A familiar fox arrives, the rose behind its left ear bobbing as it bows its head to you, then takes a missive from the bag at its side.

You take the letter, and begin to read...

In personal news...

I went to Realm Makers! I pitched a book! I listened to many people speak! I got Steve Taylor's autograph! I had fun!!!

(I'm still a little overstimulated. It was a very good time, but still very weary, lol)

What I’ve Been Reading:

​To Love You was one I found I enjoyed much more than I thought I would. Contemporary retellings of Twelve Dancing Princesses, Rapunzel, and Snow White. I was very blessed to get a copy from one of the authors directly, and she annnotated it for me!! :D

Due to my sisters' insistence and their summer break, we plowed through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I prefer the earlier books, at this point; though her storytelling HAS improved.

​Dragon Lyric was one of my new acquisitions from Realm Makers. It was a bit odd. Not my favorite, but I think I'm not the target audience. I'd suggest this for someone who's struggling to overcome an actively abusive relationship.

​Thief, Witch, and Liar was a purchase from LAST year's Realm Makers. A retelling of "Prunella", an older fairytale. It was worth it completely, and I'd say this is a book that rates ten stars out of five. You should definitely read it. Seriously. Go now. *shoos you with hands*

Some Funny Stuff:

Snippets/Stories to Share:

This space was occupied, for some time, by a series of stories based on Havok Magazine's themes of the month. Last year, they had a Multiversal theme, which meant that the only thing in common amongst all the stories was a single character. They didn't have to be a major character in the story or anything... they just had to be there. Which is where I got started with the series I'm continuing in this month's newsletter, the world of Sphinx, a Home for Imaginary Friends.

This year at Havok, the annual theme is Encore! Each month, they're reviewing one previous season and accept new submissions for those old stories. Season Two, Stories that Sing, was one I really wanted to participate in... but found out about far too late. So, I've taken the liberty of summing it up for you: Stories that Sing was all stories based on songs. So I'll probably be doing stories like that All. Year. Long. The title of the song is clickable to the song the story's based on. I don't listen to songs with language in them, that I know of, and I'll search for clean versions if for some reason I've never understood the lyrics and have been by accident.

And now, for your perusal: The Cheese Song.

In the dairy aisle is not where I’d expect to hear a chorus of ‘Ball in Your Court’.

~~~

Not that I was ever a fan of “Please, Mr. Smith Is My Father”, but my sisters still send me excited texts when the indie band releases a new album, squee-ing over the cover art and sharing the latest lore about the ongoing story. In truth, the duo’s neon-colored hair and ridiculous giveaway stunts make them memorable, even if their music isn’t quite my thing.

‘Ball in Your Court’, however, is one of the exceptions. Not one of their more popular songs, but one I can get behind in a pinch. I nod along absently, picking over the marked down specialty cheese until I find one that will work perfectly as my Friday-night-charcuterie-board centerpiece. Humming, I turn back to my cart to find a small girl hanging onto it, eyes wide as she bops along to the beat.

“You like ‘Please, Mr. Smith Is My Father,’ too?” she asks in a stage whisper, and I shrug, cracking a smile. “Sometimes.”

“I want you to meet someone,” she says solemnly. I look around for a parent, but see none, instead stopping abruptly at the duo at the end of the aisle. ‘Crazy’ Craz Hutchinson and ‘Tye-Dye’ Tyler Smith, the members of the aforementioned band, croon the lyrics to ‘Ball In Your Court’ next to the flavored yogurt tubes. Craz beats at his drums furiously as they rise in a crescendo, and I realize that they both carry the glimmer of Imaginary Friends.

Ah. That makes much more sense.

I glance around for an adult again as my little companion seizes my hand in a sticky grip and drags me towards the technicolor duo.

“Crazzy! Ty-Guy!” she calls, and the pair stops playing, looking from her to me.

“ ‘Sup, little star?” the duo sings.

“This,” she says, pushing me forward, “Is a new friend-lady! She’s a BIG fan!!”

Tyler—er, Ty-Guy, I remember belatedly, as he’s not the real Tyler Smith—extends a hand. “Pleased to meet ya, pleased indeed,” he sings, and throws a wink in the exact fashion he’s known for; the overexaggerated thing that gives him the appearance of having a migraine. I shake his hand, suddenly embarrassed.

“Want me to sign your cheese?” Sings Craz from behind the drums, and I let out a bit of a hysterical giggle at the absurdity of it, which he seems to interpret as a yes, as he whips out a Magic Marker and proffers it. Not knowing what else to do, I offer my cheese and he signs the plastic packaging with a flourish.

I briefly wonder if the signature is correct before Ty-Guy scribbles his name on it, too. “A matched set,” he sings. “Now you can sell that cheese for a MILLION dollars!”

“Yay!” squeals my companion. “Do that song ‘bout the cheese!!” The pair suddenly break into a song that I’m pretty sure was done by Weird Al, and at my puzzled expression, my little friend looks up at me cheerfully. “They take requests,” she says by way of explanation, and bounces up and down as they then serenade us with cheese puns to a tune that speeds up manically over the course of the song.

I look up and down the aisle again. “Is your mommy nearby? Or maybe your daddy?”

She shrugs, dancing along to the music, “Mommy’s around here somewhere.”

My stomach takes a plunge. Hoo boy, this could go bad quickly. “Well, why don’t we go up to the front of the store and we can see if someone can find your mommy?”

“But the acoooosticks are better here,” she chirps, looking up at me with dismay.

Thinking quickly, I address Ty-Guy and Crazzy. “You guys want a bigger audience?”

“Yes! Rock on!” Crazzy sings, shaking his pink-and-blue frosted hair out of his eyes and changing up the drumbeat.

“Lead the way, ladies,” Ty-Guy adds, wiggling his eyebrows at my wee companion, who giggles and, taking my hand, dashes up to the registers with me. The duo rolls along in our wake; Crazzy atop his now-mobile drum set, and Ty-Guy, suddenly wearing rollerblades.

“Gonna make a big splash,

singing ‘bout food and the economy’s crash,” the pair sings to the tune of a popular insurance jingle. My companion bounces along, humming along very loudly and rather off-tune.

“S’cuse me,” I say, over and over, as other customers we encounter en route sniff in disdain, laugh behind their hands, or roll their eyes, muttering about young parents not keeping their kids under control. I almost protest that she’s not mine, except I know full well that would only inflame the situation. Just getting to the front without an incident is fine... Though I’d rather crawl under the canned fruit display than be here right now, I have a feeling that spending a night in jail while they grilled me about kidnapping a child would be infinitely worse.

An older woman frowns at me as we arrive at the customer service desk, and shakes her head. “Sorry, honey, we can’t discount that cheese any further,” she says as I open my mouth, and I let out another, more relieved, hysterical giggle.

“No, ma’am,” I say. “She was wandering the dairy aisle alone,” —I gesture to my little friend here— “And we can’t find her mom.”

Immediately, her frown vanishes, replaced with a serious face. “I gotcha, hon. Don’t worry.” She picks up the phone near her and punches a red button.

“What’s her name?” she asks me, and I shrug, then look down. “What’s your name, kiddo?”

“Guess!” she squeals, bouncing even more cheerfully as the duet behind us, now moving on to the subject of the candy by the registers, swells to contrast with the dying strains of Bohemian Rhapsody that fade over the store’s loudspeakers.

I bite the inside of my cheek, then let out a gusty sigh. “Bella?”

“Nope!”

Crazzy and Ty-Guy laugh, oddly in tune with Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and I close my eyes, trying to keep from snapping at them and getting locked up for being a lunatic, as well as a possible kidnapper, then glance up at the customer service representative, hoping for her to step in.

She looks at the pair of us, somewhat bemused, but makes no moves to guess, herself. I stifle a groan, then remember what Crazzy and Ty-Guy had called her. “Is your name… Star?”

“Yes!” she squeals, apparently very satisfied by this turn of events, and the musicians let out a yodel of joy before switching to an alternate version of “Happy Birthday”.

“You guessed it, you did!

Just see what a hit

Your in-tell-igence iiiis—

You sure have some wit!”

“Will Star’s mommy please come to the Customer Service desk?” the lady speaks into the phone, exaggerating her childish tone as if to comfort Star, who, happily ignorant, gives her Friends a thumbs-up… and the musical duo stops playing for a moment, in awe, as the woman’s voice echoes all around them over the loudspeaker. In a hushed duet, they murmur “Cool, broski.”

Suddenly, their eyes, and Star’s, light up wickedly as an idea occurs to all three at once. I can practically see the thought rolling across her forehead like the Jumbotron.

“Can I use the phone?” she asks meekly, suddenly the world’s most polite and somber child. “I’d like to tell Mommy I’m here.”

“I just did, honey,” says the lady, but she comes around the desk and lifts Star atop it, where she kicks her feet. “But if you’ll wait a minute, she’ll be here.”

Star’s lip juts out in a pout, and her feet go still. “I just want Mommy.” The lip trembles but the gleam remains, faintly in her eye; the finest acting I’ve seen in some time, as Crazzy and Ty-Guy creep closer.

“Oh, well…” the woman looks up at me, flustered, and I step back. “Y’know, I have to go. My purse is in my cart back at Dairy…”

“Oh, please, wait,” the associate says. “I’m sure Star’s mommy would like to thank you.”

“Really, no thanks necessary,” I say, shooting a glare at Crazzy, who attempts to lift the receiver off the hook.

“Well—”

Ty-Guy darts forward, snatching at the phone.

While Imaginary Friends are not often able to interact with the physical world, they can, if their connection with the child is strong enough, have certain effects, not unlike that of poltergeists.

The handset flips off of the phone’s base. Star leaps towards it, punching the red button. And all three chorus, in a shrill tone,

“TWINKLE, TWINKLE LITTLE STAR!!!” as loud as they possibly can, Crazzy’s drums a dramatic, pulsating back-track.

To most people, there was a shriek of feedback with Star’s voice. But for me, it was the first, last, and briefest ‘Please, Mr. Smith Is My Father’ concert I will ever attend.

The woman gapes at Star as she tries, vainly, to snatch the phone. I cover my ears, and a distant voice cries out in dismay as Star’s mommy realizes just where her child is.

Ty-Guy and Crazzy nod to me, fading from view. “Keep it real, #1 Fanlady,” they chorus.

As a harried mother arrives at the desk, I slip away.

***

Back at my apartment, as I put away groceries, the cheese still reads with their signatures, and, after looking at it for a few minutes, I call up my sister.

“Hey, Liv. Yeah. Would you wanna come over for charcuterie Friday night..?”

The End.

Something Cool to Me:

Independence means freedom of choice... as long as it doesn't impinge upon another's freedom. When our choices become those that impact others badly, it's no longer independence, but a shell of it.

Many people miss that when looking for freedom. They're looking for the next quick fix. The solution to all their problems. The convenience they can't live without, the justification for choices they've made, and the balm for the feelings they carry. They seek license, not freedom. They want an excuse for what came before, and what comes next.

We are all sinners, fallen short of the glory of God. Our desires will, unchecked and uncleansed, inevitably lead to destruction, both ours and others'. Only with God can we achieve a true independence... one that centers entirely around our depending on Him. Once we lean on Him for our needs, and bring to Him our desires, will our choices begin to be those that reflect true freedom, bringing life, and not death.

The fox bows again, and as it turns to leave, cocks its head.

"Shall I take a message in return?"