fairy dust on their already excellent brand." Alyx thumbed to the next screen. It was a PDF of the actual contract. "Obviously you never saw this," they said. "But Memegen has access to a lot of private corporate information. It looks like Isobel has been hemorrhaging money, missing bill payments. And she stopped paying this Witchy Wonder contract too."

Daisy sucked in her breath. "Oh no. She didn't pay her brand consultant?"

Edwina was starting to feel drunk, but it wasn't from the scotch. It was this conversation. "Okay, so you're saying that fae are real, and they are brand consultants in San Francisco." Her voice came out a lot more evenly than she expected it would.

"I mean, yeah?" Daisy arched a perfectly gilded eyebrow. "I told you last night."

"Like actual fae, with actual magic powers? Not cosplayers or pagans?"

"I don't know about powers, but they are contractors," Alyx said. "And I can definitely understand being pissed when you don't get paid. Contractors are always the first to get screwed."

"Tell me about it," Daisy groaned.

Edwina thought about the three years she'd worked as a Task Rabbit after college, and how grateful she'd been to get hired as a staffer at Skin Seraph. "I mean, I get why this Witchy Wonders person is angry, but she's going to ruin a lot of people's lives. It's not just Isobel. There are hundreds of Skin Seraph employees all over the world."

"I'm going DM them," Alyx said, fingers twitching midair.

"What? No!" Daisy yelped.

But Edwina was curious. "Do it!" she said. "See if you can find out how bad the contract violation is."

Alyx started giggling, eyes foggy with data. "The person running their socials remembers you, Edwina. She says she's really sorry because she liked how sparky you are." Alyx kept typing. "Okay, yeah. Yeah. This is bad. There's nothing you can do. Isobel really screwed Witchy Wonders over, like for tons of money, and Skin Seraph is going down hard. It's going to get a lot worse." Alyx's eyes cleared. "She says you should look for another job now. She's willing to give you a few days before she pulls the trigger on the next curse."

Edwina sank down on the bar stool, feeling simultaneously freaked out and vindicated. There was no way she was going to find another job with decent benefits in a few days. But it was oddly affirming to know that there was a scary magical woman roaming the city who thought she was sparky. Suddenly, she had an idea.

"Alyx, ask if she'd be willing to meet with me and Daisy to work something out. Maybe we can salvage this."

A smirk spread over Alyx's face as they typed. "She's open to talking. She says she'll meet you at Skin Seraph tomorrow when you close." They folded up the mobile and tucked it into a front pocket. "Her name is Agony, by the way."

Recalling the fae's last couple of visits to Skin Seraph, Edwina was willing to admit that Agony had earned her hyperbolic name.

"What are you thinking?" Daisy asked, picking at a piece of glitter caught in the sleeve of her sweater. "I told you I'm probably not staying at Skin Seraph. Plus, are you really going to try to bargain with a fae? That shit is dangerous."

"Listen." Edwina expertly flicked the glitter off Daisy's sleeve. "She likes me, right? I just want to see if we can get her to slow down. I need this job if I'm going to save enough to go to grad school next year. Plus, I actually like working at Skin Seraph-it's chill, and we have good benefits."

"Yeah, I get that." Daisy shot Edwina a look of sympathy.

Alyx poked Daisy's shoulder. "Don't you want to meet somebody who is a literal shit disturber? She sounds cool."

Daisy laughed. "I guess so. But I'm out if things start to get weird. And I'm not going to make any deals or bargains with her."

"Thank you!" Edwina hugged Daisy and Alyx at the same time, almost unseating herself in the process. She had no idea what she was going to say to Agony, but somehow it felt like she was making the right choice.

The next evening, Daisy kept finding excuses to sit at the front desk with Edwina, watching the sidewalk outside warily. Nearly every appointment had been canceled, so it wasn't like she had anything to do in the treatment rooms.

As daylight drained from the picture windows, a flock of green parrots crowded into the tree outside, chittering and eating the tiny red berries that grew between its spoon-shaped leaves. More kept arriving. Within minutes, it was hard to tell parrot from tree.

"That's kind of weird," Daisy said, pointing at the growing flock.

As if in answer, the door shushed open and three parrots flew inside to land next to the bottles of frog milk. Their feathered heads were as red as the berries they'd been eating. One of them immediately squirted a shit onto the pristine glass shelf.

Following the parrots inside was a woman with magenta hair in a fitted green jumpsuit embroidered with tropical flowers. She was muscular and tall, her bulky silhouette filling the doorway. She curled her hand into a gun shape, index finger pointed at the camera over the front desk, and an alert flickered in Edwina's contacts: Skin Seraph Security Feed Temporarily Offline.

"Well that wasn't creepy at all," Daisy whispered.

"You must be Agony," Edwina said loudly. "I'm Edwina, and this is Daisy."

The fae smiled and pretended to blow smoke from the loaded barrel of her finger gun. Now that she was wearing her skin, Edwina could see that she was probably in her late twenties, with a pale brown complexion. She might be Latinx, or possibly southeast Asian. Did fae have human racial identities? Probably best not to assume.

Agony walked slowly around the store, picking up a revitalizing cream packaged in a squishy plastic bulb, peering at its warning label, then setting it back down. One of the parrots landed on her shoulder.

"I-I like your jumpsuit, Agony," Daisy said.

At last the fae looked directly at them. "Isn't it the best? I got it on sale at Wildfang." Agony finished her circuit of the room and leaned on the counter across from them. "I love your self-care videos, by the way. I've been following you for ages."

"Oh thanks!" Daisy had the desperately upbeat tone she used when Isobel visited the store and yelled at the clinicians who weren't on the MakeMeProud leaderboard.

Edwina was glad the small talk was handled. "So, Agony, I wanted to talk to you about this thing you're doing to Skin Seraph," she said.

The fae turned her gaze on Edwina, and she felt a pleasurable tingle of . . . something. Was that magic, or was Agony just super hot? "I told your friend Alyx that I'd give you a few days before I burn this brand down." Agony looked down and the tingle receded. "And for the record, I do feel bad about it. My boss at Witchy Wonders has this scorched earth approach that feels very 2020. You know? She's from that extremist generation."

"Yeah," Edwina sighed. "Our boss is awful too. Obviously."

"That's why I'm going to work for myself," Daisy said. "I just got another sponsorship."

Agony shrugged. "You'll still be a contractor. That means you can get screwed by ten people instead of one. Trust me. I spend half my days chasing down payments for the company. And when they don't pay, well . . . I have to deal with that too."

"Why do you work there, then?" Edwina was genuinely curious.

"I love doing socials and events. I figure I'll work at Witchy for a couple more years, build up my portfolio, and then get a staff job at a marketing or design firm. I need some health insurance and stability."

Daisy was losing her anxiety frown. "I hear that. I'm going to miss the health insurance here."

Cocking her head, Agony blinked up something on her contacts. "Your numbers are amazing, Daisy. You should come to this healer pop-up I'm organizing. We need somebody to talk about nourishing beauty products."

Edwina watched the two women talking shop and wished they could be friends. Agony might be a fae with supernatural powers-or a really good cosplayer with a camera-killing device hidden up her sleeve-but her job situation sounded a lot like theirs. There had to be some way to get her on their side. Suddenly she had an idea. "Remember how Wooden Board Café had that whole scandal where the dude who owned it was forcing everyone to do creepy stuff like compete for overtime bonuses and clean the bathroom when he was in the stall taking a dump?"

"Ugh!"

"Yes!"

She had their full attention. "Well, Wooden Board is still open now, right? That's because the workers all joined a class action suit, and the dude decided to settle by quitting and giving them the business. So they became a worker-owned cooperative. Everybody has a share in the shop. It worked out great and they started selling those really amazing cheese tarts." Edwina paused. "We could do that."

Daisy was dubious. "But Skin Seraph is an international chain. We can't turn it all into a co-op."

"No, you mean with the Skin Seraph workers at this one shop, right?" Agony continued to blink up feeds as she thought it over. "It might even work, because your boss could get rid of the shop that got her in trouble in the first place. She could do a total rebrand."

"Okay, sure. But what would we do with a shop?" Daisy asked.

Edwina's heart began to pound, and she realized with surprise this mattered a lot to her. "We all need jobs. Daisy, you want to be a self-care influencer, and this shop is the perfect place to build your brand and make video. Agony, you want to do events? We've got amazing spaces here for retreats, classes, and pop-ups. Listen. How often do you have the chance to grab prime retail real estate that has suddenly become garbage? Isobel has a dozen other outlets-she doesn't need the hassle of dealing with all the fallout from Agony's curse. We'd be doing her a favor. And we-we could make a really great store. We don't have to do it forever. But wouldn't it be nice to build a business where all the workers would be owners, so we could give ourselves good health benefits and vacation time and stuff?"

Daisy looked thoughtful. "We could get rid of Isobel's shitty bonus system, too."

Agony waved her hand to dismiss whatever she was accessing online. Nobody said anything for a minute while two parrots fluttered down to the counter. The third, still on Agony's shoulder, spoke first. "These humans have good hearts," the bird said. "You can trust them."

Another bird cackled. "Or you could swindle them! They're credulous!"

Agony rolled her eyes. "We've talked about this, Loudface. That's an inside-your-head thought."

Edwina glanced at Daisy, worried the talking animals might be triggering her anti-fae feelings. But she was toying with one of the free sample packets they kept behind the counter, seemingly oblivious to the possibly-magic, possibly-trained-parrot scenario.

And then Daisy said the last thing Edwina expected. "You know what? Fuck it. I'm in. Let's do this. Let's make a store."

"YESSSS!" Edwina did an awkward wiggly dance. "We can do this! What do you say, Agony?"

The fae looked at Loudface, then behind her through the windows, seeming to measure the armies of pedestrians swarming Whole Foods across the street. When she turned back around, she was smiling. "We're going to need a lawyer. And a business manager."

It was weird how you could want something badly, and not realize exactly what it was until you found yourself in a completely anomalous situation. Edwina drummed her fists on the counter in triumph. "I have a couple friends who might be able to help. They just got their MBAs and have done some start-up stuff."

"My mom is a labor lawyer," Daisy said haltingly. "This might be the only time she will ever understand my job."

Agony's smile turned hard. "And I can make your boss very . . . receptive to our offer."

"We'll need to ask the other workers if they want to join us, too," Edwina said.

"After my next curse, though? Because we don't want to tip our hand."

"Yeah that makes sense."

"Hey, do you want me to do it right now? It's going to be super gross and scary."

Edwina looked at Daisy. "Do you want to? I want to."

Daisy shrugged and then grinned a little. "No more poop, though, okay?"

Agony crooked her finger and they followed her outside onto the sidewalk, facing the illuminated interior of a business they were about to claim as their own. The fae raised her arms, fingers spread wide, and Venus became visible in the evening sky.

That's when the fat, warm drops of blood began to fall.

"#Selfcare" copyright © 2021 by Annalee Newitz
Art copyright © 2021 by Rebekka Dunlap

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In a near-future San Francisco where the gig economy has made work more precarious than ever, Edwina is an average twenty-something scrambling to hold down her job with a major skin care brand. Until her awful boss does something you should never do-angers the fae on social media-and the struggles of her job take on an even nastier shade.

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This comic series tells the inside story of the Civil Rights Movement through the eyes of the iconic Congressman John Lewis. Lewis' commitment to justice took him from an Alabama sharecropper's farm to the halls of Congress, from a segregated schoolroom to the 1963 March on Washington, and from receiving beatings from state troopers to receiving the Medal of Freedom from President Obama. Rooted in Lewis' personal story, March is a vivid account of the struggle for civil and human rights. The comic was written by Lewis himself, in collaboration with comics creators Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell. Read the series on ComicsPlus, which can be accessed here. Contact Ms. Nolan for the login information.

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The achievements of historically significant Black Americans are at risk of going unpreserved, as important figures die without documenting their stories for future generations. 60 MINUTES' Bill Whitaker explores how one organization is trying to prevent that by creating an expansive digital archive of first-person accounts of the Black experience.

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Listen to Science Friday on Spotify. Brain fun for curious people.

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Arthur is only in NYC for the summer, but if Broadway has taught him anything, it's that the universe can deliver a showstopping romance when you least expect it. Ben thinks the universe needs to mind its business. If the universe had his back, he wouldn't be on his way to the post office carrying a box of his ex's things. But when Arthur and Ben meet-cute at the post office, what does the universe have in store for them? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. But what if they can't nail a date even after three do-overs? What if Arthur tries too hard and Ben doesn't try hard enough? What if life really isn't like a Broadway play? But what if it is?  Listen to this audiobook on MackinVia. New to using MackinVia? Instructions can be found here.

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This YouTube channel is home to a fun and innovative cooking show dedicated to creating fantastical recipes from books, movies, comics, television, video games, and more! Hosts Jimmy Wong and Ashley Adams craft up the real-life equivalent of fictional dishes to pay homage in a genuine, geeky, and lovely way. The recipes are creative but are also simple enough that they can inspire your own pop culture cooking dreams. Some of the dishes they've created include the Curry of Life from Naruto, Cookie Cat ice cream sandwiches from Steven Universe, and a special set of Among Us cupcakes. Check out the channel here.

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Feast of Fiction is a fun and innovative cooking show dedicated to creating your favorite fantastical and fictional recipes from books, movies, comics, video games and more! Hosts Jimmy Wong and Ashley Adams craft up the real-life equivalent of fictional dishes to pay homage in a genuine, geeky, and lively way.

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If you're interested in filmmaking and storytelling, then this YouTube channel is right up your alley. Lessons from the Screenplay examines the techniques used to tell great stories through the medium of film. Each video analyzes the movie script and other storytelling devices at play in popular movies to figure out why they're so good at telling stories. It's partly educational, partly content that will help you become a better storyteller, and partly just a love letter to awesome films. Covering everything from Marvel movies to Parasite to Get Out to Coraline, this channel is a must watch. Check it out here

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screenwriting screenplay script filmmaking filmmakers tips techniques "screenwriting tips" film movies analyze structure study learn "how to write a screenpl...

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I believe that a more informed audience raises the bar for storytelling. That examining the techniques used to tell great stories makes your own writing better and your appreciation for the stories deeper. With Lessons from the Screenplay, I make videos that analyze movie scripts to examine exactly how and why they are so good at telling their stories.

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Want to take a break from your work but still feel like you're being productive? Watch a few ASAPScience videos to pass the time. ASAPScience is all about exploring science through a variety of disciplines, in a way that's simple and easy to understand but still informative. Creators Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown started off their popular channel using just whiteboard animations, but they also now feature live-action videos as well. Topics include physics, climate change, neuroscience, and an entire playlist on better understanding COVID. Check out the channel here.

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asap science biology physics chemistry facts

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Making science make sense. Created by: Mitchell Moffit (@mitchellmoffit) Gregory Brown (@whalewatchmeplz) CONTACT asapscience[at]gmail[dot]com Send us stuff!...

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On their 45th anniversary, Hank and Molly Nonnar decide to undergo an experimental rejuvenation procedure, but their hopes for youth are dashed when the couple is faced with the results: severely disfigured yet intellectually and physically superior duplicates of themselves. And the harsh truth is only one version of themselves is fated to survive. This page-turning graphic novel asks what shapes our identity- is it the capability of our minds or the physicality of our bodies? Is a newer, better version of yourself still you? Read this graphic novel on ComicsPlus, which can be accessed here. Contact Ms. Nolan for the login information.

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This ongoing series from The Atlantic explores all the different ways that life is adapting to our changing planet. Journalists research and travel all over the globe to examine these changes as they happen to microbes, plants, and animals in oceans, grasslands, forests, deserts, the arctic, and right in our backyards. There is a variety of stories to explore, from flesh eating bacteria in Australia, to an earthworm invasion in the Northeastern United States, to the effect that the opioid crisis is having on trees. You might run into a paywall after reading a few articles, but you can always try viewing the site in an Incognito browser to reset the paywall. Check out the collection here.

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Traveling the world to see microbes, plants, and animals in oceans, grasslands, forests, deserts, the icy poles-and wherever else they may be.

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In this book, Angela Davis puts forward the main arguments of the prison abolition movement. For generations of Americans, the abolition of slavery was sheerest illusion. The entrenched system of racial segregation seemed to last forever, and the brutal, exploitative convict-lease system that succeeded formal slavery reaped millions to southern jurisdictions and untold miseries for tens of thousands of people. Davis argues how social movements transformed these social, political, and cultural institutions, and made such practices untenable. She argues for "decarceration" and for the transformation of society as a whole, expanding our vision of what is possible under abolition. Available from the BHSEC Library, NYPL, BPL, and QPL via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here. Don't have a library card? Get an NYPL card here and a BPL card here.

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Organized by the Schomburg Center's Teen Curators group, this online exhibit investigates the power of the black feminine gaze. Inspired by Viewfinders: Black Women Photographers by Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, the curators explored the power of photography by creating portraiture, still life, and experimental photography alongside reproductions of archival materials from the Schomburg's Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe Research Collection. By combining these images, a new generation of curators ask: What does the black feminine gaze mean today. Visit the entire exhibit virtually here.

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In 1977, Houston's Lantix community was plagued by discrimination, police violence, and a growing number of unsolved murders. With tensions between police and the community at their peak, five young officers were placed on a new all-Latino homicide squad. These men had little training and few resources, but were assigned to solve the city's most vicious murders. Chicano Squad explores their story. Compellingly told, this podcast is part true crime and part commentary on police violence and corruption. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, and Apple Podcasts.

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Five young officers. Hundreds of homicides. A city on the brink. Chicano Squad begins Tuesday, January 5th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The producers of Black History Year believe that learning history makes you and the people around you stronger. The stories of Black people have historically been left out of the history books and media images are often skewed. Their goal is to connect listeners to experts, information, and ideas that will advance Black liberation. The podcast features interviews from thinkers and activists that are often left out of the mainstream conversation. Recent episodes talk about community organizing, medical racism, the psychological effects of white supremacy, and how to shift the balance of power. Listen to the podcast on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Listen to Black History Year on Spotify. Learning your history makes you - and your people - stronger. As Black people, we know we're left out of the history books. That the media images are skewed. That we need access to experts, information and ideas so we can advance our people.

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At the Medio School for Girls, young women are trained for one of two roles in their polarized society. A graduate will one day run a husband's household or raise his children. Both paths promise a life of comfort and luxury, far from the frequent political uprisings of the lower class. Daniela Vargas is the school's top student, but her pedigree is a lie. She must keep her secret or be sent back to the fringes of society. When Dani is asked to spy for a resistance group she must make a choice: cling to the privilege her parents fought to win for her or give up everything for a free Medio. Listen to this audiobook on MackinVia. New to using MackinVia? Instructions can be found here

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On this YouTube channel, host Myles Bess takes viewers along on his journey to cut through the hype surrounding controversial and trending topics in the news, take a deep look at the research and the facts, and find out what's really going on. Recent videos have focused on online learning, how politicians use social media and other online platforms, how people protest, and American sex education. You can also check out some of the more popular episodes, including a look into why people's brains respond positively to fake news. Check out the channel here.

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kqed "above the noise" "myles bess" "shirin ghaffary" "media literacy" science "current events" explainer ngss "common core" news journalism research above the noise pbs education youth teens media investigate evidence student high school

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ABOVE THE NOISE is a show that cuts through the hype and takes a deeper look at the research and facts behind controversial and trending topics in the news. ...

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In this animated short, Luna Chu is a vibrant young girl who dreams of becoming an astronaut. From the day she witnesses a rocket launching into space on TV, Luna is driven to reach for the stars. Her father, Mr. Chu, a shoe repairman, supports her dreams with all his heart, even when he's not always sure how best to help her. As Luna grows up, she enters college, facing adversity of all kinds in pursuit of her dreams. Beautifully animated, this short is sweet, sad, and uplifting all at the same time. It's perfect if you need to watch something quick to cheer yourself up. Watch it here.

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CGI Animated Short Film: "One Small Step" by TAIKO Studios | CGMeetup

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This YouTube channel is all about deep dives into the future of science. You'll find content about energy, space, nature, the human mind and body, AI, and numerous other topics to help you get your science fix. Recent videos include a look at a mushroom-brick that could replace concrete, an explanation of the risk of space collisions, an examination of synthetic DNA, and a trip into the sewers to track COVID. The videos are relatively short but are well-researched. There are also links to further reading in the description for each video if a particular topic grabs you. Check out the channel here.

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In an inexplicable worldwide event, forty-three extraordinary children were spontaneously born to women who'd previously shown no signs of pregnancy. Millionaire inventor Reginald Hargreeves adopted seven of the children and formed the Umbrella Academy, a dysfunctional family of superheroes with bizarre powers. After a decade of adventures, the team has disbanded, but when Hargreeves unexpectedly dies, the disgruntled siblings reunite to save the world once again. Read the comic series that inspired the hit Netflix show on ComicsPlus, which can be accessed here. Contact Ms. Nolan for the login information.

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In the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution, Xiaohong is setting out to walk three miles to bring her ill grandmother, Lin Popo, a meal, but Wu Lang, a member of the Red Guard, is set to get there first. Afterall, Lin Popo's recently deceased husband was labeled a counter-revolutionary before his death. When their paths collide, Xiaohong will need all her strength to survive. In this retelling of the original, darker Little Red Riding Hood story, author Malinda Lo spins together a tale where no huntsman savior is needed. Read the story here.

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The east is red when Xiaohong leaves the two-room apartment that has been allocated to her and her parents-two rooms carved out of a once-grand courtyard home, now divided between five families by order of the local Party authorities. The manor has been forced into a new identity, with makeshift kitchens elbowing their way into the sky well, and the walls pasted over with red posters of Chairman Mao quotations. The speaker for the public address system, installed in one corner of the sky well, blasts announcements at all hours, but it has been mercifully quiet so far this morning.

"Take this to your Popo," Xiaohong's mother had told her, handing her a small covered basket. "She is sick, and I cannot visit her today." Inside the basket is a feast saved up carefully from their rations: two plain steamed buns, a small tin bowl of bean curd stir-fried with bits of pork, and a bottle of pork bone broth. Popo, Xiaohong's grandmother, lives outside of town in a dilapidated mudbrick farmhouse, alone now that Xiaohong's grandfather, who was branded a counterrevolutionary, has died.

The morning is cool and slightly damp; the night's rain has left traces of bright water in the ruts on Anti-revisionist Street. Xiaohong has walked the three miles to Popo's house countless times before, and she likes to start out early, while the town is still quiet and the sky has not yet fully lightened. She likes to watch the sunrise spreading red and then gold like a spilled yolk over the old town wall. Thinking of eggs, her stomach rumbles: she has not yet eaten. She peeks beneath the red cloth that covers her basket, gazing hungrily at the plump white buns, but does not steal a bite. Popo is elderly and has pneumonia, while Xiaohong is only sixteen and perfectly healthy, even if she is all too accustomed to an empty stomach.

On the corner of Anti-revisionist Street and Red Guard Road, a lanky boy pushes a motorbike out of the shadow of the town wall. He wears a khaki uniform with a red armband tied around his left bicep. When he sees Xiaohong, a wolfish grin twists his face. "Xiaohong, you're out early," he says.

The boy is Wu Lang. They went to school together, before the schools were shut down last summer so that they could make revolution. "Wu Lang," Xiaohong says warily. "Hello."

"Where are you off to?" he asks.

He is pretending to be casual and friendly, but Xiaohong knows better. "I'm bringing this food to my Popo," she answers carefully.

He moves to block the street in front of her with his motorbike, and then saunters over. "How is the famous Lin Popo?"

Xiaohong knows he is baiting her by using the word famous. She ignores it and says, "She is sick. I should go."

"If I remember correctly, your grandmother lives three miles away. Are you walking there?"

"Yes."

"What food are you bringing her?" He comes closer and plucks the red cloth off the basket, tossing it onto the ground. His fingernails are grimy, and Xiaohong suddenly remembers the way he caught Yulin's kitten in his hands last year, squeezing the animal's furry little neck until it squealed, its tiny white teeth useless against him. "Mmm, looks delicious," he says, studying the contents of the basket. "I haven't eaten yet."

Without asking for permission, he takes both buns and devours them in two bites. Xiaohong glimpses the dark red cavern of his mouth, his teeth slick with saliva. She hastily kneels down to pick up the fallen red cloth, tucking it back over the basket before he can take more of the food.

"I'm off to see your grandmother too," Wu Lang says.

She looks at him in shock. "You are?"

His mouth curves into a cold smile. "I wonder who will arrive first?" Then he jumps onto his motorbike and twists the handlebars, gunning the engine. "Long live Chairman Mao!" he cries.

"Long live Chairman Mao," she echoes. He salutes her as if she were a Red Guard like him, but she knows he is only mocking her. His motorbike roars and cuts a track in the dirt road as he jerks it around, speeding through the town gate.

Fear is a meaty hand squeezing her lungs. Her heart pounds as she hurries after him.

* * *

Wu Lang has never been to Xiaohong's grandmother's home, but he knows where it is. There is only one counterrevolutionary widow who used to be a famous Shanghai actress living in the area. Indeed, Wu Lang and the other Red Guards often discuss where the counterrevolutionaries are located. If they are to make revolution, they must root out the black elements among them.

It isn't long before he reaches the derelict farmhouse on the empty country road. A middle peasant and his family also used to live there, but the middle peasant hanged himself a few months ago, and his wife and children moved back to their home village, a hundred miles away. Now the only person still living in the farmhouse is Xiaohong's grandmother.

The front door is closed tight. The dirty white wall is bare of any decoration-not even a photograph of Chairman Mao torn from the People's Daily. Wu Lang cuts the engine of his motorbike, and silence descends like a knife across the morning. Not a single bird sings as he strides up the dirt path to the wooden front door.

Wu Lang pounds on the door, and it shakes on its hinges. "Lin Popo," he calls. "Let me in!"

There is no answer. Wu Lang's anger builds in the thick silence; his breath is hot as a furnace in his lungs.

"Lin Popo!" he shouts again, and though he might have heard her whispered response had he been listening, he does not listen.

He shoves the door; the bottom hinges give way and the door sags open. He enters carelessly, not bothering to take off his shoes. Inside, the farmhouse is cold and dark. A shovel and a scythe lean against the wall, the curve of the scythe's blade catching the sunlight slanting through the front door. He stomps through the main room and turns to the right. The room is empty, but at last he sees Chairman Mao. A newspaper article about the Great Leader's famous swim cross the Yangtze River is taped to the wall just inside the door.

"Lin Popo!" Wu Lang yells. He goes back through the main hall to the other room. This is the kitchen, lit by a single hanging lightbulb, and a fire is burning in the stove.

"You have found me," croaks a voice behind him.

Wu Lang turns toward the sound and sees a cot set up in the dim corner. In the cot lies Lin Popo, the blankets drawn up to her chin. Wu Lang strides over and peers down at the old woman. Her face is wrinkled and wizened as a walnut; her white hair escapes in spider silk-like wisps from beneath the black cloth she has tied over her head. But her eyes are bright and clear as a robin that has spotted a worm in the ground.

"What do you want?" Lin Popo asks.

"To carry the revolution through to the end!" Wu Lang answers. "To drive out the Four Olds!"

"I admit," Lin Popo says, "that I am old."

"You are decadent bourgeoisie," Wu Lang declares.

Lin Popo smiles coyly, and though her cheeks are sunken and her skin is spotted with age, the beauty she was in her youth is still visible, like a ghost, in the curve of her mouth and the shine of her eyes.

This glimpse of her bourgeois past infuriates Wu Lang. He spins around, searching for evidence of her pre-communist decadence. The room is bare of anything obviously incriminating; there is only a small wooden table and chair, a wooden cupboard, and the cot. Wu Lang yanks open the door to the cupboard; inside are two bowls, chopsticks, a dried-out knob of ginger, a battered black pot, and a cleaver. While he is bending over to look in the cupboard, he realizes there is space to hide something beneath the cot. He goes back to Lin Popo's corner, gets on his knees, and peers underneath.

A book has been shoved back against the wall. He pulls it out; it is a Buddhist tract. "This is one of the Four Olds," he announces. "We must break away from old ideology, old culture, old customs, and old habits! There is no place for this in modern China."

"Modern China arises from the old," Lin Popo says.

He rips out page after page in fury, and a photograph flutters from the book toward the floor. It's a hand-colored picture of a beautiful young woman wearing a white qipao embroidered with pink and red flowers. Her lips are vividly red, her cheeks rouged as pink as the Chairman's. Her eyes are Lin Popo's eyes, and he realizes it's a photo of her from forty years ago, when she was an actress.

It disgusts him. He crumples up the photo, preparing to throw it into the fire, but obliterating it is not enough.

The bourgeoisie must be destroyed. Lin Popo must be destroyed.

"Revolution is not a dinner party," Wu Lang recites as he glares down at Lin Popo.

Her face is serene as a deep mountain lake, and it enrages him.

"It cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle," Wu Lang continues, the Great Leader's words rolling off his tongue like thunder.

Lin Popo does not flinch as he hurls the book and her picture into the fire.

"A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence," Wu Lang snarls.

Lin Popo only watches him implacably as he picks up the cleaver and stalks toward the cot.

His lungs heave, filled with revolutionary fervor. She closes her eyes so that she does not have to look at his monstrous face. She feels the blade bite into her neck-the same blade she used to prepare food for her children-and her blood spills bright red upon the thin pillow, redder than the sunrise in the east, redder than the band on Wu Lang's arm.

* * *

Xiaohong has run almost all the way to her grandmother's house. Her skin is wet with sweat when she arrives, breathless, and sees Wu Lang's motorbike parked outside. The farmhouse's front door hangs open on one hinge, like a sleeping mouth partially agape. Xiaohong's stomach churns with dread. She enters the house on trembling legs, and hears the sizzle of meat in a wok. The unmistakable scent of ginger hangs in the air. Confused, she wonders if her grandmother has miraculously risen from her sickbed to cook a meal. Hope buds in her, and she takes off her shoes and tiptoes toward the kitchen.

Wu Lang stands at the stove, tossing slivers of meat together in the wok. There is no trace of the cot where Popo slept, only a smear of something dark and shiny in the corner where it used to stand. Xiaohong's hope shrivels.

Wu Lang sees her in the doorway. "Xiaohong," he growls. "Have you eaten?" He scoops the cooked meat out of the wok and into a waiting bowl, placing it on the table next to an earthenware teapot and cup.

"No," she says. Her skin crawls at the savage smile on his face.

"You must be hungry," Wu Lang says. "Come in."

She yearns to flee, but she forces herself to stay. She sets the basket of food on the floor. "Where is my grandmother?" she asks.

"She has gone out." Wu Lang approaches her. "Sit down and eat."

When she does not obey, he lunges toward her and clamps his hand around her arm, dragging her to the table and shoving her into the chair. She cries out in pain. He pushes the bowl of meat toward her and pours a dark, steaming liquid from the teapot into the cup. Has she imagined the claws on his fingertips? They click against the pottery.

"I am not hungry," Xiaohong lies.

Wu Lang looms over her. "I could hear your stomach growling from a mile away," he says. "Eat and drink. Your grandmother would not want you to go hungry."

"Where is Popo?" she asks again.

"Eat and drink," Wu Lang says, grinning, "and I will tell you." Has she imagined the sharp points of his teeth, like daggers?

Shuddering, she reluctantly draws the bowl of shredded meat toward her. It has an unsettling fragrance. She smells the ginger, but there is something else too, something oddly familiar, like the scent of her grandmother's skin: crushed roses, milk, and soap. Her empty stomach clenches, and she gags on the burning acid that rises hotly in the back of her throat.

With a growl of frustration, Wu Lang thrusts the chopsticks into her hand. She recoils from his touch, her blood curdling as she looks up at him. His eyes are extraordinarily large. Has she imagined their golden gleam? They are lupine; ravenous.

She drops her gaze hastily, and the glistening meat is waiting for her. She knows that Wu Lang will force her to eat it. She hears the angry exhalation of his breath as he watches her. Before he can touch her again, she raises a bite to her mouth-

And to her shock, the meat is soft and tender, more delicious than anything she has ever tasted. It is miraculous: like a single perfect pearl within the clutch of an oyster's muscle, like the sweet flesh of a lychee as it emerges from its vermilion shell.

In that instant, she understands everything. Wu Lang has killed her grandmother and made a meal of her. It should taste polluted: foul and contaminated as the stench of Wu Lang's breath. But it does not.

It is as if her grandmother has offered up her soul to Xiaohong as nourishment, as if she is whispering in her ear: eat me.

Xiaohong picks up the earthenware teacup and sips the hot, thick liquid. She tastes the power of her grandmother's blood on her tongue, earthy and rich as fermented bean curd. Every year of her long life is a fire spreading through Xiaohong's blood. Ten thousand memories in one deep breath, the taste of love on her lips, bone-crushing pain and bittersweet wisdom like flakes of salt on her tongue. She eats every bite. She drinks all of the tea.

Wu Lang watches her, gloating. "Dragons give birth to dragons, and phoenixes give birth to phoenixes," he says, "but a rat's descendants can only dig holes. You will never be more than your parents and your grandparents. You will always be a bastard!"

Xiaohong raises her eyes to meet his. She feels Popo rising within her like a phoenix stretching its wings. "You are right," she says. "I will never be more than my parents and my grandparents. Fortunately, they are great people!"

She stands up and runs toward the main hall. Wu Lang growls and lunges after her. In the shadow of the broken front door she reaches for the scythe. She spins to face him. His shadow stretches wolf-like along the floor, his muzzle dripping with long thick threads of spittle, and he swipes at her with his paw-like hands.

The scythe whistles through the air and slices off his hand. It tumbles onto the floor, scattering a spray of black blood in its wake. Wu Lang yelps like a wounded animal and clutches the stump of his arm close to his body, shrinking away from her.

But the hand on the floor is not a human hand-it is a wolf's paw. The fur is black with gore, the claws sharp as razors.

"As Chairman Mao proclaims, letting ghosts and spirits out of their hiding places makes it easier to annihilate them," Xiaohong says. "We must sweep away all monsters and demons!" She raises her scythe high, advancing on him.

Wu Lang flees, running into the yard and jumping on his motorbike, holding on with his remaining hand as he speeds away. Standing in the doorway, Xiaohong watches until she can no longer see the dust trail behind the motorbike, and then she puts down the scythe and steps around the wolf's paw that lies like a dead rat on the floor.

She goes back to the kitchen and opens the iron door to the stove's firebox. Inside, a photograph is wedged between the glowing coals, but the paper is unburned. She pulls it out, shaking off the ashes, and gazes down at the picture of her grandmother. She smiles up at Xiaohong across the decades, unharmed. Her cheeks are still pink as lotus flowers, her lips red as dates.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The story of "Little Red Riding Hood" as popularized by the Brothers Grimm centers on an innocent girl who is eaten by a wolf masquerading as her grandmother, is then saved by a huntsman, and learns to never talk to strangers again (among other lessons). This version of the tale, however, was altered by the Brothers Grimm from earlier oral traditions to deliver a middle-class, Victorian moral to children-particularly girls. Folklorists, as Catherine Orenstein explains in Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality, and the Evolution of a Fairy Tale, believe that "Little Red Riding Hood" was adapted from a story known as "The Grandmother's Tale," which differs quite a bit from the Grimms' version.

In " The Grandmother's Tale," a young girl does indeed journey through a dark forest to her grandmother's house, but there the stories diverge. In this version, the wolf feeds her the body of her grandmother (whom he has killed), and then he demands a strip-tease, as well as other carnal delights. But this girl doesn't need a huntsman to save her; she escapes on her own and goes home quite unharmed.

Though I started out intending to retell "Little Red Riding Hood," I found myself much more drawn to "The Grandmother's Tale," with its bizarre act of cannibalism. It was horrific, yet it felt profoundly important to me. Why did the girl eat her grandmother? "Red" is my answer to that question.

{ Edited by Sharyn November. }

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The east is red when Xiaohong leaves the two-room apartment that has been allocated to her and her parents-two rooms carved out of a once-grand courtyard home, now divided between five families by order of the local Party authorities.

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Indigenous author Stephen Graham Jones seamlessly blends classic horror and dramatic narrative with sharp social commentary in this intimate, terrifying, warm, and heartbreaking novel. The story follows four indigenous men after a disturbing event from their youth puts them in a desperate struggle for their lives. Tracked by an entity bent on revenge, these childhood friends are helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in violent, vengeful ways. This is a book that will grab you and refuse to let go. Available from the BHSEC Library, BPL, and QPL via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here. Don't have a library card? Get a BPL card here.

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Ready to take a break from writing that paper? Blob Opera is a fun little experiment in machine learning that's perfect for a quick break. The game allows you to create operatic performances in real time (with no singing skills required!). Drag the blobs up and down to change the pitch of the signing or forwards for different vowel sounds. A machine learning model lets the other blobs respond to and harmonize your input in real time. Come up with a composition you really like? You can record your Blob Opera masterpieces to share. Check out the experiment here.

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Create your own ML-powered opera song! by David Li with Google Arts & Culture

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Resistance is a podcast about refusing to accept things as they are. Sierra Leonean poet Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr. shares stories from the front lines of the movement for Black lives, told by the generation fighting for change. Interviewing everyone from NYC activists to a Black man who organized a BLM protest in his nearly all-white Nebraskan town, Resistance shows the many different faces of what the struggle for justice and liberty looks like. The podcast doesn't offer easy answers on how to resist white supremacy, but shows that resistance is a daily fight. Listen to it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

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Listen to Resistance on Spotify. Resistance is a show about refusing to accept things as they are. Stories from the front lines of the movement for Black lives, told by the generation fighting for change. Hosted by Saidu Tejan-Thomas Jr.

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Who are the Sawkill girls? Marion: the newbie. Weighed down by tragedy and hungry for love she's sure she'll never find. Zoey: the pariah. Aching with grief and dreaming of vanished girls. Val: the queen bee. Words like silk, a heart made of secrets, and a mouth full of lies. Their stories come together on the island of Sawkill Rock, where kids whisper the legend of an insidious monster at parties and around campfires, where girls have been disappearing for decades, stolen away by a ravenous evil no one has dared fight... until now. Listen to this audiobook on MackinVia. New to using MackinVia? Instructions can be found here.

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Sixteen-year-old Sabrina has done the impossible: she's cracked the Parallax, a cryptic online puzzle that has stumped the most intelligent of minds. Soon after, Sabrina finds herself in the midst of an international hunt for a serial killer, who may not even be from this world. As she works towards catching this killer, she's joined by a New York teen named Benny, the only other person to have solved the Parallax puzzle. This sci-fi story in podcast form is a wild ride. The voice acting and sound design will draw you into the world, and the story itself is the perfect dose of escapism. Check it out on BBC Sounds or Apple Podcasts.

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When 16-year-old Sabrina cracks the cryptic Parallax, she's recruited to track down a serial killer... who might not be from this world. Starring Anya Chalotra and Chance Perdomo.

When 16-year-old Sabrina cracks the cryptic Parallax, she's recruited to track down a serial killer... who might not be from this world. Starring Anya Chalotra and Chance Perdomo.

Awesome podcast

I found Black Beach in a blind search on Google maps and the plane wreck is there. Awesome photos of it.

The podcast is very well narrated and my only complaint is that the episodes aren't longer. But that is just me. I like long stories. I especially like that they can build this story around stuff that can be located in the real world to make the listener think this is happening in our reality.

It's a nice little escape to take the mind off of the surreality we have endured for the past year.

BBC does it again!!

Another absolutely amazing podcast. Can't get enough. BBC sounds audio dramas are always outstanding!!!

Incredible

This show is so good! The production value is some of the best I've ever heard, with a load of talented voice actors. If you don't fall in love with Fergus, I don't know how to help you. The storyline is a true rollercoaster, so buckle up. I just hope season 2 comes sooner rather than later!

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When 16-year-old Sabrina cracks the cryptic Parallax, she's recruited to track down a serial killer... who might not be from this world. Starring Anya Chalotra and Chance Perdomo. When 16-year-old Sabrina cracks the cryptic Parallax, she's recruited to track down a serial killer... who might not be from this world.

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If you love the little details of video games and appreciate when devs take time to make things as accurate as possible, then check out this new series from Wired. Games (Over)analyzed speaks to experts in their respective fields and asks them to evaluate how accurate portrayals are in video games. So far they've interviewed a military historian about medieval weapons in games like Dark Souls and The Witcher, an Olympic archer about archery in games like The Last of Us and Assassin's Creed, and a researcher about the Cyberpunk genre in games like Cyberpunk 2077. Check out the series and watch for new episodes here.

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Kurzgesagt is a German animation studio that makes videos about science, technology, politics, philosophy, and psychology. Each video tackles a question (like "What if the Earth got pulled out of the Solar System?" or "What is intelligence?") or a topic (like the coronavirus, deep sea exploration, or climate change), using simple-but-compelling animation. The shorter length of the videos makes them perfect for a study break. If you're really interested in the content, check the description to find a link to their sources and further reading. Check out the channel here.

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science universe space "black hole" life virus climate history education evolution biology humanism

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Animation videos explaining things with optimistic nihilism since 12,013. We're a team of illustrators, animators, number crunchers and one dog who aim to spark curiosity about science and the world we live in. To us nothing is boring if you tell a good story.

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This YouTube series from Vox digs into stories of the past, one photograph at a time. If you're interested in photography or the way that imagery influences people, then this is a series worth checking out. Learn about the history behind the iconic photo of the 1968 Olympics Black Power protest, how photos ended child labor in the United States and almost led to nuclear war, how colorized photography introduced Japanese culture to the world, and how people have manipulated photography in order to influence others. Check out the complete playlist here.

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Darkroom, from Vox producer Coleman Lowndes, digs into stories of the past, one photograph at a time.

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Black magic, demonic frogs, and zombie roadkill are just a few of the problems plaguing this seemingly sleepy little town. Beneath the quiet streets a rat cabal plots vengeance, while in the local cemetery the dead leave their graves. With the human residents unaware of the supernatural danger, it's up to a determined crew of dogs (and one cat) to keep their community safe. While the premise may seem a little silly, this is a genuinely creepy comics series with a great story and beautiful art. The series is available on ComicsPlus, which can be accessed here. Contact Ms. Nolan for the login information.

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The Torres sisters dream of escape: escape from their needy and despotic widowed father, from their San Antonio neighborhood, from traditions and expectations. The summer after she graduates high school, Ana, the eldest, falls to her death from her bedroom window. A year later, her sisters, Jessica, Iridian and Rosa, are still consumed by grief and haunted by Ana's memory. But then strange things start happening around the house: mysterious laughter, mysterious shadows, mysterious writing on the walls. Has Ana come back to haunt them? Available from the BHSEC Library, NYPL, BPL, and QPL via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here. Don't have a library card? Get an NYPL card here and a BPL card here.

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Life hasn't been easy for Sara since her mother died. While her younger brother, Spencer, needs her support, her father is getting increasingly out of control, to the point where Sara sleeps in her closet each night to feel more secure. One night she's woken up by a phone call from her friend that his twin sister, Sara's secret girlfriend Annie, has gone missing. As she searches for Annie, Sara tries to piece together the broken parts of her past to make sense of the future that lies before her. Beautifully told, this short story explores family, lost relationships, and the uncertainty of tomorrow. Check it out here.

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Part splendor, part wasteland-that's what the Russian River was back then. An hour north of San Francisco, million-dollar vacation homes mingled with dingy cabins. Between them all ran a river; above them towered redwoods. A little way off Armstrong Road was Sara and Spencer's house, the house that their mother bought before she married their father, the house their father inherited after she died from complications from heroin addiction. She had gotten clean by the time she was hospitalized, but the damage to her heart was irreversible. Spencer was only three when she died and did not remember, but Sara was ten, and all of it was imprinted upon her: the tiny diamonds of the hospital gown, the flamingo-pink polish she had applied to her mother's nails in careful strokes. Yellowed eyes, red bedsores, cracked white lips. The nurses' concerned expressions and how their father had done his best to fool all of them into believing that he was a good man. He was so convincing-showing up daily, bringing magazines, even reading aloud-that when her mother died and they returned home without her, Sara expected him to know what to do next. Even a fourth grader knew that when something terrible happened, you took stock of your life. You didn't go back to selling the poison that killed your wife.

But on the day Annie disappeared, Sara was sixteen and harbored no more illusions. She had been spending her nights in her bedroom closet for months when the phone call cut through her sleep. She heard her dad yell out to Spencer-strange, since he was only nine and no one called him on the phone, and especially not this late-but then she heard their dad again: "It's for your sister." Footsteps down the hallway, turn of her doorknob. She slid open the closet door, and her brother handed her the phone. His hair was matted on one side, his eyes sleepy.

"It's Dave," he said, and yawned. Instead of leaving, he stepped into the closet and sat next to her.

Cold receiver against her ear.

"Dave?"

"Is Annie with you?"

"No," she said, cheeks flushing, first from embarrassment- Do they know about us? -until she registered his worry, and saw that it was one thirty in the morning, and flushed deeper from fear. "Maybe she's with Lily?"

"I'll call her next," he said.

"Call me back, okay?"

She hung up. Spencer was sitting close enough to have heard Dave's side of the conversation, and now he said, "I bet Annie and Lily are together. They were probably helping out at the church and got tired from all the mopping and fell asleep on the bench things."

Sara nodded. She rested her cheek on his head.

"You know the bench things with the Bibles?"

"The pews."

"I bet they're napping in the pews."

"It's too late for that," Sara whispered. "They wouldn't be cleaning the church so late at night."

The phone rang again. "She isn't with Lily," Dave said. "I don't know where else she would be. You're sure she isn't with you?"

" Of course I'm sure," Sara said. She felt the sting of tears but didn't want to worry Spencer.

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"When school got out. When I said goodbye to both of you. Then I went to work, and then I came home."

"My parents are going to call the hospitals and the police now."

She nodded, unable to answer.

Dave said, "I'm hanging up so they can use the phone."

Sara still couldn't speak.

"I'll call you if we find out anything."

The tears came anyway. Where was she?

"Wait," Spencer said. "Shouldn't Dave be able to figure it out? Like if he closes his eyes and concentrates hard enough?"

"What are you talking about?" Sara asked.

"I thought twins could do that," Spencer said.

"Oh." Sara took his smaller hand in hers. "I don't think it works that way."

* * *

In the morning Sara felt too sick to eat, but she made their usual scrambled eggs for Spencer. Their father kept a different schedule. He was asleep in his bedroom or passed out at the house of a friend or a woman. They rarely knew his early-morning whereabouts, and they were, in many ways, not relevant to them. Mornings were the two of them at the table in the living room. Two plates of eggs and bacon. Two glasses of water. Sara cooked; Spencer cleared the dishes. They did the last of their homework in silence and tucked the worksheets into their folders. Together, on the porch, they put on their shoes before heading in opposite directions to their schools.

This morning Sara kept her backpack light in case she'd be heading straight out again. Better not risk a run-in with the hall monitor by going to her locker. Stepping off the bus across the street from campus, she hoped to see Annie out front-her curly brown hair and jean jacket, her bad-girl posture undone by the sweetness of her face. You scared me, Sara would yell, and Annie would grab her around her waist, and they would try to look like just friends. Sara imagined tugging at Annie's belt loop. Don't scare me like that again, she'd say. Promise me.

I promise, Annie would answer.

And the panic would be over, and they would go to class, two sixteen-year-olds secretly in love.

But Annie wasn't there. Dave and Lily were huddled in a group with Crystal and Jimmy and Jane. Sara joined them.

"What should we do?" Crystal was asking.

" Leave," Dave said. "Split up and look for her. It's such bullshit that my parents dropped me off here."

"I have to stay until third period," Jane said. "Mr. King won't let me make up the exam. But I'll go after that."

"I'll look all over town," Crystal said. "But I'm kind of freaked out. Shouldn't we double up?"

Jimmy nodded. "I'll go with you."

"I'll get Megan to ditch with me after English," Jane said.

"You two can look together," Sara told Dave and Lily. "I'm fine by myself."

"You sure?" Lily asked, and Sara nodded. She wanted to be alone. How could she bear this in the presence of anyone else?

"I have my car. We can go to Monte Rio," Lily told Dave, and Dave agreed.

Sara felt her backpack's lightness, felt a fierce and desperate hope.

"I have to be at work at four. If anyone finds her, call the motel, okay?" Her friends nodded. She said, "I'm going to the woods."

* * *

It struck her every time-the way the air changed as she entered the forest. The cool wet of it, the fresh dirt of it. She could almost feel Annie's hand in hers as she strode past the ranger's booth and toward the trail they liked best. Tourists came from all over the world to visit their redwoods, and Annie and Sara understood why. Sometimes it felt good to feel small. Oceans could do it, and sky could do it, and these trees could too. But even though they understood why the families came with cameras around their necks, walking the paths and pointing upward, they didn't want to be among them. So they chose the steepest trails, hiked up and up until they were eye-level with the redwoods' branches, closer to the sky.

Up she hiked now. She would find Annie-she was certain of it. But would Annie be okay? They had always felt safe in the woods, isolation a solace. They had been naked together in that forest just yards from the trail, had made blankets of their jackets and sweaters, had felt each other's wetness, pushed their fingers in. They'd felt the press of breast against breast, blushed as they made their way down ribs and waists. They'd frozen at the sound of cracking branches and then laughed at their jitters. Once after sex they had lain still, Annie's head in the crook of Sara's neck, and watched a banana slug inch its way toward them, onto Annie's green sweater, onto Sara's stomach and across it, and then over Annie's. It had taken an eternity. They laughed when it had found its way to the other side of their bodies, leaving a glittering trail of slime on their skin.

They had not been afraid then, and if something was going to happen to them, wouldn't that have been the time? When they were naked and lost in each other? But still. She braced herself for the moment she'd find Annie, hurt or unconscious, bleeding or broken. Or worse. It was foggy and cold. She called Annie's name but was met with silence. She climbed higher and higher until she reached the end of the trail. A sign asked visitors to stay on the path, but she went farther until the forest grew too wild and she knew Annie wouldn't be there.

She searched for more than six hours, on path after path, some familiar and others new, and to calm herself she imagined finding Annie cross-legged, leaning against the soft wood of a tree trunk, smiling at the sight of her. She imagined their kiss, Annie's singsong voice as she asked Sara what was wrong. There Annie would be, perfectly fine, and the world would be right again, and she would not lose another person she loved.

And then her watch read three o'clock. She would have to leave the woods in order to make it to work on time. So she told herself that the phone would be ringing when she reached the office of the Vista Motel. It would be Dave, and he'd say they'd found her. She left the damp shade of the forest and waited in the sun for the bus to take her to Monte Rio.

* * *

The Vista Motel was one town over. There was nothing luxurious on the Russian River yet, and this motel was no better or worse than the others. Its main office had a supply room off the back. All the buildings-each with twenty single rooms and three suites with mini kitchens-were a single story. Visitors could drive right up to their room doors. And behind the rooms was a private lawn for motel guests only with access to the river. People would sit in lounge chairs under white umbrellas and sip whatever beverages they'd brought with them, and when the weather was warm enough they'd walk down the stairs to the rocky beach and swim.

"Did anyone call for me?" Sara asked Maureen when she got there.

Maureen, working a crossword, shook her head without looking up.

"You're sure?"

"Been right here since eight a.m. Parakeet," she said, and filled in the letters. Then she took a clipboard and handed it to Sara. Only six numbers were checked. The peak season was over now, which meant fewer rooms for Sara to clean.

"I'm waiting on a call. It's important. If it comes while I'm cleaning, will you come get me?"

Maureen nodded.

"Thanks."

In the supply room, Sara pulled on a pair of latex gloves. She found the rolling garbage bin without a busted wheel and put in the caddy full of Windex and sponges and cleaner and garbage bags and a roll of paper towels on top. She pushed it out the back door and into Room 5. Off came the sheets and the blanket. She emptied the trash from the bathroom and beside the bed. She grabbed empty beer bottles from the dresser and newspaper pages from the floor. Annie had always suggested they sneak into a room one day, use it for just a few hours. "Doesn't it sound good?" she had whispered into Sara's ear. "A locked door? A bed."

"Believe me," Sara had told her. "There is nothing appealing about any of those beds."

"Why not?"

"They're gross."

"It's only people," Annie had said. "Only bodies. What's the big deal?"

So, just a couple of weeks ago, on the afternoon of Annie's birthday, Sara cleaned Room 12-one of the nicer rooms that overlooked the lawn-as well as she could. She bought six candles from the drugstore and carefully peeled off the pictures of Jesus and the Virgin Mary before setting them up: one on each of the bedside tables, three on the dresser, one on the TV stand. She brought her boom box from home with Janet Jackson's latest LP because Annie always nodded and swayed when "That's the Way Love Goes" came on the radio.

That night, Annie met her a few blocks away for ice cream, and when they were finished, Sara said, "I forgot something at work. Come with me?"

As soon as they were off the street and out of sight, Sara grabbed her hand. "Are you ready for your present?" she asked.

Annie blushed.

Maureen had already given her the room key, so Sara took Annie straight to the door and let her in. She lit the candles. She started the song. She opened the mini fridge, where the half bottle of pink wine that a couple had abandoned in their suite that morning awaited them, and divided the liquid between the two stemmed glasses that the motel supplied to guests. Then she turned to see Annie watching her, eyes shining, and Sara felt herself catch her breath. To be looked at in that way. To be loved by this beautiful girl. She might have lost composure had Annie not stepped forward right then, put her hands through Sara's hair, and kissed her.

The night was perfect. Well- almost. There was the moment Sara went to kiss the inside of Annie's elbow and saw a mark there.

"What's this from?" she asked.

A moment of quiet.

"Sixteen-year checkup," Annie said. "Vaccinations."

But the mark was too familiar, too much the stuff of her father's friends, of the people who took up space in her living room, of why she slept in her closet most nights. Too much like the marks on her mother's arms. She wanted to stay in the moment with Annie, in the candlelit room with the music and the pink wine and Annie's soft lips, but her mind was taking her to a night when her mother had sat her down on the sofa next to her for a talk. She had looked into Sara's eyes and apologized, and explained how addiction worked, and told her what she had done to get better. She'd told her about her sponsor, about the county rehab she had gone to, about the meetings she attended every night. Her face had twisted in pain as she'd spoken the words, but Sara was only a child, not sure what her mother needed until her mother opened her arms. It was as though Sara had been a missing organ now let back in.

But she couldn't think of that then, not on Annie's birthday, not on that romantic night. She couldn't think of it at all, because what came only months after that embrace on the sofa was the end.

* * *

Sara thought of the mark on Annie's arm as she ran the vacuum over the carpet. That night, she might have seen a couple more of them, faded and almost healed, but the only light was from the candles and she couldn't be sure. And from further back the memory of her mother's arms came to her. The way she'd fit inside them. How safe she had felt for those few minutes on the sofa, how certain she'd been that every painful thing was over.

She unplugged the vacuum.

Where was she?

Dave must have heard something by now. She would dump the trash and then go check in with Maureen. Maybe the call had come when she was busy with a guest. Or maybe Maureen hadn't taken her seriously when she'd said it was important. She rounded the corner to the dumpster and startled. A boy was there-just a couple of years older than she was, standing knee-deep in trash.

He froze, eyed her warily. She knew Maureen would have told him he was trespassing, would have made him leave immediately. But Sara just needed to get through this step and back to the office, where she was certain she'd hear that Dave had called, that Annie was fine, that all of this had been a horrible misunderstanding.

The boy had greasy hair that fell into his eyes. His clothes were grungy, but that was the style, after all, so it didn't tell her much about him.

"Hey," he said.

"Gross," she said.

He grinned, relaxed now. "These are perfectly good magazines," he said, lifting a few of his finds up where she could see them.

She rolled her eyes and dumped the contents of her bin. He started toward the new trash. "Nothing good in this one," she said, and went to wheel the bin back around the corner.

"Hey, wait," he called. She turned back, impatient, as he hoisted himself out of the dumpster. "I was wondering ... any chance I could take a quick shower in one of the rooms you haven't cleaned yet?"

At first she thought she'd say no, but she saw hope in his face, and it sparked her own. She would let him use the shower. She would wait outside the door. And while she did this good deed, while she helped someone who needed it, Dave would call with good news.

* * *

But even though she did it, and the boy thanked her afterward with wet hair and a clean face, Dave hadn't called her. And he still hadn't called her when she checked back after an hour, either. When the sheets were drying and she went in again, Maureen walked around to the other side of the counter. She took Sara's face in her hands.

"Honey," she said. "I know you. I know you wouldn't tell me something was important if it wasn't. If anyone calls for you, I'll be out this door yelling your name before they are finished saying hello. Understand?"

She wasn't old enough to be Sara's mother, but Sara let herself imagine it for a moment anyway-that this was how it might feel to have a mother you were tall enough to look at face-to-face, who would see that something was wrong, who would know the right things to say.

"Okay," Sara said.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

"No," she said. "But thanks."

She couldn't give words to it. Not yet. She wanted to keep Maureen the way she was-with dyed-black hair and her low-cut shirts, all business and kindness, the kind of boss who just two weeks ago had handed her the key to Room 12 with no questions asked. She didn't want to hear what Maureen thought or see her face grow concerned. She needed to believe this could be nothing significant for just a little while longer.

So when she saw the boy again from the window of Room 20, this time brazenly on one of the lawn chairs under the white umbrella, flipping the pages of a magazine, she told herself that once she was finished making the last of the beds, if he hadn't left by then, she would go out there and sit with him.

He saw her walking toward him and lifted his hand in a wave.

"You're bold," she said. "Where do you get off just lounging like this?"

He shrugged. "Isn't that what people are supposed to do here?"

"If you're a paying guest, yeah."

"Are you here to kick me out?"

She shook her head.

"Then join me."

She sat on the chair next to his, but not before scooting it a few inches away. She was blond and pretty. Tall like her father. She was used to keeping her guard up so that boys and men didn't get the wrong ideas about her. Sometimes she felt like if she even smiled they saw it as an invitation. But there was something about this boy that told her he was okay. He didn't seem interested in her at all. Then she recognized what magazine he was reading and understood. A lot of gay guys came up for the weekend from San Francisco.

She relaxed into her chair and folded one ankle over the other. Her feet were sore from searching all morning and cleaning all afternoon.

"This is a nice place," he said. "I can't believe people actually live here. It's like paradise."

"Not quite."

"Are you kidding? I mean, look at it."

"No, I know," she said. "It's beautiful. I know." She understood why people came. Why they sat where the two of them were sitting. Why they loved the river and the redwoods. "What are you even doing here?" she asked.

"I'm headed to LA, but I need new spark plugs."

"There's a garage a couple of blocks away."

"Yeah. They said they could fix it in an hour, but I'm a little short on cash at the moment. Any ideas where I could get a short-term job?"

Sara shrugged. "Not really."

"Well, here," he said. He wrote something on the corner of a magazine page and then ripped it out and folded it. "If you hear about anything, page me?"

"Okay," she said, slipping the paper into her pocket.

"Until then, I'm going to enjoy my time in Paradise."

* * *

Later, she made pasta for Spencer and managed to eat some herself. She waited for the phone to ring, but it didn't. And when it seemed that the evening was going to stay quiet, that their father wasn't going to burst in with his friends and turn the house dark with their loud voices and their bodies, she told Spencer she would be back soon and headed out into the night. She walked toward the Pink Elephant. They were too young to get in, but they met there anyway most nights under the neon glow of the sign. She would show up and wait and they would have news and everything would be okay again.

She saw that people were outside already, and she hoped it was them. And it was. Dave was sitting on the curb, his head in his hands. Lily's arm was around him, and Crystal was talking and talking the way she always did when she was nervous.

"They're gonna drag the river," Dave said when Sara reached them.

First all that registered was his swollen eyes, how sick he looked, the way a person could waste away over the course of so few hours. And then: his mouth, the same shape as Annie's and just as soft. Sara thought maybe she could close her eyes and kiss him, open her eyes and find him transformed into his sister.

And then she said, " What? " and he said again, "They're going to drag the river."

She closed her eyes. Opened them. There they were, still, under the fluorescent light of the pink sign. "I don't understand," she said.

"It seems too soon, doesn't it?" Crystal said. "She hasn't even been missing for that long. I don't know why they'd do it so soon. I think it's probably a mistake? I mean, why rush to the worst-case scenario? Are you sure the hospitals aren't wrong?"

"They're going to drag the river," Sara repeated.

Lily wiped her eyes and looked at Sara. She nodded, solemn.

"She hasn't even been missing for that long. It has to be a mistake. How can everyone be so sure she isn't in a hospital somewhere?"

"Because we're fucking sure, okay, Crystal? We've called every single hospital. We've looked everywhere. We are 100 percent fucking sure."

"Sorry," Crystal said. "Okay. Sorry, Dave."

Lily clasped her hands together and lowered her head in prayer.

* * *

After Sara's mother died, they returned to the house, three of them now. A little boy, hardly more than a baby, who could not be consoled after the tiniest sadness: milk gone curdled and dumped out of the glass, a hole in his sock, a missing toy. A man who joked and laughed with his friends but howled in his bedroom at night so loudly he woke his children, who sat in their own rooms, trying not to hear him. A girl who was now an organ without a body, something that would surely die. Every part of her was tender and ragged. It hurt to eat and it hurt to be hungry. To be awake was to be in despair, but her muscles were sore from inertia.

Then Spencer came in one night and scooted his body against hers in a way he hadn't before. They'd cuddled often, of course. She'd smoothed his hair when he had cried. She'd kissed his forehead. But on this night he nestled his face between her shoulder blades. She felt his belly rise and fall against her back. She could make out the steady beat of his heart.

It brought her back to life, beat by beat.
He needed her. He needed her. He needed her. She needed him. She needed him. She needed him.
* * *

The river. She couldn't get it out of her head. Back home that night, she went to Spencer's room and climbed into his bed.

"Hey," he mumbled.

"Can I sleep here?" she asked.

He nodded, and she turned over so that her back faced him. She waited for him to put his arm around her but he didn't, so she scooted her body until she felt his stomach against her back. She waited for the feeling of his breath. She waited for his heartbeat.

She prayed, in her way, that her brother might still possess the power to heal her. But no. Her fear was a wild, dangerous thing. Her body shook with it. Spencer didn't notice. As soon as he was sleeping again, she went back to her room.

The river. The mark. Diamond-print hospital gown. Pink polish. The slug and the redwoods. How it felt to be held, and how it felt after. The hope turning black and hollow. The panic was so powerful she thought she might double over from it, didn't know how to be still. She buried herself in blankets in her closet and screamed into her pillow. Her eyes were swollen, and she wanted to stay in there, but she needed to use the bathroom. Her stomach churned and ached.

When she opened the door, her father hovered in the doorway as though he had been listening. He squinted past her at the empty space where her mattress had been and scanned the room until he saw it in the closet.

"What is this?" he asked.

She didn't have an excuse to offer. It was what it was. Simple. The sheet was tucked around the mattress as snugly as she could manage in such a tight space. She had always been good at keeping things neat. She could have made something up for him, told him that she wanted more space in her room. But she was raw with fear and here was her father and she wanted to tell the truth.

"I get scared at night sometimes," she said. She saw him flinch and blink. She hadn't expected him to react that way. He placed a hand on her shoulder, the gesture full of regret. She hadn't been touched by him in a long time. She felt the tremor of memory, something long ago buried-a time before Spencer, a time before death, a time when she was a little girl who laughed with her parents in the bright sunshine on the bank of a river.

A time before she knew the river could swallow a person whole.

She said, "My friend is missing." When she looked at him again, his cheeks were wet and his eyes were closed. It had been so many years since she had seen him this way.

"I miss Mom," she said. She told herself that his hand on her shoulder meant that he loved her. "I don't think we're okay. I don't like your friends or how much they're around. I wish you would stop doing all of this. It's bad for all of us, especially Spencer. There have to be other ways to make money."

He took back his hand.

"Hope they find your friend," he said before retreating to his bedroom. Later that night, when she was crying in the living room, staring at the television to try to banish the vision of Annie at the bottom of the river, he passed her on the couch without looking at her.

* * *

It was morning. In just a few hours, Dave and Annie's parents would be out on the river in one of the boats, where they had requested to be. Lily and Dave would sit in silence on Dave's deck, overlooking the water, and Sara would not be with them. They had seen this done before. Every summer tourists poured in, most of them college kids with rafts and inner tubes and too much alcohol. They crowded their streets, left trash on their beaches, and every couple of years, one of them drowned. Sara had seen bodies lifted by hooks out of the muddy water, but never the body of someone she loved.

She made the scrambled eggs; she let Spencer clear the plates. She helped him with his homework but did not bother with her own. Together they left the house, and she saw with relief that their father's truck was not in the driveway. She and Spencer set off in their different directions, her on foot, Spencer on his bike, but once she was certain he was out of sight, she turned and went back home.

The folded paper was still in her jeans pocket. She opened it and saw his name for the first time. Grant. She dialed the number and entered her own. She hoped the page would wake him up. He'd hear the beeping from where he slept, curled on the back seat of his Honda Civic, and look at the screen, and find a pay phone.

While she waited for the phone to ring, she packed a bag with her own things, wrapping the bottle of flamingo-pink nail polish in a sock to keep it from breaking. She packed a bag with Spencer's favorite clothes, his baseball glove, and the Discman they shared. And then she went to the end of the hallway to her parents' bedroom. She hadn't walked through its doorway for a long time, and even though she knew her father wasn't home, she felt his hand on her shoulder and saw his tears-tears she still couldn't understand. She might have eventually come to understand them had he not turned away. But maybe she was the one at fault. She had said too much. She knew it. For years they had kept their guard up around each other, and he had finally slipped, exposed a tender regret, and she had dug her fingers in.

She pushed open the door. As she rifled through the drawers, ran her hand under the mattress, slid open the closet and took boxes off shelves, she wished she had on her cleaning gloves. Touching his things felt like touching the dirty sheets of strangers. Once he had swept her up in his arms, set her on his shoulders so she could see from a great distance, feel powerful in the world. Once they had loved each other. But now even his clean clothes felt grimy to her. She thought of Grant, unfazed, digging through the dumpster. It had been at least half an hour since she'd paged him.

It took her another twenty minutes to find the money-a thick stack of fifties and hundreds, wrapped in a scarf that used to belong to her mother, tucked in a TV stand behind the VHS tapes. She didn't take it all, but she took a lot. She took enough that she'd never be able to change her mind.

Grant's phone call didn't come, so she waited at the bus stop with a duffle bag over each shoulder and a hummingbird heart. She rode the bus to the motel. There was a car by the side of the road, and when she got close enough to see in, she exhaled. He was still there. Still asleep. His legs bent in like a paper doll's, his mouth open. It rushed over her-a moment of doubt. He was a complete stranger, after all. But then she thought of the hope in his face when he had asked for a shower. Of the way they'd sat together in the lounge chairs and how he'd mistaken this place for Paradise. Clearly she knew more about the world than he did.

She banged on the window. He startled, saw her, sat up.

"I was getting my beauty rest," he said.

She thrust three hundred-dollar bills at him. "I'm going with you to LA," she said. "Let's go get your car fixed."

* * *

The garage was down a mechanic, so even though the repair took an hour as promised, they had to wait for a long time before the work was started. Sara had hoped to pull Spencer out of class-everyone in town knew she was responsible for him-but it was already two by the time the car was finished. She spotted him on the street ahead of them, riding his bike home.

"Slow down," she told Grant, and leaned out the window to call Spencer's name. He glanced at her and stopped, and they pulled up behind him. She meant to open her door and get out but found that she couldn't, her palms suddenly sweaty, a knot in her throat. Spencer squinted at the unfamiliar boy in the front seat with her and then walked his bike to her window.

"I need to talk to you," she said from her seat.

He smiled, head cocked. "Okay," he said. When she didn't move or say anything else, he opened her door from the outside, and she stepped out.

"I'm leaving, and I want you to come with me."

"Where?"

"Los Angeles."

He smiled, and relief flowed through her-he needed to leave too; he had been waiting for her to save him in this way-until he said, "Ha. Funny."

"I'm not joking," she said.

"We don't have money."

"I have enough for a little while," she said. "Enough for both of us."

"Where would we even live?"

"We'll find somewhere. You don't need to get anything. I already have your bag packed. We'll just go right now. Like this. We'll start over. We don't need anything."

"What about Dad?"

"What about Dad?"

"Sara."

" Spence. There is nothing for us here."

Her hands were shaking. She tried to still them but couldn't, so she hid them behind her back.

"I can't," he said. "Things aren't that bad. We can make them better."

"No," she said. "I have to go."

Spencer looked at her face. He looked at his handlebars. He touched the bell with his thumb, gently, and it chimed so quietly she could barely hear it. He did it again and again, over and over, as a minute stretched by and then another.

What was happening? All those meals she had cooked for him. All the times she'd tucked him in and kissed his forehead and said I love you. She was his parent far more than their father was. How could he not see it?

But then a new truth crept in. He was no longer three years old and magic, ushering her back into the world with his heartbeat and his tiny body. Maybe they had already lost each other. Maybe this moment had been coming all along.

"Okay," she finally said. A sob rose in her throat, but she turned to the concrete and forced it away. Found her voice. "I'll call you when I get there. As soon as I have a phone number I'll give it to you."

Spencer nodded, but she could see that he didn't understand. He didn't know what was happening, and she barely did either. Only that she could not find out what was at the bottom of the river. Could not be rendered so tender and ragged. Could not, again, be an organ outside of a body, something sure to die. She opened the trunk, chest heaving, and got out the bag she'd packed for him. He took it with a frown, set it down, and hugged her. She didn't want him to see her cry, but how could she help it? She had known he would go with her and then he hadn't. She had known she would never leave him and now she was. She folded herself into the car. Managed to shut the door. Grant started the engine, pulled onto the road, and Spencer stood watching her, eyebrows furrowed, as they passed him and went on.

"It would be hard to have a kid with you," Grant said. "Probably better this way."

Sara turned to the rear window. There was her brother where she had left him, staring at the car as it disappeared. They drove down River Road, past all the shops she'd been going to all her life. Past the Pink Elephant and the liquor store and Lily's dad's white-steepled church, and then Grant steered the car toward the bridge. They would have to cross the river to get away. She tried not to wonder if the boat was still on the water. If everyone was out there, searching. She pressed her hands over her eyes, not trusting herself to keep them shut. She saw her father's twisted-up face. I hope they find your friend. She thought of the searching she had done, how she had imagined, again and again, that she would find Annie cross-legged under a redwood tree. A smile and a kiss. And there was Spencer again, watching her abandon him, and it was too much, but how could she ever go back? The stolen money. Her mother's grave. Annie's body, lifted by a hook from the river. Or, if not that, the endless searching, the poisonous hope, the ghost of her.

The feeling of the road changed, smoothed out beneath them.

"Here we go," Grant said. "We're officially out of Paradise."

AUTHOR'S NOTE

For the last fifteen years, characters for a novel for adults have been living inside of my head and in different iterations on paper. Two of these characters are Sara and Spencer, ten years older than they appear in this story, when they reunite for the first time after this separation. When I was asked to contribute to FORESHADOW, I found their voices to be especially loud, so I decided to write their origin story. I knew the people they became, but who were they before those ten years without each other? And who were they even before that? I wrote this story to find out.

{ Edited by Denise Conejo. }

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Part splendor, part wasteland-that's what the Russian River was back then. An hour north of San Francisco, million-dollar vacation homes mingled with dingy cabins. Between them all ran a river; above them towered redwoods.

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Behind each door in the Long Hallway lurks a tale designed to send a chill down your spine. This completed podcast is a thriller anthology where each episode is a bite-sized, flash-fiction story. A divorced couple gets a letter from someone claiming to be their missing child. A man washes up on the shores of an island and is rescued by its sole inhabitant. Two college students debate whether or not a fraternity is connected to a recent death. Each story is less than ten minutes, making it perfect for study breaks. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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The Long Hallway launches July 9th. “Port Horizon” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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If writing is your passion but you find yourself with writer's block, then this podcast is perfect for you. Start with This is a show designed to get you thinking about, talking about, and, most importantly, making art. Each episode suggests a piece of media for you to consume (a short story, a movie, another podcast, etc.) and then gives you a writing prompt, like writing a short murder mystery or a story where you describe something mundane but exaggerate all the details. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Listen to Start With This on Spotify. The creators of Welcome to Night Vale Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink believe the only bad writing is not writing. Start With This is a podcast gone creativity playground designed to put your ideas in motion. Each episode centers around a writing topic.

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The Stars and the Blackness Between Them

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The Stars and the Blackness Between Them

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In Port of Spain, Trinidad, Audre has just found out she's going to be sent to live in America with her father because her strictly religious mother caught her with her secret girlfriend. In Minneapolis, Mabel is lying in bed, worried about the vague feeling of illness she's felt all summer. When the two girls meet, they fall hard for each other, but their romance takes a turn when test results reveal why Mabel has been feeling sick, and Audre begins to care for her as she faces an uncertain future. Listen to this audiobook on MackinVia. New to using MackinVia? Instructions
can be found here.

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Musician Carlos Eine, who goes by the name Insane in the Rain on YouTube, is an American-Filipino tenor saxophonist, pianist, and clarinetist who puts together beautiful Jazz arrangements of video game music. He collaborates with different musicians across YouTube and students from the Berklee College of Music, putting together cool videos that are perfect for watching or playing in the background. As you prepare for finals and get some last minute studying in, chill out to reimagined music from Pokémon, Mario Kart, the Legend of Zelda and more. Check out the channel here.

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"video game jazz" "jazz cover" "video game jazz cover" "video game jazz remix" "jazz remix" "video game music jazz" "jazz in video game music" "jazz remixes ...

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My name is Carlos, and I make video game jazz arrangements! Q: Is your music safe to use in my stream / video? A: No. My arrangements are of music composed by other people.

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Animator Casey McDonald tells a story of kindness, friendship, and the fear of being left behind in her short film, "Wings". A mouse, who dreams of flying, crosses paths with an injured bird during a rainstorm and a friendship blooms between them. This film is beautifully hand animated with charming painted backgrounds and a really lovely score. It's the perfect short film to watch if you're looking for something wholesome, or if you're feeling down and need something to cheer you up. Watch the short here.

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Hi! My name is Casey McDonald. I'm an SVA grad and am currently working freelance in NYC, but here I post map parts and animation memes mostly!

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We all need something a little strange and wonderful in our lives, and this Japanese stop-motion animator delivers with his Lego in Real Life series. Tomosteen bakes Oreo cheesecake, cooks French Toast, makes salad, and puts together a special Halloween dinner--but everything is made of Legos! The videos are short, but are full of fantastic details that make each piece of animation a joy to watch. They're guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Tomosteen also has another stop-motion series on his channel where he uses different colored dice. Check out the whole channel here.

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"stop motion cooking" "스톱모션 요리" ストップモーション料理

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Hello everybody, I am tomosteen. I create a fun stop motion animation. I like to cook with strange things. Please subscribe to the channel. こんにちは"tomosteen"です。 楽しいストップモーションアニメを作成しています。 私は変なもので料理を作るのが好きです。 チャンネル登録して楽しんでください！ 안녕하세요 "tomosteen"입니다. 재미있는 스톱 모션 애니메이션을 만들고 있습니다. 나는 이상한 것으로 요리를 만드는 것을 좋아합니다. 구독하여 즐겨보세요!

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Like a lot of kids, Katie Green was a picky eater. She'd sit at the table in silent protest, hide uneaten toast in her bedroom, listen to parental threats that she'd have to eat it for breakfast. But in any life, a set of circumstances can collide, and normal behavior can soon shade into something sinister and deadly. This graphic novel is a memoir of struggle and recovery, a trip into the heart of an eating disorder, and a story about finding happiness. It's not always an easy comic to read, but it's one worth reading. The comic is available on ComicsPlus, which can be accessed here. Contact Ms. Nolan for the login information.

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It's the autumn of 1991, the Cold War is stalling, and shy, misfit Laurie meets Fell in a thrift shop, bonding over a shared love of a local late-night radio show. Before Laurie knows it, she's swept up into a relationship with Fell, who is the most amazing person she's ever met (despite what their mother thinks). When strange radio transmissions start interrupting their beloved radio show, seemingly from the future, Laurie and Fell set out to solve the mystery for themselves. This heartfelt story is about loving someone else, difference, music, and dreaming of tomorrow. Read it here.

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As the Cold War stalls and the threat of nuclear warfare dominates the news, small-town misfits Laurie and Fell bond over a shared love of music and the mystery of the erratic radio messages that hint at the existence of a future worth reaching out for.
for David Bowie and David Mitchell
Radio was where we met. Our bodies first occupied the same space on a Friday afternoon, but our minds had already connected Thursday night. Coming up on twelve o'clock, awake when we shouldn't be, both of us in our separate narrow beds, miles and miles apart, tuning in to Ms. Jackson's Graveyard Shift, spirits linked up in the gruff cigarette-damaged sound of her voice.

She'd played "The Passenger," by Iggy Pop. I'd never heard it before, and it changed my life.

Understand: there was no internet then. No way to look up the lyrics online. No way to snap my fingers and find the song on YouTube or iTunes. I was crying by the time it was over, knowing it might be months or years before I found it again. Maybe I never would. Strawberries, Hudson's only record store, almost certainly wouldn't have it. Those four guitar chords were seared indelibly into my mind, the lonesome sound of Iggy's voice certain to linger there for as long as I lived, but the song itself was already out of my reach as it faded down to nothing.

And then: a squall of distortion interrupted, stuttering into staticky words, saying what might have been "Are you out there?" before vanishing again.

Eerie, but no more eerie than the tingly feeling I still had from Iggy Pop's voice. And the sadness of losing the song forever.

But then, the next day, at the Salvation Army, thumbing through hundreds of dresses I hated, what did I hear but-
"I am the passenger...and I ride and I ride-"
Not from the shitty in-store speakers, which blasted Fly-92 pop drivel all the time. Someone was singing. Someone magnificent. Like pawn-shop royalty, in an indigo velvet blazer with three handkerchiefs tied around one forearm, and brown corduroy bell-bottoms.
"I see things from under glass-"
The singer must have sensed me staring, because they turned to look in my direction. Shorter than me, hair buzzed to the scalp except for a spiked stripe down the center.

"The Graveyard Shift," I said, trembling. "You were listening last night?"

"Yeah," they said, and their smile was summer, was weekends, was Ms. Jackson's raspy-sweet voice. The whole place smelled like mothballs, and the scent had never been so wonderful. "You too?"

My mind had no need for pronouns. Or words at all for that matter. This person filled me up from the very first moment.

I said: "What a great song, right? I never heard it before. Do you have it?"

"No," they said, "but I was gonna drive down to Woodstock this weekend to see if I could find it there. Wanna come?"

Just like that. Wanna come? Everything I did was a long and agonizing decision, and every human on the planet terrified me, and this person had invited me on a private day trip on a moment's impulse. What epic intimacy to offer a total stranger-hours in a car together, a journey to a strange and distant town. What if I was a psychopath, or a die-hard Christian evangelist bent on saving their soul? The only thing more surprising to me than this easy offer was how swiftly and happily my mouth made the words: That sounds amazing.

"Great! I'm Fell."

"Laurie," I said. We shook. Fell's hand was smaller than mine, and a thousand times stronger.

Only then did I realize: I didn't know what gender they were. And, just like that, with the silent effortless clarity of every life-changing epiphany, I saw that gender was just a set of clothes we put on when we went out into the world.

And even though I hated myself for it, I couldn't help but look around. To see if anybody else had seen. If word might spread, about me and this magnificently unsettling oddball.

Numbers were exchanged. Addresses. A pick-up time was set. Everything was so easy. Fell's smile held a whole world inside it, a way of life I never thought I could live. A world where I wasn't afraid.

I wanted to believe in it. I really did. But I didn't.

"What did you think that was?" Fell asked, in the parking lot, parting. "That weird voice, at the end of the song?"

I shrugged. I hadn't thought much about it.

"At first I thought it was part of the song," Fell said. "But then the DJ was freaked out."

"Figured it was just...interference, like from another station."

"It's a big deal," Fell said. "To interrupt a commercial radio broadcast like that. You need some crazy hardware."

"Must be the Russians," I said solemnly, and Fell laughed, and I felt the world lighten.

And that night, tuning in to Ms. Jackson, "This song goes out to Fell, my number one fan. Wouldn't be a weeknight if Fell didn't call asking for some Bowie. So here's 'Life on Mars?' which goes out to Laurie, the girl with the mousy hair."

More evidence of Fell's miraculous gift. A thousand times I'd wanted to call Ms. Jackson, and each time I'd been too intimidated to pick up the phone. What if she was mean to me? What if I had to speak to a station producer first, who decided I wasn't worthy of talking to their resident empress? And who was I to ask for a song?

Also, I loved "Life on Mars?" I wondered if Fell knew it, had read it on my face or smelled it on my clothes with another of their superhuman abilities, or if they had just been hoping.

I shut my eyes. I had never been so conscious of my body before. David Bowie's voice rippled through it, making me shiver, sounding like Fell's fingertips must feel.

I wondered how many times I'd been touched by Fell, listening late at night, trembling at the songs they requested.

I remembered Fell's smile, and stars bloomed in the darkness.

But before the song was over, a sound like something sizzling rose up in my headphones, and the music faded, and a kind of high distortion bubbled up, and then began to stutter-and then become words. Unintelligible at first, like they'd been sped up, and then:
"...mission is so unclear. I could warn about that plane crash, try to stop the spiderwebbing epidemic. But how much difference would those things make? I'm only here for a short-"
Then the mechanical voice was gone. David Bowie came back. And just as swiftly was switched out.

"Sorry about that, children," Ms. Jackson said, chuckling. An old sound. How long had she been doing this show? She always called her listeners children, like she was older than absolutely everyone in earshot. I heard a cigarette snuffed out in the background. "Getting some interference, sounds like. Maybe from the Air Force base. They're forever messing with my signals. Some lost pilot, maybe, circling up in the clouds. Looking for the light. Good time to cut to a commercial, I'd say."

Someone sang Friendly Honda, we're not on Route Nine, the inane omnipresent jingle that seemed to support every television and radio program in the Hudson Valley. I thought of Fell, somewhere in the dark. Our bodies separate. Our minds united.

"Welcome back to the Graveyard Shift," she said. "This is Ms. Jackson, playing music for freaks and oddballs, redheaded stepchildren and ugly ducklings-songs by us and for us, suicide queens and flaming fireflies-"

Fell's car smelled like apples. Like spilled cider, and cinnamon. Twine held one rear headlight in place. When we went past fifty miles an hour, it shook so hard my teeth chattered together. Tractor trailers screamed past like missiles. It was autumn, 1991. We were sixteen. We could die at any moment.

The way to Woodstock was long and complicated. Taking the thruway would have been faster, but that meant paying the toll, and Fell knew there had to be another way.

"No way in hell that was a lost pilot," Fell said. "That interruption last night. That was someone with some insane machinery."

"How do you know so much about radio signals?"

"I like machines," Fell said. "They make so much sense. Does your school have a computer? Mine doesn't. We're too poor." Fell went to Catskill High, across the river. "It sucks, because I really want to be learning how they work. They can do computations a million times faster than people can, and they're getting faster all the time. Can you imagine? How many problems we'll be able to solve? How quickly we'll get the right answer, once we can make a billion mistakes in an instant? All the things that seem impossible now, we'll figure out how to do eventually."

I lay there, basking in the warmth of Fell's excitement. After a while, I said: "I still think it was the Soviets. Planning an invasion."

"No Russian accent," Fell said. "And anyway I'm pretty sure the Cold War is over. Didn't that wall come down?"

I shrugged, and then said, "Thanks for the song, by the way."

Instead of answering, Fell held out one hand. I took it instantly, fearlessly, like a fraction of Fell's courage could already have rubbed off on me.

In that car I felt invincible. I could let Fell's lack of fear take me over.

But later, in Woodstock, a weird crooked little town that smelled like burning leaves and peppermint soap, Fell reached for my hand again, and I was too frightened to take it. What if someone saw? In my mind I could hear the whole town stopping with a sound like a record scratching. Everyone turning, pointing. Shouting. Pitchforks produced from nowhere. Torches. Nooses.

Space grew between us, without my wanting it to. Fell taking a tiny step away from me.

We went to Cutler's Record Shop. We found a battered old Iggy Pop cassette, which contained "The Passenger." Fell bought it. We went to Taco Juan's and then had ice cream. Rocky Road was both of our favorite.

Twilight when we left. Thin blue light filled the streets. I dreamed of grabbing Fell's hand and never letting go. I dreamed of being someone better than who I was.

As soon as the doors slammed, we switched on the radio.

"Responding to this morning's tragic crash of Continental Express Flight 2574, transport officials are stating that it's impossible to rule out an act of terrorism at this-"

"No shit," Fell said, switching it off.

"What?"

"The voice. They said I could warn about the plane crash."

I laughed. "What, you think the voice in the night is part of a terrorist cell?"

"No," Fell said. "I think they're from the future."

Just like Fell to make the impossible sound easy, obvious. I laughed some more. And then I stopped laughing.

"Could be a coincidence," I said.

Fell pushed the tape in, pressed play. After our third trip through "The Passenger," rewinding the tape yet again, they looked over and saw the tears streaming down my face.

"It's such a sad song," I said. "So lonesome."

"Sort of," Fell said. "But it's also about finding someone who shares your loneliness. Who negates it. Cancels it out. Listen: Get into the car. We'll be the passenger. Two people, one thing. Plural singular."

"Plural singular," I said.

I'm sorry, I started to say, a hundred times, and told myself I would, soon, in just a second, until Fell looked over and said: "Hey. Can I come over? I don't feel like mixing it up with my mother tonight."

And that was the first time I ever saw fear on Fell's face.

My parents were almost certainly baffled by my new friend, but their inability to identify whether Fell was a boy or a girl meant they couldn't decide for sure if they were a sexual menace, so they couldn't object to Fell coming upstairs with me.

Three songs into the Graveyard Shift, Fell asked, "Can I spend the night?"

I laughed.

"I'm serious."

"Your mom wouldn't mind?"

"Probably she'd barely notice," Fell said. "And even if she did, it'd be like number nine on the list of things she'd want to scream at me about the next time she saw me."

"Fine by me," I said, and went downstairs to ask Mom and Dad.

Big smile. Confident posture. Think this through. "Cool if Fell spends the night here?" And then, without thinking about it, because if I'd spent a single nanosecond on it I would have known better, stopped myself, I added: "She already called her mom, and she said it was okay."

They smiled, relieved. They'd both been sitting there stewing, wondering whether what was happening upstairs needed to be policed. Whether a sex-crazed-menace male was upstairs seducing their daughter. But no. I'd said she. This was just some harmless, tomboyish girl.

"Yes of course," Mom said, but I couldn't hear her, just went by the smile, the nod, and I thanked her and turned to go, nausea making the room spin and the blood pound in my ears.

I felt sick. Somehow naming Fell like that was worse than a lie. Worse than an insult. It was a negation of who Fell was.

Cowardice. Betrayal. What was it, in me, that made me so afraid? That had stopped me from taking Fell's hand? That made me frightened of other people seeing what they were, what we were? Something so small that could somehow make me so miserable.

I was afraid that Fell might have heard, but Ms. Jackson was playing when I got back to my room, and Fell was on the floor beside the speaker, so that our hero's raspy voice drowned out every shred of weakness and horror that the world held in store for us.

We lay on the bare wooden floor like that for the next two hours. The window was open. Freezing wind made every song sweeter. Wood smoke seeped into our clothes. Our hands held tight.

Six minutes before midnight, approaching the end of the Graveyard Shift, it came again. The sizzle; the static; the chugging machine noise that slowly took the shape of a human voice. We caught it mid-sentence, like the intervening twenty-four hours hadn't happened, like it blinked and was now carrying on the same conversation.
"-out there. I don't know if this is the right...place. Time. If you're out there. If it's too late. If it's too early."
"Definitely definitely from the future," Fell whispered.

"You're so stupid," I said, giggling, so drunk on Fell that what they said no longer seemed so absurd.
"Or what you need to hear. What I should say. What I shouldn't."
The voice flanged on the final sentence, dropping several octaves, sounding demonic, mechanical. Slowing down. The t sound on the last word went on and on. The static in the background slowed down too, so that I could hear that it wasn't static at all, but rather many separate sounds resolving into sonic chaos. An endless line of melodic sequences playing simultaneously.

The voice flanged back, and said one word before subsiding into the ether again:
"-worthwhile-"
Control of the radio waves was relinquished. The final chords of "Blue Moon" resurfaced.

"There's our star man again," Ms. Jackson said with a chuckle. Evidently she'd had time to rethink her Air Force pilot theory. "Still lost, still lonely. I wonder-who do you think he's looking for? Call me with your wildest outer space invader theories."

"Want to call?" Fell whispered.

"No," I said, too fast, too frightened. "My parents are right across the hall. We'd wake them."

Fell shrugged. The gesture was such strange perfection. Their whole being was expressed in it. The confidence and the charm and the fearlessness and the power to roll with absolutely anything that came along.

I grabbed Fell's hand. Prayed that some of what they were would seep into me.

Fell touched my mousy hair. Sang softly: "Is there life on Mars?"

"We'll find out," I said. "Right? Machines will solve all our problems?"

At school, two days later, during lunch, I marched myself to the library and enrolled in computer classes.

"Shit," Fell said, pointing out the window, driving us home through snowy blue twilight.

Massive green Air Force trucks lined a long stretch of Route 9. Flatbeds where giant satellite dishes stood. Racks of cylindrical transformers. Men pacing back and forth with machines in their hands. None of it had been there the day before.

"What the hell?" I said.

"They're hunting for the voice in the night too," Fell said.

"Because it's part of a terrorist cell and knew about a plane crash before it happened."

"Or because it's using bafflingly complex technology that could only have come from the future," Fell said.

Then they switched on the radio, shrieked at what they found there. Sang-screamed: "Maybe I'm just like my mother, she's never satisfied. "

"Why do we scream at each other?" I said, and then we launched into the chorus with one wobbly crooked magnificent voice.

My first view of Fell's house was also my first view of Fell's mother. She sat on the front porch wearing several scarves, smoking.

"Fuck," Fell said. "Fuck me, times ten thousand. I thought for sure she'd still be at work."

"We can go," I said. I'd been excited to see the house, for that insight into who Fell was and what had helped make them, but now panic was pulling hard at my hair. Fell's fear of the woman was contagious.

"No," Fell said. "If I act like she can't hurt me, sooner or later she really won't be able to."

She laughed when she saw me. "Of course it's a girl."

"Mrs. Tanzillo, I'm Laurie," I said, holding out my hand. "I'm pleased to meet you."

My good manners threw her off. She shook my hand with a raised eyebrow, like she was waiting to see what kind of trick I was trying to pull. I smelled alcohol. Old, baked-in alcohol, the kind that seeps from the pores of aging drunks. Which I guess she was.

"Don't you two turn my home into a den of obscenity," she called after us, as we headed in.

Fell let the door slam, and then exhaled: "God, she is such an asshole."

The house was sadder than I'd been expecting. Smaller; smellier; heaped with strange piles. Newspapers, flattened plastic bags, ancient water-stained unopened envelopes. A litter box, badly in need of emptying, and then probably burning. My parents were poor, but not poor like this.

"You're shaking," I said, and pulled Fell into a hug.

They stiffened. Wriggled free. "Not here."

"Of course," I said. "Sorry."

The TV was on. Squabbling among the former Soviet states. A bad divorce, except with sixteen partners instead of two, and with thermonuclear warheads instead of children. I watched it, because looking around the room-or looking at Fell looking at me-made me nauseous. A talking head grinned, said: "It's naïve to think our children will get to grow up without the threat of nuclear war. There's no putting this genie back in the bottle."

Fell talked fast, the shaking audible in every word. "This was a terrible idea. I felt good about us, like, it wouldn't matter what this place looked like or what you thought of it, because you know I'm not this, it's just the place where I am until I can be somewhere else, but now, I'm not so sure, I think I should probably take you home."

So Fell wasn't fearless. Wasn't superhuman.

So it was in Fell too. Whatever was in me. Something so small, that could chain down someone so magnificent.

Of course I should have put up more of a fight. Said how it didn't matter. But I hated seeing Fell like this. If Fell was afraid, what hope was there for me? Fell, who welcomed every awful thing the world had to show us. Fell was my only hope, but not this Fell. So I shrugged and said, "whatever you want," feeling awful about it already, and we turned around and went right back outside, and Mrs. Tanzillo thought that was the funniest thing she'd ever seen, and we didn't talk the whole ride home.

"That is what it sounds like when doves cry," Ms. Jackson said, as the spiraling keyboard riff faded out, as the drum machine loop wound down.

I'd called the song in. I wondered if Fell was listening, if they knew what it meant. How hard it had been for me to dial that number. How bare the floor beside me was. How cold. How much my chest hurt.

"This extended block of uninterrupted songs is brought to you by Friendly Honda," she said. "They're not on Route Nine. Let's stick with Prince, shall we? Dig a little deeper. A B-side. 'Erotic City.'" Her laugh here was raw and throaty, barely a laugh at all, closer to a grumble of remembered pleasure. Some erotic city she'd taken someone to, ages ago.

The song started. A keyboard and a bass doing dirty, dirty things together. Strutting, strolling. Becoming one thing, one lewd gorgeous sound that made me shiver.

I imagined Fell listening. Our minds entwined inside the song. An intimacy unencumbered by flawed bodies, troubled minds, or the fear of what could go wrong when we put them together. Small voices inside our heads that made us miserable.

What a magnificent thing we would be. If Fell ever spoke to me again. If we could make whatever our weird thing was work.

Just when things were getting good, as Prince was shifting to the chorus, the static sizzle:
"There are a million ways I could have done this. But anything else, something more straightforward, well, I thought it might just blow your minds. Cause panic. Do the opposite thing, from what I wanted to accomplish."
Prince and the star man struggled for dominance, dirty talk giving way to flanged static only to steal back center stage. I only heard one more intelligible phrase before the intruder cut out altogether, even though I stayed up until three in the morning to see if they'd return:

"- know it's all worthwhile-"

"I want to find her," Fell said, the next day, when I walked out the front door and there they were, sitting on my front steps.

I hid my shock, my happiness. My shame. My guilt. "Find who?"

"The voice in the night. The one Ms. Jackson keeps calling the star man."

I sat down. "You think it's a she?"

Fell shrugged. I had been imagining the voice belonged to a male, but now that I thought about it I heard how sexless it was, how mechanical. Could be anything, in the ear of the beholder.

Cold wind swung tree branches against the side of my house, sounding like someone awful knocking at the door. I could not unhunch my shoulders. The magnitude of my awfulness was such that I didn't know where to start. What to apologize for first.

"How would we even begin to do something like that?" I asked instead.

Fell picked up something I hadn't seen before. The size of three record album sleeves laid out in a row. Four horizontal lines of thin metal, with a single vertical line down the middle.

"A directional antenna," they said. "It picks up radio signals, but it's sensitive to the direction of the origin signal. Point it directly at the source and you get a strong signal; point it away and you'll get a faint one. Plug it into this receiver"-Fell held up a hefty army-green box-"and we can take measurements in multiple directions until we find the right one."

They talked like everything was fine, but their face was so tight that I knew nothing was.

"Where did you get that?" I asked, making my voice laugh. "And how do you know how to use it?"

"I told you, machines are kind of my thing."

"So, wait, we just turn it around until we find the signal, and then go in that direction?"

"Not necessarily," Fell said. "It tells direction, but not distance. So the signal could be three miles away, or three thousand, depending on how strong it is. With just one measurement, we could be driving into the wilderness for days." Fell produced a map from the inner workings of the complex blazer they wore. "So the best way to do it is to take a measurement from one place, draw a line on the map that corresponds precisely to the signal, and then go to another location and take another measurement, and draw another precise line on the map-"

"And the point where they meet is the probable location!" I said, excited.

"It's called triangulation," Fell said.

"Amazing. But for real. How do you know all this?"

"My uncle, he learned this from my grandfather, who did it in the war. Transmitter hunting is kind of a nerd game, for amateur radio operators. They call it foxtailing."

"Your uncle as in your mother's brother?"

Fell nodded. And there it was, the subject I'd been trying to avoid.

"He was the closest thing to a dad that I had," Fell said. "We used to have so much fun together. Didn't give a shit about sports or any of that standard dude shit. He was into weird shit like directional antennas and science fiction. Then he met this girl, and moved to Omaha with her. Fucking Omaha. I'm sorry about the other day, at my mom's. I acted like an idiot."

" You acted like an idiot? Don't be dumb, Fell-that was all me. I'm the one who should be apologizing. I didn't know how to react when I saw how upset you were. I should have stayed. I wanted to stay."

Fell grabbed my hand. I had so much more to say, and I imagine so did Fell, but we did not need a word of it.

Mom might be watching out the window, I thought, but did not let go of Fell's hand.

"What if the source of the signal is moving?"

Fell nodded. "I thought about that. I don't have a good solution. We just have to hope that's not the case, or we'll be triangulating bullshit."

"It's not the end of the world, if we end up standing in some empty field together."

We drove to the top of Mount Merino, to take our first measurement. And then we waited. Kept the car running, blasting the Graveyard Shift from shitty speakers. Across the street was a guardrail, and then a sheer drop to the river beneath us. The train tracks alongside it. We lay on the hood and looked at stars.

"You won't run out of gas like this?"

"The average car can idle for ninety-two hours-that's just under four days-on a full tank of gas, which is what we have," Fell said. "The battery will die long before we run out of gas."

I marveled at the intricacies of Fell's mechanical knowledge, but I had some knowledge of my own to share. I told Fell about my computer classes, and how, yeah, computers were incredible, they could do anything. Fell was as impressed as I'd hoped they'd be, but they kept asking me questions about the hardware that I couldn't answer. All I knew was software. Fell looked at programming the way I looked at machines: probably fascinating, but way over my head.

Fell told me about transistors, and how processing power was increasing exponentially; had been for decades. How eventually computers would be able to store as much information and process as many simultaneous operations as swiftly as a human brain. Then Fell showed me how to work the antenna, read the receiver, detect signal strength. We practiced on other radio stations, penciled lines on the map.

Then three hours passed. We were way past my curfew, and the star man hadn't shown.

"Fuck it," Fell said, at the end of Ms. Jackson's program. "Star person stood us up. We should go for a long drive. Charge the battery backup."

"Okay," I said, just assuming Fell was right and that was how those worked.

"Your parents won't mind?"

"Nah," I said, although they absolutely would, if they caught me sneaking back in, and there was a very good chance that they would because I am extremely clumsy, but that was the future and I didn't care about that, I only cared about the here and the now with Fell in Fell's car on this freezing night on this weird planet in this mediocre galaxy.

The radio show after Graveyard Shift was significantly less awesome, but we had to stick with it. Who knew whether star person would stumble onto any other stations. I had my portable radio and my headphones, so that I could periodically coast back and forth across the radio dial in search of our elusive visitor, but somehow I knew that this would be fruitless. For whatever reason, the signal was pegged to this specific station.

The new DJ talked too much between songs, and he had the voice of a gym teacher. The opening notes of "Where Is My Mind" came on and we both started screaming, but this asshole kept rambling on about a concert in Albany coming up next weekend, and he only stopped when the singer started singing.

"Goddamn him," Fell said, and then-static-then-

"- that's why I'm doing this, I guess. To tell you the future can be more magnificent, and more terrifying, than what you have in your head right now. And the one you embrace will be the one you end up with."

As soon as the voice began, Fell raised the antenna, held it out like a pistol. Turned slowly. We watched the receiver respond to the signal's varying strength, and hastily drew a bold thick line on the map when we found it. Cheered. Watched our breath billow.

"Told you he or she was a time traveler!" Fell said.

"That's not what that means."

"What does it mean, then?"

"We're picking up lines of dialogue from a movie, maybe. Or love letters from a lunatic. We should keep driving, wait for another one."

"It's late," Fell said. "My mom's not doing so well, lately."

The temperature dropped twenty degrees. The final notes of "Where Is My Mind" faded away.

"You can talk to me about it," I said, gulping down air as the ground opened up beneath me. "Whatever you're going through, I have your back. You know I love you, right?"

"I love you too, Laurie," but I could hear the unspoken rest of the sentence-like our minds had linked up already-like Fell knew, in a way I never would, how little love mattered.

"We'll go hunting tomorrow night," I said.

Fell nodded.

At school the next day, alone with the computer, I saw why Fell loved machines so much. Not because they were simple, but because the rules were clear. And when something went wrong, there was a way to fix it.

And the next night, hands clasped on the hood of Fell's car again, listening to Ms. Jackson with the directional antenna balanced across our thighs, I thought-if only we were machines. The sturdiness of hardware; the clarity of software. Not these awful meat puppets, in this awful world. Heads full of awful voices holding us back.

"I feel so good, when it's just us," Fell said, tapping into my thoughts with that eerie precision. "Our minds linked up inside the music. I want to stay there, forever."

"Maybe someday," I said, nonsensically, and Fell had the kindness not to point out that it was nonsense. We were what we were. Damaged minds alone in dying bodies.

Ms. Jackson exhaled smoke. "This one goes out to our friend the star man. Hope you get where you're going, buddy."

I groaned at the opening chords. "Starman," by David Bowie. "This song always makes me cry," I whispered, the lump already emerging in my throat.

Fell said, "I knew you were a Bowie girl."

We listened. The chorus hurt.

Fell heard me sniffle. "Hear the way his voice rises, between 'star' and 'man'?" they asked. "That's the same octave jump as in the chorus of 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow.' You hear it? Star- man; Some- where?"

Fell was right. I'd listened to the song a million times before, and never noticed. And now for as long as I lived I'd never hear it without noticing. And now I was crying. Because the song was so beautiful; because Fell was so incredible; because the world was too awful for love like ours to last.

The final chorus wound down:
Let the children lose it Let the children use it Let all the children boogie
And the guitar cranked up, and the background singers crooned, and we were doomed, Fell and me, I felt it as heavy as the skin on my bones, how impossible we were, how soon we'd be shattered, and then-there the voice was again:
"The future is written, you might say. What will be will be. What's the point of this? But so many futures are written. An infinite number, in fact. A billion trillion ways your story could end. I want to make sure you end up with the right future."
Fill raised the antenna. Turned slowly, searching for the signal. Found it. We drew a line on the map. We circled the spot where our two lines met.

Both of us were crying, but Fell's tears were happy ones.

Fell didn't call me the next day, the way they say they would. Nor did they come by the house. And there was no answering machine at the Tanzillo household, and no one picked up, no matter how many times I called.

I told myself this was something sacred, something practically supernatural, to go to the spot on the map where our lines crossed, where the star person's signal came from. So of course Fell was scared.

I told myself that's all it was.

I told myself that, the whole long bike ride to Fell's front door, where I knocked three times. The pounding echoed. How had I found the courage to come at all? What was I becoming?

"Quit calling my house," said Fell's mom when she opened the door. I'd only seen her sitting down before. She was taller than I'd imagined. Her long loose gray hair would have been glamorous on anyone else. "Christ, I feel like I spend half my time watching the phone ring, waiting for you to give the hell up."

"You could pick it up, actually talk to me."

She shrugged. The gesture was the same as Fell's, heavier on the left shoulder than the right, but this version oozed with cynicism and inertia instead of energy and exuberance. The news was on in the background, turned up too loud, more talking heads talking nuclear annihilation. On the way in, I'd passed more military trucks. Trailers getting set up along the Hudson River. Satellite dishes blooming like steel flowers.

"Where's Fell?"

"Not here."

"Do you know where?"

"Sometimes they go to sleep at their grandpa's place." Except Mrs. Tanzillo used the wrong gender pronouns, and clearly took great pleasure in doing so. "Old trailer, been abandoned since the man died ten years ago. Full of raccoon shit, and wasps in summer. I'll tell Fell you dropped by though." Her sweet smile made it clear she'd do no such thing, and then she shut the door in my face.

I got on my bike.

This pain, it was Fell's. It wasn't mine, and I couldn't do anything to diminish it. I could ride away and never feel it again.

I said that, but I didn't believe it. I remembered what the star person had said. About how we could have a future that was magnificent or one that was terrifying, depending on which one we embraced.

I got off the bike.

Fell couldn't see it, what a sad little creature their mother was. How absurd it was, that someone as magnificent as Fell could be made miserable by someone so weak.

Someone so small.

I knocked again.

She said nothing when she opened the door. Just smiled, like, come on, little girl, hit me with your best shot. And I had nothing. No practiced witty wise one-liners. Fell would have, for anyone but her.

"You're only hurting yourself, you know."

Her eyebrows rose. Her smile deepened.

"You might have the power to hurt Fell now, but that power won't last long. As soon as Fell realizes what a useless angry pitiful person you are, you'll lose that power." I wanted my words to be better. But I was done letting wishing I was better stop me from being what I was. "And Fell will leave you here, drowning in cat shit and bills, while they go conquer the world."

She said something. I didn't hear what it was.

That night I heard the star man again. Somehow I knew it was just me this time. Like our minds were already beginning to overlap, and I could see Fell lying in silence in that dirty trailer, shivering under a blanket, no radio, listening to pine trees shush overhead, while I heard the star man whisper:
"...Two soldiers trapped behind enemy lines..."
I stayed late after school, in the computer lab. In the library. Reading the science and the science fiction Fell had rhapsodized about. All the impossible things that could save us from ourselves. Solar power; a post-petroleum future; superfoods. Cold fusion. Brain uploading. Digital immortality. Transcending the limits of the human.

Each time I shut a book, it was the pain of waking up from blissful dream to wretched reality.

But then, blissful dream: Fell was on my front steps when I got home. Alone in the deep black-blue of late twilight. Snow fell in half-hearted flurries.

"Sorry," they said when I ran straight at them. My hug took all the air out of them.

"Never disappear again," I whispered.

Fell nodded. A crumpled map in one raised fist. "Are we gonna do this?"

"We are."

A cassette blasted when Fell started up the car. David Bowie. We drove, heading for where our lines crossed. The gulf between us was still so wide. Maybe I believed, now-that we could work, that what we added up to could survive in this world-but Fell did not. Fell still believed what Mrs. Tanzillo believed: that Fell was hell-bound, disgusting, deserving of nothing good. The miles inched past my window, closing in on the X on the map, and I had no words, no weapons to breach the wall between us.

And then: Fell did.

"Whatever you said to my mom? It really pissed her the fuck off."

"I am so sorry," I said. "It was selfish. I didn't think it through. What it might mean for you."

"No," Fell said, and turned onto Route 9. "I never saw her like that before. I went home and she didn't say a word to me. Like, at all. Except to say you stopped by. That never, ever happens. I don't know how, but what you said messed her up really bad."

"She-"

"No fucking way," Fell said, turning off the main road. "This can't be it."

We'd reached the spot on the map. We were stopped outside the Salvation Army. Where we'd met, a mere two weeks before.

"Nobody's broadcasting from here," they said.

We rolled down our windows. Snow fell harder now. Science fiction scenarios blurred in my brain. Time travel. Brain uploading.

"They'd need so much equipment," Fell said. "If we heard it on the other side of the river? They'd need a massive antenna, but there's nothing. And-"

Fell trailed off.

I looked up at the sky. Snow tap-tap-tapped at my forehead. I remembered what the star man said, the night before, to me and me alone. Two soldiers trapped behind enemy lines.

It was talking to me and Fell.

"The equipment's not here," I said. "Or, it's here, but it's not now."

Fell got out of the car. I turned up the radio and got out after them.

"I get it," I said, laughing, crying, comprehending. One wobbly crooked magnificent voice. "You were right, Fell. It's coming from the future."

We stood. Snow slowly outlined us.

"It's us," I said. Fell had finally infected me. The audacious, the impossible, was not only easy-it was our only way forward. "That machine voice? That's...you and me. Our two voices together, somehow. A consciousness made up of both of our minds."

Fell turned their head, hard, like they weren't listening, or were listening and not understanding, or understanding and not believing.

"Plural singular," I said. "We are the passenger."

"Plural singular," Fell said, snow falling into their perfect face, while David Bowie told us let all the children boogie.

They still didn't see, but that was okay. There would be time to tell Fell all of it. To say that there was so much to be afraid of-nuclear winter, ecological devastation, the death spasms of patriarchy. That the next fifty years would see unspeakable suffering. But we could survive it. Overcome it. Surmount the limits of our flesh and our mortality and our separateness. Combine into some new kind of thing, some wobbly magnificent machine who could crack the very fabric of time and space. We could send a signal back, into the past, a lonely sad staticky voice in the night, to tell the beautiful damaged kids we had been that the future would be as good as they had the courage to be.

"Let All the Children Boogie" copyright © 2021 by Sam J. Miller
Art copyright © 2021 by J Yang

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As the Cold War stalls and the threat of nuclear warfare dominates the news, small-town misfits Laurie and Fell bond over a shared love of music and the mystery of the erratic radio messages that hint at the existence of a future worth reaching out for.

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A Black Women's History of the United States

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A Black Women's History of the United States

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Centering Black women's stories, this book shows that Black women's unique ability to build community while combating centuries of oppression is an essential component of the resistance of systemic racism and sexism. The book reaches beyond a single narrative to showcase Black women's lives in all their complexities and examines Black women's history, beauty, heartbreak, rage, spirit, and enduring love throughout the nation. Available from the BHSEC Library, NYPL, BPL, and QPL via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here. Don't have a library card? Get an NYPL card here and a BPL card here.

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Welcome to 2021! Book Riot is here to help you think more consciously about your reading habits in the new year. The Read Harder Challenge offers 24 different reading goals for 2021, including reading a book you've been intimidated to read, reading an LGBTQ+ history book, reading a genre novel by an Indigenous author, reading a romance by a trans author, reading a book of nature poems, and reading a food memoir by an author of color. While some of the goals may align perfectly with the books you already read, others may push you past your normal boundaries and help you grow as a reader in 2021. Check out the whole challenge here.

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TBR: Tailored Book Recommendations.
The Read Harder Challenge is back, and 2021 will be its seventh year! We're excited to embark on this annual reading journey once more, and hope you find your way to some wonderful reads through Book Riot's challenge. Once again, Read Harder has 24 tasks designed to help you break out of your reading bubble and expand your worldview through books. With new genres, new authors, and new points of view, the challenge will (hopefully) help you discover amazing books you wouldn't have otherwise picked up.

We've rounded up another great mix of fun and serious tasks that ask you to consider some topics, forms, and parts of the world you might never have experienced in literature before. All will push your reading limits, and we hope you love them.

Just as in years past, there are 24 tasks, averaging two per month over the course of the next 12 months. You may count one book for multiple tasks or read one book per task. The point of the challenge is to push yourself to expand your horizons and break out of set reading habits; the hope is that you'll discover voices, settings, characters, formats, and more you may not have encountered without that nudge. Be accountable to yourself, share what you learned along the way, and enjoy the experience!

If you want to join a community of fellow challenge-goers, share your challenge progress, and get suggestions for tasks, check out the Read Harder Challenge Goodreads group. It's a great place to hang out and discover books to fit your tasks and discuss the challenge. You can also use the #ReadHarder hashtag all over social media and join Book Riot Insiders for access to an exclusive Read Harder podcast where the hosts will offer suggestions and discuss a new task each episode.

Click here for a downloadable and editable PDF of the 2021 Read Harder Challenge tasks.

We'll be publishing recommendations for each of the tasks in the coming weeks to help you complete this year's Read Harder (links will be added to this post as the recommendations are posted).

1. Read a book you've been intimidated to read

2. Read a nonfiction book about anti-racism

3. Read a non-European novel in translation

4. Read an LGBTQ+ history book

5. Read a genre novel by an Indigenous, First Nations, or Native American author

6. Read a fanfic

7. Read a fat-positive romance

8. Read a romance by a trans or nonbinary author

9. Read a middle grade mystery

10. Read an SFF anthology edited by a person of color

11. Read a food memoir by an author of color

12. Read a work of investigative nonfiction by an author of color

13. Read a book with a cover you don't like

14. Read a realistic YA book not set in the U.S., UK, or Canada

15. Read a memoir by a Latinx author

16. Read an own voices book about disability

17. Read an own voices YA book with a Black main character that isn't about Black pain

18. Read a book by/about a non-Western world leader

19. Read a historical fiction with a POC or LGBTQ+ protagonist

20. Read a book of nature poems

21. Read a children's book that centers a disabled character but not their disability

22. Read a book set in the Midwest

23. Read a book that demystifies a common mental illness

24. Read a book featuring a beloved pet where the pet doesn't die

Finished your 2020 Challenge? Don't forget to take a picture of your completed list, email it to readharder@bookriot.com by December 31, and get 30% off one order at Out of Print! We'll be offering the same prize to readers who complete the 2021 challenge. If you're struggling for your last task or two, don't forget you can search Book Riot for "Read Harder" and find help from our contributors for some of the trickier tasks.

Don't just read...Read Harder!

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Book Riot's 2021 Read Harder Challenge | Book Riot

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TBR: Tailored Book Recommendations. The Read Harder Challenge is back, and 2021 will be its seventh year! We're excited to embark on this annual reading journey once more, and hope you find your way to some wonderful reads through Book Riot's challenge.

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Chris Garcia's dad had one dying wish: that his family scatter his ashes off the coast of Cuba, the place where he was from and where he left to come to America. Chris's mom? She doesn't give a crap about dying wishes. She's vowed to never go back to Cuba again. As Chris tried to do right by his dad, he sets out to uncover the truth about a man he barely knew. This podcast mini-series explores the secrets families keep from their children and generational trauma. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Listen to Scattered on Spotify. Chris Garcia's dad had one dying wish: That his family scatter his ashes off the coast of Cuba. Chris's mom? She doesn't give a crap about dying wishes. She's vowed to never go back to Cuba again.

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Hosted by Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic for the New York Times, Popcast covers the latest in pop music criticism, trends, and news. The podcast looks at music from all angles, offering deep dives into specific albums and artists, year-in-review wrap-ups, and in-depth discussions about topics like the significance of female rappers in pop music, the relationship between TikTok and the music industry, and the impact that the coronavirus has had on music. Listen to the podcast on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Listen to Popcast on Spotify. The Popcast is hosted by Jon Caramanica, a pop music critic for The New York Times. It covers the latest in popular music criticism, trends and news.

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Best friends Corey and Kyra were inseparable in their tiny snow-covered town of Lost Creek, Alaska. But as Kyra starts to struggle with her bipolar disorder, Corey moves away. Worried about her friend, Corey makes Kyra promise that she'll stay strong during the long, dark winter. Then, just days before Corey is to visit, Kyra dies. The entire Lost community speaks in hushed tones, saying Kyra's death was meant to be and they push Corey away. The further she investigates, the greater her suspicion grows. Lost is keeping secrets. Listen to this audiobook on MackinVia. New to using MackinVia? Instructions can be found here.

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This media criticism channel is all about being a helpful guide to people who want to write, but don't really know where to begin. Author and editor A.K. Savage offers close looks at stories from movies, television, cartoons, and sketch comedy, breaking down what is successful and unsuccessful about each piece. Recent videos include what makes the comedy duo Key & Peele so funny, a look at the end of The Mandalorian, and a review of Pixar's Soul from a black writer's perspective. Check out the channel here.

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"video essay" writing television novels "bojack horseman" "game of thrones" "video games" analysis

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This channel is all about being a helpful guide to people who want to write, but don't really know where to begin. I want to make this a channel for people who were in my position when starting out, who really wanted to become better at the craft, but just needed someone out there to break it down for them.

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This YouTube series is a multi-platform journalism project from Vox that seeks to expose and explain the hidden consequences of tech: the good, the bad, and the complicated. Recent episodes include how smart speakers use and store your data, the ramifications of countries banning TikTok, and the connection between Instagram aesthetics and QAnon's shift to mainstream politics. Check out the series here. You can also visit Vox's website for articles that supplement the project.

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Recode by Vox's new multi-platform journalism project is going to expose and explain the hidden consequences of tech - the good, the bad, and the complicated.

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Dive into the world of food history with this YouTube Channel. Every Tuesday, YouTuber Max Miller recreates different historic dishes while exploring the history surrounding that dish. Learn about the traditional Babylonian New Year's dish, the 'tamale wars' of the early 20th century, and Spartan black broth. Miller researches extensively for his videos, and provides the recipe in the description so you can try these dishes out yourself. It's definitely a unique take on YouTube cooking shows. Check it out here.

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history food medieval cooking baking "tasting history" "food history" "medieval food" "historic recipes" "max miller" "roman food" "victorian food" "colonial...

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Support the channel at https://www.patreon.com/tastinghistory Love Food? Can't get enough of History? Then you've come to the right place. Every Tuesday, I show you how to make a different historic dish while exploring the history surrounding it. Subscribe and join me as we Taste a bit of History.

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What if there was a procedure that could examine your heart and tell you exactly who you're in love with? That's what the Heart Scale Center promises in this near-future short story. Marcus and Grace find themselves at the Center ready to test their love. They've been high school sweethearts for years, so they should be sure what their hearts hold, right? But Grace   is starting to worry about what will change as they begin college, and Marcus' family issues are starting to complicate things. Check out the story here.

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Every heart tells a story.

That was what the Heart Scale Center advertisement whispered to Marcus and Grace as they stood outside the building. They clutched the newspaper between them, the paper flickering with promises pressed between black lines of vitalized ink. The scales in the picture moved up and down like the playground seesaw they used to jump on as children. Back when the city still made room for such things. Back when they were little and all that mattered was whether Marcus had remembered to bring the jump rope Grace liked when he knocked on her front door to play. Back before they'd been each other's first kisses, first touches, first loves.

The parking lot swelled with cars, an attendant stacking them like bento boxes in a vertical iron grid. This place had become the most popular spot in the entire city; lines of eager people hoping to get an appointment stretched around the block.

"You sure you want to do this?" Marcus asked, trying to control his face and keep his expression blank. His mama always said his eyes told the world too much about him.

"You said you were up for it." Grace removed their appointment card from her pocket.

He watched the calligraphy skate across the cardstock, forming and reforming their names.

Grace & Marcus.

Marcus & Grace.

She cradled it like a golden ticket.

He studied her face; the honey glow from the center's lights sliced across the brown of Grace's cheekbones as she fought an excited smile. "We jumped the six-month wait list," she said.

"Coley got the appointments for us, didn't she?" he asked.

Marcus felt her bristle.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Nothing."

"Well, it's going to be great. Marisol and her girlfriend did it last weekend."

"Aren't they about to break up?"

"That's beside the point."

"And didn't Jacob and Keisha try this too? They've been fighting ever since."

They both paused to look up at the building. Marcus imagined the shadows from its towers growing larger, big enough to swallow him. Grace crinkled up her nose with curiosity, the pinch of it making the scattering of freckles on it hard to see. That look was usually his favorite, but maybe not today. He bit his bottom lip and fussed with his jacket.

"You scared?" she asked.

A shiver ran through both of their bodies, one colder than the few winter snowflakes starting to fall around them.

Marcus glanced away from her inquiring eyes. His heart did a somersault, and not because he was afraid of it being taken from his chest. Everyone said that part didn't hurt. He just wasn't sure he wanted to know exactly what his heart might reveal.

"No," he replied.

"Then let's go in." Grace barreled forward.

* * *

The lobby glowed red. Its plush walls enfolded them into a pocket made of velveteen. It felt like they'd walked inside a literal heart.

Grace figured this was how it should be. She blinked twice to be sure the walls weren't pulsing. She thought she could hear the thuds and thumps of a thousand heartbeats. Maybe it was the hearts sitting in golden sarcophaguses just beyond the door. Maybe it was just her own. Maybe it was all just part of the experience.

She'd heard so many great reviews of the whole thing.

Marcus's hand found the small of her back, one of her favorite ways that he touched her.

They walked farther inside.

Almost every couch was filled with a person. A motion picture flickered across a silk screen, showcasing scowling couples entering the Heart Scale Center, stepping into separate rooms, then emerging with grins so big you could count all their teeth. The montage ended with the words, Welcome to a better way to love. Every heart tells a story. Find yours here.

She wondered if she and Marcus would be like that. Though they hadn't been fighting lately, they hadn't really been doing much of anything else, either.

A woman in a tailored blue suit sat at a large desk. Grace smiled at Marcus, then stepped forward. "Hello."

"Welcome! We're so happy you've come to learn about your hearts' story. Last names, appointment card, and registration paper, please," the woman said. A heart-shaped brooch began to vibrate on her lapel, drawing Grace's attention.
Was it a real miniature heart?
Marcus nudged her.

She flinched and pulled out the card, then the paper, tattered and worn from weeks of folding and unfolding, running nervous fingers over every line, and scanning every detail of the procedure. She handed it to the woman. "Last names are Williamson and Tucker."

The woman gave her a clipboard with several forms and a writing stylus. "Fill these out together, and bring them back to me when you're done."

Grace fumbled with the board. Marcus helped her catch it before it plummeted to the floor.

The entire room paused to look up at her. She flashed a sheepish smile. This wasn't the time to be clumsy. That's what her mama would say if she were still alive. She'd also probably tell Grace she had no business up in here. Some questions didn't need answers.

But for Grace, every question had one.

She wanted to know all the things.

Grace and Marcus found a nearby couch to plop down on. They scanned the forms together. The ink revealed questions, one set for her and one set for him.
Is your heart healthy for removal? List any heart-related surgeries or diseases you've had. Have you been in love before? Are you currently in love?
Grace pointed the writing stylus at each one and searched Marcus's eyes, trying to guess his answer before he said it. She knew him very well and prided herself on being able to anticipate how he felt about most things.

Even though he hated when she answered for him, she liked knowing that she could, that she knew the shape of him.
How many people have you loved?
This question made her sit upright. It was the reason why they were here. The tiniest tendril of apprehension curled in her stomach.

Her father had told her never to ask questions she didn't want answered, and maybe this was one of those times when she should've listened. She and Marcus were high school sweethearts destined to become lovebirds, together forever. That was what everyone always said. But this question bubbled up any time things got too quiet: Has he ever loved another?

They'd taken short breaks. It was possible. And what would that mean?

As soon as they'd gotten their college acceptance letters, more questions had crept to the surface. Did they love each other enough to make it through going to different schools, different cities?

If the procedure showed that Marcus's love for her was heavy, then she'd know what they should do. She'd ignore her best friend Coley's warning that college changes you, silence her suggestions that she and Marcus break up and give each other clean slates. She'd have proof that they really belonged together. She'd have more faith and be able to stamp out those tiny doubts.

Grace nibbled her bottom lip.

"I don't know the answer to the last question," Marcus said. "Do I include, like, my mom, dad, grandparents?"

"I guess we could skip it. The form says we don't have to answer them all."

"Okay."

Grace searched his eyes for how he really felt. He glanced around like they were being watched. She looked back down. The vitalized ink swirled, almost too eager to complete the form.

The last question revealed itself: Do you understand the objective of the procedure?

The goal was to have your heart weighed. To have the organ plucked from your chest like a swollen cherry and placed on a set of golden scales. To goad the blood-soaked flesh into exposing its imprints, the names of those you'd loved scrawled along striated muscle. To have a machine divulge whom you loved the most, whether you wanted to admit it or not.

Every heart tells a story.

"You ready?" Grace asked.

Marcus replied, "Yeah."

A line pulsed at the very bottom of the page. Prepare yourself for your heart's true story.

Grace was certain she already knew her story. The largest name imprinted on her heart-aside from Mama's and Daddy's and her little sister Serenity's-was Marcus's. But her hands still shook, and she didn't know why.

"Finished, right?" he asked.

She nodded.

They walked together to return the clipboard to the woman.

A door swung open, and a man appeared. "Grace Williamson?"

Grace raised her hand like they were in school and the teacher had called her name from a roster. She turned to Marcus. "I guess I'm first. It'll be okay, right?"

"Of course," he replied.

Grace kissed his check. It was warm with a deep flush she couldn't see beneath the rich brown of his skin. He always carried too much heat, like he'd swallowed the sun. It was one of the things she liked most about him. She'd never grow cold when she was with him.

He took her hand and squeezed it.

She thought maybe she should just turn around, pull him forward, and walk straight out the door. Maybe she didn't need to know. Maybe everything would be fine and her worries would drift away like rain clouds after a summer storm.

But maybe not.

Grace took a deep breath and released his hand.

* * *

Marcus scoured the waiting room for water. The answer he'd just given Grace about everything being okay lay thick and heavy on his tongue like cane syrup. He always told her those sorts of things, even if he didn't believe them. That was what you were supposed to do. His pops always made sure his mama was good, even if he had to wrap a little lie inside something sweet.

"You got dragged here too?" the man beside him asked.

Marcus flashed a false smile and mumbled something that wasn't yes and wasn't no either.

When Grace had asked him to do this, he'd said what he always said to her: Sure. It was more reflex than real, mostly muscle memory. He didn't know how to say no to her. He didn't know if he had ever wanted to. When she cried, her hazel eyes appeared green, and her brown skin flushed pink, and he couldn't handle it. He'd seen the same thing happen with his mama. Those tears haunted him. He'd say just about anything to make Grace smile, to keep her smiling.

"My girlfriend thinks I'm cheating," the man said. "Yours too?"

"Nah," Marcus replied.

He'd never do that to Grace.

He'd never behave like his pops.

He'd leave her first.

Even if he had to see those tears.

Marcus's eyes darted around the room as more and more people disappeared behind the door Grace had gone through. He wondered what was happening to her.

"I didn't even love that chick," the man adds. "That shouldn't show up on my heart, right?"

"I don't know." Marcus knew what his heart would show: that he loved his mama and his sisters and his brother and his pops and Grace.

Always Grace.

But he didn't know if that would be the case forever, and he wasn't sure if the test would show that. If his curiosity about being with someone else might affect his love for Grace.

Marcus didn't consider himself a person with secrets. Grace probably knew all there was to know about him, and there wasn't much. His favorite things: the smell of a fresh pair of sneakers straight out of the box; the hum his grandfather's old albums made when he first put them on the record player; the way his dog waited for him every day like he was the best person in the whole world. She knew about the weird stuff going on between his parents 'cause his pop kept making mistakes, and he'd told her all his nightmares about drowning in the new pool on his block. She knew he sometimes worried that the moon would get too close or that his little sister and brother might not return from school or that his parents' fights would get so big they'd turn into a hurricane and destroy everything. Or that maybe he couldn't be the perfect son, the one his mama counted on to put things back together.

He told Grace most things worth telling.

The man beside him loudly unleashed all the details of his affair while Marcus tried hard not to listen. The story of betrayal boomed like thunder, its rattle hitting him in the chest, excavating his greatest fears.

"Marcus Tucker?" an attendant called out.

Marcus leaped up, happy to be able to escape the man.

"Good luck," the man said.

"Yeah, okay. You too, I guess," Marcus replied. He didn't believe in luck and wasn't sure he needed it. He needed something else.

He ducked through the door and followed the attendant down a hall. Brass lanterns painted stripes across the floor. Marcus counted them as he walked. It was the only thing that kept him from panicking.

He felt like he was about to be outed in some way. That every half truth he'd ever told was about to be laid bare and given air, a monster growing from it. He had always told himself he wouldn't be like his pop. He might not be perfect, but he wouldn't outright lie, the big kinds of untruths that were just too-small Band-Aids over hemorrhaging wounds.

No, he'd never do that.

But when did a lie become a lie? Was wanting to love someone else wrong? Was wondering about it the same as not telling Grace the truth?

What exactly would his heart show?

Would it betray him?

And her?

His stomach fluttered as they stopped in front of a door marked number three. That was a lucky number, or so he'd always thought. Gram said important things came in threes. Birds of good fortune. Auspicious news. Storms. Nightmares.

"You'll be in here."

The door slid open.

Was Grace nearby? Marcus gazed at the other rooms and sucked in a deep breath, searching for her scent, the pineapple of her lotion seeping from her skin as if she'd swallowed the fruit whole.

He stepped inside.

A female nurse entered through another door.

"Have a seat," she ordered.

He sat without thinking.

Always without thinking.

"Is there a fan in here?" he asked.

She didn't turn around.

"It's the perfect temperature for the procedure. The heart enjoys a specific climate. We like to honor that."

"Have you had this done?"

"Absolutely. All of us who work here undergo the procedure."

His hands quivered as she handed him a robe to change into.

"You afraid?" she asked.

Yes, he wanted to say.

"No," he replied.

She glanced down at his chart. "If you love your partner, there's nothing to worry about."

That had never been a problem for Marcus. The problem was what came after.

* * *

"I'm a heartician, and I'm here to complete your procedure," the man said to Grace. "Are you ready for answers?"

Grace turned her head in his direction. "I think so. But ... like, how are the results presented?"

The corner of his mouth lifted. "First-timer?"

Grace smiled.

"A virgin," he added.

She crossed her arms over her chest, the cold of the room suddenly hitting her.

"You should wait and see. Plus, I don't want to ruin any part of the experience." He draped a blanket over her, tucking her in like the table was a bed.

"I want to know. I like to know things."

"Don't they say that good things come to those... oh, I've forgotten the saying. In any case, trust is what brought you here, so trust that you will enjoy the process. You're here to find answers, and the truth is always best."

The truth was always complicated, and Grace was the type of person who liked every question to have an answer. She didn't like the unknown. After her mom had died suddenly, she had never wanted anything creeping up on her again. Her dad said she was scared of her own shadow now. But she chose to believe the world would be better if everything had its place and every question had its answer, like pairs of matching socks. So she could prepare.

She was about to get her wish.

The answers.

What if she didn't like what she found?

This is a bad idea. Her best friend Coley's warning grew louder and louder in her head, a wave about to crash into her.

As the heartician worked in a corner, Grace gazed around. She had expected a doctor's office-a sink, a chair, unmarked cabinets, the scent of alcohol, a few brochures. But the room's wonders unfurled like a set of gift boxes: cabinets full of viscera, drawers spilling over with odd metal instruments, and a golden sarcophagus waiting to receive her heart.

"You'll love this process, and you'll come back," the heartician said.

"People do it more than once?"

"If you're lucky, you'll experience many loves in a lifetime."

Grace pursed her lips with doubt. She was supposed to be with Marcus.
Marcus & Grace. Grace & Marcus.
She had never given herself room to think about having another love. Not really. He was the one.

The heartician's silver instruments hit the tray with a thud. "Some people don't like entering new relationships without a good sense of what they're getting into. To save themselves from heartbreak or have a starting place for couple's therapy. I think it's smart always to be prepared."

Grace agreed about that.

"New relationship?"

"No."

His eyebrow lifted as he pressed a button on the wall. "Did he cheat, sweetie?"

The exam table rose beneath Grace. She flattened her hands against her sides. "No."

"Oh! Then why are you here?" The heartician gazed down at her.

"To see if we should stay together."

He paused. "We're not fortune-tellers."

"That's not what I mean." Her pulse raced. The man's questioning eyes scattered her thoughts, disturbing them like a kicked beehive. "I want to know if we love each other enough. Is it heavy enough to, like..."

"I can't tell you what's on the road ahead. But I can tell you how much you love each other right now. Your heart will reveal its imprints. The deeper one is, the more love you have for a person. The fresher one is, the newer the love for a person. Scabbed imprints tell us about past loves that have gone away. And the weight of each one will tell us the value of your love for one person in relation to your love for other people."

Grace filed that information away like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter. She'd analyze it, study every word, to make sense of it later.

The heartician patted her arm. "Ready?" He retrieved a glass thermometer. "Need to make sure you don't have a temperature."

Grace opened her mouth like a baby bird to receive the cold instrument.

His eyes remained fixed on the thin rod as the red line of mercury rose. He plucked it from her mouth and said, "No fever. We're ready."

Grace gulped.

She wasn't so sure anymore.

The heartician placed a mask over her face.

It was too late.

A sweet-flavored steam entered her mouth.

* * *

In adjacent rooms, two hearticians removed knives from their trays. The lights dimmed, leaving only golden circles over the deep brown chests of Grace and Marcus.

Two perfect halos.

The edges of the knives were swift. Blood beaded along the lines they left behind, bracelets of crimson pearls.

The hearticians lifted the hearts of Marcus and Grace from their chests at the exact same moment.

"Healthy. Full of love," one remarked.

The organs sat upright, beating and thudding and racing and humming.

Two doors slid open to a viewing room.

Both hearticians clutched the beating hearts and entered the shared space between Grace's and Marcus's rooms. Twin scales sat on a table. Beside them, two golden sarcophaguses waited eagerly to be filled.

The hearticians nodded at one another. Their assistants removed the lids of the sarcophaguses. The hearts were placed inside. A latch unhooked to reveal a window into each vessel.

Gently, they poured a liquid thick as cream over the hearts. It crept down the organs' fibers, coating each muscle and chamber. "Prepare to note the imprints. Make sure to spell the names correctly. Aim for accuracy."

"Notation ready," an assistant replied.

The hearticians kneeled before the sarcophaguses, peering into the tiny glass windows.

Letters revealed themselves in the hearts' flesh like cursive burns.

Names of beloveds.

Fresh.

Scabbed.

Deep.

Shallow.

"The familial imprints are present on both hearts. I see the names from their paperwork," one heartician replied. "Make a note. Female heart has one large scabbed imprint and a small fresh imprint. Seems like a new love is budding."

"Make a note. Male heart has one large imprint. Three quarters of it is scabbed. Seems like a fading love."

"Take a photograph," the first one ordered.

One assistant used a light box to capture the hearts' likenesses. He pressed it to the transparent side of one sarcophagus, then the other. The flashes made the thudding hearts illuminate like bloody stars.

"Time to weigh." The hearticians removed the hearts from their coffers and placed each on the left side of a scale.

"Now to see how much each imprint weighs to determine its importance and hierarchy."

The assistants set velvet boxes beside the scales and flipped open the lids. A medley of small weights, tiny golden eggs, sat tucked into pockets.

"Read each name. The liquid will react. I will watch the heart and add to the scale until it levels," one heartician said to the assistants. "You write down the official weights."

The thudding hearts were gilded cherries, their secrets ready for plucking.

* * *

Grace and Marcus woke up with a start. They gasped for breath. They touched their chests. They clamped their eyes closed and listened for the beating of their own hearts. Grace turned her head to the right to find Marcus staring back at her from an adjacent bed.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah. You?"

"Of course."

She reached out her hand. Marcus let his fingers graze hers. They twirled them. Twists of brown sugar and chocolate ganache.

"How was it?" she asked.

"Okay, I guess. I don't remember anything."

"How long have you been awake?" she asked with a yawn. "Are the results in?"

Marcus knew what she really wanted to ask: What do you think the results will say?

"Only a few minutes. I don't know," he replied. "Do you think we need to know?" His questions sizzled, almost like a lightning strike in the quiet room. "I love you."

"I love you too," she replied.

"Are you worried?" He squeezed her hand tighter.

"Are you?" Her eyes stretched wide, so wide they could've taken him in completely.

Neither of them answered.

"Do you think love lasts forever?" he asked.

Grace's eyes watered, the hazel of them starting to lighten. "When my mama died, she told me that it did. She said, 'Nothing real can be threatened. Not even by death. That is love's greatest secret.' Feels kind of silly. Ridiculous."

"It's not. Even when I want to hate my pops, I can't stop loving him. Even though I try." Marcus watched as fat tears left her eyes, a tiny rainstorm spreading across her cheeks.

One of his greatest fears.

A silence stretched between them.

"Do you think this will change anything?" he asked.

The door swung open.

"Yes and no," she replied.

The hearticians walked in holding sheets of paper. The vitalized ink skittered across the pages. "Results are in."

Marcus and Grace didn't turn their heads.

Instead, they faced each other.

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Every heart tells a story. That was what the Heart Scale Center advertisement whispered to Marcus and Grace as they stood outside the building. They clutched the newspaper between them, the paper flickering with promises pressed between black lines of vitalized ink.

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This queer comics anthology is filled with dozens of comics about LGBTQ+ experiences, ranging from personal stories to queer history to cutting satire about pronoun panic and brands desperate to co-opt pride. Stories include the dream of a queer separatist town, the life of a gay and Jewish Nazi-fighter, and a gender reveal party that tears apart reality. Brimming with resilience, inspiration, humor, and an incredible lineup of indie cartoonists, this anthology is absolutely worth a read. It is available on ComicsPlus, which can be accessed here. Contact Ms. Nolan for the login information.

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According to SNL star and writer Colin Jost, if there's one trait that makes someone well suited to comedy, it's being able to take a punch--metaphorically and, occasionally, physically. In his memoir, Jost describes his wildest experiences from growing up in a family of firefighters to being attacked by Czech teenagers with potato salad to opening for David Chapelle to hosting Weekend Update. Told with a healthy dose of self-deprecation, Jost's memoir is perfect for anyone interested in the inner workings of a comedy career. Available from NYPL, BPL, and QPL via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here. Don't have a library card? Get an NYPL card here and a BPL card here.

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At the end of every year, the New York Times goes through their stories and archives and puts together the year in pictures. This year, that project feels especially important. It's an understatement to say that 2020 was a memorable year. There is so much to look back on and it's important to reflect and think about how we will move forward. Featuring photographs from all over the world, this online exhibit is worth taking some time to explore. Check it out here, and access all New York Times content with your free BHSEC account. Contact Ms. Nolan if you need help setting up your account.

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Scroll left and right to explore the image

By Dean Baquet, executive editor

Certain years are so eventful they are regarded as pivotal in history, years when wars and slavery ended and deep generational fissures burst into the open - 1865, 1945 and 1968 among them. The year 2020 will certainly join this list. It will long be remembered and studied as a time when more than 1.5 million people globally died during a pandemic, racial unrest gripped the world, and democracy itself faced extraordinary tests.

The photographs in this collection capture those historic 12 months. Jeffrey Henson Scales, who edited The Year in Pictures with David Furst, said he had never felt such sweep and emotion from a single year's images - from the "joy and optimism" of a New Year's Eve kiss in Times Square, to angry crowds on the streets of Hong Kong and in American cities, to scenes of painful debates over race and policing, to the "seemingly countless graves and coffins across the globe."

The impeachment of an American president culminated in early 2020. But two pictures taken in late January in Wuhan, China, are hints of a larger cataclysm to come. In one aerial shot, construction workers are building a giant hospital virtually overnight to handle hundreds of patients stricken with the coronavirus. The other looks like a still from a sci-fi film: A man dressed in black, wearing a white mask, lies dead on a city street; two emergency workers have stepped away from him and gaze at the viewer - all but their eyes hidden by face coverings and ghostly white protective suits.

Then the virus swept the world, recorded in indelible images. The scenes of people comforting beloved family members through glass and cellphones are heartbreaking. Some of the most haunting images are of emptiness. Still cities. Vacant streets of London and the Place de la Concorde. A desolate Munich subway station. Among the most disturbing is a photo of a refrigerated trailer set up as a makeshift morgue in Greenwich Village.

Punctuating these scenes are photographs of a tumultuous American election that even without the ravages of the virus would end up looming large in history books. As the year progresses, fueled by police shootings of young Black men, powerfully symbolic pictures of protests begin appearing. In May, a lone demonstrator carries an upside-down American flag past a burning liquor store in Minneapolis, in protest of the killing of George Floyd.

In 2020, a year when all aspects of life seemed transformed, so was the process of making these photographs. Journalists are observers, not participants, but the most striking sense to emerge from interviews with the photographers who took these pictures - described by Mr. Henson Scales as the most diverse group in his more than a decade curating this annual compilation - was how much they too lived what they witnessed. No one could escape the virus and vitalness of 2020. It gave photographers fresh perspective. And they gave us unforgettable images from a historic year in our lives.

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Scroll left and right to explore the image By Dean Baquet, executive editor Certain years are so eventful they are regarded as pivotal in history, years when wars and slavery ended and deep generational fissures burst into the open - 1865, 1945 and 1968 among them. The year 2020 will certainly join this list.

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Moss Jeffries is many things: considerate student, devoted son, affectionate boyfriend, enthusiastic nerd. But sometimes Moss wishes he could be someone else: someone without panic attacks, someone whose father was still alive, and most of all, he wishes he didn't feel so stuck. Moss can't even escape at school, where students are subject to a lack of funds and constant intimidation by the safety officer stationed in their halls. When tensions hit a fever pitch and tragedy strikes again, Moss must face a difficult choice: give in to fear and hate or realize that anger can actually be a gift. Listen to this audiobook on MackinVia. New to using MackinVia? Instructions can be found here.

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Around the world, and throughout history, billions of people have believed in an entire race of creatures known as the djinn. Ancient, powerful, and hidden from the human eye, djinn lore spans continents and centuries, appearing throughout different Islamic cultures. This podcast offers a deep dive into the mythology of the djinn, tracing the origins of the creatures and offering fantastic tales for you to get lost in. This is a perfect podcast for anyone interested in folklore. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Listen to The Hidden Djinn on Spotify. Around the world, and throughout history, billions of people have believed in an entire race of creatures known as the djinn. Ancient, powerful, and hidden from the human eye, djinn lore spans continents and centuries.

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Who inspires the women making history right now? This podcast speaks to women making change now about the women who paved the way for them and their work. The women interviewed and spoken about are politicians, activists, authors, campaigners, journalists, comedians, women who've changed the law, and women who vow to fight for change until their last breath. Listen to it on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.

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Listen to History Becomes Her on Spotify. Who inspires the women making history right now? History Becomes Her is a weekly Mashable podcast about women who are shaping the world, presented by Rachel Thompson. Each episode, we speak to women making change now about the women of the past who paved the way for them.

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Run by behavioral scientist Vanessa Hill, BrainCraft is a channel dedicated to self-improvement and advice based in psychology and neuroscience, and to better understanding the way that people function in their day-to-day lives. Hill's videos are entertaining, well-researched, and offer interesting insights into human behavior. Check out her recent video on Personality Studies and how the term "Type A" actually comes from shoddy research funded by the tobacco industry. Check out the channel here.

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braincraft psychology brain neuroscience science "vanessa hill" "personal development" "self care" "self help" "self improvement" "science education" "psycho...

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Hi! I'm Vanessa Hill, a behavioural scientist and content™️ creator. On BrainCraft I cover self-improvement tips and advice based in psychology and neuroscience. My mission is to bridge the gap between scientific research and your daily well-being.

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Tis the season to bake! While we would normally all be trading baked goods at school right now, you can still get your cookie fix from the New York Times' Cooking channel on YouTube. They invited six chefs to share fantastic cookie recipes that you can try out at home over the break. Make hot chocolate marshmallow sandwich cookies, chocolate-peppermint shortbread, and even a homemade version of those soft sugar cookies they sell at the grocery store. Check out the playlist here.

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It's COOKIE WEEK on our YouTube channel! A new holiday cookie recipe video every day, for six days straight.

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If you always want to learn more about the music you love, this channel is perfect for you. Sound Field is a music education series that explores music theory, production, and the history and culture behind different songs and musical styles. Pop, classical, rap, jazz, electronica, folk, and indigenous music-- they cover it all and highlight the connections between genres. Recent videos include the complexity behind K-Pop, the connection between music and protest, and the history of trap music. Check out the channel here.

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"sound field" "pbs digital studios" pbs explainer "music theory" "pop culture" "music history" music "explainer videos" explain "live music" performance "mus...

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Sound Field is a music education series that explores the music theory, production, history and culture behind our favorite songs and musical styles. Pop, classical, rap, jazz, electronic music, folk, country and indigenous music - we'll cover it all and highlight the connections between genres.

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Viewfinders: 10 YA Novelists Spin Fiction from Vintage Photos

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Viewfinders: 10 YA Novelists Spin Fiction from Vintage Photos

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For this digital short story collection, The New York Times invited Asian-American YA authors to choose photos from their archives and write short fiction inspired by them. Some chose photos that reflected their ancestry, others chose photos that spoke to important aspects of their life or work. All of the writers found ways to give the photos new life. Writers include Marie Lu, Sabaa Tahir, and David Yoon. Check out the whole collection here.

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A Tokyo motorcycle ride. Circa 1966. Photograph by John Launois/Copyright the Estate of John Launois.

Past Tense

The New York Times invited Asian-American authors to choose photos from our archives and write short young-adult fiction inspired by them.

A Tokyo motorcycle ride. Circa 1966. Photograph by John Launois/Copyright the Estate of John Launois. Credit...

As we digitize The New York Times's photography archives, we often come across images that resonate in unusual and unexpected ways, even after a century. We wondered what novelists might make of some of them - so we asked. To be specific, we asked 10 acclaimed authors to write pieces of short fiction inspired by vintage photos from The Times. What follows are the results, along with the images in question and the authors' explanations of how the particular photos spoke to them.

We were especially interested in themes of identity, belonging and empowerment, which now dominate the national conversation, so we reached out to authors working in the young-adult genre, which has been grappling with those issues for years. We focused on Asian-American novelists as part of our continuing commitment to underrepresented voices, as well as to see what commonalities and differences rose to the surface.

Each author was sent about a half-dozen images and asked to select just one. Some of the photos reflected their ancestry. Others spoke to important aspects of their life or work. After each writer picked the image that captivated her or him most, we asked that they disregard whoever the real people in the photographs were and even the true-life locations if they preferred. We wanted their imagination to be the only engine here. As you will see, the writers took the photos and ran. We are grateful to them for giving these images new lives.
Editor's Note: The individuals appearing in these photographs are unrelated to the characters and events described in the stories.

Inside the pig's head, it was starting to stink. The half-dozen mints Jenny Watanabe had eaten at the beginning of her shift to pre-emptively perfume the interior had long since worn off. She was already sweating like crazy, and the new Big Bad Wolf had just begun chasing them. She knew it was only going to get worse. Tokyo Disneyland on a hot day was a long slog through mobs of squealing children clutching melting ice cream cones while executing repetitive choreography in bulky costumes.

She didn't know it would be like this when she started the job. She had thought it would be a welcome break from the demoralizing struggle of learning Japanese, because at Tokyo Disneyland, everything was in English. She was Yonsei, which meant she looked Japanese but didn't know how to say much beyond sumimasen. When she first arrived at the park, one week into her exchange program, seeing all those English signs felt like coming home.

The honeymoon didn't last long.

"The first rule is that you do not talk," the character trainer informed her on her first day. Jenny was secretly relieved. She had been cast as Practical Pig, the one who builds his house out of stone. He was distinguished from his impractical brothers Fifer and Fiddler by his angry eyebrows.

She had not anticipated how quickly "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" would lodge in her head as the most irritating ear worm in the history of ear worms, or how Practical's eyebrows could terrify little kids. A few days into the job, after a kid literally ran away from her while shrieking, Fifer (a Japanese guy who spoke perfect English, making her feel extra ashamed of her rudimentary knowledge of her ancestral tongue) said, "Why do you think Practical is constantly being recast? You're the third Practical in two months. No one can cut it!"

And then there was the mind trip of spending so much time in Practical's head. It was kind of like being transported into an alternate dimension. All sound was muffled by the extensively padded pig cheeks, and her vision was restricted to only what she could see through Practical's tiny, immovable eye holes. Usually it was Fifer's outflung white-gloved hand as he did his Irish-dance-inspired jig.

If she concentrated enough on Fifer's hand and on her own choreography (it really was challenging to dance around in a rotund pig's belly), she could almost convince herself that she wasn't real at all. She was simply a cog in the machine that was Tokyo Disneyland. Inside the pig, she was anonymous; she was no one. Staying silent had never seemed so natural. She experienced her pigness as a void - a black hole that had been stripped of its sucking power and was now simply nothing.

*

That morning, when she arrived in the backstage changing area, a blond girl was sitting on the bench putting on the Big Bad Wolf's feet. "Hey, I'm Veronica," the blonde said. "I'm the new Wolf."

Veronica! Jenny had seen Veronica before. She'd been wearing a Swiss Miss-type outfit over by Cinderella's Castle. The good thing about being inside a pig's head was that people didn't know when she was checking them out. Outside the head, she was tongue-tied.

Veronica gave her an eyebrow tilt. "You O.K.?"

"Um, yeah." Jenny pulled out her mints and popped several into her mouth, then thought she should probably offer some to Veronica. She held out the tin. "The head gets stuffy," she explained.

Veronica nodded gravely and took a couple. "Thanks. You're American too, right?"

"Um, yeah." She started to get dressed in her costume.

"Did you ever think that being forced to stay quiet all the time is like an infringement on our First Amendment rights? Like, we already have to be nice all day and let little kids hit us. This is practically abuse. We should start a union."

Jenny didn't know what to say. She began to turn red from embarrassment at her own dorkiness, so she put on Practical's head.

Veronica gasped. "Check out your eyebrows! You look pissed!"

*

It was clear that Veronica was a different kind of Wolf. She was way more into it than the old Wolf, and there was a campy, exaggerated quality to the way she chased them. Jenny found it distracting. She couldn't access her void space the way she normally could, because she kept wanting to watch Veronica.

As the climax of their performance approached, Veronica accidentally-on-purpose tripped and fell, dramatically pounding her gloved hands on the ground in a silent tantrum. Jenny and the other Pigs arranged themselves in a rough triangle, doing their step-touch, step-touch thing. At the end of the song they were supposed to skip in a circle, jump-turn twice and wave jazz hands at the gathered audience. But then Jenny saw Veronica give up on her silent tantrum and - in complete defiance of the official choreography - prop her head up on one hand to watch the Pigs finish.

Jenny felt as if she could hear Veronica challenging her: Union! First Amendment! Pissed!

Fifer was beginning his jazz hands, but instead of joining him, Jenny had the irresistible urge to raise her fist in the air. The white glove squished as she clenched her fingers. The audience gaped at her silently. She was exhilarated; she could practically feel the sun on her face.
Why this photo: This photograph from Tokyo Disneyland stood out to me immediately because it was quirky and startling. It invites the viewer to ask questions: Why does that pig look angry? Who is inside the pig's costume? How do they feel? I had to know the answers. - M.L.
Malinda Lois the author of "Ash," which is now available in a special 10th-anniversary edition; "A Line in the Dark"; and other novels. She grew up in Colorado.
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Nani can't work the remote control.

"Sham tells me, 'It's easy, it's easy,' instead of paying the TV man to show us properly," she puffs, jamming her long red nails into buttons, producing nothing but static on the new 55-inch.

"Let me try it," I murmur, lost in Nani's iPhone.

"You don't know anything. Every time you come, you break my phone."

I'm too deep in Instagram to defend myself. Sundays at Nani's are a sacred ritual. The day she used to take me out. But I'm in seventh grade now. I don't need her to take me out. What I need is her phone.

"I tell your mother to get you your own phone but she says your grades will go down. I'd rather a grandson who can do useful things than get A's and sit here like a lump. Sham! Sham! "

I glance up at her, jostling the remote, the sequins on her jumpsuit a radiant flurry. She bought the jumpsuit at the Dadeland mall a few months ago, the last Sunday I let her take me out. She'd attempted to make me over with Ralph Lauren Polo vests, an Aveda facial and a D&G speedo, before I escaped to the arcade. ("I just want you to be happy with how you look. So you can make friends," she lamented later. "I have friends," I shot back. She glared through me and started walking, weighed down by bags. "If Grandpa asks, tell him all these clothes are for you.")

"Oh, look," she crows now.

Nani's managed to get something on the TV.

Ariana Grande is lip-syncing, half-naked and covered in paint.

"That's YouTube. We need Netflix," I say, unhelpfully, scrolling through Archer Bresden's photos, careful not to like any of them by accident. He just turned 13, literally six months younger than me, and has muscles bigger than my head. He dressed like Thor for Halloween. I hate him.

" Sham! " Nani calls again.

Grandpa ducks his shiny, round head in. He gets so little sun these days he looks like a goblin poking out of his gold mine. "What is this nonsense?" he hectors, pointing a knobby finger at Ariana. "Prakash says it's the Hulu station. Proper Hindi movies in HD. But he says do the free trial otherwise you have to pay."

"I don't want Hulu. I don't want a Hindi movie. I want Netflix. That's why I came," I growl, trying to figure out if Archer's eyes are actually that color or whether there's a filter. "I don't even know Hindi."

"We'll put subtitles," Grandpa dismisses. "Boy your age should know the classics. 'Dilwale' ... 'Lagaan' ... 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' ..."

"We're watching something else," says Nani calmly, unable to stop YouTube from rolling into a montage of boys tormenting cats. "Santosh wants to show me this movie. 'The Boys I Love.'"

Grandpa gapes at me.

"'To All the Boys I've Loved Before,'" I snap, but he still looks perturbed. "It's for school," I add.

Nani darts me a look.

"What kind of school is this?" Grandpa harrumphs. "We watch 'Sholay.' Then you bring in Nani's pakoras and do a proper report and teach your classmates about Amitabh Bachchan. Your teacher will give extra credit."

"That's not how it works," I say, frustrated. "This is America."

"Hulu!" Grandpa barks at Nani, pointing at YouTube gone wild: teddy bears being stuffed into blenders. "Go to Hulu!"

"Hulu Vulu! If you're so smart, you do it!" Nani retorts, holding out the remote. But Grandpa's already halfway down the hall, his limp stuttering on the marble. ("Prakash says it's easy!")

A DM pops up on Insta. From Jeannie, my lab partner: Why u hearting Archer Bresden's pics

I drop the phone. It hits the floor hard.

"No wonder your mother won't get you a phone," Nani says, dumping the remote on the couch. "Let's go to Cocowalk. See a movie properly. Like we used to do before you became a homebody."

"My friends hang out there." I scoop up the phone, too afraid to assess the damage.

"Must be good friends if you want to avoid them."

"Plus you can't concentrate on the movie," I say hotly, snatching the remote and searching for Netflix myself. "There's people and they eat popcorn and make noise and kiss in front of you. What's the point."

"That is the point, Santosh," Nani says, sharply. "That's the whole point."

I look up. Her new jumpsuit shimmers blue and green. She's wearing makeup. Her hair is blown and styled. She's wearing diamonds. It's Sunday, after all. But we don't go out anymore. I won't let her take me. And yet, she's still ready, like a bird that might be let out of its cage.

Why this photo: Longing. That was the emotion when I saw this photo for the first time: a reminder of what the movies meant to me as an anxious, alienated teenager, the only Indian in my neighborhood and school. I needed the experience of a crowded theater, of an audience, to feel connected. To feel human. What happens when that is lost? - S.C.
Soman Chainani is the author of the New York Times best-selling series "The School for Good and Evil," soon to be a major motion picture. He grew up in Key Biscayne, Fla.
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Sì, the word for four, sounded very similar to sǐ, the word for death. It was a deeply unlucky number.

So when she was born, her father, who had prayed every day to Guanyin for a son after three daughters, took one look at her and walked out of the birthing room. She was not only the fourth, but a girl at that.

She spent her entire life hiding in corners, staying out of everyone's way, trying to make up for the ill fortune she had brought down upon her father, by finding little ways to organize their lives around luckier numbers.

She whispered to the rice plants to sprout in unison on the eighth - eight, bā, which sounded similar to fā, the word for wealth and prosperity - day of spring. Her father beamed at the bright green shoots blanketing the flooded fields and credited his luck to the auspicious timing.

When the hail came and rattled the tin roof of their house, she whispered for the storm to turn away in three - sān, which was similar to shēng, the word for birth - hours, to divert calamities away from her family. Her father looked up in astonishment at the clearing skies and proclaimed that their stroke of luck had protected their crops.

And when the rains dried up and the rice fields cracked, she whispered to the skies to send water within nine days - nine, jiǔ, which sounded like jiǔ, the word for eternity and longevity. The skies opened and her father declared the family protected by the heavens.

She, of course, never told anyone that she was responsible for these events in their lives. Being the fourth and a girl was misfortune enough. Adding the label of witch, zhu, would surely ostracize their family from the rest of the village. She had seen other girls accused of witchcraft, witnessed them excluded and left unmarried. One girl had been driven out of the village altogether.

At night, she studied in secret by lantern light for the exams that could qualify her for a coveted government scholarship, one that sent students to study at American universities. It would give her a reason to leave home at last, to remove herself from this place altogether and thus from the misfortune that came with her.

But after she took the exams, the invitation that arrived in the mail came not from the government's scholar fund - but from a society in Chicago that specialized in training students gifted with the kind of magic she possessed.

How did they know? She spent that day studying her hands in wonder. The test had been as normal as she could have imagined. She did not realize that her fingers had left trails of magic on the paper, like an imprint of dust that glittered long after she had finished.

So the next morning, she woke up at six - liù, which sounded similar to liú, the word indicating clarity and smoothness - and quietly left home, turning her shoes away from the smattering of homes in her family's rural village to Shanghai, the city of the future, from which she would embark to America.

The entire trip on the boat, she practiced her talents, making broken light bulbs glow in the boat's dining area and scattering blankets of clouds to form patterns against the blue sky. It was a surprisingly smooth journey. Other students in her bunker - twins and a round-faced young woman and a flighty girl with braided knots in her hair - chatted curiously with her, teasing her country accent and asking where she came from. They were the children of wealthier families in the cities. She marveled at their fur coats and cloche hats, the soft leather of their purses. Her own coat was old, the buttons twisted in the traditional Chinese sense, something that seemed old-fashioned beside these rich young women's Western fashions.

When they finally dragged their trunks off the train in Chicago, a photographer was waiting to take their photos. For the paper, he said. So they clustered together, wearing their best coats, their faces both eager and intimidated. She would never see the developed photo, but if she had, she would have noticed that her magic hung about her in a halo that the camera picked up, obscuring her face behind a haze.

It took her a moment longer to notice the lady waiting for her by the train platform. She was small, her back slightly rounded in a hunch, and when she stretched a hand out in greeting, her fingers were long and graceful.

"Welcome to Chicago," the lady told her in Mandarin, "and to your training in the art of magic. I see you have been blessed with great fortune."

She blinked. It was the first time anyone had ever looked pleased to see her, and she was so surprised that she replied, "I am the fourth sister in my family, so I am the bringer of misfortune."

The woman shook her head. "That is impossible, you see, for I can tell that you have been gifted with the magic of luck. That is how your application somehow ended up at our office, and how I noticed the shimmer of magic on the paper. I will teach you how to wield it."

The rice harvest and the diverted storm. The early rains and the smooth voyage. Good fortune. It was the first time anyone had given that identity to her, but she'd had it all along.

She smiled. Then she fell into step beside the woman and never looked back.
Why this photo: I was drawn to these young women's beautiful fashion sense, and struck by the fact that they were female Chinese students arriving in Chicago. Considering that Chinese women were banned from the United States in 1875 with the Page Act, the first U.S. federal law restricting immigration and one that laid the groundwork for the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, I was moved to see these young women arriving in the same country that wanted them out. - M.L.
Marie Lu is the New York Times best-selling author of the "Young Elites," "Legend," and "Warcross" series. She worked as a video-game artist before turning to writing full-time. She lives in Los Angeles.
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Oct. 10, 1958
KARACHI, Pakistan - A sea Jinn appeared Thursday at Bohri Bazaar market in Karachi, terrifying patrons of a small drugstore and causing widespread panic just days after President Iskander Mirza declared martial law in Pakistan.

The creature's diminutive stature initially fooled patrons of Aftab Drugstore into thinking it was a mere Ghul, the smaller, less violent cousin of the Jinn.

"Then it grabbed me," said Farkhanda Aftab, 7, the daughter of the store's owner, Yousef Aftab. "And it screamed. It felt like knives in my ears. I thought I would die."

At the sight of the Jinn, patrons fled into the streets of the bazaar, overturning bicycle rickshaws and ox carts, and nearly causing a stampede.

Fortunately for Farkhanda, local fisherman Sahib Muhammad, who regularly visits the drugstore, also finds himself tangling with Jinn on stormy days in Karachi's harbor.

"A prayer and a warning is usually all that is required to dispatch them," Mr. Muhammad said. "However this one was stubborn."

After the Jinn latched onto the girl, neither prayer nor words worked, and Mr. Muhammad was forced to pry Miss Aftab from the Jinn. Her screams alerted nearby army troops, but by the time they arrived, the sea Jinn had vanished.

In a city already on edge, the presence of a Jinn in an area heavily populated by humans seemed to many to be a sign that more instability was on the horizon.

"Mirza's days are numbered," a local chaiwallah, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said of Pakistan's embattled president. "You cannot dissolve political parties without consequence. He'll be gone by the end of the month and the Jinn know it."

Fozia Mohsin, a local resident, agreed. "The Jinn are not fools," Mr. Mohsin said. "They like havoc. There will be more sightings. Maybe even attacks on humans. They want to take over."

But Inayat Aag of Tribe Sumandar, who spoke on behalf of the Council for the Unified Defense of Jinn Liberties, or "Cudjl," disagreed.

"We have no interest in inserting ourselves into the affairs of humans, particularly with political unrest so high," Mr. Aag said from the mangrove swamps of Korangi Creek, where the Jinn have been isolated since the partition of India and Pakistan. "If a Jinn made an incursion into human territory and laid hands on a human child, he will be found and dealt with according to Jinn law. President Mirza may have abrogated the human constitution, but the 1947 Jinn Independence Act still holds. We are Jinn. We are apart."

An army spokesman, Capt. Cyrus Tata, urged calm. "The presence of Jinn in an otherwise safe neighborhood is proof that martial law is not only necessary, but essential. The law will protect both Jinn and humans, until the political situation can be resolved."

Captain Tata declined to comment further on which political "situation" he was referring to, but recently obtained diplomatic cables indicate that Gen. Ayub Khan, who was appointed the chief martial law administrator by Mr. Mirza less than a week ago, may soon be making a move to cement his own power.

"Preposterous," Captain Tata said. "General Mirza is committed to the peace and prosperity of this country, Jinn and human alike."

Back in Bohri Bazaar, Mr. Aftab assured neighborhood residents that his drugstore was safe.

"We've hired a guard who will work until curfew," he said, "and are offering one free Gleem toothpaste to anyone who makes a purchase over 5 rupees."

"The Jinn is gone, anyway," his young daughter added. "But maybe he wasn't trying to scare me. Maybe he was lonely. Maybe he just wanted to talk."
Why this photo: This photograph spoke to me first because of the little girl and man looking at the camera, who seemed familiar to me in a visceral way, as if they are family members I've never met. And second because as a child visiting Pakistan (Lahore, to be specific), I always made up stories in my head about the incredible places I visited, from drugstores and rail stations to big markets like Liberty or Anarkali. You won't see such places on Western "bucket lists," but they should be, because they are wonderful - and filled with fascinating stories. - S.T.
Sabaa Tahir is the author of the New York Times best-selling "An Ember in the Ashes" series, which has been translated into more than 35 languages. She grew up in California's Mojave Desert at her family's 18-room motel.

Rabbit watched the men tilt the heavy console into place and plug it in. The screen blinked pixel mosaics as it woke from its long sleep.

Egg and Fox came crashing in to the arcade. They flung down their backpacks as if they lived there.

"No way," shouted Egg, who was the youngest one.

"My God," said Fox, lowering his Walkman headphones. Fox was the slim one.

Rabbit was the tall one, and had what Fox called tired old man eyes.

The boys stepped toward the console like young knights.
Street Fighter.
"I'm ready," said Fox, who held a handful of coins. Fox always had coins. His dad did plenty of business in Japan and brought back treasures, like Fox's Sony Boodo Khan Special Edition Walkman. Boodo Khan was a stadium in Tokyo that was a hundred times bigger than Ulsan, Fox once claimed.

Egg had plenty of coins, too.

Rabbit never had coins. But Egg and Fox never noticed or cared, which Rabbit was thankful for.

Rabbit avoided going to either Egg's or Fox's homes, because of the questions lurking there. Where does your dad work? What does your mom cook for dinner?

He preferred the arcade. There, neither Egg nor Fox could see what went on in Rabbit's head, which Rabbit was also thankful for. Because Rabbit spent most of his time wishing.

Rabbit had wished for so long for things to be different that he didn't know what it was like not to wish.

But different how?

Fox slotted in a coin and hit the 1 PLAYER button.

COUNTRY SELECT

Rabbit frowned. "Why's it only Japan or USA?"

"Cause Japan's got all the cool stuff," said Fox.

"Also USA," said Egg.

"Maybe there's a Korea later," said Rabbit.

Round 1, yelled the game, and Ryu appeared: a muscled man in a white dobok with the sleeves ripped off. The boys guessed at the controls, which were all in Japanese, and found that Ryu could back flip, leg sweep, uppercut, roundhouse and who knew what else. He faced a bald monk named Retsu.

"I don't know what I'm doing," yelled Fox, and proved it by losing two rounds in quick succession. A ticking time bomb appeared: CONTINUE? Above the bomb was a countdown. If they didn't deposit coins in time, they would have to start the game over from the beginning.

"All foreigner welcome," cried Old Mama in English. She pressed play. The music was in English, too.

This house was Old Mama's house.

A door opened, and Mom - Rabbit's real mom - appeared in a glittery tube dress she called New Wave.

Mom touched Rabbit's chin. "Do your homework, O.K.? Old Mama will bring your dinner."

"O.K."

Mom headed to the front. Rabbit heard her call out the awful words: "Let's play."

Rabbit slid his door shut. Footsteps fell heavy on the floor above him. Mom was a fortune teller. A fortune teller, a fortune teller, telling fortunes for fun.

Rabbit drew in his notebook: Ryu kicking 50 men off a cliff, clapping men's heads flat with his hands.

Old Mama appeared with soup and rice and kimchi and fish. She cast an eye about. "You're gonna need a bigger room pretty soon, kid."

She left. Alone, Rabbit ate. He did his homework. He pawed through a crushed magazine and read - again - how Mike Tyson's Punch-Out was coming soon for Famicom. It looked primitive compared to Street Fighter, he told himself. Nowhere near as cool.

"Promise," said Old Mama.

From the front, a small male voice: "Hello?"

Old Mama rose, shuffled toward the front, and flipped the cassette. Mom rose too. She knelt. She touched Rabbit's chin with the back of her hand.

"Everything's going to change," she whispered, with her smile done in red. "Everything's going to get better." And she slid the door shut.

In the dark, Rabbit could see Ryu take a hit. He could see him fall to the ground. He looked almost like he was asleep on his side. But he wasn't. Because here came the ticking time bomb now, counting down, asking the question: CONTINUE?
Why this photo: I was not that much older than these boys when this photo was taken. It intrigues me to think that this could've been me if my parents hadn't immigrated to the United States. Our fate depends so much on forces we can't see and on choices made before we can even speak. - D.Y.
David Yoon is a writer and designer who created the illustrations for the New York Times best-selling novel "Everything, Everything." His first novel is "Frankly in Love." He grew up in Orange County, Calif.
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Xavier stood apart from the crowd, leaning against the concrete pillar, black knit cap pulled low over his ears and hands buried deep in the pockets of a threadbare coat, which still smelled of the St. Anthony's donation bin. His sister's ghost was with him, as always, silent as a shadow.

It was an overcast and cold New York City morning, but their kababayan didn't mind. They were all grins and chants and protest posters, hands raised in Ls for "Laban": Fight. It was a decent-size group but only a diasporic echo of the joy and excitement on the other side of the world that packed every lane of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue for miles back in Manila.

Xavier glanced at PJ. If she were still alive, she wouldn't be standing in the back with him. She wouldn't even be content to lose herself in the crowd. No, his sister would be hopping on the hoods of cars, dancing with strangers, shouting through a megaphone for everyone to tear down the barbed-wire barriers, raid Imelda's closet and sell all the shoes to feed the poor.

It's not that Xavier wasn't glad. It's not that he wasn't relieved. It's just that he wasn't very hopeful. As a student of history, he always felt the heaviness of time weighing on his shoulders. He knew that revolutions were fragile things, quick to flight but hollow-boned underfoot. Yes, excitement filled today, but what about those they lost? And what about tomorrow?

PJ always called him a coward when he refused to go to the protests with her, and maybe she'd been right. Even now he couldn't shake the low-level fear that had followed him across an ocean.

A white man walking past stopped in front of Xavier, pulling Xavier back to the present. The man wore an expensive suit and a heavy overcoat, like the people whose trash cans Xavier emptied. In one leather-gloved hand, the man carried a briefcase, in the other, a folded newspaper. "What's going on here?" he asked, gazing at the crowd. When Xavier didn't immediately answer, the man turned to face him. "You speak English?"

"It's Marcos," Xavier said, ignoring the second question. "He's done."

"Who?"

But what could he possibly say to someone who could even ask that question? The answer was decades long, thousands of bodies deep.

With his lips, Xavier pointed at the man's paper, which bore the story - albeit an abbreviated version - on the front page. "That just for looks?"

"They'll forget. Or they won't care. That might be worse."

PJ sighed. "So you're still a coward, then? You were afraid to join me in the streets, now you're afraid to put pen to paper?"

Xavier took off his cap and ran a hand through his hair. "You were always the brave one, Ate. Not me. That's why I'm in this foreign country, so far from home, and you're..."

"Dead."

"Right."

The clouds shifted. The crowd started up a new chant. A few passing cars honked in either solidarity or annoyance.

"At least you're out here," PJ said after some time.

"Where did you expect me to be at a moment like this?"

Instead of answering, PJ gestured toward the crowd. "But are you ever going to join them?"

"I missed the boat, Ate. The revolution's over already."

She shook her head. "It's never over, brother. You should know that. Or is this just another excuse?"

Xavier considered this for a long time. Then he sighed, pulled his cap back on and pushed off the wall. He crossed the sidewalk and stood at the edge of the group. A short, old woman who looked like his lola welcomed him with a smile and wrapped an arm around his waist. Xavier returned the smile and then raised his hand in the Laban signal for the first time in his life. He felt like an impostor, but maybe that's how everyone felt at first.

"Happy now?" he said to PJ.

But his sister was already gone. The only shadow that remained was his own.
Why this photo: I'm always thinking about those who aren't centered in an image or a story or a society, so this photo immediately captured my attention as I considered those who weren't in the picture and why. Given the Philippines' current administration, I was also interested in writing a story that could explore the connection between the People Power Revolution that ousted Marcos and our current moment in history. -R.R.
Randy Ribay is the author of "Patron Saints of Nothing," "After the Shot Drops" and "An Infinite Number of Parallel Universes." He was born in the Philippines and now lives in California.
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Babr woke at dawn to the muezzin's call and the swoosh swoosh of street sweepers. He was tired. But even with the pain in his right arm from sleeping shoulder to cement, and despite the weight of memory, he felt the grace of small joys.

He rose from under the shadow of the Rajabai Clock Tower, which sits atop the storied spiral-stair vestibule of the University of Mumbai. On hot nights, the air in the tiny windowless room he shared with the other darban was stifling - the smell of their cleaning supplies and sweat-stained clothes overwhelming. So on clear evenings, he would climb the winding stairs to offer Isha prayers before drifting to sleep under the open skies, seeing the face of his beloved in the fading stars.

Stretching, he felt the creak of old age in his knees. He wrapped his worn green shawl, which also served as a sleeping mat, around his shoulders and adjusted the topi on his head. Patting his chest to check for the hidden pocket sewn into his shirt, Babr smiled. He was not the ingenious tailor his wife had been, but he believed she would have been proud of his efforts, even if the money in his pocket had been obtained through deception. For what did this place, established by the British and built in the image of their great universities, stand for but dishonesty? Perhaps he was not a finely educated man, but he understood well enough that the foundation of the Raj had been a clever deceit - the idea that the Angrez knew what was better for India than Indians did.

He yawned and rubbed his face vigorously to wake up. He touched his hidden pocket once more and felt last evening's bounty. The nightly carnival at the Gateway of India had proven especially lucrative during yesterday's pre-election festivities.

*

In the days before the election, Babr had observed the tourists and their habits. Then he concocted a dry bhang masala - a more organic alternative to the bhang lassi, he assured his buyers, than what is available at any of the Government Authorized Bhang Shops. Unlike the dozens of other drug-wallahs asking, "Smoke? Smoke?" to every staggering traveler, Babr had a marketing plan. You didn't smoke his bhang or sip it in a sweet yogurt drink, but rather could discreetly mix it into your soda without risk of detection by the police.

Of course, there was no such thing as dry bhang masala.

But Angrez tourists did not know this. Bhang was a pistachio green paste of crushed marijuana leaves blended with milk, almonds and spices, but Babr's bhang was a heady concoction of crushed curry leaves and cumin, with few actual buds of cannabis. Babr carefully divided his bhang into little cheesecloth potlis that he sold for the galling price of 50 rupees. The Angrez all too willing to pay for a taste of the authentic India.

Babr had celebrated his fortune by treating himself to a full thali - rice, aloo palak, daal, chappati, pappadum, raita, chana. But he ate with a lump in his throat remembering his wife, who had always taken special delight in Election Day, preparing a feast fit for the end of Ramadan and stringing a jasmine garland through her braid.

When the last of the carnival's fireworks had fizzled out, Babr hitched a ride back to the university.

*

This year as ever, elections brought threats of anti-Muslim violence enflamed by the fearmongering rhetoric of the ruling party. But Babr's wife had taught him hope, holding precious her pride in being Indian, reminding him that the Des had been ripped apart for him to have this opportunity. The blood of his own family and so many families filling cracked earth. He remembered his mother weeping for the sister who had gone to Pakistan and whom she would never see again. This had confused him as a young boy, but five years ago, when his wife died, he understood how the human body could be cleaved in two, never to be whole again.

As Babr approached his polling place on foot, he heard a brass band and the joyous beats of the dhol, a barrel-shaped, double-sided drum. To Babr, it was the sound of India. He took his place in line, all smiles, shaking his head as party supporters descended on the voters, cajoling, making promises, cutting deals.

When at last it was Babr's turn, a sweaty man with a district badge ushered him to a table where Babr presented his government identification and where they marked his left finger with special ink. Babr watched the purple streak widen across his nail, into the crevices of his skin.

"It will wash off in two weeks," the election official assured him.

The next officer sat outside the voting booth and pressed a button that released a new ballot. He asked, "Do you know how to vote?" Babr nodded. He had also voted in the last election with an electronic voting machine. He knew what to do.

Babr walked outside of the school, blinking against the bright sunlight. He looked down at the crowd of waiting voters and raised his left index finger above his head. A couple lingering dhol players slapped out beats, and his fellow Bombayites let out a cheer, a few dancing in place.

Babr had the sudden youthful urge to run down the street into the afternoon sun. He ran at full speed. He stopped at the next street, bending over, panting, hands on his knees. Wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, Babr crossed the road to the sweet shop where he selected a burfi and a ladoo, his wife's favorites.

Babr marched back toward the university and his life of cleaning up after rich students, pain in his knees, and days that held no promises. He walked to his spiral tower and prayers whispered to the heavens. He walked with his beloved's heart in his heart. He walked on the streets of a free India, ancient and ever new.
Why this photo: I was immediately drawn to the tower photo because it feels like a fairy tale but it's also part of my actual origin story. My parents met each other under the shadow of this tower when they were studying architecture at the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai). Years later and a few miles away, I was born at Bombay Hospital. - S.A.
Samira Ahmed is the New York Times best-selling author of "Love, Hate & Other Filters" and "Internment." She was born in Bombay, India, and grew up in a small town in Illinois.
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Did you know the horizon is a seam that opens every 12 years, when the zodiac resets and the pig is eaten by the rat? At dusk the crack becomes a mouth and the mouth gapes wide and winged creatures of every shape ascend into our sky, then descend upon our streets.

This is what I've been told by Yima, the aunt who raised me because my parents could not. I don't even remember what my parents looked like, but Yima - who sings to me as she braids my hair into loops, and cooks me sweet broth with red sugar and ginger when my monthly pains set in - she's all that I need.

I was 3 the last time the seam opened. I don't really remember that either, except that Yima likes to recount the story of how I tried to bargain with a honeybee. She tells it so often the words have sculpted themselves into a memory of my own.

It's the Lunar New Year and so last night they came, undeterred by the firecrackers that sounded like war. In the morning light I see them outside in the form of sparrows and herons, locusts and cicadas. I point to the window and Yima smiles faintly.

"Such beautiful spring blossoms," she says, because she is old and her mind has changed, like a piece of glass scratched until it's opaque. There are no flowers to be seen. Only wisps of incense drifting over from the neighbors', and shreds of red paper from last night's fireworks littering the ground. Only those winged creatures perched on the clotheslines, on the seat and handlebars of a parked moped.

I open the door and scatter peanuts over the cobblestones in case they're hungry. They show no interest, only blink at me, eerily silent.

I'd thought perhaps they were here to tell me something. Now the idea seems foolish.

Embarrassed, I turn to go back in and nearly crash into Yima, who has forgotten her cane and instead grips the wall.

"What are you doing?" she hisses. "Don't encourage them."

Her tone and lucidness surprise me, as does the terrible expression tightening her face. I let her pull me inside, let the door slam shut. What does she mean, encourage them?

All day, Yima goes back and forth: One moment she runs her knuckles along my cheek, saying, "You were such a small thing when you came to me. A little jewel." And in a blink she's rapping on the window, huffing and glaring at the winged things outside.

In those times when the clouds in her head part, she seems angry and scared. I wish I knew of an herbal broth I could brew to soothe her mind. Instead, I rub ointment into her palms, into the soles of her feet. I sing the songs she taught me, tell silly stories to make her laugh. Yima's smile shines warmer than sunlight.

By dinnertime, as she cleans the water spinach and I chop garlic, it occurs to me she's never explained why those creatures come. What do they want?

When I voice the question she drops the water spinach and turns to me with fearful eyes. "You are so precious to me. You know I would do anything for you?"

"Yes, of course." She's so upset I don't ask anything else. But what is it that I don't know? How do I help?

Early in the predawn morning, when she's still sleeping, I peek around the door to see if the peanuts are still there. I could try offering vegetable scraps, or at least water. Perhaps if I show that I mean no harm, they'll tell me why they're here. If I can get them what they want, they'll go away, and Yima will be untroubled again.

The creatures begin to shriek the moment I step outside. I clap my palms over my ears, and then Yima's hand is on my shoulder. She's out of breath from hurrying, and she stumbles past me, falls onto the cobblestones with a weak mewing sound. Before I can do anything, the beasts are upon her. Crows tear at her hair and sparrows peck at her eyes. Bees hum over every patch of skin and cicadas crawl between her fingers. They screech even as they feast upon her. The sound is an unbearable storm that brings me to my knees.

Light seeps into the sky. Dawn. The neighbors come out to see the source of the cacophony, then disappear and return with bamboo sticks, with brooms and blankets. They swat with their sticks and drum upon their bowls. The creatures scatter, rising up with the first rays of the sun. Everyone cheers. They've forgotten about me, still crouched on the cobblestones with tears dripping from my chin.

After the neighbors have all gone, a man and woman help me to my feet. They look middle-aged and tired. I invite them in for tea, and they tend to my skinned knees, and then they show me a photo of a baby. They claim that it's me.

"She stole you from us," they tell me. "She cursed us so that we couldn't come for you. But now she's gone. Now we can have our precious daughter back."

The hunger in their eyes makes my heart pound. I run back outside, and see that the winged things have returned. They're just as eerily silent as yesterday. I dive toward them, throwing myself to the ground. Sure enough, they come. They eat my skin and my hair, my eyes and my fingers. They make such quick work of it, it doesn't even hurt. I feel my bones falling away, puzzle pieces being loosened from their fit. I hear the man and woman screaming, but it sounds very distant.

The creatures rise up into the air with all the bits of me distributed between their bellies.

I inhale the scent of the sky and think, Yima, I'm coming for you.

Why this photo: I loved this photograph immediately because I saw in it some kind of otherworldly exchange. Even after I read the caption ("Youths chase sparrows from the Summer Palace.") I couldn't shake the thought that these people were looking up at something preternatural. Then came the question: What if they didn't realize what they were smiling at? - E.X.R.P.
Emily X.R. Pan is the New York Times best-selling author of "The Astonishing Color of After," which won an Asian/Pacific American Award Honor for Young Adult Literature and a Walter Award Honor. She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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Walking all the way across the gym toward Mari after weeks of silence is torture. But I make myself do it because I need her back in my life, and I need to tell her now, in person, before I lose my nerve. I've tried texting her, obviously, but she's blocked me on everything.

Mari's dancing with Rosie, Seema, Jayce and Jayce's idiot friends. The girls are all decent dancers, but the boys - I mean, what is it with boys and dancing, anyway? Some of them are O.K., but a lot of them just sort of jab their hips from side to side like giant windshield wipers. Jayce is bouncing around in his stupid sagged pants and his stupid sideways snapback like he's some kind of hip-hop hypebeast icon and not a suburban white wannabe.

Mari, of course, is doing her own thing - that spacey, arm-wavey, head-noddy hippie dance she always does whether the D.J. plays ASAP Rocky, Taylor Swift or BTS. It's completely derpy, and also completely adorable.

She has to listen to me. She has to come back to me.

I push through the dancers and the human windshield wipers, and Rosie shoots a look my way that practically freezes my soul. But I keep going because I am a woman on a mission.

Then I'm standing in front of Mari, and she's looking at me like what do you want?

"I have to tell you something," I say.

She takes a beat longer to think about this than I would have thought was absolutely necessary, but then she says, "Um. O.K."

Which is when Jayce blows in on a gust of cologne and drapes his arm over her shoulders. Ugghhh. Why.

"Hey, Yoon!" he says. I hate it when people who hardly know me shorten my name like we're friends or something, but Jayce is probably too clueless to realize that we aren't friends and I hate him. Or possibly he's just being a jerk.

"Hey, Jayce," I say. Be nice, Yuna. Be. Nice.

"Hey, babe," he says to Mari next. Old Mari would have rolled her eyes because who says hey babe, but New Mari sweetly hey babes him back, and it's a major, major, major battle for me not to roll my eyes hard enough for the two of us, grab her hand and walk away.

"Hey, Yoon," says Jayce again. "We're going to slide to Seema's later for a party. Wanna come? It's gonna be liiiit," and he mimes smoking a joint, which is the biggest bunch of BS ever because everyone knows that Seema's parents would never allow her to have a party, let alone a party with weed.

So I say, "No you're not."

"Naw, f'real," says Hip-Hop McSlangypants. "No caps."

I say, "I think it's 'no cap,' actually." Even I know that.

"Thanks, Yuna. I really appreciate how much you care," Mari deadpans, and I panic.

"Mari, I'm sorry. That's not what I - "

Rosie appears at Mari's side and says in a voice that's barely this side of a snarl, "Just leave, Yuna. She's moved on."

That knocks the breath out of me. Reeling, I do what I always do when I'm hurt: pretend I don't care. I shape my mouth into a smile and say, "Oh, right. Sorry to intrude. Have fun getting liiiiit."

I turn and make the long, lonely trek back across the gym.

I walk fast, but not too fast, like I don't even care, like I have better things to do than hang with these losers. I don't turn around, not even once. At the door, I sneak a peek over my shoulder to see what kind of impression my dignified exit has made. But they're already dancing again, as if they've forgotten all about me.
Why this photo: Something about this photograph made me feel as if I was in the crowd but not of it, which is a feeling that I love to write about. The scowl (and the lipstick) on the woman in the center of the frame grabbed my attention immediately, but the lone woman on the right intrigued me, too; after trying to write from each of their perspectives, I finally settled on writing as the ultimate outsider - the viewer. My story is a contemporary American riff on the photograph, but I love knowing that Tokyo had a Western-style club scene in the '50s and that drew me in as well. - M.S.
Misa Sugiura is the author of "This Time Will Be Different" and "It's Not Like It's a Secret," which won an Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature. She grew up outside Chicago.
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"Always start with the eye."

Hongyue watched as Shen laoshi dipped his calligraphy brush with one swift, elegant motion into the ink stone, then swiped the brush head against its side, intuitively and without thought. He then painted the bird's eye with small, precise strokes on the near-translucent rice paper.

She had observed her art teacher demonstrate countless times before, but could never get over the awe she felt when he painted for them. Within minutes sometimes, with a fluidity and assuredness that made her envious, a creature would suddenly appear on the paper: a hummingbird or a rabbit or a horse.

Like magic.

"Because if you don't capture the spirit of your subject in its gaze" - Shen laoshi continued to paint as he lectured - "there is no point in going forward. No matter how technically correct your painting might be, how perfect your strokes, none of that matters." His hand danced over the rice paper, and his entire body shifted with him as he painted. A sharp beak appeared, then the bird's head, followed by a tufted chest in gray.

"As brush artists, we aren't replicating precisely what our eyes see. We are not photographers." He lifted his chin then and grinned at them, the handful of students clustered at the large walnut table around him. "As artists, we infuse life with our brush strokes." A wing emerged, the round body then the tail, its feathers appeared with quick and bold strokes before he swirled his brush in a bowl of clear water. Her teacher then dashed a streak of orange on top of the bird's head and a dab on its beak. Pausing, he considered the small painting before adding a fat gray worm, dangling from the bird's pointed beak.

"Our aim is to elicit emotion through our art. To touch this" - he tapped two fingertips against his chest - "that is the way we connect and speak to the viewer." He finally whisked long, thin strokes of verdant green around the plump bird, suggesting wild grass, before setting the calligraphy brush down. "This is your next assignment, to paint a bird of your choice and capture its spirit on paper." He nodded once and took a step back, so Hongyue and her fellow classmates could examine his painting closely. No one spoke as they studied the bird. She noted the delicate variations of ink from black to the most subtle gray, a whisper on the page.

Her teacher made it look so easy, effortless. But Hongyue knew better. She often felt her heart lifting as she painted, her focus only on her creation. But what she intended to express on paper almost never came to fruition as she wanted. Lacking.

She thanked her teacher respectfully before saying farewell, just like all her other Chinese classmates did. The humidity hit her like a wall the moment she stepped outside Shen laoshi's ground-floor studio. New York City's Chinatown was filled with throngs of people out on a Saturday afternoon, grocery shopping and meeting with friends to eat at the various small cafes and restaurants lining the cramped streets. She navigated the crowds instinctively, with her head down, watching her red Converse move across the filthy sidewalks as she mulled over everything her teacher had said.

Instead of going straight home to the cramped one-bedroom tenement she shared with her mom and younger brother, she veered from the familiar path and ducked into Columbus Park. The mostly concrete plaza was as busy as the main streets. Seniors huddled at various stone tables, many playing Chinese chess. Some sat on wooden benches, reading the Chinese paper, while others chatted animatedly in Cantonese and Mandarin, exchanging gossip and sharing pieces of cut fruit.

Hongyue managed to find an empty bench in the far corner of the park, underneath a large tree. Leaning back against the hard wooden slats, she absorbed the energetic hum around her, the mingling of voices and movement, how the barely-there summer breeze rustled the leaves overhead, stirring the straight, black bangs of a little girl intently eating an ice cream cone. A sharp trill from above caught Hongyue's attention, and she lifted her head up. A small bird perched in the hollow of the tree spiraling above her bench. It had a bright yellow head, throat and chest, with gray wings highlighted in white lines - perfect for painting.

The bird continued to sing its song, alternately sticking its tail out so Hongyue got a clear view of it before turning and offering her an opportunity to study its head and chest. It had a thick beak and looked briefly down at her with black eyes. She enjoyed its singing for a few minutes before an old Chinese woman stopped nearby, following Hongyue's gaze. "Ah, a warbler," she said in a raspy voice. "I love listening to them." She squinted at the bird, the corners of her eyes creasing with deep lines. "This one is female," she went on. "Their color is not as bright." The woman closed her eyes, obviously enjoying the warbler's trilling song. "I love birds," she said, opening her eyes and meeting Hongyue's gaze. "Don't you?"

Hongyue nodded. "They're a classic brush painting subject."

The old woman's eyebrows lifted. "Indeed." She smiled and dipped her chin as if she were a queen, then walked on.

Hongyue glanced at the bright warbler again, tucked in the small hollow, before heading home.

The apartment was empty when she let herself in.

She quickly gathered her brush painting supplies, wanting to capture the bird she still saw so clearly in her mind's eye. Spreading sheets of the Chinese newspaper on the small, square kitchen table set against the window, Hongyue filled a ceramic bowl with water, then spooned a little into her ink stone. She ground fresh ink. When she was satisfied the ink was dark enough, she placed a new sheet of rice paper onto the table.

Usually, Hongyue painted slowly and with care, stopping often to gauge her progress. But today, she put brush to paper without hesitation, remembering the bird's keen gaze as she started with its eye as Shen laoshi had instructed, the quick movements of its head, and the swish of its tail. She heard the clear notes of the warbler's birdsong as she tinged its crown and nape in green, then painted delicate white lines on its wings. Astounded, she took a step back when she realized she had finished without pausing, as if compelled. The spirited yellow bird she had glimpsed less than an hour ago stared back at her from the page.

Only one thing was missing.

Hongyue gathered white paint into a sharp point on her brush and dotted the bird's eye, adding light to its gaze. She let out a breath, then grinned widely, her chest filling with pride.

When she set her brush down, one sharp trill filled the kitchen.

Her hand jerked, and the brush rolled off the ceramic rest. Hongyue slanted her head and glanced out the window. The dark panes of other tenements stared back at her. Had she imagined it? Another sharp note reverberated through the small kitchen, and she thrust the window open and leaned over the table, sticking her nose out. No birds were near the narrow ledge; a taxi's insistent honking the only noise from outside.

She drew back inside, but yelped when a flurry of movement darted past her vision, lifting a strand of her hair. Then it was gone; Hongyue blinked her eyes hard.

The sound of the deadbolt unlocking broke her reverie, and she heard her mom's and brother's voices behind the closed door. Excited, she reached for the bird painting to show them, then snatched her arm back.

Her mom found Hongyue frozen at the kitchen table, hand fisted over her chest, staring down at a pristine sheet of rice paper.

Mrs. Li smiled and asked, "What will you paint today, daughter?"
Why this photo: I was delighted to see this image of Chinese brush artists in New York City's Chinatown. I've been a student of Chinese brush painting for almost two decades, and this creative expression has really become intrinsic to my own identity. It's very rarely I get an opportunity to write about something so important to me in fiction. I'm so grateful I was able to in this piece. -C.P.
Cindy Pon is a writer and a longtime student of Chinese brush painting. She is the author of "Want," "Serpentine" and "Silver Phoenix." She grew up in Los Angeles.
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Top image: A Tokyo motorcycle ride. Circa 1966. Photograph by John Launois/Copyright the Estate of John Launois.

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Viewfinders: 10 Y.A. Novelists Spin Fiction From Vintage Photos (Published 2019)

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A Tokyo motorcycle ride. Circa 1966. Photograph by John Launois/Copyright the Estate of John Launois. Past Tense The New York Times invited Asian-American authors to choose photos from our archives and write short young-adult fiction inspired by them. A Tokyo motorcycle ride. Circa 1966. Photograph by John Launois/Copyright the Estate of John Launois.

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This comic collection is an honest and unapologetic account of day-to-day life as groaning, crying, laughing sentient potato-being for whom things are often absolutely not fine. Through simple, funny drawings and a few short narratives, this collection encompasses everything from mood disorders, anxiety, and issues with body image to existential conversations with dogs and some unusually articulate birds. Hope and tenacity abound in this collection. The comic is available on ComicsPlus, which can be accessed here. Contact Ms. Nolan for the log-in information.

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Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price-- and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can't pull it off alone. A convict, a sharpshooter, a runaway, a spy, a witch, and a thief. Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. This fantasy novel is the perfect book to get lost in over break. Available from the BHSEC Library, NYPL, BPL, and QPL via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here. Don't have a library card? Get an NYPL card here and a BPL card here.

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The Art Institute of Chicago- Bisa Butler

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The Art Institute of Chicago- Bisa Butler

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The Playlist: Bisa Butler is a contemporary artist who creates amazing portraits using fabric and quilting materials. Her work celebrates Black life, and is full of vivid colors and striking designs. Butler is currently featured in a solo exhibit, which you can view entirely online. In addition, Butler and her husband, a longtime DJ, chose a selection of songs to pair with each of her pieces as well as other works from the museum's collection. Take some time to both view Butler's amazing work and listen to the playlist here.

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Highlights

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Related Exhibition

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Artist Bisa Butler and her husband, a longtime DJ, chose this selection of songs to pair with each of her quilts as well as other works from the museum's collection, all of which are on view in Bisa Butler: Portraits.

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Bisa Butler: The Playlist | The Art Institute of Chicago

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Artist Bisa Butler and her husband, a longtime DJ, chose this selection of songs to pair with each of her quilts as well as other works from the museum's collection, all of which are on view in Bisa Butler: Portraits.

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This podcast series explores the complex world and history of cartoons. More than just kids' fare, animation is a rich medium that encompasses many different genres and art styles, and is worth a deep dive. Drawn features interviews with show creators, voice actors, historians, animators, and business leaders to properly tell the story of animation. Each episode focuses on a different topic, including the technology behind animation, voice acting, music in animation, and a special spotlight on women working in animation. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

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We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and our services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy.

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This podcast tells the story of Peri, an agoraphobic young woman who keeps herself secure in a lighthouse by the sea. But then Peri wakes up one morning to find her lighthouse has completely changed location, and it does so every day. As Peri takes the opportunity to search for her missing brother, Ace, she makes strides to go out into the world, even though it terrifies her. This podcast is beautifully put together and each episode is only 15 minutes, making it perfect for short breaks between work. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Listen to The Far Meridian on Spotify. Peri is an agoraphobic young woman whose home starts to show up in a new location every day, as she searches for her missing brother.

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When Suzette comes home to L.A. from her New England boarding school, she isn't sure she'll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (as well as her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support. But then Suzette finds herself falling for someone new: the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel's disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and help her brother before he hurts himself--of worse. This audiobook is available from the BHSEC Library via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here.

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Whether it's the words we use, the pop culture we love, the societies we live in, the technology that gets us through the day, or the identities we hold, every aspect of our daily reality emerges from thousands of intersecting histories. This YouTube show, hosted by scholar Danielle Bainbridge, seeks to address those histories. Covering everything from the history of handshakes to the origin of grades to the racist and homophobic origins of laws, the Origin of Everything offers insights that challenge our everyday assumptions. Check out the channel here.

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history "us history" education pbs "public broadcasting" "danielle bainbridge" "world history" origin origins everything fun "kornhaber brown" ideas "idea ch...

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Origin of Everything is a show about under told history and culture hosted by Danielle Bainbridge that challenges our everyday assumptions. Danielle Bainbridge is a fun loving, history nerd who will never shy away from a good debate or bad joke.

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There's nothing quite like hearing a poet read their own poetry. Ours Poetica offers that experience on their YouTube channel, featuring over one hundred videos and a diverse array of poets. There are so many different voices to explore, but if you're looking for a place to start then you can't go wrong with Jacqueline Woodson, José Olivarez, or Sumita Chakraborty. There are also videos featuring different authors and artists reading their favorite poems. Check out the channel here.

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Making poetry personal, in the hands of people who love it. New episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Produced in collaboration with The Poetry Foundation: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/

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Take a break from the everyday and shrink down to explore the fascinating and bizarre world of the microcosmos. Narrated by author Hank Green and with microscope footage by scientist James Weiss, this YouTube channel offers a closer look at organisms that exist all around us but are too small for us to see, from tardigrades to ciliates to everything in between. The footage is cool to look at and the mellow narration and chill music is very relaxing, even if biology isn't your thing. Check out the channel here.

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Take a dive into the tiny, unseen world that surrounds us! With music by Andrew Huang, footage from James Weiss, and narration by Hank Green, we want to take you on a fascinating, reflective journey through the microcosmos.

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Shy and softhearted Charlie sits next to rugby player Nick in class one morning. A warm and intimate friendship follows, and that soon develops into something more for Charlie, who doesn't think he has a chance. But Nick is struggling with feelings of his own, and as the two grow closer, they come to understand the surprising and delightful ways in which love works. This webcomic series explores falling in love for the first time, friendship, and coping with mental illness. You can read the whole comic here.

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HEARTSTOPPER is a webcomic by Alice Oseman. Updates on the 1st, 11th, and 21st of each month at 11am UK time. Also available to read on Tapas and Webtoon.

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Mia is a special investigator hired to uncover possible sabotage taking place at a deep-sea research station. Plunging down into the depths, she uncovers a mind-blowing murder scene filled with suspects with terrible secrets, strange deep-sea-creatures, and an impending flood. And the victim of the crime? Her own father. This comics series is part science-fiction, part mystery, and part horror. Creator Matt Kindt weaves a complex story paired with breath-taking art that will draw you in. The series is available on ComicsPlus, which can be accessed here. Contact Ms. Nolan for the login information.

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The year is 2172. Climate change and nuclear disasters have rendered much of earth unlivable. Only the lucky ones have escaped to space colonies in the sky. In a war-torn Nigeria, soldiers are outfitted with bionic limbs and artificial organs meant to protect them from the harsh, radiation-heavy climate. Across the nation, as civil war rages on, survival becomes the only way of life. Two sisters, Onyii and Ify, dream of more. They dream of peace, of hope, of a future together and they're willing to fight an entire war to get there. Available from the BHSEC Library, NYPL, BPL, and QPL via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here. Don't have a library card? Get an NYPL card here and a BPL card here.

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Do you want to stay more on top of current events but find it difficult to find the time to read the news each day? NPR's Up First podcast fits in perfectly with your schedule. Every morning, Up First discusses the three biggest stories of the day in less than 15 minutes, with reporting and analysis from NPR News. The podcast goes up at 6AM, so you can listen when you're getting ready for your day or whenever you find the time. Listen to it on the NPR website, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

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NPR’s Up First is the news you need to start your day. The three biggest stories of the day, with reporting and analysis from NPR News — in 10 minutes. Available weekdays by 6 a.m. ET, with hosts Leila Fadel, Steve Inskeep, Michel Martin and A Martinez. Also available on Saturdays by 8 a.m. ET, with…

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Audiobooks can be a real time commitment, so you may want to listen to an excerpt before you're ready to dive in. That's where the Epic Reads: Audiobook Excerpts playlist can help. This playlist features over 40 audiobooks excerpts from popular authors, including Adam Silvera, Kacen Callender, Elizabeth Acevdeo, Angie Thomas, Victoria Aveyard, Dean Atta, and Veronica Roth. Do you like what you hear and want to finish the book? Check to see if it's available on Sora, or reach out to Ms. Nolan for help. Listen to the playlist here.

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Mental aims to break down mental health stigma and discrimination. The podcast is a safe space to hear honest and insightful mental health interviews in the hope listeners will feel more empowered to continue the conversation with others. Each episode is focused on a specific topic related to mental health. Recent topics include trauma and self-care, gender and mental health, and burnout. Start listening from any episode that interests you. Listen to it on Spotify, Stitcher, or Apple Podcasts.

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Mental - The Podcast to Destigmatise Mental Health

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Health Category Winner at The People's Choice Podcast Awards 2019 & 2020 Mental was created by Bobby Temps to break down mental health stigma and discrimination. Joined by special guests, the podcast is a safe space to hear honest and insightful mental health interviews in the hope listeners will feel more empowered to continue the conversation with others.

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If you're fascinated by fractals, conic sections, and the Fibonacci sequence then this YouTube series is right up your alley. Vi Hart is bored in her Math class, and she seeks to entertain herself by doodling. What results is a series of doodle games that end up beautifully illustrating different mathematical concepts. Hart's stop-motion animated style is cool to watch, her explanations are funny, and there's something relaxing about watching her doodles unfold. Even if you're not a math person, the series is worth checking out. Watch it here.

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Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

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Melina Pendulum, the online handle for media critic and journalist Princess Weekes, is a welcome voice in the YouTube media criticism scene. Speaking from her perspective as a queer Black woman, Weekes offers deep dives into popular culture, examining shows, movies, and games through the lenses of race, gender, and sexuality. Her content is engaging and inspires viewers to think critically about the media they love. Her videos on portrayals of imperialism in cartoons, queer representation in 2020, and colorism in comics are all good places to start. Check out her channel here.

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Talking about fantasy, manga, anime, feminism and other social issues.

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This YouTube channel's tagline is "As weird as people seem today, we don't hold a candle to history". Weird history looks to share the unexpected, the untold, and the flat-out weird parts of history, primarily Western history. Check out their regular videos on historical events and figures, updated weekly. You can also dig into their Timeline series, which looks at major events from each year in a decade they're studying. Next decade: the 1990s. Check out the channel here.

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A twisted, crawling figure. A giggling crowd of masked watchers. A reassembling corpse. There's something there, just waiting for you to turn around. Behind You is a collection of comics where each page is a separate story. Each tale is one image and one caption: an unsuspecting victim with someone, or something, behind them. The entries range from the amusingly weird to the genuinely unsettling, and the artwork is delightfully creepy. The collection is available on ComicsPlus, which can be accessed here. Contact Ms. Nolan for the login information.

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"A Brief History of Dragons Throughout Western Literature"

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"A Brief History of Dragons Throughout Western Literature"

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Hic sunt dracones- Here be dragons. The promise and danger of that single phrase has called out to Western storytellers. Yet the dragons found on old maps and the dragons found in contemporary literature are wildly different. This article tracks the history and evolution of one of the most famous fictional creatures, and is perfect reading for any fantasy fan. (Note: This article only looks at Western literary and fantasy traditions, an article on the rich history of dragons in Eastern mythos and literature is forthcoming.) Read the article here.

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In 1504, a copper globe was built somewhere in Europe. It stood only 4.4 inches in diameter and 13.6 inches in circumference, so it was nothing terribly overwhelming. Tiny ships and monsters adorned its seas-also commonplace at the time. But there was a small inscription, near the eastern coast of Asia, that made this particular globe one of a kind: it became the only documented ancient map to quietly go on record saying, Hic sunt dracones. Here be dragons.

Like a siren, the promise and danger of that single phrase called out to Western storytellers. Yet the dragons found on that globe, and the dragons found in literature today, are enormously different creatures. We should know: we're the ones who re-wrote this mythical beast time and again. So just where be Western dragons at the beginning of their story? And how did they grow into the icons we know now?
Just a quick note: as the title indicates, this article will only look at the Western literary and fantasy traditions. There is, of course, a very long and rich history of dragons running through the mythos and literature of Eastern cultures, as well-but that is a discussion saved for another day.
Origins in Mythology

The origin of the dragon is such a mystery, even the exact etymology of its name is disputed. But you can mostly trace the meaning of dragon back to "serpent" (as with drakon in Ancient Greek and draco in Latin, for instance). If you dig deeper, its root derk- (or drk-) is the equivalent of "to see" in Ancient Greek-suggesting that drk-on also indicates "seeing one," or "I see."

Ironically, this power of sight was a one-way street: no one in the Western world could agree on what they saw of the dragon. As such, the earliest descriptions of them were fabulously inconsistent. Generally, dragons were titanic and powerful-but that was about where the common ground ended. Some accounts said that dragons were poisonous; others argued that they breathed fire; still others insisted that they were winged. In fact, if there was only one constant in ancient Western myths, it was this glaring certainty: dragons were stone-cold evil.

This speciest character assassination spanned the continent of Europe. In Greece, dragons were either monstrous beasts that stood in place to thwart protagonists from their heroic destinies (think Jason snatching the Golden Fleece from a dragon's jaws), or public enemies to be overcome by gods and goddesses. Typhon, the father of all monsters, is defeated by Zeus; Python the serpent felled by Apollo; and Ladon, son of Typhon, dispatched by Heracles.

If you travel farther north, you'll encounter the dragon Níðhöggr gnawing at the roots of Yggsdragil, the world tree of Norse mythology. To the south, the dragon-goddess Tiamat in Babylon is a symbol of the chaos of primordial creation: a "maelstrom of dark, roiling seawater" whose very death allows for the world to be born. But the most damning case against dragons comes from the Bible itself: in the Book of Revelation, Satan is said to descend upon the masses as (you guessed it) a great red dragon.

Such allegations would surely make any upstanding creature reel, but perhaps the last nail in the coffin was delivered by the earliest Latin bestiaries. Far from quelling society's collective fears, they gaily fanned the flames. According to these works, dragons sat at the pinnacle of the zoological chain, and were incredibly wicked, shockingly vile... and very real to boot. Isidore of Seville wrote in Etymologiae:

The dragon is the largest of all the snakes, or of all the animals on earth. The Greeks call it Δράκων, whence the term is borrowed into Latin so that we say draco. It is often drawn out of caves and soars aloft, and disturbs the air. Even the elephant with his huge body is not safe from the dragon, for it lurks around the paths along which the elephants are accustomed to walk, and wraps around their legs in coils and kills them by suffocating them.

Then there was Hugh of Fouilloy, author of the famous Aviarium, who declared:

The dragon, the greatest of all serpents, is the devil, the king of all evil. As it deals death with its poisonous breath and blow of its tail, so the devil destroys men's souls by thought, word, and deed.

If it was fake news, it was extremely convincing fake news, or so the people at the time probably thought. Eventually, the God-fearing public was tipped off that the dragon was really a mythical creature, not an actual, living, breathing monster come to Earth straight from Hell. But by that point the damage was done, and the battle lines were irrevocably drawn for millennia to come.
A Who's Who of Major Dragons From This Era:

Jörmungandr-The Midgard Serpent, or World Serpent, from Norse mythology. The arch-enemy of Thor, God of Thunder.

Typhon-Commonly called the "father of all monsters" in Greek mythology. Had a hundred dragon heads sprouting from his shoulders, which must've been inconvenient in social situations.

Ladon-The dragon who guarded the golden apples in the Garden of the Hesperides. Defeated by Hercules.

Tiamat-The primordial dragon-goddess of the cosmos in Babylonian legend. Her death enables the Earth's creation.

The Middle Ages to the Renaissance (1200 - 1600)

Due to the dragon's reputation for swallowing villagers whole... and possibly breathing fire... and felling ancient world trees... and generally serving chaos and embodying evil, medieval folks were perhaps unsurprisingly keener on writing books titled How to Kill a Dragon than How to Train Your Dragon. In short, the dragon became typecast as the villain-one of the mightiest opponents that mankind could conceivably conquer.

Errour from Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queen, Goji from medieval France, the Lambton Wyrm: such was the tally of dragons who fell in medieval and early modern Europe. But most dragons were nameless, footnotes in the ballads that were sung of brave men's triumphs. In the 14 th century's Tale of Sir Eglamour of Artois, the dragon is Sir Eglamour's ultimate-and most challenging-test. Sir Torrent of Portyngale ups this quota-Torrent gets to kill two dragons. Then you've got the dragons in Saint George and the Dragon and Tristan and Isolde, who meet identical grisly fates. Even the celebrated Knights of the Round Table get in on the action: in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, Launcelot does epic battle with a massive, fire-breathing dragon in a tomb.

Each tale illuminated a certain pattern. The hero wins. The horse maybe dies. The dragon definitely dies.

This would be the template for a long time. And since one can't kill this many a dragon without creating a few tropes, we see the fortification of several related motifs that soon would take flight in the public imagination: the maiden in need of rescue, the chivalric quest and climactic dragon-fight, and the castle.

But a plot twist does transpire. The Middle Ages, an epoch that was basically a continual continent-wide massacre of dragons in western literature, would curiously give us two of the greatest dragons of all time. Today, Fáfnir from the Völsunga Saga and the unnamed dragon from Beowulf are central to draconic lore-not least because of the deep impression they made on the future grandmaster of fantasy. Said J.R.R. Tolkien in the 1938 lecture "On Fairy-Stories":

Dragons, real dragons, essential to both the machinery and the ideas of a poem or tale, are actually rare. In northern literature, there are only two that are significant. If we omit from consideration the vast and vague Encircler of the World, Miðgarðsormr, the doom of the great gods and no matter for heroes, we have but the dragon of the Völsungs, Fáfnir, and Beowulf's bane.

The two dragons would cast long shadows for centuries. Both set the benchmark for a dragon's ferocity, might, and potential for destruction. Both perpetuated the tropes most closely entwined with the dragon, including fire and the greed for gold. And both forged the construct of the dragon-slayer, for both were slain by mortals: Sigurd and Beowulf, respectively.

Yet this wasn't even the hardest trial at hand. In this age and all coming ages, the dragon still faced an even greater enemy: its own biblical ghost. To the people of the Middle Ages, it was Satan, plain and simple-and it deserved to be killed every time.
A Who's Who of Major Dragons From This Era:

Fáfnir-A man who became a great dragon because of his greed. Defeated by Sigurd.

The Shadow of Tolkien (Early 1900s)

Between 1700 and 1900, a number of things come to pass: The Age of Enlightenment dawns. The United States of America is created. The Ottoman Empire begins to fall. A thousand French cartoonists call Napoleon short. The first modern novel is written. Fantasy starts its rise as a genre. And dragons are pretty much nowhere to be seen in literature, so much so that May Dacre exclaims in Benjamin Disraeli's 1831 The Young Duke, "The age of chivalry is past. Bores have succeeded to dragons."

Why did writers in these centuries mostly, excuse the pun, wing it? According to critic Ruth Berman:

During the nineteenth century, fantasy became a genre, but the absence of dragons among the wealth of ghosts, witches, devils, mer-folk, fairies, etc., is striking. Monsters in general were rare, but dragons were much rarer. [...] The reluctance to use dragons was probably a result of the too rigid identification of the dragon with the dragon of the Book of Revelations, that is, Satan.

It would take until the turn of the twentieth century for the dragon to find storytellers who dared to reach out and court whispers of blasphemy by resurrecting them: children's authors, and (spoiler alert!) J.R.R. Tolkien. The former group of writers-always up to satirize and play with convention-can be credited with providing the first literary sandbox for playing with the idea of dragons. Case in point: Kenneth Grahame's 1898 The Reluctant Dragon and E. Nesbit's 1899 The Book of Dragons were among the earliest books to show benign, comic, and "good" dragons.

In stark contrast stood the dragons conjured by Tolkien, whose childhood dreams had always sought out the titanic, formidable dragons of old. He once said:

I desired dragons with a profound desire. Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood. But the world that contained even the imagination of Fáfnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever cost of peril.

The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion were the culmination of Tolkien's soaring vision. The dragons of Middle-earth were majestic, fire-breathing, and terrifying, bearing a greater resemblance to Tolkien's other terrible monsters, such as the blazing Balrog of Morgoth, than to the chummy dragons of children's books. The DNA they share with Fáfnir and Beowulf's dragon is unmistakable. Like their ancestors, Tolkien's dragons possess tremendous antiquity. Like their ancestors, they are mighty and cunning, and they covet gold above all else. Even certain episodes from The Lord of the Rings seem to mirror scenes from the Völsunga Saga and Beowulf (Bilbo's theft of a golden cup from Smaug in The Hobbit is clearly similar to the single cup that's stolen from the dragon in Beowulf, for instance).

But Tolkien undertook a mission more complicated than just a simple revival of older traditions. Before him, dragons were evil and dangerous. With Tolkien, well, they were still evil and dangerous. But he also attempted to give his dragons "bestial life and thought of [their] own" (as he'd put it in his 1936 lecture " Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics"). Tolkien saw Fáfnir's early power of speech and raised it a satisfying sense of self, finally imparting this ancient species with the gift of a fully-formed mind and tongue. And so it's a bit ironic that so much of the fantasy genre is made in Tolkien's image-except for dragons. As that same lecture on Beowulf made clear, the father of fantasy had always considered draco "a personification of malice, greed, destruction, and of the undiscriminating cruelty of fortune that distinguishes not good or bad."

In other words, the dragon's redemption tale still couldn't begin just yet: it would need to wait another couple of decades for the right authors to come along.
A Who's Who of Major Dragons From This Era:

Glaurung-The Father of Dragons in Middle-earth. Wingless, poisonous, and terrifying.

The Jabberwock-The eponymous dragon of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" nonsense poem, and winner (or perhaps loser) of the best dragon name... and there are certainly a lot to choose from.

The Dragon, from The Reluctant Dragon-A scholarly dragon who especially loves poetry, and is befriended by a young boy.

Women and the Rehabilitation of the Dragon (1950 - 1990)

So by the time we enter the 1950s, nothing's changed too much. That swath of space on the map branded "Here Be Dragons" is still, for the most part, rather bleak. A few books appeared to fight the tide: for instance, 1948's My Father's Dragon, by Ruth Stiles Gannett, joins children's books like The Book of Dragons and The Reluctant Dragon in depicting a "good" dragon. But we don't see anything really moving the needle until two SFF authors, Anne McCaffrey and Ursula K. Le Guin, become ascendant in the 1960s.

First, McCaffrey, the creator of Pern, stepped up to the plate -becoming perhaps the first Western adult fiction writer to definitively show the world that a dragon didn't need to be evil just because it was a dragon. Her slim Weyr Search, first published in Analog in 1967, boasted feudal rulers, time travel, stolen birthrights. Most importantly, it featured telepathic dragon companions-capable of forming deep bonds with their dragon-riders (yet another mind-melting concept, at the time).

Delivering a one-two punch to the genre's conventions, Ursula Le Guin published A Wizard of Earthsea soon afterward in 1968. Her importance in modern fantasy is today impossible to quantify. In January 2018, John Scalzi wrote in the Los Angeles Times that losing Le Guin was "like losing one of the great sequoias." In another of the countless tributes made upon her death, Arnab Chakraborty asked, "What was her secret?"

It was merely this: you take a dragon (one of Le Guin's most brilliant re-inventions). A dragon is that hoary old standard of fantasy, and this poor creature is now waiting on some clifftop, tired and exhausted at having been cast in so many tales and parables down the ages. He wants some rest, some well deserved shut-eye. But soon comes hobbling down the road an old woman with a twinkle in her eye, and she proceeds to sit down beside him. The dragon senses her presence, braces for yet another request to star in a quest, a razing of towns, a romance. But this woman merely wants to speak to someone at the end of her long journey uphill. Just that. And the dragon is, for once, asked about his views on the world. Just a conversation, really.

And perhaps that was exactly the route that Le Guin took to create four of the most magnificent dragons that we'll ever encounter. To this day, Yevaud, Orm Embar, Kalessin, and Orm Irian are towering examples of all that dragons can be. As Hugo-nominated fantasy writer Max Gladstone said over at The Ranting Dragon:

Le Guin's dragons set the gold standard. Ancient, wise, capricious, beautiful, mighty, and sometimes sad, she salts Tolkien's profoundly Western dragons-for all his majesty, Smaug the Terrible is a clear descendant of the "St. George" and the species of dragon-with elements of the Chinese demigod. [...] While Le Guin's fingerprints on the genre are subtler than Tolkien's, I don't think we would have the modern fantasy dragon-subtle, cunning, alien, wrathful and compassionate all at once-without her work. Seraphina and Temeraire owe a great deal to Orm Embar.

Extraordinarily, Le Guin's and McCaffrey's dragons were moreover so shockingly distinct that they created two strapping draconic lineages in fantasy, going forward. As John Lennard observes in Of Modern Dragons, Pernese dragons "[reverse] all the Beowulfian tropes while preserving the winged and fiery reptilian form." In stark contrast, Earthsea's dragons retain shades of Fáfnir and Smaug, most markedly in their marvelous linguistic faculties. The incongruities run deeper: Pernese dragons are decidedly moral and "good." Earthsea's dragons are neither good nor evil, but rather unpredictable, unmoved by the squabbles of mere mortals, and frighteningly unknowable. Pernese dragons are relatively young, not being around when Pern was created. Earthsea 's dragons are as ancient as Earthsea itself.

Pernese dragons, in other words, are tamed comrades. Earthsea 's dragons are demi-gods.

But it's the one commonality they did share that really matters. Little did McCaffrey or Le Guin realize the extent of the draconic activity that their dragons would trigger over the next few decades (including such amazing examples as Michael Ende's The Neverending Story in 1979, Robert Munsch's The Paper Bag Princess in 1980, Terry Pratchett's gleefully irreverent Draco Nobilis and Draco Vulgaris species in Discworld in the 1980s, and Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis' Dragonlance series in 1984! And that's just to name a few). If not for McCaffrey and Le Guin, today's awesome and diverse dragons might be DOA (Dead On Arrival, or perhaps Dragons Overtly Absent). And our world would be that much poorer for it.

Looking back now, the dragon's redemption tale might seem inevitable, but it really wasn't a sure thing, by any means. That uncharted territory on the map marked "Here Be Dragons" was more powerfully emblematic than anyone could've guessed. After generations of writers had either vilified or outright ignored that spot of land, two women finally ventured forth into it and made the fateful decision to choose the road not taken, thank you very much-toppling millennia of unexamined preconceptions and prejudice against dragons in the process.
A Who's Who of Major Dragons From This Era:

Yevaud-The Dragon of Pendor in the world of Earthsea. First appears in the 1964 short story "The Rule of Names."

Orm Irian-The dragon-daughter of Kalessin the Eldest who can turn into a woman at will. First appears in Earthsea's The Other Wind.

Ramoth-The golden dragon-queen during the Eight Interval and Ninth Pass in Dragonriders of Pern. Her rider was Lessa.

Falkor-A luckdragon who plays a major role in Michael Ende's 1979 The Neverending Story. Befriends Atreyu, a boy warrior.

Eustace Scrubb-A young boy ("There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it") from The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Temporarily turned into a dragon through his own unchecked greed.

Here Be Dragons (1990s - Present)

You're probably already well aware of the dragon's rock star status in popular culture today. Unless you've been sequestered underneath an extremely large rock for the last couple of decades, it's tough not to notice that dragons are pretty much everywhere: from the silver screen ( How to Train Your Dragon, Pete's Dragon, Mulan, and, of course, Peter Jackson's three Hobbit movies, among others) and television (HBO's Game of Thrones) to games ( Spyro, Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Skyrim).

And in books? We can't seem to get enough. Temeraire, Drogon, Saphira: today's crop of complex, multi-dimensional dragons are basically minor celebrities in fantasy and science fiction. In them we can still see echoes of the dragons that came before. (Temeraire, for instance, is probably a nearer descendant of Ramoth than that great and malicious beast of yesteryear, Fáfnir.) Yet this generation is also coming up with new ways to shape the great, ongoing draconic narrative. Epic fantasies such as Game of Thrones present dragons as wild beasts that can nevertheless be befriended and bonded with (at least by some), while other works such as Marie Brennan's Lady Trent series and Elizabeth Peters' Summer of the Dragon explore dragons from a naturalist's perspective.

It admittedly took us millennia to move past ingrained superstition and begin to reconsider the role of the dragon in storytelling. And yet the joke's on us: in the time that it took for us to start reshaping the dragon in Western literature, the dragon was busy reshaping the very terrain of our own imaginations. Critic David E. Jones argues that humans have always had an "instinct for dragons" (in fact, it's the title of his book on the subject). And in an essay for Abe Books, author Beth Carswell writes:

It's fascinating that humans have not only created the fictional, mythical creature of the dragon, but also repeatedly adhered to recurring archetypes around it-where there is a dragon, one can almost always expect to find any or all of the following: gnomes, dwarves, castles, knights, princesses, trolls, goblins or treasure. We have created not only a magnificent animal from thin air, but also entire landscapes to support its legend.

So where do dragons go now in Western literature? Given all the twists and turns that their story's taken over the centuries, it might be impossible to predict. But this much at least should be certain: they're not going to go away. Dragons have already come with us this far: looming large in our legends since antiquity, wheeling in the skies as European knights came and went, rising to new heights as fantasy really took flight in the last century-and they'll hopefully stick around, soaring through our literary future, continuing to test our sheer capacity for wonder. There is, after all, that maxim that Le Guin relates in her introduction to Tales of Earthsea: "Nobody can explain a dragon." Luckily for us, authors of every age have never stopped trying.
A Who's Who of Major Dragons From This Era:

Temeraire-A rare Chinese Celestial dragon born during the Napoleonic wars. Bonds with Captain William Laurence in Naomi Novak's series.

Saphira-Eragon's dragon from Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. One of the last female dragons in Alagaësia.

Toothless-Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III's dragon in Cressida Cowell's How to Train Your Dragon. Commonly mistaken for a Common or Garden dragon.

Originally published October 2019.

Yvonne Shiau is a writer who enjoys walking through mountains. She is currently based in South America.

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A Brief History of Dragons Throughout Western Literature

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In 1504, a copper globe was built somewhere in Europe. It stood only 4.4 inches in diameter and 13.6 inches in circumference, so it was nothing terribly overwhelming. Tiny ships and monsters adorned its seas-also commonplace at the time.

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Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people. In NYC, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal's office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father has died in a plane crash. Separated by distance and their father's secrets, the two girls are forced to face a new reality. And then, when it seems they've lost everything of their father, they learn of each other. Available from the BHSEC Library, NYPL, BPL, and QPL via Sora. First time using Sora? Find instructions here. Don't have a library card? Get an NYPL card here and a BPL card here.

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This exhibit from Compound, a Bronx based art gallery, features photos from Black and Lantix photographers that were taken at Black Lives Matter protests across the country this past spring and summer. You can use your arrow keys to navigate the digital gallery, and click on individual photos to see larger versions and read about the artist and their work. If you're having any trouble viewing the exhibit, switch to a different browser. You can view the exhibit here.

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Compound - A creative space where art, music, fashion and sports are fused

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If you're missing movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, then this podcast can help you get your superhero fix. Based on the graphic novel Marvels, this story-driven podcast takes place in the aftermath of the Fantastic Four's battle with Galactus, high above NYC, for the fate of the world. One intrepid photographer, an ambitious college student, and a cynical journalist embark on an investigation to confirm or debunk one of the most super-powered conspiracy theories of all time. Listen to it on Stitcher or Apple Podcasts.

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Stitcher and Marvel Present MARVELS, coming soon to Stitcher Premium

Acclaimed photojournalist Phil Sheldon (Seth Barrish) and Daily Bugle journalist, Ben Urich (Cliff "Method Man" Smith), team up with ESU student Marcia Hardesty (AnnaSophia Robb) to find the truth behind Galactus' Earth-shaking arrival in Manhattan and his defeat at the hands of the Fantastic Four. Based on the seminal graphic novel by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross. Coming to Stitcher Premium on Wednesday, November 20th. For more information go to marvelspodcast.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Based on the graphic novel by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross, Marvels takes place in the aftermath of the Fantastic Four's battle with Galactus, high above New York City for the fate of the world. One intrepid photographer, an ambitious college student, and a cynical journalist embark on an investigation to confirm or debunk one of the most super-powered conspiracy theories of all time.