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Excerpt: Lost & Alone

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Blowing out the invisible flame on a single, handmade stick-candle stuck deep into a fat mudpie, Jayson wiped a tear from his eye, and muttered, “ Happy Birthday to me ,” under his breath. Standing up, he stared down at the mudpie for a moment before taking his well-worn boot and stomping through it. He tried to push his despair from his mind and continued his hike. The sun was already getting high in the sky and he wanted to make it back to the cave before nightfall. It wasn’t a cave, really. More of a dent in a huge, limestone cliff. There was a sharp, elongated overhang, though, which offered good protection from the weather. He’d been wandering through the woods, barely surviving from day to day, for nearly two long weeks before finally coming upon the isolated hollow. In close proximity was a fresh-water mountain spring. Through the clear ripples, Jayson had seen tadpoles and small Bluegill and Brown Trout. He wasn’t a proficient fisherman, but his
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Destination: DNA

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                            by Ashlie Harris Img created by Mason Bushell, courtesy Pixabay Lindsey Burke propped her feet up on the dash and slurped on a watered-down soda. She stared out her window at the blur of green hues from the trees and grass flashing by. Sighing heavily and throwing her silky blonde hair back against the beige, pleather headrest, she glanced over to her mother in the driver’s seat. Sherri Burke’s tight perm and loose brown ponytail bobbed up and down as she drove. Studying her mother’s face, Lindsey wondered when she’d gotten wrinkles and if her mouth was always so taut, or if it was just when she was driving and concentrating on the road. Maybe it was because, this time, they weren’t just driving… they were leaving .  The moment her mother had come home from work and her father was, once again, nowhere to be seen, Lindsey knew drastic changes were in the air. He’d been ‘working late’ almost every day for nearly a month now. Lindsey was only
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The Viking's Vow

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INTRODUCTION I’ve been a nerd for most of my life. Seriously, I’ve always loved history, but it’s more like there was this deep longing to just know . I wanted to really understand these people’s lives and how they’d lived. I wanted to utterly immerse myself in the past and truly become Clara Barton or Amelia Earhardt or even Joan of Arc, herself. Alas, I was but a mousy, lonely little girl in the suburbs of Illinois. But, these stories gave me courage, and they gave me hope that a plain jane like me could make my mark on the world… someday.  Some context: I grew up with a mostly absent father who passed away when I was thirteen. Without getting into the nitty-gritty details of what that all entailed, suffice it to say, it left me feeling… rootless. I think that’s a good word for it. My ‘rootless’ existence led me to be very interested in my heritage. I knew who all my grandparents were, so it wasn’t very difficult to get started. However, I was not prepared for t
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