By Erin Jamieson

It was a Wednesday when a small seaside town erected tents. 

The town had always been quaint: rolling hills, a coffee shop, a thrift store.

 An omnipresent aroma of hazelnut coffee and autumn leaves. 

But no one could have expected this.

A tent city, with the children absent from school rooms and instead learning in meadows. What they were learning, no one outside of the city knew. 

Nor could anyone explain the abandoned homes and storefronts. 

A middle aged woman, fresh off a divorce, passed by the tents. She was traveling, traveling without a true destination. The tents —magenta, sapphire blue, royal purple —reminded her of the county fairs she used to show her rabbits at as a girl. Here, too was the undeniable warmth of freshly popped kettle corn, the excitement and irritation of so many gathered in a small space. 

She stumbled upon a girl, dressed in a curiously long tangerine orange dress. Her eyes were the same muddy brown as the woman’s. She had the woman’s slightly crooked nose, high forehead, and stocky build.

“I was waiting for you,” the girl said, taking the woman’s hand. 

It felt natural, as if the woman was always meant to take this girl’s hand, always meant to return to somewhere far away from the congested city where she’d lost her love for others, for herself.

She headed further into the tent city, the little girl leading the way. The mass in her abdomen tingled, growing smaller and smaller. 

*   *   *

Erin Jamieson (she/her) holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Miami University. Her writing has been published in over eighty literary magazines, including two Pushcart Prize nominations. Her poetry chapbook, Fairytales, was published by Bottlecap Press and her most recent chapbook, Remnants, came out in 2024. . Her debut novel (Sky of Ashes, Land of Dreams) came out November 2023. She resides in Loveland, Ohio. Twitter: @erin_simmer