BLAZE OF MEMORIES • Allison Tebo

“It’s me! Your granddaughter, Rachel.”

She leaned against the door jam, fingering her shotgun. “I never saw you before.”

I nearly cried. “Don’t you remember me?”

“Don’t remember much from before three years ago.”

“Why not?”

She pointed to a scar along her temple. “This happened. Not that it’s any of your business.”

My heart sank. I wanted so badly for her to sweep me into her arms and call me her little mouse again. But she only stared.

“Please let me in. I’ve come so far to see you.” I had traveled for days, surviving rough terrain, wild animals, and a worrisome guide. Now, on her very doorstep, I was facing failure.

“You’re Edith Cole.” I insisted.

Her face twitched. “I’ve never heard of her.”

My insides twisted. She didn’t remember that she was Edith Cole, the best stagecoach driver in the territory. She didn’t remember that she had been my hero, even though she left when I was five.
She thought her life was an improper environment in which to raise a young girl. That’s what a distant relative had told her—a cousin who didn’t care for me, but only wished to mold me into her ladylike pattern.

That cousin had passed away a few months ago. I was finally free to choose my own life and to be with the only person who had ever loved me.

I reached for her, desperate. “I’ll help you remember.”

“Leave me alone!”

The door shut in my face. Misery swept over me.

My guide, a man named Whip, stepped out of the tree line. He had stood back a ways to give me privacy till now.

Back in Booneville, when I had been looking for someone to conduct me safely into the hills, Whip had volunteered. I didn’t like him—his mangled face unnerved me—but no one else had offered to come.

“That her?” he asked.

“Yes, but. . . .” I blinked. “She doesn’t remember me.”

Whip scratched his chin. “Well, maybe I can help her remember.”

I frowned. “What are you talking about—?”

He grabbed me by the arm and slammed me against his chest, pinning me so tightly I could barely move.

Then he pressed a blade against my throat.

“Edith Cole!” Whip yelled. You’d better come out if you want this girl to live!”

The door creaked open, revealing the muzzle of a shotgun.

“Drop your weapon,” said Whip, “and she won’t get hurt.”

Edith glared at him. “How many times do I have to tell you people I lost my memory? I don’t know who either of you are!”

Whip sneered. “Me and my friends held up your stage four years ago. You pulled out your gun and let us have it. See this face? I was the lucky one.”

She sniffed. “Still don’t know you, but it sounds like you deserved it.”

“You’re going to pay for what you did.” Whip stroked the flat of his blade across my check. “And we finally found the perfect bait to get grizzly to leave her den and come quietly.” He laughed. “The others should be along shortly.”

I finally found the breath to speak. “Others?” Had we really been followed and I hadn’t realized it?

Edith’s voice was taut. “The girl means nothing to me. I don’t know her.”

Shame flooded me. Maybe she didn’t remember me, because she didn’t recognize anything of herself in me. The woman I had known would have never made the mistakes I had made.

I had tried to be bold like her, but I had only led her enemies straight to her.

“Gran-Gran.” Using my old private name for her without thinking, I swallowed back a sob. “I’m sorry.”

The name struck her like a lightning bolt. She went rigid, and the hardness in her gaze melted away. “R-Rachel?”

“Yes.” A gasp lodged in my throat. “Yes, grandma! It’s me!”

Whip pressed his knife closer, strangling off my words.

My grandmother dropped her shotgun. “Wait!” I could see her frantically turning the pages of her memories, trying to find something she had lost. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll come quietly.”

“Gran-Gran, no.” I had not come all this way only to get her killed. I’d sooner die myself.

I flung up my arm and shoved at Whip’s knife, whirling around to drive my knee between his legs.

His grip loosened and I tore away, but not before his blade swung at me. Pain erupted in my shoulder and I stumbled to the ground.

There was the sharp crack of a gun followed by the thud of a body.

Somehow, I knew without looking who had won that draw.

Gran-Gran bundled me up off the ground and into the cabin. She slammed the door and then took my face in her hands.

“I remember something.” Her eyes searched my face, hungry. “You stepped into a hornet’s nest and you said . . . Gran-Gran, I’m sorry.”

I gasped. “And you nursed me afterwards.” She had remembered something that even I had forgotten.

She remembered me.

Tears spilled across my cheeks. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Glass shattered as a shot rang out.

We risked a glance through the broken window. Men were rushing out of the trees. Whip’s friends. They had seen their dead compatriot and they were madder than ever.

Gran-Gran jerked her kerchief from her neck and bandaged my arm. “You all right?”

I looked up at her and she looked back—knowing me. “I’m just fine.”

She pulled a pistol off a table and tossed it to me. “I still don’t remember much.”

“That’s all right.”

She took up a position at the other window. “So . . . was I a good grandma?”

I snapped off a quick shot through my window. “The best.”

She grinned. The years melted away from her face and suddenly she was the same again.

“Keep your head down, little mouse.”

My heart leaped.

Bullets flew overhead, but I had never felt safer.


Allison Tebo is a writer committed to creating magical stories full of larger-than-life characters, a dash of grit, and plenty of laughs. She is the author of Break the Beast, an epic fantasy retelling of Beowulf, and the Tales of Ambia, a series of romantic comedy retellings of popular fairy tales. Her flash fiction has been published in magazines such as Splickety, Spark, and Saddlebag Dispatches, and her short stories have been featured in anthologies by Inklings Press, Rogue Blades Entertainment, Pole to Pole Publishing, Editing Mee, Dragon Soul Press, and Ye Olde Dragons Publishing. Allison also writes under the pseudonym Al Thibeaux and co-runs the speculative fiction e-zine Worlds of Adventure. Allison graduated with merit from London Art College after studying cartooning and children’s illustration and, when not creating new worlds with words or paint, she enjoys reading, baking, and making lists. You can find out more about her at her website www.allisonteboauthor.com

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