Description
Young Ellyn Mueller is relentlessly bullied in the schoolyard and the classroom. Then she discovers that she has the power to stop time, and make her tormentors pay the ultimate price. Years later, Ellyn is an independent woman with a flourishing art career. Yet she is haunted by her strange childhood gift, and the terrible price of her freedom.
Reader, beware: Childhood cruelty and its dire consequences cut both ways in this dark fantasy.
The playground goes quiet. Ellyn drops her hands and opens her eyes.
Steph’s friends stand around her, frozen, their faces contorted by their cruelty. She’s afraid to breathe, but of course she must.
Nothing changes.
She coughs once, twice, and the still life before her remains. Beyond the children, just inside the door, stands their teacher, Mrs. LeVine, clipboard in hand to check them in, unaware of the bullying, as usual. No motion from her either. It seems the entire world has gone still. Not even the sound of a bird breaks the silence.
Lisa Amico Kristel is a recovering computer programmer and composition instructor and a former restaurant owner. She co-founded and hosts the #YeahYouWrite Author Series in NYC. While she searches for a home for The Art of Conversation, her ghostly novel with recipes, she writes strange tales and plays the viola. Her writing can be found in Lamplight, Typehouse Literary Magazine, and others. She lives in Oyster Bay, NY with her husband and a dog that isn’t really theirs. (Photo credit: Robin Luce Martin)
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