Tress | Chapter One In the middle of the ocean, there was a girl who lived upon a rock. This was not an ocean like the one you have imagined. Nor was the rock like the one you have imagined. The girl, however, might be as you imagined–assuming you imagined her as thoughtful, soft-spoken, and overly fond…

Tress | Chapter Two Perhaps you were surprised to hear those last words.  Tress wanted to stay on the Rock?  She liked it there? Where was her sense of adventure?  Her yearning for new lands? Her wanderlust? Well, this isn’t the part of the story where you ask questions.  So kindly keep them to yourself.  That said, you must…

Tress | Chapter Three Tress had noticed that a nice pair of gloves made her daily work go so much better.  Now, she meant the good kind of gloves, made of a soft leather that molds to your hands as you use them.  The kind that–if you oil them well and don’t leave them out in the…

Tress | Chapter Four Leave. Leave the island? People didn’t leave the island. Tress knew, logically, that wasn’t explicitly true.  Royal officials could leave.  The duke left on occasion to report to the king.  Plus he’d earned all those fancy medals by killing people from a distant place where they looked slightly different.  He’d apparently been quite…

Tress | Chapter Five Tress sat upon her porch, leaning against her mother, and watched the horizon.  She held the last cup Charlie had sent.  The one with the suicidal butterfly. Her lukewarm tea tasted of tears. “It wasn’t very practical,” she whispered to her mother. “Love rarely is,” her mother replied.  She was a…