There have been some interesting changes in my readership over the past year.

Participant Information

In 2012, 80% of the respondents were from the U.S. This year that figure dropped to 70%, and the other 30% came from Canada. I’d still love to hear from people in other parts of the world, it just hasn’t happened yet. The U.K., Australia, and Latvia in particular send me quite a few hits.

50% of you were age 30-49, and the other half were 50-69. The survey respondents have always skewed in favour of these age groups, but  it would be quite funny to one day discover that most of my readers are actually, say, 90…or 18! 🙂

Once again, most of the respondents have been around since the beginning of this blog.

Your Responses

Your responses were overwhelmingly positive.

A small percentage of readers said they were very unlikely to recommend this blog to anyone. I wish I could ask them why. Are they like me in that they regularly read things with which they don’t necessarily agree in order to learn from other points of view? Are they keeping tabs on me for some reason? 😀

All joking aside, if any of you read this I’d love to interview you about your reading habits. It’s fascinating to (potentially) meet other people who have the same philosophy in life. Leave a message in the comments or use the contact form if you’re interested.

A lot of you are eager for me to release e-books. I know I’ve talked about doing so regularly for the past year, and I do have stories that are ready to go. What I really need is a beta reader to help me polish them up.

I can’t afford to pay for this service at the moment, but I’m happy to barter. (And I hope to pay once I start making money from my books.)

Do you need a beta reader for your work? Do you want to have your site added to Link Love? Would you like a personalized story? Do you need a guest blogger for your site? Let’s talk!

Effective immediately the comment section on each post will shut down 10 days after the original publishing date.  You now have the ability to flag inappropriate messages, and I will be manually approving comments without verified email addresses.  It will always be ok to use a pseudonym here, but this blog will no longer publish anonymous comments. 

I am happy to unlock old posts upon request.

Ok, onto the fun stuff! 

Keeping Never Good Enough at Bay. I really appreciate this blogger’s transparency. It isn’t easy to admit these types of fears, although I definitely have had them.

Are the Events of“The Labyrinth” Meant to be Sarah Dreaming, or Are They Real? This is one of the most fascinating alternative explanations for a fantasy movie I’ve ever read. What we need is a blog or website dedicated to collecting and exploring this kind of imaginative work. As much as I enjoyed watching “The Labyrinth” as a kid, I liked thinking about the dark explanation for certain scenes even more.  This link is work safe, but the rest of the site may not be.

Being Human via sjhigbee. Several days ago someone asked me what makes people human. When I tweeted a link to my answer a fascinating discussion sprung up on Twitter, and this blog post was written in response to some of the points we made.

Soap-Stealing Squirrels Cause Residents to Demand Trees Are Cut Down. No, this isn’t satire as far as I can tell. I’m quite curious to figure out what the squirrels are doing with all of that soap, though. Would anyone like to write a haiku, flash fiction, or other short creative work about why squirrels need to be so clean?

Isla – a Programming Language for Children. I’m fascinated by the idea of teaching someone how to become a programmer by making it a game. As much as programming fascinates me it has always felt like a terribly complex activity.  This site makes it seem like something I could actually do.

I Never Dreamed via jdubqca. Listen to this poem after you read it. I liked it when I read it, but I loved hearing how the author interprets the pauses between each word. Sometimes how something is said matters more than the actual words that are used.

From Surviving a For-Profit School:

I spent my first few weeks back in this hole wondering what I’d gotten myself into. They had no work for me to do, because classes had just begun. Their classes, however, were only four weeks long, so it was just a short wait. In the meantime, I was meant to train. Training included a day-long employee orientation where I was driven around the strip malls on a golf cart by a man who said I had a lovely voice and should sing. He took us by the “library,” which was a room with four metal shelves mostly stacked with DVDs. He smiled at us and said, “Who needs all those books?” I wanted to tell him that I did, but kept my mouth shut.

From Celibacy at Twenty:

But every time I went
from months of hunger to those first kisses,
soon there were the last kisses, and I
felt I stood outside of life, held
back– but no one was holding me, I was
waiting….

If our species wants to avoid extinction we must Scatter, Adapt, and Remember.

So many books about the near future are grim. Climate change and dwindling natural resources are threatening the  longterm survival of the human race, but if we learn to live within our means and figure out how to build successful colonies on other planets our species has a chance to survive for a very long time.

I loved the optimism of this book. Some of the solutions it offers are far-fetched, but I hope that we will branch out into new territories and eventually evolve into a more peaceful race. Perhaps Star Trek is in our future!

What have you been reading?

Photo by David Vignoni.

Happy Blogiversary to On the Other Hand! I’m still sorting through your responses to the survey, but I will be sharing the results on Monday.  The next instalment of After the Storm will be published on Wednesday instead next week.

Once again, thank you all so much for reading my blog over the past year.

Top 10 Posts

The 10 most visited posts over the past year were:

10. R. Kelly and the Anti-Masturbation PSA. (September 2012)

9. Can You Trust Your First Impressions? (August 2012)

8. 5 Ways to Get Quiet People to Speak Up. (June 2012)

7. 5 Reasons Why You Should Stop Reading the News. (January 2011)

6. Are Most People Happy? (September 2012)

5. Why Is Violence More Acceptable Than Sex? (February 2011)

4. Has the Internet Destroyed Our Social Skills? (April 2011)

3. What the Quiet People Are Thinking. (December 2010)

2. 6 Reasons Why I Don’t Wear Makeup. (August 2010)

1. How to Forgive Without An Apology. (August 2011)

It’s fascinating to compare them to the lists I shared in 2012 and 2011. Some posts take on a life of their own and continue to receive attention years later!

Last year Sabio asked what search terms people use to find this blog. I condensed the topics down into a top 10 list, and it was interesting to see what it had in common with the most visited pages:

• Is voting worth it?
• On the Other Hand blog.
• Recharge your energy
• On-the-other-hand.com and christianity.
• Internet and social skills.
• Quiet people.
• Stop reading the news.
• Forgiving someone who doesn’t apologize.
• I don’t wear makeup.
• And #1 is….(not provided). Some search engines don’t allow Google analytics to share this information with bloggers. If only they would!

Respond

So I’ve been having a serious spam problem with older posts. I’m thinking about closing comments on each post after a few weeks. Readers, what do you think about this solution? Bloggers, is there a better way to handle this problem?

What have been your favourite posts here over the past year?

Photo by Tammy Schoch.

Just tuning in? Catch up with parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve , thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen of this story.

With the boy undergoing a cursory medical exam before being transferred to the head of the militia, Bryant sipped herbal tea at the edge of the campground and watched the sun dribble into the hazy sky.

Mornings like this made her miss Eutaw. That is, the Eutaw that existed before the Battle of Fort Evergreen six years ago. Nobody who had means to escape stuck around in Sunset after the first truce. By the time the Aides restored order they recruited anyone willing to pledge allegiance to their newly-formed country. After seeing what happened to her contemporaries in a rapidly disintegrating city, Rey stretched the truth about her age to the militia and said as little about her past as possible.

A tall man with a serious expression on his face whipped the medical tent flap and motioned Bryant over.

“His CD4 counts are through the roof,” Alvarez whispered. Bryant’s stomach dropped. Scans of both the old woman and the other son indicated that their immune systems had been exposed to this virus before. Given their close proximity and unbelievably unhygienic living conditions the Reader had initially predicted Isaac had been exposed to the hantavirus months ago. No one was expecting this result.

“Vitals?”

“All normal so far as I could tell. The MediReader blinked out halfway through the exam.” Caca.

“Did you run the probabilities?” Everyone in the company who wasn’t a new recruit had been vaccinated already, but after a few bloody missions the percentage of new recruits was rising rapidly.

“No, I didn’t have time.” With brand new and fully functional equipment Alvarez could have completed this scan in a few seconds. As it was he now spent more time trying to electronically create and record his findings than actually examining the civilian. Had the capital not been so insistent on meticulous record-keeping he could have finished this exam in half the time.

“You know you have to tell Baker, right?”

“It’s your assignment. You should do it,” Alvarez said with a tinge of hope in his voice. “The risks of clearing him for questioning are honestly fairly low. Aceveds was the only one exposed to him who hasn’t already been vaccinated, and that man is indestructible. All we have to do is keep the rest of the new recruits away from him until I can get the MediReader fixed.”  There was also the fact that Alvarez already been reamed out by their militia’s commanding officer once this week for his involvement with the Swood disaster.  He was in no mood to be the bearer of bad news again so soon.

“Medicine is your jurisdiction. I’m just a grunt.” After what happened in Nevada Bryant wasn’t about to stick her neck out for anyone, even her husband.

*****

“Ephraim, this isn’t safe,” Daphne said again as her son slid his newly-sharpened knife into his boot holster.

“We need to know more about them before we go to the council. If I tell you how many men they have and what their weaknesses are maybe you can convince the other ombudsmen to do something other than twiddle their thumbs and hope for the best.”

“But you don’t even know if the council still exists!” Even water rights weren’t being fought over as nearly every house struggled to finish preserving their harvests and bury their dead.

“You exist, mom. As long as you’re alive so is the council. If you had to you could govern this whole valley with one hand tied behind your back until more volunteers stepped up.” Now Daphne knew that wasn’t true. She could barely sit at the council table and look at a sea of faces staring back at her without feeling jittery.

“You’re outnumbered, ‘Raim. I need you here to protect us.” For a second Ephraim paused and smiled. The idea of his mother – a woman who once ran off a mountain lion when it injured Lemon and shamed the councilmen who had ruled against her in the custody battle with McArthur into reversing their decision – needing him was slightly funny. Did she love him? Without a doubt. Did she need him? Not in the least.

“I’ll be careful,” was his only reply.

It was a long, quiet, sad day at the Lewis house, but even Paige saw fit to keep her opinions to herself for once. Daphne preserved everything her sons had brought back on their last trip from the gardens. In the past it had been more than enough for one adult and two children, but it would be tricky to stretch it out for six hungry mouths over the summer. Planning out how to keep everyone fed was a good distraction, though.

When Daphne gathered everyone inside for their siesta at the hottest part of the day she decided to tell Felix and Wilma some of the stories she’d shared with her sons when they were small. Felix already knew how Father Time had first set the world into motion, and Wilma was too young to hear about what happens to those who defeat Death, but after a moment of hesitation Daphne wandered to the little bookcase built into a nook by her bed and picked up one of her favourite history books.

“Many generations ago animals still remembered knew how to speak,” she said. “And this is the true story of what happened when some of them decided to overthrow a farm and run it themselves…”

I have some blog business to discuss before we get into this week’s list of suggestions.

• If you haven’t filled out my 2013 survey yet, please consider doing so. It’s open until July 31.
• If you comment on an old post and want to hear back from me, please send your reply here instead. This blog is receiving a quickly increasing amount of spam, and I can’t guarantee that genuine comments on posts published months or years ago will make it through the filter or catch my attention.
• You guys are awesome!  Thank you so much for reading this blog. I deeply appreciate every comment, retweet, and message.

Ok, onto the link love.

From Magician:

I had a friend some time ago
And he knew magic tricks
He’d wear a cloak
Of deepest black
And twirl his magic stick

Not Just a Frivolity. An excellent explanation of why so many people love Anne Shirley. Even if you’re not a fan of Anne of Green Gables and its many sequels, it’s amazing how deeply emotionally connected readers can become to a well-written character. I love that about our species.

The Power of Memories. 50 years ago the man this blogger met was placed in foster care with his siblings. It was amazing to me to read about his vivid memories because of how young he was and how many years have passed since.

Portraits of the Elderly as They Once Were. Someone who prefers to remain anonymous recently shared this incredible photo essay with me. The only thing that would make these photos better would be if they could have somehow included the subject’s childhood as well. It’s amazing to see how much we all change over 80+ years of living.

What Will We Love About the 2000’s? I can’t believe people are trying to figure this out already. My best guess is that it will be great fodder for future grad students looking for thesis topics. There were a lot of controversial decisions made in that decade that I suspect future generations may not look upon all that kindly.

From This Is How I Start My Day via dlmchale:

I quietly swing my feet to the floor and sit for a moment. My muse is impatiently pulling me into awakening, but I do my best to resist. I want to sleep just a little bit more, but my eyes have already made out the flashing light on my hibernating computer and just like that, I want to be writing more than I want to be dreaming.

From Pomegranates via loveFORREST:

I feel like I still have yesterday’s make-up on;
or what’s left of the confidence I smeared on.

 

The Child Catchers is a sobering look at how Evangelicalism has negatively influenced the adoption industry. The opportunity to make money through domestic or international adoptions has lead many agencies to pressure poor and/or single parent families into relinquishing children that could have remained with their parents or another relative if they’d been offered just a little social support or been told the truth about what adoption means in the west. (Some cultures think of “adoption” as a temporary fostering agreement instead of something permanent).

Yes, sometimes adoption is the best choice for an abandoned or abused child, but it’s extremely unethical to take advantage of someone else’s poverty or cultural misunderstanding in order to meet a quota or make money.

What have you been reading?

Just tuning in? Catch up with parts one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve , thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen of this story.

Rey Bryant wiped the perspiration off of her forehead and concentrated on slowing down her respiration rate as Sutter flinched at the sound of the barking dog inside and knocked on the little white door again. She glanced over her shoulder at the rest of her team as they waited for an answer.

Hurst was fiddling with his gun as usual. Aceveds had broken formation and was staring off sleepily into the distance. At least Mullen was alert and ready to back up her team leader should this fact-finding mission turn ugly. The last thing Bryant wanted to do was report another casualty to her boss. This was supposed to be a peacekeeping tour of duty, not the bloodbath it had turned into with the death of Melvin Watts and the fiasco with the Swood brothers a few nights earlier.

The door creaked open just far enough for a thin, brown, frowning face to peek out. Based on the grey streaks in her hair Rey guessed the woman peeking out at them was in her late 40s or early 50s, but it was hard to determine how old some of these hillbillies were. They bred fast, died young, and were so uneducated and suspicious of outsiders that Rey doubted any of them had ever seen a proper doctor or had any interest in preventing the diseases they carelessly spread. Rey introduced herself and asked if she and her team could come inside. With Hurst’s and Aceveds’ help this was more of a command than a request.

“We’re here to ask for your assistance in a troubling matter,” Rey said. Perhaps diplomacy would work better than the more aggressive tactics that killed off half of Alvarez’s team. “One of our soldiers was found dead at your neighbour’s house, and we want to know what happened.”

“We don’t know anything about that,” Isaac said. Rey had nearly memorized the scant reports about the younger of Daphne’s two children, but he spoke so infrequently that the psychological profile of him was almost certainly incorrect. Their software had found it much easier to predict how Ephraim could be expected to act in an unexpected situation, and even though his possibly violent tendencies were concerning at this moment Rey wished the algorithm could have predicted something about this man-child.

“We mean you no harm,” Rey said as she flexed her calf and felt the cool, hard edge of the blade hidden underneath her pants dig into her skin. Something metallic in Mullen’s pocket made a soft clanking sound as she shifted position behind her commander. “But we have reason to believe that you or someone in this house knows what happened that night.”

“I’m sorry, we don’t.” Isaac said. Once again Rey wished her Reader was still working. The technology was still in its infancy and it wasn’t always correct, but the ability to surreptitiously scan a suspect for small changes in posture, vital statistics, and facial expressions would sure come in handy right about now. Her intel suggested that Isaac was more empathetic than the average person, not less, and she suspected that if he was lying about what he knew the stress of it would be affecting something in his physiology.

“Can I offer you something to drink?” Daphne asked. Yes, this was a good indication that the personality profile of her was correct. It had predicted she’d be initially taken aback by such a visit, but she would quickly regroup and offer the team a small sign of hospitality.

“Yes, please,” Aceveds said. Tension always dried out his mouth, and at the moment his tongue felt like it was wrapped in cotton.

“No, Ma’am,” Rey said as she rubbed her nose and glanced sharply at her newest team member. “Thank you for your hospitality, but we have a long list of houses to visit tonight and we still have questions to ask you.” Ephraim

“We’re happy to help,” Daphne said, “but as my son told you none of us know anything about what happened to your soldier. I’d be happy to bring it up at the next council meeting, though.” This was a surprise! All of Rey’s intel indicated that Daphne was not well-connected to the surrounding community. There had apparently been several instances of her flagrantly breaking the rules, and some of Rey’s sources said the twins were rumoured to have been conceived in an adulterous affair that had been exposed in a controversial manner. Either way it didn’t seem like a good idea to arrest this woman without concrete proof of what had happened.

Daphne’s answers to the next few questions about what everyone was doing the night of Watts’ murder were short, polite, and almost too detailed. Rey’s sources agreed that Daphne was an expert at slipping out of punishments and talking other people into seeing things her way. It was one of the reasons why she was so disliked by certain families in Mingus.

Isaac, though, was a different story. When the signal was given Rey’s team snapped into focus and prepared for the worst. Even Aceveds stayed in proper formation for once.

“We’ll need to take your son in for further questioning,” Rey said. Daphne felt her heart drop so fast she thought it would plunge through her diaphram.”We have some equipment that can help us get to the bottom of what really happened.”

“No, you can’t!”

Hurst straightened his posture and contracted the muscles in his stomach in order to feel the firearm nestled by his right hip. It was about time Rey skipped over the gooey diplomacy and got to the good stuff.

“I promise you’ll have him home safe soon. There is no need to escalate this situation.” Rey lifted the edge of her shirt to reveal a gleam of metal in the soft evening light. Ephraim crossed his arms and clenched his fists as Daphne slowly opened the door and watched her youngest child march away with strangers.

Here is this week’s list of blog posts and other tidbits from my favourite corners of the web.

The Forbidden Island via @KenKaminsky. As curious as I am to learn how this tribe has fared over the last 65,000 years, I sincerely hope they never make contact with the rest of us.

 A Day In the Life of Dr. Oz. I’m not a fan of Dr. Oz. Maybe that’s why I found this so amusing?

Song Title Stories. What kind of short story could you make out of song titles? I don’t think I’d be very good at this game, but it sure looks like fun.

Trayvon Martin and I Ain’t Shit. A powerful essay about how racism tears down the author’s self-worth.

Disclaimer. My high school freshman English teacher gave us a lecture on this at the beginning of the school year.  <Mumble> years I still remember her stressing that it was up to us to decide what we wanted to focus on – a high-powered career, becoming mothers, exploring the world, etc. We could pick anything, she said, but we couldn’t pick everything at once. Now I wonder if she’d say the same thing to her students if she hasn’t retired yet. In retrospect it was odd that she thought motherhood was a bigger commitment than fatherhood. It might have been true for her generation, but most of the couples I know who are having kids these days split childcare fairly evenly.

From Shyness Cannot Be “Cured“:

Yet shyness remains a part of being human, and the world would be a more insipid, less creative place without it. As Cain argues, we live in a culture that values dialogue as an ultimate ideal, an end in itself, unburdening ourselves to each other in ever louder voices without necessarily communicating any better. Shyness reminds us that all human interaction is fraught with ambiguity, and that insecurity and self-doubt are natural, because we are all ultimately inaccessible to one another

From Another Childhood Memory:

One time in a supermarket, someone yelled at him. As I said, he looked like a caricature of a Nazi. Think Otto Preminger but taller. A man spotted him, heard the accent I suppose, and begin screaming at him, calling him a “Nazi bastard” and a war criminal and other such labels. Mr. Stern did not yell back. He merely reached over, unbuttoned his shirt cuff, rolled up his sleeve and showed the man the tattoo he’d been given, I believe, at Ravensbruck.

This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor wasn’t a lighthearted read, but I’m glad I listened to what the author has to say. Susan Wicklund and her family were threatened, stalked, and harassed for years because of her work at women’s health clinics.

A hundred years ago, Susan’s grandmother saw firsthand what happens to women who try to self-abort when they don’t have any medical training. The awful repercussions of that day trickled down from one generation to the next and spurred Susan to go to medical school so she could give other young women a much safer way to end their pregnancies.

What have you been reading?

Today I thought I’d answer some more recent search terms that have brought new readers to this blog. Feel free to leave your own responses in the comment section!

Why am I chattier on certain days and quiet on others? Did you know that words build up slowly in the back of your mouth when you sleep? If you don’t use them all up at the end of the day they reach maturity and start making baby words before you go to bed. By the time you wake up the next morning your tonsils are infested with two or three times your normal daily allotment of speech. You either have to spit them all out or risk them migrating up to your brainstem and take over your nervous system. Nobody wants that to happen.

Why is Christina so crabby? She doesn’t read this blog.

How to understand the type of person who won’t let you get a word in edgewise in a conversation. No one ever taught them that it takes at least two to carry a conversation.

Can people change fundamentally? No.

A non-theistic blessing before a meal.

Good bread, good meat.

Good God, let’s eat!

Should I apologize to my husband’s mistress? I’d love to know the rest of this story. If the person who searched for an answer to this question ever reads this, please let us know what happened!

Are extroverts doomed to repeat their mistakes for life? No.

What are men thinking when they go quiet? They seem strangely unwilling to answer this question. 😛 For the record, this is a great question to ask me if you’re interested in surviving the next apocalypse or wonder why Cheese Man never runs low on cheese. I have stacks of theories about both topics!

What man’s name gives the impression of [him being] trustworthy? Short ones.

Here’s a sign that my readers have high self esteem: I cant believe how f8cking awesome I am.

Finally, someone found this blog by searching for the phrase elders of lo don. Googling it turned up nothing, so I decided to write flash fiction about these elders so they’ll have something to do until we actually invent them.

“Herman, you fatuous fool!” 

“What happened?” 

“What sort of dingbat sleeps while the fire burns out?” 

“It’s still smouldering, Helga.We’ll be just fine!”

“The Elders of Lo Don don’t exist for just fine work. Go scrub the front steps. I’ll finish your watch.”

 After Herman left Helga crouched over the fragile flame. Achoo! Helga watch in horror as the tiny flame disappeared. A moment later she joined it. 

A 3.4 earthquake jiggled San Jose that January evening, but it wasn’t until the end of the cold, cropless summer that the humans realized something was terribly wrong.

© Michael Gäbler / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA-3.0

Just tuning in? Catch up with parts one, two, three, four,  five,  six,  seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven,  twelve ,  thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen of this story.

Her son’s harrowing story had left everyone convinced that the Lewis house would be targeted next, but when three, four, five quiet nights passed without incident and Paige and Wilma continued to improve Daphne no longer knew what to expect. It was easier to live in terror than to wake up every morning wondering if the soldiers would come back today.

Sometimes when Felix and Wilma were fighting over a toy or Paige interrupted Daphne’s train of thought to once again tell her how to properly boil a pot of tea or brush the dirt out of Lemon’s hair Daphne fantasized about walking away from it all for an afternoon. She wouldn’t come home again until just before Ephraim and Isaac expected dinner. The pain in her knee was receding, and while it was still quite stiff she was slowly learning her new limitations. Walking short distances wasn’t too painful, but the long, peaceful hikes she’d grown accustomed to as a single woman living alone were quickly becoming a distant memory.

Before the storm Daphne and Lemon had regularly gone a week or two without seeing anyone other than Nevaeh. Now her small, brown adobe was littered with sleeping mats, and her once-tidy front yard was strewn with travelling tents, racks filled with vegetables in various stages of the drying process and the rocks Felix insisted were the foundation of an impenetrable fort. It was easier to let him run out into the desert and gather them up than to force him to sit quietly while his sister napped and the adults worked.

“You’re not cutting the carrots uniformly,” Paige said as she set down her own knife and walked over to Daphne’s side of the outdoor kitchen. “They won’t dry properly if they’re not all the same size.”

Daphne paused for a minute, raised her eyebrow at the older woman, and then looked down at the thin slices of carrot on her cutting board.

“I’m cutting them the same way I have for thirty years.”

“Well, it’s not the right way. Let me show you how it’s really done.” Daphne bristled as Paige reached over, took her knife and began cutting the carrots into thin slices.

“They look identical to me.”

“Well, they’re not. If you – ” Paige’s latest monologue was cut off by the sight of Felix bolting back into the yard. When he’d caught enough breath to respond to their questions he told them what he had seen. While looking for material to add to his fort Felix had noticed a boulder shimmering in the sun. As he stepped closer to it part of the rock disappeared and was replaced with the surprised face of a young woman lying on her stomach. No sooner had he seen her than she disappeared and the surface of the large rock reappeared.

No matter how many times the women questioned him Felix’s answers remained the same. No, this wasn’t a game and he hadn’t been feeling ill. Yes, he had been drinking enough water and he was sure of what he had seen. Paige’s response to his story was to hurry back to into the house and pray. She’d been horrified to discover that Daphne didn’t have a personal altar and had quickly assembled a simple one for the family. In the 15 years since Bonnie passed away Paige had only missed a handful of daily blessings for her final and favourite wife.

Daphne bit her bottom lip and continued slicing carrots as she talked to Felix. Paige’s tendency to do and say things before she thought about how they affected other people had irritated Daphne for years, but she had a tough time saying no to a neighbour who had already lost so much. Was there a way to ask Paige to dismantle the altar without hurting her feelings? Daphne hoped she could figure it out soon.

*******

Lemon started barking as soon as the soldiers began creeping  into Daphne’s yard. Paige and the children had gone to bed early, and at first Daphne tried to shush him so he wouldn’t wake them up. When she heard boots crunching through the pebbles in front of her door an old memory flooded Daphne’s mind.

“Stay here,” the brown, wrinkled, old man said the last time she saw him alive. The shouts in the yard grew louder as he shut her into the pantry and hurried to the front door. At any other time of year there would have been too much food stored in there for a near-adult to hide, but the last harvest had been poor and their supplies were dwindling. 

“We know she’s in there,” a man shouted. “Give us to her and you won’t be harmed.” Her harvest had been mediocre as well, and when you combined that with the rash of disease and other misfortunes it was easy to deduce that something – or someone – had angered the gods. While it was true that Daphne didn’t exhibit any physical signs of troubled past lives or multiple souls peering out of her troubled brown eyes, orphans and outsiders were easy suspects at times like this. Carl’s granddaughter was both. 

“Calm down, Bonnie,” her grandfather said. “I’m unlatching the door now and coming outside. We’ll talk about this like adults.” Daphne heard him unlatch the door and step outside. Her heart pounded as brusque words flew between them at a frequency too low for her to make out. 

A knock at the door. Isaac leapt up to answer it while Daphne wrapped her arms around Lemon to subdue his nervous energy and Ephraim stood guard. At first no one knew how to react when the door swung open and a tall, thin soldier with a black eye asked if she and her men could come in and talk.