Category: Issue 18 – 2025

by Sara Shea

On I-26, heading into Asheville,
a flatbed rolls beside me,
stacked with husks of cars—
mud-caked, mangled, dripping.
One might’ve been a van, once,
Hard to tell.
Metal curled back on itself.
Windshields blown in
like lungs collapsed.

Seven months now since Helene.

That blaze of neon orange—
search and rescue spray-paint
tells the story, marking days
when the water rose.

This load’s likely bound
for the scrap yard
past the stump dump,
where mounds of ruin rise
like new mountain chains
of debris above the French Broad
and River Arts District.

These cars have been sunk
half a year in silt and shadow,
rivers swallowing them whole.
Recovery crawls.
Federal aid dries up.
Volunteers come with chains,
backhoes grunt through sludge.

Now, as we travel side by side,
clods of riverbed still drop
from the bellies of these frames.
Long threads of kudzu trail behind—
green pennants flapping
not quite surrender,
not quite hope.

And there, on the flatbed
snagged in a crimp
of crushed steel,
a snarl of multiflora rose—
white petals open,
trembling in the wind.

Sara Shea received her BA from Kenyon College, where she served as Student Associate Editor for The Kenyon Review. She’s pursued graduate studies through the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNC Asheville and at Western Carolina University, where she studied with Ron Rash. Her work has appeared in The Connecticut River Review, Quarterly West, The Static in Our Stars Anthology, Key West Love Poetry Anthology, Amsterdam Quarterly, Gaslamp Pulp, Petigru Review, New Plains Review, The Awakenings Review and Atlanta Review. Shea is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including the New Millennium Poetry Prize judged by UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion.  Shea writes professionally, producing marketing materials for a fine arts gallery in Asheville, NC.

by Lisa Underwood

I lie down too tired to brush my teeth, staring
at an eighth-grade picture of you, your mouth
brilliant with metal, your green eyes begging
love me love me. I shut it in the drawer, out of
sight, out of mind, like all the things I keep in
frames, on shelves, in closets, the boxes of
trading cards and action figures, trophies I
haven’t thrown away, thinking maybe you’d
want them someday like your cat, only a shadow
now. I know I should put her down but I don’t,
though she’s bony and toothless, stone deaf,
roaming the house howling for what I don’t know.
Calling, calling like your father on Sundays, like
his own father would do, alone and confused,
always looking for something he’d lost. Calling,
calling until we dreaded picking up the phone,
dreaded even his voice on the answering machine:
It’s PawPaw give me a call I’m homeIt’s PawPaw
It’sPawPawgivemeacallI’mhomeIt’sPawPaw
itsPawPaw…I hear your father talking now to your
unanswered phone: It’s Dad. Give us a call,
we’re home, and I try to remember to scold him
for making us sound so old.

Lisa C. Underwood received her Master of Arts in journalism from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from Queens University. She has written for newspapers and magazines and worked in public relations for corporations and educational institutions. Her creative writing has appeared in journals and anthologies. Lisa’s first book of poetry is The Bone Picker (Finishing Line Press, due out in 2026). She lives in Greensboro, NC.

by Olivia Dorsey Peacock

a letter for great-grandpa

your children insist i know nothing of survival

could not imagine tilling soil with hands raw excavating
life from snow the harshness of your words
waking at dawn caressing young hands that churned
cows’ milk into butter nursing
the wounds of a beaten and aging brother

could not imagine escaping fields of brown,
falling from golden heights
in kiss’s breath death resigning
to home under boulders trading for
incessant throbs crushed arm, crushed femur.

i know

i think of you often
torso dragging limbs across your fields, plow neglected
with the hardheadedness of those
sun-dried South Carolina fathers
refined by mountains calluses scented with limestone
dusted in soda ash painted in red clay
clinging to dignity always
behind eyes always, all those tears
an offering.

Olivia Dorsey Peacock is a family historian, poet, and tea maven based in North Carolina. She has received fellowships and support from The Watering Hole, the Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing, and the Arts & Science Council. She is currently serving as Charlotte Lit’s 2025 GoodLit Poetry Fellow and previously served as a 2025 Goodyear Arts Artist-in-Residence. Her writing has appeared in Lucky Jefferson, poetry.onl, and Shot Glass Journal. Follow her @ohdeepeacock and find her work at oliviapeacock.com.

by Kylie Harris

thick gold hangs low against cerulean blue
light spills as day lingers soft and strong
warmth teases where winter still lingers
in wind’s slow exhale

scuffed corners on the cooler red and white
cradles last summer’s sand
tucked into crannies where tide couldn’t reach
older than remembered

photograph kissed by sun
colors bleached edges softened by time
old stories drift smoke swirls above grill
laughter of summers now forgotten

steam curl slow ribbons
dirty rag damp with brine and smoke
clings to oysters fresh from the boat
cajun spice lingers thick in air

lemon butter citrus stings cuts
hand squeeze motion remembered in bone
muscle memory passed through fish fried porch talk
mothers with delicately cracked hands

shell pops open with steam unfurling
warm cluster and saltine press
against the lip
too eager to dress

oysters ripe in rippling water
seasoned by a cold current
tide’s rhythm stitched to soul
memory woven by oceanic hush

Kylie Harris is a graduate teaching assistant in the Master of Arts in Writing program at Coastal Carolina University. A native of North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, her writing reflects a deep nostalgia for the coastal South, exploring how memory, family, and shoreline traditions shape one’s sense of belonging.

by Ann Humphries

I will arise and go to Edisto
to a shabby-chic inn with rocking chairs
on a pastel porch with beachfront views,
and morning espresso with fresh fruit and scones
and cheer on children cartwheeling on the beach,
and, at sunset, I will bathe in turquoise air

and plein-air paint the ravenous gulls
strafing the packed hulls of shrimp boats
then inhale the marsh where graceful herons glide

and redwing blackbirds boast, “Con-ca-ree,”
and evenings, engage in lively tete-a-tete
(because those are the rules) and extol
the lacy-petticoat waves with the incoming tide
and order fried oysters and local beer,
then adjourn to the shore to count the falling stars

immersed in the indigo velvet of night,
the sounds of calling owls return me to rest
and I shall sleep with windows open to surf.

Ann Humphries is a poet, hiker, birder from Columbia, SC. Her first collection, An Eclipse and A Butcher, debuted in 2020, and her second collection, My Blind Obsession, will be released November 2025 . Most recently, she has been featured in Coast Lines: A Poetry Anthology, Kaklak Anthology, and the 40th anniversary of The James Dickey Review. She is a SC Humanities Speaker/Scholar, a South Carolina Notable Woman, and her papers are archived at USC’s Special Collections. Read her work at https://annhumphriespoet.wordpress.com/.

by Patrick Adkins

Jay lived in a slumped beige duplex just past the Watershed Glen train tracks—a place that looked like it had been built in one frantic day and forgotten the next. Mold ghosted the air vents. The front step clung to the doorway like a scab—too tender to tear away without drawing blood. Inside, a secondhand couch sagged under the weight of mildew and old bourbon. Jay had never tasted liquor that cost over thirty dollars, and even then, it was expensive in the way an oil drum is expensive—by volume, not value. Morgan, his girlfriend, sold weed from the bathroom vanity, calling it “small-batch botanical work” like she was distilling artisanal gin. But there was nothing small batch about it. Morgan got her weed from some old redneck who lived off Pauli’s Creek, and she always smelled like sweat and linen after every re-up.

Jay dropped out of Tideland Coast College twice—once for not showing up, once because he forgot he was enrolled. His memory wasn’t bad, just badly applied. He had a habit of drifting, sealing himself off from the world, its clutter, and the parade of assholes pretending to search for answers. Most days he lay on the floor in busted cargo shorts, watching closed-captioned cooking competitions. He didn’t cook. Barely ate. But there was a strange comfort in watching people pretend food mattered—like those assholes again, only these had found the answers, crushing them into pesto or shaving them into consommé, feeding envy into every crevice of Jay’s molars.

Morgan kept the machine wheezing along. She’d vanish for hours and return smelling like spearmint, sweat, and car upholstery. She once handed Jay a joint she dubbed Savannah Fog, promised it would “reset his perception.” He coughed for ten minutes and felt the same—just wetter. Jay didn’t think his perception needed any sort of calibration, but then again, maybe that was precisely the issue Morgan was talking about. So Jay just sat there. His cargo short seams bursting with ambition, and his lungs—heavy with intention.

Then came the clementines.

It started one limp Sunday at the Old Ashe Market, a half-collapsed farmer’s stand behind the ruins of a bowling alley off Highway 601. Jay had walked there on instinct, afraid if he didn’t leave the house, he’d dissolve fully into the upholstery or be swallowed by his cargo shorts, hands first. His phone was dead. Morgan was hosting a “Meditative Edibles” seminar in what had been a Chinese buffet. That’s where he saw them—clementines in a dented bin, left too long in the sun. Wrinkled, concave, their skin puckered like drowned hands. A few were split at the seams, leaking pale juice that pooled in the corners of the metal like sweat in a fever dream. Mold had begun to spider across their rinds—green-gray and delicate, like frost with a secret. One was almost beautiful in its ruin, furred over with a lacey bloom that seemed to pulse gently in the heat.

He stared, not in disgust, but with a quiet ache, as if the fruit had whispered something only he could hear. Something about being forgotten. Something about softening slowly while the world sped on. He felt it twist in his ribs. A kinship. He took two. No one stopped him. Nobody wanted them. At home, he placed them in the bathtub. Not tossed—placed. Gentle, like they were sacred or broken. He sat on the floor, half-pulled the curtain, killed the light. The fruit didn’t glow or hum or rot in fast-forward. It just was—softening, dimming, becoming. And that was enough.

He went back the next week. Stole five, then ten. By September, the tub held a heap of sunburned ghosts. Some sagged open. Others wept syrupy tears. A few bloomed with fine green mold, delicate as lace. The air turned syrup-thick—swampy and sweet like perfume worn too long.

Morgan eventually noticed.

“You running an experiment?” she asked, folding a hoodie that didn’t belong to her.

Jay shrugged. “I’m keeping track of time,” he said. “Sort of.”

She nodded, handed him a bowl of her bathroom weed, and asked if he wanted to try float therapy in Grimwood. Jay felt like telling her he had been floating and that he just wanted to be grounded, but just as he was about to express this, he was interrupted by a hollow knocking on the door. Mr. Wheeler. The other half of the duplex. Mid-seventies, maybe more. Always in a faded fishing hat, always cradling a plastic pitcher of sun tea, even on cloudy days. He knocked slow, like he was checking for a pulse.

“You growing rot in there?” he asked one Tuesday.

Jay shrugged. “Sort of.”

“Did the same. After Nam. Kept peaches in a cooler till they split like hearts. Needed to see something that didn’t lie.”

Then he turned and walked off, slow as a sentence you don’t want to hear the end of.

After that, Wheeler started leaving things on the porch. A cigarette lighter with a dolphin sticker. A cassette labeled STORM SERMON 1993. A crumpled lily wrapped in foil. Jay left clementines in return—always soft, always bruised.

Then he found the one.

Tucked behind a box of collapsing squash at the market. Small. Firm. Flawless. No bruise. No puncture. It sat in his hand with the weight of something that knew it had been found. He placed it atop the mountain in the tub.

And waited.

A day. Then three. Then ten. The others rotted as usual, sinking into themselves like wet lungs. This one didn’t blink. Didn’t sag. Held its shape like a lie. Jay started waking with orange shadows beneath his eyes. Quit watching the Food Network. His dreams swam with pulpy suns, sticky hands, citrus pulp pressed like communion wafers against his tongue. Morgan said he whispered in his sleep: “It hasn’t died yet.” And “I think it’s waiting.”

Then one morning, a note slid under the door. Crinkled. Orange-stained. Neat, narrow handwriting:

Don’t trust what stays the same.
The man next door once buried something that wasn’t fruit.
—W.

Jay stepped out, watched Wheeler kneeling in his hydrangeas, whispering into the dirt. He didn’t ask. Didn’t want to know. That night, Jay told Morgan he was leaving.

“Leaving Watershed Glen?” she asked. “Or, like, leaving?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Both?”

“Okay,” she said, flicking lavender paint across a rolling tray.

As he passed Wheeler’s door, the old man was digging again. Elbows deep. Humming. Jay didn’t stop. Didn’t look back. But he heard him—Mr. Wheeler, muttering into the soil:

“Some things rot. Some things wait for you to rot instead.”

And Jay kept walking, unsure if the fruit was a miracle or a trap—
but knowing, finally,
that it was time to go.

Patrick Adkins was born and raised in Charleston, South Carolina. He now lives in
Aiken, South Carolina with his wife, Dr. Chloe Adkins, and their son, Ambrose. His
writing often blends the familiar and the surreal, exploring the strange edges of ordinary
life.

by Jacquelyn Markham

Japanese plums, loquats, saffron clusters
pasted on palmish evergreen leaves
in breezes swinging.
Another spring blooms.
Let’s gather them & slice the fruit.
Each one a center of smooth seed,
a sculptor could carve a tiny face from.

Loquat in saffron clusters.
Let’s gather them & slice the fruit,
concoct a yellow cocktail with ice
stirred in. Laugh & toast
to love like days past.
Another spring blooms.
Fruit once fragrant blossoms.
Now, the loquats bunch in saffron
clusters. We laugh & drink the fruit,
cheers to days past with a tangy taste of sun.

Jacquelyn Markham, author of three chapbooks, including Rainbow Warrior (2023) and a personal mythology, Peering Into the Iris: An Ancestral Journey, has published in journals and anthologies, such as Archive: South Carolina Poetry Since 2005, Adrienne Rich: A Tribute Anthology, Fall Lines, Woman and Earth, High Window Review, & others. Markham’s awards include three Georgia Council for the Arts grants, a Kentucky Women’s Foundation Award, and a SC Arts Grant. A former professor, she earned an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing from Florida State University and in 2014 received the Adele Mellen Prize for distinguished scholarship for her research on the poetry of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Markham lives and writes in Beaufort where she mentors poets and writers. 

by J.W. Gibeau

“Jazzy, don’t throw that water out the door. You might anger the Watchers,” Mama yelled from the kitchen.

Jazmine rolled her eyes and stopped just short of the door. She set the bucket down. Only a few inches of saltwater remained in the bucket from carrying the blue crabs.

“I know,” Jazmine yelled back, and thought to herself, if the Watchers did exist, if they were really ghosts trapped on the island by the sea and time, why would throwing water out the door bother them?

“If we had good plumbing like the Shelman’s do, or like they do off the island, we wouldn’t have to worry about it,” Jazmine said out loud but probably not loud enough for Mama to hear. 

Jazmine left the bucket by the door and walked to her room. She shut the door behind her and walked to the corner shelf her older brother had built out of scrap plywood. He had found the wood down at the fishing docks and cut it into the shape of a violin with an electric saw he borrowed from the Shelman family, one of the wealthy families of the community. Wealthy in the sense that they had electricity, plumbing and a car to get around the island. Most everyone else walked or rode old bikes rusty from the salty, humid air. After Robbie cut the wood, he nailed two identical sections together at the corners to form a wedge, which would fit nicely into the corner of a room. Then he added three shelves. “One day, Jazzy, I’ll get you a real violin,” he said as he was hanging the violin shelf in Jazmine’s room. “Then you can take it down to the beach side and play for the dolphins. The shrimpers say the dolphins like music, and it’s true, I’ve seen them swim up to a boat to hear an old radio. They’re as smart as you and me, that’s what they say at least. And one day you can make music for them.”

Robbie was true to his word. Below the shelf, a real violin rested on a stand. It was a Christmas gift mailed from somewhere in Oklahoma. Robbie lived on the mainland now. He worked for Sunshine Bread driving trucks. Jazmine and Mama seldom heard from him. Jazmine missed him.

Jazmine never saw Mama cry when Robbie left, but she was quiet for three days, a sad quietness that seemed to spread through the older men and women of the island every time one of the young ones left. For years, Robbie had traveled by boat across the tidal river separating the island from the mainland and then got on a bus to reach the high school just like Jazmine did now, making the trip back and forth Monday through Friday except on holidays or when there was a storm. But after graduation, Robbie couldn’t find work. The shrimpers didn’t need help, there wasn’t any construction and the island only saw a handful of tourists. And when Robbie left, the population of the island dropped from 59 to 58. 

Jazmine looked up at the corner shelf. On each shelf ledge sat a marsh grass doll. The top one was named Sasha. Mama had made Sasha for Jazmine when she was little, still running around barefoot and without a shirt. Jazmine remembered the vanilla smell of the sweetgrass Mama used. The sweetgrass was special, it grew in sandy areas just beyond where the cordgrass grew on the river side of the island. The girls made dolls from the grass while some of the adults hand-wove intricate baskets. “A direct link to Africa,” a young anthropologist who visited the island while researching for a book had told Jazmine and her mother. “The coil-on-coil tan and green sweetgrass patterns are a direct link to Africa brought by the first slaves,” he explained further.

“We’re just doing what we seen our parents doing. That’s all,” Mama had said to the young man.

Maddie sat on the middle shelf. Maddie was one of the first dolls Jazmine made on her own. Poor Maddie had no eyes, and the grass used for her arms and legs was frayed and broken. When she was a child, Jazmine slept with that doll and carried her just about everywhere she went, except to the First African Baptist Church on Sundays. Mama wouldn’t stand for that.

On the bottom shelf sat Anaya, the last grass doll Jazmine made before she grew out of playing with dolls. Anaya was perfect in every detail, from the button eyes to the black thread glued on and styled for hair. Jazmine had tried to copy Anaya’s look from a magazine ad for shampoo in which a beautiful businesswoman hailed a taxi in some city, probably New York. Jazmine had hailed many imaginary taxis with the help of Anaya. Magical taxis that took them to all the big cities: London, L.A., Tokyo.

Jazmine reached up and pulled a white envelope out from underneath Anaya. She stared at the envelope, rereading the return address as if she still couldn’t believe it. The words Charleston Southern University appeared in the top left-hand corner in plain type, casually, as if it were a letter from an old friend. Jazmine pulled out the letter and carefully opened the folded paper.

It began:  Dear Ms. Walker,  We are happy to announce your acceptance into the English Studies Program at Charleston Southern University. Furthermore, we are very pleased to inform you that you have been chosen for the Destiny Hudson Aspiring African American Writer Scholarship based on your essay, “Where I am From and Where I am Going”. The rest of the letter included details on who to contact for further financial information and her academic advisor’s name, Dr. Sylvia Freeman. A real name of a real person hundreds of miles away who was supposed to help Jazmine register for classes. She couldn’t believe it. 

The last line of the letter asked that the enclosed acceptance/enrollment form be filled out and returned by May 1. Jazmine had completed the form the same day she picked the letter up at the docks. Charlie, an older man who retrieved the mail from the mainland by boat each weekday, looked at the envelope before he handed it to Jazmine. He must have read the return address because the sadness crept into his eyes as he said, “Well, Jazzy, you certainly have grown up.”

Jazmine lifted Anaya up again and pulled another envelope off the shelf. This one was sealed and addressed to the university. It was her acceptance form ready for the mail except for the stamp, which she would give Charlie money for when she asked him to mail it. She proofread the address one more time to make sure it was correct, and then she sat on her bed holding the envelope carefully, as if a single wrinkle would change the administrators’ minds about her acceptance.

She stared at the ceiling with the same question running through her mind as the day before and the day before that. How could she tell Mama?  Robbie was gone, and Daddy had been gone for years. It was just the two of them now. Mama had some younger cousins who would help her take care of the house if needed, Jazmine thought, and Mama’s house served as the island’s unofficial restaurant. Although to call using a kitchen to cook seafood eight or nine times a month for a few scattered tourists a restaurant was a stretch of the imagination, it did make Mama the small amount of money she needed to get by. Yeah, Mama would be okay, Jazmine thought, but okay wasn’t good enough for Mama.

Jazmine knew Mama would be lonely, and her mother deserved more than loneliness after the work she’d done raising two kids on her own. I’ll come home often, Jazmine thought. But that was what Robbie said when he left, too. He said he would come home often, and that he’d write even more often. That was a year and a half ago, and he visited once when he had to make an East Coast run. When he first left, he did write fairly often, but after the first year, the postcards and letters slowed to maybe one every couple of months.

Jazmine read the acceptance letter again. Dr. Sylvia Freeman. She liked the sound of the name. She said it out loud, “Dr. Sylvia Freeman.”  Then she said out loud, “Dr. Jazmine Walker.”  She liked that even better. 

Jazmine stood up with an envelope in each hand and closed her eyes. It was time. With determination, she walked out of the bedroom. In the hall, the familiar aroma of Mama’s kitchen enveloped her so completely that Jazmine stopped just short of the kitchen doorway. The earthy tones of rice, the sweet odor of okra and tomatoes, the smoky ham hock and the breath of the sea itself in the crabs and shrimp all mingling and rising together from the slow-cooked stew.

“You can do this Jazmine,” she whispered to herself and stepped through the doorway, hesitating again at the sight of Mama leaning against the sink. Mama was snapping the heads off shrimp to set aside for use later as vegetable broth flavoring, before dropping the shelled bodies and tails of the shrimp into the pot.

“Mama, I need to talk to you.” Jazmine forced the words out.

“Go ahead,” Mama said while her hands kept working at the shrimp. 

“Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about something.”

“All right.”

“I’ve been thinking about going to school. And I got something to show you.”  Jazmine held the letter out towards her mother.

Mama stopped and dried her hands on her apron. She turned and took the letter and unfolded the page. She read for a moment and then looked at Jazmine and refolded the letter.

“I am not going to read anymore,” she said. “Jazzy, if you’re going to tell me something, I want you to tell me. I don’t want to read it in some letter.”

Jazmine breathed heavily. She turned away from Mama, and the words flew out like panicky seagulls on a strong wind. “I’m going to school. Mr. Cartwright helped me get a scholarship, and I am going to accept it. I am going to Charleston Southern. It’s time for me to go. I need to make something of myself. I can’t stay here and do nothing. I can’t do it. I need to see something new, something different than crab traps and alligators and gravel roads and old men with tales of the Watchers. I got to take this chance. I got to.”

   Mama was quiet. Jazmine felt her confidence washing away like sand under your feet when standing in an outgoing tide. She stared at the letter in Mama’s hand.

“I knew you were leaving,” Mama finally said, setting the letter on the counter behind her, so that she stood between Jazmine and the letter.

“Mama, you couldn’t know. I didn’t even know for sure until right now.”

“Well, the island knew, and you don’t think this island here can keep a secret from your Mama, do you?  I’ve known this island too long, since I was born. I can tell if a storm is coming, and I can surely tell when my baby is leaving. And the Watchers—”

“The Watchers told you I was leaving?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mama said. “They came into my dreams after old Charlie told me you got a letter from a university. The Watchers seen plenty of you young folks leave to know when it’s about to happen. They talk to us old folk. In our dreams, they say ‘keep ’em here’. They say ‘keep ’em here’ because the Watchers are family too.”

“But Mama—”

“And you’ve been so quiet, sneaking off to your room and just sitting in there. When the island gets quiet, that means there’s a storm coming or a heat wave or some other kind of change. I remember Robbie got real quiet for a couple of weeks, just like you’ve been doing. He was in his room flipping through those trucker magazines, finding a company that would pay to train him. Just like you’ve been doing with that letter.”

“I ain’t doing it to hurt you.”

“Robbie didn’t want to hurt me either. Didn’t want to hurt you just the same, but tell me how you feel?”

“I miss him. But I’m glad he left.”

“That’s not what you’ve been saying the whole time he’s been gone. That’s not what you said when he quit writing letters.”

“But it’s what I’m saying now.”

“Well, I ain’t going to stop you, but I ain’t going to pack your bags neither.”  Mama picked up the letter and handed it back to Jazmine. “You gotta do what you gotta do,” she said and then turned around, and her hands went back to work.

“But Mama—”

“I’m not going to give you my blessing to leave your home,” she answered without turning.

“Mama, I was hoping for your blessing, but I didn’t expect it. And I’m going. I just got to…”

“You got to what?”

“I got to know if you’re going to be okay when I’m gone.”

Now, Mama did turn around. Her eyes wide as she wiped her hands on her apron.

“I was a woman before you or Robbie was born. I was a woman alone before I met your father. I’ve been a woman alone before, and I ain’t scared to be one again.”

There was a silence before Mama continued, “Besides, I’ve told you, I left the island once myself for a full year. It wasn’t the same. So much noise you couldn’t hear nothing. So many cars and people you couldn’t hear the world talking. I missed the whistle of the marsh grass and the splash of the crab nets as the men threw them out in the water. And I missed the horn of the ferry as it pulled into the dock with supplies and the mail. Maybe you might miss these things, too. Maybe you might miss the island talking, and you might come home to us on that ferry.”

“Maybe.”

“And, Jazzy, you’ll always be welcome here as long as I’m breathing,” Mama said.

Jazmine looked at her mother standing there with her graying hair sticking out from underneath her yellow head wrap, her strong shoulders sunk slightly, her dirty apron tied around her waist. Jazmine walked forward and wrapped her arms around her mama.

“I love you, Mama.”

Jazmine turned to leave, both letters tight in her hand. She walked slowly just in case there was something else Mama wanted to say. Jazmine put her hand on the doorknob. Silence. She stepped outside.

The island was quiet, except for the rustle of the pines in a warm breeze and the low hum of insects. The evening sky was beginning to soften. Soon, the oranges and reds of the sunset would sink lazily into the mainland to the west of the island, pulling some of the humid air with them. It was Sunday evening, so the last ferry of the weekend would be leaving the dock at Marsh Landing soon. Charlie would be there for sure, loading any mail that had to get to the mainland post office before Monday morning. Jazmine picked up the bike Robbie had left her and climbed onto the seat. She put the letters in the wire basket attached to the handlebars and began pedaling towards Marsh Landing. It was done; she would leave the island. As soon as the letter was in the mail, her life would be in motion.

Jazmine had ridden a bike down this same dirt and gravel road countless times. But this time felt different. A kind of sad loneliness filled her belly, yet she felt like she wasn’t alone. She felt like she was being watched.

There was a noise at the edge of the woods to her right. Probably a raccoon or a deer, Jazmine decided, but she pedaled faster just the same. Though slight, the breeze seemed to fight against her, and she imagined it carrying her letters out of the basket and into the marsh tides on the other side of the trees. Jazmine reached down and put a hand on top of the letters while keeping her balance with the other hand. “You can’t have these,” she said softly to the island. When she rounded the last corner to Marsh Landing, Jazmine heard the ferry horn and saw Charlie leaning over to pull up the loading ramp.

“Charlie, wait!” she yelled over the sound of the horn. 

Charlie stood up and looked at Jazmine as she jumped off the bike and ran to the ramp.

“What is it, Jazzy?” he asked.

“I have a letter for you.”

Jazmine handed Charlie the letter, waiting until she felt it safely in his hand before letting go. Charlie looked at the envelope and then at Jazmine.

“Money for the stamp?” Charlie asked.

“Oh, no. I forgot it.”

“I’ll cover this one,” Charlie said. “Think of it as a goodbye present.”

Charlie tucked the letter into a large canvas bag by the rail. Then he smiled a soft smile at Jazmine as he pulled the loading ramp closed.

Jazmine watched the ferry pull away and turn towards the mainland. It was slow and beautiful. A few seagulls followed closely behind, diving into the wake where the engines churned up an occasional fish. Jazmine stood still and felt the warm salt breeze on her skin. She also felt them behind her, watching. But she did not turn to them. She kept her eyes on the boat as if her gaze kept it afloat and kept her letter safe. And when she could no longer see the boat, Jazmine closed her eyes and pictured the letter tucked safely in the bag.

“Make your way to Dr. Sylvia Freeman,” she whispered.

It was when she opened her eyes and found herself staring into the fading light of the day over the marsh grasses and distant pine trees that Jazmine caught a glimpse of the enormity of forever. She turned towards the woods with empathy for the Watchers. But they were gone.     

Jason Gibeau is an award-winning writer who lives in Greenville, South Carolina, with his wife and three amazing kids. Jason’s first novel, The Duel, a historical fiction rich in magical realism, is set on a Lowcountry rice plantation at the dawn of the Revolutionary War and is scheduled for release on October 15, 2025. In addition to writing fiction, Jason has published several non-fiction articles in a variety of magazines and worked as a content editor for a health publication. Jason loves his primary job as an occupational therapist working with children with disabilities and plans to release several picture books for kids soon under the pen name Jase Wilder (www.jasewilder.com). In his elusive free time, Jason can be found playing guitar and writing songs, hanging with his family or looking for any excuse to make the drive to the Charleston area for pier or surf fishing. Visit www.jwgibeau.com for books and updates!

by Pell Williams

I am no good at waking.
Still, I borrow Momma’s
mud-worn shoes
and sip hot paper cup coffee
as her van fills one by one
with artists of all mediums.
I guard the van while they slip
under the Widgeon Point gate,
the night’s bruise healing with light.
I’m no good at sneaking
through the young pine forests
to peek at the easels tucked
into swathes of marsh grass.
No good at balancing on fallen
trees stretched over the pluff mud,
their bark so pale I cannot name them.
I am good at clutching close
this paper vessel and filling it
with tiny markings, at relinquishing
the song I sang when I first woke
in favor of thrumming insects,
birds reuniting after the long dark.
I’m good at holding position
on this log in the shadows
and watching orange rise up
purple palmetto trunks.
For every morning I cannot wake
I hope to God I’ll dream in sunrise.

Pell Williams received an MFA in poetry from the College of Charleston and a BA in writing seminars from Johns Hopkins University. Pell served as the creative writing editor for Surge: The Lowcountry Climate Magazine, and was the 2019 artist in residence for the Dry Tortugas National Park. She is currently a marine science writer for the State of South Carolina. Her work has been published in The Good Life Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, and Grim & Gilded, among others.