“Your heart knows your family.” — “How do I know you really found him?” Hagovi jabbed her fork into a full plate of starinis leaves and eipqrjn roots. They were fresh and luscious and part of her cried out for the squish and crunch between her molars. Dried leaves fell from the ceiling but Daar’a had…

He’s a big man like your father. — Hagovi ripped off the mask and leaped off the bed onto hard grey floor. She staggered, ricocheted off a cabinet, and collided with a machine. “Just a precaution.” The Professor — no, Darstle — grabbed her from behind. Hagovi bent double, to get away from him and because the room…

Within steps of the hut she realised a fuller truth of her vulnerability outside. She lost sight of the structure and knew she would never find it again. With intentional strides, she forced herself into the throat of the wind from the Barrier. …

Is that me? — A set of delicate bones lay on the silver examining tray in the study. “Only pictures,” the Professor had said. “Take pictures and place them in the drawers. We won’t disturb the dead any more than that.” The picture machine scanned the first bone and beeped when the light reflections…

Dedicated to my little sister. Listen to audio narration by N. MacCameron on SoundCloud. Hagovi wrapped her slender fingers around her mother’s razor-edged shins and pressed down. The hard floor grazed her knees and bent her toes until they ached. She longed to unbend and wiggle them. Father embraced Mother…

Listen to the Soundcloud audio narration by N. MacCameron. Hagovi switched her broom back and forth across the stone steps of her home. Tawny swaths of storm debris swayed and shifted to the end of the path. …

“We have a plan, Father. I will go with Testoneel and live quietly on the outskirts. Closer but not close enough to be trouble.” — Listen to the Soundcloud audio narration by N. MacCameron “Hagovi!” The sound of her second syllable in Father’s chest sent tingles of warmth down to her toes. She ran forward. His muscular arms wrapped around her and held her close to his heart. Father waved to a chair beside…

“What is this professor, anyway?” — Listen to the Soundcloud audio narration by N. MacCameron. Hagovi stood on her tiptoes. A vacuum of silence pulled at her eardrums after the pummeling of the storm. Her gaze followed the curved ceiling of the new space like tendrils of a vine, up and over the apex and…

The figure slumped down onto the bench under the hooks and began unwrapping its head. — Listen to the Soundcloud audio narration by N. MacCameron “What do you know, Testoneel?” Hagovi navigated the aisles between the just-above-waist-high walls to arrive in the kitchen. She felt fresher with the new clothes she had found in the cupboard of the hose room. Testoneel placed two brimming plates…

“I don’t believe in that royalist hash.” The newcomer snarled. — Listen to the Soundcloud audio narration by N. MacCameron Testoneel staggered back. The second-covered man looked her in the eye. “Neither does the old king.” “Why you’re not going with him?” Testoneel straightened and stepped forward. She bobbed her head up and down in the servant’s fashion. “I don’t…

“It’s a picture. We had ’em in the old palace, long ago. It’s been a while since I used one. Look.” — Hagovi lounged on a long tasseled cushion in one of the cubicles of their home. Testoneel fiddled with a round box on the floor in front of her. Suddenly a man’s form blinked into being on top of the round box and towered over her. Hagovi sprang back, across the…

“Daar’a says you have been taking good care of her.” — Listen to the Soundcloud audio narration by N. MacCameron Hagovi peeked out her bedroom door. She could almost hear the dead seconds sifting down from the rafters. Light beamed from the overhead skylights, unchanged from forever. That clumsy Testoneel had dropped her slipper coming to bed, startling Hagovi from her…

“Father experimented on me?” — Listen to the Soundcloud audio narration by N. MacCameron The Professor held the door open. “Come in and see.” Hagovi stalled in the entrance of the kitchen. She shook her head and hunched her shoulders. “Please.” She opened her palms to him. “Please, I need to know. …

“Why will the Grand Master believe you now?” — Hagovi marveled at an artifact in her hand. Through the clear orb she could see the fibres of her glove slightly magnified and distorted. …

“How do you know he’s out here?” — “How do you know he’s out here?” Hagovi demanded of the Professor in the front entrance. The door had just closed on her family. “She went with them,” he replied to her thought. “Testoneel. It’s written on your face. When will you remember, I’m good at surmising?” She screamed and…

Though she had slept, her body felt as though all the time in the desert was heaped on the blanket. — Hagovi lay in the light coming from the cracks around the curtain in the skylight. She pulled Mother’s blanket up to her chin and stared at Testoneel’s empty bed. Though she had slept, her body felt as though all the time in the desert was heaped on the blanket. He…

Don’t ‘supposed-to-be’ me. — Hagovi’s fingernails looked like Barrier Trash when she finally unscrewed all the bolts and lifted the skylight a crack. Cold air hit her eyes in a solid band. She pulled the wrap tighter and scrambled onto the steeply sloped roof. The skylight snapped closed. …

I am different. I can’t go back. What do I do? — “Dinpfeg can’t take you.” Marl entered Hagovi’s chamber with a tray of food. “I’m not going anyway.” She replied from the edge of her bed. Her face and hands burned as if she had bathed in acid. “DK.” Dimpfeg squeezed through the narrow opening in the door. …

She stared into Marl’s eyes. “Breathe.” She filled her own lungs. — The wind tossed Hagovi and Marl from one unbalanced foot to the other. Hagovi remembered tucking into her Father the last time she made the trip from the castle to the hut. Marl was her height but a slighter build. No shelter in the tormenting currents. For the first third…

I don’t know what to do. He only said, if you can’t breath, use this. — The siren punched the air with two blasts for every time Marl inhaled and two more for each exhale. The mask rhythmically fogged up, then cleared. Hagovi wanted to shut the alarm off. She wanted to change her clothes, get the sand out of her hair, drink some red juice…