Project Unicorn, Volume 2: 30 Young Adult Short Stories Featuring Lesbian Heroines

By S.E. Diemer

PROJECT UNICORN, VOLUME TWO is a collection of thirty young adult short stories featuring lesbian heroines. As ghosts and robots, mermaids and werewolves, the characters in this extensive and varied collection battle monsters and inner demons, stand up to bullies, wield magic, fall in love, and take action to claim their lives--and their stories--as their own.

Written by wife-and-wife authors Jennifer Diemer and Sarah Diemer, this volume of stories, with genres ranging from science fiction and fantasy to the paranormal, is part of Project Unicorn, a fiction project that seeks to address the near nonexistence of lesbian main characters in young adult fiction by giving them their own stories. PROJECT UNICORN, VOLUME TWO contains these full three collections of Project Unicorn stories: Artificial Hearts, Myth, Magic and Glitter and Winged Things.

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.E. Diemer
• Release date: Jan 11, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311595539

S.E. Diemer

S.E. Diemer is an author and storyteller. She writes stories about courageous young ladies who love other ladies, makes jewelry out of words and wire and loves her wife more than anything in the universe.

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Project Unicorn, Volume 2:

30 Young Adult Short Stories Featuring Lesbian Heroines

(Part of Project Unicorn: A Lesbian YA Extravaganza!)

By Sarah Diemer and Jennifer Diemer

Copyright 2014 Sarah Diemer and Jennifer Diemer

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved

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CONTENTS

ARTIFICIAL HEARTS

By Sarah Diemer:

Nickel Pony

The Ember Heart

Flotsam

Anchor Me

Violina

By Jennifer Diemer:

For I am Fearless

Perfect

Lullaby

Mary A through Z

The Whole Beautiful World

MYTH, MAGIC AND GLITTER

By Jennifer Diemer:

A Myth of Ashes

The Underwater Girl

When Thou Wakest

Flowers for Clouds

Even in Another Time

By Sarah Diemer:

The Edge of Day

Speak of the Devil

True if by Sea

Phasma

Dear Salome

WINGED THINGS

By Jennifer Diemer:

The Gray Road

Solitary Birds

The Sign of Sapphire

When We Flew

Aphrodite Has a Daughter

Flower Constancy

By Sarah Diemer:

Buffalo Girls

The Bee Telling

Don't Eat the Bluebird

Unwanted Things

Jennifer’s Author Notes

Sarah’s Author Notes

About Project Unicorn

About the Authors

One Last Thing

ARTIFICIAL HEARTS

NICKEL PONY

by Sarah Diemer

It’s kind of stupid, you know, but I really loved that heap of metal. I never really knew how much until it was gone.

Growing up, there was this dollar store in my town, next to the video rental place. We’d go on Friday nights and rent a Harrison Ford movie (Mom totally had a thing for Harrison Ford), and then I’d beg and throw a tantrum and be generally Very Stupid until my parents gave me a nickel and took me next door to the dollar store. And then I’d get to ride Thunder.

Thunder was a metal horse—the kind you put coins in, and it’ll buck in place for about thirty seconds while you ride it. It was ancient the way that bridges and pin-up girls and Marilyn Monroe are ancient, and it vibrated in place more than bucked, but I’d pop in that nickel and sit on Thunder’s back, my hands slick on the metal (my fingers would taste like pennies for hours after), and for thirty seconds my life would melt away and I was a cowgirl hero and it was just me and Thunder and the open range of possibilities.

I know it’s stupid. But when I was on Thunder, my parents weren’t fighting (or, if they were, I could ignore them), and it was this tiny bit of peacefulness because nothing else was peaceful. I began to associate Thunder as something outside of my effed up life. Something rare and precious because it asked nothing of me but a nickel.

The week they took him out of the dollar store and moved in a row of unappetizing bubblegum machines, my parents told me that they didn’t love each other anymore and that they wanted a divorce.

It had nothing to do with Thunder leaving, my parents’ divorce.

But secretly, I knew that once he’d left, my good luck ran out.

*

I hate you, my little brother tells me helpfully. I squeeze his hand a little harder than necessary and steer him out of the oncoming car’s way, saving him, I might add, from certain doom. Of course he doesn’t give a shit that big sister saved him. He’s still pouting about the fact that we’re not going to walk the eighteen blocks to the stupid toy store just so he can see if the new Marvel action figures are in.

Feeling’s mutual, I mutter to him, lifting him up on the sidewalk and squatting down next to him. "Now you listen, and actually listen this time, you stupid amoeba, I mutter to him through a pasted-on smile, a benefit for the passerbys. Mom said she was going to be at the doctor’s for an hour. That is not enough time to walk all the way to the toy store and back in the new snow, and if you ask me one more time…"

He’s chewing his gum so ferociously, he looks like a bubblegum processing machine. I’m going to tell Mom you were mean to me.

Who’s she gonna believe, chump? You or me? I take his hand again and tug him along the sidewalk. A well-dressed older woman practically stares at me as we walk past, judgment written all over her face. Only the seventeenth person today. "And if one more person starts to talk to me about being an unwed teen parent, I swear to God, so help me…"

It’s not my fault you look like an episode of Judge Judy waiting to happen, says Brandon, blowing a small blue bubble. If you drag me into that bookstore, you can expect me to have a tantrum on the floor.

You’re seven. Well past the tantrum age, I grit my teeth, angling closer to the bookstore, the one shining moment of my day.

I’ll do it, he says, and that’s when I pause. I stare down at him, at his little screwed-up, pouting face, at his ferociously working jaw masticating the hell out of that innocent piece of bubblegum.

And behind all of that is fear.

Because he’s just as scared about Mom, too.

I am not going to cry, because if I cry, Brandon’s just going to explode, blue gum and tears everywhere, and that’ll make me cry more. My Kryptonite equals Brandon’s tears. So I rub at my face really hard, breathe out and open my eyes again.

We’re in front of the arcade.

…Would you like to play skeeball? I ask, brows furrowed, because I don’t know if he even knows what skeeball is (the only reason I know being my ex-girlfriend took me here on our first date because she thought it’d be romantic because it’s ironic or something), but I guess the flashing lights and weird robot sounds of the games are kind of like crack to kids because my brother’s eyes get all round and he practically drags me into the arcade, the door banging behind us, shutting out the cold air and any possibility I had of going to the bookstore today.

(But my brother’s forgotten, for half a second, about Mom. So it’s okay.)

"Helena, look!" he practically squeals, pointing to an obviously possessed clown game that flashes in different patterns of light. The thing’s seven feet tall, so that’s why I assume he’s so excited about it, but then he drags me past it, and we’re standing in front of an X-Men pinball machine that also flashes in different patterns of light. Probably subliminal messaging to drink more soda. He paws at the thing and gazes up at me beseechingly while I fish in my pockets for quarters. I find some, and then he’s playing the game, eyes round and he’s laughing he’s so happy, and I’m so relieved, I can only slump against the wall. His smile is infectious, though, and after a minute, I’m grinning, too.

And that’s when I see him.

He stands in a corner, unplugged and dusty. His front hooves are dented in, and someone spraypainted an indecipherable hieroglyph on his back, but it’s him, I know it, I’d know him anywhere. I walk up to him, tracing my fingers over his saddle, his reins, his bridle, crouching down in front of him, spellbound.

Thunder, I whisper, and stupidly, stupidly, there are tears in my eyes.

Isn’t he beautiful?

I stand up so quickly, I almost fall over. A girl leans over the counter where you trade in your tickets. She wears a pouch stuffed with ticket stubs, and a plaid shirt rolled up at the sleeves, her bleach-blonde hair spiked into a slightly-wilting Mohawk. But it’s her smile I really notice, everything else falling away. It’s a smile that imprints, indelibly, into you. When I blink, I still see it, so beautiful it has a gravity.

Beautiful… I find myself repeating, and then blush, because I wasn’t talking about Thunder. I have my hand on his saddle, and I know my fingers are going to taste like pennies, if I lick them.

We just got him. He was in a junk shop, but Jim—he’s the arcade owner—found him and thought he could fix him up. Get him working again. I’ve never seen such a handsome nickel pony, personally. They’re usually super trashed.

Nickel pony? Wow, am I articulate today.

That’s what this old boy is. A nickel pony. Because you put in a nickel…? She comes out from around the corner and walks up to me. It’s the oldest trick in the book, her reaching behind my ear and pulling out a shiny new nickel, but it’s the oldest trick in the book because it works, my heart finding all sorts of new, fast-paced rhythms to work with as she stands close to me, mouth curled up at the edges in a smile so pretty it should be illegal, holding up a shining coin.

She brushes against me as she leans over and puts the nickel into its slot. Ready? she asks, head tilted, and I stare at her for a long moment before I realize she wants me—me, super-still-growing-and-so-gangly-I-look-like-a-puppet-me—to get up on Thunder.

Um, I say, and then because I want to so badly, it hurts, I climb up on him anyway. I put my feet in their ballet flats into the little stirrups, and she lets the nickel go, and then Thunder starts vibrating. But he doesn’t vibrate, really—he moves up and down and forward and back, like he used to, back when I first started riding him. The girl backs up, surveying us, Thunder and me, with her hands on her hips, and she’s grinning hugely, and I guess I am, too, because I’m riding my nickel pony again, and I don’t care how stupid I look or how stupid this is.

For the first time in a very, very long time…I’m happy.

Eventually, Thunder stops—thirty seconds can’t last forever—and I hop off, the euphoria washing away to an especially awkward embarrassment. Thanks, I tell her, ducking my head, but she laughs a little, leans against the counter.

Don’t mention it, she promises. I thought you saw something special in him, too. And he is. Special, I mean. She leans forward now, one eyebrow raised.

Yes, I whisper, swallowing, and then Brandon’s there, tugging on my arm, asking me what time it is, and I glance at my watch, and crap, crap, crap, Mom’s appointment must have wrapped up ten minutes ago, and I left my cellphone at home, and she’s going to kill me or think we were kidnapped. Or both.

Come back soon. Promise? asks the girl, and I nod as Brandon drags me past her, and the girl’s grinning to herself, humming something I can’t recognize as she straightens the stuffed animals hanging over her head.

As we leave the arcade, I feel so cold all of a sudden, a shiver of delight moving through me. Thunder…hadn’t he been unplugged?

Mom’s waiting for us at the entrance to the clinic. She doesn’t look tired, and she always looks tired. She hugs Brandon first, and she’s not giving me hell, and when she hugs me close, squeezing me tight, she whispers in my ear: they’re negative. They came back negative. Finally.

I’m crying, pressing my nose against her shoulder, trying to figure out when I can go back to the arcade. Not just for Thunder.

No matter what, my good luck’s back.

THE EMBER HEART

by Sarah Diemer

They carry the hearts in lanterns. The colored boxes of glass glow like living gems, here an amethyst, there a sapphire, pulsing with the beat of a lit heart. The lot of them walk down the boulevard, dangling the fragile boxes from curved metal, swaying to the communal heartbeat that threads its way through the parade music, touching each tongue as their faces turn toward the setting star, whispering the melody that has always been sung.

Alethia is there with the others, bowing and dipping and swaying as she moves the lantern from one hand to the other, kicking her elaborate skirts to the side with a diamond-toed boot. Everything she is drips with molten metal, gems, words, the delicate inscriptions cut into her skin glowing from within because that’s what they’ve been programmed to do.

But when she searches the crowd for my face and sees it, her eyes alight, just like the lantern.

And no program can do that.

Everything is dazzling. It’s the only word I can think of as they all sway and dance, as the visible hearts pulse behind the glass, held aloft and beating, turning with the beats of the murmured music. But I only half-see, my eyes only for Alethia.

And of course she is the most beautiful because she is mine. She bends her back, arching her arms with a type of grace no human could possibly envy. Her hair, red human hair shot through with metal tinsel, seems to glow like fire beneath the lantern hearts, and when she laughs, eyes flashing, she seems like a golem, a fire-made thing rather than Alethia. My Alethia.

The ritual of the dance, of the singing, ends in a crescendo punctuated by fireworks that erupt all around us, showering the festival goers and dancers with glitter and stardust, coating our skin so that we’re shimmering beings as we begin to move among one another.

Now is the best part of the dance.

Find your partner—quickly.

I run across the space between us, and she lifts me up in her arms, the lantern set and glowing at her feet. She twirls me and spins me and she embraces me tightly, pressing her cold lips against my cheek, my lips, drinking me in like the honeywine, dipping my face back like I am only a goblet. But she laughs against me, then, her perfect mouth on mine, and she whirls me about again, holding me out at arm’s length this time, putting her arms about my shoulders.

How can you be so beautiful? she asks me, pretty mouth in a pout against my ear. We hold each other’s hands and stand apart, as all the others do, lanterns at feet, glowing and pulsing. Everyone hushed and waiting.

The firebirds move over the sky in perfect formation, the fireworks following them like shimmering fish in a school, following them across the gloaming sky, toward the edge of the horizon were the other stars rise. The music begins as soft as a heartbeat across a room, building slowly as we begin to turn, she and I and the thousands of others, turning in a circle as old as moons, as old as earth.

Together, we build a gravity that holds us, spellbound.

It is so easy to see which of each pair is human. As we turn, back to back now, feet moving through the slow, methodic rhythm, my eyes drift over the closest couples. Those two boys there…one is handsome, yes. But imperfect. Next to his partner, it’s so obvious, his imperfections. And yet his partner gazes on his face as if he is the only creature in the universe. The only speck of beauty in a void.

When we turn again, Alethia gazes on me, eyes wide and round and dark as she gazes at me. At my body.

And down, at my feet. At the gold dusted lantern that bears my heart.

The song swells, and Alethia scoops up the lantern. They bend and sway with the lanterns, our lanterns. They were built to protect the lanterns. But their glowing hands, their shimmering bodies and glittered feet move in the old dance, the dance that binds us and holds us all. Together.

And Alethia takes my hands, and she kisses them with her silver lips. She looks up at me with her jewel-bright eyes. And she pulls me forward for a real kiss, a cold kiss. Our kiss.

My ember heart burns beneath glass.

Mortal and imperfect.

And to Alethia, utterly beautiful because it is mine.

FLOTSAM

by Sarah Diemer

There are dead bodies floating on the water, and I am not picking them up.

"C’moooon, Chris! It’s your turn anyway," says Raz, sniffing and running the back of his hand under his grubby nose. His eyes are all asky-ask, even though he’s a little rat, because everyone on the dock could tell you that I’ve done it twice the last few days, and that means it’s his turn.

No, I tell him, and lean against the pile of boxes as I count the bodies. Eighteen…nineteen. Jesus. They always dump the ones that aren’t right, after killing them by humane injection. Hah. But nineteen? That’s a lot, even by Chematech standards.

"But the water’s so cold." I can’t believe he’s even still asking. He’s trying to wear me down is what he’s doing, which is totally not supposed to work, but when I glance sidelong at him, at his tiny little body and the sniffling nose he hasn’t been able to shake for weeks…I finally relent. As he knew I would. Bastard.

"The last time I do more than two in a row, you understand that?" I ask him, squatting in front of him and hooking my fingers into the front of his vest. He nods so quickly, his hat’s in danger of sliding off, and there’s pure relief in his eyes. He’s been pretty sickly since Ma passed on to that awful rubbish heap up in the here-after, and she’d want me to take better care of him, anyway.

This one’s for you, Ma, I grimace and jump off the dock onto the raft.

Okay. So it’s not much of a raft. It’s really just a door tied to an empty barrel that floats better than the door, but it’s what we’ve got, and I’m pretty proud of it myself because I built it while swearing a lot. I use elongated pieces of wood to push off from the dock, and then I’m splish-splashing through the choppy waves, sights set on the first body, the one I’m in most danger of losing, because it’s smaller than the others.

Chematech usually clones people as soldiers for our Blessed Government, may it rot in a pit of shit for all time, and the clones are pretty bulky and jacked up and not-very-human-like anyway. The body I’m aiming for is tiny in comparison, and if it slips beneath the waves, I’ll lose it, and I’m sure it’s got something on it worthwhile, maybe a pair of robotic eyes I can sell to Big Ol’ Alex. I’m hopeful, anyway. Sometimes, after they inject the clones, Chematech recycles parts and there’s nothing left in the bodies worth nothing.

I get as close as the waves allow and detach my hook from its peg on the barrel. I’m about to lunge out, sink it into dead flesh when I start, almost dropping the hook from my hand.

Her eyes just fluttered.

Jesus, Chris, you’re seeing things. I rub at my eyes, stiffen up and aim the hook at an arm again when her eyes flutter. I saw it really that time, the way they shifted, and kind of rolled back in her head.

She turns over in the water, her face underneath.

The water on my arms, on my legs, is freezing, but I can’t just let her drown. Fuck, I whisper, and then I’m off the door and into the water, swimming with two broad strokes, and then I’m alongside her, a gigantic dead body bumping into my legs beneath me. Or at least I hope it’s a body.

I’m gonna be sick. But nope, swallow it down. I hook her armpit with one hand and then angle back toward the raft. I scrabble up onto it, pulling her up, rolling her over onto her back on the board.

It’s a girl. A girl like me, but she isn’t, because she’s a clone. There’s the hideous red tattoo on the back of her right palm, Chematech’s logo. But from what I’ve seen, the trash they flush down and into the sea, they’ve never made a clone like her before.

And there’s never been a trash clone that was alive. Not ever.

Her eyelids flutter again, and then she’s on her side, heaving up seawater and splattering my precious raft with a chunky, milk-white substance that flows and flows out of her mouth. I pat her back gingerly, cast back over my shoulder and realize how far we’re out from the dock. The bodies are already being picked at by seabirds, and I can see the telltale dorsal of some bastard shark who’s going to make short work of the rest of them. And possibly me if I’m stupid and stay out much longer. I sigh for a long moment then put my boards back into the water and start to aim for shore.

The girl watches me, eyes wide, taking in a trembling breath and then coughing it out again, but at least she’s stopped puking. She’s beautiful. Perfect. Long, blonde hair and sharp blue eyes and a face that would make a robot turn its head. She’s a clone after all, they probably cloned the prettiest thing they could find, probably put out calls for gorgeous girls to come in and hand their genes over for a Free! Chematech! Facelift! even when they didn’t remotely need it. I’ve seen the posters in the gutter. I know what Chematech offers the pretty girls.

I’m Chris, I grunt, heaving on the boards, breathing out. My shoulders are screaming at me, my hands shaking. I’m too cold and too far out but I keep paddling because I’m stubborn. You’re okay now… I add, because she’s started shaking a little harder when I spoke.

She continues to say nothing, continues to stare at me. A medium size wave splashes over the side of the door and the barrel bobs dangerously low. I glance behind me, back at the dock and swear under my breath.

We’re fucked, I mutter then as the dorsal fin, so content with its meaty provisions, begins to angle toward us. I’ts curious. It’s always really bad when they get curious. Get your leg on the door…your leg… I repeat, when she looks down at herself, at the leg dangling in the water as if uncomprehending. I pull up the boards, crawl across the door to her and pull up her leg. Her skin beneath my touch is so cold,

Reviews for Project Unicorn, Volume 2

[lynnoconnacht · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm sad I didn't love this collection unconditionally. I thoroughly enjoyed it (apparently to the point of being unable to type; we'll see if I catch all the typos), but I didn't love it. That always makes me sad. Anyway, a few of the stories felt too short for what they were trying to encompass and that's what's kept me from loving this the way I'd wanted to. Some of the stories also felt unfinished, but there was talk of expanding several stories. Eeee! There was much squeeing when I read about that. Because I would love to revisit some of these stories and learn more about these worlds. <3 (Also, Jennifer Diemer writes the best Snow White retellings. O_O Go read them and be amazed.)There's no way I can do justice to all 30 short stories, so I'll just highlight a few favourites, two from each author because I like making things difficult for myself and I'd end up with an uneven amount if I picked one a month: Natural and Finding Mars (Jennifer) and In the Garden I Did Not Sin and Poppy and Salt (Sarah).They're all lovely stories, though, imperfections and all, and well worth reading. Some of the tales in this volume have unhappy endings or deal with darker subject matter, but most of them are happy-ended and sweet and perfect for comfort reading. And I mean that in the best possible way.(As a side-note, this collection has two things that the monthly ezines don't: brief author's notes on all the stories and an interview with the authors.)