06 Chapter 1 Draft – 8 October 2025
the classroom and school
Rowan Quinn evolved toward the front of the classroom, germinal darkness clouding the room, numbing all light, all life.
“Are you back with us, Rowan?” asked homeroom teacher Mrs. Sneer. “I see you haven’t been able to get that clock to move any faster. Maybe help us stay focused on U.S. History, okay?” Mrs Sneer waved her pen like a pendant or a wand charming her words into edict.
Maybe Rowan was overreacting. The clock continued its pedestrian route across its face — its stupid face. Life and that clock tracking time spent in pursuit of naught. Neither hunting in search of something. Anything other than now. Maybe she wasn’t.
The mid-afternoon sky beyond the windows, golden and wide begged her to escape. The harvest was waiting at home. The clock was no compatriot. The dog, Brauna, was somewhere out there, steadfast among the rabble, a wildflower in a wilderness of weeds, the only ally. Here only sabotage.
The middle school lay on the outer edge of Spokane’s city limit — a low brick building squatting between the highway and the new housing raised for the swelling city and its soldiers. The windows shuddered at the passing of jets. Cement trucks trundled by bearing more concrete, more building, screening off from the forest beyond. New sports fields and homes and industry choked the horizon. An indentured class had come, strangers to corn and cows and the soil itself. Rowan imagined the distant cough of tractors and the clatter of metal bins, of her dog, of her mother, Anne. The room smelled of chalk and pavement, an education of smells unrelated to farming.
Harvest season on the small farm meant Rowan’s day was split between middle school and work. The work was hard, but not being in school, not being this close to people was a gift — one she relished. The dream vanished in a moment. She returned to her open book and then heard the whispering.
Always the whispering, then the giggling.
She knew who it was. Barbara — beautiful, loud, popular, gross — Rowan despised and envied her privilege. Daughter of the mayor, royalty to the locals, misery to anyone who wasn’t a clone. The sycophants cheering her on lacked integrity. Her mother said integrity was their family’s motto. With Barbara, the one obvious thing separating them was her skin. It would be about her skin. It always was.
“Hey Rowan,” whispered Barbara. “I’ve got an orange marker. Want me to color in the spots you missed?” The little cluster around her snickered too loudly.
“All right, that’s enough,” Mrs. Sneer said. “Next week we’ll start on the Bill of Rights.” Another wave of the pen, dismissal of due process. The bell rescued her from pain. She bundled her books and escaped the classroom. Snickering rabble transformed to boisterous crowing, pecking at the leavings. Rowan welcomed the relief of her outer world.
The school was bounded by a gate which encircled the grounds, like a prison. Brauna the Boerboel mastiff waited like a boulder planted in the grass, personal escort bar none. She tracked Rowan, the massive dog standing sentinel among the crowd of preteens. Brauna had been her companion as long as she could remember. The handsome greying muzzle saddened Rowan. *How long do mastiffs even live?* she said aloud.
“Miss me?” Rowan murmured, pressing her face against the dog’s cold nose. The tall mastiff, coat the color of a roe fawn, stood and gently, securely guided her through the dwindling throng, which parted respectfully at the canine’s bow.
At the bus stop, Barbara posed against the fence surrounding the traffic-choked parking lot and shouted, “Rowan! Hey, Spots! I hope you’re not contagious!”
Laughter crowed anew. Brauna stopped.
The hulking dog took one deliberate, fixed step toward the gaggle. With a low, rumbling growl Barbara faltered, retreating with the flock.
“Your dog is a menace!” she shrieked.
“Yes, well, she knows how to scare off the vermin,” Rowan said, brushing Brauna’s neck.
Rowan’s small bus, just a van really, for two riders, pulled up. Rowan was grateful to live west of the city, out where it was fertile and kind. Barbara and her city camarilla scurried and hopped to the east bus, toward the citadel, toward decay.
Bob, the bus driver, opened the door of the small bus and smiled. “Ok, B, come on aboard and yes you can bring your human with you, this time.” Rowan loved Bob, loved his kidding with her.
“What makes you think I want to ride on that dinky bus?” offered Rowan. Bob laughed. “Far as I know you won’t get a better offer until Monday afternoon.” Brauna gently pushed Rowan toward the bus. “See, dog’s smarter than you!”
Rowan laughed again and relented. “Come on, B. Let’s go home.”
the farm
Havenfield Farm, a small organic sanctuary, catered to Spokane’s aristocracy, where disposable income lived. It did extra work for a neighboring farm — the ancient grain auger taking what the larger could not — their embarrassment of riches. The house was a patchwork of old timber and new repair, its siding replaced in pieces, the porch dry and sagging, in need of new wood. A windmill creaked behind the barn. A chicken coop clucked alongside a small vegetable garden near the front porch. Everything worked, barely, because Anne made it so. In the house, the streaming internet forever barked the calamitous pulse of the world, a warning.
Rowan melted into the smell of dust and flour and chickens, and today something sweet. Home meant purpose. Home meant nurturing. A worn runner brightened the traveled dark cherry floor underneath. The kitchen welcomed her with tall windows open to release the heat from the Aga cooker. On the dining table, a scone. Rowan sat and ate.
Anne stood at the counter, careworn from the farm, her apron dusted white. She turned and smiled. Her eyes were weary but warm.
“How was school?” said Anne.
Rowan shrugged, slouching at the table, tugging at her sleeve. “Fine.”
Anne stood tall for a moment before placing another lemon and blueberry scone in front of her. ”Coffee?”
Rowan stared at the warm, glazed treats.
Anne sat at the table, taking a scone. “You prefer milk?”
“Gross, Mom! You know I hate milk.” said Rowan .
“Good day at school?” Anne asked
Rowan rested on her arms, tracing a light line in her copper skin. “Those people. They think I’m ugly. Said I was sick or something — that I forgot to color myself in. I hate them. Do I have to go back there?”
Anne moved closer and pulled back Rowan’s sleeve, tracing the mottled skin with her thumb, her hand warm against the tensed forearm. “Do you know what this means, Ro? It means you are from royalty. You know, Ro, Royalty. If that girl knew who you truly were, she’d bow to you.”
Rowan rolled her eyes. “Sure. Queen of the Lepers.”
Anne only smiled, holding Rowan’s hand. “Ro, look at me.”
Rowan kept her head down, speaking to the top of the table. “No, mom, you’re just …”
“Well,” Anne interrupted. “I’ll say it anyway because it’s true and you’ll believe it one day. You have bloodlines deeper than the earth. Don’t let them make you forget. You are more than what they see. Trust that you’ll know it.”
Rowan smiled, the frown smoothed but the ache remained. “Then why isn’t it bad on you? Your skin. Why’s it just me?”
Anne’s eyes flickered — a momentary shadow as she regarded her own mottled hands. “We each carry it differently, Ro.” Brauna lowered her head, almost genuflecting, and stood near Rowan like a believer.
the bedroom
Rowan’s room was plain, barren — a mirror of her life outside the farm. A patched quilt. A cracked mirror. She tied back her dark, unruly curls, loose wisps escaping to frame her face, and caught her reflection. She grimaced. Splotched arms. Wild hair. The map of a tree etched across her face.
The mottling began just above her brow — pale veins creeping through a golden undertone. They narrowed along the bridge of her nose before widening again over her upper lip, branching outward to her neck. She imagined it shimmering, something alive beneath her skin.
She stared at it, frowning, lost in disappointment. This is what they see. Something sick. Something not right. An alien thing taking root, just under the skin and getting deeper. She straightened angry. Stupid face. Stupid body. Stupid life.
A soft whine broke her gaze. Brauna padded across the bare worn floorboards, stopped on a small, semi-circular woven rug, and pressed her massive head against Rowan’s leg. The dog’s breath was warm, her weight insistent. Rowan slumped back, then let her hand fall to Brauna’s solid head. The low rumble of a sigh filled the small room — patient, knowing.
Brauna loped onto the small bed with a sigh. Rowan abandoned the chair and the vanity. “At least you don’t care,” she whispered. Brauna tilted her head, unblinking.
Rowan smiled, barely. “Maybe that’s enough.”
She didn’t mind the mottling of her arms and hands, but why her face? She hated her face and made a vow that when she was on her own she was going to get fixed, somehow.
“Some princess,” she said, and turned away.
Brauna grunted.
“What, now you’re going to tell me it’s not so bad? Well, everyone likes you — everyone but Barbara.” Rowan laughed softly. Brauna lowered her massive head onto her paws.
From the kitchen Anne called, “Make sure the last load’s in the bin, Rowan. Sweep auger needs you.”
*Ugh,* Rowan sighed. At least it was easy, scoop and spread. “Come on, B. Let’s get it done.”
the accident
The silo loomed against the darkening sky. Dust swirled gold in the fading light. Tadgh was already there, crouched beside the auger, checking the flighting. Black hair hung in his eyes. The tall, quiet teen was always nearby, which bothered Rowan. He’s always watching me … kind of a creeper. How does he even see?
He looked up, not quite smiling. “Evenin’,” he said, turning slightly away to open the bottom of the holding bin.
“Don’t you ever comb your hair?”
Brauna roved near Tadgh, gently rubbing his leg.
Tadgh almost smiled, scratching Brauna’s crown. “Sweep auger’s fussy,” he said. “Keep your eye on it and don’t load too fast. It’ll bind.”
Inside the bin, the auger’s hum became a dull roar. Rowan bent to guide the grain. Her thoughts drifted: Barbara’s smirk, her mother’s talk of queens, her mottled skin. Tomorrow more of the same. School shaming. Grain hauling. Life going nowhere.
Outside, Brauna barked — sharp, insistent. Rowan turned her head. The auger groaned.
She lifted the short-handled shovel to ease the strain. Brauna barked again, pacing outside, now whining.
“Hold on, B…”
Her sleeve caught. She was pulled into the auger. She thought she saw the pale veins of wandering skin glisten, like pulsing veins of liquid gold.
A snap. A crunch. White heat surged through her body. She screamed, saw red, felt the world tilt. Brauna’s bark split the air. Tadgh’s shadow lunged toward her. Above the noise and confusion she heard someone say, “Oh my God…”
Then nothing.
the hospital
In a lessening darkness, a cool dense mist lifting, voices pressed at the edges, blurred, muffled. Rowan tried to move her right arm and found… nothing. Only a hollow ache in her chest. Slowly she opened her eyes.
Light broke through. Sterile white, too sharp. Machines hummed. Antiseptic stung her nose.
Her mother’s face, as if in a dream, floated into view, the lights hazy. Anne was pale, tears streaking. She looked sad and somehow regal. Is that what I see? She shook her head trying to clear it. What is happening?
Anne clutched Rowan’s left hand. “Ro, …”
Behind Anne stood a small man, glasses reflecting the sterile light, eyes steady. His skin was dark olive with an odd, golden undertone; his bearing precise, almost ritual. He stepped forward and scanned Rowan.
“Where am I? What happened? I feel so strange. It hurts — my arm, my hand …”
Anne was bedside now, her flour-dusted blouse a record of interrupted baking. Her voice cracked. “Honey, this is Doctor Seti Heka. He… he saved you. He’s fitted something —”
“It hurts, Mom…” Rowan winced. “How long have I been here?”
“Three days, Ro,” Anne said softly. She touched Rowan’s cheek, and Rowan watched another tear trace down her mother’s face.
“We thought we lost you. But Dr. Heka… he saved you. He felt it best to keep you asleep while he worked to save you — and give you… a new arm.”
The little man stepped forward and Anne took one step back. It bothered Rowan. *Why is mom acting like he’s royalty?* He cleared his throat, and his words fell in a slow, measured cadence.
“Ghost pain, that whisper,” he started, and the room was silent but for the hum of machines. “There is new life in that steel. Pain opens the gate.”
Rowan tried to sit up, panic tearing through her chest. The hum was the only thing that made sense to Rowan. “What? What does that mean? Who are you? Mom, my arm — what happened to my arm? Where’s B? What’s happening!”
Anne stroked her brow. “It’s going to be okay, Ro. Brauna wouldn’t leave your side — the ambulance driver was so scared he let her ride shotgun! She’s waiting outside, Ro. Waiting for you to come home, and you will soon, according to Dr. Heka.”
Anne continued, voice trembling. “Ro, the auger… your sleeve caught and it pulled you in. If it wasn’t for Tadgh… Ro, he saved your life.”
A small person in a green gown smeared with blood, eyes red, glasses slipping down her nose, read aloud from a chart at the foot of the bed.
“Well, as Dr Heka, ah, said, the pain you feel is a ghost pain. There is no longer an arm inferior to your bicep, er, below I mean. It happened while attempting to clear grain at the intake of a running auger.”
Rowan stammered, “I got caught? In the auger? I don’t remember. Except, there was something …”
“Ah, yes, your right glove or sleeve, we’re not certain because the evidence is, ah, well, was caught by the flighting. Your arm was pulled rapidly up to the mid-bicep before the auger, incredibly, jammed and stuttered. This was likely the first intervention that saved the remaining arm and your life.”
Anne’s breath caught in her throat. The small person continued.
“Yes, unfortunately, oh,” she said, “I’m Dr. Curling — I assisted Dr. Heka today, and the result is quite astounding. Unfortunately your injury resulted in extensive crush and degloving trauma to the forearm and upper arm — skin torn, bone ground down, muscles macerated, major vessels torn. What’s worse was the active arterial bleeding.”
“Oh my God,” said Anne. “Please stop with this!” She wrapped her arms around Rowan.
“No, Mom, I want to know what happened,” said Rowan.
“Yes, well, fortunately someone, with apparent prescience, was nearby and shut down the auger almost the instant it occurred. Whoever it was applied direct manual pressure in the axilla — your armpit — to compress the brachial artery. A third participant apparently dragged over a ten-pound grain sack, tore it open, and used it as a pressure dressing to pack the wound. Rather remarkable series of events.”
Anne frowned. “A third participant? Only Tadgh was there. I didn’t come until I heard the ambulance.”
“Yes,” Dr. Curling muttered, looking at the chart. “Yes, EMS confirmed a third party helped. Not certain of the tearing it open and application, but minimally the pulling it over as a resource for the intervention.”
“That can’t be. No one else wa—”
“The dog,” Dr. Curling interrupted. “The dog helped.”
“B? B did that?” Rowan stared at the ceiling. Unreal.
“Yes. Remarkable, really,” Dr. Curling continued. “EMS confirmed this and credited the dog — Brauna, yes? However, some bleeding continued, so a random strand of baling twine was applied as an improvised tourniquet above the elbow, again by on-site personnel, tightened with a cornstalk lever until hemorrhage slowed. Those measures likely saved your life.”
“I don’t understand,” began Rowan. “Tadgh and Brauna… saved me?”
“Yes, honey,” Anne said softly. “Your arm was gone in an instant. Tadgh — and Brauna — saved your life.”
“Where’s B now? Where’s Tadgh? Is he ok?” Rowan tried to sit up, scanning the room.
“Brauna has been with you this entire time Ro. She rode in the ambulance because the driver could not get her to move out of the way, so she sat shotgun. She wasn’t allowed in the hospital though, so, if you go to the window, you’ll see her waiting, waiting for you to come home.”
“And Tadgh?”
“Tadgh is fine. He’s at the farm cleaning … taking care of the equipment. He carried you to the emergency people. I am so grateful he was there.”
“Yeah,” Rowan started, “yeah, I am too.” Rowan suddenly shook looking at where her right arm should have been and saw an appendage she could not feel nor move. “What’s this? I don’t understand. I see an arm but you’re saying it’s gone? I don’t… what is it? Take it off!”
All were silent. Dr. Curling replaced the chart and left. Anne started to speak, but Dr. Heka raised a hand.
He lookedher and bowed his head. “This is your new arm. The severed roots will renew.” he raised a hand, “The journey begins.”
He gestured toward the arm. Wrapped in gauze and steel bracing, caressing the stump of her shoulder, gleamed something silver, something alien — something dead where something living once dwelled.
Rowan gasped, tears rising. “Why do you talk like that? Who are you? That’s not—”
“Ahem,” Dr. Curling hesitated, then adjusted her glasses. “The prosthesis is… well, it’s unlike anything I’ve encountered. Classified under, as I understand it from Dr Heka, the FIN-BCR Interference a neuromechanical bio-circuitry. It doesn’t connect through standard nerve grafts but through what they called resonant binding, a technology that really shouldn’t yet exist, yet, here it is.”
She continued in the silence. “It is quite fortunate that we had neural and vascular integrity. The brachial plexus was well preserved, with intact conduction to remaining nerves. A big plus was the subclavian artery and vein were viable, suitable for grafting. It is as if the accident produced the perfect scenario for the procedure and device. Quite lucky really.”
“This is anything but lucky,” Anne said.
“I realize there is emotional shock, and I must add that a great deal depends on psychological acceptance by Ms Quinn, which may take some time. The arm reads residual neural fields and syncs at the cortical level, essentially becoming a, ah, parallel limb rather than a replacement. It’s not responding to surface stimuli yet, but the system is … it’s alive in there.”
“Fin, what … it’s alive? It’s not me?” Rowan asked.
“It’s a tool that responds to you. The, ah, FIN-BCR Interference describes the harmonic resonance between cortical intent and bio-synthetic response. It is not an implant, but a kind of symbiont. The human, the patient here, Ms Quinn, hosts the device; the device, in turn, will mirror, her will …”
She trailed off
“I don’t understand any of that. It sounds like magic not science. Mom … I’m scared”
“That’s enough, this is too much for her.” Anne stepped toward Dr Curling.
Dr Curling stepped back. “I’m only telling you the facts.Frankly, the technology shouldn’t exist. The interface mesh has no known manufacturing signature. Whoever built this—well, it’s decades beyond current cybernetics.”
Dr Heka raised a hand. “This is enough now. My time here is limited. Please accept, that’s all.” He then briskly turned on his heel and, with Dr Curling shuffling in his wake, strolled to the door pausing slightly, considered his small hand for a moment, continued, and was gone.
Anne pulled Rowan close. “It’s going to be all right. You’ll see. It will help you.”
Rowan didn’t look away. The arm, the thing attached to her, wasn’t hers.
And yet… it was there.