I sat up straight in my chair as I heard a growl from Daddy. He leaned over the table until he was nose to nose with Mama and spit out, “I don’t need YOU correcting me! If I was anything like your brother, Dylan, I’d slap that word right back down your throat!” Mama didn’t flinch. She stared back at him and answered with a growl of her own, “If you ever touch Twila or I you will be in a prison cell next to Dylan. I’ll call you Sir when you deserve it! Did you forget I have your mama’s journal hidden away? Cara Mae suffered every day of her life living with your dad and was broken hear ..read more

There’s always someone trying to put lemon in a wound. A sunshine salt cookie wrapped in, “Life is a test, and you can’t always expect to make an A. Perhaps you’re not close enough to God” My face can never hide my feelings. Lately I’ve been speaking in Dorothy expressions, a Golden Girl feline with my attitude rubbed the wrong way. Covid has been keeping me pretty much at home, and with a mask my smirk is caged when I go out, but I’ve battled my fingers to keep them from spitting ink at people who can’t read more than a meme. If outrage were a soup, I’d be swallowing screams for dinner ..read more

Running, it’s been in the back of my mind since I stepped on Voodoo Annie’s property. Just a bit ago I’d been searching the swamp for the devil. Now that one is standing behind me my feet are planted solid on the ground. Father, funny how I still think of him as Father. He was Daddy from the first time I learned to say it. When I was eight, he came back from one of his bar trips demanding I call him Father. He and his buddies had held a keg come to Jesus about how their women weren’t showing respect. None of them went to church any more, but Tom, a former preacher, knew the Bible book of Eph ..read more

Blue jays talking? Where? I don’t see even one of those winged squawkers. They never sit quiet on a limb. They complain about everything from snake to June bug. I feel a slight tug on the sleeve of my t-shirt. Voodoo Annie puts her left finger to her lips to keep me quiet and points her right hand toward a dead tupelo tree behind her house. Three spots of blue sit statue still watching us from the top of the tree. We stare at them for what feels like the length of an evangelist’s hell fire rant, when Voodoo Annie gives a nod in the birds direction and starts talking, “Twila, the jays told m ..read more

Grabbing me Voodoo Annie huffs out, “Twila, what are you doing? If I hadn’t caught you, you would have plowed right into that cypress post.” Panting like a hound on a chase, I squeak out, “I was trying to see what evil might be walking up on us. Miss Annie, I don’t feel very well. My stomach is tumbling like mama’s clothes dryer.” Guiding me to a stump so I can sit down, Voodoo Annie pats my head and says, “Twila, there’s nothing to be afraid of. No one is going to bother you. Whoever is up to no good has me as a target. If anyone should be afraid, it is the one who thinks they can scare m ..read more

I hate being scared, scared can turn you into a crybaby. Voodoo Annie sensing it is a human who killed her Jenny is a whole different level of scared than the bump in the night kind. People are hard to read. They can reach out with one hand to pat your cheek and carry a switch in the other one to bloody your leg. My whole body is twitching with the urge to ask Voodoo Annie why she thinks flesh and blood is the reason for Jenny’s death. I’ve pinched my right arm so much trying to keep quiet it will be a nest of bruises tomorrow. Voodoo Annie goes bone stiff and says, “There’s a lot of g ..read more

There are days I feel like an empty house filled with echoes. I know there is a tomorrow outside my window but sitting on the pause button feels like a test, an exam I’ve been given with no notes to review. Does it matter how many shoes I have in my closet with the sidewalks quiet? Will I need to learn to talk again when words aren’t funneled through a mask? Also, there are days when I am as mad as Alice’s hatter. Even now as I write this my mind has taken a paisley trip to my eye color. My driver’s license has my eye color as blue, but let me walk in with a green dress, and my eyes chameleo ..read more

With eyes saucer wide Twila becomes unnaturally still. Everything in her is screaming run, yet she stands paralyzed as the wind moves from the last chime to her hair. Slowly tendrils of hair slip out of her ponytail until a tug causes all her hair to free fall down her shoulders. Her mouth dry with fear she manages a hoarse whisper, “Miss Annie, I’ve got goosebumps crawling all over me. I’ve never seen wind pick and choose what it wants to move.” Voodoo Annie stares out at the swamp and begins to speak, “Twila, for about a week the swamp’s been too quiet. Most nights the bullfrogs are makin ..read more

"Ireland" by Emily Soto, fashion photographer I don’t know if I can fly today. Granny Ray, you always told me when I was afraid to remember a butterfly grows its wings in the dark so it will be strong enough to fly when it tears an opening in freedom. I have my toes on the edge, but my heart is a stone pressing me into yesterday. I was nurtured in scars, and night rants. Freedom is a city without a map. Is one kind word enough of a breeze to help me feel my wings? Oh, Granny, I must trust there’s blue sky in this sidewalk. I can’t move the stones in my past, but I can choose the d ..read more

PHOTO PROMPT © Renee Heath I was hoping it would be a rebirth of sorts, a spiritual retreat, when I agreed to fly to Arizona with Sally and Bill because I felt empty. Sitting in this lawn chair listening to them discuss every reason they planned the trip feels like dropping litter in a prayer. Right in front of us is a tee-pee with a sunset backdrop. I rise to walk away from them and before I can take a step Sally stands up beside me with tears in her eyes and speaks, “Our noise prevents us from hearing silence. The mountain begs for peace.” ©Susie Clevenger 2019 Friday Fictionee ..read more