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Who Can Enter: This contest is open to all poets. All submissions must be posted and assigned critiques completed by February 28, 2010. Poems must be 50 lines or fewer. You may post additional poems to this site for critique, but only one poem will be eligible for this contest.

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Prizes: The winner of this contest will receive $100.

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2. Upload your poem; make sure you select Poetry Contest as the category.
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1. Authors from the Review Fuse staff will select the 10 best poems for Round 2.
2. Of these 10 poems, Review Fuse management will select the 5 authors who gave the most detailed and well thought out critiques of their peer’s poetry for Round 3.
3. The winner will then be selected by 3 creative writing and poetry professors.

• Find out more about what our judges think great poetry is.

Entry Fee: There are no entry fees or purchases of any kind required to enter and win the contest. After you submit your poem to the contest you will be required to complete assigned critiques of other poets (4 for free members and 2 for premium members). You will receive 3 critiques of your poem in return. Those who do not complete their critiques will not be eligible to win the contest.

Rights: All poems remain the sole property of the author. After we have selected the winner we will seek permission from the author to publish the winning poem on our blog. The author is under no obligation to allow this.

Notification: The prize winner will be notified by email on March 13, 2010. We will announce the prize winner on our blog on March 15, 2010.

We are proud to announce that Conversation by Tyffany Neiheiser is the winner of our October 2009 Short Story writing contest. She has given us permission to publish her short story below. Tyffany D. Neiheiser is a part time writer and full time book addict. Tyffany lives in sunny Arizona with her six cats, two dogs, and one husband. In her spare time, Tyffany is working on her Master’s degree and finding an agent to represent her novel.

Abstract by Hugo Damas was second place. We have not been granted permission to publish this short story.

Portrait of an Abandoned Queen by Emily Nelson has been awarded third place. Emily has also given us permission to publish her story below.

Conversations
by Tyffany Neiheiser

Brenda had worked at Conversations for only about a week when she first met Jack. He usually sat in Amy’s station, but she was out sick, so everyone was filling in outside their normal station. Brenda had heard that Jack was a little strange, but no one would tell her why, just saying with knowing smiles, “You’ll see.” It seemed to her to be some sort of initiation, so she didn’t press the subject.

It was a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Not a depressing rainy day, but a warm day with soft rain. The rain blurred the edges of the city, giving the area a gray haze that could have been anything, and let Brenda dream that she could be somewhere else. Brenda took her ten-minute break standing at the kitchen door, letting the cool breeze wash over her as she watched the rain. She was getting strange looks from the kitchen staff, and almost wished that she smoked so that she would have an excuse to stand there, half in and half out of the rain. There were big windows in the restaurant itself, but she wanted just one minute to herself to relax and enjoy.

Coming back into the dining room, Brenda got her first look at Jack as he walked in and seated himself at his normal table. Diners seated themselves, and Brenda walked over to light the candle in the middle of the table. The ambiance was nice, with lots of exposed dark wood, dark green linen tablecloths, white napkins, and fat white candles in hurricanes. It was one of the few restaurants Brenda had been in that didn’t have multiple TVs. There was just quiet music that encouraged conversation. Jack ordered his drink, a dry martini.

Brenda took an order at another table, then went to pick up drinks from the bar. As she returned to Jack’s table, she stopped abruptly, and the drinks sloshed around on her tray, dripping slightly. Jack was leaned forward at his table, chin resting on one hand, gazing intently at a spot above the other chair. He was talking as if he were engaged in a conversation with another person, even though he was alone. Brenda looked closer, and noticed that the chair had been pulled out from the table as if there were someone seated there.

Recovering quickly, Brenda pasted a smile back on her face, and served drinks to her tables. When she got to Jack, she placed his martini in front of him, and he placed his order. While she wrote his order on her pad, her eyes kept straying to the empty chair. She felt herself blushing as she tried not to be obvious about it.

Throughout lunch, Jack continued talking to his imaginary companion. Jack lingered at his meal, obviously engrossed in his conversation. Brenda caught only snatches of what he was saying. At one point, he was apparently talking about work, and later the weather. He was animated, and didn’t appear to notice the other diners watching him. Most people were polite about it, but there were one or two people who were obvious in laughing at him. He tipped generously, and Brenda watched him leave.

She wondered what was wrong with him. She thought that crazy people were dirty and disheveled, smelling faintly of old booze. She hadn’t expected someone like Jack, clean cut and attractive, to be so obviously unbalanced.

Brenda found herself making up stories about him as she wiped the table. He was an executive who had succumbed to the stress of his job and had a minor nervous breakdown; his wife had recently died, and he was still grieving in a rather unusual way; he had a brain tumor and was seeing a childhood friend. Brenda’s thoughts halted abruptly as she automatically bent to wipe the unused chair. There was a light blue, silk ladies scarf on the chair, smelling faintly of a floral perfume.

Brenda’s thoughts whirled. She knew that she had cleaned off the chair before Jack sat down. The only explanation was that someone must have put their jacket on and set the scarf down. She hadn’t noticed any women wearing a scarf like that, and she usually noticed what people wore. Then again, it was entirely possible that the woman hadn’t been wearing it at all. It could have fallen out of someone’s pocket.

Feeling strangely relieved that she had come up with an explanation, but not understanding why, Brenda tucked the scarf into a drawer below the cash register. It was their unofficial “lost and found.” Most items that went into the drawer never came back out; usually people didn’t know where they lost things.

Amy came back to work the next day, feeling better, but still rather pale. She was smiling as she approached Brenda and asked, “How’d you like our resident nutjob?”

Brenda frowned at the description of Jack as crazy. The same thought had passed through her mind, but she had at some point excused his behavior. “I liked him,” Brenda replied truthfully. “I thought he was very nice.”

“Why don’t you keep him then?” Amy asked. “To be honest, he kinda creeps me out. I’ll trade you any table for that one when he comes in.”

Brenda shrugged, and Amy looked relieved. “Really, he doesn’t bother you?”

“He didn’t bother me at all,” Brenda said. “I thought he just seemed sad.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized it was the truth. Jack hadn’t seemed the least bit crazy. He seemed sad. He seemed more alive when he was talking to his invisible companion, but there was no disguising the sadness in his eyes.

Brenda soon learned that Jack came into the restaurant every day for a late lunch, and he always ordered the same meal with a dry martini. Just one. He didn’t appear intoxicated as he talked to his companion, and he was always perfectly polite to Brenda. Watching him one day, Brenda saw him approach his usual table and pull the chair out, then scoot it in as if he were helping seat his companion. He took his seat, and looked at the empty space across the table.

Brenda made a special effort to make normal conversation with Jack. She took care to ask him how his day was, how he liked the weather, whether he enjoyed his meal. He was always pleasant and answered her questions in a patient tone of voice, almost as if he knew what she was doing. She wanted to ask him the question, “Who are you talking to?” but knew instinctively that topic would be taboo. For some reason, she was afraid that he would stop coming into the restaurant if she called too much attention to his “companion.”

Brenda left the table after one such conversation, and as she passed, she caught the same scent that had been on the silk scarf. She stopped abruptly and looked around. There were no other female diners near her. No one had passed by the table. The scent faded, and Brenda met Jack’s eyes. For the first time, they were steady on hers, and she felt as if he were seeing her for the first time. She held his gaze for a moment, until he dropped his eyes to look at the other chair, as if his companion had just made a comment that caught his attention. When he looked back, Brenda was gone.

Brenda splashed water on her face in the ladies’ room. What just happened? She had a weird feeling of unreality, like there was something going on that she could understand if she chose to. She wasn’t sure she liked the feeling.

Brenda resumed waiting her tables with a subdued air. She did not make eye contact with Jack again, and made no effort to spend any additional time in conversation with him. She went to the cash register to run his credit card through, and on a whim checked the drawer where she had put the scarf. It was gone.

Brenda felt a chill run down her spine. All it meant was that whoever lost the scarf had come to pick it up. Nothing less, nothing more. Brenda brought Jack his credit slip to sign, and he left without speaking another word to her.

Brenda wasn’t sure if she was dreading or looking forward to Jack coming in the following day. They had shared a moment, and Brenda had felt connected to him for those brief seconds, but at the same time, the whole situation was too weird for her.

Jack went through his normal routine when he entered the restaurant, seating his invisible companion before sitting down himself. Brenda watched him surreptitiously for a long time before she finally approached him, bringing his martini without being asked. He smiled at her, and placed his order. She turned to leave, and heard him say, very quietly, “Her name is Grace.”

Brenda turned back to him and met his eyes. He was trusting her, and she didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t turn and greet the invisible person; it wasn’t right to encourage his delusion. Not knowing what to do, without a word, she turned to put his order in.

Later that evening, when Brenda was alone in her apartment, she wondered what it was that bothered her about Jack and his invisible friend. She didn’t believe that he was dangerous, and if he was crazy, it was a benign sort of delusion. He obviously felt as if she had befriended him, which was her intention in the beginning. She wasn’t sure what it was that she was feeling.

Curious, Brenda Googled Jack L. Danner. She remembered his name after running his credit card every day for weeks. Several articles came up. As she suspected, he was a well-known businessman, and according to the articles, well respected. She skimmed several articles, stopping to read paragraphs here and there. A newspaper archive caught her eye, and as she read, several things about Jack became clearer.

According to the article, Jack and his wife Grace were on their way home from a business dinner when Jack’s car hit a patch of black ice, and spun out of control. The car was totaled, and as sometimes happens in freak accidents, Grace was killed instantly, and Jack survived the accident with only scratches and bruises. The accident had happened three years ago, and as Brenda took a closer look at the articles she had been reading, it appeared that everything that was written on Jack the businessman had been written prior to the accident. Jack the Businessman had ceased to exist after his wife’s death.

Brenda now understood Jack a little better, but was left with more questions than answers. Did he really believe that he was talking to the ghost of his dead wife? He obviously had enough grip left on sanity that he knew that other people thought he was crazy. Still, why go to a restaurant with the ghost on a daily basis? Why not leave your insanity at home?

Brenda didn’t sleep all that well that night. She was plagued by dreams of coffins opening, with skeletal hands gripping the edges of graves to pull themselves out. Brenda normally loved to sleep in whenever possible, but that morning she made coffee and sipped as she watched the sun rise. Brenda decided that she was getting way too involved in thinking about Jack’s situation. She was only his waitress. She should be polite to him, and treat him with respect, but there was nothing else she needed to be concerned about. If he wanted to talk to invisible tap dancing crickets, that was his business. She would be polite, and distant, and not think about him any more.

Decision made, Brenda threw herself into her workday with more energy than she actually had, considering her pre-dawn wake up. She told herself that she wasn’t thinking about Jack, but noticed immediately when he walked in, and had to admit to herself that she had been watching for him.

As was her custom, Brenda put in an order for Jack’s drink and brought it to him before he had to order. As she approached the table, she noticed that Jack was scowling at his companion and engaged in a deep discussion that looked like an argument. Brenda had to stifle an inappropriate chuckle as she wondered, Can you argue with an imaginary friend?

Jack looked at Brenda as she set his drink in front of him. She smiled at him in a detached kind of way, and said in a pleasantly impersonal tone of voice, “I’ll put your order in.”

“Wait,” Jack said. Brenda turned to look at him, a little nervous about what would come next. He studied her for several moments before he continued, “I just wanted to thank you for being so nice to me. I know what people think.” He seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, but then changed his mind and dropped his eyes. “Anyway, thanks,” he finished lamely.

Brenda didn’t know what to say, and stood awkwardly for a moment. “Um, you’re welcome,” she said nervously. As she turned away, she smelled the floral perfume. The scent was strong, as if someone had sprayed it near her and she was walking into a cloud of lingering particles. Brenda had to force her feet to keep moving. She wanted to turn to Jack and demand that he tell her what was going on.

Brenda scolded herself throughout Jack’s lunch. She wanted to be unmoved by his words, but felt as if he were asking for her help or her understanding. Part of her wanted to understand what was going on, but another part of her wanted to do exactly what she had vowed and stop spending time dwelling on him.

Brenda cleared his plates from the table at the end of his lunch. “Brenda, I…” he began. She cut him off with a smile and a steely look, then took his plates and walked away. When he had left for the afternoon, she cleaned his table with far more energy than was necessary. There were plenty of attractive men out there. Why was it that she wanted the one who was crazy? Why was she obsessing about a man who was so obsessed with his dead wife that he still talked to her three years after her death? In fact, he wasn’t just talking to her; he took her out to lunch! She wasn’t the type of woman who entertained fantasies about unavailable men.

She didn’t understand what was going on, but it was suddenly very important to her that she find out once and for all. She didn’t know how she would start the conversation in the middle of the restaurant. “Hey Jack, I have a crush on you so can you tell me what’s going on with your dead wife?” just didn’t seem to work.

Brenda didn’t know what she was going to say, just that she was determined to have some understanding of the situation once and for all. She was curiously deflated, then, when Jack did not show up for lunch for the next couple of days. At first she was disappointed, then worried. However, she couldn’t think of any reason to contact him that wouldn’t sound weird. She chuckled. She was worried about sounding weird to the man who brought an imaginary friend to lunch every day? It didn’t seem that there was much she could do to top that one.

Brenda was relieved when Jack came back to the restaurant on the fourth day. She still didn’t know what she was going to say to him, but thought about it as she brought him his martini. She set it in front of him, and he covered her hand with his own and looked at her. “She’s not there,” he said quietly.

She froze. “What did you say?” she asked breathlessly.

He looked pointedly at the chair across from him. “She’s not there.”

Over dinner, Jack explained that he had trouble recovering from the accident that claimed Grace. He had such trouble dealing with her death that she had been unable to move on. His grief and guilt kept her chained to him. Grace had worried about him, encouraging him to move on, saying that there would be someone else out there for him, and that he needed to get out into the world. The lunches at Conversations had been her way of forcing him to interact with the living. She had hoped that he would be so embarrassed about talking to an invisible companion that he would eventually allow her to move on. The plan had backfired. He had absolutely no interest in other people, and talking to someone that only he could see alienated him further. It was not until he had met Brenda that he had felt a desire to return to the land of the living. He had been holding on to her only out of habit.

Brenda didn’t know how much she believed what Jack told her. She knew that he believed it, but she wondered if grief had caused him to fabricate the experience in his mind as a way of dealing with a tragedy. In the end, she decided that it didn’t matter. Whatever device, coincidence or supernatural, had brought her this wonderful man, she was grateful to it.

They had a good marriage, and two lovely children. If Brenda occasionally smelled perfume that wasn’t hers in the house, she learned to ignore it. Jack didn’t seem to notice anything, and she never mentioned it, but sometimes she felt someone touch her arm gently when no one was there.

Portrait of an Abandoned Queen
by Emily Nelson

There is an old saying about portraits. I do not remember it exactly, but it has something to do with capturing the image and soul. My mother whispered it to me once when I was still a small child, poising for the first of my many portraits. I was fidgeting, my dress and jewels were heavy and my smile frequently fell from my face. My mother, a queen with much discipline, pursed her lips at my discomfort. When the artist raised his bushy brows for what was surely the millionth time, my mother rushed to my place and, for the first time in a long time, caressed my cheek. She told me that we had to suffer for beauty and that I must be strong. I felt a such a rush of pride and joy that I was good enough to be given attention by such a powerful women (even if she was my own mother) that I ignored the boredom and pain. I did not flinch again during the hour and expected my mother to say something about how good I was being. But she had already left.

Now I stand poising for a portrait again. The emeralds in my hair and on my neck glitter in the feeble light that shines through the window. My dress is of fine, white silk that falls into an array of pearls and feathers. But I am no longer the young, fair-haired beauty I was and the effect of the outfit simply give me a look of desperation. My hair has grayed, my skin wrinkled and I fear that my legs cannot hold me up much longer. I tremble, I feel faint, and my smile has turned into a grimace of pain. But I do not move or complain, I do not give anyone the satisfaction of my weakening. The King has taken too much away from me already. My youth, my power, and my children. But he can not taken my pride. I will wear this gown with grace and dignity and they will know that I am still the same beautiful Portuguese princess that came to this country years ago. I am still the wife of a king and the queen of this country.

My husband fell out of love with me years ago, I am wise enough to know that. His eyes wander from my aged beauty to a slim-waisted, youthful girl often. But he has never shamed me publicly before this year. He always led me out for the first dance, praised my excellence to visiting ambassadors, called me his ‘luck charm’ when we would hunt together. I was still an adored queen, even if it was simply protocol for me to be so. But my husband is a fool with a greedy heart. When a new, gorgeous, younger woman stepped onto the dance floor, he was captured. I saw him lean forward in his seat as her skirts twirled, her curls bounced in an array of gold, her smile formed a perfect Cupid’s bow. In that moment, the youthful beauty of a younger woman made me truly lose him. He never called his sweetheart again, he never led me out to dance, he never invited me to hunt with him. Every night, I must watch him dance with her, hear the men and women of the court praise her delicate beauty and wit. I feel like I am no longer a queen, but only a shadow sitting on the throne. With everyone waiting for a wind to blow me away.

I hang the finished portrait in the opening of my presence chamber, for all the see. It does not recapture my youth, but it does give the appearance of royalty, something that only I own. When my husband dines with me the next morning, he does not comment on it. I know that he is wishing to be with her, but he must settle for me and it angers him. I praise his strength, his leadership, his keen observance when he complains about the slowness of my servants. But he does not thank me for my company or bid me a good day. He simply leaves the room, ignoring my farewells. I despise his greed, his stupidity and his cruel eyes. I want to hit him, I want him to fall ill…I want him to love me again. I want him to kiss my hair and whisper how precious I am. I want him to bring back my children and to make us a family again. But petty dreams will not bring him back.

When we ride through the city, the commoners do not act as though they still love me. I know they are weary from the heavy taxes and they do not even have a beautiful queen to be proud of anymore. I throw them coins, but they do not smile as they pick them up and their eyes show hate me. They eye my rich dress and do not realize I wear it in an attempt to recapture my husband, to save our country from the disaster of a royal separation. They blame me, silently but strongly. They still love their strong, prideful king and they adore the beautiful, young woman that he smiles at. I hear her giggle and know that she is taking away my people too. Bitterness is a unattractive crown but I wear it with my shame.

As they sit close in the evening, she whispers a little poison in his ear and he hates me a little more. Her pretty giggle echoes in the hall and he wraps an arm around her waist. He calls out for a dance and they glide onto the floor, her blue dress twirling all the way. I feel my hate for them burns hot in the pit of my stomach. But I keep the thin smile on my lips clap when the music stops, and I laugh as though this dance between them was a gift to me. Tears burn my eyes and I feel like screaming. But I hold my hurt in my heart and think of my beautiful daughters and my strong sons. I feel their little hands holding mine and their heads nestle into my necks even though there are miles between us. I almost let the tears slide down my cheeks when I think about their little blond curls and dark blue eyes. My husband does not feel the pain of longing for our children. His only worry is whether or not she is happy.

After the sun has completely left the sky and the moon has taken her place, one of my ladies walks toward me and I give her a smile. She, like all the others, knows how fake it is, but she accepts it as permission to speak. She softly asks if I would like to retire to my chambers, and I know that the king or his lady has asked her to do so. My skirts brush the ground as I glide to the center of the room and a few gentlemen bid me goodnight. But I am far from leaving this scene.

“I would be so pleased if you would honor your wife with a dance, my king.” My voice comes out soft, but strong. My husband looks shocked at the invitation and I take this moment to brush her aside. His hand is warm as he holds mine and his grip is gentle. I feel young in that moment and my feet move with the music as though I were weightless. My cheeks regain their color and I know myself to be lovely in this moment. My love, my only love is holding me tight and twirling me gracefully. I am youthful again, I am a young princess in his arms. I laugh freely and hear the most wonderful sound: he is laughing too.

“Having a good time, my sweetheart?” He chuckles as he lifts me into the air. I see him smile at me and I blush like a maid. Yes, this is how it’s supposed to be. He still loves me, his queen, his sweetheart. The music stops and the court cheers at our little performance. The king releases my hand and thanks me for the dance. His smile is warm and his eyes are kind. I think for a moment that things will be alright. Our marriage will survive and we will be alright. But that happiness is shortlived. He brushes past me and goes back to her. The music starts again and there is something more in his gaze when he looks at her. He loves her, he adores her, and he wants her. I may have captured him once, he may have even loved me once, but my time is past, I am the woman that holds the most royal title in the land but not the royal heart. But I will never give up my throne or my children no matter how young the woman is or how happy she makes him.

To this day, a portrait hangs on display in the most extravagant musuems in the world. It was found hidden in a French castle and even today it’s origins are not known. A noble lady stands tall in an extragant dress of silk and pearls, her sad eyes seeming to stare into the soul of whoever gazes upon. Nobody knows who the woman is or where the painting came from. Any one who looks upon it will tell you that it must be a queen, she looks so regal and her dress is so rich. But those same people will also tell you how sad and lonely she looks. From these opinions the portrait was given a name shortly after being discovered: ‘Le Portrait d’une Reine Abandonnée’. The Portrait of an Abandoned Queen.

Congratulations to M. Lawrence! His story, “Faery Lights,” is the winner of our Holiday Short Story Contest, and he is the recipient of the $100 Amazon gift certificate. Thanks to everyone who submitted stories to the contest. There we some very great stories and it was difficult to choose a winner.

M. Lawrence has been writing since the age of 13. He currently works as a freelance writer and English teacher in the Middle East. For more about M. Lawrence, visit his Review Fuse profile page or his personal blog.

Although it was not a requirement of the contest, M. Lawrence has granted us permission to post his full story here on the blog for your holiday enjoyment. We hope you like it as much as we did. Happy Holidays and be sure to watch the blog for more contest announcements in the future.

Faery Lights

Lonely places can make a man pure loco, if he’s there long enough. Way I figure it, McDonnell had finally snapped. He showed up at my bunk at oh-dark-thirty and tapped me on the head. Said he was going out to hang Christmas lights.

Only he said “faery lights,” ‘cause that’s the way they say it over where he’s from in Scotland. He had a whole mess of them hung in a big loop over one shoulder, and he must’ve mistaken disbelief for admiration when he saw me staring at them.

“I made them meself,” he said. He’d gotten bulbs from God knows where and jury-rigged them every half meter or so to a long coil of insulated wire he’d scrounged up.

“Great, McDonnell,” I said. “I hope you didn’t rip that wiring or those bulbs out of something we need. Don’t want to find myself without oxy in a week ‘cause the warning bulb is twinkling outside.”

A hurt look came into the hulking man’s eyes. “Thought you knew me better than that, boyo,” he said. “The bulbs are spares. So is the wiring. We’ve got plenty and you know it. Besides, it’s just for Christmas and Hogmanay and then I’ll take it down.”

“Well go have your fun, and don’t freeze anything important off,” I said. With a grunt of annoyance, I turned over in the bunk.

“You’re a good man in most every way, Clay,” McDonnell said. “But you sure can be an arse when it comes to the holidays. If you need me, I’ll be outside.”

After he was gone, I lay there in the bunk for a while, eyes open, thinking over what McDonnell had said. He’d made it sound like I was some kind of grinch. Whatever. I closed my eyes, pushing down my irritation, and mentally ran through the day’s schedule.

I was reaching up to undo the bunk’s webbing when I felt a tremor pass through me, and the whole station groaned. I ripped open the webbing, but before I could get my stick-seal moccasins on the floor, McDonnell was on the station intercom, calling in from his suit helmet.

“Clay! Did you feel that?”

I lurched out into the hallway outside the bunkroom. “Yeah, I felt it,” I shouted. “On my way. Don’t get your panties in a wad. Probably just Shireen letting off a little steam.”

I loped along with the peculiar gait stick-seals force on you, but made it to the control room in record time. The seismic detection board was whooping like a roughneck on a three-day bender. In a few seconds, I managed to push enough of the flashing buttons to get the infernal thing to calm down. Didn’t help that I had a crazy Scotsman shouting over the loudspeakers the whole time, asking for a report.

“All right, I got it!” I finally yelled. “Looks like a 4.3 event.” I studied a topological model of the area on the screen in front of me. “You coming back in?”

“Not yet,” came the reply. “I’m almost done with the faery lights and I want to finish up.”

A fresh wave of annoyance pierced me like a hot knitting needle. What right had he to waste his time on something frivolous like that? He could have been killed when the station shook. Then I’d have really been up a creek. I swallowed a sharp reply.

“All right. Come in as soon as you can. I’ve got a scheduled ice-coring to do later.”

“Thanks, Clay. Knew you’d understand.”

I grimaced as I shut off the ‘com channel. Didn’t help he was being so nice about the whole thing, to boot.

•••

I was suited up and ready to go out when McDonnell finally came back through the airlock. His pressure suit and faceplate were rimed with frost, which melted almost instantly when he hit the warm station interior.

McDonnell twisted off his helmet, revealing a bearded grin.

“They’re gonna be beautiful, Clay,” he said. “Once I hook ‘em up to an electrical source, they’ll shine just like the town square back in Banff on Christmas Eve.”

I raised my own helmet up and with a firm twist, locked it onto the neck ring.

“That’s great, McDonnell,” I said. “Merry Christmas and all that. Happy now?”

I brushed past him into the airlock before I could see the hurt look that was undoubtedly coming over his face.

“I didn’t get everything done on the maintenance schedule for modules D and E,” I said, not bothering to add that his absence was the reason. He knew. “See if you can get to that while I’m gone. I’ll be back in two shakes. Shut the airlock door, willya?”

He shut it, all right. More like slammed it.

•••

I spent the next three hours in the shadow of an ice boulder as big as a three-story building, drilling deep. I grinned as I drew out a nice long core sample, pure and pristine, its layers clearly demarcated. This was what I’d come out here for, away from people to cold, pure white and utter darkness. It was perfect. Too bad McDonnell had to keep bringing old Earth traditions here and screwing things up. I sighed with exasperation. The man was a brilliant engineer, and the mission couldn’t get along with him, but still—

I sealed up the core sample and stowed it on the little one-man rambler that had brought me here. Firing up its little electric motor, I began to wind my way back through the maze of gigantic ice blocks.

As I topped the last ridge and saw the station, I hit the rambler’s brakes. The station had been transformed. From end to end, its white painted pipes and panels were all wreathed in twinkling white lights. The dim ghost of Sol had sunk beneath the horizon hours ago, leaving only the baleful light that reflected from the colossal limb of the yellowish-brown orb that dominated our sky. Against the twilight, McDonnell’s faery lights flared out, looking like little lightning bugs as they flickered in the thin atmo. I keyed the radio transceiver in my helmet.

“McDonnell, I’m coming in. Just topped the ridge.”

“Clay!” McDonnell’s voice came on, sounding breathless in my ears. “Thank God you’re back. Come in, quick! Something’s happened!”

•••

“You saw what?” I tried to keep the raw skepticism out of my voice, but I was fighting a losing battle. Across the control module’s conference table, McDonnell’s eyes blazed at me.

“I ken ye’d nae believe me,” he said, his Scots accent grown thick nearly beyond comprehension from his excitement. He shoved a photo viewer over to me. “Take a look a’ these, and maybe ye’ll see I’m not some kind o’ numptie.”

I picked up the photo viewer and quickly leafed through the images stored on it, figuring I could ask him later what “numptie” meant. “Did you take these out the porthole in module D? These aren’t your Christmas lights, are they?”

“Look for yourself, Clay. They came after I switched my lights on, after my lights started blinking.”

I held the viewer closer to my eyes, staring at the swarm of light specks that contrasted with the black outside the porthole.

“Once they showed up, the wee lights started blinkin’ just like the faery lights I hung. Same rhythm. On and off, on and off. I took these pictures, and then they just left.”

I set the viewer down and cradled my forehead in one hand. “Where’s that eggnog you made? You know, the stuff that has more nog than egg in it.”

“You don’t think I’ve been takin’ some nips from my stash on the sly, do ye? I wasn’t pished.” He sounded shocked.

“No, McDonnell,” I said. “I just need a stiff one before I report this to Titan Base, and that egg nog is the closest thing we’ve got on the station right now.”

When McDonnell came back with one for me and one for him, I sipped as much through the wide bore straw as I could, gasping out loud as I felt the stuff burn its way down my esophagus.

“All right, I’m ready,” I said.

When I stood up, drink in hand, it happened. For a brief moment, I thought that the McDonnell family eggnog had hit me harder than I’d figured on. The room heeled over like the deck of a ship on the slope of a monster wave. Despite my stick-seal moccasins, I fell, missing out on a beautiful concussion only because of the low grav. Behind me, I could hear McDonnell yelling something in a Scots accent so dense that I couldn’t tell whether it was a curse or a prayer. All around us, the station creaked and groaned as its massive bulk slowly shifted. The behemoth that was our home began a terrible slide forward and down. A shower of sparks cascaded from the ceiling, and we plunged into a darkness mitigated only by the glow of the icy wasteland outside filtering through our portholes. Above me, a pipe wrenched too far out of alignment burst, sending a shower of scalding hot water down onto my neck and back. I screamed and writhed and lost my grip. Hurtling forward with the station’s momentum, I met up with a metal floor cabinet that wasn’t traveling as fast as I was. The resulting blackness was predictable.

•••

I awoke, my mouth feeling as parched as Odessa in July. Wincing in pain, I raised my head from the decking. As I surveyed the wrecked control room around me, my memory returned. I rolled over, gasping aloud from the searing agony of my burned neck and back.

“McDonnell!” My voice was loud in the unnaturally silent control room. Except for the slow drip of the ruptured pipes above me, the place was as quiet as a tomb.I croaked out his name again. My gaze found his crumpled body. Crawling to his side as fast as I could, I gently turned him over onto his back. His chest moved and his pulse was strong. I exhaled in relief. He’d come around in a few minutes with nothing more than a whopper of a headache.

When McDonnell opened his eyes and groaned about twenty minutes later, I was sitting near his head, my back against the station hull. He looked at me and blinked slowly.

“What’s happened? What’s going on?” he asked.

While he’d been unconscious, I’d thought of all kinds of nice long detailed explanations to that inevitable question, but I really only needed two words.

“We’re screwed.”

He raised himself up on one elbow, holding his head with the other hand like he was afraid it might fall off.

“What d’ya mean?” he asked.

“We fell into some kind of sinkhole,” I said. “Shireen’s eruptions must have created a weakness in the ice crust beneath the station.”

He started to speak, but I stopped him.

“Hold on. It gets worse. Our oxy and power generating modules were smashed by the ice avalanche that we’re mostly buried by right now.”

“The reserve tanks?”

“Stripped off on our descent,” I said. “My guess? They’re lying down in the crevasse under us somewhere.”

“How much oxy do we have left?”

“Less than 12 hours, I think. We lost a bunch when the station fell and some of the modules sheared right off.”

McDonnell struggled to his knees.

“We’ve got to start a distress call,” he gasped out, his chest heaving. “There’s a helium-3 transport ship that is scheduled to pass right over us on its transit to pick up mined gas. They’re not supposed to stop here, but if we signal–”

I gripped his shoulder as he began to haul himself to his feet.

“Don’t bother. I tried it. All communications are out. Our antennas were all torn off by the avalanche, too.”

“Can we get them back? Rig something up?”

“What do I look like, some sort of djinn? They’re way down in the crevasse. There’s ice debris sitting on top of our upper hatches, and the lower ones are buried. We can’t get out by ourselves.”

“Somebody’ll come check on us when we don’t report in,” he said.

I just shook my head. “We just made a report, remember? We’re not due for another 10 hours or so. By the time they mount a rescue mission from Titan base, we’ll be–”

“Don’t say it,” he said. He put his face in his hands.

I began mentally composing a little homily about how sometimes you just had to accept cold hard facts like death with dignity, but before I could say anything, he raised his face to meet mine. His eyes shone with tears, but there was something else there, too.

“My faery lights,” he said.

•••

It only took McDonnell fifteen minutes to program a simple relay switch into the lights’ electrical system from the control board. We chose the oldest distress signal known to man: three short, three long and three short. When it was done, he joined me by the porthole in D module where I sat watching the lights. Like me, he had donned his pressure suit. The heaters in them would keep us warm once the station lost environmental.

I glanced up at him as he ducked through the door of the module. “What’s the ETA on the transport ship?”

“It should be here in another 8 hours, give or take,” he said. “Its planned trajectory should take it right over our position. If this works, the crew will see us all lit up like a Christmas tree.”

“If this works.” I shivered. It had to be my imagination, but it felt like the module was already growing colder. The station lights were completely out here, and we sat in darkness, our only illumination coming from the strings of lights hanging outside and the faint blue light that filtered down into the crevasse from above.

“We’re deep down in the sinkhole,” I said. “The transport’ll never see us or our lights by themselves.”

“Don’t worry, Clay. They’ll come.”

McDonnell lowered himself, clumsy in his pressure suit, setting his helmet onto the floor beside him. He sat in silence, and the lights outside the thick glass alternatively bathed his face in a warm yellow glow, then plunged it into darkness every other second. After a while, he began speaking in a quiet voice.

“When I was a bairn, my dad was a fisherman on the North Sea. I don’t have to tell you that it was dangerous, thankless work, no matter the time of year.” He scratched his beard thoughtfully. “When my dad was gone on a long fishing trip, my mum always worried about him. The first night he was gone, she’d put a candle in the window of our house, the one that faced the cold, dark sea. And she would light that candle every night until he came home.”

He turned his face to me, and in the sole illumination from the electric lights outside, I could now only see half of it.

“Somehow, I feel like we’re doing the same thing now. Lightin’ a candle, holding out hope against the cold and the dark. Against death.”

“Your dad always come back?”

McDonnell frowned at me, at the strangled tone of my voice, but he answered softly.

“Aye.”

“Well, they don’t always come back, you know?”

I told him then of my own childhood, recalling another Christmas night. The house behind me festooned with blinking lights, and me standing there in my PJ’s, yelling till my throat was raw after a swiftly departing set of car taillights.

“I waited for him every Christmas after that, but he never came back. Never.”

I ran my hands through my hair, clutched it until my scalp hurt. “So you can see why I don’t get the warm fuzzies when I think about your precious holiday.”

“Clay, I–”

“Don’t you pity me,” I snarled, “I don’t need anything from anybody—especially that.”

Visibly wounded by my barbed words, McDonnell fell silent. I closed my eyes again, feeling hot pricks of water behind my lids. We sat silent in that darkness for a while, and I must have dozed off, exhausted, for the next thing I heard was McDonnell’s voice calling to me.

“Clay, wake up! They’re here!”

Groggily, I opened my eyes and squinted up at the porthole. Outside, McDonnell’s lights kept up their steady rhythmical blinking. But beyond them—

I was on the front lawn of my childhood home, and I had a jar in my hands. All around me, in the summer night, glowing fitfully in the green grass between my bare toes, and flitting from mailbox to tree to sidewalk, was a myriad of fireflies.

And now, impossibly in the subzero cold out there, they had come back. Hundreds of thousands of them, glowing little dots of light, each flashing in sync with our own creations of wire and glass, telegraphing our distress call to the world above. I drew in a long, shuddering breath and rose to join McDonnell at the porthole where he watched them. His half-open mouth made a circle of fog on the surface of the glass as he breathed, and I stood beside him in the cold of module D and watched the intricate dance of the little faery lights outside. They couldn’t know what message they were carrying for us—they were at best glowing imitators no more intelligent than many of Earth’s own sea dwellers. Yet even so, my heart swelled to see them. For their message, whether they knew it or not, was one of hope.

As the radio crackled to life with the transport ship’s response to our call, I swallowed my pride and looked McDonnell straight in the eye.

“Merry Christmas,” I said. This time, I meant it.