He couldn’t see at all, yet he still had some
measure of perception. He could feel the water below and
the air above, could taste the oxygen coursing through his
veins. A brief memory rose up: five black trees, gnarled
and rooted. Some ancient intuition, now immortalized in
the shape of rings, muttered of metamorphosis.
When the wind picked up and rattled his leaves, he
realized he still had a voice.
Why? he whispered, shaking his branches in a fury.
Why have you done this to me?
On the dock, she stood still and listened to the
rushing breeze, a smile playing on her lips.
Amanda Crum is a writer and artist whose work has appeared in Barren
Magazine, Eastern Iowa Review, and several anthologies, including Beyond
the Hill and Two Eyes Open. She is the author of two novels, The
Fireman’s Daughter and The Darkened Mirror. Her chapbook of horror-
inspired poetry, The Madness in Our Marrow, was shortlisted for a Bram
Stoker Award nomination in 2015, while her story “A Shimmer In The
Parlor” was a finalist for the J.F. Powers Prize in Short Fiction in 2019.
She currently lives in Kentucky with her husband and two children.
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