MOM—why’d he call her that?

It made sense but also didn’t. Swishy was just compelled to say it.

He didn’t even know what a mom was, or how having a mom even felt. The boy possessed a vague idea of what mothers were supposed to do and how they were expected to be—essentially like Trey when it came down to it. Swishy knew that Ruby shouldn’t get such credit. But he suddenly called her Mom. The heart inside wanted to please her. Why? I don’t want to be attached. I want to be me—as myself…The fusion to this mysterious woman scared him. His mind scrambled to understand how Ruby had drawn out the hidden parts of himself, the needy ones especially. There was no spell behind it, no flashcard magic controlling him. Her dark charisma simply moved him.

Rapid-fire tongue clicking. A sigh. The image of Ruby sweeping her bang out of her eye appeared in his head. She wasn’t there, not physically, but the clear stake she’d claimed inside him was undeniable. A miniature Ruby paced around his mindscape, shaking her head in disgust.

She spoke her next bladed words: I’m not your mother.

Swishy wished that were true but his body told him otherwise. He deeply feared her, but the rejection hurt him anyway. “Okay, Ruby.”

You may call me Rubella.

“But everyone says, Ruby.”

Are you everybody? From what I’ve seen, your feats are rather…uncommon—unsightly if I were being quite honest.

He swished, he shrugged, he shrunk into a hay bale package of panic. “I made some straw, I guess…”

And unmade a city, she flatly said.

Silence, stirring, something of a soulful stare-down occurred. But Swishy couldn’t tell where Ruby was. She was everywhere and nowhere. She projected her singular voice from a multitude of directions. The blackwheat thicket was one aspect of his caging, and Ruby’s voice was yet another layer. Swishy was afraid to speak to that giant of a witch. One wrong word would elicit a swift hand of boy-squashing justice. He saw himself reduced to an extinguished soul and stray straw chips of heart.

A wind picked up, blue breezes whipping into their own self-contained storms. Swishy was entrapped by several tornados, small ones, calm ones. The weather menaced the edges of his immediate space. He reached a hand forward and resistance stopped him; the air pressure denied his movement. His straw bits blew upwards, around and around like a Stormcellar soul. He tried to infuse the rake with gold-straw but it wouldn’t respond. Funnily enough, the anxious feelings failed to produce blackwheat. He was just straw, a malformed haystack, disabled and entrapped.

“Can I go now?”

No. Her words were stone, and her overall presence was a coffin. Swishy's emotions felt compressed by Ruby's aura.

“Then can we talk without the wind situation?” Swishy nervously asked.

This wind? These are just my feelings. Feelings and conversation go together, do they not?

“I suppose they do…”

Then let’s continue.

A tornado drew close—and a blue gust slapped Swishy’s face. The boy touched his cheek. He couldn’t feel the pain, only the insult, the punishment. Ruby was going to make sure he’d feel everything she held inside. The weight of the loss he’d given her had begun to settle in.

“Are you going to hurt me?”

What a question! I have a better one for you. Should I? Are you deserving of hurt? You know, there’s hurt. And then there’s what I can do…

Swishy flinched but managed a response. “Please no, the snitchtalons have hurt me enough.”

Snitchtalons? You mean the shadowclaws?

“Yes, yes, that’s what I mean. Well, the spirits that stole them anyway.”

My, my, my, I see Trey has been an enthusiastic teacher. How wonderful! What else have you learned from him?

Perhaps Swishy said too much—in fact, he knew he did. Though he didn’t say anything Ruby didn’t already know. He and Trey were in this together. Still, he sought to take the heat off his friend. “The birds pecked and fought and ate me for snack. The things they say, the things they do, the fights. It’s not Trey, and it’s not me, either. The shadowclaws CLAWED at me—so I followed their lead. Their classroom was violent, so violence is what I did.”

Swishy hung his head in shame, but shame he did not feel. Ruby knew—she always knew—and the rushing blues slapped him twice. Two offenses had led to two more slaps. It upset Swishy that arithmetic of all things was on his mind.

Hmm…what a detailed report. You’re sounding like…

“Like a flap-flap explaining himself?”

The blues formed into hands and slapped him three more times. Swishy went to his knees and leaned against the rake. He felt those in his soul, each touch of wind taking a little more out of him. The consequences were stacking up. GUILT flowed into Swishy, weakening him.

A snitch, dear boy. You’re sounding like a so-called snitch.

“Please, no more. I didn’t mean to snitch. I only wanted you to understand.”

Oh no, it’s time that YOU understand. Your “snitching” is useless when you’ve got so many feathers in your mouth. Look here, my dear crow-eater, the souls you’ve eaten are doing a lot of snitching themselves. They asked me to deal with you. To do away with you. So here I am, in wind and spirit, conversing with a criminal such as yourself. Feel honored to have the chance to beg before the eyes of our society. Grovel beautifully, and perhaps you may yet live to see another heart-healthy day.

“Ruby!” Swishy begged. “Please let me go! I’ll visit you! I’ll be the friend you want, the son you want, the heart this city needs!” But instead of ‘this city’ he’d almost said ‘the heart you need’. Ruby didn’t need a heart, though. If she’d had a real one for herself, she’d likely have tossed it into the altar for updated spells. That’s who she was, a woman meant for the shadows. Heartlessness was her element, her most desired and comfortable state.

[https://imgur.com/6EigAXr.jpeg]

(…)

Hmm…The winds died down, shrinking but still swirling. Ruby convened with her inner psychosis, her dark intelligence turning over the possibilities. Okay, one favor.

“Yes, Ruby—Rubella.”

Lower your head.

Swishy did so, the beanie falling off his gourd, his stem exposed as he prostrated himself.

Now explain. Why do we have so much havoc? Why suffer on your knees when you could just as easily stand with us? By uplifting me, by uplifting the sugar-wraiths, you do the same for yourself.

The boy found himself in a precarious situation. He was apologizing, knees in the foggy darkness, head dipped into the humiliating shadows. The curses were there, too, a steady current of eavesdroppers lingering in Swishy’s face, laughing into his carved eyeholes. Little snickers, though, contained mockery as they didn’t want to draw the ire of Queen Ruby. Swishy was down but he wasn’t going to take it. At that moment, he decided maybe death was the way. Tell the truth, die with pride, rather than let these curses feast upon his despondency.

“I can stand with you but I’ll never stand with them. They deserve every bit of being eaten. I apologize for the city. I apologize for the riot. But if I could eat those birds every day of my short life, I’d do it. Anything to hear their CACAW-CACAW noise go silent in my mouth.”

The curses weren’t laughing anymore. They vibrated in barely restrained rage. They wanted to leap into Swishy’s gourd for a fight. But Ruby’s invisible presence side-eyed them a warning. Swishy waited to die. He didn’t know death but he knew that Ruby had a way. Still, he couldn’t wipe the smirk off his face. His one-up moment made the impending doom worth it.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Bold, bold words, young one—and great ones too! I admire the truth. Being ourselves is the only way to exist in the shadowdeep realm. Perhaps you’re right. The snitchtalons as you say DID try to punish you behind my back—and miserably failed at that. No wonder you’ve treated them like a Straw Fried™ three-piece. It’s quite disgraceful, their inefficient follow-through.

“Thank you, Ruby. I’m glad you understand. I did a lot of falling and flying, splatting and reconstructing. They were a whole straw-full, but I made it to you.”

Swishy decided to get a little brave. He lifted his head from the foggy ground and stared straight ahead. Ruby wasn’t there but he pretended that she was standing there with her black and white polka dot dress and partially-scuffed dye job.

Who said you can lift your head?

“I made it for our talk. This is the way I’ve learned to talk. Eye to eye, soul to soul.”

You say such nice things sometimes…You disgust me.

“I deserve that. I’m sorry. I ruined a lot of things. But I’m magic. I can fix the buildings and the houses. I mean, you used me to build this place.” Swishy looked around, still a bit confused as to the living chasm that the curses called home. The blue tornadoes swirled annoyingly but Swishy just dumbly shrugged. “I’ll fix it? Yes?”

No, shut up.

“Please Miss Ruby-Rubella, I only wanted to live—”

The tornados danced widely, zooming from place to place. Their unpredictable pattern put the fright right back into Swishy. They drew closer, then receded, then approached again, faking him out, showing him what it meant to be at the mercy of a witch. The gusts finally settled upon him, orbiting the boy with increasing speed until they joined into a circular tornado. He was in the eye of Ruby’s wrath, the angsty winds now closing in.

Perhaps your living is a mistake. I shouldn’t have summoned you. You think I’m so stupid. I should’ve made your wheat into bread and your head into pumpkin pie. At least you’d be nutrition and not a menace.

“I’m a Swishy, not a pie…”

Fine, you’re a Swishy. You’ve made that so clear. But I’m making myself clear now. You may be a Swish now—but you can still be pie. You can be scooped and harvested. I can season your insides while your soul watches on. I’ll put you in the oven. I can think of many ways for you to suffer in Ruby’s kitchen.

“Please don’t…”Swishy said it unconsciously. Even the ambient curses seemed to draw away slowly, spiritually perturbed by their queen’s inventive cruelty. Cluster upon cluster of cursed entities took advantage of their natural power to phantom into nothingness. The dark audience disappeared—far, far away.

Swishy and Ruby were alone—the boy’s fretfulness and the woman’s blue wind.

I’m glad you get the idea. Ruby said. Now…I heard you want to make things right. I pray I’m not mistaken in this assumption.

“Yeah…I’d like to compromise.” Swishy was proud of using his vocab words, something he’d learned in textbooks and not a flashcard. He hoped Ruby would understand. Compromise sounded like a good enough word. Compromise sounded like not being made into a pie while being forced to watch.

But she laughed, one that reminded him of Myst. The dismissal singed his flammable skin. You see, my child, making things right is a simple process. You must go forth with heart.

“I do, I’ve been.”

When you put your heart into it, the world opens. People open. Do you understand?

Ruby turned down the winds to the level of summer breezes. Swishy was scared yet his feet traveled forward, trudging toward his certain demise. He blindly progressed, his rake fully blackwheat by now. But he hoped to make it through this moment. Swishy’s mind cycled through tactics, considering what would count as a heart-filled action.

“Thank you so much for pausing MIDNIGHT!” Gratitude, flattery, buttering a volatile lady up—that had to count as heart, there was no way it didn’t.

Pausing?

“Yes, it’s 11:59.”

When you entered the zone, sure, it was. But I didn’t stop anything. What’s done is done. Very sly of you, though—this little appeasement attempt. Oh, you’ve learned so much. Too much some would say.

Swishy could hear the flattening—or flat-lining—of her tone. He, himself, was deflated. “I see. So those are curses gathered outside this realm.”

Curses and more! Ruby said in a celebratory fashion. I hadn’t expected such a turn out! Honestly, I just do things and they work out in my favor. Fortune favors the brazen? The brave? Some b-word.

“Bold?”

Yes—bold! You're so helpful!

“Thanks…so do you think you can call off the MIDNIGHT thing?” Swishy's mind turned for a solution, something to please Ruby. “I can grow the city back. I’ll work. I can rebuild everything!”

Why thank you! I’d appreciate that greatly. But you see, I can’t call off the MIDNIGHT spell. The curses are here, expecting refuge. How would you feel to be promised a home and given none? I’m sure you know how it feels—the displacement. So sorry! But worry not—there’s nothing to fear. Embrace your new neighbors! They can live in the rubble for now. When you rebuild the city, they’ll upgrade. It’ll be just like before. Wonderful, right?

Ruby flashed an opera mask of a smile, prompting a response.

Swishy spoke carefully, tip-toeing over potential land mines. “Yes…wonderful. We can fix the city—and then fix the people next. All those scarecrows, all your citizens that need their bodies back. Can you help them? The kids at least? They say you can do anything—and I believe them.”

But what’s so bad about being a scarecrow? You’re one, aren’t you? In a way, it’s better than being human. No illness. No hunger. None of the suffering that plagued us in The Stormcellar. At least they won’t be sugar wraiths! At least they won’t lose out when a certain scarecrow deprives the land of hearts…So don’t worry your little head! If they’re scarecrows, they’re fine. And if their straw breaks, who cares? They can become a curse! They’d love it, joining MIDNIGHT, becoming shadow itself. The darkness can become anything. The darkness is the root of all imagination. You learn this yourself, that the dark reveals the possibilities for how a world can be.

Swishy’s mind was full of spikes. The darkness was so vast, so moldable, so unpredictable. He needed it to be steady the way it used to be, and not just steady for himself but steady for the kid-crows—who’d one day be proper kids again. The magic was profound. The hearts could be shared. He wanted a world where he could open himself without fear. But Cearth—its people at least—didn’t allow for an open-heart policy. The people grabbed hearts, they seized hearts, they claimed all hearts for themselves. Everybody eats, everybody reaps.

Swishy shuffled along, trying to mute his soul-deep judgments.

Ruby issued a protracted groan. You’re so harsh with me, boy. It’s hurtful, honestly.

“I didn’t say anything.”

You didn’t have to. Your silent slander can be felt from miles away. I should’ve left you dumb. I should’ve never allowed you flashcards. Those cards were my very first gift from the altar, the first blessing a little girl had ever, ever known…And I gave them to you. Everything you are came through me.

“I appreciate that. I thank you so much, it was fun to learn. I loved becoming…” Swishy wanted to say a person but his uncertainty about that stayed his swishing. Was he a person? Did he believe that with everything in him? How did he fit into this world?

Oh, Swishy…Ruby’s darkness latched onto the boy’s turmoil, caressing it, measuring every grain. What gravity and sorrow for a simple little bird…Does being a person matter so much? If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you are what you need. The flashcards, those were my start—and yours as well. And when I aged, my needs changed. The eight-year-old me needed flashcards, a little razzle-dazzle to introduce me to Cearth. The older me is…different. I’m a fashionable aunty. In my Shugarrian language we call that tita. A trendy tita. I outgrew the flashcards. I needed…more.

“What do you get?” Swishy was amazed, drawn into the charisma of his…enemy? Frenemy? Tita? Tita Ruby? He swam into her pace despite knowing the doom-tinged tita had nothing of worth for him. “Did you toss in a Bible and get an encyclopedia? I have one at home—it’s full of animals.”

Tita Ruby will give you a clue. Finish this sentence. A picture is worth…

“A thousand words!” His explosive soul couldn’t help himself. The gold-straw feelings bloomed through him, from the chest outwards. One thousand words…wow…he imagined the words, a rain of JOY and HAPPY and FUN and UNITY. There was BROTHER and MOM and FAMILY. In that rain of cards, he couldn’t find AUNTY or TITA or TRENDSETTER, but that was okay. The vision as it came was good enough—

A real card shimmered to life before him, twice as wide and half as short as the ones he was used to: colorful, scenic, with a sun and ocean and beachy sands vibrantly coalescing. He’d seen them in the souvenir shops and the Straw City Hotel lobby. These types of stunning natures were on the travel brochures, too—complete with a Swishy logo, a T-pose stamp of his unwitting, nonconsensual approval.

A blue wind curved and swirled and angled out the magic word: POSTCARD.

(…)

The postcard featured the sea, sand, and a skyline of yellow and violet bars. The clouds were pink and just. The sun dipped off toward its overnight slumber. And in the distance, shadowclaws flapped—flapped for real. The flock flew toward the shoreline, then over the beach, and right when they got close enough to soar out of the picture and into real life—Phoosh! The postcard flared into a black flame which spread and ebbed and attained a life unto its own.

The card released a kaleidoscopic blast. The darkness suddenly receded from the push of Ruby’s postcard world. The environment changed. Swishy first thought he was transported but knew that wasn’t right—nothing in his body had shifted. The world around him simply appeared, the pitch of the Curseworks shapeshifting to balmy tropics.

Swishy shuffled his feet and the ssh-shh underfoot startled him. He rubbed swept his feet over the surface again and discovered the course sounds of beach sand. Off by the shore, there were a couple of logs of fallen driftwood. A sparkling array of pink and yellow and orange shells were scattered everywhere, both crushed and whole.

Waves lapped at the shoreline, darkening the dirt.

A smoke signal rose from a far-off village, chimney smoke dancing in S curves. Clusters of bamboo homes rested upon the series of rolling hills, the grasses green and lively. The silhouettes of people were traveling back and forth, bending over wheat stalks and filling their wicker backpacks. Their shapes were human but he couldn’t detect the rigidity of a standard vessel. But confused and suspicious as he was, he came to a Cearth-shattering conclusion.

“Is this…”

Swish it out, my smart boy.

“The Stormcellar!”

Bingo!

“Okay…” Swishy’s energy gathered in his hands. His eagerness to spread his magic touch to the surrounding nature surprised and pleased him. “I can do this.”

You can—and you must. You’ll make things right. That’s what you promised.

”I did, yes.”

Then start here—and work your way up to The Last Straw. You’ll find me there, giving you one last chance to keep your original promise. Meet me there…and allow us to mold MIDNIGHT…together. Buh-bye now!

Ruby’s presence disappeared—along with her pressure, her gravity.

Freed from her dominion, Swishy fell backward onto the beach sand, exasperated and exhausted.