By Quinn Doyle ’26

Two eyes opened like flowers to behold the newborn daylight. Starved, they were, of their food already. In a vigorous leap without legs, the body jumped, and the bright sun illuminated the trees and held the calm birdsong in its warm breast. The body stretched in the kind rays, but the mouth was frozen stiff, no longer able to chant its daily hymn to the natural beauty beyond the window. The stickers on the chiffarobe prompted a twitch of a grin in the mouth, with their weirdness and history captivating the head. As the legs shifted the body out of bed, the little baby blue blanket, the one that the child had nestled into since they were a babe, returned the favor that day, with a tight wrap around the shoulders almost in consolation. 

Sliding onto the little smooth pale feet came slippers lined in soft plush that banished the pain of stubbed toes in times of need. The walls gave wide berth to the child as they practiced their rituals, and seemed to make faces of pity in the creases of the rough plaster. Friendly beings of the wood, stalled in their movement, laid pasted to the walls, playmates for the head in its peaceful deep dreaming. On a regular day, the great many smiles held welcome and the attached limbs almost danced in the light filtering through the tree branches outside, but on that morn, there was an anxiety in the stripes of their faces that brushed a blackness over the stickered murals. 

The buff colored carpet gave way to crisply cool finished wood that came in the marvelous orange-brown which dominated the house’s floors, and the child beheld the hypnotic patterns of the grains for a while, melting into the hot hue of the boards. The small unused switch next to those for the lights flickered on and off with its blood red glare as it always did, but this time more menacingly. 

The swirls and shapes in the bright foam mats on the floor across the hall called attention to the toys beyond, trucks and trains and Legos and Lincoln logs. As the child took a step forward, the hall began to grow into a passage of dark liminality. The welcoming shapes of the playsets sat on a table that came into view, the child’s prized police station, garbage hauler, and gold mine, all beckoning with their promises of imaginative enjoyment. But the creek of the soft slap of flesh on planks disturbed the scene. 

“Quin. Come here.” A lecture proceeded that confirmed their sense of dread which had built over the months. The death of faithful Bode, chieftain among beasts in the house. Gentle, smooth haired sun-colored Bode. The news came like a phantasmal force to the heart, and the spectral militant then grappled the brain. It had been just a year prior that the child had experienced their first loss, Stanley the goldfish. That day at school, they had to leave class to cry. That night the child pondered and finally allowed themself to understand that while their inanimate companions would never pass, save for by future mistreatment, the days of a living being are ever numbered. 

By Alex Hounsell

Now lets do a countdown,

And let us be still.

For the earth is always moving, and yet is never set and fixed.

And the grass has no goals, except to only keep growing,

And the wind has no destination, even though it is always running.

Let’s do what the earth does, if just for a second.

If the concrete jungles momentarily stopped their growing,

If the fires that are the world stop glowing,

 Maybe only then can we truly see,

see what lives have come to be.

And yes, the clocks won’t stop moving,

 and the sun won’t stop revolving, 

but perhaps instead eye the bearing of time,

 us not always evolving.

For I don’t mean death, 

There is no call for a hearse,

No lost souls,

No Blackened hearts,

No funeral flowers,

No skulls.

Perhaps laced in the unusual

 is only when united souls can see,

The fabric of time shifting, 

And the tide is whisked back to the depths of the sea.

And maybe life isn’t found in the textbooks,

And maybe life isn’t found on a life-threatening journey,

But the moments of peace,

But the moments of zen glee,

But instead as united as could be,

Where the only thing you can hear is the earth and your heart,

Where the only thing you can feel is the understanding of others,

Where the only thing you can remember is the carelessness once in your head, and the people currently with you, 

but not always journeys ahead.

Now the countdown is done, 

and I’ll be as still as still can go.

By Jacinto Quintela ’26

When Jacinto Quintela woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous hybrid of man and tree. His limbs twisted and contorted, resembling knotted branches reaching out into the small room. Leaves sprouted from his skin, rustling softly with each movement as if whispering secrets of his transformation.

Jacinto’s metamorphosis sent shockwaves through the boarding school in Maine where he resided. His roommate, Cliff, stumbled backward in horror at the sight of Jacinto’s diabolical form, his eyes wide with horror. The other students gawked and whispered as rumors spread like wildfire throughout the halls, painting Jacinto as some sort of botanical aberration.

His friends, Mateo, Romeo, Sophia, and Vicky stood by his side, their expressions a mix of concern and fascination. They tentatively approached Jacinto, their voices trembling as they asked him what had happened. But Jacinto could offer no explanation, for he was just as confused by his transformation as they were.

He went to the health center to see if they could help him in any way, but when he saw the horror in Mrs. Judd’s eyes, he knew they couldn’t do anything. After thinking about it for a while Jacinto decided to go to class, despite the confusion and fear he had underneath his thick and bumpy skin. 

After 5 hours of classes, the first day of school as a monster had finally ended. He ran to his dorm, thinking what to do and what would calm him, and he saw his lacrosse stick. Despite his monstrous appearance, Jacinto’s love for lacrosse remained undiminished. He attempted to wield his newfound attachments like new arms, clumsily dribbling a lacrosse ball as he stumbled across the field. His teammates watched in awe as he moved with an otherworldly grace, his arboreal form bending and twisting in ways that defied logic.

But as the days passed, Jacinto’s transformation took its toll on those around him. His world literature teacher, whom he adored, struggled to come to terms with the sight of her once-promising student now trapped in a body that resembled something out of a nightmare. She wrestled with conflicting emotions, torn between pity and revulsion, unsure of how to help Jacinto in his time of need.

Despite his best efforts to continue attending classes, Jacinto found himself increasingly isolated from his peers. The other students whispered and pointed whenever he passed by, their eyes filled with a mixture of fear and curiosity. Even his closest friends struggled to look past his monstrous exterior, their once-strong bond strained by the weight of his transformation.

But amidst the chaos and confusion, there were moments of beauty and wonder. Jacinto found solace in the quiet moments spent among the trees, their branches reaching out to him like long-lost friends. And though he may have been changed in body, his spirit remained unbroken, a testament to the resilience of the human soul in the face of adversity.

In the end, Jacinto’s metamorphosis served as a reminder that even in our darkest moments, there is still light to be found. For though he may have been transformed into something monstrous, he remained, at his core, a boy with dreams and aspirations, longing for acceptance and understanding in a world that often seemed indifferent to his plight.

By: Jeremy Lavoie ’26

-Photo Credit: Literary Hub

When Jeremy Lavoie woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a notepad. He slowly tries to recollect his thoughts from the night before; it was a hot summer night, and he was at the movies with his best friends. He came back exhausted, and before he could do anything, he fell asleep on his bed, which he had made earlier that morning. He was trying to figure out what had happened to him, but still no answers. Jeremy still had thoughts but was physically a dull black-and-white notepad. He still had all his senses but couldn’t move, speak, or do anything. Jeremy could now only listen and see, nothing else. He wanted to cry, scream, and run, but he couldn’t, as he was simply a notepad. His phone was still on the bed; his clock was still on his nightstand and it announced 2:05 P.M. He could hear his mom coming to wake him up; she hated when he would sleep in during summertime. The footsteps were nearing the door; he could feel the vibration; she knocked, but there was no answer from Jeremy, as he could not communicate in any shape or form. His mom twisted the door knob and walked in and Julia was left in shock as she did not see Jeremy anywhere, but weirdly his bed was made. Julia was worried as she knew how tired he was last night and expected him to be in bed either on his phone, scrolling endlessly on social media, or sleeping. The weird thing, she thought, was that his phone was still there, and he wasn’t anywhere else in the house. His bed looked untouched from the previous day. 

Julia also waited for her son to return home to ensure he safely made it back. She immediately called for Robert, her husband. He quickly scuttled up the stairs and examined the scene; just like his wife, he was shocked as this was very unusual for Jeremy. His parents immediately contacted all of his friends but with no luck. None of them knew where he was. The parents were intrigued by a particular detail: the notepad on his bed. They had never seen it before but assumed it was just a school supply he had dug up from his bag. The weird thing was that it was summer, so why would he be digging that up? His parents knew he loved writing, so they didn’t think about it anymore. They picked him up and flipped through his core, which was all blank and meaningless. Jeremy felt the touch of his parents and wanted to hug them, but he knew it was impossible. Was this all a bad dream, he thought to himself. Before making a decision, the parents waited till the end of the day to contact the police. Unfortunately, their son didn’t turn up; he was still lying on the bed waiting for something to happen, but what was he desperately waiting for, to return to human form? Deep down, he knew he would be stuck like this till the end of his life. His parents immediately contacted the police and filed for a missing child report, hoping to get the answers they were waiting for.

Days passed, and there was still no sign of Jeremy anywhere. A search team had been deployed, hoping to find him, but nothing came up. As for poor Jeremy, or at least what was left of him, he was still in bed waiting for something to happen. His thoughts were slowly killing him, but there was no escape. He kept thinking 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He couldn’t sleep because only his thoughts were entrapped into a physical notepad. His parents were still trying to avoid the truth that their son was gone and that they couldn’t find him. Each day that passed, the more anxiety and sadness would be filling up Jeremy, Robert, and Julia. 

Months had now passed, and the worst had to be assumed from the parent’s perspective. Their son was dead, and there was no evidence as to how this had happened. As for Jeremy, he became more thoughtless every day that would go by. He would just be there, lying on his dusty bed, repeatedly looking at the same white ceiling, without thinking anything anymore, as there was nothing to feel or think. 

One night, Jeremy recognized his mom’s footsteps, and she entered the room. She was there looking at the bed, looking at him. She had no facial expression; she was emotionless. Julia could rarely get a good night’s sleep anymore; she couldn’t cry anymore as she had physically deserted all her tears from her body. She sat at his desk where he used to do homework every night and looked at Jeremy. He was there in a notepad form; she didn’t know this, but he knew. He hoped she would pick him up and sing him a lullaby like when he was a little boy, but she did something different. She picked him up, gently placed him on the desk and did what her son loved the most, she wrote. She wrote down everything she felt or thought about him. Every time the pencil scratched a page, it would be a massive pain to Jeremy. It was like getting cut by a knife. Jeremy suffered through her writing the whole night, and soon, there were no more blank pages. He felt deeply scarred and hurt, something that he hadn’t physically felt in a long time.  All her feelings were written on her son. Julia knew she needed to start moving on, as Robert had already begun that process. As a final goodbye, she took all of her feelings and thoughts about her son’s disappearance and brought them to the basement, where she took a last look at the notepad and burned it. Jeremy, slowly turning to ash, wondered how all this had happened to him and his family. Soon, nothing would be left of him; he felt relieved, and so did his mom. He knew this would be a new beginning for his mom as she had finally defeated the denial stage of grievance, and now he would be free from his thoughts. 

Explanation: A couple weeks ago, after powering through yet another mediocre romance novel, I once again heard the distant, tiny whisper in the back of my mind: You could write a book yourself, you know. You’ve done it before. You can do it again. After all, I was enjoying my first summer off since I was 15 years old, reveling in the endless stretches of time. Why not try to write a fantasy novel? Why not? What follows is the brief, half-baked result of an hour of feverish late-night brainstorming and writing powered entirely by Pepsi.

Title: A Song of the Coldest Poison

Here’s the LINK for a fun cover photo.

-Photo credit: Rosie Sun LINK

CHAPTER 1

Laurel

Laurel simply would not accept that she was lost.

Disoriented, perhaps. Out of sorts, certainly. Lost, however, was out of the question.

Because being lost is a kind of hopelessness, and if she succumbed to hopelessness, she knew she would sink to the damp earth beneath her, pull her knees close and her eyes shut, and wait for the inevitability of time to blow her away on an errant breeze.

No. She was not lost. Eventually, if she ran in a straight line for long enough, she would happen upon a town, and with any luck—which, she reasoned, she was due any day now—that town would help orient her, a pin in her hazy mental map of Ceris.

And so Laurel continued to run in what she hoped was a straight line, the oppressive dark of the forest under a new moon blurring the landscape. Briars drew wicked nails across her exposed shins as she stumbled on, and tree branches lunged from the blackness to slash her face. She could feel every stone through the wafer-thin soles of her shoes, and the little toe on her left foot had worn through. If it got much colder, she feared she could lose it.

But she couldn’t think about that now. Now, she needed to put as much distance as possible between herself and the prison wagon on the main road. She was certain the prince’s guards would have noticed her absence by now, and it was only a matter of time before a small group was sent after her.

Laurel absolutely could not have suffered a single second more in that rumbling, stinking, overflowing dungheap on wheels. In the darkness of the wagon, she had endured a woman wailing for mercy to guards struck suddenly deaf; she had felt the grimy creep of a hand snaking along her calf; she had smelled the rank of rotting and infected flesh, perhaps her own among it. She hadn’t had time to evaluate her injuries before her failed escape from the palace, and though the heat in her arms could have been from the press of bodies in that overcrowded box of a wagon, it seemed just as likely that the wounds skittering up and down her arms were corrupted with disease.

The third night in the prison wagon, one of the horses had thrown a shoe in the muddy road and they were forced to stop. The wailing woman began pounding her fists on the walls of the wagon, pleading that if the guards would only listen to her, they would understand. Laurel felt the wagon shift as one of the guards jumped down, rounded to the back, and ripped the door open. She could see only silhouettes, but it seemed that everyone froze as the guard hauled himself up inside. The woman’s shrieking quieted to earnest whimpering, but still the guard said nothing as he slowly and deliberately made his way back to her. The air was heavy and thick, like trying to breathe under the blankets. Laurel realized the man’s intent the split second before he acted, but she—and all the other prisoners alongside her—was powerless to act as the man grabbed the crying woman by the neck, reared her head back, and slammed it once, twice, three times into the wall of the wagon.

“Enough! Whining!” he bellowed, his echoes reverberating endlessly through the small confines.

A familiar rage had bubbled up inside Laurel at that moment—rage that a woman would be treated so callously and violently, rage that they were seen as no more than unruly dogs in need of punishment, rage at her own stupidity for landing her in this position in the first place—and it trickled down her scalp and neck like icy water. She dropped her head, eyes squeezed shut against her lot. When she opened them, however, and saw how her hands now appeared as little more than wisps on a breeze, she realized with a jolt of surprise that perhaps her luck had not run out quite yet after all. Within seconds, she had a plan. In retrospect, it was less of a plan and more of a final desperate act, but it had to be better than merely accepting her lot.

Laurel watched as the guard unceremoniously dropped the (hopefully) unconscious woman in a heap and stalked back past her. Slowly, agonizingly carefully, she rose from her seat, clutching her manacles to her chest to keep them silent, and followed his steps out of the wagon. While he jumped down, she slipped down gently in front of him before he could close the doors again, her figure a mere shadow across the door. Unsure how long her luck would hold this time and unwilling to test it with a dead sprint into the treeline, she dropped to her knees, crawled under the wagon, and laid silently on her back, waiting with eyes clenched tightly shut for it to pull away. She had not heard any of the other prisoners speculating about her sudden absence, for which she was grateful, though she doubted it was out of solidarity and more out of shock and fear. 

It could have been hours or mere minutes, or perhaps a great many eternities, but finally the wagon began to lurch off, without her.