There once was a knight who didn’t know where he was from, where he was going, or where he had left his lunch. This last question was the most pressing for him, as he had no issue locating his stomach, and the gnawing, clawing hunger that dwelled there.

That he had had a lunch, he was somehow sure. If he closed his eyes, he could almost taste what by rights should be in his stomach right then. But then he also had the distinct sense that he would pitch over sideways, and he wanted to avoid that entirely.

Instead he continued walking along the path he found himself on, his sturdy and dirty boots crunching over loose stones, one gauntleted and gory hand aimlessly trailing along the boulders to his left, tentatively probing the rocks for any chance of support. If he fell over, he decided that he would try to slump against the rocks. The precipice to his right seemed far less appealing.

He was heading downwards, he realized, which was generally the easier direction to take on a mountain. Clearly, he had had some clarity of thought when he started on this path, even if he had lost his lunch along the way.

Some clarity continued to grace him as he continued down the side of the mountain. By the time he had rounded a side of the mountain and seen a tiny little village laid out before him his feet were practically dragging against the ground, the slow creaking shuffle threatening to grind to a halt at any moment. But then he saw the village, and he did fully stop for a moment, allowing himself to lean into the side of the mountain.

The village did not change as he stood there scrutinizing it. From this distance he should have been able to make out movement, but there was no sign of life.

Finally, the knight found the strength to push off from the boulder his arm had nestled so gratefully against and forced his feet to continue their dragging procession. Now he knew which direction he should move forward to, though it was daunting that the destination lay so far ahead. Still, he was a knight of no little strength and will power, and he pushed forward with gritted teeth.

It was with this resolute shuffle march that he first set foot in the village, walking down what must have been the main road, as it was the widest and the dustiest. It took him a while to look up as he marched along the street, he was so focused on his destination. But it finally occurred to him that he did not know his destination, now that he had reached this point, and his progress slowed as he looked about him.

Every building around him stood lifeless. Laundry hung off lines between houses, bees leisurely passed from plant to plant in the neat gardens, able to indulge as he could not in readily available meals. He paused at one house that had several chickens milling around and considering wringing a neck and making himself a fire and a good meal. But there was an eeriness to the empty place that made him hesitant to stop, no matter how much he yearned for food. His neck crawled at the quiet, and his feet shuffled on.

He passed through what must have been a market next, and to his relief saw stands of food, sitting unattended. This his stomach could not pass up, and he grabbed up apples, loading them into a crook of one arm as another hand held one to his mouth. He ate every bit of that apple, pit and all, as he continued his exploration.

It was more concerning to see the empty market with the abandoned stalls than the empty gardens and houses, and the knight began to think as he walked and chomped that he should leave this village. Clearly the people had felt the need to leave in a hurry, and he did not want to encounter whatever had driven them away. He looked about him again, wondering if he should turn around, or if there was a faster route out of the village now that he had walked so far into it. As he did so, his eyes fell upon a church, and he felt that he should at least stop to pray before moving on. Clearly, he had suffered some calamity, and he should thank God for sparing his life, if not his memories.

The doors to the church were barred. Or at least they would not open when he pushed initially pushed on them, and then when he tried shoving them open, risking bruising the collection of apples still held up by one arm. Angry at this, he grunted and kicked the door with one boot, before turning to leave. He was now absolutely determined that he should leave this accursed village immediately.

But as he limped down the steps, he heard a scraping noise behind him, and stopping to glance over his shoulder he saw a stack of heads peering at him through the now opened door. That they were angels, he knew for sure was not true. Mops of hair sat atop worried faces, which widened as mouths opened to gape. Then shout.

“The knight!”

“He has returned alive!”

“It is the knight!”

And other variations, all around this theme. The church door swung completely open now, and the entire populace of the village poured out to surround him, shouting and cheering.

It was clear that the villagers recognized him, and he felt many hands reach out for him, steady him, even as the press of bodies around him made him sway. It was impossible to hear any particular words around him, so he did not attempt to ask any questions at first. It was only once the people around him calmed that he felt able to speak.

“Good townspeople,” he managed finally, and everyone fell silent. “Whatever has come to pass recently, I find myself unable to remember.” Here he paused, uncomfortable with that confession, and not sure how to continue.

“He was injured killing the dragon!” a man besides him shouted. The knight found this to be an extremely helpful statement.

“Indeed,” the knight said slowly. “I killed a dragon?” he added for confirmation.

“That is why you went up the mountain!” someone else supplied.

“You must have killed it, for you to be alive!” someone else added.

The knight nodded his head, all of this was very logical. And it even explained what might have happened to his lunch, though the details were still fuzzy.

A man who reintroduced himself as the mayor led him to the local inn, where his wounds were treated, and food was supplied. And all along the way he was followed by a happy procession of people.

That night he slept at the inn; the best room offered to him free of charge. The next morning, he had an ample breakfast, the mayor presented him with a sack of golden coins, and he was offered a horse for his journey. Apparently, he had ridden in on one, but none had come down from the mountain.

The grateful villagers also provided him with a map to a castle nearby, where a wizard was said to live. He headed in that direction on his new horse and with his bag of golden coins secured at his side, hopeful that the villagers had been right, and there was a wizard who could restore his memories to him.

It was almost a day’s journey through mostly empty land, save for a smattering of trees and empty fields, the wheat already cut down for the season. By the time the knight arrived at the wizard’s tower the sun was beginning to set, and he found himself once again quite hungry.

The tower was simply that, a pile of stones haphazardly arrayed in a long tube, that stretched to a ridiculous height into the clouds above. There were no stables for his horse, so the knight dismounted, and knocked on the front door.

He waited, and wondered where the wizard was in his tower, and if he was at the top, if he would even be able to hear the knight. He knocked again, and this time heard a booming voice in answer.

“Who goes there?!” the voice asked. His horse flicked its ears back, but otherwise seemed unimpressed.

“I seek your aid, wizard!” the knight shouted back.

There was only silence in response. The knight waited longer, considered knocking again, but then the door opened for him.

Before him stood what he would normally have thought of as a short, old man, if not for the red glowing eyes and the two obsidian horns that poked out from his long grey hair. “Aid, you say?” the wizard asked, eyes flicking from the wizard to the horse.

“I recently fought a dragon,” the knight began, unable to stop staring at the horns. “And I lost my memories during the battle. I come seeking your aid to restore them.”

“A dragon, you say!” The wizard exclaimed. Then he chuckled and gestured for the knight to enter. The knight paused to look at his horse, but the wizard waved a hand, and suddenly his horse stood rigid. “Come, come inside!” the wizard was practically jumping up and down now, and the knight found his feet slow to move once again, as he shot one last look at his horse. The poor beast rolled one eye at him, its body quivering, but still it gave no sign that it would be able to move from the spot.

“Now, what you will need is a potion.” The wizard said, once the knight had stepped inside. The knight immediately looked up, but there was no sign of the rest of the tower above them. When he looked down, he could see a bed in one corner, a fireplace with a skillet hanging nearby, a bench that the wizard was bending over, and the knight wondered what the rest of the tower was for.

“I will need some of your hair,” the wizard said, and the knight obediently yanked out a few strands and handed them over. Then he watched in horror as the wizard opened a box, removed a live frog, pulverized it, then sprinkled in his hair. The knight turned away as the wizard continued working, his nose the only part of him to continue being offended by the potion making. Finally, the wizard finished, and he waved a bottle under the knight’s nose, a gleeful look in his garnet eyes. The knight wondered for a moment if he was one of those knights who was sworn to kill monsters, since he had fought a dragon. And if that was true, if he should strike down this wizard in front of him. But the thought passed, as the knight did not feel confident that he could win, and he wanted to the potion the wizard was presenting to him, no matter how foul the process had been to make it.

The knight reached out for it, but the wizard drew it back. “You must pay first.” The wizard scolded.

“How much?” the knight asked.

“How much is in that sack?” the wizard asked, pointing at the pouch of golden coins the knight had just received.

The knight scowled at the wizard. “More than I am willing to give you,” he replied.

“Then you do not value your memories enough!” the wizard replied.

“These coins could buy your tower five times over,” the knight replied, sure now that the tower did not even exist. “If you insist on all of them, I will go find another wizard with a smaller fee, and you will have wasted your time and your supplies.”

The wizard shrugged. “I can always sell this to another knight with no memory, you would be surprised how many knights come here with the problem,” he added the end slyly.

“With my hair in it?” the knight countered. “Half the purse.”

The wizard scowled at him. “Three quarters.”

“Two thirds” the knight countered.

The wizard glowered at him some more, then shrugged, and held out a hand. The knight opened the pouch, and frowned as he counted the coins, then gave the wizard his share. The wizard bit one of the coins contemplatively as he handed over the potion with another hand, then shouted at the knight to stop.

The knight did stop, the vial uncorked, ready to pour the contents into his mouth.

“You cannot drink it now, or it will not work.” The wizard told him.

“What?” the knight answered, annoyed at this news.

“You must face fight another dragon. Drink the potion when you first see it, then slay it, then all of your memories will be restored.” The wizard told him.

“What potion is this!” the knight replied angrily. “You did not tell me it required me to fight another dragon!”

“You’ve already fought one, what are you worried about?” the wizard asked.

“But now I have to find another one…” the knight protested.

“Don’t worry, I know there is one in the area.” The wizard answered, and chuckled.

“Can you tell me where?” the knight demanded.

“Why yes, you have told me where it will be.” The wizard replied, this time almost cackling.

“I have told you no such thing!” the knight countered.

The wizard sighed. “You say you killed a dragon on a mountain?” the wizard asked, his tone implying the knight was slow minded. “But you only are here with a bag of coins? You left behind the hoard?”

The knight slowly nodded his head.

“Then by now another dragon will be there, picking through its new additions to its hoard,” the wizard chuckled again. “But you must hurry back!” the wizard told the knight, and with that he waved the knight from his tower. Another wave of his hand released the horse, which would have bolted, if the knight had not held fast to the halter.

As the knight swung on to his horse and rode off, he heard the wizard’s laugh behind him, and he had to ride some distance before it fully faded into the distance. It was full dark now, but the knight pressed on, wishing to get the finally step of this journey over with. He rode through the village while the people were still sleeping, only pausing to draw more water from the well for himself and his horse, before beginning his ascent back up the mountain.

It was faster going up than coming down, despite how tired his horse was. When they reached the top the knight dismounted, patting the poor creature and securing it to a nearby tree that jutted out between two boulders. Nearby was the mouth to a cave, and the knight set his shoulders and entered it, trying to keep his steps as quiet as possible.

He made it only a few steps before he heard a crunching noise ahead of him, the sound of coins clinking and sliding past each other, some massive object sliding along the ground. The knight paused long enough to drink the potion and draw his sword, then he continued deeper into the cave.

And was met with a sudden burst of purple powder. The knight had to stop his progress again, this time bending over to gasp and cough. A tail appeared from out of the settling dust and whipped him back against the wall. The knight lay there stunned, as the dragon lumbered past him.

The knight tried to lie as still as possible, hoping the dragon would take him for dead, and come back. But as he lay there, he heard an immense racket from the mouth of the cave. Lights flickered too, as spurts of flame lit up the night occasionally. The knight lay there, perplexed for a while, then there was silence.

The knight stood up and limped to the mouth of the cave.

The dragon was heading back inside, and upon seeing him stopped. The knight tensed and raised his sword.

“Oh,” he distinctly heard the dragon say. “You have killed me.” Then the dragon slumped over.

The knight stood rigid to the spot, transfixed as his horse had been earlier. The dragon opened one eye and stared at him. “We did not fight yet,” the knight informed him.

“Why do you remember that?” the dragon demanded, as he clambered to his feet. “the potion has never failed before.” The last was a mutter.

The knight considered this for a moment. “I took a potion as I entered your cave, a potion I received from a wizard in a tower with glowing red eyes and two obsidian horns.”

“Wizards!” the dragon huffed, a bit of smoke tufting from its nostrils. It was hard to make out the dragon in the darkness, but the knight suddenly had the sense that he was standing before an older dragon. His hands tensed over his sword.

“Did you receive a potion from the same wizard that would steal the memory of all who challenged you?” the knight demanded.

The dragon huffed again. “It has always worked in the past,” the dragon huffed again, as his only answer.

“But why?” the knight asked.

“If I kill the knights, then more come. If the knights think they have killed me, then the stop coming, till I am spotted again.” The dragon answered plainly.

The knight considered this a moment, then shrugged. “I must kill you, if I am to get my memories back.” He informed the dragon.

“Wizards!” the dragon said again. Then a burst of flame came from his mouth and enveloped the knight. “Now I must find myself another mountain,” the dragon huffed, as he climbed over the charred remains and headed back to his hoard. “Oh, what a trial!”

Shall I tell you tales to disquiet us

How even now my brain wishes to squash

And yet the tales spring up like eczema

Muddling my mind to levels quantum

Even that which should be forgiveable

School day when I shared a friend’s dark secrets

How sorry I was when I saw her blush

Anger at her then gone lika a ninja

Moved aside for a silencing vacuum

Extinguished friendship, now forever gone.

Sometimes you pick the wrong sort of boyfriends

Hallelujah, didn't pick you back, which,

After seeing darkness, my brain said whoa,

Marking him in a new light, made me squirm

Even rejection can be a good save.

School day again, full of presentations

Hard work complete, but for the last huzzah

Almost right before I saw my bra was,

Mixed up when my brain, still stuck in a dream

Errantly green, through my shirt that was white.

Sorry to bring up all these awkward tales

Hardly more appealing than a gut punch

Ask for discomfort, receive bonanza

Maybe, though, this will help my brain becalm

Even laugh, forgive, and say, that's just me

There lived a man in a tiny village who was well known as the best potion maker in the land. This was not by chance.  He made sure that his fame was kept alive and well.

Every few years he would take on a new apprentice.  One year he chose a promising boy from the foundling house.  He took this boy in and set him to simple tasks until he trusted him around the cauldron.  But he refused to let the boy into the workshop when he made his most profitable potion.

Instead he would send the boy to nearby villages to buy special ingredients. He would tell the boy to go to every vendor in the market asking for it, announcing that his master was making his special potion again.  It was a different ingredient every time, from a three-eyed frog toenail, an albino bat wing, tears from a mermaid.  The boy always asked how he would know the ingredients were real.  The master would say he didn't care if they were real, he just cared that people knew he was brewing again. And he would know if he could use the ingredients when he saw them.

So the boy traveled far and wide to bring back the strange items for his master.  His master would peer inside the little pooches, and then usually laugh.  Most of the items ended in the trash, though some he was instructed to put in the stew for that evening.  Rarely did the master shrug and take the item into his workshop.

The boy would ask the master how it was that he was able to make his special potion. And the master would respond differently every day. The first day he said it was because he didn't answer questions from silly boys. Another day he said it was because he listened to the birds every day at sunrise. The next day he said he'd seen the cranky baker stub his toe on the walk back from church. The following day he said he could bottle joy because he'd watched a family bury someone they had loved, and there was no better way of commemorating the life that had just passed.

No matter that his methods seemed to vary every day, his customers always seemed happy.  They would flock to his hut as soon as the apprentice started on his buying missions. The master always had enough for his visitors for a few days, until he decided he had made enough joy for the time being.  Then he would put up a little sign outside his shop and he would set his apprentice to making more stews and more balms and more elixirs.

One day the master announced that the apprentice had learned all that he needed, and it was time for him to go out into the world and set up his own business. The apprentice protested, for the master had never passed along his secret for bottling joy in a way the apprentice could replicate. But the master refused any further explanation, and sent the young man on his way.

The young man settled in another village and worked hard, though he always saved time to listen to the birds every day at sunrise. Soon he was set up with a tidy business for himself. He married a local lass, and together they started to make their family grow, almost beyond what he could support. So he worked harder, and all the while he wished he could bottle joy and draw more people to his little hut.

Then one day, suddenly, his family shrank. He lost his lass and a new child in one blow, his potions helpless to save them. He wallowed in despair until the funeral, then on his way back he stubbed a toe against a rock sticking out of the road. He stopped suddenly, his children crowding around him silently, more trying to clutch for a hand than he had hands to offer. Then he started up again suddenly, hurrying home with his children in tow. He went in to his workshop, and he sat down to cry, a vial at the ready to catch his tears.

It was a simple matter to arrange for a local woman to look after his children while he was gone. The whole village knew of his loss, and understood his sudden need to travel. He promised to be back within a fortnight, and he left his oldest with instructions for dispensing potions if any were needed while he was gone. He had to squash some qualms about leaving his children so soon after they lost their mother. But he didn't feel that he could be a proper father for them as he was, and that the whole family would benefit if he was successful. So he set out for his old master's hut.

It took him almost a week to get there, and when he arrived he was greeted by a new apprentice and a sign on the door that the master was not making his special potion. He asked to see his old master anyways.

The master eventually recognized him, and then greeted him warmly, offered him a seat at one of the chairs by the fire, and asked what brought him back to the village.

"I have brought you something to make one of your special potions with," the old apprentice replied.

"You have indeed, how thoughtful!" the old master cheerfully replied. "What have you brought for me?"

The old apprentice drew the vial out of a bag and held it up for the old master to see.

"Ah, mermaid tears, is it?" there was a glimmer of a smile in the old man's eyes.

"No, my tears, after I buried my wife." The old apprentice replied.

The smile was gone from the eyes, replaced with sudden sadness, and understanding compassion. "Ah" was all the old master said.

"I wish..." the old apprentice paused. "I'm not here to ask you how you make your special potion. I don't care about that right now. But I would very much like to take some joy back home with me again, and I was hoping you could make me some."

The old master nodded and creakily stood up from his chair, and led them into the workshop. It had not changed at all since the old apprentice left it, though everything seemed a bit smaller.

There were two chairs identical to the ones by the fire, and his old master gestured for him to sit there as well. Then he rummaged in a cupboard, and returned with a small glass with a splash of amber liquid.

The old apprentice sniffed the contents of the glass and raised an eyebrow at his old master. "This isn't your special potion..?" he asked.

"No," his old master agreed. "Usually I add other things to it, modify the taste, the appearance, dilute the alcohol. But I don't need to do that for you."

"Your special potion... is just mead?" The old apprentice asked. "You are telling me that this whole time you've just been giving people spirits, and they think you have sold them joy?" He felt anger rising in him, both for all of the years he had longed for the truth, and the truth itself.

"Not at all," his old master said, then chuckled. The old apprentice had to restrain himself from chucking the glass at the old man's head, but then he began speaking again. "People have been coming to me for joy for decades, and you know what I can tell you boy? It always turns out that there's something holding them back from having that joy in their life. I don't give them joy in a bottle. I give them a drink they think will make them feel joyful. That makes them start talking. And then we talk about their problems. And we keep talking, until three things happen." the old man paused here to drink from his own glass of mead. "First, they feel listened to. Second, they've hit upon a solution to the problems they can fix. Third, we agree that they should stop fretting over what they can't change."

"That's it?" the apprentice asked.

"That's all I can do," the old man said, sounding genuinely forlorn. "But a lot of them keep coming back, and that is enough to tell me that it works."

"But if they keep coming back... you haven't really fixed any of their problems." the old apprentice persisted.

"Joy is something that can't be fixed, boy," the old master replied.

"I know" the old apprentice said, and swallowed sharply, thinking of his wife. "I just..." here he paused. "I just can't imagine how talking about losing my life will bring me any joy."

"Have you thought about talking about your wife? And how she brought you joy when she was alive?" the old master countered.

The old apprentice inhaled sharply. "No, I can't imagine that I can possibly talk about that," he answered truthfully. He felt that talking about her would rip him apart.

"I see," the old master said, and sighed again. "That's a pity, I would have like to hear all about her. But you have only been gone a handful of years, I'm sure you just married her.

Not much to tell anyways."

"I've been gone more than a decade master," the old apprentice rebuffed crankily. And we were married for much of that time. In fact, we've had many children together. There are many stories I could tell you."

"Oh, I'm sorry, how the time flies," his old master replied. "Most of that time you say, does that mean you met her as soon as you left me?"

"No, it was several years later, at a fair," the old apprentice began telling his old master the story. And then he found himself telling other stories, each one gently pried out of him by the wizened man sitting across from him in the darkening workshop. He talked for countless hours, barely pausing when his old master gestured him to start a fire going, and he automatically obeyed, as he had done so many times before.

He only fully realized what his old master had done when they both finished laughing at the end of a story. He stopped talking and stared at the glass in his hand. He'd barely touched any of the contents.

"I knew you wouldn't need that," the old master said. "You were always a talker."

The old apprentice found himself smiling. "I still can't believe this is what you've been doing all these years." And in a gulp he drained the rest of the drink in front of him.

"I did try to tell you," the old master laughed.

"No you didn't, all you did was teach me to listen to birds!"

"Ah, but that was just training, listening is an important part."

The old apprentice closed his eyes. He was suddenly very weary. His old master saw his expression and unfolded himself from his chair. "Come, it is past supper time. We shall eat, and then we shall sleep. I'm all out of my special potion for tonight."

He did as his old master ordered, and slept well on a pile of mats on the floor of the workshop. He awoke to the sound of birds, and his old master sitting by the window.

The new apprentice was making breakfast, and the three of them were soon eating a hearty meal. When they were done the old master dismissed his apprentice.

"Well boy, are you going to stay for some more of my potion today?" he asked.

"No, I think I must return to my family," the old apprentice said. "I hoped to return to them as the father they once knew, but I suppose they will have to make do with me as I am."

"They'll adjust, they'll have you as an example" the old master said confidently.

"An example of what?" the old apprentice asked.

"How to adjust to living with yourself" the old master offered.

The old apprentice grunted and rolled his eyes at this, and his old master laughed at expressions he had seen many times, long ago. Then the old apprentice was chuckling too. In this mood they stood up from the table, and the old master walked his old apprentice to the door of the hut.

"Thank you," the old apprentice said sincerely, then he reached into his pocket for his coin pouch. "How much-" but his old master waved a hand.

"You paid me, remember? You brought me something for my potions."

"You aren't going to put my tears in a potion. You're more likely to use them to water your garden" the old apprentice retorted.

"And how nicely my plants will grow because of it. Now be off, return to your family, and bring them my best wishes!"

The old apprentice hugged his master then, and was surprised at the strength he felt in the return embrace. "And next time you need some joy," his old master continued, "bring the rest of your family so I can meet them. Who knows, one of them might even make a good apprentice."

Memory has faded, as it tends to, over most details. I couldn’t tell you how old I was, or which teachers were in charge, or what alley we went to. But it was Elementary school that a bit of my soul was yanked out and put in a bowling ball.

It was my fault, or at least, that is what the thief told me as she laughed at my distress. I started it. And that is true, but I’m jumping ahead in the story.

I have never been good at athletic events. The dexterity of a platypus coupled with the grace of a penguin matched with the eyesight of a mole has left me sadly lacking when it comes to every sport. And while I try to laugh this off and hide behind a claimed indifference to all thing sports, there was (and maybe still is) a little part of me that wished to not have to play the clown to cover for how much of a fool I was making of myself.

When we arrived at the bowling alley we gave up our shoes for the dubious rentals hastily shoved at us by employees overwhelmed by the tiny horde that had descended on them.

We went to our alleys, and I was paired with someone who I thought of as a friend.

The game started out as expected, I was abysmal. The bowling ball would thunk ponderously from my fingers and dart for the gutter, clinging to it for dear life the rest of the alley, as if hoping it could sink into the floor and not encounter me again. Yet my eyes set on a sparkly red and gold ball, which seemed to glow with an inner fire when in motion, and we continued to torture each other for a whole game.

When the next game started I had a bit of inspiration. It felt like the most natural thing in the world to pluck a bit of my soul from wherever it churned within me and sink it into the red and gold swirls in my little ball.

And it worked. X’s were appearing on the screen next to my name. The red and gold sparkles flashed down the middle of the lane, and people were applauding my skills instead of shaking their heads at my wiggling dances of defeat. And that’s when she asked me to explain myself. What had happened, how was I suddenly bowling so well?

I blithely told her what I had done. A part of me at the time didn’t even quite believe it was real. But it was working, and I was excited.

She darted close to me, almost pinching at my stomach, jumped back, and patted her ball. I was shocked, as she laughed and said she’d taken a bit of my soul for her ball as well.

Then she turned and started bowling. And her game improved as well.

The rest of the time there I tried to remind myself that I shouldn’t be upset. My soul hadn’t been stolen and shoved into a truly awful orange bowling ball. But the whole game she laughed and taunted me, and a nauseous ache started in my stomach. The whole time I told no one what was happening. Who would believe this bizarre situation, she said I put myself into?

Our friendship fizzled out after that. I had lost another friend I started thinking of again. She had been a mutual friend with the soul stealer, but they had had a big falling out, and the soul stealer had confided in me about the mean things this mutual friend had done to her. And I fell for it and lost a friend.

Now I starting rethinking losing that friendship.

Years passed, I had better bowling experiences, though I never dared take out a bit of my soul again, and I graduated from Elementary School. I found a new group of friends there, exciting friends who I gelled with.

Then she came back. She joined the group, and everyone was dazzled with her at first. She was so nice. So fun. So interested in what everyone else was interested in. I was wary of her, but I felt I didn’t have anything concrete to voice against her. How do you tell people that she stole a bit of your soul and wouldn’t give it back? Or that in hindsight you think she lied about a friend? So I said nothing.

Despite my silence, things became strained. Suddenly, our cozy group felt suffocating, and somehow, it became apparent that I was the one everyone blamed for sucking out the air. It was hard to know what was happening, but a cold wind was starting to blow, I wasn’t getting invited to everything. And then she started getting mean. Not in front of the others, of course. Just when it was the two of us.

I did what comes naturally to a prepubescent teen. I whined about her harsh treatment of me to my friends. And the winds started blowing even colder.

‘But she’s so nice!’ ‘You’re just being difficult.’ I would hear. And the worst, the blood chilling. ‘I can’t believe she would do something like that.’

My friends couldn’t fathom what she was doing, and I hardly could, so I had no chance of convincing them. I had no idea what she had been whispering for months. How she had made up little lies, not invited me to events and then made it sound like I bailed on my friends. I would only put these pieces together later.

So I drifted away from those friends, I found other friends, and was happy with them, though I was still sad whenever I saw my old friends in the hallways at school. They were so cold to me, that little merry band that I used to be a part of, that I had been plucked out of.

My new friends were awesome. We planned world domination in French class, drank root beer till we couldn’t stop giggling, and were the type of students that made teachers alternate between grinning and grimacing. Unstoppable. Inseparable.

Then, suddenly, she was there. Trying to become cozy with everyone, sitting at our lunch table, trying to get invited to our social adventures outside of school. I did what any self-respecting Irish woman would do, I refused to be fooled twice. I fled.

It never occurred to me to try to warn my friends what she was like. I already saw that she had turned the charm factor up to its max setting. I saw her mirroring everyone’s’ interests; I saw my friends swooning. So I made myself scarce, I gently bowed out of our group, and though people were puzzled, I made sure I did it on my own terms. I still had some periods of school with just these friends, and I made the most out of that contact, and waited. I had a sense this time that the storm would pass, and I just needed to take cover.

Meanwhile, my old friends were suddenly less cool in the hallways. Contact resumed, slowly, tentatively. And then it flourished into rants about her. The veneer had started slipping when I left. Without one person to center her energy on, she had started becoming cold and mean towards everyone, in random bursts. By the time she refocused her energy on another person in the group it was too late for her. She’d shown too much of her real face, everyone else had banded together, and they made it clear that she was no longer a cherished member of the friend group.

That was when I heard about the whisper campaign she had started against me, why she had joined my new group of friends; she needed a new place to take root and start her festering.

Now I started feeling a bit guilty about my new group of friends. They didn’t know what they had let into their midst. And from my time hanging out with them in class, I picked up that she had already started kicking up a storm against a member of the group. No one told me this directly, but I was ready to see the pieces, and there they were. The same whispers that had been uttered against me were being innocently, and with an annoyed frown, repeated by my new friends about one of our group.

I tried to help, I tried sticking just a bit of my arm into the storm and waving a red flag about, but it wasn’t enough. And looking back, I should have done more for my friend.

She managed to drive one person out, and then again her mask started slipping. She was booted from that group faster than the other, and for that at least I can take some credit. My own whisper campaign, though unable to help my friend, had at least set the groundwork. Once she started showing her true self to everyone, it did not come as such a shock.

When she left that group I happily rejoined, and the first order of business was clearing out her cobwebs of lies, mending hurt feelings, and reinstating the friend she had driven out. It was a good time, I now had two great groups of friends to hang out with. But both groups were never quite the same again. There were cracks in the foundation and hurt pooled up through them every now and then. And a touch of distrust.

Middle school ended, and I ended up at a high school and with classes without a single one of my friends, though I was in the same town. Faced with the task of making a whole new set of friends to hang out with in class, I was filled with inner dread. I found the mere concept of approaching anyone terrifying. But as the days progressed, there were a group of girls in my social study class that seemed to be so very fun, so lively. I remember hearing their laughter across the room and wishing I could be a part of it.

I changed seats to an empty one near them. I had a whole plot to try to infiltrate myself into their group. I was sure it would take ages.

It didn’t. Their leader, their brave leader, locked eyes with me when I sat down, said hi, and instantly welcomed me into their group. I was in paradise.

I am sure you are by now expecting what will come next, but I can tell you that it didn’t happen for a while. Freshman year passed, then Sophomore year, then Junior year. Those friends in social study class introduced me to other friends, and we became a tight knit group, fast friends who still are close to this day. Always with our brave leader looking after us, being a pillar of support and kindness.

We stayed close even if we didn’t have the same classes together, even if we didn’t do the same clubs. Through personal issues at home.

One of the friends in this group had a particularly rough start to Senior year. Her parents were going through a divorce, a broody, frosty divorce. We had one class together, and I watched her become more and more despondent.

As the months passed, she started pulling away from me, confiding less. I assumed this was all due to the divorce, and I pestered her to confide in me until she opened up at last. I was horrified and enraged when she told me the truth. The divorce was the issue at home, the issue at school was HER.

Most my friends were in a choir together, myself excluded, as I tend to find notes the way people win lottery tickets, at chance, with usually the same results.

She was in choir too. She’d probably been booted out of another friend group recently, and had started assimilating herself into my group of friends. She would arrive at choir first, save everyone a seat, and position herself at almost the end. The seat at the end was always saved for my friend with the divorcing parents. Then she would physically and vocally block my friend, her body swaying to match hers, her voice covering hers, whenever she tried to interact with the group. Backwards and forwards my friend would try to rock, but she would always find a wall of persistent flesh between herself and a friendly face. With a quiet voice, she didn’t stand a chance of projecting over this viper, and with a sore heart, she didn’t have much energy to keep trying.

She didn’t understand why this was happening to her. Why someone who had seemed so nice, who made such a point of saving her a seat, was so actively excluding her from talking with her friends. She had tried complaining about it to the others but was just met with grumpiness. The whispers against her had already started. The viper was always good at that, whispering about how someone was difficult, then pushing that someone to complain, so then the viper looked right.

She hadn’t brought it up with me because she didn’t know that I even knew this viper. And that’s when I realized what I’d been doing wrong all those years. It had always seemed impossible to talk about what the viper was doing, except with those who had directly experienced it. Her behavior was so polar, she was so nice and so nasty, for no apparent reason, and it was always dreaded that you would sound crazy, or a liar, if you tried to expose her.

And other people had paid the price for this silence, and now a friend was as well. I was incensed, and fully ready to fight. And this time, I wasn’t afraid of losing friends. I knew too many people who could vouch for her behavior.

I approached our brave leader first. It was hard at first, and I had decided to appeal to her logic and observation skills first before calling in my witnesses. I told her what my friend said was happening, and when she rolled her eyes, I told her that I had also experienced issues with their newest friend. And I told her to watch what happened at the next rehearsal.

She did, a bit dubiously at first, I’m sure. But then she saw what was happening. Then she sprung into action, with the swiftness and diplomatic suaveness that make her our brave leader. She personally arranged for the seats to be rearranged, viper and friend with divorcing parents at opposite ends. Then she gently made others aware of what was happening, gently made it clear to the viper that her antics would get her nowhere now.

I was elated. I had braced myself for an epic battle, when I first heard what was happening, I had been excited for it even. But then once I talked with our brave leader, once I heard that she had taken care of the problem, I believed my work was done, and with so little turmoil within our group. I hadn’t needed to do anything directly in contact with the viper, and yet my friend group was safe, with no one kicked out. I should have known that that would not be the end of it.

Our brave leader at the time was dating a guy who was not worthy of her. This did nothing to help her heart when he and the viper were caught publicly kissing. I know with absolute certainty that the viper, deprived of her usual rush from pushing someone out of a group and trying to implode it, felt the need to retaliate against her perceived ouster. And since I remained in the shadows during all of this, the retaliation was completely against our dear brave leader. The boyfriend was weak and incredibly stupid, the viper was cold and calculating.

And yet also stupid. Word spread of her cheating, and then the flood gates opened. It was suddenly okay to talk about her openly, and what an awful person she was. And then it became apparent how much of the school had faced the viper and born the results in a sullen silence for years afterwards.

How she had been playing a game for years with all of us, and how we had stepped to her tune for years, never letting our voices above a whimper against her, her flitting from circles of friends. All because we were afraid of the friends we might lose if we spoke out against her.

We graduated, she moved away, I haven’t seen her in years, thankfully. But the game still hasn’t stopped. There is more than one viper in this world.

I can be very harsh about judging certain people, I’ve been told. Wow. She’s actually quite nice, I don’t know why you don’t give her more of a chance. That’s what I’ve heard, and usually it’s been followed later by an apology, and a sharp retraction.

You can’t tame vipers, it’s often impossible to immediately chase them out of your life. But you can spot them, once you know the signs. And you can warn people about them.

People will not like it at first, they never like it when someone makes a fuss in a group, points out an unpleasantness. But caring enough about friends to risk losing their friendship is worth it. Because there’s a chance you can protect them from having to dance to the viper’s tune, from getting caught in the game for too long. You never know when you’ll meet another viper, when the next round of the game starts. The best way forward is straight through, not skulking in the gutters, incandescent and shouting.