Unless I know a publisher personally, or have read their other books, it's a leap of faith. Are they reliable? Do they know what they're doing? Are they committed to publishing things that don't perpetuate harmful stereotypes or tropes?
Sometimes the answer to that last one is no. I don't think anyone has bad intentions; however, sometimes harmful ideas are so deeply ingrained in our society that, unless you are directly affected by them, it's hard to realize that they hurt people. I am not angry at these publishers. Disappointed, maybe.
I am lucky that my first few publications were absolutely awesome. In fact, the large majority of publishers and editors have been amazing to work with. I am not famous, I am not rich. But I have done well enough in my publishing career that I don't feel the need to advertise books that are not in line with my values. I can advertise the rest of them, and publish my story as a free reprint when the exclusivity period runs out.
That is what I'm doing here. And when I say my values, what I mean is… I don't care what happens in the other stories I am published with. I don't care if there is more violence and swearing and sex than my stories usually have. I don't care if the characters are of a different faith or political affiliation than I am. But when the stories make fun of people for their size, when women characters only exist to be victims, when characters are ableist or homophobic or racist or misogynistic and this is treated like it's perfectly OK? I'm not good with that, And I won't advertise a book to my friends who will be harmed by those ideas.
So. Harvest. It's a story I described as a scary Groundhog Day, everything repeating over and over and over. I like my story. I did not like some of the other stories that were in the book it was published in. But the rights have reverted back to me, and rather than seek publication again, I am doing what I always do when a book disappoints me, and I am giving the story away.
I hope you enjoy it.
Harvest
by Jennifer Lee Rossman
The children run through the fields like wild horses that don't remember a life without fences but still have the innate urge to run. That's good. As long as we know, somewhere deep inside, that we're supposed to have an endless world to explore, then all is not lost.
I envy them sometimes. They don't know it wasn't always this way, that we were once free. That we had tomorrows.
But mostly I envy the way they don't try to change it. Trying and failing, day after endless day.
***
I tend the fields. Picking the ripe corn, propping up the bent stalks and telling the kids to stop trampling the crops. Looking like a bountiful harvest this year.
A bird flies overhead. Big one; a hawk or maybe an eagle. It's never come near enough for me to see.
I must have lost track of time again. I thought I'd budgeted it better today.
I look over my shoulder and see him amble into town the way he always does, that silly hat cocked to the side like he thinks he's some kind of movie star or something.
Not that he doesn't have the looks for it. I think. It's been so long since I've seen him up close, I can't really remember his face.
I drop my basket and run to him like I always do. It's too late; the bird has already flown past. But I have to try. If I don't at least try, then I might as well give up.
I shout his name, but he doesn't look up. He's petting that stray dog again. He loves animals. We were going to expand the farm, before it all happened. Get cows and sheep and maybe a couple goats.
He hears me the second time, but the sky explodes with light and it's all wiped from existence.
***
He's gone when I wake up. I have the note on his pillow memorized.
"Wanted to get an early start on the day. Have some errands to do before going to the bank. Wish me luck. Can't wait to see you."
Turns out he can wait. I tried keeping track at first, but lost count after a few hundred days. I figure it's been at least a century, all the years made up of the same Wednesday, August third.
Maybe this time I'll just stay in bed. I don't think I've tried that before. Stay in bed, refuse all visitors, and someone will worry about me and go to find him. And he'll come home.
The knocking starts a few minutes later. My sisters, wanting to drag me off to shop for a new dress for Uncle Eddie's wedding. I'll tell them the dress I wore to his last four weddings will do just fine, but they'll refuse and I'll spend most of the day in a hellish landscape of pastel taffeta.
When I don't answer the door, they open it. Okay, so tomorrow I'll remember to lock the door before going back to bed.
Of course, my doing that will inevitably cause some unforeseeable crisis. Maybe I'll go to get a drink and the faucet will flood the kitchen, maybe knock over a candle and set the curtains on fire, and my plans will be ruined.
It has a way of resetting itself; I think they depend on the routine, on every day beginning and ending the same way. I can get in a car and drive for hours, and some magical force will bring me back here by evening, tending that field when the bird flies over. I know it will; I've tried.
Oh, how I've tried.
I plaster a smile on my face as my sisters burst into the bedroom, all red hair and opinions. There's no use fighting this part once it's started; some things, like the bird and the dog and apparently my sisters, can't be changed. I've tried finding a home for the stray dog, but it always finds a way to be there, waiting to be pet when he comes through.
So I nod and smile and say my lines until we're at the dress shop. I can sway this part a bit, pick the one with long sleeves or ask if I can see it in a different color. It's a weak point.
I hold a pink A-line up to myself. "What do you think?"
My oldest sister, Viola, clasps her hands over her heart like she does no matter which one I choose, but Belle falters. She hates pink, and can't bring herself to follow the script, to say "That color looks ravishing on you," like she did the first thousand times, before I realized I didn't have to pick the pale green one again.
"Isn't it the prettiest color?" I prompt, the thrill of rebellion dancing in my chest.
"No," she whispers.
I get it. It hurts at first, going against the pattern, but that fades.
Viola shuffles clothes on the rack with increased vigor, trying to get us back on track. "What if we wore matching dresses? Imagine the three of us, all in green chiffon. Wouldn't it be splendid?"
"Why don't you like it?" I press Belle. "Because you hate the color, or because they need you to hate it so I'll pick the one I picked on the day they came?"
"What are you talking about?" she asks, but she knows. Everyone does, or they'd have stopped me from setting the town on fire that one time I tried it. But they didn't. The witches want a repeat of the day, so they all walked through the flames and talked about work as they were consumed. Like wind-up toys that can't stop from falling off a table.
I take Belle's trembling hand. "We can leave. Come on, I need your help. Leave the shop with me, sis."
Viola and the shopkeeper unconsciously say their lines more loudly and move with exaggerated motion. They don't want to remember why; they only want to recite their inane comments about dresses. Drowning us out.
"Lavender with a ruffled collar!
"Belle," I plead.
"But blue would go so well with her blonde curls!"
I take her hand. "Does any of this feel normal?"
"WHAT ABOUT A HAT?"
"Trust me."
"A HAT WOULD LOOK DIVINE!"
Something clicks, a light flicking on in her eyes. She takes one last look at Viola, twirling like a cyclone with a monstrosity of taffeta, and we run. Out the door and down an alley, toward the bank.
I take comfort in the fact that no one can actively stop us without breaking the routine, but that doesn't mean fate can't step in our way.
"Miss Bishop," says Mrs. Ashbury, her wheelchair taking up the entire alleyway as she takes out her trash. She smiles kindly, and I know what's coming. It usually comes later in the day, but they'll change things around sometimes, anything to keep me in line.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I understand your entire family just showed up on your doorstep from Missouri and you haven't gone shopping."
Belle furrows her brow.
"But I'm afraid I don't have time to go pick corn for your dinner, no matter how much pie you promise to bake me." Just on the offchance I succeed and there is a tomorrow, I smile and add, "But tomorrow night, I'll make it up to you and cook a full dinner for you all. Ham sound good?"
I sneak past without waiting for an answer. As we emerge onto the main thoroughfare in town, countless people, who up until that point were going about their day as usual, suddenly find reasons to speak to me. I quicken my pace and give my excuses without stopping to hear their questions. I've heard them all a hundred times. Maybe more.
"No, I can't donate any more corn for your food drive. No, if your kids' ball went in my fields, you can go looking for it. I'm sorry, no, I don't want to look at a dinosaur fossil you think you found, Mr. H., especially if it's near my cornfield."
Belle follows in a silent, terrified bewilderment until she can't stand it anymore. "Why is everyone bothering you?" she demands, dragging me to a stop just a block from the bank. "Why do they suddenly care so much about your cornfield?"
"Because that's where the cycle ends." I try to move on but her fingers curl around my sleeve and root me to the stop. The bank is so close, the sun so low in the sky. He'll be coming out any minute.
I rush through the explanation.
"On August third, 1948, the witches came to town, and it's been August third ever since. They're parasites. They feed on time. Our time. They make us relive the same day over and over again in a loop, so they can use the time that should be passing, the moment right after five in the evening that never comes. They're immortal because of towns like us, Belle. I need to be in my field because that's where I was the first time, and the day has to end the same way every time. But we can fight it. We can stop them."
She doesn't deny it. She remembers the day they came, too. Apologizing for what they were about to do, like that made it okay.
"How?" she asks.
"By rebelling. The flash in the sky gets dimmer the more I change things. Weakens their hold on us, I think. I got it so I could barely see it once, but I think I need more people."
She nods like I'm making sense, though I must be blathering like a fool. "How long has it been?"
"Lost count."
"So why now?"
"Because I can't remember what Ben looks like." I point to the bank. "He's coming out of there in a few minutes, and I need to be with him when the bird flies over my field."
She nods, but I can tell she doesn't completely understand. I get it. Took me a few months from first becoming aware to actually being able to rebel, and years to make the connection between my changes and the brightness of the flash. Even now, most of what I told her is based on speculation, and I've had a lot of time to sit around and speculate.
If I have to, I'll tell her everything again tomorrow, and all the tomorrows until it sticks, but I hope it doesn't come to that.
"Just don't let me do anything except go to Ben and stay with him," I tell her, dragging her down the street. "Three people not being where they should be. Might be enough."
If not, I'll spend the next ten thousand years recruiting every person in town if that's what it takes.
We disrupt as much as possible as we run down the block. Stopping cars in the street, ignoring everyone... I even pick up the stray dog and carry it with me. If he wants to pet the little mutt so much, I'll bring it to him.
A small crowd assembles at the bank entrance, all shouting incomprehensibly. Belle declines all offers to go with them, following me up the steps.
The door opens as I reach for the handle, and I see his face.
Handsome, with a bit of beard and that damn hat all askew.
My heart soars. I know this is it. This is how we stop the repetition. We have to end the day together.
But he frowns, backing away like I'm a venomous snake. I don't understand. Shouldn't he be happy to see me?
The crowd disperses, back to wherever they're supposed to be when the day ends, and Ben runs for the back exit.
I'm not in my field to see him coming and he doesn't stop to pet the dog, but the sky still flashes and it all starts again.
***
I hate my ceiling.
I hate every morning that I wake up alone, staring up at it, and I hate that I never get home at night to see it.
When my sisters knock, I don't waste time getting to the door. It almost worked yesterday. I just have to try harder.
Belle looks at me differently today. She doesn't exactly remember, but it doesn't take as long to convince her. After a few more cycles, we get Viola and a few of the neighbors on board.
Now they don't bother coming to my house in the morning. Their new routine takes them to the bank, the grocer's, and the shoe repair shop—everywhere Ben will go today—and convincing the owners that time is frozen and they need to close shop.
It doesn't work. He always finds a reason, an excuse to avoid me, no matter where or when we meet. Like he doesn't want to be with me.
After a while—I've lost track of how long—everyone seems trapped in the new routine we've created. Go to town, close up the shops, try to get me to Ben. It's almost impossible to make them do anything differently, and now my day ends not watching him walking toward me but watching him run away.
And here I thought it couldn't hurt more than when I couldn't remember what he looked like.
***
I manage to get to him early in the day. Earlier than I ever have. It took some serious planning and running, and I had to punch one of my neighbors who tried to block my doorway, but I did it.
"Talk to me," I beg, following him down the street and dodging those who would keep us apart. "We can fix this. We just need to get everyone to realize—"
He stops, spins around to face me. I want to wrap my arms around him but the hatred in his eyes stops me cold.
"Realize what?" he seeths in a low voice. "That witches are stealing time from us? Making us repeat the day? And if we can all just rebel, find our true loves and stop replaying our actions, it will weaken them somehow?"
I nod.
"And how does that make any sense? Seriously." He moves closer, our faces nearly touching. "If they're stealing our time, why does it matter what we do with our day?"
"So maybe it doesn't," I say after a moment's thought. "But they're witches, aren't they? Since when do they have to make sense?"
He doesn't answer, just stares at me. Panic rises in my chest as the entire town surrounds us.
It really doesn't make any sense. And yet I never doubted my theory because I didn't have another.
It had to work, had to be true, or I'd be trapped here.
Without him.
But now, with him growling in my face, the entire town closing in on us, maybe I don't want to be with him.
He must have been aware of the cycle, too. So why didn't he fight? Try to change things and find me? Maybe he couldn't, and the frustration's finally gotten to him. Driven him over the edge.
I want to say something, but the words die in my mouth. I don't know this man.
I don't know him, I realize suddenly. Up close, I don't actually recognize him. He's a stranger.
I try to picture our wedding, our first date. Yesterday. But it isn't him—just someone who looks like someone I should know. A dead-eyed imposter. They all are.
Looking out beyond their crowded heads, I see the cracks in the town. The buildings that are just wooden facades, the painted sky and its mechanical birds. I look back at him. A smile creeps across his lips.
"Have you figured it out, yet?" he asks.
"It isn't real," I whisper, starting to feel lightheaded. "None of it. The invasion, the—"
"That's where you're wrong. It is real."
His voice is joined by the dozens around us and they speak as one echoing entity.
"We came to your town. Enslaved you. Not the town. You."
My heart races, my limbs tingle. I have to get out of here.
"We don't feed on time. That is an interesting theory, though." They all cock their heads to the side in unison. "No, we feed on your fear. And it's time to bring in the harvest."
***
They run through the fields. Wild horses that know nothing of fences except the invisible ones built around me. The instinct to run is buried deep inside them. They know there's nothing more terrifying than a coven of witches crashing through acres of corn, hands reaching out but never quite catching me.
And still I envy them. The chasers, not the chased, who haven't spent hundreds of years trapped inside their own mind. They may feed off my fear, and the fear of god knows how many others like me, but they don't have to live with it.
The sky is darkening. I don't know how much longer I can run.
The bird flies overhead.
And here I am in my field, Ben coming in from town. He doesn't stop to pet the dog.
I stop running, welcoming the flash and the opportunity to do it differently tomorrow.
But the sky doesn't flash.
There is no tomorrow.
They descend upon me, my heart pumping liquid terror through my body.
I am a bountiful harvest.
END
