When The Sap Rises
By Glenda Barrett
Working Class Women
By Michelle Tokarczyk
Real Faith
By D. Eric Williams
 I am happy to commend D. Eric Williams' studies in the epistle of James. "Real Faith" is down-to-earth, just like the epistle, and is well-suited to help the reader unpack the kind of practical help that James is known for.
Douglas Wilson, Christ Church, Moscow Idaho.
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Wynnderlan II
07.09.10 by Elisa Williams
I was alone. Floating; drifting but for the spike in my chest that pinned me to the hard surface underneath. Faces with burning blue eyes, heads crowned with antlers and pointed ears advanced and faded.
This is death? I could not feel my limbs, only the spike of pain in my chest. I tired to draw a breath. Like a hammer hitting water-soft wood, my lungs convulsed once and seized in my chest.
 I arched up off the hard surface I lay on, suddenly desperate for air. Pain slammed through me. I trashed, fighting to break up the solid matter that my lungs had become. Something broke loose and I retched. Congealing blood and foam came up with each heave of my frozen lungs. I gasped for breath, choking up fluid and clots of blood till I was exhausted, my throat a raw ruin. It was then, lying face down propped up on my elbows I realized I was naked and soaking wet; underneath me wet rock, sea water lapping about my legs. Over a low bluff the half moon hung like a swollen womb. I was in a sea cove, lying amongst the driftwood that littered the beach and bobbed in the low water, bone-white in the moonlight.
I coughed once; a weak, wet cough that tore at my throat and made my stomach heave. My breath misted the air but I felt no cold. I looked down at my hands.
Dead-white, like a corpse, the skin loose and flaccid. I bent my fingers. The skin pulled away from my hand, sliding off in a long swath. I stared, unable to feel either shock or revulsion. I turned my hands and scraped them along the stone. Thick, dead skin and flesh peeled away like cod under the dressers knife. A corpse. I was a rotting copse.
My moan turned into a cough and I lay my forehead on the rock, fighting to still the spasm. Blood dribbled from my mouth, striping the white flesh of my arms. My scalp crawled, a sensation that brought to mind worms burrowing in soft earth. My senses rocked. The chill night air lifted me and carried me away.
Water running into my nose brought me back. The tide was moving in. Clouds had moved to cover the moon, leaving the beach a mottled patchwork of rock and sand and driftwood. I moved my legs and felt returning sensation. All over my skin tingled with a deep almost painful prickling. I lifted my head and took a breath. The cold air burnt my raw throat. I fought the urge to cough. My dead white skin seemed to glow in the night. I raised my hand before my face. The skin was smooth and whole, no sign of a mark.
Realization dawned and my blood froze. I stretched out both arms. Where they should have been torn and punctured with the teeth-marks of the dogs they were whole and untouched, pale in the returning moonlight. Patches of memory floated in my mind like moving fog...Frozen ground and blood, lantern light and echoing voices.
Almost of their own violation, my fingers moved to my throat. Here too the skin was untouched where it should have been torn and gaping. In the uncertain light, I examined the rest of my body. Whole, unscathed. In parts dead skin was still peeling away as it had on my hands and arms, new skin showing brighter underneath. My hands went to my head and came away with a chunk of hair. I stared at the long dark strands dumbly. I opened my fingers and let them fall to the rock. Rising water run over it, working at carrying it away.
Slowly, I stood. The breeze moved against me and there was a burning sensation over my shoulder blades; light and voices teased my memory, a presence I knew but now missed. It faded almost immediately, like a moment of dizziness one gets when rising from a bed, leaving me only with the huge and awful realization: I had been brought back from among the dead.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Landercastle was a city older than the country that it resided in. Burnt and rebuilt, beset by plague and purged by religious massacre, it still moved and breathed, an ancient beast, older and wiser than time.
The stone architecture had given way to brick and mortar as the centauries of plundering the material had left the land naked for miles and miles ‘round. Overlooking the city were the ruins of fortress Landercastle, the castle of kinds long dead, now only broken stone and tumbled walls.
On this morning a heavy winter fog hung low over the city, pierced by steeples and bell towers, curling at the doorposts and sending long fingers swirling across the paved streets. My borrowed cloak was wet through, clinging to my skin in places the tunic did not cover. Carriage lamps bobbed in the mist, the rumble of wheels muted; the only near sounds were the drip of water and the thud of an axe. I passed the lower city summer-market, the stalls shuttered and silent. Beyond it the streets were like a rabbit warren, houses mixed among the shops and taverns. The mixed smells of smoke, wet brick, animal and sewer hung heavy.
The window shutters on the second story of a smoke-stained building that housed an herbalist's shop on the first floor were raised and a cascade of descending water narrowly missed me. The pungent scent of herbs and spices momentarily wafted on the mist-heavy air. I glanced up. The herbalist's amber-eyed daughter met my gaze. She nodded in acknowledgment as our eyes met but there was no recognition in her gesture. I lowered my eyes, moving on down the street.
Three turns and a dozen shops and ale houses later I arrived at the back of a white stone building. Two black cats with gold eyes watched me from the back steps. They rose and stretched as I climbed the steps and lifted the door latch. The hall lamps were still unlit. The cats slipped in behind me and made for the kitchen doorway. A weary scolding followed their entrance. The back stairs were narrow and dark but as familiar as my own face; the thought made me pause. The face I was familiar with was the face of Afon, pickpocket and petty thief. Not the face I had now. Not the face of a dead man awoken. A reanimated corpse.
I raised reluctant fingers, running then along the jaw line of a face that was not my own. It had been a disorienting experience to look into the wavy mirror hanging over the basin in the farmer's cottage and see a stranger. Like a face seen in a dream and then forgotten, tantalizingly familiar though totally foreign. Every line had shifted slightly creating a completely new visage, yet retaining some evanescent tie to the Afon that had climbed the cliffs of Dungard la Roch. With the bald head of a mountain monk, I could not have been more unrecognizable.
Deep in these thoughts I climbed the narrow stairs avoiding the loose and squeaky steps out of habit. The scarred door with the tarnished brass handle seemed a relic of the past but it had been a mere fortnight since I'd last closed the door behind me, that dark-destined night Hadyn and I had gone to rob a Barwn.
I turned the knob and swing the door open. The room was empty. Bare floor boards collecting dust in the corners and overlaying the tiny window panes and sills. Stained ticking and a wooden bucket remained in the corner. As expected, Hadyn was long gone. I would have been truly disappointed in his good sense to have found him still in residence. I stepped back and closed the door, leaving the way I had come in, avoiding any contact with the others in the house. There would be no message left for me.
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