A Rocky Start

Stheno: Chapter One

This is the first chapter of Stheno, a five-part urban fantasy novella.

The header image is by EliseEnchanted on DeviantArt.

---

Kylie McKenna opened her eyes to bright noon light filtering through her curtains. She mumbled a half-formed curse against the day and rolled over towards the wall to get back into some semblance of darkness. She didn’t need to check her phone to know she had slept through her alarm once again. She no longer cared. All she wanted was more sleep- permanent sleep, preferably.

A metallic jingle from the other side of the room told her that Tig was up too. His collar sounded like chimes as he roused himself. Kylie sighed heavily and rolled out from under the covers, looking over to Tig’s bed by the closet. It was empty. She blinked in surprise as he suddenly vaulted up onto her bed, whining happily and rubbing his coffee-and-cream face against her legs, the long fur of his ears soft as silk on her skin. He climbed up on her, assailing her face and protesting hands with a fusillade of licked kisses despite her giggling, halfhearted objections. Then, his little “good morning” dispensed with, he sat back on his haunches and looked at her expectantly.

“Okay, buddy. Give me a minute,” Kylie said, still smiling. She stretched her stiff back and arms in a wide arc and as she did so she finally glanced at the clock. 12:28. They’d be cutting it close. Had to be back in an hour to get ready for another long night of work. Your most important night of work maybe ever, she reminded herself. But she owed Tig a walk.

Kylie climbed out of bed and Tig leaped off after her, and then she haphazardly pulled the rumpled blankets back up over her pillow to “make” it. She shuffled zombielike past the prints of stormy shorelines by Peter Graham and William Huston hanging on her wall, past her framed bachelor’s degree, past the unrepaired dent Jake had left on the night of their breakup, and into her bathroom. Looking into the mirror, she saw a sleep-deprived stranger with a witch’s thicket of bedhead and eyes laden with heavy bags. Dismally, she wondered where her yearbook portrait and this haggard crone had diverged on the paths of life.

A quick shower later, she once again resembled an average twenty-six year old, though her spirit still felt wearily past forty. She tied her wet hair back into a loose, moppy ponytail, and while she was still pulling her faded jeans up with one hand she grabbed Tig’s leash from atop her bureau, midst a clutter of unpaid bills and empty Zoloft bottles.

At the sight of the leash, Tig whined and shook himself again. His face a marbled blur of chocolate and vanilla for a moment, ears flopping around like windmill blades. Then he settled, and his head was once again divided into even hemispheres of dark brown bisected by a white stripe that ran from the top of his head down to his mousse-speckled snout. He was an eighty-pound English Springer Spaniel. Thirty pounds heavier than average, but he wasn’t obese or anything. Just big-boned. The vet told Kylie he was the biggest Springer Spaniel he’d ever seen.

She sat back down on her lumpy bed to lace up her sneakers, and while she did so Tig mewled impatiently and nuzzled his head against her legs, trying to prod her along. His wide hazel eyes got even wider when she bounced to her feet and looked down at him with a quick smile, and finalized the affair by asking the sacred question- “Do you want to go for a walk?”

Tig answered her in the only way he knew how. He leaped back up onto the bed in a single bound and grabbed the handle end of the leash in his soft, bird-dog mouth. His tail wagged furiously as Kylie reached for it, then he bowed low and vaulted off the bed, taking the leash with him.

Kylie sidestepped and beat him to the bedroom door, quickly shutting it to block his escape. She stood with her back against it, putting her hands on her hips and grinning impishly down at him. “Come on, Tig. Do you wanna go or not?”

Tig’s tail wagged even harder as Kylie slowly bent down to retrieve the leash. Then he twirled and ran back to the other side of the bedroom, the long line of leather trailing on the floor behind him. Kylie gave merry chase, pursuing him round and round until finally they wound up back on the bed, playing tug-of-war with either end of the leash. Kylie leaned back against the bedboard, pulling and laughing, but Tig’s grip was too strong for her and she was plainly losing.

So she switched tactics. She leaned in close and carefully reached out a brave hand to grab at the leash’s handle where it protruded from Tig’s mouth, while still holding on tightly to the clip with her other. Mightily, she tugged at the handle. The leash roped through Tig’s strong teeth like an anchor chain, until Kylie wound up with two even sections of leash in either hand, with Tig’s mouth still latched onto the middle of the U-shaped curve. Then she pulled back hard, and with both ends of the leash in hand she found herself able to pull Tig towards her until finally he surrendered and let it go. The sudden release of tension sent her sprawling back onto her pillow in a fit of laughter, and when she looked up Tig was sitting back on his haunches, panting happily. Magnanimous in defeat.

Still laughing, Kylie grabbed the leash and promptly clipped it onto Tig’s collar to prevent a renewal of the game. She leaned in and kissed him on the top of his head, the cream white spot, and ran her fingers down through the long, silky brown fur of his ears, his neck.

“Good boy,” she whispered into his fur, “Good boy. C’mon, we gotta go.”

There was only one more thing to do before they left. Kylie reached up onto her cluttered bureau again, and her slender fingers wrapped around the drab black holster of a Smith & Wesson 340PD. A snubnose, startlingly light for its stopping power. She tucked it discreetly into the back of her jeans and flared her white tank-top around it. Then she opened the door, and Tig pulled her out down the empty, echoing hallway.

---

When Kylie and Tig stepped out into the parking lot, the midday humidity slammed into them like a wet blanket. August was the worst month of the year. She felt bad for Tig, with his thick fur coat. But his jowls were curled back into a broad, panting smile, so she figured he was just happy to be outside at all, no matter the weather. Still.

“I promise I’ll get up earlier tomorrow,” she said, looking down at him with a sad smile.

Tig gave her a sidelong glance- as if to say, yeah right- then tested the air. For squirrel scent, probably, or maybe one of the stray cats that haunted the parking lot by night. Kylie took a deep breath herself and immediately regretted it. Hot soup tinged with exhaust fumes. She glanced up and down the lot for signs of other people but no one was in sight. Just parked sedans and SUVs, their hoods sizzling and casting back blinding sunglare. A reeking dumpster. The chainlink fence clad in drooping ivy, separating the apartment blocks from the backyards of single-family homes over on Byberry Road. Tig, nose buried in the asphalt, dragged her over towards it. It was where the cats hung out. Kylie was only too happy to oblige him, squeezing her dainty frame into the weak shadows cast by second-growth box elders and hawthorns on the other side of the fence. The three-story brownstone they’d just left offered no shade whatsoever at this time of day, and it and its dozen identical siblings stood like cyclopean monoliths on their grassy green squares.

They walked uphill- Somerton was all uphill- out of the parking lot, and already sweat was beginning to bead on her forehead, gluing slick strands of dark brown hair to skin that glinted like bronze in the sunlight. That was her only begrudging praise for summer- she didn’t burn. Her skin was always richly tanned by June. People sometimes thought she was Italian or Hispanic because of the tan but she wasn’t, she was mostly Welsh.

When the parking lot finally spit them out onto Depue Street, she looked up and down the road as if she were an astronaut searching for signs of life on a scorching desert world. No one was out today. Far too hot. Mid nineties, she reckoned. The asphalt sizzled up ahead, and she knew this would be a short walk for the sake of Tig’s paws. A shame, because they both relished the outdoors. Tig escaping the four walls of the apartment; Kylie escaping from… well, her life. The bills. Her student loan debts. Her unpayable rent. The eviction notice. Her ex. Her job. None of that mattered outside. Whenever she walked Tig, she was able for a brief moment to lose herself in the formless rhythm of her shoes and Tig’s paws clicking upon the street.

Eventually they arrived at the wide, sunbaked playa of Bustleton Avenue. Traffic wasn’t terrible, and between the lights they darted across like outlaws. Trotting quickly through one parking lot after another. Kylie worrying about the hot asphalt on Tig’s paws, Tig just happy to be running with her, as they passed by a confusing jumble of immigrant businesses- Russian, Uzbek, Indian, Syrian, Italian. She’d never been in any of them. Their destination was Leo Mall. Mall in the strip sense; ninety-five percent parking lot with a few widely spaced big box stores. The credit union. Dunkin’ Donuts. Netcost. A Georgian cafe. The whole complex was anchored by a Home Depot that sprawled across the bottom of the lot, which is where they were headed.

To its left, the Home Depot was bordered by a narrow strip of woods. The parking lot curved away abruptly at a little black gate, beyond which was a lonely trail that wrapped around the back of the complex. Kylie considered it her secret haven, a tiny green wonderland hidden in the deep shade of elms and oaks. The gate was open, as always- she had no clue who had originally placed it there, but extended endless gratitude towards him- and she and Tig set off down the narrow path, their steps softened by the moss underfoot. To their right, the parking lot’s brick retainer wall reared up sharply like the ramparts of a slighted castle. On the left, the ground fell away about fifteen feet into a dense vale of second-growth forest. Kylie felt as if she were an adventuress skirting the edge of a cliff, Tig her faithful squire.

“Tig, get away from that,” she ordered. He was sniffing a mucky-looking Target bag that had something which had once been food spilling out of it. He looked up at her guiltily and veered away from the bag, and a moment later happily started snufflng at an anonymous patch of moss.

Kylie sighed. The little trail was strewn with littered cans and wrappers. The nearest tree branches festooned in plastic bags, an anthropic simulacra of Spanish moss. Propped against the wall an obscene smelling mattress that they carefully sidestepped. She told herself once more that she should come back on a cooler day with a trashbag to clean it up some, but knew the chances of her ever having the time to do so were slim. She used to, on the weekends. Before the rent raise turned her life into a constant struggle of working ever longer and ever harder just to stay financially in place. She looked down at a candy wrapper and sighed. Even when she did used to clean it, the place was always a landfill again inside of a week. So it went.

She ducked under a low-hanging, bone pale branch that was pocked with the arachneous scars of Dutch Elm disease. Looking around for birds but she saw none- too muggy out to even sing, she supposed. Tig was busy snuffling at the mossy ground, his claws occasionally clicking over some exposed stones. At least back here she didn’t need to worry about his paws.

His full name was Tigger. Like the Winnie the Pooh character. She’d adopted him from a shelter. A morose, forlorn place down in Mayfair. Every other dog was a pitbull discarded by its owner after some unknown act of aggression. All slobbering and barking at her as she walked down the long line of cages, hurling themselves at the chainlink gates trying to get at her. But in the very last cage, curled up in the corner, was a little English Springer Spaniel. When she stopped in front of his enclosure he’d looked up at her without moving, like a prisoner resigned to his fate. His eyes the saddest pools of caramel she had ever seen. Her heart melted at the sight of him. His original name was Blaze. He’d wound up there after his owner died in a car accident and no one in the family wanted him. So Kylie eagerly signed the papers, and rechristened him Tigger. Because he was the only one.

She ducked under another branch, so low to the path she thought it might be better to simply climb over it rather than crouch under. The tree to which it belonged was rooted far down below the path, so far down that they were actually walking through the upper reaches of its canopy. This wasn’t any maintained trail. You weren’t supposed to walk it. To their left, a deer path led down into the woods at a perilously steep angle, right into a raincarved gully. Kylie had taken Tig exploring down there before. There was a spring tucked away back in the thickets, from which a little creek burbled up and flowed promptly into a culvert. In the mornings the woods teemed with deer and foxes and songbirds but it was quiet now save for the leaves whimpling in the slack, muggy breeze. Tig wanted to go in. He stared intently at the green wall, and Kylie heard the telltale crash that signified a deer startled by the sight of them.

She shook her head. Didn’t feel like risking ticks today, and they had to be home soon. She tugged Tig along and kept to the ledge, continuing on towards the corner where the path curved away ninety degrees to the right and opened out into a wide, grassy field hemmed in by the retainer wall on one side and tall backyard fences on the other. Oftentimes she’d let Tig off-leash to play fetch back here, something they couldn’t really do in the apartment. Kylie thought of the whole place as a kind of secret passage, a hidden meadow tucked away midst the hustle and bustle of northeast Philadelphia.

She gazed down into the woods, trying to keep an eye on the deer but losing it in the thick undergrowth. When she looked back up, her breath hitched. Someone was standing right in front of her.

---

The stranger stood at the corner of the ledge, right where Kylie meant to turn to access the little field. She was in the middle of painting- bent over a canvas propped up on a wooden easel, brush in hand, busily bringing out the leaves of a maple in the green vale below. Of the woman’s appearance, Kylie knew nothing, for she was clad from head to toe in a light blue burqa that concealed every inch of her skin.

Tig saw the woman a moment after Kylie did. He skidded to a startled stop, and the jingle of his collar sounded like a bell on the quiet greenway.

The woman stopped painting mid-stroke and held her brush up high and away from the canvas so as not to mar it. Then she turned slowly to face the pair, scrying them from behind a hexagonal cross-stitch grille that was her only window to the outside world.

Tig’s nose wrinkled as he cautiously tested the air. Unsure if the woman was a threat or not. Kylie felt oddly uneasy herself. It wasn’t just the sudden appearance of a stranger on the hitherto lonesome path. Kids played back here sometimes, and she’d never felt bothered by one of them. Some wary nerve, deep in her gut, urged caution. Lacking obvious facial expressions to go by, she tried to discern any emotion in the woman’s poise- surprise equal to her own? Annoyance at being interrupted?- but she was an enigma beneath the burqa.

Her eyes darted between the painter and the wide, grassy field to her right. She teetered back on her feet, unsure what to do next. Just keep walking? She glanced at the painting again. It was beautiful, despite being half-finished. The beginnings of a green canopy lapping at the sky like seafoam. A wide blank space in the lower left corner which she presumed was to be infilled with more greenery.

She decided she was being silly. She wasn’t even sure why she was perturbed in the first place. Just shyness? Or maybe it was the burqa? Some unconscious reaction to the sight of it? Her mind swirled with half-remembered platitudes from her college days about biases and prejudices. Stupid, Kylie, she thought. Real stupid. It’s just a veil. No matter how strange it looks, there’s still a normal woman under it. A normal woman probably not too different from yourself.

She cleared her throat.

“I like your painting!” she said amiably. And loudly, as if her volume would have some impact on the obviously foreign woman’s comprehension. Odds were the woman didn’t know a lick of English- nobody in Somerton spoke English anymore- but the painting was so captivating Kylie wanted to try anyway. She pointed at the canvas to emphasize her point.

“Thank you,” the woman replied in- to Kylie’s pleasant surprise- pristine English, with only the faintest trace of an accent. She turned her hidden head back toward the painting and sighed, “It is a work in progress.”

“Are you an artist?” Kylie asked, dropping her voice back to a normal decibel, now that she knew the woman could understand her.

“Of a sort,” the woman replied cryptically. She sounded younger than Kylie had initially presumed. Her timbre high. A bit shrill. Slightly muffled by the burqa. Kylie thought with pity that she must be sweating to death under the thing, in this humidity and under the harsh noon sun. The fabric looked breathable, at least. Cotton, perhaps?

The woman set her paintbrush down on the easel and turned towards Kylie, regarding her from behind the grille with her head cocked slightly to the side. She had to crane her neck up to meet Kylie’s eyes, for Kylie stood a full head taller than her.

“Paints are not my natural medium, I fear,” she continued, “I struggle to make it real.”

“I think it looks wonderful,” Kylie replied sincerely. She hesitated. Glanced down at Tig. He was still standing rigidly. Still staring at the woman. Leaning forward, like he wanted to inspect her more closely without actually approaching any closer. Well, he’s probably picking up on your own dumb anxiety, nitwit.

She took a step forward, and another. Tig went willingly enough to a point. His own steps measured and reserved. Never taking his eyes off the woman. A few feet away from the woman he stopped and would go no further, despite a gentle tug on the leash. Fine, let him be stubborn, she thought. There was enough lead.

Up close the painting was even more beautiful. Impressionist style, the larger details of the trees and clouds devolving into fine, individual brushstrokes, like the fuzziness of a dream half-remembered. Masterful work. Kylie glanced over at the woman, who gave no indication of being upset at her nearness, and she started pointing out elements on the canvas, careful not to let her finger actually touch and possibly smear it. “The clouds look lovely, and the trees are so realistic.”

“Tsush,” the woman rasped, shaking her head in disapproval. She pointed an accusing finger at the painting. “This is not real. Sculpting, that is real.”

“You sculpt, too?” Kylie asked, glancing quickly at the woman before diverting her attention back to the painting. Her initial nervousness was all but gone now that she’d broken the ice, but the sight of the burqa still made her nerves tingle. Maybe it’s because you can’t see her face, she thought. Humans are built to read facial expressions and you’re getting a static screen. That’s probably all it is. There’s nothing wrong. Underneath that thing, she’s just a normal woman like you.

Tig must have felt the same way about the burqa. Still standing erect, his tail out straight. Not stiff or bristly, but out. Alert. She saw his ears twitch slightly, like he were straining to hear. His nose wrinkled as he continued testing the air. Kylie slackened her grip on the leash, hoping to calm him, then forced herself to look directly into the burqa’s inscrutable maw.

“That’s cool. Must take a lot of patience. Chiseling everything so precisely, I mean.”

Whatever qualms Kylie had about looking at her, the woman did not share in kind. She was facing Kylie squarely. Staring, it seemed. The hairs on Kylie’s arms stood up at the sensation of being watched, though she had no way of knowing if the woman was really looking at her. She swallowed and looked back quickly at the painting.

“Yes,” the woman replied, “But it is good for the soul. It is the purest joy, to immortalize the human form in stone. I was once quite famous for it, back in my home country.”

“Really? Where are you from?” Kylie asked, entranced. A sculptress-cum-painter was intriguing enough, but a female Muslim sculptress, probably coming from a country where women were treated as some kind of lower lifeform? Now that was interesting. She glanced discreetly back at the woman, wishing she could get a glimpse of the face behind the veil. This was going much better than she’d expected. The fact that they were even having a conversation at all was no small marvel, given her prior attempts to converse with foreigners always running headlong into an apparently insurmountable language barrier. She smiled, friendly but also partly because she was amused by the sudden, uncouth realization that the burqa vaguely resembled a bedsheet ghost. It didn’t seem nearly as unnerving when she thought of it like that.

The woman regarded Kylie again, cocking her shrouded head from side to side, almost like a cat.

“My name is Stheno,” she said finally. “I am from Afghanistan.”

“I’m Kylie. Nice to meet you.” She didn’t offer her hand; wasn’t sure if it would be taken as an insult. Weren’t Muslims obsessed with cleanliness? Unsure of what else to do, she simply held up her hand in a half-wave. She looked back to the canvas. “Do you paint often?”

“Not as much as I would like. That is probably why I am terrible.”

“You’re not terrible!” Kylie insisted. “I like it, anyway. It reminds me of Monet.”

“Ah, Monet. One of my biggest influences. The way he painted the light, making his subjects so distinct from afar, yet diffuse when viewed too closely… it speaks to me. I almost envy his cataracts, which allowed him to see the world so.”

“You seem to be doing fine without them,” Kylie smirked, while continuing to examine the painting. Her eyes lingered on the painted trees. In the foreground, the just-so veins of an elm leaf stood out darkly against the lighter sunlit blade. “I can see some Sisley here, too. The branches, I mean.”

“You know your painters well,” Stheno remarked, “Still, I am nothing compared to them. I only wish I could devote more effort to mastering the craft.”

“I suppose you spend more time sculpting?”

“No, not that so much either,” Stheno sighed. “My art is just for- how calls it? Pastime.”

“Why?” Kylie asked, flabbergasted, “This looks like it should be in an art show! When it’s finished, I mean.”

“You are kind, Kylie,” Stheno replied. She shook her head, the blue burqa swishing softly as she did so. “It is difficult for outsiders such as myself to enter American art circles. The barriers are very high. Knowing important people matters more than the quality of one’s art. I have no patronage here; I came to this country very poor. It is difficult, being an immigrant in this country.”

It’s difficult being born here, too, Kylie thought ruefully. But as soon as the thought formed, her conscience smacked her. This woman had fled to America from God only knew what, in search of a better life, and here she was moping to herself about a bad landlord and a sleep schedule of her own making. She looked down shamefully at her shoes.

“You can tell me about it, if you want,” Kylie said.

Stheno was quiet for a long time. Deciding what to tell, how much to tell. Kylie wondered again about the face behind the burqa. What she must have been through over there. When Stheno finally spoke, Kylie leaned back on one leg and simply listened without interrupting. Who knew, she might have been the very first person Stheno had ever talked to about any of this.

“Afghanistan is a land of suffering,” Stheno said finally. Her voice sounded far, far away. “It has suffered for a very long time. First under the English, then later the Soviets, then finally with the Americans and Taliban fighting, tearing what was left to pieces. My family was divided. I had two sisters. One was killed, and I have not seen or spoken to the other in a very long time. I used the last of my money to come to America, and left everything behind. All of my most precious artworks, my statues. Perhaps they are still there, in my empty gallery. Perhaps they were destroyed. I will never know.”

She looked off into the trees for a long while. Kylie didn’t interrupt her. Wasn’t sure what she was seeing at the end of that distant gaze. Her heart swelled with sympathy for the woman- even as she studiously continued to avoid looking directly at her, she reminded herself guiltily.

Stheno sighed deeply before continuing.

“When I arrived in Philadelphia, employment was difficult to find. I had no workspace, so I could not practice art again for a long time. I taught English to other immigrants, and opened a small business. I learned to paint in my spare time. I try sometimes to sell these paintings, but it is difficult. The market is very harsh.”

“I know the feeling,” Kylie replied bitterly. She’d stuffed her hands into her pockets and rubbed her fingers up and down against the tough grit of the jeans.

“You make art as well?”

“No, no,” Kylie replied, “I’d like to, someday, if I ever have the time. I mean that I understand tough job markets.”

She glanced down bashfully at Tig. He’d finally decided to sit, at least. But there was something wrong with his expression. He was just staring up at Stheno, unblinking. And he wasn’t panting either, despite the heat. His mouth was shut tight, so tight he almost seemed to be holding his breath. Odd. But he showed no animosity either. It had to be the burqa setting him on edge. He’d never seen someone wearing a burqa before. Maybe Stheno’s hidden face was as unsettling to him as it initially was to Kylie, only he didn’t have the propriety to be subtle about it. Indeed, seeing him behaving like this made Kylie’s gut tighten again. Resurrecting that itch that told her something wasn’t quite right. And once more she suppressed it. Maybe the heat was getting to him. To them both. She’d break this off soon, return to the air-conditioned apartment to get ready for work. Stheno probably didn’t really want to be interrupted from her painting, anyway.

“What sort of work do you do?” Stheno asked.

Veterinarian, in some better place, Kylie thought ruefully. “I’m a waitress right now. I have a degree in biology from Temple. Was trying to get into veterinarian school, but none of my applications were successful.” She looked down at the grass and shrugged.

“So far,” Stheno supplied.

“So far,” Kylie agreed, and in that moment she loved Stheno. “Haven’t sent any out in awhile. Probably should get back on that.”

“Ah, don’t worry. You are young,” Stheno said. “There is plenty of time for you to find good work. Besides, you are beautiful. A lovely girl like you must have a man, a husband, no?”

“Oh,” Kylie smiled bashfully. She stuffed her hands into her pockets and glanced down at her toes, smudging the tip of her shoe into the grass. “No, not now. Not yet, I mean.”

It had been over four months since she and Jake had their last argument. In her apartment. His face contorted in a blind red rage. Because Kylie, after finding some blonde hairs on his motorcycle jacket, had the audacity to check his phone, and discovered the existence of Laura. It was infuriating. How stereotypical it all was. He’d denied it vehemently, frothing and fuming. He’d thrown a plastic plant at her head, took a chunk out of her wall instead, and stormed off into the night. She hadn’t thought much about men since.

Stheno cocked her head again. “You will find one. You are kind, and so beautiful… if we were back in the old country, I would ask you to pose for me, so I could make a statue of you.”

Kylie felt her face flush cherry red. Involuntarily, a little chuff of laughter escaped her. She looked up from under her eyes and met Stheno’s invisible gaze. “You think I would make a nice statue?”

“An excellent one,” Stheno nodded vigorously, her burqa bobbing like a puppet’s head. “That is the hardest part of sculpting- finding the right model. It is much more difficult than sculpting itself, to find someone who truly deserves to be immortalized in stone.” She paused, then leaned in towards Kylie. “Tell me, do you believe in divination, Kylie? Astrology? Fortune and destiny?”

“A little,” she lied. In truth, she believed in all of it, with all of her heart. She followed her horoscope avidly, and could ramble for hours about astrology to anyone willing to listen. “I’m a Gemini.”

“Ah, a Gemini. Soulful, but always wandering. Like a bird of the air.”

Kylie blinked. She’d had exactly the same thought yesterday, while walking Tig. A falcon had swooped down right in front of them, pulling up hard once it realized the squirrel in its sights was a long-dead victim of the automobile. Its broad, veined feathers black as coal against the sunglare. Watching it wing away into the blue yonder, all Kylie wanted to do was join it in flight, in the freedom of the sky. And Stheno, somehow, knew exactly how she felt. It was the most validating thing anyone had said to her in the past four years.

Stheno held out her hand, and Kylie noticed for the first time that she wore black silk elbow-gloves. Not a trace of her bare skin was visible. “Come, let me read your palms. I told you I run a small business- I am a fortune-teller. It is how I make most of my money, but for one so sweet I will do it for free.”

“Gosh, I… I don’t know. I mean…” She fumbled over her words. She wanted her palms read, so very badly. She was certain that Stheno- exotic, talented Stheno- knew things about divination she hadn’t even dreamed of herself. She also felt damn guilty about accepting such a service for free. If she’d any money to spare she would’ve forked over however much Stheno asked, but she was barely in a financial position to afford her bus fare. And once more, in the furthest recesses of her brain, some tiny little lizard instinct whispered apprehensively that something wasn’t quite right about any of this.

“Tsush!” Stheno dismissed, waving her hand, “It is nothing. I insist, please.”

“Well, okay,” Kylie replied, swallowing all her misgivings and cautiously proffering her palm to Stheno. “Gosh, you can do anything, can’t you? Painting, sculpting, divination…”

“When you have lived as long as I, you learn much,” Stheno replied, reaching out her black gloved hand to inspect Kylie’s white palm.

---

Just before Stheno’s fingers brushed against Kylie’s, Tig growled. Low and mean.

Startled, Kylie jerked her head rigidly towards him. He was back on his feet. Tense. Legs taut. Hackles bristling. Tail curled like a scorpion’s. He looked wound up like a spring. But there was no imminent danger. He was just staring. At Stheno.

“Tig, it’s okay,” Kylie reassured him. She turned back to Stheno apologetically, then started once more to offer her hand.

This time Tig barked savagely and rushed forward, putting himself between the two women and forcing Kylie back a step. He faced Stheno squarely, snarling up at her shrouded face. Teeth bared bright against the noonday sun. His tail was now tucked protectively between his legs. Kylie grabbed the leash with both hands in a blind panic and pulled hard, but his strength was far beyond hers. He snapped once more at Stheno, then yielded to Kylie’s pull and hemmed close to her legs, forcing her back with him as he began to cede the ground between them and Stheno, growling all the while.

“No, Tig! Bad!” Kylie shouted ineffectually, as he continued pushing her back, “Bad dog! Knock it off!”

He forced Kylie to stumble back about three paces away from Stheno, then yanked her back towards the ledge path hard enough to twirl her whole body around. Kylie dug her heels into the dirt and held the leash like she were a waterskier, so that for a moment Tig simply ran in place, his paws scrabbling desperately at the mossy ground to get nowhere at all.

“No, Tig!” Kylie snapped. “Bad dog! Bad!”

She twirled back to face Stheno, her face red from exertion and embarrassment. She wanted to apologize, to say he’s not usually like this, to beg forgiveness and fumble and flubber over herself trying to excuse Tig’s unprecedented behavior. But she didn’t do any of that. When she looked back at Stheno her eyes went wide.

Something was very wrong.

Kylie couldn’t place it. There was nothing obvious to be concerned about. Stheno was still standing perfectly normally. But deep in her brain, that lizard instinct once again reared up and hissed a warning that something was deeply, deeply wrong about all of this.

Despite her sudden, lurching alarm, she had no time to pay it any mind. She was still focusing all her little might on getting Tig back under heel. He seemed to have completely lost his mind. Pulling and pulling, now trying to get away from Stheno after snapping at her so viciously.

“I’m so sorry about this,” she stammered, “He’s usually so friendly.”

“It is nothing,” Stheno replied. Her tone did not at all match the occasion, and that dim, reptilian warning light began to flash urgently. She could hear Stheno breathing heavily. She sounded. Hungry. “Do you still wish me to read your palm? It will take only a moment.”

Kylie’s pulse quickened. Finally she realized what was wrong with Stheno. It was precisely how normal she was behaving. She was still standing in the same spot. The same exact spot. She hadn’t moved or even flinched at Tig’s sudden aggression. Her feet were still rooted firmly in place, in front of the canvas. Her posture totally open and relaxed. Not defensive in any way. Unafraid of the dog and his gnashing teeth. And suddenly Kylie realized how terribly close she was to Stheno.

Tig pulled on the leash with increasing desperation. Now whining in naked fear. The shaded avenue back to the parking lot seemed a path to salvation, from some nameless horror dangerous beyond all reckoning.

Kylie glanced back at Stheno. She’d taken a step away from her easel, towards Kylie. There was something wrong with her burqa. It was… shifting. Undulating all over, like she were trying to shake it off. Or like something were hidden beneath it, squirming to escape. Like… Kylie didn’t know. And, muffled beneath the burqa, she could now plainly hear an uncanny rattling sound, like a cicada. Or a snake. The warning light in her head was a wailing klaxon now. Her amygdala screaming at her- DEFCON ONE! DEFCON ONE!

“I-I don’t think now is such a good time,” Kylie said, trying unsuccessfully to play off her mounting fear with a laugh. “Maybe tomorrow? You’ll be here, right?”

She finally yielded to Tig’s desperate pulling and started to follow him down the path, with absolutely no intention of returning tomorrow, nor indeed for a very long time to come.

Her eyes flew wide open and an ice splash of terror raced up her arm when Stheno’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist.

“Just one little peek,” Stheno rasped, dragging Kylie towards her with shocking strength, overcoming even Tig’s mighty pull. The dog yelped at being pulled so suddenly back.

Kylie yelped too. Stheno’s grip was iron. Impossibly strong for a woman her size. Her fingers were long and knobby, and even through the silk glove her nails felt sharp as claws and dug into her skin. Kylie spun around in anger and fear, to demand Stheno release her. But when she twirled, Stheno was already right in her face. The grille of the burqa mere inches from Kylie’s eyes. Kylie looked deeply into that cross-hatched window, unable to help herself, and gasped.

She saw Stheno’s face. Indistinct and shadow-veiled. Certain features stood out starkly in the dim light that filtered through the grille. Her bushy unibrow. The deep scowl-lines carved into her paunchy, brown cheeks, and her plump, frowning lips.

But these were all mere notations next to her enormous eyes. They seemed too large for her head, close-set and angling up queerly towards her ears. Where the whites ought to have been, they were pitch black. Black as inkwells, black as the abyss. Deeply, impossibly black save for a thin, glowing ring of turquoise where her irises ought to have been. Set deep in the tarpits of her eyes, they made Kylie think of NASA photographs of nebulae. Only they weren’t pretty in the slightest. An eldritch blue glow radiated forth from them, and as Kylie stared deeply into them the light quickly intensified to a painful, searing white.

She couldn’t look away. She wanted to. Desperately. But she couldn’t. Couldn’t wrench her eyes away from the soul-scorching sight. Couldn’t move a single muscle in her body. She was paralyzed. Forgotten was the pain of Stheno’s grip on her arm. All she felt now was the searing intensity of those horrible eyes. Even through the grille, the light they gave off was burning, like staring into the sun. A cold chill began to tickle Kylie’s skin. She heard a sound like fracturing ice, and a thin, pitiful whimper escaped her throat.

Tig’s savage bark released her from the hypnotic trance. She was vaguely aware of her hand rising up into the air, seemingly in slow motion, even as her gaze continued to be locked onto the twin nebulae of Stheno’s eyes. Then, with a pained hiss, Stheno broke the gaze. Suddenly Kylie’s wrist was released, and she fell to the ground with a solid thud.

It took her a moment to reorient herself. Things came back to her in pieces, like awakening from a coma. She felt herself being dragged forward even as she tried to remember where she was. The blue sky. The woods. Mossy ground. Brick retainer wall. Wooden easel. Blue burqa. Stheno. Tig’s tail and hindlegs dangling off the ground. She blinked.

Tig was biting Stheno’s forearm. He growled fiercely, his teeth sunk deep into her flesh. Bright splashes of blood painting the mossy ground beside the easel. His ears flopping from side to side as Stheno swung her arm trying to get him off.

Kylie blinked the lingering dark spots from her eyes while she watched Tig fighting Stheno. She sat up, cradling her sore wrist close to her chest. It took another half second before she registered that her dog was in fact attacking a stranger.

“Down, Tig! Off!” she yelled weakly.

To her surprise, Tig released Stheno immediately. He hit the ground on all four paws, leaping out of the way of an errant kick from Stheno as she reeled back, and darted over to Kylie. He licked her face and whined frantically. Then he wheeled around to stand protectively in front of her while she struggled back to her feet, barking and snarling at Stheno all the while.

Kylie pushed up from the ground on her left arm and groped for Tig’s leash. She tried to grab it tightly in both hands, only to wince when a sharp pain raced up her right wrist. She let go like she’d grabbed a hot pan off the stove, then frantically pulled the leash taut as she could with just her left hand, holding her right in close to her chest like a broken wing. Tig continued pacing in front of her, trying once more to shepherd her away while keeping his eyes- and teeth- facing Stheno.

Kylie stumbled back yieldingly against the pressure of Tig’s body. She was so thoroughly dazed by the whole incident that when she looked back at Stheno, her eyes still wide in frightened confusion, the first words to escape her lips were, “Are you okay?”

Stheno was looking down at her bitten arm. Unlike Kylie, however, she wasn’t cradling her injury. She looked at the wound as though it were an annoying curiosity, no more than a papercut nuisance. In shock? The burqa made it flatly impossible to tell what she was thinking. She looked up from the bleeding wound and replied with unsettling composure, “Yes, Kylie. All is well.”

Kylie stared at her, her right arm throbbing and her left quickly tiring from fighting Tig’s ferocious pull but she didn’t dare loosen her grip on the leash. She feared that if she slipped for even an instant he would attack Stheno again. Calm, composed Stheno.

Stheno didn’t seem concerned in the slightest about getting away from the mad dog. She was simply staring at her open wound. That wasn’t surprising. But when Kylie looked for herself to where Tig’s cutlery had struck home, she couldn’t believe her eyes. Stheno wasn’t bleeding anymore. Indeed, there was no trace of a wound at all. The blue fabric was torn in several places. But there wasn’t a drop of blood. All Kylie saw was a small patch of mocha brown flesh, exposed where the fabric had torn. What the hell?

“D-Do you want me to call an ambulance?” Kylie asked.

“No, dear,” Stheno replied sedately. Her tone was unnervingly calm, as if she were swimming in a sort of postcoital relief. She covered the patch of exposed skin with her gloved hand, then looked over at Kylie again. “There is no need. It’s only a scratch.”

Kylie’s inner klaxons began wailing again. This time she obeyed them. She swallowed tightly and started to back away, an action Tig rewarded her for by pulling her headlong back down the ledge-path.

“Okay,” she called back, her voice high and warbling, “Well, it was nice meeting you!”

“I’ll be seeing you,” Stheno replied enigmatically, before picking up her paintbrush once more and continuing to work on her canvas as though she’d never been interrupted.

---

Kylie cantered away and didn’t look back. Her mind swam as she replayed the confusing events just passed over and over again in her head. Her heart thrummed in her chest and adrenaline pulsed icily through her veins in post-traumatic euphoria as Tig pulled her relentlessly back down the trail. He kept looking back, head and tail held up alertly, to make certain they weren’t being pursued. It was something he only ever did this if there was a person walking behind them. Reliable enough that Kylie turned her head back with him, half expecting Stheno to be right behind them, arms out like some B-movie monster. No one was there. Stheno was already out of sight, lost in the dense greenery. But Tig kept pulling. Kept looking back.

On one of her glances back, she nearly whacked her head against a low-hanging branch and she cursed herself for being so ridiculous. She was losing her nerve and she knew it. Tig’s inexplicable behavior rubbing off on her already rattled soul. She took a deep breath and tried to think rationally about it. She’s not chasing you, Kylie. You’re not in a slasher movie. She was just a weirdo. You meet them every day.

But still she could not shake the penetrating, icicle tingle of being pursued.

Under any other circumstances, she would have questioned the whole reality of the incident. Stheno’s eyes, the cuts, the fall, all of it could have been imagined by a heatstroked imagination. But she did not think, as they jaywalked back across Bustleton Avenue, that she had hallucinated it. It was inexplicable, no doubt. Not one bit of it made sense. But it was far too vivid to merely be imagined. And she had a witness- Tig. His lingering alarm, the continued desperation with which he pulled her, was what kept her from believing she’d temporarily, unexplainably lost her mind.

She arrived at that thought right as a city bus honked its horn and came within three feet of sending her ruminations to another dimension. She and Tig, each distracted for their own reasons, leaped skyward at the blaring banshee wail.

“Watch where you’re going, you fucking idiot!” the driver screamed out the window.

“Sorry! Sorry! I’m so sorry!” Kylie apologized profusely. Her legs felt like jello as she and Tig stumbled across the five remaining lanes of traffic.

Once they had safely scurried across Bustleton, Kylie tried to think about anything besides what had just happened. Keeping a more wary eye on the road, she thought about watching a movie when she got home from work later. She thought about what book she intended to read next. She thought about calling her parents and laughing about the “crazy Arab lady” she’d just run into. She thought about work, crunching numbers in her head, how much she’d need to make in tips to break even on her rent even though she’d already wargamed it out a dozen times. She even started thinking about what she’d do if she didn’t make enough tonight and the landlord kept his promise of eviction, a subject she’d steadfastly avoided since he’d confronted her about it two weeks ago. But no matter what she tried to distract herself with, her mind kept wandering back to Stheno and her searing eyes.

Well, maybe Stheno was just a weirdo. Pity, that, since she’d seemed so nice. But there was no possible way the eyes she’d seen were real. No living thing had eyes like those. She shuddered at the memory of them. Tried to think of rational explanations. Contact lenses? Like they used for vampires sometimes in movies? But that wouldn’t account for the glowing, or why she’d been so totally transfixed by them…

Her apartment door seemed to materialize right in front of her face. She only dimly remembered even entering the building. Tig pawed at the door, whining and mewling. She unlocked it, then stooped to unclip his leash with one hand while opening the door with the other. Tig rushed in swiftly, using his head to push the door open even faster, and pulled Kylie in after him. He quickly turned his head to make sure she had followed. His eyes wide and imploring. As if to say, Get in, quick.

When she turned to close the door behind her, a sudden fluttering impulse compelled her to double-lock it from the inside. A rush of nerves dancing up her spine like the whispers of a ghost. That inexplicable sense of being watched, of knowing a predator is directly behind you, eyes boring into your back, lustily licking its chops from the cover of darkness.

Once the door was safely shut and locked, though, the nameless dread dissipated into thin air. She stared down at the lock, feeling silly. A clipped huff of laughter escaped her. Her taut nerves untwisting all at once, leaving her giddy.

She shook her head and chalked it all up to lingering shock from the encounter. Not even just from Stheno’s impossible eyes. More from the scare of Tig biting Stheno. Thank God it was only a scratch. Stheno was fine. No numbers or- God help her- insurance information had been exchanged. So probably no charges would be pressed. She didn’t have to worry about some clinically-worded court order to “destroy” Tig. He’d just lost his cool for a minute. Because of the burqa, probably. Tig was maybe a little racist- dogs were allowed to be- and got jumpy. Just a little nip. Even though Kylie had plainly seen blood gushing from an open wound, bright and crimson in the noonday sun…

Kylie remembered she was still holding Tig’s leash and placed it back atop the bureau with a dull tink. She stared accusingly at the empty Zoloft bottles. The shrink said hallucinations were one of the potential side effects and to stop taking them immediately if anything of the sort happened. Well, had it? The encounter seemed far too structured for a hallucination. Donald Duck hadn’t floated out of the sky to sing to her. The grass and trees hadn’t melted into psychedelic waves. Everything had progressed in a logical sequence, and she couldn’t escape that no matter how many times she replayed it in her head. Aside from Stheno’s eyes, and the wound disappearing, everything about it made sense.

She heard Tig’s claws scraping on the hardwood floor out in the kitchen, then the sound of him eagerly lapping up his water. Well, it was hot out after all. Maybe the heat had impacted her worse than she thought. Stheno’s eyes… a hot flash?

She bent down to unlace her shoes. Something cold and hard pressed into the small of her back and suddenly she remembered the gun. Funny, she hadn’t thought about drawing it at all when Stheno grabbed her arm. She reached around and gripped the holster, meaning to put it back up on the bureau beside the leash and traitorous antidepressants. Then she hesitated. For a moment, her fingers were suspended in a limbo of indecision. One part of her said this was all quite silly, irresponsible even, carrying a loaded firearm around the house; that there was no danger to warrant such an act. The other part- smaller and more primitive, but thoroughly, instinctively convincing- spake in sepulchral tones, You may need it.

Finally she decided to keep the gun on her. The cool feel of the stock on her skin was reassuring.

Kylie went out to the kitchen to pour herself a bowl of cornflakes. It was all she’d eat before midnight, most likely, unless she got hungry at work and stole a few of Frank’s boneless wings. Holding the spoon was a pain- her right wrist still smarted right where Stheno had grabbed her. She knew that had happened. Her arm still bore a red impression of the woman’s firm grip. Firm. More like a vise.

But that didn’t mean anything, if she’d been in the midst of a hallucination or a hot flash. The more she thought about it, the more the idea that she’d simply fainted made sense. Stheno’s burqa billowing and pulsating could have been the start of it. And her eyes- maybe she’d fainted then? Maybe Stheno had tried unsuccessfully to catch her fall. She remembered it differently- Stheno grabbing her arm, then everything else- but what if that was just a sequence her mind had stitched together after the fact? She wasn’t sure she could trust her own memories. Not on Zoloft, anyway.

Regardless of whether her treacherous brain had made up the whole incident, her wrist hurt. Every third bite she would clink her spoon back into the bowl and rub it for a few seconds to soothe it, so that by the time she finished the cereal was annoyingly soggy.

She was tipping the bowl back to drink the dregs of it when her phone alarm went off. Kylie groaned, a guttural sound with her mouth still full of milk and cereal. She set the bowl back down- too hard, an ejecta-ring of milk splashing out onto the counter- and fumbled in her pocket to turn off the alarm.

The legs of Kylie’s stool grated against the hardwood floor as she slid out. She leaned back and stretched, relishing the muscle-warmth it generated. The room felt a bit chilly, and as she stretched her neck and back cracked satisfyingly.

Tig glanced up at her from his food bowl, his eyes wide and shining as polished amber. She sighed.

“Time for work.”

---

Click here to read Chapter Two.

---