Release(36)

The inevitable police car pulls down around the curve, close enough so the faun can see the astonishment of the man behind the wheel as he comes upon first a dead woman in a drowned dress, then a seven-foot faun following at a respectful distance.

It begins, thinks the faun, and he moves forward to start the long battle his Queen requires him to wage.





The sheer, solid fact of the car is a surprise to her, though it shouldn’t be. It stops short, its brakes squealing as it rocks forward. The door opens. The man’s hand is already on his gun, his face a picture of confusion.

Hostile confusion.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” he asks, in a tone convinced that no, she isn’t and no, he might not be either.

But then…

An astonished recognition. For them both.

“Oh, it is fate,” she says. “It is fate that has brought this.”

“I know you,” the man says, hand still on his gun. “But you must be her sister.”

“You found me,” says the Queen. “In the lake, you found me.”

“You don’t belong on this road,” he answers. “Neither of you, and sir, I’m placing you under arrest immediately for indecent exposure–”

“‘Sir’?” she says, but the policeman is suddenly on his back, his eyes unseeing, laid out almost delicately next to his still-running car. She moves to him, hovers over him, not understanding what’s happened.

“You found me,” she tells him, needs to tell him. “You pulled me from the shallows. You tried to revive me hours after anything would have helped. I felt your hands on my chest. The muscle of my heart contracted under your weight.” She leans down to the man’s face, her dead hands touching his temples. “You arrested my killer. You put him here.” She looks up the road. The prison can’t be seen, but it’s just beyond the rise. “This was meant to be. There are greater powers at work.”

She rises. She leaves the man behind, more certain than ever of where she’s going.





The faun removes the man’s memories of the Queen, having laid him on the ground. He knows bullets will not work on him, but in her current shape, he cannot be sure of the same for the Queen.

There is no time to move the car or the man. They will have to remain and cause further chaos, further trouble.

“There are greater powers at work,” the Queen says.

He wonders, as he hurries after her, does she mean herself? Or him? Or is something else, something terrible pushing them relentlessly on?





Adam had been an unquestioning churchgoer for most of his life, until all of a sudden he wasn’t. And then he was again. And then not. And then again, when he deleted all his porn and questionable apps in a righteous frenzy after rededicating his life to Jesus in a handwritten letter to his parents, saying he was frightened at how the world was heading, that the Antichrist must surely come soon, and that he was pledging himself to God and to the church. There had been tears from everyone.

He was thirteen, and by the next day, he was sorely regretting both letter and deletions. He’d been trying to regain the cache of porn ever since, and every time he acted up too badly, his mother or father would produce the letter and ask where this tender-hearted Adam had gone.

“The Prodigal Son was the most beloved,” they said, more than once.

Where does that leave Marty? he never asked.

The blind faith boomerang had stopped with Enzo.

“What do you do with that?” he’d asked Angela. “Here’s this thing, this love, that should be proof of God, and they’re telling you it’s the opposite.”

“I’ve never understood your parents,” she said.

“I guess I really haven’t either.”

“My church isn’t anything like that. We just had a wedding for probably the two oldest lesbians in the state. Can you imagine being in your eighties and still wanting to try something new?”

“That story is why I’m not allowed to come with you on Sundays.”

She shrugged. “We don’t go that often anyway. And even then, it’s only so Mom can see friends.”

“I used to think this was how everyone’s life was. That everyone sat around the dinner table talking about the End Times.”

“We do. We just mean another Republican presidency.”

He smiled to himself in the sound booth at the church, resetting the levels where, yep, the teen choir had ludicrously amped up the bass and the treble, leaving the middle feeds all but silent. If Big Brian Thorn – a basso profundo by temperament and training – tried bellowing into a microphone set to that, he’d both shatter glass and be completely incomprehensible.

Adam took out his phone. Dad’s actually not being too insane about Marty. Hurt, but not insane.

Not yet anyway, Angela texted back. How was Linus?

None of your business.

Did you sex him?

None of your business.

Did you sex him up real good?

NOYB. I’ve still got a couple hours here. Pizza place at 7?

I’ll be here.

For now.

Don’t start.

He paused, then he typed, I love you more than probably any other person on this planet. Including myself.

She texted a tearful emoji and Don’t make me cry at work!