Jemc's work has appeared or is forthcoming from Caketrain, Pedestal, Opium, No Colony, Hotel St. George, Sleepingfish, 5_trope, and others. She completed her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. You can view her recent rejections at her blog

Lya Lys, as a child, was a tree climber, fearless.

She climbed to the weakest branch that would hold her weight until one didn't and she fell (merely to the branch below). Her sense of self-worth was not diminished, but she did begin more and more activities that carried her out rather than up.

She took up boating as she hit puberty and her bathing suits were as small as they could be without Mama sobbing.

At first she could only stagger about the boat, rising and falling with the waves, but soon her grace found its place on the sea as well. The rest of the crew fell in love with this poised and, more importantly, useful girl hoisting and hauling without oozing a single drop of perspiration.

In moments of rest, when the sails carried them away, they all lay about the deck and someone would call, "Lya!"

It would be a moment before her head lifted from her towel. As her hair fell beside her face, the sun never failed to burst consciously forth with fresh light to highlight her freckles and that small scar on her forehead from when she'd fallen from branch to branch.

This sport carried on for years well into the marriage proposals and the party dresses.

And then, with no hints as to what was about to happen, Lya Lys stopped coming to the dock.

And propriety gave way to time's passing and Lya's shadows could be seen, but her smile and that scar were curtained away.

---
Innokenty Smoktunovsky, perhaps the least likely of her suitors, began writing Lya letters mentioning things not for any sort of relevancy but merely for the charming surprise of doing so. He wrote to her of the paddleball games they'd attempt on the boat despite the listing and uneven surfaces. He mentioned the simple jam sandwiches they lived off of for several summers.

Innokenty asked her to come out again. They missed that enormous laugh -- so unexpected from her small frame.

One sunny weekend day she did emerge, slightly frailer. Once they began their work on the boat, however, she showed she could still keep up.

And the waves carried them out that day.

And the waves never carried them back.

The gravity which had pulled Lya down through the branches would not pull her back to shore.

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