Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

between, despite the serenity around the house. Technically speaking, the
Asphodel is the perfect place for a writer’s retreat, though it feels odd
creating anything in a place so plagued by death and darkness.
Perhaps that’s why I haven’t tried.
“What do you think, Marcelline?” Holding up the journal, I turn it so she
can see the pink leather cover. “Should I try to pick up an old hobby?”
She purses her lips, twirling the end of a strand of her strawberry blonde
hair. Most of our relationship up to this point has been me firing words at
random, and her dodging every bullet, ignoring my comments and questions
unless Kal is around.
“What’s the hobby?” she asks, her voice raspy, as if rough from lack of
use.
“Um, writing.” I perch on the edge of the bed, flipping through the pages,
my neat handwriting floating by with each turn.
“Like, stories? Poems?”
Heat scorches across my face, flames of embarrassment licking my
cheeks. “Both, kind of. I used to do it all the time, but to be honest, I kind of
forgot about it since coming to Aplana.”
She nods, widening her blue eyes. “Yeah, the island has that effect on
people. Like you come here, and your previous identity kind of just...
evaporates. Some locals call it the New England Bermuda Effect. I had an
aunt who said Aplana was filled with an ancient, ancestral magic that
replaces a person’s nature with that of the island’s.”
“Do you think that?”
“No, I just think it’s easy to forget everything the second your feet touch
sand.” Marcelline shrugs, pointing at my journal. “Doubly so when you’re
busy falling in love.”
The heat spreads from my face, scoring a path down my sternum, and
finally settling in my gut. I lean forward, shoving the journal into the front
pocket of my suitcase, and try to steel myself against her comment, even as
my pulse beats so loud and fast, I think it might launch out of my throat.
“Definitely the sand,” I say quickly, over the bile teasing my esophagus.
Marcelline presses her mouth into a thin line, then nods, dropping one last
T-shirt into the suitcase. “Yeah,” she agrees, clamming up like every other
time I’ve tried to start a conversation. “You’re probably right.”
I don’t see her again before we leave the house, and I dart outside to the
back yard before we load into the town car, speaking in low, soothing tones