FICTION   |   by Lisa Duchesnay »  The house is dark and foreboding. A cold January wind whistles as their boots crunch on the side porch’s fresh snow. The white cube van with the red PEST CONTROL signs is parked all the way up the long driveway in front of the double garage. Partially hidden from the street by overgrown cedar hedges and a tall fence. The quaint St. Marys neighborhood is dotted with yellow limestone brick mansions. Mac punches in the door’s lower glass panel and Tiny reaches in to unlock the dead bolt from the inside. He lugs in a bundle of large canvas bags and drops them on the vinyl flooring.

Mac says, “Shush.”

“What?”

As Mac gently closes the kitchen door, he warns, “You’re going to wake up the old guy, you dope.”

“He’s probably deaf as a door post anyway.”

Holding a flashlight, they creep down the hall towards the front rooms. As they reach the living room, Mac says, “Wow, look at this.”

FICTION  |  By Gerhard Wetzel  »  Tonight my daughter killed my neighbour’s dog. It was an accident I’m told through tears which are forced rather than genuine. Marcia’s ability to dramatize is not beyond using such tricks to garner sympathy or deflect a lecture about her failure to meet curfew. She is a plump girl and when she cries she seems bigger, as though she needs to increase her mass to force out her liquid contrition.

In our dimly lit kitchen she explains to me, and Richard, her brother, how a shadow, a blur really, darted and then thumped beneath the rear tire of my minivan. Because she was nearly home and it was a half hour past her curfew, and afraid, she didn’t stop.

“Maybe it was already dead,” Richard suggests.

Like conspirators, we whisper to avoid waking my wife, Carol, who is asleep upstairs. We are perceptive enough to want to keep Carol out of this discussion. She would badger until the truth was beaten out of one of us.

WARNING: This story contains graphic details of child abuse in its various forms and is not intended for viewing by children.

FICTION  |  By Audrey Austin  »  It’s not a simple matter to tell you why Steven created me.  I can tell you that seven years ago when he was only three years old, he was clad in his first pair of lederhosen and taught to worship at the feet of his grandfather, Heinrich Drescher.  

I am Steven’s second self.  I am his sustenance. My name is Steve.

Steven lives in the basement of an upscale bungalow.  The basement windows hide behind deep green sprawling Junipers.  No one would ever suspect that this pristine house is one of quiet horror.  No one knows that a young boy struggles to exist within its walls.

Upon his mother’s death Steven was brought here by a novice social worker over-burdened by a heavy case load that would have proven too much to handle even for someone with years of child welfare experience.  

His mother, Susan, never married.  Her mother died when she was six and from then on she was raised by her father, Heinrich, whose verbal and emotional abuse caused her to run away from home at the age of 15.  Desperate for love she had a series of boyfriends. When she discovered she was pregnant she did not know who the baby’s father was. That was of small importance to her.  What mattered was that finally she would have someone to love.  

FICTION  |  By Shirley Green » The voice of the spirit was clear and precise but the words began with a whisper: “Tell them I am here...”

Annie was annoyed.  After all these years here he was calling on her again.  She walked faster, hoping that this particular spirit would just go away and leave her be.  Leave her be as they all had since her husband died ten years ago.

How blessed had been these ten years when she hadn’t had to walk between the worlds of the living and the dead.  Ten years when she had been able to mourn and grieve the loss of her beloved Tom and then acknowledge that it would be years before they would be together again.  In what time frame or world she was not privy to, but of this she was sure: they would be together.  Their love was not finished yet.

“It’s that blasted Deathwalker spirit; the rest I can deal with.  But him!  He just won’t let me forget the commitment I made all those years ago when I took on the mantle of Shaman.  First there had been The Calling.  And I had not been young like most are when they hear the Call; fiftyish I believe.  True, I had been very ill and near deaths door but had been spared.  Spared to accept the call of the Spirits to use talents I had kept hidden when I was a youth.  I was to use them to benefit not just family and community, but any that were in need.”

FICTION   |   By Gloria Jean  » Winter had arrived in its entire splendor. Stately old pines drooped with last night’s snowfall, the canyon countryside now a soft white vista. My ski trail had become rocky and worn; this new cover would smooth it out nicely. 

I had skied this canyon trail for years, mostly alone. Few people I knew enjoyed the solitude the trail offered. They preferred the well-traveled ski trails of cross-country clubs. My tastes ran to peace and quiet of the back country, and the views from ridges I had known since childhood. Throughout my twice-weekly jaunts here, I could count on my right hand the number of people I had met on the trails. 

These were not the groomed trails of ski clubs. I plowed through knee-deep snow myself each winter to create an elaborate network of paths. My choice of path depended on whether I wanted to ski the lake, or up on the high canyon ridges. It boiled down to energy level. The lake was easier by far. 

Today was a Christmas card day, the spectacular scenery unfolding as I tackled the ridge above the tree line. An old trappers’ cabin was barely visible from the ridge. No one had been there for a decade or more, the last owner now in a nursing home where our bluegrass band volunteered. 

RESOURCES | By Farzana Doctor  »  I’ve been thinking a lot about the Canadian publishing industry and how I wish more people would support Canadian writers.

Here is a little tip sheet I created. I wrote an earlier version of this when my novel Stealing Nasreen first came out (and friends and family asked what they could do to help – and it was so heartwarming how they came through for me).